He daily loadeth us with his benefits He gives us all things richly to enjoy Act. 14. 17. God leaves not himself without witness that he doth men good He gives men Rain from Heaven when they want it and when unseasonable he with-holds it 'T is a great thing to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord Psal. 107. 42. his wonderfull works towards the children of men to understand our Mercies and Comforts and what their meaning and design is By Mercies to our outward man God designs to draw our hearts and minds to himself Mercies are bestowed on them that have the power of thought to consider the end of all God's Mercies 'T is bespeaking and seeking to win our hearts to himself Hos. 11. 4. 'T is drawing us with those cords of a man with bands of love which plainly shews what the case requires that the minds and hearts of men are very averse and alienated from him and therefore need such drawing 5. And that which is more than all the rest is God's sending his Son into the World to procure terms of peace for us and then to treat with us thereupon and that in him he is reconciling the world to himself 2 Cor. 5. 19. Doth not Reconciliation suppose enmity as here and in the Text. You that were enemies in your minds yet hath he reconciled As we have noted that on our parts our withstanding and too commonly frustrating his Overtures speaks enmity and obstinacy therein so on his part those Overtures themselves speak it too Here is the greatest kindness and good-will on God's part that can be conceiv'd But it supposes what we are evincing ill-will in us Christ came to seek and save that which was lost What a lost state was our state What to be engaged in a War against him that made us Wo to him that strives with his Maker Isa. 45. 9. Fall'n man is little apprehensive of it now If we continue unreconciled to the last at death it will be understood what a lost state we are in Upon this account it will then appear but this was our state before when it appeared not In this state Christ pitied us when we had no pity for our selves Christ came not into the World to save men only at the hour of their death from Hell but to raise up to himself a willing people that may serve and glorify God in their life on Earth He is for this purpose intent on this reconciling design And how earnest how alluring were his Solicitations in the days of his Flesh Come to me all ye that are weary He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out How pathetical his lamentations for the unreconcilable O that thou hadst known the things belonging to thy peace And his bloud was shed at last as the bloud of Propitiation of a reconciling Sacrifice first to reconcile God's Justice to us but thereupon also as in this Context Having made peace by the bloud of his cross vers 20. to vanquish our enmity to reconcile us who were enemies in our minds vers 21 22. 6. Consider Christ sending and continuing from Age to Age the Gospel in the World the design whereof may be understood by the manifest import and substance of it and by the titles given to it As it reveals Christ the Mediator the Peace-maker in his Person Natures Offices Acts Sufferings and Performances As it contains the great commands of Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ with the promises of Pardon and Eternal Life with whatsoever is requisit to our present good state Godward and our final blessedness in him As also the various enforcements of such Precepts and confirmations of such Promises with copious Explications of the one and the other And as it is called the Ministry of Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. 18. The word wherein Peace is preached by Jesus Christ Act. 10. 36. The Gospel of peace and of glad tidings Rom. 10. 15. as that very word Gospel signifies This Gospel was in its clearer manifestation at the fulness of time introduc'd with great magnificence and solemnity into the world as the Law had been by the Ministry of Angels When the Sun of Righteousness the light of the world was arising and dawning upon it then did a multitude of the Heavenly Host appear praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest peace on earth and good-will towards men Luk. 2. 13 14. But this Gospel is not a more express declaration of God's good-will towards men than their deportment under it their continuing to live as without God in the world is of their ill-will disaffection and enmity against God 7. And lastly The strivings of the Spirit in the Hearts of Ministers preaching the Gospel and with the Souls of men to whom it is preached shew that there is a mighty enmity to be overcome 1. God's giving forth his Spirit to Ministers enabling them to strive with Sinners to bring them to Christ according to the working of that power which works in them mightily Colos. 1. ult What need of such striving but that there is a great enmity in the minds of People to be conquered and overcome Sometimes we read of Ministers of the Gospel weeping over Souls who for their too intent minding of earthly things are called enemies to the Cross of Christ Phil. 3. 18. Sometimes they are ready to breath out their own Souls towards them among whom they labour 1 Thess. 2. 8. Sometimes represented as travelling in birth with them that are committed to their charge Gal. 4. 19. There are Ministers whose Hearts are in pangs and agonies for the Souls of Sinners when the things of God are too apparently neglected and not regarded by them and when they see destruction from the Almighty is not a terror to them and while they visibly take the way that takes hold of Hell and leads down to the chambers of death They would if possible save them with fear and pluck them as firebrands out of the fire the fire of their own lusts and fervent enmity against God and Godliness and save them from his flaming wrath Is all this unncecessary and what makes it necessary but that there is a counter-striving an enmity working in the Hearts of men against the Spirits striving in the Ministry to be overcome 2. The Spirit also strives immediately with the Souls of Sinners and pleads with them sometimes as a Spirit of conviction illumination fear and dread sometimes as a Spirit of Grace woing and beseeching and when his motions are not complied with there are complaints of mens grieving vexing quenching resisting the Spirit Acts 7. 51. Which resistance implies continual striving No striving but doth suppose an obstruction and difficulty to be striven withall There could be no resisting if there were not counter-striving And hereby despite is done to the Spirit of Grace O fearful aggravation that such a Spirit is striven against 'T is the Spirit of Grace Love and Goodness the Spirit of all Kindness Sweetness and Benignity which a wicked man doth despite unto Heb. 10. 29. How vile and horrid a thing to requite Grace Love and
Sweetness with Spite As if the Sinner should say Thou wouldest turn me to God but I will not be turned The blessed God says Turn at my reproof I will pour out my Spirit unto you Prov. 1. 23. There are preventive insinuations upon which if we essay to turn plentiful effusions of the Spirit may be hoped to ensue For he is the Spirit of Grace When we draw back and resist or slight those foregoing good motions of that Holy Spirit this is despiting him And doth not this import enmity in an high degree That the Spirit needs strive so much that it may be overcome as with some at his own pleasure he doth with others in just displeasure he strives no more and so it is never overcome We come now to the Application Wherein the Subject would admit and require a very abundant enlargement if we were not within necessary limits Two things I shall take notice of as very necessary to be remark'd and most amazingly strange and wonderfull by way of Introduction to some further Use. 1. That ever the Spirit of man a reasonable intelligent Being God's own Off-spring and whereto he is not only a Maker but a Parent styl'd the Father of Spirits should be degenerated into so horried so unnatural a Monster What! to be an hater of God! The most excellent and all-comprehending Good and thy own Father Hear O Heavens and Earth saith the Lord I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me Isa. 1. 2. Be astonish'd O ye Heavens at this and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate As if all the blessed inhabitants of that upper World should rather forsake their glorious Mansions leave Heaven empty and run back into their original nothing than endure such a sight An intelligent Spirit hating God is the most frightful prodigy in universal Nature If all mens Limbs were distorted and their whole outer-man transformed into the most hideous shapes 't were a trifle in comparison with this deformity of thy Soul 2. That it should be thus and they never regret nor perceive it What self-loathing Creatures would men be could they see themselves so as never to endure themselves while they find they do not love God! But men are generally well pleas'd with themselves for all this Though the case is so plain they will not see it When all the mention'd indications shew it they never charge or suspect themselves of such a thing as this enmity against God! God charges them and doth he not know them The Pagan World that they are God-haters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1. 30. even with an hellish hatred as the word there signifies They that profess his Name are apt to admit this true of the Gentiles but do we think our Lord Jesus did injuriously accuse the Jews too that they had both seen and hated him and his Father Joh. 15. 24. How remote was it from a Jew who boasted themselves God's peculiar people to think himself an hater of God! And what were they of whom he says by the Prophet loathed them and their Soul abhorred me which is presupposed Zech. 11. 8. and most justly for can there be a more loathsome thing than to abhor Goodness it self What the most perfect Benignity And those Cretians had receiv'd the Christian Faith whom the Apostle exhorts Titus to rebuke sharply that they might be sound in it and of whom he says that professing to know God in works they denied him being abominable Tit. 1. 16. Hence is our labour lost in beseeching men to be reconciled to God while they own no enmity Since this matter is so evident that this is the temper of the unconverted World Godward that they are alienated from him and enemies in their minds toward him by wicked works It is then beyond all expression strange that they never observe it in themselves as the Toad is not offended at its own poisonous nature and are hereupon apt to think that God observes it not nor is displeased with them for it It is strange they should not observe it in themselves upon so manifold evidence Do but recount with your selves and run over the several heads of evidence that have been given Can you deny you have minds capable of knowing God Cannot you conceive of Wisdom Power Goodness Truth Justice Holiness and that these may be either more manifest or in more excellent degrees even among Creatures in some Creatures more than in others but that Being in which they are in highest and most absolute perfection must be God Can you deny that you have lived in great ignorance of God much of your time that your ignorance was voluntary having such means of knowing him as you have had That you have usually been thoughtless and unmindfull of him in your ordinary course That the thoughts of him have been ungratefull and very little welcome or pleasant to you That you have had little converse with him little trust reverence delight or expectation plac'd on him as the object That you have not been wont to concern him in your affairs to consult him to desire his concurrence That you have not thought of approving your self to him in your designs and actions but lived as without him in the world That you have not designed the pleasing or obeying of him in the course of your conversation That the Gospel under which you have lived hath had little effect upon you to alter the temper of your Spirits towards him That if his Spirit hath sometimes awakened you raised some fear or some desires now and then in your Souls you have supprest and stifled and striven against such motions Do not these things together discover an enmity against God and the ways of God And is it not strange you cannot see this and perceive a disaffection to God by all this in your selves What is so near a man as himself Have you not in you a reflecting power Know ye not your own selves as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 13. 5. Yea generally men never find fault with themselves upon any such account and consequently think themselves in such respects very innocent in the sight of God and think he finds no fault with them Now these two things being premised will make way for the following Uses We infer therefore 1. That whereas it so evidently appears that men are at enmity with God it cannot but be consequent that God is not well pleased with them No one is well pleased to have another hate him God discerns that in the inward temper of mens minds wherewith he is not well pleased viz. this alienation of mind from him this wicked enmity that is so generally found in them They are wont to make light of secret internal sin The ill posture of their minds they think an harmless
But this man in his degenerate state will by no means admit of There are two things considerable in the Will of God which the mind of man cannot comply withall The Sovereignty and the Holiness of it 1. The Sovereignty of God's Will We must look on God's Will as absolutely Sovereign Man must look on God's Will to be above his Will so as that man must cross his own will to comport with an higher will than his But this apostatiz'd man will not do and therefore he is at enmity with God he will not submit to the Will of God as superiour to his Will And then 2. There is the Holiness of God's Will His Law is a holy Law and the renewed man therefore loves it But because 't is holy therefore the unregenerate man dislikes it 3. Lastly God is consider'd under the notion of our end our last end as he is to be glorify'd and enjoy'd by us There is a disaffection to God in the hearts of unregenerate men in this regard also The spirit of man is opposite to living to the glory of God Every one sets up for himself I will be my own end It shall be the business of my whole life to please my self Therefore when God is represented as our end as in the 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God And as it is in the 2 Cor. 5. 15. No man is to live to himself c. The great design of our being delivered from the Law viz. as a cursing condemning Law is that we may live to God Gal. 2. 19. I am dead to the Law that I might live to God This the unrenewed heart cannot comport with The last and great design of all our actions must terminate on God Now self is set up as the great Idol in opposition to God all the world over and the spirits of men grow by custom more and more disaffected to God in this respect Again God would be owned by us for our best good This should be the sense of our Souls towards him So it was with the Psalmist Psal. 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee c. But says the unregenerate Soul the World is better to me than God And it is upon this account that when Overtures are made of changing this state the unregenerate mind opposes it Thus have you this Doctrine explained and opened I come now in the 2d Place To evince the truth of this Doctrine and that by two Heads of Arguments Partly from our selves and partly from God 1. From our selves 'T is an alienation and enmity of mind that keeps men off from God and Reconciliation with him which will plainly appear 1. If we consider that our minds are capable of knowing God Such a thing is the mind of man which was originally made for such an exercise as to be taken up principally with things relating to God Our minds can apprehend what is meant by the nature of God as a Being of uncreated Perfection in whom all Power Wisdom and Goodness do meet who fills Heaven and Earth and from everlasting was God Our minds tell us that we have a capacity thus to conceive of God 'T is in the capacity of man's nature to mind God as well as to mind vanity but doth it not And whence doth this proceed but from enmity an alienation of the mind from God 2. This appears in that men are wilfully ignorant of God and are destitute of the knowledge of him out of choice ignorant and are willing to be so This speaks enmity and alienation of mind more expresly and fully That they are capable of knowing God and yet are ignorant of him leaves no other cause assignable But their desiring so to be plainly assigns this cause Rom. 1. 28. They liked not to retain God in their knowledge 'T is not grateful to them Job 21. 14. We desire not the knowledge of thy ways Men are ignorant willingly of that God who made the world and all things therein 2 Pet. 3. 5. For this they are willingly ignorant c. They will not know God though his visible Works shew his invisible Power and Godhead Rom. 1. 19 20. Now this can signify nothing but auenation and enmity of mind Men are willing and industrious to know other things and labour after the knowledge of them but they decline the knowledge of God and his ways being alienated from God through the blindness of their hearts Ephes. 4. 18. This heart-blindness is chosen and voluntary blindness signifies their having no mind or will to things of that nature But now the voluntariness of this ignorance of God and the enmity that is consequently in it appears evidently in two sorts of persons 1. In many that are of the more knowing and inquisitive sort who do all they can to make themselves notional Atheists to blot or rase the notion of God out of their minds Of them I shall say little here They do their utmost but in vain It will stick as close to them as their thinking Power But their attempt shews their enmity For they are content to admit the grossest Absurdities into their minds rather than permit that notion to remain unmolested there Rather imagine such a curious frame of things as this World is to have come by chance than that it had a wise just holy as well as powerful Maker They would count it an absurdity even unto madness to think the exquisite picture of a Man or a Tree to have happened by chance and can allow themselves to be so absurd as to think a Man himself or a Tree to be causal Productions Is not this the height of enmity 2. In the unthinking generality of whom yet unconverted out of the state of Apostacy 't is said they are fools as is the usual Language of Scripture concerning wicked or unconverted men and that such fools tho' they never offer at saying in their minds much less with their mouths yet they say in their hearts no God i. e. not there is none for there is no is in the Hebrew Text. The words may rather go in the Optative form than the Indicative O that there were none The notion is let alone while it reaches not their hearts If it do they only wish it were otherwise This speaks their enmity the more for the notion lies a continual testimony against the bent of their hearts and constant practice that while they own a God they never fear nor love him accordingly And they grosly misrepresent him sometimes as all made up of Mercy without Justice or Holiness and so think they need no Reconciliation to him he and they are well agreed already Sometimes think of him as merciless and irreconcilable and therefore never look after being reconciled to him 3. It appears hence that men do so seldom think of God when as a thought of God may be as soon thought as any other and would cost