of his own free-will For the second God did that which belonged to him that is he gave man a perfect Law requiring him to continue in the Love of God and perfectly to obey him By the wilful breach of this Law man did not only forfeit his hopes of everlasting life but also turned his heart from God and fixed it on these lower fleshly things and hereby did blot out the spiritual Image of God from his soul. So that man did both fall short of the Glory of God which was his End and put himself out of the Way by which he should have attained it and this both as to the frame of his heart and of his life The holy Inclination and Love of his soul to God he lost and instead of it he contracted an Inclination and Love to the pleasing of his flesh or carnal-self by earthly things growing strange to God and acquainted with the creature And the course of his life was suited to the Bent and Inclination of his heart he lived to his carnal self and not to God he sought the creature for the pleasing of his flesh instead of seeking to please the Lord. With this Nature or Corrupt inclination we are all now born into the world For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Iob 14.4 As a Lyon hath a fierce and cruel nature before he doth devour and as an Adder hath a venemous nature before he sting so in our very infancy we have those sinful Natures or Inclinations before we think or speak or do amiss And hence springeth all the sin of our lives And not only so but when God hath of his mercy provided us a Remedy even the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of our souls and bring us back to God again we naturally love our present state and are â—oth to be brought out of it and therefore are set against the means of our Recovery and though custom have taught us to thank Christ for his good will yet carnal self perswadeth us to refuse his Remedies and to desire to be excused when we are commanded to take the Medicines which he offereth and are called to forsake all and follow him to God and Glory I pray you read over this leaf again and mark it for in these few words you have a true Description of our natural state and consequently of a wicked man For every man that is in this state of corrupted nature is a wicked man and in a state of death By this also you are prepared to understand what it is to be Converted to which end you must further know That the mercy of God not willing that man should perish in his sin provided a Remedy by causing his Son to take our Nature and being in one person God and man to become a Mediator between God and man and by dying for our sins on the Cross to ransom us from the curse of God and the power of the Devil and having thus Redeemed us the Father hath delivered us into his hands as his own Hereupon the Father and the Mediator do make a New Law and Covenant for man not like the first which gave life to none but the perfectly obedient and condemned man for every sin but Christ hath made a Law of Grace or a Promise of Pardon and Everlasting life to all that by true Repentance and by Faith in Christ are Converted unto God Like an Act of Oblivion which is made by a Prince to a company of Rebels on condition they will lay down arms and come in and be loyal subjects for the time to come But because the Lord knoweth that the heart of man is grown so wicked that for all this men will not accept of the Remedy if they be left to themselves therefore the Holy Ghost hath undertaken it as his office to inspire the Apostles and seal up the Scripture by Miracles and Wonders and to illuminate and convert the souls of the Elect. So that by this much you see that as there are three persons in the Trinity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost so each of these persons have their several works which are eminently ascribed to them The Fathers works were to Create us to Rule us 〈◊〉 his â—ational creatures by the Law of Nature and Judge us thereby And in mercy to provide us a Redeemer when we were lost and to send his Son and accept his Ransom The works of the Son for us were these To Ransom and Redeem us by his Sufferings and Righteousness to give out the Promise or Law of Grace and Rule and Judge the world as their Redeemer on terms of Grace and to make intercession for us that the benefits of his death may be communicated and to send the Holy Ghost which the Father also doth by the Son The works of the Holy Ghost for us are these to indite the Holy Scriptures by inspiring and guiding the Prophets and Apostles and sealing the Word by his Miraculous gifts and works and the illuminating and exciting the ordinary Ministers of the Gospel and so enabling them and helping them to publish that Word and by the same word Illuminating and Converting the souls of men So that as you could not have been reasonable creatures if the Father had not Created you nor have had any access to God if the Son had not Redeemed you so neither can you have a part in Christ or be saved except the Holy Ghost do sanctifie you So that by this time you may see the several causes of this work The Father sendeth the Son the Son Redeemeth us and maketh the Promise of Grace the Holy Ghost inditeth and sealeth this Gospel the Apostles are the Secretaries of the Spirit to write it the Preachers of the Gospel do proclaim it and perswade men to obey it And the Holy Ghost doth make their preaching effectual by opening the hearts of men to entertain it And all this to repair the image of God upon the soul and to set the heart upon God again and take it off the creature and carnal self to which it is revolted and so to turn the current of the life into an heavenly course which before was earthly and all this by the entertainment of Christ by Faith who is the Physitian of the soul. By this which I have said you may see what it is to be Wicked and what it is to be Converted Which I think will be yet plainer to you if I describe them as consisting of their several parts and for the first a wicked man may be known by these three things First he is one who placeth his chief content on earth and loveth the creature more then God and his fleshly prosperity above the heavenly felicity He savoureth the things of the flesh but neither discerneth nor savoureth the things of the Spirit though he will say that Heaven is better then earth yet doth he not really so esteem it to himself If he might be
say they are all mine If upon the curse you may say From this I am delivered When you read the Law you may see what you are saved from when you read the Gospel you may see him that Redeemed you and see the course of his Love and holy Life and sufferings and trace him in his temptations tears and blood in the work of your salvation You may see death conquered and Heaven opened and your Resurrection and Glorification provided for in the Resurrection and Glorification of your Lord. If you look on the Saints you may say They are my Brethren and Companions If on the unsanctified you may rejoyce to think that you are saved from that state If you look upon the heavens the Sun and Moon and Stars innumerable you may think and say My Fathers face is infinitely more glorious It s higher matters that he hath prepared for his Saints Yonder is but the outward Court of Heaven The blessedness that he hath promised me is so much higher that flesh and blood cannot behold it If you think of the grave you may remember that the Glorified Spirit a Living Head and a Loving Father have all so near Relation to your dust that it cannot be forgotten or neglected but will more certainly revive then the plants and flowers in the spring because that the soul is still alive that is the Root of the Body and Christ is alive that is the Root of both Even death which is the King of fears may be remembred and entertained with joy as being the day of your deliverance from the remnants of sin and sorrow and the day which you believed and hoped and waâ—ted for when you shall see the blessed things which you had heard of and shall find by present joyful experience what it was to choose the better part and to be a sincere believing Saint What say you sirs is not this a more delightfull life to be assured of Salvation and ready to die then to live as the ungodly that have their hearts overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life and so that day comes upon them unawares Luke 21.34 â—6 Might you not live a comfortable life if once you were made the Heirs of Heaven and sure to be saved when you leave the world O look about you then and think what you do and cast not away such hopes as these for very nothing The flesh and world can give you no such Hopes or Comforts And besides all the misery that you bring upon your selves you are the troublers of others as long as you are Vnconverted You trouble Magistrates to rule you by their Laws You trouble Ministers by resisting the light and guidance which they offer you Your sin and misery is the greatest grief and trouble to them in the world You trouble the Common-wealth and draw the Iudgements of God upon us It s you that most disturb the holy peace and order of the Churches and hinder our Vnion and Reformation and are the shame and trouble of the Churches where you intrude and of the places where you are Ah Lord How heavy and sad a case is this that even in England where the Gospel doth abound above any other Nation in the world where Teaching is so plain and common and all the helps we can desire are at hand when the sword hath been hewing us and Iudgement hath run as a fire through the Land when deliverances have relieved us and so many admirable mercies have engaged us to God and to the Gospel and an holy life that yet after all this our Cities and Towns and Countries should abound with multitudes of unsanctified men and swarm with so much sensuality as everywhere to our grief we see One would have thought that after all this Light and all this experience and all these Iudgements and Mercies of God the people of this Nation should have joyned together as one man to Turn to the Lord and should have come to their godly Teachers and lamented all their former sin and desired him to joyn with them in publike Humiliation to confess them openly and beg pardon of them from the Lord and should have craved his Instruction for the time to come and be glad to be Ruled by the Spirit within and the Ministers of Christ without according to the Word of God One would think that after such Reason and Scripture evidence as they hear and after all these means and mercies there should not be an ungodly persoâ— lest among us nor a worldling oâ— a drunkard or a hater of Reformation or an enemy to holiness be found in all our Towns or Countreys If we be not all agreed about some Ceremoâ—ies or Forms of Government one would think that before this We should have been all agreed to live a holy and heavenly lâ—fe in obedience to God his word and Ministers and in Love and Peace with one another But alas how far are our people from this course most of them in most places do set their hearts on earthly things and seek not first the Kingdom of God and the righteouâ—neâ—s hereof but look at holinesâ— as a needless thing Their Families are prayerless or else a few heaâ—tlâ—ss lâ—feless words must serve instead of hearty fervent daily prayers their children are not taught the knowledge of Christ and the Covenant of Grace nor brought up in the nurture of the Lord though they faâ—sly promised all this in their Baptism They instruct not their servants in the matters of salvation but so their work be done they care not There are more oaths and â—nâ—ses and ribbald or railing speeches in their families then gracious words that tend to edification How few are the Families that fear the Lord and enquire at his Word and Ministers how they should live and what they should do and are willing to be taught and ruled and that heartily look after everlasting Life And those few that God hath made so happy are commonly the by-word of their neighbours when we see some live in drunkenness and some in pride and worldliness and most of them have little care of their salvation though the cause be gross and past all controversie yet will they hardly be convinced of their misery and more hardly recovered and reformed But when we have done all that we are able to save them from their sins we leave the most of them as we find them And if according to the Law of God we cast them out of the Communion of the Church when they have obstinately rejected all our admonitions they rage at us as if we were their enemies and their hearts are filled with malice against us and they will sooner set themselves against the Lord and his Laws and Church and Ministers then against their deadly siâ—s This is the dolefull case of England We have Magistrates that countenance the ways of Godliness and a happy opportunity for Vnity and Reformation is before us and faithfull Ministers long to
whom thou didst despise in thy presumption How easily can he lay that flesh under gripes and groans and make it too weak to hold thy soul and make it more loathsom then the dung of the earth That flesh which now must have what it loves and must not be displeased though God be displeased but must be humoured in meats and drink and cloaths whatever God say to the contrary how quickly would the frowns of God consume it When thou wast passionately defending thy sin and quarrelling with them that would have drawn thee from it and shewing thy spleen against the reprover and pleading for the works of darkness how easily could God have snatcht thee away in a moment and set thee before his dreadful Majesty where thou shouldst see ten thousand times ten thousand of glorious Angels waiting on his throne and have called thee there to plead thy cause and asked thee What hast thou now to say against thy Creator his Truth his Servants or his holy waies Now plead thy cause and make the best of it that thou canst Now what canst thou say in excuse of thy sin Now give account of thy worldliness and fleshly life of thy time of all the mercies thou hast had O how thy stubborn heart would have melted and thy proud looks be taken down and thy countenance be appaled and thy stout words turned into speechless silence or dreadful cries if God had but set thee thus at his Bar and pleaded his own cause with thee which thou hast here so maliciously pleaded against How easily can he at any time say to thy guilty soul Come away and live in that flesh no more till the resurrection and it cannot resist A word of his mouth would take off the poise of thy present life and then all thy parts and powers would stand still and if he say unto thee Live no longer or live in Hell thou couldst not disobey But God hath yet done none of this but hath patiently forborn thee and mercifully upheld thee and given thee that breath which thou didst breath out against him and given those Mercies which thou didst sacrifice to thy flesh and afforded thee that provision which thou spentest to satisfie thy greedy throat he gave thee every minute of that time which thou didst waste in idleness or drunkenness or worldliness and doth not all this Patience and Mercy shew that he desired not thy damnation Can the candle burn without the oyl Can your houses stand without the earth to bear them As well as you can live an hour without the support of God And why did he so long support thy life but to see when thou wouldst bethink thee of the folly of thy waies and return and live Will any man purposely put arms into his enemies hands to resist him or hold the Candle to a Murderer that is killing his children or to an idle servant that Plaies or sleeps the while Surely it is to see whether thou wilt at last Return and Live that God hath so long waited on thee 5. It is further proved by the sufferings of his Son that God taketh no pleasure in the death of the wicked would he have ransomed them from death at so dear a rate Would he have astonished Angels and men by his condescension Would God have dwelt in flesh and have come in the form of a servant and have assumed humanity into one person with the Godhead and would Christ have lived a life of suffering and dyed a cursed death for sinners if he had rather taken pleasure in their death Suppose you saw him but so busie in preaching and healing them as you find him in Mark 3.21 or so long in fasting as in Mat. 4. or all night in prayer as in Luk. 6.12 or praying with thâ— drops of blood trickling from him instead of sweat as Luke 22.44 or suffering a cursed death upon the Cross and pouring out his soul as a sacrifice for our sins Would you have thought these the signs of one that delighted in the death of the wicked And think not to extenuate it by saying that this was only for his Elect. For it was thy sin and the sin of all the world that lay upon our Redeemer and his sacrifice and satisfaction is sufficient for all and the fruits of it are offered to one as well as another but it is true that it was never the intent of his mind to pardon and save any that would not by faith and repentance be Converted If you had seen and heard him weeping and bemoaning the state of a disobedient impenitent people Luke 19.41 42. or complaining of their stubborness as Mat. 23.37 Oh Ierusalem Ierusalem how oft would I have gathered thy chilâ—ren together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not Or if you had seen and heard him on the Cross praying for his persecutors Father forgive them for they know not what they do would you have suspected that he had delighted in the death of the wicked even of those that perish by their wilfull unbelief When God hath so loved not only loved but so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him by an effectual faith should not perish but have everlasting life I think he hath hereby proved against the malice of men and devils that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but had rather that they would Turn and Live 6. Lastly if all this will not yet satisfie you take his own word that knoweth best his own mind or at least believe his oath but this leadeth me up to the fourth Doctrine Doct. 4. THE Lord hath confirmed it to us by his Oath that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that he Turn and Live that he may leave man no pretence to question the truth of it If you dare question his word I hope you dare not question his oath As Christ hath solemnly protested that the unregenerate and Unconverted cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven Mat. 18.3 Iohn 3.3 So God hath sworn that his pleasure is not in their death but in their Conversion and Life And as the Apostle saith Heb. 6.13 16 17 18. Because he can swear by no greater then himself he saith As I live c. For men verily swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of strife wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of Promise the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by on oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lye we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us which we have as an Anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast If there be any man that cannot reconcile this truth with the Doctrine of Predestination or the actual damnation of the wicked that 's his own ignorance he
wilfulness and stubbornness Ier. 2.12 13. Be astonished O heavens at this and be horribly afraid For my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewed them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water Many a time hath Christ proclaimed that free invitation to you Revel 22.17 Let him that is a thirst come and whoever will let him take the water of life freely But you put him to complain after all his offers They will not come to me that they may have life Iohn 5.40 He hath invited you to feast with him in the Kingdom of his grace and you have had excuses from your grounds and your cattel and your worldly business and when you would not come you have said you could not and provoked him to resolve that you should never taste of his Supper Luke 14.15 to 25. And who is it long of now but your selves and what can you say is the chief cause of your damnation but your own Wills You would be damned The whole case is laid open by Christ himself Prov. 1. from the 20. to the end Wisdom cryeth without she uttereth her voice in the streets she crieth in the chief place of Concourse How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn ye at my reproofs behold I will pour out my spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hands and no man regarded but ye have set at naught all my counsel and would none of my reproofs I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh when your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh upon you then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsels they despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices For the turning away of the simple shall stay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them But who so hearkeneth to me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from the fear of evil I thought best to recite the whole text at large to you because it doth so fully shew the cause of the destruction of the wicked It is not because God would not teach them but because they would not learn It is not because God would not Call them but because they would not Turn at his reproof Their wilfulness is their undoing Vse FRom what hath been said you may further learn these following things 1. From hence you may see not only what blasphemy and impiety it is to lay the blame of mens destruction upon God but also how unfit these wicked wretches are to bring in such a charge against their Maker They cry out upon God and say He gives them not grace and his threatnings are severe and God forbid that all should be damned that be not Converted and Sanctified and they think it hard measure that a short sin should have an endless suffering and if they be damned they say they cannot help it When in the mean time they are busie about their own destruction even cutting the throat of their own souls and will not be perswaded to hold their hands They think God were cruel if he should damn them and yet they are so cruel to themselves that they will run into the fire of Hell when God hath told them it is a little before them and neither intreaties nor threatnings nor any thing that can be said will stop them We see them almost undone Their careless worldly fleshly lives do tell us that they are in the power of the Devil we know if they die before they are Converted all the world cannot save them and knowing the uncertainty of their lives we are afraid every day lest they drop into the fire And therefore we intreat them to pitty their own souls and not to undo themselves when mercy is at hand and they will not hear us We intreat them to cast away their sin and come to Christ without delay and to have some mercy on themselves but they will have none And yet they think that God must be cruel if he condemn them O wilful wretched sinners It is not God that is cruel to you it is you that are cruel to your selves You are told you must Turn or burn and yet you Turn not You are told that if you will needs keep your sins you shall keep the Curse of God with them and yet you will keep them You are told that there is no way to Happiness but by Holiness and yet you will not be Holy What would you have God say more to you What would you have him do with his Mercy He offereth it you and you will not have it You are in the ditch of sin and misery and he would give you his hand to help you out and you refuse his help he would cleanse you of your sins and you had rather keep them You love your lust and love your gluttony and sports and drunkenness and will not let them go Would you have him bring you to Heaven whether you will or no Or would you have him bring you and your sins to heaven together Why that 's an impossibility you may as well expect he should turn the Sun into Darkness What! an unsanctified fleshly heart be in Heaven it cannot be There entreth nothing that is unclean Revel 21.27 For what Communion hath light with darkness or Christ with Belial 2 Corinth 6.14 15. All the day long hath he stretched out his hand to a disobedient and gain saying people Romans 10.25 What will you do now Will you cry to God for mercy why God calleth upon you to have mercy upon your selves and you will not Ministers see the poysoned cup in the drunkards hand and tell him There is poyson in it and desire him to have Mercy on his soul and forbear and he will not hear us drink it he must and will he loves it and therefore though Hell come next he saith he cannot help it What should one say to such men as these We tell the ungodly careless worldling It is not such a life that will serve the turn or ever bring you to Heaven If a Bear were at your back you would mend your pace and when the curse of God is at your back and Satan and Hell are at your back will you not stir but ask what needs all this ado Is an immortal soul of no more worth O have mercy upon your selves But they will have no mercy on themselves nor once regard us We tell them the end will be bitter Who can dwell with the
everlasting fire And yet they will have no mercy upon themselves And yet will these shameless wretches say that God is more merciful then to condemn them when it is themselves that cruelly and unmercifully run upon Condemnation and if we should go to them with our hats in our hands and intreate them we cannot stop them If we should fall down on our knees to them we cannot stop them but to Hell they will and yet will not believe that they are going thither If we beg of them for the sake of God that made them and preserveth them for the sake of Christ that dyed for them for the sake of their own poor souls to pitty themselves and go no further in the way to Hell but come to Christ while his arms are open and enter into a state of life while the door stands open and now take mercy while mercy may be had they will not be perswaded If we should die for it we cannot get them so much as now and then to consider with themselves of the matter and to Turn And yet they can say I hope God will be merciful Did you ever consider what he saith Isa. 27.11 It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he hath formed them will show them no favour If another man will not cloath you when you are naked and feed you when you are hungry you will say he is unmerciful If he should cast you into prison or beat and torment you you would say he is unmerciful And yet you will do a thousand times more against your selves even cast away both soul and body for ever and never complain of your own unmercifulness Yea and God that waited upon you all the while with his mercy must be taken to be unmerciful if he punish you after all this Unless the holy God of Heaven will give these wretches leave to trample upon his Sons blood and with the Jews as it were again to spit in his face and do despight to the Spirit of grace and make a jest of sin and a mock at holiness and set more light by saving mercy then by the filth of their fleshly pleasures and unless after all this he will save them by the mercy which they cast away and would none of God himself must be called unmerciful by them But he will be justified when he Judgeth and he will not stand or fall at the bar of a sinful worm I know there are many particular cavils that are brought by them against the Lord but I shall not here stay to answer them particularly having done it already in in my Treatise of Iudgement to which I shall refer them Had the disputing part of the world been as careful to avoid sin and destruction as they have been busie in searching after the cause of them and forward indirectly to impute it to God they might have exercised their wits more profitably and have less wronged God and sped better themselves When so ugly a monster as sin is within us and so heavy a thing as punishment is on us and so dreadful a thing as Hell is before us one would think it should be an easie question who is in the fault and whether God or man be the principal or culpable cause Some men are such favourable Judges of themselves that they are proner to accuse the Infinite Perfection and Goodness it self then their own hearts and imitate their first parents that said The Serpent tempted me and the woman that thou gavest me gave unto me and I did eat secretly implying that God was the cause So say they The understanding that thou gavest me was unable to discern the will that thou gavest me was unable to make a better choice the objects which thou diast set before me did entice me the temptation which thou didst permit to assault me prevailed against me And some are so loth to think that God can make a self-determining creature that they dare not deny him that which they take to be his prerogative to be the determiner of the will in every sin as the first efficient immediate physical cause And many could be content to acquit God from so much causing of evil if they could but reconcile it with his being the chief cause of good as if truths must be no longer truths then we are able to see them in their perfect order and coherence because our râ—velled wits cannot set them right together nor assign each truth its proper place we presume to conclude that some must be cast away This is the fruit of proud self-conceitedness when men receive not Gods truths as a child his lesson in an holy submission to the omniscience of our Teacher but as Censurers that are too wise to learn Object But we cannot Convert our selves till God Convert us we can do nothing without his grace It is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that sheweth mercy Answ. 1. God hath two degrees of mercy to shew the mercy of Conversion first and the mercy of Salvation list the latter he will give to none but those that will and run and hath promised it to them only The former is to make them willing that were unwilling and though your own willing and endeavours deserve not this grace yet your wilfull refusal deserveth that it should be denyed to you Your disabily is your very unwillingness it self which excuseth not your sin but maketh it the greater You could Turn if you were but truly willing and if your wills themselves are so corrupted that nothing but effectual grace will move them you have the more cause to seek for that grace and yield to it and do what you can in the use of means and not neglect it or set against it Do what you are able first and then complain of God for denying you grace if you have cause Object But you seem to intimate all this while that man hath free will Answer The dispute about free-will is beyond your capacity I shall therefore now trouble you with no more but this about it Your will is naturally a free that is a self-determining faculty but it is vitiously inclined and backward to good and therefore we see by sad experience that it hath not a vertuous moral freedom But that is the wickedness of it which deserveth the punishment And I pray you let us not befool our selves with opinions Let the case be your own If you have an enemy so malicious that he falls upon you and beats you every time he meets you and takes away the lives of your children will you excuse him because he saith I have not free will it is my nature I cannot choose unless God give me grace If you have a servant that robbeth you will you take such an answer from him Might not every Thief and Murderer that is hanged it the Assize give such an answer I have not free-will
I cannot change my own heart what can I do without Gods grace and shall they therefore be acquit If not why then should you think to be acquit for a course of sin against the Lord 2. FRom hence also you may observe these three things together 1. What a subtile tempter Satan is 2. What a deceitful thing sin is 3. What a foolish creature corrupted man is A subtile tempter indeed that can perswade the greatest part of the world to go wilfully into everâ—asting fire when they have so many warnings and disswasives as they have A deceitful thing is sin indeed that can bewitch so many thousands to put with everlasting life for a thing so base and utterly unworthy A foolish creature is man indeed that will be so cheated of his salvation for nothing yea for a known nothing and that by an enemy and a known enemy You would think it impossible that any man in his wits should be perswaded for a trifle to cast himself into the fire or water or into a coal-pit to the destruction of his life And yet men will be enticed to cast themselves into Hell If your natural lives were in your own hands that you should not die till you would kill your selves how long would most of you live And yet when your everlasting life is so far in your own hands under God that you cannot be undone till you undo your selves how few of you will forbear your own undoing Ah what a silly thing is man and what a bewitching and befooling thing is sin 3. FRom hence also you may learn that it is no great wonder if wicked men be hinderers of others in the way to heaven and would have as many Unconverted as they can and would draw them into sin and keep them 〈◊〉 it Can you expect that they should have any mercy on others â—hat have none upon themselves â—nd that they should much stick at â—he destruction of others that â—â—ck not to destroy themselves They do no worse by others then â—hey do by themselves 4. LAstly you may hence learn that the greatest enemy to man is himself and the greatest judgement in this life that can befall him is to be left to himself and that the great work that Grace hath to do is to save us from our selves and the greatest accusations and complaints of men should be against themselves and that the greatest work that we have to do our selves is to resist our selves and the greatest enemy that we should daily pray and watch and strive against is our own carnal hearts and wills and the greatest part of your work if you would do good to others and help them to heaven is to save them from themselves even from their own blind understandings and corrupted wills and perverse affections and violent passions and unruly senses I only name all these for brevity sake and leave them to your further consideration WELL Sirs now we have found out the great Delinquent and Murderer of souls even mens selves their own wills what remains but that you judge according to the evidence and confess this great iniquity before the Lord and be humbled for it and do so no more To these three ends distinctly I shall add a few words more 1. Further to convince you 2. To humble you And 3. To reform you if there be yet any hope 1. We know so much of the exceeding gracious nature of God who is willing to do good and delighteth to shew mercy that we have no reason to suspect him of being the culpable cause of our death or to call him cruel He made all good and he preserveth and maintaineth all the eyes of all things do wait upon him and he giveth them their meat in due season he openeth his hand and satisfieth the desires of all the living Psalm 145.15 16. He is not only righteous in all his waies and therefore will deal justly and holy in all his works and therefore not the author of sin but he is also good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works Psal. 145.17 9. But as for man we know his mind is dark his will perverse his affections carry him so headlong that he is fitted by his folly and corruption to such a work as the destroying of himself If you saw a Lamb lie killed in the way would you sooner suspect the sheep or the dog or woolf to be the author of it if they both stood by or if you see an house broken and the people murdered would you sooner suspect the Prince or Iudge that is wise and just and had no need or a known Thief or Murderer I say therefore as Iames 1.13 14 15. Let no man say when he is tempted that he is tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth be any man to draw him to sin But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death You see here that sin is the brat of your own concupiscence and not to be fathered on God and that death is the off-spring of your own sin and the fruit which it will yield you as soon as it is ripe You have a treasure of evil in your selves as a spider hath of poyson from whence you are bringing forth hurt to your selves and spinning such webs as enâ—â—ngle your own souls Your Nature shews it s you that are the cause 2. It s evident that you are your own destroyers in that you are so Ready to entertain any Temptation almost that is offered you Satan is scarce readier to move you to any evil then you are ready to hear and do as he would have you If he would tempt your understanding to error and prejudâ—ce you yield If he would hinder you from good resolutions it is soon done If he would cool any good desires or affections it is soon done If he would kindle any lust or vile affections and desires in you it is soon done if he will put you on to evil thoughts or words or deeds you are so free that he needs not rod or spur if he would keep you from holy thoughts and words and waies a little doth it you need no curb You examine not his suggestions nor resist them with any resolution nor cast them out as he casts them in nor quench the sparks which he endeavoureth to kindle but you set in with him and meet him half way and embrace his motions and tempt him to tempt you And its easie to catch such greedy fish that are ranging for a bait and will take the bare hook 3. Your destruction is evidently long of your selves in that you Resist all that would help to save you and would do you good or hinder you from undoing your selves God would help and save you by his word and you resist it it is too strict for you He would