faith he staggered not at the promise through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God And Paul Rom. 8.24 when he had told that we are saved by faith adds but hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for Hope and Faith are only for things invisible to any other sense or faculty And for the continuance of trials it is clear that it's Faith must see the issue as Hab 2.2 with Heb. 10.37 Write the vision and make it plain on tables that he may run that readeth it speak out my promise why For the vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak and not lie though it tarry to sense wait for it c. And how shall this be done The just shall live by faith If it be enquired how it comes to pass that the Lord puts the mercies of his people so far out of sight by the greatness and long continuance of trouble That it is only Faith that can discern the issue I shall briefly clear this to you in four words 1. He doth it that he may acquaint his people with the solid truth of his promises that he may let them see and bring them to know experimentally that his promise is not a blaâ—lume but though all things in the world were against us it 's a true word it 's a tryed word like silver purified seven times in the furnace Psal 12.6 and shall have an accomplishment The longer folk rest on the Bible and the more they try it they will esteem of it the more It 's of Divine Authority to which I shall speak a word afterwards when I come to that of the Psalmist where he calls it his Word 2. For this end the Lord gives this work to the faith of his people that he may acquaint them more and more with himself in whom they believe that when they are put to the Bible to live by faith in his Word they may study his Divine Attributes his Veracity that cannot lie his Omnipotency that in greatest difficulties can commad deliverance to his people his infinite Wisdom that can by contraries bring out his Wisdom about their delivery and by this means they have a great advantage when they are brought to know God the Author of the Promises better Hence Psal 9.10 â—t's said They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee They that know him will put their confidence in him And Paul 2 Tim. 1.12 said For the which cause I suffer these things nevertheless I am not ashamed How is that For I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him to keep against that day therefore I am not ashamed therefore my confidence succumbs not 3. The Lord by giving Faith this work brings his people experimentally to know the worth of Faith and that 's a necessary Lesson we will not â—y get Sailing near the Shore within sight of Land but must Lanch forth into the deep that Faith may be put to it and in this case what advantage is it to know the worth of Faith Psal 27.13 I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living What had become of me if I had not believed And that gave him to know the worth of Faith which had an excellent advantage And Psal 28.7 My heart trusted in him and I was helped I never tryed Faith but it brought me some ease and relief though not a compleat out-gate And 4. The Lord give faith this work that he may get much glory of his people by their dependance hoping and believing Thus Rom. 4.20 Abraham was strong in the faith giving glory to God Thou thinks it would honour God much if thy mouth were filled with songs for deliveries sweet comforts love-blinks c. I grant these are sweet and speaks his praise but God is more honoured by believing when thou wants these and hath only his naked word to lean to thou then glorifies God more eminently though not so satisfactorily to thy self when thou sticks by believing in continued difficulties when thou art tempted to cast away confidence All I say from this Branch and come to the 2d shall be to tell you that were these things believed we would not be so ready to stumble whatever our difficulties were when sense and carnal reason were laid by and non-pluss'd with want of all appearances and probabilities of an issue But who are they who when they are left on a word of God do not find themselves at a loss and as ye use to speak at the next best whereas if we considered that this were God way to exercise his people with such great and continued Trials that their Issues and Out-gates from them may be the Object of Faith and not of Sense or carnal Reason and particularly were this studied our being holden long at work hinging on would not tempt folk to weary and give over waiting on God a thing which many of us have cause to mourn for and many fear that if God refine us with silver we will discover more than we thought had been in us O consider it that ye stumble not weary not fret not quite not your confidence in great continued troubles it is an evil not so much to be dung from your confidence as to take the pet to cast it away and give way to discouragement and lie down and die But to press this I come to the second Branch in the Point That as the Tryals of Gods people may be such as only Faith can see an out-gate so when they are so Faith if it be chearfuly employed will apprehend a promised delivery in greatest difficulties it will make a man wait on God in the saddest exercises without succumbing and to say this with the Psalmist I wait c. for I hope in his word If a man be living by Faith and so a just man Though the Vision tarry to sense it will make him wait for it and expect it because at the appointed time it will speak and not lie And for the grounds on which this truth is founded amongst others take these three 1. That let Tryals be never so great and long continued they alter not the ground of Faith the ground that Faith goes on still continues the same Whatever befal the people of God they get not a new Bible or a new God all the gloomy days that past over them has not blotted out one Promise or Attribute of God and these things they see in God and his Promises in a fair day they may see them to be the same in a foul day now if the ground be the same if the Promises be the same if God be the same if our Rock have not sold us Faith closing with that ground must wait for a delivery were the Tryal never so great and long continued
of the Word when folk know not their wealth contained in their Charter When folk are like Hagar beside the Well and yet like to cast their Ishmael from them like to die for thirst because their eyes are not open to discern it Ignorance undoes many folk because they know not their allowance And another hazard upon the other hand that by pressing you to be acquaint with the Scripture I would have avoided and that is the hazard of mistaking and over-reaching when folks lusts and carnal expectations would make a light and ground of expectation to themselves when they look for what God hath not promised or hath not absolutely promised or not always these are dangerous we had need to have our expectations well bottomed lest a disappointment founded on a mistake make us to misbelieve that which is really promised a crush in a carnal expectation may make us look on the Bible as a poor Cordial in difficulties we would therefore guard against both ignorance and mistaking or over-reaching A 2d Direction is That when ye have found any thing in the Bible that is useful for you your first work would be to prize the certainty of what is contained there I spoke to this at great length on these words v. 5. In his Word do I hope That the Scriptures are the Word of God of Divine Authority but I can never enough press it folks that have their Treasure and Store-house in the Bible prize the Bible look on it as the word of him that cannot lie as a tryed word as silver tryed in a furnace of earth purified seven times Psal 12.6 That many have ventured their all upon and never found crack nor slaw in to speak so and Ministers had done with their task if the certainty of this truth that the Scriptures are the Word of God were believed and if thou cannot get the Promises believed will thou look out on the threatnings that thou discerns to be accomplish'd and thou needs not doubt of a promise so long as thou hast a threatning which thou seest verified Ponder that word Zech. 8.14 15. Thus saith the Lord as I thought to punish you when your fathers provocked me to wrath and I repented not So again have I thought in those days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah fear not If ye doubt of my promises that are not yet accomplish'd take a confirmation of them from my threatnings which ye found verified A 3d Direction I would give them that are looking for the accomplishment of what is in or with God and he hath promised is that having found out what is contained in the Scripture and prized it as of infallible verity and certainty then put to your Faith to it that he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquity for he hath said it I cannot give you this Direction more succinctly than the Lord gives it to Habakkuk who when he had prayed against the Caldeans Chap. 1. he is bidden Chap. 2.2 to write the vision and make it plain upon tables speak it out conceal it not that he that runs may read it For v. 3. the vision is yet for an appointed time it will not come presently but at the end it shall speak and not lie though it tarry wait for it there is Faith's work now because it will surely come it will not tarry Ye may remember I spoke also to this when I was upon these words And in his word do I hope But in following it out now I shall only touch on three or four words concerning Faith's looking out to what God shall do and make out to Israel And 1. I would have you looking on Faith as the most eminent and honourable of employments though not the most sensible and satisfactory There is much work my a fall in Saints hand which may be sweeter and may go better with them but no work is so eminent and accceptable to God So it is said of Abraham Rom. 4.20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God And Joh. 20.28 When Thomas after he had evidenced he was a man that would not believe without seeing the print of the nails and thrusting his hand into Christs side he makes a great phrase and says My Lord and my God Well says Christ Thomas because thou hast seen me thou hast believed but blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed Thomas ye might have been more acceptably imployed in giving me credite although ye had not gotten sensible satisfaction 2. Another word is that distrust is the in-let to all folks miscarriages in a stormy time a man is even as tint as if he were in the Sea bottom as to any acceptable acquitting of himself to God in his work before his promise be accomplish'd When ever he is over-power'd with unbelief then he is ready to say There is no hope we will walk every one in the imagination of his own heart Ponder that word Heb. 3.18 19. To whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest but to them that believed not So they could not enter in because of unbelief There the thing that held the people out of the promised Land and made them perish in the Wilderness unbelief And compare it with 1 Cor. 10.6 to 11. Where ye find them lusters idolaters fornicators tempters of Christ murmurers To tell that make once folk unbelievers and ye may make them any of these or all of them upon a suitable temptation There is no ill turn that occurs but an unbeliever capacitats himself for it if mercy in God prevent it not And a 3d word concerning this exercise of Faith and I shall add no more is that it says not a little to the granting or denying of a delivery to the hastning or for-slowing of an issue this exercise of faith If unbelief keep out of the promised Land and make Israel fall and wander in the Wilderness fourty years as in that Heb 3.18 Then blessed believing hastens the performance of the promise Luk. 1.45 Blessed is she that believed for there shall be a performance of these things which was told her from the Lord. Little knows folk how God may be provocked to make their unbelief the rule of their allowance that when they bod little they shall see as little No but God may and often doth shame the unbelief of his people and make their false eyes see that they were in the wrong to him but certainly unbelief of its own nature is obstructive of the performance of promises and if many die in the Wilderness they have as their carnal confidence on the one hand so their unbelief and despondency on the other to blame for it And I shall add more if unbelief withhold not the accomplishment of the promise it may have a black issue when the accomplishment of the promise comes to the man that entertains it And as to
this I would on the one hand commend to you that Passage to be pondered concerning that blasphemous lord 2 King 7.2 who when Elisha Prophesied of incredible plenty in Samaria said If the Lord would make windows in heaven might this thing be It shall be saith the Prophet and thou shalt see it with thine eyes but shalt not eat thereof and it was so he was a Grandee on whose hand the King leaned and thought if there were any fores to be had he should have a share the King giving him the charge of the Gate the people trode upon him and he died And on the other hand ponder that comfortable Song that believers sing Isai 25.9 Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us this is our God we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation O that Saints would think that such a turn of providence may come their way that will make them say and sing I trusted in him in a strait when not only he was invisible as he is always in himself but wrapt up in a cloud of mysterious dispensations O! that ye would think that such a song is possible and sweet but if that be a sweet song what bitter youling will it put them to or may they have who when God appears must say Lo there he is but we waited not for him so soon as he went out of our sight we tint all hope we knew not what it was to wait for him who hid his face from the house of Jacob we knew not what it was to bear his indignation till he should arise and plead our cause and execute judgment for us and believe that he should bring us out to the light to behold his righteousness Thus ye see what an important matter it is that we put forth Faith keep it in exercise for the accomplishment of what is in with God for his people which is the third Direction A 4th Direction which I give and leave this Note and that is That ye would wisely consider what the Lord means when he puts his people to the exercise of their Faith so much about that which he will do He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities and yet he putteth Israel to believe it What means the Lord I say in holding them at that task of believing here without offering to encroach upon the depth of the wisdom knowledge of God in his Providence the people of God have somewhat to look to without about them somewhat to look to within them if they look to somewhat without or about them God has more ado in the world than a particular saint or even a particular Church to satisfie O! the deep contexture of Providence how unsearchable are his counsels and his ways past finding out That what is very unsatisfactory to one or one Society God may have holy ends for it in the world But to come nearer What have Believers to look to in the world without them Take it in that word which the Lord has to Abraham when he is making the Covenant with him Gen. 15.16 When he has told him that though his seed should go down to Egypt yet in the fourth generation they should come hither again If Abraham should ask Why should they stay there so long He answers The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full God holds his people at the task of believing while the enemies cup is a filling might I insist upon this I might tell you That the enemies cup is often very long in filling but longer without the Church than within the Church four hundred years to the Amorites was long yet they being a people without the Church they took all that time to fill their cup but elsewhere their enemies ripe faster their cup is sooner filled and I might add a cup that is long a filling is ordinarly a very bitter cup when it is holden to the head of enemies when the cup of the Amorites is full utter extermination rooting out and offcutting comes upon them Lord save them whom folks wish well unto from a long fristed plague a long brewing storm is more dread sulthan hand payment And therefore it would not stumble folk to see wicked men for born but if it were rightly looked on every days forbearance would be an argument of pity for a cup that is long a filling is most bitter when it is held to the head But that which I am upon is that the people of God when they are at the trade of believing have something to look to without them and particularly to the cup of enemies that is a filling But again when they are holden at the task of believing they would also look to something within them and among them What means it that God hath given many rich and precious Promises to Believers and yet they get no more in hand but Faith to believe them if they can win to that where are his former loving kindnesses which he hath sworn to David For looking within you and among you ponder that word which ye have Isai 10.12 When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and Jerusalem he will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks and compare it with the Verses preceeding there ye will find the Assyrians desperatly blaspheming he says Are not my princes altogether Kings as my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria Shall I not as I have done unto Samaria and her idols so do to Jerusalem and her idols What nation hath been delivered out of my hand that the God of Israel should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand One would think now were he a God in Heaven he would sit no more vvith a blasphemous atheist he vvill suffer him no more to blaspheme and reproach vvith an high contempt of him and his authority he vvill novv be knovvn by the judgment which he shall execute but at leisure he will make himself knovvn but not till he have done his vvhole vvork on Mount Sion and on Jerusalem for all the haste his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem is the greatest haste he will let the Assyrian blaspheme on and trode down all before him till that be done his great work is to do good by the Assyrians within his Church and among his people and when his work is done there he will reckon with him and be known by the judgment which he executes upon him And if ye ask what this may be within the Church and among the people of God that he will have them minding when he puts them to send by Faith on the Promises I dare not offer to give you an exact account of it but only to cast some ground for work to your hand if ye mind practically to improve such
the pardoned sinner upon the account of sin partly to prevent sin partly to rouse him up to repentance when he hath sinned partly to set sinners to their feet that they may be rightly affected with sin when it is pardoned and that they may be excited to make a right use of pardon There remains yet other two Questions or Cases to be cleared anenâ— the nature of remission of sin to which I shall now briefly speak as the Lord will give The 3d Case or Question in order to this whether the truth of pardon depends upon the intimation thereof to our hearts yea or no so that when a sensible sinner fallen down at Gods foot-stool in the confession of sin and crying for pardon through Christ yet he finds nothing like a pardon intimate to his Conscience In this case the Question is whether hath he ground to doubt that neither hath he repented of sin nor gotten a pardon from God for it The general Answer to this is that pardon and Gods intimation of pardon to the Conscience are not to be confounded The Apostle 1 Cor. 2.12 gives a general rule concerning all supernatural gifts that when we have received these things freely of God we must receive the spirit which is of God that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God It 's one thing to get these supernatural gifts gifted to us another thing to get the spirit which is of God to know they are given us and this hath place particularly in the matter of pardon of sin for the pardon of sin is a sentence already past in the Word of God in favours of all believers and penitents in Christ so that no sooner doth the penitent sinner flee unto him and look unto him as to the brazen serpent for pardon and cure but as soon that pardon becomes his before he can subsume and say I am fled unto Christ for pardon and am pardoned his direct act of faith draws out pardon before he can reflect and pass a judgment on that his pardon And hence when Nathan hath pronounced that David's sin is pardoned him 2 Sam. 12.13 Yet in the 51. Psalm he crys instantly for mercy for pardon and blotting out of his transgression Why Though he was pardoned in the Court of Heaven yet he was not pardoned in the Court of his own Conscience The intimation of pardon was suspended and kept up And hence is that which I named before Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee It 's one benefit to him to have his sins forgiven him and another benefit to be of good chear on that account Therefore as Christ tells him that his sins are forgiven him so he must bid him be of good chear Thus ye see the truth of a penitents pardon depends not on the intimation thereof to his conscience But this wakens up another Case or Question the following forth whereof will deduce this more distinctly and that is how it comes and for what ends it is that a child of God cannot get it discerned and closed with that he is pardoned For clearing of this Case we should look first to our selves and then to a wise hand of God suspending the intimation of pardon If we look to our selves when we are pardoned we cannot discern it because of our weakness that cannot discern our happiness we are blind and discern not our happiness discern not our health we confound the reality of pardon with the sense and feeling of pardon and we will not believe pardon except we feel the effects of pardon and it is also because we are ignorant of getting pardon through the satisfaction of another when we are brought to be sensible for sin and to look to Christ for pardon and God hath spoken pardon we are like the Sea which being raised by a storm doth tumble a while after the storm is over and there is a calm These are some hints on our part why the pardoned sinner gets it not discerned that he is pardoned But if we look up to God he may have a holy hand in keeping up the intimation of pardon upon several accounts As 1. The Lord would have us looking more to his Word wherein pardon in the Gospel is holden out to us on Gospel-terms and less to sense he would breed us to grip the promise while sense come and to grip the promise that sense may come and they that will suspend all assurance of pardon while it be sensibly intimat the Lord in his holy providence keeps up the intimation of pardon from them to teach them to pay more due respect to his Word and to seek and feed upon the consolation that depends upon pardon promised and pronounced therein that by following his method by faith they may come to sensible intimation of pardon 2. The Lord may keep up the sensible intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned man that he may learn him to look upon pardon not as a necessary result and effect of his repentance but as a free gift of God which though the Lord will not bestow without repentance yet he doth not bestow it for repentance therefore doth he suspend the intimation of pardon from the penitent man that he may learn to look less to his Repentance and more to the free Grace of God in obtaining of Pardon 3. The Lord sees it fit to keep pardoned sinners in suspence as to the sense of Pardon or the intimation of it that he may let them see that when he is provocked by their sinning it is not so easie to recover themselves and get into his favour Therefore though he have pardoned them yet he will keep them at the back of the door as to the intimation of it partly that they may be put to resent how bitter a thing it is to depart from God and to raise a Cloud betwixt him and them and partly that they may be affrighted to dally with sin again he will have them to know that though he give them mercy it is not so easie to bring a Delinquent in Court and Favour again And 4. The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned sinner for this among other ends that he may be fit for sympathy with others that may come in the like case with himself he may cause his reconciled people feel the bitterness of departing from him and may suffer them to ly in the sense and under fears of their un-reconciled condition as to the intimation of pardon that they may bear burden with others that come to be in their case 5. The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from them that he may set them on work to repent more that they may search out sin more and repent more for their sin and for the sinfulness that is in their sin that possibly as yet they have not laid well to heart These reasons of suspending the intimation of pardon even
be a God of Judgment and therefore blessed are they that wait on him and blest shall ye be if ye believe these things and if ye make it your exercise to let your patience be seen in your meek waiting for him for there shall be a performance of these things which are told you from the Lord. I shall insist no further The Lord bless his word to you for Christ's sake SERMON XXIII Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and c. I Am now broken in a little upon this third part of the Psalmist's wrestling and exercise how that after his imploying of God by Prayer under trouble and taking a right method for purging away of the guilt of Conscience he is exercised with delays and protracting to his sense of delivery and comfort which he wrestles with by confident affectionat and patient waiting on God Having spoken somewhat to the general Doctrine of Perseverance and Constancy and broken in the last day upon and spoken to the first Head of these Words the Psalmist's exercise he was waiting I spoke to these two first Heads of Doctrine 1. That which was supponed here That the Psalmist was put to wait and shew that God may and often doth exercise his people when they are walking tenderly with delays And 2. I spoke to that which is proponed that when he is put to wait he doth wait under these delays waiting for other things from God according to his word than the present Dispensation did promise he waited he proved he did believe without making haste and he waited without bitterness fretfulness passion c. These two I took some time the last day to press on you as needful Lessons that when God exercises you with delays and suspends the performance of Promises ye should wait for God believing his Word not making haste with meekness and calmness of Spirit I proposed a second thing to be spoken to in the Words to which I proceed and that is the Object of his exercise I wait for what for the Lord says he that was the Object of his waiting whether he was waiting for Comfort against desertion or for delivery out of trouble or for both he is waiting for the Lord and this if we shall batter out a little will give some mo things to be taken notice of in a man that is truly a waiter for God and what I would say on it I shall briefly reduce to these three which I conceive imported in it 1. A waiter on God hath his Eyes taken off all other things and set on God only for what he wants and would have That is one thing imported in it not only is a waiter on God taken off sinful shifts that will disappoint all that use them as it is said when the Lord should smite Egypt and Ethiopia the people of that Isle or Countrey should be ashamed of Ethiopia their Expectation and Egypt their Glory and they shall say in that day Behold such is our expectation whither shall we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria and how shall we escape Isa 20.5 Now there our expectation is blown up And Jer. 3.23 Truly in vain is salvation looked for from the hills and from the multitude of mountains That is all the poor shifts they had betaken themselves to they shall be frustrat as to their expectation of help from them But I say not only are waiters on God taken off sinful shifts but have what they will to eye this is the Character of a waiting man that his eyes are taken off all things and set on God Psal 62.5 My soul wait thou only on God for my expectation is from him And ye have the posture of them whom God will notice Zeph. 3.12 I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people and they shall trust in the Name of the Lord They are a people emptied of all expectation from any other art but trusting in God they are left on him and betake themselves to him alone Now the Saints that are waiters on God indeed are put to this shift of waiting on God on divers accounts 1. Because all other shifts may and often do misgive upon their hand not only sinful shifts but all other disappointment on disappointment from one thing to another may be the lot of them that are put to this exercise of waiting on God it was not enough for David that Saul persecute him that the Ziphits were ready to betray him and that near relations Father and Mother should forsake him as he hints Psal 27.10 but he must be put to that Psal 142.4 I looked on my right hand and beheld but there was no man that would owne me refuge failed me There was no man that cared for my soul when he is shut up in the Cave all his men that were about him slight him think him an unhappy man and themselves unhappy in following him And Psal 124.1 If the Lord had not been on our side when men rose up against us They had swallowed us up quick c. There the people of God are left on him alone And Psal 94.17 Vnless the Lord had been my help my soul had almost or as it is on the margine quickly dwelt in silence There was nothing betwixt me and utter off-cutting but God's stepping in to be my help From this in the by ye may take this with you that the waiting people of God are never tryed enough till all things fail them but God till they be stripped naked of all things they expected help from and they left on God alone and whatever be God's condescendency to their weakness in giving them means of help at any time they would lay their account to be brought that low as to have none to look to for help but God only 2. The saints have their eyes only on God in their waiting because when they are stript of all other things that promised help They see there is ground enough to wait on God for all that They look not on the blasting of all their expectations as a nolumus on the back of their Bill or as inviting them to say there is no help They will wait on God when nothing invites them to it and why I shall offer to you a threefold account on which saints afflicted emptied and stripped of all things without God do not give over waiting on God 1. This is one they see God all-sufficient to do their turn not only without the help of second Means but when seemingly they combine to oppose what they would be at they wait for Jehovah and see their delivery or comfort not to be further off that there be nothing visible promising it yea when all visible means and causes threaten the contrary why Their King is Jehovah who can command deliverance Psal 44 4. Thou art my King O God command deliverance for Jacob A word from him can bring deliverance though
people of God that they do not forget prosperity and learn to have their desires spiritual and to make up the want of all things in God if they were spiritual in their desires whatever their difficulties were it would be all a matter to them if they got more of God if all their difficulties and wants did run in this channel to pursue for more of God to have him not to be their terror but their hope in an evil day Though they should want the Ordinances he should be a sanctuary to them Though men should curse What then It is all a matter if he bless Though they should be counted the off-scourings of all things contemned reproached no matter if their names be written in Heaven O spiritual desires would not only further an issue but be a present issue in all difficulties but hardly are the children of men out of one of three snares either they are mad on their Idols while they have them or they are mad for the loss of them when they want them or when they are restored to them they surfeit on them as Israel did on flesh in the Wilderness Therefore while their desires are not spiritual carried forth on God and heavenly things to make up the want of things earthly It 's no wonder their delivery be foreslowed of these things and will be forslovved till they cleanse their desires of vvhat they are so much vvedded to and cause lamenting over their buried Idols knovving it vvill be a plague to them to have them restored SERMON XXIV Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope AS in handling the former tvvo Verses I had a great Gospel Truth and Priviledge among my hands so in the fifth sixth Verses there is a lively description of a great and concerning Gospel-duty patient affectionat and confident waiting for God The Duty that is a great Characteristick of a godly man vvho hath a Well vvithin him that neither Summers heat nor Winters frost can dry up but as it is Zech. 14.8 In summer and winter shall it be there and vvho must prove this by his being well breathed to vvait on God vvhen his Promises and Dispensations seem to clash one vvith another vvhen his Word gives one report of him and his dispensations a quit contrair When His Word calls him The hearer of Prayer and His Dispensations say That prayer is shut out and his anger smoaks against the prayers of his people When his vvord says he that hath promised to come will come and will not tarry and his dispensations say not only that he tarrieth but that he vvill never come Here is the vvell breathed Grace of Patience affectionat and confident expectation to believe to vvait on and not to make haste and to be keeped meek in vvaiting on I have spoken to tvvo Heads here from the Psalmist's exercise he is waiting and the Object of his vvaiting he is waiting for the Lord his eyes are taken off all other things and set on God for vvhat he vvould be at and in the faith of that he vvaits on God and keeps his vvay and vvhen any thing of that kind is not accomplished to the satisfaction of sense he waits for the Lord that more enjoyment of him may make up the vvant of these things Sad Dispensations spiritualize his desires It is not any good that vvill satisfie him but it is one thing to behold the beauty of the Lord to have the communion of God and to have the light of his Countenance Novv I proceed to the third thing in the Words That is his affection in vvaiting vvaiting is his exercise the Object of it is the Lord The manner of his vvaiting is affectionat my soul doth wait I do vvait affectionatly and what the measure of his affection in vvaiting is he resumes verse 6. My soul writs for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I shall here speak to tvvo Observations and for the ground of the first Mark That the Psalmist vvhile he professes to vvait he declares that he sets himself against all haste passion and fretfulness about vvhat he vvaited in opposition to these he waits for God But now he finds it necessary to guard against another extream it might be said ye wait and are not fretted with delays and why ye are indifferent for what ye wait for it is indifferent for you whether ye get or want it and therefore ye may wait inconcernedly without wearying No says he though I do wait my affection is not asleep in waiting my soul doth wait I have affection to that which I want yet I labour to have it I have a waiting affection to it with a submissive affection in waiting for it Hence observe 1. That as patient waiting for God is opposit to passion fretfulness bitterness and carnalness on the one hand so on the other it is opposite to dulness stupidity and carelesness about what we want Here the Psalmist professeth himself both a waiter that is not wearied nor cankered and yet he is a soul-waiter with his affection aloft for what he waits for This particular may lead me to take notice of a General to be observed in the way of God's people That is that a mixed condition is their best condition for here ye have a frame made up of Patience and Affection affection running out for that it would be at and patience clogging its wings that it run not out of breath We are full of Byasses and always ready to run on extreams without this mixture if a man have affection it is ready to pick quarrels at delays if he have somewhat of patience that patience is ready to fall asleep but these two make up a sweet frame I might here take notice of these advantages or advantageous mixtures both in the frame of the Saints and in their lots in their lots take them successively we will find odd mixtures in them a rapture to Heaven and a Messenger of Satan sent to buffet them on the back of it It was needful that that eminent servant of God in his exaltation should be keeped with arms of such a messenger and beside these successive mixtures we will find few lots of the saints but a mixture may be observed in them Psal 40.17 I am poor and needy yet thought upon by God 1 Cor. 12.10 When weak yet strong Isai 40.31 When faint yet made to run and not be weary and to walk and not be faint when laid-by men yet made-up men their foot slipping yet Gods mercy holding them up Psal 94.18 Troubled on every side yet not distressed perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but not destroyed 1 Cor. 4.8 9. As unknown yet well known as dying yet living as chastned and not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoycing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things 1 Cor. 6.9 These are
yet he is born up in waiting on God for an out-gate he cannot quite nor give over he cannot go to another door for relief that 's a good evidence that there is ground of hope in such a mans lot For certainly Psal 9.18 the needy shall not always be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for â—ver And he that never said to the seed of Jacob seek ye me in vain Isai 45.29 he never engages a heart to wait on him in vain Their very waiting on and not giving over is if they could but discern it a sufficient refutation of their temptation to diffidence and despondency But I shall leave this and look on the words another way and these two principal Doctrines are obvious from them to any capacity 1. That waiting on God needs the support of Faith and Hope 2. That Faith or Hope must have the Word of God for its ground The first of these is clear in that he says I wait because I hope The other is clear from that he says in his word do I hope For the first of these That waiting on God needs the support of Faith or Hope Patience and On-waiting will never be gotten well cherisht without Hope or Faith a man that would keep waiting on God would keep Faith and Hope on foot So doth the Psalmist here while he tells that he waits because he hopes And hence it is that in Scripture we find a frequent conjunction of Faith and Patience as Heb. 6.12 The followers of them who through faith and patience have inherited the promises Rev. 13.10 Here is the faith and the patience of the Saints they must go together Rom. 8.25 If we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it It 's hoping for that which is not seen that draws along a patient waiting for it 1 Thess 1.3 True patience is called the patience of hope that patience which is the product of hope And to add no more ye have them conjoyned Heb. 10.35 36. Where in the first place the Apostle says to them Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath a great recompence of reward and then he adds to good purpose Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye may receive the promise Intimating it is to no purpose to speak of patience if folk cast away their confidence thus ye see how these two Faith and Patitience or Patience and Hope are linked together in Scripture to tell that patient waiting on God hath need of the support of Faith and Hope And if we should follow out this a little more distinctly we will find that the brangling of Faith and Hope cuts Patience short when a mans Faith or Hope fails he gives over waiting on God his Patience is gone as in that wicked King 2 King 6.33 Who when God by the Prophet had promised delivery would not believe it but says This evil is of the Lord what should I wait for the Lord any longer Fraâ— once he cast off confidence he gave over waiting on God And to clear this further see Jer. 2.25 and 18 12. In the one place when the Lord is perswading his people to keep his way they say There is no hope and what follows on that They say We have loved strangers and after them will we go And in the other place when they say There is no hope they add But we will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart Thus ye see how on the one hand the brangling of Faith and Hope cuts the throat of patient waiting for God and on the other hand Faith and Hope entertained keeps life in patience to wait still on God Ye know what is said of Hezekiah 2 King 18.5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the Kings of Judah nor any that was before him Trust in God made him singular and in nothing doth the singularity of a Christian appear more than in this the drawing forth of his Faith in patient waiting on God in difficulties 1 Sam. 27.1 When David gives over confidence he gives over patience and waiting and goes down to the Land of the Philistines but look upon him again as a Believer holding fast coâ—fidence what says he Psal 27.13 I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living Nothing but Faith kept me from giving over But now as Psal 116.10 I believed therefore have I spoken attaining to believing he dare subjoyn as v. 14. Wait on the Lord and be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart wait I say on the Lord. Thus ye have the point generally cleared that patient waiting on God needs the support of Faith and Hope To break it a little smaller and bring it nearer you I shall branch it out in these two 1. That the trials of the people of God may be such as only Faith can see an out-gate And 2. When they are so Faith will see an out-gate and enable a man to wait on God for the out-gate For the first I say The trials of the people of God may be such and so ordered for their greatness sharpness darkness and continuance that an out-gate will be the object of Faith only and not of Sense nor Reason A mans trials may be such that if he will betake him to Sense and carnal Reason to see if there will be an end of the Lord he will give it over if Faith step not in and take him off the hand of both A waiter for God here under difficulties must be a hoper else he will not wait on we are generally called in the whole course of our life to walk by Faith 2 Cor. 5.7 We walk by faith and not by sight but especially in great and eminent trialls and difficulties when they are of a long continuance to prove that we are among the just that live by faith Hab. 2.4 with Heb. 10.38 I might instance this both in the greatness and in the long continuance of trials In the greatness of trials which may be such as Faith only can see an issue 3 Cor. 1.8 In the trouble that came to us in Asia we were pressed out of measure above strength in so much that we dâ—spaired even of life and had the sentence of death in our selves And why That we should not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead We were put to it to imploy Faith in our deadly difficulties else we had been gone So Jonah 2.4 is put to say I am cast out of sight till Faith holding a grip of God bids him look again towards his holy Temple Sâ— Abram Rom. 4.19 hath all probabilities his own dead body and the deadness of Sarahs womb against the thing promised and what gave the issue only this he was not weak in the
2. As the ground that Faith goes on does still continue the same so obedience to the Command of Believing is never dispensed with There is never a time wherein God says I will dispense with you to Believe he says not believe when the waters are at the ancles and I will dispense with you when they overflow the banks but go things as they will Faith is still a commanded and indispensible duty ye have this clear Luke 8.50 and the parallel places when that Ruler came to Christ about the curing of his sick daughter he is encouraged to believe while she is sick and not dead but when she is dead one comes from his house and says to him Thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master thou and we might have believed the more before she was dead but now the case is desperat therefore it is needless to thee to employ him any more But doth Christ homologat such a principle no but when he heard it he says to the man Fear not believe only for she shall be made whole when she is sick and when she is dead he is bidden believe only And 3. Consider That not only does the ground of Faith continue the same and the command of Believing indispensible but Trials eminent sharp and of long continuance are opportunities of eminent work for Faith He is not counted a man of courage that in a Muster will vapor and play the gallant but who in the Chock of the Battle kythes his stoutness and resolution as a famous Spartan said when it was told him the Persians arrows were so thick that they would cover the Sun all the better of that said he for us we shall fight the better in the cool so it is with Faith Eminent Trials and difficulties of long continuance gives to it opportunities of eminent service and work What is it to believe while thou art sailing alongst the shore but when thou lanchest out into the deeps and meets with a storm and neither Sun Moon nor Stars for many days appear when the tryal is hightned and lengthned and some falls off on that hand the day and others fall off on this hand the morrow and thou art like to be left alone that is an opportunity of eminent service and work for Faith And thou would remember that there is a favour conferred on thee when thy Faith is put to it at such a time what will thou do If thou will cast thy self and all thou hast over upon God put all in his reverence and wait upon him for an issue From these things that I have but superficially touched be exhorted to study the life of Faith better that ye may be fixt and strong in the Faith ye must not content your selves with putting out some acts of Faith but ye must learn to live by it to make it your food and subsistence which if well studied many a tentation and snare in snary times would be broken and God would be waited upon patiently It is true when ye are surcharged with bitterness ye will get enough of things to father it on your difficulties are many and great your delays are protracted but ye light not on the root of your distemper the weakness of your Faith O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt where is thy faith for Isai 28.16 He that believes shall not make haste and consequently he that makes haste does not believe or is at a low pace as to the exercise of faith when impatience and bitterness prevails and therefore guard against your cankering fretfulness weariness fainting Do not tempt God to give you a relief by a change of your condition and being seen on the mount but rouze up your faith to exercise say how is it that I am so fearful how is it I have no Faith seek the issue of all your pressures by rouzing up your Faith it will discover to you Hagars well at hand when ye are casting down your Ishmaels to die for thirst it will bring noon day at night and of weakness it will make you strong when ye are faint and have no might it will bring in power to you and renew your strength when ye see no appearance of an issue it will bid you look again as Elijah said 1 King 18.43 Till ye see the cloud that will rain When that holy man Ezra is laid by in confessing and mourning over the sins of the people Chap. 9. There is a good man who Chap. 10 2. bids him look again arise from his heaviness and fall about a work of Reformation For there was hope in Israel concerning that thing So Jonah when he said I am cast out of thy sight rouzing up his Faith saith Yet will I look again towards thy holy temple and that man Psal 77.7 When he begins to question Whether the Lord will cast off for ever and will be favourable no more if his mercy be clean gone if his mercy doth fail for ever if he hath forgoâ—ten to be gracious and in his anger he hath shut up tender mercies and is laid by with that work he rouzes up his Faith and looks again And Verse 10. saith This is my infirmity I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high So would thou do when thou looks on the sadness of thy condition and many pressures and art tempted to give over rouze up thy confidence and that will give thee a satisfactory account of that which thou counted desperat and hopeless The Lord bless his Word SERMON XXVI Psalm 130. Verse 5. And in his word do I hope WAiting on God being a most excellent and necessary Subject and Duty in regard that only they that endure to the end shall be saved and that it is these whose Patience has had its perfect work that shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord we had need to study all these things which may either set Patience on work or keep it at work And here I am upon the great support of the Waiting Man He waits for the Lord because he hope in his word In the Forenoon I spoke to the first general Observation in these words That Patience and Waiting cannot be well cherished without Faith and Hope Which I branched out in two That the Tryals of the Saints may be such and so ordered for greatness and continuance that Faith only will be able to discern an issue of them and that faith chearfully employed will discern this issue Now the Lesson I am to fall upon in the 2d general Observation is That Faith enabling to endure hard lots and to endure without succumbing must take the Word of God for its ground and Faith having the Word for its ground so long as God alters not his Sentence in his Word Faith must believe and hope expect the accomplishment of that word I hope in his word saith the Psalmist hence it is to allude to that of the Apostle Rom. 10 6. That the man
thou hast little to say to the commendation of God of hoping in him will thou believe that there shall be a good account of all thy exercise in waiting believe that thou shall not for ever return ashamed that there will be an end of the Lord and a good end that thy expectation shall not perish for ever that though thou be laid in the grave with crushing thy dead men shall live there shall be an end and thy expectation shall not be cut off take the exhortation that word to Mary Luke 1.45 Blessed is she that believes for there shall be a performance of these things which were told her from the Lord. Thou that art running to God and waiting on him for an issue of thy pressures and sees no appearance of the day breaking but rather that the night groweth darker do not think that it will be ay so Do not follow out thy work and task as a hopeless undertaking follow not Christ as Thomas did to die with him but sow in hope expect that he that hath opened thy mouth wide will fill it and not with an empy spoon only do not mistake while thou art holden at work needful exercise is still requisit which will come in afterward when I speak to the exercise of Faith and Hope and therefore here I shall leave it and proceed to the next thing which I marked as implyed 2. When the Psalmist hath got a breathing and good account of his hope he is very communicative of it he poures it out in Israels bosom That which I mark from it is That the exercises and out-gates of the Saints when they are blessed of God to them they make them very publick minded when the Lord drops out any good thing to them they would fain deal about them for the good of Gods people and make many sharers in it Ye know there is a Communion of Saints it is an Article of our Creed it is a communion and entercourse such as is betwixt the members of the body that when one member suffers all the members suffer with it and when one rejoyceth all rejoyce with it What one hath is at least should be communicat for the good of the rest and of the whole body and I might add it is a sad thing when the duties of the communion of Saints must be looked on as a crime and transgression But that which I am now upon is That this communion of Saints will be improved by all who are lively and who are blessed of God in their exercises and out-gates as we may see the Psalmist here what good he hath gotten by waiting on God he communicats it to Israel I may confirm this two ways 1. We find in Scripture when the people of God are in trouble themselves they are never so throng about their own case or so taken up with themselves but they have spare time for the case of the Church or others who are in the same or like exercise If our blessed Lord suffered being tempted that he might succour them who are tempted Heb. 2.18 Then the saints when they are under tentation pressures and hard exercise will find that to be a call to them to have a large and tender heart towards others under the same exercise yea to bring in the pressures of all that are about them as ye may see in that holy man Psal 102. what a hard exercise he is under from the beginning of the Psalm to verse 12 13 and 14. Ye will find the blessed improvement of this I am upon thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion for the time to favour her yea the set time is come for thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favour the dust c. All that he hath to do within doors though his days be consumed like smoke his bons brunt as an hearth his heart smitten and withered as grass his bones cleaving to his Skin though he be like a Pâ—lican in the wilderness and an owl in the desart as in that 102 Psalm yet all that hinders him not to cry That God would arise and have mercy upon Sion but rather excites him And a 2d Confirmation of the Point I take from Scripture Precepts and examples that press us to communicat what good we get of God to others for their good Luke 22.32 When Christ hath told Peter of his fall and recovery he subjoyns to that When thou art converted strenthen thy brethren And whoso will read Psal 32.6 and the Verses following Psal 66.16 They will find that the Psalmist when ever he hath gotten a proof of Gods goodness to himself he is very careful to communicat it to others in direction instruction encouragement or comfort according as God hath communicat it to him I shall say no more from this but let it condemn the selfish Disposition of many who being in trouble the whole bensil of their Spirit is little enough for themselves and they have no inlet for the griefs and pressures of others and if it be well with them if they be delivered they are far from remembring Joseph in Prison They do not endeavour this publick-mindedness to communicat their experience for others good such selfish frames provock God to give folk humbling exercises to learn them to be publick minded Now I have done with the first general Head of the Doctrine implyed in the Exhortation Let Israel hope c. I proceed in the 2d place to the matter of the Exhortation or the Duty recommended that is to hope in the Lord to exercise Faith and hope in God of this ye may remember I have been speaking at some length upon the 5. verse before which may save me a labour of insisting much on it now But this of Faith and Hope being a work and task of the people of God while they are in time there can never be too much said to it Therefore I shall offer to you two grounds of Observation which I shall take from the Psalmists recommending of it to the people of God here over again 1. His Exhortation implys the constant need that the Saints will have of Faith and Hope in time 2. That the Saints have a constant warrand of Hoping and Believing in God 1. Consider though the Psalmist as would appear hath gotten a good account of his hope yea for all the issues he hath gotten before and that the saints and people of God in that generation and before had gotten of Faith and Hope they had trusted in God and He had delivered them from all their fears and they were not ashamed yet still he presses Faith and Hope as that which the Saints will still have need of and wherein their life consists The Observation then is plain That Faith and Hope are Graces whereof the Saints will constantly stand in need what-ever deliveries or issues they get in time As here it is supposed the Psalmist hath gotten an issue yet he will not have Faith and Hope out
continue in it and when he hath done his duty and hath denyed himself and in his best performances is humbled for the iniquity of his holy things he hath need of Faith to sit down under Christs shadow to put it up in his hand and to close with imputed righteousness Thus ye see what need there is of Faith and Hope in respect of the relation they have to duty And 5. There is constant need of Faith in relation to Sense and manifestations of comfort and love A man that wants Sense and would be at it the only right way is by believing that he may see by believing that he may rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 Believing that he may be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 And when a man is win up to believing and finds no sensible comfort it 's no call to cast away his Faith but he must cherish his Faith more and yet more till God be pleased to send Sense He must still hold the grip of Faith if he would have sensible manifestations flowing out rightly and solidly to him Again when he hath gotten Sense he hath need of Faith still to try Sense when he doubts of his comfort whether it be a delusion or not and whether it be of God or a lie in his right hand it is by Faith and the rule of Faith by which he must examine and try that So that when he is hugged in his Fathers bosome there is need of Faith walking by its rule to assure him that he is not deluded And yet further when he hath gotten Sense and tryed it by the rule of Faith he hath need of Faith still he must not observe Peters way while he was on the Mount with Christ Master saith he it is good to be here if thou wilt let us make three tabernacles Mat. 17.4 But he must lay his account to come down again he must not reckon now I see and it will never be dark again now I have peace and I shall have no more perplexity but after a Sun-blink he must come down from the Mount of sensible enjoyment and meet with desertion and when he hath sensible manifestations he must lay them at his Masters feet and be content to return to the Trade of Believing Even as the Bride Cant. 2.17 when there hath been much fair Weather betwixt the beloved and her what says she Until the day break and the shadows flee away turn my beloved as if she had said I look not upon this as my ordinary allowance within time the day is not broken in time The shadows are not fled away as yet therefore I will submit to it that thou turn or flee that thou withdraw only on this condition that when I need thou wilt come swiftly unto me like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether or division Thus ye see how in all cases and lots there is constant need of Faith and Hope and that there should be a constant esteem of these Graces all that I shall say from it by way of inference shall be in the first place to press you to study this necessity well that ye may not mistake that ye may not be surprized what ever ye may meet with if ye have Faith and Hope God will not let it rust he will give you clouds to see thorow dark nights of Dispensations to grapple with And once fix your self in the perswasion of the constant usefulness and necessity of Faith and Hope and it will help to break many snares and temptations and particularly your fretting and petting and the casting away of your confidence Let Faith be your one thing O how cruel are they to themselves that weaken their confidence and cast away their esteem of Faith and Hope They consider not the constant necessity of these Graces And 2dly Particularly I would recommend to you that as I hinted in the forenoon ye would take grace to believe for an out gate Do never complain that ye are ill-guided so long as Faith keeps the Feet that were the moderation and sobriety becoming a Christian Spirit That whatever means for an issue be used that it be a mans satisfaction to get grace to judge well of God and of all his dealing Paul counted it a great favour 2 Cor. 4.1 That having received mercy he fainted not if folk knew what a woful life want of delivery and issue joyned with unbelief makes they would think them delivered folk who get grace to believe whose faith is not brangled or though it be brangled yet it is not put off the field Ye that have advanced to believing bless God for it and follow it as your chiefest mercy And 3. I shall add as a consequence of what I had in the Explication of the Point that ye would learn to hold a loose grip of all things that come to give Faith relief when either ye meet with a temporary delivery from a difficulty or with a sun-blink of Consolation coming to Faith as its post and saying sit down and rest you a while hold a loose grip of the one and the other It is but a fair blink in a Winter stormy day and it will overcast again Remember when ye have drawn your breath a little ye must up and make to your Faith and hope again when ye have seen your Sun he must be overclouded and ye must wait on the Lord who hides his Face from the house of Jacob and through the clouds ye must look for him Isai 8.17 And therefore as ye would not cast your Sun-blinks because they are not lasty as many do so ye must take heed ye sit not down upon them like a tir'd body set down to rest him he sits not long least he grow stiff The sober mind is a fixt mind he feeds with an eye to his journey he takes his comfort with an eye to the sight wherein he knows not how soon he may be engaged So much for the first Note on the second general Head of Doctrine that the Saints will have constant need of Faith and Hope and therefore should highly esteem of them The second is That if Faith and Hope be constantly necessary then there is need for a constant warrand for believing and hoping in God Now what is my warrand the Psalmists Exhortation to hope in the Lord imports the constant will of God concerning this as a duty even a constant warrand to believe and hope without any restriction of time lot person or condition Let Israel hope c. The Observation then is clear That it is allowed to the Saints at all times to believe and hope in God at all times whatever their lot or case be or seem to say there is no time wherein this duty wears out of fashion or the Command enjoyning it wears out of date whatever times pass over them or lots they fall under it is a constant duty and it is a sin
use to speak ye will find him in another tune Psal 116 10. I believed therefore have I spoken Not only esteeming of faith for his own use but a man that dare commend it to others as Psal 27.14 Wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart wait I say on the Lord. All that I shall draw from this Head shal be first to recommend to the people of God who have hard pulls in time to assay this Trade of trusting in God and hoping in him it hath not an enemy but an ignorant one that 's a stranger to it that knows not the worth that is in it the rich advantages that follow it were it more tryed it would have more to commend it therefore let it be more your study and thou that would set about the Trade of believing and hoping in God must not take the report concerning faith and hope from every fit of a temptation thou must lay thy account to meet with many a fiery dart and with many a reproach cast upon thy confidence and to have thy self counted a fool for cleaving to that way but hold at it and the more thou do so thou shalt like it the better not only wilt thou not need any to commend it unto thee but thou wilt commend it to all that will take thy advice and counsel And 2. They that have been essaying faith and hope and have gotten good of it they would be afraid in any after-assault they may be put to to bring up an ill report upon the way of faith and hope thou may let these that never got good of it suspect it but thou that hast been helped to believe and wait on God and hast seen an end of the Lord and found the good of believing that can with the Psalmist Psal 28.7 say My heart trusted in him and I am helped How guilty must thou be if thy faith and hope be to seek in a new strait If after thou hast found the good of believing thou be put out concerning it in a new trial when that Song is cast up Psal 107.1 O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever who-ever let that Note ly by the second Verse tells thee Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy Who ever have a slender opinion of faith and hope it ill becomes thee to have it who has tryed it and has found the good of it or to be to seek in esteeming of it in a new trial But now I proceed to the 4th thing I proposed to be spoken to from this Exhortation that is the consideration of the persons who they are to whom this hope in God is recommended Let Israel hope in the Lord saith he Hope in God is not an Anchor that will be budded on every one It 's true none are secluded from coming to seek a right to hope in the right method and due order but there is an hope of the hypocrite that will perish that will be like the giving up of the Ghost and that hope is only for fair weather and for little to do but this hope of the Saints is the peculiar allowance of the Saints at all times Now for what is mean'd by Israel here I shall not deny but in the first place we are to understand that Nation of Israel a peculiar people to God who in various Ages while they continued a Church and Nation were meeting with work for their hope and with many rich advantages and proofs of the good of hoping in God and in the latter days when as it is Rom. 11.26 All Israel shall be saved they shall find this made out to them that they may hope in God But it is not to be restricted to them only since their off casting there is an Israel come in their place as the Apostle tells us Rom. 9.6 That they are not all Israel which are of Israel all that Nation were not true Israelits in Gods account So Phil. 3.3 There is a circumcision even among the Gentiles who do worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh And Gal. 6.16 he tells There is an Israel of God Gods peculiar people of whatsoever Nation upon whom walking according to the Rule of the new Creature given them there shall be peace and mercy Again we may consider Israel either Collectively or Distributively Consider Israel Collectively for the Church of God correspondent to the ancient Nation of Israel Then by Israel we are to understand the invisible Church the society of Gods converted Elect through the World yet not excluding particular visible Churches who partake of the priviledges of the true Israel of God according to their purity and the number of true Israelites that are among them Again Israel taken Distributively takes in every Child of God who in his own place according to the tenor of the promises made to Israel hath no less ground to hope in God than Israel taken Collectively hath In the prosecution of this Head three things occurr to be spoken to 1. That Israel is a Society that is allowed to hope in God 2. That this hope is the common allowance of all and every one that is indeed an Israelite as well as of the Body of Israel in general And 3. That it concerns every one that would claim to hope in God in all exigencies to make it sure that they are true Israelites indeed and may put their names in those passages and promises wherein Israels priviledges are contained For the first Israel are a people that however matters go have ground to hope in God however things fare in the world or whatever may be said of the desperat case of others Israel is a Society that may still hope in God Hence when Ezra Chap. 9 is laid by with mourning for that generation that had mingled with the abominable Heathen a godly man Chap. 10.2 comes and tells him It 's true we are guilty yet there is hope in Israel concerning this thing Had such a thing fallen forth among others it had been a presage of dreadful news but in Israel there is hope of pardon hope of redress hope of making up this breach in Israel things otherwise desperate are not hopeless Jer. 31.15 17. Though in Israel there be a Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are not She looks upon it as needless to offer to comfort her when her Children are gone yet even when they are not and she thinks that rationally she refused to be comforted Verse 17. There is hope in thy end saith the Lord that thy children shall come again to their own border It 's Israels priviledge that she can say that none else can say It 's Israels Song Psal 129. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up may Israel now say She might
is not to trapane you in a course wherein your expectations will be defeat but all that is said of it are the true and faithful sayings of God I shall only offer to illustrat this in three words and I have done with the Point 1. What is the language of all the common goodness of God to your selves to you who are profane to you who are rebels to you who are mockers at all Religion that think it an evidence of a silly Spirit to fall in love with holiness What means all this common goodness of God to you I say that he makes not the Earth open and swallow you up quick into the pit as he did Core Dathan and Abiram that he puts not forth his hand to sweep you off the Earth or makes you not monuments of his Justice and Judgment upon it Know ye I say again What all this means I shall give it you in that word Rom. 2.4 The riches of his goodness and forbearance leads or should lead you to repentance that so ye may come in to know what his special and singular goodness to Israel means he is laying invitations at thy door who art traversing thy wayes whom the wind has bound up in its wings and who art as light as the wind in following thy follies inviting thee to come in and be an Israelite indeed that thou may share in his peculiar goodness and put him to it as he bids you Hag. 2. See if he will prove a wilderness or a land of drought to you He gives you a bill of defyance if ye will turn in to him and be his Israel indeed that ye shall turn your back upon him and say he disappointed you 2. The Scripture intimats the reality of his goodness to all his Creatures his kindness is palpable to all creatures beside man Job 36.41 He provideth for the ravens their food when their young ones cry unto him the young lyons roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Psal 104.21 He feeds the fouls of the air he cloaths the lillies and the grasse in the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven Mat. 6.20 And from all this our blessed Lord gathers verse 30. If God provide for fowls and so clothe the grass will he not much more clothe you O ye of little faith If God be good to all his creatures and will he not be good to his own children And a 3. word to illustrat it Christ gives you Mat. 7.9 from Parents goodness to their Children who if they ask bread will not give them a stone or if they ask a fish will not give them a serpent and then infers if ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him So God's common goodness to your selves his common goodness to all the creatures and the natural affection of parents to their children all of these concur to demonstrat that the goodness of God towards his people is real and no complement and therefore to shut up this purpose with this word of Exhortation that ye would seek to be Israelites indeed and to leave it at every ones door that do not study to be Israelites indeed that they forsake their own mercy in slighting this peculiar goodness of God and such as do so let them stand to their own hazard so I have done with the Exhortation Let Israel hope in the Lord. I proceed now to consider the encouragements arguments or grounds on which the Psalmist presses that Israel should hope in God For with the Lord is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem Israel from all his troubles and iniquities ye see the Arguments are taken partly from what is with God or in God and his power for the good of his people mercy and Redemption and that in great plenty that is authority and power to give a proof of his mercy to Israel and to rid them from all servitude and bondage and partly the Arguments are taken from that which God will let out for the good of Israel if mercy and plenteous redemption be with him then he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities I shall not here fall in upon a general Remark That folks hopes would be well and distinctly grounded for the Psalmist doth not satisfie himself to exhort Israel to hope in God but he layes down grounds of hope on which they are to go in the exercise of that Grace This Point if I were to stand upon it would give a check both to the blind guesses of the wicked who have hope enough alway and all that men can say cannot drive them from their carnal confidence when they cannot tell what their confident hope is or wherein it is grounded only they have a blind guess which they take for hope and partly it would give a check to the children of God for their â—ndistinctness in their hope and the grounds of it while they are hanging on God I do not deny but when they are opprest they must look unto God to undertake for them and when they are blind and cannot see through the cloud in the dark day they must grip unto him who must hold them by the right hand and when they are in a mist of confusion they must grip after God But confusion and undistinctness in ordinary makes much uncomfortable work whereas if folk studied to be distinct and clear in the grounds of their hope they would not lean so little weight on hope as tentation often perswades them to do But to leave this what I would say from these Arguments I shall draw it to these two general Heads I Ye see there is somewhat supponed here anent them that are put to hope and who are warranted to hope in God they are in such a condition that they are put to need mercy and plenteous redemption and that from many iniquities 2. There is somewhat proposed anent such persons that there is hope of mercy and plenteous redemption for them with and in God and there is Gods power and willingness to redeem them from all iniquities and this they are to look to and hope for For the first That which is supposed I shall take it up in three Notes 1. That the man called to hope in God is miserable in himself and put out of himself to see what is in God that makes for him 2. That he is not only simply miserable but under a bondage that needs redemption and plenteous redemption 3. That he is a man that above all pressures he is lying under finds the pressure of sin and guilt to be the greatest for he must have a peculiar Redemption for all his iniquities 1. The man put to hope and warranted to hope in God is a man miserable in himself and put to look for mercy he is not a man that is conceity
a Doctrine I shal briefly hint at some Scriptures which will give you some light in what it is The first is that Deut. 8.15 16. Wherein the Lord tells he led his people through a great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought and brought water to them out of the flint and fed them with Manna which their fathers knew not Wherefore That he might humble and prove them to do them good at their latter end These Dispensations were humbling and proving humbling not crushing for ye will get crushing without Prayer and discouragement without pains but humbling must be the product of Prayer and pains they are not humbled says the Lord even to this day Jer. 44.10 Every broken body is not an humbled body though from pride of heart they may be irritat cankered crusht and to help to this proving must be added which brings discoveries and folk would try what discoveries their being put to send by Faith brings forth and lays before them proving will often bring butt that which ye thought was not ther benn as ye use to speak passion pride fretting haste a legion of foul evils and it would bod well if when folks are put to fend by Faith amongst the Promises if they met with such discoveries and saw ugly bossoms and were bearing about their abominations and humbled under them Another Scripture that will hint a word of Direction to you what your work should be while put to fend by Faith is that Jer. 2.19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy backslidings shall reprove thee know then and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord c. This is it I was on in the morning Repentance Repentance O! how abasing is it when our wickedness and backsliding are sent to reprove and convert us not only in keeping up the performance of Promises but in the execution of threatnings when God makes all the world vvise of a peoples vvickedness vvhen he goes as it vvere to the street vvith their faults vvhen he spits in their face and shoots them vvith Miriam without the camp and it vvere a blest vvork if this led to Repentance And a 3d piece of vvork I vvould recommend to you is to see if ye can believe indeed Try if ye have Faith and a vvell breathed Faith a biding Faith that will sett its face to a storm remember that word that Christ hath to his disciples Mark 4.40 Why are ye so fearful O! ye of little faith Hovv is it that ye have no Faith vvhen they in a storm like to drovvn and cryed Master cares thou not that we perish vvhen he has rebuked the vvind and sea he gives them this check There are many vvho for all the times and exercises have past over them have had some dreilling and skirmishes for Faith vvhich are presently discust but God may see it meet to give them exercise for a fight of Faith to see if their Faith be a fresh-weather-Faith or a Faith that vvill venture on the Deep at his vvord and look that Christ have not that to say Why are ye so fearful how is it that ye have no faith He is learning his people to believe vvhen he puts them to live and fend among the Promises by Faith And a 4th word I give you vvhich I vvill not say should be vvritten upon gold Letters but upon your hearts vvho vvould fend by Faith amongst the Promises till the performance come and it is that Rev. 3.10 Here is the patience and faith of the saints Having spoken before of sore troubles vvhy is Patience put first and then Faith because many a time Faith may not have a turn to put its hand to but to vvait for God and see if ye can vvin to that Faith vvhich vvhen it has not a turn to do but patiently wait on God is about that And a fifth vvord I recommend to you is that spoken of David Acts 13.36 It is said After he had served his own generation by the will of God he fell on sleep Whatever may be the particular meaning of the place it may safely be taken up thus That David took his generation work as God put it in his hand he was not a carver or prescriber but a submitter to God if it was a generation vvork a work commanded by God and necessary for him to be studied vvhen the people of God are put to fend by Faith amongst the Promises till performance come O! what thoughts of heart will they have were they thus and thus employed how refreshful vvould it be to them but many have no more but that they are cast idle and necessitat to sit idle at Christ's feet and look up to him and their idleness is very unpleasant to flesh But thou vvho art in that posture vvould learn to believe thou can never be put out of Work A godly man can never be an idle man change his vvork he may but idle he cannot be were it but to bear and submit to want of work it is work And O! how sweet is that let the saint be tost as a ball in a large place they are always at work acceptable to God And then ye would learn to see beauty in a generation work be what it will that is the knack of it to speak so the main thing to be noticed If thou be serving thy generation by the will of God however it be in a work that is unpleasant to thee even thy idleset thy humbling work thou should learn to see a beauty in it that thou may lay it on his altar as an acceptable service to him as if thou were at work more refreshing to thee These are some few thoughts why the Lord on several accounts holds his people at the trade of Faith and sends them to fend by Faith among the Promises till the performance come I shall go no further The Lord bless his word to you SERMON XLV Psalm 130. Verse 8. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities I Am now drawing towards a close of this Psalm upon which I have insisted so long upon the account of the constant and universal usefulness of the subject matter therein contianed From the Arguments encouraging Israel to hope in God which is the Exhortation in the 7 verse from these Arguments I say to press and invite to hope in God I have been marking somewhat that is supposed that is the case of God's Israel who are invited to hope and allowed to hope in God that they are under misery and bondage and particularly under the bondage of sin And I have spoken also to what is proposed for their encouragement as 1. That there is mercy with God 2. That with him there is plenteous redemption And 3. From the connexion betwixt the seventh and eighth Verses That what is in God and with God for the behove of his people will undoubtedly be put forth and
FORTY FIVE SERMONS UPON THE Cxxx PSALM Preached at IRWIN By that Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ Mr. George Hutcheson Minister of the Gospel EDINBVRGH Printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson Printer to their most Excellent Majesties Anno DOM. 1691. To the Right Honourable and truly Noble Lady La MARGARET LESLIE Countess of ROTHES c. SUCH I know was the Author's respect to your Ladyships Noble Family and to your Self though young at his death upon what all saw so promising even then in your Ladyship that I doubt little but if he had lived till now to Publish these very useful Sermons he might probably have brought them to publick view under your Ladyships Name And Providence having put them into my hand I judging them with others of far deeper reach very serviceable to all who seriously mind their Souls concerns was easily induced that they might not be buried in Oblivion as I fear many other things of his very worthy of the light may be to give them to the world in Print Dedicat to your Ladyship in doing whereof I might and others in the like case probably would here commend your Ladyship for your examplary Piety your love to Religion evidenced by your laying out your self to the outmost for the advancement thereof in your present Capacity your Care and Vigilance in the Education of your Noble and Hopeful Children whom the Lord bless by means whereof they may prove eminent Instruments in due time of promoting the good of their Countrey both in Church and State the indefatigable pains you have been and still are at to advance their Estates that they may be in the better case to appear to purpose for these and your modest discreet sober and prudent deportment in all every one of which might be insisted on at length without the least shaddow of flattery or encroachment on truth But as this I know would not be acceptable to your Ladyship so besides that I being no Orator am nothing fitted for it it is so contrary to my humour that all I shall further add is that being sufficiently aware of my Obligations to your Ladyship and to your Noble Family I have presumed as a Testimony of my sense of these to prefix your Name to this Piece which I intreat may be taken in good part off the hand of MADAM Your Ladyships most humble and devoted Servant G. L. TO THE READER I Shall speak nothing of the Author of this Work he was far above my Commendation he exercised his Ministry first at Camanell afterwards at Edinburgh and lastly at Irwin where he Preached these Sermons and finished his Course in all which places for his Piety Parts and particularly his eminent Gift in Preaching his Memory is very savoury and will be to all who will seriously read these Discourses of his Which had he lived to Publish himself they had certainly appeared in a far more advantageous Dress But you have them here as they were received from his Mouth when Preached by the Pen of an Hearer And if at any time you meet with any thing less clear in them it 's hopt you will attribute it to this or to some Inadvertency at the Press and not to the Author who was known to be no-ways involved or obscure but most accurate most exact and distinct in all that he did and to add this in the by which is remarked of him by one most pertinently in all his Observations and Purposes ye will find him though always Native yet frequently very surprising But the serious perusal of them will say more both for their Vindication and Commendation than I possibly can which if you set about as you ought they will prove through the Lord's Blessing as they were at first and now are intended for thy Spiritual Benefit which is the sincere desire of G. L. SERMON I. Psalm 130. Vers 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O LORD 2. Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications HAving a purpose if the Lord will to go through this Psalm I shall speak somewhat in a brief word to the Title of it It 's called A Song of Degrees a Title that is common to fifteen Psalms in this Book from the 120 to the 134 inclusivè and the importance of this Title is not easily condescended upon Popish Writers would from this make up fifteen Degrees of Vertues each of them still above another whereby a Sinner breathes for Redemption by Christ from a stare of Sin and Misery and ascendeth to Heaven but this necessitates them to strain their Wits and to put these Psalms on a Rack to find out the distinction of these Vertues and therefore we shall leave it The Hebrew word rendred Degrees leads us to somewhat more certain yet not demonstrative That these Psalms may be called Songs of Degrees 1. Upon the account of the way of singing them the Voice in singing them being raised to an high Key as 2 Chron. 20. where it is said the Levites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high It 's the same word used here for Degrees 2. There is a reason why these Psalms were to be sung with a loud Voice a Song of Degrees may signifie a most excellent Song or a Song which in excellency surmounts other Songs and so the word is rendred when it is applyed to a man of excellency 1 Chron. 17.17 Thou hast regarded me according to a man of high degree or a man of excellency O Lord and so these Psalms may be called Songs of Degrees because they are most excellent for the sweet grave and pithy Sentences they contain 3. They may be called Songs of Degrees upon the account of the place where these excellent Songs were to be sung with an high voice The Chaldee Paraphrast says upon the Degrees or Stairs whereby they went up to the Temple or rather whereby they went up to Mount Sion the City of David one of which fifteen Psalms were to be sung on every step of these Stairs And others will have them to be sung in the several Mansions of the People that came from the Babylonish Captivity for so we find the word rendred Ezra 7.9 These things I only name and pass them and I might add one Conjecture more when I consider the affinity that is betwixt the word Degrees rendred and the Original that signifies Burnt-offering or Sacrifice I incline to think that these Songs were sung by the Priests and Levites about the Altar while they offered these Burnt-offerings or Sacrifices Having thus briefly spoken to the Title there are other general Notes common to this with other Psalms that might be insisted on which I also pass For the Pen-man of the Psalm he is not design'd nor is it needful to enquire who he was since the Psalm hath its authority from the Spirit of God and not from Man It is most like to be a
Psalm of David or that David was the Pen-man for these doubled Expressions vers 2. of this Psalm are used by him Psalms 54 55 and 61. and many others For the particular difficulty to which this Psalm relates it is not needful to determine what it was It may suffice us for taking up the scope of the Psalm in general that the Psalmist is in a Distress and being in a Distress ye will find him first Wrestling and then secondly Victorious For the first His Wrestling ye shall take it up in three Branches 1. Ye will find him wrestling with plunging Difficulties and Perplexities and these he expresseth under the name of Depths and the way he takes to win out of them is wrestling by Prayer vers 1 2. 2. Ye will find him wrestling with the Sense and Conscience of Guilt putting back his Prayer and Offering to crush his Hopes and this he wrestleth with by claiming to Pardon vers 3 4. 3. Ye will find him wrestling with Delays to his Answer of Prayers or Delays of the Outgate prayed for and this he wrestles with by Patience and Hope vers 5 6. Again in the last two Verses ye have him Victorious for having gotten an Issue he hoords it not up he does not conceal it but he brings it forth and improves it for the use of the People of God whom he encourageth to hope in God upon the account of Mercy and Pardon and plenteous Redemption and on the account of his redeeming Israel from all his Iniquities So much for the Scope and Partition of the Psalm To return to the first two Verses upon which I may be the more brief that I had occasion to speak to you before of the Troubles and Trials of Gods People of Prayer and Gods Answering Prayer yet we shall not pass this part but we shall endeavour to gather some things useful from it In this his Wrestling then take notice of these four things 1. Ye have that that the Psalmist is put to wrestle with which is expressed under the name of Depths 2. The way of his wrestling therewith out of the depths he cryed Out of the depths have I cried 3. Ye have him reflecting on this his Practice he takes a back-look of it and he avows it before God Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O Lord. 4. Ye have the prosecution of this his Wrestling or his pleading for Audience in a new and doubled Suit vers 2. Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications For the first of these the Depths out of which he cried I cannot accord to understand it thus that he prayed from the depths or bottom of his Heart So the Commentators I spoke of before understand it of that degree of Vertue which is profound Prayer from the inward parts or bottom of the Heart There is a truth in that I confess that Prayer should come from the bottom of the Heart and in Prayer we should write our Hearts on our Tongues but I find it not a Scripture Phrase that People are said to pray from the Heart when they cry out of the Depths Neither can I understand it of the Conscience of Sin only that as some would understand it he is under a deep of Despair upon the account of Guilt that he speaks of vers 3 4. and hath a promise of Redemption from vers 8. The word is Depths in the Plural Number and therefore it is safest to understand it more generally of plunging and sinking Difficulties both outward Trouble and inward Perplexity resulting thereon and of the Conscience of Guilt wakened up in Trouble that may come in under these Depths and this interpretation agrees best with the current of Scripture where we find the horrible Pit the Miry Clay Depths Deep Waters Water Floods made use of to hold out great Troubles as Psal 40.2 Psal 42.7 Psal 69.2 14 15. I shall here touch upon one Observation That not only the visible Church but even the truly Godly may be brought under plunging Difficulties and Perplexities both inward and outward to their great sinking or at least their apparent sinking They may be and are very often in the Depths and put to their Prayers in the Depths so it was with the Psalmist here and in these Psalms formerly cited And in prosecution of this point 1. I shall first speak a little to the Metaphor of Deep or Depths 2. How it comes to pass that the Lords People are brought to these Depths 3. To a word of Use First For the Metaphor of Deep or Depths I shall shortly offer what I conceive is the Import thereof in these four 1. That which is a deep is a thing very dark dig a Pit and make it deep the light of the day cannot penetrate into it Thus the unintelligible mysteries of Seducers are called Depths as Rev. 2.24 the depths of Satan spoken of Thus also the wise counsel of God that men cannot indagate are called Depths Psal 92.5 Thy thoughts are very deep and 1 Cor. 2.10 The Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God and thus also Ezek. 3.6 a people of a strange speech and of a hard language whose whose words the people could not understand are spoken of in the Original it 's a people of a deep Lip Deepness then imports Darkness Unintelligibleness that which is Mysterious And that this Notion is not strained even in this case of Trouble is clear from Hemans lament Psal 88.6 Thou hast laid me saith he in the lowest pit in darkness in the deeps where to be in Darkness and in the Deeps are exprest as Synonymous or one and the same And truly this is ordinarily incident to the People of God their deep Trials are in themselves so dark and in their effects so astonishing that they are often at a stand either to know what God says to them by them and hence are these Wherefores and Whys as to this or that which is come upon them as also in reference to their Duty as Jehoshaphat expresseth his Distress 2 Chr. 20.12 Lord we know not what to do But 2ly This Metaphor of a Deep or Depths as it imports that which is Dark and Unintelligible so it imports that out of which it is not easie to get up cast a Man upon the Ground he may easily get up but cast him in a deep Pit he can hardly get up out of it without help Some Emblem we have of this in Jeremiah chap. 38. where he is put into the Dungeon where there was no Water but Myre and he sunk in the Myre Ebedmelech had a hard task to get him up and the People of God their Troubles may be Depths upon that account Refuge may fail them no man caring for their Soul Psal 142.4 All hope that they shall be saved taken away as it is said by Paul in that Voyage Acts 27.20 all their expectations of an outgate may be crushed as Jer. 14.19
his people and his allowances upon his people are so rich that there is need of preparations by Tryal and Afflictions to make them capable of them for were they not put into the Depths they could not be capable of them Hence it is Paul's remark in the forecited place 1 Cor. 1.4 5. God comforts us in all our Tribulation that we may be able to comfort them who are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we our selves are comforted of God For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ we might not want these depths of tribulation because without them we could not be capable of the consolations we receive from Christ And 5. To add no more we may take notice of somewhat in the Saints tenderness above others that occasions these Depths many folks may be under as great outward trouble that are not so plunged and perplexed with it as they are Many a man has been tossed as David was by Saul who have not so exprest their resentments as he did How is this The tender spiritednesse that is in the people of God occasions their trouble of mind they see God in their afflictions and they would fain see more of him and of his mind as to their duty and this makes affliction take a deeper stamp and impression on them and to draw Blood of them more than it doth on an unsubdued Spirit who hath no mind of God or Providence but hath only the outward trouble to graple with Thus we see how it comes to passe that the people of God are put in the Depths For the 3d. thing I proposed to be spoken to That is the Use of the Doctrine the whole Observations to be gathered from the two following Verses are Instructions how to improve such a lot and consequently Uses of the Point in hand Therefore I shall content my self to hint briefly at three general words here And 1. From what hath been said ye would learn to be more jealous of a crosselesse life of a life without trouble and exercise Why It speaks little of a soul thriving in the life of God Take notice of that word Psal 55.19 Spoken of the wicked because they have no changes therefore they fear not God And that spoken of Moab Jer. 48.11 Moab hath been at ease from his youth and hath settled on his lees and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel neither hath he gone into captivity therefore his taste remained in him and his sent is not changed and he rots on his lees And as a crossess life speaks little thriving in the life of Grace so it speaks to very many little of Gods love and care There is a sort of indignation kythed against sinners that they little notice and wherein there is a snare when they get leave to go on in sin and meet not with a Cross when a person will not deinze one that is going wrong with a reproof it speaks hatred so that is a sad word from God Ezek. 3.26 Thou shalt not be a reprover to them for they are a rebellious house and that word Hos 4.17 Ephraim is joyned to idols let him alone That is a sad dispensation a douk to the hazard of drowning in the Depths is better company And 2. From this ye would be Cautioned not to mistake the sad exercises of the people of God whose lot in ordinar is outward troubles they get ordinarly the stakes to keep and to mark it in the by I wonder what a mistake is befallen us or rather a distraction is come upon us that we should stumble at the people of God their want of prosperity look to the frame of the people of God they are in ordinary broken folk Others can bear their afflictions with a sort of gallantry they can drink them down rant them down But they are broken with their affliction as if they had no spirit at all to bear them but I say ye would not mistake for it is a token of Gods love and care who donks them in the Depths to put them out of the Depths to cry unto him and it is a more blessed posture to be put out of the Depths to cry than to be in a Palace with neglect of Prayer and therefore I can call it no better than a distraction to stumble at their want of prosperity they are the folk that faint and have no might and yet they will lay by the young men and the youths for all their ranting because they wait upon the Lord they shall renew their strength Isai 40.29 This I speak not to foster discouragement in any but to caution them that are ready to stumble at the people of God their being in trouble and broken in that condition And a 3d. word of Vse shall be that every one that is in the Depths would try how they improve that lot and this Vse is the Key to open the Door to the following purpose which I shall not now break in upon only remember The Lord doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth Therefore there must be something that in affliction when we are in the Depths he is calling us to and which we would ply to in earnest and therefore we would take heed that the Bellows be not burnt that the Founder do not melt in vain and that we provoke not God to call us reprobat silver whom he hath rejected Jer. 6.29 30. SERMON II. Psalm 130. Vers 1. Out of the depths have I cryed unto thee O LORD 2 Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications BEing so long detained in the morning in breaking in upon this Purpose I shall now the more briefly come to that where I left Ye have heard that in these two first Verses the distrest Psalmist was wrestling with the difficulties and sinking perplexities in his condition wherein we have an account of what he had to wrestle with The depths the way of his wrestling with these Depths to wit by Prayer his reflecting on that exercise and telling God That he cried unto him out of the depths and his Prosecution of it or insisting and pleading with God in a new doubled suit vers 2. For the first of these the Depths wherewith he wrestled somewhat was spoken both for Explication and to a more general Application of that purpose which I shall not now repeat That which lyes before me in the second place is the way of his wrestling with these Depths or Difficulties Others had they been in the like exercise might fret and repine or they might labour to rant them out or drink them down so far as they were able to rid themselves of them or they might crush under them but he drives another Trade his being in the Depths puts him to Prayer and to fervency in Prayer he not only intimats that out of
estimation of it see their distance come with some measure of Confidence but an edge is put on their Affection and they are fervent and raised in Prayer for it I do not mean that Prayer with the loudest Voice is ay the most fervent Prayer when I think upon these Tones and Voices used by some in Prayer I often mind that word Eccles 9.17 the words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools It 's not the Tone though we ow the Voice to God that makes fervent Prayer to him Moses Exod. 14.15 prayed fervently he cried to God when he spoke not a Word and Lam. 2.18 Their heart cried unto the Lord O wall of the daughter of Zion But my meaning is that frequencie fervency and instancy in Prayer from the Heart is required in them that talk and cry out of the Depths ye talk of your saying of your Prayers and among the Prayers in the world many of them are but said Prayers but when it comes to crying out of the Depths your said Prayers will not do the turn our blessed Lord was never superficial in Prayer yet Luk. 22.44 it 's said being in an agony he prayed more earnestly there is a patern of Prayer out of the Depths and I wish I saw a practical Commentar of that among you which ye find Ps 107.12 13. He brought down their heart with labour they fell down and there was none to help that 's a posture that would put many to Pray and how far ye are from it if ye were awake ye would discern then they they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses So ye have heard the import of this crying out of the depths unto God As for the use of this whereof it affords divers though all along the point is practical and applys it self I know not if I dare break in farther upon it I suppose to ordinar hearers all is poyson that is spoken after the Glass but ye shall take a few words from it if this be the kindly result of blessed trouble to be put to crying to God out of the depths then ye may see what a dreadful plague it is that when people are cast in the Depths and the Spirit of Prayer is away and there is no crying out of them to God Shall I hold up to you a Glass to let you see your own foul Face in this matter Read Ezek. 24.23 And I pray you forget Judah and Israel and call this Scotland and your selves Professors in Scotland that are spoken to Ye shall not mourn nor weep but ye shall pine away for your iniquities O that is the Cop-stone of a peoples calamity when it is said to them Ye shall pine away in your iniquities and mourn and roar one towards another And will ye not get many such up and down the Land folks that are like wild beasts in a net strugling with their Calamity tatlers and talkers of their troubles he blaming him and he him roaring for the sad case themselves and the Land are in but where is their crying out of the depths to God Who have added to the weight and measure of their Prayers for all that is come over them Where will ye get a Daniel in all Scotland that for three full weeks gave himself to Fasting and Prayer Will ye have another Glass to see your foul spots in Read Dan. 9.13 As it is written in the Law of Moses all this evill is come upon us yet made we not our prayer to the Lord our God that we should turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth We feel well-enough all the evil that is on us and that it is come as it is written in the Law yet there is no Prayer to purpose Will ye yet take another Glass Then read Amos 4.6 c. Where the Lord tells what stroaks he had inflicted upon his people every one of them heavier than another I have done this and this to you saith the Lord and still the over-over-word is yet ye have not returned unto me Many folks are blyth when things rise to an height and then they think God will be seen on the Mount but they forget that continuing them in the Depths is to set them to Prayer it is the sin of the Generation that they look more to their Priviledges than their Provocations or so to their Priviledges as they forget their Provocations and lean so much weight on the righteousness of their cause as they forget that for which God hath put them in difficulties I may say on this account that fearers of God are self-destroyers O tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon that God hath taken such pains to put us to pray and repent and yet we will do any thing but Pray and Repent we will not I see no issue in this but to put off our Ornaments and see what the Lord will do with us And will ye yet take another word that may give folk a sight of their foul Face Even that Charge unjustly laid by Eliphaz against Job chap 15. vers 4. Which I doubt if we can lay so well from our door as he might Thou castest off fear saith he and restrainest prayer before God There is a threefold restraint of Prayer before God in Difficulties And I wish that one or all of them take not in the generality of the Generation we live in 1. When folk that wont to Pray give it over And what thousands are there of this stamp in Scotland and not a few in the West Countrey How many are there among us that sometimes have worshipped God in secret and now do not bow a knee to God How many have worshipped God in their Families who now have left it off And among you there are not a few such as we find by your shifting answers when you are asked thereaâ—ent a thing that rather might be expected in the barbarous parts of the Land than among you and is not Religion and Religious Duties much clipped where it had much place A Prognostick of little good when so few Families will be found having their posts sprinkled with the blood of sprinkling Now what shall I say of them that never Prayed when so many have quit Prayer that once used it O! I say it again publish it not in Gath c. That Apostasie hath so far prevailed that it hath driven many from the very form of Godliness A 2d Restraint of Prayer is in them who have keeped up a Form but alas they put me in mind of that word spoken of Pharaoh's Chariot Wheels They drive heavily There was a time when Religion was in request and then folks got borrowed Wings that they Flew with or Stilts in Religious Duties but when a man comes in the Depths he must have Divine Approbation or these will not do his turn or if he hold him by his
do all this and not consider that he is doing evil he is quite out and knows not of it and ye have an Idea of that Man that is not in Reflection on his Case and Carriage under it in Trouble Jer. 8.9 I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright no man repented him of his wickedness saying what have I done every one turneth to his course as the horse rusheth into battel He goes Hand over Head like a wild Horse in his Course why he Reflects not upon his Carriage under Trouble Not to dip on this let me in short from it recommend Self-Examination to you especially in Trouble if ye would haunt it in ordinary it would be more easy to you in a Distress if ye be in ordinar reflecting upon your Weaknesses and examining your Wants upon your Predominants your Temptations what are your Suits that are most binding on you and your Success ye will the more readily as we use to speak hit the Nail upon the Head when ye come to Pray And these your Prayers that come from Self-Examination though they be less busked they will be to better purpose than when a Man with all the Oratory he can reach vents his Gift in in Prayer and particularly look what ye are doing as to this Duty when ye come in any Distress I gave you before some Scriptures that speaks to them that neglect Prayer in Trouble Now let me mind you of some words whereby to try your Self Examination in Trouble one is Lev. 26.41 if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity that were a blessed reflection that did produce this effect but on the contrary look that your reflection be not like that Jer. 44.10 They are not humbled even unto this day And like that Dan 9.9 All this evil is come upon us yet made we not our prayer unto the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities understand thy truth and Ezek. 24.13 Because I would have purged thee and thou was not purged thou shalt not not be purged from thy filthiness any more until I have caused my fury to rest upon thee Ye would make use of these and the like Scriptures in your Reflection upon your way and what ye are doing when ye are in the Depths And further when ye are Reflecting upon your Carriage under Trouble ye had need of tenderness of Conscience Passion will give you a blind guess of your selves or of your Case or Carriage under it when the Lord says to Jonah 4.5 Does thou well to be angry Jonah the passionate Man says I do well to be angry even unto death they that would Reflect on their Case and Carriage under Trouble would seek a composed frame of Spirit and tender Conscience from God But to come a little nearer unto this Reflection taking the words in the by past time Lord I have cryed unto thee They will import that God had keeped him long at that Trade and to this purpose we have a word Ps 69.3 After that he hath complained in the two first Verses that the waters are come in into his soul that he sinks in deep myre where there is no standing that he was come into deep waters where the floods did overflow him he adds v. 3. I am weary of my crying my throat is dried mine eyes fail while I wait for my God and Ps 119.82 mine eyes fail for thy word when wilt thou comfort me but this I may pass because it will occurr v. 2.5 and 6. and because the Hebrews exprest things present in the by past time because their Verbs have not a present time That which I shall speak to from the words considered as a Reflecting on his bygone wrestling I reduce to these two 1. That he owns it as a thing that hath been and is his Practise to be crying to God out of the Depths 2. Because Folks may be ready to say what is he the better of that he hath not got an answer of his Prayers I shall add this that his Supplication out of the Depths affords him a Testimony For the first ye may take up the Note thus that no distress no dispensation of providence warrands the Saints to cast all that they have been doing as unsound though he be put to the deeps he owns it that he is a cryer out of the deeps unto God Out of the deeps have I cryed unto thee O Lord. Thus the Church owns her integrity Psal 44.17 All this is come upon us yet have we not forgotten thee neither have we dealt falsly in thy Covenant Our heart is not turned back neither have our steps declined from thy way though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons c. Smite us as thou will we avow it that we are in thy way And Job 13.5 Though he should slay me yet will I trust in him I will maintain mine own ways before him that is my integrity And Chap. 27 5. I will not remove mine integrity from me And so Heman Psal 88 15. Vnto thee have I cryed O Lord and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee do what thou will with me I avow it that I have been at Prayer and I will continue in it It is true men would be humble in this matter of avowing their integrity they would mainly be studying their wants and short-comings and the iniquity of their holy things and it is true also that when they are in the deeps of distress and these trysts them with Gods seeming not to notice them but rather his anger smoaks against their Prayers Psal 80.4 It should humble them yet more and make them search their imperfections in their best things and it 's also true that the people of God in reflecting on their Diligence and Prayers should be far from that quarrelsome humour in hypocrites Isai 58.3 Wherefore have we fasted say they and thou seest not c. As readâ—y the greatest Hypocrites are the greatest quarreders when they want success yet all this notwithstanding it is our duty to stick by what is right in our way while we are in the deeps Men must not be baffled out of their integrity because they are under the Cross and have the wind in their teeth they must not cast their Prayers because God holds them in the deeps it 's no small part of the Saints service to stick by and to avow their integrity that white Robes are allowed them though their Prayers be not answered Rev. 6.10 11. And therefore they have silly spirits who when they meet with a torrent of Crosse providences are baffled from avowing their integrity and ly by and dare not face the storm upon that account But I proceed to the 2d Observation It may be said what the matter of folks owning their integrity and crying out of the deeps when they are not heard but ly in the deeps for all that I Answer in
the second Note That what ever be the seeming success of the Saints in the deeps their supplications out of the deeps affords them a testimony It 's good news that the Psalmist dare owne this Lord thou hast cast me in the deeps but I have cryed to thee out of the deeps It 's a good Cordial to Heman while he is in the deeps Psal 88.13 But unto thee have I cryed O Lord and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee Lord why casts thou off my soul c. And if ye ask what riches can be in this testimony that we have cryed and continue crying out of the deeps I shall pass it with the time in three words 1. It 's a token of a blest and sanctified trouble when folks are led to God by trouble that 's better than many out-gates they are blest whom when God chastens he teacheth out of his Law Psal 94.12 And the first Lesson God teacheth them when he puts them in trouble is to go to himself with the trouble It is a remarkable word that Sampson's Mother had Judg. 13.23 If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt-offering so many such folk say if God had a mind to destroy them he would not turn them in to himself in their trouble There is more of the love of God inclining thy heart to cry to him out of the deeps than in many out-gates there is a rich blessing in it 2. This testimony is rich because it warrands a man having done his duty to cast his burden on God and in nothing to be anxious It 's no wonder a man be crusht with his trouble before he go to God with iâ— but when he goes to him he hath a warrand to cast all his cares and fears on him he hath Hannah's allowance 1 Sam. 1.18 Who being a woman of a sorrowful spirit went and poured out her heart before the Lord in his bosome and left her anxiety on God and came away with her countenance no more sad This is a practice that few of us attain unto we seem to carry our cares to God in Prayer but we bring them back with discouragement rather augmented than diminished 3. This testimony is rich because it assures the Supplicant whatever be his present success whereof if the Lord will we may speak a word in the Afternoon that he shall come speed crying out of the deeps shall be heard for Psal 9.18 The needy shall not always be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever Israel might think God had forgotten them when they were so long in the deeps in Egypt and sighed and cryed to him by reason of their bondage but at length God heard their groaning and remembred his Covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob Exod. 2.24 And ye know that word Isai 45.19 I have not said to the seed of Jacob seek ye me in vain He never said it in any age and he will not begin at us Take this word of Use from it labour to have this Testimony to be crying out of the deeps so as ye may avow and owne it and to be improving it labour to read love and a blessing in it to cast all your burdens on God by so doing and confidently to expect ye shall see the end of the Lord. In a word labour to find that by grace in so doing that trouble cannot take from you to find a delivery in trouble rather than a delivery out of it to find that which is of more worth than many deliveries and infinitly of more worth than any delivery can be without it SERMON IV. Psalm 130. Vers 2. Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications 3. If thou LORD shouldest mark iniquities O LORD who shall stand 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared FROM the first Branch of the Psalmist's wrestling and exercise I have spoken to these these three 1. To the deeps wherewith he was put to wrestle 2. To his cryes whereby he wrestles with these deeps 3. To his reflecting upon this his practice and avowing it before God as that which afforded him a testimony that out of the deeps he had cryed unto God Now there remains the prosecution of this wrestling and his pleading for audience in a new and doubled suit vers 2. Lord hear my voice c. While he pleads for the hearing of his voice the meaning is not that the voice is all that should be given to God I confess we should give him the voice when we can give him no more and lament that we have no more to give him but the voice but the voice that the Psalmist would have heard here is the voice of his crying out of the deeps the voice of his most fervent and earnest supplication ye see the expressions here are doubled as frequently in the Book of Psalms to evidence how earnest he was in this suit that he is not complementing with God when he is seeking access and audience to his Prayers The expressions also are Metaphorical and borrowed from the carriage of a Parent to a Child and upon the matter his suit is this Lord notice me when I pray as the Parent will notice the distressed Childs cry when he is like to ruine and let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications that goes a little further that as a Parent knowing a Child to be in hazard he will listen and hearken attentively if he can hear him cry and notice and ponder that cry and what he cryes for so he pleads with God that he would be waiting on and attentive to see and hear if a cry should come from him and that he would affectionatly ponder and notice it when he hears it For this hearing of Prayer it hath so frequently occurred before that I shall pass it and the whole Verse in three words that I may come to other things in the Psalm which I mainly designed to speak unto when I broke in upon it The first thing that ye shall mark here is that Sanctified affliction not only puts the Saints to Prayer but also that they cannot rest upon the work wrought of Prayer but they must have an answer to their Prayer I have cryed out of the deeps unto thee O Lord Lord hear my voice he must be heard The sensible man when God blesses the distress he is in to put him to Prayer he doth not rest there but presses for a hearing for an answer to his Prayer and two things evidence the truth of this one is a sensible man in trouble will find it hard to be out of speaking terms with God hard to have any thing of Saul's case in his lot that when he sought God in his distress he would not answer him neither by dreams nor by Vrim nor by Prophets 1 Sam. 28.6 When folk come into trouble if they have any sense or
second general Observation but was cut short by the time in speaking to it that is That godly men will very readily find guilt meeting them when they are sent to God in trouble for when the Psalmist here is made to cry to God out of the deeps iniquities interpose and stare him in the face This Point I did deduce in these four three of which I could only name and therefore shall now briefly resume that purpose 1. That it is the duty of godly persons and their Character to be acquainted with heart-smitings for sin what ever David was while at ease and in prosperity in digesting Adultery and Murder yet when he is in trouble and in the Wilderness and cut off the lap of Saul's Garment his heart smote him Frequent heart-smitings for sin is a great evidence of nearness to God and it 's a pitiful and woful Gallantry to go on in sin and digest sin without resentment 2. The second Branch of the Note was this That what-ever tenderness and smiting of heart for sin the Saints have in ordinary yet readily it will meet them when they come to Ordinances and Duties of Worship especially to be serious with God in Prayer for here when the Psalmist is at Prayer guilt steps in sin Musters and God's marking of iniquity signified much to him a tender heart when it is in the view of God and hath its eye upon him should and will be most observant of its failings David dare not think of coming to God till he see what account he gets of doing away his guilt Psal 16.6 7. I will wash my hands in innocency so will I compass thine Altar O Lord c. Because guilt will offer to obstruct audience and success in what the Supplicant would be at 1 Sam. 14.36 c. When Saul would consult God about going down after the Philistines there is a fault found committed Jonathan had tasted of the Honey and the guilt meets him he was not answered And to say no more of this I shall only mark two words from it and proceed One is That it should and will be a motive to a tender walker to walk tenderly circumspectly accuratly when he considers that he hath God to go unto he will think with himself how circumspectly ought I to walk thorow the day that have God to go to at night How can I or dare I loose Reins to this or that and offer to bow a knee to God Will not my untenderness in this or that step of my way stare me in the face when I look God in the face If folks knew what it were to have Communion with God and what influence sin hath to obstruct it they behoved either to quite their Prayers or study a more tender and holy walk Another word shall be this if there be any of a loose and untender walk slipping Buckles through the day and they hear no news of it at their Prayers their guilt doth not interpose and raise a Cloud betwixt God and them such persons would look to it that there be not a lie in their right hand that they be not under a delusion and feeding upon ashes if they were tender they would no sooner go to God but they would say I remember my faults this day I have sinned and now my guilt stares me in the face But the 3d Branch of the Doctrine is That what ever be Saints tenderness in ordinary or what-ever ills they may digest in ease a great distress or trouble will readily bring guilt to mind and obstruct their access when they are sent to God when they are made to cry out of the deeps God's marking of iniquity will say something to them For distress take notice of that place Gen. 42.21 c. where ye have the History of Joseph's Brethren taking with their guilt it was upwards of twenty years since they sold him but when they come in distress it is as recent as if it had been just now committed They said one to another we are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us Folks would have thought that upwards of 20 years guilt might have been buried and no doubt the men in that time had prayed often but in a distress it 's recent And for going to God in trouble we have an instance of guilt meeting folk Judg. 10.10 where the people in trouble come and cry unto God and take with their sin But what answer get they I delivered you saith the Lord from such and such enemies when ye cryed unto me but ye have forsaken me and served other gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your trouble Mark also that word of Moses speaking to the two Tribes and the half Tribe Numb 32.33 when he feared they might cheat their brethren and desert them he tells them If they should do so they should sin against the Lord. There is news might some stout stomacks among them say but he adds and be sure your sin will find you out A man may use many ways to shift guilt but it will not do with him his sin will find him out Ponder that word Psal 49.5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about Iniquity is like a Slouth Hound that rambles here and there following the scent of the Prey and an ignorant spectator wonders what he means but he follows the Prey and will not give over till he find it sin unrepented of will sooner or later meet and the longer they be of meeting it will be to the sinners greater disadvantage May I add further when sin meets the sinner in trouble an infirmity will pass for an iniquity as here the Psalmist calls sin and will not seem so small as when it was committed or before the trouble came on yea further pardoned guilt that seemed to be buried and done away these green Graves may open and that guilt may waken upon new emergents Hence Job 13.26 says Thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth And Psal 25.7 David prays Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions Therefore ye that meet not with sin in ordinary see what ye can do to hold off trouble and sins meeting you in trouble ye now can go on in sin and have your diversions to put away the thoughts of it and live strangers to your selves and your own condition but trouble will cross-neck you and ye will find as the word is Gen. 4.7 That sin is lying at the door and will meet you But I shall add a fourth Branch of the Doctrine and then come to the main Doctrine which lyes before my hand I have spoken of guilts meeting with the godly
come away he waits to receive you but lay a solid foundation acquaint your selves more with the sinfulness of sin with the desert of sin and with the impossibility of standing before God marking sin in strict Justice that ye may close with Christ in earnest God bless what ye have heard for Christ's sake SERMON VII Psal 130. Vers 3. If thou LORD shouldest mark iniquities O LORD who shall stand 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared YE have heard how the Psalmist in the 1st and 2d Verses being wrestling with plunging perplexities expressed here under the name of deeps gets guilt stopping his audience and success to wrestle with in the 3d and 4th Verses wherein as ye have heard we have 1. A sensible confession concerning the desert of sin Verse 3. Next we have his refuge when he is humbled with the sense of that and it is pardoning mercy forgivenness with God to which he claims in the beginning of the 4th Verse And lastly ye have the end for which God lets out and bestows pardoning mercy on sinners that he may be feared For the first of these in the 3d Verse I am near a close of what I purpose to say upon it for beside the conjunction ye have heard ought to be betwixt the sense of sin and the sense of trouble without which the sense of trouble is but bruitish and beside that ye have heard that guilt will readily meet the people of God in straits when they are made to cry out of the deeps unto God Beside these I say I insisted the last day on that great Point that iniquity marked by God according to the Covenant of Works and the Rules of strict Justice is that which no man is able to stand under and ye may remember how at great length I both Explained and continued this truth by several Deductions from the Text which I shall not now repeat I shut up the Point with a general word of Exhortation that sinners that look for everlasting happiness would learn to say over this Text with application to themselves If thou Lord should mark iniquity I cannot stand and to do it sensibly for the fixing of which and bearing of it home ye may remember what Considerations were laid before you as Considerations concerning God your Party Considerations concerning the number of your sins and guilt It 's called iniquities in the Plural Number Considerations concerning the nature and aggravations of your guilt upon which account also it 's called Iniquities Considerations also of the just threatnings of God and of the infallible execution of them upon the sinner or his Surety Considerations concerning the sufferings of Jesus Christ a Glass wherein the desert of sin must be seen Now before I come to the next Verse I shall mark three or four particular inferences And 1. Ye have here a clear discovery that there is no Justification by Works that a man by his Works cannot think of standing before God Justification by Works is that only which we know by the Light of Nature and that first Covenant made with mankind in Adam and therefore every man hath a natural propension to do his own turn that way The Jews being ignorant of the righteousness of God and going about to establish their own righteousness did not submit unto the righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 Ignorant persons think to please God with their Repentance and the mending of their faults and doing better Papists plead with an open mouth for Justification by Works some Mungrel Protestants would mumble out somewhat that way but ye are to consider that the Covenant requires that which is now impossible even perfect holiness and that Covenant being once broken is everlastingly broken and for any Evangelical Paction the Text leads us to there is no Medium betwixt God's marking iniqiuity and forgiving iniquity a man must either stand to his hazard of God's sitting down on his Tribunal and marking his iniquities to punish them or he must lay aside all thoughts of complementing with God in this matter or of patching up a business of Grace and good Works in his Justification before him they that study the first part of the Text well that if God mark iniquity none can stand they will easily be put from that conceit of Justification by Works and plead forgivenness And therefore 2 I would have sinners considering that there is no standing under guilt except Christ be fled unto for refuge if ye have not taken Sanctuary in Atheism that ye look upon all that is said in this Preached Gospel as cunningly devised Fables will you but look to it and think with your selves what will you do in the day of Visitation and in the day of Wrath when the just threatnings of God shall be execute against sin and all sinners that are out of Christ when many will be ready to cry out for Hills and Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. O! consider it if ye can be perswaded to be in earnest about your souls what ye think to do in the day of Gods wrath for sin In that day wherein the sensless sinners that made a sport of sin will be made to sing that doleful Note Lam. 5.16 The Crown is fallen from our head wo unto us for we have sinned Then ye will find it desperate folly and madness that ye went on in sin and fled not in time from the wrath to come Ponder that Parable Luk. 16.24 which is not to be stretched beyond the principal scope as if there were charity for others in Hell and ye will find what a dreadful Bargain sin is when a drop of cold Water to cool the Tongue would be an ease to the Drunkard in torment and he cannot have it when his warning of others is a witness against himself that he was a desperat man that run such a hazard that is now past remedy Think I say on these things if ye look not on this Word as Fables But 3. If none can stand before God's marking iniquity then the sense of guilt should make us justifie God in all the troubles that come upon his People when we consider that the Lord may for sin not only as in a solemn day call our terrors round about as the word is Lament 2.22 But may everlastingly condemn us in hell how dare a sinner murmur under lesser calamities or troubles The language of a man sensible of the desert of sin is that which ye have Ezra 9 13. Thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve and that Lam. 3.22 It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not A man that is sensible of sin and of the desert of it ye will not find him a murmurer against any cross inflicted but a wonderer at the moderation that shines in the sharpest tryals Therefore as I said upon the first head the sense
pardon that it hides God's Face from it as David prays Psal 51.9 Hide thy face from my sins and it is a notable word Mic. 7.18 That God passes by or over-pardons transgressions Who is a God like unto thee that pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage though he be an Omniscient God to see sin yet when sin is pardoned he will as we use to say see and not see he will see and misken as he that passes by that which might irritat him he will not set his Face in that art so deals the Lord with pardoned sins in his people But 4ly Whereas ye have a cursed distinction of forgiving but not forgetting of injuries and temptations may be ready to use and say that though in the sense that I have been speaking of pardoned sins be blotted out covered put out of sight passed by or over that the Lord will not take notice of pardoned iniquities to punish them yet he may remember them by way of grudge against the pardoned person the Scripture secures us against the fear of that and tells us that pardoned iniquities are not remembred Isai 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for miâ—e own sake and will not remember thy sins and Jer. 31.34 with the paralel place Heb. 8. in the New Covenant it is said I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more I will remember it judicially no more to call them to an account for the sin I have pardoned So that sins being pardoned they shall be as if they had not been committed as if they were everlastingly forgotten no more to be remembred so much for these expressions shewing how pardoned sin is looked upon in reference to God to which many mo might be added and O what a full and satisfactory ground do they afford that pardon of sin is no complement but a real security and firm ground of confidence when God hath said all this who are they who looking on the pollution or desert of sin will take pardon of sin for a complement and not look on it as a solid security And this will be further clear if in the second place we consider how it stands with the pardoned man for ye may say to me much hath been said for God and of the fulness of his pardon and that it is a real Security to the pardoned man but I find it not so with my case Therefore I shall in a few words hint how it stands with thee Thou who art a pardoned sinner may find much sin and pressures of guilt at thy door and lying near thy Conscience but the Scripture tells us that it is otherways with thee than thou apprehends Psal 103.12 So far as the east is from the west so far hath he removed our transgressions from us That which thy fears and doubts apprehends lying at thy door and to be as an heavy burden upon thy back sinking thee a pardon removes from thee as far as the East is from the West as far as one thing can be removed from another as the proverbial Speech imports Thou thinks thy self to be in a woful and wretched condition but the Scripture determines thee to be blâ—st Psal 31.1 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven c. Thou may be crying out O wretched man who shall deliver me But the Scripture tells thee thou art happy and ought to thank God through Christ Rora 7.24 25. Thou mayest be drooping notwithstanding thou art fled unto Christ for pardon but the Scripture-language of pardon is another thing Mat. 5.2 Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee The power and pollution of sin may make thee droop but the pardon of sin may make thee drink and forget thy misery and remember thy poverty no more Thy other sores and difficulties may stick to thee and press thee down but if thou read the pardon of sin rightly thou may say as Isai 33.24 The inhabitant shall not say I am sick why the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity since I am pardoned what can all me what can dare at me or trouble me since I am forgiven of my sin In a word the Scripture declares That have what thou will or want what thou will though thou should complain loving kindnesses are wanting thou hast not these proofs of love thou wont to receive yet thou wants not an admirable proof of love that hast pardon hence is that Exclamation Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like unto that pardoneth iniquity Others may say who is a God like thee in working wonders when thou brought thy people out of Egypt But as for me I will say Who is a God like thee in pardoning sin Thus if we take the Scripture-verdict of pardon of sin as well in reference to the pardoned man as in respect of God we will find that pardon is a sure foundation of confidence and it is so excellent a Character that if we could heed it believe it and improve it to the quickning of us to run and secure pardon in the right method whereof we may hear we should find that we have here a Treasure hid in this Field Christ a pardoner of iniquity lying in the bosom of this mercy Lord bless what ye have heard SERMON XII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Am now entred upon the 3d and great Head of this necessary Doctrine to clear wherein it is That the forgiveness of sin doth stand and after a general Resolution thereof That the pardon of sin takes away not the filthiness and pollution but the guilt of sin I proceed to name four Questions to be cleared on this Subject And the first to which I spoke was how the guilt of sin could be removed while the filthiness and pollution of sin remained guilt being inseparable from sin and the Resolution was that however guilt in it self or as the Learned call it The potential guilt the guilt of sin in it self be not taken away by pardon yet guilt as it results on the person or the actual ordination of the person guilty to condemnation is suspended everlastingly and taken away and for confirmation thereof I led you through several Scriptures to let you see what a sure character pardon is whether we consider pardon as it is to be looked on in respect of God or how it stands with the pardoned man And now without further repetition I shall go on with the rest of the Cases tending to clear the nature of the remission of sin A 2d Question in order is since pardon frees the pardoned man from obligation to punishment Whether is this to be held that no justified or pardoned person can fall under any punishment or chastisement for sin And here the Adversaries of Truth Papists on the one hand and Antinomians on the other run on two extreames for Papists say That in pardon of
be humbled for pardoned sin Though God be good and gracious in pardoning sin we should be severe on our selves for provoking him Though the pardoned mans Count be cleared he must ly in the dust for that he offended God and brought so much wo and vexation on himself And further this will follow upon it that God by afflicting the pardoned sinner invites him to mortifie sin daily that he may not fall in the like sin again Yea and further when he afflicts the sinner with an eye to sin that is pardoned he invites the sinner to more and more thankfulness to him for the pardoning of it when he considers what-ever afflictions or rods be inflicted yet his pardon is ensured to him These are some of the blessed ends why the Lord with an eye to pardoned sin is pleased to let out afflictions and chastisements upon justified persons and it is upon this account that chastisement with pardon is put in the Covenant Psal 89.32 That however he will not take his loving kindness from his children nor suffer his faithfulness to fail yet he will visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes therefore we would mind this well It is no great wonder that Antinomians say God chastens not the Saints at all upon the account of sin for they say God sees no sin in them to chasten but let us not deceive our selves but when the rod is laid on let us hear the voice of the rod and who hath appointed it Mic. 6.9 Ye have heard that all afflictions comes in by the door of sin and therefore it 's a sweet study under afflictions to be sensible of sin Ye have heard that God may send afflictions on justified persons to prevent sin and to waken them out of security and put them to repentance when sin is committed to imprint upon their spirits the folly of their wanderings and the bitterness that follows sin to caution them for the future against relapsing in sin to stir them up to mortifie sin c. These are better Lessons than the dreams of Antinomians that God hath no respect to the sins of his children when he afflicts them And yet I shall add a third word more for Caution against their error that is That Gods afflicting of Saints with an eye to sin doth not at all clash with that which they assert that the afflictions of the godly are for the trial of their faith That they are meerly for the trial of their faith we deny that they are for the trial of their faith we grant For though afflictions be for the trial of faith yet they are also for other ends as before they repent to stir up to repentance in order to pardon and after repentance to humble them and caution against sin and for producing other effects yet they are still trials of faith whether they will adhere to God yea so much the more trials of faith are they as we have not only trouble to graple with but guilt that brought on the affliction It is easier for faith to hold its feet under a cleanly trial than when affliction is lying on and conscience of guilt is staring us in the face And therefore we shall easily grant providing the mind of God in other ends of affliction be not neglected That when we have done all we should look on the trial of faith as a main end of affliction and when in affliction we cast away confidence we miss a main end and imped the good that we might get by affliction The time having prevented me and I cannot win to the other two Questions whether the truth of pardon depends on the intimation of it to our hearts and whether pardon be it revocable so that guilt makes not former pardon void though it needeth pardon and ought to be mourned for I shall not now break in upon them The Lord bless his Word to you SERMON XIII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee THough I have insisted long and may insist yet some while upon this great priviledge the forgivenness of sins yet ye may know that I am not upon an unnecessary Subject I am upon a Subject that will be found absolutely necessary for you to make your Testament comfortably with and with the cordials thereof ye may digest any bitterness that occurreth in your empty pilgrimage These general Heads on which I am now treating they want not their ground in the Text and Context That which is pardoned to which I have spoken the Text tells that it is iniquity there is forgivenness with thee of these iniquities which if thoâ— mark who can stand The Author of this benefit of pardon is expresly held out in the Text There is forgivenness with thee and the benefit it self the nature whereof I am now inquiring after is held out in that term of forgivenness There is forgivenness with thee Now concerning this having cleared negatively what it is not I told you particularly that pardon takes not away the filth and beeing of sin but the guilt of sin God in pardoning the sinner remits the offence done to him by the violation of his Law and restores the pardoned sinner to his favour and exempts him from the deserved punishment of sin and in pursuance of this I spoke to two of four Questions which are needful to be discussed for clearing the nature of remission I cleared to you that though guilt be inseparable from the filth of sin yet the sinner might be pardoned though the filth of sin remain and how that his pardon did not take away the desert of sin considered in it self but that it takes away that desert and guilt as it results on the person sinning so as it never taketh effect upon him so that though the person fled unto Christ for refuge be troubled not only with the pollution but with the guilt of sin yet he needs not be afraid for it takes no effect against him since he has betaken himself to the City of Refuge And to confirm this I gave you several Scriptural expressions of pardon which may quiet the Conscience and be ground of peace that although the filth of sin and the inherent desert of sin remain yet pardon is a real security to the pardoned sinner 2. Another case or Question which I spoke unto was that seing pardon frees the pardoned man from obligation to punishment whether or not doth or may the Lord pursue a pardoned justified man with any chastisement or punishment for sin and there not to resume what I spoke unto you the last afternoon I gave you some grounds of refutation of the Popish Doctrine who will have the fault or guilt remitted when the punishment is retained which is to say that sin is remitted and it 's not remitted And upon the other hand I cleared to you against the Antinomians how that as all trouble came in by the door of sin and that the Lord may and doth chasten
pollution of it Here as ye heard however Sanctification be taking sin to task in every pardoned man yet the tender man sensible of sin cannot but be affected when he finds sin in the pollution of it to remain though it be not reigning though it hath not the Throne but then with the publick Declaration of pardon there shall no blot of sin no spot no wrinkle nor any such thing remain Ephes 5.27 There shall no scar be left of these wounds that sin hath made which the pardoned sinner may bear about with him while he is here 2. While the godly are here though they get frequently pardon of sin yet they have still need of new pardon they must be pardoned over and over again and as often as they get their daily bread they must as often seek the pardon of their sins daily but the blotting out of sin in that Day shall be a Declaration of the Pardon of sin so fully that there shall be no need of a reiterat pardon they will then sin no more nor be in hazard of sinning and will have no more need of the open Fountain whereunto the pardoned man while he is here must continually resort with his foul feet to get them washen 3. The pardon of sin here is not only Transacted betwixt God and the sinner without the knowledge of the World but it is oft-times keeped up from the sense and feeling of the man that has gotten it A man that is pardoned may be keeped in fears as if he were not pardoned a man that hath his Bonds taken off him may be as if he were still bound But in that Day the Pardon of Sin shall be publickly declared in the audience of Men Angels and Devils and the pardoned mans pardon will be proclaimed and perfected in the sense and feeling of the pardoned man the Court of Heaven and the Court of the Conscience will say both one thing and there will not be a demur in the one about what is past in the other as now often there is And 4. Though sin be pardoned yet the effects and consequences of pardon are not at all times let out on the pardoned man here he may be not only keeped under Desertion but he may be under Chastisement on several accounts as I cleared to you before though he may say as the Apostle John speaks 1 Joh. 3.2 Now we are the sons of God but he must add it doth not yet appear what we shall be but in that day pardon shall not only be proclaimed and perfected in the Conscience of the man but all the effects and consequences of pardon shall flow out like a River upon him Then sighing and sorrow shall flee away and everlasting joy shall be upon his head and in his heart and these stripes that here were necessary for the back of fools shall cease and his pardon shall be written in that blessed Sentence Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Thus ye see what is imported in that blotting out of sin at the great day and from it I shall shortly recommend to you two words in order to practice one is That this may be a strong motive to you to make pardon of sin here sure when ye consider that it hath such blessed effects hereafter the rich fruit and incomes of thy fleeing to Christ for pardon here may seem to thee as we use to speak to be far from the Sheaff but there is a day coming when the advantage of it will be made known to Men Angels and Devils their Conviction what it is to have pardon for sin Thou that gets a pardon here may be looked upon as an uncouth unknown body but thou carries about with thee a Treasure that in that day will be found a Treasure indeed And therefore 2ly Ye that are fled unto Christ for pardon and have gotten pardon believed and now and then ye are feeling some of the fruits of pardon it should quicken you to long for that day wherein the effects fruits and consequences of that pardon will be fully displayed and let out on pardoned sinners It it no wonder that a pardoned man long to be home when he considers what a mercy pardon of sin will be found to be when it is laid in broad-band in that day But now I come to the 5. general Head I proposed to be spoken to and that is To clear up to you the right method of coming to close with pardon and for attaining of pardon I have insisted to tell you what a rich priviledge pardon of sin is Now any that are not stupid and senseless will say how shall I be sure of pardon that I have closed with it and win at it and that I am not deluded in so great a concern I have occasionally hinted at the chief matter of these things that I am to say upon this in the preceeding purpose I shall now gather them together and lay them in view before you that ye may order your steps aright in closing with pardoning mercy If I should speak to this in general I find many things mentioned in Scripture to the obtaining of pardon I find Faith for we are said to be justified by faith and consequently we are pardoned by Faith Rom. 3.25 God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins 2. I find Repentance often mentioned in this matter Mark 1.4 John preached the baptism of Repentance for the remission of sins The Apostles Doctrine was to preach repentance and remission of sins in his name Luke 24.47 Peters Doctrine is Repent ye and be converted that your sins may be blotted out Act. 3.19 The counsel given to Simon Magus is Repent of thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thoughts of thine heart may be forgiven thee Act. 8.22 3. I find also Confession of sin mentioned in order to pardon of sin Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And 1 Joh. 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 4. I find confessing and forsaking of sin mentioned in order to pardon Prov. 28.13 He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall find mercy 5. I find prayer also required in order to pardon of sin Mat. 6.12 Christ bids the Disciples pray forgive us our debts c. But that I may speak to this purpose somewhat more distinctly and so in effect take a view of this Text and take in the 3d. thing I proposed to be spoken to in it I find that as the Apostle sums up Christianity Philip. 3.3 as running upon three things that like Letters on a Signet are drawn backward that ye may stamp them forward in your practice 1. That a man have no confidence in the flesh 2. That from that he be led to rejoyce
closing therewith ye would look upon pride of Heart as having a main hand in it Rom. 10.3 The reason why the Jews did not submit unto the righteousness of God they went about to establish their own A doubting Soul in its exercise may seem to be very humble and crucified it may be but it is not humbled but while it stands a-loof from pardoning Mercy proclaims its Pride for it proclaims it would have a price to bring in its hand to God and God is angry at that pride he will have thee coming to him as a Dyvour when thou hast tryed all thou can do to the yondmost And 6. and lastly in this aversion read another mistake folk think it presumption when they are convinced of their vileness to close with pardoning Mercy but it is so far from being presumption that it is the greatest evidence of humility to take mercy freely when thou comes to the Mercat of Free-grace with no price in thy hand and not only so but it is a high honouring of God The man that being sensible of his sinfulness closeth with pardoning Mercy doth with Abraham Rom. 4.20 Give glory to God and by his receiving his testimony put to his seal that God is true Joh. 3.33 and therefore any that are sensible of sin and have any thing of the conviction of the dreadful desert of sin and are in any measure in the exercise of repentance for sin they would take notice of these things that I have named as stumbling blocks in their way of closing with pardoning Mercy and labour to take them out of it that they may come up to close with it and say But there is forgiveness with thee 3. But now because folk may readily say all that I spoke to in the Morning for preparation to closing with pardoning Mercy is good and when they hear it holden out as the will of God that a sensible sinner should lay hold on Christ for pardon who are they that will not say they have sense of sin and may take a pardon therefore to prevent the stumbling of such I shall in the 3d. place as I proposed in the entry speak to some things required consequentially as a fruit of pardon whereby a man comes to know and evidence that he is pardoned and to improve his pardon answerable to that subjoyned to forgiveness in the Text and here in speaking to the evidences of pardon a posteriori as we use to speak or which are consequential to pardon I might touch upon many things but in general as those that would see the rising of the Sun in the East they would look to the West where they will see by the shade of his Beams when he rises so these that would make their pardon sure would mind well the consequences of pardon as the surest evidences of their pardon and that they are not deluded in that matter And the 1st that I would recommend to youâ— is Love to the Pardoner There is none hath gotten pardon but it will kyth in this and for proof of it take notice of that Luk. 7.47 Where Christ speaking of the woman that washt his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head he says her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much The meaning is not that her great love to Christ did merit a pardon for if ye read the Parable before from verse 40. It will clear that that is not the meaning Christ says to Simon Which of the Debitors will love the Creditor most Simon answers I suppose be to whom he forgave most There Love is the result of pardon and the consequent of pardon not the cause and it is in that case that Christ applys it to the woman such love to me is an infallible evidence that much is forgiven her I would have imbittered folk and such as are reflecters upon and carps at Providential Dispensations noticing this That it is no good evidence of pardon and thou that has love to him whatever be his Dispensations towards thee it speaks good news of pardon though thou cannot discern it 2. I recommend much Heart-melting and Evangelical Repentance whereof I spoke before as it is required antecedently to pardon now I press that which is consequential to pardon when a sinner hath closed with pardoning Mercy and by a reflex act looks back upon what hath been forgiven him O what melting of heart hath it as in that woman Luke 7.47 Much is forgiven her therefore she loveth much and that melted her heart and made her weep much she is a tender melting woman and certainly if thou be a Child the too look to pardon and much more the application of pardon will melt the heart and work more than many Rods. And 3. I recommend to you as a Consequence of Pardon a deep sense of the hainousness of the sin pardoned and much compassion toward them who are yet lying in the same pollution and guilt a pardoned sinner looking on his sin through the Glass of pardoning Mercy it grows much more hainous than it was and a pardoned man cannot but with compassion look on others lying in the puddle of Nature Titus 3 2 7 Speak evil of no man says he but be gentle shewing all meekness to all men for we our selves were sometime foolish disobedient c. till the loving kindness of God was manifested O what compassion will the pardoned man have towards others wallowing in that pollution from which he is delivered There are other two Evidences consequential to pardon one is Our forgiving of others Mat. 6.12 which is no meritorious antecedent cause of pardon for it is the sense of Christ pardoning Mercy to us that should and doth loose our hearts to pardon others we are bidden say Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Another Evidence in the Text is holy filial fear but because the one of these is a Point in the Text and the other concerns the pardoning of one another as an evidence we are pardoned which will require more time to deduce than now we have I shall fist here for this time The Lord bless his Word to you SERMON XVII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee YE may remember that I have insisted long upon this excellent Priviledge The remission or the forgiveness of sins I have spoken to the Object of pardon or what it is that is pardoned Iniquity I have also spoken to the Author of pardon GOD To the Nature of Pardon and when it is that Pardon is pronounced and I entered the last day upon the Applicatory part of this Doctrine to lead you in a right way of closing with pardoning Mercy following the scope of the Context I proposed to speak of somewhat required antecedently to pardon to somewhat required in closing with pardon and of something consequential to pardon whereby we Evidence that we are pardoned and do improve our pardon I spoke to the first
How shall they get their crap submitting to it How shall they get their bitter disposition under their feet that they may heartily remit wrongs done unto them I confess this is a duty that requires more than an ordinary measure of grace and grace in exercise and few attain it Alas How few are who when they have gotten a wrong have that testimony that they mourn more over their own disposition than resent the wrong and pray for the person that hath wronged them but in short there are four words I would recommend to you in order to that meâ—k and mortified temper 1. It were a special mean to bring you this pardoning-humour to be daily sensible of the wrongs that ye have done and are doing to God and who wots but a wrong done by thee to God is laid in thy dish by a third hand to make thee sensible of it The man that is daily sensible of the wrongs he doth to God is the only man to be a good neighbour when he comes out loadned with the sense of his own provocations he will be ready to forgive others He that finds he hath ten thousand talents to be forgiven will easily be brought to forgive an hundred pence It 's our distance with God and the want of the sense of the wrongs done to him that makes us keep up a revengful humour 2. They that would have this pardoning-disposition would be sensible of how much need they have to be forgiven themselves Eccles 7.21 22. Take not heed unto all words that are spoken lest thou hear thy servant curse thee do not sash thy self with noticing every injury were it from as mean a person as thy servant for oft-times also thine own heart knoweth that thou thy self hast cursed others There is no living in the world if as we use to speak we do not live and let live if we forgive not as we would be forgiven If thou seest a more in thy brothers eye pull the beam out of thine own and then thou wilt see more clearly to pull the more out of thy brother's eye This will make thee of a meek and condescending frame 3. I recommend to thee that would forgive to labour to get a sight of the hand of God in the wrong done to thee When thou gets a wrong it may be of a person far below thee and one that thou can easily reach O! How doth poor dust swell with thoughts of revenge But were the hand of God seen in that wrong it would tame thee when David is fleeing from his son Absalom and Shimei comes out and curses him Abâ—shai says Should a dead dog curse the King let me go over and take off his head O let him alone saith David God hath said unto him Curse David Who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so 2 Sam. 16.9 10. If the providence of God extend to the hairs of our head that they are all numbered Mat. 10.30 Unquestionably it is not unconcerned in the affronts and injuries done to us by men and whatever thou hast to say to the person that hath injured thee yet if thou look up to the hand of God in it thou wilt be silent and calm And 4. Remember when thou does not pardon but offers to revenge at thine own hand thou usurps Gods place Rom. 12.19 Dearly beloved revenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord and consequently when thou offers to revenge thou takes his place and provocks him to leave thee and let thee stand to thy self and not concern himself in any wrong done to thee But the third thing I proposed to speak a word to is That this forgivenness of others is absolutely necessary to them that would evidence that they are pardoned of God themselves Mat. 6.12 We are bidden pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive others I shall briefly explain this and close And 1. As I have often hinted before our forgiving others doth nor merit pardon for forgiving of others is not an antecedent to pardon but a consequence of it it 's the evidence of a pardoned man and consequently cannot be antecedent to pardon far less a meritorious cause of pardon 2. While Christ bids us pray Forgive us as we forgive there is no proportion to be understood there is a vast difference betwixt Gods forgiving and our forgiving his forgivenness extends to ten thousand talents ours only to an hundred pence Mat. 18.24 28. His forgiving requires a satisfaction to justice before he give out the sentence of pardon not so ours his forgivenness brings no profit to him as ours doth to us we having thereby access to pardoning mercy only in this the parallel holds that we forgive frankly and freely as God forgives us 3. Consider the connexion a little more nearly partly it is an encouragement to the sensible sinner to believe he is pardoned when he finds a disposition in himself to forgive others a poor sensible sinner lying at Gods foot-stool suing for pardon though he be pardoned yet he hath a hink whether he be so or not but this encourages him to believe it that he finds in himself a loosing of heart to forgive another that hath wronged him often he may reason have I gotten many wrongs and yet I can find in my heart to forgive and put them in my bosome that have wronged me upon their repentance and shall I doubt but God who is a God infinite in mercy hath pardoned me So that thy warmness and loosing of heart to forgive others looses and opens a door to thee to believe that the infinite God in mercy hath pardoned thee and partly ye would remember that it is a condition of pardon not antecedent but subsequent whereby a man may reflect and gather whether he be pardoned or not read Mat. 6.14 15. he contents not himself to say Forgive if we would be forgiven but he adds if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses Ye can have no evidence that ye your selves are pardoned except ye have a tender disposition and frame of heart to forgive others and therefore that servant who Mat. 18.27 had ten thousand talents forgiven him and yet when he got his fellow-servant would not forgive him an hundred pence he proclaimed that though he seemed to be forgiven he was not forgiven but behoved to go to prison Now I have been detained in providence upon this Doctrine for this time a Doctrine that is not unseasonable to you if ye be in earnest in seeking the pardon of your sin it serves to point out to you the terms on which it is attainable and by which ye evidence that ye are pardoned that ye may not in this matter cheat your selves in taking a lie in your right hand in stead of pardon and it is not
unseasonable were it but to give a check to the malicious disposition that haunts too too many in this generation What shall I say of it I shall only say this that little love is the first step to this malicious disposition when love grows cold and folk lives uncouth and fram'd one to another without intimations of that warmness of affection that should be which is much creept in among the fearers of God love I say growing cold then injuries bitter resentments back-bitings reproaches evil speakings c will threed in with that needle yea this is one of the great in-lets to that monstruous damnable dreadful sin of Witchcraft into which some have been led by their lusts others have been tempted to through poverty but moe by malice than by both to give themselves formally over to the Devil to renounce Christ to renounce their Baptism hope of happiness and to sacrifice all to their malicious and revengful temper therefore look to it and upon this as a necessary Doctrine that presses you to have love one to another forbearing and forgiving one another that love that suffers long is not puffed up behaveth not it self unself unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provocked thinketh no evil rejoyceth not in iniquity but in the truth beareth all things hopeth all things believeth all things endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 It was the most known badge of the primitive Christians and no wonder their Master left it with them Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another love to kindle up kindness that malice drowns love that extenuats faults that passion aggreges love that pities and compassionats where malice and revenge severely punishes love that will meet an injurer mid-way and more when revenge bids run away As ye would not be given up to the most dreadful temptations study love and from love to forgive and harbour not a malicious and revengful disposition Lord bless c. SERMON XVIII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared IN the morning I was detained upon that evidence of a pardoned man which is of very common use in our walk that we have a tender-hearted disposition and be in a readiness to forgive others Now there remains before I leave this point another evidence or consequence of pardon when it is rightly closed with held out in that which ye may remember I made a third branch of this Text being an amplification of pardoning mercy taken from Gods design in letting it out even that he may be feared I shall not here stand on a general how needful it is to look to Gods design and what he drives at by every thing he doth unto us and about us as the Psalmist takes notice of Gods end in pardoning Though it were needful that we should look to it that we abuse no dispensation of God to serve our own ends neglecting his ends The reason why we speed not in many suits is we ask and receive not because we ask amiss that we may consume it upon our lusts Jam. 4.3 But passing that I come to the word in the Text. The word here fear of God it is one of these internal graces that naturally results upon the acknowledgment of a Deity and consequently belongs to the first Command where knowledge and acknowledgment of God faith and hope in God love to him and fear of him and patience under his dispensations are all commanded under that of having no other gods but frequently the fear of God is taken more largely for all the service and fear and worship of God and that because fear and reverence is a necessary ingredient called for in every part of service and worship we perform here we need not restrict the sense of the Word and so the meaning is pardoning Mercy is in God and let forth by God to the penitent that the pardoned sinner may stand in awe to offend God and may be invited to worship and serve God who invites him to it by a free pardon of iniquity under which he could not stand if God should mark it in strict Justice And hence in that sum of Christianity Philip. 3.3 If a man from having no confidence in the flesh come to rejoyce in Jesus Christ the result of that is to worship God in the Spirit hence Job 37.23 24. When God is taken up as one excellent in Power Judgment and plenty of Justice that will not afflict it hath this consequence resulting upon it men do therefore fear him and 1 Kin. 8.38 when his people pray to him he by his hearing of Prayer forgiving of sin doing and giving to every man according to his ways doth hereby invite them to fear him all the days that they live in the Land which he gave to their Fathers and Hos 3.5 It is said of converted Israel That they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter dayes Now that I may speak somewhat of this for your edification I shall take a word or two from this purpose abstractly considered and then consider it with an eye to the scope 1. Then considering the words abstractly we may mark that fear and reverence is due to God that God is a suitable Object of humble and reverential fear in the Creature the fear of God is a thing frequently spoken of and prest in Scripture as most due to him Rev. 15.4 Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name Psal 76.7 11. Thou even thou art to be feared bring presents to him that ought to be feared Isai 8.13 Sanctifie the Lord of hosts himself let him be your fear and your dread Heâ—â—e not to insist upon the Derivations that some give of the Greek and Latine Names of God from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying Fear the Scripture sometimes Names God by this That he is the fear of his people Gen. 31.53 when Laban sware by the God of Abraham and the God of Nabor Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac that is by the God that was the Object of Isaac's fear and that word is very emphatick which ye have Psal 76.11 in your Translation it is bring presents to him that ought to be feared but in the Original and as it is rendred in the margin of your Bibles it is bring presents to the fear that is to God the Object of the reverential fear of his people It may be said that the Object of fear being things evil God who is the Chief Good seems not to be the proper Object of fear but that is easily cleared affection to God as to the chief Good cannot be without holy solicitude and reverential fear lest either our sin deprive us of him and of his favour or he be provocked to send evil on us upon the account of our provocations Now for the kinds of this fear of God I shall not insist upon
pardoning mercy sets hearts on work to fear God and to tenderness in the study of holiness then ye may see how many of the Children of God do cut the throat of all their endeavours after holiness and to walk tenderly through their not closing with pardoning Mercy I suppose some have the Conscience a sad Monitor unto them a sad Wan-rest within doors for want of tenderness and some would fain be at serving and worshipping of God and yet they cannot win at it but look if thou leaves not thy encouragement behind thy hand in not closing with pardoning Mercy and by so doing not only cuts thy self short of the Joy of the Lord which is thy strength but provocks God to blast thy study of holiness that thou would put in his room or in the room of his pardoning Mercy But thou that would be keeped fresh and green in thy pursuit of holiness here is thy method that thou must follow first wrap thy self in the bosom of pardoning Mercy and then try thy work and thou shalt find it more delightsome and go better with thee than when thou leaves this encouragement behind thee lay thy self in his bosom for pardon and O! but that will make thee fear him much and love him much that woman Luke 7 that bad much forgiven her loved much and had abundance of tears to wash Christ's feet her closing with pardon did so melt her heart and so would it thine closing with pardoning Mercy would heal palsie hands and feet and make thee work walk and run it would kindle that love that is strong as death and that jealousie that is cruel as the grave the coals whereof are coals of fire that have a vehement flame and bring it to that that many waters cannot quench or the floods drown or contemn all that would compet with it I dare not offer to insist the day being shortened but as on the one hand they who fall asleep on pardoning Mercy as the bride of Christ may some times take a nap but wakens and sets to her feet again would know they make not a right use of pardoning Mercy but sin grievously and if they sleep on they evidence that they cheat themselves in that matter and these that love not holiness proclaim they were never partakers of it so upon the other hand thou that loves holiness but cannot win at it close better with pardoning Mercy as that which will strenthen and encourage thee and by waiting on the Lord in this way thou shalt renew thy strength mount up with wings as eagles run and not be weary walk and not be faint Now to our God be praise and glory through Jesus Christ SERMON XIX Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning YE heard when I entred upon this Psalm that the first six Verses contain the wrestling and the exercise the Psalmist was under as the last two Verses contain his victory and issue and his improvement of it For his wrestling and exercise it consists as ye heard of three branches ye have him wrestling with the difficulties and plunging perplexities in his case these he expresses under the Metaphor of depths and his wrestling with them is by fervent wrestling and crying to God in Prayer verses 1 2. 2. Ye have him wrestling with the Conscience and sense of guilt that obstructed his audience put back his Prayers and offered to crush his hopes and with that he wrestles in the 3 and 4. Verses by taking with the dreadful desert of sin by laying hold on God's pardoning Mercy and carrying alongst with him God's end in letting out pardoning Mercy to sinners even that he may be feared and of this subject I have been speaking at great length and I must exhort and intreat that though a close be put to Preaching on it that yet ye may not give over the minding of that Doctrine it is that which will be your great Pasport pardoning Mercy if ye obtain it when ye come to grapple with the King of Terrors and go through the dark valley of the shadow of death Now in the two Verses read ye have the Psalmist in the third place wrestling with delays of answers to his Prayers or the delays of the out-gate prayed for and these he wrestles with by confident patient affection at waiting on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope c. And this purpose also we have cause to look unto because it gives an account of a Christians constant exercise in time he that would be a Christian indeed it is not enough that he pray in difficulties that he take with the desert of sin and look to pardoning Mercy when Conscience challenges him but when he hath done all that he must persevere in so doing and wrestle with the delays of answers to his Prayer he must give a proof of the patience as well as of the Faith of the Saints he must be a follower of these who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises There is a general Remark which will make way to the purpose contained in the words which I shall insist on a little that is That perseverance and constant waiting on God in his way is the great task of Saints and the Touchstone of their sincerity in all other exercises and duties This tryes how well breathed the Saints are and what is their integrity in other exercises that they are at sometimes even that they be constant bide by it wait on God and persevere in waiting on him in his way notwithstanding they meet with delays And that I may unfold this General to you ye shall with me take a threefold look of this perseverance 1. Look upon it in general as it is opposed to Apostacy backsliding giving up with the ways of Religion 2. Which will deduce this General more fully and particularly ye shall take a look of this perseverance as it imports a constant Tenor and course in waiting on God and seeking of God in opposition to folks phrases fairds and hot fits at some times wherein they are but fleeting And 3. Which will lead me to the particular in the Text look on it as it is opposed to wearying sitting up or falling by from employing God and waiting on him if they be delayed especially in sad dispensations and exigences they meet with For the first of these Perseverance in general as it is opposed to apostasie back-sliding and giving up with the ways of God and godliness I shall not dwell much on that Doctrine The necessity of it appears in the Promises made unto it Mat. 24.13 It is he that endures unto the end shall be saved and Rev. 2. and 3. Chapters it is always to the overcomer that the Promise is made though I
will up and to their feet and recover themselves but their fools haste makes no speed while they look not to the causes of their declining and seek not to get them heal'd and herefore when the burnt of the Conviction is over they are where they were and do not amend a Physitian that would cure a Disease seeks first to know and remove the causes thereof and that is the method I would recommend to you to follow to consider what it is that makes the people of God back-slide sit up or decline in the course of Religion and Godliness there are some Causes without which I do not insist on when there is a dreadful shower of Spiritual Plagues rain'd upon a visible Church it is no wonder that some drops of it fall upon the godly to allude to that Mat. 24.12 Because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold Though I know the meaning of the place looks like another way that because of the abounding of iniquity folks shall not know with whom to walk or intimatly converse nor shall I need to put you in mind of that new-fangle humor that is in many That when Religion is new to them make a faird at it and thereafter sit up like Children that are taken up with Toyes and presently lose conceit of them and cast them from them so it is with many in the matters of God and godliness but there are several causes of upsitting within that ye would look unto The first I begin at is Conceit which not only many time evidences a man to be nothing If a man thinketh himself something while he is nothing he deceives himself Gal. 6.3 and Rev. 3.17 Thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched poor blind miserable and naked But be a man what he will if he conceit of it his conceit of it sets his height upon his head he cannot make proficiency yea Conceit is the next door to Apostasie compare for this these two paralel places Hab. 2.4 his soul that is lifted up is not upright in him but the just shall live hy faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him says the Apostle Heb. 10.38 A lifted up Soul and a drawing back Soul go together therefore who would recover from their backslidden condition and find out the causes of it they would look first to conceit as a main cause O! how many a fair profession hath Conceit blasted how many a hypocrite hath conceit discovered to be but empty casks without substance yea more how many really godly hath conceit lost in the mire of apostasie till they considered and laid it to heart better than they did 2. Which hath affinity with the former of conceit Take notice of carnal confidence as another great cause when ever a Child of God wears out of a posture of poor and needy dependence when all beside Christ is not flesh to him a slide abides him When Job 29.18 said he should die in his nest and multiply his days as the sand he was near a shake When David Psal 30.6 said in his prosperity he should not be moved God hid his face and he was troubled his carnal confidence was backed with desertion from God Therefore beware of pride and carnal confidence as ye would not decline and backslide And ye that would seek out the causes of your decayed condition and endeavour a cure look well to these two as bringing you in the sad posture wherein ye are lying The Lord bless his word to you SERMON XX. Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait c. THat I may prepare the way for a more distinct handling of this great and important Duty of waiting on God and for God I proposed in the morning to speak somewhat upon perseverance and constancy in Religion and that partly in general in opposition to Apostasie and Backsliding and partly in particular in opposition to that fleiting frazing humour that may be in folk at some timâ— but soon passes over and is gone and in opposition 〈…〉 â—earying to wait on if they be delayed especialâ—◠〈…〉 d dispensations For the general I spoke somewhat to it and hinted in the first place at some Means of Tryal whereby folks may know more distinctly their sitten-up frame and I was cut off by the time from searching into the causes of up-sitting or declining that would be heeded by them that would prevent or recover themselves out of that temper several things occur which though divers of them may be one upon the matter yet I name them distinctly that under one notion or another of the same thing ye may take up your distemper I spoke in the first place to Conceit And 2. To carnal Confidence as main Causes of Apostasie Now I go on and in the third place ye shall take notice with me of this as a great cause of declining to wit idleness want of seriousness and sensible errands to Christ dayly when folks though they go about the Duties of Religion in privat and publick yet the most they have for them is to fill the field to observe a custom or to quiet the clamours of Conscience in this case folk are idle they have not sensible errands to Christ they have not their finger on their sore and as this evidences a declined Frame so it is a cause of declining in many to allude to that Prov. 19 15. Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep and an idle soul shall suffer hunger And Eccles 10.18 By much slothfulness the building decayeth and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through So negligence in performance of Service to God will soon bring a soul to a very poor posture and condition Further in the fourth place ye shall take notice of this that the not observing of gradual Decays is the great cause of the heightning that Decay and coming to a height in backsliding when folks slide down the braâ— piece and piece when they steal at leasure from their first Love and it is not observed by them it brings on a sinful frame ere they be awaâ—â—â—â—any through want of observation are like Sampson 〈…〉 hath his Locks cut and knows it not till the◠〈…〉 upon him Or like the blessed Virgin who supposing Christ to be in the croud miss'd him not but afterward had him to seek with sorrow Or as Pharaoh's Servants said to him Knows thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed like Ephraim gray hairs are here and there upon him yet he knoweth iâ— not As ye say of Hecticks they are worst to be discerned but easily cured in the beginning but when continued in they are easily discerned and worse to be cured so fares it with them that observe not their gradual decays And to this I shall add in the 5 place that folks would look well to Idols when they are harboured it 's
a great cause of backsliding and of idleness and inadvertance that brings on decay If Judas love the bag he will sooner or later betray his Master for money If Sampson will try conclusions by sleeping on the knees of a Delilah though he might once and again escape her snares yet Delilah will at last betray him into the hands of the Philistines An Idol entertained without mourning over it and labouring to mortifie it though Satan may let thee keep up a rank in good for a time yet sooner or later it will turn thee aside Then 6. If we would persevere and not decline we would lay the foundation very well see that it be upon the Rock It was not that which was above ground that carried the body of naughtiness in the stony ground but it was the deepness of earth that was wanting Mat. 13.5 The house that bides the storm hath the foundation bigged deep Luk. 6.48 Many folk are fair above ground but O! How naughty are they under ground That 's a good foundation that 's laid in mortification self-denial and needy dependance on Christ This hath relation to what I spoke before of idols and am to speak of unbelief yet I give it you distinctly an ill-rooted Professor cannot persevere but must decline a mortified Professor will be well-rooted and long-breathed as we use to speak in perseverance 7. Look upon unbelief and discouragement as a great cause of Apostacy the joy of the Lord is the strength of the Saints Neh. 8.10 But where this evil heart of unbelief is there will be a departing from the living God Heb. 3.12 And where there are hands hanging down and feeble knees that which is lame or halting will be soon turned out of the way Heb. 12.13 As many suffer shipwrack of their pursuit in the bosome of some Idol so many split upon the Rock of Diffidence and Discouragement which being given way to there is no remedy but to fall by or sit up dangerously 8. And I shall add no mo we would look well to stumbling as a great cause of Apostacy and declining When a man stumbleth at the directions of the word though alas There are many of us not so tenty at a Sermon as to notice them or shall take them not so near them as to try if they have corruption to stumble at them compare Joh. 6.60 61. with 66. Many of Christs Disciples when they have heard him speak of the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood say This is a hard saying who can hear it Christ knowing their murmuring saith Doth this offend you And what comes of that v. 66. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him they stumbled at his Doctrine and therefore drew back or whether folk stumble at the dispensations of providence when they are sad and afflicting Isai 33.14 It is said of the Hypocrites The sinners in Zion are afraid fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites who among us shall dwell with devouring fire who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings Alluding to the terrible aspect of Sennacheribs Army they looked on these as things that could not be bidden ye may think them weak and hypocrites that stumble at dispensations but let him that stands take heed lest he fall Remember when David stumbled at the prosperity of the wicked he came to that How doth God know and is there knowledge in the most high Verily I have cleansed my hands in vain and washen my hands in innocency There stumbling at providence turned him foolish and ignorant as a beast before God Psal 73 22. These things I have shortly named and if there be any sensible of their backsliding and of a decayed frame and afraid of it do not think that your whryning over it will prevent it or cure it but look on those things as the causes of this ill frame and ye will find ye have them or are ready to split on them and to cure the disease take away the cause and the effect will cease But a 3d word of Use shall be this if declining and backsliding be so frequent and where it is if it be so dangerous how much reason have they to bless God whose backsliding he prevents who are kept fresh and flourishing and fat and green and enabled to bring forth fruit in old age Psal 92.12 Who in all the times they have come over have not met with an Idol they delight to fall asleep in the bosome of nor with a discouragement that they have not trode on nor with a dispensation they stumbled on they have been kept serious and diligent humble and denyed I am now marking a mercy of many that it may be they do not mark themselves some complain that all their time they get nothing they are kept poor and needy from the hand to the mouth they meet with nothing but delays tossing and restlessness any get leave to draw their breath but they and they think that they are very hardly dealt with but hast thou this mercy that thou art kept low thou has no ground of carnal confidence thou gets not leave to be idle thou art holden going diligent serious in errands to Christ Thy grievances will tell thee if thou bide away thy heart-searchings thou must vent in his bosome and shew before him thy trouble Read in that a mercy that thou art made to persevere though in a humbling posture Many have had sweet hours beside thee and have fallen asleep on them and thou art kept waking God is keeping thee on thy feet when others have fallen though with dispensations that are not satisfying to thy flesh But now I proceed to the other two looks that I proposed to be taken of this perseverance which are comprehended under the former and serve to obviat two great sources and causes of Apostacy The first is this Perseverance is to be looked on as it imports a constant tract of waiting on God and seeking of him in opposition to that brashiness fleettingness ups and downs that are in some who will have some odd fits of godliness they are now very hot and ere ye wot as cold This may be seen in very godly folks if they be at Ordinances especially solemn Ordinances how far up the Bâ—aâ— will they be as Saul among the Prophets Or when they are in some trouble how keen how eager and lively will they be But ere ye wot they are as dead like a Summer Brook that in a shower is over the Banks but within a little is quite out and dry Ye may take an instance of this in Israel when the Law was publish'd at Sinai with great Majesty and terrour who but they Deut. 9.27 All that the Lord our God will speak unto thee we will do it But the History tells if they were as good as their word Another instance ye have in Israel at the red Sea Psal 106.12 Then believed they his word and sang his
praise when the waters overflowed their enemies but they soon forgot his works or made haste to forget them they waited not for his counsel but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desart Now in opposition to this it 's the great mercy of Saints when not only they hold out as it may be to the end and get their souls for a prey but they endeavour to be solid fixed constant equal to draw out as ye speak an even threed of a godly walk not but that they have their ups and downs of comfort and abasement but they guard against their brashy fairds and fits and against their being at a hight now and sinking again as low And the grounds why ye would guard against this fleeting unstable disposition are 1. A fleeting temper is not to be trusted to that which light unsolid hearts are at in a faird they are not wise that lean to it God at the first view tells Israel their goodness was as a morning cloud or as the early dew Hos 6.4 promising fair but passing away And when they make their great ranâ— Deut. 5.27 Who but they for obedience O saith the Lord v. 29. that there were such a heart in them I know them better than themselves do I know they want that heart they profess to be solid and constant in their obedience to me 2. This fleeting disposition would be guarded against because these hot fits that folk sometimes have in the way of godliness will be a dreadful witness against them when they turn their back upon it What a sad check is that Christ gives to the Jews Joh. 5.35 John was a burning and a shining light and ye rejoyced to walk in his light for a season Who but John for a time to you but ye soon tyred And see how the Apostle beats home a reproof for this Gal. 4.14 My temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not nor rejected but received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Jesus Where is then the blessedness ye spake of c. Where is that heat and edge now 3. This fleeting disposition would be look'd to because these unsolid fits have no present access and acceptation as they are not lasty so they are little noticed for the time Hos 6.4 O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee for your goodness is as a morning cloud c. What shall I do with that What service can I have of it What is in it to be noticed For thou aâ—t unstable as the morning cloud is soon dispelled and the early dew soon evanishes 4. This fleeting humour would be guarded against because besides it 's not acceptance with God it keeps folk that they know not the good of godliness It 's not faiâ—ds and brashes that will bring home the real advantage of piety Hos 6.3 Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain as the former and latter rain upon the earth And Joh. 8 31 32. When there were many that professed to believe on Christ he saith to them If ye continue in my word then are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free if ye hold at that which ye profess ye shall find the good of Religion and be Disciples to me From all that I have been speaking on this folks would learn not to be cheated with brashes and fairds of this kind it may be folks please themselves in an ill course because now and then their minds have been under dwams and they have had their fits and motions and they should beware of slighting these lest folks be given over to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels but such folk should look to it ye that are brashie either hot and frazie or key cold There is much of this in a natural temper that in some skips from hot to cold from liveliness to deadness and holds at nothing But that ye may learn to be still the same in so far as is attainable in this state of misery I would recommend to you partly that ye would labour to fix your selves on rational principles know what ye are doing and the grounds whereon ye go when ye close with Religion be as Peter Joh. 6.68 When many went back Lord saith he to whom shall we go for thou hast the words of eternal life And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ the Son of the living God Stuff thine heart solidly with rational and solid grounds to go upon in Religion and these put in the hand of God will be a constant spring to feed thy diligence 2. To these rational grounds add solid resolutions that as Barnabas perswaded the Christians Acts 11.23 Thou may with full purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord it must not be a surprisal like one in a passion that sets thee on to seek God but a solid fix'd purpose of heart And when thou hast laid down rational grounds and backed them with solid resolutions thou must in the 3d place wait on God it 's he that must unite thy heart to fear his Name Psal 86.11 It 's he that can gather the fleeting heart and fix it on the nail that 's fastened in a sure place It 's he in whose hand thou must put all thy resolutions and purposes as David who when he hath resolved well Psal 17.3 Thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress Concerning the works of men I have by the words of thy lips kept me from the paths of the destroyer He adds v. 6. Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not These are resolutions that are settled and backed with needy dependence on God else though thou were never so well fixt in thy resolutions they may prove like Sampsons Cords when thou art assaulted with a new temptation These few directions through the blessing of God may fix you in the way of godliness prevent fleeting unconstancy debording and deviating from it But now in the 3d place to give you a look of perseverance as it is opposed to wearying lying by sitting up and it may be the taking of many sinful shifts on delayes and when difficulties are met with that is when a needy person goes about the means frequents the Ordinances and gets nothing his Word is a sealed Book the Preaching of the Gospel is under a Cloud when they go to God in Prayer they come no speed they are not heard and it may be wrath meets them in the teeth such may be strongly tempted to give over and weary and it 's in opposition to this the Psalmist will wait on God and in opposition to such temptations we are to fix this truth that no delay we meet with in Gods way ought to cut our perseverance short No delay should
make us say with that wicked King 2 King 6.33 This evil is of the Lord why should I wait on the Lord any longer And readily the man that will not wait on God hath that which he had with it v. 31. God do so to me and more also if the head of Eâ—â—sha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day The godly man resolves to be like the infirm man at the Pool Joh. 5.57 There will he lyâ— were it never so long till the water be troubled and some put him in or till Christ by his immediat hand cure him This was the Psalmists way here after he is put to cry out of the deeps and to wrestle with guilt meeting him in the teeth and to cry for pardoning mercie and no relief appears he resolves during the delay to wait on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope My soul waits for the Lord more c. And Psal 62. after he hath said Truly my soul waiteth on God from him comes my salvation v. 1. he presseth it over again v. 5. O my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him he will wait and better wait and continue in waiting Now the prosecution of this would lead me to the particulars in the Text wherein these four or five things are clear 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more c. These are the particulars in the Text in the prosecution whereof we may have sundry things for laying open this exercise of waiting on God I shall now speak a few words and close I shall not touch on this that duty is ours and event is Gods a man having done his duty may if he could win up to the use of his allowance sleep very sound under cross events but it is our unhappy temper that we would still be at the Throne and have the guiding of things we are like the ill Scholar that 's busier at his neighbours Lesson than his own But to pass this consider four short words and I have done 1. Waiâ—ing on God is a blest mean appointed of God in order to an out-gate out of all difficulties Isai 30.18 Blest are all they that wait on him A man by waiting on God and brooking delays with faith patience affection and submission may find an out gate without a delivery 2. Waiting on God in the case of delays and persevering in waiting is commendable on this account that we can do no where else so well as to ly still at his door a man that wearies to wait on God would look what he will do next ere he give it over When Christ ask'd Peter Will ye also leave me He answers To whom shall we go We had need to seek a better Master ere we quite thee and that we cannot find thou hast the words of eternal life What will a man do next if he wait not on God David is fasht with waiting and dependence and he will go down to the Land of the Philistines and the History tells what befell him there he is forced to lie he is likely to be brought in a snare by fighting against the people of God and his interest and in Ziglag in hazard of being destroyed by the Amalekites a man may well get an ill Conscience by apostacy and declining he is never a step nearer delivery so that go the world as it will waiting on God is the best of it And 3. When we weary of waiting on God because of outward dispensations we bewray too much affection to the things of time thou art in a difficulty thou wearies because of the calamity that lies on and thou gets not an out-gate but it were better for thee to mourn over thy inordinat affection to the things of time that makes thee weary and that would make way for thy out-gate and lighten thy burden 4. Remember that even a delivery from any difficulty out of Gods way without waiting on God is a plague When a man comes not under a signal plague till he come under this that as the word is Mal. 3.15 he tempts God and is delivered And therefore rather abhor such an issue that is a plague than lust after it SERMON XXI Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and c. IN these words as ye heard the last day is contained the 3d Branch of the Psalmists exercise after that he hath wrestled with difficulties by crying to God out of the depths and wrestled with the conscience of guilt by taking with it and fleeing to pardoning mercy on right terms he is put now to wrestle with delays of comfort and an out-gate and this he wrestles with by confident affectionat meek and patient waiting on God I spoke to the general Doctrine of this Verse The task of perseverance and constancy in the way of God and followed it out a little in opposition to apostacy and back-sliding and more particularly to these brashy hot fits that folk have at some times which are followed with as great cools and in opposition to delays or wearying and sitting up from employing God when folks meet with delays which is in the Text which ye may remember I divided in these five 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning For the first of these that he is waiting this if I should follow forth in all that might be said of it I should take in that Confidence and affection the Psalmist hath in waiting which will occur in their proper places to be spoken to when I proceed in the words of the Text here I shall pass not only a general of the Psalmists reflecting on what he hath been doing and his giving an account of it which I purpose to take in afterward but I shall handle waiting on God here only in these two 1. Somewhat Supposed That he is put to wait 2. Somewhat proposed That when he is put to wait he doth wait For the first somewhat supposed that he is put to wait which affords us this Observation that the Saints even in their serious and sincere seeking of God in difficulties may be exercised with delays of comfort and an out-gate when a godly man is here crying
he had not done without cause all that he had done in it And doth not the evil improvement of Trouble and folks security and negligence under trouble justifie God in the long continuance of trouble when we are ready to cry how long Lord how long shall this calamity last The Lord may retort it upon us Why will ye die O house of Israel For as it is Jer. 44.10 The Lord may say They are not humbled even unto this day neither have they feared nor walked in my Law A sight of this that God keeps a sincere serious godly man so long waiting on under delays for comfort and out-gate may silence the clamors of them who are not yet begun to think on a suitable walk under their troubles and the right improvement of them But 3. If the Lord for the ends before-mentioned may long delay his people and keep them waiting in trouble take heed that Faith the great support of Patience fail not in that exigent as I told you in the deducing of the Doctrine the great thing tryed in the people of God under delays is their Faith whether they will believe his word and therefore when Faith is tryed look that it be not found drossie when Faith is weighed see that it be not found light I speak it because I find the Faith of the Saints has gotten sore shakes under delays when they have been put to wait on Psal 116.11 I said in my haste all men Samuel Gad and others that had told me I should come to the Crown and Kingdom are liars And Jer. 15.18 while speaking to God hath a dreadful word when he reflects on the Promises God made to be with him in his Ministry says he Wilt thou be to me altogether as a liar and as waters that fail When we find so strong Cedars so shaken we would look well to it that our Faith be not brangled and that Faith be not brangled we would beside be looking well to the Atheism of our hearts for there is a seed of Atheism in every bosom that if the Lord put us hardly to it and make not out that Promise Isai 48.10 I have refined thee but not with silver I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction It may put us to tremble what stuff may boil up in our hearts and they are not sicker in the matter of their Faith that are not mourning over their heart-atheism but beside that I say we would guard against wrong conceptions of the Promise as that wherein the great stumbling lies as to this matter when we conceive more to be in the Promise than we are allowed and make a carnal Commentar on a Spiritual Text and as the saying is The Bell to clink as the fools think As also we would beware of limiting God to our time but give him his own time to make good his Promises These that are not mourning over the Atheism of their heart that are not cautious in understanding the Promises a-right and are not leaving God to his own time for performing them may take a snapper in their Faith when tryals are continued But a fourth word of Use shall be this That ye would learn to read Gods delays aright delays make discoveries and that is the exercise of many folk Jer. 8.15 We looked for peace but no good came and for a time of healing but behold trouble But if thou would read aright Gods delays I shall shortly offer thee these four and wise confiderers will find them to be the work of the generation 1. If thou read delays aright thou will find that God calls thee to exercise and that the best thing within thee as in a storm best Anchors and Ropes and the best things of the Ship are brought out so in a Trial when he delays he calls thee to exercise the best things in thy bosom and if God call thee to exercise Grace bring not out Corruption though at first thou may cast a scum of Corruption Grace is to be brought out afterwards If he call for Affection meet not his Call with Bitterness if he call to Diligence do not intertain that Call with Idleness remember God by delays calls for the exercise of Graces affections and diligence in his people 2. If thou read delays aright Thou will read That every days delay is a new Tryal and I may add every moments delay is a new Tryal When thou art carried through the day thou must not take that for surety that thou wilt through the next day without Self-denial and needy dependance The day may discover that which the foregoing day did not discover and the morrow may discover that which lies hid this day and therefore though thou may set up one Ebenezer at every step of thy way and say hither to hath the Lord helped Remember that thou art not yet off the stage and thou must not think because thou art hasted with the Tryal thou art better buckled to bear it but know there is still a necessity of Self-denial and needy-dependance lest the length of Trial discover that which the greatness of the Trial did not discover 3. If thou would read delays aright read in them a Call as I said in the Explication of the Doctrine to die to and to be above Time and the Consolations in Time then men go through Afflictions rightly when they read Their light afflictions which is but for a moment worketh for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while they look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen 2 Cor. 4.17 Then men will be patient and stablish their hearts when they consider that the coming of the Lord draws near Jam. 5.8 In a word when God exercises with delays that is an useful Preaching which ye have 1 Cor. 7.29 This I say brethren the time is short he touches the Glass and lets them see it is near run out It remaineth that both these that have wives be as though they had none they that weep as though they weeped not they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not One serious look of Time and Eternity will break many a snare that mens Corruptions expose them to while under trouble they meet with delays But 4. If ye would read delays rightly this is to be read in them that well improved delays are full of rich advantages Thou art keeped under continued difficulties and delayed as to comfort or satisfaction external in thy personal and privat concerns and as to what relates to the publick and it may be thou wins not to inward sensible comfort but if thou were thrifty thou mayest find many things granted in the delay or denyal of that which thou would be at as much humility mortification to Time and the things of it communion and fellowship with God and though some particulars be delayed if these were pursued after and in any measure attained times of delay would not be looked on as
idle times A thrifty person may make much gain and advantage out of these delays So much for what is supponed here that the Saints even in their sincere and serious seeking of God are exercised with delays as to comfort or an out-gate under difficulties Follows in the 2. place that which is proposed That when he is put to wait he doth wait Hence observe That in the case of delays whether for comfort or an out-gate it is the duty of Saints to wait on this will take in all that follows in these two verses and therefore I shall first Explain the import of it and then press the reasonablness equity and advantages of it For the import of this Duty of Waiting a waiter on God when he is delayed he must have these three things shortly 1. He must have somewhat to be the Basis and Ground of his Waiting and that is the Faith of the Saints which prepares the way for the Patience of the Saints and so it follows after in the Text. That a soul that waits on God hopes in the Word of God The meaning of this shortly is That a waiter on God when he is delayed must not judge of God by what is present but having the Word of God so long as God gives him not another Bible and that will never be whatever be his present case he must still look for better If he have a Cloud he must look that it will scatter if he have a Night he must look for a Day on the back of that Night as Isai 8.17 I will wait on the Lord that hides his face from the house of Jacob and I will look for him though he hide his Face at present I will look for better things from him and Mic. 7.7 I will look unto the Lord I will wait on the God of my salvation my God will hear me and therefore rejoyce not over me O mine enemy when I fall I shall arise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me They must first look to that that they cast not away their Confidence who would have needful Patience Heb. 10.35 And 2 This waiting of the Saints imports that they having believed the word of Promise they must not make haste Isai 28.16 He that believes shall not make baste They must not be hasty And this is properly the Patience of the Saints taking it generally their Patience is the product of Faith The waiting man must attend God's leasure as he must not quarrel though the Jordan of difficulties in his way should overflow all its Banks So he must not mistake though when he is in distress in the City he should be sent out to the field and when he is in distress in the field he should be sent even to Babylon to be delivered Mic. 4.10 That is the next step of a Waiter That when he has believed the Promise he makes no haste But 3. In waiting it is not enough that folks win to hang on because either they have no other shift for help or their Conscience will not suffer them to take another shift but in the mean time O how imbittered broken and crusht in Spirit are they in waiting that is not only a sin in them but a shame to look upon their posture in waiting they wait upon God as if they never had a day to do well in his aught Therefore in the 3. place I say in waiting ye would beware of fretting quarrelling despondency of taking the snuff in your passion and in waiting study patience meekness and calmness of Spirit to do it sweetly This is the perfect work of Patience which Christ commands by his own practice Mat. 11.29 Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and that shall bring rest to your souls There is no waiting on without that that will bring rest and that is the waiting in Psal 37. throughout commended to you in a fretful time which ye may read at your own leisure and ye have a rich Promise Zeph. â— 3 For a stormy time Seek ye the Lord all ye meek of the earth which have wrought his judgements the mark of them which he hath a good turn to do to before the decree bring forth before the day pass as the chaff before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon the rest Seek righteousness seek meekness it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lords anger Whatever be the proper meaning of the place they speak no Heresie who in alluding to it do recommend to seek the imputed Righteousness of Christ to their person and meekness of Spirit in reference to Dispensations who in times of difficulty would carry rightly under delays These are the two notable supports of a Pilgrim the imputed Righteousness of Christ evidenced by inherent Righteousness and meekness and calmness of Spirit and therefore the Promise is made to such It may be ye shal be hid in in the day of the Lords anger The meaning whereof is not only that these who are students of Righteousness and Meekness as indeed they who are such will not be peremptor about events but it imports further that they may take their venture of God of being hid in the day of God's anger when the storm breaks upon others So ye have had a brief view of what is the import of waiting on God under delays there must be Faith as the ground of it not being hasty of the result of Faith and a meek and calm disposition and giving God the timing of what he hath Promised or we expect As for the Arguments pressing the equity and advantage of it the time being gone I shall forbear to enter upon them SERMON XXII Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope I Am now as ye may remember laying before you the Psalmists exercise of waiting on God and having in the morning spoken to what is supposed in these Words That the Saints may be put to wait on Gods delaying to perform his promises I came to that which is proposed that they should wait the import whereof I laid open to you in these three There is the faith of the Saints as the ground of their waiting There is the patience waiting on of the Saints in opposition to their being hasty And there is the meekness and calmness of their spirits in opposition to their fretfulness though they hing on when they are delayed It remains that I insist a little to commend these three unto you As for Faith except that I touch it in the passing it will come better in to be spoken to afterwards and therefore I shall here speak a word for perswading you not to be hasty 2. A word for perswading you to meekness not to fret And 3. I shall shut up both with a general word to perswade you to this waiting For the first that ye may wait
on and not be hasty under delays I shall offer four considerations to perswade you to it And the 1. which relates to what I spoke before of Faith is that ye would remember that delayed success is not denyed success so long as the Word speaks good news That the needy shall not always be forgotten that the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever Psal 9.18 There is no cause why our hearts should envy sinners but that our hearts should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long For surely there is an end and our expectation shall not be cut off Prov. 23.17 So long as the Word speaks thus we are to bless our selves in it that delayed success is not denyed success and that therefore all that God hath promised were it never so long betwixt the promise and the performance will certainly come to pass as is marked in the Book of Joshua 23.14 That of all the good things which the Lord had promised to that people and many a time there seemed to be an utter impossibility of the performance of it not one thing had failed but all did come to pass A man that hath good things laid up for him in the Scripture though he be put to wait for them he needs not make a cheap Market of them they will be found forth-coming to him And Isai 60 22. The Lord will hasten it in his time which is alway the best time the Lord will afford mercy and grace to help not when we will but in the time of need Heb 4. ult He will make out his mercies in the time when they will be found double mercies for their seasonableness Psal 94.18 When I said My foot slippeth thy mercy O Lord held me up And as he will thus in due time make out all that he hath promised so in the mean time he will not deny support to them that wait on him it may be he let temptations such as are common to men ly on But 1 Cor. 10.13 He is faithful and will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able to bear but will with the temptation make a way to escape that they may be able to bear it It may be when they are crying for a good account of a messenger of Satan sent to buffet them that he remove it not but he will make out that My grace is sufficient for you my strength is made perfect in weakness 2 Cor. 12.9 That then is one Consideration to perswade you to waâ—t on That delayed success is not denyed success 2. This may press and perswade to on-waiting that if we be doing our duty we may very safely trust the love and wisdom of God with the time of doing us good There are three things which I have had occasion sometimes to hint at to you that I shall now resume in reference to this We may and ought to wait 1. Because God never comes out of time look things never so desperat-like to make up all that was looked for men may come out of season but God never comes out of season although it were come to that that there were nothing but dry bones in a Valley he can make these dry bones to live Ezek 37. Although there were no Witnesses left And O but it 's sad to see a decay of a faithful Ministry and few laying it to heart many going off the Stage and few coming in their room though they were killed after three days and an half they shall rise again and ascend up to Heaven in a Cloud and their enemies shall behold them Rev. 11.11 When thou hast said thy strength and thy hope is perished from the Lord it is as easie for him to make all things well as when thou hast all probabilities that things shall be well 2. We may safely remit the proofs of Gods love to himself if we consider he never delays so long but we may be getting good of delays It 's true thou may be ready to tyre fag and weary and look on thy continued trial as a lot thou wilt get no good of and thereupon turn idle or ly down and die but the longest trial if improven shall yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 If we were thrifty we might be getting good of every moments delay 3. We may and ought to wait and submit to the wisdom and love of God and trust him for good under our delays on this account that he never delays so long but he is able to give a satisfactory account of his delays Thou wilt say Why doth he delay so long from comâ—ng to comfort or give an out-gate But he can convince thee with satisfying reasons that his delays were needful When as it is Hab. 2.3 sense says The vision tarries he can make thy faith say Tarry for it because it will surely come and not tarry he can make thy self say he doth not tarry even when thy sense says he doth tarry This for the second Consideration for perswading you to wait on God under delays and not to be hasty 3. A third Consideration to perswade to waiting in opposition to making haste is That they that are sweet to wait would look if they be busie at work and at the work they are called to This is a needful diversion which I would offer to such folk were they busie in making use of long and feeding storms they would make less dinn in waiting for an issue of them but they would be ready to say rather Alas let him tarry never so long he will come ere I be ready for him ere I have reaped the blessed fruit of the dispensations of his providence that I am under And therefore a wearier and a hasty person under delays doth proclaim that he is an idle person not about his work for not only as ye know work is a mean to take away langour but in particular the thrifty improvement of a hard lot would make folk wonder that God should come to them at all 4. To perswade you to wait and that ye would not be hasty if none of the former Considerations will press you to it remember the Soveraignty of God and that ye are his Creatures when thou wearies to wait consider what thou art a bit of nothing a dependent bit of beeing to be made or not made formed or marred at his pleasure if he hath given thee a back why may he not lay on a burden and continue it on so long as pleases him Wherefore serves thy beeing in the world but to be at his disposing and to be what seems good to him This Argument prevailed with Job that was put otherways to it than any of us he was stripped in an instant of all that he had and sitting down on the dust he says Chap. 1.21 Naked came I out of the womb and naked shall I return God gave and God hath taken blessed be the Name
of the Lord. And Chap. 2.10 he says to his Wife Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil O! there is a stooping to Soveraignty in the greatest straits and shakes that ever befell any except our Lord Jesus and that Argument is made use of by him to his Disciples in the matter of timing mercies Acts 1. Lord say they wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel He answers It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power Proud dust miskens it self when it dare offer to prescribe to God and were Soveraignty more studied and practically improven in the lots that befall us and in their continuance we would often find matter of a song where we make a quarrel Now as these Considerations might press waiting in opposition to hastiness so there are some other Considerations that serve to press meekness and calmness of spirit in opposition to bitterness and fretfulness and among many I shall only name three 1. Meekness and sweetness is commendable on this account that it takes the poison and sting out of all our lots The Apostle Rom. 12.21 when he hath been speaking against passion and fretfulness at our neighbours that angers us he hath a very speaking word that he closes with Be not overcome of evil as if he said ye think your self victorious when ye have gotten your crop and spleen wracked on crowing over them that have wronged you but ye are far mistaken the soil is yours ye are overcome of evil ye are slaves to your own corruption in venting your passion and bitterness So is it here it 's fretfulness and bitterness that poisons any sad lot we are under Lam. 3.19 When a man remembers the affliction and the misery and the wormwood and the gall and hath them still in remembrance his soul sinketh in him but when he gets victory over these he says It 's of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not He that had said before that his soul was removed far from peace and he forgot prosperity he finds prosperity among his despised and undervalued lots It 's not your continued crosses and long delays that is your affliction it 's your bitterness that is the poison and sting of them all and makes them so afflicting It 's with you as with that man Solomon speaks of Prov. 19.3 The foolishness of man perverteth his way and his heart fretteth against the Lord When he hath perverted his way he would blame God for his own unthrift There is no outgate of a Cross comparable to this the coming off with a meek mind as that word Psal 55.18 holds out He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battel that was against me O! look to the peace of your mind under continued difficulties let not that break Ye know not what affliction means till ye get an imbittered mind which will make a Mole-hill a Mountain nay will create a Cross to it self yea is a Cross in it self and can contrive a Cross where there is none even when a man is convinced his lot is good Set him in a Paradise of pleasure his imbittered mind will make it a torment to him therefore look on an imbittered mind as the greatest sting and poisoner of all that can befall you and guard against it 2. It may perswade folks to study meekness and calmness of spirit when they consider what an imbittered fretful disposition portends what doth it import and portend to a man I shall tell you it portends mo and sharper rods to tame that wild and imbittered heart to humble that fretful disposition a man who though he hing on yet is fretful cankard bitter all that he meets with in his lot is the wormood and the gall to him he is like a feverish man that hath something in his stomach that must be purged his taste is marred which makes that which is sweet bitter and though thou belong to God yet as it is said of wicked men if thou walk contrary unto him he will walk contrary unto thee Levit. 26. And thou may expect seven times more yoke upon yoke cross upon cross till thou be tame and subject thy self to him In a word so long as a man is in a bitter frame he evidences that the medicine God hath given him hath never won to the root of his disease and he may look for a harder potion 3. It may perswade to the study of meekness and to set against bitterness to consider that bitterness is unreasonable Isai 45.9 Wo to him that strives with his Maker let the pot sheards strive with the pot sheards of the earth shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it what makest thou He is the Lord to whom who can say What dost thou Ponder that word which I have often occasion to mind you of Job 18.4 He teareth himself in his anger a lively and pathetick description of a fretful disposition he would eat himself in his anger but shall the earth be forsaken for thee and shall the rock be removed out of his place Is there no more ado but turn all the wheels of providence up-side down when ye take the pett When such a goodly thing as thou art not pleased with it says Bildad to Job O fretful body wilt thou sit down and ask who should guide the world Who should have the Throne Whether God or thou Whether should he guide thee or thou guide thy self Whether wilt thou yield to God or have him yield to thee Shall not God brusk his Throne and Government but thou like a Child of Belial envyeth it Nay further let me plead for God bitter body what ails thee what would do thy turn Thou can name many things thou wants and would have but thou knows not where thy disease lyes it is within thee that ails thee let God cut thee short of favours or restore them to thee put thee in trouble or deliver thee it will not cure thee thou wilt never want a cross so long as that base lust of bitterness abides in thee unsubdued that which was a lust in the enjoyment of favours will turn a lust in the deprivation of them change thy case every day it will not ease thee thou art like a sick man that crys for drink but it doth not slocken him the cooling of his blood and purging of his distemper must do that therefore look on bitterness and fretfulness in your frame as a most absurd irrational thing Now as these Consideratious should perswade you to look on the excellency and advantage of waiting on God in opposition to making haste and to fretfulness severally So I shall shut up both with a general Word pressing waiting from the advantages that generally results from it and I can give you no better thing to command it than that of our Lord Isai 30.18 Blest are all they that
wait on him It is beyond all peradventure that a waiting people on God in difficult times are a blest people Their lot may seem accursed but their waiting on God proves that the curse is taken out of it Blest is the man and woman that wearies not that frets not under difficult lots Why because they are at their duty Thrice blest are they as I may if the Lord will handle in the progress that love their duty for it self with an eye to Divine approbation whatever may be the issue of it But I shall add three Evidences of Blessedness that attends waiting on God 1. A waiter on God is blest because by waiting he keeps more than trouble can take from him ye have a very Emphatick word for this Luke 21.19 In your patience possess ye your souls Sharp Tryals long continued may dispossess you of all other things liberty wealth reputation or whatever is dear to you but says he if ye continue patient ye shall have this blessing ye shall possess your selves an impatient man is a sort of mad-man he is not at himself he possesses not himself because that Time or Instruments in Time have done him a prejudice he will do himself a worse because they have taken this or that away from him he will cast a sweet frame and mind away after it and that is to do himself a worse turn than the world can do to him in so doing he casts more away than the World can take from him So on that account the waiter on God is blessed even on that because of the sweet frame he is keeped in Cast the waiter on God where you will still he will fall on his feet and on that account Blest are all they that wait on God But again 2. Blessed is the waiter on God upon the account that the through-bearing that attends waiting on God will attend him till he get a good issue O! to see the desperat shifts that impatient fretful thoughts will put folk to in difficulties they go like mad-men as the Word is Isai 51.20 They are like wild bulls in a net full of the fury of the Lord O! how do they dash themselves on snares and run themselves on Rocks to their ruine The foul slips of fretful bodies are many though they be dear to God that temper will bring them halting home But would ye see the Blessedness of the waiter on God read at your leisure Isai 40.29 He gives power to the faint and to them that have no might he increaseth strength He desires none of your furniture to serve him with in a waiting posture and in the by if ye think ye have much furniture he will empty you and ye must be in a fainting posture ere he give power and be having no might ere he increase strength and then even the youths Bahurim selected ones shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fail but they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint one would think yoke youths with the faint and them that have no might it were easie to determine who would carry the Prize But here the faint the feckless waiting on God carry it when the youths are laid by How many a great Spirit hath Tryals broken When thou art a weak feeble body and yet has keeped up thine heart and held on the way How many a gallant have got a dash when thou a crasy crauling creature are kept to the fore and made to renew thy strength through waiting on God And 3. Reverencing Providence that I have been detained on this Subject They are necessarly blessed who are waiters on God on the account of the out-gate The waiter on God shall have an out-gate from all his difficulties Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of the Patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender Mercy I dare assure you that Song abides waiters on God which ye have Isai 25.9 It shall be said in that day Lo this is our God and we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation It is not a God wrapped up in a Promise it is not a God covered with a cloud of whom the World said Where is their God Mic. 7.10 But lo there he is whom we waited for and the additional word is We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation It shall be seen and said then Blest are they that wait for the Lord Canst thou not then wait and watch for one hour when thou knowest not but in the hour that thou gives over he may come Therefore wait on the account of the blessed out-gate Psal 40.1 I waited patiently on the Lord and he inclined his ear unto me and heard my cry he brought me also out of a horrible pit and miry clay and set my foot on a rock and establisht my goings and he hath put a new song in my mouth even praise unto our God A new Song is the result of waiting on God Believers and the Church may hing their harps on the Willows and they may weep when they remember Zion and say How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange Land Psal 137. But a new Song in Gods good time shall be put in the mouths of all that are waiters on God And if I might insist to add a word further I would lead you to uncipher that Text I cited before Isai 8.9 Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you I shall not determine the scope of the place but the time comes when his waiting shall be seen to be gracious that waiters on him shall be convinced he took the fittest opportunity to manifest himself gracious and if such had come sooner there should no such Grace have been seen in it Flesh under difficulties thinks that he waits to be cruel but look again and thou will find he waits to be gracious and not only so but he will be exalted that he may have mercy on his on-waiters he will make it out that if he be an exalted God he will be a merciful God and so as his people that wait on him shall acknowledge him to be an exalted God in that and shall sing Who is a God like unto thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders And whereas thou may think there is little regard to be had to thy fighting pingling life in waiting on him he will make it out that he is a God of Judgment pondering their condition he hath to do with as Physitians consider the condition of their Patients and weigh their Doses conform and will not add a grain more than what is needful so will he deal with them that wait on him he will be seen to
there were no promising evidence of it but rather the contrary 2. Another is saints when stript and emptied of all things do not give over waiting on God because he is not only able if he will to do their turn when all refuge fails them but his owning his people in difficulties is a special part of his glory which he will not give to any other little do we understand the intricacies of Divine Providence little know we wherefore he blasts probabilities and defeats all the expectations of his people but whatever else be in it it is for this chiefly that Himself may be seen to be their Deliverer and none other Therefore he does with them as he did with Gideon's army when he brought them to three hundred and with these three hundred with Trumpets and lamps in pitchers defeat the Midianites Judges 7. That their Delivery might be seen of him And if this were well seen it would give the people of God a comfortable look of God's laying by all second Causes stripping them naked of all helps making Dispensations threaten ruine they would say our Masters feet are behind these this is but a dark hour before the dawning So doth David reason in that forecited Psalm 142.4 5. When he looked on the right and left hand and there was no man that would know him refuge failed him no man cared for his soul What follows I cryed unto thee O Lord I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living And Psal 94.18 When I said my foot slips thy mercy O Lord held me up When there was nothing betwixt him and ruine but Gods Mercy he found that a present help But 3. The Children of God when stripped of all things but God have ground to wait on God and do wait on him not only because he is able to deliver them and delights to lay by other things that he may be seen in their delivery but whereas guilt is a great impediment and stares the waiter on God in the face that he knows not how to expect good from God till that be removed and taken out of the way yet he waits on God on this account that there is hope in Israel concerning that thing that his guilt shall be no impediment to his delivery or any good thing he wants and is needful for him if he do with it as the Psalmist doth here verse 3 4. If he take with it be humbled for it lay claim to pardoning Mercy in the right method he may notwithstanding say I wait for the Lord There are two notable grounds of encouragement which as they would not be abused so being rightly improven are very useful to waiters on God One is that right taking with guilt and repentance for it after much incorrigibleness is attainable when we have called our selves for any thing we can see in our selves or expect from means reprobat silver yet the Lord can humble and tame that uncircumcised heart Jer. 32.19 He can turn Ephraim who has resisted many means and hath been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke Another is that which I am upon guilt taken with and acknowledged needs not hinder a man to wait on God These places that I cited the last day proves it as Isai 8.17 I will wait upon the Lord that hides his face from the house of Jacob and I will look for him Though he be a God that is provocked to withdraw and hide his face yet I will wait on him look for him And Micah 6.7 8. When the Church is low yet she will look to the Lord and will wait for him and wait for the God of his salvation believing her God will hear her and on that ground bids the enemy boast at leisure She answers that Objection concerning guilt that she will bear the indignation of the Lord because she hath sinned she will take with guilt and stoop to his correcting hand till he plead her cause and execute Judgment for her she looks over the mountain of her guilt when she hath taken with it and waits for the Lord. So ye see what is first imported in this waiting for God that the eyes of the waiting man must be taken off all things and set on God only and that these who would wait on God would lay their account to be more and more stript of all things till they be left on God and being so they have good ground to wait on God and the waiter on God taking with guilt and pleading for mercy may in that humble posture wait still for God I proceed to the second thing imported in this waiting on God and that is The waiting man left on God and seeing an all-sufficiency in God to do his turn in the faith of that he so waits for God That is to wait for the Lord when the confidence of Gods help encourages the waiting man in waiting on God to stick closs by the way of God that he will not have a comfort but in his way he will not have a delivery but that which comes with Divine approbation He will not purchase a Delivery of Out-gate with the price of the least sin Why he waits for God in his way Troubles and delays are a great temptation to shake off tenderness the pressure and continuance of the least of troubles are ill counsellors in a waiting posture they will bid run to the leest row to the best shore take any course for an out-gate But he who is a waiter on God indeed his tenderness grows as his trouble grows and as his delays are protracted he studies to be the more tender I shall not insist on this but 1. It is certain a waiter for God should be and in so far as he waits rightly on God he is and will be a tender man as the Word is Psal 37.34 Wait on the Lord and keep his way a waiter on God hath his Ears nailed to the Posts of Divine Direction so that neither to the right nor left hand dare he move but as he hath a warrand from God So Heb. 11.35 There were folks that were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection mark it they were not tortured because deliverance was not granted but because deliverance could not be accepted on sinful Terms when offered The greatness of their trouble did not diminish their tenderness whatever it did augment it if at any time they found tenderness necessary they found it especially when their trouble was great 2. Ye shall mark that as true waiting requires tenderness so tenderness is attainable that is through Grace it is attainable That a Saint waiting on God in his way in a tender frame may attain to go through difficulties without sinning against God It is true temptations to sin will go thick and threefold when a Saint is put to wait for God in continued troubles and meets with temptations delays difficulties and pressures which as I said
seasonable mixtures sweet reserves and exceptions in the lots of saints And as there are mixtures in their lots so in their frames wherein we will find confidence seasoned with deep humility as in Abraham Gen. 18.27 I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord who am but dust and ashes Gloriation seasoned with the sense of being nothing 2 Cor. 12.11 In nothing am I behind the very chiefest Apostles though I be nothing Nearness to God seasoned with a sight of their own pollution Isai 6.5 Wo is me I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips c. For mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts Job 42.5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhore my self in dust and ashes Thus ye see what a sweet mixture the frame and way of the saints is made up of when right and this in the Text is to be adverted That patience in our waiting be seasoned with affection lest our waiting turn to indifferency There are many pretend to be waiters but what wait they for Their heart is not affected with it Affection must still be keeped on foot and meek and patient must our waiting for God be Therefore look to it Let not folk deceive themselves in thinking that they have this patience and waiting that I have been speaking of when they have nothing but a coldrife indifferency stupidity loitering and lying by in that waiting What Mercies do folk want but they pretend to wait for them from God and yet their Conscience will bear them witness their heart was never affected with the want of them nor drawn forth after the enjoying of them they cannot say Their soul doth wait As upon the one hand true patience must temper the edge of right affection that it over-reach not or run it self out of breath So on the other hand it would be adverted that while patience is tempering affection affection be not feeding on the breasts of security carelesness indifferency stupidity that with these Virgines Mat. 25. While they are waiting for the coming of the Lord they do not fall asleep or slumbering that 's an abuse of patience in waiting when it is suffered to degenerat in stupidity and indifferency In a word that ye may know what is meant by the Saints soul-waiting for God I shall give it to you in what is represented in the people of God in the Captivity upon the one hand we find a Command is sent unto them Jer. 29.5 To build houses in Babylon and dwell in them to plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them take wives and beget sons and daughters that they might be increased and not diminished and to seek the good of the place whither they were carried captives and pray for the peace thereof that is that they should be as careful as they might without sin to make their captivity tollerable that was to wait for God when their cankered haste and fretfulness was done away And yet on the other hand compare that with Psal 137.1 By the rivers of Babel we sat down yea we wept when we remembred Sion we hanged our harps on the willows in the midst thereof when they required of us mirth we said how shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land if I forget thee O Jerusalem c. A soul-waiting affection is aloft in them although they made their distresses as tolerable as they might without sin and were warranded so to do yet they would not suffer their patience to degener in indifferency they would not suffer their affection to fall asleep and forget that which their Captivity had deprived them of and therefore the people of God in difficulties waiting for God they would still have somthing of that frame Lam. 1.7 Jerusalem remembred in the day of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old before the people fell into the hand of the enemy Wait for God there is good reason for it Be patient and meek Why not But O! in your waiting let it be seen that affection is aloft when thou art ready bitterly to resent God's depriving thee of mercies or detaining them from thee guard against that let bitterness be banisht but guard also against stupidity and senselesness that they come not in the room of it but let thy soul be waiting But I proceed to a 2d Observation from this Head and that is a general which I deferred to speak to when the last day I spoke to this waiting and it now comes in seasonably The Psalmist not only gives an account what he is doing but how he is doing Though he be delayed and mercies be keeped back yet he dare avow he is waiting for the Lord yea that his waiting for God is of the right stamp that his soul is waiting that in his waiting he keeps off both the extreams of passion and haste and of careless stupidity and indifferency The Observation then is that it is not only a commendable thing in Saints to be able to give an account of what they are doing especially in sad times but it is comfortable to themselves when they are able to give an account of what they are doing and that they are in the way of their duty it is so to the Psalmist here that he can say he waits and his soul waits for God This Point I shall speak to in these four because it is and will be your work if ye be serious 1. That work is our great business 2. That work acceptable to God in a low condition is attainable 3. That as it is attainable so a man may know he hath attained it 4. That it is comfortable to him when he knoweth it and dare avow that he is acceptably employed A little to these four as time will permit And first I say work and duty is our main business when our lots are saddest One would think it had been a more seasonable and a more near concerning Question for the Psalmist to be now looking what God is doing when he had been crying out of the deeps taking â—ith guilt pleading for pardon but he looks to what he himself is doing we would alway as I hinted before fain be at the Throne and have the guiding of the world or have God taking our advice what he should do in it and how much of folks time and spirit who are serious is taken up in scanning of providence but O! fix this that duty is ours event is Gods duty is our task and we should leave it to God to make of us and duty what pleases him yea more it is one of the great ends why sad times and lots passes over us that we may give a proof what we think of duty when it wants present success whether we will take duty for a reward to it self whether a man will bless God go the world as it will that he is
And Job 23.10 when he cannot get a sight of God on the right or left hand yet saith he He knows the way that I take when he trys me I shall come forth like gold c. What I would say from this is to leave a check at their door whom the dispensations of providence dings from all their confidence if God delay the Psalmist he will avow that he waits but so silly are we that there is nothing the storm blows against but we are ready to question it whereas if we see it be fair before the wind we question it not at all so silly spirits are we and so full of byasses O! lament this and know that duty is knowable and avowable in the saddest of dispensations for the Psalmist can say I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait And 4. As duty is attainable and knowable so it is very comfortable to a man to know it It 's good news to this tost Psalmist that he dare say I wait my soul doth wait it 's good news for the present Read often believe and improve that word Eccles 8.12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God because he feareth before God The very present reward the Eccho of a good Conscience is sweet and comfortable that the people of God can say Our hearts are not turned back nor our steps declined from thy way though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death Psal 44.18 O! How sweet an Eccho hath that in a mans bosome and a man that in a sad condition will not be made up in the testimony of a good Conscience it is righteousness with God to smite him with a rod dipped in his own guilt Look to it and make it your study to have this ground of comfort when others fail It 's good when a man can say I am sore broken yet my heart is not turned back I am in the deeps yet my soul waits I cannot win at him yet my feet have held his steps his way have I kept and not declined and as this is sweet and comfortable for the present so will it be found for the time to come when the waiter on God in duty shall be made to say and sing as it is Isa 25.9 Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation I shall say no more but when all costs are reckoned it shall be found that a doer of duty waiting for God shall be no loser but a great gainer and it shall never be grief of heart to him that he made it his work to wait on him in his way when others declined As I closed the last day with that word Blessed are all they that wait for him so do I this day whatever he do to them whatever delays or difficulties they meet with they shall find that it will be found a rich mercy to be found waiting for God and upon God in their duty keeping his way and not declining therefrom I say no more but the Lord bless his Word that ye have been hearing for Christs sake SERMON XXV Psalm 130. Verse 5. And in his Word do I hope I Told you that as the two former Verses speak to one of the excellent Priviledges of the godly man to wit the remission of sins So the 5 and 6. speak to a most necessary though a most difficult task of the godly man to wait for God that godly men give a proof of their subjection to him and faith in him by their waiting for him notwithstanding they meet with so many delays and disappointments Somewhat hath been spoken to three principal Heads of Doctrine in these Verses 1. The Psalmists exercise he is a waiting man he is put to wait and he doth wait where ye heard that if God delay the Saints and put them to wait it is their duty to wait not only not to be hasty but if they hing on they would look their waiting be not poisoned with freâ—fulness passion and bitterness but seasoned and adorned with meekness and patience I spoke 2. to the object of his exercise I wait for the Lord where ye heard that the eyes of the waiâ—ing man must be taken off all things and set on God not only when all second causes forsake him but when these things that seemed to promise relief seem to be against him he must notwithstanding wait on God and keep his way and have all his expectation in God or God himself must be his expectation and he will be no loser by this if God himself be his great expectation he will easily make up the want of all other things In the third place I spoke to his affection in waiting my soul doth wait where beside that general that we should be able to give an account what we are doing in difficulties when we are exercised with delays Ye heard that true waiting lyes in the midst betwixt bitterness passion haste fretfulness on the one hand and stupidity and indifferency on the other hand The right waiter for God as he is not fretful and passionat so neither is he sleeping and careless he so waits as his soul doth wait his affections are aloft prizing and looking out for these things he is waiting for Now in the 4. place I proceed to consider his support in waiting What made him thus wait affectionatly confidently and patiently He Answers and in his word do I hope He hoped in the word of God and therefore he waits for God It 's not to great purpose to trouble you here with an exact distinction betwixt Faith and Hope Faith looks to the promise and gives a present subsistence to the thing promised as the word is Heb. 11.1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Hope looks to the performance of the good things promised Faith closes with the promise as true and is comforted in that which is contained in it Hope looks out till God come and make out what Faith sees and closes with in the word of promise In this place Faith and Hope may be taken promiscuously or indifferently in his word do I hope that is I wait till God make out to me that he hath promised in his Word or take it a little more distinctly in his word do I hope It will import that having closed by Faith with the good things in the word of promise he looks out for the accomplishment of them so that he hath not only Faith bene believing and closing with the Word but he hath hope looking out till God make his Word good to him I might here take notice of this that waiting on God though a man had no other evidence is ground of hope when a man is in a difficulty and sore put at and
that would live by Faith he must not say in his heart Who shall ascend into heaven to bring down Christ or an issue from above or who shall descend into the deep to bring up a Christ or an issue from the dead But the word is near thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart The Word of Faith the Word in the Gospel which we preach This Point because there are several things in it of special concernment for us I shall deduce and branch out to you in four Heads 1. That really needy Saints who are put to live by Faith ought to be and will be much conversant with the Word that they may know what is for them and suitable to their case there 2. That as really needy Saints will be much conversant with the Word so they will judge of things according to the Verdict of the Word 3. That to fix them in that Resolution to judge of things according to the Word they must fix this Principle That the Word is of Divine Authority 4. That having fixt this That the Word is of Divine Authority the Believer must send out his Faith to believe and his hope to look for all that he finds in so Divine and sure a Word For the first of these I say That really needy Saints who are put to live by Faith ought to be and will be much conversant in the Word that they may know what is for them there and suitable to their case This is clearly imported in the Text while he saith I hope in thy Word He must know what is in the Word to lean his Faith and Hope upon for except he know he cannot lean his Faith and Confidence on it Hence David a great liver by Faith was much conversant with the Scriptures they were his meditation his meat his delight the men of his counsels his guides as ye may read at length what his esteem of the Scriptures was in that 119 Psalm And this being so it will infer not only that really needy saints should attend upon the Word preached but more especially that they should and will be much at the privat serious reading of meditation on and perusal of the Scriptures a duty that in the first place I would prove to be a duty And 2dly press it on you 1. I say it is needful to prove that it is a duty that the Scriptures be read by all in opposition to that cursed Popish principle that will not allow any laick or privat person without a peculiar licence to read the Scriptures whereby they turn that in a priviledge and confer on some only which God hath imposed as a duty on all yea further so Tyrannical are they in this that though they permit some to read the vulgar Latin or Translations according to it as they have turned it in English where Protestants are lest if they shuld hinder them in the use of that they should read other Translations without their liberty yet in other places as Spain and Italy they are sparing of these Licenses This is a damnable error not only contrair to the way of the ancient Church wherein they glory so much wherin privat persons were so well acquaint with the Word that they would make it the subject of their discourse while they were about their ordinary callings but is clearly repugnant to Scripture and principles deduced therefrom both in the Old and New Testament I shall not insist on controversial things but lay down first some instances from Scripture to which I shall add some Scripture arguments for clearing that Truth For Scripture instances look to the Old Testament it is marked Acts 15.21 That in old time Moses had in every City them that preached him being read in the synagogues every sabbath day and not the Books of Moses only but the Prophets And therefore our Lord in his solemn Sermon Luke 4.17 Read out of the Prophecy of Isaiah that Book being delivered to him Beside publick reading of the Scriptures we find privat reading enjoyned Deut. 17.18 The King was to have a Copy of the Law in a Book out of that which was before the Priests and Levits to be with him and he was to read therein all the days of his life Josh 1.8 The Commander of the people was not to let the book of the Law depart out of his mouth but to meditat therein day and night It was also to be read by mean persons for Deut. 6.6 These words commanded to the Jews they were to teach them diligently to their children to talk of them when they sat in their houses when they did walk by the way when they did ly down and when they rose up and this they could not do in all the ages of their Church unless they read the Books of Moses when Moses was gone We find that Eunuch in returning from Jerusalem in his journey reading the Scripture Act. 8.30 We find Timothy from a child instructed in the Scriptures 2 Tim. 3.15 drinking it in with his milk and in a word Psal 1.2 We find the blest man in those days and in all ages of the Church to be that man who hath his delight in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth meditate day and night If again we turn to the New Testament we find that Christ commands the Jews to search the Scriptures Joh. 5.39 We find the Bereans commended for comparing Christ Apostles Sermons with the Scripture searching the Scriptures whether these things were so Act. 17.11 We find it required That the word of Christ a well in us richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another Col. 3.16 which necessarily requires frequent reading of the Scriptures we find the Apostle supposing the Corinthians read them 2 Cor. 1.13 We wrote none other things to you than that you read and acknowledge and Eph. 3.4 Whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge We find him commanding it Col. 4.16 When this Epistle is read amongst you cause also that it be read in the Church of the Laodiceans and that ye likewise read the Epistle from Laodicea 1 Thes 4.27 He charges them by the Lord that that epistle be read unto all the holy brethren and if the Apostle John Rev. 1.3 pronounces them blest who reads the words of that prophesie which is a dark obstruse Book It is not the purpose of the Spirit of God that other plain Scriptures should be shut up from people But 2. Unto these Scripture instances we shall add a few Scripture Arguments as 1. For what end were the Scriptures plainly and legibly written and at first in a known language if not to be made use of and read when the Vision is written and made plain upon Tables Habakkuk tells the end of that is That he may run that readeth it 2. If the Prophets Christ and his Apostles did not spare to preach their Doctrine in the audience of all it cannot be rationally thought but that we may
the Scriptures without the Testimony of the Church as well as they But I shall add 3dly If any should ask who gave them that warrand to determine concerning the Authority of the Scriptures If they should say to a Pagan that is the Word of God I say it and I have authority to declare it If the Pagan should say where is your evidence that ye have that authority if they cannot adduce any may not he justly alledge that they bear Witness of themselves All the evidence they afford to any is that the Church of Rome is infallible and when they are put to that they adduce these passages Mat. 16.18 Thou art Peter c. Luke 22.32 Joh. 21.15 well say I have these Testimonies Divine Authority to perswade men concerning the infallibility of the Church of Rome and must men believe that antecedently to their receiving their testimony concerning the Scriptures If so then not only themselves who testify but others who are to receive their testimony must be perswaded of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures antecedently to that testimony In a word when they would prove their Authority they run to the Scriptures and in proving the Authority of the Scriptures they recurr to their own testimony and so run in a circle I might add a 4th thing to discuss their Authority from their own principles for the clearing of which I shall hint at three words I hope they will grant that they who testify concerning the Divine Authority of the Scriptures must be Christians not Pagans Church-Officers not Laicks Now by their principles how can they satisfie the Christian world that their Pope is not an un-baptized Pagan or a meer privat person I shall not found my doubt upon Pope Leo the Tenth his Creed that said The Fable concerning Christ had been a gainful Fable but upon their making the real administration of the Sacraments to depend upon the real intention of the Priest that administrats them And so I reason it is impossible morally to know that the present Pope is a baptized Christian or a Church officer in regard we cannot know what were the intentions of him that baptized or ordained â—im and what a blind is it to cause the authority of the Scriptures depend upon such an uncertainty 2. Consider again their sin of Simony we find their Histories full especially in these dark times some while bâ—fore the Reformation of their Symoniacal Popes who by budds and bribes and one by faigning a Voice from Heaven to out his Predecessor did advance themselves into the Chaiâ— Now by their own Cannon Law Symony makes void the Election and nullifies all the Acts following thereon Now suppose a Pope get into the Châ—ir by Symoâ—y and â—â—eats Cardinals who elect his successor their Act his Election are null and it is impossible they can be capable of any Ecclesiastical Act particularly for testifying concerning the authority of the Scriptures 3. I would know how the Christian world should know the Popes declaring concerning the authority of the Scriptures since very few have access to him except we take the Testimony of humane Writings or some wandring Priest with his Papal Bulls and Lead affixt to them Shall we give credit to these Bulls carried by his Priests because they have the ordinar Characters of Papal Bulls and shall â—e not for all the Divine Characters that are found in the Scriptures creâ—â—t them to be the Word of God From all which ye would learn to look upon the Romish Religion as a Religion wherein ye have no ground of certainâ—y to go on and so that there is no Faith in the Romish Religion but that which is ultimatly a humane Faith for if they give us Scripture how know 〈◊〉 that it is Scripture They tell us their Church says so 〈◊〉 know we the certainty of the Churches Testimony 〈◊〉 Pope says so and for that we have but the testimony of his humane Writings and of his Priests Bulls and suppose we should go to Rome we should not get easie access to him and though we should get access to him we know not what he is whether a baptized Christian or an unbaptized Pagan and the Priest that baptized him had not the due intention so that ultimatly all the Faith in the Romish Religion result into an humane report but if the Lord will I shall in the afternoon let you see other evidences of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures that we shall not need to go to Rome for their Testimony Take the Bible seek that Spirit that dictated the Bible look on the Scripture as a true History look oâ— it with that credit ye look on Titus Livius Quintus Curtius Buchannan or any other humane writing and they will prove their own Divinity This I say if the Lord will I shall follow forth more distinctly in the afternoon and therefore I leave it and speak a word to profane Cavillers at the Scriptures authority There is a word Christ hath in assorting the Divine Authority of Hâ— Doctrine which ye would notice Job 7.10 My doctrine is not mine but his that sent me if any man will do his will be shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self The meaning whereof is not that folks must first obey ere they know the Divinity of his Doctrine nor is it that the Word needs the charity of well disposed persons but this is it that he must be in a good frame that would take up the Divine Authority of the Word I mark it for this end because there are so many Atheists Anti-scripturists mockers of Scripture denyers of the Being of Spirits immortality of the Soul and of Rewards and Punishments after this Life and it is to little or no purpose to discourse to them of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures It is with them as with that man who said non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris although thou convince me thou shalt not perswade me they have done with their part of happiness if the Scriptures be of Divine Authority and therefore they will not be perswaded that it is so for these I shall leave them to these two words one is Psal 9.16 The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth They that will not see God in his Bible shall see and find him in the execution of his Judgments upon them The other word is Zech. 1. when verse 4. he has spoken of their Fathers who when they were bidden turn would not hear nor hearken he says verse 6. But my words and my statutes did they not take hold of your fathers and they returned and said as the Lord of Hosts thought to do unto us according to our ways and according to our doings so hath he dealt with us I leave these malitious and desperat men who are hardned in their impiety to have the Scripture verified on them but a man that does the will of God that walks humbly
used by the Papists against us concerning the Spirits testimony it is not by way of Enthusiasme or any new Revelation but by way of gift from God opening our eyes to discern the wonders of his Law and so it is not required to prove the Scriptures to be Divine but to assure us they are Divine because there be some to whom the Gospel is hid not that a saving work of the Spirit is requisite to take up these evidences of the Divinity of the Scriptures for a temporary may taste of the good Word of God and yet fall away Heb. 6. But a common illumination of the Spirit is necessary to take up these evidences the Scripture gives of its Divinity Now I have been long upon this Head which is Doctrinal and though it be so it shall not be in vain if it be a mean to fix your Faith and Hope in this Principle that the Scriptures are the Word of God and of Divine Authority The Scriptures are the Word of Truth by which we are begotten Jam. 1.18 His Law is the truth Psal 119.142 The Scriptures are a more sure word of prophesie whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place 2 Pet. 1.19 When David is comforting himself against the rising of enemies like the mighty Waters and Waves of the Sea he says Thy testimonies are very sure Psal 93.5 And then they are a tryed word Psal 12.6 The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times Ye would reduce these things to your practice and seek to have the Word of God to be found that which it is called in your experience But that which I intended to have insisted upon is to leave a sad check upon the generality of you that see so little of God in your Bible Something hath been said to hold forth the Divine Authority of the Scriptures but I confess it 's but a spilt commendation that hath been given this word yea it fears me more hath been said than even ye that have Bibles discern O will ye consider how men of old have experienced the Divinity of this word and have found it to be of God and have fallen down and confessed worshipping God saying God is in you of a truth 1 Cor. 14.25 All the fores that Christianity now hath do not contribute to make the Word so successful as it hath been in times of persecution wherefore it is so soon passed from by many in times of trial because the Divine Authority thereof is not stamped on hearts and God is not made use of and imployed to write it upon the heart Let this be looked upon partly as the practical use of what ye have heard partly to excite you to bless God ye have this Word Ye are not behind so long as ye have your Bibles though ye were straitned in many other things and partly to humble you that ye may blush and be ashamed that the Divine vertue and efficacy that wont to accompany the Scriptures is so little found in this generation and upon your hearts SERMON XXIX Psalm 130. Verse 5. And in his Word do I hope WAiting for God being the great and trying task of of the godly man as ye have heard who afterhend his wrestling with the deeps of difficulties and with insupportable pressures of guilt must learn also by patient waiting for God to wrestle with delays to the answers of Prayer or the longed for outgate prayed for whether as to issue or comfort These that are put to this trying task and seriously engaged in it had need to be well supported that they may bide it out till they meet with the end of the Lord. This is it which I am now upon in these words wherein the Psalmist after that he hath profesâ— he is waiting waiting for the Lord that his soul doth wait he adds in the next place an account of his support in waiting that therefore he waited because he hoped in the Word of God I wait c. I have spoken already to the first general Doctrine in these words that patient waiting on God cannot be gotten cherisht without the exercise of Faith and Hope no man can say I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait but he that can say he hopes and trusts in God I wait saith he because I hope I have also near put a close to what I would say from the second general Obervation to wit that this Faith and Hope that supports the patient waiter for God that sends the believer and carries him thorow in waiting for God till the outgate come must take the Word for its ground and measure I wait because I hope and hope because I have the Word of God for the ground of my hope Ye may remember that from this I have spoken to these three which I wish may not evanish with the Preaching 1. That really needy Saints put to wait for God and in waiting for him put to live by Faith and Hope will be much conversant with the Word of God they must learn to be acquaint with the Scriptures to know what is there for their direction or encouragement or both 2. That these who would wait for God in the way of believing and hoping must learn to judge of things according to the Word and be determined by the Word that it may be the ground of Faith and beget Hope otherwise it will be to little purpose for a man to be acquaint with the Scriptures from end to end if he improve it not but starve beside his allowance And 3. For this end such as are put to wait for God and to have their encouragement from the Word that they may lean weight upon it they would be fixed in this Principle that the Word of God is of Divine Authority and infallible certainty they would believe and hope in in it as Gods Word In his Word do I hope And as the day before I pressed upon you thâ— use of your Bibles that ye might be better acquainted with them and with the grounds of your Faith and Hope therein contained so the last day I insisted long to give you a right impression of the Bible that it is the Word of God and of Divine Authority the Historical verity whereof being granted which cannot rationally be denyed the Scriptures will prove themselves to be of Divine Authority and I would now intreat you to study these two Sermons well that ye may have the Divine Authority of the Scriptures fixt upon your hearts that ye may lay weight on them feed on them and converse with them with more delight And then what shall I say for the need of proofs for the Divine Authority of the Scriptures when the efficacy of it upon your hearts shall be a proof thereof as the effects and success of it of old is a standing Witness that it is not the word of man but the Word of
of Promise In the next place I shall speak somewhat to hoping in his word The term in the Text is In his word do I hope as Faith gives subsistence to things promised and doth not suspend all benefit and use of the Promises until they be performed So hope looks out for the actual accomplishment and performance of the Promises A Saint believing the Word and feeding on that which Faith gives a subsistence to in the word he looks out by hope for the accomplishment of that which it finds to subsist in the word I shall deduce this as briefly as I can and leave this Note and the Verse in these two 1. Remember that true Believers wealth lyes in hope or things before their hand They have no existence but in the word of promise The first or at least a very conspicuous mark of an adopted Child of God is that he is put to his Hopes to his Too-looks and to live that way he that 1 Joh. 3.2 can say I am a son of God and it doth not appear what I shall be but when he appears I shall be like him for I shall see him as he is Must add in the 3. verse He that hath this hope in him must purifie himself c. He that according to Gods abundant mercy is begotten again is begotten unto a lively hope His Regeneration breaths out Hope because his happiness is before his hand 1 Pet. 1.3 And beside his too-looks to issues here that he holds by hope his great too-look is his Hope which is laid up for him in Heaven Col. 1.5 and in that forecited place 1 Pet. 1.3 He that is begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead it is to the hope of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved for him in Heaven his great hope is the hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began Tit. 1.2 His hope is a hope set before him Heb. 6.18 Now a Believers wealth lies in things before his hand or the Saints portion lies in their hopes and too-looks because God is reserving their happiness for the fittest place and season he will have them brought where their happiness is before he give them the wealth he hath promised because neither could they be capable of it nor guide it here and while he suspends their Hope he does them good by holding them waiting looking out and pursuing for these things promised a pursuers life being the best life 2. As the great portion of the Saints is before their hand so their great work lyes in the exercise of Hope It is not enough for a saint to be begotten again to a lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fades not away reserved for him in heaven but he must be putting out his Hope to feed upon it to look and long for it If ye consider Negatively what a saint is without hope in reference to temporal issues David will tell you in that Psal 27.13 I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living if my hope had failed me I had been undone and in reference to Eternity Paul tells us 1 Cor. 15.19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men the most miserable which may be understood both of things hoped for of the Grace of Hope looking for them and hence Heb. 6.19 Hope is called the anchor of the soul sure and stedfast entring into that within the vail to assure us that if hope be not exercised storms will drive a tossed soul and make it run the hazard of shipwrack but hope the souls anchor cast upon good ground drives not and preserves the soul from ruine Hence also Eph. 6.17 Hope is called the helmet of salvation because it is that which keeps off many a deadly stroke off a saint The head being the seat of the senses especially of the judgment and memory If a man keep his head and a bit about his heart well there is the less hazard of wounds in other places of his body that they prove deadly Now Hope is an Helmet to keep the head And as considering Negatively what a saint is without hope we will find great need of the exercise of hope So look on it positively hope exercised and kept at work brings in many noble advantages to the soul as I said of the man that is a Believer so may I say of him that is a hoper indeed O what a made up man is he he may say I will wait because I hope in his word he is a great gainer by Tribulation and may glory in it when tribulation works patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope makes not ashamed Rom. 5.3 Ye have it recommended Rom. 12.12 To rejoyce in hope and that will produce patience in tribulation and continuing instant in Prayer hope exercised makes patience and prayer to thrive well and a man to go on in his way not heartlesly but rejoycing And Heb. 3.6 We are bidden hold fast our confidence and the rejoycing of hope firm unto the end what shall I say of them Heb. 10.34 who not only sympathised with others in affliction but took joyfully the spoiling of their goods Why knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance they had the hope of a better Treasure From all that hath been said on this let me exhort you who have been put and may yet more be put to it To wait for God to study to be better acquaint with your Bibles to believe the divine Authority of the Scriptures and on that account to put forth your Faith and Hope to exercise upon the Scriptures that ye may feed on the Promises by Faith and rejoyce in hope of the accomplishment of them that will make you patient in tribulation and to continue instant in prayer And for a close of all that hath been said to you on this matter would ye know what ye are doing in this exercise of Hope in your waiting for God or the good things be hath promised or what Characters ye have of it I shall only desire you to look to these three 1. Look to Hopes langour if ye be waiting for God and if your waiting be an affectionat waiting if your soul be waiting and looking out in hope to that great and ultimat hope of Believers try what languor is in thy affection for the marriage day What languor thou hast to see how the Crown and the Robe will set thee to see God as he is to see God incarnat in thy own nature to see the Lamb and to follow him wherever he goes and to be made like him Try what there is of warmness of affection longing without fretfulness haste or passion upon the one hand and careless indifferency and stupidity upon the other that is a good
sign of a lively hope when thy affection is keeped warm in waiting for the things promised Art thou saved by hope then with the whole Creation thou wilt be groaning waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of thy body Rom. 8.23 Thou wilt be looking for and hastning unto the coming of the day of the Lord 2 Pet. 3 13. And 2 Thou that would look to thy Hope and have it of the right stamp see what purging vertue is in it look if thy languor resolves in thy study of the increase of Sanctification that thou mayest be ripened and fitted for the issue that thou art looking out for 1 Joh. 3.3 He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure And 2 Pet. 3.11 â—eing all these things shall he dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and basting unto c. Tit. 2.13 The grace of God that brings salvation teacheth us that denying ungodliness and wordly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour And Phil. 3.20 Our conversation is in heaven from whence also we look for a Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body c. There is a Character of a lively hope a Touchstone of true languor when thy hope bids thee haste to ripen fast for that thou hopest for that thou may be like Enoch walking with God and who was not for God took him Gen. 5.24 That thy grace may be increased till grace take needfire in glory And 3. Thou that would look to thy hope see what mortification is in thy hope what thou can submit to want and be weaned from upon the account of thy hope that hath been the practice of Saints in reference to out-gates hereaway To study mortification see it in David while enemies sought his life and laid snares for him spoke mischievous things and imagined devices all the day long he was as a deaf man that heard not and as a dumb man that opened not his mouth to all the injuries done or devised against him Why In the Lord did he hope and believed that he would hear him Psal 38.12 And in reference to a mans everlasting happiness this also would be his study 1 Pet. 1. compare the 3 4 and 5. Verses with the 6. Ye are begotten again unto a lively hope to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled that fades not away reserved in the heaven for you who are keeped through the power of God to salvation through faith ready to be revealed in the last time wherein ye greatly rejoyce though now for a season if need be ye are in heaviness through manifold tentations In a word ye that are hopers in God look well to these three what warmness of affection and languor is in your hope for the things promised look what endeavours are to be prepared and fitted for them and what mortification to the things in time upon the account of the great happiness ye expect when time is gone and your hopes shall be fulfilled and made out to you SERMON XXX Psalm 130.6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning I Have now as ye have heard gone through several Heads upon this Branch of the Psalmists wrestling and grapling with delays of comfort or an out-gate even when he is crying to God under trouble and making a right use of discovered sin and its ill deserving wherein somewhat hath been spoken to these four 1. His exercise He is waiting 2. The Object of this his exercise He waits for the Lord. 3. His affection in this exercise his soul is waiting 4. His support in this exercise he waits for the Lord his soul doth wait because he hopes in his word I shall not repeat what hath been spoken to these I come now to the 5. and last Head of this wrestling contained in the sixth Verse wherein he gives an account of the measure of his affection in waiting He hath said in the preceeding Verse my soul waits for the Lord and now it does not suffice him to repeat that but will tell what measure of affection he had in that waiting and he sets it out in comparison of them that watch for the morning and says that his soul waited more instantly and affectionatly for God than they did for the morning light Who these are that watch for the morning it is not very necessar to determine It was the lot of Shepherds see Luke 2.8 They watched all night over their flocks and Jacob Gen. 31.40 Tells us That in keeping Labans flocks the drought consumed him by day and the frost by night and his sleep departed from his eyes and these shepherds especially when they had cold and stormy nights would think long for the break of day the light whereof would be comfortable to them and refresh them again there were Travellers in those desarts that bordered on the Land of Canaan who wanted the accommodations of Inns by the way who were forced to lodge abroad in the fields and these considering the uncomfortableness of the dark night especially if stormy and the hazard they were in by Arabian Thieves and Robbers they would long for the day light And besides these in Wars they had their Centinels and Perdeus for watching and those of them especially whom they set nearest the Enemy lying nearest the hazard in the dark night and being there alone especially if the Season was stormy How instantly and eagerly would they long for the morning light that they might be relieved whether the allusion be to one or all of these or to somewhat else we shall not determine The Psalmist fears not to assert his Soul in waiting for God is more earnest and ardent than any of these my soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning And lest any should think he had over-reached in so saying he will repeat it I say more c. The substance of this Verse having occurred before on these words in the preceeding Verse My soul doth wait where ye heard of the Psalmists affection in waiting for God and how necessary and comfortable it is when the Saints are right to be able to reflect and to give an account of what they are doing in trouble therefore I shal pass it with a few short Notes partly from what is alluded to here partly from the Psalmists assertion of himself 1. As to what is alluded to here of these that wanted the nights rest or being in hazard were put to look greedily out and long for the morning light I shall give you what I would gather from it in these three 1. Ye may here read the hard and bitter toil with which many of the sons of men are exercised in time so that in the
would be at or expect And I shall add that as waiting for God would be with much affection with affection suitable to his excellency so it would be suitable to thy need of him and these things thou waits for from him Thou sayest God is thy excellency Jerusalem is thy chief joy the joy of the Lord is thy strength but is thy affections suitable to thy need of him and his consolations when if thy comfort be suspended if thou can win at comfort in any other thing thou waits not for him and his consolation 3ly I shall add that when affection is indeed aloft for God there is no hazard no want of accommodation that would pinch men so sore as the want of God will pinch a man that is set to enjoy God The Psalmist whose affection is aloft he waits more for God than they that watch for the morning I shall not dip upon this it is a mercy not to get leave to sleep till folk be out of an ill condition when folks get no rest to the soles of their feet out of God And I wish them who want him more disquietness nor many loiterers have till they get to their feet and seek for their Husband and find him and I wish them no ill while I pray for this to them And I shall add raised affection for God Who knows what a prognostick it might be of a sweet and comfortable out-gate and that such a souls song should be with the Psalmist here Let Israel hope c. Affectionat waiting for God getting to the feet to run after him O! What a cloud might that be like an hand-breadth at first that will cover the Sky and at length bring abundance of rain But want of affection leaves folk in a woful condition to rot to dead And I shall add if affection should be put out thus for God and if want of God to an affectionat waiter be a distress that pinsheth him above any hazard they are in who are put to wait for the morning Then certainly the enjoyment of God according to the measure that a man doth enjoy him should make him drink and forget his misery and remember his poverty no more And the man that enjoys God Though the fig-tree do not blossom and though there be no fruit in the vine and the labour of the olive fail no meat in the fields no flock in the folds no herd in the stall Hab. 3.17 Though the earth be removed and the mountains carried into the midst of the sea c. Psal 46.2 He will be as far above the men of the world in their enjoyments as his affection while he wanted God was above their resentments I shall go no further God bless his word unto you SERMON XXXI Psalm 130. Verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption Verse 8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities YE may remember in the first six verses of this Psalm we have the Psalmists wrestling which as we shewed you before hath three Branches He hath been wrestling with difficulties and plunging perplexities in his case which are represented under the notion of depths in the first and second Verse he hath been wrestling with the Conscience and sense of Guilt putting back his Prayers and offering to crush his hopes and so interposing to obstruct his success and access verse 3 4. and in the 5 and 6. he hath been wrestling with delays either of comfort or an out-gate or both and notwithstanding of all his hard exercise in crying to God by Prayer in his trouble and perplexity in taking with the dreadful desert of guilt and claiming to pardoning mercy and forgiveness he doth therewith wrestle by patience and hope He waited on God and that affectionatly and his patience in waiting was supported by hope in God grounded on the Word of God Now in these two verses read ye have the second part of the Psalm containing the Psalmists delivery or victory His delivery or victory is not expresly asserted but it is very sweetly implyed in his improvement of the exercise he hath been under and holding forth the good he hath gotten when it is well with him the issue he hath gotten he doth not conceal it nor only speak it out but he improves and layes it out for the good of God's Israel when he hath got a sweet sight of the good of waiting and hoping in God he conveens them all as it were to come and write after his Copy and encourages them to hope in God upon the account of mercy and pardon and plenteous redemption and redeeming Israel from all his iniquities So the words contain first an Exhortation to Israel in the beginning of the 7. verse Let Israel hope c. 2. They contain motives and encouragements pressing the exhortation by way of arguments that this counsel should be hearkned unto and these motives or encouragements are taken partly in the first place from what is in God In the end of the 7. verse Let Israel hope c. for with the Lord there is mercy c. There is mercy and power and authority in God to bring redemption to his people from all their sins and miseries And the 2. Argument is taken from this that God will let out that mercy and redemption that is in him for the good of his people Not only is there mercy and power with God if he please to let it out to redeem but it is expresly asserted that he will redeem his people verse 8. He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities a promise which howsoever it be made out to Israel in all ages yet it is signally to be erified to the Jews in their Conversion in the latter days for the Apostle Rom. 11.26 adduces this promise out of Isai 59.20 As it is written there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob That is that shall redeem Israel as was hinted from all his iniquities To return to the Exhortation Let Israel hope in the Lord I have been would he say assaying to hope in the Lord and have found the good of it for when I was waiting for God I was supported by hope in his Word and now I have gotten so good an account of my hope that I dare recommend it from mine own experience to all and I have such a kindness to Israel that any experience I have gotten by waiting for God and hoping in his Word I will not hoord it up I will be no hookster of it but recommend it to them as a common-good Therefore let Israel hope in the Lord. That I may get somewhat digged out of the Treasure here I shall reduce the grounds of Observations to be gathered from this Exhortation to four general Heads 1. I shall touch upon what is implyed and held out in the general scope of these words 2. I shall speak to the
Duty recommended and that is Hope in the Lord. 3. I shall remark somewhat on the Recommender of this duty it is the Psalmist who had been trying Hope and had found the good of it 4. I shall add somewhat by way of reflection on these to whom this Duty is recommended Let Israel hope it is the Israel of God among whom as the word is Ezra 10.2 there is hope concerning cases and lots otherwayes hopeless and desperat 1. For what is implyed and is the general scope of this Exhortation I shall the Lord willing deduce these two from it 1. That the Psalmist is here delivered and is a victor or hath goten some good account of his former wrestling waiting for God and hoping in his word 2. That the good account he hath gotten he communicats his experience of it to the People of God 1. I say it is clear here that if the Psalmist has not been actually delivered from all his pressures yet he hath gotten so comfortable an account of his hoping in God that he dare from his experience recommend it to others to hope in him he bears witness of the great good to be reaped by hoping in God The Observation then is That there will be a blest account of all the exercises of the Saints and particularly of their waiting for God and hoping in his Word The Psalmist essayed it here and is able to give a good account of it This Point imports in the first place That real needy Saints have many errands to God they are never out of his mister and holden going to him which is a very enriching Trade though it be not always pleasing and satisfying to their flesh 2. It supposes this that as they have much ado with God so they are very earnest till they get a good account of what ever it be they are waiting for from him they are not such as can cry out of the depths and be indifferent whether they get a hearing fall asleep or turn stupid but their pressures ly so sore upon them that they cannot be laid by and worn out with time but they must have access and a good account of their suits And 3. As the point supposes these two so it proposeth that there will be a good account gotten of all their exercises and particularly of their waiting for God and hoping in his Word their exercises are not lost labour The Lord bids them open their mouth wide and he will fill it Psal 81.10 When he bids his people seek him he can appeal to malice it self to instruct if ever he bade them seek him in vain Isai 45.19 If he put poor Job to exercise patience he will make the world see the end of the Lord that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy Jam. 5.11 He hath made it out in the manifold experience of all his Saints that that song Psal 5.8 ult Was and is still abiding them verily there is a reward for the righteous a God that judges in the earth I might prove it further from the whole Book of Psalms wherein what ever sad exercise the Psalmist has been put unto in the beginning or progress of these Psalms for the most part they all close comfortably with some sweet word intimating an issue and victory And whereas ye find Heman Psal 88. Closing sadly yet ye will find him 1 Kings 4.30 Put in among these great wits and understanding persons in his time But leaving all these I shall give you these three words of Confirmation of this Observation And 1. I say they are all living that died in waiting on God and hoping in his word I dare not say that they were not affrighted or that they were not humbled but they are living that died in that way of waiting on him Gather all Believers together that have been from the beginning of the world ye will not find among them all a Saint that has perished in this attempt in waiting for God by Faith and Hope 2. Though the saints have been affrighted and humbled yet many a blest disappointment have exercised saints met with and will meet with of their fears and perplexing thoughts It is no strange thing to hear the waiting man say I am cut off and yet meeting with a blest beguile Ps 31.22 I said I am cut off from before thine eyes nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication c. The answer of my prayers gave sense and suggestion the lie Nay it is no wonder that flesh tempted tempt the waiting man to say all men are liars So says the Psalmist Psal 116.11 But see and hear him verse 12. What shal I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me Behold a man casting the Bible and all the Promises at the one bout and at the next nonpluss'd with a burden of benefits and mercies 3. I shall say this that though exercised saints and waiters on God have essayed and may essay many means in vain as to any present success yet that proves not their case to be hopeless The Bride Cant. 3.1 2 3. Seeks her beloved on the bed in the streets and broad-ways and at the watch-men in all the means and finds him not yet when she went a little further she found him Though the waiter for God hath assayed all the means without sensible success he is not to tine hope for all that but to essay them again we may find that in the second essay which we found not in the first For Use If it be so then that there will be a blest account of all the exercises of Saints and particularly of their waiting for God I would enquire who they are among you 1. Who have any thing of this account to bring forth to God's commendation There may be a woful generation taking up that desperat Note that ye have Mal. 3.14 15. Who say it is in vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances and that we have walked mournfully c. And like these Isai 58.3 Who say Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not and wherefore have we afflicted our soul c. But hast thou any thing to say for God to refute that Can thou say It is good for me to draw near to God to wait upon him I have not sought him in vain let the song fall on whose side it will it shall not fall on my side I will keep it up to his commendation I will sing and say that his Name endures for ever I was brought low and he helped me I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears Psal 34.4 6. Blessed are they who have so good a report to bring upon God who can bear witness for him to shew that the Lord is upright He is their Rock and there is no unrighteousness in him Psal 92.15 But 2. Thou that hast not found this thou art waiting on God in the use of the means but
to neglect it If ye speak of Faith for personal reconciliation and the influence it hath on Duty 1 Joh. 3.23 This is the commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ if ye respect Faith as it is exercised about the various lots and times that pass over Gods people it is a commanded duty at all times Psal 62.8 Trust in him at all times there is no time wherein ye are dispensed with not to trust in him yea even these times wherein ye will need God for a refuge and if I might insist I would let you see how Faith is a commanded duty in the most desperat conditions and lots Ps 46.1 2 3. God is our refuge a very present help in time of trouble Therefore we will not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains he carried into the midst of the sea c. The Believer in God thinks himself in a surer posture than the course of nature The World may turn upside down but the Believer is then sure having God for a refuge and a present help Hab. 3.17 Though the fig-tree do not blossom though no fruit be in the vine c. yet he finds warrand to believe I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation a fruit of Faith Many would have been ready to say What should I do believing if the tryal had come half that length but come what will come he finds ground to believe Luke 8. A man comes to Christ with his sick daughter and she is a dead daughter ere he come to the house and they say thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master But what says Christ verse 50. Fear not believe only Faith hath a warrand when trouble goes from sickness to death not to fear but only to believe David was tryed with formidable things as Psal 56. Yet that takes not away his warrand to believe Therefore verse 3. He says what time I am afraid I will trust in thee my fear shall feed my confidence and not drive me from it Look on him again as a man whose troubles and fears had confounded and run down yet he looks not on himself as a man that might quit Faith for all that Ps 61.2 When I am at the ends of the Earth says he when my heart is overwhelmed when I have perplexity like to make me swoun when I am surcharged and laid by with them yet from the ends of the Earth I will cry unto thee an act of Faith when my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the Rock that is higher than I my heart and my flesh failing shall not warrand me to cast away my confidence and the Acts resulting thereon and Job 3.5.14 Elihu says to Job Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him yet Judgment is before him Therefore trust thou in him and that was Abraham's practice who against hope believed in hope Rom. 4.18 when he could see no probability of the thing promisedâ— it is in that case in that Paroxism the Believer is to trust in God so ye see the Point is clear that Faith is the allowance of the Saints at all times in all conditions and Faith hath still a warrand to put forth it self to exercise The rich good will of God the immutability of God and his promise bottoms Faith in all times conditions it was a good word that David had when the sycophant Doeg came and told Saul of his coming to the house of Abimelech and flew fourscore five of the Priests Why boastest thou in mischief O mighty man the goodness of God endureth continually and seing it is so Faith hath continual ground to go upon For Use I would give you these three words from it The first shall be to represent this as a mercy 2. To press upon this ground constant believing and hoping in God as a duty And 3. To speak a word to them that are troubled because they cannot get this Command constantly obeyed 1. I wold represent this as a mercy that its thy duty to believe hope in God at all times though I fear I have but few to speak to on this score few would ever venture an hair of their head on Faith or on God if they could get any other fend so long as they could have any sinful shift ouâ— of hell I had almost said in hell it is to no purpose to speak to them of Faith But are there any of you sensible of the ill of Unbelief that when ye would sit down and take a lift of your self or of your condition or of anything that is dear to you your unbelief and discouragement is like to break you the discouragement of some through the prevailing power of Unbelief is so great that they turn like dyvors they dare as soon look on hell as on all the perplexities that are in their case I would say to such does thou in this case resent it as a mercy that thou knows it is thy duty to believe and a sin to give way to discouragement and unbelief O bless God thou may venture on Faith which if thou had not it is sad to think what thou would do next I am now speaking to them that have any thing to do betwixt God and their souls though I fear there be few that have ado with what I am now upon And O that I could lament over you and that ye could lament over your selves But are there any of you pressed with your souls condition and yet ye are too fool hardy in venturing upon unbelief and discouragement One of two either ye have never tryed these deep foords of discouragement and unbelief or otherways ye are under a dreadful tentation for of all the mercies next unto Christ a soul that is crusht with discouragement and unbelief will think this the greatest mercy that it hath a warrand to believe and if ye could bless him for that who knows what it would produce if ye would bless him that ye know ye have a command to believe and that it is a sin to misbelieve and give way to discouragement But 2. If it be a constant commanded duty to believe and hope will ye constantly obey that command Trust in him at all times Whatever ye read in your cases or lots or in the times read this never to cast away your confidence but to believe and hope in God Thou will say I have few motives to it but on what account does thou forbear murther or theft or any other gross sin Is it because thou wants temptations to them or because God hath forbidden them and hast thou not a command for believing Thou must not abstain believing till thy faith be budded but because he has commanded fall about it Thou thinks thy Faith little worth it is a blind guess like the blind mans gropping for the wall But shall I say Faith in obedience to a Command believing with the judgment against the
say it when others might forbear it yet have they not prevailed against me Nebuchadnezar got me swallowed down quick but I proved spending meaâ— and he was forced to cast up that sweet morsel The plowers plowed upon my back and they made long their furrows but the righteous Lord hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked It 's Israel's priviledge as it is Isa 51.22 23. To have the cup of trembling taken out of her hand and put into the hand of them that afflicted her c. It 's long since if it had been prestable or practicable that Israel should have been sweept off the earth Psal 83.4 There is a combination Come let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance and yet Israel is to the sore hoping in God It is true it 's dangerous to be peremptor in applying this to particular visible Churches for God has taken away his Candlestick from many visible Churches for their provocations yet there are two things that we may safely go upon in the application of this one is That where God in his glory is much concerned as having signally interposed for a people to make them his own there is ground of hope that God will not cast off that people for their provocations For this consider Exod. 32.12 and Numb 14. v. 13 14 15 16. When God is threatning to cut off his people for their provocations Moses interposes and interceeds with God O let not that be saith he Why should the Egyptians say for mischief he brought them out to stay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth because thou was not able to bring them into the land which thou promised them as if he had said Lord thou hast been eminently seen in owning this people and if thou shalt ruine them it will eminently reflect upon thy Glory as well as it will destroy them And Joshua Chap. 7. when Israel is smitten upon the account of the accursed thing â—nd he hath strong apprehensions that the Nations about will environ them and cut them off his great argument v. 9. is What wilt thou do unto thy own great Name Thou hast been eminent in owning thy people and if they shall be ruined thy great Name will suffer And Psal 74. Those complaints of the desolation of the Sanctuary and the insolency of the Enemy are closed with that How long shall the enemy reproach Shall the enemy blaspheme thy Name for ever This is one thing then that we may hold that where God hath been eminently seen in working for a people he will see to his great Name that there be no ill report brought up upon his guiding â—â—em as if for mischief he brought them out to slay them upon the mountains And another thing we may close with which is more general that whatever God do with a particular visible Church he will never want a Church though he should take his leave of one Nation for their provocations he will go to another So long as he is a Head he will not want Members so long as he is a Husband he will not want a Spouse so long as he is a King he will not want Subjects There must be an Israel who will have ground to hope in God There are many things which might be inferred from this I might from it exhort all wisely to consider of the case of God's Israel and that they would beware of concluding that there is no hope for them in God Beware of looking upon them with a look of rejoycing over them and speaking proudly in the day of their distress Obadiâ—ah vers 12 13 There is hope in Israel though Israel were as dry bones and as dead men their dry bones shall live they shall up again and therefore take heed both what judgment thou passes on them and what thy carriage is towards them they may be laid low as for their own sins and provocations so for a trial to thee to bring out what was lurking in thy bosome before and thou durst not bring it out while thou got such an opportunity and when he hath done both he will make it appear that there is hope in Israel But to leave this I would press upon the people of God to improve this their priviledge and allowance of hope in God tine not heart cast not away your confidence which hath a great recompence of reward I press not carnal confidence or carnal hopes upon any I pray the Lord the troubles many are under may crush these but yet I would bid you cherish the hope of God's being great in Israel cherish divine hope that is bottomed on the Word ye who have it your hopes are better than other folks possessions your Bible is better than any security ye could seek without it And in deducing this Use I would in the first place recommend to you that are Israelites that ye would mind your work Isai 43.21 This people have I formed for my self they shall shew forth my praise Israel are set apart for celebrating Gods praise and to celebrate his praise in that particular by hoping in him when their souls are cast down and disquieted in them Thou art not at thy work in thy generation who are not shewing forth Gods praise by thy believing and hoping in him 2. Ye would remember how peremptory resolute and inplicite Israel may be and should be in hoping in God Israel must believe when she cannot see and when she cannot give a distinct account of what she believes she must believe when she cannot give the grounds of it I shall give you an account of Israels Faith and Hope in the words of Mordecai to Esther Chap. 4.14 If thou altogether hold thy peace at this time then shall there deliverance and enlargement arise to the Jews from another place But c. It would have puzled his wit and the wit of all the Israelits to tell from what airt deliverance and enlargement should come to the Jews If Esther should hold her peace how was it possible they should be delivered if God should not make use of her the Heathen in an hundred and twenty seven Provinces would soon cut them off when a decree was past to do it But though Esther should hold her peace Mordecal believes enlargement will come to Israel perish they cannot therefore delivered they must be though he could not tell from whence it should come The not considering of this is a dreadful temptation to many when Israel is low not only to cast away their confidence but to betake themselves to some sinful shift for their security but it were better for thee so long as thou hast the Bible for the ground of thy hope to hold the conclusion that Israel shal not perish 3. I recommend to Israel to consider how they may be called to stoop ere they quit their hope of delivery 2 Kings 6. Give wicked Jeboram
a promise that Israel shall be delivered and relieved of the famine he will go in sackcloth in hopes of performance but let it come to that that one harlot contends with another about the eating of her son have at Elisha's head he will not wait for the Lord any longer but Israel in his hope must stoop low his anchor of hope must have a long cable If I may so word it to reach the bottomless Sea of hopelesness Israel must not lose hope when it comes to that Ezek. 37. That she is like dry bones in a valley and the question is Let these bones liâ—e yet they did live And Psal 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the graves mouth as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the Earth we are like the Spales of Trees about the Hewer hand then Israel is low yet verse 8. Mine eyes are unto thee says he O God the Lord in thee is my trust Nay Israels hope must not be quite when natural hope is gonâ— Abraham Rom. 4.18 Against hope believed in hope he had hope when his hope is contradicted by another hope And Jon 2.4 I said I am cast out of thy sight yet will I look again towards thy holy temple And I shall add but this one word Israel must not quite hope for growing trouble Mic. 4.10 When the Daughter of Zion is in pain like a woman in travail and thinks she is low enough already within the City she must go forth of the City and dwell in the field yea the Lord will not have her to quite hope though she go even to Babylon for there shall she be delivered there the Lord shall redeem her from the hand of her enemies Thus ye see how ye are called what ever your condition be to cherish hope and to let your hope be seen in all the Gospel fruits of hope in repentance for sin in taking encouragement for duty though ye should have the storm in your teeth for so doing God bless his word to you SERMON XXXIV Psalm 130. Verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for c. WE are here upon a very useful Counsel a counsel dictated by the Holy Spirit of God and communicat by a man that had tryed the good and ill both of having and wanting it ye have heard how the Psalmist being delivered is communicative of his experience to others ye have heard also as ye will have constant need of Hope so there is a constant warrand for it And ye have heard further that whatever be the opinion of others yet whosoever have most tryed Faith and Hope they will commend them most and be most free in recommending them to those that have most use for them I entered in the morning to consider the persons to whom hope in God is recommended Let Israel hope in the Lord. Whether that Nation while it stood a Church or the Israel of God The Gospel Church or the true members thereof I closed with this That go things as they will Israel is a society that still may hope many may think that there is no hope for them in God That they are fallen down and shall no more rise up but Israel are never a hopeless society I proceed now to the 2d thing I mentioned in this Head to wit That Hope in God is the common allowance of all the people of God not only taking Israel collectively but distributively one by one they are allowed to hope in God yea which will further clear the ground of the Doctrine although many that were true Israelits did indeed come short of the Psalmist and therefore though he might hope it might be thought they should stand aâ— back yet he is free to encourage any how mean and low soever they be provided they be of Israel to hope in God I confess this Point is to be understood with much caution and warriness There are general Promises made to the Church that every particular Believer may not apply but with many restrictions There are also Promises made to some saints on particular accounts to which every one may not claim but if we consider the great bullâ— of the Promises which are the ground of hope and the main scope of all the Promises the Scripture takes in one and other as to sexes the Promise is deduced 2 Cor. 6.18 I will be a father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters c. where the weaker and stronger and sexes are equally taken in also as to the Degrees of grace if it be true it takes in all Psal 115.13 He will bless them that fear the Lord both small and great the small as well as the great are taken in to the share of Blessings The precious Oyntment poured upon Aarons head stays not about his shoulders or the principal parts of his Body but goes down to the skirts of his Garments to the meanest and lowest Members Psal 133.2 And hence it is that a Promise made to a great Joshua 1.5 in order to a great employment to possess the people in the Land of Canaan I will not fail thee nor forsake thee though one would have thought that that was a peculiar allowance to a Joshua that might grip to that in so great an undertaking yet Heb. 13.5 None of the persecuted Hebrews are secluded from it Let your conversations be without coveâ—tousness and be content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee he that said that to the great Captain of his People Joshua said it to the meanest believing Hebrew I might deduce this more distinctly and shew that the weak Lambs are so far from being excluded that there is a Promise that they shall be carried in his bosom when the stronger shall get leave to walk on foot and because the heavy with young will be put hardly to it he will gently lead them Isai 40.11 These that are sensible of their eminent worthlesness that are but dead things in their own eyes and that think the crumbs that fall from the Childrens Table too much for them they may think to find in God a magnifying of mercy for eminent worthlesness in stooping to them and being gracious and merciful to them yea these that have little or nothing of their own if they be sensible of it and lying at the Fountain for supply they may look for the more of him the less they had of their own the weaker they be his strength shall be the more perfected in weakness the more ignorant they be and as beasts before him they may look to have the wonderful Counseller taking the conduct and guiding of them and as it is 1 Cor. 12.13 These Members of the Body which we think to be less honourable upon them we bestow more abundant honour and our uncomly parts have more abundant comliness so the meanest member providing that it be a member may look for more of him than if they had much in
goodness of God is better known by experience than it can be talked of even by them that have tasted of it for it is a ravishing and overcoming goodness Zech. 9.17 For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty And yet 3. I was minting to lay it before you from some hints the Scripture gives of it and in the first place was telling that if the common goodness of God to all be so rich how rich must his peculiar goodness to his people be And in Explication of this I was hinting at the various names and notions oâ— this goodness of God held out in the Word how it keeps all temptations that they hurt not the true Israelites but makes them work for their good how it is love and tenderness how it is grace and free grace to the unworthy mercy to them in misery patience and long-suffering to the way-ward clemency and moderation to them that wring stroaks out of his hand I shall now add a word or two further that will help to give an account what this goodness of God is to Israel and that is in the 3d place to take a look of it in reference to the various cases of the Saints though the considerations we had of it in the morning do look here-away yet I shall now deduce this consideration of it more distinctly And 1. That God is good to Israel it may encourage Israel under weakness for why It 's one of the Lord's designations that he is called the strength of Israel 1 Sam. 15.29 Also the strength of Israel will not lie The word strength as it is in the Margin signifies not only strength but eternity and victory and all may very well go together here in this goodness of God to them he is strength to Israel out of weakness to make them strong when they faint to give them power 2 Cor. 12.10 Heb. 11.34 When they have no might to increase strength to them Isai 40.29 He hath strength to make the weak say I am strong Joel 3.10 And he hath strengâ—h to Israel not for a fit but to eternity Israel cannot be continued so long weak that everlasting arms will not give him strength for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength and he is strâ—ngth to Israel not simply to bear them through difficuâ—ties and to keep them from total sinking but he is so the strength of Israel as he is the victory of Israel in due time to make them Conquerours and more than Conquerours through him that hath loved them 2. That God is good to Israel it may encourage them as I was hinting in the morning against unworthiness in themselves For as ye will hear in the progress with the Lord there is mercy for Israel saith the Text Seek all Christs Court there is not a worthy person of all he hath but himself and if there be any addition any competition amongst Christ's train and followers it lies in this who shall be the greatest dyvors and debters to free Grace who shall be the most unworthy less than the least of his mercies who shall be the Mephibosheth these whom David will allow to sit at his Table but worthlesness is a noble claim in Israel a dyvor bill is a noble pasportâ—s dittay is a claim For with the Lord there is mercy 3. That God is good to Israel it may encourage all true Israelites under the multitude of their frequent recurring necessities accompanied with the sense of the ill improvement of what good things he hath done for them and to them I suppose amongst the many humbling considerations that the Israelites have of their case this is not the least that they are daily needing daily getting and dayly misguiding proofs of love they are like that man Prov. 19.19 That when he is delivered must be delivered again How often do they think with themselves What should they do looking again to God for relief they have so often needed so often gotten and as often proven dyvors misguiding all they got selling themselves without money and without price which makes them blush to look to God again for new supply and new delivery but the goodness of God may encourage them to look again For with the Lord saith the Text is plenteous redemption that is not only delivery but delivery in great plenty so oft as they need 4. That God is good to Israel it may encourage Israel under the Conscience of guilt in particular for so the Psalmist saith here in particular He will redeem Israel from all his iniquiâ—ies these things I but name now because if the Lord will I will have occasion in the progress to speak more amply 5. The goodness of God to Israel may encourage them against the contempt they meet with and the mean and low condition wherein they are put in the world many a time our hearts think it a wonder that the Blood-Royal of Heaven the excellent Ones in the Earth should be no more esteemed of in the World while we little mind that word 1 Joh. 3.1 Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not Otherwayes we would think it a wonder that the Israel of God are not made the filth and off-scourings of all things yea but the goodness of God is a cordial to Israel in this case let the world count them the filth and off-scourings of all things yet the Lord hath chosen Jacob for himself and Israel for his peculiar treasure Psal 135.4 Let their nearest relations cast them off he will not cast off any of his Israel Hence David could sing Psal 27.10 when my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up and Isai 44.21 O Israel thou shalt not be forgotten of me saith the Lord that is Israel's priviledge and verse 23. The Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel The world may leave the Israel of God to send for themselves but in that case Israel may sing as Psal 121.4 He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep the Lord is his keeper the Lord is a shade upon his right hand the Sun shall not smite them by day nor the Moon by night the Lord shall preserve them from evil he shall preserve their soul he shall preserve their going out and their coming in from this time forth and even for evermore So that in all cases Israel hath ground of encouragement in the goodness of God and who would look upon these things and believe them and not think themselves engaged to make it sure that they are of the Israel of God that share in these mercies and priviledges And this leads me to the 4th word that I proposed to be spoken to for pressing you to study to be Israelites in Spirit and that is that this goodness of God to Israel that I have been minting to lay before you though I have been but spilling it in the speaking to it it is not cunningly devised fables it
in more than ordinary exigence we might say through Christ strengthning us we can do all things Lord bless his word unto you SERMON XXXVII Psalm 130. Verse 7 8. Let Israel hope in the Lord for c. YOU heard that these two Verses do contain the second part of the Psalm wherein after that the Psalmist in the first 6 Verses hath been wrestling partly with plunging perplexities represented under the notion of Depths vers 1.2 Partly with the Conscience of guilt verses 3.4 And partly with the delays of comfort and an outgate verses 5.6 After that I say the Psalmist comes to get some issue and outgate whereof he giveth not a direct and express account but any good he hath gotten he presently makes it appear in good news to Israel he hath an exhortation to them to hope in the Lord and hath Motives and Arguments pressing his Exhortation which are taken partly from what is in God to the behove of his Israel For with the Lord there is mercy c. And partly from what he will let forth of this for their good and behove not only is mercy and plenteous redemption with him but he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities For the Exhortation I spoke to it at length And at the last occasion I brake in upon the Motives The Instructions to be gathered from which I reduced to two general Heads 1. Something supposed concerning them that are put to hope and allowed to hope in God And 2. Something proposed concerning such as are called and allowed to hope and as a ground to their hope For the first That which is supposed in the Words it may again be reduced to these two Heads of Doctrine 1. That the man called and allowed to hope in God is one that is acquainted with misery in himself and is put to look out to what is in God or with him to do his turn For with the Lord there is mercy That there is mercy with God implys That the man that is called and allowed to hope in God is in himself miserable and put to look out to God for mercy and so it is one of the blessed and sure characters of a person that is called and allowed to hope in God that he is kept humble not conceity nor dreaming of any good in himself and the nearer he be to the dust he hath the more warrand to hope for the man that spears the right gate to hope is he that Lam. 3.29 Puts his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope he creeps low in the dust to seek encouragement to hope and the man that is called to live by Faith is opposed to the man whose soul is lifted up in him and consequently to the man whose heart is not upright in him Hab. 2.4 And further the man that is called to hope and allowed to hope in the humbling sense of his misery he is put to look without himself to what is in God or with God for him he is called to hope on the account of mercy in relation to his misery It intimats that the humble sensible man the Israel of God can never be undone so long as God is to the fore and there is enough in him to do his turn though he be miserable and wants that he stands in need of yet if it be in God he shall not want If mercy be in and with God he is made up in the midst of his misery To this I have spoken already and shall not repeat I proceed to the second Observation implyed in that which is supposed concerning the man that is put to hope and warranted to hope in God That not only is he simply miserable and needing mercy but he is under such a bondage of sin and misery as he cannot extricat himself out of it except God interpose He needs not only mercy in God but redemption and plenteous redemption in God to rid him out of these bonds wherein he is fettered and bound and out of which he is not able to deliver himself Although the consideration of sin will come in to be spoken to on the next Observation by it self yet I shall on this touch a little in general both on the bondage of sin and misery under which the Israel of God are supponed to be lying As for sin all men by nature are bound slaves to it they are hurried away with every impetuous blast of temptation that blows upon their corruption but it is the Israel of God that are called and allowed to hope in God that feel this bondage Hence the Apostle Rom. 7.19 saith The good that I would I do not but the evil that I would not that I do And he finds a law in his members warring against the law of his mind leading him captive to the law of sin on which account he crys out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death There is a captivity indeed under sin and he tells the Galatians Chap. 5.17 That the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary one to another so that they cannot do the things they would So the Israel of God are under a bondage of sin when they would do good as the same Apostle hath it ill is present with them And for the bondage of their misery the Scripture is so full anent it and the experience of the Saints so amply confirms it that it is needless to stand on particular proofs and instances of it How often are they put to that Psal 107.11 Because they rebelled therefore he brought down their heart with sorrow and labour they fell and there was none to help In the Application of this I shall speak a word first to the wicked and ungodly and then to Gods Israel who are called and allowed to hope in him notwithstanding this bondage they are under For the first to wit the wicked They would from this look on it as a sad character to know little and be as little sensible of their bondage through sin and misery They look on a licentious way of living in sin when they have eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin as it is 2 Pet. 2.14 When sin reigns in their mortal bodies and they obey it in the lusts thereof and they yield their members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin Rom. 6.12 When they give themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness Ephes 4.19 They look upon that as their liberty and they are never out of bonds except when they are glutting themselves with sin they slâ—ep not except they do ill O! that such knew what a madnes and distraction they are under while they glory in their chains as if a mad-man should glory in his fetters look to it assure thy self thou shalt find sin to be a bondage and need of looking to God for Redemption from it ere thou have a warrand to
hope in God And for the other Branch of this Bondage Misery and Trouble I cannot tell you how many ways wicked men wander in ere they stand in need of Redemption out of it from God Only I would lead you in a few steps of their ill improvement of the misery they are under through sin In one or mo of which the generality may read their Portraict And 1. It is the wickeds first seâ—â— hand to secure themselves against all apprehensions of trouble or misery the song they would fain essay to sing is that Psal 10.6 They have said in their heart they shall not be moved for they shall never be in adversity and for that end they foster their atheism and deny a Providence Would ye have a character of wicked mens first essay ye will find it Ezek. 8.12 and 9.9 The Lord seeth not the Lord hath forsaken the earth When they would commit all abominations this is their cordial against misery Zeph. 1.12 They are settled on their lies they say in their heart the Lord will neither do good nor evil They neither fear him nor his Providence But a 2d step is this if they pretend to owne a Deity and acknowledge a Providence they will admit of no intimation of any displeasure from God against them or their way do what they will If ye would waken a quarrel and make them your enemy tell them God is angry with them for their sins and will be about with them they will be about with you they dow not endure to be told of their faults or of God's wrath and anger I cannot give you this step more distinctly than in that Jer. 5.12 When the Prophets spoke to them the word of the Lord they would not let it light that it was God's minde They have belied the Lord saith he and said it was not he neither shall evil come on us neither shall we see sword or famine What will ye then do with the Prophets that say the contrary verse 13. The Prophets shall become wind and the word is not in them Thus shall it be done to them they will be in their tops as wronging God that tell them of Judgement for their sins A 3d step of their wandring if all this do not the turn if God fulfil the words of his Servant they have yet another fend and it is to grow as stupid and senseless as they can make themselves under vengeance this ye find deduced Isai 42.25 The Lord hath poured upon him the fury of his anger and the strength of battel and it hath set him on fire round about yet he knew it not it burned him yet he laid it not to heart And Hos 7.9 As the result of many a debausht rant from the beginning of the Chapter Ephraim is smitten with stupidity strangers have devoured his strength and he knows it not yea gray hairs are here and there on him yet he knows not When vengeance cannot be holden off the next sanctuary is stupidity But 4 If stupidity will not do the turn but God will smite and they must find it they will put on a hight and greatness of spirit that if any breach come they will repair it Isai 9.9 There is a generation that say in the pride and stoutness of their heart the bricks are fallen down but we will build with hewen stones The sycamores are cut down but we will change them into cedars when they cannot avoid the feeling of Gods stroke they will set to it to make it up A 5th step of their abusing or woful improvement of their misery and bondage is if they find that what God hath built God will throw down as it is Mal. 1.4 They will run away to their carnal dreams and confidence that God will owne them as Jer. 12.4 When great calamity comes upon them on this very account they say He may well shore he will not lay on or if he lay on he will not see us ruined he will not see our last â—nd There is yet a 6th step when all their essays misgive upon their hand instead of taking themselves to the waiting mans posture to look up to God in the sense of their misery for redemption they turn desperat and hopeless their high flowen carnal expectations resolves in desperation Jer. 2.25 Thou said there is no hope no for I have loved strangers and after them will I go And Jer. 18.12 They said there is no hope but we will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart Their hopes that God will spare resolves in desperat hopelesness in the issue like these whom Isai 22.12 The Lord calls to weeping and mourning to baldness and girding with sackcloth They give themselves to joy and gladness slaying oxen c. saying Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die All these steps of the wickeds wandring I have laid before you that in a brief view ye may see the sinful byasses of folks hearts in their woful way of improving the bondage and misery they are under that any of you who are delivered from it may bless God and be thankful to him and may mourn over them that are walking in any of their rods or over their precipieces But I said I had also somewhat to say to the Israel of God that are called to hope in God and allowed and warranted to hope in him and shall briefly touch three or four short words to them 1. When an Israelite of God is broght under bondage from which by no means he can extricat himself but needs redemption from God he is bound to consider and reflect on the way how he came there This is the first thing he would think on how he has sold himself into that bondage Isai 50.1 Thus saith the Lord where is the bill of your mothers divorcement whom I have put away or which of my creditors is it to which I have sold you Behold for your iniquities have ye sold your selves and for your transgressions is your mother put away It is a very useful and profitable meditation for them that find the yoke of their transgressions wreathed about their neck to sit down and consider how they came thither how either by giving way to temptation presenting baits to them have taught it to be their captain and given it the mastery over them or how by their folly and provocations they have wreathed that yoke on themselves from which they cannot rid themselves nor get leave to walk haughtily 2. An Israelite is then called to consider the holy hand of God in making him feel the bitter fruit of his folly in this his bondage Many not only give way to temptations of sin but delight in it and God leaves them under the power of it till they lament that their folly and therefore when we are under bonds we would reflect not only on the bringing of our selves in that bondage but on our
reference to his misery The next Letter is Gracious to intimate that God having lookt on miserable man as the objeâ—â— of his compassion because it might be objected God hath great compassion but what deserves miserable man He hath nothing to commend him yea he hath much to discommend him It is answered God is not only merciful to compassionat miserable man but he is gracious to notice him and compassionat him freely without merit and contrary to demerit Then he is Long suffering c. Now in reference to this mercy of God there are three things I intend to touch on before I come to the use 1. To open up the nature of this mercy 2. To speak a little of the object of it And 3. to the properties of it In speaking to the first I shall wave all School speculations anent it as whether mercy and punitive justice be essential to God and on what account they can be called essential Attributes seing mercy presupposes man miserable which is one of the Socinian foundations to overthrow the satisfaction of Christ but that might be easily cleared by adding a word to what hath been already said That mercy in God is nothing but the goodness of God with relation to the object to which it is communicat and punitive justice is nothing else but that essential Attribute of his holiness vindicating and avenging himself on a sinner the object of his justice and if we consider the mercy and justice of God thus we will find it no difficulty to rank them among the essential Attributes of God yea that it is blasphemy to deny them to be such I thought to have cleared to you how that mercy is no passion nor perturbation in God as it is in man though it be for our encouragment to hope in him exprest in most pathetick terms as also to have cleared That the Earth â—s full of his Mercy and Goodness Psal 33.5 All creatures share in it yet there are vessels of mercy afore pre-prepared to glory Rom. 9.23 That are objects of his especial mercy and to have spoken to its properties how it is real and not complementing How he delights in mercy Mic. 7.18 How it is free eternal sure and rich for all necessities But for want of time I forbear and recommend you and what ye have heard to His blessing whose word it is SERMON XXXIX Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THough when a look is taken of God's Israel none are more low and empty in themselves none that claim greater acquaintance with the dust than they are enabled to do yet none have such ample ground of encouragement as they if they be Israel thogh they be in misery and under bondage and particularly oppressed with and under the bondage of sin yet Israel is still allowed and commanded to hope in God and that because Israel's wealth and happiness and the ground of his encouragement is without himself Though he be poor and needy yet the Lord thinks on him though he have nothing in God he possesseth all things Though his house be not so with God yet his salvation and desire lies in this That God hath made with him an everlasting covenant well ordered in all things and sure And in a word have what he will or be what he will in himself yet he may hope in God considering what is with God Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord c. I have spoken from this argument pressing hope in God to what is imported in it as to the hopers condition that he is indigent and miserable in himself needing to look for mercy in God that he is in bondage needing to look for plenteous redemption with God and particularly that he is under the bondage of iniquity which puts him to look for a particular redemption from that from him that redeems Israel from all his iniquities And the last day I came to break in on what is proposed in the words for Israel's encouragement to hope in God The first Observation of four which I could scarce break in on was That it is the great encouragement of God's people to hope in him in all exigents and cases that there is mercy with God that they have to do with a God with whom there is mercy This mercy as I then cleared is nothing else but the goodness of God and consequently an essential attribute relating to the misery of the object to which it is communicat even as his punitive Justice is an essential Attribute being nothing else but his Holiness manifesting it self against sin for as the goodness of God undergoes various notions on divers accounts as was said so it hath the name of mercy with relation to the misery of man In prosecuting of this I proponed to speak 1. more generally to the nature of this mercy 2. To the Object To the Properties And 4. Of the use of the whole For the first the nature of this Mercy 1. It must be fixed that this mercy is free of all passion or perturbation in God When we consider God as merciful we must not conceive of him as of one subject to the passions of grief or sorrow for the misery of others as mercy in man is to be considered and therefore mercy in men used to be condemned by the Stoicks as being in their opinion a debasing of the spirit of man below the hight and greatness that it ought to have and it is reported of Agesilaus King of Sparta that he said it was difficult for a man both to be merciful and wise at once because if he were merciful it would be ready to transport him to that which was not suitable to a wise man but we have nothing to do with that debate here Mercy in God is free of passion or perturbation of sorrow or grief for others misery as it is in creatures it is only the goodness of God willing to remove allay or sweeten the misery of others only though God in his mercy be free of passion or perturbation yet he sweetens allays or removes the misery of man as tenderly and carefully as if he were affected with it Therefore for our capacity and better uptaking of it the mercy of God is spoken of as very passionat affecting and transporting in him as Isai 63.9 He is spoken of as being afflicted in all the afflictions of his people Zech. 2.8 as being touched on the apple of his eye when they are touched Jud. 10.16 as having his soul grieved or shortned in his resolution to punish when he looked on his peoples misery And Hos 11.8 As being put to a very great perplexity about them How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim my heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together All which terms are borrowed to shew that however God in shewing mercy be free of
wroth Why The spirit should fail before me and the souls that I have made I could soon destroy them but that I may not do and therefore will not contend for ever c. And 6. The riches and fulness of his mercy may be read in this that when he lets out bowels of mercy there will be no mercy which the Creature needs will be withheld from them When Ishmael hath slain Gedaliah whom the King of Babylon had made the Jews Governour and they are afraid of the Chaldeans Be not afraid of the King of Babylon saith he for I am with you to save and deliver you and I will shew mercy to you that he may have mercy on you Jer. 42.11 12. Fear not if ye partake of my mercy I will make the Chaldeans compassionat you So Psal 106 44. He regarded their affliction when he heard their cry and he remembred his Covenant and repented according to the multitude of his mercies What follows he made them also to be pitied of all that carried them captives He needs no other instruments of compassion to his people nor bitter enemies when he will have compassion on them So Solomon prays Give them compassion before them that carry them captive 1 King 8.50 And Hezekiah when he is to keep the Passover tells the people If they turn again to the Lord their brethren and children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive 2 Chron. 30.9 Gods compassion can soon bring the compassion of men in so far as he sees it needful Thus ye see in a few hints how rich and full the mercy of God is In a word it 's a mercy for all the needs and pressures of his people a Plaister broad enough to cover and effectual enough to cure all their griefs and sores For the use of this great truth That with the Lord there is mercy I shall briefly touch on five inferences from it and leave it And 1. If this mercy of God be relative to mans misery if it be good news manifested to the Creature on the account of its misery then those who are partakers of this mercy would have much sense of their misery mercy will not relish to any but to the man sensible of his misery a pardon will signify nothing but to a Rebel that is sensible of his Rebellion And here all that I have spoken of the riches freeness fulness c. of this mercy if ye read it right will be the first Lesson ye will learn from it all this is not proclaimed for a complement but because it 's needed by the miserable And consequently thou must infer If I have a right to you mercy it must not be ordinary thoughts of my misery that I must have there must be deeps of misery in me to call for deeps of mercy in God If we thus fence the point we need not fear that it be a sleeping Pillow to the secure look what misery is in thee to close with every thing in mercy If mercy be free look what ill-deserving is in thee if pardoning-mercy be in God look what sense of unpardoned guilt is in thee if multitudes of mercies be in God what sense of multitude of miseries is in thee They that have a right to mercy must tryst it in the dust in the very pit of misery 2. From this that there is mercy with God there is ground of assurance offered and afforded to the miserable that their irrecoverable case by the Covenant of Works is not now desperat O! the blessed intimation of that Attribute to fallen man that with God there is mercy How good news was it and should it be What had been the case of Adam and all his posterity after the Covenant of Works was broken had it not been for this blest Attribute that interposed But now because there is mercy with God irrecoverable distresses are not desperate Somewhat ye heard of this from vers 2 and 4. What a deplorable case had all been in if there had been no more to be lookt for but that vers 3. If thou Lord mark iniquities O Lord who should stand But a gracious answer is added vers 4. But there is forgivenness or mercy with thee and how this is prest upon the account of Gods mercy ye have an account given Jer. 55.67 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts and let him return to the Lord Why For he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon That there is mercy in God abundantly to pardon is an intimation to the man that is in an irrecoverable condition to look again to God And in that 2d of Joel after that the Lord hath uttered a sore and terrible Judgment and hath told verse â—1 That he will utter his voice before his Army for his Camp is very great and strong is he that executes his word and in the by if the Lord hath a Nation to punish he needs not raise and bring in an uncouth Nation to punish them he can cause Grashoppers or Locusts do his turn after all that Verse 12 13. He bids them turn to him with all their heart with fasting weeping and mourning for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the evil When the Lord is setting forth and inflicting an apparent and remediless stroak this yet invites to repentance That he is gracious and merciful and therefore as on the one hand thou that slights this offered mercy and makes it a pillow to security who when thou hears tell there is mercy with God makes no use of it but rather abuses it to go on in sin O the Justice of God in the day of thy accompts will be a sad sight in comparison of mercy or justice execute on slighters of mercy will be dreadful Justice then it will be Hills and mountains fall on us and bide us from the face of the Lamb What There is little terror in a Lambs Face yea but the fight of the Lambs face in the day of compt and reckoning that he that offered mercy was a Lamb that mercy was with him will be most dreadful think on it slighters of the Gospel sit-fasts never-do-wells abusers of mercy or ye that would take mercy in the accomplishment but never give mercy employment who follow your abominations if not openly yet secretly better for you that ye had sitten all your time at the foot of Sinai than at the foot of mercy in Zion This is often told you but little laid to heart and the ofter it be told many the less it is laid to heart but the day will come when many will get Hell affrighting memories wherein ye will remember that which drops at your feet and is not noticed or is stept over and not regarded So on the other hand thou who on the account of
hopelesness in thy condition runs away from God take heed what thou dost thou looks on thy case as incurable and what will thou do with it If thou run away where will thou go next Thy case must either break thee or thou will grow stupid under it and besides if thou run away thou reproaches the mercy of God so far as thou can while thou runs from him with any condition how desperat and irrecoverable so ever and will thou bring up an ill report on his mercy as if there were no cure in it for thy case When thou should rather sing as David Psal 13.5 In opposition to every hopeless like case But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation O then take heed that thou reproach not nor bring not up an ill report on this rich full mercy in God by running from it whatever thy condition be 3. Come here all ye that are making mercy your refuge under all your pressures miseries troubles temptations desertion or whatever ail you that know no other door to knock at but mercy in God ye have no song but that one which David had Psal 13. before cited and that I can never often enough repeat though God seem to forget him for ever and hide his face for ever from him though when he takes counsel in his soul he hath sorrow in his heart daily though his enemies had exalted themselves and said they had prevailed over him and reâ—oyced and the sleep of death seems to approach he hath nothing to all that But I have trusted in thy mercy Take a look how richly thou art made up that trusts in this mercy Remember the song that follows in that Psalm â—nd thou will not find it an heartless shift My heart says â—e shall rejoice in thy salvation I will sing to the Lord because â—e hath dealt bountifully with me And the Psalmist sings Psal 31.7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy Why For thou hast considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversity I got acquaintance with thee in adversity which otherwise I had not been capable of therefore I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy and consider that sweet song Psal 136.23 Who remembred us in our low estate Why for his mercy endureth for ever or as Hezekiah hath it Isai 38.27 He loved my soul from the pit of corruption That is the word in the Original His love and mercy have an Adamantine vertue to draw a soul out of the pit of corruption when he remembers us in our low estate consider thou that hast made mercy thy refuge how sweetly it can kep a deep distress Psal 69.15 Let not the water flood overflow me hear me O Lord for thy loving kindness is good turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies And Psal 86.14 O God the proud are risen up against me and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul but thou O Lord art a God full of compassion gracious long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth O turn unto me and have mercy on me Consider what a good account of very hopeless tryals mercy will give Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of Jobs patience and have seen the end of the Lord and what was the end of the Lord even this That the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy O but they are sad difficulties which tender mercy and pity in God will not afford relief unto and therefore think not your self in a poor plight who have mercy for your refuge who have no song to sing But I have trusted c. 4. When ye have closed with and are made up by this mercy look how ye improve it and do not abuse it I confess the want of the faith of mercy in a strait is an estranging thing Zech. 11.8 My soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me but when thou grips to mercy see what influence it hath on thy heart for warming it for putting it in a sweet and tender frame on thy part may I say it I defie folk to abuse mercy taken by the right handle O the alluring melting constraining perswading power that is in mercy rightly closed with and O that folk could win to this gate of making use of mercy Rom. 11.1 The Apostle in pressing holiness saith I beseech you brethren by the mercy of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice c. And I may allude to that Phil. 2.1 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercy fulfil ye my joy If folk knew what overcoming mercy means they would let it be seen in a tender walk Thou talks of mercy yet thou art not overcome with it thou art not melted nor made more tender by it what a cheater of thy self and abuser of mercy art thou Remember the abuse of outward mercies will make a sad dittay Ezra 9. If after all these we break his commands But ah what shall be said when folk pretend to special mercy and abuse it But 5. Among other Uses that ought to be made of believed and closed with mercy this is one That we learn to be merciful Luke 6.36 We must be merciful as is our heavenly Father even in loving enemies c. Ye heard in the morning from Mat. 5.7 That it is the merciful that obtain mercy And that Parable of the man that had much forgiven him and would not forgive his fellow servant but cast him in prison Mat. 18.23 It was a sad evidence that he was not pardoned himself In a word thou who art much in mercies common it will make thee of a merciful meek temper which is that pressed Tit. 3.2 That we should speak evil of no man be no brawlers c. but gentle shewing meekness to all men seeing we our selves were sometime disobedient deceived serving divers lusts But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost A boisterous malitious unmerciful temper in any is but a poor Evidence that such live under the drop of the multitude of the tender mercies that are with God But the time being ended I leave this great Point and you to the rich blessing of this merciful God To whom be glory SERMON XLI Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THe Songs of the people of God while they are within time are made up of very mixed Notes yet in this they are sweet that their over-over-word or last word is still the best of it Poor and needy are they and may they be yet they are thought upon by God Troubled they may be but not distrest perplext but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but
not destroyed 2 Cor. 4.8 9. Much may they have to say both from within them and about them to brangle their threed of hope which is their great stock and store-house but they have infinitly more above them to support it though Israel be in misery and bondage and under servitude through sin yet says the Text Let Israel hope in God Let nothing they find within or about them in the world brangle their confidence For with the Lord there is mercy Ye may remember that from these encouragements to Israel to hope in God I have been marking what is implyed on the part of hopers that they need mercy and redemption and particularly redemption from iniquity and I began to speak the last day to what is proposed for their encouragement notwithstanding all these disadvantages they are under and I took some time to speak to that sweet Attribute of Mercy in God In speaking to which ye had some account in general of the nature of this mercy and of the Object and Properties of it and somewhat was spoken to the Use of the whole Doctrine A Doctrine which though some may abuse and break their neck on and which will be the sad dittay of these within the visible Church That mercy was in their offer and they slighted it yet it is a Doctrine absolutely necessary to them that are lying under the sense of sin and misery Now I proceed to a 2d main Point to encourage Israel to hope in God That with him is plenteous redemption That is both Authority to redeem and power to vindicat his people out of the bondage and servitude wherein they are and that in a great measure a plenteous redemption and that is connected with the former with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption That same God with whom there is mercy hath also plenteous redemption which gives a ground to this general Remark that I shall batter out a little that mercy in God is not a bare naked affection if I may so word it in him as ye may find it amongst creatures some are very merciful and compassionat and can condole the case of others in chains when they cannot help them they may weep over them whom they cannot relieve But I say mercy is not such a bare naked affection in God but it is accompanied with authority and power to make the effects of his mercy forthcoming for the miserable as he finds there is cause To lay this a little open to you and in the passing thorow to hint at some Uses of it I shall speak a little to these three 1. What this redemption imports 2. Why it is called redemption And 3. What the plenty of this redemption that is with God may look to or hint at For the first What redemption imports ye know that redemption properly is a recovery by paying of a price or by exchange or otherwise of that which hath been brought in bondage or under the power of another Now redemption when it is attribute to God imports a recovery of his people out of that bondage of sin and misery unto which through their own folly they have cast themselves And for the import of it beside mercy relative to their misery who have sold themselves it imports both authority to redeem and power to redeem 1. Authority and authority of Soveraignity in Dominion to recover or bring back what or whom he pleases out of that bondage and servitude under which they had brought themselves To allude to that Plea of the Caldeans anent the Redemption of Captives Isai 49.24 Shall the lawful Captive be delivered we have taken them lawful Captives and who has authority to interpose and take them from us So when guilt and justice pursuing for guilt hath the Israel of God lawful Captives in that case he hath authority and supremacy a soveraign dominion to interpose for the Redemption of his people when he will as it is said Psal 3.8 Salvation belongs to the Lord it is his prerogative royal to give salvation to redeem as Princes have a power Paramount to pardon Crimes the Law strikes against he hath a power to pardon to love freely to see his peoples ways and to heal them Isai 57.18 That is the first thing then imported in this redemption an authority and right to redeem and before I passe from it I would leave this word with the people of God that when their distresses are great and many and all other doors are shut on them they would learn to look to Soveraignty in God as the Latin Proverb is They may be in that case wherein salvation cannot save them and then they must look no laigher than God and to a Soveraign Dominion in God to redeem remembring whatever be the sad premisses in their case he hath a dominion to make the conclusion what he pleaseth his authority and soveraign dominion can make the conclusion comfortable when the premisses writes bitter things against them this would be the last anchor that we would hold by when all others are driven and come home and I would have you so far from mistaking and stumbling when ye look to Soveraignty in God and ye are brought so low that you have no claim but to put off your Ornaments and see what God will do to you all things in your case or what ye can look to for relief are so hopeless and desperat only ye dare not limit God I would in this case have you so far from stumbling at Soveraignty in God that I would have you rather afraid when ye have any thing to look to beneath it It is sad when God is afflicting his people with crosse Providences it should be with them as with that people Jer. 2.37 They go forth from him with their hands on their head and the Lord hath rejected their confidence that is a sad trade when Gods work of Providence is to blast and reject their carnal confidence and to defeat them that they shall not prosper in them because they will not quite them and lay their deplorable case at the footstool of Soveraignty in God So much for the first thing imported in redemption That is authority to redeem 2. This Redemption in God imports further even a power to exercise that authority and dominion for the actual redemption of his people many a time experience shows that authority is baffled and affronted in the world because it is not in its way backed with power but our blessed Lord who has authority to redeem has also power to exercise that authority and actually to redeem he is the God of the Spirits of all flesh to whom nothing is too hard Psal 115.3 Our God is in heaven he hath done whatever he pleased Psal 135.6 Whatever the Lord pleased that he did in heaven and in the earth c. And ye have his power asserted in this very affair Isai 29.24 Shal say they the prey be taken from the mighty
own cost as Isai 52.3 The Lord tells his people that they had sold themselves for nought they had made a poor Bargain or they had provocked God to sell them into their enemies hands for nought but they should be redeemed as cheap without money Isai 43.14 The Lord proves himself to be the Redeemer of his people by this that for their sakes he had sent to Babylon to get them redeemed hence and had brought down all their Nobles and the Caldeans whose cry is in the Ships or to the Ships to seek Vessels to run away when Cyrus came and turned in the River on the City And Isai 49.24 25 26. when they accounted the people of God their prey and lawful captives the Lord not only tells them that the captives of the mighty shall be taken away and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered but he will pay a ransome to the Caldeans for them and what is that I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine That shall be the ransome that he will give the Caldeans when he delivereth his people I shall not dwell on this in general it holds out this that they are in a sad and ill taking who are left by themselves to take Gods people to task they are as these who would go betwixt a Man and his Wife who when the friendship is made up will get little thanks and therefore they are rather to be pitied than envyed It bods little good to men when God makes use of them to be instruments of the afflictions of his people and any that ye would wish good unto pray that they may be preserved from that Pit and any ye see ingaged in it ye cannot do them a better turn than to stand in the Gapp for them and pray they may be delivered out of it for it is fatal and prodigious to be instruments of the people of Gods trouble and to be found standing in his way when he is to redeem them But in the 3d place I told you that their Delivery is called Redemption in relation to the issue of their delivery from their troubles as the Captive or Prisoner when he is redeemed or the ransom payed is set free enlarged and set at liberty to go where he will So God's delivering of a people brings freedom and enlargement a breaking of Bonds an opening of Prison doors a vindicating of them from bondage and slavery Hence the delivery of the saints is metaphorically expressed by setting of them at large or in a large place Psal 18.19 The Psalmist was hampered before when he was in trouble but he got enlargement and skiproom by God's delivering of him So Psal 31.8 David sayes Thou hast not shut me up into the hand of the Enemy thou hast set my feet in a large place or room had I been amongst my enemies they had hemm'd me in but God in delivering me gives me elbow-room and Psal 118.5 I called on the Lord in distress the Lord answered me and set me in a large place or answered me in a large place for these words and set me are a supplement in the Text that is with enlargement by enlargement and freedom he delivered me So Job 36.16 Where Elihu is giving Job an account what he might have expected had he improved God's corrections aright Even so saith he would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place where there is no straitness Thou art would he say as verse 8. bound in fetters and holden in cords of affliction but had thou hearkned to the instructions communicat to thee by the Rod God should have brought thee out of that strait into a broad place where there is no straitness so that in respect of the issue delivery is enlargement a giving of skuproom to them that were in bonds and pressures before And from this I would have you reflecting on two or three words 1. It imports that when the people of God are in trouble unredeemed they should be in straits and as under pressures sensible of their affliction their bonds should press them Therefore in that fore-cited place Job 36.8 Affliction is called bonds or fetters and cords and Job when he is viewing God's dealing with him says Chap. 13.27 Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks not only did he put him in prison for a man in prison has room to walk up and down but in prison he put his feet in the stocks importing that folks should find a pressure when God afflicts them they should be straitned when they are in the stocks stupidity is ill company when God is using means means to waken out of security and to make folk sensible and to be taking too much elbow room when folks are under an arrest of Providence it is no good evidence that he will give enlargement Job 35.15 Hypocrites in heart heap up wrath they cry not when he binds them when folks are straitned they would feel it and especially they should find their straitning that they may cry to God when he binds them Psal 107.12 He brought down their hearts with labour he brake their spirits with toil he hammered their undaunted hearts with sit-fast and sore pressures and further he dealt so with them till they fell down and there was none to help and then they cryed to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them c. That is the great design of pressures when folks are so hampered that they cannot stir their feet when they are so straitned that they wot not what hand to turn them to it is That they may cry to God and he may save them Hence 2. Many sad lamentations may the visible Church and even saints write over their own frames under pressures that they are so little affected and particularly that be they pressed never so much there is little prayer under their pressures as in that forecited place Job 36.13 When Elihu is telling what should be folks carriage when they are bound with fetters and holden in cords of affliction he tells the Hypocrites in heart heap up wrath they cry not when God binds them few folks pressures are seen in their prayers either in doubling their diligence in their duty or in their manner of going about it they have few prayers that look like distrest folks prayers O let fruitless improvers of pressures ponder at large Job 36.8 to 18. Where when Elihu has told the benefit of well improved pressures and the hazard of ill improved pressures he tells Job verse 16. Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place But verse 17. Thou has fulfilled the judgement of the wicked justice and judgement take hold on thee Therefore because there is wrath beware lest he take thee away with his stroak then a great ransom cannot deliver thee evil improved pressures will occasion sad reflections and may bring
the second main Point to encourage Irsael to hope in God that with him is plenteous redemption I proceed now to the 3d Observation that at the entry to these words I proposed to be spoken to That what God is or what is in God is put forth by God for the behove of his people according as they need it I gather this from the connexion of the two Verses with God there is merey and with him there is plenteous redemption and what follows And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquity If he have mercy to compassionat them in their misery and if he have authority and power to vindicate them from bondage it shall be seen in their actual deliverance The point is plain and obvious Gods all-sufficiency his furniture for the need of his people shall not be wanting but put forth actually as he sees good for the behove of his people If he have plenteous redemption he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities Hence it is that in Scripture we have not only an account of furniture in God if I may so word it for his people That with him is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and of promises wherein God engages himself to put forth that furniture for their behove but the Scripture gives an account of his actual putting forth that mercy and power for them Jer. 31.10 There are news to be sent and publish'd in the Isles afar off and what is that He that scattered Israel will gather them and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock and what more For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he It 's spoken of as a thing done and on this account David in his Prayer promises himself a good day Psal 35.9 My soul shall be joyful in the Lord it shall rejoice in his salvation all my bones shall say alluding to that Psal 51.8 Make me to hear joy and gladnesse that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice who is like unto thee that delivers the poor from him that is too strong for him yea the poor and the needy from him that spoils him I am would he say looking for a Song when not so much as a broken bone shall be dumb but all shall get a voice to sing praise for actual redemption I shall not need to stand to prove this from the all-sufficiency of God from his love and affection to his people and from his fidelity that cannot lie Nor will I break in on the particular inferences of this point now Only in general be not vexed take it not ill though ye be put to and kept at a task to keep a good report in your hearts of God when temptation says as Psal 77.7 8 9. The Lord hath cast off for ever and will be favourable no more his mercy is clean gone c. When temptation says what means this and that in my case If all this mercy and redemption be with God and thou may then have a hard steek of work to keep up a good report of him when so many Hell Fire-brands are going thick and three-fold Be encouraged and comforted in this that a day comes when actual redemption shall take all these off thy hand and thou shalt not have it to say only That with God is redemption in opposition to thy troubles but he hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he Be comforted in this ye that are engaged in a task to keep up a good report of God against prejudices The time is coming when he will leave you little to say to his commendation when he shall come and relieve you and make actual redemption give the lie to all mistakes and prejudices whatsoever SERMON XLIV Psalm 130. Vers 8. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities I Am now ye see towards the close of this Psalm which hath detained me so long upon the account of the riches and universal usefulness of the matter therein contained Ye may remember that after that Exhortation to Israel to hope in the Lord I came to the motives encouraging them so to do wherein somewhat was spoken to what is supponed concerning the Israel of God called to hope and allowed to hope in God that they are under the sense of misery needing mercy and under the sense of bondage needing plenteous redemption and in particular under the sense of the bondage of sin putting them in need to be redeemed from all their iniquities and in speaking to what is proposed for the encouragment of such to hope in God I hinted somewhat concerning these two great truths That with God there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption You may remember that I told you there be two words further to be gathered from this 8. v. One is that what is in or with God it shall be put forth for the behove of his people as they have need he shall redeem Israel and another is That it 's in particular Israels great mercy that God shall be a Redeemer to him from all his iniquities For the first of these I brake in on it on the close of the mornings Exercise that what is in or with God shall be put forth for the behove of his people as they need it and they shall find it made forth-coming to them as they need it for if there be with him plenteous redemption he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities I left at a general word of Use from this That we should not take it ill to be kept at a task of bringing up a good report on God against all prejudices and whatsoever temptation suggests of him for the time is coming which the Lord will hasten in his time that he will leave us little to say to his commendation his own performances will say so much and declare him to be exalted above all blessing and praise The time is coming that they shall not think shame of it that if we may so word it have spoken good of him behind his back and would not take a report of him but from his Bible But to follow out this a little for the comfort of them that are looking for the accomplishment of what is in or with God for the behove of his people I shall lead you to a fourfold direction in order to this and endeavour to put a close to this Scripture The first direction is this That ye would study to be well acquaint with the Word to be well acquaint with what God hath declared is in him for his people The Bible should be a well-finger'd Book in gloomy times David knew well what he was doing when he made the Statutes his song in the house of his pilgrimage and the reason why I press this acquaintance with the Word is to help you to prevent a double hazard there is on the one hand the hazard of ignorance