the soul but that which is raised must be dead first they account not themselves dead and therefore oppose this resurrection And so when we are dead in grace or comfort let us trust in God that raiseth the dead And so for outward condition in this life and the estate of the Church The conversion of the Jewes which seems a thing so strange when a man thinks how they are dispersed and thinks of their poverty and disgrace he thinks Is this a likely matter Remember what God hath said he will raise the dead And because this is a work that seems as hard as the raysing of the dead therefore their calling and conversion is called a kind of resurrection Rom. 11. Let us hope for that He that raiseth the body will raise that people as despicable as they are to be a glorious people and Church And so for the confusion of the man of sin The revelation of the Gospel when it came out of the grave of darknesse out of the Egyptian darknesse of Popery was it not a raising of the dead When Luther arose for the defence of the truth a man might have said to him What doest thou set thy self against the whole World go to thy cloyster and say Lord have mercy upon us Doest thou hope to reform the World against all the World Alas he trusted in God that raiseth the dead that raiseth men to conversion when he pleaseth and that raiseth the Church when he pleaseth even from death He raised the Church out of Babylon And he will raise the Jewes that now are in a dead state why should we doubt of these things when we believe or professe to believe the main the resurrection from the dead And every day in the Church God is raising the dead spiritually the dead hear the voyce of Christ every day when the Ministery is in power when there is a blessing upon it conveying it to the heart then he is raising the dead So Wisdom is justified of her children the Gospel is justified to be a powerful doctrine having the Spirit of God clothing it to raise people from the dead those that are dead in sin There are none that ever are spiritually raised but those that see themselves dead And that is the reason why we are to abhor Popery because it teacheth us that we are not dead in our selves and then there can be no resurrection to grace for the resurrection is of the dead the more we see a contrarietie in Nature to Grace the more fit objects we are for the divine power of God to raise He raiseth the dead Thus we see how to go along with this in all troubles God will raise the dead therefore he will bring me out of this trouble if he see it good Therefore in extremity let us thus reason with our selves Now I know not which way to turn me there is but a step between me and death if God have any purpose to use my service furthet he that raiseth the dead will raise me from the grave to him belong the issues of death Psal. 67. he can give an evasion and escape if he will if not if he will not deliver me then I die in this faith that he will raise me from the dead This is that that upholds a Christian in extremity This made the Martyrs so confident this made those three young men so resolute that were cast into the fiery Furnace what was their comfort Surely this God can deliver us if he will say they he is able to deliver us now but if he will not do this for us he will raise our bodies if he will not deliver them here there will be a final deliverance at the resurrection So in Heb. 11. those blessed men they hoped for a better resurrection and this made them confident This makes us confident to stand out against all the threatnings and all the crosses of the world that we may hold our peace with God notwithstanding all the inticements and allurements to the contrary because we trust in God that raiseth the dead Again let us learn to extract contrary principles to Satan out of Gods proceedings What doth he reason when we are dead either in sin or in misery What hast thou to do with God God hath forsaken thee No saith faith God is a God raising the dead the more dead I am in the eye of the world and in my own sense the nearer I am to Gods help I am a despairing sinner a great sinner but the more God will magnifie his merey that where sin hath abounded grace may abound much more Retort home the argument draw contrary principles to him this is a divine Art which faith hath Oh but then you may presume and do what you list Not so retort the argument again upon him if I do so God will bring me to death he will bring me to despair and who is it that delights to have that course taken with him to be brought so low So every way we may retort temptations from this dealing of God If I be carelesse he will bring me as low as hell I shall have little joy to try conclusions with him And if thou be low despair not thou art the fitter object God raiseth the dead therefore I will not add to my sins legal I will not add this Evangelical sin this destroying sin of despair and unbelief but I will cast my self upon the mercy of God and believe in him that raiseth the dead and desire him to speak to my dead soul which is as rotten as Lazaru's body which had been so long in the grave that he would say to it Come forth of that cursed estate it is but for him to speak the word to blesse his word and then it will come out by faith It is the Art of faith to draw contrary arguments to Satan and those that belong to God do so in all temptations but those that do not they sink lower and lower having nothing to uphold their souls they have not learned to trust in God that raiseth the dead God is the God that raiseth the dead Therefore let us oft think of this think what God means to do with us that we may carry out selves answerably I trust in God that raiseth the dead Therefore let us honour God while we live with that body that he will raise let us be fruitful in our place Saint Paul drawes this conclusion 1 Cor. 15. from the resurrection Finally my brethren be constant unmoveable alway abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Especially considering that he will raise the dead bodies after a more glorious manner then they are now he will make a more glorious body For alway Gods second works are better then his first he raiseth the dead and will make our bodies like the glorious body of Christ. But the point of the resurrection is very large
case it be in a dungeon if he have a little light shining into him from a little crevice that little light discovers that the Day is broke that the Sun is risen Put the case there be but one grape on a vine it shewes that it is a vine and that the vine is not dead So put the case there be but the appearance of but a little grace in a Christian perhaps the Spirit of God appeares but in one grace in him at that time yet that one grace sheweth that we are vines and not thistles or thorns or other base plants and it shewes that there is life in the root The Spirit of God appears not in all graces at once it appears some time or other in some one grace We see in plants the vertue of them appears diversly In Winter the vertue of them lyes in the root In the spring-time in the bud and the leaf In the Summer in the fruit it is not in all parts alike so it is with the Spirit as it is an Earnest it appears not in all graces in a flourishing manner at the first sometimes it appears in the root in humility sometimes in faith sometimes in love sometimes in one grace sometimes in another though the Spirit be in every grace yet in appearance to a mans self and others it appeares but in one An Earnest is little especially at the first Weak Christians therefore should not be discouraged Despise not the day of little things there is cause of mourning we that have received the first fruits of the Spirit we mourn because we have but the first-fruits and we would have the full harvest but as there is cause of mourning because we have but the first-fruits so there is cause of comfort because it is the first-fruits it is an Earnest onely and not the whole bargain therefore we have cause of mourning that it is so imperfect that it is so weak as it is yet there is cause of comfort because though it is not the whole yet is a part and secures us of the whole And therefore Christians should labour to mingle duties and let one grace qualifie another For indeed a Christian is a mixed Creature his comforts are mixed and his mourning is mixed With a carnal man it is all otherwise if he mourn he is all a mort because he hath no goodnesse if he joy he is mad his mirth is madnesse A Christian joyes indeed some times he hath joy unspeakable and glorious because he looks to his hope and the accomplishment of it and yet he mourns because he hath but the Earnest because he hath but the beginnings because he hath but the first-fruits here And therefore again as it should comfort us if we have any thing so it should exhort us to examine rather the truth then the measure of any grace we have examined the truth it is the truth of this Earnest the truth of grace and comfort it is an excellent speech of our Saviour Christ in Rev. 3. to the Church of Philadelphia in verse 8. Because thou hast a little strength and hast kept my Word and hast not denyed my Name there is a great promise made to the Church of Philadelphia and why Because thou hast a little strength how is that discovered Thou hast kept my Word and hast not denyed my Name So then if that little be true God respects not that little as it is little in quantity but as he means to make it ere long he looks upon the Earnest as he means to make up the bargain he looks upon the foundation as he means to rear up a goodly building he looks upon the first-fruits as he means to adde the harvest and therefore Ephes. 1. and other places We are elected to be holy and blamelesse in his sight So Ephes. 5. latter end He purgeth the Church that she may be presented to him without spot So Christ looks upon his Church as he is purging and washing till he have made it holy in his sight We are elected not to Earnest not to first-fruits but to be unblameable we are elected to perfection it is the comfort of Christians that God looks upon his not as they are imperfect here but as they are in beginning and as they are growing and as he intends to bring them to perfection afterwards For all things are present we know to him the time to come what we shall be he considers us as if we were in heaven already we are in our degree and in our faith So now we sit in heavenly places therefore as he looks on us as we shall be so faith answers his looking when we are framed by the Spirit to comfort faith looks not upon the weak Earnest the poor beginnings but as we shall be after in heaven without spot and wrinckle I but how shall we know the truth of his Earnest that it is true though it be little To speak a word or two of that for tryal Where the Spirit of God is with the relation of an Earnest he is as an Earnest by way of grace and comfort for those two wayes the Spirit discovers himself in us to sanctifie our nature or by comfort and peace and joy and such like Then it doth stir up the soul to mourn that is but an Earnest as I said before and to wait for the accomplishment as the Apostle saith in Rom. 8. We that have received the first-fruits of the Spirit mourn in our selves that it is no better with us then it is and withal We wait for the redemption of the sons of God the adoption of the sons of God we wait for the accomplishment hereafter it is the nature therefore of the Spirit of God as it is an Earnest to stirre up the spirits of Gods children to mourn something and likewise to wait patiently to wait for the full accomplishment hereafter and as a fruit of their waiting to endure quietly patiently and comfortably that which is between the Earnest and the accomplishment of it and therefore God gives them the grace of hope and constancy and of perseverance till all be accomplished for there is the tediousnesse of time between which is irk some hope deferred and a tediousnesse of deferring and besides many afflictions withal Now Gods children that have the Earnest of the Spirit they have a spirit likewise to wait and that they may be strengthened to wait they have the Spirit of Constancy a Spirit of patience to endure trouble and to persevere and to hold out in regard of the tediousnesse of the time So that they may not give over religious courses though they have it not fully here but go on still and wait And likewise those that have the Earnest of the Spirit that have the Spirit as it hath this qualification upon it of an Earnest it stirres them up to frame themselves answerable to the full ccaomplishment for He that hath
insinuates as if he should say What can I give you better then the Holy Ghost and yet this will I give you if you ask him that is the good thing that God gives for indeed that is the seed of all graces and of all comfort and therefore a world of promises are included in that promise that he will give the Spirit to them that ask him Labour by these and such like means for the Spirit and then if you have the Spirit the Earnest of the Spirit and the seal of the Spirit then mark what will come of such a temper of soul that will go through all conditions whatsoever come what will for the Spirit is above all and the comforts of the Spirit are above all earthly comforts and the graces of the Spirit are able to encounter with all temptations So that a man that hath the Spirit stands impregnable the work of grace cannot be quenched because it is the effect and the work of the Spirit all the powers of all the Devils in hell cannot stirre it God may hide his comfort for a time to humble us but to quench the work of the Spirit once wrought in the heart all the power of all the Devils in hell cannot quench the least spark of saving grace it will carry us through all opposition whatsoever Let a man never baulk or decline in a good cause for any thing that he shall suffer for the seal and the Earnest of the Spirit is never more strong then when we have no other comfort by us but that when we can draw comfort from the Well-head from the Spring therefore we should labour for the Earnest of the Spirit for it will fit us for all conditions whatsoever What makes a man differ from himself what makes a man differ from another Take a man that hath the Earnest of the Spirit you shall have him defie death the world Satan and all temptations Take a man that is negligent in labouring to encrease his Earnest you shall have him weak and not like himself The Apostle Peter before the Holy Ghost came upon him the voice of a weak damsel astonished him but after how willing was he to suffer any thing Therefore let us not labour much to strengthen our selves with the things of this life or to value our selves by our dependance upon others if thou hast grace thou hast that that will stand by thee when all other things will fail for all other things will be taken away but the Comforter shall never be taken away it goes along with us continually First it works Earnest in us and then it stamps upon us his own mark and then it leads us from grace to grace and in the hour of death then especially it hath the work of a Comforter to present to us the fruits of a good and holy life and likewise the joyes of heaven when we are dead the Spirit watcheth over our bodies because they were the Temples of the Holy Ghost and at the day of judgement the same Spirit shall knit both body and soul together and after the same Spirit that hath done all this shall be all in all to us in heaven for ever and then our very bodies shall be spiritual where as now our souls even the better part of them is carnal Even as the fire when it possesseth a piece of Iron it is all fire So our bodies shall be all spiritual What a blessed thing is this to have the Spirit what are all friends to the Holy Ghost which will speak to God for us The Spirit will make request with sighes and groans and God will hear the voice of his own Spirit What prison can shut up the Spirit of God Above all labour to have more of the Spirit of God this will make us more or lesse fruitfull more or lesse glorious in our profession more or lesse willing to dye Labour to encrease this Earnest that the nearer we come to heaven the more we may be fitted for it Consider but this Reason if you want this alas we can never be thankful to God for any thing if by the Spirit we have not assurance that our state is the state of grace for otherwise we might think that God gives us all in anger as a etrnal man he alwaies fears that God fatts him as an oxe to the slaughter what a fearfull case is this that a man cannot be thankful for that he hath Labour for the Spirit that we may be thankfull to God for every thing that we may see the love of God in every thing in every refreshing we take that that love of God that fits us for heaven and that fits heaven for us it gives us daily bread the Earnest of the Spirit will make us thankfull for every thing Again labour for the Earnest of the Spirit that we may be joyfull in all conditions how can a man suffer willingly that knowes not that he is sealed with the Spirit that knowes not that God hath begun a good work in him Alas he is lumpish and heavy under the Crosse. What makes a man bear the Crosse willingly but this assurance what makes him deny himself in temptations and corruptions Oh saith the child of God the work of the Spirit is begun in me sealing me up to life everlasting shall I grieve and quench this Spirit for this base lust But a man that hath not the Spirit saith I had as good take this pleasure as have none at all for ought I know I shall have none he sees no greater pleasure then the following of his lust So that none can resist temptations but he that hath the Spirit giving him Earnest in a comfortable measure and it is a good sign when we resist temptations for spiritual reasons that the Spirit works it Again unlesse we have this Earnest of the Spirit in our hearts we can never be content to end our dayes with comfort he that hath the Earnest of the Spirit is glad of death when it comes there shall be then an accomplishment of all the bargain then the Marriage shall be consummate then shall be the year of Jubile the Sabbath of rest for ever then is the triumph and then all teares shall be wiped from our eyes But now let a man stagger and doubt whether he be the child of God or no that he cannor find any mark of the child of God in him that he cannot read the evidences of a Christian state in his soul they are so dim he sees nothing but corruption in him he sees no change no resistence of corruption he hath no Earnest Alas what a miserable case is such a man in when he comes to dye death with the eternity of misery after it who can look it in the face without hope of life everlasting without assurance of a happy change after death Therefore we should labour for the Spirit that howsoever we grow or decay in wealth and reputation let
is not sufficient to be in the Grace of God but to have the report of it to our own hearts to have it shine upon us How should we carry our selves so that we may be in state of Grace that is in such a state as we may find the sweet evidence and comfortable feeling continually that we are Gods Children First of all there must be a perpetual daily practise of abasing our selves of making our selves poore that is every day to see the vanity of all things in the world out of us to see the weaknesse of Grace in us to see the return of our corruptions that foile us every day that so we may see in what need we stand of the favour of God Considering that all comforts without are vanity and that all the Graces in us are stained with corruption considering besides the staines of our Graces that there is a continuall issue of corruption these things will make our spirits poor and make us hunger and thirst after the sence and feeling of free pardon every day This will enforce us to renew our patent to renew our portion in the Covenant of Grace to have daily pardon This should be our daily practise to enter deeper and deeper into our selves This is to live by faith As God is continually ready to shew us favour in Christ not onely at the first in acquitting us from our sins but continually doth shew us favour upon all occasions and is justifyng and pardoning and speaking peace continually to us so there must be an action answerable in us that is depending upon God by faith living by faith This we do by seeing in what need we stand of Grace God resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble Then again that we may walk in the grace of God and in the sence of it let us every day labour to have our souls more and more enriched with the endowments and graces of Gods Spirit that we may be objects of Gods delight Let us labour to be affected to things as he is affected two cannot walk together except they be agreed Let us hate that which God hates and delight in that which God delights in that we may have a kind of complacency and be in love with the blessed work of the Spirit of God more and more Let us labour to delight in them that grow in grace as the nearer any one comes to our likenesse the more we grow in familiarity with them Labour also to preserve a clear soul that God may shine upon us God delights not in strangenesse to us his desire is that we may walk in the sence and assurance of his grace and favour How shall we know that we are in state of Grace with God I Answer that we do not deceive our selves we must look to the work of Gods grace Gods grace is a fruitful grace his favour is fruitful it is not a barren favour it is not a Winter Sun The Sun in the Winter it carries a goodly countenance but it heats not to any purpose it doth not quicken but Gods grace it carries life and heat where it comes therefore if we be in state of grace and favour with God we may discern it But in times of desertion though a person be in grace and favour with God yet many times he thinks he is not so It is true then we must not alway go to our feeling at such times and the enlargement of our hearts by the Spirit of comfort but go to the work of grace for where grace and favour is there are the graces of the Spirit As it is nor a bare favour in regard of comfort so it is not a barren favour in regard of graces for every heart that is in favour with God hath some graces of the Spirit God enriches the soul where he shewes favour his love-tokens are some graces therefore if the witnesse and comfort of the Spirit cease in case of desertion let us go to the work of the Spirit and by that we may know if we be in grace with God For Gods people are a peculiar people and Gods children have alwayes some peculiar grace some Ornaments some Jewels the spouse of Christ hath which others have not Therefore examine thy heart what work of God there is and what desire thou hast after better things what inward hatred against that which is ill what strength thou hast against it go to some mark of Regeneration of the new Creature and these will evidence that we are in a state of grace with God because these are peculiar favours And though we feel not the comfort yet there is a work and that work will comfort us more then the comfort it self will do And this is one thing whereby we may know we are in favour with God when we can comfort our selves and can go to the throne of grace through Christ when we can go boldly to God it is a sign of favour when we can call upon him when we can go in any desertion to prayer when in any affliction we can have inlarged hearts it is a sign of favour with God A meer hypocrite or a man that hath not this peculiar grace he trusts to outward things and when they are gone when he is in trouble he hath not the heart to go to God his heart is shut up he sinks down because he relyed upon common matters he did not relie upon the favour of God and the best fruit of it which are graces but upon common favours therefore he sinks in despair But a sound Christian take him at the worst he can sigh to God he can go to him and open his soul to him by Christ we have an entrance to the Father Ephes 3. 12. We have boldnesse through faith Every Christian hath this in the worst extremity he hath a Spirit of prayer though he cannot enlarge himself yet he can sigh and groan to God and God will hear the sighes of his own Spirit they are loud in his ears David at the worst he prayes to God Saul at the worst he goes to the Witch and from thence to his swords point But usually the usual temper and disposition of a man in the state of grace is joy for as one saith Grace is the begetter of joy for they both have one root in the Greek Language there is the same root for favour and for joy so favour is usually and ordinarily with a sweet enlargement of heart we may thank our selves else that do not walk so warily and so jealously as we should The reward that God gives his Children that are careful is a Spirit of joy Rom. 5. 1. Being Justified by faith we have peace of God and joy in tribulation For even as it is in humane matters the favour and countenance of the King it is as a shower of rain after a drought it comforts his subjects there is a wonderous joy in the
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
belong to ministers in a more eminent sort yet let every one lay it to heart you ought to have abilities to comfort others and to receive comfort of others And consider it is an angelical work to comfort others we imitate God himself and the most Excellent creatures the Angels whose office it is to comfort Even our very Saviour they came to comfort him in his greatest extremity A man is a God to a man when he comforts when he discomforts and directs and withdrawes he is a divell to a man men are beasts to men Divels to men that way but he that is an instrument to convey comfort he is a God to a man God is the God of comfort Thou art in the place of God to a man when thou comfortest him thou shalt save thy self and others God honours men with his own title when they comfort not onely ministers but others save men thou shalt gain thy brother by thy admonition and reproof what greater honour can yee have then Gods own title to be saviours one of another It is the office I say of Angels they were sent to comfort Christ it is their duty to pitch their tents about Gods Children to suggest holy thoughts as the divel suggests evill and to be about us though we think not of it Nay it is not onely an angelical work but it is the work of Gods spirit the sweetest stile of the Holy Ghost is to be a Comforter What shall we think of cursed spirits that insult over others misery that give them gall to eat and vinegar to drink that add affliction to the afflicted What shall we say to barren spirits that have not a word of comfort to say but come in a prophane and dead manner I am sorry to see you thus and I hope you will be better barren soul as the wildernesse What a member of Christ of the communion of Saint and no way furnished no word of comfort to a distressed soul We may know the comfort we have our selves to be comfort indeed and from the grace and favour of God when we have hearts enlarged to do good to others with it How do gifts and grace differ to add that useful distinction And man may have a great many gifts and be proud and full of envy and have a divellish poysonful spirit to draw all to himself and not be good but be carried with self-love and die a divell notwithstanding his excellent parts Why here are such gifts and parts but there is a bitter roote of self-love to draw all to himself to deifie himself to make an Idol of himself but grace with gifts works otherwise that turnes all by a spirit of love and humility to the good of others There is no envy in a gracious heart so far forth as it is gracious there is no pride nor scorn to do good to others How shall we distinguish men of excellent parts whether they be Christians or not Christians They have both of them wit and memorie they have both courage I but whether of them improve their parts and abilities most to the good of others Whether of them hath the most humble spirit the most loving spirit the most discreete spirit to be wittie to do others to good upon all advantages there is the Christian that hath Gods Grace with his gifts But for the other Knowledge puffeth up saith the Apostle what edifies and builds up Love edifieth knowledge gathers many materials stone and timber c. what builds the house the bodie of Christ It is a loving and humble spirit Therefore let us think that we have nothing in Christianity by any parts we have of memory or witt or reading c. unlesse we have a humble spirit that we can deny our selves and abase our selves to do good to others upon all the best advantages or else we have not the spirit of Christ that sweet spirit of Christ that denied himself to do good to us Where grace is established once and is in the right nature there is a publick mind and it is one of the best signs of a heart that is fashioned to the image of Christ who denied himself and became all in all to us to have a publick mind to have self-love killed to think I have nothing to purpose as I should have except I can make use of it to the good of others therefore let us be willing to do good in this kind And as I said let us make use of comfort from others think that they are reserved to the times and place where thou livest that thou mightest make use of them Therefore those that need comfort should not flatter themselves in their grief but humbly depend upon the meanes that God hath ordained And let every man think what if God have hid my comfort in another man what if he have given him the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season unto me Let no man think to master his trouble and grief by himself we are members of the body and the good that God will convey to us must be from and by others Therefore it is a mutual duty those that have comfort ought to comfort others and those that do need comfort ought to repiare to others it is the ordinance of God As Job saith for one of a thousand to shew a man his righteousnesse Though a man be never so wise yet sometimes he knowes not his owne comfort he knowes not that portion of comfort that belongs to him till some others discover it to him Physitians will have others to heale themselves to judge of their diseases and certainly one reason why persons that are excellent in themselves have passed their daies in darknesse it hath been this that they think to overmaster their heavinesse and distraction of spirit with their own reason c. which will not be God what he will do he will do by his own meanes and ordinance Let us therefore learn hence to see the goodnesse of God that besides the Ministery that he hath ordeyned and the salvation that he keeps for us and the promises that he hath given us and the Angels that attend us c. he doth even ordain others that are men and have bodies with our selves other fellow-Christians to be instruments to convey comfort he trains them up that they may be able to comfort and do good to us and he hides the good he intends to us in them and conveyes it to us by them it is a speciall goodnesse of God that every thing should tend to our good Thus all things are for us the sufferings of others tend to increase our comfort and the comfort of others is for our comfort There is such a sweet prudence in directing us to heaven that God makes every thing help not onely our own troubles that we suffer our selves but he doth sweetly turn the troubles of others and the comforts of others to our good It ministreth an
might have kept himself out of this trouble I would ask such a party had not Christ as much wisdom as thee He was the wisdom of the Father did he keep out of reproaches was he not reproached as a troublesome man as an enemie to Cesar and taxed for base things as a wine bibber c. and one that had a divell and many other waies Was not St. Paul as discreet as we are who in our understanding and conceit are ready to conceive distastfully of men that suffer any thing for the Gospel and yet notwithstanding all his wisdom kept him not from the crosse but the crosse abides me saith he every where The Divell and the crosse follow Gods Children wheresoever they go all their wisdome and holinesse cannot keep them from it because God hath decreed it and called them to it and they must be conformable to Christ. Therefore let us take heed that we do not suffer men to suffer in our conceits when they suffer in a good cause the crosse of Christ reproachful things base death c. Afflictions are therefore called the crosse because there is a kind of basenesse with them and as it is so so carnal men esteem it presently with the suffering there goes a taint and an abasing in their conceit of those men that suffer in a good cause there is a diminishing conceit goes in carnall men of that which should be their glorie our crosses abound but what ought we to judge of these crosses They are the sufferings of Christ. Why Christ suffers nothing he is in heaven in glorie how can he suffer This is to disparage his Glorious estate to make him suffer any thing I answer the sufferings of Christ they are two-fold the sufferings of Christs person that which he suffered himself which were propitiatory and satisfactory for our redemption and the sufferings of Christ in his mystical body which likewise is called Christ. For Christ in scripture is taken either for Christ himself or for the members of Christ why persecutest thou me saith he to Saul or for the whole body mysticall with the head 1 Cor. 12. so is Christ Christ head and members is called Christ. Now when he calls the sufferings of the Church the sufferings of Christ he meanes not the sufferings of Christ in his own person for he suffers nothing he is out of all the malice of persecutours they cannot reach to heaven to Christ but he means the sufferings of Christ in his mystical body these are called the sufferings of Christ. Why are these called the sufferings of Christ Partly because they are the sufferings of mystical Christ the body of Christ the Church for the Church the companie of true belevers are the fulnesse of Christ they make up the mystical body of Christ therefore when they suffer he that is the head suffers Again they are called the sufferings of Christ those that his members and Children suffer because they are for Christ they are in his quarrell they are for his truth for his cause and by his appoyntment he calls us to suffering it is for his cause in our intendment we intend to suffer for Christ to maintain his cause they are the sufferings of Christ likewise in the intent of the opposites and enemies they persecute us for some goodnesse they see in us they persecute the cause and truth of Christ in us so they are the sufferings of Christ both waies Especially they are the sufferings of Christ by way of sympathie because Christ doth impute them to himself The sufferings of Christ. It is a phrase that springs from the near union that is between Christ and his members the Church which is as near or nearer then any natural union between the head and members hereupon it comes that we are said to suffer with him to die with him to be crucified with him to ascend with him to fit in heavenly places with him to judge the world with him to do all with him by reason of this union and he is said to suffer with us to be afflicted in us to be reproached with us he was stoned in Stephen he was persecuted by Saul he was beheaded in Paul he was burned with the Martyrs he was banished with the Christians and he suffers in all his Children not that he doth so in his own person but because it pleaseth him by reason of the near communion that is between him and us to take that which is done to his members as done to himself therefore they are called the sufferings of Christ he suffers when we suffer and we suffer when he suffers The difference is all the comfort in our sufferings it comes from communion in his sufferings because he is our surety for why are we encouraged to suffer by way of sympathy and communion with him because he in love died for us and was crucified for us and abased for us and shamed for us And when is the soul encouraged to suffer afflictions for Christ when it hath a little felt the wrath of God that Christ suffered for it Oh how much am I beholding to God for Christ that endured the whole wrath of God They are the sufferings of Christ this is a wondrous comfortable point and it is a notion that doth sweeten the bitterest crosses that they are the sufferings of Christ not onely that we are conformable to Christ in them we suffer as he did but they are the sufferings of Christ he imputes them as done to him he suffers with us And another reason why they are the sufferings of Christ it is because he not onely takes it as done to himself but he is present with them he was with St. Paul in the dungeon he was with the 3. young men in the firie-furnace there were 3. put in and there was a fourth which was Christ the son of God he goes with the martyrs to the prison to the stake he is with them till he hath brought them to heaven he is present with them when they suffer Here I must before I come to make use of it distinguish between the crosses and sufferings of Christ and of ordinary sufferings as men Something in this vale of misery we suffer as creatures as being subject to mutability and change because this is a world of changes In this sublunary world there is nothing but changes thus we suffer as creatures all creatures are subject to vanity and complain and groane under it Somwhat we suffer as men it is the common condition of men this nature of ours since the fall is subject to sicknesses to crosses and pain and casualties every day brings new crosses with it this we suffer as men Now the sufferings of Christians as religious holy men those are here meant those are the sufferings of Christ. Yet notwithstanding the sufferings as men by the Spirit of God helps our conformity to Christ by them the
a Carnal man for he hath the presence of Gods Spirit to support him in some measure Therefore let us not be afraid before hand fear nothing saith the Apostle that thou shalt suffer And with Moses let us not be ashamed of the rebuke of Christ but Let us go out of the Campe with Christ learning our reproach And because we know not what God may call us to let us entertain presently a resolution to endure whatsoever in this world God calls us to to passe through thick and thin to passe through all kind of waies to the hope of our Glorious calling if by any way by any meanes saith St. Paul I may attain the resurrection of the dead If by any meanes I may come to heaven by fair death or by violent death he scorned reproach if by any means he might be happie And for others it is a wondrous quailing to the spirits of men that offer any wrong if it be but a disgrace a scoffe is a persecution to a Christian for a good cause when wicked men oppose a Christian in a good cause and course let us learn what they do they kick against the pricks Do they know what they do when they reproach Christians it is the reproach of Christ. What was Ishmaels scorning a persecution Christ is scorned in his members will he endure this at their hands When good causes are opposed Christ is opposed and Christ is scoffed This doth enable our suffering being an abasing of it self that Christ accounts it done to him Base men of the world they think when they scoffe at goodnesse and wrong the Image of God in his Children they think they deride and despise a companie of weak creatures that they scoffe at silly persons meaner then themselves but they are deceived they scoffe Christ in them and he takes it so Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The foot is trode on on the earth and the head speaks from heaven It is the reproach of Christ and it will be laid to thy charge at the day of judgment that thou hast scoffed and persecuted and reproached Christ in his members it will be a heavy indictment Men should not regard what they conceive of things but what he that must be their judge will conceive of things ere long and he interprets it as done to his own person It is true both of good and ill whatsoever good we do to a Christian as a Christian to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple Christ takes it as done to himself Matth. 25. In as much as you have done it to these you have done it to mee It should animate us to do good offices to those that are Christs what we do to them we do to Christ. Let us be willing to refresh the bowels of Christ in his members at home or abroad as occasion serves to maintain the quarrel of Christ as much as we can to relieve Christ he comes to us in the poore and asks relief he that shed his blood for us he that dyed for us he that hath given us all asks a little pittance for himself that we for his sake would be so good to him in his members as to do thus and thus that for Jonathans sake we would regard poore lame Mephibosheth his son Christ though he be gone he hath some Mephibosheths some poore weak members and what offices we do them he accounts done to himself it runs on his score he will be accountable for every good word we speak in his cause for every defence for every act of bountie It is a point of large meditation to consider that the Crosses and Afflictions of Christians they are the sufferings of Christ. Do but consider the spirit of God intended in this phrase to dignifie all disgraces and indignities that are put upon us in a good cause and quarrel could he have said more in few words he calls them not disgraces or losses or death but he puts such a comfortable title upon them that might make us in love with suffering any thing and set us on fire to endure any thing in a good cause they are the sufferings of Christ. As the sufferings of Christ abound so our consolations c. The third general point is That our consolations are proportionable to our sufferings Our consolations abound We suffer in this World that is hard I but they are the sufferings of Christ there is sweetnesse And then another degree is our consolations abound as our sufferings abound Consolation is as I shewed before in the unfolding of the word an inward support of the soul against trouble felt or feared and it must be stronger then the grievance or else the action of comfort will not follow There is a disproportion between the agent and the patient in all prevailing actions or else there is no prevailing if the comfort be not above the maladie it is no comfort And therefore no comforts but divine comforts will stand at length because in all other comforts sedet medecinum morbo the maladie is above the remedie they may make glorious pretences as the Philosophers do Plutarch and Seneca and the rest but they are as Apothecaries boxes they have goodly titles but there is nothing within Alas when there is trouble in the conscience awakned with the sight of sin and the displeasure of God what can all those precepts compose and frame the soul in petty troubles They have their place and surely the neglect of them many times is that that makes the crosse heavier but alas in divine troubles in terror of conscience it must be divine comfort it must be of like nature or else the effect of comfort will never follow and those be the comforts that he meanes here As our troubles and afflictions abound so our consolations our divine supports they abound the point is this that Our comforts are proportionable to our sufferings What did I say proportionable it is above all proportion of suffering As it is said Rom. 8. the afflictions of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed And indeed in this life the consolations abound as the sufferings abound For God keeps not all for the life to come he gives us a taste a grape of Canaan before we come to Canaan as the Israelites they sent for grapes to taste the goodnesse of the land and they had them brought to them by the spies by which they might guesse of the fruitfulnesse and sweetnesse of the land it self so the taste and relish that Gods Children have of that fulnesse which is reserved in another world it is answerable and proportionable to their sufferings and in the proportion the exceeding part is of comfort there is an exceeding if not for the present yet afterwards The Ark did rise together with the water and comforts rise together with matter of suffering But what is the reason of the proportion why the greatest comforts follow the greatest sufferings
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
he goes to prayer he goes to his rock and shield to God who was his all in all He knew all this was done to drive him to trust in God Why art thou disquieted O my soule why art thou vexed in me trust in God all this is to make thee trust in God he checks and chides his own soul. A Child of God doth check himselfe when his base heart would have him sink and fall down and go to false means then he raiseth himself up trust in God O my soule But such as Saul proud confident hypocrites when all outward things are taken away they go to the Witch to the Devill to one unlawfull meanes or other and at the last to desperate conclusions to the sword it self As we desire to have evidence of a good estate in grace that we belong to God so let us desire God that we may find him drawing us so neare to him by all crosses whatsoever that we may see in him a supply of whatsoever is taken from us If we lose our friends that we may trust God the more As St. Paul speaks of the widow 1 Tim. 5. when her Husband was alive she trusted to him but now she wants her former help to goe to she gives her self to prayer she goes to God she trusts in God So it should be with all when friends are taken away we should go to God he will supply that which is wanting Those that are berest of any comfort now they should go to God What do we lose by that we had the stream before now we have the fountain we shall have it in a more excellent manner in God then we had before And that makes a Christian at a point in this world he is not much discouraged whatsoever he lose if he lose all to his life he knowes he shall have a better supply from God then he can lose in the world therefore he is never much cast down he knowes that all shall drive him nearer to God to trust in God As St. Paul saith here We received the sentence of Death that we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead One meanes to settle our trust the better in God reconciled to us in the Covenant of grace through Christ his beloved and our beloved is the blessed Sacrament and therefore come to it as to a seal sanctified by God for that very purpose to strengthen our trust in God How many wayes doth God condescend to strengthen our trust because it is such an honour to him for by trusting in him we give him the honour of all his attributes we make him a God we set him in his throne which we doe not when we trust not in him how many waies doth he condescend to strengthen our trust We have his promise If we believe in him we shall not perish but have everlasting life We have a seale of that promise the Sacrament and is not a broad seale a great confirmation If a man have a grant from the King if he have his broad seal it is a great confirmation though the other were good yet the seale is stronger So we have Gods promise and in regard of our weakness there is a seale added to it If that be not enough we have more we have his oath he hath pawned his life As I live saith the Lord c. he hath pawned his being as he is God he will forgive us if we repent We have his promise seale and oath whatsoever among men may strengthen trust and faith God condescends unto to strengthen our faith because he would not have us perish in unbeliefe Besides that he hath given us earnest a mans trust is strengthened when he hath earnest Every true Christian hath a blessed earnest that is the Comforter he hath the Spirit in him the first fruits where God gives and an earnest he will make good the bargain at the last where he gives the first fruits he will add the harvest God never repents of his earnest where he hath begun a good work he will finish it to the day of the Lord. An earnest is not taken away but the rest is added And the same Spirit that is an earnest is also a pawn and pledge we will trust any runnagate if we have a pawn sufficient now God hath given us this pawn of his Spirit Christ hath given us his Spirit and hath taken our flesh to heaven our flesh is there and his Spirit is in our hearts besides many evidences that we have in this life as pawns Indeed in extremity sometimes we must trust God without a pawne upon his bare word Though he kill me yet will I trust in him saith Job but God ordinarily gives us many pawns of his love The Sacrament is not onely a Seal of the promise but likewise it hath another relation to strengthen our faith it is a seizon as a piece of earth that is given to assure possession of the whole as a man saith Take here is a piece of earth here is my land here are the keyes of my house so in the promises sealed by the Sacrament here is life here is favour here is forgiveness of sins here is life everlasting what can we have more to strengthen our faith God hath condescended every way to strengthen us if we will come in and honour him so much as to trust him with our souls and our salvation Therefor let us come to the Sacrament with undoubted confidence God will keep his credit he will not deceive his credit he will never forsake those that trust in him Psal. 9. But to answer an Objection Oh! all these are confirmations indeed if I did believe and trust in God but my heart is full of unbelief Indeed all these are made to some that believe already in some measure they have this seale and oath and earnest and pawnes and first fruits and all if they believe but I cannot bring my heart to trust in God What hinders thee I am a wretched creature a sinfull creature Doest thou mean to be so still It is no matter what thou hast been but what thou wilt be The greater the sickness the more is the honour of the Physitian in curing it the greater thy sins the more honour to God in forgiving such sins Retort the temptation thus upon Satan God works by contraries and whom he will make righteous he will make them to see their sins and before he will raise us up he will make us rotten in our graves before he will make us glorious he will make us miserable I know that God by this intends that I should despaire in my self God intends that I should despaire indeed but it is that I should despair in my self as the text saith here that we should not trust in our selves when we have a sight of the vilenesse of our sins but in God that raiseth the dead that raiseth
greatest torment to those that have had their wills most in the world the more their conscience is silenced and violenced in this world the more vocal it shall be at the hour of death and the day of judgement Therefore judge who are the most miserable men in the world although they have never so much regard in the world besides those that have consciences but will not suffer them to work but with sensuality within them and by pleasing flattering speech of those without them they keep it down and take order that neither conscience within nor none other without shall disturbe them if they do they shall be served as Ahab dealt with Micaia These men that are thus at peace in sinful courses of all men they are most miserable they enjoy their pleasure here for a little time but their conscience shall torment them for ever and shall say to them as Reuben said to his Brethren I told you this before but you would not hearken to me and now you shall be tormented Conscience is an evil beast it makes a man rise against himself therefore of all men those that be disordered in their courses that neglect conscience and neglect the means of salvation that should awaken conscience they are the most miserable for the longer they go on the more they sink in sin and the more they sink in sin the more they sink in terrour of conscience if not now yet they shall hereafter If we desire therefore to have joy and comfort at all times let us labour to have a good conscience that may witnesse well And therefore let us every day keep an audite within doors every day cast up our accounts every day draw the blood of Christ over our accounts every day beg forgivenesse of sins and the Spirit of Christ to lead us that so we may keep account every day that we may make our reckonings even every day that we may have the lesse to do in the time of sicknesse in the time of temptation and in the time of death when we have discharged our Consciences before by keeping session at home in our own hearts This should be the daily practice of a Christian and then he may lay himself down in peace He that sleeps with a conscience defiled is as he that sleeps among wild beasts among adders and toades that if his eyes were open to see them he would be out of his wits He that sleeps without a good conscience he is an unadvised man God may make his bed his grave he may smite him suddenly therefore let us every day labour to have a good conscience that so we may have matter of perpetual joy A good conscience especially is an Evangelicall conscience for a legall good conscience none have that is such a conscience as acquits a man that he hath obeyed the law in all things exactly A legall compleat good conscience none have except in some particular fact there is a good Conscience in fact As the Heathen could excuse themselves they were thus and thus and God ministreth much joy in that But an Evangelical good Conscience is that we must trust to that is such a Conscience that though it knowes it self guilty of sin yet it knowes that Christ hath shed his blood for sinners and such a Conscience as by meanes of faith is sprinkled with the blood of Christ and is cleared from the accusations of sin There is an Evangelicall Conscience when by faith wrought by the Spirit of God in the hearing of the Gospell we lay hold upon the obedience and righteousnesse of Christ. And such is the obedience and righteousnesse of Christ that it pacifieth the conscience which nothing else in the world will doe the conscience without a full obedience it will alway stagger And that is the reason that Conscience confounds and confutes the Popish way of salvation by works c. Because the conscience alway staggers and feares I have not done works enough I have not done them well enough those that I have done they have been corrupt and mixed and therefore I dare not bring them to the Judgement-seat of God to plead them meritorious Therefore they do well to hold uncertainty of salvation because holding merit they must needs be uncertaiu of their salvation A true Christian is certain of his salvation because his conscience layes hold on the blood of Christ because the obedience whereby he claimes heaven is a superabundant obedience it is the satisfaction of Christ as the Apostle saith in that excellent place Heb. 9. 24. The blood of Christ which offered himself by the eternall Spirit that is by the God-head shall cleanse your consciences from dead works to serve the living God The blood of Christ that offered himself his humane nature by his divine to God as a sacrifice it shall purge your consciences from dead works The blood of Christ that is the Sacrifice the obedience of Christ in offering himself fully pacified God and answered the punishment which we should have indured for he was our surety The blood of Christ speaks better then the blood of Abel It speaks better then our sins Our sins cry vengeance but the blood of Christ cries mercy The blood of Christ out-cries our sins the guilty conscience for sin cries Guiltie guiltie hell Damnation wrath and anguish but the blood of Christ cries I say mercy because it was shed by our surety in our behalf his obedience is a full satisfaction to God Now the way to have a good conscience is upon the accusations of an evill conscience by the law to come to Christ our surety and to get our consciences sprinked by faith in his blood to get a perswasion that he shed his blood for us and upon that to labour to be purged by the Spirit There are two purgers the blood of Christ from the guilt of sin and the Spirit of Christ from the stain of sin and upon that comes a compleat good conscience being justified by the blood of Christ and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. Therefore Christ came not by blood alone or by water alone but by water and blood by blood in justification by water in sanctification and holinesse of life Why do we alleadge this now for the Sacrament We speak of a good conscience which is a continual feast How comes a good conscience to be such a continual feast An Evangelicall conscience is a feast indeed because it feeds on a higher feast it feeds on Christ he is the Passeover Lambe as the Apostle applies it 1. Cor. 5. he is the Passeover slain for us and there is represented in the Sacrament his body broken and his blood poured out for our sins he came to feast us and we shall feast with him Hereupon if we bring repentance for our sins past and faith whereby we are incorporate into Christ then our consciences speak peace and as it is in 1 Pet. 5. the conscience makes a
good demand It is not baptisme but the demand of a good conscience When the conscience hath fed on Christ it demands boldly as it is Rom. 8. of Satan and all enemies Who shall lay any thing to our charge it is God that justifieth it is Christ that died or rather that is risen again It boldly demands of God who hath given his Son the bold demand of conscience prevails with God and this comes by faith in Christ. Now this is strengthened by the Sacrament here are the visible representations and seales that we are incorporate more and more into Christ and so feeding upon Christ once our conscience is pacified and purged from all dead works and we come to have a continuall feast Christ is first the Prince of righteousnesse the righteous King and then Prince of peace first he gives righteonsnesse and then he speaks peace to the conscience The Kingdom of God is righteousnesse peace and joy in the Holy Ghost So that all our feast and joy and comfort that we have in our consciences it must be from righteousnesse A double righteousnesse the righteousnesse of Christ which hath satisfied and appeased the wrath of God fully and then we must have the righteousnesse of a good conscience sanctified by the Spirit of Christ we must put them together alway we can never have communion with Christ and have forgivenesse of sins but we must have a Spirit of sanctification There is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared Where there is mercy in the forgivenesse of sin there is a disposition to fear it ever after Therefore if for the present you would have a good conscience desire God to strengthen your faith in the blood of Christ poured out for you desire God to strengthen your faith in the crucified bodie of Christ broken for you that so feeding on Christ who is your surety who himself is yours and all is yours you may ever have the feast of a good conscience that will comfort you in false imputations that will comfort you in life and in death and at the day of judgement This is our rejoycing in all things the testimony of our conscience first purged by the blood of Christ and then purged and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ that we have had our Conversation in simplicity and sincerity c. Our rejoycing is this that in simplicity and sincerity This is the matter of this testimonie of Conscience that is simplicity and sincerity Saint Paul glories in his simplieity and sincerity And mark that by the way it is no vain glorying but lawful upon such cautions as I named before but to add a little A man in some cases may glory in the Graces of God that are in him but with these cautions First if so be that he look on them as the gifts of God Secondly if he look on them as stained with his own defects and so in that respect be humbled Thirdly if he look upon them as fruits of his justification and as fruites of his assurance of his salvation and not as causes And then if it be before men that he glories not when he is to deale with God When men lay this and that imputation upon a man he may rejoyce as Saint Paul doth here in the testimony of his conscience in simplicity and sincerity The matter of the testimony of Conscience wherein he glories is simplicity and godly sincerity or as the words may well be read in the simplicity and sincerity of God such as proceeds from God and such as aimes at and looks to God and resembles God For both simplicity and sincerity come from God they are wrought by God and therein we resemble God and both of them have an eye to God a respect to God so it is in the originall in the simplicity and sincerity of God There is not much difference between simplicity and sincerity the one expresseth the other if you will have the difference simplicity especially respects men our conversation amongst men Simplicity hath an eye to God in all things in Religion opposite to hypocrisy in Religion Simplicity that is opposed to doublenesse where doublenesse is there is alway hypocrisy opposed to sincerity and where simplicity is there is alway sincerity truth to God But it is not good to be very exact and punctuall in the distinction of these things they may one expresse the other very well Simplicity Saint Paul's rejoycing was that his conscience witnessed to him his simplicity in his whole conversation in the world his whole course of life which the Scripture calls in other places a walking Saint Paul meanes this first of himself and then he propoundes himself an example to us How was St. Paul's conversation in simplicity Not onely if we consider Saint Paul as a Christian but consider him as an Apostle his conversarion was in simplicity It was without guile without seeking himself without seeking his owne for rather then he would be grievous to the Corinthians the man of God he wrought himself because he would not give any the least scandall to them being a rich people he had rather live by his own labour then to open his mouth he did not seek himself In a word he did not serve himself of the Gospell he served Christ he did not serve himself of Christ. There are many that serve themselves of the Gospell that serve themselves of religion they care no more for religion then will serve their owne turne Saint Paul's conversation was in simplicity he had no such aime he did not preach of envy orof malice or for gain as he taxeth some of the Philippian teachers Some preach Christ not of simplicity and sincerity but of envy c. Then again as an Apostle and a teacher his conversation was in simplicity because he mingled nothing with the Word of God in teaching his doctrine is pure What should the chaffe do with the wheat Jer. 20. What should the drosse do with the Gold he did not mingle his own conceits and devices with the Word for he taught the pure Word of God the simple Word of God simple without any mixture of any by-aimes So the blessed Apostle was simple both in his Doctrine and in his intentions Propounding himself herein exemplary to all us that as we look to hold up our heads with comfort and to glory in all estat es whatsoever so our consciences must bear us witnesse that we carry our selves in the simplicity and sincerity of God Now simplicity is when there is a conformity of pretention and intention when there is nothing double when there is not a contradiction in the spirit of a man and in his words and carriage outwardly That is simplicty when there is an exact conformity and correspondence in a mans judgement and speech in his affections and actions When a man judgeth simply as the truth of the thing is and when he affects as he judgeth when he loves
is more sure and the dignity he is advanced to by Christ is greater then he should have had if he had stood still in Adam This is the condition of the soul an excellent creature it is capable of the Image and likenesse of Christ and of God capable of all grace Again if it submit it self to base creatures it becomes even as them and therefore men are called the world they are called flesh they are called after that which leads them the very soul it self as it were is flesh For as the very body of a holy man in some sort is spirit and every thing in him is spirit as it shall be at the day of Judgment as S. Paul saith it shall be raised a spiritual body because it shall be subject to the motions of the Spirit of God in all things and it shall not be supported by bodily meanes Now the very soul is bodily and carnal such a degeneration is wrought in man since the fall he makes his soul that was given to guide him in this world and which is made apprehensive of better things of the things of another world this soul he makes it the bawd to serve his base lusts and pleasures Not in fleshly wisdome Now wisdome is a middle word it may be either spiritual or carnal as the man is in whom it is If a man have moral honesty in him and good things in him that way it makes him a good Politician a wise man usefull in his place Though he be not a sound Christian yet he may be a wise man in his place and God useth such kind of men in the world and they have their reward here they are advanced c. But if it light in a divellish nature in a crooked oblique nature then it is malicious divellish wisdome And note this by the way All men that have flesh in them have not fleshly wisdome for some are carried with the flesh with the rage of fleshly lusts as the swine in the Gospel were carried headlong into the Sea they are carried by their lusts to hell as your common swaggerers and roarers that so they may escape the danger of the Lawes they care not for God nor man irregular wild persons These have flesh they are ruled by the flesh but they have not so much as fleshly wisdome for they take courses to overthrow themselves in the world to overthrow their names and their bodies and all They have not so much as policy in them their lusts so reign in them Such wretches we have oft-times amongst us that think themselves some body but they have not so much as Carnal wisdome in them to carry themselves better then a Devill Now in other men the flesh hath a wisdome that carries them not after this fashion but it whets their wits and they are as bad in another kind As take the same man when he is young he is carried by his brutish lusts without any wisdome at all even as the hurry of his lusts carry him and transport him when he growes old he is carried subtilly with the wisdom of the world He is alway under lusts alway under the flesh when he is young he is carried with base lusts and when he is old he is under the flesh and fleshly wisdome still he is carried with slavish covetousnesse to the world as formerly he was subject to base lusts in his youth all this is naught Where these differ in the subject in the person usually the base lust serves the witty those that are carried with base lusts they are subject and inthralled and over-ruled by those that are carried with the wisdome of the flesh As your subtile men your Usurers and subtile oppressours great witty men they make other men serviceable to their turn other men are slaves to them But to come nearer that that I mean to stand on My Conversation hath not been in fleshly wisdome You may see by the Coherence which I will not dwell on what to judge of fleshly wisdome Fleshly wisdome is where there is no simplicity nor sincerity because he opposeth them here Where fleshly wisdome is there is neither simplicity nor sincerity For take a subtile wise man he is all out-side and there is no simplicity in him He that is not wise to God but to the world he wraps himself in ceremonies in matters of Religion and studies the out-side of things to approve himself to the world and to attain his own ends but there is no simplicity or sincerity he that is wise to the world hath no respect to God Sincerity hath an eye to God and a sincere man as far as he is sincere hath an eye to God and he doth this and that because God seeth him and because God is leased with it but he that works according to fleshly wisdome he hath aimes contrary and distinct to that therefore the Apostle saith We walk in the sincerity of God as it is in the original and not according to fleshly wisdome So you may know from the opposition that fleshly wisdome is where there is no sincerity Where there is no love to God or to men There is no simplicity all is for shew and where there is all for shew there is double carriage not in simplicity aiming at Gods glory there is fleshly wisdome That for the Connexion But the point of Doctrine proper to the place is this That Gods Children have another manner of rule to live by then the world the rule that a godly wise man goeth by is not fleshly wisdom A man that looks for any joy that lookes to be in the blessed estate that Saint Paul here was in he must not be ruled by fleshly wisdome Our Conversation saith he in the World hath not been in fleshly wisdome Saint Paul no question but he had flesh in him and likewise he had fleshly wisdome because flesh is in all parts and it mingles it self with all graces In the understanding there is light and darknesse in the will there is rebellion and pliablenesse to God So Saint Paul had the stirrings of fleshly wisdome in him When he was in danger no doubt but the flesh would stir in him you may avoid it by shifts if you will And when he was before great ones you may flatter and betray the truth if you will No doubt but Saint Paul as he expresseth him himself Rom. 7. as he had a conflict in himself in other regards so there was a conflict between wisdome and wisdome the wisdome of the flesh did stirre against the wisdome of the Spirit I but it is one thing to have fleshly wisdome in us and it is another thing to make it our rule It is one thing to have flesh in us and another thing to be in the flesh as the Scripture-phrase is This conflict wondrously afflicted Saint Paul no doubt but it was one sharp conflict No question but carnal wisdome set S Paul to shift for himself
was the creditor for the payment of that 4000 years after let them go so Christ was yea to them they had benefit by Christs death Hereupon the Prophets spake of him as a thing present To us a son is born to us a Child is given Faith mounts over many years 600 years before Christ in the Prophet it mounted and made the time of Christs coming and his death to be present because they had benefit by him as if he had been present Onely with this difference in the time present when Christ came in the flesh they had some comfortable inlargement of Grace When he came in the flesh I say there was a new world as it were there was grace poured out in abundance So you see that all the promises concerning Christ they were performed They were Yea and Amen and the good things by Christ. Saint Paul saith excellently Heb. 13. Christ yesterday to day and the same for ever Yesterday to the Patriachs to day for the present time he is Yea and for the time to come he is Yea the same alway He is yea to all ages he is yea to us as well as to those that were in Christs time Christ is then crucified to thee when thou believest in Christ crucified If we now by faith look to Christ crucified and sent from his Father to take our nature on him we have as much benefit by Christ as those that beheld him crucified As they before looked forwards by the eye of Faith so we look backward we have benefits by Christ he is yesterday to day and the same for ever All the promises are yea in him that is they are constantly yea for all ages The promises of Christ as the spirits in the body they run through all ages of the Church Without him there is no love nor mercie nor comfort from God as I said before God cannot look on our cursed nature out of Christ therefore whosoever will apprehend any thing mercifull in God must apprehend it in Christ the promised seed All the promises in him are yea He is called Logos the Word why is he so both actively and passively Actively the Word because how should we ever have known the mind in the breast of God hidden and sealed there unlesse Christ had been the Logos the Word For a word is exprest from reason and there is a word that is essentiall that is reason Logos and so the word coming from it speech the issue of reason So Christ is the essentiall Word by nature and by office the Word to discover the inward will and purpose of God to us All the promises of God are discovered by Christ as the Angel of the Covenant And passively he is the Word Logos of whom all the Prophets spake as Peter saith Act 3. who was fore-signified by all the types as I shewed Christ he is truly all in all It is a comfortable way to study Christ this way to see him foretold in the Old Testament and to see the accomplishment in the New to parallel the Old and New Testament it is an excellent way of studying the Gosspel For we know men are delighted to know divers things at once when a mans knowledge is inriched diverse waies at once it delights him as when a man knowes the history of a thing and the truth with it when he knowes a promise and the truth a type and the ttuth how doth it delight When a man sees the type in the Old and the truth in the New the history there the promise and the accomplishment here it is a wondrous delightfull thing For why doth proportion delight the eye but because it is an agreement of different things a sweet harmony of different things Why doth musick so please the ear because it is a harmonie of different things When we see a type different from the truth performed and a promise different from the performance and yet a sweet agreement from agreement a man is delighted A man is not delighted with colours at colours but as they hold proportion with the rest of the body he is not delighted with a limb as a limb but as it holds proportion with the man if there be no proportion and comelinesse it delights not So in this case it is good to consider both together God therefore for this end and purpose would have truths conveyed in the Old Testament by way of types and prophecies and promises that it might delight us now to hear them and to study them the more for as I said when we know many things at once it is delightful That is the reason why comparisons and allusions are so delightful because we know the comparison and the thing to which it is compared And that is the reason why our Saviour Christ besides types and figures and promises and prophecies is set out by whatsoever is excellent in nature in the Scriptures There is nothing in nature that is excellent but there is something taken from it to set forth the excellencie of Christ. He is the Sun of righteousnesse he is the water he is the way he is the bread he is the vine he is the tree of Life Whatsoever is excellent in nature either in heaven or earth it serves to set forth the excellencie of Christ why to delight us that we may be willing and chearful to think of Christ that together with the consideration of the excellencie of the creature some sweet meditation of Christ in whom all those excellencies are knit together might be presented to the soul. When we see the sun oft to think of that blessed Sun that quickens and enlivens all things and scatters the mists of Ignorance When we look on a tree to think of the tree of righteousness on the way to think of him the way of life of him that is the true life When we think of any thing that is excellent think of Gods love in Scripture to set out Christ that he would shadow him in all for he is the true Sun all creatures must vanish ere long and whatsoever is excellent in the creature and what will stand then only he in whom all these excellencies are comprised in one All the promises in him are Yea and Amen If this be true then that the promise of Christ himself who is the chief good promised is in the New Testament Amen all of him is Yea and Amen then comes this as a deducted truth all other promises must needs be Yea and Amen for God he that performed the grand promise in giving Christ in the fulness of time will for Christs sake perform all other promises Therefore the incarnation the life the death and resurrection of Christ our blessed Saviour it is a pawn and pledge to us of the performance of all things to come God promised to the Jewes that they should come out of Babylon he promised that he would deliver them from the enemy and he usually prefixeth
yea and amen to be yea and nay We make truth a lie and do rather believe our own lying hearts then Gods immutable and unchangeable Promises Therefore let us see the fulnesse of our hearts and complain of them to God and desire him to cure it and redresse it and he will do it This is to give glory to God indeed we cannot honour God more then to believe his Promises and build on him This will breed love when we feel the comfort of the Promises Foolish men think to honour God by complements by dead performances filly men consider that the principal honour in the world to God is to seal his truth that thou shouldest not make him a liar Hath he promised all things in the world get faith that will honour him and he will honour thy faith What makes God honour faith so much He that believes he will bring him to heaven Faith honours him it gives him the glory of his truth the glory of his goodnesse of his mercy of his truth c. as it honours him he honours it The Believer shall come to heaven when the idle fashionable Christian shall vanish with his conceits that thinks to serve God with empty vain shadowes Honour God with the obedience of faith man cast thy self upon him trust in him in life and death and then thou givest him the honour that he requireth at thy hands For as the honour of his mercy is the greatest honour he will have in this world more then that in the Creation so thou honourest him more in the Gospel to cast thy self on him for forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting and for the guidance of thy daily course of life thou honourest him more then by looking on the creature or by doing him any service He is honoured more by faith in Christ then by any other way Let faith go to him as faith honours him so he will honour it Let it be according to thy faith Let not all be lost let us bring vessels for the precious Promises the vessel of a believing heart Shall all this be lost for a vain heart that will not lodge up these promises shall we have a rich portion and neglect it shall we have so many promises and not improve them and make use of them Therefore I beseech you let it be our practice continually every day of all portions of Scripture make the Promises most familiar to us for duties follow promises if we believe the Promises with our heart they are quickning Promises we will love God and perform other duties Faith works by love If we believe love will come kindly off Therefore he saith here All the Promises are Yea and Amen insinuating that all is included in the Promises Let us empty our hearts of confidence in any thing and fill them with the Promises in Christ that are Yea and Amen Let us stablish our hearts with the Promises let us warm and season and refresh our hearts every day with these In these times of infection what do we those that are careful of themselves that go abroad in dangerous places they have Preservatives they take something to preserve their spirits and to strengthen them against the contagion abroad and it is wisdome so to do it is folly to neglect it and to tempt God not to be careful in this kind it is very well done But what is this if thou do not fence thy soul and thy spitit and take a draught of the Promises every day afresh Let us take out our pardon of course every day of the forgivenesse of sins We sin every day let us go for our pardon If we sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ and he is the propitiation for our sins And the blood of Jesus Christ shall purge us from all sin And he is in justifying us still every day he is acquitting our soules and there is a pardon of course to be taken out every day Let us renew and refresh our hearts with the Promises of pardon and forgivenesse of sins every day Let us strengthen our soules with renewing the Promises of grace for that day to walk comfortably before God that he will keep us by his Spirit from sin that he will be a shield and a Sun to us that he will give us wisdome to carry our selves as we should and he will give us his holy Spirit if we beg it Let us every day take these Promises to be Cordials in these dangerous times and then come life come death all shall be welcome why because we are in Christ and have imbraced the Promises and Christ and all in Christ is Yea and Amen it shall go well with us What a wondrous comfortable life would a Christians life be if he could yield the obedience faith answerable to the promises What a shame is it that having such rich promises we should be so loose so changeable that we should be cast down with crosses and lift up with prosperity It is because we believe not the promises of better things therefore we are proud of present things and cast down with present crosses and are fast and loose Now we have good things for the present afterward the devil comes between us and the promises and makes us let go our hold Religion stands on this which makes me to presse it the more If this were well taken to heart and digested we should know what Religion means if we know Christ and the promises all other things will come off All others are but formalities they will never comfort without the confideration of knowing God in Christ and the rich promises to us in Christ. Likewise if this be so that the promises of God in Christ are Yea and Amen This teacheth us how to make use of all former examples of others and of all former goodnesse to our selves Was God merciful to Abraham and to David Our father 's trusted in thee and were not confounded Psal. 22. Therefore he reasons If I trust in God I shall not be confounded for the Promises are Yea and Amen they are true to one as well as another And whatsoever was written afore was written for our comfort Rom. 15. And this is a singular good use we may make of reading of the stories of the Scripture and of holy men that the same God he lives for ever his arm is not shortened he that was is and is to come and therefore we should read histories with application Did God make sure his Promises to them surely he will make sure his Promises to us Had David forgivenesse of sins upon his confession surely so shall we Abraham believed and it was accâ—…ed to him for righteousnesse and â—…o it shall to us if we believe It is alledged for that end Rom. 4. And S. Paul prefixeth his example to all posterity God was mercifull to me and not so onely but to all that believe in him 2 Tim. 2. This is an Use
have it in Psal. 1. As the chaffe that the wind driveth to and fro because it hath no consistence it is a light body or as the drosse Psal. 119. God shall destroy the wicked as drosse see how the Scripture compares men not onely for their wickednesse but for their misery that have no certain being but on earthly things though they be never so great and as they think deeply rooted when troubles come they are as drosse they are as chaffe that hath no firmnesse before the wind when the wind of Judgment comes they are as stubble presently wasted and brought to nothing I beseech you therefore without deceiving of our own hearts let us enter into our own soules and examine for our knowledge first and then for our boldnesse What doest thou know in Religion that thou wouldest die for or die in we are stablished in no more to purpose then we would dye for Are those truths thou knowest so firmly wrought in thee by the Spirit of God hast thou such experience of them such spiritual sense and taste of the goodnesse of them that thou wouldest be content to part with thy life rather then to part with them thou art stablished then by the Spirit of God in Christ. I do not speak of every little truth it needs not that a man should die for that but I speak for fundamental truths canst thou prove them so out of the Scripture and doest thou find the testimony of Jesus Christ witnessing to thy heart that they are true then thou art confirmed and stablished in these truths I beseech you let us often examine upon what grounds and how firmly we know what we know For have we not many that if the Adversaries should come would conform to Popery and joyn themselves to Rome because they cannot back their principles with Scriptures and because they have not a spiritual understanding and apprehension of Divine truths Now he that is stablished stands firm against temptations and against arguments he will not be won away from his faith but remains unmoveable Therefore I say let us often examine our selves in this particular I believe this and this against the Papists and others I but how shall I stand out for this If tryals should come am I able to prove this from the Scriptures so clear as if it were written as he saith with a Sun-beam The temptation and assaults of the Devil by mens subtile wits and arguments will shake our judgments will hurt more and if time should come try us better then fire and fagot Those Spies that brought an evil report upon the Land of Canaan we see that though the Land when it was won was fruitful enough and the conquest of it honourable c. and therein those Spies discovered their own weaknesse yet when they had made that shrewd Oration and brought subtile arguments to the eye of flesh and blood we see I say how the people were discouraged and how they staggeted So a man that is not stablished he may sometimes have shrewd men to deal withal perhaps Atheists Papists Jesuites and the Devil joyning with them to unsettle men and they will prevail if men be not well settled and stablished before And so for the course of our life and conversation amongst men we should examine how we are stablished in that for we are not onely to stand firm in cases of Religion but for causes of honesty John Baptist was as good as a Martyr though the cause he dyed for was not Religion but a bold telling of Herod when he thought he took an unlawful course in keeping his brothers Wife An honest man may dye and suffer much for civil matters Therefore examine your selves in this I have undertaken this cause upon what ground in what confidence how far would I willingly go in it could I be content to lose the favour of great ones to dye in the quarrel if need be So far as a man is stablished by Gods Spirit so far is he settled also in this You have had Heathen men that would stand out firmly even to the death against all disfavours against all losses and crosses for evidence of Civil truths as you have it storied of Papinian an excellent Lawyer that in the defence of right stood forth to the losse of his life and many other the like examples have been But much more doth the Spirit of God stablish men this I understand this cause is good this I will stand in come what will when I am called to it Let us oft call our selves to an account what we believe and upon what ground what we do and upon what ground we undertake it whether on grounds of conscience or out of spleen and passion When a man undertakes things on natural grounds in great temptations if God do not assist him he will sink Take the strongest courages that are if they have no more but nature though they may stand out sometimes to the shame of Christians yet in some cases they will shew themselves to be but meer natural men And therefore labour for the Spirit to stablish us It is not necessary that we should enjoy our wealth nor the favour of men nor our life it self but it is necessary that we should keep a good conscience it is necessary that we should be saved it is necessary that we should look upon our Judge with confidence at the day of Judgment It becomes Christians who besides the light of nature have the Spirit to stablish them to be settled in their courses to look that the conscience be good the cause good the aym good If such a one give over when the cause is clear and good it is a sign that his heart is not stablished by the Spirit of God in Christ he hath either corrupt aymes or else he is weak and understands not the grounds of Religion and the vanity of this life as he should do There are none that flinch and give over in a good quarrel but either it is from hypocrisie that he pretends to believe in Christ and life everlasting and yet he doth not or else it is from extream and wonderful weaknesse which if he belong to God he shall recover as Peter did and shall stand more strongly another time It is but a forced a false encouragement and stablishing when a man that hath not the Spirit of God shall set light by death though perhaps he die in a good quarrel and with some comfort For when a man shall know that after death there is a Judgment and that God hath many things to lay to his charge when his conscience shall tell him that he is guilty of a thousand deaths if he be not in Christ and his pardon sealed by the Spirit of God in the blood of Christ is it not madnesse to be couragious in that which he cannot conquer It is good for a man to be couragious in time of conquest It is a dastardly thing for
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
witnesse to the soul that we are the sonnes of God Secondly a voyce or speech in us again to God causing us to have accesse to the Throne of grace with boldnesse Thirdly a work of Sanctification Fourthly Peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost By these four wayes we may know the sealing of the Spirit after we believe and that our faith is a sound belief and that we are in the state of grace indeed First I say the Spirit speaks to us by a secret kind of whispering and intimation that the soul feeles better then I can expresse Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee saith he to the soul I am thy salvation there is I say a sweet joyning a sweet kisse given to the soul I am thine and thou art mine God by his Spirit speaks so much there is a voyce of Gods Spirit speaking peace to his people upon their believing And then secondly the Spirit of adoption stirres up the speech of the soul to God that as he sayes to the soul Because thou believest now thou art honoured to be my child so the Spirit stirres up in the soul a Spirit of prayer to cry Abba Father it can go boldly to God as to a Father for that Abba Father it is a bold and familiar speech There are two things in a prayer of a Christian that are incompatible to any carnal man there is an inward kind of familiar boldnesse in the soul whereby a Christian goes to God as a child when he wants any thing goes to his father a child considers not his own worthinesse or meannesse but goeth to his father familiarly and boldly so I say when the Spirit of God speaks to us from God and tells the soul I am thine I am thy salvation thy sins are forgiven thee be of good comfort and when the soul again speaks to God when it can pour forth it self with a kind of familiar boldnesse and earnestnesse especially in extremity and in time of trouble and can wait in prayer and depend upon God this spiritual speech of God to the soul and of the soul to God it is a seal of the Spirit that indeed we are true believers because we can doe that that none can do but Christians God speaks to our souls he raiseth our souls and by his Spirit he puts a spirit of supplication into us and helps our infirmities for we know not what to ask but he helps our weaknesse and enables us to lay out the wants of our soules to God these are evidences of the presence and of the seal of the Spirit In the third place this sealing of the Spirit after we beleeve is known by the sanctifying work of the Spirit for as I told you before in the unfolding of the Point the Spirit seals our spirits by stamping the likenesse of the Spirit of Christ on us so that when a man finds in his soul some lineaments of that heavenly Image of Christ Jesus when he finds some love he may know by that love that he is translated from death to life when he finds his spirit subdued to be humble to be obedient when he finds his spirit to be heavenly and holy as Christ was when he finds this stamp upon the soul surely he may reason I have not this by nature naturally I am proud now I can abase my self natureally I am full of malice now I can love I can pray heartily for mine enemies as Christ did naturally I am lumpish and heavy now in afflictions I can joy in the Holy Ghost I have somewhat in me contrary to nature surely God hath vouchsafed his Spirit upon my believing in Christ to mark me to seal 〈◊〉 to stamp me for his I carry now the Image of the second Adam I know the Holy Ghost hath been in my heart I see the stamp of Christ there Know you not that Christ is in you except you be cast awayes saith the Apostle so upon search the Christian soul finds somewhat of Christ alwayes in the soul to give a sweet evidence that he is sealed to the day of redemtpion The fourth evidence that the Spirit of God hath been in a mans heart is the joy of the Holy Ghost and peace of conscience sanctification is the ordinary seal that is alwaies in the soul this is an extraordinary seal peace and joy when the soul needs incouragement then God is graciously pleased to superadd this to give such spiritual ravishings which are as the very beginnings of heaven so that a man may say of a Christian at such times that he is in heaven before his time he is in heaven upon earth but especially God doth this when he will have his children to suffer or after suffering after some special conflict after we have combated with some special corruption with some sinfull disposition with some strong temptation and have got the victory To him that overcometh will I give of the hidden Manna and a white stone and a new name that none can read it but he that hath it that is he shall have assurance that he is in the state of grace and the sweet sense of the love of God and that sweet heavenly Manna that none else can have thus God dealt with Job after he had exercised that Champion a long time at the last he discovered himself in a glorious manner to him so it is usually after some great crosse or in the middest of some great crosse when God sees that we must be supported with some spiritual comfort we sink else then there is place and time for spiritual comfort when earth cannot comfort thus St. Paul in the middest of the dungeon when he was in the stocks being sealed with the Spirit he sang at midnight Alas what would have become of blessed Paul his spirit would have sunk if God had not stamped it with Joy in the Holy Ghost and so David and the three young men in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the den God doth then even as parents smile upon their children when they are sick and need comfort so above all other times God reserves this hidden sealing of his children with a spirit of joy when they need it most sometimes in the middest of afflictions sometimes as a reward when they come out of their afflictions sometimes before so our Saviour Christ had James and John with him upon the mountain to strengthen them against the scandal of suffering after so God when he hath a great work for his children to do some suffering for them to go through as an encouragement before-hand he enlargeth their spirits with the joy of the Holy Ghost and some times also after a holy and gracious disposition in the Ordinances of God God doth adde an excellent portion of his Spirit a seal extraordinary for indeed God thinks nothing enough for his children till he have brought them to heaven seal upon seal and comfort upon comfort and the more we depend upon him
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
any thing as we may be of Gods love for the time to come We have a common speech amongst us I know what I have but what I shall have I know not It is an ill speech thou knowest not what thou hast for these worldly things a man hath them so to day as they may take to themselves wings and be gone to morrow for they are but vanity A may be as rich as Job in the morning and as poor as Job at night so that a man knowes not what he hath but for the time to come for grace and glory he may say Though I know not what I have or how long I shall have it I know what I shall have I know that neither things present nor things to come shal be able to separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ. So that you see here a foundation of the sweet and comfortable Doctrine of perseverance Grace is the Earnest of glory and it doth but differ in degrees the beginning of glory is here in grace the consummation of it hereafter We are anointed Kings here we shall be Kings in heaven we are sons here in this world we shall be heires in heaven we shall be adopted there in soul and body here we are adopted in soul for in this life Christs first coming was for the soul his second coming is for body and soul therefore the resurrection is called the day of regeneration because then it shall be perfected here regeneration is onely begun So that in respect that the work of the Spirit the graces of the Spirit are called an Earnest we may know and be assured of perseverance in grace and that that which we have now in the beginning shall be accomplished Oh how should this set us upon desires to have the blessed work of the Spirit upon us to have the Spirit to set his seal upon us to be Christs to have this Earnest and to get more and more Earnest till we have the full bargain accomplished in heaven Thirdly I told you that an Earnest is part of the whole they therefore that have not the Earnest cannot look for the bargain The Observation hence is That Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy This Point I mean to touch very briefly I am loath to passe it by though it be not the principal thing I aim at because it may serve for a kind of tryal whether a man have any right to heaven or no. It is the ordinary presumptuous errour of common Christians to think to go to heaven out of unclean courses with Lord have mercy upon us but miserable wretches are they that have not this Earnest of the Spirit in them an Earnest of heaven beforehand in grace and peace and joy We must all read our happinesse in our holinesse and therefore it is that happinesse in heaven and holinesse here which is happinesse inchoate have both one title to shew that we cannot have the one without the other we must enter into heaven here in this life The stones you know they were hewed before they were brought to the building of the Temple they were all made and fitted before-hand and so all that shall be stones in heaven they must be hewed and prepared and fitted here there must be no knocking and fitting of them there So then you see these three things touched that the holy Spirit together with the graces and comforts of it are called an Earnest and therefore that it is a part of the whole an assurance of the whole and that it shall never be taken away Now for the fourth that an Earnest is little in regard of the whole and indeed the holy Apostle aimes at this partly as well as at any other thing else an Earnest is little perhaps we have but a shilling to secure us of many pounds So then the point is this That Howsoever we may be assured of our estate in grace and likewise that we shall hold out yet the ground of this assurance is not from any great measure of grace but though it be little in quantity it may be great in assurance and security As we value an Earnest not for the worth that is in it self but because it assures us of a great bargain we have an Eye more to the consummation of the bargain then to the quantity of the Earnest so it is here Grace is but an Earnest yet notwithstanding though it be little as an Earnest is yet it is great in assurance and validity answerable to the relation of that it hath to assure us There is nothing lesse then a grain of mustard-seed but there is nothing in the world so little in proportion in a manner that comes at length to be so great as the graces of God and the work of the Spirit is The Crocodile a huge creature comes of an egg and the Oak it riseth to that greatnesse from an Acorn but what are these to the wondrous work of the new creature to be the heir of heaven rising from so little despised beginings from a little light in the understanding from a little heat in the affections from a little strength in the will compared for the littlenesse thereof to a grain of mustard-seed Indeed grace growes a man knowes not how As Christ saith of the seed sowen in the earth it growes up first to a blade and then to a stalk and then to an ear and then to be corn but a man cannot tell how so it is with the work of grace and the comforts of the Spirit when the Spirit together with the Word works upon the soul there is a blade a little and then a stalk and then Corn. First a babe in Christ little at the first and as it is little so it is much opposed As we see the Sun when it is weak in the rising in the morning there gather a great many vapours to besiege the Sun as it were as if they would put out the light of it till it comes to fuller strength and then it spends them all and gloriously shines in heaven so it is with the work of the Spirit of grace when it first ariseth in the soul there gather about it a great many doubts and discomforts the flesh riseth and casteth up all the dirt and mud it can to trouble the blessed waters of grace till it have gotten fuller and fuller strength to spend them all as it is when a man comes to be a strong Christian. But yet as little as it is seeing it is an Earnest and the first-fruits as the Apostle saith which were but little in regard of the whole harvest yet it is of the nature of the whole and thereupon it comes to secure A spark of fire is but little yet it is fire as well as the whole element of fire And a drop of water it is water as well as the whole Ocean When a man is in a dark place put the
which I observe the rather because I would raise your hearts to hate unbelief and distrust exceedingly because God labours to undermine it by all means possible Wherefore doth he use so many terms here of Sealing Anointing and Earnest with words and Sacraments and all whatsoever may confirm you The Holy Ghost applyes it to us all this is that we may not doubt of the favour of God and therefore when we find any goodnesse in us let us accompt that to give false witnesse against our selves is a horrible sin it is to make God a liar God stands upon his credit and therefore take heed what we say specially if we have found the work of grace in former time any Earnest that we have no grace God doth this for our assurance all his dealing of Word and Sacraments of Earnest and Oath and all that may be to assure us and therefore we should not crosse the goodnesse of God so as to cherish such a disposition as is most contrary to him that he labours to undermine by all means And therefore here is the poyson of Popish Religion that it maintaines doubting and leaves men doubting indeed they do well to maintain it in their Doctrine for indeed they false found a man upon satisfaction they false found him upon Purgatory and merits and the foundation they have of a Christian soul is uncertain and therefore they may well teach doubting it suits with the course that they take but I say it is very corrupt for God useth all means that we should not doubt and therefore it is idly objected God for his part will but for our part we have reason to doubt why he in all things stoops to us he labours to secure us and therefore in the Covenant of grace he doth his part and ours too But I hasten to that which followes because I would end with the time To touch that a little distinctly by it self that the Spirit doth all the Earnest of the Spirit for indeed though Spirit be not added to stablishing yet the Spirit stablisheth by Christ and the Spirit it anoints and the Spirit seales to the day of redemption and the Earnest of the Spirit So it is the Holy Ghost doth all here you have the three Persons in the Trinity we have three grand Enemies the world the flesh and Satan Now here are the three persons in the Trinity stronger then all our enemies He which stablisheth us is God the Father by his Spirit upon whom upon Christ â—…n Christ and gives us the Earnest of his Spirit you have I say the three Persons of the Trinity here but why doth the Spirit give us the Earnest why doth the Spirit give us grace and comfort seal us and doth all and stablisheth us I answer First of all because now since the fall we have no principles of supernatural good and therefore it must be a principle above our nature to work both grace and comforts in our barren hearts Again as there is no principle to that which is supernaturally good so there is opposition to that which is supernaturally good and therefore there must be somewhat to overpower the corruption of our nature But why the Spirit rather then the Father and the Son He comes from both and proceeding from both he is fit to witnesse the love of both for the Holy Ghost is in the breast of the Father and the Son and proceeds from both and he knowes the secret love of the Father to us and the love of Christ Jesus Mediatour to us Now the Spirit knowing the secrets of God as a mans spirit saith the Apostle knowes his own secrets he knowes his love and he knowes whom he loves So the Spirit of God knowing the affection of the Father and the affection of Jesus Christ to us is fit to be an Earnest fit to be a Seal Indeed all things are wrought by the Spirit in grace for application the desert is from the Son originally from the Father but in regard of application of what is wrought by the Son all is by the Holy Ghost both graces and comforts the Holy Ghost takes from Christ for if grace be wrought it is with divine reasons from the love of God in Christ if grace he wrought it is from the wondrous love of God reconciled in Christ wherein heaven is opened hell is vanquished it is by reasons fetched from Christ and so he takes of mine as Christ saith He shall take of mine and give to you he takes reasons from Christ the holy Ghost whereby he makes all the application is altogether by the Spirit And it must be by the Spirit again because the Spirit of God and no lesse then the Spirit can quiet our spirits for when the soul is distempered it is like a distempered lock that no key can open So when the Conscience is troubled what creature can settle the troubled Conscience can open the ambages of a troubled Conscience in such perplexity and confusion and therefore to settle the troubled Conscience aright it must be somewhat above Conscience and that which must quiet the Spirit must be such a Spirit as is above our spirits This is excellently set down in this Epistle in the 3. Chap. the work of the holy Ghost in this kind But I cannot stand upon it now at this time I go on Likewise in the first Epistle to the Corinthians the second Chapter and 11. ver that one place shall stand in stead of all What man knowes the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is in him So the things of God no man knowes but the Spirit Now We have received the spirit not of the world but the Spirit of God to know the things that are freely given us of God if our spirits were in the heart and soul of another man in the breast of another man we should know what another man thinks if a man had a spirit in another mans spirit surely he would know all his thoughts and all his affections Now the holy Spirit of God is in the breast of the Father and the Son and he knowes our spirits better then we know our own spirits he searcheth he is a searcher as the word is in the original the Spirit is a searcher he searcheth our own hearts and he searcheth the secret love of God to us that is the Spirit must stablish us Well then if the Spirit doth all how shall we know then that we have this Spirit A note or two and so go on If we have this Spirit of God to seal us and to be an Earnest I will not speak all that may be but a little for indeed all comes from the Spirit Even as in our souls how may a man know that he hath a soul by living and moving by actions vital c. So we may know a man hath the Spirit of God by those actions that come onely from the Spirit which is to
with a spiritual holy affection and a spirit of love though with severity for there is a severity of love and gentlenesse it will prevail when it comes from such a spirit But if there be a discovery of flesh not only in Ministers but in those that deal with others flesh will rise against flesh A man may sometimes find fault with another with greater corruption then the thing he finds fault with in another he may be more to blame for his dealing then the other for his fault I came not to spare you Therefore when Ministers are plain in discovering the danger of the times the danger of the persons and places where they are to deal people must hear them as they love their own souls If they have any quarrel let them quarrel with their master for what we speak is from the Word of God we come as his Ambassadors and servants and should be considered as Ambassadours therefore considering whose message we bring they must take it in good part to be told of their sins in a good manner As S. Austin saith very well Christ saith he speaks to the Sea and it was quiet Christ said Be still the Sea heard and the waves were still but he speaks to us in the Ministery to stay our violent courses in sin and we puffe and swell when we are told of our faults is this good think you No if we do so it is a sign that God intends to seal us to destruction As we know Elies sons when they did not hearken to their Fathir God had appointed them to destruction Those that will not hearken to Ministerial reproof it is a sign God hath sealed them over to destruction If we would not have either Ministers or others to be severe in telling us let us be severe to our own sins first Men are like to children first they foul and defile them selves and they cry when they are washed so men soil themselves with sin and cry when they should be purged from them If we cannot endure to be told of our faults how shall we endure to be tormented for our faults in hell Those that are so tender that they will not endure a word contrary to their dispositions how will they endure that sentence Go ye cursed when they shall be turned into hell Consider what will come of it if we live in sin I beseech you therefore suffer the Word of exhortation at our hands Our salvation lyes upon it if we discover not the danger of the sins of people to whom we speak if we discern them we shall perish for it because we are unfaithful in our Ambassage Therefore for your own souls and likewise that we may discharge our duty as we should patiently and quietly fit under exhortation and reproof not only publick but private if occasion be O Beloved at the latter day it will be a matter of vexation that we were cherished too much in our courses Do you not think that the damned spirits in hell wish O that we had been told O that we had been dealt with violently that we had been pulled out of this flame There is an excellent place in Judes Epistle Have mercy upon some Use some gently that are of tractable dispositions and pull some out of the fire with fear with threatning eternal damnation with terrible courses that they may have cause to fear first with admonitions and if that will not prevail with suspension with further censure and if that will not prevail with excommunication cast them out of the Church as this incestuous Corinthian that their souls may be saved in the day of the Lord. There is a threefold correction or finding fault that are gradual one after another and they should be of vigour in the Church in all times First a friendly telling of a fault between man and man if we see any thing dangerously amisse Then when a man takes another man before company when he takes him before those that he respects when privately he will not amend Then correction if admonition of friends will not do tell the Church rather then suffer his soul to perish These steps and degrees were observed in the best times of the Church and if they were observed now many souls would be saved This is that that S. Jude speaks of Save some pulling them out of the fire that is snatch them out by violent means by excomunication that their souls may be saved in the day of the Lord. Those that are in hell wish that they had been pulled out with fear with violent courses O that we had been told of our filthy courses of our sâ—…vearing of our iâ—…justice that we had had violence offered us rather then to have come into this place of torment O those will blesse God another day for that gracious violence And those that are let alone will curse all another day Ministers friends and parents they will curse all that there were not more violent courses taken with them to stop them in their way to hell to deal plainly with them it is the best mercy that can be shewed to be faithfull in this kind Therefore while it is time suffer the word of Exhortation and reproof the time will come else that you shall condemn your selves that you were so impatient and shall wish O that we had had those that would have dealt more violently with us It is cruel pitty as can be in Ministers to be flatterers and to daub or in parents and governours of others to dissemble with them in their courses and not to tell them of it it is the most cruel pitty of all it is betraying of them to eternal torments For sin as I said it must be judged and censured here or hereafter if it be not here there is more reserved for the time to come when God will open the treasures of his wrath We put into his treasury fast enough and the time will come of opening all the treasuries of his vengeance when he will pour out the vials of his wrath upon sinners that are not reformed So much for that Point I call God for a record upon my soul. S. Paul to purge himself from suspition seals all this with an oath Herein he doth shew his great love to them and his care over them that he would so seriously purge himself to gain their love and good opinion of him Is was an argument of the great esteem he had of them he was willing they should think he was very desirous of their love and of their good opinion for whose sake he would sweare and clear himself by an oath As God esteems mans love much when he will condescend so far as to seal his love and promise with an oath God would have us to think that he values and esteems our respect very much so S Paul would have them think he esteemed them much that he would make such a solemn oath for their
flesh is purged and the Spirit strengthened and weaning from the world is wrought and a desire to heaven By the daily crosses we suffer as men not for Religion we are much bettered and those in some sort may be called the sufferings of Christ because by them we are conformed to Christ more in holinesse we grow more out of love with the World and more heavenly minded This distinction is necessary to know which are best the sufferings of Christians as good men It is a point I say of wonderous comfort that we should be conformable in our sufferings with our Head Christ Jesus our Glorified head in heaven is it not a wonderous comfort Nay is it not a glory It is a wondrous glory that God will set us apart to do any thing that God will take any thing of us much more that he will single us out to be Champions in his quarrel and more that he will triumph in us that the comfort shall abound To give an instance if a Monarch should redeem a slave a Traitor from Prison and take him to fight in the Quarrel of his own son to be his Champion were it not an honour so the very sufferings for Christ are an encouragement the disgraces and whatsoever they are that we suffer in a good cause they are ensigns of honour they are badges of honour of Christian knighthood If a Golden Fleece or a Garter or such things be accounted so highly of and glorified in because they are favours c. much more should the sufferings for Christ be glorified in as ensigns of the love God and of our Christian profession when we fight under Christs Banner we are like to Christ we are conformable to him he went before and we follow his steps and if we suffer with him we shall be Glorified with him Therefore be not discouraged that which we think to be matter of discouragement it should be our Crown it is our Crown to suffer reproach in a good cause It is a sign God favours us when he takes our credit our goods or our life to honour himself by Is it not an honour to us doth he take any thing from us but he gives us better he takes our goods but he gives us himself he takes our liberty but he gives us enlargement of conscience he takes our life but he gives us heaven if he take any thing from us for to seal his truth and stand out in his quarrel as Christ saith he gives an hundred fold in this World that is a gracious spirit of contentment and comfort We have God himself hath not he more that hath the spring then he that hath twenty Cisterns Those that have riches and place and friends they have Cisterns but he that suffers for God and for Christ he hath Christ he hath God he hath the spring to go to if all be taken from him he hath God the spring to go to if all particular Beams he hath the Sun It is durable wondrous comfort to suffer for Christs sake Therefore let it encourage us in a good course notwithstanding all the opposition we meet with in the World let us here learn what is our duty let the malicious world judge or say or do what they will if God be on our side who can be against us And if we suffer any thing for Christ he suffers with us and in us and he will triumph in us over all these sufferings at last I will add no more to set an edge upon that I have said then this they are the sufferings of Christ we should be many wayes encouraged to suffer for him For did not he suffer for us that which if all the creatures in heaven and earth had suffered they would have sunk under it the wrath of God And what good have we by his sufferings are we not freed from Hell and Damnation and have we not Title to Heaven hath he suffered in his person so much for us and shall not we be content to suffer for him and his mystical body that in his own body suffered so much for us Again when we suffer in his quarrel we suffer not only for him that suffered for us but we suffer for him that sits at the right hand of God that is glorious in heaven The King of Kings and Lord of Lords Our sufferings are sufferings for him that hath done so much for us and for him that is so able now to over-rule all to crush our enemies for him that is so able now to minister comfort by his Spirit This is a notable encouragement that they are the sufferings of Christ that is so glorious as he is and that will reward every suffering and every disgrace we shall be paid well for every suffering we shall lose nothing And will not this encourage us likewise to suffer for Christs sake because he will be with us in all our sufferings he will not leave us alone it is his cause and he will stand by his own cause he will maintain his own quarrel he will cause comfort to increase Is it not an encouragement to defend a Princes quarrel in his own sight when he stands by to abet us it would encourage a dull mettle When we suffer for Christs cause we have Christ to defend us he is with us in all our sufferings to bear us up he puts his shoulder under by his holy Spirit to support us We cannot live long in this world we owe God a death we owe nature a death the sentence of death is past upon us we cannot enjoy the comfort of this World long and for favour and applause of the World we must leave it and it will leave us we know not how soon and this meditation should inforce us to be willing however it go with us for any thing here for life or goods or friends or credit and reputation or whatsoever to be willing to seal the cause of Christ with that which is dearest to us If we suffer with him we shall be glorified with him The very sufferings of Christ are better then the most glorious day of the greatest Monarch in the world that is not a Christian it is better to suffer with Christ then to joy with the world The very abasement of St. Paul was better then the triumph of Nero. Let Moses be judge he judged it the best end of the ballance the very sufferings and reproach of Christ and of Religion is better then the best thing in the world the worst thing in Christianity is better then the best thing out of Christ. The best thing out of Christ is the honour of a King the honour of a Prince to be a Kings Son c. but the reproach of Christ for a good cause is better then the best thing in the world I say let Moses be judge if we will not believe it our selves till we feel it the worst day of a Christian is better then the best day of
and but helpers They do but utter and propound matter of joy grounds of joy from the Word of God but it is the Spirit of God that doth rejoyce the heart The fruit of the lips is peace it is true but it is when the Spirit of God speaks peace to the soul together with the lips God creates the fruit of the lips to be peace saith Esay The fruit of the lips is peace bâ—… God creates it to be so so the Ministers are comforters but God saith I even I am thy comforter We speak matters of comfort and grounds of comfort but God seals them to the heart by his holy Spirit God is the comforter himself He is the Father of comfort and the God of all consolation And the Spirit is called the comforter to shew unto us that however in the Ordinances the materials of comfort be set abroach to Gods people yet notwithstanding that that that speaks peace to the heart and sets on those comforts to the soul and conscience it is the Spirit of God God himself So there is the outward preaching and the spiritual preaching He hath his chair in heaven that teacheth the heart as S. Austin saith S. Paul speaks but God opens the heart of Lydia he hath the Key to open the heart Therefore you have all attributed to the Spirit of God In Joh. 16. I go hence but I will send you the comforter the Holy Ghost and what shall the Comforter do he shall convince the world of sin of righteousnesse and judgment Do not pretend therefore your own inability that you are unable to comfort or to cast down or to seal unto people their righteousnesse do you that that is your duty propound grounds of direction and casting down and of righteousnesse and of judgment of holy life after and then the Holy Ghost shall go with you the Comforter shall do this to the hearts of people the Holy Ghost shall convince What is Paul or what is Apollo but Ministers Paul may plant and Apollo may water but if God give not the increase what is all Therefore Christ promiseth his disciples that the Holy Ghost should accompany their teaching They might have objected Alas we shall teach the world that they are Gentiles that they are obstinate persons hardened in superstition Do not fear saith he I will send the Holy Ghost he shall fall upon you and furnish you Now when the Holy Ghost was in them and the Holy Ghost in their auditors too together with the Word inspired by the Holy Ghost when the Spirit meetes in these three there are wonders wrought When the Spirit of God is in the teacher and the Spirit of God in the hearers and the Spirit of God in the Word I say when there is one Spirit in the teacher and in the hearers and in the Word there are wonders wrought of conversion and comfort It is the Spirit that must do all we are nothing but Ministers Let a man conceive of us as Ministers and dispensers of the Gospel Ministers of comfort we are and but Ministers just so we are helpers of your joy but we are but helpers Those that account us not helpers of joy know not our calling and those that account us more that we are able to comfort people by the Word they turn the preaching of the Word to magick to a charm We can speak the Word but God must speak to the heart at the same time As it is with Physical water there is the water and there are many strong things in it What doth the water cure or purge it is a dead thing it hath no efficatious quality but to cool c. Whence comes the efficacy There are some cool herbs some strong things in it and then it doth wonders So what is the infusion of the Word but water but aqua vitae water of life the dew of heaven Rosa solis whence is it so as water no but there is a Divine influence and vigour in it that refresheth and quickeneth the soul. It doth not do it of it self but it hath a Divine influence of the Spirit So we see though Ministâ—…s be helpers of joy they are but helpers they are but the conduits that convey that that comes from the Spirit of God they are instruments of the Spirit You see it clear then that God only speaks comfort because the Spirit of God only knowes our spirits throughly The spirit of God can only comfort because he knowes all the discomforts of our hearts he knowes all our griefs all the corners of our hearts that the Minister cannot do The Minister may speak general comforts but the Spirit of God knowes all the windings and turnings of the heart and all the disconsolate pangs of the heart and soul every little pang and grief the Spirit of God knowes it Therefore the Spirit of God is the Comforter he strikes the nail and seales the comfort to the soul we are but helpers Then again the Spirit of God must do it because the soul must be set down with that that is stronger then it self it must be so convinced and set down that it must have more to say against the griefe or temptation then can be alledged by the Devil himself The soul before it be comforted it must be quieted and stilled Now who is above the soul and Satan that tempts the soul Let Satan be let loose to tempt the soul and the soul hath a hell in it self if God let it alone who is above those unspeakable torments of coascience if they be not allayed by the Spirit of God Who is above the soul but the Spirit of God will the soul allay it self no it will never Therefore the Spirit of God that is stronger and wiser then the soul and is the Spirit of light and strength it must set down and quiet and calm the soul that it hath nothing to say against the comfort it brings but quiets it self and saith I must rest I must see this is from heaven I am quiet This the Spirit doth Therefore make this Use of it that in all our endeavours to procure peace to our consciences and spiritual balm to the wounds of our soules let us go to this heavenly Physician not depend over-much upon the Ministery or reading or any outward task but in the use of all things lift up our hearts to God that he would comfort us by his Spirit that he would send the Comforter into our soules Though the disciples had comfort upon comfort by Christ yet till the Comforter came whose office it was to do it to seal his Word to their soules alas they were dead-hearted people but after the resurrection when the Comforter came and refreshed their memories and convinced their understandigs then they could remember all the sweet comforts that our blessed Saviour had taught them before So it is with us we hear many sweet comforts day after day out of Gods
book comforts against sin comforts against trouble outward and inward and all but till the Comforter come till God send his holy Spirit we shall not make use of them Therefore let us labour to have more communion with God before we come to hear the Word and after we have heard it let us have communion with God again that he would seal whatsoever is spoken to our soules and make it effectual to us Therefore we must learn to give the just due to the Ordinance of God and not to idolize it to make it the means of comfort not to make it the chief Comforter but the Spirit of God by it What is Paul or Apollo what are we but Ministers of faith and by consequent Ministers and helpers of comfort but not the authors of comfort Oh if I had such and such here I should do well I should be so and so Alas all is to no purpose unlesse thou hast the Holy Ghost the Spirit of God that can help by weak means Therefore we must not tie comfort and joy to this or that means but in all means look to the ground of comfort and the spring of all the Holy Ghost The reason why men do nor profit more that they are not more cheared and lift up with the Ministery of the Word which is a Word of reconciliation and of joy and comfort it is because they are more careful in the use of means then in going to God for his Spirit to blesse the means Now these must go together a care of using the means and a care to pray to him that he would give us wisdome and strength and blessed successe in the use of all means Then if we would joyn religiously and conscionably these two together the use of all means conscionably and in the use of all to lift up our hearts to God to blesse them we should find a wondrous successe upon the Ministery and all other good means likewise So much for that I go on to the last clause of the Chapter For by faith ye stand Why doth the Apostle vary the word we have not dominion over your faith but are helpers of your joy whereas the consequence it seems might run thus we do not domineer over your faith but are helpers of your faith he puts joy instead of faith and afterward he brings in faith again for by faith ye stand This is one main reason because joy riseth from faith therefore he names it in stead of faith for the Holy Ghost is not curious of words but when the same Spirit wroks both he names that which he thinks will fittest suit the purpose Faith breeds joy How is that Because faith first of all doth shew to us the freedome from that that is the cause of all discomfort whatsoever it takes away all that may discourage For it takes away the fear of damnation for our sins it shewes our reconciliation in Jesus Christ. Faith shewes liberty and deliverance and so discovering deliverance by a Mediator it works joy Is not a prisoner joyful when he is set at liberty Then likewise faith discovers to us the face of God shining to us in Jesus Christ it shewes not only deliverance but favour It shewes us the ground of all the righteousnesse and obedience of our Saviour whereby we are delivered and brought into favour Now from this comes peace from the knowledge of our deliverance and acceptance with God founded upon the obedience of God-man a Saviour there comes in peace and peace breeds joy because faith discovers all these the ground of reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ and thereupon peace therefore it causeth joy For this is the pedigree and descent of joy as the Apostle hath it Rom. 14. The Kingdome of God is in righteousnesse and peace and joy There must be righteousnesse first of a Mediatur to satisfie the wrath of God and procure his favour From righteousnesse comes peace peace with God peace of conscience From peace comes joy there is no joy without peace no peace without righteousnesse And this whole pedigree of joy as it were is excellently set down Rom. 5. Being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord and have accesse to the throne of grace by which grace we stand and not only so but rejoyce So there is justification by the righteousnesse of Christ and thereupon peace with God and from peace boldnesse and accesse to God and thereupon joy So we see how faith brings in joy because it shewes the spring of joy whence it comes it shewes peace and peace riseth from reconciliation and reconciliation from righteousnesse of Christ Mediator whereupon we are delivered from all that we may fear and set in a state of true joy God being our friend When God is reconciled all is reconciled all is ours have we not cause of joy then Therefore the Apostle saith Rom. 15. The God of peace fill you full of joy in believing shewing that faith is the cause of all spiritual joy And the same you have in 1 Pet. 1. 8. In whom ye rejoyced after ye believed with joy unspeakable and glorious In whom after ye believed that is in Christ you rejoyced with joy unspeakable and glorious And therefore you see the Apostle might well substitute joy in stead of faith because it springs and riseth from faith in Jesus Christ the Mediatour Hereupon we may come to make this Use of tryal how we may know whether our joy be good or no. Among many other evidences this is one that spiritual joy is good if it spring from the Word of faith If it spring from the Ordinance of God unfolded in the Word shewing us the ground of believing For he that truly joyes can shew the ground of his joy Herein joy differs from presumption from presumptuous swelling conceits true joy that is not the joy of an hypocrite it doth shew from whence it comes it riseth from grounds out of divine truth Then again this joy doth more immediately spring from faith in the Word from assurance that God is ours and that Christ is ours that God is at peace with us and that we are at peace with him it ariseth from peace that is wrought by faith Then again this joy if it be sound it is such a joy as S. Peter saith is an unspeakable and glorious joy joy arising from the Word of God and from faith and peace it is above discouragement because we have in the Word of God matter of joy above all discouragements and all allurements whatsoever It is a joy above the joy of riches or pleasures or profits why because the Word shewes matter of joy above all these The Prophet David rejoyced in the Word of God above Gold and Silver as one that had gotten great spoyles you see how oft he repeats it Psal. 119. It was sweeter to him then the honey and the honey-comb Psal.