he had reproved us for breach of Commands for Omission and Neglect of Sacrifices we would have taken with it But what means this reproof for well doing The Lord is a hard Master if we neglect Sacrifices and offer up the worst of the Flock he is angry If we have a care of them and offer them punctually and keep appoynted days precisely he is angry what shall we do to please him I think many of you are put to as great a Non-plus when your prayers and repentance and fasting is quarreled Do ye not say in your hearts we know not what to do Ministers are angry at us if we pray not and ouâ— praying they cry out against They command us to Repent and Fast and yet say that God will abhore both these This is a Mystery and we shall endeavour to unfold it to you from the World It concerns us to know how God is pleased with our publick Services and Fastings For the most part of people have no more Religion Ye all I know desire to know what True Religion is Consult the Scriptures and search them for there ye shall find Eternal Life We frame to our self a wrong Patern and Coppy of it and so we judge our selves wrong Our narrow Spirits do not take in the Latitude of the Scriptures Religion but taking in one part it excludes another and thinks God rigid if it be not taken of our hand so But I pray consider these three things which seem to make up the good Old Way the Religion of the Old and New Testament First Religion takes in all the Commands it is universal hath respect to all the Commandments Psal 119. 6. It carries the two Tables in both-hands the first Table in the right hand and the second in the left These are so intirely conjoyned that if ye receive not both ye cannot receive any truely Secondly it takes in all the man his Soul and Spirit al 's well as his Body Nay it principally includes that which is principal in the man his Soul and Spirit his Mind and Affections If ye divide these ye have not a man present but a body And what fellowship can bodies have with him who in a Spirit If ye divide these among themselves ye have not a Spirit indeed present If the mind be not present surely the heart cannot but if the mind be and the heart away Religion is not Religion but some empty Speculation The mind cannot serve but by the heart Where the heart is there a man is reckoned to be Thirdly it takes in Jesus Christ as all and excludes altogether a mans self He worships God in the Spirit but he rejoyces not in himself and in his spirit but in Jesus Christ and hath no confidence in himself or the flesh phil 3. 3 8. It includes the Soul and Spirit and all the Commands but it denyes them all and embraces Jesus Christ by Faith as the only Object of glorying into and trusting into All a mans self becomes dross in this Consideration Now the first of these is drawn from the last therefore it appears first I say an indeavour in walking in every thing Commanded of conforming our way to the present rule and patern is a stream flowing from the pure heart within A mans Soul and Affections must once be purified or it send out such Streams in Conversation And from whence doth that pure heart come Is it the Fountain and Original No certainly The heart is desperately wicked above all things and how will it cleanse it self But this purity proceeds from another Fountain from Faith in Jesus Christ And it is this that lies nearest the uncreated Fountain Christ himself it is the most immediat Conduit the Mouth of the Fountain or the Bucket to draw out of the deep Wells of Salvation All these are conjoyned in this order 1 Tim. 1. 5. The end of the Command is love Ye know Love is said elsewhere to be the fulfilling of the Law And when we say Love we mean all Duties to God and man which Love ought immediately to principle Now this Love proceeds from a pure Heart cleansed and sanctified which pure heart proceeds from Faith unfeigned So then we must go up in our searching from external obedience all alongs till we arrive at the inward Fountain of Christ dwelling in us by Faith And then have ye found true Religion indeed Now ye may think possibly we have used too much circumlocution What is all this to the present purpose Yes very much Ye shall find the Lord rejecting this peoples publick Worship and solemn Ordinances upon these three grounds either they did not joyn with them the observation of weightier Commands or they did not worship him in them with their Spirits had not Souls present or they knew not the end and use for which God had appoynted these Sacrifices and Ceremonies they did not see to the end of all which was Jesus Christ First then I say the people was much in exâ—ernal Sacrifices and Ceremonies Commanded of God but they were ignorant of the end of â—is Commands and of the use of them Ye now in themselves they had no goodness but â—nly in relation to such an end as he pleased they â—ould lead to But they stayed upon the Ceâ—emony and shadow and were not led to use it â—s a means for such an end And so though â—ey fancied that they obeyed and pleased God â—et really they wholly perverted his meaning and intention in the Command Therefore doth the Lord plead wâ—th them in this place for their Sacrificeing as if it had been Murther They used to object his Commands What sayes the Lord did I command these things Who required them Meaning eertainly who required them for such an end to take away your sin who required them but as a shadow of the substance to come Who required them but as signes of that Lamb and Sacrifice to be offered up in the fullnesse of time And for asmuch as ye passe over all these and think to please me with the external Ceremony was that ever my intent or meaning Certainly ye have fancied a new Law of your own I never gave such a Law Therefore it is said Psal 50. 13. God pleads just after this manner Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats c. And Micah 6. 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rammes or with ten thousands of rivers of oyl He who hath no pleasure in sinful men what pleasure can he have in beasts Therefore it was to signify to them who thought God would be pleased with them for their offering that he could not endure them it was worse to him to offer him such a recompense then if they had done none at all Hâ— is only well pleased in his well beloved Son And when they separat a Lamb or a Bullocâ— from the well bâ—loved what was it to him morâ— nor a dogs neck or swines flesh It was
his hope he hath no reason to change his hope The Lord hath often done things we looked not for but we never looked for any thing according to the grounds of the word but it was done or a better then it He doth not always answer our limitations but if he give Gold when we sought Silver are we not answered Are we disappoynted There are three things that use most to disquiet and toss mens spirits sin and wrath future events and present calamities Faith establisheth the Soul on God in all these and suffereth it not to be driven to and fro with these winds It finds a harbour and refuge in God from all these If he be pursued by the avenger of blood Gods Wrath and Justice here is an open City of Refuge that he may run to and be safe If iniquities compass me about yet I will not fear but oppose unto that great company the many sufferings and obedience of Jesus Christ My coâ—science challengeth and writteth bitter things against me yet I have an answer in that blood that speaketh better things nor Abels If sinns prevail he will purge them away His Mercy is above all my â—â—n and his Vertue and Power is above my sin He hath promised and will he not do it Oftimes mens Souls are perplexed and tossed about future Events careful for to morrow this is a great torment of spirit it cutteth and divideth it putteth a man to his own providence as if there were no God But he that trusteth in God is established in this his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord he hath commited his Soul to him and why may he not his body He hath nothing but his promise for eternal Salvation and may not that same suffice for temporal He careth for me saith Faith why then should we both care about one thing He hath given his Son for me the most precious gift which the world cannot match and will he not with him give all these lesser things And thus the Believer incloseth himself within the fathers love and providence and iâ— fixed not fearing evil tidings For what tydings can be evil seing our Father hath the Soveraign disposing of all Affairs and knoweth what is best for us Present dispensations often shake men and driveth them to and fro their feet slip and are not established thou bid thy face and I was troubled But if you trusted in God and considered what is in him to oppose to all difficulties and calamities you would say I shall not be moved though the floods lift up their voice If you believed his love would not this sweetten all his dealing He maketh all work together for good Soveraignty Righteousness and Mercy are sure and firm ground to stand upon in all storms You may cast Anchor at any of those and ly secure It is the Lord let him do what be pleaseth This was enough to quiet the saints in old times Should he give account of his matters to us Sball the clay say to the potter why is it thus His absolute right by Creation maketh him beyond all exception do what he please But beside this he is pleased and condescendeth to reason with us and give account of his matters to testify to our Conscience that he is righteous in all his ways It was the ground of Jeremiahs setling Lam. 3. It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed It should have allayed and stayed Job know this thou art punished lesse then thy iniquities deserve who will set a time to plead with him Shall any be found righteous before him And this might stop all mens mouths and put them in the dust to keep silence seing he hath Law to do infinitely more then he doth why should not we rather proclaim his Clemency then argue him so very hard If to both those you shall add the consideration of his Mercy that all his pathâ— are Mercy and Truth unto you even when he correcteth most severely so that you may blesse him as well for Rods as for Meat and Cloathing and count your self blessed when you are taught by the Rod and the Word the one speaking to the other aâ— the other sealing its instruction If you believâ— that it were a fruit of his Love He chasteneth â—very son whom he loveth that because he will nâ— let you depart from him will not let you settâ— upon a present world and forget your Countreâ— above therefore he compasseth you about witâ— Hedges of Thorns to keep in your way And therefore he maketh this world bitter and unpleasant that you may have no continuing City If all this were believed would not the soul triumph with Paul What can separat me from thâ— love of God not past things for all my sins are blotted out and shall be remembered no more not present things for they work to good and are a fruit of his Love not things to come for that is to come which shall more declare his love then what is past Would not a Soul sleep securely within the compass of this Power this Love and Faithfulness of God without fear of dashing or sinking Now judge whither a perfect peace may not flow from all this may it not be a perfect calm when the Mountains that inviron go up to Heaven Not only doth the Soul trust in God but God keepeth the trusting Soul in peace He is the creator of peace and the preservator of it I creat peace I keep him in peace The same power and vertue is required to the preserving of a thing and the first beeing of it Our Faith and Hope in God is too weak an Anchor to abide all storms Our cords would break our hands faint and weary but he is the everlasting God who failâ—â—â— not and â—â—arieth not he holdeth an invisible grip of us we are kept by his power to salvation and we are kept by his power in peace Thy right band holdeth me saith David and this helpeth me to pursue thee What maketh believers inexpugnable impregnable is it their strength No indeed but salvation will God appoynt for walls and bulwarks Almighty Power is a strong wall though invisible this power worketh in us and about us Now Believers pity the world about you that knoweth not this peace when they ly secure and cry peace peace Alas they are a City open without walls as the plain field there is no keeper there nothing to hold off destruction Entertain your own peace do not grieve the Spirit who hath sealed it If you return to folly after he hath spoken peace to you I perswade you you shall not maintain this peace there may be peace with God but no peace in thy Conscience as long as the whoredoms of thy heart are to the fore Thou may be secure but security is worse then fear Know this that continuing in a course of sin entertaining any known sin shall trouble thy peace If God have spoken peace to thee thou shalt not lodge that enemy
your prayers a delight be upright in the thing you seek and see that you intertain no known sin give it no heart allowance Thirdly There are many prayers not heard not known because the mouth outcryeth the heart It is the sacrifice of the contrite heart that God despiseth not The prayers of this people were such Isai 29. 13. They drew near with the mouth but the heaâ—t was far away It is worship in spirit and truth that God loveth Joh 4. 23. Since Prayer is a communion of God with the Creature a meeting of one with God and speaking face to face God who is a Spirit and immortal must have a spirit to meet with a soul to speak to him Now do you not find your hearts gading abroad even in duty Is it not most about your Corns and Lands in the time of solemn worship Therefore God getteth no more but a carcasse to keep communion with He may have as much fellowship with the stones of the wall and timber of the house as he can have with your ears and mouths while you remove your hearts to attend other things And I would say more if your mind be present yet your heart is gone sometimes yea often both are gone abroad Sometimes the mind and thought stayeth but the affection and heart is not with it and so the minds residence is not constant Your thought may come in as a wayfaring man but tarrieth not all night dwelleth not Now speak to it even Christians may not your Prayers often have a contrary interpretation to what they pretend You pray so coldrifely and formally as God will interpret you have no mind to it we ask as we seemed indifferent whether our petition be granted or not Should the Lord be affected with your petitions when you your selves are not affected much Should his bowels of zeal sound within him when yours are silent It is fervent prayer availeth much Isai 5. 16. A heart sent out with the petition and gone up to Heaven cannot but bring back an answer If Prayer carry not the seal of the heart and soul in it God cannot own it or send it back with his seal of acceptation Fourthly Many Prayers are not calling on Gods Name And no wonder that when people pray yet the Spirit say None calleth on thy Name for Prayer is made as to an unknown God and God is not taken up according to his Name which are his glorious Attributes whereby he manifesteth himself in his Word To call on Gods Name is so to pray to God as to take him up as he hath revealed himself And what is the Lords Name Hear himself speak to Moses Exod. 33. 19. and 34. 6 7. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and that will by no means clear the guilty Now to call on this Name is for the soul in Prayer to have a suitable stamp on it every Attribute of God taking deep impression in the heart And so Gods Name to be written on the very petitions And shortly we may say the Spirit should have the impression of Gods greatnesse and Majesty of his goodnesse and mercy of his terriblenesse and justice This is the order that God proclaimeth his Name into In the entry the supplicant should behold the glorious Soveraignty and infinite distance between God and the Creature that he may have the stamp of reverence and abasement upon his spirit and may speak out of the dust as it becometh the dust of the ballance and footstool to do to him who sitteth on the circle of the Heaven as his Throne And this I must say there is little Religion and Godlinesse among us because every man is ignorant of God Even Gods children do more study themselves and their condition then Gods greatnesse and absolutenesse Who searches Gods infinitnesse in his Word and Works till he behold a wonder and be drowned in a mystery O but the Saints of old did take up God at a greater distance from the Creatures they waded far into this boundlesse Ocean of Gods Majesty till they were over head and ears and werâ— forced to cry out Who can find out the Almighty to perfection All these are but parts of him his back-parts There is more real Divinity and knowledge of God in one of Jobs friends discourses one of Davids prayerâ— then now in twenty Sermons of gracious men or many prayers or conferences of Saints But withal you must study his goodnesse and mercy and this maketh up the most part of his Name The definition of God hath most of this so that it may be said truly that mercy is his delight mercy as it were swelleth over the rest God were not accessible unlesse mercy did temper it Behold then greatnesse to humble and goodness to make bold that you may have accesse As greatness should leave the stamp of reverence on your petitions so should mercy and goodnesse imprint them with faith and confidence And that the rather because as Christ is said to be the Fathers Face and tâ— image of his Person 2 Cor. 4. 6. and Heb. 1. â— So may he be called the Fathers Name and â— doth God himself call him Exod. 23. 20 21. Tâ— Angel that went before them in the wilderness wâ—â— voice they ought to obey his Name is in him aâ— this Angel is Christ Jesus Acts 7. 37 38. â— then Christ Jesus is Gods Name God as â— revealeth himself in the Word is God in Châ— reconciling the world unto himself 2 Cor. 5. â— And therefore Christians you ought to prâ— alwayes in Christs Name and this is to call â— his Name Not only encourage your selves â— come to God because of a Mediator becaâ— he is God in Christ but also offer up all yoâ— prayers in Jesus his Name that his Name caâ—led on them may sanctifie them otherwise yoâ— affection at prayers cannot be acceptable â— God for he loveth nothing but what comâ— thorow the Son Prayer must have an evil sâ—vour when it is not put in the Golden Censâ— that this Angel hath to offâ—r up incense with tâ— prayers of the Saints And likewise you woâ— know Gods justice and wrath that you mâ— serve in fear and trembling And when treâ—bling is joyned with the rejoycing of faith thâ— is acceptable service You ought to fear to â—fend his holiness while you are before him Lâ— Gods terribleness have a deep impression â— your spirit both to make sin bitter and to maâ— mercy more sweet Thus should Prayer asceâ— with the seal of Gods Attributes and then is a calling on his Name Now is there any câ—ling on his Name among us Who maketh â—udy to take up God in his glorious Names â—herefore you call not on a known God and â—nnot name him Now all of you take this â—le to judge your prayers by Think you not â—at you make many prayers You both think and
strange how untoward and froward we are a perverse generation we do not believe his Threatnings but fancie we receive his Promises or else believeing his Threatnings we question his Promises But know this for a truth his last Word is more weighty and the unbelief of it is most dangerous Ye have not keeped his Commands and so the curse is come upon you do ye believe that If ye do then the Gospel speakes unto you The God of Truth hath one word more He that believes shall be saved notwithstanding of all his breaking of the Law if ye do not set your Seal to this also then ye say he is not a God of Truth ye say he is a liar And as for you who have committed your Souls to him as to a faithful keeper and acquiesced unto his Word of Promise for Salvation think how unsutable it is for you to distrust him in other lesser things Ye have the promise of this life whoever hath the Promises of the life to come Therefore do not make him a liar in these He is a God of Truth and will let you want no good thing Say to the righteous it shall he well with him what ever be Let Heaven and Earth mix through other yet ye may be as Mount Sion unmoved in the midst of many floods because of the Promises Without iniquity who doubts of that say ye What needs this be added who charges him with iniquity or sin Nay but stay and consider and you shall find great weight in this It is true none dare charge him openly or speak in expresse terms against his Holinesse yet if we judge of our own and others practices and dispositions as the Lord useth to construct of them if we resolve our murmurings impatience self-absolutions and excuses to hold off convictions into plain language if we would translate them into a Scripture-style certainly it will be found that the most part of men if not all use to impute iniquity to God and accuse him rather then take with accusations laid against themselves And therefore the Lord useth to go to Law with his people he who is the Judge of the world that cannot do unrighteously he who is the potter and we all the clay yet he so far condescends to us for convincing us as sometimes to refer the controversie between him and his people to other creatures as Micah 6. 12. He calls the mountains and the foundations of the earth to judge between him and his people and sometimes he appeals unto their own consciences and is content though judge to stand and be judged by these who were guilty as vers 3 and Jer. 2. vers 5 and 31. All this supposes that when the Lord would endeavour to convince them of iniquity they did rather recriminat and took not with their own faults This is a truth generally acknowledged by all He who is the judge of the world doth no iniquity But O! that ye considered it till the meditation of it were engraven on your Spirits the seal of Gods holinesse that ye might fear before him and never call him to accompt for his matters Who can say I have purged my heart from iniquity Among men the holiest are defiled with it and so are all their actions But here is one that ye may give him an implicit faith so to speak he is a God of truth and can speak no lie be does no iniquity and cannot do wrong to any man Would there be so much impatience amongst you and fretting against his dispensations if ye believed this solidly Would ye repine against his holy and just wayes were it not to charge God with iniquity Your murmuring and grudging at his dispensations is with child of blasphemies and he who can search the reins sees it and constructs so of it You say by interpretation that if ye had the government of your own matters or of Kingdoms ye would order them better then he doth how difficult a thing is it to perswade men to take with their own iniquity O how many excuses and pretences how many extenuations are used that this conviction may not pierce deeply But all this speaks so much blasphemy that iniquity is in God Ye cannot take with your own iniquities but ye charge his Majesty with iniquity Just and right is he Is this any new thing was it not said already that he is without iniquity and his wayes judgement But alas how ignorant are we of God and slow of heart to conceive him as he is therefore is there line upon line and precept upon precept and name upon name if it be possible that at length we may apprehend God as he is Alas our knowledge is but ignorance our light darknesse while it is shut up in the corner of our mind and shines not into the heart and hath no influence on our practice And the truth is the belief of divine truths is almost no more but a not contradicting them we do not seriously think of them as either to consent to them or deny them Is there any consideration amongst us now of Gods justice and righteousnesse though it be frequently spoken of And what advantage shall ye have if ye do not consider them O how hard is it to perswade mens hearts of this that God is just and will by no means acquit the guilty there are so many delusions drunk in in mens hearts contrary to his truth Let no man deceive you be not deceived with vain words know ye not saith our Apostle these are strange prefaces would ye not think the point of truth subtile that there needed so much prefacing unto and yet what is it even that which all men grant Gods wrath comes on the children of disobedience but alas few men consider but deceive themselves with dreams of escaping it though men know it yet they know it not for they walk as if they knew no such thing Alwayes however this is of little moment to affect our spirits now yet in the day that God shall set your iniquities before your face and set his justice also before your eyes O how sad and serious a thing will it be then If these two verses were ingraven on our hearts Gods justice and holinesse our corruption and vilenesse I think there would be other thoughts among us then there are SERMON IV. Deut. 32. 5. They have corrupted themselves their spot is not the spot of his Children c. WE doubt this people would take well with such a description of themselves as Moses gives It might seem strange to us that God should have chosen such a people out of all the nations of the earth and they to be so rebellious and perverse if our own experience did not teach us how free his choise is and how long-suffering he is and constant in his choise His people are called to a conformity with himself Be ye holy for I am holy Lev. ch 19. and 20. and to a difformity and separation from
into it thaâ— if none of the world should be of that mind he would not change it Though all should walk in other ways he would choose to be rather alone in this then in the greatest croud of company in any other Now I say when we have such a Coppy cast us a man of excellenâ— parts in sobriety and sadnesse choosing that way which all in words confesse to be the best should not this awake us out of our dreams and raise us up to some more attention and consideration of what we are doing The words you see are the holy resolution of a holy heart concerning that which is the chiefest Good You see the way to happinesse and you find the particular application of that to Davids Soul or of his Soul to it We shall speak a word of the thing it self then of the commendation of it then of the application of it For the thing it self drawing near to God it gives us some ground to take a view of the posture in which men are found by nature far off from God Our condition by nature I cannot so fitly expresse as in the Apostles words Epâ— 2. 12. Without Christ Aliens from the commoâ— wealth of Israel strangers from the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in the World A deplorable estate indeed hopelessâ— and helplesse No hope in it that is the extremity of misery the refuse of all conditions Without Christ and without God O! these are words of infinite weight Without those without whom iâ— is simply impossible to be happy and without whom it is not possible but to be miserable without the Fountain of Light Life and Consolation without which there is nothing but pure darknesse without any beam of light Nothing but death without the least breathing of life Nothing but vexation without the least drop of consolation In a word without these and wanting these whom if you want it were good to be spoyled of all beeing to be nothing if that could be or never to have been any thing Men will seek death and cannot find it O! what a losse and deprivement is the losse of God which makes death more desireable then life and not to be at all infinitly preferable to any beeing Now it is true that the bringing in of multitudes within the pale of the Visible Church is some degree of accesse and nearnesse to God for then they bâ—come Citizens as to external right in the Common-wealth of the Church and have the offers of the Promises made to them in respect of which visible standing the Apostle speaks of the whole Church of Ephesus But now ye are made near who were far off v. 13. notwithstanding that many of them were found afterwards to have left their first Love Rev. 2. But yet Beloved to speak more inwardly and as your Souls stand in the sight of God The generality of those who are near hand in outward Ordinances are yet far off from God in reality without God and without Christ as really as touching any Soul feeling as those who are altogether without The bond of Peace and Union was broken in Paradise sin dissolved it and broke off that nearnesse and friendship with God and from that day to this day there hath been an infinite distance and separation betwixt Man and God The steps and degrees of it are many There is darknesse and blindnesse in mens minds Such ignorance naturally possesseth the multitude so that it wholly Alienats them from the Life of God Eph. 4. 18. For what fellowship can Light that pure Light have with such grosse Darknesse as is among us This certainly is the removal of that Sun of Righteousnesse from our Souls or the imposition of the Clouds of transgression that makes it so dark a night in the Souls of Men. And then there is nothing but enmity and desperate wickednesse in the heart of man and this keeps the strong hold of the Affections Rom. 8. Jer. 17. There cannot be a further elongation or separation of the Soul from God then to turn so opposite in all inclinations and dispositions to his Holy Will For the distance between God and us is not local in the point of place For whither shall we go from him who is every where And thus he is near hand every one of us but it is also real in the difformity and repugnancy of our Natures to his Holy Will But add unto this that being thus separated in Affection and disjoyned as it were in natural Dispositions we cannot draw near to God in any Ordinance as the Word Prayer c Though we may as that People draw near with out lips and ask of him our duty and seem to delight to know him Yet there is this natural incapacity and crookednesse in the heart of man that it cannot truely approach unto the Father of Spirits with any Soul desire and delight But their hearts are removed far from me Isa 6. 9. Mat. 4. 12. I think men might observe that their Souls act not in Religious businesse as they should but that they remove their Souls many Myles distant from their Bodies and they cannot keep any constancy in this approach of Prayer to God cannot walk with him in their Conversation or carry him along in their Meditation But there is one point of estrangement and separation superadded to all that there is no man can come near to God without an Oblation and Offering of Peace That there is no approaching to him but as to a consuming Fire except we can bring a Sacrifice to appease and a Present to please him for our infinite offences There the difference stands we cannot draw near to walk together till we be agreed And truely this unto man is impossible for we have nothing so precious as the Redemption of our Souls nothing can compense infinite Wrongs or satisfie infinite Justice Now this seems to make our nearnesse again desperate and to put men furthest off from Hope Notwithstanding this is the very purpose of the Gospel Preached from the beginning of the World to remove that distance and to take impediments of meeting out of the way For that great obstruction the want of a Sacrifice and Ransome the Lord hath supplied it he himself hath furnished it And it was the great designe carried on from the beginning of the World But as the Sun the nearer he is the more the Earth is Enlightened so here first some dawning of Light appears as a Messenger of Hope to tell that the Redeemer shall come that the True Sacrifice shall be slain then still the nearer his own appearing the clearer are the Manifestations of him and the great designe is more opened up till at length he breaks out in Glory from under a Cloud and shews himself to the World to be that Lamb of God that should take away the sins of the World And now as the Apostle to the Hebrewes speaks Chap. 7. 19. The Law made nothing perfect but
whom to be lost it is only truely to find our selves But though man have this strange Self-idolizing Humour and a Self-glorying Disposition yet he is so poor and beggarly a Creature that he hath not sufficient matter within himself to give complacency to his Heart therefore he must borrow from all external things And when there is any kind of Propriety in or Title to them then he Glories in himself for them as if they were truely in himself We are Creatures by Nature most indigent yet most proud which is unnatural No man is satisfied within himself except the Good man Prov. 14. 14. but he goes abroad to seek it at the Door of every Creature And when there are some Plumes or Feathers borrowed from other Birds like that foolish Bird in the Fable we begin to raise our Crists and boast our selves as if we had all these of our own and were beholden to none But as things that are truely our own will not be sufficient to feed this Flame of Gloriation without the accession of outward things So present things and the present time will not afford Aliment enough or Fewel for this Humour without the addition of the morrow Boast not thy self of to morrow No mans present possession satisfies him without the addition of hope and expectation for the future And herein the poverty of mans Spirit appears and the emptinesse of all things we enjoy here that our present Revenue as it were will not content the Heart The present Possession fills not up the Vacuities of the Heart without the supply of our imaginations by taking so much in upon the head of the morrow to speak so As one Prodigal and Riotous Waster who cannot be served with his yearly incomes but takes so much on upon his Estate upon the next years income before it come begines to spend upon it before it come it self and then when it comes it cannot suffice it self So the insatiable and indigent Heart of man cannot subsist and feed its Joy in Complacency upon the whole World it it were presently in its possession without some accession of hopes and expectations for the time to come Therefore the Soul as it were Anticipats and Forestals the morrow and borrows so much present Joy and Boasting upon the head of it which when it comes it self perhaps it will not fill the hand of the Reaper let be pay for that Debt of Gloriation that was taken on upon its name or compense the expectation was in it See Job 11. 18 20. and 8. 13. Hope is like a mans house to him but to many it is no better then a Spidders Web We have then a clear Demonstration of the madnesse and folly of men who hang so much upon things without and suffer themselves to be Moulded and Modelled in their Affections according to the variety of external Accidents Frst of all consider the independence of all things upon us and our choice there is nothing more unreasonable then to stirre our passions upon that which falls not under our deliberation as the most part of things to come are What shall be to morrow what shall come of my Estate of my places what event my Projects and Designes shall have this is not in my hand These depends upon other mens Wills Purposes and Actions which are not in my power And therefore either to Boast or Glory upon that which depends upon the concurrance of so many Causes Unsubordinat to me or to be vexed and disquieted upon the fore Apprehension of that which is not in my hand to prevent it is not only Irreligious as contrary to our Saviouts Command Matth. 6. But unreasonable also as that which even Nature condemns Take not thought for to morrow and so by consequent Boast not of to morrow And there 's one Argument from the vanity of such Affections Thou canst not make one hair black nor add one cubit to thy stature c. To what purpose then are either these Vexations or Gloriations which cannot prevent evil nor procure good Why should our Affections depend upon others Motions This makes a man the greatest Slave and Captive so that he hath not the Dominion and Power of himself But the vanity of such Affections is the more increased if we consider that Supreme Eternal Will by which all these things are Determined And therefore it is in vain for Creatures to make themselves more miserable or put themselves in a Fools Paradise which will produce more misery after wards and that for these things which are bound up in that fatal Chain of his eternal purpose Then in the next place the folly of men appears from the inconstancy of these things there is such an infinite variety of the Accidents of Providence that it is folly for a man to presume to boast of any thing or take Complacency in it because many things fall between the Cup and the Lip the Chalice and the Chin as the proverb is There is nothing certain but that all things are uncertain that all things are subject to perpetual Motion Revolution and Change To day a City to morrow a Heap And there is nothing between a great City and a Heap but one day Nothing between a Man and no Man but one hour Our Life is subject to infinite Casualities It may receive the Fatal Stroak from the meanest thing and most unexpected it is a Buble flotting upon the Water For this World is a wattery Element in continual Motion with Storms and in these so many poor dying Creatures rise up and swime and float a while and are tossed up and down by the Wind and Vave and the least puff of Wind or drop of Rain sends it back to its own Element We are a Vapour appearing for a very little time a Creature of no solidity a Dream a Shadow and appearance of something And this Dream or Apparition is but for a little tâ—me and then it evanisheth not so much into nothing for it was little distant from nothing before but it disappears rather All humane Affairs are like the Spaiks of a Wheel in such a continual Circumgyration as a Captive King who was drawing Sesostris Chariot said when he was looking often behind him the King of Aegypt Sesostris demanded for what end did he look so often about him Sayes he I am looking to the Wheel musing upon the Vicissitudes and Permutations of it how the highest parts are instantly lowest And this word repressed the Kings vain Glory Now in this constant Wheeling of outward things which is the Soul that enjoyes true quiet and peace Even that Soul that is fixed as it were in the Center upon God that hath its abode in him Though the parts without be in a continual violent Motion yet the Center of the Wheel is at much peace is not vioiently turned but gently complyes to the changes of the other And then consider the madnesse of this Thou knowest not c. There are two Reasons in the
Direction and so a ground of Consolation How inexcuseable are we who have all these expressed unto us and often inculcated line upon line and precept upon precept and yet so often divides the Word of Truth or neglects it â—â—together Most part fancy a belief of the Promises and neither consider Threatnings nor Commands Some believing the Threatnings are not so wise for their own Salvation as to consider what God sayes more but takes it for his last word Shall not Niniveh rise up in Judgement against this Generation They repented at one Preaching and that a short one and in appearance very defective And yet we have many Preachings of the Son of God and his Apostles in this Bible both Law and Gospel holden forth distinctly and these spoken dayly in our audience and yet we repent not This is a strange Preface going before this Preaching and more strange in that it is before the first Preaching of a young Prophet He speakes both to Rulers and People but he gives them a name such as certainly they would not take to themselves but seing he is to speak the Word of the Lord he must not flatter them as they did themselves Is not this the Lords people his Portion and Inheritance which he chose out of the Nations Are not these Rulers the Princes of Judah and the Lords Anoynted Were they not both in Covenant with God and separated from the Nations both in Priviledges and Profession How then are they Rulers of Sodom and People of Gomorrah Likned to the worst of the Nations And not likened to them but spoken off as if they were indeed all one When ye hear the Preface ye would think that the Prophet were about to direct his speech to Sodom and Gomorrah But when ye look upon the Preaching ye find he means by Judah and Jerusalem and these are the Rulers and People he speaks of Certainly according as men walk so shall they be named and ranked External priviledges and profession may give a Name before men and separate men from men before the World But they give no Name make no difference before God if all other things be not suitable to these He is not a Jew saith Paul who is not one inwardly but be who hath that Circumcision in the heart in the Spiâ—it and not in the Letter Outward profession and signs may have praise of men but it is this that hath praise of God Rom. 2. 28 29. Circumcision and uncercumcision baptisme or unbaptisme availeth nothing but a new creature A baptizâ—d Christian and an unbaptized Turk are alike before God if their hearts and wayes be one Gal. 6. 15. All Christians professe Faith and glory in Baptisme but it avails nothing except it work by love Gal. 5. 6. Now what Name shall we give you How shall our Rulers be called How shall ye the People be called If we shall speak the truth we feat it instruct you not but irritate you Yet the truth we must speak whether ye chuse or whether ye refuse Ye would all be called Christians the people of God But we may not call you so except we would flatter you and deceive you by flattering and murder you by deceiving We would gladly Name you Christians in the Spirit Saints chosen and precious Oh that we might speak so to Rulers and people But alas we may not call you so except ye were so indeed We may not call you Christians least ye believe your selves to be so And yet alas ye will think your selves such speak what we can Would ye know your Name then I perceive you listen to heat what it is But understand that it is your Name before God which bears his accompt of you What matter of a Name among men It is often a shadow without substance a Name without the thing If God Name you other wayes you shall have little either Honour or Comfort in it When men blesse you and praise you if the Lord reckon the among the beasts that perish are ye honoured indeed Well then hear your Name before God what accompt hath he of you Ye Rulers are Rulers of Sodom and ye people are people of Gomoâ—rah And if ye think this a hard saying I desire you will notice the way that the Prophet Isaiah takes to prove his challenge against them and the same may be allâ—dged against Rulers and people now VVe need no proof but one of both See Vers 23. Thy Princes are rebellious because though they hear much against their sins yet they never amend them they pull away the shoulder If they hear yet they harden their heart Is there any of them hath set too to pray in their Families though earnestly pressed VVell what follows Every one loves Gifts Covetousnesse then and Oppression proves Rulers to be Rulers of Sodom Shall their houses stand Shalt thou reign because thou closest thy self with cedar Jer. 22. 15. No certainly men shall one day take up a proverb against them woe to him that encreafes that which is not his and loadeth himself with thick clay they shall be for booties to the Lords spoylers Hab. 2. 6. VVoe to them for they have consulted shame to their houses and sinned against their own Soul Their designe is to establish their House and make it Eminent but they take a compendious way to shame and ruine it Alas it is too publick that Rulers seek their own things for themselves and their freinds And for Jesus and his Interests they are not concerned But are ye the people any whit better Oh that it were so But alas when ye are involved in the same guiltinesse I fear ye partake of their plagues VVhat are ye then People of Gomorrab Is not the Name of God blasphemed dayly because of you Are not the abominations of the Gentiles the common disease of the multitude and the very reproach of Christianity Set apart your publick services and professions and is there any thing behind in your Conversation but Drunkenesse Lying Swearing Contention Envy Deceit VVrath Covetousnesse and such like Have not the multitude of them been al 's civil and carried themselves al 's blamelesly and without Offence as the throng of our Visible Church What have ye more then they It is true ye are caled Christians and ye boast in it Ye know his will and can speak of points of Religion can Teach and Instruct others and so hath as it were in your minds a form and method of Knowledge the best of you are but such But I ask as Paul did the Jews in such a case Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self thou that makest a boast of the Law throw breaking of it dishonourest thou God Rom. 2. 17. c. 23. Why then certainly all thy profession and baptism avails nothing and will never extract the from the Pagans with whom thou art one in Conversation Thy profession is so far from helping thee in such a case that it shall be the most bitter
ingredient in thy Cup of Judgment for it is the greatest Aggravation of thy sin for through it Gods Name is Blasphemed If they had not known they had not had sin Pagans sin is no sin in respect of Christians If ye consider Christs Sermon Matth. 11. Ye will say Isaiah is a meak and moderate man in regard of him Isaiah calls them people of Gomorrah but Christ will have them worse and their Judgment more intolerable then theirs And that not only the profane of them but the civil and Religious like who believed not in him VVell then here is the advantage ye get of your Name of Christianity of your priviledge of hearing his VVord dayly Ye who never ponder it to tremble at it or to rejoyce in it who cannot be moved either to joy or grief for Spiritual things Neither Law nor Gospel moves the most part of you I say here is all your gain ye shall receive a reward with Gentiles and Pagans Yea ye shall be in a worse case nor they in the Day of the Lord. The civil Christian shall be worse then the profane Turke and ye shall not then boast that ye were Christians but shall desire that ye had dwelt in the place where the Gospel had never been preached It is a Character of the Nations that they call not on God and of Heathen Families that they pray not to him Jer. 10. 25. And wrath must be poured on them VVhat then are the most part of you Ye neither bow a Knee in secret nor in your Families to God your time is otherwayes employed ye have no leisure to pray twice or thrice a day alone except when ye put on your Cloathes ye utter some ordinary bâ—blings Ye cannot be driven to Family worship shall not God rank you in Judgement with these Heathen Families Or shall it not be more tolerable for them nor for you And are not the most part of you every one given to Covetousnesse your heart and eye after it seeking Gain and Advantage more then the Kingdome of Heaven Doth not every one of you as you have power in your hand oppresse one another wrong one another Now our end in speaking thus to you is not to drive you to desparation No indeed but as there was a word of the Lord sent to such by Isaiah so we bring a word unto you That which ruines you is your carnal confidence Ye are presumptuous as this people and cryes the Temple of the Lord the VVork of the Lord c. as if these would save you Know therefore that all these will never cover you in the day of wrath Know there is a necessity to make peace with God and your righteousnesse must exceed the righteousnesse of a profession and external priviledges and duties or else ye shall be as far from the Kingdome of Heaven as Sodom and Gomorrah VVe speak of Rulers sins that ye may mourn for them lest ye be Judged with them If ye do not mourn for them in secret know that they are your sins Ye are Companions with them Many fret grudge and cry out against Oppression but who weeps in secret Who prayes and deprecats Gods wrath least it come upon them And while it is so The Oppression of Rulelers becomes the sin of the oppressed themselves Hear the Word of the Lord It were a suitable preparation for any Word that is spoken to make it take imprâ—ssion if it were looked on as the Word of the Lord and Law of our God And truely no man can hâ—ar aright unlesse he hear it so Why doth not this Word of the Lord return with more Fruit Why doth not men tremble or rejoyce at it Certainly because it is not received as Gods Word There is a practical Heresie in our hearts which rather may be called Atheism VVe do not believe the Scriptures I do not say men call it in question but I say ye believe them not It is one thing to believe with the heart another thing not to doubt of it Ye doubt not of it not because ye do indeed believe it but because ye do not at all consider it It is one thing to confesse with the Mouth and another thing to believe with the Heart For ye confesse the Scriptures to be Gods VVord not because ye believe them but because ye have received such a Tradition from your Fathers have heard it from the womb unquestioned Oh that this were engraven on your Heart thaâ— these Commands these Curses these Promises are Divine Truthes the VVords and thâ— Oath of the Holy One. If every word oâ— Truth came stamped with his Authority and were received in the Name of God himself what influence would it have on the Spirits and the practices of men This would be a great Reformer would Reform more in a Moneth then Church and Staâ—e hath done these many Years VVhy are Rulers and People not Converted and Healed for all that is spoken Here it is Who believes our report VVho believes that our report is thy own Testimony O Lord When Ministers threaten you in Gods Name if his Authority were stamped on the Threatning if men did seriously apprehend it were Gods own Voice would they not tremble When the Gospel and the joyful Sound comes forth if ye apprehended that same Authority upon it which ye who are Convinced believes in the Law would ye not be comforted Finally I may fay it is this point of Atheisme of Inconsideration and Brutishnesse that destroys the multitude makes all Means Ineffectual to them and retards the progresse of Christians Men do not consider that this word is the word of the Eternal and True and Faithful God and that not one Jot of it will faill Here is a Poynt of Reformation I would put you to If ye mind indeed to Reform let this enter into your Hearts and sink down that the Law and Gospel is the Word of God and resolve to come and hear Preachings so as the Voice of Jesus Christ the true and faithful witnesse If ye do not take it so now yet God will Judge you so at the end He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that hears not you heares not me If ye thought ye had to do with God every Sabbath would ye come so carelesly and be so stupid and inconsiderate before the Judge of all the Earth But ye will find in the end that it was God whom ye knew not SERMON IX Isai 1. 11. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me saith the Lord c. THis is the Word he calls them to hear and a strange Word Isaiah asks what means your sacrifices God will not have them I think the people would say in their own hearts what means the Prophet What would the Lord be at Do we any thing but what he Commanded us Is he angry at us for Obeying him What means this Word Is he not repealing the Statute and Ordinance he had made in Israel If
his Creature as these are and no more Isai 66. 3. Noâ— that they looked never beyond the Ceremonies it is evident because they boasted in them theâ— used to find out these as a remedy of their sins and a mean to pacifie Gods Wrath Micah 6. 6. Paul bears witnesse of it 2 Cor. 13. 14. Moses had a Vail of Ceremonies over his Face and the Children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that Mystery Christ Jesus but their minds were blinded and is so to this day in the reading of the Scriptures And this Vail of hardness of heart shall be done away when Christ returnes them again Now I say it is just so with us there was never a people liker other nor we are like the Jews We have many external Ordinances Preaching Hearing Baptism Communion Reading Singing Praying in publick Extraordinary Solemnities of Fasting and Thanksgiving Works of Discipline and Government publick Reproof to sinners Confessions and Absolutions What would ye think if we should change the terms of Sacrifices and new Moons and speak all this to you To what purpose is the multitude of your Fasts and Feasts of your Preachings and Communions of your Praying in secret and in your Families of Conference and Prayer with others of running to and fro to hear Preaching â—o partake of the Lords Table I am full of them â— delight not in them When ye come here on â—he Sabbath who required at your hand to read my Courts Come no more to hear the Word run no more after Communions seek â—o more Baptism to your Children call no â—ore Solemn Assemblies it is all iniquity Oh â—ay ye that is a strange Preaching indeed must â—e Pray no more Hear no more Sing no more Did not God command these Why do ye discharge them We do not mean so that these should not be but they should be in another way All these want the Soul and Life of them which is Jesus Christ in them Do ye not think your selves religious because ye frequent these The multitude of the people think that these please God and pacifie his Wrath Ye have no other thing in your mind but these If ye can attain any sorrow or grief for sin or any tears to signify it presently you absolve your selves for your repentance The scandalous who appear in publick thinks the paying of a penalty to the Judge and bowing the knee before the Congregation satisfies God Ye miss nothing when ye have these I speak to the professors of Religion also who pretend to more knowledge then others when ye have gone about so many Duties ye are well satisfied if ye get liberty in them If ye can satisfy your self ye doubt not of Gods satisfaction And if ye do not satisfy your selves in your Duties ye cannot believe his satisfaction Ye get the Ordinance and misses nothing Now I say in all this ye do not reacâ— to the end of this Ministry Jesâ—s Christ ye dâ— not stedfastly behold him to empty your selveâ— in his bosom to turn over all the unrighteousness of your holy things upon him who bearâ— it That which pleaseth you is not he in whom the Father is well pleased but the measure oâ— your own Duty O! the Establishing of ouâ— own Righteousness is the ruine of the Visiblâ— Church This is the grand Idol and all Sacrifice to it Know therefore that the most part of your performances are abomination and iniquity because ye have so much confidence in them and puts them not upon Christ as filthy raggs or do not cover them with his Righteousness as well as your wickedness I know ye will say that ye are not satisfied with them and that is still the matter of your Exercise Well I affirm in the Lords Name from that ground that ye have confidence in them for if your diffidence and disquietness arise from it your confidence and peace must come from it also Is there any almost that maintains Faith except when their own conditions please them well And that Faith I may call no Faith at least not pure and cleanly entire Faith As for the multitude of you you must know this that God is not pleased with your prayers and fasting and hearing c. Because ye have such an esteem of them because ye can settle your selves against all Threatnings and never once remember of Jesus Christ or consider the end of his coming into the world Because ye find no necessity of pardon for your prayers and righteousness but stretches the garment of these over the uncleanness of your practices What delight hath the Lord in them when they are put in his Sons place Will he not be jealous that his Sons Glory be not given to another In the second place the Lord rejects their performances because there was nothing but a meer shadow of service and no worshipping of God in the Spirit Ye know what Christ saith God is a Spirit and he that worships him must do it in spirit and truth Jo. 4. 24. It is thâ— Heart and Soul that God delights into Mâ— son give me thy heart for if thou give not hy heart I care for nothing else The heart iâ— the whole man What a mans Affection is that he is Light is not so it brings not thâ— man alongs with it Christ Jesus hath giveâ— himself for us and he requires that we offer ouâ— selves to him If we offer a Body to frequenâ— his House our Feet to tread in his Courts ouâ— Ears to hear his Word what cares he for it aâ— long as the Soul doth not offer it self up in Prayer or Hearing And this was the sin of thiâ— people Isai 29. 13. They draw near with thâ— lips and their heart is far from the Lord. Now are not we their Children and have succeeded to this Is there any thing almost in our publick Services but what is publick Is therâ— any thing but what is seen of men Ye comâ— to hear ye sit and hear and is there any more The most part have their minds wandering no thoughts present for your thoughtâ— are removed about your Barns and Corns oâ— some business in your head And if any havâ— their Thoughts present yet where are Affections Which are the Soul and Spirit of Religion without which it is no true fire but wildâ— fire if it be not both burning and shinning Are ye serious in these Ordinances Or ratheâ— are ye not more serious in any thing beside And now especially when Gods Providencâ— calls you to earnest thoughts when it crys to alâ— men to enter into consideration of their owâ— ways I pray you is there any Soul-affliction in your Fasts even for a day Is there any real grief or token of it Not a Fast in Scripture without weeping We have kept many and have never advanced so far Shall the Lord then be pacified Will not his Soul abhore them How shall they appease him for your other provocations when they are as Oyl to
the Flame to increase his Indignation The most part of Christians are guilty here We come to the Ordinances as it were to discharge a Custome and perform a Ceremony that we may have it to say to our Conscience that it is done and there is no more intent and purpose We do not seek to have Soul communion with God We come to Sermon to hear some new thing or new truth or new fashion of it To learn a Notional Experience of Cases But alas this is not the great purpose and use of these things It is to have some new sense of these things we know We know already but we should come to get the Truth mâ—re received in our Love to serve God in our Spirits and to return to him our selves in a Sacrifice acceptable This is the greater half if not the whole of Religion Love to Jesus Christ who loved us and living to him because he died for us and livihg to him because we love him Now all our Ordinances and Duties should be Channels to cary our Love to him and occasions of venting our Affections Thirdly the Lord rejected this peoples services because they were exact and punctual in them and neglected other parts of his Commandments And this is clearly expressed here I will not hear your prayers though there be many of them Why Your hands are full of blood Ye come to worship me and pray to me and yet there are many Abominations in your Conversation which you continue in and do not challenge in your selves Ye have unclean hands and shall your prayer be accepted which should come up with pure Hands They took his Covenant in their mouth and offered many Sacrifices but what have ye to do with these things sayeth the Lord since ye hate to be reformed since ye hate personal Reformation of your Lives and in your Families what have ye to do to profess to be my people Psal 50 19 17 The Lord requires an universality if ye would prove sincerity If ye have respect to any of his Commands as his Commands then will ye respect all If ye be partial and choose one Duty that is easy and refuse another harder ye will come to the Church and hear but ye will not pray at home Ye will fast in publck but not in private Then sayes the Lord ye do not at all obey me but your own humour ye do not at all fast unto me but unto your selves As much as your interest lyes in a Duty so much are ye carried to it And I take this to be the reason why many are so Eager in pursuing publick Ordinances following Communions and Conferences with Gods people ready to Pray in publick rather then alone If ye would follow them into their secret Chamber how much indifferency is there how great infrequency how little fervency VVell sayes the Lord did ye pray to me when ye prayed among others No ye prayed either to your selves or the company or both Did ye seek me in a Communion No sayeth the Lord ye sought not me but your selves If ye sought me indeed with others ye would be al 's earnest if not more to seek me alone Zech. 7. 6. And again the Lord especially requires the weightier matters of the Law to be considered As it was among the Jews their Ceremonies were commanded and so good but they were not so much good in themselves as because they were means appointed for another end and use But the Moral Law was binding in it self and good in it self without relation to another thing And therefore Christ lays this heavy Charge to the Pharisees Ye tithe mint and anise Mat. 23. 23. Woe unto you for ye neglect the weightier matters of the Law Judgement Mercy and Faith these ye ought to have done and not left the other undone Are there not many who would think it a great fault to stay away from the Church on the Sabbath or Week day and yet will not stick to swear to drink often VVoe unto you for ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel Therefore are the Prophets full of these Expostulations The people seemed to make Conscience of Ceremonies and External Ordinances but they did not order their Conversation aright They did not execute Judgment and relieve the oppressed did not walk soberly did not mortify sinful lusts c. Alas we deceive our selves with the noise of a Covenant and a Cause of God we cry it up as an Antidot against all evils use it as a charm even as the Jews did their Temple and in the mean time we do not care how we walk before God or with our Neighbours Well thus saith the Lord Trust ye not in lying words Jer. 7. 4 5 6. If drunkenness reign among you if filthiness swearing oppression cruelty reign among you your Covenant is but a ly all your professions are but lying words and shall never keep you in your Inheritances and Dwellings The Lord tells you what he requires of you Is it not to do justly and walk humbly with God Mic. 6. 7. This is that which the grace of God teaches To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly towards your God your neighbour and your self Tit. 2. 11 12. And this he prefers to your publick Ordinances your Fasting Covenanting Preaching and such like Is not this to know me saith the Lord Jer. 22. 15. 16. You think you know God when you can discourse well of Religion and intertain conferences of practical Cases You think it is knowledge to understand Preachings and Scripture But thus saith the Lord To do justly to all men to walk humbly towards God to walk soberly in your selves is more real knowledge of God then all the Volumes of Doctors contain or the heads of Professors Is this knowledge of God to have a long flowrishing discourse containing much Religion in it Alas no to do justly to oppress none to pray more in secret to walk humbly and soberly this is to know the Lord practice is real knowledge indeed it argues that what a man knows he receives in love that the Truth hath a deep impression on the heart that the Light shines into the heart to inflame it What is knowledge before God As much as principles Affection and Action as much as hath Influence on your Conversations If you do not and love not what you know is that to know the Lord Shall not your knowledge be a Testimony against your practice and no more SERMON X. Isai 1. 16. Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil c. IF we would have a sum of pure and undefiled Religion here it is set down in opposition to this peopleâ— shadow of Religion that consisted in External Ordinances and Rites We think that God should be al 's well pleased with our service as we our selves therefore we choose his commands which our humour hath no
may sin no more but break off their sins It is indeed impossible for a man to amend his ways till he be pardoned for his sin stands betwixt him and God God is a consuming fire the guilt of it hinders all meeting of the Soul with God at least all influence from him But when an open Door is made in Christ that men may come and Treat with God notwithstanding of rebellions and have the Curse relaxed O now he may go about his Duty comfortably Am I escaped from Hell why should I any more walk in the way to it And now he hath the Spiriâ— given for the asking There are some Cessations from sin that are not real forsakings of it and ceasings from it You know men will abstain from Eating for a season that they may be made ripe for it another time Some do not cease from sin but delayes it only they put it not away but put it off only for another time till a fitter occasion and opportunity And this is so far from ceasing from it that it is rather an deliberat choice of it and Election of conveniency for it There may be some pure and simple ceasings from sin meer abstinence or rather meer absence of sin for a season that is not ceasing from doing evil The Christians ceasing hath much Action in it It is such a ceasing from doing evil that it is a putting away of evil It hath the Soul and Spirit joyned in that Cessation Sin requires violence to put it out where it hath haunted it is an intruding Guest and an usurping Guest It comes in first as a supplicant and beggar prays for a little lodging for a night and promises to be gone the temptation speaks but for a little time even the present time for a little one it seeks but litle at first least it be denyed but if once it be received into the Soul it presently becomes Master and can command its own time and its abode Then ye will not so easily put it out as ye could hold it out for it is now joyned with that wicked desperat party within you the heart and these united Forces are too strong for you According as a lust is one with a mans heart or hath nearer connexion with his heart and Soul it is the worse to put away for will ye drive a man from himself it is the cuting off an right hand or plucking out of an right eye To make a man cease from such evils it requirs that a stronger power be within him then is in the world Men may cease for a time for want of occasions or temptations to sin when there is no active principle in them restraining or keeping their Soul from such sins as appears after when no sonner occasion is offered but they run as the Horse to his course or the Stone falleth downward they conceive Fire as easily as dry Stubble That is not Christian ceasing which is that which the Soul argues it self to from grounds of the Gospel Should I who am dead to sin live any longer therein This is a principle of Cessation and this is true liberty when the Soul can abstain from present temptations upon such grounds and perswasions of the Gospel then it is really above it self and above the world then hath it that true victory Many men cease only from sin because sin ceases from them they have not left it but it hath left them The old man thinks himself a changed man because he wallows not in the lusts of the flesh as in his youth But alas no thanks to him for that he hath not ceased from his lusts but temptations to him or power and ability in him to follow them hath ceased there is no change in his Spirit within for he can talk of his former sins with pleasure he continues in other evils as bad but more suitable to his age In a word he is so inwardly that if he were in his body and occasions offering as before he would be just the same Some again cease from some evils from some principles but alas they are no Christian principles VVhat restrains the multitude of Civilians from grosse scandals Is it any thing but affectation of a good Name and report in the world Is it not fear of reproach or censure Is it not because possibly they have no particular inclination to sueh evils And yet there are many other evils of the heart al 's evil though more subtill that they please themselves in as Pride Covetousnesse Malice Envie Ambition c. VVhat shall all your abstinence be accompted of when it is not love to Jesus Christ or hatred of sin that principles it It is not the outward abstinence that will commend you Such it is as the principles of it are And these only are the true Christian principles of Mortification love of Jesus Christ which constrains men to live no more to themselves but to be new Creatures 1 Cor. 5. 14 15. And hatred of sin in its Nature as sin A Christian should have a mortal hatred at it as his mortal enemy It is not Christianity to abstain from some fleshly lusts if ye consider them noâ— as your Souls enemies 1 Pet. 2. 11. Ye that love the Lord hate evil Psal 97. 10. These are chained together Davids hatred was a Soul hatred an abhorency Psal 119. 163. I hate and abhore lying it is like the natural Antipathies that are among Creatures The Soul hates not only the person of it but the nature of it also Men often hate sin only as it is circumstantiate but Christian hatred is a hatred of the Nature like the deadly feuds which are enimities against the kind and name I will put enimity between thy seed c. It is a perfect hatred Psal 139. 22. And so it cannot endure any sin because all is contrary to Gods Holinesse and offensive to his Spirit I would think it easier to forsake all evil and cease from doing any evil I mean presumptuously with a willing minâ— and endeavour then indeed to forsake one for as long as ye entertain so many lusts like it they shall make way for it It were easier to keep the whole Commandments in an Evangelical sense then indeed to keep any one for all of theâ— help another and subsist they cannot one with out another so that ye take a foolish course whâ— go about particular reformations Ye scandalous sinners professe that ye will amend the particular fault ye are guilty of and in the meaâ— time ye take no head to your Souls and Lives Therefore it shall be either in vain or not acceptable How pleasant a life would Christians have if they would indeed be perswaded to be altogether Christians The halfing of it neither pleaseth God nor delights you Iâ— keeps you but in continual torment between God and Baal your own lusts usurpe over you and that of Christ in you challenges the Supremacy so ye are as-men under two Masters
shining into the Soul that hath cleared them but their perpetual darknesse that blindeth them I say then in the Name of Jesus Christ that ye never knew the peace of God who knew not warr with God Ye know not love who have not known anger But this is the Souls true peace and tranquillity when it is once awakened to see its misery and danger How many Clouds overspread it what Tempests blow what Waves of Displeasure go over its head But when that peace which is made in the High Places breaketh thorow the Cloud with a Voice Son be of good comfort thy sins be forgiven thee when that Voice of the Spirit is uttered presently at its command the Wind and Waves obey the Soul is calmed as the Sea after a Storm It is not only untroubled but it is peaceable upon solid grounds because of the word which speaks peace in Christ The peace of the most of you is such as ye were born and Educated withal It is not a created peace a spoken peace the fruit of the lips and so no true peace Ye had not your peace from the word but ye brought it to the word Yâ— have no peace after trouble and so it is not the Lords peace The Christian may have peace in regard of his own Salvation and eternal things and in regard of all things that befalleth in â—ime The first is when the Conscience is sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus Christ and getteth a good answer to all the challenges and accusations of Conscience and of the Law and Justice 1 Pet. 3. 21. when the Spirit of God shines into the Soul with a new Light to discover these things that are freely given 1 Cor. 2. 12. And this is the Sealing of the Spirit after believing Eph. 1. 13. When a Soul hath put to its Seal by believing Gods word and hath acknowledged Gods Truth and Faithfulnesse in his word the Spirit Sealeth mutually the Believers Faith both by more Holinesse and the knowledge of it And how great peace is this when a Soul can look upon all its iniquities when they compasse about a man and outward trouble sharpeneth and setteth on edge inward challenges and yet the Soul will not fear it hath answers to them all in Christs Blood Psal 49. 5. This is a greater word then all the world can say Many mens fearlesnesse proceedeth from ignorance of sin their iniquities were never set in order before them but if once they compassed them about and wrath like a fiery wall compasse them about also so that there were no escaping Oh it would be more terrible then all the Armies of the world Ye would account little of a Kingdom ye would exchange it for such a word as David hath upon good grounds Now I say again the Soul that hath thus committed it self to him as a faithful keeper may have peace in all Estates and Conditions And this peace floweth from that other peace There is a peace which guards the heart and mind Phil. 4. 6 7. Opposed to carefulnesse and anxiety and this Paul is Examplar for I have learned in every estate therewith to be content to want and abound c. vers 11. The Soul of a Believer may be in an equal even Tenur and Disposition in all conditions It may possesse it self in patience Impatience and Anxiety makes a man not his own man he is not himself he injoys not himself he is a burden to himself and is his own tormenter But if Souls were stayed upon God certainly they would possesse themselves dwell securely within their own breasts We may find that the most part of men are exposed to all the floods and waves of the times They move inwardly as things are troubled outwardly Every thing addeth moment to their grief or joy Any Dispensation casteth the Ballance and either weights them down with discouragement or lifteth them up with vanity and lightnesse of mind But the Believers priviledge is to be unmoved in the midst of all the Tossings and Confusions of the times Psal 128. 1 2. Ye would be as Mount Zion if ye trusted in God No Dispensation should enter into the Soul to cast the Ballance upon you Ye might stand upon your Rock Jesus Christ and look about the Estates Persons Affairs and Minds of men as a troubled Sea fleeting tossed up and down and ye stand and not be moved or not greatly moved Ps 62. 2. And this is to be wise indeed If I would describe a wise man I would say he is one man beside him no man is one with himself but various inconstant changeable He is unwise who is unlike himself who changeth Persons according to Dispensations Wisdom is the stability of thy times and Faith is Wisdom it Establisheth as Mount Zion so as a man cometh out still one in prosperity not exalted in adversity not cast down in every Estate content and this is the man who is blessed indeed This werâ— wisdom to will the same thing and nill the same thing Semper idem velle atque idem nolle I need not saith Seneca add that exception that it be right which you desire for no one thing can universally and always please if it be not good and right So I say he were both wise and happy who had but one grief and one joy Should not a Believers mind be calm and â—erene seing the true Light hath shined it should be as the upper world where no blasts no storms or clouds are to ecclips the Sun or cloud it while our peace and tranquillity is borrowed from outward things certainly it must change But a Belâ—evers peace and tranquillity of mind having its rise from above from the unchangeable word of the Lord it needeth not to change according to the vicissitudes of Providence He needeth not to care before hand because there is one who careth for him And what needeth both to care He needeth not be disquieted or troubled after because it shall turn about to his good All things shall do so Rom. 8. 28. He needeth not be Anxious about future Events because he hath all his burden cast upon another by prayer and supplication VVhat needeth he then take a needlesse burden Prayer will do that which Care pretends and cannot do and that without trouble He needeth not be troubled when things are present for he cannot by his thought either add or diminish take away or prevent There is one good and necessary thing that his heart is upon and that cannot be taken from him And therefore all things else are indifferent and of small concernment to him Now what wanteth such a man of perfect peace who is reconciled to God and at peace within himself VVhen peace guardeth the Heart and Mind within compasseth it as a Castle or Garison to hold out all the vain Alarms of External things May not all the world be troubled about him VVhat though the Floods lift up their Voice if they come not into the
ingageth both to give a shelter and refuge to the poor sinner Would a Soul be any more tossed would there be any place for wavering and doubting if Souls considered his excellent loveing kindness and great goodness laid up and treasured with him for these that trust in him Psal 36. 7. Who would not put their trust under the shadow of his wings and think themselves safe Again if his eternal power were pondered how he is able to effectuat whatever he pleaseth what everlasting Armes he hath that by a word supports the frame of the world what he can do if he stretch out his Arm And then if these two immutable things Heb. 6. 18. His Promise and his Oath were looked upon how he hath ingaged himself in his Truth and sworn in his Holiness Would not a Soul ly safely between these three what strong consolation would such a threefold consideration yield Would any wind or tempest blow within these Walls mounted up to Heaven Stayedness on God is nothing else but the fixedness of believing and trusting Psal 112. 7 8. His heart is fixed trusting in God hiâ—â—eart is established It is even the mature and ripe age of Faith Fâ—ith while it is yet in infancy in its tender years it neither can endure storms nor can it confirm us in them But when it hath sprung up and grown in that root of Jesse wheâ— it is rooted and established in Jesus Christ then it establisheth the Soul Faith abiding in him and taking root groweth confirmed as a Tree that cannot easily be moved and if you establish Faith you shall be established There are two particulars which I conceive the trusting Soul is stayed on First in the meditation of God Secondly in expectation from him of all good things When I say the Meditation of God I take in both Contemplation and Affection The most part of men have but few thoughts of God at all even those who trust in him do not consider sufficiently what a One he is in whom they believe If Faith were vigorous and lively it would put men to often thinking on him seeking to know him in his glorious Names the mind would be stayed upon this glorious object as the most Mysterious and Wonderful One How throng are mens minds with their vanities When they awake they are not still with God The Meditation of him is a burden to them Any other thing geteth more time and thoughts But Meditation addeth Affection to Contemplation Men may think long upon the Heavens and their Course but their Affections are not ravished with them But this is the Soul stayed on God when the Souls desires are towards the remembrance of his Name then Affection stayeth the mind upon what it pitcheth one And certainly the mind giveth but passing looks constrained thoughts where the heart is not Here is Davids Meditation Psal 1. My delight is in the law of the Lord. The Soul of a Believer should be constant and fixed in the consideration of God till he be wholly ingaged to admiration and wondering O Lord how excellent is thy Name Ps 8. 1. And who is like unto thee You all say that you believe in God and know his Power you know he is Good he is Merciful Just Long suffering Faithful c. But what is all this knowledge but ignorance and your light darkness when it doth not press you to put your trust in his Name You know Nay but you consider not what you know This is trusting when the mind is stayed on what it knoweth when all the scattered thoughts and affections are called home and united in one to be exercised about this comprehensive Object The Lord our God It is not want of knowledge destroyeth you but want of consideration of what you know and this is brutishness Mens hearts do not carry Seal and Stamp of their knowledge because thoughts of God and his word are but as passengers that go thorow a Land as lightning going thorow the mind but warms it not And so their practice carrieth no impression of it either How base is it for those who have God for their God to be so ignorant of him Would not any man willingly travel about his own possessions Have you such a large portion Believers and should you be taken up with other vanities Should your hearts minds be stayed on them more then the living God There is a great vanity and levity in mens minds The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men that they are vanity There is aâ— unsetledness of Spirit we cannot pitch upon that on which we may be stayed And so all the spirits of men are in a continual motion from one thing to another for nothing giveth compleat satisfaction and therefore it must go and try one after another to see if it can find in it what iâ— found not in the former And such is the inconstancy of the Spirit that it licketh up its vomit and what thing it refused it eateth it up as itâ— meat The time is spent in choosing and refusing rejecting one thing and taking another and again returning to what you have rejected Thus are men tossed up and down and unstablâ— in all their ways as a Ship without ballasting Now Faith and trusting in God is the ballasâ— and weight of this inconstant Ship It is the Anchor to stay it from being driven to and fro once men would pitch upon this one Lord wiâ— hath in himself eminently all the scattered perfections of Creatures and infinitely more if you would consider him and meditate on him till your Souls loved him would you not be ravished with him Would you not build your house beside him and dwell in the meditation of his Name This would fix and establish you in duties when I awake I am still with thee A little searching and experience discovereth emptiness in all beside and therefore is it that the Soul removeth sooner from such a particular Creature then it expected but here is one that is past finding out The more I search and find I find him the more above what I can search and find The Creatures are but painted and fair in mens apprehension and at a distance but the near injoyment of them discovereth the delusion and sendeth a man away ashamed because he trusted But the Lord God is and there is no other he is not as waters that fail no liar he is an everlasting Fountain the more you dig and draw it runs the faster he will never send any away ashamed that trust in him because they shall find more then they expected Therefore the Soul that is stayed on meditation of God and knoweth him certainly will be fixed in expectation from him Our expectation from the Creatures changeth because it is oft frustrat disappoyntment meets it it is above what is in the Creature and so it must meet with disappoyntment But as he is above our meditation so is he far above our expectation And if a mans experience answer
come into the world first to Redeem his Spouse and so to Marry her And the Redeemer shall come unto Sion c. The Fathers Offer that he might not be wanting to help it forward is to Dispone by an irrevocable Covenant having the force of an absolute Donation His Word and Spirit to Christ and his Seed to the Church even to the end of the world vers 21. As for me this is my Covenant The Son hath done his part and is to express his infinit Love infinit Condescendency and stooping below his Majesty Now as for me I will shew my good will to it in my infinit Bounty and Riches of Grace to the Church he hath given himself for her I will give my Spirit and thus it cannot but hold We shall speak a word then of these three First what Estate and Condition Christ findeth his Church into out of which she must be taken to be his Spouse Then what way and course is laid down by the Counsel of Heaven to fill up the infinit distance between Christ and sinners and to close all we shall shew you the suitableness of these Promises and the wonderful fitness of this Doctrine to the Church at this time Isaiah Preached it and at all times The first is supposed in the words Redemption supponeth Captivity or Slavery Redemption of persons importeth Captivity and Slavery of these persons and Redemption of other things that belong to persons importeth Sale or Alienation of our right to them Of both Personall Redemption is the greatest and most difficult Yet both we have need of for our Estate and Fortune so to speak is lost For all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3. 23. That inheritance of eternal Life we have morgaged it and given away our right to it the favour of God and the blessedness of Communion with him was Adams Birthâ— right and by a free Donation was made hiâ— proper Inheritance and possâ—ssion to be transmitted to his Posterity But O how for how small a thing did he give it away for a little tast of an Aple he sold his Estate And both he and we may lament over it as the King that was constrained to render himself and all his Army for want of Water when he tasted it for how small a thing saith he have I lost my Kingdom Then our persons are in a state of Bondage in Captivity and Slavery Captives under the Wrath of God and Slaves or Servants to sin There needed no greater difference and difformity between Christ and us then this our servitude and bondage to sin which truely is the basest and most abominable Vassallage in the World The abasement of the Highest Prince to the vilest servitude under the basest Creatureâ— in his Dominion is but a shadow of that loathsome and ugly posture of our Souls This servitude doth in a manner unman us and transform us into Beasts Certainly it is that which in the Holy Eyes of God is more loathsome then any thing beside He seeth not that deformity in Poverty Nakednesse Sicknesse Slavery let a man be as miserable as Job on his Dung hill it is not so much that as the unseen and undiscerned Posture and Habit of their Souls that he abominateth Now what a Match is this for the Highest and Holiest Prince the Son of the greatest King and Heir of all things But if you add to this Slavery that Captivity under the Curse and Wrath of God that all men are shut up and inclosed in the prison of Gods faithful and irrevocable Sentence of Condemnation and given over by the righteous Judgement of God to be kept by Satan in everlasting Chains of Darkness He keepeth men now by the invisible Cords of their own sins but these Chains of Darkness are reserved for both him and men Now indeed this supperaddeth a great difficulty to the business the other may be a difficulty to his Mind and Affection because there is nothing to procure Love but all that may enforce Hatred and Loathing But suppose his infinit Love could come over this stay could leap over this Mountain by the freedom of it Yet there is a greater impediment in the way that may seem difficult to his Power and it is the Justice and Power of God enclosing sinners and shutting them up for eternal Wrath till a due satisfaction be had from or for them You see then how infinit the distance is betwixt him and us and how great the difficulty is to bring about this intended Union Angels were sent with flamming Swords to encompass the Tree of Life and keep it from man but man is environed by the Curse of the Almighty God the Justice the Faithfulness and the Power of God do Guard or set a watch about him that there is no access to him to save him but by undergoing the greatest danger and undertaking the greatest Party that ever was dealt withal and the strictest and severest too This being the case then the distance beiâ— so vast and the difficulty so great the dâ—stance being twofold between his Nature aâ—ours and between our quality and his an iâ—finit distance between his Divine Nature aâ— our flesh and besides an extream contrarieâ— between the Holiness of his Nature and thâ— finfulness of ours Such a repugnancy as theâ— is no reconciliation of them You know whaâ— Paul speaketh of the Marriage of Christiaâ— with Idolaters How much more will it holâ— here What communion can be between lighâ— and darkness between God and Belial Iâ— it possible these can be Reduced to Amity and brought to so near an Union Yet for all this it is possible But Loâ— and Wisdom must find out the way Infinit Love and infinit Wisdom consulting together What distance can they noâ— swallow up What difficulty can they noâ— overcome And here you have it the distance undertaken to be removed both by the Father anâ— the Son for all this while we can do nothing to help it forward Whill the blessed Plot is going on we are posting the faster to ouâ— own destruction and this is the way condescended upon First to fill up that wide gap between his Divine Spiritual Nature and our Mortall fleshly Nature it is agreeâ— upon that the Son shall come in our Flesh and be made partaker of Flesh and Blood with the Children And this is meaned by this Promise Tbe Redeemer shall come to Sion Which is plainly expressed by his own Mouth Joh. 16. 28. I come forth from the father and come into the world There being such a distance between his Majesty and our baseness Love maketh him stoop down and humble himself to the very state of a â—ervant Phil. 2. 7 8. And thus the Humiliation of Christ filleth up the first distance for Love and Majesty cannot long dwell together Nec in una sede morantur Majestas amor But Love will draw Majesty down below it self to meet with the Object of it This was the great
he is our kinsman nearest of blood to us Now you know â—he right of Redemption belonged to the kinsâ—an Lev. 25. 25. And therefore when the nearest kinsman â—ould not redeem Naomi and Ruths parcel of â—and Booz he did it as being next And â—uitable to this our Lord Jesus when others as â—ear could not and were not able He hath â—one it and taken Men and Angels to witnesse that he hath first Redeemed us that he miâ— Marry us as Eph. 5. That he hath purchâ—ed us to be his Wife And indeed the vâ— word imports this Goel a Redeemer â— Kinsman passing under one word So Iâ— I know that my redeemer or my kins-man live And because our Kins-man therefore nâ— interested in our Redemption For for end he became partaker of flash and blood with children that be might destroy our greatest enâ— Satan and redeem us Heb. 2. 14. And besiâ— he hath right to Redemption as the Churcâ— Husband because he must mediat between and all others none can reach her except please or prosecure a plea against her as in case of the Wifes making a vow if her â—band consented not it was void Num. â— But if he heard of it and held his peace it â— confirmed Now the Lord Jesus hath knâ— this Deplorable Estate we are Captives iâ— And he hath testified his utter dislike of binding over our selves to Death and reâ—ing our selves to Satan And therefore â— bondage in which we are detained is not â—firmed and ratified but he hath right remâ—ing to Redeem us from the hand of all our â—mies But then he alone hath Might â— Power to do it for God hath laid help on â— and made him able and mighty to save â— the uttermost It was not Gold or Silver â— Corruptible things Suppose the whole â—â— were turned into Gold or precious Stones â— must give person for person and one persoâ— quivalent to all his own Life his own Blâ— for us And the value of this was infinitely raised by thâ— stamp of his Divinity put upon it the King for the Servant one that knew no sin for sinners yea God for man This superads infinit Worth and makes it an over-ransom and over-purchase a ransom to buy our persons from Hell a purchase to redeem us to our Inheritance Heaven that we had lost and these two stiles it gets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now you see the great Difficulty is overcome and taken out of the way Christ being made a Curse hath purchased a redemption from the Curse of the Law Gal. 4. 13. But yet there is another poynt of vast distance I may say con trariety and enmity between us and him he is Holy and undefiled all fair and no spot in him We are wholly defiled and depraved by sin our Souls are become the habitation of Devils and a Cage of every unclean and hateful Bird In a word he hath not only our Enemies to overcome but our own hearts to conquer and our Enmity to take away This makes the widest separation from him Now he filled up much of the Distance with his taking our flesh and he removed the great Difficulty by dying in our flesh his Humiliation to be a Man brought him nearer us And his further Humiliation to be a Dying Crucified and Buried Man brought him yet a step nearer us But nearer he cannot come for lower he cannot be except he were a sinner which would marr the whole design and take away all the Comfort of his liknesse to us Therefore since he hath come so low down to us it is suitable we be raised up one step to meet him And so the Exaltation of sinners shall make up all the Distance and bring the two parties to that long since designed and long desired meeting Now for this end and purpose the Son undertakes the Redemption of his Church from sin and ungodliness al 's well as wrath And therefore you have that which is expressed as the Character of the redeemed in this Vers It is exponed as the great point or part of the Redemption it self by the Apostle Rom. 11. The Redeemer shall come to Sion to turn all ungodliness from Jacob. And so his end was not only to be partaker of our Nature but to make us partakers of the Divine Nature And therefore the Father out of his Love to this businesse he promiseth to send his Spirit to dwell in our hearts to make the Word sound in our Mouths and Ears and the Spirit to work in our hearts and this Exaltation of sinners to the participation of the Holy Spirit together with Christs Humiliation to partake of our Flesh makes up the full Distance and bringeth Christ and his Church to that holy patient Impatience and longing for the day when it shall be Solemnized in Heaven The Spirit within us sayes come and the bride sayes come even so come Lord Jesus And he waits for nothing but the Compleating and Adorning of all the rest that there may be one Jubilee for all and for ever Now I wish we could understand the Absolute and free Tenor of Gods Covenant There is much controversy speculative about the Condition of the Covenant about the Promises whither Absolute or Conditional And there is too much practical Debate in perplexed Consciences about this how to find something in themselvs to fit and fashion them for the Redemption But truely if we would not disjoyn and dismember the Truth of God but take it all intirely as one great design of Love and Metcy revealed to sinners and so conjoyn the Promises of the Covenant into one bundle we would certainly find that it hath the Voice of Jacob though it seem to have the Hand of Esau we find an absolute most free and inconditioned sense when there is a conditional strain and shadow of words in some places The truth is the turning of souls from ungodliness is not properly a Condition exacted from us as a Promise to be performed in us and the chiefest part of Christs Redemption And though some abuse the grace of God and turn it into wantonness and liberty Yet certainly this Doctrine that makes the greatest part of the glad news of the Gospel to be Redemption from sin and the pouring out of the Spirit is the greatest perswasive to a godly Conversation and the most deadly enemy to all ungodliness I thought to have spoken more of that third thing I proponed but take it in a word This was always proponed to the Church as the strongest Cordial it was given here as the greatest Consolation in all their long Captivity that this Redeemer was after wards to come whose Vertue was then living and present to the quickning and comforting of souls It was thought enough to uphold in a most desperat strait To us a child is born Isai 8. I wish we could take it so Certainly it was the Character of a Believer before Christs coming that he was one that was looking and waiting for the Salvation
of Israel by this Redeemer But now we are surrounded with Consolation before and behind Christ already come so that we may in joy say lo this is our God we have waited for him others waited and longed and we see him and Christ shortly to come again without sin to our Salvation And what could be able to take our Joy from us if we had one Eye always back to his first coming and another always forward to his comeing again SERMON XV. Isai 64. 6 7. But we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses as filthy raggs c. THis peoples condition aggreeth well with ours though the Lords dealing be very different The Confessory part of this Prayer belongeth to us now And strange it is that there is such odds of the Lords Dispensations when there is no difference in our Cohditions Always we know not how soon the complaint may be ours also This Prayer was prayed long before the Judgment and Captivity came one so that it had a Prophesy in the bosome of it Nay it was the most kindly and affectionat way of warning the people could get for Isaiah to pour forth such a prayer as if he beheld with his Eyes the Calamity as already come And indeed it becometh us so to look on the Word as if it gave a present beeing to things al 's certain and sensible as if they were really What strange stupidity must be in us when present things inflicted Judgments committed sins do not so much affect us as the forefight of them did move Isaiah Always as this was registrat for the peoples use to cause them still look on Judgements threatned as performed and present and anticipat the day of Affliction by repentance and also to be a Patern to them how to deal with God and plead with him from such grounds of Mercy and Covenant Interest So it may be to us a warning especially when sin is come to the Maturity and our secure backsliding Condition is with Child of sad Judgements when the harvest seemeth ripe to put the sickle in to it There is in these two Verses a confession of their own sinfulness from which grounds they justify Gods proceeding with them They take the cause upon themselves and justify him in his Judging whither Temporal or Spiritual Plagues were inflicted In this Verse they take a general survey of their sinful Estate concluding themselves unclean and all their performances and commanded Duties which they counted once their righteousness And from this ground they clear Gods dealing with them and put their mouth in the Dust and so from the Lords Judgment they are forced to enter into a search of the Cause so much sin and from discovered sin they pronounce God righteous in his Judgment perceiving a great difference in the Lords manner of dealing with them and their fathers they do not refound it upon God who is righteous in all his ways but retort it upon themselves and find a vast discrepance between themselves and their fathers Verse 5. And so it was no wonder that Gods Dispensation changed upon them God was wont to meet others to shew himself gracious even to prevent stroaks But now he was wroth with them Nay but there is good cause for it They rejoyced and wrought righteousness but we have sinned And this may be said in the general never one needeth to quarrel God for severe dealing If he deal worse with one then with another let every man look into his own bosome and see reason sufficient yea more provocation in themselves then others Always in this Verse they come to a more distinct veiw of their loathsome condition Any body may wrap up their repentance in a general notion of sin but they declare themselves to be more touched with it and condescend on particulars yet such particulars as comprehend many others And in this Confession you may look on the Spirits work having some Characters of the spirit in it First they take a general view of their uncleannesse and loathsome Estate by sin Not only do they see sin but sin in the sinfulnesse of it and uncleannesse of it Secondly They not only conclude so of the Natural Estate they were born into and the loathsomnesse of their many foul scandals among them But they go a further length to passe al 's severe a sentence on their Duties and Ordinances as God hath done Isai 1. and 66. The spirit convinceth according to Scriptures Light and not according to the dark spark of Natures Light and so that which Nature would have busked it self with as its Ornament that which they had covered themselves with as their Garment had spread their Duties as robs of Righteousnesse over their sins to hide them all this now goeth under the name of filthinesse and sin They see themselves wrapt up in as vile raggs as they covered and hid Commanded Duties and manifest Breaches come in one Category And not only is it some of them which their own Conscience could challenge in the time but all of them and all kinds of them Moral and Ceremohial Duties that were most sincere had most Affection in them all of them are filthy raggs now which but of late were their righteousnesle Thirdly there is an universality not only of the Actions but of Persons not only all the Peoples or Multitudes performances are abomination but all of them Isaiah and one and other the holiest of them come in in this Category and Rank we are all unclean c. Though the people it may be could not joyn Holy Isaiah with themselves yet humble Isaiah will joyn himself with the people and come in in one prayer And no doubt he was al 's sensible of sin now as when he began to prophecy and growing in holinesse he must grow also in sense of sinfulnesse Seing at the first sight of Gods Holinesse and Glory he cryed unclean c. Isai 6. 5. Certainly he doth so now from such a principle of accesse to Gods Holinesse which maketh him abhore himself in Dust and Ashes Fourthly They are not content with such a general but condescend to two special things two spiritual sins to wit Omission or shifting of spiritual Duties which contained the substance of Worship None calleth one thee few or none none to count upon calleth on thee that is careth for immediat accesse and approaching unto God in prayer and meditation c. Albeit External and Temple Duties be frequent yet who prayeth in secret or if any pray that cannot come in compt the Lord knoweth them not because they want the Spirits stamp on them This must be some other thing nor the general conviction of sin which the world hath who think they pray all their days Here people who though they make many prayers Isai 1. Yet they see them no prayers and no calling on Gods Name now But Fifthly to make the challenge the more and the confession more spiritual and compleat there is discovered
unto them this ground of their slacknesse and negligence in all spiritual Duties None stirreth up himself to take bold one thee Here is the want of the exercise of Faith Faith is the Souls hand and grip Jo. 1. 12. Heb. 6. 18. 1 Tim. 6. 12. Isai 27. 5. No body a waketh themselves out of their deadnesse and security to lay hold on thee Lord thou art going away and taking goodnight of the Land and no body is like to hold thee by the Garment No Jacobs here who will not let thee go till thou bless them None to prevail with thy Majesty every one is like to give Christ a free Pasport and Testimonial to go abroad and are almost Gadarens to pray him to depart out of their Coasts There is a strange lousnesse and indifferency in mens spirits concerning the one thing necessary Men ly by and dream over their days and never putteth the Souls Estate out of question None will give so much pains as to clear their interest in thee to lay hold on thee so as they may make peace with thee Now can there be a more ample and lively Description of our Estate both of the Land and of particular persons of it Since this must not be limited to the Nation of the Jews though the Prophet spake of the generality of them Yet no doubt all mankind is included in the first six-Verses And any secure people may be included in the seventh Verse for Paul applyeth even-such like speeches Rom. 13. that were spoken as you would think of Davids enemies only Yet the Spirit of God knowing the mind of the Spirit maketh a more general use of their condition to hold out the Natural Estate of all men out of Christ Jesus But there are in these two Verses other two things beside the acknowledgment of sin First the acknowledgment of Gods Righteousness in punishing them for now they need not quarrel God they find the cause of their sading in their own bosome they now joyn sin and punishment together wheras in the time of their prosperity they separated punishment from sin and in the time of their security in adversity they separated sin from punishment at one time making bare confession of sin without fear of Gods Justice at another time fretting and murmuring at his Judgments without the sense of their sin But now they joyn both these and the sight and sense of Gods displeasure maketh sin more bitter and to abound more and to appear in the loathsome and provocking nature of it so that their acknowledgement hath an edge upon it And again the sight and sense of sin maketh the Judgment appear most righteous and stoppeth their mouth from murmuring In the time of their impenitency under the Rod their language was very indifferent Ezek. 18. 2. The fathers have eaten sour graps and the childrens teeth are set on edge They have sinned and we suffer they have done the wrong and we pay for it But it is not so now verse 5. The Fathers have done righteousness in respect of us and thou was good unto them but we are all unclean and have sinned and so we are punished Secondly they find some cause and ground in God of their general defection not that he is the cause of their sin but in a righteous way he punished sin with sin God hid his Face denyed special Grace and Influence and so they ly still in their security and their sin became a spiritual plague Or this may be so read none calleth on thy Name when thou hid thy Face from us and when thou consumed us because of our iniquities And so it serveth to aggravat their deep security that though the Lord was departing from them yet none would keep him and hold him Though he did strike yet they prayed not Affliction did not awake them out of security and so the last words Thou hast consumed us c. Are differently exponed and read Some make it thus as it is in the Translation Thou hast hid thy face and left us in a spiritual deadness that so there might be no impediment to bring on deserved Judgment If we had called on thee and laid hold on thee it might have been prevented we might have prevailed with God but now our defence is removed thou hast given us up to a spirit of slumber and so we have no shield to hold of the stroak thou hast now good leave to consume us for our sins Another sense may be Thou hast suffered us to consume in our iniquity thou hast given us up to the hand of our sins And this is also a consequent of his hiding his Face because thou hid thy Face thou letteth us perish in our sins There needeth no more for our Consumption but only help us not out of them for we can soon destroy our selves First sin is in its own nature Ioathsome and maketh one unclean before God Sins nature is filthiness vileness so doth Isaiah speak of himself Chap. 6. 5. when he saw Gods Holiness So doth Job abhore himself which is the Affection which turneth a mans face off â— loathsome object when he saw God Job 40. 4. and 42 6. Look how loathsome our natural condition is holden out by God himself Ezek. 16. You cannot imagine any deformity in the Creature any filthiness but it is there The filthiness and vileness of sin shall appear if we consider first Sin is a transgression of the holy and spiritual Command and so a vile thing The Command is holy and good Rom. 7. And sin violateth and goeth flat contrary to the Command 1 Job 3 When so just and so equitable a Law is given God might have exacted other rigorous duties from us but when it is so framed that the Conscience must cry out all is equity all is righteous and more then righteous thou might command more and reward none It is Justice to Command but it is Mercy to Promise Life to obedience which I owe What then must the offence be against such a Just Command and so Holy If Holiness be the Beauty of the Creation sin must be the Deformity of it the only spot in its Face Secondly look upon sin in the sight of Gods Holiness and Infinit Majesty and O how hainous will it appear And therefore no man hath seen sin in the vileness of it but in the Light of Gods Countenance As Isai 6. 5. Job 40. and 42. God is of purer eyes then to behold iniquity he cannot look on it Hab. 1. 13. All other things beside sin God looketh on them as bearing some mark of his own Image all was very good and God saw it Gen. 1. and 2. Even the basest Creatures God looketh on them and seeth himself in them But sin is only Gods Eye-sore that his Holiness cannot away with it is most contrary unto him And as to his Soveraignty it is an high contempt and rebellion done to Gods Majesty it putteth God off the Throne will take no
as the â—â—n you would wash by it Secondly the uncleannesse of mens practice maketh unclean performances unclean hands make unclean prayers Isai 1. 15. When men go on in sin and use their members as instruments of unrighteousnesse against God and guiltinesse is above their head unrepented of and unpardoned then whatever the members act for God in religious Duties it must be also abominable for will God take prayers from such a mouth thaâ— cursing cometh out of Isai 3. 10 11 12 Shall sweet water come out of one Fountain with bitter Or can a Fig Tree bear both Thistles and Graps Certainly profane Conversation must make unclean profession And therefore your coming to the Church and Ordinances your praying in your Families or such like must of necessity be defiled since out of the same mouth cometh cursing railing lying filthy speeches Your tongues are so often imployed in Gods dishonour to blaspheme his Name to slander your Neighbours to reproach the Saints that all your prayers must be of the same stamp and al 's bitter as the other stream of your actions When you stretch forth your hands to make many prayers to take the Bread and Wine shall not God hide his Face from such hands as are unclean with many abominations some murdering some abusing their Neighbours some Sabbath-breaking some filthinesse how oft have your hands and feet served you to evil turns And therefore your good turns will never come in remembrance Nay believe it you cannot be heard of God while you cover any offence And this I may say in general even to the Saints any known sin given way to and intertained without controlment without wrestling against it hindereth the acceptation of your solemn approaches If your heart regard iniquity shall God hear Ps 66. 18. No believe it the least sin that you may judge at first venial and then give it toleration and indulgence shall separat between Gods Face and you Your prayers are abomination because of such an idol perked up in the heart beside God that getteth the Honour and Worship due to him and God must answer you according to it Ezek. 19. 1 3 4. God will not be enquired of such as give allowance to sin Ezek. 14. 2 3 4. And on the other hand no sin how great and hainous soever can hinder Gods gracious acceptation when Souls fly unto Jesus and turn their back upon sin or giveth it no heart allowance And to the multitude I say all that you do or touch in a Duty must be defiled because your whole way is unclean Hag. 2. 12 13 14. Think you to sin all the week thorow and worship God on the Sabbath will you lie swear commit adultery rail and curse and come and stand before me saith the Lord No certainly you cannot be accepted And will you hate reformation in your lives and yet take his Covenant in your mouth and call your selves by his Name Christians And shall not God challenge you for that al 's much as for your swearing and cursing and lying c. Indeed the Lord putteth all in one Roll and you need not please your selves in such things Psal 50. 16. Jer. 7. 9 10. For it is all one to you to go to Tavern to drink and come to the Sermon to blaspheme Gods Name and call on it because the profanity of the one defileth the other and the holiness of the other cannot make you holy Thirdly the natural mans performances want the uprightness reality and sincerity that is required it is but a painted Tomb full of rottenness within it is but a shadow without substance for he wanteth the spiritual part of worship which God careth for who will be worshiped in spirit and truth Joh. 4. 23. Now what is it that the most part of you can speak of but an outside of some few duties soon numbered You hear the preaching and your hearts wander about your business You hear and are not so much affected as you would be to hear some old story or fable told you A stage play acted before this generation would move them more then the Gospel doth So that Christ may take up this Lamentation We have piped to you and you have not danâ—ed lamented to you and you have not mourned You use to tell over some words in your prayers and are not so serious in any approach to God as in twenty other things of the world Whatever you plead of your hearts rightness and have recourse to it when your conversation cannot defend you yet your hearts are the worst of all and have no uprightness towards God for you know that what Duties you go about it is not from an inward principle but from Education or Custome or constraint Are you upright when you are forced for fear of censure to come here or to pray at home Is that sincerity and spiritual worship And for the more polished and refined professors you have this moth in your performances and this flea to make your Oyntment to stink that you do much to be seen of men therefore what little fervour of spirit is in secret Duties There you may measure your altitude and your life And O how wearisome how lifeless are secret approaches you would not have many errands to God if you thought no body looked upon you And for spirituality it is a Mystery in all mens practice Who directeth his Duty to Gods Glory If you get some flash of liberty you have your desire But who misseth Gods presence in Duties which a world will approve Who go mourning as without the Sun even when you have the Sun-shine of Ordinances and walketh in the light of them And fourthly though your performances had uprightness of heart going alongs and much affection in them yet all are filthy because of want of Faith in Jesus Christ When you make your Duties a covering of your sins and think to satisfy Gods Justice for the rest of your faults by doing some point of your Duty then it cannot choose but be polluted in his sight And this very thing was the cause of Gods rejecting the Jews righteousness even because they did not look to the end of the Mystery Christ Jesus Did not pull by the vail of Ceremonies to see the Immaculat Lamb of God slain for sin And therefore doth the Lord so quarrel with them as if he had never commanded them to do such things Isai 1. 12 13. Who hath required these things at your hands bring no more vain oblations all is Abomination Even as God should say to you when you come to the Church who required you to come Who commanded you to come to hear the Preaching What have you to do to pray What warrand have you to communicat All your Praying Hearing Communicating is Abomination who commanded you to do these things Would you not think it a foolish Question You would soon answer that God himself commanded you and will he not let us do his bidding Indeed this
hath all evil in it so must hell have all punishment in it The torment of a Gravel racking with the Stone and such like are but play to Hell these are but drops of that Ocean that you must drink out and you shall go out of one Hell into a worse eternity is the measure of its continuance and the degrees of it self are answerable to its duration There is much impatience even among Gods children under the rod you vex and torment your selves and doth well to be angry Any piece of thwarting dispensation that goeth cross to your humor and inclination embiâ—ters your spirit against God and maketh you go cross to his providence How often do your hearts say Why am I thus What aileth the Lord at me But Christians learn to study your own deservings and stop your mouth with that that you may not speak against Heaven If you knew sin well you would not wonder at judgements you would rather wonder that you are out of hell know what right God hath over you and how liâ— use he maketh of it against you when you â—pine at a little shall it not be righteousness wiâ— God to exact more and let you know your dâ—serving better He that thinketh it rigor in Go to exact fifty it is justice that God crave â— hundred If the Law require fourty stripe and he give but one will you not rather coâ—mend and proclaim his clemency then speak â— his cruelty Wonder that God hath spared â— so long Sin is come to great maturity as priâ— is said to blossome and bud into a rod so all sâ— are blossomed and budded into the very harvest that the sickle may be put in If we shouâ— have Citie desolate and our Land consumeâ— if we should take up Jeremiahs lamentation an our case be made paralel to theirs we haâ— then been punished less then our iniquities deserved There are some godless people so black mouthed as to speak against Heaven wheâ— God correcteth them they follow the counse of Jobs wise Curse God and die if God but touâ— them a little in that which is dearest unto theâ— they kick against the pricks and run hard-head with God As we have known some-foolish women when their only child hath been removed blaspeeme saying What can God dâ— more to me let him do what he can O madness and wickedness of men Cannot God do more when he casteth them in hell Thou shalt acknowledge that it is more Some have left off to seek God and turned profane because of the Lords correction But you would know â—â—at all that is here is but Arles If God had done his worst you might think your selves out of his common nay but he hath yet more to do the full summ is to be payed It were therefore wisdome yet to make supplication to thy Judge But thirdly Sins and iniquities have a great influence in the decay of Nations and Persons and change of their outward condition when it is joyned with the wind of Gods displeasure The calamity of this people is set down in excellent terms alluding to a tree in the fall of the leaf We saith he were once in our Land as a green tree busked round about with leaves and fruit our Church and State was in a flourishing condition at least nothing was wanting to make outward sâ—lendor and glory we were immoveable in our own Land as David said in his prosperity I shall never be moved so did we dream of eternity in earthly Canaan But now Lord we are like a tree in the fall of the leaf sin hath obstructed the influence of Heaven hath drawn away the sap of thy presence from among us so that we did fade as a leaf before its fall we were prepared so by our sinâ— for judgement visible draughts and prognosticks of it were to be read upon the condition and frame of all spirits and people And then did our iniquities raise the storm of thy indignation and that like a whirle-wind hath blown the withering leaves off the tree hath driven us out of our own Land and scattered us among strangers Sin and uncleanness and the filthiness of our righteousness prepared us for the storm made us light matter that could resist no judgement made us matter combustible And then iniquities and sin rising up to iniquities â—oming to such a degree hath accomplished the judgement put fire among us made us as the Birk in Yule-even First It is familiar in the Scripture that people in a prosperous condition are compared unto a green tree flourishing Psal 37. 35. The wickeds prospeting is like a green Bay tree spreading himself in power spreading out his arms as it were over moe Lands to conquer them over moe people to subject them And this is often the temptation of the godly and so doth the Lord himself witness of this people Jer. 11. 16. I have called thy name a green Olive tree fair and of goodly fruit This was once their name though it be now changed Now they are called a fading withering tree without both leaves and fruit Now their place doth not so much as know them they are removed as in a moment Psal 37. 36. And this comparison giveth us to understand something of the nature of humane glory and pomp The fairest and most beautiful excellency in the world the prosperity of nations and people is but like the glory of a tree in the spring or summer yea the Scripture useth to undervalue it more then so and the voice commandeth to cry Isa 40 6. 7 8. All flesh is grass and the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field the one withereth and the other fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it A tree hath some stability in it but the flower of the field is but of a moneth or a weeks standing Nay of one days standing for in the morning the grass is green and the Sun scorcheth it ere night so that one Sun's course shall see it both growing green and fadeing So is the goodliness the very perfection the quintessence so to speak and the abstract of creatures perfections Outward accommodation in a world is as fading a thing as the flower is as smoak is it is so vanishing that it bides but a puft of his breath to blow iâ— to nothing Job hath a strange expression Thou looketh upon me and I am not Job 7. 8. The Lord needeth no more but stare on the most durable creature and look it not only out of countenance but also look it into its first nothing look it out of glory out of beeing And therefore you would not trust in these uncertain things that can take wings and leave you When you have accommodation outwardly to your mind do not build your nest in it these leaves of prosperity will not cover you alwayes there is a time when they will fall Nations have their winter and their summer persons have them likewise as these must change in nature
say it as you use to say I pray both day â—d night Nay but count after this rule and â—ere will be found few prayers in Scotland alâ—it you reckon up both privat and publick â—nce scrape out of the compt the prayers of the â—ophane and scandalous whose practice deâ—eth their prayers And again blot out the â—ayers of mens tongues and mouths when â—arts are absent And again set aside the â—ormal dwyning coldrife indifferent suppliâ—tions of Saints and the prayers that carry no â—eal of Gods Name and Attributes on them â—rayers made to an unknown God And will â—ou find many behind No certainly any of â—ou may take up the complaint in behalf of the â—and There is none that calleth on thy Name or â—ew to count upon You may say so of your â—elves if you judge thus I have almost never â—rayed God hath never heard my voice and â—ou may say so of the Land This would be a â—ell spent day if this were but our exercise to â—nd out the sins of our duties in former humiliaâ—ions If the Spirit did so convince you as to â—ot out of the roll of Fasts all the former If â—ou come this length as to be convinced solidly â—at you have never yet prayed and mourned for â— I have lived this long and been babling â—ll this while I have never once spoken to God â—ut worshipped I knew not what fancied a God like my self that would be as soon pleaseâ— with me as I was with my self If the Lorâ— wrought thus on your hearts to put you â—â— your own righteousness you should have moâ— advantage in this then in all your Sabbaths anâ— Fasts hitherto Secondly Although the Lords hand be upoâ— them and they fade as a leaf and are driveâ— into another Land yet none calleth on his Name This maketh the complaint more lamentablâ— and no doubt is looked upon as a dreadful sigâ— and token of Gods displeasure and of sorâ— stroaks Daniel an eye-witnesse confirmeth thâ— foretold truth Chap. 9. 13. All this is come upon us yet have we not made our prayer to the Lord oâ— God Well may the Lord make a supposition and doubt of it Lev. 26. 40 41. After so many plagues are come on seven added to seven and again seven times more and yet they will not be humbled And when it is even at the door neâ— to utter destruction and consumption he addeth If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they take with the punishment of sin c. We need ask no reason of this for bray a fool in a morteâ— his folly will not depart from him Prov. 27. 22 Poor foolish man is a foolish man folly is born with him folly is his name and so is he He hath not so much wisdom as to hear the voice oâ— the rod and him that appointeth it Poor Ephraim is an undaunted heifer Nature is a bullock unaccustomed with the yoke and so it is chastised more and more Jer. 31. 18. Man is like aâ— untamed beast as the horse or as the mulâ— Threatnings will not do it God speaketh once yeâ— twice and man perceiveth it not Job 33. 14. God instructeth by the Word and men receive no instruction All the warnings to flee from the wrath to come are as so many tales to make children afraid He saith in his heart I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my own heart Since therefore he will not incline his ear to the Word God sendeth his rod to seal the Word and yet men are so wilde that they sight with Gods rods and will not submit to him A yoke must be put on Ephraim a bridle in mens mouths Psal 32. 9. They will put God to more pains then speaking and it shall cost them more pain For he that will not be drawn with the cords of a man love and intreaties must be drawn with the cords of a beast and yoked in a heavy yoke Yet men are unruly and the yoke groweth the heavier and sorer that they strive to shake it off An uncircumcised heart cannot be humbled How can the Leopard change his spots no more can my people return to me Jer. 13. 23. It is strange that a people so afflicted will not take with the punishment of their iniquity but will say in their heart Wherefore come these things upon me But here it is how can an uncircumcised heart be humbled God may beat on men with rods as on a dog but he will run away from him still the more Isai 9. 13. Nay it may be there will be more stirring after God and more awaking by the first stroak of affliction then when they are continued and multiplied The uncouthness of rods may affect people something but when his hand lyeth on but a little custome breedeth hardness aâ— more and more alienateth spirits from him Now we need no more to seal this truth â—â— our own experience I think never peopâ— might speak more sensibly of it It hath beâ— the manner of the Lords dealing with us to â— fair means to gain us to threaten before he laâ— on to give a proclamation before his stroakâ— And yet it hath been our manner from oâ— youth up to harden our selves against him anâ— go on in our own way Therefore hath thâ— Lord after long patience laid on sad stroaks anâ— smitten us yet have we not turned to him â— may be when the chastisement was fresh aâ— green some poured out a prayer and in trouble visited God Isai 26. 18. but the body of the Laâ— hath not known him that smote them and nâ—ver ran into their hiding place but the temptâ—tion of the time like a flood hath carried them awâ— with it And for the Lords children how soâ— doth the custome of a rod eat out the sense â— it and prayer doth not grow proportionably â— the Lords rods The Lord hath expected thâ— some might stand in the gap and interceed yet fâ— or none called on his Name General correction of the Land have made general apostacy froâ— God not a turning in to God So that we maâ— say we never entered a furnace but we havâ— come out with more dross contracted dross iâ— the fire Mens zeal and tenderness hath beeâ— burnt up reprobate silver may God call us We have had so much experience of the unprofitableness of former afflictions that we knoâ— not what the Lord shall do with us We thinâ— it may be the Lords complaint of Scotland Why should you be afflicted any more you will revolt more and more Isai 1. 5. What needeth another roâ— You are now all secure it is true because you are not stricken Nay but what needeth a rod for it cannot awake you all the fruit of it would be not to purge away sin but to increase it General judgements will prove general tentations and will alienate you more from me and make you curse God and the Covenant And indeed the truth is we know not what
outward Dispensation can fall on that can affect this generation We know not what the Lord can have behind that can work on us Judgement hath had as much terror Mercies as much sweetness and as much of God in the one and the other as readily hath been since the beginning of the world Only this we know all things are possible to him which are impossible to us And if the Spirit work to sanctifie the Rod a more gentle Rod shall work more effectually his Word shall do as much as his Rod. The case we are now into is just this None calleth on thee It is a terrible one whither our condition be good or bad outwardly our peace hath put us asleep and the Word cannot put men to prayers Now the Lord hath begun to threaten as you have been still in fear of new troubles and a revolution of affairs again yet I challenge your own Consciences and appeal to them whom hath the Word prevailed with to put to prayer Whom hath the rumour of approaching trouble put to their prayers Whose spirit hath been affected with Goâ— fâ—ouning on the Land And this yet more aâ— gravateth your laziness In the time that Goâ— doth shew terrible things to his people in Irelaâ— giveth them a cup of wormwood and to drink â— wine of astonishment Are not you yet at eâ—â— when your brethren and fellow saints are scaâ—tered among you as strangers yet your heaâ— bleed not Well behold the end of it you case is a sad prognostick of the Lords hideing hiâ— Face and consuming us Nay it is a sure token that his Face is hid already When Jâ— friends would aggravate his misery they sumâ— it up in this thou restrainest prayer from God Iâ— is more wrath to be kept from much praying nor to be scattered from your own house Therefore if you would have the cloud of Godâ— anger that covereth the Land with blackneâ— go over you and pour out it self on others you would prevent the Rod hearken to thâ— Word and stirr up your selves to much prayeâ— that you may be called his remembrancers Oâ— how long shall prayer be banished this Kingdom The Lords controversie must be greaâ— with us for since the days of our first love therâ— hath been great decay of the spirit of prayer The Children of God should be so much in it as they might be one with it David was so much in prayer as he in a manner defined himself by it Psal 109. 4. I gave my self unto prayer In the original there is no more but â— prayer I was all prayer It was my Work my Element my Affection my Action Nay to speak the truth it is the decay of prayer that hath made all this defection in the Land Would you know the original of many a publick mans Apostacy and backsliding in the cause of God what maketh them so soon forget their solemn ingagements and grow particular seeking their own things untender in seeking the things of God Would you trace back the Desertion up to the Fountain head Then come and see Look upon such a mans walking with God in private such a mans praying and you shall find matters have been first wrong there Alienation and estrangement from God himself in immediat Duties and secret approaches hath made mâ—ns Affections cooll to his interest in publick Duties And believe it the reason why so few great men or none are so cordial constant and through in Gods Matters is this they pray not in secret They come to Parliament or Council where publick Matters concerning the Honour of God are to be debated as any Stas-man of Venice would come to the Senate They have no dependence on God to be guided in these Matters They are much in publick Duties but little in secret with God Believe it any mans private walking with God shall be read upon his publick carriage whither he be Minister or Ruler There is yet another thing we would have you consider to endear this Duty unto you and bind upon your Consciences an absolute necessity of being much in it and it is this Prayer and calling on his Name is often put for all immediat Worship of God especially the more substantial and moral part of Service This people was much in Ceremonials and they made these their righteousness Nay but there was little secret conversing with God walking humbly with him loving him believing in him Well then prayer is as it were a compend and summ of all Duties It contains in it Faith Love Repentance all these should breath out in prayer In a word if we say to you be much in prayer we have said all and it is more then all the rest because it is a more near and immediat approach to God having more solid Religion in it If you be lively in this you are thriving Christians if you wither here all must decay for prayer sappeth and watereth all othes Duties with the influence of Heaven That stirreth up himself to take hold on thee This expresseth more of their condition under the Rod and while God was threatning to depart and leave them none took so much notice of it as to awake out of his dream to take a fast hold of God It was but like the grip a man taketh in his slumbering that he soon quiteth in his sleep None awaketh himself as a bird stirreth up it self with its wings to flight None do so spread out their sails to meet the wind This importeth a great security and negligence a careless stupidity To take hold to grip strongly and violently importeth both Faith acted on God and Communion with God so that the sense is no body careth whither thou go there is none that stirreth up himself to take violent hold of thee Men ly louse in their interest and indifferent in the one thing necessary do not strongly grip to it No body keepeth thee by prayer and intercession so that there is no diligence added to diligence there is no stirring up of our selves in security First when the Lord seemeth to withdraw and when he is angry it is our duty to take hold the more on him and not only to act Faith and call on him by prayer but to add to ordinary diligence it should be extraordinary First then I say when the Lord is withdrawing and seemeth angry we ought not to withdraw from him by unbelief but to draw near and take hold on him And the Lord giveth a reason of this himself Isai 26. 4 5. because fury is not in me It is but a moments anger it is not hatred of your persons but sins it is not fury that hath no discretion in it to difference between a friend and an enemy It is but at least a fathers anger that is not for destruction but correction The Lord is not implacable come to him and win him let bim take hold of me and let him make peace with me if he will make peace He is a God whose
purpose by Gods Grace to take more hold of God There is little minding of Duty and that maketh little doing of it Once ingage your hearts to a love and desire of more of this come to a point of resolution I must know him more and trust more in him be more acquant with him And Secondly Put your self in the way of Duty It is God that only can stirr you up or apply your hearts to the using of violence to God But ye would be found in the outward means much and in these ways God will meet with you if you wait on him in them For thou hast bid thy face from us Here is the greatest plague a spiritual plague The last Verse was but the beginning of sorrows We all do fade c. But lo here the accomplishnent of Misery God hiding his face and consuming them in the hand of their sins First The Lords hiding of his Face and giving up a people to melt away in their sins punishing with judicial blindness and security is the worst Judgment it filleth the Cup full This complaint goeth on still worse And certainly it is worse nor their fading as a leaf and exile out of their Land It is not without reason that great troubles and afflictions are so expressed thou hid thy face As David said thou hidst thy face and I was troubled importing as much as it â— not trouble that doth trouble but Gods hideing of his Face that maketh trouble troublâ— It is in so far trouble as it is a sign of his displeasure and as the frowns of his Countenance are upon it Therefore the Sainâ— aggravating their Affliction say thou hideâ— thy face You know the face is the placâ— wherinto either kindness or unkindness appeareth The Lords Countenance or Face is a refreshful sweet manifestation of himself to a Soul It is the Lord using familiarity with a spirit and this made David more glad nor Corn and Wine Now the hideing of the Face the withdrawing of his Countenance is when the Lord in his Dispensation and dealing doth withhold the manifestation of himself either in life or consolation When he covereth himself with Clouds round about that neither can a soul see in to the backside of it into his own warm heart nor can the Sun-beames shine thorow to quicken and refresh the soul The Lord draweth over his Face a Vail of a crossing dispensation or such like There is a desertion of the soul in the point of life and spiritual action and there is a desertion in regard of consolation The varieties of the Lords desertions run upon these two As a Christians life is action or consolation and the Lords influence is either quickening or comforting so his withdrawing is either a prejudice to the one or the other Sometimes he goeth mourning all the day nay but he is sick of love Sometime he is a bottle dryed in the smoak and his moisture dried up The Christians consolation may be substracted and his life abide but he cannot have spiritual consolation if he be not lively This life is more substantial comfort is more refreshful life is more solid comfort sweet that is true growing â—olid meat â—his but sawce to eat it with The hiding here meant is certainly a spiritual punishment The Lord denying unto this people grace to understand the voice of the rod he appearing as a party against them leaving them to their own carnal and lazie temper and thus they lay still under Gods displeasure Now there is nothing like this first because it is a spiritual punishment and estates are not to be valued and laid in the ballance with the soul Albeit men are become so brutish as to abase their souls and prostitute them to any thing yet all a man hath is not considerable to it Secondly It is a more excellent thing is removed by it In his favour is life all felicity and happiness is in Gods countenance If a man have not this what hath he else Losses are according as the thing is Nay but here is more My Lord is taken from me my God hath forgotten me And indeed if mans true happiness be in communion with God certainly any interruption coming in must be sad and make a man more miserable then the world knoweth There is a greater emphasis in that word Thou hast bid thy face then if he had said All the world hideth their face and maketh a scorn oâ— us Therefore first know what is the worsâ— thing of the times Many of you think sword and pestilence and the burdens of the time the worst things and if you were now to complain the saddest complaint would be Affliction is laid on our loins But know this if your Cities were desolate if your Land were made a wilderness and we captives in another Land there is yet a worse thing then all these and think you not this strange Nay I say there is something worse already in us that we know not of and it is this Make the hearts of this people hard A spirit of slumber and deadness from the Lord upon the Land There are multitudes he will never shew his face unto it is still vailed from them and they know him not Ye that think all were well if ye had peace and prosperity and know no hiding of Gods countenance no anger but when he striketh certainly you know not what his countenance is by all these things men neither know love nor hatred Secondly Whatever calamity come upon you outwardly deprecat most spiritual plagues and Gods deserting If you have Gods countenance it may make you glad in much sadness You would be most careful lest any partition-wall come in lest his countenance change on you if you grieve his spirit and break his heart Seek to have his face to shine and this shall be a Sun with healing under his wings O but Christs countenance is comely when it is seen without clouds but ofteâ— it is overclouded with much provocation Secondly The Lords hiding of his face hath influence on the temper of spirits and disposition in duties The truth is in general In him we live and move and â—ave our beeing And more especially in many things that is spiritual we are of our selves able to do nothing The creatures holiness and especially our life is but as the rayes that the Sun of Righteousness sendeth forth round about him and if any thing come between it evanisheth As the Marigold that openeth itâ— leaves when the Sun riseth and closeth when it goeth down again so exactly doth our spiritual constitution follow the motions of his countenance and depend wholly on them Thou hides thy face and they are troubled Psal 104. 9. The Lord needeth no more but discountenance us and we are gone Alwayes first be more dependent creatures we use to act as from habits within without any subordination to the Lords grace without us but we find that our sufficiency is not of our self How often doth your spiritual condition change on you in an hour You cannot command one thought of God or act from any habit of grace even then when you can bring forth other gifts in exercise Ye find that grace findeth more difficulties moe interruptions therefore learn to attend the changes and motions of his countenance Secondly When you find your heart dead and you concluded under an impossibility of taking hold on God in a lively manner then I pray you look unto the Lords suspending of his influence and let your whole endeavours be at the Throne of Grace to help it It will not be vour own provoking of your self to your duty but you must put your self upon God that he may cause his face to shine Thirdly Though the Lords hiding his face be often a cause of our deadness and his desertion maketh all to wither yet we have often a culpable hand in it And he hides his â—â—ce being provoked so to do One thing we may mention Grieving of the Holy Ghost whereby we are sealed quenching the motions of the Spirit maketh the Spirit cover his face with a vail and hide it There is here ordinarily a reciprocal or mutual influence Our grieving him makes him withdraw his countenance and his withdrawing his countenance maketh us to wither and grow barren Fourthly The most sure and infallible token of the Lords hiding his face is security and a spirit of deadness and laziness when folk go about duties dreaming and do all as it were thorow their sleep Therefore we may conclude sad things on this Land that the Lord hideth his face from us And therefore arise and do not settle and quiet your selves in such a condition The Lord is angry needeth any more be said No more needeth to kind children but the rod must follow this to make anger sensible FINIS