No these things you must do or else never look for acquaintance with God and when you have done all this you must acknowledge that if God should cast away you from his presence refuse to know your souls it were but just and righteous And if God doth ever admit you into his familiarity it is of his meer condescension and grace and therefore In the fourth place you must make use of a Mediatour to bring you into acquaintance with God This course men take who desire to get the favour and acquaintance of their Prince or Sovereign being themselves strangers much more if they have been enemies to him they make use of some special favourite to make way for them to procure access into his presence and to ingratiate them with him that so they may get acquaintance Now such is the condition of all of us by na-nature in respect of God we are not only strangers to him but enemies Alienated Colos 1.21 and enemies in our minds by wicked works And being such our only way to get acquaintance with God is to make use of a Mediatour What Mediatour Peter or Paul or the Virgin Mary or any other of the Saints in glory as the Papists do Alas Abraham knows us not Isa 63.16 and Israel is ignorant of us If they were not yet they are not high enough in the favour of God to prevail for us No no as there is but one God so there is but one Mediatour betwixt God and Man 1 Tim. 2.5 the man Christ Jesus He is the great favourite of heaven who alone can bring us into acquaintance with God O therefore make use of him If you ask What is the use you should make of Christ the Mediatour Quest 1 and how you should make use of him To the first of these I answer The use you are to make of Christ the Mediatour Answ 1 in order to the gaining of acquaintance with God consists in these particulars First You are to make use of Christ the Mediatour for your reconciliation and peace with God Peace must be before acquaintance can be And he must be your peace Eph. 2.14 Secondly You must make use of Christ for bringing of you into Gods presence As Joseph being the favourite of the Court of Egypt brought Jacob and his Sons into the presence of the King It is Christ in whom we have boldness and access with confidence Eph. 3.12 The Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very significant Never come into Gods presence but get Christ to take thee by the hand Thirdly You must make use of Christ to procure you acceptance with God For as the Apostle saith He hath made us accepted in the beloved Eph. 1.6 Fourthly Make use of Christ for the giving of you the true saving and spiritual and effectual knowledge of God without which you can never have true acquaintance with him No man knoweth the Father but the Son Mat. 11.27 and he to whom the Son will reveal him Fifthly You must make use of Christ for the procuring and sending down of that holy Spirit without which we can never have any true converse or familiarity with God Our converse with God lyes partly in our visiting God in prayer that we cannot do without his holy Spirit which is a spirit of prayer and partly it lyes in Gods visiting us which he doth not but by the breathings and motions and excitations and inlargements and consolations of his blessed Spirit Sixthly We must make use of Christ as to bring us into the favour of God so to keep and preserve us in the favour and acquaintance of God If you ask Quest 2 How you should make use of Christ in these particulars I answer Answ 2 Only by Faith by believing in him and trusting to him as the Son of God the Mediatour the Advocate of sinners to do all this for us This therefore do when the guilt of your sins looks you in the face commit your self and cause unto Christ relye upon him to answer for you When the doors of mercy and of access to God seem to be shut against you flye to him that bears the keys and can at any time open to you and let you into Gods presence Desire him to undertake for you to answer for you to God to your own consciences to Satans accusations and rely boldly and confidently upon him to do it for you By him alone you may boldly and comfortably converse with God but without him no drawing near Heb. 12.29 for our God is a consuming fire Fifthly When you have thus convinced your selves of a necessity of acquaintance with God when you have humbled your selves for living so long as you have done without it when you have removed obstructions when you have engaged the Mediatour Then in the fifth place do your duty Ne tibi desis do all that may possibly be done for the bringing of you into acquaintance with God As namely First Visit God often with your prayers Secondly Frequent Gods house the publique assemblies of the Saints where God dwells where Christ walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks Thirdly Practise the duty of setting the Lord always before you and setting your selves often in Gods presence Fourthly Associate thy self with the Saints those that are the friends and acquaintance God hath upon earth that is a ready way to bring thee into the notice and acquaintance of God as Ruths gleaning among Boaz his servants was the first way of bringing her into Boaz his knowledge and acquaintance and of all the preferments that followed to her thereupon Fifthly Beg for and wait for a visit from God by his Spirit and be importunate be impudent here take no denial be not satisfied in one or in few but beg still more and more say with the Psalmist Remember me O Lord with the favour thou bearest unto thy people Psalm 106.4 O visit me with thy salvation Sixthly and Lastly Study compliance with God and give thy self to a punctual and exact observation of his will in all things And these are the wayes of getting intimacy and acquaintance with God CHAP. VII Exhorting those that have acquaintance with God to keep and maintain it MY next work is to exhort those that have acquaintance with God that they would be very careful to keep and maintain that acquaintance that they have with God And to move to this I hope I shall need do no more than tell you that it is a very possible thing for you to lose that acquaintance and familiarity which you have with God Though it is true Once the Lords and ever the Lords and whom God loves once he loves alwayes and it is not possible for any that have ever been reconciled unto God and brought into his favour by Jesus Christ totally and finally to fall out of his favour again yet it is possible for you to lose that sweet intimacy and familiarity and
113.5 6. as well as in heaven to converse with men as well as Angels As the Sun in heaven is far above us and yet doth not disdain to inlighten and warm and quicken the poorest worm that crawls upon the earth as well as the Eagle that soars aloft above the clouds and can gaze the Sun in the face Let not therefore any poor soul be discouraged and think or say It is not for such a worm for such a nothing as I am to aspire to acquaintance and converse with God No no Men may be too high for thee to reach and too great for thee to grasp and compass acquaintance with but the great God will stoop to entertain acquaintance with thee if thou wilt acquaint thy self with him He disdaineth not the acquaintance of the least of men nor of the greatest of sinners Such was the condescension of the divine nature that it disdained not the near acquaintance with the humane nature to take it into personal union with himself and such was the condescension of God in our nature that when he was upon earth he disdained not the acquaintance of those who upon common account were the vilest of men even Publicans and sinners Mat. 9.11 And such is still the gracious condescension of God in Christ that he disdaineth not the acquaintance of the meanest Persons or vilest sinners that seek acquaintance of him Nay Secondly He offers and tenders this acquaintance to them and this is not usual for great persons to do to their Inferiours he intreateth and beseecheth poor sinners that they would be reconciled to him and acquainted with him And this he doth Thirdly Out of his meer grace and favour only for their good and benefit not for any gain or advantage to himself Can a man be profitable to God saith Eliphaz No Job 22.2 God cannot be a gainer by our acquaintance that he offers it seeks it is for our good and benefit that we may be made happy and blessed by it O then let not this grace of God be in vain to us but accept we this gracious offer of God acquainting our selves with him CHAP. VI. Particularly exhorting those that never yet had acquaintance with God now to labour for it With Directions for the attaining of it NOw here are three sorts that I would apply my self unto First Those that never yet were acquainted with God My Exhortation to them shall be that they would now acquaint themselves with God now presently without any further delay Secondly To those that have acquainted themselves with God that they would labour to keep and maintain their acquaintance with him inviolate and uninterrupted Thirdly To those whose acquaintance with God is intermitted and they have in a manner lost it that they would labour to renew it First Such as never yet had any acquaintance with God O labour now to get into acquaintance with him Acquaint thy self now with him now presently immediately without any further delay O consider how long you have lived strangers to God already enemies to God already Is it not enough that you have lived twenty thirty forty fifty years already without any intimacy or acquaintance with God O if you love God if you love your own souls live not a day longer live not an hour longer in that strange condition The time past of our life may suffice us to have lived in lasciviousness lust excess of wine 1 Pet. 4.3 c. saith the Apostle Peter And it is high time to awake out of sleep saith the Apostle Paul Rom. 13.11 So say I the time past may suffice us to have lived without God in the world and it is now high time for every one of us to begin to acquaint our selves with him Acquaint therefore now thy self with him Now now while God is pleased to offer and tender this acquaintance Now is the day of grace 2 Cor. 6.2 now is the accepted time Now while the golden scepter is held forth while the Gospel is preached unto you To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts Heb. 3.7 If God speak to your hearts and bespeak your acquaintance with him see that ye refuse not him that speaketh but acquaint thy self now with him If any say Quest But how shall we do to get this acquaintance with God I answer Answ O that there were such a heart in you O that every one into whose hands the providence of God shall bring this poor Treatise were come thus far to seek after God as seriously to enquire how they might be acquainted with God! you that are so take these directions First Labour to be fully convinced of an absolute necessity of acquainting your selves with God Look upon it as your great duty look upon it as that upon which not only the comfort of your lives but the eternal salvation of your souls doth depend There are three times especially wherein this acquaintance with God will be found of great and absolute necessity First In a time of common calamity Such a time as our Saviour speaks of Luke 21.25 26. When there shall be distress of Nations upon the earth with perplexity mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth and how near such times may be to us and how fast they may be hastening upon us who can tell O then happy are those that have acquaintance with God they have a friend an acquaintance that will not fail them when their own hearts are ready to fail them and would undoubtedly fail them were it not for their acquaintance with God Whereas they that have not acquainted themselves with God will find God himself a terrour to them in the day of their calamity God will deal with them as he threatens I will shew them the back Jer. 18.17 and not the face in the day of their calamity Secondly In the day of death then acquaintance with God will be found absolutely necessary There is no man but when he comes to lye a dying would be glad to have God his friend and to receive his soul into his presence and favour Into thy hands Lord I commend my spirit Lord Jesus receive my soul is the prayer or at least the wish of every dying man and woman that doth not dye like Nabal stupid and senseless as a stock or stone But do you think that God will do this for every one at the first asking surely no. They that never regarded to acquaint themselves with God in the time of their life God will not so easily own them at the hour of their death but they that have acquainted themselves with God in the time of their life they may with much comfort and assurance commend their souls into the hand of God when they are at the point of death And may say with Paul 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and that he is able to keep
providence is enough for the producing of the creatures into being but for the continuance of their being and for their operations there is required a continual efflux of providence so it is here Now when these influences of the Spirit are suspended and withdrawn the soul can neither keep up and carry on his acquaintance with God in a way of duty so as it should nor apprehend God communicating himself and Spirit to him so as it would and so cannot but from both conclude an interruption of that acquaintance and familiarity that hath been between God and it Now to those whose condition this is give me leave to propound First Some things by way of support and consolation Secondly Some things by way of counsel and direction And First By way of support and consolation several things I have to say The First is this That how sad and strange soever thy condition may seem to be thou art not the first nor art like to be the last of the Friends and Saints of God whose condition this hath been or may be Read but over the Book of the Psalms how often do you find there the Saints complaining of Gods hiding his face from them casting them out casting them off forsaking forgetting them shutting out their prayers and the like Now this may be some comfort to thee as it is to a man that is in a wilderness to find the tract and footsteps of men that have gone that way before him There are as Gerson observes three sorts of Christians Gerson de monte contemplat cap. 22. Some that are in a winter condition In winter you know the dayes are short and the nights are long and the dayes for the most part are cloudy and dark the Sun being obscured with many clouds and fogs there are sharp colds and great rains and now and then it may be a fair day but very rarely so some Christians they have short dayes and long nights short visits and long absence of God they have much darkness and little light Rara hora brevis mora Bernard much coldness and little heat in their spirits many showres of griefs and tears rarely now and then a gleam of comfort Other Christians saith he are as it were in the spring in primo vere In the Spring you know it is one day fair and clear another day cloudy and rainy but we see the Sun oftner in the Spring and the beams of it are more vigorous and warmthful than in the winter now these are such whom the Sun of righteousness doth more frequently visit than the former and sheds more warmthful and vigorous influences into their hearts and yet withdraws himself from them sometimes sometimes their Sun is under a cloud Ut modicum illum videant modicum non videant and they have their wet and sorrowful dayes and times too Others there are with whom it is Midsummer their Sun is seldom clouded but when it is it is more terrible there are greater tempests of thunder and lightning and rain many times in summer than in winter though not so constant rain These are the best and highest form of Christians who though they enjoy a more constant serenity and more constant peace and communion with God than the other yet now and then meet with more violent and strong temptations and deeper desertions than the former their temptations are very sharp but then they are short So that you see by this distribution there is no state of a Christian life on this side heaven exempted and priviledged from this hiding of Gods face and suspending the influences of his grace and love Whether then thou be in thy Winter or in thy Spring or in thy Summer clouds may come over thy soul that may hide the face of God from thee and intercept the influences of his Spirit and grace th s is common to Christians whatever degree of grace they have attained therefore say no more that never any was in such a condition as thou The Second thing I have to say to thee is this That the worst of thy condition is this It is a withdrawing not of the love of God from thee but of wonted expressions of his love it is but a withdrawing of the influence of his Spirit from thee not the presence of his Spirit from thee I say it is but a withdrawing of the manifestation of Gods love from thee God doth not look so kindly upon thee when thou comest to seek his face as he was wont to do God doth not speak so comfortably to thee he doth not speak so to thine heart when thou comest to hear his word as he was wont to do God doth not make thee so welcom to his table when thou comest there nor give thee such a double portion of the marrow and fatness of his Ordinances as he was wont to do I confess here is a great change in the outward carriage of God and a great abatement of the wonted expressions of his love but there is no change at all in the mind and will of God no abatement at all in the love of God which is as unchangeable as God himself David loved Absalom as dearly all that three years in which he would not endure him to come into his presence nor permit him to see his face as he did before in any time of his life though in wisdom he did conceal and smoother his love so God may conceal his love for a while but he loves thee still as well as ever He hath taken away the wonted influences of his Spirit from thee but his Spirit it self he hath not taken from thee Joh. 14.16 Christs prayer and ingagement is that the Spirit where once he is given shall abide for ever Therefore I say the influences of the Spirit may be suspended but the Spirit it self is not departed as it was with Eutychus when they thought he was dead his life saith Paul that is his Spirit his soul is in him and yet all the influences of his soul into his body either visible to others or sensible to himself were for the present suspended so is it here the visible sensible influences of the Spirit may be suspended but the Spirit is not departed the band of union is not dissolved Thirdly As it is the influence and not the presence of the Spirit that is withdrawn so it is not the total influence of the Spirit that is withdrawn from thee but only part of it all the influences of the Spirit are not withdrawn but only some of them For the influences of the Spirit are of two sorts Either such as are necessary to the being of a Christian in the state of grace and these are secret hidden and unsensible or else such as tend to the well and comfortable being of a Christian and these are evident and sensible as in the body there are some influences of the soul that are necessary to the animation and quickening of the
into the third heavens in holy meditations There is another prays as if he would rend the heavens with his prayers another excels in zeal another in patience another in humility another in holiness These are Souls whom God visits these are mountains upon which God commands the rain of blessing Sed ego miser qui nihil horum sentio but wretched I that feel none of these things what am I but as one of the mountains of Gilboa upon whom there falls neither dew nor rain nor are there fields of offering there Thus humble thy self and bewail thy state and condition Secondly Humble thy self again for thy sin that hath brought thee into this sad condition Think and say thus with thy self Oh what a thing is this that I should by my sin provoke him to leave me in whose presence I have had such life such light such liberty such peace such joy O wretch that I am that that communion and acquaintance that I had with God was of no more esteem with me but that I should thus lose it by my folly I have been careful to keep my interest acquaintance with this and that man but have not been careful to keep my interest and acquaintance with God That which I begged with tears and was many a year a getting how have I by my sin lost it on a sudden O what have I done against my God yea against my self O my folly that have lost that for want of care that now I would redeem again if it were possible with my blood Thirdly Follow God with mournful cryes and prayers beg of him that he would return unto thee and renew acquaintance with thee importune him by all the ancient love that hath been between him and thee that he would be gracious yet unto thee put him in mind of his ancient love to thee Say as the Church Lord Psal 89.49 where are thy former loving kindnesses Lord what is become of all that love which sometimes thou barest and expressedst to thy worthless servant And humbly put God in remembrance of thy ancient love to him seeing God is pleased to be so gracious as to vouchsafe to remember it Jer. 2.2 I remember thee the kindness of thy youth the love of thine espousals when thou wentest after me in the wilderness c. Entreat God to remember there was a time when thy love was more vigorous and more fervent to him than it is now when thou couldst have followed him through a wilderness through a sea through fire and water tel him it is thy grief that thou canst not so love him now entreat him by renewing his love to thee to revive thy love to him beg of him that all old kindnesses may not be forgotten cast up thy weeping eyes with the sad complaint of a bleeding soul to thy ancient friend and his bowels will roll his compassions will relent towards thee Fourthly Submit to any conditions of reconcilement and accept of the lowest degree of restauration to favour and acquaintance with God Say Lord chide rebuke smite me command impose do what thou wilt with me only cast me not out of thy presence cashiere me not wholly and for ever say as the poor Prodigal Make me but as one of thine hired servants as the woman of Canaan Let me but gather up the crumbs among the dogs Lord if I have so far sinned as that I may not be restored to that degree of nearness that I had before if I may not have a place among thy children among thy friends Lord set me among thy servants thy hired servants yea if it be but among the dogs of thy family Lord so I may be in thy presence and see thy face I shall be thankful even for so much Fifthly Go to the Lord Jesus Christ the Dayes-man the Friend-maker between God and Enemies much more between God and those that sometimes were his friends Go to him pray him to take thee by the hand yet once again and reconcile thee anew to God He as God is a middle person between the Father and the Spirit and as God-man he is a middle Person between God and Man he is our Peace he is our Advocate with the Father Who with one appearing in heaven for us with one opening of his mouth can make God and us friends if we had never been friends before therefore go to him ingage him by his Name by his Office by his Undertakings to do this for thee Sixthly Go to the Saints of God that are upon earth that are Gods favourite and acquaintance make thy case known to them entreat them to strive with God in prayer for thee This direction God gave the friends of Job as you may see in Chapt. 42. v. 8. Go to my servant Job and my servant Job shall pray for you for him will I accept Seventhly Whatever the issue of this thy mourning praying and going to Christ begging the prayers of others be though God should hide his face stil carry it strangely still yet think thou and speak thou honourably of God however Following that president of the Psalmist or rather of the Lord Jesus Christ of whom the Psalmist was but a type My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Psal 22.1 2 3. Why art thou so far from helping me c. But thou art holy O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel Lastly If God yet seem still to be angry with thee take the counsel the holy Ghost gives When the spirit of the Ruler riseth up against thee leave not thy place Eccles 10.4 for yielding pacifieth great offences So now when the Spirit of God seems to be provoked against thee leave not thy place leave not thy station leave not praying and hearing and waiting upon God in all holy Ordinances Henry the fourth Emperor of Germany waited three whole dayes in the depth of Winter bare-foot and bare-legged at the gate of the Pope's Castle before he could obtain admission into his presence and recover his grace and favour Upon occasion of a displeasure conceived by the Pope against the City and State of Venice Franciscus Dandalus afterwards Duke of Venice was sent Embassador to Rome to seek reconciliation and when no other means would mollifie the Pope's proud and inraged heart the Prince at length so far abased himself as to put upon his neck a coller and chain and couch under the Pope's table like a dog at his feet to see if by that means he might at length obtain Now shall Princes and Emperors thus abase themselves in seeking the favour of a mortal man and wait in these abasements long O how low should we lye how long should we wait if by any means or at any time we may recover the favour of God and readmission into his presence FINIS