not stir to seek for a better estate nor yet receive it if offered Job 22. 17. They say unto the Almighty depart from us we desire not the knowledg of his waies do Ministers press them do others perswade them to a more serious and narrow search to get more grounded assurance of their estate in Grace they profess they bid them to their loss they think they need not be better nor do they desire to be other It is impossible upon these terms that ever the soul should be carried by Faith unto God For to be contented and quieted with our condition as that which best pleaseth and yet to seek out for another are things contradictory And yet this Faith doth For he that is in Christ is a new Creature behold all things are become new 2 Cor. 5. 17. he must have new comforts new desires new hopes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heart must be broken to pieces under the weight of the evil of sin and the Curses due to the old condition before this wil part for that the word here used with great elegancy and pregnancy implies viz. by an oppressing weight to be pashed to pouder and dust 〈◊〉 the Psalmist useth it Psal. 90. 3. Thou turnest man to pouder to the dust of death when a 〈◊〉 composition is dissolved and the body returned again into its first principle so the word here by way of resemblance implies that the soul should find his corruption his greatest oppression so that the composition betwixt sin and his soul should be dissolved and taken down and the nature of man return to his first principles and primitive disposition that he sees an absolute necessity to change and then he will seek and be willing to receive a change The 〈◊〉 need no Physitian and therefore will not seek but the sick that need will be content to receive The issue is If the soul be contented with its sinful condition and would not have a change then it cannot be under the power of Faith or receive that which will bring a change but before the soul be broken under the pressure of sin it would not have a change therefore so long it cannot be under the power of Faith Be it granted that the soul finds sin as a plague and therefore would be preserved from the evil of it the second impediment which wholly keeps out Faith is this When the sinner expects supply and 〈◊〉 from its own sufficiency either outward excellencies abilities of Nature or common Graces or the beauty of some performances which issue from any of these For this is Natural to all men ever since Innocency That since the staff was put into his own hand and then needed not nay should not deny their own strength 〈◊〉 to this day this practice of old Adam remain still in all his posterity they will scramble for their own Comforts and try the utmost of their own strength to help themselves rather than be 〈◊〉 to another to help them Hence in cases of Conscience and trouble men are so ready to resolve so apt and free to promise and profess amendment what they will do and others shall see it as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it and so alas it comes to nothing in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either they fall back unto their base courses when horror and fear is over or else wasting 〈◊〉 into a 〈◊〉 formality and so perish in their Hypocrisie This is an apparent bar to faith which is the going out of the soul to fetch all life and power from 〈◊〉 Now wholly to be in our selves and to stay upon our own ability and yet to go out of himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and receive all from his sufficiency are things which 〈◊〉 stand together I came not to call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. 13. While they sought to establish 〈◊〉 own 〈◊〉 they did not submit to the Righteousness of God Hence t 〈◊〉 the second work of Humiliation is required 〈◊〉 God plucks away all his props and 〈◊〉 him wholly of what he hath or seemeth to have For pride unto which Humiliation is opposite is but the rankness of praise and praise is a fruit of a cause by counsel that hath power to do or not to do this or that as he sees 〈◊〉 Humiliation is the utter nothingness of the soul that we have no power it 's not in our choyce to dispose of our selves not yet to dispose of that which another gives nor yet safe to repine at his dispose In a word as in a Scion before it be ingrafted into another stock it must be cut osf srom the old and pared and then implanted In Contrition we are cut off in Humiliation pared and so sit to be implanted into Christ by Faith In regard of God without this disposition his Word will not nay cannot take any place in us or prevail with us for our good Counsels and Commands and Comforts or whatever Dispensations they fal as water upon a Rock when administred to a hard heart they enter not prevail not profit not at all As Christ told the Jews John 8. 37. ' My Word takes no place in you and Zach. 7. 11 12. They hardened their hearts as an Adamant c. A word of terror to dash the hopes and sink the hearts of all haughty and hard hearted sinners God owns not such will never vouchsafe his gracious presence with them or his Blessing upon them for good be where they will dwell where they will the Lord is not with them nor will dwel in them by his comforting quickening saving presence Hear and fear then all you stout-hearted stubborn and rebellious Creatures whose consciences can evidence that the day is yet to dawn the hour yet to come that ever you found your sins a pressure to you they have been your past-time and delight in which you have pleased your selves so far from being troubled for your evils that it is your only trouble you may not commit them with content and without controul you are troubled with Admonitions and Counsels and Commands and Threatnings that cross you in your sins You were never broken-hearted here for your abominations know assuredly that you wil burn for them one day your proud hearts were never abased and laid in the dust the Lord will ruinate both you and them Never expect a good look from God set your heart at rest for that you may draw the Eyes of others after you make many of your deluded followers and Favorites to look upon you but the Lord will not come neer nor once cast a loving look towards you Psal. 138. 6. Though the Lord be high he hath respect to the lowly but he knows the proud afar off Nay the great God of Heaven and Earth is up in Arms against thee he is upon the March to work thy destruction James 4. 6. The Lord resists the proud but he gives Grace to the humble all Grace is in his gift and he doles it only to the bruised and abased but there is no
Psal. 19. 7. the law of God makes wise the simple 2. Tim. 3. 15. it's able to make us wise unto Salvation 3 There 's a Sufficiency of God to content and satisfy us Blessed are they who walk in his wayes and blessed are they that keep his Testimonies Psal. 119. 1. 2. Great prosperity have they that love the law and nothing shal offend them ver 16. and in truth there can be no greater reward for doing wel than to be enabled to do well he that hath attayned his last end he cannot go further he cannot be better Now by sin we justle the law out of its place and the Lord out of his Glorious Soveraignty pluck the Crown from his head and the Seepter out of his hand and we say and profess by our practice there is not authority and power there to govern nor wisdom to guide nor good to content me but I wil be swayed by mine own wil and led by mine own deluded reason and satisfied with my own lusts This is the guise of every graceless heart in the commission of sin so Pharaoh who is the Lord I know not the Lord nor will I lett Israel go Exod. 5. 2. in the time of their prosperity see how the Jews turn their backs and shake off the authority of the Lord we are Lords say 〈◊〉 we will come no more at thee Jer. 2. 31. and our tongues are our own who shal be Lords 〈◊〉 us Psal. 12. 4. So for the wisdom of the world see how they set light by it as not worth the looking after it Jer. 18. 12. we wil walk after our own devices we wil every one do the imagination of his own evil heart yea they sett up their own traditions their own Idols and delusions and Lord it over the law making the command of God of none effect Math. 15. 8. 9. So for the goodness of the word Job 22. 17. Mal. 3. 14. It is in vayn to serve God and what profit is there that we have kept his ordinances yea his Commandemnts are ever grievous It s a grievous thing to the loose person he cannot have his pleasures but he must have his guilt and gall with them It s grievous to the worlding that he cannot lay hold on the world by unjust means but Conscience layes hold upon him as breaking the law Thou that knowest and keepest thy pride and stubbornness and thy distempers know assuredly thou dost justle God out of the Throne of his glorious Soveraignty and thou dost profess Not Gods wil but thine own which is above his shall rule thee thy 〈◊〉 reason and the folly of thy mind is above the wisdome of the Lord and that shal guide thee to please thine own stubborn crooked pervers spirit is a greater good than to please God and enjoy happines for this more Contents thee That when thou considerest but thy Course dost thou not wonder that the great and Terrible God doth not pash such a poor insolent worm to pouder and send thee packing to the pitt every moment 2 It smites at the Essence of the Almighty and the desire of the sinner is not only that God should not be supream but that indeed he should not be at all and therefore it would destroy the being of Jehovah Psal. 81. 15. sinners are called the haters of the Lord. John 15. 24. they hated both me and my Father Now he that hates endeavours if it be possible the annihilation of the thing hated and its most certain were it in their power they would pluck God out of Heaven the light of his truth out of their Consciences and the law out of the Societies and Assemblies where they live that they might have elbow room to live as they list Nay what ever they hate most and intend and plott more evil against in al the world they hate God most of all and intend more evil against him than against all their 〈◊〉 besides because they hate all for his sake therefore wicked men are said to destroy the law Psal. 126. 119. the Adulterer loaths that law that condemns uncleaness the Earthworm would destrow that law that forbids Covetousness they are sayd to hate the light John 3. 21. to hate the Saints and Servants of the Lord John 15. 18. the world hates you he that hates the Lanthorn for the lights sake he hates the light much more he that hates the faithful because of the Image of God and the Grace that appears there he hates the God of all Grace and Holiness most of all so God to Zenacharib Isa. 37. 28. I know thy going out and thy Comming in and thy rage against me Oh it would be their content if there was no God in the world to govern them no law to curbe them no justice to punish no truth to trouble them Learn therfore to see how far your rebellions reach It is not arguments you gainsay not 〈◊〉 Counsel of a Minister you reject the command of a 〈◊〉 ye oppose evidence of rule or reason ye 〈◊〉 but be it known to you you fly in the very face of the Almighty and it is not the Gospel of Grace ye would have destroyed but the spirit of Grace the author of Grace the Lord Jesus the God of all Grace that ye hate It crosseth the whol course of Providence perverts the work of the Creature and defaceth the beautiful frame and that sweet correspondence and orderly usefulness the Lord first implanted in the order of things The Heavens deny their influence the Earth her strength the Corn her nourishment thank sin for that Weeds come instead of herbs Cockle and Darnel instead of Wheat thank sin for that Rom. 8. 22. The whol Creature or Creation grones under vanity either cannot do what it would or else misseth of that good and end it intended breeds nothing but vanity brings forth nothing but vexation It crooks all things so as that none can straiten them makes so many wants that none can supply them Eccles. 1. 15. This makes crooked Servants in a family no 〈◊〉 can rule them 〈◊〉 inhabitants in towns crooked members in Congregations ther 's no ordering nor joynting of them in that comly accord and mutual subjection know they said the adversary sin hath done all this Man was the mean betwixt God and the Creature to convey all good with all the constancy of it and therefore when Man breaks Heaven and Earth breaks all asunder the Conduit being cracked and displaced there can be no conveyance from the Fountain In regard of our selves see we and consider nakedly the nature of sin in Four particulars It s that which makes a separation between God and the soul breaks that Union and Communion with God for 〈◊〉 we were made and in the enjoyment of which we should be blessed and happie Isai. 59. 1. 2. Gods ear is not heavy that it cannot hear nor his hand that it cannot help but your iniquities have separated betwixt God and
a poysoning and spreading and infectious Nature it 's not consined within a mans own compas and conscience it 's not a sin in a mans self but there be many sins in this one it becomes the Cause of sin to many others Many are provoked and encouraged to the practice of the like Evils by thy practice Examples are of a constrayning Nature Peter dissembles and many are snatched 〈◊〉 by his example to do as he did Gal. 2 Many are strengthened and confirmed in their wickedness because they have thy example to warrant them they will certainly perish But their Blood will be required at thy hand thou wast the man that did lead them to an ungodly Course and didst harden them therein And the Name of God and his truth will be blasphemed amongst the Heathen for thy sake Rom. 2. 24. How can they but conclude that Religion allows such an ungodly Course which men dare So Commonly to commit and to Continue in without remorse or reformation The Second shift whereby our carnal hearts would keep off the Evidence of Conviction is this As the commonness seems to 〈◊〉 our corruption so the naturalness is made pretence to excuse it Here the plea is ready whereby men would challenge pity 〈◊〉 connivance as their debt It is my disposition or constitution I cannot mend it it is my Nature I cannot alter it Al flesh is frail God knows whereof we be made how feeble we be and he doth not expect perfection at our hands no man counts his coat the worse because there 〈◊〉 some moats in it or casts away his Gold because there is a flaw or mark in it It 's my natural infirmity and hath not each man his failings would you have us be Saints Saints Yea either Saints or Devils The Lord would have thee to be so This is the will of God even your sanctification 1 Thes. 4. 3. the Law would have thee to be so 1 Peter 1. 15. Be ye holy in all manner of Conversation thy Profession would have thee to be 〈◊〉 Let every one that cals upon the Name of the Lord depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2. 19. And he that hath this hope purgeth himself as he is pure 1 John 3. 5. That generally but to come a little neerer and to shew the vanity of this Shift I Answer First This excuse that would cover one sin discovers another and thy Plea doth give in undeniable evidence that all the means of Grace that ever thou hast enjoyed and God hath vouchsafed hath never wrought upon thee nor prevailed with thee for good to this very day nor hast thou received benefit or profit therefrom but al the pains that hath been taken with thee is like water spilt upon the ground For that 's the manner of the Lords proceeding with the soul of a sinner when he intends savingly and effectually to work upon him he changeth his Nature gives him another heart and as it was said of Saul in a like case 1 Sam. he makes him another man It 's the Prophesie of the power of the Gospel The Leopard becomes as a Lamb and the Lyon as a Kid Isai. 11. 6. the savage harsh and 〈◊〉 distempers which like a fretting Leprosie possessed the nature of sinners are taken away when the Lord comes to take possession of them or to prevail with them in the power of any Ordinance It 's the first step in the profession of the Gospel He that wil be Christs Disciple must deny himself he must be able to say as the blind man whom our Savior cured I was blind but now I see I was dead but now I am alive I was of a proud peevish wayward waspish contentious froward quarrelsom disposition could agree with no body nor with my self neither but since the Lord hath met with me and wrought upon me by his Word and Spirit I am not I I have another mind and another heart and another carriage and Conversation than formerly He that is in Christ and Christ in him he is a new Creature and hath a new Nature he strives most against that unto which he is most addicted by his own disposition he watcheth how to prevent that he fears al the day long lest he should be surprized with it fortifies most in the improvement of al means against that confesseth that with most sorrow and bitterness seeks with most care and diligence to obtain help from Heaven to subdue that and commonly gets the greatest ground against the same Hast thou then the same corrupt Nature Conclude thou mayest and write upon it thou never hast prayed aright heard aright thou hast never received a Sacrament aright unto this day thou hast never profited by any means thou hast enjoyed or duties thou hast performed to this day Thy Disease and distempers are desperate and likely never to be cured and thou recovered out of them when they come to be natural as it were and yield to no Remedy Jer. 13. 23. Can the Black-more change his skin and the Leopard his spots no more can they learn to do well who are accustomed to do evil There be some spots of filth which are cast upon our coats and flesh there is a sooty blackiness wherewith our garments and our skins are somtimes sullied withal by somthing from without which may be clensed and washed away with little labor in a short time but 〈◊〉 which grow out of Nature as Moles and Wens in the Body there is little hope that ever they should be altered as long as Nature it self continues It is so with distempers when some sudden occasions or temptations from without taints and pollutes the soul there is Hope in Israel that some Spiritual means like healing Medicines seasonably applied may help and recover But when men out of a corrupt inclination are customarily carried in the continuance of some distemper it 〈◊〉 like another Nature he may lose his life and soul but is like never to lose his lust that wil go to his Grave and so to Hell with him Job 20. 11 12. When wickedness is sweet in a mans mouth when he hides it under his tongue when he spares it and forsakes it not his bones are full of the sins of his youth they have been bred and brought up with him grown and continued and encreased dayly with them he would not leave them they wil not leave him they shal lie down in the dust with him rise with him to Judgment and go to Hell with him in the end Thy person comes most to be abhorred and loathed by the Almighty for which thou vainly conceivest thou mayest be pitied We pity a man that drinks poyson because it 's not his disposition to be so but the infection that befel him but the Spider and the Toad we abhor the sight and not endure to touch them because they are 〈◊〉 a poysonful Nature So it is with the Spiritual plague of thy Soul even the dearest of Gods
the first step to Christianity If any man will be my 〈◊〉 let him deny him self and follow me Matt. 16. 24. Where there is no denying of a mans self there can be no following of Christ. That God should give al to me work all by me and take al from me this is to seek the glory that comes from God only this is my honor when I am willing that God should honor himself upon me and by me 2 If seeking honor from man and faith cannot stand together then the sovereignty of this sinfull distemper must be renounced as cross to Grace and Christ before we can receive Faith or Christ by Faith The like place you have John 6. 44. Uttered and expressed upon the same ground and occasion and tending to the same end When the Pharisees despised the Person and quarrelled with the Word of our Savior Christ Is not this Jesus the Son of Joseph whose Father and Mother we know how is it that he saith I came down from Heaven vers 42. That which they saw not understood not that they would not entertain our Savior shews the reason of this wretched rebellion of heart No man can come to me unless the Father which hath sent me draw him unless the Father who hath called our Savior and committed the great Work of Salvation to him and sent him to that purpose by a holy constraint draw the rebellious 〈◊〉 out of himself to Christ he will not he cannot come unto him comming is Beleeving drawing is Preparing when God the Father lets in his heavy displeasure into the soul of a sinner to force him to seek out to Christ for present relief there is else no way but perrishing this is that that causes him to go out to Christ. It is hence plain 1 Unless a man be Drawn there is 〈◊〉 Comming 2 He that is Drawn will certainly 〈◊〉 Without Preparing there is no Beleeving and he that is Prepared will undoubtedly come and Beleeve It 's the scope of that 〈◊〉 and the very aim of the parrable No man can enter into a strong mans house before he first bind the strong man and then 〈◊〉 possession of the house 12. Matt. 29. The house is the heart the strong man is Satan who takes possession thereof and rules in the soul by means of 〈◊〉 the binding of this strong man is taking away of the over ruling claim and challenge that Satan by 〈◊〉 laies to the soul and by vertue whereof he acts it and carries it to the commission of evill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 while our Savior by a superior right of 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 precious blood laies claim to the soul this soul is mine he binds Satans hands brings to nought and disanulls his claims and so spoyls him of 〈◊〉 that rule and tyranny he exerciseth in the soul. It 's the meaning of that order appointed by God in the work of Conversion and 〈◊〉 the soul to himself Acts 26. 18. To 〈◊〉 them from darkness 〈◊〉 light from the power of 〈◊〉 to God first from the one then to the other Take also Two Réasons of the Point If there be not Preparation before implantation then the soul is implanted into Christ while it is in the state of Nature under the command of Sin and Power of Satan and setled in it self For upon this ground and by this grant to be implanted into Christ and to be at the same time unprepared do stand together But that is utterly impossible as apparantly contradicting the Principles of Reason for then it should be under the power of sin and Christ at once in the Kingdom of Light and Darkness together in Hell and Heaven 〈◊〉 the same time a Subject to our Savior and a Subject to his corruption and so a man might serve two contrary Masters fully 〈◊〉 to the Verdict of our Savior Christ You 〈◊〉 serve two Masters Mat. 6. 24. 〈◊〉 at the same time should be affirmed of the same thing If it be light then it 's darkness The Second Reason is taken from Rom. 11. 24. where the Apostle speaking of the Calling os the Gentiles speaks thus If thou wert cut out of the 〈◊〉 Tree which is wild by Nature and wert contrary 〈◊〉 Nature grafted into the true Olive Tree Every sinner is as a branch which grows Naturally upon Adams rebellion as upon the wild Olive the true Olive is the Lord Jesus the Second Adam and Head of the Covenant of Grace our calling is our engrafting into Christ the true Olive our preparation is as it were our cutting of us off by the knife of the Law If cutting in Nature is and in reason must be before engrafting then Preparing is before implanting but cutting is before engrafting in Nature and in Reason Ergo preparing is before implanting These Scriptures and these Reasons may suffice to give in Evidence for the settling and establishment of this Truth For Application this Doctrine serves to Instruct Reprove Examine and Exhort For our Instruction Hence we should receive it and beleeve it for an everlasting Truth That Christ cannot be united to the soul while it continues in the state of Nature and Infidelity The Doctrine formerly delivered and the Reasons alleadged for the proof thereof do force this Conclusion beyond gainsaying For if the sinner must be prepared and cut off from his Natural condition before his Implantation then while he is in his Natural and corrupt Estate there can be no union and communion with the Lord Jesus so the Apostle disputes 2 Cor. 6. 16. What communion is there between Light and Darkness Righteousness and Unrighteousness Christ and Belial wherefore he saith Come out from among them and be ye separate and touch no unclean thing and I will be your God We must come out of our distempers and corruptions before Christ will come if we touch any unclean thing Christ will not touch us that is unless we be divorced from all our 〈◊〉 so as not to touch them with the touch of a marriage affection so the Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 1. It 's not good for a man to touch a woman that is to be married to her we must thus be divorced before we can be married And we are the rather to have our hearts and judgments established in this Truth because the contrary Opinion to wit That Christ may be united to the soul remaining in the state of Corruption is a brooding Error that brings out a whol nest and company of delusions with it which will pollute and pervert the Judgment and defile our Practices in our dayly Conversations 1 This maintains the sinner in a careless and remorsless security and fondly perswades that which is so pleasing to the flesh that a man may keep his lusts and his Christ his comfort and his corruption together than which nothing is more contentfull to a carnall heart A Christ and a Lust A Christ and a proud heart A Christ and a World A Christ and a peevish Nature Oh
he part with his beloved lust his Isaac his 〈◊〉 his 〈◊〉 he will then shew and discover his falsness But are not the Servants of the Lord many times unwilling to bid adieu to their special and ancient 〈◊〉 that have been bred and born with them brought up and lived with them a long time together There is two men in a regenerate man a heart and a heart a will and a will Rom. 7. last Paul delighted in the Law of God after the inward man but in his lust after the corrupt man With my mind I serve the Law of God saies he but with my 〈◊〉 the Law of Sin or as our Savior The Spirit 〈◊〉 willing but the Flesh is weak Matth. 26. 41. the spiritual part is ever prest and ready and wholly willing for good for he that is born of God so sins not and Paul professeth it 's not I but sin in me but saies he The good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do Rom. 7. 18. still the heart and will of a regenerate man stands God-ward against every sin and for every good that he is convinced of The Reasons of the Point are Four and they are of great weight The First is taken from the Nature of the Will of man which since the Fall is wholly tainted and totally infected with corruption which universally overspreads the whol man As he in another case the whol head is sick the whol heart is faint the whol man wholly possessed with sin no sound part As Jobs contagion wherewith the Devil infected his Body and Natural man he was all one botch from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot So in regard of thr Spiritual man the whol man is as it were a man of sin called therefore the old man Eph. 4. 22. As though a corrupt heart were made up of nothing else but Apostacies backslidings and departings from God and swervings from his righteous Law Whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh that is sinful and sensual and we are all of us altogether so born and have nothing of the Spirit of Grace in us so the Apostle Jude verse 19. These are sensual having not the spirit The Sons of Adam are all of us partakers of his Image and hence also called the Seed of the Serpent Gen. 3. 15. that as each Creature and Plant answers the Seed whereof it is made hath no more in it but that so mens hearts are only framed and constituted out of that corrupt 〈◊〉 whereby Satan carried aside our first Parents Paul so professeth of himself In me 〈◊〉 is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing Rom. 7. 11. nothing that is spiritually savingly and 〈◊〉 good and therefore in the old Law our corrupt Nature is signified by the Leprosie which overspread the whol man The sin of Adam had in it this peculiar to it self more than any nay I may 〈◊〉 say more than all the sins that ever was committed in that it was the Deordination of the whol Nature of man and that against the whol Law of God For Adam did not sin as a particular man so as all the Sons of Adam do sin but as a common stock as one who was in the room of all and had the Humane Nature as the common stock of all Man-kind so that the Nature of Man as one would say Humanity in Adam as it was under the Covenant of the Law so it went wholly against the holy and righteous Law of God and therefore the whol Nature of man broke when it made a breach upon the Law As he that justles his finger against a rock breaks that only he that runs his hand unjoynts that but if all the whol body fall from a steep place upon it it breaks all the whol frame of Nature in pieces So it is comparatively between the sin of Adam and the sin of any of the sons of Adam They sin personally one is unjust and he makes a breach against Justice and so far that disposition of heart is perverted and so unfitted for the work of Justice but in Adam the whol Nature of Mind and Will and Affections which was the subject of all Grace it comes against the Law and so brings a ruine upon the whol Frame of Grace Ad hereunto to make up the Evidence that this was indeed against the whol Law as that wherein he neither loved God nor himself nor 〈◊〉 neighbor But take it here he made a breach upon the seal of the Covenant and trampled that under foot and so consequently made voyd and 〈◊〉 upon the Covenant wholly and cast it behind his back as not worth caring for Now Reason 〈◊〉 that as the Seal confirms and ratifies the 〈◊〉 and all the Conditions of it joyntly so the 〈◊〉 of that nullifies and makes void the whol Covenant So that this transgression of Adam let 〈◊〉 a Deluge of Sin that as in Noahs Flood when the Windows of Heaven were opened and the great depths were broken up the waters covered the face of the whol Earth that no dry Land appeared So 〈◊〉 is here when the deeps are broken up as it were the whol Law opposed by the whol Nature of man the Deluge of corruption spreads it self over the whol face and frame of Nature Therefore the Apostle first Summarily gives in his Judgment in the 3. to the Romans the 9. verse That all are under sin And then Particularly They are all become abominable there is none that doth good no not one their throat is an open Sepulchre vents nothing but venemous steams of deadly distempers the poyson of Asps is under their tongues their feet swift to shed blood 12 13 14 15. vers And if all the Parts be such what is the heart within that acts all vents all fills all these That as it befel the Temple of Jerusalem after the destruction of it there was not a stone left upon a stone so with the soul in regard of that glorious frame of Grace which was in it in the first Creation there is not a stone left upon a stone nothing but pollution and corruption remains in the whol Nature of every man But you will say Are there no Reliques left of that glorious Image of God in the Will and Understanding There is somthing left of the Law but nothing left whereby a man can be enabled to do any thing as an act of Spiritual Life that may be acceptable to God In a word there are these Two things to be attended and may be observed in every man naturally at the lowest and the worst as I look at these poor Indians amongst whom we live as the very ruines and rubbish of mankind the forlorn Posterity of Adam 1 They are made for another and for a better 2 They ought to yeild obedience to that other and better But to know the Will of God and do it to be
it not as a part of weakness but a madness in truth if a Malefactor wil lie in the Dungeon when means of deliverances is afforded for a man to chuse his fetters and to keep on his chains and bolts when he may be freed yet this is the case and condition yea the disposition of men who are not willing to be severed from their sins nor to be set free from those chains of darkness wherewith they are fettered and go up and down imprisoned in the world Sin is compared to a deadly poyson the poyson of Asps is under their tongue Rom. 3. 13. that is Such 〈◊〉 which is deadly and venomous which admits no remedy no cure no recovery Now shouldest 〈◊〉 see a Patient that should be offended with the Medicine that would Cure him or with the Physitian that would counsel him and recover him out of 〈◊〉 Disease Or take it heinously and grievously that any should keep him from drinking the Poyson that would destroy him Each man would conclude that his brain were more distempered than 〈◊〉 body as doing that which is directly cross even to nature which desires the preservation of it self even in unreasonable Creatures Turn but the tables as we say consider aright thine own carriage 〈◊〉 thou wilt confess it is thy case thou art the man Thou art poysoned with the loathsom and 〈◊〉 lusts of thine own Heart which threaten thy everlasting ruine and that beyond recovery in 〈◊〉 course of ordinary means Thou art not able 〈◊〉 hear the Counsel that would direct thee for 〈◊〉 Cure nor bear a savory and seasonable 〈◊〉 which would take away the poyson of those 〈◊〉 distempers Thou canst not endure to be severe from that which wil sever thy soul from God 〈◊〉 canst not abide the Word or the Messengers 〈◊〉 would take away that from thee which wil take 〈◊〉 way thy peace thy comfort thy happiness and a Thus Herodias waited for the Baptists life 〈◊〉 he endeavored to cross her in her Incestuous 〈◊〉 and loathsom abominations Mark 6. 19. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel a secret grudg again him and would have killed him She lay at 〈◊〉 she was watchful and covetous to observe and 〈◊〉 any hint of opportunity offered to do him harm because he desired and endeavored to do her the greatest good that he could A type of this we may 〈◊〉 in the Israelites when their own hearts could tel them and their own experience could testifie and that unto their own sense it was the greatest pressure that ever they found the 〈◊〉 of the wrath of Pharoah and that they sighed under it and their groans went up to heaven And yet they would return to their own ruine and to the house of bondage And Would God said they we had died in Aegypt Aegipt typifyed the kingdom of darkness the state of sin and death and Pharoah was a type of Satan who exerciseth the fierceness of his fury upon the souls of those that are under his power somtimes men wil cry unto the Lord by reason of the hard usage they find from Sin and Satan yet when God comes by his Word and the Counsels of his Servants to pluck them out of their sins and out of their bondage they cannot endure that they wil rather return again unto and lie down under the bondage of sin and Satan than be delivered from it John 5. 40. Our Savior Christ tels the Jews there You will not come to me that you might have life Christ hath Purchased it and Promised it and Offred it yet saies he You wil not come to me you wil not though you may have life and happiness for the coming for Here 's also a ground of Tryal We may hence discern and that undeniably and easily what our condition is Whether we be yet in our Natural estate so far from the interest and possession of Christ or any saving work of his Spirit as that indeed we have not attained any through preparation hereunto We need not send up to Heaven to look into the Cabinet Counsels of Gods everlasting Decrees what is 〈◊〉 concerning us Descend thou into thy own soul thou hast that in thy bosom wil be the best discovery of thy condition Ask but honestly plainly and in earnest thy own heart and that wil cast the ballance and that beyond al question Such as thy will is such is thy condition look what thou wouldest be that thou art in truth and in the account of the Almighty The Lord cares 〈◊〉 for al the Court Complements thou canst express in the wayes of Christianity he 〈◊〉 not for 〈◊〉 thy fair 〈◊〉 and the quaint appearances of 〈◊〉 was thy carriage gilt over with the most glorious shews of Godliness and thy tongue tipped with the language of heaven this wil not do the deed This would not answer the Lords expectation nor thine own hopes and comforts in the issue It was said concerning Eliab Davids elder brother when it was conceived that he should be the man appointed for the Kingdom and indeed holy Samuel was deceived in his goodly stature Surely this is the Lords Annointed The Lord himself checks his judgment Man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord looketh upon the heart 1 Sam. 16. 7. Look we then as God looks and judge we as he judgeth if we would have comfort and truth in our judgment that we may not fail in that and so our hopes and happiness and al fail in the issue Thou saiest Thy 〈◊〉 is savory and free thy understanding large thou art able to search the Mysteries of Grace thou knowest in a great 〈◊〉 the things of Grace and art able fully to express what thou knowest and thou pretendest readmess and zeal for the service of the Lord. Thou 〈◊〉 al these are thus And I say What is thy heart thou lookest to these I say Look to thy heart and then to these that is Gods way The people in Deut. 5. 28. made as full and free a profession as all the world could desire but the Lord desired somwhat more 〈◊〉 went further They have well said but Oh that 〈◊〉 were such a heart in them v. 29. It is the heart then that gives the casting Evidence of a mans condition and wil not deceive The Woman that hath two Suiters that make love and express their 〈◊〉 to her if she ask her own Spirit that will easily speak which is the man that must be her Husband the Answer which will 〈◊〉 it is this Such a one hath her heart he hath got her good will and therefore hath gained the woman 〈◊〉 is his to give one all good language and 〈◊〉 entertainment that is nothing if another hath the heart So if the Question be which is indeed a Question of the greatest consequence in the world Whether art thou to be matched to thy Sin or to thy Savior to thy Lusts or to the Lord Jesus This will put it beyond peradventure hath some bosom
on me and our Savior asked him what ailest thou what was his will set upon Oh Lord that I may receive my sight So it is with a sinner whose wil is set to seek relief against his sins if there be any opportunity offred means afforded any occasion that may lend relief against his sin how speedily upon the least inkling will he listen to it If Christ pass by in Conference in Communion in publick or private in set seasons or such as could not be expected whereby the healing vertue of the blood of Christ may be dispensed they greedily repair thither and if the question be what wouldest thou the Answer of the soul is Oh Lord that I may receive power against my sin and if he get it not he will be unweariable to pursue the Lord until he hath attained it So the lamenting Church they took unto themselves words the sum and substance of all their requests Hos. 14. 3. Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously not take away the punishments that pinch us not the Judgments and terrors that may justly perplex us in the times of our necessities but take away our iniquities A wicked man may have a velleity some sleepy wish for a turn against his sin for the attainment of his end but it 's but for a fit and not for the removal of his sin but some evil that it brings Nay the heart of an ungodly man holds counsels against the holy Commandements of the Lord and plots how he may sitly put by the authority of the Truth that would take away his evil Job 22. 18. The Counsel of the wicked is far from me There is a 〈◊〉 purpose of Spirit to maintain some distemper which cannot be in a godly man He that is willing to part with his sin he takes greatest delight in those means which either discover his sin more fully and work most kindly upon the heart that godly sorrow which causeth Repentance never to be repented of and are the most piercing and powerful to remove it from him For it 's the greatest delight that can befal a man to have his will and desires answered that which the Will desires most to have when it wants it delights most in when it hath it It is so in the diseases of the Body when the blood is foul and so feaverish and fit to cause a Pleuresie the Humors gross and 〈◊〉 and molest the stomach so that Nature desires to be unburdened he that hits the right vein and that Physick which works kindly and strongly upon the right humor the Patient receives marvelous ease and Nature special relief and refreshing that which takes away most of the burden bring most ease So it is with a soul truly willing to be severed from his sin being burdened and infested with the venemous pollution thereof it finds most delight in that Ordinance that works most kindly and effectually upon it the saddest counsel the sharpest reproof the most searching tryal that ransacks every corner of a corrupt conscience now a man hath his Will and is marvelously pleased with it So David when Abigail met him and reproved him and counselled him against his sin 1 Sam. 25. 32 33. saies he Blessed be thou and blessed be thy counsel and blessed be the Lord which hath kept me this day from shedding blood that hast kept me this day from venting this distemper and hast met me so 〈◊〉 and spake so effectually unto my soul. 〈◊〉 heart that finds his special corruption his greatest 〈◊〉 wherewith he is most pestered is therefore 〈◊〉 willing to be rid of that which is most 〈◊〉 to him and therefore the word that meets 〈◊〉 directly and works most powerfully his will 〈◊〉 Gods will meet there fully and therefore he is 〈◊〉 pleased When a reproof stabs him to the 〈◊〉 Oh more of that Lord and that comfort 〈◊〉 would remove his main discouragement he 〈◊〉 the continuance of that That exhortation 〈◊〉 would awaken his sluggish spirit and put life 〈◊〉 vertue into his soul he saies speak home there Lord Prov. 2. 10. When wisdom entreth into thy 〈◊〉 and knowledg is pleasant unto thy soul Oh 〈◊〉 hath wished this longed for looked for this and 〈◊〉 now he hath his will and his hearts desire 〈◊〉 is pleased at the heart when the Lord brings off his spirit kindly that was awk and wearish in duty 〈◊〉 the best day that he hath seen a long time Oh 〈◊〉 he that I had such a heart still ever to be in this 〈◊〉 for God and against my sins and still he 〈◊〉 in that frame Psal. 85. 8. I will hear what God will speak to my soul whereas a corrupt heart when the Word meets with his beloved lusts 〈◊〉 the heart is in league and indeed would not only pinch but pluck it away by main force it 's death to him and so distastful as that he cannot endure it though he can hear many Counsels receive some general Reproofs and listen to many 〈◊〉 yet this he bears not It is as though a man should rent a member from his Body or pluck one part from another the sinner riseth up with fell opposition here As she said when she had lost her Darling and conceived that the Man of God had a hand in it What have I to do with thee thou man of God So what have 〈◊〉 to do with that Reproof that 〈◊〉 that Admonition that Examination thus 〈◊〉 Acts 22. 22. They heard Paul till he came to 〈◊〉 word that was most cross to them and then they cried out away wich him they could bear him 〈◊〉 longer then When Demetrius his Trade was 〈◊〉 to fall he could not want his gain and 〈◊〉 not renounce his Idol all is in an uproar Acts 〈◊〉 there was an outcry by the space of two hours 〈◊〉 is Diana of the Ephefians they would not 〈◊〉 with their Gain nor with their 〈◊〉 So 〈◊〉 dealt with Stephen when he came close to them 〈◊〉 discovered the rebellion of their hearts and lives Acts 7. They were not able to bear it but stop 〈◊〉 Ears and run upon him and he must lose his 〈◊〉 rather than they be disturbed in their lusts this 〈◊〉 the guise of the heart of every Natural man who 〈◊〉 not willing to part with his sin If the sinner be seriously willing to part with 〈◊〉 sin he is restless and unsatisfied until it be 〈◊〉 and taken away from him he finds nothing that 〈◊〉 can have any sweet contentment in as long as he 〈◊〉 that distemper which is cross to his will and Gods will also As Haman when he had all the caps in the Country uncovered to him and al knees 〈◊〉 before him yet al this was nothing to him 〈◊〉 avails all this saies he so long as I see Mordecai 〈◊〉 in the Kings Gate Esther 5. 13. So had he all abilities did God vouchsafe unto him al enlargements had he the hearts and approbation of all 〈◊〉 in
but is acted by another As it was in the raising of Lazarus when he stank in the Grave not only those noysom distempers were removed and the unnatural 〈◊〉 which attended his body chased away but the 〈◊〉 also was returned and brought again to Union 〈◊〉 his Body So here The Nature of this Drawing and special 〈◊〉 of it It s the motion and powerful Impression of the Spirit of God upon the Soul not any habit of Grace in it nor any act of the Soul which concurs with the work of God in this first stroak of Preparation For The soul that is wholly possessed by the Habits of Sin is not yet capable of the Habit of Grace 〈◊〉 my flesh dwels no good thing Rom. 7. 18. The Vessel cannot be ful of filthy and puddle water and at the same time receive that which is pure It is the aim of this work to make way and room for the Habit of Grace to be received and therefore it is not a habit nor any act of a habit in the soul as yet Therefore it s said God first turns from darkness and then to light Acts 26. 18. Takes away the heart of stone before he gives a new heart Ezek. 11. 19. This is the influence of Light and Vertue into the Mind and Will by the receiving whereof they may be elevated and lifted up above their own ability to supernatural Works in future times and therfore this cannot be the act of the Will and 〈◊〉 since they cannot of themselves let in any 〈◊〉 into themselves Therefore the Lord takes 〈◊〉 to himself as his own Work Hither belongs 〈◊〉 Question Whether Nature or Grace be the first subject of 〈◊〉 Nature cannot For 1 Cor. 2. 14. The 〈◊〉 man receives not the things of God nor can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet Grace cannot do it for 〈◊〉 there should be Grace before the FIRST 〈◊〉 Grace is attended in a double Respect 1 As it 〈◊〉 a habit or gracious quality received into the Soul As it is a gracious impression upon the soul The 〈◊〉 must be prepared before any habit of Grace 〈◊〉 be received but there needs no disposition in 〈◊〉 soul to receive the work of the Spirit that must 〈◊〉 there needs no preparation to make way 〈◊〉 the work of Preparation but there needs 〈◊〉 to make way for the habit That which 〈◊〉 the first disposition needs no former not yet 〈◊〉 any former It s not Nature but the Soul prepared that is the 〈◊〉 of the First Habit. The Soul unprepared 〈◊〉 the Subject of the Spirit that prepares it The Means how God works the Cords by which 〈◊〉 Draws The Spirit of the Lord lets in some powerful light 〈◊〉 the Truth into the Soul when he is passing on in 〈◊〉 wayes of destruction and tels him This is not 〈◊〉 right way to Life and Salvation you must go 〈◊〉 way if ever you go to heaven The poor deluded blinded Creature never dreaming of 〈◊〉 such matter so that he drives the sóul to 〈◊〉 thoughts If this be the streight way to happiness 〈◊〉 have been out of the way al my life time If this 〈◊〉 true my Condition is miserable Isa. 65. 1. I 〈◊〉 sought of them that asked not for me I am found 〈◊〉 those that sought me not Thus the shepheard pursues the wildring sheep If he had not found it it 〈◊〉 never found home How many give in Evidence 〈◊〉 of their own Experience in this kind I never doubted of my estate nor ever 〈◊〉 of any necessity to be other or do other I went as others did it may be for fashion sake either company carried me or custome prevailed with me or may be the novelty of the thing inticed me to go I as little thought of my death as ever to have my sin and shame discovered Job 36. 9. When the Lord gets man into fetters then he shews them their transgressions and how they have exceeded Thus the Lord is said To stand and knock at the door of the soul when the sinner is fast asleep Rev. 3. 20. He dazles the apprehension by some mighty flash of truth like lightning darted in which makes the soul at a maze by reason of the suddenness and unexpectedness and strangness of it This knock makes the sinner so far to hear and to take notice of it that some body is at the door and causes him happily to make enquiry Who is there So Acts 9. 4 5 6. There shines a suddain Light about Paul and a voyce heard from heaven Saul Saul Why persecutest thou me As who should say Thou art utterly mistaken thou knowest not where thou art what thou doest thou mistakest a Friend in stead of an Enemy And therefore he amazed and astonished Answers and 〈◊〉 Who art thou Lord Thus the sinner is made to look about him where am I this is not the way to Heaven And though the soul would shut its eyes against the Evidence and Power of the Truth which carries a kind of amazing vertue with it and therefore invents shifts to defeat the work of it yet the Lord wil follow it and fasten it upon the soul so as that it shal not avoid it he that stands knocking at the door wil lift up the latch and make the Truth break in as the Sun rising wil break through the least crevis This is the first means whereby the Lord comes to lay hold upon the mind and soul of a sinner he hath the sinner in chase as it were that he cannot get out of his sight or make an escape Thus by the hook of Instruction he laies hold upon him He encloseth him with the Cords of Mercy whereby he 〈◊〉 the soul and compasseth the heart on every side with the tender of his compassions Hosea 11. 4. I drew them with the Cords of a man the bonds of love this the Lord doth to take off those desperat discouragements which otherwise would dead the heart and split the hopes of a forlorn sinner and so pluck up his endeavors by the roots under the appearance of impossibilities It can never be attained why therefore should it be expected or endeavored after To abate therefore of these overbearing 〈◊〉 which otherwise would sink the heart and swallow it up the Lord casts in some discovery of the largeness of his compassions and intimates there is no danger to be feared in coming to the Lord because there is none intended When Christ stands at the door and knocks men are afraid to let in Enemies that intended our ruine so it 's 〈◊〉 the sinner he is afraid of Gods Justice because of his 〈◊〉 deservings What is Christ at the door Is it not that Christ whose Grace I have refused whose Spirit I have grieved whose Words I have cast 〈◊〉 my back he certainly comes to destroy me who have destroyed his Truth and trampled his honor 〈◊〉 my feet And therefore the Lord lets in that Evidence to the
turn or do the work 〈◊〉 we are all sinners it is my infirmity I cannot help it my weakness I cannot be rid of it no man lives without faults and follies the best have their failings In many things we offend all But alas all this wind shakes no Corn it costs more to see sin aright than a few words of course It 's one thing to say sin is thus and thus another thing to see it to be such we must look wishly and steddily upon our distempers look sin in the face and discern it to the full the want whereof is the cause of our mistaking our estates and not redressing of our hearts and waies Gal. 6. 4. Let a man prove his own work Before the Goldsmith can sever and see the Dross asunder from the Gold he must search the very bowels of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and try it by touch by cast by hammer and by fire and then he will be able to speak by proof what it is So here We perceive sin in the crowd and by hearsay when we 〈◊〉 some common 〈◊〉 customary expressions taken up by persons in their common converse and so report what others speak and yet never knew the Truth what either others or we say but we do not single out our corruptions and survey the loathsomness of them as they come naked in their own Natures this we ought to do There is great ods betwixt the knowledg of a Traveller that in his own person hath taken a view of many Coasts past through many Countries and hath there taken up his abode some time and by Experience hath been an Eye-witness of the extream cold and scorching heats hath surveyed the glory and beauty of the one the barrenness and meanness of the other he hath been in the Wars and seen the ruin and desolation wrought there and another that sits by his fire side and happily reads the story of these in a Book or views the proportion of these in a Map the ods is great and the difference of their knowledg more than a little the one saw the Country really the other only in the story the one hath seen the very place the other only in the paint of the Map drawn The like difference is there in the right discerning of sin the one hath surveyed the compass of his whol course searched the 〈◊〉 of his own heart and examined the windings and turnings of his own waies he hath seen what sin is and what it hath done how it hath made havock of his peace and comfort ruinated and laid wast the very Principles of Reason and Nature and Morality and made 〈◊〉 a terror to himself when he hath looked over the loathsom abominations that lie in his bosom that he is afraid to approach the presence of the Lord to bewail his sins and to crave pardon lest he should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them while he is but confessing of them afraid and ashamed 〈◊〉 any man living should know but the least part of that which he knows by himself and could count it happy that 〈◊〉 was not that the remembrance of those hideous evils of his might be no more Another happily hears the like preached or repeated reads them writ or recorded in some Authors and is able to remember and 〈◊〉 them The ods is marvelous great The one sees the History of sin the other the Nature of it the one knows the relation of sin as it is mapped 〈◊〉 and recorded the other the poyson as by experience he hath found and proved it It 's one thing to see a disease in the Book or in a mans body another thing to find and feel it in a mans self There is the report of it here the malignity and venom of it But how shall we see cleerly the Nature of sin in his naked hue This will be discovered and may be conceived in the Particulars following Look we at it First As it respects God Secondly As it concerns our selves As it hath reference to God the vileness of the nature of sin may thus appear It would dispossess God of that absolute Supremacy 〈◊〉 is indeed his Prerogative Royal and 〈◊〉 in a peculiar manner appertayn to him as the Diamond of his Crown and 〈◊〉 of his Deity so the Apostle He is God over all blessed for ever Rom. 9. 5. All from him and all for him he is the absolute first being the absolute last end and herein is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Glory Al those attributes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holiness Power Justice Mercy the shine and Concurrency of all these meeting together is to set out the unconceivable excellency of his Glorious name which exceeds all praise Thyne is the kingdom the power and the glory the right of all and so the rule of all and the Glory of all belo 〈◊〉 to him Now herein 〈◊〉 the unconceavable hainousness of the hellish nature of sin it would justle the Almighty out of the Throne of his Glorious Soveraignty and indeed be above him For the will of man being the 〈◊〉 of all his workmanship all for his body the body of the soul the mind to attend upon the will the will to attend upon God and to make choyce of him and his wil that is next to him and he onely above that and that should have been his Throne and Temple or Chair of State in which he would have Set his Soveraignty for ever He did in an Especial manner intend to meet with man and to communicate himself to man in his righteous Law as the rule of his Holy and righteous will by which the will of Adam should have been ruled and guided to him and made happie in him and all Creatures should have served God in man and been happy by or through him serving of God being happy in him But when the will went from under the government of his rule by sin it would be above God and be happy without him for the rule of the law in each command of it holds forth a threefold expression of 〈◊〉 from the Lord and therein the Soveraignty of all the rest of his Attributes 1. The Powerful Supremacy of his just will as that he hath right to dispose of all and authority to command all at his pleasure What if God will Rom. 9. 22 My Counsel shall stand and I wil do all my pleasure Isa. 46. 10. And as its true of what shal be done upon us so his wil hath Soveraignty of Command in what should be done by us we are 〈◊〉 say the will of the Lord be done Davids warrant was to do all Gods wils Acts. 13. 22. and our Saviour himself professeth John 6. 38. that he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him and therfore his wrath and jealousie and judgment will break out in 〈◊〉 that be disobeyed 2. There is also a fulness of wisdom in the law of God revealed to guide direct us in the way we should walk
in his dayly course there is nothing but his dayly rebellions and his confusion dayly before his face and the truth is the more terrible because he hath withstood 〈◊〉 so long That as it fares with the prisoner that had the freedom of the prison while he carried himself fairly but because he hath been taken in some false pranks and plotting an escape he is now laid in the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 now never like to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 day or look for any breathing So here my estate is more miserable because I have opposed the means that might have procured my help the checks of Conscience I have smothered or slighted many warnings I have had but willingly forgot them many sad reproofs that laid hold 〈◊〉 me but I studied how to wrest away my thoughts it 's just with God to load me with Curses which would never look for comfort from God in a right way 〈◊〉 ever there was a 〈◊〉 I am he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ever God 〈◊〉 a Rebel he wil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly This Conviction is victorious and invincible It doth not only stop the mouth of carnal Reason and the cavils thereof but also displaceth it It not only stills the 〈◊〉 and pretences of the sinner but makes the mind and heart give attendance to the Truth to be subject thereunto and to take the impression thereof For otherwise the sinner thus tyred and dauled by the dayly laying at of the Truth may either happily lie still though not cavil with it yet not give attendance to it But in a stupid kind of fortish sencelesness wear out the blow and so wast away to nothing as many out of sorrow have become like senceless blocks Though their practice hath not been evil yet they have had no heart to good or else they fall to desperate prophaneness or professed opposition when they cannot escape the prison they 'l break the prison and lay violent hands upon the Keeper Rom. 1. 18. They hold down the Truth in unrighteouness they imprison the Truth while the Truth should imprison them therefore when the Lord will settle an over-powring Conviction he makes it victorious Therefore he is said Job 36. 9 10. When he shews them their transgressions he commands that they return from iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 break out and over bear and force the mind and heart to give attendance and take the impression of it as when the Conqueror and he that 〈◊〉 got the Victory comes in place all give attendance unto his 〈◊〉 The want of the maintaining this 〈◊〉 power of a Conviction I take to be the cause why many even of Gods own are so 〈◊〉 taken aside after althe helps they do enjoy and the resolutions they take up I have often wondred when a man hath be 〈◊〉 with much bitterness in daies of humiliation such and such evils begged for grace and help and resolved against them they know and 〈◊〉 it 's in 〈◊〉 to cavil or think to make an escape 〈◊〉 they reject such a 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aside and that strangely and 〈◊〉 they fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their old corruptions They do not put this Conviction into commission they do not make it victorious or maintain it so or the Authority thereof so as to force attendance When the 〈◊〉 is good and 〈◊〉 Mill tight why goes it not There is not so much Water kept as to drive it because they have let out the stream and strength another way therefore there is not so much power in a conviction as to force attendance and to drive the heart to obedience Therefore as Paul said to Timothy 1. Tim. 4. 15 16. Meditate upon these things and continue in them or be in these things So you must be in a Conviction and continue under it if you would find it victorious and then it wil be so first or last and wil eat out al opposition though with much ado As it is with Aqua fortis if laid upon Iron though it do not at once and suddenly yet secretly and insensibly it wil eat the Iron in pieces So it is with a Truth which God wil make victorious it will lie upon the Spirit of a man and eat there and work there and break out effectually it may be many yeers after Job 33. 16. this is called the sealing of 〈◊〉 Instruction which is to add Authority and Soveraignty to it as when the Edict was sealed by the intreaty of Haman there was no opposing no gainsaying of it The Reasons of the Point which was the fourth Particular attended in the Explication come now to be considered And these are two The first is taken from 〈◊〉 order which the Lord in the way of his providence and work of nature hath placed betwixt the mind and the 〈◊〉 the understanding and wil of man these two faculties have a near kind of correspondencie the one to help forward the work of the other Knowledg and understanding is the inlet into the soul nothing comes to the heart nor 〈◊〉 work upon it but so far as knowledg makes way c ushers it in as it were into the presence of the wil and leaves an impression thereof upon it 〈◊〉 use to say that which the eye sees not 〈◊〉 heart rues not that which the understanding conceives not the wil is not nay cannot be affected with if Good to embrace it if evil to be 〈◊〉 and troubled therewith It s the method 〈◊〉 observed in Gods dispensation towards him when his heart was brought to a hatred against the evil of his waies Psal. 119. 107. By thy Commandements have I got understanding therefore I hate every false way Unless a right understanding go before a through hatred wil not follow after As it is in the body unless the stomach receive and hold and convey also the purgation either to the spleen or lower parts of the body be the receit never so strong yet wil it never stir the humor or trouble nature though the distemper were abundant dangerous Because in an ordinary course of providence there is no way 〈◊〉 come to the humor but by this means It s so in the soul be the truths delivered attended with never so much terror and power able to sink the heart of a sinful Creature as not able to endure the dread of it if yet the understanding conceives not the nature of such truths nor convey and settle them sadly and Convictingly upon the heart it s not at all stirred in the least measure therewith much less troubled with the danger discovered therein because they cannot reach the heart therefore can never work upon it As through ignorance we commit sin because we see not the evil in it so after commission we sorrow not because we apprehend not the 〈◊〉 and danger Acts. 3. 17. I know that through ignorance you did it as did also your Fathers 1. Cor. 2. 8. For had they known it they would never have crucified the Lord of life It fares
man cares 〈◊〉 he laies it and can easily find it and that in the dark So it is when thou lookest at the Commands the Lord gives and the duties he requires as matters of no great consequence and therefore bestowest not thy thoughts or remembrance about them see how the prophet argues from this ground Jer. 2. 32. Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire yet my 〈◊〉 have forgotten me daies 〈◊〉 number so where their esteem is their memories are also It 's certain it 's a base 〈◊〉 heart of the duties which are in daily practice and the discharge of his place which ought to be his daily wear A man should put on Christ his holiness meekness c. and 〈◊〉 themselves with a quiet and modest and peacable spirit yet these are not in his way nor his thoughts It 's certain thou carest not so much for Gods command as a frothy headed maid doth for a clout Weigh then but in serious consideration the wretchedness of thy pretence shouldest thou hear a servant or a child excuse their idleness or disobedience to Master or Father on this manner I hope you wil excuse my neglect and pardon 〈◊〉 disobedience because I do not love your person 〈◊〉 or esteem your place or command were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aggravate the evil no way to excuse it Such is the silliness of this shift of thine when thou wouldest make thy forgetfulness to lessen thy fault Because thou doest not love the Lord nor reverence his holy law this encreaseth the evil exceedingly It argues a sensual sottish Atheistcal disposition of heart tolive without God and 〈◊〉 in our course 〈◊〉 to put off the apprehensions of Christians and men these are joyned together Ezek. 23. 35. Thou hast forgotten me and cast me behind thy back to live an outlaw upon earth when we attend not mind not a law by which wee live Thy duty is plain which is required the sin evident that is forbidden thou neglectest the one and committest the other and this is the balsom that heals and helps al I did not once think of it It was wholly out of thy mind I did quite forget it why then forget thou art a Christian nay a man forget there is a God that there is a Heaven to reward 〈◊〉 a Hell to Torment thee forget thou hast a soul to be saved or sins to be pardoned or avoyded until thou feelest the plagues of them which thou 〈◊〉 never be able to forget nor yet to bear Another Shift which keeps off the edg and power of a Conviction Is the deadly and destroying hazards they expect and great extremities which they fear will 〈◊〉 befal if they should not dispense with some sins in such cases Hence it is their Arguments come on armed with such unanswerable Interrogations in their apprehensions Why what would you have us do You little know the desperate streights unto which we are driven were you but in our places we are perswaded you would not only pity us in what we have done but would do the same things Alas would you have us begger our selves undo our families destroy our Liberties and Comforts yea hazard nay lose our lives herein we hope the Lord wil allow us some dispensation or connivance Thus they with one 〈◊〉 consent not only desired but took it for granted they should also obtain their desire which to them appeared so reasonable Luke 14. 18. 〈◊〉 Guests began to excuse themselves One hath hired a Farm and he must go and see it Another a yoke of Oxen and he must try them and therefore I pray you have me excused Another hath married a Wife and he cannot come and 〈◊〉 desires he may be excused q. d. We conceive the case so equal and reasonable we suppose we need not speak our selves you wil plead our excuse which indeed pleads for it self should not a man preserve his state and therefore in a way of providence go visit his Farm should he not attend his Calling if he be called to follow the Plow why should he not follow it For Answer I shal shortly leave two or three Scriptures with thee Is it not one Command of the Gospel That they that will 〈◊〉 godly in Christ must suffer persecution and through many Tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven 2 Tim. 3. 12. He that will save his 〈◊〉 shall lose it Matth. 16. 25. He that loves 〈◊〉 or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Matth. 10. 37. If thou art so far from yielding obedience to the Gospel as to refuse the terms of it canst thou be excused To fear man more than God to preser thine own ease more than his Honor canst thou be excusable To attend the Comforts of this world with the loss of the peace of thy Conscience to look after the preservation of thy life and neglect the Salvation of thy soul nor God nor man nor Angels nor Devils nor 〈◊〉 own Conscience will excuse thee The Seventh Shift and forgery whereby our Carnal Reason would 〈◊〉 and defeat the power of the Truth and lessen the loathsomness of sin is that which seems to them so reasonable even to common sence as that it admits no denial and it 's taken from THE HOLINESS AND SPIRITUALNESS OF THE LAW unto which they are bound and that overbearing strength of the body of sin and original corruption 〈◊〉 they are wholly disenabled to the performance thereof so that there is not only a difficulty but even an impossibility to corrupt Nature and to men in their Natural condition to answer the exactness thereof doth not the Text say 〈◊〉 such cannot cease from sin 2. Pet. 2. 14. That which is 〈◊〉 of the flesh and comes from it is flesh John 3. 8 9. Are not the words plain That the Prince of the Air rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience and that he takes them captive at his will 2 Tim. 2. last Nay if the holy Apostle who had the Spirit of Grace yet found his distempers bear up so hard and make head against him that they soiled him and put him to the worse and forced him to cry out as under captivity and thraldom I see another Law in my members carrying me captive Oh wretched man who shall deliver me Rom. 7. If he that had received the power of Grace against his sin was yet so overborn what can they be able to do that are yet in their natural condition and have nothing but sin as al the Sons of Adam are since the Fall That as 〈◊〉 in a storm are forced by the rage of winds and weather to go whither they wil carry them not whither they should men pity them for what they suffer do not 〈◊〉 them for what they cannot do So it is with the strength of distempers which like a mighty stream carry us uncontroulably to the commission of evil and it 's impossible for us to prevail against
mourning and then thou shalt be delivered with success and attain the 〈◊〉 that wil stand by 〈◊〉 How may we get help against the stubbornness of but hearts against that resistance and 〈◊〉 that we find in our selves to this contrition of 〈◊〉 The Directions are Three Do not tug with this resistance in thine own power or any ability that is in thee do not in thine own strength contest with that rebellion for it 's certain this wil make it excessive rebellious when thou seemest to 〈◊〉 violence to thy self thou wilt be more 〈◊〉 nay thou wilt grow to a kind of felness and 〈◊〉 of opposition against the Work of Gods Grace Sin becomes out of measure sinful by the Commandement Rom. 7. 13. and instead of quarrelling with thy sins thou wilt quarrel with the Almighty and if I do what I can why should not God help me Mark now you are quarrelling with God and because you cannot do what you should you wil do nothing this is ordinary and usual you wil find a Hellish fierceness of Spirit upon this turn You wil say What shall I do Come and bring thy soul into Gods Presence lay thy self down in his sight and tell the Lord that thou art a Traitor and which is worse thou canst not but be so that 's thy misery make known al the base abominations of thy heart and life before the Lord and al that 〈◊〉 and opposition that thou findest in thy soul to Christ and his Grace beseech him to take away the treachery and falsness of thy heart beseech him that he would do that for thee that thou canst not do for thy self tel him that thou would'st chuse not to be rather than to be thus treacherous tel him that he hath said he will take away the heart of stone Ezek. 36. 26. and that it is not in thy power to put it away and therefore leave thy soul there beseeching him to make known himself as a God hearing prayers pardoning sins and subduing iniquities plead the Covenant of Grace and the Promises of it that al is freely and firstly and wholly from himself that he must make us his People he must make us humble and broken-hearted Look to Jesus Christ and beseech him that 〈◊〉 the Keyes of Hell and Death that he would unlock those brazen gates and doors of thy heart Rev. 1. 18. Do not fear the terror of the Truth so 〈◊〉 to step aside from under it and withdraw thy self from the 〈◊〉 of it but think of the goodness of it as a man though he fear the bitterness of the Pill yet knowing it 's a means of his health he is willing to take it So here When God moves move thou when he stirs stir thou many a man neglects 〈◊〉 stirrings of the Spirit of God and never hath the like again and then on his death bed cries for his old terrors Oh therefore when the Truth meets you and stirs you keep 〈◊〉 heart under it and follow the blow in secret and bless God that hath opened thine eye and 〈◊〉 thine heart in any measure and let thy heart lie stil under the stroak of the Truth the want of this is the reason why many a soul is so long under the workings of Contrition and never grows to any settlement because 〈◊〉 keep not their hearts under the power of the Truth which would throughly break the heart for sin 2 Kings 13. 19. The Prophet bids the King smite and he smote thrice and ceased whereupon the man of God was wroth saying thou should'st have smitten five or six times then bad'st thou smitten the Syrians till thou had'st consumed them So when God hath been grapling with thy heart and would have plucked thee out of the paw of the Lyon thou hast prayed once or twice or thrice it may be and then after a while thy care and diligence and endeavors are over thou should'st have prayed six times thou should'st give God no rest nor thy own soul any rest thou should'st never cease striking until thou hast destroyed those corruptions of thine Possess thy soul with the ticklishness and danger of that condition thou art in In regard of the secrecy and difficulty of the work how easily may I be deceived and how dangerous is it if I be a failing here can never be repaired afterward if never broken for sin then never broken from sin then never united to Christ and then thou shalt never see the face of God in Glory think how many have miscarried in this place as when a Marriner sees the Mast of a Ship he fathoms the Water and tacks 〈◊〉 and looks about him lest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we split upon the rocks also So do thou look to thy self here thousands have sunk and split themselves here and thou art in danger and know that if thou doest 〈◊〉 here thou art 〈◊〉 for ever They said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles men and brethren what shall we do Here we have the carriage of these Converts as a fruit of that piercing and brokenness of Spirit which was wrought in them by the power of the 〈◊〉 the inward disposition of the heart discovers it self by the outward expression of their speeches and 〈◊〉 here laid forth before us as 〈◊〉 special effect which followed presently and 〈◊〉 therefrom The breaking of the clouds by 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 beings a storm with it usually the 〈◊〉 in their speeches argued thunder and lightning in their spirits look how the temper and constitution of the body goes so the pulse beats in his proportions answerable the Spirits few and heart faint and actions feeble it moves marvelous weakly if the 〈◊〉 be marvelous quick and speedy the Physitian wil tel you there is a Feaver stirring and it may be hazardful that hath now seized upon the Nature of the party Look as our hearts and consciences are affected within so wil be the 〈◊〉 of our words and actions without 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 was deep and their 〈◊〉 are bitter which here they make In it observe Two things 1. The parties to whom they tender their complaint Peter and the Apostles 2. The 〈◊〉 it self The part 〈◊〉 are described and set forth two wayes 1. In regard of the office unto which they were now called Peter and the Apostles 2. In regard of that esteem and respect they 〈◊〉 them they lovingly and tenderly here greet them men and bretheren a stile and compellation that holds forth endeared affection with it so far are these men altered from what they were from what they said from what they did ere while they scorned them now honored them not long since they reproached them are not these men ful of new wine and now behold they reverence and fear before them they rejected their counsel before and are now forced to crave it yea right glad to hear and receive it In a word they repair to them as messengers of Christ they 〈◊〉 them as bretheren the
and yield to that power and is acted and moved by the like opposition and detestation against its sin according as the impression of the Spirit is left upon him And hence it comes the sinner is transported with that holy 〈◊〉 and indignation at such times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ward he doth never find 〈◊〉 may be can never again attain unto As the Gibeonites when all the Princes of the Cities and Provinces were gathered together against them they had not power in themselves to oppose yet withdraw themselves they would from under their Rule and Confederacy and yielded themselves to the Authority and Soveraignty of Joshua though it were to hew wood and draw water or as the Boat that is run a ground and hath neither tackling nor 〈◊〉 yet by a mighty wind and a Spring Tide he is carried with more speed to the Haven than by all 〈◊〉 and helps he could ever after attain So the Soul being acted wholly by that power and impression of the 〈◊〉 having yet no principle of its own it 's carried with a detestation against sin here Christ applies this power only afterward in Sanctification we apply the power of Christs death to this end with him This is the first work of God in the extent of it and the way he takes to turn the soul from sin and the Creature Fear stops him sorrow tires him hatred turns him Fear troubles his sin sorrow loosens it hatred abandons it Fear finds the knot Griefunties it Hatred dissolves and breaks it off Fear questions the Lawfulness of the match between sin and the soul Sorrow gives in proof and evidence out of sence of the evil of it Hatred disanuls the League and fues out an everlasting Divorce betwixt sin and the soul. This Hatred is the hatred of Preparation not of Sanctification the difference between which may be discerned by the former Discourse That in Sanctification is from the Spirit inhabiting this from the Spirit Assisting That of Sanctification is by a gracious habit infused into the Soul this is without a habit the Spirit only by 〈◊〉 irresistible motion working upon the soul. In that there is an inward Principle received whereby we meet with Christ and concur with him to the work here we have no habit and therefore no inward principle to meet with Christ he wholly and only 〈◊〉 upon us and we act as acted by him Take the wheels of a Watch out of place if you wil bring them into the right room and place they wil then move because there is a principle of motion put into it So of a Member out of Joynt if you wil by strong hand pul and move it unto the place being wholly moved it wil move into his order and rank it doth not concur or meet with your hand for the joynting of it self but stirs wholly and only as stirred but being settled and confirmed in the place it wil move to your hand and concur with your hand to help it self So here That hatred in Sanctification we receive from our union with Christ this the Spirit works upon us to make way to bring us to Union with the Lord Jesus we must turn from our sins before we come to God there must be an aversion from sin before there can be a conversion unto God we cannot be under two Covenants in the first Adam and the second grow upon two stocks together It 's said that Adam begot a son in his own Image that a Son was generated by the first Adam the act of Generation was no part of the Image but the Image is the corruption of Nature that came by Generation So that we are united that 's none 〈◊〉 Christs Image but the Image of Christ which is 〈◊〉 communion with him in his Graces this Image and these graces issue from our union The sum in short then is this There must be an aversion from sin before conversion unto God there is nothing in the soul that can work this but Christ must do it When Christ works this it is not by any habit of Grace infused into the soul but by the motion and work of the Spirit upon the Soul In this work Christ as the Head of the Covenant by 〈◊〉 of his death whereby he satisfied the Law brings a release from the hand of Divine Justice to reverse and repeal that Commission by which sin had Authority over the soul and Satan by sin 〈◊〉 that the act of sin is stopped and the right of the Rule of sin is wholly 〈◊〉 and made voyd the contrite sinner feeling the evil of sin and yet no power of himself to oppose and subdu look in what opposition and detestation the 〈◊〉 power of the spirit goes out against sin as acted by the impression of that power it acts by opposition and detestation against its sin and is turned from it 2. How this hatred discovers it self and how it may be discerned This hatred is attended with a continual fear of the presence and the deadly infection of sin and so with a constant watch against it or a watchful fear is a never fayling work whereby this hatred 〈◊〉 it felf in the carriage and daily conversation of a 〈◊〉 sinner the venom of sin which formerly he hath felt the plague and vengeance which those his distempers hath brought upon him leaves so fresh and yet so 〈◊〉 a remembrance of them upon his soul that the very thoughts of them afright him but any temptation or provocation that may draw him to the 〈◊〉 of the like is so loathsom that the least appearance that looks that way he sees presently and shakes at it 〈◊〉 it as the 〈◊〉 of hell as that which wil hazard the happiness of the soul and 〈◊〉 as present 〈◊〉 to him As it is in the work of nature in the body of a man he that hath surfeted upon some sweet meat or some pleasing potion that hath been prepared in a guilded cup happily suited with his palate for the present but in issue had in reason hazarded his life in his own sence and each mans apprehension but that the Lord was merciful you need not 〈◊〉 him with arguments the loathing of 〈◊〉 stomach and the very hatred and Antipathie that nature hath against that which procured the hazard wil make him watchful and shy how he is deceived in that kind any 〈◊〉 the very sight of the gally-pot the sent or smel of the potion yea the least suspicion that such a receit is coming towards him 〈◊〉 him to fear and fly his stomach begins to turn riseth from the 〈◊〉 removes out of the room 〈◊〉 frame of nature begins to fail and shake with the remembrance of the 〈◊〉 and with the fear of the like danger It behoves me to look what I take it had like to have cost my life therefore I wil come there no more So it is with a 〈◊〉 sinner that hath felt the poyson of those pleasing distempers upon which