and Orient Mines of all those sweetest mercies folded vp within the Bowells of Gods dearest compassions and of the Mysterie of his free grace and love through the Sonne of his lous vpon purpose to invite and allure those that are without to come in and to stirre vp our Hearers to bring broken hearts bruised Spirits bleeding Soules unto the Throne of grace upon the same ground but infinitely more gracious that incouraged the Seruants of Benhadad to addresse themselves towards the King of Israel And his Servants said unto Him Behold now wee have heard that the Kings of the House of Israel are mercifull Kings Let vs I pray thee put Sackecloth upon our loines and ropes upon our heads and goe out to the King of Israel peradventure hee will save thy life The most desperate Rebels heretofore upon present true remorse for their former rage in sinne resolving sincerely to stand on Gods side for ever hereafter may safely and upon good ground thus reason within themselves Alas wee have done very villanously we have served Satan a long time we walk up downe as condemned men ripe for destruction long agoe Hell it selfe even groanes for us wee may justly look every moment for a Mittimus to cast us headlong into the dungeō of Brimstone and fire and yet we will trie we will goe and throw downe our selves before the Throne of grace in dust and ashes and cry as the Publican did unto the great God of heaven for Hee is a mercifull God gracious long suffering abundant in goodnesse and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sinne And then not onely peradventure but most certainely they shall bee received to mercy and hee will save the life of their Soules I say for this Point of Preaching mercy onely to hearten Men to come in and to nourish in them a hope of pardon in Case of penitency c. See my discourse of true happines p. 173. And I will only adde and advise at this time this one thing of great importance in the Point That after a plentifull magnifying and amplifying the mercy of God by its infinitenesse eternity freenesse and imcomparable excellency every way onely upon purpose to assure the greatest sinners of most certaine acceptation and pardon if they will presently turne with truth of heart from Sathan to the living God from all sinne to his holy Seruice I say that wee then take heed and make sure as much as in us lies that no impenitent unbelieving wretch none that goes on in his trespasses or lies willingly and delightfully in any one sinne receive any comfort by any such discourse as though as yet Hee had any part or interest at all in any one drop of all that boundlesse and bottomlesse Sea of mercy that were a meanes to naile Him fast to His naturall estate for ever But onely thence conceive that if Hee will presently lay downe armes against the Majesty of Heaven and come in with a truly penitent humbled soule thirsting heartily for Iesus Christ and resolve vnfainedly to take His yoke vpon Him there is no number or notoriousnesse of sinne that can possibly hinder his gracious entertainement at Gods mercy-Seate For this end let vs tell all such that though the mercies of God be infinite yet they are dispensed according to His Truth Now the Oracles of Divine Truth tell us that those who shall find mercy are such as confesse and forsake their sinnes Who so confesseth and forsaketh his sinnes shall have mercy Proverb 28.13 Those then who doe not confesse and forsake them shall haue no mercy That the Parties to whom good tidings of mercy and comfort are to bee preached are the poore the broken hearted them that are bruised those that labour and are heavy laden All that mourne c. Luk. 4.18 Mat. 11.28 Isa. 61.2.3 That the man to whom the Lord lookes graciously is even Hee that is poore and of a contrite Spirit and trembleth at his word Isa 66.2 That whosoever by his free mercy through Christ is borne of God doth not commit sin 1. Ioh. 3.9 I meane with allowance purpose perseverance No sinne raignes in such a One c. And yet alas How many miserable men will needs most falsely perswade themselves and others that they have a portion in the mercies of God and hugge with extraordinary applause and embracement the formall flattering messages of Men-pleasers and Time-servers to dawbe over such rotten hopes who yet notwithstanding goe on still in their trespasses who were never yet sensible of the burden of their corruptions and spirituall beggery never wounded in conscience or troubled in minde to any purpose for their sinnes never mourned in secret and sincerely for the abominations of their youth could never yet find in their hearts to sell all for the buying of that one pearle of great price nor ever yet so prized Iesus Christ as to leave their darling pleasures though very base and abominable to enjoy the unspeakeable and glorious pleasures of His gratious kingdome Nay such as heartily serve some Captaine and Commanding sinne in heart or life or calling as their owne consciences if they consult with them impartially in cold blood can easily tell them as Lust the world ambition the times the fashion their pleasures their profits their Passions their ease selfe love pride revenge the dunghill delight of good fellow-ship or the like And here then Let mee discover a notable depth of Sathan whereby hee doth baffle and blind fold His slaves most grossely you know full well and heare often the common Cry of all carnall men especially under any conscionable Ministery against preaching of judgement and for preaching of mercy See the causes why they cannot downe with downeright dealing and powerfull application of the law Disc. of true Happinesse pag. 179 c. But what doe you thinke is the reason that they gape so greedily after Preaching of mercy Not that they can endure the preaching of it as I now have taught and as it onely ought to those that are without To wit To have first the dearenesse the sweetnesse the freenesse the full glory of Gods immeasurable mercy revealed unto them onely as a motive and incouragement to come in but ever at the Close and conclusion to bee made to understand and know certainely that not so much as one drop of all that bottomlesse depth of mercy and bounty in Iesus Christ doth as yet belong unto them lying in any state of unregeneratnes or in any kind of Hypocrisy whilest they regard any wickednesse in their heart and are not willing to plucke out their right eyes and cut off their right hands I meane to make an everlasting divorce from their former dearest sensuall delights and sinnes of their bosome for onely they who confesse and forsake their sinnes shall have mercy Pro. 28.13 This way of preaching mercy would nettle and gall them as much perhaps as pressing of
Mercifull and 2 Gracious 3 Long-suffering and abundant in 4 Goodnesse and 5 Truth 6 Keeping mercy for thousands 7 Forgiving iniquity transgression and sinne In which there are implyed un-answerable replies to all the scruples doubts exceptions objections which may arise in a troubled soule 1. Thou sayest perhaps that thou art plunged into the depth of extremest spirituall misery both in respect of sâ—â—fulnesse and cursednesse The present sense whereof is ready to sinke thee into despaire Be it so Then take my counsell in this Case Cast thine eye upon the first and fairest flowre in this heavenly-glorious Garland of divine goodnesse And thou shalt finde a fame greater depth of mercy ready to swallow up thy depth of misery The mercy of God and misery in this kind are relatives No misery no mercy much misery much mercy transcendent misery transcendent mercy the onely difference is the mercy of God is infinite thy misery finite And therefore how much spirituall misery soever thou bringest in a broken heart to the Throne of grace Gods bountifull hand will weigh out to thee a proportionable measure of mercy nay a measure without measure super-abundant running-over For where misery in a truly humbled soule aboundeth there mercy doth much more abound 2. Or suppose that at thy first turning unto God tho truly humbled yet thou art tempted not to take Christ out of this ccoÌ„eit because thou art but euen now come out of hell and horrible courses and as yet hast no good thing in thee at all Or after some progresse in Christianity reflecting in time of temptation upon thy whole carriage since conversion and finding it to have been so fruitlesse and full of failings Thou concludest thy selfe in thy present feeling to be extremely vile of a very doubtfull state for thy soule if not stark naught That no Professour upon earth walkes so unworthily and if Ministers knew thy heart and weake performance of holy duties they would not bee so forward to presse comfort upon thee c. I say in these two cases and the like it is a great happinesse and sweetest comfort that the mighty Lord of Heaven and Earth hath proclaimed himselfe to bee Gracious which imports thus much to poure out abundance of extraordinary bounty upon a most undeserving partie To place dearest affection and desire of doing good there where there is no desert at all As if a King to make his royall favours more illustrious should raise a worthlesse Wretch a most contemptible Vassal to be his worthiâ—â—â— Favorite highest in his love And therefore bring 〈◊〉 to the Throne of Grace but a true sense of thy misery a syncere thirst for mercy an humble acknowledgement of thine unworthinesse and God hereupon for his Christs sake will thinke thee worthy of the riches of his grace the righteousnesse of his Son all the promises in his Booke all the comforts of his Spirit a Crowne of immortality and blisse For hee is gracious and an universall glorious confluence of blessednesse in all kinds is promised to poverty in spirit and shal most certainely to the vtmost bee made good unto it for ever 3. But alas I saith an other have most wretchedly mis-spent the flower and strength of mine age in vanity and pleasure in lewdnesse and lust The best of my time hath been wofully wasted in Satans notorious service and sensuall serving my selfe c. And therefore tho I bee now weary of my former waies and looke backe upon them with a trembling heart and grieved spirit yet I am affraid that God hath given over looking after mee that His patience towards mee is expired and my day of visitation out-stood And that he will not vouchsafe to cast his eye of compassion upon such a Blackamore Leopard as I am so overgrowne with corruption and growne old in sinne especially having so long neglected so great salvation forsaken mine owne mercy so long and so unthankefully despised the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance leading mee to repentance I confesse it is something rare to see men gone-on so long and growne old in sinne to returne and give way to any saving worke of the Ministry because too often in the meane time they so harden their hearts that they cannot repent yet notwithstanding bee thou assured in the Word of life and truth if now at length thou be truly touched indeed and will come-in in earnest the Father of mercies will receive thee freely to mercy and embrace thy bleeding soule in the armes of his everlasting love through Christ. For it is a title of highest honour unto him to be long-suffering Hee all this while waited that hee might bee gracious unto thee And now undoubtedly upon thy first resolution to returne in truth hee will meete thee with infinitely more compassionate affectionatenesse then the Father in the Gospell his Prodigall who when hee was a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neckâ— and kissed him c. 4. Yea but saith an other Though I have been a Professour long yet many times my heart is full heavy and more loth to beleive when I seriously and sensibly call to minde the hainousnesse of my unregenerate time and see in my selfe besides since I was illightned and should have behaved my selfe in forwardnesse and fruitfullnesse for God answerably to my former folly and furiousnesse in evill so many defects and imperfections every day and such weake distracted discharging of commanded duties both to God and man Take then counsell and comfort in this Case by casting thine eye upon Gods kindnesse He is abundant in kindnesse which hath these foure pretious properties First To bee easily intreated Secondly To be intreated for the greatest Thirdly to passe by involuntary infirmities Fourthly to accept gratiously weake services Even â— fraile man if of a more noble generous and kind disposition will bee easily appeased for the unpurposed offences errours and over-sights and well pleased with the good will syncere indeavours and utmost especially of those who hee knowes to bee true-hearted unto him and desire heartily if they were able to doe all hee desires even to the height of exactnesse and expectation How much more then will our heavenly Father deale so with his children who is in himselfe essentially kinde and infinitely 5. Yea but saist thou many times when I reach 〈◊〉 the hand of my faith to fetch some speciall promise into my soule for refreshing and comfort and weighing them well and comparing advisedly my owne nothingnesse worthlesnesse vilenesse with the riches of mercy grace and glory shining in it and marking the dis-proportion I am overwhelmed with admiration and astonishment and to tell you true say sometimes to my selfe Is it possible that this should be so That so glorious things should belong to such a wretch and worme as I am But turning thine eye from a distrustfull and too much dejected dwelling upon thine owne
gracious acceptation and intertainement at his Throne of Grace That it is naturall also to his Name To forgive iniquity transgression and sinne That is sinnes of all sorts kindes and degrees whatsoever There is none so hatefull and hainous whether naturall corruption or ordinary outward transgression or highest presumption but upon repentance God is most able ready and willing to remit it 7. God the Fathers compassionate pangs of infinite affection and forwardnesse to entertaine into his armes of mercy all true Penitents As I live sayth the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way and live turne yee turne yee from your evill wayes for why will yee die O house of Israell Ezech. 33.11 Woe unto thee O Ierusalem wilt thou not bee made cleane When shall it once be Ier. 13.27 They say if a man put away his wife and shee goe from him and become another mans shall hee returne to her againe Shall not that Land be greatly polluted But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers yet returne againe to mee sayth the Lord Ier. 3.1 Oh that my people had hearkned unto mee and Israel had walked in my waies I would soone have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him but their time should have endured for ever Hee should have fed them also with the finest of the wheate and with honey out of the rocke should I have satisfyed thee Psal. 81. O that thou hadst hearkned to my commandements then had thy peace been as a River and thy righteousnesse as the waves of the Sea Thy seed also had been as the sand and the off-spring of thy howells like the gravell thereof his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before mee Isa. 48.18 8. His mercifull almightinesse in putting life and lightsomnesse into the most dead and darkest heart Seeke him saith the Prophet that maketh the seven Starres and Orion and turneth the shâ—dow of death into the morning Amos 5.8 Suppose thou sâ—ttest thy selfe to seeke Gods face and favour and art presently set upon with this temptation But alas My soule is so blacke with sinne and darke with sorrow that it is to no purpose for mee to proceed c. But now in this case consider who Hee is that thou seekest it is He that made of nothing those beautifull shining glorious constellations Orion and the Pleiades and nothing in the world is darker then nothing Hee is Hee that turneth the darkest midnight into the brightest morning c. 9. Christs sweetest dearest most melting invitations of all truly troubled soules for sinne unto the Well of life and their owne everlasting wellfare Come unto mee all yee that labour and are heavie laden and I will give you rest Mat. 11.28 O Ierusalem Ierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings c. Mat. 23.37 And when hee was come neare hee beheld the City and wept over it saying Oh if thou hadst knowne even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace Luke 19.41.42 In the last day the great Day of the Feast Iesus stood and cried saying If any man thirst let him come to mee and drinke 10. Precedents in Gods Booke of many hainous and horrible sinners received to mercy upon their humiliation As Eve Magdalen Paul Zacheus Sodomits 1. Cor. 6.9.11 Crucifiers of Christ. Acts. 2. 11. Experience perhaps of the Comforter converted from a more wicked and desperate course then the Patient himselfe And it doth not a little refresh the heart of him who grievosly wounded in conscience and thereupon sending for a skillfull and faithfull Messenger of God and when he hath opened his Case fully unto him to heare him say when he hath sayd all My Case was farre worse then yours every way Nay but besides those notorious sins I have named unto you I have defiled my selfe with many secret execrable lusts Be it so saith the spirituall Physition yet in the daies of my vanity I have been guilty of moe and more hainous crimes then any you have yet spoken of Yea but even now when I have most need of should most prize reverence and lay hold upon Gods blessed Word Son and Promises I am pestilently pestered with many abhorred villanous and prodigious injections about them Not a man alive replies the Man of God hath had his head troubled with more hideous thoughts of such hellish nature then I c. 12. That pretious Parable Luk. 15. wherein all those loving passages of the Father unto his prodigall Son to wit His beholding him when hee was yet a great way off his compassion running towards him falling upon his necke kissing him putting on him the best Robe and the Ring killing the fatted Calfe c. doe shadow that immeasurable incomprehensible love of God the Father to every one that is willing to come out of the Divels cursed service into the good way But come as farre short of expressing it to the life as the infinite greatnesse of Almighty God surpasseth the finite frailty of a weake man and worme of the earth 2. In a second place Let us take a view of some of those most delicious and sweetest streames of dearest comfort which spring abundantly out of that fruitfull Fountaine of compassion and love Psal. 103.13 Like as a Father pittieth his Children so the Lord pittieth them that feare him See also Deutâ—r 8.5 Malac. 3.17 Hence may wee draw refreshing enough to our thirstie soules in many passages of heavy thoughts and grievous complaints about our spirituall state 1. In the distempers and damps of prayer thus Suppose the dearest Sonne of the loving'st Father to lie grievously sicke and out of the extremity of angvish to cry out and complaine unto him that hee is so full of paine in every part that hee knowes not which way to turne himselfe or what to doe and thereupon intreats him of all loves to touch him tenderly to lay him softly to mollifie all hee may his painefull misery and give him ease How ready thinke you would such a father bee with all tendernesse and care to put to his helping hand in such a ruefull case But yet if hee should grow sicker and weaker so that hee could not speake at all but onely looke his Father in the face with watery eies and moane himselfe unto him with sighes and groanes and other dumbe expressions of his increased paine and desire to speake Would not this yet strike deeper into the Fathers tender heart pierce and melt it with more feeling pangs of compassion and make his bowells yerne within him with an addition of extraordinary dearenesse and care to doe him good Even just so will thy heavenly Father bee
number of His Elect is so small and the sway of the multitude sinke downe under the burden of their iniquities transgressions and sinnes into the Pit of endlesse Perdition How comes it to passe that out of the great heape and masse of all man-kinde there are made but so few vessells of mercy and that so many vessels of wrath are justly for their sinnes filled brim-full with the vialls of everlasting vengeance See Matth. 7.13.14 and 20.16 Some matter of Answer to this Point would yee thinke it may bee taken even from the Schoolemen If we consider first The unconceiveable eminency and unvalewable worth of the Crowne of glory which doth so far and disproportionably surpasse transcend the common state and condition of our nature Secondly The pretiousnesse of the effusion of the blood of the deare and only Son of God for the purchasing of that so glorious a Crowne Thirdly The necessary and inevitable defectibility of the Creature Fourthly The most free and wilfull Apostacy of Adam and in Him of all his Posterity Fifthly The abominable and villanous nature and staine of sinne c. Why should wee not rather wonder at the unsearcheablenesse of Gods mercy for advancing one Soule to that endlesse blisse in Heaven then to repine at the equity of His justice if He should have suffered all the polluted and sinnefull sonnes of Adam to passe from the Masse of corruption into which they freely fell on their owne accord and cursed choise thorow a rebellious life into the endlesse miseries of their deserved confusion Would it not have been a greater marvaile to have seene any one clearely convinced and found guilty of that most horrible villany that ever was bred in Hell or heard-of in the World I meane the Popish Powder-Treason pardoned then all those desperate Assasins to have justly perished in their so abhorred and execrable rebellion And it is utterly un-imaginable either by Man or Angell what a deale of mercy doth flow out of the Bowels of Gods dearest compassions thorow the hearts-blood of his onely Sonne to the washing and salvation but of one Soule 3. A third Reason may bee taken from it's part and interest in the Fountaine of salvation and Rivers of living water Hee that thirsts after grace is already enrighted to the Well of life and fullnesse of heavenly blisse by a promise and protestation from Gods owne mouth Revel 21.6 I will give to Him that is athirst of the Fountaine of the Water life freely In that Place after God himselfe had confirmed and crowned the truth and certainty of the gloriousnesse of the holy City and the happinesse of the Inhabitants thereof with a solemne asseveration of his owne immutability and everlastingnesse It is done I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end He then notifies and describes the persons to whom the promise and possession of so great and excellent glory doth appertaine and those also which shall bee eternally abandoned from the presence of God and burned in the Lake of fire and brimstone for ever Inhabitants of Heaven Elect are 1. Humble Soules thirsting after grace Gods favour and that blessed Fountaine opened to all broken hearts for sinne and for uncleannesse I will give to him that is athirst of the Well of the water of life freely vers 6. 2. Christs champions here upon earth against the powers of darkenesse and conquerers of their owne corruptions Hee that overcommeth shall inherit all things and I will be his God and hee shall bee my sonne vers 7. But the fearefull c. are mark't out for Hell verse 8. For all that cursed crue and slaves of sinne are overcome of Satan and their owne lusts and so carried away captives into everlasting misery and woe Cast not away thy confidence then Poore heart No not in the lowest langvishings of thy afflicted soule If thou bee able to say syncerely with David Psal. 143. My Soule thirsteth after Thee as a thirsty Land If thou feele in thy affections an hearty hunger after rightousnesse both infused and imputed as well after power against as pardon of sinne Bee assured the Well of life stands already wide open unto thee and in due time Thou shalt drinke thy fill Thy soule shall bee fully satisfyed with the excellencies of Iesus Christ Evangelicall joyes as with marrow and fatnesse and Thou shalt bee abundantly refreshed out of the river of his pleasures 4. That which Paul tells us in the Point of communicating to the necessities of the Saints to wit If there bee first a willing minde it is accepted according to that a Man hath and not according to that Hee hath not 2. Cor. 8.12 holds true also in all other services and divine duties So that wee are accepted with the Lord according as wee are inwardly affected altho our actions be not answerable to our desires Hee that hath a ready and resolved minde to doe what Hee may would undoubtedly doe a great deale more if ability were ministred God saith Paul worketh both to will and to doe If both bee His owne workes the desire as well as the deede Hee must needs love and like both the one and the other both in respect of acceptation and reward David did but conceive a purpose to build God an house and Hee rewarded it with the building and establishing of his owne House 2. Sam. 7.16 Hee did but conceive a purpose to confesse His sinne and Gods eare was in his heart before Davids confession could bee in His tongue Ps. 32.5 To the poore Beggeâ—s that wanted food for themselves Christ shall say at the last day Yee have fed me wheÌ„ I was hungry only in regard of their strong affections if they had had meanes The Prodigall Child when He was but conceiving a purpose of returning was prevented by His Father first comming to Him Nay running towards Him Luk. 15.20 God will answer us before wee call Isa. 65 24. That is in our purpose of praier c. Besides Scripture and reasons I add ancient and moderne authority not for any further confirmation but onely to shew consent To desire the helpe of grace is the beginning of grace saith Austin Onely thou must will and God will come of his owne accord saith Basil. Hee that thirsts let him thirst more and hee that desires let him yet desire more abundantly Because so much as Hee can desire so much He shall receive Bernard Christ saith Luther is then truly omnipotent and then truly raignes in us when wee are so weake that wee can scarce give any groane Againe The more wee finde our unworthinesse and the lesse wee finde the promises to belong unto us the more wee must desire them beeing assured that this desire doth greatly please God who desireth and willeth that His grace should bee earnestly desired When I have a good desire saith Kemnicius tho it doth scarcely shew it selfe in some little and
judgement Nay why not more Proportionably to that which Divines hold That the privation and losse of heavenly joyes and beatificall presence of God is far bitterer then the torments of sense and positive paines of Hell But to tell you their true meaning and their very hearts Their aime in so complaining and calling for mercy from our Ministry is to have it so and in such a manner proposed and preached that they may thence collect and conceive that they are in state good enough to goe to Heaven as they are though in truth they bee meere strangers to the life of God and holy strictnesse of the Saints were never truly humbled with sight of sinne and sense of wrath nor experimentally acquainted at all with the Mysterie of the New birth That they may conclude and say within themselves Howsoever some Ministers of the purer and preciser streine fright us continually with nothing but judgement terrour damnation and will not suffer us to bee quiet no not so much as in One sinne yet it is our good hap sometimes to meet with some mercifull men who will help us to Heaven without so much adoe and upon easier termes c. In a word they would upon the matter have just so much mercy as might assure and warrant them to carry securely their sinnes in their bosome to Heaven with them to live as they list in this life and to dye the death of the righteous Which is a conceit most ridiculous absurd and more then utterly impossible What a hatefull tricke then is this and horrible imposture which they suffer Sathan to put them upon In proposing of Christ Let the Man of God set out as much as Hee can possibly the excellency of His Person the unvaluable pretiousnesse of His blood the riches of His heavenly purchases the gracious sweetnesse of His invitations the generality and freenesse of His offers the glorious Priviledges Hee brings with Him reconciliation to God Adoption forgivenesse of sins justification righteousnesse wisedome sanctification redemption c. Possession of all things For all things are yours Whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come All are yours And yee are Christs and Christ is Gods 1. Cor. 3.22.23 Let Him tell His Hearers that the blood of Christ is called the blood of God Act. 20.28 and therfore of infinite merit and unvaluable price It sprang out of His humane nature and therefore finite in it's owne nature and lost upon the ground But the Person that shed it being the Sonne of God did set upon it such an excellency and eternity of vertue and value that the infinitenesse of its merit and inestimablenesse of its worth lasts everlastingly It will bee as fresh orient and effectuall to wash away the sinnes of the last man that shall bee called upon earth as it was those of the Penitent Thiefe who saw it with His bodily eies gushing out of his blessed side upon the crosse or the first man who did first savingly apprehend that first Promise The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head Let him assure them it is so soveraigne That in a truly broken humbled and thirsty soule it turneth the most Scarlet and Crimson sinnes into snow and wooll That upon compunction and comming in it washed away that horrible and bloody guilt from the soules of them that spilt it Act. 2. Let them know also in how high a degree and hainously they offend from time to time who refuse to take Iesus Christ offered most freely without exception of any person every Sabbath every sermon either in plaine and direct termes or implyedly at the least Oh! Litle doe people thinke who sit under our Ministry unwrought upon by the word what a grievous and fearefull sinne they commit and carry home from the House of God day after day in neglecting so great salvation in forsaking their owne mercy and in judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life I meane by chusing upon a free Offer of his Soule-saving blood to cleave rather to a Lust Horrible indignity then to Iesus Christ blessed for ever rather to wallow in the mire and mudde of earthly pelfe in the filth and froth of swinish pleasures In idlenesse pride worldlinesse whoredome drunkennesse strange fashions scorning Professours contempt of the power of godlinesse railing against religion revelling Selfe-uncleannesse c. then abandoning these filthy harlots to take the Sonne of God for their deare and everlasting Husband This not Beleeving This refusing Christ This not taking Him in the manner and sense as I have said is such a sinne though not so thought upon and taken to heart that Divines speake of it as of a most transcendent sinne the greatest sinne the sinne of sinnes the onely sinne as it were from such Places as these But when the King heard thereof Hee was wroth and Hee sent foorth His armies and destroyed those murderers and burnt up their City Mat. 22.7 Hee meanes those who were invited to the Sons marriage and made light of it Hee that beleeveth not is condemned already because hee hath not beleeved in the Name of the onely begotten Sonne of God Ioh. 3.18 When the Comforter is come Hee will convince the world of sinne because they beleeve not on mee Hee meanes this sinne alone saith Austin As though not beleeving on the Sonne of God were the onely sinne It is indeed the maine and master sinne because as the same Father speakes truly This remaining the guilt of all other sinnes abides upon the soule this removed all other sinnes are remitted Nay and besides the horriblenes and hainousnes of the sin what height and perfection of madnesse is it That whereas a Man but renouncing his base rotten transitory sinfull pleasures dogged continually at the heeles with vengeance and horror And only taking Iesus Christ in whom are hidden and heaped up the fulnes of grace and treasures of all perfection might have therevpon to say nothing of the excellency of his person purchases of his passion and possessiō of the most blessed Deity a full free discharge thereby at the hands of so happy an Husband from every moment of the everlastingnesse of Hellish torments and a Deed presently sealed with His owne hearts-blood for an undoubted right to every minute of the eternity of heavenly joyes yet should in cold blood most wickedly and willingly after so many intreaties invitations importunity onely for the good of His poore immortall Soule refuse the change Heaven and earth may be astonished Angels and all Creatures may justly stand amazed at this prodigious sottishnes and monstrous madnesse of such miserable men The world is wont to call Gods people precise fooles because they are willing to sell all they have for that One pearle of great price to part with profits pleasures preferments their right hand their right eye every thing any thing rather then to leave
bee tho I hope better things of Thee The truth as I said both of thy heart and these affectionate promises will appeare when the storme is over and this dismall tempest which hath over-cast and shaken thy spirit with extraordinary feare and astonishment is overblowne Thy course of life to come will proove a true Touch-stone to try whether this bee the kindly travaile of the New-birth or onely a temporary taking-on during the fit by reason of the uncouthnesse and exquisitenesse of this invisible spirituall torture without true turning to Iesus Christ. If when the now-troubled powers of thy soule which the wound of thy conscience hath cast into much distracted and uncomfortable confusion shall recover their wonted calmenes and quiet thou turne unto thine old bias humour company and conversation it will then bee more then manifest that this Furnace of terrour and temptation wherein thou now lies and languishes was so far from working thine heart to heavenlinesse and grace that it hath hammered it to more hardnesse and ungraciousnesse from purging and refining that it hath occasioned more earthlinesse epicurisme and raging affections in sensuality and sinfull pleasures But if when thou art up againe and raised by Gods mercifull hand out of the Depth of this spirituall distresse into which the horrible sight and heavy waight of thy sinnes have sunke thee if then thou expresse and testifie thy true-heartednesse in these present solemne protestations made now as it were in thy hot blood I meane of thy hatred against sinne by an earnest opposition watchfulnesse and striving against all especially that which in thine unregenerate time stucke closest to thy bosome of thine hunger and thirst after a comfortable fruition of Gods face and favour by a conscionable and constant pursuit and exercise of all good meanes and opportunities of all his blessed ordinances appointed and sanctified for groath in grace and bringing us nearer unto Him of thy future New-obedience and Christian walking by plying industriously and fruitfully with thy best endeavour and utmost ability those three glorious workes of Christianity Preservation of purity in thine owne Soule and Body righteous dealing with all thou hast to doe-with Holy carriage towards God in all religious duties In a word by denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and living soberly righteously and godlily in this present world of which the grace of God teacheth every true Convert to make Conscience I say if upon thy recovery this bee thy course Thou art certainely New-created Such blessed behaviour as this will infallibly evidence these present terrours to have been the Pangs of thy New-birth and thy happy translation from death to life from the vanity and folly of sin into the light and liberty of Gods Children 2. Secondly say unto Him When once that blessed Fountaine of Soule-saving blood is opened upon thy Soule in the side of the Sonne of God by the hand of Faith for sinne and for uncleannesse then also must a Counter-spring as it were of repentant teares bee opened in thine humbled heart which must not be dried up untill thy dying Day This is my meaning for every Christian hath not teares at command the heart sometimes may bleed when the eyes are dry Thou must bee content to continue the current of thy godly sorrow upon that abominable Sinke and Sodom of all the lusts vanities and villanies of thy darke and damned time and also upon those frailties infirmities imperfections defects relapses back-slidings which may accompany thy regenerate state even untill that body of sinne which thou carries about Thee bee dissolved by the stroke of death As concerning thine old sinnes and those that are past it is not enough that now the fresh horrour of them and those grissely affrighting formes wherein they have appeared to the eye of thy wounded conscience have wrought upon thy heart by Gods blessing some softnesse heart-rising remorse and hatred But thou must many and many a time hereafter in the extraordinary exercises of renued repentance presse thy penitent spirit to bleede afresh within thee and draw water againe out of the bottome of thy broken heart with those Israelites and poure it out before the Lord in abundāce of bitter teares for thy never sufficiently sorrowed-for abominations and rebellions against so blessed and bountifull a God Now the solemne times and occasions when wee are called to this renued Repentance are such as these 1. When wee are to performe some speciall services unto God because then out of a godly jealousie wee may feare lest the face and favour of God the love and light of His countenance may not lie so open unto us by reason of the cloudy interposition of our former sinnes 2. When wee seeke for any speciall blessing at Gods mercifull hands because then out of a gracious feare we may suspect that our old sinnes may intrude and labour to intercept and divert from our longing Soules the sweet and comfortable influences of the Throne of grace It may seeme that David in the current of his prayer saw His old sinnes charge upon Him and therefore cries out by the way Remember not the sinnes of my youth 3. In the time of some great affliction and remarkeable Crosse when upon a new search and strict examination of our hearts and lives we humbling our selves more solemnely againe in the sight of the Lord and mourning afresh over Him whom wee have pierced with our youthly pollutions and provoke daily with many wofull failings are wont to seeke Gods pleased face and our former peace sanctification of it unto us in the meane time and the remoovall of it from us in due time in the name of Iesus Christ. 4. After relapse into some old secret lust or fall into some new scandalous sinne Davids remorse for adultery and murder brought his heart to bleede over his birth-sinne Psal. 51.5 Above all upon all those mighty Dayes of humiliation by prayer and fasting publike private or secret wherein Gods people wrastle with God by the omnipotency of prayer and worke so many wonders from time to time 6. Some there are also who setting apart some speciall times to conferre with God in secret lay together before Him the glorious Catalogue of the riches of His mercy reaching from everlasting to everlasting all his favours preservations deliverances protections c. from their first beeing to that time and the abhorred Catalogue of all their sinnes from Adam to that houre Originall both imputed and inherent actuall both before and since their calling and this they doe with hearty desire of such different affections as they severally require A serious and sensible comparing of which two together makes sinne a great deale more loathsome and the mercies of God more illustrious and so prooves effectuall many times by the helpe of the Holy Ghost to soften their hearts extraordinarily to make them weepe heartily and fils their Soules with much joyfull sorrow and humble thankefulnesse 7. Vpon our Beds
and loathnesse to believe adds in an other Place to ordinary invitation a stirring compassionate and quickning compellation or rather exclamation Ho saith Hee Isa. 55.1 Every one that thirsteth come yee to the waters c. And lest any thinke Hee shall come to His cost or should bring any thing in His hand Hee calls upon Him that hath no money and thus doubles His cry Come yee buy and eate yea come buy wine and milke without money and without price O most blessed and sweetest lines So full of love and longing to draw us to the Well of life that besides that holy pang of compassion and excitation Ho Hee cries thrice Come Come Come Yea but mayst thou say Alas I am so farre from bringing any thing in my hand that I bring a world of wickednesse upon my heart and that above ordinary both in notoriousnesse and number and therfore I am afraid the hainousnesse of my sinnes will hinder my acceptation tho the invitation bee most sweet and pretious Be it so yet the Spirit of God in the same Chapter doth purposely meet with and remoove that very scruple Let the wicked saith He forsake His way and the unrighteous man His thoughts And this is thy Case Thou art unfainedly set against all sinne both inward and outward and let him returne unto the Lord and Hee will have mercy upon Him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon verse 7. Hee will not onely have mercy upon thee but Hee will also abundantly pardon Hee will multiply His pardons according to thy provocations and that with super-abundance Rom. 5.20 4. If all this will not yet doe Hee descends out of the infinite riches of his grace to a miracle of further mercy For the mighty Lord of Heaven and earth sends Ambassadours unto us dust and ashes wormes and no men to beseech us to bee reconciled unto Him Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us wee pray you in Christs stâ—ad be ye reconciled unto God 2. Cor. 5 20. What man can possibly ponder seriously upon this Place but must bee transported with extraordinary admiration nay adoration of the bottomlesse depth and infinite height of Gods incomprehensible everlasting and free love We most abhorred vile wretches are the Offenders Traitors Rebels enimies and ought to seek and sue unto Him first upon the knees of our soules trembling in the dust and if it were possible with teares of blood and yet He begins unto us intreating us by His owne Son and His servants the Ministers to come in accept His favour and grace enter into the wise and good way which is pretious profitable honorable and pleasant that He may hereafter set upon our heads everlasting Crownes of glory and blisse An earthly Prince would disdaine and hold it in foule scorne to send unto His inferiour for reconcilement especially who had behaved Himself basely unworthily towards Him and justly provoked His royall indignation Would not the King of Spaine thinke you so great a Monarch hold it an inexpiable dishonour and indignity to send Embassadours now and sue unto the Hollanders so farre below Him for reconcilement and peace promising and assuring them of an entire restitution and exercise of all their ancient rights priviledges liberties and fundamentall Lawes that they should not need to feare that greatest tyranny and severest kind of persecution under heaven the Spanish Inquisition that He would resume His former Oath the Popes dispensation for which begun all the trouble c. Rather then He would do it He hath paid already a good while since above an hundred millions and the lives of above foure hundred thousand men And is still spending abundance of gold and blood It is thus indeede with wormes of the earth in whom there is no helpe and whose breath is in their nostrills But it is otherwise with the King of Kings who sitteth upon the Circle of the Earth and the inhabitants thereof are as Grashoppers and the Nations as the drop of a Bucket who bringeth the Princes to Nothing and maketh the Iudges of the Earth as vanitie Hee is content to put up at our hands this indignity and affront if I may so speake He is glad to sue unto us first and send His Ambassadours day after day beseeching us to bee reconciled unto Him O incomprehensible Depth of unspeakeable mercy and Encouragement to come in and trust in his mercy in case of spirituall misery able to trample under foot triumphantly all Oppositions of the most raging Hell or distrustfull heart 5. Nay Hee commands us And this is his Commandement that wee should beleeve on the Name of his Sonne Iesus Christ 1. Ioh. 3.23 This command alone of rhe All-powerfull God should infinitely out-weigh and prevaile against all other counter-maunds of Heaven or Earth flesh and blood Satan nature reason sense the whole Creation all the World It should swallow up all scruples doubts feares despaires Comming to Iesus Christ with broken hearts according to this Commandement It will beare us out against all oppositions accusations weaknesses of faith in the evill times in the houre of temptation upon our beds of death at that last and greatest day It will be a plea at such times utterly above all exception against all allegations terrours and temptations to the contrary to say I was humbled under the burden of sinne and sense of my spirituall misery God in mercy offered mee His Sonne Iesus Christ freely in the Mysterie of the Gospell by the Ministry of the Word I thereupon thirsted infinitely for His Person and pretious blood that I might thereby obtaine pardon and power against my sinnes Hee called upon mee and commanded mee to drinke my fill of the Water of life freely I accepted His gracious Offer and according to His Commandement cast my selfe upon the Lord Christ against all the contradictions of carnall reason and Sophistry of Satan and since that time Hee hath given mee power to serve Him in syncerity of heart This is my ground and warrant even the Commandement of my blessed God Thus to drinke when I was thirsty Against which the gates of Hell can never possibly prevaile In thy Case then who thirsts extremely and upon free Offer yet refusest to drink consider how unworthily thou dishonours God and wrongs thine owne Soule by suffering the Divels cavils and the groundlesse exceptions of thine owne distrustfull heart to prevaile with thee against the direct Command of Al-mighty God which thou oughtest to obey against all reason sense feares doubts despaires and Hellish suggestions Abraham the Father of the Faithfull did readily and willingly submit to Gods Commandement even to kill His owne onely deare Sonne with His owne hand naturally matter of as great griefe as could possibly pierce the heart of a mortall man And wilt thou beeing broken-hearted stand off from believing and refuse when Hee commands Thee
to take His own only deere Son especially sith thou takes with Him the excellency and variety of all blessings both of Heaven Earth a Discharge from every moment of the everlasting paines of Hell Deeds sealed with His own blood of thy Right to the glorious Inheritance of the Saints in light In a word even all things the most glorious Deity it self blessed for ever to bee enjoyed thorow Him with unspeakeable and endlesse pleasure thorow all eternity Prodigious madnesse cruelty to thine owne Soule or something at which Heaven and Earth Man and Angell and all Creatures may stand amazed That thou shouldest so wickedly and willfully forsake thine owne mercy and neglect so great salvation 6. Lastly lest He should let passe any meanes or be any waies wanting on His part to drive us to Christ and settle our Soules upon Him with sure and everlasting confidence He also o threatneth And to whom sware Hee that they should not enter into His rest but to them that believed not Heb. 3.18 Wherein Hee expresseth extremest anger unquenchable and implacable indignation Hee sweares in his wrath that no unbeleever shall ever enter into His rest In the Threats of the Morall Law there is no such Oath but a secret reservation of mercy upon the satisfaction of divine justice some other way But herein the Lord is peremptory and a third way shall never bee found or afforded to the Sonnes of Men. Neglect of such a gracious Offer of so great salvation must needes provoke and incense so great a God extraordinarily For with prodigious ingratitude folly it flings as it were Gods free grace in His face againe and sinnes against His mercy Suppose a mighty Prince passing by all the royall and noble blood in Christendome many brave and honorable Ladies should send to a poore maide bred in a base Cottage borne both of beggerly and wicked Parents offer her marriage to make Her a Princesse and shee then should foolishly refuse and reject so infinitely undeserved and unexpected advancement As shee might thereupon bee justly branded for a notorious Bedlam so would not so great a Prince thinke you bee mightily enraged at such a dunghill indignity and peevish affront The Prince of peace upon whosâ— thigh is written King of Kingâ— and Lord of Lords passing by more excellent and noble creatures sends unto Thee whose Father is corruption and the worme thy mother and thy sister and who in respect of thy spirituall state lies polluted in thine owne blood c. And offers to betroth Thee unto Himselfe in righteousnesse and in iudgement and in loving kindenesse and in mercies To Crowne Thee with all the riches both of His kingdome of grace and glory c. Now if thou shouldest stand off which God forbid as thereupon out of perfection of madnesse thou forsakest thine owne salvation so thou most justly enforcest that blessed Lord to sweare in his wrath that thou shalt never bee saved Thus thou hast heard how First Hee keepes open house to all such hungry and thirsty soules Rev. 22.17 Secondly Hee invites Mat. 11.28 Thirdly Invites with an awakening and rouzing compellation Isa. 55.1 Fourthly Intreats 2. Cor. 5 20. Fifthly Commands 1. Ioh. 3.23 Sixthly And threats Heb. 3.18 How cruell then iâ— that Man to His owne wounded conscience who in his extreme spirituall thirst will not bee drawne by this sixfold mercifull Cord to drinke His fill of the Fountaine of the water of life to cast Himselfe with confidence and comfort into the armes of the Lord Iesus Which is more then infinitely able to tie the most trembling heart and that which hangs-off most by reason of pretended doubts scruples and distrusts to that blessed Saviour of His with all full assurance and perfect peace How is it possible but that all or some of these should bring in every broken heart to believe and cause every one that is weary of his sinnes to relie upon the Lord of life for everlasting Wellfare But that which I desire principally to presse for my purpose in the Pâ—int at this time is this Thy conscience is now awaked terrifyed and troubled and therefore as I suppose tender and very sensible at least for a time of the least sinne â—very sinne lies now upon thy Soule as heavy as a mountaine of leade and therefore thou wouldest not willingly adde unto thy already insupportable burden any more waight All thy youthfull lusts and abominations stare in the face of thy conscience with griesly and horrible lookes and therefore for the present especially thou art notably scared from a willing provocation of Gods anger and wounding it afresh with any new sinne Well it beeing thus then If it appeare unto Thee that by thy standing off in the Case I have supposed thee from taking Christ as thine owne applying the promises as most certainely belonging unto â—hee and so putting to thy seale that God is true Thou dishonours Him extraordinarily in many respects Mee thinkes then thou shouldest bee mightily mooved without any more adoe to cast thy selfe presently upon the Lord Iesus with comfort and much assurance Especially sith thy so yeelding to the Law of faith is for thy infinite good And assure thy Selfe thou offendest in the meane time many waies 1. By a sowre and selfe-will'd unmanerlinesse towards Christ in not comming when Hee calls theo Mat. 11.28 It is pride and high pride saith a worthy Divine not to come when thou art called It is rudenesse and not good manners not to doe as thou art bidden to doe yea so often and earnestly charged to doe It would be a foule fault and unmannerly disobedience for any subject in this kingdom tho never so ragged tatter'd or pretending never so much His unfitnesse and unfinenesse to presse into so great a presence not to come unto the King if Hee should please earnestly to call upon Him Disobedience to the Law of faith and reiecting Gods gracious Offer of his Sonne freely is the greatest and an inexpiable sinne He hath sworne in his wrath that such a Refusant shall never enter into His rest 2. By a saucy prescribing unto Him upon what termes Hee shall take thee Ho sayes Hee every One that thirsteth come yee to the waters and Hee that hath no money Come yee buy and eate yea come buy wine and milke without money and without price Nay saist Thou I will either bring something in mine hand or I will none Whereas it appeares in the cited Place that Christ calls not onely those that are thirsty but also such as have no money 3. By undervalewing the unvalewable worth of his pretious blood As tho thy sinnes had exceeded the price that hath been paid for them Whereas it is called Act 20.28 Gods owne blood And therefore no want in it to wash away any sinne and for ever 4. By offering disparagement to all the promises in Gods blessed Booke Every one whereof doth now sweetly
side Sixthly That they may grow into greater conformity with their blessed Saviour in spirituall sufferings Seventhly That tasting againe sometimes the bitternesse of divine wrath for sinne they may bee the more frighted and flee further from it Eighthly That thereby the incomprehensible love of Christ toward them may sinke deeplier into their hearts who for their sakes and salvation drunke deepe and large and the very dregs of that Cup the least drop whereof is to them so bitter and intolerable Ninthly That by sometimes sense of the contrary their joy in the favour and light of Gods countenance may bee more joyful Their spirituall peace more pleasant the pleasure of grace more pretious the comforts of godlinesse more comfortable c. Tenthly For admonition to others To draw duller and drouzy Christians to more strictnesse watchfulnesse and Zeale by observing the spirituall troubles and terrours of those who are far more holy and righteous then themselves To intimate unto Formall Professours that all is certainely naught with them who ordinarily are meere strangers to all afflictions of Soule and sorrow for sinne Eleventhly For terrour to many who going on securely in their sensuall courses are woont to cry downe all they can the power of preaching by crying to their companions thus or in the like manner Well for all this wee hope Hell is not so hot nor sinne so heavy nor the Divell so blacke nor God so unmercifull as these precise Preachers would make them c. How may such as these bee affrighted and terrified upon this occasion with pondering upon that terrible Place 1. Pet. 4.17.18 If iudgement begin at the house of God what shall the end bee of them that obey not the Gospell of God And if the righteous scarcely bee saveâ— If Gods Children have their consciences scorched as it were with the flames of Hell where shall the ungodly and the sinner appeare But even in the bottome of that fiery Lake and amidst the unquenchable rage of those endlesse flames Twelfthly For the just hardening of such as hate to bee reformed and are desperately resolved against the saving precisenesse of the Saints It may bee in this manner A godly Man hath lived long amongst Rebels thornes and Scorpions scorners railers Persecutours who altho Hee hath shined all the while as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation yet they were ever so farre from beeing heated with love of heavenly things by His holy life or wonne unto good by His gracious example that like so many Bats and Owles impatient of all spirituall light they did either flie from it as farre as they could in affection practise if not in Habitation Or fell upon it fiercely with their envenomed Clawes of spite and cruelty to extingvish quite if it were possible such blessed beames of saving Light and to darken with Hellish mists of ignorance and ill life the Place where they live They wilfully blinded themselves with a pestilent conceit That His sincerity was nothing but Hypocrisie His holinesse onely humour His forwardnesse Phantasticallnesse His sanctification singularity And thereupon resolved and boisterously combind against Him with all their policy purses and possibilities like those ungodly Ones Wisd. 2. Let us lie in waite for the righteous because Hee is not for our turne and Hee is cleane contrary to our doings He upbraideth us with our offending the Law and obiecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education c. I say now God may suffer such a Man upon His Deaths-bed to fall into some more extraordinary and markable discomfort and distresse of Conscience Of which those gracelesse wretches taking greedy notice may thereby bee desperately obstinated and hardned in their lewd and carnall courses For seeing Gods hand upon Him in that fearefull manner and wanting the spirit of discerning they doe conclude most peremptorily that for all His great shewes Hee was most certainely but a Counterfeite And so themselves become upon that occasion many times more most implacable enemies to grace and all good men They are stronglier lockt up in the armes of the Divell faster nailed to formality or good-fellowship and which is the perfection of their madnesse and misery blesse themselves in their hearts saying merrily to their Brethren in iniquity You see now what these men are which make themselves so holy and are so hot in religion These are the Fellowes which pretend to bee so scrupulous and precise and of that singular streine of sanctity that they thinke none shall be saved but themselves c. You see in this Man the desperate ends of such hypocriticall Puritans Thus the glory of Gods justice is justly magnified by letting them grow starke blind who wilfully shut their eyes against the Light of grace by giving them over to a reprobate minde who so maliciously hated to bee reformed And so too often they walke on for ever after with confidence and hardnesse of heart which cannot repent in a perpetuall prejudice against purity and the power of godlinesse unto the Pit of Hell Whereas by the mercy of God and inviolable constancy of His Covenant that blessed Man by these terrours and afflictions of Conscience besides glorifying God in hardening others is as it were the more thorowly fitted and refined for that glory which is presently to bee revealed 3. Greatest humiliations doe not ever argue and import the greatest Sinners For sinnes are not alwayes the cause of our afflictions particularly and directly But some times some other Motives Abraham was put unto that heavy Taske of taking away His owne onely deare sonnes life principally for the triall of His Faith Iob was visited with such a matchlesse variety and extremity of afflictions upon purpose to end that controversie betweene God and Satan whether Hee feared God for nought or no Gods heavy hand was sometimes upon David specially for the manifestation of His innocency See Psal. 17.3 Nay our blessed Saviour infinitely free from sinne was notwithstanding tempted and tried by Satan and the world that His heavenly vertues divine excellencies might appeare and bee made more illustrious And Himselfe tells us Ioh. 9.3 that the blinde man was so borne neither for His owne sinne nor for the sinne of His Parents But that the workes of God should bee made manifest in Him For the particular I have in hand To prevent some sinne into which Hee sees His Childe inclinable and like to fall by reason of some violent occasion naturall propension strong temptation industrious malice of the Divell to disgrace Him and His Profession scandalously c. God in great mercy may give Him a taste nay a deepe draught of the unexpressable terrours of a troubled minde againe that thereby Hee may bee taught betime to take more heede walke more warily and stand upon His guard with extraordinary watchfulnes against the very first assault and least insinuation of sinne There is preventing Physicke for preservation of health as well as that when
〈◊〉 state Hee is readier out of His spirituall diâ—emper to spill as water upon the ground the golden vialls of the water of life and soveraigne oyles of Evangelicall joy tendered unto Him by the Physition of His Soule then to receive them with woonted thirst and thankfulnesse into the bruised bosome of His bleeding Conscience Tho they assure Him in the Word of life and truth having had for that I suppose true and sound experience of His conversion and former sanctified courses from Isai. 44.22 That as the heate and strength of the Summers Sunne doth disperse and dissolve to nothing a thicke Mist or foggy Cloud so the inflamed zeale of Gods tender love thorow the bloodshed of His owne onely deare Sonne hath done away all his offences His iniquity transgression and sinne as tho they had never been And Mich. 7.19 That that God which delighteth in mercy Vers. 18. hath cast all his sinnes into the bottome of the Sea never to rise againe either in this World or in the World to come The Prophet alludes to the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea And therefore they assure Him that as that mighty Host sunke downe into the bottome like a stone Exod. 15.5 Or as Lead Vers. 10. So that neither the Sunne of Heaven nor Sonne of Man ever saw their faces any more So certainely all his sinnes are so swallowed up for ever in the Soule-saving Sea of His Saviours blood that they shall never more appeare before the face of God or Angell Man or Divell to His damnation or shame Yet for all this lying in a spirituall Swoune Hee findes His heart even key-cold and as it were starke dead in respect of relishing or receiving all or any of these incomparable comforts The Case thus proposed may seeme very deplorable and desperate yet consider what good Davids experience might doe in such distresse What a deale of life and light were it able to put into the very darkest Dampe and most heartlesse faintings of such a dying 〈…〉 have such an One as David even a Man after Goâ—â— owne heart remarkeably inriched and eminent with heavenly endowments One of the highest in the Booke of life and favour with God to assure it that Himselfe had already suffered as grievous things in His Soule if not greater and passed thorow the very same passions and pressures of a troubled Spirit if not with more variety and sorer pangs That proportionably to his present perplexities Hee cryed out with a most heavy heart First Will the Lord cast off for ever And will hee bee favourable no more Is His mercy cleane gone for ever Doth his promise faile for evermore Hath God forgotten to bee gracious Hath hee in anger shut up His tender mercies Vers. 7.8.9 Secondly That when Hee remembred God Hee was troubled Vers. 3. Thirdly That when He prayed unto God and complained His spirit was overwhelmed Ibid. Fourthly That Hee was so troubled that Hee could not speake Vers. 4. Fifthly That His Soule refused to be comforted Vers. 2. Which painefull passages of His spirituall desertion answer exactly to the comfortlesse Case of the supposed Soule-grieved Patient Nay and besides assurance of the very samenesse in apprehensions of feare and thoughts of horrour David also out of his owne experience and precedency might sweetly informe and direct such a poore panting Soule in a comfortable way to come out of the Place of Dragons and depths of sorrow by teaching and telling Him the manner and meanes of his rising and recovery Meditation of Gods singular goodnesse and extraordinary mercy to Himselfe his Church and Children aforetime gave the first lift as it were to raise his drooping Soule out of the dust And no doubt ever since the same consideration by the blessings of God hath brought againe many a bruised spirit from the very Gates of Hell and brink of despaire And in his happy per-usall of ancient times and Gods compassions of old it is very probable that â—is memory first met with Adam a right wonderfull and matchlesse Patterne of Gods rarest mercies to a most forlorne Wretch For Hee was wofully guilty by His transgression of casting both Himselfe and all his Sonnes and Daughters from the Creation to the Worlds end out of Paradise into the Pit of Hell and also of empoysoning with the cursed contagion of originall corruption the Soules and Bodies of all that ever were or shall bee borne of Woman the Lord Iesus onely excepted And yet this Man as best Divines suppose tho Hee had cast away Himselfe and undone all Mankind was received to mercy Let never poore Soule then while the World lasts upon true and timely repentance suffer the hainousnesse and horrour of His former sinnes whatsoever they have been to hinder his hopefull accesse unto the Throne of Grace for present pardon of them all or at any time afterward confound His comforts and confidence in Gods gracious Promises Thus no doubt the weary Soule of this Man of God waded further into those bottomlesse Seas of mercies manifested and made good from time to time upon His servants His heavy heart might sweetly refresh and repose it selfe upon the contemplation of Gods never-failing compassions in not casting off Aaron everlastingly for His fall into most horrible Idolatry In not suffering the murmuring and rebellious Iewes to perish all and utterly in the Wildernesse considering their many prodigious provocations and impatiencies c. But at length as wee may see in the forecited Psalme His Soule sets it triumphant Selah upon that great and miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea one of the most glorious and visible Miracles of mercy that ever shone from Heaven upon the Sonnes of Men and also a blessed Type of the salvation of all truly penitent and perplexed Soules from the Hellish Pharaâ—â— and all infernall powers in the red Sea of our Savioâ—â— blood How fairely now and feelingly might theâ—e experimentall instructions and this Passage of proofe troden and chalked out by this holy Man illighten and conduct any that walkes in darkenesse and hath no comfort out of the like distracted horrour of a spirituall desertion Let Him in such a Case first cast backe His eye upon Gods former manifold mercifull dealings with Himselfe If His God made His Soule of the darkest nooke of Hell as it were by reason of it's sinfulnesse and cursednesse as faire and beautifull as the brightest Sun-beame by that soveraigne blood which gusht out of the heart and those pretious graces which shine upon it from the face of His Sonne that never-setting Sunne of righteousnesse He will undoubtedly in due season dispell all those Mists of spirituall misery which over-shadow the glory and comfort of it for a time If Hee upheld Him by his mercifull hand from sinking into Hell when Hee was an horrible transgressour of all his Lawes with greedinesse and delight Hee will most certainely Tho perhaps for a small moment Hee hide his face from Him binde up
effectus carnem sibi parere cogit ac suis legibus obsequi Nutrimenta igitur spiritus sunt divina lectio orationes assiduae sermo doctrinae His alitur cibis his convalescit his victor efficitur Quod quia non facitis nolite conqueri de infirmitate carnis Nolite dicere quia volumus sed non possâ—mus Super Levit. Hom. 9. b Hom. For reading of Scriptures c I meane in respect of terrible representations For I know well from the learnedst Physitions that that humour is originally settled in the spleene But from thence arise cloudes of Melancholike vapours which annoy the heart and passing up to the braine counterfets terrible obiects to the Phantasie and polluting both the substance and the spirits of the braine causeth it without externall occasion or object to forge monstrous fictions and terrible to the conceite which the judgment taking as they are presented by the disordered Instrument delivers to the heart which by reason of the Sympathy betweene the braine and the heart the thoughts and affections and having no judgement of discretion in it selfe but giving credit to the mistaken report of the braine is affected proportionably with terrour sadnesse and feare d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes. 6.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Cor. 2.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Revel 2.24 e Haec est ratio cur aliqui timent non timenda cur in suspiciones mirabiles falsissimas cadunt ita ut credant se aliquanâ—o quaeri ad mortem vel ad incarcerationeâ— vel spoliationem inde fugiunt nemine persequente trepidantes timore ubi non est tiâ—or Cognovitalem tempore meo qui ingeniosissimus erat peritus valdè in medicinâ qui tandem fugit in nemora occulta nec ultrà comparuit Gerson de passionibus animae Consid. 20. f Let a melancholy person upon the sudden heare or see some fearefull thing the strength of his imagination is such that hee will presently fasten the thing upon himselfe As if hee see or heare that a man hath hanged himselfe or is possessed of a Divell it presently comes to his minde that hee must doe so to himselfe or that hee is or at least shall bee possessed In like manner upon relation of fearefull things presently his phantasie workes and hee imagineth that the thing is already or shall befall him Perkins Cases of Conscience cap. 12. sect 2. g Sic aliquis existimabat se gallum more galli cantabat Alius murilegum sub lectis mures quaerebat Alius imaginans se habere cornua in fronte verecundabatur quotiescunque videbat se inspici frontem tegebat Alius imaginans se notari de insectione leprae vel de morbo caduco omnes fugiebat trepidabat aspectus sermones Alius imaginans se habere pedes ferreos calcabat validissimè super terram Alius ambulare non audebat phantasians pedes suos esse vitreos Gerson loco suprà citato h Non Siculae dapes c. Not all King Denis dainty fare Can pleasing taste for them prepare No song of Birds no musicks sound Can lullaby to sleepe propound When any comes with a troubled conscience for sinne wee ought wisely to discerne whether they bee meanely grieved with a generall sight of their sinne or whether they be extremely throwne downe with the burthen of particular sinnes if so they bee then it is good at the first to shew that no sinne is so great but in Christ it is pardonable and that there is mercy with God that hee might bee feared so on the otherside shewing the mercy to come from God but so as they are nothing fit to receive mercy unlesse they feele their particular and pricking sinnes But if their sorrow bee more confessed in generall things then it is good to humble them more and more to give them a terrour of Gods justice for particular sinnes for experience doth teach that this is the best way to obtaine sound comfort both to see our sinne and to bee humbled to see our sinne That beeing throughly throwne downe wee may directly seeke Christ and keepe no stay untill we have found comfort in him who then is most ready to free us from our sinne and to comfort us with his spirit when wee are most cast downe with our sins and most feare them Greeneham In his Grave counsels pag. 6. k Id quidem audâ—o dicere clariorem Evangelij Christi doctrinam nulli unquam populo ante propositam esse quam sit ca quam nos quotidiè audimus in Ecclesijs nostris Si profectò non baâ—eremus aliquid aliud â—om sub Coelo exceptá hac tam clará verbâ—lace ea debet nos vel sola consolari Quis est qui non gaudet recreatur cum ex tenebris educit ut in lucemistam solareâ— At nos qui aliquando submersi jacuimus in tenebraâ— longè borribilissimis multò clariorum lucem babemus Solem nimirùm illum Iustitia Rolloc in Iohan. cap. 6. pag. 389. l Per ignorantiae malum à nescientibus innumerabilia perpetrantur mala Aug. Tom. 7. pag. 2. lib. 6. contra sulia Palag m Those that have no minde at all to heare or reade the Word if at any time through the remorse of their conscience which accuseth them they feele any inward griefe sorrow or heavinesse for their sins for so much as they want the salve and comfort of Gods Word which they doe despise it will bee unto them rather a mean to bring them to utter desperation then otherwise Hom. of Repentance pag. 2. n How wisely graciously and necessarily then did King Iames direct for profitable catecheticall teaching in the after-noone upon the Lords Day in all Parish-Churches throughout the Kingdom heare the words So farre are these directions fâ—om abating that his Maiesty dotâ— expect at our hands that it should increase the number of Sermons by renewing upon every Sunday in the ater-noone in all Parish-Churches throughout the Kingdome that primitive and most profitable exposition of the Catechisme wherewith the people yea very children may bee timely seasoned and instructed in all the heads of Christian Religion The which kind of teaching to our amendment bee it spoken is more diligently observed in all the Reformed Churches of Europe then of late it hath been here in England I find his Majesty much moved with this neglect and resolved if wee that are his Bishops doe not see a reformation hereof which Ierust wee shall to recommend it to the care of the Civill Magistrates c. Reasons of the Kings directions for preaching and Preachers As I received them by authority from the hand of a publike Register Is it not strange and lamentable that for all this Princely and pious earnestnesse this soule-murdering neglect should yet every day grow greater and grosser o Cast thy selfe downe Destroy thy selfe Mat. 4.6 Fall downe and worship mee Then which I thinke there was never more abhorred injection v. â— p I am
them But rather in admiration of Gods wonderfull goodnesse mercy and compassion upon such unworthy wretches to give glory unto God in Believing and accepting this mercy so freely offered which they must â—oe before they shall see such a thorow change of heart and life in them as they earnestly dâ—sirâ— and for want wâ—â—â—eof they thinke 〈…〉 not to be 〈…〉 is to such if 〈…〉 onely yet 〈…〉 let and 〈…〉 in faith 〈…〉 son it by these his 〈…〉 draw them 〈…〉 tho weakly yet tâ—â—ly to stay 〈◊〉 â—poÌ„ Gods great 〈◊〉 so revealed to 〈◊〉 then assuredly shall they see and 〈◊〉 this change in their 〈◊〉 that they know not what to say or thinke of Gods mercy in pardoning such as they feele themselves to bee This cannot but breed an unfained love in them to God with an earnest desire and true purpose to glorifie Him which bee the chiefe â—arts of an holy life and surest proofes of saving Faith which can no more want these then true fire can want heate tho too many carnall Gospellers thinke otherwise and so miserably perish Culverw Of Faith pag. 220. d 2. Chro. 6.27 e I must bring unto the receiving of Christ an empty hand That it may be of grace God will make us let fâ—ll every thing before wee shall take hold of Him Tho qualified wiâ—â— humiliation I must let all fall not trusting unto it as to make mee worthier to receive Christ as some thinke I say when thus at first for my justification I receive Him I must let fall any thing I have to lay hold on Him that so Hee may finde mee in my sâ—â—t as it were in my blood D. O. f Matth. 11.28 1. Ioh. 3.23 Revel 3.18 g Thou wilt keepe Him in perfect peace whose 〈◊〉 is stayed on thee because Hee trusteth in Thee Isai. 26 3. Is stayed on Thâ—e or leaneth upon Thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nixus innixus fuit incuâ—uit Buxtorf Fides illa proprie 〈…〉 quâ incumbimus in ChristuÌ„ ad remissionem peccatorum salâ—tem Amesius Medal Theolog. lib. 1. cap. 27. Sect. 27. Credere in Deum est credendo 〈◊〉 rere Deo inniti Deo ac qui esâ—ere in Deo tanquam in vitâ ac salute nostrâ omnisuffiâ—iente Deut 30.20 Adhaerendo â—i Nam ipse est vita tua Idem Lib. 1 Cap. 3. Sect. 15. Adhaerendo A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Haesit adhaesit Buxtor Quòd verò fiducia dicitur fructus fidei verum id est de fiduciâ— pro ut râ—spiciâ— Deum in futurum est spes firma sed pro ut respicit Deum in Christo in praesentiâ— se offerentem est ipsa fides Idem Ibid. Sect. 21. h Many despaire of helpe because of their owne unworthinesse as tho there were no hope of Gods mercy except wee bring in our gift and pawne in our hands to Him But this were to discredit the Lords mercies and to bring into credit our merits and rather to binde the Lord unto us then us unto Him But if our sinnes bee great our redemption is greater Tho our merits bee beggerly Gods mercy is a rich mercy c. Greenham in his Grave Counsels pag. 9. * Ioh. 1.12 Ephes. 3.19 Ioh. 1.16 11.25 a Faith and the purpose of sinning can never stand together Perkins Graine of Muster-seed Conclu 6. b Si tùm pendeat ex nudo quast Dei verbo promissione sanè quà m potest maximè Deum honorat id quod â—ecisse Abrahamum legimus qui contra spem subspe credidit Deum quod promiserat potuissè etiam sacere ac proindegloriam Deo tribuisse dicitur Voluit hominem ex sensu imperfectionis insâ—mitatis ac miseriae suae perpetuò per fidem Christi confugere ad gratuitas ili â—â— promissiones in Christo Iesu ab illis prorsùs pendere eâ quippe re existimavit sese quà m maxime gloriâ—icari Iâ—llitiailla Christi aeterna nobis imputata maior est iustitiâ hominem Angelorum omnium vita quae est ex iliá nâ—stitiâ maior est vitâ câ— quae fuisset ex institiâ operum si fing as Adamum perstitisse in illo statu innocentiae in quo tumprimùm creatus est Rolloc in Iohan. cap. 3. c Impios extremae blasphemiae reos facit quia Deum mendacij arguunt Certè Deo nihil pretiosius est quà m sua veritas quare nùlla illi atrocior iniuria fieri potest quà m dum hoc honore spoliatur Ergò ut nos ad credendum incitet argumentum à contrario sumit Nam si Deum facere mendacem horribilis est execranda impietas quia tunc quod illi maximè proprium est eripitur quis non horreat fidem Evangelio derogare in quo Deus unice verax fidelis vult haberi Mirantur aliqui cur tantoperè Deus fidem commendet cur tam severè damnetur incredulitas Atqui hîc vertitur summa Dei gloria Nam cum praecipuum veritatis suae specimen in Evangelio edere voluerit nihil illi faciunt reliquum quicunque oblatum illic Christum respuunt Calv. in loc Insignitèr Deum iniurijs contumelijs afficiunt qui de verbis eius dubitant credere morantur Magnus Dei cultus fides magna in Deum blasphemia incredulitas Naogeor Ibid. d Deus est misericors suâ aeternâ simplici essentiâ non autem qualitate aliquâ non affectu non passione Polan Syntag. Theol lib. 2. cap. 23. Quia Deus naturaliter diligit clementiam ideò tam facilis est ad ignoscendum peccatoribus Calv. in Michaeam cap. 7. e Misericordia Dei melli iustitia verò aculeo comparatur Bern. f Cogita scintillam si in mare ceciderit non poterit stare aut apparere Quantum scintilla ad mare se habet tantum hominis malitia ad Dei clementiam pictatémque imò verò non tantum modò sed lonè suprà Nam pelagus tamet si magnum sit mensuram recipit Dei verò clementia pictas mensuram non habet Haec dicam non quò vos desidiores sed promptiores reddam Chrys. Tom. 5. De Poenit. g Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem Vide quà m citò dicitur quantum valet Deus est Pater est Deus potestate Pater bonitate Quà m felices samus qui Dominum nostrum Patrem invenimus Credamus ergò in cum omnia nobis de ipsius â—â—sericordiâ promittamus Quia oâ—nipotens est ideò in Deum Patrem omnipotentem credimus Nemo dicat non potest mihi dimittere peâ—â—ata Quomodo non potest omnipotens Sed dicis ego multum peccavi Et ego dico sed ille omâ—ipotens est Et tu Ego taâ—a peccata com nisi unde liberari mundari non pussum Respoâ—â—ieo sed ille omnis oteâ—â— est Ad hec nobis est erus omnipotentia necessaria August De temp Scrip. 119. h Quemadmodum igitur si quis in carâ—eris cusâ—odiam
INSTRVCTIONS FOR A RIGHT COMFORTING AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES with speciall Antidotes against some grievous temptations DELIVERED FOR THE MOST PART IN THE LECTVRE AT Kettering in North-hamptonshire By Robert Bolton Batchelor in Divinity and Preacher of Gods Word at Broughton in the same Countie LONDON Imprinted by Felix Kyngston for Thomas Weaver and are to be sold at his shop at the great North-dore of Saint Pauls Church 1631. TO THE HONOVRABLE AND WORTHY KNIGHT SIR ROBERT CARRE Gentleman of the Kings Bed-Chamber c. all holy Wisedome to walke in the Way to eternall Blisse SIR YOur extraordinary approbation and acceptance of my Directions for walking with God falling into your hands by Gods good providence I know not how accompanied with such noble circumstances and expressions of much undeserved respect to the Authour but especially of your affectionate love to the glorious Gospell of the blessed God farre dearer to every gracious heart which truely tastes the mysterie and mercies of Christ in it then it 's dearest blood or whatsoever is most deâ—â—re-able under the Sunne or admired most amongst the Sonnes of men hath encouraged me at this time to take the boldnesse to present this present Treatise more immediately and by speciall interest into your owne hand And I am the farre better pleased with my choise because I hold it a matter of singular comfort and speciall consequence to have an hand in diverting the eie of any that attends upon earthly Majesty from too much gazing upon the outward illustrious splendour which is woont to glister in the Courts of great Princes to the admiration and embracement of the glorious and ever-lasting beauty of the Lord Iesus In respect whereof all the fairest beames of felicity and joy which shine from the most orient Imperiall Diadems that crowne the face of the Earth are but a Moate of darkenesse and Lumpe of vanity And that for divers reasons 1. First Such as stand in the presence of mighty Kings are or ever should be men of greatest parts deepest understandings and most eminent abilities every Way Which being happily sanctifyed by a fruitfull influence from Heaven and by the helpe of the holy Ghost bent to the right end and spent upon the Objects they ought become gloriously serviceable to the King of Kings proportionably to their native excellency above ordinary gifts and the vulgar sort of sufficiencies Great endowments in what kinde soever gvided by a divine hand in their exercise and agitations doe ever a great deale of good To give Instance and not stirre from the Court The Lord of Heaven vouchsafed to King Iames of famous memory and One of the learnedest Princes that ever wore a Crowne upon Earth such a strong and enlarged understanding that wee should have magnified it as admirable even in a private man The same good hand of providence in great mercy directed it upon the right Object even the defense of the holy Truth of our blessedly reformed religion and destruction of Antichristianisme that accursed Hydra of all heresies and notoriously infamous both to this and the other World for horrible Massacres and murthering of Kings Whereupon besides that Hee hath by his Princely Pen given such a deadly wound to that Beast of Rome that Hee is never like to stand upon His foure legs againe Hee hath also left in His learned Labours such an immortall monument of Demonstrative light invincible Remonstrance against that bloody superstition that I am perswaded it will proove a most soveraigne preservative and a mighty Motive far stronger then a mountaine of Brasse to keepe all His Royall Posterity which shall hereafter successively sit upon His Regall Throne to the worlds end in a thorow universall and everlasting detestation of Popery Chamier that great glory of France and the whole Christian World was bountifully enriched from Heaven with singularity of learning and Polemicall Parts which being turned the right way have happily produced a Panstratia such victorious Volumes and so unanswerably triumphant over all Popish Sophistry that not all the Iesuites in Christendom tho they should rake Hell afresh for some new rotten distinctions to uphold their tottering Babell shall ever bee able to reply to any purpose Gnash the teeth they may with griefe and shame enough raile like the vassals of the great Whore impressioned with the impudency of her forehead and lie against Him voluminously But for any possibility of a sound Answer they must all let that alone for ever As on the contrary great parts empoisoned and mis-imploied plague extraordinarily The greater sufficiency without grace is but a sharper sword in a madder hand Hatred to goodnesse and height of Place attended with capacity and cunning worke a world of mischiefe Iulian the Apostate being an Emperour of admirable eloquence and exact learning What horrible worke What hurt and havocke did he make in the Primitive times amongst the people of God! The Iesuites at this day brought up in variety of literature and Machivellian mysteries become the grand Impostours and Impoisoners of innumerable Soules the most notorious Incendiaries and Assasins that ever the earth bore such murtherers of Princes Butcherers of people Firers of States and Blowers-up of Parliaments as former Histories never heard of Thus when men of Place and imploiment mighty and remarkeable in the World improove the utmost possibilites of their Wit and Art of all their naturall and acquired Parts to serve their own turnes and attaine their private ends to rise revenge grow rich or more immediately by some speciall service to advance the Kingdome of darknesse and dominion of Antichrist O the Luciferian pride the injustice the cruelty the Machiavellisme the putting of faire pretences upon pestilent plots the drowning of innocency in the Depths of State the crafty and mercilesse pressures of Gods people and those over whom they domineere It is then a work of great Waight and Worthinesse to winne a great man to the waies of God Hereby the common state of goodnesse is mightily strengthned and which is an equall happinesse the Divels side goes downe and Belials hang the head For according to the eminency of his Gifts and greatnesse of Place is the excellency of good or excesse of ill that Hee doth It were to bee wished therefore if God so pleased that all the incurable and implacable enemies to the grace of God good men and power of godlinesse were Dunces and Fooles that they might not bee able to manage their malice and power with such Depths and dexterity to the more dangerous under-mining of the kingdome of Christ and their owne more desperate ruine and greater damnation 2. Secondly Great men are subject to great temptations And therefore it is the harder Taske and more honorable triumph to turne them on Gods side Had not an All-mighty hand mastered the temptation steeled his Faith and represented to his eie the matchlesse glory of an immortall Crowne Moses had never been able to
enjoyed can procure or minister one jote of ease to a Soule afflicted in this kinde and thus trembling under the terrours of God In such an Agony and extremity haddest thou the utmost aide and an universall attendance from Angels and men couldest thou reach the top of the most aspiring humane ambition after the excellency and variety of all worldly felicities were thy possessions as large as East and West were thy meate continually Manna from Heaven every day like the day of Christs resurrection Were thy apparell as costly and orient as Aarons Ephod nay thy Body cloth'd with the beauty of the Sunne and crownde with Starres yet for all this and a thousand more thy heart within Thee would bee as cold as a stone and tremble infinitely above the heart of a woman entring into travell of Her first Childe For alas who can stand before the mighty Lord God Who dare pleade with Him when Hee is angry What spirit of man hath might to wrastle with His Maker Who is able to make an agreement with the Hells of Conscience or to put to silence the voyce of desperation Oh! in this conflict alone and wofull wound of conscience no Electuary of Pearle or pretious Baulme no Bezoars stone or Vnicornes horne Paracelsian quintessence or Potable Gold No new devise of the Knights of the Rosie-Crosse nor the most exquisite extraction which Alchymy or Art it selfe can create is able any whit or at all to revive ease or asswage It is onely the hand of the holy Ghost by the blood of that blessed Lambe Iesus Christ the holy and the righteous which can binde up such a bruise Vses 1. Counsell to the unconverted That they would take the stings out of their sinnes and prevent the desperatenesse and incurablenesse of this horrible wound by an humble sincere universall turning unto the Lord while it is called To Day For assuredly in the meane time all the sinnes they have heretofore committed in thought word or deede at any time in any place with any company or to which they have bin any wayes accessary are already upon record before the pure Eye of that high and everlasting Iudge written exactly by the hand of divine Iustice in the Book of their consciences with a pen of iron with the claw of an Adamant with the point of a Diamond or if you can name any thing which makes a stronger deeper and more lasting impression there they lye like so many Lions asleepe and Giants refreshing with wine gathering much desperate poyson and sâ—inging points that whensoever hereafter they shall bee effectually and finally awaked by Gods angry hand they may torment most ragingly and teare their wofull Soules in pieces everlastingly when there is none to helpe Now wee may see and observe many times one little sin at least in the worlds account and conceite of carnall men to plunge a guilty conscience into the depth of extremest horrour and a very Hell upon Earth As I have heard of and knowne in many One for a sudden unadvised imprecation against Her owne Soule in case She did so or so Another for a thought conceived of God unworthy so great a Majesty Another for covetously keeping a thing found and not restoring it or not inquiring after the Owner Another for an adulterous project without any actuall pollution Another by concurring with a company of scoffing Ishmaels onely once and ere Hee was aware by lifting up the hands and casting up the eyes in scorne of Gods people c. Yet afterwards they sadly revising these miscarriages in cold blood some of them some five or sixe yeeres after God beeing then pleased to represent them with terrour and their native stings were cast into that affliction of conscience and confusion of spirit that their very bones were broken their faces fill'd with ghastlinesse and feare their bodies possessed with strange tremblings and languishing distempers their very vitall moysture turned into the drought of Summer In which dreadfull perplexity they were in great danger of destroying themselves and of being swallowed up of despaire If the guilty sense then of one Sin when God sets it on and sayes unto it Torment drawes so many fiery points of stinging Scorpions after it charges upon the excellency of the understanding with such hideous darkenesse rents the heart in pieces with such desperate rage grindes into powder the arme and sinewes of all earthly succour melts like Dew before the Sunne all those delights and pleasures which the whole world offers or affords to comfort in such a Case In a word makes a man so extreamely miserable That Hee would make Himselfe away wishes with unspeakeable griefe that Hee had never been that Hee might returne into the abhorred state of annihilation that Hee were any other Creature that Hee might lye hid world without End under some everlasting Rocke from the face of God Nay that Hee were rather in Hell then in His present horrour I say it being thus what unquenchable wrath what streames of brimstone what restlesse anguish what gnashing of teeth what knawing of conscience what despairefull roarings what horrible torments what fiery Hells feeding upon His Soule and flesh for ever may every impenitent wretch expect when the whole blacke and bloudy Catalogue of all His sinnes shall bee marshold and mustered up together at once against Him every one beeing keened with as much torturing fury as the infinite anger of Almighty God can put into it after that Hee hath accursedly with much incorrigible stubbornnesse out-stood the day of His gracious visitation under this glorious Sun-shine of the Gospell wherein Hee either hath or if Hee had been as provident for His immortall Soule as carking for His rotten Carkasse might have enioyed very powerfull meanes all His life long And yet all the while neglected so great salvation forsooke his owne mercy and so iudged Himselfe unworthy of everlasting life If a lighter Sinne many times lite so heavy when the Conscience is illightened How will thy poore Soule tremble under the terrible and untolerable weight of all thy sinnes together When all thy lyes all thy oathes all thy rotten speeches and railings All thy bedlam passions and filthy thoughts All thy Good-fellow-meetings Ale-house-hauntings and scoffings of Gods people All the wrongs thou hast done all the goods thou hast got ill all the time thou hast mispent Thy prophanation of every Sabbath thy killing of Christ at every Sacrament thy Non-proficiency at every Sermon Thy ignorance thy unbeliefe thy worldlinesse thy covetousnesse thy pride thy malice thy lust thy luke-warmenesse impatiency discontentment vaine-glory Selfe-love The innumerable swarmes of vaine idle wandring and wicked imaginations In a word all the pollutions distempers and estrangednesse from God in thine heart all the villanies vanities and rebellions of thy whole life I say when all these shall bee charged upon thy gracelesse Soule by the implacable indignation of that highest Majesty whose mercy Ministry and long suffering thou
there must bee a third thing To take them to our selves to beleeve they are ours and there needes a worke of the Spirit for this For tho the promises bee never so cleare yet having nothing but the promises you shall never bee able to apply them to your selves But when the holy Ghost shall say Christ is thine All these things belong to Thee and God is thy Father when that shall witnesse to our spirit by a worke of His owne Then shall wee beleeve c This is the order observed in our iustification 1. First There is a sight of our misery to which wee are brought by the Law 2. Secondly There is by the Gospell an holding forth of Christ as our redemption from sin and death 3. Thirdly there is a working of Faith in the heart to rest on Christ as the ransome from sinne and death Now when a man is come hither Hee is truly and really iust Wee teach that in trve conversion a man must bee wounded in his conscience by the sense of his sinnes His contrition must bee compungent and vehement bruising breaking renting the heart and feeling shee throwes as a woman labouring of Childe before the new-Creature bee brought forth or Christ truly formed in Him It is not done without bitternesse of the Soule without care indignation revenge 2. Cor. 7.11 But as some Infants are borne with lesse paine to the mother and some with more so may the new-man be regenerated in some with more in some with lesse anxiety of travell But surely grace is not infused into the heart of any sinner except there bee at least so great affliction of Spirit for sinne foregoing that He cannot but â—eele it c. This bruising is required before conversion 1. That so the Spirit may make way for it selfe into the heart by levelling all proud high thoughts c 2. To make vs set an high price upon Christs death This is the cause of relapses and Apostasies because men never smarted for sin at the first They were not long enough under the lash of the Law Hence this inferiour worke of the Spirit in bringing downe high thoughts is necessary before conversion By this time it doth most clearly and plentifully appeare what a foule and fearefull fault it is for men either in the managing of their Publike ministery or more private Passages of conference visitations of the sicke consultations about a good estate to Godward and other occasions of like nature to apply Iesus Christ and the promises to promise life and safety in the evill Day to Soules as yet not soundly illightned and afflicted with sight of sinne and sense of Gods wrath to consciences never truly wounded and awaked I insisted the longer upon this Point because I know it full well to bee a most universall and prevailing Policy of the Devill whereby hee keepes many thousands in His cursed slavery and from salvation To confirme as many Pastours as Hee can possibly willing enough to drive their Flocks before them to damnation in an ignorant or affected Preiudice and forbearance of that saving method of bringing Soules out of Hell mentioned before and made good with much variety of evidence And to nourish also in the hearts of naturall men a strong and sturdy disconceite opposition raging against downe-right dealing and those men of God able as they say but falsely and furiously against their owne Soules by their terrible teaching to drive their hearers to distraction Selfe-destruction or despaire who take the only right course to convert them and to bring them to Iesus Christ as Hee Himselfe invites them to wit labouring and heauy laden with their sinnes Matth. 11.28 Dawbers then who serue Satans craft in this kinde and all those who dispence their ministery without all spirituall discretion and good conscience of whom there are too many as great strangers to the right way of working grace in others as to the worke of grace in themselves I say they are a generation of dangerous men Old excellent as they say in an accursed Art of conducting poore blinded Soules merrily towards everlasting miserie and setting them downe in the very midst of Hell before they bee sensible of any danger or discovery of their damnable state Great men they are with the men of this world with al those wise fooles and sensuall great ones who are not willing to bee tormented before their time or rather who desire impossibly to live the life of pleasures in the meane time and yet at last to die the death of the righteous They have still ready at hand hand over head mercy and pardon Heaven and salvation for all commers and all they come neere without so much as a desire to put any difference or divide the pretious from the vile Which is a prodigâ—â—usly-arrogant folly pernicious in the highest degree both to their own soules and those they delude Heâ—â—e 〈◊〉 they are branded in the Booke of God calling them 〈◊〉 Sâ—wers under mens elboes Ezek. 1â— 1â— That 〈◊〉 laid soft and lockt fast in the Cradle of security thâ—â— may sinke suddenly into the Pit of destruction before they be aware Criers of peace peace when no peace is towards Ier. 6.14 but horrible stirs tumbling of garments in bloud burning and devouring of fire A â—â—n-pleasers â—alat 1.10 who chuse rather to tickle the itching eares of their carnall hearers with some fâ—othy Frier-like conceits out of Dung-hill 〈◊〉 And so smooth Great Ones in their humours by their cowardly flatteries especially if they any waies depend upon them for countenance rising and preferment rather then conscionably to discharge that trust 〈◊〉 upon them by their great Lord and Master in Heaven upon answerablenes for the bloud of those Soules which shal perish by their temporizing silence and flattering vnfaithfulnesse Healers of the hurt of their Hearers with 〈◊〉 words Ier. 6.14 while their Soules are 〈◊〉 by the wounds of sinne unto eternall death Preachers of smooth things Isa. 30.10 which kinde of Men the greatest part and all worldlings wonderfully affect and applaud tho to their owne everlasting vndoing They swell under such Teachers with a Pharisaicall conceite that they are as safe for salvation as the precisest of them all but alas their hope is but like a hollow wall which beeing put to any stresse when the tempest of Gods searching wrath begins to shake it in the time of a finall triall of it's truth and soundnesse it shatters into pieces and comes to naught Heare the Prophet Now go write it before them in a table and note it in a booke that it may bee for the time to come for ever and ever That this is a rebellious people lying children children that wil not heare the Law of the Lord which say to the Seers see not and to the Prophets prophesie not unto us right things speake unto us smooth things prophesie deceits Get you out of the way turne aside out
life freely Revelat. Chap. 21. Vers. 6. And let him that is a thirst come whosoever will let him take the water of life freely Rom. 22.17 Wee must therefore by no meanes conceive of the forenamed preparatiue humiliations and precedent workes of the Law and Gospell as of any meritorious qualifications to draw on Christ for hee is given most freely but as of needfull predispositions to drive us unto Christ. For a Man must feele Himselfe in misery before Hee will goe about to find a remedy bee sicke before Hee will seeke the Physition bee in Prison before Hee will sue for a pardon bee wounded before Hee will prize a Plaster and pretious balsam A sinner must bee weary of His former wicked wayes and tired with legall terrour before Hee will haue recourse to Iesus Christ for refreshing and lay downe His bleeding Soule in his blessed Bosome Hee must bee sensible of His Spirituall poverty beggery and slavery under the Deuill before Hee thirst kindly for heavenly righteousnesse and willingly take up Christs sweet and easy yoke Hee must bee cast downe confounded condemned a cast away and lost in Himselfe before Hee will looke about for a Saviour Hee must cry heartily I am uncleane I am uncleane before Hee will long and labour to wash in that most soveraigne and Soule-saving Fountaine opened to the house of David and to the Inhabitants of Ierusalem for sin and for uncleannesse he must sell all before hee will be willing and eager to buy the Treasure hid in the field Now thus to prepare wound afflict and humble the Soule that it may bee fitted for Iesus Christ and so for comfort upon good ground let ministers or whosoever meddle in matters of this nature publickely or privatly vse all warrantable meanes faire and foule as they say let them presse the law promise mercy propose Christ c. Doe what they will seasonably and wisely Let them improve all their learning wisedome discretion mercifullnesse experience wit eloquence Sanctified unto them for that purpose So that the worke bee done In pressing the law besides other dexterities and directions for managing their ministry in this Point succesfully by Gods Blessing let them take notice of this Particular which may prove very availeable to begin this Legall worke It is a Principle attended upon with many a Probatum est Pressing upon Mens consciences with a zealous discreet powerfullnesse their speciall principall fresh-bleeding Sins is a notable meanes to breake their hearts and bring them to remorse That most hainous and bloudy sinne of killing Iesus Christ in which they had newly imbrued their hands pressed upon the Consciences of Peters hearers breakes and teares their hearts in pieces Act. 2.23.36.37 So Adultery secretly intimated by Christs words unto the woman of Samaria Ioh. 4.18 Seemes to have strucke her to the heart vers 19. So the Iewes having Idolatry pressed upon their consciences by Samuel 1. Sam. 7.6 The sin of asking a king ibid. 12.19 Vsury by Nehemiah 5.12 Strange wives by Ezra cap. 10.9 were therevpon mightily moved and much mollified in their hearts as appeares in the cited Places Consider for this purpose that worke upon Davids heart by Nathans Ministry And Felix trembling when Paul strucke Him on the right veine The reasons why this more particular discovery and denouncing of judgement against a Mans principall sinne is like God assisting with the Spirit of bondage to put such life into the worke of the Law are such as these 1. The Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God being welded by the hand of the holy Ghost and edged as it were with the speciall power of Gods blessing for the cutting asunder of the iron-Sinewes of a stubborne and stony heart doth crush and conquer strike through and breake in pieces with an unresistable puissance proportioned to the insolency or easinesse of resistance My meaning is this As Philosophers say of the Lightning that by reason of the easinesse of the passage weakenesse of resistance porosity of the parts it pierceth through the Purse Scabberd and Barke without any such scorching and visible hurt but melts the mony the sword rents and shivers the tree because their substance and solidity doth more exercise and improve its activenes and ability So this Spirituall Sword tho it strike at every sinne and passeth thorow even to the diuiding asunder of Soule and Spirit and of the joynts and marrow yet the hairy pate of the maine corruption and Master sinne it wounds with a witnesse it there tortures and teares in pieces with extraordinary anguish and smart Searching and sence for that opposeth with the most flinty iron-Sinew to blunt and rebate its edge if it were possible 2. In Consciences regularly and rightly wounded and awaked sinnes are wont to bite and sting proportionably to their hainousnesse and the exorbitancy of their former sensuall impressions Some like a Mastife some like a Scorpion some like a Wolfe in the Evening But vnderstand that spirituall anguish surpasseth immeasurably any corporall paine therefore conceiue of them with a vast dis-proportion Now the Minion delight or Captaine sinne frighting the heart with greatest horrour and stinging with extremity proportionable to its former vastation of Conscience doth by an accidentall power God blessing the businesse give a great stroke to drive a man to deepest detestation of Himselfe to throw Him downe to the lowest step of penitent dejection to eneager His thirsty greedinesse after pardon and grace and at length to fire Him out of His naturall estate 3. A Mans principall and most prevailing sinne is Sathans strongest Hold. When Hee is in danger to be dislodged and driven by the power of the word out of the other parts of the Soule as it were and from Possession of a Man by all other sinnes Hee retires Hither as to His Castle and most impregnable Fort. And therefore if this bee soundly beaten upon by the Hammer and Horrour of the Law and battered about His eares hee will bee quickly enforced to quit the Place quite It may bee good counsell then and often seasonable to say unto those Men of God who desire to drive the Devill out of Others in some sort as the King of Syria said to his Captaines Fight neither with small nor great save onely with the King of Israel My meaning is Let them addresse the sharpest edge of their spirituall Sword yet as well with an holy charitable discretion as with resolute downeright dealing against those sinnes which beare greatest sway in them they have to deale with Bee it their covetousnesse ambition Lust drunkennesse Lukewarmenesse monstrousnesse of the fashion sacriledge oppression vsury Back-sliding murder luxury Opposition to the good way Hatred of the Saints or what other sinne soever they discover in them to minister greatest advantage to Satan to keepe them fastest in his clutches No sinne must bee spared but let the raigning sin be paid home especially For opening of the most rich
the damnation of Hell In a true Penitent there ought to bee an utter cessation from all grosse abandonable sinnes and at least dis-allowance dis-affection and all possible opposition even to un-avoidable infirmities and inseparable frailties of the flesh 5. Fiftly when the Physition of the Soule promiseth mercy and pardon hand over head without that spirituall discretion which is convenient for a matter of so great consequence and requiring such a deale of dexterity in discerning to a man upon His Bed of death who hath formerly bin notorious or onely civill howsoever a meere stranger to the power of godlines and the truth of Profession because now in the evill Day He takes on extremely by reason of His extremity cries out of his sins O I am an hainous horrible and grievous sinner If I were to live againe what would not I doe A World for comfort now and to die the death of the righteous because Hee Howles vpon His bed as the Prophet speaketh and breakes out oftentimes into a roaring complaint of sinne and cry for pardon by reason Hee now begins to feare and feele the revenging hand of God ready to seize upon Him for his former rebellions c. Or when Hee assures Him having been a formall Professour onely and foolish Virgine of blisse and glory because out of a former habituated spirituall Selfe-deceite Hee cries Lord Lord seemes to by-standers very confident that He shal presently receive a Crowne of life thankes God that nothing troubles Him Professes to every one that comes to visite Him that Hee believes and repents with all His heart forgives all the world makes no doubt of Heaven c. Here by the way wee must take notice that many having out-stood the day of their gratious visitation having neglected so great salvation forsaken their owne mercy and iudged themselues unworthy of everlasting life all their life long by standing out against the Ministry of the Word in respect of any saving worke upon their soules and now at length beeing overtaken after the short gleame of worldly prosperity with the boysterous winter-night of death and darkenesse of the evill day may keepe a great stirre upon their dying-Beds or in some great extremity with grievous complaints of their present intolerable misery and former sinfull courses procuring it with incessant cries for ease and deliverance being now caught like wilde Bulls in a Nâ—t full of the wrath of God with earnest and eager â—uing and seeking for pardon and salvation now when worldly pleasures are past and yet bee not truly penitent not soundly and savingly humbled not rightly fitted for Christ and comfort Consider for this purpose Prov. 1.24.28 In the day of visitation God called upon them and stretched out His hands but they refused did not regard set at naught all His counsell and would none of His reproofe And therefore in the Day of vexation when extremity and anguish shall come upon them like a Thiefe in the night a whirle-winde travaile upon a woman suddenly extremely un-avoidably Hee professeth before-hand that then they shall call upon Him but Hee will not answer They shall seeke Him early but they shall not find Him Psal. 78.34.35.36.37 When Gods hand was upon them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God c. Neverthelesse they did flatter him with their mouth and they lyed unto Him with their tongues For their heart was not right with Him c. Hos. 7.14 They howled upon their Beds Will not a Dog or a Beast or any unreasonable creature when they are pinched when they are in extremity will they not cry will they not mourne for helpe c. Their cries in the evill Day were not hearty prayers but Howlings upon their Beds Their earnestnesse in such a case is ordinarily like the teares prayers and cryes of a malefactour newly condemned Hee is very earnest with the Iudge to spare Him Hee roares out sometimes and takes on extremely yet not heartily for his former lewdnesse but horribly because Hee must now loose His life Hee seemes now when Hee sees His misery to relent and to bee toucht with remorse but it is onely because hee is like to bee hanged Againe many there are who satisfying themselves and others with a goodly shew of a Forme onely of godlines may upon their last Bed discover and represent to By-standers a great deale of fearelesnesse about their spirituall state much confidence many ostentations of Faith and full assurance and behave themselves as tho they were most certainely going to everlasting blisse when as God knowes their Answer at His just Tribunall must bee I know you not And in truth and triall they have no more part in Christ nor other portion in Heaven then the foolish Virgins and those Luk. 13.26.27 They are so confident not because they have escaped the danger but because they never saw the danger And hence it is that many of them die with as much confidence as the best Christians they have no more trouble then holy men To bee sure I am free from danger and not to know it may beget equall confidence Now concerning the present Case I must tell you that for my part I would not much alter my censure and conceite of a Man's spirituall state whom I have thorowly knowne before for the manner of His death The end of Gods dearest servant after an holy life and unblame-able conversation may not appeare in the eye of man so calme and comfortable as was expected by reason of much tendernesse of conscience some strong temptation spirituall desertion violent distemper of Body or because God would have the manner of His death serue the glory of His justice in hardning those about him who were so farre from being won by His godly life that they heartily hated it or for some other secret and sacred end seene and seeming good to Divine wisedome who ever disposeth every circumstance even of the least affaire most sweetly and wisely And yet this as it doth not prejudice His salvation neither should it His Christian reputation Heare that great Doctor in the Art of rightly comforting afflicted consciences But what if you should die in this discomfort For my part as I my selfe looke for no great things in my death I would not thinke more hardly of you neither would I wish any to iudge otherwise of Gods Childe in that state of death For wee shall not bee iudged according to that particular instant of death but according to our generall course of life not according to our deede in that present but according to the desire of our hearts ever before And therefore wee are not to mistrust Gods mercy in death bee wee never so uncomfortable if so bee it hath been before sealed in our vocation and sanctification On the otherside a notorious wretch which hath swumme downe the current of the times and wallowed in worldly pleasures all his life long may seeme to die
at last with everlasting kindnesse will Hee have mercy on Him And that Hee will never utterly and finally forsake any of His. Thus died those blessed Servants of God Mistris Bretergh Master Peacock c. Mistris Bretergh in the heate of temptatioÌ„ wished that she had never bin borne or that she had bin made any other creature rather then a woman But when that Hellish storme was over-blowne by the returne of the glorious beames of the Sun of righteousnesse into Her Soule She turnd her tune and triumphed thus Oh happy am I that ever I was borne to see this blessed Day I confesse before the Lord his loving kindnesse and his wonderfull workes before the sons of men For hee hath satisfied my Soule and filled my hungry Soule with goodnesse Master Peacocke in the height of His dreadfull Desertion told those about Him that hee converst with Hell-â—ounds That the Lord had cursed him That Hee had no grace That it was against the course of Gods proceeding to save Him c. But when that horrible tempest of spirituall terrours was happily disperst and the light of Gods comfortable countenance begun to shine againe upon His most heavy and afflicted spirit Hee dis-avowed all inconsiderate speeches as hee called them in his temptation and did humbly and heartily aske mercy of God for them all And did thus triumph What should I extoll the magnificence of God which is unspeakeable and more then any heart can conceive Nay rather let us with humble reverence acknowledge His great mercy What great cause have I to magnifie the great goodnesse of God that hath humbled Nay rather exalted such a wretched miscreant of so base condition to an estate so glorious and stately The Lord hath honored mee with his goodnesse I am sure hee hath provided a glorious Kingdome for mee The joy which I feele in my heart is uncredible 4. Some of Gods worthiest Champions and most zealous servants doe not answere the unreprooveable sanctity of their life and unspotted current of their former conversation with those proportionable extraordinary comforts and glorious Passages upon their beds of death which in ordinary congruity might be expected as a conuenient conclusion to the rare and remarkeable Christian cariages of such blessed Saints So bottomlesse and infinitely un-fathomable by the utmost of all created vnderstandings are the depths of Gods most holy waies and His inscrutable Counsells quite contrary many times to the probable conclusions of Man's best wisdome But every one of His sith he certainly passes thorow those pangs into pleasures and joyes endlesse and unspeakeable must be content to glorifie God to be seruiceable to His secret ends with what kinde of death Hee please whether it bee glorious and untempted or discomfortable because of Bodily distempers and consequently interpretable by undiscerning spirits or mingled of temptations and Triumphs or ordinary and without any great shew or remarkeable speeches after extraordinary singularities of an holy life which promised an end of speciall note and admiration Why may not some worthy heavenly-minded Christians sometimes by strong mortifying meditations and many conquering fore-conceits of death in their life time make it before-hand so familiar and easie unto them an by continuall conversing above and constant peace of conscience taste so deepely of spirituall ioyes that that dreadfull Passage out of this life as it may breede no great sense of alteration in themselves so no extraordinary matter of speciall observation to others Of the wicked and those who were ever strangers to the mystery of Christ and truth of godlinesse Some die desperately Tho thousands perish by presumption to One of these who despaire yet some there are to whom upon their beds of death all their sins are set in order before them and represented to the eie of their awaked consciences in such griesly formes and so terribly that at the very first and fearefull sight they are presently struck starke dead in soule and spirit utterly over-whelmed and quite swallowed up with guilty and desperate horrour So that afterward No counsell or comfort no consideration of the immeasurablenesse of Gods mercy of the unvaluablenesse and omnipotency that I may so speak of Christs bloud shed of the variety excellency of gracious promises of the losse of their owne immortall soules can possibly drive and divert from that infinitely false conceite and cursed Cry My sinnes are greater then can bee pardoned Whereupon most miserable and forlorne wretches they very wickedly and willfully throw themselves into Hell as it were upon earth and are damned above ground Thus the Lord sometimes for the terror of others glorifying his owne iustice bringing exemplary confusion upon impenitent obstinacy in sinne and willfull opposition to grace doth in greatest indignation by the hand of divine vengeance unclaspe unto them the Booke of their owne Conscience and of His owne holy Law In one of which they find now at length all their innumerable iniquities transgressions and sinnes engraven with the Point of a diamond enraged with Gods implacable wrath aggravated with the utmost malice of Satan And never to bee razed out or remitted but by the bloud of the Son of God in which they peremptorily professe themselves to have no part In the other they see the fiercenes and fulnesse of all the curses plagues and torments denounced there and due unto all impenitent sinners ready to bee poured upon their bodies and soules for ever And no possibility to prevent them no waies to decline them but by Gods infinite bounty thorow Iesus Christ in which they also utterly disclaime all right and interest And therefore they are now finally and desperately resolved to looke for no mercy But in their owne judgement and by their owne confession stand reprobates from Gods covenant and voide of all hope of His inheritance expecting with unspeakeable terrour and amazement of spirit the consummation of their miserie and fearefull sentence of eternall damnation They are commonly such as have been grosse Hypocrites like Iudas and lien in some secret abomination against the knowledge of their hearts all their life long that have followed still their owne sensuall wayes and course of the world against the light of the Ministry standing like an armed man in their consciences to the contrary who have been Scorners and Persecutours of the power of godlinesse and the good way who have abjured the Gospell of Iesus Christ and forsaken the Truth for honour wealth or worldly happinesse To whom the Lord in their life-time vouchsafed many mercies much prosperity great meanes of salvation long forbearance c. And yet they stood out still they still hated to bee reformed set as naught all His counsell and would 〈◊〉 of His â—â— proofe Wherefore the Day of gratious visitation beeing once expired a thousand Worlds will not purchase it againe Heaven and Earth cannot recall it No mercy no comfort no blessing can then bee had tho they seeke it with teares
and yelling They shall never more bee heard tho with much violence they throw their serikings into the Aire and cry with sighes and groanes as piercing as a sword Not but that the Gates of Heaven and armes of mercy may stand wide open untill their last breath But alas They have already so hardened their hearts that they cannot repent After thine hardnesse saith Paul and heart that cannot repent They now but howle upon their Beds they doe not cry unto God with their heart as the Prophet speakes Hos. 7.14 Their earnest and early crying in this last extremity is onely because Their feare is come upon them as desolution and their destruction as a whirlewinde When they cast out their considerations for comfort It is not the whole Creation can possibly help them for they must stand or fall to the Tribunall of the everlasting God mighty and terrible the Creator of the ends of the Earth If they looke up to God the Father that Prov. 1.24.26 comes presently into their heads with much horrour and quite kills their hearts Because Hee hath called all our life long and all that goodly time wee refused Hee will laugh now at our calamity and mocke when our feare is come Iesus Christ as they strongly conceive and un-mooveably conclude against themselves hath now to them for ever closed up His wounds as it were and will not afford them one drop of His blood because they have so often by comming unworthily spilt it in the Sacrament persecuted Him in His members and despised Him in the Ministry The blessed Spirit because in the Day of visitation they repelled all his inward warnings and holy motions preferring Satans impure suggestions before His sacred inspirations doth now in their own acknowledgement by the equity of a just proportion in this Day of vexation leave them to eat the fruit of their former wilfulnesse and reape the reward of their owne wayes Thus these forlorne wretches are disclaimed forsaken and abandoned of Heaven and Earth God and Man of all the comforts in this life and blessings of the World to come And so by finall despairing of Gods mercy the greatest of sinnes they most unhappily and cursedly follow Iudas the worst of men into the darkest and most damned nooke in Hell 2. Others die senselesly and blockishly They demeane themselues upon their dying Beds as tho there were no immortality of the Soule no Tribunall aboue no strict account to bee given up there for all things done in the flesh no everlasting estate in the world to come wherein every one must either lie in unspeakeable paines or live in un-utterable pleasures In their life time they were never woont to tremble at Gods judgments or rejoyce in his promises or much trouble themselves with the ministry of the Word or about the state of their soules All was one to them what Minister they had whether a Man taught to the kingdome of Christ or a generall Teacher or an ignorant Mangler of the word or a dissolute fellow or a Dawber with untempered morter or a dumbe Dog If they were neither Whores nor Thieves but well accounted of amongst their neighbours thriued in the world prospered in their outward state prouided for posterity slept in a whole skinne were not vexed on the Lords day with any of these precise Trouble-townes They were well enough and had all they looked for either in this world or in the world to come Wherefore at their death by reason of their former disacquaintance with spirituall things and God not opening their eies they are neither afflicted with any feare of Hell or affected with any hope of Heaven they are both un-apprehensive of their present danger and fearelesse of the fiery lake into which they are ready to fall In these regards they are utterly untouched die most quietly and without any trouble at all And it is their ordinary Answere when they are questioned about their spirituall state and How it stands with them betweene God and their owne Consciences I thanke God nothing troubles me Which tho they thinke it makes much for their owne credit yet alas It is small comfort to judicious By-standers and such as wish well to their Soules But rather a fearefull confirmation that they are finally giuen ouer to the spirit of slumber and sealed up by divine justice in the sottishnesse and security of their owne senselesse hearts for most deserved condemnation Thus these men as One speakes live like stocks and die like blocks And yet the ignorant people saith Greeneham will still commend such fearefull deaths saying He departed as meekely as a Lambe Hee went away as a bird in a shell when they might as well say but for their featherbed and their pillow hee dyed like a beast and perished like an Oxe in a ditch 3. Others die formally I meane they make very goodly shewes and representations of much confidence and comfort Having formerly beene formall Professours and so furnished with many formes of godly speeches and outward Christian behaviours And the spirit of delusion and spirituall Selfe-cousenage wich in their life time detained them in constancy of security and selfe-conceitednesse about the spirituall safty of their soules without any such doubts troubles feares temptations which are woont to haunt those who are true of heart for ordinarily such is the peace of unsound Professors continuing their imaginary groundlesse persvasion and presumption in the height and strength unto the end for their very last breath may bee spent in saying Lord Lord open unto us as wee see in the foolish Virgines and those Mat. 7. I say such men as these thus wofully deluded and fearefully deceiving others may cast out upon their last beds many glorious speeches intimating much seeming confidence of a good estate to God-ward contempt of the world willingnesse to die readinesse to forgiue all the world hope to bee saved desire to bee dissolved and goe to Heaven c. They may cry aloud with a great deale of formall confidence Lord Lord Mercy Mercy in the name of Christ Lord Iesus receive our spirits c. And yet all these goodly hopes and earnest eiaculations growing onely from a forme not from the power of godlines are but as I said somewhere before as so many catchings and scrablings of a Man over-head in water He strugles and strives for hold to save Himself but he graspes nothing but water it is still water which He catches and therefore sinkes and drownes They are all but as a spiders web Iob. 8. 14.15 Vpon which One falling from the top of an house laies hold by the way for stay and support Hee shall leaâ—e upon his house but it shall not stand Hâ—e shall hold it fast but it shall not endure O how many descend faitlâ— an ancient Father with this hope to eternall trauailes and torment How many saith an other worthy Doctour goe to Hell with a vaine hope of Heaven whose chiefest
the manner of His death I except the Thieves upon the Crosse My meaning is that there may bee some I know nor how few but I am sure there is none except Hee have in Him the perfection of the madnesse of all the Bedlams that ever breath'd would run that hazard who formerly out of the way and unreformed may now at last being very extraordinarily and mightily humbled under Gods mighty hand cleaving to the Lord Iesus with truly broken hearts indeede follow by a miracle as it were the Thiefe upon the Crosse to an everlasting Crowne And here now I require the care conscience heavenly wisedome experimentall skill and all His ministeriall dexterity in the Physition of the Soule to discerne aright betweene these and seeming Penitents and then to apply Himselfe proportionably with all holy discretion and seasonablenesse to their severall different estates But to fright and fire every One for ever from that extremest folly of hoping to follow that miraculously penitent Thiefe and from going on in sinne and deferring Repentance upon such a deceiving and desperate ground let us consider 1. First what an holy and learned Man of God saith to this Point In great wisedome that men at the last gaspe should not utterly despaire the Lord hath left us but one example of exceeding and extraordinary mercy by saving the Thiefe on the Crosse. Yet the perversenesse of all our nature may bee seene by this in that this one serveth us to loosenesse of life in hope of the like whereas wee might better reason That it is but one and that extraordinary and that besides this One there is not one moe in all the Bible and that for this One that sped a thousand thousands have missed And what folly is it to put our selues in a way where so many have miscarried To put our selves into the hand of that Physition that hath murthered so many going cleane against our sense and reason whereas in other wee alwaies leane to that which is most ordinary and conclude not the Spring of one Swallow It is as if a Man should spurre His Asse till Hee speake because Baalams Asse did once speake so grossely hath the Divell bewitched us 2. Secondly the singularities about the good Thiefe first His heart was broken with one short Sermon as it were but thou hast or mightest have heard many and art yet hard-hearted Secondly the other Thiefe saw also that soveraigne Soule-healing blood gush freshly and abundantly out of His blessed side and yet was not strucke or stird at all Thirdly His example is onely for true Penitents but Thou upon this presumption despising in the meane time the riches of Gods goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering leading Thee to repentance hardenest thy heart that thou canst not repent Fourthly His case was singular and such that the like is not to bee found in the whole Scripture A King sometimes pardons a Malefactour at the Place of execution wilt thou therefore runne desperately into some horrible villany deserving death hoping to bee that One amongst many thousands Fifthly It was a miracle saith an excellent Divine with the glory whereof our Saviour would honour the ignominy of the Crosse we may almost as well expect a second crucifying of Christ as such a second Thiefe Christ then triumphing on the Crosse did as Princes doe in the triumph of entring into their Kingdomes they pardon grosse offences before committed such as they pardon not afterwards 6. Having an eye upon this Thiefe that thou mayest more fully and freely follow thy pleasures Thou makest a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell and puts the evill Day farre from Thee But the Lord hath professed That thy covenant with death shall bee dis-annulled and thy agreement with Hell shall not stand when the overflowing scourge shall passe thorow then shalt thou bee trodden downe by it 3. Thirdly the ordinary impossibilities of following the blessed Thiefe in His miraculous Repentance First thou art cryed unto continually by Gods Messengers to come in now while it is called to Day yet thou standest out still out of this conceite onely or rather deceite to take thy fill of pleasure in the meane time and to seeke God sufficiently upon thy Bed of death by repenting with the Thiefe at last But know for thy terrour and timely turning that the longer thou puts off and deferres the more unfit thou shalt be to repent Thy custome in sinning will exercise more Tyranny over Thee The curse of God for thy going on still in thy trespasses will bee more heavy upon Thee The corruptions that lurke in thine owne bosome will be more strengthened against thee And this threefold cord is hardly broken These three Giants will be maistered with very much adoe The further thou walkest in the wayes of death the more unwilling and more unable wilt thou bee to returne and bee reformed Thine understanding will be more darkened with Hellish mists thy judgement more perverted thy will more stubborne thy memory more stuft with sensuall notions thine affections will become more rebellious thy thoughts more earthly thine heart more hardened thy conscience more feared thy selfe more sold to sinne and every day that comes over thine head in this state of darkenesse much more the Child of the Divell then thou wast before To refuse Christ upon this Point so freely and fairely offered is to receive Gods curse under Seale and to make sure thy covenant with Hell and League with death untill thou bee slaine by the one and swallowed up of the other without all mercy or recovery For in this time of delay God growes more angry Satan more strong thy selfe more unable to repent sinne more unconquerable thy conversion more hard thy salvation more impossible A ruinous house the longer thou lettest it run the more labor charge will it require in repairing If thou drive a naile with an hammer the more blowes thou givest to it the more hard will it bee to plucke it out againe It is just so in the Case of continuing in â—inne and every new sin is a new stroke with an hammer that drives the naile in further Secondly with what possibility art thou like to passe thorow the great work of saving repentance or with what heart canst thou addresse thy selfe unto it when upon thy sicke Bed thou art set upon at once if thy conscience bee waking with the ugly sight of all thy sinnes charging upon thee with insupportable horrour with the pangs of death with Satans utmost malice and His very Powder-Plot and with the terrour of that approaching strickt Tribunall Which dreadfull encounter is able to put to it the spirituall strength of many yeeres gathering Thirdly Resolution to deferre Repentance when grace is offered doth justly merit to bee deprived for ever after of all oportunity and ability to repent Fourthly it is just with God that that man who doth purposely put off repentance and provision
bee said Hee died in a Ditch They are Desolators not Consolators as Austin somewhere calls them Not sound Comforters but true Cut-throates Besides that which I have said before of the precedency of the working of the Law and of the spirit of bondage to make way for Christ let mee further tell you upon this occasion that it may appeare that much more is to bee done herein then is ordinarily imagined before comfort may upon good ground and seasonably bee applied to the Conscience awaked what an excellent Divine both for depth of learning and height of holinesse delivered somewhere in this Point to this purpose No man must thinke this strange that God dealeth with men after this strange manner as it were to kill them before Hee make them alive to let them passe through or by as it were the gates of Hell to Heaven to suffer the spirit of bondage to put them into a feare into a shaking and trembling c. For Hee suffers those that are his to bee terrified with this feare 1. First in respect of His owne glory For the magnifying both of His iustice and of His mercy 1. Hee glorifies His iustice when lessening or altogether for the time abstracting all fight of mercy Hee lets the Law Sinne Conscience and Satan loose upon a Man to have their course and severall comminations and sets the spirit of bondage on worke c. Thus as in the great worke of redemption Hee would have the glory of His iustice appeare so would Hee have it also in the application of our redemption that iustice should not bee swallowed up of mercy But even as the Woman 2. King 4. who had nothing to pay was threatned by Creditours to take away her two sonnes and put them in prison so wee having nothing to pay the Law is let loose upon us to threaten imprisonment and damnation to affright and terrifie and all this for the manifesting of His iustice Furthermore the Booke of God is full of terrible threatnings against sinners Now shall all these bee to no purpose The wicked are insensible of them to them therefore in that respect they are in vaine Some there must needs bee upon whom they must worke Shall the Lion roare saith the Prophet and no man bee affraide Sith then they who should will not Some there bee who must tremble This the Prophet excellently setteth â—orth Isai. 66.2 where the Lord sheweth whom Hee will regard But to this man will I looke even to Him that is poore and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Neither is it without good cause that God dealeth thus with his owne in this manner tho it bee sharpe in the experience First wee must feare tremble and bee humbled and then wee shall receive a spirit not to feare againe 2. His mercy also is thereby mightily magnified Which would never bee so sweet nor relish so well nor bee so esteemed of us if the awfull terrour of iustice had not formerly made us smart A King sometimes doth not only suffer the Law to passe upon some grievous malefactor for high treason but also causeth him to bee brought to the place of execution yea and lay downe his head upon the blocke ere Hee pardon and then mercy is mercy indeed and melts the heart abundantly with amazâ—mâ—nt and admiration of it So God dealeth with us many times Le ts the Law loose against us puts us in feare casts us into Prison and threatneth condemnation in Hell for ever so that when mercy commeth to the Soulâ— beeing now lost in it selfe and at the Pits brinke it appeares to bee a wonderfull mercy the riches of exceeding mercy most seasonable most sweet most ravishing Why doe so many find no savour in the Gospell Is it because there is no matter of sweetnesse or delight in it No it is because they have not tasted of not been soundly toucht and terrified by the Law and the spirit of bondage They have not smarted nor as yet been afflicted with a sense of the bitternesse of sinne nor of iust punishment due unto the same God therefore sends into our hearts the spirit of feare and bondage to prepare us to rellish mercy And then the spirit of adoption not to feare againe And thus by this order the one is magnified and highly esteemed by the fore-going sense of the other 2. Secondly for our good and that two waies first in Iustification secondly and in Sanctification 1. For the first wee are such strangers unto God that wee will never come unto Him till wee see no other remedy being at the Pits brinke ready to starue hopelesse c. Wee see it in the prodigall Sonne He would never thinke of any returne unto his Father till all other helpes failed Him money friends acquaintance all sorts of food Nay if Hee might have fed upon huskes with the Swine Hee would not have thought of returning any more to his Father This beeing denied him the Text saith Hee came to Himselfe shewing us that when Men runne on in sinfull courses they are mad men out of themselves even as wee see thâ—se in Bedlam are beaten kept under denâ—ed comforts till they come to themselves And what faith Hee then I will arise and goe to my Father and will say unto Him Father I have sinned against heaven and against Thee c. So it is with us untill the Lord humble and bring us low in our owne eyes show us our misery and spirituall poverty and that in us there is no good thing that wee bee stript of all helpeâ— in and without our selves and see that wee must perish unlesse wee beg His mercy I say untill then wee will not seeke his face and favour nor have recourse to Iesus Christ the rocke of our salvation It is with us in this Case as it was with the Women whom Christ healed of the bloody issue How long was it ere shee came to Christ She had been sicke twelve yeeres She had spent all her living upon Physitions neither could she bee healed of any Now this extremity brought Her to Iesus Christ. This then is the meanes to bring to Christ To bring us upon our knees to drive us out of our selues hopelesse as low as may bee To shew us where helpe is onely to bee found and make us runne unto it The hunted Beast flies unto his Den The Israelites being stung by fiery Serpents made hast to the Brazen Serpent a Type of Christ for helpe The Man-killer under the Law chaced by the avenger of blood ranâ—e a pace to the City of refuge Ioab being pursued for his life fled to the Tabernacle of the Lord and laid fast hold upon the horneâ— of the Altar A wounded man hies unto the Surgeon Proportionably a poore Soule broken and bruised with the insupportable burden of all his abominations bleeding at heart-roote under sense of Divine wrath by the cutting edge of the Sword of the Spirit managed
advise with any that is able or likely to leade him by a wise and discreet hand to a well-grounded comfort and refreshment And resolveth greedily what-ever the prescription and direction bee to give way unto it most willingly in his performance and practise And the people asked him saying What shall wee doe then Then came also Publicans to be baptized and said unto Him Master what shall wee doe And the Souldiers likewise demanded of him saying And what shall wee doe Thus were Iohns hearers affected Luk. 3.10 12 14. beeing afflicted with the piercing passages of Iohns thundring Sermon Men and brethren what shall wee doe say the Penitent Iewes pricked in their hearts Acts. 2.37 The Iaylour Acts 16.30 came trembling and fell downe before Paul and Silas and said Sirs what must I doe to bee saved As if they had said Prescribe and enioyne what you will bee it never so harsh and distastefull to flesh and blood never so crosse and contrary to carnall reason profit pleasure preferment acceptation with the world ease liberty life c. having warrant out of the Word wee are resolved and ready to doe it Onely informe us first how to partake and bee assured of the person and passion of Iesus Christ how to have the angry face of our blessed God to whom wee have continued Rebels so long turned into calmnesse and favour unto us But now a Cast-away and Alien thus legally terrified and under wrath for sinne is never wont to come to this earnestnesse of care eagernesse of resolution stedfastnesse of endeavour willingnesse upon any termes to abandon utterly all His old wayes and to embrace new strict and holy courses These things appeare unto Him terrible Puritanicall and intolerable He commonly in such cases hath recourse for ease and remedy to worldly comforts and the arme of flesh He labours to relieve his heavy heart by a strong and serious casting his minde and nestling his conceit upon his riches gold greatnesse great friends credit amongst Men and such other transitory delights and fading flowers of His fooles Paradise For Hee is at a Point and resolute with a sensuall impenitent obstinacy not to passe forward thorow the Pangs of the New-birth by repentance and sanctification into the holy Trade of new-obedience lest Hee should as out of a foolish and phranticke basenesse Hee is apt to feare bee engaged and enchained as it were to too much stricknesse precisenesse holinesse of life communion with Gods people and opposition to good fellowship 2. Hee that is savingly-wounded with Legall terrour is wont in cold blood and being something come to Himselfe to entertaine the very same conceit or rather mingled with a great deale more reverence affectionatenesse and love as farre as the life of an immortall Soule doth surpasse in dearenesse and excellency the cure of a fraile and earthy body of that Man of God which by a right managing the edge of his spirituall sword hath pierced his heart scorched his conscience and bruised his spirit I say the same in proportion which a wise and thankefull Patient would have of that faithfull Surgeon which hath seasonably and thorowly launced some deepe and dangerous Sore which otherwise would have been his death Vpon the search and discovery Hee clearely sees and acknowledgeth that had not that holy incision been made into his rotten and ulcerous heart it had cost him the eternall life of his Soule But now the Alien put out of his sensuall humour with horrour of conscience is ordinarily transported with much ragefull discontentment against the powerfull Ministery of Gods paineful Messengers who put Him to such torture by troubling Him for sinne and frighting Him with Hell And thereupon cries out against them at least with secret indignation and fretting as the Divels did against Christ Why doe you thus torment us before the time 3. Aliens in such cases entertaine no other thought and cast about for no other comfort at all but onely how they may recover their former quietnesse of mind carnall ease and freedome from present terrour But hee that is fitting by the spirit of bondage for Faith and the fellowship of the Saints will never by any meanes whatsoever come of Him relapse to his wouted sensuall security Nay of the two Hee will rather lie still upon the Racke waiting for the Lord Iesus all the dayes of his life then to returne any more unto foolishnesse or hunt againe after any contentment in the miserable pleasures of good fellowship 4. That Messenger an Interpreter One among a thousand who in such a case can seasonably and soundly declare unto a savingly-wounded Soule His righteousnesse assure Him it was Christ Iesus onely businesse in comming from Heaven to disburden all that labour and are heavy laden and ease such trembling hearts c. I say such a blessed Man of God to such a broken heart is for ever after most deare and welcome His secte are beautifull in his eye every time Hee comes neere Him Comfort of so high a nature in extremity of such horrible consequence doth infinitely and endlesly endeare the delivered Soule to such an heavenly Doctour But Aliens commonly make no great account of godly Ministers any longer then they have present need of them and that trouble of minde makes them Melancholike and without mirth They seeme to reverence them while from their generall discourses of mercy and Gods free grace of mercifull invitations to Christ and certainty of acceptation if they will come in c. They sucke into their false hearts before the time and truth of humiliation some superficiall glimmerings and flashes of comfort and cooling But if once the heate of their guilty rage begin to asswage and they find againe some ease from their former terrours and wonted rellish in earthly delights they turne such holy men out of their hearts cast them out of their consciences and hold no higher or further conceit of them then of other and ordinary men if they forbeare to persecute them with thoughts of disdaine and contempt 5. The true Penitent having smarted under the sense of divine wrath and frighted with the flames of horrour for sinne doth grow fearefull for ever after to offend and with much gracious care dreads that consuming fire But the Alien while hee is upon the Râ—cke indeede and hath the hainousnesse of his sinnes and Hell freshly in His eie will easily make many glorious protestations and promises what a rare and resolute Convert Hee will become upon his recovery But if once the storme bee over-blowne Gods hand withdrawne and his painefull conscience cast againe into a deade sleepe by the power or rather poison of some sensuall receit Hee performes just nothing But like a filthy swine wallowes againe in the mire and mud of earthlinesse and carnality and againe with the beastly dog returnes unto and resumes his vomit 6. Hee that hath savingly passed thorow the Pangs of such spirituall afflictions is wont to bee very kindlily affected
most compassionate and tender-hearted to others afflicted with the same wofull terrours and troubles of conscience A woman which hath herselfe with extraordinary paine tasted of that exquisite torture of child birth is wont to bee more tenderly and mercifully disposed towards another in the like torment then she that never knew what that miserie meant And is more ready willing and skillfull to relieve in such distresses It is proportionably so in the present Case But the Alien beeing tainted in some measure with the Divels hatefull disposition is by the heate of his slavish horrour rather enraged with malice then resolved into mercy Hee is rather tickled with a secret content then touched with true commiseration to see and heare of others plunged into the same gulphe of misery and plagued like Himselfe Hee is much troubled with his solenesse in suffering and the singularity of any sorrowfull Accident Companion-ship in crosses doth something allay the discomforts of carnall men So that sometimes they secretly but very sinfully reioyce such is their dogged divelish disposition even to see the hand of God upon their neighbours Neither can hee in such extremeties minister any meanes of helpe or true comfort at all either by prayer counsell or any experimentall skill because the evill spirit of his vexed conscience was not driven away by any well-grounded application of Gods mercies and Christs blood but as Saules was by Musicke worldly mirth carnall advise Soule-slaying flatteries of Man-pleasing Ministers plunging desperately into variety of sensuall pleasures c. 7. Hee which after the boisterous tempest of Legall terrours hath happily arrived at the Port of Peace I meane that blessed peace which passeth all understanding made with God himselfe in the blood of his Son enters presently thereupon into the good way takes upon Him the yoke of Christ and serues him afterward in holinesse and righteousnesse all the dayes of his life And ordinarily His deeper humiliation is an occasion of his more humble precise holy and strickt walking and of more watchfulnesse over his heart and tendernesse of conscience about lesser sinnes also all occasions of scandall appearances of evill even aberrations in his best actions holiest duties c. But Aliens whē once they bee taken off the Racke and their torture determine either become just the same men they were before or else reforme onely some one or other grosse sin which stuckē most upon their consciences but remaine unamended and unmortified in the rest or else which often comes to passe grow a great deale worse For they are as it were angry with God that hee should give them a taste of Hell fire before their time and therefore knowing their time but short fall upon earthly delights more furiously engrosse and graspe the pleasures of the World with more greedinesse and importunitie These things thus premised I come to tell you that for the rectifying of the fore-mentioned Errour and prevention of the danger of dawbing and undoing for ever in a matter of so weighty importance I would advise the Spirituall Physition to labour with the utmost improovement of all his divine skill heavenly wisedome best experience heartiest praiers most piercing persuasions prest out of the word for that purpose wisely to worke and watchfully to observe the season when hee may warrantably and upon good ground apply unto the woundedst soule of his spiritually-sicke Patient assured comfort in the promises of life and that soveraigne blood which was spilt for broken hearts and assure him in the Word of truth that all those rich compassions which lie within the compasse of that great Covenant of everlasting mercy and love sealed with the painefull sufferings of the Sonne of God belong unto Him Which is then when his troubled heart is soundly humbled under Gods mighty hand and brought at length to first a truly penitent sight sense and hatred of all sinne secondly a sincere and unsatiable thirst after Iesus Christ and righteousnesse both imputed and inherent thirdly an unfained and un-reserved resolution of an universall New-obedience for the time to come c. Here I had purposed to have been large but I am prevented by that which hath been said already and therefore to avoide repetition I must remit you to the consideration of those Legall and Evangelicall preparations for the entertainement of Christ and true comfort which I handled before which may give some good direction and satisfaction in the Point Yet take notice that in the meane time before such fitnesse bee fully effectuated I would have the Man of God ply his Patient with his best perswasions and Proofes seasonably mingled with motives to humiliation of the pardonablenesse of his sinnes possibility of pardon damnablenesse of despaire danger of ease by outward mirth c. And to hold out to the eye of the troubled conscience as a prize and Lure as it were the freenesse of Gods immeasurable mercy the generall Offer of Iesus Christ without any exception of persons times or sinnes the pretiousnesse and infallibilitie of the promises in as faire and lovely a fashion in as orient and alluring formes as Hee can possibly But it is One thing to say If these things bee so I can assure you in the Word of life of the promises of life and already-reall right and interest to all the riches of Gods free grace and glorious purchase of Christs meritorious blood Another thing to say If you will suffer your understandings to bee illightened your consciences to bee convinced your hearts to be wounded with sight sense and horrour of sin If you will come-in and take Iesus Christ His Person his Passion his yoke If you will entertaine these and these affections longings and resolutions c. Then most certainely our mercifull Lord will crowne your truly humbled soules with his dearest compassions and freest love Lastly bee informed that when all is done I meane when the Men of God have their desire That the Patient in their perswasion is soundly wrought upon and professeth understandingly and feelingly and as they verily thinke from His heart first that Hee is heavy laden with the grievous burden of all His sinnes secondly That Hee is come by his present spirituall terrour and trouble of minde to that resolution to doe any thing which wee find the Hearers of Iohn and Peter Luk. 3. Act. 2. Thirdly That Hee most highly prizeth Iesus Christ farre above the riches pleasures and glory of the whole earth thirsts and longs for Him infinitely Fourthly That Hee is most willing to sell all To part with all sinne with His right eye and right hand those lusts and delights which stucke closest to His bosome Not to leave so much as an hoofe behind Fifthly That hee is content with all his heart to take Christ as well for a Lord and Husband to serue love and obey Him as for a Saviour to deliver Him from the miseries of sinne To take upon Him His yoke To enter into the narrow
way and walke in the holy Path To associate Himselfe to that sect which is so spoken against everywhere c. I say when it is thus with the afflicted Party and most happy is Hee when it is thus with Him yet notwithstanding because God alone is the Searcher of the heart and the heart of Man is deceitfull above all things wee can assure mercy and pardon but onely conditionally Tho by the mercy of God wee doe it many and many times with strong and undeceiving confidence Wee must ever adde either expressedly or impliedly such formes of speech as these If all this which you professe bee in truth If you bee thus resolved indeed If these things bee so as you have said c. Why then wee assure you in the word of life and truth your Case is comfortable you may sweetly repose your troubled and truly-humbled soule upon Iesus Christ as your wisedome righteousnes sanctification and redemption upon all the Promises of life Gods free grace c. as truly belonging unto you and certainely yours for ever Heare two Master Builders upon the matter confirming the present Point 1. To think that it lyeth in the power of any Priest truly to absolve a man froÌ„ his sins without implying the condition of his believing and repenting as he ought to doe is both presumption and madnesse in the highest degree 2. In the Pardon whereby a Priest pardoneth a sinner for an offence by Him committed against God there are two things to bee considered One that there is no pardon if the sinner doth not earnestly repent The other that hee himselfe which pardoneth hath need of pardon Of these two Points the first is the cause that the Priests pardon is conditionall because Hee knoweth not the heart The other is a cause that the Priest should consider of himselfe that hee is rather a Delinquet then a Iudge and to teach him to feare lest that after hee hath pardoned others Hee himselfe may not obtaine pardon It is a thing certaine that if a sinner seriously converting and beleeving in Iesus Christ cannot obtaine absolution of his Pastor which is passionate or badly informed of the truth God will pardon him On the contrary if a Pastor that is indulgent an winketh at vices or that is deceived by appearance of repentance absolveth an hypocriticall sinner and receiveth him into the communion of the faithfull that â—ypocriticall sinner remaineth bound before God and shall bee punished notwithstanding For God partaketh not with the errours of Pastors neither regardeth their passions nor can be hindred from doing iustice by their ignorance 3. Let mee adde Cyprian who at the first rising of the Novatian heresie wrote thus to Antonianus We doe not preiudice the Lord that is to iudge But that hee if Hee finde the repentance of the sinner to bee full and iust hee may then ratifie that which shall bee here ordained by us But if any one doe deceive us with the semblance of repentance God who is not mocked and who beholdeth the heart of man may iudge of those things which wee did not well discerne and the Lord may amend the sentence of his servants Neither let this Truth to wit that our assuring of mercy and pardon must bee conditionall upon such like termes as these If thou doest beleeve and repent as thou oughtest to doe If these things bee in truth as you promise and professe c. discourage or trouble any that are true of heart For it should not prejudice or hinder their application of the promises taking Christ as their owne assurance of mercy and comfort because they are conscious to themselves of the syncerity of their owne hearts And therefore Looke how the Prophet Esay was comforted when the Angell said unto Him Thine iniquity is taken away and thy sinne purged and the poore Woman in the Gospell when Iesus said unto Her Thy sinnes are forgiven The like consolation doth the distressed sinner receive from the mouth of the Minister when hee hath compared the truth of Gods Word faithfully delivered by Him with the worke of Gods grace in His owne heart According to that of Elibu If there bee an Angell or a Messenger with him an Interpreter One of a thousand to declare unto man his righteousnesse then will God have mercy upon Him and say Deliver him from going downe to the pit I have received a reconciliation 2. Too much A little Aqua vita may happily revive and refresh the fainting spirits of a swouning Man but too much would kill A spoone-full of Cinnamon-water mingled with twelve spoone-fulls of Spring-water and one spoonefull of Rose-water c. may bee soveraigne against the sinking of the heart But poure at once a Pint into the Stomack and it might unhappily choake the naturall heate waste the Radicall moysture and burne up a Mans Bowels Mercy being wisely administred in the right season and mingled with convenient Counsels and Caveats may by Gods blessing binde up a broken heart with a leasurable and kindly Cure It may mollifie in the meane time with an healing and heavenly heate the smarting anguish of a wounded conscience and at length seasonably close it up with sound and lasting comfort But poured out hand over head by an unsteady and in-discreet hand It may by accident dangerously dry up penitent teares too soone and stifle the worke of the spirit of Bondage in the beginning But here let none either out of ignorance or malice mistake or bee troubled with this Too much The same Phrase in the same sense is to be found in Master Perkins a great Master in the deepe mystery of dealing with afflicted consciences For wee must know that Too much is by no meanes to bee meant of any wayes restraining or confining the infinitenesse of Gods mercy It were execrable blasphemy to dis-roabe Gods most glorious Attribute of it's immensity but in respect of not mingling some Coolers and Caveats to keepe from presumption as shall appeare in the ensuing Counsells I shall commend for that purpose Vpon this ground I reason thus A man may presse and apply Gods justice and the terrours of the Law Too much therefore also mercy and the comforts of the Gospell too much The consequent is cleare For as the former may plunge into the Gulphe of despaire so the other may cast upon the Rocke of presumption Nay it is more then un-answerably strong Because wee are farre readier to apprehend and apply unto our selves mercy then judgement And thousands are endlesly overthrowne thorow presumption for one by despaire And the Antecedent who will deny It is rather so preposterously applauded and prest that most if a Minister even with his best discretion reveale the whole Counsell of God and tell them That none shal bee refreshed by Christ but onely those who labour and are heavy laden That they must humble themselves in the sight of the Lord if they would have him
afford him a morall Change or a formall Change or a mentall Change I meane it onely in respect of the spirit of illumination and generall graces or a temporary Change of which see My Directions for walking with God pag. 310. And yet continue him still within the confines of His cursed kingdome and in a damnable state Hee doth improove to the utmost as occasion of advantage is offered both the grisseliest shape of a foule Fiend and the most alluring light of His Angelicall glory to doe us a mischiefe any way either upon the right hand or the left How many thousands Ah pitie even in this clearest Noone-tide of the Gospell doth Hee keepe in a presumptuous confidence that they are converted and yet most certainely his owne still and in a willing slavery to some one or other predominant Lust at the least Bee advised then in the Name of Christ whosoever thou art when the hand of God great mercy shall visit and vex thy conscience for sinne by the piercing power of the Ministry Bee sure to follow the direction and guidance of that blessed hand without dawbing or diversion out of the kingdome of darkenesse thorow the Pangs of the New-birth into the holy Path wholly and for ever Make sure worke whatsoever it cost Thee Have never any thing more to doe with the Divell Give over the Trade of sinning quite never more to turne agains unto Folly upon any termes And if Satan set upon Thee with baites and allurements to detaine Thee in his spirituall Bondage but by one darling delight to which thou hast been most addicted Answer him in this Case with an un-shaken resolution as Moses did Pharaoh in a Point of temporall Bondage There shall not so much as an hoofe bee left behind Yeeld not an haires breadth upon any condition to that Hellish Pharaoh especially in so great a matter as the endlesse salvation or damnation of thy Soule If hee can keepe possession but by one reigning sinne in which thou liest with delight against the light of thy conscience hating to bee reformed Hee desires no more One knot in a thread will stay the Needle 's Passage as wel as five hundred c. See to this purpose my Directions of walking with God pag. 34. Beware then of closing up the wound of thy terrified and troubled conscience with any out-side halfe or unsound conversion which I make the fourth Passage out of trouble of mind for sin 5. And why may not Satan sometimes by Gods permission bee suffered to inflict and fasten his fiery darts of terrours and temptations upon a mans conscience continue them there some while with much angvish and horrour for some secret holy end seene and seeming good to divine wisedome and at length remoove and retire them not upon succession of any sound comfort or true peace from the promises of life and pardon of sinne but onely upon a meere cessation of the Divels pleasure to torment and terrifie any longer Not that Hee can hurt the least or most contemptible creature that ever God made when He please but that it pleaseth God sometimes to give him the raines and leave to rage Quieting the conscience in this Case is no comfortable cure from positive helpe but a counterfeite palliation by ceasing to hurt See Satans proportionable practises in matters of Witchcraft in Giffards Dialogve concerning Witches and Witchcrafts pag. 11. 6. Nay Let mee here further before I passe out of the Point discover unto you a mysterie but it is of iniquity and horrible Hypocrisie I have knowne some would you thinke it who have counterfeited even trouble of Conscience and made shew with out all truth or true touch of sundry temptations and spirituall distempers incident onely to the Saints And have for that purpose addrest themselves with much industry and noise and had recourse many times to some spirituall Physitions with many teares an heavy countenance and other rufull circumstances expressing almost exactly the scruples doubts distrusts complaints of such as are truly grieved in spirit and true of heart O the wonderfull Depth which lieth hid in the confluence of the Hypocrisies of mans false heart and the Devises of that old Serpent which deceiveth the whole world Such as these take upon them and lay aside terrours of conscience as Players doe their apparell and Parts 7. The passages past doe all mislead into By-paths but there is One blessed way besides all these tho it be a narrow One which conducts directly out of a naturall state through the pangs of the new-birth with out diversion or dawbing with out any longer detainement in any lust sensuall pleasure or beloued vanitie in any kind of hypocrisie or degree of unregeneration into the Paradise of grace fully and for ever This neither plunges a man into the Pit of Despaire nor misguides him by carnall counsell and his own wicked conceit into the fooles Paradise and tastlesse fooleries of outward mirth nor pacifies unseasonably with untimely and counterfeit peace nor leaves in the deceiving formes of an unsound conversion and unsaving flourishes of generall graces only c. But convaies and transports him happily by an universall syncere supernaturall thorow-change into the holy Path And that thus and by such degrees as these 1. The first is an Illumination of the minde conviction of the conscience terryfying the heart with sight sense and horrour of sinne in some true measure The first worke of the Spirit Iohn 16.8 is to convince of sin which presupposeth illumination and produceth terror The Spirit of bondage must bee first set on worke to shew us our spirituall misery to humble us to prepare for Christ. And yet this worke in it selfe is common to the Alien with the child of the New-birth And ordinarily here they part The Alien and hee that hates to bee reformed out of an inveterate unhappy prejudice against the saving precisenesse of the Saints and â—othnesse to leave utterly his former courses company conversation being obstinated against passing on forward into the way which is called holy Regeneration the new-birth Repentance mortification sanctification self-deniall New-obedience walking with God turning Puritan as they say c are termes perhaps of as great terrour unto him as his present trouble of conscience doth now here divert and afterward willfully and wofully perish in some pestilent or plausible By-path In this case hee labours and layes about him for ease any way yea sometimes he will have it from the Divell himself if he can by the help of a Wizzard rather then misse of it so that he may attaine and keepe it without any great alteration of his former waies or especially without parting with his darling pleasure And therefore he assaies either to conquer his spirituall affliction with worldly comforts carnall counsell choise contentments c. Or else to allay the present storme of his guilty rage with some counterfeit calme or at best to still the cry of his
life no acquaintance at all with the waies of God but continue cursedly carelesse what becomes of the Gospell or Gods children so that they may rise grow rich and sleepe in a whole skinne 8. By this time now is he become the drunkards song table-talke to those that sit in the gate Musicke to great men at their feasts a By-word to the children of fooles and the children of villaines men viler then the earth whose fathers hee would have disdained to have set with the doggs of his flocke And what then Even thus they dealt with David Iob Ieremie Nay they told the Sonne of God himselfe in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily that he was a Samaritane and had a Devill What man of braine then that gives his name to Christ and lookes to bee saved will looke for exemption Especially sith all the contumelies and contemptes all those nick-names of Puritan Precisian Hypocrite Humorist Factionist c. with which lewd tongues are woont to load the Saints of God are so many honourable badges of their worthy deportment in the holy path and resolute standing on the Lords side Some noble Romans having done some singular service to the state and after troubled and handled violently in some privat Cases were woont to bare their bodies and to shew in open court the scars and impressions of those woundes which they had received in their Countries cause as characters of speciall honour and strongest motives to commiseration So many lying imputations unworthy usages and persecutions in any kinde for profession of godlinesse which the faithfull Christian shall bring to the Iudgement seate of Christ so many glorious and roiall representations of excellency of spirit and height of courage in Christian causes shall they bee accounted in the sight and censure of almighty God and the blessed Angels and make him more amiable and admirable in the face of heaven and earth Thus much of the Theorie as it were I come now to the Practicke part To a particular application of some speciall soveraigne Antidotes to the most grievous ordinary maladies incident to the soules of the Saints But first give mee leave to premise some generall well-heads out of which do spring abundance of comfort and overflowing rivers of refreshing for all intents and effects in point of temptation and trouble of minde 1. And first take a fruitfull cluster and heavenly heape of them together those twelve heads of extraordinary immeasurable comfortable matter for spirituall medicines which I have heretofore erected as so many invincible bulwarkes against all assaults of despaire oppositions of Satan exceptions of distrust 1. The infinitenesse of Gods mercy sweetely intimated Isa. 55.6.7.8 The mercy of God is like himselfe infinite All our sinnes are finite both in number and nature Now betweene finite and infinite there is no proportion and so no possibility of resistance And therefore bee thy sinnes never so notorious and numberlesse yet in a truly broken heart thirsting for and throwing it selfe upon Christ unfainedly resolving upon new-obedience and his glorious service for the time to come can no more withstand or stand before Gods mercies then a little sparke the boundlesse and mighty Ocean throwne into the midst of it nay infinitely lesse If all the sinnes that all the Sonnes and daughters of Adam have committed since the Creation to this time were all upon one soule yet so affected as I have sayd and put into such a new penitent gracious temper it should be most certainly upon good ground and everlastingly safe I speake not thus to make any secure for any one sinne pleasing and raigning will ruine a soule for ever But to assure of mercy enough how great or many so ever the sinnes haue been if the heart bee now truly humbled for them all and wholly turned heaven-ward 2. The unvaluablenesse of Christs meritorious blood Which is call'd the blood of God and therefore of inestimable price Vnderstand mee aright It was the blood of God not of the God-head but of him who was both God and man For the man-hood of Christ was received into the union of the second person And so it may bee called the blood of God for so speakes S. Paul Act. 20.28 God purchased his Church with his owne blood that is Christ God incarnate Our Devines expresse it thus It was the Sonne of God and Lord of life that died for us upon the Crosse but it was the nature of man not of God wherein he died and it was the nature of God and infinite excellency of the same whence the price valew and worth of his passion grew This blessed blood then is of infinite efficacie and therefore if thou be now turning to the Lord assure thy selfe whatsoever thy sinnes have beene they have not out-gone the price that hath been payd for them This blood upon repentance did take off the transcendent scarlet guilt from the soules even of those that shed it Act. 2. c. 3. The riches of the Word in affording precedents of the Saints and of the Sonne of God himselfe who have surpassed thee and that perhaps very farre in any kinde of miserie thou canst name Thou art perhaps consulting with the Prodigall to come-in but there comes terribly into thy minde the extraordinary hainousnesse of thy former sinnes and that hinders Cast thine eie then upon Manasses a man of prodigious impiety and matchlesse villany Hee shed innocent blood very much till hee had filled Ierusalem from one end to another Hee did that which was evill in the sight of the Lord like unto the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel Hee caused his children to passe through the firâ—â— in the valley of the sonne of Hinnom also Hee observed times and used inchantments and used witch-craft and dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizzards Hee wrought much evill in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger c. And yet this great sinner humbling himselfe greatly before the God of his Fathers was received to mercy Suppose which yet were a horrible thing that after conversion by extraordinary violence of temptation strong in-snarement of some sudden sensuall offer and opportunity treacherous insinuation of thy owne false heart and furious re-assault of thy former bosome-sin Thou shouldest be overtaken grossely with some grievous sin and scandalous fal and then upon illumination remorse and meditation of returne reason thus within thy selfe Alas what shall I doe now I have undone all I have wofully againe defiled my soule so fairely washed in my Saviours blood with that dis-avowed sinne of my unregenerate time I have shamed my profession disgraced religion for ever I have broke my vowes lost my peace and my woonted blessed communion with my God c. And therefore what hope can I have of any acceptation againe at the Throne of grace I say in this case to keepe thee
from sinking cast thine eie upon Aaron David Peter who returning with sound and hearty repentance were mercifully entertayned into as great favour as they were before But God forbid that any professour of religion should ever fall so fowly especially in this glorious mid-day of Evangelicall light Art thou langvishing under the heauy desolations of a spirituall desertion and deprived of thy former comfortable feelings of Gods favourable countenance Looke upon David Psal. 77. I remembred God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed I am so troubled that I can not speake My soule refused to bee comforted Nay upon Iesus Christ himselfe Mat. 27.46 crying My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee Art thou haunted with some of Satans most hatefull and horrible injections grissely to the eie even of corrupted nature Thoughts framed by himself immediately and put into thee perhaps tending to Atheisme or to the dishonour of God in the highest degree or of his blessed word to self-destruction or the like Thoughts which thou canst not remember without horrour and darest not reveale or name for their strange and prodigious monstrousnesse If it bee thus with thee consider how this malicious Feind dealt with the Sonne of God himselfe He offered to his most holy and unspotted imagination these propositions First Murder and make away thy selfe Matth. 4.6 Secondly Fall downe and worship the Divell Vers. 9. Then which a fouler thought I thinke was never injected that Iesus Christ blessed for ever in whom the God head dwelt bodily should fall downe and worship the Divell the vilest of Creatures And yet this was suggested to our blessed Saviour To which his purest heart infinitely uncapeable of sinne was as a brasse wall to an arrow beating it backe presently with infinite contempt And himselfe did utterly conquer and confound the tempter and that for thee and thy sake too And therefore if thy humbled soule doe abominate and abandon them from the heart-roote to the pit of Hell they shall never be laid to thy charge but set on Satans score Extremely then doe those wrong themselves and gratifie the Divell to the height who suffer such injections which they heartily hate and stand against with all their strength to hold their hearts still upon the racke of extraordinary astonishment and distraction whereby they are unnecessarily discouraged and disabled for a chearefull discharge of both their callings Which is the thing Satan specially aimes at in vexing so many of Gods dearest servants with this fieri'st dart It may bee that many yeares after thy new-birth when thou thinkest the worst is past thou maist bee revisited and afflicted afresh with perhaps sorer spirituall pangs and more horrour then at the first And what then Heare how David a man after Gods owne heart cries out My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavie upon mee My moisture is turned into the drought of summer Selah And Iob. a God-fearing man and most upright Wherefore hidest thou thy face and holdest mee for thine enemie Wilt thou breake a leafe driven to and fro And wilt thou pursue the drie stubble For thou writest bitter things against mee and makest mee to possesse the iniquities of my youth The arrowes of the Almighty are within mee the poison thereof drinkes up my spirit The terrours of God doe set themselves in array against mee Hezekiah that walked before God in truth and with a perfect heart I reckoned till morning that as a Lion so will he breake all my bones from day even to night wilt thou make an end of mee Like a Crane or a Swallow so did I chatter I did mourne as a Dove mine eyes fayle with looking upward O Lord I am opprest undertake for mee Doest thou day after day poure out thy soule in prayer before The Throne of Grace with all the earnestnesse and instancy thy poore dead heart as thou callest it can possibly and do'st thou still rise up dull heavy-hearted and uncomfortable without any sensible answer from God or comfortable sense of his favour and love shed into thy heart Be it so yet for all this pray still in obedience unto thy God against all discouragements and oppositions whatsoever Presse hard unto still and ply Gods Mercy-Seate if it be but with sighes and groanings Assuredly at length and in the fittest time thou shalt bee gloriously refreshed and registred in the remembrance of God for a Christian of excellent Faith See a patterne of rare and extraordinary patience this way Mat. 15.23 There that Woman of Canaan having received many grievous repulses cuting discouragements the Solicited was silent the Disciples grumble she was not of the Fold she was a Dog yet for all this by her constancy in crying after Christ her petition at last was not only granted but her self also crowned with a singular and admirable Eulogie from the Lords owne mouth O Woman great is thy Faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt What an honour and comfort was this to bee thus commended by Iesus Christ and that with an admiration O Woman Hath thy Faith lost it's feeling Doest thou for the present feele nothing but anger wrath and great indignation Is Gods face and favour wherein is life turned away from thee and quite hid from thy sight Nay hath hee broken thee aâ—under taken thee by the necke and shaken thee to pieces and set thee up for his marke Yet for all this let thy truly humbled soule bee so farre from loosing or leaving it's hold-fast and sure repose upon the Person Passion and Promises of Iesus Christ that in such a Case it cleave and cling faster to that blessed Rocke and farre more immoveablely For therein specially is the strength and glory of Faith improved and made illustrious It is one of the most noble and heroicall acts of Faith to beleeve without feeling He who beleeveth most and feeleth least is hee who glorifieth God most It is nothing to swimme in a warme Bath but to endure the surges and tumbling billowes of the Sea that 's the man To beleeve when God doth fairely and sensibly shine upon the soule with the love and light of his countenance is no great matter But to rest invincibly upon his mercy thorow Christ when he grinds thee to powder that 's the Faith Thou hast before thee for this purpose a matchlesse precedent Thus cries holy Iob vexed not onely with an unparalleld variety and extremity of outward afflictions but also with the venome of the Almighties arrowes drinking up his spirit Thâ— hee slay mee yet will I trust in him Cap. 13.15 So Abraham Rom. 4.18 Hast thou given thy name stoutely to Religion and do'st thou stand on Gods side with resolution And art thou therefore villanously traduced with slanderous odious nick-names of Puritan Precisian Hypocrite Humorist Dissembler c Consider then for thy comfort that gracelesse wretches when
by their holy Duties good workes and gracious behaviour make his Name more illustrious in the world But what is this to that essentiall infinite everlasting glory which was as great and full in all that former eternity before the world was When God blessed for ever enjoyed onely His glorious Selfe Angels Men and this great Vniverse lying all hid as yet in the darke abhorred Dungeon of Nothing as now it is or ere shall bee 2. A second reason may bee taken from Gods proportionable proceeding in his courses of justice and mercy In his executions of Iustice and inflictions of punishment He interprets and censures desires for the deeds affections for Actions Thoughts for the things done Whosoever saith Christ looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart In Gods interpretation in the search and censure of divine justice Hee that lusts after a Woman in his heart is an adulterer and without true and timely repentance in the meane time shall bee so taken and proceeded against at that great and last Day Whosoever hateth his Brother saith Iohn is a man-slayer An hateful thought of our Brother murthers Him and spils his blood by the verdict of the blessed Spirit And a malicious man at the Barre of God goes for a Man-slaier If this then bee Gods property and proceeding in justice wee may much more confidently expect Nay with reverent humility challenge way beeing made by the mediation of Christ the same proportionable measure in those His most sweet and lovely inclinations and expressions of mercy Shall a lewde desire after a woman fall under the Axe of Gods justice as if it were the grosse Actâ— of lust And shall not a longing desire after grace bee graciously embraced in the armes of mercy as the grace it selfe Shall an angry thought invisible immaterial hurtfull only to the heart which harbours it be charged with actuall bloodshed And shall not a panting thirst of a broken and bleeding Soule after Christs saving and sanctifying blood bee bath'd and refresht in his pretious blood Yes certainely and much rather For Gods tender mercies are over all his workes Psal. 145.9 And mercy with an holy exultation triumpheth and reioyceth against iudgement Iam. 2.13 His mercy is great unto the Heavens Psal. 57.10 Hee doth with much sweet contentment and as it were naturall propension encline to the gracious effusions of mercy Hee delighteth in mercy saith Micah Cap. 7.18 Hee is passingly pleaâ—ed and exalted most gloriously when Hee is pardoning of sinnes purging of Soules pulling out of the Divels Paw pouring in of grace shining into sad and uncomfortable hearts saving from Hell c. This makes Him so passionate in an holy sense when Hee hath no Passage for his love Deus 5.29 Psal. 81.13 Isa. 48.18 Mat. 23.37 Luk. 19.41.42 But now on the other side Hee is hardly drawne not without much reluctancy delaies forbearance and as it were some kinde of violence offered by excesse of multiplyed rebellious provocations to exercise His justice and to punish for sinne See 2. Chron. 36.16 Hos. 6.4 c. It appeares Zeph. 2.2 by the emphasis of the Original that in this respect in a right and sober sense God is like a woman with Childe When the cry of our sinnes comes first to Heaven Hee doth not presently poure upon our heads fire and Brimstone according to our desert But as loth to enter into judgement with us Hee then but begins to conceive as it were wrath which Hee beares or rather forbeares full many and many a moneth still waiting when upon our repentance Hee might bee gracious unto us untill it come to that ripenesse by the fullnesse and intolerable waight of our sinnes that Hee can possibly beare no longer And then also when Hee is about to bee delivered of his justly conceived and long-forborne vengeance Marke how Hee goes about it Ah! saies Hee c. Isa. 1.24 This aspiration argues a compassionate Pang of griefe speaking after the manner of men to proceede against His owne people tho they had provoked Him as enemies How shall I give thee up Ephrâ—im How shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah How shall I set thee as Zebâ—im Mine heart is turned within mee my repentings are kindled together Hos. 11.9 When Hee came against Sodome and Gomorrah the most prodigiously wicked people that ever the Earth bore What a miracle of mercy was it that He should be brought so low as to say I will not destroy it for tennes sake Gen. 18.32 So it is then that mercy flowes naturally and easily from God and he is most forward and free-hearted in granting Pardons and receiving into grace and favour But justice is ever as it were violently with cart-ropes of iniquity pul'd from Him He is pressed with our sinnes as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaues before wee wring from Him the vials of just wrath and wrest out of His hands the Arrowes of deserved indignation That you erre not in this Point conceive that both Gods mercy and iustice are originally and fundamentally as God Himselfe infinite Both of the same length height bredth and depth that is equally endlesse boundlesse botomlesse unsearchable Yet if wee consider the exercise and execution of them amongst the creatures and abroad in the world Mercy that sweetest Attribute and most pretious baulme to all bruised hearts doth farre surpasse and out-shine the other tho incomparable excellencies of His divine nature and all the perfections which accompany the greatnesse of God As appeares Exod. 20.5.6 Gen. 18.32 Ioel. 2.43 Ionah 4.2 Psal. 36. and 103. 2. Chron. 21.13 His influences and beames of mercy are fairely and plentifully shed into the bosome of every Creature and shine gloriously over all the earth even from one end of Heaven to the other The whole world is thicke set and richly embroidered as it were with wonderfull variety of impressions and Passages of his goodnesse and bounty In this great Volume of Nature round about us wee may runne and reade the deepe Prints and large Characters of kindnesse and love which His mercifull and munificent hand hath left in all Places in every leafe and Page and line of it If mercy then bee so graciously magnified over all his workes we may more strongly build upon it That if the hand of Iustice seize upon an hatefull thought as a murtherer and stained with blood and arraigne a lustfull conceite as guilty of adultery and actuall pollution His armes of mercy will most certainely embrace and accept of a syncere desire for the deed done of hearty affections for the Actions and of a grieved spirit for the grace it groanes for Yea but may some say If mercy bee so faire a flower in the garland of Gods incomprehensible greatnesse if it so farre excell his other Attributes in amiablenesse amongst His creatures How comes it to passe That the
comest with thy cost Whereas God ever gives His Sonne freely and bids thee come and welcome and buy without money and without price Obiect 2. But will it not bee presumption in mee having no good thing in mee at all to bring with mee but comming now as it were fresh out of Hell from a most wicked impure abominable life to take Christ as mine owne and all those rich and pretious promises sealed with his blood Answ. Enough hath been already said to meete with this objection It is not presumption but good manners to come when thou art called How can Hee bee said to presume who is both invited and intreated commanded and threatned to come in c. Of which see before Thou must now in this extreme spirituall thirst of thine drinke of the water of life so freely offered that thou mayst receive some heavenly strength to bee good and power to become the Sonne of God Thou must throw thy sinfull Soule upon Iesus Christ bleeding and breathing out his last upon the Crosse as the Body of the Shunamites Childe was applyed to the Prophet stretching himselfe upon it That thou mayst thereby bee quickened with desired fruitfulnesse filled by little and little with all the fulnesse of God receiving grace for grace I am the resurrection and the life saith Christ Hee that believeth in me tho He were dead yet shall Hee live It were execrable presumption for any Man who purposeth to goe on in the willing practise or allowance of any one knowne sinne to believe that Christ is His righteousnesse and sanctification But where all sin is a Burden every promise as a world of gold and the heart syncere for a new way there a Man may be bold For thee to have pretended part in Christ wallowing yet in thy sinnes had been horrible presumption indeed and for mee to have applyed the Promises and preached peace unto thy remorselesse conscience before the Pangs of the New-birth had seazed upon thee had been damnable dawbing But in the Case I now suppose Thee to bee it is both seasonable and surely grounded for mee to assure thee of acceptation and pardon and for thee to receive Iesus Christ without any more adoe into the armes of thy humbled Soule 2. His sweet Name Exod. 34.6.7 Wherein is prevented whatsoever may any wayes bee pretended for standing out in this Case as appeares fully before pag. 415. line 25. 3. His glorious Attributes 1. His Truth Hee that believeth hath set to His Seale that God is true Ioh. 3.33 He that labours and is heavy laden with the burden of sin comes to Christ for case when Hee is called takes Him for his Saviour and His Lord and thereupon grounds a resolute unshaken and everlasting confidence that hee is His for ever puts to his Seale that Christ is true that His pretious promise Come unto mee all yee that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Mat. 11.28 is inviolable Whereby Christ Iesus blessed for ever is mightily honoured His truth glorified and thine owne soule with extraordinary blessednesse everlastingly enlived But Hee now that retires in this Case and holds off makes Him who is Truth it selfe a lyar Hee that believeth not God hath made Him a Lyar 1. Ioh. 5.10 Now what a fearefull indignity is this against the Lord God of Truth Wee see too often how miserable mortall men wormes of the earth take such an affront at the hands one of another For many times for the Lie given them they throw themselves desperately upon the irrecoverable ruine of their lives states soules and posterity by chalenging the field and killing each other Which dishonour to the mighty Lord of heaven and earth is the greater and is much aggravated by the infinite infallibility of the promises For besides His Word which were more then immeasurably sufficient Hee hath added a most solemne Oath for our sakes that wee might have greater assurance and stronger consolation 2. His Mercy most directly and specially And to say nothing of the freenesse of His mercy which springs onely out of the riches of his infinite bounty and the good pleasure of His will of his readinesse to forgive otherwise the death of Christ should bee of none effect His blood shed in vaine the greatest worke lost that ever was done of His delight in mercy Mich. 7.18 Mercy in man is a quality in God it is His nature and essence Now what wee doe naturally wee doe willingly readily unweariedly As the eye is not weary of seeing the eare with hearing c. A Bee gives honey naturally never stings but provoked When God is angry it is but as it were by accident upon occasion drawne unto it by the violent importunity of our multiplied provocations but Hee delights in mercy c. I say to say nothing of these this one consideration may convince us of extreme folly in refusing mercy in such a Case for all the hainousnesse or number of our sinnes to wit That no sinnes either for number or notoriousnesse in a truly broken heart can make so much resistance to Gods infinite mercies as the least sparke of fire to the whole Sea and that is little enough Nay as infinitely lesse as an infinite thing exceedes a finite Betweene which there is no proportion 3. His Power For thou art very like thus or in the like manner to reason within thy selfe and cavill cruelly against thine owne Soule Alas what talke you of taking Christ the promises of life and heavenly lightsomnesse my poore heart is as darke as the very middle of Hell much harder then a Rocke of Adamant as cold and dead as the senselesse Center of the earth as uncomfortable and restlesse almost as desperation it selfe c. It is more then infinitely impossible that such a darke hard dead comfortlesse Thing should ever bee enlightened softened quickened and established with joy c. But marke how herein thou unadvisedly under-valewes and unworthily sets bounds to the unlimited power of God Whereas thou shouldest imitate Abraham the Father of all them that believe who staggered not at the Promise of God through unbeliefe but was strong in faith giving glory to God And beeing fully perswaded that what Hee had promised Hee was able also to performe Rom. 4.20.21 Bee advised in this Case 1. To compare these two things together The making of the seven Starres and Orion and turning the shadow of death into the morning And the infusion of heavenly light into thy darke and heavy heart And doest thou not think that the second is as easie as the first to the same Omnipotent hand Nay it is easier in our conceit to the Divine Majesty nothing is difficult or un-easie For those glorious shining Constellations were created of nothing and nothing hath no disposition to any Beeing at all much lesse to any particular existence But a Soule sensible and weary of it's spirituall darknesse is
as in a royall Throne Hee hath as it were two Thrones One in the Empyrean Heaven the other in a broken heart Isa. 57.15 But my heart lies groveling in the dust humbled under the mighty hand of God and trembling at his feete c. Therefore it is the mansion of Iehova blessed for ever Whosoever confesseth and forsaketh his sinnes shall have mercy Prov. 28.13 But I confesse and abominate all sinne resolved never to turne againe to folly Therefore mercy is most certainely mine Hee in whose heart the holy Ghost hath enkindled a kindly heate of affection to the Brethren hath passed from death to life 1. Ioh. 3.14 But by the mercy of God my heart is wholy set upon the Brother-hood which I heartily hated heeretofore Therefore I have passed from death to life These and the like Conclusions are in themselves as full of sound joy and true comfort as the Sunne of light or Sea of waters Open but the eye of thine humbled soule and thou maist see many glorious things in them Crush them but a little with the hand of Faith and much delicious sweetnesse of spirituall peace may distill upon thy Soule Lastly such considerations as these may contribute some matter of comfort and support to Him of weakest apprehension in this Case 1. If Hee consult with His owne Conscience Hee shall happily finde in His present syncere resolution an impossibility to turne backe againe to His former sinnefull life pleasures goodfellow-ship sensuall courses company Hee sayes and thinkes it that Hee will rather die then lie sweare prophane the Sabbaths put to usury doe wrong keepe any ill-gotten goods in his hands Haunt Ale-houses Play-houses Gaming-houses or willingly put His heart or hand to any kind of iniquity as Hee was formerly wont And doth nature thinke you keepe Him backe or grace and Gods Spirit 2. If Hee should now heare and have his eares fill'd with oathes blasphemies ribald talke rotten speeches filthy songs railing at Gods people scoffing at religion jesting out of Scriptures c. His heart would rise Hee would either reproove them or bee rid of them as soone as Hee could whereas heretofore Hee hath been perhaps a delightfull Hearer of them if not a notorious Actour Himselfe And whence doe you thinke doth this arise but from the seede of God remaining in Him 3. Thirdly If when you heare Him complaine That howsoever Hee hath cast Himselfe upon Christ as the Prophets have counselled Him yet sith thereupon Hee feeles no such comfort and peace in Believing as other Christians doe Hee begins to doubt whether Hee hath done well or no and to conceive that Hee hath layd hold upon the Promises too soone Nay and it may bee upon this discontent doth thus further enlarge His complaint Alas my sinnes have formerly been so great my heart is at this present so hard my sorrow so scant my failings so many c. that I know not what to say to my Selfe Mee thinkes I can neither pray conferre love the Brethren sanctifie the Sabbath rejoyce in the Lord c. as I see other of Gods Children doe And therefore I am affraid all is naught What heart can I have to hold on I say if to such a speech thou shouldest for triall give this reply Well then if it bee so even give over all strive no more against the streame trouble thy selfe no longer with reading prayer following sermons forbearing good fellowship and thine old companions And sith no comfort comes by casting thy selfe upon Christ cast thy selfe againe into the current of the times course of the world and merry company For there yet is there some little poore pleasure to bee had at least Oh! No No No would Hee say That will I never doe whatsoever comes of mee I will trust in my Christ tho Hee should kill mee for all these discouragements I will by no meanes cast away my confidence I have been so freshly stung with their guilt that I will rather be pull'd in peeces with wild horses then plunge againe into carnall pleasures I will put my hand to all holy duties in obedience to God tho I performe them never so weakely I will by the mercy of God keepe my face towards Heaven and backe to Sodome so long as I breath come what come will c. And whence doe you thinke springs this resolution but from a secret saving power supporting Him in the most desperate temptations and assaults of distrust Now this first secret saving power by which an humble Soule leaning upon Christ is supported when it is at the lowest secondly The seed of God and thirdly presence of grace doe every one of them argue a blessed state in which thou shalt bee certainely saved and therefore thou mayst lift up thine heart and head with comfort unspeakeable and glorious 3. Thirdly Many there are who much complaine of the great disproportion betweene the notorious wickednesse of their former life and their lamentable weakenesse of an answerable be wailing it Betweene the number of their sinnes and fewnesse of their teares the hainousnesse of their rebellions and little measure of their humiliation And thereupon because they did not finde and feele those terrours and extraordinary troubles of mind in their turning unto God those violent passions and pangs in their New-birth which they have seene heard or read of or knowne in others perhaps farre lesse sinners then themselves they are much troubled with distractions and doubts about the truth and soundnesse of their conversion Whereby they receive a great deale of hurt and hindrance in their spirituall state For Satan gaines very much by such a suggestion and grounds many times a manifold mischiefe upon it For by keeping this temptation on foot these doubts and troubles in their mindes whether they bee truly converted or no Hee labours and too often prevailes 1. To hinder the Christian in His spirituall Building With what heart can Hee hold on who doubts of the soundnesse and sure-laying of the foundation What progresse is Hee like to make in Christianity who continually terrifies Himselfe with fearefull exceptions and oppositions about the truth of His conversion A man in a long journey would jogge on but very heavily if Hee doubted whether Hee were in the right way or no. 2. To abate lessen and abridge His courage in standing on Gods side patience under the Crosse spirituall mirth in good company To keepe Him in dulnesse of heart deadnesse of affections distractions at holy exercises and under the raigne of almost a continuall sadnesse and uncomfortable walking To make Him quite neglect and never looke towards those sweete commands of the blessed Spirit Reioyce evermore Reioyce and I say againe Reioyce Bee glad in the Lord reioyce and shout for ioy all yee that are upright in heart 3. To fasten a great deale of dishonour upon God when He can make the Christian dis-avow as it were and nullifie in conceit so great a worke of mercy and grace
humour doth naturally give extraordinary entertainement and edge to terrours and sorrowes 2. The crabbednesse and crookednesse of His naturall disposition which must be tamed and taken downe with more adoe with much violence and renting An hard and knotty Block must have an hard wedge An angry word or frowne will worke more with some dispositions then many sore blowes upon a crosse and sturdy spirit God is here woont sweetly and wisely to apply Himself to the severall natures conditions and dispositions of His Children 3. Height of Place and Happinesse to have for this life â—hat heart can wish Whereby it comes to passe that men are so deepely drowned in sensuality Epicurisme and earthly mindednesse that for a thorow Change they have need many times to be taken down thorowly with a deepe sense of legall terrours 4. Excellency of naturall or acquired Parts and endowments as wit learning courage wisedome c. wretchedly abused and long mis-imploied upon wrong and wicked Objects Much adoe many times and a great measure of humiliation will hardly fright such vaine over-valewers of themselves and Idolizers of their owne sufficiencies from their admired follies And here also Satan interposeth most furiously and hinders this happy worke all Hee can possibly For Hee well knowes That if such noble and worthy Parts should bee sanctified to the Owners and turned the right way His Kingdome would fare the worse and Hee should bee a great looser Suppose a Christian Prince should with his Army breake into the Turkes dominion Would not the Turkes fortifie those Castles best out of which beeing wonne the enemy might doe Him most harme So whom the Divell seeth to bee the likeliest Instruments for the overthrow of his kingdom if once they become Temples of the Holy Ghost those Hee is lothest to loose and labours mightily â—o keepe in His slavery still And therefore He opposes with all His power and policy raysing as many tempests of terrour as Hee is able that Hee might either drive them backe in their Passage to the holy Path or swallow them up into the abhorred gulphe of despaire by the way 5. A more searching and piercing Ministry which is ordinarily woont to awake the conscience with more terrour to irradiate and fill it with more universall and clearer light to quicken it with more apprehension and so proportionably to affect and afflict it with a more feeling and fearefull sense of Gods most just and holy wrath against sinne Whereupon they become excellent and everlasting Christians 6. Byting it in as they say and not opening the wound of Conscience betime to some skillfull Soule-Physition may bee an unhappy meanes much to enlarge both the continuance and extremity of a Mans spirituall trouble Shame bashfulnesse pretence of want of opportunity hope to get thorow by Himselfe c. are ordinary keies to lock up his tongue at such a time But sure I am Satan hath a chiefe stroke and principall part to perswade concealement For alas Hee winnes by it wofully All the while Hee plies with great advantage and much subtilty his hideous temptations to Selfe-killing despaire of mercy returning againe to folly c. And it is to bee feared which is a most grievous thing that sometimes by this cruell silence Hee conquers casts some poore soules upon the bloody and most abhorred villany of Selfe-perishing Let such an One then be ever sure most resolutely to break thorow the Divels accursed snare in this kinde and to powre out His Soule-secrets betime into some faith full holy bosome I have heard many after they have escaped tell what strange tricks and variety of devises Hee practised to discourage divert and dis-able them to discover their mindes as they purposed even when they were come with much adoe into the presence of the spirituall Physition 3. The ends to which God prepares and fits some by their sore travaile in the New-birth and longer langvishing under His visiting hand in this kinde God may purpose sometimes in such cases 1. To imploy them as Christs most resolute and undanted Champions in more worthy services In managing whereof remembrance of their having beene once as it were in the mouth of Hell and scorched with flames of terrour serves as a continuall spurre and incentive unto them to doe nobly and to supply them from time to time with mightinesse of courage height of resolution and eminency of Zeale in those glorious waies As wee may see in those renowned pillars of the Church Austin Luther c. The higher and greater the building is the deeper must the foundation be laid in the earth 2. To make them afterwards of excellent use and speciall dexterity out of their former experience to speake unto the hearts of their Brethren ready to sinke into the same gulphe of horrour and danger of despaire out of which the good hand of Gods gracious providence hath by such and such meanes so mercifulLy pulled and preserved them The same keyes which dip open the locks and loose the fetters which Satan hung upon their heavy hearts may happily undoe those also which Hee hath fastned upon the Soules of others 3. To render them to the Church as remarkeable Precedents and Mirrours of mortification Selfe-denial heavenly mindednesse and holy walking with God for others to looke upon and imitate Mindfulnesse of their former wrastling with the wrath of God despaire and the horrours of Hell makes them for ever after more mindlesse of earthly things weaned from the world startling at every appearance of evill greedy of godlinesse conversing in Heaven excellent Christians indeede Master Iohn Glover after five yeeres horrible afflictions of Soule was framed thereby saith Master Foxe to such mortification of life as the like lightly hath not been seene in such sort as Hee beeing like one placed in Heaven already and dead in this World led a life altogether celestiall c. See Acts and Monuments pag. 1885. 3. In sound contrition and saving Repentance let us for the present take notice Of first a sensible smart and angvish of the heart Secondly a dislike hatred and aversion in the Will Thirdly a change of the minde illightened and now enabled to give stronger reasons out of Gods Booke love of Christ c. against any sinne then carnall reason the Divell Himselfe or the drunken eloquence of His old Good fellow companions can suggest to the contrary Fourthly an universall opposition and constant endeavour against all manner of iniquity Fifthly an hearty sorrow that wee are not more sorrowfull Now say I If thou shouldest not feele in thine heart that stirring griefe and violent renting for those many rebellions and horrible filth of thy naughtie heart and former wicked life which thou heartily desires their hamousnesse exacts at thine hands and many lesser sinners then thy selfe have endured yet if thou findest an unfained hatred and displeasednesse in thy Will a settled resolution in thy minde a watchfull striving in all thy wayes
Dove my undefiled For my head is filled with dew and my lockes with the drops of the night yet for all this full loth they are to leave their Beds of ease and therefore frame many shifts excuses and delaies to passe by and put off those compassionate calls of love and mercifull importunities I have put off my coatâ— how shall I put it on I have washed my feet how shall I deâ—ile them Whereupon their blessed Spouse so unworthily repell'd with such notorious unkindnesse and ingratitude scattering onely in their hearts some sense and glimmerings of his spirituall sweetnesse and beauty to breede the more shame and sorrow for so foule neglect departeth from them for a time withdrawes the life and lightsomnesse of His gratious presence hides as it were in an angry cloud the comfortable beames of His former favour and so leaves them to the darknesse of their owne spirits and in the comfortlesse Dampe of a justly deserved desertion That thereby they may bee schooled to prize Iesus Christ before gold and silver and to preferre as is most meete one glimpse of His pleased face before the splendour of all earthly Imperiall Crownes To listen with more reverence cheerefulnesse profit and holy greedinesse to His heavenly voice in the ministry of the Word and to make more deare account of godly comforts when they shall recover and re-injoy them For the purpose Wee may finde Cant. 5. The christian Soule laid too soft and lazily upon the â—ed of case and earthly mindednesse and slipt into a slumber of security and selfe-love vers 2. Her wellbeloved knocks and calls upon Her Nay be speakes and intreats upon all the termes of dearest love and for his painefull sufferings-sake to rise open unto Him Ibid. But she most unworthily puts him off with some slight excuses and delaies of sloth vers 3. whereupon Hee drops into Her heart some taste of His sweetest ointments to set Her affections on edge and eagernesse after Him vers 4.5 And so departs and leaves Her in Her sad and solitary dumps for driving away Her Dearest by such intolerable unkindnesse and shamefull neglect vers 6. Which perplexity and trouble of spirit for His departure begets in Her a great deale of zeale fervency and patience to follow after Him vers 7.8 An extraordinary admiration of His amiable excellencies and heavenly fairenesse vers 10 c. And no doubt a farre nearer embracement and dearer esteeme of Him upon His returne and enjoyment of a more full blessed coÌ„munion with Him againe Cap. 6.3 6. Sixthly The graces of salvation are the most pretious and worthfull things that ever issued out of the hands of God by creation The dearest of His infinite mercies the hearts-blood of His Sonne the noblest worke of His blessed Spirit doe all sweetly concurre moovingly meritoriously efficiently to the production of them No mervaile then tho it bee right pleasing unto God that such rare and inestimable Iewels should bee rightly prized and holden in highest esteeme by those that have them That they should still appeare and present themselves to those Soules wherein they shine in their true excellency orient fairenesse and native beauty Now privation of excellent things hath speciall power to raise our imaginations to an higher streine of estimation of them and to cause us at their returne to entertaine them with much more longing farre dearer apprehensions and embracement Absence and intermission of the most desirable comforts adde a great deale of life to the love of them and waight of pretiousnesse to their valewation The goodnesse of whatsoever we enioy is better perceived by vicissitude of want then continuall fruition Sleepe is more sweet after the tediousnesse of some wakefull and wearysome nights Liberty and enjoyment of the free aire and faces of men after restraint and imprisonment The glory and fairenesse of the Sunne after a blacke day or boisterous storme c. So Gods favourable aspect is much more acceptable after an angry tempest and hiding his face for a season And the graces of salvation farre more amiable and admirable to the eie of His humbled Childe after the darkenesse of a spirituall desertion Wherefore our gracious God doth many times in great mercy and wisedome deprive His dearest servants for a time of the presence of their Spouse the assurance of His love and sense of those graces that the absence thereof may represent the glory of such an incomparable happinesse and those heavenly Pearles more to the life and discontinuance of their enjoyment may inflame and affect their hearts with more holy greedinesse and eager pursuite after them and stirre up in them that height of esteeme and heate of love which may in some good measure bee answerable to their unvalewable excellency and sweetnesse Such dulnesse of heart deadnesse of affections and declination to the World may grow sometimes upon a good man that Hee may finde little more contentment in communion with Iesus Christ then in the prosperity of His outward affaires which is infinitely unworthy an Heire of Heaven But now in such a Case Let God make Him but to repossesse the iniquities of His Youth and fight against Him with His terrours for a while and the same Man with all His heart will preferre the reconciled face of God and peace of conscience before the Soveraignty and sole command of all the Kingdomes upon Earth While wee have a free and un-interrupted recourse unto the Throne of Grace wee are apt to under-valew and to conceive of that mighty grace of prayer but as of an ordinary gift But if once the Lord please to leave us to that confusion and astonishment of Spirit that our ejaculations doe sadly rebound upon our heavy and un-heated hearts without answer or encouragement from Heaven wee shall easily then acknowledge the Spirit and power of praier to bee one of the fairest flowers in the Garland of all our graces the very arme of God to doe Miracles for us many times and ever to settle our troubled Soules in sweetest peace and patience amidst the greatest pressures and persecutions either of Hellish or earthly enemies 7. Seventhly Iesus Christ Himselfe blessed for ever drunke full deepe of the extremity and variety of sorest sufferings in many kinds not only to deliver His from the vengeance of eternall fire but also lovingly to learne out of the sense of that sympathy and self-feeling to shew Himselfe tender hearted kind and compassionate unto them in all their extremities and never to suffer them to sinke in any trouble or affliction though never so full of desperate representations or apprehensions of impossibility to escape or to bee tempted at any time above their power and patience And many are the meanes and Methods by which Hee is woont to ease and mitigate their many painefull miseries especially that extremest of Martyrdome First Somtimes He rescues them by His own mighty and immediate arme out the mouth of Lyons and pulls them by strong hand
perswaded Gods bowels of compassionate tender-heartednesse and love did yearne within him towards Iob with more dearenesse and delight at that cry Tho he slay mee yet will I trust in him then at any time else even in the Spring of his spirituall prosperity or fullest tide of most heavenly feelings Here then is comfort more then thy heart can hold if thou wilt bee counselled by the Prophets that thou maist prosper For when thou thinkest that all is gone that thou art a lost man and utterly forsaken even in the depth of thy spirituall darkenesse thou being so spiritually disposed as I have said and which thou canst not deny I say even then and thou oughtest so to apprehend and believe the love of God is as it were doubled towards thee much more endeared by reason of thy distresse and cannot hold but breakes out many times into extraordinary pangs and expressions thereof As wee may see Isa. 54.11 Oh! thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted c. And into profession of resolution and waiting to do us good which he will super-abundantly performe in the best time Behold I will lay thy stones with faire colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires Ibid. And therefore will the Lord waite that hee may bee gracious unto you and therefore will hee bee exalted that he may have mercy upon you For the LORD is a God of iudgment Blessed are all they that wait for him Isa. 30.18 Retiring the effects and exercise of our love from him whom wee love dearely makes it returne with redoubled fervour into our owne bosomes and there growes into a more vehement flame which never rests untill it breake out againe with dearer pangs upon the beloved Party Even as when the Sunne suffers an Eclipse and it's beames are driven backe and reflected from the face of the Moone interposed directly betweene it and our sight so that they shine not upon us then is the heate and light thereof multiplied and much intended toward the Fountaine which afterwards is shed downe upon us againe more amiably and acceptably when the darkenesse is done And let us further take notice that Christ our eldest Brother blessed for ever deales with us in such Cases as Ioseph a type of him in many respects dealt with his brethren hee frown'd upon them handled them roughly and frighted them extremely onely to humble them thorowly but in the meane time and midst of his menacing carriage his heart was so full of naturall affection that hee was enforced by the excesse thereof to turne aside and weepe and so returne to them againe And hee turned himselfe about from them and wept and returned to them again Gen. 42.24 So the Sonne of God as well as God the Father thorow him tho sometimes in a little wrath hee hide his face from us yet as hee will certainely after a small moment gather us with great mercies so in the meane time Hee is afflicted and most tenderly affected towards us in all our afflictions See Isa. 63.9 7. Seventhly Thinke it not strange that thou art fallen into this kinde of spirituall affliction as tho some strange thing or that which doth or may not befall the dearest servants of God had happened unto thee For herein thou becomes conformable to as holy Men as ever the world had Iob David Heman Luther c. Nay to the Sonne of God himselfe From whose example and precedency let the Christian even in the darkest horror of a spirituall desertion when hee is afraid lest God hath forsaken him fetch abundance of comfort and support out of such considerations as these 1. Christ himselfe was in the same Case Besides a numberlesse variety of most barbarous cruelties inflicted upon his blessed body by the mercilesse and implacable malice of the Iewes and by consequent sympathy upon his glorious soule Hee suffered also in soule immediately intolerable and save by himselfe unconquerable torments and paine Hee grapled with the fiercest wrath of his Father for our sins and sweat blood under the sense of his angry countenance Nay this Crosse upon his soule infinitely more waighty then that which hee carried upon his shoulders toward Calvarie did not onely cause streames of great bloody drops to fall downe to the ground but also prest from him that heavy groane Mat. 26.38 My soule is exceeding sorrowfull even unto death and that last rufull bitter cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee cap. 27.46 If Christ Iesus himselfe then blessed for ever the Son of the Fathers love the Prince of glory Nay the glory of heaven and earth the brightnesse of everlasting light c. In whom hee professeth himselfe to bee well-pleased and for whose sake onely hee loves all the sonnes of Men which shall be saved was thus plunged into a matchlesse Depth of unknowne sorrowes and most grievous desertion Let no Christian cry out in the like spirituall desolation but ever immeasurably short of his and in his feare of being forsaken that his Case is singular desperate irrecoverable For the onely deare innocent Sonne of God was farre worse in this respect and in greater extremity then hee is can or ever shall bee 2. Secondly Amongst other ends for which the Lord Iesus drunke so deepe and the very dregs of that bitterest Cup of his dearest Fathers heaviest indignation this was one That by a particular and personall passing thorow that infinite Sea those extremest dreadfull horrours of divine wrath for our sinnes which we all most justly deserved and would have caused any meere Creature to have sunke downe under it into the bottome of hell and by an experimentall feare and feeling of that bitter and bloody Agony which melted as it were his blessed soule into that mournefull Cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee The comfortable influence of the Deity being for the time in some sort restrained and retired from the humane nature that it might bee capable and sensible of that anger and angvish which would have holden both Men and Angels and all created Natures under everlasting calamity and woe I say that by his owne sense and experience of such painefull passages hee might learne and know with a more fellow-feeling and pittifull heart to commiserate his poore afflicted Ones in their spirituall desertions and with a softer and more compassionate hand to bind up their bleeding soules with his sweetest Balme of tender-heartednesse and love when in such horrible depths they shall thirst and long and gaspe for drops of mercy and his Fathers pleased face For in that hee himselfe hath suffered being tempted hee is able to succour them that are tempted Heb. 2.18 A woman which hath her selfe with extraordinary torture tasted the exquisite paines of Childe-birth is woont to bee a great deale more tenderly and mercifully affected to an other in like case then she that never tried what it is to be terrified with the suddennesse
thine But being now happily rescued out of thy clutches by a mightier then Thou and having blessedly broke the Prison by the helpe of the holy Ghost Thou followes mee with this fierie malice and the most prodigious yellings of that infernall pit And I am perswaded it is a pestilent peece of thy deepest cunning very rarely to vexe civill worldlings those that lie in any grosse sinne or any which thou keepest fast and secure in thy snares with such affrighting and greisely temptations For thou craftily feares lest striking that horror into the heart of a naturall man which is woont to arise from such hellish fogs and blasphemous filth thou shouldest thereby give him occasion to renounce detest and drive him out of thine accursed slavery and cause him to cast about for a new Master 7. To take notice of some speciall corruption lust passion or spirituall distemper in one kinde or other over which I have not holden that hand hatred wakefull eie as it were meete For I am perswaded my God out of his mercifull goodnesse aimes at and intends some such good unto my soule by enlarging thy chaine and suffering thee at this time to afflict mee in this vncouth manner with this hell-empoison'd dart somthing extraordinarily I have not been so sensible of thy other temptations farre more ensnaring in sinne tho not so terrifying and therefore my gracious Lord may suffer thee at this time thus to thrust out thy hornes as they say in this most horrible and outragious encounter that I may bee throughly advertised what an Adversary I have and so more minde and marke him for feare of much secret and suddaine mischiefe by my security and neglect and more quickned to an universall watchfulnesse against all his Methods Devises and Depths as well his subtile and slie insinuations in the glory of an Angell as his impetuous and furious assaults in the shape of a foule Fiend Some trouble crosse heavie accident disgrace discontentment some great and waighty affaire on foote vnseasonable entertainements sad newes from abroad or something hath too often stolne my heart from that full and fruitfull attention to holy duties which was due and that even vpon the Lords day And I can now remember and my conscience tells mee vpon this occasion that I have not watched over the many idle impertinent wandrings and vagaries of my imagination as I ought but given so farre way vnto them that they have justly brought upon mee an uncomfortable deadnesse of affection barrennesse and indisposition in the use of the ordinances and conversing with God by Meditation Prayer hearing of the Word singing of Psalmes examination of the Conscience and other religious Exercises and I know not into what further spirituall miserie they may leade mee and therefore in great mercy the most wise God goes now graciously about to correct and mortifie the vanity worldlinesse distractions and mis-imploiment of my thoughts even by the terrours of these thy most horrible and hellish injections And by the helpe of God I will follow the meaning and conduct of his holy Hand for a right use of them and attaining that happy end which hee doth so mercifully intend 8. To gather skill experience and dexterity for the raising and reviving of others hereafter hanging down the head heavie-hearted and maliciously haunted in the same kinde By discovering unto them thy bootelesse malice the soveraigne medicines I have met with in the Ministry of the Word and the good I gained to my soule hereby By the helpe of that Almighty hand which can turne the darkest mid-night into the brightest morning and produce a Medicinable Potion out of the rankest poison Me thinks this heaven which by divine blessing I extract out of thy hell this healing vertue which I draw from thy vilest venome this spirituall good which I gather from thy divelish spite should make thee weary of this way and pull in thy hornes I trust in my God it will shortly cause thee to cast away this weapon and quit the field quite For thou ever infinitely hatest and hinders all thou canst the glory of God all exercise and increase of grace and the welfare of my poore soule which by accident and his sanctifying power who ever turnes all things to the best to them that love Him are all happily advanced furthered and enlarged by this raging and pestilent rancour of thine And who would not thinke were not the incredible depth of thy malice and madnesse equally unfathomable by the wit of Man But that thou shouldest the rather surcease because these Satanicall suggestions to mee that resists are but crosses and corrections but in thee most outragious and execrable blasphemies which will mightily hereafter adde to the heavinesse and horrour of thine everlasting chaines of darkenesse and damnation at the iudgement of the great Day FINIS * 1. Tim. 1.11 b But as for the holy truth professed by my selfe and those of the reformed Religion c. King Iames Remonst pag. 176. c Bellarmine Eudaeâ—ono-Iohannes Suarez Becanus Mariana with such Monsters teach the Doctrine of Parricides Ibid. pag. 5. If any except and say these are but private Doctors Heare King Iames afterward If the Pope doth not approove and like the practise of King killing wherefore hath not his Holinesse imposed some severe censure with a fearefull frowne upon the Booke of Mariana the Iesuite by whom Parricides are commended Nay highly extolled when his Holinesse hath been pleased to call-in some other of Mariana's bookes Againe wherefore did his Holinesse advise himselfe to censure the decree of the Court of Parliament in Paris against Iohn Chastell Wherefore did he suffer Garnet and Oldcorne my Powder-miners both by Bookes and Pictures vendible under his nose in Rome to bee inroâ—led in the Canon of holy Martyrs And when Hee saw two great Kings murdered one after another wherefore by some publike declaration did not his Holinesse testifie to all Christendome his inward sense and true apprehension of so great misfortune as all Europe had just cause to lament on the behalfe of France Wherefore did not his Holinesse publish some Law or Pontificiall Decree to provide for the security of Kings in time to come Ibid. pag. 222.223 See Histor. Iesuit put out by Lucius Wherein you may see their bloody behaviour in many Kingdomes d The mighty working of King Iames his Workes upon the Adversaries is intimated unto us to in the Preface before his Workes They looke upon His Maiesties Bookes as men looking upon Blazing 〈◊〉 with amazement feating they portend some strange thing and bring with them a certaine influence to worke great change and alteration in the World Neither is their expectatioÌ„ herein deceived For wee have seene with our eyes the OperatioÌ„ of His Majesties Works in the Consciences of their Men so farre as from their highest Conâ—lâ—ve to their lowest Cells there have been that have been converted by them Bishop of Winten e Revel 19.2 f Take policie as
Ioannes percelebrem illam concionem in Ecclesiâ recitavit cujus exordiumest Herodias denuò insanire denuò commoveri denuò saltare pergiâ— denuò â—â—put Ioinnâ—s in disco accâ—pere quaerit Socra Hist. Ecclesiast Lib. 6. cap. 16. c Let none marvâ—ll why I 〈◊〉 medâ—le with 〈◊〉 especially in this time of peace and prosperity of the Gospell as tho it were unnecessary and unseasonable For Austâ—â— tels us truly Illi maxime perseâ—â—untur Ecclesiam qui â—â—â—reâ—â—iani nolunt benè vivere Per hos enim opprohrâ—um habet Ecclesia ab his inimicitias sustineâ— quando corripiuntur quando male vivere non permusuntur quando cum eis vel verbo igitur iâ—si mala in suis â—ordibus meditantur erumpendi occasionem requirunt In Psal. 30. pag. 205. Those especially persecute the Church who professing Christianity will not live graciously c. Ier. 20.2.3 1. King 22.24.25 1. Maccab. 9. Acts 12.23 Acts and Monuments pag. 1787. Nullus semel ore receptus pollutas patitur sanguis mansuescere fauces d Cum quotidiè nostram sanctificationem blasphemant quid aliud blasphemant quà m spiritum sanctum Aug. Tom. 10. par 1. pag. 45. e Et nulli nocentiores habentur quà m qui sunt ex omnibus innocentes Lactant. lib. 5. Cap. 9. f Bonus vir Cajâ—s Seius sed malus tantùm quia Christianus Tertul Apol. pag. 1. g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 24.5 h 2. Timot. 4.17 Ezek. 2.6 i I know the Booke is not of divine authority and therefore the Place quoted taken only from the hand of an humane Historian And so conceiue of it But we see the Authors conceite of that wicked man If any thinke that God is said to have had no mercy upon him onely in respâ—ct of deliveranâ—e from his disease Heare what some say in the case Antiochus was indâ—ed reâ—lly and seriously grieved and acknowledged that his affliction was for His sins lib. 1. cap 6. â— 11. 〈◊〉 was nâ—t truly penitent for the offence committed against God and his neighbâ—â—◠〈…〉 his owne calamity and misery and therefore could not obtaine mercy to remision of 〈…〉 of the punishment So also the damned in Hell know and confesse that they are panâ—sheâ— for their sinnes but have not true repentance for their offence against God Of this easure and glosse let the Authours render a reason themselues In Antioche saith Cyprian Anâ—ichrâ—â—us expressus De Exhort Martyr ij Cap. 11. Est quaedam precum omnipotentia k Cùm Arrius Constantinopoli in Ecclesiae communionem recipiendus esset Alexander eâ—us urbâ—s Episcopus toâ—â nocte in templo prostratus oravit Deum ut Ecclesiam praesenti periculo liberaret de Arrio blasphemiarum poenas reposceret Postridie Arrius mâ—gnâ suorum catervâ in templum deductus inter cundum corripitur horribilibus ventris torminibus laxatâ—que alvo petit latrinam in quâ sedens vnâ— cum excremenâ—is effudit jecur intestina impuramque animam sortitus soedum suaque impietate dignum exitum Sozom. lib. 2. cap. 28. Bucol Anno Christi 336. l When the wicked perish there is shouting Prov. 11.10 m Haec forma praecipuè notat laxat eos qui eâ—ant in aliquâ dignitate seu authoritate uterant judices seniores plebis qut sedere convemâ—e solebant in loco publicorum judiciorum ubi de Râ—p rebus sorysageadum erat Iudicia enim exercebantur inportis Ruth 4. Putatis hoc fratres Christo tantummodò conâ—â—giâ—se Quotidie illi in membris ejus contingit quando forte necesse erit servo Dei prohiâ—erâ—eb ietatâ—s luxurias in aliquo velfundo vel oppido ubi non auditum suerit verbum Dei August in Psal. 69. Putatis Catholicos defuisse aut deesse posse qui causâ humanae gloriae paterentur Si non essent hujusmodi homines non dâ—â—ereâ— Apostolus si tradidero corpus meum ut ardeam charitatom auâ—em non habeam nihil mihi prodest Sciâ—bat ergò esse posse quosda qâ—i hoc jactatione â—acerent non dilectione August in Psal. 44. pag 474. This humour also haunted the Heathen amongst whom the most wicked did in some sort desire to leave some remembrance of themselves to posterity Witnes that unknowne fellow who of set purpose did burne the Temple of Diana in Ephesus who being demanded wherefore he did it answereâ— that hee determined by some notable villany seeing by vertue hee could not to leave some memory behind him after his death Hence it was that sometimes they would adventure desperately and passe thorow with extraordinary courage many corporall afflictions for praise of men or to bee any waies famous in following ages Ezek. 13 11. Isai. â— 15 The Prophet which telleth lyes is the taile Ezek. 13.10 Isai. 9.5 Matth. 7.23 Many having served their appetites all their lives presume to thinke that the severe CommaÌ„dements of the All-powerfull God were given but in sport and that the short breath which we draw when death presseth us if wee can but fashion it to the sound of mercy is sufficient O quà m multi saith a reverend Father cum hâc spâ— ad aeternos labores bella descendunt Rawl in the Preface to His History of the World Many coÌ„ceit as great an efficacy in these five words Lord have mercy upon mee spoken with their last breath for their translation of their soules into heaven as the Papists doe of their five words of consecration for the transubstantiation of their Hoste Dike a Osiander Cent. 4 pag. 174. b Epiphan Her 80. Many of the Turkes â—ight by turning Christians have saved their lives and would not chusing rather to dye and as iâ— is reported also to kill themselves then to forsake their damnable superstition Hist. of the Turkes pag. 284. The Assasins are a company of most desperate and dangerous meÌ„ among the Mahometans who strongly deluded with the blind zeale of their superstition and accounting it meritorioâ—s by any meanes to kill any great enemy of their religion for the performaÌ„ce therof as men prodigall of their lives desperately adventure theÌ„selves unto all kind of dangers Histor. of the Turkes pag. 120. a Vir pius ex periÌ„culis vires majores colligit Eos non vis temporis non Principis terror non oratio non invidia noÌ„ metê° no accusator non calummator non bellumapertè inferens non clandestinas insidias struens non in speciem noster non alienus non aurun hoc est occultus tyrannus per quem nunc multa sursum deorsumque velut in talorum ludo sactantur non verboâ—â—m illecebrae non minae non diuturna repetita exilia solt enim honorum proscriptioni in eos propter magnas iâ—as divitias quae in paupertate sitae sunt nihil licuit non aliud quidpiam absentium aut praesertium aut in expectaâ—ione positorum extulit aut adducere potuâ—t ut detertores fierent Iâ—rmò contrà ex ipsis periculis vires
since the houre it enioyed Him In His Preface pag. 3. Tho thousands were debters to Him as touching Divine knowledge yet hee to none but onely to God the Author of that most blessed Fountaine the Booke of life and of the admirable dexterity of wit together with the helpes of other learning which were his guides Ibid. Wee should bee iniurious unto vertue it selfe if wee did derogate from them whom their industry hath made Great Two things of principall moment there are which have deservedly procured Him honour throughout the World the one His exceeding paines in composing the Institutions of Christian Religion the other His no lesse industrious travailes for exposition of holy Scripture In which two things whosoever they were that after Him bestowed their labour Hee gained the advantage of preiudice against them if they gaine-said and of glory above them if they consented Ibid. pag. 9. The more learned and holy any Divine is the more heartily Hee subscribes to Paulus Thurias his true censure of His Institution Praeter Apostolicas post Christi tempora chartas Huic peperereliâ—râ—saeculae nulla parem Besides the holy Writ No booke is like to it Or No Age since Christ brought forth A booke of so great worth No marvaile then that a learned Bishop of London in Queene Elizabeths time begun His Speech thus against a lewd fellow which had railed against Calvinâ— Quod dixisti in virâ—m Dei Calvinum tuo sanguine non potet redimere c. s Sit igitur hic primus poenitâ—tiae gradus dum homines sentiunt quà m gravitèr deliquerint illic non statim curandus est doler quemadmodum impostoâ—es deliniunt conscientias ita ut sihi indulgeant se â—allant inaâ—iâ—us blanditijs Medicus enim non statim lâ—niet dolorem sed videbit quid magis expediat fortè magis augebit quia necessaria erit acrior purgatio Sic etiam faciunt Prophetae Dei quum vident trepidas conscientias non statìm adhibeÌ„t blandas consoâ—â—â—tones sed potiùs ostendunt non esse ludendum cum Deo solicitant sponte currentes ut sibi proponant terribile Dei iudicium quò magis ac magis humilientur Calvin in Ioel cap. 2. t Master Rogers of Dedham Doctrine of Faith pag. 108.109.110.111 u In his Expos. upon Psal. 32. pag. 5. x As in the worke of Creation so in the worke of Redemption God would have the praise of all his attributes Hee is much honoured when they are acknowledged to bee in Him in highest perfection and their infinitenesse and excellency admired and magnified In the former there appeareth gloriously His infinite Wisedome Goodnes Power Iustice Mercy c. â—nd yet in the worke of Redemption which was the greater they seeme â—o shine with more â—â—eetnesse amiableâ—â—sse and excellency 〈◊〉 in it appeared all the treasures of wisedome and knowledge c. And in conveying it to the Church first His Wisedome there appeareth infinite wisedome in finding out such a meanes for the redemption of MaÌ„kind as no â—â—eated understanding could possible imagine or 〈◊〉 of Secondly 〈◊〉 immeasurably sweet and admirable in not sparing His owne Sonne the Sonne of His loue that Hee might spare us who had so grievously transgressed against Him Thirdly His Iustice in it's highest excellency in spaâ—ing us not to spare His owne onely Sonne laying as it were His head upon the blocke and chopping it off renting and â—eaâ—ing that blessed Body even as the Vaile of the Temple was rent and making His Soule an Offering for sinne c. This was the perfection of Iustice. y A man who otherwise would not cry nor shed a teare for any thing despiseth death and would not feare to meete an host of men I say such an One now having at the last instant a pardon brought from the King it worketh wonderfully upon him and will cause softnesse of heart and teares to come many times where nothing else could Hee is so strucke with admiration of so great mercy so sweet and seasonable in such an extremity that Mee stands amazed and knowes not what to say but many times falles a weeping partly for ioy of His deliverance and partly also out of indignation against Himselfe for His barbarous behaviour towards so pittiful a Prince This was to bee seene in some great men at the beginning of King Iames His Reigne condemned for treason and pardoned at the Blocke z Exaudime Domine quoniam suaviâ— est misericordia tua tantundem valet ac si dixisset I am noli differre exauditionem in taâ—t â tribulatiâ—ne sun ut suavis mihi sit misericordia tua Ad hoc enim subvenire differebas ut mibi dulce esset quòd subveniebas August Concione 2. in Psal. 68. Luke 8.43 a Christus â—oâ—ine instatâ—m terret comminatioue exclusionis è regnâ— coelorum Nam qui nondùm conversi sunt ad inferos iam priuiâ—â— detrudendi sunt ad hoc ut inspectâ poenâ peccati discant ab co abhorrere quo tempore naturâ sese oblectaâ—â— Rolloc in Iohan. cap. 3. pag. 133. b Dike of Repentance cap. 2. c Quando peccati quod divinae legis est violatio conseâ—â—ntia stimulamur atque convincimur intelligimusque nos per peccatum in execrationem acerbissimum odium gravissiâ—â—amque Divini numinis offensiontem atque indignationem incurrisse mercedemque atque stipendium quod peccatum meretur esse ut non solùm omnibus calamitatibus atque miserijs â—uins vitae morbisque morte corporis afficâ—amur verum etiam ut damnatiâ—â—e atque interitu sempiterno mulitemur simul atque ex lege agnoscimus nos per peccatum in â—unc condemnatorâ—m statum quo nibiltetrius cogitari potest pervenisse toto pectore totâ mente toto corde animo que cohorremus contremiscimus atque ita ut casum nostrum salutariter doleamus ut nosmet nostri poeniâ—eat Lex efficit impellÃtque ut peccatorum veniam iustitiam vitam sempiternam quae ex lege adipisci non possumus a Christo servatore tantùm per Christum expetamus expectemus Alex. Nowellus Inst. Christian. Pietatis De Legis usu Hoc loco docent Poenitentiam esse quae ex peccatorum irae divinae agnitione nascitur quae per legem Dei primum dolores terrorem conscientiae incutiat Scilicet cum verbo Dei intâ—s argu untor peccata redditur mens malè conscia sibi inquieta praetristâ—s desperabunda cor anxium confractum pavidum ut homo per se nullâre prorsùs erigi possit aut consolationem nancisci sed totus afflictissimus est spiritu deiecto ac trepidante ingenti â—orrore concussus à conspectuirae Dei c. Súnt que sic affectis divinae promissiones 〈◊〉 c. Harmon Confess p. 2. Bohaemica Confess Art 5. pag. 240. d I grant the Lord who is the most free Agent takes liberty and workes as it pleaseth him and there is ods and
desert to what Christ hath done for thee and to the Almightinesse and All-mercifullnesse of him that promiseth consider with all that God is also abundant in truth Every promise in his Booke is as sure as Himselfe sealed with his Sons Blood and confirmed with his owne Oath Hee must sooner cease to bee God and deny himselfe which is more then infinitely impossible and prodigious blasphemie to imagine then faile in the least circumstance or syllable of his immeasurable love and promises of life to any one that heartily loves him and is true of heart And therefore when thy thirsty soule makes towards the Well of life by vertue of that promise Rev. 21.6 I will give to him that is athirst of the fountaine of the water of life freely And upon survey of the overflowing Rivers of pleasures and blisse which everlastingly spring thence begins to retire from it as too-good newes to bee true I say then steele thy Faith and comfort thy selfe gloriously by consideration of that abundant truth with which hee hath crowned every word of His stronger then a Rocke of brasse far surer then the Pillars of the Earth or Poles of Heaven Nay I speake an admirable thing and of unutterable consolation which cannot bee violated without Destruction of the Deity most blessed and glorious for evermore And let this ever banish and beat backe all scruples doubtes seares which at any time offer themselves and oppose thy unspeakeable joy and peace in believing 6. Well saith an other I easily acknowledge the incomprehensible goodnesse in this Name of God and hold them most blessed who have their part and portion therein But for my part I am affraid I come too late For I have observed the course of the Ministery amongst us and the dispensation of Gods mercy in it At first comming our Towne being full of Ignorance prophanesse and much superstitious follies having never before injoyed the Word with any life or power wee all stood amazed a good whle at the Majesty and Mysterie of this new heavenly Light The first messages of the Ministry sounded in our eares as the voyce of many waters mighty and great but confused not working in us either joy or terrour but onely an extraordinary wonder and secret acknowledgement of a strange force and more then humane power But afterwards when our Watchman was better acquainted with our waies and had more fully discovered the state of our soules the Word was unto us as a voice of a great thunder more distinct and particular breeding not only admiration but feare also not filling our eares onely with an uncouth sound but our hearts also with a terrible searching For the Sermons of every Sabbath came-home to our consciences singling out our severall reigning corruptions beating punctually upon our bosome-sinnes manifesting clearely our spirituall misery and certaine liablenesse to the extremest wrath of God and endlesse woe Whereupon wee were all at our wits end what to doe grew weary of our lives wished with all our hearts that such a Puritane-Preacher had never come amongst us told every man almost wee met that wee had a Fellow at our Towne would drive us all to despaire distraction selfe-destruction or some mischiefe or other That wee heard nothing from him but of damnation and hell and such horrible things c. Now in this second worke of the Word there was a good number even some out of that cursed crue and knot of Good-fellowship wherein I have been insnared so long wonne unto Iesus Christ. For beeing illightned convinced and terrified in conscience for their former sinfull courses the continued piercing of the Word and worke of the spirit of bondage keeping them upon the Racke under the dreadfull sense of divine wrath and their damnable state a good while at last they happily resolved without any more delay diversion by-path or plunging againe into worldly pleasures to passe on directly by the light and guidance of the Gospell into the holy path And so undertooke and hitherto have holden out in Profession and a blessed conformity to the better side But I and the greater part a great deale more was the pitty hating heartily to bee reformed and abhorring that precise way so much spoken against every where into which woe conceived such severe Ministeriall counsell would have conducted us I say wee wickedly wrested out of our vexed consciences those keene arrowes of truth and terrour with great indignation wee unhappily hardned our hearts and foreheads against the power of the Word which particularly pursued us every Sabbath Nay alas we persecuted the very meanes which should sanctifie us and men which would have saved us Here then is my Case and complaint neglecting that blessed season when I was first terrified and troubled in minde when the Angell from Heaven as it were troubled the water and when some even of mine owne Companions in iniquity were converted I am affraid I now come too late that the mercy of God to doe mee spirituall good is already expired and that the Ministry which I have so wretchedly opposed is the very same to mee that it was to the obstinate Iewes Isa. 6.9.10 Nay but yet say not so though it bee with thee as thou hast sayd For our gracious God keepeth mercy for thousands Here you must know that a finite number is put Synecdochecally for an infinite and an infinite indeed And therefore if thou now bee in earnest and willing to come-in in truth and those thine other brethren in Good fellowship and hundreds thousands millions moe or any whosoever to the worlds end God hath mercy in store for you all and being all weary of all your sinnes unfainedly thirsting for the Well of life resolving for the time to come upon new courses company and conversation you shall all be most welcome to Iesus Christ. Even the last man upon earth bringing a truly broken heart to the Throne of grace shall bee crowned as richly and with as large a portion of Gods infinite mercy and Christs un-valew able merit as Adam and Eve or whosoever layd first hold of that first promise The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head 7. Yea but alas I have been no ordinary sinner My corruptions have carried mee beyond the villanies of the vilest you can name Not only variety but the notoriousnesse also and enormity of my wicked waies have set an infamous brand upon mee even in the sight of the world beside those secret pollutions and sinfull practices which no eie but that which is ten thousand times brighter then the Sun ever beheld Had I not been extremely outragious stayned with abominations of deepest die and gone on thus with a high hand I might have had some hope But now I know not what to say Take notice then to the end that nothing at all may possibly hinder or any way discourage any poore soule that syncerely seekes for mercy desires to turne truly on Gods side from assurance of