Poor children in distresse whither shall they go but to their father Neither sin nor misery will annull that more then naturall relation that supernaturall Paternity and Filiation Though God clothe himself with a cloud in his anger yet faith will make the soul with Moses run thorow the fire and darknesse to him The Prodigall in the midst of his misery resolves to return to his father The Spirit of Adoption in our hardest times will make us cry Abba Father This reason is used in the same place ver 16. Doubtlesse thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us Vers 19. We are thine thou never bearest rule over them The next Chapter vers 8. But now O Lord thou art our Father behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people The Use is for our Encouragement to continue this practice with all earnestnesse and perseverance The Vse If there be any means to draw down a blessing from the heavens on a distressed Nation it is the prayer of the Saints This is the hand that hath drawn up this sinking Land from the pit of ruine that hath set our feet on that Rock of safety whereon now we stand Whatever difficulties are yet before us by this means or none else will they be gotten overcome Though all other should give over this holy exercise of Fasting and Praying or turn it in a sinfull and provoking formality yet it behoves us to keep it on foot remembring both the expresse command of the Lord Call on me in the day of thy trouble I shall deliver thee Psal 50. Lam. 2.19 Arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out your hearts like water before the face of the Lord Lift up your hands towards him And your own visible experience As no people have sown more plentifully this pretious seed so none have already reaped more evident fruits thereof Be not weary of this good work untill all our desires be accomplished In the next place observe The second Doctrine Sins are heavier then afflictions The Proof That the chief part of the Saints complaint to God is of their wandrings from his wayes Their sins are heavier to them then all their afflictions This is proved from divers Scriptures Psal 38. When the Prophets trouble was great Nothing sound in his flesh The Arrows of the Lord sticking in him Gods hand pressing him sore yet the chief burden whereof he complains was his sins verse 4. Mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils have compassed me about but mine iniquities have taken hold on me for them he was not able to look out his heart failed him Daniel c. 9. complains of the heavy wrath and curse that was powred out on Jerusalem and of so great afflictions as had befaln to no Nation under Heaven yet the first chief and longest part of his complaint is of the sins of their Kings of their Princes of their Priests and whole Land The reason of the Doctrine The Reason Sin is the greatest evill it s the fountain of afflictions Affliction cometh not out of the dust trouble springeth not out of the ground Sin is the root of it Also sin is most contrary to the nature of God Wrath and trouble even the greatest the very torments of Hell are not so for they are according to his justice The godly therefore who weigh things aright in the just ballance of the Sanctuary esteem their sins much heavier and more grievous evils then any they can suffer for them The use is for our instruction The Vse Let our complaints be rightly ordered and our sorrows rightly placed Beware to spend the most or best of thy sense on thy sufferings Beware to pour out the vehemency of thy passion the bitterest of thy sorrows on calamities either private or publike The first fruits the flower the first-born of thy grief must be reserved for the chief evill The naturall and kindely children of God will have more sorrow at their heart for the sins of the Land then for the desolations thereof What ever poverty disgrace pain can befall their person the very wrath of God suppose the torments of Hell will not be so heavy so bitter so troublesome to them as their sins the cause of all these evils The third observation The third Doctrine Gods hand in our sins encreaseth their bitternes An Objection answered Gods punishing and judiciall hand in our sins is their aggravation and increase of their bitternesse For this is the head of the Churches complaint That God had caused them to erre from his wayes It is true the Saints in Scripture draw comfort from some acts of Gods mercy about sin as from his gracious directing of its act to a good end Upon this ground Joseph comforts his Brethren that not they but God had sent him down to Egypt That their felling of him which they intended for evill God had ordered it so that it did become the mean of all their preservation Also Gods prediction of sin in sundry Scriptures is made a ground of contentment All this was done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled is a common place of comfort against the treason of Judas and the wickednesse of the Jews Likewise the Apostles Acts 4. quiet their minde on this meditation That God in his eternall counsell had determined what Herod and Pilate in time had done in crucifying of Christ Of such acts of Gods mercy about our sins we speak not be they temporall be they eternall but of the acts of his justice and wrath punishing sin by sin From these actions of God we can draw no comfort but they aggravate the weight of our sins and increase our grief The miscarriage of Absolon The Proof his rebellion and incest could not but grieve David but to increase his grief 2 Sam. 2.10 God tells him I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Sun in that terrible vision Isai 6. the Lord to demonstrate his wrath against that people sendeth to them a message full of anger Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy Their excaecation was in it self a grievous evill but it was more grievous when it came as a plague from an angry God John 12.39 Gods blinding of their eyes that they could not beleeve Christs Word is brought as an aggravation of their sin and of the anger of Christ against them so far as he went from them and hid himself The reason of this is The Reason That these acts of God proceed from wrath and justice punishing former sins Again they are the means to make sin more sinfull the person being given over to be carried headlong by his own lusts and Satans tentations Thirdly The punishment of sin in this degree is much sorer then if it had been a simple sin as in the sixth of Isaiah and elsewhere it appears No
There is no interruption of the course of mercy towards a People by the destruction of many particular persons Great Vengeance may be upon Thousands the carcases of Ten Thousands may fall in the Wildernesse even of Moses himself and many of the Shepherds both of Church and State and yet the Lord may graciously march on before his People till he have setled them and his Ark in peace on his holy mountain The Prayer consists of Petitions The second member Complaints Confessions of sin Professions of faith intertexed one with another as the holy passions of the Supplicants hearts do mix them In the fifteenth verse The matter of the 15 verse there is a Petition backed with a Complaint The Lord for a long time had left his People to the outrages of their Enemies he had as it were left the earth gone up to the heaven and miskent all that the Enemy had done to his People Now therefore they petition that he might be pleased to look down upon them from his holy and glorious Throne in the heaven For this is the strange faith of the Church That she is perswaded so far of the power and goodnesse of her God at that very time when he hath left her to sink in misery for her offences that even then if he would but look back to her in never so far a distance if from the very heaven the place of his retiring he would behold her on the earth overwhelmed with misery she is hopefull if she come but in the sight of her gracious Lord he would not fail to take pity upon her and deliver her To this Petition a Complaint is subjoyned of the restraint and withdrawing of Gods ancient favours Sometimes his zeal and strength had been employed in her defence his mercies the tender bowels of his compassions had been extended towards her but now all sense of such favours were away This complaint lest it should irritate The matter of the sixteenth is presently corrected in the sixteenth Verse with a fair profession of Faith â—bove and against all present sense however the beams of Gods loving countenance did not then shine upon them as at some other time yet they professe their certain perswasion that God was their Father Though Abraham and Israel and all their bodily Progenitors should cast them away as unworthy to be counted their children yet they did beleeve that their everlasting and unchangeable God would not cast them off but deal with them as children notwithstanding of all their misdeservings As for the words in hand in the seventeenth Verse The division of the Text. the Church goes on to powre out her spirit before him whom she beleeves to be her Father in the midst of all her afflictions in a new complaint and petition The complaint hath two parts and the petition is backed with a twofold Reason The first part of the complaint is in these words O Lord why hast thou made us erre from thy wayes the second part in these Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear The petition is that he would return after his long absence The first reason They were his servants the second They were his inheritance Let us consider severally the minde and use of every part As for the first part of the complaint The Exposition of the first pars four things in it would be exponed First What are the wayes of the Lord. Secondly What it is to erre from his wayes Thirdly How God makes men erre from his way Fourthly How the Church complains of this divine action Three of these particulars are easie and may be dispatched in a word but in the fourth there is no little difficulty For the first What are the wayes of God Gods wayes here are his Commandments full of holinesse and righteousnesse they are called Gods wayes because of their similitude with his nature that is holy righteous and true All his Commandments and conversation are according to the strait rule of his eternall and essentiall holinesse righteousnesse and truth Secondly Because they are his Law and Prescription his will prescribes them as a way to his creatures to walk in Thirdly Because of his presence therein in that way he is to be found He is graciously present and doth conntenance all that walk into it Fourthly Because of their end they lead to God they are the strait way wherein the godly walk till they come to the glorious palace above The second point What it is to erre from these wayes To erre from these wayes is to sin as it is expressed Psal 119.8 10. To wander from Gods Commandments When we leave Gods way and run out on the right hand or the left to the wayes of our own blinde minde and corrupted heart our false opinions against Gods truth our wicked inclinations and actions against his holy nature and revealed will all of this kinde is our erring from his wayes But the great difficulty is in the third How God makes men to erre How the Lord causes us to erre from his way This would seem to make God the cause and author of sin which is a horrid blasphemy against many Scriptures and all reason To eschew this huge great and intolerable inconvenience sundry famous interpreters do translate the originall otherwayes then we read it Not Why hast thou made or caused us to erre but Why hast thou suffered or permitted us to erre So Junius an excellent translator And many hundred yeers before him the Chaldee Paraphrast did render it Why hast thou cast us away to erre from thy wayes This interpretation is approved by very Learned and Orthodox Divines who bring this reason for it That the Hebrew word here is not simply in the active form not in Kal but as they speak in Hiphil whose signification oftentimes is not to make or cause but to permit Indeed this translation does eschew fully the difficulty The Grammaticall solution of some great men is not selid yet we dare not venture upon it for as it seems it were to make too bold with the Scripture The Septuagens the ancient Latin the French the Dutch the Italian and many more reads it just as our English Why hast thou made us to erre from thy wayes The Grammaticall reason alleaged hath no strength in this place for be it so that Hebrew Verbs in Hiphil sometime have a permissive and not an active sense though this in any word is very rare and the examples alleaged are very questionable yet for the Hiphil of the word in hand we deny that ever it can be so exponed A number of places of Scripture may be produced where Hithah must be actively exponed as here our translators read it but not one if it be not this in question can be brought where it may be exponed of a meer permission without some agency and operation upon the erring and seduced person We dare not trust the solving of so
mens own lusts to break out on the objects set before them For these acts of Judgment both in our Text and oft elsewhere in Scripture the cause of mens sins not as they are sins but as punishments of sin is ascribed to him 2 Thess 2.10 Because they received not the love of the truth God shall send them strong delusions to believe a lye He was to send on them The Man of sin whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and with all deceiveablenesse The committing of the sin is ascribed to the sinner who believes the lye the tempting to it is ascribed to Satan and his Antichristian Instruments the sending out both of Satan and Antichrist the giving over to delusion is ascribed to God the righteous Judge by these means punishing former sins Rom. 1.18 21 24 26 28. The wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousnesse of men because when they knew God they glorified him not as God wherefore God gave them up also to uncleannesse For this cause God gave them up to vile affections God gave them over to a reprobate minde The sinfull acts flow from the reprobate mindes and vile affections of the sinners yet God the Judge is thrice said to give them up to these their own sins Rom. 11.8 God hath given them the spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this day Let their Table be a snare a stumbling-block and a recompence to them Let their eyes be darkned that they may not see 2 Chron. 18.22 The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy Prophets Many such places there are where God as a righteous Judge is made to give over sinners to the devil to other wicked men to themselves to be led in more and greater sins as punishments of the former Thus far Protestant Divines do go Protestants are unjustly accused for making God the author of sin and all the acts which any of them ascribe to God about the causation of sin may be referred to one of the three named All which stands well with the holinesse of his Nature and extreme contrariety to sin The Papists and Arminians do slander us most unjustly as if we did blaspheme the holy Lord in making him the author of sin All of us ever have abhorred such Doctrine We never ascribed to God more acts of providence about sin then the most clamorous of our enemies themselves expresly have done The three forenamed acts by Bellarmine and Arminius are attributed to God in as ample and unadvised expressions as ever fell from the Pen of any of our approved Divines I grant the Libertines of old This is the blasphemy of the Libertines and of M. Archers book justly burnt therefore and their children the Antinomians this day do cast out on this subject many abominable Blasphemies but these were ever detested by all Orthodox Protestants as the vomit of the father of all lyes and blasphemies which makes us the more to marvel what these men can mean who lately here under the name of M. Archer a famous Independent in his time have printed the worst and grossest of these Blasphemies Surely if such kinde of Doctrine be entertained by any of that Party our Disputations will not stand long at Church-Government but the world will be confirmed in that opinion which some wise men long ago have given out That Independency was not so much loved for it self as for somwhat else A liberty without censure to vent such Doctrines as the conscience of Orthedox Divines will never be able to hear with patience But in this I will not enter The zeal of the whole Assembly and both the Honourable Houses against the blasphemous Heresies of that infamous Book doth quiet and secure our mindes herein The fourth word to be exponed Why doth the Church complain of these acts of God about her sins is the Interrogation and Complaint Why hast thou made us to erre The Church being now before God and laying hold on his fatherly compassions pours out before him the troubles of her heart That which troubled them most was their sins and obstinacie in Rebellion which they complain to the Lord had befallen them in his great wrath through his deserting of them and giving them over to be led away by their own lusts and Satans tentations This part of Gods wrath upon them in punishing their sins with more blindnesse and making them erre farther from his ways was their greatest misery the true cause of all their outward plagues and a greater plague then all the rest as we may see in the sixth of this Prophecie where the Lord for contempt of the Prophets Ministery doth punish the body of that people with Spirituall Judgements and makes their heart fatter their minde blinder then before And from this Spirituall evil he makes all their Temporall desolation to flow as out of its proper Fountain Of this misery the people here complain to God not to lay their sins off themselves on the Lord but to witnesse their deep sense of them as coming on them through Gods just desertion and deserved judgement Not to upbraid the Lord with their miseries but to spread them out before his feet as their onely hope from whose hand alone they expected a remedy The first Doctrine The godly pour out all their complaints in Gods bosom From the words thus exponed observe first The children of God in their worst estate are so familiar with their heavenly Father as to pour out in his bosom the complaints of whatever misery lies upon them At this time as appears by the words both before and after the peoples condition was exceeding hard We are all as an unclean thing our iniquities as the winde have taken us away Thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our iniquities His zeal strength and mercifull bowels seemed to be restrained towards them yet they come before him and that which troubled them most their wandring from his ways they spread it out before his feet as the matter of their chiefest complaint The truth of the Doctrine may be seen Lam. 4.1 The Proof hereof Remember O Lord what is come upon us consider and behold our reproach In all the Chapter and the whole Book there is a familiar complaining to the Lord of all their miseries Moses and Aaron in all their tribulation run to the door of the Tabernacle Jacob at the side of the foord Jabbuk in his great fray for Esau betook himself to weep and pray David in his present danger of stoning by his own men comforted himself in God Hezekiah spread out before the Lord the railing of Rabshakeh and after his desperate sicknesse turned himself to the wall to pour out his heart to God The examples of this practice are innumerable The Reason of it is The Saints interest in God The Reason He is their Father
of in the places most infamous for that evill whether Amsterdam or Pole or Transilvania and if you please to joyn all the three in one but all are among us and divers more then in any of the places mentioned were ever heard of Their evidence in this to me seems palpable 2 By their grossenesse that however at their first appearance they did waken a great expectation by their faire promises of New-Light of New-found-Truths of New-wayes leading to extraordinary pietie The new-light of all our Innovators is nothing but old darknesse yet after a little inspection and commerce to un-ingaged and im-prejudicate mindes they are found to be no other but the very same dead karcases of old Heresies and Schisines which by the happie labours of the Reformed Divines in this and other Churches lay buried in their grave of oblivion and abomination till their late infaust resurrection That new Canterburian-Protestantisme which the other day so much bewitched the Court and Country So it is in the Canterburians is now seen to have been nothing but masked Popery but a high path-royall way to Rome a Schoole of Idolatry Heresie Treachery and mercilesse bloodshed These Gospell-truths The Antinomians these sweet Sermons of Free-grace that setting up of naked Christ on his Throne which hath seduced so many thousands of well-meaning souls do now appear in their own colours and to any common eye may be seen to be nothing but the grosse Antinomy of the old Libertines These innocent scruples of tender consciences only about the grounds of Pedo-baptisme The Anabaptists whither have they now led some millions not of the worst of our people See we not that without any leave so much as asked of the Magistrate very great numbers of Churches are erected by them of formall and avowed Anabaptists These specious and popular Invectives against Tyrannie and Persecution The Libertines those plausible Harangues for a liberty onely to examine without prejudice what was proponed under the name of a Divine Truth whether at last hath it carried multitudes who esteem themselves among the most rationall of men Have they not opened in the midst of our streets the old Pantheon of Paganish Rome resolutely asserting an absolute Freedom for Turks Jews Pagans Papists and if there be any worse Religions not onely to live in all quietnesse among us but to be permitted without any Discouragement to follow their Consciences and so to employ themselves daily in the most advantagious places private or publike with so much art and diligence as they can use to draw all the world toward their wicked Professions And not to run out upon all the rest of our old renewed Errours that so much-extolled Independency The Independents wherein many Religious souls for the time do wander which is the chief hand that opened at first and keepeth open to this day the door to all the other Errours that plague us What is it else but a Limb or rather Apologet. Nar. the large half of the Body of old Brownism as it s own Patrons confesse a middle way betwixt the Reformed Churches and the Brownists the same Way which Morellius seduced by the Dutch Anabaptists did labour to bring into FRANCE but by Bâ—za and Sadaell in two Generall Assemblies it was so fully confuted that to this day all the Churches there do dâ—test it Yet Bolton and Brown would needs bring it into ENGLAND These two are the known Fathers of English Independency men whose Inventions cannot be much loved for their authors sake when they are well known Among all the Protestant Divines that ever ENGLAND bred Robinsons Justif p. 50. I doubt if any have been more scandalous either in life or death then the two former as their chief followers are forced to acknowledge Few Prelaticall men have gone beyond Brown in Profanity from his Youth to his Old-age And Judas himself was no more abominable then Bolton in his death I have oft marvelled how the Invention of so infamous Authors could be entertained by men of understanding especially since God did openly brand that their Conception with the Marks of his Displeasure not onely in its Birth but in all the passages of its Life wherever yet it hath set foot on ground The fruits of Bolton and Browns Independency at Amsterdam have been so eminently scandalous Apologet. Nar. that its own friends can finde no cover of excuse for them The Divisions and Rents that sprang from the same root when it was planted in some better ground Edwards Antapol at Arnhem and Roterdam have been no lesse unhappie and bitter But that which demonstrates the Genuine Nature of this Plant is its fruits in New-England where without any Incumbrance from without or from within having all the Advantages Civil and Ecclesiastick which could be wished it got leave to put out its full strength In a short time there it brought forth such a multitude of grosse Heresies and Divisions as did threaten not the Churches alone but the Civil State also with a totall Ruine If our Hopes of it here may be much better for any of its fruits which yet we have tasted wise men will pronounce The third Character wherewith the Finger of God hath stigmatized the Errours of this place 5. By their increase is Their Incredible encrease It can hardly be shewn where Errour in so short a time hath made so great a Conquest For however as I am informed all the Fowls that yet have made their Nest in the last Branch whereof we did speak may easily be numbred being no ways so many as some would make them yet if ye look upon the whole Tree in all its Branches it will be found to have drawn under its shadow a marvellous multitude of Creatures These last four yeers it seems more people here have made Apostacie to one Errour or other of their own accord without the violence of any Persecution then in all the Reformed Churches together for an hundred yeers and above Errour of it self is of no such conquering strength did not the Justice of God give men over to be captivated by its Delusions The fourth Demonstration of a Divine Judgement in our Errours 4. By mens neglect of their Cure is this That though they have been universally acknowledged and regrated yet to this day their effectuall Cure hath been well neer universally neglected It is now not Moneths but Yeers fince upon the faithfull Warning of the Lords Messengers all men every where have joyned to acknowledge and to professe their displeasure at the spreading of Errour over the face of this Land No Societies wore full of these Complaints then the three most Considerable The two Honourable Houses and The Reverend Assembly But yet after all these Regrates What reall stop hath been made to the Current of this over-flowing Deluge These are a great part of our Judgements Our comfort and hope which the godly in the
days of Humiliation and when else their hearts are loosed to mourn do deplore Yet here is our Comfort That in answer to our Supplications the Lord hath stirred up the hearts of those who have power effectually to minde that which we are confident will prove the Remedy of these and many more of our present Evils I mean The setting up without further Delay of the Lords Government in his own House over all the Land The whole Government being transmitted from the Assembly and looked upon by both Houses with a gracious Aspect and sundry Votes already past upon the chief parts thereof it is certainly expected that in a very short time the whole Frame shall be erected and not onely be accompanied with the joyfull Acclamations of this Land and of all the Churches abroad but also filled with so much Grace and Power from the presence of the Lord as shall prove an heavenly Attractive without any need of humane violence to draw the spirits of those who for the time do most dissent and oppose to its admiration and love Waiting and praying for the sight of that happie day I rest Thy Servant in the Lord R. B. A Sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Lords July 30. 1645. ISAI 63.17 Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardned our hearts from thy fear Return for thy servants sake the Tribes of thine Inheritance IN this and the two next Chapters The Division of the Chapter we have a heavenly Conference and Dialogue betwixt Christ and the Church of Israel in the time of her affliction in Babel The Dialogue hath Three or Six parts Three Questions of the Church and Three Answers of Christ In the first verse of this Chapter The first Pars. we have the first Question and Answer The Church about that time of the Captivity to which this part of the Prophecie relateth was much oppressed with many Enemies God after all his wrath begins to arise and take order with them who long had deyoured her especially with Edom the neerest and most bitter Enemy of Jacob. When she sees the sudden and unexpected Vengeance on Edom admiring who could be the author and worker of it she proposes the Question Who he was that had destroyed Bozra the principall City of the Edomites and was marching in his great and glorious strength from the Land of Edom the service there being ended to other of the Enemies Countreys Unto the Churches Interrogation Christ answers That it was he himself who now by his works was demonstrating the truth of his ancient promises and shewing the might of his power to save his people from the Enemies oppression Observe The Doctâ—ine When the Church hath wrestled long with her enemies and is ready to faint and give over on a sudden Christ the King and Captain of the Host of Israel comes down and breaks the strength of the prevailing enemy to the Church her great admiration The second part of the Dialogue is in the next five verses The second part of the Chapter The Church finding it was her Lord and God who was begun to take vengeance on her enemies before he go she is desirous of more conference with him and proposes a second Question Wherefore his Garments were red as if he had been treading a Presse of red wine The Lords Answer is That the set time of his Vengeance upon her Enemies was come That though her strength was gone and among all her friends there was none able to stand against her foes yet he alone would do it and by his own Arm had destroyed already some of them with so great a slaughter that all his glorious Raiment was stained with the blood of the slain Hence observe The first Doctrine first When the condition of the Church is most desperate upon earth then is the day and hour of her certain redresse from heaven The Church The second deserted of her self and all men else hath one fast friend who alone is worth many Ten thousands able to draw her out of all deeps In the day of the Lords anger The third wo to all the enemies of the Church When the Lord begins to trample them in the Wine-presse of his Indignation if there were no more but the dashing of their bodies in pieces the watering of the ground with their blood and the staining of the garments of their killers therewith if no more followed it were well to them But they must drink after death in the Cup of the everlasting fury of the Almighty as John comments it Rev. 14.10 They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone for ever and ever In the third part of the Dialogue from the seventh verse The Subdivision of the third part the Church finding her Deliverance sensibly begun but not accomplished for though Edom was destroyed yet Babel was sitting like a Queen over the Nations and most over the rubbish of desclate Jerusalem she turns her self to her present Redeemer and most humbly supplicates him to perfect what he had begun To deliver her fully from the great burdens both of sin and misery that yet lay upon her This Prayer is set down in the remnant of this Chapter and all the next whereunto a large and gracious Answer is returned by Christ in the 65 Chapter thorow the whole The first part of the Prayer is Thanksgiving Its first member from the seventh to the fifteenth To prepare their hearts for petitioning they lay out before the Lord the great goodnesse which he of old had bestowed on the house of Israel his wonders in Egypt his glorious works at the Red Sea and in the Wildernesse the constancy of his kindnesse notwithstanding their Rebellion and vexing of his Spirit Though sometime he punished them for their sins yet he never left them for the glory of his Name and the Multitude of his mercies Not onely Moses his Shepherd but the Angel of his Presence went before them He was afflicted in all their afflictions he bare them and carried them in his arms all these days of old thorow that howling Wildernesse This is the Churches Preface to her subsequent Prayer Hence observe first The first Doctrine Thanksgiving is the meetest usher which a Petitioner can have to the Throne of Grace Praise perfumes the lips of a Supplicant it sweetens it softens it opens the heart of a Seeker and fits it singularly to receive all its desires from God The kindnesse of God in the days of Moses The second and the most ancient times is the Churches Inheritance to the worlds end All the favours of God registred in Scripture all the gracious experiments of the Saints in any time in any place are our Patrimony serving as ruled Cases to strengthen our Faith Hope and Patience in the days of our adversity The sins of many persons The third remove not the favour of God from an elect Nation
marvell therefore that men of awakened consciences make it a chief part of their complaint and grief That God had caused them to erre This being a figne of wrath and increase of guiltinesse and a forerunner of greater punishment The use is first for Caution 1 Vse for Caution To beware of that dangerous errour of taking comfort and encouragement from Gods judiciall hand in our sins that is to glory in our shame and to joy for what we should be sad It is to cast off our self the burden of our sin to whom alone it belongs on God whose eyes are purer then to behold iniquity Secondly 2 Vse for Counsel It serves for Councell to make it our chief grief in our mourning That we have faln under so heavy displeasure as to be scourged with the worst of Gods Rods Of all the Arrows in Gods Quiver this is the most venemous To be given over by God to sin this comes from a speciall wrath and is a presage of very great misery following When Gods spirit stirred up David to number the people it came from his anger against Israel and was a forerunner of the destroying Angell The blinding of the peoples eyes Isaiah 6. and John 12. is made an antecedent of a nationall ruine When ever we feel this to be our condition it should be the matter of our most mournfull complaint The fourth observation will clear the third it is this The fourth Doctrine Judiciall errours are most lamentable The godly when their eyes are opened to see their wandrings they are singularly affected with their judiciall errours As here the Church mourning and praying to God for sin and misery begins her complaint for these errours into which by Gods anger and judgement she had faln Old Israel by Gods judgement The Proof had faln in the grievous errour of civill discord which cost in two dayes the eleven Tribes the lives of fourty thousand men and in the third proceeded very near to the extirpation of the twelfth Tribe When the hand of God was lifted off them and they began to look back upon their actions Judges 21.2 they weeped fore before the Lord and complained to him of the great mischief wherein they had faln Though the injustice and obstinacy of Benjamin had been the immediate cause of the dissention yet they pittied their Brethren seeing it was the Lords judgement upon them all that had made that breach in Israel Verse 15. Ephraim in his pride would needs rebell against the house of David and have a King among themselves and Altars of their own making at Dan and Bethel God in justice gave them over to these sins of continuall sedition and idolatry till they were totally ruined He gave them a number of Kings in his anger Hos 8.11 Because Ephraim hath made many Altars to sin Altars shall be unto him to sin But when the Lord gave repentance to Ephraim see how much they are grieved ashamed and confounded for their madnesse wherein by the judgement of God they were made long to go on Jere. 31.18 I have heard Ephrains bemoaning himself thus Surely after I was turned I repented and after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I bore the reproach of my youth The Jews were plagued of God with a horrible blindnesse of minde and obstinacy of heart so that they rejected the Gospel crucified the Lord of Life and remain in Rebellion to this day But when the Lord shall take off the vail of their eyes and they begin to see their judiciall errours their madnesse against Christ and the Gospel wherewith God in justice did plague them their grief for it will be extraordinary as it is set down Zach. 12.10 They shall look on him whom they have peirced and they shall mourn for him as one mournath for his onely son and shall be in bitternesse for him as one is in bitternesse for his first-born 2 Thes 2. The Churches of the Gentiles are in Gods justice many of them given over to strong delusions to beleeve Antichristian Lyes but when God begins to open their eyes to see these delusions their grief and indignation for them is so great Revel 17.16 That they hate the whore who did seduce and bewitch them They make her desolate and naked They eat her flesh and burn her with fire The Reasons of this Doctrine The Reasons are the same which of the former especially the second The singular and extraordinary guiltinesse that is in these judiciall errours the blinded soul sees them not while God in mercy remove the cloud and send in his light but then the lightned soul beholding the horrible wayes wherein it hath been wandring such wherein it would never have walked had it not been led by a powerfull Divell set on by the permission and commission of a just God Seeing in these sins a just God a wicked Divell and a heart stirred up by extraordinary temptations by this horrible back-sight is affrighted and amazed till Faith in the infinite mercies of God doth calm and settle it The Use is for admonition The Vse Beware of judiciall errours very often they are never pardoned but bring on destruction both temporall and eternall 2 Thes 2.11 They to whom God sends strong delusions are damned Isai 6.11 When God shut the peoples eyes and made their heart fat the Cities were wasted and the Land made desolate Before Ephraim and Juda recovered themselves from that snare of rebellion and came to the repentance spoken of How many hundred thousands and millions of them did perish both temporally and eternally And these few whom the Lord bringeth to see and mourn for their judiciall ertours How great is their grief How much do they wish to have seen in time their madnesse that they might not so much have been plagued therewith But what are these judiciall errours which we would beware of Search the Scriptures they will make you wise in this very necessary point of knowledge For your use I shall point at some First Civill discord a Judiciall errour Civill Discord is a sin and a great judgement a sin to the authors and fomenters a judgement to all as well the innocent as nocent party Isai 19.2 God punisheth the sins of the Egyptians with his plague I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and they shall fight every one against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdom against Kingdom and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof and I will destroy the counsel thereof The same is the Judgement of Israel Zech. 11.6 I will no more pity the inhabitants of the Land but I will deliver the men every one into his neighbours hands and into the hands of his King and they shall smite the Land and out of their hand I will not deliver them This is the great Judgement that long hath lien upon us the
Princes or States refuse or delay to grant Ecclesiastick Government to the Churches that live in their Dominions Have the Independents the Brownists or the Anabaptists or any of the Hetorodox Societies among us wanted their own Government since the first hour of their self-erection The Judgement of this Errour appeareth in three Circumstances It is demonstrate to be a Judgement and Plague First That it is evident to all Secondly That it were most easily amended Thirdly That it is singularly hurtfull The Evidence of it may be seen in the confession of all The greatest and most unreasonable Sectaries will not deny but every true Church should be without all delay invested with Government And if you will speak with the men who most have and do retard the erection of the Government desired they will professe their true intention and desire to see the Church-Discipline established For this evil Anarchy hath been so oft by so many of Gods faithful servants witnessed against that now it s defended by none Concerning the second The facility of its erection it is as clear For I pray who are the men that will take it upon them to impede it Can we at this present or could we for some yeers complain of the violence of a seduced Court Can the blame be cast on any Popish or Prelaticall Faction Will either Brownists or Anabaptists professe their deniall to us of what they long ago have taken to themselves Who then must answer to God for our shamefull Anarchy for so long a time The hurt of it is too too perspicuous Whosoever will lay the Sword the Pestilence and all the Calamities that destroy the Land on our delay to build the House of the Lord shall have for him the Prophet Zechariahs direct Warrant Zech. 8.10 Before these days there was no peace to him that went out or came in because of affliction For I set all men every one against his neighbour And if we indeed believe It is not the strength of men but the Lord Christ who setleth troubled Kingdoms What hope can we have that he will ever settle our State so long as his Church lies neglected in so wofull a confusion Beside outward Judgements this Errour is the cause of the greatest spirituall Mischiefs The hedge of Discipline lying level with the ground makes open doors yea invites and calls for all the devouring beasts to prey on the Flock of Christ From this it is that so many thousand souls are permitted to perish eternally in ignorance in profanenesse in Heresies in damnable Sects without the least controll or any mans endeavour to reclaim them So long as the Law permits no Pastor in England to exercise his Pastorall charge on any person he may well weep and mourn when the devil in his sight plucks away numbers of his Sheep but with his Shepherds Crook with the Ordinance of Christs Discipline to hold off that Lion it is not in his power It is not onely the passionate desire of all the Reformed Churches abroad of all the godly and Orthodox Party at home but also their confident expectation That the Honorable Houses without further delay will at last set up the walls of the House of God who now is going on apace by so many Successes to ruine their enemies and to settle the state of their affairs much according to their hearts desire The neglect of this piece of Thankfulnesse may provoke the Lord to repent him of his favours and to call back in one day what he had been giving in many I point but at one other Judiciall wandering False Doctrine is a Judiciall Errour that which usually and properly goeth under the name of Errour the word of our Text false Doctrine contrary to the ways of Gods Truth That Errour is a sin and a Judiciall one infliflicted by God as a punishment of former sins we may see in divers Scriptures 2 Thess 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the Truth for this cause God gave them over to strong delusions to believe a lye Here Errours are Judgements which God puts Satan to bring on men for their coldrife entertaining of the truth And how grievous a Judgment Error is this and other Scriptures clear Here it is made a cause of damnation That they might all be damned who believed not the Truth The Socino-Remonstrants have taught our new Masters to extenuate much and at last to deny the sinfulnesse and danger of Errour They would hide the Vipers sting till the pretty and beautifull worm be once taken into the bosom where a little warmed it makes it quickly appear how innocent and harmlesse a creature it is They tell us that all sin is in the Will Errour is a dangerous evil and the cause of damnation but the seat of errour is the minde Is not the minde the most high and divine facultie of the soul Is not the corruption of the best things truely worst The mindes pollution with the darknesse of errour is eminently contrary to the light and truth of the divine nature Against this greatest of errours the excusing of all errours we should minde the truth of God who cannot lye In the place cited errour is made the cause of damnation elsewhere the Apostle tells us That false Doctrine eats up and kills the soul as a Canker Gangrene or Pest doth the body 2 Tim. 2.17 Also false Teachers are called Ravening Woolfs who tear and rent in peeces the souls of the seduced Acts 20.29 The Apostle Peter is in the same minde 2. Epistle 2. He tells us the condition of false Teachers They bring in damnable Heresies their wayes are pernicious their distruction is swift their damnation slumbereth not It is as certain as was the damnation of the Devils of the old world drowned in the deluge of the Sodomites All this is Peters Doctrine And this he had from his Master Christ Matth. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets When they have the fairest shew of piety he that knows the heart pronounceth They are but ravening Woolfs Matth. 15.14 If the blinde lead the blinde both shall fall in the ditch If we beleeve the Lord a false Teacher doth not onely destroy himself but draws with him all his blinded Scholers into the ditch of the same perdition 1 Cor. 12.25 27. The Apostle tells us The nature of Shism That the Church is the Body of Christ and that Schismaticks make a Schism in Christs Body that is they rent his Body in peeces they who crucified him would not rent his seamlesse Coat but Schismaticks can tear his skin cut his flesh rent his Joynts and Members in peeces Understand the Language of them who plead for liberty of errours What is meant by liberty of conscience and what is the true sense of their language who require a toleration of Errours If you beleeve Christ or the Doctrine of Paul attested by Peter and the rest both Prophets and Apostles whom I have not time
to cite they invite you to permit ravening Woolfs freely to enter your streets and tear in peeces all they meet with to come into your Houses and Chambers to devour the souls of your best beloved Wives Sons Daughters Servants and Friends to lead them all out to a ditch and drown them yea which is infinitely worse to cast them all in the pit of damnation These were hard expressions if they were our own and not our betters I mean Christ and his Apostles Would you permit any whom you were able to hinder to rent the Coat of Christ to tear his Skin to cut his Flesh to pull his Arm from his Shoulder These are the things which too long have been done in our eyes It were good that such impious actions so grievous to God so hurtfull to the souls of men at last were stopped Would you count him a gracious parent who should wink at any who brought into his house Vipers and Serpents Woolfs and Tigers to destroy his Children who brought in Boxes of Pestiferous Cloaths and boldly spread them on the Beds and about the Table where himself and family were to sit and lie This is the office and onely exercise of all our Hereticks and Patrons of errour All Christians are obliged to the uttermost of their power to quench the fire of Heresie and Schism but above all other we have a speciall obligation for this duty we have lifted up our hands to the most high God vowing to him in the sight of all the Neighbour-Nations our endeavours in the sincerity of our hearts to extirpate Heresie and Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine without respect of persons If herein we should be negligent would not God avenge our solemn Perjury If respect to any person should make us ever think of breaking that Bond and expressely contrary thereto to begin once to tamper about the toleration of errours contrary to sound Doctrine what might we and the posterity expect from the hand of the God of Justice and Truth Let none object the example of the States of Holland to us in this point The example of Holland an swered For first Where the Will of God is evident the contrary example of men is not to be regarded Secondly The evill example of one State is not to be followed against the good example of all other Protestant Churches Thirdly These States were never bound to God by such a Covenant as we are Fourthly In these States there hath been a connivance at Errours by particular Magistrates for their private gain but to this hour was ever any Sect among them so impudent as to offer a Petition for a Toleration by Law when lately some assayed to do it they repented ever since of that folly Lastly Hath not the Magistrates connivance without any Legall Toleration so much multiplied Sects among them that for this one thing though for many other their renown be great they have become infamous in the Christian World The godly among them have been more grieved with this scandalous sin then with any other and those of them who are wise do see their State this day in greater civill danger by this peece of impious policy and from it apprehend greater hazards of commotion and ruine to their State then from any other ground However the connivence there at Sects and the multiplication of Sects by connivence is no wayes comparable to what is among us but we trust that this kinde of our erring from the wayes of God is near a period and shall shortly be remedied So much for the first part of the Churches complaint The second part of the Complaint exponed followeth the second And hardned our heart from thy fear Not onely they had wanderd out of the wayes of God in divers by-paths of sin but in these sins they were obstinate their hearts had been hard the fear of God moved them not to repentance This was a worse evill then the first so they acknowledge the hand of God and his sore punishment into it and of this make a heavy regrate to him The originall word that here is turned harden What is hardnesse of heart is but once else in Scripture Job 39.16 spoken of the Ostridge She is hardned against her young ones or is removed from her young ones she leaveth them alone It signifies two things To harden or to remove Some of the best Latin Interpreters translate it here Why removest thou our heart from thy fear The Chaldee Paraphrast takes it so also but the Septuagint and the most of other Interpreters old and late translate it as we have it The words will bear both but for shortnesse I shall hold with our own translation onely Hardnesse of heart is a metaphor importing the wilfull obstinate and rebellious disposition of the Spirit against the fear and counsells of God As hard Wax refuseth the stamp while the soft receives the impression A hard Wall puts back the Ball which the soft Ayr letteth passe through A Corslet of Iron holds out the Bullet which the softnesse of the flesh receiveth The way how God hardneth the heart against his fear How God hardeneth the heart is not by infusion of any hardnesse or any evill disposition into the heart but by three other actions First By withdrawing of his gracious spirit whose operation it is that softens the heart and makes it plyable to the Counsells of God and subject to his fear Deut. 29.9 The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive eyes to see and ears to hear to this day That all they had seen in Egypt and in the Wildernesse had not pierced their heart with the love and fear of God Of this wonderfull hardnesse of the peoples heart this reason is rendered by Moses God had not given them a heart to perceive Beside this negative action of God in hardning the heart he hath two positive He gives over the heart to its own naturall hardnesse that it may be more and more hardened Thus the Lord hardened Pharaohs heart He not onely withheld all the gracious motions of his spirit from him but let his naturall obstinacy work it self to an acquired habit of hardnesse And so what was before naturall became habituall and judiciall This is the judgement spoken of the twelfth of John from the sixth of Isaiah Make the heart of this people fat for their rejecting of my former counsels let their rebellious heart become-worse and worse so that thy ministery do them no more good Thirdly God gives over the heart judicially hardned by it self to Satans tentations whereby it becomes more blinde dead and hard then of it self alone it could be He sent evill Angels among the Egyptians for this evill among others Psal 79.49 2 Thes 2. He sends out Satan to work with Antichrist for to blinde the eye and harden the heart with strong delusions By all this you understand why the Church regrates it here to God
That he had hardened her heart from his fear Hardnesse was naturall to her heart yet they found Gods judgement causing in justice that naturall evill to increase upon them From this part of the Complaint observe The Doctrine Judicial hardnesse is the godlies greatest grief Judiciall hardnesse of heart from the fear of God in the times of trouble is the godlies chiefest grief and complaint to God The troubles and calamities of the Jews were great at this time their sins also were great But behold here they complain to God more then for either their calamities or other sins that God had hardened their heart from his fear in the midst of all their sins and judgements This was it that made the Prophet Jeremy amazed The Proof Jere. 5.3 O Lord thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder then a rock The Reason why this condition of a people is most lamentable is first It is a presage of destruction The first Reason When strokes humble not a people and soften not their heart to the fear and obedience of God then it cometh to this Why should ye be stricken any more After correction is obstinately refused then cometh rejection 2 Kings 17.18 God is very angry with the ten Tribes and removes them out of his sight the great cause we have Verse 14. They hardned their necks like the necks of their fathers that did not beleeve in the Lord their God This same was the cause of the ruine of Jerusalem Jere. 19.15 I will bring upon this City all the evill that I have pronounced against it because they have hardned their necks that they might not hear my words Jere. 26.29 The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath because they had hardned their necks and did worse then their fathers Another Reason The second Reason This is such an evill as draweth on eternall perdition after temporall ruine Rom. 2.5 After thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath There is a treasure and heap of everlasting wrath from this hardnesse Heb. 3.7 To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation Wherefore I was grieved with that Generation and sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Meaning such grief and anger in God against this evil as holds out of heaven Thirdly The third Reason This sin hath extraordinary malignancy in it though neither eternall nor temporall wrath followed on it The hand of an angry God of a working devil and high degree of corruption are into it in its production all these three have place Before any be hardned in sin and become obstinate the corruption of the heart must be great and highly advanced Also Satans hand is in the blinding of the eyes and searing with the hot-iron in stupifying and making senslesse the conscience of the hardned person and God as a just Judge putting on the executioner must be also about this action So that this hardning is very oft the signe of a Reprobate to whom God shews no mercy Whom he will he hardens and sheweth mercy on whom he will shew mercy albeit it s not ever so as in our Text and elsewhere God hardens the hearts of some for a time whom thereafter he softens and to them sheweth mercy Yet oft being the case of Reprobates and ever very like to it and in it self a degree to that wofull condition it affrighteth the godly when they see it in themselves or others and becometh a great part of their complaint to God The Use is for Exhortation The Vse That we be carefull to grieve and complain to the Lord for this great evil wherever we see it in our selves or others Not onely the most faithfull of Gods Watch-men in all the three Kingdoms but also those of the people who by the anointing of God have the eyes of their minde opened to see the Spirituall estate of their own or their neighbours souls bear witnesse with an unanimous testimony that notwithstanding all the Judgements which lie on the Land yet this hardnesse of heart is greater and more universall then ever they have seen it This cannot be but the hand of God adding this Spirituall Plague as the worst and greatest of all our evils For this we have great reason to mourn and intreat the removall of it above all our Woes Motives to the Duty we need no other then the Reasons of the Doctrine If thou finde this evil crept in thy heart as I doubt not but it lodgeth sensibly in some hearts that hear me or though the Lord had blessed thee with the tender heart of Josiah to mourn for the sins and calamities that are already and to tremble for what further is coming yet if thou see this Mischief proclaiming it self in the countenances and lives of the most of thy neighbours as truely an observing and conscientious eye will remark too much of it where-ever he will look even in the days and places of most solemn Humiliation when hardnesse of heart should be banished farthest away this evil I say wherever found in thy self or others should be complained of to God For having in it so much of an angry God a busie devil and of a high degree of humane corruption it being also a presage and certain forerunner if not remedied of greater Temporal Judgements then yet we have seen albeit we have seen and heard of as much wo as our fathers in these Kingdoms have felt for some hundred yeers though all their sufferings were put together Yet the hardnesse of our hearts if it continue will make all we have suffered but the beginning of evils yea this hardnesse of heart poisons and envenoms all our sufferings with a cursed quality Pestilence wounds spoiling of goods death are all sanctified and sweetned to a softned heart but to a hardned heart they are the first acts of a wofull Tragedie there is a treasure of wrath and lake of fire and brimstone at their end attending them If we were able on these days set apart for this end above all other to attain the blessing of a soft heart and the Judgement of a heart hardned by God removed we would quickly be secure of damnation we would becom certain of the removall of all these Judgements which have very long so heavily lien both on the Church and State and on the backs if not of our persons yet of many in whom our interest is great we should be assured of heavenly consolations against all evils that for the time were on or hereafter might befall us Let it therefore be our earnest endeavour to finde this blessing by the Word by the Sacraments by publike by private Prayer by Reading by Conference by Meditation At this time I will point at some Scripturall helps towards
it First The first cure of hardnesse is The embracing of the word by faith believe the Word of the Lord. Gods Word is the means that softneth the heart like the Sun that melteth the wax likethe Hammer that breaketh the stone the Fire that softneth the Iron the watry cloud that moistneth the dry and parched ground With all care and conscience set thy heart under the beams of that Sun the stroke of that Hammer before the heat of that fire under the droppings of that cloud The contempt the neglect the misbelief of this holy instrument of the Spirit is a great cause of all the hardnesse of heart we speak of Heb. 3. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart Take heed there be not in any of you an evil heart of misbelief Who will not hear the voice or doth hear but with an evil heart of misbelief they harden their heart The Word which should melt them as the Sun doth Wax hardneth them as the Sun doth Clay that Word which to the believer is the loud voice of the Trumpet of God to waken them when sleeping to quicken them when dead becomes to the unbeliever and carelesse hearer the song of a pleasant voice to sing them asleep and to keep them sleeping To such the most powerfull Ministery of a Prophet of an Apostle of Christ himself serveth to make the heart more hard and fat and dead then it was before as from the sixth of Isai and twelfth of John it is manifest That which to the faithfull is a quickning Spirit to the misbeliever is a killing letter What to the one is the power of God to salvation to the other is but as sounding Brasse and a tinkling Cymbal Let it therefore be your earnest endeavour in all holy exercises about the Word private or publike be it preaching or reading or conference to embrace it with an honest heart with all attention reverence and faith Particularly Especially the promise of a soft heart embrace and lay up in thy heart the promise of a soft heart as it is set down Ezek. 36.26 there the people of God were in a worse condition then we yet The fury of the Lord was so far kindled against them for their sins that they were cast out of their Land they were swallowed up on every side as it is in the third verse They were taken up in the lips of talkers they were an infamy of the people and the reproach of the Nations and for all that were not reformed but continued to profane the Name of God and to encrease their provocations in the midst of all their Judgements Yet even then the Lord doth promise For my own Names sake not for your sake will I do this A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh Let this Word as a pickle of good seed be laid up in the heart it will in time break up to good fruit This is a part of the new Covenant as appeareth from Jer. 31 and 32. and Heb. 8. which belongs to us as to any other which we would embrace humbly waiting till the Lord perform it to us A second help to softnesse of heart will be a Catalogue of sins for which we ought to mourn The second Cure of hardnesse is A clear sight of sin for softnesse of heart is either the same thing or proceeds in a great part from grief and forrow for sin as hardnesse of heart and impenitency are the same or are always conjoyned Thou from thy hardnesse or impenitent heart The tendernesse and melting of Josiahs heart was his mourning for the Lands sin The softning of the Jews heart from their long Plague of induration is when they are weeping and in bitternesse for their sins as one for his first-born The clear sight of sin being a help to grief sorrow and repentance must be so towards the softnesse of heart The speciall end of these solemn Humiliations is for registrating in clear and legible letters in the hearts of the godly the sins both of the Land and of their own persons The Tables of our conscience have been so oft impressed with these Types that I need no more but to remit every one to the books of their brests There you may read in capitall letters the cause of our Woes the matter of our Mourning While the Lords Candle did shine over our head What are the sins of the Land and we washed our steps in butter while to all the Neighbour-Nations for a great number of yeers we were a wonder of Prosperity and with abundance of all Temporall blessings we had likewise plenty of the Gospel How did we meet the Lord Great numbers of all ranks and estates were obstinate in Idolatry and known Papists Of them who professed the Truth how many were altogether void of knowledge void of fear without any conscience of God The most did pollute the Service and Church of God with manifold Superstitions and Prelaticall Tyranny persecuting all who had the least zeal to oppose their Corruptions True Piety was mocked The Sabbath by publike Authority profaned Covetousnesse Pride Oppression Pampering of the flesh Uncleannesse like a flood did overflow the Land In these very times when the Lords patience is broken off and he from heaven is revealing his wrath against our wickednesse yet where is our Repentance How many have an ear to hear more what the present Rods of God do speak then what his former Favours How many Popish and Prelaticall spirits have yet mourned for their old ways How many upon conscience have left any of the named abominations How great an addition have we made to our old heap of sin How much have we put to our old treasure of wrath Rather then to be reclaimed from their ways Hath not a great part run to the Sword and covered the Land with more innocent blood more Rapines and Ravishments then this Isle did see for many Ages together Many whom Gods mercy hath separate to the right hand Episcopacy and Independency flow both from one fountain How do they still provoke the Lord continuing without grief for their old ways And sundry of them who professemost Piety advancing the old unhappie way of this Land an affectation of singularity and difference from all the Reformed The bitter Potions of Gods Judgements have not yet purged out this very evil humour of many stomacks The vain spirits of this Land made that the peculiar glory of England which was truely her peculiar infamy and proper unhappinesse and the speciall grief of the most godly in the Land The gloriation of these light spirits was That England did excell all other Reformed Churches in their Episcopacy and Service-book also That the moderation of their King and Prelats was such that Romane Catholikes might enjoy a sober liberty
among them without all hazard of persecution Is this humour diminished to this day Or with a little change doth it not predomine yet in many We must still excell all other Churches in our Government In place of Episcopacie we will have a new Popularity Just the old Brownism of the rigid Separatists covered with the new name of Independency For after triall it will be found that this new and Middle way as it is called is really the extremity of the most rigid Separation That it is not a semi but a sesqui-Separation Independency is not a seâ—i but a sesqui-separation That for the smaller crotchets of the Brownists which they lay aside they adde more errors of a worse stamp which the old Separatists were wont much to detest But to sweâ—ten our new eminency above other Protestants it must be mixed with a Liberty of Conscience not that for which the King Court and Bishops were lately so much cryed out upon The toleration onely of Papists or any one false Religion but a full and Catholike Liberty for all imagiuable kindes of false Religion much more then to this day was ever required either in Amsterdam or Pall or Transilvania or any where else where the licentiousnesse of erring in the great wrath of God hath been permitted to dwell Upon these things the godly would look not as upon a subject of talking or an incentive of wrath and indignation against the persons of any but to be matter of heart-grief and mourning to the Lord in our secret places In the end of this Catalogue of publike sins thou wouldst have annexed a Register of thy personall provocations When thou hast brought the Candle of Gods Word and Spirit within thy own house and within the Cabinet of thy own brest doubtlesse thou wilt behold so many abominations both fleshly and spirituall that will be just cause of watering thy Couch with thy tears and pouring out thy heart before the face of the Lord if thou wer able in tears of blood A third help to softnesse of heart A third Cure of hardnesse is Motives to fear is Motives to fear for this hardnesse of heart proceedeth as from misbelief and impenitency so also from security wherefore in our Text it is opposite to fear Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear And Josiah so soon as tendernesse of heart came upon him began to fear and tremble So Motives to fear are helps to softnesse and cures for hardnesse of heart Of these I point shortly but at three The Judgements of God on others His Mercies to us And if these affect not The Wrath yet to come on us For the first 1 Judgements on others we would oft remember the examples given us by God Who ever thou art thou hast thy patern from God Be thou a Church-man a Citizen a Knight an Earl a Duke a Prince how hath the Lord scourged divers of thy Coat lately before thy eyes wounded killed impoveriffied disgraced many and put others to stand this day on the brink of ruine and worldly misery Were they the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of Siloam fell Or they whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifice The Lords remark on these Judgements was That except we repent we shall all likewise perish The late Judgements which God hath inflicted on many of thy quality are loud words to thee that thou mayest fear and tremble that thy heart may melt within thee for thy sins lest the Lord make thee a spectacle of Judgement to others who by the miseries of others wouldst not be taught to repent Again Remember the great mercies of the Lord 2 Mercies on us For there is mercy with God that he may be feared The speciall means whereby Nathan softned the heart of David after it had been long hardned in sin with Bathsheba was a Catalogue of Gods mercies towards him 2 Sam. 2. I dâ—livered thee out of the hand of Saul I made thee King over Israel I gave thee thy masters house and if that had been too little I would have given thee more Why hast thou despised my Commandment The ointment of mercy is most softning of it gracious heart when it groweth into hardnesse It s good to have a Register of Gods favours both to the publike and thy person Consider all that the Lord hath done lately for the Church and Kingdom If the Malignant party had prevailed as once they were too like to have done if their Tyranny in Church and State had been established by the overthrow of the gracious party in the whole Isle what wofull days should have come upon us and the posterity That the Lord hath heard our Prayers and from the heaven hath done so many and so great things for us That we are in so fair a way to have both Church and State setled according to Truth and Justice That for our persons we have been guided aright in the common Cause that when so many greater wiser better then we have been given over to the counsels of their own hearts to joyn with the enemy for their own disgrace and wrack That the Lord should have kept thy heart strait and hold â—â— thee on thee side wherein was Justice Truth and the blessing of God That in that party the Lord hath taken any service at thy hand when many more able and as willing have been unserviceable That thy life thy limbs thy estate are preserved when this service hath cost many their life some their limbs some their estates These and the like favours would be remembred for the softning of our heart In the third place 3 Greater Judgements yet coming if neither Judgements on others nor mercies on thy self will move consider what remedilesse evils may shortly be the reward of so great a contempt When Nabals heart grew like a stone within him the hand of God did in a little time cut him off by death When neither Judgements nor mercies bring a heart to fear the Lord usually pours out the full Vials of his heaviest wrath It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hand of that consuming fire We would do well to be lifting up our eyes to that invisible Spirit whom the world cannot see To behold his hand guiding all the wheels of publike and private affairs Were our State much better setled then yet for a long time it can be if he be miskent he can cast down in a moment more then men can build in many yeers If he be not feared and sought to he will so crosse and confound the guides of Church and State that when they are at the end of the Wildernesse on the very borders of Canaan he can bring them back to toil in the Wildernesse till they die without so much as a sight of that Canaan though once they had come very neer unto it Albeit the publike did prosper yet the fearfull wrath of God for thy hardnesse of heart may light on thy
person Achan may be stoned to death in the valley of Achor in the midst of Israels triumph The misbelieving Prince in Samaria may see the Plenty but be crushed before he taste thereof Thy hardnesse of heart if it remain will ruine thee What the fury and curse of an angry God hath ever brought on a miserable sinner in this life think upon it for shortly it may be thy portion and which is infinitely worse the whole treasures of the wrath to come a greater then ordinary condemnation for thy impenitency hardnes of heart if thou remain as thou art cannot but fall upon thee The last help I propone is Earnest Prayer A fourth Cure of hardnesse is Prayer Sometimes all the former helps will not do it for the heart is desperately wicked and incredibly hard like that of Leviathan Job 41.24 His heart is firm as a stone as hard as the nether milstone When we finde it thus shall we give over in dâ—spair Not so For there is yet mercy and power in God to make the rocks flow down to melt the mountains to dissolve the Adamant-stones There is a Warrant Neh. 9. once and again proponed for the people of God to lay hold on Gods mercy and power in the midst of their greatest Rebellion and Induration verse 16. Our father 's dealt proudly and hardned their necks and heackned not to thy Commandments But thon art a God ready to pardon gracious and mercifull thou forsakest them not Also in the 29 verse They dealt proudly and withdrew the shoulder and hardned their necks and would not hear Yet in the 31 verse Neverthelesse thou didst not forsake them for thou art a gracious and mercifull God What heart can be more hard and blinde then Pauls when he made havock of the Church yet the Lord made the scales to fall from his eyes and put in his brest in place of the stone a most gracious soft and spirituall piece of flesh The spectacle of the greatest induration the Jews when the Spirit comes on them their most obdured hearts fall to the greatest mourning Zech. 12. Let it therefore be our care in our greatest hardnesse to lie at the Throne of Grace to cry on still for this mercy of a soft heart who knoweth how soon the Lord may hear and answer When nothing else can help us if he himself come down all will yeeld to his power When the King of Glory comes to assault the most stiff and best closed heart all doors are cast open to him Psal 24.9 He breaketh the gates of brasse and smiteth the bars of iron in sunder Psal 107.16 When he puts his finger in the hole of the door the bowels of the secure Spouse will shortly be moved for him Cant. 5.4 It must be our continuall prayer that the Lord would come to put away the hardnesse of our heart to enlighten it with faith to melt it with repentance to break it with fear that so it may be a fitted Sanctuary for his perpetuall inhabitation If time were not past The last part of the verse exponed there are in the second part of the Text the Churches petition for the Lords return sundry things usefull for the present occasion Look in a little upon the meaning of the words The returning of the Lord is a metaphor taken from finite creatures that go and come But properly the Lord cannot move from place to place for his Essence is infinite he is essentially omni-present God is every where in the heaven in the earth in the Sea Psal 139. If I ascend up unto heaven thou art there if I make my bed in hell thou art there neither so onely but he fills the heaven and the earth Jer. 23.24 Do not I fill the heaven and the earth saith the Lord But not so as if when he filled all things he could be within the circle of the highest heavens 1 Kings 8.27 Behold the heavens and the heaven of heavens could not contain thee We have the reason in Job 11.8 The perfection of God is such that it is as high as heaven deeper then hell longer then the earth and broader then the Sea But beware to conceive of this infinite and immense Essence of God which is in all places and without all places as of a bodily substance for God is a Spirit and that of an infinite simplicity take heed of all grosse imaginations of him left thou turn him to an idol of thine own making Not long ago The zeal of the Court of England against Vorstius heresies Verstius and some of the Arminians in Holland began first to brangle with their Problems and thereafter to deny with their positive assertions these ground-stones of Religion At that time the zeal of England brake out to the joy of all the Churches Then the care of the King and the very Prelats was great not onely to keep Heresies as hellish vapours out of England but to have them suppressed among their neighbours in Holland with all speed We hope it shall never be told to posterity that the zeal of this Parliament was lesse against Errours at home then the Courts wont to be against that evil abroad And however for the present there be nothing so sacred in the Divine Nature and Persons which the boldnesse of Heretikes among us arising onely from impunity dare not wickedly profane yet ere long we expect a remedy to this and many more evils The Returning whereof our Text speaketh is not to be understood of the Divine Effence Nature Substance nor of the Lords common Operations but of his gracious Works of his Mercy and Compassion as we have it expresly Zech. 1.16 I am returned to Jerusalem with mercy And Jer. 12.55 I will return and have compassion on them As a man in his anger turns his back and goeth his way but when reconciled he cometh back So the Lord when grievously provoked with the sins of his people for a time departeth to his place hideth his face withdraweth the signes of his favour but thereafter when appeased he maketh his face to shine and by his Spirit works graciously in the seduced and obdured heart For this the Church here petitions That the Lord would return and make himself sensibly present to her and by the gracious work of his Spirit reclaim her from these errours and that hardnesse of heart whereinto by his absence she had fallen The Ground whereupon the Petition is builded is Gods Relation to them and their Interest in God They were his servants he their Lord and Master as it is in the last verse We are thine thou never barest rule over them they were never called by thy Name Since the Lord had taken them to be his people to serve him this was a ground to them That he would not fully nor finally cast them off but for his interest in them would return This is cleared in the last words his returning to them was not for any good was in
them but because they were The Tribes of his Inheritance Among all the inhabitants of the earth he had chosen for his portion the Tribes of Jacob as the word signifies the Rods or Branches that sprang out of the Root of Jacob for his peculiar possession Deut. 32.8 When the Most high divided to the Nations their Inheritance when he separated the sons of Adam the Lords portion was his people and Jacob the lot of his inheritance Out of the whole world he chose Israel for his peculiar portion as it is in Amos 4. Thee onâ—ly have I known of all the families of the earth Not for any good in them but alone for his own love and good will as it is Deut. 7.8 Were not the time past we would have enlarged these Observations First Observ 1 The proper the sovereign the onely Cure of an erring spirit and hardned heart is the presence the return the gracious entrance of God in the heart Secondly When the Lord upon entreaty hath come into the heart and begins to enlighten and soften it he would be entertained with much love humility fear care All in the heart that may grieve his holy eye would be swept out lest if again he depart in anger the last estate be worse then the first Thirdly A Land wherein the spirit of Errour and Induration doth predomine cannot enjoy the gracious presence of the Spirit of Truth 2 Cor. 6.15 What communion hath light with darknesse What concord hath Christ with Belial Fourthly All who plead for a Liberty of habitation to errenious spirits in this Land require in plain English a Liberty so far as is in them to banish God out of England Fifthly When by the Judgement of God the spirit of Errour hath entred a Land there is no putting of him out but by Gods own Arm for he is a great deal stronger then men Zech. 13.2 It is the Lord who takes it on him to cause the false Prophets and the unclean spirit that leads them to passe out of the Land Sixthly Though the Judgement of Erring and Induration cannot be cured but by the return of the Lord though the subduing of the spirit of Errour and Obstinacie be the work of Gods hand yet every good man according to his place and calling above all the Nobles of a Land and the Houses of Parliament would employ their whole strength to help the Lord against that strong one We tempt God when we neglect to use the means for doing of that work wherein he hath the principall hand Because we live in God Shall we not eat and drink and keep our selves from seen dangers It is the Lord that subdues our enemies under us therefore shall not our Souldiers fight The Lords Spirit is the subduer of the spirit of Errour therefore Assemblies and Parliaments need to have no care of this matter When Satan reasoned thus with Christ He hath given his Angels charge over thee therefore cast thy self down headlong he replieth wisely Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Seventhly God will return for his servants sake in the most desperate times When Calamities have wracked the State when Errour and Obstinacy and these Judiciall lie on the spirits of a people the faithfull expect believe pray for favour upon the ground of their relation to God still remaining in the mids both of sins and miseries they are his servants and he their Lord. The conscience of a desire to serve the Lord is a Ground of hope in our hardest conditions Eighthly No hope of a deliverance by God in mercy from any Judgement unlesse we be willing to serve him as an absolute Master The greatest enemies of a State are those who would evert or enervate the Relation of master and servant between God and a people for this Relation is the ground-stone of all the Protection of all the Deliverance we may expect or pray for from God Popes Kings Bishops have been striving to be lords over Gods Flock that ambition hath cost all the three dear Let Christ alone by his own Laws his own Officers and his own Courts have the full Spirituall and Ecclesiastick Government of his Churches The taking of this from him may spoil us of his protection Those men that are most carefull to vindicate the right of Christ are best servants to the State for they lay a sure foundation of Christs favour and protection to that State wherein they settle Christ as the onely King Lord and Master of the Church Ninthly Consider the unexpressible benignity of God chusing out among the children of sinfull and miserable men some to be his own inheritance That the Infinite and All-sufficient God who hath need of nothing and to whom all creatures can adde no perfection in all Agesshould delight to have a possession and inheritance among men as his peculiar treasure they to be his and he to be theirs it s a wonderfull love to men Tenthly Gods Inheritance his peculiar People his dearest Children if they will venture on sin they shall be sure of Plagues both Spirituall and Temporall rather then any other people of the world For their sins are greatest being against a most loving Father It concerns him in honour and glory not to let them go with their scandalous trespasses He would be blasphemed if they went unpunished Thee onely have I known of all the families of the earth therefore I will punish thee for all thy transgressions Eleventhly The Spirit of Adoption under great sins and grievous punishments therefore moves the children of God to lay hold on their priviledges for the melting of their heart and bringing them to Repentance Finally The sweetest exercise of a Christian is the improving of the priviledge in band The making use daily of this mutuall Relation We are Gods Inheritance and God is our Portion A soul truely religious must give it self up fully to be possest and filled by God to be replenished in minde will affections memory conscience and every faculty with the whole fulnesse of God as an inhabitant as a due proper and onely heritor On the other part it will claim and lay hold by faith on the power the glory the truth the mercy and all that is in God as its own peculiar portion as the onely heritage which either in earth or heaven it desireth to enjoy But being cut off by time from enlarging these things I commend them and the rest to your meditation and the blessing of God FINIS