Psal 32. 5. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And this confession hath been full and free and without any covers for he there saith Mine iniquity have I not hid It is a false heart that petitions help against sin and in praying for it pleads excuses and extenuations This proceeds from â— spirit of bondage and not from a spirit of Adopâ—ion 5. Have you humbled your selves to Gods foot in your Prayers to him A spirit of Prayer is a Soul humbling a Soul-abasing spirit hence that Psal 9. 12. He forgetteth not the cry of the humble and 10. 17. Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble thou wilt prepare their heart thou wilt cause thine ear to hear He that prays as he ought to God for pardon and acceptance in Christ is deeply sensible of his great vileness by reason of sin and of his utter unworthiness of mercy and hence he goes with â— rope on his head and sackcloth on his loyns i. e. He reâ—â—gns himself to God with all the Testimonials of his acknowledging that he hath no dependence on any thing but free Grace that he hath nothing of his own nor can he oblige God he therefore carries that with him in Dan. 9. 8. 9. To us belongs confusion of face to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses And his address is in that form Psal 25. 11. For thy name sake O Lord pardon mine iniquity for it is great 6. Have you Prayed for the Purging as well as earnestly as for Pardon Doubtless he that knows what it is to be Guilty before God will be very importunate in asking forgiveness and well he may for who can stand before Gods angâ— But a kindly resentment of Guilt so as to justify God who condemns will be accompanied with an apprehension of the vileness of sin and that will make us weary of the presence of it and to loath our selves for it which will draw out our cryes to have it taken away both these therefore are included in that Hoâ— 14 2. Take away all iniquity 7. Are your Prayers importunate or in good earnest There are many that pray in good words and it may be with much of noise too and yet not from a Spirit of Supplication they are not importunate and cordial requests which they put up He that is in earnest will take no denial but will press with greatest urgency and resolution One of the Ancients complains of himself that when he prayed against his Lusts he was afraid lest God should answer him this was not from the Spirit of Grace and if you are in good â—arnest you will watch the answer of your prayers to see what return there is of them Psal 85. 10. I will hear what God the Lord will say 1â—0 5. My Soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning 8. Do you persevere in Prayer As it is the duty of all Gods People so to do Eph. 6. 18. Praying always c. watching thereunto with all perseverance So it is one property of the Spirit of Prayer and there is a double perseverance to be eyed in this you are constant and unwearied in your duty you pray without ceasing 1 Thes 5. 17. You resolve as Psal 116 2. I will call upon him as long as I live And you hold on in it against all that would discourage you If you have not a present answer according to desire it doth not beat you off but quickens your ardour and you say as Isa 8. 17. I will wait on the Lord who hideth his face If he repulse you you turn his very repulses into arguments as that poor woman did Mat. 15. 25 26. 9 And doth the sense of sin always drive you to Prayer Do your Consciences at any time reflect and charge Guilt on you Doth this always bring you upon your knees and cause you to pour out your hearts in supplication Do you find the stirrings of inward Concupiscence and the Law in your members warring against the law of your mind What course do you take to get it mortified Is prayer now not neglected These are the motions of a Spirit of Supplication in a Child of God This course we find David is on all occasions taking in the Psalms USE III. For Exhortation in several particulars 1. Let this point awakened Sinners in what way to seek after Christ Certainly when God sets Sin home upon the Conscience of a Sinner it calls aloud to him to repair to the fountain And would you go to it so as to participate in the saving efficacy of it then 1. Do it mournfully Dry addresses to God are insignificant things and will find no acceptance Beg of God then to bestow such a Spirit upon you and labour to express it with all suitable deportment Labour therefore to embitter your Sin to your selves with all the proper considerations that may make it vile and fill you with the deepest sense of your misery by reason of it This is the only way for you to give God his glory both of his Righteousness in condemning you and his rich mercy in pardoning and healing you You will never come humbly unless you come mourning and this is the way to obtain the blessing from him God takes distinct notice of this and he is pleased with it see Jer. 31. 18 with 20. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself c. Is Ephraim my dear Son c. And we find that Christ was anointed purposely for the relief of such Isa 61. begin 2. Do it with Supplications If ever God giveth you the experience of the vertue of the Fountain in you for the taking away of your Sin and Uncleanness he will make you to pray for it he hath said Ezek. 36. 37. I will be sought to c. Seek his face and favour confess your sins and keep not silence seek to him in Christ's name and present your petition before him this is the right returning to God Joel 2. 12. By thus doing you will acknowledge Christ to be the Fountain of Grace when you do seek it of him and call upon him for it And for your encouragement know it that if you do indeed thus seek him you shall find him If a persecuting Saul prays to him he observes it and accepts it of him Acts 9 11. Behold he prayeth Yea he hath said Psal 50. 15. Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me 2. Let this stir up mourners to pray Are there any whose sins are made their burden and they are in bitterness by reason of them instead of nourishing despondent and despairing thoughts in you and making you to hide away from God let it drive you to him to seek his face and favour his pity and pardon let it draw forth that request from you in Psa 41. 4. Heal my Soul for I have sinned against
inevitable Jer. 1â— 13. They that depart from me shall be written iâ— the earth because they have forsaken the Lord the fountain of living waters and how rightâ—ous a thing is it that they should thus suffer USE II. Let it be to encourage thirsty Soulâ— to come unto Christ for all they want God is wont in order to his revealing of Christ to and in Sinners to awaken in them a deep sense of their misery and to bring them into sore distress they are made to feel themselves perishing in themselves and thâ—reupon their craving Souls are inquisitive whether there be no help to be had for them Are you then brought into such a strait as this is let the following advice be acceptable to you 1. Let your selt want put you upon asking after him Before you were under the impression of these Convictions you saw no need â—hat you had of him and that made you â—o be so far from seeking after him that when â—e came and offered himself to you and bad â—ou to accept of him you put him away from â—ou and bad him be gone made it evident â—hat you had no desire of him but now let â—our enquiry be how you may come at him Your Wells in which you before put â—our â—rust are now sensibly dried up and afford you no supply at all ask then after this founâ—ain Let this be your support under your present distress that you have heard of such â—n one and now make it your business to enquire how you may be made to partake in it how you may get a full draught of these living waters 2. Let this fulness of sufficiency be your direction to go to him and no where else Every one that would partake in this benefit and not fail of this Grace of God must resolve to forsake all the streams which before they took up withal for the sake of the fountain and the prime motive to this is the apprehension they have of the emptiness of every thing else and his infinite fulness Receive then the witness that is born of him in his word and see how worthy he is of your trust who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think Eph. 3. 20. Say I have tried other objects and they have failed me but I have heard that there is enough for me iâ— him I will therefore go to him and hiâ— only for supply 3. Let his being opened be your encouragemeâ— to prevail with you to come to him and believâ— on him And indeed here is that which next ly animates poor thirsty Souls to come to him It is true if he were not a fountain of Gracâ— he could not answer our necessity and makâ— us happy our cravings can be filled with nothing that is less but still if this fountain were shut up and sealed and there were nâ— way discoverable by which we might comâ— at it the other consideration would afford â— poor support to our hope Goodness indeed is the object of our desire but it is the communicableness of this goodness which nextly excites our hope and that is it which must carry us forth vigorously in quest of it and the more fully this way of participation is manifested to us and the more freely it is offered in the exhibition of it the greater must the encouragement needs be Here therefore is the great demur that sensible Souls are wont to make viz. Is there any way for me to be made a partaker in all this good whereof there is such an abundance in the fountain Consider then 1. This fountain was provided on purpose for such as you are It was Mans miserable necessity that was the occasion of the providing â—t and but for that it had never been heard of we are told who are to be made sharers â—n the benefits of Christ Psal 72. 12 13. He shall deliver the needy when he crieth the poor alâ—â— and him that hath no helper he shall spare he poor and needy and shall save the Souls of the needy Observe what was the very design of his being anointed and you will find that was for such as you Isa 61. begin 2. He stands open before you in the offer of the Gospel and Ordinances There is an offer made of him there to some and who are they but such whose condition is that which you complain of the offer indeed is general and hath no exception put into it as to the persons who hear it provided they comply with the terms propounded You are not exempted why then should you exempt your selves â—he Invitation saith Whosoever will let him come and take of the waters of life freely Rev. 22. 17. The greatest Sinners are not excluded from but included in it Jer. 3. 2. Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers yet return again to me saith the Lord. 3. There is a special and peculiar invitation given to all such as you Sensible Sinners distresâ—ed Souls such as are pinched with thirst and under a feeling of their want Isa 55. 1. Every one that thirsteth Mat. 11. 28. All you that are weary and heavy laden That which you make your discouragement and seek to hinder your selves by is the very argument of â—â— invitation viz. because you are in distreâ— and despair of finding succour elsewhere and concerning such if they do come upâ— the call there are gracious promises of a kinâ— entertainment How precious a word is that Isa 41. 17. When the poor and needy seek watâ— and there is none and their tongue faileth â—â— thirst â— the Lord will hear them I the God Israel will not forsake them 4. If you stand off by unbelief and despair â—â— will grieve his Holy Spirit And well he mâ— be grieved For you to say there is no hoâ— for such a vile sinful Wretch as I am is â— make him a liar who again and again haâ— told you that his Salvation is laid in for sucâ— and assures you that Sinners must be brought to this sense in order to the application of it 5. Know it that if you now come to him â— will make you very welcome He never caâ— out any comer nay when he did but see thâ— poor Prodigal resolving and arising to go â—â— his Father you are told how he carried tâ— him Luk. 15. 20. When he was yet a great wâ—â— off his father saw him and had compassion â—â—â—m and ran and fell on his neck and kisseâ— him 6. The more unworthy you are the more wiâ—â— his grace be exalted in you Proud insensiblâ— Sinners may and do abuse but such as you will rightly improve that precious word Rom. 5. 20. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound if you take heart by it and betake your selves to him Come away then to the fountain and drink your fill of it For Direction 1. Come now whiles it stands open it will not do so always He saith 2 Cor. 6. 2. Now is the accepted time now is
Covenant of Grace We do now stand upon other terms with God through Christ in the New Covenant whereof we are partakers by faith in him But still the Precepts of the Moral Law abide on us as our Duty there never was any repeal of the Command nor indeed can they ever cease to be a Rule to man for the guiding of him in the right ordering of his Conversation inasmuch as they are every way suited to the nature of man considered as being made on purpose for the actual glorifying of God so that if we would actually glorify him as men we must do it in compliance with these precepts All that is contained in this rule is reduced to those two heads Mat. 22. 37 39. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self And this can never cease to be our duty so long as we are men nothing can discharge us from the obligation of loving God and our neighbour inasmuch as the Relation we bear to both cannot cease and the duty is inseparable from such a Relation It is also certain that all of these Duties are reinforced in the Gospel or under the dispensation of the Kingdom of Grace and may be all of them found on record in the preceptive part of the New-Testament required of Christians as they would walk worthy of the vocation with which they are called and are therefore called New Commands because they are there reinforced with arguments fetcht from the consideration of the Grace of God appearing to us we have this summarily commended to us in Tit. 2. 11 12. The Grace of God which brings Salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Under which three heads are comprized all those duties which are required in and by the Moral Law 8. That all the Commands of the New-Covenant which are purely Evangelical are inclusively Comprehended in this Rule It is to be observed that there are some Duties introduced by the New Covenant and are enjoyned on all such unto whom it is promulgated which were not Duties incumbent on man whiles he continued in a state of Integrity such as Faith in Jesus Christ Repentance unto life and the several things that are contained in these as they point to us the way for fallen man to recover Gods favour and obtain eternal Salvation and indeed these Duties were inconsistent with that state Man had not forfeited himself to the Law and so needed not a Redeemer he stood in his uprightness and was defiled with no sin and had no occasion for Repentance These Duties therefore were not immediately comprized in the law of nature nor was man in Innocency able by the improvement of his reason to gather that there were any such Duties hypotheâ—ically belonging to his Rule Nor is it to be supposed that when God at first indented with man in the Covenant of Works and warned him a-against disobedience by shewing him the threatning that he made any discovery to him of an hope that in case of his miscarriage he might be saved or that he foretold a way of his recovery in case he ruined himself by trespassing against the command and bringing of himself under the threatning doubtless he reserved this for the Opening of the Covenant of Grace and till he so made it known man could not possibly so much as guess at such a thing However there is thus much contained in the Moral Law and the light of nature clearly discovered to man at first viz. that the rightful authority and supremacy that God hath over all men claims a liberty for him at any time to enjoyn man in any thing and make it his duty by vertue of his command to do it if it be within the power which he at first endowed him withal and consequently that he ows Obedience to God in whatsoever he shall at any time declare to be his will hereupon Positive Commands oblige men by the light of nature as well as Natural duties supposing there be a Revelation of them made to them We find therefore that God at first exerted this authority over our first Parents when he put them into the Garden by an arbitrary exempting the Tree of Knowledge from their eating of it under pain of death nor did they dispute but acknowledge his Soveraignty over them in that regard though afterwards the adversary used it as a snare to draw them into Sin And how many such positive Precepts did God give to Israel of which he renders 〈◊〉 other reason but this I am the Lord Hence there fore when God once reveals to fallen men that it is his will that they should repent and believe in order to their being made partakers in Pardon and Salvation it becomes their bounden duty by vertue of that Command that they so do and not only will they miss of Salvation if they neglect to comply with these terms on which it is offered but they will thereby Sin against God and so aggravate their Guilt and in this respect the Gospel may well be called the Law of Christ Hence we are told Acts 17. 30. Now God commandeth all men every where to repent i. e. Now when the Gospel is promulgated and 1 Joh. 3. 23. This is his Commandment that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ. 9 This being a perfect Rule requires every sort of personal perfection in us Our perfection must needs consist in our conformity to the Rule of it and if so we cannot be entirely perfect unless our conformity be as large as the duties which are required by it and that not only in all the parts of it by answering to every precept in it and having a respect to all the Commandments of God but also in the degrees of our compliance with it which must consist in such an Holiness as hath not the least mixture of the contrary in it that doth not only do the thing but doth it with that accuracy that there be nothing wanting in the matter of it with that diligence that we never fail either in omission or commission with that intenseness of love that hath no mixture of reluctancy or backwardness with that singleness of heart that hath no allay or mixture of any sinister aimes or ends and with that constancy that we hold on without wavering to the end which though none of the Children of God ever did or shall in this life attain unto yet it is the perfection which we are called to aspire after and not to rest in any thing short of it but to be in an earnest pursuit of it as long as we abide here and till we reach it in the Kingdom of Glory And that this is required of us will appear if we consider 1. That every thing short of this Perfection is