cup he doth not say let him eat of that bread only but he directs the commands in both kinds But I let this passe and come to the second rhing that is the manner how we should do this duty So let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. It is not first let him examine himself and then let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup But let him examine himselfe and then SO let him eat implying that examining a mans selfe helps or ought to help a man to a right manner and when he hath gotten a right manner then to eat that bread and drink that cup that he may do not only for matter that which the Lord commands but for manner as the Lord commands Beloved the Lord stands on circumstances as well as on duties we are all racers we run we must so run that we may obtain 2. Cor. 9. 29 So pray that we may speed so hear that we may be converted so reprove that we may be edified so behave our selves in our places and callings that we may glorifie God It is not enough for a man to runne but he must so run if he mean to obtain Every man will be speaking and doing good things but so speak and so do Jam. 2. 12. The Lord calls upon us to have a care of the manner of duties as well as of the matter of duties It is not enough that a man come to eat of that bread and drink of that cup but so to eat and so to drink of it he must partake of the Lords Table and so as the Lord enjoyns Now the Reasons of this are First because the same Lord that commands the matter commands the manner too The Lord will have his service well done as well as done he will have the work well performed as well as performed It is not only the thing that the Lord stands upon but the right manner and kind of doing it When David perswaded his son Solomon to worship the God of his Fathers he bids him not only do the thing but to do it in a right manner And thou my son Solomon know thou the God of thy Fathers and serve him Is that all No but with a perfect heart and a willing mind 2. Chron. 28. 9. He commands him to do it not only for the matter of it but in the right manner of it A man may serve God but if it be not with a perfect heart and a willing mind and with a chearfull spirit if he be not ready to every command if he doe not open his ears to every rebuke a man doth not serve God at all The manner either makes all or marres all Secondly another Reason is because circumstances overthrow actions if they be not rightly and duly observed As for example in Scripture prayer is an action commanded of God the Lord commands us to pray that we call upon his name duly every day in all our needs and necessities upon all occasions continually But now if we pray not aright not in that manner that the Lord hath prescribed if we pray either with a guilty defiled conscience with cold affection with a dead spirit or without departing from iniquity or without a pure heart if a man pray without the right manner of prayer he marrs all his prayer it is a howling and not a prayer They did not cry to me saith God when they howled on their beds that is when they prayed because they did not pray in a right manner the Lord calls it howling and not a prayer We roar as Bears in Isaiah 59. 12. the Prophet nicknames it speaking in the person of the people he calls it the roaring of Bears The Lord had as lieve hear the barking of a Dog or the grunting of a Swine as a man that doth not pray aright with a bleeding heart with contrition of soul and spirit with a spirit of grace and supplication When a man prays and prays not aright his prayer leaves that name it is no more a prayer in Gods account And so preaching it is an admirable action but if a man do not preach aright if it be flattering with the entising words of mans wisdome or beating the ayr and to shew his own learning this overthrows the action of preaching he preacheth not Christ but himself not the Gospel though the Gospel be in his Sermon all over yet himself he preacheth the action is marred the circumstances marre it So in the Lords Supper if a man come not prepared that he have not the Wedding Garment that he be not aright qualified according to the requisites of the Gospel this is not to eat the Lords Supper Saith the Apostle When ye come together this is not to eat the Lords Supper you think you eat the Lords Supper you take the bread and the cup and can say Blessed be God and I pray God to blesse me you may come and do these actions but the action is altered the action is diversified when it is not done in a right manner So if a man come to reprove his brother if he himself be faulty do you think this is sufficient reproof No it is hypocrisie Thou hypocrite Matth. 7 5. his reproof of his brother is hypocrisie So for men to tell one another of their faults and to tell them with a Spirit of bitternesse this is not Christian dehortation but biting one another Gal. 5. 15. And so for eating and drinking beloved eating is lawfull and drinking is lawfull and marrying and giving in marriage all these are lawfull yet if a man eat not aright and drink not aright and marry not in the Lord eat and drink without title to the Lords creatures that he have not interest in the Covenant of God if Christ be not in it how shall he have comfort Nay that very nature of his eating is altered his eating and drinking and marrying is a sinne As our Lord Christ shews of the old world They did eat and drink and were marrying and giving in marriage till Noah entred into the Ark and the flood came and swept them away Mat. 24. 37 he reckons their eating and drinking among their sins among the reasons and causes why the flood came upon them they did eat and drink and marry and give in marriage You will say was that the reason the flood came And was that an argument of their security Did not Noah eat and drink and marry And were not his sonnes married that were in the Ark and he a grand-father But he did it aright therefore his eating and drinking is not brought as a sign of security but of the old world that were carnal and wretched people it was because they did not eat and drink aright There be Rules in eating and drinking in talking and discoursing in doing the duties of our callings There be Rules how you ought to buy and sell and to do every
us and so falls aboard and he thinks that God must needs sanctifie them unto him and after supper he goes to prayer and so to bed and thinks that he shall be heard for his much babling sake Mat. 6. they think God will have mercy on them But poor souls if they knew how unseemingly they prayed how unfitly and what want there is in seeing their own estate they would say is this to pray for my soul for such infinite mercy Lord how do I abuse the throne of grace how do I abuse thy sabbaths thy house thy name and all the holy ordinances which I go about A man that is importunate in prayer is ashamed but when they think highly of their prayers they are insolent their prayers are damned and they too Secondly as men have high conceits of their prayers so they have mean conceits of their sinnes they think not their sins so bad as they are These men are like Abner who said Let the young men arise and play before us 2 Sam. 2. 15. They account murder a sport and dancing and musiking little worse then Davids playing on the harp Amos 6. 5. And if they commit adultery they say that's but a trick of youth if they tell a lie it is only at a dead lift when they have no other shift That man that doth not think of every sin he commits as David did of his even to make his heart to ake for it that man shall never speed well before God Thirdly as men have mean thoughts of their sins so they have base thoughts of God They cannot think that God should damn a man for drinking a pot with his friend I cannot think God will be so strict No no I love God with all my heart say they and they think that God is of their mind and if they were as God they would not be so strict So Psal 50. They thought I was such an one as themselves they think God will pardon â—â—em and therefore because of this men are not importunate with God God hath sent me a crosse saith one but I hope to rub it off well enough Why God will not keep his anger for ever Jer. 3. 5. Suppose a man be absent from Church or break out into some unsavoury speech will God be angry for this Suppose a man be negligent in a good duty will God require every dayes work Tush tush God will not Psal 10. 13. A company of Puritans say he will but I know he will not and hence it is that men will not be importunate Lastly because they have wrong conceits of importunity If a man knock once or twice or thrice and none answer presently he will be gone this is for want of manners thou wilt knock seven times if thou be importunate with them They within may say Hold thy peace be gone c. but thou wilt not so be answered Beloved men are close-handed they are loth to give and they are close-hearted too they are loth to take the pains to ask of God they are loth others should be importunate with them and therefore they are loth to be importuate with God Examine your selves then in this duty for importunate prayer is evermore the prayer of an importunate man THE EFFICACIE Of Importunate PRAYER The Second SERMON By that laborious and faithful Messenger of CHRIST WILLIAM FENNER Sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge and late Ministers of Rochford in Essex London Printed by E. T. for John Stafford THE EFFICACY OF Importunate Prayer LUKE 11. 9. Ask and it shall be given unto you Seeke and you shall finde Knock and it shall be opened unto you TO proceed then There be six signes to know whether our Prayers be importunate or no. First importunate prayer is evermore the prayer of an importunate man and the man is importunate if his praier be importunate but how can a man importune God for mercy when his person importunes God for vengeance It must be the prayer of a godly heart Preserve my soul for I am holy Psal 86. 1 2. David makes a prayer and he was holy when he made it his prayer could tell him that he was one that laboured to work in holinesse Therefore when thou goest to God in praier consider whether thou canst say Lord hear me foâ— I am holy and I would fain be holy but if the saying of these words châ—ak thee tâ—en thy prayer condems thee Of all begging it is a great matter who it is that begs at the door Who is that saith the indweller and when he opens the door and sees it is a thief c. Oh is it you saies he you may stand long enough you shall never have alms of me So in praier it is all in all who it is that prays The woman in the Gospel having an issue touched our Saviour he looking about asked who touched him and when he saw the woman Oh is it you saies he be of good chear Luke 8. 48. So when a man praies to God Who is that saies God that would have these mercies And when the Lord sees it a Drunkard or a covetous man c. is it you saies the Lord you may stay till Dooms day and yet never find mercie The spirit of supplication and the spirit of prayer is called the spirit of grace Zach. 12. 10. If them thou hast not the spirit of grace thou canst not pray The text saith not Whosoever asketh the Father in my name but whatsoever you ask the Father in my name there is many a man may use the name of Christ at the throne of grace but certain it is none but those that are in Christ can pray and with them every thing operates A man that will walk with God in obedience to his lawes must be a holy man hence is that saying of our Saviour John 15. 7. a place fit for the purpose If you abide in me and my word abide in you c. as if he should have said You may ask what you please and intreat God all the daies of your life yet unlesse you abide in me you cannot speed That man that walks not in holinesse of life can never be an importunate orator as was Moses the man of God but a wicked mans prayer as Augustine speaks is tanquam latratus canum c. no better then the barking of dogs or the grunting of swine therefore you whose consciences tell you that you live in sin your prayers never speed at the throne of grace for eternall mercy Secondly an importunate praier is the praier of a pure conscience Suppose a man doth not see that he lives in sin yet if his conscience crie guilty if he have a foul conscience his prayer never prevails with God If I regard wickednesse in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayer saith David Psal 66. 18. that is If I can say or my conscience can tell me that I regard iniquitie in my heart the Lord will not hear
me A man must have a pure conscience 2 Tim. 1. 3. else let him not look God in the face beg he may but he shall never speed as long as he goes on with a conscience that can tell him he regards iniquitie There be many pray for indeed their conscience wil make them pray but they may pray till they come to hell yet they shal never be delivered if there be but one sin unrepented of I remember a story of a poor woman being troubled in conscience and many Ministers using to visit her at last came one which after much talking and praying hit upon one sin which she was guilty of and loth to part with Then the woman cried out till now you have spoken to the post but now you have hit the mark my conscience tels me I have been loth to part with this sin but I must leave it or else I cannot be saved Mala conscientia bene sperare non potest The Pagans had so much divinitie as to say The gods must be honoured with purity therefore they wrote on the doors of their temples Let none having a guilty conscience enter this place Thirdly Importunate prayer is evermore a prayer that is full of strong arguments And hence it is that Job saith I will fill my mouth with arguments Job 23. 4. like an importunate man who will bring all reasons and arguments to effect his cause even so an importunate man at the throne of grace will bring all argu ents to perswade God If a man be to pray for any particular grace he will bring all the arguments he can devise to get it as Lord it is a grace of the Covenant for the want whereof I endure many temptations thou hast made me a Minister I cannot worke on mens consciences untill I have it he presseth all arguments he can devise A good orator before God must be a good logician It was noted of the High-Priests that were to pray before God they were to have Urim and Thummim and that was two parts of Logick viz. knowledge and perfection such an one should a Minister be he must be a good Logitian at the throne of groce Fourthly importunate prayer is a stout prayer Continue in praier saith the Apostle Col. 4. 2. a weak-hearted praier is a cold prayer a prayer without a spirit yet these men that have weak spirits to pray have strong enough to sin and wit enough to sin and knowledge enough to sin but bring them to grace then they have no strength Thou canst not strive to prevail with God unlesse thou stand to it How came Jacob to prevail with God but by wrestling Prayer is called fighting it is a holy kind of violence Thou canst not obtain a mercie at Gods hand unlesse thou lay all thy force on it Even as a Father who hath an apple in his hand and his child would fain have it he first opens one finger then another till the aple drop out So is it with a poor soul at the throne of grace the Lord opens his hands and fills all things living with plenteousnesse What is the means that is used why the praiers of his children they by their prayers open Gods hand and so make the blessings to descend Go for grace why the Lord will say unto thee Thou art proud thou must be humble and so open that finger Thou art carelesse thou must go quicken thy self and so open that finger God saies thou wilt not make much of this grace when thou hast it but thou wilt turn it into wantonnesse then thy soul must learn to mortifie its members and so open that finger thou canst not get grace at Gods hand unlesse thou do open all his fingers and then it will fall down There is a severall power in all Gods children some have more some have lesse yet all must be powerfull else none can prevail with God Fifthly if thou pray importunately thou prayest wakefully he must be deeply awake that praies his soul his heart his understanding must be awake that man that praies drowsily praies not powerfully Watch therefore saith Christ and pray Luke 21. 36. Watch to pray q. d. for as there is a sleepy head so there is a sleepy heart As a Begger who is begging is all awake head feet hands c. all is awake to beg so must that soul be that means to speed in praier Sixthly importunate prayer is an assurance getting prayer a prayer that will not be quiet till it have got assurance that God hath heard it Wicked men pray and presume that God hears them but God hears them not nay many of Gods dear children pray many times and are not heard How long wilt thou be angry with thy people that praieth Ps 80. 4. Not only with their persons but with their prayers also How then think you is the prayer of such as live in their sins taken who pray but their praiers vanish away in the air like clouds these may pray and pray but they get nothing Behold he praies saith the voice to Saul Acts 9. 22. What did he not pray before Yes he had made many a long praier else he could not have been a Pharisee but now he did not only pray but he praied unto God as David did who did lift up his heart to God Psal 25. 1. or else his heart could not have praied and then in the next verse David begins his praier Our hearts are just like a bell which so long as it lies on the ground will make no musick till it be lifted up Our hearts are not like the bell of Rochea which they say will ring of its own accord but our hearts must be lifted up else they will make no delightfull musick in the eares of God Wherefore if you pray and labour not to bring your hearts home to God that so he may hear them in mercy he will it may be hear them but it will be to your condemnation as he hears the praiers of wicked men therefore if thou praiest pray fervently There be six or seven marks of Prayer that is not importunate and he that praies so may go to hell for ought I know The first is a lazy prayer An importunate man works hard to bring up hiâ— suit his understanding his counsell and all his poâ—icie works so if the soul he importunate then it is a working prayer Prayer is a labour 2 Cor. 1. Labour with me in prayer That man that plowes his field and digâ— his vineyard that man praies for a good harvest if a man pray to God never so much yet if he do not use the means he cannot obtain the thing he prayes for Even so it is with grace A man may pray for all the graces of Gods spirit and yet never get any unless he labour for them in the use of the means God cannot abide lazy beggers that cannot abide to follow their calling but if they can get any thing by begging they
Thirdly from Satan Fourthly from a mans own sluggishnesse For the first The best children of God have corrupt natures and when they have done what they can distractions will fasten on them They would perform good duties better if they were able saying with Paul The good which I would I do not c. Secondly from nature as it is curbed The more grace binds nature to its good behaviovr the more rustling it keeps Even a Bird being at liberty keps no stir but being in a cage it flutters about because it is abridged of its libertie so when thou hast curbed thy corrupt flesh it will be skittish in every good dutie thou goest about and hence it is that the Apostle useth this phrase viz. I find another law in my members rebelling against the law of my mind c. When grace curbs the law of sin then nature rebels Thirdly from Satan as in Job Satan stands at his right hand as a Plantiffe as Aegidius compares it which puts in all Cases to hinder the Defendant Even so the Devil puts in all bie-thoughts that he can devise to hinder a mans suit for going on before the throne of grace But thou must do as Abraham did when he was sacrificing when the birds came he drave them away so must thou do by thy bie-thoughts if thou wilt have fruit of thy supplications before God Fourthly they come from spiritual sluggishness that creeps on the best if they take not heed And this was the reason the Apostle cryed O wretched man that I am c. I speak not now to the children of God who are troubled with bie-thoughts in their praiers For they the more bie-thoughts they have the more earnest they are in prayer they mourn with David in their prayer Consider O Lord saith he how I mourn Psal 55. There was something in the Prophets prayer that did vex him and that made him so much the more to mourn before God But as for you that can have bie-thoughts in prayer and let them abide with you your praiers are not importunate the Heathen shall rise up against you and condemn you I remember a storie of a certain Youth who being in the temple with Alexander when he was to offer incense to his god and the Youth holding the golden Censer with the fire in it a coal fell on the Youths hand and burnt his wrist but the Youth considering what a sacred thing he was about for all he felt his wrist to be burnt yet he would not stir but continued still to the end This I speak to shame those that can let any thing though never so small to disturb them yea if it were possible lesser things then nothing for if nothing come to draw their hearts away they themselves will employ their hearts Baals Priests shall condemn these who did cut themselves with knives and all to make them pray so much the more stronglie What a shame is it then that we should come on life and death to pray for our souls and yet come with such loose and lazie praiers Think you that a male factor when he is crying at the Bar for his life will be thinking on his Pots and Whores c Was it ever heard of that a man at deaths-door should be thinking on his Dogs can he then think on them Do you think that Jonah prayed on this fashion when he was in the Whales belly or the Thief on the crosse or Daniel in the Lions den or the three Children in the fierie furnace or Paul in Prison Do ye think that these prayed thus What shall I be at praier and my mind in the fields No no if I will pray I must melt before God and bewail my sins and be heartily affected in prayer But as long as I pray thus I pray not at all And as God said to Adam where art thou so may he say to thee Man where art thou art thou at prayer and thy mind at mill is thy mind on thy Oxen and art thou at prayer before me what an indignitie is this Should a man come to sue to the King and not mind his suit will not the King say Do you mock me know you to whom ye speak The Lord takes this as a haynous sin when men come into his presence with such loose hearts Now seeing these things are thus take a word of exhortation to labour for importunate Prayer Prayer is the art of all arts it enables a man to all other duties it is the art of Repentance c. Samuel confessed if he had not had the 〈…〉 Prayer he could not have had the art of preaching 2 San. 12. 2â— See the antithesis between these two words God forbid as if he should say God forbid that I should cease to pray for you for then I should not teach you the right way A Minister can never preach to his people that prayes not for his people It is the art of Thanksgiving a man cannot be thankful if he cannot pray Psal 116. 12. It was the means whereby the Prophet David would be thankful to God he would take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. A man hath not a good servant unlesse he can pray for his master see the story of Abrahams servant Gen 24. Prayer helps to perform all other good duties How dost thou think to have benefit by the Word unlâ—sse thou be fervent in prayer with God to get a blessing upon it We can do nothing but by begging Secondly as Prayer is the art of all arts so it is the Compendium of all divinitie Therefore to call zealously on the name of the Lord is to be a Christian Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord c. It includes repentance humiliation sorrow for sin joy in Gods goodnesse thanksgiving for mercies obedience to his commandements yea the whole dutie man therefore we must labour to be importunate in prayer A Reasonable soul is eminently all souls so Prayer is eminently all good duties Psal 72. The prayer of David the son Jesse that is all his repentance in all passages he did humble himself before God all Davids duties are included by the name of the prayer of David the son of Jesse And therefore thou hadst need to make much of Prayer for thou canst never repent unlesse thou pray well Thirdly Prayer is a mans utmost refuge a man cannot have Christ but only by Prayer 'T is bad enough for a man to be a Drunkard or to live in any other sin but yet after all this if a man have the spirit of prayer there is hope of this man if after all his sinnes committed he can pray to God there is hope But for a man to sinne and not to be importunate in prayer is dangerous What saith the Psalmist They are corrupt and become abominable they have not called on the name of the Lord Psalm 14. 4. Oh fearfull condition Fourthly Prayer is that which Gods
people have though they have nothing else it is the beggers dish as I may so call it A begger hath no way to live but by begging therefore he had need beg hard so we have nothing to live on but praying I mean nothing that is to be done on our side all the promises of God are to be gotten by prayer Suppose a man have nothing to live on but his fingers ends no house nor land nothing left to maintain his wife and children but his fingers ends will he not be toyling all the day he is a day-labourer as we use to say So to pray earnestly is a Christians fingers ends When a house stands but upon 〈…〉 will not a man be fearful and carefull of that pillar why 〈…〉 falls all the hope of salvatio◠〈…〉 unprofitable servants that Mercie will not meddle with us unlesse it be commanded Patience is loth to bear we have so provoked God that Mercie is loth to make or meddle with us for unlesse it have command from God it will not admit of any soul When David begged for loving kindnesse he was importunate else mercie and loving kindness would not look on David Psal 42. 8. Sixthly Prayer is Gods delight The supplication of the wicked is abomâ—ation to God but the prayer of the upright is his delight Prov. 15. 8. The Lord must have something to please him Kings you know must bâ—â—leased so the King of heaven would be pleased by all that come unto â—im Now nothing is more pleasing unto him than prayer Seventhly Importunate prayer is a willing praier There be many that pâ—â—y to God for mercy and yet they are loth to have it why because tâ—y are not importunate When a mans lust runs on the world and worldlâ— pleasures c he speeds not When the woman of Canaan was importunâ—â—e Christ saith unto her Woman be it unto thee as thou wilt she had a â—â—l to grace Matth. 15. 28. Eighthly Importunate prayer is the only faithfull prayer A begger never â—es away from a gentlemans door so long as he believes he shall have â—alms so as long as a soul is importunate with God it is a signe that it 〈…〉 a believing soul O woman saith Christ great is thy faith Why Because her importunity was great therefore Christ concludes her faith was â—â—eat The means to get importunity in prayer are these First Labour to know thine own misery See Ephes 6. 18 19 20. They â—ould not have praied importunately unlesse they had known how it had stood with Paul so unlesse thou know thy misery thou canst not be â—mportunate If a Drunkard or Whoremaster or Sabbath-breaker or Swearer c. knew that they should be damned they would get out of their sins Secondly You must be sensible of your misery Simon Magus knew his miserie yet because he was not sensible of it he sayes Pray ye to the Lord for me Acts 8. 24. If he had been sensible he would himselfe have fallen down before the congregation and he would have confessed how he had committed that sin in a more apprehensive manner Thirdly Observe the praiers of Gods people as here the disciples of Christ did they hearing Christ pray say unto him Master teach us to pray they were so affected with Christs prayer that they said Oh that we could pray thus Oh that we had such a spirit Master teach us to pray So I say consider Gods people how they pray they can pray as if they would soâ—re up to God in supplication they pray as if they world read the heavens If men did but consider this it would quicken them Fourthly Get a stock of prayer That man must needs be rich that hath a rock in every market So if a man have a stock of prayer it is a signe he is â—ke to speed as 1. Cor. 4. 2. If God did lend his ears to the Corinthian when they were crying for Paul then certainly Pauls prayers were importunate Fifthly If thou wilt be importunate labour to be full of good works Qui benè operatur benè erat as Acts 10. Cornelius his alms and prayers were come up to God now if he had committed drunkennesse that had ome up to God with his prayer therefore was it happy for Cornelius tâ—at he was full of good works so thou canst not be importunate unlesse thâ—u be full of good works take heed that swearing and lying c. crie no louder in Gods ears then thy prayers Sixthly If thou wilt be importunate in prayer labour to reform thy â—oushold When Jacob was to call on God he said to his houshold Put away your strange gods Gen. 35. THE SOVERAIGNE VERTUE OF THE GOSPEL In a SERMON By that laborious and faithful Messenger of CHRIST WILLIAM FENNER Sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge and late Minister of Rochford in Essex London Printed by E. T. for John Stafford THE SOVERAIGNE VERTUE OF THE GOSPEL PSAL. 147. 3. He healeth them that are broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds HEre are two things contained in this Text the Patients and the Physitian First the Patients the broken in heart Secondly the Physitian Christ it is he that healeth and bindeth up their wounds The Patients here are felt and discerned to have two wounds or maladies First brokenness in heart Secondly woundednesse He binds up such Brokennesse of heart presupposeth wholenesse of heart Wholenesse of heart is twofold either wholeness of heart in sin or wholenesse of heart from sin First wholenesse of heart from sin is when the heart it without sin and so the blessed Angels have whole hearts and so Adam and Eve and we in them before the fall had whole hearts Secondly wholenesse of heart in sin so the devils have whole hearts and all men since the fall from their conception til their conversion have whole hearts and these are they that our Saviour intends The whole need not a physitian but they that are sick The hearts that are whole need not the physitian but they that are broken and sick Sinne is in the godly and they are sick of it even as when poyson is in a man it makes him sick why because the poyson is contrary unto him But sinne is in the wicked and they are not sick of it as poyson is in a toad and the toad is not sick because a toad is of that nature which the poyson is and therefore he needs not a Physitian Will a Physitian go to cure a Toad surely no he will rather kill it he will not cure it So as long as a man is not sick at the heart of his sin Christ will rather kill him than cure him When a man sayes he is sick and yet can sleep eat drink and work and look as well as ever he did feels no pain nor any thing to trouble him what need hath this man of a Physitian So when a man lives in sin yet never breaks his sleep for it but minds his pleasures his
thou dost every day draw neerer to God than other is it more and more a back'd praier a fervent and frequent praier hast thou taken from thy recreations from thy calling to give to it yea from thy belly and back and used all meanes for a prevailing with God then are thy praiers effectuall and unsatiable This then condemnes the praiers of most men in the world they pray and pray for grace and their praiers come to an end and cease before they have it the angry fretful man praies for patience and meekness and yet sits down without it the covetous worldling praies to be weaned from the world and his praiers are done before he is so so the luke-warmling deadhearted and vain thoughted professor praye for better thoughts for more zeale and yet comes to his so be it before he have it and so every wicked man prayes and he is come to his Amen before the grace is given let all suchmen know that such prayers first they are endlesse secondly they are fruitlesse First they are endlesse The Philosopher said that for which a thing is that is the end of the thing now prayer is for the speeding with God and therefore he whose prayers speed not with God his prayers are endlesse thou hast prayed against thy pride but aâ—t as proud still thou hast prayed against thy choler and art as teachy still thou hast prayed against earthlinesse and worldlinesse and art earthly and worldly still thou hast prayed against security and deadnesse of heart and lukewarmnesse in Gods service and art luke warm deadhearted and secure still to what end are all thy prayers when thou enjoyest not the end of thy prayers to what end is the worke of thy servant if thy businesse be not done and dispatched when all is done As good never pray as pray to no end a good that thou never hadst begun to pray as to cease and to giue over thy prayers before thou hast obtained the grace thou prayest for The prayers of the wicked are an abomination unto the Lord but the prayer of the upright is his delight Prov. 15. 8. that is the prayers of a wicked man that continues in his wickednesse when his prayers are done hi prayers are an abomination to the Lord but the prayers of the upright though he were before he prayed never so wicked yet if it be the prayer of an upright and godly man when his prayers are done that his prayers rid him of his sin and make him an upright man his prayers are Gods delight Beloved many pray against distrust in Gods providence Infidelity in Gods promises Impatiency under Gods corrections c. and yet have never the more trust and affiance in God never the more patience under the hand of God all these praiers are endlesse Secondly thy praiers are fruitlesse to what purpose is a beggers begging of an alms if he be gone before the alms be bestowed his begging is fruitlesse so all thy praiers are lost if thou art gone from the Throne of grace before grace is given thee for if such a praier be endlesse then is it also fruitlesse it will never do thee any good what is a fruitlesse tree good for but to be cut down what is a fruitlesse Vine good for but to be burned So all thy praiers are lost all thy beginnings of grace are lost we know saith the man that was borne blind John 9. that God heareth not sinners we know it Why may some say how do you know that God heares not sinners why we know it by experience by examples A drunkard prayeth to God to cure him of his drunkennesse and yet he doth not leave his ill company all the world may see that God hears not the drunkards praier because he cures him not but lets him go on in his sinne and so for all other sinnes seest thou a man go on in his sins thou mayest see that God heareth not his praiers If a man should be sick on his death bed and send for the Physirians and Apothecaries in the Country and send for his father Mother and for all his friends to come to him to minister unto him yet I know he is not cured by them so long as I see his deadly disease remaines upon him so if I see a mans pride hypocrisie security deadnesse of heart his lust anger c. lie upon him notwithstanding all his prayers I know God heares not his prayers he prayes to be cleansed from his sins and to be purged from his lusts and to be redeemed from his vaine conversation if now God let his sins continue in him and lets him go on in them we see plainly God hears not him O what a pittiful and miserable case are such men in that pray and pray and yet all their prayers are endlesse and fruitless is not that man in a pittiful case and all physick all cost and charges is lost upon him when his eating and drinking his sleeping and winding and turning from this side to that side do him no good do we not say of him that he is a dead man so if a mans prayers and supplications to God be endlesse and fruitlesse that man must needs be a dead and a damned man so long as he goeth on in that case Now we come to the second part of the text the sensiblenesse of the godly soul whether it speed or no the soule that prayes aright that prays unsatiably it is able to say the Lord doth hear me the Lord doth grant me the thing that I prayed to him for Thus saith Jonah I cried unto the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of Hell cryed I and thou heardst my voice Jonah 2. 2. How could Jonah say God heard his voice if he had not known it therefore he knew it But against this some may object How can this be how can the soule know that God hears it we have no Angels nor voices from Heaven now to tell men as the Angel told Cornelius that his prayers were accepted and come up before God or to say as Christ to the woman in the Gospel Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee I know God heares me with his All-hearing eare and therefore I have a good belief in God but how shall I know that God heares my prayers in mercy so as to grant that I pray for There be six wayes to know whether the soule shall speed in prayer yea or no. The first is the having of a Spirit of further and further praying When God gives the soul a further and further ability to pray when God opens a way for the soule to the Throne of grace and gives him a free accesse to the gate of mercy and a spirit to hold out in prayer It is a signe that God meanes to hear it When a Petitioner hath accesse to the King and presents his Petition If the King imbolden him in his speech and let him speak
all that he would speak it is a signe that the King means to grant that man his petition because otherwise the King would never have endured to have heard him so long but would have commanded him to be gone So it is with the soule at the Throne of grace if it come with a petition and prayer to God if God dispatch the soul out of his presence so that the soul hath no heart to pray nor to continue its suit but prayes deadly and dully and is glad when he hath said his prayers and hath done it is a fearful sign that God never means to heare that mans prayers but if thou prayest and prayest and haâ—t not done in thy prayers but God by casting in a spirit of praier and zeal and fervency in prayer imboldens thy heart in its petition it is a sign that God will hear thee and grant thee thy prayers Blessed be God saith the Prophet that hath not turned away my prayer nor his mercy from me Psal 66. 20. How could the Prophet say that the Lord did not turne away his mercy from him How because he turned not away his prayer from him Many Expositors expound it of not turning away his prayer from his heart as if he should say Lord thou continuest my heart to pray thou hast not taken away my prayer from my heart therefore I know that thou continuest thy mercy unto me Secondly the preparednesse of the heart to pray is a sign that God means to hear When the Merchant stretcheth his bagge wider and wider it is a signe that he means to put something in it so when God opens the heart of a poor soul it is a signe that he means to fill it when God prepares the soule with more hunger and thirst after grace with more longings and breathings it is a sign that God hath already prepared his eare to hear that prayer it is a signe that heart shall speed with God in prayer Psal 10. 17. Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble thou wilt prepare their heart thou wilt cause thine eare to heare First God prepares the heart to pray and then he bows his eare to hear Examine thy soul then art thou more and more prepared to pray hath God spoken with a powerfull voice to thy soul to open it selfe wide it is a signe that God meanes to fill thy soul with his graces But if thou canst rush into Gods presence and leave thy preparednesse behind thee leavest thy soul and thy thoughts and thy affections behind thee and comest with a straightned heart in thy deadnesse and luke warmnesse this is a fearefull signe that God will not heare thee Thirdly Gods gracious looke is a signe that he will hear thee for sometimes beloved God answers his people by a cast of his countenance with a gratious smile of his face Psal 22. 24. He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted neither hath he hid his face from him but when he cryed unto him he heard Hereby was the Prophet able to know that God did hear his prayer because he did not hide his face from him when his poor soule saw God smile on him and set a favourable eye upon him this made him say that God heard his cry This is a riddle to the world If you should ask the men of the world what the meaning of Gods gratious countenance is or what they see of it alas they can say nothing of it they know not what it means onely the godly man understandeth Psal 34. 15. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his eares are open unto their cry These two go together their prayers enter in Gods eares and they know it why because they see it in his countenance upon them as a Petitioner may read his speeding with the King by his countenance towards him so a poor soul may see how prayers prevaile by Gods countenance and look upon him If thou then art a stranger to Gods countenance if God never admitted thee into his presence to see his face and countenance it is a signe that God little regards thy prayers and hath no mind to hear thee A wicked man is like a varlet that stands without dores and begges an almes but is not suffered to go into the Gentlemans presence and therefore knowes not how he speeds whether the Gentleman will give him an almes or whether he be providing a cudgell to beat him away so a wicked man prayes and puts up his petitions to God but he is not able to come before God he cannot see whether God look as if he meant to hear his prayers yea or no he knows not but that God may be providing a curse and plague for him in stead of a blessing But a child of God comes within the list of Gods countenance he can tell when God smiles on him and when he takes another looke he is able to come into Gods presence Job 13. 16. He also saith Job shall be my salvation for an hypocrite shall not come before him A strange verse Job saith God is his salvation and he gives this reason why he was able to say so for an hypocrite shall not come before him One would think that this were no reason but yet it is an undeniable reason as if Job had said I come into his presence and he lookes like a Saviour a Redeemer upon me but an hypocrite shall not come before him he stands like a rogue and begs without the gate Indeed a wicked man comes into Gods presence in regard of Gods Omnipresence but this is not enough thy Oxe and thine Asse stands in Gods presence yea so the very Devils themselves are in Gods presence But if thou come not into Gods presence of grace if God do not admit thy soule into the list of his Throne it is a sign that God hears thee not Men should therefore examine their consciences what face or presence of God they come into or see when they pray in their prayers whether they come before God yea or no. Beloved no wicked man under heaven can come before God this is made the marke of a godly man onely Psal 140. 13. The upright shall dwell in thy presence mark here dwelling in Gods presence is onely determined to the righteous the upright shall dwell in thy presence And here I appeale againe to the hearts and consciences of wicked men what presence of God doe they find in their prayers they see their Pews and the walls or hangings c. before them they see the heavens and the clouds above them they know nothing within dores Do they see Gods presence and countenance no it is the upright man onely that dwells in Gods presence He sees how God lookes on him how his face smiles on him and therefore it is not a wicked mans coming to Church and falling on his knees and uttering the words of prayer that is a coming into Gods presence then this
would be a false saying of the Prophet For a wicked man may go to Church and fall upon his knees c. but never come before God This presence is to see the face of God Fourthly the conscience of a man doth answer him whether God hear him yea or no. As it was with the high Priest whensoever the high Priest came into Gods presence to inquire of him though God did not appear visibly unto him yet he might read Gods answer in his Urim and Thummim he might there know Gods mind so a mans conscience is his Urim and Thummim When he comes before God his own conscience gives him an inckling whether he speed or no 1 John 3. 20 21. If our hearts condemne us God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things Beloved if our hearts condemne us not then have we confidence towards God If a mans conscience tell a man his prayers are rotten that his humiliation is rotten that his heart is â—o upright that yet he is not purged from his sins that his seeking of God is fained and hypocriticall it is the very voice of God in his soule and if our consciences condem us God saith the Apostle is greater than our consciences There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. as if he should say those that are in Christ God doth not condeme them they have not that condemnation nay their own conscience doth not condemn them so that that man whom any condemnation either from God or from his own conscience condemns that man is not in Christ being not in Christ he can never be heard Indeed a mans conscience may be mis-informed by Satan under a temptation as you may see in the verse before my text Thou hast heard my voyce sâ—op not thine eare from my cry Here the Church being examined their consciences told them they were heard in their prayers but being under a temptation their consciences were afraid that God heard not So many a poor soule examine it and it cannot deny but that these and these tokens of grace and fruits of Gods Spirit are in it yet their consciences are afraid that the Lord will not give them these and these other graces that they want that the Lord will not hear them for such and such blessings I meane not neither a truce of conscience for there may be a truce of conscience in wicked men A truce may be between mortall enemies but no peace but amongst friends Wicked mens consciences are like the Lion 1 Kings 13. who when he had killed the Prophet stood by the Corps and by the Asse and did not eate the body nor tear the Asse so a wicked mans conscience it is as the devils ban-dogge or roaring Lion till it hath slaine the sinner it stands stone still and seemes neither to meddle nor make with him but lies as seared or dead in him I mean not this conscience But when God hath sprinkled the conscience with the bloud of Christ and made the conscience pure this is a signe that God heares his prayer I mean not the stammering of conscience when it is dazelled or overwhelmed but when it speaks down right as it means A goâ—y mans conscience sometimes may judge otherwise then the thing is But examine what thy conscience tells thee in sober sadnesse deliberately convincingly and then know that the Lord tells thee If thy conscience sayes peremptorily that thy heart and wayes are rotten and unsound then know that the Lord tells thee so and that the Lord sayeth so to thy soule Fifthly the getting of that grace that a man prayes for is a signe that God heares his prayers But this is not a true signe alwayes but with distinction When the grace given and the good will of God the giver cannot be severed then it is a true signe But when the gift and the good will of the giver may be severed then it is not a true signe Thou mayest pray unto God and God may give thee many temporall blessings and many common graces of his Spirit God may give thee good parts a good memory he may give thee a good measure of knowledge and understanding even in divers things he may give thee some kinde of humility chastity civility thou mayest be of a loving and flexible disposition so he may give thee a good estate in the world houses lands wife and children c. God may give thee all these and yet hate thee and never heare one prayer thou makest thou maist pray for a thousand blessings and have them and yet never be heard so long as the good will of the giver is severed from them all outward blessings and common graces may be severed from Gods good pleasure to a man Therefore in temporall blessings or in common graces if thou wouldst know whether God hear thee or no know whether God hath given thee a sanctified use â—f them or no. If God hath given thee many common graces or temporal blessings and a heart to use them to his glory then every blessing thou hast there is not a drop of drink nor a bit of breâ—d that thou hast but it is a signe of Gods everlasting love to thee Why because this and the good will of the giver can never be severed But on the contrary if a man have not a sanctified use of that he hath then it is the greatest severity of God and the most eminent plague and curse of God upon the soule to give it for a mans parts may be his bane his civility may be his curse and means of the finall hardnesse and impenitencie of his heart Sixthly faith if a man have faith given him to believe it is a signe that God heares him be it to thee saith Christ to the man in the Gospel according to thy faith so goe thou to God and be it to thee as thou beleevest Dost thou pray for grace according as thou beleevest so shalt thou receive I have no signe that God will heare me I have so many corruptions of my heart against me and so many threatnings of Gods frowns against me I have no signe that God will heare me Wouldst thou have a signe An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a signe this is a tempting faith to seek for signes to believe Thomas said Christ John 20. 29. Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe That man that believes because he feels grief in his heart teares in his eyes groans in his spirit because he prayes long and earnestly and sweats in his prayer or mourns in his humiliation I suspect his humiliation his teares his griefe his prayers and all that he hath Why these are good signes of faith but rotten grounds of faith the word and promise of God must be thy ground But against this the soul may object That every Promise runs with a Condition and therefore if I
thou dost not beleeve that God will hear thee if thou dost not believe that thou shalt prevaile that God will deliver thee out of these corruptions and that lust that thou praiest against that God will give thee this grace oâ— that grace if thou dost not beleeve that God will own thee if thou hast these doubtfull discouragements O he will not grant me I shall never get this or that how canst thou call on him thou mayest call so and so but never canst thou call to any purpose if thou dost not beleeve in him A begger though he be never so well able to begge yet if when he comes to the House-keepers dore he be perswaded that he shall not speed that let him beg as long as he will he shall get nothing this blunts his begging and makes him give over his suit without any great importunity So it is impossible that ever a soul should hold out and pray that is discouraged in prayer Secondly thou canst not pray unlesse thou use all thy strength in prayer If thou bee discouraged thou canst not use thy strength A discouraged man his strength melts into feare and whatsoever strength he hath he cannot put it forth How came Jacob to prevaile and to have power with God Why he used all his strength with God and so prevailed Hosea 12. 3. Thou canst never prevaile with God by thy prayers unlesse thou putrest forth all thy strength in prayer If Jacob had reasoned I am but dust and ashes how can I strive with God I am sinfull and evill how can I contend with my Maker and so have been discouraged in his wrastling he could not have used all his strength with God and so had never prevailed with God No Jacob he gathers all the arguments that he could make he gathers together all the promises he could finde in Gods Book or that he could heare of he displaies all the wants that he could shew he petitions all the graces that he could name he used all his strength and by his strength he had power with God If thy confession of thy sins be strengthlesse if thy petitions and thankesgiving for grace be strengthlesse if thou use not all thy strength in prayer thou canst never prevaile nor have any power with God For how can that man prevail and have power with God that hath no power with himselfe Thirdly thou canst never pray and have a fearfull apprehension of evill in prayer thou canst not It is good to have a deep apprehension of thy sinnes apprehend them to be as many hells as thou eanst thou canst never apprehend them deeply enough but if thou hast a fearfull apprehension of them thou canst never pray When the Apostle would exhort the Philippians to continue in one Spirit and in one minde fighting together through the faith of the Gospell he exhorts them that in nothing they fear Phil. 1. 27 28. For if a man be terrified with his adversary with the power of his adversay and fears he shall never be able to withstand him but must fall before him through his subtilty that he can never be wary enough for him Alas he can never strive with hope and courage against him So beloved if we have a fearfull and discouraged kind of apprehension of evill we can never pray so as to prevail Apprehend thy sinnes to be as hellish and as damnable as thou canst Feele even the fire of hell in every one of them but take heed of a fearfull apprehension of them so to apprehend the evill of them as to thinke with thy selfe that because thou art guilty of these and these sinnes that thou shalt never get in with God again God will never be reconciled to thee these will eate out thine heart in prayer Fourthly we can never pray if we have any secret despair that there is any difficulty too hard for us to grapple withall or to get through in our prayers Howsoever a man praies yet if he have any spice of these fears in him to think now I have taken a great deale of paines but am never the better I have prayed and prayed but have got no good I may goe on and doe thus and thus but shall never prevail or speed all my labours all my prayers and indeavours will be lost this takes away the very spirit and life of a mans prayers Judas after he had betrayed the Lord Jesus he was discouraged from ever praying for mercy Why because he thought it was impossible for him to get it I have betrayed innocent blood saith he Matth. 27 3. as if he should say I shal never outwrastle this sin this sin is my death I have brought the blood of the Son of God on me I shall never claw off this sin now Judas thus despayring we never read one letter of any prayer that he made to God to get out of it no he thought it too hard for him to get mercy Despaire drives a man from that he did hope for because now he thinks there is an impossibility in getting of it Beloved mistake me not there is a double desperation First there is a desperation of infidelity and that deads and drawes the soule from God Secondly there is a desperation of extremity And if ever you mean to come to God and to get any grace from God you must come with desperation of extremity this desperation puts life into a mans prayers and indeavours As a Souldier when he seeth nothing but to kill or be killed that he sees his state desperate why this will compell a very coward to fight this will make a coward fight as if he would kill the Devil saith the Proverb it will make him fight like a spirit he will be afraid of nothing Take a Souldier that fights desperately for his life with a kill or be killed he feares nothing neither Pike nor Sword nor Gun why he fights for his life Therefore one notes that sometimes it is the nearest way to victory to be desperate in attempts and in fight Therefore when William the Conquerour came first into England at Hastings he sent back his Ships again that so the Souldiers might have no hope of saving themselves by flying back And so at Battle at one encounter a little Army of the English slew a great Army of the French Why they grew desperate So could men pray desperately could they pray with a pray or be damned begge with a begge or be damned seek to God for grace that you want with a speed or be damned then would their prayers be more earnest and powerfull to get grace O did men pray thus they would pray otherwise then they doe Men pray but they pray deadly coldly and lazily as if they had no need of prayer or as if they had no need of the grace they pray for they pray for grace but get it not they pray for zeale but have it not for repentance and holinesse but obtaine it not Beloved either
by his labours already published yet if any shall desire a further Testimonie of either these Sermons will give it in full measure pressed down and running over and therefore I subscribe their publication for common good Joseph Caryl The Authors Preface upon these ensuing SERMONS THe cause of that little Heavenlinesse which is in the profession of Christianity is the want of Meditation Many can meditate cursorily but that is not enough it must be a sticking meditation that must affect the heart That place in a Pet. 2. 8. is marvellous pregnant it was the meanes why Lot was so touched with the abominations of Sodom That righteous man dwelling amongst them in seeing and hearing their ungodly deeds vexed his righteous soul from day to day Many heard and saw too besides Lot and were not vexed Why Other matters stuck in their thoughts they ne're throughly meditated on it but he vexed himself that is the meditation of those evils and bringing them home to his Soul vexed him The word is a fit word implying two things First the searching and examining of a thing his meditating heart examined their sins how many they were how grievous how damnable how likely to pul down some vengeance or other upon them Secondly the wracking or vexing upon tryall so it was with Lot he observed all their evills and weighed them in his soule and then he wrack'd his spirit with the considertaion of them The Evangelist useth this very word for tossing this word that is here put for vexing he puts for tossing a ship on the seas Matthew 14. 24. The ship was tossed with the waves so meditation did tosse his soule with vexation sometimes down to the deep O miserable wretches that we are or How brutish host beastly and how hellish are our sins Sometimes up O that the Lord would humble us and spare us Sometimes over head and ears in the storm O fool that I was to chuse my dwelling amongst such men These meditations vexed his soul Many have studied meditations and yet yet are not acquainted with this cordiall meditation many Ministers that study Divinity all the day that study the Word all the week that study their Sermons all the yeare may yet for all this be carnall Ministers why Because their meditation is but inventing and mentall meditation this meditation is a practicall meditation the thing meditated feeds the heart that meditation is like a fluttering Pheasant that flutters before their eyes it feeds their eyes indeed but never feeds the stomack as long as they neither catch or eat it The saving mystereis of God flutter before their eyes and before their understandings they feed their eyes with knowledge but never feed their soules unto everlasting life unlesse they fowl for it dresse and digest it in their hearts There is an apt word Genesis 24. 63. Isaac went out to meditate in the field the originall hath it to signifie â—â—â—nall conference his minde conferred with the truth and the truth with him a mutuall working he wrought upon the truth by meditating of it and it wrought upon him by leaving an impression upon his soule this is a rare practice in the world and yet as necessary as most it is the art of the soule in being heavenly it is the inuring of thee to every good duty for by meditation a man comes to have his minde and heart fixed upon every thing that he would would he pray he that hath inured his heart to meditate his minde is fixed in his prayer Would he receive the Sacrament He that hath inured his heart by meditation his minde is fixed in the Ordinance David that was excellent at meditation had a fixed heart Psalm 57. 7. Psal 112. 17. The Contents and Heads of the following SERMONS The Contents of the first SERMON Haggai 1. 5. THe Preface shewing the usefulnesse of Meditation together with the danger in neglecting it The opening of the Teâ—t in severall particulars page 1. Doctrine Serious Meditation of our sins by the word is an especiall means for to make us repent 2. The definition of Meditation in four particulars ibid. 1. It is an exercise of the mind ibid. 2. A setled exercise of the mind ibid. 3. It is to make a further enquiry into all the parts of the truth ibid. 4. It labours to affect the heart 3. Two Reasons 1. Because Meditation presseth all Arguments home to the heart ibid. 2. Because Meditation fastens sin close upon the soul and makes the soule to feel it 4. 1. Use For the reproof of several sorts of men that are loth to put in practice this so necessary a duty 5. Four le ts of Meditation 1. Vaine company 6. 2. Multitude of wordly businesse ibid. 3. Ignorance 7. 4. That naturall aversnesse that is in the heart of man unto it ibid. This aversenesse of heart consisteth in three things 1. In the carelesnesse of the heart ibid. 2. In the runnings and revings of the heart ibid. 3. In the wearisomenesse of the heart in meditation 8. 2. Use For terror unto all those that dare sit down in security never at all regarding this soule-searching dutie ibid. Four means or helps to Meditation 1. With all seriousnesse tell the soul that thou hast a message from the Lord unto it 9. 2. Observe fitting times for meditation viz 1. The morning ibid. 2. The night 10. 3. The evening ibid. 4. When the heart is after some extraordinary manner touched with Gods word or providences ibid. 3. Call to mind what evill thou hast done ever since thou wast born ibid 3. Rouse up thy heart and thoughts as high as heaven ibid. 3. Use For reprehension of those that meditate upon their sins and how they may with the more freenesse to commit sin 11. Four grounds upon which Meditation must be raised 1. Meditate on the goodnesse mercy and patience of God that you have oft abused by your sins 12. 2. Meditate on the justice of God that you have so oft provoked 13. 3. Meditate on the wrath of God that you have so oft kindled ibid. 4. Meditate on the constancie of God who is a constant hater of all sin 14. Four directions how to carry Meditation home to the heart 1. Weigh and ponder all the foregoing things in thine own heart 15. 2. Strip sin and look upon it stark naked and in it's own colours 16. 3. Dive into thine ownsoule and search thine heart to the quick ibid. 4. Prevent thine own heart by meditation and tell thy soule that it will one day wish that it had not neglected this so necessary a duty 17. Four duties to be discharged that we may put life to Meditation 1. Let Meditation haunt and dog thy heart with the promises and threatnings mercies and judgements of God 18. 2. Let Meditation trace thy heart in the same steps and run over all thy duties discharged 19. 2. Let Meditation hale thy heart before Gods Throne there to powre out thy complaints before
Because they are the strength of a mans soule the first born of originall corruption ibid. 5. Because they are the dearest acts of man 141. Doct. 2. It is hard for men to forsake their sinfull thoughts ibid. 1. Because it is hard for to reforme the inward part ibid. 2. Because thoughts are partiall acts and run on in every action ibid. 3. Because thoughts are inward in the heart 142. Use 1. For men to examine their thoughts ibid. A man may know whether he be a child of God or of the Devil by his thoughts ibid. 1. Because mens thoughts are the free acts of the heart ibid. 2. They are the immediate acts of the heart 143. 3. They are continued acts of heart ibid. 4. They are the univocall acts of the heart ibid. 5. They are the swiftest acts of the heart 144. 6. They are the peculiar acts of the heart ibid. 7. They are the greatest accusers or excusers of the heart ibid. Use 2. For direction If sin in thought be so great how horrible then is sin in the act 145. Use 3. For exhortation to consider 1. What great reason we have to set our thoughts on God 146. 2. What thoughts they are that God calls for ibid. The Contents of the tenth SERMON on Luke 9. 23. THe words of the text unfolded and opened in severall particulars 151. Doct. The first action to be performed of every Christian is to deny himselfe ibid. Reason 1. From Christs example he denied himselfe 152. 2. Christ denied himselfe for us therefore we must deny our selves for him ibid. 3. This Christ enjoyns to all that will come after him ibid. What is meant by a mans selfe 1. A mans corrupt will wit and reason 153. 2. All his lusts and corruptions ibid 3. Not only a mans corrupt selfe but a mans good selfe in some respects 154. Selfe-denying is opposite to selfe-seeking ibid. There are five things in selfe-seeking 1. It is an head lust ibid. And that appears 1. Because it is a leading-lust to all lust ibid. 2. Because selfe is the cause of all other lusts of the heart 155. 3. Because selfe is an in lust it runs along through all the lusts of the flesh ibid. 4. Selfe is a make-lust a man would never break out into lust were it not for selfe ibid. 5. Selfe is a lust that is in request ibid. 2. Selfe-seeking is a selfe-conceited lust that is 1. When a man hath a conceit of himselfe 156. 2. Of his own gifts ibid. 3. Of his own actions ibid. 4. Of the state that he is in ibid. When as a selfe-conceited man 1. Hath no reall worth in himselfe 157. 2. He will not stand to the judgement of those that can judge him ibid. 3. He hath too high a conceit of himselfe ibid. 4. He resteth in the judgement of himselfe ibid. And the Reasons of this are these 1. Because sinners are fools 158. 2. Men are borne fooles ibid. 3. Men are well-conceited of their own estate ibid. 4 The Lord gives up many to a spirit of slumber 159. The wofull case of a selfe-conceited men 1. Because the Scripture calls selfe-conceiâ— 1. Only a thinking ibid. 2. A superstition ibid. 3. A shadow ibid. 4. An Imagination ibid. 5. An Appearance ibid. 2. So long as a man is well conceited of himself Christ hath no commission to call him 160. 3. Christ rejoyceth that he hath no commission to call such ibid. 4. The self conceited man is in the broad way to hell ibid. The Contents of the eleventh SERMON upon Luke 11. 9. THe opening of the Context The words of the Text opened 164. Doctr. Importunate prayer is a restlesse prayer 165. Reason 1. It will take no privative deniall it must have some Answer ibid. 2. Not a positive deniall not a contrary answer ibid. 3. It will take no contumelious repulse 166. 4. It is in a holy manner a kind of impudent prayer ibid. 3. Reasons why we must pray importunately 1. In regard of Gods Majesty God respects it 167. 2. In regard of Gods mercie it is a disgrace to Gods mercy to beg it coldly 168. 3. In regard of our selves else we should never esteem mercy 169. 4. Reasons why men are not importunate in Prayer 1. Because men account prayer a penance ibid. 2. Most men content themselves with formality ibid. 3. Men are Gentlemen beggars 170. 4. Men have wrong conceits of prayer ibid. 1. They have high conceits of their own prayers ibid. 2. They have mean conceits of their sins 171. 3. They have base thoughts of God ibid. 4. Thee have wrong conceits of Importunitie ibid The Contents of the twelfth Sermon on Luke 11. 9. 6. Signes whereby we may know whether our prayers be importunate 1. IMportunate prayer is evermore the prayer of an importunate man 175. 2 It is the prayer of a pure conscience 176. 3. It is a prayer that is full of strong arguments 177. 4. It is a stout prayer ibid. 5 It is a wakefull prayer ibid. 6. It is an assurance-getting prayer ibid. 7. Marks of Prayer that is not importunate 1. It is a lazie prayer 178. 2. It is not powred out from the heart ibid. 3. It is a praying only by fits ibid. 4 It is a silent prayer he is silent in that he should most insist upon 179. 5. A seldome prayer ibid. 6. A lukewarme prayer 180. 7. By-thoughts in prayer keep prayer from being importunate By-thoughts in prayer arise 1. From corrupt nature ibid. 2. From nature as it is curbed ibid. 3. From Satan ibid. 4. From spirituall sluggishnesse 181. 8. Motives to Importunate Prayer 1. Because praier enables a man for duties ibid. 2. Prayer is the compendium of all divinity 182. 3. Prayer is a mans utmost refuge ibid. 4. Prayer is that which Gods people have though they have nothing else ibid. 5. Prayer hath the command of mercy ibid. 6. Prayer is Gods delight 183. 7. Importunate praier is a willing prayer ibid. 8. Importunate prayer is the only faithfull prayer ibid. 6. Helps to importunity in Prayer 1. Labour to know thine own misery ibid. 2. Be sensible of thy miserie ibid. 3. Observe how Gods people pray ibid. 4. Get a stock of prayer ibid. 5. Labour to be full of good works 184. 6. Labour to reforme thy houshold ibid The Contents of the thirteenth SERMON upon Col. 1. 10. THe words explained according to a double sense 187. Doctr. Those that professe Christ must walke worthy of Christ. 188. Reason 1. Because it is Christ that calls us to be Christians ibid. 2. Because it is the Gospel of Christ whereby we are called 289. 3. Because by the Gospel we are called to repentance ibid. 4. Because if we walk not worthy of Christ God will not hold us to be his servants ibid. 5. If we walke not worthy of Christ then it will be for the glory of God to cashiere us 190. 6. If we walk not worthy of Christ we put an indignity
When he takes away the benefit of both these helps ibid. Use 1. To teach us to cast off security ibid. Doct. It is the importunate desire of the Saints of God still to keep God present with them 255. The presence of God is the particular favour of God which he expresseth in his ordinances ibid. 1. This question is answered Whether a man may be saved without preaching 256. 2. This question is answered who they are that are weary of God 257. Use To rebuke Gods people for their neglect in not striving to keep God who seems to be departing 258. Quest How may we keep the Lord amongst us 260. Answ 1. We must be sure to prepare a room for him ibid. 2. We must give him content 261. 3. We must make him welcome ibid. 4. We must be importunate with God to tarry and account it a great favour if he will stay 262. The Contents of the twentieth SERMON on Lament 3. 5. 7. THe opening of the words in which are three properties of effectuall Prayer 165. 1. The unsatiablenesse of it till it be heard ibid. 2. The sensiblenesse of it whether it be heard or no ibid. 3. The supply it hath against danger and discouragement 166. Doct. 1. An effectuall prayer is an unsatiable prayer ibid. Quest Must a man alwayes pray Answ A man must give over the Act of prayer for other duties but he must never give over the suit of Prayer 267. Rules to know whether our Prayers be unsatiable or no 1. It it an earnest begging Prayer ibid. 2. It is a constant prayer 268. A godly mans prayer is not out of his heart till the grace he prayed for be in ibid. 3 It is a prayer that is ever a beginning ibid. 4. It is a proceeding prayer it winds up the heart higher and higher ibid. 5. It is a prayer that purifieth the heart ibid. It is more and more fervent 169. And more and more frequent ibid. It will take time from lawfull recreations and from the lawfull duties of our calling 270. And it will adde humiliation and fasting to prayer ibid. Use To condemn those who pray for grace and yet sit down before grace is obtained ibid. Such prayers are 1. Endlesse 271. 2. Fruitlesse ibid. Doct. 2. A godly soule is sensible of Gods hearing or not hearing his prayer 272. Quest How can the soul know whether it speed in prayer or no Answ 1. When God gives a soule further and further ability to pray it is a signe that God hears it ibid. But if the soule have no heart to continue its suit it is a signe that God never meanes to hear that mans prayer ibid. 2. The preparednesse of the heart to prayer is a sign that God means to heare 273. 3. Gods gratious looke is a signe that he will heare for sometimes God answers his people by a cast of his countenance ibid. 4. The conscience of a man will answer him whether God hears his prayer or no. 274. But a mans conscience may be misinformed 275. A wicked man may have a truce though no true peace in his conscience ibid. 5. The getting of the grace that a man prayes for is a signe that God hears his prayer ibid. But God may give many temporall blessings and common graces yet not in love but in wrath 276. 6. If à man have Faith given him to beleeve it is a signe that God heares him ibid. Good works are good signes of Faith but they are but rotten grounds of Faith ibid. Object Every Promise runs with a condition ibid. Answ 1. The Promise is the ground of Faith and the way to get the condition 277. ◠Faith is the enabling cause to keepe the condition ibid. Two things do much hurt in Prayer 1. Groundlesse incouragement 2. Needlesse discouragement 278. Doct. 3. God would not have any Christian soul to be discouraged in prayer 279 A definition of discouragement ibid. Four Reasons why we should not be discouraged in prayer 1. Because discouragement hinders the soul in prayer ibid. 2. Discouragement takes away the strength of the soul in prayer 280. 3. If we have fearfull apprehensions of our sins so as to thinke they will never be forgiven we can never pray aright ibid. 4 If we have any secret despaire we can never pray to any purpose ibid. There is a double desperation 1 Of infidelity which draws the soul from God 2. Of extremity which puts life into a mans prayers and endeavours 282. A man never prayes well till he feele himselfe undone 283. We should take heed of discouragements for 1 Discouragements breed melancholinesse in the soul 285. 2. They breed hard thoughts of God ibid. 3. They will cause a man to think that God hates him 286. 4. They will bring a man to despaire ibid. Ministers should not preach the pure law without the Gospell 287. Secret discouragements in the heart 1. They take away the Spirit in the use of the means 288. 2. They drive us from the use of means ibid. 3. They make a man continually to pore on his sins so as he shall never be able to get out of them 289. 4. They breed nothing but sorrow ibid. 5. They leave the Soul in a maze that it knowes not whither to turne it selfe 290. They whisper into a man a sentence of of Death and an impossibility of escaping ibid. The conclusion of the whole 291. The Contents of the one and twentieth SERMON on Rom. 8. 22. EVery creature hath a threefold goodnesse in it 1. A goodnesse of end 295. 2. A goodnesse of nature ibid. 3. A goodnesse of use 296. There be four evils under which every Creature groaneth 1. The continuall labour that the Creature is put unto ibid. 2. The creature sometimes partakes of the plagus of the ungodly ibid. 3. The Creature hath an instinctive fellow-feeling of mans wretchednesse 297. 4 Because they are rent and torne from their proper Masters ibid. Doct. Every creature groaneth under the slavery of sin ibid. Not only under the slavery of sinfull men but so farre as they minister to the flesh of the Saints they groan under them ibid. Object Did ever any man hear any unreasonable creature groane under sinne Answ It is spoken Hyperbolically to declare the great misery the creatures are into serve sinfull man ibid. 2. Analogically in regard of a naturall instinct of blind reason that is in all the creatures ibid. 3. It is spoken by way of supposition if they had reason they would groane 298. 4 Intelligently because a man cannot wrong the creature but he wrongs God in the creature ibid. 5. Specifically because the Godly come before God in the behalfe of all the creatures and mourne for the abuse of the creatures 299. Foure reasons why the Creatures groan 1. Because they are distracted in their service ibid. 2. Because of the unprofitablenesse of their service 300. 3. Because of uncessantnesse of their service ibid. 4. Because of that misery and woe
matter though we not be so strict Christ is enough Think not thus saith Christ but rather think and meditate that I am come to fulfill it may self and to see it fulfilled in those I mean to save so as to make it a rule of their lives Themistocles said he could not sleep in his bed for continual thinking and meditating on Miltiades his Tryumphs And how canst thou sleep in thy bed if thou wouldest but meditate on these places of Scripture Retire thy self apart there is no casting up of mans account in a croud Let me alone I am busie so we use to say when we would be private Thou must do with thy soul as Ehud did to Eglon who said I have a secret errant to thee O King and so all went out and he said I have a message from God to thee and so stabd him at his heart Judges 3. 19. So for Ehud was a type of Christ saith Lavator I have a secret errant to thee O my soul and so let all go forth I have a message from God to thee a message of wrath for thy Pride a message of wrath for thy vain hopes Thus saith the Lord Cursed art thou O my soul stab it to the heart with this spirituall Dagger wound it with the blade and haft and all till thou have let out the fat and the dirt the filth and iniquity all out The Prophet speaking of mens looking on Christ whom they have pierced this meditating and laying to heart that they have crucified the Lord Jesus saith that they shall mourn every one in private the house of David apart and their wives apart the house of Nathan apart and their wives apart the house of Shimei apart and their wives apart every family apart and their wives apart Zach. 12. 2. The second meanes if thou wouldest meditate aright observe the times of privacy First the morniug that is the best time for study David chose the morning for meditation Psal 5. 1. 3. Let them hear this saith Chrisostome that arise betimes in the morning to serve their Hoggs and their Doggs their bellies and their backs before they serve God in meditation or prayer unlesse it be the mumbling and roaring a few Lord have mercy upon us that pray not till after many other businesses it may may be not then neither David prayed and meditated in the morning In the morning thou washest thy face and thy hands but thy soul hath more need which thou washest not in the morning thou puttest thy cloathes on thy body but thou puttest not on afresh the new man upon thy soul in the morning thou shakest off sleepinesse from thine eyes but thou shakest not off drousinesse from thy soul Thou lookest into the glasse in the morning to see if thy face be as it should be but thy soul is not composedly looking into the glasse of Gods word In the morning loook up in prayer look up in thansgiving look up in meditation Secondly the night too O Lord I meditate on thee in the night watches Psal 93. not as carnall ones doe when they cannot sleep then their mind runs on their Cow and their Calf their markets and vanities this neighbour and that neighbour like Petronius his dogge that was hunting while he lay asleep in his kennel Thirdly In the evening I prevent the night watches that I might meditate Psal 119. 148. he did not as wicked men doe sleep like a horse in the stable on his litter with his neck tyed to the manger they did go to bed with their hearts roped to the world worldly thoughts this thought and that thought and God knows what Fourthly when the heart is touched at a Sermon or Sacrament or observing of any judgement or mercy or act of Gods providence it is best striking when the Iron is hot David when his heart was touched at the reproches of the wicked then he meditated Psall 119. 23. When the Instrument is in tune then it is good playing upon it when a Churl is in a good mood then it is fittest to deal with him Oft will thy heart be out of tune oft churlish and in an ill mood if thou lettest the good opportunity goe thou knowest not when thou shalt have such another When the fish is nibling at the bait then it is good twiching at the angle-rod when the heart is a nibling at grace then gave a pluck at it by meditation See Acts 17. 11. now while the time lusts see thou maist get into heaven Thirdly Rub up thy self and thy memory call as much to mind as thou canst what evill thou hast done ever since thou wast born what in the womb what in the cradle childhood youth age what a servant what a Master what as a servant what as a son what as a neighbour what as an inferiour what as a superiour either in thought or word or deed how often thou hast omitted good duties or done them by halvs Item for this and Item for that They shall remember themselves and turn unto the Lord Psal 22. 27. First they shall remember themselves and say what have I done O wretch how carelessely have I lived Secondly so meditating they shall turn unto the Lord. Many say Oh! they cannot remember their sins They lye in a thousand particulars for they can remember to commit them well enough See Lam. 3. 19. 20. 21. our Greek translation turns it I spake to my self and meditated as if they should say O what a rebell have I been how unthankfull how unprofitable under all the means of grace I may thank my sins for all the plagues of the Almighty that are upon me if he had damned me I had been well served What follows The heart bowed and was humbled as it is in the text The fourth means Rouze up thy heart As it is with the eye of the body so it is with the eye of the Soul when a man would look wistly upon a thing as if he would look thorow it he sets his eye on it as Paul set his eyes on Elymas Ah thou child of the Devill thou c. Acts 13. 9. Meditation is the setting of the eye of the soul upon a thing set thine eye upon thy selfe and say Ah thou childe of the wicked why hath Satan filled thy heart O wretched heart whence hadst thou thy selfe-love hadst thou not it from the Devill God might do well to send thee to the Devill if thou lovest so to be his Broker Set thine eyes stedfastly upon thine own wayes and thou shalt see infinite hellish evils in thy sins The third Use is for Reprehension What is more usual than this that men make slight account of their sins Nay when God tels them in their hearts Thou shalt not do this thou shalt not doe that yet they meditate and think Why may I not Samuel bid Saul stay for directions from him before he sacrificed unto God It seems that God spoke to his
heart Stay till Samuel comes to direct thee yet Saul forced himselfe to disobey and to do Sacrifice 1. Sam. 13. 12. he was bold as Vatable turns it he confirmed himselfe as Pagnin translates it he thrust himselfe upon the doing of it God forbad him he would do it God urged him in his conscience not to doe it yet he would do it God again whispered to him not to do it yet he forced himselfe to do it as if he should say I hope I may do it I have stayed seven days wanting an hour or a piece of an houre and a little piece breaks no square No God rejected Saul for that venture God would have forced him by meditation O no doe it not by no means he made him think Oh it is against Gods commandements I may not do it No but neverthelesse he forced himself to do it Thus God deals with thousands and millions in the world Be not a drunkard God flings the meditation into the conscience yet a drunkard thou wilt be Be not a drunkard again a drunkard notwithstanding thou wilt be Be not again they force themselves they will go to the Ale-house And so of all other sins If men will cast off this work of meditation darted into their souls they cast off their own mercy God tels them pray not hear not offer not without directions from me they dread not the commandment they will I trust prayers are good I will say them Thus they will not meditate or if they do they break it off before it comes to any strength or perfection yea Gods own servants that desire to look towards Sion is not this your complaint oft I cannot finde sinne heavy I confesse the word discovers it to me but I cannot be troubled for it Look as it is with men in the world if five hundred pound weight be laid upon the ground if a man never pluck at it he shall never feel the weight of it Your sinnes are not many hundreds but many thousands yea many ten thousands selfe-love security hardnesse of heart base fears c. it is impossible to reckon them The least vain thought that ever you imagined the least vaine word that ever you uttered were weight enough to presse your souls down to hell Therefore what are so many sins and so great and so often committed What are they they are as heauy as rocks and mountains yet ye feel them not so heavy Why Ye weigh them not if ye did yee should finde them heavier than the sand as David did when his sinne was ever before him Psal 51. 3. that is his sinne was ever in his thoughts and in his meditation his sin was ever like a huge Milstone before him and he was ever tugging and pulling to remove it out of his way I but you will say How shall I come to feel my burden I answer three things are here to be discovered First the ground upon which our meditation must be raised Secondly the manner how to follow it home to the heart Thirdly how to put life and power into it The ground I referre to these foure heads First meditate on the goodnesse patience and mercy of God that hath been abused by any of your sins the greater they have been to you the greater is every sinne this maketh them out of measure sinfull because God is out of measure mercifull There are many sinnes in one when a man sinnes against many mercies See Judg. 2. 2 3. Why have ye done thus I have done thus and thus mercifully unto you why have yee done thus unthankfully to me Why was my mercy abused Why was my goodnesse sleighted Why was my patience despised as if the Lord should say I speak to your owne conscience think of it meditate of it why have ye done this Doe ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father Meditate of it first and tell me then For it is a question put to thy meditation to answer Do ye thus requite the Lord ye foolish people Wert thou ever in want but God supplyed thee Wert thou ever in weaknesse but God strengthened thee Wert thou ever in straits but God delivered thee When thou wert in sicknesse who cured thee when thou wert in poverty who relieved thee when thou wert in misery who succoured thee Hath not God been a gracious God to thee Every soul can tell never poor sinner hath had a more gracious God than I poor sinner have found to my soul All my bones can say Lord who hath been like unto thee This heart hath been heavy and thou hast cheered it this soul hath been distressed and thou hast eased it many troubles have befallen me and thou hast given me a gracious issue This poor man saith David pointing to himselfe this poor man cryed and the Lord heard him Psal 34. 9. And shall I thus reward the Lord shall I sinne against his goodnesse Then what shall I say Hear O heavens and hearken O earth Sunne stand thou still and thou Moon be amazed at this and be avenged on such a heart as this The Oxe knows his owner and the Asse his Masters Crib but here is a heart that will not remember to know the Lord. Hear O heavens this villany cryeth so loud that your ears may hear it Hear all ye Angels add be astonished here is villany to make your ears glow yea hear hell hear Devils if ever there were worse committed by you When men are but ingenuous if they haue received any kindenesse from a friend they were never in want but he relieved them never harbourlesse but he housed them never to seek but he found them Let a man deal thus kindly with a man if this man should deny him any ordinary favour he will be ashamed of himselfe ashamed to come into his presence What will he think his house was mine his cupboard was mine and his purse was mine and his friends were mine and that I should deal thus unkindly with him even nature rebukes me This serious meditation will help to break thy heart The second ground of meditation is to mediate on the justice of God God is a just God as well as mercifull Speak all ye Devils in Hell Doe ye not feel that he is a just God Speak Sodome Speak Gomorrah your fire and brimstone can testifie that he is a just God Speak Adah Zillah and all ye that were drowned in the old world your deluge can testify he is a just God His judgements are all in the world 1. Chro. 16. 14. What is become of drunken Nabal and swearing Saul and covetous Ahab and proud Jesabel and mocking Jehu and envious Shimei What is become of all blind Jebusites and parting cavilling Diotrepheses Justice hath taken hold on them What is povertie What is nakednesse What is famine sicknesse the gout the stone Feaver plague These are the little arrows of Gods justice What is shame disgrace crosses afflictions
in whole assemblies but I mockt them I hated them I misliked them for being too precise I was not ashamed of my security no not in thy sight Thus thou wilt cry out one day if thou wilt not yeeld unto meditation which must make this as present with thee Know thou O my soul the time of thy visitation is at hand thou wilt curse thy selfe hereafter if thou dost not now be moved by Gods mercies thou shalt never see mercy more Now be awaked by Gods judgments or else thou shalt feel them for evermore now or for ever thou shalt â—oar for them Then thou shalt curse thy gains and thy profits that bewitched thee thou shalt curse thy pleasures and delights that besorted thee curse thine one heart and thine own soul and thine own conscience that have damned thee Meditation may tell thee thus it will be with thee unlesse thou obeyest now Hear ye me now Oh yee Children and depart not from the words of my mouth verse 7. hear the word now and obey it let it not depart out thy meditation Now be humbled with grace or then thou shalt be humbled with horrour then thou shalt wish Oh that I had been ruled When thou art in hell then thou shalt meditate Oh it was good counsel that such and such a Minister gave me good counsel that such a friend and such a brother gave me but wretch that I was I had not grace to follow it I had more mind of my pleasures more mind of my vanities than of grace Oh if it were to do again I would not do so for a thousand worlds but alas it is now too late Therefore let Meditation presse this upon thee before-hand Now follows the third thing how to put life to Meditation Four duties are to be done to this purpose 1. Let Meditation haunt the heart let meditation dog thee with the hellish looks of thy sinnes and follow it with the dreadful vengeance of God haunt it with promises haunt it with threatnings haunt it with mercies and haunt it with judgements and haunt it with Commandments The heart is like the Beaver when it perceiveth it cannot possibly escape from the Huntsman it cuts off the Member for which it is hunted and flings it down and so escapes saith Aesop So pursue thy heart with its sins with the hue and cry of Gods mercies pursue it with the bubbub of Gods judgements let meditation haunt it and let thy soul see it shall never be rid of the haunt at last it will be content to part with its lusts Let Meditation say Wilt thou forsake thine own mercies If thou livest thus and thus If thou prayest thus and thus dead-heartedly thou kickest against thine own mercy wilt thou rush upon the prickâ— This mercy thou mayst have if thou wouldst amend that vengeance thou shalt have if thou do not amend Either cut off thy sins or else God will cut off thy soul Return O Shulamite return return it s the voice of Christ to thee Let Meditation say Return O my soul return return and thou mayst be saved return or else thou shalt be condemned Now what was the effect of this haunting meditation Or ere I was aware my soul made me like the Chariots of Aminadab verse 12. That is my soul musing and meditating on these and these commandments it so humbled my soul that it made me yeeld yea and made me run as fast as the Chariots of Aminadab freely and willingly to Christ Deal with thy heart as Iunius his father dealt with him he seeing his Son was Atheistical he laid a Bible in every room that his son could look in no room but behold a Bible haunted him upbraiding him Wilt thou not read me Atheist Wilt thou not read me And so at last he read it and was converted from his Atheisme So let meditation haunt thy heart hold forth the commandements promises threatnings of the Lord that thy heart may see them let meditation haunt thee in thy luke-warmnesse prayest thou thus luke-warm This prayer will break thy neck one day Repentest thou This luke warm repentance will cause God to spue thee out of his mouth Hearest thou speakest thou thinkest thou These lukewarm duties wil confound thee ere long if thou lookest not to it Let meditations haunt thee as they haunted Nehemiah with warnings ten times saith the Text they sent to Nehemiah they will be upon thee Nehem. 4. 12. Beware of the danger the enemy will be upon thee ten times they warned him never giving over till Nehemiah looked about him verse 13. So do thou haunt thine own heart they will be upon thee this curse this wrath that hardnesse of heart this security wil be upon thee Ten times yea a thousand times ten times never give over thine own soul untill thou hast made it to submit Indeed there be some let God send Meditations to haunt them and follow them saying Repent leave this or that sin why wilt thou be damn'd with this sin Oh forsake it presently they will gagge the mouth of meditation and of conscience and strike them stark dead as Abner when Azahel would haunt him and follow him and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left but follow him at the heels Turn aside saith Abner but he would not turn aside from following him Turn aside from me sayes Abner again or I will kill thee but he would not turn aside he would follow him close Then he up with his Spear and slew him 2. Sam. 2. 19. 20 21 22 23. So many deal with the Meditation of conscience when conscience would dogg them and weary them out of their sins they will not when conscience would haunt them they will not be haunted therewith when conscience would follow them up with their desperate wilfulnesse they gall and wound and murder conscience to be quiet But David haunted his heart and would have it haunted The second duty Let Meditation trace thy heart as it should haunt thee so also let it trace thee in the same steps So would the Church Let us search and try our wayes and turn again unto the Lord Lam. 3. 40. The word in the originall sayes Buxtorf signifies track her steps step by step this step was in the ditch that in the mire that step awry track them all that we may undergo them all again and turn unto the Lord. Never pray but let Meditation track thy prayer this passage was right that passage was amis Never keep a Sabbath but let Meditation track thy keeping of it this duty was sincere that was rotten Never do any thing but let Meditation track it This thought this word this action was warrantable that was out of the way track thy heart as the Lord tracked Eliah he trackt him in the wildernesse he trackt him under the juniper tree he trackt him in the cave What dost thou here Eliah go forth 1. Kings 19. What dost thou here Eliah go return He tract him in
nothing therefore that mans end must needs be destruction that loves not God Fourthly that mans end must needs be destruction that never gives over his sinne and so long as thy thoughts run after the world thou canst never forsake sin thou maist resolve and think on the contrary yet so long as thy thoughts run habitually on the things of the world thou dost not forsake sin Wicked and carnall men may have the eyes of their consciences opened and their hearts awakened whereby they may see their sins and the hellish evill and danger of them whereupon they may resolve and purpose to forsake them and then they will make a covenant with God that they will not do thus and thus I have been touchy and cholerick but I will be so no more I have been a prophane swearer and blasphemer of the name of God but I will be so no more I have been a drunkard and an unclean person but Lord thou shalt see a reformation in me Nay it may be he will tell his minister of it and his father and his mother his wife his children and all his friends too of it but when he comes to his cold blood again and these cold graces which flattered so come to be cold in him so that his heart comes to it selfe again then vain thoughts rest in his heart and he returns to his old sins again as the dog to his vomit and the sow being washed to the wallowing in the mire The Apostle excellently describes a man that can never depart from his sins They have eyes full of adultery which cannot cease from sin 2. Pet. 2. 14. where the Apostle speaks not only of that adultery which is a breach of the seventh Commandement but of such an adultery which is a perfect breach of every commandement when the heart runneth a whoring after every sin and vanitie when the eye of the soul is full of adultery the heart cannot cease from sin when the eye cannot see an object of gain or profit but the mind is presently engaged and runs after it when it cannot see an object of delight and pleasure but it is straightway caught by it when he cannot see any wrong or injury done unto him but presently he is inflamed with revenge and his heart runs after it I say that if thy eye be thus full of adulterie that thou canst not see the occasions and hints of sin but presently thou art insnared and thy soul is taken by it thou art the man that canst not cease to sin therefore untill thou turn the eye of thy soul which is the thoughts and affections of thy heart another way thou wilt never cease to sin For wheresoever thou lookest thou wilt be insnared so long as thy thoughts are evil and vitious either upon pride or covetousnesse or ambition or envy or delights thy soul will look asquint on God and untill these vain thoughts of thine be crucified thou wilt only look upon the satisfying of these vain lusts of thine Prov. 3. 6. In all thy way wayes acknowledge God and he shall direct thy paths In all thy waies think on God or else thou maiest go to many duties in Religion but never be direct in thy going thou maiest pray a thousand times but never be established in thy prayer thou mayest go from Lecture to Lecture and yet never be established in thy service thou mayest go about many things and never be established in any thing unlesse God be in all thy thoughts a man may go on in a course of Religion but it is a hap hazard he is inconstant and unsteady in his his course unlesse in his heart he think upon God and therefore his end must needs be destruction This then may serve first for humiliation to the godly secondly for matter of condemnation to the wicked First for humiliation Are vain thoughts thus damnable that when they bear sway in the heart they make that mans end to be destruction How then ought this to fill the faces of them that have the Spirit of Christ with shame and confusion and to make them in a holy manner to be confounded in themselves and to think of the emptinesse naughtinesse and vanities of their hearts Beloved thou canst not go to prayers but abundance of vain thoughts will be about thee like wasps to assault thee thou canst not go to the Word but these vain thoughts will be a humming in thy ears thou canst not go about the works of thy calling but vain thoughts will haunt thee and creep into thy meditations and take away the main burthen of the work all the day long Beloved this should make a godly man ashamed and confounded in himself in the consideration hereof The Prophet David was so confounded and ashamed hereat that had not God poured in mercy and comfort into his soul he had been distracted and should have despaired considering the company of vain thoughts that lodged within him Psal 94. 19. where he shews what abundance of distracting thoughts he had that if God had not sustained him with comfort after comfort he had been overwhelmed in despair by them Augustine saith a mans thoughts are not in his own power the heart of man is like tinder and if the Devill cast a spark into it thou canst not hinder it from taking fire but thou mayest hinder it from burning further A ship may have leakes in her and thou canst not hinder the coming in of water into her but by thy pumping and industry thon mayest save her from drowning in the water even so evill thoughts though they be rooted out yet they will come in again a mans heart is like to to the fig-tree that grew out of the stone wall which Epiphanius speaketh of the branches were lopt off and it grew again the boughs were lopt off and it grew again they cut down the body of it yet it grew again they pluckt up the roots of it yet it grew again till at last the stone wall and all was fain to be pulled down Even so it is with vain thoughts in the heart a man may lop them off by godly sorrow he may cut them down and root them up by mortification and yet they will be sprouting up and rising up again till the whole body of sin be pulled down and destroyed in a man Gregory speaks of them and saith man may pluck them up but yet not so but that they will rise again The consideration hereof should humble us and make us low in our own eyes Oh then think with thy self and say Oh that my thoughts should be so base eartlâ—y and vain what have I not a God a Christ a heaven to think upon have I not excellent Commandements of God and thousands of sweet and precious promises in Scripture to think upon and must I be thinking on every bable of every straw not worth the thinking on Take the Apostles exhortation Whatsoever things be true whatsoever things are honest
and it becomes sinfull not regarded and abominable in Gods eyes For hearing of the Word of God the godly manâ— hears and the wicked man hears the matter in both is the same the godly man he casteth the Word into a godly mould he hears the Word and he trembles at it he hears the Word and beleeves it he hears the Word and his heart bowes to it and resolves to practise it a wicked man he hears the Word too but he casteth it into a dishonouraâ—le mould he hears it with deadnesse and dulnesse without trembling without faith and obedience So a godly man may think thoughts of God and so may a wicked man think thoughts of God the matter of both is good yet the thoughts of the wicked are vain though he thinks of God yet because he casteth it into his dishonourable frame he fears not God his heart trembles not at God but his heart is as full of dead earthly affections as before he thinks of hearing the Word but it is after this own fashion he thinks of praying but he prayes with his own spirit and not with the spirit of Adoption The Psalmist tells us that the whoremaster the drunkard and the thief thinks of God it is after his own fashion Psal 50. 21. These things hast thou done saith God and I held my tongue and then thoughtest that I was even such a one as thy self A wicked man goes on in his sins and thinks that they are not so devillish and abominable as some say they are and he thinks that God thinks so too he is earthly carnall luke-warm and dead-hearted and if he repent at the last he thinks all will be well and he thinks God is of the same mind too he goes on in his drunkennesse swearing pride and hypocrisie and he thinks if he do but remember to ask God mercy and to cry Lord receive my soul when he is going out of the world he thinks he shall not go to hell but be carried to the joyes of heaven and he thinks God is of his mind that God thinks so too But mark what the Lord saith I will reprove thee and set thy sins in order before thee O consider this you that forget God lest he tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you Thirdly mens thoughts are vain when the heart that thinks upon them is earthly and vain wherefore if all the wicked men in the world should lay their heads together to think a good thought yet they cannot for their hearts are vain hearts sinfull hearts they may think of excellent propofitions concerning God his worship his word and service but so long as the heart that thinks upon them is carnall and vain they cannot speak that which is good as saith our Saviour Maithew 12. 34. How can you speak good things Why may some men say â— may not a wicked man read a Chapter in a Bible are the words so hard to be understood and pronounced cannot a wicked man take a Sermon and read it and hear a Sermon and repeat it What are Letters and syllables so hard to be pronounced I answer beloved that is not the meaning of our Saviour How can ye that are evill speak good things no no a wicked man may read Gods word and propound good questions as well as a true Christian but he cannot speak good words that is he cannot speak them from a good heart and therefore his heart being carnall and vain good words in his mouth are as a Jewell in a swines snout it is a word indeed but not a speech when he reads or pronounceth Gods word Aristotle saith that speech is nothing but the expression of that that is within the heart Now then if the word and truth of God be not ingraffed in thy heart if thy heart be not heavenly when thou speakest of heavenly things thou dost pronounce them but not speak them But when thou speakest of earthly things then thou speakest to the purpose because thy heart is set upon them and thy mind and thy tongue go together there is no jarre not discord betwixt them but if thy heart be not pure though thou speakest good things or holy things yet in Christs sense thou speakest them not For say I how can a vain evill corrupt heart think good thoughts An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit saith our Saviour he doth not say that an evill tree cannot be made good for it may be grafted into another stock divers ways there are to make it good but so long as it is a corrupt tree it cannot bring forth good fruit Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles Dost thou go to a drunkard and thinkest there to find any religion in him or to a whore-master to find grace in him Dost thou go to a swearer or a prophane person and thinkest thou to finde any fear of God in them Indeed sometimes there may be some morall good found in them but they are as a pearl in a dunghill out of its place Fourthly all mens thoughts come to be vain when the drift and end of the heart and soul in thinking of them is vain But thou wilt say unto me The end of my thoughts is Gods glory What is it not to Gods glory that we go to the Word and Sacrament that we pray and give almes I Answer The end of every good work in it selfe is Gods glory but is it the end of the worker speaker or thinker I make no question but the end of a good action in it selfe is the glory of God so the end of prayer is the glory of God the end of all preaching and Sermons is the glory of God the end of giving of almes and of all good thoughts is the glory of God but the end of the man that prayes and preaches what is that the end of the hearer and giver of almes what is that the end of him that speaks well what is that Beloved most men have false and corrupt ends which we will branch out into these three heads For the first men will be thinking and plodding from morning till night of their wordly businesses Now because they know they must think on God to make God amends perhaps they will think on him at night when they have dishonoured him all the day So men will swear and swagger drink and be drunk and when they have done say Lord have mercy upon me and so they think to make God amends What beloved will yee swear swagger drink be drunk and lye be secure and worldy and and then ask God forgivenesse to make him amends This is to break Priscians head that you may give him a plaister Will you trespasse your neighbour that you may ask him forgivenesse This is a damned and devillish religion yet this is the religion of many men in the world you shall have them keep daies and weeks and years in the observation of the times of Gods
good word and work If these Rules be not observed the Rules of Gods blessed word the actions themselves are altered though the things be commanded of God yea they are cursed and abominable things when the true form and fashion of them is not regarded though they be never so godly A garment though it be never so good if the Taylor handle it not well it is marred in the making if he bring it not to a right form and make it in a right manner the man that is to have the garment is disappointed So Timber though it be never so excellent though it be all Oak or Elm or whatsoever tree though it be never so fit for building if the Artificer deal not well in handling it the inhabitant that comes there may curse the day that ever he came there if it be not well built it may fall on his head and kill him and all that belong to him So it is in all the Ordinances of God and the matters of Religion we must not only do them for matter but for manner too for that either makes or marrs them Thirdly another Reason is because only the right manner of doing duties gets the blessing A man may pray a thousand times and never be heard he may hear a million of Sermons and never be converted a man may come to all the Sacraments in the year all his life long and never be sealed against the day of redemption A man may do the things and never get the blessing all the blessing lies in the right manner of doing Blessed is that servant whom when his master comes he shall find so doing Matth. 24. 48. He saith not Whom when his master cometh he shall find doing Christ when he cometh to judgement shall find many doing it may be he will come in prayer time it may be he will come in the morning when many thousands shall be at their prayers in their families it may be he 'l come at night when all are at prayers in their houses it may be he will come on the Sabath when all the country is at Church hearing of Sermons he shall finde many thousands doing and praying But blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he comes shall find so praying so hearing so receiving the Sacrament He shall find many believing but so beleeving gets the blessing many professing but it is so professing that gets the comfort I say all the blessings of God are promised to the right manner of doing Now what is it when we do duties what do we look for Is it not for a blessing Why do we do the duties if we doe not do them so as we may get the blessing Now except we observe the right manner of doing them all is to no purpose Fourthly another Reason is the example of Jesus Christ Christ hath given us an example that we should do as he did Now he did not onely do that which his Father bid him do for matter but for manner both in all the words he spake and in all the deeds that he performed For the words he spake As the Father hath said unto me even so speak I John 12. And in John 14. 31. As the Father hath given me commandement even so do I. Mark he did not only obey his Father in the matter of his command but in the manner of it And as Christ hath done thus so all that are Christs all the servants of God in all ages they have been very carefull especially of the right manner of obeying God As it is said of Noah Gen. 6. 22. As the Lord commanded Noah even so did he just as the Lord commanded him he did not only make an Ark but so he made all the rooms so he made it in the same form and figure and in the same similitude just as the Lord set him down in the pattern even so did he So the Lord sets down the pattern of every good word and work of all our prayers and Sermons and hearing and conference and keeping the Sabath and speaking holily all our actions have their pattern set down in the word of God Now as we are to do the things so we are to do them in the same manner as the Lord commands even so must we do Fifthly and lastly except we do it in a right manner except as we come to the duty so we come to the right manner we can never glorifie God The glory of God lies in the manner of doing of things So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your father which is in heaven Matthew 5. 16. Mark the light must not shine only in our lives and conversations but so that the duty must be a means to the glorifying of God Now the means must have i'ts proportion and likenesse and nature and mold and frame from the nature of the end Look how the end is that the dutie looks unto so must the frame and fashion of the duty be Now if the end of all our actions be that God may be glorified that must put a form and fashion upon every duty that it may be so that he may have glory Suppose a man pray every day in his family and call all his housbold his servants and wife and children and all under his roof about him every morning and evening he may dishonour God by prayer every day on this fashion if a man pray coldly and carelesly for form and fashion without saith and life he makes all the ordinances of God vile and all the works of God contemptible his houshold sleeps one snorts it may be another is infinitely prophane it may be and though there be divers that would fain be quickned and wakened yet his prayer is so cold there is no life or heat nor warmth in it that God is exceedingly dishonoured and all are thereby rather worse than better So for a mans preaching though it be never so good a duty yet he must labour to preach so as the Apostle speaks of his preaching and labour in the work of his Ministery how he may edifie others and save his own soul So fight I not as one that beats the ayr but so as I may get the mastery We must so preach that we may attain the conversion of the people or else we may rather do as Hophni and Phineas the sonnes of Eli that made the table of the Lord contemptible and the Sacrifice of the Lord loathsome in the eyes of the people So may we do with the ordinances of God Take any duty of religion if it be not done aright God hath no glory by it Suppose thou wouldest reprove thy brother and tell him of his fault and check him for his back wardness or omission of some duty and for the commission of some sin if thou do it do it with a spirit of compassion and bowels of Jesus Christ with an humble heart with a feeling
to flesh and bloud for a man to go and examine all his life to reckon up all his conversation to anatomize himselfe from his cradle to this moment to consider how he hath sinned in his calling in his family in his shop in his company in his speech and in his life to go and judge himselfe of these and condemn himselfe and to accept of his own punishment to go and rack his own thoughts and crucifie his own soul Oh! this is hard men cannot abide this therefore they go and take the matter they observe that and leave out the manner Secondly another reason is this because the matter of duties may be done with a proud heart there is no duty but a man may do it with a proud heart and never be humble A man may pray and use good words and make good petitions and have marvellous good language and Scripture phrase and terms and passages and an admirable sweet tone and yet have a proud heart A man may come and Preach a Sermon he may preach so as that he may strangely affect the hearts of the people and may make all the people wonder and admire at the gracious words that come from his mouth and yet have a proud heart A man may hear and hear oft and hear the best Preachers in the City and delight in hearing and yet have a proud heart A man may come to the Sacrament and sit to ones thinking as devoutly as any in the Church and pray when the people pray and give thanks when others give thanks and have a kind of morall faith in the Covenant and a moral application of the promises and yet have a proud heart It is the manner of doing duties that humbles the soul as Saint Paul saith Acts 20. You know in what manner I have been with you Why what was the manner In all humility of mind saith he being among the Ephesians preaching to them in a right manner leaving them the example of his own pattern doing all this in a right manner he did it in all humility of heart It is the right manner of prayer that puls down the heart before God It is the right manner of hearing the word that makes a man melt at it It is the right manner of coming to the Sacrament that makes a man feel the comfort of God and the promises of the Gospel and to seek and find the admirable things contained in it It is the right manner that makes a man walk lowly with his God Thirdly another Reason is Because the matter may stand with an unholy life A man may do a duty for the matter of it and yet be unholy This is plain how many thousands are there that pray and yet are vain and covetous and carnall How many thousands hear Sermons and yet are unprofitable Ever hearing and never come to the knowledge of the truth If they were injurious before they are injurious still if they were cousners before they are so still if they were drunkards before they are so still A man may receive the Sacrament every moneth and yet may have his lusts and roll them as a sweet morsell under his tongue he may delight in his secret lusts and go on in his deadnesse of heart It is the right manner of worshipping God that purgeth the conscience and purifieth the soul and makes a man that there is no room for his corruptions as you may see 1 Thess 2. 10. You your selves know saith the Apostle how holily and unblameably we walked among you He speaks there of his manner of walking and he saith to them because it was in a right manner it was an holy manner such walking as excluded all unholinesse and prophanenesse Flesh and bloud cannot abide this Men they love to pray and be proud they love to hear sermons and to have their profit they love to professe religion and still to carry their secret lusts in their bosomes People love this alife to go to Gilgal transgresse to offer sacrifice every new moon and every morning and to find the labour of their hands this is right but for a man to part with his iniquity that is the thing that goes against the hair The last reason is because the matter of duties brings not the crosse upon a man A man may do all the duties of Religion and never be persecuted for it a man may be as devout as the devoutest man under heaven yet no body hate him for it except he be devout in a right manner and worship God in a right manner One man may reprove another that is wicked A drunkard may suffer a drunkards reproof and be never the worse A whoremaster may serve his quean so he may call her so and yet not be spited because it is not right It is the right doing of it that brings the crosse as in 2 Tim. 2. 10. Thou knowest thy manner of life It was that that brought afflictions and persecutions We may see to this very day many thousands that seem devout men in the Church they will pray and will hardly misse any time of prayer morning or evening and yet they are farre from being persecuted nay many of them are main persecutors of the Gospel of God enemies to the crosse of Christ and adversaries to the Saints of God We see it plain in Acts 15. 5. we read there of devout women that raised persecution against Paul Mark they were devout and because it was not in a right manner they persecuted the Apostles and set themselves against them that were truly faithfull Though wicked men do not love to pray aright yet many of them are much for praying they care not how much praying they have and when they are at prayer they will pray over from the beginning of the book to the end they love it alife But if they come to a praier that moves the heart that rifles the conscience that dogges a man into his bosome that lays a man flat on his face before God they gnash their teeth at such a prayer So they love Preaching too I it is true if it be preaching that is flaunting and glosing with the enticing words of mans wisedome but if a man preach to the conscience if he preach the pure naked word of God and carry it home to mens souls this makes them gnash their very teeth and they could eat the Minister of God for his labour It is the right manner of duty that is accomdanied with the crosse Thirdly if we ought to be carefull to perform duties in a right manner Let us be exhorted in the fear of God to go and quicken all our duties to bring a soul into so many bodies we have bodies of praying and bodies of hearing and bodies of receiving the Sacrament and of good duties let us get a soul into them labour to do them in a right manner The bare duty is like a carkasse It is a Proverb of the
Jews Prayer without preparation it as a carkesse without the soul that is a loathsomething so is prayer without life and without a right manner of powring it forth Let us labour therefore in the fear of God to pray and pray aright to hear and to hear aright to seek God and to seek him with all our hearts aright and to do every thing in the right way Let us consider first wee doe not pertake of any ordinance at all except wee doe it in a right manner I remember a fit place for this in Numbers 11. 14. It is said there The stranger shall eat the Passeover and partake of of it according to the ordinance and the manner of it Where the text puts in the Ordinance of the Passeover and the manner of it For it is all one they are Synonima's So the Ordinance in every duty Gods ordinance in praying in hearing the Word in the Sacramement in reproof in every good duty it is all one as the self-same thing So that if we pray and do not pray in a right manner we have not prayed we do not partake of the ordinance So when we come to the Sacrament the ordinance and the manner of it is all one it is one compleat concrete action we do not partake of it except we partake of both Secondly consider it is nothing but hypocrisie when a man prayes and doth not pray in a right manner when a man doth any dutie to God and not in right wise it is nothing but hypocrisie Mark how our Saviour Christ sets forth the hypocrisie of the Pharisee Luke 18. 11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himselfe hee marks this manner of prayer hee doth not say Hee stood and prayed this these words but Thus he prayed he did not pray in a right manner there was his hypocrisie and that was the reason he went home not justified Thirdly consider it makes the ordinance of God of no effect Thus they make the Conmandements of God of none effect Matthew 15. 6. Hee speaks there of their duties that they did in a wrong manner and their expounding the Scripture that they did in a wrong wise and their sacrifice their offerings and tithings their precepts and many things that were all done after another fashion than God had commanded therefore saith Christ Thus they make the Commandement of God of none effect So we make all the duties of Gods worship of none effect Wee know there is never an ordinance of God but it hath great effect if it be rightly performed Prayer is of great effect it is able to rend heaven it is able to pull down God to the soul it is able to wrastle out a blessing to quicken the heart to obtain of God every thing we want but if a man pray not aright a man may pray and go away never a whit the more holy nor more quickened nor neerer to heaven nor comfort So preaching and hearing they are admirable Ordinances what powerfull effects have they wrought when they have been done in a right kind People have cryed out and been converted at them and many a man hath been pulled out of the power of Satan to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ They had royall glorious effects upon many thousand souls But what is the reason that our hearing is so uneffectuall Because we hear not in a right manner this makes the Ordinance of God of none effect it makes prayer of no effect the Word of no effect the Sacrament and Sabbaths of none effect you see people partake of these things and are never the wiser Lastly it cannot please God it is onely the right manner of doing duties that pleased God as in 1 Thessalonians 4. 1. As ye have received of us How ye ought to walk and to please God Marke there is the manner That we may know HOW to walke and by that to please God It is not enough for a man to walk in good duties that a man may do and not please God but saith he ye haue received the manner HOW to walk and to please God It is the manner how that pleaseth God A man may walk to hell upon heavens ground he may go to hell in the wayes of God it is possible Suppose a man should go and take if it were possible all the surface of ground between this place and York and lay it between this place and Dover a man might go to Dover upon York ground So many a man lays the Ordinances of God in hell way he walks in the way to hell and there he lays his prayers and there his hearing and his good duties he prayes every day and hears every day and doth good duties every day and yet walks to hell he goes to hell on heavens ground The reason is because he doth the duty and doth not observe the manner how he doth it The third thing is the rule of direction how we may come to the right manner of receiving the Sacrament that is by preparing of a mans self and the preparation is here set down by the specification of it namely in examining himself Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. The general scope of the words and the Apostles meaning in them is this That Every man must prepare himself before he come to the Lords Table I cannot stand on this I will only name it As in the Sacrament of the Passeover there was preparation for the Passeover In John 19. 14. it is said of the Disciples of Christ that they made ready the Passeover In Matthew 26. they made the Lamb ready and the room ready and themselves ready and the Table ready and every thing ready So in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper wherein Christ is the true Pascall Lamb when we come to eat of him we must make every thing ready faith ready and repentance ready and interest in the promise ready and hunger and thirst after these spirituall dainties ready every thing must be ready Or else like a man that comes into the field to battell that hath not gotten his sword nor his weapons ready that is the way for himself to be killed so it is when we come to the Communion and have not all things ready it is the way to be damned The Reasons of this are First because the Sacrament is an ordinance of God Now all the Ordinances of God require preparation they are all spirituall and naturally a man is carnall and therefore cannot be prepared As it is with wood there is never a tree in the wood but it is unprepared for building Is there any tree in the wood of the fashion of a Chimney or of a Lintell or a Door It must first be prepared as it is in Prov. 24. 27. First prepare thy work without and then build thine house So every ordinance is to build a man up in the fear of God
in the grace of God and in Religion Now man is naturally unprepared for it First a man must fell his wood and then cut it and hew it even and carve it and plain it fit and prepare it before he build So a man must hew down his own heart he must humble his own soul and qualifie all within him and so be sanctified before he be fit As for example in prayer a man must be prepared to prayer before he pray he must prepare his heart and then Gods ears will hearken to it In Psal 10. 17. The Lord will have the heart prepared before he hear the prayer So it is with the word of God a man must be prepared before he hear it As a man that preacheth must be prepared before he preach as Ezra is said to prepare his heart Ezra 7 10. He prepared his heart to do the Law and to teach it So a Minister cannot preach except he be prepared beforehand with a commission from God with preserving knowledge with a coal from Gods Altar with a spirit of wisdome and understanding with a Law of kindnesse in his lips with meditation and with a Theme fitted in his mouth for the people he must be prepared with a burning and a shining light or else he shall not edifie the congregation So it is with all other Ordinances For humbling of a mans soul a man cannot humble his heart except he be prepared to it Amos 4. 12. Prepare to meet thy God he speaks of humiliation If a man would humble himself before God if he be not prepared if his heart be not prepared to let go the world his worldly profits and vain pleasures and carnal acquaintance his wonted lusts and former delights If he be not prepared to let these go when he comes to keep a Fast or to afflict his soul and goes along to do the duty to lay himself down before Almighty God some lust or other will stick in his teeth and intercept his heart he shall never be able to do it as Samuel said to the people If you will turn to the Lord prepare your hearts to do it 1 Sam. 7. So it must be in all the ordinances of God and much more in the Sacrament Secondly another Reason is because the Lord Christ hath made great preparations to provide the Lords Supper therefore we must be prepared to eat it You know what a great deal adoe there was before the Supper was made Christ must be incarnate and fulfill all righteousnesse he must conclude it upon his suffering he must tread the wine-presse alone and suffer himself to be beaten and rejected of God and men and suffer death the cursed death of the Crosse all these things were concluded upon before this holy and blessed Supper was provided Come saith he I have prepared my dinner Matth. 22. Mark Christ is fain to prepare his dinner he makes a great Feast there was great preparation for it so there must be great preparation of our souls before we can come to this holy banquet It is true among men there may be great preparation for a feast and little or nothing for the eating of it Sometimes there are two or three dayes preparation for a feast and is eaten presently The reason is because man naturally hungers after meat and drink and he alwayes provides twice or thrice in twenty four hours for eating and drinking But the Lords Supper is a spiritual banquet a man is every day and hour and moment naturally unfit for it and there is much adoe to put an edge upon mens appetites and a keennesse upon mens desires that they may be fitted and prepared for it Thirdly another reason is Because the Lord Christ when he administers himself in this heavenly mystery he offers to come into the soul and he looks for good entertainment and therefore of necessity there must be preparation for it You see when a mortall man an earthly Prince or a Noble man comes to another mans house what a deal of preparation there is to provide for him there is meat made ready and purging the house and sweeping the yard and trimming up the very pales and every thing and making clean all the Chambers and ridding out whatsoever fills it and every thing that is out of order it set in tune And what will my Lord think and what will his Majesty think he wil think he is slighted and contemned And when he comes in it may be his own children shal serve and his own wife wait at the Table and there is running up and down of errands and a great deal of adoe to give such a one entertainment There is preparation to entertain a man as Saint Paul said to Philemon I will that you prepare me lodging how much more when the eternall God shall come under a mans roof and dine with him Lastly Because the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a part of Christs last will and Testament Now it is a terrible thing when we know our Lords will and prepare not for the doing of it Look in Luke 12. 48. he that knew it not did things worthy of stripes but in verse 47. That servant that knew the Lords will and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes that man shall be damned with much damnation he shall be damned deeper than any body Dost thou know the Lords Table that this blessed Sacrament is part of Christs last Testament and wilt thou not prepare thy self for it to get an humble heart and labour for a holy life and seek for a thirsty soul and vow upon new obedience and enter into Covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ for a better kind of conversation for the time to come Wilt thou not go and examine thine own soul and go and reform whatsoever is amisse in thy family in thy place and calling Wilt thou not do these things to prepare for this holy will of Jesus Christ thou shalt be damned deeper than any body else because this is a part of Gods last Will and Testament and thou knowest it and therefore woe unto thee if thou prepare not for it THE DUTIE OF THE REPROVER And the Persons Reproved SET FORTH In a SERMON preached By that Reverend and Faithfull Minister of Gods Word WILLIAM FENNER B. D. Sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge and late Pastor of Rochford in Essex London Printed by E. T. for John Stafford THE DUTIE OF REPROVERS And Persons Reproved A SERMON preached by Master WILLIAM FENNER Minister of GODS Word PROV 29. 1. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shal suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy THese words by reason of the ambiguity in the Hebrew tongue doe bear two expositions and our English can suffer but one The first exposition is this He that reproveth another and hardneth his own neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy The other is as we have
reason is because they are in every action he doth thoughts run on all mens actions if thoughts were alone men might mend them but they busie themselves about all actions if a man pray thoughts run along with him in prayer nay men pray with twisted thoughts so that before he comes to an end of his prayer he shall have abundance of glancings on other things See it in old Eli 1 Sam. 1. Hanna was praying Old Eli saith the Text thought she had been drunken Either he was or should have been praying also yet you see he had wandring thoughts ê™ mark the lips of his neighhours So as John was preaching Mat. 3. there came a thought into his hearers hearts that they were the seed of Abraham What did make them think so John spake of no such matter but he said Every tree that brings not forth good fruit c. They had it seems by thoughts in the duty of hearing therefore seeing thoughts do thus twist themselves about mens actions hence it is that they are so hard to be rooted out 3. It is hard for men to forsake their own thoughts because they are in mens hearts Their inward thoughts Psal 49. 11. Every man hath two kind of thoughts inward and outward explicite and implicite implicite thoughts are those that never shew themselves in the heart but at some desperate attempt Explicite are those which are in the heart every day as in Psal 49. 11. They think their houses shall continue for ever Would you think that men should have such thoughts their outward thoughts were they were mortall Wee see saith the Text that men die c. and yet they they think inwardly that they shall live for ever Now according to these inward thoughts men act and hence it is that men neglect repentance and other holy duties as if God would never call them to an account they have not these thoughts above-board but they are inward and these spoile the heart and these are the cause why men cannot forsake their own thoughts Ephiphanius speaks of a fig-tree which grew in a wall c. Bad thoughts will be alwayes seizing on a 〈…〉 he dies and then all his thoughts perish But so long as a man is alive in old Adam these thoughts are rooted in the bottom of the 〈…〉 which hinder good duties aud this is the cause why vanity of mind sprouts up Examine your selves then for it is one of the best wayes for a man to try his estate by even to examine his thoughts If a man would see whether the sea be salt he need not drink all the water that is in it one drop will serve his turn So a man may see whether he be a child of God or of the Devil even by his thoughts I will make it appear by these Reasons First because mens thoughts are the free acts of their hearts Many times you speak not as you would you do not as you would but a man thinks alwayes as he will Favour of great men and desire to please them makes men do many times what they would not but thoughts are free I may say so and so but I will think what I list Ergo if thou wilt judge a man judge him by that he does freely and not by that which he does by compulsion But now thy thoughts are free they are thine own act nothing can force thy thoughts but thy self ergo in them thy heart shews it self whether it be carnal or spirituall When Peter denied his Master could a man have judged him by that then he might have judged him in Apostate but that was his passion he discovered what his fear was not what his heart was For if a man might have but looked into Peters heart though it was a fearfull sin and without Gods mercy might have damned him Yet there you might have heard him say Oh it is my Master Oh that I had never come hither It is my Master and Saviour I have none but he It was for fear of his life that he denied him For Prov. 23. 7. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he A covetous Usurer may make a rich feast and say with his tongue Sir you are welcome he must give good words the shame of the world and speech of people will make him do it yet his thoughts it may be are not towards thee So try thy selfe how go thy thoughts at home or abroad Are thy thoughts on heaven or heavenly things or are they below Sure I am if a mans thoughts were on heavenly things then his heart would be there also for as a man thinks so is he Prov. 23. 7. 2. As they are the freest acts so they are the immediate acts of the heart Can a man judge of the fountain by the water that runs seven miles off as well as by that which runs immediately from it The water seven miles off may have tincture from the soyle and so it may be bad there though good at the fountains head ergo judge of the fountain by the water which comes immediately from it Now thoughts come immediately from the heart nothing is between them and the heart and out of the heart saith our Saviour proceed evill thoughts c. Mark 7. 21. Other sinnes come from the heart too but it is at the second third or fourth hand abundance of circumstances come between them and the act as in the act of murder it may be there were base words offered yea and blows too c. but thoughts come immediately from the heart Ergo if thy thoughts be proud carnall c. so act thou if thy thoughts carry thee away in the cares of this life so is thy heart c. 3. Thoughts they are the continued acts of the heart a man is alwayes doing them Can a man judge of an Usurer and say he is liberall because he makes one great feast unto his neighbours No but he may say it is a Usurers feast a great feast By what a man doth alwayes by that judge him Thou art not alwayes praying c. or in good company but thou art alwayes thinking good or evill thoughts thy thoughts are continued acts of thy heart Can a man judg a horse for stumbling once in a long journey At such a place he went well and at such a time and alwayes yet perhaps once in a year he may stumble Can you or will you judge him by that No rather judge him by that which hee is alwayes doing Thou art alwayes thinking now that is thy God which thou art alwayes thinking on If on riches then that is thy god or whatsoever it be then that is thy god Examine then thy heart by thy thoughts for out of the abundance of thy heart thy mouth speaketh yea for one word there is abundance of thoughts for one good duty there is abundance of thoughts ergo if thou wilt examine thy heart examine thy thoughts 4. Thoughts are the Univocall acts
glad of it c. and it is said there that Jesus rejoyced c. I rather rejoyce that thou hast sent me to poor souls such as are the off-scouring of the world c. but he that is selfe-conceited is wiser forsooth then so Christ tels thee that thou must take up his crosse but thou thinkest that thou hast more wit thou canst go a wiser way to work thou hast an easier way to heaven thou wilt none of the Crosse and I tell thee then that Christ wil none of thee but he will be glad to see thee damned Fourthly and lastly he is in the broad way to hell that is selfe-conceited there be many wayes to hell the covetous goes one way the Drunkard goes another there are a thousand wayes to hell though there be sundry wayes to hell yet they all meet in selfe-conceit there is the broad high way where all meet selfe-conceit is not only the way to hell but it is the brood way where all wayes meet There is a way saith the wise man that seems right c. Prov. 14. 12. but the end of it is death there is the wages there all the wayes meet Oh then examine your selves I should give you signes and tokens to make it appeare unto you but the time will not give me leave I will only name one or two That man that selfe-swears is conceited of himself that is one sign As I am an honest man As God shal help me by my faith and troth As I look that the Lord should save my soul c. these men are highly conceited of themselvs they think that their salvation is sure yea so sure that they may swear by it but these are devillish and damnable self conceits it is Gods prerogative only to sweare by himself Heb. 6. 13. 14. I speak this because I know it is a common practise among men and a hellish brand of a cursed self-conceited man THE EFFICACIE Of Importunate PRAYER In tvvo SERMONS By that laborious and faithful Messenger of CHRIST WILLIAM FENNER Sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge and late Minister of Rochford in Essex London Printed by E. T. for John Stafford THE EFFICACY OF Importunate Prayer LUKE 11. 9. Ask and it shall be given unto you Seeke and you shall finde Knock and it shall be opened unto you OUr Saviour CHRIST being demanded by one of his Disciples how they should pray He here teaches them these two things First a Platform of prayer in the 2 3 4. verses Say Our Father c. Secondly he teaches them the Importunity of Prayer which he sets forth by the similitude of a man who having a guest come to him at midnight and had nothing to set before him he went to his friend to intreat him to lend him three loaves and at the first he nakedly intreats Lend me three loaves The door is shut sayes his friend and I cannot open it now Secondly he falls to intreat and to beseech him to do him this favour He had a guest come to him and he knew not what to do Why 't is midnight saies he is there no other time to come but now Thirdly he begins to knock he must needs have them though it be at an unreasonable hour Why I tell you I am in bed Then he intreats him as a friend Friend me no friends sayes he again Yet the man would not leave knocking at last with much adoe the man rises saying Will you never be answered and he lends him three loaves because of his importunity Now saith our Saviour I say unto you though he would not give him as a friend yet because of his importunity he will The similitude is this Thou art that man oh Christian soul this guest is thy self Now then come home to thy self with the Prodigall who when he was come to himself goes to his father and friend This friend is Christ that thou art to pray unto these three loaves are grace mercy and peace These thou art to pray for it may be Christ answereth thee in thy conscience It is midnight thou commest too late there is no mercy for thee The soul prayes still Oh Lord awaken and help me it may be the Lord will answer thee by terror in thy soul The door of mercy is shut thou shouldest have come rather Yet Lord open unto me sayes the soul Nay saith the Lord all my children have mercy already now mercy is asleep I have converted them already they came in due season thou commest at midnight there is no mercy for such a hell-hound as thou art Up Lord have mercy on me sayes the poor soul and look on me c. Look me no looks saith the Lord I came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel there was a time when I would have converted thee when I called unto thee early and late But now I am asleep and my mercy is asleep it hath been awake as long as it could well hold open its eyes and comest thou now Oh the soul cries still and will never give over if mercy be to be had at the throne of grace he will have it Even as a begger being at a gentlemans door they bidding him be gone there is nothing to be had nay sayes the begger I will not be gone here is something to be had and I will have something or else I will die at the door The gentleman hearing him say so thinks it would be a shame for him if he should die at his door and gives him somewhat So when the soul is thus importunate because of importunity it shall be granted Verily I say unto you if you thus ask it shall be given unto you These words contain in them the main duty of importunate prayer Ask if asking wil not serve turn seek if seeking will not serve turn then knock try all meanes Another parable our Saviour put forth Luke 18. 1 2. that men ought alwayes to pray and not to faint There was a poor woman wronged by her adversary and there was no Judge to right her but a wicked one so that she had but poor hopes yet she resolves to go or else she shall be undone therefore if she perish she will perish at his feet He cals her all to naught Oh for Gods sake help me sayes she I care not for God nor man sayes the Judge Nay good my Lord saith the woman The Judge seeing her thus importunate said I shall be troubled with her if I do her not justice How much more saith the text shall not God avenge his elect that cry day and night Obj. But some man may demand what is importunate prayer Ans I answer it is a relstess praier which will take no nay nor contumelious repulse but is in a holy manner impudent until it speed and there are in it four things First it is restlesse he that is importunate cannot rest till he speed in his suit before God as the poor woman of
Canaan she sought the Lord God of Heaven and earth she was of the cursed stock of Cham whom the Lord commanded to destroy yet she repented and became of the faith of Abraham to see if the Lord would own her but the Lord seemed to reject her and suffered the devil to possess her daughter Now what might not this poor woman think she had made a sorry change of religion seeing that God the author of it would not own her but suffered the devil to possesse her daughter But see the importunity of this woman she would not be quiet untill she had found Christ Mark 7. 24 25. Christ could not be hid No What could he not hide himself in some corner No. no thinks she there is a Christ and if he be to be had under the cope of heaven I wil have him Even so it is with the soul that is importunate in prayer it is restlesse What if Christ do hide himself in the Word c. and will not own a poor soul yet the poor soul knowes there is a Christ and if he be to be found in the whole world he wil have him I wil saith he turn over all duties I will go to all the Ministers that are neer I will use all the means Now Christ cannot be hid from such a soul that is thus importunate Now as it is a prayer that will take no nay so first it will take no privative nay of silence Secondly no possitive nay of denial First no privative nay of silence A man that is importunate in prayer must and will have some answer he is not like Baals Priests that could get no answer 1 King 18. 26. nor like wicked men that pray in their pewes they know not what nor whether God hears them or no but an importunate prayer will have an answer like the woman of Canaan Have mercy on me O Lord saith she but Christ answered her not a word Hath she done then No she cries so much the more Have mercy on me O Lord yea she was so importunate that his Disciples were ashamed to hear her yet she cried Have mercy on my daughter the devil hath my daughter and misery will have me unlesse thou wilt have mercy on us Christ answered her never a word It was much trouble to her to have her daughter vext with a devil but this troubled her much more that Christ in whom all her hope was would not hear her nor lend her one look What might she think Is this the merciful Saviour that is so ful of pitty compassion Is this he that hath made proclamation to all the world saying Come unto me all ye that are weary c and I am tyred and wearied by reason of the devil that possesses my daughter c. yet he regards me not Thus she might have said yet these discouragements could not put her off but she cried so much the more yea so that the Apostles were ashamed that Christ should let her stand on that fashion yet she stood it out and prevailed Secondly it will take no positive nay of deniall For when she had an answer and that flat against her it was like bellowes to the fire she was so much the more inflamed she doubles her forces Have mercy on me O Lord c. Chist put her off with a deniall I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel I come for sheep not for goats you are of the Canaanites on whom I have set a brand of damnation a servant of servants a slave of hell and darknesse These are all of your blood but I come to save them of the house of Israel But the deniall of an importunate soul is like the stop in a passage of water the more it is stopt the more violent it is so this poor woman is so much the more eager with Christ she did but cry before now she worships him verse 24. 25. as if she should have said Lord help me now I am one of thy lost sheep I confesse I am a Canaanite I am of that damned blood yet Lord help me I am perswaded that thou canst take a course whereby to help me Thou canst cast some mercy on a Canaanite Thus you see an importunate soul will take no deniall but will renew its forces at the Throne of grace Thirdly an importunate Prayer will take no contumelious repulse suppose God should answer never a syllable of thy prayer yet thou wilt pray suppose he do answer and that against thee yet still thou wilt pray Nay suppose he call thee all to naught making thy conscience tell thee of all thy sins and abominations making thee think that heaven is shut up against thee and God hath shut his ears calling thee Dog hell-hound and wretch c. yet nothing can break thee off if thou be importunate indeed So this woman was not beaten off with Christs sending the Devill into her Daughter nor with Christs hiding himselfe when she sought him nor with Christs answering never a word nor with the Apostles frumps nor with his deniall nor contumelious repulse for he called her dog vers 26 Hence dog I had as lieve â—ling my mercy on a dog as on thâ—e What creature but an importunate one could have gone so far But see here the nature of importunity it gets within Christ and takes advantage she confest the cause saying Truth Lord thou hast hit me right I am a dog or a wicked woman let me then have the priviledges that dogs have though dogs may not be equal with children at the cable yet they may wait under the table I acknowledge that thy children are so plentifully fed that some crummes fall from the table therefore let me have the priviledge of a dog Naaman the Syrian was a dog as well as I Rahab the harlot was a dog as well as I Ruth a dog as well as I yet these got câ—ums truth Lord I am a dog yet thy mercy can metamorphose a dog Of these stones thou canst raise children to Abraham Thus it is with an importunate soul though God call it all to naught and cast all ignominious terms upon it as I had as lieve thou shouldest offer me swines blood as to speak in my hearing yet if thou be importunate thou wilt bear any contumelious repulse Fourthly an importunate prayer is impudent in an holy manner And as an impudent begger that is needy counts it no manners to hold his peace from begging although he be bidden Or as a poor petitioner to the King the King bids him hold his peace yet he will not but still he goes on The officers say Thou filthy fellow wilt thou never have done dost thou not see that the King is angry Yet he still cries Help me Lord ô King So the Canaanitish woman or an Importunate prayer is an impudent prayer yet in a holy manner I remember a story of a poor woman in Essex condemned to die she falls to
should be honoured c and therefore he will have prayer to be importunate that it may appear by groans how highly we esteem of grace our soules must pant and gasp after grace the breath of the Lord being the soul of our souls our hearts will die without it This is to the honour of mercy therefore the Lord will have us Importunate Thirdly as importunity must be in regard of Gods mercy so it must be in regard of our selves else we cannot tell how to esteem it Soon come soon gone lightly gotten suddenly forgotten I have it come let us be jovial and spend it when this is gone I know where to have more But if he had wrought for it and also must work for more if he mean to have more he would better esteem it The world little esteems Mercy what 's the reason The greatest covetous men are they that once were poor when a poor man hath gotten store of riches he is more coverous than he that was born to hundreds or thousands they are carelesse of it and spend lavishly whilst a covetous mans teeth water at it and the reason is because they come lightly by it Therefore the Lord loves that we should come hardly by our mercy not as if he sold mercy for our pains but for our good yet we are not capable of it See Jer. 31. 9. where the Lord speaks thus to his people They come with weeping and with supplication will I lead them This is a fine phrase God leads a soul up and down with supplication before he grants his request just as a begger on the high-way a gentleman coming by he begs of him the gentleman goes on his way as if he took no notice but the begger goes on crying For Gods sake sir bestow something on me yet he goes on still till at last the gentleman comes to his house and then he gives him his desire Even so God leads a soul up and down from one good duty to another till he have brought the soul to that passe that he would have it to be and then he hears it and sayes What is thy suit I will pardon thee What then is the reason may some man say why so few are importunate in prayer I answer first because men count Prayer a penance there is a naturall kind of Popery in mens breasts the Papists when men sin their Priests enjoyn them penance as pilgrimages and scourgings so many Pater noster's and so many Ave-Marie's where they reckon Prayer to be a pennance This naturall Popery is in mens breasts they count Prayer laborious unto them and they are weary of it they are not eager upon prayer they look not on Prayer as a blessing but as a yoak behold what a wearisome thing it is Mal. 1. 13. They were weary of the service of God Oh saâ— they that the Minister would once had done they had rather be in an Ale-house or about their busines all good duties are as penance unto carnal men If a man be to do penance he care not how little he does of it a Rogue cares not for to much whipping Secondly men content themselvs with formality Many men pray as Haman spake the Kings words before Mordecai for he had rather have led him to the gallows than to have said Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the King wil honour but he thought it would be the worse for him if he spake them not and therefore he only spake them for forme And so men for the most part go to Church to hear the Word to Pray to receive the Sacraments c. even for forme or because it is the fashion and they think if they do not thus and thus they shall not be saved You shal have the Drunkard say I am sorry for my drunkenesse but he lies for the next day he will be at the Alâ—house again so the Whoremaster sayes Lord I am sorry that I have sinned against thee but he lies for the next Quean that he meets with having opportunity he falls to whoreing again So the Covetous man will say I am sorry I am sorry I am so full of earthly thoughts yet he lies he is not sorry for you shall have him carking and caring all the day long and he hath a thousand proclamations in his head He only prayes for forme with the rest they only say prayer they pray not I deny not saying of prayer if they pray Our Saviour Christ saith When you pray say Our father The proud man dishonours Gods name saying Thy will be done whereas he should be humble for that is Gods will it is Gods will he should be zealous yet he prayes not He sayes Forgive us our trespasses c. but he prayes not so for he wrongs his neighbour and his neighbour wrongs him and he does not forgive those that trespasse against him He sayes Lead us not into temptation but he prayes it not for he runs presently into temptations and hath no care to avoyd them And this is the reason why men are not importunate viz. because they do make formality of it Thirdly because they are gentlemen-beggers Of all the beggers in the world I would be loth to meet with a gentleman begger for he is proudest of them all if a man tell him that he hath been an ill husband and hath abused himself presently he sets his hands to his side saying I am not as every begger I am thus and thus descended am as good a man by birth as your selfe a gentlemen-beggers heart will not stoop So men â— gentlemen beggers to God they were say they borne of Christian parents and they have been baptized the children of God already What are none the children of God but a company of Puritans We are descended as well as the best of you all These are proud and not as yet brought to a sense of their own miserie When John did preach to and baptize the Scribes and Pharisees he calls them all to nought O ye vipers and full of poison who hath forewarned you to flee from the anger to come Vipers saie they Viper in thy teeth we are the children of Abraham we are better descended then so we are Believers and do you call us vipers then indeed we might crie out Oh we are damned then we had need crie for mercie And in this sense men are Gentlemen-beggars Another reason why men are not importunate is because they have wrong conceits of Prayer I will tell you the sundrie conceits of men First they have high conceits of their own prayers they cannot pray in a morning between the pillow and the blankets halfe asleep and halfe awake but they think that they have done God good service so that he cannot afford to damne them At night he saies Lord have mercy upon me and so goes to sleep and then he thinks God must keep him untill the morning So when he goes to dinner he sais Lord bless these creatures unto
will never set themselves to work So many there be that if they can get pardon of sin for begging then they wil have it but let such know that the Lord will not give it for such lazie kind of praying but if thou wilt have pardon of sin thou must labour for it thou must get it with thy fingers ends God gives not men Repentance Faith c. by miracles but by means Thou must then use the means and keep watch and ward over thine own soul that so thou maist get the grace thou praiest for Secondly a praier that is not a full praier never speeds with God but an importunate prayer is a full praier it is a pouring out of the heart yea of the whole heart Psal 62. 8. the Psalmist saith poure out your hearts before him trust in him at all times poure out your hearts the addition is made in the Lamentations of Jeremy like water It may be thou powrest out thy praier like tar out of a tar-box halfe sticking by the sides but when thou praiest thou must out with all before God When thou givest thanks dost thou labour to remember all the blessings of God when thou dost petition to God dost thou poure out all thy heart before him dost thou cast all thy care on God Thirdly Snatch-prayer is no importunate prayer when men pray by snatches or peecemeals by breaking off a limme of their prayer because of sluggishnesse or because their hearts are eager about other businesse it is not good to trust fits of devotion 't is a base kind of praying when men gallop over their prayers that so they may come to an end quickly Should I accept this at your hands saith God by his Prophet when they brought a sheep it wanted a lim they were loth to give God a whole offering Mal. 1. 13. Many pray a peece of a prayer in the mornig and then they go after the world he down's on his knees and gives God a rag of a prayer a companie of ragged ends And God counts it an indignitie shall I accept this saith he What a lame prayer No no the Lord looks for a prayer that hath its full grouth it is a shame to speak in the congregation what men do in secret before God which many have confessed after they have been converted how they have gone into Gods presence and have shuffled over their prayers thinking every hour seven untill they had done Fourthly Silent prayers are never importunate I mean by silent prayer when a man is silent in that which God looks he should most insist upon David made a prayer Psal 32. and the Lord looked that he should stand much upon his adultery and murther which he had committed to see what shame he took on him for it but he shuffled it over and what saith the Text When I kept silence what did the Prophet roare and yet keep silence these are contradictions Yea the Prophet roared and kept silence as if he should say the Lord counted his prayer but roaring so long as he laid not open that sinne which the Lord lookt he should have stood on the Lord let him roare and roare he might long enough but saith he I brake my silence I said I will confesse my transgressions and then thou forgavest the wickednesse of my sin So many go to God and tell God they must needs have mercy and fain they would have mercy and yet they are silent in confessing the sinne they should I say the Lord will never hear that man he may pray to God all his life and yet go to hell in the end Hast thou been a drunkard and dost thou think that the Lord will forgive thee for crying Lord forgive me c No no thou must insist on it and say Against thy word I have been a drunkard my conscience told me so but I would not hear I have felt the motions of thy holy spirit stirring against me and I regarded not Now if thou shouldest turn me into hell I were well requited so many Sermons have I neglected I have wronged others in this kind and I have been the cause why many are now in hell if they repented not I have prayed for mercie yet with the dog to his vomit have I returned and therefore for all my prayers thou mayest cast me into hell for ever and now I have prayed yet it is a hundred to one but I shal run into my old sin again yet as I expect forgivenesse so I desire to make a covenant to give over all my sinful courses and I am justly damned if I go to them again Such a kind of prayer the Lord loves Fifthly Seldome-prayer is no importunate prayer when the soul contents it self with seldome coming before the throne of grace an importunate soul is ever frequenting the way of mercie and the gate of Christ he is often at the threshold before God in all prayer and humiliation The reeling'st Drunkard in the world sometimes can do so too the basest Adulterer in the world sometimes can be chast the Devil is quiet so long he is pleased and the wicked may sometime have a fit in prayer But this is the condition of an importunate heart he is frequent at the throne of grace The Prophet David prayed seven times in a day and Hannah continued in prayer night and day Sixthly Lukewarm prayer is not an importunate prayer when a man prais but is not fervent when a man labours not to wind up his soul to God in prayer That man that prayes outwardly only that man teaches God how to denie his prayer Though you make many prayers saith God yet I will not hear you why Your hands are full of blood Qui frigidè or at docet negare They are like luke warme water that never boils out the blood So they have been guilty of murder and abundance of other sins and they did indeed pray against them but they were never but luke-warme they have never boiled away the blood of their sins Thou must pray fervently with a seething hot heart if thou meanest to get pardon for all thy sins as securitie and deadnesse of heart c. And as it is in Jonah 3. let every man crie mightily unto the Lord. Seventhly and lastly Bie-thoughts in prayer keep prayer from being importunate as when a man prayes and lets his heart go a wool-gathering I remember a storie of an unworthy O ratour who being to make an acclamation O earth O heaven when he said O heaven he looked down to the earth and when he said O earth he looked up to heaven So many when they pray to God in heaven their thoughts are on the earth these prayers can never be importunate When a man praies the Lord looks that his heart should be fixed on his prayer for our hearts will leake and the best child of God do what he can shall have bie-thoughts in prayer And that First from corrupt nature Secondly from nature curbed
people Israel 〈…〉 Even so England thou hast the Temple and the Priests and yet 〈…〉 not God that destroyed Shiloh destroy thee Goe to Bohemia 〈…〉 from thence to the Palatinate and from thence to other parts of Gerâ—â—â—â— Doe but imagine that you were there or do but mark what traveâ—â—â—â— say Gods Churches are made heaps of stones and those Bethels wâ—â—â—â— in Gods name was called upon are now defiled Temples for 〈…〉 and superstition to raigne in you cannot goe three steps but you 〈…〉 see the head of a dead man And go a little further and you shal 〈…〉 the heart pickt out by the fowls of the ayre or some other sad spectaâ—â—â— and then surely you will say Tydy hath been here or there now are 〈…〉 Churches become desolate and may not England Doe but goe 〈…〉 their Cities and Towns and there you may see many compâ—â—â—â— about with chains of Captivity and every man bemoaning himâ—â—â—â— Doe but look under a tree and there you may see a poor fathe◠〈…〉 child sending out his breath and crying unto his helplesse Mother 〈…〉 but a little further and you shall see the helplesse Wife the sad 〈…〉 bemoaning her husband and this is her misery she cannot dye 〈…〉 enough but she shall see greater misery for either she shall 〈…〉 thinks see her little ones dasht against the stones or tossed upon 〈…〉 Pikes or if they live that then they shall be brought up in Popery 〈…〉 then she weep again and thinks that if her Husband be dead it is 〈…〉 But it may be he is upon the rack or put to some other torment 〈…〉 then she dies an hundred times before she can die Thus if yo◠〈…〉 set your soules in their soules stead and imagine you were in thei◠〈…〉 dition and say may not this be the condition of England and 〈…〉 knowes but it may O my beloved be not high-minded but 〈…〉 as we have Gods bounty on the one side so for ought I know 〈…〉 may have his severity on the other side Pranck not then your 〈…〉 with foolish imaginations saying who dare come to hurt 〈…〉 the Spaniard hath his hands full and the French are too weak 〈…〉 beloved be not deluded who would have thought that Jerusale◠〈…〉 Lady City of all Nations whither the tribes went up to 〈…〉 should become a heap of stones and a vagabond people but ye◠〈…〉 see it was and is to this day And I pray why may it not be 〈…〉 case Learne therefore hear and fear God for assuredly God 〈…〉 God without Englands prosperity Doe not say here are many 〈…〉 Christians doe you think that God is beholding to you for yo◠〈…〉 oâ— surely not For rather then he will preserve such as 〈…〉 name and yet hate to be reformed he will raise up of these 〈…〉 Abraham he will rather go into Turky and say unto 〈…〉 are my people and I wil be your God But will 〈…〉 God goe England are you so 〈…〉 Christ 〈…〉 no 〈…〉 as they did upon Paul every one of you lay hold on him and say thou thou shalt not go from us for we are called by thy name therefore leave us not And for my part I will pray that he doth not take his leave of us Do you think that Rome will forsake or part with her Gods no they will rather lose their lives and wilt thou let thy God goe O England plead with thy God and let him not depart but part rather with thy rebellions We are called by thy Name leave us not You see the Church is very importunate to keep God with them they lay hold on God with Coards of arguments O thou hope of Israel do not leave us they beset God with their prayers and as it were they watch him at the townes end that he should not go away and they say Thou shalt still abide with us they are importunate that he do not leave them whence observe Doct. That it is the importunate desire of the Saints of God still to keepe God present with them They cared not so much for sword or famine as they did for the losse of Gods presence O Lord leave us not say they this was their prayer and blame them not for consider what a greif it is that God should stand by and not help them Good Lord say they leave us not wee cannot abide to thinke that God should leave us much lesse can we endure to feele it or taste it thus they did and thus the Saints of God should do Exod. 33. 14 15. Moses saith if thy presence goe not with us carry us not hence alas Moses might have gone upon fair termes ye shall saith God possesse the land in peace with prosperity But what saith Moses though wee might have Ganaan and all the delights there yet carry us noâ— hence unlesse thy presence goe with us this is the stay and the strength that he stickes too So Psal 80. 18 19. Turne us again O Lord of hosts make thy face to shine upon us here is a man a David a heart worth gold hee makes not many suits but hee comes home he sues to the purpose make thy face saith he to shine upon us as if he should have said that is prosperity enough for it endureth for ever But what is the presence of God In a word it is the particular favour of God which he expresseth in his ordinances it is all the good and sweetnesse that flowes from the purity of Gods worship whereby God reveals himself unto us It is not gold wealth nor prosperity that makes God to be our God for there is more gold in the West Indies than in all Christendome but it is Gods ordinances purely administred that brings Gods presence to a people God forsooke Shiloh because his ordinances were not purely kept there when the people left the Arke viz his pure worship then God left the people when the Arke of Gods presence was among them the word in the purity of it then his face was there and there God was principally present hence it was that â—aiâ— is said to be cast out of Gods presence because he was cast out from the Church he was cast out from Gods ordinances if a people do outwardly reforme and sincerely worship God they may remain If Sodom and Gomorrah had qut legally repented they had remained they had not been destroyed And hence it is that the Saints are so urgent for Gods Ordinances in the purity of them But the wicked say once a Sabbath is enough and once a week is too much by this we may see that England is ripe and is she not weary of God nay she is fat fed to the slaughter But it was not so with the Saints and people of God in former times it was Davids grand request that he might dwel in the house of the Lord Psal 27. 4. And Psalme the 42. and the first verse he said his soul did pant for Gods ordinances
hearts my desire is the health of your souls though my meat seem soure yet my mind is the will of God Thou man or woman that canst not abide so much preaching but standest upon thorns whilst it is preaching Too much of one thing you say is good for nothing You do as much as say you will not have God with you you will have a little of God but you will have more of your pleasures Is this your desire your delights Know then whosoever thou art that hast an ill will to God and his Ordinances and wilt not have the gospel in the purity of it thou shalt have thy desires Thou sayest depart Preaching and so it shall thou shalt have thy desires When thou shalt hear the trumpets sound and when thine eares shall tingle with the sound of war then depart for ever you that are weary of God get you down to hell for ever Fulfill your base lusts then will God say for I have fed you on earth this twenty thirty forty fifty nay sixty years and upwards and my mild Word could not rule you nor prevaile with you and therefore now get you to hell and there remain for ever Think thus with your selves will God serve me thus yea that he will for he hath prepared a place for the proudest Kings Princes Monarchs Captains c that are or ever were in the world if they will not be ruled nor guided by God and his word See Isa 30. 33. the Text doth as good as say he delighteth to make bonfires about their ears And must this be the way to glorifie God But some may say Surely Kings and Monarchs are exempted they need not fear that such torments shall come upon them To this I answer that God will say unto them Raign there if thou wilt and then they shall know that there is a King that laughs at their destruction Take notice of this I beseech you and reason thus with your own soules I he a good son that cannot abide the presence of his own father is she a good wife that cannot abide the company of her husband and is he a good Christian that cannot endure the company of Christ in his ordinances This may serve to rebuke Gods people for their neglect You see the gospel is going Christ is departing he is going to seek better entertainment But I marvaile you give no better attendance I pray hearken what I say and have to say stand up and hear and the Lord give you grace to beleeve I will deal plainly with you as sure as God is God God is going from England Shall I tell you what God told me nay I must tell you on pain of my life Will you give eare and believe me I am a poor Ambassador sent from God to do his message unto you and although I be ow yet my message is from above and He that sent me is great and from above and oh that He would grant that this my message might be believed What if I should tell you what God told me yesternight THE SACRIFICE OF THE FAITHFUL OR A TREATISE shewing the nature property and efficacy of Zealous Prayer Together with some Motives to Prayer and Helps against discouragements in Prayer By WILLIAM FENNER Minister of the Gospel Fellow of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge and late Lecturer of Rochford in Essex London Printed by E. T. for John Stafford A DISCOURSE OF The nature of Prevalent Prayer Together with some helps against discouragements in Prayer LAMENT 3. 57. Thou drewest neare in the day that I called upon thee thou saidst fear not THis Book of the Lamentations doth plainely shew what miseries and distresses sin is the cause of As in this people of the Jews who because of their Idolatries their contempt of Gods Ordinances their slighting and misusing the Prophets c. Had their Cities taken their Temple burned their liberties confiscated themselves carried captive out of their own countrey and deprived of the ordinances of their God and the signs of his presence before they were rebellious but now they sought God a long time they prayed but God would not hear Insomuch that many poor soules amongst them were discouraged and almost ready to despaire That had not the Lord put in some inklings of hope they had utterly fainted Now whilst these poore soules were praying and crying and groaning and now ready to give over for discouragement that God will not heare them presently the Lord flings in comfort and beckens to their hearts not to be discouraged but to pray on and feare not Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee thou saidst fear not the words containe in them three properties of effectuall prayer First the unsatiablenesse of it All the prayers of this people though they had been of many yeares yet they counted them as the prayers of one day in the day that I called upon thee They account all their thousands of supplications and praiers as one suite never had they done their praiers till God did heare them Secondly the sensiblenesse of it whereby it is able to know whether God doe heare it or no Thou drewest neare in the day that I called upon thee Thirdly the supplyes it hath against dangers and discouragements God flings in comfort into their hearts giving them inklings of hope to support them against their discouragements thou saidst fear not From the first of these observe That an effectual prayer is an unsatiable prayer A man that praies effectually sets down this in himself as his first conclusion never to cease nor to give over praying till he speed This the first and prime thing that a godly heart looks at as David in his prayers He begins in this manner Heare my cry O God attend unto my prayer Psal 61. 1. So Give eare unto my prayer O God and hide not thy self from my supplications Psal 55. 1. Heare my voyce O God in my prayer Psal 64. 1. As if he should say Lord now I come to call upon thee now that I come to thee to begge these and these graces that my soule wants I beseech thee to heare me for I am resolved never to give over my suit never to give thee rest but for to continue my prayers and supplications til thou give a gratious answer to my soul and heare me This is the first and prime thing that the soule looks after it being the very end of prayer to be heard it is not with prayer as with Oratory for in Oratory a man may use all the perswasive arguments that the wit of man 〈…〉 and speak as cuttingly and as perswasively as may be and yet th◠heart may be so intractable as not to be perswaded it is not so with prayer The end of prayer is to prevaile with God Beloved there is difference between the end and office of prayer the office of prayer is to pray the end of prayer is to prevaile There is many a man
that doth the office of prayer and yet never gets the end of prayer A man hath never gotten the end of his prayers till he hath gotten that he prayed for It is not with praier as with a Physician that may give the best physick under heaven and yet the Patient may die under his hands and therefore one gives counsel that a Physician never meddle with a desperate man But if the soul be an effectuall suitor with God it can never faile of its suite because it is an unsatiable Suitor that never leaves his prayer till it terminates the end of it I cryed unto the Lord with my voyce and he heard me out of his holy hill Selah Jerom translates it for ever Psal 3. 4. never doth a child of God pray but he prayeth so as that his praier and Gods eare may be joyned together I cried unto the Lord and the Lord heard me This also sheweth how the Prophet cried and prayed namely so as his crying and Gods hearing were coupled together But some may object How can a man be unsatiable in his prayers till he speed must a man be alwaies a praying God calls men to other duties of his worship and of his own particular calling after morning I must have done till noon after noone I must have done til night whether God hear me or no must I be alwaies a praying till I speed then I should doe nothing else but pray how then are we to continue our praiers till God hear us and give the grace that we pray for to this I answer A man must give over the words and times of prayer for other duties but a man must not give over the suit of prayer A poor begger comes to a house-keepers gate and begs but none hears him now he being a poor man hath somthing else to do and therefore he sits down or stands and knits or patches and then he begs or knocks and then to his work again though he do not alwayes continue knocking or begging yet he alwaies continues his suite O that my suite might be granted me or that I might have an almes here so when the soul is begging of any grace though it doth not alwaies continue the words of praier yet it alwaies continues the suite of praier David he would dwell in the house of the Lord for ever Psal 23. 6. A wicked man it may be will turne into Gods house and say a prayer c. but the Prophet would and so all godly men must dwell there for ever his soul lyeth alwayes at the throne of grace begging for grace A wicked man he prayeth as the cock croweth the cock crows and ceaseth and crowes again and ceaseth again and thinks not of crowing till he crowes again so a wicked man praies and ceaseth praies and ceaseth again his mind is never busied to think whether his praiers speed or no he thinks it is good Religion for him to pray and therefore he takes that for granted that his praiers speed though in very deed God never hears his praiers nor no more respects it than he respects the lowing of Oxen or the gruntling of hoggs He is found in his praiers as the wilde Asse in her moneths Jer. 2. The wild Asse in regard of her swiftnesse cannot be taken but in her months she hath a sleepy moneth and all that while she is so sleepy and dumpish that any man may take her in her months you shall find her so a wicked man hath his prayer moneths his praier fits it may be in the morning or in the evening or day of his affliction and misery you shall have him at his prayers at his prayer fits then you shall find him at it but otherwise his mind is about other matters But the child of God what ever he ailes he goes with his petition presently to the throne of grace and there he never removes till he hath it granted him as here we see the praiers of the Church consisting of many years yet are counted but one suit The application follows Use 1. Try therefore and examine whether thy praiers be unsatiable praiers yea or no and for helpe herein take these markes first if thy prayers be unsatiable praiers then it is a begging prayer thou praiest as if thou hadst never praied before as if thou hadst never begun to pray and thou never thinkest that thou hast done any thing till thou hast done the deed As a hungry man eats as if he had never eat before so the unsatiable soul praies as if he had never praied before till he hath obtained that he hath praied for but a wicked man he prayes not thu Job speaking of carnal professors Job 27. 10. Will he call upon God at all times seest thou a wicked man go to a good duty go to praier do you think that he will hold out alwayes he will never do it for a wicked man he reasons with himselfe I have called upon God thus and thus long I hope I need not pray any more for this thing and so he gives over But a godly man he will be alwayes calling upon God Beloved there is a beginning to an action and a beginning of an action thou never beginnest to lift up a weight till thou stirrest it from the ground indeed thou maist begin towards the action by pulling at it by reaching at it but thou never beginnest the lifting up of the weight till thou stirre it from its place thou mayst give a pull at prayer and tugge at a grace but thou hast not so much as begun that duty till thou seest God begin to hear thee till thou seest the grace a coming therefore the Prophet David when he prayed and had not that he prayed for his praiers returned into his own bosome Psal 35. 13. there to lie to be a continuall suit unto God A wicked man praies and he leaves his praier behind him in his pew or in his hall or chamber but a godly man praies and his prayer is in his heart his prayer is not out till the grace be in Secondly an unsatiable prayer it is evermore a proceeding praier you would think that these are two contraries and one opposite to the other but they are not only they are two severall things as it is ever a beginning praier because in his own thoughts he reckons or thinks that he hath nothing till he speeds so the soule that is unsatiable in prayer he proceeds he gets neer to God he gains something he windes up his heart higher As a child that seeth the mother have an apple in her hand and it would fain have it it will come and pull at the mothers hand for it now she lets go one finger and yet she holds it and then he pulls again and then she lets go another finger and yet she keepes it and then the child pulls again and will never leave pulling and crying till it hath got it from his mother So
a child of God seeing all graces to be in God he draws neer to the throne of grace begging for it and by his earnest and faithfull praiers he opens the hands of God to him God dealing as parents to their children holds them off for a while not that he is unwilling to give but to make them more earnest with God to draw them the neerer to himselfe A wicked man praies and his praiers tumble down upon him again and his heart is as dead as ever it was before as sensual as ever as carnal and earthly as ever as hard as impenitent and secure as ever A godly man when he praies though he have not gotten the thing totall that he desired yet he is neerer God then he was before his heart grows every day better than other by his praiers he obtains still something as the Prophet Hosea speaks of knowledge Hos 6. 3. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord so I may say of prayer and of all other good duties then we pray if we proceed on wards in prayer A man may know and know and yet never know the Lord till he go on in knowledge so a man may pray and pray yet if he goe not onwards in his prayers his prayers are nothing A godly man prayes as a builder builds now a builder he first layeth a foundation and because he cannot finish in one day he comes the second day and finds the frame standing that he made the first day and then he adds a second dayes work and then he comes a third day and finds his two former dayes work standing then he proceeds to a third dayes work and makes walls to it and so he goes on till his building be finished So prayer is the building of the soule till it reach up to heaven therefore a godly heart prayes and reacheth higher and higher in prayer til at last his prayers reach up to God It is a signe of a wicked man to pray and to let his prayers fall down again upon him And here I appeale to the consciences of wicked men if it be not so with them they pray and pray but their hearts are as dead and deceitfull as proud and vaine as ignorant blockish and rebellious as if they had never prayed Thirdly it is more and more a fervent prayer if a little prayer will not serve the turn if he speeds not to day then he will pray more earnestly to morrow and if that will not serve the turne he will adde more As a man in winding up of a bucket if two or three windings will not fetch it up he will winde it up higher and higher till it comes up for if he should onely winde up once or twice and no more but hold it just at the same pin the bucket would never come up So if a man prayes and prayes and windes not up his heart higher but holds it just at the same pegge it was prayes in the same fashion he did grace will never come up Mark then how thou prayest examine thy heart dost thou pray to day as yesterday with no more zeal nor feeling affection nor sensible desire thou prayest not unsatiably No thou restrainest thy praying from growing an excellent description of an hypocrite Job 1â— 4. though falsly applied to Job Thou restrainest prayer before God in some translations it is Thou keepest thy prayers from growing thou restrainest thy prayers as a dwarffe is restrained from growing so thou restrainest thy prayers from being more and more earnest and effectuall and fervent unsatiable prayer is growing in zeale and affection Fourthly it is a more and more frequent prayer so that if twice a day will not serve the turne he will pray three times a day Psal 55. 17 and if that will not prevaile he will pray seven times a day Psal 119. 164. and when that is not enough he will be even ever a praying hardly broken off day or night Psal 88. 1. he cares not how often he prayes it may be that thou hast been a suitor for strength and grace against corruptions and hast put up many prayers to the same purpose It now thou stickest at any prayers thy prayers are not unsatiable an unsatiable soul never resteth though it have made ten thousand prayers till it have gotten the grace it is so with other things and therefore we need not wonder at it when a man doth not finish his work one day he will do it another and so on as long as he lives till his worke be done so must we do for heaven and for grace Fifthly it is ever more and more a back'd praier if ordinary praiers will not serve the turne a godly heart will cut off time from his recreations and pleasures though in themselves lawfull Beloved it may be with thy soul in its wrastlings and strivings for grace and power against corruptions that ordinary praiers will not satisfie it but it will be necessry to give over even lawfull delights and give that time to praier so a man will do for the world if he have a businesse of importance that will bring him in gaine he will be content to part with his delights and recreations and pleasures to follow after it so a man must do for his soul and if that be not enough then lay aside the duties of thy calling to take time from that If a man have two houses on fire both together the one his mansion dwelling house the other some back room or stable if he can he will save both but if he see that by spending his time on quenching the fire on the stable that his great mansion house will burne downe he will then neglect the other and let it burne if it will and imploy himselfe about his house So when the soul is in misery under the want of grace that it cannot live under but must perish eternally if it have it not then the soule being better than the body rather than that the soul miscarry we will neglect the body sometime And if this will not serve abstain from meat and drink fast it out thus the people of God are faine to do many times their lust and corruptions being even as the devill himselfe which cannot be cast out but by prayer and fasting there is an excellent place Joel 2. 12. Therefore now turn unto the Lord with fasting weeping and mourning rent your hearts c. Therefore now now your sinnes are so divelish now your sins are so deepely rooted in your soules now your corruptions are come to be such plague sores within you do you not think that your ordinary repentance and ordinary praiers and humiliations will serve the turne but now backe them with fasting and mourning Here now thou maist examine thy soul whether it have praied effectually unsatiably yea or no hath it ever a begging praier that thou praiest as if thou hadst never praied before is it evermore a proceeding prayer that
Isaiah 27. 11. He that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will not pitty them It is commonly beleeved if men come to Church heare the Word and call upon God that then presently they are good Christians Beloved it is not so Mat. 7. 21. Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Men are ready when they can but call Lord have mercy on me O sweet Saviour pitty me most mercifull Lord Jesus have compassion on me if they can pray in their families and pray at Church c. to think now all is well with them and Christ cannot but save them and give them the Kingdome of Heaven but our Saviour puts a not upon it and saith not every one that saith Lord Lord it is noâ— a Lord a Lording of Christ with the tongue onely it is not a taking up of an outward profession of Christ only that is sufficient for a man that shall inherit the Kingdome of Heaven no saith Christ but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven But of this by the by Secondly there are needlesse discouragements which doe much hurt in prayer Nee lesse discouragements do much hurt to many a poor soule that hath forcible wouldings and wracked desires after grace and holinesse and yet is held by discouragements yea many a Christian heart lieth a long time under it wrestling and striving under its wants and yet kept out from grace and from growing in grace because of discouragements yea the best and strongest of God Saints have been kept off and have hung much on discouragements Fear not saith God to Abraham Gen. 15. 1. So fear not Joshua saith God to Joshua Josh 1. 9. Intimating that both Abraham and Joshua were afraid of discouragements they were afraid that many evils would befall them that they should meet with many rubs and difficulties that would be too hard for them therefore the Lord calls to them fear not be not djsmayed nor discouraged I â—ou saidst fear not Hence observe That God would not have any Christian soul to be discouraged in prayer Thou saidst fear not For our clearer prooceeding herein first let me shew you what discouragement is and secondly how it comes to be dangerous and hurtfull in prayer What is discouragement It is a base dismayment of spirit below or beneath the strength that is in a man under the apprehension of some evill as if it were too hard for him to grapple with it There be foure things in this diffinition First I say it is a base dismayment of spirit and so I call it to distinguish it for there is an humble dismayment which a Christian is commanded A man is bound to be dismayed for his sinnes I say 32. 11. Tremble ye carelesse women that are at ease be troubled ye carelesse ones these carelesse ones went on in their sinnes and feared not God calls to them and bids them to be dismayed But the dismayment and the discouragement I speak of it is a base dismayment of spirit which is either when he is dismayed that ought not or he is dismayed at that whereat he ought not to fear where no cause of fear is As he that riding along upon the high way spying a mans shape thought it was some Spirit and thereupon he sickened and died So many a poor soul looking in the perfect Law of God and seeing his own uglinesse and filthinesse he is discouraged and thinks himself undone his heart waxeth cold within him and he begins to fear that he is but a dead and damned man Secondly it is down beneath the strength that is in a man that man is properly said to be discouraged not that he hath no strength at all in him nor no courage at all for such a one is an infeebled man not a man discouraged but a discouraged man is a man put besides the courage that is in him when a man hath strength enough to grapple with the evill before him but through dismayment of spirit he cannot put it forth Have not I commanded thee saith God to Joshua Be strong and of a good courage be not afraid neither be thou dismaied Iosh 1 9. God had given Joshua strength enough whereby he was inabled to observe and do according to all that Law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded him God had now doubled his Spirit upon him yet he commands him be not afraid neither dismayed as if he had said Joshua if thou beest dismayed and discouraged though thou hast strength and power to go through the businesse that I have called thee unto yet thou wilt not be able to use it nor to put it forth if thou beest discouraged Thirdly it is at the apprehension of some evill I say not at the sight of some evill for a man may be dismayed at the apparition of good as Mary when she saw nothing but a good Angell Luke 1. 29. she saw nothing but a glorious Angel neverthelesse she was afraid and discouraged Why because she had a secret apprehension of some evill either of some evill proceeded in the salutation or some unworthinesse in her selfe to receive such a gracious salutation it cannot be the apprehension of any good that discourageth a man but the apprehension of some evill Fourthly not of every evill neither for if the evill be but small courage will stand it out but it is of such an evill as he fears he is not able to grapple withall If the evill before him be inferiour to him he scornes it as the barking of a toothlesse Dog If it be but an evill equall to his strength then he makes a tush at it because he knowes or thinkes himselfe able to encounter with it But if it be an evill above his strength then his spirit melts and droops before him See this in Saul 1 Sam. 17. 11. and his people When they saw the Champion of the Philistims coming against them when they saw him so hugely and marvelously armed and heard him speake such bigge words they thought they were not able to stand and to encounter with him and therefore saith the Text when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistim they were dismayed and greatly afraid Thus you see what discouragement is Now we come to the second question to shew how discouragements come to be hurtfull in prayer such discouragements the Lord would not have our hearts to be in when we pray unto him For first God cannot give ear to that man that is out of heart in his prayers Thou canst never pray if thou beest dismaied in prayer When the soul begins to feare and reason O I am so unworthy that God will not looke at me I am so sinfull so blockish so dead and dull to all good that God will never regard me Thou canst never pray Rom. 10. 14. How shall they call on him in whom they have not beleeved If
get zeale and holinesse or else there is no mercy either get grace and repentance or else there is no mercy for thee Pray then when thou prayest for grace with a speed or be damned say unto thy soul either we must speed and get grace Soule or else we must goe to hell If men would pray thus with a speed or be damned we should never see nor God should never heare so many cold and dead prayers as now we pray Despaire makes a man a Munke saith the Papist but this despaire makes a man a good Christian I say never doth a man pray indeed till he feels himself in extremity hopelesse and desperate in regard of himselfe so that he seeth no remedie at all but get Christ get grace or be damned for ever Get power and strength over these corruptions otherwise they will destroy and damne thee this would make a man pray for life Men pray coldly and faintly why because though they see they have no grace no zeale no holinesse no repentance no evidence of Christ yet they hope to be saved notwithstanding O beloved the divell hath blinded these men to the intent they may be damned But if men would pray desperate prayers with a pray or be damned seek with a find or be damned men would then pray other prayers than they doe Such prayers did David pray Psal 130. 1. Out of the deep places have I called unto thee O Lord Lord heare my prayer as if he should say Lord I am even in the depth of misery plunged over head and eares so that now I sinke and perish if thou help net Lord hear my prayer This desperation a Christian must have this quickens up his Spirits and puts life into him but take heed of the desperation of Infidelity Saint Austin saith it is the murtherer of the soule the spice of it will eate out the heart of a man and kill the strength of all his endeavours I should now come to apply this Doctrine but I feare me there be many amongst us that never come so farre towards Heaven as to know what these discouragements meane This is lamentable It is true discouragements are hideous cases in prayer and a man may perish and goe to hell that hath them but yet they are somewhat profitable signes that a man doth at the least look a little towards God or else he could not know what they are But there are abundance that never have attained so farre in religion as to understand what they meane but goe on in drinking whoring carding and dicing hating and malicing fretting and chafing mocking and coveting swearing and blaspheming in security in heardnesse of heart and impenitency they are more carefull for their doggs for their potts and for their tables and for their shops than they are of their souls And which is enough to astonish any that is godly these men scarce find any discouragements in prayer O they have a good courage to pray at all tims O say they God forbid that any man should be discouraged in praier I thank God I have a good hope in God God hath given me a good heart of grace to call upon him and I make no question but that God heares me God would never bid us to pray if he did not mean to hear us Beloved these men that are so bold in the goodness of their hearts to call upon God they never as yet prayed in all their lives all the prayers of the wicked are indeed no prayers Daniel confessing the sinnes of wicked Judah saith Though all this evill be come upon us yet made we not our prayer to turne from our wicked ways Dan. 9. 13. all the time of those seventy yeares Daniel saith they never made prayer to God yet they fasted every year and prayed every day twise every day at the least which would amount in that time to 50000 and 100 prayers how then could Daniel say they never made one prayer I answer and pray mark it because they never did quite turn from their evill wayes Though thou makest never so many prayers though thou boastest of the goodnesse of thy condition and snatchest at the Promises of God yet if thou turnest not from thine iniquities thou never as yet mad'st any prayer by the Judgement of God himself Paul made many thousand prayers before his conversion he could not have been a Pharisee else but they were never accounted prayers to him therefore as soon as ever he was converted behold saith God he prayeth Acts 9. A wicked man a carnall Christian though he have the righteousness of Saint Paul before his conversion of living blamelesse unreproveable in respect of the outward righteousnesse of the Law yet he can never make an acceptable prayer till he be truely converted his prayers are no better than howling of dogs or lowing of Oxen yea the Lord abhorrs them O what poor incouragements canst thou have seeing the Lord never tallies down any of thy prayers wicked men are like Ulysses who wept more for the death of his dogge than of his wife so wicked men weep and mourne for the losse of their corn and their cattle hawkes and hounds cardes and dice but never for the losse of their praiers So long as thou continuest in thy prophanenesse and impenitency thou losest all thy praiers there is not one of them that God tallies down or reckons for a praier Here we minht have a great deale of matter if time would suffer me But it will not onely let me tell you I speak onely to those whose hearts God hath awakened out of their sins but who are oft discouraged take heed of these discouragements For first they will drive thee to melancholy Beloved there are a great many melancholy men in the world and this is the cause of it men are contented to be converted by halves because they are discouraged in the worke If thou suffer thy selfe to be discouraged it will eaâ—e up thy spirit and thou wilt be like a silly dove without a heart Hosea 7. 11. A dove is a melancholy creature that hath no heart to any thing so Epharaim hath no heart to call upon God no heart to returne unto God and this is the cause that men and women goe whineing and mourning under the burden of sin and are not able to come out because of discouragements all the policy of hell is lesse than this policy of the divell in driving men to despair or discouragements this doth more hurt than all the rest of hell besides Secondly if you do not take heed of them they will bring you to speake against God I have prayed but the Lord will not heare me I have called and the Lord will not answer but hath turned away his eares from me Now thou speakest against God Num. 21. 4. 5. The soule of the people was much discouraged and the people spake against God and against Moses saying Wherefore have you brought us out of Egypt to die in
the wildernesse for here is neither bread nor water and our soule loatheth this light bread So beloved if we suffer our soules to be discouraged we shall soone come to murmure against God wherefore hath he brought me up to this strictnesse and precisenesse when I was a drunkard a worldling when I followed the lust of my flesh and liberty then I enjoyed onions garlick and the flesh-pots of Egypt pleasures and delights for my soule then I had a good hope in God and a good perswasion that my soul should goe to heaven and then Preachers told me that if I would give over such and such sinnes and look after Heaven a little more and doe such and such things O then I should come to a Land flowing with milke and honey then I should not misse of glory and salvation But alas I see nothing but Gyants and Anakims I am in a wildernesse now now I see a man may have a great deal of repentance and yet be a cast away A man may have a great deal of faith and yet be but a reprobate A man may give over a great many sins and yet perish in hell now I see a man may live civilly and well and have and do a great many good things and yet be damned when he hath done all A man may even go to Heaven Gates and yet the gates be shut against him and he turned into hell Alas my poor soul is in a wildernesse now I know not which way to goe I am ready to lose my selfe I see nothing here now but huge Gyants the sons of Anack strong corruptions inclining and forcing me to evill most fearefull and violent suggestions and temptations of the Devill ready to thrust me into the gulfe of wickednesse and despaire And now the soule begins to thinke that it is good for it to returne again into Egypt to fall to its old courses again for certainly God looks for no such matter he requires no such strictnesse and precisenesse And so it falls a whining and repining at the Word and Ministers of God that have call'd men to it and laid it upon them and hath no heart now to do thus and thus any longer And thus it falls into discouragements because of the way and into a thousand quandaries whether it may not go back again or no. And all these murmurings and repinings are because men suffer themselves to be discouraged Thirdly discouragements will cause thee to think that God hates thee When the soul like Baals Priests 1. Kings 18. 26. hath been crying from morning to noon ten twenty thirty yeeres it may be and yet hath no answer now it will begin to think if God did love me then he would grant me my petitions Then hereupon comes into a mans secret thoughts and feare that God hardly loves his soule So was it with Israel when they were discouraged they said because the Lord hated us therefore he brought us out of the Land of Egypt Deut. 1. 27. Because that they were discouraged and because that their Brethren that went for spies had disheartned them therefore they were apt to say the Lord hated them Beloved it is a miserable thing when the soule calls the love of God into question Consider that as thou canst not have a friend if thou beest suspitious and jealous of his love to thee So thou canst never have the love of God settled on thy heart so long as thou art jealous of his love to thee Fourthly If thou root them not out it is to be feared that they will bring thee to despair Melancholy thoughts and feares and discouragements drive the soul to despaire For when the soul sees it selfe still disappointed of its hopes at the last it growes hopelesse If it have waited one day and the next day too if it have prayed this weeke this moneth this year and yet still it seeth it selfe held off and disappointed it will at last grow hopelesse Take heed therefore I beseech you of all needlesse discouragements to fear because that thou findest not that that thou wishedst or prayedst for to day or to morrow in thine own time that therefore thou shalt never get it that now thou shouldest for ever despaire of the grace and love of God and think that now God will never hear thee that thou shalt never get grace and power over thy corruptions Men think that the preaching of the Word of God brings men to despaire the preaching of such strict points and the urging such precise doctrines makes men despaire men are loth to be at the paines to root out their discouragements It is rather a cold or dead preaching of the Word that is the cause of this for when the soule is instructed by holinesse humbled by holinesse converted by holinesse at the last when it comes to be thorowly awakened when it sees that this and this is required in a true conversion of the soule to God that herein true repentance must declare and demonstrate it selfe by these and these fruits or else it is but false and rotten Why now the soul must needs be brought to despaire because it seeth that though it have been thus and thus humbled though it have praied fasted and mourned in this and this manner yet it sees it hath not a soundesse of grace There is such a grace in it such a worke and such a fruit of Gods Spirit in it that yet he could never finde in himselfe this makes the soule to despaire Indeed Preachers may be to blame if they speake and preach onely the terrours and condemnations of the Law without the promises of the Gospel for these should be so tempered that every poore broken soule may see mercy and redemption for him upon his sound and unfeigned repentance and humiliation But if men doe despaire they may thanke themselves for it their owne sinnes for it their owne discouragements for it because they suffer these to continue in them Cain his heart grew sad his conntenance fell he was wroth and disquiered in his minde and heavily discouraged why Gen. 4. Sin lay at the dore what dore the dore of his conscience rapping and beating upon his heart Beloved when the soule lets sin lie at the dore drunkennesse pride and worldlinesse security hardnesse and deadnesse of heart lie at the dore when a man lets his negligent and fruitlesse hearing of the word lie at the dore when a man lets his vaine and dead praying his temporizing and fashionary serving of God lie at the dore of conscience to tell him that all his hearing of the word of God profits him nothing that his praiers are dead and vain that his mourning fasting and all his humiliation is counterfeit and rotten and that he hath no soundnesse of grace in him but that for all this he may fall into hell when sin lâ—eth thus at the dore thus rapping at the conscience it is no wonder if the soule fall into desperation as it was here Cain let
his sinne lie at the dore there it lay rapping and beating and told him that his carelessenesse and negligent sacrificing to God was not accepted and therefore no marvell if Cain be so cast down in his countenance and that he fall to despaire O beloved when sinne lieth bouncing and beating at the doore of thy heart when thy sinne whatsoever it is search thy heart and finde it out lies knocking and rapping at the dore of thy conscience day by day and moneth by moneth and thou art content to let it lie and art unwilling to use meanes to remove it and art loth to take the paines to get the bloud of Christ to wash thy soule from it or the Spirit of Christ to cleanse thee from it then thy soule wil despaire either in this world or in the world to come But let us take heede then that our conscience condemne us not in any thing or course that we allow in our selves for if that doe then much more will God who is greater than our consciences and knows all things The Apostle hath an excellent Phrase Rom. 8. 1. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus c. As if he should say there is not one condemnation there is none in Heaven God doth not condemne them there is none in earth their own heart and conscience doth not condemne them to him that is in Christ Jesus that walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit there is none no not one condemnation to him none neither in Heaven nor in earth no word no commandement no threatning condemns him But if thy conscience condemn thee and tell thee thou lettest sinne lie at the doore rapping at thy conscience day after day and moneth after moneth telling thee that yet thou art without Christ that yet thou never hadst any true faith in the Lord Jesus that yet thou hast not truly repented and turned from thy sins this will at last drive thy soul into heavy discouragements if not into final despaire O beloved religion and piety and the power of Godlinesse goe down the wind every where What is the reason of it but because of these discouragements that men live and go on in Men pray and pray and their prayers profit them not men run up and down and come to the Church and heare the Word and receive the Sacraments and use the meanes of grace but to no end they are unprofitable to them they remaine in their sinnes still the ordinances of God bring them not out of their lusts and corruptions hereby they disgrace and discredit the ordinances of God in the eyes and account of the men of the world making them think as if there were no more power nor force in the Ordinances of God than these men manifest There is no life in many Christians mens spirits are discouraged these secret discouragements in their hearts take away their spirits in the use of the meanes that though they use the meanes yet it drives them to despaire of reaping good or profit by them Beloved I could here tell you enough to make your hearts ake to hear it First All your complaints they are but winde Job 6. 26. Doe you imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as winde Jobs friends taking Job to be a man of despaire they accounted all his words but as wind Doe thou nestle any discouragement in thy heart thou maist complaine of sinne as much as thou canst yet all thy complainings are but as winde thou mayest cry out against thy corruptions with weeping and teares and pray and fight against them and yet all thy weeping mourning and praying is but as the winde thou maiest beg grace thou maiest seek after God thou maist heare the Word receive the Sacraments and yet all will be to thee as wind all will vanish be unprofitable not regarded Secondly discouragements drive us from the use of the meanes If ever we meane to come out of our sinnes if ever we meane to get grace and faith and assurance and zeale we must constantly use the meanes 1 Sam. 27. 1. David saith There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the Land of the Philistins and Saul shall despaire of me to seek me any more David thought in himself if I can make him out of hope of finding me certainly he will give over seeking of me So when the soule hath any secret despaire of finding the Lord that soul will quickly be drawn from seeking of the Lord in the use of the meanes What ever you doe then O be not discouraged lest you be driven from the use of the meanes if you be driven from the use of the meanes woe is to you you will never finde God then Be not driven from prayer nor driven from holy conference nor driven for the Word nor driven from the Sacrament nor from meditation nor from the diligent and strict examination of thy selfe of thy heart and of all thy wayes for these are the wayes of finding the Lord. If you nourish any thoughts and fears of despaire in you if you be discouraged you will be driven from the use of the meanes which is a lamentable thing therefore be not discouraged Thirdly discouragements will make you stand poaring on your former courses This I should have done and that I should have done woe is me that I did it not it will make a man stand poaring on his sinnes but never able to get out of them So it was like to be with them in the Ship with Paul Acts 27. 20. In the tempest at Sea they were utterly discouraged from any hope of safety now indeed Paul told them what they should have done if they had been wise Sirs you should have hearkned to me and not have loosed verse 21. as if he had said you should have done thus and thus but now doe not stand poaring too much on that you should have hearkned to me and not have launched forth c but that cannot be holpen now therefore I exhort you to be of good chear c. So beloved when the soul is discouraged upon these thoughts I should have prayed better I should have heard the Word of God better and with more profit I should have repented better I should have performed this and that religious and good dutie better but ah wretch that I am I have sinned thus and thus it is alwayes looking on this sinne and that sinne this imperfection and that failing when now I say the soule is discouraged it will be alwayes poaring upon sinne but it will never come out of its sinne alwayes poaring upon its deadnesse and unprofitablenesse but never able to come out of it O beloved be of good cheare and be not discouraged it is true you should have prayed better you should have heard the word of God better heretofore you should have been more carefull and circumspect of your wayes than you
and hearken O earth Secondly the groans of the creatures are witnessing groanes I call heaven and earth to record against you know that you shall shortly perish said Moses to the Israelites Deut. 4. 26. So beloved let me say to you I call heaven and earth to record against you that woe and damnation shall be to that man that obeys not the commandments of God Cursed be that man that goeth on still in his wickednesse The heavens write his curse and the whole earth do witness his vengeance that will not give over his lust at the commandment of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ As Joshuah said unto all the people Josh 24. 27. Behold this stone shall be a witnesse unto us for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us it shall be a witnesse c. so may I say unto you the walls of this house shall cry the timber of the Church shall answer this Sermon that you have heard this doctrine that hath been preached unto you if you will not repent if you will not humble your selves and obey the voyce of your God all these shall witnesse against you another day that you had a time that you had a day to repent in you had the word of God calling you to it but you would not Dost thou commit a sinne and none by but the stones in the streets even they see thee like Joshuah's stone with seven eyes and they shall witnesse against thee Dost thou pray thy lazie prayers unto God thoughtlesse of God and none by but the walls of thy Closet or thy bed or thy hangings they shall witnesse against thee Dost thou swear and blaspheme the King of Heaven though none were present but the fowles of the aire they shall carry thy voyce and declare the matter Eccles 10. 20. If the creatures groan against thee then they are sensible in some sort to witnesse against thee Beloved mens hearts are so stubborne that we the Ministers of God may do as the Prophet did 1 King 13. 2. who cried O Altar Altar thus saith the Lord. What was the Prophet sent unto the Altar had the Altar eares No he was sent unto Jeroboam his message was to him but he knew that he would not hear nor believe nor obey therefore he turned from the King and spake to the sencelesse Altar So may we say for all the hearing some will afford us O walls walls thus saith the Lord cursed is the man that obeyeth not O House of the Lord witnesse against this rebellious generation So Jeremy he cried out O earth earth earth hear the Word of the Lord this saith the Lord write this man a cast-away that shall never prosper Jer. 22. 29. he meant wicked Jeconiah the King but because he was a deaf Adder he preacheth to the dead earth as being more likely to listen than he O fearfull doom When Jeconiah will not hear God he roars so loud that he makes the dead and sencelesse earth to hear Beloved in the fear of God take heed if there be any dead worldly-hearted Professor here if there be any loose prophane sinner here any impenitent wretch that hath not repented if after the Lord hath sent his Ministers to thee his Word and Gospell to thee and thou wilt not hear take heed lest the Lord direct his speech to the dead earth and say O earth earth earth hear the Word of the Lord write these men men that shall never prosper they will still covet and lie they will still fret and chafe they will still content themselves with forms of godlinesse they will still be lukewarm or key-cold they do still pray as they did rub on as they did seven years ago no more holy no more zealous no more heavenly they will not be bettered O earth earth earth hear the Word of the Lord write them a people that shall never prosper a people that shall never be converted write them men damned for ever let them come and hear Sermon after Sermon but write them men that shall never prosper let them pray and let their prayers never prosper let them go on in their dead-hearted profession but write them men that shall never prosper Beloved God forbid that it should so be written against you but woe be to you if ever it be for if once the earth hath wrote this eternall decree of God upon thy soule it can never be altered I will warrant thee thy damnation sure Thirdly they are accusing groanes they shall accuse thee for casting thine eye upon a creature without taking notice of God They shall accuse thee for thy touching tasting handling using any of the creatures without adoration of God Dost thou think of a creature speak of a creature meddle with a creature or take possession of a creature they shall accuse thee if thou dost not live to the glory of God the Creator Fourthly these groans are judging and condemning groans He shall call the Heavens above and the earth to judge his people Psal 50. 4. The creatures groan why then dost thou not groan the creatures account themselves oppressed and fore afflicted because they are constrained to serve sinne why then dost thou injure them If the King should build him a stately Palace and one should willingly deface it or abuse it or pull it down would not the very Ravens judge him a Traytor The creatures are Gods Palace and thou demolishest their beauty by making them the instruments or abettors or matter or incentives of sinne thou shalt be adjudged of High treason against the King of Kings for we know that every creature groaneth with us and travelleth in pain together untill now Now we come to a third use Of Exhortation doth the creature groan to serve sinne take heed then you do not abuse the creatures of God There is not any one of them but if it be abused to sin or by sin but it will presently make its complaint like a little child to his Father with groans unto God Labour to be a true Convert unto God otherwise if thou beest not regenerate and a Convert every creature that thou hast is in bondage under thy hands and it groans unto God against thee till God recover it out of thy hands again I will recover my wooll and my flaxe saith God Hosea 2. 9. the creature groaned under thraldome because it was possessed by them that were carnall and therefore God sayes he would recover it Secondly labour not to sinne against God For if thou sinnest against God thou canst not meet with a creature but it groanth against thee When Jonah had sinned against God the Sea roared against Jonah and he at last knew it well enough for when the Marriners askt what he was I am an Hebrew saith he and I fear God the God of Heaven which hath made the Sea and the dry Land Ionah 1. 9. as if he should say I fear the Lord for now I see
the poor saith the text of him he went away sorrowfull as if he should say he was sorry that there was any such truth in the Scripture he would have been glad that there had been no such text in the word of God The Prophets prophesie falsely and my people love to have it so Jer. 5. 31. they hated to have it so as the word would have it But when the false Prophets told them it was otherwise O they loved that Beloved the men of the world would be glad that God would make another Bible that drunkards and whoremasters might be saved another Bible that earthwormes and worldlings and proud persons might be saved If God would raine down a new Bible another Bible I feare there are many thousands among us that now say they love the Bible yet would love to heare of it and come from all places to seek after it after another Bible that would shew the way to heaven a little wider men are loth to heare of so much holinesse so much precisenesse they love not to be beaten on that string a signe that they hate it Can a man that is nothing but flesh and bloud love the text of Saint Paul that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdome of God 1 Cor. 15. 50 Can an old filthy sinner love that text of Isaiah An old sinner though he be an hundred years old shall be accursed I saiah 65. 20 Can a Usurer love the 15. Psalme Can a luke warmling love Rev 3. 16 no he would be glad there were no such truth in the word and therefore he hates it Rom. 8. 7. A wicked man is such an enemy to the word that all the Ministers in England cannot reconcile him to it Secondly wicked men hate the word because they doe hate the nature of the word If men did love the word of God they would will what the word of God wills and nill what the word of God nills It is a good proverbe amongst us It is the property of lovers to will and nill the same things If men did love the word then look what the word saith they would doe what the word commands them they would obey If men did love the word they would comform their hearts and lives to the rules of the word But the carnall mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. A wicked man hates the law of God why the heart of a wicked man conceives the word of God to be against him he cannot think a thought but the word is against it he cannot speake a word but the word of God is against it he cannot pray his dead-hearted prayers but the word of God is against him c. And as the word of God is against him so his heart is against the word he is of one mind the word of another he is of one minde and the word of the cleane contrary mind against him Lastly as a wicked man hates the being of the word and the nature of the word in it selfe so he hates the being of it in his understanding he cannot abide the knowledge of the word therefore they say unto God depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes Job 21. 14. A wicked man would faine keep this and that lust he is loth to depart with his old corruptions his old sinnes he hath lived in them so long that he is loth to part with his old friends he would faine goe on in his lust and therefore he hates the knowledge of the word that would strippe him of his lust saith Aquinas Now he cannot be free for his sinnes and be curbed by the knowledge of the word I will tell you once it was my hap to preach a Sermon two or three hundred miles from this place and when Sermon was done I heard a man say O what a beast was I to come to this Sermon what a beast was I to come to it When the word of God comes to men and tells them that their state is damnable if they live in their sins when the word of God comes to the heart many are sorry that they ever heard the word of God that ever the word made such â—â—hing known to them The drunkard the wanton the Usurer and the worldling how glad would they be that the Minister could prove by the word of God that these sins were lawful that usury were lawful that covetousnesse were lawful c. But when the word goes flat against them then they cannot endure that word why their conscience begins to pen them in it puts their hearts in the stocks as it were they cannot have freedome in the pursuite of their lusts and sinnes an evident signe that men hate the word Austin saith of a wicked man He loves the truth shing but he hates the truth reproving As much of the word as you will to make him skillfull in knowing but he hates the word every dramme of it checking and rebuking girding and controuling him for his sins Beloved what is all our preaching doth it not shew that men hate the word need any goe to the field and exhort the Husbandman to plough and sow his ground need we goe to your houses to perswade men to feed to eate and drink and to cloath themselves need we goe to the Alehouse and perswade the drunkard to drink the swearer to sweare the gamester to play no men love their backes and their bellies men love their profits and their pleasures men love their lusts and sinnes But they must be exhorted and intreated and commanded to obey and to love the word of God and all little enough Hence then is a reproofe to all the wicked amongst us O beloved it is too true that abundance of us doe hate the light Did we not hate the light we would have shaken all our hands of our sinnes sheere ere now did we not hate the light we would have crucified our anger and our wrath and our pride ere now we would have subdued our security and our selfe-love and our lukewarmnesse in good duties did we not hate the light we had all been children of the light ere now Plato saith He loves that hath a similitude of that he loves but we have not a similitude and a likenesse of the light and therefore we doe not love it Beloved let me come a little neerer and convince all that heare me of this point They must needs be said to hate one another whom no intreaties nor beseeches can possâ—ibly reconcile That is irreconcileable hatred which cannot be taken off by all the intreaties of the world Herâ—d hated Tyrus and Sidon but his hatred was taken off by Blastus his intreatie Acts. 12. 20. but that hatred is irreconcileable hatred that no intreaties can take off Oh how often have Gods Ministers intreated you and beseeched you to give over your sinnes and yet you will not how often
contented that God should doe with thee what he will and submit thy selfe to God in the hardest blows and say Good Lord if thou seest no remedy to purge this land and Church but by desolation and the removing of the Gospell good Lord doe what thou wilt if thou wilt have my liberty take it if thou wilt have my children spoiled by the enemy and pitched upon speares points doe it Lord if there be no remedy to purge a sinfull land but by taking the Gospell out of it even I Lord submit my selfe unto it good Lord sacrifice us or burne our Cities doe what thou wilt with us onely save our soules at the last I have knowne some could have no quietnesse at all till they came to this pitch and then they had peace in their minds When Isaac saw that he was to be bound then he yeelded to it and our Lord Christ did this in the garden when he did bear the wrath of God then he said if it be possible let this cuppe passe from me and this he did three times yet not my will but thy will be done if thou wilt have me to drinke of the cuppe I will suck off the dregges and all Also come and lay thy head upon the block and let God doe what he will with thee Ezek. 20. 43. They shall loath themselves for all their abominations and this is the practise of an humble soule and this will bear through all Thirdly pray and cry mightily to God before thou dyest even all the time thou hast to live for mercie and for the peace of the Church of God and for the poor people and posterity Esay 62. 16. I have set watchmen upon the walles of Hirusālem that never hold their peace day nor night You that make profession of the Lord keep not silence let not God rest till he helpe and shew mercy unto our poore land wives and children I am perswaded if dumbe Zachary were here he would open his mouth to pray and crie for this miserable land But alas poor soules many of you are so bound in the chaines of your sinnes that you cannot finde any leisure to pray you save your prayers and teares till you come to hell and then they will doe you no good Oh thy Mother lies a dying and wilt thou not mourne for her O dead and drie-hearted wretches me thinkes the poor Church of England is like the shippe of Jonas and he fast asleep in it the Gospell and all are drawing into a sea of troubles and thou poor wretch art asleepe and canst not pray The Church is like a sick man upon his bed and the Parliament is like a Colledge full of Physitians they cast the state of the Kingdome and then give it over for lost The Lord knows how soon the bell may ring out and yet thou canst not pray nor weep Ah the Lord be mercifull to the hardnesse of our hearts Hast thou but one rear in thine eyes but one prayer in thy heart then spend them now for the poore Church of God Make all sound within and get sound faith in the bloud of Jesus Christ that may support and hold you up as the Ark did Noah in the floud O my dear people of this Parish a fearefull floud is come upon this land therefore make you an Arke of Gopher and pitch it within and without get in it hang not about it but get into your Lord Christ and shut up your selves in him as Noah did in the Arke and never come out This is your safegard if you be in him you shall be supported against all troubles and so shall the case go well with you For as the Prophet said to Ahab High thee hence for here is a sound of much rain and there came a shour indeed So say I high you away to Christ for it may be you shall not hear many Sermons more there is a sound of many punishments and stormes falling downe upon us O thrice happy are we that have Christ upon good termes and good grounds if a floud come it doth me good to see how safe I am for the higher troubles arise the higher the Arke will arise and the higher your faith and comfort will arise and you shall sit like Noah in the Cabin Isai 26. 20. Come my people and enter into the chamber and shut the doores about thee and hide your selves as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast What would Noah have been hired to come out of the Arke no by no meanes nothing would have got him out I may even pitty you my people that have no Faith What will you doe and whither will you flie all you that have not gotten into the Arke and have not made sure worke if the floud should come to morrow you must certainly be drowned If you look to God he is your Enemy if you look within there your consciences dogge you and if thou lookest for comfort to the Minister there is none for thee in all Gods word if thou hang on a Minister he must say as Samuel said to Saul since the Lord hath forsaken thee I can doe thee no good Oh thinke on this and get all thy friends into the Arke with thee as Noah did Let me begge this at your hands get a poor husband into the Ark with thee with thy poor children and shut them all up into the Arke with thee Would it not grieve thee when thou sittest in the Arke to see a poore husband or a child drowning in the floud and going to Hell For the Lords sake O my deere Brethren spare no paines to doe them good Fifthly and lastly get a more strong faith then ordinary deep dangers must have a stronger Faith a man cannot row upon the maine ocean in a paire of scullers but he must have a good ship well ballasted and a good Pilot so doe you think to row upon the maine ocean of Gods wrath in a paire of scullers therefore labour to strengthen your Faith and to get a good ship wel pitcht and ballasted and substantia'l Faith for the wind will trie it whether it be so or not a Summers dublet will not serve the turne in a winters srost so a little strength and comfort will not serve the turne in the storms that are coming on us but we must get winter garments the East wind will try a mans clothes Though a weak Faith may carry thee to Heaven yet not with so much comfort as a stronger especially if it be but a little before the downfall of the Pope for then there will be the greatest combustions that ever was or ever shall be and by all likelihoods the time is now at hand Then thy Faith had need to be greater then ever it was As the Angell said to the Prophet up and eat for thou hast a great journey to goe so say I to thee thou fainting soule make a good meale of Faith strengthen thy Faith upon the
particulars I will bring two or three arguments to prove it that it is so 1. You shall find that Hypocrisie in these Ordinances doth spoile all upon these two or three grounds The first is this Because all this falsenesse and hypocrisie is directly against the nature of God you have a strange passage to this purpose Mat. 6. 5. And when thou prayest be not as the Hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the Sinagoues c. verily I say they have their reward what is that what is the reward of a false hypocritical praier he hath his praier that is all his work for his work a day of fasting for a day of fasting that is all a poor reward It too often falls out that amongst your children you have one that is a spend-all a riotous person Now when the father comes to make his will he gives to each of his obedient children such a portion as he is able but when this his leud sonne comes to be named what saith he to him I have given thee so much and so much time after time thou hast spent all I have now only a shilling for thee and that not out of any love neither but to stop thy mouth from troubling thy brethren for any more so we come to fasting and praier well saith God you shall have your reward I will give you twelve pence you have bin false and vile with that mercy that you have had therefore look for no more And thus when the Hypocrite comes to see what he hath got by all his duties it will be just nothing this is the point that I meane I will prove it in three perticulers that falseness and hypocrisie in duty takes away the life of the duty First because hypocrisy here is directly in opposition to the nature of God and therefore the Lord cannot possibly accept of it I doe not care for them saith the Lord I will none of their services they are directly against my Name Jehovah is Gods nature which hath a being hypocrisie hath no being nothing in it therefore no being In your praier you tell God you sin you meane not to leave it and what tell you me of such a kinde of prayer it is a picture of a prayer and no prayer a picture of a man as we say and no man I beseech you to consider it all praiers that are made in this way they are nothing see a passage Mat. 15. 8. saith God this people draw neere to me with their lips but their heart is far from me therefore he saith 9. verse But in vaine they worship me it is all to no purpose there is an emptinesse in all this a poor ignorant creature may run to Church with the Pharisee and fall down upon his knees and babble over his prayers and all this coms to nothing for I say all traditionall worship is against the nature of God hence nothing so all Idoll worship is nothing God is a being Jehovah Idoll worship hath no being therefore nothing you shall not see more cost and bodily labour more ceremonies and specious shew in any religion under the sun then in Rome yet all this nothing because outside seruice a little fire wil quickly consume all this Now if you come before God this day and doe not bring your heart in a fit temper according to the rule of Gods word if you mean not to be in earnest with the Minister in sealing up your soules in the Covenant of grace all will prove to be nothing you shall have breath for breath you will doe no good to distressed England reformation shall not be one inch furthered by this dayes work of your fastings and prayer Secondly Hypocrisy takes away the life of the duty upon a second ground because from hence the Ordinance of God this very Ordinance we are now about gaines an heavy blow therefore certainly it will lose the life and comfort of it by hypocrisie as thus First from hence it comes to passe that Ordinances used or rather abused give occasion to the enemies of God to open their mouthes and speake basely of these Ordinances as if they had nothing in them the Ordinances themselves suffer much in this they can say they are frequent in these duties such and such keep whole dayes of fasting and prayer day after day and yet returne again to their sinfull courses as bad drunkards and thiefes the next day as ever hence say the Papists and prophane persons these are the fasters what amendment see you in them and hence they conclude what should weeping fasting and prayer doe God regards them not they have nothing in them noe benefit comes by them people are not converted that use them they are as ignorant as they were no change wrought upon their spirits Thus the Ordinance is sleighted Secondly Hypocrites doe pervert the Ordinance for they use it to a wrong end They take up fasting and prayer to get further leave to sin to grow stronger in their corruptions to morrow hypocrites are strengthened in sin by the Ordinances Thirdly because the heart of a man in the duty is the heart of the duty your hearts are the heart of the duty therefore the Lord requires such a kinde of heart of his servants at the time of duty as is agreeable to the duty now hypocrisy takes the heart off from the duty therefore the duty cannot be accepted Now I doubt there is many a poor unprepared heart before God this day you doe not mean to bring your sinne to the duty but the duty to your sinne you doe not meane to leave your uncle an practises and evill courses if it be so marke what I say the duty is gone the day is lost for the very heart and spirit of the duty lyeth here the Minister he labours prayes and preaches you may weepe mourne and lament yet if the heart be not in the duty all is nothing but as a dead carkasse without a Spirit The Use will be a word of reproofe for I say falsenesse and hypocricy takes away the life of the duty 3. Arguments you have had to prove it Now for reprehension it wil reprove us for all those ayrie duties and outside services we doe performe many come to a duty and leave their hearts in their Chests amongst their Treasure many come in discontent and strife they resolve for all this I will when conveniently I may give my brother a private wound This now lets out the very heart bloud of the duty I doe confidently beleeve if all the people of the Nation could but keep this day of fasting and praier sincerely from the heart you should quickly see the Angel stopped the sword sheathed and the Nation healed Now to reprove you of your hypocrisie I wil shew you the saplessenesse of such duties in these particulars First remember this and consider in the name of God in what a lamentable case that man will be that looseth all the
benefit of this duty I have known a man that hath bought a ship fraughted it for a great voyage laid out all his stock upon it gone out to Sea dasht it against a Rock and lost all and come home a begger daies of fasting and praier are as ships that we put all our stock and treasure in mark this if they come home empty again if they bring noe mercies nor blessings with them you are undon you had need to get a breif to be gathered for in the parish and all wil be too little to get you up again when you come to enter into covenant with God will you deal deceitfully what ship-wrack do you hereby make of your consciences have ye abused many heavenly opertunities and will you doe this also all the congregations under heaven will not be able to raise your wants be not deceived saith the Apostle What a man sowes that he shall reape so what you sowe in these duties that and no other fruit you shall reape The second thing is this a word of information to informe us how to fast aright First I will informe you of the reasons of it consider this if your soul be not bettered your family not amended the Countrey not reformed superstition not abated the persecuted Church of Christ not releived I will give you the reason I am afraid the hearts of men are not fitted for this great work I doubt that many of the great men of the Nation doe not sightly understand it Ministers are not rightly qualified for it Congregations are not throughly humbled If you heare that things doe miscarry in the Palatinate that things grow worse and worse that the plague encreaseth then remember there was hypocricy in the duties and so you loose the benefit of this day therefore if hypocrisy takes away the life and benfit of the duty then look well to your selves and look well what you doe this day look well what you goe about that so you may enter upon the duty as you should Consider of it for the Lords sake be true to God and your own hearts you know not the danger of a day of fasting ill spent which that you may avoide I will give you some motives and rules Take this for a motive consider your selves upon your death beds It is a sad thing that I shall tell you is it not fearfull to consider that when you are in great distractions full of various thoughts those things that are brought for Cordialls and comforts to your deserted soules should prove troublesome and heart-breakings unto you A man upon his death-bed sends for a Minister he comes unto him and finds him in sad dist empers crying No God no Christ no mercy no comfort what will become of me I know not what to doe why man what is the matter you that have fasted and prayed and been frequent in these duties you that have kept the sabbath regarded Gods people releived the poor there is no man in the Town can pray like you you can make a praier of two houers long what do you think there is no mercy in God no pitty in Christ Oh saith he this is my bane my fasting and praying is the cause of my woe for I have but mocked God in all this I have seen sad experience upon a poor soules heart of this prayer and fasting rightly observed is a flame of all other duties all other are but one duty but a flame of all duties are in this fire Now when a man shall see the grave open the wife stand weeping the child sighing when his eyes grow dimme his lips pale now for him to say I have had a by-respect in all my duties that I have performed I have been a deceitfull man in my trade c. what tell you me of fasting and duties I have fasted my soule to hell and there I shall feele the sad consequence of my hypocrisie Consider of this ye that will pray and cheat pray and be drunk ye that to morrow will goe to a stage play Is this your fasting and praying when you are in hell then it will come to your minde how you have fasted away your God your Christ how you have sleighted these this will make a man teare his flesh from his bones his should move us to be serious in this duty we are now about Take an other Motive and it is this Bring what ever you will to God and bring not this all is nothing and all the services you can performe without this are nothing if you doe not bring a heart sprinkled with the bloud of Christ a sincere honest heart all else will be but dung bring all parts and duties you cannot so much as pray aright without sincerity doe you remember what Simeon said to his father Jacob pray you let Benjamin goe down no I will not take money and Cammels and what else you will but Benjamin shall not goe but saith he unlesse Benjamin goe I will not because else I shall be taken for a spie Soe when ever thou goest to pray to God be sure thou take Bemjamin with thee thou maist carrie all thy parts and duties unlesse Benjamin goe it will not doe Now by Benjamin I meane sincerity you may spend teares about the duty in hand varnish over the duty as much as you can all the eloquent tongues of greatest Orators will not be heard nay if all the Angels in heaven should bring teares and bloud for our deliverance all this will be nothing unlesse we have an honest sincere heart a faithfull heart in which there is no guile a man that hath an honest heart when he confesseth sin it is with a purpose to leave it he doth not confesse and sin sin and confesse but he is in good earnest which that you may doe take a rule or two First Ye that are come to seek God this day study whether the work of this dayspring from living principles or no. There be painted Flowers doe not smell but take Flowers out of a garden and they smell by reason of their sweet principles so there be painted duties which smell not sweet in the nostrels of God therefore consider are your duties sincere doe they smell have ye not only an artificiall weeping like those women in Jeremy that could weep when they would But doe ye weep from your hearts you know painted food it satisfies not study to find out that your duties come from a living principle and not by art labour to have it spring from the blood of the Covenant and thereupon thou goest to duty I could tell you of many deceits one is in the affections what is Christ come to town miracles wrought well I will goe see it and all this while he hath only a little oyle in the Lamp none in the Vessel Oyle in the Lamp I understand to be some smaller work of Gods spirit some outward principle Oyle in the Vessel I understand to be some inward principle that