red wine I the Lord do keep it 〈◊〉 any hurt it I will keep it night and day they some times think that he forgets them but it is impossible Isa 49. 14 15 16. 4. His Truth and Faithfulness He hath brought them into a Covenant in which he hath engaged to be all their Salvation to defend and deliver them in all troubles and it is impossible for him to ly they may therefore safely adventure unto him and shall find him to be a precious hiding place 3. What confidence such an one may have of his being so to him at such a time A. Whatever fears a Child of God may be exercised with whiles under sense of Guilt by reason of some provoking sin yet upon his obtaining a sealed pardon he hath all grounds of fear removed and may be humbly bold for 1. He was before this in a Justified state He was put into that upon his first believing nor shall any of his falls disannul it he shall never fall out of the favour of God again he may lose the sight of him but the peace is not violated 2. The terrours of sin is now removed All that darkness which was on his mind when under the apprehension of Guilt is now taken off and he 〈◊〉 again chearfully see his Justified state by which he knows his title to the love of God in Christ that he is his Father and will not cast him off 3. God usually giveth more than ordinary Testimonies of his endeared love at such a time After â—roken bones and bitter sorrows for sin God is â—ont to make great discoveries of his reconciled favour to them so that they cannot but acknowledge and praise him Isa 12. 1. Jer. 31. 20. 4. Hence he may with assured confidence apply all the promises of the New Covenant to himself For upon the sealing of a pardon the whole Covenant is new sealed and it is by setling on the promise that we run into God as our hiding place and this man can do it with great confidence apprehending God with opened arms ready to receive him USE I. Learn hence how ill they are provided for safety in a time of trouble who have no title to God as a hiding place No man would willingly be abroad in a storm and he that sees one rising and knows not where to secure himself it in a miserable condition and no less unsafe are they though more confident who have their repose in that which will become a refuge of lies to them Let it then be a word of awakening to all Do you see a Storm coming 1. Ask your selves where you intend to hide from it And here 1. Be assured that all other refuges will deceive you When the flood comes every house will faâ—â— but that which is founded on the rock if you depend on the world it will be like Egypt the staff of a broken reed it will fall the overflowing scourge will bear it down If you trust in your own wisdom or righteousness or any thing of your own it will not be a safe guard tâ— you the Wrath of an angry God will beâ— down all before it and you will be so far miserable as you promised your selves defence from these things which will thus wofully disappoint you 2. God and he alone can be a safe shelter to you If he undertake for you there is no fear as his power is infinite so his truth is unchangeable if he promise he will perform if he say he will be your Salvation he will give being to his word if he be under a promise all is settled 2. Be then perswaded to seek and secure an interest of him Make him your hiding place he tells you of your danger and offers himself to be this to you Forsake all other and betake your selves to him in and through Christ and he will receive you live not at rest till you are able to put this title upon him with a claim of propriety never think your selves safe till under his wings let your danger drive you and his invitation allure you and all shall be well USE II. For Exhortation to the Children of God And there are two branches of it 1. Would you have God for an open hiding place at such a time See that all stands even between him and you though the title belongs to every believer yet he is not equally accessible by all his Children in a time of trouble for direction 1. If there be any sin standing out unrepented of see to the making of the peace between him and you Make diligent search about it and count it not a light matter Consider 1. As long as there is any God will hide himself from you and then how will you find your hiding place he sometimes withdraws from his when trouble is on them and though they cannot do without him yet they cannot tell where to find him was it not so with the Spouse Cant. 5. And what a moan doth he make about this Job 23. 8 9. Such a thing will distress you 2. And your sins will stand between you and him to discourage you Sin unrepented of when God sets home on the Conscience will be very terrible and if he be also withdrawn what fears will it excite in you your hearts will misgive and Satan will thrust in hard You will certainly be at a woful loss till you have by a soaking repentance made up the breach 2. Is all right betwen God and you Be very careful to keep your selves from all sin by which any breach may be made between you and him Let the remembrance of former things and the distress of them put you on the greater caution See that if the floods must come they find you walking in your integrity and keeping clear from your iniquity and then you will be happy 2. Be sure when floods come to make him alone your hiding place Say as Psal 62. 5 6. Consider 1. There is safety no where else If you leave your rock you will find nothing else to be that to you which that will certainly be if you rely on it 2. With him you shall be in safety If he be your fortress all the floods and storms that can beat upon you will not be able to harm you you may bid defiance to all that earth and hell can do to you Psal 125. 1. They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be removed For this end 1. Renounce all affiance elsewhere There is a subordination of causes and God forbids us not but enjoyns us to be found in the use of means but we must refuse to place our trust in them when we use them as means they help us to our refuge but when we trust in them they are our refuge and God is rejected Beware then of this 2. Resolve and practice against all preposterous causes When tempests arise fear solicits us to do some unworthy thing but this will be to put God
it is with every sinner till God hath humbled him but know it your own and Christ's Righteousness cannot stand together in your Justification you must take up with one of them and if you do so with your own God will never own you for Righteous ones this undid those Jews Rom. 9. 30. If you will have Christ's you must make that acknowledgment Isa 64. 6. And do as Paul did Phil. 3 8 9. 3. That you may have him for your Righteousness receive him for your Sanctification too God will make him either all or nothing to you 1 Cor. 1. 30. Sinners look on it as desirable to have a Christ to save them from hell but to have one to save them from sin too creates prejudice but if you like not to have Christ's Spirit to be your Sanctisier you shall not have the Merit of his Obedience applied to you he must give you a new heart and you must be holy if ever you be happy 4. That you may do this abjure your own strength and seek to him for his Grace It is a great change that is wrought in Conversion and if you think to make it by the power of your own free will you will never go beyond a Pharisee and that will leave you short of the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. If ever you become new creatures you must be his workmanship Eph. 3. 10. Wait then humbly on him for the day of his power to pass upon you thus may you obtain that Grace from him to be put among the number of those that have a just claim to these joyes 2. To the Godly Be you Exhorted to maintain and exercise this gladness and rejoycing in the Lord Live in the constant practice of this most desirable duty to move you hereto Consider 1. This is your unquestionable Priviledge It is a benefit entailed on the New Covenant on all that are brought into it by Grace It is that which Christ hath purchased for you at the price of his own blood and hath made it over to you in the sealings of his Spirit it is yours and you can never be challenged for usurpation for making use of it if you neglect so to do you undervalue the precious blood that purchased it challenge then your right your Righteousness and Uprightness are your evidence for it 2. It is your indispensable duty God doth not only encourage but command it and no duty more urgently and Gods Commands are not to be slighted by his Children how can you say you love Christ if you keep not his Commands John 14. 15. 10. 14. He loves to see his Children show their delight in him that his Service is not grievous that they are satisfied in their portion that they have enough in him and desire no more to make them happy 3. It is a very pleasant and desirable thing Joy is the very life of a mans life without that it doth but hang before him it carries the man comfortably through his work the want of it makes his life a burden to him if natural joy be so beneficial Prov. 17. 22. What then is spiritual joy which reacheth the very foul and hath an object transcendantly glorious to act upon this will make heavy burdens light hard work easy and carry you comfortably through an evil world under all changes of Providence 4. You are never without abundant matter for this It leaves not a Child of God at any time to say What should I rejoyce for and yet how often do such words break out hath not that man reason to rejoyce for ever who was dead and is now alive who was a prisoner of Justice held fast by Guilt to suffer everlasting wrath and is now set at liberty who was once an enemy and is now a Son of whom when he was perishing God said Save him from going to the pit I have found a ransom whose interest in heaven is secured and is himself kept by Gods power to salvation 1 Pct. 1. 5. Whom Christ hath loved and bought and married to himself with whom God dwells now and who shall dwell with him world without end Such an one art thou and canst thou but rejoyce in the Lord shall a poor worldling think he hath reason to be merry because his portion is made fat and shall you be sad 5. This is the only rejoycing that will stand by you in all the changes that pass over you God is an everlasting and unchangeable Object if once ours he is so for ever they then who make him their joy need never cease in all changes Psal 18. 46. Other Objects are but like grass and flowers flourish a while and then wither the fashion of the world passeth 1 Cor. 7. 30. The figtree doth not always blossom Hab 3. 17. Riches have wings Prov 21. 5. Our friends may dy or turn enemies Psal 55. 13. There are changes always going over the Children of God in this world which make the times to alter their circumstances Eccl. 3. begin But God is the same for ever and changeth not Mal. 3. 6. Rejoyce then in him and you may rejoyce again and again and never cease for help 1. See and be sure that your Joy is in the Lord There are a great many that make themselves merry in the world but there are few that have fixt their delight on this Object yea though they pretend to it yet they are mistaken and it is of Infinite concernment that you be right here for if it be not this joy it is not worth a button it will do you no true good but prove pernicious at last and that you may make sure of this look to these things 1. Carry before you the consideration of the vanity and emptiness of every other object of joy That which cheats the world is they think these things better than they are which transports them in the enjoyment of them the Spirit of God useth many arguments in the Scriptures to make men see how little these things have in them to ravish mens hearts and hath thereupon shrunk them up to vanity nothing and hence if you do not always keep some mortifying thoughts in your hearts to deaden your Affections to the world you will be drawn to give that to the Creature which is due to God alone pray as he Psal 119. 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity 2. Keep up the evidence of your interest in this God as yours He that can say as the Apostle 2 Tim. 1. 12 I know whom I have believed c. Will find nothing able to inteâ—rupt his rejoycing to be able to say this one thing I know that God is my portion will revive the heart under its greatest burdens and put new songs into the mouth of a Child of God Lose this hold and you are gone how shall he rejoyce in the Lord who hath made it a doubt whether he be his God or no 3. Be ever looking to the fulness
that is in him or what he is to those whose God he is Be ever acquainting your selves with your object the more you know his name the more will you trust in him Psa 9. 10. And consequently the more will you rejoyce for it is the joy of faith Often look over the Inventory of your portion you will therein find enough to employ your joy to the utmost latitude of it 2. Carefully avoid every thing that will tend to obstruct this joy If God in Soveraignty hides himself you must submissively bear it but do you nothing that hath a moral tendency to hinder the exercise of this grace Here more especially 1. Take heed of carnal joy Nothing is more inimical to spiritual rejoycing you may think you obey the command by it but none breaks it more and so far as Gods Children give way to iâ— they debauch their hearts and make them unfit for this Duty as well may a Wife fit her self to joy in her Husbands company by revelling with an Adulterer as a Child of God dispose himself for spiritual joy by diverting himself with that which is carnal 2. Be sure rightly to subordinate your natural and civil joy This becomes either good or evil to the person according as it is used there is a delight in relations friends health plenty peace c. But there is a snare in it Vain men think this Justifies any thing every thing and thereby they dishonour God and wrong themselves If you exercise this joy with a carnal mind and after a vain manner it becomes sin here then is the danger watch against it and the only way to prevent it to acknowledge God in these comforts and get your hearts more delighted in his Service by them 3. Beware of darkning your evidence by any sin Your actual joy is helped or hindred by the degrees of the clearness of your evidences and for that there must be the witness of your own spirits and of the Spirit of God Rom. 8. 16. And sin if allowed will obstruct them it will becloud the evidence of your own spirits darkning the things themselves from which you are to argue and it will provoke the Spirit of God to â—â—â—hhold his witness and then you must needs be at a loss Psal 51. 4. Maintain your faith in an entire relian 〈…〉 on the Righteousness of Christ Keep close to 〈◊〉 if Satan can get you off from it and bring you to look to any other Righteousness to render you accepted with God unto Justification there are so many flaws in it that he will rout and disturb your joy but if you resolve to live on this it will bear you out being made yours by faith it will answer every objection and set you down satisfied 5. Maintain your uprightness I intend not only be sure to walk uprightly but stand up in the defence of it whatsoever accusations are charged against it Satan will object how can integrity consist with so much imperfection and men will charge you for hypocrites as Jobs friends did him but being assured of it resolve not to part with it till you dy 3. Fortifie this joy against all worldly sorrows The prevalency of these often corrode our spirits and impede our rejoycing in God and there are many occasions for them in Providence we ought therefore to be always laying in against it And here 1. See how light all outward afflictions are compared with that which you have to rejoyce in If we look upon them alone they will stir aggravating thoughts of them and the burden will grow heavy and begin to sink us but if we entertain thoughts of the bitterness of them with the consideration of what is secured to us in Christ it will outweigh them and shrink them up 2 Cor. 4. 16 17. 2. Believe that these also shall turn to your account That although they be not joyous but grievous yet they are profitable and will bring forth precious fruits Heb. 12. 11. They are bitter pills but they will purge out the malignity that is in you Isa 27. 9. And they are managed in that hand that will govern the operation and give them the assured good effect so that in the issue you will have cause to acknowledge Gods goodness and faithfulness in them Psal 119. 71 75. Believe this for the present and rejoyce in the assured hope of it 3. Get your hearts more and more weaned from the world Worldly sorrow is always occasioned by overmuch love of the world it is therefore best prevented by mortifying these Affections to it Col. 3. 2. It will certainly produce this effect and the way to this is love Christ better and you will love the world less 1. Joh. 2. 15. Get a clearer apprehension of the loveliness of Christ and that will disgrace all that is in the world and if you value these things little you will grieve little about them 4. Be much in the contemplation of unseen things i. e. The things that are not obvious to a carnal but only to a spiritual eye these indeed are the things and would we live more in the view of them it would prevent our being overwhelmed with the troubles of this life 2 Cor. 4. 18. 4. Improve sorrow for sin to establish your joy in the Lord. Godly sorrow is an enemy to no joy but that which is carnal it is a proper help to that which is spiritual Here then 1. Be often improving of the promises that are made to such There is a mourning that is made a qualification of those that are owners of blessedness Mat. 5 4. Which extends not to every mourning for there is that which is the beginning of sorrows but it must be understood only of that which is Godly hence the difference 2 Cor 7. 10. And we are told what Christ is anointed of his Father to do for them Isa 61. begin 2. Hence fortifie your Assurance by this And indeed the more of this sorrow is in you and the more you practice it the more strongly may you argue from it the foundation of our joy in God is that he is our God in the New-Covenant and whatsoever will give us a clearness in this conclusion must needs afford us the greatest motive to rejoycing and such is this Godly Sorrow Sin is ever most bitter to them to whom Christ is most precious and they are only true believers 1 Pet. 2. 7. 3. Now look over to the harvest Remember these showers are to prepare for it and bring forward and ripen all the fruits that they may be ready to be bound up in sheaves for the Children of God to carry with them and think how glorious this will be how joyful a day you are making ready for and let this so influence your thoughts and affections as to entertain a good opinion of every wet day which your spring is visited withal and how sweet will those tears be which will help to nourish Grace unto Glory