Barren Wombs sure a barren Soul should be a mourning soul Indeed 't is too commonly so that barren souls are usually as barren of sighs and tears as they are of good fruit You that are empty Vines fruitless Fig-Trees how seldom is it that you are upon your knees bewailing your Barrenness The sin of Barrenness is a provoking sin There are 3. such words spoken against Barrenness in Religion as setting aside the sin against the Holy Ghost there are not more terrible words spoken against any sin One word you have in the Parable against the barren Fig-tree Luk. 13.3 Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground Another word against another barren Fig-tree Matth 21.19 Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever A third word is against the barren ground Heb. 6.7 8. The Earth that drinketh in the Rain that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth Herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed receiveth Blessing from God but that which beareth Briers and Thorns is rejected and nigh unto Cursing whose end is to be burned Methinks these words should make some of your souls to tremble Professor what art thou a barren soul a fruitless Fig-tree O how canst thou contain thy self from fear Is not thine heart terrified within thee at the hearing the words of this Curse What if this word should have been spoken to thee Cut this Man down cut this Woman down why cumber they the ground Or what if it should be said to thee Never fruit grow on thee for ever never a word of Grace prosper more with thee live and dye a barren soul would it not make thine heart shake And are not these words spoken to thee I hope not as an irreversible Curse I hope that word is not gone forth against any of you cut this Man down never fruit grow on him for ever let him wither and perish and dye and Burn for his Barrenness yet if it be not so spoken as an irreversible Curse yet to thee it is spoken as a terrible Warning Thus much of it doth belong particularly to thee thou art nigh unto Cursing and if thou look not the better to it thine end will be to be burned Barrenness is a Reproach Barrenness is an high Provocation and fruitfulness is an Honour and receiveth Blessing from God Fruitfulness doth both speak Christians grown up to good maturity and will advance them yet higher and higher He that lays out most in his life is still laying up more in his heart we gather by spending the more we do the more we have no such thriving and flourishing Christians as the diligent doing Christians There 's nothing gotten by holding in the Grace we have and there 's nothing lost by laying it out A good Man brings forth out of his Treasure and the more is brought forth the more it increaseth within If ever you would make an increase in inward grace let it put forth in vigorous exercise no such way to grow rich in Faith as by being rich in good works Faith without works dyes This now is a farther perfection of Religion that I would press you to be reaching after fruitfulness in Religion or Holy action Be not Hearers or Talkers but doers of the Word Jam. 1.25 Who so looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein not being a forgetful Hearer but a doer of the work this Man shall be blessed in his deed Be doers of the work and abound in the work of the Lord. That charge which the Apostle gives 1 Tim. 6.18 with a particular respect to works of Charity receive it with respect to every good work Do good be rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate laying up in store for your selves a good foundation against the time to come O my Brethren set your hearts upon it to do all the Honour you can to the Name and Gospel of God before the world Wipe off that reproach of Barenness by shewing your selves examples of fruitfulness The world say in your reproach and in the reproach of your God also What is this Christianity that is so much boasted of but a meer shaddow What are these Professors what ever they talk what do they more then others Shew them what you do which they will never do If you ask me what you should do 't is too long to tell you the particulars of all your duty take the Apostles answer Phil. 4.8 Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report these things do and the God of peace shall be with you One Particular I shall instance in and but in a word here intending to speak more largely of it afterwards do all you can that more immediately tends to the propagating of Religion in those that have none Be busie in your Families to propagate religion there I am willing to take all occasions to inculcate this Duty in regard that to the grief of my Soul I find that after my so often pressing of it there is still so great a neglect even among some high Professors of Christianity O Friends if ye will do any thing for God be doing amongst your own instruct them teach them the way of the Lord Perswade and provoke them to Christ Let Religion be the top care and top business of your houses Do what you can to make Christians of your Children and Servants and this not so seldom or sparely or heartlesly as some do now a little and a long time after never a word but be constant be instant with all yours to bring them to God that there may be a face of serious Religion appearing upon your whole Families that a Spirit of Religion may be the very temper and constitution of your houses Some Professors what ever they be when amongst other Professors how much soever of Religion there appears then yet come into their houses and there 's no more to be seen or heard of God than in the Family of those that make no profession there 's ignorance and carnality and vanity and barrenness and unsavoryness and emptiness of all that 's good You that come hither to the Ordinances to kindle religion in your own hearts to fetch holy fire from the Altar what you get here carry it home to your houses instill it into the hearts of your Children and Servants Here your holy activity must begin he that is not busily doing for God with his own is never like to do much good to others Next endeavour to propagate Religion among your Neighbours and Acquaintance especially be doing good one to another Christians to Christians speak often one to another as they did Mal. 3.16 speak to the hearts and lay hold on the hands one of another and stir up and lead one another in the ways of the Lord. Friends I would fain revive and set on foot that Christian Practice of Fruitfulness
over you we can hardly keep life in you the little good that remains is weak and even ready to vanish away But what then will become of you in the Day of Famine when your Manna shall cease and your Waters fail O tremble to hear this word spoken concerning you you shall not mourn nor weep you won't be much troubled nor lay it to heart but ye shall pine away for your iniquities If in such a day of plenty as you have had you are such pining Souls what can you expect but you may pine to death in days of want 2. Especially 't is woful to those that have no Religion in them that are blind and hard and dead Souls that remain still without Christ and without God in the World Sinners if ye be not brought in to be Believers whilst the Word of Faith is preached to you if ye be not converted whilst the Word of Repentance is preached among you if you continue such blind and ignorant Souls whilst you have the light with you what will ye be in the days of darkness Sinners concern not themselves about any such thing let the Gospel shine or be under a cloud let Religion flourish or vanish let God be amongst them or be gone let there be preaching or no preaching 't is all one to them they are like Gallio Acts 18.17 they are for none of these things But Sinners let me tell you as little as you regard it how it goes with the Church of God and the Ordinances of God whether there be liberty or restraint a plenty or a famine of the word when ever the Gospel departs when ever a famine of the word comes 't is you are the men that are like chiefly to have the misery of it 'T is an affliction to the Saints and they may be great losers they may languish and grow to a decay but you are like to lose your Souls you are like to dye in your Sins and to perish for ever if you are thus hardned under the word how are you like to be won to Christ without the Word If the Devil hath such power with you to lead you on in your sins in your drunkenness and swearing and lying and covetousness and to hold you under your impenitence notwithstanding all the instructions and warnings and reproofs you have from the word how fast will he hold you when there 's none to resist him If you never be converted and brought to repentance you know you must to Hell and what hope will there be of your conversion when the converting word is no more preached to you Sinners you had need make better use of the Word while you have it among you you had need look for another manner of work of God than hitherto hath been upon you Of all men in the World you especially had need pray Lord take not the Word of thy Truth from among us or at least Lord delay that dark day O let my Soul be first wrought upon O let it first lay hold on me and recover me from my sins and from the power of the Devil let me become a Convert to Christ a Disciple of Christ before that day come you had need pray thus and you had need hearken more to the Word while you have it and hasten in to Christ That day will stay for none of you when 't is coming and O! what if it should come upon you if the Gospel should be carried away and leave you in that sinful guilty state that now you are in Look to it Sinners in the name of God look to it strike in with Christ presently make thorow work for your Souls instantly while it is called to day harden not your hearts don 't any longer stand shall I shall I one day or other I hope I shall For ought you know God may be even about to pack up his Treasure to take down his standing and ready to be gone and then where are you O carry this thought upon your heart if God should go and his Gospel should go and leave my Soul at this pass wo wo to me poor wretched Soul what shall become of me for ever O if the preaching of the Word leave me under the power of the Devil sure the Famine of the Word is like to seal me up under the hardness of my heart to everlasting condemnation Look to it Sinners pray that such a Day may not overtake you thus and O hasten and take the present season and this day break off your sins by repentance and yield your selves to the Lord be converted that ye may be saved Fear not but Christ will accept you if you will now come in he is yet willing he stands stretching his hands to you he lifts up his Voice to you and calls Come ye poor sinful souls come unto me make an adventure for Heaven come and be my hearty Disciples let the wicked among you forsake his wickedness let him return to the Lord and he shall have mercy Fear not but if you will now come in you shall be accepted but dare not for your lives delay any longer lest the days of darkness overtake you lest the Gospel be removed from us and leave you bound in your sins and then you be carried down bound hand and foot into the everlasting Prison The Lord grant that this be not the dismal lot of any of your Souls and look you to it in time that it be not lose not the present season the Sun seems to grow low it 's almost night O see to it that it be not Sunset among us before it be Sunrising in any of your Souls I hope the day is even now dawning upon some poor Sinners among you that some of your Souls are looking towards Christ and making towards Christ and making your escape from your Sins Is it so with thee art thou awakened from thy Sins art thou wishing and waiting for Christ Even this is the dawning of the day upon thee O for the Sun rising for the forming of Christ upon thine heart look that the work that is go not back again but come on and hold on that thy little morning light may increase and grow up to perfect day and that the Evening and the Morning meet not 3. Our taking hold of God is our continuing the Lord among us and our preventing his departure This was their Sin in the Text they did not take hold of God that is they took no course to continue the Lord amongst them God was going from them and they let him go and look'd not after him they were too willing to part with God And this is the case of Backsliders in heart they are too well contented that God and they do part their heart is withdrawn from God and they matter it not though God withdraws from them Our laying hold on God imports these 3 things which are necessary to our continuing him with us 1. Our letting go our Idols or false
Kingdom to whom he said Thou shalt be over mine house and according to thy Word shall all my people be ruled onely in the throne will I be greater then thou Conscience is subject to none but God God is greater then Conscience 1 Joh. 3.20 God is greater then our hearts that is then our Consciences But next under God Conscience hath the supreme dominion in the Soul and as the Centurion to his Souldiers so Conscience where it maintains Authority says to all the faculties of the Soul to one go and it goeth to another come and it cometh and to every one do this and it must be done Now as Conscience is faithful and diligent or as it is careless and negligent so do matters go in the Soul a faithful watchful conscience sets the whole soul in good order a negligent sleepy conscience lets all run to ruine when God hath given men up to a spirit of slumber when conscience slumbers the whole soul falls asleep or which is worse runs out into all manner of disorders When God will awaken sleepy souls he begins with conscience awakens conscience first and that will awaken all their powers God awakens conscience mostly by frights as the Gaoler by an earthquake and Saul by an affrighting voice from Heaven Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Soul Soul what art thou doing why slightest thou the Lord why fightest thou against God There 's nothing but such thunder from Heaven that will rouse a sleepy conscience But though there 's none but God that can awaken conscience yet God ordinarily does it by our selves sets the soul on work upon its self to its own awakening a word or it may be but a thought comes into the heart which is made to stick into conscience and to sting it out of sleep and when conscience is stung and begins to stir there 's no more sleep no more quiet in the soul When the Master of the house is up and about once he rouzes all the Servants O Friends get your consciences to be awakened get your consciences to be stirring and then all your faculties will up and be doing That conscience may be a stirring conscience 1. Let Conscience open its ears and hear 2. Let it open its eyes and see 3. Let the mouth of Conscience be open and speak 4. Let it be quick and tender 1. Let Conscience open its ears and hear what the Lord speaks Let the voice of the Lord have an impression upon conscience when the Word comes into the thoughts onely it 's quickly gone and does nothing or when it hath some sudden work upon the affections that wears off but when it enters into the conscience when conscience hears the Word of the Lord when the Word which we preach from God is as the Apostles word 2 Cor. 5.11 made manifest in the conscience then it is in a way to prosper Let conscience open its ears first and 2. Let conscience open its eyes and see see how it is with the Soul how sad and miserable the state and way of the Soul is see how it 's like to be to grow worse and worse see how it should be and what is to be done that it may be better 3. Let Conscience have its mouth open Sleepy consciences are silent consciences those that see nothing will say nothing Let your consciences speak to you whatever the Word preaches to conscience let conscience preach it to the whole heart O Friends if we could so preach to you as to set your consciences a preaching to you the same things if when we preach to you repent and recover your selves out of the snares of the Devil we could get your consciences to preach repentance to you if there were such a voice heard within you I see I must repent I am lost and undone if I repent not if when we give a rebuke to you out of the Word your consciences also would rebuke you if the Word calls you thou unbeliever thou child of the Devil thou hypocrite thou loyterer thou backslider let but conscience say the same 't is true what the Word speaks I am an unbeliever I am an hypocrite a child of the Devil an idler a backsliding soul I cannot deny it 't is too true what the Word speaks concerning me If the Word threatens thou shalt have thy portion with unbelievers and hypocrites thy place among the children of the Devil if thou speedily repent not let conscience say the same this must be my place and my portion if I amend not there 's no help for me there 's no hope for me if I continue and go on as I am If the Word exhorts you Be converted thou unbelieving soul put away thine hypocrisie arise sluggard return O backsliding soul remember whence thou art fallen and recover thy first love and do thy first works let conscience speak the same words go to Christ O my soul turn from thy sins make thy peace with God get thee a new heart be upright with God be sound in the Faith follow the Lord thorowly follow the Lord fully as ever thou lookest for mercy do it as ever thou hopest for pardon do it wouldst thou ever see the salvation of God thou must count upon it to seek after the grace of God and increase and abound therein unto the end and then something would be like to be done 4. Let Conscience be quick and tender 1. Let the ears of Conscience be open and let it be quick of hearing 2. Let its eyes be open and let it be quick sighted 3. Let its mouth be open and let it speak quick home 1. Let its ears be open and let it be quick of hearing Be not of those fat and gross souls which are dull of hearing How many deaf ears do we preach to that hear nothing whose hearts will hear no more then the stone of the wall or the beam of the timber and of those that will hear something how many that are dull of hearing we have much work and hard work to beat any thing into them O get an hearing ear and be quick of hearing Swift to hear as Jam. 1.19 2. Let the eyes of Conscience be open and let it be quick sighted so that it may espy and observe the smallest matter of duty and sin and let it be tender eyed and not able to bear the least of evils some mens eyes can see none but the grossest of evils can see drunkenness to be evil or swearing or gross lying to be evils but for ordinary intemperances and excesses so they do not eat and drink themselves into very beasts and sots though they sit with the Drunkards and waste time with them and their estates with them and be foolish and jolly and carnally merry with them so they be not downright drunk they 'll tell you they see no evil in it Other men though they can see smaller evils yet their consciences can swallow them though conscience be never so quick
rise up I work and trade and follow my business for this world but as for the other World I confess I take little care about it or if I have minded it more than some others and have made a little profession of Christianity yet am I not still an Hypocritical Professor Is this my case Am I without Christ short of saving-Religion What can I think of my self and my present condition Sure as little as I have been troubled at it it is a woful case I am in What yet in my sins and under the power of the Devil and in a state of Damnation I had need look about me before I be past remedy 2. They must bethink themselves what they mean to do What shall I continue in this case till I dye or shall I make out after an escape Sinners 't is a fearful state you are in you are miserable souls if you have no Religion in you But pray now bethink your selves what do you mean to do for the future Will you go on as you are Will you take no more care for your souls then you have done nor look after no more Religion than you have gotten What do you mean Sinners Put your hearts to it bethink you what you mean to do What will you not be perswaded to thus much Will you not so much as think with your selves what shall I hence-forth do Shall I venture it as I am or shall I make out after an escape out of this fearful condition If you were come to this to bethink your selves what a wretched case your souls are in and how you may do to escape it you had then gotten the first step in this work of stirring up your selves to Religion 2. Crying out for help and recovery out of this wretched state When the soul falls a crying once a crying for help and recovery then it begins to stir to some purpose and this kind of stirring stands 1. In crying out upon themselves to seek out for help When the Sinner being brought to a sense of his misery and danger cryes out to himself as those Lepers 2 King 7.8 cryes one to another Why sit we here till we dye Or as the Marriners to Jonah Chap. 1.6 Arise Sleeper call upon thy God earest thou not that thou perish Thou art ready to perish O my soul if I continue as I am I dye for 't if I can get no more of God or of Religion and Christianity than I have hitherto gotten I must to Hell I must burn for ever and ever Awaken O my sleepy heart to thy Knees to thy Prayers call upon thy God that thou perish not Sinners how often have we been crying to you Crying upon you to consider your ways crying upon you to amend your ways to Repent and return unto the Lord to get you new hearts and to betake your selves to a new Life How often have you heard that word Ezek. 18.32 Why will ye dye Turn and live We have been long crying thus in your ears but there 's scarce a Sinner stirs for all this but you remain a company of stupid sleepy souls O Sinners after all our crying thus upon you when will you cry out upon your selves When will you take this word from Ministers mouths when we cry to you Repent Sinner go to Christ Sinner and speak it to your selves O my soul Repent hasten thee in to Christ O my soul Are there any of you now whose hearts cry thus to themselves Away O my soul go to God go to Christ for his help to save thee out of this wretched state that thou perish not everlastingly There would be some more hope in this 2. In crying out to the Lord to give help in this time of need Crying out to the Lord for help is both an Argument that the heart is awakened that Conscience is stirring and fears are stirring and desires are stirring and it is the stirring of the heart There may be a cold saying God help me when the heart is still asleep but when it cryes out then 't is a sign 't is awakened When the Psalmist Psal 12. had a sight what a wicked world this world was become and was affected with the sight then he crys out Help Lord for the Godly Man ceaseth the Wicked walk on every side and the Vilest Men are exalted And as the sight of such a wicked world was to him so should the sight of a wicked heart be to a Sinner O my wicked heart what a world of wickedness is it How full of deadly Poyson Grace is not the good that was in it is ceased and perished and every vile thing is to be found in it Envy and Malice and Lust and Falshood and Folly and Enmity against God what a Fountain of Wickedness is within me O what an heart have I Help Lord save me from this wicked heart save me or I perish This is an hopeful stirring Sinners how is it that you yet stir not what hearts have you Open your Eyes and look a little inward Is there not sin within you with all its Curses and Plagues Is not that heart of thine become like that City of Abominations Babylon of which 't is said Isa 13.21 Ziim and Okim dwell there and all manner of doleful Creatures the Cormorant and the Bittern Owles and Satyrs and Dragons Is not that heart of thine a very Den of Dragons and Serpents Every Lust of thine heart is a Serpent a Dragon and an Adder which as tame as they lye that thou feelest them not are devouring thy soul Every Sinner among you have such an heart an heart full of Serpents an heart full of Dragons O how is it that there is not a cry among you Lord help save Lord save me from this miserable heart But behold for all this there 's scarce a soul stirs all quiet and fast asleep and fears nothing I 'le tell you Sinners if you did but understand your hearts and what there is within you if we could help you to a sight of those crauling Serpents and stinging Adders and stinking Ulcers that are within you 't would scare you out of your security and put you to the cry Lord save or I am lost 3. In crying to the Men of God the Servants and Ministers of Christ When Ministers have been crying to Sinners Men and Brethren save your selves If our Word stir'd them we should have them crying to us What must we do to be saved How may we escape and be delivered from the wrath to come So we find it with those Act. 2.37 when Peter's word pricked them to the heart they cryed out Men and Brethren what shall we do And so the Jaylor Act. 16.30 When the Lord Preached to him by an Earth-quake and shook his heart he cryed out to the Apostles Sirs what must I do to be saved Such cryes should we hear from all the Sinners amongst you could our Words once shake your hearts Help O men of God
help me out of this miserable state help by your Prayers help by your Counsels Pray for a poor lost Soul Preach to a poor miserable Creature tell me what I must do help me to know the Lord shew me the path of Life Thus far that wicked one Simon Magus was stirred when Peter had set his sin and his misery home upon him Act. 8.24 Pray for me says he pray to the Lord for me that none of these things come upon me What am I in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of Iniquity For the Lord's sake help me out Pray to the Lord for me that I abide not in this Condition O how few such stirring Consciences how few such awakened Sinners can we find among you When do we hear one of all the Sinners here comeing to us with such a question Sirs what shall I do what must I do to be saved When do we hear any such Request to us Pray for me O pray me out of the hands of my Drunken Companions Pray me out of my Covetousness pray that the Lord would deliver me from this hard heart from this blind mind from this froward spirit pray that the Lord would convince and convert my soul Sinners I doubt that how well soever you sometimes speak of the Preaching you hear yet I doubt it doth not reach your hearts For mine own part I do not remember the time when any one Sinner among you did ever seriously put the question to me What must I do to be saved This is the second thing wherein Sinners stirring up themselves towards Religion stands in their crying out for help 3. In taking the Alarme from the Watch-men God hath sent forth his Ministers to Alarm this sinful world Joel 2.1 Blow ye the Trumpet in Zion sound an Alarm in my holy Mountain Isa 48.1 Cry aloud spare not lift up thy Voyce like a Trumpet tell my People their Transgressions and the House of Israel their sins What is the use of an Alarm Why to awaken and to declare to People that there is VVar making upon them that there is an Enemy near that they are in danger of perishing if they suddenly look not to themselves Thus will I do to thee that is I Will do terrible things to thee Therefore prepare to meet thy God O Israel That was Amos his Alarm to Israel Amos 4. Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed that was Jonahs Alarm to Nineveh Jon. 3.4 The Axe is laid to the root of the Tree God is making short work with Sinners Every Tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the Fire that 's John-Baptist's Alarm Mat. 3.10 The times of this Ignorance God winked at but now he commandeth all Men every where to Repent for he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in Righteousness that 's Paul's Alarm Act. 17.30 31. The like Alarms are the Ministers of Christ sounding in Sinners ears every day Repent or ye shall Perish Believe or ye shall be Damned be Converted or ye shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven The most of Sinners for all this stir not but sleep on Hath not the Alarm been sounded amongst you And yet how few Sinners of you are there whose souls are not fast asleep to this day We have cryed unto you as Dalilah to Sampson Arise Sampson the Philistins are upon thee Arise Sinner the Devil is upon thee Sin lyes at the door the Judge stands at the door Death is ready to dart thee thorow Hell opens her mouth for thee and behold nothing will do to awaken you We give the Alarm but you will not take the Alarm This is the stirring of the soul which I am Preaching of when Sinners are Alarmed and take the Alarms when the VVord Preached sets Conscience a Preaching and thundering upon Sinners when Conscience calls to them turn to the Lord break off thy sins by Repentance thou art a dead Man if thou go on there 's but a step betwixt thee and everlasting death thou wilt be in thou wilt be swallowed up of the eternal Furnace if thou suddenly Repent not When Mens hearts thus take the Alarm and their Consciences being startled do fall to work with them and provoke them to look after God and his Grace This is another thing wherein this stirring stands 4. In forcing themselves back from their sins and onwards to Christ Though in a proper sense there can be no coaction of the will yet such violence may be used towards our selves as in our common speech we call forcing of our selves So Saul 1 Sam. 13.12 I forced my self and offered a Burnt-offering Sinners should lay violent hands as it were upon their hearts pulling them back from sin putting them on to Christ Sinners must do by their hearts as the Angels did by Lot Gen. 19.16 When they were hastening him out of Sodom they laid hold upon his hand and upon the hand of his Wife and Children as they lingred and plaid loath to depart and even pulled them out from that burning that was coming Do your hearts hang back from Christ do they still hang after your sinful ways Lay hold on them pull them along Mat. 11.12 The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence and the Violent take it by force That notes that People are in good earnest for Heaven and cry mightily to God wrestle with the most High for admission This speaks a kind of using Violence with God but the first Violence Men are to use is upon themselves They must first lay violent hands on their own hearts to bring them about towards God and this must be done by pressing the things which they hear on upon their hearts rouzing up their fear and setting that as a Dogg upon their heels to hunt them away from their sins and drive them on to Christ This fear will be to Sinners as the Avenger of blood to the Man-slayer 't will hunt them on their way and hasten them to Christ O my Soul art thou not afraid to continue as thou art to continue a Drunkard to continue a Worldling or a Lyar or a Sleeper in thy course of Sin Art thou not afraid of the Devil art thou not afraid of Death doth not Hell make thee tremble Art thou afraid what may come upon thee and yet wilt thou not stir Is the Avenger of Blood at thine heels and yet wilt thou not run for 't Thus should Sinners fright themselves to Christ If goodness and kindness and mercy will not allure you let your misery and the danger you are in scare you put your finger into the fire dwell in the considering that VVrath and fiery Indignation which you are falling into a sudden transient thought now and then will do little you must think and think over again and again of these terrible things And to make such thoughts to work put the case to your selves What if these dreadful things should come upon me
the kindness of your youth and the love of your Espousals when your hearts were tender when your love was keen when your affections were quick and lively when the VVord and Ordinances of God were sweet and powerful when you came from far and would go through thick and thin to hear the word of the Lord when your Meditations when your Communications by the way as you went and returned were so savoury and so pleasant to you Such a time there has been with some of you such a time of love and of life there has been are you fallen from this O recover recover and let it be with you as in the days of old 3. Both those that are fallen and every one should strive to get up to the highest pitch of Religion that is attainable You should level at perfection of Holiness and no mark short of Perfection should limit or bound your aims 2 Cor. 7.1 Having these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the fear of God Though perfect Holiness cannot be attained yet it must be aimed at though we cannot reach unto it yet we must be reaching towards it though we cannot obtain yet we must be still following after Because we cannot obtain all that is desirable but there will be still while we live something that is before which we are yet short of therefore our motion in Religion must be constantly a progressive motion we must still be going forward and reaching out to that which is before that our works may be more and our hearts may be better at last then at first Prov. 4.18 The Path of the Just must shine more and more unto perfect day Grace must be growing up till it be swallowed up of Glory 2. Particularly 1. To an hunger and thirst of soul after more of Religion to a stirring Appetite Sick men when their Stomacks come to them 't is a good sign of recovery Hunger and Thirst are eager Appetites that put us to pain and are impatient till satisfied the keenness or eagerness of the Appetite after the Grace of God is express'd by Coveteousness earnest Coveteousness 1 Cor. 12.31 Covet earnestly the best gifts The Coveteous are greedy souls but there are degrees of greediness the hearts of some Covetous ones are more sharp set upon the world than others that are greedy enough Covet earnestly let your hearts be as hungry and thirsty after Grace and the gifts of Grace as the most greedy Men on earth gapes after the world Hunger and Thirst are imperious Appetites that will command men upon any thing any labour any difficulties for the obtaining satisfaction Hunger will break through Stone walls A graciously thirsty soul will not sit still and only say I Thirst give me to drink but he will rise and about to seek where he may be satisfied he will out to the Springs and the Brooks and the Wells of Salvation where he may draw and drink of the VVater of Life He will refuse no pains nor no hazard in order to the satisfying his desire Then you are hungry after Religion then your souls are Athirst for God when you are so sharply set that you must have it and will stick at no labour and difficulties for the obtaining The hunger and thirst of Souls after God is an attainment which is the way to an higher attainment Mat. 5.6 Blessed are they that hunger after Righteousness for they shall be filled Are you hungry after Grace Are you thirsty after God and Godliness Blessed are you for ye shall be filled ye shall have enough Grace enough for you Religion and Righteousness enough your souls shall be satisfied with the goodness of the Lord He will fulfil the Desires of them that fear him Psal 145.19 O Christians were we a more hungry Congregation were we a more thirsty People Spiritually hungry Spiritually thirsty what an Holy People what a company of gracious souls should we quickly become The Lord will fill his hungry souls with his good things we should be full and abound and have all things even all Grace abundantly towards us and in us 'T is one misery of consuming decayed souls that they have lost their Appetites Some Consumptive bodys will be hungry and eat till they dye but Consumptive souls do neither hunger nor thirst 'T is an ill sign that thou art dangerously gone in a Consumption who hast lost thine Appetite after God in whom thy desire fails 't is one of the Death-Tokens mentioned by Solomon Eccles 12.5 That desire shall fail Thou hast lost much of thy strength and thy spirits the life of Grace is fallen much to decay in thee but doth thy desire after Grace fail to Hast thou lost thine hunger and thy thurst after Righteousness doth thy soul cease to pant after the Water-brooks Canst thou not say I am athirst for God for the living God That soul of thine is nigh unto death if it be not suddenly recovered O Friends how many such dying souls are there among us Grace hath failed and desire hath failed in too many among us Do not deceive your selves with saying I desire I desire to be a more Holy and Heavenly hearty Christian do not say you desire nor think you desire what you do not Appetitus determinator ad hoc If you truly desire Grace an improvement herein then this is the one thing you desire Grace and nothing but Grace Holiness and nothing but Holiness will satisfie And if you can say this one thing I desire then you will also say this one thing I will seek 'T is not a dull and idle and ineffectual wish that can be accounted a sincere desire but such a keen and eager Appetite and Thirst after God as will not let you be quiet or suffer you to rest in such a case Those that are heartily hungry they can't sleep for hunger their hunger will keep them waking What are you such drowsie sleepy souls Can you take any rest in that poor and empty state you are in Sure what-ever you think you have little thirst for God 't would keep you waking if you had your souls would have no ease you could not be in quiet till you obtain O what a case is this that thou art in What to have so little of God in thee and yet no greater desire after more What art thou like to come to whose Bread fails and when hunger fails to whose Grace is sunk and whose desire after Grace fails What neither to have nor to wish thou had'st or to have so very little next to nothing and not to wish for more What to have lost so much and not to weep over thy loss and wish for thy recovery Friends how stands the case with you Sure you do not know your state if some of you do know that it 's but very low with you But what pantings or thirstings or workings of your hearts are there after an increase Do
speak a word for you ye workers of Iniquity O what shall I have to secure me from such a repulse and to assure me that he will be an Advocate for me If I can but get Christ to be mine Advocate there 's no doubt then but my matters will be good and the cause will go for me here 's the difficulty What shall I have to prove my title to Christ and his Advocation and to secure me that he will undertake for me Why my very trust if it be sincere will prove my Title He that trusteth in him shall not be confounded And for the evidencing the sincerity of this trust a confirmed Christian will have this to say Through the grace of God I have the testimony of a good Conscience and an holy Conversation my works of Faith and my labours of Love my mortified Sins this crucified and conquered World through the Spirit of Christ within me for whom I have forsaken all and followed Him these will attest the truth of my trust though none of these things none of my Graces none of my Dutyes can answer for me or acquit me in the Judgment or open the door of Glory to me yet they will be good evidences to prove my claim to Christ that can and will do it When Christ shall plead I have dyed for Sinners and thereupon shall challenge Absolution and entrance for those that have believed in Him and obeyed his Gospel the Accuser will reply But this Man hath not believed hath not obeyed the Gospel but now if I can get that to be evidenced by the testimony of a good Conscience and my holy Conversation then the mouth of the Accuser will be stopped for ever against me and so an entrance shall be administred to me abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom And here now is the trust of the Saints and its tryumph over all matters of doubt and difficulties that lye between them and everlasting Glory From hence may they take up those words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. Death where is thy Sting Grave yea Sin Hell Devil where is your Victory Thanks be to God who hath given me the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ From what hath been said learn by the way 1. That the life of a Christian in this World is to be a life of trust 2. That a life of trust is an excellent and desirable life and worth your reaching after But these I shall speak to together Christ is to be trusted not only for the world to come to give us entrance into Heaven but for this world also to lead and help us on to be with us in all our way from first to last Our great difficulty and our great danger of miscarrying is not so much in our end as in our way to it As hard as 't is to dye well 't is harder to live well Though the last Enemy Death looks with a more frightful face yet our Enemies that we meet with all along our lives Sin and Lust and Temptation do us the most deadly mischief He that hath conquered Sin need not fear to encounter Death do but live an Holy Life and then be nothing careful how ye shall dye Those Saints Heb. 11. Abel Abraham Sarah with the rest of them 't is Recorded that they liv'd by Faith it 's said of them v. 13. They all dyed by Faith not one amongst them miscarryed in Death who by Faith kept close to God in their lives Now our great difficulty and danger being in our lives there is the most need of trusting in Christ for his conduct through this World and this being that which I am now especially directing you to be reaching to that I may more effectually lead you on to such a life of trust I shall yet more particularly shew you that Christ must be trusted for 1. Our entrance into Religion 2. Our progress in Religion 3. Our perseverance in Religion 1. It is Christ that must do the first work for us must bring us in at the straight Gate and give us entrance into Religion Who brought Israel out of Egypt Cut out a passage for them through the Red Sea and set them into the way of the Promised Land 'T was the same Moses that conducted them through the Wilderness Christians you that have passed the New Birth and have broken out of the Womb you that are escaped out of Egypt that state of Bondage you once were in with the rest of this miserable World and are now gotten safe into the way of life Who is it that hath helped you hitherto Are you not beholden to Christ for this As it was said of the second Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.22 so 't is true of the first Resurrection As in Adam all dye even so in Christ shall all be made alive Are there any living souls amongst you 'T is Christ who is your Life And who is it that must help after and bring in those that are behind and quicken those that are yet dead Is it not the same Jesus that must do it Sinners you that have been left dead in your sins some of you have not trod one step towards the New Birth others of you have been brought to the Birth but still stick in the Womb What hope have you that you shall ever be new Born If you be not new Born there 's no hope of you but you must dye for ever better you had never been Born into this World then not to be Born a new to Christ You must dye there 's no help for you there 's no hope of you you must dye eternally the second Death will seize upon you and swallow you up for ever if you be not Born the second time You are yet without the Gate and if you dye there dye in your sins dye in your ignorance in your impenitence and unbelief if ye dye without the streight Gate you go down quick into the Pit Now what hope is there of your being brought in Multitudes of your Predecessors in sin have never come in have liv'd and dyed and gone to their Graves and gone down to Hell in their impenitence and down you are going apace What hope is there now that you may stop before you come there that you may be brought about out of that common rode that broad way that you are going and brought into the narrow gate that gate of Life May be you will say Christ I trust will do it and the truth is that 's all you have to say that 's all the hope you have there 's the same Jesus before you who hath brought in so many others who says to you all as Isa 45.22 Look unto me and ye shall be saved None cometh to the Father but by me and Joh. 6.37 Him that cometh to me that will trust upon me to bring him to God I will in no wise cast him out Go to Jesus Sinners tell him Lord thou hast told me that none can come to the
he lived and as he would have them live they would not only that they may be blessed in Christ but that Christ may be pleased in them They never have their wills but when Christ hath his will of them It does not suffice me saith a Christian that I have hopes of getting to Heaven by Christ at last I must be more holy here I would live so that my ways may please Christ How can I bear it to be so unlike to him to be so often breaking out and breaking loose from him O that I might hold me close by Him that I might in my whole course please the Lord. I would fain be a more exact and perfect Christian All this the Apostle follows so hard after Phil. 3.12 Not as though I had already obtained or were already perfect but I follow after if I may apprehend Brethren this is as far forth as you are Christians and this should be the sum of your desires and aims to get as near as possible to an exact conformity to Christ both to his Image that as he was so you may be in this World and to his will that you may stand compleat in all the wills of Christ 3. Christians falling so much short of that holy conformity to Christ they desire do fall under many doubts and fears how they shall attain O how short do I fall of such an holy frame of such an holy and undefiled course When I look upon what I would be and what I am what a distance is there how far am I yet behind how hardly can I reconcile my loose and lazy heart to such a strict and holy course My untoward heart O how it slugs and hangs back and will not come on O how it boggles breaks loose how many a step doth it make out of this narrow into the broad way O how it lusts after the ease and liberties of the flesh and how often doth it turn aside from Christ to the vain ways and lying vanities of this present World When I would be totally conformed to the Law of Christ I find another Law in my members carrying me out to a compliance with the Law of Sin I am warping every day I am wandring in every duty I am apt to lose my self in every Company I come into in every business I set my self to I cant but look upon it as a comfortable thing and as a blessed thing if mine heart might be ever with the Lord if I could keep me close by his side and constantly under his eye What a mercy what a joy would it be but Woe is me I cannot obtain I have wished and hoped and prayed I have tryed and tryed and still I fall short O how little hope is there left that yet I shall obtain 4. Their trust in Christ is their help against all their discouragements and fears Dost thou say there 's no hope I shall not obtain To perfect conformity to Christ thou canst not but is there no hope of thy becoming a more eminent Christian than now thou art Rebuke that unbelieving thought with this word yet I trust in Christ I shall He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him Heb. 7.25 Not only to save them from wrath but to save them from sin to save them to the uttermost and to sanctifie them to the uttermost Do not say I cannot think how this weak slippery loose untoward heart I cannot think how it should ever come to be setled and fixed in such a severe and holy course do not say such a word Can'st thou not think how Yet he is able to do for thee abundantly above all that thou canst ask or think Eph. 3.20 His thoughts are not as thy thoughts his ways are not as thy ways the Lord Christ can over-do the thoughts of his People can do that for them which they never thought could be done yea and if thou wilt trust him he will do it Consider and study that Scripture Psal 37.5 Commit thy way to the Lord trust in Him and He will bring it to pass Thou hast many good things upon thine heart thou canst not take up with this poor and pittiful and in and out way of life that thou livest thou wouldst fain come to a more spiritual Heavenly active useful course of life This thou proposest to thy self this thou hast made some offers and attempts upon but thou canst not bring it to pass but still thou fallest short what shouldst thou now do why commit thy way to the Lord trust in Him and he shall bring it to pass and as v. 4. He shall give thee the desire of thine heart Christians I hope your hearts are set upon this holy conformity to Christ I hope you will not sit down by what you have already attained God forbid that that easie trifling way of Religion that is all that some of you have attained God forbid that this should satisfie you and I hope it does not I hope you are both wishing for and reaching towards a more strict and painful course Are you so hold on If you have prayed for it pray again pray without ceasing 1 Thes 5.17 Never give over till you have it Have you tryed what you can do to mend your course and mend your pace Try again and again never sit down as discouraged but hold you on keep to the way of the Lord as you can keep you going keep striving and labouring with your hearts with your might and in so doing commit your way to the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to pass do what you can through the grace already received and what you cannot trust in Christ and he will do it for you 'T is not an idle trust as I said before that I exhort you to such a trust as to save you the labour Never say I trust in Christ that he will work my work in me and for me and so cast off all care your selves 't is not an idle trust but a stirring trust an encourageing trust heartening you to the work Keep doing keep going keep striving towards a more holy serviceable life and then trust in Christ and he shall bring it to pass and give you your hearts desire Christians my hearts desire and prayer for you is that you may be saved I would fain help you to Heaven and that you might be presented by Christ to the Father without spot or wrinkle and in order hereto I would fain see more of the spirit of Christianity and the holy Image of Christ breathing forth and shewing it self more conspicuously in all your ways I study what I can to Preach so to you that my words may be effectual to bring you up to an higher pitch of Holiness and this is my encouragement my trust in the living God that my labours with you shall not be in vain I Pray and trust I Preach and trust I labour among you and trust and what is
and hath no light let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himself upon his God That is even then when he is in darkness and hath no light at such a time there may be such a stay God would not command him to impossibilities What is it to be in darkness and to have no light Why no les then to give up all for lost to be in the darkness of an uncomfortable and hopeless state and not to have so much light as to discern his holy habits or actings that should comfort him Why yet even then there may be a stay or else God would never have bid him even in such a case to stay himself upon his God There may be a stay and there is so for do but ask such a poor dark disconsolate Christian when as to his sense he is most hopeless and says I have no hope do but ask him then why what will you take to give up and forgoe all your hope in Christ Will you be hired for ever to quit your hope in Christ O no not for all the world look ye there now though he says he hath no hope yet all the world shall not hire him to let go that hope he hath 2. A resolved cleaving to Christ He doth still when 't is lowest with him with purpose of heart cleave unto Him He thinks here also that he hath no mind nor list to follow Christ or Holiness any longer judging it will be all in vain I but ask such a poor Christian Will you return then to take up your lot with Sinners and give off from serving or following Christ any longer Will you return to your old Lusts to your old carnal and fleshly Life Will you return from Christ to embrace this present World Since you have no hope to the other World will you return to make your best of this World Will you to Ryoting and Drunkenness will you to your old Covetousness and Greediness will you hence-forth go back and live in a total neglect of Christ and his holy ways will you give off hearing and give off praying and give off the trouble and care of an holy watchful Life and let loose the reins to your corrupt Nature and let it take its own course Will you do so Can you do so O the Lord forbid sure I will never go back how-ever if I never come to Heaven yet I will not return to wickedness God will speak Peace to his People but though he never speak Peace to me yet I will not return to folly Though I cannot say with Job cap. 13.15 Though he Slay me yet will I trust in him Yet this will I say though he Slay me yea though he Damn me yet will I serve him If I must to Hell yet I am resolved that Holiness shall be my way I will not allow my self to slight Christ or to sin against Christ though I should never have any benefit by Christ Whatever he will do with me as to my future state yet I am resolved to be his Servant while I live If I may not be a Saint in Heaven yet I will be as much as I can a Saint on Earth Holiness is good if I have never so small a spark of it 't is a Beam of God 't is the Image of Christ If I may not see God nor dwell with Christ yet I will get a little of him here a little is better than none though it should last me but a little time If I may not behold his Face in Righteousness yet I will do what I can to sit at his Feet in Righteousness whatever he do with me Ask any poor Christian that is in his darkest state whether this be not the standing resolution and purpose of his heart And is it not evident now that whatever he thinks of himself he still cleaves unto Christ The truth is such abiding workings of the heart towards Holiness are the souls cleaving to Christ and it appears though he cannot see it himself yet to Standers-by that the root of the matter is still in him yea and such holy resolutions in a dark state are stranger evidences of sincerity than the same resolutions where they are encouraged by the highest sensible enjoyments Certainly there is more of evidence in it to be able to say though he damn me yet I will serve him then there is in this I will serve him because he hath saved me For mine own part I should have an higher confidence of a poor disponding and even despairing Christian that 's bent upon Holiness than of many whose Religion is animated and encouraged by raptures of Joy For the close of this e're I proceed farther give me leave to put in a word of Exhortation let me exhort you in the words of Barnabas Act. 11.23 That with purpose of heart you will cleave unto the Lord. Cleaving Notes Firmness Closeness 1. Be firm stick close to Christ Let it be with you as with the Apostle Rom. 8.38 39. Let nothing separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Be sure of this that he will be with you whilst you are with him Jam. 4.8 Draw nigh unto God and he will draw nigh to you So may I say stick fast unto Christ and he will stick fast unto you Christ is a sure Friend and he will stick by all his Friends that are faithful to him Consider the three fore-mentioned cases as Arguments to press this Exhortation 1. You are in a Wilderness and must expect troubles to come upon you Your Faithfulness to Christ may cost you dear you may be forsaken of your Friends you may fall into the hands of your Enemies yet if ye will be Faithful to him though all men forsake you though evil men run upon you yet Christ will stick to you So he did to Paul 2 Tim. 1.16 17. No man stood with me but all men forsook me notwithstanding the Lord stood by me and strengthened and I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lyon where we have 1. The hard case he was nd Christians must look to be in 1. He was in the hands of Enemies of great Men who were examining him and before whom he was to answer for his Life Christians may be brought b fore Rulers and there Tryed for their Lives and judged for Malefactors 2. He was forsaken by his Friends he had many Friends before but when it came to the pinch they all gave him the slip and shrunk back and stood aloof and left him alone Count upon this hard lot and count it not strange if it come to be your lot 'T is not so much to suffer in Company as when any particular person is singled out as a Deer from the Herd and chased alone the Hunters are upon him and the Herd will not shelter him but shift away from him That 's it you may look for to be persecuted by Enemies and not to be owned by your
Friends 2. His comfort in this his hard lot Though all Men forsook him yet Christ stuck by him the Lord stood with me and strengthened me Christians this may be your case and let this be your comfort though none in the World should own you yet stick by Christ and he will stick by you in all your Tribulations 2. Again you must dye Sickness may Arrest you and cast you upon the Bed of Languishing and Death may stand at your Beds-feet and stare you in the face and the Grave will open its mouth for you to swallow you up Stick fast to Christ and look to find him standing by your Beds-side to comfort you O how will it be with you in that hour O I feel my Diseases and Languishing my Flesh wasteth my Bones ake my strength is lost my heart faints mine eyes fail my breath is departing and all tell me that Death is at the door ready to turn me into rottenness But O! where is my God Now for a sight of Christ Those that are gone back from Christ they may look and look and cry where is the Lord where is the Saviour But poor Wretches there 's no Christ to be seen Death comes and the Devil comes and Sin comes and puts a Sting into Death's tail and the poor Sinner is left to grapple with Death alone its gripes its pangs its terrors are upon him but no Redeemer to be had Whatever come upon thee this shall not thou that holdest thee by him shalt see Jesus standing by thee or if thou should'st not see him yet there he will not fail to be though it may be behind the Curtain yet ready to help thee in thy Conflict with this thy last Enemy 3. Yet again after Death thou must be brought to Judgment where thou wilt meet with a Righteous Judge a Malicious Accuser who will have many things to lay to thy charge All the ugly and frightful sins that ever thou hast done in thy life thou maist look to hear of from that Malicious mouth And how wilt thou stand before that dreadful Bar O there thou shalt be sure Even with these Eyes to behold thy Redeemer there he will certainly be for he is the Judge and there he will stick by thee for he is thine Advocate he hath said to thee Rev. 2.10 Be thou faithful to the death and I will give thee a Crown of life Fear not how thy matters shall go in the Judgment I will be there I will secure thee from coming into Condemnation I will give thee the Crown of Life This will be the Portion of those that stick fast to Christ He will certainly stick to them stick to them in all the troubles of their lives stick to them in death and stand by them in the eternal Judgment O Christans stick fast hold fast what you have that no man take your Crown Rev. 2.11 Hold fast your holy Profession hold on your Confidence and your holy Conversation and thence-forth expect that Jesus will give you a Crown of Life 2. Stick closâ— to Christ or else you will never be likely to stick fast By how much the closer our adherence to Christ is by so much the firmer is our standing and the less danger of falling off The root of a Tree if it be loosned from the Earth is more easily plucked up it may be some small strings there may be that keep their hold which maintain it in life but if the main root be loosned it 's the more in danger of being blown down The cleaving of the soul to Christ is set forth by the cleaving together of Husband and Wife Eph. 5.31 For this cause shall a Man leave Father and Mother and shall be joyned to his Wife The word in the Original signifies shall be glued to his Wife What is glu'd together if it shrinks or gapes loses its hold Take heed of warping and shrinking from Christ the glue will give off if you do and when you have once lost your hold you know not whither you may be blown O take heed of growing to a distance of wandring from Christ keep you near him if you would stand firm 4. A confirmed habit of Religion An holy disposition and constitution of soul this is the very heart of the new Creature the Divine Nature whereof Christians are said to be made partakers 2 Pet. 1.4 'T is an holy Spring or Fountain within us which will flow forth in Religious actions and by how much the more maturity it 's ripened up into by so much the more freely will it flow forth An heart that is holily disposed and hath strong and fixed inclinations Heaven-ward will find Religion sweet and easie to it there will be the less need of force and constraint That fear which is so necessary to drive on a servile spirit will be of less use according to the measures that we have attained of this free spirit and ready mind Such Christians have that within them that will save them much of their labour and pains which would be otherwise needful Our work will be easie and we shall go on more prosperously in our way we shall both more abound in the work of the Lord and we shall go on more evenly and steadily in our course Religious acts where there are no Religious habits or where the habit is but weak will be both more seldom and more difficult and when they are done whatever they be for the matter of them yet it will be still questioned whether they be sincerely or savingly Religious Those that are carnally-minded their very Natures do prompt them and carry them on in their fleshly ways there 's the less need of temptation to sin the Devil may save much of his labour their sinful dispositions will carry them on fast enough O Christians let this be in your eye let this be it you aim at and labour for to habituate your selves to Holiness to get up to such a settled holy disposition to such a promptitude and readiness of mind that your hearts may flow forth towards God and Godliness that your inward stream may run Heaven-ward that you may feel a freedom and enlargement of heart towards Godliness of Life Carnal Professors both those that are wholly such and have nothing of the new Nature in them and those who though they have something of the Spirit yet have much of the Flesh remaining in them O how heavily and slowly do they drive on in the matters of Religion How backward are they to duty how hardly brought to it how quickly weary they had rather be any where then with God about any work than about the work of the Lord not only eating and drinking and playing and taking the pleasures of the Flesh but their hardest fleshly labours Ploughing and Threshing will easilier down with them than Praying or Holy Meditation or otherwise Conversing with God This is a wretched temper but is it not an ordinary temper Consider is it
Shrub and a grown Tree When do ye think ye shall reach to their growth if ye do not stir up your selves to come on at another rate then hitherto you have done O let it not suffice you that ye have hope that ye are Christians but get you on to be with the foremost of your company the top branches are the best 2. Compare your selves with your selves what you are now with what you were in your former time Are you as good as ever you were as holy as ever you were or is there not a fall and a great fall from what you once had attained to Is not the Sun gone many degrees back with you Is not much of your light and your life and your heat lost Where be your eyes Friends if you do not see what losers you are where be your senses if you do not feel your own decays Sure 't is a sad sign that you have even lost all your Christianity if you have not so much of Christianity left as to make you sensible how much you have lost You that are backsliding Souls my preaching to you is like to be in vain I have little hope that this word should do any thing towards your recovery if it doth not make you sensible how much you have lost and how far you are grown behind hand This would be hopeful if we could see you smiting on your thighs as once Ephraim did Is 31.19 Or smiting on your Breast as the poor Publican did Lord be merciful to me a sinner Lord be merciful to me a backslider Lord pardon me Lord receive me Lord recover me and help me up that I utterly lose not that which I have wrought Know friends that if ye be fallen to such a distance from what you once were you are at a greater distance from what you should be For 3. Compare your selves with that Copy which I have set before you to be pressing towards with that higher pitch of Religion which I have pointed out unto you in the 5 particulars formerly mentioned Compare your selves with these and then how great will the distance appear to be betwixt what you are and what you should be Are you such hungry and thirsty Souls after the highest degree of Religion Have you panting hearts longing hearts can you say my Soul is a thirst for God mine heart cryeth out for the living God O for more of God for more of the holy Image of God more of the Life of God for more of the power of his Grace Are your Souls such hungring and thirsting Souls or have you not even lost your appetites doth not even desire fail with you And then what savour or relish have you of religion in your hearts Is wisdom entred into your hearts is the knowledge and grace of God become pleasant to your Souls Do you taste the sweetness of religion Can you say with the Psalmist Ps 84.1 How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord Or as Ps 19.10 Sweeter than the honey or the honey-comb to my Soul thy Testimonies are my delight how precious are thy thoughts to me A day in thy Courts an hour in my Closet my Retirements to the Lord and my Soul solaces in the secret of his presence these are the great pleasures of my life and the very joy of mine heart Can you say so do you find it so Lord how short how far short do the most of Professors fall here Ah wretched hearts We have tasted so much of the sweetness of this Earth that we have lost our taste of God the world is become too sweet our gains and our pleasures and our very labours are too sweet these carnal things put our mouths out of relish of things spiritual and heavenly And thus I might lead you through all the Particulars Solidity c. by comparing your selves wherewith you might easily perceive how very great the distance is from that holy heavenly tender fruitful frame which we should be in And sure Friends such a great distance from it makes it evident how much need we have to stir up our selves to be reaching and making towards it Phil. 3.12 Not as if I had already attained or were already perfect but I follow after The Apostles sense that he was short of perfection this was it to stir him up to follow after And O how hard does he follow v. 13. Forgetting what 's behind and reaching forth unto those things that are before I press to the mark O if it were thus with this great Apostle one that had out-stripp'd even the rest of the Apostles and was gotten so much nearer to the mark than they all If this thought but I am yet short I have not yet attained did so press him to follow after then sure our sense how greatly we fall short of him who yet acknowledged himself short of the mark does evidence how great need we have to bestir our selves Do not now think that a little amendment will serve your turns that a little more care and pains will suffice to help you up and recover you know that you have a great way to go ere you can attain to this prosperous state and if ever you do recover to it it must cost you much many an importunate Prayer great watchfulness much labour yea many sorrows of heart for your neglects that have been many a sigh and may be many a tear And therefore much need is there that you stir up and awaken your sleepy hearts to it Fall upon your knees fall upon your knees bemoan your selves be ashamed of your selves that you have sloth'd your selves to this sad pass and then stir up your selves to make after a recovery 2. From the difficulty of recovering them that are fallen It is with the consumption of the heart as with the consumption of the body there are 3 degrees of a consumption In the first degree it's hard to be discern'd and easily cured If this Disease be but taken in the beginning a little matter might do the cure but in our first declinings it is not easie to discern them Consumptions come not as Feavers with any violence but we waste and waste by degrees it doth not make men sick at first seizing them but they consume away insensibly May be some amongst us have but begun to fall A degree of declining there may be but they are not sick of it but take themselves to be healthful and strong Christians a little while hence they may both see and feel what they will not suspect nor fear If you would but understand in time and seek remedy in time how much mischief and misery might be prevented 2. The 2d degree is easie to be discern'd but hard to be cured The farther it grows upon us the more plain our case is but the more difficult is our recovery Friends there is a Consumption of the Vitals of Religion upon too many among us and some are very far gone There need not be much pains
taken to give you the Symptoms or Signs by which you may know it their backslidings are so visible that they are manifest even to every eye The paleness of some of our faces the shortness of our breath the wasting of our strength the unwildiness and inability to labour and the listlesness thereto discovers how 't is with us O what weak and listless souls are some of us our flesh and our bodies strong and healthful but how weak are our hearts how short breath'd quickly tired with every little of duty and how pale and wan doth our outward man appear our very Vitals are perished and gone Friend thou hopest thou keepest thy stand but is it indeed with thee as it was wont to be Dost thou pray and hear and live and love and labour in the matters of God and of thy Soul as in thy former days Open thine eyes and look a little upon thy self compare thy self now with what thou wast in thy best estate and then thou wilt say of thy self as God of Ephraim Hos 7.9 Gray hairs are upon me though I knew it not 'T is conspicuous man to every one that observes thee thy Religion thy conscience and all that Grace that is in thee 't is all grown gray Gray hairs are upon thee though thou mindest it not What say you Christians are you all fresh and flourishing Are you strong Christians lively Christians Do your Souls prosper doth your Religion prosper or must you not say I remember the days of Old when it was better with me than now such who are so far gone whose decay is so visible though their recovery be possible yet they are hard to be recovered 3. A third degree is not to be hid and past cure plain to be discovered never to be cured and then the Consumption of souls is ordinarily past cure when men are past feeling It is one thing to be without feeling in those that never had any sense of God upon them and another to be past feeling in those that once had some tenderness of heart Those that have been chilling and cooling and hardning so long till God gives them over to that reprobate sense mentioned Rom. 1.28 the case of such men is become desperate Now you that are fallen into this consuming Disease consider these things how difficult your case is unless it be but in the very beginning and how it will be growing on to be harder and harder if yet you prevent it not with speed till it becomes desperate Consider this and then say if it be not time to look about you and to make hastily out to the Physician for cure Friends take heed will you yet linger on as you have done will you be quiet take your ease and take no effectual care to recover the health you have lost the strength you have lost Tremble to think how suddenly you may be given up to a total and final Apostasie But why is the cure so difficult I answer 1. Because as it hath been said in the beginning it 's so hard to be discerned Who will look after a cure that thinks he ails nothing This Consumption invades and creeps on by such insensible degrees that it is not perceived or minded till it grows up to such an height as will scarce admit of a cure This Consumption fretteth out the Heart as a Moth fretteth a Garment When the Moth first breeds there it lies undiscovered till by insensible degrees it eats up the strength of the Garment If the Moth seized upon any Garment as fire doth you would shake it off suddenly but because it consumes but insensibly and by slower degrees therefore it 's let alone till it hath done its work Friends is there not a Consumption upon you is not the Moth gotten in I hope not into my Soul Why there 's the misery of it you will not know you consume till ye be utterly consumed 2. From the indisposition and unwillingness of the Heart to seek after a cure Such untowardness and inindisposition there is to this work that I am afraid that by all that I can say I shall not be able to prevail with some of you to make tryal what may be done May be you acknowledge that we have all need enough of this warning but I am in much doubt that when you have heard all your hearts will so hang back from the work that all that can be said will quickly be forgotten and never effectually stir you If you would take the warning and stir up your hearts and set to the work there I hope you might be recovered but I tell you again espâ—cially those that are far gone that I fear your unwilling and untoward hearts will be too hard for the word and will not let you come on to any purpose Consider what I say and remember it a day or two hence and see if it be not with too many of you according to my fears and tell me then if you can I thank the Lord the word hath prevailed and I have set mine heart to it and through the Grace of God will not give over till I may see it effectually work to my recovery 3. From that opposition that is made against our recovery 1. There is a stirring Devil that opposeth it 2. There are stirring lusts that oppose our recovery 1. There is a stirring Devil that opposes your recovery The Devil is a destroyer that 's his name Rev. 9.11 Abaddon Apollyon that is a Destroyer 't is he that hath brought you into this case that hath destroyed that little Grace you had and is thereby attempting to destroy your Souls When you see what wasts have been made upon you upon your consciences upon your comforts 't is the Devil that hath made these wasts he is that Fox that hath devoured your Grapes The Devil is an adversary and a busie adversary 1 Pet. 5.8 walking up and down seeking to do you a mischief 't is he that hath brought you down to this low pass in which you are and he that hath brought you down will do all he can to hinder you from ever rising again The Devil is with you wheresoever you are he watches you where ever you go if you go into your Closets go to pray for recovery the Devil watches you there and does what he can to distract and hinder your prayers When you come to hear the Devil watches you in the Congregation and strives to catch away every word that might do you good All these words which I am speaking to you for your recovery I am in doubt they may have but little success if the Devil can help it there shall none of them stick upon your hearts He that hath brought you so low will be busie with you to hold you so low resisting and stealing away whatever word might help you up What 's become of all the words that have been hitherto spoken to this purpose do they abide upon you have they wrought
a cure upon any languishing Souls or what 's become of them all O hath not this adversarie stolen them all away stolen away the warnings stolen away the reproofs stolen away the awakening counsels that have been given you and so hitherto held your Souls fast asleep Now having to do with such a busie and stirring Devil you had need the more to bestir your selves and look about you that he do not irrecoverably undo you Resist the Devil Jam. 4.7 Be sober be vigelant 1 Pet. 5.8 knowing that your adversary Is he so watchful upon you to hinder you and mischief you does he lye at the catch to steal away this awakening word from you You had need lye at the catch also catch at every word the Lord speaks to you concerning this matter lay hold upon them lay them up in your hearts forget them not while you live keep them in memory let them dwell in you and hold your thoughts upon them keep them working in your hearts and never let them slip till they have done the work and your Souls be recovered 2. There are stirring lusts within you that oppose your recovery Your lusts are your disease and your disease resists your remedy There is a body of Sin within you there 's the same evil nature in you that are Christians that there is in Sinners though the power of sin be broken yet there is much of it still remaining Though the Egyptians be drowned Sin as a Throne be subdued yet the Canaanite Sin as a Thorn is still in the Land Though Christians have not an Enemy Enemy to which they are in bondage yet they have an Enemy that 's still fighting against their Souls sin hath no longer dominion over them Rom. 6.14 yet it still makes war upon them Though the head of this Serpent be broken yet 't is a Serpent still And as 't is said of Daniel Gen. 49.17 It is a Serpent in the way an Adder in the path it biteth the Horse heels it wounds and vexes and hinders though it cannot kill This Sin is called a Body of Sin Rom. 6.6 and of this Body there are many members every lust of our heart is a Member of our Body of Sin Our evil nature is this Body and there our numerous Lusts do meet as in their common root and thence they spring Now these Lusts are they that hinder and spoil us Friends these are they that have tempted you off from God and tempted you off from your integrity and turn'd you to iniquity and hitherto hindred your returning Jam. 1.14 Every man when he is tempted is drawn aside of his own lust and enticed Do not think to lay all the blame upon the Devil and so to excuse your selves no your own hearts have joyned with the Devil you have been accessary to your own ruine Some men when they have run themselves out of their Estates by Riot and Drunkenness they will think to lay all the blame upon their evil company O this evil company this evil company have been my Bane sure enough they have and therefore let every wise man be warned and shun them as the Devil But yet let not evil company bear all the blame 't is that evil heart of thine thine own hearts lust that betrayed thee into thy evil company What could evil company have done hadst thou not had an evil heart to go after them How long might they have enticed thee and never prevailed if thou hadst not been drawn aside by thine own hearts lust and enticed They are those Devils within you those Lusts that war in your Members that have given the Devil his advantages against you Some fall a lusting after Money and this lust sets them so hard on work for the world keeps them so busie about their Trades and their Estates that they forget God and their Souls Others lust after Pleasures and ease and idleness and this keeps them off from those labours and that industry which is necessary to the maintaining their Souls in life Some lust to Pride others to Envy others to frowardness and contention and those make such gashes in their Hearts as let out the life bloud of all their Rellgion 'T is mens lusts that bring their Souls down and do devour and eat up all their Religion and as I said before of the Devil so here of Lust that which hath brought them down will hinder their rising And these Lusts are stirring Lusts working and warring in our Members holding us in captivity to the Law of Sin as Rom. 7.23 and hindering our recovery and redemption When I would do good evil is present with me v. 21. that is to hinder and hold me back from doing any thing that would do me good And as it was with the Apostle so is it more or less with every Christian May we not all say after him When I would do good evil is present with me Lust is busie lust stands ready to spoil me in every duty Whatever calls we have to duty to repent and return to the Lord to pray and cry unto the Lord Though the Word calls remember whence you are fallen and repent though Conscience calls seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is nigh Lust strikes in to stop or turn away our Ears from these Calls Why is it that no more of you have answered these Calls Remember whence you are fallen and repent O 't is your Lusts that have stopp'd your ears Whatever need or necessity there be lying upon us to hearken to these calls though we see all the good that is within us even at deaths door graces dying comforts dying hopes dying and all our Religion ready to give up the ghost yet our Lusts will not suffer us to mind our Necessities Whatever inclinations or desires or purposes we have to make an escape to seek a remedy for these our diseased languishing Souls whatever offers and attempts we make to set upon more earnest praying and crying to the Lord for help and deliverance to set upon a more watchful diligent life whatever good it be we purpose or set our selves upon still evill is present with us one lust or other is still at hand to spoil or hinder all so that we cannot do the things that we would Gall. 5.17 We think to come to it we hope to come to it while the word is preaching to us and our hearts are a little touched and affected with it whilst we are made to stand convinced in our own particulars This decayed state is evidently my state and it is an evil and wretched and dangerous state and thereupon we take up such thoughts Well through the grace of God I will amend I will no longer go on thus I will seek my recovery yet still Lust strikes in and fights against all such thoughts so that we cannot do the things that we would Christians do you not find it thus in your experiences One lust or other is
perpetually rising up to hinder any good that 's going in your hearts and bringing it to just nothing O how many good motions are quenched good purposes vacated good desires and hopes frustrated good beginnings discouraged your duties spoiled your peace broken your comforts clouded and lost and all by the malign influences of the Body of sin and the impetuousness of your lusts its members Here are those outcries that we sometimes hear from the tender-hearted wo is me that I am constrained to dwell in Mesech to have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar I am for peace but they are for war I am for peace yet not by a League but by a conquest of mine Enemies let them dye that I may be at rest but still they live and are mighty whilst I am for peace they are for war I can have no rest in my Spirit I am weary of my life because of these Daughters of Heth Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me Hear Lord cut down cast out these Sons of the Bond-woman that they be no longer a Plague or a Snare unto me Remember these Children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem happy should I be could I reward them as they have served me happy should I be if I could take these Children and dash them against the stones And now you see another ground why you have great need to bestir your selves because of these stirring lusts that hinder and mischief you Let me here put in a word of application You will say But what should the consideration of these stirring lusts stir me up unto Why you have it hinted to you already to deal by them as they have dealt and will deal by you Have they given you a fall wrestle with them again till they fall before you Are they for war let them have enough of it war against those lusts that war against your Souls Doth the Flesh lust against the Spirit let the Spirit lust against the Flesh Stretch forth the Spear and draw not back your hand till they become as the Midianites which perished at Endor and became as the Dung of the Earth Mortifie mortifie them as lust hath even mortified your Religion so let your Religion mortifie Corruption Take the Apostle for your Patern O how did that great Apostle Paul bestir himself upon this account what compassionate complaints did he make against his lust Rom. 7. aforementioned The good that I would I do not the evil that I hate that do I when I would do good evil is present with me I find a law in my members war ring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death What earnest prayers did he make For this I besought the Lord thrice 2 Cor. 12.8 I was often upon my knees begging the Lord that these Thorns in my flesh might be pulled out What assaults and batteries did he make upon them 1 Cor. 9.26 27. So fight I not as one that beateth the Air but I keep under my body and bring it to subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should become a Cast away What will become of me if I let these Lusts live O they will damn me at last After all my preaching of Christ to others I shall be a Reprobate from Christ a Cast away if I conquer not mine own sins one of the two they or I must die Paul was a chosen Vessel and by the Election of God secured from coming into condemnation but this necessary means must be used his sins must be slain or his soul cannot be saved Acts 27.31 Though God had promised him his life and the lives of all in the Ship yet says he unless the Mariners abide in the Ship ye cannot be saved And in the case of Jonah if Jonah had not been cast out of the Ship the Mariners had all been drowned Friends how often must I tell you this Whatever Faith and Hope in Christ you have whatever profession of Christ you have made whatever security you think you have for your Salvation yet if these Jonahs be not cast over board you will all be drowned in perdition and destruction your lusts will never leave enticing and tempting you from one sin to another from one degree of Apostasie to another till they have damned your Souls If you give them Rope and let them alone they will become such a Rope about your Neck as will drag you to the Pit How near have they brought you to it already are not some of you even become as dying men have not your souls and your hopes one foot in the Grave And if you die thus daily what can you expect but to be buried in flames See what your lusts have already done and tremble to think what they are still a doing you die outright if you save them alive And will you not yet stir have they eaten up your hearts and drunk up your spirits and left such leanness upon your souls Have they withered your branches and rotted your fruit and are these worms still gnawing at your root How can you but cry out Lord what am I come to Lord whether am I falling save Lord or I perish Arise O my Soul cut off the Limbs and smite through the Loyns of the Old Man nothing but his Death can secure his Life Friends how do these words take with you what do they work what nothing moved for all this Or do the Sleepers begin to wake O that it might be so Lord waken them 3. From the difficulty of holding on and getting on the way for those that stand It 's hard to keep our way and much more to make speed on in it and so hard that unless we bestir our selves to purpose we shall never come roundly on The way of Religion is an uphill-way Prov 15.24 The way of life is above to the Wise to depart from Hell beneath The Mark we are making toward stands upon a Hill there the City of God in which alone that perfection we are reaching after is to be found is situate The Holy Hill of Zion Jerusalem which is above Our Mark we are pressing to stands upon an Hill and our way to it is all rising ground and if we put not our selves hard to it we shall never get up Sinners are all running downward and therefore 't is they run so fast Behold how the whole herd of Sinners are all like that herd of swine of the Gaderens running headlong down and never like to stop till they be choked and drowned in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone and the same way are Backsliders running these also are running down after the herd of Swine But now a Christians way is upwards as 't is said Eccl. 3.21 the Spirit of a Man so much more the Spirit of a Christian ascends and goes upwards he does so
was the case of David when he prayed Ps 51.20 Renew a right Spirit within me When those dews and showers of his Grace which are necessary to the holding our Souls in a flourishing state are restrained and hereupon the Grace we have received withers and grows to decay The former withdrawing of God may consist with the vigour of Grace God may hide his Face sometimes from the dearest of his Saints to prevent their decay but the suspending of his gracious influences will be followed with a decay The Somer Sun-beams ripen the Fruit but the Winter Sun when by its distance its influences are the weaker leaves all to fade and wither It 's winter with those Souls who by their distance from Christ do lose the influences of the Sun of Righteousness When the Sun comes about again and renews its influences then it 's Spring and fresh Buds and Flowers break forth O Friends is it not winter with many of our Souls Have not the influences from above evidently failed us We have wasted out our Somer and driven the Lord to a distance and now behold how our good things die away within us 'T is become cold and frosty weather in our Souls the cold hath withered our Fruit and the Sun doth not revive it The Lord God is sadly withdrawn and gone far off from many of our Souls If Christians would be so wise as to keep them near to the Lord and so to keep the Lord near to them it would be ever Spring and Somer with them and they should know Winter no more O let us hold us under the Divine influences take heed how you put the Lord far off from you take heed of wandring from the Lord lest he punish your wandrings from him by removing himself from you 3. When he loosens the Reins of Government and leaves them to themselves and their own foolish hearts takes off his bridle from them and lets them run their own course suffers their lusts to rule them and lets them alone to walk in their own counsels Thus he withdrew from Israel Ps 81.12 I gave them up to their own hearts lusts or to the hardness or imagination of their own hearts And they walked in their own counsels This is a worse case than the former It goes ill with those Souls where the gracious influences of God are suspended That Field or that Garden is in but poor case that wants the Sun and the Showers but when it wants the care or the eye of the Husbandman too what good can be expected from it or to it When grace is restrained and sin is restrained to what a pass will such Souls quickly grow Gods Government is upheld in Souls by the upholding of Conscience in its vigilancy in its tenderness in its authority When Conscience is tender and watchful and we hold our selves under its inspection and government whilst Christians keep them to be consciencious whilst Conscience tells them of their duty and warns them of their sin and they will hearken to Conscience their case so long is hopeful though God hides his Face and leave their Souls in the dark and speaks not a comfortable word to them yea and leaves them flat and dead as to the wonted lively operations of his Grace suspending as to their sense both his quickning influences and his comforting influences yet as long as Gods Government is kept up in them as long as conscience is kept tender and wakeful though they want the light of the Lord yet they keep close to the Law of their God though his countenance be not towards them yet they have a good conscience towards him though they cannot rejoyce in God yet they will walk with God though they cannot now see his Face yet they are still diligent in seeking his Face though the Lord seems to have cast them off yet they will not cast him off so long though their case be sad at present yet it will be safe at last Is 50.10 Who is among you that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his Servant though he walk in darkness and have no light let him trust in the Name of the Lord c. Christians are there any of you in darkness and without the light of comfort and of joy in your hearts hath the Lord hid his Face from you this you will mourn under yet do you fear and obey the Lord do you live under his Government though you cannot see him and rejoyce in him yet do you serve him and follow him So long 't is well enough trust in the Lord and stay your selves upon God he will be a Sanctuary and support to you though his Sun shine not upon you But when God hides his Face with-holds the sensible Influences of his Grace and loosens the Reins of Government too leaves men to themselves and they thereupon follow their own hearts and walk in their own counsels then whither will they run Friends whatever befall you pray that God will still keep you under government and look to your selves that you do not throw off his government Keep your consciences tender and hold you under the government of them such Backsliders there are who have lost the sight of God have grown to decay through the failing of divine influences and also have lost conscience too their lust hath gotten the government of them the world the love of the world and their cares for the world bear the great sway in their Souls all the bonds of Religion are loosened and can take no hold of them farther than their carnal ease and interest will give leave if they continue in the number of Professors still yet they are a sort of loose Professors unruly ones all the Religion they have will not rule their Tongues nor rule their passions nor their appetites When their passion is up religion must stand by conscience must hold its peace or if it speak they will not hear Lust must be let alone to controul conscience but conscience may not be suffered to controul lust the sins which are for their gain or their pleasure they can swallow them and not keck at it The duties that are a weariness to the flesh they can omit them or shuffle them over when the world or their sloth won't give them leave they can let praying alone or reading or so much as serious thinking of God and the things of God they can let it all alone So much of religion as will serve their turns they will take up and what 's more than that they can dispense with themselves in it If they be told of their faults and their haltings and be never so solemnly charged in the name of the Lord to remember themselves and recover out of this wretched state 't is all one as if nothing had been said on they go in their old carnal rode and will lay nothing to heart And as they let themselves alone so God lets them alone too and will not rebuke
them for their sins or if there be a rebuke that he sends sometimes in their ears as they stand in the crowd amongst other Sinners yet he will not set it upon their hearts but lets them alone to shift it off as they will and to harden their hearts against it this is a sign that the Lord is departed from such Souls O Friends how many rebukes hath the Lord given to Backsliders how many charges hath he given you to remember and repent and to shake up your selves out of your listless careless state do these rebukes stick do these charges stick do they work upon you have they set you upon your repenting or recovering work how hath it been with you what have you done since the Lord hath been particularly dealing with you in this matter Are there any of you that have done nothing but sleep on and continue as you were O Sirs let me tell such of you that 't is to be feared the Lord is departed from you that he hath loosened the reins of his Government and hath left you to your selves to grow worse and worse harder and harder till you be utterly consumed and brought to nothing 4. When he denies the benefit of his protection Here 2 things 1. The Lord is the Protector of his people 2. God then departs from them when he casts them out of his protection 1. The Lord is the Protector of his People the Keeper of Israel Ps 121.5 7. The Lord is thy Keeper the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand the Lord shall preserve thee from all evil the Lord shall preserve thy Soul He is not only the Keeper of their Substance of their Flocks and of their Herds and of their Houses but he preserves the Souls of his Saints Ps 97.10 'T is true every man is to be his own Keeper the Keeper of his own Soul we abuse and forfeit the protection of God that thence grow careless and neglect the keeping of our selves Commit the keeping of your Souls to him in well doing 1 Pet. 4.19 Dost thou say the Lord is thee Keeper of my Soul and I will leave it to him and will not trust in my self in mine own keeping Thou sayst well that thou wilt not trust thy Soul in thy own keeping but dost thou hereupon neglect the keeping of thy Soul wilt thou not do what thou canst to keep thy self but wilt grow careless of thine own heart and leave the whole care upon him thou herein forfeitest Gods protection The same word that promises the Lord shall preserve thy Soul requires Prov. 4.23 keep thine own Soul Keep thine heart with all diligence We must be every one of us our own keepers or God will not but here is our great security when we have done all that it is the Lord that is our Keeper The Devil could tell that well enough Job 1.10 Hast thou not made an hedge about Job He would fain have been doing with him but God had hedg'd the Devil so out that he could not touch him without his leave And he that hedg'd the Devil out from Job hedges him out from all his Saints and he that hedges the Devil out hedges the World out with all its temptations and snares Christians you whose hearts are upright with God how is it that the world and its temptations are not broken in upon you and have not totally carried you away from God and his Holy ways and carried you after your covetousness or your pleasures or the honours and preferments of this Earth as it hath done many others O you may thank God for this he hath hedgd the World out 'T were well with many even Professors if they could find in their experiences as you do find in yours that God had hedg'd the World out of them But O how many of these even Professors are there that the World hath broken in upon them broken in upon their hearts and carried them away after it Do not some of you feel that your hearts are gone gone after your covetousness gone after your ease and your pleasures gone from God gone from your Religion as to the strictness and power of it gone from a good conscience and your tenderness of it gone from your heavenly minds and so you are become of those that mind earthly things Sure some of you do not know your selves do not observe your selves nor are acquainted with your own Spirits if you do not acknowledge Lord be merciful to me mine heart is far gone my conscience my tenderness my religion my love to Christ is much lost by the incroachment of this present World Is it so and how does it sit upon your hearts does it not trouble you does it not make you afraid sure you have reason to be afraid and to say within your hearts I doubt I am none of those Saints of whom God hath undertaken to be the Keeper or at least if God had ever an hedge about me the hedge is broken down the tempter is broken in and is carrying away all that little good I had and will never leave carrying and carrying till he hath carried away my Soul God hath made an hedge about his Saints not to hedge all temptations out he sometimes suffers the devil the world as he did in the case af Job to break over the Hedge He lets his Precious Ones to fall into divers temptations but still they are under the protection of his Promise 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation make a way to escape Christians may be hard put to it may suffer many a foyl we too often feel the Devil is too hard for us the World too hard for us and we suffer great losses and impairings in our grace and comfort But the promise will bring us about again fetch us in again knock off our fingers from being so bold with these earthly things Indeed we can never have assurance that we are under the protection of that Promise but are left without the hedge and are none of the Lords whilst the world and its temptations do continue to make such a prey of our Souls and hold us such Slaves and Captives to it but if we be the Lords the Promise will bring it about again This is the first God is the Protector of his People 2. Then God departs from them when he casts them out of his protection when he says concerning any person as he said concerning his Vineyard Is 5.5 6. I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be trodden down and I will lay it waste it shall not be pruned nor digged but bryars and thorns shall come up I will also command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it 'T is one thing for the tempter to be suffered to break in over the Hedge another
gone from me Friends you must give me leave to speak as plainly to you and as closely in this matter as I am able I know how sad 't will be with you if the word doth not prevail and I know this consuming Disease is hard to be cured Backsliders are ordinarily of hard hearts and deaf ears and so hard to be recovered God knows how it may be with you whether God may gain any thing Religion may gain any thing upon you by this warning I know it will be hard work to bring you up out of this case and yet I am loth to lose my labour I would fain do something for Christ and something for the help of your poor Souls and therefore you must bear with me that I thus set my self to speak over and over thus closely to you that if it be possible my words may stick with you Do not say that I think too hardly of you and make you worse than you are I thank God that there are among you those who are faithful and stand their ground I thank God that there is so much Religion as there is even in some of you I thank God I have hope there is as much of serious Religion continuing in this Congregation as in the most Congregations about us But I must tell you that he is a stranger to us that doth not perceive at what a low ebb serious Religion is amongst many of us and he whose heart bleeds not and breaks not at what his eyes may see and his ears may hear hath but little of the Spirit of Christianity in him Sure there are too many among us that have declined in great degree O that this word might find them out and bring them to their knees first and then set them upon their Legs that so there may be a prevention of their utter Rejection 2. God may depart from his Churches and the Congregations of his People and then he departs from these 1. When he shuts up his House and writes upon the Doors thereof The Glory is departed When he causes their visions to fail his Ordinances to cease from among them when preaching and praying and all his spiritual worship fails when though the Candlesticks continue yet there are few Candles left and those that are not quite put out are put under a Bushel when Pastors and Teachers which were burning and shining Lights are removed into a Corner 2. When he pulls down his House When not only the Candles are carried away but the Candlesticks are broken in pieces When he unchurches his People and scatters his Congregations When the Societies of the Saints are broken in pieces and those that went to the House of God in companies have neither house to go into nor company to go together It 's promised Is 33.20 Ye shall look upon Zion the City of our solemnities thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet Habitation a Tabernacle that shall not be taken down not one of the Stakes thereof shall be removed neither shall any of the Cords thereof be broken but there the Glorious Lord will be to us a place of broad Rivers and Streams Now when this word is changed and our eyes see Jerusalem a troubled habitation our Tabernacle taken down its Stakes that pitched it and its Cords that held it all removed and broken in pieces when the Habitation of the Lord is become a desolation and his Vineyard become a meer Wilderness when the Cormorant and the Bittern when Owls and Satyrs when the Beasts and the false Prophets are where once were the Prophets and People of the Lord then is the Lord departed 3. When though his House and his Tabernacle stands and his Ordinances are continued though there be Preaching and Praying still yet the Spirit of the Lord is departed When he doth not continue to bless his House and bless his Ordinances to his People when that word is fulfilled upon them Is 28.13 The Word of the Lord is to them precept upon precept line upon line that they might go and fall backward When the Children of Zion are as it was said those that hate Zion should be Ps 129.6 as the Grass upon the House top that withereth before it be grown up whereof the Mower filleth not his hand nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom Even this is a departure and a grievous departure of the Lord from his People when he continues not among them to bless them continues his Word among them precept upon precept line upon line lets them have Sabbath after Sabbath Meeting upon Meeting Sermon upon Sermon but nothing prospers but they fall and go backward and wither as the grass upon the House top O how many Congregations amongst us are there from whom the Lord is already thus far departed though he gives us his Word yet he doth not bless his Word though the Sowers come forth to sow yet how is the Seed rotten under the Clods how little is there that comes up Though the Planters plant and the Builders build how few young Plants do we see coming up how slowly does the Building rise does not the Building rather go backward do not the Plants that are hang their heads and wither and no more rise in their room When do we hear of a new convert brought in and how few do we see of the former planting to flourish O we fade we fade we wither as the Grass upon the House top our life and our strength and our beauty how is it fallen and withered the beauty of love the beauty of humility the beauty of holiness how is it even all marred Sure this is a token of the Lords departure from us Thus you have seen how the Lord departs from his People 2. It 's wo with a people when the Lord departs from them Wo unto them saith the Lord when I depart from them Hos 9.12 1. 'T is woful to them that have something of Religion in them when their Pastors and Pastures and Waters fail what 's like to become of them even they also are like to pine for want There are none to whom Famine is so tedeous as to hungry Souls the living Child will cry for Bread when those that are dead can want it well enough and never feel their want And it will not be woful only to their sense they will mourn and lament and be pierced to the very heart to see such a day but to some amongst them it will be a worse wo than that Whilst some mourn for want of the Word others will pine away for want Ezek. 24.21 23. I will profane my Sanctuary the excellency of your strength the desire of your eyes and ye shall pine away for your iniquities Professors there be some among you that have languished and grown to decay in the fulness of all things by all the Ordinances of the Gospel you have had by all the Manna that hath fallen among you by all our Preaching to you and Praying
remember O Lord what hath passed betwixt thee and us thou hast said I will be your God and ye shall be my People And this we find more expresly pleaded Jer. 14.7 8. We have them expostulating the case O Lord though our iniquities testifie against us our backslidings are many we have sinned against thee O thou hope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in time of trouble why shouldst thou be a Stranger The Lord might have answered Why should I not be a Stranger when your Sins and your Backslidings are so many They reply v. 21. Yet do not abhor us for thy names sake do not disgrace the Throne of thy Glory What would the Heathen say of God if he should cast off his People Remember break not thy Covenant with us 't is true we have broken with thee but yet remember what thou hast said Ps 89.31 32 c. If they break my Statutes and keep not my Commandments I will visit their Iniquities with a Rod and their Sin with Stripes nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my Faithfulness to fail my Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my Lips O that 's a word of hope Remember Lord remember and break not thy Covenant with us Our only hope is the Covenant of God and this is necessary to our laying hold on the Covenant of God To repent of our Covenant-breaking and to renew our Covenant with him and return to our obedience 'T is a vain pleading from the Covenant of God from the Faithfulness of God to his people if they have been false in the Covenant and will not return our engaging to fidelity to God for the future and our being faithful to our engagement this is the surest and our only way to take hold on the Covenant of God Friends you that are backsliders you have been unfaithful to God you have broken the Covenant of your Peace and as to your selves you have hereby taken the most effectual course to make void the Covenant of God you have loosened the Almighty from his bond to you God is far from you as I may so speak and may never look after you more but may depart from you for ever and leave you to perish in your revoltings And though God be gracious and abideth faithful yet unless you will come into new bonds with him and so lay hold on his old bond to you you can expect nothing but that he leave you and forsake you for ever This therefore you have to do for recovery 1. To acknowledge your unfaithfulness to the Lord Lord I confess I am a Backslider and herein am become false to thee I have covenanted to love thee and to serve thee with all mine heart and with all my might but wo is me thou hast but half an heart from me mine heart is divided O how much of it hath this World carried away from God instead of Serving thee with my might I have been an idle Servant the Lord forgive me my business hath of late lyen another way than about God or my Soul I have been serving my Pride and my Covetousness this world hath too much of me insomuch that many a time I have even forgotten that I have a God to serve and when I do any thing in the service of God I do it but by halfs my strength hath gone out for the world and wo is me there hath been but little left for God but my weakness and weariness yea and though I find the sad fruit of this my neglect in those wasts that are grown upon me though I see my self become a poor withered decayed thing yet I am not much troubled at it but am still going on in the same busie life for this Earth and in the same neglect of God O I have been thus unfaithful an unfaithful Servant an unfaithful Steward of the manifold Graces of God I have so wasted my Talents that I have almost nothing left Thus confess unto God your Covenant breakings 2. Renew your Covenant and return to your Fidelity To repent and not return is but a mock repentance to confess and not amend is but a mock confession Remember that word Jer. 15.19 If thou wilt return I will bring thee again and thou shalt stand before me You that confess your backslidings will you return you see how it hath been and is with you shall it be better for the future what are your minds for hence forward are your hearts so set upon a reviving the work of God and a recovering out of your carnal earthly lazy habit and way that you are willing to renew your Covenant with God will you promise to the Lord that through his Grace with you and the help of his good Spirit you will henceforth set your hearts to be more faithful to him to follow the Lord fully to stick faster to your Religion to be true to God and your Conscience and the Covenant of your God will you so Friends will you O that there were such an heart in you all This do and then though you be gone back from him yet he will bring you again Though you be fallen so low yet he will raise you up and you shall stand before him 3. Then trust upon the Covenant of God return to be faithful to him and he will not leave you nor cast you off for your former unfaithfulness trust upon it This is your way to take hold of the Covenant of God and your taking hold of the Covenant will be your taking hold of God Friends after such forsakings and such declinings as many of us are guilty of there 's reason enough to be afraid lest the Lord casts off such Unfaithful Ones and there 's no hope but he will do so if you thus return not he will be lost to you for ever he will go farther and farther off from you he will be gracious to you no more nor accept you nor any of your service of none of your prayers for your selves no nor of the prayers of any others for you but will say concerning you as once Jer. 14.11 12. Pray not for this people for their good and when they fast I will not hear their cry and when they offer an Oblation I will not accept them Pray while you will speak to Ministers if you will and to Christians Pray to the Lord for me he will not accept your Prayers nor any others Prayers for you unless you will set your hearts to return into faithfulness to him Friends I tell you again you that are in this case and either will not see it nor confess your unfaithfulness to God but will satisfie your selves in your way and think you are well enough or at least will excuse your selves and say your case is made worse than it is or if you do confess it I was a Backslider I have been unfaithful yet will not renew your Covenant
and return to be faithful but hold you at the same pass look for nothing else but this that the Soul of the Lord will be utterly loosened from you and he will say concerning you Give them a Bill of Divorce and send them away let them alone let them pine away in their iniquities till they be past recovery or redemption And let me add this farther if the rest of the Professors of England which are in the same case will not see it will not confess will not speedily return and recover what can be expected but that the Lord who hath been for these many years so visibly departing from us and after many returns seems at this time again to be removing from us what can be expected if we speedily repent not but that he will never return but utterly reject us and leave us as a dark Land make us a desolation and astonishment and write his Ichabod upon the Doors of our Congregations and Habitations The Glory is departed from England But if you will yet see and and will confess and return I will say to you as Shecaniah said to Ezra concerning that revolting people when they were upon reforming Ezra 10.2 There is yet hope in Israel concerning this thing There is yet hope in England concerning these poor Souls that the Lord will return and continue to dwell in them and among them as in the former days his Covenant is your hope lay hold upon it 3. Our recovering our Communion with God Our Communion with God stands much in these things 1. In our mutual Acquaintance God with us and we with him God is acquainted with his People and he requires them to come into his Acquaintance Job 22.21 Acquaint thy self with God Acquaintance stands in our Knowledge of God We cannot be said to be acquainted with them we know not in such experimental knowledge as is gotten by converse together We cannot say we are acquainted with every one we know converse or walking together is necessary to our being acquainted The nearer and more intimate our Acquaintance with God is and of the longer continuance by so much the more hold we have of God God will not easily lose his Acquaintance and those that are acquainted with God have tasted so much of the sweetness of walking with him that they will take the more heed how they lose that Acquaintance Those that are intimately acquainted by their friendly converse together this Acquaintance knits their Hearts together as David's to Jonathan so that they will not easily be seperated Hast thou used thy self to intimate converse with God and thereby gotten into experimental Acquaintance with him O thine heart will be hereby knit to the Lord and the Lords Heart knit together with thine Acquaintance cannot bear strangness it 's grievous to us when our Acquaintants become Strangers to us and we are unwilling to be strangers from them Friends do you suffer your hearts to be estranged from the Lord can you forget God and keep at a distance from him can you lose your Intimacy in Heaven are your delightful thoughts of God restrained and is not this grievous to you 'T is a shrewd sign that God and you were never well acquainted You that are the Friends of God keep your acquaintance take heed of wandrings take heed of distances and enstrangments get the experimental delights that arise from your intimacy with him and that will hold you near him And you that have lost your Acquaintance O recover and revive your old Intimacy in Heaven 2. In mutual Acceptance This is a special part of our Communion with God our Complacency in God and his Complacency in us Acquaintants take mutual pleasure in one another their company is grateful and acceptable God is accepted of his Saints they have an hearty goodliking to him and are glad of his Presence not only all the intimations of his Love and Kindnesses to them not only such a word spoken to their Hearts I love thee mine Heart is towards thee thou art mine the dearly beloved of my Soul I am at peace with thee my delight is in thee O how acceptable O how pleasant are such gracious words but not only these but the manifestations of the Will and Counsels of God to them they accept his Commands they love that the Lord should tell them of their Duty His Statutes are my delight Ps 119.77 and they accept his Rebukes and Corrections and his Punishments of them for their Sins Levit. 26.41 knowing that he corrects them in love and that they cannot want his Chastizements that the very Rebukes of his Countenance are sometimes as necessary for them and as beneficial to them as the Light of his Countenance 2. They are accepted with God he accepts their Persons Ephes 1.6 He hath made us accepted in the Beloved he accepts their approaches to him Ezek. 20.40 41. In mine Holy Mountain of the height of Israel there will I accept them I will accept you with your sweet Savour Offer your Offerings lift up your Voices pour forth your Prayers they shall be a sweet Savour a Savour of Rest to me Now whilst God finds rest in a People he will not depart Ps 132.14 This is my rest here will I dwell for ever Acceptance with God and rejection from God are so contrary that whilst we have the one we need not fear the other and whilst God is accepted with us to be sure we are accepted with him whilst Gods ways please us our ways will please the Lord Prov. 16.7 When a mans ways please the Lord he will make his Enemies be at peace with him and so long we may be secure that our Friend will not become our Enemy but will live in love and continue his abode with us 3. In mutual Correspondence In frequent and friendly entercourses God will be sending down to his Saints Tokens of his Love his Saints will be sending up Presents to the Lord Tokens of their Love to him There is a Jacobs Ladder betwixt Heaven and Earth this Ladder is Christ by which there is constant coming and going There are Spiritual Blessings the Blessings of Grace the Blessings of Peace that are sent down from God to his Saints and there are Spiritual Duties Holy Affections Holy Desires Holy Prayers and Praises which by the hand of Christ are sent up before the Lord. 'T is the very Life of Christians to be either receiving down or sending up to Heaven they must hear often from God or they cannot live I will hearken what the Lord God will speak Ps 85.8 And whilst they live God shall hear often from them there are Messengers and Messages that pass daily betwixt God and them They are often sending up and the best Present they have is their Hearts I lift up my Soul to thee Ps 25.1 They will be sending up their Desires to the Lord and their Sighs after him if they have nothing better they will be sending up their Tears
done Now this is your way to level your accounts concerning your sins to repent and amend all your evils and to sue out your pardon through Faith in the bloud of Christ And now you see what 't is to lay hold on God to continue his presence with us by casting away our Idols by laying hold on his Covenant by recovering into Communion getting into an holy acquaintance with God living so that you will both accept of God and be accepted with him maintaining a frequent entercourse betwixt the Lord and your souls letting him hear often from you and listening and longing to hear as often from him by keeping even reckonings betwixt the Lord and you keeping a reckoning of your mercies and a reckoning of your sins by levelling your accounts by walking worthy of your mercies by getting the scores of your sins crossed washed away by repentance and pardoned by the bloud of Christ Here 's that you have to do if you would take hold of God and continue his presence with you Friends is the Lord within you I hope he is in many of you would you that he abide and continue with you I know you would you that are Christians I know you would all say Wo to me if the Lord depart from me I know it is the desire of every sincere heart among you let the Lord dwell in me and walk in me as he hath said he will let Christ dwell in mine heart by faith Lord leave me not take not thy Holy Spirit from me if all the Friends I have in the world forsake me if all the comforts I have under Heaven fail me if mine house must go and mine estate go and my health go and my life go yet let not the Lord depart from me let the Lord still dwell in my soul dwell in me as my Teacher and Instructor dwell in me as my governour and my guide dwell in me as my portion and treasure dwell in me as my Refuge and Protector let but the Lord God continue with me and influence me by his Grace and quicken me by his Spirit and guide me by his Counsels and hold me by his Right Hand and lift up the light of his Countenance upon me and so long mine heart shall be glad and my glory shall rejoyce my flesh also shall rest in hope in this hope that he will shew me the Path of Life I shall behold his Face in Righteousness and when I awake I shall be satisfied with his Likeness Why is this your mind is this your desire that it may be thus with you why now you know what you have to do that it may be so Beloved you have much the more reason to hearken to these instructions and hereby to secure the continuance of the Lord in your own hearts in such a time as this wherein there are so many tokens of his being about to depart out of our Congregations to shut up the Doors of his House against us O how will it be if when the days shall come wherein we shall lose our opportunities of meeting the Lord in the Congregation how very sad will it be if we should in such a time not find him within us if the Word of the Lord should be thrust out from his House and the Spirit of the Lord should be withdrawn from our Hearts if with our publick communion we should lose our secret communion if instead of finding comfort in our retirements to God he should hide his Face from our Souls if instead of speaking comfortably he should speak roughly to us if this should be his Word to us in such a day Now see what thou hast done now remember thy wantonness and thy worldliness thy hypocrisie and thy backslidings and triflings out thy day of grace of these things thou hast been warned aforehand but wouldst not lay them to heart and now reap the fruit of thy folly think not to have countenance from me and comfort from me in the day of distress whom thou hast so mocked and slighted in thy prosperity If men be angry let them be angry if men will persecute let them persecute and look for no relief from me O what if the Lord should speak thus to any of your Souls in the days of darkness that may come how dreadful dark will it then be or what if he should say nothing but leave thee a blind and hardned and senseless Soul wasting away and growing worse and worse and not at all affected with his severe providences How if it should be thus O Friends that this may not be your case that God should depart from his House and your Souls together know that you are so much the more concerned to give special heed to the Instructions you have received for the laying such hold upon him that he may continue with your hearts if he should not be intreated but depart from his House and Congregations 4. Stirring Religion will take hold of God What might have been said to this is in great part prevented by what hath been said already yet something I shall add and shew 1. What 's meant by stirring Religion 2. That stirring Religion will continue the Presence of God with us 1. What 's meant by stirring Religion 1. Negatively not headiness in Religion an hot and mistaken Zeal about the lower and more uncertain things of Religion not such a Spirit of Fire which was in those Disciples Luke 9.54 who would needs call for Fire from Heaven to destroy and consume those that were not Followers of them not a stirring up of strife and contention a making breaches and divisions and propagating of our own Opinions by censuring and judging those that are otherwise minded and are not in every thing according to our own Size Such as these are some of those perilous persons which the Apostle warns Christians not to imitate but to take heed of of whom he says 2 Tim. 3.2 they are Proud Boasters False Accusers or make-bates fierce despisers of them that are good heady highminded and after all their blustering against others have but a form of Godliness denying the power thereof from such says he turn away take heed of them and take heed of being leavened with such a Spirit This then this headiness and fierceness and hot censoriousness upon the account of Religion this is not the stirring Religion I mean 2. Positively An humble active lively zealous prosecuting or pursuing that which is Religion indeed or the substance of sincere Christianity Some vain ones there are who upon the hearing this headiness and fierceness this hot and mistaken zeal blamed and decryed will turn the edge of such Reproofs against Godly Zeal and all fervour and activity for God and every one that goes beyond the drowsie sleepy multitude of Professors is cried out against as one of these heady highminded ones Such is the craft of the Devil that if he cannot blow up coals of wildfire that under the pretence of kindling
will devour all serious godliness if he cannot make men hot and heady in the propagating their own fancies will then on the other hand quench and cool that genuine fervency of spirit wherein we ought to serve the Lord If he cannot make men heady he will do what he can to make them heartless and cold and lukewarm in all the matters of God Friends take heed of both these extreams of being heady or fierce on the one hand or of being cold or lukewarm on the other Of heady ones God would have us take heed and turn away from them and for lukewarm ones he will spue them out of his Mouth Rev. 3.16 The stirring Religion I mean is as I said before a lively activity of Soul for God and for the advancing in real Godliness A stirring Spirit is opposite to a drowsie sleepy slothful careless Spirit which is nothing moved by all that the Scripture speaks when it presseth us to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord Rom. 12.11 To be zealous and amend Rev. 3.19 To contend for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints Jude 3. To strive to enter in at the strait Gate Luke 13.24 To be violent and force our selves on in the way of the Kingdom Mat. 11.12 To fight to wrestle to run to make haste to be fruitful in good works and the like after all these pressing and quickning words there are a sort of slow Bellies sleepy lazy Professors who will but creep on when God would have them run who will lye down laze and loyter out their time when they should be fervent in Spirit who will be idle when they should work be silent when they should speak who let their lazy hearts alone to their own slow easie pace and so are over-grown with rust and suffer their Religion to be even strangled and chok'd up by their flesh to which they so much indulge This stirring Religion is the opposite to such a sleepy heartless way of Religion a blowing up the coals which God hath kindled in us as Timothy is exhorted 2 Tim. 1.6 Stir up the Gift of God The word is Blow up the Coals so Christians are to stir up the Grace of God within them I need say the less here because I have told you so much of it already It is our being awakened and putting on vigorously upon that savory solid fruitful Religion which I have already instructed you in Whatever Holy Principles we have received and sucked in from the Word of God whatever Holy Habits or Dispositions have been begotten and wrought into our Hearts by the Spirit of God have we any thing of the saving knowledge of God have we Faith have we the Fear of God or any Love to the Lord Jesus these must be all set on work and held to their work that so the Knowledge of God may bring forth the Life of God that the Habit of Faith may bring forth a Life of Faith that the Love of Christ and the fear of the Lord may constrain us and provoke us to walk on in the Law of our God that the light that is set up within us may break forth and make our Paths to shine and not only so but that the Holy Fire that 's kindled and blown up in our Hearts may bring forth a Zeal of God in our Lives that we may be Christians and Christians in earnest busie for God busie for our Souls striving against Sin and striving for the Mastery fighting against Sin and fighting to the Victory ready to every good work and fruitful in good works doing what we can to rouse up this sleepy World to raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen and helping on and building up one another in our most Holy Faith laying out our strength in following the Lord and laying hold every one on the Skirts of his Brother and leading them on with us living in love and all the fruits of Christian love and hereby adorning our Holy Profession and walking worthy the Lord unto all pleasing this is that which I mean by stirring Religion 2. Stirring Religion will continue the Presence of God with us for 1. It will work out and drive away whatever offends or would provoke God to depart God will never depart without cause it must be a great matter that must part such dear Friends as God and the Souls of his Saints God will never depart from his People till there be some sin entertain'd and lov'd and allow'd that bids him depart Every sin says to the Lord as those wicked ones Job 21.14 who said to the Almighty depart from us but though every sin says thus yet God will not hearken to its voice unless it be an allowed sin that 's suffered to have the command in the heart and life Sin says to the Lord Depart God shall not rule here and if thou be of the mind that that Sin shall stay with thee notwithstanding if thou art willing to entertain such a Traitor however if thou hadst rather venture the displeasing and disobliging of God than have thy Sin cast out this the Lord will not bear away he will God says concerning every sin If ye love me let these go their way let this Pride go let this Covetousness go let this Frowardness go if thou sayest O with all mine heart Lord I would be glad with all my Soul to be rid of them but wo is me they are too hard for me my lusts will dwell in me and work in me and hinder me in my work for God do what I can O my Soul would rejoyce to be well rid of them O that I might never be proud or froward or carnal or earthly-minded any more I know it is an offence to the Lord and sure it is a grief of mind to me that any thing that offends should abide with me and though I cannot conquer them yet through the help of God I will not foster them whilst I live If these Sons of the Bondwoman must dwell with me yet through the help of the Lord they shall never dwell in peace with me while I live if thou sayest thus and sayest truly and wilt stand to thy word God will not depart from thee God will not depart for unallowed resisted sins If whilst thy sin says to the Lord Depart from me thy Soul says to thy Sin Depart thou rather God will hearken to the voice of thy Soul rather than to the voice of thy Sin Thy Sin says to the Lord Depart but if thy Soul say Lord let me be loosed from my Sins but stay thou with me God will not depart from thee But every allowed Sin every loved Lust and Corruption that thou wilt not hear of parting with if thou art of a proud heart and art resolved to maintain thy Pride if thou art of a Covetous Earthly Heart and Life and wilt not hear of giving off from thy Covetousness if thou art carnal and foolish and froward
much less increase their store without diligence and the least of Saints shall not be always at a stand if they will be diligent and whilest your souls flourish in grace the Lord will never leave you nor forsake you The more you have of the grace and holiness of God in you the more the Lord hath to lose the more gracious ones the Lord hath in a Nation the more he hath to lose among that people and the more grace there is in any soul the more he hath to lose if that soul should miscarry the greater treasure the Lord hath in your hearts the closer guard will he keep about it that it be not lost You whose religion hath so abounded that your souls are filled with the fruits of religion fear not God will stand at your right hand he will not lose such a treasure If you make the Most High your habitation and keep his habitation clean and well furnished he will delight to dwell with you Never any gracious soul that made it his work to please the Lord could ever say unless upon a mistake the Lord hath forsaken me Upon a mistake some of his most precious ones may say so and have said so Ps 77.6 7. I communed with mine own heart and my spirit made diligent search what was it he searched for why he searched what was become of his God he said to his soul as once his enemy said to him in reproach Where is thy God he searched for God but could not find him and thereupon concluded as appears by the following verse the Lord was departed from him and had cast him off for says he Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more is his mercy clean gone hath God forgotten to be gracious This was his thought he had God had left and forgotten him but this was his mistake and so he saw and said afterwards v. 10. This is my infirmity to think so I was mistaken God was with him still though at present he hid his face Keep close to God keep up the holiness of God and God will never be gone if he should at any time hide his face whilest you are walking uprightly before him and your heart should whisper to you God is departed give check to such a thought and say as the Psalmist did this is my infirmity this is my mistake the Lord is still with me and holdeth me by his right hand and this I do and will believe though yet I see him not He hath said The Lord is with you while you are with him and how sad soever it be with me yet I thank the Lord mine heart is with him to him is all my desire in him is all my delight my conscience witnesseth with me that this is my great care that I may please and walk with him and having this witness that my soul is with God this is my confidence that the Lord is still with my soul 5. How we should stir up our selves To the directions I have hitherto occasionally given I shall adde these that follow 1. Make your advantage of stirring providences 2. Put you upon stirring thoughts 3. Get you stirring affections 4. Get you stirring consciences 5. Be much conversant in stirring society 6. Be much exercised in stirring duties 1. Make your advantage of stirring providences times of trouble and affliction and persecution especially such troubles as threaten an eclipse if not the putting out the light of the Gospel such afflicting threatning providences are awakening providences and that upon a double account 1. As they are signs of a storm coming 2. As they are tokens of a night approaching 1. As they are signs of a storm coming When workmen in the fields lie loitering or asleep under the cocks if they espy a storm rising then they are all up and every man falls to his work that they may dispatch before the storm falls and they be beaten out of the field Is there no fear of such a Storm there is a double ground of fear of a Storm coming at this day 1. May we not see a storm in the angry Face of God 2. May we not see a storm in the dark providences of God 1. May we not see a storm in the angry face of God who is so provoked by us Do you think you may provoke God at the rate that so many of us have done as by our manifold iniquities so by our so little answering the Calls of the Gospel to repentance and recovering our selves out of that wretched state we are in and yet God not be angry Prov. 1.24 28. Because I have called and ye refused therefore you shall call and I will not answer If we be so hard of hearing when God calls God will in anger be gone out of hearing when we call upon him God hath been calling to sinners and calling upon the Professors amongst us and what answer hath there been either of the one or the other Hath not the Gospel called upon sinners to come in and be converted and what answer is there of this call Sinners how many are there among you who after all that God hath spoken yet will not answer Drunkards you have been called from your drunkenness called from the Ale-house called from your Companions but are you come away have you cast them off and forsaken them Yea every blind and impenitent sinner among you you have all been called upon to seek the knowledge of God to seek after the grace of God to come to Christ to be his hearty Disciples to become new Creatures to seek the Kingdom of God and to escape out of the snares of the Devil And yet there you lie a company of blind hardned sensless souls even as if you had never been preached to if we had been calling to the Rocks and the Mountains if we had been calling to the dead that are rotting in their Graves if we had been preaching to the skulls and bones of those that have been long since dead and rotten we might even have seen as much success of our word upon these bones and mountains and rocks as we do see upon multitudes of impenitent ones Have you not heard do you not see that it is even just thus and yet is not God angry Dost thou not hear that word in thine ears Jam. 5.9 Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord shall not my Soul be avenged on such a Nation as this 2. And what answer is there of the calls of the Gospel upon Professors The Gospel that hath call'd you in to Christ hath also call'd you on after him The Gospel that hath call'd you to the Profession of Christianity hath call'd you also to come on to the power of Christianity hath call'd you from your indifferency from your hypocrisie from your backslidings to a lively fruitfulness in Religion and what answer is there of these Calls upon you Are you awakened are you revived have all
Children of their bowels any good thing they need and ask how much less will your Father in Heaven who is a God of bowels of infinite compassion deny his Holy Spirit to those that ask it of him Christians study this Promise trust upon this Promise and whatever your fears and discouragements are that you shall never obtain use Gods means ask and seek and knock follow on instantly and earnestly in Gods Way and then hope in God and be no longer dismayed 2. Consider the earnest that you have already received what pledges God hath given you for the performance of his Promise What is nothing of this Promise performed to thee O I hope there is something I have gotten from it but it is so very little that this discourages me Why this little thou hast received is a great encouragement to hope for more I say though you have asked and sought and knock'd and yet but little comes yet that very little which you have obtain'd is great ground for you to hope for all that you need Every little that you receive from the Promise of God is an earnest to assure you of all that is behind Have you received but the first fruits of the Spirit a little Grace a little Strength a little improvement in Grace Is it a little better with you than it hath been this is a pledge to you from the Lord that if ye follow on ye shall have more and more There is hope in what the Lord hath given you in what he hath done for your souls 2 Cor. 1.10 He that hath delivered and doth deliver we trust that he will deliver He that hath supply'd and doth help you hence you may hope that he will supply all your needs out of the riches of his grace by Christ Jesus If the clouds from above have yet but dropped upon you and that grace which your parched Souls like the thirsty earth hath received hath come in but drop by drop you may from those drops have the more hope of a shower that shall rain down righteousness upon you until your souls become as a well-water'd Garden and as a spring of waters whose waters fail not Christian is thy Soul as the chapp'd ground opening and gasping after the influences of the Lord and hath it begun to drop is there something come down art thou a little quickned a little revived those very drops are the forerunners of a shower that will fill all thy furrows O look about you Friends see after all the means that God hath been using to quicken and improve your Souls see if any drops be fallen upon you if it be a little better if there be something done to your recovery be not discouraged that 't is no more be humbled that 't is no more but be not discouraged he that hath begun there 's so much the more hope that he will perfect a cure upon you Thus stir up your hope in God by considering the Promise and any little degree of its performance But beware I cannot too often give you this caution use not this hope to make you secure and careless say not for your lives as bad as 't is with me I hope it will be better and thereupon sleep on and neglect to follow after There is no hope for such a Soul let not your hope secure you in your negligence but establish you against your discouragement let it not secure you against diligence but encourage you unto diligence Since the matter stands thus as great a distance as there is betwixt your present state and that prosperous state of Soul which you desire and wish for and as great difficulty as you imagine it ever for you to get up to such a state since both the Promise and Experience gives you such ground of hope that even you also with whom 't is so very low may get comfortably up therefore be encouraged to take all the pains possible hereto Look on Acts 26.7 and there see how hope will work Vnto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God night and day hope to come Observe it God gave them a promise the promise gave them hope and their hope encourages and provokes them on instantly to serve the Lord and this instant serving God is their way to the possession of the Promise Friends let all this that hath been spoken engage you to all manner of diligence and fortifie you against all manner of discouragements come on Christians come on in the name of the Lord you have heard many directions that I have given you and some more there are that yet remain O set your hearts to the practice of all these words and how hard soever it may seem to be take the way prescribed to you and then commit your way to the Lord hope in him and he will bring it to pass and give you your hearts desire only when you have done all and no success appears yet still wait for the Lord. As there must be the expectation of hope so there must be the patience of Hope Wait on the Lord and keep his way be not weary of well-doing and in the end ye shall reap if ye faint not O Friends follow on after the Lord and encourage your selves on by your hope in God Pray for more grace pray for more life and more power and pray as men of hope Strive and stir up your sleepy hearts and strive as men of hope that as low as 't is with you yet there 's hope for you to get up Be encouraged by the promise be encouraged by every little that you have received Hath the Lord but begun to awaken you let that be his security to you that he will do more and better things for you Are you yet a great way short are there many difficulties yet before you to break through are there any fears and misgivings of heart that ye shall not obtain yet do not discourage your selves hope in God hope in the promise of God and in the help the promise offers be not dismayed put you on after the Lord and hope in God Say to your hearts in the words of the Psalmist Ps 43. ult Why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou discouraged O my soul Hope in God and thou shalt yet praise him who will be the health of thy countenance and thy God Though my flesh and mine heart fail me yet he is the strength of mine heart and in him shall be my hope and my trust there is a promise before me and unto this promise if I can but instantly seek and serve the Lord I have hope to come 4. Get a stirring Conscience God hath made conscience overseer and ruler in the heart he hath advanced conscience in the heart to the same dominion that Potiphar advanced Joseph in his house Gen. 39 4. he made him overseer of his house and put all that he had into his hand Or as Pharaoh Gen. 41.40 advanced him in his
sighted yet it wants tenderness and they can dispense with themselves in smaller matters you will never be Christians of any proof you will never come to much in religion unless your hearts be tender of the smallest evils 3. Let the mouth of conscience speak quick and home I will not say concerning Conscience as the Apostle concerning the Tongue Be swift to hear slow to speak but let it be swift to hear and swift to speak Let it speak quick and speak home Let it speak home and speak aloud let not your consciences be muzled or meal mouthed let them speak and speak closely and deal plainly with you let them not whisper out a warning or a reproof but if they may not otherwise be heard let them do as the Prophet was to do Isa 58.1 Cry aloud spare not lift up thy voice like a trumpet Let conscience never leave speaking and crying till it be heard such a conscience as this is like to be a stirring conscience That 's a stirring conscience which will maintain its authority and integrity whatever difficulties or pains it cost which will be faithful in instructing admonishing and rebuking and will not that its word or authority be slighted which will not suffer its self to be slighted and abused nor to be baffled or put off with shifts and excuses or delays such a conscience will be obeyed you shall have little ease it will not suffer you to have any rest or quiet in your minds if you will not hearken to it As the Apostle said he will not 2 Cor. 13.2 so neither will conscience it will not spare them that have sinned If conscience gives an admonition or a warning take heed of pride take heed and beware of covetousness or frowardness or suppose but loytering and coldness in matters of Religion if conscience gives warning take heed of this worldly carnal lazy trifling life and a warning will not do it will check and chide and rebuke and scourge the heart if its voice may not be heard 't will set in its teeth 't will bite and sting and worry the soul if once speaking or chiding or scourging will not do 't will hold on and lie at the soul from day to day and give no rest till it prevail O what stirring Christians should we be had we such stirring consciences the reason why we sin and sink as we do shuffle in our Religion turn aside after the world play the hypocrites or the formallists in our duties let all run to ruine within us and suffer our selves to continue asleep this is much our consciences faults conscience lets us alone and either does not speak but keep silence or if it speak 't is too softly it does not chide or scourge us it does not come to us with a rod to smite us for our faults You that can go on in your sins or go so coldly on in your Religion you with whom the World is so much risen and godliness is so much fallen you can't but confess that this is the case of many of you how is it with your consciences mean while what says conscience to you in this case it may be just nothing conscience is asleep as well as you O if we could but awaken your consciences out of sleep if the stirring words the Lord sends among you might have but this effect to stir up conscience this would awaken you all to another manner of life and activity in Religion Friends what 's become of all those words those awakening words that have been spoken on this subject have they stirred up any thoughts of heart within you and set these on work have they stirred up your affections and set these aworking in you if they have not 't is a sign they have not stirred up conscience and what hearers have you been if conscience hath been asleep all this time when shall we ever stir your hearts or mend your ways if we cannot stir your consciences If your consciences will yet hear then let them speak and give their judgment on these particulars 1. If it be not a wretched thing to be most remiss and negligent in those things which are your highest concernment to be so busie and intent about those small matters about Meat and Drink and Money which all perish with the using and to be so remiss and heedless and heartless about the most weighty and important affairs What says conscience to this Do not you think in your consciences that this is a wretched thing and a piece of extream folly 2. If the matters of this world be not all but small matters in comparison of the matters of Religion the matters of God and the other World what says conscience to this Do not you think in your consciences 't is so that the most prosperous state in this world is a Toy in comparison of prospering in your Souls and the matters of Salvation If that Question be put to you Mat. 16.26 What shall it profit you if you win the whole world and loose your own souls would not your consciences say It would profit me nothing O 't is a miserable gain that 's gotten by such an eternal loss every mans conscience I doubt not but must speak thus if it will speak at all 3. If yet this be not many of your cases Is it not the plain truth that you are more remiss and heedless and cold in the matters of Religion than in the matters of this World do not some of your consciences tell you O'twere well for me if I were but as hearty and lively in Religion as in my worldly concernments if I could serve the Lord as hotly and as heartily as I serve my flesh but I cannot say 't is so well with me my conscience tells me and I cannot deny it I am much more intent about Earth than about Heaven 4. If it be not better for you to rouze up and recover your selves out of your remisness and coldness in the matters of God and to abate your zeal for the World would it not be well for you if this word might have this effect to make such a change do not you think in your consciences ' t would 5. If it be not necessary for you thus to rouze your selves up and recover doth not conscience tell you you are in hazard of being undone for ever if you continue at this pass 6. If Conscience judges thus in all these particulars and will but speak one word more then it would be well if conscience would hereupon give the word of command awaken sleepers arise sluggards put away your sloth from you hearken to the word of the Lord take his warning stir up your selves bethink your selves recover your selves from this dulness and deadness of heart seek the Lord earnestly serve the Lord instantly no more such idling and creeping on be zealous run the good race fight the good fight make sure the good treasure lay hold on eternal life live not
at these hazards and uncertainties but do thy best put forth thy strength in the work of the Lord that thou mayest come to a certainty if your consciences would speak thus to you and cry thus in your ears night and day and not suffer you to rest till you hear and answer its cries or if you yet linger and delay if conscience would make use of the rod and smite and scourge you out of your remisness if your consciences would fall upon you and sting you for your neglects and fright you out of your security by telling you and laying before you the dreadful reward of sleepers and such idle servants would cast in some of that fire into your hearts which your sin and your sloth is preparing for you if your hearts would condemn you for your follies and tell you down right this my way I am in is the way of death these my paths lead down to hell I am sleeping upon a rock drowzing on a mast O the waves are ready to rise and tumble upon me and to sweep away this sleeping soul of mine and drown it in everlasting perdition Had you but such a stirring conscience as this O what a cure what a change would it speedily make upon you Brethren awaken conscience that conscience may awaken you look to your consciences that conscience may look better to you Watchman what of the night Watchman what of the night Is it day break doth sleep begin to depart from thine eyes what is the Watchman asleep awake sleeper 't is high time to awaken out of sleep Speak thus to your consciences and then hear what conscience will speak to you Friend art thou fallen art thou come to this so thou canst but grow rich in the world thou considerest not how poor 't is with thee in thy soul whilst thou hast been so busie for thy self and thy flesh hast thou let fall the care of thine heart whilst thou hast turned a side after thy pleasures after thy lovers hast thou lost the sight of God have thy carnal correspondencies and compliances made thee such a great stranger in Heaven What says conscience to this Ask Is it peace conscience is it well Is it with me as it hath been is it with me as it should be Speak conscience go tell this man I have somewhat against thee thou hast left thy first love remember whence thou art fallen return to thy first husband for then it was better with thee than now What hast thou gotten since thy departing from thy God may be thou hast gotten more of the world about thee more great friends than heretofore more esteem and reputation amongst thy friends but O wert thou not a better man when thou wert a poorer man hadst thou not more of a Christian in the days of old when thou hadst less of this world Remember the sweet days that thou hadst when thou walkedst humbly with thy God remember the hopes and the joys and the peace that thou hadst in the secret recesses to thy beloved Now thou canst snatch at a duty cast a look heavenward a word and away scarce considering what thou dost or what entertainment thou hast with the Lord thou hast thy long dinners but short duties long markets but short prayers and as slight as they are short What says thy conscience to this does it not tell thee thou hast made a dear bargain 'T is a great rate that thy riches have cost thee that thine ease and thy pleasures have cost thee better thou hadst kept thee a poor man still and been holy and humble and tender and upright than to have made a purchase of the world at so dear a rate as the loss of thine integrity and tenderness Speak conscience and speak home in this matter thou mayest speak where I may not thy word may be heard where mine may not Conscience art thou awakened get thee about and walk the rounds and speak according to what thou findest Go into the City and observe the Professors there go into their Chambers and see if thou find them not in their beds when they should be on their knees go into their Wardrobes search after their gawdy clothing their antick ornaments and attires and see if thou find not such habits and dresses as are fitter for a Stage player than for a Christian go into the Parlour and hear what 's going amongst them there whether there be any more seriousness or savouriness in their discourses together than there is amongst them that know not God and whether the Cards and the Dice be not where the Bible was wont to be Go to their Tables and observe their superfluities and curiosities how delicately how sumptuously they fare every day like that Gentleman Luke 16. Go into their Shops and their Markets and observe if there be no lying and deceitful dealing even as amongst others observe how little difference thou canst find betwixt some that are Professors in their dealings and those that pretend to no Religion Then conscience from the City go down into the Country into the Fields into the Houses and see how busie they are there in ploughing and sowing in building and planting in buying and selling laying house to house and field to field hasting to be rich oppressing the poor working and sweating riding and running and neglecting nothing but God and their Souls See what they do and see how it fares with them both in City and Country what starveling souls thou findest within under their pampered flesh see conscience how 't is and speak according to what thou seest reprove them warn them worry them if they will not hear thy voice set in thy teeth and make them feel O Christians if I could but set on your consciences thus upon your backs or if you would set them on upon your selves you would both hear of more that 's amiss in you than now you will acknowledge and would find no quiet till you set upon amending 5. Be much conversant with stirring society and acquaintance and be stirring among them And here I shall endeavour the reviving of that too obsolete practise of holy and quickning discourse the neglect whereof is both a cause a sign and an effect of the decay of Religion among us For the recovering and promoting of this Holy Practise I shall give you 1. Directions for the bringing you on upon it and the better managing of it 2. An Argument to perswade you to it For the Directions they are these that follow 1. Get your hearts well filled with the Grace of God Mat. 12.34 Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh 1. Men ordinarily fetch their words out of their hearts as 't is said of a fiery Tongue Jam. 3.6 It 's set on fire of Hell that is of that Hell of malice that is in the heart so of an holy Tongue it may be said all the good that comes from it is kindled from Heaven from that of Heaven that
of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way when thou liest down and when thou risest up Charity begins at home and so must all Religion Religion must begin at home in thine own heart first and then in thine house and thence thou wilt get more ability and aptness to diffuse it abroad Consider Beloved how is it with you at your homes upon this account what Religion is there going in your Families how often do your Children and your Servants hear any gracious words from you O Friends do all you can to make all yours Partakers of the Grace you have received Is the word of the Lord in thine own heart let your whole houshold hear oftner of it as you sit at your Tables as you sit at your fires or are walking in your houses 't is not now any stated way of instruction by reading the word repeating Sermons catechizing c. that I am dealing with you about but that in a way of familiar discourse you would be often dropping down some gracious words Friends have you a conscience towards God What conscience is that that will suffer you to live in the neglect of so known and necessary a duty can you with any conscience withhold bread or cloths from your own with what conscience then can you withhold counsel and instruction will you make yours partakers of all you have in the world only they shall have no benefit by the knowledge or the grace you have received Let your bowels instruct you to be kind to their souls and if you will by any arguments be perswaded to be thus kind to your own you will thereby be prepared and get such an holy habit as will make it more familiar and easie to you to live profitably amongst others Beloved Hearken to me in this thing will you hearken and try what you can do if ever you would stand up in your Generations as persons of any use or serviceableness to Christ and the interest of his Gospel if you would not stand in the companies you come into as insignificant Cyphers or as dumb Idols that have mouths and speak not be perswaded to use your tongues to better purpose at your homes 3. Next speak unto your Brethren and fellow Christians to those that fear the Lord. Mal. 3.16 Those that feared the Lord spake often one to another Ps 66.16 Come to me ye that fear the Lord and I will tell you We took sweet counsel together said the Psalmist Ps 55.14 That is we that were the Friends of the Lord or took our selves to be such we consulted together or counselled one another in the matters of God It may be you may be more abashed and afraid to speak to those that are without you know not how they will take it you doubt they may be dogs that will tear and rend you or at least that they may be swine and trample under feet and scorn and despise those holy words you speak unto them they may laugh at you and scoff at your counsels But now with your Brethren in the Lord you may be more free in confidence that they will accept and take in good part the good words you speak and will also be tender to you and bear with your infirmities if any be in speaking Labour for a more profitable converse Christians with Christians Believers with Believers this will be more easie because you may presume one another to be of the same Spirit your good words will be unto them acceptable words and the sense of that will invite you to speak Christians have mutual need one of another to help each other in the Lord and yet there is a great fault amongst us that we are not thus mutually helpful Like those foolish Quakers we have too many of our silent meetings as to our main concern scarce a serious or savoury word comes from us when we meet together Christians learn to amend this fault Let us as we have opportunity edifie and build up one another in the most holy Faith Jude 20. Let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works Heb. 10.24 Friends do not tempt one another as perhaps too often you do to be vain as you are vain to be carnal as you are carnal Do not chil and damp each others spirits by your carnal and frothy and impertinent discourses but quicken one another do what you can to whet and set an edge upon each others spirits and holy affections What have you nothing to talk of when you come together but of your trades and your fields or of news or of the weather and such-like impertinences Have you not a God have you not Souls have you not a Country whether you are traveling are you not upon a Journey to that blessed Land have you not Friends and Kindred above that are worth the speaking of have you not enemies and temptations here below an evil world to travel through many corruptions and afflictions to conflict withal and have you not need of mutual counsel comfort encouragement and establishment one from another How is it that you can find room for so much idle talk when you have matters of such weight and moment to fill up your time when do you use to return with most comfort and satisfaction upon your spirits when you have been vainly merry together or when you have been edifying one another in the most holy faith 4. Then in the next place speak to those which are without to poor sinners that are yet in their sins Ps 51.13 Then will I teach transgressours thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee Your special work possibly may lye amongst the houshold of faith but as you have opportunity you must do good to all Gal. 6.10 All that need you must be made partakers of your spirituals as well as of your temporal things Those that fear God it may be may sometimes hear some good words from you but have you never a word for those that fear not God O pity your poor unconverted neighbours and in your compassion do what you can to pull them out of the fire convince them of their sins warn them of their miseries perswade them back from the Devil invite and allure them in to Christ let them hear often of grace and sin of heaven and hell of death and judgment from your lips See how the compassions of the Church work towards the Heathen world Cant. 8.8 We have a little sister that hath no breasts what shall we do for our sister The poor Gentiles they have no Scriptures no Prophets no Ordinances no breasts of consolation we have a poor sister that hath no breasts what shall we do for her they pitied the poor Gentiles and in their pity they consider what they might do for them And why do not we carry it alike to unconvered sinners we have poor children poor neighbours that have no eyes no heart that have no Christ
no knowledge no grace poor blind neighbours poor hardned ones poor lost and undone souls O what shall we do for these poor children and neighbours have I never a word to speak that might do them good shall I be silent to them whilest I see them perishing for want of instruction Christians have you the light with you are there the words of wisdom and instruction with you is there ever a word of grace hid and laid up in your hearts O keep it not in withhold it not from poor perishing souls speak to poor sinners affright them from their sins provoke them to repentance perswade them to pray to hear to read to consider and to turn from the evil of their ways and who knows what such words might do to their conversion and salvation Thus for the directions for the performance and managing of this holy practice 2. The argument that I shall use to perswade you to it shall be from the advantage of this practice for the reviving and improving our own souls in the grace of God The advantage will be great 1. From our necessary preparations to this duty I have told you that 't is necessary to the better performance of this duty to get your own hearts well furnisht with grace to live more in the affecting thoughts of God to get a zeal for Christ to do him all the honour you can to get more compassion to souls without these things whatever our attempts are to converse more profitably and spiritually one with another we shall make nothing of it and these our preparations are our improvements 2. From the practice of this duty Holy discourse will keep our graces in action 'T is for want of action that our talents grow rusty by rubbing up the spirits of our brethren we shall whet our own Though the edge of your knife will be blunted by long cutting 't is not so here the edge of your spirits will grow keener by use your very work will be instead of a Whetstone Who is like to grow rich in this world he that lets his stock lie dead by him or he that puts it to use or imploys it in trade those that occupied with their talents Luke 19.13 c. made this return Thy pound Lord hath gained ten pounds says one thy pound hath gained five pounds saith another but what could he say that bound up his talent in a napkin what greater encouragement to diligence in trading then the hope of increase the hope of the in gathering of the Husbandman is his encouragement in his more plentiful scattering in sowing He that soweth plentifully shall reap plentifully 2 Cor. 9.6 and therefore Blessed are they that sow beside all waters Is 32.20 the communicative Christian is sowing where ever he comes and where ever he sows thence shall he also reap and gather his sheaves into his own bosom Christians you say you have but little grace and 't is like enough you say true but would you have more go forth to sow with that little you have The more you scatter the more you are like to gather Would you have more love and life and power to serve and glorifie the Lord be more diligent in shedding abroad what you have Resolve no longer to keep your Religion to your selves put not your light under a bushel put it on a candlestick that it may give light to others and God will increase both your light and your life 'T is to little purpose onely to think of hearing more or of praying more for a better heart this alone will never do converse more like Christians then ye shall be every day more Christians then ye are Learn of sinners Drunkards converse like Drunkards Rioters converse like Rioters profane hearts have ever a profane converse what do their tongues run of what is their talk when they come together but of their cups and their harlots and their sports and what is their ordinary fruit why hereby they not onely propagate their own wickedness in others one Drunkard makes another and he another and these more but also they every one improve their own cursed stock fomenting and heating and stirring up their own hearts lusts and so make themselves twofold more the children of hell then before Christians learn of these brutes do Drunkards converse like Drunkards do Worldlings converse like Worldlings do profane hearts use themselves to profane converses and do you not see how mightily they grow and improve hereby in their wickedness what should this teach you but that Christians converse like Christians Let your Religion be the business of your communion and then look for as much advance to your souls in godliness by this holy converse according as you see sinners to thrive in wickedness by their wicked conversing one with another You see Friends I have been somewhat large in this direction but is there not need of more words than these is not this holy practice sadly let fall amongst us doth not the world something or other of it either quite shoulder it out or thrust it into a narrow room Our heads are so full and our hearts are so full and hence our mouths are so full of carnal things that there 's little room left for a few words of God and the things of eternity to be interposed And O what is the fruit sure that dreadful fall which is so visible in the spirit and the whole practice of piety is both the mother and the off-spring of this grievous neglect we are fallen sick and therefore are so speechless and then we spend and waste more and more by silence Whilst sick bodies waste by speaking sick souls waste more by silence What shall I say farther in this matter The Lord heal a poor barren languishing people the Lord touch our hearts with a coal from his Altar and then touch our lips with a coal from our hearts Brethren I hope you come hither to learn your duty and I hope you have a conscience that will put you upon the practice of what you learn have you yet learn'd what an advantage 't is to have lips of knowledge and what a duty 't is that your speech be with grace Remember what your Master said John 13.17 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them I would not that a man of you should be so unhappy as to know and not to do Do you know and believe that holy communication would be an advance to your religion then what shall be your practice in this matter have you a tongue for the world a tongue for your flesh and no tongue for God and your Souls O might I hear that word from your mouths thy word O Lord is within me as fire I am weary of forbearing I will speak that I may be refreshed Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praises 6. Put upon stirring duties I shall mention only two 1. Prayer 2. Fasting and Prayer 1. Prayer
Prayer in the text is noted to be a stirring duty there 's none that stirreth up himself there 's none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself Had they prayed and prayed as they ought this would have stirred them up or have been their stirring up them selves to take hold of God But neglecting to pray they therein neglected to stir up themselves Prayer is a stirring duty 1. 'T is to stir up the Lord to their help Ps 35.23 Stir up thy self and awaken to my judgment my God and my Lord. Ps 80.2 O Shepherd of Israel thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep thou that dwellest between the Cherubims shine forth stir up thy strength and come to save us The God of Israel sometimes seems to be as Elijah once said mocking of that false God Baal 1 Kings 18.27 It may be he is asleep and must be awakened Though he be the keeper of Israel and never slumbreth nor sleepeth yet he sometimes carries it towards them as if he were asleep and expects to be awakened by their cries upon him 2. Especially prayer is for the stirring up our selves There is a sort of praying dull and cold and formal praying that 's good for nothing but to lay our souls asleep When conscience begins to stir and run upon sinners and fright them for their neglect of God then they will to their prayers and blind devotions and this must serve them as a charm to allay and quiet conscience as Davids Musick did to drive away that evil spirit that vexed Saul Some sinners consciences will not let them be quiet but dog them and haunt them and fright them into something of religion they dare not live without calling upon God their consciences will not suffer them to be quiet under a total neglect and thereupon something must be done which they can call praying and then they are at ease and can go on quietly in their sins without trouble or disturbance these mens praying serves them for nothing but to lull them asleep in their sins But prayer rightly performed will stirr and awaken prayer is said to be a striving with God Rom. 15.30 a wrestling with God Gen. 32 24. and this is our most effectually striving with God and wrestling with God our striving and wrestling with and stirring up our own hearts Praying is not the saying of some good words but the calling up all our powers to come in and joyn in seeking the Lord. That you may particularly understand what a stirring duty Prayer is consider 1. That in Prayer we set our selves under the Eye of the great and mighty God of Heaven and Earth It is a drawing night unto God a lifting up our Eyes to the Everlasting hills a presenting our selves before the throne of God the throne of his Grace a setting all the Attributes of God before our Eyes his Allmightiness his Allsufficiency his infinite greatness dreadfulness goodness and grace which all make up that fearful Name the Lord our God Deut 28.58 and sure Friends such a sight of the glorious and dreadful God will be a stirring sight 2. In Prayer we come to deal with God about all the wonderful and astonishing things of Eternity we are to have eternal life and death in our Eye when we pray and what will stir us if Eternity if a sense that we are now treating with the Eternal God about the eternal things will not O a sense of this that we are begging for our lives begging for our immortal Souls begging the everlasting Kingdom seeking our escape from the everlasting Fire a deep sense of this upon our hearts will awaken them 3 In Prayer there is a ripping open all the affrightning Evils that are in our Hearts Confession unbowels the Soul and fetches up all the filth and rottenness of the Heart lays open all the deadly Diseases that are in the Heart every wicked thought and filthy lust and vile affection all the falshood and Hypocrisie all the pride and malice and envy and frowardness of the Heart are in our confessions brought forth and laid open before the Lord. The Devils are rouz'd that lodged within us and were taken too little Notice of and all the hazard and danger that our Souls are in by these our wickednesses will in our confessions be made to stand before our Eyes and there cannot be such a discovering of our wicked Hearts and our danger that we are in but it will affright and awaken us 4. Prayer is the uniting of all our powers and the engaging them all in seeking the Lord. It strains every string it bends all our forces upon the duty it sets all our faculties our understandings our memories our wills our affections our consciences on work as the Psalmist Ps 103.1 Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his Holy Name Pray to the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me call upon his Name Prayer is not tongue-work or knee-work but Soul-work bless the Lord O my Soul and 't is not a peice of an Heart one string of the Instrument but every string must be strained and struck up understanding memory will affections all must joyn all that is within me bless his holy Name All our faculties and all our graces our faith our love our hope our desires whatever we have of God within us all must be called forth to joyn in seeking of him 5. Prayer is not only the employing and exercising our Souls with all their faculties and graces but the putting them forth to the height not only the striking every string but the straining every string to the height the word in the original which is translated Acts. 12.5 Prayer without ceasing signifies instant earnest Prayer or more properly according to the notation of the word strained Prayer prayer stretched out and this is that praying which is stirring praying the pouring forth our Soul in Prayer With my Soul have I desired thee Is 26.9 the straining and working up all within us every faculty and grace of our Hearts to the height the stirring up all our strength in the work this is that Praying instantly required Rom. 12.12 that praying fervently Jam. 5.16 that crying and crying mightily unto God unto which the Scriptures promise Audience Now when Prayer hath thus rouzed up our sleepy Souls set all our Faculties and Graces a stirring within us and so gotten an heat in the heart by the joynt and vigorous exercise of all within us in the duty when we have prayed our Souls awake and all our Graces awake and our Heart is waxen hot within us we are therein prepared and put in a readiness and disposedness to and shall feel our selves bent upon the practise of every holy duty in our whole course This therefore is my next direction put upon Praying and such stirring Praying Go set the Lord and all his Glory before your Eyes and get a sense of eternity upon your Hearts rip open and lay
forth to the light all that filthiness and garbage and rottenness that is within you bend all within you to seek the Lord and go cry unto him and cry so loud that your own Souls may be awakened by your cry Strive so with God in prayer wrestle so with the Almighty that your own Soul may find its Hands and Legs Friends do not neglect Prayer and do not deceive and undo your selves by your Prayers do not pray your Souls asleep do not pray your consciences asleep but awaken them 'T is a miserable thing to consider how little some Professors are in secret Prayer sometimes they pray and sometimes they can't tend it their Closet is so seldom visited that it may be said of the very way to it as of the way to Zion Lam. 1.4 the ways of Zion do mourn because none come to the solemn Feasts The Grass grew upon their paths because they were so little trod It is a miserable thing that there is so little praying such seldom Praying as there is but a worse Evil then this is that that little which is is worth nothing we go to Pray many of us as if we had a mind to mock God and provoke him to his Face we go to this duty as if we had a mind to lay our Souls to sleep rather then to stir up and awaken them 't is no wonder there is no more light in our Paths when there is no more life in our Duties 't is no wonder there are so many grey Hairs on the Head so many wrinkles in the Face of our Religion when it is so cold at the Heart when our secret recesses and retirements to God are so Heartless and Spiritless 't is no wonder that Sin and Lust and vanity do so swell and abound that Grace and Holyness do so sink and disappear in our conversations when that which should kill Sin and keep Grace alive the Soul of Duty is so little to be found Friends if ever you would recover the beauty of your ways begin in Secret revive the power of Duty pray constantly pray frequently and be fervent in Prayer pray and strive with God in Prayer pray and strive with your own hearts in Prayer pray and wrestle against the Devil and the World and your Sins in Prayer such praying would make the nest too hot for the Devil and your Sins such Praying would cure your colds such praying in the Morning might be a means to keep you warm for all day and such praying in the Evening would make you awake warm the next Morning Therefore Friends pray hearken to the Word of the Lord hearken to me in this thing put your selves to it put upon constant secret Prayer and put upon such stirring Prayer such instant and importunate Prayer what say you will you do it will you hearken to me in this thing I tell you Friends if I may but prevail with you in this one thing if you will obey and practise this one direction this will make all the rest to prosper you will deny me in nothing if you will but grant me this and if you deny me here if you will go on to satisfie your selves with cold and perfunctory Devotions if you will not set to it to be lively and vigorous in your secret duties I shall look upon all else that I have said as lost and that which will come to nothing and therefore pray consider with your selves what you mean to do in this thing will you begin this night go not to pray as at other times but put on upon the life of the duty and then I shall hope to see a blessed and a visible change upon the whole frame and face of your conversation What say you therefore will you do it I am in great earnest with you in this thing since the success of all that I have said to the recovering the decaying interest of Religion among you depends so much upon this one thing and therefore once again I pray deny me not and that you may not deny me take particular notice of this one word more that I shall add remember these words anon in the Evening when you are going to Pray then remember what I have now spoken from the Lord to you and accordingly set your Hearts to it and the Lord grant you the presence of his gracious and Almighty Spirit to help you herein to the praise of his Grace and the comfort and advantage of your Souls For the more effectual fixing of this direction upon you and for your improvement by it I shall here remember you of two Directions which I have formerly Preached and published 1. Be so earnest and intent in this duty that you may feel your hearts enlarged in the lively actings and exercise of Grace and so raised and warmed by your sensible communion with God as may put you into a spiritual and heavenly frame that if it be possible you may come off your knees in a better and more lively disposition of soul than you had in your entrance upon your duty Do not satisfie your selves with the work done but let your aims and endeavours be to get something more of God that you may have to carry away with you when you depart that you may come out of your Closets as Moses came down from the Mount Exod. 34.39 whose face did shine and was a token that he had been conversing with God O let there at such times be a shining and a burning light raised up within you come from your duties as men coming out of Heaven with the very Sun-beams shining in your countenances and with some tincture of Heaven upon your spirits We come many times with no other spirits from our duties than we come out of our Shops or Fields with no more sense and favour of God than if we had never been near him O 't is a sign that thou hast but trifled in thy duties that thou neither hadst nor much mindedst to have communion with God in it certainly sincere communion with God will leave some divine impressions behind it Well every time you go to pray put hard for it to get you into such a divine and spiritual frame before you have done 2. Whatever better or more spiritual frame you are gotten to in duty be careful to maintain it and keep it alive afterwards See to it that your spirits do not presently sink and cool and grow dull and carnal again when you have been thus quickened and spiritualized hath there been an holy fire kindled in you O keep it burning keep it flaming and let it not be covered over with ashes get your hearts to be alive in your duties and keep them alive from duty to duty In the Old Testament though their Sacrifices were offer'd but morning and evening yet the fire that kindled them was not to go out night nor day there must be fire kept alive from the morning Sacrifice to kindle the evening Sacrifice and
before him He that hath been often heard for himself in his personal or Family-necessities will speak with the more confidence for his friends or people I have seen how Prayer will help a poor distressed person a poor distressed family and why may it not prevail for a diseased and distressed Nation Since I have found that the Lord hath heard me when I have been seeking him for my self and for mine house O what hope doth this give that he will also hear me now that I am seeking him for his own House Beloved when any of you that fear God are under any pressing straits and desire the help of Prayer to whom do you use to seek you do not call together the lazy and the idle and the careless ones that use not to call upon God you do not send to such to come and pray for you but you will pick out and call together the praying people those that are most conversant in this duty what 's the reason of this why your consciences tell you that if there be any whose Prayers are like to help you these are they the men of Prayer Be you such in both these respects be ye thus prepared Be the friends of God and be often with God and then I will add no more but as the Prophet Joel 2.15 16 17. Then come and sanctifie your Fasts call your solemn Assemblies gather the people sanctifie the congregation assemble the Elders let the Bridegroom go forth out of his Chamber and the Bride out of her Closet let the Tradesmen come out of their Shops and the Husbandman out of the fields let the Ministers and people of the Lord weep before his Altar and let them say and cry and cry aloud Spare thy people O Lord heal thy languishing heritage be not angry with them till thou hast consumed them let not the ungodly say to them in thy reproach Where is your God your Christ and your Religion And who knows but the Lord may hear and what ever evils be upon us and to whatever distance he is withdrawn from us he may yet return and repent and leave a blessing behind him and may be jealous for his Land and pity his people and heal them For a conclusion let me add a word or two both to those that have heard and to them also that read these words I am unwilling if I could help it to make an end before I have done before the work be done for which all this hath been spoken and written Have I been all this while beating the Air or speaking to the Wind or writing in Sand Must I at last sit down with the shame and the grief of the disappointed Mine heart and mine eye is upon success I have been plowing in hope and harrowing and sowing in hope O thou who art the hope of Israel make thy servant partaker of his hope Success is of God Paul may plant and Apollo may water but it is God that gives the increase We are they whom the Lord hath set to watch and give warning to convince and reprove to instruct and exhort but who is it that must give the fruit As hard as our work is as small success as we yet see yet therefore we faint not because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour Where is the Lord he who hath said My word shall not return unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I please and shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it Wherefore hath the Lord spoken Is it that we may go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken Is it for the hardning of those that have sinned that they may not repent Is it for the sealing up of the eyes of those that see not that they may be the more blind Is it for the searing of brawned spirits that they may be more hard Is his Light only to dazle and put out our eyes and his strokes only to hammer into more senselesness and to drive away his wanderers farther from him God forbid God forbid we hope better things we long we wait for better issues and if the Lord hath any pleasure in us if utter ruin be not determined upon us he will give good success he will recover and revive us he will humble and heal us Success is of God O our God we have no might nor know we what to do only our eyes are upon thee But though it be the Lord that gives success 't is we and you all that must seek it and be working towards it 'T is not the best Physician that can cure you unless you take his Medicines and follow his Prescriptions he that reaches down his hand to help you up out of the Pit into which you are fallen will not lift you out unless you will do what you can to help your selves In order to your seeking and obtaining good success let me ask 1. Thou whose eyes are now upon these words Art thou one of them whose doleful cases have been here opened and lamented Art thou a Sleeper a loytering or back-sliding Soul Whilst thou hast been looking on this Glass hast thou not seen thine own face in the company Hath not this Word found thee out and said unto thee even unto thee as Nathan to David Thou art the man Or hast thou so much as asked the question of thy self Am I not one of them If thou hast not read over again go back before thou read forward consider again and again before thou conclude I am none of them whoever they be mine heart I hope is right with God I am free Put me not off with an I hope I am none of them but inquire more narrowly till thou hast put it out of doubt what thou art 2. If thou seest thou art one of these wretched souls art thou content to continue thus Is it safe is it comfortable to thee thus to live Wilt thou die a Backslider or but a Babe Wilt thou venture it to continue as thou art Art thou at a point with Christ that thou wilt no more of him than thou hast nor shall he have more of thee than at this day Shall thy flesh and this world still go such great sharers with him Wilt not thou come back to be only his to be wholly his Wilt thou say as those Jer. 2.25 There is no hope no hope of prevailing with me Wilt thou say I have loved strangers and after them I will go I love this world I love my carnal friends I love my ease and my idleness and my liberty and I can't part with them the life I live is better than that severe life you call me to Art thou indeed of this mind and dost mean to hold thee of the same mind till thou comest to the Grave Do thy tender-hearted friends weep over thee to see what a Child or a Changeling thou art and dost thou bless thy self in thine own heart and say thou art