in their conversation and behaviour seeing that the world is hard and living under strict government they begin to looke about them and to digest those counsells which they have long beene taught Every age is not so capable when yeares have hardened a man in his evill course he is farre worse to be wrought upon then in his younger time having lesse experience of evill So that the Lord takes men in the fittest season in youth and prevents the unfittest and so for all other circumstances Fifthly the Lord mercifully stops and prevents such accidents as if Branch 5 they tooke effect would be like to hinder the worke of his providence Prevents such evills as might hinder his ends Thus the Lord prevents an ill marriage an unapt yoke-fellow when as yet there was far more likelihood that way then any other Yet the Lord crosses and defeats it so that it shall not take effect so also he stops and cuts off some such companion by death either friend or husband or wife or the like whose example or counsell might possibly have hindred the good of the other party 1 Sam. 25. Abigail being freed from Nabal was at liberty for David and so many a well-minded childe over-ruled by a crosse and peevish father or mother when God removes that tye is at more liberty to enjoy the meanes and to profite So that the Lord when he intends any thing doth alway remove out of his way the lets which might hinder his worke Lastly and especially the Lord doth put life successe and blessing into Branch 6 all such courses and meanes from first to last Puts life and successe into all occurrences as are offered by his providence that they shall take effect and leave the impression of grace behinde them Because God meant well to the Prodigall hee so ordered the matter that even contraries seemed to worke together for the best God oft workes by contraries Luke 14. If he had kept still with his father ten to one hee had been as the other brother But even the misery which he felt which might have been the next way to have made him desperate and to have rusht himselfe upon vile courses to his ruine or caused him to have laid violent hands upon himselfe yet by Gods dispensation wrought him to an utter loathing of his bad wayes and himselfe and to an earnest desire to seeke to his father for pardon Much more then doth the Lord blesse other wayes of sinners which are lesse unlikely as wee see in Naaman here no one passage befell him but brought him one step neerer and when hee had his owne desire that wrought in him such a brokennesse of spirit that he was thereby fitted to receive a better boon from God with more thankfulnes So that poor blinde man Ioh. 9. John 9. whom Christ purposed to save although at his first cure of blindnesse he was not converted yet the Lord was so effectuall in his cure so brake his heart by that love that when hee was most bitterly reproached and excommunicated for confessing him yet he gave not in nor shranke but convinced them with shame and put them to silence and when our Saviour had him upon that advantage he meets him againe in his streight and by a few words speaking to him converted him But these may serve Now for use of the point it is manifold First it is terror and admonition Vse 1 to all brutish prophane ones and base hypocrites Terror with admonition to such as are under no prevention but alway at one point who walke securely in their way some neglecting all meanes others using the most holy and effectuall meanes in a meere formall manner Both of them justly left at large by the Lord to themselves so that nothing workes upon conscience But even as the Wind-mill turning in her round every way yet stirre not out of their place so is it with them after ten twenty yeares they are where they were the first day no step neerer God but many further off For why alas they are farre from acknowledging any preventing grace of God in their course They know no other means but to goe to Church and present themselves among others in the place and so home againe As for a providence to prevent them to bow and sway their hearts to any tendernesse and towardlinesse to see themselves drawn by God to know themselves to see into their nature to abhorre it and embrace all opportunities for their owne spirituall furtherance to salvation they are farre from it And as they live so they dye And if the Lord at any time do scare their conscience or move them to any better thoughts of their wayes yet alas they have no intimation from God of any mercy therein are soone weary of them they vanish as they came And when they looke backe into their course past their youth education company marriage dwelling Ministery or the like alas they cannot speake of any moving of heart stopping their lewd course still they are in their thorough-fare heare like blockes are wearie of good company shun all opportunities of good for feare of being better glad when they can wash off good duties and winde themselves out of all occasions for heaven Alas poore wretches yee shall not need put off with one hand that mercie which you cannot pull on with both It must bee singular grace which must prevent you if ever you come to good But to goe against the edge of providence thinking your selves happiest when yee are out of the element of it is fearfull Doth it not sting you that you have felt so little of Gods prevention in all your wayes So many of your yeares time acquaintance not onely stirred but converted to God since your beginning and you still as saplesse and senselesse as ever Doth it not disquiet you to see all is too little for your ease will world lusts and vanities What have yee no sighes nor sobs in your dreams and upon your beds how it shall fare with you in the day of wrath and that there will be bitternesse in the end 2 Sam. 2. What I pray you is more miserable then to live without God in the world And who live so but such as feele not one pull by the eare one knock at the doore of your hearts or if they doe forget and shake it off with as little savour or regard as pigges tread upon pearles Alas if hee who is the authour of the Scriptures of Ministery of Sacraments of long-suffering of afflictions hath never yet cast the least seed of light or sparke of heat into you which should teach you to acknowledge these ordinances and administrations of his and to tremble at them Are you worse then Divels Application of the terror by admonition Therefore I pray you consider of what I say If the Lord raise not up the North winde to blow upon your spirits to encline and perswade them it
a wide difference between their soveraignty of commands in respect of Gods Instruction with Caveat 1. Branch so to looke to it as they will answer it to God that they usurpe not Gods prerogative over such their inferiours as by providence are under them To execute Gods authority over their subjects and inferiours is lawfull for them to bee Officers and Viceroyes or Vicegerents under and for him acknowledging that all kingdome and power of theirs is under a greater and earth is still under heaven this is meet But to usurpe a power unlimited over the consciences of men or to equall their soveraignty with Gods Gods commands exceed mens in point of unlimitednesse Soveraignty is unjust For why Gods commands admit no inquiry deliberation shifts or excuses but require a free resolute unlimited unquestioned subjection So doe not mans A Master cannot force the conscience of his servant to what he pleaseth as if all the blame should lye upon his necke if the servant offend God in pleasing man No for although the Master shall pay sweetly for imposing it yet so shall the servant also in venturing to obey a command usurpedly imposed and therefore it imports him to enquire of the lawfulnesse of the charge which his Master urgeth except he will incurre the premunire of God and his penalties for transgression It s therefore both their duties to esteeme their commands and obedience thereto according to the rule of the Word knowing that onely Gods commands are of themselves Law other commands are so so farre as they borrow their warrant from thence and therefore ought to bee inquired into scanned and debated before they be obeyed I doe not intend to trench upon the positive civill power of Kings and Magistrates I speake of that usurpation of Governours whereby they take upon them to impose Laws upon inferiors contrary to the commands of God Let the Soveraignty and extent of the Lawes of God be a curbe and bridle unto all men in place to subordinate their lawes to Gods and not to trench upon them Matth. 5.19 He that shall breake the least of these commands and teach or force others to breake them undertaking to stand betweene them and their harms to answer God for the violation of his will shall be least in Gods Kingdome Inferiours must inquire into their Masters commands and not obey implicitely I urge this the rather because I see that some defend the contrary By name that a servant is bound to obey his Master urging the breach of the Sabbath I meane such a worke as infers necessity of breaking it and sinnes not therein the obeying of his Master shall save him harmelesse and the Master shalll bear all the blame what a trumpet of defiance is this to proclame licentiousnesse in breaking Gods Sabbath So may I say of the Minister of a Congregation Let him beware lest he lend that authority and strength which God hath put upon his person Ministers must not prostitute their authority to urge or backe commands against God Matth. 10. end to countenance backe and support any base dishonour of God any the least affront given to the Commands of God But remember as thou wouldst have thy people in all things subject to thee under God so bee thou closely subject to God who hath thee at a more infinite bay and vantage then thou canst have them Oh! feare thou him who hath thee and thine at such a becke and command that hee can destroy soule and body in hell Feare him I say whom there is no appeale from no cavilling against no dispensing with no concealing from no avoyding of his wrath If any would abuse thy place and person to set up or bolster any prophanations liberties or corruptions which they cannot so well bolster as thou mayst by the opinion which men have of thy learning thy yeares and gravity experience or gifts Beware and prostitute not Gods commands to the basenesse of men set not thy conscience to sale to please men If thy licentious Patrone who claimes an interest in thee would borrow a priviledge from thee and thy Ministery to live in lust usury oppression base pleasures If thy people would pull thee from thy zeale and closenesse of conscience to justifie them in the prophaning of Gods day and the blowing a trumpet to that which flesh of it selfe is too propense unto Look to thy selfe let not feare of losing thine esteeme with them or their love no nor thy credit thy living thy peace and liberty of Ministery Let not favour and flattery to bee praised and commended to bee a moderate man draw thee on either hand to violate thy peace Remember those two fearfull paternes in Scripture 1 King 13. which I shall mention the one voluntary the other compelled but neither of them allowed by God The former is the example of that old Prophet who knowing that the young Prophet sent by God to denounce against the Altar and Idolatry of Ieroboam was charged not to eate or drinke there till he was returned home yet would needs abuse his authority and yeares to divert and controll Gods Command and attempt the young Prophet to returne to breake his charge and to eate and drinke at his house No sooner had hee perswaded him so to doe but the Lord sent an item into his heart to denounce against the young Prophet that he should dye for it What a shame was that unto him Who but himselfe drew him â—nto that service Therefore it was just that his owne mouth should pronounce sentence as against the other so against himselfe for his insolencie and usurping against Gods solemne commands But another instance I would also presse who might seeme to be pressed and provoked to doe the like and yet escaped not censure And this latter example I urge the rather upon this wretched age of wofull time-servers with whom the prints of divine soveraignty in Commands seemes to bee wholly worne out and defaced If there bee any pressure put upon Ministers by their Patrones People or Superiours which trench upon the word they presently flye off from obeying a command according to it and the soveraignty of it and consult with flesh and blood the consequences of such an obedience to God and if they finde that it is like to become any prejudice to their state and liberty they thinke it a very rationall thing to obey men before God So wofully is that impression of Gods soveraigne Commands blotted out in mens Consciences Equivocating in point of Commands with conscience for the saving of our owne skin is abhominable that in very deed the violating thereof is made but a sport and the outward respects which men have to their name ease wealth and welfare washes off all respects to Gods commands Tush say men would you have us rush our selves upon the rockes and upon the snares which are laid for us Doe you thinke we are such fooles as to betray
faithfull ones of Christ may easily fall with Ieremy Chap. 12.1 and David Psal 73.5 to distemper our selves to charge God foolishly and to call him to our owne barre as if he ordered not matters so wisely as wee would have him Alas Those are ever most confident who usurp most 2 Sam. 15.4 Eccles 7.10.15.16 Absolom thought his policie and wisedome above his fathers in ruling of subjects but it cost him sorrow and ruine Let us not cavill against our owne dayes as the worst nor our owne lot as the unhappiest Let us know its folly wrap up all our own discontents in the field of Providence and Wisedome For why should we be desolate or hasten our owne ruine rashly before the time Let it be enough for us that wee beare witnesse to Jesus to his truth and serve our time But let us not breake out of our compasse in which God hath set us Nor let us think long or tax God for seeming to stop his eare from our praiers nor give over our waiting and wax froward with him but remember our Rule Acts 1.7 That in publicke promises still the time must be left to him who is the Soveraigne orderer of all times and seasons It is enough for us that in the worst and most degenerate times of all God hath not left his Church as an Orphan or desolate each member hath her owne particular faith and patience to set on worke To keep the soule from rusting from either tedious impatience or desperate carelesnesse Matth. 25. Ocupy these till God come and these will so allay thy spirit and exercise thy meeknesse patience and humility that Gods time shall not seeme over long faith shall not make over much haste Hab. 3. I doe not counsell thee to give over faith in performances But to apply faith to such promises in the meane while as may sustaine the soule with patient hope till Gods time is accomplished See Psal 135.14 The rod of the wicked shall not alway ly upon the lot of the righteous lest they should put forth their hand to evill The Lord will not alway bee angry Psal 125.3 lest flesh should faile Rather then such extremities should come God will put an end and say The day of my redeemed ones is come Esay 63.3 But if the Lord sustaine the whilest and the burning bush consume not is it not as good as if it burnt not Enlarge thy short and hasty spirit by this that each day of Gods delay shortens the trouble And remember that a thousand years with the Lord is as one day 2 Pet. 3.8 and God is a pure act incomprehensible not ruled by time I doe not by these passages choke the zeale importunity clamors and expostulations of the Church No that were another extremity and as much as to quash the Spirit of adoption and to abridge the priviledges of the Saints in their holy boldnesse in prayer For why Read the moanes of the Church in Psal 40. and Esay 63. and 64. the variety of her holy complaints arguments wherewith she laboureth to draw God on her side against his sworne foes to perswade him to be no longer darke but to cause the mountaines to flow downe before his presence And so Psalm 12. she cryes out for help because all went to wrack All this is lawfull and to pray against implacable incorrigible enemies Plead thus Lord although to thee a thousand yeares are as one day yet it is not so with us five seaven yeares are somewhat to us Lord wee are feeble and faint Psal 110. ult Therefore tarry not long Lord. But in all these remember to ascribe to God the glory of faithfull performance in his owne time and say thus Thou hast afflicted us on every side Psal 119. yet have we not forsaken thy Covenant the whilest we have not exasperated our spirits against thy delayes but turn'd the edge of our complaints against our selves who by our treacherous unfruitfulnesse have deserved these scourges our worst enemy is within us That sin of ours hath vexed thee more then our crosses and thy delayes vexe us Purge them remove the barre and we doubt not but thy performances shall breake out as the light when once our righteousnesse shall appeare and our filthinesse shall be cleansed nothing shall let thy promises from being fulfilled This for the second Limitation the third God keeps promise with them only that live by faith The third and last limitation is this That the Lord keeps his promises faithfully but yet upon condition to such as not onely are his own servants for what have dogges to doe with the childrens bread but such of his owne as abide so and feare him live by faith and keep his Covenant The sum of the point is that which David Psal 25.10 expresseth thus All the wayes of the Lord are mercy and truth But to whom Surely to such onely as keep his Covenant Israel was the Lords peculiar above all the earth but it was not enough for them to hold their name onely but to keep close to the Lord If Israel would have walked in my wayes then it should goe well with them and with their children for ever 1 Chro. 17.13 It was the Lords speech to David of Salomon Hee shall be my sonne and I will call him Iedidijah the Lord loved him And if he transgresse against me I will chastise him with the Rods of men but my loving kindnesse will I never take from him Marke Brethren there is a promise which the Lord will performe to all that are in covenant with him that is he will not finally forsake them But yet in the mean time if they venture so much hereupon that they break their league play the harlots and forsake their husband he will make them feele to their costs 2 Chro. 16.3.4 that he can also break with them and forsake them and so will he goe on with them till he have wearied them and by some adversity or other within or without sent them home with sorrow and shame to their first husband Men must not looke to be loose with God and yet binde him to be close to them Excellent is that of Oded the Prophet to Asa speaking of the revolted ten Tribes Of a long time was Israel without God or a Law or a Priest And why Surely because they had forsaken his Temple and Worship his Arke and Mercy seat and therefore the Lord plagued them with all adversity And so will he doe to you if yee cleave to him he will cleave to you but if you warp from him so will he from you Consider I pray you brethren and God give us understanding The Lord will keep promise with his but then they must not play their parts with him For why Shall the Father spit in his Daughters face Num. 12.14 and shall she not be separate from him seven dayes It was the Lords speech to Moses touching Miriam
with what an humble sober heart he used life it selfe and much more all inferior comforts whose tenant at will he confessed himselfe to be and with what an heart he commended his spirit into the hands of him that gave it as oft as he lay downe to his rest And sure it is the little acknowledging of this Soveraignty and salvation of God is the cause why many of us are compelled to learne it by sad experience who else might enjoy it with more freedome Gods not being tyed to us in grace urges Prayer for daily assisting grace as very necessary The like I might speake touching Gods spirituall safeguard of our soules and the salvation of his Church The Lord is not absolutely tyed to us in these respects We should humble our soules for these also and say thou canst Lord if thou wilt vouchafe me such a measure of comfort by beleeving peace in my conscience admiration at thy love burning zeale for thy glory compassion and brokennesse of heart for my breaches of covenant and daily failings Thou hast the key of the wombe of heaven of the deepes the grave and of mine heart Lord the restraints or enlargements thereof are from thee Thou hast promised thy grace shall be sufficient 2 Cor. 12.7 Esai 63.13 but my wretched proud defiled soule may provoke thee to shrinke in thy graces thy rolling of bowels and opennesse of spirit But yet thou art the soveraigne Lord of thine owne good things thou canst if thou wilt remoove my tickling heart after the world mine envy pride hypocrisie Thou canst if thou wilt purge out my sloth deadnesse hardnesse of heart security unthankefulnesse and the like Oh Lord these cause me to walke sadly and to grone daily for ease Oh that thy good pleasure were to perfect thy first grace with this second assistance and efficacy and to cast in all those promises to the first which concerne mortification and a new creature Oh that I might not provoke thee by my wilfulnesse and unbeliefe to restraine the influence of heaven from mee and to make thy clowdes as brasse and mine heart as iron Lord thou mayst in thy soveraigne free grace enlarge thy selfe let not my base rebellious distempers dry up the welspring of thy promises God gives not account of all his matters And to conclude the Lord is a soveraigne God also in respect of his administration of his whole militant Church Although she be his spouse and hath a right to all his goodnesse yet God gives not an account of all his matters nay oftentimes she incurres a premunire with God and by her former lazy Laodicean temper of a fulsome carelesse surfeted spirit deserves that the Lord should use his soveraignty and prerogative of discipline over her for her correction and amendment Therefore although he take not his loving kindnesse from her yet Sins of the Church the cause of Gods hiding himselfe her Lethargy and Palsey frame her wearinesse and contempt of his ordinances and their power may cause him to chasten her with the rods of men Now we are in such cases of wanting the meanes of injury and violence of times encroaching of enemies inundation of errors and profanenesse and decay of love and zeale in the better sort very prone to taxe Gods wisedome and call him to our barre as if we would teach him more wisedome See Jer. 12.1.2 But alas the Lord is a soveraigne God and knowes what physicke our maladies require he knowes our rust will not be filed off without much rubbing and scowring He lookes at the generall ends of his providence which are to punish severely the declensions and revolts of such as professe his Name let us not wonder that our praiers sticke in their ascent and prevaile little we looke still at meanes and ordinances to be still as we have beene but the Lord lookes at the melting and purging out our drosse and trying us whether we be reprobate silver or no. In this case what shall we doe call for our prayers backe againe and give the Lord over No surely let us know we can goe no whither to speed better if we leave him but confesse his soveraigne power might force him to a decree against us lie low licking the dust of his feet John 6.68 2 King 23.2.3 c. Jer. 45.5 Psalm 119. Mica 7.9 with Iosia and his people striving as much against the streame as we can and craving our owne lives may be given us as a prey if we can speed for no more but however not forsaking our covenant nor giving him over through a sullen discontented heart till either he plead our cause and bring forth our light or else make our poore lives tolerable in the midst of our sorrowes and teach us wisely and faithfully to serve our time So much for the second Use Thirdly this doctrine is confutation and reproofe of the enemies of Vse 3 Gods soveraignty or the cavillers and abusers of it First Confutation of all Cavellers against the Soveraignty of God all such as take away the ground of this soveraignty of God For if it be so as many dreame that man is only in a darke dungeon yet still hath his eyes in his head to see and apprehend light if it be offred and a liberty of will by Sort. 1 the benefit of light to embrace and receive it sure it is God hath not man at such a deepe advantage as we speake of ye must marke all the grace of such men is the will of the flesh upon generall enlightning Secondly Sort. 2 all that fight against the royall freedome of Gods dispensation of grace by the meanes to some and not to others both being every way alike I say equally distant from it or from any propension and accommodation toward it either within or without Oh! it frets them to the very heart to heare that there should be any such liberty ascribed to God! They confesse that on mans part there may be some barres to hinder grace But they cannot endure it that when the object lyes indifferently disposed then soveraignty should reject or receive upon meere will no reason at all appearing this cuts them to the heart that they may not bind the hands of God behind him to carry himselfe alike to all who lye in equall and faire correspondence to it But O ye wretches goe learne what this meanes not of the willer or the runner but of mercy Not our making toward grace but graces making towards us saves us Rom. 9. Thirdly it reproves our carnall vanity who in our thoughts will be bold Sort. 3 to prefer such to Gods grace as please us well for their gifts hearings repeatings of sermons doing duties and forwardnesse without teaching them to humble their soules and cast out their Pharisaicall spirit which hinders more then all their gifts further them Oh! Matth. 8. as those Jewes spake of that Ruler that he deserved he should doe him the
will be long enough ere you of your selves stirre one inch off your own ground If he alter not your intentions sure it is you will intend small good to your selves but please your selves in your drousie dead and senselesse way till yee goe hence and be no more Me thinks you should rouze up your selves and moan your selves to the Lord saying Am I the onely dry barren wretch of all others whom thy Spirit should never blow upon whom no mercies crosses or government of thine should ever affect I see O Lord thy steps wheresoever they goe drop fatnesse and thy fingers drop mirrh upon the handle of the doore Cant. 5.5 where thou knockest But I am still a barren desolate creature without any acquaintance with thee in thy wayes And for the second sort of such as have felt the Lord comming toward them in sundry wayes and that hee hath not left them without witnesse but by his Word his workes by death of wife or husband or by good company or losse of children estate name many privie and secret warnings of their conscience hath checked them or offered them many meanes of good and drawne their hearts thereby but they have shaken them off as a dog doth a blow on the head That sometime in such houses and places as they have dwelt in sometimes in hearing some searching Sermons or by the offer of Christian yoke-fellowes or by other occasions Such as God hath prevented beware of dallying the Lord hath solicited them earnestly to turn and repent howbeit it is with them as with Israel in the wildernesse whose carcasses were scattered therein they have tempted him seen his works but to no purpose for the Lord is vexed with them for their stubbornnesse and their hard and rebellious hearts which will not know God nor come in Oh! beware lest this patience of God which should have drawne you to repentance doe not harden your hearts to utter destruction To both sorts I say this Know it if those whom the Lord means to save he wil be alway busie about them to accommodate all things to their calling and conversion what a wofull case are they in who have all their lives long either seen no finger of his in meaning them good or else escaped his fingers most subtilly and slily as fast as he hath pursued them Doubtlesse for ought can appeare the Lord meanes them no good if they had been sheep belonging to his fold he would never have suffered them to erre and lose themselves so deeply in their lusts but hee would have recalled them But his not suffering the breath of his spirit one whit to stirre in them doubtlesse he meanes they shall nuzzle up themselves in a dead senselesse estate unto perdition Oh! what beds of ease doe you lye upon that you should take one nights rest two nights till you finde your selves out of this misery Secondly this should teach us to adore this great God and onely wise Vse 2 and that because hee hath the key not of the wombe onely and deeps Instruction Adore the wisedome and love of God in his preventing grace Jerem. 10.23 clouds and the grave but of the hearts of the sonnes of men Hee onely can order their courses wayes and intentions to their owne greatest good and his glory It is not in man to order his owne way the heart and purposes of men are their owne but the dispositions thereof are from the Lord as the issues so the preparations to life and death are in his hand It is no priviledge of a Prince over his subjects nor of a parent over his children nor of husband over wife They have authority to over-rule the bodies the outward behaviour and duties of such as are under them But for the secret over-swaying of intentions and turning them from their owne to his way it is onely the Lords prerogative It is with mans intentions as with the body of a man in a ship who walkes upon the hatches from East to West Yet the motion of the ship being contrary carries the man the way of her owne motion neverthelesse This should therefore breed in us singular reverence of God and provoke us to magnifie him both with our prayses and with our prayers With our praises first By praises As the Church in the Psalme having professed that shee had seene goings of God both towards their fathers and themselves Psal 68 24. Deut. 8. in wildernesse and Canaan that he might humble and try all in their heart subjoynes presently The men singers that goe before and the women singers after Psal 123.1 and praise the Lord. If the Lord had not been on my side shouldest thou say in disposing every way for my conversion I had never been brought home But I see that it was the finger of God that when I had run my selfe into desperate company forsaken the counsell of all friends shaped a course to my selfe perhaps to spend my patrimony riotously perhaps to haunt harlots and lewd companions or to travell beyond sea in an humour of discontent to seek my fortunes or to seek the world and implod my self in the dirt and dunghill of covetousnesse or to mâ—â—ch my selfe resolutely with one whom I fancied onely for her out-sidâ—â—ayâ—â—g Give mee her for she pleases me well then did the Lord provide better for mee then I deserved turn mine intentions quite off divert them to serious thoughts of mine estate prepare a good wife a peaceable life in marriage good friends good Ministery and turne mee from the pit I sought a good frame in a blinde corner under an Idoll the Lord tooke him away sent a better and tooke me napping in my hole and brought me home to himselfe Job 33. No good soule that hath tasted these preventions of God can bee silent Sundry passages of preventing providence one prayses God that living in a desolate prophane corner of the Country in the practice of drunkennesse and lewdnesse the Lord sent a friend by providence to the house where he dwelt who by his sober caniage and report of the fruit of the Gospel in other parts brake me off from my sinfull life bred a zeal after God good means by which I was haled out of my dungeon to live under the Ministery in Goshen where I was convinced by the light of truth and converted to God Another comes in and saith O Lord if I had rusht upon such a match lighted upon such a Ministery I had been quite lost thou plantedst me better As Psal 80. the Church blesses God for pulling her from Egypt where she grew as a lilly among thornes into a better soile So should we adore Gods preventing us accommodating and suting occasions crossing lets giving strength to the meanes and overruling purposes as no doubt the woman John 4. going to her kinsfolke and saying Come see a man who hath told me all magnified mercy which finding her in a cursed scornefull
the Lord workes great matters by them Or if they have other complements of authority in carriage awfulnesse experience and wisedome in the world yet being humble also and abhorring pride state and jollitie as all Gods Ministers ought to do they are mean in the eye of the world whatsoever inward excellencies they have for the world esteems them so much as they esteem themselves by the greatnesse of their stomacke Now it is not their skill knowledge which can hinder their humblenesse in their own eyes no more then ignorance can cause humilitie Nay I dare say Gifts and graces doe no more cause pride then ignorance causeth humility that if the number of proud ones were surveyed we shall finde more of them proud through ignorance and for lack of a bottome then of their knowledge though neither without speciall grace can be humble As then I would have none mistake me in this point so by the way I would admonish all bold ignorant and raw novices and young Ministers of whom the world is full who no sooner are crept out of the shell but thinke themselves fit enough for the Ministery being yet wholly untrain'd in the way thereof and very prone to fall into the condemnation of the Divell I doe admonish all such to looke to themselves and beware lest through a pearking and ventrous spirit and a desire after their owne ends gaine and living they dishonour God bring his ordinances into contempt and by their running and shifting from place to place for meanes they snare their consciences so farre that they can scarce get out againe when they would Runnagate idle unlearned Curates and Hirelings are a great bane to the Church Let them wait the time attend to reading deny themselves learne of their betters and ancients which few of them doe and trust God in due time for service and respect in the Church Further this point should minister exceeding consolation to poore Vse 2 ones in their owne eyes Consolation to despised ones in the eyes of men and silly and contemptible in the eyes of the world as indeed never was there a more scornfull age of those who are truly religious at the best but especially if they want parts wealth breed learning to commend them Oh! God doth great things in poore ones by poore ones for poore ones If the Lord hath humbled you truly and made you wise to salvation rejoyce although perhaps you are counted but poore politicians poore worldlings though perhaps your learning be not deep and a subtile fellow may circumvent your simplicity in a bargaine Oh! let not this discourage you James 2.5 For the Lord oft doth as much good to a poore creature by the want of some excesse of worldly wisedome as hee loses esteeme by it among men The Lord chuseth such often to be heires of salvation and their opposition to grace is commonly cōmonly I say for somtimes the most silly are the most perverse a great deale lesse then theirs who are more deeply wise who frame to themselves many objections and stumble at many offences As these poore ones have not the reach which many have nor the depth so neither do they meet with such reall lets from within Alas they are not so curious so proud selfe-loving but they are glad to stoop to the conditions of the Gospell they have little within them to cast downe and little without them to forfet they are little ones in understanding wealth honour and reputation and therefore they are fit to make Gods little ones They are glad to be accepted of God they are lost to the world they stinke before great ones therefore if God will esteeme them they are thankfull their hearts are low broken and ready to wonder that the Lord should cast an eye of respect to such Matth. 11.6 Therefore Matth. 11. the poore soon receive the Gospell Oh! little doe such thinke what rubs the Lord hath taken out of their way Besides when that grace shall be seen in such silly ones which great and wise ones cannot purchase with all their wisedome and learning when the Lord shall make them shine in holy example love and zeale to Gods glory tender of offending innocent humble nay when the gifts of rare holy wisedome of prayer conference judgement and discerning of things and persons shall appeare in them who wonders not how such should come by such gifts God worketh a great thing by them when he ordaineth praise by such to himself As the Lord Jesus had no beauty in him Matth. 21.16 Joh. 7. unlearned and yet so able to pose the Doctors and to stall his most potent enemies And his Disciples Acts 4. when they stuck so to Christ that they daunted the Elders Oh! how it drew admiration from the people and glory to God! So Ioh. 9. those who had knowne the blinde beggar sitting by the way and now heard with what a new tongue he convinced the Pharisees they glorified God That poore Martyr Alice Driver in the presence of many hundreds did so silence Popish Bishops that she and all blessed God that the proudest of them could not resist the Spirit in a silly woman so I say to thee Out of the mouth of Babes and sucklings will God be honoured Even thou silly worme shalt honor him when it shall appeare what God hath done for thee what lusts he hath mortified and what graces he hath granted thee which those that are wiser then thou fret to see in thee Oh! be thankful John 1.50 The Lord can yet do greater things for thee if thou wilt trust him he can carry thee upon Eagles wings enable thee to bear suffer strong affliction for him to persevere to the end to live by faith and to finish thy course with joy Oh! in that he hath made thee low in heart thy other lownesse shall be so much the more honour to thee Do not all as much and more wonder at Gods rare workmanship in the Ant the poorest bugge that creeps as in the biggest Elephant That so many parts and limbes should be united in such a little space that so poore a creature should provide in the Summer time her Winter food Who sees not as much of God in a Bee as in a greater creature Alas in a great body we looke for great abilities and wonder not Therefore to conclude seeing God hath clothed thy uncomly parts with the more honour blesse God and beare thy basenesse more equally thy greatest glory is yet to come that when the wise of the world have rejected the counsell of God thou hast with those poore Publicanes and Souldiers magnified the Ministery of the Gospell Luke 1.5 surely the Lord also 1 Thess 1. will bee admired in thee a poore silly creature that ever thou wert made wise to salvation and beleevest in that day Be still poor in thine owne eyes and the Lord will make thy proudest scornfull enemies to worship at thy feet Rev.
it to see an insufficiency in a thing which is the price of every thing Mony and wealth can build Churches pulpits buy all ornaments of a Church Bibles and Tables and Chalices and hire Preachers and maintaine the Gospel now why then should it not buy Christ too especially if alms good deeds and workes of charity accompany a profession of Christ and his religion and a verball depending upon him and his merits alone not any Popish works or Idolls for salvation Alas such profession of word and holding Christ in judgement may easily stand with living upon the creature and building the soules nest of joy content and sufficiency in the holes of this rocke How hardly then should such a rich man or such a selfe in the creature enter into heaven What an enemy it is to Christ It is easier for a Camell to goe through a needles eie The Lord Jesus the truth it selfe spake it of a yong man who thought himselfe past danger Matth. 19.23 who yet hearing of this sufficiency of Christ if he would sell all went away sorrowâ—ull and why he had great possessions that is great possessions had him and filled him top full with another sufficiency which made Christ unsavory and the same I may say of these who were in the chase to get them when the sufficiency of Christ and all his dainties and fulnesse even a feast was offered them lo their answer was I am to goe see a farme I have bought oxen Luke 14. I am to marry a wife have us excused we have that which we like better we cannot come Farmes and oxen are joyned with wives to shew that selfe in any creature and carnall content sets the heart at rest and gives it a common wealth within so that it need not seeke out Matth. 13. So the third and last bad ground which had both some roote and some depth within yet without was so cumbred with these thorns of mony and pleasures living preferment great dependances favor and repute in the world that like a canker they fretted out the marrow and vigor of Christ and faith or neede of his sufficiency First How the creature forestalls Christ 1. It swells the soule with imagination that God loveth it 2. Prides it selfe in the ease and welfare which it feeles the fulnesse of the creature swells the soule up with a conceit that God loves it deerely that hee will entertaine it so richly thinking him to be as busie in heaven to make it a mansion as hee hath beene liberall in giving it one here not dreaming that the body may be full when the soule is leane and that riches are given for a snare of the owners as Micoll to betray David Secondly it prides the soule to thinke of her selfe according to the outward appearance and glee of wealth and welfare and that the soule is in as good case to God as worldward and though there bee infinite much in the world against it yet such is the bribing property of selfe in the creature that it perverts sound judgement not suffering the soule to thinke a thought against her owne worth conceiving that all should think her as she doth her selfe very good and in a safe condition Not remembring that for all the creature it may be blinde miserable and naked and go from a Paradise here to an hell hereafter as Dives did Thirdly it stiffens and hardens the heart against the words both of Law and Gospel 3. Stiffens the heart against the word preached the one including all the richest within wrath and driving them to a losse within themselves the other offering the eie-salve gold and robe of the Lord Jesus to supply that losse How shall that soul hearken to either which feeles no neede when the eare and heart is so bedulled and ingrossed with fulnesse and fatnesse of the creature that none of the Redeemers sufficiency can enter Now if it stumble at these two in the porch how should it ever enter into the secret the holy of holies in faith and regeneration This may be enough for the purpose of this discourse to open the truth save that this one reason may be added That selfe in welfare and wealth hath in it the spirit of scorning the Ministery of Christ With disdaine it bewrayed it selfe even when Christ himself preached for it is said That some who heard him scorned him for they were rich Luke 5. and the like humor possesses their successors And this property agrees well with them who make the creature their strong hold as I have heard of a City besieged which cast out loaves and victualls to the enemy in scorne and telling them that they were farre from starving As he said soule take thine ease thou hast laid up for many yeares Even for so many that the need of Christ will hardly be felt Therefore to conclude this branch also let mee admonish these persons that if ever the Lord will settle the alsufficiency of Christ upon them Admonitions to this sort he will first captivate this selfe in the creature and sub-ordaine it to himselfe he will cause the image of it to be despised yea cause the soule to cry out of her selfe and say what a foole yea a beast am I in thy sight Psal 73. the soule I say shall bee full of the creature even in a contrary sense that is stomacke sicke of it as a surfet The Lord shall rectifie the soules judgement about this selfe then the ranknesse of this pleurisie to be let out of the soule 1. See the vanity of the creature First by shewing it the vanity and insufficiency of it to helpe in the day of wrath how poore a fort it will prove in the day of affliction and feare It cannot rid the owner of an ague of the tooth ache of the least affront it hath no bloud in it to satisfie 2. Behold the image and face of God in the promise Secondly the Lord shall set the soule in a serious posture and meditation of that presence of his which shall make all the earth and the glory of it to vanish and melt and those who have beene formost in this creature-happinesse to come hindmost stand a far off from them who have chosen Christ to be their sufficiency then shall the glory of the one bee turned to confusion and the disdaine of the other to admiration Then shall all their worldly proppes become as broken staves the splinters of which shall pierce them much more then ever the care to get them could pierce them with sorrow 3. Behold the curse stamped upon the creature yea despaire The Lord will cause them to looke into the creature and to behold it as branded with a curse by sinne but doubly cursed when in stead of serving Christ it resists him and fights against him and makes Christ and the soule servants to it which is to renounce him who is blessed for ever
above them or her selfe above him all is one she examines nothing by the rule of right going to worke but rests in the deed done yea let what objections will come in their way they are at a point and returne to their owne bent thinking that the children of such prayers and duties cannot perish As those Jewes told Christ of the Master of the Synagogue he deserved he should heale his daughter for his good workes sake But if selfe were as she ought she should come in as that man did and tread himselfe in the dirt Master I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe so that in themselves they can feele somewhat to trust too though it be nothing but in the Lords promise bee it never so evident they feele nothing Thirdly the motion of Selfe is eager and violent she wants that inward moover of the spirit 3. Her Violence which should act her by the power of a sweet principle from within and put boote in beame as we say securing her of a good and safe issue of her labour For then she would not put forth her selfe so earnestly and violently by her owne strength but calmely and quietly rest her selfe well satisfied in the comfort of that spirit which can effect her desire and subject her owne endeavours and performances to the spirit of grace As the Prophet Esay telleth those Jewes who strove to overcome their enemies by the aide of forraine confederates Esay 30. your strength is to sit still follow not your own violent motion but trust to the Lord and let your streame runne in his runne softly as the waters of Silâ—e so I say to this violent selfe stand still behold the salvation of God and you shall see your enemies all scattered not by your strength or might but by the power of God We know what strife a man useth in his trade who hath no inward principle of skill to enable him in comparison of a skilfull workeman the one is more painfull then the other but the latter hath more ease in his worke And hence it is that selfe hath so continuall a toile to hold correspondence with grace as fast as corruption rebells shee falls to damming and stopping the course of it but the more she dammes up the passage the higher the waters swell and rise so that she must needs give them some way and course at last and grow weary of resistance whereas the poore soule whose heart is humbled and broken feeles the streame and torrent to be turned another way and so she needs not alway resist and dâ—mme it up because it s prevented by a stronger motion And in truth selfe-violence is no better then selfsloth in this respect for she findes as small fruit of her strife as of her ease neither are blessed when she is lazy she is snared with accusation and when she is satagent and busie shee is discouraged with ill successe the Lord aiming at this that so shee may be weary of her selfe There seemes I grant for the present while selfe keepes her motion a great deale of zeale in selfe performances as one said of himselfe that while he praied out of himselfe he praied with far more zeale passion and expression then when hee praied by the spirit of grace and supplication Selfe being very full and free in her owne element but barren and off the hookes if out of it And this violence may appeare further in the frequency and difficulty of selfe-performances for as wee see where there be fewest good and solid dishes of meate at a table there will bee the more slight ones with their covers upon them as if there were some great matter under so is it with Selfe the lesse substance she hath the more shews shadowes the more pompe and ostentation Mâ—tth 23. Mica 6. The Pharisees and those Hypocrites in Micah were fuller of their traditions washings and clensings offerings of costly and excessive services then the faithfull worshippers who rested rather in a little and good viz to walke humbly and righteously with God then in a world of drosse As a drunkard so long as he can use his tongue and his feete thinkes himselfe sober whereas the truly temperate suspects himselfe at every turne so here selfe lookes at her owne motion not how regular and orderly it is As a boy unskilfull in writing when his hand is led delights still to stir it and to move his hand of himselfe and so blurs and blots more then he writes so selfe will be stirring and doing full of her owne spirit in praying fasting hearing and the like no man can be zealous enough to please her Christ himselfe was not good enough for a selfe-pleasing hypocrite The Lord loves no double diligent ones but those who being led by the spirit of selfedeniall and grace rest themselves upon the power of a promise not to be idle but as abhorring to make more haste then good speed Lastly Self if she be defeated of what she would 4. Her disappointment is sore disquieted and unsetled The greater her heat and violence was in motion the deeper is her discontent if crossed Concerning which I shall have more occasion to speake in the next verse Here only it shall bee sufficient to give a touch of it When Selfe is held off and delaied she falls upon God Oh! what a wofull fruit of all my labour is this that God should so long keepe me from my desires and thus long crosse me hence come cavills against God as if he did them wrong thus to disappoint them selfe is querulous Esay 58. Esâ—y 58. Mal. 3. full of tedious accusations and baskings of her selfe much like one that cannot swimme who yet will beat the waters and this comes partly from presumption and partly from bondage as thinking she should deserve better from God and yet feels all ill within whereas a poore soule being beaten off one way yet feeling a support within girds her selfe the more about and looking at the unchangeable faithfulnesse of God interprets his delaies no otherwise then the Syrophoenician did Christs answers not to be cordiall but trying her faith self-deniall O Lord saith she although thou beatest me off Matth. 15. thou meanest not to reject me for that were contrary to thy office to save the scattered ones of Israel Therefore O Lord here I lye at thy feete if thou kick me away and have no pleasure in me I can say nothing doe with me as thou wilt I am not at mine owne but thy dispose and if it seem good to thy wisdome to deferre me I shall thinke it meeter for the time present then to be satisfied since it s ever best for me to be as thou wilt have me knowing it shall be one day as thou hast promised And surely well may I adde this fourth marke to the former for as selfe hath no bounds of humility and modesty when she is pleased with her duties
all these thou complainest of no man need bid thee be revenged of them or watch them a shrewd turne but I tell thee an enemy within thy bosome counted thy darling and close friend one called Selfe is a more deadly enemy and can doe thee more hurt then all of them together hereafter raile not upon the evill world thy cruell Landlord thy false friend bankerupts who have runne away with thy goods or thy bad wife that stings thee with her tongue thy bad children ill neighbours thy persecutors not one of these but may set thee a steppe forward to heaven none can deprive thee of it but Selfe can and will world divell and his instruments could not hurt thee were it not for this traitor which sets open the doore unto them to tempt to defile thee See Naaman here in what a wildred case he is except the Lord had made him see his enemy and undoe all his crosse selfe-willednesse and waywardnesse and to stop to Gods way yea and glad to scape so too unto what a perplexity had he brought himselfe after besides his pudder for the present even so know thou that when thou hast runne into thy long error thou must come backe againe this way of selfe-deniall or else the further thou goest the worse will thy case bee Oh! it is a tugging crying sinne it wearies ten Preachers to denounce against it Oh! to what a sweete peace had the Lord brought many an hearer of the word had it not beene for this Beloved we have had some faithfull servants of Christ both living and happily dead among us who have confessed that by this Selfe and her meanes they have spent forty years ere they could come to beleeve and do we look to make it a short cut of forty daies therefore mutter not at thine enemies much lesse at the Lord but at thy selfe and say thy perdition is from thy selfe God is enlarged Hosea 13.9 but Selfe hath hidebound thee and straited thee in thine owne bowells count that Sermon which hath taught thee this lesson one of the best that ever thou heardest Luke 5. There were many lepers in the daies of Elisha but he was sent to none save to Naaman the Syrian and hee had beene sent to him also in vaine if Selfe might have borne sway A second Branch of Instruction is of Instruction Be not offended with crosses to stay that impatience of our spirits Branch 2 which usually falls from us under the visitations of God either upon our whole man or body soul and conscience state posterity or whatsoever For why should we murmur against him that by wounding our side should let out an impostume which would else kill us such an one as no other meane would have cured save this doubtlesse as Hezekia saith By this man liveth And Iob cap. 33. Elihu tells us Hereby even by the corrections which he hath sealed such as he there mentioneth consumptions Esay 3.8 fevers and diseases which take away stomack and the like the Lord hideth the pride of man which is selfe he brings to the pits brinke of the grave that he may keep the soule from hell even the nethermost pit Oh! when the bladder of Selfe and Pride and Presumption is prickt and the bubbling froath and windy puffing thereof is let out a man comes to see himselfe as hee is a forlorne creature then his duties affections hopes sorrowes desires and performances vanish no man can so basely thinke of him as he conceives of himselfe then hee is vile dust and ashes in his own eyes Who is more free from all arrogating to himselfe and his owne righteousnesse then one that lies all pale and consumed with paine and sicknesse When we doe meet with one except some desperate blinde Pharisee who in his extremity dare trust to himselfe where is then his vain-glory his boasting of devotions fasts prayers and alms Alas the image of them is despised the pride of life is crack't and the great stomacke is broken and then his high thoughts which exalted themselves against Christ and an humble heart quaile and come downe Crosses are great meanes to let out Selfe out of the Soule Then if an interpreter come one of a thousand to declare his righteousnesse how welcome is hee When the heart is empty of Selfe then doth the Lord commonly fill it with good things and when it despaireth of selfe-hope then the Lord saith Deliver him I have received a ransome Hence it is that Iob cap. 10.12 saith Thy visitations O Lord have preserved my spirit And the truth is it is well in these dead times if any thing will doe it As Paul Phil. 3. saith If by any meanes I may attain it The word without some afflictions upon mens spirits or name bodies or posterity and that in some stinging kinde pierces not the spirit is straitned Sometims after long struglings and wrastlings of men with this Selfe hoping to picke somewhat out of their owne strength they are tired and wearied in their way and their former feares come upon them a-fresh so that they can finde no rest in their bones Then they begin to consider seriously of it and conclude There is a pad in the straw still they crosse the worke of God in one kinde as fast as they further it another Surely they resolve an heart of hollownesse sloath unsoundnesse and loathnesse to renounce the creature or their stoutnesse and sullen heart or the warmth of their owne feathers their zealous affections These or the like oppose the nakednesse and simplicity of the promise and keep the conscience in snares and defilements and they cry out Miserable men who shall deliver us And sometimes by other affronts the Lord is faine to sharpen the point of his convincing ordinance that the Soule may think the Lord is in sad earnest when she findes him to hunt her out in every corner and give her no rest till she can be content to be saved any way so she may be saved A very Papist in his straits will disclaime himselfe and say It is safest for the avoyding of vain-glory to cleave onely to mercie and shall we that professe none but Christ come short of them To conclude then as we read Heb. 12. My son refuse not the chastening of the Lord Job 7.18 nor grudge at his visitations as Iob once murmured Why dost thou visit him every morning and try him every moment Why dost thou set mee as a marke against thee But in the issue of that great trouble he was of another mind saying cap. 9.31 My very cloathes defile me And cap. 42.4 Now have I seene thee therefore I abhorre my selfe Let us doe likewise and abhorre our owne murmurings at our crosses for although they are irksome to the flesh yet they are wholesome for the spirit as we say of the body that when the spleen is smallest that is best So the body of grace is at best when that Spirit in
so the people let them bee exhorted also to exalt free grace and meere Christ in the promise not muttering that they find not that fruit of their selfe-deniall that they expect but counting it their chiefe work to wait at the posts of grace not as foolish pilgrimes doe at the gate of the Popes entrance knocking with a golden hammer till he bring them his Jubilee blessing but with patience attending the promise till the Lord shall stirre the dead poole of their hearts and quicken them with hope confessing that it is mercy they may live and breathe in Gods aire much more by the aire of a promise although not yet so established in their hearts as they could desire yet sufficient to keep them from grudging to make them lay their hand upon their mouth and to bee dumb Malac. 3. till the Lord bring healing in his wings and put an end to their waiting But as for esteeming themselves for their common gifts of knowledge or zeale to be ever the neerer to God for which thousands are in hell abhorring it and chusing to be the poorest doore-keeper in Gods house then the highest Pharisees in the Church who need no righteousnesse of another because they boast of their owne Therfore in all matters of God deny thy self cleave to God God is the first cause and therefore the true end of our being actions service All Rivers runne into the Sea For us to make our selves our owne ends were to make our selves God independent and to make God an Idoll To deny our selves is to distinguish our selves from the ungodly who make themselves and the creature their happinesse Wee looke to better our selves by our selfe-love but indeed we destroy our selves Selfe is our disease selfe-deniall is our cure Whether is it better for us to yeeld to but we infinitely better our selves by denying our selves even an hundred fold as Christ tells us Object But who ever hated his owne flesh Doth not God himselfe perswade us by selfe-loving arguments As by profit pleasure peace I answer yes Selfe is a plant of Gods planting in our nature But it is one thing to destroy an horses good mettall another to rectifie and subdue it so it is one thing to destroy Selfe and affections with Stoicks another to regulate and direct them Love thy selfe and spare not so the Lord by his word may order thee in it and take off thine exorbitant Selfe as in the love of thy wife seeking of learning wealth honour favour c. For the better perswading of thee hereto take some motives and some meanes First for motives Till Selfe be denied thou dost in vaine enterprise to be religious thou opposest a desire of thine owne against an whole body of death for Selfe is overspread in all the lims and faculties of thy body and soule as the forme is over the matter and the Call over the inwards Thou wilt be tried with selfe resistance except the principle be first removed Flesh will so dog thee with her askings that thou wilt be weary with refusings Till the soule be thus prepared there can be nothing done The first husband must be dead ere thou canst marry a new at least in the rectified intention and preparation of thy soule The flesh of the Virgin had beene a clogge to the second person except first separated and purified by the holy Ghost Else Demas might have clave to Paul as well as Silas the ten spies to God as well as Caleb and Iosue But they were of two spirits No agreement betweene two crosse principles Secondly God will never stoope to thee his will is not to be bowed to thine nor ever will while the world standeth For his will is the rule thine the string out of tune What should order a crooked thing but a streight Neither can they both stand together take whether you will both you cannot have you cannot have your will and swinge in your contents of world lust and liberties and Christ too no man can serve two Masters nor drive two such trades at once as a Fullers and a Colliers the one sullyes as fast as the other whitens nay of the two there is more to be made of following Selfe alone without Christ then Selfe and Christ by the former a man may at least get himselfe a worldly happinesse though he lose heaven after But by the latter a man makes him wretched and distracted so that he can neither enjoy the one nor the other Skin for skin and all that a man hath he will give for his life The heart of a Christian is single in respect of his object onely God and his favour no mixtures with it Either deny nature in her inordinatenesse or else give God over for both cannot consent in one degree of eminency who cares for a wavering minded man either to make him our chapman or friend or husband For still hee seekes not us but himselfe Let no sweet morsell be kept in our palate to cause God to be out of rellish with us Better key-cold then lukewarme Thirdly it is equall that Christ and God be chiefe because they have bought us with a price to bee theirs Wee should doe him great wrong who hath bought a Captive if hee should doe his owne worke God hath not onely bought our service but our selves Except then wee never made such a bargaine with God wee must bee for him who hath so dearly bought us To be sure God will bee revenged of us as well for not making that bargaine as for not keeping it 2 Pet. 2. Some hypocrites are said to deny Christ who bought them A servant is his Masters mony Fourthly The soule feeles a heaven in selfe-deniall What inward content thinke we had Abraham when he had denied Isaacs life And Moses and Paul when they could preferre God and his Church before their salvation to suffer afflictions with Israel rather then to be a Prince in Pharaohs Court Contrariewise what an hell carrieth that man in his soule who for base ends denies God and conscience Let but a man deny one base lust of revenge wrath and what an heavenly heart doth he carry with him to prayer Fifthly Think what an emptinesse there is in thy self thine own aimes and bents of heart and in those creatures and objects which thou judgest so sweet Wells wanting water and cloulds without raine As one saith of the Pagan Gods why did men chuse so many save that each one was emptinesse When the eie of Selfe falls downe from one cleere Sunne it thinkes it sees three or foure but they are all but fancies The fullest creature is but a brittle glasse full of water give it but as a cracke and it is gone If we were convinced hereof who would seeke vanity Who would deceive himselfe in eating ashes Esay 44. and hold a lie in his right hand It is meere inconsideratenesse and want of weighing things as hee saith there of the Idolater Sixtly Either be armed strongly
remaines both of this and the other uses to the next Sermon if God will Let us pray c. THE EIGHT LECTVRE still continued upon this twelfth VERSE VERSE XII VERSE 12. Are not Abana and Pharfar rivers of Damascus better then all the waters of Israel May I not wash in them and be cleane So he went away in a rage VERSE 13. Then his servants came neere unto him and said Father if the Prophet had sayd some great thing c. I Could not beloved in our Lord Jesus finish in the former exercise 2 Kings that which I intended concerning the doctrine of carnall reason I repeat nothing but call to your minde that in the fourth branch of admonition I first spake by way of watch-word to the severall conditions of my hearers And first I entred upon caveat to Gods Ministers and so proceeded to the people Let me now come to Parents and Object 3 Governours Bee carefull to what Tutors and Teachers Parents and governours beware of it Masters and Guardians ye commit the education of your children Carnall reason lookes at carnall ends where children may not be backe and belly beaten where they may learne their bookes and trades and have their stocks restored at their yeares end and this I dislike not so be it that ye neglect not their soules which else will crie out against you and leave them to themselves so be it you plant them not under Masters which are content so they doe their worke to give them their liberty upon the Lords day to drinke to game and to keepe company with them by whom they may soone be carried into the depth of Satan and grow debaucht in their manners all their life after Worldlings make but a mock of this I grant and say so they may have their children taught to behave themselves civilly and learne their occupation they care not greatly for precisenesse or to have them more Religious then themselves but when they see this narrow scantling will not be kept but irreligion teacheth them to grow drunkards uncleane swearers and the like Oh! then they wish they had beene brought up with Puritans Oh ye husbands Object 4 and parents looke to it let not carnall conversing with your wives and training up your children and servants Husbands and wives humoring them in their vices for peace and ease teach them the common religion of the times swearing cogging deceiving breaking Sabbaths geering and squibbing at those that are better then their selves I tell you look what Characters are in your seale will soon be seen by your wax they shall have cause to curse the day that ever they saw your faces nay perhaps one day your owne consciences shall rend you in peeces for that you see the fruit of your government appeare so fearfully and shall say it was I that nipt this blossome on the head I corrupted my wife I tainted my children in their youth I shall pay the shot of their soules ruine Object 5 So ye Physitians Physitians take heed of the disease incident to your profession even to be haife Atheists and that by ascribing so much to naturall and second causes and too little to God Philosophy and Physicke will reveale no better except Divinity teach you to ascribe all to the supreame cause and be content to stoop and be at a set in your cures when providence will have it so Teach your selves your patients who is that great Physitian that rules your Art and take not upon you to keep that key of successe those issues of life or death which are under divine custody who can kill by a disease not mortall All sorts and can save when the disease is deadly Object 6 Likewise you Magistrates Magistrates boast not of your skill in the law but feare God say it is the Lord who subdueth the people unto us you schollers Object 7 and Sudents beware of that prophane tradition that ye cannot be religious and learned Sâ—holars and students set up the Bible above your other library and prayer above your studies and the Lord above your wits tye your boates to his ship to be led according to his motion follow the star till you have found out the babe Jesus and doe homage to him with the first and best Object 8 of your treasures Ye tradesmen shopkeepers and labourers sacrifice not to your nets Tradesmen say not to your hands you have made us rich ye rich men Object 9 say not to the wedge of gold thou art my stay this were as Iob saith to Object 10 deny the Almighty ye poore folke now in this deare time despaire not of releefe Rich and poore Job 32.16 because you see few friends say not God give me health or else I starve for more then I worke for I looke not for use industry but set up God above adore his providence who all this yeare hitherto hath so provided that yet ye are not starven make him your God alsufficient Object 11 Ye midwives teach not women in their travel to call upon our Lady Midwives Jona 3.9 but bid them say salvation is of the Lord. And thus would I speake to all sorts if they were present cast out that carnal reason whereby ye feele your selves most tempted to distrust God 2. Branch of this fourth Admonition 1. Prejudice an abettor of carnall reason And to these former let me adde also other caveats in a word against those evills which nourish this carnall reason in you As first one prop of this sinne is prejudice and forestallednesse Such as those Jewes Acts 28. bewraied who when Paul made his defence told him This sect of Nazarens is every where ill spoken of and from this carnall ground they renounced his apology and cause A second is scandall at the power of Religion Oh! it is a pinch and a checke to their carnall liberties men cannot endure such chaines Psal 2. and will have no Lord to curbe their lusts A third is offence and stumbling at the meanes of Christ and Religion Doe any of the Pharisees follow him 2. Scandall at Religion and her meannesse 3. Base feare of man Luke 1. Tradition None save these people who are accursed embrace him A fourth is base feare of man more then God My grandfather father friends favour not this way I see it breeds losse danger trouble and pursuit A fifth is the tradition of men As Zachary disliked to name his sonne Iohn because none of his family were so named rather they chuse to be irreligious still then to change the custome of their forefathers And the threats of parents to their children doe deterre others saying if I thought thou wouldest be one of these zealous ones thou shouldest not have a foote of my land A sixth is lewd counsell Lewd counsell of such as egge away the yonger sort and tell them it is the next way to reproach and beggery A seventh is base
sparke wits ripe heads experience and abilities Implore still the same sad hand of the spirit to suppresse them from pearking up you shall finde it will not quite leave you till death but be not discouraged It had the birthright first and birth-rights hold long Iacob had recovered the right of birth when Isaac blessed him yet it was five hundred yeares ere he got possession in the meane time Iacob was a prisoner and slave in Egypt a pilgrim in the wildernesse and in Canaan no Lord over Edom till David and other Kings subdued it But seeing it was Iacobs by promise he got it at last and so shalt thou at death though the whiles thou be held down mightily by thy enemy as Hannah with Peninnah Trust God that neither thy owne corruption within nor yet the world and error of the wicked without with all their carnall jollity shall pluck thee from thy sincerity That which hath beene the bane of thousands zealous Ministers Magistrates Gentlemen Courtiers Citizens Lawyers Students and others yet shall not be thine if thou wilt cleave to God! Oh! beware lest Satan conspiring with thy carnall heart disguise thee not and make thee a time-server When thou seest so many of thy time and parts education disposition kindred and family still to be left to their cavills descants and the streame of unmortified reason loathing and scorning to stoop to the conditions of Christ either to doe for him or to suffer Oh! be thankefull and thinke thy state happy whom God pulled as a legge out of a Beares jaw or a brand out of the fire and consider how much better it is to beare now and then a squib for thy Religion then to bee made a booty to the Divell for thy revolting Thus much for this and the rest of the uses belonging to this doctrine Now I must not forget my promise beloved and by so fit an occasion I must answer a question and that is this Answer to a maine quaere May not carnall reason in Quest 1 any case be used If not Whether carnall policy be unlawfull Answ Yes As appeares by the particulars 1. Politicke and crafty shifting how farre may policy be admitted with safety of conscience and in what particulars For the first carnall reason if convinced so to be for sometime lawfull policy may seeme to be carnall and yet is not is simply unlawfull As may appeare by these particulars First politicke shifting with an officious lye or an handsome sudden evasion though against truth Thus the midwives made a lye to avoid the murther of the Israelitish women True it is the Lord covered it in mercy because the scope and end was holy and tending to charity and it said the Lord built them houses yet not for their lying but for their mercy The like I say touching the woman that concealed Ahimaaz and Ionathan saying They were gone over the brooke when they were in the Well So Rahab hid the spies and is commended for it Heb. 11. but not for her lye saying that they were gone I say not that they ought to have discovered them nor doe I say it is easie to answer the question what should be done in that or the like cases the Lord keepe us from straits and from horned occasions and hard exigents which are both waies difficult but I say these things are not lawfull we leave the dispensation and issue of such things to God to whom only mercy and pardon belongs when the soule hath offended by a kinde of necessity But to affirme that God may be or is pleased by a lye or needs it were horrible Now then if a shift or a lye for a good end a weighty and holy end yet cannot be maintained as warrantable what shall those carnall shifts be counted which wicked men use to conceale themselves when their owne lewdnesse hath brought them into straits As Ieroboams wives policy to disguise herselfe going to the blinde Prophet and making herselfe another because she feared Ahija for her Idolatry So Sauls disguising himselfe when he went to the witch and making himselfe another lest else his wicked purpose had been defeated And the like may be said of the ordinary lyes and mannerly shifts used to serve mens owne turnes when there is either a denyall of a truth or affirmation of a falshood As when a servant for some respects doth answer shiftingly to any that shall call for his Master and aske whether he be within or at home and shâ—ll either deny it or further adde he is gone to such a place being yet false of which sort are infinite other tricks in common use among men and counted veniall toyes as in promising to goe to such a place to doe such a thing to come to a friend no limitation set downe and yet faile c. Secondly politicke closenesse darkenesse 2. Politicke closenesse and neutrality and reserved neutrality to go no further in Religion then we can come off faire and make our own retreat safe without endangering of our selves in any kinde obeying the commands of men by disobeying God This is a reall falshood of heart and practice which we call temporising comming from a base deceitfulnesse of the spirit to God-ward and is a deserting of God and his cause yea though it be through feare or frailty as Peters deniall and the revolt of many that suffered in time of persecution But much more when either no danger or not so great is to be feared Sutable whereto is that cunning temporising that lookes at the displeasing of men more then God Gal. 2. as when Peter at Antioch ate meates forbidden by the ceremony as confessing an abrogation and yet when there came Jewes thither he withdrew and abstained from them to avoid quarrelling 3. Politicke carnall equivocations and reservations Thirdly politick reservation of conscience in the actuall committing of an evill As in Queene Maries time many would goe to Masse with their bodies pretending to keepe their consciences entire and undefiled Sutable whereto is the practice of our Jesuits in their equivocations whether in their oathes or other actions when they sweare in word but say they reserve themselves mentally unsworne and meant it not or by some trick of exception which they suggest to themselves viz. That such a one went not this way pointing to their sleeve or that they were not in such a place of company meaning to betray it to others c. 4. Politicke selfe-love Fourthly politicke indirectnesse of course swerving from providence and duty for a mans owne indemnity as when David fearing the Philistins who discovered him to be their enemy and distrusting Gods protection let his spittle fall downe upon his beard and scrabbled upon the doores 1 Sam. 21.13 so that he was thereupon taken as a mad man by Achish and so escaped So the Papists have a trick which they call good guile much what the same when we call an honest theefe or
and there the most refuse stuffe the most base opinions of the vulgar the errors of the wicked their own conjectures selfe sowne corne and the seed which growes upon their own soile will serve seeking out no further whence it comes to passe that their fruit their corne and their cattell prosper but their soules and consciences their spirituall peace and growth in grace comes to nought In other matters they finde no pudder onely in their estate to God-ward their feares and distempers are unspeakeable and for the most part remedilesse Oh! be choice then in your grounds and principles Search the Scriptures goe to the Law and Testimony get Gods heifer to plow with deny your selves and to conclude with this example of Naaman ascribe this honour to God that he is meetest to rule in his own element and therefore doe not forestall him in his owne way Thou wouldest hearken to each man in his owne element it is a maxime of experience as to a mariner in the judgement of the windes to a plowman about oxen to a souldier in point of battell and shall every one be preferred as a Counsellor for Religion and heaven before God and his word Pray and use all meanes for the spirit of thy great Prophet the Lord Jesus to advise thee how to passe all thy matters establishing all thy thoughts by his counsell that happy successe and blessing may follow thee in all thy waies Psal 119. and thou maiest be free from the miseries of error Advices for the well ordering of our course One word of advice and so an end It may be here demanded what principles should a man get for the managing of his course To which I answer It were needlesse here to number or instance in particulars It must be the habit of wisdome which must prompt the soule in such cases as fall out onely these three I would briefly commend to all who would cut off sorrow from their life The first concerning God himselfe the second touching men the third our selves yet all tending one way And these three are faith righteousnesse and contentation No three vices create so tedious a pudder in the course as distrust unrighteousnesse and discontent For the first see Heb. 13.5 1. Faith in God Let not your conversation be in covetousnesse for he hath said he will not faile I doe not give this rule to the poore onely but to the rich not onely this * Preached in the yeares 1630. 1631. deare yeare but alway Oh! this one error of distrust what a flood-gate of sorrowes doth it let in when charge of children debts deare prises unthankfull unmercifull world pinches a man then at the hardest to have this bond of the Lords in a corner to sue what a stay what boot in beame is it Oh! when a man can say my bond shall be as good as mony at all times I hold upon all sufficiency I have that I have from a fountaine alway running which shall hold when the deepest lake shall drie up But let a man want this bottome this center to draw lines of supply from it and what is a mans life but vexation causing the heart to bee endlesse in flinging about coasting and sherking every where and what then Indirect courses snares and endlesse unquietnesse defeat and disappointment of expectation and lying down in sorrow Oh! ye rich men in these hard times if God bee able to satisfie you as well in spending as sparing and provide you rest in the middest of other mens carking who thinke when all is done they shall dye beggars what shall ye lose by releeving the poore and starven ones Secondly righteousnesse is a brestplate armor of proofe 2. Righteousnesse to man to keep out darts and stinging vexation See Ephe. 6.14 As faith fences the inward man so doth this the outward Oh! goe out walke abroad in the world with this corslet and it shall repell all reproach and odious disdaine of men It will make a man shotfree as Charles the fifth rushing into the battell said a true Emperor was never shot with a bullet it will harnis thee against all feare what any man can cast in thy teeth whatsoever courses others take raking and scraping tooth and naile by hook or crook yet thou goest on quietly servest providence makest no more haste then good speed and hereby perhaps thou thrivest faster then great sticklers with all their irons in the fire But say thou shouldest not yet thou canst say that 1 Sam. 12.3 Acts 20.33 which they cannot with Samuel and Paul whose oxe have I taken whose silver have I coveted whose bloud have I sucked whose face have I ground Oh brethren This deare yeare I doubt may call the sinnes of many oppressors to remembrance The poore shall curse thee Oh thou regrater thou engrosser of corne and raiser of prises from seven to tenne shillings or a marke in the bushell And shall not the Lord heare them Will not the example of that corne cormorant who hanged himselfe the other day sting you A sad example will it not cause all thy false weights cut measures cheats tricks and cunning to vex thee then is the more behinde and one day this error of thine will gugge thee to the quicke and cause thee to cry out away with this mammon of deceit I am choked with it Thirdly contentation is a sweet ground to settle upon Phil. 4.6 Let your moderate minde be knowne to all men the Lord is at hand Bee content with your present state 3. Contentation in our selves as Heb. 13.5 Oh! what a world of sorrow doe they incurre who beginne their course with unsettled discontent Oh! the present is of all other most unpleasing They are going up the craggy hill looking at last to get to the toppe and there to finde a Paradise but they meet with a Purgatory A quiet minde sitting at the bottome of the hill is much better beside the trouble Get the ground of your content within for without you cannot it is safer to bring your mind to close with your meanes then make a coate for the Moone that is to draw them to an equipage with it for it is endlesse Oh! mens hopes and hurries are their life And what comes of it pudder and vexation The roote of the error is never amended in the progresse but growes worse as a fore that rankles House must be joyned to house land to land farme to farme trade to trade riches will not come in fast enough Alas to trade with a mans owne stocke is simple men must occupy with three parts of other mens stocks to a fourth of their owne They gape at their commings in but at their charges housekeeping servants toile of body and spirit ill debtors usurious payments they looke not They looke to cleare all and prove rich men But in the meane time their principle being bad corrupts their whole course and blasts their hopes For hee that
the poore widow with her two mites this poore wench in the beginning of this Chapter a Captive and servant poore Onesimus one good for nothing good for all things after Oh yee poor souls your sin makes your base outside out of measure base if that were clothed with honour it would afford so much the more beauty and esteem unto you in the eies of all men none so much your betters so much richer learneder nobler then you but should admire be in love with you if there were true humblenes faith grace in you who reads the story of poore Rhode Act. 12.13 but must needs affect that cordiall love of the Saints in her who for joy could not open the doore to Peter till shee had been the first messenger of his deliverance Therefore ye poore inferiors take heart to your selves think not those only to be esteemed with God who have greatnesse to commend them to the world No no the lesser you have here to take to the more covet that which may commend you truly and really in the sight of all that can judge Let none despise thee poor soul Thou wilt say it is not in thy power I answer thee Tit. 2.15 seek to him who as Hanna saith exalteth the lowly and meeke while men behold the poore and proud a drudge to the kitching and to thy lusts wonder not if thou be as the off-scouring of all men but assuredly thy base outside should not disgrace thee if there lodged any goodnesse any spark of Gods image in thee Truly brethren great rich men are too high for Religion and base poor folke thinke themselves under it But if you would seeke for knowledge humility and grace you should see whether it would not stoope to you And you servants that are butlers to Gentlemen or Stewards nay Ostlers and Bayliffes and Caters you should be honourable in the sight of your Masters As Obadiah to Ahab Ioseph to Pharaoh they should equall themselves with you yea be glad of you whatsoever their authority be otherwise if there appeared grace in you Vse 2 And againâ— to you superiours let me adde this Goe not against the edge with God like Balaam when you see the Lord goes about to convince your folly and backewardnesse Admonition Superiours must turne their indignation at the grace of inferiours into shame and emulation Smite not threaten not the Asse whose mouth God opened to reprove you Many of you husbands parents and masters when once you perceive your wives children and servants to grow zealouser then your selves are so farre from countenancing and holy emulation that rather you have them in continuall jealousie and hold them under so much the more Their Religion must be sure to bee their prejudice and incumbrance they can the hardlier please you you are the the more prone to picke quarrells you watch the time of crossing them in their lawfull liberties yea you joint them the more of their freedome for Gods worship within and without what is this but to play the taske-masters and to lye heavy upon them So that if God sustained them not by his power they should fall off And no doubt many are offended by such meanes but woe to such by whom the offence commeth Others there are who seeing Religion to have qualified their inferiours with faithfulnesse humility and peaceablenesse in marriage in their businesse and carriage are glad to see the change but why Not joying in their grace and good examples but because you make benefit thereof for you owne behoofe and content taking all ye can get out of them but acknowledging no mercy from God either to them or to your selves in them Nay perhaps ye slight them quip and mocke them Oh! these women must have their wills or else we shall have no peace and so the liberty they get hey must have with unequall conditions I doe not here speak of the vilest in this kinde how rather many provoke themselves to vexation brawling quarrelling and threatning of their inferiours as thinking their forwardnesse an inspersion to their base backewardnesse and therefore they behold them with the eies of Kites whom they should behold with Doves eies they shorten their wives of allowance give them discouraging affronts they beat and misuse their servants threaten their poore children to joynt them of this and that land or portion for their Puritanisme and forwardnesse And those that goe not so farre yet still keepe at one stay profit not by their inferiours if they doe not disdaine to learne of such as most are hardened thereby yet the best is that they give them their course and still remaine as base and barren as before Rom. 11.13 Whereas rather they should be provoked to jealousie by them Naaman here did so Doubtlesse the insight he saw his servants had in the will of God more then himself did smite an holy awe and authority into his spirit Doe these underlings see that which I cannot What lets me from it Surely some strong lust or humour blindefolds me What a shame is this that my retinue whom the businesse concerns not should perceive that which I cannot Surely it furthered the convincement exceedingly Oh! let us all in the feare of God be of his minde Wee shall not need to subject our selves and debase our selves for the matter But let us not blindefold our eies that we should not behold the light shining in at the least crevis We Ministers let us not disdaine the examples of private Christians either in their zeale of obeying or suffering but if we see secretly grace breaking forth from the poorest in more then common wisdome uprightnesse closenesse to the truth be so farre from snagging and nipping of such that rather we marke them for peculiar ones and although they know nothing what hinders why even from such we may not better our selves many waies Was not Apollo glad to learne of Aquila a Tradesman Act. 18.26 But especially you private persons observing such inferiours as exceed your selves doe not loutishly slight and put them off but say I perceive if I hold my peace the stones shall cry truly these cry aloud in mine eares me thinkes I consider if such poore ones get such knowledge what might not I get with paines Truly I will give the onset I shall else never looke upon my poore child but mine heart will throb and tell me he shall rise up in judgement one day against his will and condemne me when the Lord shall say I sent a poore daughter of mine to lye in thy bosome to see if her zeale could any whit warme thee but I see thou art cold as a stone still and as dead as a blocke I raised up out of thine owne loynes a child or children to feare my name that I might provoke thee by that meanes to jealousie but I see nothing prevailes Nay perhaps a poore drudge in thy kitching or rubbing thy horses heels such an one as
the old and new Testament For tell me why hath God so furnished his word with such stories of his power and greatnesse transcending our reason and our thoughts as much as the heavens doe the earth Esay 55.8 but that our soules might be filled with his excellency And thinke nothing too hard for such a God to doe If he have dried up the sea Jorden stopped mouthes of Lions raised up the dead and fed six hundred thousand men and women without corne or flesh of beasts made water gush twice out of a rocke give a woman of ninety years old power to conceive c. doth he not deserve to be set up above carnall reason Doth he not deserve at our hands more then a faint fulsome grant with Martha thou canst doe all things Doth he not deserve a peculiar faith for this and for that for raising this dead man now at this time For quickning this dead heart at this instant by this Sermon For softning this hard heart For converting this soule to God Oh! how justly reproveable must such a villany needs bee And surely this let me adde if it be so base an evill in respect of the dishonour to God must it needs bee so in respect of the mischiefe which it causes unto our selves Did ever any man hate his owne selfe doth he not love and cherish his owne flesh What an unnaturall evill then is this which chuseth rather here with Naaman to perish with the holding of a carnall will and conceit then by denying it and clasping to the word to be happy for ever Sure that which is so derogatory to God and so unnaturall to our selves must needs deserve sharpe reproofe Fourthly it must needs be a reproveable evill which doth so desperately Reason 4 trench upon all the Attributes of God Power Truth Mercy Justice Providence and Alsufficiency Which questions all cavills against all so that the doctrine before handled viz. That carnall reason is a maine enemy to all the matters of revealed truths is a full reason of this doctrine that it is justly reproveable Other sinnes seeme to undoe the acts of God as his morall commands But this undoes the Lord himselfe in a sort in those things wherein God is himselfe so that either God must not be God a promise must not be a promise Christ must be no Christ no satisfaction no redemption or else carnall sense must perish Both in strict tearmes cannot stand together God hath testified himselfe in his word admirable in this one attribute viz. Providence for his Churches good in the greatest straits Who reading the strange passages of that one deliverance in Esters time Esters story how God concurred just with each circumstance of time of occasion as then to cause the Kings sleepe to depart when Mordecai was in greatest perill and reproach Then when the banquet was prepared that all other opportunities should bee fore laid to oppresse Haman and to exalt Mordecai If a man would compile a story according to his owne wish for the demonstration of Providence could hee frame a more punctuall one Read Ezra's story Daniels Iosephs doth not a naked hand of God appear in them And yet carnall reason would say That if there were windowes in heaven God could not now save his Church as hee hath done in their times in Elija's Elisha's and others What is this but to limit the holy one of Israel to our owne measure of working And so I may say of all other his Attributes Nay carnall reason is such a deepe gulfe as is able to swallow downe the greatest evidence that ever God gave to the world of himselfe both his Godhead and Attributes which is the sending of the Lord Jesus in the flesh into the world to walke live suffer and dye for the salvation of the Elect What can so secure the soule of the truth of Gods nature persons and realnesse in all his promises as this to cause the eternall God to be personally one with our mortall flesh Might not the holy Ghost Heb. 1.1.2 say That this way of God hath greater demonstration in it to stablish a beleeving soule then all that ever were besides And yet what use makes carnall reason hereof Doth it not turne all to a meere story without any ground-worke of faith or perswasion We thinke that the exhibiting of Christ concerned the Jewes who saw him and if wee had lived with him as they we should have abhorred to distrust him as they Why Did not God give them full assurance of himselfe by his Sonne Read Act. 17.38 Had not they as cleere proofes out of the Prophets that he was and none save he could bee the Messia and yet their carnall reason did so abhorre him to be their Messia that they hated him to the death Justly then may I conclude that this sinne is a reproveable one So much also for reasons I proceed now to the Use If this evill be so reproveable it is pitty it Vse 1 should want her due and escape terror or reproofe Terror to sundry The first Neuters Atheists and Epicures and ignorant ones reproved Pitty that any should justifie the wicked against God! Let them therefore come in the dint of this reproofe who are grossest in this kinde Neuters and Atheists who if they do not obstinate their spirits to thinke of all Gods matters and the frame of Religion according to their carnall sence yet are as deeply careles of rejecting and bearing it down by the stream of the word as Gallio was carelesse of the Apostles and their opposites How many are there who like them in Peter mocke at the Scriptures threats and terrors of it 2 Pet. 3. saying Where is the promise of his comming Lo all things are still as they were wont to be the times seasons affaires of men and course of the world therefore wee thinke the world will endure alway Oh ye Atheists One yeare with God is as a thousand and a thousand are as one day Do ye judge the comming of Christ by that which befalls in the space of forty or fifty yeares of one mortall life Doe not all things decay and cannot the Lord shake the powers of heaven and restraine the influence of the upper bodies from the lower at his pleasure But of this saith Peter they make themselves wilfully ignorant that all things were made of nothing and shall returne to nothing they perswade themselves that they ever were and so shall continue Such a seminary there is and such a tale of scurfe here among us even of practicke Atheists who are led by sense as brute beasts that me thinkes I feele my spirit sinke and faile within me when I should scare them out of their dens These are those prophane Swine who although they rise not up openly to desie God and his word and threats yet like sensuall Epicures void of all understanding they live in a profession of infidelity onely differing from Pagans in that they carry
the badge of the resurrection about them for fashion sake but else resolved to suffer no word of truth to enter into them or trouble them and make a privy contract with Satan to hold their owne lusts against all Preaching what difference is there betweene thinking there is no God and resisting him speaking in his word Betweene open maintaining that there is no judgement resurrection or torment for sinners and the practice of blasphemies swearings breaking of Sabbaths stealth adultery and all debauchednesse What shall I say unto you Shall I say as that ancient Father once did to his people of Antioch Get yee Bibles for shame and come in O ye uncircumcised hangbyes to the congregation Howster out such vermine O ye Church offcers if ye serve for oughts out of their kennells But you are readier some of you rather to pursue the best of your neigbours take heed my words stand not upon record against you without repentance rather then hunt such as pester our Townes with Atheisme and Impiety Alas the Divell is served as well by such as by them that have read Lectures of Atheisme heretofore They professe a God you will say Tit. 1. ult what is that when they are in their workes abominable and to each good thing reprobate They live by swinish principles and customes of darkenesse they see all swayed by mony favour and pollicy they see others all for backe and belly purse and pleasures pompe and preferments and therefore further they will not stir They whom carnall reason meerly rules are negative Atheists because they admit of no principles which should make them other and cause them to tremble at themselves Oh! mourne deare brethren for this that the Land swarmes with such and pray for such as are in place that they may reforme it and consider with what fruit we requite God for this seventy yeares of his Gospel past by nouzeling up among us a generation that know no more of sinne Christ judgement day then the swine at the trough but rather trample upon these pearles Tell them of their washing brewing baking startching on the Sabbath and they answer Alas we are poore and the six daies are little enough to worke in and earne meate to our bellies we must be fed and cloathed and more then we worke we must looke for nothing Others being asked about their hope in death tell us they have had their purgatory here in want and misery and therefore hope they shall have no more hereafter Others live by a Popish mixture of some shreads with their owne wisdome and such errors of the wicked as they suck up every where The issue of all is they abhorre the word and those that live by it and doe wholly breath in the element of their owne carnall savour Oh woefull ones your damnation sleepes not and the flood of Gods wrath the fire of vengeance shall sweepe you to hell Matth. 24.38 as the waters did them who ate and dranke married and gave in marriage and would know nothing till they were under water God keepe you from it You have had your reproofe but except God ring an alarme in your eares you will not awake But alas I speake to the walles these Gibeonites come not within the Temple carry them home these newes you that dwell by such So much for the first Use Secondly is carnall sense so reproveable What is then an utter despising Vse 2 of sense and of the manifest waies of God Reproofe of sundry sorts to the very eyes of men so that they cannot deny the finger of God We have many such Sort. 1 as these among us beloved such as see the apparant hand of God upon them and among them yea the Lord comming as it were to their doores Such as sinne against sensible and ocular mercies worse then such as sinne against promises into their bosomes judgements upon their bodies children wives names even such as their owne cursed mouthes have wished pox and plague c. and their cursed workes have procured justly and yet they are as Pharaoh hardened by his inchanters even when the frogges leapt up upon his bed in his privy Chamber what is this save to fight against heaven it selfe When judgements follow not the word men cavill and say these Preachers cry aloud but no thunder or lightning followes upon it But what say they when the Lord plagues you and raines snares and tempests upon you Many of you what diseases hath the Lord cast upon you noysome and stinking Note well all these following Instances Are ye one whit moved by it You use to answer as the sorcerers did all sorts are troubled with one disease or other all sorts have some poore in reproach c. But you know that yours are sent upon you for your debauched courses Doe you see God against you Had not Thomas beene grossely reproveable if when Christ thrust his hands into his sides to feele the print of his nailes he had beene unfaithfull But these mens eyes goe out with beholding the Sunne shine in their faces How many are there of you here who have cavilled at God that hee Sort. 2 puts no difference betweene bad and good in point of blessings and lo God hath served your turne brought you out of debt set you up and planted you well so that you take roote and grow upward Is not here ocular and sensible mercy I demand now of such are you any better Doe you see God in this I denounce before the Lord unto you this day that the mercies you have wished and doe enjoy shall bee the heaviest corrasives to you that ever befell and shall sting you as fire Why Because those covenants and vowes which you made are all broken and forfeit when yet God hath fully done his part Had it not beene better that he had kept you hungry and beggerly still Others of you what mones and chatterings have you made like Sort. 3 Cranes as Hezechia did upon your sicke beds unto God Oh! should the Lord take us away in our prime of youth our best yeares ere wee have spent any time in the land of the living to prepare our selves to meete him The Lord hath heard you or else earnest praier for you I am sure of it and hath brought ye from the brinke of the grave and set you upon your feet again What is come of it Are you any more penitent then you were Doth the presence of God awe you Doe you walke softly in your house as he said as having scaped a scouring and felt Gods fingers Have not your recoveries made you more fledge and sawcy with God so that now yee fare as if the winde were turned and you had the Lord at a vantage I denounce here unto you that most of you are waxen grosse fat laden with fatnesse you have despised the God of salvation Deut. 32.13 Esay 38. And instead of Hezechias words The living the living shall praise thee
Judg. 15. lay heapes upon heapes and die of thirst Once get into the right way and undoe somewhat first which God would have you forgoe instead of your doings and this will cause unto you incredible ease and sweetnesse in your proceeding Remember that speech Esay 30. your strength shall be to sit still Sit still and bee quiet therefore in your hypocriticall devotions and bee stirring and working with God under the condition of his promise and your labour shall not be lost in the Lord. 1 Cor. 13. ult Else you shall suffer losse not onely of a part but of the principall you shall sinke in your sweat and the most despised fatherlesse creatures with their poore emptinesse scarce daring to lift up eies to heaven standing afar off shall go away better justified then you with all your supererogations Luke 18.13 And when you are thus defeated your mends shall be in your own hands So much for this second Vse 3 Thirdly this Doctrine reproves sundry sorts And first all such as having enjoyed the liberty of Gods Ordinances all their dayes Reproofe Sundry branches 1. The chiefe season of ease is at first yet never had the wisdome to discerne that spirituall season in which the Lord makes this worke of faith easie and welcome The ease of beleeving in Gods usuall method attends a peculiar opportunity of Gods owne vouchsafing in which he doth more readily worke then at all other times Commonly when the word is first sent to a congregation as a dainty as a rare and desired pearle an object of price Againe when the spirit of the hearer is carried with violence to carry the Kingdome away whatsoever paines and charge it cost them when also the Lord sends the Angel or Minister with a more then common spirit of zeale to stir the muddy poole to the bottome and to unsettle mens hearts frozen upon their dregs I say when as the Lord inspires him with the spirit of Eliah or Iohn Baptist with speciall love to the pretious soules of men with laboriousnesse and the spirit of convincing when as the Gospel drawes all sorts unto it by the fervency of affections and examples of such as make toward it then there is ease in beleeving Not when the Gospel is waxen stale in a Towne and Manna plentifull which commonly causes loathing and fulsomenesse Not when the hearers heart is sunke and dead in his brest indifferent whether he speed or no Not when the spirits of the Ministers of God wax dull as Moses hands with long holding up Not when the Spirit of grace of power melting drawing and perswading begins to flag And as Micah saith is straitned Mica 2.6 Not when the hearts of Ministers faint in them and turne another way Not when they are driven out from their places and are faine to seeke into remote Countries Not when the affections of people wax generally dead and carelesse which end goe forward rather minding their owne world will and ends then the matters of salvation When these markes fall out the shadowes of the mountaines wax long the wild Beasts goe out of their dennes to spoile and the labourers turne their backes upon their worke because the Sunne is downe Not in these seasons not in death deepe sicknesses crosses feares losses is there like to be found this ease I speake of And therefore Oh you my brethen who heare me this day who have long lived here under the meanes above fifty yeares thinke seriously of your estate If yet the worke of beleeving the promise be undone if you have outbidden and survived all these happy seasons wherein your owne soules know you felt such dampings of corruption raisings of heart thawings inclinings and movings of spirit to embrace the offer of salvation and have fallen to the world to pleasures to ease and as Cain did being cast out of Gods presence to goe and build Cities Let my words now pierce you if any tendernesse at roote remaine in you and take heed lest if ever you finde God gracious if he have not quite cast you off for your dallying you be put to toile and travell for it lest it cost you tenne times as much trouble as you might first have had it for The Lord is hardly drawne to returne to a particular man when he hath left a publique place I tell you if you have slighted such meanes and seasons as these it must be the unspeakeable patience of God which can pull you home at last It were strange if a man who hath lost his faire or market should come many daies after and meet with those commodities which hee wants then he might have stored himselfe with ease but after with much hazard and cost You have had your season your accepted time and day of salvation Speciall application to the present people many hundreds have beleeved and set seale to the grace offered and most of them are at rest with God If you bee those unhappy ones who have received it all this while in vaine Hard for long dalliers with God to recover him again at their pleasure or leasure I doubt whether ever any new appetite will be lent you and although it were I doubt whether the doores being shut you shall speed of your desire though you should runne from Barwicke to Dover from old England into new for it or be admitted to beleeve Oh! How shall I speake to this wofull place for the padling out of her season of ease God hath brought salvation to your doores as to the children of the Kingdome pind it on your sleeves I may truly and in a good time speake it The Gospel hath alway brought you more gaine then it hath cost you Pulpits have beene as it were set up in your streets by your houses so neere is the grace of God come unto you and when others have ridden and trotted five ten fifteene miles you have had it at home for stepping in at the doores floods of butter and oile have flowed downe in your brooks and streets and thousands have beene satisfied with your leavings You have been as free borne to the Gospel What in all the world shall you pretend for your selves if you have never had I say not the best portion but any part at all of it Oh! that I could teach you after all my pressing of the promise among you how to dispute for your selves But that exceeds my skill you have had a fee-simple an inheritance of the Gospel you have beene married to the Lord under long constant unwearied plaine and powerfull meanes long ere I came among you All mens gifts have served you Note you of the congregation you have entred into other mens labours I may adde this that you have possessed fields vineyards and orchards which you never knew the price of never bought tilled or planted For my selfe although I have long lived unprofitable yet if ever God lent me any fitnesse to doe you good
it hath beene since I came among you And yet some of you through lazinesse worldlinesse love of your shops formality neglect of meditation Others through a curst sullen heart snuffing at the Ministry stumbling at the stone of offence but the most from a cloy'd and surfeited stomacke with much food have never come to taste the ease of mercy If some few have truly either they have little else to take too or else God hath pickt them out as odde ones here and there and what may become of some of these when meanes shall faile God knoweth But now even at this last cast and farewell for Gods sake come in and dally no longer and breake through all your lusts for this promise It shall vex ye as fire one day to thinke of this how foolishly did I misse of heaven When I might have had it with ease then to lose it for a base lust a vanity which shall leave me empty Oh foole in kinde The Lord move your hearts So much for this first branch of Reproofe Branch 2 Secondly here is reproofe for all such as have forestalled this blessed ease of God Deny selfe-ease for Gods ease by leaning to their owne strength zeale and affections I have beat much upon this Now I say no more but this Wonder not if your lives bee full of complaints Oh ye saith Esay who kindle a fire of your rotten sticks Esay 50. ult and compasse your selves with your owne sparkles much good doe it you with your owne light and heate but you shall have this at mine hand you shall lye downe in sorrow Is it a small sinne that turnes Gods ease into misery Vers 10. No surely A viper shall come forth of your owne heat and sting you to death without repentance Who is he among you that feares the Lord and obeyes the voice of his servants that walkes in the darkenesse and hath no light Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himselfe upon his God And so doing he will doe his worke for him Get once the slight of it as we say and then halfe the worke is at an end Lay downe rather your owne spirits and sparkles good deeds and affections rather then take them up to demerit God and resist his ease And so by denying your selves here on the left hand in your vices there on the right in your vertues and praises sucking out an humble heart out of the promise for alas what needed the cost of Christ if your cost could serve the turne you shall finde your selves to profit more by one Sermon then you have done by tenne So much for this second Branch Thirdly this reproves all such Ministers as turne this true and spirituall Branch 3 ease of God into a carnall liberty and smoothing their ignorant and prophane people Preachers of carnall ease who sow pillowes yea sowing pillowes of fleshly ease under their elbowes telling them they are in good ease and these Preachers scare them with false fires for Gods yoake is easie Christ came to destroy the hard Law c. And the ground of this practice is either idlenesse to spare themselves a labour or through prophanenesse or through Gods just judgement to give them teachers such as themselves are to cause them to stumble and fall and rise no more and all because they have rejected better meanes And others Pelagian wise teach that there is an universall sufficient grace offered in the Gospel which also is effectuall except men resist it and that they have free will to accept and embrace it As for the doctrine of Gods peculiar ease of perswading some more then others they cannot endure it They teach the people to say to God as those in Esay are brought in saying to one man doe but beare our name and owne us and we will be at our owne findings thou shalt not be troubled with our maintenance we will bee fed apparrelled and supported by our owne meanes and moneies Pelagian ease of selfe-conversion and of fre-will confuted So say these to Christ beare our name for fashion and obtaine a generall pardon by the merit of thy bloud and as for the application of it let us alone we will finde strength by our owne free concurrence with the grace offered to fasten upon and apply it to our selves And so if there fall out to be any defect herein it is no want of the accommodation of grace to us for that is equall to all but our accommodation to it in such a due season matter or other circumstances as if they had beene concurring might have produced a perswasion to receive the grace offered To all which I answer such ease as this in obeying the command of beleeving the orthodox Church of God know none The ease that is is on Gods part preventing assisting and perfecting and from none of ours To us the work is absolutely impossible So much for this third Branch and so for this third Use of Reproofe The fourth Use should be Exhortation and that many fold First Vse 4 to all Gods poore servants Exhortation In sundry Branches Such as have found ease in Gods way are thankfull who have found Gods way sweetned thus and eased by the Lord that they be very thankefull for this speciall favour Say thus who am I whom thou shouldest make that sweet and easie unto which to others thou sufferest to bee toilesome Thou mightest have brought mee as hardly to heaven as others there is not a prouder tougher moulded wretch of an hundred then I have beene Jer. 2.3.4 yet thy milde and gentle cords of allurement have been strange to me Thou hast pull'd me with the cords of a man made love to me even in the wildernesse forelaid my way sweetly brought me into the net ere I was aware concealed difficulties while afterward mittigated my horrors gone leasurely on with me drop upon drop line upon line not gugged me too deeply with my lusts not suffered me to revolt to my old courses thou hast laid no heavy burthens upon my shoulders required no toile of service thou hast given me an hope of successe from the beginning so that I have gone to worke with hope beene freed from excessive feares temptations crosses discouragements which many others are basked withall For my part I know no reason and I can but wonder that thou shouldest doe as thou hast which I cannot deny without lying to one so hollow inconstant and perverse as I know my selfe to be It pleases thee to hold me fast to those steps to which thou hast brought me and to try mee no deeplier then thou givest light and strength to resolve and revive mee againe Methinkes thou hast made the whole mystery of Christ sensible and lively to me in the ground of it the merit thy scope which is to magnifie thy selfe in the hearts of thine and my heart hath found some sweetnesse in it found it day by day more lightsome and sweet
conceale this way of his from many for speciall cause we must say Knowne unto the Lord are all his wayes and workes from the beginning Act. 15.18 Hebrew Greeke and Latine are things easie and familiar to some children but they who never had training Judge not rashly either of Gods publicke never come to know them they are theirs whose lot it was to have good education It s the lot of some Countries to have plentifull Mines of gold and silver and it s no hard matter for such to dig it out of the earth Act. 17.38 But they whose lot it is to have no such priviledge know not what the ease thereof meanes Therefore the wofull forsaking of them and passing by those times of ignorance must not make us thinke that those to whom the Lord reveales it finde it to be a difficulty It s easie onely to such as the Lord makes it so Whom he will he shewes mercy unto and whom he will he hardneth Such secrets as these must be trembled at and adored not descanted rather those whose portion it is to bee so mildly and easily drawne home to God should applaud and magnifie his goodnesse to them as a peculiar priviledge and say He hath not done thus to every Nation neither have all knowne his wayes That which hath beene impossible for some to reach unto we have beene borne unto as free men and have found it easie and sweet unto us Secondly let not us judge the estates of such Or private administrations as whom the Lord hath exercised with long difficulties in this point of beleeving I need not instance It s well knowne to all that observe Gods government how different it is in this kinde how sweetly and safely the Lord hath drawne and carryed on the course of some of his servants with ease and comfort And yet how many others not inferior in grace unto them have beene brought through a thicket to heaven Paradise and Purgatory are not more contrary notions then the estates of these two How many holy men Preachers and others have led wearisome dayes nights and yeares in their conflict and continuall combat of their unbeleefe How intricate hath Satan and Melancholy made their conditions that they have thought it as impossible for them to beleeve as to climbe up to the clouds The Lord knowes why he suffers such holy humble and hungry soules to be so long tozed and disquieted without ease some to see sinne more bitter in the crosse and curse of Christ then in all legall terrors and some to dye so Phil. 3. not to teach us to judge them for no doubt they are comprehended of him whom they comprehend not but to tremble and adore the Soveraignty of God who will as it were step out of his course when he pleaseth and is bound to none and hath it in his owne hands how and by what way hee will bring his to heaven So much for this fifth Use Lastly this should be Encouragement and Comfort That although the helpes and meanes under which they live are poore their wits silly Vse 6 their memories weake their courage small their feares great Comfort and encouragement to poore soules by this ease the Divell mighty to beat them off their friends ready to discourage and above all their own hearts most ready to dismay and give them the slip yet the Lord having drawn them truly to seek him he can make the way easie and can fight as well with few as with many He can make a way through Euphrates for his remnant to returne by as Esay saith His bare word speaking causeth the light to appeare 2 Cor. 4.6 and one word of his mouth will cause the light of grace to shine in the heart and scatter all darkenesse at once Oh! how shalt thou hold up thine head before the Lord when he hath made thy way easie if thou by thy base sloth and presumption or stoutnesse and rebellion or by the minding of other trash shalt make thy selfe uncapable of it When the Lord promises to carry thine Arke above all rocks and mountaines and to set it downe at length in safety upon dry land that yet thou wilt not betrust thy selfe to it nor resigne up thy feares unto him Oh thou shalt be speechlesse when the Lord comes against thee Therefore to finish the point beare thy selfe upon this sweet priviledge of ease and enjoy it was not Ruth willing to enjoy the favour of easie gleaning Did she reject the ease which Boaz his favour allowed her Ruth 2.16 3.13 in suffering the eares of corne to be scattered before her by handfulls No surely she and her mother both tooke it as from God Say thus I thinke it was thy good will and pleasure Lord to have it thus else it should never have beene thou meantest love to me else I should have made no such earnings of it But seeing thou wilt have it so shall I reject it No but rather draw others by thine experience to seeke the like 2 King 7. Ease makes men very ready to talke The two lepers having found such an easie booty could not bee quiet till they had declared it to the Kings house declare it thou to thy wife to thy poore children let it be as a loadstone to pull their hearts to the promise Come my child I see thou fearest thou shalt never get any thing but looke not thou at thine owne awcknesse looke at the Lords ease I looked to have met with as hard a bargaine of it as ever did any but no sooner had the Lord tired me with mine owne wrastlings and humbled me under the hope of his sweet ease but my chiefe worke was over Even so get downe thy heart subdue it to Gods promise and all shall be sweet and easie If a Lady being sued too by a King to be his wife should answer were I a Queene I would soone hearken but alas I am a poore Lady Would the King affect her No surely the marrying of a King will make a Queen of it selfe 1 Sam. 25. Abigail hearing that David had sent for her to be his wife made a great matter of it but seeing he would needs have it so rejected it not though she was not meet to wash the feet of his servants 1 Sam. 18.23 And David though he said Seems it an easie thing unto you to be the Kings sonne in law Yet refused not finally to bee so when it was put upon but accepted it with gladnesse No man willingly stands in the light of his owne lawfull preferment save a foole And so much for this last Use and for the whole Doctrine grounded upon this first Argument of the Servants The second argument of the servants Naamans love and respect to Elisha Now I proceed to the second And that is the love esteeme and repute wherein their Master formerly had had the Prophet They saw it now to bee weakened through
known some loose professors who have sought to exceed all other their neighbours in the love of a godly Preacher and who but they in their running riding assisting of him They have been as his right hand of trust and service But lo in a short time these fellows bewray that which lay secret to wit an uncleane covetous voluptuous heart and what then Surely all men see evidently that these clave to the Minister for their owne base ends and to conceale their vices A speciall watchword to all Ministers of God to beware how farre they engage themselves in the love of any professors A caveat to Ministers See Joh. 2.24.25 Ministers reproach themselves in ascribing too much and trusting too far such as they know not who make toward them in speciall relation Try them throughly in their obedience as well as their pretended love or else the time may come when as their basenesse shall discredit your persons and Ministery farre more then all their love could prevaile If when all is done they are so subtill that we cannot espy them the sinne shall be theirs wee have saved our owne soules and may wash our hands in innocency because we have done our duties When all is done therefore this will hold water if we obey Heb. 13. So saith the Apostle Obey them that are set over you And Paul I beare you witnesse you obeyed the forme of doctrine delivered unto you And againe you received our doctrine not as the word of man but as the word of God Every good hearer should say to his Minister as Elisha did to Gehazi 2 King 5. end Went not thy spirit with me when I ranne after the man So did not the spirit of my faithfull Pastor goe with me when I was in such a company recreation or worldly businesse Me thought it curbed me from lightnesse and vanity from deceit from sinning in my tongue or in any disguisement of intemperancy or cousenage or covetousnes to think if he now saw me how should I be ashamed to do thus Oh! he loves me tenderly my souls welfare and should I grieve him thus 2 Cor. 3.2 This is indeed to be the Epistle of the Minister written in our hearts approving our love unto him to purpose Not that there is not a stronger motive then this to awe and draw people from good to evill for there is an holy Spirit of annointing which is given to all good ones which hath shed the love of Christ into their hearts and filled them with the length and bredth of it this should hem in the soules of beleevers for so the word is 2 Cor. 5.7 and compell them to watch over themselves This must bee the chiefe Monitor in the Schoole of Christ If the voice of this great Prophet be not obeyed for it selfe the voice of the servant as he is called Esay 50. will be little worth For what wonder if they disobeyed the voice of Moses the messenger of God Heb. 2.2.3 who rebelled against that holy Spirit which set him on worke and vexed it all those forty yeares as it is Esay 63.11 No it must be the spirit of the Master which must make his Steward esteemed The love of the Lord Jesus must make the love of the Minister compulsive else it will prove nothing but slavish feare or to avoid base shame as we see in many a drunkard or swearer who for the presence sake of a sinfull man will for an houre or two bite in their qualities which yet they tremble not to commit in the presence of God all the yeare long Conclude this point then and say I pretend love to my Minister how shall I demonstrate it really As Cornelius did Act. 10. It s said he fell downe and tooke Peter by the feet in token of excessive love and respect But what was this all No surely But this that he tells him They were all ready to hearken to whatsoever the Lord said unto them by him This was a sure marke love and feare make reverence and thence comes obedience When love is solid it workes by feare and causes a loathnesse to doe any thing which might grieve the Minister it sits like Mary at the feet of the Minister ready to obey And that not onely in slight matters to remove some sinne which may be spared 1 Sam. 15. as Saul that killed the leane cattell and the baser sort of Amalek but even the belovedst lust and most pretious vice even the fat cattell and the King himselfe True love abhorres common evidence its painfull it will be singular and aske Matth. 5.47 Joh. 21. what singular thing doe I to approve my love When our Saviour would try Peters love he askes him Lovest thou me more then these As some think he meant of his nets occupation as others of his fellow Apostles Both will do well Love thy Minister by obeying more then others yea love him more then thy nets thy beloved trade thy lusts which bring thee in the greatest gaine thy sweet usury thy gaming thy deceit which others who love him not would as soone lose their lives as forgoe The forfeit of these will import strongly that thou lovest not him for any by respect but as he is a Minister of God I remember a story of Pope Pius the fifth one that was reputed as humble as a proud Pope might be who being told of a base fellow that had much abused him in a Pasquill answered I sustaine two persons one of a poore Monk another of Christs Vicar if thou hast railed upon me as a Monk I pardon thee if as Pope I must punish thee So there is no true Minister of Christ who lookes at himselfe as a man but at the honour of him whose servant he is and to whom he desires all the peoples obedience should be derived Try therefore whether thy lusts can draw thee stronglier then he if two loadstones draw both together the iron will goe to the strongest So let thy love goe to him from thy lust Fleire not in his face nor beare him faire in hand when as yet thine heart goes another way Doe nothing behinde his backe which thou wouldest not doe before him In all thy doubtfull matters consult with him let him come within thy bosome know thy secrets and hide nothing from him wherein he can informe thee for he is for God and Christ 1 Cor. 5.20 as a faithfull Embassadour for thy good Doth he tell thee O my friend I perceive your zeale quales shrewdly in this Laodicean age you heare oft but sleep much at Sermons you jangle so much of earthly businesse upon the Sabbath that I feare you meditate little Or you are zealous but you grow not in knowledge wisdome tendernesse to manage your zeal aright from rashnesse and censoriousnes Or you are noted to be full of words or a busie body Or you are given to flout and jeere when you are in company Or you are bold to
with But therefore to judge others doe it not Say that their owne rebellion hath made an easie way to become hard to them what then if they be saved any way what skills it The harder it is and the more it cost the sweeter it will be and the harder to forgoe Looke rather to thy selfe that thy strivings be lawfull then judge them whose strifes are difficult for so it must be till God have brought a base heart to lye downe at his feet with shame Many a noise must pierce a dead heart ere it live many a terror and many a pang of selfe-love many a contradiction feare and hope must come in his way who arrives at heaven onely this is the comfort No enemy shall finally deprive such of their labour as are called to the hope of salvation unfeignedly Nay rather Rom. 14.13 if thou get thither more easily feare that there may be in thee many an old dreg which perhaps is purged out of others by sad medicines but how ever judge them not The end shall make all manifest 1 Cor. 4.5 judge not another mans servant he stands or falls to his owne Master Pitty such rather and pray that God would ease their travell And secondly much lesse condemne thy selfe 3. Branch Instruction Christians must beware of condemning themselves Esay 40.2 because thou findest the worke of grace to hang long in suspence and not to come off with such ease and haste as thou desirest Doe not entertaine base feares into thy heart nor tempt God by putting thy selfe amongst hypocrites and reading thine owne doome looke to those markes I set downe and then conclude it s not in thee but in the Lord to shorten thy travell and to determine thy warfare it is his work who can neither be shortned nor hastned by thee he onely knowes what corruption must be tamed what grace quickned hurt it shall doe thee none to be tried if thou be sure the worke was not of thine owne beginning but Gods know he is faithfull who hath begun who also will finish in due time Thou wouldest be loth thy wife should come before her time as much as thou longest for the fruit of her wombe but art desirous she should fulfill it And thou dost well Doe so here in thy owne case A thousand yeares is as one day with the Lord 2 Pet. 2. to teach thee some of his patience when his day is come it will seeme no whit too long And in the meane season who upholds thee from sinking Is it not the Lord But perhaps thou wilt say Thou feelest but small hope and much sadnesse and deadnesse of spirit I answer thee That may be thy discontent and impatience For why Although thou feelest no thrivings yet perhaps thou maiest thrive and grow nearer thy hopes then thou art aware The infant growes towards birth daily whether it be strong or weake None of Gods cost shall bee lost upon his no drop of his pretious seed can be spilt Though thy course seeme dead to thee yet if the Lord attend thy fruit within and ripen it forme and fashion it in thy heart by secret and unknowne degrees is it not well Thou dost not know how one bone or one joint is framed in the wombe Simil. yet they lose no day no houre of their appointed time Thou seest no haires bredth of growing in thy corne yet it encreaseth daily and even that winter life thereof which stands at a stay and seems dead yet gathers secret heart and strength at the roote which after in the spring makes it shoot and branch forth The Lord is now doing for thee that which thou knowest not of but shalt know hereafter That is Joh. 10.9 that grace cannot be wrought out with thy sweat and care but by his spirit and he is the Soveraigne God who will be adored by all that come to beleeve They must come to a low point in themselves and confesse that God hath them at the advantage to save or destroy which when it hath tamed them throughly under this mighty hand of his to be at his dispose then perhaps he will not take but release the vantage for the glory of his Grace yea truly although the Lord should respit his worke till thy death yet mutter not but know that he chuses that time because then commonly the soule is brought to the narrowest point and sees no props to support her nor helpes to cling to then being at the greatest strait either to trust to a promise or to perish it is put to it and forced to resigne all and to cast it selfe upon meer mercy which while shee walked at large in the world with many false props about her shee found it not so easie to doe Thus much for this Use Vse 2 This sweet Doctrine in the second place serves to reprove and confute the false imputation of many cavilling and slanderous spirits Reproofe and Confutation in their backbiting the Ministers of the Gospell and contrarily for the encouraging of the Minister in his course of painfull persisting in the worke of perswasion Quarrellers against the Ministers unablenesse to comfort the distressed most sinfull For the first of these There be many prophane ones of this sort in all places who cast reproach upon the Gospell and Ministery as unable to effect that which it pretends Oh say they when these Ministers first preach the Law they beare people in hands that it is the way to raise up their soules to hope but for ought we see such dejected spirits complaine every day that their condition is more and more heavy they see themselves further off then ever I had rather be as I was saith another for before I was quiet but now I see the gulfe in which I lye to be deep and terrible But oh poore wretch Is it thus with all Are not some daily raised through mercy as well as others cast down What Dost thou expect as soone a lifting up as thou feelest a consternation Art thou better then he that said Psal 85.8 He would hearken what the Lord would say for he would speake peace to his Saints Surely it s to bee feared thine humbling is but violent and then thou maiest cavill long enough for thou shalt revolt quickly to thine old vomit Gods matters are too hot Job 15.11 and too heavy for thee But say thou art no such yet tell me Are the consolations of God such vaine things with thee Is it not more eligible to be under the hands of a mercifull God who in his good time can perswade the unconvinced spirit and bring it to the bent of his bow then to be under that bondage for a time which the Law by sin hath brought upon thee The like speeches doe many use concerning others How doe base parents husbands wives and kindred cry out of the word when it hath begunne to ceaze upon their children wives and husbands or kinsfolke
except thou bee out of the way when the houre of performance is come Vse 4 But lastly and above all hearken to this all you to whom of right the Doctrine belongs Consolation to all who have found God in their conversion you who have long waited for this day behold it here even the day starre of consolation arising in you hearts 2 Pet. 1.19 I dare say for you you doe not gape after comfort to spend it upon your lusts but to heare what God will say That you returne no more to folly to your old distempers To you I apply this blessed truth to you I say whose big hearts are come downe and lye at the foot-stoole of mercy and marke what I say Come out of your ashes take unto you this white garment of joy and put it on your warfare is accomplished Oh that this day might be the time of your lifting up perhaps it may for ought I know take this handkercheife and wipe away all your teares with it let this Sun beame of comfort chase away all former mists and fogs of darkenesse and distrust and let it be as old Eli a voice from God to your sad spirits that with Hanna having received your answer you may be heavy no more 1 Sam. 1.17 1 Sam. 7.12 Set up your altar with Samuel and say Hitherto the Lord hath holpen us and adde moreover he will give me the hand and helpe me over the hill of difficulties that remaine Be so farre from distrusting this that you proceed and say He that hath thus fulfilled his word in one kinde he will doe it in all other set me beyond gun-shot of all corruptions temptations Divell opposition and malice of his instruments and keep mee till his comming and till I obtain full redemption Rather then the Lord would not accomplish that promise which was 4000. yeares old of sending the Lord Jesus hee would even strip himselfe and bee made sinne and shame of holinesse and honour Did hee so deny himselfe Galat. 4.4 and all to keep that maine promise and dare I distrust him in the rest and the smaller No surely Therefore poore soule that thou mayst be established come in and believe this maine one The night is past and the houre of darknesse is gone Now the Almond tree blossomes Cant. 2.11.12 and all the sad disasters of the Winter are passed Now in this Garden of God come meet thy beloved and let him give thee his love Henceforth say O my soule thou hast marched valiantly Thou art above all thy former feares and sorrowes Thou wert afraid lest death should prevent thee ere this day but that was impossible for then Gods word had been of no effect Say thus Now me thinkes in the comfort of this truth I could leap over a wall Oh that I should see it no sooner Now the time of God is come it is so cleare that I wonder I should ever stagger or distrust it I see it must bee wholly spun out of the Promise and not out of mine owne Bowels Gen. 28.16 Surely God was in this truth heretofore and yet till now I was never aware of it Now I am now I blesse God that ever I lived to this day that God should in such a comfortlesse world reveale such glad tidings unto me and make me to see his salvation Oft have I heard of him with mine eare but now I see him with mine eyes Now I can say Job 42.3.4 That which I have long sought I have found I have found him whom my soule loveth Why shouldst thou not say thus Psal 43.5 Why doth thy spirit fret within thee why art thou so sad when the Lord hath given thee the oyle of gladnes Doest thou not know that it hath been the portion of sundry Saints of God before thee Oh then climbe not up to heaven nor go downe into the deep to fetch Christ Thou shalt not need This day is come thy accepted time The promise is neere thee Rom. 10. even in thy heart to beleeve it As the Angell said to Peter Arise and follow me so doe thou and say Now of a truth I see the Lord hath indeed delivered me from Herod and the Jewes Acts 12.6 How went that Eunuch away from Philip rejoycing Acts 8. end What made Glover to speake when hee saw that Chariot of fire to carry him to heaven Oh! hee is come hee is come And another at the stake to take her leave not onely of her Husband Children and Countrey but of Faith and Hope saying Farewell you and welcome Love What a triumphant speech was it Speciall examples of soules deeply long loden yet at length comforted Another whose tendernesse over her children had not been ordinary and her feares great being very sicke to cry out I take no thought for them I leave them to my God and as for my distempers and temptations I have none I know I shall bee saved Another fearing hee should live in a great sicknesse asked Doe you thinke I should ever keep this assurance till another sicknesse and death come He was answered Yes and so foure yeares after at death he lay as before rapt and ravisht above world and all and being asked how he did said I am new out of a Trance I have had a doore opened and seene the glory of God and now the doore is clapt to but I peep at the crevis to keep the sight of it how loath am I to forgoe it To conclude another poore creature very weake to hold any thing all her life yet most constant in meanes till death when all thought her neere gone bade them weep no more for her nor take no thought for shee knew shee should doe well Oh the faith of these and hundreds more wee have seene and all to evidence this truth Oh! let us tread in their steps and follow their conversation and when thine end shall come Christ shall but stoop down and write upon thy heart 2 or 3 words Bee of good comfort Joh. 8.6 thy sinnes are forgiven but all thine accusers shall goe away and thy self be acquitted for ever Oh be thankfull to think of it and let no stranger world or lusts enter into this thy joy to defile it Thus much for this fourth and last use and for this doctrine Now I hasten to the next Doctrine And having ended the time when he obeyed we come now to the obedience it selfe True humilitie scornes not to learne of the meanest Hee went downe and washed himselfe in Jorden Wherein although the main thing which I intend is the Act of his faith yet one thing I must tell you of first viz. an amplifying of it by his humility that he was thus subdued by his servants and glad to yeeld at their instance counsell though their Master a great Prince An unusuall and unlikely thing that such a favourite to his Prince as hee was and so great
the revealing of it for who shall construe it otherwise who heares how many sweet invitations cords of perswasion arguments to enforce terrors against despisers he uses Esay 55.1 and 2. verses Read that Chapter and marke his offer Come all you that thirst drinke freely His contest verse 2. Why lay you out silver for no bread His compellation Incline thine eare hearken unto me and come c. He that concludes not hence that the Lord is willing to communicate his grace nay takes thought lest it should not be accepted and would rejoice if it might must needs call God a notorious dissembler which were hellish sacriledge And this a main point for all who confesse Gods power and are convict yet are not so of his will If thou wilt thou canst heal me Luke 5.12 1 Tim 1.17 Sixtly he is Wisdome it selfe 6. Wisdome When the Apostle had spoken of this mystery he concludes Now to the only wise God be honour c. Why so wise Because of all other waies he thought this the best he would in the best of his counsells finde out no other nay could not finde out any so good as this for then who is only wise would And the like I may say of the manner of publishing of it By men like our selves of like infirmity who might familiarly insinuate themselves By a promise rather then by any waies of old as visions miracles or voice of his immediately as more spirituall and effectuall So that the very Angellâ— looke into it with admiration how much more should we cry out Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdome of God! Heb. 1.1 To all unbeleevers a stumbling blocke and foolishnesse Rom. 11.33 but to us that beleeve the wisdome and power of God Seventhly his faithfulnesse It is a principle 7 Faithfulnesse 1 Sam. 15. Luke 1. God is not a man that he should lye The strength of Israel cannot lye God will not be mocked therefore neither will he mocke any And therefore hee hath bound it with an oath to Abraham and his seed Surely in blessing I will blesse thee Therefore Simeon saith To performe the covenant which he sware to our father Abraham that he would give us They are called the sure mercies of David and Heb. 6.18 In the covenant and oath adde thereto the seale of his Sacraments which speake to each soule in particular in Baptisme thus I baptise thee in the Supper thus The body of Jesus broken for thee The bloud which was shed for thee And as himselfe is so is his word in each part Heaven and Earth shall passe but not one jot or tittle thereof shall passe Above all his promises cannot which are his first borne and carry with them the birthright of his faithfulnesse and therefore are a maine bottome to rest upon Lastly his unchangeablenesse His nature is so as Iob saith Job 23.13 8. Unchangeablenesse he decreeth and changeth not Farre above all decrees of Medes and Persians Although we read oft in Scripture that it repented God of some things yet of this he saith I have sworne and will not repent Thou shalt be a Priest after the order of Melchisedec If foure thousand yeares could have changed the minde of God Christ had never came And looke how the Lord was in the great promise Gal. 4.4 so is he in all that follow thereupon God willing to shew to the heires of his Promise the immutability of his Counsell and againe that by two immutable things wherein it was impossible God should lye we might have strong consolation in our taking refuge So that nothing can separate up from his love first nor last Thus in these few particulars I have shewd what bottomes faith may have to cleave to a word and to cast herselfe upon it for pardon and life And so much for the first Question Now I come to the second If any desire further light in this let him consult with my booke of Sacraments in the triall of faith And that is why faith is called Obedience and Consent This question arises from the ground of the Text For Naaman you see being convinced by his servants Quest Why faith is called Obedience and Consent obeyes and consents and doth as he is bidden Esay 1.19 If ye consent and obey you shall eat the good things of the land Hence I call faith by these names only observe that one and the same faith in divers relations hath divers names As it relates to a command of the Gospell so its obedience As to a perswasion so it is consent As Naaman then in one act both obeyed the command of the Prophet and consented to the promise or perswasion thereof so doth faith obey God commanding and consent to him promising or perswading This is the Commandement of God that you beleeve in his Sonne whom he hath sent Luke 5. As Peter to his Master so faith saith to this command At thy command Lord I will let downe my net although it seeme never so absurd As Abraham being commanded by God went downe right without looking at the absurdities or objections first he would kill him and then thinke of them and drownd them all in the charge so doth faith nakedly obey against all stops and then casts them upon him who set her on worke So againe shee consents to his promise and perswasions Gen. 24.28 Much like Rebecca having heard and seene Isaacs motion and tokens answered I will goe with the man She saw enough against it but the perswasions of Eliezer were more potent to overpoise her Spirit So doth faith she hath a thousand cavills and disswasives yet she breakes through and consents and then shee heares no more of them Thus Abraham hearing the promise of Isaac is said not to looke at Sara's wombe which was now withered but hee looked simply at the promise and cast them upon God So that this act of faith casting herselfe upon the word doth both obey nakedly the word of command and consents to the promise as Naaman here doth to both these words of the Prophet Goe wash and be cleane So much also for this second question Now it is time to come to the Vse 1 Uses Terror for all such as live prophanely and yet thinke themselves within a condition of mercy And first I will insist upon the condition of the promise First then here is Terror for all such as are so farre from the condition of faith that they utterly reject and cast it off And of these there are two sorts The one prophane the other schismatickes For the former They please themselves with this That God bids all sorts indifferently bee reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 be they never so base and lewd yet Christ came to save them if they can beleeve but as for this preparation they cannot tell what it meanes they will let God alone with that so they can beleeve they shall doe well And that they
their left hand doth They acknowledge little to come from them Matth. 25. they keep all to themselves When did wee see thee naked and clothed thee Hungry and fed thee Sicke and in prison and visited thee Why are you such strangers to your owne duties Then shall others be strangers to your joy onely your selves shall enjoy the priviledge of your own close walking For be yee sure God will not conceale it close love shall never want close peace unknowne welfare and comfort of heart prosperity in grace growth and experience You that walke in the regeneration of obedience with Christ shall not only sit upon Thrones hereafter in stead of your dust and ashes here But in the meane while you shall fare as Christ fared he who made it his meat and drinke to doe his Fathers will had meat to eate which no man knew of Joh. 4. Nourish thou a mourning heart for sinne thine owne and others a close heart to obey and no man shall bee able to judge what thy joyes are Prov. 10.29 Thy worke is also thy wages and yet the Lord shall besides support thee otherwise so that neither spirituall nor earthly requitals shall bee wanting till at last that life of thine which was hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 shall breake out before all Men and Angels Then shall close obedience bee swallowed up into exceeding glory and the garments of joy shall bee added to thy secret consolations in the day wherein Christ himselfe shall appeare in glory And so much also may serve for this Use and for this Doctrine Whereto I wish from my heart a blessing from God upon the Reader The next Branch of Naamans obeying was his closing with the promise The second branch arising from hence is that Naaman washed seven times according to the word of Elisha in respect of the promise added to his washing and that was That he should recover his flesh againe and be cleane This point I told you is as materiall as the other one cannot well goe without the other they are as twins which live and dye together The point I collect from it is this Gods promises must be beleeved according to the scope of promises that is according to the intent and extent thereof I say againe and marke well promises must bee beleeved according to that which is in them and that which they import neither must they bee shortned or straitned stretched or enlarged neither made lesse nor more then is in them Doctrine Promises must be beleeved according to their extent More then they are no man shall need to make them for all the store and fulnesse of God is in them Lesse then they are none may dare to make them That which the holy Ghost speakes in the conclusion of Revel 22. Hee that shall adde any thing or dâ—minish from the words of this booke the Lord shall adde to him all the plagues in this booke and diminish his name from the booke of life That I may say of the promises Let none make them greater then they are Opening of the ground of the poâ— nor yet lesser but let every one take understand and apply them to himselfe as they lye in the word not in the letter onely but in the spirituall meaning and purpose thereof Touching the ground of this point out of the Text it needs not many words to be spent about it It is evident that the obedience of Naaman in going to wash proceeded from no heat of sudden alteration of minde no pang or humour no blinde hope or had-I-wist as who say It 's but trying I will goe hit I or misse I it is but my journey No but as he was strongly held back before by a deep selfe-conceit so now hee is drawne forward by as deep an inspiration of God and a perswasion that the promise annexed to his washing was as certaine and undeceiveable as the charge was divine and absolute and therefore in obeying God commanding hee consents to God promising also in as full and absolute a degree and in all points and respects as the promise lay that is to say not that hee should perhaps be cured perhaps not but that the cure should bee whole and entire no manner of Leprosie should hereafter cleave to him any more but as now he was nasty and scurvie all over so then he should be healed by the healing of God better then if Elisha had laid his hand upon it that is as perfectly as if hee never had been Leper and his flesh should returne to him as the flesh of a little childe so clean should he become and return home and not repent him that he had beleeved the promise in the fulnesse thereof So much for the ground of the Text. Now as I noted in the former point here some may step in and object Object Why doe you ground a doctrine upon such a passage as this of Naaman Alas his washing was but an outward act and that occasionall and personall onely reaching to himselfe and determining with him Our case is otherwise and it must be a bottome of eternall truth which must ground a doctrine of this nature because it concerns the perpetuall practice of a poore soule in respect of pardon and sanctification To whom I answer in one word That the question is not here Answ what the particular of this promise to Naaman is or is not but what the nature of every promise requires whether it bee occasionall and temporall or spirituall and generall The point is this Every promise bee it what it will be whether for once and away or for adoe being from God requires an equall obedience and extent of faith to embrace it and cast the soule upon it as well as the moralest and generallest promise in the Word can doe The reason is plaine because in the one as well as the other is enclosed that power and truth of God which bindes the soule to an equall and uniforme obedience I speake now and marke well of such promises as require our faith for the performance for some promises are absolute in themselves and rest upon the naked word whether we beleeve them or not because they be universall Gen. 8.21 As that the rainebow shall be a sure signe of no more deluges That seasons of the yeare Summer and Winter sowing time and harvest shall continue That the Gospell shall bee preached to all Nations Mâ—tth 24.13 That there shall be a restoring of the Kingdome to Israel and Christ shall in this world bee knowne to bee Lord and King of his Church These promises though they deserve credit yet shall be performed howsoever being pitcht and appointed by God in their seasons But for personall promises not so That particular promise made to Abraham touching a sonne if yet it were particular or any other concerning a present mercy or deliverance Gen. 18.10 Esay 7.4 as that which was made to Ahaz of
his seed should be set free after it was a stranger in an heathen land for four hundred and thirty yeares and so it fell out Gen. 15.13 Exod. 12.42 when the time came that God delivered them what saith the Text That selfe same day of that terme expired the Lord brought forth Israel with her armies So in the Gospell marke how curious the Holy Ghost is in expressing of the faithfulnes of God in each passage of Christ his nativity his parentage his dwelling his person life betraying passion death buriall See throughout the Gospell Mat. 1.2 c. Forty severall times one or other of the Evangelists refer the passages that fell out to the promises themselves That it might be fulfilled which was said And thou Bethlem are not the least of the Cities of Juda That it might be fulfilled Rachel lamented for her children and would not be comforted c. That it might bee fulfilled Out of Egypt have I called my Sonne He that ate with me in the dish he betraied me And he was counted among transgressors Marke 15.28 And upon my vestures did they cast lots Matth. 27.35 And he shall make his grave with the rich And he shall be as one of no beauty like a withered branch with a great many more Not so much as his riding to Jerusalem is omitted Behold thy King commeth lowly and meeke riding upon an Asse the fole of an Asse Why is all this To let us to understand that he who would be so punctuall in all petty passages belonging to the great promise of the Messia Matth. 21.4 would be as faithfull in performing all other promises consequent upon his merit and satisfaction And the like speeches are used to this purpose in the personall promises made to the Patriarkes as to Abraham concerning Isaac to Rebecca concerning the elder serving the younger to Iacob that God would be with him in his journey and bring him backe and deliver him from Esau To the Church in the wildernesse concerning the possession of Canaan Ioshua tells them Josh 21.45 after the conquest nothing failed of any one particular promise which God had made concerning the giving of the land of Canaan to the seed of Iacob Infinite many more instances might be alledged as the fulfilling of the seventy yeares captivity and the returne of the Church backe againe to their City and Mountaine as Esay 57.13 All being pledges put into one bosome touching the maine fidelity of God in making good the promised Seed and Messiah so oft made and renewed to Adam Abraham David Ahaz and his people which though it were kept in the bowells of time for foure thousand yeares yet at last Gal. 4.4 When the fulnesse of time was come was accomplished And hence all other promises tooke their originall 2 Cor. 1.20 and derived their issue So saith the Apostle All the promises of God are in him Yea and Amen to the praise of his glory that is Luke 1.45 firme and inrepealable Thus saith Elizebth to Mary A performance shall be from the Lord of whatsoever hath beene said unto his handmaid Faithfull is he who hath promised who will also fulfill it The Lord is faithfull Heb. 6.10 and will not conceale the labour of your love 1 Tim. 5.15 This is a faithfull saying and by all meanes to be beleeved c. endlesse it were to reckon up all and as for the addition of the point that sometimes he fulfills them for the better we see what Paul saith Phil. 4.19 Our God is able to doe for us more then we can aske or think When Salomon chose to aske a wise and understanding heart to goe in and out 2 Kings 3.11 lo saith the Lord I have given thee it and moreover I have given thee such wealth honour and wisdome as never any had before nor shall have after thee Matth. 6.32 And so saith Christ Seek the Kingdome of Heaven and the righteousnesse of it and other things shall be cast in So that it was not Naamans case onely but by consent of Scripture we see that his particular case is made the case of each beleever more or lesse so farre as is meet This for proofes Reason 1 Reasons are First the name of Gods essence Jehovah argues that he performes all the promises which he makes Because he is Jehovah For as hee is an absolute and infinite being in himselfe giving to all other depending creatures their beings So by vertue hereof he vouchsafes a being to all his promises which are the most excellent parcells of all his Scriptures He gives the like substance and beeing to all his commands and threats to all other sorts of truths but especially to these being his chiefe truths Gen. 17.1 Exod. 6.3 And as he said to Moses I was not knowne to them before the flood nor to Abraham by any other name save El-shaddi alsufficient but not by the name of Iehovah this name is a more reall name and gives a reality to my promises and causes me to performe them So now may we say I was not knowne by the name of the Father of Christ Jesus in former times as I am now for in him I make good all my word he hath sealed up all my truthes my love in him is attended with all my other attributes wisdome justice and faithfulnesse all my strength and power assists that so that whatsoever I have promised I will performe for I can doe it I will doe it and I am true in promising therefore I must fulfill it God then is Jehovah the being of all his promises our God in Christ Second Reason God is faithfull in performances in respect of his Reason 2 owne honour For his owne honour He knowes that except he should keep touch with his Church and maintaine the glory of his keeping promise with her hee should destroy the credit of his Ministers the faith of his elect and in a word the hope of drawing any out of the common course of the world to the Kingdome of grace So that his unfaithfulnesse threatning utter ruine to the whole art and way of Religion either in faith or obedience and shaking the very pillars of the Churches confidence it must needs stand the Lord in hand to see his promises fulfilled Thirdly forasmuch as whatsoever is in God is eminently in him and Reason 3 by way of excellence as before I noted in the point of commands Because whatsoever is in God is eminently in him therefore his truth in fulfilling promises must also be singular and eminent It must become that excellency of his truth not onely to content himselfe with such a performing as the poore creature can expect and concur withall but such an one as is above whatsoever the soul can aske or imagine that is rather to be over then under his promises better rather then worse this makes much for the adoring of his faithfulnesse and the
to be more usefull for the present and therefore chuses a performance in his owne kinde which shall bee an hundred fold more gaine to the soule then the other 2 Cor. 12.3 4. Paul being sorely buffeted not for sinne but to prevent it prayes instantly to God to remove it The Lord seeing that performance not to be proper for the end of his buffeting continues it yet hee breakes not promise for he ministers grace sufficient to uphold him under it Verse 9. By this meanes he attaines his end to humble Paul and moreover teaches him to desire to live under desertion and infirmity sometimes that so he might get that experience of Gods strange upholding of him in the want of feeling which before hee had found under feeling By this meane though irksome to the flesh to want the use of graces and gifts the Lord traines him to a sober use of his revelations and to renounce himselfe so farre under buffetings as to chuse rather to bee as the Lord would have him then as himselfe chose to be The use of this qualification is this The use of this limitation Both to coole our spirit of selfe-love which is ready to appoint God his way of performance as also to teach us wisedome to apply our selves to the best good of a performance rather then to the performance it selfe Gods people looke more at the good of a performance then the bâ—re performance of a promise to ascribe this honour to God that he better knows how to make good a promise to us then wee can chuse And therefore not by and by to cry out against God for not performing it because our turnes are not served But rather by our defeat to search into the cause and to see whether God and we looke the same way or no If we doe not we may bee long enough ere we be satisfied or honour God in his faithfulnesse If we will tie God to performe one promise and the Lord meanes to performe another we shall be farre to seeke Say we therefore thus Lord teach me to looke out what the promise is which thou aimest to make good Faithfull I am resolved thou art but that stands not in serving my turne but in serving thy selfe upon me Since thou doest all things well I doe but wait to see thy way for it is best and shall curb my spirit and give me best content because it tends to make mee more experienced more humble and at last thankfull to thee for that good which thy selfe meantst me which is infinitely better then that which I fancied So much for the first Limitation the second In generall promises to the Church the time of performance must be left to God and why The second limitation may be this In promises concerning the welfare of the Church in generall except the Lord tye himselfe punctually to a time of redresse or deliverance we must conceive of Gods performances indefinitely without prefixing a time or period of our own For in such it is enough for the quitting of Gods faithfulnesse that he performes really although he leave the time when to his owne wisedome We look that Gods love in hearing us for such performances should trench upon his wise providence but that ought not to be In such cases it behoves us to distinguish upon promises In such as touch the soule and life of a beleever usually except some speciall thing hinder the soules beleeving and the promises performance goe together as for the strength against a lust for quickning up of any grace or gift for sanctifying of any ordinance But not so in the publicke promises The reason is because the Lord may have a predominant way of his owne to barre present performance He doth neglect the speciall good of them who pray for a more universall good of his owne either because the sinnes of his enemies by whom hee uses to scourge his Church See Gen. 15.16 are not come to the highest pitch and so it will not bee most for his glory to punish or suppresse them yet or because the provocations of his Church and the sins thereof are not yet purged throughly nor brought to the lowest point These respects may hinder speciall reliefe of some present miseries restraints and persecutions of his people There is wee say in the motion of every planet a straight motion comming from the Planet herself and a backward motion of the first mover So is it here the motion of a promise is retrograded and retarded by the wisedome of the first mover The grand promise of the Lord Jesus his incarnation was indefinite and in the bosome of God when to fulfill it one thousand two or three thousand might have brought it forth as well as foure yet providence reserved it to the end of the fourth thousand Gal. 4.4 And when that fulnesse was come nothing could stop the fulfilling of that which yet before that time no prayers no expectation of the Church could hasten Then and not till then Instances of the point he that would come came and tarried not So also wee that live in this age conceive our selves to be pitcht under the fourth viall under which wee are warranted to wait for the revealing of Gods wrath and the ruine of the Beast But for us hereupon to limit God to owne time and period seaven or ten or fifteene yeares whatsoever we may suppose by probabilities and to determine God to our own season is most bold and presumptuous For God hath as well a way of his revenge and scourging of particular Churches for their infidelity and unfruitfulnesse as he hath of fulfilling his maine promise Sure we are his Word will prove true within the Terme of this Viall But to bound the space and duration of it we may not That the Jew shall be called and the Gospel generally preached ere the end come and that the Lord Jesus shall even in this world expresse himselfe to be the Lord and King of his Church and set up his Throne visibly upon their reall ruines who not waning braines can or dare deny it And yet who if he have braines dare punctually determine it within so or so many yeares The use of this qualification is most pretious and weighty viz. The use of this second limit Wee must not taxe Gods administrations That in our prayers and services of the time be they ordinary or extraordinary wee lash not out through our ungrounded zeale and passions to presse the Lord to our time in redressing the miseries of his Church in punishing his enemies reforming abuses or restoring comforts to her mourners Slacken no whit of thy zeale but let it still be carried within bounds and goe eaven pace with Gods time and be limited by that condition And moreover let it curb our querulous and discontented spirits which being full of griefe for the upbraiding and insulting Peninna's 1 Sam. 1. over the perplexed Hanna's and
to shift for my selfe it s I who have broken covenant with thee O breake my heart for it let it not be all one with me whether I feele thy presence or want it It s the death of my soule to be without thee I walke desolately mine heart melts in my bosome as wax I am consumed for thine anger as with a moth and I have no rest in all my flesh for thee Oh Lord let it exercise mee throughly and use any meanes rather then my disease should rankle and grow incurable in me 1 Sam. 20.1 2 3. When David saw that Sauls countenance was changed to him in what a pickle was he How did he bemoane it to Ionathan And yet his favour had beene deare of the price and shalt not thou mourne for the losse of presence and performance of promises from God Oh take heed goe not on adde not drunkennesse to thirst grow not from one or two falls to a falling sicknesse What is the life of most men but a sinning and repenting repenting and sinning againe Yea though the Lord be angry and smite them what doe they save go on still in the frowardnesse of their heart as Esay 57.16 Oh take heed Commune with God and thine heart consider the sad steps of thy revolt undoe thy worke get the Lord Jesus to be thy Mediator better then Ionathan for he was like to have beene slaine for his labour but Christ shall be accepted and the Lord shall restore thee againe and thou shalt bee as in time past unto him returne by a promise and by renewing thy faith as by thy unbeleefe thou didst revolt the Lord is willing that thou doe so and he will heale all thy backslidings and marry thee after thy harlots tricks and divorce Jer. 2. and 3. read the places Soder not up thy errors by duties weigh not good against bad but by a promise And so doing thy flesh shall returne like the flesh of a childe and thou shalt bee cleane and then thy title to the performance of promises shall bee restored And as the daughter of the Priest having buried her husband Levit. 22.13 might returne and eat bread in her fathers house as when she was a virgin so shalt thou returne to thy former demensum at the Lords board and thy charter of promises shall be restored and the performance of them If thou belong to God thus it shall be with thee some crosse or other God will send thee home by he will cause thy wounds to stinke and thy reines to burne within thee but hee will set home his truth in thee yea rather then faile he will set the Divell upon thee though he pull him off againe in mercy rather then he will lose thee But if thou be a revolting hypocrite and a server of the time thou maist goe where thou shalt God will not owne thee Thus much for this third Use Now it is time that we hasten to other Uses of the Doctrine A fourth Use therefore is instruction with caveat If God performe all his promises let us learne so to carry our selves as becomes them that beleeve Vse 4 this truth let not us joine purchasers with God in performances Instruction Caveat God must bee left to himself to performe promises without mixing of our wits and wills therewith Ruth 3.18 but stand still looke on and behold the faithfulnesse of God let us give faire way to his providence in this kinde and leave the businesse to himselfe as onely concerning himselfe As Naomi said to Ruth Rest and be still for the man will not be quiet in himselfe till he bring the matter about leave it to him so let us doe God needs not our negotiousnesse or double diligence to bring his matters to passe he can doe them best himselfe And yet so it is that as in all other lawfull actions we must come in and chop our gourds in the pottage to defile it so especially in the performing of promises Our mixtures must be added our humors and extremities or else all is marred The Disciples must needs crave fire from heaven to destroy the Samaritans Luke 9.54 Matth. 16.21 or else their affection to their Master cannot subsist So Peter cannot love his Master except he disswade him from death Just so is it in this businesse with most men From the chiefe promise of salvation to the least and lowest we must have a finger in the worke and promises must passe through our dispatch To give God the honour of fulfilling as well as promising is too difficult for us And thence it is that we so hardly obtaine the promises they sticke betweene our fingers our hastnings our feares our dallying our presumption causeth so much sorrow betwixt the making and performing of promises If God were nakedly beleeved without our owne selfe-love the worke would soon be at an end Gen. 27.6 God promised Rebecca that the elder of the twinnes should serve the younger She could not rest content with that but she must devise how as if God needed her sinne shifting and lying to bring it to passe and in doing so she being taxed by Iacob tels him Indeed God foretold it to Abraham and alledged the sinnes of Amorites were not full yet why might not this come in as an externall motive to God his execution Gen. 15.16 Thy curse bee upon me my sonne But she could not so easily latch the blow For what might be the cause why Isaac fetcht over the blessing the second time save onely to reprove the indirect course that Rebecca had taken It s true that the spirituall birthright tooke effect from the present But the temporall was delayed six or seven hundred yeares till David brought Edom under bondage I submit my judgement to wiser men and I doubt not but other causes may be alledged but why might not the promise have taken effect sooner if shee had suffered the Lord to take his course We see Esau and his posterity were Dukes and Princes when poore Iacob was faine to bee a servant a pilgrim and his children to be slaves foure hundred and thirty yeares ere they went into Canaan Who doubts but that God guided all Yet I see not but we may suspect God to have had an hand of punishment for this prevention of his performances As the midwives subtilty spake of the Israelitish women to Pharaoh Exod. 2.19 That they were lively and needed not them So I may say Gods promises are lively and need no midwifery of ours they are not so weake that our wisdome need bring them to the birth Yet brethren we cannot be kept from venturing God hath promised to be alsufficient yet as if he could not be so without us we must step forth and bestirre us with using some indirect meane or other to purchase a performance God hath promised to blesse us in all we put forth our hand to but if wee marry a childe or purchase a commodity
the seed which causes the wombe to conceive Meditation and weighing of the promise is as the cleane beasts chewing of the end till it be almost made milke We are weary of the promise as they of Manna our soule loathes this dry Manna But as the Lord shames them for that by shewing how many wayes Manna might be dressed baked fryed parched it was good any way so may I shame us the promise may be taken up as a cup by many handles and that fitly whether we thinke of it as the fruit of Gods decree to save or of the Lord Jesus his death in which it is ratified or in the Fathers acceptation or in the Ministers fidelity or in the Lords prevention of us the wisedome and other properties even now named or our owne desolation without it or the Saints generall clasping about it or the universall ignorance unacquaintance of the world with so spirituall a subject surely every way wee might heale this disease of our little musing of it But above all if the freedome from all our old distempers did present it selfe to our minds How do men plod upon Purchases Pleasures Honours because thereby they imagine that they shall become new men and that they shall live no longer as they have done basely poorly mopishly So should the new happy life of faith no more to lead a sad dismall life affect us Nineveh could turne her thoughts from plodding feares and look up saying Jonah 3. Who knowes if he will turne from his fierce wrath and we perish not They mused of the happy ease which a secret hope would effect And are wee so farre from fastning these cords of direct promises about our armeholes It is a harsh worke to the flesh but sweet to the spirit and although the gains be slow yet if they be kept together they will make a heavy purse when as the neglect of this work wil leave the soule beggerly to her shifts Therfore wait upon those doores at those posts of Assemblies upon which the Proclamations of Heaven are fixed think thy self safe when those nayles given by the Master of them are driven fast to sticke in thy soule that they may not easily be unsettled So much for the second The third is estranging of our hearts from the promise and growing out of acquaintance with it so that we grow not more and more into a promise to know the worth and sweetnesse thereof Contrary to this is the welcomming and entertaining of the Promise The which phrase the Apostle uses in that place of Timothy This is a faithfull saying and worthy all entertainment the word there is taken from Inne-keepers who stand at their doores or gates of receit 1 Tim. 1.15 with both armes to welcome and lodge travellers Such a traveller the Promise is going up and downe seeking where it may be entertained Just it is with God to hold us to hard meat brethren and to straiten us in this point and I pray God it be not the lot of this place to be bereft of this traveller for these forty years hath he gone up and downe among us seeking who are good hoasts and finding few And because the Lord hath pind his promises upon our sleeves a great while wee waxe shie of them and thinke we may have too much of them But woe unto us if those pathes which have beene trodden bare by the feet of the Messengers of God become overgrowne and lye unoccupied as she speakes Judg. 5. for want of travell I tell you good guests finding bad hoasts are grieved and soone seeke them places of better resort and welcome So many as have received him among us have lost nothing save our distempers and corruptions which we were clogg'd with for this guest brings glad tidings and expels all sorrowes and old inmates which distempered the soule Let us therefore beware of this unhospitalnesse and grow glad entertainers of this guest the best which ever came within our doores Grow we as familiar and entire with the promises as the world is strange and aloofe from them Else our usuall distempers will be sure to haunt us whole mornings dayes and nights while they have tyred us But if the Promises be present and our doore stand ever open for them to enter and loath to leave them our old crochets will have small joy to salute us their roome will be better then their company The soule is carried along with delusions of selfe and molested either by false feares or false hopes as we read of Sisera's mother and her Ladies Judg. 5. Iudg 5. She was alwaies staggering betweene two rockes of feare and hope loth was she to thinke the worst and yet afraid of the worst she was willing to thinke that her husband would come and bring home his garments of divers colours captives and spoyle But then she thought his charet wheeles staid too long thus was she willing to beare her selfe in hand with the best both she and her false Ladies till the worst affronted her Oh brethren what a wofull life is this for such as may live a better Who would be a stranger to this Post from Heaven comming with swift wings and healing in them alway bringing found intelligence from thence Mal. 3. and supporting the soule with assurance that it is well betweene God and the soule Who would not do as David did I have made thy Word my Counseller to passe my matters Do Clients keepe themselves aloofe from their Counsellers Do Patients make strange to the Physitian or do friends alienate themselves from friends Oh! Hos 8. we count the Promise a strange thing which in truth by this time should have bin as sweete unto us as the honey and the honey combe as sweet and sweeter then ever our delusions were And we must thinke this will cost us good inuring and acquaintance Our old guests have the birthright and long have taken up the roome it will cost time to dislodge them againe Therefore to end this let us if we would shunne the surfet of our old distempers grow inward with the promise Esay 28. Esay 38. and as Job saith let us acquaint our selves with God Till he come and say This is your refreshing to give over your owne torrents and violent streames and to embrace the waters of Siloe which runne softly let us make the promise our Companion let it be both of our Court and counsell let us empty all our mind into the bosome thereof and hide nothing from it let us discover all our doubts and distempers unto it for it hath as Salom. is said to have the wisdome and treasures of God to supply us Marke it a Minister of the promises is as a scare-crow to the people they care not how little they acquaint with him And as scarce one of forty knowes a Minister or a Prophet in the name of one so few know or receive a promise in the name of a promise
I finished the last Lecture yet this one day of our Lecture being the last that you and I are like to teach and heare each other and the last of our yeare requiring that I should say somewhat unto you Also my studies having reached fully to another Sermon and besides this fourth part of the Chapter craving some connexion with the three other handled already I have set apart this day to this end One point may give light to al the particulars following being 7. if God permit To wit to handle some one such point out of the whole Harmony of these five Verses following as may give you some generall light into the whole context for time will not permit us to go through all These five verses then as I told you in their Title containe the remoter consequences of Naamans obedience To give you a briefe view and taste of them these they are First there is the true spirit of the cure to be evidently discerned in this new Convert feeling the truth of the Word in himselfe and virtue let out from heaven into Jordan to heale him he takes it not as a common thing and like a blocke without sense but is presently and instantly and erresistibly ravished as with a new spirit begotten by the worke of God upon his soule as well as his body The Lord darting grace of mercy and compassion into his heart as well as health into his flesh to intimate unto him by whose providence from first to last he was guided to so strange an effect Lo he comes to the Prophet with a spirit of impotencie admiration and zeale to acknowledge the Lord with all fervor of spirit and to knit his heart for ever in love unto him for this cure of body and soule Secondly feeling himselfe unable to reach the Lord himselfe he goes to his Prophet the next instrument of his good forgets his former discontent and entirely embraces him as the Prophet of God sent unto him for this purpose and to him he directs his thankfulnesse which fell short of God himselfe Thirdly hee enters solemne league with the Lord to be a close client of his for ever ejuring all former false and idolatrous service and vowing himselfe wholly to the Lord and his worship for time to come Fourthly he takes hold and possession of the Church of God acknowledging it to be the onely true Church and therefore scruing himselfe into it that although his face was Aram ward yet his heart was to Jerusalem ward and to the true and onely place where the Lord had visible residence and presence at this time And this although he testified by a weake and poore expression of taking with him the earth of the holy Land Yet the inward soundnesse of heart exceeded his weake signification Fifthly he discovers his unfained conversion by a most tender sense of that sin whereby he had formerly most offended God viz. his presence at the worship of Rimmon this darts into his converted soule even as a dash of the tooth-ach or the sting of an hornet Sixthly he is exceedingly pierced with feare and care how he might nourish that sparkle which God had begun in him and how he might shun and prevent that rocke of offence at which he had mortally stumbled before Seventhly he is very glad to aske direction while it was now to be had how he might order his whole course for time to come which being darke and doubtfull for the present hee therefore craves the Prophets advice and prayers unto which the Prophet gives him a mercifull answer These are the parcels of this fourth generall I can but goe over the first The point then is this Where God workes a true cure upon any soule Doctr. Every true cure hath the spirit of the cure attending it there he also workes the spirit of the cure By a cure I meane conversion of a soule from Idols not Rimmon but lusts and vanities to the living God By the spirit of a cure I meane that instinct and disposition that due temper and quality which such a cure deserveth at the hands of the cured And I say not the spirit of him who is cured but the spâ—rit of the cure that is such a spirit as the mercy of him that heales the soule instils into it viz to be for God who hath beene for it Onely this As Gods cure hath beene gracious so is the spirit of the cure zealous and as his worke hath beene entire whole and unfained to the good of the soule that it might no more returne to folly so is the spirit of the cure sincere intire constant God hates patchery and halfe cures and the spirit of the cure hates halfe thankes halfe love halfe affections In a word the spirit of a sound cure of a soule is a tender spirit the very first fruits of the heart enlightned with faith forgiven renued and warmed in the wombe of mercy the most naturall peculiar acceptable and well pleasing fruit of the soule to God What the spirit of a cure is It stands in a tender love truly called the first love a tender joy in God tender compassions towards him tender jealousie of that which might provoke â—im tender care to please him tendernesse of spirit both to him in affections of desire and delight and also for him in zeale and revenge defence and taking up armes for him And it rests not in him but descends to a tender love to his Truth Worship Services Sacraments Sabbaths Servants and all which hath any relation to God even for his sake This in short is that I meane by this spirit of a cure I pitch upon this point the more willingly because it hath an easie comprehension of all those seven consequences of the cure above named And although each of them be distinct yet because this is my last Lecture I am glad that one doctrine hath so good a lot as to give you though but in generall and farre off a view of the whole For in this spirit of the cure all those fruits of Naamans returne from Jordan may be coucht together as a garment into one knot Explication of the Doctrine Marke then for explication sake thus much It is with the soule in point of spirituall cure as with the body in case of a bodily Who being heal'd by some odde rare Physitian of a mortall disease and such an one as all the Physitians in the country could not turne their hands unto yea such as all others gave over as desperate and past their skill by some odde Physitian I say one of a thousand who himselfe could not have heald it neither except he had by divine hand beene peculiarly made and train'd up for the very nonce to be skilfull in such a disease and such a one as will by no meanes take money or fees but scornes it only stands upon doing good preventing sad wreck of the diseased that he might get himself a name of
questions Prayers confessions and the like who doth not wish himselfe in their case except it be some errant blocke who discovers his brutishnesse all are ravisht to see such early beginnings The Lord knowes the fittest way to worke upon men Sooner will a young novice by his active spirit of the cure stir up others then some solid and grave Disciples because the spirit of the one is more stirring active and drawing than the other Fourthly there is in the cure of the soule converted to God Reas 4 such an irresistible power and impotencie From that irresistible power of Grace in the soule especially in the first turning home of it that there is no choaking quenching or damping of it It resembles her originall Seed leaven mustard-seed are things of an active and encreasing nature Leaven in a little while will sowre all the lump Hence are those expressions of the Saints Thy Word was in mee as coales of fire in my bosome Can a man carry them there and not be burnt I would have kept in thy words saith David but such was the nature of them that they would not be concealed I had no rest nor peace till I had uttered them to Congregations Peter could not hold Christ in his bosome till he had uttered himselfe to Nathaniel That woman of Samaria had fire in her bosome when she went to tell her kindred citizens the news of Christs discourse The love of God workes in the breasts of his Saints as it first wrought in his owne he having conceived it once could not cease till it had discovered it selfe to poore sunken Adam and hee would rather chuse to make his onely Sonne a Masse shame then he would not expresse it Even such is the same love having once wrought in them it is as the new wine in the caske which must have vent or else it will breake It is like Josephs affection to Benjamin all must be had out from him Gen. 45.14 and he must utter himselfe to him and fall upon his neck with a kisse and teares The newer any thing is the more forcible So is it with love The Apostle hath a sweet word to expresse it The love of Christ constraines us 2 Cor. 5. The word signifies 2 Cor. 5.14 gathers us up together as a beast hemmed in a Pinfold hath an appetite after liberty so the spirit of love finds it selfe straitned till it breake out And 1 Cor. 13. love is bountifull and working 1 Cor. 5. full of affection hopeth all things endureth all things and the like The fifth God is the God of order and loves sutablenesse of Reas 5 Age and Temper youth naturally is hot and full of expressions God is the God of order it is comely for young ones to be so their lusts were so before grace therefore grace must be so also I restraine not this heat to meere youth for if God do convert elder ones as Naaman there is a spirituall youth or first age even in them also grace at the first is most operative be the yeares what they may be but especially when grace falls upon tender yeares as for the most part that is the season ere the soule be sapped in lewd customes then it quickens those hot spirits which it meets with to singular expressions Reas 6 Lastly by this spirit the Lord provides matter and argument of convincement For the due convincement of such as after may wax luke-warme and loose and inward checke for time to come if at any time his people shall revolt from this grace of first conversion The Lord knowes our mold and fashion just Psal 103. We seem at our first setting forth to the journey so trimme and so prepared that no troubles nor difficulties shall daunt our resolution But by that time wee have travelled a while what with the ill way what with ill weather bad successe and what with our owne weary and crazie spirits within we waxe unto ward and stagger whether we should goe forward or no. The Lord knowes how many waies this first spirit of the cure flagges and wanzes in us sometimes the abundance of iniquity causes the love of many to waxe cold this degenerate formall world is ready to quench our spirit the presidents of many zealous and painfull professors who are turned drunkards uncleane worldlings Epicures and sinfull wretches 2 Pet. 3. ult do shake us The errour of the wicked puls us from our stedfastnesse feare of some men flattery of others but especially a cursed heart on the one side giddie presuming venturous on the otherside slavish fearfull and distrustfull distempers us so that although we keep from grosse evils yet we are far from that frame of zeale closenesse and watching which we have found onely peace from Now when it falls out thus and that crosses debts ill marriage care of children and other disguisements come upon the necke of the other then is the Lord faine to step in and take us to taske to upbraid us and cast us in teeth with our first spirit of cure our early first love sweet affections covenants humble feare watchfull care diligent paines zealous spirit Luk. 23.31 What was this done in the greene tree and shall it not be done in the dry What shall first beginnings shame thee Didst thou begin in the spirit if yet thou didst so and wilt thou now end in the flesh Oh! is there not enough in that never dying spirit of an immortall hope of salvation to carry thee on in thy poore course with equalnesse of affection Say the edge be a little blunted what is metall gone too is the steele worne out of the backe That first spirit of sound joy in God should by this day have bred in thy belly a welspring of water flowing to eternall life Oh! for shame strengthen the weary hands Heb. 12.13 and feeble knees and correct the crooked that it turne not out of the way Thus the Lord charmes a declining spirit by an experiment of her owne and brings her backe with sorrow and shame to her former temper So much for Reasons Use 1 Now for Use first is the spirit of a true Convert thus zealous for God This then teacheth us a difference of cures and that all are not alike for there are many to be sure farre from this temper and frame of spirit Instruction with an item Not every cure hath such a stroake in the soule of a man thus to change qualifie and act his spirit to and for the Lord. And all to teach us to try our spirits and to be afraid to rest in any base counterfeit cures which afford none of this life and operation Who doth not now a dayes boast himselfe to have gotten this through cure Counterfeit cures very common in the world true cures rare If once baptized and professe the Gospell it is treason in these dayes to put a difference betweene men Alas yee poore wretches