have lost or spare to be left to ruine 3. For others but more especially for Sion for Jerusalem for the Church and people of God we should for such mercies be very importunate as these here and the Prophets and people of God elsewhere as the Prophet Isaiah 62. 1. For Sions sake will I not hold my peace and for Jerusalem's sake will I not rest untill the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a Lamp that burneth Here the Prophet professeth his serious purpose of an unwearied constant sollicitation of God for his Church of which Sion was a type and it is till its righteousness go forth c. And thus earnest zealous and importunate should we be for the Church and people of God we should not onely propound our desires but press and enforce them as it is said afterward of the watchmen upon the walls of Jerusalem v. 6. I have set watchmen upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night and then it follows ye that make mention of the Lord or nearer the Hebrew Rememorantes Dominum vel qui reminiscimini Domini Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers or ye that mind the Lord to wit of his Church whose office it is to be still minding and solliciting him in its behalf it is a term borrowed from the manner of Princes who have certain Officers called their Remembrancers to mind them of such matters as concern the publick weal and welfare and what an honour and priviledg is it to be remembrancers to the King of Heaven and this honour have not onely his Ministers but all his people not that God is subject to forgetfulness or can forget his Church and the things that concern its weal but for his own glory and his peoples greater comfort God will have it be thus viz. that he be earnestly sollicited and sought to and these now are bid to give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth i. e. they must continue instant and constant in prayer be urgent and importunate with God untill he hear and put his Church into such a condition that all may praise her or for which she may become famous throughout the whole world And thus let us both Ministers and people resolve to do not to hold our peace day nor night nor keep silence nor give the Lord rest till he establish and till he make our Jerusalem a praise to the Earth Let us not onely call upon his name but stir up our selves to take hold of him let us put forth all our strength put out our selves to the utmost yet to stay him with us for wo to us if he depart from us Want of this the Prophet Isaiah complains of and acknowledges as a great sin Is 64. 6. And we all says he do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away and yet there is none v. 7. that calleth upon thy name that addresseth himself unto thee at least aright or but very few so few as that they were not as it were seen nor did appear but were hid in the multitude or if more did call upon his name yet they did not stir up themselves to take hold of God to stay him with them though he threatened Emphasis est in verbo tenendi sumptâ metaphorâ á patre irato manum ad ferulam expediente cujus manum apprehensam alius teneat conhibeátque nè feriat filium Arular in locum and was upon his departure from them or they took not hold of his hand to stay him from striking them in his anger for thou hast hid thy face from us and hast consumed us because of our iniquities And so the particle is used elsewhere or as some when thou didst hide thy face from us c. and so it is an heavy aggravation of their stupidity sluggishness and security thà t though the Lord did manifest his displeasure against them by the withdrawing the light of his countenance from them and consumed them because of their iniquities as he hath done us yet such was their stupor and sluggishness that notwithstanding they did not stir up themselves to take hold of him though he seem'd to be a going and truely not to stir up our selves at such a time does stir up the Lord the more against us such neglects do much provoke for at such times we should be more than ordinary zealous earnest and importunate sollicitors for Sion not onely proposing our desires but enforcing and pressing the same with all fervency And such let us be O let every prayer be a pleading a wrestling with strong resolution not to let him go till he return in mercy unto Sion and with a smiling and favourable countenance look upon it How earnest and sollicitous was Daniel for Jerusalem in that prayer of his Dan. 9. 3. And I set my face to the Lord God this shews his earnestness setting all other things aside to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes and v. 17. Now therefore O our God hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplications Supplication differs from prayer as being a further degree of enforcing our petitions either by redoubling our suits or pressing them with arguments And cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary for the Lord's sake i. e. shew thy grace and favour by the effects thereof in restoring thy publick worship to the people and v. 19. O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and defer not for thine own sake O my God for thy city and thy people are called by thy name here is further fervency earnestness and holy zeal in prayer uttering strong cryes So David Psal 14. 7. O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Sion or who will give the salvation of Israel c. or O that some would give it is a Non tam privatim de se cogitat quam de communi Ecclesiae salute sollicitus form and phrase of earnest wishing usual with the Hebrews and often used in Scripture elsewhere and it gives us to see how sollicitous David was for Israel's salvation he forgot himself as it were for to remember that and so should we CHAP. V. The several points of Doctrine observable from the words as more particular and as being implied Doctr. 1. We are all by nature turn'd aside and gone away from God Else what needed this being turn'd again and this is observable from the words as they respect those who were never yet turn'd and therefore are here prayed for that they may be turn'd or converted Indeed as God at first made us he was with us and we with him and our faces were unto him but now having sinned our backs are upon him and we are gone away from him and by going on in sin we go away still further from him and this the Scripture every
THE Sole and Soveraign Way OF ENGLAND'S being saved Humbly proposed By R. P. Minister of the Gospel O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou may'st be saved how long shall thy vain thoughts lodg within thee Jer. 4. 14. In his favour is life Psal 30. 5. Poenitentia amara est quidem ad tolerandum saluberrima autem ad convalescendum Bern in Serm. de verbis Sapient Ut malorum omnium haec causa est quod Deus offensus faciem abscondit ita plena salus ab unico favore ejusdem est expectanda Moller LONDON Printed by W. G. and are to be sold by J. Hancock at the three Bibles in Popes-head Alley N. Ponder at the Peacock in Chancery-lane and W. Adderton at the three Falcons in Duck-lane 1671. TO The Right Worshipful Sir THOMAS ALSTON Baronet Much Honoured SIR THE Treatise here ensuing being calculated not onely for the weal of greater Communities as Nations Cities Towns but also of lesser Societies as Families yea and particular persons In tenders of my service to your Self and your so worthily Honoured Lady I make bold here what it is to present it and the rather because it pleases the Lord by a distemper which so often renews its onsets upon you to give you so frequent memento's of that Turn which Moses declares to be the inevitable fate of all indefinitely Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest Psal 90. 3. return ye children of men Thus we run here a short round and soon come to our races end fetch but a turn as it Comparat oursum vitae nostrae gyro c. Calv. in loc were and then return back again Now may the Lord be pleas'd so to sanctifie those frequent memento's of your bodies turn to destruction as to advance more and more thereby that happy turn of conversion here treated of and so thereby bring you more and more under the shines of his face and comfortable displayes and refreshing beams of his favour I have often thought and sometimes upon occasion declar'd that however things appear to common sense yet certainly that is best for us here that state that condition those dispensations be they what they will though never so afflicting that are most effectual and have the fairest and most essential influence as to the advancing of our spiritual good here and our eternal happiness hereafter that is best for us in our way and where we take up onely for a while that doth advantage us most at our journeys end and where we must stay and abide by it for ever that not which pleases us best for a moment but profits us most for ever for things are here and are so to be counted of here as they relate to eternity and as to what is spiritual and everlasting which being the main and chief and that which is of greatest concern is in every thing to be the rule of the rest And because afflictions many times are most conducing here hence the Lord is pleas'd often to afflict those most here which he intends most good to hereafter And truly let our present condition be what it will here if the Lord does but please to mould it for our eternal weal hereafter it is an act of infinite mercy Lord lance here sear Domine hîc ure hîc seca modâ— in aeternum parcas here cry'd Austin so thou spare but hereafter so truly it matters not much what God does with us here so he spare but hereafter And by what he does with us or to us here does but the more fit us and the better mould us for Feliciter infelices infeliciter felices himself and glory hereafter How many are happy in being seemingly miserable while others are miserable in being seemingly happy because their seeming happiness hinders their real for having Psal 55. 19. no changes therefore they fear not God so that to live still in prosperity as is said of Nabal and not to experience those 1 Sam. 25. 6. changes as others do nor be in those troubles as others are as is said of the foolish Psal 75. 5. and the wicked is no such desireable state as many deem but dangerous It is said of our Edward the fourth Never lived Prince whom adversity more hardened Difficile est in honore esse sine tumore in praelatione sine elatione in dignitate sine vanitate Bern. to action nor prosperity softened to voluptuousness Edward the sixth was wont to say No danger to the godly unless by wealth prosperity And we see David himself though a man after God's own Psal 30. 5. heart yet in his prosperity he grew secure It is said of Moab He hath been Jer. 48. 11. at ease from his youth and he hath settled on his lees and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel neither hath he gone into captivity that is he hath not been hurried up and down from place to place Non immutavit habitationem non suit â—edibus suis pulsus c. nullam adversitatem expertus est Theodoret. iâ—s locum as Israel was c. and what follows therefore his tast remained in him and his sent is not changed his pride impiety and impurity still continued for it is said he magnified himself against the Lord and we have heard of the pride of â— 26. 29. Moab c. Even as Wines not being drawn off their lees and put into other vessels are not meliorated but retain their first tast and sent So we read of others who being settled on their lees Zeph. 1. 12. and not being emptied from vessel to vessel they say in their hearts The Lord will not do good neither will he do evill that is they grew stark Atheists boldly scorn God and men deny God's providence and make as if he was a very Idol and regarded not nor took notice of the affairs of men and others because God kept silence and did not punish them Ps 50. 21. they thought God such a one as themselves Now certainly it was better our lives were made up of nothing but changes than to come to such a pass and not to have our souls blest and enrich'd with so great a good as the fear of God which is said to be the treasure of Kings and Is 33. 6. which the Lord hath declar'd to man from heaven to be his wisdom and which Job 28. 28. issuing forth into obedience to God's commandements Solomon the wisest King that ever was and one inspir'd by God hath concluded and left upon record Eccles 12. 13. to be the whole and all of man Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia hoc omnis homo vel hoc omne homo est Fear God and keep his commandements for this is the whole duty of man It is in the Hebrew onely this all man that is as it may be rendered this is all
Ps 37. 37 38. c. of the wicked that they are at last wholly and utterly cut off or rooted out and hence is the Lord so earnest that people would be considerate Deut. 32. 29. about their latter end he is most sollicitous about that and so should we And what will ye Jer. 5. 31. do says he in the end thereof You think your selves it may be well enough at present but what will your condition be in the conclusion And this Solomon urges to deter from whoredom Prov. 5. 11. c. and thou mourn at the last c. mourning then being mourning indeed mourning as Heb. in sire tuo we say with a witness exceeding great and bitter and therefore the Hebrew is and thou roar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et rugias in novissimo tuo Pisc Metaphora a iugitu leonum vel maris at the last and so the Dutch and Italian and others read it not onely sigh or cry but roar and make a fearful noise or outcry as a Lyon or the Sea for the word properly signifies such a great noise or roaring that beasts especially Lyons are wont to make when hungry or in distress or that the Sea makes the roaring whereof is heard afar off and is very terrible or that the Devils make who are said Jâ—m 2. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 horrescunt to believe and tremble or roar or shreek terribly as the Greek word signifies it notes extreme horrour And such is the mourning at last when Non gemit tantum sed ita vociferaâ—iâ—ur ut videatur quodam modo inferorum vestibulum sâ—â—utâ—sse Carâ—â—â—â— the Adulterer is upon the wrack of an evil conscience and sees Hell gaping for him yea is as it were in the suburbs of it already and now perceives how that for a little brutish pleasure he hath brought upon himself ten thousand times more sorrow and nothing now abides him but his wickedness and the reward thereof and dying impenitently in his sins his sorrow is not onely fruitless and unprofitable but fearful inutterable unalterable and for ever And O that this was thought of in time before it be too late for as Abner said to Joab will it not be bitterness in the end and will not the pleasing 1 Sam. 2. 26. streams of sensual delights sinners are swimming down now carry them into the dead Sea of eternal sorrows And how great will those sorrows and that bitterness be And therefore such pleasures should be look'd at as going and not as coming for they leave horrour and terrour behind them And what are sensual pleasures to an immortal immaterial soul the true life and happiness of which consists in godly actions and the fruition of God the chief good But the pleasures of sin says the sinner are sweet and so may poyson be made that kills presently the sweet lusts and sports of sin convey death and hell in their pleasures and there must be either a merciful time as one expresses it to find them bitter here or a terrible time to find them so in hell Do the damned find any pleasure in sin and if drofly filthy lusts do so affect and please what might more glorious objects do if thou wert spiritual It is a good dilemma a Reverend Divine gives against the allurements Mr. Robert â—oltâ—n to sin Either I must repent and then it will bring more sorrow than the pleasure did good though that is a blessed sorrow indeed or not repent and then it is the damnation of my soul So that there is no dealing with sin without hurt no more than there is handling of fire or treading upon hot coals without being burnt Can a man take fire in his bosom and his Cloaths Prov. 6. 27 28. not be burnt can one go upon hot Coals and his feet not be burnt It is observed of the Beaver that the hair of it is softer than the Down of Feathers but it is exceeding dangerous with its teeth for as a Naturalist observes it will gnaw trees with its teeth as if they were cut with Axes and if it chance to catch hold of any joynt in man it will not leave 'till it hath knapped the bone asunder and so sin how delightful soever it may seem to the sinner being soft to the touch and pleasant to the tast it gnaws the conscience and bites the soul as it were to the bone Look not thou says Solomon upon the Prov. 2â— 31 32. wine when it is red when it giveth its colour in the cup when it moveth it self aright At last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder and as it is said of the strange woman her lips Prov. 5. 3 4 5. drop as an honey-comb and her mouth is smoother than oyl but her end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword her feet go down to death her steps take hold of hell And will ever those lusts compensate thy loss or get thee what thou lettest goe no thou mayst keep dross and dung but losest and lettest go Gold Diamonds and precious Pearls c. what then remains but that speedily and forthwith we hearken to God's call and counsel wherein we and the Nation are so infinitely concern'd viz. heartily and industriously to set our selves and frame our doings to turn to the Lord else if we shall still refuse what can we expect but that our calamity will not onely be exceeding great but that the Lord as he threatens will laugh at it and mock when our fear cometh when our fear Prov. 1. 24 25. c. cometh as desolation and destruction as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh upon us and that we should call but the Lord not answer and seek him early but not find him because we would have none of his counsel but despised all his reproof c. But Repentance this may some say is a trite Theme a common subject that which every one knows it is so indeed as to its notion and speculation but how well would it be for England was it so as to its practice and putting it in execution it being the onely way of its weal And let none here be offended at the plainness of the stile this is no time for jingling discourses neither does silken language sute with such days as call for being cloath'd with Sackcloth Conversion to God which is the great work wherein England's weal is at this day so infinitely concern'd is a serious thing and requires greatest plainness in those that offer any thing as to it neither is it like to be effected or carried on by embroyder'd language or fine finical phrases or elegancies no it is the plainest preaching that God hath ever most honoured as to be instrumental to such a work and the meaner sort being those that such a discourse is like to have the most effect upon such as offer thereto had need to apply themselves
could not God do especially the God of Hosts and much more the Lord God of Hosts Thus in our addresles to God we should so consider of him as may most strengthen our faith and encourage our hopes as to the obtaining of what we have access unto God for and thus our Saviour himself hath taught us to do Math. 6. 13. for thine is the Kingdom and power c. Cause thy face to shine ie in a word Aspice nos vultu sereno ac benevolo Pisc vouchsafe us thy favour shew thy self gracious and propitious to us in thy Son give us the sense of thy love and because favour and grace much appears and manifests it self in the face in the sereneness of the face in the pleasantness and lightsomness of the countenance hence is this phrase both here and in many places elsewhere made use of to set forth the favour and grace of God as Psalm 31. 16. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant So Psal 67. 1. 119. 135 c. and it is the same with that Psalm 4. 6. lift thou up upon us the light of thy countenance And these forms and expressions seem to be taken from that solemn form of blessing the people prescribed by the Lord himself Numbers 6. 25 26. The Lord make his face shine upon thee the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee And we shall be saved i. e. if thou vouchsafe His rebus fructum felicitatem salutis assignat dicens Et salvi erimus vivemus regnabimus nec ullo bono destituemur si placatus nos respicias conversos ad te benignus complectaris Musc but to do these for us it shall be well with us we shall be happy this will remedy all our evils and be to us as it were a resurrection from the dead it will bring full salvation and deliverance from our miseries here and eternal salvation to us hereafter and upon God's turning them again and causing his face to shine this they certainly and undoubtedly promise to themselves as well they might for what should effect it if not these for God to turn them again and cause his face to shine CHAP. III. The first Doctrine observable as more general THE time and season when it was that they made this prayer that God would turn them again c. it was a time of trouble and distress Whence observe Doct. 1. When miseries and calamities do abide the Church and people of God that which then more especially and most earnestly they are to pray for it is that the Lord would vouchsafe them spiritual mercies As that God would turn them again and cause his face to shine that he would lift up upon them the light of his Countenance vouchsafe them his favour and grace c. This indeed In omnibus angustiis favor gratia Dei inprimis quaerenda imploranda est Amesâ—in locum they are to seek at all times Psal 105. 4. Seek the Lord and his strength seek his face evermore but then more especially and more than the removal of outward evils or the obtaining of other mercies and blessings because God then seems to suspend them and as it was to hide his face and to withdraw the sense of his favour and then they most need them yea and then the experiencing of such mercies is most seasonable Thus the Church and people of God do here the Lord fed them with the bread of tears and gave them tears to drink in great measure c. And what do they now pray and importune for for spiritual blessings Soul-mercies that God would turn them again and cause his face to shine and thus we are to doe R. 1. Because this is that which the Lord prescribes and puts his people upon and advises them to As Hosea 14. 1 27. take with you words and turn to the Lord. Say unto him take away all iniquity and receive us graciously c. Zeph. 2. 3. Seek ye the Lord seek righteousness seek meekness c. And how should we bless the Lord that gives us this counsel and advice to seek things so excellent and of such importance and wherein we are so infinitely concern'd and the having of which is of such absolute and indispensible necessity as that we cannot at any time want them nor be without them much less at such times who would not seek God's face divine favours at any time but especially at such times R. 2. This is that which others have done as here so elsewhere as Psal 90. 14. Moses there in a time of great and grievous calamities prays that the Lord would return and satisfie them early with his mercy or loving kindness for so the word is rendred elsewhere as Psal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 26. 3. the same word so Psal 119. 76. i. e. with thy favour the sense of thy love and v. 17. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us c. So Isaiah 26. 8. Yea in the way of thy judgments O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee v. 9. With my soul have I desired thee in the night with my spirit within me will I seek thee early c. Lament 5. 21. Turn thou us unto thee O Lord c. and so David often still when he was in any distress he is seeking for spiritual mercies as Psalm 31. 16. make thy face to shine on thy Servant 35. 5. say to my soul I am thy Salvation Psalm 119. 76. Let I pray thee thy merciful kindness be for my comfort v. 77. let thy tender mercies come unto me c. R. 3. Want of this the Lord complains of Hos 7. 4. They assemble themselves for corn and wine c. Isa 9. 13. neither seek they the Lord of Hosts R. 4. To this the promise is made of pardon and healing too 2 Chron. 7. 13. If says the Lord I shut up heaven that there be no rain or send pestilence c. v. 14. If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their evill wayes then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land R. 5. This is the onely way to have those miseries and calamities removed in mercy so as to be sanctified before their removal to seek unto God to turn us again to himself and to cause his face to shine and unless the Lord do this they cannot be removed in mercy but we must expect heavier and sorer as the Lord threatens Is 9. 13 14. Amos 4. 11 12. Levit. 26. 21. c. for he will overcome when he judges but if he vouchsafe those spiritual mercies though the other should continue they could do us no hurt the evil and sting of them being remov'd R. 6. If the other should still continue these will comfort and support under them and
the joy and comfort of them more than countervail the other there being no comparison between them but the one exceedingly transcending the other As the sufferings of this present Rom. 8. 18. time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed hereafter so neither are they to be compared with spiritual mercies here as for God to turn us again to himself to pardon our sins to cause his face to shine to vouchsafe us his favour and his comforts and consolations What sufferings or afflictions will not these comfort and support under or what other wants will they not more than countervail what are the world's frowns to God's smiles the world's troubles to God's peace the world's sorrows to God's joyes the world's afflictions to God's consolations the world's pressures to the pleasures of God's presence or its burdens to the rest which that affords what are its Bitters to God's Sweets its Gall and Wormwood to the Wine of his Love Cant. 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the Kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine and v. 4. we will remember thy love more than wine yea 't is better than life and in it even in death it self there is life And hence is it that the Apostle speaks what is a Paradox to the men of the world troubled but not distressed as sorrowful yet always rejoycing as having nothing and yet possessing all things as dying and yet behold we live live in the light of God's countenance in his sight as Hosea 6. 2. and we shall live in his sight where indeed only the Soul truly lives and there it may live even in death and have light arise to it even in darkness and see light in the greatest obscurity and this light I mean the light of God's countenance it giveth Songs even in the night as it did to Paul and Silas when thrust into the inner prison and their feet made fast in the Stocks yet God's gracious presence did so cheer their spirits and put such joy into their hearts that even at midnight they brake forth in praises to God Acts 16. 25. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God and the prisoners heard them they did not onely pray but sing prayses and sung so loud that others heard them the prisoners heard them they were awaken'd by them And what did they think of them surely they thought they were not well in their wits to sing at such a time and in such a place and in such a condition who having been beaten and many stripes laid upon them were cast into prison yea thrust into the inner prison and their feet made fast in the stocks and yet now to sing O if God cause but his face to shine if he lift but up the light of his countenance it will make a man sing at any time in any place in any condition it will turn a prison into a Pallace and a dungeon into a Paradise This made David to have his Psalms yea Michtams i. his golden Psalms or as the Dutch render it his golden Jewels Aureum ornamentum aut insigne exputissimo auro factum it signifies what is made of the best and finest gold so called because of their singular preciousness and excellency in the saddest places and in the saddest outward condition as when the Philistins took him in Gath when he fled from Saul in the Cave when Saul sent and they watcht the house to kill him c. See Psalm 56 57 59 the Titles Moses Psalm 90. 14. prays O satisfie us early with thy mercy i. e. with thy loving kindness vouchsafe us thy favour that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes This is enough to make the people of God rejoice and be glad all their dayes be they never so dark and gloomy evil and perillous As we have received mercy sayes the Apostle we faint not 2 Cor. 4. 1. The Lord tels Moses Exod. 33. 14. My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest Though Moses was to go through a wearisome wilderness and amidst a wearisom people yet the Lord's presence should give him rest We may go any where with him he will be an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest as rivers of water in a dry place as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land Isa 32. 2. Vse 1. Of Reproof to those who when miseries and calamities are upon themselves or the Nation look after the removal of them but not after Spiritual mereies they are very earnest and sollicitous that God would take away their ourward plagues remove his judgments but not that God would take away their sins and turn them again to himself and cause his face to shine But so God will but do the other free them of their miseries let the latter do what they will Psalm 4. 6. There be many that say who will shew us any good i. e. any outward good how to compasse any earthly worldly gain or advantage O that we might have peace and plenty or how shall we once get out of these troubles and afflictions but few say with David lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us and then all shall be well if thou do but this Many when they are in pain and sick and weak they cry out indeed but for what for ease and health and recovery not that they may be turned from their sins and recover God's favour as Pharaoh he calls to have other plagues taken away but never begs to have the plague of his own heart taken away which was the greatest of all and far worse than all the other but this is the voice onely of nature and argues a graceless heart and that which the Lord as I said complains of Hos 6. 14. Vse 2. Of Exhortation Then when miseries and calamities do abide us let this be our Prayer let us with the Church and people of God here more especially and most earnestly beg and implore spiritual mercies that God would turn us again and cause his face to shine lift up upon us the light of his countenance vouchsafe us his grace and favour bless us in turning us from our iniquities let us be importunate for these ask them again and again and whatever outward evils or distresses may abide us these as you have heard will not only comfort and support us under them but more than countervail them When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble c if God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8. 31. You know what Philip said to our Saviour John 14. 8. Lord shew us the father and it sufficeth us So let but the Father shew us himself shine on us with his face vouchsafe us his favour and it sufficeth As the Lord said unto Paul and says to all his people 2 Corinth 12. 9. my grace is sufficient for thee though then Paul was in
an ill case there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him c. v. 7. yet says the Lord to him my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness Let our condition be what it will let it seem never so sad let our tryals and afflictions be never so many and great yet God's grace i. e. his favour his accepting grace is sufficient to comfort us yea and his sanctifying strengthning and supporting grace to uphold us When says David I said my foot slippeth thy mercy O Lord held me up In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my Soul Psalm 94. 18 19. The Lord alone and his favour is a full compleat and more than sufficient counter-comfort to all troubles and calamities whatsoever and the light of his countenance does not onely put more joy and gladness into their hearts upon whom it is lift up than in the time when others Corn and Wine increases but it puts more joy than the greatest decrease of them can occasion sorrow Habuk. 3. 17 18. Although the Fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the Vines c. yet I will rejoyce in the Lord c. yea it alters the very nature of the evils themselves that they are not what they were that sickness is not sickness as it were hence it is said Is 33. 24. And the Inhabitants shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity And hence Matth. 9. 2. our Saviour there bids the man sick of the Palsie be of good cheer his sins being forgiven though his sickness was not yet cured and so had he cause had it never been cured In six yea in seven troubles this keeps all evil from touching us Job 5. 19. And therefore how earnestly how importunately at all times but more especially in evil times should we implore these mercies CHAP. IV. The second Doctrine observable as more general LOoking upon these words as being the burden of the Psalm and that which the Church and people of God do so often and earnestly beg and intreat again and again no less than three times v. 3 7 19 in this one Psalm thence we observe Doct. 2. Spiritual blessings special Ter repetitur haec precatio ut fieri solet quando animus in invocatione ardet Strigelius peculiar mercies are to be prayed for with all earnestness not onely simply to be asked to be sought but in such a way and after such a manner viz. frequently and fervently often and earnestly again and again with ardency and ut most importunity For thus the Church and people of God seek them here for God to turn them again and cause his face to shine these were Spiritual blessings choice special and peculiar mercies Soul-benefits and they are earnest and importunate for them they beg them once and again and again as if they would not be denied them and as if they were resolv'd not to be put off without them But what are we to understand by Spiritual blessings by special peculiar mercies By these we are to understand in a word such as these here specified and such like as for God to turn us from our sins to himself to take away our iniquities and receive us graciously for him to be our God and for us to be his people and vouchsafe us his favour Spirit grace his accepting grace and his sanctifying and renewing grace pardon of sin and power against sin the blessings of the Covenant the sure mercies of David such as we find recorded in these and the like places Jer. 31. 33 34. 32. 38 39 40. Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 c. Micah 7. 19. c. And such blessings such mercies are thus to be prayed for thus to be sought R. 1. Because God thus commands us to seek them and unless we thus seek them we do not seek them as he enjoyns Psal 105. 4. Seek the Lord and his strength seek his face evermore Math. 6. 33. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness c. first not onely in regard of order of time but earnestness of endevours we are commanded to seek these not onely before other things but more than other things As these must be first so chief and most in our pursuits So Joh 6. 27. Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for the meat which endureth to everlasting life which the son of man shall give unto you for him hath God the father sealed not that we are forbidden to labour for things necessary to this life for that we are and ought to do but the meaning is that we must mainly and chiefly labour for that meat that endures to everlasting life that is for Christ and his benefits those things appointed by God for refreshing and sustaining the soul to eternity So that this is to be understood comparatively rather for the meat c. preferring the one before the other as when it 's said Matth. 9. 13. I will have mercy and not sacrifice he excludes not sacrifice but preferreth mercy So Luke 11. 9. And I say unto you ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you By these expressions Christ enjoyns earnestness and perseverance in prayer for it is not a bare simple repetition of the same thing but a gradation and it is meant of things necessary to salvation and the whole scope of the place is to stir up to earnestness Ask and Scopus est oportere nos constanter orare cum ardore do not onely ask but seek yea and not onely seek but knock Thus when the Lord prescribes unto Aaron and his Sons to bless the children of Israel which was by supplicating his face and favour this they were to implore again and again as in that form Numbers 6. 25. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee v. 26. The Lord lift up his Countenance upon thee and give thee peace R. 2. Because others have thus sought them even with all earnestness as the Church and people of God here and so others elsewhere The Prophet David tels us Psalm 119. 58. he intreated the favour of God but how with his whole heart I intreated thy favour with my whole heart So how often in the same Psalm does he beg of God to quicken him and to teach him his statutes nine or ten times the one and seven or eight times the other So how importunate is he for pardon Psalm 51. 6. according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my trnsgressions v. 2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity clense me from my sin v. 7. Purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me c. v. 9. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities c. And how importunate was Jacob for the
tender affection and earnest desire of her son's welfare more than she could utter or express and therefore she several times repeats the same thing O he was her Son her most dear Son and therefore the Son of her vows the son of many prayers and probably tears * Cùm filium votorum nominet oftendit se non tantùm cum filio de piâ ejus educatione egisse sed Deo sine cujus auxilio irritus fuisset reliquus labor in precibus commendâsse c. Cartwritus in locum O let us pray for ours as Abraham did for his son Ishmael Gen. 17. 18. And Abraham said unto God O that Ishmael might live before thee not onely live but live before thee or live in thy sight live in thy face so it is in the Hebrew that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in conspectu tuo vel in facie tua is in the shinings of thy face in the light of thy countenance i. e. live and enjoy thy love thy favour find grace in thy eyes O that his soul may live that he may live not onely a natural a temporal but a spiritual and eternal life a blessed and happy life the life of grace and a life in thy favour here and then the life of glory hereafter And Abraham was very earnest and sollicitous for this O says he or O if i. e. I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Utinam Quaeso vocula optantis earnestly wish or I beseech thee I earnestly pray and intreat thee it is the voice of one wishing and earnestly desiring a thing O that Ishmael might live before thee And this Abraham speaks 1. not as slighting or rejecting Gods Videtur Abraham risu intercessione suâ pro Ismaele in quem valdè fuit intentus quasi abrupisse Dei orationem quam igitur v. 19. continuat c. promise concerning a son of Sarah as if he had said Having Ishmael I desire no more nor 2. as despairing of the promise as if he had said I should have but little hope if I had not more hope in Ishmael already born than the promised son yet to be born or how is it possible we should have a son at this age and therefore O that Ishmael might live c. It was not I say from hence nor upon these grounds that Abraham thus speaks for when the Lord had made that promise to him it is said v. 17. that Abraham fell upon his face he bowed himself and this he did not onely as expressing reverence Abraham audiens promissionem de semine ex Sarâ orituro eámque firmissimâ fide amplectens toto pectore laetatur haec non esse dubitantis sed certissimae fidei verba Paulus clarè testatur Rom. 4. Chytraeus in Gen. 17. 17. but shewing his thankfulness which was an evidence that he believed and highly valued and heartily embraced what God had promised and whereas it is said he laughed it was not from doubting or staggering at the promise through unbelief Rom. 4. 20. but as admiring the goodness of God in it not as judging it impossible or thinking it a fable but as overjoyed and even amazed at such welcom tidings it was not from distrust in God's power but out of admiration at God's favour And therefore this earnest wish of Abraham as concerning his son Ishmael that he might live in his sight it proceeded from Abraham's dear and fatherly affection toward Ishmael and his earnest desire of his weal so that his affections being suddenly moved with the thought of Ishmael they make him as it were forget other things to beg for him or as if he had said though I cannot well conceive how this should be that at this age I Bonus pater auditâ promissione de filio novo sollicitus est etiam de Ismaelis salute metuens fortè ne totus abjiciatur vitam ei precatur non modò naturalem sed potiùs felicem c. Pareus in locum should have a son yet I believe and gladly embrace the promise but however O that Ishmael might live before thee let not him O Lord be cast off nor be abandoned by thee but let him live in thy favour though I have a promise indeed of another Son yet I pray thee let it be well with this son also bind up his soul in the bundle of life let him live in thy love let him be an heir of grace here and an heir of glory hereafter Thus though Abraham did yeild to the promise yet he thus speaks as being very sollicitous for Ishmael that God would set his eyes In promislâ felicitate fratri conjungatur Junius and his heart upon him for good for the chief good for spiritual good eternal good for thus Interpreters generally carry it Though God promised more seed to him yea that his seed should be as the stars of heaven for number ch 15. 5. yet this does not remove nor take off his affection from one he had already but still his heart and endeared affections are towards him Quasi dicat peto et ejus haberi rationem ne abjiciatur vel pereat Pareus he knew not how to have any one of his abandoned of God but as if he had said Lord take care of him also that he be not cast off or perish Thus the affections and desires of this holy Patriarch were carried forth not in gathering riches or heaping up treasures for his son Affectus hic pii parentis in filium docet praecipuam parentum curam hanc esse debere pro liberis non ut colligant eis thesauros sed ut conservent commendent eos Deo püs precibus c. Pareus but in earnest prayers to God for his eternal good And this blessed example of his we should follow we should imitate so as to be very earnest and importunately sollicitous for the great concerns of our children for spiritual blessings for them special peculiar favours tender mercies bowels of mercy the blessings of the covenant the sure mercies of David that their souls may live that they may live in his sight in his face in the light of his countenance that as he hath granted them life so he would vouchsafe them his favour which is the life of our lives as Job speaks Job 10. 12. that he would turn them again and cause his face to shine on them and so they may be saved we should wrestle with the Lord that he would thus bless them and resolve with Jacob not to let him go till he so bless them and bless them all every one both small and great that so while some are taken Luke 17. 34 35. others may not be left but that those whom one house hath held one heaven may hold and that being all heirs of grace together here they may come to be all heirs of glory together hereafter that so hell may never be the fuller for any of ours for which of ours can we endure to
from him 1. There being no iniquity in him nor ever any injury done unto us by him What iniquity have your fathers Jer. 2. 5. Micah 6. 3. found in me O my people what have I done unto thee wherein have I wearied thee c. 2. There being no want of any good in him so that there is no need to go from him he being all-sufficient hence the Lord reasons the case with David when he had revolted and tels him I did so and so for thee and I gave such and such things to thee and if that had been too little 2 Sam. 12. 7. says the Lord I would moreover have given thee such and such things and wherefore then hast thou despised the commandement of the Lord c. what cause or ground was there for it what hast thou to say or what canst thou alledge So we find that the children of Israel disobeying the voice of the Lord the Angel of the Lord that is the Son of God he pleads with them I have done so and so for you why then Judges 2. 4. have ye done this and there being no true cause nor ground for it they answer with tears for it is said that they lift up their voice and wept 3. Can we mend or better our selves and who would change but for the better But to be sure if we go from God it will be for the worse When many that profest themselves the disciples of Christ went back and Christ said to John 6. 68. the twelve Will ye also go away you know what Simon Peter answered the Lord To whom should we go thou hast the words of eternal life As if he had said Lord where can we mend our selves to whom shall we go to be better This was the Argument that Samuel made use of to keep the people from turning aside to follow the Lord. And turn ye not aside for then should you go after 1 Sam. 12. 21. vain things which cannot profit nor deliver for they are vain It is as if a man for warmth should go from the Sun to the shade or for water from the fountain to the broken cistern or from the spring to the puddle or as if a man for fresh air should leave the open field and sweet refreshing gales in a garden to go to a smoaky cottage But my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit and they Jer. 2. 11. are gone far from me and walked after vanity Will a man leave the pleasant cooling snow of Jer. 18. 14. mount Lebanon for a dry bare rock of of the field or shall the cool flowing waters be forsaken 4. Let 's consider what respect God has for such as abide with him and turn not aside from him Noah was upright in his generation and Gen. 6. 8. walked with God when all flesh had corrupted their way and it is said Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So my servant Caleb because Numb 14. 24 he had another spirit with him and hath followed me fully him will I bring into the Land c. And ye are they says Christ which have continued Luke 22. 28 29. with me in my temptations and I appoint unto you a kingdom c. Rev. 3. 5. 5. What a comfort will this be in the evil day and at the hour of death if we have not turned back from God as it has been to the people of God formerly Ps 44. 17 18 19. Job 23. 11 12. and Is 38. 3. c. 6. The Lord doth not turn away our prayers nor himself nor his mercy from us and why Psal 66. 20. Jer. 32. 40. should we turn away from him yea he hath made an everlasting covenant with us that he will not turn away from us to do us good c. 7. If ever he do turn away from us for a time it is not till we first turn away from him He is first in coming but last in going he is ever with us while we are with him as the Prophet told Asa 2 Chron. 15. 2. but if we forsake him and turn away from him he will turn away from us yea against us as the Church complains Lam. 3. 3. Surely against me is he turned he turneth his hand against me all the day 2. Let us be 1. vigilant and very circumspect else if we be careless negligent and secure we shall be in great danger to miscarry 1 Cor. 10. 12. wherefore let him that thinketh he stands take heed lest he fall None are likelier to fall than such as are most self confident and secure and therefore let us carry a holy jealousie continually over our selves how many caveats have we in Scripture to this purpose Matth. 26. 41. Luke 21. 36. Heb. 3. 12. c. 3. Let us be much in prayer that the Lord would keep us for if he leave us we shall soon Jude 24. leave him Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling c. he alone is able and therefore we must watch and pray both c. 4. Let us remember and urge the Lord with his promise viz. that he will put his fear in our Jer. 32. 40. 3. 19. hearts that we shall not depart from him and that we shall not turn away from him 5. Let us exhort one another daily c. This the Apostle prescribes as a good help to keep us from departing from God Take heed brethren Hebr. 3. 12 13. lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God but exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin and Heb. 10. 25. Not forsaking the assembling of our selves together but exhorting one another c. 6. Let us in the strength of Christ and begging help of God take up strong settled and sincere resolutions of heart to cleave to the Lord and to continue and abide with him who ever turn aside from him as Joshua but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord this that Joshua 24. 15. good man Barnabas exhorted those to that believed and turned to the Lord that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. And when Acts 11. 23. at any time we have or do turn aside as we are very prone to do let us never rest till we return again as these here how earnest are they upon this they thrice importune Turn us again c. O should not a people return to their God the spouse to her husband children to their father The Prodigal as soon as ever he came to himself Luke 15. 17 18. he resolves I will arise and go to my father Turn O back-sliding children saith the Lord Jer. 3. 14. why for I am married unto you And it can never be well with us indeed till we do this he being the rest
and true and proper center and Ps 116. 7. chief good of the Soul Return unto thy rest O my Soul c. he is our utmost and ultimate good so that the soul hath no further to go when once it is come to him but is as the stone when it is come to the earth which is its center But as for all else there is still something beyond them but nothing beyond God and therefore it was well thought of of those that resolved to go and return to their first husband for then Hosea 2. 7. was it better with them than now and if we return to him he hath promised to heal our backslidings Return ye back-sliding children and I Jer. 2 27. will heal your back-slidings pardon the backslidings past and prevent them for the future And who would not say as they behold we come come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Doctr. 3. The Lord is the God of hosts All creatures are as it were his hosts his armies under his power and at his command and absolute dispose to imploy as he pleases as souldiers under their General and the Lord hath his hosts above and his hosts beneath and all at his beck and this is a title often given to God we have it four times in this Psalm yea Zach. 1. 3. thrice in one verse Thus saith the Lord of hosts turn ye unto me saith the Lord of Hosts and I will turn unto you saith the Lord of hosts and it is an attribute that sets forth God's allmighty power soveraignty and greatness Vse 1. Let us then fear him Let all the earth fear him let all the inhabitants of the world stand Psalm 33 8. in awe of him why he is the Lord of hosts The charets of God are twenty thousand even 68. 17. thousands of Angels the Lord is among them c. Who would not fear thee O King of Nations for to thee doth it appertain c. And fear ye not me saith the Lord O thou even thou art Jerem. 10. 7-5 22. to be feared c. Psalm 76. 7. Use 2. Take we heed then how we provoke him we are no match for him Do we provoke 1 Cor. 10. 22. the Lord says the Apostle are we stronger than he can we wage war with him or carry it against him What King says our Saviour going to make war against another King sitteth 〈◊〉 â— 31. not down first and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand c. In the 2 Chron. 14. 9. we ' read there of a very great host an host of a thousand thousand and three hundred charets but how great is God's host whose are all the hosts in heaven and earth and whose charets are twenty thousand c. and therefore Ps 4. 4. stand in awe and sin not provoke him not or if we do let us not stand it out but presently Ezek. 22. 14. submit for can thine heart says God indure or can thy hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee Use 3. See here the way to have the creatures Tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia at peace with us it is to have the Lord whose hosts and armies they are and who is their General at peace with us Use 4. Let his people then trust in him Ps 84. 120. O Lord of Hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee c. Use 5. Let this in their addresses unto him strengthen their faith and incourage their hope as to what they go to him for as it did theirs here O what cannot the Lord God of hosts do and effect for his people c. Use 6. Let this prevail with us all to repent and turn to him because he is the Lord of hosts because of his Almighty power Soveraignty and greatness And this he himself makes use of as Zach. 1. 3. an argument thereunto Therefore say unto them Quod toties repetit Propheta nomen Dei emphaticum est ut scilicet doctrina acriâ—s pungat Calvin thus saith the Lord of hosts turn ye unto me saith the Lord of Hosts and I will turn unto you saith the Lord of Hosts Surely there is much in this to back and enforce this duty that the Lord makes use of it thrice in one verse Shall we not turn when such a God commands who being the Lord of hosts is so able to save us and succour us and do us good if we do repent and turn to him or to punish and destroy us if we do not Lo it is he that formeth the mountains Amos 4. 13. that createth the wind c. the Lord the God of hosts is his name Doctr. 4. The Lord God of hosts is he and he alone that can turn a people again unto himself That can turn them at first and turn them again being turn'd aside and therefore to him and him alone do these here address themselves both for turning those that were never yet turn'd as also for turning of those again Deus converte nos aversi enim sumus à te nisi in convertas non convertemur August in locum that were turned but had gone aside Turn us again O Lord God of hosts Thus they pray as being sensible of their own and others utter disability for to turn them without the Lord and therefore they apply themselves to him conversion being no less than the work of an Allmighty power of an omnipotent God even of him who stretcheth forth the heavens and layeth the foundations of the earth whose name is the Lord God of Hosts He must first turn to us as the Church prays O turn thy self to us again Psalm 60. 1. before we can turn to him he must first turn to us by his grace and powerful operation of his Spirit before we can turn to him by repentance We can easily indeed and of our selves turn away from God we are bent and prone to this and sin and Satan and the world and every vanity can easily do this but the Lord God of hosts can onely turn us again This indeed is the great work and business of us who are Ministers to endeavour this but we can never effect this without the Lord. 2 Kings 6. 27. As that King of Israel answered the woman that cried to him for help if the Lord do not help whence shall I help thee 2 Tim. 2. 25. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance We return and repent but grace power and ability to do it is from God Acts 11. 21. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Paul shewed unto them of Damascus and at all places where he came that they should repent and turn to God but it was God enabled them thereto Acts 26. 20. Hence says
Ephraim Surely after that I was turned I repented and after that I was instructed I smote on my thigh c. Jer. 31. 19. So Lam. 5. 21. Turn thou us unto thee O Lord and we shall be turned c. Use 1. See what folly then it is to procrastinate and put off repentance as if it was in our own power to repent and turn when we pleased whereas it is in God's power alone and therefore as the holy Ghost saith to day if you Heb. â— 7 8. will hear his voice harden not your hearts c. Vse 2. Let this make us the more careful how we turn aside from God because though we of our selves can turn away from him he onely can turn us again to him Use 3. As ever then we would that our selves or ours should be turn'd again let us apply our selves to him as these do here turn us again O Lord God of Hosts I have gone astray says Ps 119. 176. David like a lost sheep seek thy servant c. We can lose our selves but we must have recourse to God to reduce us and fetch us home O Lord I know the way of man is not in himself it is not Jer. 10. 23. in man that walketh to direct his steps and therefore let us cry with Ephraim Turn thou me O Jer. 3. 18. Lord and I shall be turned c. Vse 4. Then when we are turned again see here to whom to ascribe it and to whom to give the praise and glory of it even to the Lord God of hosts It is his work he has done it and none else but he could do it and therefore let him have the glory of it alone Doctr. 5. When the Lord turns a people again to himself he causes his face to shine He manifests his favour and shews himself gracious and propitious for these two are here joyned together Turn us again O Lord God of Hosts cause thy face to shine And this latter may be considered either as the efficient or as that which as an effect follows upon the former or as both So that when the Lord turns a people or a person to himself 1. he does cause his face to shine and 2. when he has turn'd a people again to himself he will cause his face to shine that is he will more and more cause it to shine more and more manifest his favour and to both these I shall speak something briefly 1. He then does cause his face to shine when he turns them again to himself he then remembers them with the favour that he bears Cùm convertit faciem suam Deus ad nos nos respiciâ— tum ad eum convertimur to his people and lifts up upon them the light of his countenance saving conversion being a blessed effect and happy fruit thereof and it being his special favour and grace that puts him upon it I will heal saith the Lord their back-slidings Hosea 14. 4. and whence will he do it what puts him Poenitentia est effectus gratiae fluentis à dilectione Dei in filio Dei fundatâ Pareus in locum upon it his love I will love them freely for his anger is turned away from him We are bid to seek God's face to seek his favour and such have found it and the Lord hath dealt very graciously with them but it is not thus as to the things of the world they in their very quintessence and though in their greatest confluence do not simply of themselves speak God's love and favour no but for all them though in never so great abundance men may be under God's frowns and have none of his favour but hatred and abhorrence for God's heart here does not always go along with his hand God's giving hand and his gracious favourable accepting hand are two distinct things and so is his permissive and his promissive approving Providence Men Ex largitate non ex promisso may have Quails and wrath the daintiest viands and vengeance coin and the curse heap Num. 11. 33. Psalm 33. 7. up wealth and worldly treasures have more than heart could wish and yet be under God's sorest Zach. 1. 15. displeasure I am very sore displeased with the Irâ magnâ irascor heathen that are at ease God's bringing these things abundantly into mens hands is no argument nor intimation of the love of his heart The tabernacles of Robbers prosper and they that Job 12. 6. provoke God are secure into whose hand God bringeth abundantly Ps 73. 12. Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world they increase in riches c. and yet such whom God hates and abhors Psalm 12. 5. But the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth and Psalm 5. 5. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity and God is angry with the wicked every day Ps 7. 11. So that these things are no sign of God's favour neither in any or all of them does his face shine or is the light of his countenance lift up but now saving conversion and God's turning of a man again to himself this ever speaks God's favour and the shine of his face and the lifting up upon him the light of his countenance and though such a one may have but little of these things in his hand this is a sure intimation to him of the love of God's heart and this makes the little though it be never so little that such a one hath better than Boni nunquam in statu malo nam illis vel ipsa mala vertuntur in bonum mali contra nunquam in statu bono quia iis vel ipsa bona vertuntur in malum Gryâ—â—ous the riches of many wicked Ps 37. 16. for better says Solomon is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled Oxe and hatred therewith Prov. 15. 17. And this makes it that it can never be ill with a godly man how little soever he have of these things because he has still God's love and that it can never be well with a wikced man how much soever he has of these things because he has ever God's hatred therewith and the evil things of the one being turn'd into good and the good things of the other being turn'd into evil Ps 25. 10. Rom. 8. 28. Ps 69. 22. Pro. 1. 32. 2. The Lord will cause his face to shine yea more and more to shine on a people or person that he turns again to himself For 1. it is his promise so to do to be gracious and to manifest his favour to such Job 33. 23. If there be a messenger with him an interpreter one of a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness the Hebrew his rectitude that is what is right and straight viz. to repent and turn to God Dutch read it to declare unto man his right duty as indeed conversion and true turning to God it is our duty and it is a right
just and equal duty and it brings us into a right state into a right frame sets us at rights and till then our state is wretched crooked and wrong nothing is at rights for how should things be right with us whiles our hearts and ways are not right with God but when that which is so right is shewn to man and shewn powerfully and effectually so as to embrace and do what is made known and shewn Then it follows v. 26. He shall pray unto God and he will be favourable unto him and he shall see his face with joy c. The Lord is very gracious and of a very kind nature and disposition he has always in himself a rich storehouse of kindness and mercy and then he gives it forth Come and let us return unto the Lord Hosea 6. 1. and then v. 2. we shall live in his fight or in or before his face live and enjoy his love and favour the life of our lives He looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was Job 23. 27 28. right and it profited me not that is if any truely repent what then his life shall see the light he shall live in the light of God's countenance Thus the Lord waits to be gracious he waits for our repentings and turnings to him that he may be gracious and while we retard our repentings and turnings to him we retard his grace and favour from our selves There is indeed a previous preventing grace and favour of God a first shining of God's face and breaking forth of Gratiam qui invenit apud Deum ab eâ primum inventus est quia eam nemo quaerit quem ea prius non quaesierit admiserit Rivet Conditio ad gratiam recipiendam requisita nonponitur in nobis nisi per gratiā praevenientem Pareus the light of his countenance as in the conversion of a sinner which I hinted before when God puts a stop to a poor sinner and gives him to repent and turn to him then is a time of love and then God causes his face to shine when he says to the sinner even in his bloud live but then after this previous preventing favour and grace there is more grace second Acts as it were and renewed manifestations we upon our repenting and turning to God being put into such an estate as in which he owns us and delights in us and is gracious to us How gracious was the Lord to Peter upon his repenting and turning again he was gracious to him before Luke 22. 61. And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter c. and how gracious after Mark 16. 7. tell his disciples and Peter c. And so to Ephraim upon repenting and turning how abundantly did God manifest his grace and favour how lovingly and meltingly and tenderly does he speak of him Jer. 31. 18 19 20. Is Ephraim my dear son c. My bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy on him And so the Prodigal upon his returning how does the father meet him and falls on his neck and kisses him 2. Then that is removed which interposes between us and God's favour and hinders the Luke 15. 17 18 19 20 c. shinings of his face I mean our sins for they and onely they do this Is 59. 2. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you therefore when we are turned again from our sins to God his face must needs shine What should hinder when the clouds are dispell'd and scattered the Sun appears and its light breaks forth Vse 1. Blessed and thrice happy are they then whom the Lord hath turned again to himself for unto them he hath and will more and more be gracious and manifest his favour and cause his face to shine Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causelt to approach to thee c. Ps 65. 4. For he shares in that and partakes of that which is man's happiness and renders him blessed as appears in that form which the Lord prescribes of blessing the children of Israel Numb 6. 22 23 c. and this makes his present state and condition so comfortable one day of a repenting sinner and so of a sinner that is reconciled to God and to whom he vouchsases his favour being more comfortable than a thousand years of another man that is in continual fear of death and judgment Vse 2. As ever then we would make it out indeed to our own souls that we have any clear evidence or comfortable demonstration of God's favour of his love and the light of his countenance let us never rest 'till we find our selves to be indeed such that the Lord hath turn'd again to himself and then he hath and will cause his face to shine David prays Ps 86. 17. Shew me a token for good and here 's a token for good indeed for the chief good the greatest good God's favour which is life yea better than life Saving conversion is ever a sure sign of divine affection and of a work of grace upon the heart of a souls having found favour in God's eyes our being turned unto God clearly evidences his Si conversi fuerimus per poenitentiam ille omnium placatissimus benignissimus convertentes ad se recipiet Musc having in favour turn'd to us and that he will more and more so turn to us And therefore how earnest and sollicitous should we be for that which gives us so clear an evidence and sure demonstration of so great a good even of the favour of God but never let any bear themselves up with what is consistent with God's hatred and with wrath and eternal death as the honours and profits and pleasures of the world are which men may wallow in the fulness of and yet be under divine frowns and which for the most part are cast upon the worst and vilest of men and upon those whom God's soul abhors which made the very heathens contemn them In hoc coenum in has sordes Seneca being cast upon such dunghils But saving conversion is ever an effect of and followed with divine smiles and on such the Lord God of hosts hath and will more and more cause his face to shine CHAP. V. The main chief and principal point of Doctrine observable from the words DOctr 6. The onely way for a people to be saved it is for God to turn them again and cause his face to shine That is as hath been open'd and explain'd for God to convert them from their sins to himself and his ways and to vouchsafe them his favour to be gracious and propitious to them in his son this is the onely way of a peoples weal it consists in their sound conversion to God and in their finding grace and favour with God in their being turn'd again unto him and in his turning unto them as the Lord expresses it Thus saith
Zach. 1. 3. the Lord of Hosts turn ye unto me and I will turn unto you For them to turn to him repentingly and for him to turn to them graciously these two do the work as to their weale they turn all evil away from them and set all good a coming towards them the sanctifying grace of God renewing and his accepting grace graciously receiving the sincerity of a peoples repentance and the serenity of God's countenance the effectual working of God's grace and the favourable shining of his face this is the very way for a people to be saved and this I shall illustrate in several particulars 1. This is the right way the true and proper way for a people to be sav'd It is said of Ezra 8. 21. Ezra that he proclaimed a fast c. to seek of the Lord a right way for them and their little ones and all their substance and here 's that right way indeed for us and ours and others for all for our little ones and all our substance for all we have or enjoy and if the Lord delight in us as Joshua and Caleb said of the Land of Numb 14. 8. Canaan he will bring us into this way which he who is just and right yea the most upright prescribes and surely were we our selves and in our right minds we would betake our selves to this as the onely right way of all our weal and happiness 2. It is a sure soveraign way a prevalent way an effectual way it never fails nor falls short and that let a peoples present state and condition be what it will seem it never so sad and desperate yet if the Lord do but turn them again and cause his face to shine they shall be saved yea they cannot but be saved as these undoubtedly here do promise to themselves 3. It is an experienc'd way a well prov'd and tried way a way that hath many probatum est's upon it for never was there people or person that God did indeed turn to himself and cause his face to shine upon but they were saved Niniveh that great city was within 40 days to have been destroyed But God seeing their works Jonah 3. 3. â—â— that they turn'd from their evil way he repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them and he did it not and although the children of Israel forsaking the Lord and serving other Gods the Lord tels them that he would deliver them no more but bids them go and cry unto the Gods that they had chosen c. yet they Judg. 10. 13 14 15 16. putting away the strange Gods from among them and serving the Lord his soul was grieved for their misery And what an ill case do we find Israel to be in 2 Chron. 15. 3. it is said that for a long season they had been without the true God and without a teaching Priest and without Law and yet v. 4. when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord and sought him he was found of them So God hearing Ephraim to bemoan himself Jer. 31. 18 19 20. 21. and to repent his bowels are troubled for him or earns towards him as the mothers towards her child and now I will surely says the Lord have mercy on him and now he must think of and prepare for his return Set thee up way-marks c. So in Hosea 14. the Lord there bids Israel take with them words and turn Hosea 14. 1 2 to the Lord and say unto him take away all iniquity and receive us graciously and then they resolve so will we render the calves of our lips that is the spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving and such indeed shall have cause for it cannot but be well with them Thus whatever proofs whatever assays have been made in this kind whether formerly or lately they have done they have been found effectual as to a peoples being saved and never was it yet known that ever a people or a person truly turning again unto God and being graciously received of him did miscarry let any produce an instance if they can Look as he being wise in heart and mighty in strength none ever hardned Job 9. 4. themselves against him and prosper'd so he being great in kindness and rich in mercy none ever turn'd to him but were saved 4. This is the way to be saved in mercy so to be saved as to be blest with Salvation as the Lord promises to his people as concerning peace Psalm 29. 11. that he will bless them therewith It is one thing to have peace and salvation and deliverance and mercies and another thing to be blest with them and to have them in mercy and as mercies and this latter is the greater many have these but few are blest with these but when God so saves a people as to turn them again and cause his face to shine then they are sav'd in mercy so as to be blest with their being saved I speak now of temporal salvation then in love to their souls God delivers them as it is said of Hezekiah Is 38. 17. And they are not so saved as afterward to be destroyed as it is said of the people that the Jude 4. Lord sav'd out of the land of Egypt that afterward he destroyed them that believed not 5. This is the way to be sav'd universally and that in a threesold respect 1. which way soever we take or understand being saved For this word saved is very comprehensive and of large extent denoting not onely the privative part of happiness though that most properly as freedom from enemies and evils of all sorts but the positive also as the fruition of all good and hence is it here variously read and rendred we read it we shall be saved others blessed happy or it shall be well with us and all things Servabimur salvi erimus beati verè felices omnia nobis feliciter cedent vivemus regnabimus nec ullo bono destitueemur shall happily succeed to us or we shall be safe and secure and in a good case and condition we shall live and raign and want no good thing And now which way soever we take or understand it or which way soever we read or render it this here reaches and takes in all and all follow upon this God's turning us again and causing his face to shine and when he is pleas'd to do this to vouchsafe these we may write under it what ever we will that tends indeed to our weal and makes for our good 2. This is the way to have all saved Kingdom saved Nation saved Church saved Court saved City saved Countrey saved Towns Families persons our selves ours others our relations our little ones to have bodies saved souls religion lives liberties estates gospel or whatever else is neer or dear to us 3. This is the way to be saved with all manner and kinds of salvation and from all
sorts and kinds of evils whether temporal spiritual or eternal As 1. from our sins from their guilt to have them pardoned and forgiven If my people says the Lord shall humble themselves and pray and 2 Chron. 7. 14. seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I pardon their sins c. and repent ye Acts 3. 19. and be converted that your sins may be blotted out c. 2. From our sufferings miseries and calamities the mischievous fruits and effects of sin Thus the Lord promises upon his peoples turning to him not onely to pardon their sins 2 Chron. 7. 14. but also to heal their land that is remove those judgments which were as the sores and wounds of it So Hos 6. 1. Come say they and let us return unto the Lord and what then why then he that hath torn will heal us and he that hath smitten us will bind us up and v. 2. After two dayes will he revive us c. 3. As from these here so from hell and wrath and eternal death hereafter And hence repentance is said to be Acts 11. 18. 2 Cor. 7. 10. repentance unto life and repentance unto salvation and repent and turn your selves says God from your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine Thus God's turning us again and causing his face to shine it remedies all peoples evils and miseries here and brings to them full salvation hereafter 6. This is the onely way for a people to be saved indeed to be sav'd to purpose and in mercy as you have heard so as in being saved to be blessed and happy and to have it well with them Thus this it is the onely way for a people to be saved and no other way will do or will or can prove soveraign or effectual either for a people or a person either for our selves or the nation no whatever other ways we take or other attempts or experiments we make without this they will all prove but abortive and to no purpose nor avail any thing but we shall perish notwithstanding And this I propose as the onely way in opposition to all worldly carnal ways and means and shifts and devices that men make use of and betake themselves to to save and secure themselves by with neglect of this but in vain and to no purpose do they do it and yet this is that to which men are very prone to run to other means and helps with neglect of this as the Scripture declares and the Lord complains when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound then went Ephraim to the Hosea 5. 13. 7. 11 12 13. Assyrian and sent to King Jareb yet could he not heal you nor cure you of your wound Ephraim also is like a silly Dove without heart that is simple foolish without judgment and understanding why it follows they call to Egypt they go to Assyria to aid and relieve them and neglect the onely way of their help which was to return to the Lord their God and seek him This spake them foolish and silly indeed for what says God When they shall go I will spread my net upon them I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven that is I will blast their projects and designs and make the issue of them to be their own ruine and confusion They thought to mount and soar on high but I will make them come down with a witness and hence says God Wo unto them for they have fled from me destruction unto them for they have transgressed against me that is gone on to rebell against me still in stead of turning unto me And what could betide such but ruine and destruction So in Isaiah 22. how sedulous and exact are the Jews there in their carnal policies and worldly contrivances to secure themselves but with a neglect of God and the true way of their safety which was their return to him And he discovered the covering of Judah Some Is 22. 8 9 10 11. by this Covering understand the city it self whither the people repair'd for shelter others the Temple or Sanctuary and the vain confidence they put therein others their strong holds armories or storehouses where their armes and ammunition were bestowed or what ever else it was wherein their power preparations or provisions for the safeguarding themselves and their city did consist as it follows and thou didst look in that day to the Armour of the house of the Forrest that is as is conceived the Magazine of the Kingdom ye have seen also the breaches of the city of David that they are many and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool And ye have numbred the houses of Jerusalem and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof neither had respect to him that fashioned it long ago Thus as to worldly carnal means and helps they are very sedulous and exact very precise in every punctilio they neither spare for pains nor cost but they neglecting the main which was to repent and turn to God and which God then in a more special manner did call for v. 12. all the other availed them nothing neither did they or could they save or secure them And hence the Lord expostulates the case with them as concerning their folly and vanity therein Jer. 2. 36. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way running for help sometimes to one party one way and sometimes another way or to change thy way that is the way I have prescribed thee and should be thy way as if the Lord had said thou knowest well enough the way of thy weal thy way to be saved and why then doest thou gad up and down to find out new ways and to try other ways why they shall avail thee nothing thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt as thou wast asham'd of Assyria as if the Lord had said they shall all serve thee alike as thou hast been deceiv'd and been befool'd by the one so shalt thou also be by the other yea v. 37. Thou shalt go forth from him and thine hands upon thine head i. e. with sorrow shame and disgrace whereof this was a sign as it is said of Tamar when ravished 2 Sam. 13. 19. by her Brother Amnon that she laid her hand on her head and went on crying for the Lord hath rejected thy confidences that is all thy vain refuges and ways which thou seekest and betakest thy self to out of God's way the Lord hath rejected them or as some despised them scorn'd them and as it were derided them and thy folly in imagining to save and secure thy self by them And thou shalt not prosper in them for Ezek. 24. 12. they are but lies as the Lord tels Jerusalem elsewhere she hath wearied her self with lies that is
Israel saith the Lord and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful saith the Lord and return and I will heal your back-slidings So Turn to the Lord your Joel 2. 13 14. God for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him c. And Let the wicked forsake his way Isaiah 55. 7 8. and the unrighteous his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on Nemo se curandum praebeat qui contemptui non compassioni se medico suo putat futurum him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon for my thoughts are not your thoughts c. And so in many places besides and also in the New Testament the promise of grace and pardon and salvation is propounded as the great motive and means and cause of Repentance i. e. as apprehended and received and how can that be but by faith Repent ye for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand and Repent ye and be converted Matth. 3. 2. 4. 17. that your sins may be blotted out c. And hence true repentance may be thus described that it is An Evangelical or Gospel-saving grace whereby a believing sinner or a sinner upon the apprehension and perswasion of the mercy of Acts 3. 19. God in Christ to such as are penitent so grieves and humbles himself for his sins as that he turns from them to the Lord for where there are nothing but apprehensions of wrath and displeasure there can be no true saving Evangelical conversion 4. It must be such a turning as hath joyn'd with it shame and even confusion of face for what the sinner turns from for what he hath been and done for the sins he hath committed And thus it was with Ephraim when he repented and turn'd to God indeed as himself acknowledges Surely after that I was turned I repented that Jer. 31. 19. is God working in me by a spirit of conversion I also cooperated by and with his grace having a lively sorrow for my sin and a striving after newness of life and now my heart was in another frame and my life in another way then before And after I was instructed saw and understood and consider'd how it was with me what I had been and what I had done I smote upon my thigh I was much moov'd troubled and griev'd and not onely so but I was ashamed yea confounded Thus it was when he was turn'd and repented indeed because says he I did bear the reproach of my youth of those sins and excesses and miscarriages of my youth these much dear'd me and exceedingly sham'd me as they will do others when they come to repent indeed O that sin and Satan and the world and vanity should have the prime and flower of their age and the best and first of their days and that in their very strength and vigour when they were best able to do him service they should do him least nay be unserviceable and serve the Devil and their lusts And what a shameful thing is this and how can the sinner but blush when he comes to be sensible of it Pudor est affectus qui nascitur ob aliquam turpitudinem c. P. Martyr Shame and confusion of face is that which arises from doing shameful things from doing what is unworthy unseemly vile even against common principles so from doing that of which comes no fruit or benefit but hurt rather as also from having hopes frustrated c. and all these fall in with sin What a vile and unworthy thing is it that God should be left for the creature the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that can hold no water that happiness it self should be forsaken for misery all sufficiency for indigency and vanity and the Lord of life and glory for vile lusts and leasing c. There is a natural affection of shame which appears in the countenance by blushing when any thing is done amiss and is to be cherisht especially in young ones so as to be as a bridle to keep off from what is matter of shame so it grow not to excess but then there is a holy and gracious shame which is a concomitant of Repentance and conversion causing trouble and grief and debasing of the soul before God and this hath been still found among true Converts Thus Ezra 9. 6. Ezra I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God c. So the Lord tells Jerusalem Then shalt thou remember thy wayes and be ashamed Ezek. 16. 61. 36. 31. c. And ye shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities c. And this Sancti viri semper dolent erubescunt de admissis peccatis Pet. Martyr hath such an affinity with repentance that it is sometimes put for Repentance What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed that is whereof ye now repent and from which ye are converted for the end of those things is death and therefore well might they be ashamed of such things in which not onely there was no profit but which tended to so much hurt even to their own ruine and destruction And thus it is with all true converts however before they bore themselves up and set a good face on their sins yet now being enlightned and come to themselves and their right minds they are ashamed And if this be to repent and be converted how few Converts are there in these days and how far are such from it who go on in their sins without shame which is an heavy aggravation of them It is best not to do what is matter of shame but having done it not to be ashamed doubles it and it is that the Lord much complains of Thou had'st a whores forehead thou refusedst to he ashamed And Jerem. 3. 3. 6. 15. were they ashamed when they had committed abominatoon nay they were not at all ashamed neither could they blush they would not blush and at length they were so hardened they could not blush This the Lord complains of again Jer. 8. 12. and again in Isaiah 3. 9. The shew of their countenance doth witness against them and they declare their sin as Sodom they hide it not they are bold brazen-fac'd impudent Illum ego periisse dico cui periit pudor Salust they care not who sees or knows their sin they glory even in their shame And this is too too much the guise of England this day which does so much aggravate our sin and augment our guilt and is exceeding sad and bodes exceeding ill Our filthiness as was said of Jerusalem Lament 1. 9. is in our skirts it is not hid but open obvious apparent and I have not found it says the Jerem. 2. 34. Lord by secret search or by digging
first calling and bringing home to God and then there is an after or progressive which is the continuation and going on forward in the first throughout the whole course of our lives and where this after does not succeed the first was never sincere Indeed at our first conversion we are turn'd to God but by our continuing the same we are turn'd more and more till we return to that state in which 2 Cor. 3. 18. we once were and that is not till death and therefore this turning is a continued act and daily exercise all this life And there is indeed matter enough to hold our repentance work all our lives both in regard of the sin of our natures hearts and lives our daily infirmities which as we daily renew so are we to renew our repentance and to persevere and continue therein to the end so as not to turn aside again from God and his ways to the crooked ways of sin nor from the holy commandement for it had 2 Pet. 2. 20. 21 22. been better for such not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy commandement delivered to them and the latter end with them is worse than the beginning Not but that the best Converts have their slips and falls their deviations and wanderings here for in many thins we offend all James 3. 2. Galath 6. 1. and are sometimes overtaken in a fault c. but it is not habitual though they may fall and go astray they get up again and turn into the way the high-way of the upright is to depart from evil A Sheep may fall into the mire but Prov. 16. 17. does not as a Swine wallow therein an ordinary habitual customary turning away or turning aside from God to the crooked ways of sin is inconsistent with true conversion and such as do so God says his soul shall have no pleasure in Hebr. 10. 38. Psal 125. 5. them but he will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity And thus I have now shewn you more particularly what kind and manner of turning that is which is so effectual as to a peoples being saved And now I shall proceed to the second thing I propounded to do which is to give you the Reasons why for God so to turn a people again and cause his face to shine is the onely way of their being sav'd CHAP. VIII The Reasons and Grounds of the point THat for God to turn a people again and cause his face to shine is their onely way to be saved appears R. 1. Because this is the way which the Church and people of God here betake themselves to They earnestly desire to be saved that though it was ill with them at present that yet it might be well with them for the future And what do they do what way do they go what course do they take to effect this why this they do they earnestly intreat again and again that the Lord God of Hosts would turn them again and cause his face to shine Surely had there been any other more effectual way of their weal they would have made use of it but they as inspir'd by God betaking themselves to this and being so importunate for this this must needs be the onely soveraign and most effectual way thereof R. 2. Because this is the way which others also have betaken themselves to as the Church in the very close of the Lamentations Turn thou us Lam. 5. 21. unto thee O Lord say they and we shall be turned renew our dayes as of old that is vouchsafe us thy favour again and so by doing these for us change our present sad condition into that happy state our fathers formerly enjoyed Thus in this way they seek their weal and so elsewhere Turn us O God of our salvation and Psalm 85. 4. 67. 1. cause thine anger towards us to cease and God be merciful to us and bless us but how would they be blest and cause thy face to shine upon us Wherein they plainly allude to the manner of blessing prescrib'd by God himself to Aaron Numb 6. 23. Jerem. 31. 18. So Ephraim Turn thou me c. And thus Moses sought the weal of Israel Psal 90. 13. Return O Lord how long c. and v. 14. O satisfy us dearly with thy mercy that is thy favour thy loving kindness for so the same word is rendered elsewhere as 63. 3. Because Benignitate tuâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy loving kindness is better than life c. that we may rejoyce and be glad all our days and v. 17. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us or loveliness some read the pleasantness or Jucunditas Domini pleasing look that is his amiable favour and grace let the Lord our God love us and delight in us let that beauty be upon us which shines in his favour The face is the seat of beauty and love shining in God's face is his beauty upon us By this expression says Calvin upon the place we may gather how incomparable a thing the love and favour of God is David was often under sore tryals and afflictions and what does he still crave for his succour and relief and that he might be sav'd it was God's favour Psalm 4. 6. 31. 16. 119. 132 135. c. that he would make his face to shine upon him and lift up upon him the light of his countenance R. 3. Because this is the way which the Lord himself who knows best what tends to his peoples weal prescribes and invites them to as the onely soveraign way thereof As in that known place Hos 14. 1 2. which contains in it the very way and platform of a peoples weal and being saved O Israel return unto the Lord Hosea 14. thy God for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity The Lord here minds Israel how ill his iniquities had dealt with him how they had even overthrown him and laid him low made his condition exceeding sad this is all he got by them and yet the Lord would have it well with him again and that it might be so what does he advise him it is to return unto him as Continet haec supplicatio unicam consequendae salutis viam viz. si Deus auferat peccata c. Pareus the fountain of all his happiness and welfare and bids them as it follows v. 2. Take with you words and turn to the Lord say unto him take away all iniquity and receive us graciously c. This the Lord prescribes himself as the onely way of their weal as if the Lord had said It is ill indeed with you at present but if you would have it well with you then do thus and say this turn to the Lord and say unto him and say it not onely with your lips but with the ferventest Non ore tantùm sed intimo cordis
cure If I shut up heaven says the Lord that there be no rain or if I command the Locusts to 2 Chron. 7. 13. devour the Land or if I send pestilence among my people that is whatever judgments I inflict on a people for under these are comprised all other if v. 14. my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves c. So if they shall confess their iniquity c. and their uncircumcised hearts be humbled c. At what instant I shall Levit. 26. 40. Jer. 18. 7 8. speak concerning a nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil I thought to do unto them Is there says the Prophet no balm in Gilead is there no Physician Jer. 8. 22. there Gilead was a place where there was plenty of Balm and it was famous for the soveraignest Balsams for from thence they were wont to be transported into other countreys and there were also store of skilful Physicians and therefore it was strange and matter of wonder indeed that Balm and Physicians should fail and not be had there But admit there should be no Balm no not in Gilead yet is there Balm with God and that all Physicians fail on earth yet is there a Physician in heaven who whatever are a peoples maladies if he do but undertake the cure will be sure to bring remedy Psalm 60. 11. 68. 20. who gives help from trouble when vain is the help of man and unto whom belong the issues from death For we have no might against this great 2 Chr. 20. 12. company that cometh against us neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee who yet canst help us and save us from above though no help nor way of salvation appears from beneath Thus there is a way for a people to be saved whatever is their case and truly this is a great mercy and that the Lord is pleased also to point a people to it when their case hath been exceeding deplorable and seem'd almost desperate as Joel 2. in the first chapter and the former part of the second what sore and terrible judgments had God threatned and yet v. 12. Therefore also now saith the Lord turn ye even to me c. So Return thou back-sliding Israel saith Hos 14. 1. the Lord c. Who says the Lord would set the briars and thorns against me in battel I would Jer. 3. 12. go through them I would burn them together Or let him take hold of my strength that he may Isa 27. 4 5. make peace with me and he shall make peace with me How desperate seemed Ninivehs condition Jonah 3. 4. yet forty days and Niniveh shall be destroyed and yet there was a remedy and they betaking themselves to it are saved And as it is with people so with a particular person and as in regard of their miseries so their iniquities as Shechaniah said We have trespassed against our God and have taken strange wives of the people of the Land directly against God's express Law Dent. 7. 3. yet now there is hope in Israel Ezra 102. concerning this thing our case is not desperate but we may yet be brought to repentance and pardoned Behold thou art wroth for we have sinned in these is continuance that is in those Isa 64. 5. ways of grace and mercy thou art still the same and if thou pleasest thus still to shew and manifest thy self we shall be saved So wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings c. Isai 1. 16 18. and then Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord though your sins be as Scarlet they shall be as white as Snow though they be red like Crimson they shall be as Wool These were the deepest Dies implying whatever their sins were though never so great yet upon their repentance they should be graciously and fully pardoned Let Israel hope in the Lord for with Ps 130. 7. the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities There is a way for the wicked and most unrighteous man to be saved which the Lord calls and invites him to Let the wicked Isaiah 55. 7. forsake his way and the unrighteous man his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et vir iniquitatis thoughts Hebr. The man of iniquity or made up as it were of iniquity or the man of wrong or vexation as some render it one word signifies both that hath so much wrong'd not onely his own soul but God vexed his holy and good Spirit yet there is a way for such a one to be saved Let him but forsake his way and his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Hebr. he will multiply to pardon So that his pardons shall infinitely exceed his sins there shall be pardons and to spare as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superabundavit plus quà m abundavit supermultiplicata est Paul expresses it 1 Tim. 1. 14. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant or redundant superabundant more than enough or as it were overfull enough and to spare it abounded to flowing over as the Sea doth above Mole-hills And because we are ready to be measuring God by our selves and to think this cannot be done because we cannot do it we cannot our selves pass by so many and great provocations and therefore how should God hence God foreseeing our low conceits of him he answers v. 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord v. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts 2. If this be the onely way for a people to be saved this lets us see in what an unlikely way and posture we of this Nation are at this day to be saved And O that we had hearts to bewail it I am sure we have cause even to have rivers of waters to run down our eyes as they did Ps 119. 136. Jer. 9. 1. Davids and to wish with the Prophet Jeremy Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night c. and to say as the Prophet Isaiah Isa 22. 4. Look away from me I will weep bitterly labour not to comfort me c. For are we turned again to the Lord or do we turn from our sins Surely as to the generality of people amongst us nothing less no nor yet though God hath inflicted upon us so many sore and heavy judgments such as scarce have been heard of nor have been in our days nor in our fathers days before us
31. 23. God was a terrour to me and by reason of his highness I could not endure So for God to frown or hide his face from a people or a person and set it against them must needs be the way for a people to be destroyed and to have it ill with them and to be miserable as the Scripture abundantly evidences For we are Psal 90. 7 11. consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble Job 34. 29. and when he hideth his face who then can behold him whether it be against a Nation or against a man onely The Lord said I will hide my face from them I will see what their end shall be O Deut. 32 20. how sad how dismal must their end be that the Lord hides his face from and that his soul has no pleasure in Surely the world is not so sad without the Sun the earth without rain the body without the soul as the soul without God and his favour and as all mercies then go so all judgments then break in I will set my face against them they shall go out from one fire and Ezek. 15. 7. another fire shall devour them c. And I will Deut. 31. 17. hide my face from them and they shall be devoured and many evils and troubles shall befall them c. 4. If this be the only way for a people to be saved and everlastingly saved then are there but few which are like to be saved why because there are but few who are turned again and on whom God causes his face to shine but are rather under his frowns and displeasure And 1 Joh. 5. 19. we know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness that is the most and greatest part of the world the whole unregenerate world lieth in wickedness is not turned from it but continues in it and is under the power and command of it and set upon it and so like to perish for ever in it Thus the greatest part of the world is in a perishing condition because they persist in sin Many walk says the Apostle but they so walked as that he could not tell of them without weeping for in stead of turning to God they made their belly their God and in Phil. 3. 18 19. stead of turning from that which was matter of shame they rather gloried in it and what could the end of such be but destruction And this is like to be the end of most because they turn not to God nor his ways from which they have turn'd aside and gone astray The Lord looked Psalm 14. 2. down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God for these are they and onely they that God regards and looks after But what report does God give of the matter it follows v. 3. They are all gone aside or turn'd away from God and his ways gone out of the way of holiness and happiness they are altogether become filthy there is none that doth good no not one that is very few none by nature and few are brought to do it by grace My people are bent Hos 11. 7. to back-sliding from me though they called them to the most high none at all would exalt him They who the Prophets for this is their great Subintelligendum est Prophetae Zanch. work to call people to the most high to seek and turn and conform to him to devote themselves to him whom yet he being so high and glorious in himself hath no need of but sends his Prophets to do this for their own advantage viz. that coming of from such poor mean low and base things they should come to him who is the most high but yet though they called them to the most High and that with greatest importunity and upon every opportunity yet none at all would exalt him or but very few Non aspirant ad Deum hoc sit uno consensu quasiomnes conspirassent in unâ â— eâdem malitiâ Calv in locum none in comparison and so most people though God be the most High yet in not turning to him nor seeking of him they do not exalt him but rather debase him preferring mean and contemptible things before him to which turning away and turning aside from him they betake themselves to The wicked through the pride of Psal â—0 4. his countenance will not seek after God God is not in all his thoughts He will seek after vanity and leasing and so exalt these but not after God There be many that say who will shew us 4. 6. any good but few mind or regard or look after the chief good God and his favour and the light of his countenance none saith where is Job 35. 10. God my maker c. They hold fast deceit they Jerem. 8. 5 6. refuse to return I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright no man repented him of his wickedness saying what have I done every one turned to his course as the horse rusheth into the battel Thus most people live in a neglect of God they refuse to turn to him or to seek him or his face and so most are like to perish and be destroyed for ever 5. If this be the onely way for a people to be saved this then gives us to see the true reason and ground why the Lord is so exceeding earnest and intent upon this and does so often and earnestly call and invite people to this and press upon them this that they would turn again unto him and seek him and his face and favour Why it is because this is the very way and the onely way for them to be saved and is not there then good cause for it that he should be so earnest as the Scripture indeed every where declares him to be O how often does the Lord there call upon people to turn unto him and to seek him and his face Yet return again unto me Jer. 3. 1. v. 12. 14. saith the Lord and return thou back-fliding Israel and Turn O back sliding Children c. So I have sent also unto you all my servants the Jer. 35. 15. Prophets rising up early and sending them saying Return ye now every man from his evill way c. And Thus saith the Lord to the house of Amos 5. 4 6. Is 55. 6. Israel seek ye me and ye shall live and seek the Lord and ye shall live and seek ye the Lord while he may be found c. And seek the Lord Psalm 105. 4. and his strength seek his face evermore c. And so I might give you multitudes of places more which let us see how earnest and intent the Lord is upon this and it is because this is
the onely way for people to be saved to be blessed and happy and have it well with them and because else they perish and are ruined and undone and it will certainly be ill with them for ever And hence it is that the Lord makes use of such pathetical and affectionate expressions Say unto them as I live saith the Lord I have Ezek. 33. 11. no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye dye O house of Israel How vehemently does the Lord here expostulate and press this upon them Turn ye turn ye which denotes the height and vehemency of his affection and desire how much his heart was upon it and is there not good reason for all this why they dye and are undone and perish else for why will ye dye life and death are in these things in turning or not turning to God as life is the happy effect of the one so death and damnation is the fruit of the other And is it any wonder the Lord is then so earnest and importunate when our weal or our woe when it being well or ill with us when our happiness or our misery our being saved or eternally destroyed depends upon this And hence the Lord is not content to speak it once but speaks it again calls for it twice because it was of such absolute and indispensable necessity and not a small matter nor a business of indifferency And what infinite cause have we then to bless the Lord that he should be so intent upon this so frequently and earnestly invite us to this again and again wherein our own good is so much concerned and which is of such indispensable necessity that we cannot otherwise but perish and what can we indeed do better or wherein can we be more happy than in turning to him 6. This informs us and gives us to see whence it is that God's Prophets formerly and his Ministers alate have been and still are so frequent and earnest in preaching and pressing of this why is it because so much depends on this because they know it cannot else be well with them neither can they be saved or be happy nay they know it cannot else but be ill with them and they must else perish and be undone for ever and therefore have they and do they still so much urge and press this not onely speak but cry Be ye not as your fathers unto whom Zach. 1. 4. the former Prophets have cried thus saith the Lord of hosts turn ye from your evil ways and from your evil doings c. They do not onely call but cry yea cry out proclaim so as the rather to be heard and more to be heeded they were zealous and earnest therein why because the matter was of such importance and the danger was so great if they did not hearken And hence is it that Ministers still are so pressing and importunate as to this they pray and beseech yea and if ye will not hear saith the Prophet Jeremy Jerem. 13. 7. My soul shall mourn in secret for you and mine eyes weep sore and run down with tears c. The voice of one crying in the wilderness c. Luke 3. 4. Thus the Prophets and the Apostles cryed and Jesus Christ himself he cryed John 7. 37. In the last day that great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried saying if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink O for poor sinners to come to Christ to believe on him and repent and turn to the Lord is a matter of great consequence of infinite importance not a thing of indifferency but of absolute necessity and hence Jesus Christ is so earnest and intent upon this as appears by his posture he stood up by his vehement speaking he cried he spake with a lowd voice which shewed the fervour and ardency of his Spirit So it is said of Paul that great Apostle that he shewed first unto them of Damascus and Acts 26. 20. at Jerusalem and through all the Coasts of Judea and then to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God c. It was Paul's great work and main business to have it well with all he came among his hearts desire was that they might be saved and therefore was he so intent upon this where ever he came that they might repent and turn to God as the onely soveraign way of it and as knowing it could not else be well with them Hence it was that that holy Martyr Mr. Bradford when he came to the stake cryed out so earnestly and affectionately O England England repent of thy sins repent of thy sins he knew it was the onely way of Englands weal then as it is now and therefore whatever is the zeal and fervency of God's Ministers herein so as that some it may be may think them besides themselves as some did Paul 2 Cor. 5. 13. yet this being the onely way of their being sav'd and they being else und one this gives sufficient reason and ground thereof 7. This lets us see the reason why the Church and People of God have been so fervent and frequent in their Prayers for this that God would turn them again and cause his face to shine as here in one Psalm they instance it no less than thrice v. 3. v. 7. and v. 19. and can ye blame them or was there not good reason for it when as this was the only way for them to be saved to be happy and to have it well with them and how earnest have others also been as to these as David how often and how exceeding earnestly does he beg that Psalm 119. 58. God would make his face to shine upon him and I entreated thy favour or I have earnestly besought thy face so the Dutch with my whole heart or with all my heart and good cause his very happiness and felicity consisting thereon and flowing therefrom c. Poenitentia Angelorū delectatio hilacritas gaudent societati suae restitutos esse quos in tenebris inferni ac Satanae potestate constitutos viderant Gerhard 8. This lets us see whence it is that there hath been and is still such great joy when a sinner turns to God and that both in heaven and earth as the Scripture declares Luk. 15. 7. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth c. and v. 10. Likewise I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth c. the repenting and turning though but of one sinner makes all heaven merry as it Heus tu peccator bono animo sis vides ubi de tuo gaudetur c. Tertull were it causes joy all heaven over it puts harps as it were into the Angels hands and songs into their mouths c.
deem them why because Singulare beneficium cruce quasi spinis occludi viam peccandi God makes use of them many times to further and help forward this blessed turn and this being the onely way for sinners to be saved and to have it well with them this speaks well of afflictions Thus Manasseh who was so grievous a 2 Chron. 33. 12. sinner yet being in affliction he sought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly c. and Luk. 15. â—7 18. when the prodigal suffered hardship and was ready to perish with hunger then he resolv'd to arise and go to his father and when God hedged up Israel's way with thorns sent troubles and Hosea 2. 6 7. distresses upon them then she resolves to go and return to her first husband not as if they effected this of themselves but by the Spirits working in them and by them But whiles sinners live in jollity and prosperity and have no troubles nor changes they never think of changing their way nor returning to God and thus the prosperity of fools destroys them whereas adversity might be Prov. 1. 32. a means to save them but by the other they are hardened and encouraged to go on still in a course of sin without returning Because sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed Eccles 8. 11. Psalm 73. 5 6. 50 21. therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil They are not in trouble as other men therefore pride compasses them about c. These things hast thou done and I kept silence Psal â—0 21. thou thoughtest I was such a one altogether as thy self So Thou art wearied in the Is 57. 10. See also Ps 55. 19. Jer. 5. 28. 22. 21. c. greatness of thy way yet saidst thou not there is no hope and why thou hast found the life of thine hand therefore thou wast not grieved that is thou hast found comfort by the Assyrians and they promise to strengthen thy hand with help and therefore thou art incouraged to go on still in thy way and therefore 't is a great mercy to such for God to afflict them and give them trouble and grief that so the ways of sin may be wearisome and troublesome and so they may think of returning from them when in some measure they feel the weight and burden of them and happy affliction that works to conversion happy troubles that further a sinner's peace by furthering his turning to God and putting a stop to him in his sins that cause sinners to seek the Lord whom before they forgot and lived without And how may this help to sweeten and alleviate the bitterness of afflictions and though bitter yet render them better than the sweetest pleasures of sin Blessed is the man whom thou châ—stenest O Lord and Ps 94. 12. teachest him out of thy Law c. Blessed blacks that are a means to turn us white and happy darks that are a means to turn us to light But 2 Chron. 15. 4 Is 26. 16. when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord c. Lord in trouble have they visited thee c. In their affliction they will seek â—e verly c. Hos 5. 15. But while sinners go in 〈◊〉 their greatest affliction and punishment is not to 〈◊〉 afflicted their greatest crosâ— and 〈…〉 crost for such are like to go on still in their sins And thus that which many sinners count their greatest felicity to prosper and be without trouble and affliction in their evil ways they go on in it is their greatest misery and that which they count their greatest priviledg is their greatest plague and proves their greatest detriment there being nothing sadder than a sinner prospering in an evil course and God not afflicting him and thus the Lord threatens it I will not punish your daughters when they commit Hos 4. 14. whoredom nor your spouses when they commit adultery c. And this is the greatest punishment the forest wrath the highest displeasure the furnace is heated here seven times hotter than ordinary for such are like to go on to commit whoredome and adultery still God withholding those punishments whereby they might be restrain'd and letting them go on without controule to their own utter confusion and destruction not taking any more pains with them by corrections to restrain their courses in sin but letting them go on still in the full career of their lusts and be as vile as they will and this is the heaviest judgment and argues the hottest displeasure it is next door to hell and such are within one step of being as miserable as they Vis indignantis Dèi terribilem vocem audire c. Orig. can be Wilt thou says one hear the terrible voice of a provoked God hear it here I will not punish c. So v. 17. and Matth. 15. 15. Bernard calls it a mercy more cruel than all Misericordia omni indignatione crudelior indignation a killing courtesie a cut-throat kindness yet how many are ready to bless themselves and think it a fine world to go on in their own ways without trouble whereas there cannot a greater plague befall them which made Luther cry strike Lord strike spare not and Feri Domine feri c. Jeremiah 10. 24. O Lord correct me but with judgment c. And this makes afflictions a great priviledge a choice mercy when they further our repentance and make us change our purpose and resolve to turn to God CHAP. X. The second Vse of the point in general by way of Exhortation and first to seek this by Prayer THE onely way for a people to be saved Use 2. of Exhortation is it for God to turn them again and cause his face to shine O as ever then we would be saved saved our selves or have others saved ours saved the Kingdom saved Church saved City countrey towns families friends relations little ones bodies souls religion lives liberties estates Gospel or whatever else is near or dear to us and as ever we would be sav'd indeed sav'd to purpose sav'd in mercy so as to be blessed and happy in being sav'd and have it well with us and all happily succeed to us here and be everlastingly saved hereafter let us all in the name and fear of God be exhorted excited and stirred up to seek this beseech this earnestly to intreat and importune this O that the Lord God of hosts would turn us again and cause his face to shine let this be our frequent and our fervent our often and our earnest prayer unto him and let us continue thus praying asking seeking begging beseeching intreating importuning knocking 'till the Lord is pleased to give us a gracious answer let us resolve with Jacob not to let him go except he thus bless us for nothing can avail us as to our happiness as to our weal as to the having
it well with us without this try we what other ways or courses we will or can without this they will signifie nothing Our felicity or our misery our safety or our peril our weal or our woe our having it well with us or our having it ill with us in a word life or death the blessing or the curse our being saved or our being utterly destroyed it depends upon this on our being turned or not turned again unto the Lord and on his favour or frowns on his love and grace and good will or anger and displeasure upon his causing his face to shine or hiding of the same and not on other things though we are ready to think otherwise and strangely therein to mistake If think we times would but turn things were but so and so O we should be a happy people but let times and things turn which way they will let them turn as we think never so much for the better yet if we be not turned again our selves and God does not cause his face to shine if he yet shall say his soul has no pleasure in us O woe unto us we are yet a miserable and an undone people but let the Lord but do this which the Church here so earnestly craves turn us again to himself and cause his face to shine and then let our condition be what it will seem outwardly never so calamitous we cannot but be happy But otherwise let it seem never so prosperous we cannot but be miserable For to be saved from our calamities and not to be turned from our iniquities to be saved from our afflictions and not from our transgressions from our sufferings and not from our sins what is it but to be saved so as afterward to be destroyed and that with a sorer destruction as it is said of the people that the Lord saved out of Jude 5. the Land of Egypt that he afterward destroyed them that believed not And hence when the Psalmist speaks of the Lords redeeming Israel in mercy he expresseth it thus And he shall Psal 130. 8. redeem Israel from all his iniquities And therefore let us be intent and earnestly bent upon this and importunate for this Let us humbly and earnestly supplicate this Turn thou Lam. 5. 21. us unto thee O Lord and we shall be turned renew our days as of old that is vouchsafe to us thy favour And turn thou me and I shall be Jer. 31. 19. turned and let our hearts eccho back to God as Davids did When thou saidst seek ye my face Psal 27. 8. my heart said unto thee Thy face Lord will I seek And thus in this sense let not the Lord say Seek ye me in vain but let us answer his invitation O seek we the Lord and his strength seek we his face evermore and intreat we his favour with our whole hearts Let the Lord hear us and find us as frequent and as fervent as often and as earnest as vehement and as importunate as the Church and people of God here who thrice here as I have said in one Psalme make this their humble and earnest suit v. 3. Turn us again O God and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved and v. 7. Turn us again O God of hosts and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved and again v. 19. Turn us again O Lord God of Hosts cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved And the more to put us upon this earnestly and importunately to seek these let us consider these several particulars As 1. That this is that the Lord invites us unto and that often to seek him and his face and that he would take away our iniquities and turn us from our sins and when and where God invites and commands shall not we obey And surely if we look about us it is high time Hos 10. 12. to seek the Lord and to stir up our selves to take hold of him now that he seems as it were to be going from us How readily and cheerfully did David answer God's invitation when thou saidst seek ye my face that is my favour my grace for favour appears and shines in the face my gracious benign presence my heart said unto thee thy face Lord will I seek he eyes God's command looks to that and presently yeilds and complies thy face Lord will I seek as if he had said whatever others seek let them seek what they will the face and favour of others but as for me this is that I am resolved to seek and this shall be in stead of all to me thou and thy favour and herein I freely and willingly comply with thy command and so should we as those to whom God had said Return ye backsliding Jer. 3. 22. children and I will heal your back-slidings Behold we come unto thee or behold here are we so the Dutch for thou art the Lord our God 2. Let us consider what great goodness kindness and gracious condescention it is in the great God that he should invite us to seek these and in inviting us to seek them should shew himself so willing and ready to discover himself and to communicate them to diffuse his grace and goodness unto us yea such goodness the chief good Seek ye me and seek my face as if the Lord should say I am for ever blessed my self and I would have you so too I am my own happiness and I would be yours too which none else nor any thing else can ever be I am happy and I desire to impart happiness to you also to shine upon you Seek ye my face that I may impart that to you for your felicity that is my own What kindness is this that God should be thus willing to bestow good yea the chief good to vouchsafe his favour yea more willing to vouchsafe it then we are for to ask it so willing as that he becomes a Suitor to us for to seek it he seeks us to seek him Heaven becomes a suitor to Earth the Creatour to the Creature he knows our happiness is out of our selves and wholly and onely in him and his favour the spring and fountain of all good and therefore puts us upon this 3. Let us consider that the Lord does this it is not for any need that he has of us but because of that need which we have of him not as if his happiness could in the least be impaired without us but because we cannot be happy without him How should all-sufficiency it self be under any want or indigency he who is himself all and every thing and has every thing bee in want of any thing Whatsoever says he is under the whole heaven is mine yea whatsoever Job 41. 11. is in heaven for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine thine is the kingdom c. neither 1 Chron. 29. 11. needs he any thing seeing he giveth to all
life and breath and all things or if it could be Acts 17. 25. supposed that he should want any thing which yet cannot be no ten thousand times sooner may darkness be in the Sun drought in the Sea than any defect in God but suppose such a thing what supply could the fountain have from the cistern yea a broken cistern the Sea from a drop the Sun from a candle the fruitful field from the barren heath the pleasant garden from the wast wilderness all-sufficiency from indigency he who is all from such who are nothing less than nothing and vanity a whole Jsa 40. 17. world of them and yet though he hath no need at all of us that he yet meerly out of that respect he hath to our good should call upon us and invite us to seek so great things so choice mercies the transcendent excellency and indispensable necessity of which might command our seeking of them and that with all earnestness what kindness is this that God should say seek ye me seek ye my face why what can we seek better or that is more what makes heaven but this surely there 's nothing there in comparison nor in competition with this God's face his special gracious benign presence it is the heaven of heaven 4. That the great God should not onely invite us to seek these but that he should as it were indent and covenant and make as it were a contract with us if we will seek them make such and such promises to us and tell us he will do so and so for us if we will seek them yea and upon seeking of them think himself as it were obliged to us though things in themselves so excellent and of such infinite importance and of such indispensable necessity as Seek ye me and ye Amos 5. 4 6. shall live and seek the Lord and ye shall live I will save you alive I will give you your lives Ps 30. 5. 63. 3. for a prey why the Lord's favour is life yea better than life and yet says God seek ye me and ye shall live so seek ye the Lord c. it may Zepli 2. 3. be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger and if my people which are called by my name 2. Chron. 7. 14. shall humble themselves and pray and seek my Facies pro gratia quae in vultûs serenitate ad aliquem conversione cernitur face c. then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land if ye seek my face and seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Now let Heaven and Earth Angels Matth. 6. 33. and men be astonished and stand amazed at this at this way and manner of God that he ☜ should thus as it were indent and covenant to seek such good how well may we cry out as David does in another case and is this the manner of men O Lord God do they use thus to 2 Sam. 7. 19. do or deal no so admirable is thy grace and goodness herein as it altogether exceeds man's way and manner of practice and it is peculiar to thy self alone Great ones do not use to invite and sue unto mean ones to beg great matters of them much less will they engage or covenant or make promises to them if they will seek great things no their way and manner is quite contrary A poor creature may if he beg get it may be some small matter of them but if he ask any great matter he is sent empty away this is not the way to speed but to be denied and have nothing when a poor creature begs a penny will they say ask a shilling or if he beg a shilling will they say ask twenty or if he ask twenty will they say ask as many pounds and you shall then have both no never was any such thing found among men this is onely the way and manner of God which therefore let us for ever admire and adore and withall readily and heartily imbrace and comply with for as David said in another case And what can David 2 Sam. 7. 20. say more unto thee so what can poor creatures say more to thee what can they ask or desire more that thou shouldest give them than that thou puttest them upon asking and seeking And it is that which should very much humble us that though the face and favour of God be that which is our very happiness and felicity and our chief good more than a Kingdom than a world yea many worlds were they extant yea more than heaven or earth too yet that we even we who profess our selves to be ☜ the people of God and are called by his name should be so backward for to seek it and that we should need to be bid yea to be conditioned and indented with for to seek it as you have heard O what strange kind of creatures are we and how woefully degenerate Are people backward to seek the Ruler's face or to intreat the Princes favour to seek the friendship of great ones no Solomon tells us Many Prov. 29. 26. 19. 6. seek the Ruler's favour Hebr. the face of the Ruler and Many will intreat the favour of Hoc Proyerbio inertia nostra insigniter coarguitur ut Deum principum principem non precamur c. Cartwright the Prince c. and are we backward to seek the face and favour of the great God are people backward to seek and desire life no Satan in that said truely skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his life and what man is he that desireth life c. Austin brings in all sorts saying I do and I do and I do all Job 2 4. Ps 34. 12. Ego ego c. Ps 30. 5. 63. 3. desire life Why the favour of God is life yea better than life and yet we no more desire it so backward to seek it how should it humble us and stir us up the more to seek it for the future and if this be the will and command Ps 40. 8. and counsel of God let us say with David I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy law this thy law is within my heart I do readily and heartily reverence it embrace it and yeild to it and I will bless the Lord who hath given me this counsel and is this that Lord which thou wouldest have me to do Lord I will do it and thou shalt not say to me do this in vain There be many that say who will shew us any good they are for any good and who will shew us no matter who if any and but shew it we will procure it we will work it out with our own wits let us alone for that we have wit enough to compass it but Lord lift thou up upon us the
light of thy countenance let us but enjoy that Psal 4. 6. good and that shall be in stead of all thy favour Lord thy face one good look from thee one smile from thy countenance vouchsafe us but this and for other things do what seems good to thee we leave them to thy wisdom to dispose as thou pleasest 5. The more to excite us to supplicate these let us consider he onely can effect these and vouchsafe these 1. He onely can turn us again to himself as was hinted before This is God's work the work of no less than an almighty power an omnipotent arme we can easily indeed and of our selves turn aside and turn away from God but it is onely the Lord God of Hosts that can reduce us the arme of Jehovah himself must be revealed to effect this who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Isa 53. 1. Lord revealed The Lord himself must speak and that with a strong hand so to instruct us as not to walk any longer as we have done or as others do as the Prophet Isaiah expresses it For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand or Isa 8. 11. as it is in the Hebr. in or with strength of hand In fortitudine manûs which denotes the strong and powerful operation of the holy Ghost in the Prophet and some others together with him and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people that is that I with others of the godly Jews should not follow the manners and practices of the greater sort of that people and it must be the Lord 's speaking his instructing and that with strength of hand that must effect this else all our speaking and preaching be it never so earnest and often is but with a weak hand and ineffectual and people will walk and go on still as they did we may tell people they should profit or declare to them what is profitable but it is the Lord God onely which can teach them to profit or what is profitable that is effectually So we may shew them the way they should go but the Lord God only can lead them in the way they should go I am the Lord thy God which teacheth Isa 48. 17. thee to profit or what is profitable as the Dutch read it which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go Every one therefore says Joh. 6. 45. Christ that hath heard and learned of the father cometh to me and so by me to him This is never done indeed 'till God does it and therefore how earnest should we be in our addresses to him that he would do it for Ministers can not do it nor can we our selves do it unless the Lord comes in with his help Acts 16. 9. It is there said a vision appeared to Paul in the night there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying come over into Macedonia and help us our great work and business is to help people to help them in the main in their chiefest and greatest concerns to help their souls to help them as to God to turn them to him to further their being brought home to him and their being reconcil'd unto him but our help will signifie little unless the Lord help as the King said to that woman unless the Lord help how should 2 King 6. 26 27. I help 2. He alone can cause his face to shine we can indeed cause it to frown but he alone must make it smile We can raise those mists and clouds which obscure and hide his face and interpose between us and him and his favour but he alone can scatter and dispell them your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you Isa 59. 2. c. that is have caused him to hide his face from you you have done this but I onely can and must do the other viz. remove that which separates and discover my face and display my favour you can procure my displeasure but I onely must manifest my love you can erect a partition-wall between me and you but I onely can throw it down O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help Ephraim by Hos 13. 9. the iniquity of his covetousness could cause God Is 57. 17 18. to hide himself and to be wrath but God alone could restore comforts to him and to his mourners David he could lose the joy of God's salvation but God onely could restore it I create Psalm 51. 12. Is 57. 29. the fruit of the lips peace peace c. We can marre our peace but God onely can create it and therefore to him we must seek and earnestly sue as the Church here and David and the people of God often elsewhere Lord lift thou up Ps 4. 6. 31. 16. the light of thy countenance upon us make thy face to shine upon thy servant c. 6. As he onely can do these so let us consider how infinitely able he is to do them he being as he is here described the Lord God of Hosts Job 42. 2. I know says Job that thou canst do every thing and that no thought can be withholden from thee that is whatever thou hast purposed and decreed can by no means be hindered or kept from being perform'd Is any thing too hard for the Gen. 18. 14. Lord If any man says Paul be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away and 2 Cor. 5. 17 all things are become new and what follows And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and that was a great work indeed to reconcile heaven and earth yea heaven and hell as it were to reconcile us when we were such desperate enemies to heal a breach that was great like the Sea and which all the creatures in heaven and earth Angels and men could never have effected any thing as to the making of it up and all things are of him who hath done so great things already viz. which concern this new Creation greater than the first all things be they never so many or never so great he can make new heavens and new earth and new hearts and new spirits yea all new and how should we then resolve with David I will cry unto God most high Psal 57. 2. unto God who performeth all things for me and can perform all things for thee be they never so many never so great all things that concern thy weal thy happiness thy soul thy salvation thy conversion and restoring thee into his face and favour here and to eternal felicity hereafter We read often in Scripture of that Phrase and it is very observable of God's commanding such and such things such and such mercies and blessings as of his commanding deliverances for Jacob of his commanding strength of his Psal â—4 4. 68.
28. 133. 3. commanding the blessing even life for evermore We beg and intreat and humbly supplicate these but God he can and does command these he can with speed power and authority send these exhibit these he can command conversion and his loving kindness and the light of his Psalm â—2 8. countenance as the Psalmist expresses it Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the day time and in the night his song shall be wiâ—h me command his loving kindness that is that it come to me and comfort and save me David at this time was in a very sad afflicted condition all thy waves and thy billows says he in the foregoing Viz. ut ad me veniat Pis c. verse are gone over me and that now which he expects and counts upon for his comfort both day and night is the loving kindness of God the favour of God the shining of his face and this says he the Lord will command he will send forth to it a Mandamus or commission as it were to go to him he does not nor need not stand treating about going or intreating it to go but he bids it go lays his charge and command upon it to go go to such a Soul and it goes and come to such a Soul and it comes it obeys him and indeed onely him we may wish it desire it beg it intreat it but he can command it and powerfully and effectually command it so as to do its work It seems to be a phrase taken from Kings and great Commanders in the field whose way is to command such and such things and whose words of command stand for laws So do God's he commands his loving kindness to go and he commands it to act and work to do its work to comfort and cheer and revive and when he commands it to do so it powerfully and effectually does it it giveth songs in the night and causes even in darkness to arise light he commands Mandare benignitatem dicitur Deus cùm facit ut sensus ejus erga nos á nobis percipiatur reipsa experiatur Mell. the sense of his love and the blessed effects and fruits of it upon the Soul The Lord makes that which his Ministers preach for the peace and comfort of his people to be effectual to help their peace and comfort and so creates the fruit of their lips peace It is said of Jacob that all his sons and his daughters rose up to comfort him because of his grief upon his supposing Gen. 37. 35. his son Joseph to be rent in pieces but he refused to be comforted so would deserted souls whatever we preached as making for their comfort did not the Lord command it but the Lord says Go loving-kindness to such a soul to such a drooping heart and cheer and revive it and comfort it and it goes and it acts and does its work and errand it is sent about 7. Let us consider not onely how able but also how willing he is to do these to turn us again and cause his face to shine if we do indeed seek unto him to do them For 1. what mean else those frequent and earnest invitations to seek them those gracious promises of obtaining them if we do indeed seek them as Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find c. and Luke 11. 9. Amos 5. 5. seek ye me and ye shall live c. And 3. why else does the Lord continue still the seasons of grace and means of converting and turning us again to himself and bringing us into his favour And 4. continue still to exercise such patience and long suffering toward us what is the meaning thereof The Apostle Peter tells us it is because he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to Deus expectat conversionem nostram ut revertamur ipsi ad gratiam expectat gemitus sed temporales ut remittat aeternos lachrymas nostras ut profundat pietatem suam Ambr. us ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance 1. He is not slack as if he regarded not what was done here upon the earth but sat in heaven as one of the Idol-Gods Nor 2. as if he was not sensible or laid not to heart men's carriages towards him O he apprehends and is very sensible of the wrong done to him as he often in Scripture expresses it Numb 14. 11. How long will this people provoke me c. Fourty years long was I grieved with this generation c. Behold I am Amos 4. 13. pressed under you as a Cart is pressed that is full of sheaves and Thou hast wearied me with thine Isa 43. 24. iniquities and Because I am broke with their whorish heart and God is angry with the wicked Ezek. 6. 9. every day c. But it is because he is patient and Psalm 7. 11. long suffering which was part of his name which he proclaimed before Moses as his glory Exod. 34. 6. So that men count him slack when he is onely patient and bearing long with sinners not willing that they should perish but come to repentance and therefore vouchsafes them time and gives them space to repent and hence v. 15. account says the Apostle that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation that is that the Lord defers his coming to judgment account of this as that which the Lord does as tending to your salvation and as very serviceable for the furthering thereof in giving you time to repent and turn to him He might have sent you to Hell as soon as ever ye came into the world or cut 〈◊〉 many years since as he hath done many the thousands of others cut you off in your youth while ye were pursuing your youthful lusts but that he hath still born with you and spared you from time to time this is the meaning thereof that he is willing ye should not perish but repent and turn unto him and so recover his favour here and eternal salvation hereafter 8. The more yet to encourage us in our suits notwithstanding our own sinfulness and unworthiness let us in our addresses to God consider that when any are turned again unto the Lord and have his face shine upon them it is from meer free grace and undeserved kindness This and this alone is that which puts him upon it and not any thing in those whom he turns and on whom he causes his face to shine the meer favour of God bestows the first grace and following grace and it is from grace that he exhibits grace and turns any by his grace it is from favour that he vouchsafes favour from meer good will that he manifests good will and from his face that he causes his face to shine and from the light of
onely asleep but dead and yet quickened and not onely dark but darkness it self in the abstract and yet made light in the Lord. If sinners indeed had never heard of any great sinners that God had turned again from their sins to himself or that it was not better with them then than before when they served their lusts they might have the more plea but there are many presidents in sacred Writ and if with mourning and humiliation thou turnest with them thou shalt be happy with them We find in the 15. of Luke that the Prodigal there went a great way off from his father he took his journey not into some neer adjacent parts but into a far countrey and there he spends all makes himself a meer bankrupt so that he falls to feed Swine and feeds on the husks that the Swine did eat and yet could not have his belly full of them neither and yet this Prodigal he is brought to himself and brought home again to his father and there he is kist and embrac'd and has the best his fathers house can afford How exceeding far had Manasseh turn'd away from God yea how exceedingly had he turn'd against him we scarce read of any that ever did worse read 2 Chron. 33. from the 1. v. to the 10. 2 Kings 21. from the 1. v. to the 17. It is said he used inchantments and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards and wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger he made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom c. and yet Manasseh is made a Convert and turn'd again to the Lord the Lord he turns to Manasseh and turns Manasseh again to himself So what a persecutor was Paul he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord c. Acts 9. 1 2. yea as himself says he was exceedingly mad against them Acts 26. 11. and yet this persecutor is turned to be a Preacher and to prosecute what he formerly sought to destroy Mary Magdalene had seven Devils lodging Numerus certus pro incerto in her that is many and yet Jesus Christ casts them all out and makes that heart where so many Devils had lodged fit for himself to lodg in who had the seven Spirits of God and she who had been so vile and miserable he appears Mark 16. 9. first to and makes the first witness of his resurrection And such were some of you what 1 Cor. 6. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haeceratis quilibet such kind of things he does not say such men or women but such kind of things as if the Apostle knew not how to stile them nor what to call them and therefore he puts it in the Neuter Gender such kind of things O they were sad and strange kind of things indeed and yet of such kind of things God makes something of yea makes blessed things of but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God It matters not much whither or from whence we are fallen if the Lord undertake but to raise us nor whither we are wandered or Junius before his conversion is said to be an Atheist but afterward became very pious stiled the Glory of Leyden where we are wilder'd if he undertake but to reduce us nor how far we are turned aside or turned away if he undertake but to turn us again no matter what is the sickness if he be but the Physician and undertakes the cure he can do good of any one be it who it will that is very encouraging to poor sinners which he said to Paul 2 Cor. 12. 7. My grace is sufficient for thee it is sufficient for the greatest of sinners his accepting grace is sufficient and his sanctifying renewing grace is sufficient one is sufficient against all our unworthiness and the other is sufficient against all our uncapableness and unfitness one is sufficient to put God upon doing what is to be done and the other is sufficient for to do it one as to motive the other as to efficacy he can make dry bones live and is Ezek. 37. 5 6 7. Matth. 3. 9. able of stones to raise children to Abraham he can change condition and disposition pardon and purge justifie and sanctifie yea do every thing and perform all things And therefore let all even such as have turn'd farthest aside from God be encouraged to go unto God and to call upon him and cry unto him to perform all things for them for all things are of him and to Psal 57. 2. perform this for them to turn them again and cause his face to shine Say Lord thou commandest us to turn O do thou make us to turn it is thy precept that we should turn Lord according to thy promise give us grace for to turn Turn us and we shall be turned convert us and we shall be converted we have turned aside after the world and vanity and sin yea after Satan but O turn us again to thy self we have turned aside to our own ways and after our own lusts but O turn us again to thee and thy ways thou sayest Return ye back-sliding children and I Jerem. 3. 22. will heal your back slidings and Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God that thou mayest cause us and inable us to return for the way of man is not in himself it is not in man Jer. 10. 23. that walketh to direct his steps turn us therefore and we shall be turned and thou who givest us space to repent give us grace to repent and to turn to thee and that with a true hearty real and universal turn Lord every thing within us is turned from thee and is averse to thee yea is turned against thee and therefore do thou by thy grace cause all to turn again to thee mind will heart affections all within us and all without us that so we may not be half but whole Converts and our conversion may not be partial but total and universal of the whole man and from all evill and to all that is good Salvation is said to belong unto the Lord and his blessing Psal 3. 8. to be upon his people and let us beg that the Lord would thus save us and not onely us our selves but others also ours his people and that this blessing may be upon us all the blessing of turning us all again to himself and of causing his face to shine the blessing of saving conversion and of Divine favour and affection that the Lord would thus save and bless the Nation this Kingdom Church State Cities Towns Families houses hearts even with the great Gospel-blessing of Jesus Christ raised from the Acts 3. 26. dead in turning us all from our sins and iniquities to himself Lord thus bless the house of
Israel and thus bless the house of Aaron yea thus bless us all both small and great Let this blessing O Lord be upon high and low rich and poor mighty and mean upon Prince and people upon Court and City and Countrey upon our Metropolis our chief and Mother-city yea and upon all her Daughters our other Cities and upon the whole Nation yea the three Nations and then shall we be blessed indeed yea Psal 115. 15. the blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth Thus though we cannot turn our selves we may yet pray unto God to turn us and intreat his favour the want whereof as aggravating their sin the Prophet Daniel confesses and bewails All this evill is come upon us yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that Dan. 9. 1◠we might turn from our iniquities c. They could not turn of themselves but they might have prayed to God for grace to turn CHAP. XI The second Branch of Exhortation to adde to our Prayers our Endeavours ANd let us not onely pray but earnestly endeavour after this not onely beseech it but strenuously pursue it and follow after it let us joyn to our prayers our pains and to our desires our labour care and industry setting about it and setting our selves seriously to it and laying out our selves to the utmost for the attaining of it that we may be converted and turn'd again from our sins to God and that he may cause his face to shine on us In all labour says Solomon Prov. 14. 23. there is profit but the talk of the lips tendeth onely to penury that is nothing comes of that As the door turneth upon his hinges so doth 26. 14. the slothful upon his bed that is because of his sloath he is still where he was and hangs where he did comes not off and this is his undoing The desire of the sloathful killeth him for his Prov. 21. 25. hands refuse to labour Many wish well to themselves Immoritur optando nihil operatur non utitur mediis quibus potiri optatis queat c. Remus in locum and they say they do desire grace but refuse to labour and this kills them for grace is not had with wishing If ever we would be savingly converted we must not onely wish and desire it but labour and strive after it we must up and be doing use diligence The want of this the Lord complains of concerning that people as the cause of their ruine They will not frame Hos 5. 4. their doings to turn unto their God c. not so much as set about it nor set themselves to it nor see what they can doe They will not so much as endeavour and bend their course that way Non adjicient studia sua ut convertantur ad Deum suum Video me operam ludere quia mihi negotium est potiùs cum brutis animalibus vel cum saxis quà m cum hominibus c. Calvin in locum nor shew their good will nor make use of these means which tend towards it not do what they can do and might and therefore I do by my Prophets but spend my labour in vain and I have to do as it were but with beasts and stones rather than men Indeed I am their God by profession and I have shewn my self so by the care I have had of them and the many good offices I have done for them and yet though I am their God and the fountain and well-spring of all their good and their happiness is to turn to me yet they will not so much as once frame their doings to turn unto me And this is an heavy aggravation of peoples impenitency and leaves them altogether inexcusable when they will not endeavour nor so much as make use of the means as in reference to so great a concern not do what they might do we are not able indeed to turn our selves no conversion is too great a work and lies beyond our line and we should get a due sense thereof so as to drive us to God for help but yet we may endeavour it and attempt something as in reference to it something we may do but what you will say may we do and what would you have us for to do I shall shew you in several particulars 1. Attend constantly on the ministery of the Word wait still upon God in his ways and in the use of those means he hath instituted appointed and set apart to be instrumental as to that great work of turning you again to himself and of bringing you into favour and recovering again his face Do as those impotent folk they could not indeed heal themselves yea but they could and did lie at the Pool waiting for the moving John 5. 3. of the waters that they might be healed Get there still where Christ walks and where he works as Zacheus he got up into a tree in the Luke 19. 4. way where Christ was to pass and who knows but Christ may look upon thee as he did upon him and it may be a time of love and he may say to thee though in thy bloud live and bring saving conversion salvation home to thy soul It is good being in God's ways how many hath he savingly and graciously met there and his power hath been present to heal them to convert and save them The very work and business that he sends his Ministers about it is as he told Paul when he had converted him from a Persecutor to be a Preacher and as you have heard to open sinners eyes and to turn them from darkness to Acts 26. 18. light and from the power of Satan unto God c. And how many thousands of souls are there who have experienc'd this and for whom it hath been effected by their means and why may it not be effected for thee also The word is called a word of grace a converting word and wait on it for God to make it so to thy soul Of his own will says the Apostle begat he us by the James 1. 18. word of truth and why by the same word may he not beget thee if thou attend upon it God sends his Ministers to help people in this great work And a Vision appeared to Paul in the night Acts 16. 9. there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying come over into Macedonia and help us Now be sure then to be there where he vouchsafeth such help which is the best help and better a thousand times than the having such come that might help you in other matters as in your estates and in matters of the world though it was to compass never so much of it And how sad must their condition then needs be and how inexcusable will they be found at that great day who refuse this help who carelesly neglect or despise the Ministery appointed for so blessed an end how deservedly and
29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 terminus nauticus it drawn in or drawn together rolled up into a narrow scantling as Sails use to be by the Mariner when the Ship draws nigh to the Harbour so much the Greek word imports and therefore you had need without any further delay mind and hasten your great work and having so little time lose no more of it there 's water little enough to run in the right channel and therefore let no more run besides and your time being so short can you find in your heart that God should still have less of it and the Devil and your lusts and your vanities more The Apostle Peter tells us The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the 1 Pet. 4. 3. Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness lusts c. to have gone on in the ways of sin for the least time is here too much it being but lost time and time which sinners imploy to wrong and ruine their own souls in Take our whole time all our days and they are as the Prophet David expresses it but as an hand bredth and our age is as nothing before God our life flies Psal 39. 5. Vita hominis subitò transvolat finis ejus initio ferè est contiguus away and our end is contiguous to our beginning Remember how short my time is wherefore hast thou made all men in vain Truly unless we speedily turn to God and give up our selves to serve him we seem made but in vain our Psal 89. 47. time is so short hence says David God's hands having made him and fashioned him I made hast and delayed not to keep thy commandements Enoch walked with God three hundred Psal 119. 60 years and was it Methuselah's years which where above nine hundred God deserv'd them all and infinitely more but being so few shall we still keep from God more of these few and give them to his and our worst enemies to whom we owe none at all and if God have any shall he have none but the worst the bran the carkass the lame infirm service of old age Offer it now Mal. 1. 7. unto thy Governour Some are indeed called at the eleventh hour but how quickly is it then night and how little service is God then like to have The Devil because his time is short he hastens the more to do mischief and wilt not thou to further thy own souls weal Epicures say Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we dye but say thou the contrary Let us turn to the Lord for tomorrow we dye and remember that upon this weak wire hangs the heaviest weight on this little moment depends a twofold eternity 5. Our time here is very uncertain it cannot be long but it may be less than you are aware of If you do not repent today you are not sure of tomorrow to repent in for who has given Prov. 27. 1. you security of it Boast not thyself of tomorrow Nescis quid serus vesper vehat for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth no nor an hour not a moment it may bring thee to thy end to the grave and that Accidit in puncto quod non accedit in anno may happen the next moment which never yet befell thee all thy life It was a wise answer of a grave person to this purpose who being invited to a feast on the morrow answered Of many years I have not had a morrow-day to promise to myself That rich man in the 12. of Luke v. 19 20. he counted indeed of many years but God called him fool for it and tells him that night his soul should be requir'd of him If you do not get turn'd by conversion today you may before tomorrow be turn'd to destruction and Psal 90. 31 your bodies may not onely be turn'd into the Psal 9. 17. grave but your souls into hell and what a sad Nè desperando peceata augeamus propositus est poenitentiae portus nèsperando augeamus datus est dies mortis incertus Gerh. turn will that be and had you not need then set about and hasten the other Remember your time is not in your hand in your power but in God's he is Lord of our time and not we to limit it to lengthen it out or cut it off as he pleases which made Austin to profess that he would not for the gain of a million of worlds be an Atheist for half an hour because he knew not but that God might in that time take him away 6. It is irrevocable being once gone it can by no means be recall'd no not one moment it passes and speeds away as an hasty headlong torrent but never repasses it is swift violent Vestigia nulla retrorsum and constant in its progresses without any the least intermission stop or stay but never admits of any the least retrogresses or going back here 's always ebb but never floud always running forward but never returning backward How many when they have been dying would have given a world for a little time and others have been heard crying day and night Call time again call time again and another in a dispairing condition cryed out Can you call time again if so then there is hope but it cannot be there is something before of time to Post est occasio calva take hold of but it is bald behind And how should you hasten then to take the present season men do it for other matters as the merchant for buying or selling the husbandman for sowing c. and onely here will you be so foolish as to let it slip especially when it cannot be recall'd 7. The days are evil and had ye not need then redeem the time The days are evil because Eph. 5. 16. we are evil for the days are not morally evill but evill men and evil manners make evil days and the evil of sin procures the evils of troubles and punishment and our evils of sin Ezra 9. 6. being so many and so exceeding great grown up even to the heavens what further evils of plagues and punishments may not we fear may be coming upon the Land And therefore what need had you to lay hold with all speed on the present opportunity and make the utmost advantage of it as to the furthering this great work 8. There 's no doing any thing as to this Quando istine excessum fuerit nullus jam locus poenitentiae hîc vita tenetur aut amittitur c. Cyprian great work when you are gone hence and therefore you had need to hasten and do what you can here for if it be not done you are undone for ever Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with might for there is no work nor devise nor knowledg nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest there all work ceaseth the grave is the land of
from darkness to light from death to life from earth yea from hell to heaven from swine and husks Luk. 15. 18. to bread enough in our fathers house from feeding on ashes to feed on Angels food heavenly Poenitentia dicitur conversio ad Deum inter quem nos dissidium faciunt peccata Tossan viands from among murderers to the God of mercies from the crooked vile ways of sin to the even and excellent ways of holiness from ways of danger to ways of safety of trouble to ways of peace of bitterness to ways of pleasantness of wasting and destruction to ways of weal and salvation from broken cisterns that can hold no water to springs of water yea to the fountain of living waters from a wilderness and a land of deserts drought and the shadow of death to a fruitful refreshing Paradise In a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Damasc word from sin which hath in it nothing but guilt and filth and stain and torment and curse and death and condemnation to God who is the sole and soveraign spring and fountain of all good of light life happiness help comfort consolation salvation and not onely how equal but how excellent is this yea and this makes it not onely our duty but highest dignity to turn again it being to God and such a God from what is most vile to an object so infinitely worthy It is best of all indeed not to sin but next to repent and turn from sin to God who Justin Martyr is such a God the most high and most excellent they called them to the most high Hos 11. 7. 5. In its fruits and effects and in its end and issue What excellent things are those the Apostle reckons up as following upon conversion What fruit says he had ye then in those things Rom. 6. 21 22. whereof ye are now asham'd for the end of those things is death But now being made free from sin and become servants of God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life O what a blessed change and what an excellent turn is here before servants of sin now servants of God before fruit unto unrighteousness now unto holiness before the end death now everlasting life 1. Here 's the excellentest freedom to be made free from sin 2. The excellentest service to become servants to God 3. The excellentest fruit fruit unto holiness and 4. the excellentest end and that is everlasting life O there is not nobler service performed excellenter fruit growing nor a happier end to be attained in heaven it self And this follows upon our being turn'd again which makes at once the sinner happy heaven merry hell sorry the Devils sad Angels glad the Saints to rejoyce on earth yea and all those celestial Heroes in Heaven and how excellent must that needs be that does all this and therefore to its difficulty oppose its excellency and excellent things are difficult but much to be preferr'd before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Facilis descensus ad orcum things that are easie but base and vile Job speaking of such as were base and acted vile things he tells us they had no helper or as the Job 30. 13. Dutch they needed no helper that is to execute their vile intentions no the work was easie enough they could do it of themselves but it was base vile mischievous destructive work But now to repent and turn to God and honour him and do good is hard and difficult here we need helpers help both from God and man but how infinitely is the one with all its difficulty to be preferr'd before the other with all its facility It is a thousand times more eligible to be labouring for Diamonds than lazing in the dirt to be sweating in a Golden Mine than idling and at ease in the mire to be toyling for treasures than toyling for straws better is the straight gate and narrow way that leads to life than the wide gate and broad way that leads to death Verae salutaris poenitentiae fructus multiples c. Gerh. 3. The utility thereof the profit benefit and commodities that accrew to the sinner thereby and these are so many as cannot be enumerated and so great as cannot be commensurated so that if any should ask what advantage then hath he that turns to God or what profit is there of Repentance I must answer as the Apostle Paul does in another case much every way And when a soul turns again indeed to God it may be said as Leah said when Gad was born A troop or company cometh O how many mercies blessings and benefits come and throng in then upon the convert To turn from sin it is Clavis viscerum Dei says one a key to unlock all the chests of God's mercies and a preservative against all miseries How many mercies are heaped up together in Hos 6. 1. 2. Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us he hath smitten and he will bind up After two days will he revive us in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight Here 's healing and binding up and reviving and raising and then living in God's sight and v. 3. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain as the latter and former rain unto the earth that is we shall experimentally know and tast and see that the Lord is gracious and he in his gracious accesses to our souls will be the same to them as the Sun and the former and latter rain are to the earth And how comfortable profitable refreshing and reviving are these And Thus saith the Lord of hosts turn ye unto me and I Zach. 1. 3. will turn unto you and how much is wrapped up in that expression turn unto you that is mercifully favourably graciously turn my pleasant face to you lift up the light of my countenance upon you vouchsafe you my special grace and favour be reconcil'd to you and at peace with you I will pardon you bless you do good to you multiply all blessings upon you and remove all evils and plagues from you yea turn all into good unto you so that you shall find and feel and abundantly experience the sweet fruits and blessed effects of my turning to you Thus when God turns to us all good turns he being the fountain thereof heaven and earth turn happiness turns the creature turns the Angels turn the Gospel and all the glory and promises and priviledges thereof yea a full and overflowing all-sufficiency of all good turn to us and all evil turns from us all that is evil indeed for afflictions if they abide with us they are turn'd into good yea all now work together for good to us So that amidst ayles we are now without evil and amidst harms
woes and curses and horrors and terrors and tearings a pieces rolling garments in blood Psal 50. 22. Hos 13. 8. and renting the caul of the heart and devouring like a Lion And sinners not being sensible of this at present does but aggravate their misery and make their condition the more lamentable and is here any ground for mirth and not rather of grief and continual sorrow of heart and well may we say to such as the Apostle James Be afflicted and mourn and â—â—mes 4. 9. weep let your laughter be turn'd to mourning and your joy to heaviness And though in a right way and upon good grounds we wish and desire comfort to all yet as to the state that many are at present in we cannot wish them better than trouble as the way to peace and Timorem plurimum grief as the way to joy as Bernard once writing to one that he thought not sollicitous enough about the judgments of God wisht him much Hos 9. 1. fear Rejoyce not says God to Israel as other people for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God c. And however such may at present find pleasure and delight in sin and carnal mirth in their evil ways yet let them know this is but their disease and from the distemper that is upon their souls for were their hearts right they would cry out of the bitterness of what they now say is sweet and what pleasures are they but such as are common with beasts and of the brutish part and but for a moment and such as have a poysonous sting in them and death and damnation entail'd to them and such as will certainly end in bitterness if not mercifully here dreadfully and eternally in hell hereafter and therefore be no longer enemies to your own comfort in going on still in your sins but turn to the Lord and then you shall experience true joy and comfort indeed and shall not lose your joys nor pleasures but change them for better for spiritual heavenly and more refined Would you not all now have joy and comfort and be glad which indeed is the very strength and support of our spirits and life of our lives for what is life or any thing else without comfort this being as one well expresses it the Spring of our year the light of our day the Sun in our firmament for the joy of the Lord is your strength and a merry heart does good like a medicine yea such a one hath a continual feast and would you have so O then turn to God we who are Ministers are called helpers of others joy and we would be glad to be so but never can we be so indeed till we become helpers of your conversion and instrumental in bringing you to God and turning you to him and then and not 'till then do we become helpers of your joy indeed yea and of our own too in yours and then may we say Go thy way eat thy bread with Eccles 9. 7. joy c. In the transgression of an evil man there Prov. 29. 6. is a snare but the righteous doth sing and rejoyce CHAP. XIII Some further Motives to turn to God 1. LET us consider that while we refuse or neglect to do this we forget our selves and hence when people turn to the Lord they are said to remember All the ends of the world Psal 22. 27. shall remember and turn unto the Lord c. It is a Prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles who turning to the Lord are said to remember but whom or what should they remember why in general themselves and their own interest how much they were concern'd therein more particularly some refer it to what immediately goes before They shall praise the Lord that seek him and their heart live for ever that â— 36. is through the manifestations of his favour be filled with spiritual joy this being indeed the living of the heart as the contrary is its dying 1 Sam. 25. 37. Cogitabunt de suis peccatis miscriis et considerata Dei misericordia tandem seriò expetent opem remedium suorum vulnerum i. e. convertentur Moll or live a spiritual life here and an eternal hereafter and remembring this they shall turn to the Lord or 2. They shall remember their sins the number and nature of them how many and great they have been and their misery by reason of them what wrong by their sins they have done to God and their own souls He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul they shall remember me c. because I am broken with their whorish heart c. Or 3. remember how Ezek. 6. 9. Zach. 10 9. Prov. 8. 36. much this is their duty as also its equity excellency c. and also how great God's goodness and mercy and riches of grace are to such as do indeed turn or they shall remember God's patience and the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering towards them how long he hath born with them though every day angry with them and provoked by them as it is said of the Israelites that about fourty years God suffered their manners in the wilderness or he bore them as a burden their froward Acts 13. 18. and untoward carriages were as an heavy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 burden is to a man or as the peevishness and unquietness of a sucking Child is to the Nurse c. Now this they shall remember and despise Rom. 2. 4. those riches of goodness no longer but be led by them to repentance c. Thus there 's very much which if we did but remember and seriously consider might put us upon turning to God and how long shall we forget God and our selves and our own concerns and our own and the Nations weal. O that at length we might all remember and turn to the Lord especially considering the lowd cryes we have had to it alate not onely from God's Word but his works his judicious proceedings why whom should we remember if not our selves or what if not our own good we are bid not to forget to do good to others and shall we forget that which makes so much for our own good We would that God should remember us yea and he does or it would be quickly sad with us and shall not we remember him nay our selves but in refusing to return forget both The Psalmist complains his heart was so smitten c. that he forgat to eat his bread that was sad and strange Psal 102. 4. but this is sadder for that can but famish the body but this the soul that can but bring to the grave but this to hell The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the Nations that forget 9. 17. God and forget themselves to turn to him and therefore let us no longer forget our selves but in turning to the Lord shew at length that we remember
aside after Satan and their own lusts Some are turn'd 1 Tim. 5. 15. Atheists others Papists Antinomists Anabaptists Quakers Ranters Arminians Socinians c. and how many Apostates they are turn'd indeed but it is with the dog to the vomit and with the sow to wallowing in the mire 2 Per. 2. 22. Yea how many turn any thing every thing but what they should and any way but the right and now so many turning with evil turns let us turn with an holy good and gracious turn and so many turning out of the way let us turn into the way shall others turn after Satan and not we to God they to hell and not we to heaven they after vanity and not we to our felicity they after their lusts and not we to the Lord of life and glory 2. Of judicial turnings in regard of God for how many strange turnings and changes hath he made alate amongst us turning many out of their places imployments livelihoods How did he turn our peace into war and our health into sickness Did he not in one year in and about this City turn above an hundred thousand to destruction turn'd them into their Craves out of their short homes into their long ones turn'd them from the living to the dead from living wights to be dead corps and companions of the worms How many families did he lay wast and make desolate all their company changed their countenance Job 14. 20. and turned the beauty of their visage into grisly deformedness and sent them away as Job speaks yea hath he not turned our City into an heap our famous City into ruines We were as I said scarce got out of one fire which devoured our persons but another devours our estates and habitations as if God was resolved to consume all and to leave nothing of us standing or remaining And shall not both these fires refine us if not what fire may we expect next I leave that to you to judg O how many did God on a sudden and unexpectedly and at once turn out of all out of their beds out of their houses out of their shops out of their estates out of their tradings out of their ease out of their enjoyments and shall we not yet be turn'd from our sins How did he bring down them that dwelt on high yea the lofty city laid it low he layed it low even to the ground If. 25 2. 26. 5 6. and brought it even to the dust so that the foot might tread it down even the feet of the poor and steps of the needy How did he turn that City Lam. 1. 1. into solitariness that was full of people and made her sit as a widow that was great among the Nations and Princess among the Provinces yea stain'd all her glory and chang'd her beauty and bravery into deformity And London once the glory of the world is turn'd and hurl'd into confufed heaps of dirt and rubbish And after so many turnings shall we not yet turn to God and turn from sin to holiness from our security to godly fear O after so many turns let there follow one turn more and that as the happy fruit and effect of all the former and as that which God designed in them and intended by them even a turn unto the Lord and out of those paths the end of which will certainly be hell and damnation Surely the time past may suffice as to what tends so much not onely to God's dishonour but is so contrary to our own weal and works our own woe that grieves our best friend and gratifies our worst enemy c. But as if it was not enough shall we go on still as if we were resolved not to turn from sin 'till God tâ—rn us into hell O turn at last and the longer thou hast gone on in evil ways see that the higher time it is to turn now He goes far we say that never turneth and why then dost thou not now turn after so many turns that God hath made and all to further this turn Let me say to you as sometimes Pharaohs servants said Exod. 10. 7. to him in another case How long shall your sins be a snare to you and to the Nation let them go before England be utterly destroyed or care you not though all England be destroyed so your sins may live or as if thou hadst not treasured up unto thy self wrath enough against that day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God wilt thou still through the hardness and impenitency of thy heart go on to treasure up more God forbid 4. Consider nothing less than this can speak you sound Christians indeed and so such as shall be saved 1. Not parts nor gifts though never so eminent no it must be what is more 1 Cor. 12. 31. excellent c. 2. Not outward priviledges as having been baptiz'd and often admitted to the Lord's Table and having been constant hearers of such and such able Ministers and it may be entertainers of them into your houses and at your tables and having had frequent converse with them and it may be of good esteem with them this may be and yet you never be sound Christians no it must be true conversion that speaks you such The Apostle speaking of the Jews tels us they were all under the cloud and 1 Cor. 10. 1 2 3 4. passed through the Sea and were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink c. and yet with many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness You may have vision whiles it fails from others and have bread whiles others starve your fleece may be wet whiles others is dry and may be as Goshen whiles others are as Egypt and yet be far from being good Christians How great were the priviledges of the Jews yet all were not Israel Rom. 9. 4 5. Gal. 6. 15. which were of Israel for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature that is in Christ's Kingdom so as to speak us such as are true Christians and intitled to the Kingdom neither circumcision avails any thing nor uncircumcision i. e. no outward priviledges whatsoever for under these two Synechdochically are comprehended all by circumcision all those of the Jews who stood much upon circumcision and by uncircumcision all those of the Gentiles as Baptism the Lord's Supper c. but a new creature or a new creation that is regeneration saving conversion Our Saviour tells us that the children of the Kingdom should be cast into utter darkness c i. e. they who were within the Matth. 8. 12. external Covenant and seemed to be of the Kingdom partook of the priviledges and made account they were the children of the Kingdom they bore themselves up high but
all these did not speak them to partake of the grace of the Kingdom We read of others that did eat and drink in Christ's presence and such in whose Luk. 13. 26. streets Christ himself taught they heard him and at their tables entertain'd him and had ordinary converse with him and yet no better than workers of iniquity 3. Not meer morality or civility carrying it fair in the world for these though commendable in themselves come short of conversion and rested in they are but beautiful abominations a smoother way to hell and such are but as wild beasts tamed or tied up their natures not being changed c. 4. Not forms or professions of godliness shews of holiness and being as it were varnisht over 2 Tim. 3. 1 2 3 4 5. with specious semblances of sanctity when there is nothing but rottenness within c. 5. Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. sapiens gnarus peritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scire meerly knowing much for the Devils know so much as that they have their name from knowledg and yet they are Devils still and so men may be very knowing but not practising answerably to their knowledg be no better than Jam. 4. 17. Luk. 12. 46. Devils incarnate and their knowledg but aggravate their sin and increase their stripes 6. Not going on in a formal way of duties and in a constant Is 58. 1 2 3. Ezek. 33. 31 32. Luk. 18 12. customary course of performances for this many have done and may do yea be much in extraordinary duties yet never be true Christians because never sincere converts 7. Not Pharisaical Matth. 5. 20. righteousness for Christ hath said except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven and yet these were very exact and went very far and it was commonly conceited among the Jews that if but two in all the world went to heaven one should be a Scribe and an other a Pharisee They going far in outward works 1. of piety made long prayers 2. of charity gave much alms 3. of equity tythed Mint Annis and Cummin 4. of curtesy invited Christ often to their tables and yet but hypocrites because they wanted a sound work of conversion upon their souls 8. Not being of such a sect or party nor simply of such a Church or Society or Congregation or way or judgment or opinion or being hearers of such or such Ministers or such a ones people or the like though I fear too too many lay too much stress upon these in these days as if they must needs be good Christians and true Saints because they are in such a way and of such a Church and such a Congregation and adhere to such a party and are hearers of such Ministers and such a ones people as in the Apostles time how many did bear themselves up with this I am of Paul and I of Apollo and 1 Cor. 1. 12. 13. I of Cephas one he cryes up Paul and his preaching and bears himself up as being his disciple and one of his people another he cryes up Apollo c. another Cephas but what says the Apostle Is Christ divided was Paul crucified 3. 3. for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul and whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men For while one saith I am of Paul and v. 4. another I am of Apollo are ye not carnal c. The Apostle Jude speaks of some in his days who separated themselves and yet were sensual Jud. 19. not having the spirit c. they were destitute of true grace and the Spirit of regeneration as appear'd from fleshly lusts having the upper hand and rule in them And the Prophet Isaiah speaks of some which said to others Stand by your selves come not near to us for we are holier Is 65. 5. than you and yet were a smoak in God's nose very loathsome unto him But let not any here mis-construe what I say for I do not speak against fellowships or societies but I would not have any simply take up in this for it is not this but sound conversion that speaks a Christian Judas was of the best fellowship that ever was of that very society that Jesus Christ himself and the Apostles were of one of the twelve and yet for all that a Devil as Jesus Christ himself declares Joh. 6. 70. Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a Devil See here 's one of the very society of Christ himself and his Apostles and yet a Devil a strange expression but that we know who said it i. e. of a devilish nature one of his children and if there was a Devil among those that were of the very fellowship of Jesus Christ himself and his Apostles we had need look about us for what fellowship or society can there be under heaven whereof people may be and yet not be Devils incarnate How fair soever they may carry it outwardly as Judas no doubt did insomuch that when Christ told them one of you shall betray me they questioned among themselves who it should be no more suspecting Judas than themselves Joh. 13. 21 22. And therefore I beseech you let none bear up themselves nor lay so much stress on this it is sound conversion that must speak you sincere Christians and not being of such a way or society Jer. 7. 3. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel amend your ways and your doings and v. 4. Trust ye not in lying words saying the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord are these they pointed as it were with the finger to the temple of the Lord why we have the Temple and the Temple-worship c. but not amending their ways all were but lying words For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink Rom. 4. 17. but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost c. The purest Churches may have impure members and the most orderly congregations disorderly persons and among reall Saints may be such as are but painted sepulchres and though they have the Euge and approbation of men yet may they have the Apage and disallowance of God and all his holy Angels It was a notable speech uttered long since by an English Christian of a reformed Church in the Netherlands We have the good orders here but you have the good Christians in England O that it could be said so still and did says a learned godly Divine now with the Lord the servants of Christ know what it is to live in reformed Churches with unreformed spirits under strict order with loose hearts how forms of Religion breed but forms of Godliness how men by Church discipline learn their Church postures and there rest they
he hath set first our bodies as it were a fire and then afterwards our houses and estates This he expects and shall we still frustrate his expectation shall he count upon it in vain and when for our own weal what may we think then but that he will frustrate ours and while we look for peace no good come Jer. 14. 19. and for a time of healing but behold trouble 7. This is that which the want of is the great matter and ground of God's complaint and of his controversy with and against a people not so much their departures as their refusals to return This is that which roles so much in his thoughts as that he knows not how as it were to digest it to do evil is bad but still to persist in it that is saddest and worst of all How often does the Lord complain of this five times at Amos 4. 5 6 8 c. least in one chapter that though he had sent Hos 7. 9 10 Is 1. 4 5. 9. 13. such and such judgments among them yet had they not return'd unto him and so in many other places besides We are ready indeed to Jer. 5. 3. 8. 4 5. 6. 28 29. c. complain of God's punishments but he of our impenitency and his matter of complaint is the saddest impenitency under judgments being a thousand times worse than the judgments themselves and sinners not returning far more sinful than all their sins besides And let not the Lord then still have cause of this sad complaint against us after such a multiplicity of rods that he hath scorged us with alate for what height of defection will that argue and how greatly will it incense his displeasure 8. Not turning to God when he smites puts him upon greater severities yea makes him resolve Lev. 26. 18. 21. 29. upon final ruine How often does he threaten See also Ps 7. 12 13. in Leviticus that if they would not reform he would yet punish them seven times more and Is 9. 12 13 14. Ezek. 24. 12 13. Job 9. 4. Prov. 11. 21. c. bring seven times more plagues upon them yea he tells them they should eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters sad meat but God will overcome when he judges and the stoutest sinners must not think to carry it against him But God Psal 68. 21. will wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such a one that goes on still in his trespasses Those in Amos for all those judgments inflicted on them not returning unto the Lord he resolves therefore thus will I do unto thee Amos 4. 12. what why worse than ever I have done yet I will take a severer course and come with my last and heaviest stroke or the Lord hereby Duriùs nunc tecum agam quia cogit me tua obstinatio ultimam poenam infligam absque ulla mitigatione c. Calv. in locum would the better as some think decipher out to them the dreadfulness of this stroke it being such as could not be exprest and therefore wraps it up in silence and leaves it to them to think what it might be Thus it is not so much sinning but persisting still in sin and that notwithstanding God's judgments that brings final ruine this seals the stone of destruction upon nations and persons And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds c. Seeing thou our God hast punisht us less than our iniquities deserve Ezra 9. 13 14. and hast given such deliverance as this should we again break thy commandements c. wouldst not thou be angry with us 'till thou hast consumed us so that there shall be no remnant nor escpaing When winds sent to fan and clense lie without success then must be expected a dry wind from the wilderness not to fan Jer. 4. 11. nor to clense but utterly to lay wast and for God to resolve that his eye shall not spare neither will he have pity but to say as he did of those Jews cast them out of my sight and let them go forth such as are for death to death and such as are for Jer. 15. 1 2. the sword to the sword c. This brought final ruine upon Israel and after upon Jerusalem and so hath done upon other nations as Germany which Brentius expounding upon Is 9. 12 13. foretold And how can we think but it will bring the same upon England unless we speedily return It was a notable speech of a friend in a letter out of New England to one here Our hearts are full of fears for Old England and that which makes us fear most it is that God's visitations bring forth no better fruit than increase of sin we may fear lest that God should visit seven times more the Lord give repentance and turning to God that God may in mercy turn to his people c. And how can it be otherwise this being the great end of God in all his judgments whether publick or private to reduce people to himself and for God to lose his end and smite in vain how sad is it and it being also a magnifying of the creature that he will debate with Job 7. 17 18. it which Job admires that he should condescend so low as not onely to speak but strike and so make use of all ways and means to reclaim And Amos 4. 6. I also have given you cleanness of teeth and want of bread c. as if the Lord had said And in that also I have not been wanting neither in words nor blows neither by speaking nor smiting and to have all slighted and nothing regarded And besides this it is God's last remedy he speaks once and again yea often and when that will not do he strikes and that with gentler and then severer strokes but when these will not do he rejects moreover God then in a more special manner commanding sinners to return And if they be bound in fetters and holden in cords of Job 36. 8 10. affliction then he commandeth that they return from iniquity c. and yet they not returning what does it argue but stubborness and rebellion and what is it but to contemn God and his rod as if we car'd not what he did in the world yea what is it but to bid as it were open defiance to heaven or as if we bid him do his worst and God knows not how as it were to bear such any longer they are such a burthen to him and therefore resolves to ease himself of them Ah I will ease me of mine Adversaries Is 1. 24. c. this makes sin rebellion and out of measure sinful when though God afflicts sinners will still hold fast their sins and though they cannot hold fast other things as their health strength estates liberties relations outward comforts yet they will hold fast them and not let them go whatever
goes and though God does then as it were hedg up sinners ways with thorns yet they break through This was that which set such a brand and Emphasis of disgrace upon Ahaz that all might observe and take notice of And in the times of his distress yet did he trespass more against the Lord this is 2 Chr. 28. 22. that King Ahaz And so will the Lord say another day of others this is that man that woman that family that people that person who when God afflicted yet trespass'd more and more and this does so incense God's wrath as to blow it up into a consuming flame and such a flame as shall not be quencht And therefore Jer. 4. 4. what now remains but that with all seriousness and earnestness we forthwith set our selves to and about this great work and concern both of our selves and the Nation that with all vehemency we implore it with our utmost endeavours prosecute it making use of all ways and means whereby we may attain it and not stand it out still 'till inevitable destruction overtake us else we must take what follows we must either remove our sins or God will for ever remove himself and his mercies CHAP. XIV To incourage one another to turn to God AND this work now being so blessed a work and of such infinite importance let us encourage one another unto it let us say as those in Hosea come and let us return unto the Hos 6. 1 2. Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us c. as if they had said And this it is the wisest course we can take it being our own happiness and good and not God's who is all-sufficient as if a man be warm'd and refresh'd by the Sun he is benefited himself but not the Sun and if a man drinks of the fountain he profits himself not the fountain so God needs not our conversion if we turn what does it advantage him not at all the profit and advantage is our own and upon this account he desires it not for any need he hath of us but for the need we have of him And shall we not then incourage one another to this and say as those in the Lamentations Wherefore doth a living man complain a Lam. 3. 39 40 man for the punishment of his sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord c. As if they had said What do we complaining who are yet living it is sad indeed with us but it is a mercy it is no worse that our Bodies are not in the Grave and our Souls in Hell for whatever is on this side Hell is Mercy and alive and complain and when for the punishment of Sin the evil of punishment being little to the evil of sin the bitterness for sin to the bitterness in sin one strikes at us the other at God one at the Creature the other at the Creatour the one at what is finite the other at what is infinite and the worst that punishment does or can do to us is little to what Sin does to or against God the Sinner gives worse gall and wormwood to God to drink than he does to the Sinner hence the Church resolves to bear the indignation of the Lord because she had sinned against him and hence says the Micah 7. 9. Lord to a people who would plead with him about his proceedings as if he had been rigorous towards them Wherefore saies he will ye plead with me plead with me Come then Jer. 2. 29. saies God and I will plead with you and stop your mouths with one word I will say but this and it is enough for ever to silence you for ever opening your mouths more against me Ye all have transgressed against me saith the Lord and do but sit down and seriously weigh what you have done in doing that and against whom you have done it and there 's enough to silence you As to what ever I have done to you it 's little to what you do against me and O! that Sinners would but consider this Ye have transgressed against me and Is 43. 24. thereby what have ye done even broken my law crossed and contradicted my will darken'd my glory griv'd and embitter'd my Spirit turned the back to me and not the face and wearied me and made me even to serve though a God of such infinite majesty and shall we now complain or plead with the Lord no let us rather incourage one another to return come and let us return We read indeed of other comes incouraging comes to that which is evil and destructive and these have been too too much the Comes of England which hath made things come to that pass as they are Come ye Is 56 12. say they I will fetch wine and we will fill our selves with strong drink and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundantly Come and Jer. 18. 18. let us devise devices against Jeremiah c. come and let us smite him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words c. Come and let us lay wait for bloud let us lurk privily for Prov. 1. 11. the innocent without cause c. But these are hellish pernicious comes and have occasioned so many great and heavy judgments to come upon us one on the neck of another let us therefore now at length change our comes and let them be come and let us repent come and let us turn again unto the Lord come and let us amend our ways and our doings and get our hearts and ways right with God that so things may be right with us come and let all our other strifes end now in this who should be first herein in turning to God and so in promoting our own and the Nations weal. Others are striving for worldly precedency but let us for spiritual and it is no pride here to go one before another but he is humblest that goes first And these are blessed comes and calls indeed to call one another to the most high to incourage one another to turn to God the chief good and to come off from sin so exceeding evil yea the greatest and chiefest and indeed onely true evil and the cause of all other evils which is it self a punishment yea the worst of punishments the work of the Devil and worse than hell and Devils and all other evils whatsoever which threw down Angels to hell and has more evil in it than all the Angels in heaven have good which was Christ's great work in coming into the world to save from and which nothing but his bloud can make Matth. 1. 21. Hebr. 9. 22. expiation of which not onely offends and dishonours and offers the greatest injury to the blessed God but exceedingly wrongs our selves our own souls which debases distresses defiles befools hardens destroys spoyls our good things is the sting of our evil things
robs us of our joy peace safety separates from God the chief good and brings horrors of conscience here and to eternal Is 59. 1 2. perdition hereafter which may have a moments pleasure but an eternities torment And can we do better than to incourage one another here to come up to so great a good and to come off from so great an evil Do others incourage one another in evil matters and not we in what is so good to quit sins and the Devil 's Psal 64 5. and hell's quarters murderers quarters our deadly enemie's quarters which seek our bloud and the destruction of our precious souls and to come into heaven's quarters into God's and our friends quarters O who would not incourage here and say come and let us return unto the Lord and so betake our selves to the onely way of our own and the Nations weal And O that it was once come to this that so both our own and the Nations utter ruine might be prevented which God professedly declares yea swears he has no pleasure in We read of those indeed who were ready to cast such a calumny upon God as if he took pleasure in their death for they said if our transgressions and our sins be upon us and Ezek 33 â—â— we pine away in them how then should we live c. as if they had said What do you tell us of living or prophesie of life when we find the quite contrary that we are dying Now as to this God vindicates himself asserting the clean v. 11. contrary by an Oath Say unto them as I live says the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live c. As death is indeed an act of justice punishing the impenitent so it hath the nature of good in it and so it is pleasing to God who is just as well as merciful but as it is meerly the creatures ruine and misery so he delights not in it and to this he swears Indeed God cannot lye and so his word might be enough O beatos noâ— quorum causâ Deus jurat O miseri nos si non juranti Domino credimus Tertull. but the more to confirm what he says he is pleased to swear and happy we for whose sake God swears if we believe but miserable we if he shall swear and we yet not believe him and further to shew his unwillingness that we should dye he doubles his invitation to turn Turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye dye O house of Israel And this ingemination as it shews our dulness and love to our sins and loathness to leave them so a vehemency and intention of spirit in God there being much life spirit and affectionateness in sueh expressions and it shews also a necessity of compliance for that cannot but be a matter of great weight that we are so often invited to such Scripture ingeminations not being vain but the more words from God the more weight and what is doubly prest must needs be doubly our duty and that which we are doubly ingag'd to Surely as it shews God desires it much so that it concerns us much and what indeed can concern us more than that which unless we do we as certainly perish as the Lord lives And what goodness and condescension is it in the great God that he should so earnestly and so often invite us to that which is so much for our own good and that though he cannot be better'd nor made happier by us yet that our salvation should be so dear to him and therefore let us set to it our selves and incourage one another all we can looking up to God for help for though we can turn away Ps 119. 176. Hos 13. 9. we cannot of our selves turn again we can wound but not heal our selves throw our selves down but not raise our selves up loose our selves but not reduce our selves CHAP. XV. To see to it that our turning to God be true and real AND let us not onely incourage one another to turn to God but be sure our conversion be sincere 1. Let there be a sound conviction of sin and a kindly compunction for it with a thorow aversion from it to the Lord both in heart and life in inward principles and outward practises there being a change both of the disposition and affection and love to sin within and of the conversation without and these depend one upon another For 'till the conscience be throughly convinct of sin how should the heart be kindly contrite for sin and 'till the heart be contrite for sin how should it forsake or turn from sin and 'till it do turn from sin how should it turn to God And 2. let this turn be such as is of God as also unto God quite Jer. 4. 1. through unto him and not to any thing below him or on this side him O how sad is it to suffer shipwrack neer the haven to turn towards God and yet never to reach nor take up in God as our true and proper center to come up out of Egypt and yet never to come into Canaan not to be far from the Kingdom of God from heaven and yet to fall short of it and to be turned into hell 3. Let it be such as arises from faith 4. Let it be hearty with all or the whole heart no part of the heart here being reserved for sin but the whole heart inclin'd one way and that to God as it is said of good King Josiah 2 King 23. 25. that like unto him there was no King before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might c. Indeed the heart is the main and what is done Quod cor non facit non fit here unless it be with the heart it is not done And in what should we be hearty indeed if not in what we do to God and in what tends so infinitely to our own good 5. Let it be universal 1. As to the subject turning the whole man body and soul and all the faculties of the one and members of the other compleat as to parts though not degrees as to extension though not perfection in every part though but in part As the Air in the dawning is light in e-every part though but in part else if any one part be unturn'd we shall as one expresses it with our whole go to hell and therefore as all of us and in us is turn'd away from God never let us rest till all be turn'd again to God 2. As to the object turn'd from and turn'd to from all sin to all that is holy and righteous from every false and crooked way to every true and right way for as there 's no Brook so small no River Ps 119. 101 128. so little but if a man follow it it will bring him
to the Sea so there 's no sin so small but if a man Optima poenitentia est nova vita Luther Poenitere â malis abstinere à malis addict himself unto it and still follow and pursue it to the end it will certainly bring him to the dead salt Sea of eternal horrours and everlasting torments And therefore let us turn from all sin and every evil way to the contrary good and give me leave here to instance in some few particulars as from our pride and haughtiness of mind to humility and lowliness of mind It is very sad and bodes ill that though Trade decays and mens estates are lower yet mens minds are still high How many are poorer in purse but not in spirit their means is less and lower but pride and luxury rather greater and higher as if though God humble them they were resolv'd not to be humbled From our garish flanting and immodest attire and that allures to wantonness the great sin of these times to what is sober and modest and becoming such as profess godliness and the fear of the Lord. Tamar's apparrel made Judah to Gen. 38. 15. take her for an harlot and however such says one may be honest yet such as are honest will hardly take them to be so because they lay themselves and others open to temptation Augustus Vestitus insâ—â—nis ac mollis superbiae vexillum est luxuriae nidus Hieronymus Caesar was wont to say that stately and light Apparrel was the banner of pride and nest of luxury and if says one of the fathers women adorn themselves so as to provoke men to lust after them though no evil follow upon it yet those women shall suffer damnation because they offered poyson to others though none would drink it A very Heathen could say Cultus magna ubi cura ibi magna virtutis incuria Cato where there is great care of dressing there 's little care of goodness but now Professours themselves think it little or no fault to be as garish in their Apparrel as others and to follow every foolish strange upstart fashion exceeding in their apparrel beyond their calling and above their means c. but let such read and weigh these and the like places Is 3. 16. c. Zeph. 1. 8. 1 Pet. 3. 3 4. 1 Tim. 2. 9 10. Rom. 12. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 14. c. From our excess and riot and prodigious luxury to temperance and sobriety from all filthiness uncleanness and obscenity to purity chastity and possessing our vessels that is our bodies in sanctification and honour and not in the lust of concupiscence even 1 Thes 4. 4 5. as the Gentils which know not God From our profanations of God's name and day to the sanctifying of the same from our carelesness and security to godly fear and Christian vigilancy from our earthliness to heavenly mindedness our covetousness to contentedness with such things as Heb. 13. 5. Rom. 12. 11. we have from our lukewarmness indifferency and formality in the things of God to zeal fervency and ardency of affection From our slightings and despisings of God's ordinances to the setting of an higher value and esteem upon them from our licentiousness to more strictness and barrenness and ingratitude to greater thankfulness and fruitfulness From our divisions strifes and contentions one with another to union and indearedness of affection one towards another from our animosities to unanimity from our rash and harsh censurings and judgings of others to judging our selves from our frowardness and fierceness to gentleness and meekness from our deceitfulness and fraudulency to faithfulness and sincerity from our self-seekings and lookings every man to his own things to self denyings and looking every man also to Phil. 2. 4. the things of others from our harshness churlishness and uncharitableness to kindness and readiness to do good from speaking evil or 1 Thes 5. 15. rendring evil for evil to any man to shew all meekness and follow that which is good unto all from all errour heresie and strange doctrines and opinions to the form of sound 2 Tim. 1. 13. words and the faith once delivered to the Saints from fickleness and unstayedness in the truth Jude 3. to establishment c. In a word from what ever is offensive and displeasing to God and prejudicial to our selves or others to whatever is pleasing and acceptable to God and profitable to our selves and others And indeed the very essence of repentance lies in this in our turning with our whole man from all sin with grief and hatred of it unto God and all that is good but while we condemn sin with our tongues if yet we regard and take pleasure in any sin in our hearts we are far yet from God yea abominable to him 6. Let our turning to God be from right principles and upon right grounds spiritual grounds as in the name of Christ in his Col. 3. 17. strength and as looking for acceptance both of our persons and repentance in and through him and his merits mediation and satisfaction So let it be in conscience of his commands and out of love to God because we love God therefore let us fear any longer to displease him and turn to him that we may no longer offend nor provoke him It is said of Luther that having heard Staupi a grave Divine say that that was kind repentance which began from the love of God ever after the practice of repentance was sweeter to him So out of hatred to sin as an enemy to God and his glory and our own souls good and because of that repugnancy and contrariety that there is in it to God and his holy nature and law 7. Let it be for right ends as the glory of God this must be the main and chiefest end If whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do we are 1 Cor. 10. 31. to do all to the glory of God how much more when we repent and turn to God must that be that he may be glorified 8. Let it be speedy Gather your selves together c. before the decree Zeph. 2. 1 2. come forth before the day pass c. O how does the Lord long and is as it were in pain and travel 'till it be 'till we leave our sins and turn to him O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made Jer. 13. 27. 14. 14. clean when shall it once be and how long shall thy vain thoughts lodg within thee and how 31. 22. long wilt thou go about O thou back-sliding daughter and how long will this people provoke Numb 14. 11. me and how long will it be e're they believe me c. And shall we make God long still in vain and be as it were in pain and travel Why God will do that which others will not do They say if a man put away his wife c but thou hast Jer. 3. 1. played the
harlot with many Lovers yet return again to me says the Lord. A man will hardly entertain a servant that seeks to him in his old age that refus'd his service all his life before and Nulla poenitentia seria est unquam nimis sera Ambr. how should God and yet he will if sincere and true But though true repentance be never too late yet late repentance is seldom true for mens sins then rather leave them than they their Pecoata ipsos deserunt non ipsi peccata c. Ambros sins and such a cessation from sin is not repentance for sin and therefore take we heed of delays whereby we do more strengthen sin harden our own hearts and give Satan stronger hold and fuller possession Had we a thorn in our foot or a mote in our eye would we delay to get them out and is not the guilt of sin worse in the soul Certainly a man had better lie under the weight of all the mountains in the world than under the guilt of one sin we are bid not to withold good from the owners thereof Say not to thy neighbour go and come again Prov. 3. 27 28. and to morrow I will give when thou hast it by thee And shall we still withdraw or withhold our selves from God whose own we are in many respects and who when he comes to us comes but for his own and shall we detain still from him what is his own which we do while we still refuse to turn to God and lock up our selves as it were in the Devil's hold But let us remember we are the Lords we are bought with a price and he is not onely our owner but our Creatour and Benefactour and 't is well for us we have so good an owner and so kind a Lord and let us not then withhold our selves a moment longer from him but yeild our selves to him for is there any safety but under his wings any happiness but in his presence any peace without his pardon c or can we be holy and happy too soon blessed too soon pardoned too soon in the love in the heart of God too soon under the shines of his face in the light of his countenance too soon free Libertas bonum inestimabile Nulli benè venditur auro and from under the vassalage of sin and Satan too soon especially freedom being so desireable and such an inestimable good Who would not be sui juris free The Rabbins have a saying that if the heavens were parchment and the Sea ink it could not sufficiently contain the praises of liberty how much less of spiritual liberty of being made free from sin so as to become servants to God and have our fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life to be freed Nec beliua saevior ulla quà m servi rabies c. from his slavery who is a slave himself and no slavery to the service of a slave It was Canaan's curse that he should be a servant of servants Gen. 9. 25. and are not our sins the very gangrenes and plague-sores of our souls the utter enemies of our peace safety and felicity which still distemper and disquiet us and shall these be retain'd still or can they too soon be abandoned 9. Let it be daily constant and continual for we daily sin continually transgress and therefore are still to be daily acting repentance and there being still sin and corruption in us we are still daily and continually to be turning from it to the contrary good we daily wash our hands Quia semper peccamus semper poenitentiam agere dehemus Hier. and clense our houses and so let us by repentance our hearts of those daily infirmities we fall into We are still letting in sin and therefore by repentance should be still pumping it out This might occasion that saying of Tertullian that he was born to nothing else but repentancè for we having brought upon our selves a miserable necessity of sinning daily and continually what can we be more born to than to Dominus dicendo poenitentiam agite omnem vitam fidelium poenitentiam esse voluit Luther be repenting daily and continually 10. Let it be more and more increasing and persevering to the end not onely our daily course but 'till we have finished our course not resting in this that we were once turn'd but still daily more and more turning from all iniquity and practising the contrary duties of Christianity If conversion be good certainly the more the better and the fullest is best we should get more and more chang'd and turn'd into the Lord's image from glory to glory c. and every day get 2 Cor. 3. 18. nearer heaven and salvation then other It is said of Julius Caesar whose warlick exploits were so Nilque putans factum dum quod super esset agendum famous that he still went forward thinking nothing done as it were while any thing was yet to be done So let us with Paul forgetting Phil. 3. 13. those things behind reach forth to what is yet before take we heed of Apostacy from God and 2 Pet. 2. 22. his ways and having known the way of righteousness of turning from the holy commandement to the crooked ways of sin for what was this but to bring as it were an evil report upon God and his ways and to make as if his ways were not such as the Scripture declares them to be yea and as if the ways of sin were better and to be preferr'd before them for having try'd both such as more eligible turn to the other again what a dreadful thing is it to bring as it were an evil report upon God and his ways It is said of those that brought but an evil report up on the Numb 14. 37. land that they died by the plague before the Lord but what will become of those who bring as it were an evil report upon the Lord himself and his ways and make as if there was iniquity in him and hence says the Lord what iniquity have your fathers found in me c. and O my Jer. 2. 5. people what I have done to thee and wherein have I wearied thee testify against me As if the Micah 6. 3. c. Lord had said you make as if I had done so and so unto you but what have I done plead the cause with me what have you to lay to my charge or object speak and I will answer I am willing to submit my ways to scanning and to bring my proceedings with you to a tryal For your better conviction put in your Bill of complaint against me c. O the wonderful condescension of the great God to poor sinners as if he had said Your own consciences which I appeal to cannot but say that I never dealt ill with you but on the contrary well with you for I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed
you out of the house of servants c. and Have I been a wilderness to Israel a land of darkness c. O with what confusion will this fill the hearts of such another day All says the Prophet Jeremy that forsake Jer. 17. 13. thee shall be ashamed and therefore how good is it for us as to draw neer to God so to keep still with him if we know when we are well for whither should we go from him 1 Joh. 2. 28. And now little children abide in him that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed at his coming CHAP. XVI To prove God by turning unto him again AND let us now by such a turning as this but prove God and see if he will not bless us and do us good There is indeed an unlawful Deut. 6. 16. proving of God which is call'd a tempting of him and forbidden but this of proving God in doing our duty and in returning to him he puts his people upon Bring you says he all Mal. 3. 10. the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of hosts if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room to receive it c. i. e. Do you but return to me as he exhorts them more generally v. 7. and do your duty and try me therewith if I will not bless and prosper you And what wonderful condescension is here that the great God even the Lord of Hosts Dignatio stupenda should call upon such as we are to prove him to make as it were an experiment upon him and as if he should say Do it but this one year and ☜ if it do hold on if not afterwards do as you please O that the great God should condescend so low as to deal with such as we are in so familiar a way as not onely to prescribe a remedy for our relief but invite us withall to prove his goodness and faithfulness therein and that with a kind of oath if I will not which is Promission confirmatur juramento Si non aperuero c. non ero deus c. Pisc O immensam nullis nec Angelorum nec hominum linguis satis depraedicandam clementiam O vero nos miseros si tantam dei gratiam contemnimus ipsi tergum obvertentes c. Winkelm in locum to be supplied with something else as let me not else be believ'd hereafter or I will not be God c. with reverence be it spoken and what admiration in the highest degree does this call for and let not only men on earth but all the Angels in Heaven forever admire and adore this so wonderful condescension that the great God should thus put himself upon the proof and tryal and that by such as we are and that with an oath if he do not what he promises if we do but what he commads and who indeed have ever thus prov'd him and have not still found him merciful yea and faithful in his promise The Lord appeals to Jehoiakim as concerning the experience his good father Josiah upon tryal had had of his goodness and bounty upon his obedience of his commands causing it to be well with him when he did well Shalt thou reign says God because Jer. 22. 15 16. thou closest thy self in Cedar that is dost thou think as the Dutch expound it to make thy Kingdom strong and lasting against the threatnings of God because of thy stately and brave Cedar buildings Did not thy father eat and drink that is live quietly and comfortably and do judgment and justice and then it was well with him v. 16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy and then it was well with him c. As if God had said I do appeal to thee was it not thus and did he not thus prove it to be but v. 17. Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness and but for to shed innocent bloud and for oppression and for violence to do it Sad that the eyes and heart of so great a person should not be but for such things no better imployed and how could such a one expect it should be well with him So may God say search the Scriptures turn over those sacred Records and see if you can find there any that ever turned to God and it was not well with them that ever truly repented and repented that they repented or were sorry that they turned from their sins to me or with whom it was not far better with than before O what exceeding joy and wonderful sweet peace of conscience have they had upon their turning from their evil ways that they would not have been without for a world And here I might produce several instances as concerning Israel Ephraim Niniveh and others so the prodigal he upon coming to himself resolves by returning to his father to prove his clemency and how does he find it exceeding great for it is said that when he was yet a great way off his Luk. 15. 17 18 20. c. father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him c. And indeed never was there yet Nation people or person that did prove God so as unfeignedly to turn to him but found him very gracious Remember Job 4. 7. I pray thee says Eliphaz to Job who ever perished being innocent or where were the righteous cut off So who ever perisht being truely penitent or when or where was a returning sinner cut off no never any such finally perisht let any produce an instance if they can The word of the Lord is tried it is upon good Psal 18. 30. 12. 6. proof found to be most true without the least dross of deceit And thus Jesus Christ is said to be a tried stone i. e. upon tryal found most firm and precious fit and fully sufficient to bear up all that build upon him and thus he is a stone of proof as we say armour of proof i. e. a stone throughly prov'd that will certainly stay by and stay up all that by faith rest and rely upon him amidst whatever storms may make head against them and that while others fickle stays and refuges of lies which they fondly relied on are swept away And thus God as to his goodness and faithfulness which he manifests to such as truly turn to him is a well tried and experienc'd God and so will ever be as hath been heard so shall it be seen and as it hath been told so shall it be found and much more Indeed the Lord proves us and that several ways sometimes one way sometimes another sometimes with health and prosperity and sometimes with sickness and adversity c. But what pitiful sorry creatures do we upon tryal shew our selves to be and how
much do we fail his expectations and what he promises to himself concerning Quasi dicat omnia tentavi media sed lusi oleum operam nec bonis nec malis estis curabilâ—s c. Pareus us so as that he is even at a stand with us and knows not what as it were to do to us as he says of Ephraim O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee c. for your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away c. Hos 6. 4. A most pathetical expostulation as if the Lord had said I have several ways try'd you and made several assays upon you sometimes one way and sometimes another sometimes by my word and sometimes with my rod one while prospering you another while áfflicting you c. and after all I profess I am even at a stand concerning you and you shew your selves such as that I know not what to do to you Your goodness if any what is it but as the morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away it is but a meer flash an outside fickle unconstant nothing and you unsteady and deceitful So it is said of the Israelites that the Deut. 3. 2. Lord led them fourty years in the wilderness to prove them and to know what was in their hearts whether they would keep his commandements or no and what upon proof did he find them even an awker'd untoward perverse people they gave God indeed good words made him fair promises spake well but acted ill and quite 5. 27 28. contrary to what they pretended God said indeed Surely they are my people children that will Is 63. 8 9 10. not lye so he was their Saviour c. But they Deut. 32. 15. rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit c. When Jesurun waxed fat then he kicked and when lean he murmured It is said God left Hezekiah 2 Chr. 32. 31. to try him to know all that was in his heart and how much pride and vain glory and ingratitude was there found there God many times lays us low and what large promises do we make if he will but restore us which many times the Lord does but what false deceitful creatures do we shew our selves and so we think if we had but such and such mercies how would we improve them but it is quite otherwise upon tryal so before affliction comes we think many times we have a good measure of faith and patience and christian courage and submissiveness to the will of God but upon proof how little does it appear to be But now it is come upon thee and thou faintest it toucheth thee Job 4. 5 6. and thou art troubled c. thus surely men of low Psal 62. 9. degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lye to be laid or being laid in the ballance that is put to the tryal they are altogether lighter than vanity i. e. vanity being laid in one scale Sensusest si homines ponerentur in una lance bilancis vanitas verò in altera tum comperirentur leviores esse quâ—mvanitas Pisc and all they together in the other vanity would yet outweigh them and be found weightier than the weightiest of them By a â—ye we are to understand false and deceitful and as men of high and low degree comprehend all sorts of men so vanity and a lye all sorts of deceitfulness and uncertainty But God now he upon proof is ever found what his Word declares and what he promises to be yea such as make proof of him find him to be better and more than what they expected him to be Joshua when he was Josh 23. 14. now going the way of all the earth he appeals to all Israel that not one thing had failed of all the good things God had promised all came to pass and not one thing failed thereof And Solomon declares as concerning his father David that 1 King 3. 6 God had shewed him great mercy and kept for him great kindness according as he walked before him in truth and in righteousness c. and David Psal 119. 65. himself says thou hast dealt well with thy servant O Lord according to thy word And O that England that we of this Nation would at length by true conversion but prove God and see but what would be the effect and issue thereof if he would not bless us and cause it to be well with us we have tryed others and other ways and upon proof found them vain and ineffectual O that at length we would but try here if not for our own sakes yet for the sake of the Nation or at least of our little ones if we have no regard to our selves nor any other yet at least let us have respect to them that they may be saved which are or should be so dear to us and which we especially should seek the good of because while so little they cannot seek it themselves and that when we have served the Lord in our generation they may continue after us to stand up in our stead These Ezra had a Ezr. 8. 21. special regard to in that fast he proclaim'd at Domino parvuli maximae curae sunt nec dubium Deum saepiùs urâ— ibus maximis paâ—cere propter multitudinem infantium c. Winck in loc the river Ahara it was to seek of him a right way for them and their little ones Yea what a singular respect hath God himself to such how have his bowels even yern'd towards them and shall not ours you know what he said to Jonah And should not I spare Niniveh that great City wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand their left that is young children and infants And shall not Parents have a tender respect to such can ye indure to see the evil else that is like to come upon them do but read and seriously weigh what the want of turning to God hath brought upon others little ones * Lam. 2. 11. 4. 10. and shall this move us nothing O that something Hos 13. 16. Ezek. 9. 6. or other might prevail but to try what not try what is purpos'd for our own weal why the Lord you see is pleas'd to put himself to the tryal prove me and shall we refuse when as never yet any prov'd him thus in vain O did we but truly and unfeignedly repent and turn to God we should then see what was the power and prevalency thereof and we should meet with such proofs of God's favour and goodness as would fully convince us that all the while we refus'd to do it we for sook our own mercy and from Hag. 2. 19. that very day would the Lord bless us and let us all set our selves to this as belonging to all and as being the concern of all both old and young high and low rich and poor great and mean
houses and England shall be set as a pattern of blessing and blessings as is said of David For thou hast made him most blessed for ever the Hebrew is set him blessings i. e. as some beset him with blessings as Psal 5. 12. 32. 10. replenished him c. or as others put him to be blessings that is to impart them or to be a blessing as is said of Abraham and others Gen. 12. 2. Is 19. 24. Ezek. 34. 26. c. or Psal 21. 6. rather as others to be an example of blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pones eum benedictiones Hac loquendi formulâ exprimitur tam uberem bonorum copiam affluere ei ut meritò benevolentiae divinae exemplar esse possit c Calv. and blessings that is so blessed and replenished with blessings as to become worthily an example to others thereof And so shall England become upon its return to God as it is said of Ephraim and Manasseh In thee shall Israel bless saying God make thee as Ephriam c. so as England the Lord bless thee as he hath blessed his people there whereas others have been an example of God's curse as Zedekiah and Ahab The Lord make thee as Zedekiah c. and then from that very time that we do indeed Gen 48. 20. Jer. 29. 22. turn again to God and are reform'd the name of the City and Countrey too shall be the name of that City Ezek. 48. 35. as that wherein our chief good and happiness shall consist Jehovah Shammah the Lord is there CHAP. XVII Motives to seek the face or favour of God COnsider 1. how excellent it is so as David Psal 36. 7. admires it How excellent is thy loving kindness O God c. It cannot be exprest what is there in heaven it self that exceeds it whom have I in heaven but thee And they shall see 73. 25. Rev. 22. 4. his face c. Life is precious the preciousest thing in Nature but the favour of God as has been hinted is more precious it is life even in Ps 63. 3. death it self as that blessed Martyr Mr. Bradford answered when profer'd life if he would recant Life said he with God's displeasure is worse than death and death in his favour is true life 2. How honourable what indeed more honours Since thou wast precious in my sight thou Is 43. 4. hast been honourable From that very time that a soul finds favour with God you may write it down as happy so truly honourable but there is no true honour 'till then it being God alone and his favour and grace that creates that this as I hinted before is the crowning mercy with favour wilt thou crown him It is observed of Ps 5. 12. the Rainbow that of it self it is but a common vapour but that which gilds it and as it were enamels it with so many radiant colours it is the Sun by shining upon it and so all the gildings all the beauty glory and lustre that is upon any it is from the shines of God's face from the beams of his favour and grace and without this man though in honour is yet but vile and like Psal 49. 20. the beasts that perish And the earth shined with his glory It is the grace and favour of Ezek. 43. 2. God which he counts his glory that makes to shine such lumps of earth as we are It is spoken as the great honour of the seven Princes of Persia and Media that were next to the King Hest 1. 14. that they saw his face those Persian Monarchs were seldom seen of any it was a piece of state they took upon themselves and if it was so much honour to see the face of an earthly Monarch what honour is it to behold the face of God! As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness Psal 17. 15. This is that badg of honour that differences the Saints from all others and is not onely the happiness but glory of heaven it self and of those Angels and blessed Heroes that reside there I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God and I say unto you that in heaven Luk. 1. 19. Matth. 18. 10. the Angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven This is spoken of as the grearest honour the creature can be advanced to in heaven and what greater honour then can there be on earth 3. How comfortable nothing comforts like it nor any thing truly without it It s better than wine yea turns even water into wine it giveth songs in the night and in the grossest darkness causeth to arise light and this alone in all troubles is the choicest cordial no Bezoar Pearl Alkermes nor other cordial can comfort like it hence the Prophet David a man inspired by God of all cordials makes choice of this Let I pray thee thy merciful kindness Ps 119. 76. be for my comfort c. or let it be for to comfort me where should it be O let it be by Ad consolandum me me let it be with me as my cordial to cheer and revive me Such as are subject to faint use to have their cordials by them now Lord says David let me have this and none indeed to Ostendit nihil esse quod dolorem abstergat donec propitium sibi Deum sentiat Calvin this this was it made Oecolampadius when he was near death putting his hand upon his heart to say hic sat lucis here is abundance of light that is of unspeakable joy and Mr. Bolâ—on I am by the wonderful mercies of God as full of comfort as my heart can hold and another to cry out O the joy the unspeakable joy I find in my soul and another my cup runs over c. this will comfort when other the choicest cordials cannot nor will not and that in the most disconsolate estate but nothing in times of distress can comfort without it because nothing can supply the want of it It is said In the light of the Kings countenance is life and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain and as dew upon the grass and what then is the light of Gods countenance his favour how much more comfortable and refreshing must that needs be Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance O one cast of that is more comforting than the wealth of a whole world When Cyrus had once given a cup of Gold to one and a Kiss in token of special favour to another he to whom the King had given the Cup told him that the Cup he gave him was not so good gold as the Kiss he gave to the other c. 4. How profitable nothing makes more for our profit it being the main and that which is the very root and well-spring of all good but of this I have occasionally spoken something before and shall be the briefer therefore now what will or
love to others it must be by endeavouring by all possible ways and means their conversion and so their salvation Thus Paul made appear the sincerity of his love to Israel his hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel being this that they Rom. 10. 1. might be saved And so David to his son Solomon he tells us he was his father's son so were Prov. 4. 3 4 5 c. others but he in a special manner was so being singularly loved and of such a one we use to say he is his father's son and how did he manifest the truth of his love why he taught me also and said unto me let thy heart retain my words c. Get wisdom get understanding c. And we can never approve our selves sincerely to love others but in this way for if to love be to desire and endeavour the good of those we love how can it consist with the neglect of their chiefest good And that this is to love a very Heathen saw To love says he is to desire good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist things for those whom we love and according to our utmost ability to endeavour to accomplish them and what good things to conversion and salvation and therefore while we neglect these we do but indeed hate whom we may pretend to love Many Parents they think they love their children why because they cocker their children and provide well for them as to the world and allow them high fare and fine cloaths and it may be can tumble in silver and gold but such in the mean while neglecting their souls and the means appointed by God for their conversion and salvation they shew plainly Peremptores potiús quám parentes they do not in truth love them but rather hate them and so will be found and accounted of at the last day And how well may such Jud. 16. 15. children say to their Parents what Delilah sometimes said to Sampson in another case How can ye say ye love us when your hearts desires and prayers are no more to God for us that we may be converted and sav'd when you neglect our souls our jewel our darling our principal one and take no more care of our chief good our spiritual and eternal good of that which if we should fall short of it would avail us nothing though you should all your days gather Pearls for us or could procure the gain of a whole world for us The Lord commands Thou shalt Levit. 19. 17. not hate thy brother in thy heart and how is this prevented Thou shalt in any wise rebuke him and not suffer sin upon him so that not to rebuke not to use those ways and means appointed by God for to reclaim and reduce thy brother when he sinneth is to hate him for thereby the guilt of his sin is still suffer'd to be upon him to his soul's ruine which to suffer as it is hatred in thee so the sorest judgement upon thy brother 7. Consider others unserviceableness till they be converted they are altogether unprofitable Rom. 3. 12. Ezek. 15. 4 5. like that Vine branch in Ezekiel that was meet for no work and that girdle hid in Euphrates that was good for nothing and like Salt Jer. 13. 10. Matth. 5. 13. which has lost its savour and is fit for nothing but to be cast out and troden under foot And should we not do our utmost to get others out of such an estate that is so unprofitable wherein they neither can please God nor truly profit themselves or others wherein all their works even their best are but dead works and their Omnis vita infidelium peccatum whole life sin and is this an estate to let them lie in to let them alone in God forbid That 's very observable to this purpose which Paul says of Onesimus viz. that in time past i. e. all the Philem. 10. 11. while before his conversion he was unprofitable but after his conversion then profitable profitato Philemon yea to Paul himself before profitable to none neither to himself nor others but now to all to master and Minister and now he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicit nunc taâ—â—messe planc qualis vocatur answers his name which he never did before to which the Apostle seems to allude 8. Beasts if fallen or strayed and so in danger Exod. 23. 4. Deut. 22. 4. to perish were to be help'd and reduc'd and not men not souls does God take care of beasts would he have us keep them from perishing and not much more men souls but shall we let them alone in the errours of their minds and in the corrupt practices of their lives to stand or fall sink or swim live or dye no matter what what uncharitableness cruelty and hard-heartedness would this argue c. and therefore upon all these considerations let us lay out our selves to the utmost as to so good and blessed a work making use of all possible ways and means as may further the same as instructions exhortations admonitions reprehensions exemplary conversations c. and with and to all let us be sure to joyn our fervent prayers and earnest supplications for unless the Lord comes in with his help and makes successful what we do what can it avail if the 2 Kings 6. 27. Gen. 9. 27. Lord help not as that King said to the woman how should we help God shall perswade Japhet c. It is of God that sheweth mercy and Rom. 9. 16. as God gave to every man else had we the wisdom of Angels what would it avail without God and therefore we must address our selves to the most High and cry unto him who as he hath performed this for us can also for others but of this I have occasionally spoken something before and therefore shall not enlarge here and as we should endeavour this unto all as occasion serves so more especially to our relations and those whose good we have stronger obligations upon us than ordinary for to seek as we who are Ministers whose proper work in a more special manner it is in reference to our people and so Parents in reference to their children and all relations in reference to each other yea if children be converted themselves and their Parents as yet unconverted they should in a special manner indeavour their conversion onely what they do they are to do in an humble way and to mannage it after a reverent manner as beseems that honour that is due to Parents from their children It is controverted by some whether children may not be instrumental of greater benefit to their Parents than they have receiv'd from them and certainly if they prove instrumental as to their conversion they may for to be instrumental of regeneration and a spiritual birth is far better than of generation and a natural birth and to be instrumental to an happy glorious and eternal life than to a
miserable mortal and momentany life and therefore all should do their utmost herein and what the Church of the Jews said of the Church of the Gentiles before their calling that should we say of our relations we have such and such relations Cant. 8. 8. as are not as yet turn'd to God nor brought home to him what shall we do for them it grieves us much for their sakes because of the state they are as yet in what shall we do to get them out of it let us contribute even all we can to our utmost as to their conversion The Israelites were Paul's brethren and kinsmen according to Rom. 9. 1 2 3. the flesh and what great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart had he for them and how earnest was he for the conversion of them My hearts desire says he and prayer to God for Israel 10. 1. is that they might be saved that his natural Salutem eorum mirum in modum expetere testatur pro eâ sedulò ad Deum vota facit relations might become spiritual and those so neer in nature and bonds of consanguinity might be so in grace and bonds of sanctity that they might be happy as well as himself it was not that Israel might become great in the world or have plenty and prosperity in their streets or have the Kingdom restor'd to them from the Romans but that they might be converted and saved for this it is his soul travels and is so exceeding sollicitous The word we render desire is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very emphatical and notes a marvelous strong intention of spirit and solicitude of soul together with a complacency therein and an earnest study for the accomplishment thereof His soul as he elsewhere expresses it did greatly even long after Phil. 1. 8. them all in the bowels of Jesus Christ and so should ours after the conversion and salvation of others especially our relations and what the Apostle says of husbands and wives that we may say of others And what knowst thou O 1 Cor. 7. 16. wife whether thou shalt save thy husband or how know'st thou O man whether thou shalt save thy wife So what know'st thou O father or mother whether thou shalt save thy child c. There 's hope thereof if we be not wanting therein and what we do here to relations or others we should take care to do it wisely having respect to the different state of those with whom we have to deal and accordingly dealing with them as the Apostle Jude exhorts And of some have Jude 22. 23. compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the fire As if the Apostle had said you have to deal with several sorts some are weak others wilful some pliable others refractory and accordingly deal as each ones temper requires either with mildness or Commiseramini i. e. ex misericordia reprehendite officii admonete humaniter c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoc est terrendo eos per denunciationem judicii Dei nisi resipiverint Pisc more sharpness so as any way to win them with gentler means or more severe and others save with fear that is say some lest their precious souls should everlastingly miscarry more worth than whole worlds or rather this fear may respect the way and manner of saving them as if the Apostle had said save them any ways though never so severe get them to heaven though by the gates of hell O souls are so precious and hell so terrible that no way or course here that God or man can take can be too severe so that to save here with fear is as much as by fears that is by frighting them by making them afraid by setting before them the terrours of the Lord and telling them of the 2 Cor. 5. 11. Matth. 3. 7. wrath to come by denouncing God's fearful iudgments against them if still they go on in their sins and shewing them how that there is but a step between them and hell c. pulling them out of the fire Sinners who still persist impenitently in their sins are as it were in the Jam. 3. 6. fire being set on fire of hell and as it were in the suburbs of eternal fire and therefore says the Apostle Asperitatem necessitas exousat quod aliter servari nequeant pull or snatch them out Such are not easily or gently to be dealt with but hastily and violently to be pull'd out as a man would do one that is in the fire and what does he do in such a case does he stand to becken to him with his finger or leisurely to hold forth to him his hand no his present danger calls to him to act at another rate and after a more speedy and forcible manner even with that violence as it may be to pluck an arm or other limb out of joynt Why it is to save life and the person will be burn'd else and therefore he uses in such a case the greatest violence and so should we with those who will not otherwise be won so that pulling out of the fire may be understood Eleganti utitur Metaphorâ nam ubi est incendii periculum violenter capere non dubitamus Calv. in loc here as men use to pull out of the fire And thus the Apostle James laboured to save wicked and refractory rich men Jam. 5. 1 2. c. and John the Baptist the Scribes and Pharisees that generation of Vipers Matth. 3. 7. and the Cretians being fierce and refractory sinners thus Paul Titus 1. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 severè acrite◠vel praecisè Gall. Vivement bids Titus to indeavour to save them Rebuke them says he sharply or severely the Greek is cuttingly or to the quick it seems an allusion to Chirurgeons who to cure the wound cut to the quick Thus considering the disposition of the offender and the quality of the offence some offending of weakness others of wilfulness we are accordingly with wisdom and discretion for to deal more gently with some and more roundly and roughly with others still in all making God's glory and their conversion and salvation our main end and drift And though we should meet with many discouragements it may be with mocks and scoffs in the faithful discharge of this our duty yet let us not matter it but remember we work for souls and for their conversion and salvation and the gaining of one soul is more and better than the gaining of whole Kingdoms and Empires and though we should not see that fruit we so much desire and endeavour for yet doing our duty let this comfort us that our judgment is with the Lord and our work with our God Is 49. 4. The Conclusion of the whole AND thus I have now through the good assisting hand of God upon me to whom for ever be the praise finished my Discourse of these words words of as great weight and importance as possibly can be imagined words as I said at first so seasonable and so soveraign for they do contain in them the very platform of a peoples or a person's weal and their onely true and right way of being saved And O that now the Lord would bring us into this way which if yet he hath any delight in us he will and which that he may I have onely two things to request and I have done 1. That what is here so seasonably though not so accurately held forth may not onely be heedfully read but seriously weighed and carefully and conscientiously improv'd that having searcht and found that so it is that this is England's and so any other Nation 's or people's or person's sole and soveraign way of being saved we would hear it and practically know it for our good and as that than Job 5. 27. which nothing is more our own nor the Nations interest or concern And 2. that as what is here dictated I have my self sent and followed with prayers and I with I could say with my tears into the world so it may be accompanied also with others prayers even the prayers of all into whose hands it shall come That the Lord may be pleas'd to bless and succeed the same so as to accomplish that good work and to effect that great and blessed cure it tends to and is design'd for even to turn us again to the Lord God of Hosts repentingly that so he may turn to us graciously and cause his face to shine And let us now and so I shall conclude pray and pray again yea and again as the Church and people of God do here v. 3. Turn us again O God and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved v. 7. Turn us again O God of hosts and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved v. 19. Turn us again O Lord God of hosts cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved and let all that love and desire their own or the Nation 's weal say Amen and Amen O Lord the God of Hosts do thou Turn us again to thee Cause thou thy face to shine on us And saved we shall be FINIS