and a special help to holy discourse if what you hear preached on the Lords Day you would make the matter of your discourse the week following hereby you may the more fix what you hear in your own hearts and hence you may be supplied with fresh matter and so find holy discourse the less difficult to you How you have observed this direction since I formerly gave it you whether you have put it in practice I leave it to your consciences to judge Friends if you will not take the directions given you and put them into practice to what purpose are they preached to you I therefore exhort you again to practise this useful direction what you hear on the Lords Days discourse of on the week days 3. From your own experiences of the dealings of God with your own souls Ps 66.16 Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul Self-observing Christians have many experiences by them which may be much useful for others You may be telling one another what experiences you have had of the workings of sin in you and of temptations and what experiences of the workings of grace and of your victories over corruption and temptation what comforts you have had and how you come by them what distresses and fears you have been under and how you were relieved what difficulties you have found in your work how long you groaned under them and how at length you overcame them Many cases you may have been in out of which much may be brought forth for the benefit of others that are or may be in the same cases 4. From the consideration of the company that at such or such a time you may be like to be cast amongst Some days it may be you may see your necessary business leading you amongst sinners you must work with them in the same field or the same shop or you must travel with them the same journey and the like these sinners whom you foresee in the morning you must converse with on the day may be they may be blind or ignorant sinners or profane and lewd sinners or mocking and scoffing sinners whatever temper they are of the consideration of it will give you an hint what to provide for the ignorant you must go provided with words of instruction for the profane with a word of reproof for all sorts such words as you judge most proper for their case and most like to do their souls good Sometimes you may see your converse is like to be among Christians and then consider whether they be weak Christians and need your help and what their weaknesses are and go provided of a word accordingly a word of comfort to the troubled a quickning word to the dead hearted and slothful a recovering awakening word to the backsliders c. or else they may be stronger and more judicious Christians then your study should be to go prepared with such questions touching your own cases touching any doubts or fears or spiritual wants or difficulties you are under that you might receive benefit from them These directions are all practicable and may be exceedingly useful it will cost you pains to inure your selves to this holy practice but by pains taking a while and the help of God with you it may come to be more easie and were it but seriously set on foot and carefully carried on you cannot easily imagine what an advance to you it will be in the state of your own soul and what a blessed expedient 't will be to propagate religion where it is not and to recover it where 't is fallen and to raise it where it is but low Well this is the sum of all the Directions hitherto given Go always with your bow bent and your arrow upon the string with an heart will disposed to speak and a word ready to be spoken 6. Take a right method by which you may with the most ease attain to this holy use of your tongues You will say 't is hard service and so it is but are you willing to try to come to it Why what method will you prescribe to us that we may attain 1. Begin this practice within your selves speak often to your own hearts Ps 4.4 Commune with your own hearts maintain an holy discourse with your selves The Cock doth first clap his wings on his own breast to awaken himself and then he crows to awaken others As the Apostle Rom. 2.21 Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self Thou that wouldst instruct another warn and awaken another how canst thou do that if thou dost not first instruct and awaken thy self Mat. 7.5 Thou Hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote out of thy brothers eye That 's the complaint Is 64.7 There is none that stirreth up himself to take hold on thee Stir up your selves in the first place say to your own hearts Arise sleeper there 's a God before thee there 's a Christ before thee there 's a Gospel and a Covenant of Grace before thee lay hold on this God lay hold on this Covenant walk worthy of the Lord and be faithful in the Covenant of thy God Speak thus to your own Souls and discourse the matter reason with them about it as the Psalmist reasons with his Soul in his distress Why art thou cast down O my Soul hope in God so do thou reason with thy Soul in thy deadness or in thy hardness or any other case thou art in Why art thou lifted up O my Soul why so hardned Fear God why so proud why so carnal why so slothful humble thy self shake up thy self quicken and rouze up thine own sleepy heart Brethren here 's the original of all our neglects of our duties to others our self-neglects till we stir up our selves more carefully we shall never do any thing to purpose at stirring up one another Kindle an holy fire in your own breasts set your own affections more strongly working upwards if we can get up our own hearts into a more serious lively frame then there 's hope we shall more effectually help up others 2. Next set upon this holy practice in your Families Inure your selves to be speaking of God among your own with them you can be more free and bold There 's no such great difficulty for a Father to speak to his Children for a Master to speak to his Houshold and by speaking much to these you will by degrees grow more free and more able to speak to others Fall therefore closer upon this practice Fathers speak often to your Children Husbands speak often to your Wives Wives speak to your Husbands Masters speak to your Servants Servants speak you one to another Deut. 11.18 19. These my words shall be in thine heart and in thy soul Speak them to thy self first and then ye shall teach them to your Children speaking
Iniquities are multiplied our Iniquities are marked before the Lord and have mark'd us out for a company of unclean and polluted souls we cannot hide it and we will not hide it we can neither hide nor lessen it 't is too true 't is too evident we must confess it and we will confess it that we are a naughty People not so bad as others Why others never pretended to any good never made that Profession that we have made never had the advantages that we have had there can be no excuse for us we should have been better and we might have been better but what ever we should have been or might have been we are very bad we are all as an unclean thing Thus did that great Apostle when he speaks of Sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 Of whom sayes he I am chief Friends whatever your faults are do not mince the matter do not count your errors little Errors your Sins little Sins Be sure of this that mincing is not the way to mending Shame your selves before the Lord abase your selves in his sight study the greatness of those you count your little sins rip open your hearts and find out what a nest of Wickedness is there ransack your ways and see what a course of Folly and Vanity is to be found there and do not go about to hide them He that covereth his Sins shall not prosper Prov. 28.13 Do not go about to hide them but confess them and spread them before the Lord till your soul be ashamed O that this Word might send us to our homes every one of us with an aking heart and a blushing face that it might make us all fall down before our God with Ezra's words in our mouth Ezra 9.6 O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God for our Iniquities are increased over our head and our Trespasses are grown up unto the Heavens Let us blush at our Hypocrisie let us blush at our Luke-warmness let us blush at our Worldlines and Carnality let us blush in our Prayers let us go blushing home and weeping as we go let us acknowledge we all are as an unclean thing and our Righteousness is as filthy Rags Doct. 3. Consumption upon Professors is the high way to Confusion and Dissipation If we wither and fade as a Leaf our Iniquities as the wind will scatter and drive us away If grey hairs be upon us death and destruction is near Beloved you can hardly be ignorant what complaints there are even from all quarters of our Land what a decay there is grown even every where upon Professors of Religion and whether this consuming Disease hath not seized upon many of us here I leave it to your own Consciences to judge the consideration hereof hath engaged me to enlarge on this subject beyond what I at first intended and I beseech you every one to set your hearts upon the words I shall speak so as both to make a narrow enquiery each one into himself whether you be grown into such a decay and to endeavour for a speedy recovery I remember how it hath been with this Congregation when our Assembling together was in one place what a glorious and hopeful Morning appeared What a Spring-tide there was of Converts flowing in to the Lord and what a day-light of warm and holy affections then brake forth amongst us whether our day hath continued its brightness accordring to the spring of our Morning let us sadly consider before the Lord. Now in prosecution of the Doctrine mention'd I shall first a little open this consuming Disease to you and shew you that even Christians may be sadly surprized by it and then shew you that where it proves Epidemical and General there this Consumption is a fore-runner of confusion For the first know there is a two-fold decay or consumption in Religion Partial Total 1. Paertial or gradual a declining or consuming in some degree a growing into a worse case than sometimes we were a growing weak and cold and remiss in our Religion an abateing or loosing our former care strength life affection and vigour of soul and this may be incident to real Christians who are subject to decay Inwardly Outwardly 1. Inwardly in the case and state of their souls in the inward Man they may be Back-sliders in heart as the expression is Prov. 14.14 Particularly 1. There may be a shaking of their Faith The principles and foundations of Christianity may be shaken there may be a failing of the firmness of their belief of the truth of the Gospel and some declinings towards Infidelity and Atheism Of Himeneus and Philetus 't is said 2 Tim. 2.18 that they erred concerning the truth and overthrew the Faith of some and as they overthrew the Faith of some so probably they might shake the Faith of more 2. There may be a decay or wearing out the sense of the importance of those truths of the Gospel that they do believe Though the Gospel may still be received as an undoubted and unquestionable truth though the evidence of its truth may be so clear as that they cannot contradict or question it yet the weight of it may not be so much felt upon their hearts the truths believed may not be so much minded nor so throughly considered as to leave any powerful impressions of them upon their hearts Those great things the worth and value of a soul the dreadfulness of loosing a soul the danger that they are in of loosing their souls the excellency and necessity of Christ the eternal weight of glory the everlasting Vengeance of God against the Unrighteousness of Men though all these things be believed and acknowledged yet they may not for the time be so duly minded and meditated on they may be so much out of their eye out of their thoughts that the sense of them and the efficacy of that sense may seem even to be utterly lost Friends 't is not the being of these great things no nor the bare believing that they are but the minding and frequent considering them the having that height and depth that life and death in our eye that will affect and work upon the heart and Christians through their own carelesness and heedlesness may have even lost the sight both of Heaven and Hell Things present may have so filled and overpower'd their hearts as to put things to come quite out of mind the heart may be so bewitch'd by this present world so surrounded with a croud of carnal pleasures and delights so swallowed up of worldly cares and contrivances so intent upon our worldly business and commodity that we may hereupon drive so heavily on in the matters of Eternity as if we had forgotten that we had a Christ or a soul to be minded 3. There may be a decay as of ther Faith as before so of all other their inward Graces and vital operations Hence 't is that the Apostle prays so earnestly for them 1 Pet. 5.10
those that are fallen evidenced 1. From the difficulty of discerning their decays in the beginning 2. From their indâ—sposition and unwillingness to seek out after a cure 3. From the opposition that is made against their recovery By 1. A stirring Devil 2. Their stirring Lusts 3. From the difficulty of holding on for those that stand III. What it is to take hold of God Here 3 things 1. Our happiness lies in this That the Lord is within us 2. Our happiness lies in this That the Lord is among us Our taking hold of God is our continuing his Presence with us Where 1. God may depart from those with whom he hath been present both 1. From particular persons and how he may depart from them shewed in 5 Particulars 2. From a People or Nation and how he may be said to depart from them 2. It 's wo with those people from whom the Lord departs 3. Our taking hold of God is our taking an effectual course to continue his Presence with us And this 1. By casting away our Idols 2. By taking hold of the Covenant of God 3. by recovering our Communion with him IV. Stirring Religion will take hold of God 1. What 's meant by stirring Religion 2. Stirring Religion will take hold of God and continue his Presence with us For 1. 'T will work out those evils which provoke him to depart 2. 'T will work up and increase those good things in us which he will not lose or forsake V. How we should stir up our selves answered in the following Directions 1. Make an advantage of stirring Providences 2. Put upon stirring Thoughts 3. Get stirring Affections In special stir up Godly Sorrow Fear Desire Hope 4. Get a stirring Conscience 5. Be much conversant with stirring Society where are directions for the exercise of that neglected duty holy and quickning discourse 6. Be much exercised in stirring Duties especially in 1. Prayer 2. Fasting and Prayer The Concusion Isaiah 64.6 7. But we are all as an unclean thing and all our Righteousnesses are as filthy Rags and we all do fade as a Leaf and our Iniquities like the Wind have taken us away And there is none that calleth upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee IN the former of these Verses we find the Church making a double complaint of their Sin of their Affliction 1. Of their Sin there all misery begins and there all our Complaints should begin We are all not an unclean thing but as an unclean thing Sicut quid inpurum as the worst of things as any thing that 's most filthy and unclean There is the Uncleanness of a Toad a Venemous deadly uncleanness Our Uncleanness is as bad as that our hearts are as 't is said the evil tongue is full of deadly Poyson There is the uncleanness of a Leaper a Contagious uncleanness such is ours we have infected one another we are all infected There is the uncleanness of a Serpent a stinging uncleanness such is ours our Sin hath bitten us and stung us to the heart There is the uncleanness of a Dunghil a stinking uncleanness such is our uncleanness our Iniquities have made us to stink before the Lord Find out any thing that 's worse or more unclean than all these whatever it be our Sin hath made us as bad as the worst nothing can be said too bad of Sin and none speak worse of it than the People of God who have the least of it Those that are all Sin carry it as if there were nothing in sin no hurt in it We cannot make Sinners understand or be sensible what evil there is in sin but Saints feel it But it might be replyed by some amongst them Though we have our Deformity yet we have our Beauty too though we have our uncleanness yet we have a covering for it we have Righteousness as well as Sin What 's the Answer to that Righteousness What Righteousness have we O our very Righteousness is as filthy Rags 't is but a ragged Righteousness we have a totter'd maimed torn thing the best we have is but as a Rag unprofitable as a rag not able to hide the shame of our nakedness and as a nasty filthy rag if we have any thing that looks better than other 't is all naught our best is a loathsome thing 2. Of their Afflictions We all fade like a Leaf and our Iniquities like the Wind have driven us away driven us into Banishment driven us into Captivity carryed us away from our Country and from the City of our God yea and from the favour and presence of our God into a strange Land into our Enemies hands We all do fade and wither like a Leaf our sin hath brought us down into a decaying withering state and our Iniquities like the Wind have driven us away Withered faded Leaves you see how they are blown down the Trees and carryed away with every Wind when those that are green and flourishing keep their stand against wind and weather In verse 7. we have an additional complaint they go on yet further to make a greater and a sadder complaint against themselves And that is and yet for all this as bad as our case is yet there is none that calleth upon thy Name Our punishment found us in a polluted and wasted state and behold we grow worse and worse we wither daily Prayer fails then which there is not a more deadly symptom of a decayed soul Prayer is the very breath of a Christian when Mens breath fails they dye and turn to their Earth Here observe 1. Against whom this Complaint is commenced that is against the generality of the People there is none that is none in comparison very few if any that call 2. The matter of this additional complaint they did not yet call upon God though their Iniquities had brought them to the dust yet they had not brought them to their knees though they had made them a Prey yet they had not set them a Praying 3. The immediate reason of this their neglect of God in such a time they were all asleep and they did not awaken or stir up themselves to take hold of God or to seek after him There is none that calleth upon thy Name Calling upon the Name of God is sometimes taken for Prayer Psal 50. Call upon me in the day of trouble that is Pray unto God Sometimes as Prayer is so calling upon the Name of God is put for all Religion Gen. 4.26 Then in the days of Enoch began Men to call upon the Name of the Lord that is then Religion began to appear and to break forth more visibly in the Earth In the Text you may take the words as comprehending both senses Prayer in special and all Religion in general and indeed that is no Praying that leads not on to all Religiâ—n As these words There 's none that calleth upon thy Name Note the neglect of Prayer in that sense I have spoken
where we must eternally reap the fruit of our doings here Do we live as Men that have that Eternity in our eye and the lively sense upon our hearts of that Death and Judgment that glorious Reward and eternal Punishment that is before us Sure we do not O how few of us do thus live Do we Pray and Hear and Buy and Sell and Converse in the World as Men that see and look for so great a change Was there never a time when we felt more of the Eternal things upon our hearts than now Was there never a time when we were more serious and in good earnest in our Religion When we were more deeply engaged in laying up Treasure in Heaven and making an escape from the Wrath to come Was there never a time when such serious questions What must I do to be Saved What if I should be Damned shut out of the everlasting Kingdom shut up in everlasting darkness What may I do to please God and to walk worthy of his holy Calling and to make sure of a part in Christ Was there never a time when such Questions were more ordinarily put than now and when we were more solicitous about the having them answered 2. How is it with our particular Graces and inward vital Operations Do we retain our first Faith Do we hold out in our first Love Where are those warm and lively affections that discovered themselves in the infancy of our new Birth Time was when some of us were all in a flame of Love and Life and Zeal for God when we had melting affections mourning tender hearts when our spirits were hotly working within us about God and the things of God when we could not live nor be at ease but under the influences of Heaven and the illapses and intimations of the Divine Love and good will to our souls when Communion with God and entercourses with Heaven were sweeter to us than our appointed Food was there never such a time with some of you And is it so now Or are not these matters sadly changed with you from what they once were May you not say with the Psalmist Psal 77.3.5 I remember the days of old and am troubled I remember my pleasant things my pleasant Houses the sweet and delightful entercourses I had with the Lord I remember these things and am troubled to see what a fall there is from what once I enjoyed 3. And how is it in your duties and in your lives Is the old spirit of Prayer kept up with you Hath the Lord such constant Visits such affectionate Visits from you as he was wont to have Are your Sighs are your Tears are your Souls poured out in Praying and in striving and wrestling with the Lord in Prayer as formerly they have been And is there such a vein of serious Religion running through your whole lives Do you eat and drink work together and converse together in the Spirituality and singleness of heart which the Primitive Christians did Act. 2.46 and which sometimes some of you did Is it your care to exhort and quicken and build up and provoke one another to love and to good works Is there that Watchfulness over your goings that diligence in instructing in governing and educating your Families in the fear and knowledge and worship of God as hath been Or must you not take up a Lamentation over your selves and fall to judging and condemning your selves some of you at least upon most of these accounts and cry out in bitterness O my soul how art thou fallen Friends let not these words pass as words of course let them enter into your hearts and stick in your sides and be a wound in your very souls Let me upon all this that hath been said put the question yet again to you all How is it with you How is it with your souls What do ye hold your own or are ye at a loss What Prospering or Perishing Flourishing or Withering Upon the wing and mounting upwards as the Eagles or upon the Dust with the Worms Friends pray consider who among you can say I thank the Lord my soul is upon the increasing hand through the grace of God my Soul is maintained in Life and I am reaching forward and getting a little ground Heaven-ward daily through rich mercy the Grace that hath been bestowed on me hath not been bestowed in vain I cannot deny the goodness of God to me I have good hopes that it 's something better with me than it has been Some of you I hope can speak thus to the praise of the glory of the grace of God with you But I fear too many even of you that are Professors must give a sadder Answer How is it with my soul O the Lord be merciful to me 't is but in a poor and pittiful case Lord I pine Lord I am fallen I am fallen With my outward man 't is well enough but O mine inner man withers my Religion vanisheth my poor soul languisheth my grace perisheth much of it is lost and that which remains is dying daily I took it all along to be well enough but now I think on 't O 't is a miserable decay that is grown upon me Beloved I have told you already what complaints there are of decays from other places and now consider is not the Moth come into this Congregation Is not the Worm eating at our root also Compare the present spirit and temper that is too generally upon us with what it was in our first meetings at Seimours Court sure there appeared another manner of warm lively serious affectionate spirit then than is to be found but in very few of us at this day What hath so many years Preaching and Praying and Sacraments we have had since had no better success than this Have you been hearing all this while to your loss and Praying to your loss and had Sacraments to your loss O that every one of you now would lay his hand on his own heart and faithfully enquire where be the decayed souls among us Lord is it I Lord am not I one of them Do not think now to excuse the matter do not tell me we hope 't is not so bad your fear of us is more than you have ground for O that I were mistaken in you that it were better with you then according to my Jealousies But I must tell you if you have not the same fears some of you concerning your selves I doubt 't is because you have no more observed your selves nor so throughly considered your selves how 't is with you Well let these hints humble us and lay us low before the Lord. Let these words startle us and awaken us and prepare us towards our recovery Thus much touching the partial decay 2. There is a total decay or Apostasie from the Faith If those that are real Christians do not yet many high Professors may ye and are become Apostates from Christ Such as these 1. Never brought
and as Children can't go alone without me saies Christ you can do nothing Joh. 15.5 You are apt to be comfortless Children and 't is He that hath said Isa 51.12 I even I am He that comforteth you Learn to know your own state and carry it accordingly Hast thou Grace Improve it preserve it and make the best of it but never count you have enough to last you till you come home you must to the Breasts every day you must to Christ for your daily Bread or you will quickly starve Hast thou a little strength strength for Duty Improve it to the utmost be diligent and busie in the work of the Lord in every good work in Hearing and Praying and Watching and striving against sin in mortifying the Flesh in helping and strengthning one another do what-ever you can be as active and stirring and industrious as possible but go not in your own strength trust not to the strength you have but let this be your hold which was the Apostles Phil. 4.13 I shall be able to do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me Trust ye in the Lord Jehovah trust ye in the Lord Jesus for in him is everlasting strength Isa 26.4 Have ye comfort in your hearts Say not as the Psalmist Psal 30.5 I shall never be moved thou Lord of thy goodness hast made my Mountain so strong but know that you will need to fetch in fresh comforts as you have of daily supplies of strength Well thus this Trust will answer to these and all other the doubting questions that a Christian will have to put in his life-time whilst he lives in this Wilderness who will shew me my way who will sustain me in my way till I come to my Journeys end c. Christ will do it I trust He will 2. Case I have a Jordain to pass over I must dye who will bring me over Jordain who will stand by me in that hour He is an established Christian who is able to dye who can say with the Apostle To me to live is Christ to dye is gain none of these things move me I am ready to be offered up I desire to depart and to be with Christ Then is the Life of Jesus most signally manifested in our mortal Flesh when we can by Faith tryumph over mortality But as for me I am afraid to dye I am one of their weakly souls who for fear of death are all their life-time subject to Bondage I walk unevenly and uncomelily because upon this account I walk so uncomfortably How may I out-grow my fears and come to a settlement How shall I do to dye If I could dye I could live to better purpose than now I do or can What shall I have to comfort me Whom shall I have to stand by me in that hour Trust answers why Christ will stand by me He that hath taught me to live will I trust help me to dye He hath conquer'd Death he hath disarm'd and pluck'd out the sting of Death He hath broken the head of that Leviathan 'T was He that said Hos 13.14 O Death I will be thy death O Grave I will be thy destruction He hath said it and He hath done it He himself hath passed over that Jordain and hath thereby made a way for his Ransomed to pass over He will send his Angels to conduct me through that shady and dismal passage He knows what it is to dye how hard the conflict is with the last Enemy and what special need I shall have of his help in that hour and therefore hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13.5 If I can but hold me by him while I live I will hang upon him when I dye and with Confidence say with the Psalmist Psal 23.4 Though I walk through the Valley of tâ—e shaddow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me He hath said Joh. 11.25 Whoever liveth and believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live He hath said Rev. 20.6 Blessed is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on him the second death shall have no power Come on therefore O my soul fear not to lanch forth into the deep trust in Christ He that hath delivered and doth deliver will also deliver in that day from death he will not deliver it 's appointed to all once to dye there 's no repealing that Statute but He will deliver in death He will by death deliver me from all my fears and sorrows Who of all His ever miscarryed in death Look to this that thou be one of His hold thee by Him cleave to Him follow Him while thou livest be faithful to Him to the death and trust to Him He will be faithful to thee in death 3. Case I have an Inheritance which I hope for in the Land of Promise And here the question will be Who shall give me entrance who shall give me possession of mine Inheritance There is a great Gulf fixed betwixt me and Glory there is a Judgment that I must pass through in my entrance into the Rest of God and in that Judgment I must pass under a strict and severe examination and give an account of my self and of all my ways unto God O how shall I stand in the Judgments or who shall stand by me I am a Sinner a guilty soul before the Lord and mine Iniquities are all marked before Him Once I was an Enemy to Christ and how much hath he against me for that time Since I became his Servant and Solemnly Covenanted and Vowed my self to Him Vowed Repentance Vowed Obedience Vowed Holiness to him O what a Servant have I been What an idle and sloathful Servant What a barren and unprofitable Servant He hath made me his Child but O what a wanton unruly froward Child have I been How often have I turn'd aside from him and serv'd my Flesh and this present World O my Pride and Hypocrisie O my trifling and my haltings after the Lord O the reproaches that have fallen upon his Name by my unworthy uneven and uncomely walking before him How shall I answer for this in the Judgment or who shall answer for me Who shall stop the Mouth of my Accuser in that day Christ I trust will do it I put my whole Cause into his Hand He shall be my Advocate against my Accuser whom I will trust to plead for me He hath his Stripes and his Wounds He hath his Blood and his Death to answer for me It is Christ that dyed who shall condemn Rom. 8.34 But what shall I have to confirm my trust in Christ and to secure me that he will answer for me There be many that lay claim to Christ amongst the Unbelievers the workers of Iniquity they will put their trust in Christ and will call to him Lord Lord open to me Mat. 7.22 23. Lord Lord answer for me to whom he will say Away from me I know you not I will not
Father can turn from his sins and come in unto God but by thee this thou hast told me and I have found it true I cannot come in of my self mine own heart hangs back hangs after my sins and this world and hangs back from God Ministers cannot bring me in they have been almost all my life long dealing with me threatning me in perswading and beseeching me in but cannot prevail Poor wretched Creature that I am after all the means that have been used to bring me in to God behold I am an hardned impenitent soul to this day and so I am like to dye for all that they can do to help me I have nothing left for it but only thy help Oh Lord and thy word for it that thou wilt help me and wilt not put me back if I come to thee This being all mine hope I come unto thee I cast my self upon that blessed Word Help O King of Saints help O Saviour of Sinners Christ help Christ help this poor soul of mine help me to God that I may live having nothing else for it upon this I must venture upon thee I must lean I come to thy door there I will lye begging and crying and hoping that thou wilt put forth thine hand and help me in Lord open to me I trust yet thou wilt and in this trust I will continue crying and begging till thou have Mercy on me and bring me within this straight gate the gate of Life 2. 'T is Christ that must do all our following works for us By him we have our entrance and through him we must make our progress He must bring us in at the straight gate must convert our souls and 't is He that must help us on in the narrow way and conduct our souls through all the duties and difficulties of our whole life The Mother must Nurse the Child as well as bring it forth into the World the Child must be carryed in Armes must be Suckled and supported and must afterward be taught to speak and taught to go and though our Children may yet God's Children will never be taught to go alone while they live They must keep by their Fathers side they must be led by their Fathers hand as long as they live Christ must do all this for his Children and He will do it Isa 40.11 He will gather his Lambs with his Armes He will carry them in his Bosom and gently lead them When we are entred into the strait gate when we are passed the New Birth the great difficulty is over Sinners there are many difficult passages between you and the Kingdom of Heaven through all which you must pass or perish There are these three hard passages the straits of the Womb or the difficulties of the New Birth the strait course or the difficulties of Life the hard passage at the end the difficulties at Death But the great difficulty is the first when you are once passed the Birth the great difficulty will be over If you go on and dye in your sins then there is not only a difficulty but an impossibility there is a great Gulf fixed between Heaven and Hell Luk. 16. So that they that would cannot pass from Hell to Heaven O keep you out of Hell when once you come there you cannot escape thank God that yet though it be hard yet 't is possible for you to get to Heaven and you that are Saints may rejoyce that with you the great difficulty is over But yet the narrow way in which you must continue is an hard way The narrow way by which you must pass to glory is that course of Holiness wherein you must hold on to the end There 's no getting to Heaven but by this narrow way and there 's no getting through this narrow way but by help from Christ and therefore your whole life must be a life of trust of trust in Christ Christ must be trusted 1. For the helping us forward in all his Holy ways 2. For the helping us through the sufferings we shall meet with in his ways 1. For the helping us forward in all his Holy ways 'T is from Him we must expect to prosper in our way 't is He that must lead us on towards and raise and work us up to that holy Conformity of heart and life to him wherein our souls prosperity stands Here I shall shortly shew you 1. That our progress in Religion is to be measured by the degree of our conformity to Christ. 2. That eminent Conformity to Christ is that which Christians have or should have in their eye 3. That Christians falling so much short of this Conformity to Christ fall under many doubts and fears whether ever they shall attain to it 4. Their trust in Christ is their help against all their doubts and fears 1. Our progress in Religion is to be measured by the degree of our conformity to Christ There 's a double conformity to Christ To his Image To his Will Our being renewed according to his Image in our inner Man and our being governed by his Word both in our inward and outward Man Now by how much the nearer we are made like unto Christ by how much the more of the Image of his Holiness there is engraven upon our hearts and by how much the more compliance there is of our ways with the will and holy word of Christ so much the more progress have we made in Religion 2. This holy conformity to Christ is that which Christians have or should have in their eye and desire Christ is a Christians Prize and a Christians pattern He is the Prize which a Christian runs for what would you have as the fruit of all your labours and sufferings O Christ Christ that Christ may be mine and he is their Pattern the pattern that God hath set before them and that they also have set before themselves that their eye and their heart is set upon What is your aim What is it that you are reaching towards and working up your selves unto What manner of persons would you be How would you live If you may have your wish or your desire what is it What would you be How would you live O let me be made conformable to Christ We may find both these in the Apostles eye in comparison of which he counted all things but loss and dung Phil. 3.8 9 10. that he may win Christ and that he may be conformable to Christ For whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him and v. 10. that I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings and be made conformable to his Death Every Christian is of the same mind all is dung in comparison of him and 't is not only to be found in Christ that he so earnestly desires but also to be made conformable to him They would live as
he lived and as he would have them live they would not only that they may be blessed in Christ but that Christ may be pleased in them They never have their wills but when Christ hath his will of them It does not suffice me saith a Christian that I have hopes of getting to Heaven by Christ at last I must be more holy here I would live so that my ways may please Christ How can I bear it to be so unlike to him to be so often breaking out and breaking loose from him O that I might hold me close by Him that I might in my whole course please the Lord. I would fain be a more exact and perfect Christian All this the Apostle follows so hard after Phil. 3.12 Not as though I had already obtained or were already perfect but I follow after if I may apprehend Brethren this is as far forth as you are Christians and this should be the sum of your desires and aims to get as near as possible to an exact conformity to Christ both to his Image that as he was so you may be in this World and to his will that you may stand compleat in all the wills of Christ 3. Christians falling so much short of that holy conformity to Christ they desire do fall under many doubts and fears how they shall attain O how short do I fall of such an holy frame of such an holy and undefiled course When I look upon what I would be and what I am what a distance is there how far am I yet behind how hardly can I reconcile my loose and lazy heart to such a strict and holy course My untoward heart O how it slugs and hangs back and will not come on O how it boggles breaks loose how many a step doth it make out of this narrow into the broad way O how it lusts after the ease and liberties of the flesh and how often doth it turn aside from Christ to the vain ways and lying vanities of this present World When I would be totally conformed to the Law of Christ I find another Law in my members carrying me out to a compliance with the Law of Sin I am warping every day I am wandring in every duty I am apt to lose my self in every Company I come into in every business I set my self to I cant but look upon it as a comfortable thing and as a blessed thing if mine heart might be ever with the Lord if I could keep me close by his side and constantly under his eye What a mercy what a joy would it be but Woe is me I cannot obtain I have wished and hoped and prayed I have tryed and tryed and still I fall short O how little hope is there left that yet I shall obtain 4. Their trust in Christ is their help against all their discouragements and fears Dost thou say there 's no hope I shall not obtain To perfect conformity to Christ thou canst not but is there no hope of thy becoming a more eminent Christian than now thou art Rebuke that unbelieving thought with this word yet I trust in Christ I shall He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him Heb. 7.25 Not only to save them from wrath but to save them from sin to save them to the uttermost and to sanctifie them to the uttermost Do not say I cannot think how this weak slippery loose untoward heart I cannot think how it should ever come to be setled and fixed in such a severe and holy course do not say such a word Can'st thou not think how Yet he is able to do for thee abundantly above all that thou canst ask or think Eph. 3.20 His thoughts are not as thy thoughts his ways are not as thy ways the Lord Christ can over-do the thoughts of his People can do that for them which they never thought could be done yea and if thou wilt trust him he will do it Consider and study that Scripture Psal 37.5 Commit thy way to the Lord trust in Him and He will bring it to pass Thou hast many good things upon thine heart thou canst not take up with this poor and pittiful and in and out way of life that thou livest thou wouldst fain come to a more spiritual Heavenly active useful course of life This thou proposest to thy self this thou hast made some offers and attempts upon but thou canst not bring it to pass but still thou fallest short what shouldst thou now do why commit thy way to the Lord trust in Him and he shall bring it to pass and as v. 4. He shall give thee the desire of thine heart Christians I hope your hearts are set upon this holy conformity to Christ I hope you will not sit down by what you have already attained God forbid that that easie trifling way of Religion that is all that some of you have attained God forbid that this should satisfie you and I hope it does not I hope you are both wishing for and reaching towards a more strict and painful course Are you so hold on If you have prayed for it pray again pray without ceasing 1 Thes 5.17 Never give over till you have it Have you tryed what you can do to mend your course and mend your pace Try again and again never sit down as discouraged but hold you on keep to the way of the Lord as you can keep you going keep striving and labouring with your hearts with your might and in so doing commit your way to the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to pass do what you can through the grace already received and what you cannot trust in Christ and he will do it for you 'T is not an idle trust as I said before that I exhort you to such a trust as to save you the labour Never say I trust in Christ that he will work my work in me and for me and so cast off all care your selves 't is not an idle trust but a stirring trust an encourageing trust heartening you to the work Keep doing keep going keep striving towards a more holy serviceable life and then trust in Christ and he shall bring it to pass and give you your hearts desire Christians my hearts desire and prayer for you is that you may be saved I would fain help you to Heaven and that you might be presented by Christ to the Father without spot or wrinkle and in order hereto I would fain see more of the spirit of Christianity and the holy Image of Christ breathing forth and shewing it self more conspicuously in all your ways I study what I can to Preach so to you that my words may be effectual to bring you up to an higher pitch of Holiness and this is my encouragement my trust in the living God that my labours with you shall not be in vain I Pray and trust I Preach and trust I labour among you and trust and what is
Shrub and a grown Tree When do ye think ye shall reach to their growth if ye do not stir up your selves to come on at another rate then hitherto you have done O let it not suffice you that ye have hope that ye are Christians but get you on to be with the foremost of your company the top branches are the best 2. Compare your selves with your selves what you are now with what you were in your former time Are you as good as ever you were as holy as ever you were or is there not a fall and a great fall from what you once had attained to Is not the Sun gone many degrees back with you Is not much of your light and your life and your heat lost Where be your eyes Friends if you do not see what losers you are where be your senses if you do not feel your own decays Sure 't is a sad sign that you have even lost all your Christianity if you have not so much of Christianity left as to make you sensible how much you have lost You that are backsliding Souls my preaching to you is like to be in vain I have little hope that this word should do any thing towards your recovery if it doth not make you sensible how much you have lost and how far you are grown behind hand This would be hopeful if we could see you smiting on your thighs as once Ephraim did Is 31.19 Or smiting on your Breast as the poor Publican did Lord be merciful to me a sinner Lord be merciful to me a backslider Lord pardon me Lord receive me Lord recover me and help me up that I utterly lose not that which I have wrought Know friends that if ye be fallen to such a distance from what you once were you are at a greater distance from what you should be For 3. Compare your selves with that Copy which I have set before you to be pressing towards with that higher pitch of Religion which I have pointed out unto you in the 5 particulars formerly mentioned Compare your selves with these and then how great will the distance appear to be betwixt what you are and what you should be Are you such hungry and thirsty Souls after the highest degree of Religion Have you panting hearts longing hearts can you say my Soul is a thirst for God mine heart cryeth out for the living God O for more of God for more of the holy Image of God more of the Life of God for more of the power of his Grace Are your Souls such hungring and thirsting Souls or have you not even lost your appetites doth not even desire fail with you And then what savour or relish have you of religion in your hearts Is wisdom entred into your hearts is the knowledge and grace of God become pleasant to your Souls Do you taste the sweetness of religion Can you say with the Psalmist Ps 84.1 How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord Or as Ps 19.10 Sweeter than the honey or the honey-comb to my Soul thy Testimonies are my delight how precious are thy thoughts to me A day in thy Courts an hour in my Closet my Retirements to the Lord and my Soul solaces in the secret of his presence these are the great pleasures of my life and the very joy of mine heart Can you say so do you find it so Lord how short how far short do the most of Professors fall here Ah wretched hearts We have tasted so much of the sweetness of this Earth that we have lost our taste of God the world is become too sweet our gains and our pleasures and our very labours are too sweet these carnal things put our mouths out of relish of things spiritual and heavenly And thus I might lead you through all the Particulars Solidity c. by comparing your selves wherewith you might easily perceive how very great the distance is from that holy heavenly tender fruitful frame which we should be in And sure Friends such a great distance from it makes it evident how much need we have to stir up our selves to be reaching and making towards it Phil. 3.12 Not as if I had already attained or were already perfect but I follow after The Apostles sense that he was short of perfection this was it to stir him up to follow after And O how hard does he follow v. 13. Forgetting what 's behind and reaching forth unto those things that are before I press to the mark O if it were thus with this great Apostle one that had out-stripp'd even the rest of the Apostles and was gotten so much nearer to the mark than they all If this thought but I am yet short I have not yet attained did so press him to follow after then sure our sense how greatly we fall short of him who yet acknowledged himself short of the mark does evidence how great need we have to bestir our selves Do not now think that a little amendment will serve your turns that a little more care and pains will suffice to help you up and recover you know that you have a great way to go ere you can attain to this prosperous state and if ever you do recover to it it must cost you much many an importunate Prayer great watchfulness much labour yea many sorrows of heart for your neglects that have been many a sigh and may be many a tear And therefore much need is there that you stir up and awaken your sleepy hearts to it Fall upon your knees fall upon your knees bemoan your selves be ashamed of your selves that you have sloth'd your selves to this sad pass and then stir up your selves to make after a recovery 2. From the difficulty of recovering them that are fallen It is with the consumption of the heart as with the consumption of the body there are 3 degrees of a consumption In the first degree it's hard to be discern'd and easily cured If this Disease be but taken in the beginning a little matter might do the cure but in our first declinings it is not easie to discern them Consumptions come not as Feavers with any violence but we waste and waste by degrees it doth not make men sick at first seizing them but they consume away insensibly May be some amongst us have but begun to fall A degree of declining there may be but they are not sick of it but take themselves to be healthful and strong Christians a little while hence they may both see and feel what they will not suspect nor fear If you would but understand in time and seek remedy in time how much mischief and misery might be prevented 2. The 2d degree is easie to be discern'd but hard to be cured The farther it grows upon us the more plain our case is but the more difficult is our recovery Friends there is a Consumption of the Vitals of Religion upon too many among us and some are very far gone There need not be much pains
taken to give you the Symptoms or Signs by which you may know it their backslidings are so visible that they are manifest even to every eye The paleness of some of our faces the shortness of our breath the wasting of our strength the unwildiness and inability to labour and the listlesness thereto discovers how 't is with us O what weak and listless souls are some of us our flesh and our bodies strong and healthful but how weak are our hearts how short breath'd quickly tired with every little of duty and how pale and wan doth our outward man appear our very Vitals are perished and gone Friend thou hopest thou keepest thy stand but is it indeed with thee as it was wont to be Dost thou pray and hear and live and love and labour in the matters of God and of thy Soul as in thy former days Open thine eyes and look a little upon thy self compare thy self now with what thou wast in thy best estate and then thou wilt say of thy self as God of Ephraim Hos 7.9 Gray hairs are upon me though I knew it not 'T is conspicuous man to every one that observes thee thy Religion thy conscience and all that Grace that is in thee 't is all grown gray Gray hairs are upon thee though thou mindest it not What say you Christians are you all fresh and flourishing Are you strong Christians lively Christians Do your Souls prosper doth your Religion prosper or must you not say I remember the days of Old when it was better with me than now such who are so far gone whose decay is so visible though their recovery be possible yet they are hard to be recovered 3. A third degree is not to be hid and past cure plain to be discovered never to be cured and then the Consumption of souls is ordinarily past cure when men are past feeling It is one thing to be without feeling in those that never had any sense of God upon them and another to be past feeling in those that once had some tenderness of heart Those that have been chilling and cooling and hardning so long till God gives them over to that reprobate sense mentioned Rom. 1.28 the case of such men is become desperate Now you that are fallen into this consuming Disease consider these things how difficult your case is unless it be but in the very beginning and how it will be growing on to be harder and harder if yet you prevent it not with speed till it becomes desperate Consider this and then say if it be not time to look about you and to make hastily out to the Physician for cure Friends take heed will you yet linger on as you have done will you be quiet take your ease and take no effectual care to recover the health you have lost the strength you have lost Tremble to think how suddenly you may be given up to a total and final Apostasie But why is the cure so difficult I answer 1. Because as it hath been said in the beginning it 's so hard to be discerned Who will look after a cure that thinks he ails nothing This Consumption invades and creeps on by such insensible degrees that it is not perceived or minded till it grows up to such an height as will scarce admit of a cure This Consumption fretteth out the Heart as a Moth fretteth a Garment When the Moth first breeds there it lies undiscovered till by insensible degrees it eats up the strength of the Garment If the Moth seized upon any Garment as fire doth you would shake it off suddenly but because it consumes but insensibly and by slower degrees therefore it 's let alone till it hath done its work Friends is there not a Consumption upon you is not the Moth gotten in I hope not into my Soul Why there 's the misery of it you will not know you consume till ye be utterly consumed 2. From the indisposition and unwillingness of the Heart to seek after a cure Such untowardness and inindisposition there is to this work that I am afraid that by all that I can say I shall not be able to prevail with some of you to make tryal what may be done May be you acknowledge that we have all need enough of this warning but I am in much doubt that when you have heard all your hearts will so hang back from the work that all that can be said will quickly be forgotten and never effectually stir you If you would take the warning and stir up your hearts and set to the work there I hope you might be recovered but I tell you again espâ—cially those that are far gone that I fear your unwilling and untoward hearts will be too hard for the word and will not let you come on to any purpose Consider what I say and remember it a day or two hence and see if it be not with too many of you according to my fears and tell me then if you can I thank the Lord the word hath prevailed and I have set mine heart to it and through the Grace of God will not give over till I may see it effectually work to my recovery 3. From that opposition that is made against our recovery 1. There is a stirring Devil that opposeth it 2. There are stirring lusts that oppose our recovery 1. There is a stirring Devil that opposes your recovery The Devil is a destroyer that 's his name Rev. 9.11 Abaddon Apollyon that is a Destroyer 't is he that hath brought you into this case that hath destroyed that little Grace you had and is thereby attempting to destroy your Souls When you see what wasts have been made upon you upon your consciences upon your comforts 't is the Devil that hath made these wasts he is that Fox that hath devoured your Grapes The Devil is an adversary and a busie adversary 1 Pet. 5.8 walking up and down seeking to do you a mischief 't is he that hath brought you down to this low pass in which you are and he that hath brought you down will do all he can to hinder you from ever rising again The Devil is with you wheresoever you are he watches you where ever you go if you go into your Closets go to pray for recovery the Devil watches you there and does what he can to distract and hinder your prayers When you come to hear the Devil watches you in the Congregation and strives to catch away every word that might do you good All these words which I am speaking to you for your recovery I am in doubt they may have but little success if the Devil can help it there shall none of them stick upon your hearts He that hath brought you so low will be busie with you to hold you so low resisting and stealing away whatever word might help you up What 's become of all the words that have been hitherto spoken to this purpose do they abide upon you have they wrought
he reveals his good will and good liking of them and lets them know that they are accepted with him when he is their Friend and lets them have the countenance of their Friend towards them when he is their Father and causes them to feel the Bowels of their Father the Compassions and Kindnesses of their Father and hereby makes them to joy in his Love and to rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God This is Blessedness indeed these are Blessed Ones whose God is thus their Lord. Blessed are the people who are in such a case blessed are the people whose God is the 〈◊〉 Ps 144.15 Christians you need not complain whatever you want if you have no bread in your houses no money in your purses no health in your Bodies no rest in your bones yet have you the Lord God in your hearts it is enough you are blessed Souls Sinners ye need not boast your selves and lift up your heads so high you have money in your purses you have friends in your houses you have health in your bodies you have marrow in your bones you can hardly tell what you lack that would please you and yet miserable souls are you all God is not in you and that to him that knows what it is is misery enough to blast all your comforts and your joys The Devil is where God is not Sin bears rule where God doth not and this is the upshot of your boasting and blessing and comforting of your selves this is all you can say matters of this World go well with me I can live a plentiful and pleasant and merry life the Sun shines on my Tabernacle I have the Wind on my side I am on the warm side of the Hedge I prosper I flourish in the Earth all things go well with me I have but this one thing to trouble me my Soul is in the hands of the Devil there 's nothing of God in me and where God is not there the Devil bears rule This if ye knew it is misery enough for you that whatever you have God is none of yours and this is happiness enough for the Saints that God is in them of a truth 2. Our happiness is that the Lord is among us that we have the visible tokens of his presence that the Ark of his presence is among us that we have his Statutes and his Ordinances and his Worship among us that the Doors of his House are open and the Glory of the Lord filleth his House that the Ordinances are among us and are not as a miscarrying Womb or dry Breasts but are fruitful to the propagating an Holy Seed bringing forth abundance of Children to the Lord and nursing up those that are to be fat and flourishing This was that Glory of the Lord which the Psalmist so thirsts and longs to see Ps 63.2 That I might see thy Power and thy Glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary This was that happiness of the Church which was prophesied Is 60.2 c. The Lord shall arise upon thee and his Glory shall be seen in thee v. 4. Thy Sons shall come from far and thy Daughters shall be nursed up at thy side then shalt thou see and flow together and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged v. 8. Who are those that flee as a Cloud and as the Doves of the Windows v. 14 15. They shall call thee the City of the Lord the Zion of the Holy One of Israel and I will make thee an everlasting Excellency a Joy of many Generations v. 21. Thy People shall be all righteous the Branch of my Planting the Work of my Hands that I may be glorified This you will acknowledge must needs be an happy time and all this is the fruit of the presence of the Lord among his People When the Glory of the Lord fills his House and the off-springs of the Lord are numerous and prosperous when the Golden Candlesticks are set up and the Son of man walks in the midst of his Candlesticks when there are not only here and there a flourishing Believer but when there are flourishing Churches flourishing companies of Believers when there are not only a throng of People crowding the Doors of the Lords House but a throng of Saints worshipping at his Feet and walking in the Name of the Lord Happy would such days be blessed are the People that are in such a case by the presence of the Lord among them Yea and every degree towards such a State is so far forth a degree of peoples happiness when the Lord gives his Prophets and Teachers and Ordinances and any freedom to attend upon them and any little success to the propagating of holiness and the sincere Professors of it This is a Token and a Fruit of the presence of God with them 'T is a mercy for people to enjoy their civil advantages fruitful times and seasons for the good things of the Earth plenty of Bread free and flourishing Trades freedom from Oppression c. These are Mercies but these may be where the Lord is not as to his gracious Presence 't is freedom and encouragement for Religion the plentiful raining down of Manna the bread that comes from Heaven and our thriving by our Bread 't is this that evidences that the Lord is among us 3. Our taking hold of God is our continuing this Presence of the Lord with us and preventing his departure where I shall shew 3 things 1. God may depart from a people with whom he hath been present 2. 'T is wo with that people from whom God departeth 3. This is to take hold of God to prevent his departure 1. God may depart from his People with whom he hath been present And that 1. From particular persons from whom he may then be said to depart 1. When he hides his Face from them 2. When he suspends the influences of his Grace 3. When he loosens the reins of Government 4. When he denies them the benefit of his protection 5. When he turns away his Heart from them and rejects them 1. When he hides his Face from them and withdraws the light of his Countenance Thus he withdrew from that precious Servant of his David Ps 30.7 Thou didst hide thy Face and I was troubled whom we find praying Ps 4.6 Lord lift up the light of thy Countenance upon me and Ps 51.12 Restore unto me the Joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit Gods Holy Ones may forget God may grow secure and careless and wanton Children and the Lord will not countenance the best of them in their sins If they forget God he finds a way to remember them of him by conveying himself out of their sight the clouds upon his Face the darkness upon their own Spirits make them remember the light which once they had and to look the better to it when the light returns 2. When he suspends the Influence of his Grace witholds his Spirit from them This
over you we can hardly keep life in you the little good that remains is weak and even ready to vanish away But what then will become of you in the Day of Famine when your Manna shall cease and your Waters fail O tremble to hear this word spoken concerning you you shall not mourn nor weep you won't be much troubled nor lay it to heart but ye shall pine away for your iniquities If in such a day of plenty as you have had you are such pining Souls what can you expect but you may pine to death in days of want 2. Especially 't is woful to those that have no Religion in them that are blind and hard and dead Souls that remain still without Christ and without God in the World Sinners if ye be not brought in to be Believers whilst the Word of Faith is preached to you if ye be not converted whilst the Word of Repentance is preached among you if you continue such blind and ignorant Souls whilst you have the light with you what will ye be in the days of darkness Sinners concern not themselves about any such thing let the Gospel shine or be under a cloud let Religion flourish or vanish let God be amongst them or be gone let there be preaching or no preaching 't is all one to them they are like Gallio Acts 18.17 they are for none of these things But Sinners let me tell you as little as you regard it how it goes with the Church of God and the Ordinances of God whether there be liberty or restraint a plenty or a famine of the word when ever the Gospel departs when ever a famine of the word comes 't is you are the men that are like chiefly to have the misery of it 'T is an affliction to the Saints and they may be great losers they may languish and grow to a decay but you are like to lose your Souls you are like to dye in your Sins and to perish for ever if you are thus hardned under the word how are you like to be won to Christ without the Word If the Devil hath such power with you to lead you on in your sins in your drunkenness and swearing and lying and covetousness and to hold you under your impenitence notwithstanding all the instructions and warnings and reproofs you have from the word how fast will he hold you when there 's none to resist him If you never be converted and brought to repentance you know you must to Hell and what hope will there be of your conversion when the converting word is no more preached to you Sinners you had need make better use of the Word while you have it among you you had need look for another manner of work of God than hitherto hath been upon you Of all men in the World you especially had need pray Lord take not the Word of thy Truth from among us or at least Lord delay that dark day O let my Soul be first wrought upon O let it first lay hold on me and recover me from my sins and from the power of the Devil let me become a Convert to Christ a Disciple of Christ before that day come you had need pray thus and you had need hearken more to the Word while you have it and hasten in to Christ That day will stay for none of you when 't is coming and O! what if it should come upon you if the Gospel should be carried away and leave you in that sinful guilty state that now you are in Look to it Sinners in the name of God look to it strike in with Christ presently make thorow work for your Souls instantly while it is called to day harden not your hearts don 't any longer stand shall I shall I one day or other I hope I shall For ought you know God may be even about to pack up his Treasure to take down his standing and ready to be gone and then where are you O carry this thought upon your heart if God should go and his Gospel should go and leave my Soul at this pass wo wo to me poor wretched Soul what shall become of me for ever O if the preaching of the Word leave me under the power of the Devil sure the Famine of the Word is like to seal me up under the hardness of my heart to everlasting condemnation Look to it Sinners pray that such a Day may not overtake you thus and O hasten and take the present season and this day break off your sins by repentance and yield your selves to the Lord be converted that ye may be saved Fear not but Christ will accept you if you will now come in he is yet willing he stands stretching his hands to you he lifts up his Voice to you and calls Come ye poor sinful souls come unto me make an adventure for Heaven come and be my hearty Disciples let the wicked among you forsake his wickedness let him return to the Lord and he shall have mercy Fear not but if you will now come in you shall be accepted but dare not for your lives delay any longer lest the days of darkness overtake you lest the Gospel be removed from us and leave you bound in your sins and then you be carried down bound hand and foot into the everlasting Prison The Lord grant that this be not the dismal lot of any of your Souls and look you to it in time that it be not lose not the present season the Sun seems to grow low it 's almost night O see to it that it be not Sunset among us before it be Sunrising in any of your Souls I hope the day is even now dawning upon some poor Sinners among you that some of your Souls are looking towards Christ and making towards Christ and making your escape from your Sins Is it so with thee art thou awakened from thy Sins art thou wishing and waiting for Christ Even this is the dawning of the day upon thee O for the Sun rising for the forming of Christ upon thine heart look that the work that is go not back again but come on and hold on that thy little morning light may increase and grow up to perfect day and that the Evening and the Morning meet not 3. Our taking hold of God is our continuing the Lord among us and our preventing his departure This was their Sin in the Text they did not take hold of God that is they took no course to continue the Lord amongst them God was going from them and they let him go and look'd not after him they were too willing to part with God And this is the case of Backsliders in heart they are too well contented that God and they do part their heart is withdrawn from God and they matter it not though God withdraws from them Our laying hold on God imports these 3 things which are necessary to our continuing him with us 1. Our letting go our Idols or false
done Now this is your way to level your accounts concerning your sins to repent and amend all your evils and to sue out your pardon through Faith in the bloud of Christ And now you see what 't is to lay hold on God to continue his presence with us by casting away our Idols by laying hold on his Covenant by recovering into Communion getting into an holy acquaintance with God living so that you will both accept of God and be accepted with him maintaining a frequent entercourse betwixt the Lord and your souls letting him hear often from you and listening and longing to hear as often from him by keeping even reckonings betwixt the Lord and you keeping a reckoning of your mercies and a reckoning of your sins by levelling your accounts by walking worthy of your mercies by getting the scores of your sins crossed washed away by repentance and pardoned by the bloud of Christ Here 's that you have to do if you would take hold of God and continue his presence with you Friends is the Lord within you I hope he is in many of you would you that he abide and continue with you I know you would you that are Christians I know you would all say Wo to me if the Lord depart from me I know it is the desire of every sincere heart among you let the Lord dwell in me and walk in me as he hath said he will let Christ dwell in mine heart by faith Lord leave me not take not thy Holy Spirit from me if all the Friends I have in the world forsake me if all the comforts I have under Heaven fail me if mine house must go and mine estate go and my health go and my life go yet let not the Lord depart from me let the Lord still dwell in my soul dwell in me as my Teacher and Instructor dwell in me as my governour and my guide dwell in me as my portion and treasure dwell in me as my Refuge and Protector let but the Lord God continue with me and influence me by his Grace and quicken me by his Spirit and guide me by his Counsels and hold me by his Right Hand and lift up the light of his Countenance upon me and so long mine heart shall be glad and my glory shall rejoyce my flesh also shall rest in hope in this hope that he will shew me the Path of Life I shall behold his Face in Righteousness and when I awake I shall be satisfied with his Likeness Why is this your mind is this your desire that it may be thus with you why now you know what you have to do that it may be so Beloved you have much the more reason to hearken to these instructions and hereby to secure the continuance of the Lord in your own hearts in such a time as this wherein there are so many tokens of his being about to depart out of our Congregations to shut up the Doors of his House against us O how will it be if when the days shall come wherein we shall lose our opportunities of meeting the Lord in the Congregation how very sad will it be if we should in such a time not find him within us if the Word of the Lord should be thrust out from his House and the Spirit of the Lord should be withdrawn from our Hearts if with our publick communion we should lose our secret communion if instead of finding comfort in our retirements to God he should hide his Face from our Souls if instead of speaking comfortably he should speak roughly to us if this should be his Word to us in such a day Now see what thou hast done now remember thy wantonness and thy worldliness thy hypocrisie and thy backslidings and triflings out thy day of grace of these things thou hast been warned aforehand but wouldst not lay them to heart and now reap the fruit of thy folly think not to have countenance from me and comfort from me in the day of distress whom thou hast so mocked and slighted in thy prosperity If men be angry let them be angry if men will persecute let them persecute and look for no relief from me O what if the Lord should speak thus to any of your Souls in the days of darkness that may come how dreadful dark will it then be or what if he should say nothing but leave thee a blind and hardned and senseless Soul wasting away and growing worse and worse and not at all affected with his severe providences How if it should be thus O Friends that this may not be your case that God should depart from his House and your Souls together know that you are so much the more concerned to give special heed to the Instructions you have received for the laying such hold upon him that he may continue with your hearts if he should not be intreated but depart from his House and Congregations 4. Stirring Religion will take hold of God What might have been said to this is in great part prevented by what hath been said already yet something I shall add and shew 1. What 's meant by stirring Religion 2. That stirring Religion will continue the Presence of God with us 1. What 's meant by stirring Religion 1. Negatively not headiness in Religion an hot and mistaken Zeal about the lower and more uncertain things of Religion not such a Spirit of Fire which was in those Disciples Luke 9.54 who would needs call for Fire from Heaven to destroy and consume those that were not Followers of them not a stirring up of strife and contention a making breaches and divisions and propagating of our own Opinions by censuring and judging those that are otherwise minded and are not in every thing according to our own Size Such as these are some of those perilous persons which the Apostle warns Christians not to imitate but to take heed of of whom he says 2 Tim. 3.2 they are Proud Boasters False Accusers or make-bates fierce despisers of them that are good heady highminded and after all their blustering against others have but a form of Godliness denying the power thereof from such says he turn away take heed of them and take heed of being leavened with such a Spirit This then this headiness and fierceness and hot censoriousness upon the account of Religion this is not the stirring Religion I mean 2. Positively An humble active lively zealous prosecuting or pursuing that which is Religion indeed or the substance of sincere Christianity Some vain ones there are who upon the hearing this headiness and fierceness this hot and mistaken zeal blamed and decryed will turn the edge of such Reproofs against Godly Zeal and all fervour and activity for God and every one that goes beyond the drowsie sleepy multitude of Professors is cried out against as one of these heady highminded ones Such is the craft of the Devil that if he cannot blow up coals of wildfire that under the pretence of kindling
c. and wilt continue so then look to thy self God will not stay with such a Soul what love your pleasures more than God what love this World more than God even take them for me says the Lord I 'll be no more a God to them This is the first every allowed sin provokes God to depart 2. Stirring Religion will work out sin especially every allowed sin The life of a Christian is a warfare there is a continual conflict betwixt the flesh and spirit Gal. 5.17 The Flesh lusteth lusteth that is fighteth sin fighteth against grace and grace fighteth against sin Sin fights for the Devil to set him up and to lay the governement on his Shoulder and grace fights for God to lift the Lord up and to give him the preheminence in the Soul God will no longer stay in the heart than he may have the preheminence God will not be kept as an underling if he may not have the preheminence he 'll be gone and leave you to the Devil never talk that you hope God is within you where Sin or the World bears rule God is not there Now where the flesh is let alone in its fight against grace much more where the heart takes part with the flesh and nourisheth and cherisheth and maketh provision for it and grace is let lye asleep there sin rises and increases and abounds both in heart and life Where sin is stirring and that little grace that is is let lye and quite out of heart what can be expected how can it be otherwise but the Devil must carry it against God But when grace revives and the heart falls off from sin and takes part with grace nourishing and cherishing and abetting the better part then sin will be put to it and must away Christians your hearts would quickly be too hot for your sins if the grace that is in you be once well rouzed up when the live Coals are blown up into a Flame the Smoke is consumed and vanisheth Do not sluggishly lye down and complain that you cannot master your sins you are proud and cannot help it you are earthly and worldly and cannot help it you are froward and passionate and peevish and cannot overcome your passions Do not say you cannot overcome you cannot prevail if there be grace in your hearts and you will set to it to stir up the grace that is in you this would overcome What do you think if your love to Christ were blown up into a flame would it not quench the flame of lust Friends 't is a sign that religion is asleep grace is asleep conscience is asleep when your carnality and earthliness do thus ride in triumph over you this little David that little good thing that is within you if it gets on its Armour and go forth to the fight will not only put to flight but put to death the Champion of the Philistines Put your grace to it let it but engage heartily and lively in the fight and sin will run the field Loytering and idleness and laziness do beget and nourish evil humours and diseases exercise and activity will subdue and work them out he that lives a stirring life is usually the most strong and healthful Christians if you would be hearty and healthful and overcome those corruptions that are the diseases of your Souls and the offence of your God if you would overcome resolve upon a stirring life pray and let no praying satisfie but stirring prayer sleepy prayers will stand you in no stead let your thoughts be stirring let your affections be stirring let conscience be stirring let your conversations be stirring conversations be not the carkases of Christians that have no life shew forth the Spirit of Christianity as much as possible be all soul and life and spirit and keep you in lively action and then let your sins stand before yov if they can The quick running Rivers keep themselves pure they are the dead and standing Pools that gather most mud and dirt Certainly Friends our Skie would be clearer and more serene if our Spirits as the Wind did rise higher Our thick Mists and unwholesome Fogs that infest and annoy us would much be dispelled if Grace the rays of the Sun of Righteousness did once break forth more in us What will ye do Friends your light grows dim and your day misty your waters are mudded we are a company of dark souls polluted souls such as the Lord can take little pleasure in what must ye do to help it if you will bestir your selves you may help all get Religion to be aflote let that living stream be running let the coals be blowing and then you shall see your mud will be cleansed and your dross will be purged away Never think 't will be better by sitting still and complaining how bad 't is To work Friends to work with these lazy hearts to work with those earthly minds rouze ye up out of sleep up and be doing and see if you find not the same success against your sins as the Lord promised against the Devil Jam. 4.7 Resist the Devil and he shall fly from you resist Sin and it shall fall under you Now Friends if ye can but get your sins out if ye can subdue your iniquities so far as that not one of them be allowed and all of them have their power broken and weakned in you if those that are by a specialty your iniquities if your special sins your most beloved lusts those that have most of all taken with you and carried your hearts captive those evils that have been your special hinderances either in holiness or comfort and that your hearts have been most apt to go a whoring after if you get these to be mortified and brought under stirring Religion will do it get it to be done once let nothing be left that offends God but that it also offends you and you shall not be like to have reason to complain the Lord is departed from me that which would have driven him away is now removed 2. Stirring Religion will work up and improve and increase those good things which the Lord will delight in and will not forsake As it will work out iniquity so it will work up grace and holiness There is not the poorest and weakest of Saints but by diligence and industry will be improved Stirring Christians will be thriving Christians 't is for want of action and industry that our souls are in this poor case As they said Gen. 43.10 Except we had lingred we had returned the second time or twice by this time Friends if we had not lingered and loitered we might have had twice so much grace twice so much holiness as now we have 't is our lingering that keeps us so poor we may thank our sloth and our carelesness that there is so little of God in us by our industry we shall advance Stirring lively Christians will be thriving Christians the best of Christians can never keep their stand
serious thoughts daily upon it Well whether you will remember this or forget it that my soul may not be guilty of your eternal miscarriage of your dying in your sins or of your sleeping to death in your languishing state I once again warn you to bethink your selves how 't is with you and every day to bestow such serious thoughts upon the important matters of God and your souls as may tend to your recovery 2. Get yon stirring affections 1. Stir up godly sorrow The Apostle wrote such a Letter to the Corinthians as made their hearts ake 2 Cor. 7.8 I made you sorry with a Letter and this sorrow what a stir it made in their hearts v. 10. it stirred up care and fear and indignation and vehement desire and revenge upon themselves for their faults and neglects O that my preaching to you might have the same effect upon you that the Apostles Letter had upon them that I might make you sorry sorry at the heart for the woful cases that many of your souls are in yea set you to it to stir up this godly sorrow in your selves think Friends what matter of sorrow and grief you have within you and amongst you The King said to Nehemiah chap. 2.2 Why is thy countenance sad since thou art not sick I may say to you why is your countenance not sad since you are so sick what sick at heart and yet so merry at heart Look inwards and see how 't is with you rake in your sores and wounds till you make them bleed and smart Sure you have forgotten what hath been said if you yet find not for what to mourn Remember your selves is it no matter of sorrow to you to see what your sin hath made What is the head sick and the heart faint and the whole man become wounds and bruises and putrefying sores and is all this nothing to you what is your Religion the Gospel and the name of your God wounded by you by your hypocrisies by your backslidings by your walking so unworthy that worthy name and does not this move you will you tell the World that the Children of God are such wanton unruly Children or such lean and starveling Souls as you appear who go under the name of his have you grieved your God by your falls by your follies by your falshood to his Covenant and declining from his Ways shall your Redeemer weep over you because of the hardness of your hearts and the spirit of grace be grieved by whom you have been sealed to the day of Redemption and will not this grieve your hearts O study out what matter of sorrow you have and give not off that study till tears do come What is it with you as 't was with Israel Jer. 2. are you which were once holiness to the Lord and as the first fruits of his increase now laid in common to the World and the lusts thereof have you changed your glory for that which profiteth not v. 11. Have you forsaken the fountain of living waters and hewed out to your selves cisterns that will hold no water v. 13. Is the Lord become as a wilderness to you and as a Land of darkness and is this world become your Paradise have you lost the kindness of your youth and the love of your espousals and is your love to Christ swallowed up of your lust after vanity See Friends if this be the case of any of you and if it be O make not light of it but lay it deeply to heart and as v. 19. let your own wickedness correct you and your backslidings reprove you and know and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing that you have thus forsaken the Lord and that his fear is so much departed from you Friends O that my word may put you to grief and make you sorry What art thou not sorry for all this canst thou not yet say O I am pained I am pained at the heart for mine iniquities my backslidings reprove me my foolishness corrects me and makes my soul within me to mourn art thou at ease in such a case is thine heart quiet as if all were well and nothing ailed thee O how little hope is there then of thee that thou wilt be recovered If I could but make you sorry if you would but stir up a godly sorrow in your own souls O how mightily would this work to your recovery then what fear would there be of continuing thus any longer then what indignation against your selves for your own follies in departing thus from the living God! then what care would there be and what vehement desire after a speedy escape and recovery 2. Stir up fear But what cause have we of fear search and you may find cause enough Is there no matters of fear in your present cases You that are in your sins you ignorant impenitent ungodly ones is there no fear of you are your souls safe are they not in danger is there no fear of unbelievers is there no fear of hypocrites no fear of the drunkards the covetous the proud of lyars of loose livers art thou such a one and is there no fear what may become of thee art thou under condemnation and yet not under fear As the penitent Thief said to the other Luke 23.40 Fearest thou not God Fearest thou not God sinner who art under condemnation and if thou fearest not God fearest thou not the Devil neither fearest not thou Hell neither O stupid sensless souls what under condemnation and yet not afraid 2. You that hope you have grace and yet continue low in grace is there no fear concerning you no fear of idlers and loyterers you that have but little and satisfie your selves with that little is there no fear that that something may be nothing He that thinketh himself to be something but is nothing deceiveth his own Soul Gal. 6.3 Is there no fear that though you think your selves to be something to have something of Christianity in you something of saving grace yet you may at last be found to have nothing and so be deceived is there no fear of deceiving your selves in a matter of such importance are you in such danger of being deceived and yet not afraid or if you have something of Christ or Religion in you is there no fear that you may lose that little you have and come to nothing at last What means that exhortation Rev. 3.11 Hold fast what thou hast what means that caution 2 John 8. That we lose not the things that we have wrought what mean these words if there be no danger of losing what we have 3. You that are already fallen to decay that have lost your first love is there no fear of your loosing all Is there no fear but you shall recover all again or is there no fear of you whether ever you do recover or no is there no fear of backsliders no fear of revolters and apostates where-ever there 's danger there should
or can who have nothing of Christianity in them nor profess nor pretend to any such thing He is a covetous worldling indeed who doth love the world and wish for the world and work harder for it than some of these do which profess religion It is a shame and a reproach to the Gospel that it should be so and wo be to them by whom the reproach cometh But yet 't is too true there are amongst the number of Professors some though not so many as the world say God forbid there should for they say all are such yet some such there are whose hunger and labour after the world can hardly be overmatch'd by any of those whose names are written in the earth and have no part nor portion in Christ nor name in his Churches Friends I pray deal faithfully in this matter every one of you with your selves ask your hearts How stand I affected to this world are my desires after this earth moderated and limited by my Religion or are they not so high and impetuous that they have even swallowed up my desires after God are you as impatient when you sink and grow to decay in religion as you think you should be if you were sunk and fallen to decay in your outward estates Can you truly say I am not so much athirst to grow rich in this world but I am more athirst to grow rich towards God nay can you say this I am so much athirst for God that this hath quenched my thirst and allayed my desires after this world I am become more indifferent what I have here whether more or less my heart sits loose from all below through the strength of my desires after God can you say so O that you could more of you than I doubt can Well know that 't is impossible that you should intensely desire God and this World together one of the two must fall you must strike sail as to your earthly affections or your souls will never hoise up sail heavenwards And this is the first direction for the kindling and quickning your desires heavenward suppress and allay your carnal and earthly desires 2. Be sensible of your necessity Necessity kindles desire Ps 63.1 My soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee Whence is this thirst and longing O 't is from his necessity I am in a dry Land where no water is I have need of thee Lord need of thy water Brooks for out of thee I have none 't is all a dry Land there 's no water below thee to quench my thirst Friends would you be quenched in your desires after more Grace be sensible of your barrenness and your want do you not want to be in better case than you are have you grace enough to supply your necessities those that are very poor outwardly whose poverty pinches them their necessity will make them beg How is it there are so many poor so many necessitous souls and yet so few begging souls even ready to starve for want of bread and yet cry no more after it Why 't is because however we are in great necessity yet we have not a due sense of our necessity our soul poverty doth not pinch us men that are extreamly poor in the world their poverty pinches them but for souls the poorer they are the less they are pinched with it O friends if you were more pinched with your spiritual poverty if those dry and lean souls did but feel how lean you are if you were touched with a feeling of your necessities if your cold wishes I would I had more grace were come to I must have more I must be more holy I must be more heavenly-minded I must be more zealous for God and more busie and active in following him a necessity lies upon me and wo is me if I continue as now I am the sense of your necessity of getting up into a better case would enlarge your desires after it 3. Be practically convinced of the excellency of a prosperous state in the grace of God All the world how eagerly are they wishing after prosperity men have such high thoughts of worldly prosperity that every one would be glad to prosper as Mal. 3.15 they count the proud happy so generally do worldly men count the rich happy the prosperous happy When we hear of men grown up to that plentiful estate described Ps 144.13 14. Whose garners are full affording all manner of store whose sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in their streets whose Oxen are strong to labour and there 's no complaining in the streets who have plenty of good things and nothing ailing them how do worldlings cry out Happy are the people that are in such a case and hence 't is that their very Souls are all upon the wing making all the haste they can after this earthly prosperity And what if Christians had as great thoughts of soul prosperity O what a case are they in whose hearts are full of all manner of store full of wisdom and spiritual understanding full of faith and of power full of the hidden treasures of eternity whose mouth is full that have grace in their hearts and grace in their lips whose life is full of all the fruits of righteousness what an excellent spirit are they of what an excellent life do they live happy are the people thrice happy are the souls that are in such a case Do worldlings call the proud happy the rich happy the great ones happy ones Yea rather Happy are the Souls whose God is the Lord and those especially who have the grace of God so abounding towards them and in them What if you were practically convinced of this of the excellency of the happiness of a flourishing prosperous state in the grace of God If you did not only notionally conclude it so in the general for that every Christian will do but with a particular respect to your selves O how happy were it for me if I were one of these prospering souls if I could get my soul to be filled with God and the Spirit of the Lord Jesus O if I could love as the best of Saints love O if I could live as I see some Christians live if from creeping on the earth and having my foundation on the dust my soul might get upon the wing and have its conversation in Heaven if in stead of having fellowship with sinners I might have fellowship and live in communion with the Father and the Son if instead of serving my flesh I might spend my days in serving the living God if from being such a sluggard such a cold and lazy soul I might get up to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord O what if there should be such a change made upon me if from this dead and dry and barren case I am in I might be brought to be a living lively fruitful heavenly zealous Christian O what a blessed change would this be O how should mine heart be filled
Children of their bowels any good thing they need and ask how much less will your Father in Heaven who is a God of bowels of infinite compassion deny his Holy Spirit to those that ask it of him Christians study this Promise trust upon this Promise and whatever your fears and discouragements are that you shall never obtain use Gods means ask and seek and knock follow on instantly and earnestly in Gods Way and then hope in God and be no longer dismayed 2. Consider the earnest that you have already received what pledges God hath given you for the performance of his Promise What is nothing of this Promise performed to thee O I hope there is something I have gotten from it but it is so very little that this discourages me Why this little thou hast received is a great encouragement to hope for more I say though you have asked and sought and knock'd and yet but little comes yet that very little which you have obtain'd is great ground for you to hope for all that you need Every little that you receive from the Promise of God is an earnest to assure you of all that is behind Have you received but the first fruits of the Spirit a little Grace a little Strength a little improvement in Grace Is it a little better with you than it hath been this is a pledge to you from the Lord that if ye follow on ye shall have more and more There is hope in what the Lord hath given you in what he hath done for your souls 2 Cor. 1.10 He that hath delivered and doth deliver we trust that he will deliver He that hath supply'd and doth help you hence you may hope that he will supply all your needs out of the riches of his grace by Christ Jesus If the clouds from above have yet but dropped upon you and that grace which your parched Souls like the thirsty earth hath received hath come in but drop by drop you may from those drops have the more hope of a shower that shall rain down righteousness upon you until your souls become as a well-water'd Garden and as a spring of waters whose waters fail not Christian is thy Soul as the chapp'd ground opening and gasping after the influences of the Lord and hath it begun to drop is there something come down art thou a little quickned a little revived those very drops are the forerunners of a shower that will fill all thy furrows O look about you Friends see after all the means that God hath been using to quicken and improve your Souls see if any drops be fallen upon you if it be a little better if there be something done to your recovery be not discouraged that 't is no more be humbled that 't is no more but be not discouraged he that hath begun there 's so much the more hope that he will perfect a cure upon you Thus stir up your hope in God by considering the Promise and any little degree of its performance But beware I cannot too often give you this caution use not this hope to make you secure and careless say not for your lives as bad as 't is with me I hope it will be better and thereupon sleep on and neglect to follow after There is no hope for such a Soul let not your hope secure you in your negligence but establish you against your discouragement let it not secure you against diligence but encourage you unto diligence Since the matter stands thus as great a distance as there is betwixt your present state and that prosperous state of Soul which you desire and wish for and as great difficulty as you imagine it ever for you to get up to such a state since both the Promise and Experience gives you such ground of hope that even you also with whom 't is so very low may get comfortably up therefore be encouraged to take all the pains possible hereto Look on Acts 26.7 and there see how hope will work Vnto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God night and day hope to come Observe it God gave them a promise the promise gave them hope and their hope encourages and provokes them on instantly to serve the Lord and this instant serving God is their way to the possession of the Promise Friends let all this that hath been spoken engage you to all manner of diligence and fortifie you against all manner of discouragements come on Christians come on in the name of the Lord you have heard many directions that I have given you and some more there are that yet remain O set your hearts to the practice of all these words and how hard soever it may seem to be take the way prescribed to you and then commit your way to the Lord hope in him and he will bring it to pass and give you your hearts desire only when you have done all and no success appears yet still wait for the Lord. As there must be the expectation of hope so there must be the patience of Hope Wait on the Lord and keep his way be not weary of well-doing and in the end ye shall reap if ye faint not O Friends follow on after the Lord and encourage your selves on by your hope in God Pray for more grace pray for more life and more power and pray as men of hope Strive and stir up your sleepy hearts and strive as men of hope that as low as 't is with you yet there 's hope for you to get up Be encouraged by the promise be encouraged by every little that you have received Hath the Lord but begun to awaken you let that be his security to you that he will do more and better things for you Are you yet a great way short are there many difficulties yet before you to break through are there any fears and misgivings of heart that ye shall not obtain yet do not discourage your selves hope in God hope in the promise of God and in the help the promise offers be not dismayed put you on after the Lord and hope in God Say to your hearts in the words of the Psalmist Ps 43. ult Why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou discouraged O my soul Hope in God and thou shalt yet praise him who will be the health of thy countenance and thy God Though my flesh and mine heart fail me yet he is the strength of mine heart and in him shall be my hope and my trust there is a promise before me and unto this promise if I can but instantly seek and serve the Lord I have hope to come 4. Get a stirring Conscience God hath made conscience overseer and ruler in the heart he hath advanced conscience in the heart to the same dominion that Potiphar advanced Joseph in his house Gen. 39 4. he made him overseer of his house and put all that he had into his hand Or as Pharaoh Gen. 41.40 advanced him in his
is in the heart Men usually unless it be the Hypocrite speak according to what is in their hearts the proud heart speaketh proud things the vain heart speaketh vain things and the holy heart speaketh holy things 2. 'T is the abundance of the heart that 's most apt to come forth at the lips In some hearts there is a little good but much evil in others there is much good and less evil 't is that which abounds in the heart that which is most in the heart that hath the command of the tongue See that there be Grace in your hearts and that the grace of God abound in you a little grace will not do to set your tongues agoing 't is the abundance of the heard that which most abounds within that will have the easiest and most ordinary vent Job 32.18 I am full of matter my spirit within me constraineth me my belly is as wine which hath no vent it is ready to burst like new bottles I will speak that I may be refreshed I will open my lips and answer I am full of matter and therefore will I speak an heart full of grace must and will have a vent by the speech The holy spirit within us will constrain us where there is little good coming forth 't is a sign there is not so much as there should be within We may pretend inability and unaptness to speak as the reason of our barrenness of holy discourse that sometimes may be something that hinders but mostly the reason is there wants matter within We have reason to suspect that 't is from want of grace rather than from want of utterance that no more savoury and spiritual and useful words come from us A full heart will be the best help for a stammering tongue Christians let us get an increase of inward grace let us get more of the holy spirit of a spirit of life and love and power within us and our Friends and Acquaintance are like to hear of it oftner and to better purpose than they do Poor creatures that we are we are empty we are empty our insides have no good filling Be ye filled with the spirit faith the Apostle Ephes 5.18 speaking to your selves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs and the more we speak thus to our selves the more freely shall we speak to others those that have but little grace are but Babes in Christ and Babes are but Infants that can't speak when the Infant is grown then he will find his Tongue In vain shall I exhort you to use your Tongues more for God till you be nursed up from Children to more strength in grace Would you ever come to be more fruitful and useful in your Generations this must be your way to it get you more inward grace 2. Let your thoughts be working more about holy things Thinking makes way for speaking what our thoughts run most upon that ordinarily our Tongues will run upon We cannot know each others thoughts but we may give a near guess at them by the words that are spoken Men whose thoughts are most in the Earth that are still thinking of their Money or thinking of their Trades or their Pleasures they can hardly forbear to be talking of these things And if our thoughts were more of God and of our Souls of Religion of Righteousness and Holiness we should certainly have more of God and of Heaven in our Mouths The Psalmist who said Ps 119.46 I will speak of thy Testimonies and will not be ashamed said also Ps 119.97 My meditation is of thee all the day long Christians get your thoughts to be well exercised be much in thinking think of the goodness and kindness and holiness and compassions of the Lord think of Christ of his love of his life of his death of his bowels and everlasting kindness think often what great things the Lord hath done for your souls think what ye would that he should do for you much thinking on God and his holy things will leave an holy tincture on your hearts will by degrees do much to the begetting holy habits and dispositions in you The Lord uses to convey down much of his holy Image and likeness upon the heart by the thoughts Friends such of you who find but little of the impress and image of God upon your hearts pray consider it if you be not too great strangers to the thoughts of God How often in a day are your thoughts in Heaven how very seldom is it that you are seriously looking either upwards or inwards No wonder if your tongues be so silent of God whilst your thoughts are such strangers from God Christians I doubt there are many of us that are much faulty here that our thoughts are no more taken up or working upon things spiritual and heavenly we should make the thoughts of God more precious and delightsom and more familiar and ordinary with us we should be able to say of our thoughts of God as the Psalmist does Ps 139.17 18. How precious are thy thoughts to me O God how great is the summe of them If I should count them they are more in number then the sand When I awake I am still with thee Thus it was with that holy man and thus it should be with us we should be much with the Lord in our thoughts but is it so with us Friends do but trace the goings of your souls for one day together and ask your hearts in the evening how much have I been with God this day how often have I been looking Heavenwards the Psalmists holy thoughts were so many that he could not count them and it may be some of ours have been so few that we cannot count them we can hardly remember any such thoughts we have had I know 't is hard work to keep your thoughts well imployed they will be wandering and roving more or less do what you can and you that observe your selves cannot but know it your selves how hard a work it is and I am afraid that some of us because 't is so hard a work will let it alone if their thoughts will gad and rove let them gad whither they will if they will not easily be gotten up to Heaven let them even stay below and so we let them take their own course and run whither they will I pray Friends this once put your selves every one of you to it and spend this one thought upon your selves think which hath most of your thoughts God or this World must you not if you speak truth speak the quite contrary to what the Psalmist speaks whilest he said How precious are thy thoughts to me O God how great is the summe of them Must not you say how irksom are thy thoughts to me O Lord how small is the summe of them this argues an evil temper 't is sure a carnal frame your hearts are in where spiritual thoughts are so rare and difficult and I shall not wonder that 't is
forth to the light all that filthiness and garbage and rottenness that is within you bend all within you to seek the Lord and go cry unto him and cry so loud that your own Souls may be awakened by your cry Strive so with God in prayer wrestle so with the Almighty that your own Soul may find its Hands and Legs Friends do not neglect Prayer and do not deceive and undo your selves by your Prayers do not pray your Souls asleep do not pray your consciences asleep but awaken them 'T is a miserable thing to consider how little some Professors are in secret Prayer sometimes they pray and sometimes they can't tend it their Closet is so seldom visited that it may be said of the very way to it as of the way to Zion Lam. 1.4 the ways of Zion do mourn because none come to the solemn Feasts The Grass grew upon their paths because they were so little trod It is a miserable thing that there is so little praying such seldom Praying as there is but a worse Evil then this is that that little which is is worth nothing we go to Pray many of us as if we had a mind to mock God and provoke him to his Face we go to this duty as if we had a mind to lay our Souls to sleep rather then to stir up and awaken them 't is no wonder there is no more light in our Paths when there is no more life in our Duties 't is no wonder there are so many grey Hairs on the Head so many wrinkles in the Face of our Religion when it is so cold at the Heart when our secret recesses and retirements to God are so Heartless and Spiritless 't is no wonder that Sin and Lust and vanity do so swell and abound that Grace and Holyness do so sink and disappear in our conversations when that which should kill Sin and keep Grace alive the Soul of Duty is so little to be found Friends if ever you would recover the beauty of your ways begin in Secret revive the power of Duty pray constantly pray frequently and be fervent in Prayer pray and strive with God in Prayer pray and strive with your own hearts in Prayer pray and wrestle against the Devil and the World and your Sins in Prayer such praying would make the nest too hot for the Devil and your Sins such Praying would cure your colds such praying in the Morning might be a means to keep you warm for all day and such praying in the Evening would make you awake warm the next Morning Therefore Friends pray hearken to the Word of the Lord hearken to me in this thing put your selves to it put upon constant secret Prayer and put upon such stirring Prayer such instant and importunate Prayer what say you will you do it will you hearken to me in this thing I tell you Friends if I may but prevail with you in this one thing if you will obey and practise this one direction this will make all the rest to prosper you will deny me in nothing if you will but grant me this and if you deny me here if you will go on to satisfie your selves with cold and perfunctory Devotions if you will not set to it to be lively and vigorous in your secret duties I shall look upon all else that I have said as lost and that which will come to nothing and therefore pray consider with your selves what you mean to do in this thing will you begin this night go not to pray as at other times but put on upon the life of the duty and then I shall hope to see a blessed and a visible change upon the whole frame and face of your conversation What say you therefore will you do it I am in great earnest with you in this thing since the success of all that I have said to the recovering the decaying interest of Religion among you depends so much upon this one thing and therefore once again I pray deny me not and that you may not deny me take particular notice of this one word more that I shall add remember these words anon in the Evening when you are going to Pray then remember what I have now spoken from the Lord to you and accordingly set your Hearts to it and the Lord grant you the presence of his gracious and Almighty Spirit to help you herein to the praise of his Grace and the comfort and advantage of your Souls For the more effectual fixing of this direction upon you and for your improvement by it I shall here remember you of two Directions which I have formerly Preached and published 1. Be so earnest and intent in this duty that you may feel your hearts enlarged in the lively actings and exercise of Grace and so raised and warmed by your sensible communion with God as may put you into a spiritual and heavenly frame that if it be possible you may come off your knees in a better and more lively disposition of soul than you had in your entrance upon your duty Do not satisfie your selves with the work done but let your aims and endeavours be to get something more of God that you may have to carry away with you when you depart that you may come out of your Closets as Moses came down from the Mount Exod. 34.39 whose face did shine and was a token that he had been conversing with God O let there at such times be a shining and a burning light raised up within you come from your duties as men coming out of Heaven with the very Sun-beams shining in your countenances and with some tincture of Heaven upon your spirits We come many times with no other spirits from our duties than we come out of our Shops or Fields with no more sense and favour of God than if we had never been near him O 't is a sign that thou hast but trifled in thy duties that thou neither hadst nor much mindedst to have communion with God in it certainly sincere communion with God will leave some divine impressions behind it Well every time you go to pray put hard for it to get you into such a divine and spiritual frame before you have done 2. Whatever better or more spiritual frame you are gotten to in duty be careful to maintain it and keep it alive afterwards See to it that your spirits do not presently sink and cool and grow dull and carnal again when you have been thus quickened and spiritualized hath there been an holy fire kindled in you O keep it burning keep it flaming and let it not be covered over with ashes get your hearts to be alive in your duties and keep them alive from duty to duty In the Old Testament though their Sacrifices were offer'd but morning and evening yet the fire that kindled them was not to go out night nor day there must be fire kept alive from the morning Sacrifice to kindle the evening Sacrifice and
fire left from the evening to kindle the morning Sacrifice O Friends how often is it that though at our morning Sacrifice a fire be kindled that it 's quenched and lost before the evening through the carelesness and negligence of our hearts Sin and the World have a whole days time to quench and put out what an hours duty hath been kindling and so at the return of our duty-seasons we find our hearts at the same loss in the same deadness and hardness as before Beloved these two Directions of getting up our hearts into a lively frame in duty and of keeping up that holy frame from duty to duty though there be some difficulty and it will cost you pains to practise them to purpose yet the advantage you will hereby gain will be abundantly worthy all your pains and therefore I pray remember them if you do in good earnest intend an advancing in Religion let these two Directions be before your eyes every day you have them preached to you and you have them written for your use the Lord write them upon your hearts and hold them before your eyes This course will be as the whetting our Instruments and keeping them keen for our work how much work may be done and with much more ease by a cutting than a blunted Instrument Eccl. 10.10 If the Iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge he must put to more strength 't will cost you much more pains to make any work in your Religion whilst your edge is blunted a dull heart will do little and that little not without much pains By the course prescribed whet your spirits and keep them with a good edge and then all your work will be the more easily carried on To this I shall add 3. Let your prayers be pursued in your practice Whatever Grace you pray for whatever Sin you pray against follow after the one and fight against the other in your daily practice Let Prayer and Practice joyn hand in hand and both drive the same way Think not you have done your whole days work when you have prayed morning and evening Religion must be the business of your whole time be thou in the fear of the Lord be thou at the work of the Lord all the day long Prov. 23.17 and not the business of an hour or two When you have been praying for an heavenly mind that God would help you to live in the spirit to set your affections on things above to have your conversation in Heaven when you have ended your Prayer what should ye now do Why then to thinking on heavenly things let your thoughts run upon and be working more throughout the day upon these holy things to pray for an heavenly mind and never to think more of heavenly things all the day long till you come to pray again what will such praying come to When you pray for a willing obedient and fruitful life what should you do Go and take pains with your hearts to bring them on and to hold them close to your several duties When you have been praying against Sin for power over a proud heart or a froward heart or a covetous worldly heart what should you now do Why then set your watch against your sins take heed of every proud thought of every froward word take heed and beware of all covetous practices set your selves to the mortifying of these sins to restraining your selves from the actings of them to pray against pride or to pray against covetousness and as soon as you have done to leave your hearts loose for them to carry it as proudly or as frowardly as before to be as busie for the world as eager in hunting after it what 's this but to set your Prayers and your Practices together by the ears to destroy the things you have been building to destroy by your Practices what you have been building by your Prayers And whilst this hath been the voice of your Prayer Lord deliver me from a proud or froward or covetous heart your Practices say I care not whether this Prayer be heard or no I had rather be let alone and left under the power of them If ever you would that your praying should come to any thing let your Prayers and Practices drive the same way Let it not suffice you to pray for a more gracious and fruitful heart and life to pray for a more mortified heart a more self-denying course but set to it to put your Prayers into practice Let the stream of your care the stream of your endeavours run the same way with the stream of your prayers and desires and that 's the stirring Prayer I would have you give your selves to such as may effectually overpower the stream and course of your life and carry it on according to the stream of your Prayers O Friends If of all that I have said these three last words might be remembred and observed if in every Prayer you henceforth make you would diligently strive to get you up into a spiritual and lively frame If 2. you would carefully maintain this blessed frame afterwards from duty to duty If you would 3. set to the practice of those things you pray that God would enable you to what do you think would be the success O what a cure would be wrought O what a blessed change might we expect to appear upon you and all your Religion 2. Fasting and Prayer In the former particular I spake of Prayer as an ordinary duty here as an extraordinary as annexed to that extraordinary duty of Fasting and Humiliation We may say of that evil spirit that Spirit of slumber and of a deep sleep that 's fallen upon us as Christ said of that Devil Mat. 17.21 This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting Extraordinary Diseases must have extraordinary Remedies Hitherto I have spoken mostly to our personal Cases now I shall speak with more respect to the publick Case of our People and Age and shall direct you 1. How you may most effectually stir up a spirit of Prayer in your days of Humiliation 2. How you may most successfully perform this duty 1. How you may most effectually stir up a spirit of Prayer in your days of Humiliation And so 1. There 's something in the very abstinence that conduceth to the stirring up the spirit of Prayer Abstinence is pinching upon the flesh and should be so much in such days as may afflict the body first and thereby the soul The abstinence of a Fast should be afflicting abstinence as far forth as the body will bear it without prejudice to its health and so becoming an hindrance rather than a furtherance of the duty There 's a two-fold failing too common in our days of Humiliation 1. In the time Mostly what we call a Day of Humiliation comes to no more but a few Hours of Prayer It 's said of a Fast Lev. 17.31 It shall be a Sabbath of Rest to you that is 1.
It was to be a whole day as a Sabbath is 2. It must be wholly spent in the proper exercises of it a Sabbath of Rest it must be in this extraordinary duty there must be a laying aside our ordinary works and the whole time spent either in the publick or private worship of the day How seldom is it that we hear of such a Fast Some Hours as I said we sometimes spend together in seeking the Lord but when do we keep a Day to the Lord The morning of the day is usually as other mornings we are as busie at our Callings and may be more busie to dispatch our work out of hand and so come hot out of our shops and fields with our heads full and hearts full of our worldly affairs and as soon as ever the Publick Duty is over then away to our work again Is it such a Fast the Lord hath chosen will ye call this a Day of Humiliation Christians 't is well that you spend some Hours of Prayer but call not That a Day of Humiliation when ever you set apart a Day for Fasting let it be a Sabbath of Rest to you begin it in secret and separating your selves from all your unnecessary ordinary works hold you to the duty of the day as your strength will bear it to the end of the day Let the private part of it both before and after Publick Exercises be spent as your Lord's days are in suitable converses with God Were this more observed we might expect more of Spirit and of Power in the duty and more Fruits afterward 2. There is also a failing in the Abstinence of the Day How often have I known it that the Abstinence in a day of Humiliation hath been no more than the sparing of one Meal which hath been made up by a larger Break-fast and perhaps a Feast at least a full Meal at Supper and sometimes in the intervals of the duties Wine Cake Sweet-meats Tobacco and such like refreshments are allowed and used No particular Rules for the degree of Abstinence can be prescribed to all sorts of persons but this should be observed in the general 1. That there be such Abstinence used both as to quantity and quality as may best subserve the Spiritual duties of the day especially that of afflicting the Soul and therefore 2. That not only our full Meals be forborn but no Wine or strong Drink c. no not so much as a Pipe of Tobacco be allowed for the present pleasure or refreshment of it This latter concerning the use of Tobacco I the more particularly mention because I suppose it is not so much thought on many of those that use it much find great pleasure in the use of it and it may be can give no good account of their present need of it and yet will use it at such times If it be really needed as in some cases it may and by some persons let it be used But if Daniel would eat no pleasant Bread nor Flesh nor Wine came into his mouth Dan. 10.3 If the Jews be reproved Is 58.3 that in the day of their Fast they find their pleasure then any thing taken as an exhilarating refreshment which is not necessary to the present duty is a transgression Well this will be something towards the stirring us up in Prayer self-afflicting Abstinence 2. Especially a deep consideration of the case we are in will most effectually do it Qui nescit orare discat navigare Tempests will teach even profane Mariners to pray if any thing will do it afflictions will fetch out our very hearts in our Prayers and is not iniquity an affliction Sure if it be we are in an afflicted state for consider a little again how grievously iniquity doth abound I shall not now lead you a voyage over the Seas and remember you how 't is abroad how the Devil drives almost all the world before him filling them with all unrighteousness and what a small handful there are that follow Christ and how very little of serious Religion or Christianity and how much iniquity there is in those few Let us at present inquire how 't is with us at home may we not take the words of the Text into our mouths and complain We even we are all as an unclean thing and our righteousnesses are as filthy rags we fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind are taking us away Who can say Mine heart is clean I have kept me from mine iniquity who of us will not say My righteousness is as a filthy rag Or if any will not say thus concerning themselves must not we say it for them and of them To put in but a word of the profane Rout the open enemies of Religion and Righteousness whose wickedness hath left the shade of the twilight and the covert of the night and who are grown up to that impudence as to shew their shame in the Sun-light not to speak much neither of their Prophets and Teachers amongst whom though through mercy there are that deal faithfully yet some of them cannot others will not tell them of their transgressions or heal their hurt what Snuffs are there in some of the Candlesticks what dark Lanthorns are many of those that should be burning and shining lights Seers without eyes lame Leaders sickly Healers of the hurt of the daughter of our people such some of them are as if God had said concerning us as Micah 2.11 If any man walking in the spirit of falshood do lie and do prophesie of wine and strong drink he shall be even the Prophet of this people To let these pass also let us consider how 't is with the Sinners in Zion with those of us who profess to have separated themselves from the follies and filthinesses of the Land to the Law of their God may not even these also complain Even we are as an unclean thing our filthiness is still in our skirts What is our Religion what is our Righteousness what a totter'd maimed thing is it Ah how little Religion is there in our Religion how little of the Spirit how little of the power how glorious soever the form appears How much unrighteousness is there mingled with our righteousness is not our Gold mix'd with Dross and our Wine with Water What a spirit of vanity what hypocrisie pride headiness censoriousness peevishness is there to be found and all cryed up for Religion What wood and hay and stubble is there built upon the foundation Christians and yet carnal Christians and yet earthly and sensual having not the Spirit how much soever of the Name of Religion in them And amongst them that were once better how many are there that must go on with the complaint and confess we all do fade as a leaf we wither and wast and consume and are even dried away And it is not here and there a fading leaf does not the Tree fade so that 't is but here and there a leaf that
is not wither'd away Were it only a few backsliding persons the matter were not so sad but is it not a backsliding Age may we not be called a backsliding People for the multitude of Backsliders that are amongst us scarce living enough to serve for mourners over the dead As I said in the beginning were it only the Wilderness and Commons of the world and the Tents of the uncircumcised that we had to complain of it were sad enough but O the Field of the Lord his Floor his Fold his Family his Vineyard What tares are there in his Fields what a deal of Chaff in his Floor what a general bane and rot is there among his Flock few sound ones left What an Hospital is his House of blind and lame and sick Souls what wild Vines do fill up his Vineyard Quis talia fando Temperet à lachrymis Friends should you see your own Houses fallen into ruinous heaps your fruitful Fields become a prey to the Locusts and the Caterpillars your Flocks dying away of the rot if you should see among your poor children that were once strong beautiful healthful hopeful one bewitched into a Changeling another a Cripple another a Lunatick a Fool or Idiot others possessed of a Devil O how would such a sight rend your bowels and tear the very caul of your heart And is not this lamentable case the case of the Houshold of God But is this all may we not go on with the complaint And yet there is none very few that calleth upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold on Thee O what hard work have the poor Ministers of Christ to stir any of these miserable Souls to bring them to their senses to bring them to their knees to awaken them to seek out after their recovery They will not stir up themselves no they will not be stirred up by us by all our cries and callings upon them though we call upon them yet we cannot bring them to it to call upon God Some of them will not be brought to know their disease and those that can't but know it yet will not consider it nor concern themselves so much about it as to seek their cure but there poor wretches they lye dying away in their sleep themselves and every one infecting others with the same Lethargy and going on to rock one another till even a whole Countrey become a generation of Sleepers How often have I heard some of these sleepy Souls complaining of this dull and declining age and yet have not had the Heart to say am not I one of the sleepers how many have I known that have confessed their own declinings and yet away they go and quickly forget their own confessions and to day is with them as yesterday and to morrow is like to be as to day O England England thou which wert once as Jerusalem great among the Nations and Princess among the Provinces how art thou fallen where is thy Glory thou hast the light still with thee but where is the love and the life where is thy beauty the beauty of Holyness where is thy zeal and thy strength what are thy Sabbaths and thy solemn meetings and ordinances become to thee but even as a miscarrying Womb and dry Breasts how few Children are brought forth within thee and how many of them that are ready to famish at thy feet What silly Doves without an Heart what wandring stars hollow vessels what sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals are most of those become who boast themselves to be thy Glory thou hast a few names who have not defiled their garments nor stained their Glory nor reproached the Name of their God but Lord how few How sadly is that Scripture fullfiled in thee 2 Tim. 3.1 c. have not those perillous times overtaken thee wherein Men are lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-brakers false accusers or make-bates incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good traitors Heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof O how art thou fallen Yea and whither art thou falling thy righteousness is become as filthy rags the yoke of thy transgressions is bound upon thee they are wreathed and come upon thy Neck thou art faded like a leaf and dost thou not see that thine iniquities like the wind are taking thee away thou mayest say this day where is my beauty where is my Glory and how suddenly mayest thou be forced to take up this for thy lamentation O now where is my God! for these things I weep mine Eye mine Eye runs down with water because the comfort that should relieve me is gone far from me How hath the Lord covered me with a cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven to Earth the beauty of England and remembred not his foot-stool in the day of his anger the Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob and hath not pityed he hath brought us down to the ground he hath polluted the Kingdom and the Princes thereof he hath cut off in his fierce anger the Horn of England and he burneth against it like a flaming fire which devoureth round about He hath violently taken away his tabernacle he hath destroyed his places of the Assembly he hath caused the solemn Feasts and Sabaths to be forgotten he hath cast off his Altar he hath abhorred his Sanctuary he hath given me up into the hands of the Enemy and made me a desolation Friends open your Eyes and see if the Symptoms of such desolation be not visible amongst us go into the City go into the Villages go into the Sanctuary go into our Habitations and see if Death be not come up into our windowes and desolation ready to enter how is it that you that have the Hearts of Christians your mouths should not be sounding with such Lamentations My bowels my bowels I am pained at my very Heart my Heart maketh a noise within me mine Eyes do fail with tears my Liver is poured out O that my Head were waters and mine Eyes were a fountain of tears that I might weep day and Night for the fallen daughter of my People O do not now any longer go about to palliate or mince the matter O let not the blind Eye or the hard Heart whilst it goes about to excuse aggravate our Sin and our shame Our diseases are too great to be palliated and too many to be hid He is a stranger in our Israel that sees not how deadly sick we are Friends consider it and make not light of it ponder the state we are in and give not over till your Hearts break and bleed within you and so go and pray before the Lord. Methinks it should stir you O when ye go to pray carry a deep sense upon your Hearts and hear the cry in your Ears of the Sin