Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A60145
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The present correction and reproof of sin or A discourse on 2 Jer. 19. vers. Thine own iniquities shall correct thee, & thy backslideings shall reprove thee.
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Shower, John, 1657-1715.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing S3681; ESTC R221463
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30,198
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59
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to destroy the Peace of our minds greive the H. Spirit of God We shall no more start aside like a broken Bow violate our holy promises Resolutions Ignorance shall no longer darken our minds or unmortifyed Lust lay lurking in the Heart or the Body any more betray the soul by unruly passions to the Commission of Folly And as the blessed Consequent of a sinless state no sorrow shall ever more be felt and therfore no complaint ever more he heard Oh that thes thoughts were more delightfull more connatural to us This should be the highest of our Wishes and the object of our most deliberate Resolved Choice to be made more pertakers of the Divine Life to glorifye God by a more perfect conformity to his holy Image I most heartily be seech the great Sanctifyer Lover of souls to effect it more more on the my own heart yours And tho one Kingdom do not hold us I may never see your Face on Earth againe yet before that glorious Everlasting Kingdom we expect when by seeing God we shall be changed into his likeness we may dayly meet at the Throne of Grace there I humbly beg you would be my Remembrancer as I promise to be yours I most affectionately kisse your hands remaine SIR Your most Obedient Humble Servant JOHN SHOWER THE PRESENT CORRECTION AND REPROOF of SIN From 2 JER 19. former part For thine own wickedness shall correct thee thy Backslidings shall reprove thee THese words may be considered in relation to the Jews and their causless revolt from the worship of the true God and obedience to him In the preceding verses God acquits himself from the imputation of haveing ever given them or their Fathers any just occasion for such an Apostacy Vers 5. What iniquity have your Fathers found in me that they are gone far from me and have walked after vanity and are become vaine And then upbraids them with their ingratitude and folly in the following verses V. 11 12 13. Hath any nation changed their Gods which yet are no Gods but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit Be astonisht ô ye Heavens at this and be horribly afraid for my people have committed two evills they have forsaken me the fountaine of liveing waters and hewed them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no waters Therupon God charges them as the authors of their own ruine as haveing brought upon themselfs the calamities under which they smarted V. 14.17 Is Israel a servant is he an homeborn slave why is he spoiled Hast thou not procured it unto thy self in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God In vaine therfore dost thou seek for help to Aegypt or have recours unto the King of Assyria for thou shalt eat of the fruit of thine own ways Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy Backslidings shall reprove thee Thine own wickedness shall correct thee 7 Hos 15. or thou shalt be bound and fetterr'd and held in the chains of thine own sins as the original word doth sometimes signifie or rather thou shalt beinstructed and taught by thine own folly 4 Job 3. how evill and bitter a thing it is to sin against God Which is the meaning of the word in other places and therefore the Septuagint make use of a word in this place which signifies both to teach and to chasten And thy backslidings shall reprove thee or convince thee by argument and demonstration The fruit of thine Apostacy shall convince thee of the folly of it in forsakeing the way of truth for lyeing vanities the fountaine of living waters for broken cisterns The miserable effects consequences of sin shall correct and reprove thee What is here spoken to a community may be as truly aserted of Individuals and particular persons that the calamities they suffer are the fruits of their own folly that they bring miseries on them selv's in this world and are ten times severely corrected and chastened by their own wickedness My present design is to make it evident that it is so by showing in several instances how sinners are reproved punnisht by their own sin and folly even in this Life as well as in the next And then shall improve this argument by some practical inferences which may be gather'd from it I shall endeavor to manifest this truth 1. From the justice and righteousness of God which doth oftentimes proportion and suit temporal punishments to the sins of men 2. From the more immediate effects consequences of Sin which in this life do ordinarily correct and reprove the sinner 1. We may consider how the Justice of God doth oftentims suit the punishment to the sin even in this Life This is evident either on their own persons who were guilty or on their Relatives posterity As to the former 2 ways Either when one sin is the punnishment of another or when some calamity is inflicted which is answerable to the sin 1. God doth sometimes correct sinners in this world in the punishment of one sin by the permission of more Which may be either by their own further sin or by the sins of other men 1. God doth sometimes punnish former sins by permitting the offending person to commit more and greater That this is the severest punishment of sin in this life may easily be evinc'd To be left of God to sin on to commit more greater abominations is a kind of damnation were there no other Hell to succeed it for we know the the life of the Prodigal is dated from his Repentance and not from his birth This my son was dead but is now alive And that some of the heathens themselv's have concluded any man to be more worthy of a publick lamentation at the time of his debauchery then of his death Some sins 't is true have almost an inseparable connection dependance on each other as lust follows gluttony and folly drunkenness but God in righteous judgement may leave a man to the power of Temptation suffer him to encreas the number and add to the measure of his former sins so treasure up wrath against the day of wrath Thus he punnisht the wantoness of Solomon by permitting him to fall into Idolatry and the covetousness of Judas by suffering him to betray his Lord Peter's first denial of Christ by his forswearing him afterward The Jews for killing the Prophets were left of God to crucifye the Messtah and Israel when they committed wheredoms with the Daughters of Moab 12 Numb 1 2. were left to be insnared by their Idolatry One sin makes way for more as the Idolatry of the golden Calf was ushered by intemperance Idleness 32 Ex. The people sat down to eat drink and rose up to play Thus what men get by oppression acts of injustice they oftentimes spend in pride luxury The wages of unrighteousness
return Eternal wrath is my due Hell is my deserved portion even there may I justly carry thes stings of conscience even there must I acknowledg I was justly condemned punnisht own the righteousness of my doom to unquenchable fire with my flameing tongue breath Wretch that I am who shall deliver save me only the mercy of God in Christ whose bloud cleanseth from all sin can possibly relieve the exigence of my case And wilt thou pitty and pardon and graciously receive such a rebel For Jesus Christ his sake spare me give me repentance blot out my transgression for it is great and hide thy face from my sin from my sin which is ever before me I cannot avoid the sight of it I cannot but remember it and abhorr my self in dust ashes goe mourning all the day long Thes are the thoughts this is the language of an humble Penitent under the sens of former backslidings To this purpose David tells us in one of his penitentiall Psalms 51 Ps 3. that his sin was ever before him And in another that his sorrow was continually before him The one as the cause 38 Ps 17. the other as the effect His sin as the reason of his sorrow his sorrow as the fruit of his sin was continually before him This made him cry so earnestly for pardon O Lord blot out my transgressions and remember not my sinns i. e. I remember them I acknowledg I humbly confess them they are ever in my view before my face O do not thou remember them but cast them behind thy back On this account he complains of broken bones a wounded spirit That the arrows of God stuck fast in his soul and his hand pressed him sore that he roared all the day long watered his couch with his tears Thes conflicts and terrors this darkness despondency are the fruit of backsliding and t' is well if it do not issue in the sin unto death in final incurable Apostacy T' is true some who are fallen from so great an height are raised againe and God upon sincere Repentance will pardon and save returning Backsliders yet so as by fire with great difficulty And they may never recover their former tranquillity and peace but walk heavily and softly under doubts and fears and dejection of spirit to their dyeing day And likewise suffer smart Afflictions to scour off the filth they have contracted by their revolt and to humble them more deeply under the apphrehension of their agravated guilt In thes and other such instances as might be mentioned sin doth correct and reprove the sinner in this world What remains is to consider what Inferences of truth duty may be collected from the preceding discourse for our instruction and practise or what improvement we should make of it Which I shall dispatch in thes following Propositions § 1. That we ought thankfully to admire the wisdom goodness of God who hath in so great measure connected our present duty happiness That we cannot disobey God without injuring our selv's feeling the smart of it even in this Life Let us thank him for hedging up our way to Eternal death by the thorns briars of temporal calamities By makeing sin so unreasonable painfull shameful troublesome against our Intrest even on this side the Grave In so much that in many instances we can not be undone forever without being miserable now nor loos the happiness of the other world without exposeing our selv's to many sorrows calamities in this By our sin folly we make the Rod which corrects us our own finger twists the cords wherby we are rebukt chastened the web which insnares intangles us is spun out of our own bowells And God in wisdom kindness so orders it to prevent our perishing in both worlds § 2. We ought hearthly to bless God for restraining us by his grace providence from Presumtuous Crimes That he was pleas'd to stop us in our way to ruine mercifully prevent us from running into those excesses which would have been attended with such miserable effects here at last have exposed us to his condemning sentence Had he not sometimes withheld us by his grace when we were tempted prevented us at other times by his providence from divers Temptations by which others have fallen we had ere this been deplorable spectacles of divine Justice and severely corrected by our own folly And this is the favor which God is pleased to vouchsafe to his Children to succor them when they are tempted to keep them from such Temptations as they would not be able to resist Not that he is a good man who would live wickedly if he were but tempted to do so by those ordinary trials that humane nature may expect but he who prefers God and the blessedness of the other world before all things els lives agreable to such a choice if he so continue shall be saved tho there might have been supposed a Temptation so strong as would have conquered his resolutions with that measure of Grace he then had if it had not been fortified with new supplies Therfore thank God for the care of his providence which secures us from many dangerous Temptations for the assistance of his Grace in inabling us to come off wit victory when we have been tryed § 3. How much better then is a Life of holy Obedience to God then the practice of sin if there were no reward to be expected after Death If in this Life only we had hope the case of cruel persecution excepted such as St. Paul speaks of 1 Cor. 15. And extreme Poverty bodily Pains c. because under thes the hopes of a future blessedness are the chief supports otherwise We should be so far from being of all men the most miserable in this world by obeying the Gospell of Christ that t' is apparently for our present Intrest to observe the precepts of natural Christian Religion the Yoke of Christ is easier his burden lighter the service of God less difficult then the drudgery of Sin with such consequences as have been mentioned Let me seriously appeal to your Experience wither it be not evill bitter to depart from God cast off his fear have you not found it so to your cost have not you your selv's many others whom you know been severely chastened reproved by sin what fruit have you or they or what fruit have you ever had of the sins you are now ashamed of but such as hath been described what profit hath he saith the Wiseman 5 Ecl. 16. who hath labor'd for the wind Bring in your acounts of what you have ever got by a wicked Live compare it with the present reward of holy liveing Set down your income proceed to a reckoning see what the total summe amounts to So much Shame Fear so much Care