to the Church that we can do God no longer service and so a man may desire to live still and be afraid of death if he look upon death in the glasse of nature and in the glasse of the Law likewise that it comes in as a punishment of sin so indeed it is terrible it is the King of fears But look upon it in another glass in the glass of the Gospel as it is sweetned and as it is disarmed by Christ and so it is comfortable Better is the day of death then the day of birth for in our birth we come into miserie in death we go from it So upon diverse considerations we may be diversly affected and have diverse rspects to things for the soul of man is framed so to be carried to the present object and therefore to a good man in some respects at sometime death is terrible he trembles at it which upon higher considerations and respects he imbraceth willingly Indeed it is a signe of a wise man to value life it is the opportunitie and advantage to honour God After death we are receivers and not doers then we receive our wages but while we are here we should desire even for the glory that is reserved for us to do all the good we can because the time of life is that blessed advantage of doing good and of taking good It is to be in heaven before our time to do others good and to get evidence of heaven for our selves This is the second thing that as Gods children are suffered to fall into extream dangers so they are very sensible of them especially in matter of death which is the last enemie there the Devil sets upon them indeed he knows that that is the last enemy and that there he must get all or lose all and he labours to make death more terrible then it is or should be The way not to fear death and not to let nature have over-much scope is to disarm death before hand to pluck out the sting of it by repentance weaken it before hand that it may not get the better Even as we doe with our enemies the way to overcome them is to weaken them to weaken their Forces to starve them if we can to intercept all their provision What makes death terrible and strong we put stings into it our sins our sins against conscience the time will come when conscience will awaken and it will be then if ever to our comfort and then our former sins will stare in our faces the sins of our youth the sins that we have before neglected soundly to repent for therefore let us labour this way to make death less terrible Again That we may not fear it over-much let us look upon it in the glasse of the Gospel as it is now in Christ as it is turned cleane another way Now it hath sweet names it is called a dissolution a departure a sleeping a going to our Fathers and such like God doth sweeten a bitter thing that it may enter into us with lesse terrour so it must be our wisdom to sweeten the meditation of it by Evangelicall considerations what it is now by Christ. And withall to meditate the two termes from whence and whither what a blessed change it is if we be in Christ it is a change for the better better company better imployment a better place all better Who would be grieved at and afraid of death Let us recal the promise of the presence of God he wil be with us to death and in death Blessed are those that die in the Lord. And especially faith in Christ wil make us that we shal not fear death when we shall see him our head in heaven before us ready to receive us when we come there and to see our selves in heaven already in him as verily in faith and in the promise as if we were there We are set in heavenly places with Christ already Let us have these and such like considerations to sweeten the thought of death But to touch this which is an Appendix to that formerly mentioned that Gods children are deceived concerning their death oft-times The time of death is uncertain St. Paul thought he should have dyed when he did not he was deceived There is a double errour about death sometimes we think we shall not dye when indeed we are dead men sometimes we receive the sentence of death we passe a censure upon our selves that we cannot live when God intends our escape so it is uncertain to us the houre of death sometime we are uncertain when it is certain sometime we think it certain when it falls not out so both wayes we are deceived Because God will have us while we live here to be at an uncertaintie for the very moment of death Our times are in his hand Our time of life is in his hand we came into the world when he thought good our time of living here is in his hands we live just as long as he will have us our time of death is in his hand The Prophet saith not only my time is in thy hands but my times my time of comming into the world my time of living in the world and my time of going out of the world shall be when thou shalt appoint me therefore he will have us uncertain of it our selves till the moment of death come St. Paul was deceived He received the sentence of death in himself but he dyed not at that time So that the manner and circumstances of death are uncertain whether it shall be violent or faire death it shall beby diseases or by casualties whether at home or abroad all the circumstances of death are hidden from us as well as death it selfe and the time of it And this is out of heavenly wisdome and love of God to us that we should at all times be provided and prepared for our dissolution change It is left at this uncertainty that we might make our estate certaine to be fitted to die at all times Let us make that use of it to provide every day oh it were a happy thing if we could make every day as it were another life a severall life and passe sentence upon our selves a possible and probable sentence it may be this day may be the last day And let us end every day as we would end our lives how would we end our lives we would end them with repentance for our sins past with commending our souls into the hands of God with resolution purpose to please God in all things with disposing all things wisely in this world Let us end our daies every day so as much as possible may be let us set every thing right let us set the state of our souls in order set all in order as much as may be every day it were a blessed course if we could do so And this is one part one main branch of our corruption wherein it shews it self
it breeds discomfort and is terrible that way Again in death we leave those that cast their care upon us we leave oft times Wives and Children without Husband or Father those that had dependance upon us and this must needs work upon nature upon a right principle of nature indeed the excesse of it is with corruption alway Again in death there is great pain They say Births are with great pangs and so they are Now death is a birth the birth of immortality no wonder then if it have great pangs therefore nature fears it even for the pangs the concomitants that are joyned with it And then in death nature considers the state of the body presently after death that that goodly body that strength and vigour I enjoyed before must now be wormes-meat I must say to the worm Thou art my brother and to corruption Thou art my mother and the like as it is in Job That head that perhaps hath ruled the Common-wealth the place where I lived it must lie level with others and that body that others were inamoured with it must now be so forlorn that the sight of it will not be indured of our best friends Nature considers what the estate will be there that it shall turn to rottenesse ere long that the goodliest persons shall be turned to dust and lie rotting there till the day of the Resurrection Faith and Grace looks higher but because we have nature as long as we are men these and such like respects work upon nature and make death grievous But besides the glasse of nature and these things here in the World look upon it in the Law of God in that glasse and so nature trembles and quarrels at death Death what is it It is the wages of sin it is the end of all comfort and nature cannot see any comfort after that it is beyond nature Nature teacheth us not that there will be a Resurrection of the body nature teacheth not that the soul goes to God here must be a great deal of Grace and a great deal of Faith to convince the soul of this nature teacheth it not Now when besides this the Law of God comes and faith Death came in by sin and sin is the sting of death death is armed with sin and sin comes in with the evidences of Gods anger here unlesse there be Faith and Grace a man is either as Nabal a stone and a fot in death or as Judas and Cain swallowed up with despaire It is impossible for a man that is not a true Christian that is not a good man but that either he shouldbe as a stone or desperate in sicknesse and Death without Grace he must be one of them If he be a wise man he cannot but despair in the hour of Death For is it a matter to be dallied with or to be carried bravely out as your Roman spirits and Atheists think they account it a Glory to die bravely in a stout manner Is it the terrible of terribles so to be put off when all the comforts in this world shall end and all imployments cease when there is eternity before a man and after death hell and eternall damnation of body and soul Are these matters to be slighted it would make a man look about him if a man have not faith and Grace he must eitherr despaire or die like a stone none but a good Christian can carrie himself well in the hour of death nay a good Christian is sensible of death and till he see Gods time is come he labours to avoid it by all meanes as St. Paul doth here But St. Paul had another ground beyond nature to avoid Death He knew himself ordained for the service of the Church therefore he desired to escape that he might serve God a longer time for the good of his Church Are Gods Children sensible of Death and the danger of it and out of a principle of nature and Grace too How then should carnall wretched men look about them that have not made their accounts even with God the report of Death to them should be like the hand-writing upon the wall to Belteshazer it should make their knees beat together and make their countenance pale it should strike them with terrour and like Nabal make their hearts to die as a stone within them But it is a Use of comfort to poore deluded Christians they think alas can my estate be good I am afraid of Death I tremble and quake at the name of Death I cannot endure to hear of it but it most of all affects me to see it therefore I fear I have no Grace in me I fear I have no faith in me Be not discomforted whosoever thou art that sayest so if thou labour to strengthen thy faith and to keep a good conscience for thou mayest do thus out of a principle of nature nature trembles at Death A man may do two things from diverse principles from diverse respects both without sin For example in fasting nature without sin desireth meat or else fasting were not an afflicting of a mans body but Grace that hath another principle and that desires to hold out without sustenance to be afflicted so here is both a desire and not a desire and both good in their kind So a man in the time of sicknesse and death he may by all meanes desire to escape it and tremble at it out of a principle of nature but out of a higher principle he may triumph O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory and they that believe in Christ shall never die We are in heavenly places together with Christ we are as sure of heaven as if we were there So out of such kind of principles we may triumph over Death by Faith and Grace So let none be discouraged nature goes one way and faith and grace another a man may know when it is nature and when it is grace when grace subdues nature and subordinates it to a higher principle a man need not be much troubled Christ himself our head he was afraid of death when he looked on death as death but when he looked upon death as a service as a redemption as a sweet sacrifice to God so with a thirsting I have thirsted saith he he thirsted after death in that respect looking to his humane nature to the truth of his manhood then saith he Oh that this cup might passe from me but in another consideration he willingly gave his soul a sacrifice for sin to God The desire is as the objects are presented let heaven and happinesse be presented so death is a passage to it so death is the end of misery and the beginning of happinesse so Gods Children desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ as St. Paul did But look upon death otherwise as it is an enemy to nature as it is a stop of all imployment in this world and of all service
because men are ready to trample upon and to rase out the writing of conscience but the Book of God they cannot therefore that is added to help conscience And God adds his Spirit to his Word to convince conscience and to make the witnesse of the Word more effectuall for although the Word say thus and thus yet till the Spirit convince the soul and set it down that it is thus till it convince it with a heavenly light conscience will not be fully convict That conscience therefore may be able to witnesse well Let us regard the notions of nature preserve them if we do not God will give us up to grosse sins Let us labour to have right principles and grounds to cherish principles of nature common with the Heathens and to lay up principles out of the Word of God to preserve the admonitions and directions and rules of the Word And especially the sweet motions of Gods blessed Spirit For conscience alway supposeth a rule the rule of nature the rule of the Word and the suggestions of the blessed Spirit with the Word Therefore to note by the way an Ignorant man can never have a good conscience especially a man that affects Ignorance because he hath no rule he labours to have none It is not meerly ignorance but likewise obstinacy with ignorance He will not know what he should lest conscience force him to doe what he knowes What a sottish thing is this It will be the heaviest sin that can be laid ro our charge at the day of judgment not that we were Ignorant but that we refused to know we refused to have our conscience rectified and instructed And those that avoid knowledg because they will not do what they know they shall know one day that their wilful Ignorance will be laid to their charge as a heavy sin Labour to have right principles and grounds What is the reason that commonly men have such bad consciences They have false principles they conclude may I not do what I list may I not make of my own what I will and every man for himself and God for us all diabolicall principles And so commonly if a man examine men that live in wickednesse they have false principles God sees not God regards not and it is time enough to repent The cause that men live wickedly is false principles therefore they have so vile consciences as they have their hearts deceive them and they deceive their hearts They have false principles put into them by others they are deceived and they deceive their hearts they force false principles upon themselves Many study for false grounds to live by for their advantage There are many that are Atheisticall that live even under the Gospell and what rule have they the example of them by whom they hope to rife they study their manners they square their lives by them that is all the rule they have And again the multitude they do as the most do and custom and other false rules These rules will not comfort us to say I did it by such an example I did as others among whom I live did or I did it because it was the custom of the times these things being alledged will comfort nothing For who gave you these rules doth God say any where in his Word you shall be judged by the example of others you shall be judged by the custom of the times you live in No you shall be judged by my Word The Word that Moses spake and the Word that I speak shall judge you at the last day They that have not the Word shall be judged by the Word written in their hearts Those that have sinned without the Law shall be judged by that without the Law of Moses God hath acquainted us with other rules We must take heed of this therefore thatwe get good rules take heed that they be not false rules for the want of these directions men come to have ill consciences Where there is no good rule there is a blind conscience where there is no application of the rule there is a prophane conscience And where there is a false rule there is an erroneous a scrupulous a wicked conscience A Papist because he hath a false rule he cannot have a good conscience The abomination of Popery is that they sin against conscience and conscience indeed is even with them for it overthrowes the most of their principles They sin against conscience many wayes I mean not against their own conscience but they sin against the conscience of others For what do they That they may rule in the consciences of men for that is the end of their great Prelate the Tyrant of souls they have false rules that the Pope cannot erre their rule is the authority and judgement of him that cannot erre and he for the most part is an unlearned man in Divinity that never read over the Scriptures in all his life and he must judge all controversies Where this is granted that the Pope cannot erre he fits in the conscience to do what he list And he makes divine Lawes and cursed is he saith the Councel of Trent that doth not equalize those traditions with the VVord of God From this false rule comes all even rebellion it self If he give dispensation from the oath of Allegiance because he cannot erre therefore they ought to obey him and rebell against their Governours All rebellion is from that rebellious rebellion that comes from false principles These men talk of conscience and they come not to Church for conscience sake what conscience can they have when they have false rules To equivocate and lie sins against nature And other rules that give liberty against the Word that children may disobey their Parents and get into a Cloyster c. The most of Popery though there were no VVord of God it is against nature against conscience which God hath planted in man as his deputy his tenant And as they sin against conscience so as I said conscience is even with them For let a man trust to his conscience and he can never be a sound Papist except he leave that and go upon base false grounds because other great men do it and because his predecessours have done it c. I appeal to their own consciences if any man at the day of death think to be saved by his merits doth not Bellarmine after long dispute of salvation by merits disclaime it doth he not put away merits for the uncertainty of his own righteousnesse So their own consciences do wring away the testimony of trusting to merits Again that Original sin is no great sin it is but the cause of sin and it is lesse then any venial sin Oh but when conscience is awaked to know what a corrupt estate it is it will draw from them that which it drew from Saint Paul Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Conscience when it is awaked
nor regarded him And as you have it in Ezek. 18. I am punished for other folks sins God deales hardly with me and brings the sins of my fathers upon me and The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge God knowes the cankred disposition of man since the fall Satan lyes upon the disposition of man and broods upon it to make it like himself malicious even against God himself God as it were puts himself to his purgation even with no lesse then an oath As I live saith the Lord I will not the death of a sinner You think I am severe to you and men they will rather impute it to Gods severity then their own sin that is the pride of mans nature A sinner is wondrous proud till he cometo destruction it self and the book of conscience be opened Sin will have something to shelter it self with sin is a proud thing God purgeth himself by an oath As I live saith the Lord I will not the death of a sinner If you dye you may thank your own sins though you be so bad if you will repent I will not the death of a sinner but rather that he return and live Yet notwithstanding man to countenance himself in sin he-will fly perhaps to the decree of God God perhaps doth not delight in me whereas the rule of our life is He hath shewed thee O man what is good to do good and abstain from evil and then that question will be out of question whether thou be Gods or no. But man will force upon himself that God doth not regard him that he may sin with more freedom As the unfaithful servant I knew thou wert a hard Master that exactedst that that thou hadst not given and therefore I hid my talent The bad servant forceth upon himself hardnesse in his Master when he was not so that he might be idle So men force upon themselves somewhat in God to be hard Gods dealings to be so and so that they may take more liberty For if God be so loving and so gracious as he hath discovered himself to be their hearts would melt they would never live in such courses but rather put all to the venture then to clamour upon Gods Justice Therefore God himself purgeth himself from a disposition of unkindnesse and unmercifulnesse As I live saith the Lord I will not the death of a sinner fo his whole course is to shew that he loves us And what is our Saviour Christs whole course but to free men from suspition of want of love did he ever turn any back from him but those that went away of themselves did he not shed tears for those that shed his blood so merciful and gracious was he If so be that holy men of all times have laboured to clear themselves to others We ought not to rage against the ill dispositions of men If we were as good as God and as Christ men would have false suspitions of us It is no innocency in the world that will free a man from suspition the wicked poysonful disposition that the Devill stirres up against him Therefore rage not against it but bear it with a spirit of moderation And let us decline as much as we can and free the hearts of people from evil suspition and if we cannot avoid it yet to bear it without discontent considering it is the Lot of Gods childen to be suspected as we see here S. Paul was To spare you I came not to Corinth S. Paul besides his labouring to remove suspition he sets down here the true cause of his not coming to them it was not lightnesse and inconstancy it was to spare you They had many abuses among them and amended they must be that was a conclusion But the question is De modo whether by gentle means by writing an Epistle and staying a while or afterwards by coming and telling them their sin to their face and by being severe and terrible among them Now he concludes I came not among you for this very cause that I might not be so severe and terrible among you as by office I should have been if you had not amended before I came as indeed they did for they cast out the incestuous person and reformed other abuses comfortably They prevented S. Pauls severity with their reformation they had not at the first cast out the incestuous person and they had factions among them they had Atheists among them that doubted of the resurrection many abuses were crept in among them S. Paul wrote a former Epistle upon a desire to reform those and there was a blessed reformation wrought S. Paul did not delight in austerity therefore he deferred his coming that he might have more joy and contentment then sorrow To spare you I came not Before I come to the Points take this for a ground Sin must be judged and censured when it is committed It must be undone by repentance or by eternal punishments in hell it must be censured here or hereafter For it is against Gods nature and Gods Word The soul that sinneth shall dye It must be repented of of necessity or eternally punished in hell Censured it must be one way or other It is of such a contrary nature so opposite to the holinesse of God that is a ground Now this being laid as a ground the question is What is the best way to take away sin whether by gentle means or severe by gentle means if it may be if not then by severe S. Paul would not have spared them if he had come if they had not amended So the Points are two First of all That the best way for the redressing of sin is by gentle means if it may be Secondly if that will not then by severe if men would not have men damned I came not to spare you because I desired that gentler courses might prevail So I say the first Point is this That If gentler courses will prevail they ought especially and in the first place to be taken It should be the care both of Ministers and of all those that deal with others first of all to use mild and winning and gaining courses Now to prove this First they are more suitable to the nature of man for the nature of man is best wrought on by rational courses suitable to his nature suitable to his principle man is a reasonable creature therefore rationall courses will prevail with a rational man a course of perswasion and discovery A man that is not beast-like tell him but the danger of his sin tell him the peril of it in gentle words and he will amend if so be he be not hardened by God to destruction or if God do not reserve him to a more severe redresse Gentle courses ought first to be used because they are agreeable to the nature of man Again they suit most to Gods disposition for God is love and his course to man is
in the Creation and in the Gospel his mercy therefore is above his own workes and above thy workes if thou come in Oyl is of a Kingly nature it swims above all other liquors so the mercy of God like oyl it swims above all other attributes in him and above all sin in thee if thou wilt receive it Father of Mercies In a corrupt estate the special mercy is forgiving mercy if it were not for forgiving mercies all other gifts and mercies were to little purpose for it were but a reserving of us to eternal Judgement but a feeding the Traitor to the day of Execution a giving him the liberty of the priison which is nothing unlesse his Treason be pardoned so the forgiving mercy leads to all the rest Now these forgiving mercies they are unlimitted mercies there is no bounds of them for he being the Father of Christ who is an infinite person and having received an infinite satisfaction from an infinite Person he may well be infinitely merciful and himself is an infinite God his mercies are like himself the satisfaction whereby he may be merciful is infinite hereupon it is that he may pardon and will pardon all sin without limitation if they be never so great never so many This I observe the rather to appease the conscience of a sinner when it is suppressed with terrour and fear of the greatnesse of his sins Consider how God hath set down himself and will be known and apprehended of us not onely as merciful but a Father of mercies and not of one mercy but of all mercies not only giving but forgiving especially Which forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thy infirmities Psal. 103. This I observe against a pronenesse in us to despair we are not now proner in the time of peace to presume then when conscience is awakened to despair we are prone to both alike For here is the poyson of mans corruption Is God so merciful surely I may go on in sin and cry God mercy and there is an end God is merciful nay the Father of mercies Now in the time of peace sin is nothing with us swearing is nothing rotten discourse is nothing going beyond others in our dealing and commerce is nothing getting an estate by fraud and deceit is nothing The bread of deceit is sweet loose licentious libertine life is nothing and those that do not follow the same excesse and are dissolute it is a strange matter with us they are strange people we think it strange that others do not so and if they be better then we it is but hypocrisie men measure all by themselves so all is nothing Great grosse swearing is nothing men glory in it and to make scruple of it it is thus and thus they have terms for it And what is the bawde for all this Oh! God is merciful and Christ he is wonderous merciful he took our nature that he might die for us c. It is true indeed but when the conscience is awakened then the conscience will tell thee another lesson the conscience will set God as just and Satan will help conscience with accusations and aggravations it is true it is too true the conscience will take part with God and with his word it is true thou hast done thus and thus these are thy sins and God is just And especially at the hour of death when earthly comforts fail and there is nothing but sin set before a mans eyes the comforts that are set before him can do him no good then the conscience will hardly receive any comfort especially the conscienconsciences of such as have gone on in a course of sin in spight of good meanes a conscience of such a man as either refuseth or rejects the meanes because it would favour it self in sin or a conscience that being under means having had it sins discovered to it that conscience will hardly admit of any comfort And there is none but they find it another manner of matter then they think it Sin is a blacker thing then they imagine their oathes that they trifle with and their dissolute and their rotten discourse when they should be better affected upon the sabbath and such like therefore we ought to look to it Well to presse this point of presumption a little further now I am in it We are wonderous prone to abuse this mercie to presumption and after to despaire I consider this before hand that however Gods mercy be unlimited as indeed it is in it self it is so unlimited to those that repent and to those that receive and embrace mercy and mercy in one kind as well as another it is so to those that repent of their sins for God is so the Father of Mercie as that He is the God of Vengeance too he is a just God too The conscience will tell you this well enough when the outward comforts that now you dally with and set as Gods in the room of God and drown your selves in sensuality and Idolatry with the creature and put them in the place of God when they are taken away conscience will tell you that God is merciful indeed but he is just to such that refuse mercies Therefore though his mercy be unlimited to such as are broken hearted to such as repent of their sins for he will glorifie his Mercy as he may glorifie his other attributs he is wisely merciful if he should be merciful to such as go on in sin he should not be wisely merciful Who among men if he be wise would be mercifull to a Child or Servant without acknowledgement of the fault Was not David over merciful to Absalom Yes it was his fault yet out of wisdome he would not admit him into his presence till he was humbled for his fault and made intercession though he doted upon him God is infinitely wise as he is Merciful therefore He will not be Merciful to him that goes on in wickednesse and sin This cannot be too often pressed for the most of the auditors wheresoever we speak the Divel hath them in this snare that God is merciful c. and doth he not know how to use it He is so indeed but it is to repentant souls that mean to break off their course of sin Otherwise if the Mercie of God work the other way hearken to thy doom He that blesseth himself saith God by Moses Denteronomy 29. 16 saith these curses shall not come to me he that blesseth himself and saith Oh all shall be well God is Mercifull c. My wrath shall smoak against him and I will not be merciful to him that goes on in his sins God will wound the hairie scalp of him that goes on in Sin As the Apostle saith Romans 2. he that abuseth the bountie and patience of God that should lead him to repentance he treasureth up wrath against the day of wrath The Scripture is never in any case more terrible then this way In
subjects of mercy that are the nearest to mercy when their conscience is awakned they think themselves furthest off and we have need to presse abundance of mercy and all little enough to set the soul in frame There is none of us all but we shall see a necessity of pressing this one time or other before we die David when he had sinned he knew well enough that God was merciful oh but it was not a slight mercy that would satisfie him as we see Psal. 51. how he presseth upon God for mercy and will a little serve him No according to thy abundant mercy he presseth mercy and abundance of mercy a multitude of mercies and unlesse he had seen infinite mercy abundant mercy in God when his conscience was awaked with the foulness of his sin there being such a crie for vengeance his sinne called and cried if the blood of Christ had not cried above it mercie mercie and abundance of mercy multitudes of compassion the soule of David would not have been stilled So other Saints of God when they have considered the foulnesse of sin how odious it is to God they could not be quieted and comforted but that they saw mercie and abundance of mercie As the Apostle St. Peter saith 1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who of his abundant mercie hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ to an inheritance immortall c. God is the Father of mercies For faith will not have sufficient footing but in infinite mercy in the time of despaire in the time of torment of conscience in the time of desertion it must be mercie and the Father of mercies and multitudes of compassions and bowels of love and all little enough for faith to fix on the faith of a conscience on the rack but when faith considers of God set out not as Satan sets him forth a God of vengeance a consuming fire when faith considers God pictured out in the Gospel it sees him the Father of Christ and our Father and the Father of mercies and God of comfort faith seeing infinite mercy in an infinite God and seeing mercy triumph against Justice and all other attributes here faith hath some footing and staies it selfe or else the converted sanctified soul seeing the odiousnesse of sinne and the clamorousness of sinne such that it will not be satisfied but with abundant mercy and God must be presented to it as a father of mercie and compassion before it can have peace Therefore if so be at any time our conscience be awakened and the Devill layes hard to us let us think of God as he hath made himself knowne in his Word as a Father of mercies and God of comfort represent him to our soules as he represents himself in his Word Times of desertion when we seeme to be forsaken of God will enforce this times of desertion will come when the soul will think God hath forgotten to be merciful and hath shut up his love in displeasure oh no he is the Father of mercie he never shuts up his bowels altogether he never stops the spring of his mercie He doth to our feeling but it is his mercie that he doth that it is his mercie that he hinders the sence of mercy he doth that in mercy it is to make us more capable of mercie afterward Therefore saith the Father when he comes to us in his love and the sence of it it is for our good and when he takes the sence of his love from us it is for our good for when he takes away the sence of his love from us it is to enlarge our soules to be more capable of mercie after to prize it more to walk warily and jealously to look to our corruptions better Therefore in the time of desertion think of this when God seemes to forget us Can a Mother forget her Child Isa. 49. 15. Suppose she should be so unnatural as to do it which can hardly be believed that a Mother should forget her child Yet notwithstanding I will not forget you you are written upon the palmes of my hands that is I have you alway in my eye So that if there were no mercies to be found in nature no bowels to be found in a Mother where usually they are most abundant yet notwithstanding there is mercie to be found in the Father of Mercies still Therefore in such times let us make use of this And another thing that we ought to learne hence is this if God be so in Christ Jesus for we must alway put that in for he is mercifull with satisfaction and yet it is his mercie that he would admit of satisfaction his mercy devised a way to content justice his mercy set all on work mercy is above justice in the work of Salvation justice hath received contentment from mercy but that by the way to make us have higher thoughts of mercy then any other attribute of God in the Doctrine of the Gospel in that Kingdom of Christ it is a Kingdom of Grace and mercy if we have hearts to imbrace it Let this incourage us to come to God and to cast our selves into the arms of this merciful Father If we have lived in other courses before let the mercy of God work upon our souls In Rom. 2. it is pressed there excellently This mercy of God should lead us to repentance it should encourage us What makes a Thief or a Traitor come in when there is proclamation out against him If there be a pardon sent after him it makes him come in or else he runs out still further and further while the hue and cry pursues him but hope of mercy and pardon will bring him in again So it is that that brings us in again to God the very hope of mercy and pardon if we be never so ill or have been never so ill do not put off but take this day now Now is the time now while it is called to day take the present time Here is our error if God be the Father of mercy I will cry him mercy at the hour of death I thou maiest go to hell with mercy in thy mouth he is merciful to those that truly repent but how dost thou know that thy repentance on thy death-bed will be true It is not sorrow for sicknesse and grief for death and fear of that but there must be a hatred of sin and how shall conscience tell thee now thou hast repented that it is a hating of thy sinful courses rather then the fear of damnation that is rather from the sence of grief Conscience will hardly be comforted in this for it will upbraid I now now you would have mercy We see by many that have recovered again that have promised great matters in their sicknesse that it is hypocritical Repentance for they have been worse after then they were before It is not a sufficient matter to yeeld
thee comfort that thou art much humbled in thy sicknesse and at the hour of death for it is hard for thee to determine whether it be true Repentance or meer sorrow for sin as it brings judgement Fear of damnation is not sufficient to bring a man to heaven thy nature must be changed before thou come to heaven thou must love Righteousnesse because it is Righteousnesse thou must love God because he is good thou must hate sin because it is sin How canst thou tell when thou hast been naught before affliction whether affliction have wrought this that thou repentest only out of hatred of judgement to shun that or out of hatred of sin because it is sin Therefore now a little repentance in thy health and in the enjoying of thy prosperity a little hatred of ill wayes now will more comfort thee then a thousand times more prayer and striving will then Although if thou canst do it truly then yet the gate of mercy is open but thy heart will scarce say it is truly done because it is forced Then again perhaps thou shalt not have the honour of it thou shalt not have the mercy thou that hast refused mercy and lived in a loose prophane course thou that hast despised mercy all the while God will not honour thee so much as to have a good word or a sorrowful word that even very grief shall not extort it from thee but as thou hast forgotten God in thy life and wouldest not own his admonitions thou shalt forget thy self in death and be taken away suddenly or else with some violent disease that shal take away the use of the parts that God hath given thee as inflammation of the Spirits or the like that shall take away the use of sound reason It is madnesse and no better to live as the most live to cry God is merciful c. thou mayest go to hell for all that repentance must be from a true hatred of sin and that that must comfort thee must be a disposition for the present for then it is unforced Therefore all these sweet comforts are to you that come in and leave your wicked courses if you have been swearers to swear no more if you have been deceivers to deceive no more if you have been licentious to be so no more but to break off the course of your sins as God shall enable you or else this one thing think of it that you now dawbe your conscience withall and go on in sin with that will be the most terror to you even Mercy nothing will vex you so much as mercy afterward Then thon shalt think with thy self I have heard comfortable of the promises and of the nature of God but I put off and despised all I regarded my sinful courses more then the mercy of God in Christ they were sweeter to me then mercy I lived in sins out of the abundance of prophanenesse that did me no good I lived in sins out of the superfluity of prophanenesse that I had neither profit nor pleasure by and neglected mercy The consideration of mercy neglected with the continuing in a wretched course it will more aggravate the souls torment Let us be incouraged to come in such as intend to leave their sinfull courses let them remember that then they come to a Father of mercy that is more ready to pardon then you are to ask it As you see in the prodigal Son which I instanced in before it is a notable sweet Story I have a Father saith he when he had spent all and was come to Huskes Affliction is a notable means to make us to taste and relish mercy I have a father and there is plenty in his house and he comes and confesseth his sin he had no sooner resolved but his Father he doth not stay for him but he meets him and kisseth him Let us consider of this description of God the Father of mercy it should move any that are in ill and lewd courses before In my Fathers house there are good things and in his heart there are bowels of mercy I have a Father and a Father of mercy I will go home and submit my self to him and say to him I have been thus and thus but I will be so no more you shall find that God by his Spirit will be readier to meet you then you are to cast your selves at the feet of his mercy and into the armes of his mercie he will come and meet you and kisse you you shall find much comfort upon your resolution to come in if it be a sound resolution The son fears his Fathers displeasure but saith the Father My thoughts are not as your thoughts Oh! I fear he will not receive me yes yes he is willing to imbrace you mercy pleaseth him and why will you perish O house of Israel Againe God is the Father of mercies This should stirre us up to an imitation of this our gratious Father for every Father begets to his owne likeness and all the sons of this Father are like the Father they are mercifull The Kings of Israel are merciful Kings saith the Heathen King Benhadad and the God of Israel is a mercifull God and all that are under God are mercifull his sons are mercifull as their heavenly father is mercifull Therefore if we would make it good to our own hearts and the opinion and judgement of others of us that we are children of this mercifull Father we must put on bowels of mercie our selves as in Colos. 3. 2. Now therefore as the Elect of God as you will make it good that God hath elected you put on the bowels of mercie Whatsoever we have from God it comes in the respect of a mercie and so it should doe from Gods Children every thing that comes from them to them that are in miserie it should be a mercy they should not only bestow the thing but a sweet mercy with the thing a child of God he poures out his bowels to his Brother as Esay saith Poure out thy bowels c. There is some bowels that is there is an affection in Gods Children they give not onely the thing the reliefe but mercie with it that hath a sweet report to the soule there is pittie that more comforts a sanctified soule then the thing it selfe We must not doe workes of mercie proudly it is not the thing that God stands on but the affection in the thing his benefits are with a fatherly pittie so should ours be with a pittifull respect with a tender heart The very mercies of the wicked are cruell If they be mercifull there is some pride of spirit there is some tast of a hard heart of an hypocriticall spirit somewhat is not as it should be their mercies are not mercies we must in our mercie imitate the Father of mercies Alas it is the fault of our time there is little mercie to those that are in miserie What a cruell thing is it that
comfort unlesse with revelation and application in the third place thou open my soul to joyn with these comforts There must be a discovery and application and an opening of the soule to them As there be diverse flowers that open and shut with the sun so the soul by the spirit of God it opens to comforts though comforts be put close to the soul if that do not open to them there is no comfort given for all is in the application There is a double application of the thing to the soul and of the soul to the thing God must do all What is the reason that many here Sermons and Read sweet discourses and yet when they come to suffer crosses and afflictions they are to see They go to the stream they cut the Conduits from the spring they go not to the Well-head they see not the derivation of comfort it is necessary for the deriving of comfort to the soul to take the scales from the eye of the soul they see not the necessity of a divine presence to apply it and and to lay it close to the soul and to open the soul to joyn the soul to those comforts God is the God of all comfort If any thing will stir up devotion much to pray to God undoubtedly this will be effectual that whatsoever the comfort be whether it be outward things or reasons and discourses whatsoever we may go to God that he would give it Well this being so if God be the God of all comfort the Well of comfort the Father of comfort and hath remedies for every malady Then you see here whither to go you see a Christian in all estates hath ground of comfort for he is in Covenant with the God of comfort You will say to me what is the reason that Christians are no more comfortable having the God of comfort for their God I answer it is partly from Ignorance we have remainders of Ignorance that we know not our own comfort Satan doth vail the eye of the soul in the time of trouble that we cannot see that there is a well of comfort Poor Hagar when shee was almost undone for thirst yet she had a fountain of water near hand but she saw it not she was so overtaken with grief Ignorance and Passion hinder the sight of comfort when we give way so much to the present malady as if there were no God of comfort in heaven as if there were no Scripture that hath breasts of comfort that is as full as a breast that is willing to discharge it self of comfort as if there were no matter of comfort they feed upon grief and delight to flatter their selves in grief as Rachel that mourned and would not be comforted so out of a kind of Ignorance and Passion and Wilfulnesse they will not be comforted And again as Bildad saith Job 18. are the comforts of God light to thee These are good words but my discomforts are greater my malady is greater so the comforts of the Holy Ghost the comforts of Gods Spirit seem light to them Ignorance and Passion and dwelling too much makes us neglect comfort it makes us to see comfort to be no comfort in a manner Mary when Christ was before her eyes they were so blubbered with tears with fear that her Lord was lost that she could not see him even when he was before her so grief and Passion hinder the soul so much from seeing Gods comforts that we see them not when they are before us when they are present So men are guilty of their own discomfort it is their own fault Again oft times forgetfulnesse as the Apostle saith Heb. 12. have ye forgotten the Consolation that speaks have ye forgotten that every Son that God chastizeth not is a bastard have ye forgotten insinuating that if they had remembred this it would have comforted them have ye forgotten And then one especial cause is that I spake of before the looking to things present forgetting the spring the well-head of comfort God himself the looking too much to the means oh say some if they be in distresse if I had such a Book if I had such a man to comfort me certainly it would be otherwise with me I should be better then I am put case he were with thee alas he is not the spring it is the God of comfort that must comfort thee man in all thy distresses whatsoever therefore if thou attribute not more to God then to the creature nay then to an Angel if he were to comfort thee thou shalt find no comfort I even I am he that comforts thee I am he that pardons thy sins which is the cause of all discomfort that is comfort that is the sting of all I am he that pardons thy sins We as Criers may speak pardon to the soule but God must give it we may speak comfort but God must give it he must say to the soule I am thy salvation When men Idolize any discourse in books or any particular man overmuch though we may value those that are instrumentall above others there may be a difference of gifts but the resting too much in the creature it is an enemy to comfort and some grow to that wilfulness in that kind that they will neglect all because they have not that they would have whereas if they would look to God meaner meanes would serve the turne oft times if they would goe to the God of comfort Who comforteth us in all tribulation Afflictions and crosses as they are irkesome in suffering so they are likewise disgracefull and as it was in the cross of Christ there was two things torment and shame the one he felt himselfe the other he had from others those two disgrace is proper to the cross so it is in all the crosses that we suffer there is some disgrace with it therefore Saint Paul to prevent the scandall and disgrace of the cross as I said before he doth here begin with praysing God even for crosses in the midst of them Blessed be God the Father of mercies the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all tribulations c. Who comforteth us in all tribulation These words contain a making good of the former title He is the God of comfort and doth comfort he is good and doth good He fils up his name by his works he shews what he is the Scripture doth especially describe God not in all things as he is in himself but as he is and works to his poore Church and they are usefull termes all of them he is the Father of mercie because he is so to his Church he is the God of comfort because he is so to his people therefore he saith here as he is the God of comfort so he doth comfort us in all tribulation He doth not say who keeps us out of miserie blessed be the God of comfort that never suffers us to fall
conscience of those that are awakened and Satan useth that as a means to despair in every crosse Therefore let us search and try our souls for our sins for our chief discomfort are from sin for alas what are all other comforts and what are all other discomforts If a mans conscience be quiet what are all discomforts and if conscience be on the rack what are all comforts the disquiet and vexation of sin is the greatest of all because then we have to deal with God when sin is presented before us and the judgements of God and God as an angry judge and conscience is awaked and on the rack what in the world can take up the quarrel and appease conscience when we and God are at difference when the soul speaks nothing but discomfort In this case remember that God doth so far prevent objections in this kind from the accusations of conscience that he reasons that he will comfort us from that that cöscience reasons against comfort he doth this in the hearts of his children to whom he means to shew mercy as we see in the poor Publi Lord be merciful to me a sinner saith he God taught him that reasoning Nature would have taught him to reason as Peter did Lord depart from me I am a sinful man and therefore I have nothing to do with God So our Saviour Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden they think of all people they ought to run from God they are so laden with sin they have nothing to do with God Oh come unto me saith Christ. Therefore when thy conscience is awakened with the sense of sin remember what is said in the Gospel Be of good comfort be calleth thee be thou of good comfort thou art one that Christ calls Come unto me ye that are we ary and heavy laden and Blessed are those that mourn That which thou and the Divel with thy conscience would move thee to use as an argument to run away our Saviour Christ in the Gospel useth as an argument to draw thee forward he comes for such to seek and to save the lost sinners This is a faithful saying saith St. Paul that Christ came to save sinners therefore believe not Satan he presents God to the soul that is humbled and terrified in the sight of sin as cruel as a terrible judge c. He hides the mercy of God from such to men that are in a sinful course he shewes nothing but mercy I but now there is nothing but comfort to thee that art cast down and afflicted in the sence of thy sins for all the comforts in the Gospel of forgivenesse of sins and all the comforts from Christs Incarnation the end of his coming in the flesh the end of his death and of all is to save sinners Look thou therefore to the throne of mercy and grace when thy conscience shall be awakened with the sence of sin and Satan shall use that as an argument to draw thee from God consider the Scripture useth this as an argument to drive me to God to allure me to him Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden And Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost Luther a man much exercised in Spiritual conflicts he confessed this was the Balme that did most refresh his soul God hath shut up all under sin that he might have mercy upon all He shut up all under sin as prisoners to see themselves under sin and under the curse that he might have mercy upon all upon all those that are convinced with the sence and sight of their sins he hath shut up all under sin that he might have mercy upon all those that belong to him This raised up that blessed man therefore let us not be much discomforted but be of good comfort Christ calls us For such as are sinners that are given to the sins of the tongue and of the life to rotten discourse to swearing and such like to such as mean to be so and think their case good oh God is the God of comfort To such as I said before I can speak no comfort nor the word of God speaks none they must have another Word and another Scripture for this word speaks no comfort to such that are sinful and wretched and will be so and justifie themselves to be so All the judgments in the Scripture are theirs hell and damnation and wrath that is their portion to drink We can speak no comfort to such nor the word of God that we unfold it hath not a drop of comfort for them God will not be merciful to such as go on in wicked rotten scandalous courses that because hell hath not yet taken them they may live long and so make a covenant with hell and death and blesse themselves Oh but thou hast made no covenant with God nor he hath made none with thee and hell and death have made no covenant with thee though thou hast made one with them but there are two words go to a covenant Death and Hell shall seize upon thee notwithstanding thy covenant Those that will live in sin in despight of the ministery in spight of afflictions there is no comfort to such I speak only to the broken heart which are fit vessels for comfort God is the God of comfort to such What shall we say then to such as after they have had some evidence of their good estate that they are Christians are fallen into sin is there any comfort for such Yes doth not St. Paul in 2 Cor. 5. desire such to be reconciled to God we are as Ambassadors of Christ desiring you to be reconciled if you have sinned so God hath comfort for those that have sinned Christ knew that we should every day run into sins unawares therefore he teaches us in the Lords prayer to say every day forgive us our debts our trespasses there is Balme in Gilead there is mercie in Israel for such daylie trespasses as we run into Therefore let none be discouraged but flie presently to the God of comfort and Father of mercies And think not that he is wearie of pardoning as man is for he is infinite in mercy And though he be the party offended yet he desires peace with us But yet notwithstanding that we shall not love to run into his Bookes he doth with giving the comfort of the pardon of sin when we fall into it add such sharpe crosses as we shall wish we had not given him occasion to correct us so sharpely we shall buy our comfort dear we had better not have given him occasion God forgave the sin of David after he had repented though he were a good man before but David bought the pleasure of his sin dear he wished a thousand times that he had never given occasion to God to raise good out of his evil to turn his sin to his comfort yet God will do this because God
else will Therefore let us every day be setting our selves in some good way for comfort is in comfortable courses and not in ill courses in Gods waies we shall have Gods comforts In those waies let us exercise the spiritual strength we have let us pray to God and performe the exercise of Religion with strength shew some zeal in it let us shew some zeal against sin if occasion be if it be in Gods work in Gods way Let a man set himself upon a good worke especially when it is in opposition for the honour of God and the peace of his conscience presently there is comfort upon it And that we may not be discouraged with the imperfection of our performances one way of daily comfort is to consider the condition of the covenant of Grace between God and us In the covenant of Grace our performances if they be sincere they are accepted and it is the perfection of the Gospel sincerity Sincerity will look God in the face with comfort because he is with the upright so much truth in all our dealings so much comfort And with sincerity labour for growth to grow better and better God in the Gospel meanes to bring us to perfection in heaven by little and little In the law there was present perfection required but in the Gospel God requires that we should come to perfection by little and little as Christ by little and little satisfyed for our sins and not all at once In the condition of the covenant of Grace we must live and grow by grace by little and little and not all at once The condition of the covenant of grace is not to him that hath strength of grace in perfection but if we believe and labour to walke with God if there be truth of Grace truth goes for perfection in the covenant of Grace We should labour for sound knowledge of the covenant of Grace that now we are freed from the rigor as well as from the curse of the law that though we have imperfections yet God will be our father and in this condition of imperfection he will be a pardoning father and lookes on our obedience though it be feeble and weak and imperfect yet being the obedience of children in the covenant of grace and he accepts of what is his owne and pardons what is ours And every day labour to preserve the comforts of the spirit that we have not to grieve the spirit for comfort comes with the spirit of God as heat accompanies the fire As wheresoever fire is there is heat so wheresoever the spirit of God is there is comfort because the spirit of God is God and God is with comfort wheresoever comfort is God is and wheresoever God is there is comfort If we would have comfort continually every day let us carefully watch that we give way to the spirit of God by good actions and meditations and exercises And by no meanes grieve the spirit or resist the spirit for then we resist comfort If we speake any thing that is ill we lose our comfort for that time conscience will check us we have grieved the spirit If we heare any thing with applause and are not touched with it we lose our comfort conscience will tell us we are dead-hearted and not affected as we should be there is a great deal of flesh and corruption that is affected with such rotten discourse And so if we venture upon occasions we shall grieve the spirit either if we speak somewhat to satisfie others that are nought or if we hear somewhat that is ill from others Want of wisdome in this kind doth make us go without comfort many times want of wisdom to single out our companie or else if we be with such to do that that may please them and grieve the spirit and hinder our own comfort These and such like directions if we would observe we might walk in a course of comfort the God of comfort hath prescribed this in the book of comfort These are the courses for Gods children to walk in a comfortable way till they come to heaven More especially if we would at any time take a more full measure of comfort then take the book of God into your hand those are comforts that refresh the soul single out some speciall portion of scripture and there you shall have a world of comfort As for example let a man single out the epistle to the Romans if a man be in any grievance whatsoever what a world of comfort is there fitting for every maladie there is a method how to come to comfort There St. Paul in the beginning first strips all men of confidence of any thing in themselves and tells them that no man can be saved by works Jewes nor Gentiles but all by the righteousnesse of God in Christ All are deprived of the Glorie of God Jewes and Gentiles every bodie And when we are brought to Christ he tells us in the later end of the third Chapter that by Christ we have the forgivenesse of all our former sins whatsoever he is the propitiation for our sins In the 4. Chapter he comforts us by the example of Abraham and David that they were justified without works by faith not by works of their own but by laying hold of the promises of comfort and salvation meerly by Christ and all that saith St. Paul is written for us But in the first Chapter especially because all the miseries of this life come from the first Adam because we are Children of the first Adam death and miserie comes from that he opposeth the comfort in the second Adam and he shewes that there is more comfort by the second Adam then there is discomfort by the first Righteousnesse in the second Adam reigns to life everlasting and Glorie Sin and miserie came by the first but there is the pardon of all sin by the second Adam he doth excellently oppose them in the latter end of that Chapter In the begining of the fifth Chapter he shewes there the method and descent of joy Being justified by faith in Christ we have peace with God Considering that by the righteousnesse of Christ we are freed from sin We have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we have boldnesse to the Throne of Grace and we rejoyce in tribulation knowing that tribulation brings forth patience and patience experience and experience hope He sets himself there of purpose to comfort in all tribulation and he saith in these things we rejoyce We rejoyce in tribulation I but for our sins after our conversion after we are in the state of Grace what comfort is there for them there is excellent comfort in the fifth of the Romans If when we were enemies he gave his son for us if he saved us by the death of Christ when we were enemies much more Christ being alive and in heaven he will keep it for us and keep us to salvation now when we are
despight of the world that will beare the cross of Christ For the other as their jollity increaseth in the world so their crosses and troubles shall increase As it is said Revel 18. 17. of mysticall Babylon the Church of Rome that hath flourished in the world a great while and sate as a Queen and blessed her self As she gloried herself and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her So it is true of every wicked man that is in an evill course and will be and as the Scripture phrase is blesseth himself in an evil course they shall be sure of the curse of God and not of comfort for in what proportion they have delighted themselves in this world in sin in that proportion they shall have torment of conscience if conscience be awaked in this world and in that proportion they shall have torment in the world to come As sin is growing so rods are growing for them wicked men saith St. Paul they grow worse and worse the more they sin the more they may they sink in rebellion and the more they sink in rebellion the more they sink in the state of damnation they fill up the measure of their sins and treasure up the wrath of God against the day of wrath Whosoever thou art that livest in a sinfull course and wilt do so in spight of Gods Ordinance in spight of the motions of the spirit that hast the good motions of the spirit knocking at thy soule and yet wilt rather refuse comfort then take comfort together with direction go on still in this thy wicked course but remember as thy comforts increase in this world so thy torment is increasing And here is the disproportion between Gods children and others they have their sufferings first and their comfort afterward but others have their pleasure first and their torment after theirs are for a time but others for ever Thus we see what we may comfortably observe from this that comforts increase as crosses increase A Word of the fourth and last point How comes this to pass that as our afflictions abound so our consolations abound They abound by Chrst saith the Apostle God the Father he is the God of comfort the Holy-Ghost is the Comforter but how comes this to pass that we that are not the Objects of comfort but of confusion should have God the Father to be the God of comfort and the Holy-Ghost to be our comforter Oh it is that Jesus Christ the great peace-maker hath satisfied God and procured the Holy-Ghost for the holy-Ghost is procured by the satisfaction and death of Christ and he was sent after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Therefore Christ is called the consolation of Israel and those that waited for Christ waited for the consolation of Israel All comfort is hid in Christ he is the store-house of comfort we have it through him and by him and in him For that God is the Father of comfort it is because Christ is our Mediatour and Intercessour in Heaven that the Holy-Ghost is the comforter it is because Christ sent him and the comforts of the holy-Ghost are fetched from Christ from the death of Christ or the ascention of Christ from some argument from Christ. Whatsoever comforteth the soule the Holy-Ghost doth it by fetching some argument from Christ from his satisfaction from his worth from his intercession in Heaven something in Christ it is So Christ by his Spirit doth comfort and the reasons fetched by the Spirit are from Christ therefore it is by Christ. What is the reason that a Christian soule doth not feare God as a consuming fire but can look upon him with comfort It is because God hath received satisfaction by Christ. What is the reason that a Christian soule feares not Hell but thinks of it with comfort Christ hath conquered Hell and Satan What is the reason that a Christian feares not death Christ by death hath overcome death and him that had the power of death the Devill Christ is mine saith the Christian soule therefore I do not feare it but think of it with comfort because a Christian is more then a Conquerour over all these What is the reason that a Christian is not afraid of his corruptions and sins He knows that God for Christs sake will pardon them and that the remainder of his corruptions will worke to his humiliation and to his good All shall work for the best to them that love God What is the reason that there is not any thing in the world but it is comfortable to a Christian When he thinks of God he thinks of him as a Father of comfort when he thinks of the Holy-Ghost he thinks of him as a spirit of comfort when he thinks of Angels he thinks of them as his attendants when he thinks of Heaven he thinks of it as of his inheritance he thinks of Saints as a communion whereof he is partaker whence is all this By Christ who hath made God our Father the holy-Ghost our Comforter who hath made Angels ours Saints ours heaven ours earth ours Devils ours death ours all ours in issue For God being turned in love to us all is turned our crosses are no curses now but comforts and the bitterest crosses yield the sweetst comforts All this is by Christ that hath turned the course of things and hid blessings in the greatest crosses that ever were And this he did in himself before he doth it in us for did not his greatest crosses tend to his greatest glory who ever in the world was abased as our head Christ Jesus was that made him crie My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee All the Creatures in the world would have sunk under the sufferings that Christ indured what abasement to the abasement of Christ and what glorie to the glorie of Christ Phil 2. He humbled himself to the death of the cross wherefore God gave him a name above all names that at the name of Jesus euery knee should bow both of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Now as it was in our head his greatest abasement ushered in his greatest glorie so it shall be in us our greatest crosses are before our greatest comforts he is our President he is the exemplarie cause as well as the efficient working cause it is by Christ all this that consolations abound in us it was performed first in him and shall be by him by his Spirit to the end of the world The use that we are to make of this is that in all our sufferings before we come to Heaven we should look to Christ he hath turned all things let us study Christ and fetch comfort from him our flesh was abased in him our flesh is glorified in him now in Heaven in his person And so it must be in our own persons our flesh must be abased and then as he is glorious in Heaven so shall we be in our selves That very
Spirit that raised and advanced him at the lowest that very spirit there being but one spirit in the head and members in our greatest abasement shall vouchsafe us the greatest advancement that we can look for to sit at the right hand of God to reigne with Christ for if we suffer with him we shall reign with him And hence you may have a reason likewise why Christians have no more comfort they doe not studie Christ enough they consider not Christ and the neernesse wherein Christ is to them and they to Christ that both make one Christ they doe not consider how Christ hath sweetned all he hath turned God and turned all to us he hath made God our Father and in him all things favourable unto us so that now the fire is our friend the Stone and the Gout and all diseases disgrace and temptation all are at peace and league with us all is turned in the use and issue to good to the help and comfort of Gods Children All things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods 2 Cor. 3. ult There is not the worst thing but it is at peace with us because the malignant power it hath in order to damnation is taken away now it doth not hurt us but there is a soveraigne curing power to turne it to good I confesse Gods Children are discomforted but then they wrong their principles they wrong their grounds their religion their Saviour they wrong all the comforts they have interest in because they do not improve them when occasion serves As Job is checked Hast thou forgot the consolations of the Almighty or why dost thou forget them so if we have consolations and forget them and dote and pore upon our grievance it is just with God to leave us comfortless not that we want any comfort but we flatter our grievance and forget our comfort Let us change our object and when we have looked upon our grievance and been humbled in the sight of our sins let us look upon the promises let us look upon Christ in glory and see our selves in Heaven triumphing with him What can terrifie a Soul not Death it self when it sees it self in Christ Triumphing Faith sees me as well Triumphing in Heaven and sitting at the Right Hand of God as it doth Christ for it knowes I am a Member of Christ and whatsoever is between me and that happiness that is reserved for me in Heaven I shall triumph over it Christ triumphed in his own person over death Hell sin the Grave the Devil and she will triumph in me his mysticall body what he hath done in himself he will doe in me This faith will overcome the world and the Devill and Hell and all that is between us and Heaven A Christian that sees himself sitting at the right hand of God with Christ triumphing with him he is discouraged at nothing for faith that makes things to come present it sees him conquering alreadie Let us be exhorted to joy Rejoyce and again I say rejoyce we have reason to do so if we look to our grounds but when we yield to Satan and our own flesh we robb God of his glory and our selves of comfort but we may thank our selves for it But I come to the sixth verse wherein the Apostle inlargeth himself by shewing the end of his sufferings in regard of them by setting downe both parts both affliction and comfort VERS VI. Whether we be afflicted it is for your consolation and salvation or whether we be comforted it is for your consolation and salvation IT is much in every thing how the mind is prepared to receive what is spoken the Apostle therefore to make way for himself in their hearts he removes therefore scandall from his sufferings and he shews that it was so farre that they should take offence at it that they ought to do as he did to bless God for it for as the sufferings of Christ abounded in him so his comfort abounded And because they should think themselves no way hurt by his sufferings and base usage in the world he tels them in the verse that all was for their good no man should be offended at his own good they had no reason to take scandall at that which was for their good but saith he if you think basely of me for my sufferings you think basely of your own comfort for my sufferings are for your good and my comforts are for your good whether I suffer or be comforted it is or you The crosse is a distastfull thing to us and likewise the crosse in others is a distastefull thing not onely distastfull and bitter to us but shamefull St. Paul knowing this because he would as I said work himself into their good conceit that he might prevaile with them for their good saith he you ought not to think a whit the worse of me for this for all is for you So you see the scope of the words Whether we be afflicted it is for your c. But first he speakes of affliction alone and then of comfort alone If we be afflicted it is for your good and if we be comforted it is for your good His reason is because sometimes afflictions appeare without comfort therefore he saith not If we be comforted onely it is for your good but if we be afflicted it is for your good Sometimes comfort is before our afflictions that we may indure it the better God cheares us to it Sometimes God sheds his Spirit in affliction that there is abundance of comfort in it but for the most part it comes after after we have waited but in it there is always such a measure of comfort that supports us that we sink not yet the speciall degree of comfort usually comes after therefore he speaks of affliction in the first place If I be afflicted it is for you c. The Point is easie that The afflictions of the Saints are for the good of others The afflictions of Gods Church are Gods peoples especially the afflictions of Pastors and Leaders of Gods Armie God singles out some to suffer for the good of others the good especially of consolation and salvation for these two goods How can this be that the afflictions of Gods people are for the consolation and salvation of others I answer many wayes as we shall see afterwards more particularly but onely now to make way Afflictions are for the good and comfort of others because we have their example in suffering to traine us up how to suffer Example is a forcible kinde of teaching therefore saith the Apostle our afflictions are for you to lead and teach you the way how to suffer Words are not enough especially in matter of suffering there must be some example therefore Christ from Heaven came not onely to redeem us but to teach us not onely by words but by example how to doe and suffer willingly and chearfully and stoutly in obedience to God as he
strongly that we live in an estate that we are ashamed to die in Come to some men and aske them how it is with you have you repented of your sins past have you renewed your purposes for the time to come Yes we doe it solemnly at the Communion but we should renew our repentance and renew our Covenants every day to please God that day Do you do so now If God should seize upon you now are you in the exercise of faith in the exercise of repentance in the exercise of holy purposes to please God are you in Gods wayes do you live as you would be content to dye But Satan and our own corruption bewitcheth us with a vaine hope of long life we promise our selves that that God doth not promise us we make that certain that God doth not make certain indeed we are certain of death but for the time and manner and circumstances we know them not sometimes we think we shall dye when we doe not and sometimes we dye when we think we shall not Oh will some say If I knew when I should dye I would be a prepared man I would be exact in my preparation Wouldest thou so thou art deceived Saul knew exactly he should die he took it for exact when the Witch in the shape of Samuel told him that he should dye by to morrow this time and yet he dyed desperately upon the swords point for all that he did not prepare himself It must be the Spirit of God that must prepare us for this if we knew never so much that we should die never so soon we cannot prepare our selves our preparation must be by the Spirit of God let us labour continually to be prepared for it And let no man resolve to take liberty a moment a minute of an houre to sinne God hath left it uncertain the day of death what if that moment and minute wherein thou resolvest to sin should be the moment of thy death and departure hence for it is but a minutes work to end thy dayes what if God should end thy dayes in that minute Let no man take liberty and time to sin when God gives him no liberty in sin If God should strike thee thou goest to Hell quick thou must sink from sin to Hell It is a pittifull case when as eternity depends upon our watchfulness in this world But to come to the end and issue why he was thus dealt with by God carrying him through these extremities That we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead Here is the end specified that God intended in suffering him to be brought so low even to deaths door that there was but a step between him and death the end is double That we should not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead It is set down negatively and positively First That we should not trust in our selves and then that we should trust in God And the method is excellent for we can never trust in God till we distrust our selves till our hearts be taken off from all confidence in our selves and in the creature and then when our hearts are taken off from false confidence they must have somewhat to relie on and that is God or nothing for else we shall fall into despaire The end of all this was that We might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead The wisdom of heaven doth nothing without an end proportionable to that heavenly wisdom so all this sore affliction of the blessed Apostle what aimed it at To pull downe and to build up to pull downe selfe-confidence That we might not trust in our selves and to build up confidence and affiance in God but in God that raiseth the dead We being in a contrary state to grace and communion with God this order is necessary that God must use some way that we shall not trust in our selves and then to bring us to trust in him so these two are subordinate ends one to another We received the sentence of death that we might not trust in our selves From the dependance this may be observed that The certain account of death is a meanes to weane us from our selves and to make us trust in God The sentence of death the assured knowledge that we must dye the certain expectation and looking for death is the way to wean us from the world and to fit us for God to prepare us for a better life you see it follows of necessity We received the sentence of death that we should not trust in our selves c. The looking for of death therefore takes away confidence in our selves and the creature Alas in death what can all the creatures help what can friends or physick or money help then honours and pleasures and all leave us then This the rather to note a corrupt Atheisticall course in those that are to deale with sick folk that are extreame sick that conceale their estate from them and feed them with false hopes of long life they deserve ill of persons in extremity to put them in hope of recoverie Physitians that are not Divines in some measure what doe they against their conscience and against their experience and against sense Oh I hope you shall doe well c. Alas what do they they hurt their souls they breed a false confidence it is a dangerous thing to trust upon long life when perhaps they are snatched suddenly away before they have made their accompts even with God before they have set their souls in that state they should doe Therefore the best way is to doe as good Isay did with Hezekiah set thy house in order for thou must dye that is in the disposition of second causes thou shalt have a disease that will bring thee to death and God had said so God had a reservation but it was more then Isay knew at that time Set thy house in order for thou must dye So they should begin with God to tell them as we say the worst first It is a pittifull thing that death should be accounted the worst but so it is by reason of our fearfulness deal plainly with them let them receive the sentence of death that so they may be driven out of themselves and the creature altogether and be driven to trust in God that raiseth the dead Put thy soul in order you are no man of this world lest they betray their souls for a little self-respect perhaps because they would not displease them It may be in some cases discreet to yield to make the means to work the better but where there is nothing but evident signs of death they ought to deale directly with them that they may receive the sentence of death It wrought with St. Paul this good effect I received the sentence of death that we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead It is Gods just judgment upon Hypocrites and
be at the cost with us to exercise us It is a ground not onely of patience but of thankfulnesse when God humbles us be not discontent man grudge not murmur not God doth a work that seems strange to thee and which is not his own proper work that he may do his own work that he may bring thee nearer to himself why dost thou murmur at thy own good The Patient cries out of the Physitian that he torments him he hears him well enough but he will not be advised by his patient he means to advise him and to rule him he would faine have comfort he is in pain and cries for ease but his time is not yet come So let us wait and not murmur under crosses God is doing one work to bring to passe another he brings us out of our selves that he may bring us nearer to himself And another Use that we may make of it let us examine our selves whether our afflictions and crosses have had this effect in us to bring us to trust in him more if they have all is well but if they make us worse that we fret and murmur and feel no good by them it is an ill sign for God doth bring us low that we may not trust in our selves but in him Quem praesentia mala non corrigunt c. Whom the presence of ill and grievance amends not they bring to eternal grievance This is Ahaz saith the Scripture a strange man a wicked King that notwithstanding God followed him with judgements yet he grew worse and worse This is Ahaz he might well be branded When a man belongs to God every thing brings him nearer to God when a man is brought to be more humble and more careful and more watchful every way to be more zealous more heavenly minded it is a blessed sign that God then is working a blessed work to force him out of himself and to bring him nearer himself to trust in him This we cannot too much consider of It should teach us likewise this that we judge not amisse of the generation of the righteous when we see God much humbling them when we see him follow them with sicknesse with troubles and disgraces in the world perhaps with terrour of consience with descertions be not discouraged if he be thy friend censure him not add not affliction to his affliction is not his affliction enough thou needest not to add thy unjust censure as Job said to his friends The more we are afflicted of God the more good he intends to work to us the end is to bring us from our selves to trust in him It is a wicked disposition in men that know not the wayes of God they are ignorant of the wayes that he takes with his children when they see men that are Christians that they are humbled and cast down and troubled they think they are men forsaken of God c. alas they do not know Gods manner of dealing he casts them down that he may raise them up they receive the sentence of death against themselves that he may comfort them after that he may do them good in their latter end Let this therefore keep us from censuring of other men in our thoughts for this hard course which God seems to take with them And let us make this Use of it when we are in any grievance and God followes us still let us mourn and lament the stubbornsse of our hearts that will not yeeld God intends to draw us near to him to trust in him if we would do this the affliction would cease except it be for tryall and for the exercise of Grace and for witnesse to the truth When God afflicts sometime for tryall and for witnesse there is a spirit of Glory in such a case that a man is never afflicted in mind but I say when God followes us with sicknesse with crosses with loss of friends and we are not wrought upon let us censure our hard hearts that force God to take this course And justice God in all this Lord thou knowest I could not be good without this thou knowest I would not be drawn without this bring me near to thy self that thou mayest take away this heavy hand from me The intemperate man that is sick makes the Physitian seeme cruel It is because I set my affections too much on earthly things that thou followest me with these troubles we force God to do this A Physitian is forced to bring his Patient even to skin and bone an intemperate Patienr sometimes that hath surfetted upon a long distemper he must bring him to Deaths doore even almost to death because his distemper is so setled upon him that he cannot otherwise cure him So it is with God the Physitian of our souls he must bring us wondrous low we are so prone so desperately addicted to present things to trust to them and to be proud of them and confident in them that God must deal as a sharp Physitian he must bring us so low or else we should never be recovered of our perfect health again and all is that we might trust in God Observe we from hence another point that God in all outward things that are ill intends the good of the soul. He takes liberty to take away health and liberty and friends to take away comforts but whatsoever he takes away he intends the good of the soul in the first place And all the ills that he inflicts upon us they are to cure a worse ill the ill of the soul to cure an unbelieving heart a worldly proud carnal heart which is too much addicted to earthly things We see here how God dealt with St Paul all was to build up his soul in trust and confidence in God all was for the soul. The reason is other things are vanishing the soul is the better part the eternal part if all be well with the soul all shall be well otherwise at last If it be well with the soul the body shall do well though God take liberty to humble us with sicknesse and with death it self yet God will riase the body and make it glorious a good soul will draw it after it at last and move God to make the body glorious But if the soul be naught let us cherish and do what we will with the body both will be naught at last This life is not a life to regard the body we are dead in that while we live the sentence of death is passed we must die we are dying every day The body is dead because of sin we are going to our grave every day takes away a part of our life This is not a life for this body of ours it is a respite to get assurance of an eternal estate in heaven God takes our wealth and liberty and strength c. That he may help our souls that he may work his own blessed work in our souls that he may lay a foundation of
deliver me from every evill work and that is that which the Saints and Martyrs and all good people desire that God would deliver them that they may not sink in their minds that they despair not that they carry not themselves uncomely in troubles but so as is meet for the credit of the truth which they seal with their blood he hath delivered me and he will deliver me from every evill work and what saith he afterwards He shall preserve me to his Heavenly Kingdom He doth not say he shall preserve me from death he knew he should die but he shall preserve me to his heavenly Kingdom So put the case that God do not deliver from death yet he delivers by death There is a partial deliverance and a total deliverance there is a deliverance from this and that trouble and there is a deliverance from all troubles God delivers us most when we think he delivers least for we think how doth he deliver his Children when we see them taken away by death and oftimes are massacreed That is one way of delivering them God by death takes them from all miseries they are out of the reach of their enemies death delivers them from all miseries of this life both inward of sin and outward of trouble all are determined in death therefore God when he doth not deliver them from death he delivers them by death and takes them to his heavenly Kingdom God oft-times delivers his by not delivering them out of trouble for when he sees us in danger of some sin he delivers us into trouble to deliver us from some corruption Of all evills Gods Children desire to avoid the delivering up to themselves and to their own lusts to their own base earthly hearts to a dead heart he delivers them into trouble therefore to deliver them from themselves God will deliver us for the time to come so that we depend upon him and humble our selves and be like our selves When God delivereth us at the first it may be we are like our selves but perhaps afterward we grow prouder and self-confident and will not do that we formerly did therefore God sometimes though he put us in hope of deliverance yet he will not deliver us because we are not prepared we are not throughly humbled As we see in Judges 20. there the Israelites were to set on the Benjamits they go the first time and had the foile they go the second time and are foiled the third time they set on them with fasting and prayer and then they had the victory What was the reason they had it not at the first time they were not humbled enough they did not flee to God with fasting and prayer It may be there is some sin some affection unmortified of revenge and anger when God hath subdued that and brought it under and brought us to fasting and prayer then God will deliver us as at the third encounter they carried away the victory When we have not made our peace with God we may come the first and second time and not be delivered but when we are throughly humbled and brought low then God will deliver us And then we must know that alway these outward promises have a reservation to Gods glory and our eternal good God hath delivered me and he doth and will deliver me if it may stand with his glory and my good and therefore the soul saith to God with that reserved speech of him in the Gospell Lord If thou wilt thou canst heal me if thou wilt thou canst deliver me if it be for thy glorie and my eternall good or for the Churches good thou wilt do it and neither the Church nor the particular members of the Church desire deliverance upon any other termes but when it may be for the glory of God and for the Churches good when they may be instrumental by long life to serve God and to serve the Church and when it is for their own advantage to gather further assurance of their salvation then he hath and doth and will deliver still This is enough to build the confidence of Gods children upon for their deliverance for the time to come God will deliver his Church and Children and he will deliver them out of all he will deliver Israel out of all his troubles he will not leave a horn or a hoof as Moses said he will not leave one trouble he will deliver us at the last out of all and advance us to his heavenly Kingdom His bowels will melt over his Church and Children he is a Father and he hath the bowels of a Mother This may serve to answer all objections that will arise in our hearts as indeed we are ready to cavil against divine truthes and comforts especially in the time of trouble and temptation our hearts are full of complaints and disputes therefore I thought good to answer this But what is the argument of the Apostle here Especially experience he hath delivered he doth deliver and he will deliver me As God will deliver his Church for the time to come so this is one maine argument that he will do it experience of former favours and deliverances This Saint Paul useth familiarly 2 Tim. 4. 18. I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lyon and the Lord shall deliver me from every evill work and preserve me to his Heavenly Kingdom A blessed arguing So David argues God delivered me from the Bear and the Lyon and therefore he will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine So Jacob pleads that God would deliver him from Esau he had had experience of Gods mercy till then and therefore he trusted that God would deliver him from Esau. It is a good argument to plead experience to move God to care for us for the time to come It was used by the head of the Church By the body the Church and by every member of the Church It was used by the head Psalme 22. which is a Psalme made of Christ I was cast on thee from my Mothers wombe therefore be not far from me It was Tipycally true of David and it was true of the Son of David So the Church pleads with God in diverse places in Isay 51. 2. God calls to his people to make use of former experience Look to Abraham your Father and to Sarah that bare you c. Look to former times to the rock whence you were hewen and to the hole of the pit whence you were digged he that was your God then is your God now Look to Abraham your Father and from thence reason till now So in Isay 63. 7. I will mention the loving kindnesse of the Lord and the praise of the Lord according to the great goodnesse of the Lord bestowed upon us In all their afflictions he was afflicted c he speaks of former experience In love he bare them and carried them all the daies of old So in Psalme 44. Our Fathers have told
hidden windings and turnings for plotting makes it more odious of all men doublers are most hateful How shall we come to attain this Grace to converse in the world in simplicity First of all take it for a rule though many think it no great matter to be a dissembler our nature is full of dissimulation since the fall the heart of man is unsearchable there is deep deceit in man Take a Child and see what dissimulation he learns it is one of the first things he learns to dissemble to double to be false We see the weakest creatures what shifts what windings and turnings they have to save themselves It is a vertue to be down-right for therein a man must crosse himself It is no thanks for a man to shuffle and to shift in the world nature teacheth this to dissemble to turn and wind c. A man need not to plough to have weeds the ground it self is a mother to them though it be a stepmother to good seed So we need not teach men to dissemble every man hath it by nature but it must be strength of grace that makes a man down-right Take that for a ground There are a company of sottish men that take it for a great commendation to dissemble and rather then they will be known not to dissemble in businesse they will puzzle clear businesse when a thing is fair and clear they will have projects beyond the Moon and so carry themselves in it as if they desired to be accounted couzeners and dissemblers Alas poor souls nature teacheth men to be naught in this kind well enough Know therefore whosoever thou art that studiest this Art of dissembling and doubling thy own nature is prone enough to this and the divel is apt to lead thee into it This being laid for a ground how may we carry our selves in the world in holy simplicity that may yield comfort to our conciences in life and in death First consider that the time will come that we shall deal with that that will not dissemble with us Let the cunningest dissembler hold out as long as he can he shall meet with sicknesse or with terrour of conscience he shall meet with death it self and with the judgement of God and hell torment although now he carry himself smoothly and dance in a net as we say and double with the world though he make a fair shew yet ere long thou shalt meet with that that will deal simply with thee that will deal plain enough with thee Thou shalt be uncased and laid open to the world ere long let us consider this We see a Snake or Serpent it doubles and winds and turns when it is alive till it be killed and then it is stretched forth at length As one said seeing a Snake dead and stretched out so saith he it behoved you to have lived So the Divel that great Serpent that ancient old Serpent he gets into the Snake into the wilely wit and makes it winde and turn and shift and shuffle in the world but then some great crosse comes or death comes and then a man is stretched out at length to the view of the world and then he confesseth all and perhaps that confession is sincere when it is wrung out by terrour of conscience then he confesseth that he hath deceived the world and deceived himself and laboured to deceive God also If we would have comfort in the hour of death labour we to deal plainly and directly and of all other sins as I said before remember this is that which will lie the heaviest on us as comming nearest the sin against the holy Ghost For what is the sin against the holy Ghost when men rush against their knowledge in malice to the truth known Where there is most knowledge and most will there is the greatest sin Now in lying and dissembling and double-dealing a man comes near to the sin against the holy Ghost for he knows that he doth ill he plots the ill that he knows and when there is plotting there is time to deliberate a man is not carried away by passion Consider the time will come when you will be uncased when you will be laid open and naked and then at that time of all sins this will lie heavy on thee thy dissembling in the world Therefore every one in his calling take heed of the sins of his calling among the rest of this one of double-dealing And therefore that we may avoid it the better labour for faith to live by faith What is the reason that men live by shifts and by doubling in the world They have not faith to depend upon God in good and plain down-right courses Men are ready to say If I should not dissemble and double and carry things after that manner hwo should I live why where is thy faith The righteous man lives by his faith and not by his shifts not by his wits God will provide for us are we not in Covenant with God Do we not professe to be Gods Children Do children use to shift No a child goes about to do his fathers will and pleasure and he knowes that he will maintain him It is against the nature of the Child of God as farre as he knowes himself to be a Child of God to use any indirect course any windings and turnings in his calling let us depend upon God as a Child depends on his father and of all others God will provide most for them that in simple honesty in plain downe-right dealing depend on him in doing good For God accounts it a prerogative to defend and maintain them that cast themselves on him he will be their wisdom that can deny their own wisdom and their own shifts by nature and in conscience labour to deale directly he will be wise for them and provide for them It is his prerogative to do so and not to suffer his Children to be deserted A little faith therefore would help all this and would make us walke in simplicity If we could make God our alsufficiencie once then we should walk uprightly before God and men For what makes men to double This certainly makes men to double they think they shall be undone if they be direct for if they deale directly they shall lose their liberty or their lives or their opportunity of gaining c. Well come what will deale thou directly and know this for a rule thou shalt have more good in Gods favour if thou be a Christian then thou canst lose in the World if upon grounds of conscience thou deal directly in what estate so ever thou art If thou be a Judge if thou be a Witnesse deale directly speake the truth If thou be a divine speak directly in Gods cause deale out the Word of God as in Gods presence come what will whatsoever thou losest in thy wealth or liberty c. thou shalt gain in God Is not all good in him what is all the
good behaviour Now when a man shall consider I have a witnesse within me my conscience and a witnesse without which is God who is my Judge who can strike me dead in the committing of a sin if he please this would make men if they were not atheists to fear to sin Let us labour therefore to approve our hearts to God as well as our conversations to men set our selves in the presence of God who is a discerner of our thoughts as well as of our actions and that which we should be ashamed to do before men let us be afraid to think before God that is another means to come to sincerity Another Direction to help us to walk sincerely is especially to look to the heart look to the beginning to the spring of all our desires thoughts affections and actions that is the heart the qualification of that is the qualification of the man If the heart be naught the man is naught if that be sincere the man is sincere Therefore look to the heart see what springs out thence if there spring out naughty thoughts and desires suppresse them in the beginning Let us examine every thought if we find that we do but think an evil thought execute it presently crush it for all that is naught comes from a thought and desire at the first therefore let us look to our thoughts and desires see if we have not false desires and intents and thoughts answerable God is a Spirit and he looks to our very spirits and what we are in our spirits in our hearts and affections that we are to him Therefore as a branch of this what ill we shun let us do it from the heart by hating it first A man may avoid an evil action from fear or out of other respects but that is not sincerity Therefore look to thy heart see that thou hate evil and let it come from sincere looking to God Ye that love the Lord hate the thing that is evil saith David not only avoid it but hate it and not onely hate it but hate it out of love to God And that which is good not only to do it but to labour to delight and joy in it For the outward action is not the thing that is regarded but when there is a resolution a desire and delight in it then God accounts it as done And so it is in evil if we delight in evil it is as if it were done already Therefore in doing good look to the heart joy in the good you do and then do it and in evil look to the heart judge it to be evil and then abstain from it This is the reason of all the errours in our lives because we have bad hearts we look not to God in sincerity Judas had a naughty heart he loved not the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore he had a naughty conclusion What the heart doth not is not done in Religion Thus we see how we may come to have our conversation in sincerity that we may rejoyce in the testimony of our conscience Therefore now to make an Use of Exhortation we should labour for sincerity and esteem highly of it because God so esteems of it Truth is all that we can alledge to God we cannot alledge perfection St. Paul himself saith not I have walked exactly or perfectly no but he saith This is our rejoycing that we have walked in sincerity So if a mans conscience can excuse him of hypocrisie and doubling though it cannot free him from imperfections God in the Covenant of Grace looks not so much at perfection as at truth Here I might answer an Objection of some Christians Oh but I cannot pray without distraction I cannot delight so in good things c. Though a Christians heart cannot free him from this yet his heart desires to approve it self to God in all things and his heart is ready to say to the Lord as David said Lord try me if there be any way of wickednesse in me And therefore he will attend upon all means to get this sincerity He will be diligent in the Word of God for therein the mind of God is manifestly seen The Word of God it is a begetting Word it makes us immortal it makes us new creatures it is truth and the instrument of truth Truth will make truth The true sincere Word of God not mingled with devices it will make what it is The Word of God being his Word who is Almighty it hath an Almighty transforming power from him It is accompanied and cloathed with his Almighty Spirit Truth will cause truth such as it is in it self it will work in our hearts In that mungrel false Religion Popery they have traditions and false devices of men and so they make false Christians such as they are they make strain them to the quintessence and they cannot make a true Christian Truth makes true Christians therefore attend upon Gods Ordinance with all reverence and it will make thee a sound heart it is a transforming Word Those that desire to hear the Word of God and to have their consciences to be informed by the hearing of it they are sincere Christians and those that labour to shut up the Word of God that it may not work upon the conscience they are false-hearted A heart that is sincere it prizeth the Word of God that makes us sincere the Word of God hath this effect especially being unfolded in the Ministery of it that a man may say as Jacob did Doubtlesse God is in this place It is all that is ours nothing runs upon our reckoning but sincerity For what I have not done truly Conscience saith I have not done to God and therefore I can expect no comfort for it but what I have done to God I look to have with comfort for I know that God regards not perfection but sincerity he requires not so much a great faith as a true faith not so much perfect love as true love and that I have in truth as S. Peter said Lord thou knowest that I love thee This will make us look God who is the Judge in the face It gives us not title to heaven for that is onely by Christ but it is a qualification required of us in the Gospel nothing is ours but what we do in truth And again consider That it will comfort us against Satan at the hour of death when Satan shall tempt us to despair for our sins as that he will do we may comfort our selves with this that we have been sincere We may send him to Christ for that must be the way who hath fulfilled Gods will and satisfied his Fathers wrath Satan will say This is true it is the Gospel and therefore it cannot be denied but it is for them that have walked according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh for those that have obeyed God in all things Now when our Conscience shall joyn with Satan and
there is a God and God is unchangeably true there would be nothing true in the world for all truth is therefore true because it is answerable to that exemplar truth that is true in God answerable to Gods conceit and decree of things This I observe the rather because it is a fundamental thing it doth wondrously stablish our faith in Divine truths when we know it comes from God that is true If we would seek for evidences of our faith then we must go within us and see what love and what hope what combat between the flesh and spirit there is but if we look for any thing to stablish our faith go out of us consider the unchangeable truth of God whose truth it is God as God creating a reasonable creature he must give him some revealed truth he could not be worshipped else How must we know this revealed truth whereby he will be worshipped by the reasonable creature for no man will be served by his servant as he pleaseth how shll we know these certain truths because they come from his nature God is true and as God is true so our word to you was not you and way that is it was true There is the same ground of the certainty of Evangelicall truth as there is of God himself to be true To add a little further in the Point consider the truth of God every way the faithfulnesse of God as it signifies in the originall as God is faithful Consider what relations God hath put upon him in his divine truth how he will be thought on And then bring those relations to his nature for there we must pitch at last What is he to us and how hath he revealed himself to us Thus and thus What is he in his nature So and so and there we must rest For instance The Lord hath made many promises who is it that hath made them he that is true and unchangably true there the soul rests in the nature of God But what relations hath he put upon him he is a God and a Lord and a Judge and a Father c. Now as he is God he is true therefore he will do all things that a true God should doe he will uphold his creature while he will have his creature continue he will give it life and being and motion And as a Lord he will do with his own what he list and it is not for us to contend with him why he will do this or that why he makes one rich and another poore He is Lord of all and a true Lord therefore we must give authority to this true Lord. And then as he is a Judge he corrects men for sin and rewards them for the good they do As a Judge sometime he punisheth them inwardly in conscience sometimes outwardly All the good we have is from this that he is a faithful and true God therefore there we must rest He is a true Judge he rewards every man according to his works whether they be good or evill And so in the relation of a Father he is a true Father he corrects when time serves he rewards and encourageth when time serves he gives an inheritance to his Children and hath pity and compassion on his Children when time serves He is a true Father Other fathers do this and that out of passion not out of truth and goodnesse but he doth So when we consider God in his relations consider of the attribute of his truth All truth in his Word comes from this God is true This truth is sealed by this that our truth to you our word to you was not yea and nay uncertain Gods truth is not uncertain and variable There is no shadow of change in him and his Word is like himself We say usually in the word of an honest man and that is something In verbum Sâ—…rdotis in the word of a Priest it was accounted in former times a great matter it should be so indeed In the word of a King is a great matter But when God saith in the Word of a God The Word of the Lord hath spoken so It is not yea and nay it was not flexible and doubtful because it is the Word of him that hath the command of all that he saith it is his VVord that is Lord of Heaven and Earth Now when he that saith a thing is the Lord of Heaven and Earth he is Lord of his own Word therefore what he saith is not yea and nay uncertain for he can make good what he saith There is the same ground of Evangelicall truth as there is of God himself to be true I will speak no more in the unfolding of the Point it is plain that God is true Is this true that God is true that he is truth it self then many things issue from hence It is a ground of many other truths It was the ground of all the Uses that S. Paul makes of the Word of God it is profitable every way I will name some principall to avoid multiplicity in a plain Point God is true and his Word is true hereupon the threatenings of God must needs be true even as true as God himself If this be so then unlesse we will make another Scripture another Word this Word is yea That Word that threatens sin that Idolaters and covetous and wantons shall never enter into the Kingdome of heaven Be not deceived saith the Apostle that Word is yea it is true God is true this must follow therefore that whatsoever he saith is true therefore his threatenings are true It is a truth that hath influence into all other truths whatsoever that which is prefixed here by S. Paul not onely as an oath As Gad is true so his Word is not yea and nay but certain but I say it hath influence into all other truths whatsoever threatnings promises directions all are therefore true because God is true Therefore those that shuffle off the threatnings and think they shall do well and blesse themselves Gods wrath shall smoak against them for God must alter his nature and his Word must be altered or else his judgments must stick on them to death and damnation without repentance If God should not be avenged on ordinary swearers and blasphemers if adulterers should live in such sins and ever come to heaven they must have another God and another Word of God this hath said they shall not enter into heaven that live in these sins If it be true as God is true what horrible Atheisme is in the hearts of men to think that God will change his nature though they do not change their course and that the Word of God shall alter though they will not alter what hope can prophane blasphemous persons have that make but a trifle of swearing when God hath said they shall not go unpunished and those that live in a filthy course when God hath said Whor emongers and adulterers God will judge without horrible
Redeemer and yet notwithstanding to need the help of other Mediatours and Intercessours here is yea and nay it is a contradiction That the Church of Rome is the Catholike Church if it be Roman it is not Catholike The universal Catholick Roman Church it is as much as the universal particular Church it is a contradiction one thing overturnes another The sacrifice of the Masse an unbloody sacrifice a sacrifice is the killing of a thing that was alive a sacrifice is with blood the offering of Christ in the bread is an unbloody sacrifice a sacrifice and not a sacrifice here is yea and nay a contradiction So that besides their thwarting of Scripture they thwart and contradict themselves in their fundamentall points they are yea and nay And then they are full of uncertainties they are not undoubtedly yea There is no Papist in the world would end his dayes so if he be not drunk if he be advised if he be not surprized with passion if he do not forget himself Come to a Papist and ask him what are the main points of Popery that you believe alwayes yea Can you say when you confesse your sins that you confesse all No can you then say then you have a perfect absolution that depends upon your confession No it is an uncertain thing What an absutd thing is Popish Religion it wracks the conscience of people Can you say that the Priest intends consecration in these words This is my body No and if the Priests intention be not there then Christ is not there and then you are Idolaters Can you tell certainly that Transubstantiation depends upon his consecration No how full of uncertainties and contradictions is Popery you cannot say the Points of Popery are alwaies yea Perhaps they are yea in life but are they yea in death It is yea in life that they merit salvation by works but is it yea in death No Bellarmine disclaimes it It is safe not to trust in our own merits for danger of vain-glory c. but to trust onely in the mercy of God in Christ. So their doctrine it is yea in life to sin by to live riotously by but then it is nay in death they reverse it if they belong to God they disclaim their works and other things and cleave onely to Christ and there is hope of them that have grace truly to do so So their doctrine is not yea that in life and death they can stick to To go on a little further to lay open the grossenesse of their tenents and the danger of their Religion We are better bottomed then they are which make the Word of God our rule and ground that is not yea and nay but yea The Canonization of Saints The Pope he makes Garnet a Traytor and Thomas of Becket Saints how can he know that these were Saints that he Canonizeth he that makes a Saint must know the hearts of men and search the heart for the truth of grace is there now it is the priviledge of God to know the heart So that Popery is full of uncertainties and pitifull perplexities Indeed they maintain the doctrine of doubting that we must doubt as if our nature were not sufficiently prone to doubt but we must get arguments to make us doubt as if it were needful to have infirmities to stablish grace in us Alas we are too prone to doubt and the Devil is ready to make us stagger in the time of temptation Again the Invocation of Saints it is a Point wondrous full of uncertainties Can they know and say certainly that the Saints hear them They cannot know that one Saint having a finite power should hear a hundred Petitions at once A finite creature hath but a finite power to hear one thing at one time distinctly how can they be perswaded that a finite Saint in heaven at one time distinctly should hear many thousands that put up their Petitions at once Can a man that is but a capable creature though glorified as Peter or Mary c. distinctly consider a thousand Petitions that are made they cannot how then can they think that a certain truth the Invocation of Saints The main ground of all their Religion is yea and nay the Pillar of it what is that The infallible judgment of the Pope but how can they tell when he speaks ex Cathedra for 9. or 10. exceptions and tricks they have when he speaks to be built on and when not how can poor soules know when he speaks so that the people may infallibly build on his judgment Because many times he is an illiterate man that knowes nothing in Divine things wherein he is to judge So the very foundation of Popery is yea and nay that is a most uncertain thing And then the ground of that that he is the Successour of Peter there is no place of Scripture for it neither dare they bring any It is but a Tradition It is somewhat uncertain whether ever Peter were at Rome that he was Bishop there is more uncertain but that the Pope should be his Successour is most uncertain and impossible of all So indeed the Religion of Popery is a rack to conscience especially to conscience that is awaked and knowes what Religion means at all Why is it a rack to them There is no certainty in it in the main Tenents of it It is not onely contrary to Gods yea but it is yea and nay uncertain in it self Now here the Apostle he frees his preaching from this imputation Our Word to you was not yea and nay and he calls God to record God is true and as he is true my Word to you was not yea and nay but was certainly yea Thus you see what use we are to make of it for confutation and conviction of our own judgments It may be moved by some perhaps How doth it appear how shall we know by what arguments that it is yea and not yea and nay I answer The testimony of S. Paul here is that it is so and his appeal to God with an asseveration As God is true But our own experience doth tell us that the Word of God is certain and true if we belong to God for we stand convict in judgment by many arguments which I will not now repeat But how shall any man certainly know it is yea the Word is the undoubted Word of God unchangeable wheresoever it is In a word you may know it is so he thinks it is so if he yield obedience to it as to such a Word absolute obedience to Gods truth without questioning when once a thing is clear to be agreeable to Gods truth he yields obedience to it then it is yea If it be a duty he must do it if it be a threatning he must avoid it by repentance if it be a promise he must believe it this is absolute obedience Likewise reverence in hearing it as Cornelius did Act. 10. To hear it as the
a Christian to be cowardly because he hath death and hell conquered and every thing is made serviceable to help him to heaven But for another man to set light by these things it is more madnesse No man but a Christian can be stout and couragious except it be from a false spirit especially in things that are above mans natural power as death it is eternal and what man can stand out against the eternal wrath of God And therefore those that put on a Roman stoutnesse and courage though they seem to have strong spirits it is but false either they are besotted with sensuality or else with a spirit of pride When they look before them and see eternity and see their sins and that they must all appear at the day of Judgment they cannot be strong Let us labour therefore to have our hearts stablished by the Spirit of God and try our selves often by propounding Queries how we do things with what minds and upon what grounds Again another Evidence whereby we may know that we have spiritual strength and stability in Christ wrought in us by the Spirit of God is this when it makes us desire the coming of Christ when it makes us think of death and of the time to come with joy and comfort and that for the present it gives us boldnesse to the Throne of Grace in extremities He that in extremity can go to God in Christ it is a sign his heart is established Hypocrites in extremity flye to desperate courses as Saul and Achitophel did but in extremity the soul that is stablished goes to God My God my God saith Christ so Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him I say it is an evidence of a soul stablished upon Christ by the Spirit of God to have boldnesse to the Throne of Grace in extremity nay when God seems to hide himself which is the principal extremity of all as in Divine temptations when God seems to be an enemy then for a man to fight and wrastle with God and tug with the temptation and not to let God go though he kill him this is a true Israel a conquerour of God this is a heart fortified by the Spirit It is an argument of a heart established when besides for the present for the time to come he can chearfully and boldly think how it will be with him when death shall come that he shall go to Christ that the Match shall be fully made up that is begun by God between Christ and him for the contract is in this world but the nuptials are celebrated in heaven and in confidence hereof can say Come Lord Jesus come quickly A heart that is not stablished saith Oh come not Wherefore art thou come to torment us before our time say the Devils to Christ so an unstablished heart at the hour of death is afraid it shall be tormented before the time and therefore come not come not saith such a soul. But the soul that is stablished upon Christ and upon the promises in Christ of forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting by the Spirit of Christ that saith Come Lord Jesus come quickly I have been larger upon this Point then I intended these unsettled times moved me to speak a little more then ordinary that we might labour to have our hearts stablished that whatsoever comes we may have somewhat that is certain to stick to that our estate in Christ may be sure whatsoever becomes of our state in the world otherwise VERSE XXII Who hath anointed us and also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts THe Apostle having formerly laid open the riches of a Christian In this Verse he cometh to shew his strength His riches consisteth in the promises of God in Christ His strength in being stablished upon those promises Now that which he had spoken of more generally in the word stablishing he unfolds in three borrowed Terms Anointing Sealing Earnest Implying therein the manner of the Spirits establishing a Christian. He who stablisheth us how is that wrought By the Spirit anointing by the Spirit sealing and by the earnest of the Spirit which three terms do all argue assurance For you know that in the old Law Kings Priests and Prophets were anointed that is they were authorized and confirmed in their places And for sealing Writings among our selves are sealed for security And an Earnest secures Contracts and Bargains So that whatsoever may serve to strengthen a Christians faith and assurance is here laid down God to help our soules by our senses fetcheth it from humane affaires applying words borrowed from earthly commerce by a heavenly anagogical sense to spiritual things First the sure estate of a Christian is set down in the general by stablishing and then in particular we are anointed and sealed and have the Earnest of the Spirit God in the Covenant of grace doth our part and his own too he gives faith and strengthens faith and seales us he gives us promises he doth stablish us upon those promises and works our hearts to an embracing of them he anoints us and seales us and gives us the Earnest of the Spirit All in the Covenant of Grace depends upon the faithfulnesse of God and not upon ours but upon ours dependantly as he is faithful in stablishing us Now because the holy Apostle would have us settled in the excellency of the state of a Christian in the Covenant of grace you see how large-hearted he is he useth four words implying one and the same thing Stablishing Anointing Sealing and giving Earnest all of them words used in ratification amongst men God is pleased to stoop to speak to us in our own language to speak of heavenly things after an earthly manner and therefore he sets down the certain estate of a Christian by borrowed speeches This is a gracious condescending of God stooping as it were lower then himself and indeed so he alwayes abaseth himself when he deales with man coming down far below himself To come to the words in particular And hath anointed us This word hath a double reference The holy Ghost carries our minds first to the relation and proportion that is between the graces of the Spirit of God and the oyntment with which in former times they were anointed in the Jewish Politie And it hath reference likewise and relation to the persons that were anointed The persons were Kings Priests and Prophets Now God hath anointed us in Christ. The order is this First Christ himself as Mediatour is anointed with the oyl of gladnesse above his fellowes but for his fellowes The oyntment is first poured on the head of spiritual Aaron and then it runs down to all the skirts of his garment that is to the meanest Christian. Even as the least finger and toe is actuated and enlivened and moved by the soul and spirits that the head and the chief vital parts are so every Christian though he be but as the toe or
errours of the times Thus we have unfolded to you the sealing of the Spirit and you see the Spirit of God not onely anoints but seales Now we should labour to have our hearts thus sealed by the Spirit Can we desire and never be at quiet till our Instruments be sealed till our acquittances till our Charters be sealed and shall we be patient not to have our soules sealed Let us labour by all means to have the Image and likenesse of Christ stamped upon our soules especially that is wondrous comfortable when we can find somewhat in us like to Jesus Christ. To encourage us to this let us consider that death and Judgment will come and God will set none at his right hand but his sheep that have his mark those that he sets his stamp and Image upon those he will set on the right hand in the day of Judgment And how comfortably in the hour of death can the soul commend it self to God when it sees it self stamped and sealed by the Spirit of Christ when he can say to Christ Lord Jesus receive my soul that thou hast redeemed by thy blood that thou hast sealed by thy Spirit and that thou hast set thine own stamp upon acknowledge thine own likenesse though it be not as it should be what a comfort I say hath the sealed soul at the hour of death and so in all other extremities and in times of trouble and danger those in whom God sees his own Image and likenesse he will own and to those he will alwayes shew a distinct and respective love in hard times What a difference is between that soul and others in the time of affliction as in the time of pestilence and war the soul that is sealed knowes that he is marked out for God for happinesse in the world to come whatsoever befalls him in this world and he knowes that God in all confusion of times knowes his own seal those that are sealed God hath a speciall care of I say therefore in Ezek. 9. they are said to be marked in their foreheads not that there was any visible mark on them but it is a phrase to signifie what speciall care God had of his people specially in times of destruction God will as it were set them out in those times and make special provision for them thus Josiah was taken away from the evill to come and Lot was taken out of Sodom when fire and brimstone was to come from heaven and Pella a little Village was delivered when the general destruction came upon Jerusalem So that I say God hath a speciall care of his little ones in this life and if he take them away yet their death is precious in his sight He will not part with them but upon special consideration he sees if they live it will be worse for them he sees it is better for them to be gathered to himself and to the soules of men made perfect in heaven And as he hath a special care of them in regard of outward miseries and calamities so in regard of spiritual contagion and infection as Rev 7. there Gods holy ones were sealed so many of such a tribe c. which is to signifie to us that God hath alwayes some that he will keep and preserve from the universal infection and contagion of Antichrist in the worst times God hath alwayes a Church in the worst times in the obscurest ages of the Church eight or nine hundred years after Christ especially nine hundred years when Egyptian darknesse had overspread the world and there was little learning and goodnesse in the world God had alwayes sealed ones marked ones that he preserved from the danger of dark times and so he will alwayes have a care of his own that they be not led away with that soul-hurting errour Popery another manner of mischief then men take it for The Scripture is more punctual in setting down the danger of those especially in lighter times of the Church that are carried away with that sin then any other sin whatsoever they have a contrary mark those that have the mark of the Beast it is contrary to the mark of Christ it is far from being the mark and seal of the Spirit that implicite bloody faith Theirs is the bloody Church pretend what they will and they stand out to blood in the defence of all their cruel superstitious and bloody decrees Those persons I say that are deeply died in Popery that have the mark of the Beast they are in a clean opposite condition to those that are marked with the Spirit that Christ marks for his Let us not fear therefore I say if we have the Spirit of God stamped upon us though in a little measure if it be true let us not fear death Christ knowes his own mark even in death and out of death And let us not fear afflictions nor evil times Christ will know his seal He hath a book of remembrance for those that are his Mal. 3. for those that mourn for the sins of the times and when he gathers his Jewels those shall be his he will gather his Jewels as a man in his house gathers his jewels he suffers his luggage to burn in the fire so God in common calamities he suffers luggage wicked men to go to wrack but he will free his own Let us labour therefore for this seal to have our soules stamped with the Spirit of God to have further and further evidence of our state in grace that in the time of common calamity we may be free from danger free from errour and destruction But you will say What shall I account of it if there be but a little sign of grace Be not discouraged when the stamp in wax is almost out it is currant in Law put the case the stamp of the Prince be an old coyn as sometimes we see it on a King Harry groat yet it is currant money yea though it be a little crackt So put tbe case the stamp of the Spirit be as it were almost worn out it is our shame and ought to be our grief that it is so yet there are some evidences some pulses some sighes and groans against corruption we mourn in our spirits we do not joyn with corruption we do not allow our selves in sin there is the stamp of the Spirit remaining though it be overgrown with the dust of the world that we cannot see it Sometimes Gods children though they have the graces of the Spirit in them yet they yield so much to their corruptions that they can read nothing but their corruptions when we bid them read their evidences they can see nothing but worldlinesse nothing but pride and envy c. though there be a stamp on them yet God holds the soul from seeing it so that they can see nothing but corruption this is for their negligence God gives them up to mistake their estates because they will not stirre up the graces of the Spirit
because they grieve the Spirit and quench the Spirit by doing that which is contrary to the Spirit Let us therefore that we may have the more comfort preserve the stamp of the Spirit fresh by the exercise of all grace and communion with God and by obedience and by faith honour God by believing and he will honour thee by stamping his Spirit on thee more and more And let this be our work every day to have the stamp of the Spirit clear Oh what a comfort it is to have this in us at all times if a man have nothing in him better then nature if he have nothing in him in regard of grace if he have not Christs Image upon his soul though he be a King or an Emperour yet he shall be stript of all ere long and be set on the left hand of Christ and be adjudged to eternal torments It is the folly of the times come up of late there is much labouring for Statues and for curious workmanship of that kind and some pride themselves much in it and account it great riches to have an old Statue Alas alas what a poor delight is this in comparison of the joy that a Christian hath by the seal of the Spirit and what is this to the ambition of a Christian to see the Image and representation of Christ stamped in his soul that he may be like the second Adam that he may be transformed more and more by looking on him and seeing himself in him to love him considering that he hath loved us so much for we cannot see the love of Christ to us but we must love him the more and be transformed into him Now this transforming our selves into the Image of Christ is the best picture in the world therefore labour for that every day more and more There is besides the common broad seal of God his Privy Seal as I may call it It is not sufficient that we have the one that we have admittance into the Church by Baptisme but we must have this privy seal which Christ sets and stamps upon the soul of the true Christian Alas for a man to build onely on the outward seals and outward prerogatives which in themselves are excellent yet the standing upon them betrayes many soules to the Devil in times of distresse It is another manner of seal then the outward seal in the Sacrament that will satisfie and comfort the conscience in the apprehensions of wrath at the hour of death or otherwayes It must be this privy seal and then comes the use of those publick open known seales the broad seales then a man with comfort may think upon his Baptisme and upon his receiving the Communion when he hath the beginnings of faith wrought in him by the Spirit of God when a man finds the beginnings of faith in him then he may make use of the broad seal to be a help to his faith We must not be so prophane as to think slightly and irreverently of Gods Ordinances they are of great and high consequence for when Satan comes to the soul and shakes the confidence of it and saith Thou art not a Christian and God doth not love thee Why saith the soul God hath loved me and pardoned my sins he hath given me promises and particularly sealed them in the Sacrament here is the excellency of the Sacrament it comes more home then the Word it seales the general promise of God particularly to my self I am sealed in the Sacrament and withall I find the stamp of the Spirit in my heart and therefore having the inward work of the Spirit and God having fortified the inward work and strengthened my faith by the outward seal I can therefore stand against any temptation whatsoever They are excellent both together but the speciall thing that must comfort must be the hidden seal of the Spirit Let us labour therefore to be sealed inwardly and observe Gods sealing-dayes as we use to speak which though it may be every day if we be in spiritual exercises yet especially on the Lords Day for then his Ordinance and his Spirit go together Now as there is a sealing of our estates that we are the children of God so there is of truths and both are in the children of God as for instance this is a truth Whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life now the same Spirit that stirred up the soul to believe this seales it in the soul even to death and in all times of temptation and likewise there is no promise but upon the believing of it it is sealed by the Spirit upon the soul for those truths onely abide firm in the soul which the Spirit of God sets on What is the reason that many forget the comforts and consolations that they hear because the Spirit sets them not on the Spirit seales them not What is the reason that illiterate men stand out in their profession to blood whereas those that have a discoursive kind of learning they yield the reason is this the knowledge of the one is sealed by the Spirit it is set fast upon the soul the Spirit brings the knowledge and the soul close together whereas the knowledge of the other is onely a notional swimming knowledge it is not spiritual Those therefore that will hold out in the end and not apostatize those that will stand out in the hour of death against temptation and those that will hold out in the time of life against solicitations to sin they must have a knowledge suitable to the things they know that is they must see and know heavenly things by a heavenly light spiritual things by the Spirit of God And therefore when we come to hear the Ministers of God we should not come with strong conceits in the strength of our wit but with reverend dispositions with dependance upon God for his Spirit that he would teach us together with the Ministers and close with our soules and set those truths we hear upon our soules we shall never hold out else And it must be the Holy Ghost that must do this for that which must settle and seal comfort to the soul must be greater then the soul especially in the time of temptation when the terrours of the Almighty are upon us and when the hell within a man is open when God layes open our consciences and writes bitter things against us and our consciences tell us our sins wondrous near they are written as it were with a pen of Iron and the point of a Diamond upon our soules now I say those truths that must satisfie conscience that is thus turmoiled must be set on by that which is above conscience the Spirit of God who is above our spirits can onely set down our spirits and keep them from quarrelling and contending against the truth and quiet the conscience and this the Spirit doth when it sets the truth upon the soul. And therefore when our soules are disquieted
love if he take any course contrary to love it is not his own work as he saith to punish man it is not his own work he is forced to that alway to shew love and mercy that is his work that that comes from his own principle from his mercy he is love he doth not say he is justice or rigour but he is love It agrees with the nature of God to deal mercifully if he deal otherwise it is forced from us It suits with the whole carrirge of our salvation these courses of love and gentlenesse first of all for we are saved by a manner of love we are saved by God giving his Son and by his Son giving himself We are saved by a course of intreaty the Ministers of God are Ambassadours to desire us to be reconciled to God God having saved us by a manner of love he will have us taught by a manner of love in the Gospel especially because Gods aim is to gain our love and which way can that be but by a way of love For the nature of man is such that it will never love till it know it be loved first Therefore God stoops to a way of love because he would have our love which he would never have by other courses because they are contrary to our nature It is the practice of God his custome is answerable for first he deales by gentle means alwayes and then after if those will not prevail he goes to severe means and in severe means he takes degrees first lesse and then more violent and then violent indeed God would never descend to sharper courses if milder would serve the turn You know he bade his own people before they set in hostile manner upon any to give them fair warning to offer them conditions of peace so it is his course to offer conditions of peace so he did to the old World and so he doth to us before he corrects he offers conditions of peace You see how sparing Christ was and how full of love O Jerusalem Jerusalem c. Again they are courses that promise best successe ordinarily for the proud nature of man will raise it self up and will harden it self against severe courses Man naturally as I said will be led and not forced his nature will rise against forced violent courses therefore for the event it self it is the best Again they are courses that are more lasting that that is gained by love is constant that that we prevail with men for by reason it will hold other courses are not so faithful they will not hold What we gain on men by fear there is shame in it that a man should be forced to any thing and nature will break out But it will hold best that is gained by way of love and reason Therefore let us imitate God in this when we are to deal with any not to take violent courses in the first place but to deal with men as men deal with them by love and reason and not stand upon our own stomach and greatnesse and take delight as it were in the commanding of others that we have a destructive power a power that can quash and crush men and shew it to the utmost and pride our selves in it If God should deal so with such where were those proud creatures If God were not a forbearing indulgent sparing God Therefore you may see what disposition those are of that are all for fire for violent courses rigorous courses That is not the way that God useth it is not the way that Christ used it is not the way that ministers do use that have the Spirit of God You have some kind of people that if a man be not alway in matters of damnation his Sermon is nothing So you have some that in their courses are so violent that they know nothing that is moderate and yet perhaps they are good too but they cherish too much a violent disposition Now St. Paul though he were a very zealous holy man yet notwithstanding he would not put himsef upon violent courses but when there was great necessity He is rather a Butcher then a Physician that loves to torment his Patient You see what course is first to be taken I need not be long in so clear a Point therefore I will spend no more time in it but come to the second that is more generally usefull because indeed men are so that gentle means will hardly prevail with them what must be done then not spare them When gentle means will not serve the turn then we must not spare S. Paul came not that he might spare them Now if they had not amended what would S. Paul have done think you would he have suffered them to have cherished the incestuous person among them that wicked person that had committed that which was intolerable amongst the Heathen would he have cherished proud factious men among them that would disgrace S. Pauls Doctrine to win authority to them selves would not he have told them to their face the danger of their sin and have made them ashamed undoubtedly he woud he would have spared So I say if gentle means will not prevail men must not be spared meither Minister nor Magistrate must spare especially in dangerous courses that are prejudicial to the souls of others Why We must spare none that God may spare all We that are Ministers must spare no sin that God may spare all Lift up thy voice like a Trumpet saith God and tell Israel of their sins If gentle means will not reform them lift up thy voice like a Trumpet Cast out Jezabel with her painted face though sin paint and colour it self it must be cast out Jonas must out of the ship the ship will perish else Achan must be stoned We must tell men of their danger not with hatred of their persons but to prevent an eternal punishment You know well that preventing justice is better then executing justice Is not discipline better then execution Is it not better to hear of our faults roundly when other means will not prevail then to cherish that that will be for our eternal destruction Is not searing and cutting better then killing Is it not better that a limb be seared and cut then that all be clear cut off and the whole body perish Is not the pain of Chirurgery or Physick that makes a man sick for a while better to be endured then the painse and terrours of death it self These preventing courses are the best courses therefore we must spare none but tell them of their danger faithfully Only liberty of speech must not be a cover for boistrousnesse or a cover for the venting of evil humors as sometimes it is For flesh will never prevail with flesh flesh and pride in the speaker will never prevail with pride in the hearer but it must be a spiritual kind of severity discovering the danger to them we speak to
part of happinesse in this world and in the world to come Now the end of the Ministery is to set the peoples hearts into a gracious and blessed liberty to bring them into the Kingdome of grace here and to fit them for the Kingdome of glory to help forward their joy This is the end both of the Word and of the dispensation of the Word in the Ordinances of salvation in the Sacraments and all that our joy may be full as our blessed Saviour saith These things have I spoken that your joy may be full It is the end of all our communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with the Ministery and one with another as it is 1 Joh. 1. These things have I written that your joy may be full you have communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with us that your joy may be full all is for spiritual joy We are helpers of your joy The meaning is we are helpers of your faith from whence joy comes more especially for he doth not repeat the word again We have not dominion over your faith but are helpers of your faith but instead of that he names joy as that that doth accompany true faith The Points considerable in this clause are these That joy is the state of Christians that either they are in or should labour to be in because the Apostle names it for all happinesse here All that have given their names to Christ should labour to rejoyce either they do rejoyce or they should labour to come to it that is supposed as a ground I will be the shorter in it The second is That the Ministers are helpers of this blessed condition The third is They are but helpers they are helpers and but helpers they are not authours of joy but helpers We are but helpers of your joy saith the Apostle These three things I will speak of briefly out of these words First Joy is that frame and state of soul that all that have given their names to Christ either are in or should labour to be in For this Doctrine is fetched from the principle of nature We do all with joy all in our callings is done with joy What do men in their Trades but that they may have that that they may joy in when they have it It is an old Observation of S. Chrysostome We do all that we may joy Ask any man why he doth take so much pains and be a drudge in his place it is that he may get somewhat to rejoyce in in his old dayes So out of the principle of nature this ought to be the scope of all to joy Now those that are Christians God requires it at their hand as a duty Rejoyce alway again I say rejoyce And he doth prepare and give them matter enough of joy to those that are Christians For whether we consider the ills they are freed from the greatest ills of all they are freed from sin and the wrath of God they are freed from eternal damnation they are freed from the sting of death from the greatest and most terrible ills Or whether we regard the state that God brings them in by believing being in the favour of God they enjoy the fruits of that favour peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And then for the life to come they are under the hope of glory The state of a Christian is a state of joy every way whether I say we regard the ill he is freed from or the good he is in for the present or the hope of eternal good for the time to come A Christian which way soever he look hath matter of joy God the Father is his Christ is his the Holy Ghost is his Comforter the Angels are his all are his life or death things present or things to come all are his Therefore there is no question of this that every one that hath given his name to Christ is in a state of joy if he answer his calling or he should labour to be in it he wrongs his codition else Why should they labour to be in that state Among many Reasons one is That God that gives them such matter of joy may have glory from them For what should the life of a Christian be that is freed from the greatest ill and advanced to the greatest good his life should be a perpetual thanksgiving to God and how can a man be thankfull that is not joyful Joy is as it were the oyl the anointing it makes a man chearful it makes the countenance of his soul to be chearful it makes him active in good when he is anointed with the oyl of gladnesse Now every man should have a desire to be good to be diligent and expedite in all that is good Therefore we should labour for this spiritual anointing that we may be ready for every good work Vessels of mercy prepared for every good work And then for suffering we have many things to go through in this world how shall a man suffer those things that are between him and Heaven with joy unlesse he labour to bring himself to this temper of joy And then for others every man should labour to encourage others We are all fellow-passengers in the way to Heaven therefore even to bring on others more chearfully we ought to labour to be in a state of joy Those that do not rejoyce they bring an ill report upon the way of God as if it were a desolate disconsolate way As the Spies brought an ill report upon the Land of Canaan whereupon the people were disheartned from entring into it So those that labour not to bring their hearts to spiritual joy they bring an ill report on the wayes of God and dishearten others from entring into those wayes which way soever we look we have reasons to encourage us to joy That God may have more glory and that we may do him more service that we may endure afflictions better and encourage others and take away the reproach of Religion from those that think it a melancholy course of life which indeed do not understand what belongs to the state of a Christian for the state of a Christian is a state of joy And if a Christian do not joy it is not because he is a Christian but because he is not a Christian enough because he favours the worse principle in him he favours himself in some work of the flesh God in the Covenant of grace is all love and mercy he would have us in our pilgrimage to heaven to finish our course with joy and he knowes we can do nothing except we have some joy It is the oyl of the soul as I said to make it nimble and fit for all actions and for all sufferings It gives a lustre and grace to whatsoever we do Not onely God loves a chearfull performer of duties but it wins acceptance of all others and makes the worker himself wondrous
subordinate Religion to State-Policy p. 294 295 Religion tends to practice p. 295 Popish Religion is a carnal Religion p. 312 313 The most Religious men are the best States-men p. 315 Wherein our Religion and the Pâ—…pish agree and differ p. 395 398 Popish Religion unsound and rotten p. 546 Popish Religion is not founded upon the Scriptures but upon Tradition p. 545 546 Popish Religion crosseth the Word of God p. 385 386 Popish Religion is full of contradictions p. 386 Popish Religion is full of uncertainties p. 386 387 It's safer to be of the Protestant Religion then of the Popish p. 397 Whether one living and dying in the Romish Religion may be saved p. 397 398 Repentance Late Repentance such as is in time of sicknesse and death seldome true Repentance p. 33 Reproof It 's a sign of a gracious heart to endure reproof and to esteem and affect the reprover p. 330 513 A Minister must not spare to reprove people for sin committed p. 512 c. A three-fold Reproof or Correction p. 514 Resolution Of good Resolutions pag. 323 324 c. Resurrection The Resurrection is an argument to strengthen faith p. 167 There will or shall be a Resurrection p. 167 c. God raiseth the dead p. 167 to 171 Rock What is meant by Rock Matth. 16. 18. p. 394 S. Saint OUr love and respect should be carried to all Saints p. 5 God scatters his Saints why p. 6 All that make profession of Religion should indeed be Saints ibid. Professours called Saints why ibid. Four things required to make a Saint viz. 1. Separation 2. Dedication 3. Qualification 4. Conversation pag. 7 8 How to know a Saint from a meer civil man p. 8 True Saints wherein different from hypocrites and formal professours ibid. See Christian. Salvation Salvation wrought by affliction or suffering how and how by Christ p. 108 to 113 How Afflictions or Patience in suffering afflictions helps to salvation p. 110 111 112 Two wayes to obtain salvation p. 108 Salutation Use of holy Salutations three-fold p. 9 Salutations should be holy p. 10 Gods Name when taken in vain in salutations ibid. Salutations in what cases to be omitted ibid. Satisfaction Against Popish Merits and satisfactions for others p. 107 See Indulgences Scripture How to know the Scripture to be the Word of God and truly Divine p. 386 392 Whether the Scriptures receive any authority from the Church p. 3 4 545 The Scripture is to be believed for it self not because of the Church p. 392 393 See Word Seal Christ the head is first sealed and then the members viz. Christians pag. 473 Our sealing what p. 474 Four uses of a Seal p. 474 475 The Spirit compared to a Seal wherein pag. 474 475 476 478 481 How the Spirit differs from other seales p. 476 How the Spirit seales us p. 476 477 Four things the Spirit works in this sealing 477 c. How to know the sealing of the Spirit or that we are sealed by the Spirit p. 477 478 Objection against the Spirits sealing answered p. 479 c. Motives to labour to get the Spirits sealing or to have the image of Christ stamped upon our soules by the Spirit pag. 481 to 486 Simplicity Simplicity what and how taken p. 216 242 243 Why called godly simplicity or the simplicity of God p. 243 Difference between Simplicity and sincerity p. 241 S. Paul's conversation in Simplicity how p. 241 242 To what things Simplicity is opposed p. 244 245 246 Directions or Means to get Simplicity p. 251 Simulation Of Simulation p. 244 Aggravations of this sin p. 245 See Dissembling Sincerity Sincerity what p. 253 How Sincerity differs from Simplicity p. 241 Why called godly Sincerity or the Sincerity of God p. 253 A Christians conversation in the world should be in sincerity p. 253 271 Sincerity in good actions how discovered or tryed p. 254 255 Sincerity how tryed or discovered in ill actions p. 256 Sincerity how tryed or discovered in actions indifferent p. 257 Motives to labour for sincerity pag. 258 259 263 264 Means to get sincerity pag. 260 261 262 Corruptions and imperfections may stand with Sincerity p. 264 c. Order in sincerity how to be kept pag. 265 Sincerity extends it self to all the frame of a mans life p. 266 We must have our conversation in sincerity while we live in the world pag. 271 Singularity There is a spirit of singularity in many pag. 3 Slander How to arm and fence our selves against Slander pag. 357 Society The comfort and benefit of Society p. 71 267 Solitarinesse Solitarinesse very dangerous pag. 71 267 See Alone Society Son Christ the Son of God how differing from others sons p. 388 Soul Gods Spirit alone speaks comfort and peace to the soul p. 536 God in all things that are ill intends the good of the soul p. 151 The soul must have somewhat to trust to ibid. People should do well to open the case of their soules to their spirituall Physicians p. 535 Spirit The Spirit with its graces compared to Anointing or Oyntment See Anointing Ointment The Spirit compared to an Earnest See Earnest The Spirit compared to a Seal See Seal Why the work of Grace is attributed to the Spirit rather then to the Father or the Son p. 498 Why the Spirit is said to seal and to be an Earnest and not the Father or the Son ibid. Means to attain or come by the Spirit p. 501 502 503 How to know that we have the Spirit p. 499 500 Of our anointing by the Spirit p. 463 to 473 Of our sealing by the Spirit p. 473 to 485 Gods Spirit alone seales comfort to the soul p. 536 Stablish Stablishing grace necessary why pag. 442 Christ is the foundation of our stability p. 443 Our judgment will affections c. are stablished in Christ p. 444 It 's onely God that can stablish the soul he must do it none else can pag. 446 c. As God can so he will stablish us pag. 446 c. God stablisheth us by working in us stablishing graces viz. 1. Fear 2. Wisdome 3. Faith 4. Peace of Conscience c. 449 Means of stablishing or whereby we may come to be stablished pag. 455 456 457 Signes or Evidences of our stablishing p. 458 to 463 Strength How these two may stand together 2 Cor. 18. We were pressed out of measure above strength and 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithfull and will lay no more upon you then you shall be able to bâ—…r p. 124 125 Suffering The sufferings of Christ abound in us or Gods Saints are subject to many sufferings why p. 74 All Christians suffer how p. 112 A threefold suffering in the Church since Christs time p. 76 The sufferings of Christians are the sufferings of Christ and why so called p. 77 Christs sufferings two-fold ibid. Differences between the sufferings of Christ and ordinary crosses p. 78 Motives to suffer for Christ ibid. How the sufferings of Saints do good
Christ. Use. To study Christ. Why Christians are no more comfortable Job 15. 11. Doct. The afflictions of the Saints for the good of others 4. They gather assurance of the same assistance 5. It is Gods intent and their intent that suffer Use 1. To make use of examples of 〈◊〉 Simile Ground of patience Use 3. To communicate our estate to others The Popes treasurie Doct. The good we have by others afflictions is by stirring up grace in us Doct. We come to the possession of salvation by patience Patience helps salvateon 1 It cleares our evidence 2 By way of qualification Of the person 2 By removing hindrances 3 They strengthen graces 4 They whet our desire of heaven All Christians suffer 1. By sympathy 2 By scandals 3 The burthen of of our calling 4 Combat between flesh and spirit Doct. Gods Children do good in every Condition Use. To be content in all conditions God aymes at many things in the same affliction To obsâ—…rve Gods providence in our suffering Doctr. Gods Children partake of the sufferings of others 1. By sympathy 2. By proportion Indisposition Reas. The communion between Chrians 3. Vnions 1. Of Christ and our nature 2. Of Christ mystâ—…cal head and members 3. Of one member with another 1 Reas. There is some ill to be wrought out of us 2 Reas. To commend comfort to us Use 2 Terrour to those that will not suffer Doct. Those that suffer as they should are sure of comfort Those that partake in the sins shall in the judgment of others Certainty double Double efficacy in hope 1. In the party that hopes of another Doct. We may stedfastly hope for performance of divine truths Comfort to Christians Good men in affliction censured Object 1. Cor 10 13. Object Answ. Object Answ. Doct. God suffers his Children to fall into great extremity Reas. 1. Reas. 2. Reas. 3. Reas. 4. Reas. 5. Reas. 6. Use 1 Not to censure those that suffer Use 2. Not to be confident of earthly things Doct. Gods children sensible of afflictions Quest. Ans. Reas. 1. Death anenemy to nature and to natural comforts Reas. 2. It parts the best friends Reas. 3. Itcuts off all imployment Reas. 4. We leave those we had care of Reas. 5. Pain in death Reas. 6. The horror of the grave Reas. 7. Death the wages of sin Reas 8. St. Paul desired life to serve the Church Use 1. Terrour to wicked men Vse Comfort to Christians The way not to fear death Observ. Gods children are deceived in their death Gods end in St. Pauls sufferings Doct. Certaintie of death helps against self-confidence Physitian fault to flatter the sick Doct. Gods children are prone to self-confidence Reas. 1. The things of this life are useful Reas. 3. Sensuality besâ—…ts nature Use To justifie God dealing 1. In the falls of great Christians 2. Doing great things by weak means Use. To take heed of false confidence Signs of false confidence 1 When we are proud of these things 2. Too much grief in their losse Fretting at crosses 3. When we contemn others that want them 4. Security Doc. It is a dangerous estate to trust in our selves 1. In respect of God 1. It is Idolatry 2. It is Adultery 3. It is falshood 4. Ignorance 5. Rebellion 6. Impatience 2. To our selves It brings us under a curse Jer. 71. False trust breeds despairs We must not trust our own graces Not in the humanity of Christ. Not in the Saements Creatures may be trusted subordinately Worldlings trust creatures above God Against God How to cure false confidence Why God seldom works by great meanes Why God carries our salvation by contraries Learn to know our selves St. Paul to learn to trust in God Comfort for weak Christians Doct. God to make us trust in him casts us out of our selves Simile Reas. One contrary must be removed to make way for another Use. Not to murmure at Gods work Use 2. To examine what effect afflictions work Use 3. Not to judge amisse of the afflicted Vse 4. To lament our stubbornnesse of heart Doct. God in all outward things that are ill in tends the good of the soul. Reas. The soule the better part Obser. The soul must have somewhat to trust to The soul made for God Doct. God is the object of trust God in Christ the object of trust Use. To see the vanity of all other confidence A great favour that God will be trusted by us Doct. Trust in God is a main duty Tryals of trust in God 1. Seeking to him in extremity 2. To use the meanes 3. To be quiet upon use of meaâ—…s 4. Not to despair in want of meanes 5. To keep God our friend 6. To trust threatnings as well as promises 7. To trust God for all things Helpes to trust in God 3. The promises of God 1. Generall 2. Particular Outward things promised with condition Trust how exercised in great afflictions We are beaten from all other help 2. Put the promises in suit 1. The promises of presence 2. Of mitigotion Trust how exercised in the hour of death Use. Ground of patience and content Effect of afflictions To Gods children To the wicked To desire God to draw us neer him by crosses God to strengthen our trust hath given us 1. His promise 2. His seale 3. His oath 4. Earnest 5. A pawne 6. Seizon Object Answ. Meanes of trust to unbelievers Objectâ—… Prayer to God Doct. The resurrection an argument to strengthen faith Doct. God will raise from the dead Gods manner to work when there is no hope Use. To answer Gods worke with our faith Luther How to argue in extremity To extract contrary principles to Satan To carry our selves as expecting the resurrection Doct. 1. God doth not at the first deliver his children Reason 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Doct. 2. God delivers after he hath done his work Use. To wait Gods time Gods time to deliver is 1. When we are low 2. When we are inlarged to pray Grounds of waiting Doct. Gods Children alway need deliverance 2. Spiritually An inward guard God delivereth us from our selves Christians have deliverance in troubles Providnce what Use. To carry our selves reverently to God Doct. A Christian may rely on God for time to come 1. Upon the Name of God 2. His properties 3. His covenant 4. Experience of Gods Children 1. Tim 4. 18. Objct. Gods Children miscarry in afflictions Answ. God delivers them 1. So as they desire 2. He delivers them in afflictions Deliverance open secret Deliverance partial to all Deliverance by death Promises of outward things with reservation Doct It is a good argument from former experience to future deliverance Used by the head of the Church Of the Church Use. To lay up observations of Gods dealing 2. Consider the promises 3 To have sanctified memories to remember deliverances How to argue in spiritual troubles Wicked men cannot argue from former experience of deliverance Use. To be constant in our service to God The happinesse of a
sincerity by pleading corruptions By pleading afflictions Order in sincerity 1. A deep foundation 2. Faith 3. Love Simile Sincerity extends to all a mans life Wicked men have fits of goodnesse God judgeth by the tenour of our life Observ. Christianity may stand with converse in the world Observ. Religion makes a man converse in the world untainted Reason A Christian hath a spirit above the world Grace increased by opposition Not to tempt God by rushing into ill company Object Answ. Times appointed by God Halting in Religion brings danger Observ. We must have our conversation in sincerity while we live here Depravers of goodnesse blamed Observ. A true Christian best where he is best known Christians substantial not painted Use. To approve our selves most where we are best known Simile Ministers win by Life as well as Doctrine Wisdom either 1. Natural Simile Politick wisdome 3. Spiritual 4. Fleshly wisdom Wisdome what Carnal wisdome what Why fleshly wisdome Flesh what The Soul placed between good and evil Wisdome according as the man in whom it is All carnal men have not fleshly wisdome Observ. Fleshly wisdome where there is not sincerity Doctr. Gods Children noâ—… ruled by fleshly wisdome Reason 1. It is Gods enemy 2. It is our enemy Reason 2. It is base Reason 3. They must mortifie it Reas. 4. It doth all the mischief in the world It hinders from good It sets it self against good It hinders from reforming of ill It hinders from suffering It provokes to evil It keeps in ill Carnal wisdome mistaken Ground of Credulity Jealousie Use. To disclaim fleshly wisdome A great Judgement to begiven up to our selves August Use 2. To get our hearts changed Get assurance of salvation See the vanity of earthly thingse Not to walk by fleshly wisdome breeds joy To repent of carnal devices Gods Children not led onely by the rules of reason Christians renouncing fleshly wisdome have a better guide Quest. Why tâ—… Apostle names Grace not Wisdome Answ. Wisdome not from our selves but Gods Grace 2. We are guided not only by wisdome but other Graces 3. Our want of wisdome supplyed by grace Gods wisdome for us more then in us Why weaker christiani are sometimes safer Obser. A Christian needs wisdome 1. To avoid dangers 2. Because of the likenesse between good and evill 3. In regard of hindrances and helps to good 4. Good is not good without it 5. Good is hid under evil Wisdome may be bad Use. To go to God for wisdome God gives wisdome for the things of this life Men leaving Gods wisdome miscarry Use. Reprooâ—… of those that subordinate Religion to State-Policy Observ. True wisdome toucheth Conversation Use. Bad livers no bodies in Religion Grace two-fold 1. The favour of God 2. Something wrought in us 1. A Change 2. Particular graces 1. Heavenly light 2. Love 3. Hope Patience 4. Faith 3. Exciting applying strengthening Grace Doctr. All our wisdom from Grace Every thing necessary to heaven a grace Use. Not to ascribe any thing to our selves God ready to give Grace Reason Christ hath undertaken it Presumption Against Despair Consider our parts and duty Beg assistance of God Go to Christ. Go to the Promises Renounce Carnal Wisdome Incouragements to be guided by Grace Quest. Answ. Signes of being led by Grace 1. To renounce carnal wisdome Sign 2. Simplicity Sincerity Sign 3. The strength of Grace Sign 4. In men of great parts By abasing his gifts and parts In men of weaker parts Sign 5. From the ground of his actions Sign 6. Graces are together Every Grace of use to a Christian Sign 7. When a man provides for his best good Help 1. Submit all to the Spirit of Grace Self-denyal 〈◊〉 Humility 3. High esteem of wisdome 4. To acquaint our selves with God 5. To meditate on the free love and Grace of God 6. Challenge the Covenant of Grace Popery founded on carnal wisdome 1. In the Government 2. In their Worship 3. Opinions Best Statesmen who Observ. A Christian uniform Abuse of signes Observ. God is wise for those that walk by Grace Observ. Gods Children have place in the conscience of others Use. To approve our selves to mens consciences Trust what S. Paul's good conceit of the Corinthians Reason 1. Reason 2. Reas. 3. To entertain good conceits of others Saint Paul's resolution to hold to the end S. Paul's sourse to persevere How the Corinthians were S. Paul's rejoycing To imitate S. Paul in this Resolution The glory of a good life To take God in our resolutions Saint Paul's comfort Things of the world uncertain To examine what we acknowledge Men deceived in the death of others Danger of ill company Aggravation of Hell-torments Ground of ill mens cruelty To be constant in good courses Observ. A sign of a good estate to acknowledge him that hath told us of our sins Use. Tryal Acknowledgment what Christ acknowledged in the Minister Acknowledge Christ what Who acknowledgeth not Christ. To acknowledge the Word To acknowledge the Minister Ministers joyned with Christ in acceptance and neglect Doctr. A faithful Minister the joy of the people Reason He brings Christ the cause of joy Original of our joy Christ must be opened by the Ministery Use of the Ministery Ministers wooers for Christ. Ministers a gift of God The Ministery a great blessing Why God brings men to heaven by men Gods benefits come by the Ministery Use. To rejoyce in enjoying Gids Ordinance Doct. The peoples good is the Ministers joy 1. The matter of his joy 2. A meanes to increase his joy 3. The seal of his Ministery 4. To evidence that he was a good man Use. To be good under the Ministery Good communicative Wicked men draw others to sin Use. To labour to make others good The misery of opposers of goodnesse Not to leave Churches for some corruptions Observ. Christ hath a Day Simile Doctr. Christians rejoycing as it will be at the last day What will avail at the last day who take the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Application to the Sacrament How we are acquainted with Christ. To acknowledge Christ in the Sacrament what Thoughts of Judgment make us painful Observ. Good as far as may be to cherish a good opinion of others Reason 1. Reason 2. Not to cast off men for infirmities Use. Encouragement to inferiours to give occasion of good hope Observ. Personal presence hath a special power Use. To esteem Gods Ordinance Object Answ. Saint Paul's end in coming to Corinth Observ. Holy men work from holy ends Use. To look to our aimes in our actions Doctr. The preaching of the Gospel a special grace Reason It is the means to work all good in us Use. To esteem the Word as a Grace How to come to be thankful Doctr. Those that are in the state of Grace need a second grace Reason 1. From inward opposition Reas. 2. From without Reas. 3. From new temptations Reason 4. From the time to come Reason 5. From Satan Reason 6. From the capacity of the soul.
will tell them that it is another manner of sin and that it is the fountain of all sin And so for Justification by works conscience it self if there were no Book of God would say it is a false point And then they plead for Ignorance they have blind consciences their Clergy being a subtile generation that have abused the world a long time because they would sit in the conscience where God should sit they sit in the Temple of God and would be respected above that which is due to them they would be accounted as petty gods in the world therefore they keep the people from the knowledge of the true rule and make what they speak equal with Gods word Now if the people did discern this they would not be Papists long for no man would willingly be cozened Let us labour therefore for a true rule And when we have gotten rules apply them for what are rules without application Rules are instrumental things and instruments without use are nothing If a Carpenter have a rule and hang it up by him and work by conceit what is it good for So to get a company of rules by the word of God to refine natural knowledge as much as we can and then to make no use of it in our lives it is to no purpose therefore when we have rules let us apply them In this those that have the true rule and apply it not are better then they that refuse to have the rule because as hath been said an Ignorant man that hath not the rule he cannot be good But a man that hath the rule and yet squares not his life by it yet he can bring the rule to his life there is a near converse between the heart and the brain such a man he hath the rule in his memory he hath it in his understanding and therefore there is a thousand times more hope of him that cares to know that cares to hear the word of God and cares for the meanes then of sottish persons that care not to hear because they would not do that they know and because they would not have their sleepy dull and drowsie conscience awaked there is no hope of such a one It should be our care to have right rules and in the application of them to make much of conscience that it may apply aright in directing and then in comfort If we obey it in directing it will witnesse and excuse and upon witnesse and excuse there will come a sweet Paradise to the soul of joy and peace unspeakable and glorious The last thing I observe from these words is this that The testimonie and witnesse of conscience is a ground of comfort and joy The reason of the joyning these two the witnesse of a good conscience and joy it is that which I said before in the description of conscience for conscience first admonisheth and then witnesseth and then it excuseth or accuseth and then it judgeth and executeth Now the inward execution of conscience is joy if it be good for God hath so planted it in the heart and soul that where conscience doth accuse or excuse there is alway execution there is alway joy or fear the affections of joy or fear alway follow If a mans conscience excuse him that he hath done well then conscience comes to be enlarged to be a Paradise to the soul to be a Jubile a refreshing to speak peace and comfort to a man For rewards are not kept altogether for the life to come hell is begun in an ill conscience and heaven is begun in a good conscience an ill conscience is a hell upon earth a good conscience is a heaven upon earth therefore the testimony of a good conscience breeds glorying and rejoycing Again conscience when it witnesseth it comforts because when it witnesseth it witnesseth with God and where God is there is his Spirit and where the holy Spirit is there is joy for even as heat followes the fire so joy and glorying accompany the Spirit of God The Spirit of glory Now when conscience witnesseth aright it witnesseth with God and God is alway cloathed with joy he brings joy and glory into the heart Conscience witnesseth with God that I am his And it witnesseth with my self that I have led my life thus Our rejoycing is the witnesse of our conscience It is not the witnesse of another mans conscience but my own other men may witnesse and say I am thus and thus but all is to no purpose if my own conscience tell me I am another man then they take me to be But when a man 's own conscience witnesseth for him there followes rejoycing A man cannot rejoyce with the testimony of another mans conscience because another man saith I am a good man c. unlesse there be the testimony of my own conscience Now it is a sweet benefit an excusing conscience when it witnesseth well Let us see it in all the passages of life that a good conscience in excusing breeds glorying and joy It doth breed joy in Life in Death at the day of judgement In life in all the passages of life in all estates both good and ill In good the testimonie of conscience breeds joy for it enjoyes the pleasures of this life and the comforts of it with the favour of God conscience tells the man that he hath gotten the things well that he enjoyes that he hath gotten the place and advancement that he hath well that he enjoyes the comforts of this life with a good conscience and all things are pure to the pure If he have gotten them ill conscience upbraids him alway and therefore he cannot joy in the good estate he hath If a man had all the contentments in the world if he had not the testimonie of a good conscience what were all What contentment had Adam in Paradise after once by sin he had fallen from the peace of conscience none at all A little that the righteous hath is better then great riches of the ungodly because they have not peace of conscience And so for ill estate when conscience witnesseth well it breeds rejoycing In false imputations and slanders and disgraces as here it was insinuated into the Corinthians by false teachers and those that followed them that St. Paul was so and so saith St. Paul You may say what you will of me My rejoycing is this the testimony of my conscience that I am not the man which they make me to be in your hearts by their false reports The witnesse of conscience is a good and sufficient ground of rejoycing in this case Therefore holy men have retired to their conscience in all times as Saint Paul you see doth here So Job his conscience bare him out in all the false imputations of his comfortlesse friends that were miserable comforters they laboured to take away his sincerity from him the chief cause of his joy Yeu shall not