herefrom How hast thou been inclined to love the Lord for His goodnesse to feare Him for His Mercies How hast thou been melted thereby to obedience and engaged upon his Service Aske thy selfe againe for in that Method we went Thou hast two hands another hath but one or perhaps none what more worke hast thou done Thou hast a Tongue and the use of the same there is another thou knowest who hath a Tongue but speakes not wherein hast thou glorified thy Maker more then the other hath done Thou hast two eyes thy Neighbour is darke Aske the same question over againe For as it was said of him who was borne blind So it was that the workes of God Iohn 3. 9. should be made manifest in him So we may say we have our eyes eares tongues hands which others have not That we might the more ptaise the Lord for His goodnesse and declare His workes toward the children of men These are the questions but upon the point it is but this single question and the very same and to the same purpose which the King makes to that I doe allude touching Mordecay What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecay x Esther 6. 3. for this So let this be the question What honour what service hath been done to the Lord He hath so honoured thee he hath so served thee he hath so and so preserved thee from the Paw of the Lyon and jaw of the beare so delivered thee Through his strength thou didst leap over such a wall He brought thee out of such a strait He supported thee in such weaknesses He supplyed thee in such a Wildernesse He gave successe to thee in such businesses What shall I say for we are confounded here He is the God not of some but of all consolations the Father of mercies And we can no more number them then we can the drops of the raine or of the dew or the Treasures of the snow and haile but we know who is the Father of them and out of whose Bowels these mercies come whereby thou hast been fed all thy life long and redeemed from evill we know the price of them too the very least of them is the price of bloud What honour hath been done for all this What peculiar Service that 's the single question If now thy heart make answer as we read in the foregoing place There is nothing done no peculiar service at all instead of being the Temple of His praise thou hast been the grave of His mercies They have been buried in thee they have brought forth no fruits if this be the answer of thy heart and so it condemne thee the Lord is greater then our hearts He will condemn much more And therefore it is high time to look into the Register of Gods mercies into the books of record And if these mercies have laine as things cast aside and of no account as dead things out of minde if so long and to this day forgot then now it is high time that thy rest should be troubled and sleep should not come into thy eye till thou hast looked over this Register and recorded the mercies of the Lord and so pressed them on thy conscience That it may answer out of a pure heart that something at the length is done some sacrifice of praise and thanks is returned to the Lord for all this This is the first thing to be done now and it is high time to do it Considering the season It is supposed that gray haires are upon thee here and there they are sugared now and like the hoary frost The Almond tree flourisheth thou art in the winter of thine age It is high time now to look about thee and to consider That is the first ground of consideration 2. That time is hasting whose portion and burden from the Lord is but labour and sorrow And then though we have time for our day lasteth while life lasteth yet no time to do any thing in it to purpose for then the Grasse hopper is a burden So I make two periods of this age And each a ground to presse on unto a timely consideration The one I call declining age when we have lived almost to threescore yeares The other when we are drawing onward to fourescore c. extreame old age of both in their order 1. Both the one as well as the other is an age not more desired then complained of They knew best why that feele the burden of it I have not lived unto it It is likely that person complained not without cause who being willed to hasten her pace told them who were so quick with her That so she could not do for she carryed a great burden on her back And whereas no burden at all appeared to the eye she replyed again that threescore years were passed over her head and that was the burden Plaut And so it may well be with those whose spirits are much spent and strength wasted even at those yeares And then age it self alone is a burden I can speake little here out of experience But this I can say If God be pleased to stretch out my day so long I shall know no cause to complain of the length for that is a blessing Length of dayes is from the right hand Prov. 3. 16. Riches and honour from the left Only we must note here That if the Lord be pleased to shorten the day of this life to any person as sometimes He doth to His dearest and most obedient children their dayes are not long upon earth why yet if He eek out this short day here with an eternitie of dayes and pleasures at His right hand when they are taken hence if so that partie shall have no cause to complaine of a short day on earth so abundantly recompensed in heaven This is a note by the way If I say God be pleased to stretch forth my dayes so long I know no cause why I should complaine of a blessing I may complaine and just cause why I should and that bitterly but not for the accession of yeares If any thing sower them it is of mine owne Leaven and of my owne putting in Complaine of my selfe I may of them I may not Old age is a cal me quiet and easie time if youth have done it no disservice in filling its bones before hand Nor no intemperance hath weakned its head or feete If so Old age hath just cause to complaine of the Man not the man of Old Age. There is no Guest in the world that is more desired and expected and yet when it comes worse welcomed and entertained then Old Age is still with sighes and complaints which we know argues bad welcome I would have my Child make good provision for it against it come and when it is come to give it good welcome Welcome I say I doe not say ease Good welcome doth consist we say in shewing a good and chearefull countenance to our guest
understanding make it thy greatest ambition and account it thy chiefe honour the top and height of thy preferment for so much the word doth import so labour so contend to be accepted of Him Acceptance with the Lord is the height of a Christians preferment as it will be the Crown of his rejoycing and is the ambition of my Heart concerning thee the very butt and scope where-to tend all my endeavours § 3. Consider again as the riches of His goodnesse so the wonderfull worke of His hands He that gave thee a being might have given a being only and no more or He might have given thee life and stay'd there Thou mightest have been such a creature which now takes the bone from thy hand and licks the dish and gathers the crums that fall from thy table thereby to sustaine life and when that life is gone which serves but for salt to keep the body sweet is laid in the ditch such thou mightest have been for in reference to our owne demerits so vile as a dogge have the most excellent of sinfull men accounted themselves And it was the lowest expression of humilitie and abasing amongst the Hebrews and so low did the sense of their vilenesse depresse the excellent and honourable of the earth Such a creature thou might'st have been or a croaking Frog or a loathsome Toad It is amongst Austins Confessions Thou might'st Lord have made me even such an one or a worme or a flea or a sâ—ie which now thou canst fillip and crush to death at pleasure So thy Lord might have dealt with thee and have done thee no wrong at all He might have given thee the stamp and outward impresse of a reasonable creature and yet have wounded thee in thy crown I mean He might have strucken thee in thy reason and understanding-part the dignitie excellency crown of the outward-man So He might have done thou wast in His hands as the clay in the Potters yet so He did not deale with thee But according to His goodnesse He vouchsafed more grace more honour He stamp'd upon thee an excellent image and then admitted thee not into the lower ranke of His creatures which lick the dust and feed upon it No He hath made thee but a little lower then the Angels and hath crowned thee as we read one was in the wombe with this honour That thou should'st be Lady-Princesse over the creatures before mention'd even over all the works of His hands And God said unto them c. Thus Gen. 1. 26. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost Hom. 10. in Gen. 1. Chron. 17. 17. honourably hath the Lord dealt with thee so as though thou art the meanest of many yet may'st thou take the words of Him whom God exalted and speake them out to His praise For they are proper and fit well because so He hath exalted thee Thou hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree ô Lord God Oh that I could advance and elevate thy thoughts now according to the excellency that God hath stampt upon thee That as thy stature is erect and up-wards thy minde also that yet more excellent part might not be low and downwards groveling to the earth as if thou couldest finde rest In imo c. Lact. lib. 1. cap. 1. Lib. 3. cap. 12. 26. 27. Boet. lib. 5. Mel. 5. unto thy soule That chiefe good in the bottom and underneath where the worme creepeth and the serpent eateth dust This is the great mistake The Lord discover it to our hearts It is the veyle spread over us the Lord pull it off for nothing more evidenceth the wonderfull deordination and disorder which is brought upon mans nature then this which I am speaking doth Man abhors misery yet he loves it in the cause thereof he desires happinesse but he seeks it in the place and in the things much inferiour to and below himselfe Look up man as one said it is not there it is higher Thy very stature tells thee That thou seekest for is not under thy foot a Thy stature is erect and upward thy eye can behold the things above whensoever now thou shalt minde earthly things and fix upon them then thou makest thy self like the beasts that perish c. Read this in the 9. Hom. of S. Basil Mex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. Let the beast look thither-ward and fix there who cannot look nor rise an inch higher We dishonour our parentage if being born men we do by an evill and beast-like conversation match our selves as with beasts not considering our honour and dignity It s farre worse to be like a beast in conversation then to be born a Beast b Pejus est comparari jumento quà m nasci jumentum this is no fault but a great fault that And such an one is he who seeks nothing nor savours nothing but earth contrary to his nature and Image stampt upon him Assuredly there can be no consideration so effectuall to raise our thoughts and send them upwards and so fix them on high thereto seek our chiefest good as is the consideration of that Image and superscription which God hath stampt upon us and appears unto us even through the outward man thinke we thereof and it will raise the spirit to the place whence it came unlesse we have that spirit of infirmity we read of c Luke 13. 11. which bows us together so that we can in no wise lift up our selves That was an infirmity the greatest that can be thought of as now it is the commonest in the world and from that uncleane spirit it is who is stronger then we and would lay us as low as himself is I know not what to say to it for this infirmitie like an epidemicall disease rageth every where and presseth sore clinging us together It is a spice of our peremptory nature before spoken of of that crookednesse which man cannot straighten To God let us look and on Him let us wait till He shall unto us as to the woman Thou Vers 12. art loosed from thy infirmity for till that time come noble and excellent creatures though we are the chief of Gods works yet on the dust we shall feed and fill ourselves as with the East-winde I meane with that which cannot satisfie For this we may be sure of that as nothing can fit and fill up that stampe which the seale hath made but the very seal which at the first stamp'd that impression or superscription so can nothing in the world no not all the world fit and fill up this image which God hath engraven upon us Capacem Dei non implet minus Deo but He that hath honoured us with such an engraving He and He onely can satisfie this Image The eye we know is not satisfied with seeing nor the eare with hearing These Ta Deus diligenti te quantum praecipis ostendis te sufficis ei Aug. Conf. l.
mourn as David for his sonne every day * 2 Sam. 13. 37. It is a bitter sorrow and it is accompanied with loathing y Ezech. 6. 9. 43. 20. 43. How these will stand together Godly sorrow I mean and spirituall joy is not to our purpose now But the greater our sorrow if it be godly the greater our joy The more sowre our sinnes the more sweet is Christ The more loathing of them as the alone and greatest evill the more prizing of Christ as the only and greatest good the choisest of ten thousands Whether we have this grace of repentance the tryall is easie for if we sorrow after a godly sort behold what carefulnesse it works what clearing of our selves what indignation 2 Cor. 7. 11. what feare what vehement desire what zeale what revenge Infallible marks these of repentance unto life It is now with the penitent as once it was and as ever it will be A sorrow to repentance is not a work of a day or two the hanging down the head like a bulrush for a day or an houre as the custome is Where there is a breaking the bands of our yoke there is a making to go upright z Levit. 26. 13. a constant walking with God as those that have now communion and fellowship with the Father and the Sonne And though this godly sorrow is more secret in the heart and there the work also of a true penitent is most in the well ordering thereof and in watching over the issues there-from yet is it not altogether undiscernable to the outward sense for as Mr. Dearing a Heb. 2. 11. noteth well There is no affection in us according to to the flesh but if it be great it will appeare in its work much more this which is of the Spirit of God If thou be sorrowfull it will make thy face sad b Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in aegro Corpore Juven Salyr 9. if joy be within it maketh thy countenance merry if thou have a flattering heart all the members of thy body will streight serve so vile a thing if hatred be within thee thy body will shew it forth in all manner of cursed doing and there is nothing that can possesse the minde but it leadeth the members in obedience of it How much more if the Spirit of God have replenished our mindes with these affections of godly sorrow and spirituall joy And so much to the first requisite 2. The second is Faith the hand of the soul which the Lord createth and strengthneth to lay hold on eternall life by Iesus Christ In the Sacrament of the Lords Supper we see a full Redemption wrought and a full price paid in His body broken and bloud poured forth In the bread and wine he that Qui dividit perdit devides destroyes the Sacrament we have a full and compleat nourishment all that the soul can desire But now as the mouth is opened so are we filled As the heart is enlarged so do we receive If the mouth be shut and the principle of life be wanting no matter what dainties are set before us or what put in Therefore we must consider our Interest in the Covenant and whether we can lay hold on a promise for life reconciliation and peace For the bloud of Christ and His Body serve not for the nourishment of any in whom they have not been as the seed of regeneration both in pardon of sin and change of the heart in which conversion standeth we must remember Sacraments convert none but strengthen the converted To the fainting spirit they are meanes to convey power they encrease strength c Isa 40. 29. The Sacraments are as the breasts of the Church from which the living childe doth suck and is satisfied with consolations from which the thirsty soul doth milke out and is delighted with the abundance of her glory d Isa 66. But it is the living childe that draweth comfort here and the instrument by which he draweth is Faith which is Gods gift as is Repentance He gives both So then we must examine how provided we come hither else we come to a well of living water but having nothing to draw or we are like a vessell east into the Ocean which hath no mouth or if any it is stopt The outward man can do its part it discerneth tasteth digesteth the outward signes But now what inward principle hath my inward man and what help hath it from all this in the beholding tasting enjoying the spirituall part Christ and the influence of His Grace issuing therefrom This is all the Question and point to be examined what Faith I have whose work is the same about the spirituall part as is the work of the outward man about the outward And yet had we all Faith I mean justifying faith we could not receive all that is offered here and though we have a weake faith if true we shall receive sufficient Our hearts as one noteth cannot comprehend all the wisdome of God in the wind that bloweth how He raiseth it up or maketh it fall again how can we understand this wisdome of our uniting unto Iâ—sus Christ only this we true members can say God hath given us faith in which we may believe it and out of which such joy shineth in our mindes as crucifieth the world unto us how farre our reason is from seeing it it skilleth not it is sufficient if we can beleeve it We beleeve in the Lord our God yet we know not what is his countenance we beleeve and apprehend by hope His glory yet neither eye can see it nor care can heare it We beleeve and see immortalitie yet our heart cannot comprehend the heighth the breadth the length the depth We beleeve the resurrection of the dead yet we cannot understand such excellent wisdome how life is renewed in the dispersed and scattered bones and ashes We beleeve our Saviour Christ is man and we have seen Him and felt Him yet how He was man born of a virgin all men in the world have no wisdome to declare Even so we beleeve that our Saviour Christ and we be one He of us and we of Him He the head we the body really substantially truly joyned together not by joynts and sinewes but by His spirit of which we have all received And this unitie I cannot conceive nor utter till I know God even as He is and His hely spirit which hath wrought this blessing But yet though thus secret and undiscernable this work of faith is we may take some evidence of the life and operation thereof by those things that our understanding part doth here in matters below and of another and much inferiour nature As thus My minde by the velocitie and speed of my apprehension can be many miles off upon the naming of the things I love Then surely my heart is dull and slow and wants the principle of a new creature if by so lively representations
have been spent in all manner of lusts and luxury Cic. ad senatum post reditum spending The Man Nusquâ—m pejus quà m in saâ—o corpore aeger animus hâ—bitat A corrupt heart dwelleth no where worse or more dangerously then in an healthy Body him I mean who is in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vigour and May-tide of his life this man is as profuse and lavish of his spirits as the youth was as if there would be no need of them hereafter he puts forth his strength and doth evill things as he can Jer. 3. 5. and when he doth so then he rejoyceth Ita est non accepimus brevem vitam c. Senec. de brevit vitae cap. 1. c. Not at all considering what infinite wrong he doth to the old-man his very next neigbour for whom the man now treasures up with both hands paines aches diseases sighes and wrath to boote and they lye as sealed-up in a bag which the old-man when he cometh shall open finde and feele both that it is even so Such dis-service these predecessours do to their Successour old-Age Therefore neither the youth nor the man have cause to blame old-age But the Old-Age hath great cause to complain of them And so having cleared the objection and layed the blame where it is due I passe on to the second period An insertion to the second part pag. 201 line first visitation It is notable which we read Iosh 2. Rahabs preservation her peace and the peace of her house was secured unto her by this token The line of scarlet threed bound in her window vers 18. upon this now we must set our marke which we c Jer. 11. 15. read vers 21. And she sent them away and they departed and she bound the scarlet line in the window It is very notable sure That the dismissing the men and the a Postea câ—mcommodum necessarium visum est hanging out the line stand conjoyned in the Text though perhaps if Tremellius his interpretation be right we cannot thereby conclude the precise â—ime when she did hang it forth But thus we conclude for so we are taught That she used no delay none at all but when the time was fitting and convenient then she did it and that might be presently at that instant time as is specified in the Text for ought we can or may gather to the contrary But what needed so much haste she might have delayed the binding the line to the window some dayes for the Spies were not yet returned Iâ—shua was not yet upon his march Iordan was betwixt some time there must be in marching towards Iericho and sixe dayes they were compassing the Citie Time enough to hang out the Threed when she heard That the Trumpets blew and because they were but ram's hornes she might have delayed yet longer till the last day when she saw the walls fall down flat and then she might hasten to the window and do that worke soone enough Thus flesh and bloud might reason the case and very well satisfie a dilatory spirit But it is of infinite use to consider That thus Rahab did not reason but then when she sent away the men she bound the scarlet line in the window We cannot be too quick and speedy in case of life and salvation Here delayes are dangerous perhaps deadly I may deferre this day and the next till my enemy be approaching and surprising me and I finde my selfe falling down flat this I may do and yet do well But it is very hazardous It may nay it is most likely so it will be if I stay till dangers have beset me and incompassed me my feares will be such as that they will betray all my succours Wisd 17. 12 And therefore sith in this scarlet colour lyeth the peace securitie salvation of our bodies and souls too we must do quickly what we do we must not delay in hanging forth this flag of peace Now now while our dayes are departing they are still passing away as the waters now hang we forth this scarlet line at our windows and delay not What it implyeth is of easie construction and of infinite use