to you all the Aâ—mour of God that you may resist the battery of this worst of Satans Engines and defeat the most dangerous of all his stratagems to involve you in Procrastination by giving up your selves speedyly to God and Christ according to what ever convictions have been upon you that you ought and resolutions that you would so do and be ready quickly I would add no more did not one word remain which may seem fit to clinch and rivet that Nail I have been forcing home with so many blows And I shall take it out of your own mouths Methinks I hear some say why so many Arguments in so clear a case and others ready to make the number occasion of their laughter and others 't was good if it had not been so long but it was cruel tedious Well be it so admit it had been delivered at this length which yet by the way it was not let me in cool blood debate the case with these Objectors before we part Is the case so clear in thy opinion that 't is superfluous to multiply Arguments to prove it Out of thy own mouth shalt thou be judged thou sloathful servant Why dost thou continue to Rebel against thy light Why dost thou still delay That 's enough which doth the work it is designed to but that 's too little which doth it not The Motives may be enough to leave thee inexcusable but they are not enow for thee till they effectually persuade thee to leave thy sin and escape thy danger And for the next must I bear your petulent scorn for remembring you of returning to God with such a number and shall it cost you nothing to forget him days without number Do you now laugh because the Motives are so many And what will you do when God shall laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh because these many were too few to make you take warning To make you wise to prevent them and escape them Is it so tedious to you to hear your sins Arraigned and Condemned a long hour And what is it to God to be dishonoured and provoked by them all thy life long Is it a load which breaks the back of thy Patience to hear Motives multiplyed to turn thee Speedily And is it no dangerous tryal of Gods Patience to load him with thy multiplyed sins as a Cart is loaden with Sheaves and pressed down If it be wearisome to hear thy sins reproved How much more Just is Gods complaint They have wearied me with iniquities and made me serve with their sins In a word if I have been thought long in calling you to turn to God how long doth God think your refusing to return And how tedious will it be to bear the eternal reproaches of thy own heart and lashes of thy own enraged Conscience for that refusal Which nothing can exempt thee from but taking the Councel I have so plainly given Consider what I have said and the Lord give us understandings and hearts to close with it that when ever Christ comes He may find us Ready Amen A DISCOURSE Shewing the Sinfulness and Danger of Putting-off our Great WORK BEING The Substance of a Sermon deliver'd at the Funeral of Mr. David Geer at St. Botolph's Aldgate Upon St. JOHN ix.iv. I must work the Works of Him that sent me while it is Day The Night cometh when no Man can work THis Chapter contains the History of one of the chief Miracles which our Blessed Saviour wrought whil'st He was in this World That is His opening the Eyes of the Man which was born Blind And it is Recorded more largely than any of his wonderful Works except his Raising Lazarus from the Dead for it fills a whole long Chapter to declare the Occasion of it the Work it self and what followed upon it and affords Matter of so many useful and choyce Observations 't is some difficulty to pass them by For it did not only Confirm his Mission and Doctrine to be from God but the very Miracle it self was Doctrinal the Man 's being born Blind figuring that Spiritual Blindness under which we are all Born and Christ's Healing him and the Manner of it shewing from whence we must expect the true Eye-Salve But I must confine my self to what the present Solemn Occasion directly minds us of The Words I have read were pronounced by our Lord as an Introduction to the Work when he address'd himself to the Performance of it and discover his Faithful Obedience and Excellent Wisdom in improving the Seasons for fulfilling the Works his Father sent him into this World for And commend to us a Truth of general Use and universal Obligation tho our Lord vouchsafes to apply it to Himself in this particular Case I confess the Words have not the Form of a Precept but they have the Force yea more than the Force of a single Command press the Duty more Home than if it had been said expresly Work while it is Day For First They are an Example given in the Person of him whom we are bound to imitate and follow whose Works are Vocal and whose Actions are our Instructions He being the Son of God and our Lord and Master saying I must work 't is as if a Son in the Family should say to the Servants or a Wealthy fore-handed Man to his poor Neighbours who have nothing but their Hands to Live on What ever you do I must mind my Business I must labour and not squander away one Day after another my Father will not suffer it in me and I should quickly be undone by such a Course Such Words spoken in their own Persons are more awakening more pungent than if they only bid them mind their Business For they smartly and sarcastically reproach their Sloath and upbraid them for their Loytering For if the Master of the Family will not bear it in a Son much less will he in a Servant and if he that 's well before-hand must be industrious to prevent Poverty and Want much more must he that hath but from Hand to Mouth But the quickning Influence of the Example is not all For Secondly The Reason by which it is inforced shews it extends to many For when He had said I must work c. while 't is Day when he comes to give the Reason of it he saith not The Night cometh when I can't work but When no Man can work 't is St. Chrysostome's Note thereby clearly implying that the Duty reaches all whom the Reason of the Duty reaches and amounts to thus much That every Man who hath Work to do which must be done by Day and cannot be done by Night must hasten to dispatch it while the Day lasts lest he be surprized and prevented by the Nights Approach Having thus briefly clear'd my Passage to what I design by shewing that the Words tho spoken by our Lord of Himself yet are fairly Applicable unto others and may have Efficacious Influence both upon
So let these Confiderations quicken you lest you be be-nighted and find too soon the Folly of your coming too late to enter into the City of God But Man hath a Door too into which God must enter and this will be shut at Night Rev. 3.20 Behold I stand at the Door and Knock if any Man open to Me I will come in and Sup with him and he with Me. There is a Door of Knowledge The Key of Knowledge Opens it When the Eyes of our Understandings are enlightned opened to know God in Christ and to receive the Knowledge of His Will God comes into the Heart through this Door when the Eyes of our Minds are so opened as to know God and Christ a right so as to Know them is Eternal Life Joh. 17.3 And a Door of Faith through which Christ comes when He enters to dwell in our Hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 And there is a Door of Repentance by which Sin is turn'd out and God is admitted into our Souls And Lastly There is the Door of Holy Affections Love Desire Delight in God These are at least the Hinges upon which the Door of our Hearts turn Now these Doors may all be opened to let in God while the Day lasts and He will come in and make His Abode with us John 14.23 Jesus said If any Man love Me he will keep My Words And My Father will love him and We will come unto him and make Our Abode with him But when Night comes they will be shut for ever Hasten therefore to open them while you may lest when you would it prove too hard for you and be above both your Skill and your Power You know a Door that is opened dayly opens easily But Doors which stand long shut 't is hard to make them stir or open them without great Violence that shakes them and even breaks them in pieces The Timber will swell the Hinges will rust the Wards of the Lock will be cankered and the Bolts will even grow into the Staples And so will it by Proportion be with your Hearts if you keep the Door long shut against God Nay He may in Anger clap on a Padlock on the other side shut thee up Judicially in Unbelief and Impenitency nail and barracado up the Door for ever because He knock't and call'd so long and woo'd so earnestly in vain Cant. 5.2 Open to Me My Sister My Love My Dove My Vndefiled for My Head is fill'd with Dew and My Locks with the Drops of the Night Then after many idle Excuses for her Delay Vers 6. I opened to my Beloved but my Beloved had with-drawn Himself and was gone My Soul failed when He spake I sought Him but I could not find Him I called Him but He gave me no Answer Take heed lest this or worse be thy Case Refuse not to open at the first Knock the first Call the Motions of His Spirit the Checks of thy Conscience the Admonitions of the Word lest He Knock no more or refuse when thou shalt open at thy own Leasure to come near the Door The Servants which shall be blessed are They that wait for their Lord and when he cometh and knocketh open to him immediately Luk. 12.35 Rouze up your selves therefore and speak to your Souls in David's Language and as much as may be with David's Zeal Psal 24.7 9. which he witnessed by the Ingemination of them Lift up your Heads Oh ye Gates and be ye lift up ye Everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory The Lord of Hosts He is this King of Glory And take heed that dreadful Place be not fulfilled upon you Isa 6.10 the most dreadful Word God can speak till he say Depart ye Cursed Make the Heart of this People fat and their Ears heavy and shut their Eyes lest they be Converted and I Heal them A Place Six times repeated in the New-Testament to make us mind it lest by our sinful Shutting the Door we provoke God Judicially to shut it up for ever Sixthly No Man can work when this Night cometh because 't is an abiding Night There is no Day on the other side of it We say To Morrow is a New Day what we cannot do to Day we may do to Morrow But there is no Morrow beyond the Night of Death 'T is appointed to all Men once to Dye but once and after that the Judgment Heb. 9.29 No Second Day of Life allowed to them who have mis-spent and lost the First Job said long since There is Hope of a Tree that if it be cut down it will sprout again and that the tender Branch thereof will not cease Though the Root thereof wax old in the ground and the Stock thereof Dye yet through the Scent of Water it will bud and bring forth Boughs like a Plant. But Man dyeth and wasteth away yea Man giveth up the Ghost and Where is he As the Waters fail from the Sea and the Flood decayeth and dryeth up so Man Lyeth down and Riseth not till the Heavens be no more They shall not awake or rise out of their Sleep Job 14.7 12. And the Heathen Poet long ago observed the like of the Sun The Sun 's Set and Rise Set and Rise again But We when We Set are covered with Eternal Night No repeated Light or Day succeeds O therefore timely and wisely Improve the Present That had need be done well which can be done but once and admits no doing it again to remedy the Errours of doing ill at first And such above all things is the Work of Dying and finishing our Dayes Work before the Night surprize us The Proverb tells us Three Things require greatest Caution and most prudent Circumspection Marriage Battle Death Upon this Account Because their Consequents are like to last Yet the First of these excludes not all possible Relief Good Counsel may reclaim Patience may bear and Wisdom may improve the Inconvenience or the Death of the Party which makes the Yoke unequal and uneasy may take it off the Grieved Party's Neck that it shall not alwayes gall here And at farthest Death will Dissolve the Bond that it shall not be alwayes troublesome And the Second though dangerous is not wholly desperate He that hath lost a Battle suffer'd a Defeat and Rout may Rally and Recruit and though it cost him Dear may learn Experience for more wary Conduct and may expect a more Propitious Fortune But he that Dyes Unpardoned and Ungodly that is before his Work is done he is undone to all Intents and Purposes no Remedy or Hope of Remedy remains to all Eternity And as the fore-nam'd Reasons shew it impossible to Work when this Night hath actually overtaken us so the Last which follows should excite and quicken us to the uttermost to be before-hand with it For Seventhly This Night makes hast The Text tells you It cometh and I tell you and Experience tells you and Christ in effect
ever And Psal 118.8 9. It is better to Trust in the Lord than to put Confidence in Man than to put Confidence in the Greatest or the Best of Men. And if Men will be so Diligent to please a Landlord a Justice a Master or a Father How much more Careful should we be to please the Great God of Heaven And the Apostle argues Heb. 12.9 We have had Fathers of our Flesh and we gave them Reverence Shall we not much rather be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live And God himself Mal. 1.6 And so for the Things of the World No Study or Contrivance of the Head no Labour nor Travel of the Hands or Feet is thought too much How did Jacob Serve for Rachel See how he describes his Diligence Gen. 31.40 In the Day the Drought consumed me and the Frost by Night and my Sleep departed from mine-Eyes And 't is easier to find an Hundred following him in this than Two or Three in his Wrestling with God and not letting Him go till they obtain the Blessing Most Men being serious about Trifles and only trifling and dallying about this Serious Work The One Thing necessary Spending their Money for that which is not Bread and their Labour for that which satisfies not Isa 55.2 Forsaking the Fountain of Living Waters and hewing out broken Cisterns that will hold no Water Jer. 2.13 Being wise to do Evil but void of Knowledge to do Good Compare thy Self with other Men How many Younger than thy Self have got more Knowledge How many Poorer than thy Self can spare more Time to Read and Meditate and Pray How many of weaker Parts and under smaller Helps and intrusted with fewer Talents yet have far out-stript thee in your common Master's Work And thou wilt say 'T is like 't is well done of them And thy Judgment approves and praises them For shame then Practise thy Self what thou canst not but applaud in Others Yea let Shame to find thy Self out-stript by so Many that were once behind thee and are so still in many Respects quicken thee to double thy Diligence till thou recover and over-take them yea get again before them Again Compare thy Self with GOD if thou be not afraid to entertain a Thought of so unequal a Comparison Lord What is Man a Worm a Clod a Bubble a Shadow Yea Man in Honour is like the Beast that perisheth and in his best Estate is altogether Vanity And yet as Mean and Inconsiderable a Thing as thou art thou standest upon it thou wilt have it thus and thus and thy Will must be done with Diligence and thy Work with Care and with Exactness and art presently upbraiding those about thee for the least Neglect with What do I keep you for And wilt rid thy self of such unprofitable Incumbrances and wilt not retain an Idle Faithless Servant in thy Family a Jade in thy Stable a Barren or Unthristy Creature amongst thy Caâ—ttle or a Fruitless Tree in thy Orchard And How darest thou be such towards the Great King of all the Earth as thou wilt not suffer any of thy Fellow-Creatures to be towards thy self who art so far below Him so Inconsiderable a Nothing in comparison of Him Once more Compare the Sweet and Easie Indulgence the Gospel hath provided for thee in the Work of God with the Hard Service imposed and exacted under the Law and the Gracious Assistance offer'd and communicated under this Dispensation with the little Help afforded then How Chargeable and Costly were the Sacrifices How Long and Tyring the Journey 's up to Jerusalem How Insupportable the Yoke of those Observances And How small the Aids afforded What would'st thou have done then if thou stickest if thou grudgest if thou repine at what is now expected and shall be accepted As Naaman's Servants said wisely to their Master My Father if the Prophet had bid thee do some great Thing Wouldst thou not have done it How much more when he saith unto thee Wash and be Clean 2 King 5.13 If God if Christ had bid thee do some Harder Work Wouldst thou not do it to save thy Soul for ever How much more when he hath made the Way more Easie than of Old and offer'd and assur'd greater Help than then to enable thee to do it Lastly Compare thy Work for the True God with what Idolaters and Hypocrites perform to False Ones or to the True One Falsly That you may be moved to Jealousie with those which are not a People and provoked by a Foolish Nation Deut. 32.21 How do the Worshippers of Baal cry whole Dayes and Cut themselves with Knives and Lances till the Blood gushes out How do the Profelytes of Rome Whip themselves pour out their Money to their wily Priests which make Merchandize of them for Masses Indulgences c. How do they Lavish out Gold and Impoverish themselves and Families to inrich the Shrines of Dead and Dumb Idols and undergo hard Penances and tedious Pilgrimages And all in vain led only by a False Opinion of Meriting by what God will despise And How Profuse will Hypocrites be Thousands of Rams and Ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl Yea what is Dearer still The First-Born of their Bodies for the Sin of their Souls Mich. 6. How Shall not only the Queen of the South but the Great Whore of the West Rise up against you and Condemn your Sloath Fifthly We are under many Great and Indispensible Engagements to Diligence in this Work We are bound in Conscience and 't is our Duty that we must We are bound in Gratitude upon receiving so many Talents and Opportunities by which we may We are bound in point of Interest our own Safety and Happiness depends upon it and 't is our Wisdom if we will thus work A word of every one of these may serve First 'T is our Duty and we are bound by His Authority who is our Lord. He hath commanded us to keep His Precepts diligently The First and Great Command is To Love the Lord our God which is the very Soul and Life of this Work with all our Heart and all our Soul with all our Might and all our Strength Every Step in this Way must be trodden heedfully See that ye Walk circumspectly not as Fools but as Wise Not at Peradventure Keep thy Heart with all Diligence Prov. 4.24 Joshua's Words are very pressing Chap. 22.5 Take diligent heed to do the Commandment and the Law which Moses the Servant of the Lord charged you to Love the Lord your God and to Walk in all His Wayes and to Keep His Commandments and to Cleave to Him and to Serve Him with all your Heart and all your Soul As we must agree quickly with our Adversary so we must give Diligence to be delivered from him We must not only Work at but Work out our own Salvation As we must Receive the Word with all readiness so we must take most Diligent heed to the Things we have heard lest at any time we
pray for Grace To do God's Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven we either ask we know not what or we do but mock God if we endeavour not to Serve Him with the same Diligence as near as we can attain it where with the Host of Heaven serve Him constantly Lastly The Example of God Himself Blessed for ever whom we are so oft required to imitate Be ye Holy for I am Holy Be ye Perfect as your Father in Heaven is Perfect This beyond all should constrain us to shew forth our utmost Diligence Shall God be so Sollicitous to promote our Salvation and Shall we sleight and despise it as if it were not worth Regarding God the Father imploy'd His Blessed Thoughts about it from all Eternity devising Means to bring home His Banished that they should not be Expelled from Himself to Reconcile His Mercy and His Justice to Punish the Sin and Spare the Sinner and made all his Glory pass before Him in the Accomplishment of it display'd all His Attributes in their brightest Lustre and in a word gave His Son the Dearly Beloved of His Soul in whom He took Infinite and Everlasting pleasure to be made a Man and then to be made a Curse And God the Son came down from Heaven for us Men and for our Salvation And having done so spent His time in the World according to the Ends for which He came into it which was to Glorify His Father do His Will and do Good to the Souls and Bodies of Men and He did it all with a Zeal that even Consumed and Eat Him up and made the Foolish World say He was Mad or Besides Himself as they are ready to do of all that follow Him And at last after a Life spent in preaching whole Dayes and praying whole Nights and Working mighty Miracles He Finish't all with a Willing Obedience to the most painful shameful and accursed Death and even now He is in Heaven He is as Diligent as ever making Intercession without Intermission and watching and ordering all things for the Good of those who shall be Heirs of Salvation And the most Holy and most Blessed Spirit is as busie and sedulous as either of the Former knocking calling striving warning wooing Sinners to return to God to be so Wise as to be contented to be Happy upon God's Terms which in one word are That you Work out your Salvation with Fear and Trembling and improve your Seasons with meet Diligence while you have them Working while 't is Day before that Night over-take you in which no Man can Work Which that we all do The Good Lord vouchsafe us that Grace and Wisdom which may Assist us and Direct us to do accordingly Amen FINIS A DISCOURSE SHEWING The sinfulness and danger of unfruitfulness under the Gospel containing the substance of some Sermons Preached upon St. Luke xiii 6 7 8 9. A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his Vineyard and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none cut it down why cumbereth it the ground And he answering said unto him Lord let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it And if it bear fruit well and if not then after that thou shalt cut it down AS time is measured out to us by the revolution of days and months and years so is Gods patience magnified towards us by multiplying the returns of them And as his Patience is magnified so is our Account increased and Impenitency aggravated according to the number of the portions of time which pass over us and the more we have wasted and sent home empty to him that expected fruit from us in them all the more we have cause to expect and fear that every next and new one should be our last for God will not always bear the disappointment of his expectation but tho he bear long will not forbear always but will at length curse to a with'ring or cut down for burning the barren Tree which bears either none or no good Fruit year after year This consideration hath induced mee in the beginning of another year to chuse this Parable to discourse of to press you with all the earnestness I can after so many years of provoking unfruitfulness to tempt Gods long-suffering no longer by impenitency and barrenness under the Gospel lest if being let alone this year also you continue only incumbrances of Gods Vineyard He continue no longer to spare you nor Christ to interceed for you that you may be spared nor good men be able to prevail for you nor your own Consciences have any plea left but that ye be cut off without pitty on Gods part without remedy on mans and without excuse on you own There is not a place in all the Holy Scriptures wherein Repentance and that both sound and speedy is more vehemently urged and more emphatically enforced than the beginning of this Chapter For as those who heard our Lord urge the similitude of the Creditor and Debtor laid down in the two last verses of the preceeding Chapter against procrastination may seem to have taken occasion thence to tell him the story of the Galileans Whose blood Pilate had mingled with their Sacirfices so our Lord takes occasion further to improve that his Doctrine against neglect and deferring Repentance by applying that story now told him and another of eighteen men on whom the Tower of Siloam had fallen and destroyed them which were both true and real Stories of things which had actually and lately hapned and were fresh in all mens memories and mouths Now these being very awakning examples and startling instances of sudden and surprizing Judgments Our Saviour according to his great wisdom and faithfulness will not let slip so fair an opportunity to press his hearers from them to speedy and sincere Repentance As if he had said these were not greater not more flagitious sinners than their Neighbours no nor then your selves and yet these things you hear and know hapned unto them and as bad or worse may happen unto you nay will unless you Repent and now especially since God hath given them to be such warnings to awaken you If you do not now repent ye shall all likewise perish Your impenitency aggravated by slighting such an alarum as their fall gives you will provoke God to meet with you some way or other and if in any case he cut you off before you have Repented truly you perish unavoidably and that for ever Little did the Galileans think when they went to offer Sacrifice they should themselves be made a Sacrifice Little did the Eighteen men who were in or nigh the Tower of Siloam well and safe and secure from fear think to be crusht to death in a moment in the twinkling of an Eye and yet these things befel them both And so may it be
of man cometh in an hour when ye think not 'T is the Motto and brand of a Fool to say non putaram I never thought of this excuss therefore this stupidness shake off this folly and bethink your selves there 's no watch in the night there 's no hour in the day when Christ may not come therefore be ever preparing and prepared to meet him I have thus brought the occasion and the Text together and led you through the Context to the Words as clearly and as briefly as I could So that nothing remains but to make the best improvement of them that I can Be ye ready First 'T is vox Respectiva The very word implies a respect to somewhat He that is ready is ready for some person or some thing And 't is so obvious the naming of it is next to needless 'T is for the coming of our Lord. Secondly 'T is vox Praeceptiva 'T is a word of command from our Great Lord and Master making that our duty which is our greatest interest and happiness Thirdly 't is vox Directiva Directing us to that in which our true our only wisdom which makes wise unto Salvation doth consist Fourthly 'T is vox Comprehensiva a very large and comprehensive word in two regards first including all things which concern our being Good and Happy For to be ready for Christ implies our being compleat in Christ There 's a receiving fulness of Grace from him 2. It implies our going to Heaven with him For they that were ready went with him in to the marriage Matth. xxv 10. there 's our happiness Secondly It comprehends all persons ye that 's all this indefinite is Universal as Thou in the Commandments is every one So here Ye signifies All. These put together fall naturally and without any strayning into this Doctrine 'T is every mans indispensible Duty and highest Interest to be presently Ready for Christs coming A Principle of Duty to Gods Authority requiring it And a Principle of Wisdom for our safety necessitating it are the two unshaken Pillars on which this Truth is so firmly built that it can never be moved No Cavils from men or Devils can overturn it no evasion can ever dispence with mens Obligation to it But as long as man is bound to do what God bids Or believe what God tells him As long as 't is the part of a wise man to escape the utmost misery and to desire and persue after infiâ—ite happiness and glory So long will this truth abide more fixed than the Earth Yea establisht in and as the very Heavens So that I shall say no more for its confirmation in this place but proceed 1. To shew wherein this Readiness consists 2. What is required on our parts to attain to it 3. Press the performance with most cogent Arguments But because a wise Builder will carry off the Rubbish and clear his Ground before he lays his Foundation I shall First Negatively shew you wherein Readiness doth not consist or what is not sufficient to make you so And this is very needful to be done because prepossession of the mind by error hinders the Truth from entring and leaves no room in the Heart to entertain it And too many are prone to rest satisfied with that which will deceive them supposing 't is enough to make their condition safe and happy and would go farther did they not verily think they had gone far enough Many saith Seneca had become wisemen had they not thought themselves already such And Gregory Nazianzen the greatest hindrance of proficiency is an Opinion of sufficient proficiency 'T is no wonder those Marriners strike Sail who think themselves in safe Harbour Nor that he sets by his Staff and takes up his rest who verily believes he is at the end of his journey Now to pass by the excuses many make for neglecting to be ready there seem to be six things which men are prone to trust to as sufficient to make their condition good and safe which really are not so 1. Their being born of Godly Parents 2. Being of very good Natures or sweet Dispositions 3. Being Baptized and using and injoying the means of Grace 4. Outward Conformity to the Letter of the Law in the practice of Moral Vertues and Duties 5. Being of the true Church or of such a Party or persuasion 6. Believing in Christ or presuming rather that they do so without those Fruits which prove their Faith to be Holy and Lively It would require more time than our present streights will allow to speak fully to all these it must suffice to Nonsuit every of these Pleas in a word to undeceive those who are prone to deceive themselves with shaddows and appearances instead of Realities For 't is an error very incident to weak and partial minds as we are all prone to be partial to our selves to judg every thing which is good to be enough and good enough Which is a great mistake as you may be easily convinced by a plain similitude Your mony may be very good both for Mettal and Stamp and as currant as any in the Kingdom Yet twenty Shillings of such mony will not pay a Debt of ten pounds What 's the reason Not because the mony is not good but because there is not enough of it So in our present Case these things I have named will not make us ready for Christ why so Not because they are not good in their place and kind they are good in tanto but not in toto but because they are not good enough In degree and measure Therefore I beseech you think not I condemn or dispraise them or discourage your attainment of them I only warn you not to rest in them as sufficient to make you ready for Christ or fit to go to Heaven For this they cannot do First not the being born of Godly Parents tho it is a great mercy to be so and is attended with many advantages and many have put confidence in it How often do we hear it from the Jews mouths we are Abrahams seed we have Abraham to our Father John viii 43 39 and St. John Baptists warning them against it think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father Matth. iii. 10. intimates their hearts were full of it and placed much confidence in it But our Saviour tells those very men John viii 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil And St. John Baptist call these a generation of vipers 'T is not generation from the best men but regeneration from the good Spirit must do our business non nascimur sed â—enascimur Christiani Men beget children not as good men but as men and therefore beget not good men but meer men As Circumcised Israelites begot children which needed Circumcision And the best drest Wheat grows up again with Chaff So those whose Parents were Circumcised in heart come into this world with a Foreskin on their hearts which must be taken off Whatever
becomes of the dispute of the Original of the Soul 'T is without dispute that Grace in the Soul is not by traduction but by infusion and acquisition Secondly Not good Nature or the sweetest disposition I deny not but there is a vast difference betwixt the tempers of men As great as any thing can make but the Soveraign Grace of God Some are such Ishmaels such Nabals Caligulas Others such Jonathans Titus's the darlings and delights of mankind So sweet so affable kind obliging ready to good that nothing below the Image of Christ is more lovely than the impress of such a temper But still the best of Nature is but Nature and the Fruit of the unpâ—un'd Vine will be but wild Grapes and by Nature we are all Children of Wrath. Not Sons of God or Heirs of Heaven Thirdly Not being Baptised and injoying and using all the means of Grace I tell you therefore first 't is a very great Mercy and Favour of God to allow thee these priviledges I tell you secondly 't is thy duty and thou dost very well to attend constantly on them 't is well thou wert Baptized thou dost well to hear the the Word pray to God keep thy Church c. Yet I tell thee thirdly thou mayest go to Hell after all this yea and have a hotter place there than one of Tyre and Sidon than the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who never heard of or injoy'd such things Nay I tell thee fourthly 't is one of the commonest and most dangerous practical errors of them within the Church to think to Compound with God and excuse themselves for the neglect of the Duties those Priviledges oblige them to by a formal using of these Priviledges And therefore there is nothing in which the Scriptures are more express and copious than in warning men against this mistake And that both in the Old Testament and New Jeremiah tells them they trusted in lying words who cryed the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord. And continued in their sins Jer. vii 4. to the 12. and Chap. ix 26. He levels Judah and Israel for being Vncircumcised in heart with Egypt Ammon and Moah who were Vncircumcised in Flesh I beseech you read with attention yea with fear and trembling the second Chapter to the Romans especially from the 17. verse and you will find that Circumcision may become Vncircumcision and so Baptism as no Baptism And that he is not a Jew who is one outwardly but he that is one inwardly And Circumcision which profits is not the outward in the Flesh and in the Letter but in the Heart and in the Spirit And St. Peter tells expresly that the Baptism which saves is not the washing of the flesh but when we can answer with a good Conscience the questions usually propounded in the Administration of it 1 Pet. iii. 21. So for Prayer Isaiah supposes they may make long Prayers whose hands are full of blood And David that some mens Prayers may be turned into sin And Soloman tells you that the Prayer of the wicked and of him that turns away his ear from hearing the Law shall be abomination The blind man John ix 31. could see the truth that God heareth not sinners such as allow themselves in sin And David saith of himself if I regard iniquity in my heart God will not hear my Prayer If thou hast gifts to Pray like an Angel and yet livest like an Incarnate Devil thou mayst indeed be Gods remembrancer But 't is but to put him in mind to take vengeance on thee As the Philosopher said smartly to the wicked marriners who began to Pray when a storm arose Hold your peace hold your peace for the Gods will certainly destroy us if they take notice you are hear Not that I would discourage a Simon Magus to Pray to God Acts viii 22. But then let him repent of his wickedness And take Eliphaz's Counsel Job xxii 23 26. Put iniquity far from 〈◊〉 Tabernacle So mayst thou lift up thâ— Face unto God and Pray unto him aâ—â—he shall hear thee tho sincere Prayer 〈◊〉 make thee leave sinning or sin will make thee leave Praying sincerely Yet many cry Lord Lord who shall never go to Heaven So for Hearing Rom. ii 13. Not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified For whosoever heareth Christs sayings and doth them is like to a wise man who buildeth his House upon a Rock But he that Heareth and doth them not is like a foolish man which builds his House upon the Sand and when the Floods beat upon it it will fall and great shall be the fall of it Matth. vii 24 27. For they only are blessed who hear the word of God and keep it Nor will the approving and praising of the Preacher but the practice of his Doctrine render your selves approved or turn to your praise with God see Ezech. xxxiii 31 32. So for the receiving the Holy Sacrament tho that blessed Ordinance be too much and too shamefully neglected yet â—ayst thou eat Christs Body and drink â—â—s Blood Sacramentally and swallow down the pledges of thy own Damnation in so doing 1 Cor. xi 29. and bring upon thy self the guilt of Christs Body and Blood verse 27. Consider well 1 Cor. x. 2.5 For both the Sacraments They were all Baptised unto Moses in the Câ—â—â—d and in the Sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they all drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ But with many of them God was not well pleased And seeing the means are so evidently appointed for the sake of the end and to lead us to the attainment of it 'T is matter of just wonder how men can so impose upon themselves as to rest in the means instead of the end The Stairs are the means by which you ascend to your Lodging Chamber but if any man should therefore strip himself and lye down upon the Stairs he might find both a cold and hard Lodging how warm and soft soever the Bed is which stands in â—he Chamber at the Stairs head Fourthly Not outward Conformity to the Letter of the Law in the practice of Moral Vertues and Duties Not but that this is very amiable and very necessary and cursed be the man that will dispence with himself or others to neglect it and it cannot without great ignorance or greater malice be charged on any because they shew the insufficiency of this and urge you to more I confess an Vngodly honest man is half a Contradiction But I declare a Godly Knave is a whole one For he may be sincerely Just and Honest in his Dealings with men who wants a sence of Religion towards â—od But he is a gross Hypocrite towards God who pretends to Religion and allows himself to deal unjustly with his Neighbour Not that I exclude the Duties of the first
his Candle Not with an Enemy but wilt Heap coals of fire on his head to melt him or oblige him with preventing kindness not with a Beast but if it Low for Food wilt serve it or if it fall into a ditch be it an Ox or Ass wilt straightways pull it out tho on the Sabbath day Luke xiv 5. Nay you will not make the Devil dance attendance at the rate you trifle with Almighty God if he but whistle to you you know his meaning and obey it a nod a beckon of his finger is enough you are dry Tinder to the first spark of Temptation he cast on you and you are quickly in a flame But to Gods Holy motions tho they be hot as coals of Juniper you are like green wood no blowing will suffice to dry or make you kindle Nay would I could say that too many were not too quick and nimble for the Devil himself save him the charge and trouble of a temptation run to his work before he bids them like high mettled Horses start before the sign can be given and run full speed without either Switch or Spur. And yet mean-while quite foundred and down right lame in the ways of God that neither Spur nor Whip can mend their pace God hath not left himself without witness that he might leave thee without excuse his grads are in thy sides his hand hath fixed them in thy very soul for as he hath planted punitive affections in thee to be his rods to whip thee for thy past offences such as shame and grief So hath he quickning affections to excite thee to thy duty such as hope and fear and yet thou wilt kick against these pricks be it never so hazardous never so hard to do so How often hast thou felt these stings strike to thy very heart and yet like a restive Horse thou wilt rather winch or kick or run backward or fall down than go forward as thou oughtest When sickness hath assaulted thee and grim Death hath stared thee in the face with its gastly visage how have thy knees smote against each other like Belshazers Thy Countenance wax'd pale and trembling seized thy joynts and anguish and horror surprized thy Conscience Like Cain apprehending that Every thing that met thee would kill thee and what killed would damn thee Yet after all this thou returnest to thy old security yea like heated water thou becomest more cold or softned Iron more hard than e're before Ninteenthly If there be any spark of Ingenuity left in thee let 's try to blow up that Christ went not thus lingringly about the work He undertook for thy sake But he left the Mansions of Glory and came down from Heaven more willingly than thou canst be persuaded to go thither Lo I come to do thy will O my God In the volume of thy look it is written of me He came leaping over the hills skipping over the mountains Conquering all difficulties in the way With desire he desired to eat that Passover he knew was to be his last and himself immediately to succeed it I have a Baptism to be Baptized with and how am I straitned till it be accomplished And when his hour was come he delays not one hour longer but went to Jerusalem where he was to dye When they sought to take him he called the Traytor friend which kist him into their hands yea offered himself to them of his own accord whom seek ye I am he and when that word had struck them down he let them rise and bind and carry him away tho he had more than twelve legions of Angels ready for his Rescue 'T were endless to reckon up those many Arguments you meet with in History to shew how readily he went about that dreadful work and how active he was in his Bloody Passion Read Believe Consider these things well and for shame make more hast to be ready to attain that blessedness with him for the procuring which he was so ready to be made a curse for thee Twentiethly This thy delay wounds God in his tenderest part his Eye his Heart his Bowels A wound is troublesome where ere 't is fixt but neither so painful nor so mortal in an Arm or Leg as in some vital part To wound God in the Foot of his Providence the Arm of his Power or Hand of his Justice is a provocation but not like wounding him in the Eye of his Pitty Heart of his Grace and Mercy and the Bowels of his tender Compassions All the most amiable and endearing Attributes of God shine most resplendently in this work of God to give his Son for sinners and for sinners to refuse this Gift despise this Love make light of it as not worth receiving or preparing to receive it what can be more provoking But set aside at present the consideration of all the rest and think what the abuse of his patience alone amounts to Rev. ii 21. I gave her space to repent and she repented not was the most killing Article in Christs charge against Jesabel Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance Rom. ii 4. This is the sin by which men Treasure up wrath against the day of wrath For as Gods long suffering should be Salvation to us the abuse of it becomes the surest and the sorest Damnation Laesa patientia fit furor abused patience turns into fury And God swears in his wrath at last They shall never enter into his rest who had grieved him by refusing the tenders of it forty years together Twenty firstly This delay turns thy light into darkness thy very Prayers into sin for either thou canst not Pray as thou oughtest for the coming of Christ to Judgment come Lord Jesus come quickly or thou Prayest against thy own life and so against thy own heart and dost but mock God and wouldst not have hiâ— take thee at thy word as St. Augustinâ— bewaylingly confest when he Prayed foâ— Continence before his Conversion Anâ— domine sed non modo Lord hear me buâ— not yet because he was afraid to lose hâ— pleasing Lusts So when thou sayest Thâ— Kingdom come either thou considerest noâ— what thou sayest or only sayest it in câ—stom and formality for neither would thou have the Kingdom of his Grace come which thou willfully opposest nor thâ— Kingdom of his Glory for which thou râ—fusest obstinately to be ready and not hiâ— would afright thee more than pregnaâ—â— symptoms of its near approach and speâ—dy coming and wouldst as in a by worâ— men say Witches do say thy Prayers bacâ—ward let not thy Kingdom come bâ— stay I pray thee till I be ready for it Twenty secondly Tho thou delay and loyterest yet other things do no Time tarrys not that 's in perpetual Flâ— and sliding on thou mayest take off tâ— Weights of thy Clock and stop its Motioâ— but thou canst not stop the Course of tâ—
way but what leads down to Hell To Sum up this plain Explication in the easiest Words I can We are indispensably bound and it infinitly concerns us to make hast to Believe Repent get our Peace made with God and to be ready to Dye while God spares our Lives and continues the Gospel and the means of Grace amongst us and offers us his Help by the frequent motions of his Spirit For as this Work may be happily done by Day that is while these Mercies are continued so if they be taken away and Night over take us before our Work be done it is impossible it ever should be done and we must be undone for Ever I now return to the Observation into which I graspt the scope and substance of the Text which was this The Consideration of the Work we have to do and the Season allowed and limited for the doing of it in oblige us indispensably to utmost speed and diligence in the doing of it The Holy Scripture is very copious and full in pressing both speed and diligence upon the accounts this Observation intimates it shall suffice to name a few at present for Confirmation Isa 55.6 Seek ye the Lord while He may be found Call upon Him while he is near which supposeth what Psal 32.6 expresses there is a Time in which there 's no coming near Him Like 13.24 Strive to enter in at the straight Gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able when once the Master of the House is risen and hath shut the Door Joh. 12.35 Yet a little while is the Light with you walk while ye have the Light lest Darkness come upon you for he that walketh in Darkness knoweth not whither he goeth While ye have Light believe in the Light Eccles 9.10 Whatever thy Hand findeth to do do it with thy Might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest And of how much greater consequence thy Work is so much greater in Reason should be both thy Speed and Diligence I now proceed to the proof of the Observation and to shew the Reasons why 't is so necessary to be Speedy and Diligent about this Work and because those Reasons are usually most cogent and forceable which are drawn from the Nature of the thing which is to be confirmed by them I will take them all from the Text it self which is like some well-stor'd Mansion or noble Seat which is Furnish't with all needful Provisions within its own Bounds And First Because 't is Work Secondly Because a Convenient Season is allowed to do it in Thirdly Because this Season is of Vncertain Continuance will not last always and may slip from us suddenly ' ere we be aware First 'T is Work Work with an Emphasis our main-business not our by-business though too many make it so The great Errand upon which God sent Us into this World Moses tells Us 't is not a vain thing but 't is our Life our Life is lent Us for it and our Life depends upon it Deut. 32.47 The Comfort of it here and the Safety of it hereafter another manner of Work than heaping up Riches for that 's a vain thing Psal 39.6 with Job 't is the only Work of true Wisdom Job 28.28 And unto Man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding A Man a Wise Man who only deserves the name of a Man should count nothing else comparatively worth his Care 't is David's Vnum petii Psal 27.4 The one thing he desired of God to injoy Opportunities to help him in this Work 'T is Solomons Totum hominis the whole of Man's Duty and Happiness Eccles 12.13 Let us hear the Conclusion of the whole Matter fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole of Man 'T is St. Paul's great Race His hic labor hoc opus 1 Cor. 9.24 So Run that ye may obtain so Fight against your Spiritual Enemies as Men that are in earnest make not vain Florishes only to beat the Air So strive that you may Win and Wear an incorruptible Crown in a word from our Lords own Mouth 't is primum quaerendum Mat. 6.33 Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness and the unum necessarium St. Luke 10.42 But one thing is needful Signally and Eminently the Work of God which He hath given Us to do Joh. 6.29 Now this Consideration that Religion the Glorifying God the Saving of our own Souls is Work our great Work implyes these Five things 1. It 's necessity it must be done 2ly It 's priority it must not be postpon'd but first done 3ly It 's difficulty it must not be trifled in but done with all our Skill and Might 4ly It 's perfection it must not be done by halves 5ly It 's certain Reward all Work shall have it's Wages All which Mighty Weights one would think might stir a quick and vigorous Motion in the most rusty Engine I mean the most restive lazy Soul if we would hang them on with due and frequent Meditation Let Us consider them a little one by one First Because 't is our Work it must be done what ever else be left undone or we must be undone Eternally by and for neglecting it Remember the Doom of the Sloathful Servant who neglected to get what he knew he should have had and had Opportunity to have provided St. Mat. 22.13 Bind him Hand and Foot and Cast him into utter Darkness You may Read his Fault in his Punishment one is the Anagram of the other He bound his own Hands and Feet with Cords of Sloath and Negligence and now His Master causes them to be bound with Chains of Vengeance He Slept away the Light vouchsaft him as if it had been Night and now he shall have Darkness to extremity but such as will never yield him Rest or Sleep This being our Work it is so necessary it must not be neglected by any means upon any pretence whatever though it were to give outward Attendance on Christ himself as he told Martha plainly preferring Maries sitting at His Feet to hear His Word and minding this one needful thing before all Martha's troublesom Diligence in which she was Cumbred with much Serving to make Provision for Him 't is more necessary then to Eat therefore Job esteemed God's Words more not only than his Dainty but his Dayly his Necessary Food Job 23.12 St. Paul but to promote this Work in others saith Necessity is laid upon me and Woe be unto me if I Preach not the Gospel 1 Cor. 9.16 And may not we should not we all say Necessity is laid upon us and Woe be unto us if we Believe not if we Obey not the Gospel 'T is more necessary than to Live Holy Men of God have willingly spent their Lives to help others in this Work Neither count I my Life dear to me
have brought it to Perfection rest from their Labour and have received their Wages Why stand you here all the Day idle Matth. 20 6. who cannot plead the Excuse of those who answered No Man hath Hired us For you have been call'd to work an Hundred yea a Thousand Times Why are ye slack to go up to Pâ—ssess the Land which God hath promised Is it not a Land that flows with Milk and Hony that abounds with Rivers of Pleasure and Fulness of Joy O Fools that are so slow of Heart to believe And greater Fools if ye believe it and yet lye still and with the Sluggard cry A little more Sleep a little more Slumber a little more Folding of the Arms to Sleep till Death and Judgment take you Napping Canst thou sleep so securely on both Ears as never to hear or be affrighted with a Dream of those upbraiding Words Matth. 25.26 Thou Wicked and Sloathful Servant And the Thoughts of that dreadful Sentence Take from him the Talent And cast ye the Vnprofitable Servant into utter Darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth Vers 30. How will thy Mouth be stop't when thy Lord shall say to thee Out of thine own Mouth will I Judge thee thou wicked sloathful Servant Thou knewest that I was an Austere Man Luk. 19.22 Thou knewest that I had given thee a Work to do of great Importance and that I would certainly call thee to a strict Account concerning the Performance of it Why then did'st thou not attend it as it became thee as it concern'd thee 'T is sad to be Condemn'd by another but to be Self-Condemn'd is of all the saddest And such will be the Case of every one who under such Opportunities as thou enjoyest neglects the Work that God hath given him to do and given him so frequent and so faithful Warnings to dispatch in time The Lord of that Servant will come in a Day when he looketh not for Him and at an Hour when he is not ' ware and will cut him in sunder and appoint him his Portion with Vnbelievers And that Servant which knew his Lord's Will and prepared not himself neither did according to his Will shall be beaten with many Stripes St. Luk. 12.46 47. The Third and Last Vse to which I shall Improve this Truth is Exhortation And I beseech you Brethren suffer me with all possible Earnestness to Exhort you and with all humble Importunity to intreat you to use the Speed and Diligence about this Work which the Case requires yea excite and provoke your selves and one another by the Greatness of your Work and Shortness of your Time by Conscience of your Duty and Sense of your Interest to acquit your selves as becomes Wise and Good Men in an Affair of such infinite Consequence And because the Text seems to have a most direct yea its primary Aspect upon us Ministers with all submiss and inoffensive Modesty I beg it of you First Holy Brethren suffer this Word of Exhortation What ever others do let Us mind the Work of him that sent us as becomes us and follow the Example of our Master Is there a Must for Him Is there a Necessity laid upon the Great Apostle and a Woe to him if he Preach not the Gospel Is there a Curse denounced against him that doth God 's Work Deceitfully Negligently Slightly And Are those Epithetes so Odious Dumb Dogs Greedy Dogs we have not Patience to hear them though God Himself impos'd them Doth a Sleepy Watch-man imply a Contradiction in the Terms And Is it most Intolerable for the Steward to be found Unfaithful beyond all the Servants in the Family And yet Shall we run the Hazard of branding our selves with these hateful Characters If the Lights of the World be Darkness How Great will that Darkness be Iâ— the Salt of the Earth be Vnsavoury Whaâ— is it Good for or where-with shall it be Seasoned I question not but you have often read the Three last Verses of Zech. 11. and would to God you would read them once a Day at least that you would dwell upon the Meditation of them one retired Hour Not to vex the Words with forc't Interpretations nor to vex your Heads with studying Evasions but to awaken your hearts to do your Duty and escape your Danger I will transcribe the Words faithfully And the Lord said unto me Take unto thee yet the Instruments of a Foolish Shepherd For Lo I will Raise up a Shepherd in the Land which shall not visit those that be cut off neither shall seek the Young One nor heal that that is Broken nor feed that that standeth still But he shall eat the Flesh of the Fat and tear their Claws in pieces Wo to the Idol Shepherd that leaveth the Flock The Sword shall be upon his Arm and his Right Eye His Arm shall be clean dryed up and his Right Eye shall be utterly darkned However others may think good to treat me I would Reproach no Man Expose no Man Provoke no Man Grieve no Man They that are Guiltless are not concern'd If any be Guilty and being so are Convinced Awakened Quickned to their Duty they have more reason to be thankful than to be angry Of all Men living we Ministers have most cause to mind our Wâ—â—k with Speed and Diligence both as Men and as Ministers First As Men. We have Souls to save as well as our People and we must take heed to our selves that our selves may be saved And to that end we had need take care to be Good betimes For 't is an Old Observation That of all Orders of Men wicked Ministers are most hardly and most rarely Reclaimed and Converted For which many Obvious and Convincing Reasons are given which I will not digress to Enumerate God will be Sanctifyed in them that draw nigh to Him and they must be Holy which bear the Vessels of the Sanctuary And as Ministers giving no Offence in any thing that the Ministry be not blamed but in all things approving our selves as the Ministers of God 2 Cor. 6.3 4. From the Highest to the Lowest from the Bishop to the Deacon all must be Blameless 1 Tim. 3. Tit. 1. How shall we Quicken others if we be dull our selves or lay those Burdens upon others which our selves will not touch with the least of our Fingers Thou that Teachest another Teachest thou not thy self Thou that Preachest a Man should not Steal do'â—â—â—hou Steal c. see Rom. 2. from the 18th to the 25th A Careless Minister provides Excuses for his People and Reproaches for himself Admit the Meat be Wholesom yet it will turn Men's Stomacks if it be Dressed with Vnclean or Leprous Hands The Snuffers in the Sanctuary were to be of Pure Gold The Iniquity of Eli's Sons made Men Abhor the Offerings of the Lord. The Example of a Careless Life will pull down more in One Day than the warmest Exhortation can build up in Ten. Would'st thou therefore promote God's
may be spar'd or will prove useless and must be lost But if it appear very Hard and Difficult but yet Hopeful and Possible to be attained and withal most Necessary and very Excellent and Advantageous This will Excite and Raise that Soul that hath any Principles of Prudence Generosity or Care of its own Good First Account not this Work so Easy as 't is most evident too many do who under fullest Convictions and profess'd Acknowledgments that there is such an Heaven and Hell as the Bible describes and that it so infinitely concerns them to obtain the One and escape the Other as is there declared yet Live so securely and negligently that they proclaim to all the World they think it next to Impossible to miscarry and swear by their Hopes of Salvation as the most Sacred Asseveration while they are running headlong in the Broad-way that leads to Destruction Surely these must think God's Work very Easy who flatter themselves that they can carry it on sufficiently while they are serving the Devil and their Lusts with both Hands greedily It may not be impertinent to mind such Men of the Romish Fryar's Lenten Sermon which before many Cardinals and Great Men of that Court he began abruptly thus St. Peter was a Fool and St. Paul was a Fool and all the Primitive Christians were meer Fools who took such a deal of Care and Pains to please God and save their Souls and thought the Way to Heaven was by Self-Denyal and Mortification Prayers and Fasting by Severities and denying the Pomps of this Wicked World And You at Rome indulge your selves in Ease and Sloth live in your Lusts and Luxury and spend your Time in Pomp and Pleasure and yet account your selves very good Christians and doubt not but you shall be saved But at last You 'll be found the Fools and They the Wise Men. For 't is the part of Wisdom to proportion the Means to the End and 't is great Folly to waste Time and Strength and make a great Stir and Bustle about that which may be done as you say with a wet Finger and 't is so also to act coldly and faintly in that which cannot be accomplish't without great Industry I beseech you therefore beware of such an Opinion as will greatly tempt you to be Remiss in the Work of God and remember who bid Strive to enter in at the Streight-Gate withal telling you That many of those who strive shall not be able to get in What then shall become of them who strive not The Violent take the Kingdom of Heaven As he that Asks faintly bespeaks a Denyal so he that Acts faintly will be surely Disappointed Besides what was said before it were easie to add many Evidences to prove this Work to be Hard and that 't is very Reasonable it should be so The Way is Steep and Slippery 't is hard to climb it the Enemies are Many and Mighty that Oppose thee thy Skill and Strength is small Nature will recoyl and draw back and single Nature is hardly overcome and Custom of Sinning is a Second Nature and doubtless the Difficulty and no Discipline is so hard as for him to learn to do Well who hath been accustomed to do Evil. Self is a bold Competitor with God and must be used Roughly or it will be serv'd before Him and set up above Him And for thy own Dear Sake thou wilt be prone to cry as David for his Darling Absolom Deal gently with it for my Sake And by a strange Fondness thou wilt spare the Traytor which watches to destroy thee Though Christ Rejected the Temptation Favour thy self with a Get thee behind Me Satan yet when such Sugar'd Words are offer'd thee thou 'lt hardly discern the Poyson that 's mixt with them And there are many Reasons why God hath made his own Work hard that those who Wear the Crown may Win it first For a Man is not Crown'd unless he strive Lawfully That he may appear Impartial in Rejecting Loyterers and Rewarding Labourers That his Servants may have Opportunity to exercise those Graces which else there would be no occasion for That Rest may be sweeter after Labour And that God's Grace may be Magnifyed in assisting their Weakness and Satan may be more Confounded in the Disappointment of all his Stratagems Believe therefore thy Work to be hard that thou betray not thy self to Sloth and Remissness to thy own Eternal Ruin Secondly Yet run not into the other Extream while thou avoydest this and dash not against Scylla while thou avoydest Charybdis Conclude not 't is Impossible to finish it by Labour because it is so to accomplish it without Labour Despair of Success kills all Industry and a supposed Impossibility of Attainment naturally produces Despair When once we say There is no Hope the next word will be Why should I wait any longer Why should I strive any more But Be not Sloathful but Followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises Faith and Patience will do that which Sloth and the want of them can never do And watch carefully against that Snare Satan layes in the way of so many If I be not Elected all my Labour will be in vain I cannot alter God's Decrees Vain Creature What hast thou to do with God's Decrees Who made thee of His Council Mind thou what is written in the Word Which is nigh thee in thy Mouth and in thy Heart Not what is written in the Secret Records of Heaven Read Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God But those things which are Revealed belong to Vs and to our Children for ever that we may do all the Words of this Law And Deut. 30.11 12 14. This Commandment which I command thee this Day is not hidden from thee neither is it far off It is not in Heaven that thou shouldst say Who shall go up for us to Heaven and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it But the Word is niâ—h unto thee in thy Mouth and in thy Heart that thou may'st do it See I have set before you this Day Life and Good Death and Evil Compare Rom. 10.6 9. This is the Word of Faith which we Preach If thou Confess with thy Mouth and believe in thine Heart thou shalt be saved Not if thou be Elected thou shalt be Saved whether thou believest whether thou workest out thy Salvation or no This is to begin at the wrong End as if a Man would begin to Build a House at the Roof and Build downwards Build the Roof in the Air before any thing were laid on Earth to bear it up St. Peter teaches another Method 2 Pet. 1.5 Giving all Diligence add to your Faith Vertue c. For if these Things be in you and abound they make you that you shall be neither Barren nor Vnfruitful c. And Vers 10. Giving Diligence to make your Calling and Election sure First Calling then Election and
an Estate by his own Industry takes more Pleasure in it than Five who stumbled upon it unlook't for and it drop't as we say into their Mouths Labour gets the best Stomach and a good Stomach is the best Sawce and so a good Conscience is the best Feast That Bread is sweetest which we Earn Jus dat Labor Such Bread is not Gritty we Eat it without Regret As a Minister who thrusts himself into that Office as a Trade to get Money as a Means to relieve a Broken Fortune as a Ladder to climb the Pinacle of Honour and neither designs the Glory of God nor Good of Souls If this Man should by chance Convert a Sinner it would yield him no Comfort because his Heart tells him He neither design'd it nor desir'd it So if another whose Soul is set to save them who hear him yet plough upon the Rock and see not the desired Success upon Men yet shall he assuredly find it with God Though Israel be not gathered yet shall I be Glorious in the Eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my Strength Isa 49.5 And St. Paul We are to God a sweet Savour in Christ in them that Perish and in them that are Saved 2 Cor. 2.15 When earnest Endeavours hold the Plow and hearty Desires sow the Land the Crop shall assuredly be Peace and Comfort And Diligence is as Honourable as Comfortable Nothing reflects a greater Glory upon a Man than Sedulity And those who are too Lazy to imitate him will yet either Admire or Envy him and to be Envyed is as Honourable as to be Envious is Base Diligence haâ—h such an Interest in every Man's Conscience that it cannot but obtain Applause and Approbation and they will Praise it who will not Practice it And as the prosperous Success of Good Men's Industry is the Fuel of Bad Men's Envy so let the Envy of such Men more and more kindle and inflame thy Diligence Secondly With Respect to others A Good Man hath no greater Care nor Pleasure next to the saving of his own Soul than to promote the Salvation of others 'T is the Voyce of a Cain Am I my Brother's Keeper He which Converteth another from the Errour of his Wayes shall save a Soul from Death and shall cover a Multitude of Sins Jam. 5.20 And by scattering those Clouds shall himself Shine as the Stars for ever and ever Dan 12.3 One Diligent Man who is active in the Work of God may be as a Soul to put Life and Spirit into a great many Your Zeal hath provok'd many 1 Cor. 9.2 'T is agreat Blessing to be a Blessing to others and he is the greatest Blessing to others who leads them to the Attainment of Eternal Blessedness No Man doth me so much Good as he that makes me Good and no Man doth so much to make me Good as he that gives me good Example He 's most like to have good Servants who himself works with them who saith not Go ye But Come with me or Let us go The spreading and flourishing Estate of Religion was fore-told by the Prophet Zechariah in Chap. 8. 21. in words very remarkable to this purpose The Inhabitants of one City shall go to another saying Let us go speedily to Pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts I will go also The Emperour Partiâ—â—x's his word was Militemus A Lyon to their Captain would make an Army of the most fearful Creatures fall on Gideon taught his Souldiers by Exampel Look on me and it shall be that what ye see me do that shall ye do Judg. 7.17 Alexander us'd to March First And Q. Curtius tells us That in storming a City he was the First that leap't down off the Walls amongst the Enemies which made his Souldiers even fly down after him Caesar us'd to leave his Horse and go on Foot in Hard Marches that the Private Souldiers might not be discouraged with those Hardships in which their General bore the First Part. 'T will get a Crazy Man a Stomach to see an Hungry Man feed Be Diligent therefore in this Work of God that thou may'st make others so And besides the Benefit which they shall reap it will redound to thy Advantage All the Good they do shall in some measure be acounted thine beeause thou wert the Occasion of their doing of it Remember that of the Poet Ergo opera ejus mea sunt All the Exploits of Achilles's Valour are challenged by Vlysses because he brought him to the War Thirdly But all that our Diligence can be either to our selves or others is as nothing in Comparison to what it is in God's Account For though next to pleasing God 't is very considerable what Influence it may have upon our own Good or the Good of others yet our main Interest is and our Business ought to be to please Him according to that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.9 We labour or are Ambitious as the Original Word signifies that we may be Accepted of Him because we must all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ that every one may receive the Things done in His Body according to that he hath done whether it be Good or Bad. Now God esteems our Diligence and Faithfulness in His Work and Service to be our honouring and glorifying Him as is implyed in that Place Sam. 2.30 Him that Honoureth me that is Serves me Diligently which Eli's Sons had neglected and by that Neglect were accounted to despise Him So This People honoureth me with their Lips Matth. 15.8 which was indeed but a Mock-Honour because it was no more but had been Real Honour if it had proceeded from their Hearts And we Glorify God in our Bodies and Spirits 1 Cor. 6.20 when we dedicate both to His Service And Christ saith Hi Father is glorifyed when His Disciples bear much Fruit Joh. 15.8 which is the Effect of Diligence Sloath may do a little but 't is Diligence which doth much And it Honours Him many wayes First His Authority 'T is the Honour of a Lord or Master to have his Servants exactly Obedient and Observant of his Will to go when he bids them come when he calls them and do what he enjoyns them readily and with all their Power as the Israelites promised to Joshua Chap. 1.16 17 18. which was greatly for his Honour So our Diligence in God's Work gives Him the Honour of being a Wise a Righteous a Gracious an All-sufficient a Faithful GOD Fit to Rule us Able to Protect us Careful to Reward us and in all makes His Praise glorious Secondly It Honours His Goodness and Excellency when we declare we prefer the Enjoyment of Him infinitely before all other things and make it manifest we count it worth our utmost Cost and Pains and Care and all that Diligence includes to attain it Proclaiming openly The Pearl is so Precious 't is impossible to purchase it too Dear And we make a good Bargain if we get it though it Cost
Vines Deut. xxii 9. Thou shalt not sow thy Vineyard with divers seeds And also to plant Trees of another kind partly to support their Vines which are a weak and tender Plant and partly to make the better improvement of their Ground and none more commonly than Fig trees Which makes it so frequent to name them together sit every man under his Vine and under his Fig-tree The planting this Fig-tree in the Vineyard signifies the calling any Nation to the knowledg and profession of the Gospel and making them a Church as a part of the Universal Church or it is the receiving a man or woman into the Church by Baptism See the expression in the very Letter Rom. vi 3 4 5. Know ye not that as many of us as were Baptised into Jesus Christ were Baptised into his death and if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death c. So that he useth the Phrases of being Baptised and Planted as signifying the same or explaining one the other So that every one of you who have been Baptised are thereby Planted in Gods Vineyard admitted to partake of the Ordinances and Priviledges of the Gospel-Church and thereby obliged to the Duties Consequent upon those Priviledges As a Tree which stands in the Orchard is bound as I may say to bear part of that Fruit which the Master and Owner of the Orchard looks for His coming to look for Fruit is a most obvious Allusion to the custom amongst men to go into their Gardens and Orchards to fee what Fruit the Trees bear or whether they bear any which they have caused to be set in them Cant. vii 12. Let us go early into the Vineyards let us see if the Vine flourish whether the tender Grapes appear and the Pomegranates put forth And is the same with Isa v. 2. where God saith He lookt for Grapes which verse 7. he interprets He lookt for judgment and righteousness and which he speaks in plain words without any Parable Psal xiv 2. The Lord lookt down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God and is equivalent to what is exprest by another sence viz. of hearing Jer. viii 6. I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright no man repented of the evil of his doings saying what have I done and might were it needful be illustrated by many other Scriptures In a word it is as much as if it were said God comes to look after every man whether they fulfil their Covenant of Christianity which they made with him when they were Baptised and planted in his Church Lastly His finding no Fruit is Gods disappointment as to what he greatly desires looks for yea even longs for No true Repentance no sound Faith no sincere Obedience no Reformation of Life no hearty turning unto God no Holiness and Righteousness no serious care nor vigorous Zeal to glorifie God and save their own souls or as it is Hos iv 1. No truth no mercy no knowledg of God in the land but swearing lying killing stealing committing adultery and breaking out till blood toucheth blood and no man reproveth one another for these evils but are ready to strive with the Priest if he reprove them for them verse 2 4. Such rotten and vile Figs are all the Fruit they bear or at best a few leaves of empty Profession and some cheap formal duties and lip labour and drawing near to God with the body while their hearts are left behind and are far from God being set upon other objects and God hath no true nor real love or fear or acceptable service And in that 't is said a Fig-tree in the singular number it implies that every particular Church every individual and particular person shall be strictly lookt after they shall not be hid in the thickness of the Trees not lost in the croud nor escape or remain less discovered then Adam and his Wife who in vain attempted to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the Trees of the Garden Gen. iii. 8. Which I only point to by way of Allusion Every Tree every person shall be particularly inquired after and sought out if there be but one unfruitful Tree it shall be discovered the Lord of the Vineyard will certainly find it out and so will he every one that is so one by one be they never so many that are such You have heard what the Lord and owner of the Vineyard did Planted a Tree a Fig-tree which is naturally capable of bearing Fruit in his Vineyard a good soyl apt to nourish it and as 't was just he should came and sought Fruit but was unjustly disappointed Hear now what he saith Then said he to the dresser of the Vineyard behold these three years I come seeking Fruit on this Tree and find none cut it down why cumbreth it the ground I shall explain these words with the like brevity and then sum up the improvement of them together And here four particulars must be explained First Who is to be understood by the Dresser of the Vineyard and why he is told of the Fig-trees unfruitfulness Secondly What is meant by the three years in which he came seeking Fruit of it Thirdly What is meant by the Sentence to Cut it down and why the Execution of it is injoyned to the Dresser of the Vineyard Fourthly What is meant by the Cumbring of the Ground which contains the reason to justifie the severity of the Sentence of cutting down First who is to be understood by the Dresser of the Vineyard the most general opinion is that it is the Minister or in complex consideration the Ministers of the Gospel Coetus Apostolorum as a good Expositor expresseth it But I meet with other Opinions of which I shall name four First 'T is Jesus Christ In various Parables God and Christ sustain various persons as St. John xv 1. God himself is the Vine-dresser Christ the Vine and particular Believers the Branches I am the true vine my Father is the husband-man ye are the branches But here Christ is the Dresser of the Vineyard to whom God hath committed the care of his Church To be sure 't is he who is the great and prevailing Intercessour and by reason of the Intercession that the Dresser here makes Lord let it alone this year Some Interpreters refer it to him as St. Ambrose bonus cultor in quo ecclesiae fundamentum c. And Theophilact This Dresser is Christ who would water them with his Doctrine and his Passion who had been fruitless under the Law and Prophets Secondly The Civil Magistrate in a Christian State who is to be the keeper of both Tables to see to the maintenance of the true Religion towards God as well as civil honesty amongst men Who are promised to be Nursing-Fathers to the Church Isa xlix 23. and therefore must look to the Children of it One principal branch of a Fathers
care being that his Children be trained up in the Nurture and admonition of the Lord. To become fruitful in the Works of Righteousness and to coerce and restrain those who are otherwise David having declared his resolution Psal ci ult I will early destroy all the wicked of the Land that I may cut off all evil doers from the City of the Lord. Thirdly the third Opinion is that it is every good man in the Church which Prays for others As St. August Bonus cultor omnis sanctus in Ecclesia qui orat c. Or 't is by way of Allusion every mans own Conscience the Soul being the Vineyard Conscience the keeper of it They made me keeper of the Vineyards but mine own Vineyard have I not kept Cant. i. 6. Nothing being more common than for God to convince mens Consciences of their faults and unfruitfulness to bring them to Repentance and amendment which is congruously exprest here O sinner I have come three years seeking for Fruit on thee and find none and thereupon bids Conscience do its Office Check Rebuke and even torment them for it Fourthly But the most received Opinion and what may seem most proper is that 't is the Ministers of the Gospel The ordinary Gloss makes it the Apostles St. Gregory Ordo Praepositorum 'T is properly their work to plant and to water what is Planted to dig and to Manure the Lords Garden I have planted Apollos watered saith St. Paul 1 Cor. iii. 6. Now there may be these reasons why God directs his speech to the Ministers and tells them of the peoples faults 1. To awaken them to Repentance and amendment if they have been accessary to them as the good Lord pardon us 't is to be fear'd we too often are 2. To provoke them to their duty that they may not contract guilt by their negligence what God spake to Ezekiel in another comparison may well be applyed in this Eze. iii. 17 18 19. Son of man I have made thee a watch-man unto the House of Israel therefore hear the word from my mouth and give them warning from me When I say unto the wicked thou shalt surely dye and thou givest him not warning nor speakest to warn the wicked from his way to save his life the same wicked man shall dye in his iniquity but his blood will I require at thy hand Yet if thou warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness nor from his wicked way he shall dye in his iniquity but thou hast delivered thy soul So here I have made thee the Dresser of my Vineyard if thou do not thy duty to make the Trees Fruitful they shall be cut down for their unfruitfulness but I will lay their unfruitfulness to thy charge But if they continue Barren notwithstanding thou hast done thy part to make them bear Fruit they shall be cut down but thou hast delivered thy own soul 3. To provoke them to Pray for them God loves to have Intercession made for his people and wonders when none will do it Isa lix 16. He wondered there was no Intercessor Ezek. xxii 30. I sought for a man amongst them that should make up the hedg and stand in the gap before me for the Land that I should not destroy it and I found none therefore I powered out my indignation upon them and consumed them And Joel ii 17. it is injoyned expresly Let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep between the Porch and the Altar and let them say spare thy people O Lord and give not thy heritage to reproach When Sodom it self was to be reckoned with and God came down to see whether their sin was as great as the cry of it proclaimed it to be He will first acquaint Abraham with it that he may Pray and plead for them and never left granting till he left asking on their behalf And when God threatens to consume the Israelites as in a moment Moses and Aaron Fell on their faces Num. xvi 45. and Aaron at Moses direction took a Censer in his hand and put on Incense the Type of Prayer and stood between the living and the dead and made attonement and the plague was stayed and Psal cvi 23. He said he would have destroyed them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath And here as soon as ever the Dresser of the Vineyard hears the doom cut it down he falls to interceeding Lord let it alone this year also And indeed mutual Prayer betwixt Ministers and people is exceeding needful and an indispensable duty See Eph. iii. 14 20. Col. i. 9 12. 1 Thessal v. 23. and 2 Thessal iii. 1. Brethren Pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course Heb. xiii 18. Rom. xv 30. And I justly fear the neglect or cold performance of this duty is one great cause of the small success of the Ministry and the unfruitfulness of the people I exhort and earnestly beseech you that it may be mended Secondly The second thing to be explained in this verse is what is meant by the three years And there are a great many Interpretations given of them to touch but a few Eman. Sa out of St. Ambrose expounds it thus He came to Abraham in Circumcision to Moses in the Law to Mary in his Incarnation that is to the Jews by these but they were not purified by Circumcision because they were uncircumcised in heart not Sanctified by the Law because they were ignorant of its virtue not justified because they knew not the Grace of God and would not repent Itaque nullus in Synagoga fructus inventus St. Gregory Interprets it of the Law of Nature the written Law and the Gospel Others of the three sorts of Governments by which God disciplined that people to Obedience Judges Kings H. Priests but all in vain Theophilact of the three Estates or Periods of mans Age Youth Manhood Old Age. Or rather thus Childhood Youth and the Mature Estate of Manhood then remains only the fourth of Old Age and if the errors and unfruitfulness of those be not redeemed by the fruitfulness of this then there 's no hope but down it must for ever Others literally of the three years of Christs publick Ministry I will name no more nor stay to censure these but I rather suppose the true meaning to be without any mystery in the number that it signifies many times a definite number being put for an indefinite I have come again and again and again that is very often And there is a Conjecture why he pitches upon three years drawn from an observation which Naturalists make that if the Fig-tree begin not to bear within three years after its planting it will never bear after But to pass that also as an uncertain thing and so anicity it is sufficient to interpret it for often the ternary Number being used so almost Proverbially Si ter pulsanti c. As if he
pains but will do all that Art and Industry can perform he will dig about it and dung it do the best and the most he can to make it fruitful First The express Prayer for the barren Tree Lord let it alone this year also c. In which the first branch is for more time The second for leave to bestow more cost and pains upon it Note hence 1. 'T is the duty of Gods Ministers to Pray for the people yea even for the unfruitful and impenitent amongst them Isa lxii 6 7. I have set watch-men upon thy Walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth 2. They must not excuse their faults tho they may and must beg pardon for them that would rob God of the Glory of his Mercy and harden them in security against repentance and amendment He tacitely acknowledges the culpableness of their past unfruitfulness and confesseth Gods goodness in suffering them to stand so long while he Prays it may be let alone this year also it was meer Mercy to let it stand so long and it will be more Mercy to let it alone a little longer therefore O Lord Let it alone this year also even for thy Mercies sake 3. He asks not three years more but one year after three years barrenness and disappointment they must ask modestly who would prevail one years forbearance more is a great Mercy to them who have sinned away many already Every day every hour should be pretious to a Reprieved man to sue out his Pardon and make his Peace He is now upon his good Behaviour this is his last tryal if he continue and persist in his old wont Execution proceeds as against one of whom there is no hope of proving better The Second Branch of his Prayer is for leave to bestow more cost and pains upon it Till I dig about it there 's labour and pains the Ministerial Office when truly and faithfully discharged is really very laborious We beseech you brethren know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly for their Works sake 1. Thes v. 12 13. Those who labour in the Word and Doctrine 1. Tim. v. 17. Tho the Ministry be a great dignity yet it takes denomination from duty and service We Preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake 2 Cor. iv 5. And our Lord himself gives his Apostles both a rule against exercising Lordship and sets himself as an example of it Lu. xxii 26 27. It shall not be so with you but he that is greatest among you shall be as the youngest and the chief as he that serveth For I am among you as he that serveth 'T is well known the word so often used in the new Testament for the Ministry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the most painful labour Such as of those who sweat and by their speed in their Travel raise the dust and digging is one of the hardest kinds of labour such as the unfaithful Steward openly confesses too hard for him I cannot dig Luke xvi But tho Ministers should labour where-ever they are they may not labour where they please Paul and his Companions in labour were forbidden of the Holy Ghos◠to Preach the Word in Asia And when they assayed to go into Bithynia the spirit suffered them not Act. xvi 6 7. They are Labourers but 't is together with God 1 Cor. iii. 9. And must have their station assigned by him And as the Lord of the Harvest must be prayed To send forth Labourers into his Harvest St. Matth. ix 38. So his leave must be obtained to continue and bestow more labour in what field soever he assigns them to work in and when his Vineyard hath provoked him by disappointing his expectation and not answering past labour and charge bestowed on it He passes this Sentence against it it shall not be pruned nor digged And I 'l command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it Isa v. 6. As 't is not a small Mercy to have faithful and painful Ministers so 't is one of the greatest Judgments to have them removed and to be put under such as are described Zech. xi 16. and therefore God should be sought by earnest Prayer to vouchsafe the Mercy and avert the Judgment Next he asks to bestow cost as well as pains there must be dunging as well as digging 't is chargeable mending barren Land yet we must not stick at this See 2 Cor. xii 14 15. Parents must lay up and lay out too for their children I will gladly spend and be spent for you Secondly these words imply a promise on his own behalf as well as contain an express Prayer on behalf of the people Lord if thou wilt be intreated to let it alone this year I will dig about it and dung it I will do all that Art and Industry can do I will not be wanting on my part to perform the most the best All that I can to make it Fruitful Note first in general they who would prevail with God must add endeavours to their Prayers 't is but a tempting and mocking God to do otherwise Ora Labora and 't is a good direction the Adage gives Manus ad Stivam oculus ad Coelum The Hand on the Plough and the Eye lift up to Heaven is the Emblem of the thriving Husbandman And Soloman hath both these passages in one Chapter Prov. x. 4 and 22. The hand of the diligent maketh rich and The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich He tempts God who only Prays and labours not He despiseth God who only labours and Prays not But he honours and pleases him and shall be blessed of him who joyns both together Remember how Moses concludes the nintieth Psalm Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us yea the work of our hands establish thou it The Prayer for blessing on their work shews the concurrence of their Works and Prayer The hard Heart and the soft Hand are both hateful to the Lord but the soft Heart and the hard Hand are his delight my meaning is an Heart that melts in Prayer and an Hand that is grown callous and brawny with industrious Constancy in diligent Labour Let me close this with what I judg a very necessary and seasonable advice When your Ministers visit you in time of sickness to exhort you and comfort you and pray with you 't is usually one part of our exhortation that if God spare you and restore you to health you would shew forth the truth of the repentance you profess when you are like to dye by bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance if God restore you and suffer you to live
neither allow you to kill your King nor eat your God nor purchase Heaven for your mony nor flatter you with hopes that you may go to Paradise in the broad way and have that done for you by others when you are dead which should have been done by your self while you were alive In a word a Religion not made up of Tricks and Artifices of Pomp and Pageantry of a Fardle of unaccountable Rites and Ceremonies and unintelligible mystesteries and contradictions to comply with all mens humours tempers constitutions Severities for the Sowr and Melancholy Carnivals and Stews for the Airy brisk and Sanguine Whips and Austere Discipline as sharp as the Lancets of Baals Priests for the sullenly Superstituous And easie Indulgences and Commutations into gentle Penances for the soft and delicate A Religion tho profest and owned by many sinful men yet neither invented nor headed by the man of sin But a Religion holy and undefiled like its Author plain and simple like the Gospel which contains and teaches it Spiritual and Heavenly like the place it leads them to who love and practise it sincerely Such is the Religion we yet injoy through Gods great goodness but he threatens to bereave us of for our sins against it Let me therefore beseech you and adjure you by all that 's dear to you be zealous and repent speedily sincerely that you force not a jealous God to cut down this Tree to remove his Kingdom and take away his Candlestick because you would not bring forth the Fruits of the one nor walk in the Light of the other and deprive your selves and your Posterity of the greatest blessing God ever did or can bestow on this or any other Nation on this side Heaven But I shall rather chuse to inlarge my self in that Application of this Parable which is more sutable to so private an Auditory tho I cannot deny neither can any man deny the former in our circumstances to be very seasonable and therefore very necessary I shall therefore in what remains consider the Fig tree as a Figure and Type of particular persons Under which notion every individual man and woman is sentenced to be cut down and cast out of the Vineyard of the Church by some Temporal or Spiritual Judgment who hath been planted and admitted into it by Baptism and stands and grows in it injoying all the advantages and priviledges which belong to a Member of it under the Gospel and yet continues Fruitless or bears no good Fruit. Gets no saving Knowledg no true Faith no sound Repentance nor sincere Amendment of Life No real sence or favour of the things of God in a prevalency of Religion in Godliness and Holiness against and above Formality Prophaneness or the love of this present world No Justice Righteousness Truth and Honesty against Defrauding Cousenage Oppression Lying and Slandering of his Neighbours No Temperance Sobriety subduing of his sensual Lusts and Appetites against Uncleanness Drunkenness Debauchery and other defiling pleasures and sensualities in a word who are not foundly Converted and turned from placing their happiness and hopes in sin and creatures to fix them on God and Christ as their only blessedness and satisfying portion Or in St. Paul's express Language who will not learn that great Lesson which the Grace of God that is the Gospel was revealed from Heaven as the clearest light to teach the Sons of men that is To deny all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live Righteously Soberly and Godly in this present world in hope of a blessed immortality Nor heartily and in good earnest endeavour to become such as they are by their Baptismal Vow and Covenant obliged to be To every such man to every such woman I denounce this day in the name of the great the dreadful God of Heaven and Earth if thou turn not and that speedily and throughly That God the Lord of Hosts the supream the Omnipotent the Irresistible judg of all the Earth Hath prepared for thee the instruments of death He hath whet his Sword he hath bent and made ready his Bow his Arrows are upon the string suddenly will he shoot at thee and not spare or miss his mark The Ax is laid to thy very Root to cut thee down for fire unquenchable God already despiseth reproacheth and upbraideth thee for cumbring of his Ground hath actually pronounced the Sentence against thee to cut thee down the word is gone out of his mouth only in admirable Patience he hath reprieved thee one year more a little longer to try whether thou wilt yet at last sue out a Pardon return repent amend that thou mayst live Yet if thou do it not quickly he will compensate the former disappointments of his expectation whilst year after year he came looking for Fruit and found none together with the aggravated abuse of his long-sufferance which vouchsafes another year with a severer vengeance with a greater Damnation As for our parts who are Gods Ministers it is no pleasure nor delight to us to be Messengers of so heavy tydings to come on so harsh and terrifying an Errand We had rather be sent on Embassies of Peace and speak what might be more welcome and pleasing to you provided it might also be profitable for you But we must not chuse our own Message but the Word God puts into our mouths that must we speak What we have received from the Lord that must we deliver to you according to our Commission and our Instructions written in his Word must we proceed in the discharge and execution of our Office We must not sow Pillows under your Armpits nor dawb with untempered mortar at the Price at the Peril of our own Souls Nor promise Life where God hath threatned Death Nor speak Peace where God saith there is no Peace And there is no peace to the wicked saith my God Isa lvii 21. This were but to betray you and ruin our selves To lead you blindfold into the Ditch and plunge our selves in together with you into the Lake of fire and brimstone and to have the guilt of the blood of your souls added and heapt up upon that of our own to sink us deeper in the bottomless Gulph What we may do and what we can do that by the Grace of God we will do We will Pray to God to let you alone this year also Spare thy people good Lord spare this and that other Fruitless-Tree one year more try them O Lord a little longer it may be they will consider it may be they will bethink themselves it may be they will yet bear Fruit. And then it shall be no grief of Heart to thee O blessed Lord that thou didst not cut them off suddenly in thy sore displeasure Many have made some amends for an unfruitful youth by bringing forth more Fruit in their Age. Great Sinners have become great Saints What had thy Church lost what had thy Glory lost if thou hadst struck Saul dead when thou didst
injoy the Holy Scriptures to be a light to your Feet and lamp to your Paths and have the truth and excellency of the Gospel fully set forth and plainly preacht explained and applyed to you and the whole counsel of God concerning your Eternal estate declared and nothing kept back which may be necessary or profitable for you You have the Holy Sacraments Administred to you according to Christs Institution without maiming or defiling them with mens Superstitious inventions added You have Prayers made in a Tongue you understand and directed to him alone who stiles himself a God hearing Prayer and in his Mediation who is the true and only Mediatour in whose name we are allowed and commanded to ask what we need with assurance given that it shall be granted And what ever else that 's requisite to promote your Sanctification Consolation and Salvation even all the means of Grace which he hath appointed that was faithful in all his house A Mercy so invaluable that all other mercies of Life and Health of Peace and Plenty are greatly inferiour to it and nothing but Heaven it self exceeds or is above it Secondly You have stood a long time in this Vineyard lived a great while in such a Church Not three years only but more than three times three yea threescore years many of you and all of you many tho not so many all And know that the longer you have stood and the oftner God hath come to look for Fruit the greater your account will be and the nearer cuting down you are and if you mend not if you repent not now speedily and throughly the more sudden hasty sure sore and dreadful will your cuting down be Thirdly The more cost and pain hath been bestowed upon you the heavier the stricter reckoning you must be called to and the severer vengeance will God inflict if you continue to receive his Grace in vain and with obstinate security delay to bring forth Fruit. Fourthly If after long ordinary means injoyed fresh alarms be given and new and more vigorous calls and applications be made to you by extraordinary dispensations of Gods Providence and other circumstances he brings you under which are like the letting it alone another year after Sentence given to cut it down for the three former years barrenness and these be lost and prove as unsuccessful as those which went before them then you perish inevitably without remedy without excuse or any pitty For First God will do no more It shall not be digged nor pruned any more Isa v. 6. Whatever God doth he doth with respect to his Mercy or his Justice they are Principia imperantia in Deo as the Schools speak they engage and set all his Attributes on work as his Wisdom and Power c. and all he doth is for the glory either of his Mercy or his Justice and when neither of them can be farther glorified then he ceases to work and will proceed no farther do no more And such is the case here neither of them would be glorified by his doing more for such men and therefore Mercy is not for it and Justice is against it His Mercy hath hath been hitherto glorified in ingaging his Wisdom to use such variety of means and methods to bring them to repentance and his patience in allowing so much time to see what the effect would be but to continue always to do so and longer to do so when abundantly enough hath been vouchsafed to magnifie his Mercy both in his Wisdom and his Patience he will then give over And to go on still would but be to expose his Wisdom to censure and his Patience to contempt He will not be always trying conclusions in vain and to no purpose after he hath done abundantly enough to manifest yea magnifie his Mercy in the Eyes of all impartial witnesses and excuse his Justice in what he shall inflict by leaving them inexcusable on whom he shall inflict it As he saith to the incorrigible Why should you be stricken any more you will revolt more and more Isa i. 5. Seeing you are like the Anvil which grows harder the more blows are laid upon it So to the indocible and impenitent why should ye be taught called on warned reproved any more seeing ye refuse to learn hearken take warning and return Why should the Word of the Lord be precept upon precept precept upon precept line upon line line upon line to those who have made a covenant with death and are at an agreement with hell Who have made Lyes their refuge and have hid themselves under falsehood unless that they might go and fall backward and be snared and taken Isa xxviii 13 15. And why any more vain endeavours to charm them who have made themselves like the deaf Adder which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer charming never so wisely whose doom is therefore to be taken away suddenly both living and in his wrath Psal lviii 4 5 9. Why any more Piping to them who will not Dance or mourning to them who will not weep Luk. vii 32. Who will be won neither by promises nor threats overcome neither by hopes nor fears nor gained as we say either by fair means or by foul How oft would I have gathered you as an hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not such shall be left desolate Luke xiii He will not always Cluck them nor offer them his shelter any more those whom he hath often called and they would not answer he will call no more Nay he will not answer when they call to him Abused Patience will turn into Fury and 't is fit Justice should have its turn and at length take place on them who have long despised Mercy Secondly He can do no more What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it Isa v. 4. All hath been done that Art and Industry and the best Husbandry can do and all that in that respect it is capable of having done for it The Scope of the Parable is to shew the care and faithfulness of the Planter and the Dresser of the Vineyard to whom it belongs to give good Tillage and Culture and to perform what 's to be done below on Earth but not to send Rain and seasonable Weather or the kind and needful influences of Heaven and it must not be stretcht too far nor applyed to the internal Operations of the Holy Ghost Nor to limit the extraordinary power of God as if by his Almighty Grace he could absolutely have done no more to make his Vineyard Fruitful For in a Parallel case we are told He is able to raise children to Abraham out of stones and he that hath promised To take away the heart of stone and give an heart of flesh must not be denyed Ability to do it when and for whom he pleaseth But it is to be restrained to and understood of the external means of Grace and Gods ordinary power
exerted in and by them And in as much as no part or degree of them had been wanting but all vouchsafed that God ordinarily doth or can afford it is said he had done all he could And possibly it may be thus exprest tacitely to convince men who are prone to think outward means alone sufficient And believe they can by the help of them alone turn to God and become fruitful if they please and when they please And are thereby left self-condemned because God hath done his part and all themselves esteem needful and they neglect their own and perform not what they know they ought and think they can Thirdly His Intercessours desire him to do no more but cease become silent and plead no longer And you know when an Advocate yields and throws up his Clients Cause he is in a sad case his business is lost 'T is express and plain in the Text if he will please to spare it another year and bestow more cost and pains on it hee 'l ask no more if it bear not fruit then cut it down and spare not Neither Christ in Heaven nor his Ministers on Earth have one word more to say for a people whom neither ordinary nor extraordinary means will make better 'T is usual to ask a Prisoner why Sentence should not be given and when neither he nor his Council can alledg any then Judgment is given and Execution follows So here when they who had pleaded for them can plead will plead no longer because they have no Plea left then the Case is desperate there is no hope As long as Abraham interceeded for Sodom God granted what he requested But as soon as he left God procceeds to execute vengeance When there is no man to make up the Hedg or stand in the Gap before God for the Land that he should not destroy it then he pours out his indignation upon it and consumes it with the fire of his wrath Ezech. xxii 30 31. Fourthly God himself forbids them to Pray for such men Pray not thou for this people neither lift up cry nor prayer for them neither make intercession to me Jer. vii 16. Now consider what people this was Even the Trees of his own Planting in his own Vineyard His own People who profest the true Religion but abused that Profession and made it a Cloak for their villanies As if that pretext had given them a Licence to commit their Abominations but the better their Religion the worse shall they speed who Prophane it defile it and by not bearing the genuine Fruits of it but the contrary cause it to be evil spoken of and that God to be Blasphemed who was the Author of it The whole place tho exceeding apposite to our purpose is too large to be transcribed Jer. vii 4. to the 17. Trust ye not in lying words saying the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord are these this repeating it so often shews the height of their confidence but this will not do unless they throughly amend their ways and doings then verse 8. Behold you trust in lying words that cannot profit This will not secure you will ye steal murder commit adultery and swear falsly and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say we are delivered to do al those abominations Is this house become a den of Robbers in your Eyes But go to Shiloh and see what I did to them for their wickedness and He do as bad or worse to you for yours Because I spake to you rising early and you heard not and I called and you answered not Therefore I 'le cast you out of my sight Then follows Therefore pray not thou for them c. As if he should say to us you mightily deceive your selves and trust in lying words and which will not profit you to have you spared If you say we are Baptised we are true Protestants we keep our Church c. And think this will excuse you in the neglect of bearing the Fruits your Baptism obliges you to and your Holy Religion exacts of you and presume to do quite contrary And tho I have long lookt for better from you and long called you to amendment and have been intreated by my Servants to spare you again and again but I see 't is all to no purpose therefore I am resolved to spare you no longer nay I charge all that love me to speak no more for you that you should be spared See also Jer. xi 14 17. Where we have the very Metaphor of my Text A green Olive-tree planted but evil pronounced against it by him that planted it and prayer forbidden to be made for it Fifthly If they do pray for them he will not hear he tells them so to stop their mouths I will not hear thee Ezek. 14.14 tho these three men Noah and Daniel and Job stood before me as I live saith the Lord they should deliver neither son nor daughter Such men mighty in power whom one would think should obtain any thing and God would deny them nothing even they should not prevail for a people who had sinned against God by trespassing grievously vers 13. had grieved him by long resisting his Calls by impenitency and had set up their idols in their hearts and the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces Sixthly Nay they who have interceded for you that you might be spar'd yea and prevail'd for you that you have been spar'd will turn their prayers against you if after all his sparings of you they see you will not turn to God but continue obstinate they will pray God to rid his Church of you as the bane as the pests of the place you live in who by your bad example and bad counsel and other mischiefs you do hinder other sinners from returning How doth holy Jeremiah who had stood before the Lord to speak good for that people at length not only desist and cease praying for them but chap. 11.20 cryes against them Let me see thy vengeance on them And Eliah makes intercession against Israel Rom. 11.2 for their unfruitfulness and corrupting their Religion and when they who used to hold God's hands and to whom he saith Let me alone that I may destroy them Deut. 9.14 not only let loose his hands but let loose their own prayer against them What shall become of such a People Seventhly Nay your own mouths will be stopped and you will be speechless and as before you had no heart to use the arguments you might have pleaded for your selves so now you will have no arguments to plead nothing to say but will be out of countenance wholly and quite ashamed to hold up your heads before God As the man Mat. 22. whom God had used so kindly whom he calls Friend Quem tot bonis donis câ—ronavit whom he had crowned and compast with so many opportunities and helps to get what he
had so grosly neglected to provide when he might have had it and knew he ought to have had it when he ask'd him Friend how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment he was speechless He had nothing to say for himself not a word to offer for arresting the severest Judgment He that after several Admonitions goes on to sin is to be rejected of God and man being condemned of himself Tit. 3.11 And they who have means to know God and will not know him and when they do know him will not glorifie him nor bring forth the Fruits by which others might be provok'd to glorifie him are without excuse Rom. 1.20 Eightly But if they add impudence to their obstinacy and will presume to call upon him and their extremity extort and wring from them a prayer at last and they howl to him on their Beds as God speaks reproachfully of such mens prayers Hos 7.14 and their fears fright them into a pang of heartless devotion and the sense of approaching ruine scare them to cry to that God who hath so long call'd earnestly on them to turn but all in vain it shall now be as much iâ— vain on their parts for he is resolv'd he will not hear them Prov. 1.28 They shall seek me early but they shall not find me because they hated knowledge and despised reproof When you spread forth your hands I will hide wine eyes and when you make many prayers I will not hear Isa 1.15 Read on and see the reason Eze. 8.18 I will deal in my fury mine eye shall not spare neither will I have pity and tho they cry in mine ears with a loud voice I will not bear And Zach. 7.11 12 13. They refused to hearken and pull'd away the shoulder and stopt their ears that they should not hear yea they made their hearts as an Adamant Stone lest they should hear the Law and the words which the Lord of Hosts sent by his spirit in the former prophets therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of Hosts therefore it is come to pass that as he cryed and they would not hear so they cryed and I would not hear saith the Lord of Hosts Consider this ye that forget God And in the days of your youth and health and strength go on securely in the ways of your own hearts and despise admonition and refuse to return and think in your selves if you have but time to cry Lord have mercy upon me at last all shall be well and you shall be as safe as they that soonest turn to God and sought him timely with their best endeavours and sincerest hearts Ninthly God will take away the very means from them who trust in the formal customary fruitless use of them We find this Sentence four times recorded From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath twice in the parable of the Sower as the doom of the barren ground Matth. 13.12 Luke 8.18 twice in the parable of the pounds and talents as the punishment of the slothful unprofitable servant Matt. 25.19 and Luke 19.26 The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof Mat. 21.43 which plainly sheweth the reason to be their not bringing forth such fruits And the Church of Ephesus is threatned Rev. 2.5 Repent and do thy first works or I will come upon thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick out of its place except thou repent You may sin away a good Religion by your unfruitfulness but the best Religion will not keep away vengeance from those who are unfruitful but draw it on the faster Tenthly or he will take his blessing from the means his spirit shall not accompany them and then they will be but a dead Letter without life and quickning For the word preach'd will not profit them in whom 't is not mixt with faith and faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit and he will not work it in those who resist him quench him grieve him provoke him nor strive longer with them who set themselves to strive against him and harden their hearts as it were on purpose to withstand and hinder his making any impressions on them those who have long received God's Grace in vain and turned it into wantonness may sit under the sound of it but shall find no efficacious influence by it and tho to others as Christ speaks Cant. 1.16 Our bed is green fruitful and Children are begotten unto God yet to them the Ordinances have a miscarrying womb and dry breasts Eleventhly God will turn the means thou injoyest to thy hurt and to thy ruine to become a curse a snare and stumbling block and occasion of falling to the aggravating of thy condemnation Rom. 11.9 David saith Let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompence unto them As meat which is not digested to yield good nourishment breeds crudities and turns to be occasion of Diseases So doth Spiritual Food when not improv'd to growth and strength As the Manna corrupted bred worms so spiritual Manna breeds the most stinging worm of Conscience when abused The sincere milk of the word curdled in the sour stomach of an hard heart breeds the most dangerous and deadly Obstructions and becomes the savour of death Vnworthy Receivers eat and drink their own damnation and turn the Seal of God's precious promises into a Seal of his dreadful Threatnings yea which is most fearful to consider Christ Jesus himself becomes a stumbling to some men even to those who seek righteousness not by faith but as it were mark the phrase as it were by the works of the Law not downright seeking Justifications by the works of the Law but turn the Gospel into a Law to be justified by Evangelical Works as if they were to be justified by a Law requiring Work not by the Gospel offering Righteousness of God's meer Grace in Christ to be received by saith And 1 Cor. 1.23 Christ crucified is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness And 1 Pet. 2.8 A stone of stumbling and rock of offence to them who are disobedient to the word And it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have refused to walk in it Not to have had Christ offered to them than to have rejected him not to enjoy the means than to have them blasted and cursed to them through their own default and provocation Twelfthly God will avenge your sinful hardning your selves in your willful neglecting and deferring to repent and bring forth the fruits of true Christianity by a penal and judiciary hardning not by infusing any malice and wickedness into your hearts The holy God neither can nor will do that for he is not the Author of that of which he is the uâ—tour and punisher But by leaving you to your own corruptions without restraint and to those temptations
which are apt to kindle and are fit fuel for those corruptions God will leave yon to your own choice Isa 66.3 4. They have chosen their own ways and their soul delighteth in their abominations therefore I also will chuse their delusions and will bring their fears upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they would not hear but they did evil before mine eyes and chose that in which I delighted not There is scarce one passage in all the Bible repeated so often over in terminis as that dreadful Sentence first denounced from the mouth of God by the Ministry of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 6.10 and to which he was prepared with so great and awful Solemnity By a Vision of the Divine Majesty upon the Throne of his Glory and an Angel touching his Lips with a coal from the Altar and with a special Commission to send him on this Errand Go and tell this people hear ye indeed hat understand not see ye indeed but perceive not make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed Which we find repeated as the Margin of your Bibles will shew Matth. 13 14 15. Mark 4.12 Luke 8.10 John 12.40 in all which places our Lord himself applies it and with such variety as would afford us very useful remarks but I leave them to be made by your own Observation then Acts 28.26 S. Paul improves it very fully and having rehearsed the words at large draws a sad inference from them verse 28. Be it known therefore to you that the Salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and they will hear it Than which nothing could have been spoken more cutting to the Jews who so despised and hated the Gentiles and implies that God's Salvation that is his Word Truth the true Religion should now be taken from them for hitherto Salvation was of the Jews John 4.22 for their obstinate unfruitfulness and given to the Gentiles who would receive it and is but the interpretation and confirmation of our Saviours own words before touch'd The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof And we find it again Rom. 11.8 they were blinded according as it is written God hath given them a spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see c. Nothing can be more terrible and affrighting than this threat to any man who will consider and weigh it and the inforcing it so oft may awaken even them that are asleep in the deepest security if this doom be not already executed against them and it hath actually seized upon them And I might refer you to many more of the like dreadful import in both Testaments but I 'll content my self with one in each Ezek. 24.12 13 14. She hath wearied her self with lyes and her great scum went not forth out of her In thy filthiness is lewdness because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee I the Lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and I will do it I will not go back I will not spare neither will I repent according to thy ways and according unto thy doings shall they judge thee saith the Lord God Words so exaggerated so keen so pungent they will pierce your hearts and move you if they be not harder than the nether Mill-stone yea may penetrate the heart that is so hard if the head if the mind of the man in whom it is will dwell a little upon the meditation the consideration of them The place in the New Testament I would refer you to is that pathetick word of our Saviour recorded in the end of the Chapter where my Text is O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together as an hen gathereth her brood under her wings and ye would not Behold your house is left unto yon desolate I have met with as improper Allusions and Paraphrases tho I will not avow such an one as it would be should I gloss upon these words thus O sinners sinners who have killed your Ministers with their study pains and travel to bring you to repentance and yet you would not rerepent who have broken the hearts of them whom I sent to you by the stonyness of your hearts how often how fain would I have gathered you to my self have turn'd you from your sinful courses and ye would not therefore I 'll now trouble my self no more with you I 'll give you up to your own hearts lusts fill up the measure of your iniquities that wrath may come upon you without measure even to the utmost Lastly To add no more God will sharpen the edge and envenom the point of his Sword of vengeance by joyning contempt to his wrath and scornful derision to the soreness of his fiery indignation laughing at your destruction and mocking when your fear comes upon you And a great mind can bear smart better than reproach and pain more easie than derision Reproach will break those hearts with vexing sorrow which all the words of God could not break with Godly Sorrow He that sits in heaven shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision Psal ii 4. The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming Psal xxxvii 13. And there is nothing more astonishingly sad than Gods laughing when with a just insulting he cryes Ah ha I will ease me of my adversaries I will avenge me of my enemies Isa i. 24. These are some few of those many Righteous Comminations of those affrighting menaces by which the Spade of the Law is steeled to dig about your Roots and remove the cold and hungry Earth from them which causes your barrenness in Gods Vineyard These are the Share and Coulter of that Plough by which we must breaks up the Fallow-ground of your Hearts to kill the Thorns and Weeds which choak the good Seed of the Word Any one of them might and should suffice to do the work yet that they may profit you jointly which have not done it singly Take them in one view it may bean whole volly may strike down that security which would not fall before a single shot I exhort you I beseech you I adjure you therefore by all these put together and by what ever else God's Holy Spirit may suggest to your own Consciences of greater force and cogency Repent and bring forth fruits meet for Repentance speedily readily faithfully under those abundant helps God affords you by the Gospel and his Patience which you have almost tired out yet continues a little longer to you For I assure you in his name 1. God will do no more