makes him say Isai 1.13 Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination unto me the new Moons and Sabbaths the calling of assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting And lastly consider God in his Power and Justice that if he put forth his Dominion to call thee to account thou being considered in thy self what will the issue be but that Heb. 10.31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God where there is not a Cautioner to interpose betwixt Justice and thee consider God thus if thou would be sensible of the desert of sin 2. When thou hast taken a right look of God thy Party in his Supream Dominion Omniscience Holiness Purity Power and Justice cast up the Sum of thy Debt which thou art owing to this Party and thou wilt be like that man Mat. 18.24 that was owing ten thousand Talents Consider the Law in its spiritual sense and meaning and thou wilt find that Paul found himself guilty upon the account of his concupiscence before it came to the consent of the will and so art thou Consider that the Law condemns evil thoughts unripe and indeliberat motions and how many of these art thou guilty of Again consider the Gospel what a Mass of Duties it commands or recommends upon the account of Gospel-encouragements and what a vast count or reckoning wilt thou find over thine head Sins of commission and sins of omission sins in the seed and root and sins in the fruit against the Law against the Gospel in thy particular station and in thy general Calling O! what a dreadful count will there be if a man cast up the rate of his duty and in how many things he hath offended There will be such a Count that as Job says Chap. 9.3 That if God contend with him he cannot answer one of a thousand There is not one of a thousand challenges that a righteous man can put off but he must say as David Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils compass me mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I cannot look up they are moe than the hairs of my head But 3ly When thou hast considered thy Party and the Debt which may be charged upon thee and the number of thy sins take another look of the nature of them and their aggravations from the times wherein thou hast sinned as if they have been times of light and it may be also thou hast been sinning with Zimri and Cozbi when the Congregation was weeping Num 25. When sad affliction hath been lying upon the people of God it may be thy sin hath been against as clear light as Absalom's sin was when he committed incest with his fathers concubines upon the top of his fathers house 2 Sam. 16.22 It may be when thou was under punishment and judgment for former sins to deterr thee from future It may be it was when thou was surrounded with mercies when God was drawing thee with cords of love with the bonds of a man and was to thee as they that take off the yoke from thy jaws and laid meat unto thee Hos 11.4 It may be thou hast been a person much obliged to God who hast often been refreshed with pardoning mercy he hath spoken peace to thee upon condition thou would not return to folly and yet thou hast returned to it It may be thou art one whose example hath had influence to harden many others in sin c. I cannot enumerat the aggravations of sin that Professors of the Gospel have been or are lying under but when the Account is casten it will not be found an Account of Cyphers or insignificant petty Nothings but an Account of iniquities and transgressions very hainous and dreadful all circumstances being considered I shall in the 4th place when you have considered your Party the Sum of your Debt the number of your sins in their nature and aggravating circumstances exhort you to ponder how just God is The truth of his threatnings against sin and the curse Think on that place Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them and it were to good purpose that these Chapters Deut. 28. and Lev. 16. were more frequently read and thought upon It were to good purpose that we heard Moses from Mount Sinai thundering oftner not to drive us from Christ but to him It 's a woful trick in our hearts that leads us to look over threatnings with a light eye We would consider that the threatnings will be accomplished as well as the promises and the least farthing of the sinners debt will be exacted off the sinner or off his Cautioner Thou must either do or get one to do for thee and when thou reads the threatnings think on the posture wherein thou stands And 5ly That ye may sensibly say over this assertion If thou Lord mark iniquity who shall stand I recommend to you to consider the sufferings of our blessed Lord. Consider if such things were done to the green tree what will be done to the dry And there a man that hath any sense of sin will read the dreadful desert of sin when he considers that wrath for sin made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And how his Holy Nature abhorred that Cup and put him to pray that it might pass from him and how it made him in his agony sweat drops like blood when thou judges of the desert of sin by that thou wilt stand then and more sensibly think that thou wilt not be able to stand before God marking iniquity for if such things were done to the green tree when his Holy Humane Nature suffered so much being supported by his Divine Nature what will be done to thee who art a dry Tree out of him If God would speak home these things to your hearts ye would Subscribe to that Verdict Solomon hath Prov. 14.9 that they are fools that make a mock at sin nay that they are distracted that are lying under the guilt of sin and can take rest in themselves till they see if a remedy can be had till they come to that which follows in the Text But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared There are some particular inferences that I intended to have spoken to from this point but the time being past I quite them Only remember that which I have been upon what hath been spoken to you of the dreadful desert of sin a Doctrine that is very necessary but little laid to heart by many of you Ye have got the Gospel-knack among you and have learned to talk of sin and of making Christ a refuge against it But I dare not account all Gold that glisters nor look upon all them as real Converts that can talk in a Gospel-Dialect in Irwine I would drive none of you from Christ if any of you find your need of a Saviour
of trouble without the sense of sin is ill company and will breed many distempers which the sense of sin joyned with the sense of trouble will bear down and prevent And 4. If even the most godly man be thus lyable to punishment for who can stand if God mark iniquity and even for his ordinary failings consider what is the godly mans case when he falleth in grosser out-breakings If when thou looks upon thy dayly escapes through ignorance rashness precipitancy short-coming in duty thou art made to lament and say Lord I cannot stand before thee if thou Lord mark iniquity how may the lamentation be hightned when thou falls in grosse sins and spots and by them causes the enemy to blasphem and the truth is were folk more frequent in laying to heart their ordinary escapes and infirmities it would be a mean to caution them against out-breakings in grosser debordings but when these are not laid to heart and mourned for it provokes God to write it with some vile blemish and I shal add if the Lord mark iniquity and a godly man cannot stand what shall become of a wicked man who hath no interest in Christ if a David suppose he hath been the penman of this Psalm be trembling and sinking under the Burden of iniquities what a posture should monsters for prophanity who declare their sin as Sodom be in I confess they are not troubled with sin because they forget that they have immortal Souls but their trouble is coming They see godly men plunged and perplexed under apprehensions of wrath when they are free of grosse out-breakings and they are not affected with all their impieties but O! what a witnes is that against them who walk as monsters among men and are never troubled ponder that word 1 Pet. 4.17.18 The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it begin at us what shall become of them that obey not the Gospel of God and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the sinner and ungodly appear If godly men dare not think of standing before God marking iniquity how can these monsters for prophanity and ungodliness think to look God in the face marking their iniquities But now I proceed to the second General in the Text and that is the refuge to which the Psalmist betakes himself when he is thus humbled and abased under the sense of the dreadful deserts of sin But there is forgivness with thee That is thou hast declared thy self to be a pardoner of sin on gospel-terms and this forgivenness is with thee that is it 's thy peculiar right in opposition to all pretenders None have a right to pardon but thou and it 's thy right when the Law and our own Consciences do condemn us to stepin and forgive and therefore though upon account of the Covenant of Works I cannot think of standing before thee I betake my self to the refuge that forgiveness is with thee There is a General Word that I might here mark that is That there is a remedy in God for all difficulties under which the Saints are humbled and abased as insuperable for when in the 3. verse he hath said If thou Lord should mark iniquities who can stand There is a But a reserve an exception added Forgivenness is with thee There is indeed a hopeless case but here is a remedy for it in God so that there is no case how hopeless soever it be that is desperat if folks go to God with it But this I leave and pitch upon the main point in the Text That there is pardoning mercy in God for sin and this is the only refuge to a sensible sinner oppressed with sin and guilt It 's here the Psalmist's only refuge and ease when he cannot think of standing before God marking iniquity It 's Job's only refuge Chap. 7.20 21. I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men Thou may set me as a mark against thee and make me a burden to my self but all that will not make thee reparation Why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity and it 's the happiness of fallen Man not that he is sinless or able to satisfie Justice for his sin but that he is a pardoned man Psal 32.1.2 c. Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is pardoned blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity This we would not need to insist on to prove it if souls were in the Psalmists posture here if souls knew what it were to be under the burden of the debt of Sin there would be no happiness to that to have sin pardoned God would be to them a matchless God upon this account Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage he would be a matchless God upon the account of his pardoning iniquity whatever other proof of Love he should give or withhold Now because this is a most important and weighty Gospel point of Truth The pardoning of Sin and I know not when I may fall upon it in a Catechetical way I purpose to quite my ordinary way and to insist upon this head The pardon of â—in which would give me occasion to speak to several things for information of judgment and to set you to your duty I shall reduce what I intend to say on it to these Heads 1. What is Pardoned 2. Who they are that are Pardoned 3. What the nature of this Pardon is 4. When Pardon passes in favours of the Sinner whether it be irrevocable 5. What is the right method of the Application of Pardoning Mercy which will lead me to the last thing in the Text That forgiveness is with God that He may be feared These and the like through the determination of the Scriptures may be of special use to you 1. What is it that God doth pardon it is sin or iniquity so the former verse and this collated holds forth It 's the iniquities under which he is groaning in the former verse for which there is forgiveness with God in this verse so in that forcited place Mic. 7 18. He pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage and Psal 52.1 2. It 's sin iniquity transgression that is pardoned covered not imputed to intimat that sin under whatever name it be expressed is that which God pardons Now to prosecute this I shall not fall upon many descriptions of sin and its nature it shall suffice us to know that sin is the transgression of the Law and that of the Law of God neither the crossing of folks humors will make a man a sinner James 4.11 12. There are a number of rigid Censurers that would make their Will a Law to all or have all to walk by their rash Judgment whereas there is but one Law-giver who is able to save and destroy
destroyes us not how often might he say as he said to Moses of Israel Exod. 32.10 Let me alone that my wrath may wax bot against them and that I may consume them that I may sweep them away from off the earth and yet he doth it not how often might he do with us in this World as he did with Sodom and the old World and yet he bears with us How often might he make the visible Church a terror to it self and all the World and how often might he make the Saints a burden to themselves and yet great is his goodness that he spares a sinful VVorld and sinners in it And upon another account it commends God and that is that he lets not the sinfulness of his People make void their interest in him but notwithstanding their sinfulness allows them to call him Father That though they be dayly by their repeated provocations iniquities and transgressions drawing Rods forth from his hand yet that doth not make void the Covenant Psal 89.32 33. That he will visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquities with stripes nevertheless his loving kindness will he not utterly take from them nor suffer his faithfulness to fail O! but the study of our sinfulness would make dayly a new wonder to us it would not be common news but a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ came into the world to save sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 And as we grow in the study of our sinfulness the sweeter should these Truths that holds out the remedy of sin grow and continue SERMON VIII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared AFter that I had spoken to this godly man his humbling sense and fight of the desert of Sin in the third verse I have begun to speak to this remedy of pardoning mercy with God upon which he layeth hold and I took up the words in that General Note That there is pardoning mercy in God for Sin and that is the only refuge for sinners sensible of the burden of sin and of the desert of sin and told you that I have a purpose if the Lord will to prosecute this Point in the resolution of several Questions which yet may be reduced to a few General Heads Which were hinted at That which now I am upon is the consideration of that that is pardoned Sin Iniquity or Transgression where I spoke to one particular that all Mankind have sinned and done that which will need a pardon They have iniquities even the most godly which makes them when they are sensible of them to look upon it as good news to hear of pardon That which I further proposed to be spoken to was 1. That as all have sinned so sin is a crime a debt a burden that men stand in need to rid their hands of 2. That sin is a debt that man cannot satisfie but must have it done away by Remission it must consequently follow That the unpardoned Man is in a woful plight And 3. That if this be a Debt that can only be done away by Pardon then to a sensible man this will be the chiefest of good news That there is forgivenness with God As to the First of these and the Second in Order proposed to be spoken to on this Branch when it is granted that all have sinned the stupid and carless will look lightly upon it wherefore it is to be considered in the next place what sin is to the right discerner it 's a crime which since he cannot expiat hath need of pardon It 's a debt which since he cannot satisfie hath need of forgivenness This imports that to be lying under the burden of sin is no light matter to a man that knows his case through sin I shall take notice of the Notion under which sin is expressed Luk. 11.4 with Matth. 6.12 Where sin is called our Debt I shal no insist here to clear that every mans sin is his own Debt contracted by himself in his own Person or in the common Root Adam and that he hath not others to blame for it Though as Adam did lay over his sin on the Woman which God gave him so is every one ready to do yet when God and the Sinner reckons he will find that he must reckon for his Sin by himself or by a Surety but waving that that sin is called a Debt it is not to be understood that Man is oblidged to sin for Obedience is that which is required and which we are oblidged to pay to God but what is imported in this metaphor I shall lay open before you in these four 1. A man that is adebted and not fulfilling his Bond is lyable to the Law so the Law of God is an hand-writting against sinful man oblidging him either to do his Duty or to satisfie Justice for his Fault or if he cannot do that and there be no other remedy to undergo everlasting punishment in hell 2. The Debt is heightned by this that all the means offered to Man of directions threatnings promises opportunities power and abilitie to do good in the time and station he lives in Gifts and qualifications for that end and Talents for the not improvement of which he becomes Debtor to God and his sin is hightned thereby 3. As sin resembleth a Debt so it is a Debt above all other debts a man under the debt of Sin is in a more dreadful plight than any under other debt he may be able to pay it and though he be broken he may come up again But a man under the debt of sin can never pay again a man under debt if he cannot pay he can shift his Creditor But for a man under the debt of sin there is no shifting of God his Creditor Psal 139. Whither shall he go from his spirit Or whither shall he flee â—rom his presence Again though a man be under debt and not able to shift his Creditor yet his Creditor is not always in a readiness to attach him though he be in his view because he is not in a legal capacity to reach him But we are in God's reverence every moment Again other Debt reaches the Body only this Debt of Sin reaches the Soul also And to add no more other Debt may reach a man with inconveniences in his Life but when he is dead his Debt is payed But the punishment of this Debt reaches a man chiefly after this Life all these clear that Sin is a Debt above all other Debts And I shall add 4. That Sin may well be compared to a Debt on this account that Sinners while they fall upon a right method of seeking pardon they much resemble an ill Debtor an ill debtor desires not to hear of his accounts far less to sit down and cast them up so it is with these ill Debtors they put the ill day far away They cannot hear of a day of compt and reckoning nor to sit
is forgivenness with God and this is it in the Text for verse 3. he sayeth If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity Who can stand But verse 4. Forgivenness is with thee That is it ye have Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee Now for this Pardon the nature of it and the terms upon which it is attained it will come in in the own proper place to be spoken to Here I am upon consideration of the thing remitted and that that I shall pitch upon is That there is a remission of sin attainable by sinners in the due order It 's a blessed Article of our Creed the remission of sins When I spoke of the remission of sin I spoke of the remission of all sins great and small in their nature and number There is forgivenness with God for iniquities I confess there is an exception made Math. 12.31 32. All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Heb. 10.26 They that sin afer they have received the knowledge ef the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin And 1 John 5.1 There is a sin unto death But the sin against the holy Ghost needs not trouble the sensible sinner that would fain have pardon It is true it should warn all to beware of malicious sinning against light and having sinned to beware of running away from God but the sensible sinner that is seeking peace and pardon needs not to be afraid of it That sin is therefore irremissible because the sinner comes not to seek pardon but if thou hast the sense of sin and if it be thy desire and endeavour to repent and to have pardon it is an evidence that thy sin is not that unpardonable sin But that I may make something of this I shall deduce it in two or three Branches The first whereof shal be 1. That small sins need Pardon 2. That gross sins are Pardonable 3. A word to the consideration of the persons whose sins are pardonable 1. The smallest of sins needs a pardon we are not as Papists would charge us Stoicks who affect a parity and equality of all sins we grant there are different degrees of sins and different degrees of punishment A beating with many stripes and a beating with few stripes Luke 12.47 48. But yet when we assert this difference we dare not with them assert venial sins that deserves not everlasting Wrath without repentance and fleeing to Christ for refuge sure the Apostle tells us Rom 6.23 The wages of sin is death What death look to the opposition and it will clear it but the gift of God is eternal life if the Gift of God be eternal life the wages of sin must be eternal death that he sayes it of sin indefinitly it 's equivalent to an universal the wages of sin is death so that they must take away the nature of sin from these sins they call Venial or grant the wages thereof is death and likewise Mat. 12.36 Christ tells that Every idle word that men speak they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment And an idle word might seem a small sin well then if the smallest sin needs a pardon look that we do not practically make a distinction of mortal and venial sins even gross men if they fall into gross out-breakings it will affect them somewhat when they do not heed their ordinary escapes Godly persons also are culpable here a scandalous sin will affect them and so it should but how little are they affected with wanderings of mind in holy duties idle words and thoughts habitual distance from God and is not that a practical distinguishing of sin It is true none can in repentance distinctly overtake all their failings for Psal 19.12 Who can understand his errors Yet we ought to do what we can to overtake them and if we cannot overtake them be at Gods Foot-stool with them mourning over them in the bulk But 2. as the smallest of sins needs a pardon so the â—rossest of sins are pardonable in the due order There is forgivenness with him for iniquities as in the Text and Isai 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will aboundantly pardon He will pardon greatest sins in their nature and kind and hence David saith Psal 25.11 Pardon mine iniquity for it is great And Isai 1.18 The Lord sayes Come now and let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red as crimson they shall be as wool And these great sins are pardonable in the due order whether they be done in ignorance as Paul's persecution was 1 Tim. 1.13 I was a blasphemer a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief Or whether they be committed through the power of temptation even against light as Peter's threefold denyal of his Master was yet not being malicious it 's pardoned Again as great sins for nature and kind are pardonable so great sins for the multitude and number of them when they are like a cloud and a thick cloud he will blot them out Isai 44.22 I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and sins And that word Isai 55.7 He will aboundantly pardon In the original it is he will multiply to pardon one and moe a multitude of them and Psal 40.11 12. David pleads for mercy for innumerable evils for iniquities that are moe than the hairs of his head And as God pardons great sins for kind and many for number so frequent relapsing in these sins which I may speak to afterward Jer. 3.1 She that hath played the harlot with many lovers is allowed to return And he that bade Peter Mat. 18.22 Forgive his brother not only seven but seventy times will much more do so to his penitent People renewing their repentance But when I say he will pardon great sins I would have it well applyed It is not to embolden any body to sin thou that so improves this Doctrine does turn the grace of God into wantonness and thou that ventures on sin because God is merciful to pardon great and many sins and thinks thou may take a whelps fill of sin and then go and repent and get mercy the woful shift that many follow O! remember that Repentance is not in thine own hand nay I will say more thou bears a sad evidence of one that will never get the grace to Repent but that abuse of this doctrine being laid aside ye shall while I am upon the explication of this great Article of Faith take a word or two of Inference in the by And 1. It may be great encouragement to sensible sinners thou who art sensible of thy sins thy Dyvour-bill of great and many sins if thou come
an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely I knovv that it shall be well with them that fear God How will ye prove that because he fears before him but it shall not be vvell with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days which are as a shaddow because he feareth not before God No approbation lyes in the bosom of forbearance Another Scripture that gives a dreadful refutation to them that take forbearance for pardon is that Psal 50.21 These things thou hast done and I kept silence thou thought that I was altogether such a one as thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Now consider this all ye that forget God lest I tear you in peices and there be none to deliver There is a refutation of all the wicked mans dreams anent God and his forbearance And if ye would have a third Scripture take the forecited place Rom. 2.4 5. Thou despisest the riches of his goodness forbearance and long suffering not knowing that it leadeth thee to Repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath Thou may treasure up other things as thou will for thy advantage but thou shalt find thou treasurest up wrath to thy ruine thou may think because thou prospers in Sin God approves of thee as the saying is prosperum faelix scelus virtus vocatur Wickedness is called a virtue because it thrives yet remember that forbearance is no Pardon 4. In taking up the nature of pardon negatively Consider That God's pardoning of particular Sinners whereby he restores them in favour is not to be confounded with National Pardons which God gives to Nations This pardon is many times spoken of in Scripture though by analogy we may draw them to a particular pardon So the scope of that place Num. 14.19 runs another way than to particular Persons and respects a National Pardon Pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of this people sayes Moses according to the greatness of thy mercy as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even untill now I have pardoned according to thy word sayes the Lord but truly as I live all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. I have pardoned but yet I will punish and vindicat mine honour So that passage Psal 78.38 But he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not when they deserved That was a pardon of the Nation or a National Pardon Now a National Pardon amounts only to this when the Lord forbears to root out a Nation as the Lord threaten â—o Moses that he would root out Israel in that forecited place Num. 14.12 That he would Dis-inherit them and make of him a greater Nation and a Mightier than they when he keeps them in their own Land as he did Israel and does not root them out or when he continues with them the priviledge of a Church though he plague them and weed out a godless generation from among them as he did out of Israel that in the space of 38 years time there was not a man of them left that were 20 years old and upwards when they came out of Egypt save Caleh and Joshua So the Lord may pardon a Nation and yet punish them he may by his Judgments weed out the generality of a Generation and send them to the Pit which may consist with a National pardon when he doth not cut off the Nation or suffers them to enjoy the priviledges of a Church But the pardon of a particular Sinner is when he sits down at God's Footstool and Judges himself and closes with Christ for righteousness and that 's another thing And 5. In taking up the nature of pardon Negatively We must beware of confounding the pardon of Sin with the removal of Sin the prosecution whereof would lead me to speak Positively wherein pardon of Sin consists to the guilt and pollution of Sin and the different acts of God about both but because that will give the rise to other Questions I shall remit it to another occasion only here ye shall distinguish these three The filth of Sin the power of Sin and the guilt of Sin The filth of Sin is the foul stain that Sin leaves behind it The guilt of Sin is the Offence done to God and the Obligation to punishment resulting thereupon the power of Sin is the Tyrrany that Sin exercises over the Sinner Now when I say we are not to confound the pardon of Sin with the removal of Sin ye would understand it aright I grant that God strikes at the guilt of Sin and the power of Sin both at once which is this in plain languege that a pardoned sin must not be a reigning sin where the vertue of the blood is applyed for pardon the power of the blood will also be applyed for the subjugating of sin and putting it from the Throne and therefore in the by ye may take it as a noble evidence of pardon when sin is subdued or if it be not subdued yet ye are engadged against your own sinful disposition that it prevails not with your consent but for the filthiness of sin though it be stricken at as soon as any of the former Regeneration layes the Ax to the Root of that Tree yet it remains in the Saints till death make the separation Paul Rom. 7. Hath a Law in his members rebelling against the Law in his his mind till Death but the pardon of sin is attainable before death and given in Justification and afterward upon the justified persons Repentance for particular faults and therefore consequently it is not to be confounded with the removal of sin sin may be pardoned and pardon of sin is consistent with the sight of the filthiness of sin for which the soul is abased before God dayly after Regeneration though sin doth not reign and that 's it wherein the pardon of sin consists even in the taking away of the guilt of sin and the souls obligation to wrath though the filth of sin remain SERMON XI Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Am now insisting upon the refuge to which the man abased with the conscience of sin betaketh himself who when he hath reflected upon Gods proceedings in strict Justice according to the tenor of the Covenant of Works with sinners and who when he hath found that if God should thus mark iniquity none even the most godly should be able to stand he subjoyns this as a blest aftergain in mans deplorable case But forgivenness is with thee In prosecution of this great truth that there is pardoning-pardoning-mercy with God to be a relief for Self-condemned sinners I have spoken to two of the five heads that I proposed to be spoken to upon it 1. I have spoken to the Consideration of that which is pardoned that is Iniquity Sin or Transgression or call it by what name ye will 2. I
the pardoned sinner upon the account of sin partly to prevent sin partly to rouse him up to repentance when he hath sinned partly to set sinners to their feet that they may be rightly affected with sin when it is pardoned and that they may be excited to make a right use of pardon There remains yet other two Questions or Cases to be cleared anenâ— the nature of remission of sin to which I shall now briefly speak as the Lord will give The 3d Case or Question in order to this whether the truth of pardon depends upon the intimation thereof to our hearts yea or no so that when a sensible sinner fallen down at Gods foot-stool in the confession of sin and crying for pardon through Christ yet he finds nothing like a pardon intimate to his Conscience In this case the Question is whether hath he ground to doubt that neither hath he repented of sin nor gotten a pardon from God for it The general Answer to this is that pardon and Gods intimation of pardon to the Conscience are not to be confounded The Apostle 1 Cor. 2.12 gives a general rule concerning all supernatural gifts that when we have received these things freely of God we must receive the spirit which is of God that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God It 's one thing to get these supernatural gifts gifted to us another thing to get the spirit which is of God to know they are given us and this hath place particularly in the matter of pardon of sin for the pardon of sin is a sentence already past in the Word of God in favours of all believers and penitents in Christ so that no sooner doth the penitent sinner flee unto him and look unto him as to the brazen serpent for pardon and cure but as soon that pardon becomes his before he can subsume and say I am fled unto Christ for pardon and am pardoned his direct act of faith draws out pardon before he can reflect and pass a judgment on that his pardon And hence when Nathan hath pronounced that David's sin is pardoned him 2 Sam. 12.13 Yet in the 51. Psalm he crys instantly for mercy for pardon and blotting out of his transgression Why Though he was pardoned in the Court of Heaven yet he was not pardoned in the Court of his own Conscience The intimation of pardon was suspended and kept up And hence is that which I named before Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee It 's one benefit to him to have his sins forgiven him and another benefit to be of good chear on that account Therefore as Christ tells him that his sins are forgiven him so he must bid him be of good chear Thus ye see the truth of a penitents pardon depends not on the intimation thereof to his conscience But this wakens up another Case or Question the following forth whereof will deduce this more distinctly and that is how it comes and for what ends it is that a child of God cannot get it discerned and closed with that he is pardoned For clearing of this Case we should look first to our selves and then to a wise hand of God suspending the intimation of pardon If we look to our selves when we are pardoned we cannot discern it because of our weakness that cannot discern our happiness we are blind and discern not our happiness discern not our health we confound the reality of pardon with the sense and feeling of pardon and we will not believe pardon except we feel the effects of pardon and it is also because we are ignorant of getting pardon through the satisfaction of another when we are brought to be sensible for sin and to look to Christ for pardon and God hath spoken pardon we are like the Sea which being raised by a storm doth tumble a while after the storm is over and there is a calm These are some hints on our part why the pardoned sinner gets it not discerned that he is pardoned But if we look up to God he may have a holy hand in keeping up the intimation of pardon upon several accounts As 1. The Lord would have us looking more to his Word wherein pardon in the Gospel is holden out to us on Gospel-terms and less to sense he would breed us to grip the promise while sense come and to grip the promise that sense may come and they that will suspend all assurance of pardon while it be sensibly intimat the Lord in his holy providence keeps up the intimation of pardon from them to teach them to pay more due respect to his Word and to seek and feed upon the consolation that depends upon pardon promised and pronounced therein that by following his method by faith they may come to sensible intimation of pardon 2. The Lord may keep up the sensible intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned man that he may learn him to look upon pardon not as a necessary result and effect of his repentance but as a free gift of God which though the Lord will not bestow without repentance yet he doth not bestow it for repentance therefore doth he suspend the intimation of pardon from the penitent man that he may learn to look less to his Repentance and more to the free Grace of God in obtaining of Pardon 3. The Lord sees it fit to keep pardoned sinners in suspence as to the sense of Pardon or the intimation of it that he may let them see that when he is provocked by their sinning it is not so easie to recover themselves and get into his favour Therefore though he have pardoned them yet he will keep them at the back of the door as to the intimation of it partly that they may be put to resent how bitter a thing it is to depart from God and to raise a Cloud betwixt him and them and partly that they may be affrighted to dally with sin again he will have them to know that though he give them mercy it is not so easie to bring a Delinquent in Court and Favour again And 4. The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned sinner for this among other ends that he may be fit for sympathy with others that may come in the like case with himself he may cause his reconciled people feel the bitterness of departing from him and may suffer them to ly in the sense and under fears of their un-reconciled condition as to the intimation of pardon that they may bear burden with others that come to be in their case 5. The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from them that he may set them on work to repent more that they may search out sin more and repent more for their sin and for the sinfulness that is in their sin that possibly as yet they have not laid well to heart These reasons of suspending the intimation of pardon even
his salvation yet pray on there is nothing formidable in a Supplicants condition so long as he is not driven from Gods Footstool but he prays on 2. Another direction is that repulses or delays should promove humility in Supplications and Supplicants It 's here supplications that he puts up when he pleads for audience Now the poor uses supplications supplications are the Beggers are the Dyvours Language many Supplicants when they have cryed long and are not heard may be in peril to fret to quarrel to repine to bark but that 's a wrong method to come speed with God in Prayer thou ought to be the more humble the longer thou art delayed thou ought to creep the nearer the dust and come in among the poor that speak supplications And a third direction shall be from the Phrase and Metaphor in the Text as I explained it in the entry that is that there be a believing that the Lord hath an affectionat ear to listen unto and hear the cry of humble Supplicants This is imported in the very terms of the Prayer put up to God as an affectionat Parent ready to notice the cry of his Child when he is in hazard and crys for help and this is a needful direction when the Supplicant is held at the door that beside diligence and humility he entertain Faith that bods well of God Faith that when God was seeming to destroy Job made him say These things hast thou hid in thine heart I know that this is with thee Job 10.13 I know thou hast a kindness for Job though thou appear terrible to me so must Faith reckon when answers to Prayer are delayed I know he will do me good though I seem not to be noticed Now I come to the third and fourth Verses wherein we have the second Branch of the Psalmist's wrestling and that is a wrestling with guilt that might hinder audience and to give you a general view of these two Verses ye shall take this Branch of his wrestling in these three 1. Ye have a very sensible and humble acknowledgment of the desert of sin in the most godly vers 3. If thou Lord should mark iniquity O Lord who should stand That is iniquities are so hainous a thing that if thou wilt mark them as a severe Judge and according to the Covenant of Works proceed with men none would be justified 2. Ye have the Psalmist's relief being thus humbled in Gods pardoning mercy on which he lays hold in the beginning of the 4. vers But there is forgivenness with thee 3. This pardoning mercy in God is amplified from the end he hath before him in letting it forth That thou mayest be feared that is not only in general because thou art a merciful and pardoning God in Christ men have access to worship and serve thee who otherwise art a consuming fire but in particular thy pardoning mercy will excite men to fear and worship so good a God that freely pardons iniquity under the weight and burden of which they could not stand For the first of these his sensible and humble acknowledgment of the desert of sin in the most godly I may touch it the more cursorily now because it will fall in when afterward I come to speak of the right way of applying pardoning mercy where I shall take a view of this Verse as it points out the right method of obtaining pardon and the qualification of the pardoned sinner calling upon God in trouble what I would say now upon it ye shall take up in these three 1. Ye have the sense of sin and guilt joyned with the sense of trouble 2. Ye have the sense of guilt meeting a godly man in the teeth when he is sent to God by Prayer in trouble 3. Ye have guilt meeting him with a terrible Aspect that if God marked it he nor none is able to stand For the first I shall give it to you in this brief Observation That in right exercise the sense of sin and guilt should go along with the sense of distress and trouble the Psalmist rests not on his being sensible that he was in the deeps but he is also lying under the sense of sin and guilt a man that hath the meer sense of trouble without the sense of sin he is no more than a beast that will feel a smart and so it is a bruitish thing to be houling under the sense of trouble without the sense of sin Hos 7.14 They have not cryed unto me with their heart when they houled upon their beds They houled for their trouble but they called not sincerely unto me And vers 16. They return but not to the most high they are like a deceitful bowe And hence Micah 6.9 The Lords voice calls unto the City hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it There must be a hearing of the Appointer of the Rod as well as the Rod it self To evince the truth of this point I shall shortly hint at some consequences that readily follows the sense of trouble without the sense of sin Not to stand upon this that readily they choise a new sin to an outgate Job 26.1 This hast thou chosen rather than affliction I shall name these three 1. Where the sense of trouble is without the sense of sin folks expects to win soon out of it There are readily a world of conceity folk that think they will win soon and easily out of their trouble Judah found the weight of trouble but not the weight of sin and when they were going to captivity they were filled with dreams of outgate Jer. 12.4 They said he shall not see our last end And Jer. 2.25 They said because I am innocent surely his anger shall turn from me And when they were brought very low that delusion did not leave them Ezek. 11.15 They say Get ye far from the Lord unto us is the land given in possession And Ezek. 33.24 These of them that did inhabite the wastes said Abraham was one and he inherited the land but we are many the land is given us for inheritance Whence it is clear that deluded confidence is one of the wofull fruits of the sense of trouble without sense of sin A 2d is woful bitterness and carnal distempers of Spirit if not when the trouble comes on because they trust to be soon delivered from it yet when it continues long How find ye that people Jer. 5.19 and the parallel places who are brought in saying Wherefore hath the Lord our God done all these things unto us What 's our iniquity And what 's our sin And Isa 51 20. Ye may take up the temper of such a people Thy sons have fainted they ly at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net they are full of the fury of the Lord the rebuke of thy God Ye will not tame a wild Beast by putting him in a Net but mad him the more and so are they who continue long under the
sense of trouble without the sense of sin And a 3d Consequence is a woful issue when ever delivery out of trouble comes to folk in such a posture and I find in this issue these two to concur one is their hungry starved lusts meeting with mercies do surfeit upon them as the peilled Jews when they came from the Captivity and had not quit their covetousness they no sooner came back but they eat up one another And another is when such folk are delivered out of the strait wherein they were their delivery ordinarily hath the plague of God with it Psal 78.29 c. When that people cryed for flesh He rained flesh upon them as dust and feathered fowl as the sand of the sea they were filled he gave them their desire but while the meat was yet in their mouths the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them and smote down the chosen men of Israel This in short would put folk to it in shoring times to see what they are most affected with whether with trouble or with sin If ye be going with your hands on your loyns what ails you What affects you most Sin or trouble Provocation or trouble the fruit of your provocation Mark it there is much exercise in sad times when it is not about sin and the fruit of that exercise will be found wind Isa 26.18 We have been with child we have been in pain we have as it were brought forth wind Sense of sin over-weighing sense of trouble were a blest mean to cure our trouble Isa 27.9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his sin when he makes all the stones of the Altar as Chalk stones that are beaten asunder the Groves and Images shall not stand up But the 2d Note I proposed to be spoken to was That sense of guilt meets him in the teeth when he comes to God The Observation is that guilt will readily meet the people of God in their approaches to him under trouble when he is crying to God out of the deeps and is earnest for audience God's marking of iniquity stares him in the face to put some stop and demurr to his access and audience and the issue he would have been at If time would suffer I would deduce this point in these four 1. A tender soul is known by many heart-smitings for sin which David was well acquaint with in the Wilderness when he cut off the lap of Sauls garment 1 Sam. 24.5 A very innocent thing to vindicat his own integrity yet his heart smote him a heart-smiting for sin was no dainty to him then I confess when men are at ease and are not in a tender frame they may give way to gross sins and their heart not smite them What a temper is David in when he is at ease and secure What a wide throat hath he to swallow down Adultery and Murder and to betray a part of his Army 2 Sam. 11. The sword devours one as well as another saith he it 's the fortune as we call it and the chance of War let it not trouble thee That was not like David when he was tender but however the general holds true that heart-smiting from sense of sin is a most infallible sign and evidence of tenderness and nearness to God O but the skin of a Conscience near God is thin A little thing will draw blood of it And as upon the one hand ye would try your nearness to God by this so upon the other hand ye would look upon it as poor gallantry to digest sin without a heart smiting you for it There is a generation of men who are called strong spirits gallant men and wherein doth their strength of spirit and gallantry ly In contemning the Law of God in treading upon his Authority in defying God they can commit all wickedness and sleep in a sound skin and never be troubled with it these are our Gallants but the day will come when that will be found poor gallantry and that he is the brave spirit that knows what heart-smiting for sin is and hath tenderness in his walk There is in the 2d place this in particular that when Saints go to God then their guilt readily meets them although they have little sense of guilt in ordinary yet when they approach to God in earnest their sin will muster up before them 3. Although in ordinary Addresses they may be little sensible of sin yet when a strait comes and they are sent to God then their sin will find them out though they can walk in ordinary and be little troubled with guilt yet in a distress it cross-necks them And 4ly Although wicked men do not readily meet with guilt because they are plagued with stupidity yet their guilt will meet with them and they shall find it marked by God as if when they came to God in ordinary they came to proclaim their iniquity These are the Branches of the Point which now I cannot insist on to deduce at large only if ye have to do with God and be in earnest beware of unrepented guilt the longer it be in meeting with you it will be the sadder when you and it meet and the longer it be that ye lay it not to heart to repent of it and turn from it it will be the more sad God bless what ye have heard SERMON V. Psalm 130. Vers 3. If thou LORD shouldest mark iniquities O LORD who shall stand YOU have heard that the Psalmist being wrestling by Prayer with the difficulties and plunging perplexities that were in his case vers 1 2. Doth here come to wrestle more particularly with guilt which might stop his audience and success and as ye heard he doth 1. make a sensible confession of the misdeserving of sin that if God should mark it as a severe Judge none should be justified none should be able to stand 2. Ye have his relief and refuge being thus humbled in the pardoning mercy of God upon which he lays hold in the beginning of the 4. Verse But there is forgivenness with thee And 3ly as ye heard in the end of vers 4. This pardoning mercy of God is amplified from his end and design in letting it forth That thou mayest be feared There is forgivenness with him that sinners may draw near him who in himself is a consuming fire and that pardoned sinners may be excited to fear and worship so good a God that freely pardons sin From the first of these I spake to a general Note That the sense of trouble and the exercise about it should be attended with the sense of sin and exercise about sin for the Psalmist here is exercised and taken up with both while he is crying out of the deeps he is lying under the sense of sin I confirmed this and marked some sad consequences that followed sense of trouble without sense of sin I hinted also at a
Now what shall be said of guilts meeting with wicked men I shall say two words to this and leave the Note One is let a wicked man live never so long without minding his guilt let him have Ordinances and keep up a form of Worship This is to be adverted to that the wicked man never comes into God's presence to worship or pray to him but his iniquity is marked as if he had made a Proclamation of his sin Ponder that Process Isa 1.15 and the foregoing Verses Bring no more vain oblations saith the Lord incense is an abomination to me the new Moons and Sabbaths and calling of assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting your new Moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when ye make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood Thou that dare come before God without the sense of thy guilt God may look upon thee as proclaiming thy guilt And another word to the wicked shall be this that when ever a day of distress and trouble meets them though all of them will not be honoured with repentance and pardoning mercy they shall find that they have made a very sad bargain Take it in that word Jer. 2.19 Thy own wickedness shall correct thee and thy back-slidings shall reprove thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee But I leave this Note and come to the third Observation that is that when Guilt and Conscience meets sin will be otherways looked upon than men ordinarily do or if ye will have it more distinctly take it thus That the right sense of sin will lead the sensible man to see that in sin that none even the most Godly can stand before God if God deal with them in strict Justice according to the Covenant of Works That is the very marrow of this Verse If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord who should stand No man no not a godly man nor any other can stand And although I may if the Lord will have this purpose to resume when I come to speak of pardon and the application of pardon from the next Verse following yet this being an important truth a verity of great weight ye will bear with me though I dip a little more in it than is my ordinary What I would say on it I shall from the Text deduce to you in six particulars which I hope shall give a hint of what at the first view is more material in the words And 1. Take notice of something supposed here that is God's marking of iniquity If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity where he makes a supposition of God's marking iniquity not that any Question or doubt is to be made of Gods Omniscience that he sees and knows all things and particularly mens sins he hath an exact knowledge of them all as when one marks things most narrowly Neither is there any supposition or question to be made of Gods seeing of sin in the godly so as to be displeased at it Antinomians would be at this they would have no sin seen in them but the scope of this Psalm evinces the contrary God notices the godly mans sin as well as others till he flee to pardoning mercy through a Mediator And David though a godly man acknowledges this Psal 51.4 Against thee thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight But the meaning of this the Lord 's marking of iniquity may be taken from the parallel place Psal 143.2 where it is thus expressed Enter not into Judgment with thy servant That 's the marking of iniquity spoken of or supponed in the Text and in short the importance of the Phrase is Gods marking of sin according to the Covenant of Works and in the rules of strict Justice and without looking on the sinner as in a Surety In this respect Gods marking of iniquity being accompanied with absolute holiness perfect purity and justice he cannot away with it nor with the sinner because of it as Psal 5.4 5. Thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee The foolish shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all workers of iniquity And Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity God thus marking iniquity according to the rules of strict Justice and without looking on the sinner as in a Cautioner cannot away with it and consequently will punish it Job 11.11 He seeth wickedness also will he not consider it In order to punishment for so that Phrase is Expounded Psal 10.14 Thou hast seen it for thou beholdest mischief and spite to requite it with thine hand And it is Jehu's remark of Ahab 2 King 9.26 Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons saith the Lord and I will requite thee in this plat saith the Lord. The marking of iniquity this way is to men dreadful and ye will find in Scripture that it is a dreadful sight of trouble that some gets when it represents God thus as marking sin to pursue and punish it as in that poor widow 1 King 17.18 O thou man of God saith she to the Prophet art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my Son That was a sad sight of trouble and of sin in trouble and Moses in that tragical business in the Wilderness when calamities are falling thick upon that people it is a sad sight of them that he gets when they speak Gods marking of sin Psal 90 8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee our secret sins in the light of thy countenance Thy inflicting of calamity tells us that thou art marking iniquity So much for the first thing supposed here God's marking iniquity 2. Consider here somewhat proposed That if God mark iniquity as a severe Judge according to the strict rules of Justice to punish it and accordingly do punish it the guilty man cannot stand before him This Phrase is equivalent to that Phrase in the parallel place Psal 143.2 If God enter into judgment with men no man living can be justified in his sight And a sinners inability to stand before God is a Phrase frequently made use of to point out the dreadful desert of sin as Psal 5.5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight Ezra 9.15 We are before thee in our trespasses for we cannot stand before thee because of this Psal 1.5 The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous And Psal 76.7 Thou even thou art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry Rev. 6.16 17. The great day of the Lambs wrath is come and who is able to stand And to this also
denys his Power and Justice to exercise that Dominion to do him skaith therefore when the Lord would move men to fear him he gives an account of his Dominion over the Creatures and instanceth it in his bounding of the Sea Jer. 5.22 Fear ye not me saith the Lord will ye not tremble at my presence which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it c. A consideration that a sinner in sinning minds not or he does defy it Thus it is not unfitly determined that though sin be not infinitly ill in its kind for then no distinction should be among sins nor an infinite ill in its beeing for then all sins should be one or equal and a finite Creature cannot act that which is infinite yet safely it may be said that in respect of the person against whom it is committed it hath an infinite ill in it objectively as being against an infinite Majesty in Beeing and Dignity and consequently there is no standing if he mark it But 6ly for further proof of this assertion and for proof that the Saints do so see God as to give them a right sense and sight of the desert of sin I shall add this in the Text that when the Saints are in a right frame they are great Students of the exceeding sinfulness and hainousness of their sin therefore a Saint sees that none can stand before God marking iniquity because when a Saint sees God to be his Party and is in a right frame he passes no sin as insignificant or little but he is an aggravater of his sin and this I gather from the name that the Psalmist gives sin in the Text If thou Lord should mark iniquities he calls them not only many iniquities in the Plural Number of which I shall not now speak but iniquities gross in their nature and if thou Lord saith he should mark sins as such who could stand If I thought that I would not be cut short by the time I would here observe that the name of Iniquity and Transgression is frequently given to sins of a grosser nature not ordinary that are contradistinguished to the ordinary infirmities of the Saints To these sins Deut. 32.5 of which it may be said They are not the spots of his children To these sins of which David says Psal 18.21 23. I have not wickedly departed from my God and I have kept my self from mine iniquity And of these sins which Daniel 9.5 confesseth We have sinned and committed iniquity and done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments But yet I find the Saints even in speaking of their ordinary infirmities not sparing to give them the name of Iniquities and Transgressions as Psal 65.3 Iniquities prevail against me O Lord as for our transgressions thou wilt purge them away where sins get the name of iniquities and iniquities prevailing against Saints and the name of transgressions Psal 40.12 The sins that were innumerable and moe than the hairs of David's head were his ordinary failings yet they are said to compass him about and are called iniquities that had taken hold of him so that he was not able to look up And if it be enquired upon what account the Saints do look on all their sins as iniquities and transgressions I might observe from that Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin That every sin as well as gross sins hath an iniquity a perversness in it that must be pardoned but ye shall particularly take notice of these three 1. That the tender and sensible frame of Saints leads them not to extenuat but to aggravat their sin they dare not minch their sin their tender frame leads them to lay it out in all the aggravating circumstances thereof and it 's a fruit of their tenderness so to do And 2ly A fight of God which is here supponed in the Psalmist is a magnifying Glass wherein a Saint will be made to see and look upon sin even the least sin as most hainous It made Job 42.6 to abhor himself and Isai 6.5 to cry out Wo is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips A sight of God will represent a very ordinary infirmity as very hainous to him that sees God But 3ly and lastly Every sin even the meanest infirmity in a man it proves an iniquity if he think lightly of it or thinks he may pass it lightly without running to the remedy of pardoning mercy the least sin he is guilty of will on that account be an iniquity Now having taken some time to lay open this weighty Point anent the desert of sin before you That which I have said in Explication of it to you might easily be made Practical by you if ye were attentive and applying it to your selves yet for your help herein I shall add somewhat for Use The general Use is to intreat you as ye love the eternal happiness of your souls to learn to say over this Text sensibly with Application to your selves If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord I cannot stand It were a blessed part of a very lawful Liturgy for a man once a day to say this over Lord if thou mark iniquity I cannot stand Let me exhort you to mind this more to make it your daily study to be sensible of the sinfulness of sin and of the dreadful desert of sin that ye be lost folk in your own eyes this is a matter that is but dallied with by the most part and so is seen on it Ye are such strangers to the Law and Sinai that the Gospel and Sion have but little imployment among you it doth not relish with you as it ought There are none that can say But forgivenness is with thee that thou mayest be feared but they that can say If thou Lord should mark iniquity who can stand Pardoning mercy may well get complements it will be sweet news to none else but such as have seen and are sensible of the dreadful desert of sin nay none other have right to the remedy of pardoning mercy And to help both good and bad to be more sensible I would offer a five-fold consideration to drive home the truth of this assertion That if God mark iniquity none can stand 1. Will thou take a look of God thy Party in sinning consider him in his Supream Dominion over thee to impose what duty he pleases and that his will is the Law of Righteousness Consider him in his Omniscience to know how thou observes these duties he enjoyns and comes up to that Law which is thy rule thou may cheat the world and thy self but God thou cannot cheat will thou consider him further in his Holiness and Purity abhorring sin in all and in thee O how loathsome and abominable is the pollution of sin to him a holy Lord God Which
come away he waits to receive you but lay a solid foundation acquaint your selves more with the sinfulness of sin with the desert of sin and with the impossibility of standing before God marking sin in strict Justice that ye may close with Christ in earnest God bless what ye have heard for Christ's sake SERMON VII Psal 130. Vers 3. If thou LORD shouldest mark iniquities O LORD who shall stand 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared YE have heard how the Psalmist in the 1st and 2d Verses being wrestling with plunging perplexities expressed here under the name of deeps gets guilt stopping his audience and success to wrestle with in the 3d and 4th Verses wherein as ye have heard we have 1. A sensible confession concerning the desert of sin Verse 3. Next we have his refuge when he is humbled with the sense of that and it is pardoning mercy forgivenness with God to which he claims in the beginning of the 4th Verse And lastly ye have the end for which God lets out and bestows pardoning mercy on sinners that he may be feared For the first of these in the 3d Verse I am near a close of what I purpose to say upon it for beside the conjunction ye have heard ought to be betwixt the sense of sin and the sense of trouble without which the sense of trouble is but bruitish and beside that ye have heard that guilt will readily meet the people of God in straits when they are made to cry out of the deeps unto God Beside these I say I insisted the last day on that great Point that iniquity marked by God according to the Covenant of Works and the Rules of strict Justice is that which no man is able to stand under and ye may remember how at great length I both Explained and continued this truth by several Deductions from the Text which I shall not now repeat I shut up the Point with a general word of Exhortation that sinners that look for everlasting happiness would learn to say over this Text with application to themselves If thou Lord should mark iniquity I cannot stand and to do it sensibly for the fixing of which and bearing of it home ye may remember what Considerations were laid before you as Considerations concerning God your Party Considerations concerning the number of your sins and guilt It 's called iniquities in the Plural Number Considerations concerning the nature and aggravations of your guilt upon which account also it 's called Iniquities Considerations also of the just threatnings of God and of the infallible execution of them upon the sinner or his Surety Considerations concerning the sufferings of Jesus Christ a Glass wherein the desert of sin must be seen Now before I come to the next Verse I shall mark three or four particular inferences And 1. Ye have here a clear discovery that there is no Justification by Works that a man by his Works cannot think of standing before God Justification by Works is that only which we know by the Light of Nature and that first Covenant made with mankind in Adam and therefore every man hath a natural propension to do his own turn that way The Jews being ignorant of the righteousness of God and going about to establish their own righteousness did not submit unto the righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 Ignorant persons think to please God with their Repentance and the mending of their faults and doing better Papists plead with an open mouth for Justification by Works some Mungrel Protestants would mumble out somewhat that way but ye are to consider that the Covenant requires that which is now impossible even perfect holiness and that Covenant being once broken is everlastingly broken and for any Evangelical Paction the Text leads us to there is no Medium betwixt God's marking iniqiuity and forgiving iniquity a man must either stand to his hazard of God's sitting down on his Tribunal and marking his iniquities to punish them or he must lay aside all thoughts of complementing with God in this matter or of patching up a business of Grace and good Works in his Justification before him they that study the first part of the Text well that if God mark iniquity none can stand they will easily be put from that conceit of Justification by Works and plead forgivenness And therefore 2 I would have sinners considering that there is no standing under guilt except Christ be fled unto for refuge if ye have not taken Sanctuary in Atheism that ye look upon all that is said in this Preached Gospel as cunningly devised Fables will you but look to it and think with your selves what will you do in the day of Visitation and in the day of Wrath when the just threatnings of God shall be execute against sin and all sinners that are out of Christ when many will be ready to cry out for Hills and Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. O! consider it if ye can be perswaded to be in earnest about your souls what ye think to do in the day of Gods wrath for sin In that day wherein the sensless sinners that made a sport of sin will be made to sing that doleful Note Lam. 5.16 The Crown is fallen from our head wo unto us for we have sinned Then ye will find it desperate folly and madness that ye went on in sin and fled not in time from the wrath to come Ponder that Parable Luk. 16.24 which is not to be stretched beyond the principal scope as if there were charity for others in Hell and ye will find what a dreadful Bargain sin is when a drop of cold Water to cool the Tongue would be an ease to the Drunkard in torment and he cannot have it when his warning of others is a witness against himself that he was a desperat man that run such a hazard that is now past remedy Think I say on these things if ye look not on this Word as Fables But 3. If none can stand before God's marking iniquity then the sense of guilt should make us justifie God in all the troubles that come upon his People when we consider that the Lord may for sin not only as in a solemn day call our terrors round about as the word is Lament 2.22 But may everlastingly condemn us in hell how dare a sinner murmur under lesser calamities or troubles The language of a man sensible of the desert of sin is that which ye have Ezra 9 13. Thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve and that Lam. 3.22 It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not A man that is sensible of sin and of the desert of it ye will not find him a murmurer against any cross inflicted but a wonderer at the moderation that shines in the sharpest tryals Therefore as I said upon the first head the sense
using sinful shifts to be out of it fell in these gross and scandalous sins of Adultery and Murther and he that fell in these sins after repentance for other escapes why might he not after repentance have fallen in these same sins over again if the grace of God had not prevented it for though Repentance for particular faults leave behind it an impression of the bitterness of these sins and make them to be loathed which will make it more improbable they will be relapsed in yet it is not impossible otherwise true Repentance being for all sin it should prevent relapsing in any Sin A 2d word which I shall say for clearing the case shall be this that as true repentance is not to be measured by relapsing in sin so it is contrary to Scripture to determine that relapsing in sin after Repentance is unpardonable It 's not the sin against the holy Ghost and therefore pardonable Isai 55.7 Our God will multiply to pardon Even as often as the sinner repents and comes agaâ—n to him to seek pardon were it till seventy times seven times as he bids us forgive others when they sin against us Matth. 18 22. and Hos 14.4 He hath promised to heal backslidings Now these are after Repentance when his people fall back in the same sins out of which they have been recovered by Repentance and for instances of this ye shall only ponder these two One is 2 Chron 18. Jehosaphat his joyning in affinity with Achab for which he is reproved by a Prophet Ch. 19.2 And his Repentance is apparent in the reformation he fell about And yet Chap. 20.35 He falls in the same Sin in joyning with Achaziah to make Ships to go to Tarshish in Eziongeber which were broken for which he was also reproved repented and was pardoned Another instance is that of Jonah A man that fled from the presence of the Lord when sent to Niniveh and is brought to Repentance for that sin in the belly of the Fish Chap. 2 Yet he falls in the same sin Ch. 4.2 Not in fleeing away from God but in repining at his mercy and in his opinion declaring it was needless to go to Niniveh and justifying his former fleeing away These are two clear instances of relapsing in sin after Repentance and Pardon for it This I would not have abused I may have occasion hereafter to speak to what prejudice relapsing in sin brings with it as that it will bring former pardon in question and under debate and though a penitent may be pardoned yet it 's dangerous to bourd with sin after God hath spoken peace to return to folly and to proclaim that all the bitterness folk have found in sin is nothing only I cannot conceal the truth of God from any that may be under a Temptation that having repented such and such sins they have relapsed in them and therefore as they question their Repentance so they think they are to expect no more pardon ye have it cleared from Scripture that these are but Temptations That God would multiply to pardon upon repentance Isai 55.7 And though folks have played the harlot with many lovers and among hands have rewed their wandrings they may return again unto the Lord Jer. 3.1 Now I have done with the first general head of this Doctrine concerning the remission of sin To wit the consideration of that which is pardoned I proceed to the second general Question and that is anent the Author of pardon or who it is that pardons iniquity even God There is forgivenness with thee says the Text That is as I exponed in the entry it 's thy property in opposition to all pretenders it 's thy Property and Prerogative when both the Law and the Conscience have condemned to pardon and forgive Sin This is a truth that was held fast in the Jewish Church when it was most corrupt Therefore Mark 2.7 When Christ pardoned the man sick of the Palsie The Scribes say Why doth this man speak blasphemies Who can forgive sins but God only And it 's one of God's Titles Exod. 34.6 7. That he forgives iniquity transgression and sin and he taketh it to himself as his Prerogative Isai 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions and Matth 9.2 c. Christ in curing the Palsie man paralels the pardoning of his sins with the healing of his disease as proofs of his Deity shewing that both were alike difficult and proved him to be God I must here clear a seeming difficulty that is That pardon of sin is attribut to others both Ministers and private persons It 's attribute to Ministers as John 20. 23. As the Father hath sent me even so send I you receive ye the holy Ghost whosoever sins ye retain they are retained and whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them But certainly it 's God only can loose a man from everlasting wrath due to him for sin and it 's the Word of God only can declare whom God will pardon Only as Ambrose sayes well Ministers are Judges in the matter of pardon but without any absolute Authority in that matter And for clearing of this ye would distinguish betwixt the external Court in the Church and the internal Court in the Conscience In the external Court in the Church Ministers have a power from Christ to remit scandals to scandalous persons upon their serious profession of Repentance to take in a man that hath fallen in a scandalous sin upon the profession of Repentance and to remit the scandal In the â—nternal Court of the Conscience Ministers have a Ministerial power upon scandalous sinners their repentance Ministerially to declare they are pardoned upon their Repentance they walking according to their Commission Whose sins they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever they shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Mat. 16.19 and 18.18 But Ministers ex pleniâ—udine potestatis as the Pope speaks have not an absolute and illimited power to pardon whom and when and as they will They are but Delegats and must walk according to their Commission in pardoning of sin or rather pronouncing pardon of sin neither have they power of pardong sin upon conditions of their own devising such as Pennances Pilgrimages visiting of Rome in the year of Jubile c. where to mark it in the by the Papists method in this is preposterous They first pardon and then enjoyn pennance and such things as Christ hath not prescribed Neither must they take Money and dispence with Repentance a fruit of Faith upon which pardon is promised This is but a cheat to hold their Kiâ—chen reeking Caesar Borgia the Son of Alexander the sixth when he had lost an hundred thousand Crowns at the Dice he passed it in a sport saying Those are the sins of the Germans that is they had been purchased for the remission of their sins Again it is attributed to privat persons and for privat Persons their pardoning
of sin the Scriptures speaks clearly to it as in that patern of prayer Mat. 6.12 Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors so Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you and Col. 3.13 Forgive one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye But private persons forgiving of sins is the forgiving the injuries done by mens sinning to them rules anent which I may meet with ere I have done with this Theme But though a privat person is bound to forgive injuries done against them It is still with a reservation of God's interest and the sinner must count to God notwithstanding from all which to resume it 's clear whatsoever hand man hath in forgiving sin God is the principal Creditor whose Law is violat whose Majesty is offended whose Justice must be satisfied and therefore it 's his property and prerogative to forgive sins and louse from the obligation to wrath that sin deserves In making use of this I shall not digress to deal with Papists who in receiving pardons from their Priests use not a judgment of discretion whether the persons pardoning them be acting according to their Instructions and according to their own principles for if they did they might be easily nonplus'd They put the power to give indulgences intirely in their Pope and assert that their Priests are Commission at by him to dispense them but they can only have a humane Faith concerning that Commission For beside that the Popes Power to do so is upon many accounts questionable They ask how we know the Scripture to be the word of God we might ask them how they know the Pope who must give these Indulgences to be the Pope That he is a Christian and hath gotten Baptism For according to their own principles the Pope is no Pope except he be Baptized Now they cannot certainly know their Pope is baptized that being one of their grounds that Baptism is not administred except the intention of the Priest go along Now they cannot be certain that the Priest who baptized the present Pope hath had an intention to baptize him while he went about that Action therefore they cannot be certain of any pardon this present Pope shall give them nor can they have any thing but a humane Faith as to the pardon of their sins But the Judgment of God is visible upon them for not receiving the truth inlove God hath been provocked to give them up to strong delusions to believe lies and shall I add further It 's a plague and a snare to prophane men that walk in the imagination of their own heart adding drunkenness to thirst that they have this woful shift get them a a Priest and let them have an Absolution and then they are as ready to take in a new swack of sin as ever they were this is the woful cheat that follows theit way if folk walked like a principle of Conscience they were to be pitied but when profligat men run that way they drive their carnal interest or have a sleeping God to their Conscience under all their abominations But passing this and leaving particular Inferences till the afternoon I shall give you these three words 1. If God be the only pardoner of sin they make a very blind block that pardon themselves for all their faults that is who can commit all sorts of iniquities and cast them over their thumb when they have done Thou that does so shall know that God only is the pardoner of sin ere long and that thy pardon will not stand 2. It leaves a sad check on all them that satisfie themselves with the plaudites of the world Why they are good folk cryed up and commended of their neighbours if they have done wrong they will confess it make reparation or restitution but what is all that if God pardon thee not though thou should get never so many to hugg thee or assoil thee so long as God the only pardoner of iniquity doth not assoil thee And 3. It leaves a sad check also on them that care not to displease God to please Men and O! what snares to men are these that give themselves to be pleasures of men with displeasing of God They make no bonds of any sins if they can please them they are obliged to But thou that dost so will find thou hast made an ill bargain when the reckoning comes for they cannot forgive thy sin when thou stands before God neither will thou get men for thy Intercessors God only is the pardoner of iniquity and therefore they make a very foolish bargain who to please any stand not to displease God SERMON X. Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee IN handling of this great Point the Remission of sins which is in effect the great Article of the New Covenant Jer. 31.34 I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more After that I had spoken in the first place to that which is pardoned or pardonable sin I entered in the morning to speak to the Author of pardon that forgivenness is with God whatever hand Ministers or privat persons may have in pardoning the one in carrying the word of Reconciliation and pardon the other in forgiving sins so far as they are injuries done to themselves yet God is still the principal Creditor and pardon from him is still to be looked after from which as I told you not only Papists who ly down and sleep on the pillow of mens pardon without considering whether they act according to their Commission come to be reproved but these Self-absolvers and these who rest on the applause of others and these who to please men stand not to displease God are found to be culpable Now before I leave this Head I would draw somewhat from it for incouragement of these who are in earnest about the pardon of sin and here that there is forgivenness with God it should and will affect sensible sinners as a wonder he will not only be a matchless God to them but upon the account that he passes by iniquity and pardons transgression Mic. 7.18 But it will be a wonder to them that there should be a pardon for iniquity that pardoning mercy should be with him whose holy justice is so great who is of purer eyes than that he can behold iniquity who hath no pleasure in wickedness and who hateth all the workers of iniquity that such a holy and just God should pardon sin that his Holiness and Justice should combine so sweetly with mercy to the sinner is a wonder of wonders yea further this may heighten the wonder that pardoning mercy gives access to them who are secluded by the Covenant of works that when as it is verse 3. If he should mark iniquity none could stand yet as verse 4. there should be forgivenness with him That as it is deduced Rom. 3.20 22. When by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin now
the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and by the Prophets even the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe without difference That there should be a righteousness by the faith of Christ closing with him for pardon O! what a wonder is that and how good news should that be to sinners how should it quicken up and revive any that are ready to sink under the burden of the sense of sin That when they look upon a holy and just God that hates sin with a perfect hatred they may also look upon him as one who will pardon That when they look to the Law and Covenant of Works their expectations are to be limited thereby because there is a Righteousness without the Law manifested to be had by Faith in Christ 3. But because sensible souls may readily think how can this be And may be afraid to lean their weight on a Pardon they have so much Guilt and the Conscience iâ— alarmed with it and pardoning mercy is an Act of free Grace whereupon they know not that they may venture Therefore to enforce this that God is a pardoner of Iniquity I shall not anticipat what may come to be spoken to this afterwards but the sensible Sinner would consider 1. That the pardon of Sin is an Act of Royal Prerogative in free Grace It 's an act of Princes Royal Prerogative to pardon Criminals in many cases and shall we deny that to God which we give to Creatures Seing He is above all Law who can hinder him to have Mercy on whom he will have mercy to do with his own what he will and pardon whom he will Salvation belongs to him as his Prerogative Royal. 2. Sensible sinners would consider that satisfaction is payed to Justice for their Sins though he freely pardons which will come in afterward only here such would remember that thoughts of the Holiness and Justice of God needs not afright the sensible Sinner why Justice is fully satisfied That fire that brunt continually on the Altar and was not quenched by these Sacrifices under the Law is now quenched the burning fire of the Justice of God is now satisfied and hence God in pardoning sins is not only Merciful but Just therefore Rom. 3.26 Upon Christ the Redeemer his being set forth as the propitiation through Faith in his Blood it follows to declare his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus without reflection upon his Justice and hence the Apostle 1 Joh. 1.9 says If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness not only upon the account of his fidelity that he will keep his promise but upon the account of the Paction past betwixt him and the Mediator and upon the account of the Satisfaction and Price payed by the Mediator upon that account he is faithful and just to pardon sin And hence 3ly Things being thus when sensible sinners come to Christ or to God through him for pardon and yet are filled with doubts and fears they would conclude that there hesitation results not on the uncertainty of their pardon for the holy and just God will not break bargain with his Son but partly it results on our ignorance of that Righteousness which is by the Covenant of Grace we know no Righteousness by the Covenant of Works but that which is inherent and the Ignorance of that Righteousness which is by the Covenant of Grace is the groâ—â—â—d of our hesitation and of many doubts and fears partly it results on a proud competition whether thy abounding sin or his superabounding grace should carry it Rom. 5.20 Where sin abounded grace did much more super-abound and therefore thou that comes to Christ for pardon and yet will not settle upon it thou would say upon the matter that thy abounding sin should carry it not his Super-abounding Grace So much for the second head proposed to be spoken to concerning the Author of Pardon The 3d. Thing I proposed to be spoken to was anent the nature of the pardon of Sin what this pardon of Sin Imports or Is And this when I have spoken to it at this time will give the rise to several other Questions which will come in in their own place and may be useful for you I shall not detain you upon the signification and importance of these Words and Phrases that expresses pardon in Scripture that may come in afterward that word Mat. 6.12 Forgive us our Debts signifies the dismissing of one accused and a loosing of one bound for Debt both concurr here as sins are a Debt they are forgiven and they are a Bond tying the Conscience to answer at the Tribunal of God they are remitted and loosed and considering sins as accusations as they that are in a Court accused a pardon remitts assollzies them So the pardoned man may say as Rom 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it is God that Justifies c. The word rendered pardon or forgivenness Col. 2.13 Having forgiven you all trespasses hints at the freedom of the grace of God in pardoning of Sin It 's the Publicans Word Luk. 18.13 God God be merciful to me a sinner the word in the Original expresses pardon with an eye to the propitiation Pauls word also I obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1.13 which also is a word made use of in the new Testament or Covenant Heb 8.12 Intimats the yearning of the bowels of God relative to the miserable state of the pardoned sinner expressed in pardoning That word Psal 32.2 Rom. 4.8 not imputing of sin or iniquitie is borrowed from Merchants that in casting up accompts pass some Debts And that word Psal 32.1 Of covering sin imports that as sin is a loathsome thing so the pardoning of Sin takes sin out of the sight of Gods vindictive Justice Now all these expressions put together might give some general hint what pardon of sin is when God out of his free grace out of the yearning bowels of his mercy compassion accepts of the propitiation made by Jesus Christ and upon that accompt remitts the sinners obligation to wrath by pardoning sin dismisses him from the accusation laid against him looses him of his Bonds puts his Debts out of his Books and covereth the loathsomness of his Sin But to follow out this a little more distinctly what this pardon is I shall take up both negatively what it is not and then positively what it is For an error here is an error in the first digestion or concoction that will not be gotten well helped in the second For the first of these negatively what the pardon of sin is not and for clearing of this
what I would say upon it ye shall take in these five 1. Pardon with God is not to be confounded with our forgetting Sin slighting of Sin or taking a pardon of it to our selves Gods pardon of Sin is one thing and mens taking of pardon to themselves is another There are many folk that think God sees no Sin in them and why they have no leisure to look after sin in themselves they think God hath forgotten Sin Why They themselves through length of time or other diversions have forgotten them This is all that many have for that great Article of their Creed I believe the Remission of Sins But do not cheat your selves as I cleared before to you from Josephs Brethren Gen. 42.21 Sin long ago committed even upwards of twenty or two twenty years if it be not pardoned will be as gâ—een when the Conscience is wakened as the first hour it was committed Therefore look to it ye who forgive your sins by forgetting them and take not your forgetting of Sin for God'â— pardoning of it 2 In taking up the nature of pardon we must not look so lightly on Sin as if there were no more ado but we to Sin and God to forgive it 's indeed pardoned as to any satisfaction to Justice that 's exacted of thee but Justice behoved to be satisfied that God might pardon freely There is a Question agitat amongst Orthodox Divines whether God out of his Royal Prerogative might not pardon Sin without a satisfaction a Question that they determine variously either as they grapple with Arminians who say the satisfaction of Christ was only to loose God from any Bond lying upon him resulting upon a necessity to punish Sin or as they grapple with the Socinians who deny there was any satisfaction for Sin payed by Christ But were I worthy to umpire in such a thing there is so much hazard in Debates started anent the Nature of God when it is inquired what he might do and what he may not do That I would judge it safer to forbear it This is sufficient for us that in the case in hand he hath declared what he will do or not do particularly that he will not pardon sin without a Satisfaction So Rom. 3.24 Being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation throgh Faith in his Blood he would have his Righteousness declared for the remission of Sins And that as it is Heb. 9.22 Without shedding of blood there is no remission Thus the pardon of our Sin cost Christ dear and yet it runs freely to us because God freely laid the burden on Christ Christ freely undertook it God freely accepts of his satisfaction in our Name so we come to be freely pardoned but remember sin is with God no triffle no light thing that he would easily pass no he would have his Justice satisfied that he might freely pardon and the consideration of this will not only commâ—nd the love of God and the love of Christ in finding out such a way whereby pardon might come to sinners without prejudice of Justice But further the freedom of pardon will not hide from the sinner that is pardoned the odiousness of sin but make it so much the more loathsome and vile when he sees his pardon sealed with the Blood of Christ and all his exinanition that went before O! the pardoned sinner looking to Christ crucified and considering that he hath pierced him by his Sins it will make him mourn most bitterly as one that mourneth for his only Son and like that of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon Zech. 12.10 So when thou looks upon pardoning mercy thou takes not a right look of it except thou look also on the satisfaction made to Justice by Christ that a free pardon might come out to thee 3. In taking up the nature of Pardon beware that ye do not confound the pardon of Sin with Gods forbearing or not inflicting punishment on sinners if ye confound these ye will imbrace a shaddow get a lie in your right hand in stead of pardon Ye know what the Apostle says Rom. 2.4 There is a riches of Gods goodness and forbearance and long-suffering How long did God forbear the old World for an hundred and twenty years Gen. 6.3 How suffered he his peoples manners for about 40 years Now this forbearance of God as it is often a temptation to godly men so it is a snare to the wicked or they make it a snare to themselves It 's often a temptation to godly men as Psal 73.1 O! what a temptation was it to the Psalmist his feet were almost gone his steps were well near slipt he was envious at the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked how they had no bonds in their death their strength was firm they were not in trâ—â—ble as other men c. O! he thought if he had been on the Throne he would have made these Children know themselves sooner nor God did and Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore looks thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he There ye see the forbearance of God is a temptation to the godly Wicked men also make a snare of it to themselves O! the wicked Doctrines that wicked men build on Gods forbearance One is wrong thoughts of God Psal 50.21 These things thou hast done and I kept silence thou thought that I was altogether such a one as thy self There is a Doctrine that wicked men found on Gods forbearance they think God is like themselves another is that thereby they are emboldened to go on in sin Eccles. 8.11 Because Sentence against an evil work is not execute speedily therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil so Rom. 24. They harden themselves by God's forbearance The riches of Gods goodness forbearance and long-suffering should lead them to repentance but they abuse it to produce hardness and impenitent hearts further they bless themselves in prospering in wickedness Hos 12 7. Ephraim is a Canaanite a Merchant the ballance of deceit are in his hand he loveth to oppress and he saith yet I am become rich I have found me out substance Let the Bible say of me what it will the Sun of prosperity shines on my tabernacle as well as on your tenderest folk I am as far from any mischance as the most upright in their coversation But still remember forbearance in God is no pardon that which is frested is not forgiven It 's no sign of Divine approbation when thou art forborn and prospers in a sinful way to these ends ye shall remember these 3. Scriptures and they will help you not to confound forbearance with pardon One is Eccles 12. Though a sinner do evil
pardon of sin so long as he wallows in new provocations without repentance be his pardon revockable or not revockable it shall be all a matter to him if he study not tenderness in his walk and any man that is going on in new provocations doth bless himself in former pardon I shall not say that he is blessing himself with a lie but sure he is blessing himself with a false comfort in his right hand 4. This must be granted that as the School-men say That sins that are pardoned do recur upon the commission of new guilt not formally considered as in themselves but in so far as these former sins that were pardoned and virtually contained in the ungratitude that is in that new guilt that is though formerly pardoned sins return not upon the Delinquent yet there is so much of ingratitude to God in new contracted guilt that in some respect the sinner may be accounted no less guilty as if all the former guilt were contained in that one provocation But when these four must be granted yet in the 5th place it is still to be held That a pardon past by God is a sentence irrevocable it is a sentence not made void nor cancelled by any new guilt It is one of these Gifts of God that are given without Repentance and this is clearly intimat to you in these Scriptures that I gave you before while I shew you how satisfactorily the Scripture speaks of the pardon of sin as it is looked on by God how it is called a blotting out of sin a covering of it a putting of it out of his sight a casting of it behind his back and in the depth of the sea and so as though it be sought for it shall not be found and how speaking of pardoned iniquities he says He so blots them out that he does not remember them and he will forgive their iniquities so as that he will remember their sin no more These Scriptures evince that pardon once past is irrevocable As for these Scriptures the Cannonists and Lutherians urge as Ezek. 18.24 26. That when a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and doth according to all the abominations of a wicked man all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned he shall die in his sin That would seem to make all void but the answer is easie That either the Text speaks of a Temporary Righteousness of a man that was never pardoned and from which he may totally and finally fall away Or if it speak of true righteousness in the pardoned man it holds only by way of supposition That if the righteous man should fall away his righteousness should not be mentioned and this supposition says nothing to the possibility of the thing but is a blessed mean to prevent his falling away There is another word Mat. 18.32 spoken of the wicked servant that had his debt forgiven him and had no compassion on his fellow servant and was delivered to the tormentors that the Antients trouble themselves much about and speak of a Baptismal Remission that is gotten in Baptism but that Text is a Parable and a Parable is not to be strained beyond its scope Parables are like pictures wherein are many flourishes which are not Lineaments of the thing Portrayed The scope of that Parable is to prove that Christ will pardon the sins of none but such as forgive others and such as will not forgive others though they seem pardoned folk they will find their sins retained and that this is the scope is clear from Christ's Explaining it and no more From this that I have been speaking about the irrevocableness of pardon there is some Uses that I intended to have spoken to which I shall name and close one is That as they who have been pardoned and can reflect how much they have been humbled for particular sins before they attained to pardon they would walk tenderly for fear of wakening old sores and that guilt that God hath covered with the vail of Pardon and as they would not have these laid in their Dish and be made to look upon these unripe Graves of Abominations And another word that I intended to have spoken to is That a sensible Child of God though he fall in new guilt is not obliged to look upon former guilt which hath been pardoned as un-pardoned though he ought to be humbled for and repent the present guilt if Sathan and the Conscience and God in his holy Providence call to remembrance sins pardoned and waken them about his ears the sensible man in that case should not question former pardon though readily there is some unpardoned sin where these bygone compts are back-speared that should be sought out and mourned for yet all are not to be looked on as unpardoned but as beacons and warnings to make Conscience of repentance for unpardoned sin that we may get that breach semented and that wound bound up again God bless what ye have heard SERMON XIV Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Did in the forenoon put a close to the third and main Head of Doctrine that is contained and included in this high and great Priviledge of the Remission of sins and that is to clear what this forgiveness is and wherein the nature of it consists and what ye heard upon it in the morning amounts to this That Pardon in the Court of Heaven is a distinct thing from the intimation of that pardon in the Court of Conscience and therefore they that are running to the Fountain and laying hold upon the Promise of Pardon they must not conceive that they are not pardoned because they cannot feel by any sensible manifestation that they are pardoned And the last thing I was upon was That however pardon past by God is irrevocable it is a Deed and Sentence that is never revocked once be pardoned of sin and it is eternally pardoned And consequently the Child of God that hath been at Christ the Remedy with any sin he must not conceive that every sin that troubles him especially upon his falling in new guilt is unpardoned yet they that know how much they are in Free Graces Debt for Pardon would walk tenderly that they open not these unripe Graves upon themselves which will be much bitterness to them especially when new guilt is made a prospect where through to read old guilt though it be pardoned I proceed to the 4. Head to be spoken to in this purpose and that is the time when God pardoneth sin in his people The Text hath a ground for this also for the Psalmist finds it a fit time to strick in for pardoning Mercy and by Faith to close with this There is forgiveness with thee When he is abased with the sight and sense of sin when he finds sin such a Debt such a Burden That if God mark iniquity none can stand he finds it then time I say to strick in
when he hath committed a crime and consequently God pardons no sins till they be committed to justified persons A 2d Argument that inclines me to think that all sins are not pardoned in Justification is this that there is no pardon of sin but upon confession of sin 1 Joh. 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness There is no pardon of sin promised but upon repentance Act. 5.31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give first repentance to Israel and then remission of sins Where God gives remission he gives first repentance Now confession of sin and repentance for a sin hath no place where sin hath not a beeing confession of sin and repentance for sin presupposes the beeing of sin and the sinners reflecting on it and repenting of it And a 3d Consideration or Argument is when sins are actually pardoned a man may rejoyce exult and boast in God upon the account of pardon O how may the pardoned sinner exceedingly rejoyce in God But who dare say that a justified person while recking in his sin to speak so before he hath confessed it and repented for it can or dare rejoice in God Shall he while he is wallowing in his abominations rejoyce in God That were abominable Doctrine and yet he might in that case rejoyce if these Abominations were pardoned before they were committed nay more it would confound all distinction to be put betwixt unrepented and repented guilt if a mans sins were pardoned before they were committed his pardon would be as sure as if he had repented by their Doctrine Therefore I conclude that sin cannot be actually pardoned before it be committed repented and Christ fled unto for pardon And this hath a practical Use which I but touch upon because the great Practical Use of all is but coming That justified folk that are at peace with God as to the state of their persons would not think light of their dayly slips into faults thou art lying under thy daily failings as a debt till thou go to the open Fountain and wash It is true as I said before no sin thou falls in shall eventually condemn thee but thou art a guilty person so long as thou lies under unrepented guilt Therefore look to it and let your Faith of Pardon be seen in your tenderness under new guilt O that the Gospel would take you off the Laws hand and press you to this tenderness that love to Christ and the love of Christ might incite you in your actings and when ye fall in sin to run to the Remedy in the exercise of Faith and Repentance And to encourage you to this another word results on this That ye may help your selves to repent for particular failings ye would hold a fast grip of your reconciled state remember what I said in the morning that new guilt makes not void former pardon so I say now that new guilt makes not void your reconciled state ye may go to God not as an Enemy to his Prince but as a faulty Child to his Father for pardon access ye have to the open Fountain ye coming humbled for sin and making use of Christ for renewed pardon and if ye do not improve this Priviledge it will be a terrible ingredient in your Dittay when God comes to deal with your Conscience The 3d. Question is How can any pardon be said to be past within time seing Act. 3.19 20. It is said our sins are to be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord There will then be a blotting out and Discharge of sins once for all a Discharge openly declared accompanied with all the consequences of the Discharge Sins pardoned here will then be openly declared to be pardoned I find not only among the Schoolmen but our reformed Divines a Question agitat Whether our sins will be ripped up in the Day of Judgment A question needlesly stated but what will not curiosity meddle with but whether sins will be then ripped up to let it be seen what sort of persons he glorifies or covered certainly their sins shall not then put them to shame who are pardoned though they should everlastingly remember them They shall also sing in the remembrance of pardon and though they should be ripped up yet not to their shame and confusion The consolation of pardoning Mercy and all the effects of it and the love of Christ will make them look upon their miseries as upon the occasion of their being made everlastingly happy with him but the time being ended I shall go no further God bless his Word to you for Christs sake SERMON XV. Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Am now drawing towards a close of this great Point concerning the Remission of Sins having now spoken at some length to that which is more Doctrinal in it this day I purpose the Lord assisting to fall upon that which is more particular I have spoken to you 1. Of the thing pardoned Sin and iniquity 2. Of the Author of pardon God with whom forgiveness is 3. Of the nature of pardon and what is imported in this forgiveness in the Text and the last day in the afternoon I came in the fourth place to speak of the time when pardon of sin is conferred where ye heard that neither are the sins of the Elect actually pardoned from eternity nor when Christ paid satisfaction to Justice for them on the Cross as Antinomians assert neither are the Elect Justified and pardoned of all their sins past present and to come at Justification as some Orthodox Divines incline to think but their future sins or sins to come after Justification are not actually pardoned till they be committed and repented of and Christ fled into and as the Fountain to wash away their sins made use of I was cut short by time from speaking to another question That is How pardon of sin is conferred in Time since the Apostle Acts 3.19 20 Tells of a blotting out of sins to penitents when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord when Christ shall come again to Judgment I shall but touch a little on this and shall go on It is certain that the blotting out of the sins of the justified at the Day of Judgment does not contradict their being pardoned now nay more There is no sin blotted out at that great Day or openly declared to be blotted out and pardoned and the Elect assoiled from it but these which are pardoned in this life Only there are four things to be noticed in the blotting out of sin then that heightens the advantage of the blotting out of sin here 1. If we insist on the words of the Text there is there at that Great Day a blotting out of sin not only in the guilt of it but in the filth and
pollution of it Here as ye heard however Sanctification be taking sin to task in every pardoned man yet the tender man sensible of sin cannot but be affected when he finds sin in the pollution of it to remain though it be not reigning though it hath not the Throne but then with the publick Declaration of pardon there shall no blot of sin no spot no wrinkle nor any such thing remain Ephes 5.27 There shall no scar be left of these wounds that sin hath made which the pardoned sinner may bear about with him while he is here 2. While the godly are here though they get frequently pardon of sin yet they have still need of new pardon they must be pardoned over and over again and as often as they get their daily bread they must as often seek the pardon of their sins daily but the blotting out of sin in that Day shall be a Declaration of the Pardon of sin so fully that there shall be no need of a reiterat pardon they will then sin no more nor be in hazard of sinning and will have no more need of the open Fountain whereunto the pardoned man while he is here must continually resort with his foul feet to get them washen 3. The pardon of sin here is not only Transacted betwixt God and the sinner without the knowledge of the World but it is oft-times keeped up from the sense and feeling of the man that has gotten it A man that is pardoned may be keeped in fears as if he were not pardoned a man that hath his Bonds taken off him may be as if he were still bound But in that Day the Pardon of Sin shall be publickly declared in the audience of Men Angels and Devils and the pardoned mans pardon will be proclaimed and perfected in the sense and feeling of the pardoned man the Court of Heaven and the Court of the Conscience will say both one thing and there will not be a demur in the one about what is past in the other as now often there is And 4. Though sin be pardoned yet the effects and consequences of pardon are not at all times let out on the pardoned man here he may be not only keeped under Desertion but he may be under Chastisement on several accounts as I cleared to you before though he may say as the Apostle John speaks 1 Joh. 3.2 Now we are the sons of God but he must add it doth not yet appear what we shall be but in that day pardon shall not only be proclaimed and perfected in the Conscience of the man but all the effects and consequences of pardon shall flow out like a River upon him Then sighing and sorrow shall flee away and everlasting joy shall be upon his head and in his heart and these stripes that here were necessary for the back of fools shall cease and his pardon shall be written in that blessed Sentence Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Thus ye see what is imported in that blotting out of sin at the great day and from it I shall shortly recommend to you two words in order to practice one is That this may be a strong motive to you to make pardon of sin here sure when ye consider that it hath such blessed effects hereafter the rich fruit and incomes of thy fleeing to Christ for pardon here may seem to thee as we use to speak to be far from the Sheaff but there is a day coming when the advantage of it will be made known to Men Angels and Devils their Conviction what it is to have pardon for sin Thou that gets a pardon here may be looked upon as an uncouth unknown body but thou carries about with thee a Treasure that in that day will be found a Treasure indeed And therefore 2ly Ye that are fled unto Christ for pardon and have gotten pardon believed and now and then ye are feeling some of the fruits of pardon it should quicken you to long for that day wherein the effects fruits and consequences of that pardon will be fully displayed and let out on pardoned sinners It it no wonder that a pardoned man long to be home when he considers what a mercy pardon of sin will be found to be when it is laid in broad-band in that day But now I come to the 5. general Head I proposed to be spoken to and that is To clear up to you the right method of coming to close with pardon and for attaining of pardon I have insisted to tell you what a rich priviledge pardon of sin is Now any that are not stupid and senseless will say how shall I be sure of pardon that I have closed with it and win at it and that I am not deluded in so great a concern I have occasionally hinted at the chief matter of these things that I am to say upon this in the preceeding purpose I shall now gather them together and lay them in view before you that ye may order your steps aright in closing with pardoning mercy If I should speak to this in general I find many things mentioned in Scripture to the obtaining of pardon I find Faith for we are said to be justified by faith and consequently we are pardoned by Faith Rom. 3.25 God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins 2. I find Repentance often mentioned in this matter Mark 1.4 John preached the baptism of Repentance for the remission of sins The Apostles Doctrine was to preach repentance and remission of sins in his name Luke 24.47 Peters Doctrine is Repent ye and be converted that your sins may be blotted out Act. 3.19 The counsel given to Simon Magus is Repent of thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thoughts of thine heart may be forgiven thee Act. 8.22 3. I find also Confession of sin mentioned in order to pardon of sin Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And 1 Joh. 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 4. I find confessing and forsaking of sin mentioned in order to pardon Prov. 28.13 He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall find mercy 5. I find prayer also required in order to pardon of sin Mat. 6.12 Christ bids the Disciples pray forgive us our debts c. But that I may speak to this purpose somewhat more distinctly and so in effect take a view of this Text and take in the 3d. thing I proposed to be spoken to in it I find that as the Apostle sums up Christianity Philip. 3.3 as running upon three things that like Letters on a Signet are drawn backward that ye may stamp them forward in your practice 1. That a man have no confidence in the flesh 2. That from that he be led to rejoyce
battel but such as we are driven in by the power of Temptation Likewise that there must be an exact and distinct account taken daily of our failings and of these evils the pardon whereof we expect and seek And 3. When upon Examination we have found out our Debt there must be a deep sense of the sinfulness and desert of these provocations such as the Psalmist had here when he crys out pathetically If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity O Lord who shall stand I left at a fourth Direction and that was That we should study Repentance for these sins the pardon whereof we expect and seek and as the former Direction tells that the sense that these in the way of pardon have of sin must not ly floating in the brain so this will press further That the sense of sin we have must not be a crushing and killing sense but a sense that resolves in a kindly Repentance for sin a sense and hatred of sin and a grief and sorrow for it in which posture they that expect pardon must resolve to come to God This is so clear in the Scriptures that I adduced in the morning and it is so clear an Evidence of the poured out-Spirit Zech. 12.10 Which is a mourning spirit in them that partake of it that I shall not insist further to prove it neither shall I digress to make a common place of Repentance here I shall only desire you to take notice of these three concerning Repentance and I have done 1. That there is a legal Repentance and an evangelical Repentance A legal Repentance is that which flows meerly from the sense of the terrors of the Law and the curse and wrath due to men for sin And evangelical Repentance is that which hath something of Faith and somewhat of the Gospel in its bosom And I may again desire you to consider that evangelical Repentance is either the result of a general apprehension that there is pardoning mercy in God when a sinner confounded with the sense of guilt looks in general to this Truth That there is forgiveness with God or more particularly when the sinner closes with that pardoning mercy for his own behove and makes application of it to himself and so is a pardoned man Now for the Repentance that is antecedent to pardon there must be somewhat both of legal and evangelical Repentance some Too-look to that great Truth and Encouragement Verse 4. There is forgivenness with thee for the legal Repentance it may crush but evangelical Repentance makes the sinner to bow legal Repentance is like a hammer that breaks the Rock evangelical Repentance is like the fire that melts the mettal only that Repentance that results upon the Application of Pardon to a sinners self is not antecedent to but consequential of pardon 2. Ye would consider the room that Repentance hath in this bargain of the Pardon of sin it comes not in certainly by way of merit for all the Salvation we get first and last is through the merit of Christ but Repentance has place in the obtaining of Pardon partly as it is an inseparable companion of saving Faith that apprehends and lays hold on Christ for Pardon a man cannot say he has Faith if it be not a penitent Faith partly it comes in as a condition required in order to God's Pardoning for God as I said before though he hath promised to pardon no man for his Repentance yet he hath declared he will pardon none without Repentance and partly it comes in as a qualification of the person pardoned who is thereby fitted to ly low at Gods Footstool for pardon Repentance makes folk find sin as bitter as ever they found it sweet Repentance is that which excites them to condemn themselves and to justifie God without Repentance it were inconsistent with the Justice of God to pardon a sinner lying impenitent in his filth nor would it commend the Grace of God if it were cast a way to the despisers of Grace as well as to the penitent who highly esteem of Grace And a 3d. Word I would have you to consider is concerning the degree and measure of repentance I dare not digress on that much There is a Word that might give folk ground of sad thoughts Acts 2.37 compared with verse 38. where ye will find a people pricked in heart and put to a peremptor they have compunction and cry out What shall we do Verse 37. and Peters answer Verse 38. is Repent They that are pricked in heart and put to a peremptor may have their Repentance to begin not only they that have legal Repentance may have evangelical to begin but even those who have made some progress in evangelical Repentance their hard and impenitent heart may be so habituated with obduration that when they have a gail of the Spirit of Repentance they may need to employ God to help them to repent to purpose I shall say no more on this but beseech you to look to your Repentance it fears me that few be come the length of legal Repentance or to examine whether they have sinned or not But suppone that ye had examined and found out sin had some sense of it I intreat you make Conscience of Repentance Thou that has confidence to believe and seek pardon give this evidence that thou art in earnest about it by making Conscience of Repentance daily O! how long is it since many of you sat down and communed with your own heart and smote upon your thigh saying What have I done How long is it since ye was in Ephraim's posture Jer. 31.19 Ashamed yea confounded because ye have born the reproach of your youth O think on it in earnest neglected Repentance daily will make an ill revel'd Hesp daily to you if ever ye and your Conscience meet and as I said before let never folk talk of their Faith that is not dipped in tenderness and repentance daily Only take what hath been said with this Caution if ye be convinced of your need of repentance and yet ye want it ye know where to get it That exalted Prince for giving pardon is also exalted to give repentance Acts 5.31 So much for these things required antecedent by way of preparation for pardon In the 2d place I proposed to speak somewhat to that whereby a soul so qualified prepared closes with Christ for pardon and that is Faith whereby a sinner having his sin discovered the sense of it wakened up within him and having made conscience of Repentance for it grips unto Jesus Christ by Faith for the pardon of it and that is the thing which the 2d word in the Text holds out after he has said verse 3. If thou Lord should mark iniquity who can stand he adds verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee there is his Faith closing with pardoning mercy to get a good account of that iniquity and sinfulness whereof he is convinced So we find David when making his Testament
2 Sam. 23.5 Although my house be not so with God there is his abasing of himself in the sense of sin and shortcoming in duty Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure he runs to the Remedy held forth in the everlasting Covenant and that is it which Paul subjoins to that which I cited in the morning Philip. 3.3 When a man hath no confidence in the flesh when all beside Christ is flesh to him and consequently that which he dare not have any confidence in Then the next step is not only to close with but to rejoice in Jesus Christ That I may make something of this I shall speak a short word to wicked men and insist a little longer in speaking to convinced sinners 1. For wicked men that which I am upon may serve to discover to them a great mistake they are afraid to grow acquaint with themselves O! how dow they think of casting up their accounts These black Libels and dreadful Dittays that are lying in process against them that were their ruine and would undo them if they should look thereaway they would never have a day to do well they would turn desperat and I would willingly know what it will avail them not to look over their Accompts will they resolve never to repent or will they get them shifted out of the way will their forgetting of their faults mend them will not the iniquity of a man's heels soon or syne compass him about Will not their sin find them out as is said Num. 32.23 But shall I add thou art in a great mistake that thinks the searching out of thy sin will undo thee I confess if thou do it in earnest thou must not continue in a course of sin as thou hast done but it is thy advantage to search out sin and repent if thou can say If thou Lord mark iniquity who can stand Thou shall have reason to say But forgiveness is with thee Wilt thou consider what rich advantage is in taking with thy guilt and being humbled for it that it is a man's safety to be thus lost it is an argument whereon he may plead for mercy when he finds himself undone without it It is thy ignorance of the rich advantage that is on the back of Self-judging that makes thee voluntarly continue a stranger to it But 2. For these who are convinced of sin and sensible of it who can say They have no confidence in the flesh and yet dare not say They rejoyce in Christ Jesus I would have such looking upon it as their great mistake that keeps them from resting on Christ and rejoycing in him and it makes all their other exercise to be but wind though ye had so much sorrow for sin as to sink you in the pit if ye add not There is forgiveness with thee if Christ be not the end of all your Exercises they will miscarry and leave you sinking in sin and misery And had I many to speak to that are making conscience of Repentance of sin and yet come not up to close with the Remedy of pardoning mercy in Christ I would point out several things that would be adverted to by such as are in such a frame and I shall pitch on five or six of them 1. Thou that art under convictions of sin and does not close with pardoning mercy thou evidence a mistake of that mercy thou considers not that thy necessity and impossibility to stand without it is a claim unto it thou considers not that it is the design of the Gospel to rescue the lost whose feet are sinking thou considers not that then thou begins to be beautiful when thou becomes loathsom in thine own eyes and that thou begins to be saved when thou art put to cry Save Master I perish and so in standing a-loof from pardoning mercy thou mistakes the design of the Gospel 2. In this standing a loof thou discovers thy ignorance of Gods Design in giving thee the sense of thy condition what a posture art thou in Thou art one that sees thy self abominable monstâ—ously vile the chief of sinners But may I say who told thee who shewed thee that thou was so and made it out to thee Has there not been a day when thy condition and frame was as bad and thou saw no such thing which says that it hath been Christ who by his spirit convinceth the world of sin that has opened thine eyeâ— discovered to thee thy vileness through sin But thou may think though he hath done it yet it is to be the Narrative of a sad sentence against thee and to send thee to the gate But if thou abuse not Mercy there is another thing in it if he hath opened thy mouth wide he will not fill it with an empty spoon but with good things if he hath made his Law to have a work upon thee it is not to drive thee from him but that the Law may be a school-master to bring to Christ So then it is the ignorance of God's design in giving thee the sense of sin that makes thee under convictions stand a loof from Mercy 3. In this aversion and unwillingness to come unto pardoning Mercy I would have you to consider a great reflection upon the Truth and Faithfulness of God 1 Joh. 5.10 He that believeth not God hath made him a liar because be believeth not the record that God gave of his Son I wish that I had many to speak unto that have to do with these things but I cannot pass it being the Applicatory part of the Doctrine Hast thou any sense of sin art thou afraid of wrath because of it what makes thee afraid is it not the Authority and Veracity of God speaking in his Law when thy Conscience is wakened and thou sees how faulty thou art and the Law leaves thee under the curse it afrights thee and there is good cause but how comes it that when thou hast believed God speaking in his Law unto thee thou does not believe him speaking in the Promise seing it is the same God that speaks in both is not this to make God a liar and hast thou not a witness against thy self while the Faith of his threatnings troubles thee and yet the Faith of his Promises doth not encourage and comfort thee But 4. In this unwillingness to close with pardoning Mercy read corrupt and ill principles man by nature is ignorant of a Gospel-righteousness he knows nothing of Pardoning Mercy through a Mediator but if the Covenant of Works be once broken it is everlastingly broken and hence the sensible sinner being ignorant of the New Covenant of Grace he chooses rather to ly mourning under the ruines of that first Covenant than to look up to a better and this ignorance of Gods righteousness is a thing which the Saints ought rather to mourn for than to foster But 5. In this standing a-back of sensible sinners from pardoning Mercy and in not
closing therewith ye would look upon pride of Heart as having a main hand in it Rom. 10.3 The reason why the Jews did not submit unto the righteousness of God they went about to establish their own A doubting Soul in its exercise may seem to be very humble and crucified it may be but it is not humbled but while it stands a-loof from pardoning Mercy proclaims its Pride for it proclaims it would have a price to bring in its hand to God and God is angry at that pride he will have thee coming to him as a Dyvour when thou hast tryed all thou can do to the yondmost And 6. and lastly in this aversion read another mistake folk think it presumption when they are convinced of their vileness to close with pardoning Mercy but it is so far from being presumption that it is the greatest evidence of humility to take mercy freely when thou comes to the Mercat of Free-grace with no price in thy hand and not only so but it is a high honouring of God The man that being sensible of his sinfulness closeth with pardoning Mercy doth with Abraham Rom. 4.20 Give glory to God and by his receiving his testimony put to his seal that God is true Joh. 3.33 and therefore any that are sensible of sin and have any thing of the conviction of the dreadful desert of sin and are in any measure in the exercise of repentance for sin they would take notice of these things that I have named as stumbling blocks in their way of closing with pardoning Mercy and labour to take them out of it that they may come up to close with it and say But there is forgiveness with thee 3. But now because folk may readily say all that I spoke to in the Morning for preparation to closing with pardoning Mercy is good and when they hear it holden out as the will of God that a sensible sinner should lay hold on Christ for pardon who are they that will not say they have sense of sin and may take a pardon therefore to prevent the stumbling of such I shall in the 3d. place as I proposed in the entry speak to some things required consequentially as a fruit of pardon whereby a man comes to know and evidence that he is pardoned and to improve his pardon answerable to that subjoyned to forgiveness in the Text and here in speaking to the evidences of pardon a posteriori as we use to speak or which are consequential to pardon I might touch upon many things but in general as those that would see the rising of the Sun in the East they would look to the West where they will see by the shade of his Beams when he rises so these that would make their pardon sure would mind well the consequences of pardon as the surest evidences of their pardon and that they are not deluded in that matter And the 1st that I would recommend to youâ— is Love to the Pardoner There is none hath gotten pardon but it will kyth in this and for proof of it take notice of that Luk. 7.47 Where Christ speaking of the woman that washt his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head he says her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much The meaning is not that her great love to Christ did merit a pardon for if ye read the Parable before from verse 40. It will clear that that is not the meaning Christ says to Simon Which of the Debitors will love the Creditor most Simon answers I suppose be to whom he forgave most There Love is the result of pardon and the consequent of pardon not the cause and it is in that case that Christ applys it to the woman such love to me is an infallible evidence that much is forgiven her I would have imbittered folk and such as are reflecters upon and carps at Providential Dispensations noticing this That it is no good evidence of pardon and thou that has love to him whatever be his Dispensations towards thee it speaks good news of pardon though thou cannot discern it 2. I recommend much Heart-melting and Evangelical Repentance whereof I spoke before as it is required antecedently to pardon now I press that which is consequential to pardon when a sinner hath closed with pardoning Mercy and by a reflex act looks back upon what hath been forgiven him O what melting of heart hath it as in that woman Luke 7.47 Much is forgiven her therefore she loveth much and that melted her heart and made her weep much she is a tender melting woman and certainly if thou be a Child the too look to pardon and much more the application of pardon will melt the heart and work more than many Rods. And 3. I recommend to you as a Consequence of Pardon a deep sense of the hainousness of the sin pardoned and much compassion toward them who are yet lying in the same pollution and guilt a pardoned sinner looking on his sin through the Glass of pardoning Mercy it grows much more hainous than it was and a pardoned man cannot but with compassion look on others lying in the puddle of Nature Titus 3 2 7 Speak evil of no man says he but be gentle shewing all meekness to all men for we our selves were sometime foolish disobedient c. till the loving kindness of God was manifested O what compassion will the pardoned man have towards others wallowing in that pollution from which he is delivered There are other two Evidences consequential to pardon one is Our forgiving of others Mat. 6.12 which is no meritorious antecedent cause of pardon for it is the sense of Christ pardoning Mercy to us that should and doth loose our hearts to pardon others we are bidden say Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Another Evidence in the Text is holy filial fear but because the one of these is a Point in the Text and the other concerns the pardoning of one another as an evidence we are pardoned which will require more time to deduce than now we have I shall fist here for this time The Lord bless his Word to you SERMON XVII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee YE may remember that I have insisted long upon this excellent Priviledge The remission or the forgiveness of sins I have spoken to the Object of pardon or what it is that is pardoned Iniquity I have also spoken to the Author of pardon GOD To the Nature of Pardon and when it is that Pardon is pronounced and I entered the last day upon the Applicatory part of this Doctrine to lead you in a right way of closing with pardoning Mercy following the scope of the Context I proposed to speak of somewhat required antecedently to pardon to somewhat required in closing with pardon and of something consequential to pardon whereby we Evidence that we are pardoned and do improve our pardon I spoke to the first
of these and shew that in order to the obtaining of pardon men should be careful not to run headlong and voluntarly on in sin for that will make the coming at pardon more difficult that they should be frequent in self examination to find out sin That they should be serious in laying to heart the desert of sin as the Psalmist is verse 3. And serious in Repentance for sin I told you also that these things being premitted it was the duty of the penitent sinner by Faith to close with pardoning Mercy which I closed with a check both to the wicked who because they see not the advantage which is on the back of Conviction of Sin never look their sin in the face and with a check to the godly who notwithstanding their being humbled in the sense of sin stand aback from closing with pardoning Mercy And I came in the third place to speak to what was consequentially required to pardon as the Psalmist here having said There is forgiveness with thee he adds as a consequence of it that thou mayest be feared And upon this Head I named two or three things as native Consequences of pardoning Mercy as that there must be love to the Pardoner as that woman Luke 7. did evince much was forgiven her because she loved much That there must be a Heart-melting when we reflect upon the pardoning of iniquity and a Compassionâ—â— looking on them that are still lying in that pit that through mercy we have escaped I told you there are other two consequential evidences of pardon that I intended to insist a little more on As 1st The forgiving of others that have injured us And 2ly The fearing and serving of God the one of these I find it necessary to insist upon because it is put in by Christ in that pattern of Prayer Mat. 6.12 And the other because it is recorded in the Text to be a consequent of pardon For the 1st of these concerning the forgiving of others I shall briefly speak to these three anent it as it is spoken of in that Pattern of Prayer 1. That the people of God are getting wrongs in the World 2. That it is the will of God that we should forgive those that wrong us 3. That folks forgiving of others that wrong them is an evidence of their being pardoned themselves 1st The people of God these that are allowed in the Pattern of Prayer to call God Father they are getting wrongs in the World they are getting debts in the World they have their debters in it thereby is not meant so much men that are under civil obligations to pay the debt they owe to them though that may have its own place as we may hear as chiefly and mainly wrongs injuries unrighteous dealing violating the Law of Love in their carriage and deportment This is the condition the woful condition that all the Children of men are in since the fall Tit. 3.3 They are foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another and Hab. 1.13 14. Tells that men are like the fishes of the sea and the creeping things that have no ruler over them where the greater are ready to devour the smaller and the children of God are large sharers in this matter And Paul confesses 1 Tim. 1.13 That before Conversion he was a blasphemer injurious and a persecuter and Mat. 5.44 Christ supposes the godly will have enemies cursers of them haters of them such as will despitefully use them and persecute them and experience in all ages makes it out how much work fearers of God have for this sweet disposition called for in them to be forgivers of others All that I shall say from this shall be in the first place to invite you to consider the state of all mankind since the fall as the Proverb is Homo homini lupus one man is a wolf to another that men are now more ready to wrong and injure one another than the brute beasts are in their own kind this is a sad document how far man is fallen from God by sin 2. From this I would have the Lords people to take warning what they are to expect in the world they will have wrongs to bear injuries to suffer and endure debts to forgive Cement as we will these two seeds the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent will never be one one Family and Ark one Womb will never make them one But as it is Gal. 4.29 As he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so is it now Therefore ye are not to wonder when ye meet with trouble and persecution in the world but rather wonder at the moderation ye meet with 3. Let it be a warning to them that wrong others that thereby they constitute themselves debitors injurers breakers of the Law of love if not of justice and righteousness also They run themselves under debt which they must repent of Luk. 17.4 and make restitution of with Zacheus Luk. 19.8 They must not stand upon their credit so to do neither must they be as many who if they do an injury resolve to crush them utterly to whom they have done it that they may not be able to repay it and beside that they may remember that God is the principal Creditor who will crave and exact that debt if it be not repented and pardoned The second thing proposed to be spoken to is That it is the will of God that these debts men contract in reference to the people of God his people should forgive them Christ will have them to say Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Mat. 6.12 It is commanded Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Col. 3.13 Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And our Lord Jesus Mat. 5. when v. 44. he hath bidden his followers love their enemies bless them that curse them do good to them that hate them and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute them he adds v. 45. That thereby they should evidence their good condition they should evidence themselves to be children of their Father which is in Heaven that maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends his rain on the just and unjust That which I would say anent this forgiving of injuries shall be briefly in answer to a few Questions As 1. If it be inquired what it is that men should forgive 1. I answer for Civil Debts what-ever the Law of Charity requires in some cases as to that yet it is as we hinted before mainly wrongs injuries defraudations persecutions oppressions and the like 2. If it be asked How can we forgive these they being sins against God Ye may remember when I spake before of the Author of pardon
Holiness and Jealousie of God that he will not be affronted in the matter of his service and worship it calls for Fear and reverence it is a strong Argument used by the Apostle to press us to serve God with Reverence and with Godly Fear Heb. 12.29 For our God says he is a consuming fire and that which Moses said to Aaron when his two Sons were slain burnt up with fire which went out from the Lord for offering strange fire before him This is the thing which the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come near me and before all the people I will be glorified I will either be honoured by them or I will be honoured upon them that draw near me and take my Name in vain Well then have ye any thing of this Fear of God will ye kythe it by your serving him Mal. 1.6 A son honoureth his father and a servant his master if he be a Father where is his honour and if a Master where is his fear stand ye in awe of God that do misken him all your time do ye fear him that never take a spare hour to pay homage to him that will not bow a knee to him But I shall add the service that ye pay to God I pray you look how it is ballast with fear that it turn not in presumption and if ye have need of an intimation of Mercy to correct your fear that it degener not in despondency Ye come to God's House to Worship him but how few of you when ye come here have said How dreadful is this place would ye have your Character take it from Jude verse 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you feeding themselves without fear ye come before God ye join in the publick Exercises of Gods Worship but without any impression of the fear of God more than if all we did while we are together had no relation to him O be ashamed that the fear and awe of God doth so little ballast and season your service and worship But in the 2. place we come to take a look of this purpose with an eye to the Scope There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared says the Psalmist then the fear of God more tender walking being more frequent and serious in duty to God more reverence of his service it is the kindly product of a heart that hath on right terms closed with Christ in pardoning mercy a fear to offend God a reverential fear in his Worship and service And hence I shall lay these few particulars before you and close 1. Which is the main thing in the Scope come and try by this if ye have been closing a-right with pardoning mercy see what is the consequence of it and that will tell you Are ye closing with pardoning Mercy to make your boast of it that ye may sin on and sleep more securely That is all the Dream that some have in their head of God's goodness and mercy in pardoning sin to take in a new Swack but thou that does so turns the Grace of God unto lasciviousness and offers a contempt to pardoning Mercy which the Gracious God will not brook But O! here is the blessed Fruit of pardoning Mercy to be more tender in thy walk more afraid of sin more diligent in Duty the further God is pleased to put thee in his bosom the greater distance thou keeps with what may provock him the more freely he forgive thee the more thou delights to be active in his service find many Scriptures that gives an account of the overcoming goodness of God towards ingenuous Souls not only that Psal 85.8 He will speak peace to his people and to his saints but let them noâ—â—urn again to folly but that of Hos 3.5 The goodness of God the Object of their Faith makes them fear him and his goodness and that of David 2 Sam. 7.27 Who when he gets a promise of building him a House the kindness of God sets him on fire as it were and puts wings to his Prayer Thou O Lord of hosts God of Israel hast revealed to thy servant saying I will build thee an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee and Hezekiah Isai 38 15. When the Lord had spoken of his delivery he will not wax wanton but he will walk softly all the fifteen years added unto his dayes in the bitterness of his soul and when the Lord falls in upon Ephraim with sweet converting Grace and turns him Jer. 31.19 after he is turned he repents after he is instructed he smites on his thigh he is ashamed yea even confounded because he hath born the reproach of his youth see to it ye that grip to pardoning Mercy and lay claim to it I am so far from envying you that I say the Lord say so too But O! let it be seen in your tenderness in your reverential fear and awe of God in the constraining power that the love of Christ hath on you if ye believe that he died for you will not his love constrain you to lâ—ve to him 2 Cor. 5.14 And ye that are tender will ye not be afraid that that kindness of God ye lay claim to is either a lie in your right hand that produces not somewhat like this or that ye are in a plagued condition that the goodness and kindness of God works not upon you 2. If pardoning Mercy be let out that God may be feared it puts me in capacity to answer the Cavillations of the profane they live in the contempt of holiness they have a prejudice at it they see no form nor beauty in it wherefore they should desire it What shall they get if they turn fearers of God They see no advantage by it but loss But shall I say to thee if thou looked rightly on it thou would be ashamed to owne any such Cavillation Piety has no enemy but an ignorant there is none that ever knew Piety that would give it the Character thou gives it if pardoning Mercy work up a love to holiness in men and make them to fear him thou that has a prejudice at holiness evidences that thou art not a partaker of it and why would thou tell all the World that thou knows not what this pardoning Mercy means thy contempt of holiness proclaims that all thy iniquities are bound upon thy back If ever thou had layen at Gods Foot stool and been lift up with pardoning Mercy saying to thee Son or daughter be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee it would put an edge upon thee to pursue after holiness and therefore let me intreat you who are profane and entertain a prejudice at holiness not to publish your own shame and by your contempt of the fear of God and his service to declare ye are yet without the pardoning Mercy of God But from this ye shall take a 3. word If closing with
pardoning mercy sets hearts on work to fear God and to tenderness in the study of holiness then ye may see how many of the Children of God do cut the throat of all their endeavours after holiness and to walk tenderly through their not closing with pardoning Mercy I suppose some have the Conscience a sad Monitor unto them a sad Wan-rest within doors for want of tenderness and some would fain be at serving and worshipping of God and yet they cannot win at it but look if thou leaves not thy encouragement behind thy hand in not closing with pardoning Mercy and by so doing not only cuts thy self short of the Joy of the Lord which is thy strength but provocks God to blast thy study of holiness that thou would put in his room or in the room of his pardoning Mercy But thou that would be keeped fresh and green in thy pursuit of holiness here is thy method that thou must follow first wrap thy self in the bosom of pardoning Mercy and then try thy work and thou shalt find it more delightsome and go better with thee than when thou leaves this encouragement behind thee lay thy self in his bosom for pardon and O! but that will make thee fear him much and love him much that woman Luke 7 that bad much forgiven her loved much and had abundance of tears to wash Christ's feet her closing with pardon did so melt her heart and so would it thine closing with pardoning Mercy would heal palsie hands and feet and make thee work walk and run it would kindle that love that is strong as death and that jealousie that is cruel as the grave the coals whereof are coals of fire that have a vehement flame and bring it to that that many waters cannot quench or the floods drown or contemn all that would compet with it I dare not offer to insist the day being shortened but as on the one hand they who fall asleep on pardoning Mercy as the bride of Christ may some times take a nap but wakens and sets to her feet again would know they make not a right use of pardoning Mercy but sin grievously and if they sleep on they evidence that they cheat themselves in that matter and these that love not holiness proclaim they were never partakers of it so upon the other hand thou that loves holiness but cannot win at it close better with pardoning Mercy as that which will strenthen and encourage thee and by waiting on the Lord in this way thou shalt renew thy strength mount up with wings as eagles run and not be weary walk and not be faint Now to our God be praise and glory through Jesus Christ SERMON XIX Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning YE heard when I entred upon this Psalm that the first six Verses contain the wrestling and the exercise the Psalmist was under as the last two Verses contain his victory and issue and his improvement of it For his wrestling and exercise it consists as ye heard of three branches ye have him wrestling with the difficulties and plunging perplexities in his case these he expresses under the Metaphor of depths and his wrestling with them is by fervent wrestling and crying to God in Prayer verses 1 2. 2. Ye have him wrestling with the Conscience and sense of guilt that obstructed his audience put back his Prayers and offered to crush his hopes and with that he wrestles in the 3 and 4. Verses by taking with the dreadful desert of sin by laying hold on God's pardoning Mercy and carrying alongst with him God's end in letting out pardoning Mercy to sinners even that he may be feared and of this subject I have been speaking at great length and I must exhort and intreat that though a close be put to Preaching on it that yet ye may not give over the minding of that Doctrine it is that which will be your great Pasport pardoning Mercy if ye obtain it when ye come to grapple with the King of Terrors and go through the dark valley of the shadow of death Now in the two Verses read ye have the Psalmist in the third place wrestling with delays of answers to his Prayers or the delays of the out-gate prayed for and these he wrestles with by confident patient affection at waiting on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope c. And this purpose also we have cause to look unto because it gives an account of a Christians constant exercise in time he that would be a Christian indeed it is not enough that he pray in difficulties that he take with the desert of sin and look to pardoning Mercy when Conscience challenges him but when he hath done all that he must persevere in so doing and wrestle with the delays of answers to his Prayer he must give a proof of the patience as well as of the Faith of the Saints he must be a follower of these who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises There is a general Remark which will make way to the purpose contained in the words which I shall insist on a little that is That perseverance and constant waiting on God in his way is the great task of Saints and the Touchstone of their sincerity in all other exercises and duties This tryes how well breathed the Saints are and what is their integrity in other exercises that they are at sometimes even that they be constant bide by it wait on God and persevere in waiting on him in his way notwithstanding they meet with delays And that I may unfold this General to you ye shall with me take a threefold look of this perseverance 1. Look upon it in general as it is opposed to Apostacy backsliding giving up with the ways of Religion 2. Which will deduce this General more fully and particularly ye shall take a look of this perseverance as it imports a constant Tenor and course in waiting on God and seeking of God in opposition to folks phrases fairds and hot fits at some times wherein they are but fleeting And 3. Which will lead me to the particular in the Text look on it as it is opposed to wearying sitting up or falling by from employing God and waiting on him if they be delayed especially in sad dispensations and exigences they meet with For the first of these Perseverance in general as it is opposed to apostasie back-sliding and giving up with the ways of God and godliness I shall not dwell much on that Doctrine The necessity of it appears in the Promises made unto it Mat. 24.13 It is he that endures unto the end shall be saved and Rev. 2. and 3. Chapters it is always to the overcomer that the Promise is made though I
sin but he sets them on work to purge out all sin and in due time he will redeem them from the reliques and remainders of sin every thing that hath the relique or remainder of iniquity in it he will redeem them from it in due time And 4. Ye would consider the object of this mercy who they are that he will redeem from all iniquity they are his people Israel the object of God's power and mercy in redeeming in his being a propitiation for sin in redeeming from the power and guilt of sin are Israel and they only That as Adam when he fell drew all his seed along into perdition with himself So Christ the second Adam will redeem all his seed which is the true import of that comparison institute betwixt the first Adam and the second Rom. 5. and not to prove an universal redemption for then as all fell in Adam so all should be actually redeemed and liberat by Christ but the meaning is That as in Adam all his seed fell with him so by Christ all his seed are redeemed and as in Adam all fell not Christ was excepted so by Christ all are not redeemed his seed only are recovered This is a Point I need not enter to debate It is too evident many are not redeemed by Christ for many have not the outward means that make offer of redemption by Christ many never heard tell of Christ and if Christ had payed a price for all it were not agreeable to Justice that so many should be put to suffer punishment in hell It is clear also from that that Christ would not pray for the world Joh. 17.9 And he did not die for them for whom he would not pray and he doth not sanctifie himself for all therefore he redeems not all and yet this needs be no impediment to them to look to him for Redemption who find their need of him their fleeing to him for refuge and gripping to him for satisfaction opens up the council of God that they are among the given ones to be redeemed by Christ only remember that as none of God's Israel are secluded from this redemption how worthless soever they be Though they may be secluded from these gifts and measures of graces afforded to others yet not from this redemption from all iniquity That is the common-good of all that 's the nail fastned in the sure place on which all the vessels of greater and smaller quantity are hung so on the other hand it is to Israel alone and to none other that this redemption is ensured Having thus explained the Point it remains That we should draw some Uses from it and put a close to the Psalm and there are four or five words of inference that I would give you from what hath been said 1. See here what is the great concerning business the chief Interest and exercise of the true Israel of God It is the matter of iniquity what to do with it how to be rid of it and delivered from it therefore after all the former encouragements to hope in God That with him is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption this comes in as the reserve that he shall redeem Israel from all his Iniquities To tell that the great exercise of a true Israelite will be about iniquity the conscience of sin and guilt what to do with that how to get the conscience pacified in reference to it this exercise is a great stranger in the visible Church there may be much trouble of mind where the conscience is dormient and sleeping There may be much vexation and fashâ—ie about trouble and cross dispensations of providence when guilt is little minded but ye would look to it I shall not say they are not Israelites that fall into this error but surely it looks not like a true Israelite where sin is not made the main exercise where daily searching out of sin and endeavours to have the conscience purified and purged from guilt is not folks great task And I shall add that exercise about sin and guilt would give a more comfortable account about trouble If we were studying to have this Text made out to us He shall redeem Israel out of all his iniquities we should find that of Psal 25. Redeem Israel O God out of all his troubles also made out to us redemption from iniquity would bod well were a good prognostick of redemption from trouble for as ye heard from Isai 10.12 Trouble hath a work on Mount Zion and if ye would know what that is see 27.9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his sin when he maketh all the stones of the Altar as chalk stones c. Were trouble getting its work it should have the less ado when it had gotten its errand and therefore ye that are fasht and vexed folks with the Cross tost with many troubles shall I say to you that ye run long on little ground and to little purpose if ye had more ado about sin ye should have less ado about trouble or your exercise about it should soon be discust Therefore look on it as a mark of a true Israelite that whatever exercise he have sin is the greatest exercise 2. Whereas folk may seem to have some exercise about sin but all that it amounts to is to take with sin and grip to pardoning mercy and this is very common in the visible Church to name sin and to name pardon and upon the naming of sin to make a present Plaister of pardon and there is an end To obviat this mistake take this word That the pardon of sin and purging out of sin must go together hand in hand But in this mistake me not I would hurt none nor have I commission to hurt any Ye may remember that when I was on the 4th Verse I told you that the filthiness of sin remains after the pardon of sin but remember also that I then told you God strikes at the guilt and power of sin both at once that where Christ comes with the merit of his death he comes also with the power of his death he lays the Axe to the root of the Tree but I would not be mistaken in this either the pardoned sinner gets not the power of sin presently subdued yea when he is pardoned the power of sin may fash him more than before and when sin is in the dead-throws it may vex him most with strugling Many a sad bout may pardoned sinners have alongst their life with their predominants but where-ever God pardons sin he sets folks to be in necks with sin and to have the dominion and power of sin subdued that sin reign not in their mortal bodies they and sin will not dwell in peace in one house they will not be taken alive captive without a scart they oppose it and protest against the prevailing of it they sin not with full consent And O! but this
two of which I have spoken to in the Forenoon to wit that which is supponed here that God is a marker of iniquity and what it imports And secondly that which is proposed on this supposition That if God should mark iniquity as was explained men even the most godly men could not stand where somewhat was said to the importance of that Phrase Now I proceed in Explication of the Point from the Text for to that I confine my self in other four particulars The first and third in order shall be this That this assertion that men cannot stand before God marking iniquity is of infallible verity a most certain and infallible truth it is not a Bug-Bear to afright Children but the infallible truth of God This is hinted at in the Text partly in the Psalmist his proposing the matter to God If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord who shall stand He proposes it to God who knows this matter better than any other and who is Supream Judge in the matter without whose determination a Decreet in our own favours will signifie nothing at all it imports O Lord let men dream what they will of their standing thou knowest that none can stand if thou shalt mark iniquity to punish it and particularly the infallible verity of this assertion may be gathered from the way of proposing it and that is by way of Question Who shall stand Which Question is a very peremptory denyal of the thing questioned for so the like Question is resolved Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one Yea the proposing of it by way of Question Who shall stand Doth import a defyance to any to attempt it or to succeed in their attempt and indignation at the presumption of any that should dream of standing before God marking iniquity But in the fourth place as this assertion is of infallible verity so it is of universal verity This is held out in the Question for the Question is Who shall stand That is as the parallel Question is answered Job 14.4 None at all good or bad If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity none should stand for the Psalmist here a godly man is taking in himself with others as a man that could not stand himself without pardon And so the Phrase is Psal 143.2 Enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified The best of men that are come of Adam by ordinary generation shall not be justified if thou mark iniquity Hence in Scripture it is clear that Saintship consists not in sinlessness but in sincerity for for Original guilt in that Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one and for a mans endeavours after he is brought in to God and is wrestling with corruptions to have these purged out says Solomon Prov. 20.9 Who can say I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin Eccles 7.20 There is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not but as it is Jam. 3.2 In many things we offend all Thus ye see that Saintship doth not consist in sinlessness but in sincerity neither doth Saintship consist in the Saints their sins not deserving condemnation or in their being able to stand though they have sinned but in their sins being pardoned hence ye will find them sadly exercised in wrestling under the burden of guilt upon their gross out-breakings as David Psal 51. ye have them praying for the pardon of great iniquity Psal 25.11 For thy Names sake pardon mine iniquity for it is great Ye have them pleading for mercy upon the account of innumerable evils compassing them and their iniquities take hold of them and being more than the hairs of their head Psal 40.11 12. And when they are delivered from gross out-breakings ye have them with Paul Rom. 7. groaning under a body of sin and death till they attain to a song of thanksgiving thorow Jesus so that not only doth the Text hold out the infallible verity of this truth but the universal verity of it that if God mark iniquity none can stand The 5th thing I gather from the Text is that the infallible and universal verity of this assertion that if God mark iniquity none can stand might be gathered and closed with if men were eying God much this I gather from the Text where the Psalmist repeats the Name of God twice If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity And then again O Lord who c. Wherefore is this twice repeated in this assertion Certainly not by way of idle repetition condemned Mat. 7.21 in many that say Lord Lord nor meerly because the Psalmist is affected with that which he is speaking of for so the expression of affections or mens being affected with a thing is expressed by a doubled Exclamation which may come in in the own place when I speak of the pardon of sin but here it is to make this truth out that serious and frequent repeated thoughts of God is a mean to give folk a right sense of the desert of sin And to make out this consider partly that when we seriously think of God we know that he is Omniscient to find out that which is hid from the world Omniscient to find them guilty that are innocent to others Omniscient to know more of us than we know of our selves A consideration that John would have us marking 1 Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If we know so much naughtiness of our selves by our selves what must God know who knoweth all things And Paul makes use of this consideration 1 Cor. 4.4 I know nothing by my self to wit in the administration of his Office yet I am not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Partly if we will consider what is imported in the Names of God here made use of by the Psalmist We will find it further clear the first Name JAH is a diminutive from JEHOVAH that imports a Supream Independent Beeing The second name ADONAI signifies his Dominion and Lordship Ponder these well and what a dreadful sight will it afford of the unspeakable desert of sin A sinner in sinning rebels against a Supream Beeing from whom he hath his beeing This is made a great aggravation of sin to Belteshazzar the greatest Monarch on earth Dan. 5.23 Thou hast lifted up thy self against the Lord of heaven the God in whose hands thy breath is thou hast renounced thy dependence on him from whom thou hast thy beeing Sin is also the casting off of the Yoke of his Dominion and Lordship it says upon the matter that which ye have asserted of wicked men Psal 12.4 They say with our tongues we will prevail our lips are our own who is Lord over us That 's the Language of every sinner in sinning and not only doth the sinner by sinning cast off the yoke of God's Dominion but he
in the right order needs not keep thee back thy desire to come and repent and seek pardon tells that thou art not guilty of that unpardonable sin and therefore stand not a back for scarlet and crimson coloured sins nor for relapsing in these sins There is forgivenness with God for those iniquities and that ye may grip the better to this when it is intimate that God is such a pardoner of sin ye would look to the infinit price of the Son of God whereby he purchased pardon and upon which pardon of sin is founded and ye would look to that infinite and superabounding grace in God inclining him to pardon and when these two are laid together well considered all thy doubts about pardon will amount to this whether thy iniquities or Christ's death thy abounding sin or Gods superabounding Grace will carry it And reason will determine it in favours of Christs purchase and the super-aboundant Grace of God 2. Let me leave this as a Witness against slighters of this offer of pardon I believe there are many engadged as the Jews were Jer. 2.25 Who said There is no hope no for we have loved strangers and after them we will go The matter is past redding There is little appearance that ever we will do well and therefore we mind not to do well But here is a Witness laid at thy door whatever thy condition be God and thou art yet in trysting terms and thou hast the offer of Pardon upon Repentance and turning to him art thou as mad as the man that had the legion of Devils Mark 5.9 will thou employ Christ he can cure thee Though thou were like Mary Magdalen out of whom Christ cast seven devils Luk. 8.2 He can cast them out and set thee down a worshipper of him at his feet Thy scarlet and crimson coloured sins he can make white as the snow or wool Thy scattered affections as the wind he can fix upon the nail fastened upon the sure place if thou wilt come and reason with him thou shalt find him as good as his Word and shall not this be a Witness against slighters of pardoning Grace that such profligat wretches runnaways and backsliders are within the reach of pardoning mercy and there is a Royal Proclamation made of it wherein it is offered unto them and yet they slighted it All the wrath of Sinai shall not be so terrible to such as this will be one day that in the Name of Christ we proclaimed pardon to you providing ye seek it in the right order and look how ye will answer the Lamb sitting down on his tribunal of Majesty I thought to have spoken to the persons who they are that are pardoned and that they may call God Father who seek pardon and how that it secluds not the vilest of sinners upon repentance and how it makes against the Novatian error that thrusts repentance out of the Church And to that case of godly men their relapsing in sins they have repented of and whether such be pardonable but the time having cut me short I shall forbear to break in upon these for the time The Lord blesse for Christs sake what ye have been hearing SERMON IX Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared I Have now broken in a litle upon this great Article of of our Creed the remission of sins The great Gospel-news the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace to them that are in the Psalmist's posture in the third verse that there is no standing before God marking iniquity in strict justice according to the Covenant of Works I am as yet detained on the first head that I proposed to be spoken to on this Subject that is the consideration of that which is pardoned it is iniquity as in the preceeding verse sin or transgression let it be called by whatsoever name it will and as to this I spake to these things 1. That all have sin 2. That sin is a Debt and Burden which they who take a right look of will see great cause will desire to be rid of it That sin being such a debt or burden the unpardoned man if he get a right look of his own condition he will find himself in a wofull plight and 4. That sin being such a debt as can only be done a way by pardon and such a burden as puts the unpardoned man in a woful plight It follows that it is good news the best of all news to a sensible sinner That there is pardon for iniquity in God When a man hath said verse 3. If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity who can stand that he may add verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee And here ye may remember that it was cleared how the least sins needed a pardon As also how the greatest sins for nature number or other circumstances are pardonable that sensible sinners needed not be troubled with that sin against the holy Ghost seing their very flying to the remedy of sin in Christ is a sufficient evidence that it was not in them I was the last day cutshort by time from speaking a word to these persons whose sins are pardonable And this I wold now speak to before I go to the other Heads I proposed to be spoken to And the ground of that which I would say of them whose sins are pardonable I shall take it from that pattern of Prayer Mat. 6.9 12 Father forgive us our debts They are Children who may come to God for pardon of sin and to open this a litle I shal speak to these three from it 1. It would be remembred that these who are not Children must come and become children in the due order that they may attain to the priviledge of pardon when Children only are allowed to beg pardon of sin it secludes none who are unpardoned from coming to God through the elder brother Jesus Christ that they may be put among the Children by Adoption for Isai 55.7 Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto Lord and he will have mercy vpon him and to our God for he will aboundantly pardon or multiply to pardon and Ezek. 33.15.16 When the wicked man restores the pledge gives again that which he had robbed doth walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall surely live he shall not die none of the sins he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him There shal be no more word of them which as I said the last day when I spake from these words leaves a sad check and ground of dittay at the doors of Rebels to whom the Fountain for Sin and Uncleanness is keeped open and they have pardon in their offer but will not follow the right method of obtaining mercy and pardon They will not come and be children but continue rebels still And it leaves also a caution and a check to many who if
How shall they get their crap submitting to it How shall they get their bitter disposition under their feet that they may heartily remit wrongs done unto them I confess this is a duty that requires more than an ordinary measure of grace and grace in exercise and few attain it Alas How few are who when they have gotten a wrong have that testimony that they mourn more over their own disposition than resent the wrong and pray for the person that hath wronged them but in short there are four words I would recommend to you in order to that meâ—k and mortified temper 1. It were a special mean to bring you this pardoning-humour to be daily sensible of the wrongs that ye have done and are doing to God and who wots but a wrong done by thee to God is laid in thy dish by a third hand to make thee sensible of it The man that is daily sensible of the wrongs he doth to God is the only man to be a good neighbour when he comes out loadned with the sense of his own provocations he will be ready to forgive others He that finds he hath ten thousand talents to be forgiven will easily be brought to forgive an hundred pence It 's our distance with God and the want of the sense of the wrongs done to him that makes us keep up a revengful humour 2. They that would have this pardoning-disposition would be sensible of how much need they have to be forgiven themselves Eccles 7.21 22. Take not heed unto all words that are spoken lest thou hear thy servant curse thee do not sash thy self with noticing every injury were it from as mean a person as thy servant for oft-times also thine own heart knoweth that thou thy self hast cursed others There is no living in the world if as we use to speak we do not live and let live if we forgive not as we would be forgiven If thou seest a more in thy brothers eye pull the beam out of thine own and then thou wilt see more clearly to pull the more out of thy brother's eye This will make thee of a meek and condescending frame 3. I recommend to thee that would forgive to labour to get a sight of the hand of God in the wrong done to thee When thou gets a wrong it may be of a person far below thee and one that thou can easily reach O! How doth poor dust swell with thoughts of revenge But were the hand of God seen in that wrong it would tame thee when David is fleeing from his son Absalom and Shimei comes out and curses him Abâ—shai says Should a dead dog curse the King let me go over and take off his head O let him alone saith David God hath said unto him Curse David Who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so 2 Sam. 16.9 10. If the providence of God extend to the hairs of our head that they are all numbered Mat. 10.30 Unquestionably it is not unconcerned in the affronts and injuries done to us by men and whatever thou hast to say to the person that hath injured thee yet if thou look up to the hand of God in it thou wilt be silent and calm And 4. Remember when thou does not pardon but offers to revenge at thine own hand thou usurps Gods place Rom. 12.19 Dearly beloved revenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord and consequently when thou offers to revenge thou takes his place and provocks him to leave thee and let thee stand to thy self and not concern himself in any wrong done to thee But the third thing I proposed to speak a word to is That this forgivenness of others is absolutely necessary to them that would evidence that they are pardoned of God themselves Mat. 6.12 We are bidden pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive others I shall briefly explain this and close And 1. As I have often hinted before our forgiving others doth nor merit pardon for forgiving of others is not an antecedent to pardon but a consequence of it it 's the evidence of a pardoned man and consequently cannot be antecedent to pardon far less a meritorious cause of pardon 2. While Christ bids us pray Forgive us as we forgive there is no proportion to be understood there is a vast difference betwixt Gods forgiving and our forgiving his forgivenness extends to ten thousand talents ours only to an hundred pence Mat. 18.24 28. His forgiving requires a satisfaction to justice before he give out the sentence of pardon not so ours his forgivenness brings no profit to him as ours doth to us we having thereby access to pardoning mercy only in this the parallel holds that we forgive frankly and freely as God forgives us 3. Consider the connexion a little more nearly partly it is an encouragement to the sensible sinner to believe he is pardoned when he finds a disposition in himself to forgive others a poor sensible sinner lying at Gods foot-stool suing for pardon though he be pardoned yet he hath a hink whether he be so or not but this encourages him to believe it that he finds in himself a loosing of heart to forgive another that hath wronged him often he may reason have I gotten many wrongs and yet I can find in my heart to forgive and put them in my bosome that have wronged me upon their repentance and shall I doubt but God who is a God infinite in mercy hath pardoned me So that thy warmness and loosing of heart to forgive others looses and opens a door to thee to believe that the infinite God in mercy hath pardoned thee and partly ye would remember that it is a condition of pardon not antecedent but subsequent whereby a man may reflect and gather whether he be pardoned or not read Mat. 6.14 15. he contents not himself to say Forgive if we would be forgiven but he adds if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses Ye can have no evidence that ye your selves are pardoned except ye have a tender disposition and frame of heart to forgive others and therefore that servant who Mat. 18.27 had ten thousand talents forgiven him and yet when he got his fellow-servant would not forgive him an hundred pence he proclaimed that though he seemed to be forgiven he was not forgiven but behoved to go to prison Now I have been detained in providence upon this Doctrine for this time a Doctrine that is not unseasonable to you if ye be in earnest in seeking the pardon of your sin it serves to point out to you the terms on which it is attainable and by which ye evidence that ye are pardoned that ye may not in this matter cheat your selves in taking a lie in your right hand in stead of pardon and it is not
unseasonable were it but to give a check to the malicious disposition that haunts too too many in this generation What shall I say of it I shall only say this that little love is the first step to this malicious disposition when love grows cold and folk lives uncouth and fram'd one to another without intimations of that warmness of affection that should be which is much creept in among the fearers of God love I say growing cold then injuries bitter resentments back-bitings reproaches evil speakings c will threed in with that needle yea this is one of the great in-lets to that monstruous damnable dreadful sin of Witchcraft into which some have been led by their lusts others have been tempted to through poverty but moe by malice than by both to give themselves formally over to the Devil to renounce Christ to renounce their Baptism hope of happiness and to sacrifice all to their malicious and revengful temper therefore look to it and upon this as a necessary Doctrine that presses you to have love one to another forbearing and forgiving one another that love that suffers long is not puffed up behaveth not it self unself unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provocked thinketh no evil rejoyceth not in iniquity but in the truth beareth all things hopeth all things believeth all things endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 It was the most known badge of the primitive Christians and no wonder their Master left it with them Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another love to kindle up kindness that malice drowns love that extenuats faults that passion aggreges love that pities and compassionats where malice and revenge severely punishes love that will meet an injurer mid-way and more when revenge bids run away As ye would not be given up to the most dreadful temptations study love and from love to forgive and harbour not a malicious and revengful disposition Lord bless c. SERMON XVIII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared IN the morning I was detained upon that evidence of a pardoned man which is of very common use in our walk that we have a tender-hearted disposition and be in a readiness to forgive others Now there remains before I leave this point another evidence or consequence of pardon when it is rightly closed with held out in that which ye may remember I made a third branch of this Text being an amplification of pardoning mercy taken from Gods design in letting it out even that he may be feared I shall not here stand on a general how needful it is to look to Gods design and what he drives at by every thing he doth unto us and about us as the Psalmist takes notice of Gods end in pardoning Though it were needful that we should look to it that we abuse no dispensation of God to serve our own ends neglecting his ends The reason why we speed not in many suits is we ask and receive not because we ask amiss that we may consume it upon our lusts Jam. 4.3 But passing that I come to the word in the Text. The word here fear of God it is one of these internal graces that naturally results upon the acknowledgment of a Deity and consequently belongs to the first Command where knowledge and acknowledgment of God faith and hope in God love to him and fear of him and patience under his dispensations are all commanded under that of having no other gods but frequently the fear of God is taken more largely for all the service and fear and worship of God and that because fear and reverence is a necessary ingredient called for in every part of service and worship we perform here we need not restrict the sense of the Word and so the meaning is pardoning Mercy is in God and let forth by God to the penitent that the pardoned sinner may stand in awe to offend God and may be invited to worship and serve God who invites him to it by a free pardon of iniquity under which he could not stand if God should mark it in strict Justice And hence in that sum of Christianity Philip. 3.3 If a man from having no confidence in the flesh come to rejoyce in Jesus Christ the result of that is to worship God in the Spirit hence Job 37.23 24. When God is taken up as one excellent in Power Judgment and plenty of Justice that will not afflict it hath this consequence resulting upon it men do therefore fear him and 1 Kin. 8.38 when his people pray to him he by his hearing of Prayer forgiving of sin doing and giving to every man according to his ways doth hereby invite them to fear him all the days that they live in the Land which he gave to their Fathers and Hos 3.5 It is said of converted Israel That they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter dayes Now that I may speak somewhat of this for your edification I shall take a word or two from this purpose abstractly considered and then consider it with an eye to the scope 1. Then considering the words abstractly we may mark that fear and reverence is due to God that God is a suitable Object of humble and reverential fear in the Creature the fear of God is a thing frequently spoken of and prest in Scripture as most due to him Rev. 15.4 Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name Psal 76.7 11. Thou even thou art to be feared bring presents to him that ought to be feared Isai 8.13 Sanctifie the Lord of hosts himself let him be your fear and your dread Heâ—â—e not to insist upon the Derivations that some give of the Greek and Latine Names of God from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying Fear the Scripture sometimes Names God by this That he is the fear of his people Gen. 31.53 when Laban sware by the God of Abraham and the God of Nabor Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac that is by the God that was the Object of Isaac's fear and that word is very emphatick which ye have Psal 76.11 in your Translation it is bring presents to him that ought to be feared but in the Original and as it is rendred in the margin of your Bibles it is bring presents to the fear that is to God the Object of the reverential fear of his people It may be said that the Object of fear being things evil God who is the Chief Good seems not to be the proper Object of fear but that is easily cleared affection to God as to the chief Good cannot be without holy solicitude and reverential fear lest either our sin deprive us of him and of his favour or he be provocked to send evil on us upon the account of our provocations Now for the kinds of this fear of God I shall not insist upon
make us say with that wicked King 2 King 6.33 This evil is of the Lord why should I wait on the Lord any longer And readily the man that will not wait on God hath that which he had with it v. 31. God do so to me and more also if the head of Eâ—â—sha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day The godly man resolves to be like the infirm man at the Pool Joh. 5.57 There will he lyâ— were it never so long till the water be troubled and some put him in or till Christ by his immediat hand cure him This was the Psalmists way here after he is put to cry out of the deeps and to wrestle with guilt meeting him in the teeth and to cry for pardoning mercie and no relief appears he resolves during the delay to wait on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope My soul waits for the Lord more c. And Psal 62. after he hath said Truly my soul waiteth on God from him comes my salvation v. 1. he presseth it over again v. 5. O my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him he will wait and better wait and continue in waiting Now the prosecution of this would lead me to the particulars in the Text wherein these four or five things are clear 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more c. These are the particulars in the Text in the prosecution whereof we may have sundry things for laying open this exercise of waiting on God I shall now speak a few words and close I shall not touch on this that duty is ours and event is Gods a man having done his duty may if he could win up to the use of his allowance sleep very sound under cross events but it is our unhappy temper that we would still be at the Throne and have the guiding of things we are like the ill Scholar that 's busier at his neighbours Lesson than his own But to pass this consider four short words and I have done 1. Waiâ—ing on God is a blest mean appointed of God in order to an out-gate out of all difficulties Isai 30.18 Blest are all they that wait on him A man by waiting on God and brooking delays with faith patience affection and submission may find an out gate without a delivery 2. Waiting on God in the case of delays and persevering in waiting is commendable on this account that we can do no where else so well as to ly still at his door a man that wearies to wait on God would look what he will do next ere he give it over When Christ ask'd Peter Will ye also leave me He answers To whom shall we go We had need to seek a better Master ere we quite thee and that we cannot find thou hast the words of eternal life What will a man do next if he wait not on God David is fasht with waiting and dependence and he will go down to the Land of the Philistines and the History tells what befell him there he is forced to lie he is likely to be brought in a snare by fighting against the people of God and his interest and in Ziglag in hazard of being destroyed by the Amalekites a man may well get an ill Conscience by apostacy and declining he is never a step nearer delivery so that go the world as it will waiting on God is the best of it And 3. When we weary of waiting on God because of outward dispensations we bewray too much affection to the things of time thou art in a difficulty thou wearies because of the calamity that lies on and thou gets not an out-gate but it were better for thee to mourn over thy inordinat affection to the things of time that makes thee weary and that would make way for thy out-gate and lighten thy burden 4. Remember that even a delivery from any difficulty out of Gods way without waiting on God is a plague When a man comes not under a signal plague till he come under this that as the word is Mal. 3.15 he tempts God and is delivered And therefore rather abhor such an issue that is a plague than lust after it SERMON XXI Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and c. IN these words as ye heard the last day is contained the 3d Branch of the Psalmists exercise after that he hath wrestled with difficulties by crying to God out of the depths and wrestled with the conscience of guilt by taking with it and fleeing to pardoning mercy on right terms he is put now to wrestle with delays of comfort and an out-gate and this he wrestles with by confident affectionat meek and patient waiting on God I spoke to the general Doctrine of this Verse The task of perseverance and constancy in the way of God and followed it out a little in opposition to apostacy and back-sliding and more particularly to these brashy hot fits that folk have at some times which are followed with as great cools and in opposition to delays or wearying and sitting up from employing God when folks meet with delays which is in the Text which ye may remember I divided in these five 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning For the first of these that he is waiting this if I should follow forth in all that might be said of it I should take in that Confidence and affection the Psalmist hath in waiting which will occur in their proper places to be spoken to when I proceed in the words of the Text here I shall pass not only a general of the Psalmists reflecting on what he hath been doing and his giving an account of it which I purpose to take in afterward but I shall handle waiting on God here only in these two 1. Somewhat Supposed That he is put to wait 2. Somewhat proposed That when he is put to wait he doth wait For the first somewhat supposed that he is put to wait which affords us this Observation that the Saints even in their serious and sincere seeking of God in difficulties may be exercised with delays of comfort and an out-gate when a godly man is here crying
out of the Depths when he has not only been looking upon his trouble but sensible of sin and following a right method for pardon of sin on right Terms carefully and diligently going about his duty he is put to this I wait for the Lord. The Lord indeed hath made many rich and precious Promises relative to every pressure his people can be under there is not a distress or difficulty they can be in but there is a Promise for it yet he hath reserved the timing of the accomplishment and performing of them in his own hand Isai 60. ult and it is not for us to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power hence it comes to pass that though the Lord in fulfilling his Promises never misses his own time yet seldom doth he come at our time we by reason of our corruption and weakness are often put to cry How long Lord how long Psal 6.3 How long wilt thou forget me how long wilt thou hide thy face Psal 13.1 And as it is Jer. 8.20 The harvest is past the Summer is ended and we are not saved All which complaints do not import that God keeps not his time but that he comes not at our time in performing his Promises and yet further this is to be taken along with us during our being exercised with delays that though God put us to wait he doth not that meerly on the account of his Soveraignty though he might do so but for the exercise profit and advantage of his people and to clear and make out this I shall instance it in four ends the Lord hath before him in delaying the fulfilling of Promises till his own time 1. Hereby the Lord trys whether we will believe the thing he hath promised though it be delayed it is not the tryal of Faith when we see rich and precious Promises meeting with sad times and cases to close with them providing God will let us see them presently accomplished when we would but here is the tryal of Faith if we will wait till Gods time come Rom. 8.25 After the Apostle hath pleaded that hope seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for he adds but if we wait for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it If we hope to get the thing promised though we see it not then it will kythe in our patient waiting for it 2. The Lord by delaying his people searches them whether there be any latent and hidden dross in them or not It is not the first heat of the furnace that will try what is in the Saints neither is it so much the greatness of the Tryal as the lengthning of it that will sift them and discover what is in them When men at first ingage in Tryal and have the Promises before them and their blood hot their whole spirit will go along with them but stay till their blood cool till Temptation seek and soak in till disappointment give them a dash after dash and till year after year and day after day says the matter is hopeless and that will bring out that which folks did not believe was within who would have believed the corruption and weakness that kythed in David if the lengthning of his trouble had not discovered it all men are liars saith he I shall now one day perish by the hand of Saul There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines 1 Sam. 27.1 3. The Lord delays his people that when they have studied Faith and Patience and have resolved upon it as their duty to give God his own time for performing his Promises they may have access to the blessed Fruit that comes in at that door Rom. 5.3 We glory in tribulation knowing that tribulation worketh patience patience experience c. There are two remarkable things in that Text one is That the blessing of God on cankering fretting irritating Tribulation can make it a mean in his hand to bring forth Patience That which puts folk out of tune he cannot only make it fit on their back till they stand unholden but through his blessing on it he can work them up to patience by it And another is that till a person study Patience under Tribulation he stops the door on all the good he might get by it or meet with under it it is but tint labour till he win to patience but when Tribulation hath wrought Patience Patience worketh Experience And 4. To add no more The Lord delays his people that he may wean them from Time and these things they are given to dote upon in time Although in time they be trysted with many needful encouragements with Meats in their journey in passing through the Wilderness yet he will have them to know that their home is not here that their Rest is not in time therefore he so trains on his people in Time as they find no place for satisfaction in it but that they must feed on hunger and thirst and so go on seeking for that Rest that abides them beyond Time That is one of the great Lessons that God inculcats on his people by delays even to wean them more from Time and to make them fall in love with Eternity Well then seing it is so Take four words of Inference from it and I shall leave it And 1. The godly that are seeking God sincerely and seriously would hence be Cautioned not to judge of their sincerity and diligence by their present success comfort or out-gate here is a man crying to God out of the depths verse 1 2. Taking with guilt verse 3. gripping to pardoning Mercy on right terms verse 4. And yet here he is put to wait in opposition to delays It is a groundless Temptation to measure divine approbation by present success here we see folk may be acceptably employed and yet meet with delays but this may occur afterward and therefore I here pass it 2. Hence ye shall gather that if the Lord delay a man in the posture that this holy man was in crying serious in Prayer in taking with guilt in pleading for pardon what wonder he delay others who under difficulties are not so exercised much more these who are at no such exercise are not to think it strange though they meet with such delays What wonder the Babylonish Captivity last for seventy years when at the close of it it might be said as Dan. 9.12 All this evil is come upon us yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth The carriage of the visible Church is such as it justifies God in bringing on trouble Ezek 14.22 He tells his people when the remnant should be brought forth and they should see their ways and doings they should be comforted concerning all the evil that he had brought upon Jerusalem and should know that
there were no promising evidence of it but rather the contrary 2. Another is saints when stript and emptied of all things do not give over waiting on God because he is not only able if he will to do their turn when all refuge fails them but his owning his people in difficulties is a special part of his glory which he will not give to any other little do we understand the intricacies of Divine Providence little know we wherefore he blasts probabilities and defeats all the expectations of his people but whatever else be in it it is for this chiefly that Himself may be seen to be their Deliverer and none other Therefore he does with them as he did with Gideon's army when he brought them to three hundred and with these three hundred with Trumpets and lamps in pitchers defeat the Midianites Judges 7. That their Delivery might be seen of him And if this were well seen it would give the people of God a comfortable look of God's laying by all second Causes stripping them naked of all helps making Dispensations threaten ruine they would say our Masters feet are behind these this is but a dark hour before the dawning So doth David reason in that forecited Psalm 142.4 5. When he looked on the right and left hand and there was no man that would know him refuge failed him no man cared for his soul What follows I cryed unto thee O Lord I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living And Psal 94.18 When I said my foot slips thy mercy O Lord held me up When there was nothing betwixt him and ruine but Gods Mercy he found that a present help But 3. The Children of God when stripped of all things but God have ground to wait on God and do wait on him not only because he is able to deliver them and delights to lay by other things that he may be seen in their delivery but whereas guilt is a great impediment and stares the waiter on God in the face that he knows not how to expect good from God till that be removed and taken out of the way yet he waits on God on this account that there is hope in Israel concerning that thing that his guilt shall be no impediment to his delivery or any good thing he wants and is needful for him if he do with it as the Psalmist doth here verse 3 4. If he take with it be humbled for it lay claim to pardoning Mercy in the right method he may notwithstanding say I wait for the Lord There are two notable grounds of encouragement which as they would not be abused so being rightly improven are very useful to waiters on God One is that right taking with guilt and repentance for it after much incorrigibleness is attainable when we have called our selves for any thing we can see in our selves or expect from means reprobat silver yet the Lord can humble and tame that uncircumcised heart Jer. 32.19 He can turn Ephraim who has resisted many means and hath been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke Another is that which I am upon guilt taken with and acknowledged needs not hinder a man to wait on God These places that I cited the last day proves it as Isai 8.17 I will wait upon the Lord that hides his face from the house of Jacob and I will look for him Though he be a God that is provocked to withdraw and hide his face yet I will wait on him look for him And Micah 6.7 8. When the Church is low yet she will look to the Lord and will wait for him and wait for the God of his salvation believing her God will hear her and on that ground bids the enemy boast at leisure She answers that Objection concerning guilt that she will bear the indignation of the Lord because she hath sinned she will take with guilt and stoop to his correcting hand till he plead her cause and execute Judgment for her she looks over the mountain of her guilt when she hath taken with it and waits for the Lord. So ye see what is first imported in this waiting for God that the eyes of the waiting man must be taken off all things and set on God only and that these who would wait on God would lay their account to be more and more stript of all things till they be left on God and being so they have good ground to wait on God and the waiter on God taking with guilt and pleading for mercy may in that humble posture wait still for God I proceed to the second thing imported in this waiting on God and that is The waiting man left on God and seeing an all-sufficiency in God to do his turn in the faith of that he so waits for God That is to wait for the Lord when the confidence of Gods help encourages the waiting man in waiting on God to stick closs by the way of God that he will not have a comfort but in his way he will not have a delivery but that which comes with Divine approbation He will not purchase a Delivery of Out-gate with the price of the least sin Why he waits for God in his way Troubles and delays are a great temptation to shake off tenderness the pressure and continuance of the least of troubles are ill counsellors in a waiting posture they will bid run to the leest row to the best shore take any course for an out-gate But he who is a waiter on God indeed his tenderness grows as his trouble grows and as his delays are protracted he studies to be the more tender I shall not insist on this but 1. It is certain a waiter for God should be and in so far as he waits rightly on God he is and will be a tender man as the Word is Psal 37.34 Wait on the Lord and keep his way a waiter on God hath his Ears nailed to the Posts of Divine Direction so that neither to the right nor left hand dare he move but as he hath a warrand from God So Heb. 11.35 There were folks that were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection mark it they were not tortured because deliverance was not granted but because deliverance could not be accepted on sinful Terms when offered The greatness of their trouble did not diminish their tenderness whatever it did augment it if at any time they found tenderness necessary they found it especially when their trouble was great 2. Ye shall mark that as true waiting requires tenderness so tenderness is attainable that is through Grace it is attainable That a Saint waiting on God in his way in a tender frame may attain to go through difficulties without sinning against God It is true temptations to sin will go thick and threefold when a Saint is put to wait for God in continued troubles and meets with temptations delays difficulties and pressures which as I said
would be at or expect And I shall add that as waiting for God would be with much affection with affection suitable to his excellency so it would be suitable to thy need of him and these things thou waits for from him Thou sayest God is thy excellency Jerusalem is thy chief joy the joy of the Lord is thy strength but is thy affections suitable to thy need of him and his consolations when if thy comfort be suspended if thou can win at comfort in any other thing thou waits not for him and his consolation 3ly I shall add that when affection is indeed aloft for God there is no hazard no want of accommodation that would pinch men so sore as the want of God will pinch a man that is set to enjoy God The Psalmist whose affection is aloft he waits more for God than they that watch for the morning I shall not dip upon this it is a mercy not to get leave to sleep till folk be out of an ill condition when folks get no rest to the soles of their feet out of God And I wish them who want him more disquietness nor many loiterers have till they get to their feet and seek for their Husband and find him and I wish them no ill while I pray for this to them And I shall add raised affection for God Who knows what a prognostick it might be of a sweet and comfortable out-gate and that such a souls song should be with the Psalmist here Let Israel hope c. Affectionat waiting for God getting to the feet to run after him O! What a cloud might that be like an hand-breadth at first that will cover the Sky and at length bring abundance of rain But want of affection leaves folk in a woful condition to rot to dead And I shall add if affection should be put out thus for God and if want of God to an affectionat waiter be a distress that pinsheth him above any hazard they are in who are put to wait for the morning Then certainly the enjoyment of God according to the measure that a man doth enjoy him should make him drink and forget his misery and remember his poverty no more And the man that enjoys God Though the fig-tree do not blossom and though there be no fruit in the vine and the labour of the olive fail no meat in the fields no flock in the folds no herd in the stall Hab. 3.17 Though the earth be removed and the mountains carried into the midst of the sea c. Psal 46.2 He will be as far above the men of the world in their enjoyments as his affection while he wanted God was above their resentments I shall go no further God bless his word unto you SERMON XXXI Psalm 130. Verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption Verse 8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities YE may remember in the first six verses of this Psalm we have the Psalmists wrestling which as we shewed you before hath three Branches He hath been wrestling with difficulties and plunging perplexities in his case which are represented under the notion of depths in the first and second Verse he hath been wrestling with the Conscience and sense of Guilt putting back his Prayers and offering to crush his hopes and so interposing to obstruct his success and access verse 3 4. and in the 5 and 6. he hath been wrestling with delays either of comfort or an out-gate or both and notwithstanding of all his hard exercise in crying to God by Prayer in his trouble and perplexity in taking with the dreadful desert of guilt and claiming to pardoning mercy and forgiveness he doth therewith wrestle by patience and hope He waited on God and that affectionatly and his patience in waiting was supported by hope in God grounded on the Word of God Now in these two verses read ye have the second part of the Psalm containing the Psalmists delivery or victory His delivery or victory is not expresly asserted but it is very sweetly implyed in his improvement of the exercise he hath been under and holding forth the good he hath gotten when it is well with him the issue he hath gotten he doth not conceal it nor only speak it out but he improves and layes it out for the good of God's Israel when he hath got a sweet sight of the good of waiting and hoping in God he conveens them all as it were to come and write after his Copy and encourages them to hope in God upon the account of mercy and pardon and plenteous redemption and redeeming Israel from all his iniquities So the words contain first an Exhortation to Israel in the beginning of the 7. verse Let Israel hope c. 2. They contain motives and encouragements pressing the exhortation by way of arguments that this counsel should be hearkned unto and these motives or encouragements are taken partly in the first place from what is in God In the end of the 7. verse Let Israel hope c. for with the Lord there is mercy c. There is mercy and power and authority in God to bring redemption to his people from all their sins and miseries And the 2. Argument is taken from this that God will let out that mercy and redemption that is in him for the good of his people Not only is there mercy and power with God if he please to let it out to redeem but it is expresly asserted that he will redeem his people verse 8. He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities a promise which howsoever it be made out to Israel in all ages yet it is signally to be erified to the Jews in their Conversion in the latter days for the Apostle Rom. 11.26 adduces this promise out of Isai 59.20 As it is written there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob That is that shall redeem Israel as was hinted from all his iniquities To return to the Exhortation Let Israel hope in the Lord I have been would he say assaying to hope in the Lord and have found the good of it for when I was waiting for God I was supported by hope in his Word and now I have gotten so good an account of my hope that I dare recommend it from mine own experience to all and I have such a kindness to Israel that any experience I have gotten by waiting for God and hoping in his Word I will not hoord it up I will be no hookster of it but recommend it to them as a common-good Therefore let Israel hope in the Lord. That I may get somewhat digged out of the Treasure here I shall reduce the grounds of Observations to be gathered from this Exhortation to four general Heads 1. I shall touch upon what is implyed and held out in the general scope of these words 2. I shall speak to the
passion or perturbation yet is he no less tender and careful in shewing mercy than if these passions abounded in him 2. It is to be considered that it is to be wondered that he should be merciful when none of these things are in him that prompts men to be merciful all his mercy we owe to his goodness allanerly Men are prompted to be merciful to others because they are of the same nature with them Beside that weakness and softness of spirit that is in some may make them compassionat others in misery The experience others have had of such pressures may excite compassion to others in the like case mens relations may warm and affect their hearts with compassion to their relations in misery when yet they will be less concerned how it fares with others not so related to them and men considering not so much the simple trouble as the age dignity of the persons troubled when they see such in trouble it may waken compassion But all these are far removed from the Majesty of God he is infinitly above and infinitly distinct from man's nature neither is his nature subject to Misery yet he is no less merciful but infinitly more merciful than if all these things that serve to excite mercy in men were in him Only 3. Take one word more concerning this mercy that is with God in general because it is not so easy as many think to take up this mercy in an infinit and glorious Spirit He hath been pleased to bring this mercy in him a little nearer to us and to take up his dwelling in our nature in giving the Son of his Love to be incarnat and our kinsman a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief experiencing the misery of man that his mercy may run through this channel that his infinit mercy may be communicate to us through the tender bowels of a merciful and faithful high Priest who was in all things made like to his brethren Heb. 2.17 And who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and was in all things tempted as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 To assure us that he can be touched with our miseries But I proceed in the 2d place to speak to the Object of this mercy in God and here in general all the creatures of God do in some measure partake of this mercy of God Psal 145.9 His tender mercies are over all his works or upon all his works as the word will read or to be seen in all his works Psal 33.5 The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 119.64 The earth is full of his mercy his mercy is extended to the very ravenous birds and beasts whose needy crys are lookt on as directed to a merciful God Job 38.41 He provideth for the raven his food when his young ones cry unto him Psal 104.21 The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Psal 147.9 He giveth to the beast his food and to the young ravens which cry Joel 1.20 In time of drought the beasts of the field cry unto him And Jonah 4. God respects not only the infants that were in Niniveh who knew not the right hand by the left but the very cattel and if beasts partake of the mercy of God then wicked men are not deprived of it Luk. 6.35 He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil ver 35. and the commentary put on this verse 36. Be ye therefore merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful The visible Church they yet more peculiarly are the object of Gods mercy as witness all the promises made to Israel of old for the elects sake that were among them But the most peculiar objects of his mercy are his own elect who as ye heard Rom. 9.23 are vessels of mercy which he hath afore prepared to glory His mercies towards them cannot be enumerated The mercy of their Election Exod. 33.19 and Rom. 9.15 He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy compassion on him on whom he will have compassion It is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of him that sheweth mercy No but election may be called and is an act of Dominion and Soveraignity yet its scope is mercy Then there is the mercy of their Regeneration Tit. 3.5 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration c. And being regenerat what a heap of mercy and goodness follows them all their days Psal 23.6 The mercy of pardoning their iniquity Exod. 34.6 The mercy of hearing their prayers as he sayes in another case Exod. 22.27 When he shall cry unto me I will hear for I am gracious The mercy of moderation in the midst of wrath Hab. 3.2 And not to enumerat all the mercies conferred on the saints the consummation of their mercies lies in their everlasting happiness Jude verse 20 Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Then they will get that Prayer answered put up in the behalf of Onesiphorus 2 Tim. 1.18 The Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day Thus the Elect from Election to eternal Glorification are the objects of Gods peculiar mercy I shall only in speaking to the object of this mercy in God desire you further to take notice under what notions the godly are described when he promises to express his mercy to them and to ensure it to them he is merciful to them because they are his own elect yet ye may notice these names and notions under which mercy is holden out and ensured to them and I shall name four or five 1. They are described as penitents bemoaning their sin and turning from their evil way Jer. 31.18 When Ephraim is bemoaning himself crying Turn thou me and I shall be turned and repenting then it follows I will surely have mercy on him An impenitent posture may obstruct mercy in its effects from coming to a godly man 2. The Objects of this Mercy are described to be lovers of him keepers of his commands as in the second command Shewing mercy to thousands of them that love me c. It is not simply to keepers of the commands but to such as keep them from a principle of love neglected obedience or obedience not from a principle of love may obstruct the manifestations of mercy 3. The objects of this special mercy are described to be fearers of God Psal 103.17 The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and Luke 1.50 His mercy is upon them that fear him from generation to generation A heart standing in awe of God a man that hath all his performances and even his love seasoned with fear is the man that is under the drop of Mercy 4. The Objects of this peculiar Mercy are described to be merciful folk Mat. 5.7 Blest are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy They that have obtained mercy themselves cannot but have
wroth Why The spirit should fail before me and the souls that I have made I could soon destroy them but that I may not do and therefore will not contend for ever c. And 6. The riches and fulness of his mercy may be read in this that when he lets out bowels of mercy there will be no mercy which the Creature needs will be withheld from them When Ishmael hath slain Gedaliah whom the King of Babylon had made the Jews Governour and they are afraid of the Chaldeans Be not afraid of the King of Babylon saith he for I am with you to save and deliver you and I will shew mercy to you that he may have mercy on you Jer. 42.11 12. Fear not if ye partake of my mercy I will make the Chaldeans compassionat you So Psal 106 44. He regarded their affliction when he heard their cry and he remembred his Covenant and repented according to the multitude of his mercies What follows he made them also to be pitied of all that carried them captives He needs no other instruments of compassion to his people nor bitter enemies when he will have compassion on them So Solomon prays Give them compassion before them that carry them captive 1 King 8.50 And Hezekiah when he is to keep the Passover tells the people If they turn again to the Lord their brethren and children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive 2 Chron. 30.9 Gods compassion can soon bring the compassion of men in so far as he sees it needful Thus ye see in a few hints how rich and full the mercy of God is In a word it 's a mercy for all the needs and pressures of his people a Plaister broad enough to cover and effectual enough to cure all their griefs and sores For the use of this great truth That with the Lord there is mercy I shall briefly touch on five inferences from it and leave it And 1. If this mercy of God be relative to mans misery if it be good news manifested to the Creature on the account of its misery then those who are partakers of this mercy would have much sense of their misery mercy will not relish to any but to the man sensible of his misery a pardon will signify nothing but to a Rebel that is sensible of his Rebellion And here all that I have spoken of the riches freeness fulness c. of this mercy if ye read it right will be the first Lesson ye will learn from it all this is not proclaimed for a complement but because it 's needed by the miserable And consequently thou must infer If I have a right to you mercy it must not be ordinary thoughts of my misery that I must have there must be deeps of misery in me to call for deeps of mercy in God If we thus fence the point we need not fear that it be a sleeping Pillow to the secure look what misery is in thee to close with every thing in mercy If mercy be free look what ill-deserving is in thee if pardoning-mercy be in God look what sense of unpardoned guilt is in thee if multitudes of mercies be in God what sense of multitude of miseries is in thee They that have a right to mercy must tryst it in the dust in the very pit of misery 2. From this that there is mercy with God there is ground of assurance offered and afforded to the miserable that their irrecoverable case by the Covenant of Works is not now desperat O! the blessed intimation of that Attribute to fallen man that with God there is mercy How good news was it and should it be What had been the case of Adam and all his posterity after the Covenant of Works was broken had it not been for this blest Attribute that interposed But now because there is mercy with God irrecoverable distresses are not desperate Somewhat ye heard of this from vers 2 and 4. What a deplorable case had all been in if there had been no more to be lookt for but that vers 3. If thou Lord mark iniquities O Lord who should stand But a gracious answer is added vers 4. But there is forgivenness or mercy with thee and how this is prest upon the account of Gods mercy ye have an account given Jer. 55.67 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts and let him return to the Lord Why For he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon That there is mercy in God abundantly to pardon is an intimation to the man that is in an irrecoverable condition to look again to God And in that 2d of Joel after that the Lord hath uttered a sore and terrible Judgment and hath told verse â—1 That he will utter his voice before his Army for his Camp is very great and strong is he that executes his word and in the by if the Lord hath a Nation to punish he needs not raise and bring in an uncouth Nation to punish them he can cause Grashoppers or Locusts do his turn after all that Verse 12 13. He bids them turn to him with all their heart with fasting weeping and mourning for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the evil When the Lord is setting forth and inflicting an apparent and remediless stroak this yet invites to repentance That he is gracious and merciful and therefore as on the one hand thou that slights this offered mercy and makes it a pillow to security who when thou hears tell there is mercy with God makes no use of it but rather abuses it to go on in sin O the Justice of God in the day of thy accompts will be a sad sight in comparison of mercy or justice execute on slighters of mercy will be dreadful Justice then it will be Hills and mountains fall on us and bide us from the face of the Lamb What There is little terror in a Lambs Face yea but the fight of the Lambs face in the day of compt and reckoning that he that offered mercy was a Lamb that mercy was with him will be most dreadful think on it slighters of the Gospel sit-fasts never-do-wells abusers of mercy or ye that would take mercy in the accomplishment but never give mercy employment who follow your abominations if not openly yet secretly better for you that ye had sitten all your time at the foot of Sinai than at the foot of mercy in Zion This is often told you but little laid to heart and the ofter it be told many the less it is laid to heart but the day will come when many will get Hell affrighting memories wherein ye will remember that which drops at your feet and is not noticed or is stept over and not regarded So on the other hand thou who on the account of
hopelesness in thy condition runs away from God take heed what thou dost thou looks on thy case as incurable and what will thou do with it If thou run away where will thou go next Thy case must either break thee or thou will grow stupid under it and besides if thou run away thou reproaches the mercy of God so far as thou can while thou runs from him with any condition how desperat and irrecoverable so ever and will thou bring up an ill report on his mercy as if there were no cure in it for thy case When thou should rather sing as David Psal 13.5 In opposition to every hopeless like case But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation O then take heed that thou reproach not nor bring not up an ill report on this rich full mercy in God by running from it whatever thy condition be 3. Come here all ye that are making mercy your refuge under all your pressures miseries troubles temptations desertion or whatever ail you that know no other door to knock at but mercy in God ye have no song but that one which David had Psal 13. before cited and that I can never often enough repeat though God seem to forget him for ever and hide his face for ever from him though when he takes counsel in his soul he hath sorrow in his heart daily though his enemies had exalted themselves and said they had prevailed over him and reâ—oyced and the sleep of death seems to approach he hath nothing to all that But I have trusted in thy mercy Take a look how richly thou art made up that trusts in this mercy Remember the song that follows in that Psalm â—nd thou will not find it an heartless shift My heart says â—e shall rejoice in thy salvation I will sing to the Lord because â—e hath dealt bountifully with me And the Psalmist sings Psal 31.7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy Why For thou hast considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversity I got acquaintance with thee in adversity which otherwise I had not been capable of therefore I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy and consider that sweet song Psal 136.23 Who remembred us in our low estate Why for his mercy endureth for ever or as Hezekiah hath it Isai 38.27 He loved my soul from the pit of corruption That is the word in the Original His love and mercy have an Adamantine vertue to draw a soul out of the pit of corruption when he remembers us in our low estate consider thou that hast made mercy thy refuge how sweetly it can kep a deep distress Psal 69.15 Let not the water flood overflow me hear me O Lord for thy loving kindness is good turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies And Psal 86.14 O God the proud are risen up against me and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul but thou O Lord art a God full of compassion gracious long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth O turn unto me and have mercy on me Consider what a good account of very hopeless tryals mercy will give Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of Jobs patience and have seen the end of the Lord and what was the end of the Lord even this That the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy O but they are sad difficulties which tender mercy and pity in God will not afford relief unto and therefore think not your self in a poor plight who have mercy for your refuge who have no song to sing But I have trusted c. 4. When ye have closed with and are made up by this mercy look how ye improve it and do not abuse it I confess the want of the faith of mercy in a strait is an estranging thing Zech. 11.8 My soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me but when thou grips to mercy see what influence it hath on thy heart for warming it for putting it in a sweet and tender frame on thy part may I say it I defie folk to abuse mercy taken by the right handle O the alluring melting constraining perswading power that is in mercy rightly closed with and O that folk could win to this gate of making use of mercy Rom. 11.1 The Apostle in pressing holiness saith I beseech you brethren by the mercy of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice c. And I may allude to that Phil. 2.1 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercy fulfil ye my joy If folk knew what overcoming mercy means they would let it be seen in a tender walk Thou talks of mercy yet thou art not overcome with it thou art not melted nor made more tender by it what a cheater of thy self and abuser of mercy art thou Remember the abuse of outward mercies will make a sad dittay Ezra 9. If after all these we break his commands But ah what shall be said when folk pretend to special mercy and abuse it But 5. Among other Uses that ought to be made of believed and closed with mercy this is one That we learn to be merciful Luke 6.36 We must be merciful as is our heavenly Father even in loving enemies c. Ye heard in the morning from Mat. 5.7 That it is the merciful that obtain mercy And that Parable of the man that had much forgiven him and would not forgive his fellow servant but cast him in prison Mat. 18.23 It was a sad evidence that he was not pardoned himself In a word thou who art much in mercies common it will make thee of a merciful meek temper which is that pressed Tit. 3.2 That we should speak evil of no man be no brawlers c. but gentle shewing meekness to all men seeing we our selves were sometime disobedient deceived serving divers lusts But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost A boisterous malitious unmerciful temper in any is but a poor Evidence that such live under the drop of the multitude of the tender mercies that are with God But the time being ended I leave this great Point and you to the rich blessing of this merciful God To whom be glory SERMON XLI Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THe Songs of the people of God while they are within time are made up of very mixed Notes yet in this they are sweet that their over-word or last word is still the best of it Poor and needy are they and may they be yet they are thought upon by God Troubled they may be but not distrest perplext but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but