beleeving ones and seale the soule of such a one through the faith of the word to a true ingrafting into Christ Affectation to allegorize the Scriptures a dangerous course and the new Birth Constantine the great and good Emperour being a leper and told that nothing else could heale him save bathing of his body in the bloud of infants ript out of their mothers wombe abhorred the speech of it as counting the remedy worse then the disease That which hee did mercifully in forbearing doe thou religiously in embracing The bloud and water flowing out of the pierced sides of the Lord Jesus and washing thy soul by faith sacramentally is only able to heal thy leprosie to make so perfect a cure as shall never need to be repeated Naaman and thou need nevere be washed the second time if once throughly cured and in truth it was this bloud which made Naamans cure so perfect Apply thy soule to it therefore to make a perfect cure in it better then all thine owne patcht and halfe cures Looke not at the outward water alone looke at the power and vertue of him whose bloud onely can heale both the water from her cursed barrennesse to make it fruitfull and seasonable seed of life and thy soule by water from guilt power and eternall curse due unto it Christ in the water is the power of it one droppe of his sides issuing out water and bloud is the efficacy of the Sacraments Mix all with faith to cleanse thy soul to purge thy leprosie it s shed to thine hand and powred out by himselfe most willingly for thee If thou refuse it thou art guilty of shedding it but not by beleeving and applying it Numb 19.4 No legall cleansings of the leper by Aaron can equall it he sprinkled the bloud and ashes of a Cow Christ sprinkles with his owne he often Christ once for ever he imperfectly so that the leprosie might returne Christ fully never to returne Hâ—â— 8.15 If then the bloud of an heifer could purge by ceremony a polluted body how much more shall this bloud of the eternall Covenant cleanse thy conscience from dead workes to serve the living God But beware thou do not goe and wash in Jorden with lesser faith then Naaman did doe as much for thy soule as he for his body else thou separatest the things which God hath united and destroyest the power of the Sacrament and the purpose of God for thy regeneration yea the very creature of water shall rise up in judgement against thee in the day of judgement for that it closed with Christ inseparably in his Ordinance but thou most prophanely didst warpe from him by thy unbeleefe So much also for this third Branch and for the second Doctrine and so for this Lecture Let us pray c. THE ONE AND TWENTIETH Lecture continued upon the 14. VERSE VERSE XIV Then Naaman went downe and washed himselfe seven times in Ioraen and behold his flesh came againe as the flesh of a little child and hee was cleane Then he returned and stood before the man of God c. The second head The cure of Naaman WEE noted Brethren two lesser Observations in the end of the last Lecture out of this last part of the verse viz. The successe of Naamans obedience Now leaving them and the expression of the cure wee come to the cure it selfe And saith the Text he was cleane No intermission of time passed between his washing and cleansing both went inseparably together The â—â—ine poinâ— flowing hence which we have reserved to this Exercise is That Gâ—ds promises are alway as good in the performing as in the making if not better for so falles it out with Naaman here The Prophet promised him cure of his Leprosie by washing himselfe And lo now he is as good as his word he washes and is cleane in body This is as much as was promised But moreover as appeares by the sequell he proves a cleane soule also and this was an over-plus to the promise It is a light thing for the Lord to heale his body except hee heale himselfe And in this respect I may well say as I said before That Gods cures are perfect indeed all perfect gifts are from above and all that are from thence are perfect to purpose Ere I come to handle the point this I would premise Brethren how fitly this point followes the other to make the heart and life of a poore beleever comfortable The former point told us that promises must bee interpreted aright and not mistaken not restrained but beleeved according to the utmost extent of the promiser But then comes in a doubt Though I enlarge them in their full reach yet God may restraine them to the shortest size True if thou stretch them upon thy carnall tentors But take them according to the word as indeed thou shalt not need to make them better then God hath made them and then this point will tell thee to thy comfort that God will performe whatsoever hath gone out of his mouth to the uttermost nay perhaps cast in such an over-plus as was neither promised nor looked for The Text is president enough for it if there were no more So that even in the entry upon the point we may set a starre in the margent and for our better encouragement both to beleeve and in beleeving to waite patiently may say these two points carry very sweet newes from heaven to a poore empty and hungry soule both that he will have it beleeve to the uttermost and when she hath so done God hath in store for her as much performance yea and much more then shee hath faith But let us come to the point The order I will observe in the point shall be this First I will prove it by Scripture Secondly by reason Thirdly I will cleare a maine doubt about the Doctrine And so lastly come to the Uses and first of the first Concerning which this I may say That the whole Booke of God Doctrine Gods performances alway as good if not better then his promises is nothing else but a very Theatre and open Stage wherein the Lord acts his part of performing of promises And not so alone But so curious the Spirit of enditing the word is in every Chapter and Verse lest the reader should spy any flaw or crack in the performance of promises that it steppes out of his tracke oft-times to reconcile and equall each performance to her owne promise And this both in the maine promise of Christs exhibition and in all secondary promises whether generall and concerning the soule of the whole Church and each member of that body or personall and temporary promises concerning this and that person And the greater distance there seemed betweene making and keeping of promises the more curious regard hath the Holy Ghost to expresse Gods keeping touch when his time was come For example Proofes and Instances God had promised to Abraham that
NAAMAN THE SYRIAN HIS DISEASE AND CVRE Discovering lively to the Reader the spirituall Leprosie of Sinne and Selfe-love Together with the Remedies viz. Selfe-deniall and Faith Besides sundry other remarkable points of great use as you may finde them after the Epistle to the Reader With an Alphabeticall TABLE very necessary for the Readers understanding to finde each severall thing contained in this Booke By Daniel Rogers B. in Divinity and Minister of Gods Word at Wethersf in Essex LONDON Printed by TH HARPER for PHILIP NEVIL and are be sold at his Shop in Ivy Lane at the Signe of the Gun MDCXLII TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE THE Lady CECIL Countesse of Winchelsey late Wife and now Widow to the Right Honourable THOMAS Earle of Winchelsey deceased GRACE and PEACE Right Honourable THE graces of Selfe-deniall and Faith are like those two pillars of Iachin and Boaz 2 Chron. 3.17 erected at the beautifull entrance into the Temple for all men to cast their eyes upon and that worthily for most costly and pretious was their matter and most curious and artificiall was their workemanship For as those two Pillars led the way into a glorious Temple yet made with hands so doe these two stand in the porch of a better Temple even that of Grace here and Glory eternall in the heavens And as they so stood neare the gate of entrance that no man could enter in save by them although themselves never went in but alway staid without so these graces though they shall leave the soule in Heaven because she should not need them yet they shall not forsake her while she abides in the porch but shut heaven doore upon her ere they take their leave Moreover as the contriver and erecter of the former was that famous and cunning Artist Hyram of Tyre so 1 King 7.13 no lesse an artificer then Hyram nay a greater then Hyram is here I say the Spirit of the Lord Iesus is the framer and setter up of these in the Soules of Gods Elect. And these two graces good Madam with the discovery thereof are the chiefe frame of these my ensuing Lectures in which both when I preached them and now I write them I aime at this marke to withdraw the soule from the life of it owne hand to the life of the Lord Iesus Esay 57.9 and from an empty Religion to be acquainted with the mysteries of the Gospell the only manuduction to true godlinesse All profession being nothing else save a shadow and bottomlesse building which is not grounded and quickned with Selfe-deniall and Faith And indeed Right Honourable if ever any age of the Church did then doth this in which we live in my judgement require that the labours of us Ministers be improved about the urging of these whether we looke upon the times or turne our eyes to God himselfe in his administration and government we shall observe the former excessively overgrowne with an outward and formall Religion and for the latter when did the Lord so estrange himself from us and dwell as it were in the midst of a thicke cloud So that except by the lively practice of these two graces we do not stir up our selves to take hould of him how can our lives chuze but be sad and comfortlesse Surely if ever we had now need to prease upon more familiar acquaintance with God in all his graces and as David did to view his Temple well True it is that the old Iew had little knowledge of God save by the name of Iehova Alsufficient and a generall aime at the promise of a Messia the blessed seed to come Doubtlesse they lived at poore termes It was enough for them to cast an eye upon Gods Temple as Daniel in captivity and Iona in the Whales belly might do Dan. 6.10 Jona 2 7. Strange and deep was that mercy which would so far off behold such as so far off beheld him but now we the Church of the New Testament are come nearer to God Heb. 12.24 we are come to mount Sion to the heavenly Ierusalem to the Church of the first born to Iesus himself the Mediator of the Covenant and the bloud of sprinkling which speakes better things then that of Abel We are come now beyond the Porch and Sanctuary even to the Holy of Holies through his flesh that hath broken downe the vaile of seperation So that now we are past viewing of the Temple well for we had need become this Temple our selves 2 Cor. 3.18 Whose corner stone is precious Iesus and wee precious stones built upon him and rising up daily to a more lively and well proportioned building 2 Pet. 1.4.5 A little taste of the gift of God a few good reaches and affections after holinesse are not enough for us but to be grounded upon these foundations of Selfe-deniall and Faith 2 Pet. 11.1 which promise us an open entrance into that eternall Temple According therefore to those talents of Wisdome and Knowledge which the Lord hath long imparted to us by the blessed lights of his Ministers who sometimes shined in our Sphere but now in glory it is expected at our hands That we comprehend with all Saints that depth and breadth of love which is in Christ Eph. 3.17 18. that he may dwell in our hearts by faith Heb. 6.1 that forgetting our first elements we strive toward perfection so far as in this vaile of misery its possible to reach to I know your Honour hath long made this your marke and that leaving things behinde you have long looked forward to the prize of the high calling of God Phil 3.13 and to that end have I sent you this Booke that it may affoord you some succour and direction hereto in your private condition and sad widowhood These thirty yeares I have wholly intermitted any converse with your Ladiship an error scarce pardonable except your so farre distant dwelling from the place of your first nativity and education did plead some pardon for me being one whose age and occasions admit no travell to remote places Yet have I not wholy been unacquainted with your course and conversation in Gods waies nay I know through how many combats and fights of affliction God hath brought your Honor into the condition wherin you stand And besides Heb. 10.32 I may say of you as the Lord once said of Iehoshua Zach. 3 2. Is not this a brand pluckt out of the fire Hath not the Lord taken you as a dry branch and planted you in the Courts of his owne house to grow wel-liking and flourishing in goodnesse Sometimes the Lord abhorred a female out of that flecke which had a male Mal. 1.14 But now the males of your flocke are all gone the Lord hath left you as a female hope of recovering the honour of a collapsed family A great honour for to say the truth who hath beheld so deep an eclipse of such as have beene neare
God when the famine pinched him and to kill the Prophet and yet to goe no further then himselfe confuting himselfe when hee and Iehoshaphat and a third King went against the King of Moab Cap. 3. and was at a straight like to perish for lacke of water both he and the Armies behold what a change it wrought on the sudden For then he seekes to the Prophet and bemones the straight in which the Army was making no other account but that God might justly suffer them all to perish And when Elisha disdained to looke at him yet his fiery spirit held it selfe in by compulsion from any misdemeanor So that he must bee a monster of men whom a deepe straight will not subdue and tame unto the stooping to any conditions I grant this may sometime prove only an act of policy or of carnall feare and so cease We read of a royall spirited Emperour Henry the fourth of Germany who being wearied with the tyranny of sundry Popes and of Alexander by name was at last by his roaring Bulls and excommunications which in those daies scared the greatest brought to such an exigent that he with his Empresse and their young son were faine to stand 3. daies barefoot at the proud Popes gate And being after admitted to his presence when he was urged to lye prostrate before him the Pope treading upon his necke and spurning off his Crowne with his foot although the spirit of the Emperour could have rebelled and beganne to disdaine it yet for policy sake he was compelled to desist It s noted in Judges that when the Ammonites oppressed Israel the Elders of Gilead and brethren of Iptha who before had thrust him out for a bastard being in a straight for a Captaine Judg. 10. were compelled to goe to Iptha to crave his returne and to undertake the warre and when he cast them in the teeth with their former injurious casting him out yet the extremity they were in humbled them and kept them downe so that they were glad to take shame to themselves and to begge aide even of that bastard when they saw their welfare lay bleeding at the stake and none fit to helpe them but himselfe These are but common naturall instances yet they lay forth the point thus farre that the naturall spirit of the hautiest and most disdainefull man toward such as himselfe will abate and come downe when an exigent is upon them And the like may be said of man toward God when they are laid upon his bayard and when he hath them upon the hip by any deepe and straight sore and extremity Yea it is true even of Gods owne deare people already in Covenant with him whose slavish hearts have often been compelled by Gods Chaines upon them to forget their jollity and sensuall appetite and to stoope to Gods power under their straights That which I formerly spake of the Soveraignty of Gods Nature I may here verifie of the outward extremities which he brings us into Both serve to bring downe the heart and to make it humble and subject Iob was an holy man yet such naturall scurffe the Lord saw to lurke in his spirit that he was faine by the losse of all his substance children health of body the enmity of his friends the terrors upon his soule the admonition of Elihu and the Lords owne tawing of him by the view of all his power and the terror of Leviathan and Behemoth at last to wring this speech from him Cap. 42. I abhorre my selfe in dust and ashes Hezekiah also was a godly King Job 42.3 but his treasures and wealth and elbow-roome made him so fledge and jolly that he forgat himselfe till the Lord smot him with the plague Esay 38.15 put him in feare of his life and urged him to say I will walke all the rest of my daies softly in the bitternesse of my soule in the midst of my house The Lord had him upon the hip and then he could crouch 1 King 19.12.13 Jonah 1. 2. 1 Sam. 24. Elija Iona David and Salomon all holy men yet till they were frayed with the thunder and earthquake cast into the Whales belly straighted betweene the choice of either famine warre or pestilence and the like saw not into the frowardnesse rebellion and stoutnesse of their spirit But of all others it is truest of such spirits as the Lord subdues to himselfe and drawes out of a cursed sinfull course Such as this patterne in our text resembles Naaman I meane for although as yet he was not privy to Gods purpose towards him in this abasing of his stout heart yet he was in Gods dispensation now in the way unto it and by this as a step came to the other The prodigall who is a true mirror in all points of a debaucht sinner and fugitive from God was faine to be pursued so narrowly by the hand of God Luk. 14.15.16 that till there was no possibility of subsistence for him any way he never thinkes of a father and lesse of returne and least of humbling himselfe But when hee was brought to an absolute straight and could no longer hold out his great stomacke and resolution never to see his father begins to quaile and then his father began to savor with him It is with the spirit of a sinfull Rebell against God as it is with a City besieged by a strong enemy but the City having both abundance of outworkes and strong forts raised up with plenty of provision within besides store of brave souldiers who will spend the last drop of their heart blood ere it be said they are cowards scorne to yeeld their City But when long time of assault the instance and unweariednesse of the besieging army hath battered downe all their forts Simile murdered all their Souldiers with the Canon beaten downe their Citie over their eares houses Temples walls and opened a wider breach for entrance then they can make up againe besides the exhausting of all come and victuall within and intercepting all succors from without Then perhaps when no remedy else from forraine aide appeares they will hang out the white flag and cry for conditions of surrender but before nothing but scorne and defiance will be admitted Even so is it with the unregenerate soule shee pleases her selfe with her false treasure the perswasion that she is rich and full and happy and yet perhaps remaines meerely ignorant or at least in a formall and dangerous estate insensible of wrath or danger This state she findes ease in and when the Lord would hunt her out of it she sits upon her Idolls securely and will not stirre The out-workes and forts of the soule against God She imbarkes her selfe in this error by the conceit of her wealth health youth outward contents want of crosses credit good successe how can God hate her giving her all these if the Lord drive her out of these outworkes yet she runs into stronger forts compares her selfe
in their conversation and behaviour seeing that the world is hard and living under strict government they begin to looke about them and to digest those counsells which they have long beene taught Every age is not so capable when yeares have hardened a man in his evill course he is farre worse to be wrought upon then in his younger time having lesse experience of evill So that the Lord takes men in the fittest season in youth and prevents the unfittest and so for all other circumstances Fifthly the Lord mercifully stops and prevents such accidents as if Branch 5 they tooke effect would be like to hinder the worke of his providence Prevents such evills as might hinder his ends Thus the Lord prevents an ill marriage an unapt yoke-fellow when as yet there was far more likelihood that way then any other Yet the Lord crosses and defeats it so that it shall not take effect so also he stops and cuts off some such companion by death either friend or husband or wife or the like whose example or counsell might possibly have hindred the good of the other party 1 Sam. 25. Abigail being freed from Nabal was at liberty for David and so many a well-minded childe over-ruled by a crosse and peevish father or mother when God removes that tye is at more liberty to enjoy the meanes and to profite So that the Lord when he intends any thing doth alway remove out of his way the lets which might hinder his worke Lastly and especially the Lord doth put life successe and blessing into Branch 6 all such courses and meanes from first to last Puts life and successe into all occurrences as are offered by his providence that they shall take effect and leave the impression of grace behinde them Because God meant well to the Prodigall hee so ordered the matter that even contraries seemed to worke together for the best God oft workes by contraries Luke 14. If he had kept still with his father ten to one hee had been as the other brother But even the misery which he felt which might have been the next way to have made him desperate and to have rusht himselfe upon vile courses to his ruine or caused him to have laid violent hands upon himselfe yet by Gods dispensation wrought him to an utter loathing of his bad wayes and himselfe and to an earnest desire to seeke to his father for pardon Much more then doth the Lord blesse other wayes of sinners which are lesse unlikely as wee see in Naaman here no one passage befell him but brought him one step neerer and when hee had his owne desire that wrought in him such a brokennesse of spirit that he was thereby fitted to receive a better boon from God with more thankfulnes So that poor blinde man Ioh. 9. John 9. whom Christ purposed to save although at his first cure of blindnesse he was not converted yet the Lord was so effectuall in his cure so brake his heart by that love that when hee was most bitterly reproached and excommunicated for confessing him yet he gave not in nor shranke but convinced them with shame and put them to silence and when our Saviour had him upon that advantage he meets him againe in his streight and by a few words speaking to him converted him But these may serve Now for use of the point it is manifold First it is terror and admonition Vse 1 to all brutish prophane ones and base hypocrites Terror with admonition to such as are under no prevention but alway at one point who walke securely in their way some neglecting all meanes others using the most holy and effectuall meanes in a meere formall manner Both of them justly left at large by the Lord to themselves so that nothing workes upon conscience But even as the Wind-mill turning in her round every way yet stirre not out of their place so is it with them after ten twenty yeares they are where they were the first day no step neerer God but many further off For why alas they are farre from acknowledging any preventing grace of God in their course They know no other means but to goe to Church and present themselves among others in the place and so home againe As for a providence to prevent them to bow and sway their hearts to any tendernesse and towardlinesse to see themselves drawn by God to know themselves to see into their nature to abhorre it and embrace all opportunities for their owne spirituall furtherance to salvation they are farre from it And as they live so they dye And if the Lord at any time do scare their conscience or move them to any better thoughts of their wayes yet alas they have no intimation from God of any mercy therein are soone weary of them they vanish as they came And when they looke backe into their course past their youth education company marriage dwelling Ministery or the like alas they cannot speake of any moving of heart stopping their lewd course still they are in their thorough-fare heare like blockes are wearie of good company shun all opportunities of good for feare of being better glad when they can wash off good duties and winde themselves out of all occasions for heaven Alas poore wretches yee shall not need put off with one hand that mercie which you cannot pull on with both It must bee singular grace which must prevent you if ever you come to good But to goe against the edge of providence thinking your selves happiest when yee are out of the element of it is fearfull Doth it not sting you that you have felt so little of Gods prevention in all your wayes So many of your yeares time acquaintance not onely stirred but converted to God since your beginning and you still as saplesse and senselesse as ever Doth it not disquiet you to see all is too little for your ease will world lusts and vanities What have yee no sighes nor sobs in your dreams and upon your beds how it shall fare with you in the day of wrath and that there will be bitternesse in the end 2 Sam. 2. What I pray you is more miserable then to live without God in the world And who live so but such as feele not one pull by the eare one knock at the doore of your hearts or if they doe forget and shake it off with as little savour or regard as pigges tread upon pearles Alas if hee who is the authour of the Scriptures of Ministery of Sacraments of long-suffering of afflictions hath never yet cast the least seed of light or sparke of heat into you which should teach you to acknowledge these ordinances and administrations of his and to tremble at them Are you worse then Divels Application of the terror by admonition Therefore I pray you consider of what I say If the Lord raise not up the North winde to blow upon your spirits to encline and perswade them it
abased him very farre to such an inferior as the Prophet was Now we see he receives an affront from him by him whom he so submitted himselfe unto being so far from healing him at the first that hee comes not out to salute him And why To teach him to cease his crouching to the Prophet and crouch to God another while Some might say alas poore man he had sorrow enough before but Object I answer spare your pitty This second winde shakes no corne It is not Answ in an outward crosse nor the power of it to subdue the heart to God it may handsome a man in his outside to manward and make him stoope to man but it cannot doe it to God Wherefore now the Lord puts a tongue into the word and Message of Elisha whereby he comes a little further to consider whom hee had directly to deale with even the Lord himselfe who suffers not the cure to proceed to the end that hee might looke better about him and see into his base heart which hindred it And wee must conceive that although this wrought not presently yet the Lord being with it it wrought somewhat at last Let it briefly teach us beloved thus much Bodily crosses can reach no further then bodily ends Job 33.13 no crosse nor bodily strait of it selfe can reach further then to a bodily end There must bee a word added to the workes of God before the heart will breake The Lord must as I noted before speak once and twice ere pride will be hidden and the soule humbled in kinde and then it stoopes Well said Habacuc Cap. 2. I heard thy voice and my lips quivered my limbes trembled and rottennesse entred into my bones that I might have peace in the day of trouble And Esay Cap. 28. asketh whom shall I cause to understand and whom shall I teach wisedome Heb. 4.12 even him that is weaned from the brests and who trembleth at my words The word and voice of God onely able to pierce the heart It is the voice of God which must pierce the heart till it tremble The voices of sicke mens repentance wanting a word vanish The reason is because the workes alone are a brute sound and have no tongue in them The word is all onely God hath blessed it and therefore other meanes are unblest The word must be the interpreter Nay many times under a crosse alone the heart waxeth more hardned and rebellious or at least wise it puts off God with confessions under the rack or else it windes out it selfe and counts it as a common accident befalling mortality It s my hard lot saith one God helpe me to be thus afflicted Even as blessings alone bring none to feele love from God of themselves being common things bestowed upon all sorts as it hits so is it with crosses Nay some blinde idiots imagine Popishly that their portion here in trouble and straits is a signe that they have their hell here and shall not therefore have it hereafter But however sure it is let a man have never so much sickenesse poverty reproach feare of death upon him none of these are blessed to search out his pride jollity carnall ease unsavorinesse Atheisme worldlinesse or the poyson of old Adam These all may lurke and abide under a crosse a man may still nouzell himselfe in his sensuality security rotten peace unbeleefe and hope that he is in Gods favour But when the word comes that dashes out all errours and false conceits Why so because it brings God into the soule as the Arke into the campe and causes the soule to behold herselfe in the glasse of his perfection the neerer it comes to God the more it loathes it selfe Job 42.2 I have now seene thee saith Iob therefore I abhorre my selfe in dust and ashes Let it teach us never to rest till the Lord hath turned us out of our common path and brought us into a narrow way even to deale with himselfe His word will present him unto us as in a glasse wherein we may behold him in his excellent Attributes his Justice Wisedome revenge of his enemies a Judge of the wicked a rewarder of the righteous This sight will coole our courage as it did Naamans here stop us in our headlong courses make our owne conceits and errours odious teach us to wait upon God till he shall hearken to us till he shall humble convince and perswade us Doubtlesse when wee come closely to behold his face and to feele his authoritie over the conscience how severe an avenger he is of all our pride rebellion and that he whom we have to deal with beholds our inward man and all the corruption thereof nothing is hidden to his eye but all things are naked and manifest before him then all our heat of spirit Heb 4.13 confidence of our happy condition disdaine of others pleasing our selves in our carnall hopes applauding our parts our duties performances will vanish as a private mans lands and livelihoods vanish in a great Mappe of the world Then our plumes quaile and we say depart from us O Lord sinfull wretches In the sight of this Sunne all our darkenesse and unrighteousnesse Luke 5.7 become irkesome and all our corruption is swallowed up in this sea of his perfection So much for this The third and last short meditation from this ground is this The last meditation that as the Lord began before to humble Naaman in part so he holds him still close to the worke of humiliation and enlarges him not Proud nature of man quickly forgets humilition till he had brought him to sound humbling of soule It shewes us what our nature is in this behalfe We are like to light Corke which will floate aloft and except a man hold it under by strong hand will pearke up to the top When we are downe and low one would thinke it should be a great worke to raise us up to any cheere againe But no sooner is the stone blown upon by a little puffe of winde although it have been steept in water a whole night but it waxes dry againe presently as if never wetted The hard and stony heart of proud man can never sufficiently be battered and tamed but it wil returne to her course againe instantly And the truth is These dayes especially and why the dayes we live in have a peculiar disease in this kinde above former dayes Gods wrath revenging our former contempt of his law and terrors of conscience and our dallying with them and shaking them off through a base heart weary of trouble To be abased and low when and while the Lord will have us so for our own good and to think well of it is a rare grace We are a kin to Ionah Jona 3. and 4. who was no sooner out of the Whales belly but contrary to vow and covenant pearkes up again presently and quarrells with God for converting Ninivee and for his slaine gourd
washing in Jorden The third gerall The third and last point out of this verse I will propound by answering a question briefly Object arising out of the former doctrine For it may bee demanded seeing that not the waters themselves were the cause of effecting this cure upon Naaman but the power of God onely in and by them To what end did the Prophet so presse upon him the washing in Jorden and why had it been so heynous a contempt for him to have neglected this charge Answ Why God useth outward means to convey grace viz. To stop mans devices The answer is double First in respect of the necessary concurrence of the water to the instrumentalnes of Gods working Secondly in respect of a signe or ratification of the promise in the heart of Naaman To open both these in a word For the former it is alway the course of God to worke by meanes and instruments sensible and bodily when hee hath to doe with us men of a bodily and sensible nature As in the duty of prayer though the worke thereof is properly spirituall and holy and the Lord can tell our hearts as well as our tongues yet it is his will that we offer it up by the instrument of outward speech orderly set sensible Take unto you words say Hosea 13.2 receive us graciously So though the power of regeneration stand not in speech but in the Holy Ghost yet the Lord will not so worke immediately but by the ministery of man to man hee hath ordained to convey his spirit into the heart And the reason is plain for else what a door should be set open to the fantasticall spirit of man to vent his owne speculations and conceits without any warrant from God Who would not frame to himselfe revelations of the Spirit and devise new inventions of serving God How doe Anabaptists boast of their owne fancies How doe they despise the ordinary calling of Ministers and preaching and thrust forth themselves by the instinct of their owne spirit as if they were some great persons How do Papists devise new worships as that Masse of theirs which is nothing else save a masse of many ingredients added by sundry of their Popes or masters of ceremonies and those many Sacraments of theirs whereof not one print of Gods appointing appeares in all the Scriptures If this be done by them against the expresse will of God what would they have attempted if they had been left unto themselves How infinite would they then have been Therfore the Lord wil have all that look for any worke of his Spirit to attend the means closely and reverently and only by through them to expect for blessing If God please to unite his grace only to them ordinarily may it not well beseeme us to tye our attendance and observation of his power in and by them This is one cause why the Lord would not extraordinarily convey himselfe to the Eunuch to Cornelius Acts 8. Acts 10. Acts 9. to Saul at Damascus save by the intermediall instruments of Peter Philip and Ananias our spirit is alway in our extremities for either wee runne to our fancies conceits sloath and ease contemning the meanes or else when meanes must be used we fall to idolize them both which the holy Ghost abhorres Another reason is in respect of Naaman himselfe who was a novice Reason 2 It was the will of God to heale him by faith in a promise Why are signes sacraments used by the Lord for the effecting of spirituall things viz. to assure our weak faith Now because that was a difficult object for him to settle upon the Lord appoints him this outward and reall signe of the waters to prop up his faith by and to settle his inner spirit by the externall sense As if he should say Goe thy wayes I will heale thy leprosie beleeve me and if that be unlikely to thee loe I give thee a signe even the waters of Jorden that as verily as thou shalt drench thy selfe therein so verily will I by my spirit heale thee Occupy thy selfe in obeying of me and loe I will be present with thee to put thy weake heart out of doubt concerning thy cure This was alway the course which the Lord tooke with his old Church whensoever he promised any blessing or deliverance unto them Judg. 6. 7. 8. Thus Gedeâ—n a man inexpert in warre was faine to be strengthned by the fleece both dry and wet and by the dreame of a barley loafe by one of the Midianites yea the Lord never revealed any purpose of his to the Prophets concerning either the publique or any special person but he strengthned it by some outward signe suting the thing and affecting the sense Thus when the Lord meant to rend tenne Tribes from Rehoboam and give them to Ieroboam 2 King 12. Ahijah the Prophet is sent to teare his garment into twelve pieces and to give him tenne and keepe two A very reall resemblance And that young Prophet to strengthen his denunciation against the same Ieroboam Cap. 13. and his idoll at Bethel told him two signes one present viz. the falling out of the ashes from the broken Altar of sacrifice the other to come Iosiahs poluting those high places by burning the bones of the Priests upon them So Esay strengthens Hezekia in the newes of his recovery Esay 37. by that famous signe of the Sunnes going backe tenne degrees And so when Ahaz refused the signe Esay 8. the Prophet gave the Church one touching the deliverance from Rezin to wit the conceiving of a Virgin some two or three hundreds of yeares after even with a sonne whoâ—e name should be Emanuel Infinite it were to speake of Ezekiels bricke pourtraying the siege of Jerusalem the hole in the wall by which he convayed away his stuffe Ieremies basket of figges the best and worst that could be eaten to describe the difference betweene the Jewes in Babel and the rebels at Jerusalem The like was Agabus his taking Pauls girdle and the very false Prophets Zidkijah and Hananiah affected the like course in their hornes and yokes Even so the Lord did teach his people by many bodily ceremonies cleansing of leprosie by the Priest and washing by outward sacrifices and the like And by those many resemblances of the blood of the Paschall Lamb sprinkled and the flesh of it eaten as also by Manna the Rocke gushing forth with water Also by the cutting off the foreskin of the male he made the Lord Jesus and the power of his death and crosse to bee knowne sacramentally although but darkly in his Church And now under the New Testament although the worship be more spirituall Sacraments excell common signes yet the course is the same True it is Sacraments exceed signes in their efficacy yet agree with them in this generall kinde of outward signifying or strengthning the soule by signes For what else doth the Lord
for that which is cursed for ever not onely through the want of Christ but through her enmity to Christ 4. See the ugly hue of this sin Fourthly They shall see the ugly shape of that creature which they have made an Idoll and committed spirituall Sodomy with it as degenerate a villany as to commit filthinesse with a beast They shall see what a dampe it brings the soule into when it places her happinesse in the earth and the hidden treasures of it how it makes the word and ordinances most fulsome and unsavory 5. All the savor of a creature rests upon mercy 5. That all sweetnesse which any creature can afford must come from Christ dropping fatnesse into it by his footprints in it what savor then can it afford when it opposes Christs sufficiency by her own vanity and so robs him of his what savor can the soul suck from a creature which is a dead carrion what is all the comfort of a creature to a dead soule not only destitute of the life of Christ but stabbing Christ to the heart rejecting his life yea 8. It will worke the soul to a revenge of it selfe chusing to cut off the creature from it self then it would not be cut off from it By these the like convincements the Lord will cast down the fort of self in the creature stripping it naked of all her false sufficiency shewing her she is but a gull not able to afford that which she crakes of that shee hath nothing but bare walles to boast of that so this strong hold being razed and made levell with the earth poverty of spirit may enter into the soul and Christ and his sufficiency which onely belongs to them who are brought to nought in themselves may come into it 2 Cor. 10.4 Therefore let all such as have felt this disease in themselves cease to marvell why their hearts have beene so empty of Christ Conclusion of the point and beene left to such a wofull staggering of heart in point of comfort For they have forsaken the fountaine and digged broken pits to themselves which will hold no water Let them renounce them for hereafter and say Ashur shall not save us wee will not ride upon horses upon these vaine creatures for with thee the fatherlesse shall finde mercy make them no prop of support either by greedy seeking Jer. 2.13 Hos 13.2 sensuall keeping or loathnesse in forgoing And Lord I finde my selfe as destitute and forlorne a wretch in point of grace notwithstanding all my deep portion in the creature as if I were the veriest begger in the Country I see all true sufficiency to be in thee and that thine exceedes mine both for kinde roote quality and degree of content as much as a carnall a fading blasted and vanishing yea a vexing one is inferior to a spirituall immortall incorruptible and satisfying sweetnesse wherefore I count my selfe the same man whether I want or have abhorring my selfe in dust and ashes I renounce mine own and rest at thy dispose for the creature to have more or lesse of it and cleave to thine And so much also shall serve for this fourth branch The last kinde of grosse selfe is Selfe-religion or Religious selfe The fifth Branch Selfe-religion And this is the invention of Satan Christs deadly foe that whereas all will not be prophane nor naturalists nor epicures but will be religious lo he hath a baite for every fish What it is and can insinuate himselfe aswell into Religion it selfe as into lusts and pleasures and so provide that in all the duties and priviledges which professors of Christ boast of yet there shall bee a cord upon their heele which shall pull them backe from all power and savor of Christ aswell as if they had never been towards any Christ at all And so the nearer Christ they seeme to goe the more dangerous shall their selfe-delusion prove and the more confident their sufficiency of devotion makes them the more wofull shall their defeat at last bee and all for want of soundnesse and sincerity And in this point I would insist in three things Priviledges Duties The branches of Religious selfe three and degrees of Religion All these strengthen Selfe-religion in hypocrites and time-servers and shroud them under a false covert and protection of that which is farre from them for the first it was alway is and will be 1. Privledges the boast of Jewes Papists and common Protestants They were the children of the free not the bond-woman Abrahams seed such as whose all the promises were to whom the Ordinances and Oracles of God belonged others were dogs and swine and accursed to them they cried the Temple the Temple they were of all other nations the chosen generation Matth. 3.9 the peculiar people all others rejected save themselves The Lord must want worshippers if he cast them off and by this meanes they were so puffed up in themselves that when Christ came in person to offer himselfe for salvation they abhorred and slew him and cast him out of the vineyard that fulnesse and sufficiency they felt in their priviledges Privledges of Religion great enmity to many in keeping them from Christ caused them to live in a practice of horrible treachery and impiety against God and desperate contempt of the Lord Jesus as it were under a banner of defiance Just the like is the practice of Papists who under colour of the Church the Church the succession of Bishops the ancientnesse of their Religion the glory of their outside of worship pompe and bravery of rites and ceremonies their prosperity and worldly happinesse their large and generall extent in government their superstitious devotions and what not which flesh can desire make themselves beleeve that they are the onely Christians and all other are upstarts and counterfeits So doe our common Protestants and hypocrites they boast of their baptisme their part in the communion of Saints their right to their word and ordinances they are no hangbyes no Gibeonites no recusants no prophane ones no morallists nor epicures but constant worshippers of God frequenters of the sacraments and partakers of all the priviledges of the Church When Constantine restored the Church to her priviledges she began to degenerate And this puffes them up the divell blinding them that they should bee bewitcht with his charme and looke no further then a bare priviledge comparing themselves with such as still walke in a loose and prophane course and in respect of such deeming themselves very religious But what is the effect hereof surely this that under pretence of their great priviledges they are full of themselves so that the pith and marrow of them for all tend unto and end in Christ or else are empty shells faith I mean and Christ in his sufficiency to forgive save and sanctifie them is a meere stranger unto them The Church was purest when her priviledges were fewest The
like may be said of duties It was the great boast of that Pharisee and of all his tribe that he fasted twice a week 2. Religious duties gave almes paid tithes of all even to mint and cummin he was not as the publican no extortioner no briber no usurer and this made him crow upon his dunghill exceedingly and swell in his law righteousnesse that Christ never came in his minde Luke 18.11.12 Those Pharisees in the Gospel upon whom so many woes are pronounced how full of their duties were they Christ himselfe was a libertine to them and their strictnesse a companion of Publicans and sinners a glutton and winebibber in comparison of their abstinence and sobriety How dangerous he could not keepe a Sabbath strictly enough for them nor walke closely enough to please them Phil. 3.7 8 9. And Paul who had beene one of them and after his conversion bewrayed their secrets confessed that as he trusted to his priviledges of a Jew of circumcision of his sect so especially that hee walked to the uttermost in the most precise strictnesse of his profession making conscience of being a Pharisee and throughout all his Epistles what doth he cry out of so much as his and their law righteousnesse that is that exact and strict walking in all the duties of the morall law and ceremonies Oh! how this conceit of their owne vertues and moralities stiffened swelled and puffed up all this bastardly brood not onely to disdaine prophane ones but also to abhorre the spiritualnesse of the Lord Jesus and to contemne the offer of his grace as base and superfluous And what was the chiefe object of our Saviours outcries Matth. 23. woes and curses save this rabble of Pharisees one whole Chapter being spent therein yea his bitter and irreconciliable antipathy and enmity of spirit against them above all other either heathens or prophane ones Surely because he saw that above all other opposition to himself this was the most deadly and damnable to set up a god against a Christ an Altar against an Altar a righteousnesse comming from a meere selfe-loving and selfe seeking principle from a carnall bottome to a carnall end against the eternall spirituall pure righteousnesse of the Lord Jesus who came to discover not onely all grosse unrighteousnesse and make it odious but also all righteousnesse of flesh and all the obedience of hypocrites and to cast it as unsavory salt dung and dogsmeate upon the dunghill And to be briefe what else is the religion of our daies and times both among Popish and carnall Protestant worshippers save their duties devotions The one boasting of his masses sacrifices almes penances empty fastings building of Hospitalls doing of good workes and all to establish their owne Corban and Kingdome through the merit of their owne congruities and condignities the other their serving of God hearing his word receiving his sacraments abstaining from the sinnes of usury drunkennesse uncleannesse and doing the duties of the Sabbath of mercy and charity of righteousnesse and equity But to be sure both of them swelling in the opinion of themselves both abhorring to feele any pinching need of the Lord Jesus and his sufficiency to pardon both their unrightousnesse and also their counterfeit righteousnesse being both equally damnable But the third branch viz. Religion in point of degrees and measures The 3. Branch Degrees of Religion is of all the most dangerous peece of Selfe and swelleth the unsound and hollow heart of man in the opinion of himselfe Some boasting of their knowledge of Gods will in generall others of some degrees of legall humiliation a third sort of a wonderfull sweetnes they have tasted in hearing the Gospel and the glad tidings of life salvation thereby a fourth shewing how they are awed by the knowledge of the word from their former courses what degrees of grace have been wrought in them how long they have been hearers What degrees of Religion a man may attaine unto and held out in their profession longer then many revolters what zeal they have shewed in setting up the Ministery in their Townes praier in their families care and conscience and good example in their lives how many sins they have laid aside what good they have done in their repeating of Sermons calling upon their kindred and neighbours what services they have done for the Church runne ridden written bestowed paines and travell to settle order and government in their places how they have honored graced and maintained the Minister invited entertained him to their houses how they have stood out and suffered for the Gospel Others go further instance in the power of the promise of Christ in their soules what ravishing passions of joy admiration and thankes that sweet doctrine hath wrought in them what pangs of deepe love and affection it hath raised in them how it hath bred in them abundant weeping and sorrow for their sinnes humiliation and feare under the hand of God how they have stood upon thornes till the Sabbath or lecture day came what ardent desires after the word what longings what frequent use of meanes it hath wrought in them and how they have denied both lust and liberties for Christ and could be content for the time to beg to goe to prison and suffer for him Besides many effects which this hath wrought in them the curbing in of their tongues their passions and their lives which were wont to be full of lying deceit rage revenge unmercifulnesse unrighteousnesse but now they are become true of their word quiet moderate curteous gentle and mercifull All these thinges laid together cause them to thinke no lesse then that their state is good and sound to God-ward for why the hearsay of Christ wrought all these things in them And yet not to condemne any particular person for these seeing God only knowes the hearts of the sonnes of men how many have we knowne by wofull experience who have attained some of these or all these degrees And to how small purpose who yet in a short time have bewraied themselves to bee time-fervers and wanzed away to nothing as fast as ever they seemed to come forward Alas they never called themselves to question never tried their estate by the rules of the word nor came to put difference betweene a conscience proceeding from supernaturall revealing and betweene divine and spirituall perswasion The Apostle hath a strange speech 1 Cor. 15.19 1 Cor. 15.19 If our hope were in this life onely in Christ wee were of all men most miserable whereby we see that many seeke their Christ onely for this life that is how they may make use of Christ here below for a while to get themselves some inward truce with an accusing conscience or to get themselves credit ease and welfare here among men with whom they see Christ and Religion are in request But as for a Christ to save to sanctifie and glorifie them for ever they
of Simoniacall contraâ—ts for Benefices that such Simony creates a lapse Will any Minister having a living freely offered him by his Patron chuse to contract for money Is he not well worthy to lose his living by lapse The Lord Jesus is offered thee freely by thy Patron of Heaven the Lord Almighty wil nothing then serve thee but Simony to come to it by thy selfe Thou deservest to forfeit him and to be cast out by lapse Thy money O Selfe perish with thee Act. 8. because that thou thinkest by thy price to obtaine such a gift Lo thou hast no fellowship with this businesse I conclude therefore lay not out thy silver for no bread Esay 55.2 nor thy labour for that which profits not eate good things Esay 52. end and let thy soul delight in fatnesse enjoy the fruit of thy travell and refuse no pains to cast nest nest-egge on the dung-hill Trust God upon his bare word for a principle of strength from Gods fountaine which will hold out both Winter and Summer when the Brookes of Tema shall be dried up Cease joyning Selfe with Grace Doe not thinke it so desolate a worke to hang upon a promise except thy selfe have a finger in the worke and feel some warmth from thine owne feathers Bad digestion in the stomacke is not bettered by concoction such as thy root is such the branches will bee and an errour in the foundation will meet thee perpetually in the building so that either all must be puld downe againe which is tedious or else thou must rush forward with an uncomfortable spirit and upbraiding conscience False mixtures are odious to God and hee who forbad the field to bee sowne with two graines or a garment to be made of linnen and wollen meant another thing for what are these to him but abhorred the soile of the soule should be sowne with selfe and Christ and the backe apparelled with Christs robe upon an inward garment of thine owne 2 Cor. 5.5 Thou chusest to be cloathed upon but God will have thee naked for what use is there of covering one that is covered already The mixing of divers heapes of corne together mars both pease or tares are good in their kind if severall but if mixed tares are soile in wheate nay the wheat is marred by them Duties and affections if considered as fruits of Christ and his promise are good things but if they mixe and incorporate then they prove soile and marre all Filch not from God to bestow upon Selfe feed her not with Gods dainties rob not God to satisfie her to nourish up thy base heart against the simplicity of grace begge of the Lord that he would teach thee to discerne copper from gold and to shew thee the face of this Selfe in his glasse to take out of thine heart this slavish base unbeteaming and underbidding nature be affraid lest thou shouldest undergo thy selfe in purchasing the pearle looking more at the one bird in the hand then two in the bush and beeing so pennywise to detaine Gods due price and to keepe selfe with her brats selfe-pettishnesse worldlinesse ease sloth selfe-credit self-will wit and instinct that thou are pound foolish and deprivest thy selfe of a pearle worth both all that thou forgoest with an hundred fold gaine and heaven it selfe at last Hate Selfe for her selfe in point of her enmity and contrariety of Spirit to the Lord Jesus and then her branches will soone wither and lose their sap and life And this may serve for the former branch of this use of Admonition Branch 2 to the godly The second branch of this watchword may reach to the godly themselves who must know that although they have escaped this gulfe in the maine point of beleeving a mercy deserving the thanksgiving of their whole life yet she is not quite expelled from being an inmate and daily pricke and goad in their side while they live a perpetuall Peninnah Selfe a perpetuall enemy to the regenerate Let such then wonder that the Lord should ever bring them out of the endlesse maze of this selfe and give them broken humble and plaine hearts to avoid the thousand turnings and doublings of a base spirit 1 Sam. 1. and to tread the true path of wisdome leading to life Oh! should they say how loath would I be now to hazard my soule upon the successe of former labours how loath would I bee in this barren world and base heart to have the matter put to a venture Oh! I would not for a world be to beginne againe a thousand prayses to him that hath not put my soule to such a perill and not so onely but be warned also to beware lest when this divell cannot deprive us of heaven yet it should defeate us of our other hopes to grow in grace to joy in our possession to live by faith to be sound in our worshipping of God and duties to be fruitfull in graces to serve our time to bear our crosses to persevere in our course to be ready for Gods comming What is it but this wofull inmate that hinders in all these what but this selfe and presuming of our selves causes grace to be so unthrifty and to hang downe the head what but ascribing to our selves in our meanes using makes them so unfruitfull what but our utmost taking of our liberties pleasures ease and denying our selves nothing which hath but the least colour of lawfulnesse causes Christians to be so full of sorrow and repentance what is that which glues us so fast to the creature that we are loath to part with it for peace of conscience or the attaining of heaven loth to die and goe hence what caused Iob so much sorrow save the cure of this disease Job 42.2 to teach him to abhorre himselfe what save Selfe in the creature wedding our selves to our next hand props of children wealth meanes welfare causes the Lord to cut off these members altogether that as in the body which hath a leg or arme cut off the spirits might not goe to that which is dead but that which liveth even from the streame to the fountaine That we may learne by experience if the base creature be so sweet in which so small a dramme of the Lord is what is then the God of the creature worth Why should the Lord afflict the godly with so much sorrow save this that they will not be brought to improve the Lord for his strength to subdue their lusts and corruptions in speciall to make good his promises to be alsufficient in outward blessings to uphold us in our straits But we content our selves in this that we have found him good to us in pardon and reconciliation thinking the danger to be past and our selves free from taking care for the subduing of this wofull Selfe in the course of sanctification I might instance in twenty particulars take it in these two what should so much sting a poore soule
as this that out of her owne doores an enemy should come forth even this Selfe lurking in the secret corners of the heart unmortified selfe in revenge in unmercifulnesse in deadnesse of spirit security and pride wantonnesse and unbeliefe which should dishonor that God and wound that Spirit of grace which hath so lovingly vouchsafed to rid us of our first guilt and feare of wrath that we might be his owne redeemed ones and not serve our selves Againe if Selfe be so dangerous as to hold off the unbeleeving soule from faith how dangerous is it in stopping the passages of our comfort dayly from the promise or in threatning us some mischiefe ere we finish our course with perseverance Could he that hath runne a long and faire race toward the prise and is well neere come to it endure one who should stand armed and by force stoppe him from getting the silver bell how should that enemy even this wicked Haman bee abhorred by us that should defeate us thus yea if it were but the making of that doore of heaven more narrow in the entrance then it need be 2 Pet. 1.11 whereas the Lord hath set it wide open to receive us after our poore pilgrimage is ended how odious should such an adversary be to us But I returne to other uses of the doctrine This may serve for both branches of Admonition A second use is Terror and that in two Branches First to all prophane Vse 2 ones and contemners of the Gospel and of the power of conversion Terror in two Branches 1. If Selfe in the most forward professors be so dangerous what shall become of the loose libertine and ungodly wretch Looke about ye and be affraid of your condition if such as are so fair for salvation and have passed through so many steps toward it who both in their judgements of others and perhaps in their owne deluded opinions are out of danger yet faile of their purposes because they strive unlawfully where shall such as you appeare Oh yee libertines joviall and merry companions who make Religion a vaile for your loosenesse and your civility an excuse for your ungodlinesse did yee never duly weigh this doctrine wofull creatures who care for no Religion but so farre as it wil stand with your lusts what face will ye behold the judge withall when ye shall see thousands of all sorts both Ministers who have preached Christ in the streets and cast out divells Matth. 7. Psal 12. others who have abode the heat of the day in Gods vineyard yet for lacke of self-deniall to lose all and yet you have hated the Gospel as a snake or a toade because it threatens your liberties yea sweare that yee will be curbed by none of these Preachers your tongues are your owne and no Lord shall controll you Tell me I pray you what confusion of thought shall cease upon you in that day you shall stand in the forlorne ranke of the battell and shall be as stubble for the fire irresistable you shall have the convincement within yee of a thousand witnesses and yeeld to damnation as speechlesse and hugge the divells and say to hell thou art my portion and to the damned you are our companions Job 21.33 As Iob speakes of the wicked who rejoyced in the earth the clouds of the valley are sweet to us so I say to these That which ye have sought shall bee your reward destruction shall be your end because you sought no better Oh! let me adde one word Oh that I could perswade you perhaps you will fight against me with mine owne doctrine Object and say if the painfull lose heaven they can but lose it who take no pains and why then besides should they lose so many lusts and worldly pleasures as they enjoy Answ I answer this is as if a Traitor should answer why should I be loyall when as yet I may be hanged for cutting a purse Doe neither what necessity is that ye should perish either way should one runne into a pest-house because he may die of a burning ague though he should shunne the plague Doe what lies in you both by physicke and diet to escape both But first you must take heed of wasting your conscience openly ere you can get a good and sound conscience void of selfe and self-love There must be a beginning and perhaps a prophane heart may sooner become an humbled one then an hollow heart which will see nothing amisse He that breaks off thy prophanesse may also grant thee sincerity in thine endeavour get but a seed of God into thee and thou shalt shunne both the right hand and the left hand evills I bid thee first to renounce the grosser lusts and then the smaller shall follow and Gods yoke may prove sweeter then both Be not dismaide because some have miscarried in a higher degree for better is he that crawles up the hill by little and little though a creeple then he who is neere the toppe and Branch 2 tumbling downeward of Terror Pharisees terrified Matth. 6. Rom. 12.1 So much for the first Branch Secondly this no lesse chokepeare for all pharisees and formall hypocrites whose Religion rests in their duties of these I have spoken in part before the lesse may serve here Except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of such ye shall certainly perish Selfe will destroy many that goe beyond you and their error must lye downe with them in the dust when all is done as Iob saith Chap. 21. It must be a reasonable a spirituall sacrifice of subjection to God which he will accept deale not with multiplication but subtraction keep your sheep sacrifices to your selves Psal 40. The Lords are the Sheepe of a thousand hills he needs none of such offerings say with the Prophet A body thou hast given me Lo heere I come but come without thy Selfe and confidence therein and cast out old enmity of corruption acknowledge and kisse the Sonne for his sea onely can sweep away thy dunghill and dregs away with thy morality and morall swasions bring them to the Spirit of Christ and he that shall drown them all in his sea Psal 2. ult and this shall breed thee more peâ—ce in one day then thine own course all the whole yeare which the longer thou tradest with it the sadder fruit it shall breed thee and at last the worst of all So much for Terror The third use of the point is instruction and that in sundry particulars Vse 3 First to teach us a true judgement of this enemy of our peace Instruction and Branch 1 what censure to passe of her Neither adultery murther oppression Selfe exceeds opâ—n evills in her delusion and â—â—fâ—ction nor any such lust can defeate us of our last hopes but this Self may and will Reckon up thine enemies perhaps thou wilt say thou hast many no man more then thou some that seeke thy shame some thy goods some thy life and
heare ill when we have done well which is a royall grace indeed Secondly this also may be just reproof to others though not so ranke as Vse 2 the former and these are of many sorts First Reproofe such as although they live in a bad course and know it yet are no sooner convinced thereof but they cavill against God himself and lay him in all the fault they would as faine be better as the Preacher and they cannot deny but they are farre from that they should be But these Ministers they say would goe beyond God and have them better then God will make them which cannot be for till God change and mend us all we can be no better let men teare their tongues to the stumps And and whence is this cavill Truly from base prophane Selfe which is crossed in her way imagining that because it is easie for God to worke as he please Cavillers against God as if he were in fault for all their errorâ— convinced and the worke of conversion is onely his therefore they may live the whilst as basely idely and prophanely as they list They would have grace droppe out of the clouds on the suddaine into them that their hearts might all at once be humbled comforted and turned to God before they bee aware and then they thinke they might scape a great deale of trouble that others meet with who are so restlesse painfull and unwearied in the use of the means For their own part they will use good means too on the Sunday and come to Church and heare but they will waite till God worke To whom I answer The Lord rebuke all such wretches God open their eies For tell me I pray you these waiters upon God how live they the whiles Most loosely deny themselves no liberty lust or will of their owne but lash it on upon the score till grace come and wipe off all they spare for no sinne committing to be lewd companions drinkers covetous or the like For why should they If heaven will be favourable it can pardon great as well as small offences If it will not in vaine should they strive For they have no strength of their owne they confesse to restraine from any such courses till God turne their hearts then you shall see what manner of persons they will be when they be of Gods making you shall see what new men they shall be But oh you white Divells you that turne rebellion into smoothnesse and play the still swine who eate up all the draffe how should such as you ever come into Gods mint to be new stamped I denounce unto you that all your hypocrisie tends to the vailing over of your sinne it is not grace you seeke if your brests were open hell and destruction are there and the way of peace you have not knowne Peace you would have pardon and heaven Gods love and favour but your cursed wills you would not forgoe And therefore that ye would have mercy I meane you shall never have and what ye would shunne you shall for ever inherit even woe and wrath I know some of this sort are not so prophane as others but feed themselves with duties and moralities a smooth way of Religion and so wait Matth. 3. Esay 30. But who hath taught such to escape the wrath to come by their sloth and ease What although it be our strength to sit still Must we therefore suspend our labour paines and use of meanes Will God be found in a way of ease of yawning desires and lazy hopes which abhorre to be guided Gods way and to come to his oath and covenant of humiliation aith and selfe-deniall No neither the prophane nor the lazy shall enter into his rest no more then the rebellious They maintaine a secret distemper and pritch of heart and tetch of selfe against God and either will be saved their owne way or not at all And therefore to these I also professe with sharpe reproofe The way to peace yee have not knowne neither will you rather will quarrell with God for not fulfilling you wills to make you such as you would bee without your trouble This way God never knew Nay I say more Though God would save you yet you would not if ye might and I may say truly salvation it selfe cannot save such as would not because it saves none but the willing Pull downe your cursed spirits and cease to kicke against the pricks for till you be content to abandon your lusts and ease you doe secretly cavill with him whom you shall never be able to make your cause good against you stand not right in your plea the Court is Gods the judgement is his who shall curse all weapons formed against himselfe and condemne all those most justly who cavill against him Therefore I say againe take this word of reproofe with meekenesse Esay 54. ult and sit still in the point of cavilling but abhorre to goe against Gods edge by your prophanensse or your ease for the Lord will never beleeve that either of these will ever be content to finde mercy though they might enjoy it And as Esau when time came would have had the blessing but yet would be still a sensuall Epicure and therefore it was finally denyed him So I say to you If in truth you would have grace pray to God to plucke up that roote of bitternesse which springs up in you Heb. 12. for that will defile you faster then all your idle and false wishes can clense you and no wonder if you well weigh it And secondly here come to be censured all such as go yet a steppe further Branch 2 and will close with meanes and be deepe in paines taking Selfewilled ones who binde God to their labours convinced but then when they see that God will take no paines for full price but for serving his owne grace and good pleasure onely then they fret and fume at their lot because God regards not their labours What say they Is this equity that the Lord should alike esteeme of the painfull and the lazy I answer thee yea if Selfe defeated be the caviller Thou takest paines it seemes that thou mightest be warme by thine owne sparkles and have somewhat to alledge why God should regard thee That is thou wouldest have him for thy sake to forsake his owne way and turne free grace into wages Rom. 9.13.14 And because he will not as indeed hee never will be a servant to the runner or the willer therefore thou frettest and fumest at him for not serving thy turne But oh man Who art thou that disputest with God Shall the axe quarrell with him that cutteth with it I answer thee therefore The Lord doth not simply equall thee with such as take no paines keepe thy paines still and if thou wilt adde more unto them but rather take away thy upbraiding spirit doe that thou dost with meeknesse and be content to sinke in thy
pride and will in us which hath hitherto borne sway and defiled both minde and members to the obedience thereof as fearing to crosse her and let us at last bee confounded for it If Iob were so how much more need had wee Chap. 42.4 And seeing it hath ever misled us let us crosse it abhorre it and give up our selves to the rule and authority of the Lord Jesus He is our sole King who must rule he will teach us to chuse will and affect love loath feare abhorre nothing but which shall be for our good Be ruled by him and he will destroy Athalia the usurper and set up the true heire and the land shall have rest Otherwise if we finally hold our owne against him he will doe that in wrath which he would have done in love and have his will of us in hell and suffering who could not get it in obeying For every one that contends with him in judgement Esay 54. end he shall most righteously condemne And so much for the coherence Now I come to the words themselves of this thirteenth Verse You may remember beloved the Analyse I gave you of the contents in this Verse and the order thereof First as you know I beganne with the attemptors The first generall head of the verse the attemptors these servants of Naaman in whom I considered First that speciall duty of loyall faithfulnesse to their Masters soule and body and the welfare of both This I call the duty they stood bound unto by vertue of their relation Sutable whereto was his commendation in a due respect and tendernesse towards them as a father towards children Father say they if the Prophet c. The word I grant is generally a tearme of reverence howbeit here the realnesse of their faithfulnesse shews that there was more in it They carried a filiall subjection towards him as to a father of peculiar honor account with them No children could have more faithfully demeaned themselves to their naturall Parent then these servants did to Naaman For why Opening of this ground of the servants fidelity they observing the scope of their Masters journey to bee weighty an object of great expectation to their Master and seeing him now through his distemper to take a course contrary to his owne designes yea thereby being ready to renounce the meanes of his welfare by a meere tetch and pritch against the Prophet What doe they Most faithfully set themselves to procure a redresse of this error as foreseeing it like to be sad and remedilesse except prevented in time And this they do with some earnestnesse seeing the case so to require that is they oppose him in his mood and humors seeke to rectifie them and breed a good opinion of the Prophet in him that so he might obey the message recover the cure and turne from his wilfull purpose of a wrathfull departure This will better appeare if we conceive that which some servants yea the most would have done in this case Surely to demerit their Master to humour him in his base pangs they would have come to him and said Here is a surly fellow indeed a Prophet who sent for our Master and yet that scornes to speake to him lo he hath sent him a flim flam a tale of a tubbe And what Nobleman of worth could brooke it Come Master let us scorne to attend upon him any longer let us set spurres to our horses and let him goe let him keepe his cure to himselfe If they had said so they might surely have beene welcommer to a man of passion then speaking as they did But the Lord whose the work was put more faithfull and wise thoughts into them then so for the attaining of his ends Doctrine Servants must be faithfull to their Masters both for body and soule The point then is this Servants must be loyall and faithfull to their Masters and procure their good both spirituall and outward for conscience sake I am now entring upon a point of morall nature yet of speciall use and importance for the instruction of this condition of people which seeing I am fallen upon though besides my scope of this text yet I will labour to open unto you as God shall give me grace ere I come to those other points more suting to my purpose Marke it then The dutie of servants in speciall is faithfulnesse to their governours of both sexes to whom they belong Every servant should count himself as an Onesimus in name and deed to his Philemon Philem. 11. usefull in all respects but especially in faithfulnesse That which once the Duke of Medina generall to the King of Spaines his fleet against England in eighty eight spake basely each servant should speake out of conscience For being asked by one what his meaning was to do with the English in case he got the day whether he would not spare the Catholicke party he answered he would neither spare one nor other but make way for his Master A speech of a very wickedly faithfull servant But a good servant must say so I am for my Master that is my scope So their Master fare well though they have an ill word and have small thanke yea sometime by himselfe for flatterers for a time finde more favour then faithfull ones yet they must still bee faithfull Reasons and proofes are these Reason 1 First reason It is an honourable thing to be a servant and bee put in trust by a Master To be trusted by our betters is honourable therefore he must be faithfull else it were more slavish and treacherous When Ioseph was tempted to unfaithfulnesse in a high degree his argument of disswasive best he could use to an heathen was My Master met with me a stranger and boughr me yet hath betrusted me with all he hath he knoweth of nothing of all under mine hand Gen. 39.8.9 he hath forbidden me nothing save thee and shall I play the traytor with him in this No. The trade of a servant in each kind is a stewardship no servant is so silly but is or may be in case to bee trusted with more or lesse that way Now it is required of each steward that hee be faithfull 1 Cor. 3.2 not that all servants are equally betrusted yet none are so ill trusted but if they despise conscience both the life and state of their Master more or lesse may lye at their curtesie As one said of a traitor who so despiseth his owne life may easily be Master of anothers They are supposed faithfull not suspected If they be false what may not they attempt Chastity of wife of daughter welfare and safety of sonne wealth and estate of Master name credit and content of all And should such an one bee faithlesse and not faithfull No verily except one maine sinew of society among men should bee cut in sunder Some servants are I grant more interessed in their Masters then others Merchants Factors
can digest any gobbets But I have held you too long Here even abruptly I am compelled to breake off reserving the rest to the next occasion Let us pray c. The end of the Tenth Lecture THE ELEVENTH LECTVRE Still continued upon this thirteenth VERSE VERSE XIII And his servants came neere and said unto him Master if the Prophet had bidden thee doe some great thing wouldest not thou have done it How much more then when he saith unto thee Wash and be clean VERSE 14. Then hee went downe and dipped himselfe in Iorden c. 2 Kings THE last Sermon beloved in our Lord and Saviour wee entred into this thirteenth Verse and as you know opened divided and handled the coherence of it then came to the first of the three generalls in the Verse concerning the duty of servants faithfulnesse The ground whereof with reasons proofes and explication of the grace of faithfulnesse when wee had finished we beganne with the first use of Terror against all unfaithfull servants both in their entrance and practise Vse 2 Now I proceed to the use of Reproofe and that belongs to such servants Reproofe Religious servants failing in their faithfulnesse are blame worthy as though in profession Religious yet in their particular relation to their Masters walke as if they had a dispensation cleave not closely to faithfulnesse nor to the commands of their superiours as if God from heaven spake unto them If thou love me bee faithfull in thy service As it was once when the Gospel came among bondslaves they tooke it as if a flag of defiance had beene set up to proclaime liberty to them from their Masters pretending that if they beleeved in Christ they were freemen from the Law of God much more from men insomuch that Paul was faint to blow a trumpet of retreat to their defiance Ephe. 6.5.6.7 1 Tim. 6.1 and to fetch them under line againe Even so it is here with many of our servants if once religious they abuse this colour to make them libertines how carelesse about their businesse slacke negligent spending and wastefull are many such If they make their conditions The pranks of many such servants what liberties doe they covenant for How doe they under covert of hearing the word take courage to themselves to spend daies after daies in their journeies companies and private affaires to the detriment of their Masters They seeke not the honour of the Gospel by their double subjection and faithfulnesse nor procure a freedome from their Masters good will requiting their diligence but that they have they will extort it as a due belonging to them So saucy and checkmate with their Masters if religious so scornefull and rebellious towards the ignorant as thinking them too meane for their service so full of tart answers and taunting speeches so censorious uncharitable unthankefull for kindenesses boasting of their owne gifts above theirs as if they were fitter to rule their Masters then they them disdainfull to their fellow servants curious about their provision and diet as that they open the mouthes of the bad to wish servants rather ignorant and carnall then such and all by their hypocriticall shews of that which is not in them for were they in truth that they goe for their hearts would rather be on their right hand then their left they would rather bee jealous of themselves wary lest any thing should appeare in them repugning to subjection and faithfulnesse labouring by their uttermost selfe-deniall to winne credit to the Gospel by their humble harmelesse and painefull service this is according to God the other is base and fleshly and commonly where a servant is faithfull the Lord so honours their faithfulnesse Gen. 39 4. that even as Putifar seeing Iosephs fidelity betrust them with their matters above all their fellowes whereas these are lesse trusted then any and if they have been trusted by such as knew them not they have bewraied themselves to be of a bastard brood often running away when their turne is served and leaving Religion in the lurch and to suffer through their basenesse To these I say no more repent in time dishonour not the truth of God by your lewdnesse I have seene few of this straine but they proved lewd hypocrites and openly debauched in time Therefore prevent the Lord by serious amendment before hee pull the visor from your faces and make your nakednesse to appeare to all that behold you that so some amends may be made to that truth of God which you have dishonoured when as all shall see that you were arrant varlots such as Religion can receive no blemish from And so much for this second use of Reproofe Let a third use then brethren be an use of examination Examination for all servants Vse 3 who would approve themselves to God to try themselves in this point of faithfulnesse Quest But how shall I try it Foure rules of Triall Answ By these foure or five Rules First no true faithfulnesse must bee beside the word but fetch her warrant stampe from thence Whatsoever is from any other is sinfull There is a wicked and base faithfulnes in the world as we see in the rash attempts of many desperate servants who to approve themselves to carnall Masters rush themselves into such dangers as they neither have power to overcome nor calling to undertake 2 Sam. 23.15.16 See that example of Davids servants who to demerit their Master and to publish their valour undertooke two or three of them to breake through an host of enemies to fetch him water An ungrounded attempt in them and a worse motion in David as appeareth after in his shaming himselfe for tempting God and powring that out for a drinke offering which was the purchase and price of the pretious lives of men Here seemed great loyalty but it was a will service not an obeying in the Lord. So many servants pickthankes to indeere themselves with their proud Masters affect to drinke healths in honour to them and whosoever refuses to pledge them they are ready to give him the stab to defie him and challenge him into the field These are double diligently faithfull which service a good Master should abhorre as to hot and to heavy Rule 2 Secondly good faithfulnesse must not much lesse be contrary to a word for that is doubly irregular Such was that faithfulnesse which both Paul pleaded for So those Ziphites 1 Sam. 23.20 1 Sam. 22.9 2 Sam. 13.28 1 Sam 28.7 and when the rest abhorred Doeg and his Edomites performed to satisfie his bloudy demand in slaying those hundred eighty Priests of the Lord Also that treacherous obedience imposed by a desperate Master and fulfilled by Absolons servants in the bloudy murther of Ammon Not unlike whereto was the faithfulnesse of those servants of Saul in directing him to a witch Such is the service of those necessary mischiefes who hang about the sleeves of vitious prodigall gentlemen or
Exhortation but to bee faithfull not to have such and such parts but to have one worth them all subjection and faithfulnesse Learne here of Naamans servants What a shame is it that such poore heathens should come forth so suddenly under the anvile of this one present occasion formed and moulded and thou under all Gods discipline shouldest be no better Oh! you servants remember what a long race of unfaithfulnesse riot falshood stealth stomacke disobedience Bad servants must not think it too late for them to repent rebellion you have runne hitherto Oh! that I could but see one Onesimus here this day one fugitive one lewd and slothfull or wilfull wretch whom this my doctrine might convince and convert to God But truly brethren I see so few broken in peeces for their errors so few penitent and tender for their old pranks that I am afraid to put new wine of Exhortation into such old bottells for fear all should break be spilt I have met with some I thank God I see no cause why the Lord should not take some of ye napping in your service and the sins thereof as others in the way of their bad government marriage or childhood What have ye gone from service to service have ye left your rags behinde you and scattered your scurffe so in the places where yee have become that you think it now too late to repent Are you so sapped soked in your way that you begin to thinke there is no hope Beware of being so desperate Say thus Is it not enough Lord that I have beene so lazy so false fingered so bold so answering againe drunke at times loose in liberties not for my Masters ends but mine owne but now I must fulfill my measure adde drunkennesse to thirst and an hard heart to my other prankes No Lord this were not to bee an unfaithfull servant to a man which is bad but a desperate one and impenitent to thee which is cursed If Onesimus had not robbed his Master he had never met with Paul nor beene converted his perishing was his happinesse Thou hadst grace for him O Lord thou madest him faithfull to thy selfe purgest him of his basenesse as deeply seated in him for ought I know as mine is in me that thou mightest have the honour Thou madest him faithfull puttest him into thine own worke settest thy marke on him sendest him backe of a wretch good for naught good for all thinges Ah Lord This day my sinfull service comes to my remembrance Lord batter me breake and thaw mine heart put me in hope pardon my sin put me in to the Lord Jesus his Schoole cleanse me of all my cheats and prankes and make me a true Onesimus fit for thine use according to thine heart and I doubt not but out of thy forge mine heart shall bee framed and moulded to all subjection and faithfulnesse to man Beg it hard Lord teach me to adore thy wisdome in ordaining servants to their places and Masters to be their governours Lord discover thy soveraignty to me and shine thy selfe with thine authority upon my Master and Mistresse that I may see God in their government either because they are holy or else because they are governours If I see not such a Master as I would let me see mastership from thee and bee awed under it Lord take my will out of my bosome and put in thine Speak Lord thy servant heareth give me a will to be subject and bee as thou wilt and then command and spare not I will doe not onely what thy selfe but what man under thee commandeth And it shall be my heaven and happinesse to be under for conscience sake Give me also faith Lord to create all serviceable qualities in me to lythe to forme and to accommodate my spirit and members to all welpleasing without flattery and obedience Let me under a good Master bee subject and faithfull with thankefulnesse to a bad one for conscience not compulsion as serving the Lord Christ Sundry charges Lord thou givest by thine Apostles Paul and Peter Servants be subject to your Masters in all feare 1 Pet. 2.28 not onely to the good but also to the froward for this is thankeworthy if a man for conscience sake endure griefe wrongfully Coloss 3.22 Servants obey in all things your Masters not with eye-service as men pleasers but with singlenesse of heart fearing God Doing it heartily as unto God not unto men knowing that of him ye shall receive the inheritance for yee serve the Lord Christ And so in other places Lord write this Law of thine in mine inward parts Thou hast also in thy word not onely scattered the examples of vile servants Ziba Gehazi Iudas and others to tremble at and abhorre but also of faithfull ones Lord to follow and imitate Thou hast set forth Eliezers example that old trusty servant Gen. 24.10 1 Sam. 25. Mâ—tth 25. Acts 10.22 Texts alledged above to the good of his Masters sonne Those servants of Abigail to the life of her and her husband that of Ioseph to the chastity of his Mistresse that of Cornelius his servants to the soule of their Master those of the servants that occupied talents to the outward advantage of their Master that of Davids for the succour and reliefe of their Master in straits the Centurions to the content and businesse of their Master Rhode faithfull to Gods Ministers and so of others No one object of faithfulnesse but some patterne of it or other thou hast added to sweeten it to assure me of the possiblenesse of obeying it Oh! give to thy servant somewhat of all these that I may be all in one a cast peece without cracke or flaw in respect of unfaithfulnesse and the rest cover O Lord accept and pardon Be earnest I say with the Lord beg of him an understanding heart put not all over to thy Master say not looke you Master what you command for that concernes not me I must doe all you bid me No examine thy Masters commands ere thou obey them But if they be according to God scruple them not yea although they be not yet if but negatives onely forbeare for a time and provoke not by rebellion say not I will not forgoe such a Sermon such a duty of Gods worship But if it bee positively bad abhorre it Beg also the spirit and life of this faithfulnesse Put thy selfe forth by occasion for a good servant is never tried till he be put to it throughly be in one as another service wholly your Masters watch and bee upon wing for faithfulnesse picke out duties be ready for duties be unwearied Let the honour of thy Master the trust of thy Master absent or present the good of children whether abroad in fields at home working thy selfe overseeing others among fellow-servants at praier in family about a journey and message of weight about thy lawfull liberties Still let this soule of faithfulnesse be wholly in all and each
simply What then Is thy speech to be commended No in no case For why Dost thou not go by the worlds rule it seems not to be so I cannot thinke it Is this enough to bury the truth of a word of the eternall God under Doe not still speake evill of the way of salvation because God makes it not so rationall as thou wouldest and will not sell thee heaven for thy praiers and devotions He askes no more then his word beleeved will give thee power to performe if thou reject it not by distrust Instan 2 Another Instance is this Beloved so long as Gods government in the Church Administrations of God must not be quarrelled or upon our selves pleases us while hee dandles us in his lap holds off enemies enlarges our abilities keepes under our corruptions tries us by no great temptations annoints our paths for us and gives us better gifts fruit of our labours and outward blessings then we expected Oh how we can cleave to him This drawes water out of a marble stone But let our sunne enter never so little into an eclipse or if God remove our strong holds from us leave us to enemies seem to smile upon them side with them suffer them to enjoy whatsoever their heart could wish Psal 80.4 Job 1. Mica 2.7 in having their wills on us But to frown upon us not onely while we sinne but when we repent and to disregard us even in our most frequent importunate praiers Do we then persist in our uprightnes Dowe then as Micah saith beleeve that still Gods word is as good as ever it was to such as walke uprightly When neither Moon nor Sun appears for many dayes do we abhor to suffer darkenesse to possesse us within because there is such a darkenesse without Can we fall to Pauls remedy Act. 27.20 Act. 27.20 Judg. 6. Mica 7.9.10 I beleeve God No no wee cavill and say If the Lord be with us how are all these evills upon us Why I beseech you Although hee hath promised to all beleeving soules to shew them light in darkenesse and after to turne their darkenesse into light yet did hee ever promise us to keepe this darkenesse quite from us Had Christs love so appeared if he had come and kept Lazaras from dying as it did by raising him up when hee was dead and beganne to stinke Bring me forth one word sounding that way that God would alway keepe one even tenor of outward peace and prosperity over his Church and then tell him hee is not as good as his word But this is a Religion better fitting Papists who know not what faith is then such as we Oh be warned This carnality of ours sits neere Gods heart loades him as the cart with sheaves is loaden Doe not give God over thus say there will be light for the righteous it is sown for them though not come up yet God is good to Israel to the upright in heart The eternall strength of God is a brasen pillar Psal 73.1 which the soul may swing all her strength upon in the greatest straits although heaven and earth goe together such shall have peace peace that is sure peace as Esay speaks and as for carnall reason she shall see it too Esay 26.2.3 2 King 7.3 but she shall not eat thereof it is a dainty onely serving for waiters and beleevers It is faith which must doe the worke of workes keepe fire from consuming the bush or burning the three children It is faith which must doe all these feats Heb. 11.35.36.37 Carnall reason never wrought one miracle but it hath marred many Faith and the power of God hath kept a venice glasse from being broken against the wall when it was cast with violence But carnall reason breakes all it throwes Therefore to conclude take heed of her and learne admonition to lot upon the word of truth for thy selfe for the Church in the promise of God in the providence and alsufficiency of God If he satisfie not thy desires know it is not because he is weaker or falser or lesse pitifull then he was but he hath other ends then thou seest hee aimes at purging out thy canker of Selfe and perhaps hath more universall ends for the manifesting of his vengeance upon a Nation not worthy to be beloved deserving a decree to come forth This is no season for carnall sense to lowre but for faith to fall to worke if not to save others yet to save each one himselfe and lay in as Iosia did for himselfe Jer. 45. 2 Kings 22.20 that he may have his life for a prey and he may not see the evills which shall come upon others And so also to lay in pledges of hope for posterity that when Gods winter is come downe and his people scoured and his old brasse and candlesticks melted he will make better vessels of our posterities even zealous ones and prepared for every good worke And againe a third Instance may be this The outward difficulty of Instance 3 the times is great the Lord having marveilously plagued our spirituall surfeting upon his bread of life not onely with a famine of it but even with cleannesse of teeth This hath beene a sore yeare for the poore and pinched the rich What doe you poore ones now For the rich may scape better Do ye fall to fears that you shall be starven Or your do ye solace your selves that still the word abides for a stay unto hearts in these hard times Tell me truly Doth lesse meat serve you because you trust God Doth faith and a cheerfull heart make a little goe a great way Or doe ye runne to the cursed phrase If windowes were in heaven it could not be holpen Truly I hope some of ye speake the truth when you say Gods word for man is not fed with bread only doth sustaine you It is a signe that flesh and sense doe not altogether beare rule I am glad it is no worse goe on and prosper and as the Lord hath hitherto holpen you so that the scarsity of other thevish savage poore hath not oppressed you so hee shall still finde mercy in mens hearts and purses to relieve and helpe you through this famine while plenty come onely learne by this experience to build your altar with Samuel and say Hitherto the Lord hath holpen us and so hee will he hath not kept us from a Beare and a Lion that a Giant 1 Sam. 7.12 a Dog should destroy us Say thus The Lord hath not yet put us so sharply upon the pikes of famine as that we should eate our owne children or mice dogs cats and rats as in former ages of Popery they have done in this Kingdome Therefore I will trust him still and although there shall be no Calfe left in the stall Habac. 3. nor Bullocke in the flocke yet the Lord shall be my salvation I will not as poore as I am say as a Carle lately did
Christ and a lightnesse in his burthen Others a marveilous difficulty and such a thing as must be striven for and yet may be mist The answer is Heaven and Grace are both the most easie and the most difficult that can be Answ Grace is the hardest and the easiest thing of all Math. 19.26 both may well stand They are most easie to the soule which will bee taught of God and will not resist his method by attending their owne wisdome But to others they are matters of greatest difficulty To God all things are possible to flesh and bloud to the wit and will of man to the freedome of our owne choice nothing is so impossible I remember the answer of a Philosopher to a great Prince who had beene his scholar and was discontented at him for publishing his bookes be content saith hee and know my bookes of Philosophy are publisht and not published for none are ere the wiser for them save those to whom they were read and made evident So here The mystery of Christ is the most easie and the most hard easie only to such as in whom the Lord hath opened an eare Job 33.15 and revealed it to others hard So much for Instruction Vse 2 Secondly this is Terror to all such libertines and carnall Gospellers who make Religion Faith great works light and slight matters Terror to many running away with them as horses with empty waggons not through any Branch 1 ease they have by the Spirit but from the excesse and superfluity of their own blindenesse and presumption Slighters of the worke of grace abuse the doctrine of ease Others are blinde idiots tell them of Regeneration and Conversion and they run to their own strength they doe hope well that if they put their good will to Gods God will so far enable them as to get somewhat They hope men make more ado about matters then God himselfe God hath told them that faith in the promise is easie and none of these sowre Preachers shall pull this liberty from them what needs all this adoe If God be on our side we feare nothing as long as men walke even and faire harmelesse and devout bearing a good minde toward God keepe their Church and pay all men their dues and give to the poore for ought they see God is mercifull will not the death of a sinner is found of them that sought him not Esay 65.1 Matth. 11. â—9 Esay 57.17 His yoke is easie he saith he will not bee alway heavy upon men he knowes we be no Angels yea he saith that he hath seene the iniquity of mens covetousnesse and hee will heale them and make no more adoe It is for his glory to bee mercifull As for these Ministers who sticke so much at the truth of heart and faith unfaigned they say onely God knowes the heart and they trouble mens heads more then they doe them good making men unquiet and finding out new crotchets What is mans life say they if hee may not bee merry and cheerfull God loves it and Christ hath dearly bought it and its best to be merry eat and drinke and cast away care God say these hath made us of bodies as well as soules we be not all spirit nor shall be in this world we must tend Sermons so as we may tend our worke too our bodies must be made of for God and what skils it though we play and be good fellowes and drinke a cup or two so it be in the feare of God although we be none of these Puritans yet wee be not against them we hope by this meanes to spend out our short time having God afore our eies and to be in heaven ere we be aware Oh yee wofull creatures Doe you thus construe Gods ease I aske you Hath the Lord ever brought you under the bondage of spirit for all your cursed nature and impious prophanenesse Did it ever cut you off from your old stocke Did it ever bring yee under hope No doubtlesse Thinke not then to make faith an easie purchase upon your owne purse it will be one day in that your last night of death and darkenesse such a toilesome journey through tempest and foule weather dirt and wearinesse that you shall be quite tired and then shall true toile succeed false ease Hearken not to that lying spirit which beares you in hand all ease ease for it shall turne to extremity of anguish and to a desperate impossibility The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it The Lord indeed moderates the labour of his poore weary travellers to Zion Psal 84. So that they shall grow from strength and feele no faintnesse But no man shall goe up in a feather bed to heaven if it were ever an easie way it was never easie foolehardy stout travellers which boast of their limbes shall faint suddenly Matth. 15. Dogs must not come with poore children for Gods dole it belongs not unto them So much for the first Branch Others also there are whom this terror reacheth unto And they are Branch 2 base hypocrites who come with their toile and cost to God Hypocrites who come with their toile and cost to God are rejected devising painfull and tedious waies of their owne but shunning Gods easie way They will obtrude their whole rivers of oile and wine and whole barns of corne for the sinne of their soules whereas he askes onely a third part of an Hin and an handfull of flower for a meat offering A poore thing in Gods way is better excepted then all excesse of our owne Ye load mee saith God and pester me with your offerings I groane under the burthen of your sacrifices Honour me in mine owne way and I will make it easie and sweet to you But else the sand is not more heavy to mens shoulders then you to Gods you are out of Gods element therefore every thing is weighty you may complaine that you are not regarded but the Lord pitties no toile of hypocrites against his word Elija shall sooner consume the sacrifice with fire from heaven by standing still and praying in Gods way then all Baals Priests with their lancings and leapings upon the Altar Cost without wit is waste It s said of Ionathan that he had wrought with God that day on which he overcame those Philistins So I say Gods people work with God 1 King 18.28 with 37. 1 Sam. rather he with them but hypocrites work with themselves therefore they lay out their labour for that which profits not and mony for no bread They goe against the streame a Esau in his hunting for the blessing went another way with lesse adoe Esay 55.2 1 Sam. 14.45 2 Tim 3.7 As it s said in Timothy Alway hearing never comming to knowledge Oh the endlesse bootlesse toile of hypocrites You poore asses running the Divells round and grinding in his mill with your eyes blindfold at last be scared out of your trade You doe but as Sampson
speakes most directly to his heart As for pleasing himselfe in being in the element of any truth whereof he sees no use it is irkesome to a wise heart although he reverence all And these may serve for a taste of many more lets which differ as men differ and for answer to the first question I come to the second Since it is thus what reason may be given to Quest 2 satisfie men in this way of good for many would thinke it better if God tooke a more short and speedy way But I answer Answ for many causes God permits it To summe them up breefly One is 1. Cause because the Lord herein lookes at some grosse sins which ruled and reigned in the former part of mens life and in youth which are as iron moles and will hardly be worne out of the flesh being bred in the bone save by tozing and searching the heart throughly Secondly that he might breed some restraint in youth and curbe them from such offences as after must cost a great deale of purging plowing and harrowing ere the soule will affoard good mould for the word For sure it is the more rebellion the Lord meets with the more irons he loades the soule with Esay 28. Thirdly that he might exercise each soule in finding out her owne speciall let and not goe to worke in a fulsome generalnesse Fourthly to breed in the soule a solemne and sad thought concerning the way of God and roote out that giddinesse and vanity which puffes up the soule in a vaine presumption and ease Fifthly to occupy the minde of the Minister in right and carefull dividing the word and studying to approve himselfe as a workeman not to be ashamed striving to be faithfull both in the gift of discerning spirits that he may speake to the purpose not at randon as also to be painfull in catechizing which containes the wise and leasurely way of God to scrue and dive into the hearts of men by degrees and to soke the heart in the principles of faith which they that want may be long enough in hearing Sermons ere they conceive the order of the mystery of faith and how the soul comes to claspe with the promise Sixtly the Lord hereby corrects those most wicked evills which have carried the soule in and under the Ministry of the Gospel especially the dallying with the seasons of grace 7. That by this mean the Lord might clense the heart from Selfe in every kinde and twitch up every roote and rinde of selfe-love which would dangerously mix it selfe with the promise Lastly that the Lord as I toucht before might prepare way for himselfe in the honour of the soul when it shall finde by experience that all her salvation is of him and he could bring it out of nothing nay worse then nothing when as the soule lay strugling with herselfe without hope or remedy So much for answer to the second question The third and last question is how the soule may finde by markes Quest 3 that the Lord is following on with the work of grace That so it may be comforted in this that she is no hypocrite and so shall not wanze and moulder away as wax before the Sunne but obtaine the fruit of the promise in Gods due time For answer whereto this I say it may bee knowne by the contrary to those markes which bewray hypocrites Answ Marke 1 The first shall be this A soule truly under the condition of grace is very vigilant stirring and observant of the seasons which affoord grace not only generally to hearken after the word but specially to observe the Angels moving of the water The Lord doth not alway stir alike The Minister is not moved nor the heart of the hearer affected alike It s rare when the Lord and the soule close throughly one with the other when the word is preacht so savourly and lively and carryes the vertue of the speaker with it into the hearer and when the hearer meets it with a discerning of a season from God But when the soule meets with such Oh it abhors to dally and trifle with God to greeve him with slightnesse either for the present or after But confesses it to be a rare occasion presses hard with the Lord for blessing and followes on as Gedeon did those enemies Judg. 7. while the sent was hot lest he should be defeated Thus doth a good heart watch her time alway being upon wing for her prey and loaths carelessenesse of the watchwords of God No sin stings her more then former dallyings with the Lord nothing brings her upon her knees in secret more then this sinne and the sad fruit of it nothing puts her in more feare lest God should forsake her and suffer his Spirit to give over all saving strife with her nothing more is desired then that the Lord would forget her many provokings this way and stir her up with threefold alacrity to redeeme such seasons for time to come Whereas an hypocrite sees not such mercy from God or else vanishes in the fruit of them le ts all goe and nouzles himselfe in a blinde hope all shall be well whiles yet old sinnes and dallyings are upon the score unrepented of and unforgiven and the soule hardning more and more and waxing daily more and more crazy and unfit to be wrought upon Marke 2 Secondly a thriving soule God and promise-ward above all things nourishes life in herselfe not onely in ordinances but in the course and way of conversation Where ever she become the Spirit of life leaves her not wholy but more or lesse accompanies her spirit to preserve it from deadnesse flatnesse remissenes and suffering the worke of God to lye by in her And howsoever she feels a very body of death in this kinde fighting against the law of life in her yet knowing which is the stronger she gives not place No although the more she strives to be lively and savoury upon the promise and by faith the more the death of corruption resists her and discourages her yet even in this darke belly of the whale she casts her eie towards the Temple Jonah 2.8 and dares not yeeld when yet she is almost foiled but discernes a base body of death from the desire of her owne heart and because she feeles a dying she judges herselfe not wholly dead but to have some life under the embers which she makes much of and nourishes as one would hatch up one coale of fire upon dry straw lest it should goe quite out Such a soule abhors a daily deadish and sad heart more then death it selfe labours to revive it selfe by all hot waters from swowning and dying rejoyces when she recovers exercises her selfe with others as well as in secret to whet up that dull and weake edge of life and faith which remaines and is glad to feele that it is not alway alike with her in this kinde Whereas an hypocrite who never attaind to this sweet life
of Ivory or Gold But the Lord onely exalts himselfe in the spirit and conscience there he sits as Soveraigne and causes it to become his owne Recorder witnesse and Judge against the person himselfe so that the greatest selfe-love in the world cannot bribe the conscience to side with the sinner against him who is the Lord of conscience and can condemne both the one the other 1 John 3.20 Matth. 10.28 Feare not him who can kill the body onely but him who can cast body and soule into hell fire I say unto you feare him So then the Soveraignty of the commands of God stands much in the intents of God and that meaning of his to rule the spirits of his subjects and in all their obedience either negative or affirmative either in doing or suffering to cast a secret chaine upon the conscience to obey cheerfully equally uprightly wisely constantly For instance in the worship of a Sabbath the abhorring of oppression the suffering for the cause and truth of God the Lord lookes not at the externall act but the intent of the soule and the pure carriage of the heart towards himselfe as with what delight it keepes a Sabbath how cordially it preserves the spirit chaste and cleane for what ends it suffers the crosse whether for Gods or it owne Thus much for the former Quest 2. What is meant by the extent of a command The latter is what is meant by the extent of a command I answer The full reach of the command As for instance First the unlimitednesse of the command The Lord makes not some Lawes for great ones and some for small ones as if the great flye might get through the cobweb but the little ones must be taken but his nets as they are small enough to catch the small fish so they are strong enough to hold Whales and the mightest They reach to all sorts without limit rich and poore noble and simple high and low one and another Secondly their extent stands in their influence to all The Princes law reaches to all his Subjects as well as to his Chamber of London but yet the law-giver reacheth no further then his presence in absence and behinde his backe his Lawes are slighted But this Law-giver is omnipresent and assists his Lawes with immediate influence causing them to convince in secret as well as in publicke and is able to execute his owne Lawes to the uttermost so that for lacke of strength and reach of arme no sinner can goe unpunished Thirdly this breadth reaches in the affirmative command to the negative and in the negative to the affirmative as directly as if they had both been expressed In the narrow Lawes of men the sense and scope of the Law must bee limited to the words of the Statute which as the common speech is have no meaning in them beyond the tearmes thereof But the power of Gods commands stands in their insinuations and imply somewhat by necessity which they expresse not Fourthly their extent stands in the coherence thereof to wit that whatsoever maine good or evill the Lord commands or forbids by the same power hee forbids or commands whatsoever concernes that command the means tending thereto the occasions leading all circumstances attending whatsoever possibly the soule of man can apprehend directly or indirectly to make for that Law or to thwart or crosse that Law Fifthly it reaches to the quantity and measure of the duty urging not only sin to be shunned in the greatest degree but also in the smallest and so duty to be done not only in the main peeces but in the pettiest all proceeding from the same goodnesse and justice Sixthly it reaches to the measure of the principle of obeying urging it to obey not coldly deadly slackly formally but to put forth the uttermost affection strength wisdome will courage zeale reach and largenesse fruitfulnesse and extension of the inward and outward man to concurre with the meaning of the Commander which the Holy Ghost calls all welpleasing Col. 1.7 Seventhly it reacheth to an universality of time place occasions not to be limited straitened and circumscribed at our narrow will and pleasure but tyes us alway yesterday to day and ever to one obedience Heb. 13.8 not to vary with the time with the multitude by occasion of dangers feares losses enmity power of man not to be cast off in private in secret but to be enlarged according to it selfe generally to all circumstances This is a field of matter but I have already elsewhere walked in it in some sort as the reader hereof may perceive by that I have written in my practicall Catechisme part 3. in the article of the directive rule of our obedience the Law of God where I treat fully of the point So much for this second To these two questions a third may be added Object and answered ere we goe any further and that is that it may seem harsh to presse this point under the Gospell since that the liberty thereof takes off this strictnesse and limits commands from the old extent of them to the ease of the Gospell To the which I answer That the Gospell is so farre from that loosenesse that rather it establishes Answ extends and corroborates them then otherwise A great part of our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount is spent in confuting this conceit Matth. 5.6.7 not onely of Pharisaicall but of Antinomian abuse and dissolutenesse Paul also tells us Ro. 2. ult that faith setles the Law stronger upon her bottome then ever So that he is as well accursed now as ever who shall adde or detract Rev. 22. True it is that the terror rigor and the impossiblenesse of the Law is removed by our Lord Jesus The Law how far it s strengthened or weakned by the Gospell 1 Tim. 1.5.6 but looke what is taken off in that kinde is supplied in another for the spiritualnesse and purity of obeying is enlarged now rather then diminished only it is true that even in this enlargement the Lord Jesus hath made his yoke most sweet and easie to them who out of faith love and a good conscience seeke the end of the commandement as Paul speakes of which more shall be occasioned to speake after if God will in the use of Exhortation It s enough here to say That as the Lord Jesus hath removed that burdensomenesse tyranny and irkesome rigor of Lawes which was intollerable so he hath put another yoke upon the soule instead thereof which although love make sweet yet justice will not abate nor cut off Love made Iacobs labour welcome but still the frost was tedious and the heat wearisome Gen. 29.20 and the conditions hard enough to flesh and bloud So much for this and for the ground of the point Now in the third place I come to the use of the Doctrine And Vse 1 first let it be Instruction and Caveat to all superiours and men in dignity and authority as to acknowledge
owne But the true mother who knew the cost and price of her child could not endure the cutting of it asunder but cried Give her rather the child then it should be slaine Just so is it here A base heart never bred by the grace of the Spirit to obey Commands rejoices when it selfe and the word may have share and share like is glad to see the word mangled and that God should have one peece of his will and she another But a close soule obeying Commands is of a farre other frame for she hath been bred of the immortall seed of the word lien in the wombe felt the warmth and drawne the breasts of it and lives and growes by it Therefore shee cannot endure to see it divided wrested abused and cut in two rather she is content to abhorre herselfe her owne ends and respects and cries O Lord let not the childe be hurt rather let my will bee cast in the dirt This is a sad triall indeed let us come to the scanning of it While Gods and our streame may be suffered to runne in one chanell we easily give way to God But if it so fall out that he will not suffer our dung to swimme with his Apples but if we will goe in his stream we must goe in it meerly onely our lusts must bee renounced nay perhaps so the case stands that even our lawfull liberties must be removed our lives healths gifts contents ease elbowroom credit and sway must be shaken off to obey a Command and those who would perswade us as Peter did Christ to pitty our selves Mat. 16.25 must bee rated away and forsaken wife childe friend counsellor people Minister who come in and tel us if you suffer and obey God farewell the ease of our life farewell the jollity of our towne our shops trades takings revenewes credits contents Oh! I say if in such a case the life of the childe the honour of the world and of conscience bee more pretious then all these 2 Chr. 34.17 if then we flagge not with hopefull Ioash when his Princes came to entice him If then we stick to a Command if then we cleave to a charge this is a signe of soundnesse indeed Triall 6 Sixtly if we cleave to Gods Commands prove it by this marke if we looke at a Command nakedly and cavil not against it by the opposition of it to other commands if we set not Gods Commands together by the ears as Saul did affirming that the killing of al sorted not with piety or charity if we leave the consequences of our obedience to God without pleading against them by arguments from absurdity or inconvenience it s a signe of a close heart Our nature is when wee see the sad command to lie before us to dispute against it thus What shall become of my people if I obey this command what shall become of the glory of God But honest obedience takes no more thought for God then he takes for himselfe if he commands us ought he cals not at our hands for more then he allowes us but takes that to his owne consideration and will have us let him alone with that Wee shall not need take thought for the good which is lost by our obeying But we must not doe evill that good may come of it To forecast the disasters which our obedience may inferre Note well is to take upon us the person both of the Subject and of the King if the King call for obedience let the inconvenience upon it lye upon him wee have done our duty Try we our selves then about this if we bee negotious and curious for God in a thing wherein wee are not called its thanklesse double diligence 2 Sam. 6.6 As we see Vzza in staying the Arke was more provident for God then hee required and therefore paid dearly for it though his intent was good So when we judge of obedience not by successe but by the word It was God his will that the Arke should be brought home by Saul though he slew the men of Bethshemesh for looking into it See 1 Chron. 12. Seventhly he obeyes closely who onely trusts God and licks himselfe Triall 7 whole upon him for any losse which he sustaines It trusts God to make good all she loses either for doing his will or for suffering for it An hypocrite upbraids God as for his doings Esa 58.6 so for his sufferings Matth. 25.24 Hee thinkes God to be bound and beholden to him for them and if hee either regard him not in the one or reward him not for the other hee thinkes himselfe wronged Contrarily a close obeyer counts his reward to stand in his obedience that God will account him worthy either to doe or suffer for him Acts 4.22.23 And if he lose either his will and base lusts by the one or his credit health wealth or friends by the other he lookes at the promise of an hundred fold grounded upon Gods alsufficiency and faithfulnesse A notable text we have 2 Chron. 25.9 when the Prophet forbad Amaziah to goe fight with his enemies his objection was That he had hired Souldiers of Israel for some thousands of Talents how should he doe for those The Prophet tells him The Lord could abundantly restore those Talents Brethren we would suffer perhaps for God but then as it was with Amaziah these Talents are the sorrow of all hence comes our unwillingnesse to suffer But as the Prophet said so say I The Lord can make them good doe but trust him Affliction is a bitter herbe but it beares a sweet flower and sweeter fruit Give the Lord thy Talents and thou shalt have an hundred fold backe againe These losses which thou fearest thy wife thy children thy contents give them up to God trust him with them and he will refine them all for thee that thou shalt receive them at his hands purer and cleaner not to say greater and fuller then ever before Those vapours which the Sunne exhales from the earth lose nothing by it for they are so altered in the ayre that they come downe againe more fruitfull upon the earth then ever So if God have once tryed thee in this furnace all shall come forth purer then ever The daughters of affliction are the fairest of all other There were no such women for beauty as Iobs three daughters were after his affliction He himselfe was purer and so was all he had Job ult and as affliction is a furnace so is it a banque Iob had twice as much after he had lost all as before No trade so gainfull as this of the Crosse a man that hath had the experience of it gaines twice so much nay an hundred times more then he had before I say not temporally and yet God is alsufficient but spiritually to all that suffer meekly and patiently Cast off therefore the clog of these Talents both from thy heart and thy heeles which do so hang on and oppresse and
thy ignorance and blindenesse may frustrate thy benefit but still the promise shall stand neverthelesse full of water of life Enlarge thy cord and plummet that thy slight heart deprive thee not of both the view and of the use of it Secondly having found out the bottome and depth of a promise 2. Draw out of this welspring of salvation bestow paines and draw waters plentifully out of this well of salvation bestow good labour and travell In fetching up water out of deep wells you shall see how many hands at once are at worke at the wheel or pully to get up the bucket This is the worke of faith alway to be tugging at the well with cable and armes to get out this water of life Esay 12.8 Say thus here it is put Lord by thy selfe and to be had I will therefore by thy strength handle a promise according to the uttermost of that which is in it I will draw and that with joy for there it is and thus it is to be had It s sad working hereat with the most but it should be a merry work we should sing at it and deceive our toil by the sense of our necessities and the variety of those ordinances meditation prayer and the like must be our hands and unweariednesse must be our instrument Take wee heed lest through sloath and a base heart we content our selves with scrappes and puddle water who might fill our selves with good things and with rivers of water springing up in us to eternall life 3. Give not over the promise though long held off Thirdly give not over a promise although the error of this wicked world and Satan together with the Lords delayes should weary us especially under our afflictions If our Lord Jesus his discouragements could have killed the courage of that poore woman of Canaan she had never obtained a cure Oh! our Saviour did what hee could to try whether she would be beaten from the promise viz. That Jesus the sonne of David came to save both the bodies and soules of all truly distressed ones Jewes and Gentiles But she had so farre extended the promise Matth. 15. which Christ seemed to restraine onely to the Jewes calling the rest Dogges that it was strange shee was not out of conceit as one mistaken But as if she had been in his bosome so doth she hold fast the promise Though he say nothing yet hee will doe somewhat I will still keep my right he meanes not Israel according to the flesh but the promise and such an one am I. Shee knew promises looked not at the worthinesse of man but at the mercy and faithfulnesse of God Surely I shall bee answered by and by for I have the scope and end of the promise on my side Faith had taken full measure of the promise by her owne want and therefore our Saviour sends her away with the admiration at her faith Oh! let us thus duly apply our soules to the seale of the promise and it shall leave behinde it the stamp of all that vertue and fulnesse which God hath put into it A base heart not concurring with God in this largenesse of his promises is as hard wax put under a faire seale Simile which takes no impression at all from it though clapt on never so hard But as the softned wax taketh all the counterfeit of the seale and expresseth them to the uttermost Even so an heart rightly prepared receives the print of the seale letter for letter face for face yea grace for grace Faith is both hand and hammer to drive the naile of the promise Eccles 12. given by one Pastor the Lord Jesus up to the head This for the former question Now I come to the latter Quest 2. How shall we practise this duty how this duty may be practised And for answer to that this I say Wee must know that the life of faith in all beleevers rests upon such promises as concerne their condition be it what it will be knowing that there are speciall ones given us by God as Peter speakes Chap. 1. and verse 3. of his second Epistle for our supply in all needs The soule then doth not foolishly misapply these but gathers them up stores them like a wise Steward both old and new that she may bring them forth in due season as a man would every morning put on the apparell of that day for his use and comfort And this is her putting on the Lord Jesus Rom. 13. ult who first hath taken measure of her needs and then offers himselfe in his promises and ordinances Word Sacrament Prayer and fasting and the like to fit her as her cloathes doe her body Some of these I have already toucht in one of the Uses before Ans diversly upon the Doctrine of Naamans obedience A few more I will adde now not pressing the use of them but barely presenting them to your view Sometime thy base heart feeles old guilt and accusation of conscience to returne after mercy tasted and hope of victory enjoyed But why is this Surely that hereby the work of Selfe-deniall might be perfected in thee 1. In the return of guilt strength of sin custome presence of it and sinne might be knowne to be out of measure sinfull that it might bee more abhorred and stronger faith in pardon and purging thereof improved Clasp upon the Word for it I am he who will heale all thy rebellions for my name sake both new and old It is according to a promise that the Lord should leave none of thy corruptions unsubdued Who is a God like unto our God who forgiveth iniquity transgression and sin Mica ult marke how many words he useth to include all sin whatsoever both of nature and course yea sinnes after the light of the Gospel embraced And I create the fruit of the lippes peace and I will heale him I have seene his rebellions and smote him hid me and was angry and he went on in the frowardnesse of his owne heart Esay 57. But I will heale him and restore comfort unto him Againe perhaps thy soule meets with some eclipse of Gods presence and forsakes me so that I live in darknesse and walke up and downe with a dead heart without feeling Well 2. In the deadnesse hardnesse of heart if it be by reason of some apparant sinne against conscience returne with a broken heart by a promise to God Jer. 3.1 A man having divorced an Adultresse will not returne to her But if thou wilt returne to me I will not reject thee Returne O yee backsliding people and I will have mercy upon you and heale all your iniquities But if the Lord bee departed otherwise know it is not to forsake forever For a moment I was angry Esay 54. But with everlasting compassion I will embrace thee And in the Psalme 55. The Lord will not leave his people for ever Sometime the soule is afraid she
as you know And so I say to us Levit. 26.21 If wee walke contrary toward the Lord hee will walke contrary to us trust to it And that not onely in case of foule revolts if wee should play the Adulterers Oppressors Blasphemers c. Such sinnes wee dare not meddle with haply for the lowd cry and inward wasting of conscience Heb. 10.37 But yet perhaps we dare withdraw our selves from God by unbeliefe fall out of love with his promises wee dare forgoe our joy and delight which we have had in his presence Jer. 2.13 and runne to pits which will hold no water as if the fountaine were unpleasant Wee dare suffer that pretious seed of Life to dye if it may dye in us and walke deadly coldly basely in our course We dare allay and forsake our first love to God and zeale to his truth wee dare run to the course of this declining formall saplesse and powerlesse world and shake off all spirituall closenesse and communion with God and yet wee thinke to doe well But know it this is the great quarrell of all Levit. 26.25 I meane the quarrell of Gods covenant God will avenge it sadly his soule shall have no pleasure in such Lay it to your hearts brethren and know the performance of promises is the immediate way whereby the Spirit of Grace conveyes the presence of God to his servants Wee have no voice to heare nor sights to see save the voyce and light of the promises If we can cleave to them we hold the Lord and hee is present in our soules as he was to Paul in that sad darknesse Acts 27.23 But if wee shake off the life of faith where is our title to the performing of promises or where is our right to the presence of God I remember what the Lord tells those Israelites in the Wildernesse I will send my Angell before you Exod. 23.20 and he shall carry you forth in your journey But take heed you grieve him not for he will not spare you but withdraw his presence from you So say I We would claime Gods presence and God must bee our God and performe all promises as fast as we gape after them But in the meane season we leave the condition at large Some of us have formerly been zealous yea suffered for God and lost our credit our goods our liberties for him Here was life and power but now wee hold but a carkasse of the old temper a meere name that we live wee are growne Polititians civilians close professors wise in our way rest in the fagge end of formality and common worship And what thinke we May we be as bold upon performance of promises as formerly May we chalenge the presence of God in his Word as formerly No no others of us dare be forward with God as Iona was nourish our spirits in anger Jona 1. 4. let the Sunne goe downe upon it rage and raile like mad men in our moods And if we be told of it wee will defend it we will be so for we say our wrong was reall and flesh and bloud cannot beare it What Will you flye from God and looke that hee should follow you up and downe Judg. 19.3 as the foolish Levite did his whorish Concubine Others of us dare abuse the Sabbath or else have no delight in it speaking our owne words Others cannot be rated off from the creature but run after our profits wills vanities pleasures fashions and cocker our children therein without checke Others will take the uttermost of our liberties and goe upon the brinke Others regard not our families set not up the worship of God there or pray for fashion Others are growne just to the frame of the times and give God so much and no more then the common sort doe and yet passe well And so I might be endlesse But know it Brethren Gods promises are like himselfe and are faithfully performed on his part howbeit if this be our frame we shall finde a change and hee will take in his Sun-shine we shall not finde his presence as in former times to us Job 6. and throughout Did the Lord withdraw himselfe from holy Iob while he walked in uprightnesse and eclipse his presence and promises from him write bitter things against him compasse him about with terrors hide his face and all justly even to humble him more deeply and prevent that which else prosperity might have bred in him Wonder not then brethren if the Lord withdraw himselfe from us and turne away his performing of promises into breach of covenant when hee meets with such scurfe as this in our hearts and lives And let the use of the point in Gods name be this which I pray us all to oberve that henceforth we cease to wonder if wee finde the Lord otherwise towards us then formerly so long as the quarrell of his Covenant depends I grant that there were never any dayes such as ours in point of complaint of Gods absence darknesse and not performing of promises But withall consider when were there such wofull dayes of Revolts Apostasies from God and the power of his truth as now Each face is pale and each hand is upon the pained side But it is rather because men may not have their will of God and keep him close in performance of promises when yet their lives swarme with all abominations Should I not be avenged of such time-servers and hypocrites as these saith the Lord in the Prophet doe you wonder if hee have hidden himselfe Esay 1. and doth count you as you are refusing to performe promises No no wonder not wonder rather if he should looke not for it till you repent If he darken himselfe in the chiefe promise of pardon of peace and comfort in conscience or in point of his Spirit of presence and the graces of it as humblenesse and patience love and mercy if he shorten you in the beauty of your conversation that your lives are not so sweet Spirituall penalties attend spirituall sins your light not so cleare as in time past if hee absent himselfe from you in his Ordinances restraining the influence of them suffering them to be dark and fruitlesse if he leave you in your companies to bee unprofitable in your liberties to bee carnall in your solitarinesse to be dead hearted if he harden your hearts and cause you to erre from his waies so that all your praiers fastings sacraments covenants should come forth at your nostrils as irkesome as those Quales did I say wonder not it s but righteous Make this use of it Vse Breakers of covenant with God shall finde God breake with them to abhorre boldnesse with God in challenging promises to be performed when you breake the condition Rather enter into your soules and search out the cause of the Lords absence saying it was not wont to be thus that thou shouldest breake promise thus Lord and leave me
such respect in my place do so and so in my family and the like Here 's eagernesse and zeale but most unsavory stuffe mixt with it too ranke for an humble heart to smell of Let thy hints and overtures be for God abhorre thine owne mixtures nothing so opposes the true spirit of grace as the spirit of a Pharisee Lord I thanke thee I am not thus and thus I do so and so Luk 18.10 11 12. nothing more consonant to it as the spirit of that Publican I abhorre my selfe as the spirit of those that know not what they did Mat. 25. Lord when saw we thee in prison or naked and visited or clothed thee This loadstone of selfe will become a loadstone for God if thine heart be sound And to conclude even so will the carriage of a true spirit be wise considerate and well ballanced such an one will establish his thoughts with counsell Better is hee that is patient in spirit Prov. 24.3 then the hasty A coole spiâ—it is an excellent spirit Eccles 7.8 if it be but coole in the carriage it may be fervent in the substance Whereas the unsound spiriâ— is fiery quick rash and utters more with a breath then it can undoe with ten and so brings it selfe upon its owne knees to cry Peccavi when perhaps it is with reproach to himselfe and religion I will not condemne all for unsound who are rash But I wish all sound spirits to beware how they trench upon such suspitious markes Bring not sorrow upon your selves by this rashnesse you shall meet with trouble enough in your best discretion but that which rashnesse procures seldome brings peace either in suffering or in the issue Thus much for a taste of those markes of tryall which may help us to descry our owne spirit from Gods grace Many more might have beene added but I hasten to an end To conclude then let this be an use of Exhortation and that Use 6 sundry wayes Exhort First to all that have this spirit in them to mourn bitterly for the losse and decay of this spirit throughout the Branch 1 Christian world Alas how farre are we sunke from that zeale of God against Popery and heresie which was wont to abound Looke into Germany where this spirit began by Luthers meanes where is so much as a sparke of it to be seene Declining of the temper of zeale and power ought to be bewailed sadly Even in the daies of Luther what horrible opposition was made to this spirit of the Gospell By how many meanes did the devill then stop the proceedings of Reformation What wayes were not used by Politicians to quash that zeale by their interims and sundry bookes of Reconciliation with Popery in their most Tenets Since which times even to the age we live in both in Germany and the Low-countries the Reformed Churches in France and among our selves how hath Satan laboured to quaile the spirits of men from zeale of the Gospell By what meanes hath Popery so much encroached upon us how hardly is the name of it odious even at this day in most places And if perhaps it be here and there so yet as for the zeale of peoples to the Gospell from the experience of that grace of conversion and the worke of faith how rare is it to find Oh! that our heads were welsprings brethren and our hearts fountaines of teares to mourn for the desolation of this Spirit of Grace among us As he said Scarce theâ—e is mention of Rome in Rome the change is so great in the places where the Gospell hath beene most famous It is recorded of those Jewes of the returned captivity that many who had seene the first Temple mourn'd to see the latter Some Jewish writers render the reason because not onely the frame of it was so poore in comparison of the former but because of the radicall defects it had in it It seem'd Ichabod the glory was gone Ezâ—a 3.12 The Holy of Holies was empty of the Arke of Gods presence and the Merey Seat upon it no more going into it with blood to fetch atonement no more fire from heaven to kindle sacrifices they were faine to kindle it from the Sun-beames with a glasse and as for the Priesthood the Jewes used to call it a Priesthood of clouts or garments 1 Sam. 4.21 because only those were left the Priest to weare the Urim and Thummim those holy shoulder pieces those precious stones of the Ephod and Brest-plate were gone Truly brethren beleeve me as Elijah in his Cave once mourned for the misery of his time 1 King 19.10 so might we for the losse of this spirit of the Gospell among us What do I deny but through mercy and the government of our Princes both living and of famous memory we have enjoyed the truth of God Or that God hath had and still hath abundance of worthy learned famous instruments of service both in Ministery Magistracy Commonalty No God forbid and I doubt not but in many places Truth and light are much improved although it were to be desired it were scattered more generally but the misery is that there lackes a sutable spirit of love tendernes closenes affection and soundnesse to the Gospell The body of knowledge in many is so vast and unweildy for lacke of equall power integrity and life to quicken it that it is like to totter by her owne weight That former effectualnesse in Preaching convincing converting waxes straitned scant and collapsed That spirit of siding with the Truth of God defending it against errours and lukewarmenesse that ingenuity and cordiall simplicity in us that professe seemes to be quite gone Trash and drosse of mens profits pleasures ease forme of religion and such other scurfe as is not to be named hath eaten up all as one said The usury of the New hath eaten up the gaine of our Old University So may we say The spirit of our new hath eaten up the power of our old dayes in point of edge affection earnestnesse and zeale All is growne to discourse contemplation and empty shadowes of sincerity Not to speake of many who formerly have stood for diligent preaching and for the power of it and are now gone aside and slinke their neckes out of the Collar Alas brethren it is not your going into new England which will deliver you from the spirit of your old death and sloth except the Spirit of Grace conduct you thither All cannot goe what shall become of such as must stay except God revive us at home Secondly it should provoke us to pray to God the great Branch 2 Physitian of this Epidemicall disease of exhortation to heale this decaying temper and this consumption of our vitall spirits that heat and moysture life and vigour of grace which threatens utter consumption in us How much better were it for us to fall into a burning ague then into such a dead palsey as this