you are ye not carnal and walk as men 1 Cor. 3. 3 The preacher shreds colloquint into the pot the hearer like the wanton fish in summer catches at the silken fly that hath a hook in it Oh that the very reading of this Text would startle you to go home and lament over your selves and with earnest prayer to call upon God Lord make me to know wisdome in the hidden part give me the leavings of the outward Jew the circumcision of the heart in the spirit whose praise is not of man but God Observ 3 Thirdly a Jew or Christian be they what they will be meerly conversant in the outwards of Religion is not that indeed which he takes himself to be and desires to be called Thou art called a Jew vers 17. And thy Circumcision profits if thou keep the law vers 24. else thou art no Jew and thy circumcision is made uncircumcision there are disciples and disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed John 8. 31. there is the distinction as there was a severance of Jew from Gentil and also of the Jew inwardly from the outward so there is of Christians from heathens and also of Christians in power from Christians in the form of godliness for the Kingdome of God consisteth not in meats and drinks but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy-Ghost Religion is an inward thing of the heart in the spirit the principles the motives that carry it on the manner of performance the graces the comforts the sâ—alings the experiences the communion are inward things there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hidden man of the heart which makes a Christian inwardly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it in 1 Pet. 3. 4. It is in the hidden man that grace begins It s spoken of women there that are most affected with the outward dress the life of your bodies doth not begin in the legs but in some of the vitals the heart the liver the brain and as it begins there so it rules and governs there that motion is but violent that comes from a forraign motive all duties of worship and obedience that are outward if they be not actuated by some inward grace are not profitable to you not pleasing to God It s true there is a confession that is made with the mouth unto salvation as well as faith in the heart unto righteousness that text I believe teaches this point that there is more goes to salvation then to justification but we are comparing the outward and inward Christian the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is seen what it is in that forementioned place that that is of great worth and much set by it lies under the bark it s the framing and moulding of the heart to softness and a planting the Lord Jesus in you This is that which makes you to be Christians Christians indeed From all this that hath been said what followes now if we will make use of it Use 1 First I say hence Can our outward Christian give any good account of any momentous difference between himself and the Jew outwardly I confess comparing the priviledges of the Jew with the Samaritan our Saviour asserts the preheminence of the Jew salvation faith he is of the Jewes and so I might speak and follow it profitably that such is our profession above the Papist But I am speaking now of the Jew outward and inward the Jew reckoned himself a Jew by his descent from Abraham and by his profession of that religion establisht by Moses whereof he had not the power and pray what do you Christians reckon yourselves by what is your faith that you pretend to have to Christ but a kind of traditional storie from our Ancestors or taken up from common report milkt into you when you suckt the breasts by custome and education without any work of the Gospel on your hearts Can you say that the Gospel-ministry hath wrought faith in me I will not tie things strictly though this be common and ordinary there being not one of a hundred sometimes that can say now I believe in Christ not because I have learnâ— it by custom and common report but because the Gospel hath been to me and in me the power of God unto salvation it 's a rare thing The Faith you have how ever you come by it look you to that is that kind of easie and dogmatical saith of assent to the truth of the Scriptures We know God spake by Moses but neither receives Christ as Saviour Lord and Sovereign nor brings forth any fruit to holiness nor works by love Did not the Jew honour the great Names of Abraham and Moses but were neither true Disciples of the one nor Children of the other And do not we denominate our selves by the Name of Christ without any membership with him or real union Did not the Jew observe the Laws of his Religion with mighty zeal and strictness as ever Nation did but neither sought nor felt any inward virtue therein resting in the work done and with great confidence promising to himself salvation And are you so zealous and strict in the outwards of your Religion as the Jew was oh no of a more loose and luke-warm temper in this point than â—e Yet do not you rest in the work done and promise your selves to be saved with as much confidence as the Jew I speak by way of comparison If we be never so sollicitous to bring our children to be baptized and we must have it so it s a badg of our Religion but are we any thing sollicitous to plant grace in their hearts when they are come to years of discretion to plant the work of Regeneration as well as give them the outward mark Examine your conscience thorowly and see whether or no you go beyond the Jew outwardly And to the Sacrament you will come and pretend zeal in it but do you any thing but observe a fair decorum for that day or time but where is the inward reason of that Ordinance where is the Lord Jesus received and sealed to your comfort No you rest in the work done and promise your selves salvation thereupon with such a confidence as will deceive you be sure of it Did he abhor Idols yet commit sacriledge And thou saith the Apostle that abhorrost Idols dost thou not commit sacriledge that is one of the main points that he insists upon with his outward Jew What are we better that cast off Popery and starve the Gospel Ministry eye to eye cannot be more like than you would find if you trace your selves Had he a form of knowledg and truth so as to be a teacher of others and a Preacher of the truth and yet took his own liberty of the sins he taught against and so caused the name of God to be blasphemed amongst the Gentiles as the Apostle saith to the Jew And is â—ot the Name of God blasphemed by prophane people through our outwardness are
a man that is sweetly the drawing is not against the will because it makes the will willing it doth not move the wheel against the wheel or the natural motion of it but with it and then the heavier the plummet the faster the clock goes If the power of God go with the willâ— of man it moves more freely as the stream doth with the wind and tide then the more power God puts forth the more willing you come Thy people shall be willing shall be voluntiers in the day of thy Power Psal 110. 3. as if the power of God in that day wherein it s put forth should make a man a voluntier in coming to Christ Jesus It 's true God moves contrary to the natural stream as the tide carries up the River but when the Lord puts a new Principle a new bias into the bowl and that natural heart of sin is taken away then this coming though it be with drawing is so sweet that the soul prays Lord draw me and I will run Cant. 1. 3. Thirdly It is wondred at that God should command what he works or gives for if he mean to give it why doth he command and if he command how doth he give if it be a duty how is it Gods work and if it be Gods work how can it be my duty I Answer That God gives the grace he commands the duty bidden is also given and except it be given it is not the bidding will serve the turn 1 Joh. 3. 23. This is his command that we should believe in his Son So then our believing in Christ is a commandment of God And in Acts 17 30. God commands all men every where to repent Here you see that faith and repentance both of them are commanded of God and it s the command that makes them to be your duty Well yet for all this both these are given by God Phil. 1. 29. To you li's given to believe 2 Tim. 2. 25. If God peradventure shall give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth here you find that both are given Again Circumcisc your selves to the Lord and be no more stifnecked Jer. 44. Oh Lord may some say doth God put this impossible work upon me Ezek. 18. 31. Make you a new heart and a new spirit here these two are commanded Make you and Circumcise you and yet both these are promised and given Deut. 36. 6. I the Lord thy God will Circumcise thy heart and Ezek. 36. 26. I will make you a new heart and a new spirit Can any thing be plainer then this he commands and works that which he doth command he commands to convince us of our debt what is due and of our impotency that we cannot pay that we may fall down at the feet of this God and yet he gives too for the magnifying and honouring of his free grace to unworthy man and his power to impotent man that is unable and therefore we distinguish between Legal commands and Evangelical those of the law require the dutie but afford no strength but the Gospel which commands faith and repentance that are Gospel-graces carry the grace and power with them not unto all that shall oppose and shut the door but unto the Elect of God and the people of his inward Covenant So that for a man to say it 's a Gospel command is to say that 't is possible through grace that is there goes grace and power with it which the Lord will convey by the command for the commands of the Gospel are vehicula spiritus carriers and conveyers that carry along the Spirit with them John 6. 36. The words that I speak they are spirit and life being like the commands given to the dead Arise come forth It is a vain thing to speak commandingly to the dead true had they not ministred that which was commanded it had not prevailed and such are the Gospel-commands of repentance faith and making the new-heart or else how should the Gospel-word be called as it is the ministry of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3. 8. The ministery of the Spirit is Glorious So much for the removing of these â—ubs out of the way of Reason Serm. 28 Obj. We shall propound a question for the further handling of this point why should these Gospel-graces and especially faith that bring us to Christ require super-natural strength and drawing for their production And truly there lies some emphasis in this word Gospel-grace for may some say what do you mean by that I mean that grace which serves to the recovery of man to the Image of God which he had and hath lost for in this state of the Image of God which we had before we fell there was life but in this Gospel grace by that there is a resurrection unto that or a better life then we lost before for God intended to restore his Image unto man in Christ who is his Image and this Image is restored by the begetting of this Gospel grace that brings us to close with Christ so that this faith or coming to Christ is a grace of recovery or resurrection through and by which the Image we lost is again repaired now for these graces they do require a supernatural strength Answ It seems to me that a man that is able out of his own experience to make this objection is on the borders of believing for when as the difficulty of faith once appeares and man comes to be sensible and distrusts his own opposition then he begins to draw near or to be on the threshold of faith he that is at a losse is near his way the water being troubled there is no question but there is cure I but saith the cripple the Angel moves the water but I have no bodie to put me in so the promise invites the Word calls but I cannot close with Christ there held forth I am a cripple and no need but of a hand to help me and whereas in Isa 53. 1. there seems to be a double expression concerning this point of faith Lord who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed A man may say I heard the report and believe it to be true but the baring of the Lords arme must go to the making of man believe when we teach that men naturally cannot believe men wonder and say within themselves why should not I believe as well as another man I am as learned and knowing in the Scriptures and as pregnant as others and why should a man of a lesser measure and altitude of parts go before me in believing when we teach that men cannot keep the law of works there is never a one but will consent to it truly I cannot keep the Law I cannot love the Lord with all my heart and might and strength men yield they cannot but when we preach that faith is above your power you cannot believe and come to Christ though we report the report of Christ to you
the preaching of this saving doctrine may happily not believe as it s said of them that Paul preacht to from morning to night and opened Christ to them from Moses and the Prophets their own Scriptures yet how is this Sermon concluded in the 28 Acts 24 ver And some of them believed the things that were spoken and some believed not By this we may learn what to resolve upon and what to rest in if the word of the Gospel be inclucated and taught out of the Scripture with all possible advantages of conviction prejudices will remain and murmurings some believe and others believe not as they are drawn by a divine power in to Christ Jesus or not drawn There is some higher and secreter reason to be shewn for this then yet they think of and see in themselves for the Text tells you No man can come to me except my Father draw him When this drawing power goes forth then they come whom he draws not they murmur and take offence and prejudice And therefore it is said in Acts 13. 48. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed This we rest upon and are resolved But you believe not because you are not of my sheep John 10. 26. As for the Ministry of the Word in the hand of man it works but instrumentally and not as the principal cause It is not the axe that builds the house It s not the pencil that limbs or draws the picture but the workman by such instruments doth it as I may give instance both in faith and repentance See this in faith In Isa 53. 1. Lord who hath believed our report there 's the preaching and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed there is the inward working The revealing of Gods arm must go together with the report or else who hath believed it The word preacht and the work of God must go together So in repentance In 2 Tim. 2. 25. Let the Minister meekly instruct them that oppose themselves that murmur and are prejudiced if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth for else our instructions are but peradventure Use 2 Secondly If there be such disability and opposition in man here you learn that Gospel-hearers have need of subdued hearts Hearts mightily tamed and captivated to the very doctrine of the Word of God beaten down into a tractable humility For else as the best meat is distasteful to a corrupt and vitiated palat so will Gospel-doctrine the doctrine of free grace be scandalous and offensive to proud reasonings And I conceive it may be you have not observed it before that our Saviour when he began first to preach the Gospel did so much insist upon humility meekness poverty of spirit self-denial that his hearers might be subdued unto captivity of their reasonings and high thoughts as the Apostle excellently in 2 Cor. 10. 5. unto the obedience of Christ For I must say it no doctrine in the world was ever or will ever be again so obnoxious to scandal so opposite to the pride and so cross to the reason of man as the highest and sweetest of Gospel-doctrine the points of free grace which no man can receive without murmurings except the Lord first give him a very subdued spirit and a captivated reason And therefore though the benefits received from Jesus Christ be very great and every man will witness that Christ is worthy of all acceptation to save the chiefest of sinners yet when they come to look upon his person throughly and consider what may be said against him as well as what is said for him and the course and tenour of his doctrine that hath it in so many stumbling-blocks that may give distate its great odds that you would never have come in unto him were there not put forth in you a divine hand and a powerful to draw you A famous instance we have of this in Matth. 11. 5. when John Baptist sent his disciples to Christ to know whether he was he not that I believe John Baptist doubted of it for he was in prison and now ready to be offered why saith Christ tell John what you see the sick are healed the lame walk and all sorts are cured very good things such as no man could be offended at and then he adds Blessed is he that shall not be offended in me ver 6. as if he had said as there are many things in me and in my doctrine that draw men to me multitudes crowd after me because I heal cure and relieve them so there are others of hard digestion that may by their offensiveness to mens reason drive them from me So it was in this Chapter His disciples that followed him began to take offence and to cry out of hard sayings ver 60 61. and then presently go away and walk no more with him ver 66. Use 3 Lastly learn from hence A man obstructs his faith when he considers too much the appearance of inconsistencies of his reason and sense to faith in Christ As these Galilaeans Countrymen of Christs that knew his parentage and outward quality fell a murmuring at his doctrine that he came down from Heaven for their eyes were all on those things that they thought inconsistent to his coming from Heaven they could not stand with them and so obstructed their faith Whereupon he saith except God draw men out of their inconsistencies no man can come to me A man may follow his own reason unto an absolute unbelief and Atheism not that Scripture or divine Reason is to be rejected I do not speak to that point But I speak to that natural reason that is taken up from other grounds and not weighed in the ballance of the Word Faith believes God though reason comprehends him not there is no reason that I should have my reason satisfied in the point of eternal salvation by free grace but that I should have a clear word of God that I conceive necessary That God promises so or so that I must needs have as the object of my faith but that I should have my reason satisfied before I believe I know no reason of that Take it either in the narrative part of faith or the promissory part God promised Abraham a son in the old age of him and his wife when he did not expect such a thing did he say Shew me how that can be now I am old No he did believe that he was able to perform he received the word which he believed These people reasoned themselves into an absolute unbelief they considered the means of Christ what they saw in him but the excellency of Christ that he came from Heaven the Son of God the Saviour and Redeemer they believed not And therefore let me from that observe a notable lesson A man that will believe firmly let him look upon the excellency of Christ Jesus not on that which is offensive and scandalous to our reason It was excellent doctrine that
he was bread from Heaven somewhat more then Josephs son Look upon the excellencies of Christ Jesus the satisfaction that he hath made for you by his blood the acceptation of that satisfaction by God the Father and those things that are excellent and in this doctrine of free grace look well on the Soveraignty of God for he hath mercy on whom he will that surmounts the reason of man And so you may believe for the words sake that is delivered unto you and not because it is commended to you by sence and reason This that hath been delivered is but the preamble yet so necessary that it could not well be omitted Serm. 3 I Now proceed to the Doctrine here taught which I divided into three parts First the assignment of the power by which man comes to Christ unto divine drawing Except my Father draw him Secondly the insinuation of mans duty which is coming unto Christ which is not like the duties of the Law which yet we are all bound unto for the Law is a Law of duty But this is a Gospel-duty and doth denote the great condition of salvation the great condition of the Covenant upon which God will save mankind is that they believe in and come unto Christ Jesus implyed in these words No man can come to me Thirdly the depression of mans pride or derogation of mans power and natural abilities in these words No man can c. These are the three points that may profitably be handled out of these words The last of these points first comes to hand in the order of the Text which is Doct. 1 No man by self-power or self-ability can convert himself or come in to Jesus Christ That I might not go far to prove the point therefore I give it you in the words of the Text it self Which shews unto all men universally that what is of greatest necessity to mans salvation and tends to his greatest happiness which is to come to Christ and so consequently to be saved unto that he is impotent and without strength So that the Person upon whom we are to discourse is not a man already in grace but a man in a state of unregeneration The Subject of our discourse hath three characters given of him together Rom. 5. 6 8 10. While we were without strength while we were yet sinners while or when we were enemies Man thus qualified or rather unqualified may be and is a capable subject of divine traction or operation So that observe No man in himself while he lies in a state of fin an impotent estate without strength is a cause first moving himself to his own conversion And secondly he can be no cause moving God by any of his worthiness or works to convert him He moves not himself for he is without strength and he moves not God for he is a sinner and enemy to God and so consequently he moves not to his own conversion salvation either way either by way of power stirring up himself or by way of merit and desert stirring up God to move him This point shall be opened from three particulars The three particulars are First the greatness of the work it self to come to Christ that is to believe in him as you may see in the 35 verse and other verses of this Chapter The greatness of the work manifests that no man can Secondly the impotency or disability of man towards it Thirdly the opposition and resistance that natural man makes against it to the utmost of his power And sure he that considers these three particulars will grant that no man can come except it be by a greater power then his own and so consequently that the Doctrine is concluded and proved First the greatness of the work it self Lift up your ears that you may lift up your thanksgivings and praises Attend to the greatness of the work of Conversion and believing in Christ that you may magnifie and exalt it according to its worth The greatness of the work properly leads us to the main point to shew the imparity and impotency of man For as the greatness of the Heavens that are over our heads doth diminish the earth that 's under our feet and is the reason that its called punctum a little point so you may rationally conceive that the greatness of this work of mans conversion doth easily and rationally diminish the power and ability of man unto it and makes it nothing And the work is great in three regards First in respect of the change it self that is wrought upon every man that comes to God which is exprest in Scripture by terms of the greatest distance that can be from darkness to light a great change Secondly in respect of the power required for the effecting it which is the drawing of Almighty God Thirdly in respect of the concernment of it unto mans eternal happiness and salvation For except you be converted and thus drawn to the Lord Jesus there is no hope of salvation for you And therefore in Ezek. 18. last ver Wherefore turn and live ye The greatness of the work of mans conversion may be estimated and proved to you First by the names that are given unto it It is called a Creation a Resuscitation of the dead a begetting of a new Man or a new Creature or Regeneration Now mark how great a work that must be And though I confess that every similitude must not so be stretcht and urged as to make it run of all four which is but a kind of trifling preaching of Divinity yet we may press the scope of Scripture Similitudes may be preacht out of Gods Word according to the scope wherein the similitude holds which hereby intimates a great work which no man can work upon himself but is wrought by a divine hand non sine novitate essendi not without a newness of being as they use to speak Creation is such a work as brings forth a newness of being whereby that which is now made was not before It is not necessary I think to this work of Creation that it should presuppose a total non-entity or a not being to be before it For Eve the first woman formed of a rib yet may properly be said to be created yet creation may extend so far as to signifie a producing of something out of nothing For God when he made the world made the creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the things Heb. 11. 3. ver that did not appear And when he converts he chuses things that are not 1 Cor. 1. 28. that is that were not such as they are made that have not that existence as is given to them afterwards The Artificer and Workman requires and presupposes the matter that he works upon he doth not make the matter and therefore is not the cause totius entis as the Schoolmen use to say of the whole thing But God can such is his omnipotency call all things out of nothing else I assert 〈◊〉
quite contrary they shall be reconciled to agree And the reason is given verse 9. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. This knowledge of Christ whereby men are turned to God is the great thing that changes natures alters properties even as that is altered between the kid and the leopard That 's the second Argument Thirdly the greatness of the power that works unto faith in Christ that magnifies the work When Christ cast out Devils and healed all manner of diseases among the people while he lived upon the earth did he not put the world into admiration and astonishment yet this work of Conversion to bring sinful souls to God to pull them out of darkness and the damnable state wherein they lay this Christ makes a greater work in John 14. 12. where he saith He that believeth in me shall do the miracles and the works that I do and greater works then these shall be do when I go to the Father When I go to send the Holy Ghost from the Father unto the world what greater works can there be It cannot be otherwise explained then the Ancients downard from Origen The conversion of the world of the Gentil world from Heathenism and Idolatry and Devillism and vanity to Christ because they work such great conversions to turn men from darkness and Idolatry these are greater works then Christ himself did because he did not convert so many as they This is the Hyperbole of Gods power towards them that believe this is the working of his mighty power There is never a verse expresses it in so full words as that Ephes 1. 19. speaking of the power that he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead This power wrought in you when you believed Read this verse and consider it well I think you will never hereafter look upon it as an easie thing to believe the exceeding greatness of power Learned Divines observe there is an aggravation the raising power whereby Christ rose was a great power he lay under all the sins of mankind the greatest stone lay upon his grave that ever man had every man lay dead to his his own sins Christ lay under all the sins of mankind in their full weight That which went to raise Christ and to roll away the stone was a mighty power indeed and the same is put out in you whereby you are called out of darkness into light and from a natural state to believe in Christ Fourthly this is compared to such works as seem to us and are to mans power impossible to be done As to the Aethiopian his changing of his skin the leopard putting off his spots The Blackmoor cannet change his skin nor the leopard put off his spots Jer. 13. 23. When they can do so then may you that are wicked and accustomed to sin change and turn to God There is another instance in Luke 18. 25. Can a Camel go through the eye of a needle no more can a man that trusts in riches a worldly man believe or repent which are expressions of so great a height that we may well conclude the greatness of the work Fifthly this is a work to which Christ is required and wherein he must appear both satisfying and sanctifying for unless he appear in both there can be no conversion wrought on any man he must come by water and by blood 1 John 5. 6. The satisfaction of Christ that 's the taking away sin by his blood And therefore in John 12. 32. If I be lifted up I will draw all men to me here is another drawing There is Gods drawing by power and Christs drawing by his being lifted up by his meritorious â—ppearing to satisfie justice In the creation of the world there was no need of a satisfying and sanctifying Christ to appear It s true indeed Christ as God and the Son of God did appear for by him the worlds were made but as Mediator there was no appearance of Christ But now if he will convert a sinner and bring one of you home to God out of darkness into light here must Christ as Mediator appear Oh that men would admire the greatness of this work The Use of this part shall be twofold Use 1 The greatness of this work shews the reason of those sayings of Divines which were used by the Fathers of the Church in former times That the Church of God hath still her miracles and is not deprived of that gift Men may say that miracles are put down and ceased but the Church of God hath running and abiding in it the gift of miracles Why so Because God by the Ministry of the Word works after a wonderful and miraculous manner in the hearts of men to bring them out of Idolatry and self-vanity The raising of the Widows son from death to life that we read of in the Gospel and the raising of Lazarus that was four dayes dead in the grave these were great works But if you compare the conversion of sinners with them it is a greater work When Christ raised Lazarus it s said that he groaned in spirit that put him to his groans But when he came to redeem man that put him to his bloodshed And therefore on the sudden to change the heart of man from hating God as every natural man doth to love God from persecuting the truth to die for it from being inwardly possest by Satan to follow the Lord Jesus Christ I would have men to consider it that they may come with thanksgiving to the Table of the Lord. And what faith a reverend Divine that is now with God Conversion is the greatest Miracle that ever God â—â—ought And it is to be compared to the Creation of the world saith another and gives this reason The Spirit of God seems to make it a greater work To the creation of the world nothing was required but the word of God but to the conversion of a sinner the arm of the Lord alluding to Luke 2. the arm of the Lord and to Isa 53. 1. To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed And certainly there appears the most grace in it and a power above any creatures It is the assiduity and commonness of the work not the â—lightness and facility saith Austin that takes off the wonder of it The commonness of the Suns light makes it not so much regarded because it is day those men that have felt the power of God in their own spirits they know it is a wonder In the Gospel it was a Miracle to turn water into wine and is it nothing to change a filthy swine into a sheep and darkness into light The creatures at first were made by the Word of God but this Conversion is caused by the arm of God saith one It hath been Hyperbolically spoken of by the Ancients that lived in this Church of England as a very great work to turn the Gentil world and Heathens from their vanity to
we rest not upon that grace meerly of having the Gospel preached and the Fountain declared to be opened unto us but there must be a divine hand to enable the will of man to come to this pool when it is moved Of any Text in Scripture this is most clear to prove the miserable impotency of sinful man to this point of salvation he cannot comply with this of himself No man can c. And if this do not suffice we will argue the point a little further Isa 53. 1. Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed Here is Isaiah the Prophets report but there is an arm must be revealed both which must go together the report revealed by the Ministry and the arm of the Lord revealed must go together for else though they saw so many miracles the means of believing yet they believed not saith our Saviour quoting this Text John 12. 39. And whereas every one taught and drawn of God doth come and no man can come except so drawn it manifestly proves that as the coming is mans act and the free act of man for I think man is never more willing then when he is convinc'd indeed and enabled to come to Christ yet the drawing is Gods power that must first be and the drawing of God that is first in time for man doth not come that he may be drawn but because he is drawn therefore he comes And therefore this drawing of man to faith in Christ sounds like a work of Almighty power or a work of omnipotence Ephes 1. 19. The exceeding greatness of his power towards us that believe according to the working of his mighty power whereby he raised Christ from the dead and lifted him to glory The exceeding greatness of his power The Hyperbole of it here is a thrusting and crowding of words together a power that is compared to the raising of Christ Christ I say who bore our sins in his body on the tree though he lay under our sins for the death of Christ must be considered a little further no such load could depress him the Lord would have the stone rolled from his grave for him to rise again This was a work of mighty power and yet according to this God puts forth his hand in drawing of man to Christ so that as I conceive it cannot but argue that the free grace of God giving and the great power of God drawing makes faith to be above man and takes it from mans merit and mans power And truly it could not else be rightly said in Ephes 2. 8. Through faith not of your selves if this faith were of our selves The Root of this impotency shall be shewn you in five particulars First there are some footsteps of the Law of God remaining that were written in the heart of man In Rom. 2. 15. they shew the work of the Law written in their hearts that as by the rubbish that you see you conjecture what building there was before and by the defaced lines you may guess at the picture so you may by the common Notions left in mens minds judge of right and wrong and the differences between justice and injury without which no society could be of any men in the world but would be herds of wilde beasts rather then men but of Christ there appears nothing written naturally in the heart of man nothing at all concerning a Saviour and a Mediatour but an utter darkness and silence of Christ and consequently of Faith in Christ Secondly therefore man when his conscience is angry having something of the Law in it and accuses as it doth for sins against Nature common Law and common Light and when it accuses and troubles him being altogether ignorant of the righteousness of God by faith in Christ and how he should be saved and justifieed knows not till it be revealed by the Gospel for therein is the righteousness of God revealed Rom. 1. 7. For who can so much as guess by the pregnancy of natural light that God in his Covenant of Salvation should pitch on such a way as Christ a Sponsor or Surety the Mediator between God and man that he should make expiation for sin truly no more then Moses or an Israelite could have so much as found out the way of healing the biting of the fiery Serpents by a figure set upon a pole to be looked unto no man could imagine no mans reason could have found it out had they wandred in the wilderness never so many years and yet this was Gods way and a Type of Christ signifying what man could never have found out to conceive of compensation for sin by a Mediator which was a thing impossible and had not been known therefore man being ignorant of this must of necessity fly to his own plaisters and fig-leaves for if by nature he may be convinc'd of sin yet by the dictates of natural conscience he can never find out any righteousness and satisfaction to Gods justice then it must follow that he must fly to making a medicine of his own righteousness which is of works for that only comes by man to be found out as being next to hand in this case that I say or nothing as being his only hope and this bulrush the drowning man takes hold of and holds it fast as for life and so comes of necessity to settle on his own righteousness being ignorant of the righteousness of God which is by faith in Christ And this the Apostle tells you Rom. 10. 3. For they being ignorant of the righteousness of God went about to establish their own righteousness and so submitted not to the righteousness of God where you see the righteousness that is our own maintains our pride in that word submitted not and rising from ignorance of that of Gods righteousness to which we must submit by way of humiliation which is a cause that men believe not And then Thirdly and pray mark there is a double Revelation of Christ the one is a revealing of him by Gospel-doctrine the other is a revealing of him by spiritual light The revealing of Christ by Gospel-doctrine to the natural knowledge of mans corrupt understanding cannot procure or produce any other then literal knowledge of Christ The Scripture calls it knowledge in the letter as to know the Gospel as a History may be known to be true whereof a man hath a dogmatical knowledge you have many believers and these by knowing the Gospel by a natural light are differenced from Heathens But this doth not nor never will produce a saving faith most men have a literal knowledge we see in ordinary experience all men have some knowledge and Scholars a great deal yet being seen by natural light though revealed in the Gospel will not reach so far as to beget faith saving faith in Christ But the other revealing of Christ by the light of the Spirit of God conveying the knowledge of him into the mind and heart
these they shall have a form of godliness and deny the power of it That whereas its said of some of the Elements they move to the Center and not from it so I may say in this case a corrupt man alwayes moves towards this Center and moves not from it This self-love begets not a love but a contempt of God as Aquinas and takes the wall of him in every thing for it makes him a servant only to work my own interest and to enjoy my self which is the great Idol of man to which every man naturally burns incense and offers sacrifice and is no more able whatsoever he may pretend to exalt and set up God any further then may stand with self then a current of running water that comes from a Spring is able to run above the height of the Head or Fountain for then it would follow that a heavy body should run above it self Thirdly that the true love of God above self or all other things cannot possibly flow from any other principle but that which is above nature viz. regenerating grace And I take it to be one of the most demonstrative arguments and the first product of saving grace to love God for his holiness and ability to delight in him for himself as the Psalmist saith Delight in the Lord and he shall give thee thy hearts desire This shews that there is planted in the soul a similitude and likeness unto God which likeness is alwayes the cause of love and where this likeness is not it is impossible that the corrupt heart of man should put forth any act of love to God himself And therefore it s a very hard thing to perswade a natural man that he loves not God until he find that grace in himself that shews him plainly that he did not love him before and the reason is because every man living measures his love of God by a false measure For First either he measures the love of God to him by a common goodness of God which as it may stand with Gods hate of him so it may stand with his hate of God and so all that love of God is but a love unto himself because it s sounded meerly in nothing else but common goodness that God vouchsafes to you peradventure in this above other men For as it is said of Abraham He gave all that he had unto Isaac but unto the sons of his Concubines he gave gifts and sent them away Gen. 25. 6. so those that are indeed the beloved of God to them he gives the inheritance of divine grace but as for others he gives them gifts but sends them away from all comfortable presence and enjoyment of communion with him And therefore that 's a false measure to measure the love of God to you by Or Secondly he thinks and will not be beaten off it he loves God because he can say and that truly that God is amiable and to be beloved above all and that the chiefest good and happiness of man is to be found in God and in the enjoyment of him These are fair words But the Schoolmen have a true saying Mans corrupt nature is more corrupt quantum ad appetitum boni then quantum ad cognitionem boni moe out of the way in choise of good then in knowledge of truth And therefore as it is the best way to know whether you love God or no by bringing things to particulars unto choise and unto vote to hic nunc to particulars that stand in competition with God then t is plain with you and alas plain with us all in our natural condition that sensitive interest and sensual profit is chosen and embraced before God as infinite experience sheweth that the poorest and meanest lust or the enjoyment of any creature in the world when it comes to choise shall carry it quite away from God which is a demonstration that this love of God is not in some and doth not preponderate I shall shew you First that an unregenerate man cannot love God Secondly why he cannot love God First He cannot No man until God renew his Image in him can love God for there goes renewing grace to this work to love God above self it s a rare thing very seldom do you find out this corruption Ah I pity you you know not the half of that contrariety that is in every one of you to God In Deut. 30. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart For there is a foreskin upon the heart of man that must be taken away and that is a natural hardness and indisposition and this sticks upon the very elect of God themselves until they are called according to Gods purpose for they are born uncircumcised and have not this love of God in them but a contrariety and enmity to God Indeed its true they have a love of God towards them while they are in a state of alienation from him and that is called Amor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not yet Amor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the love of his good pleasure towards them but not a love of complacency and well-pleasedness in them For so the Scripture calls him only that serves Christ in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14. 18. These are under the well-pleasedness of God only and therefore though the love of his purpose may be toward them yet this of complacency is not in them until they be converted I the Lord will circumcise thy heart to love c. Secondly the effects of alienation from God may be found in every natural man For so in Col. 1. 21. You were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works And again in Ephes 4. 18. Being alienated from the life of God You will say this speaks to the Gentils what they were before they came to Christ I grant it but were the Jewes that were Church members as you may seem to be any better Of them Christ saith in John 5. 42. I know you that you have not the love of God in you You may very well think that they would have spit in the face of any that should have said they had not the love of God in them as you may hold any man in defiance that shall say it of you But you know not the enmity and contrariety that is in your hearts to God He proves it by this argument he that hath not true faith in Christ hath not a sincere love of God As men put fallacies to themselves in point of believing so in point of loving And I remember Aquinas goes about to prove that all unbelief arises from the hatred of God when a man traces his unbelief in Christ to the last result of it he shall find it to be the hate of God I would not strain things higher then they are but so far forth as they may give a good demonstration By which
out and extirpate that which is in possession already For the heart is not as a thing wherein there is nothing of God or sin but every man living his heart is blotted with corruption before it be written upon with the Law I will write my Law in yonr hearts saith God when he regenerates any man for the heart of no man is rasa tabula a white paper that is neither good or bad but is like a pair of scales not empty it inclines one way or other Now supposing a natural man blotted with corruption and sin is first in possession then there is this rule that as the inclination of every thing is so is the appetite of it for the appetite follows not the goodness of the object but the inclination of the creature as that that doth desire it as the stomack vitiated desires not the most wholsom food but longs and hath an appetite after coals and ashes and that because it is full of humours It s not the goodness of the thing but the inclination draws out desire so the will of man being sowred with corrupt ferment wills not desires not grace but follows the Byas or inclination of that humour that hath corrupted it And this the Scripture speaking of every man by nature corruptly principled saith he cannot act contrary to that principle which inclines him to sin he cannot will that which is against that inclination that doth possess him and disiinclines him to do good Rom 8. 8. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God He saith they cannot the principle that inclines them to act is fleshly and therefore the appetite cannot be spiritual A will on the contrary to that which is good is made the property and follows upon regenerating grace Psalm 110. 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Meaning in that day that the Lord shall shew his power upon the will to draw it and ingraft another principle on the heart then a man shall come and not till then And then to will is present with me as the Apostle saith Rom. 7. when there is this principle laid every appetite follows the inclination as the inclination moves so the appetite doth and because this is corrupt in natural man therefore it cannot will good Thirdly a man is naturally enamoured with a pleasing apprehension of some righteousness of his own not only some but every man naturally is of this opinion and therefore is not willing to come to Christ and while he is filld with this opinion and pleased with this apprehension that he hath somewhat of his own whereby he shall be righteous with God so long he is not willing to take in this righteousness of Christ no more then a Merchant is to cast his loading into the Sea until he see the necessity of life require it so will not the natural man until he see a necessity of this righteousness unto eternal life and therefore so long as he can patch up any shelter to himself out of the fragments of his own hopes he doth not submit himself to the righteousness of God as the Apostle saith Rom. 10. 3. They went about to establish their own righteousness and submitted not unto the righteousness of God As a Manslayer under the Law would not fly from his own house unto the City of refuge until the avenger of blood threatned him so no man until he hear the voice of Gods wrath and the malediction of the Law will take his heels to fly from his own righteousness but will lie quiet there This self-somethingness is predominant in every man that lives until Christ be found and in it man places his gains as the Scripture calls it viz. the arguments of his confidence as S t. Paul in his natural estate did Those things thâ—t were gain to me I accounted loss for Christ Phil. 3. 7. Those things that were gain to me in my natural estate which stopt and hindred Paul made him so opposite when they stood in his way and appeared gain to him these he accounted loss upon the discovery of Christ And so you finde in the Gospel men naturally set upon doing and to have somewhat of themselves Master what shall we do that we may work the works of God And Good Master what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life As if they made no other question but the way of salvation lay in doing This is the work of God said our Saviour that you believe in him whom he hath sent John 6. 29. answering them in their own words to their own question And the Nation of the Jewes do make us an example of the invalidity of our own works They which followed after the Law of righteousness have not attained Rom. 9. 31. And the Gentils make an example of the sufficiency and necessity of faith in Christ They believed when Christ was preached unto them and attained righteousness because they did not seek it by the works of the law but by faith ver 31. The Reason why every man naturally and willingly doth build himself upon this false bottom which makes him unwilling to come to this Gospel-way of righteousness that God hath revealed by Christ is First every man will have some shelter for himself when a man sees his own nakedness fear and shame will drive him to seek a cover though they be but fig-leaves as Adam did when he felt himself naked The cobweb serves the spider and the shell the snail every man hath somewhat to cover his nakedness that he thinks may shelter him And then Secondly this is the usual shelter First because it is your own They went about to establish their own righteousness Rom. 10. 3. their own For we all love our own things even because they are our own there is in every natural man somthing that he cals his own This he puts in the place of Christ until he be throughly soundly convincd to receive him And therefore it is a demonstration of a man that hath truly found Christ when he is come so far as to quit his own for the righteousness of God which is by faith when he is able to look on that as dung and dross and to lose it all for the excellent knowledge of Christ Jesus Phil. 3. 9. And secondly this is that which is his strong hold because it seems the most natural and rational way to a natural man Ask a man how he shall be saved he can instance in nothing but the way of his own works for this being the condition of the first Covenant made with man Do this and live it sticks still in his teeth and therefore he still grâ—pes after this old door still harping on this Doing and live It s natural to him And then Thirdly it makes you and the best of you unwilling because there is in this way a maintenance of pride and boasting The Peacock may here spread his tail in this way I
grace published in the Word and left to the management of man convictively shews what even his Elect are that without his powerful hand to strike the stroke the work will not be done for the Elect of God as well as others being only morally moved and perswaded to Conversion do use the same shifts and Tergiversations make as much resistance and shew the same unwillingness as other men do and therefore take this for a rule and find it in your selves that God commonly convinces a man before he converts convinces man of his own impotency and opposition before he put forth his own arm and therefore leaves him to his own recusancy and resistance to â—ry his own strength and a long time lets him alone to his own purposes which will savour of pride enough untill God shew him the difference between the report of the word and the arm of the Lord revealed for although the word of God the Gospel that we preach unto you is the fittest means in the world of an external instrument to convert the heart of man and is furnisht with all requisites to work on the heart yet it s but like a key very suitable to the springs of a lock and put into it that will not shut the bolt and open the door without a hand to turn the key as well as put it in so if the Word preacht be never so fit to meet with the springs in mans heart yet if there be not a strong hand to turn the key the heart will not be opened so that when God convinces by the offer of grace and leaves you to your own acceptance little good will be done without the putting forth of his own arm to the work Secondly With these offers made in the Word God in Conversion goes out with his arm and so Conversion is wrought in those he purposes to call by the instrument morally by perswasion by Gods hand supernaturally so with the word that faith Lazarus come forth there goes a work of power to effect it this power goes forth with the Word as the hand with the ax with the instrument with the key for the honour of the ordinance And therefore it s told you while Peter spoke Acts 10. 44. the Holy Ghost fell upon the hearers meaning that there went out with the Word the power of the Holy Ghost to convert them that God calls according to his purpose he takes hold of their hearts with his powerful arm and brings them in yet not without means as if they were converted by Enthusiasms but in an ordinary way as I may clear it by a comparison frictions rubbings used sometimes to a people in a swound are very profitable to recall life where there was life before but if used to a dead carkass out of which life is gone doth nothing to beget or recall life so are the tenders of grace offered with exhortations and counsels motions and knocking 's if there be life of grace in the heart they are profitable to revive to call in to refresh grace but if used to a natural man to a man dead in sins of themselves they work nothing they leave him as dead as they found him untill there be a new life of grace put into him which is the work that I contend for to be of God Thirdly By these offers of grace and exhortations God takes from man all excuse all the light that God gives to man doth tend to render man unexcusable though it be but natural light for so far as it directs Rom. 1. 20. that they might be without excuse for what for not believing in Christ no that light went not so far no light leaves a man without excuse farther then it goes Gospel-light goes farther then natural light and convinces in a farther degree and proportion as the light is greater and as far as it convinces so far it will leave without excuse and therefore there is no man that hath Christ offered that is enlightned convinc't hath tenders made unto him but is left without excuse and though men in wantonness of disputes may weave a web of excuses and muster them up against God yet no man in agony of conscience upon his death-bed or at Gods Tribunal shall- be able to make any excuse for the neglect and resistance of the grace of God but shall be like him in Mat. 22. speechless he might have said somewhat for himself as to them that called him to the feast but there was no excuse to be made to the King There are two cases wherein all excuses are taken from man First In case of voluntary impotency by a mans own default as if he imbezel the stock committed to his hand and would make an excuse for non-payment of a debt though he may say he have it not that serves not his turn for you had it and the stock by you is imbezelled Or secondly if he be opposite and resist as if a man that will not or cannot see because he shuts the window and will not let the light in it s no excuse for him to say I do not see because its a voluntary act of his own to shut out the light in both cases he is without excuse But especially I lay weight on the latter the resistance of man and his opposition for there is no man living that rests in a simple impotency but resists and shuts his eyes and makes opposition to the grace of God tendred to him light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light this is the condemnation Fourthly God in the Gospel seldom or never offers grace to a man but he affords and furnishes him with some degree of light and power to do more then he doth to go farther then he doth for in Rom. 1. 17. the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those that hold the truth of God in unrighteousness that is for not living up to their light nor doing so much as they may or can no man in the world untill God work upon his heart savingly liveâ— up to his own rule neither doth facere quod in se est do so much as he might and hath power to do and therefore God is no way bound to give converting grace if a man will not imploy one talent so far as he may go with one what reason hath God to give that man five or ten talents None at all when the power and grace of God given is resisted and opposed and neglected What reason is there that men should cavil against the Lord and say I had not so many talents whereas he did not use the one he had no man is without a talent every man hath somewhat whereby he may trade for God and because he doth not do it certainly the Lord is free and clear if he do not give him more if he do not give him converting grace God will I say be clear when he is quarrelled at by man Answ 2.
signifying that a man that doth not come to Christ for the love and service of Christ but to reap those advantages that self-love spies out in Gospel offers that man may be a resister and opposer of Grace The third Premise is to shew the deplorable condition into which the resisters of offered grace do plunge themselves though the time of this life be sweetned with the affluence of all earthly commodities and contentments all resistance of Grace is dangerous but that which is final and out stands the patience of God of that I may say there remains no sacrifice for that sin but a fearful expectation of judgement which I need no further to prove unto you then to call in two or three witnesses to depose unto it and the first of them speaks in Heb. 2. 3. for if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression c. what then how shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation neglect is a word somewhat lower then this that we call resistance and yet how shall we escape sinners against the Law of God though there be a punishment allotted them yet they may escape but for the neglect of Salvation great so great Salvation there is no escape there is a peremptory condemnation belongs to such In Ezek. 24. 13. is the second witness Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more untill I have caused my fury to rest upon thee because I purged thee by my Ordinances the application and use of them and thou wast not purged c. God will not alwayes wash a blackmore his offended patience turns to fury The third witness is Prov. 1. 24 26. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hands and no man regarded I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh there is no comfort for such men that refuse Gods call stand out against grace offered for when they call and cry God will laugh at their calamity Oh the misery of men living under the Gospel that stand it out against the offers of Grace therein made which are serious and in good earnest I will handle this point distinctly proceeding in certain propositions First That unto Countries Cities Towns Families Single persons upon whom the Sun of Righteousness that is the Gospel doth arise with healing in his wings God doth afford a day of Grace which he doth to you that now live in which day he proclaimes peace to such rebels as cast down their arms and come in and accept the pardon and Grace offered upon these terms and this is their day of visitation or as it is called their day let every one consider it and lay it sadly to heart In Luke 19. 42 44. Oh Jerusalem now that the things pertaining to thy peace are offered thee this is thy day the time of thy visitation our Saviour that wept at the death of Lazarus did weep now at the blindness of this people that did not see and own their day wherein their Saviour appeared to offer them grace and so great a mercy Oh that you would say within your selves every one of you What have I a day wherein there is saving Grace offered to me as the terms of my eternal peace have I a time of visitation afforded by the Lord Jesus Oh that I might work out my salvation while it is called to day before the night comes upon me for there is no day but hath a night wherein no man can work Be tenderly affected to your own souls for this I tell you and shall clear it by Scripture there is not one of you that stand here this day but have a day afforded a time of visitation wherein the things pertaining to your eternal peace are held forth to you with what earnestness doth the Holy Ghost speak in Heb. 3. 7. To day if ye will hear his voyce ver 13. while it is called to day ver 15. while it is said to day three times in one Chapter and oh that you would consider it while it is day while it s said to day and while it s called today And the Apostle exhorts with all diligence not to take the grace of God in vain not to frustrate to neglect or resist it by this argument Now is the accepted time Now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6. 1 2. t is a comfortable and yet a sad point comfortable that there is a day sad if you outstand it and it be taken from you I blame not in any man the desire of a long day of grace for England for London for thy self provided that the hope of a long day make not the morning a truant and though I blame not the desire yet I blame their choice that choose the eleventh hour of the day to come into the vineyard the last hour of their lives of their day of grace before they come into this vineyard to work out their salvation Oh that you would awake from your deadly sleep betimes in the morning of your youth for by this means the day of grace will be long and your day in grace will be long too such will the benefit be that you shall reap by it and let it sharply enter into your spirits that God hath set a time to Towns to Countries and single persons to you and me when we must be converted and brought into the state of salvation or never a point clear according to the Scripture however some men dispute it and the day of grace is not alwayes so long as the time of life before thou dye the Word of God the means may be a dead letter to thee no man knows the length of this day of grace how long the door will stand open to him but this is certain the more of the glass is run out the shorter is behind the longer day of grace England hath seen and past the shorter the day that is to come And therefore let these monitors strike and prevail with you The one is Luk. 13. 25. where our Saviour as elsewhere inculcates this point When once the master of the house hath shut the door then if you knock he shall say I know you not from which place it is plain that there is a time when the door is shut and will stand open no longer And then you may Cry to God for mercy and Salvation But you see the answer that will be made Depart be gonâ— I will not own you nor know you because when the door of grace stood open you came not in The other is Heb. 12 15. 17. I take clear places because it s somewhat a quarrelled point Beware look diligently marke you lest any fail of the grace of God for you know that when he Esau would have inherited the Blessing he was rejected and found no place for repentance though he sought it carefully with tears A Place worthy out
greater guilt is upon them Serm. 14 LET all neglecters despisers and resisters of the Grace of God learn from henceforth to know in what respects their condition is worse then even those Infidels and heathens that unto this day do sit in darkness and the shadow of death their condition is worse in five regards Now I come to touch your pulse to shew you your condition if you be not converted and come in to Christ Jesus if there be not a work of saving conversion upon your souls First They are many times Judicially hardened in their resistance every mans heart is naturally hard but every man is not Judicially hardned as every man must dye but every man is not sentenced to dye by the Judge so there is a natural hardness and a sentential or a judicial hardness whereby God himself hardens the heart of man every man is not hardened as Pharaoh was such mens hardness is their sin and judgement to both in one Matth. 13. 14. there is the sentence which is repeated three or four times in the New Testament hearing you shall hear and not understand seeing you shall see and not perceive and this is the punishment of obduration and of mans own shutting of his eyes and then God seals up his eyes least they should be converted saith God and I should heal them And it is repeated again in Joh. 12. 40 a dreadful judgement that goes out against lazy sleepy neglectful hearers of the Gospel therefore they could not believe because God hath blinded them paenally judicially thou setest a lock on the door against his grace and he sets another lock on the door against thee In respect of their hardness of heart It s said they would not but in respect of Gods hardening It s said they could not which I perswade my self is a judgement largely extended in our Church thought men will not be convinc't of it Secondly Therefore the condition of these persons is very hopeless difficult yea and desperate there is no hope that the Bellows will do any good where the fire is gene out when there remains no spark alive in the heart of man there is a high word given of them in Heb. 6. 4. who were as greatly indowed as most of us It is impossible to renew them again by repentance And such is he that hath extinguished his taste And the Apostle useth a similitude taken from the earth that the rain comes oft upon as sermons upon you and the fruit it yields is nothing but briars and thonrs still they go on in sin the marks of a Cursed soile they are nigh to cursing whose end is to be burnt these are the people that have been purged by means used and yet were not purged and therefore shall not be purged any more Ezek. 24. 13. take therefore the grace of God by the forelock for as they say of time it may prove bald behind and there may be no lock to take hold of the twig of a tree that 's once dead never revives again there may grow others on the same root but a blasted bud never revives more when the master hath shut the door you may knock in vain And such as these that have refused the call of God they shall in their day saith God call on me but I will not answer they shall seek me early and not find me because in their day of grace I called and they refused me Prov. 1 28. Thirdly The neglected talent is taken from them Matth. 13. 12. Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away that which he seems to have nay that which he hath God strips those professors of their parts that will not admit the power of his grace into their souls there shall be taken from them that which they seem to have the improvement of Grace and the keeping it alive is the way to encrease it and continue it But otherwise the kingdom shall be taken from you the Gospel shall be taken away and all the parts and endowments that you have got together you shall be stript stark-naked of them all In Mark. 4. 25 26. the example of this may be seen in the Jewish nation and other countreys towns and people that have been stript of the word and Gospel by their undervaluing refusal of the Grace offered unto them in tbeir day and the judgement is like the sin For Christ curseth the Barren Figtree with barrenness Never fruit grow more on thee Oh Let not this curse come on you consider the dreadful Judgement the curse it is called of the Figtree No prevention of this but by making use of your accepted time your day of Salvation without which your house will be left unto you desolate this is the judgement that flies over nations and countreys and particular persons I have observed men sometimes forward hearers of the word of God men of good Elevated affections seeming to be zealous and diligent in duties yet afterwards when the world hath grown upon them as it is apt to grow upon you all then God for the neglect of their talent hath come to distrain and what hath he left behind truly a kind of Bankrupt profession of Religion mouldring away and sinking to nothing a company of sick professors whose parts are spent and many times they grow sottish and stupid their parts that which they had is taken from them having forgotten saith the Apostle that they were purged from their old sins 2 Pet. 1. 9. Fourthly they are let alone to fill up the measure of their sins In this God deals with you as a physitian that leaves a desperate patient to his own appetite Give him what he will have you say for the physitian hath left him God comes at you no more to humble you to give you a feeling a heavenly thirst or appetite It is a sore judgement as any is yet men do not feel it when God pulls the bridle off a mans head and lets him run he that is filthy let him be filthy still when God doth not compass him about with a hedge of thorns but lets him alone Hos 2. 6. Oh miserable man In Psal 8â— 12. But my people would not hearken to my word and Israel would none of me here is their sin So I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own counsels Ephraim is joyned to Idols let him alone Hos 4. 17. I will not punish their daughters when they commit adultery ver 14. but let them run to the end of their Teddar what a miserie is this whereof men are unsensible this is properly the punishment of the neglect of offered Grace Lastly The grieving of the waiting patience of God stretching out his hand all the day long and waiting on you beseeching you to come to Christ to receive the Lord Jesus and the answering and embittering it with provocations brings forth at last that fearful and irreversible oath of God at which me thinks any
man that hath life and sense in him should tremble Heb. 3. 11. So I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest that as there is an oath of God made to the heirs of promise to shew the immutability of his counsel Heb. 6. 17. marke it so this Oath is made a Barr against the Salvation of the resisters of his Grace as it is applyed and doth also signifie the immutability of his wrath that its like the law of the Medes and Persians that alters not and therefore fear to outstand the day of grace For be you assured that as sun-set to one may be and is sun-rise to another so the day of grace may arise to another and yet set to thee Oh that you would know and tremble at it fearing lest you should be at or past the sun-set of this day of grace and so I have finisht the three premises First That God offers Gospel Grace to men seriously and in good earnest Secondly It is natural to corrupt man to entertain this Grace offered with neglect and resistance Thirdly That therefore he is plunged into a sad and miserable Condition The second of which that its natural to man to entertain this grace offered with resistance is that which I am to shew the reason of The First and the Third that God offers that Grace which being resisted plunges men into worse condition then ever affords matter of use to us But for the reasons of this resistance though all reason is for mans acceptance thereof yet such is the frame of the heart that it opposeth it self against it and therefore cannot come to Jesus Christ the Reasons though they are manifold I need not long insist of having said so much on the point already I shall therefore only name a sixfold reason Reas 1 First from the natural temper of the heart of every man which is hard and impenitent and therefore called a heart that cannot Repent Rom. 2. 7. a heart of stone Ezekiel 36. 27. that is untractable to God and resisting as an adamant that resists and dulls the tool that should cut it the very sun that softens wax hardens clay the means of Grace harden therefore pray Oh Lord take away this heart of stone according to thy Covenant for a Broken and a tender heart is the Gift of God Reas 2 Secondly The contrariety of the disposition and inclination of the heart of man to Grace shews it for Grace offered and the heart to which its offered are as Contrary as light and darkness flesh and spirit and we know in nature that contraries cannot be reconciled overcome they they may be and many times one is by the victorious opposite fire may be extinguished by water but to make fire and water agree cannot be so may Grace overcome But the filth of the heart is unreconcileable having a contrary center to move unto and rest in Reas 3 Thirdly Grace disturbs the peace of a Corrupt heart and therefore is resisted It takes away the contentment which it finds in lusts and fins as the stronger man coming in Breaks the peace of the strong man armed and spoils his goods Matth. 12. 29. when the strong man the Devil keeps the house lust is in peace But when Christ comes he disturbs the peace and spoils the goods and that must needs cause dislike in the heart of man For men would not be awakened and disturbed Let me alone let me enjoy my peace you shall seldom see any conversion wrought without a great breach of peace when a mans peace is broken in which he slept upon the Cushion of the devil all his days it s a great sign that there is power of grace gone forth to make offers to convince and bring that sinner in this is the cause that in defence of its own peace the heart makes such resistance A Reas 4 Fourth cause of this resistance is the servitude of the will in Bondage unto sin which is not like other Bondages A Bondman is not content in his condition he would quit himself if he could and would be glad to hear news of his redemption But this is a voluntary Bondage and pleases better then a gracious freedom it s the bondage of the will and nothing can be more free and willing then that Titus 3. 3. serving divers lusts and pleasures is the character that the Apostles gives of a natural state the man is in bondage under servitude to lusts and pleasures and though a bondman usually desires freedom yet this bondage hath no such desires because it is not a painful irksome bondage It s like that of a fish that struggles against being pulled out of the water because it is his Element A bondage whereby the will of man whatever the School-men say is like a Roman Prisoner tied by both arms to two of his fellow prisoners so is the will bound by a corrupt Understanding on one hand and corrupt affections on the other so that alas how should this man willingly come to Christ no more then a prisoner in bondage can possibly break from his keepers and come to you Reas 5 Fifthly The heart is filled with Ignorant prejudices against Religion and Grace which it looks upon as an enemy that comes to strip it of all contentment and to bring it into captivity he thinks of Religion and all the pâ—rts of it otherwise then indeed it is that it is a morose way and will take away his delight or one thing or other he casts in his mind through the foulness of his fancy all the imaginations of the heart being evil only evil and that continually Gen. 6. 5. Reas 6 Lastly A prepossession or a further possession For corruption is the first inhabitant Every mans head is first taken up with ignorance and hate of God and as the first man that is possessour of a Castle will keep it against every Invader so man being first engaged in a party by the king of this world and put into the command of the Castle of his heart when Grace comes and in the name of God demands a surrendry into the right owners hands it s lookt upon as an invader And therefore he sets himself to keep it out because he will hold to his party so that grace cannot get admittance till it bring an ejectionem firmam to throw out the enemy in possession For these and such like Reasons man strives with God and by the withdrawment of grace God seems to be out-striven with by man Oh Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when will it once be Jer. 13. ult A phrase of speech that testifies there is a long patience in it The uses of the serious offers of Grace and the misery of those that resist those offers are these two Use 1 First in General England London thou hast had a long day of Grace where the Lord hath visited thee by tendring the things that belong unto thy peace Christ Jesus to be
known and received Come forth to this day this day of grace for the longer it hath been the shorter it is Examin the success and fruit Oh England London I am loth to speak though I do not speak it as ominous In the old World when God said the days of man should be one hundred and twenty years it s not to be understood of mans age that 's but a simple meaning But the Days of my Patience toward him how many did the long suffering of God gather all this while I cannot say but out of the stood out of a world of men the Apostle Peter observes that which I observe to you In 1 Pet. 3. 20. there were but few that is but eight persons saved from water in this long day of grace dispenst to a world of men therefore Gather your selves together not in Congregations and companies but your thoughts together oh nation not desired lest the decree bring forth for the thing may be decreed and ye be as chaff that passes on a day Zephan 2. 1 2. for without all question when the winnowing day comes for England there will be many thousands found like chaffe that passes before the wind in a winnowing day and though you may think with your selves that the sun of the Gospel yet shineth bright yet remember so did the sun shine bright on Sodom the morning that the fire came on it the sun shines bright many times when its very near setting Oh Lament the sins of England we very well know and it s an observation well made that Josiah one of the last was one of the best Kings that ever sate upon the throne of Judah for whom was great lamentation that made an admirable reformation and entred into the Covenant with the Lord a reformation a none-such there comes in a bitter Pill after this Notwithstanding the Lord turned not away from the fierceness of his anger because of all the Provocations of Manasseth 2 Kings 23. 26. There were the sins of his Ancestors In Deuteronomy you have to deal with a Jealous God and in 1 Joh. 2. 18. if men understood the word when they read it John gave a true Character of the last times of the Jewish nation that 's the true meaning of it and you make use of that Scripture because you apply it to the Last day there are many Antichrists by which you may know it is the last time Let us Consider it as a Character that sits too close on us one preaches himself Christ another takes away his Deity Christ sets a character of the last times on Jerusalem This long you are to continue and then your day of grace is gone do you fear least your day of grace be swallowed up by those multitudes of heretical teachers that swarm among you It s true as the saying is Now a man may be as holy in England as he will without fear of persecution for holiness sake that the meaning and truly I may well say for it must be ballanced a man may be as negligent as he will as wild in his opinions without fear of giving an account or coercion and were it not for the goodness of servants and I beseech you in your places abuse not the common liberty you might take a master could be no master of his house nor could not undertake Joshua his undertaking I and my house will serve the Lord nor keep his sheep out of Rotting pastures except the conscience the heart be principled in orthodoxal and Godly ways of truth You read in the New Testament that the masters influence on his house in matters of Religion was great such a one baptized and all his house what consequence in that why that by example instruction or power one way or other did work them to come to the same bonds of Religion with themselves The Lord grant that you may see the day grace that in it those that have power may exhort the people under their roofs to day while It s called to day least they be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Use 2 For particulars mark how Lovingly the scripture speaks to men that have the word and day of grace I shall name some places and by the way this point is mightily tended to in the epistle to the Hebrews which was written purposely to stir up the Jews that were running into by-wayes to hold fast the profession of the Gospel the first place is that Heb. 2. 3. wherefore having heard this doctrine we ought to give the more diligent heed least at any time we let them slip like Riddle dishes that hold not water put into them for if the law had punishments for sin how shall we escape if we c. meaning This is the last pull you have for the salvation of your souls the last draw that ever you shall make for your souls are damned by the law but yet you may live this is the last lot that falls if you neglect Salvation so great salvation there lies the sting of the words how shall we escape S t Mark lays down the tenour of the Gospel he that believes not shall be damned which is as peremptory speech as a man finds ordinarily in the law and more peremptory and John Baptiss which is a place also mistaken speaking of the Jewish state in Matth. 3. 10. tells them Now your Saviour is come to preach the Gospel look to it your time is at an end your destruction is nigh after the Gospel is come and refused Now the Ax is laid to the root of the tree Cut it down And consider that place Heb. 4. 1. let us fear least having a promise made us of entring into rest any of you should seem to come short of it a place full of sweet meditation as the Jews when they went out of Aegypt went on a promise of a rest in Canaan and yet came short of it so may we fear c. me thinks the heart of men should be pierc't with these Scriptures And Heb. 12. 14 15. looking diligently least any man fail of the Grace of God when preached to him he neglects it refuses it makes light of it as he did who was invited to the marriage of the Kings son And in Heb. 3. 12. take heed oh take heed least there be in axy of you an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God that your unbelief do not carry you away to continue in this resistance of the Grace of God Let not the day of grace be a day of provocation But exhort one another daily while it is called to day There are two Motives whereby I would move this point unto you and then dismiss it for still there will be backwardness Oh that our Lord Jesus would work a miracle on the dry land Mot. 1 First Thy particular day of grace wherein it is offered to thee may not be so long as the day of the nation nor so long
always as the day of your lives Understand me right It may be but is not necessarily so Its true he that is joyned to the living of him there is hope we that know not Gods dispensations may hope the Best and its probable that where God continues his Gospel there is something yet to do there all are not come in while he sends his servant to Bid his guests yet your hearts may be hardened through unbelief and thy eyes may be sealed And though men may hope till the eleventh hour yet thou maist be under the irreversible oath of God and though he may send his servants to invite others yet those that were invited and did not come he will invite them no more Matth. 22. this many times comes to pass To make a general rule is hard and I will not venture on that but this I say it may be sun-rise with others when sun-set with thee and therefore I pray embrace the day of your visitation least it prove not so long as you expect Mot. 2 Secondly When thou wouldest after this day of grace is past thou shalt not God will laugh at your calamity they shall cry and I will not hear them Prov. 1. 26. when Esau would have inherited the Blessing he did it not Heb. 12. when the master hath shut the door if thou knock it is in vain No man can come to me except drawn what do you think these things to be only skar-crows they will be found one day to have some meaning in them therefore take the wind while it blows say Lord I bless thee yet I feel sense and have thirst hear thee knock yet I have taste and appetite Oh let not these sparks die in me let me take thy offer before thou past in thy hand and hold it out no more It s true while there remains these knocking 's God is not gone from the door But alas it s a very sad thing to think that men should conceive they have power to come and take the offer when they please Why may some say Object Will not God be found always when man seeks Answ Yes verily for so Hezekiah speaking to as lost a people as could be 2 Chron. 30. 9. God is gracieus and â—â—rciful and will not turn his face from you if you return to him But qui dat poenitenti veniam non dat peccanti poenitentiam he that gives pardon to the penitent when he doth repent he doth not always give repentance to the sinner And there if you well observe it lies the knot Heb. 6. 4. It s impossible saith he to renew such a man again by repentance he speaks nothings of pardon that will follow but speaks to the grace of repentance and have you power in your own hands It s impossible to renew them again such men may knock at the door may seek the Blessing may cry in calamity for every man may desire to be out of hell and to be happy when alas he hath not so much grace as sincâ—â—ly to desire Grace But then may some say to me Object Help us to some means to retrive the day of grace I have lost it I have outstood my time the day of grace is shut against me Answ There are means for a man that hath some spiritual life in him that is fallen into desertion to recal the spirit and blow up the motions to recover him as it were out of a swound to life again for rubbing of a man that hath life in him wil recall life to the outward parts But if you rub a dead man all day long you find no life a poor dejected soul that hath some sparks of grace in him may have life blown out of the embers but if it be dead at heart quite gone and extinct that 's another case If a man have through the natural resistency of his heart stood against Grace forty years together for they have grieved me saith God Forty years yet notwithstanding there may be possibility of the conversion and life of this man else Gods Elect should not be saved who frequently resist which is but a resistance natural that 's made by the obdurate hardness of their own hearts and they are not under the seal of the Irreversible oath of God But after that the oath of God is gone out against a man and the deadly seal is stamped on a soul that hath so often and so long and with such provocations resisted the arm the woâ—k and offer of grace to prescribe means to help up such a man again is to presâ—â—be Physick for a dead man or to call back the day after sun-set wihch I cannot do and they say how properly they speak I will not inquire that Christ himself did not die for the sin of final Impenitency for that sounds like a contradiction And therefore Beloved in the Lord carry but this from this sermon a preventive fear and trembling thats a preservative from the danger from which there appears to me no restorative If you look for restoratives after God hath sealed up the eyes for grieving of his patience it is in vain But if you will have a preventive or preservative from the danger why then to day while it is called to day come in lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin and so I have handled the three things Premised Serm. 15 BEing desirous to raise the thoughts of man concerning Gods free grace as high as may be and to lay his thoughts concerning himself as low I will therefore proceed one step further upon these words No man can And that shall be for the inquiry Whether the Elect of God whom he hath appointed and purposed to bring to Salvation be naturally of the same disposition and have in them the same spirit of opposition to grace offered as others have In handling of which I shall briefly lay down five Propositions as that which shall make an end of this point Prop. 1 First The motions incitements the knocking 's at the door afforded by God in the ministry of the word are neglected and resisted for the present by the elect of God as well as others I mean the elect in their present natural estate for their hearts are as hard and stony even digd out of the same quarry as any others And God we know doth not chuse any because they were but that they might or should be holy In Ephes 1. 4. which shews that holiness is not the cause but the fruit of Gods election Neither doth the purpose of God though it be for everlasting salvation while it is in his own breast make any change in the Elect as saith the rule of School Praedestinatio nihil ponit in Praedestinato Gods ordaining for life makes no alteration for present in those that are ordained until it come to calling according to purpose as notwithstanding our Saviours purpose to raise Lazarus unto life yet Lazarus for the present lay as dead as other
in a Castle whose strong hold is beaten down they are forced to surrender to meer mercy upon the Victors own terms So the Lord will force his elect All that the Father hath given to me shall come to me John 6. 37. And do it for thy Name sake for our backslidings are many Jer. 14. 7. This is the word and may be spoken even by the elect of God And if this were not that God should not take the work into his hand he might stretch out his hand all the day long and find little but gainsayings and contradictions no effectual calling could be there would be no such thing as filial adoption the very election of God would be frustrate This was the remnant or end that I had to deliver on this point before I came to the General Uses of all There are two things that follow from what I have now said as two branches from one stemm viz. the Justifying of God and the magnifying of grace the one makes humble the other thanksul for the one Daniel was eminent Dan. 9. 5. To us belongeth confusion for we have rebelled against thee to thee belongeth righteousness The other eminent in Paul 1 Cor. 15. By the grace of God I am that I am Learn these two lessons that are of great use in Practical Religion Humility to justifie God that might have cast you off and laid you aside in the crowd with other men And the magnifying of this grace whereby he hath brought you out in despight of your own stubberness And so much for the opposition of man to grace offered Serm. 16 NOw follow the general Uses of all that hath been said upon the First Point No man can come to me And First Use 1 Hence I commend to you The true Test of sound and Christian Doctrine in this point of mans Conversion That both the Preacher of this point and the Hearer of it may cut by this thred that our Saviour hath set forth in this text And it is this That in the conversion of man the power of God and the freeness of his grace be magnified and the power or causality of man himself bâ— decryed For so the Text No man can come except my Father draw him This is the test But the touchstone that tryes other mettals who shall try it how shall it be made appear that this Doctrine is indeed the true test For that I will give you three Reasons First Because this Doctrine is consonant to the scope of Go Reas 1 spel doctrine which as it suggests matter of glorying to the sinner in himself confounded with shame and lost and never leaves him till it hath brought him to a state of glorying from his nothingness so it places this glorying in God only not self as the compating two places of Scripture doth witness the one is 1 Cor. 1. ult That he that gloryeth may glory in the Lord and Ephes 2. 9. Not of works for this Reason least any man should boast Which two places do shew the scope of Gospel Doctrine And there cannot be a better test of Doctrine then the consonancy of it with the main scope of the Gospel that is with the Analogy of Faith Rom. 12. 6. For if in expounding a particular Scripture a man seem to cut out one part of the garment unproportionable to the body he seems to have mist his measure and as it were to make a monstrous garment For the scope of the Scripture is the measure and test whereby any particular is to be measured therefore this must needs be a good test Reas 2 Secondly Because all the gracious works of God from first to last from election according to purpose to salvation in the Kingdom of heaven I say every one of these works upon and in his Elect to bring them to salvation do all conspire and tend unanimously to this great end the praise of his free and powerful grace Ephes 1. 6. He hath Predestinated and Adopted us that we might be to the praise of the glory of his grace And what are the other attributes of God past by in silence No But grace is like Varnish no colour of it self but serves to set off all other colours Wisdom Power Mercy and Love are included or set out by Grace And therefore the praise of grace is the praise of all for God doth not work for the exaltation of mans power or pride but to the praise of his own grace Reas 3 Thirdly This is a true test Because we find the confessed experience of Gods people avouching and attesting this the experience of Paul that great trumpet of grace 1 Cor. 9. 16. I have nothing to glory of and in 1 Cor. 12. 11. I am nothing For Gods second Church is built as Gods second Temple the second Church give me leave so to say I mean the Gospel Church not by might nor by power but by my spirit And they cry grace grace unto it Zach. 4. 6 7. as that which was called the second Temple was meaner built to outward shew then Solomons Temple and was built not by might nor by power but with much weakness of the people returned from Captivity and opposed of all hands So is the Gospel state of the Church built of a people returned from the captivity of Hell and death not by the might and power of man but by the Spirit of God And therefore he that made the arrogant Answer to that Question the Apostle propounds Who made thee to differ from another saying Ego me ipsum discerno I discriminate my self seems to be mistaken in his own Experience as Christians often are or not to own the confessed experience of Gods Converts as Paul and others that have been humbled out of themselves to acknowledge the free grace of God For I think we shall rarely find a man on his death-bed to be a Papist that is enlightened because then he finds he flies out of himself to Gods alone mercy Nor seldom find a man in point of conversion to be a Pelagian because he acknowledges it to be the Free grace of God that brings him both down and up Down to bring down his pride to throw down his strong holds And Up again by raising him from a state of nothing And therefore as the Apostle John in his time when there were many deceivers gone forth into the world as there are in the dayes wherein we live did give Christians a test or mark by which they might prove the spurious or the true whether they brought sealed measure with their Doctrine yea or no. And that test was the coming of Christ in the flesh for that was then commonly denyed by the spawn of Gnosticks saying If any come to you and bring not this Doctrine receive him not 2 John ver 10. And so most commonly all along in the Scripture where any dangerous error is confuted you shall find in that confutation a test given a touchstone whereby that Doctrine that is
Erroneous may be tryed So in this point of Conversion of man and discriminating grace if any man blow the Bladder as well as the Trumpet to make him swell and sill him full of Pride and Self building God upon man and not man upon God Let this that I have said be the test at which you examine that Doctrine For as the letting fall of the string of a Vial or Lute too low or the straining it too high spoils the harmony And as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom 12. 6. the proportion is changed by adding a Unite unto or by substracting it from any number so in this point of converting grace if the denyal of mans power be drawn to deny mans duty or the Calling for Duty in Scripture be drawn so high as to exalt mans power the proportion and Harmony is spoiled in both After this animadversion and after such a test of Doctrine here found out and commended to you let me give you warning how to apply this sealed mete-wand to the Doctrine that you hear And I would that there were not so many instances as might be given that the Iniquity or Necessity of these times does require to be spoken unto First That Doctrine by this test sounds not clear but seems to have a crack in it That under pretence of duty doth conclude and advance mans power and the reason is plausible with those men that have learning enough that whereas it is said in Ezek. 18. 30. 31. Repent and make you a new heart and a new spirit and cast away your transgressions for why will you die and from Jer. 4. 4. Circumcise your selves to the Lord and be not stiff-necked take away the foreskin of your hearts from these commands doth conclude that man hath power to do it or else saith carnal Reason why is he commanded they that do make this conclusion let them be examined by this Establisht test of Doctrine and having hung the scales let us now weigh the point this is true What God in his law requires that the law supposes a power to be or to have been because the law of God doth not command things absolutely impossible to which there never was power given and therefore mans disability to perform any command arises accidentally when he hath disabled himself And this is called by the Apostle and the cause of it shewn in Rom. 8 8. the Impossibility of the law and that is through sin and corruption that hath Invaded man and disabled him unto obedience But now in case of this disability the law that requires the duty doth not argue a power in you but it doth drive disabled man to the remedie and that is the free grace of God and therefore he that calls on thee for repentance doth himself give it 2 Tim. 2. 25. he that bids Make you a new heart doth promise it I will give them a new heart Ezek. 36. 27. He that saith Circumcise your selves saith also I will circumcise your hearts Deut. 30. 6. The command shews what man owes to God and what must be in him if he will not dye and this drives him to the remedy the free and gracious promise of God to work this in him the measure of his duty is not the measure of his power as a man measures not his worth by what he ows no man will be so absurd and yet men will measure their power to repent to turn to God to believe in Christ by what indeed is their duty to do which is to say no more a false measure Secondly Nor are they to be heard that from qualifications of fitness do argue and conclude for qualifications of worthiness or merit observe for you will not understand the answer to these except you understand where the Errour lies the law uses this word worthy for a dueness of the reward of debt that that hath some proportion to the reward when the reward is of debt as the Apostle describes it but the Gospel dictionary useth the word worthiness for the fitness of a man to receive the reward of grace and promise and therefore in the Gospel they are usually pronounced worthy that are fitted and made meet for to receive Christ or the promise as the worthy receiver at the Lords table is not he that is meritoriously worthy but he that is meet that is qualified answerably to the Sacrament that hath in him such qualifications as are answerable to the body and blood of the Lord there exhibited and so you may read works meet for repentance and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to count worthy and make meet 2 Thes 1. 11. and Col. 1 12. are one and the same the Papists and Bellarmine himself that sought as far for that as any of them can search can hardly find in all Scripture Hebrew and Greek any thing that sounds toward merit of Salvation but worthiness of fitness that is an answerableness to the duty injoyned or mercy promised he hath made us meet to be inheritors this you may find everywhere without which no man can be saved and therefore to say this bottle is fit to hold such a proportion of wine and worth so much money are quite contrary sayings the one relating to the capacity the other to the metal of it so to say the thirsty the weary the laden are in a fit capacity for Christ and the promises by qualification of emptiness and therefore they have qualifications of merit and worthiness is altogether absurd and inconsequent and if any among us as there may be some that cannot digest these words qualifications towards Conversion c. a point that in the process of this discourse I shall touch upon will but clear their own mistakes there remains no quarrel upon the word at all for we mean not meritorious qualifications not any thing meritoriously conducing to mans conversion but meet and fit preparatives unto grace and glory such precedaneous workings as judgement sin and the law have discovered and preacht to men that they by being stâ—ng by the fiery Serpent may be fitted to look up to the serpent on the pole the Lord Jesus In a word they are qualifications of the subject recipient not merit of the thing to be received that they may receive the Grace as an empty bottle doth receive the liquor Thirdly That doctrine by this test will be found leavened that makes the ruinous condition of man less then it is for then consequently it will follow that the power of God in his restauration is less also as for instance if Lazarus be but sick his recovery is less then a resurrection If you make mans case better so as sickness is above death so far as mans power is made greater in themselves so far is the power of God made less then it is extreams on both hands are to be avoided in lessening the freeness or the power of man or in the greatning of it I will
puts forth this power in this way the Gospel It s confest that the vessel or pipes by which this excellency of power is conveyed are earthen and contemptible But that is de industria on purpose 2 Cor. 4. 7. we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us the weakness of the vessel doth derogate from the power of the vessel It was his goodness and not unto your loss to teach you by men for if God had taught you by Angels that are by nature unsociable with men it had not been so well now God hath appointed to bring you to heaven by the ministry of men like your selves And in a way surable to man that is by word and doctrine by counsel instruction reason God will so convince and convert you not by insinuating a sudden power into the heart of man from whence Ministers are called workers together with God 2 Cor. 6. 1. and he also is said to work together with them Mark 16. 20. If God and man work together what shall we think of them that divide this partnership this conjunction Quest Oh but you Preach the law It is the Gospel that Converts Answ You are deceived we preach Christ when we preach the law as is plain when Paul was required by Felix to preach to him the faith of Christ saith the text he preacht of righteousness temperance and judgement to come whereat Felix trembled was this preaching the Faith of Christ yea or else Paul was deceived the Reason is because Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness Rom. 10 4. and because by the law men are concluded under sin that the promise that is the Gospel might be given to them that believe Gal. 3. 22. and if so what dissonancy will you make between preaching of the means and the end we are not so mad as to preach Salvation by the law and when we preach the Law to you to wound it is in order to the promise and Christ Jesus It is not the plungers that trouble the water that catch the Fish we know it is the Net but the plungers drive the Fish into the net that they may be caught we say the work of Salvation is not by the Law it s the net of the Gospel whereby men are caught to Everlasting Salvation But it s the terrour of the Law and the curse under which they are driven into this net t is the avenger of blood that pursues with the drawn sword that makes you fly to the City of refuge and therefore there is more of Christ preacht in a Sermon that you call Legal many times then in the vociferations clamors that silly people use of Christ Christ as they cryed Baal Baal though you pronounce nothing but Christ a hundred times together and therefore let me charge you for that I may have leave to do to those that are under my charge and exhort all others that since faith comes by hearing since you are born again of the uncorruptible seed of the word since his Ministers are in pain while they go traveling in their souls till Christ be formed in you since the Lord many times in his word honours the instrument in the work of Conversion with the honour of doing that which he doth by them S t Paul saith I am your father as Goliahs sword was honoured with the work that David did by it upon all these considerations be not you stricken with this madness as either to think that the excellency of power of Conversion is in the box that carries this treasure or to divide the treasure from the vessel that you have in it for then you lose it But where then will you have it But to consider in your serious thoughts what those gifts were which Christ gave to his Church on his triumphal day a phrase of speech alluding to the Roman triumph when a Conquer or came home and had a triumph allowed him by the Senate he spred his prizes that he brought home and gave magnificent gifts so the Apostle observes that when Christ ascended and rode in the triumphal Chariot to heaven he carried spoils with him and gave gifts to men and what were those gifts Eph. 4. 7. he gave Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers for the gathering and perfecting of the Saints or thus if you will he gave the Holy Ghost which doth not only work itself but makes overseers Acts 20. 28. and then works by them as the instrument is first made and then wrought with so the Holy Ghost makes you overseers and then works in and by them that are Ministers made by the Holy Ghost and therefore despise not means and instruments enough is said of that point to wise men Fifthly Nor will that doctrine abide this test that teacheth that man is the giver and God the receiver for the truth is God is the first giver in all kinds make him but first in the work of Calling Election Sanctification c. and you cannot be unsound or erroneous in any of these doctrines but that doctrine which makes man the giver and God the receiver cannot be true the reason is he loved us first saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 4. 19. You have not chosen me but I have chosen you Joh. 15. 16. and therefore it is said Rom. 11. 35. who hath first given to God and it shall be recompenced to him again that is that hath first done or performed any work that obliges God to recompence it those therefore that make man the first lover the first chuser the first giver they make man the creditor and God the debtor and how unsuitable is it with any modesty and ingenuity to speak so which of necessity must be if you make man first Sixthly Nor doth it follow by this test which is somewhat a difficult point that because there is a Covenant made with man upon conditions of faith and repentance therefore these conditions must be performed by one of the confederates that is by mans own power to confirm this it s said there was so much required of Adam and he had power and God expected the performance of the condition made with him And you know many times it is thus with men they expect a mutual performance of Covenants one with another and they do-in-many cases think that man hath power to perform the condition to which he obliges himself and yet sometimes t is otherwise there cannot a general rule be made of this a creditor requires the payment of the summ yet whether the debtor pays it of mony gotten by his own hand or borrow it or it be given him by some benefactor is not material only this is material that the condition be performed and the money paid so we may say in this point this is certain that the condition required of man is mans duty is mans act and the benefit of the Covenant is for him that performs
shall renew their strength they shall walk and runne and flie up as Eagles and not be faint Isay 10. last verse Sermon 24 Consect 6 Sixthly Gods drawing of impotent man to Christ is the cause of mans coming to Christ so that though most men seem and will not denie that they beleive yet no man savingly doth believe and come to Christ except God by an Almighty and Omnipotent hand doe draw him The drawing of God is called the Act of God converting man the coming of man is called the Act of man converting himselfe both you find in this text Gods drawing and mans coming In the first of these man is meerly passive in the second mans coming unto Christ he is active as by way of comparison the Sun shines upon the Wall the Wall is Passive doth nothing in the Walls shining back by vertue of the Sunnes shining upon it the wall may be said to be active because it shines back the Beams by reflexion a plain case God giving this Divine grace Man is passive therein man converting unto Christ and believing in him by vertue of the drawing of God is active and performes the duty that is required of him For though Faith be an Act of Gods Power giving yet it is an Act of Mans dutie I believed therefore I spake the Act is his the power is Gods this point our Saviour proves affirmatively by an Argument drawn out of the Prophet Isaiah that all that have been taught of the Father believe and come to Christ and because that every man so taught doth come therefore no man doth come but he that is drawn which is the Negative in the Text from the affirmative he proves this Negative every man that is taught of God comes to Christ therefore no man doth come but he that is so drawn as in the natural being there is the Creation of God making us so to be so in the Recreation or making man a new Creature there is a work of God making us to be so and I see no reason but man may as well make himselfe at first in the natural being that he hath as re-make himselfe spiritually And I wonder any man should pretend that man hath a greater stroke in making himself a new Creature then he had in making himself a creature at the first A man may raise him self from the natural and bodily death as easily as he can raise himself from a Spiritual death therefore it is said that God quickens â—s being dead Eph. 2. 5. Why then may some say iâ— there no power in man to come unto or to believe in Christ Jesus I answer there is not active power to begin to come but there there is a passive and obediential power as the School-men call it which is a power to receive this work of God to receive the impression from God but not an active power to work it in man himself as in Ezekiels dry bones the Question was Can these dry bones live there was no Power for them to come together to work life in themselves but a passive Power to receive the breath and life when God gave it So there is in Man he is not a stock or block but hath a power obediential to receive the work of God the work of Regeneration and of Faith is not wrought sine duobus without two as Bernard saith the one in quo the other à quo the one in whom it is wrought as the Subject that is impotent Man the one by whom it is wrought as the Agent that is the Omnipotent God it there were not such a nature in man a rational nature there is not quod salvatur that which could be saved if the arme of God were not revealed there is not quod salvat that by which man is saved so that there must be these two From this point thus laid down and opened unto you I will summe up certain observations proper to the Text. Observ 1 First God is first in order of Causality for if you ask which of these is first I say Gods work is first and then Man comes after and therefore the Apostle proves that man is not Saved and Justified by works for we are His workmanship Eph. 2. 10. and the dead doth not first work but the living upon the dead Ephes 2. 5. and as Ishewed in Jer. 31. 18. turne thou me and I shall be turned Gods act of turning Gods before mans being turned and after I was instructed I repented you may further read this point proved in Jer. 17. 14. Heal me Oh Lord and I shall be healed Save me and I shall be saved Gods healing and saving must precede and go before our being healed and saved It 's true in order of time a Christian is not alwaies sensible to observe the time of Gods working before the time of his Converting the work of God and the act of mango so near together who can discern by way of comparison any time between the shining of the Sun on the wall and the walls reflecting back the light of the Sun yet reason will tell you from the order of Causes the Sun must first shine on the Wall so neither is it in this Case The Lords drawing and Mans coming are not sensibly discerned in difference of time but in order of nature and Causality Gods work is first which drawes and mans conversion next which comes to Christ Christ taught this Point in the comparison between the fruit and the tree suppose the tree bad it brings not forth fruit that it may be changed into a good tree but first the Tree is made good and then yeelds good fruit Math. 12. 33. And Austin hath a like Similitude Non ideo currit rota ut fit rotunda sed quia est the wheel doth not therefore run that it may be round but first the wheel or bowl is made round and then they runne so man doth not work or act that he may be made a new Creature and walk in Gods way but first he is made Gods workmanship drawn by Divine grace and then acts and brings forth fruit to God and it is the saying of Hugo speaking of the grace of God and the will of man Gratia operatur eam deinde per eam First the grace of God works the will and then it works by the will here is the state of the point grace makes the will and works it and then works by it Reas And truely methinks that in reason and good manners it should be said by all men that Gods working upon man goes before mans working for or towards God that as the Creator I speak not of Relations for they are both together in nature is before the Creature in working the Spiritual Creator must be before the Spiritual Creature in the working of it as well as the Bodily For the making of this Point good I will lay down five Reasons First The Scripture asserts it I will give a new
heart I will cause you to walk in my wayes Ezek. 36. 26. I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 40. The Lord thy God will Circumcise thy heart to love the Lord Deut 30. 6. So in the Text No man can come to me except my Father draw him here is the work of God for believing the drawing of the heart is Gods and then mans work followes and verse 45. Every man that hath heard and learnt of the Father comes to Me. I might multiply Scriptures but these may suffice Secondly Infused habits of Grace are not like acquisite and moral habits moral habits are begotten by Acts precedaneous and foregoing as he that will get an habit of writing must write get a habit by the Act but infused habits are powred in before the Acts because as in that which we call potentia Naturalis the faculties of seeing hearing and sence we do not by seeing and hearing learn to see and hear but we perform the Act by the habit First there is a power to see and hear and then we see and heare So 't is in these infuâ—ed habits that God powres into us by his Spirit there is an habit and then there followes an Act a faculty of knowing God and then an Act of loving God follows we do not acquire them by acts of our own we have the facultie the power first given and then we act Thirdly If God do but set the will of man in aequilibrio like a paire of even scales not determining it to conversion then he concurs but contingently but concomitantly upon condition that the will do and move it selfe and this indeed would be no great matter for by this meanes God doth lesse in the Conversion of man then man doth for the will of man gives the act turnes the scales specifies the event not the grace of God and how disgraceful is this to the will of God that the will of man should do it and the grace of God not so it would be if God should do no more then set the will of man in equipoise only make him able to turn himself Fourthly observe this Converting grace is given with that intention by God that the will and heart of man should be determined that the scales should be turned and man saved or else I pray what should the meaning of that be which is called the calling of God according to his purpose Rom. 8. 29. as those that love God are said to be such as are called with an intention of God to bring them to himself and oh how powerful and infrustrable is that grace which comes and is given by God with an intention to save you for if that grace should not save you you must say that God is not able to save you Oh! But may some say the hard heart of man may refuse rebel and resist not the intention of God certainly not the purpose of God doubtlesse Austin speaks very well to this purpose illa à nullo duro corde respuitur quia durities tollitur this grace this converting grace is refused by no hard heart because it 's therefore given that the hard heart of man may be taken away and as a man may properly convey it to you by this comparison light being given to take away darkness the darkness cannot resist the light because it 's therefore made that the darkness be expelled so that grace which is therefore given and intended to take away the heart of stone that is the resisting heart cannot be resisted because the intention carries it I will take away the heart of stone saith God and so to the comfort of a man thus converted by grace be it spoken the very stonie heart the hard heart cannot resist Fifthly If converting grace give not an ability or sufficiency but an indifferency onely and a power that a man may be saved if he will but no act is determined the elect have no more then other men a power only but they have no more reason of gratitude because it s their own will that inclines them to be saved when others are lost the Act of God therefore must be first otherwise men might say it 's true Lord thou gavest me a sufficiency and a power to be converted but the act the determining casting voice that turned the scale was my own therefore thou gavest me no more then thou gavest to Judas and others as well as to me And here beloved in the Lord you may see from this observation First Why God will have all the praise of Salvation to be to his grace Secondly why God will have all the glorying to himself for it would not be just with God to rob the will of man of glorying if man himself deserved it First God will have all the praise to be to his grace Eph. 1. 6. that we may be to the praise of the glory of his Grace 't is glorious grace indeed and that we may be to the praise and glory of it therefore God shewes and sets it forth in all the great Turnes of the Salvation of man the first step is Election then Calling Justification and glorification in all which grace is set forth that so all may be to the praise of glorious grace Secondly God will have all the glorying to himself and truly this is the great mark of Gospel doctrine that it brings the glory to God only in 1 Cor. 1. 3â— that be that glorieth may glory in the Lord therefore he hath made Christ to be Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption made Christ to be all that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord which could not be if man glory in himself or have works of his own Observ 2 Secondly That Gods drawing is the cause of mans coming here is Gods mission of Christ and here is Gods traction of man the Father sent me the Father drawes man there must be both had God sent Christ into the world and had not also drawn man to Christ then had been nothing done it was not indeed mans faith but Gods meer grace and mercie without the faith of man that sent Christ into the world it was not looking up that was required to the setting up of the serpent on the pole but God required mans looking up for his being healed by it so it was not mans Faith that was required to Christs mission but it is required to mans Justification for the reaping of the benefits of Salvation by Christ God requires that every one of you do believe in Jesus Christ and therefore the traction of God is required to this Faith Christ is given and sent to man by God without this Faith but that man may be saved by Christ Faith is required and we are drawn by God to believe in Christ he sends Christ to man and thereby differences Man from Divels to whom he is not sent he drawes man to Christ and thereby differences the Elect from
from Christ for there nothing could be done nor could conversion be wrought at all If the stream be equal with the Tide then it would be standing water the tide could not run up nor the stream run down so if these two the things that draw me to and that withdraw me from the Lord Jesus were of equal power it would be standing water there could be no conversion but now the work is wrought because the strength is too hard for the opposite withdrawment You have overcome them little children 1 Joh. 4. 3 4. because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world For reason teaches that the greater power is the overcoming power God doth otherwise move the heart of man to believe in Christ than these withdâ—awers can remove for the devil or world can but move by suitable objects that are suitable to present temper and therefore they move by forreign motives for you must needs confess I think that the devil frights or draws men by objects that is all he can do but how doth God move he moves by principle there 's the clear difference putting another principle into the heart of man which shall wholly attend desire and thirst after the gaining of the Lord Jesus you may see the difference in this instance if you throw a stone upwards it 's moved by a forreign motive a strength without it but see what becomes of it see how the Principle within overcomes the forreign power for it abates by degrees till it comes to turn and down it comes again without throwing by virtue of the principle whereby it is moved to its own center So it shall be and is when God plants a principle in his people that shall propend to Christ as the chief good these forreign motives though they may prevail to make agitation and shake the man yet it overcomes and God by giving a new heart and bidding the soul with power to come to Christ it shall come and overcome all objective suggestions otherwise I say again the power of God in the conversion of a sinner would be less than the concurrent power that withdraws and there could be nothing wrought but now there is somewhat wrought and therefore the power of God is greater This victorious drawing of God is seen in two things First in overcoming that which doth resist and would hinder Secondly Inclining or enabling the heart to chuse or close with Christ to whom God would have it come Both these are in one Text I will take away the heart of stone Ezek. 36. 26. there is the overcoming of that which lies in the way resisting And I will give a heart of flesh that is I will turn the heart into a temper contrary to what it was that it shall rellish what it distasted and love what it hated because there is a new appetite and inclination moving the other way that he can with as much ease and propension move and come to Christ Jesus the Lord as before he did from him For whether God come in with greater strength as the tide into a River or also that the principle within be changed as the bias on the other side the Bowl the heart will â—un contrary to what it did before The power of God in the conversion of a sinner must be victorious over all contrary power Thus I have shewn that 't is a victorious drawing Serm. 29 2. The second property of this drawing of God is that it makes the heart-more willing for the drawing All that ever come to Christ they come as Voluntiers they come willingly they do not come as forcibly constrained for constraint is for slaves Lactantius hath a saying and 't is true If Religion be constrained jam nulla est then it is none Religion cannot be compelled there is nothing more voluntary than that which we call Religion So I say of the heart of man in this point that a forced will if any such could be is rather noluntas a nilling than voluntas a willing And therefore though man at first motion when God by his Grace revealed doth come to make seizure and take hold of mans heart do resist and say as he in Mat. 21. 29. I will not Yet afterwards faith the Text he repented and went So when this drawing comes then the heart of nilling is made willing The Scripture compounds in one mans will and Gods power Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Psal 110. 3. The exerting of Gods power makes a people Voluntiers And therefore though at first Israel be unwilling to be delivered when Moses first delivered his Commission to them they did not relish the motion they found fault Exod. 5. 21. Thou hast made our favour to stink before Pharaoh we shall be the worse for thee And Exod. 6. 9. They hearkened not unto Moses voice because of their affliction and cruel bondage Yet this Israel after they had seen the hand of God with Moses and the miracles that he wrought and those impediments were confuted they were willing to go out in post haste they went out in the night and there was not a dog that barked or moved his tongue to give interruption to their clear passage Exod. 11. 7. So I may allude in this point very properly man filled with prejudice and enmity at first when the Lord begins to call dislikes the motion fights all he can to maintain self but then the Lord repeats his drawings and his knocking 's over and over again till his arm becomes victorious in mans conversion and then being made willing and tasting a sweetness in God and the motion made he is drawn and comes he is drawn and runs The reason of this second point is because there is loving kindness in Gods drawing he constrains by love Hos 11 4. I will draw them with the cords of a man with loving kindness will I draw them this latter is an exegesâ—â— of the former what is meant by that phrase the cords of a man 't is a metaphor or figurative speech borrowed as learned men say from a man that brings a sturdy or untamed bullock to the yoak with stroaking and gentle usage I will bring them saith the Lord so as they shall be willing so that I will make them delight in my yoak God knows all manner of ways saith one whereby the heart of man can be wrought upon and must he not needs know As a workman that knows all the springs of a Watch or Lock that he hath made knows every way to open it can make a key to hit every ward which when he hath fitted to all the springs doth easily open it without breaking it open by meer strength Such is the merciful way of God in conversion sometimes he breaks hard knots indeed with hard wedges he brings in stomackful sinners with hard usage but many times sweetly and strangely now there are two things that go to the making of
not let us alone in our distance in our peace in our ease in the pursuit of the pleasures and profits of sin that is a sad and miserable word if spoken by God Let them alone Hos 4. 17. Ephraim is joyned to Idols let him alone When God finds a man joyned to his beloved lusts as Ephraim and the tenne tribes were joyned to the Idols that Jerobeam had set up to keep them from the temple and Jerusalem lest they should soduer and sement again oh miserable when God saies let a man alone in his waies when a mans interest lies in maintaining and keeping of his beloved sins So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts and they walked in their own counsels Psal 81. 12. It is a sinne and a punishment to be given up to the lusts of a mans own heart and to walk in his own counsels men that are thus given up the Lord hath punished them sufficiently men that are awakened and disturbed of their peace and course that find themselves disquieted from their dangerous waies the pillow of Sathan on which they slept securely how often do they mistake God and think that God doth it out of hatred to them when you see plainly that it is in mercy they are caused to tremble and to be troubled that they may have peace wounded that they may be healed the Lord doth as he saith in Hosea 2. 6. Find your own experience in that Text I will make a hedg of thornes about them and they shall not find their path then they shall say I will return to my first husband for it was better with me then then now God moves man by a kind of self-love if a man find it better with him when he is with God then he was before Oh! saith he I will return to my true husband for I am disquieted in this way of sinne this seems to be the way of God as the shepherd le ts loose his dog not upon his sheep to worry them but upon the stray sheep to bring it in again so God le ts loose some temptations inward disquietments on the stray sheep to this end that he may bring him in to his flâ—ck again that he may be saved And as Joseph when his Brethren came into Egypt for Corn spake roughly to them and clapt them into prison because he intended to bring them and himself into better acquaintance such is the way of God in conversion the Lord Jesus out of love disquiets the waters and though he doth not use other men so yet those that are his he frowns upon and le ts loose temptations upon them that he may bring them in when God will not let a man alone in a state of distance under sinful peace it is a good sign as it s said in Deut. 8. 15 16. God led thee through the terrible wildernesse wherein were fierie serpents he fed thee also with Manna he mixed mercy with sorrows manna with fiery Serpents mark to what purpose that he might prove thee and humble thee to do thee good at thy latter end here you see his manner of dealing he leads through the wilderness to do his people good and so many as are thus at first conversion assaulted and buffeted by Sathan pâ—stered with thoughts of blasphemie with outward afflictions its only to disquiet them and to hunt them as the prodigal was by famine out of the farre country to their Father or as Job saith Chap. 33. 17. That God may withdraw man from his purpose and hide pride from man man being pitcht and resolved on some way of sin in defiance to God and the losse of his soul God will withdraw him from his work and hide pride from man But now Object How may it be known and discovered to us that these are the drawings of God when he pursues us with disquietments and troubles and will not let us alone this is a profitable question Answ 1 First by this that God defeats all our contentments in most pleasing sins and makes our waies bitter though we are willing to be licking our lips yet we shall find gall in them and makes the wayes of God more eligible to us Hos 2. 6. She shall seek them but not find them c. and this until she say I will return c. the Lord drops gall into all your hony and contentment wherein before you seemed to have some delight he makes those waies unpleasant and if you have found content in them you shall have so no more Ans 2 Secondly That in the middest of all these troubles and temptations the Lord drops now and then a sweet drop of himself or of Christ into the soul stirring up desires and longings after him Now when the Lord so sweetly mixes this Manna and hony with these buffetings and temptations it 's a sign there are some workings on you the people of God at first conversion usually find now and then some sweet taste though it be but a drop on the Rods end as Jonathans was to inlighten their eyes and draw them after Christ Jesus the one drives the other draws that 's the fourth mark of Gods drawing It 's a great misery to be let lie in the lethargie of Sin Serm. 31 Fifthly We may know by our faith whether we were drawn by God for if that be saving and unfeigned faith it is of his drawing if superficial and dead such as that doth not own such an author for God never marries his Son to a dead soul nor to a dead faith until there be a quickning neither would Christ commit himself to such believers John 2. 24. as he perceived were hollow and fals-hearted and did not receive him in love There is a faith in temporaries hypocrites and common Christians which is not wrought by such power as Christ was raised by as the Apostle tells the Ephesians Chap. 1. 18 Their faith was wrought by the same power that God put forth in Christ when he raised him from the dead But as easily as the History of Alexander or William the Conqueror begets credit in the reader without any divine motion So the report of the Gospel begers a faith which doth arise by the calling of the word not by that which is a calling according to Gods purpose but the faith whereby we are drawn to Christ hath as I may say two faces I crave pardon for the word it looks backward and forward to election as a sign of that to salvation as the cause of that it s a fruit or effect of our election and a certain means of our salvation it bears upon it the mark of them both it alwaies purifies the heart wherein it is being never found in an unregenerate and unrenewed heart It makes the tree good and then the fruit It makes the tree good there is an alteration in the man And then the fruit good there is the product that it brings forth It makes the flax smoak at least
afforded that they may come but no marks that they shall be drawn Serm. 31 Use 3 Thirdly Consider what may be deduced from this point for the advancement of practical Godliness there is no point more copious in its use for the advancement of free grace then this doctrine of Gods powerful working and drawing men to Christ Jesus First It suggests matter of Humility grace is not loose though it be free there is no glorying at all left to us in the matter of our salvation all boasting is taken away by Gods drawing every point that 's profitable is so so far as it advances practical Religion and much of that consists in an humble frame of spirits for as lower grounds are richer and more fruitful then hill tops that see further but are more barren so a man that hath tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil may see further and discern more in matters of notion and speculation but the humble soul that hath seen the hand of God working its works in it is more fertile and fruitful to God Secondly It suggests matter of thankfulness for where humility goes before there thankfulness followes after and according to the proportion of the one is the other in 1 Pet. 2. 9. That you should shew forth the praise of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light who were before no people when we come to consider and have these impressions set on our souls that he calls us out of our darkness for darkness is ours into his marvellous light thankfulness arises from this And as light came out of darkness so God hath shined into our hearts the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ Whence came the first light out of darkness where no man could have imagined the light to be so God hath called us out of darkness And Thirdly It calls for fruitfulness in requital of sogreat a grace fruitfulness is as we may say of varnish no colour of it self but sets off and puts a beauty upon other colours Fertillity is the nature of good soyl and men look for fruit from land or tree proportionable to the cost and labour bestowed so doth God expect fruitfulness according to the proportion of his goodness the meditation of this grace quickens the ingenuous heart to obedience when a man hath the sence of his justification that he is reconciled to God by the blood of Christ and that being reconciled we shall be saved by his life as 't is Rom. 5. 9. 10. this puts him on to a high degree of fruitfulness this manures the Tree and therefore in 1 John 4. 19. We love him because he first loved us and 5. chap. 3 vers It 's love that makes the Commandements not grievous Thus you see how it advances practical godliness And as it advances practick godliness so likewise it heightens all the obligations whereby a man can be obliged to God either to be humble thankful or fruitful they are advanced by the sence of the free grace of God Now for the advancement of obligations they are two-fold Such as have strength of Authority in them Or Such as have sweetness and constraint of love in them First obligations of authority are by the law of God For that doth not cease to oblige a believer being a perpetual law that God hath set on man in all states and conditions And then the Free grace of God is an obligation by a constraint of love the love of Christ constrains us in 2 Cor. 5. 14. Because we thus judg or have this sence that if one died for all then all are dead so that the obligation it puts upon you is of love and service above other men God may well expect some singular thing of you as namely first Because he hath drawn thee not others yea haply hath left many for one taken thou art one taken drawn out of the herd marked out for God as I said made to passe under the rod Vobis datum est non illis to you it is given c. not to others Secondly Because he hath drawn us when we withdrew for every man by nature doth withdraw even as a heifer withdrawes and will not be yoked so man withdrawes from the yoak of God from the doctrine from the faith the love and from the acquaintance of Christ Jesus and therefore it s said in Rom. 10. last vers I have stretched out my hands all the day long to a contradicting or withdrawing people Nay he not only draws us out of darkness and nothing but pursues and followes us when we run from him if the Lord should let men alone yea if the elect of God were let alone at first when God begins to draw they would be deserters forsakers and relinquish God you stiff necked people you do alwaies resist the Holy-Ghost but now God still knocks and if man comes not at first God knocks again and this bends mans heart to God that the Lord pursues him with mercy and followes him with loving kindness if God had let him alone he had perish'd but God would not let him have his will to perish Thirdly Because he hath drawn thee no better then others of the same clay saith the text the potter makes the difference not the clay are we better then they the Jew then the Gentile Romans 3. 9. No in no wise and therefore God to shew that there is no difference in man instances in twins that tumbled in a belly Rom. 9 10. Rebecca conceived by one even Isaac c. Nay it may be thou wast one of lower and meaner rank from whom God could not expect so much service so babes have it revealed not the wise Base things of the world are chosen not many noble and great Naaman the Syrian is cleansed and not many lepers in Israel who would think that Rahab the harlot should be named with Abraham in James 2. 25 Fourthly The Lord found thee when thou did'st not seek him he overcame thy opposition and resistance waiting that he might be gracious Isaiah 30. 18. if he had taken thy denyal and let thee alone if he had not overcome the evasions and Tergiversations of thy sturdy spirit by pursuing thee with fresh forces till he had brought every thought within thee into captivity unto the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. had he not stricken thee down as Paul was until he made thee say Lord what wilt thou have me to do what might have become of thee had he not hedged thee in with thorns and laid mustard on the breast to wean thee from thy sweet sins Lastly When God hath taken this course and won over and made the heart willing then a man accompts his own gain his arguments of confidence his own righteousness all dross and dung for the excellent knowledg of Christ Jesus in Phil. 3. 7 8. when the Lord hath given such a tast and sweetness then a man desires
it himself and is pleased with that with which he was displeased before when the heart is thus overcome then it submits he stands faire in his own eyes no more his own face pleases him no longer he rebels no more but submits to the righteousness of God Ro. 10. 3. and so receives Christ as the greatest treasure in the world therefore free grace is a great obligation it binds strongly by the constraint of love Fourthly I close all with a motive to examination whether you be partakers of this drawing now before the Sacrament you are called the Lord invites you to his table he invites his friends his children these he calls by the word every ordinance breathes unto you little else but Christ Jesus for all sanctifying strengthning and corroborating grace from whence come they surely in Hosea 14 8. from me is thy fruit found all your strength arises from the greater and further reception of Christ Jesus therefore examine whether this work of God hath been on you to draw you to Christ Jesus faith is not a vulgar grace it is not an easie thing it comes from divine omnipotency and power as we say of the resurrection whereby a dead man rises from the grave it is a work of the power of God and therefore Christ confuting the Sadduces that denied it said you erre not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God I am saith Christ the resurrection and the life No man is alive till he take hold of and believe in the Lord Jesus now can a dead man be raised from the dead and not be sensible do you think faith is not a sensible work yes as 't is a powerful work so 't is sensible to man yet I confess men may be deceived as women are by false tumors and swellings so there are many delusions whereby a man may take himself to be in a state of grace when he is not because there is a false faith as well as a true it is the point of examination pressed by St Paul in 2 Cor. 13. 5. because of such moment examine your selves whether you be in the faith whether Christ be in you many think of a Christ without them you are all glad to know that Christ gave himself for you that he gave himself to be the blood of atonement but is he yours by the blood of sprinkling the Scripture puts this to the trial by words that intimate Christ within men Galath 4. 19. my little children of whom I travel in pain till Christ be formed in you and Ephes 3. 17. Christ dwels in our hearts by faith Gal. 2. 20 Christ liveth in me these phrases do difference the Jew outwardly from the Jew inwardly and teach in like proportion that he is not a Jew that hath the outward character and not the circumcision of the Spirit Ro 2 28. and let that obligation sit on you in the 2 Tim. 2. 19. Let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity for else it s not the sacraments will serve turne in 1 Cor. 10. 4 5. they eat of the same spiritual meat with us But God was not well pleased with them they were wicked and therefore examine your selves what work of God you have found upon your hearts whether you are renewed by the Holy-Ghost in Tit. 3. 5. God is said to save man by the washing of regeneration v. 6. that being justified by his grace you might be made heirs of eternal life To move you consider Motive 2 First The graces that have connexion with or do accompany salvation are inward things there is an inward seal a white stone with a name in it known to them that have it Sacraments seal the outward part the conditional compact that whosoever believes shall not perish but it is the Spirit that witnesses to ours that we are sons of God Motive 2 Secondly That unto and by those inward graces God drawes his people thus he undertakes to create a new heart to put his law into their mind this is that which is called the teaching of God Gods drawing so that its the inward work that gives thee comfort of this business But Object Doth not the manducation of Christs body and blood in the Sacrament tend unto this inward and spiritual inhabitation of Christ in us Answer Yes And so did the outward ordinances of the Jewes they tended to spiritual things there circumcision signified an inward circumcision as our baptisme an inward washing and our eating and drinking sets forth our communion of his body and blood our union and communion which are spiritual are here exhibited unto us as meat and drink of life as John 6. 37. He that eats me shall live by me this in this chapter so much spoken of is not sacramental but it is spiritual eating for it was spoken before the institution of the supper but it speaks of the kernel of it the eating of Christ his body by faith And so much for this text THE DIFFERENCE Between a True Inward Christian And the Outward Formalist DISCOVERED In three Sermons on Rom. 2. 28 29. By M r RICHARD VINES Late Preacher of Gods Word at S t Laurence Jury LONDON LONDON Printed for Abel Roper 1662. THE DIFFERENCE Between a True Inward Christian And the Outward Formalist Rom. 2. 28 29. For he is not a Jew that is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose praise is not of men but of God THe Apostle before he makes entrance upon the Doctrine of Justification which is one of the Cardinal Points of the Christian Religion doth convince and conclude that both Jews and Gentiles and so consequently all mankind are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under sin Rom. 3. 9. draws up the conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have shewn cause before or charged all men to be under sin teaching all Masters of conviction the necessity of that method to cut off the branch which is to be ingraffed from the tree where it had its first birth before it can be fit for coalition with a new stock and for participation of the root and fatness of the Olive Tree first make a man a sinner my meaning is make him miserable and when the strugling fish that is stricken with the hook is tired or choaked you may more easily draw him to the shore The great Rule to be observed in the conviction of gainsayers is to disarm them of their Armour those inward reasonings and strong holds wherein they trust then it is an eaâ—ier thing to bring them in when that wherein they trusted is 〈◊〉 down about their ears Think not saith S. John to say within your selves We have Abraham to our Father think it not speaking to the inward reasonings of the Jews at that 〈◊〉 The Apostle imitating this course â—oth as concerning the heathen