now away to the Lord if ever help now 't is when most helplesse 2. If you can do any thing savingly good the soul is bound now by the power of Faith to stir up it self to act though not to trust to it alone for somtimes the soul hath the regenerate part uppermost and the prevailing Spirit of God Psal. 21. 3. which comes to him and gives it power to act before the soul come to it Now a man is bound to act because 't is from Christ now Hence Timothy was to stir up the gift 2 Tim. 1. 6. Hence complained of them Isa. 64. 8. None stir up himself to take hold on the Lord. A man must stir up himself to believe as well as other Graces hence the Kingdom of Heaven is taken with violence and though corruption is stronger than Grace yet Grace assisted with the Spirit is stronger than it which is never quite out of the soul but 't is in the soul 1 Iohn 4. 4. Stronger is he that is in you And 't is said professedly He purgeth himself and keepeth himself the evil one toucheth him not 1 John 5. 18. But mark trust not barely t◠this but when you do this withall remember Lord I cannot hold out in this unlesse thou dost help me But know Isa. 26. The Lord is the rock of my strength And if you by the Spirit mortifie c. Rom. 8. 13. Therefore ever hold up sailes but look for a wind And if a man be not to do this then when any sinful temptation comes if a man do not find the Spirit and strength ready at hand to help if he be not to stir up himself against it he is to suffer himself to be carried down by it Hence a man may neglect all duties a long time if he do not find the Spirit assisting if so be a man must not stir himself up and so will some say a man may May What shall I say to such sluggish soul but sleep on But know it the Lord will awaken thee when you shall say Oh that I had improved the Talent I had And if you do find Christ in such a condition know it they be but the last visits of Christ before he departs You can do more than you do and the Lord will have you do it But I cannot do it for good ends without Christ. Yet do the thing as far as you can else if you owe another a debt and will not pay because not for a good end that excuse will not serve So you owe the Lord your lives your spirits your abilities lay them out for the Lord though evil be in them be humbled for that Is this good requital to say you find your hearts dead in prayer and God must do all and there leave it 3. You are to expect and look for power from the Lord Jesus in the use of means all known means For Faith fetcheth all from Christ hence we must go thither where Christ is to be found and he dwells in his House in his Ordinances Therefore there you must depend upon him As 't is with a Merchant he wades not over the Sea for Pearls but gets into his ship and there he sits still so here Mat. 13. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Merchant man Hence you that know you can do nothing being under a spirit of conviction and hence do nothing under a spirit of sloth and neglect of means by vertue of a spirit of presumption and say Christ must do all I say you take not the right course for the Lord to help you in The Lord will never be a slave to thy sloth but thou shalt be like a shrub never to see good when it comes and shalt die in horrour with this Oh I might have done more Hence you are worse than the other that think if a man fasts prayes watches against his distempers mourns for want of Christ and Grace and followes God hard here he is a Legal Christian Why these are but his own works and this is not living on Christ. I confesse bare using them or trusting to them is not but he that lives not on Christ in use of means these and all other means to find Christ or enjoy more of Christ shall never have him Neither do I know what turning Gods Grace into wantonnesse is if this be not and under a conceit of liberty to be a servant of corruption I know not whether it be thus with any but if I did I would pity them 4. If the soul cannot every moment live on Christ i. e. for every particular act have a distinct act of Faith for this cannot be yet every fit season that it can it ought to look up to the Lord for life and fresh strength Pray as 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every fit season And as he brings forth fruit so he goes for fruit in season Psal. 1. 3. And when the soul doth this the Spirit of the Lord helps when the act is ceased Now the fit seasons are 1. At beginning of any action as prayer hearing reading All the time a man is in his journey or in his work he is carried on by the act of Faith at first setting out The reach of Faith is long and continues all prayers all the duty throughout the act of faith is short Now the Lord looks to his people according to the first 2. When our act beigns to die as Moses lifted up his hands and when they were heavy Aaron and Hur supported them again 3. When a man feels himself strong now apt to be self-confident now Lord for an humble heart And thus you are to live on Christ which if done would make a Christians life glorious and give infinite content to the heart of Christ. But here is the misery either hearts are full and need not or slothful and care not for living so That truly I do not wonder to hear and see so many withering trees as though blasted by wrath because you fetch not all out of this stock and Christ is such a stranger because you are so seldom with him to act and bring forth fruit to him SECT VI. 2 COnsider of the means to act from Christ Jesus and indeed herein lies the skill and life of a Christian and this is the complaint of many a Soul Christ is full and he is not for himself but for those that want and I come to him when I want it and yet I find no help and hence many are brought to think either it 's in vain to come to Christ or else I have no Faith in Christ I will therefore premise these three things 1. That a false double treacherous disloyal heart to Christ cannot expect to receive any thing it comes for unto Christ. As 't is with a Woman that though others do not yet her Husband knows she is fallen in league with some other man he will be strange to her and will not do any thing for
Publick And surely both the Subject and the manner of handling it is such being wholly upon those things wherein the heart and life of Religion lies that we cannot disapprove of their Opinions who have so earnestly desired it All the Sermons and Books that speak to the heart of Religion are little enough to feed that and keep life there especially in this languishing and dying Age wherein though there wants not common light and outward Profession yet losse of Love and inward deadnesse are as common The work being somwhat lengthy and fitting Scribes not easily attainable in this Wildernesse it hath occasioned this delay hitherto But we hope it will now be neither unacceptable nor unseasonable These Sermons are now transcribed by industrious and intelligent persons and have been carefully reviewed and corrected They are written out of the Authors own Notes which he prepared for preaching only about a Sheet himself wrote out in his life-time having thoughts it seems of yielding to their desires who were earnest for their publishing by means whereof though the Reader will often meet with Curtnesse of expression and though some lively passages that were uttered in preaching may be wanting yet you will have this benefit to have much in a little room It may also easily be observed that nor curiosity of words but weight of things was here studied by and flowed from the heart and pen of the Author which yet produceth the best and truest i. e. a real Rhetorick In summe although many imperfections incident to such post-humous Editions cannot be wanting yet we doubt not but the work will speak for it self to the intelligent and serious Reader We are not ignorant that there be some who somwhat differ from this our Author in the accommodation of this Parable and Analysis of some part of the Context referring it to the times about the expected calling of the Iews and if so the substance of the work may be accounted to be in a more than ordinary manner proper and seasonable for these times But therein every man is left free to his own further disquisitions Neither is it for the sake of the bare exposition much lesse Chronical Accomodation of the Text so much that we publish these things in that kind the Labours of others do abound but for the spiritual practical lively soul-searching truths and applications thereof that are therein contained the substance of which Truths the impartial Reader will easily acknowledge to be clear both from this and from other Scriptures These Sermons preached by the Author in a weekly Lecture were begun in Iune 1636. and ended in May 1640. In which time there was a Leaven of Antinomian and Familistical opinions stirring in the Country as the world hath already in Print been informed By occasion whereof of the Reader will meet with sundry passages tending to reprove and refute some of those conceits and to establish the contrary truth which we have not expunged but let them passe mostly as we found them seeing it is no more then the world already knows that there were such things then among us and though that storm be as to it's open influence comfortably blown over with us yet the like errours are if not latent among some here spread elsewhere by the New Lights of these times whence these helps against them are still needful And we doubt not but the substance of the Truth here defended by our Author will stand and abide the Trial. Yea I suppose I may freely take liberty to say that among the many excellencies wherewith the Lord endowed this precious instrument of his this was none of the least that God taught him and helped him to teach others the ture middle way of the Gospel between the Legalist on the one hand and the Antinomian or loose Gospeller on the other with much and sweet clearnesse as was evident in the whole course and way of his preaching and may in some measure appear both in his Books formerly printed and in the following Sermons Other passages also of special application to this Country and to those first times of it we willingly permit to passe the Presse because they may be profitable to others in like cases elsewhere and of special benefit to the New-English Reader For why should we not desire and hope that the sutable solemn counsels and warnings here given to these Churches by this Seer in Israel in reference to the main matters of life and godlinesse may now be of living awakening and soul-instructing use to them Oh that it may be unto many Generations Reader if thou comest â—ither to carp and cavil or to criticise upon each circumstantial imperfection this work is not for thy turn but if thou bringest with thee a serious and humble heart desirous to have thy soul searched to the quick the sores thereof lanced thy spiritual work and way directed and the interest of thy eternal peace furthered if thou desirest to walk with God in good earnest and escaping all the snares of a slight and slumbring Generation to stand before the Son of man with comfort in the day of his Glory then maist thou here find that that will sute thee and which thou wilt blesse the Lord for even words that are as Goads and Nails fastned by this Master of Assemblies given from that one and chief Shepherd The Lord fix and fasten them in all our hearts that abiding and being engrafted there they may be instrumental to further our Salvation that neither deficiency in the main nor sloathful security may hinder us from our desired end but when that chief Shepherd and that Heavenly Bridegroom who now sends to us by so many Servants and Messages of his both in Word and Writing shall appear himself in the Glory of his Father and of all his holy Angels we also may receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away and for the last consummation of this happy Marriage may go home with him to his Fathers House there to abide in his Rest in the Fulnesse of his joy and drink down his Pleasures for evermore And you that somtimes were the Flock of this Shepherd and have heard these things from the lively voice of this Soulâ— melting Preacher whom you never can forget let it be a welcom Providence to have these Truths thus revived to you and put into your hands that he who is dead may yet speak to you and yours Get them into your Houses to read nay into your Hearts to feed upon as a choice and precious Treasure And let them still be a living and continual warning to you to watch and keep alive the power of Godlinesse the daily practise of working out your Salvation with fear and trembling the love of the Truth the hatred of every false way the esteem and improvement of Gods Ordinances and the true humble heavenly Life of Faith in Christ Jesus Ionathan Mitchel To the READER IF thou art one who knowest what 't is to be
him more when no tears shall ever prevail again Therefore if thou hast been found out this day confess and give glory to God and let thine eyes be tears that Christ would overcome and draw thy soul with love and espouse thee to himself for ever CHAP. VI. Containing Motives and Arguments to perswade us unto the Love of Christ and to be Espoused to him IS there no communion to be had with the Lord Jesus unlesse Virgins unlesse espoused to him Oh therefore here is a match for you chuse him get your affections if entangled to come off if ensnared to any other thing and set your hearts bestow your love upon him For 't is not a dead Faith but such a faith as is animated by love that doth espouse you to him Gal. 5. 6. Faith which works by love And therefore as the love of other things not worth looking after hath got the soveraignty and royalty of thy heart so this is a conjugal love when it bears rule in the heart let Christ have this love And as you have loved creatures for themselves now love the Lord Jesus for himself And as they have easily enticed you to set your hearts upon them now be perswaded to set your dearest affections on him It s said of Iohn Baptist he was the Bride-groom's Friend to speak for him Iohn 3. 29. And truly 't is the main work of the Ministry to wooe for Christ and so to present chast Virgins to Christ. This shall be my work now which may be seasonable in this decaying time Therefore I shall chiefly bend my speech to three sorts 1. To them that never yet loved the Lord Jesus unlesse it be from the teeth outward 2. Those that have been striving for this yet cannot to their own feeling come to this 3. Those that have so but their affections are dried up and love is parched away iniquity abounds c. And my Motives shall be these four 1. Consider the Glory of the person whom I shall be a spokes-man for this day 2. Consider he makes love to thee 3. Consider that all he seeks for is love 4. Consider what he will do for thee how he will love thee if thou wilt love him SECT I. 1. COnsider the Glory of the person for whom I plead for love What can you love besides him Where can you find any like unto him I know the Glory of the Lord is not revealed because the grasse withers not the flower fades not the creature appears not in his withering vanity Isa. 40. But if the Lord would but open your eyes to see him this would win your hearts alone to him Now I shall single out only these five things to give you a glimpse of his Glory Lift up thy heart and say Lord hide not now thy face from me 1. He is the Prince of the Kings of the earth Rev. 1. 5. The glory of the world is a Kingdom the glorious Diamond of that Kingdom is a Prince in his Glory now for a poor Beggar to have an offer of love from the greatest Prince in the world would it not tempt her Would she not forsake her lovers and set her heart on him Why look what a distance there is between the poorest Peasant and the highest Prince so base and a thousand times more are all the Princes of the world to Christ whose Dominion is from sea to sea from Sun to Sun who sets up and puls down Kings like Counters who rules their Courts their Kingdoms their hearts and they do not do they cannot do but what he will Other Kings are Princes are Rulers of men Christ Prince of Kings Now who would not be glad of his love who having tasted death is set down on the right hand of God on high cloathed with endlesse Glory who hath Kings in his chaines whose breath is not in his nostrils whose favour is not for a day but he lives and reignes for ever Now doth Christ reign Is he a Lord and in Glory upon his Throne Methinks I see Jesus at the right hand of God your foolish affections have undone you if you love him not 2. He is appointed by the Father to be Judge of quick and dead at the last day Iohn 5. 22 23. as well as to rule all now So that if you do maintain enmity against him he may let you alone you may live in health and die in peace in the eye of man and in thine own eyes too Yet there is a day coming he will break out of Heaven with a shout and appear in the clouds in the amazing Glory of his Father with all his mighty Angels and all the dead shall hear his voice and you shall appear before him with this body when the Heavens shall burn round about him and the earth shall tremble under him and all guilty eyes mourning and wayling because of him Then you shall know what 't is to despise him and wish oh that I had loved him Rev. 1. 7. You that say you love him yet by an imâ—enitent heart pierce him you shall wayl even so Amen Men do not see an end of these things not the Glory of the Lord another day Hence creatures are loved and the Lord of Glory is loathed A great Prince may not be so highly esteemed untill he appears in his state Prisoners would give any mony much more love for the Judges Favour 3. He only is the procuter and author of all the good that ever thou didst suck out here though thou hast neither known him not been thankful to him For look as it was with Angels so it should have been with man the wrath of God should have been poured out upon him and on all the world and creatures should have been tormentors of him but that the Lord Jesus begged and bought the world And hence 1 Tim. 4. 10. called Saviour of all but chiefly of the Elect. Micah 4. 4. In his daies men shall sit under Vines and Fig-trees So that if ever any creature did thee good it was Jesus that put that sweetnesse in it out of his fulnesse and set it awork sent it to thee gave it thee to do thee good Thou shouldst never have had winâ— of sleep never restrained from one sin but lived in blaspheming God never hà ve heard of a Gospel but for Christ And will you not love him Oh ungrateful world unnatural generation of men Why dost love any creature 'T is for the paint of it and good in it If there be so much in it what is there in Christ that gave it that dropt it into it Never love him if there be any thing good that is not by him Psal. 116. 1. The Lord hath heard my prayer I will call on him as long as I live Much more when the Lord hath delivered and thou didst never seek to him 4. He is the everlasting wonderment of Saints in Heaven the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon which made her come to see him
glory out of thy ruine he was blessed before all worlds and by all thy sins thou dost but throw stones against the wind or snow-balls against the Sun why doth he do it O 't is thy good he pitties thee as once Ierusalem to look upon thy destruction and desolation as 't is with the Elect they have wrath before their eyes and hence perswade others so the Lord Jesus SECT III. 3. COnsider 't is nothing else but love the Lord looks for or cares for Love looks for nothing but love Prov. 8. 17. and this is the end of all Election to be holy before him in love and mark it if it be a stayed love that constrainâ— thee to him you cannot wrong him As if thou come and perswade one to murder his Child he cannot so if perswaded to despise oh bowels of heart-breaking love 2 Cor. 5. And surely 't is admirable love What if it were thy Goods thy Isaâ—â— to be sacrificed thy body to be burned it was nothing but he desires only love only thy heart which hath forged so much villany against him let him never be called upon or professed if not worthy of this After all is this all yes no Portion he cares for and when he hath this he hath all Wonder at this O Angels SECT IV. 4. COnsider what he will do for thee how he will love thee if thou wilt thus love him 1. He will set thee next himself in honour Psalm 45. 9. that as the Lord Jesus is next to God sits at his right hand so here which is an honour that the Angels have not who are no where called Christs Spouse hence never had such an union hence never shall partake of that honour of Saints 2. He will enrich thee as 't is with Man and Wife all that he hath is hers so himself and all his glory his God his Father his Kingdom is thine Prov. 8. 21. they that love me inherit something others nothing no nothing indeed only shews of good and they find it so when they awake nothing their own nothing long that let thy outward man yea thy inward be never so poor thou shalt by him be heir of all 3. He will cousel thee hence David Psal. 73. made choice of God Thou wilt guìde me by thy counsel no greater curse than to be left to the guidance of a mans own counsel but here there shall not be any strait but the Lord will shew thee a way out of it either by his prudence or providence there shall not be any secret of Christ that thou desirest to know but as Christ told them You are my Friends so you are my Spouse hence all his secrets shall be opened to thee there shall not be one act of thy life but ordered by infinite prudence and wisdom and love sometimes we are befooled in our own counsels and left to them to teach us to depend on the Lord the more yet thereby shall come out such good that it shall be among us as with Iosephs Brethren 4. He will dwell with thee as a man must dwell with his Wife Iohn 14. 23. that the great Mediator that passeth by Kings and Princes and will not look on them should come and dwell with thee this is better than to have the presence of Kings the guard of Angels better than Heaven it self that he should dwel where is nothing worthy to entertain him only something to grieve him Now this is 1. A constant assistance of the Spirit that let the Soul go where he will be brought to never so low an ebb yet Christ will not out but some stirrings sighings lookings pantings after Christ when heart and strength fail yet God c. when ready to give all for lost then consider as Psal. 73. 2. If he doth depart he will not be loug but return again and those that know his affection know it so to be Isai. 54. for a little moment c. so the Lord may depart and when his presence is a little more esteemed come again with everlasting mercies as a man may know many weaknesses by his Wife yet she having not bestowed her heart on any other he will return so if thou canst say yet I am the Lords he will return 5. He will rejoyce in thee and over thee Zeph. 3. 17. as a Bridegroom doth over the Bride Not because of any beauty in thee for there is none but because given in marriage of the Father and for his own sake This day thou shalt no sooner set thy heart on Christ but he falls in love with thee and will take thee with joy thou thinkest he will be angry if thou closest with him and love him no it will be the joy of Heaven of Jesus Christ himself 6. He will exceedingly comfort thee and look as 't is with tender husbands then they comfort most when most sorrowes beâ—ide them for who could endure his wife should be alway drooping So even then when nothing doth or can comfort thee the Lord will Isa. 54. 6. For the Lord doth not alway comfort but when in need as it was with the Patriarchs Then God appeared when they were at worst and these are abundant comforts 2 Cor. 1. 3 4 5. You shall not need to scramble for it as many do whose hearts do not love Christ in truth as yet 7. He will put up all Wrongs and bear exceedingly with thee Many think even when God hath sealed love to them if any little sin be committed then they are cast off no if under the Law so indeed but when espoused to him 't is not weaknesses nor wilfulnesse can make the Lord cast thee away but he will heal the one and afflict thee for yet not cast thee off for the other Psal. 89. 33. My loving kindnesse will I never take away Yea he will forgive both Luke 7. 47. Much forgiven because she loved much Nay thy wrongs shall be an occasion to make him love thee more Rom. 5. Where sin abounds Grace abounds 8. He will never part with thee Hos. 2. 19. Once love him and he will never lose thee 1. No sin shall part thee and him for Christ when he enters into marriage covenant doth not suspend his love on our Grace or Holinesse then he might leave quickly but on his own Grace to wash away out filthinesse Eph. 5. 25 26. If a husband marries a woman only for so long as she is in health then when sicknesse comes he may depart But è contra if to take away her sicknesses then they cannot hinder Nothing but Adultery can part Now that they cannot do for nothing breaks till covenant is broken And the covenant here is everlasting and so undertaken for by the Lord that it can never be broken 2. No miseries can Rom. 8. 35 36 37. Can tribulation It makes man leave us but this is peculiar to Christ he will not leave 3. Death cannot it must part man and wife though loved never so dearly before
been Imitators and Apeâ— of God to forge and make Grace like true Grace hence deceived This being pleasing to men is the practice of most men yea all men out of Christ. And this is one great part of the inward secret subtil spiritual whoredom of the soul. Thus men may force sorrow when yet there is little true sorrow and so in other cases SECT VII THat all these works though good in themselves yet are most vile before the Lord as Christ speaks of the Pharisees Its abomination in the sight of God which is glorious before man Luke 16. 15. 1. Because hereby the soul deprives Christ of the end of his coming for all men having lost the stock and power to live the Lord hence will trust no man with it again hence puts it into a surer and better hand that thither poor blind dead creatures might fly for life when they are there live there like â—ees on their hony Iohn 6. 27. 17. 23. He might never have looked after you and will you despise him now What folly and unkindnesse is this that when your pits are dry and bottles empty and souls miserable here you will not I do not say sip when water runs by your door but not live 2. Because whatever comeâ— from self it s ever for self A man can do nothing from himself but his last end is self As 't is with water-works they rise no higher than the spring Gen. 11. 4. This Babel I have built Dan. 4. 30. And a man that hath but common Grace look as by vertue of that Grace or gift of God he may act for God because it came from God so nature and sin being moâ—e powerful than that Grace hence he never so acts for God but in the last place acts for it self as in Iehu And so a man makes himself his own Goâ— 3. Because whatever a man doth from himself he will grow proud of it Rom. 4. Not of works lest any man should boast Hence Iâ—ab sent to David to take the City that he might have the Crown This robs Christ of the Glory 4. Because whatever work is not done by vertue of the Lord Jesus is a dead work which a living God and a living Christ and a living Spirit loâ—th Heb. 9. 14. Sprinkle your Consciences from dead works Deadly works are sins dead works are good works done but not from the principle of the life of Faith but life of Nature Now as Conscience is the principle of the life of Nature So Christ is the principle of a Christian life Col. 3. 1 Iohn 5. 10 11 12. For 't is not sanctification that is the principle of life but the life it self that flows from it as from union of soul and body the soul is not the life but the principle of it hence as soon as it s out the body is dead So c. And do you not find it thus whenas you do many duties how tedious wearison are they yet must be done this is a dead work What comfort what peace is there when you have done them because not from life 5. Because what come from self comes from all sin 't is dipt and dyed and tainted and poysoned with all sin in a manner Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean 6. Because when a man will act from himself and not suffer Christ to act for him he will not have Christ to reign over him he puâ—â— down the Kingdom of God that should be within him For when a man professeth Christ is King of his Church he is now a King in name When a man feels an impossibility to rule himself and hence desireth and chuseth Christ to rule now Christ is a King by choice When the soul after this choice depends on Christ for what he chose him for and the Lord works now Christ is a King indeed Now if you will not have the Lord to reign over you you will be found enemies to the Lords Kingdom SECT V. HEnce it will follow The soul is to act wholly and only from the Lord Iesus Christ and whatever fruits of love it shows to Christ to bring them forth from Christ. Which doth not only concern them that never yet knew Christ and yet pride up themselves in what they have and do but those that be in Christ in a special manner For Iohn 15. 2. Every Branch in me that brings not forth fruit 'T is not meant of one indeed in Christ for he shall bring forth fruit but every branch i. e. by outward profession so that it brings not forth fruit but appears fair and deceives man God will cast away And without me even ye Disciples can do nothing 1. How is the soul to act from Christ only when it hath life especially the elect 2. By what means may this be done to get and keep this chastity First How is the soul to act from Christ alone when there is sanctification within 1. If the soul feel no power to act from Grace received as Saints somtimes do either after Gods deserting them or their forsaking God long or after some hardning sin then 't is clear the soul in this case is though not in a way of carelesseness to depend upon the Lord Jesus that he would quicken and help As David after his grosse fall Lord create in me a clean heart And Isa. 63. 17. Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear Oh return In this case the soul is not to bring the soul to God but God to the soul. As many a Christian cannot prize not love the Lord not his waies he is not to say I will bring my soul and oâ—fer it to him but look to the Lord that he would raise up my dead affections again As the Centurion of his Servant Speak the word c. Christ marveiled at his Faith Men think when they feel nothing that they must and can work it out and hence comes one of these three things 1. Either the soul cannot love Christ when it sees such Lawes it cannot submit to And hence a Christian once said to me If the least thing was left for me to do of my self I could not love Christ but now that when brought low and can do nothing he brings all the help we need This makes the Spouse go to the bosom of her Husband Psal. 116. 6 7. Or else 2. It cannot do it for corruption in a Saint is too hard for his Grace I am but a child and thy people many 1 Kings 3. 7. Hence he must be strong in the Lord. Or 3. If it do it never hath any peace in what it doth the duties never so well done Whereas otherwise the poorest duty done from Christ witnesse Heb. 11. 4 5. as a child begoâ— of the Father he will own but other children not If any poor tired heart that heaâ—s me this day thou hast been making thy Brick and promises and vowes will not help
people prepared for the Lord to meet with Christ on earth now he is gone our work is to prepare a people to meet the Lord in Heaven Hence this is put in as the difference between Vessels of wrath and Vessels of Glory the one are fitted for destruction the others are fitted prepared or made ready for Glory and the glory of a christian is chiefly to enjoy fellowship immediatly with Jesus Christ. There is many a soul dear unto Christ and espoused to him and hath his heart affected to think of the good time that is coming when we shall ever be with the Lord but ask are you ready â—yet for to go to him though it be through fires waters thorns sorrows death it self who can say yes but say mens hearts shut the Lord out a little longer let not the door stand open yet yet this must be And therefore for explications sake let me 1. shew you when the Soul is in a readinesse for the Lord Jesus 2. The reasons why there must be a continual readinesse SECT III. VVHen is the Soul in a readinesse to enjoy Christ As there are four things which make a christian unready so this readinesse consists in Four things contrary 1. That which makes a christian unready for him are those strong fears and jealousies and damping doubts of the love of Christ to him The soul happly hath made choice of him is content with him melts into wonderment and love to think that he should love him what me and Christ hath writ him on his heart and on the palms of his hands but Israel saith my God hath forsaken me my God hath forgotten me Isai. 49. 14. Is it possible is it credible one that hath been so ville one that still hath such a heart for him to set his heart on me surely no hence the Soul is afraid to dye and desires too much to live still and the more he thinks of that time and blessednesse of following the Lamb where-ever he goes the more he sees and fears this may possibly never be my portion there may be some falseness in my heart towards him that I never yet saw some secret knot that was never yet unlosed and hence not yet ready Hence many a christian saith if I had a little more assurance let him come when he will Thus some think it was with Hezekiah who though he had walked before God with a perfect heart yet bitterly complained that he was cut off Isai. 38. per totum So therefore then the soul is prepared ready for him when he hath some comfortable assurance of the love of Christ towards him that it can say if I live he loves me though he kils me by Death yet I know that he loves me nay then he loves me moâ—t when he puts an end to my sins and to my sorrows too And therefore now saith as one ready to ceive a Prince now let him come to me or send for me when he will why so Who can separate me from the love of Christ Rom. 8. 35. That look as 't is with a Souldier that is to go to war where many bullets and arrows are like to fall about him and hit him while he hath no armour on call him to the Captain and he will say he is not ready yet but when he hath his armour on of proof and such armour that he knows let him receive never so many wounds yet he shall escape with his life and triumph with his Captain afterward Now give him but his watch-word he is ready though never so weak yet I am sure I shall escape with my life nay not so much as hurt So a christian wanting his assurance wants his armour he is weak and powers of darknesse will assault him and he is slain by them now he is unready but if assured though weak and feeble he is now at Christs watch-word I know I shall live I may fall but I shall rise again this puts courage and spirit into a christian Dan. 3. 17 18. Heb. 11. 35. Others were tormented and so ready not accepting deliverance why so to obtain a better Resurrection which they are sâ—id to see by the eye of Faith and this was by poor weak Women therefore labour for this else not prepared The Lord would have his people look death and dangers in the face and triumph in sorrows and not faint-hearted which cannot be done without this that the world may see that there is more than men in them 2 Cor. 4. 16 17 18. and 5. 1. who would be without this yet may we not complain as Christ of his Disciples Oh foolish and slow of heart to believe all that is written so many promises yet not assured so many experiences yet not established and therefore not yet prepared and ready for the coming of the Lord. A man that hath a fair estate and house befallen him so long as he is in Suit for it dares not dwell in it but makes a shift where he is but then he is ready when quiet possession is given him So get the Lord to passe sentence for assurance of your everlasting habitation then are you reâ—dy to dwell therein 2. Then a man is unprepared for the Lord Jesus his coming while he wants affeâ—tions suitable to the Majesty and according to the worth and love of the Lord Jesus Suppose a Woman knows her Husbands love yet if she have lost her love to him or if she love him 't is only as she loves another man not according to the woâ—th of her Husbands person or the greatnesse of his love Is she fit now to apâ—ear before him when no heart to receive him so although you question not Christs love to you thank God you doubt little of it yet where is your heart your love to him have you not lost your love your first love or second love if you have love is it not divided to other things as Wife Child Friends hopes of provision for them and too much care hereupon for that or if you do love him 't is with a carnal love he hath no more than a lust hath had and it may be not so much 't is with a cold love now you are unfit for him hence the Lord Luke 21. 34. Take heed your hearts be not overcharged 1 Pet. 4. 7. Now therefore then the soul is prepared to meet Christ when if the soul hath lost its affections it recovers them out of the hands of all creatures that stole them away from Christ and hence David prayes Oh spare that I may recover my strength and when it breaks out with such love unto Christ as is fitting for him 2 Tim. 4. 8. There is the righteoâ—s Judge ready to give the Crown when Christs appeâ—ring is loved i. e. they are so taken with him as that they love the looks of him it would rejoyce my heart to see which shall make others tremble to behold him Oh it must be a dear
saith the soul c. And now if any Woman lives with a man that is of a hoggish churlish disposition she will be ever doubting of his love Men do not know it I say and hence when any misery or trouble comes they grow jealous of him which the Lord takes exceeding ill Deut. 1. 27. Quest. How shall I know that tender-heartedness of Christ Answ. By his carriage towards men when he was here on earth for now he is in Heaven in Glory and we know not what his disposition is therefore his life on earth was the living looking-glasse of his heart for ever In Four Things 1. Never any came to him that he cast away whatever their sorrows or sins were but healed them every one if they came to him with their miseries for in healing their miseries he did but shew his readinesse to heal them of their sin hence Matthew applies that Mat. 8. 17. He bare our infirmities 2. When men came to him for by-ends not for himself chiefly he rebukes them for it and shews he was more ready to give himself than bread to them Iohn 6. 27. 3. Those that were lost and sick and miserable and came not to him he went up and down to seek and save them the lost Sheep Luke 19. 10. 4. Those that would none of his love he pittied and had compassion on their misery and sin as on them that were sheep without a shepheard he mourned for the hardnesse of their hearts he wept over Ierusalem Now look upon Christ the same still thou comest to him in secret to take away all iniquity to give thee himself tell me dost think the Lord if here would reject thee ever 2. But I dare not receive him Ans. Thou wilt take Bread from him daily and he is more willing to give himself 3. Thou canst not come to him nor find him but only sometimes nor see him well but then he will seek thee out 4. Oh but I oft reject yet he pitties thee still O think of this compassion of Christ and make him as if present 't is a special means to establish the heart in Believing Learn to know when you are bound not to give way to your fear of Gods love for sometime it is the case of many a precious soul that he hath clear evidence of Gods love to him and what is there against it nothing but a fear what if I should be deceived when all is done and hence the heart sinks exceedingly As some Women that have special love if once they take a jealousie of their Husbands love it 's never removed So here How shall I know this First If those fears thou hast drive thee farther from Christ it 's clear you are then to cast them off those fears that cause sin are sinful but to be driven from Christ is sinful Luke 5. 9 10. Lord depart from me I am sinful fear not saith Christ 1 Sam. 12. 20. they were ready to cast off all Fear not saith he think of this what 't is you get by nursing up those fears they hinder your joy in and your love to Christ your blessing of Christ cause a dead discouraged heart nay though they drive you to Christ one way if they drive you from Christ another way by questioning his care concluding against his Truth never doubt they are vile Mat. 8. 26. Why did ye fear O ye of little Faith So far therefore as fear drives us to Christ 't is good otherwise to be cut off 2. If the Lord hath drawn thy heart to come to Christ and when undone every way secretly perswaded thy heart that thou shalt have help if thou come and by coming hast received healing Vertues of thy lusts and vile affections from the Lord Jesus fear not now 't is a sin to fear I shall not have help as Mark 5. 33. the Woman with the Bloody-issue she was afraid she had presumed hence came trembling but the Lord told her Now fear not be it unto thee according to thy Faith only thy Issue is but begun to heal What say you have you never come to him never received any healing from him that is hard Surely 't is so that I would not be in my lust again for a world If none of these prevail but the Lord follows thee with fears on fears as wave on wave then see if there be not some guile of spirit in thee i. e. some sin you have or would give way to if you had assurance of Gods love It was the speech of one to me next to the Donation of Christ no mercy like this to deny assurance long and why for if the Lord had not I should have given way to a loose heart and life but c. so if the Lord should deal so with thee it may be thou would'st lye in thy sins if thou had'st peâ—ce there and it may be you have had it but sinned and not confessed not lamented not opposed Thus it was with David Psalm 32. 1 2 3 4. Hence when he confessed the Lord forgave in his Conscience his sin Men will withdraw their love from their Wives if it make them wanton and deal sharply with them so one that never restored could never get peace some ever complaining never setled because they have their Truces with sin and would have peace with Christ and it cannot be And this is a rule I have long held in them that have clear light of the Gospel long denial of assurance is like fire to burn out some sin and then the Lord will speak peace Iudg. 10. 16. And therefore take this counsel and God will tell thee thy sin if thou art desirous that he should find it out but get this mercy from him Zach. 13. 9. Bring thy heart to a straight either to reject or receive him to be thine he is offered to be King and Saviour and Lord and Husband now thou shalt have his heart his hand his Spirit his Father his Kingdom his Ordinances his Angels himself if you receive him or else if not you shall lose him and then woe to thee when any mercy any misery any Ordinance befalls thee for all shall suck thy Blood consume thee and fit thee for eternal ruine and then wish Oh that I had taken him but then too late therefore receive him or reject him Oh I cannot that 's another matter However we propound these Evangelical commands that may come with power and therefore know that if they do not now they shall arise again in time SECT II. THis is not all that which makes you ready for Christ unlesse your love is set and fixed on him and therefore look that it be ready I doubt not but that there is glowing in your hearts some love to the Lord it cannot be that all should be quenched that all his kindnesse should be forgotten but remembred many times with some affliction but know it if it be so your lamp is not
stake gave away her cloaths some to one some to another Now farewell friends and world welcome Love welcome Christ. So if the Lord comes to take away all from thee the child of thy body the husband of thy youth the wife of thy bosom the comforts of thy life provisions from thy family bread from thy mouth bid farewel to them give them into the Lords hands and now say welcome Christ. It s usual for Christians at first conversion and espousing the Lord loves them dearly and tenders them shews nothing but love to them and then their love is fresh afterward come hard Frosts and Winter-storms and cold blasts of displeasure Christ departs from the Soul withdraws himself hides his face and sends sad afflictions now the Soul apprehending anger and nothing else it grows discouraged and so dies when if it could stay and wait it should see all from love and doing it the greatest good Oh remember this he doth afflict me he doth depart from me he doth fear me with Hell yet I 'le love him never a whit the lesse Though the Lord buries all the Blessings he gives me yet my love shall live and if it do fall it shall arise 4. He loved thee when in thy low estate Psal. 136. 23. even when as no eye pittied thee Ezek. 16. nay when thou wert vilest at the height of thy sin under deepest depths of misery and straightest captivity after Friends had almost ceased to counsel Word and Spirit could do no good after Conscience had warned thee Oh love him when he is in his lowest estate when his enemies persecute him and his seeming Friends forsake him Before you came to this Land you thought Christ and persecution Christ and the meanest condition nay Christ and death would be sweet the Lord it may be doth or will try your love and here you find Christ and losses in Estate Christ and crosses in your Family Christ and many fears and toils and cares Do you love him now as well as ever you did for all this Oh never was my heart worse I doubt not but a discerning Christian may see how all the world is against Christ nay many Traytors in his own Family who love the bagg more than Christ. Many foolish Virgins who love their sleep and sloth more than Christ nay the hearts and Spirits of his own Friends declining that there is not that life of Christ that presence and savour and power of Christ in Hearts in Prayers in Lives and no complaints of this Now is the fittest time of love when no eye sees when no heart loves him or cares for him Psalm 119. 126 127. Therefore I love thy commands when he is shut out of every heart when none to receive him if any love it will appear now 5. He doth love thee constantly every moment Iohn 13. 1. 2. He hath thee every moment in his own bosom every moment thou art sinning and he is pardoning Sin and Satan and Hell and wrath are every moment waiting to hurt thee and he is every moment watching over thee redeeming of thee Every moment sin and justice cry against thee and yet he is continually making intercession for thee Isai. 27. 2 3. Every moment he is blessing when thou art sinning Oh the unknown love of the Lord Jesus Oh these fits of love are not fit for him Love him every moment delight in him every moment When a man hath a fire every moment warming him but still is cold it 's a sad sign that Death is near You can love him sometimes in a Sermon but soon after cold again or in a Sacrament and presently heart-dead again or after answer to Prayers and some special deliverances and then the heart is un-affected again and so a little pang of love must content Christ if he ceaseth one moment to love thee and to manifest it to thee then cease to love him if he ceaseth not to love thee dearly never to leave thee Oh then ever love him But we have such distractions and cares Men in love will follow their work and Women will do the Huswifry of the house and yet love is at notime to seek to their Husbands and shall the Lord have lesse 6. He loves thee with an unmeasurable love Rom. 5. 20. Where sin there Grace hath abounded hence Eph. 2. 3 4. Love and great love vers 7. Exceeding riches of his Grace For there is in Christ. 1. A created love One man loves another exceedingly as Ionathan did David Now he hath the perfection of all humane or Angelical love towards his people put in him 2. Increated love infinite love of a God and hence 't is immeasurable He thinks nothing he doth too much nothing he gives too dear hence when world is slain Satan cast out when he is out sin must out when some sins removed the rest must when they are out then death must when Death then Hell And when there is no life no Grace he works it it decaies he restores it it cannot act he quickens it it cannot doth not grow he waters it He hath given thee the earth and the dayes of peace and patience those are too little he calls thee and when thou canst not come draws thee and gives thee pardon that is too little he gives earth to thee that is too little world is theirs he gives Heaven to thee that 's too little for they are made Co-heirs he gives promise to thee that is too little he gives himself and Spirit and can he do more Yes we cannot drink in all that goodnesse and love hence he gives eternity to thee and he shall more and more enlighten thee not only let thy Soul live to blesse him but thy poor body and every dust of it to be raised up to Glory with him What the Lord promised to Abraham In blessing I will blesse that portion is thine Oh now love him without measure Oh how I love thy law how did David love it I cannot tell but if he loved the word of Christ then much more the person of Christ the presence of Christ everlasting fellowship with Christ. Oh take heed of giving Christ and measuring out unto Christ his portion his allowance that when the Lord comes to you for more love as he doth daily you give him that answer which many do in their practice you have let him have as much as you can so that you cannot spare any more from your selves from a base world from Wife and Child and Creature from a slothful course you hope the Lord will accept of that little he hath I confesse a little water in a Spring is better than much that comes by Land-floods but be sure it be a Spring else not accepted Beloved time was you lived without Christ did nothing for him now you do and what thou dost this year did'st last year and no more what love Christ had yesterday the same he hath to day and no more Will you thus
this if Christ should not love thee would not thy life be death thy Salvation from many dangers be Damnation thy Friends miserable comforters thy joyes sorrows what good would any thing do thee if thou hadst these thoughts all these I have but wrath with them What comfort can a man take in his Feast if news were then brought that after 't is done you must go to the stake to be burnt You that joy in your pastimes one frown of Christ would blast all Oh see this Psalm 63. Thy loving-kindnesse is better than life in thy favour is life Now joy for this and this will knit your heart nearer to him For Jesus sake ponder this Point Now 2. Taste the bitternesse of the sweetnesse remaining now 't is distilled and Satan shews a Three-fold sweetness before in and after the enjoying of it Now 1. Before remember how they have drawn away and held thy heart from God done thee more hurt than all afflictions many a sweet smile hadst thou had from God but for them 2. In the enjoying of it 't is sweet but when 't is sweet to thee 't is then most bitter to the heart of God when thy joy is kindled the Lords sorrow is stirred up and provoked 3. After 1. It will draw thy heart from God and 2. It will be bitter in thy belly at last Whatever sweetnesse draws thee from the love of Christ Oh it will be bitter Rom. 6. 21. Chew upon this and see if any thing here be worthy of your joy and if not then return to your first Husband II. Taste the allsufficiency of the love of Christ a Woman that is not content with her Husbands love she will not love him as 't is fit So when other things make love to us and the Lords love is not enough Cant. 1. 4. More than wine hence the upright love thee Do but sit down and think what this is If once he loves thee what-ever he can he will do for thee he will order all thy life not one thing shall hurt thee every thing in providence shall work for thy glory sins sorrows c. so as thou shalt say his denyals are better than his gifts his blows better than smiles his withdrawings better than his presence these evils better than joyes and when once he loves me he will never leave me that come life come death I am safe Oh taste this III. See the Lord Jesus now as he is and â—n truth this were enough to make any prophane heart love him much more a Saint espoused to him but the Lord hath hid himself from their eyes shall he be so is he so from yours 1 Pet. 1. 8. When seeing not with bodily eyes but with Faith ye love him 1 Iohn 3. 1 2 3. We shall see him as he is VVhy suppose the day of doom was come Christ in the clouds and all creatures before him all Angels ministring to him in all the Glory of his Father Oh then the love of Christ Oh one smile one word of Christ would be precious Lord that men should be in a Dream See Christ a little higher set in his Throne a place more glorious though lesse seen in all the Glory of his Father all mighty Angels ministring to him all the world put into his hand doing what he will and all he will why will you not love him now Is the Gospel a Fable say so if it be then love him not if you can VVhen Simeon and the VVise men saw him though but in his abasement they honoured him much more now if see him in glory It 's a question whether the beams of the Sun are fire Some demonstrate it thus Take a Glasse and gather together the beams it burns Therefore so if you would see so as to be affected gather together the beams of his glory and love Thus you see the means to get fit love and if it be lost Oh now get it again lest the Lord strain for it else you are not fit and if it be not any love that sufficeth much lesse no love as in many of you but consider 1 Cor. 16. 22. He that loves not Christ let him be accursed Oh that this might be won from you O little love goes out to Christ who sees it not Ordinances of Christ men are weary of them the truths of Christ despise them the Servants of Christ they quarrel with them Now recover your Love the Lord help you so to do SECT III. TO do the work of Christ to be daily at it and finishing of it for look as it was with the Head 't is so with all the Members that are to remain a while in this life they have some work to do for the Lord some common some special work and when that is done now they are ready to return home again Hence Iohn 17. 4 5. I have finished the work and now he stands at the door and knocks and is ready for entrance Now glorifie me with thy self and you shall find a faithful heart will neither be willing nor ready to go till this is done What is this work I am to do I have answered this else-where at large yet these two things I would say 1. That a mans chief work lies not in facile duties for though Grace and Christs â—pirit makes duties easie his yoke easie yet there is a contrary Spirit that will make them hard and difficult at first 2. Least I should leave you unsatisfied altogether we shall find a christian life is carried with a double motion 1. In seeking of God in his Ordinances 2. Or in walking with God out of his Ordinances these are joyned together Gen. 6. 8 9. Noah found Grace hence sought it though not in the eyes of the world and hence Noah walked with God Hence we see Christ was sometime in the Mount alone Sometime abroad going up and down doing good Moses in the Mount and in the Camp too Now look as before a man is justified his chief work then is to seek God in his Ordinances for a principle so a soul now espoused to Christ is to walk with Christ now walking implies constant following of another or a continual work so Christ hath work for you every moment Hence in every company time place temptation enquire thus Am I not like to lose my time my heart Christs honour What work hath Christ for me to do hold here for here lies your work Look as an ambitious man asks how serves this for my honour and Satan how he may dishonour Christ so do you ask how you may honour him Rom. 6. 19. As you have given your selves instruments of iniquity c. And now because we live in times and places wherein men have so much work of their own to do that Christ is neglected wherein very few walk with God Hence men taking mens examples for patterns and copies of their course content themselves to do as others do And this being
a close act mainly consisting in what is unseen and because men are apt to put off Christ with desires and serve Satan indeed and because apt to resolve all Religion into some two or three duties or Graces and because mens hearts are catching at comforts and promises but commands tedious and burdensome I shall presse this upon these Motives only here let me premise when I presse you to this 't is not to a Covenant of Works as though you could act your selves but we look to Christs Blood and Spirit to set on things I speak to them under Grace who have the Spirit without and Faith within to act and carry them here But 1. Whose work will you do you cannot cease to do Christs work but you must do your own work I speak not for idlenesse i. e. you must serve your lust now consider what good did thy self ever do thee nay Satan never such an enemy as thy own self and will you fall down to such an Image Shall thy lusts have content more and rather than Christ 2. Consider the Lord will take care and charge of thee to do thy work to bring about thy ends for thee do but thou do his Martha was cumbred about many things hence forsook the better part so men neglect forget Christs work because of so many distractions of their own What will become of my hundred Talents what will become of my Wife Child Now do you take care of the Lords work take that for your charge and the Lord will take charge of you The best readiest and only way to have your own ends is to seek the Lords and forget your own As in Solomon his great work and care was to rule a State well and the Lord gave all the rest Set thy face to the Sun and these shadows will follow you The Servant takes charge of his Masters work and he need not trouble himself for meat and drink and è contra First there shall not any evill hurt thee whereas else thy good things shall Isai. 27. 3. Secondly All Creatures in Heaven and Earth shall serve that man that serves his God Hos. 2. 21 23. whereas else they groan under thee Thirdly Angels shall come out of Heaven to guard thee Fourthly Nay the Lord Jesus himself shall stand at the top of the ladder that when every thing else shall leave thee he shall then bring the best wine at the last he will be a portion to thee Psalm 16. Phil. 3. 8. 3. Consider that the more difficult any duty is the more sweetnesse shall you receive if you break through it Men plead difficulty I plead gain Hence he that overcomes shall eat of the hidden Manna Hence never any so comforted honoured as Christ because never any went through so hot a work for the Father as Christ Phil. 2. You plead the difficulty of a christian life and taste not the sweetnesse of that life if you can do no more than what is easie and pleaseth self the Lord will never let you taste the sweetnesse of pleasing him Have you not sometimes found your hearts dead to Prayer yet you fell to it and then would not but have took the season for a world 4. Consider let the duty be to Nature impossible yet the Lord is at hand to help even when no strength Isai. 40. 29. Nay Heb. 11. 34. Out of weaknesse were made strong If you had no Christ no Spirit no Promises to assure you of help you might then cease acting and say 't is impossible I should ever overcome such evils attain to that measure but when Promises to assure and Christ and Spirit at hand now to plead impossibility is to reproach the Lord to think he will set his people to make Brick and give them no straw nay to war against God and to make the Lord war against you Numb 14. You know how they cried out of impossibilities and now the Lords anger rose when they were ready to enter Canaan So when men are ready to enter upon possession of Christ and Promises then impossibilities appear Consider therefore what the Lord hath done for David Gideon Samson who went out in the name and Spirit of the Lord and were helped If you were under the Law you might plead this but under Grace 't is horrible to make this excuse 5. Consider if the Lord do not help as he will be free yet he will accept thy will I know he will not accept the wishes of servants yet he will accept the will of Sons neither will he accept the will of Sons in a work they might have strength from him to do and go not to him for it but in that case he will as 2 Cor. 12. 9. i. e. 't is enough I accept thee and this is very sweet that for his own sake he should be pleased as well with the will as with the work for this is that which troubles I would have help the Lord gives none why the Lord accepts of it as if thou didst it as in Davids building a Temple For a Christians work is done two wayes First Sometimes by feeling when we feel help Secondly Some times by Faith by going to another for it and this the Lord accepts most mercifully for this is his Victory over all sin even his Faith When we see a duty hard and do not go to the Lord for help then we are overcome properly For out of the abundance of the heart the person acts for Christ. 6. Consider the Lord will honour thee though the work doth not Iohn 12. 26. Him will my Father honour both in this life Rom. 2. 29. and in that to come Now as 't is in acting parts 't is no matter what Fellow-acters think God is the great Spectator God will esteem of thee and Conscience shall witnesse as much when no eye sees or when men see and judge amisse yet the Lord approves and at the great Day before Men and Angels and all the world 1 Cor. 4. 5. Then shall every man have praise of God and hence Mat. 25. Christs judgement is made according to the works of his people because then they shall not be compared with themselves and their sins but with the wicked and hence to set out their glory he reckons up all they have done All men in all their acts seek to avoid shame and attain honour now if you did know a way for all men in the world to honour you would you not attend it what is their Dreams to Gods honour Hence not one act but is now chronicled Mal. 3. 16. and afterward rewarded 1 Cor. 15. 58. Oh then give content to the Lord. 7. Consider the peace you shall have by this means both while you live and when you dye what 's the cause of so many doleful clamours of Conscience but a loose carelesse heart the Lord is neglected that when one pleads Faith it will be replyed the true Faith is the Faith of the Son of
in Gods Crown and the beloved Attribute which God intends to advance all the policy of Hell is against this this is the reason why Satans enmity is so bitter against Faith as in Peter and observe however there be many Temptations his end is to crush Faith the reason is as 't is with an enemy if the Besieged hath water brought to the City by Pipes he cuts off them and stops them so Faith fetching all from Grace and returning all to Grace hence Faith is opposed most and hence the unregenerate part will take Satans part and doth strangely rob the Lord of the glory of this though I confesse the Lord will have it for all that they seek to scatter it Isai. 43. 21 22. It 's strange to see how few plot for the praise of Grace hence how many are straitned nay do cross Christ in this As 1. If the Lord give them not what Grace they would then they sleight what little he bestows and if he gives them much then they solace themselves in it and grow puft up and proud It 's the temper of Gods own people to set up such a measure of Gods Grace and Spirit which they would have and therein they do well Paul Phil. 3. 11. lookt to the Resurrection of the dead but if the Lord denies them that as he will make his people live from hand to mouth they sleight what they have either as if all were but hypocrisie or because it is but little not so much as they would have and herein they do ill for here the Lord loseth the glory of some Grace for it's Grace that you have the least desires after it nay that you do but know what it is and see the want of it and yet ever complaining and never rejoycing for every degree of Grace in Saints is vertually saving though formally common But suppose the Lord fills the bottle full and gives as much peace affections enlargements of heart as it hath almost required for there are Spring-tides and over-flowing times of Gods Spirit now they are ready to swell and be puft up above measure as Paul 2 Cor. 12. 7. Lest I should be exalted above measure for there is self-love in Saints Hence they desire an excellency in themselves hence when they find none of their own they are apt to deck and set out themselves with what the Lord hath done and so to joy in this and now to think themselves better than others of Gods Saints whereas they should be more vile and advance Grace the more Eph. 3. 8. To me the least of Saints And hence the Lord after greatest deliverances and mercies sends great sorrows as to them in the Wildernesse Hence the Lord takes away affections and they dye that Grace might be the more advanced 2. If the sins of their hearts are common and cannot be removed and so seem little then they passe them by and never take notice of them God will pardon them and hence the Lord hath sad times of reckoning with a rod in his hand with his own people Ezek. 6. 9. That those loose times are heavy times this is for my neglect c. but hereby Grace loseth Glory for how can they see how deeply they are indebted to the Lord if they see not their Debt on the other side if their sins be very violent and their distempers so strong that they think none like me now their hearts sink and dye away and grow discouraged and all the use they make is this I think it will never be better with me and can there be life for me so dead deliverance redemption for me in such bondage love for one that cannot but loath my self and if others did know me they would do so too Can the Lord love me now Yes Beloved that he can and will Isai. 63. 16. Though Abraham know us not yet c. But here is your sin when you should make this use of all to feel the more need of Grace to pitty and say the more precious shall Grace be to me for ever your hearts now sink The Lord brings his people into very low condition to humble them and to shew them more of his Grace Psalm 78. 19. Can God prepare a Table they spake therein against God so 't is here for herein the Lords Grace is seen to love them when Lepers 3. Grace that hath been shewen for times past they forget it 2 Pet. 1. 9. And what is this but destroying Gods Grace for why is Grace so precious at first conversion that Heaven and Earth are too little to hold praises enough for it And afterward the Lord hath little love Oh you forget what once you were and what the Lord hath done hence 1 Tim. 1. 13 14. I was so and so c. but now have received abundant Grace You have had many meetings with God many answers from God many consolations and times of refreshing and reviving and these forgotten and buried the life of them after a year or two expired And what is this but eclipsing Gods Grace On the other side as for Grace for time to come they fear it especially when worms and no men in their own eyes Hence saith God Fear not worm Iacob Isai. 41. 14. There is a certain Divining Spirit as one once told me that untill that was pulled out no honour can the Lord get Before you come to Word or Prayer thou wilt fear thou shalt never get any good and when the Lord gives any thou wilt fear thou shalt never hold out and what Promise soever is made thou wilt fear thou shalt never find it And what doth this but eclipse Grace we should go with boldness to the Throne of Grace nay hence let the Lord send never so much Mercy for the Present a Fear will cut off all that all this will rise up in Judgement against me 4. When they are most fit to honour Gods Grace by Faith now they will not believe not then above any other time for then a man is most fit to honour Grace when he feels most need of it and when hath he most need but when he feels most emptinesse why now above any other time a man will not come in but will have somewhat in himself first and then he will when his heart is so and so sweetly setled c. Hence Luke 14. Poor and blind and lame and halt compelled to come in one would think there needed not that but now when fittest now they will not for let any man observe what would endear his heart so much to Grace as this to think if it be the Lords mind to save a poor dead damned creature then happy I This is wonderful this hath quickened dead love and dead Faith and a dead heart And on the other side if the Lord delay if it comes not at their own time then they distrust it Grace alas I feel my self never a whit better For there be two things in Faith First A coming
will receive that Because there is no satisfying of the Father without him bring Benjamin with you or never look to see my face The conscience of a man can never be pacified until God is satisfied for all wrongs Now the Lord Jesus hath satisfied nay perfected for ever them that are sanctified by once offering up of himself to God Heb. 10. 14. Now the soul never comes to have setled peace in his own conscience though peace was purchased before but by offering up of the Lord Jesus by Faith even Christ himself the Soul wants him the Father shews a Ram in the bush gives Christ and that the Soul gives him for satisfaction and offers him to God again As the Priests in the Old law when the Sacrifice was slain then it was offered God offers the Soul a crucified Son Faith takes him and offers him Lord behold thy Son Rom. 3. 25. And hence comes Propitiation and peace peace to see that God is satisfied Now if by Faith we come to have the peace of the Fathers satisfaction with us then it must needs pitch upon the person of the Son first Hence many never have peace because 't is not a Son himself they look for but somewhat from him they are blind and dead and hard and these things they would have helped but close not with Christ himself Because the Soul can neither actually receive nor expect to receive any thing from Christ unless it hath first pitcht upon the person of Christ. A man may hope he shall and presume and think he shall and it may be receive somewhat out of the common courtesie Christ shews to them that look towards him but never shall receive any saving-good thing till now Iohn 6. 53. Unlesse ye eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink his Blood ye have no life Look as 't is in our eating as if a man should seek to get nourishment out of meat or drink not by feeding on it it self so 't is here Some said this was a hard saying and so 't is to a carnal heart Rom. 8. 32. And hence observe when the Lord promiseth any great thing to his people Isai. 7. 14. he ever brings in the Lord Jesus that if he shall be given then all things also Because true Faith ever closeth with Christ by love to Christ as false Faith closeth with him out of self-love Cant. 1. 2 3. The Virgins love thee that 's love indeed which is set upon the person The Lord never puts his Pearl nor sets it in a swinish faith that contemns the Son no 't is a precious Faith that loves the Lord. Hence it carries the soul to the Beloved SECT IV. HEnce see the reason why the Lord keeps his people hungry and empty and cuts them short of many spiritual Blessings 't is that they might â—lose with and be contented with the Person of the Son There are three things some of Gods people seek for and find not if the Lord intends good to them 1. They desire the comforts and conveniencies and peace of this World Oh rest is sweet and the Lord will give them none of these or keep them at short commons with these and why that they might lay up their peace and find all in himself Gen. 15. 1 2. Abraham after the slaughter of the Kings was in fear that he might make the Lord his shield Hos. 2. 6 7. She shall seek her Lovers but shall not overtake them 2. They seek for some good to themselves in themselves from themselves I would fain believe and cannot I would fain do sayes a man but alass he grows worse and worse the commandment comes you will do there is your task do it yet they languish and dye and why so Ier. 3. 23. that they might look for help and righteousness in another In the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel not from the Mountains the strongest helps and means in the Lord 't is alone 3. They seek for Grace and strength and peace from the Lord Jesus very importunately and many times very impatiently and so sinfully too and the Lord denies them it hath been better with them than now therefore they wonder the Lord should be so full and they so empty and think sometimes to seek no more and the Lord denies a dole at this door to that they might content themselves and lay up their joyes in the Lord Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 12. 9. My Grace is sufficient It 's strange that Christ so able so ready to help yet denies I confess 't is sometimes some lust and stumbling-block the Lord Jesus sees Oh but against that they seek and truly here is the cause that having no good from him they might place all their happiness and felicity in him Look as it was with Iacob a great Famine coâ—es and all the sacks are sâ—ent and they are used roughly though not hardly nor wrongfully and all was to bring them to the sight and embraceings of Ioseph all the time of Famine was for this So the famine of Spirit is to last long and the Lord denies supply to bring the Soul to see embrace and rejoyce in the Lord Jesus the most flourishing Trees in Gods House shall have their winter season and cast their coat that they might preserve themselves in their root This is the great wound of many a believing soul for a time to rest more contented with what he receives from the Lord than to quiet himseâ—f and his heart with what is in the Lord Man would have his lost happiness in his own hand and this the Lord will not suffer his people to lye in long Gen. 26. 4. and the best and surest course that can be taken is to cut them short of all for Faith is an unconquerable Grace that whatever it loseth out of its own hand it will find it and enjoy it in another And therefore see Gods end and meet the Lord in this end of his See all in the Lord and seeing your blessedness there in all your wants lay it up there that if you will boast here you may do it all the day long for this is Gods greatest plot to pull all men down that his Son may be set up to wither all the grass and beâ—uty of all the flowers of the field that the glory of the Lord might be revealed I must here give you a taste for it doth me good to think and it will do you more good to enjoy the sweetnesse of this Truth There are four Things you desire all which are chiefly laid up in Christ to that end that you might in all wants quiet your hearts with unspeakable peace there 1. The free Grace and love of the Father this is that I hope which you prize most pray for most fear the loss of most would rejoyce in the having of most without which thy life is death and blessings curses and death the beginning of Hell Would you see this love
that by him the worlds were made Heb. 1. and all creatures governed and a man mâ—y see him in his trading with others and himself all comes from him that a man may say the Lord hath done all this and that for me and yet strangers to Chriâ—â— And if men be ignorant of him here he may do such wonderful things before their eyes that they cannot but wonder and say this is the Lords work and yet know him not Met. 11. 20. He upbraided the Cities where most of his mighty works were done but they saw him not Iohn 15. 24. If I had not done c. the Lord may work strange temporal deliverances that you may know all power is in Christs hand to save and pardon Mat. 8. 27. so as to marvail and not envy What manner of man is this that winds and seas obey him 'T is true the Saints do know the Lord here but they are not idle spectators and receivers of them but Oh that I might see and have that Christ himself they do him no good give him no content without him as he said What givest thou me if I go childlesse Iohn 9. Christ had opened the blind mans eyes and yet he cries Lord who is he vers 36 37 38. whereas others see the works of Christ and vanish or if affected an evill spirit comes on them as on Sâ—â—l when he saw Davids love 3. There is a litteral knowledg of the Lord Jesus by the bare letter only of the Word and 't is wrought in this manner A man doth not only take up the knowledg of Christ by report nor from his works but he hears reads is well Catechiz'd concerning Christ and all his Offices and Benefits that there is much light let in hence his mind having those litteral relations guesseth at them and conceives of them and because the mind is carnal it apprehends them in a carnal manner though in thinks it sees Christ truly Hence a man having a form of this knowledg in his head he may be able to express much and make a large confession of his Faith discoâ—rse of points of controversie in matters that concern Christ and justification by Christ c. and instruct others and yet having no more know not all thiâ— while what the Lord Jesus is First Because as he was a carnal Jew that had but the form of Knowledg in the Law Rom. 2. 20. so he is but a carnal Christian that hath but a form of Knowledg in the Gosâ—el The Jews were exceedingly versed in Scripture and boasted they heard God and saw God Christ tells them they never heard his voice nor saw his face Iohn 5. 37. i. e. they only saw it litterally not savingly Secondly This is but a carnal knowledg which letter and fancy beget 1 Cor. 2. 14. He cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned Thirdly 'T is a dead Knowledg or will be dead and unsavory and hence many that know much of Christ feed on their lusts and Dunghill delights because their Knowledg feeds them not fills them not as fancies do not feed Fourthly 'T is a fâ—lse Knowledg for give a blind man a description of the Sun or a taâ—â—eless man of honey he may set up a false Image and deceive himself and so doth this Many set up a false Image of Christ and trust to that Or as in the description of another Country when he sees it then he sees he was deceived so Saints see they were deceived and saw not Christ nor Sin nor God and so shall men in Heâ—â— see hence Isai. 6. 9. In seeing they see not how came that to ass they did see but saw not really Fifâ—hly 'T is such a Knowâ—edg as hinders from saving-knowledg of Christ Iohn 9. 39. I came that they that see might be made blind The wise learned Corinthians must become foolishness and the light that is in thee is darkness This light stands in your light and yet this is the Knowledg that thousand thousands content themselveâ— withall and hence catch hold on Christ and think they have him when in truth 't is but the Image and fancy of him What then is this knowledg or seeing of Christ There is a seeing of Christ after a man believes which is Christ in his love c. but I speak of that first sight of him that precedes the second act of Faith and 't is an intuitive or real sight of him as he is in his Glory Câ—rist reveals his wonderful glory to the soul really as ex gr A man hears sin to be the greatest evil and sometime conceives by argument how but sees not the thing sin though he sees the word sin so a man that never travailed into forraign parts may hear and read and speak of Countries or as Herbalists read of the nature of Plants and Treeâ— yet never saw the things nay trample upon them when they see them so it is one thing to read of the Sun in a Book or to know it by relation another thing to know it by sight This is therefore the saving-knowledg of Christ to see the Lord in his Glory as he is not perfectly for that is in Heaven hence we shall there see him and be like unto him but imperfectly and in part 2 Cor. 3. 18. Changed here into the same Image And this appears from these four Grounds 1. That Knowledg the Saints have of Christ 't is not by bare word only but also bâ— the Spirit The word relates Christ but the Spirit is the interpreter of the Word the Interpreter of Heaven must interpret the language of Heaven Now the Spirit ever shews us things as they are even though they be deep things and mysteries it makes them plain 1 Cor. 2. 9 10. As the Sun when it ariseth it scatters all darknesse so when this dayâ—ster ariseth Not that these things are revealed without the Word for 2 Cor. 2. 14. and 2 Cor. 4. 4. lest the light of the Gospel should shine 't is by the Word that the Spirit doth enlighten 2. Because the sight of the Knowledg of Christ 't is as the knowledg of a thing in a glass 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now though you see not the man face to face yet if you see him in a glasse there you see him as he is Quod videtur in speculo non est imago as some think A man may know another by relation or by some picture but in a glass that is more full The Jews they saw Christ but it was under Vails and Types and Pictures of him this was obscure under the Gospel the vâ—il is pulled off aud with open face we see as in a glasse the glory of the Lord. In Heaven the glasse is taken away and then we see as we are seen 3. Because that estate the Saints are translated into is a state of Glory Hence when justified then glorified Hence as that sanctification that is in the will is the beginning of the life
of Glory so that light God puts into their mind is the beginning of the light of Glory Hence as in Heaven the soul sees Christ by the full light of Glory perfectly face to face so in this life the soul sees Christ really as he is yet as in a glasse imperfectly Hence we are said to see in part 4. In regard of that abundant goodnesse and love of Christ to his people Love cannot lock up secrets Ioseph hid himself from his Brethren for a time but his bowels melt he must tell them that he is Ioseph Christ may do so but his love even constrains him afterward to let them see whom he is Iohn 14. 21. I confesse its admirable love to reveal Christ in the Word and letter of the Gospel to hear of him is happinesse and if the Lord saves you you will think so too But this is common to wicked men there is a manifestation of himself as he is unto his people And now he is in Glory hence reveals himself in his inconceiveable Glory that now a mans eye sees the Lord and such things he never thought of before which eye never saw 1 Cor. 2. 9. How doth the soul see him as he is I in this case rather desire to learn than teach even from the meanest yet what is obvious I shall suggest in this weighty businesse This seeing of him appears in three particulars 1. True saving knowledge and sight of Christ consists in the sight of the glory of his person especially now caught up to Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God in all the Glory of the Father Look as at the Judgment-day the Lord shall break out of Heaven in such Glory as shall amaze all the world and all eyes shall see him that he shall not only be admired in himself but in all his Saints by all that are round about him just so doth the soul see him now though nor by the eye of sense yet by the eye of Faith though not come to judge the world yet now ruling of the world though not in the clouds yet in Heaven though his Humanity only in Heaven yet his God-heads beams filling Heaven and Earth though not yet coming in the Fathers Glory yet sitting clothed with the Fathers Glory for if a man looks on Creatures he sees Gods foot-steps of power if on Angels and Saints Gods Image of Holinesse if in Christ there God himself 2 Cor. 4. 4 5 6 7. 'T is true then Christs Glory shall be seen by the Wicked but that 's by sense not by Faith that is only in their minds but there is no shining into the heart to the kindling of an infinite esteem of him and this the god of this World hides from people Christ the Lord of another world in spight of Satan reveals to his people Before a man sees Christ there is nothing more base than Christ even to the Elect and then the wayes and work of Christ Iâ—r 2. 11. Have any Heathen changed their gods these change their glory for that which doth not profit now the Lord will be must be esteemed of his people hence will and doth reveal this Glory of his to his Saints whereas here others are blind 2. In the beholding of the Lord as he comeâ— and appears in the Glory of his Covenant for when the Lord reveals himself so as to cause the soul to believe and thereby to make it one of his people he never makes any a people but by entring into Covenant with them Hence he ever appears in his Covenant first Isai. 49. nlt. Look as when the Lord made him a people at Mount Sinai Moses came down from 〈…〉 with Tables in his hands c. So when Christ comes to make any his people he comes as Mediator of a beâ—ter Teâ—â—ament Heb. 7. 22. On Mount Sion Heb. 12. 22 24. Noâ— look as it was with the Israelites 2 Cor. 3. they had the Covenant of Christ and Christ revealed but as Moses face was covered â—o theirs wâ—s and Christ theâ—e was vailed over with the Law even the Moral Law written in stone Hence there was a vail on their hearts too they could not see Christ the end of the Lâ—w but only the Vail viz. the Law and hence looked for life by that and hence weâ—e hadened against Christ Rom. 9. 31 32. So 't is the misery and blindnesse of many people at this day they see the Lord Jesus but with his vail on for people being not able to see and priâ—e the glory of Christ immediatly the Lord appears with the law first requiring this and that and they endeavour to do it and hence if they cannot they comfort themselves with this the Lord accepts my endeavours not seeing the hypocrisie of them or else they are never at â—eace or very seldom and why because they see not to the end of that which is abolished never saw the end the Lord Jesus Chrâ—st Now therefore when the Lord reveals himself the Lord makes himself known without the vail so that when conscience cries you must do what ever is commanded or dye the Lord Jesus now comes and appears and saith therefore see what need thou hast of me who have fulfilled all Righteousness and done all Receive mâ— that have done it and thou shalt live Oh but may I now live as I â—ist Am I now free from the Law No 't is to be thy Rule and life in Heaven but I will write my Laws in thy heart and cause thee to walk in my wayes Hence the soul sees all done for him 1. In Christ. 2. All that he is to do for Christ he sees it not in meâ—ns nor in himself but in the Lords promise and here Faith hangs and hath peace For two things trouble First I have broke the first Covenant of the Law Christ appears not as one that exacts the Debt but as one that comes to enrich him when poor Secondly I cannot walk after it as a Rule Christ appears in this Covenant and promiseth to cause him to do it and hence after all departings from the Lord he will not depart further by unbelâ—ef but sees the end of the Law which is Christ that in him he may perform the Covenant and by him be strengthned to walk with him as after a Rule For the Covenant of Grace is not Christ will be rigthteousnesse to thee if thou wilt walk after the Law as a Rule but Christ will do both and this the soul sees in it's Glory else it 's no sight Hence 2 Cor. 3. Gospel is called The ministration of Glory which no carnal heart can see for the vail is taken away when it turns to the Lord and sees him The Saints only with open face behold this 'T is true for a tiâ—e they may make of Christ a Moses as Peter Luke 5. 8. Lord depart from me I am a sinful man And the Lord may deal roughly with them to huâ—bâ—e them as Ioseph did to
they see and be troubled at it they take it as a burden not as the greatest burden Hence say men you must not judge of your estate by any thing or qualification you feel in your self for these may fail your eye-sight in misty times But we must follow it then and not rest till we see and find it for without holinesse no man shall see God Hence also let there be never so many falls yet say they never call your state into question hence they professe we cannot move till we be moved and if I do not it is not my fault Hence if Ministers do preach any things which are not about the person of Christ or the excellency of a Christian in Christ or the emptinesse of the creature to prepare for Christ which are indeed of great use and presse to any work or service of Christ they are Legal Preachers and bring people under a Covenant of works Whereas if we preach duties and leave them as signs before being in Christ they are so but â—ere to preach any duty of the Law is part of the sweet will of Christ. Tell us say they what we should do What can a man do He can do all things through Christ True but Christ must come to act it Yeâ— But he hath a Faith to fetch it 1 Iohn 1. 6. many said they had communion with him 1 Iohn 2. 3 4. It seems they said they had no sin as now some say God sees no sin in justified people God looks to the new creature only 't is not I but sin if the Spirit help not 't is not my fault Not many dayes since it did lye upon the spirit of one who seeing Christ hath undertaken all closed with him rejoyced in him not for this end not from the beauty they saw in holiness nor bitterness of â—infulness but because they should be eased of the work I have known them that have lived in some sin and promised the Lord shall be blessed if he save them in their sin and conceiting he would have loved him thus these In a word the soul of man desires rest and peace seeks for it in Creatures seeks to satisfie it self there there it cannot hence seeks for it as many dying men do in Christ not in the Grace but in the joy of Christ not in Christs holy presence but in his comforting presence seeking the utmost perfection of a Christian in the seale of the Spirit not in the mighty actings of the Spirit for God Hence he is deludeâ— and fancies he hath Christ and hence joy Sin is the great evill hence the end of Christs coming is to take it away Hence if a man close with Christ to remove horror not sin and so hath not closed with him for his holiness you never closed with Christ for the end of his coming nor for his but only for your own ends and so 't is not him but his 2 Cor. 2. 15. The Gospel is a savour to them that perish if of Death to death Oh consider of these things if it be not thus 1 Iohn 5. 11 12. Hast the Son for thy portion Dost see his Glory full of Grace to accept and sanctifie thee thou hast life if not the Son but only soâ—ething from him Oh death and not life the bonds of Death not life are upon thee which no creature can unloose unlesse the Lord come to they Grave-side and unloose thee SECT VIII TO close with the Person of the Lord Jesus you will think this is not a right course thus to do We cannot do it Answ. Yet the Gospel hath commands and entreaties wherewith Christs Spirit goes to the Elect and if you could see Christ in the miniâ—â—ry of man you should feel it And hence we look it should be so and besides Saints that have Faith and power are quickened by the voice of the Son of God Consider therefore 1. All men are fallen into a bottomless gulf of misery and sin though once righteous Hence Gods truth having said he that sins shall dye hence justice comes out to do execution and when the neck of all men thus lies on the block yet mercy pities and saith Oh spare save Satisfie me saith justice then I will hence mercy sends forth a Son when no men nor Angels could help and he takes flesh takes all their sin fulfills all righteousness bears their sorrows and by one offering perfects for ever them that are sanctified and having done this is now at the right hand of God in the Glory of his Father all creatures subject to him all excellencies being met together in him so that now he is the delight of â—od the joy of Heaven so that whatsoever thou canst want or losest if thou hadst him thou shalt find it in him and also whatever he can do for thee in his time thou shalt receive it from him Deut. 33. 26 29. Who is like the God of Iesurun 2. Now there is a universal offer to all people where the Gospel comes enemies are entreated to be reconciled for though he hath not dyed for all yet now being King such is his excellency that he is worthy of all Hence commands all to receive him and if this be a condemning sin to reject him 't is then a command lies upon you to receive him and the foundation of this offer is your wants and miseries You are dead Oh come to him therefore for life weak guilty blind Oh therefore come to him for pardon peace and life Not fulness nothing but emptiness is the ground of this offer Ier. 3. 22. 3. Hence there is nothing on Gods part nor yet on your part that can keep you from him No sins no wants unless it be your will Mat. 23. 37. Therefore now who-ever will shall have him let him take him Rev. 22. 17. There be two acts of the Will Election and Resolution I must have him which if you will nothing that ever thou didst or canst do can please the Father so much so that he will 1. Adopt thee to be his Son Iohn 1. 12. As è contra 2. Thou shalt enrich thy self with a greater blessing than if Heaven and Earth and all glory was put into thy hand as the Lord himself is better than all and hence once thine ever thine none shall pull thee out of his hand 2 Pet. 1. 5. And it shall rejoyce the heart of Christ himself in Heaven when as his Bride thou givest to him thy good will Isai. 62. 5. And if you do not kiss the Son he will be angry Psalm 2. And God knows whether now the last word the last offer is to be made to thee But I find such sins in me that till they are gone I dare not Then you will first remove sin and after receive Christ first be your own saviours and then make him another you shall never do it Oh close with him to take sin away because sick therefore receive him But I
Spirit like his hand to draw you But Oh do you not kick his bowels do you not pierce his hands and feet daily And when you have done no tears But he cometh and you that pierce him shall see him c. Consider of it therefore you that doubt of this you that think not of this and hence live and lie in your lusts and despise him Behold he cometh SECT IV. HEnce behold the happinesse of all them that be espoused to the Lord Jesus in that their hopes are laid up in another world at the day of the coming of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 15. 19. If we had hope only in this life we were of all men most miserable Because none so foolish or so sensible of misery as they but our hopes stretch to another life to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Suppose a man had all the Crowns of the world cast at his feet but at last to be dragged before the judgment-seat of Christ and there to stand quaking What should he be the better What though Saints have all the miseries in this world but at last with these eyes they shall see the Lord and stand triumphing before him and have a real sight and certain expectation of this What people in the world so great as these What do they wait and expect for Great things which may astonish the whole Creation 1. They look for him to change their vile bodies that this their Husband at the marriage day should take away these rags make them like unto his Glorious body brighter than the Sun so that burn them cut them to peices as some by the Indians have been Lord help they see Christ loves both and hence holds sword and soul in one hand and scabberd in another c. 2. They expect he should take away all their sins and make them like unto himself engrave on their souls perfectly his own Image that their enemies they feel now they look they shall never see them more 1 Iohn 3. 2. And as no evil like it no mercy like this and no evil to Saints like this that yet they should grieve the heart of such a Husband 3. They look he should take away all sorrows and tears from them for this the Lord promiseth and begins to execute now but it shall be perfected then Isa. 25. 8 9. And hence called the times of refreshing Acts 3. 19 20. 'T is true the Spouse and Church is now sorrowful to the very heart many times but there is a time coming that they shall never sorrow more 4. They look he should take away all shame from them For no people in the world loaden with more calumnies and reproaches by the wicked and by hypocrites and hard speeches from the Godly and they doubt whether they be Sons or no. Now then the whole world shall see they are Sons and shall stand amazed at them and shall not doubt of it nor themselves foâ— the Lord shall proclaim it and they shall hear these are my Jewels And this they look for 1 Iohn 3. 1 2. 5. They then look for recompence to all their labour of love to him and his Hence 1 Cor. 15. 58. Knowing your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Hence the Apostle oft defers men for that recompence till now The Lord shew mercy to the House of Onesephorus in that day 2 Tim. 1. 18. So that some Hereticks have thought souls sleep till then They may pray and no answer seek to do good and do none Oh but the Lord will recompence then abundantly 6. They look then to be ever with the Lord 1 Thes. 4. 17. Never to be parted from him never to live without him nay never to go away from under his wing out of his bleeding bosom of love and endlesse and unspeakable compassions any more And being with him to see his Glory and never see the depth of it and to have the Lord to serve them Luke 12. 37 38. and giving whatever they call for and all this when thousand thousands shall at this time be crying for a drop of water and cannot get it Now all this they look for and more too Which is 1. Certain For hope maketh not ashamed 2. Which fills their hearts with Glory and unspeakable Glory too for it makes it so clear and certain that they have it all already for though absent hope makes it as present Rom. 8. 24. He doth not say we shall be but we are saved by hope Faith takes hold on the beginning hope on the end Oh the heavy wrath of God upon a world of poor blind ignorant men that have no hope no hope of Christ no hope of Glory unlesse a flattering dead hope What a sad thing is it to think of a number of men that are buried in the world and never to awaken until they see Christ in the clouds of Heaven coming to be revenged on them Oh me-thinks I see them falling down before the Judgment-feaâ— and crying out Oh that we had known of this day Oh alas that I had hope but not such an hope but am now deceived Oh 't is otherwise with Saints they shall find what they hoped for and infinitely more What hurt can any do them Let all the world come against them their husband will come and will kick them under his feet Let them load them with reproaches fill their hearts with sorrows and their eyes with tears their Lords coming will comfort them Let Satan tempt and a Father hide his face behold the Lord cometh that shall deliver and redeem them Oh see their blessednesse and let it draw you to make up the match with Christ that never did it yet He hath bin wooing of you longing for you and you wooing of him again Lord take me What hinders you then from striking the match and concluding it To give thy self this day to him and take him only rejoyce in him only when nothing thou dost can be so pleasing to him And now you may look and believe what one day you shall to your comfort feel And account your selves most wretched creatures until the Lord be pleased to espouse you to himself SECT V. OR hence learn what to judge of those that never look for the coming and company of the Lord Jesus but 't is with them as it was with the Israelites when Moses was gone into the Mount and stayed there long the people made their Calf and went to their feasting and rejoycing So the Lord Jesus being gone for the Spirit of life and to prepare a place of Glory it being now long since they make Idols of their Jewels and of their own excellencies and of whatsoever is glorious in their eyes in this world Or as Christ compares the secure world as it was in the daies of Noah so shall it be or as in the daies of Lot when they never knew nor look't for it though told of it so 't is with
them Do you think these are espoused to Christ or made ready for Christ whose glorious appearing is never or seldom or the least thing in their thoughts and are far from seeing and setting it before their eyes Now because if you ask most men Do you look for such a time to see the world consumed and the Lord revealed and your Glory with him Every one will say yes because indeed they have a dead hope I shall therefore give discoveries of it 1. Those whose hearts prize though their heads do not and whose eyes are dazeled with the withering Glory of this world When men lie under not for a fit for Christ's Disciples wondred at the Beauty of the Temple a gâ—eat mistake of all things here and put that good in them which is not and that worth upon them which they ought not For he on whose eyes the Sun of Glory hath risen and looks for the Glory which shall be revealed looks upon a Dunghill world as strangers upon their Inne and as Travellers do on their Tents make a shift to rub it out there for a time but Oh home Oh that Glory that shall be revealed Heb. 11. 13. They were strangers because they looked for a City Nay they look upon these things as God and Christ judge of them for they have Christ's mind 1 Cor. 2. 15. Which stand for Cyphers in the Lords Book Nay they look upon the very miseries of this world for Christ greater treasures than the happinesse of it and hence chuse it and account their scars their Crown their shame their Glory their losses their gain their sorrows their joys as Heb. 11. 25 26. Moses chose to suffer and esteemed Christs reproach his Glory And why He had an eye to the recompence of reward and saw the God invisible And 2 Cor. 4. 17. It works an exceeding weight of Glory That look as 't is with a man that is born to great hopes of a Crown and Kingdom and therefore brought up not in the Countrey but in the Court let a poor man offer him his thatcht house and promise him if he will come and live with him and serve him in his patcht cloaths What will he say No be gone to your friends I am a greater man than you can make me so here A man that is born and begotten to a lively hope of a Crown now by the resurrection of Christ and brought up under the wings and care of Christ to the hopes of a better world offer never so much promise never so fair I am greater than all the world can make me I must not have if I love Christ and I cannot have if he loves me both and hence looks to honour then and peace and glory then Col. 3. 1 2 3. It s clear then thou lookest upon the things of the world as great things Oh to have such honour such an estate so many Cowes and Goats so much ground paled in so many ploughs lands and oxen fit to labour so much gain to come in every year and such parts gifts and duties to get me a name to live before the best men and to be good signs to comfort me of the favour of God This is a goodly thing the very hopes heat and warm the heart 1. If you do not find pangs in parting with a friend a bosom-blessing so dear you are not dead yet to it nor risen to a lively hope of better things 2. He that doth not prize the evils of the world more than the good in it his eyes are dazeled with it If the life of the world be not death to thee the comfort of the world sorrow to thee Oh they draw thy heart from God Hence called lying vanities Look as 't is with a King or Master that gives Talents to use they cast them by and fish for themselves they look not for the coming of their Masters So the Lord gives you his Ordinances and Word to use for him and you scramble for your selves to enrich and honour and comfort your selves you look not for the Lord. Factors that go far for wealth they will not bring home stones and rubbish which they know will not go in their own Countrey hence other things that are of more price he spends his time for So here What do you do You that eat the bread of carefulnesse sell your commodities dear and set your buyers on Tainter-hooks I look to be rich You that can speak well and have parts and professe fairly but go into your Closets God is neglected in your hearts your constant union to Christ dependance on Christ approving your selves to Christ is not maintained I would fain be honoured You are come far from your own Countrey Why did you depart thence To be free from trouble And now here what stay you for Oh for ease Will these Coynes go and be taken at the last day No you look not for that II. They that say they look for Christ but do not rejoyce abundantly in hope of this time Sometimes the hopes of Gods people begin to die and then comfortlesse but when their hopes are up and stirring and not wounded by some sin or sleeping there is a double joy that now they have 1. This alone comforts them and fils them Iohn 14. 1 2 3. So that they wonder at God though they have never so little here to have these blessings now and everlasting Glory endlesse compassions and mercy at that day Iohn 16. 22. 2. This joy is Glorious joy highest comfort Rom. 5. 3. We Glory in hope of the glory of God Disgraced but then honoured hated of men but then loved of Christ poor but then enriched miserable but then blessed empty but then filled fatherlesse friendlesse but then glorified Oh I tell you miseries thus considered are sweet Can it be otherwise Now you say you hope and look for this day Where is your comfort of it Where is your glory in it Acts 1. 11 12. Compared with Luke 24. 52. So thou wilt be in the Temple nay in the fields rejoycing and blessing the Lord that ever he should intend to set thee at his right hand at that great day of his coming No man but hath something to joy his heart Is it Corn and wine and Oyl and not the Light of Gods countenance at this day It s a sign they never look for it Do the world rejoyce in their hopes and not Saints III. They that content themselves with any measure of holinesse and Grace they look not for Christs coming and company For Saints that do look for him though they have not that Holinesse and Grace they would have yet they rest not satisfied with any measure 1 John 3. 3. He that hath this hope purifieth himself as he is pure Christ finds us not lovely but makes us lovely by putting on his own garments imprinting his own Image Hence Saints content not themselves with any dressings till made glorious and so fit
go away with a sad heart Oh I cannot see him and canst not find out the cause why so heavy and vile and so loathest thy self Oh now think of this day 1 Cor. 15. 28. Then God shall be all in all then thou shalt have thy fill of love and fill of God 4. In case of sorrow for the uproar of the world against God and Christ and the wrongs done to Christ and his people to see Christ crucified and crying spare my life and saying If you seek me let these little ones depart yet they are abused and every one against Christ as this day the world is coming to the last fit of madnesse against the Lord of Glory Oh now remember and look for this day 1 Cor. 15. 25. He must reign Lord what a comfort will it be to see Christ King then Men come to see him King here but Oh what will it be when he shall come himself To see all secrets open and the Lord glorified in himself and people of all creatures Look for this to see the great and last plot of God brought to perfection Oh think that is our day that is our victory 5. When you come to die and to think of leaving thy carcase to rot in the dust a long time Oh think and look upon this day They that hear shall live Why do I die John 5. 28 29. They shall then come out of their graves c. Thus look for this Motives 1. All creatures look for this in a manner Rom. 8. 22 23. Nay Christ and Saints in Heaven look for this day Heb. 10. 13. From thence expecting till his enemies c. Nay Devils look for it but tremble Only a secure world rockt asleep to their eternal wo look not for it 2. This will help you to ride all storms bear all knocks chearfully Our Hope is our Helmet Our Hope is our Anchor Heb. 6. 19. Eph. 6. 17. You will meet with them here it may be before you die 3. The Lord hath called you out of this world he might have left you in it and given you your hope your portion here and then wo to thee but he hath called thee to this hope that if Princes of the world knew they would lay down nay cast away their Crowns at thy feet for it and say Oh that I were in that mans case Eph. 1. 18. Hope of his calling 4. Hope and expectation of all other things shall fail if God loves thee he will make you know what 't is to forsake your portion If not they shall fail you when you die this shall not it makes not ashamed 5. Me-thinks this is the Glory of a Christian that he turns his back upon the world and lives and waits for the coming of the Lord. 6. Oh this will give Christs heart full content when he shall come Luke 12. 37. He will make thee sit down to eat and serve thee The Lord Jesus himself shall only then poure out to thee and give thee whatever thou callest for honour thee as it were above himself When thou art at rest in Heaven he will be at work for thee 7. If not he may come in an hour thou lookest not for him Christ may say to thee from henceforth sleep on What Means are there to make me look for him 1. Get some promise that thou maist beleeve the Lord is thine else thou wilt never look for him or if you do you will be deceived for hope is of things not seen Nay commonly when the Lord brings any man to his hopes having given him a promise and Faith to beleive it the Lord in the mid-way seems to cross his promise When the Lord promiseth life glory peace honour joy fulness Heaven they shall then and never so much before feel darkness death shame trouble sorrow Hell For the Lord tries them by this and tribulation breeds experience and experience hope Hence you must first get a promise of Christ and Glory before you can hope for it or expect Glory and then you may Heb. 6. 18. For the promise will support hope when heart and strength and all shall fail Nay it will expect contraries out of contraries Gen. 22. 5. I 'le come again to you Compared with Heb. 11. 18 19. So that soul that hath a promise may say when he considers Gods power and what Glory he gives to God by beleeving it God hath said he will comfort me he will cleanse me he will give me Glory I will have all these out of my sorrow my sin my Hell Take heed therefore of two extreams First Of hoping without a promise for that is but Faith scared out of its wits when it comes to be examined I hope so and I have had joy and perswasion of it Secondly Of not expecting when God gives a promise Can you live one day without it It may be you have no feeling yet But Isa. 25. 8 9 10. Dost wait for the Lord i. e. From a sense of emptinesse for all fulnesse thou shalt find it in part here and fully then and say Lo this is our God we have waited for him When a mans anchor is strong and in good ground he will look for safety when at anchor in the Harbour Oh thou afflicted tossed with tempests the Lord hath brought thee at last to Christ after many drivings to and fro and it clasps about him according to a promise if God changeth then thy comfort may not be If revelations come I know they may deceive but a promise cannot 2. Fear the terrour of the Lord at this day fear parting from him I speak not of doubting but the holy fear of Saints for that is the nature of fear it makes a man eye the thing feared As Iacob when Esau was meeting of him Noah he fears and looks to safety in and by an Arke Heb. 11. 7. Lots children took not his counsel they feared not but he seemed as one that mocked to them Paul 2 Cor. 5. 10 11. knew the terrour of the Lord hence looked for him sought to approve himself unto him Men that fear not parting with Christ will never look nor care for him And let it be a strong fear else it will never carry you above your cares and surfettings of the world How shall I fear thus 1. Unlesse the Lord put it into your heart none can for the security of the world is not sleepy but deadly Men are bound up as strong as with chains of death that till they feel the misery they cannot fear it strongly Oh look up to the Lord to unchain those chains of death 2. Know the happinesse of them that shall ever be with Christ what is the sweetnesse of Christs love and worth of it Imagine the last day come and all the dead raised Christ with flaming fire all the wicked on the left hand and then sent away with depart ye cursed all the Saints on the right hand and then Oh come and
no prophane ones among us to overthrow the kingdom of hypocrisie as well as of civility and prophanenesse 3. You will save the Lord a purging and cleansing time for when Christ purgeth not with the Holy Ghost in his Saints and Ordinances he will with fire Here I might give rules for discerning mens spirits as 〈◊〉 Mark their speech for by thy words thou shalt be justified and many times one word will give a light to see all as in Simon Magus as with men in a labyrinth found out by one thread Secondly Mark them that you see not grapling with Sin and Temptation for if we see them without that they are not yet tryed therefore observe them here here is their trial when time of Temptation comes Thirdly Get thy self to stand at a distance from sinful men from all the world We know we are of God 1 Iohn 5. 19. As men that are in the water look only to themselves but standing safe on shore they see others drowning I speak this because I fear the Churches are so busie about their own things that their 〈◊〉 not kept if they see no grosse sin then all is well Hence be not offended if you see great Cedars fall stars fall from Heaven great Professors die and decay 1. Do not think they be all such 2. Do not think the Elect shall fall Truly some are such that when they fall one would think a man â—ruly sanctified might fall away as the Arminians think 1 Iohn â— 19. They were not of us I speak this because the Lord is shaking and I look for great Apostacies towards for God is trying all his Friends through all the chrisâ—ian world in Germany what profession was there who would have tâ—ought it The Lord who delights to manifest that oâ—enly which was hid secretly sends a sword and they fall others in other places receive the Word with joy the Lord sends Persecution and fearing men more than the filth of sin and anger of Christ they fall others stand iâ— ouâ— there and suffer and venture hither and Isacâ—ar-like see rest is good and crouch under their burdens and so they fall Others have had sweetnesse in Ordinances the Lord departs and so they fall Others have corrupt hearts and received the truth in the form not in love and stood in deferce of the truth not love of the truth the Lord lets â—rrour loose and they fall Well never be offended at this I am not because I never knew man fall but he loved some lust and was never broken from sin and although this is not seen when they do fall it offends not me Oh therefore search your own hearts when Christ said to the Disciples one shall betray me Lord is it â— say they so when not one but many Lord is it I Oh many a christian lies fast asleep never comes to a thorow search a strict waâ—ch Do but consider this 1. That in Churches nay purest Churches many may lye hid nor discerned 2. Thou maist be one 3. If thou beest that of all men living none shall so deeply sink in Hell 4. That all Ordinances shall tend to this end and all thy joyes all thy afflictions and therefore Oh search befoâ—e the Lord search and say Lord as no mans punishments and plagues can be like 〈◊〉 nor sins if I â—erish so if pardoned loved never any shall have such cause to blesse theeâ— and therefore take not up with weak and groundlesse hopes but love that hand that smites and wounds thee for this discovery is to awaken thee but you have so much businesse you will not cannot c. Consider what a fearful thing 't is to be 〈◊〉 up as for a gazing-stock to Saints so an everlasting terror to the damned themselves CHAP. XIII Containing a Discovery of Gospel-Hypocrites SECT I. THat the most hidden hypocrites of the purest Churches under the Gospel are Evangelical or Gospel Hypocrites For these that were foolish were not such as in appearance rested in the Law or in a Covenant of Works but they had escaped those intanglements and now were Virgins that plead their interest in and their communion and fellowship and love-knot with Christ they had now their Lamps ready and made much preparation for him and they did wait for him and verily looked to have eternal fellowship with him their Beloved infomuch that they took their flight so high towards Heaven and Christ that they passed for a time the discerning of the wise for you must know that where the Gospel comes there are two sorts of enemies against it 1. Open and those are your Justiciaties that seeking to establish their own righteousnesse and being puâ—â—ed up with it can with pretended good consciences in doing God service oppose the righteousnesse of God 2. Secret and subtil enemies yet seeming Friends and these are your carnal Gospellers that cry down all their own righteousnesse and cry up Christ and see nothing in themselves as there is good cause so to think and look for all from Christ and yet these when the Lord comes to search are found false and these are the worms that grow in this wood in this building in these Churches Thus it was in Christs time the Church of the Jews had left their grosse idolatries yet this was their stumbling-stone they sought to establish their own righteousnesse and hence he came to his own and his own received him not and hence were cut off for this their unbelief but others divers sorts of them did receive him beleeved in him Iohn 2. 23. Many took hold on Christ and he took no hold on them wondred at him and entertained him when others did reject him as Capernaum did yet under his woe And these are the spots of Evangelical purity wenns in the best bodies of the best constituted Churches Look but upon Christs own Family Iohn 6. 69 70. The Disciples professed when others departed Lord to whom should we go thou hast words of life yet saith he I have chosen you indeed to be for me but one is a devil viz. Iudas the Deacon stood not on his own righteousnesse but was for Christ and followed him and yet in this Evangelical Angel without is a Devil within because he still harboured his lusts within This the Apostle Paul fore-saw Acts 20. 29 30. Some Wolves without should come and also some cankers within should fret that should draw many Disciples after them in a Church bought by Christs own blood speaking perverse things pretending to draw Disciples after Christ but 't is indeed after themselves and Paul laments this Many walk i. e. professe Christ and his Crosse yet enemies to it Phil. 3. 19. This Christ foretels Luke 13. 25 26. Many seek many knock and at last cry Lord Lord open and in their life-time they pleaded communion with Christ yet Depart ye workers of iniquity Iude 4. Certain â—en are crept in turning Grace into Lasciviousnesse for that is the very form of an
especially when with most difficulty when little strength within when little hope without yet I le not give over He never forgets this The Lord hath never such sad daies as when thou turnest thy back on him and thou never so good as when thou seekest him 3. Consider thy gaines there shall not be the least endeavour desire pursuit after the Lord not the least Word Prayer Thought time spent but an abundant recompense is in Christs hands 1 Cor. 15. 58. Ever abounding knowing that it shall not be in vain A man that rowes against the stream a little neglect of rowing carries him down again But oh be ever abounding in the Lords works for your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 4. Consider if after admonition again and again yet you nourish sloath there is some heavy stroke neer thee Believe it he will not alway bear with thy neglect As nothing joyes him more than your company so nothing cuts him more than your neglect But though he save you from eternal misery yet sometimes your greatest comfort is lost by this means Mat. 26. 38 40 44 45. First he stirs them up once and again then leaves them and comes again and saith nothing but the third time sleep on the Son of man is betrayed So your comfort and Christ and his presence are betraied Some have had their husbands wives children estates gone but which is worst of all the Lord betraied the comfort of their hearts gone and hence horrours and fears surprize them III. Motives to us especially in this Countrey 1. God hath put the price and wealth of the world better than all Gold and Silver into our hands who are most unthankful most unworthy and will you come so far for means and here neglect them Will you thus neglect the Lord Like men in Consumptions they long for any thing and when it comes they cannot touch it If it were night you might fall to sleep but the day approacheth Shall God plant his Vineyard but you never come to eat the fruit of it 2. Your Temptations are greater here to neglect the Lord. Others are tried with the scorching Sun there is no sleeping there God tries us with the shadow sets us under the Vines of Ordinances others are in storms we in calms When thou eatest and art full saith Moses Deut. 8. 10 11. Oh forget not the Lord You lose in your estates and now you are hungry after the same again Satan when Christ was hungry assaults him 'T is a thousand to one if he makes you not fair offers and overcomes Things that cost us much we prize and keep and improve if of any use When we go Twenty mile to a Sacrament Oh then its precious While under the bondage of oppressors oh liberty of Conscience and Ordinances are precious But when at liberty we have liberty to have them hence take liberty to neglect them 3. Our enemies will be upon us Who sees not that observes the Lords dealing that some sorrows are toward unlesse the Lord awaken some sudden blasting blow If any wind be stirring men on the tops of the mountains will feel it The Lord hath set his mountain above all others and its fâ—lly to think to flee from the Crosse unlesse we flee from Christ. 'T is part of the portion he doth owe us here if he loves us Yet seek the Lord neglect no seasons to gain him and you shall he hid Zeph. 2. 2. Nay when worst times come 2 Chron. 15. 3 4 5. when there is no peace they that seek him shall find him I do fear there is at this day as deep mischief plotting against New-England as ever the Sun saw Enemies will first deal subtilly before cruelly but subtilly that they may deal cruelly When Pharaoh deals wisely he means to kill Yet the Lord shall be with us as of late hath he not been seen in the midst of us for a refuge Whatever any think I believe never did the Lord stir up such prayers Faith c. amongst us 1. Oh therefore seek the Lord still in private If you find no good find out the sin Is not meditation neglected Communion of Saints not improved Do not say we can do nothing and why are we prest to it If you cannot yet 't is your duty and you must be prest and perish you shall if you seek not or if you be called there is some spirit of the Lord in you that is mighty 2. Being come hither for publick helps and means and all Ordinances Oh do not betray your Liberties but lose your Bloud before you lose them and the Lord in them Bear the Arke still on your shoulders that the Lord may dwell with you Hence 1. If you would have the Walls of Magistracy be broken down the means to preserve the Church and means among you If they make Laws deride them if they execute Laws appeal from them 2. Would you have confusion the mother of discord among the people let every man then once one day in the year turn Magistrate and out-face Authority and profess t is his liberty Would you have rapines thefts injustice abound let no man know his own by removing the Land-mark and destroying Proprieties 3. Would you have Gods Ordinances in the purity of them removed keep out the load of Superstition but yet for peace sake suffer a few seeds to be sown amongst you 4. Would you have all the Messengers of the Gospel at first revised at last massacred Profess they are no better than Scribes and Pharisees persecuting Egyptians enemies to the Lord Jesus and the more devout the worse as those that stirred up storms in Germany said Christ had four great enemies The Pope Anabaptists Martin Luther but especially Iohn Calvin 5. Would you ruine the Gospel set not Popery against it but Gospel against Gospel Promises against Promises Christ against Christ Spirit against Spirit grace against grace and then he is twice beaten that falls by his own weapons 6. Would you have oppressors set over you to remove ordinances to encrease your burdens Maintain this Principle then that they will not assault us first by craft and subtilty but openly and violently 7. Would you have this State in time to degenerate into Tyranny Take no care then for making Laws When they are made would you have all Authority turned to a meer vanity Be gentle and open the door to all comers that may cut our throats in time and if being come they do offend threaten them and fine them but use no Sword against them You Fathers of the Country be not offended this I speak not to disparage any the practise speaks otherwise I onely forewarn I hope the Lord hath prepared better days and mercies for us I am sure he will if what means we have we preserve and what we preserve we through grace shall improve CHAP. XVII That the hearts and souls of Believers are made as Vessels onely for the reception of Christ his
measure Iohn 3. 34. and fountaines alway run though men seldom drink What then Is it because they bring not their hearts hold not their vessels under the Lords horn of oyl Yes that they do but their vessels are naught they are not only for him they feel their want of grace and Christ but not only or chiefly of this Special Grace shall never be poured into a common vessel a common heart that lies in common for God and lust and world too The honour peace life gain of a God are sweet and precious Lord ever give me that water to drink But you have five husbands and seek not this only Hence if the Lord deâ—ies you you can be content because you have something else to fill your vessels if the Lord gives you undervalue it and grow worse and the very rising of that common grace you have is the beginning of your apostacy and setting off from God And hence no wonder why you pray but never have Iam. 1. 6 7. you want and crave but never find your vessel is naught though the Lord is good 'T is a black mark that thou art in bondage to the creature and didst never know what the liberty even the glorious liberty of a son means And 't is a most grievous bondage to be half unloosed and yet to be in bonds And I assure you if you knew the gift of God if ever you tasted how sweet the Lord is this is the only thing your souls will cry for That when you come to ask and the Lord saith what would you have Oh the spirit of life Oh the anointing of my blessed head And what else It only this is it only my vessel is made to hold I am not made for my lust nor sins nor world I would I had a bigger vessel a larger heart to receive thy Grace only I confess a gracious heâ—rt may for a time be carried too violently after other things and yet seek the Lord too as Solomon Eccl. 2. But after it knows Christ better it 's more reserved now for him as Gen. 39. 3 4 5 6. Iosephs master for a time kept things in his own hand but when he saw the Lord was with Ioseph and that he was prosperous and blessed then he made him overseer and he knew not 't is said what he had save only the bread that he did eat So it is in our Ioseph As the poor woman that knew the Messiah she leaves her vessel her water-pot with him and now would have all the City to come and see and believe in him and depend on him only trust to him only c. Dost therefore seek and find not Hast bin long waiting and feelest not And thou wondrest at it Others comforted and I not Search if this be not the cause it may be thy heart is not set only for this but on thy back belly lots ease what shall I eat drink c. As some women because God doth not feed so liberally their sweet tooth their licorish longings build them seiled houses measure their present condition according to their sinful humour nothing can please them neither husband servants Ministers nor Gods Ordinances Is this a vessel for the Lord and his Grace only You must you will have a longer coat than you can well wear Hold here Never think to have one prayer answered If this night thy day of misery should come cry thou mayst but no God to hear thee or help thee Oh a little oyl now a little grace now a little mercy Lord now Oh no you have no vessel to hold it But oh bless the Lord you know it Others it may be are noâ— so full of these sores of impatiency but you pray for God and Grace and have it not Why so These are not the things that you are only set for Why Because you are content without them I am not you will say But you are for you doe not lament daily after the Lord for these things only that which only satisfies that thy heart is not at rest till it find I hope I may have help for all this No saith Iames think not so Oh therefore bless the Lord. You know what hurts you Saints have hurts thus but they purge themselves and hence are blessed vessels still When Moses was begging for Israel mine Angel saith God shall goe with you I will not No thou only else let us die here Exod. 33. This prayer wins the field wears the garland The evils of the Churches are many an hour of temptation is coming on scandals are like to be great the subtilties of enemies many Now we pray and yet these have come and we fear they will come Oh beloved go to the Lord and plead with him only for this and when thou canst procure nothing for thy self yet let it fare well with Sion and this only I must have Psal. 27. 4. One thing have I desired You shall have it then else not See the great sin of those that lose their life preserve not the Spirit when he comes to them in Ordinances you are vessels onely made for the Lord and will you lose that which He drops in There is no others can receive him Iohn 14. 17. and when He comes to you do you thus requite Him c. CHAP. XVIII That the Holy Spirit is in beleivers as the Principle of their Spiritual Life and Holinesse SECT I. THat within these Vessels is an inward Principle of Life and Grace Or The burning shining profession of all the faithful it proceedeth from an inward Principle of the Spirit of Grace by the means of which their Lamp burns and their Profession shines For this I understand by oyl in the vessel the Spirit of Jesus not out of us but received in us not coming only upon us for so he may on foolish virgins by Balaamitish ravishments and hypocritical pangs and land-flood affections but abiding in us and that not as it doth in hypocrites but as it is in Christ Jesus without measure both Spirit and Graces so it abides in us in measure in Him as the fountain in us as the vessels from whose fulness we receive the same So that by oyl is not meant the external Principle of all Life the Lord Jesus having Spirit and Grace enough but keeping our hearts empty of it but the Lord Jesus in us who is not in us but by his Spirit even the Spirit of Life from whence all our actions spring and from which oyl our lamp burns This therefore I say the Profession of the faithful springs not from outward motives or principles of motion as the actions of hypocrites sometimes sudden praise sometimes gain sometimes feâ—rs sometimes fleshly hopes sometimes sudden conceipt and fancy some times irruption and rushings of the Spirit upon them but there is a spring within there is a life within there is oyle in the Vessel to fill the lamp and so hence it burns Eph. 2. 1. You hath
then away with them but Christs love and Christs death do usually alwaies breath a savour of life to a sincere heart that ever knew what the sting of death meant 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. Christs love constrains because he dies that we should live But how Because we thus judged God hath made man an Agent by counsel Now some Christians go to the Lord to help them but set not prayer of Faith awork and hence have no water of life Some do but use not other means to set the understanding the mind of Faith on work to quicken it up to act and so would have life brought in but not by the right door An empty Vessel will not be full of this water till now that the mouth of the understanding is open Now many things are to be considered to act every Grace as Gods Command and Promise c. But this is that which in the general quickens oh Christs love which constrains the Soul to live to him According as a man thus receives from Christ so he reâ—urns to him As 't is observed one sign that when a people visit not their Minister they receive no good so here That is sign of a decaying Christian for usually they that get good by Christ cannot by their good will stay away from Christ. So then the soul will return in all fruitful obedience to the Lord when he receives the sweet of the Love of the Lord. The Lord doth me good methinks and hence he follows the Lord. Satan hence prevails with the heart because of his external objects and a party within so here Christ prevails because there is a party within when external Objects are propounded Let a man have life if he have no food he will never live If bread be before him and he feed not on it and that abundantly he will never have strength so this love of Christ in us is life in us and food for us 3. Famish the contrary principle the strength whereof is by sucking in the sweet and receiving in carnal content from the creature Rom. 13. 14. Put on the Lord Iesus his Spirit his Righteousnesse his Life his Graces Make no provision for the Flesh. Many Christians look up to Christ in all means but can do nothing because they have some delight either in lawful or unlawful things that lies between him and Christ. Hence that grows strong the other feeble 4. Die to all self-confidence in Grace received or self-contentment with any measure of it for thereby you stop the Spirit For we of our selves cannot think a good thought Therefore be strong in Christ and hence Eph. 6. 10 11 12. A man is apt to fall to a double extream to be strong in the Lord without putting on Graces and to trust to them without being strong in him Corn must die before it lives so must you and rest not content with the measure received but look for more and hence be thankful and say 't is not I but Christ yet look for more 5. If no means come to give strength consider sadly if you have not broken covenant with God as in Samsons case God was in covenant with him but he had broken it on his part hence his strength was gone I know no place that breeds men of larger Covenants than this place by Sea and Land personall and especially Church-Covenants Now thy strength is gone Dost not live in breach of Covenant Not only it is broken but you live in it You covenant to cleave to the Lord or if you depart to return soon again but you lie in your falls Nay your Covenant and returning heals your horrour only not your sin You covenant to love Brethren dearly but a little offence one gives or hopes of a bigger Lot will tempt thy heart to leave them to their own shifts You covenant to submit to Officers in the Lord but some take liberty to speak what they will and others do what they list To watch over your brethren to put life in them but you grow a stranger and it may be see them not once in a quarter unlesse at Church But can it be said they are any better for thee Oh your sins are double and hence your plagues of heart are worse now more hard to be wrought upon and hence sin and Satan lead you Psal. 78. 57 60 61. Oh consider this sin the strength of God is taken as Captain of the Camp that when you cry Lord help there ' t is But alas 't is gone from you and 't is in Satans hand not only your strength but Gods strength and the soul is taken captive Oh therefore mourn for this lest you mourn at last CHAP. XIX Sheweth that there is such a fulnesse or measure of Grace in the hearts of Believers which the most Refined Hypocrites never arise unto SECT I. THat there is a certain plenitude fulnesse or full measure of the Spirit of Grace in the hearts of the Faithful which the most Glorious yet unsound Professors of Virgin-Churches want and have not in their Vessels but fall short of Just as these Foolish Virgins they had their Lamps a burning and shining Profession And had they no more Yes surely for their Lamp how could it burn but by means of some Oyl They had their wiek toucht and dipt in Oyl some lighter stroaks and superficial impressions of the Spirit They had not their Vessels filled with Oyl they had not this degree and full measure of the Spirit This they fell short of and herein appeared the difference There are certain inward touches an inward lighter Dye of Gods Spirit which serves to beget a most eminent Profession before men but never to make the Soul sincere indeed before the eyes of God That look as some Naturalists make three or four kinds of life differing only as higher or lower degrees of life though not of the same life as Plants have a Vegetative life only to grow but no sensitive to see because their forms are more drowned in their matter sensitive in beasts yet not rational rational in men but not Angelical c. So here a greater degree of the Spirits working makes a difference in kind between Christian and Christian 'T is the Spirit that makes a man live a civil moral life 't is the same Spirit by a greater stroke makes a man live the life of God Eph. 4. 18. Yet here are two kinds of lives as far different as sensitive and vegetative and though the rational hath both yet 't is neither of both So though a Saint lives the life of reason and morality yet there is another life he hath which doth differ from these of a higher degree and of another kind I do not say therefore that a sincere soul only hath a greater degree of the same Grace but that he is distinguished by a greater degree of Grace and working of the Spirit of Grace from an unsound heart As a man may love another but not with
of the Spirit of God as that they should never have fallen nor have been able to fall in respect of the assistance of the Spirit He should have been green all the year long his Blossom should not have been blasted his fruit should never have withered And the ground is the Rule of Justice for if he falling all his posterity are forsaken of God and under the reign of sin and death and Satan Rom. 5. 18 21. Then he standing all his posterity should have had the everlasting presence of God and should have bin under the reign of the Spirit of Grace life Thus also the Covenant ran do and live 2. That the Lord Jesus the second Adam standing and rising in the room of all his people hence he doth convey and propâ—gate to all his posterity the immutable and constant assistance and presence of his Spirit whereby being once begotten of him called to him they never afterward depart from him And though weak in themselves yet assisted by this Spirit do not cannot depart wickedly again The Lord Jesus having stood they cannot fall because by vertue of his standing they have this presence of the Holy Ghost Iohn 14. 19. Because I live you shall live also John 6. 57. As the living Father sent me and I live by him c. Christ standing next to the Father lives by him we standing next to Christ live as infallibly by him And I say the ground is Christs standing For though there be many reasons why the Saints can never fall from Christ as the Spirit of Grace Covenant of Grace Intercession of Christ yet the main ground is Christs standing without the least fall from the fulfilling of the first Covenant which we having the first moment of believing kept in Christ hence the Spirit is given and the Covenant of Grace of strength And hence Rom. 5. 21. v. 17 18. And hence the Spirit is said to dwell in Believers Rom. 8. 11. And we are the Temples of the Spirit whether he dwell in them in his person personally the well is here deep but he dwells in theâ— so as he never ceaseth assisting of them so that they cannot depart from the Lord again hence Isa. 59. 21. My Spirit shall not depart from thy Seed Iohn 14. 'T is called the Spirit that abides for ever It knits the soul to the Lord and keeps it so for ever Never suffers that love-knot to be untied again When the soul is weak the Spirit helps him when careless of it self the Spirit keeps him though the soul offers to run from the Lord yet this Spirit follows him though he grieves the Spirit yet this Spirit still keeps his own house will not depart from him and so not suffer the soul to depart from the Lord. And this is the reason why the Saints never fall from the Lord though they have weak Grace poor beginnings many sins and Adam stood noâ— though with the perfect Image of God upon him because he had not this Spirit yet given though he had the Spirit of God yet not this Spirit which some call the Spirit of Adoption given to him because he had not fulfilled the first Covenant which we in Christ have which is not only the ground of our never falling but of assurance we shall never fall For what breaks a mans peace after Faith Apparition of sin in the Conscience What makes that terrible The Law Now when I see in Christ I have kept all things in the Law not only the cry and accusations of the Law and â—in are stilled but also there ariseth a holy boldness and confidence and joy even before the face of an angry God Eph. 3. 12. And as soul and body are ever knit so here c. 3. This Spirit thus assisting no unregenerate man ever hath I speak not now of keeping the soul from falling from Grace but from Christ. 1. Because the Spirit of Satan fills them he is the strong man that keeps the Palace under whose Kingdom and power they are and therefore this Spirit which destroyes the Kingdom of Satan is not in them 2. Because this was a Preâ—ogative that Adam had not though he had great Gifts and Glory otherwise So this is not the Gift which is given unto them 3. Because this ariseth and therefore is given because Christ stood and therefore those he never stood for rose for suffered for never have it 4. Therefore we shall see in experience take the best Professors living though they may come as they and others judged to the Lord and follow the Lord yet they will in time depart somtime outwardly Iohn 6. 64. There be some of you that believe not See them v. 66. And why did thâ—y depart It was not given them of the Faâ—her The Spirit never was given effectually to draw them nor yet to keep them Iâ— not outwardly at leâ—â—t inwardly and hence Hypocrites though they have marvellous affections unto Christ and so have spoke of him and commended him and seemed to be carried above all creatures and duties toward him yet himself and his mercy and his blood becomes a common thing to them and his knowledge and promise common and hence they slight and loath him and mourn not for it and so are so far from being kept close unto Christ as that they are nearer the unpardonable 〈◊〉 then him But all they have is like Ioâ—ahs gourd which suddenly riseth but there is a Worm at the root that pulls it down again And so their love dies to Ministers that Christ sent and to his Truth and Ordinances But if the Spirit doth thus Who then shall be saved for who is there that departs not When I say the Spirit doth so assist the faithful as that they never depart The meaning is not as though the soul should now never fall into any more sin or unbelief for what do the Saints more complain of then their backslidings Isa. 63. 17. Heb. 12. 1. Saints hearts are no sooner raised up but their weights grow heavy and press them down no sooner do they walk in the way but they begin to fall off But when I say so I say three things 1. Their whole heart never departs 2. They do not depart for ever 3. Though they do depart from the Lord yet the Spirit doth not depart from them as it is in common reason the same thing may go either in a straight or crooked line to the same point As a River may run in a straight or crooked line to the Sea So the Saints their springs their hearts being set a running after the Lord though they do not follow him in a straight line so as never to depart to the right hand or left yet they are so kept by the Spirit that they are continually making after him cleaving to him though with many crooked windings of their hearts this way and that way from the Lord. And therefore as it is in a wheel it
stands bent for such an end yet â—uns at one side but is turned by the skill of him that guides it into the way again and so let it run the mâ—n is with it So 't is here And because somthing is like this in Hypocâ—ites I shall endeavour to cut the thread I. Their whole hearts never do nor can depart from the Lord all thâ—ir sins and departings are against their new nature which the Lord hath given them It s against the grain which as it agravates their sin so it shews the difference between their sins and the sins of other men they may be drawn aside but it s against their wills or if so yet against the bent of their hearts which is set toward the Lord and Sion-ward they may be carried captive against their wills as Paul complained he was and made his moan to heaven of it or if with their wills yet it is against the active bent of their wills which inclines them another way 1 Iohn 3. 9. They cannot sin because the seed remains in them so that they cannot sin with their whole hearts nor depart from Christ with their whole hearts As it is with a Woman though her Husband hath her whole heart yet there is much weâ—kness and sin mixt with this love So that whatever unkindness she shewâ— it is not with her whole heart but against it and hence she is noâ— cast off So much more here Or as it is with the unregenerate man possessed by Satan though he may forsake many sinful courses take up many duties despise the World yet it is not with his whole heart And hence he is pulled back like a Bird by the leg Satan having an end of his heart and he that is unholy and unâ—leâ— will be so still So â— contra As 't is with a stone cast it up its against the 〈◊〉 of it because the nature of it is to rest in the Center and hence it comes down again It is not by internal bent but by external vis or force So sin and Saâ—â—n being cast out though they work in the soul yet they are external Agents it is not I but sin and hence it is against the bent The whole soul therefore never departs from the Lord Jesus but the Spirit keeps it there As 't is in the body of a 〈◊〉 he grows sick and inclines toward a dissolution or consumption and operations are hindred and little delight in any thing yet the soul and body are not yet parted wholly hereupon for even then they are kept close So though the heart may depart and incline towards consumption and death and little can the soul do but lie still and grieve yet the union between the Spirit and the â—oul once made is never broken For as the whole soul departed and made dis-union so the whole soul returning makes the union And hence if ever after the whole soul should depart the union should be broken and hence look on a Christian when he is himself he cannot stir nor depart partly by a spirit of fear Ier. 32. 40. Like a man in a Ship he cannot cast himself into Sea it makes him tremble to think what if I should fall in and hence keeps close in the Ship what-ever â—â—orms come what-ever calms come for he sees death before him Oh the loss of Christ and his fellowship hereafter nay here is dreadful to him Partly by a Spirit of love it constrains us that when the heart sometime caâ—es not for Christ yet the Spirit of love springs up Shall I now leave him that pitied me That brought me a Pardon when my neck was on the block c. II. When he doth depart by reason of some evil in his heart yet 't is not ever but he must return â—ooner or later to him again it was best with him then For look as 't is with Satan How doth he carry the heart from God You shall see it in Iudas John 13. He stands at the door and knocks by a sinful thought liked of vers 2. Then he enters the house by causing the will to resolve of it He doth not carry men like those Herds of â—wine against their wills but prevails with the Will to resolve thus vers 27. Hereupon Satan having a Commission carries him out and he must needs go whom the Devil drives so 't is here the Spirit in recalling the soul will have him come back 1. Pâ—â—s in secret sweet living thoughts again and makes the soul consider and remember from whom 't is fallen or who the Lord is 2. Then causeth the will to resolve of a return and then he must go whom the Spirit draws Psal. 63. 6. David remembers the Lord on his bed though now driven from all Ordinances Hence vers 7. Under thy shadow I will rejoyce Hence vers 8. My soul followeth hard after thee or cleaves to thee But David was weak and feeble how came he to do this Thy hand vers 8. upholdeth me Look as it was with Sampson when his locks were cut he was like other men and was made to grinde but they grew again and then he was like himself again So when the affections and hearts to Christ are cut they are like other men for a time but they are continually coming and growing again and then they are like themselves again And I say they must return for when the Spirit carries a man indeed there is a necessity put upon him Acts 4. 20. We cannot but speâ—k the things we have heard and 2 Cor. 13. 8. We can do nothing against but for the truth For here we shall see the broad difference between a convicted Hypocrite that knows all is amiss with him and the Saints He â—ees his falls from the Lord and is afraid in his Conscience of Misery if he doth not return and desires and endeavours for to do it but what if it be hard and it seem impossible to be better Now he falls down and thinks this is an infirmity which God will pardon and so Satan conquers him I say again not temptation but Satan conquers him For then a man is conquered when faith is conquered 1 Iohn 5. 4. then Faith is conquered when returning to Christ with the whole heart is conquered the whole heart returns not until a mans will resolves by being 〈◊〉 with a necessity of a return and staying there Now therefore the Spirit of God puts the soul upon a necessity of returning to the Lord that when the heart â—aith It cannot be that ever your heart should be better or the Lord help it must be saith the soul again and it is so I am not able to bear this evil for mercy must help and Spirit must draw and hence the soul must come Psal. 42. 7 8. The soul thinks mercy can and is willing but will it Why the Lord commands it when one waye calls in for another mercy must step in and hence my prayer is to thee Now this necessity of
His redemption is in him there could not be freedom one hour from unknown evils but by him Hence seeing him such an one he seeks him As why do men seek men especially if great Why do men desire to stand before Princes and please them so that they will not gladly offer them the least distaste Because they see them before them beholding of them apt to be angry if displeased and their greatness awes them So here Why is not the Lord Jesus pleased He is not seen in his Glory nor made really present and hence Rev. 5. 12 13. When they saw him on his Throne they cast down their Crowns and gave him Glory 2. The soul also feels his love and so abundantly loves him again For how come men to seek themselves in every thing and they cannot but do it 'T is because they love themselves and that abundantly necessarily as fire burns though they burn so hot in this love that at last they consume themselves So how do any can any seek the Lord We know the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 13. 5. Love seeks not her own When the Sun hath put out this fire of our self-love when the sense of the Lords love hath kindled that love to the Lord again as that it abundantly loves Christ now it will seek the things of Christ and not its own things And as there is abundance of self love that men are eaten up with it so there must be much love which must be abundantly shed in the heart so as to eat up that arising from the sense of the Lords love and that abundantly For many a man comes to have some good will and affection and love to the Lord but yet never comes to seek the Lord as his last end and live to him Why Because he hath not tasted abundantly of the Lords Mercy Grace and Love Psal. 86. 12 13. And hence the incomparable Spirit of Paul I seek not yours but you Wherein In being willing to spend But save your self Paul nay and to be spent With much ado Nay most gladly Though you love me not because I love you So here though Christ should not love it yet he is worthy he hath done enough and now the soul will not only do but rejoyce nay in sufferings because his love is not dropt but shed in our hearts And hence 't is a never-failing rule little love or assurance of it little seeking the Lord much assurance much seeking of him 3. Hereupon the soul closeth with the whole will of Christ and pleaseth it because it pleaseth him It s with every man as it was with Samson he would needs have a wife or the Philistims Why so Iudg. 14. 3. Because she pleaseth me So why will men seek themselves save themselves love themselves and please their own wills Because it pleaseth them Look therefore as the soul when he loved himself did seek to please only his own will in every thing and 't is good because it pleaseth me so the soul whose heart is now indeared to Christ though he cannot perfectly do it that 's in Heaven yet he seeks to give the whole will of Christ content because it pleaseth Christ. And this is that that God hath sworn his people shall have Luke 1. 74 75. And that Christ hath delivered us from all our enemies For the great reason why men cleave not to the Lord and please his whole Will is because they have many things to care for and â—eep and please which we account friends which are the Lords enemies Satan and world to serve him without fear i. e. in love and in holinesse and righteousnesse i. e. his whole Will all â—ur daies And hence Eph. 5. 8 9. They were darknesse but now are light by Faith now there is sanctity Walk as children of the light Wherein consists that Proving what is acceptable to God Hence Eph. 6. 6. They should please Christ doing the Will of God from the heart And this is so necessary that Gal. 1. 10â— The Apostle saith If I please men i. e. their wills I am not Christs And this is walking worthy of the Lord pleasing him in all things and this is fruit the end of the tree and leaves also and differencing a tree from all other that be beautiful but barren Col. 1. 10. But why do you make this to consist in pleasing the whole will of Christ and not of God the Creator 1. Because our sanctification now cannot please God as a Creator though it may pleâ—se him that is the Creator in Christ because only perfect Holâ—ness can please him 2. Because Christ hath pleased the Father by the Holiness of himself now this being done and therefore God having put all things into his hands having done that for us we are to give content to him And herein our sanctification is differing from the Image Adam had who in closing with the will of God looked upon him as a Creator ours respects a Redeemer who hath boughâ— us to himself and hence we are to respect him in our acts now But why doth the soul close with the whole will of Christ i. e. so far as 't is made known First Because the holiness of Christ hâ—re chiefly discovers it self and against this a carnal heart will discover it self For Copernâ—ites may boast in and give entertainment to the person of Christ but when they come to repent which was one part of his will that they did not that they would not Wo therefore to thee Caâ—ernâ—â—m as many will close with Christ for pardon of sin and lay their sacks on him but you must burthen your self with them or the Lord will never ease you of them Oh no and hence they have light sorrow for sin many will embrace the comforts of Christ and love of Christ and this joys them yet the will of Christ that is wearisome to them Rom. 8. 8. They will pick and chuse Secondly Because this discovers a deep ditch of deceit in the heart many take up some duties and why do they do them Because they please the Lord and the Lord commands and for his sake when indeed 't is to please themselves for in other things they care not whether they please the Lord or no. Thirdly Because this closing with his whole will only gives the Lord content As 't is not the strings or striking upon one string that makes the Musick but striking on them all according to rule So here And hence when they sacriâ—â—eed and observed new Moons Isai. 1. 14. Who hath required these things at your hands Hence when the people began to put the Lord off with mean perâ—ormances any common stuffe the Lord takes state upon him and saith he is a King Mal. 1. 14. 9 10. I have no pleasure in you Fourthly Because this only will give peace and therefore let any man begin to pick and chuse and his heart die to the Lords will if Ionah like he will flie
too but a little fills them and quiets them and so damns them And hence men at the first work upon them are very diligent in the use of means but after that they be brought to neglect prayer sleep out Sermons and to be careless sapless liveless who is the better for them Because I say that now they have got something the main work is wrought they call not that into Question and so when God comes to reckon they are found too light Oh therefore keep the Vessel empty never content thy self with any measure Hath the Lord called thee Yes I think so and beleeve sometimes so but I am afraid I may at last be found without oyle in my Vessel be then every day as if thou wert but now to begin And this I say true grace as it comforts so it never fills but puts an edge on the appetiâ—e more of that grace Lord Thus Paul Phil. 3. 13 14. Thus David Out of my poverty I have given c. 1 Chron. 29. 3 17 18. It s a sure way never to be deceived in lighter strokes of the Spirit to be thankful for any but to be content with no measure of it and this cuts the thread of difference between a superficial lighter stroke of the Spirit and that which is sound 3. Look that your vessel be not broken nor crackt that when the Lord pours in it runs not out again Heb. 2. 1 2. Prov. 4. 12 13. Oh here is the wound of many a man he hath many affections in Word in Ordinances and they take hold on him to convince to affect him but he takes not fast hold on them he keeps them not as his life with thankfulness for any little and with watchfulness And hence a man is where he was dry and barren It 's true the Lord will not give that out of an Ordinance which he doth in an Ordinance But it 's one thing to have it lost out of thy hands and the Lords hands too another thing only to lose it out of thy hand It 's one thing for the Lord to withdraw it another thing for thee to spend it away by the prevailing power of a lust viz. either the world without or contempt of Grace within you esteem it not as your life and hence seek not to keep it you will lose the Oyl in your Vessels And I am confident this is one reason why a man lives long under means and never profits the Lord sees if he should poure any thing into the heart it would be lost He takes fast hold of world or self and keeps that and hence all runs out again 4. Look that you be at the cost to get this Oyl in your Vessel These â—irgins when the door was shut and too late would but the time was past For we shall find the reason why mens works are sleight their buildings their garments why they will not be at the cost so mens work of Grace is sleight because they will not be at the cost They find a want of Grace and prize it and would fain have it but it shall cost them little they will not be at the cost of their time Somtime they can seek the Lord in an Ordinance but what if he comes not They depart from him Sometimes in pangs and fits when the Spirit comes they seek but to be ever seeking ever carrying sense of sin 't is too much time and trouble they will not be at the cost Some affections and hearts they spend but not their whole hearts Hence Christ exhorts oh strive because many seek and are never able Look therefore as it was with Ionathan Saul 1 Sam. 14. 45. said he should die No the people said not so for he hath wrought with God this day Not that a man can get Grace by his own strength but Col. 1. 29. I strive according to his mighty working Only let me add this be at cost first to get the Lord Jesus himself As Mat. 13. 33. He sold all and bought the Field and when he had the Field now he had the Treasure Oh think no time too much no lusts too dear no affections too much for him and then you have all things with him and shall receive life from him and not for a dead but for a living risen Christ. Christ bestowed Gifts on Iudas on Saul but whom he bestowed himself upon those never wanted any thing Psal. 23. 1. But here I might take up a doleful complaint Oh that men content themselves with colours and tinctures of Truth and Spirit c. Some Naturalists observe that Brass would be Gold it tends to it had it but more heat of the Sun to concoct it and to bring it to perfection so 't is with the lighter Stroaks of common Grace CHAP. XXI That true saving Grace in the Hearts of Believers can never fail SECT I. THat those Graces of the Spirit wherewith those Heavenly Vessels or Souls of the Faithful are filled are constant and of an eternal Nature For thus the wiâ—e Virgins their Vessels were not only filled but the Oyl was constantly preserved in them and continued in their Vessels until they met the Bridegroom 'T is true their Lamp went out outward acts of the Spirit of Grace expressed in the Profession of the Saints may be extinct for a time yet the Oyl did remain in the Vessel still which was not so with those which were Foolish not only their Lamps were out but their Oyl was spent so that here is a third Difference between the Foolish and the Wife Virgins That the Spirit of Grace in the one is of a dying withering nature in the other of an eternal and everlasting nature There is an eternal excellency stampt upon them Iohn 4. 14. The water that I shall give him shall be in him no Pools but a perpetual living Spring Heb. 6. 9. Some that were enlightned and tasted fell away but we are perswaded better things of you The Saints have better things which do not cause but accompany Salvation The Lord is so far from suffering it to die as that he will add to it Luke 8. 18. To him that hath shall be given Though it be like Mustard-seed yet it shall grow there is a growing vertue in it But as the Lord speaks of his people Isa. 65. 8. As new wine is in the Cluster and one saith destroy it not for a blessing is in it so it shall be here Nay though it be not so much as seen yet the Lord then can see it and doth then keep it and will preserve it Isa. 40. 29 30 31. Nay though opposed and resisted by temptation yet 1 Pet. 1. 6 7. 'T is not consumed but tried that it may be to Glory another day notwithstanding manifold temptations 'T is one of the greatest Miracles in the world to preserve it as a Spark of fire in a Sea of water Nay though it seems to a mans feeling to be quite quenched and put out that
a man finds no more than a Reprobate yet the Seed of God then remains and it will break out again There is life at the heart and sap at the root yet the Lord will fetch them again When the Lord of Glory was crucified and all the Disciples fled not one spake for him none durst confesse him yet the Lord returns to them and they again to him SECT II. HOW comes it to be thus immortal and of an eternal nature 1. 'T is not only in regard of the power of Grace received though it were perfect for then Adam had not fell from it 2 Nor in the freedom of a man from temptations for then the Angels had not fallen 3. Nor yet in the power of a mans own watchfulness and care to keep it For if the Lord keep not the City the watchmen wake but in vain 4. Nor yet in the power of any means as many think if under a powerful Ministry then they are out of danger 'T is not in Paul nor Apollos but in the Lord. Men may rejoyce in Iohns Ministry and be affected with it but 't is only for a season But I. In regard of the eternal Election and Purpose of God Their constancy in the State of Grace depends upon that immutability of his counsel Matth. 24. 24. They shall deceive if possible the Elect but it s not possible they being Elect. Wise men may have their Brains crazed and Nebuchadnezzar like the use of reason gone but the Principle of reason continues and the use of it in time returns again and so 't is in regard of damning delusions 2 Tim. 2. 19. Hymeneus and Philetus fell Hence do not the Elect fâ—ll No for that Foundation remains sure 1. The certainty of their continuance in Grace is built upon a Foundation 2. Not every weak one but a firm Foundation 3. Not a Foundation of mans laying but Gods 4. Not a wavering and totâ—ering but standing Foundation and that sealed with the Knowledge of God the Lord knows who are his i. e. though some men fall that one cannot tell by outward expressions and profession who are the Lords yet The Lord knows who are his and they are sealed by his love and knowledge And it seems this is the prime cause of the continuance of Angels 1 Tim. 5. 21. And Election being free for his own sake not for their sakes the Lord foresaw all their good and evil hence they are not cut off II. In regard of the Faithfulness and Promise and Covenant of Gods Grace Adam had that Covenant If he did do he should live But he had no absolute Promise he should do or continue to do but the Faithful have and hence they stand not by the strength of Grace but by the strength of the Covenant of Grace And hence that which to reason is incredible to nature impossible is brought about by Faith not by vertue of any power of Faith but by vertue of the power of a promise God hath said it and Faith believes it and hence Abrahams dead body begets and Sarahs barren womb brings forth Isaac Hence through all the Word when the Apostle perswadeâ— himself of their continuance he ever puts in Gods Faithfulness 1 Cor. 1. 8 9. 1 Thes. 5. 24. 2 Thes. 3. 3. Hence Ier. 32. 40. I will not turn away from them Answ. True if they do not from the Lord. No but they shall not turn away from me Object But we see many do fall Answ. But if he doth he shall not be broken but taken up again Psal. 37. 24. Yea for a time the Lord may do thus But will this continue having sinned against such mercy and my sin being now greater Now the Lord will depart Answ. 1 Cor. 1. 8. Yea he will confirm you to the end Yes it may be he will as he hath done while I am out of temptation But I may meet with it before I die Answ. 1 Cor. 10. 13. He will not suffer you to be tempted above measure c. Yea if I was such a one as Abraham or David that had such hearts and did the Lord so much honour Nay but Isai. 55. 3. Even the sure mercies of David This is the Faithfulness of God III. In regard of the constant abode of the Spirit of the Lord in the hearts of the Saints whereby they are kept Iohn 10. 28. None can pull his Sheep out of the Fathers hand Look as the first Adam sinning conveys the power of sin and Satan and death which reigns with unconquerable power over all the Sons of men so Christ rising conveys that Grace and constant presence of the Spirit which reigns to eternal life and carries the soul through all difficulties Deut. 33. 27. The eternal God is thy refuge Let what evils can come there is a refuge Yea so long as I can stand But what if I fall Underneath are the everlusting arms Let a Saint fall never so low yet Gods everlasting arms are still lower where ever he falls he falls at last into the Lords arms For else it was impossible for any soul to continue Isa. 46. 3 4. From the womb to the hoar hairs I will carry you Saints when they are little think they shall fall at last and when strengthened fear if they live till old age their hearts and spirits will die yet they do not But how comes this about I will carry you And hence 't is impossible they should ever die or perish no more than the Lord Jesus Iohn 14. 19. So that if Gods purpose is firm his promise sure his Spirit able the Spirit of life and grace in the hearts of the Faithful shall be kept even to eternity SECT III. LET that Opinion that the Graces of Saints are fading and mortal rot and die and be had in everlasting derestation of them that know the Lord. But we see how many fall off and fall back and I have found it by experience so The seed that is cast into the earth first dies and then lives and growes so no sooner doth the Lord fill his Saints but there is much self-confidence on it and resting in it hence it dies yet it lives and grows again And hence the Lord keeps his people poor sensible of their own weakness as long as they live but if it quite dies and withers they were never the Lords nor never had â—ne Dram of Grace 1 Iohn 2. 19. If it be taken away he did but seem to have it All fleshly excellencies in men as common gifts be do wither Isa. 40. 6 7. All Flesh is grass But Plants in Gods Orchard never lose their greenness though Plants and Floweâ—s in the field may Psal. 1. 3. Whose leaf shall not wither But this may make men secure say the Arminians 1. Nothing puts more life in the Saints It would sink them else if it were not thus as when the Lord told Ioshua where ever thâ—â— settest thy foot thou shalt
wonder if the City be taken though never so strong if it grow once secure no wonder if the world be entred and men are grown more worldly and if Satan be entred and men grow more passionate than ever before no wonder a mans work be neglected if he be asleep Ordinances more slighted than ever before Never shall you see Security fall upon a man alone but it brings its train with it when the Husbandmen sleep tares will be sown and when the Disciples sleep temptations will enter This is that which the Lord testifies of his people Ier. 2. 2 3 4. I remember what thou didst in times of streights in a land not sown every one that touched you did offend but in the seventh and eighth verses when brought to a plentiful Country they did not so much as say Where is the Lord that hath done this for us But yet the Lord questions his people for this What iniquity have you found in me which question you cannot answer without grief here or confusion another day You that are the Lords often have heard this complaint for this may be your condition as well as Noah's and Lot's but now see the cause of it how hard to awake on hour how hard to walk with God one day short awakenings you have but long sleeps this may be your condition for a time but you cannot continue so for ever if you are the Lords But if you do continue so especially without bemoaning this unto the Lord 't is a question whether ever there was that oyl in your vessel which others have when not only a mans acts grow worse but the very spirit of a man degenerates when not only the leaves of the Vine fall but the Vine it self groweth degenerate and hence continueth so this is a sore evidence of a woful state Ier. 2. 20 21. When the yoke was upon thy nick thou saidst Thou woâ—lâ—st not transgress but the Lord hath broken thy â—ands and now thou art becom a strange Vine Remember it will be an heavy indictment against thee to be good in Mesheck but base in Sion to be then worst when the Lord is best Use 3. Hence see one reason why the Lord pursueth many a Soul with inward terrors and outward sorrows Those that are fast asleep because soft speechs cannot awaken them hence we lay our hands upon them and sometimes knock them because this is the way to awaken them and then they hear so the Word and Spirit speak to a man but such soft still winds rock them asleep rather than awaken them hence the Lord layeth his iron hands upon a man and knocks by blows and now when affliction is upon you now you can hear When as the winds and water were ready to tear the ship in pieces now they enquire Why were they sent And the lot fell upon Ionah who was then sleeping it is easie to awaken out of natural sleep but very hard out of spiritual security All the terrors of God on Ionah within and without are little enough but at last he could hear and run on his errand Psal. 30. 6 7. Why did God hide his face from David he said in prosperity he should not be moved this was the reason of it the Lord sees you have need of it seldom shall one see an awakening Christian without inward temptations and terrors or outward sorrows Oh consider then if the Lord do meet with thee consider thy own security thou hast been in or art apt to fall into This is the sin you must enquire after and finde out and do not account it hard though long though bitter for never greater misery than for the Lord to say Sleep on it is one of the heaviest Judgements for the Lord to let a man go on in a secure condition without blows mark therefore unto the end of those blows to be throughly awakend by them For sometimes when the Lord sends them a man if they be not very bitter if he hath any rest lays them not to heart Isa. 42. 25. Fire burnt about him and in this Country I know not what curse befalls men peace makes men secure and sorow makes men discontented and sunk and discouraged which may be for a fit in a Saint but to continue so this is that Ahab Oh when as thou feelest the blow look now that thou dost awaken and be thankfull for it that you met with that you did never reckon upon viz. to be frighted out of security thereby SECT VI. Of Exhortation TO watch over one another by exhorting one another while it is called to day Heb. 3. 13. Let both the Watchmen and Members of Churches do this for this is one means appointed by the Lord to preserve the soul from sleeping 1 Thes. 5. 1 5 6. Exhorting one another as it is in Cities when the Watch is apt to sleep they have their companies that are passing up and down the walls the greatest part of the night and so they are kept waking and we shall finde that as it is in a Town where men are all asleep one Bell-man one waking Christian will keep life and spirit and the power of godliness in many and when he sleeps all are fast Nothing in the world brings security sooner upon men than sleepy company Officers of Churches watch not over members nor they one over another exhorting and crying one unto another to their work while it is called to day Oh then let every man get up and fall to this work of mutual exhorting go and visit one another go and speak oft to one another and if thou be a childe of the light see that thou endure not thy fellow servants to sleep in the open day in one duty or another Know if God stirs thee thou wilt awaken others 2 Cor. 5. 10. We knowing the terrors of the Lord perswade men 2. Consider thy labor cannot be in vain here the best mettalled horse needs spurs others are asleep You will say if I knew such a sin I would speak but I dare not Answ. It is the case of all the Virgins they have need of it Iude 23. Some save with fear pulling them out of the fire Matth. 3. 3. Consider this is one part of your Warfare to keep your watch whereby you may be made conquerors You complain you have many sins and temptations arising and prevailing never do they usually prevail but when you are secure first the Watch is taken and then the City is suddenly taken now look as Paul 2 Tim. 4. 6 7. he hath finished his course and fought his fight and now expects the crown how can you end your days in peace that cannot in some measure finde and feel this The Church is the City of the living God this is taken and every man in it unless you be watchful and exhort one another daily while it is called to day And that I may not speak in the clouds 4. Their sin will be yours First Labor to
polluted with no sin till they fell down by Security the foolish were wanting to get oyl in their vessels before but this they fell last into What into open prophaness or othe foul corruptions No but they all slumbered and slept and we read of no sin after till the Bridegroom came many sins indeed there be which like branches bud from the root but this is the main And therefore look upon the next Parable you shall see this again confirmed to shew the certainty of this point the servant that hid his talent vers 26. is called an evil servant why what evil did he he did not lavish it as the Prodigal upon others not lose it but he did not use it sluggishness was his sin hence saith Christ thou evill and slothful servant And hence the thorny ground flourished and grew and suffered all persecutions could not consume them what was their sin Mark 4. 12. compared with Luk. 21. 34. it was the cares of the world they began to dream strange fancies came before sleeping and the pillow of their security was some worldly content And this is the reason why Christ and the Apostles are also exceeding pressing to watchfulness because this is the sin that Saints are ready to fall into after they have seen Christs love and care and because this is the sin the wicked will fall into and their last sin it will be just preceding their last plague and hence the Apostle exhorts Oh sleep not you c. 1 Thess. 5. 1 2 5 6. Let me open this thus SECT II. VVE must know that the Lord in subduing a sinner to the obedience of himself it is with him as with an enemy in a City there are many strong holds of sin to which he retires and resists 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. and when one is down he flieth for shelter into another and maintains that as long as he can so it is with men Or as it is with divers fruits they have their several seasons of growing and then of withering so it is here according to the several seasons of a mans life so are his lusts growing and decaying there are the first and the last ripe fruits First Take a man that is born and bred up to some years man is a sociable creature and it is a misery to live and be alone hence the first evil he usually chuseth is evil and loose company his lusts are grown up to some years and now he desireth a match for them and first he chuseth a companion and Satan hath a mighty hand in this because as the Lord when he first sends to do his work he sends two by two to animate and strengthen one another in the work so Satan doth first joyn hand in hand together that men might corrupt one another and harden one another in wickedness this I say is the first usually hence Ephes. 2. 2. and Prov. 2. 12. Wisdom first keeps from the evil man and this sin is for a time the dearest sin for here he meets with some pastimes mirth and so much love from them that he loves this last more than all the friends he hath though they disswade him more than all the Sabbaths of God and hence he prophanes them more than Christ himself and hence when he hath many times purposes of turning to God his company with-holds him Secondly Continuing long in this sin at last he comes to fall into the sin of lust and from men he looks to women and this is as deat to him as his right eye it may be God keeps him from the act of Whoredom but wanton looks lascivious thoughts speculative uncleanness self-pollution which he commits when the candles are out and none but God sees and yet God spares him and this follows him to the Church to the streets whiles he is awake nay when asleep and thinks it is no sin for a time or if he doth Oh the horror that he hath sometimes for it Scholars of Westminster have been derected from twelve or fourteen years of age to live in this sin This is the second Hence Prov. 2. 16. first wisdom keepes from the evill man next from evil women Thirdly It may be a man marrieth and then this sin is out of season now therefore another comes in its place and that is immoderate love of and dropsie desires after the world and the wealth of it for now charge is like to encrease and it is a shame to walk in rags and hence now a man begins to look upon the estates of others and to admire at them and then he looks upon what he hath and what labor care and providence in a saving way may bring him unto and hence burieth himself alive in the earth and feeds upon clods of earth and uncertain hopes And this is the next sin which grows up though I know some men will not come to this but I speak of them that go on in the fairest way hence Heb. 13. 4 5. Whoremongers God will judge then let your conversation be without covetousness that follows Fourthly It may be at last God terrifies this mans Conscience and he begins to see What profiteth it me to win the whole world and to lose my own soul hence falls now to take up another profession to hang out another flag and to lead a new life and now pride in spiritual excellencies is his sin when glory in worldly wealth dyes pride in spiritual glory lives There were divers of the Heathen contemned the world yet pust up with pride in their morality hence Chuse no novice Bishop lest he be puffed up and fall into the condemnation of the Devil Now Le ts of mind come in when he performs duties publickly openly and now he hungers after the honor of men and sets himself to sale for it Oh saith Saul honor me When he had confessed his coveting of the cattel but pride stuck in him still And when he doth duties privately he rests in them and accounts highly of himself for them though they neither bring him to Christ but estrange him from Christ. Hence Christ chargeth when you do alms do not onely do it not to be seen of men but let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth take no delight in this This was Simons sin Act. 8. he seeing the gifts of the Apostles would give any money for them these gifts are sweeter now than money hence such fall to some soul opinions and crotchets they can interpret Revelations and ascend to the Ministry and be the forwardest in a Town but when to do publick service respect is gone their love is gone Fifthly When this is dying in the Saints and fallen down in Hypocrites now sloth is the last thing that takes hold upon them and this is sweet What is the honor of men what is this base world now sloth and sleep is sweet Now a man first ceaseth acting and this gives rest and now being here Secondly it 's death
so conscience is at peace with him sin is alive without the Law 4. Keeping a constant course of private duties he thinks God is at peace also and so his peace gives him rest and sloth makes him make a league because he loves rest and hence we finde a Christian most oppressed in times of trouble many times hath most peace and è contra Because as it was with Gideon he had his peace by trouble they had their peace by rest whose flesh he tore with thorns Iudg. 8. 7. oh therefore fear and tremble at their condition SECT VI. HEnce see the reason why many a Christian after he hath seen and felt the work of Gods grace in his heart and soul and hence hath been filled with peace and joy unspeakable that yet after long profession loseth the sight of it and knows not whether there be any dram of grace in his heart or no and consequently hath no assurance but ask him have you not known it yes but 't is a question whether ever it was immortal seed or no for then it would not dye as I see it hath the reason of this is a man falls to a secure condition fast asleep forgets God and himself and hence though there be grace yet it is not exercised Matth. 25. 26. and hence not seen at all 2 Pet. 1. 8 9. and one grace to another and then an open entrance is made this makes calling sure if this they do not they will not see a fat off why because they forget the Lord which is one part of security Hence we shall find in times of persecution never such assurance as then Zach. 13. vlt. because grace is never so exercised as then and hence men much in prayer abound with much assurance when Christ was in his agony he prays more fervently because then a man is watchful and grace most exercised when a man dyes in prayer and grows secure and hath little exercise of grace now it is a question whether there is grace at all or no and hence when men come to Sacraments how oft are they put to it whether the Lord be theirs or no! and hence when men come to the Word they lose all comfort because they know now whether these promises are theirs or no because they are asleep and not waking with the Lord. Oh therefore lay no blame upon the Lord but thy self I have had grace but I have not exercised it I have lived a life of sloth and security had I lived a life of thankfulness prayer watchfulness and been ever awake I should have seen my own heart and what the Lord hath done for my soul Here here lies the security of a Christian not in losing all grace he had but in losing the exercise of it SECT VII Quest. HOw shall I do this Answ. 1. Look that your eye be single that the Lord be your last end and that with an infinite love you cleave to that and then the whole body will be full of light but if your eye be double c. Matth. 6. 24. A ship that hath but one place to go to will get thitherward in open sea with every wind Who is so great as the Lord who minds thee but the Lord doth he provide protect and pity thee when thou seekest thy self will he not do it much more when thou art set for him 2. Consider the sweetness of this life 1. In this life 1 Cor. 15. ult be ever abounding why oh you know your labor shall not be in vain And what will it be when you come to dye Isa. 38. 1 2 3. Remember I have walked with thee And 2. After death Rev. 14. 13. it may be you account them nothing but they shall follow thee do you not find bitterness in the end of another life you will find your pillow hard enough before you dye oh therefore get something to make it easie 3. Take heed of forgetfulness of the Lord for this is the reason why many a man is not ever up in walking with the Lord because he forgets the Lord It is not because he will not or because he cannot but he remembers not the Lords love the glory of his ways what an evil thing and bitter it is to depart from the Lord Psal. 22. 11. They shall remember and turn Jer. 2. 1 6. The Lord complains of Apostacy they said where is the Lord I remember thee c. So I say to you the Lord of glory remembers you thou art written on the palms of his hand and like shew-bread before the Ark so thou dost ever stand before the Lord hence every moment he is pardoning purging preserving and devising how to do thee good nay he remembers thy love prayers seekings after him nay thy house and walls of it where thou dwellest Oh therefore forget not the Lord that so you may be ever seeking after and cleaving to the Lord. SECT VIII HEnce see the reason why men after long profession fall into many slothful opinions because their hearts are surprised with this enemy of sloth first and it is Gods just judgement upon men that seing they love their sleep and laziness they shall be lazy by rule and so be for ever hardned in it Quest. What are those slothful opinions Answ. First What is this but one to make the Law no rule to a Christians life as though a Christian should be like a man at Sea and carried by the wind but he must have no Compass to sail by also In these last times Christ's Kingly Office is chiefly opposed men are glad of Christs righteousness and death to save them but when he comes to plant his Laws as all Conquerors do amongst men they do then shake them off and under a colour of love to their Prince make his Laws no bonds to binde them so these think this is the liberty of a Christian the liberty of a Prince to be lawless 2 Pet. 2. 19. Secondly That there is no activity of Grace received no power to stir till stirred and therefore leave all upon Christ they can do nothing if he gives nothing they cannot help it if he doth then all is well c. It is true till the Lord doth help what can we do But there is an immutable assistance of Spirit whereby the Lord doth enable his to act more or less like himself when stirred up And if you finde none because you fall short of Christ do not think that the Lord will be a cover to such a cap nor a pillow for a slothful heart there is a sickness in the best and must be followed else we dye Thirdly That Ministers must not exhort Why what can men do If servants cannot abide to be spoken unto when there is need from what can it come but idleness What can words make better yes the Lords words have a power to help or ruine when you shall say oh the exhortations oh the inretaties I have had c. one main means
Christs coming and yet men may shake off their fears despise the light Hence the Lord hath a second Cry and that is SECT III. Secondly THE Cry of the Rod for there is a loud voyce in every Rod which many times those that are most secure must and shall hear Psalm 2. 5. He shall speak to them in his wrath Micah 6. 9. Now what are these I speak not to secure persons alone we know how the Lord doth exercise them but how he speaks to secure Churches sometimes he hath lesser blows but he that is not awakened by the Word and the cry of that is seldom awakened by the cry of smaller evils he may be startled but seeing his pillow is still soft he must bear it and cannot amend it he sleeps again Now the things whereby the Lord doth and will awaken are Two First By bringing Churches into great extremities and distress that they know not what to do scattering them one from another in woods where they know not what to do for bread Iudges 6. the Midianites prevailed against them seven years untill they fled to Dens like beasts hunted up and down and at last they have no bread but begged and their cattel destroyed Verse 6. Now they cry unto the Lord because of the Midianites and he sent a Prophet to make them cry for their sin for this is the nature of a secure heart while it hath any thing to ease it it will not be awakened throughly if it be in a sleeping vain and hence the Lord distresseth them hence Mat. 24. 29 30. after Antichristian tribulation shall there be worse yes after that Sun and Moon shall be darkned i. e. there shall be a confusion of all things for it is the language of the Eastern Countries so to express it Dan. 12. 1 2. Secondly By ruinâ—ting of Churches breaking the Candlesticks quenching the lights delivering them to spoylers until the Land be almost left without inhabitant some slain some carried into captivity and now conscience cryes Word cryes and Rod cryes aloud to awaken them Isa. 6. 9. Go and make this peoples heart fat Lord how long until their house be desolate and then you hear of the sparing of a little remnant whom the Lord awakens Amos 6. you see them secure Verse 7 8 9. there 's captivitie and plagues to destroy families will the Lord deal so with Iacob the most excellent people under Heaven yea saith the Lord I abhor them and when you see them on the banks of Babylon then they remember Sion Levit. 26. 39 40. SECT IV. BEcause it is so difficult to awaken one throughly no bonds next to death so strong to keep men under as security and hence Ephes. 5. 14. sleeping and being among the dead are joyned together and hence the Lord will cry and if the Word cannot the cry of the Rod must and shall In regard of the people of God who are secure with them that are vile in secure Churches if the Lord had none among them he would come without crying but because they are there among them the Lord will awaken but if any do it is chiefly for their sakes for though the Lord do pardon and wash away his peoples sins yet they come not to the fâ—â—ition of pardon without faith and this faith is never severed from repentance and hence the Lord will not come upon them unawares before he hath broken their hearts not from infirmities for they will last till death but broken their hearts for and with their iniquity their chief sin In regard of Christ himself that so he may be received with esteem and attended upon with all respect for let the Lord shew never so much kindness to a â—ecure â—inner he is not esteemed he is forgotten buried like a dead carkass a dead Christ out of doors as it is with men that â—â—eep let the King stand by them provide never so much for them they regard it not so Deut 32. 15. Therefore we shall finde the Lord never comes to his people but he comes then when he is esteemed first the Lord works the esteem and then comes Matth. 23. ult Christ departs till men say Blessed be he that 〈◊〉 in the name of the Lord. SECT V. HEnce we may see the dangerous condition of all those that fall into a secure condition and so dye 1. That have been once very forward affectionate strict tender c. but now their lamp is out 2. That have kept themselves and their hearts from soil their lamps bright but now though their hearts contract soil every day they are settled upon the Lees and their scent is in them and their lamp never drest 3. That did once delight in approaching nigh to Christ in his Ordinances in going forth in them to meet the Bridegroom but now they not onely neglect this but take delight therein and rest upon their neglect as a sleepy man takes his delight not in his work but in the neglect of it and though their hearts tell them of this yet they go on their way and dye so what shall we think of them I will not absolutely determine but they give shrewd signs that they are fallen into a dead sleep For the Lord will awaken his Virgins before his coming nay he will awaken very many others for their sakes rather than they shall be secure Look as it was with Christ the nearer he came to his end the more enlarged and heavenly and spiritual so it is with them that have the Spirit of Christ Who are the Servants whom Christ shall bless at his coming Luke 12. 37. Blessed are those that shall be found watching That look as there is no smaller evil but usually before it comes the Lord and gives warning so the greatest and last evil Death that so they may prepare for that as Paul 2 Tim. 4. 5 6 7. The time of my departing is at hand how could Paul tell that the Lord gave him secret hints of it he could smell that state before he saw it or touched it he could observe by the course and câ—ncurrence of providences now my course is finished the corn is gathered all in Asia forsake me so the Lord doth many times unto his people however he doth keep them watchful Oh consider it therefore you that are secure if the Word now doth not awaken yet when thy sick bed comes and death appears remember this truth But remember it now I carry the brand of a Reprobate upon me Hence see what little cause any man hath to take pleasure in his security no pleasure in any sin especially to a holy heart as of the sin of security for if a man takes pleasure in his cups or in his course company or in dancing as Herod or in gaming c. conscience will give him knocks to every bit he snatcheth here there 's honey but then a sting in them also But now when a mans carriage is fair outward duties performed
Ordinances the external visible signs of his presence one would think he would never come yet the Lord will come and comfort his people Isa. 61. 2. God hath sent and anointed him and the Spirit hath filled him and he is as willing himself to comfort them that mourn nay when they have the spirit of heaviness and when it is done Christ is come then that is a coming of Christ. Fourthly There is a coming of Christ when he comes in more full measure of his Spirit to his people and that in his Ordinances for there is a state and time of Christianity wherein a man is carnal and blind and the Image of Christ darkly stampt upon the soul and is exceeding weak now the Lord is said to come when he doth this Ioh. 14. 18. I will see you again and I will not leave you comfortless Orphans alone without any one to take care for you now though it be long before the Lord do come here yet come he will when the soul thinks it impossible and the thing incredible Behold thy God thy King commeth Isa. 40. 9. with 23. He shall come like the rain upon the fleece of wool Fifthly Christ is said to come when he comes to destroy and root out the enemies of his Church whether outward enemies or inward enemies Isa. 26. 21. Now grant it be long the Lord doth suffer them to prevail and to be pricking bryars to the hearts of Gods people and to the heart of Gods Spirit in his people yet he will come and hence the Church pleads this with God as an usual thing with him Isa. 64. 1 2 3. He comes when men look not for him yea he came so here and the name of God lyes upon it to make known his name to his adversaries Isa. 66. 5. Hear the word of the Lord ye that tremble at his word your brethren that hated you and cast you out said Let the Lord be glorified He shall appear to your joy but they shall be ashamed Sixthly Christ is said to come to the soul when he comes to it at death to abolish all sin and sorrow and to possess the soul of immediate fellowship with himself and at Judgement when the great mariage day shall be and the Bride made ready and the Bridegroom in their perfect glory to the view of all the world Ioh. 14. 3. Oh many a one is troubled now the Lord is gone from it mediately to comfort it Let not your hearts be troubled you have a God in his Word to believe in cleave to that and me in it but when death comes against me and enemies come against me and heart fails and eyes fails will the Lord come Yes I will come again for I go but only to prepare a place for you and make Heaven sweet and ready for you some would have all Christs coming here but there is some hereafter SECT III. BEcause the love of Jesus Christ never fails his Churches and People love will keep men from being ever absent from the thing they love Now look as it was with Lazarus whom Christ loved Iohn 11. 3. he heard that he was sick he could have come then but he lingers and stays until he be dead behold Lazarus is dead yea till he had been four days dead and then awakens him again and Lazarus must come forth of his grave to shew forth the everlasting love of the Son of God vers 4. For there are two things in Christ's love first it is pure independant and dear Prov. 8. penult hence he will not ever be absent for 1. If it be dependant then we might say as we change he changeth he was good but we have provoked him since c. 2. If independant yet 't is apt to forget he minds me not nor my prayers nor sorrows Yes it is exceeding dear and assures us of all if he in love came to suffer what will he not come to do and that when the Church is most withered Zach. 3. 1 2 3. and hence saith the Lord why sayâ—st thou the Lord hath forsaken me and forgotten me when written upon the palms of my hand Isa. 48. 14. Lest their spirit fail Oh the Lord is very tender of that he that bids parents not to be bitter to their children lest their spirits fail and be provoked will not do it himself Isa. 57. 17. he will not always contend lest the spirit fail within him and the souls that he hath made Oh remember this now how apt is the spirit of a childe of God to fail upon this what more bitter than Gods absence Because to come late is many times the best time for he comes ever in the fulness of time if he should come sooner or latter he should not come in season to his people Of unspeakable consolation to the people of God that lie under sad and heavy perplexities in respect of the Lords absence from them as for you that can bear this that say to God depart if he will this concerns not you at all and the Lord being gone you lye under sad thoughts that he will never return again yes you have now heard he will come and return again Say unto Sion behold your God cometh Object But what when I have been secure and careless withal Answ. Yes though the Virgins sleep yet the Lord will come to them for if his love did depend upon your watchfulness he might never return onely it may be longer as to these and he will awaken you some time before he doth come and truly to mourn for his absence is to awaken with him Object But it hath been thus long before the Lord come and therefore he will never come Answ. Though long yet you see he comes at last to them first the cry says so and then he comes Ministers tell you so and it is not long after nay then is the very time when so long as you look not for him as here to these SECT IV. Object BUt I know it not Answ. God keeps his best blessings and persumes them long in his own hand from his own children as Isaac David Abraham Heman Christ but it is best you know it not Hast thou been seeking the Lord for his presence that the Lord would but see and consider thee a little until thine eyes fail thee and do you think the Lord will ever forget I tell thee if Peter were in Prison prayers would deliver him and fetch Angels from Heaven to him though the Church of God lay desolate sins great yet the prayer of Daniel shall bring down words of command to make all up again If thou be in any want be careful in nothing c. He asked thee life thou gavest him long life for ever and ever nay when thou â—easest thy prayers have their cry when thy mouth when thy heart speaks not for prayers are not dead things but living begotten out of a living Spirit from a living God presented by a
living Mediator who takes them and presents them Heb. 7. and though unclean yet being laid on that Altar they become holy Object Oh but I am fed with nothing but promises I cannot deny them but I feel them not I think I shall never meet the Lord Isa. 55. 10. Look as the rain on the dry yeelds fruit so my word shall give you joy and peace and the desire of your heart c. Can a man live by promises Answ. Hezekiah saith by these things i. e. afflictions do men live why not by promises the words Christ speaketh they are Spirit and life David did 2 Sam. 23. 5. Heb. 10. The just shall live by his faith and if my man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him i. e. wholly It is admirable how the Israelites had a promise of the land and many wars must they have and yet Iosh. 23. 14 15. Not one thing hath failed of all that the Lord hath promised So say I to you Obj. Oh but I have been long in trouble and have bad no pâ—ace Ans. Hast thou been longer than David whose moysture was dryed up who hath nothing to present before the Lord Psal. 6. but weakness and bones vexed verse 2. a soul vexed verse 3. and that long weary with groâ—ning vers 6. tears in the night when others are at rest his eyes consumed with grief and yet verse 8 9. The Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping and prayer too sorrows cry and sins cry also and hence he saith Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity c. Object But I am so weak my heart so streitned so little light and life and seeking I have been for more and find it not Answ. If Christ's presence be sweet and his absence bitter that you seek not more for your lusts sake than the Lords sake then know that the Lord will return again as verily as he is gone he will not leave thee comfortless you shall have that is fit for you to keep you humble and faithful it may be one Sermon may do more good than twenty Ioh. 1. 50. Dâ—st believe because I saw thee under the figtree thou shalt see greater things than these God hath greater things to shew thee if the Lord hath translated thee into the Kingdom of his dear son hence it is said of the encrease of his government and peace there shall be no end Isa. 9. 7. Object But enemies may opposeus Answ. Let it be so but what if the Lord be with you Object But he is gone Answ. No the Lord will either come before trouble to deliver you from it as Asa when a troop came against him 2 Chron. 15. 11. let not man prevail against thee Asa had wrapt God about him cloathed himself with the majesty of God by faith Isa. 54. penult They shall together and shall come against thee but they shall not prosper because the Lord is come or if he doth stay yet he will give them some blood and come upon them for your blood he that sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed but such as shed Churches blood by God shall their blood be shed The souls under the Altar shall cry and then comes wo he will do so in Germany if there have been Churches blood shed he is making way for glorious deliverance when God shall come and the wicked shall melt away as wax Lucifer must fall though lifted up with pride David was troubled with a Saul and a Doeg Psal. 54. but God shall pull them up by the roots c. many of Gods Servants lye under reproaches and revilings and the wicked boast of their sin God shall pluck them up by the roots never to grow again Hypocrites lie hid for a time but all the Churches shall know that the Lord is a God that searcheth the hearts Luk. 12 1. Psal. 12. 5 3. No good man left but some men of deceit and flattery some Apostares c. We are in fear in this Country of enemies we came hither to shelter our selves under the wings of God left our comforts for it here we are at his posts it is not honors we seek and now it may be enemies are plotting or will be coming to take us unawares when weak and so run away with the spoil unless we will be bond-men to our former yoke it may be the Lord will help then Ezek. 38. 10 20. to the end If not it may be the Lord will refine us more and purge away our dross and discover men that came hither for Ordinances and for peace sake and betray the Ordinances yet the Lord will come and his blow shall ruine them especially if his awake not at his cry Isa. 25. 9 10. it shall be said when the terrible ones are blasts Lo this is our God and in this mount shall the hand of the Lord come Object But still my sin conâ—â—nues Answ. The Church in the Revelations when they have all things yet are absent from the Lord and sin before the Lord makes them say Oh come Lord Iesus saith Christ Behold I come quickly Christ will come at last and for ever comfort you and be with you and you ever with the Lord this coming to be sure shall be and what then though you walk through the vail of the shadow of death the Lord is with you and him that is the glory of Saints the joy of Angels the rest and delight of God whom all ends of the earth have looked unto shalt thou see with those eyes and be with him for ever and then shall he give thee double for all thy sorrows sins temptations when every one else shall leave thee and shall rejoyce and glory in thee that ever he hath got thee and as he said he will then serve thee Luk. 12. Oh his coming would swallow up all our sorrows Christ tells them of nothing but this Ioh. 14. I wonder at Christians that are sadded at losses and evils here Why the Lord will come SECT V. Quest. HOw shall I know whether the Lord will come or no Answ. 1. If the Lord ever hath or doth make this the rest and stay of thy heart not only for righteousness but for all fulness of comfort and that not onely to thy conscience but to thy heart and will for many rest on Christ for righteousness but what comforts their hearts they joy in other things and are greedy after things in the world c. Now as a man that rests on Christ for righteousness he abhors all other righteousness so if a Christian rest on Christ for consolation you will deny all other things to comfort you also Ier. 17. 5 6. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man he shall not see when good comes Psal. 22. 1. Oh Lord why hast thou forsaken me I â—ust in thee our father 's trusted in thee and were delivered Yes but not you that are so poor and vile True I am so in the
is an end of it then a man is stript naked of all his greatness and honor friends blessings and when a man sees an end and is come to an end of a sinful way now all a mans delights and hopes perish the beginning of a sinful course is sweet and beautiful like pictures seen afar off beautiful but the end is gal and woormwood for every sinful secure course is sweet in appearance or indeed if only in hope and conception as in a dream when the end comes all a mans hopes perish If indeed it hath been sweet now there 's the more grief now my heart my life my blood must be taken from me and what profit is there now in this my stubborn way when a man is sinking and the boat is breaking what a miserable wretch now Lord help hence Ezek. 7. 3 6. when an end is come now they fling their silver in the streets Oh the stumbling-block of mine iniquity verse 18 19. now they shall seek peace and shall not find it verse 25. now they shall seek a vision of the Prophet verse 26. Like a man that is drawn into a fair way and is out of that his way when he comes to an end and is forsaken of all and left in a wood now what 's the profit Because at his coming there is the entrance and passage into eternity and into an eternal state of weal or wo now though the apprehension of the end of a secure sinful way may and will awaken yet when eternity is apprehended it will amaze for this time is but a little spring or river which runs into eternity and carries all men living down with it to eternity Now when men see an end of time and the beginning of eternity and themselves posting thereto it is as when a man sees himself floating upon the waters where there 's no bottom and all stay gone though he hath been long secure now he will cry out if he sees it It is with men now as it is with those that are ready to be cast down from some Towr it makes the heart tremble oh where shal I alight oh it 's impossible but if men do apprehend eternity and that also near unto them but it will awaken them it will make a stout stony-hearted Saul to run to Urim it will make Kings and Princes run to Monasteries and men to Cells and Deserts It will make the proudest Felix tremble when Paul reasons of Judgement to come It 's usually the first thing that doth awaken the people of God eternity doth amaze them and them that have fallen to all â—asciviousness Oh eternity Because of the terror at the coming of the Lord Revel 6. ult to them that be unprovided and unprepared hence it is and will be when an evil is near fear will flie out Men as men will do it unless they be walking blocks and bruits For 1. Then they are to stand naked before the Lord so great and holy 2. Then they shall have all their sins set in order Psal. 50. 21. and especially those secret sins which they never saw and whereby they did perfect their own perdition 3. Then the final sentence past never to be recalled again and they shall know it for if there might be a day to repent then some hope but if not oâ— this awakens 4. Then to be surrendred up into the hands of Devils to be kept by that Jaylor in Prison 1 Pet. 3. 19. until the coming of the great day and so to be kept in their custody and to be in their fellowship looking back and mourning for time mis-spent looking to time to come shortly to meet my body and then to be parted for ever from the Lord oh when this evil is apprehended it will awaken a man to search and look about him SECT III. HEnce see a great cause of the deep and long security of many a man and that in Virgin-Churches under all awakening means Ordinances and Providences of God men put far from them this day of death and time of Christs coming they think seldom of it come not near to it nor make it near to them sometime they complain of a dead sluggish spirit secure heart and yet remain so and wonder sometime at the reason of it why it shou'd be so why this is one reason of it either you think not of this coming of the Lord or see it not near even at the door but number many days to your selves and this is the cause of it you do not lodge in nay look to your Coffins and walk to your graves side often and so stand there and hear the cry and see the Lord a coming there will be more in what I say than what you see at first blush of this truth but this I know and the Word proves it universal security ariseth from hence As for instance 1. Why do men minde the things of the world so much that there is such care for them such eager desire after them that many times prayer is neglected Sabbaths neglected when will they be at an end God neglected Souls of wife children servants a mans own soul neglected and overgrown with nettles that there is such an high opinion dreams of worldly goods and when a man hath them then at rest because with the glutton they think they have goods for many a year and hence we shall see when a man waketh death is near to him and when it is near to a man now he thinks he hath been deceived in all the things of the world that they are not good for him 1 Cor. 7. 29. The time is short and the fashion of the world passeth away Nothing makes these things so sought after and good but only esteem now this is because men look only to things present 2. Why do mens hearts sink with the meanness of their outward condition and the troubles of it for this is security it is because of this they do not remember the nearness of the coming of the Lord it is but a little while longer and then the God I have chosen will alone be sweet and he will make me amends for all my troubles and therefore let me bear up my head a little while Psal. 39. when Davids heart began to be troubled by seeing others prosperity his own misery Lord saith he make me to know my end and the measure of my days mine age is as an hand breadth hence ver 7. Lord what hope I for truly my hope is in thee 3. Why are men puâ—t up with their own excellencies and filled with such pride and high conceâ—â—s of themselves sometimes of their beauty sometimes of their apparel sometime their friends sometime their esteem and they value themselves much by this men consider not the coming of the Lord which shall stain the pride of all glory Isa. 23. 8. and that this time is near 4. Why do people complain they cannot prize the Lord or his Ordinances as
eternity this shall be their glory even an everlasting name unto them better than the name of Sons and Daughters when the wicked shall see them all at the right hand of God and gnash their teeth that themselves are shut out when the Lord and his Saints shall take infinite delight one in another Luk. 12. 37. SECT III. Quest. 4. WHy is this a Christians glory excellency and honor Answ. 1. In regard of the baseness of other things wherein men do use to glory the wise man in his wisdom the strong man in his strength the rich man in his wealth There are Three things which make these base First These things make a man not the more to be accepted of God the Lord respects not values not the worth of any man by these things and to make all the world know this he staineth the pride of all glory and chuseth the poor and foolish things of the world to confound the wise a wise man will never respect the horse the more because it carries store of rich treasures he will not fall down and reverence it for this hang Swine about with pearls who honors them the more and will a wise God respect a man the more for these things 1 Pet. 3. 5. What is that that is of great price with God Holiness is of great price with God And what though all the world honor a man and a man honoreth himself while this is wanting Secondly All these things leave a man dead under the reign of Satan power of his sin and dominion of death and hence Ier. 9. 24. Let no man glory in his wisdom c. Death is entred into your windows take any bondman bound with fetters though golden doth any man account him the more glorious a Prince that is made a vassal and slave to every base fellow is he the more glorious no So whiles men lye under the reign of death stick a man that is dead with flowers what is he the more glorious alas no! his life is gone now the Spirit of holiness is called the Spirit of life even of the life that never shall dye Rom. 8. And therefore as it is said of a Flye there is more excellency in a Gnat than in a Cedar than in the glorious heaven because it hath life which the other hath not so though men wonder at the goodly trappings of wicked men yet the poorest and most despised Christian that hath the Spirit of life is more glorious Thirdly Because these things only purchase the more credit and honor in the eyes of men and that of wicked men for 1 Cor. 5. 10. We know no man after the flesh if they do it is that which they account themselves beasts and fools for as David did Psal. 73. And what is the honor of man it is the bâ—sest thing that is for it is that which is without a man it is no excellency within the man it is but the thoughts of a mans head and heart than which what more vain what more mutable nay 't is but the dreams of a mans head for they are mistakes If all the town should dream another was a King who yet were indeed a Beggar which when they awake they see what were he the better for this Paul 2 Cor. 11. 23. how he doth glory in priviledges which were better and more goodly hangings than theseâ— this saith he I speak as a fool and what be these a Christians glory no surely Answ. 2. Because that is a Christians glory which is Christs glory First It is that glory wherein the glory of Christ consists Psal. 45. 2. Thou art fairer than the children of meâ— full of grace is thy lips and 2 Cor. 3. ult into the same image from glory to glory Indeed Christ's greatness in governing the world is his glory but it is because it is mixt with such holiness Isa. 6. 1 2 3. Phil. 2. 8 9. he humbled himself and this hath given him a name and shall be his name for ever this is that which makes the Lord Jesus lovely and amiable in the eyes of all his people Revâ— 15. 4. Who would not fear thee or thou onely art holy and so he is for all the stars receive their light and shine with it by this Sun only and so the more a Christian excels in this the more like he is to Jesus Christ and so more glorious and lovely Secondly This is that which gives him glory â— e. so far as creatures can which is to manifest it and hence 2 Cor. 8. 23. which is the glory of Christ and hence Isa. 46 13. Israel is called the glory of the Lord Isa. 62. 2 3. the righteous is called the glory and crown and diadâ—m in the hand of the Lord and as God is better than the Soul so this viz. to glorifie the Lord is better than to be glorified by the Lord. SECT IV. HEnce see one reason why men lose their honor their love and respect in the eyes of God and men their judgements are not revereâ—â—ed their persons not accepted their names and practises despised this is one reason among the rest a decay in holiness the lamp is defiled the light and lustre of it going out and who will reverence it then 't is admirable to see the complaints abroad First Look but into Families what is the reason there is so much discontent there that Servants are weary of their Masters Masters of their Servants and there is such complaints one of another little respect one of another it is for want of holiness power and life of godliness the Master saith the Servant is unruly froward surly flothful unfaithful untrusty and must not be spoken to the Servant saith his Master is passionate unkinde wants pity to his body and sometimes strikes him without cause and much more careless of his soul never instructs him but is eaten up with the world c. truly this is the cause It seems the Lord wrought upon divers in Primitive times and the Apostle gives Servants an item that they may glorifie God and adorn the Gospel of the Lord Iesus how came Ioseph into â—oâ—iphar's books oh he was very holy and very prudent and I le warrant did his Masters work better when his Master was absent than before and prayed for success in his business as Abraham's Servant Look but upon Husband and Wife it is strange to see what divisions and jars there and what 's the cause of it Wife doth not honor Husband nor Husband honor Wife how comes this oh there is little holiness seen in their private walking one with another the woman thought the man godly had I known this I would have seen you a hundred miles off c. the man also he complains of his wife I see now I am like to be troubled with a continual dropping a very fury of hell so impatient and the next neighbor hears of it nothing can please her what 's the reason of
this your sin makes your shame and there 's the want of holiness 1 Pet. 3. 3. man might be conveâ—ted by the Wife and the Wife by the Husband not that it is always so but usually so Secondly Look into Churches what is the reason people lose their honor much in the hearts of Ministers he respects others but not me and sometimes they think now he strikes at me and meaneth me and then the heart swells c. what 's the reason that Paul professeth he will come with a rod among the Corinthians they were babes and carnal and contentious and puâ—t up little love and life and what 's the reason he sets out the Thessalonians so 1 Thess. 1. 5. because of this they did abound and hence commended of all Saints hence want of growth and holiness they travel in birth till Christ be formed and when they cannot see that hence they are in throws for you what 's the reason Ministers lose their glory among people I confess 't is not always for decay here for Iohn in prison did not lose his holiness and hence when they despised him Christ commended him and his reward was with the Lord it was not a testimony of his unholiness but a fore-râ—nner of the end of his days as well as of the end of his work and hence when all Asia forsook Paul 2 Tim. 4. 16. it was the time of his departing now at hand But that which is the cause of it many times is want of holiness within and hence though men fee not yet the Lord will not give a false testimony nor let men do so hence neither judgements nor their speeches reverenced or because men see not the ancient Spirit of holiness hence no mourning for them in secret no holiness in speeches they smell of the field not walking as patterns before them Mal. 2. 8 9. not caring for the fâ—ock which Christ hath purchased with his own blood What 's the reason there is that complaint of want of love one man to another one member to another who are bound by covenant to it such jars divisions c. Truly nothing makes so firm an union between man and man as holiness and grace this tieth the knot and it is not holiness hid but now seen it not being seen hence comes all your breaches its impossible else such small things should make it Oh a tender heart and the life of Christ is not indeed seen a holy man exact shall never want love that in every company scatters something that like Christ goes up and down doing good healing the diseases of mens hearts there 's a man I could dye with him in my very bosom I am perswaded the decay of holiness in the lives of men is the cause why Sanctification is questioned as an evidence of Justification and hence division Thirdly Look abroad into the world what is the reason the Churches lye among the pots and are soiled with so many disgraces that though we be the people of the Lord yet we are not called so why jaâ—s divisions earthliness want of love and mercy murmurings loss of former life When Jews are shining with the glory of God Kings and all Nations shall bring in their glory to them Oh consider this sin doth make you vile in Gods eyes and mans eyes Many complain they cannot be respected nor received this is the cause of it you excell not here others take notice of your unrighteousness unholiness of life there 's some evil in their bargaining and buying and ill language from the people of God Oh therefore go home and lament this as she The glory of God is departed from Israel so do you here SECT V. HEnce see when the Lord doth honor us to do his work what little cause there is to seek honor of men nay though all the worlds glory be taken from you because it is honor enough to do the Lords work would you have more honor than Christ this was his beauty glory and honor God hath an everlasting name for you though you have disgrace by it nay though no success yet Isa. 49. 5. glorious in the Lords eye Oh it was a sweet course of Barak Iudg. 4. 9. thou shalâ— lose honor that 's all one said she Let me do the Lords work though it be in a difficult work of pursuing the Lords enemies what profit have you on the other side when you seek it in your pitchers what company c. this was Sauls sin 1 Sam. 15. 30. Oh worship and honor me nevertheless this time before the people it 's his reward and it 's the Devils sin to be puft up this pull'd down Nebuchadnezar Herod was smote with worms because he gave not glory to God but took it to himself it was a heavy speech to Eli 1 Sam. 2. 29. Because thou honorest thy sons above me this and that I will do unto thee Nay though men are so holy as to honor God with their lips yet God will blast the wisdom of the wise for it Oh therefore let this be enough and then you will not hunger after other honor for this is glory and honor enough and you have thought so when your selves Oh if I may but honor the Lord it is enough Hence see what little cause any wicked man hath to lift up his head with any glory he hath because the spirit of holiness beauty and glory is departed from them as when the Soul is departed from the body its glory and beauty is departed from them it 's withered and therefore we shall read in Scripture what names the Lord gives them as Dogs Swine Serpents a generation of vipers painted Sepulchres Devils in the time of the greatest profession as Iudas Ioh. 6. Wilde beasts and that in the greatest outward glory and hence the four Monarchies of the world are resembled to such beasts Bears Leopards c. Thus for their persons And as for their actions all they do is unclean and ignoble and hence compared to Thistles that cannot bring forth Figs or Grapes and hence Solomon compares them As jewels in a Swines snout so is a parable in the mouth of a fool it becomes them not it 's abomination in the sight of God all that which they do though glorious before men and at last day they shall rise up to everlasting contempt and it is said Isa. 66. ult their worm shall never dye and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh though they may carry it out fair for a time the fairest professors that by their Sorceries and enchantments deceive the people shall be filled with shame and as the Magicians were smitten with sores they could not stand before Moses being smitten with sores so you shall not be able to stand before the Lord at the last day and look as it is with Christ and his people their cross and shame here it is but their preparation to their crown and hence when Christ was put to the
Lord and the affections once he had but he knows it not God did enlighten him but now he is blinding of him he did affect him but he is now benumming of him he did make him tender but not he is making his heart fat he did make him low in his own eyes as Saul but when a King then puâ—t up so God is swelling of him but this is most grievous he knows it not Isa. 6. If a man did know his lamp were going out he might seek as these for it and possibly find it but now no hope unless the Lord help as we see men wounded and falling they are astonished at the blow that they know it not and may die unless those about them dress them and send to and fro for help for them so it is with many men are so stupifled with some blows of their lusts that unless Christian friends exhort admonish and send their prayers and tears to heaven to the Lord no hope of recovery again and whether the Lord will be entreated is hard to say surely it is rare and yet thus it is 1 Ioh. 5. sometimes if it be not a sin unto death but in a Brother grace will fetch help but if the man never had grace and now fell without feeling there 's little hope if a man can feel no sun rising upon him nor yet how the day goes away whether the Sun be setting or no it argues miserable carelesness or miserable blindness and that the man is in darkness so here Secondly What will become of them that were never cast down so low as these that never came to be so good as Hypocrites For 1. You were born and have lived not only in a sinful estate but in a Christless estate dead without all life every part of thee polluted 2. If the Lord doth draw any out of this estate he will make you know what poor creatures you be that you shall say I thought I had been thus and thus but I see I am wretched I thought I should be saved but now I am condemned so that your mouth shall be stopped Rom. 3. 21. else you would never come to the Lord to your Fathers house and prize the grace of God if any husks to live upon now 3. You never knew this never came to complain to any Christian Oh my oyl is spent my lamp is out Christ and Spirit and all good is gone no you think your selves rich and want nothing you have some knowledge restraint of good affections and full of these The Lord will spue you out his mouth if it is thus with you Nay although you have means and hear of it yet all the world cannot make you know your nakedness misery sin and emptiness Well if the Lord doth not set up a Judgement-Seat now you shall be called before it one day and then your secrets shall be made manifest before all the world and because you say you see therefore your sin remains so say I to you You never did contemn God nor hate God c. therefore your contempt remains if it be there Christ will discover it and so remove it but is it not so â— therefore you sin remains SECT III. HEnce see the deceit of that sinful opinion That true Sanctification is to see I have no Sanctification and cleaness of heart to see nothing but uncleanness and that this is poverty of Spirit to see no grace in a mans self nor no Christ there and this not only hathâ—been but it seems is scattered still which as it is pleasing to many a graceless heart and suitable to his lust so it carries a fair cloak of Humility and Self-denial in it and makes way for such an Evidence which the Scripture did never yet declare Poverty of Spirit is a Grace peculiar to them that shall have the Kingdom of Heaven But to see no Grace is common to those that shall be shut out of the Kingdom of heaven none but those that are justified can be savingly sanctified many that shall be condemned may see do see that they have no Sanctification And therefore this is no Sanctification 1. If this be Poverty of Spirit to see no Grace then Common-grace is Special-grace peculiar to the Elect as true Poverty is 2. Then it is a grace of the Spirit of God to maintain an untruth and to give the holy Ghost the lye for where there is Poverty there is Grace and Christ. 3. Then the Grace of Poverty of Spirit should be quite contrary to the Spirit of Grace which makes us know the things given us of God but this poverty of Spirit makes us not to know them at all Yet many will profess this true Poverty of spirit and this is true Sanctification indeed First It is true where there was never any of the Grace of Christ but men have run upon Reformation without Christ and affection c. there men are bound to see their black feet and happy is the heart that can pull off every feather from such crests but where it is and the Lord hath given evidence thereby according to his Word now to deny it is devilish for it was he that said Iob did not serve God for nought and is a lye of which he was the Father and is great unthankfulness to the Spirit for what he hath done Secondly If there be no Grace in a Christian nor Spirit but all in Christ then say it upon the house tops and be not ashamed of it men must see nothing because they have nothing otherwise let this delusion rot and never find acceptance in holy hearts and yet how many still describe an Hypocrite by all the Graces of the Spirit Faith receiving Christ as King Priest and Prophet c. and so are clean creatures and upright men by seeing nothing in themselves contrary to Christ Ioâ— 13. You are clean but not all Thirdly It is true a gracious heart is apt to deny all the Lord hath done for him yet the Lord likes not this as Calvin thinks Peter did Lord hands and feet and all no saith the Lord thou art clean in head and all but thy feet and hence needs no washing but in that And what more frequent than this sin but to make what is sinful a duty this is to turn day into night and night into day to call evil good and bitter sweet SECT IV. Quest. 1. BVâ— doth not the Lord bring every man to see nothing in himself Answ. Yes that the Lord doth in preparing him for Christ or in drawing him toward Christ but it is where there is nothing neither poverty or any other grace Quest. 2. But is not this poverty of spirit or do not those that are poor in spirit see nothing Answ. 1. In regard of their unregenerate part which the longer they live the more they feel of the evil of it and so the more poor they grow they see no good there and so account themselves the most miserable
by reason of a slothful heart is a dangerous thing as many a man hath a rich stock and a good trade and yet thrives not Oh he is not careful to keep nor diligent to improve but is idle so here Oh consider the wrath of God! In extremity usually the Lord hears and helps his poor people but it shall be far from the Lord when others shall say Lord help no let others tears and prayers be regarded no what Lord not in extremity no not in extremity SECT IV. THat it is not in the hand of the most eminent Christians to dispence the Grace of Christ to whom and when and where they will Not in all separably nor in all joyntly it is not in all the wise Virgins hands together It is not in the hands of a whole Church or all Churches to do this These poor foolish Virgins it may be they did not in their judgments think thus however in their practice they now trust to this But these answer It is not in us It is not in Moses to give his spirit to whom he would but the Lord Numb 11. 17. It is not in Paul nor Apollos the one deep in wisdom the other admirable in expression but in God who gives the commission to fetch the whole world in 1 Cor. 3. 5 6. It is not in Christ as Man to give to one to sit at his right hand or left It is not in the hands of the best Parents It is not in the wills of all men living Ioh. 1. 13. SECT V. BEcause they have but their measure received wholly and dependent wholly from another answerable to their own necessities therefore it is not in their freedom but in the hands of him who hath received it without measure Iohn 3. 34 35. but the Father hath put all things into his hands as it is in stars one star doth not give light to another but the Sun to all having received it without measure comparatively so one Spring doth not beget another but it is in the Sea which hath water without measure from whence they come and return again Because all the Saints and all the fellowship of God's people it is but a means or they are but instruments in the hands of Christ to convey Grace now you know all instruments act and work according to the will of the principal agent as it is not in the axes hand to cut down one tree for fuel another for building but in the agents hand especially if the instrument be weak and powerless and such are the people of God 1 Cor. 1. 29. they are poor things and weak things and nothings things that are not 2 Cor. 3. 5. not so much as to think any thing of themselves It is not in the people of God as it is in salves that there is an inherent vertue abiding alway to heal and that in any man which is cureable but there is only an adherent vertue which doth not alway abide and when it is there works not upon all but only at the pleasure of the principal Agent the Lord Jesus those means which providence hath put an inherent vertue into cannot bless but as the Lord will meat cannot nourish sometimes muchless can these without the will of another hence Ephes. 4. 16. the Saints are edified by this but from Christ still In regard of the greatness of the power and honor that is required to dispence the Grace of God and the Spirit of Grace which the Church is not capable of First Knowledge of the Elect the Spirt of Grace which accompanies Salvation shall never be given to any but to them Rom. 11. 7. the election have obtained it hence they must be known first to them that have power to dispence it now that they cannot tell indeed Paul by seeing the 〈…〉 forth knew the election of the Thessalonians 1 Thess. 1. 4. but not 〈◊〉 he could not say This man I will give grace unto and not to that a Minister as Paul Acts 18. 10. may in general know that there is some people in such a place at least probably but who they be he knows not no more than Samuel who knew one of Iesses Sons was to be King but not one whom he liked but whom the Lord did chuse and hence a Minister calls all because he knows not who they be only some are called because Christ knew and therefore in his hand it is Secondly The power must be omnipotent both to lay the foundation and to go on with the building now that cannot be put forth by a poor finite creature when it will but when the Lord will a Minister may preach and quicken a Christian may exhort and comfort and yet they may hear and meet again twenty times and never find the like day because their weapons are only mighty through God 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. Thirdly Shedding of blood dying and bearing wrath to purchase and so to have the Spirit to send for the Spirit of Grace could never be given nor encreased nor continued in any had not blood first purchased this our sins are said to be healed by blood and we cleansed from them by it i. e. by the Spirit purchased by it Heb. 9. 14. Blood sprinkled purifies your consciences with blood i. e. the vertue of blood applied by the Spirit If any of the Saints shed blood for the Church to redeem it then they have power to convey the Spirit of Grace to the Church and it is as hard to convey one dram of Grace as to dye SECT VII HEnce we may see the glory and excellency of the Lord Jesus above all men nay above all the best men and best Chruches living ask David whom he loves and honors most he will tell you Psal. 15. 4. He despiseth a vile person and honors them that fear the Lord and that Christian that is most excellent had all his heart ask any Christian to what men his heart is most knit and whom he doth most of all honor if he sees one man in forty most holy most humble most like to God most acquainted with God and the mind of God a Paul for wisdom a David for brokenness of spirit an Abrâ—ham for Faith a Steven for courage and zeal c. their very feet are beautiful their very names are an alablaster-box broken up And why doth he thus Because he sees they are holy and like to God Oh but consider they cannot make thee holy it is not in their liberty though they should like thee they cannot teach thee one truth savingly thou hast a rugged heart they cannot polish thee and wilde they cannot tame it they cannot convey one dram or taste or savor of the life of Grace to thee Oh if these be lovely who only have oyl in their vessels though they can give none for thee What is the Lord Jesus then who is not only holy fairer than the children of men having all without measure but
can also make thee holy which none of the Saints can who not only is good and holy but doth good and makes holy Thou lookest sometimes upon Saints and seest their grace and life and mournest for want of it keepest company with them and wishest thou hadst their oyl but they cannot help thee to it Oh look up to the Lord If thou lovest and prizest them oh prize and love the Lord much more who hath it in his hands to give it unto thee who like a Spring sends not forth its streams to refresh it self but the weary but the faint Isa. 50. 4. who like 〈…〉 sends not his beams out to enlighten it self but 〈…〉 which sit in dâ—â—â—ness might see and blind might know Ioâ— 9. 49. Ioh. 17. for their sakes I sanctifie my self he hath an humble meek spirit to give to thâ—e that art proud and sturdy he can make a Lion a Lamb who hath a wise and heavenly Spirit to teach thee that art simple and thee that art earthly if his good pleasure will SECT VII DO not say I have found good from them as well as seen Grace in them 〈◊〉 I blessed God that ever I saw or spake with them or ever saw 〈…〉 c. I answer Know it that they were but powerless instruments 〈…〉 of a merciful yet powerful Christ otherwise thou hadst never 〈…〉 from any Christian any Minister any Sermon the Lord Jesus 〈…〉 have used them as means to have condemned thee as he did 〈…〉 and Noahs example by which he condemned the world as well as to have called thee or done the least good to thee therefore this still 〈…〉 upon Christ above all others in the world all the Saints and Ministers in the world could not have changed one hair from being black to white noâ—â—â— all their cares for thee added one cubit to thy stature Oh it was the Lord 〈◊〉 if they have any pity the Lord put in them if they ever spake one word or made one prayer the Lord put it in them if blessed it is by him Now dost thou honor and love them because they have done thy soul good else thou hadst been in hell Oh admire the Lord much more for they were but set on work by him and now they have done thee good there is a stop they can go no further you think I did receive good by a little while being with such Christians but now when thou comest hither again thou thinkest it may be thou shalt receive much more no their hands and feet may be bound those Conduit-cocks cannot turn themselves Oâ— but Jesus Christ he can go on nay he will go until he hath made thee like unto his own self and hence 1 Ioh. 3. 2. then we shall be like him now we be sons children though born of poor men yet love their poor father that begat them Who gave you your being who begat you to God and so made you sons of God Oh methinks the Lord that did this should be precious and lovely that you should call the world to wonder at it that the Lord hath made an incarnate Devil a blessed Angel But thou hast a vile heart still Oh but you shall be like him he will make you like himself at the last day who is brighter than Angels and whose face is fairer than the children of men only he will do it by little and little here rather by causing thee to feel thy vileness than removing it wholly Therefore as the Apostle Gal. 4 9. when they were turned from the Gospel to Mosaical observances he calls them weak and beggarly rudiments which had no power of themselves to convey Grace not at best in that abundance which the Gospel did so say I do you now know the Lord who did not once know him and do you now admire and love Chirstians and others if they do good especially to you and do you refuse to honor the Lord but look only upon beggarly weak means and Christians God forbid it is the Lord only that can enrich you c. 2 Cor. 3. If the ministration of condemnation was glorious oh what is the ministration of the Spirit if those which have the Spirit be glorious what is the Lord that not only hath it but can also give it and make you like unto him in glory and that by the very beholding of him vers ult If a man had such a glass which not only gave him the sight of some dear friend always but as oft as he looked in it makes him like unto him how would he prize this glass but especially the image of his friend in it so Christ is not only glorious but he thereby makes himself glorious SECT VIII Object DO not say the Lord can do this but he will not Saints would if they could Answ. 1. You do not know but that he will do it when Christ was here on earth and men were sick though their friends willed their good yet I doubt not but Christ was most glorious because though they knew not that he would yet they knew that he might heal and pity and if it were for his honor he would 2. Pray to him for it and do it he will pour water on the thirsty and give the Spirit and water of life to them that ask Do not think you seek in vain especially if your cryes arise from a sick heart that sin is thy disease not torment onely it is not thy delight you need a Physitian he will not heal you if it is not your temper your food c. If a man hath a mind to a thing and another denies him he will not see less beauty then than he did before if you have a mind Christ hath a mind also Obj. But I do not feel the Lord giving me the Spirit Answ. Yet if you prize it and reach after it the Lord hath done this for you SECT IX TO all the Servants of the Lord if ever you did any good to any Oh boast not of your selves but carry the glory of it to the Lord Jesus as he said the Lord doth good by me but I know no reason why So add also but I wonder at the manner how a poor weak dead nothing whose unclean heart and lips might have made others worse not better as infection sticking to the best garments Act. 3. 12 13. Why stand ye looking on us be it known to you by the name of Iesus it is that which is done when Christ was known to heal all diseases all the Country round about by this fame of him came to him and so he healed them this will bring in customers to Christ Some Christians are very forward to speak to others to let in some new notion or to convert that they may make an Absoloms pillar afterward and that they might report I did this some take content in speaking of conversion of others that I did this Let your works praise you but let your tongue praise Christ
it was the Lord that did this If bread could speak it would say it is not I that feed and fire not I that warm You can speak tell others so you would fain be accounted some body and therefore will devise new Gospels and mint new notions that not only Christ may be pleased but men may say this I received of such a one that their names might be spoken of The Theif takes the sheep for himself a good Shepheard carries it home to his owner SECT X. OH then do not rest in this that you have now got to partake of the fellowship of Gods people I confess next to fellowship with God their fellowship is best and most sweet 1 Ioh. 1. 3 4. and nothing more powerful to preserve and keep Gods people from Apostacy than this Col. 2. 5. order and stedfastness in faith are coupled they that be planted in the Courts of the Lord shall flourish here nothing encreasing Grace more Col. 2. 19. when many eyes to see by many hands to help work by When a man sinned if one or two men only took up stones to stone the sinner it may be they might miss or the man live but when there be many it is strange if it doth not kill so out of fellowship of the people of God one may admonish then another and it may be he can shift but here there be many c. 2 Cor. 2. 7. When a mans life is going away in a swoon if one or two be there present only he may never recover but when one rubs another chafes another holds him another runs and fetches hot water for him it is a hundred to one but he escapes But yet as the best means if neglected or trusted to will make men worse as Capernaâ—m was worse for Christ's preaching which they boasted of so the best means if not trusted to will make men better as it is with some Extracts and Spirits they will make quick work one way or other 1. If ever you see or receive any good look to the Lord in them 1 Sam. 10. 11 12. who is their father 2. If ever you look to receive any look to the Lord that by them he may convey help and succor in his time SECT XI Quest. HOw shall I get that good Ans. 1. Feel your need of their fellowship and their help you will then be getting good by every example every prayer 1 Cor. 12. the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of thee Oh be not full for God hath not made you so full but if you be an eye you need the foot c. David knew more than the Levites did yet how did he long to see God and the goings of God in the Sanctury Paul did need the mutual comfort of Christians it was a strange thing in Paul when he was to carry money to others yet he beseecheth them Oh pray for me Rom. 15. 30 31. Do not say only I feel a need of Sacraments or Ministry but I need the prayers the counsel the examples the exhortation of the meanest Christian. Secondly Be sure you joyn your selves to living Christians that is not only such as have Grace but such as are lively in the use and exercise of it for those God sanctifies especially to communicate Grace to you if a living hand be knit to a dead arm sure little good will it receive from it Rom. 1. 12. a lively believing Christian will comfort Paul and an humble Christian will humble This is the very reason why Christians do not get good because their hearts are dead and their fellowship with God little and hence others despise them and withdraw from them Thirdly Love them dearly a man will never get good from any Christian that he despiseth or slighteth as it is with a man if his hand would have life from the head set it in his place and let not it be tied outwardly but united as a member and then it receives it and hence it edifies it self in love so by love are men edified CHAP. XV. Of the plentiful dispensing of Grace in the Gospel Ministry SECT I. Now follows secondly their Counsel and Advice Go to them that sell and buy c. THem that sell Some there be that make this an Irony or a plain mock of the foolish Virgins for their folly as if they should say You have lived like Hypocrites hitherto before the Lord among us and deceived us and your own souls now you would have out Grace to help you no get you gone to Mass-Priests and Pardon-sellers and Merit-mongers and buy for your selves they have merit enough c. But this meaning as it cannot be evinced necessarily from the words so such an answer cannot stand with that sad and gracious compassionate spirit which is in every holy Virgin for suppose God should break open the conscience of any in these days and they opening their hearts to others they should receive this answer Nay seeing you have neglected your season so long get you gone to Mass-Priests let them help you would any of common honesty in like manner mock much less a gracious heart no but if any have a true sence of their misery for sleeping out their season of Grace their bowels will melt over them Those that sell These are the Ministers of the Lord Jesus For 1. 'T is manifest it is not a mock And 2. Those that sell are not ordinary Christians though they may and do convey the Spirit yet not in this case so powerfully and hence they do send them from themselves 3. They do send them to those means which do most abundantly convey the Spirit now the Word and the Spirit are united as shall be proved the cheif dispensers of which word are the Ministers of the Gospel 4. Because Ministers are called such as sell Prov. 23. 23. Buy the truth and sell it not now where is the truth cheifly sold but by the prime publishers of it Mal. 2. 6 7. Not that the Holy Ghost is to be sold for money but to buy it there as it is to be sold without money Is. 55. 1 2 3. Come and buy wine and milk that is in the ministry of the Gospel which calls all that thirst to come Rev. 3. 18. not that they should fix their eyes upon them as upon the cheif means to convey it for the Lord Jesus fells and we are to buy of him only these are servants under him and appointed as an Ordinance of his for this end the Apostle conveys his ministry 2 Cor. 2. ult sincerely and gloriously Buy for your selves that is seek for it there though you lay out never so much of your money your time and thoughts and affections for it and receive it there when it is offered upon any terms though you part with all you have that so you may make it your own and so have of your own and so may with comfort meet the Lord and this suits with
the saying written O death where is thy sting c. Isa. 25. 7 8. So that reckon what Christ hath you shall have it then Much mercy the Lord shews to his people now but Psal. 31. 19. how great is that which is laid up then it shall be brought forth now you shall have an end of all your desires prayers faith to feel that which you have believed c. as it was with Ioshua 23. ult Not one thing whereof God hath failed Here the poor hardly get bread here many prayers get nothing c. but there 2 Thess. 1. 9 10. God doth then what he can for them and gives what he can give to them then all treasures are broken open Fifthly Then there shall ever be cohabitation and living with him never to be any more parted from him or he from them for while any is a Suitor to one in a far Country he comes and goes away again but when mariage comes then he carries her to his own house and now live they must together so the Lord in this life is somtime with his people somtime absent from his people but then they must cohabite together and shall 1 Thess. 4. ult And then we shall ever be with the Lord. If the Lord should do all the former and not this it would be a bitter cut When the Disciples had Christs presence for a time it was sweet but when parting came that was bitter but here is no more parting with the Lord to be in a Kings dominon where peace rules when other places are slaughter-houses and Golgotha's t is good but to be with the King and ever with him and to follow him where ever he goes and to be familiar with him this is wonderful Husbands depart either because not pleased at home or because of business abroad all such motion arguing imperfection but now there shall be nothing in the Saints to displease and Christ's business shall then be done he shall have no more to do but only to give up the Kingdom to God the Father that is the last work of Christ in this world To see the Lord in his beauty of grace and love will be wonderful but for dust and worms to be with him for ever the poor things of the world to be with him when thousands are cast by we say that 's the beauty of a thing which no picture can express now to see that beauty in Christ is marvellous but to be in the bosom of one so amiable how great is this Sixthly Then shall the Lord rejoyce over his people and they in him Mariage day is the great day of joy they long for it before and when it comes the longer it hath been deferred the more feats of parting the more are they affected with joy then so here the soul hath desired the Lord in grace first and then in glory Rev. 22. Christ hath been desiring after them in glory Iohn 17. 24. now their desires being fulfilled all his scattered lost Elect gathered now he rejoyceth with exceeding joy and the longer lost and meeting deferred the greater joy now hence Zeph. 3. 11. he shall rejoyce over thee with joy c. Look as the Lord when they were but converted to him poor and miserable and sinful and some of them but very babes Luk. 10. 21. yet he rejoyced in Spirit and falls admiâ—ing of the Father so here much more when they shall become glorious and perfect and altogether at this day If the Lord Isa. 40. 1 2. would have his Prophets speak to the heart of Ierusalem when it had but Seventy years captivity much more will the Lord himself then do it at that day and look as it was with them Rev. 19. 1. to 6. Alleâ—ujaâ— for the destruction of Antichrist and that Christ reigneth Oh let us rejoyce so shall all Saints meet him with joy being delivered out of the hands of all their enemies they shall cry Allelujah with joy to see them destroyed and the Lord reigning and then shall they up to heaven in a shout of joy with Allelujah c. SECT II. HEnce see how ill the sin of worldliness or any sinful lâ—st suits with a gracious godly man Shall the Lord come as a Bridegroom to you and will you run a whoring from him in this day A man can bear it when others that he never set his heart upon depart from him but these to do it it is a sin against his kindness against his person most immediately and against his name and honor As a vertuous woman is a crown to her husband so here Covetousness is a vile sin in any but especially in these and hence Ier. 3. 4 5. Wilt thou not from this time cry my Father When Baruch sought great things Wilt thou seek great things when God came to destroy all so will you keep great things here when the Lord is destroying alâ— when your Husband will be all in all when a woman knows that a great Prince loves her she scorns all other Suitors c. So should you be content though poor though sinful c. Col. 3. 4. 5. as long as Christ loves thee Hence see what a great sin it is not to receive evidence of mercy and comfort from any promise of Christ wherein he reveals his love to his Spouse if Christ shall come as a Bridegroom to you by what promise soever therefore he shall manifest his love to you receive it some would not have Christians to receive evidence of Christ's love by any conditional promise but remember this that if Christ doth not speak them if they be not the Bridegrooms voyce or if not true then do not receive them or any evidence from them nay if he doth not by his own Spirit clear them and apply them but if they be the voyce of the Bridegroom if you be friends or shew your selves friends rejoyce at it Ioh. 3. 29. As for that immediate revelation of his love expect it at his meeting when you shall see him face to face in the mean while if he by his letter reveals his love Oh make much of it because it is your Bridegrooms if the day of Judgement be come and Resurrection past and Christ seen immediately then look not for your evidence from such Scriptures but if otherwise then own his love here if he speaks It is true it would be a sweet thing if that day would come yet as Christ said to Thoâ— as so say I to you Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believed and therefore when ever the Lord doth this first or last hear his voyce and believe his word Do not say you see nothing in your selves suppose a woman should make a match by love and consent though hardly she did â—ath him but he was so mighty as to prevail for her goodwill and now she is comforted and another should come and say to her How do you know this Why thus he sought me thus I
really and that in times of peace when he had far pastures and full cups Psal. 23. he saw the Lord as his Shepherd Ioh. 10. 1. who is known of his feeding leading restoring comforting by rods adhering to him in the valley of the shadow of death and then for outward things furnishing his table annointing his head giving necessities and superfluities he looked not only on second causes but saw God as really doing all these as carnal men see second causes doing these Nay he so sees the Lord as that he falls a wondering and indeed the Lord is never seen in his Providences till then as Manoah saw the Angel do wondrously Judg. 13. 19. Psal. 139. 14. Marvellous are thy works vers 17 18. How precious are thy thoughts â— he saw from the Lords works and gathered an idea of the thoughts of God so should we and hence when he did awake he was still with thâ— Lord the first thing that appeared was the Lord Psal. 73. 23 24 25. To the beasts the Lord is near but they cannot reflect upon their own actions much less upon the Lord The Heathens may see we are Gods off-spring and see God as a Creator at some times but let them that profess Christ see and finde out Christ as Mediaâ—or as Moses that desired to see the Lord passing by him whom he had seen a little before truly the Lord not only passeth by you but is with you proclaiming his name by the voyce of his Providence toward you patience pity love truth wisdom and yet truly this is very difficult and hard to see SECT XVI MEn see not Jesus Christ First Because second causes seem to work all this estate my friends gave me or my labor got me this house the Carpenter built for me these provisions my money bought for me and so the creatureslike broad leaves hide the boughs of the glory of God in Christ on which they grow and are opake and dense and not transparent through which the soul may see the glory of God abroad Secondly Because men have so many businesses and cares that they cannot have leasure really to see the Lord. Thirdly Because there is a malice in all mens hearts naturally which suffocates all that which may be known of him Rom. 1. 28. They delighted not to retain God in their knowledge the works of God grow vile and sordid through their commonness to them Fourthly Because men can live well enough without him hence like a childe at nurse that forgets friends and home because it is well enough without them thus mens minds are not fed with the thoughts of him Ier. 2. 6. Fifthly Because Nature never heard of a Mediator governing all their lives and comforts and all they see not all given them by the Almighty hand of Christ who hath all power given hiâ—â— in heaven and earth and who must reign not only friends till they are gathered but over his enemies also till they are subdued and to question this is to question Christ's sitting at Gods right hand He is owner of all and disposeâ— of all to the least growth of thy stature and the most careless fall of the least hair to do not only the greatest but the meanest offices of love for thee You say indeed you believe all is from Christ oh but you see it not come near therefore and see the Lord Deut. 8. 9. they were forty years a learning that Man lives not by bread nor is warmed by cloaths c. and though they had marâ—ellous wondrous works yet Deut. 29. To this day the Lord hath not given you eyes to see Oh therefore labor to see who it is that nurses you guâ—des you tends you leads you teacheth you lays you down and takes you up and let the works of Christ raise up your minds to the thoughts of Christ in heaven remembring thee in his Kingdom of glory who might forget thee and the poorer and smaller the mercy is the more do thou wonder that he should therein be a servant unto thee see all blessings growing upon this tree seated in the midst of Gods Paradise Rev. 22. 3 4. though thou layest thy head with Iacob upon stones and sorrows yet see this ladder of the Lords proviâ—ence towards thee common blessings sometimes descending sometimes taken ouâ— of thy hand and ascending and the Angels of God with thee ministring to thee but the Lord at the top of them the Lord his care his love in all and let not this be a dream but a reality to you It is a wonderful sin to be thus unmindful of Christ. 1. Because hence all whorâ—â—g from Christ ariseth Hos. 2. 8. Iudg. 2. 12. especially in times of peace 2. Hence the Lord is forced to hedge your wâ—y with thorns and to bring you to extremily of troubles that you may see the Lord Isa. 41. 17 18. nay sometime to bring ruine Isa. 5. 12 13. And truâ—y as it is a great sin so it is a very great shame Isa. 1. 2. The ox knows his ownerâ— is the Lord the owner of you and do you not know him when he comes by you and to you provides for you It is a worse thing saith Chysoâ—â—om to bâ— comparâ—d â—o a beast than to be so To let many days and streams of goodness pass by you and yet not to take any notâ—ce and still to be so far from the Lord I know in heaven this is perfected and then comes acknowledgement of the Son of God but here you may be near him I think unless the Lord did descend in cloudy pillars and of fire some men would never see him SECT XVII Secondly BE near him in his promises for Christ is near to us here also Rom. 10. 8. the word of faith is nigh thee so that you need not ascend to bring Câ—rist down from heaven c. When Parents are dead and gone children wâ—ll then search out their last Will and Testament and preserve that and keep that near them Christ draws near to his people 1. In his Promises according to his thoughts of them 2. In his performances joyning the soul immediately to himself and filling it with himself this we cannot enjoy yet the Lord laies it up in his promise which they have in liew of the performance Oh draw near not to words and syllables but to the Lord there apprehend him there as it is with the Attributes of God his Glory cannot be comprehended by us hence he manifests himself there according to our capacity God manifesting himself severally so in promises we cannot comprehend Christ as yet hence Christ manifests himself in his glory in several promises Oh embrace him there Heb. 11. 9 'T is not said that Abraham and Iacob were heirs of Canaan but heirs of the promise and Sarah first received her son in the promise so do you emâ—raâ—e Christ in the womb and bowels of the promises we live by faith in this life and hence all our enjoyment of Christ is
to be with him for you may desire communion with lusts and Christ. Object But death is terrible and separation from him bitter Answ. Long for him therefore to come and then take thee and see thou desire nothing but himâ— rebuke thy 〈◊〉 llingness of not being with him If Christ was on earth you would hazard your lives to get unto him much more herein Obj. But what will become of Gods name Answ. Let the Lord alone for that wâ—â—les thou livest enâ—â—avour to the utmost but it s appointed for thee a little season only to be here and be willing the Lord should honor himself also by others as well as by thee Object What will become of my wife and children Answ. Who regarded thee in thy blood when thou livest they are thine but then the Lords Desire to be with him this will support your hearts in all your changes of this 〈◊〉 SECT XX. Vse 6. YOu that never received Christ now do it Object Yes I have Answ. No you have not so received him as to let all go for him Why so because he alone will be blessedness but he is not so to thee Oh therefore let all go now you must part with Christ or all these things Which will you do If with Christ you cannot finde him in these things but if you part with these things then you shall finde them all in him Object But he will have none of me Answ. 1. He cries down thy laying out money for what is not Bread 2. He promises to give thee to drink now and hereafter CHAP. XIX Shewing that none shall enjoy Christ hereafter but those that are prepar'd here VERSE 10. They that were ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prepared SECT I. THose only who are ready and prepaâ—ed in this life for Christ shall enjoy eternal and immediate communion with Christ those only who are now fitted for his fellowship shall partake of his fellowship for of all these Virgins though many of them were otherwise very well qualified only those which were ready did enter in with the Bridegroom which readiness in these wise Virgins was not nor is not any Popish preparation either meritorious or congruous or wrought by the power of corrupted or adorned nature but Divine and glorious wrought by the power of Christ out of his eternal love to the Vessels of glory as an Antecedent not moving cause of this eternal fellowship it is the first degree of our Resurrectâ—on with Christ. Rom. 9. 23. Vessels of glory prepared unto glory the same word which is used here there are two ends God hath appointed all men to either to be Vessels of wrath who are those Ve se 22. Those that are fitted for desâ—ruction others of glory who are those prepâ—red unto glory 2 Cor. 5. 5. with 8. How comes Paul and all the Saints to know and groan for to be out of the body and to break the Cage and to be with the Lord one reason is they are wrought and moulded and fashioned for that condition by the hand of a merciful God even as one may know what Vessels are for special use by their metâ—al and curious engravings upon them SECT II. Reas. 1. BEcause all mens souls are naturally unfit and unprepared to enjoy communion with Christ it is said Rev. 21. ult Nothing enters into the new Ierusalem on earth which is uncleane and defileth and Heb. 12 14. Without holiness no man shall see God Now naturally all men are deâ—iled and unclean Vessels and under the power of their sins loathing Angels food the grace of Christ and weary of the fellowship of Christ and therefore they must be prepared for the Lord first this is one reason why preparation to every holy duty is needful and so needful that let men performe any holy duty wherein they draw near to Christ without a heart prepared Psal. 10. 17. their performances aâ—e rejected or not blessed and hence Rehoboam though he did maintaine the worship of God at Ierusalem yet he prepared noâ— his heart 2 Châ—on 12. 14. 〈…〉 and begs parâ—on for this That he is not so purified according to the purification of the Sanctâ—â—ry Now if to a holy duty and commâ—nion with Christ here this is needful much more to eternal fellowship with him sore eyes cannot behold the Sun without grief sick bodies loath the best food if the Lord should let a carnal heart into heaven with that heart he hath and not change his nature he would not stay there if he could escape but having his swinish nature he would be in his mire againe and the Government of Christ being a bondage to him he would break bonds and break his Prison if he knew where to fly from the presence of the Lord And hence no work so wearysome as Christs now no time so uncomfortable and tedious as abiding under Christs wings in his Ordinances now 1 Cor. 15. 50. If flesh and bâ—ood cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven much lesse corruption Reas. 2. In regard of the rich grace and wisdom of his love towards his people for who sees not but that it is a curse to be unready as these foolish Virgins who were therefore shut out Oh therefore it is grace and mercy to make ready and indeed an answer to prayers and a comfort against all feares of the Saints who are then desiâ—oâ—s to be with the Lord when they are indeed ready readiness for Christ doth not destroy grace but being a fruit of Gods grace advanceth it Rom. 9. 23. the Apostle makes it the first fruit of glory that the Saints are prepared unto glory glory of mercy is the end preparedness thereto is the meanes or way leading to that end if God appoints the end his wisdom also leads first to the meanes which lead at last to that end if out of his rich grace he appoints the end out of the same grace by this other he leads to this end and though you think it not now grace you shall say it is so another day when with these foolish Virgins you shall say Oh that I were ready I know not almost which is greatest love to prepare for glory or to bring into the possession of iâ— to make a Vessel of poysonous dross a Vessel of gold or when it is so to fill it for the Lord to look upon a man when he is in his blood and then to wash him when a man is as water spilt upon the ground and a broken Vessel of no use now for the Lord to pity and fit for use it is exceeding rich grace Reas. 3. In regard of the honour of the Lord Iesus it was one part of the honour of Christ to have Iohn go before him and Luke 1. 17. to prepare a people ready for the Lord As it is part of a Princes honour to have his Bride ready and attired to welcome and entertaine him when he shall return to her she owes this honour to him and he expects this
sought your selves in all this Though the duty is hard and thy heart loth to come to it yet say For thy sake Lord I love it The earnest cryes and prayers of unregenerate men at death or judgement are then too late to prâ—cure mâ—râ—y from the hands of Christ. If there be any means in time of distress â—o have help it is by prayer itâ— helps the Saints out of deep pits dark dungeoâ—s Lam. 3. and Iron Furnaces bitter agonies intolerable pressures but this meanes though they shall use it then because their torment is great and their self-love remaines as these Virgins did yet it comes too late then I know their prayers differ but of that I shall speak hereafter If in this life sometimes they come too late much more after this but so it is sometimes Prov. 1. 28. Psal. 18. 41. Prov. 15. 1. even unto the Lord. The Lord sees it meet to give a taste of his severity after life and in this life that men may fear and the terrour may fall upon many Because then Christ sits upon the Throne of judgement and so no Mediatour to help them as hath been proved and if it be so how shall they stand Psalme 130. 3. In this life mercy waits and patience bears till it can bear no longer and then doth ease it self Ezâ—kiel 5. 13. and cries to justice c. And therefore the prayers and howlings of the wicked are to no more purpose than of a Malefactor before the Judge condemned for Treason Because their cryes are but only Howlings Hosea 7. 14. only rising from their own torment because the Spirit of God is quite gone and if the Lord should heare they would be as bad againe as ever before if mercy should save these Thieves from this Gallows they would cut the Throat and Sâ—ab the heart of mercy afterward as all such persons do who are carried from that principle in their prayers and therefore let them never look to be heard now Hence see the exceeding greatnesse of the wrath of Christ to them that die without him Psalm 18. 41. Many times the Lord hides his face from his people for a time but then they pray and seek his face again and the Lord heares them and shines upon them again when his Spirit in them speaks to him his Son in his Covenant speaks unto them and the Lord hears the cry of their weeping as well as their praying Psalme 6. 8. But if when they pray earnestly and the Lord hears not then but is angry with their prayers oh this is bitter to them Psal. 80. 4 5. Lam. 3. 44. 't is that which Christ typically complaines of Psal. 22. 1 2 4 5. There is no wrath like this for a God so pitiful as many times to help without cryes more than a Mother with tender bowels and not to regared cryes as if he had cast off his nature this makes wrath and sin bitter to the people of God and indeed this is the reason why the Lord gives his people mercy but 't is by means of prayer usually that they might see in what favour they are in his sight above others that when he seems to be averse from hearing yet prayer will turn the wheele and Iacob prevailes over God and hence Psalmâ— â— Christ shall have all Nations for his possessiâ—ns but yet Ask of me as Herâ—d said when he said Ask of me to half of the Kingdome c. And hence exceeding wrath is shewn in denying for a time to heâ—r prayer many times Now look upon the condition of poore â—inners dying without Christ they shall then cry and cry earnestly and yet not prevail if the wrath of God did break out at this time and lie heâ—vy and the Lord say Now cry and I 'le deliver it was no such sorrow â—hough bâ—â—ter enough to lie under wrath one moment but to cry and cry vehemently Lord Lord and never to be heard oh who can beare this their torments are intolerable hath the Lord no pity their cries are many and heartâ— are faint hath Christ no bowels hath this Lamb no more meekness gentleness yes that there is but such is his terrour now they are shut up from you and so shall ever be though you shall cry and weep as many teares and more too than the Sea hath drops and when you cannot come before his face the Gate being shut you shall cry That the Rocks and Mountaines may fall upon you to hâ—de you from this wrath of the Lamb and you shall then cry Behold and see if ever sorrow were like mineâ— but all shall be in vain Oh therefore see the greatness of this wrath so as to see the bitterness of any one sin which stands yet between thee and Christ which though it be sweet under thy tongue now yet when the day of thy anguish shall come it shall shut up Christs heart from hearing all cryes Of Exhortation To perswade all men to take their season of praying now Isa. â— 55. 1. with 6. when the Lord cryed Come to the waters c. and because they might plead Hereafter oh saith he Call upon him whiles he is nearâ— there will be a great Gulf between you and Christ when you are dead now therefore when the Lord comes in his Word especially cry unto him for help and pity You will say There is no great need thanks be to God of pressing ment to prayer here Who is so prophane but doth he is not worthy to live or to enjoy the benefit of the Sun nor fit to live among the society of men who dares not do thus but to live among Bears and Wolves and Beasts in the Wilderness I would to God there was no need to press this point but truly the Countrey being a place filled with discontents which ever keeps from prayer because the Devil is in them and also of great peace and rest hence here men are more apt to sleep and grow secure than in any other place of the world and the Spirit of prayer is ready to dye even in Gods own and hard 't is for this Incense to be sweet without some fire some affliction thereunto 1. Some there be that do not so much as feel their misery at all neither sin nor wrath and hence they cannot pray at all they are not in so good a case to pray as the damned who feel their misery and cry out under it these cast out of Gods sight yet hâ—ving hope and so should pray the more and so cry out under it yet cannot though the earth groanes under their sins yet their hearts are hard and they cannot feel them and so cannot pray and they quiet themselves with some formes and their Coleworts twice sodd and some cold prayers morning and evening and hope that these will serve the turn and here is all the comfort they have nay not only so but if others that know their hearts better and so pray longer
thou canst for ought I know there was never drop of blood shed for thee never thought of peace in Christs Breasts to thee a vile wretch that never lamented the loss of his love nor contempt of it to this day Obj. But I care not so long as I have been well without it so I hope I shall do still I will not believe I am out of his love Answ. Yea this is the misery of men as it was of these Virgins but time shall come when you shall see him sit upon his Throne brighter than a Thousand Suns in the glory of his Father a fire burning round about him and the Kings of the earth trembling at his presence and his Saints in his bosome like unto him then you shall wish you had his love and lament Rev. 1. and waile because of him Oh secure world will you sit still in your sinnes and lie in your unbelief till the fire burnes about you and there be no escape Oh that the Lord would pity you many of you that have yet lived with dry eyes and merry hearts and yet have no love from Jesus Christ. Learn hence not to despise or refuse the love of Christ when it is offered to you and propounded to you in the Gospel we can be content to want the love of some men because we can live well enough without them and their love their love lost hurts not us but if the loss of their love may be the loss of our goods and lives then if it may be had men will seek for and long for it thoght it should not be offered but if offered it is gladly accepted So if you could live without the love of Christ you might content your selves but the loss of it is more bitter than ten thousand deaths and therefore refuse it not when it is offered but as they Acts 2. 39 41. when they saw how they had imbrued their hands in the blood of Christ and yet saw grace offered it is said They gladly received the Word of the Lord. The Law is a word of condemnation but that is not the last word the Lord hath spoken then I should spend time in vaine now the Gospel even the whole Gospel is a word of love and Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. wherein the Lord doth beseech men to be reconciled i. e. to accept of Gods love offered therein The Lord knows full well that mens hearts are so full of enmity that they will never seek for Reconciliation first though they have good cause because they have offered the wrong and therefore he stands not upon termes but offers love first without which he knows they are for ever undone Oh therefore receive it accept of it when it is offered to you and lose thy life rather than lose his love For the further opening of this Point I shall shew three things 1. That Christ doth offer his love in the Gospel and how 2. Upon what termes 3. Motives to accept it and answer Objections against accepting of it First That the Lord doth offer and how he doth offer his love in the Gospel and this I shall cleare because nothing can draw the soul to accept of love but this For the better understanding of which you must conceive that the love of Christ in the Gospel is diversly manifested unto men either to men after they be in Christ and are brought home by it and this is a love of delight in them Psalm 45. 10 11. Or it is a love of good will to men not brought home as it is in Husbands before their affections be set upon any they make love as it is 2 Thess. 2. 10. They received not the love of the truth because the truth made love to them Luke 2. 14. Good will towards men and this love I say is offered this love the Lord makes unto you stand amazed at it that after all your sinnes wrongs done him nothing but love is offered even his dearest love for though there is patience power to help wisdome to guide though there is terrour in him yet Take my love saith he Iohn 3. 17. And hence Heb. 2. 3. it is called Great salvation or love 't is offered else how could men be said to reject it or neglect it which he warnes them of A man may as well question whether there be a Gospel as whether love be offered there for as the Law is nothing but the manifestation of sin the hand-writing of death and wrath against all men writ with the Finger of God the Gospel is the manifestation of grace the hand-writing of grace and peace to all men written with the blood of God and hence the Gospel is that which brings life and immortality to light 2 Tim. 1. 10. Not that there is life absolutely for all but there 't is for all that shall by faith accept of it More particularly First It is offered Universally to all wherever it comes and therefore personally to every man the words are plaine Mark 16. 15. Preach the Gospel to every creature and not only to them that do belong to Christ and shall believe for though it be offered with the power of it effectually to these yet offered it is also unto those that never shall have God nor portion in the Son of God and hence Luke 14. The Lord of the Feast invited those that never came in and Christ himself 1 Iohn 11. He came to his own and they received him not he would have gathered them under his wings and they would not not only to them that be humbled though none will care for Gospel but such but to them that be unhumbled Revel 3. 18 20. doth this Gospel come There be many object Yes the Lord offers love to them that are his but not to me yes to thee there is not a man here that can exempt himself And I would make no doubt to go to every man particularly and say The Lord intreats thee to be Reconciled nay if there be one man worse than another though his hands have been imbrued in the blood of the Prophets and his soul stained with the crying guilt of the most hydeous sinnes that ever the earth bore or Sun saw yet the Lord makes love to him the price is paid for him if he will accept of it and that the Lord would have him so to do neither doth this Universal offer inferre an Universal Redemption for the Gospel in the offer of it doth not speak absolutely that Christ hath dyed for all and therefore for thee as the Arminians maintain but it speaks conditionally 'T is for thee if ever the Lord gives thee a heart to receive that grace there therefore consider of it there is not one here present but the Lord would have you receive his love and consider this one reason Thou shalt be condemned for refusing it Hence 't is Gods command and Christs desire you should receive it Ioâ—n 3. 19. If not thy duty to
should return and live upon his love and under the Government of his love than dye Come under my wings saith Christ Matthew 23. you may all I would have you safe and near unto me that you may feel the warmth and life of my love this is all the Lord looks for and who would not accept of love upon these termes Thirdly Motives to accept of it Why should I name any more than what the Text mentions no woe like this to lose it and though it may be now you may esteem it nothing while 't is faire weather and whiles it is a day of patience yet when the depths of anger are broken up then you shall see and say No people like unto those that have it when you shall see Christ on his Throne with ravishing beauty and see him tread the Wine-press of wrath alone and his garments dipt in the blood of his enemies then you shall say The want of this love is bitter and hence if it be offered take it now gladly thankfully joyfully Obj. But I am but one will the Lord receive me Ans. I have been stirred up to preach the Gospel for the sake of that One and Ier. 3. 14. I will take one of a Tribe Though all else be rejected the Lord minds thee 2. Obâ—ect But Christ is in Heaven how can I receive him and his lâ—ve Answ. A mighty Prince is absent from a Traytour he sends his Herauld with a Letter of love he gives it him to read how can he now receive the love of the Prince when absent Answ. He sees his love in his Letter knows it came from him and so at a distance closeth with him by this meanes So here he that was dead but now is alive writes sends to thee Oh receive his love here in his Word this is receiving him by faith Acts. 2. 37 38. 3. Object But I am not elected nor redeemed if I knew that I durst receive the Lord and his love Answ. What-have you to do with Gods secret Decree of Election 't is your duty to look to the Gospel which is the Will of Gods command there is a Will of Gods Decree and a man may fulfill this Will and sin as Ierâ—bâ—am in revolting according to the Prophesie of the Prophet and to submit to this is not moral obedience though moved thereto by a Divine instinct as in Cyrus but there is a Will of Gods Command and this you are to look to obedience to this never wants its recompence You say you are not Redeemed Answ. True but it may be thou art Redeemed and therefore do not crucifie Christ a second time receive this love and 't is certain 't is for thee 4. Obj. But I am not humbled sufficiently Anâ—w I know no man can receive Christ till the Lord hath humbled and broken him down but know there is no more humiliation required than that which brings thee to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Many have a spirit of cleaving to and receiving of Christ as hath been opened but are kept off because they feare they are not humbled but methinks the very offer of Christ to one condemned and lost for ever who must else lie to all eternity mourning methinks this should break thy heart if it be not a Stone and a Rock as it did Pauls indeed you must be more and more humbled all your life but this is a consequent required of those who are in Christ. 5. Object But I cannot believe why presse you me to it Aâ—sw 1. The Lord doth not press you to believe because you should believe from your selves but that feeling your own inability you might suffer him to make you believe 2. The Lord by words of Exhortation doth work Faith there goes a power with it as Acts 2. Repent they gladly received the Word and whose heart may it not draw and compell especially if there be any spark of God in any soule and therefore pray give the Lord leave to speak whose Word can quicken the dead though the dead can neither stir nor heare 3. There be many of you that say You cannot believe but this Gospel drawes out a power The way of the Lord is strength to the upright Prov. 10. 29. Will you can you despise or refuse his grace No it should constrain 6. Object But I have received him and I feel no vertue from him Answ. 1. I know many do receive him and feel not the vertue of Christ but because Saints may be kept poor in Spirit possesse all things in Christ and yet receive little from Christ I shall only ask two Questions 1. How dost thou esteem of and desire that blessing of Christ Dost esteem of nothing so precious desire nothing more and followest the Lord on with prayer for it it is in Christ for thee what thou wantest thou shalt have it Iohn 4. 10. Phil. 3. 9 10. No false heart but undervalues these things and the Lord will fulfill all thy desires in heaven thou shalt have all thy sins subdued and trodden to death 2. How is thy heart for thy general frame affected with the absence of the good thou feelest not from the Lord dost mourn bitterly for this look as the Disciples that mourned for Christs bodily absence the Lord tells them They should rejoyce â—o here a carnal heart is indifferent though he lose Christs vertue And therefore accept the Lords love you poor mourning souls the most stony heart I speak to but much more unto the weary and them that have been seeking after the Lord behold salvation is come to thy heart this day only â—et it in do not reject it because thy sinnes are great thy unworthiness great the Lord knows them yet he offers some of you have had some hopes or assurance Christ is yours yet he may be thine Suppose he was never thine yet now stretch out thy shaking hand receive him who is this day crucified before thy eyes his head hanging down his blood gushing out beseeching thee to accept of this which is shed for thee I remember a godly man receiving Apples from a poor Woman he took them thankfully but said withal This came from the Spirit of God so doth this offer much more and therefore take it But I know this love will be despised by some of you some not knowing your woe some not feeling it being without Christ some under terrours but shut up under unbelief If I did think the Lord had no purpose to do thee good and I knew thee I would read thy doom but the Lord may pâ—tyâ— and therefore I 'le go and mourn and pray that the Lord would not lay your sins to your charge your base lusts are better than Christ to you O therefore mourne for this you that know him not prize him not but carry this Acts 13. 41. about with thee viz. hear yoâ— despisers and wonder c. That many 〈◊〉 may and do apprehend Christ by a seeming Faith whom yet Christ Iesus
apprehends not by his dearest love For here were Virgins many of them who cryed Lord Lord only looking for salvation from him hanging upon grace clasping about his feet as it were and who in their life-time went out to meet the Bridegrom expecting love from him and yet Christ here professeth I know not you I love you not I say this is by a seeming â—aith for no man apprehends Christ by a lively Faith but iâ— appreheâ—ded of Christ Iâ—hn 1. 12. But if it be by a seeming Faith i. e which seemes to be Faith in the judgement and opinion of others and also which seemes only to be so to their own apprehension as it did unto these Virgins the Lord doth not apprehend such by his 〈◊〉 love and that is I say with his dearest love with common love he may but with deare and eternal love never The Faith of some men is like the casting of some Anchor at Sea it sometimes falls upon a Rock or light sand it toucheth the ground but the Rock holds not it and hence the Ship is ever driven before the winde or carried away with the ebbings and flowings of the water So it is here and hence men are tossed to and fro with lusts and temptations and driven before strong windes Or as it was of Saul to Samuel he apprehended Samuel but Samuel departed from him saw him no more untill the day of his death So here the Kingdome and Love of Christ is rent from you Iohn 2. 24. â—lt But he committed not himself to them Luke 13. 26 27. Hâ—ve â—ot we eat and drunk in thy presence and yet Christ will say I knâ—w you not and this is the â—ase of many Iob 8. 13 14. When an Hâ—pocrite dyes his hope perisâ—â—â— if the Lord had apprehended him with his dearest love it could not be so For Explication of this Point three things are to be opened 1. How one may be said to apprehend Christ Jesus by a seeming Faith 2. How Christ is sâ—id not to apprehend such 3. Why he dotâ— not Quâ—st First How may one be said to apprehend Christ by a seeming faith Answ. Five wayes usually 1. When men are forced â—o fly to Christ meerly out of extremity and pressures of misery the stroâ—ks and dry â—lowes of Divine Vengeance light upon them and now they cry Lord pity us It may be in time of peace while conscience and Divine Vengeance were asleep they regarded not Faith nor Prayer nor Christ nor any thing else notwithstanding aâ—l the heart-breaking cryes and loud calls of God but were merry and light and licentious c. but in extremity then they will cry and prize mercy above a thousand worlds Prov. 1. 28. One would think their mouths should be stopped then some think those words are an allusion to the Aâ—k in Noâ—hs time Hosea 8. 1 2 3. When the Eagle shall câ—me against Gods pâ—opâ—e Psal. 78. 35. they shâ—ll cry My God we know thâ—e No saâ—th the Lord The enemy shall apprehend them I will not this is not faith but only self-love when as men are naught before and their hearts sitting loose fâ—om God continualâ—y having no daily embracements of him and would be worse after Gods afflicting hand if he should help them but so it is that they cry out to God for help meerly because of torment c. This is like that cry of our Indians to the Devil who worship and cleave to him because he pâ—agues them True in times of extremity the faith of the Saints may be awakened which was asleep before and when God hedgeth their way with Thornes they may then returne to their first Husbaâ—d because iâ— was better but when exâ—remity begets it it begins and ends with it lives aâ—d dyes with it here such may feare that then Christ apprehends them not Psalme 66. 3. Because of thy power thy enemies shall staâ—er and submit A proud Rebelâ—ious Wretch in times of peace swells bigger than God and is above God the Lord Jesus hath his times wherein â—he grapples with them when no Ministers can and flings them down with his Sword at their heart and his hand at their Throat and terrours in their consciences and now they yield Christ may hence take these as common Subjects but never as special favourites to stand before him and this is the case of thousands who fly to Christ meerly for extremities Thus the case stood with old Ioab he should have dyed before 1 Kings 2. 30. but at last he neglects his harge he runâ—es to the Aâ—tar only out of selfâ—ove and there he will dye one would think a man that had been so useful flying to the Altar in his old age might be pitied No the Altar which secures others secures not him justice may be shewn to him that will abuse favour long so 't is here 2. When men fly to Christ in times of peace that so they may preserve their sins with greater peace of conscience so that sin makes them flie to Christ as well as misery not that they may destroy and abolish sin but that they may be preserved in their sins with peace For this is the frame of all men living sin before it is commited not all sin but what is 〈◊〉 able â—o mens constitutions corruptions place temptations is very sweet and if conscience be awake it 's after the commission bitter sweet in the mouth bitter in the belly or else they know it will be bitter another day Prov. 23. 32 sâ—ings like a Cockatriâ—e and what profit in inheriting lyes Now because men have not other good to live upon or delight in for God they have not hence many an heart secretly saith this If I can have my sin and peace and conscience quiet for the present and God merciful to pardon it afterward then all is well hereupon hearing those that put their trust in Christ shall be pardoned for present and saved afterward hence he doâ—h reâ—ie as he saith only on the mery of God in Christ and now this hardens and blindes him and makes him secure and his Faith is Sermon-proof nothing stirres him c. and were it not for their faith they should despaire but this keeps them up and now they think if they have any troâ—ble of minde the Devil troubles them and so make Christ and Faith protectors of sin not purifiers from sin which is most dreadful turning grace to wantonness as they â—id sacrifice so these would sin under the shadow of Christ because the shadow is good and sweet Miâ—ah 3. 11. they had subtle slye ends in good duties for therein may lie a mans sin yet they lean upon the Lord c. Matthew 3. 7 8. The Scribes came in peace to Iohâ—s Ministry which was to awaken men to believe in the Messiah Oh generation of Vipers who hath forâ—warned you to flee from wrath to come hence saith he Bring forth fruits as if he should say You would have the blessing of the warme Sun
Lord apprehend us as in 2 Sâ—m 5. 1 2 3. But by his Covenant he bindes himself unto the souls of hâ—s people Isa. 55. 2 3. which is a mighty strong Covenant as strong as Gods purpose is for 't is nothing but Gods purpose revealed Now this the Lord reveals usually two wayes 1. In the Word without the conscience knowing it so as that a man hath not assurance of Gods Good-will to him And 2. To Conscience and this two wayes 1. By prayer the soul being instant with God to reveale his good-will the Lord doth it Ezâ—kiel 36. â—7 I will yet be enquired of for this c. Zach. 13. 9. Hence the Lord asks the poor heart Will nothing content thee but the Lord I wiâ—l fulfill thy desires then the Lord hath heard thy cryes all thy sinnes shall be pardoned all those corruptions subdued c. 2. By the Ministry of the Word when the soul hath been froward in seeking the Lord but now mournes under it that it cannot finde the Lord the Lord professeth I 'le create the fruit of the lips peace Psal. 25. 14. He will shew them his Covenant c. So that the soul is for a time stablished and supported by these and the like blessed words of Grace from the Lord. Secondly By an eternal Spirit of life which as from Christ the Head comes into every member and is in them and shall be in them never forsaking them though it be grieved a thousand times in a day by them this Spirit sets on the Covenant and gives the first fruits of glory c. Isaiah 59. ult This is my Covenant my Spirit shall never depart c. Thus Christ apprehends his herein differing from Adam he was next to God and was apprehended by God But 1. It was by a Covenant of works 2. As a first cause upholding and preserving and governing the second but this Spirit which should never forsake this he had not now when by Faith we are turned unto Christ Christ apprehends us with both these armes Now è contrà you may see what is it not to be apprehended by Christ. Because they were never given unto Christ in Vocation by the Fathers drâ—wing Iohn 6. 65. And Christ takes hold on none but them they are apprehended for the Givers sake though they be worthless in themselves All lawful Marriage is by the Parents consent so here Because he knows the vileness of such mens hearts lying in their sin the falseness deceits of them Ioh. 2. ult As we use to say Such a one No I know him well enough Of sad Reproof to those who never trouble themselves with any thoughts whether Christ hath apprehended them if they have once apprehended Jesus Christ they never question whether their Faith so apprehend Christ as that Christ apprehends it Oh consider these Virgins they did thus after a sort apprehend Christ all their liâ—e but now they know Christ never loved them because they never savingly apprehended him I remember Isa. 4. 1. Seven women shall take hold of one man â—nd shall say We will be called by thy Name to take away our reproach but we will eat our own bread Soâ— many take hold upon Christ Lord let us be call'd by thy Name to take away our reproach when as they care for no part nor portion in Christ but they will eat their own bread live upon their own lusts It was Christs speech unto divers that saw him and followed him Iohn 6. as to hâ—s Disciples also Except you eat my flesh you have no life in you What doth a man aim at in eating not only that he may have Bread in his hand but he examines What vertue hath it His end is that it may grow one with him and be turned into the â—ame flesh with him and so that there may be a most rear union that can be so should all Christians study that and aim at that that the Lord may be nearly united to them and grow one with them a gracious heart prayers and mournes for want of this Oh there be many that profess What should I trouble my self with this and that grace when I have done all I can but look up to Christ True but will you not yet try whether you so look to Christ as that he looks towards you Iohn 10. 10. I kâ—â—w mine and am known of mine there is a world of false faith in the world Ier. 7. 8. When they cryed the Temple of the Lord saith he Do you sweare lye c So I may say Are you slothful in carriage discontent in families live in secret adultery and your eyes and thoughts are full of it do you break your promises and Covenant with God and men and forget the Lord in a Land of Peace care for little but that your Plough may speed and your names may rise and do you cry Christ Christ go to Sâ—iâ—h go to the Palatinate Bohemia and see what God hath done Oh but I am better oh but go to these foolish Virgins let their dead ghosts affright thee if the Lords Word cannot make thee search here A man drowning all his care will be for a hand to take him so would you if all were right but you will not so Of Examination Whether ever the Lord Jesus hath apprehended you with his dearest love as well as you have apprehended him 2 Cor. 13. 5. In all Covenants among men whereby they are to binde themselves one to another men will make it sure on both sides Christ will make you sure to him do you see that he be also made sure and fast bound and united unto you Methinks the consideration of the example of the Virgins might awaken every one unto it for if this was the frame only of some rude prophane Rout of â—arnal Protestants professing Christ with their lips but denying him in their lives it might be excusable for us but when Virgins and so many and that in these times of Christs coming to faile here this may strike a holy â—awfulness even in the best and with much feare and trembling to search themselves as it did the Disciples of Christ when they heard not many but one only should beâ—ray him for there is this union on both parts Iohn 10. 14. 2. But though there is cause to search I confess 't is very hard to finde out this blessed Love-knot the union between Christ and the soul being so mystical and secret and spiritual a work especially in this life wherein the Lord Jesus ariseth in the souls of his people not in his perfect fulness but only as the day-starre at which time there is much darkness before the rising Sun and hence the Apostle Gal. 4. 9. You have known God or rather are known of him c. 3. But yet it may be known the many examples I might alledge might prove it and the promise of Christ to his Disciples doth evince it Iohn 14. 20. They were weak for a
given indeed to him he lets them go but Christ speaks to his Disciples Will you go So if a man hâ—th a stranger in his House he will let him go and enquire not after him he came to me for a time but if he hath a Son and he is gone he will finde him out and there he wonders at a Fathers love to see his Spirit So here and hence come the Saints to wonder at the Lord so much What is not the Lord yâ—t gone I speak this partly to terrifie those that go and never return again and to answer Objections of Saints the Lord hath hid himself from me and I have forsaken him yet mark he will bring thee back again to himself lamenting c. 5. Degree This apprehending love of Christ it now witnesseth love to the soul most clearly and fully the Question is Doth Christ apprehend any but those to whom he witnesseth love No for he doth witness to all in some measure but here comes the cleare manifestation of it When I was dead he quickned me and since that I have lost the Lord and he me yet he hath found me out and hence now the soul concludes the Lord loves it Gal. 2. 20. Who loved me and gave himself for me Psalme 23. Vlt. The Lord restoreth my Soule surely mercy shall follow me Now try if the Lord never dealt thus with thee As this may serve to discourage or terrifie those that never did so it may encourage â—hose to preserve their faith who so apprehend Christ as that they are apprehended of him If a Woman was never Married to such a man for her to call him or speak of him or think of him to be her Husband 't is presumption but when he hath given himself to her then let her own her priviledge and maintaine her claime against all Law and wranglers and preserve her interest So those that never were given to Christ let them know their faith is but smoke and vanity but let Iob say Though he kill me yet I 'le trust him David Psal. 42. 3. had that temptation Where is now thy God that his teares were his meat and drink and was much shaken and cast down by it but what Doth he lie still No he stirs up himself aud chides himself Why art thou cast down Ver. 5. 11. He is my God 1 Tim. 6. 12. Fight a good fight of faith and lay hold of eternal life whereunâ—o thou art called 'T is very unsafe for any Christian to lay by Faith and cast off the exercise of it because 't is Christs apprehending of us which doth preserve us True but 't is by faith which may not be at all times seen as neither the other can and therefore take heed you make not this use of Doctrine here because many may apprehend Christ whom Christ never apprehended therefore what have I to do to close with Christ To be kept from putting out faith either in your judgement and practice or practice only I would but only ask of such these Questions Fâ—rst If we were only to look to Christs apprehending us without the other why doth the Apostle put such a weight upon Faith as that all the benefits of Christ are communicated by it Heb. 3. 14. We partake of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast and Heb. 10. 38. The just lives by it not from it Secondly If so why doth Satan so much strike at faith when Peter fell what did he strike at what did he winrow him for To shake out his faith and hence Christ prayes that it faile not When Satan comes to Christ the first thing which made way for all his temptations was If thou beest the Son c. Our blessed fellowship with Christ he sees consists of two things Faith on our part and the Spirit on Christs and Satan strikes at the weakest first Thirdly If so Why doth the Lord Jesus so carefully seek to preserve it both mediately by all meanes and Ministries Word Sacraments which are to feed Faith and hence Paul 1 Thess. 3. 2. To establish you in faith And ver 5. he hence rejoyced and ver 10. We would be yours to perfect your Faith And also immediately Peter falls Christ prayes his faith faile not his grace should not And 1 Pet. 1. 2 3. Preserved by faith to Salvation Object But I cannot believe Answ. Before faith you cannot and after you do believe the Acts of faith and lively working of faith may be many times in disertions of the soul from God or God from the soul hindered and when he hath those lively workings of it it 's from the power of Christ that it is acted as well as preserved but yet if Christ hath once given power to believe he maintaines it constantly and increaseth it and therefore you have no cause to plead I cannot so that you cannot sin and live in it especially in unbelief and lie there you cannot draw back to perdition but believe to the salvation of your souls the just lives by faith we say we must live Faith will be stirring when no other grace can be so it Victuals the whole Camp Relieves the besieged and it 's most strong when man is most weak 'T is true indeed there may be many acts of presumption for one act of faith take heed of that That faith is not presumption which the more it works the more humble it makes the soul to be and vile in his own eyes because as Faith ever fetcheth of Christs fulness to the soule so it ever is attended with sence of emptiness in the soule naturally and then it 's right Oh resist not the Lord Jesus when he comes to apprehend you by his Almighty Arme In a shipwrack if a man sees many drowning and perishing never a hand to take hold of them when one is reached out to him will he resist it Oh no! I know indeed when the time of love comes there is no power of overcoming and frustrating the grace of God but yet there is a power of resisting which the Lord complaines of in them Acts 7. and which he makes his people to complaine with bitterness of in his bosome when his time comes Isaiah 50. 2. The Lord cryes out of his people when they had sold themselves into the hand of their enemies and were apt to lay the fault on the Lord as men do Now the Lord gives not me a heart to believe Saith he Wherefore when I came was there none to answer Object You can never pardon such finners help against such sinnes mercy cannot reach us Is my hand shortned No such matter I do not press you now to apprehend Christ but resist not the Lord when he hath his hand upon thy heart or conscience to apprehend thee Is the Lord at work with none of you art forsaken of Christ altogether There are many wayes of Resisting Christ thus I 'le only name these two First When the soul will not
such miserable scrambling for promises and that men are so worshipping whom they know not 4. Consider the misery of the want of this But further Be careful to get satisfaction by blood before Application by the Spirit if ever you look for the latter be careful to get the former God is full of Spirit why sends he it not sinne is not satisfied for first get that done therefore Iohn 6. â—3 Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood c. God could not send the Spirit nor Word but for this to thee a man feeles the strength of sinne and prayes Lord subdue it oh but look to pay thy Ransome If a man be in chaines for debt and gets out without satisfaction for the debt or wrong he will be taken againe but if it be satisfied for though he be taken by the Jaylour and ill-intreated yet he shall be set free againe and therefore do as those Levit. 3. 3 4. You are freely to go to Sacrifice and it 's said it shall be accepted to make Atonement If the Lord with-hold his Spirit mourn for the want of it as Psal. 41. 3. My tears are my meat If the Lord gives any thing be thankful for any little see it and make much of it for it is from Christ the least thought or knowledge of thy misery Iohn 14. 17. The world cannot receive it because it knows him not i. e. so as to prize it love it bless and wonder at the Lord for it Thy Spirit is goâ—d Lord let it lead me saith David Quest. What if I finde not these things in my soul Answ. Mourn then Object What if I cannot Answ. Then muse on thy misery Object But I cannot Answ. Then hear what the Lord will speak Quest. What if he helps not Answ. Thou art unworthy thou art his clay he may and will do what he will Of thankfulness to the Saints who are apprehended of the Lord Iesus you know him and he knows you you come to him and he takes you you give up your selves to him and he gives himself to you you make him your God and Head and he makes you his people and Members c. Oh be thankful for this 't is a choice and peculiar mercy denied to many and given unto you Psalme 73. 23 24 25 26. Thou art continually with me when falling from thee What is the use that David makes Thou wilt guide and hence Whom have I in heaven but thee I might be broken and like water spilt on the ground every moment but thou keepest me Object But I finde the Lord methinks sometime utterly gone from me and I fear he will faile Answ. True and hence Ieremiah asks Ier. 15. 18. Wilt thou be unto me as a lyar and as waters that faile shall thy truth and mercy be spent No once apprehended he will not lose thee Quest. How shall I know that Answer Something I have spoken and three things more I shall add now First You may know it by time present There are two things which seldome fail in deepest disertxsions 1. The soul forsakes not the Lord by unutterable groanes when the Lord seems to forsake it Psal. 22. 2 3. and it presseth hard after the Lord Psalme 63. 8. and doth not as the Philistines 2 Sam. 5. 21. forsake their gods when they forsake them 2. If this failes it grows poor in spirit and vile and loaths it self as worthy the Lord should never regard it Isaiah 57. 15. and so 〈◊〉 grace most when the Lord makes it least and when the Lord makes it nothing it makes God all things to it Secondly If neither of these will serve yet you may remember dayes of old as David Psal. 77. 10. Psal. 71. 6 9 11. Some said God had forsaken him but yet now he remembers Ancient mercies Thirdly Then stay awhile longer in waiting for the Lord what the Lord doth now you know not but you shall know afterward Isa. 64. 4. that which eye haâ—h not seen hath God prepared 1. You that are young men hath the Lord pluck't you out of your Sâ—dâ—nâ— sin when you lingred in it when you resisted the Lord in the heat of your youth c. 2. You old men how many temptations corruptions back-slidings pollutions beating out as it were the breath of the Spirit yet from the belly to gray haires the Lord hath carried thee kept thee Oh thy foot had faln if the Lord had not kept 3. You that have been once sinful vile creatures yet hath the Lord loved you for all this what if the Lord take away comforts from you and afflict yet hath he not taken living-kindness not mercy from you but done good to you by your sorrows when others go by Droves before his Door and takes none c. O what cause have you to magnifie mercy That the Lord Iesus at his coming to death or judgement will make a perfect separation between the wise and foolish Virgins For the Virgins were all one together till Christ comes and now the one sort is received to Christ the other separated from Christ nay not so much as known of Christ. There are not have not been any Churches in this life but there will be wise and foolish Tares and Wheat grow up together not Virgins and Harlots not openly prophane it may be or wicked and godly No but when all are Virgins in outward Profession and Conversation yet then some will be wise and some foolish in the sight of Christ though not in the sight of man and between these the Lord Jesus will make a separation at his coming Matth. 25. 31. He shall set Sheep and Goats at his right and left hand Mat. 3. 12. He shall thorowly purge his floore and separate chaffe and wheat 2. Thes 1. 9. punished with eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord. The Son of the bond-woman must not be Heir together with the Son of the free-woman and therefore cast him out they must part companies Quest. 1. Whether shall they be separated Answ. 1. At particular judgement what became of the soul of Lazarus It was carried by the Angels to Abrahams bosome i. e. to the Third Heavens where Abraham was and to fellowship with him dearly loved of him What then becomes of the souls of others they being sentenced by God are dragg'd down to hell by evil Angels and are reserved Where they are reserved in the Elements 2. At general judgement the Elect shall be called to come and inherit their Kingdome and hence others shall be cast with the Devil and his Angels to eternal fire which is there where the Third Heaven is not and here shall they be parted and never joyned together more which is fearful Quest. 2. Why will there be such a separation Answ. 1. Reason Because at Christs coming they shall be immediately judged and examined by Christ he shall then make strict and immediate 〈◊〉 of them Why do these foolish Virgins creep in
themselves and 2 Pet. 2. 1 2. as there were so there shall be false Prophers and Paul though discerning reckons his danger in regard of false Brethren and it is a heavy judgement of God that that which should make a man adore the depth of Christs Wisdome Holiness Presence in his Church and fear his own heart and Spirit should offend men in the least measure for surely these are warnings to all the Churches and all men and examples before our doors as those are 1 Cor. 10. A man that is prescribing Rules of Art he gives one or two examples he could give twenty but that is enough to make the wise understand Hos. 14. 9. Hence see the fearful and sad condition of those who shall voluntarily separate themselves and are glad of it from the fellowship of the faithful nay the Churches of Christ they do but execute the divine sentence of Christ upon themselves in this life which shall be past upon them at the great day they shall then be parred and cast out of the family of God the Church of the first-born of which the Churches on earth in their purity are a resemblance Look as it is in sinning a man departs from God and executes upon himself that which shaâ—l be though now 't is not felt his greatest dooâ— so it is in parting from the Saints they do but execute their sentence upon themselves and hence 1 Iohn 2. 19. They went out from us that it might be made manifest they were not all of us if ever they had portion in the Saints they would never have parted not but that one may separate from the incurable corruptions of a true Church and not but that one may remove from one Church to another provided it be with love and utmost care for the good of that where he was and also not but that one may be forced upon some special cause to dwell in Mesheck and be forced to forsake Sacrificing to shew mercy but I speak of such forsaking wherein men voluntarily separate themselves from all the Churches of God at least though not the people of God out of a base esteem of their fellowship and a hiâ—h esteem of something else which they shall have without it they regard not Communion of Saints no further than it may serve their turne and when it will not serve their turne then they forsake it This separation it commonly ariseth from certain preparations to it which are the loosenings of a mans heart from Gods people Like the Apple before it falls it begins to grow loose from that which holds it I shall briefly shew how this is that you may be watchful many not yet fallen but their hearts sit loose from Churches and fellowship of Saints and people of God even when they think their hearts sit close to Christ and I will not name all for particular men have their particular temptations but what is most common and this is one secret sin and plague of men in these Churches and there will be rendings Christs work is to gather and Satans ever quite contrary to scatter and it is a Rule What is Christs greatest work the contrary is Satans chiefâ—st as when Christ is humbling he is hardning when drawing to believe he to unbelief when Christs work is to gather and unite hisâ—s to scatter loosen and divide with that foot Christ treads on Satan most there he bites most 1. The Lord withdraws that honour and love from a man which either he looks for or thinks he deserves from the hands and hearts of Gods people either they are not lovely or not loving to others when they have either no personal worth to purchase love or they have nothing to give of love in exchange for love or else to try them the Lord for a time leaves his people to a blockishness of spirit their love waxeth cold or they think they are not honoured or have not enough and so if men do not make Satan will make them scandals to themselves through their pride of spirit 1 Sam. 15. 35. Saul desired Honour me before the people but Samuel came not to Saul hence what did Saul do you never read that he came to or made use of Samuel again We are united to Christ by faith but to the Saints by love and mutual love Ephes. 4. 16. Take away this mutual love that you love not others or they love not you unless you have Christs Spirit which was in Paul and all the faithful 2 Cor. 11. 16. you will fall secretly and hence Hebrews 10. 24 25. Provoke one another to love and good works say to one another Pray Brother tell me of my faults and your feares I 'le tell you my heart againe c. Truly hâ—re is the temptation of some if not of most to Apostacy from the Lord and his Servants and this is the guise of Hypocrites let any godly not honour them they despise them let any ungodly honour them if they be not extreamly vile they love them and their fellowship and are ready to think them as honest as the best because they make themselves their own gods those that honour them are their good Angels and è contrà 2. They begin to feel by woful experience no spiritual good or power of the Spirit and Presence of the holy Ghost in their fellowship or in these Ordinances in it they have them but not the use not comfort of them and this sets them going and ripens and rots them for a fall for as want of love made them sit loose from the persons so this makes them sâ—t loose from the Ordinance and a man thinks now What am I the better for the purity of Ordinances and so hence when he should loath his heart he loaths the truth and wayes he seems to approve and hence falls For this is a standing Rule Let a man have Ordinances and not know how to use them or not indeed make spiritual use of them if he knows it but he will sit loose from them Mal. 3. 14. Zach. 11. 8. My soul abhorred them and they abhorred me not their own hearts as it is with the soul and body they are not knit one to the other immediately but by spirits which if they be extinct then they fall asunder Let a man have meat and it not feed him cloaths that cannot warme him physick that cannot purge him a Vineyard planted that never hath fruit on it he will cast them off and despise them and this is the second step the heaviest judgement of God on men for not loving the truth but taking pleasure in unrighteousness and this works thus especially if they have had some trial of the people of God sometime and after great expectations of receiving good from them meet with but little the Word Sacraments Fastings hence come to be stones not bread the heaven of promises is Iron and there is no raine falls on them and hence they 1. Carelesly refuse at
yet in your hand nor your Souls ready to meet the Lord For look as 't is with a mighty Prince that shall set his heart on some poor servant and he requires no portion but to love him the more and she cannot bring her heart to love him more than other mean Fellows is she fit or ready to be Matcht unto him So here hence Mat. 10. 37. He that loves Father or Mother c. then you are ready when your love is fit for such an Husband and therefore though you feel some love under the ashes when you stir up your hearts to the Lord Jesus yet if it be not a fit love beseeming his Excellency and the Glory of his Person when you can draw out buckets of love and pour it upon other things but scarce fetch out a drop for Christ and yet you hope that will serve the turn I tell you no you are yet unfit and unready for him Look as it was with their offering the Testimonies of love and thankfulnesse Mal. 1. 14. so it 's here And therefore my Exhortation shall be as 't is said in that Psalm Give unto the Lord the kingdoms of the earth Give unto the Lord the honour due unto his Name So give to the Lord the love that is due unto him that love that is fit for him What is that love the Lord would have which is fit for him 1. Beloved I hope if you think not your Blood too dear for Christ you will not think any love too much for Christ Yet because I would not have you aim at an uncertain mark and shoot at a venture I shall single out that love which I hope your own Consciences cannot but say is fit And 1. I had thought to have sought for this from you viz. Give the Lord Jesus but that love no more love than thou hast given to thy lusts the Lord will be contented with it Rom. 6. 19. As ye have yeilded c. so now but that it may be you may think this love too base for him yet give him but this and the Lord would be contented with it and accept of it and those that shall not it shall be their Torment in Hell to think of this word Oh that I had given the Lord Jesus that love I gave to my base lusts I had had him and been in Heaven with him But I wholly presse a Second 2. Do but love him as he loveth thee i. e. you cannot answer the greatnesse of his love but do it for your measure If you cannot pay him in pounds yet pay him in pence and this is fit for him For 1. He is worthy of love there is beauty in him why thou shouldest desire him there is none in thee 2. Thy love shall have a recompence 2 Tim. 4. 8. he never can have recompence from thee 3. He loves thee first with his own love now that is unreasonable not to reflect his beams and return him his own again in similitude if not in parity Wherein appears the love of the Lord to me that so I may see how to manifest the like love to him He hath loved thee more than himself more than his own honour for he made himself of no reputation Phil. 2. 7. more than his own comforts he left the bosom of a Father and bore the wrath of a Father for thee more than his own life he saw thy neck upon the block and Gods Axe up to give the Bloody Fatal stroke and he came in thy room and loved thy life more than his own lost his own before one hair of thy head should perish though he knew thee a Traytor to God and an enemy to himself Rom. 5. 10. Rev. 1. 5 6. if this be not thus woe to thee living woe to thee dying What art thou but a sad spectacle hung up in thy chains in this world for Angels in Heaven to see and tremble at and for Devils Sins and eternal Sorrows like Fouls of Heaven to Prey upon Now is it not fit that thou shouldst love him more than thy self his honour more than thine his consolations more than thine own his Person more than thine own nay more than thy life Rev. 12. 11. I have known them whom the Lord hath revealed this love to that have thought it too little to do and hence have wish'd they had been born in those Times that they might have laid down their lives for him VVhere is now this love Doth not self-love swallow up all Lord what self-seeking self-serving self-minding self-honouring self-pleasing and the Lord himself and his love forgot as if there were no Christ or in him no love 2. He hath loved thee when he might have passed by thee and loved others that might have wone the Lord towards them I speak after the manner of men rather than thee men of greater place greater gifts and parts greater pomp in the world but Rom. 9. Iacob shall be loved Esau hated he hath passed by Kings with their Crowns and now set his heart on thee a Babe when wise ones know him not foolish when prudent ones see him not weak when strong and mighty receive him not Yea as the Apostle speaketh 1 Cor. 1. 28. Base things and things which are not God hath made thee nothing in thine own eies Behold his love and now do the like for him It may be somtime thy carnal eye sees more Glory in the creature than in Christ more in the honour of man than in the honour of a Christ c. And hence might'st set thy heart on them rather than on Christ because strongly tempted so to do and it may after some scourges be saved at last yet passe by them and set thy heart only on him We judge of a Friend by the times of triall and of a Christian by a time of temptation Now a Balaam a Witch may not dare in time of temptation to fall into it Oh get one strain higheâ— and go one step farther than a Witch though I might let my heart loose after the world I will not love it the love of the Lord deserves it the love of the Lord constrains me to give my love to him and not to the world though I might hide it and have pardon for it 3. He loves thee although thou wrongest him Isa. 43. 22. to 26. when he is so wronged that he is ready to give thee up yet Hos. 11. 8 9. He is God and not man nay which is more wonderful where sin there Grace abounds Hence David makes this an Argument Psal. 25. 11. Forgive because 't is great And hence Moses Deut. 33. 9. Because 't is astiffnecked people Oh therefore love him though he smites thee though he forsakes thee wherein he may seem but indeed doth no wrong to thee but love thee for chastisement is part of the portion of sons not of Bastards Heb. 12. 6 8. But do as that woman when she came to the
wrath is to come what that is they see What their escape from it is they see Hence they look for Christ when he shall appear like the rising Sun and like a Bride-groom from his chamber to comfort them 1 Thes. 1. 10. For the Devils look for this day and natural men but seeing wrath wish themselves under rocks and mountains and seek to smother it But Saints seeing themselves delivered hence calmly look for it The sense of this love makes them say Oh when will he come that I may see him with these eyes They fear not for why should they the terrour of this day 4. Because the Lord hath given unto them the first-fruits of Glory and of that day of Glory hence they look and wait for it You know the first fruits were part of the whole vintage hence they gave thanks for all because they then looked for all Exod. 23. Rom. 8. 23. We having the first-fruits of the Spirit wait for the 〈◊〉 That look as 't is with the wicked that have rejected Christ and counted his Blood â— common thing and done despite to Gods Spirit there remains nothing 〈…〉 for of vengeance so here è contra Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Being 〈◊〉 by Faith now 1. Peace with God 2. Accesse by Christ to God 3. Standing in that Grace 4. Shedding of love hence not only hope but Glory in hope of the Glory of God There is none espoused to Christ but tast this love feel the warmth of his fellowship feel the abundance of his love but 't is but in a little measure in the first-fruits hence they look for and expect the rest at his coming They are somtime full of fears what if shut out at last But when they feel the first-fruits of Glory at that day now they verily look for his coming Christ dies we know but it was not possible for him to be held long and hence rose again and then looked for Glory and then was taken up to Glory So here the Saints lie dead in the grave of sins and fears but it s not possible for them ever to be held here hence when risen with Christ they look upon things above and are waiting for Glory and at last are taken to Glory with himself That look as Iacob Gen. 49. 18. said My soul waiteth for thy salvation when the stakes and pins of this fleshly Tabernacle are loosing and so the Lord is loosing him from the excellency of this world though he minds other things yet he recalls himself My soul waiteth for thy salvation Oh Lord. SECT III. HEnce let all flesh take notice that there is such a time and day and coming of the Lord Jesus This was the Apostles Argument to prove a resurrection Christ is risen and to prove this and so the resurrection from the dead at Christs coming else is your Faith vain i. e. Expectation of him vain 1 Cor. 15. 14 17. Men think it easie to believe a resurrection and a second coming of Christ for that end but an hoverly sleight work is quickly done and an hoverly Faith is quickly wrought But when a man comes to look considerately Is there such a day indeed Is there one now in the third Heavens that will fire this whole world and gather his Saints to his Glory Now it s very hard It s usual with Satan to pierce with extremities that when they do begin indeed to close with Christ and receive comfort from him to smite them with thoughts Is there a Christ and is there such a time of coming Now of all the Arguments to convince and perswade me-thinks none like this viz. That there be a Generation of men in the world that verily look for this day and see it and have the first-fruits and beginnings of it already in their souls A number of people that once never minded it heard of it but looked not for it now to see it flesh and blood could not Satan would not reveal it hence God that cannot lie hath shewn it unto them so as they are in a manner eye-witnesses of it Men will believe eye-witnesses of any thing especially if many Such are the espoused of the Lord in all ages The things which we have heard and seen we speak But may they not be deceived and conceit that which is not True but Divine revelation of any Truth that cannot deceive for that is no fancy of the head nor delusion of Satan Now this is a secret the Spirit makes known 1. In that it fils the mind and feeds the heart with it that it carries unto God with wonderment of blessing him that ever he saw this Fancies cannot feed especially in greatest agonies Now they chuse misery on this ground rather than present peace here Heb. 11. 35. Not accepting deliverance 2. In that it works effects crosse to Nature nay to all a mans lusts in them Noah foresaw a Flood nigh but he might be deceived No 't is said he feared kept close to God and it came so here 3. This Light whereby they see it is not only sweet and Glorious and cross to heart and lusts but its sudden that as with Paul when going to persecute suddenly there fell a great Light and so he saw Christ. So when a man goes on in his sin and suddenly the Lord reveals this and that by a word else 't is a deceit which all Angels could not do before so as to see it and that none can reveal it as he sees it especially to bring this light out of darknesse this must be miraculous power and no dream But what do I speak of seeing they feel the beginnings of it in the first-fruits of it For two great things shall be at that day First Then all the Elect shall have their fill of love Secondly Triumph in Christ when in the clouds with him Have they not the first here Rom. 5. 5. The feeling of which love cannot be a Fancy foâ— it cannot conceive of it nor hold it This is an infinite love and that in the midst of the sence of sin and death That many times they are even fain to say Lord hold 2. Triumph Rom. 5. 3. and that in afflictions which make them by experience so to feel God in parâ— that they triumph for time to come 'T is â—rue at times they look down the Tower and so tremble but while they look up here then they triumph having accesse to the Grace wherein they stand So then look for it there shall be such a day and such a coming of Christ Rev. 1. 7. The Father hath exalâ—ed the Son to inesfable Glory But Lord Who sees him as these in his Glory or to come forth out of his Glory 'T is but Table-talk But behold he comes and every eye shall see him The Lord pities you and holds out bowels of love and Faith Oh receive me Oh cast away those bloody kniveâ— that have pierced me and sends his good
Prov. 5. 11 12 13. you mourn when you not your flesh but soul is consumed Oh how have I despised instruction lest wrath break out which cannot be quenched for dealing slightly with God and your own souls how many Christians take that for grace which when it comes to tryal will be found too light and know it not and regard it not till the hand-witing of God is upon their consciences If therefore you have not found the satisfying sweetness of the Spirit of Gods grace that water which quencheth all your inordinate thirst that bread which feeds you to life be sure your oyl will be spent and your light will go out before you dye SECT V. Quest. HOw shoâ—ld I know that satisfying sweetness Answ. Ah methinks you should say Oh that I did know it yet wary I would be of giving any just occasion to break off what the Lord in his grace hath wrought yet you may know something of it by this 1. When the Spirit of Gods grace dispensed in his Ordinances doth glut you and slay you and make you worse here is not the grace of Christ which doth satisfie you if the more knowledge you have of the truth the less glory you see in the truth and the less you love the truth if the more comfort you have sound by it the less you now desire after it if the more abilities you have received by it the more proud you grow and high-minded if having come for to seek the Ordinances of God the less good you find by them the more weary you grow of them and the more you despise them it is certain the satisfying grace of Christ is not here when the bread to feed is poison to slay is not this the condition of many what is the cause they are growing worse that they are worse in their latter end and middle of their Christian profession than the begining because they are grown full by Gods Ordinances and so worse what is the cause in places of persecution the Lords Ordinances were precious not when they come to them Gods Ordinances plenty makes them to undervalue them through their sin that look as it is with men in consumptions whose life is going out they think they can eat yet when it is before them loath the smell of it or a little serves them whereas another finds it otherwise not but that Saints may think thus but they with Hezekiah mourn under it 2 Chron. 32. Hos. 6. 5. I have hewen and slain what is the cause because your goodness is like a morning dew which soon vanisheth therefore have I slain them Oh God loves us and we are the best people in the world because we have Ordinances no but because you be shallow hence you shall have Prophets to slay you Secondly If any man maintains any living lust in himself in the midst of his profession and hungers after it and the life of it for when a man hath better food to feed upon he will neglect his own at home as Christ said to them when they asked him why he did not eat how many be there which have strange gifts and have had marvellous ebbings and flowings of the Spirit of Life and Peace and yet one sin have they lived in and would not could not live without it Look as it was in the wilderness they were for a time pretty well content with their allowance and wildernessâ—walks and provisions but they could not stay long They asked meat for their lusts but he sent leanness into their souls Psal. 106. 14 15. So that there it is if lust be stirring the Lord either denies it his own people because he will starve the lust that the soul may grow or if he gives it slays the lust by it gluts it makes the soul grow weary of it and prize his first Husband more as Solomon by his experimental discovery of the creature Many men confess and pray aginst their sins but by their sorrows and desires they do maintain the life of their sin fall to it as the dog to the vomit you will be cast away at last 1 Cor. 9. ult I beat not the air lest I become a cast-away whereas a gracious heart doth not maintain but waste and consume his lust His life is to live to God Thirdly If a mans heart and affections reach not the people of God with the dearest embracings noâ— yet mourn for the want of such a heart for sometimes there are some drops of the Lords goodness falling into the heart whereby the soul cleaves unto the Lord and is moved and ravished and bears much 〈◊〉 as it thinks towards him but look to their love to the people of God tâ—â—re they fall short because the love of Christ is not shed abroad abundantly into their hearts filling and satisfying of them and hence have none to poure out upon the souls of their neighbors 1 Iohn 4. 20 21. In our own Country what was the accusation of Saints viz. They are Hypocrites before God What did you think of those men that said so Answ. Surely they were enemies to the Lord and that never loved him for then they would love his people But what is the occasion here Now they say they come far for Ordinances but they are unjust oppressors cruel poor men may starve before regarded by them and so they cast reproach not only upon some few but all the people of God and Church of God If that it be so their accusation is Gods accusation if not as generally it is for many though unable to do much yet if called to it would lay down their estates and lives for others then know thou never hadst Christ's love shed in thy heart which will continue but drops of it only because thy love cannot reach to these Beloved what is the end of your coming over hither is it not to enjoy first Christ and nextly his People so his Ordinances because next to fellowship of Christ the Saints company is most precious and do you here bite and censure and devouâ—e and neglect and reproach one another and upon any conceived injury stumble are poor men neglected It is a sad sign the love of Christ in not in power Heb. 6. 9 10. Fourthly If there have been abundance of sweet affections and sweet refreshings thereby rising up within the soul without the death and killing and removal of the contrary lusts and sins it is certain this soul was never truly filled nor satisfied with the Spirit of Gods grace for as it is with vessels while they be filled with lime or chaff they cannot be filled with wheat or with water so while the heart is filled with some noisom distempers it cannot be filled or satisfied with the Lord look but abroad in the Churches how many be there that say and think they â—ate their sin as the only evil they close with the Lord Jesus they love the people of God all of them they seek the glory of God
and yet they do but think so for though they hate sin yet it is unsoundly because they see not how closely their hands are knit to their sin they never did believe because they never felt their unwilling heart to close with Christ they never loved the Saints because they never felt their contempt of Saints never sought Gods glory because they never mourned under that which did stain it they never make work with their own hearts the stony and thorny ground withered because their soil was naught a heart filled with sweet affections which never felt the strength of contrary corruptions lying underneath it is an ill soil and where those affections will never prosper nor prove right and hence 2 Tim. 2. 20 21. he that purgeth himself from these things shall be a vessell of honor ever preserved never broken Do not put it to a venture it may be I may have grace and so put your salvation on the hazard of such hopes but the Lord that hath come to thee knocking open the door that he may come in and feast cry for infinite creating power and mercy to make haste and come and help thee what have you to do else but to get your old lusts purged away what do you labor for else if you have children to bring up if you have any love to them nay if swine or cattel meat you will have to feed them and satisfie them if possible and yet behold thy soul perishing for want of true spiritual refreshings SECT VI. OF Exhortat on to all young beginners and so to all others Take heed you chop not at your comfort too soon take heed you do not perish in the way that whiles seeking after the Lord and rest you fall from the Lord by security and scandal and so you perish but labor for that which will continue and last 1. Mariners when they go a voyage they will trim their vessel and search if there be not something amiss which may sink the ship at last if once out at sea they may dye before they come home and hence at first setting out are careful so do you 2. You will meet with trials enough to exercise all your grace that you will find all little enough in the issue 3. This will be your comfort at death that â—hough it be difficult yet if you have fought a good fight and run a good race there is now a crown this will make you to go out of the world wondering and go up to eternity in your triumphant Chariot of glory when you shall see on the one side here a Demas forsaking there a Iudas betraying here one Chriâ—â—ian withered there another scandalised and offended and yet the Lord hath upheld thee in thy integrity a poor creature that thoughst thou shouâ—dst never have held out at all That you may do thus two things are to be done First Be sure your wound at first for sin be deep enough for all the error in a mans Faith and Sanctification it springs from that first error of his Humiliation if a mans Humiliation be false and weak and little his Faith is light and his Sanctification counterfeit as may be seen in the stony and thorny soil if a mans wound be right and Humiâ—â—ation deep enough that mans Faith is right and his Sanctification is glorious for Christ cannot be exceeding sweet and satisfactory to the soul unless sin be first exceeding bitter and this is the reason why Christ is not sweet nor precious at first nor afterward because sin is not so better to them especially heart sins Christians shall find it the esteem and price of Christ falls whiles sin lies light and is not bitter SECT VII Quest. HOw bitter must it be Answ. So bitter as that nothing contents your heart whiles sin is with you and the Lord is gone from you Lam. 3. 49. Mine eye ceaseth not mourning till the Lord look down from heaven as a man that looks for a Prince to come and live with him he prepares rooms for all his attendants but he reserves the best lodgings for the Prince himself and they are kept empty whiles he comes So the soul entertains Creatures and Ordinances and Saints of God but yet the heart is not content but sits empty desolate whiles the Lord is gone for whiles the heart is delighted with somewhat else beside the Lord that if the Lord comes it is well if not it is merry and jolly see what the Lord there speaks Iam. 4. 8 9 10. Cleanse your hearts and he will draw nigh unto you turn laughter to mourning else you are not humbled Let Gods own people do so it stops up the fountain of Gods love and sweetness of mercy Psal. 30. 7. When carnally confident I was troubled as it is in marriage if a man knows there is familiarity between the woman and another Lover he will have none of her but when sin is thus bitter the Lord hath the garments of joy to give for the spirit of heaviness Isa. 61. 1 2. Oh therefore though it be cross to have limbs cut off and breasts feared bones broken c. yet part with all for life even this life of Christ in you which will give you full content SECT VIII Quest. HOw shall I do thus my heart will be wanton and carnal Answ. 1. Set this down for a conclusion I shall never be comforted by the Lord whiles any thing else comforts my heart i. e. for it self as hath been proved and if this was well thought of this would make a man above all other things detest his carnal content because this indeed keeps the Lord from him 2. Keep the remembrance of the bitterness of your sin and evil in it thus David Plal. 51. 3. set it ever before him for all the sweet of sin comes into the heart by a delusion first begot in the mind of some present good in it which the soul not attending to is drawn away by it â—â—am 1. 14. drawn away and enticed hence fortifie here Three things in sin which if remembred would make it bitter 1. Sentence of condemnation past upon thee by the Law of God for it which may make a soul to mourn Little 〈◊〉 do men take in their Prison-bolts 2. The death and agonies and sorrows of the Lord Jesus to acquit the soul from this condemnation this is that which may work bitterness as for a first born Zach. 12. 10 11. 3. Crossing the will and so grieving the heart of Christ now in glory as when the old world grew sensual it grieved God to the heart keep these in remembrance what pleasure canst thou take in that which makes the Lord sigh 4. The end wâ—ll be bitterness Psal. 73. 17. Secondly Take heed you miss not of that Faith which will bring in supply Heâ— 4. 1 2. Take heed lest a promise being leâ—t any fall short of that rest which comes by the promise by an unbelieving heart for many desire the
up before profession as all manner of ignorance and hardness and lasciviousness and vanity now many grow terrified for these and comforted by the Gospel against these and now peace is made Oh but there are some mens natures like some fields which when they are mowen and weeded yet they have a second growth it may be as with other kinde of Weeds you may never fall to those sins you lived in once but other sins more close more spiritual like the House Luke 11. 24. swept and emptied but seven other spirits worse than the former may at last enter in Oh take heed of these for they will make your latter end miserable you know habitations of Satan are not fit mansions for the Spirit of Christ you know Vessels not only of Wood but of Gold if filthy and poysoned are unfit for Princes use till cleansed and look through all the Scriptures on the faces of the best hypocrites you shall finde some filth growing up after their Profession or together with it like blood and sacrifice mixt together Matth. 7. 23. Luke 13. 27. Not those that have iniquity but those that work it not those that work against it and are destroyers of it by little and little but workers of it If you ask me what these sins be I answer These tares and choaking Thornes as they are sown and grown whiles you be asleep so they may be seen when they are grown up if you walk in your fields and meditate on your hearts I 'le only name some 1. Pride affecting some excellency above others and thinking your self some body 2. Spiritual fulness and secret loathing of Ordinances when men are clogged with them 3. Despising known truths which like flowers were notwithstanding sweet at first gathering either concerning your misery or Christ if the Gospel were preacht to the ignorant they would take heaven with violence but thy soul now is not moved and the messengers of God that bring them despised as Galatia and Corinth did Paul 4. A spirit of contention with good people Now you cannot bear unkindnesses and they offend you c. Alexander at first stood for Paul and he opposeth Paul to his face at last 5. Boldness to 〈◊〉 in small matters commonly without sorrow begot by counterfeit assurance of Gods love 6. Seeking of God in Ordinances and working of iniquity out of them fits men have of good affections but healthful constitutions of bad ones 7. Thinking you are indeed what you would be and yet indeed would not be There be other sins but these are some of the most special which I shall now mention take heed of letting these grow or dealing gently with them for Saints may feel these but they put their hook to the roots of these Weeds and would faine pull them quite up but if you deal gently as David with the young Absolom and think God must do all I cannot part with them and hence you give way to them and though there be these sins yet I have many good signes and promises too I shall be saved and so long as they cannot destroy my soule what though they grow in my soul You perish 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. if thus it be with you Take heed you do not run away with such comforts arising from your feeding upon the promise and person of Christ without refrâ—shing the soule also with the good Will and Commands of Christ do not think your selves ready to enjoy Christ when his promise person and love is sweet which is good but his will is bitter and a burden to thy soul even thy whole soul I know 't is so to the â—nregenerate part of godly men for such men there be 1 Iohn 1. 6. To the Saints Christs love is sweet and promise sweet and therefore his Will his Work Iohn 4. 34. Bread you know not of to do the Will of him that sent me and to finish it so it is their food to do the Will of him that loves them and to finish it If a man is to remove from one Countrey to another and he cannot live upon the Bread of the Countrey nor water where he goes he is then unfit for such a Journey because he cannot live upon the bread of it Now what is that which feeds the life of Saints in glory not only Christ but living unto Christ to be perfected under the Government and Kingdom of Christ can you live upon this now in part and the first fruits of it if you can know it is then prepared for thee and thou for it if not but you live as you say upon the present sweet of the promise nay it may be upon the thoughts of old comforts but to do the Will of Christ is death not life to you and it is meerly your task for wages to do his Will not part of your Inheritance you are unfit to be with Christ Acts 21. 13. Why break you my heart saith Paul I am ready to die for the sake of Christ and to do much more So think thus Was Paul ready to die and I not ready to do my heart loaths thy Commands Lord but what the Law makes heavy the Gospel makes sweet for thy sake Lord I love thy will pray Oh thy love is sweet but let thy will be so also Labour to grow poor in spirit that when you cannot honour the Lords Will yet you may be gathering somâ—thing out of all sinnes and weaknesses to honour Gods grace the glory of grace is the last end those that be prepared for it shall enjoy it Who are those The poore who when they see they have lost their lives their soules their comforts in not doing his Will which is bitter to them yet the Lord shall not lose the honour of his grace Psalme 74. 21. The poor will be thankful What doth Paul that Vessel of grace Persecutor Blasphemer but a Saint now say Oh but the least of them but he was an Apostle but I deserve not that name but yet he is received to mercy 't is very true yet never such an example as he thinks and therefore saith he To the King immutable c. when Iacob had seen the Lord Gen. 26. ult if he shall give me food and rayment he shall be my God i. e. I shall then magnifie him he having said he would be so before and he had it in plenty So say If the Lord shall pity pardon I shall then give all to him if I had a thousand hearts tongues truly as Psalme 40. ult The Lord now thinketh on you When a Servant hath spent and lost his Masters estate and he is to give up an Account truly then he may give it with comfort when as he gaines one way abundantly though he loseth another and makes the best gaines so here SECT XV. 2. TO those who are ready but yet not so ready as is meet The Lord hath given you warning to prepare by some sharp afflictions on thy self or by the
death of thy friends or by secret feares of thine own heart thy time is not many hands breadth longer and it may be this shall be the Funeral Sermon of some of you you have been flying like Bees abroad in the world to gather your honey and the Lord haâ—h been smoaking of you and that in your own Hive you have thought to dwell long in Tabernacles the Lord hath let it fall to decayes and repaires it not again If you live unready it may be the Lord will try you with some sore conflict with fears of death and terrors of darkness and all your preparation is too little for your combate then The place of glory is made ready for you how shall I so unholy see God Christ is there Iohn 14. 3. waiting for thee longing after thee Thou art it may be yet in many respects unready As 1. Not yet planted in the House and Church of God not yet gathered to communion of Christ in his Saints on earth I know men may have just reasons to deferre but if they have none I would be loth to die in their room Hezekiah Isa. 38. ult Psalme 26. 8. I have loved the habitation of thy House Oh gather not my soule with the wicked I am perswaded some deare to Christ linger here and you cannot finde this not that saving good in your selves you say I had rather hear one mourn for emptiness than boast of his grace 2. There are many sinnes not yet mourned sufficiently for in daye of youth and in a secure condition in heaven is no mourning oh therefore take time now for want of this grace is not so sweet 3. It may be some main duty is neglected to the souls of them whom thou hast a charge of as not Caâ—echising thy family children not careful for their souls 4. It may be thou hast been little in prayer for the Churches though for thy family and children which is usually the last work of the Saints there 's no praying for them in Heaven as Christ at the end of his life like a Priest shed blood and prayed for them so Saints are made Priests to God and Christ 5. It may be thy house is not yet set in order nor thy Will made Reckonings between men not yet set right and even and then there is Quarrels when thou art Dead and trouble when you dye 6. It may be thou art grown secure and art lost and driven away and many wrinckles be on thy face and heart c. you cannot say with Paul 2 Tim. 4. That you have fought c. but are rather at truce with sin you run not but have slipt and fallen down and so lost all SECT XVI THerefore to help here in this readiness Get a heart more loosned and weaned from the world Solomon he did launch out his heart herein too far not in Epicurisme but Eccles. 2. 3. applying his heart to wisdome all this time so may you and be unready How I cannot but God will teach it you by affliction Psalme 39. 6 7. You are Sojourners here with God as all your Fathers there 's nothing proper nothing long to be enjoyed Own the Lord Iesus he is yours but you own him not as Simeon came to the Temple and there found him and there blest God and now saith he let me depart in peace hath the Lord stirred up unutterable sighings and groanings and mournings you think it may be if Christ was present you would not doubt of answer and they continue still and do you think Christ is hard-hearted hath the Lord come to thee in the Temple and manifested his love by his own promise sure and faithful and wilt thou not yet own him hast had and hast now the first fruition of the Spirit and wilt not yet own him and art afraid to go to him when others are in glory that trod in thy steps Oh be humbled for it I know there is nothing which makes thee feare it but a Rebellious vile heart and nature and can the Lord love such a one Yes such a one if he mournes under it Rom. 7. 24. Isaâ— 57. 18 19. The Lord will create peace he hath seen thy wayes and heâ—will heale them And when you have him thus own him daily keep your peace do nothing which may make you lose boldness in prayer and therefore reckon daily with him and Remember the promise stands when feelings are lost Object But I can do but little for him Answ. True Isa. 64. 6. Thou the Lords clay his Vessel though of little publique use yet in thy place do what thou canst for Christ Jesus Servants Masters Members Rich Poore bestirre your selves For Christ you shall lose nothing by it c. VERSE 10. The Door was shut IN these words is set down the consequent of that which immediately followed the Wise Virgins gracious entertainment with Christ the door was shut by which is signified the exclusion of the foolish from the fellowship of Christ as also the greatness of Christs love to the wise opening the door of glory unto them and when they are gathered shutting the door against every one else Hence Observe That the endeared love of Christ to his Elect doth much appear in this In opening the door of glory unto them and shutting it against others of great esteem and name in the Church of God for this is one Scope of the words Gen. 7. 16. To open the Kingdome of Heaven to all the world and save all would be great love in the eyes of the Saiâ—ts but to save them and condemne others to receive them and exâ—lude others and that of great name and esteem Virgins this sets out the Lords love exceedingly Christs distinguishing separating love is his great love Mat. 11. 25. If we consider the multitude of the one and fewness of the other not only in regard of the world but in regard of others in Churches Luke 13. 24. Many shall seek and many that are first shall be last Matthew 19. 30. If we consider that there is as much reason appearing outwardly that the Lord should choose thee one as well as the other what difference is appearing outwardly between these Virgins I 'le warrant you the wise did think the foolish as good and it may be far better than themselves Iudges 6. 15. Saith Gideon How wilt thou save Israâ—l by me I am the least in my Fathers house yet saith the Lord I will be with thee so the Saints may say and do say Why Lord wilt thou save me I am the least and poorest of all others If we consider the reason why the Lord doth this and that is because of nothing but the Will of God his good pleasure Matth. 11. 25. For why should their Vessels be filled they received and not others only the Will of God I know not you c. Of which hereafter If we consider the intolerable torment of those who go farre