hee will save and some whom he will not Oh! we may well conceive what wrath and rage it worketh Reason 6 Lastly we know wrath is a short madnesse now mad men put no difference betweene any If a King should come in a mad mans way he would strike him as soone as a beggar So doth Selfe defeated She puts no difference between God and men She will sometime chuse men to whet herself on sometime God himself She curseth her luck and bad fortune the weather if too wet too dry too hot or too cold her ill lot and successe her ill market her enemies any thing that comes in her way what wonder then if she spare not Gods Minister yea God himselfe She lusteth after envy as Saint Iames saith and out of an ill custome and habit growes to be as old with God as with men if hee crosse her she knowes not she is not capable of subjection So much for reasons of the point Amplification The godly themselves so farre as led by Selfe rage if disappointed Nay more that which I have said of hypocrites may be verified in measure and with limitation even of the godly so farre as they are unmortified and led by this Spirit of Selfe though not totally yet in any particular case of error and delusion so farre as they forsake the promise and goe to worke by their owne conjectures and strength as in zeale and prayers wherein a good man may rest too much upon himselfe no doubt the Divell and their corruption feasts them but too much as one said he never seemed so zealous as before God mortified his owne spirit but after he found prayer another gates worke But when the Lord separates the pretious from the vile and shewes them the vanity and wanzingnesse of their owne principle it becomes as the very sting of an adder onely the the ods is an hypocrite is fretted with such a distemper Yet with difference from hypocrites as commonly makes him no better but the regenerate is wholesomely smitten by God to cause him with shame and sorrow to abhorre hmselfe and to crouch and runne under the wings of a better friend who can give him content from a better fountaine and of a more lasting nature Object But here comes an objection to be answered How comes it to passe then there being so many unsound and hollow ones in the world never more then now as appeares by their grosse and foule revolts how is it that we see them so joviall and merry still and heare of so few discontents and troubles in their lives or deaths Answ Selfe doth not rage till defeated To which I answer That the reason thereof is because they have no defeates Selfe in her quietnesse and jollity rages not but when shee meets with affronts either by disappointments or by terrors of the Law convincing and slaying the soul The soule in this case is abased and cast down either wholesomely as by a step to humiliation or else slavishly then she shifts and goes forward in a rotten course But Self rageth neverthelesse Or else recovers her selfe againe by her own subtility Note the difference In such as God will save the discovery of this Selfe and the subtilty thereof shall humble the conscience and worke a kindly change by degrees but yet Selfe and corruption will rage and rebell being loath to give place But as for the rest both Selfe and conscience together may not rage because the Law hath not put an enmity betweene them still they hold in together as body and members incorporate in each other and not divorced This by the way But marke The Lord doth not alway blesse the word to worke a defeat of Selfe in every hypocrite or unregenerate person neither doe all such meete with such defeats Ezek. 14. Rather the Lord suffers such justly to stumble at the blocks laid in their owne way by themselves As they chose error and delusion so the Lord leaves them to Satan to be more deluded 1 King 22. and so they fall as Ahab by his false Prophets because being taught the truth soundly they have preferred their owne ease and liberties to it Selfe may want defeats being given over by God to delusion and hardning Nay more the Lord suffers many such and it is a common thing in these declining dayes to be so farre from meeting with defeats that rather they are habited in their waies erring by necessity seeing no danger They are inchanted so with this cup of Selfe that it hath cast them into a deepe sleepe and they are as one asleepe in the toppe of the mast no buffetings will startle them out of their course And it were well with some that this were all For the uncleane spirit returnes into many Matth. 12. and imbarkes himselfe in them more strongly then before defiling them with such lusts as they lye open unto specially and bringing them into such a confused perplexity some by their uncleannesse some by intemperancy some by their open prophanenesse that they never outgrow it but goe on with wasted and seered consciences to their dying day without remorse Although such as belong to God shall return even by these unwelcome batterings for the Lord saw that else their fusty savour and taste would never have gone out So much for answer to this objection This doctrine falls point blanke upon many of us brethren to shame Vse 1 us for our distempers And first Terror let it bee Terror to all such as walke with this cursed heart of wrath impatience and discontent Wrathfull and discontented persons reproved daily and Branch 1 hourely carrying it as hot coales in their bosome and yet through habit never burnt not marking it in themselves Oh wofull creature Is Naaman here so blameworthy being an heathen and defeated of his will for his rage and distemper What shall become of thee then who art in continuall wrath and vexation Not in a fit as Paul calls it Ephe. 4.29 but as it were in a falling sicknesse Truly brethren Because raging in coole bloud I wrong Naaman to make him the text of such a commentary I tremble to thinke how many present themselves here duly at the worship of God who yet in their usuall course are never quiet neither in themselves nor with others They are as I may say steept in vinegar rarely shall you finde them other then froward waspish envious bitter and distempered and yet no defeat appeares to heat their bloud as here in Naaman they are so in very coole bloud out of the surquedry of their wickednesse they are alway distempered because wicked There is no peace saith my God to the wicked More like Nabals then Naamans Esay 57. ult of whom his owne servants could say he was so wicked that no man might speake to him As the Apostle in Rom. 1. describes those heathen Romans full of all wickednesse as a toad is full of
above them or her selfe above him all is one she examines nothing by the rule of right going to worke but rests in the deed done yea let what objections will come in their way they are at a point and returne to their owne bent thinking that the children of such prayers and duties cannot perish As those Jewes told Christ of the Master of the Synagogue he deserved he should heale his daughter for his good workes sake But if selfe were as she ought she should come in as that man did and tread himselfe in the dirt Master I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe so that in themselves they can feele somewhat to trust too though it be nothing but in the Lords promise bee it never so evident they feele nothing Thirdly the motion of Selfe is eager and violent she wants that inward moover of the spirit 3. Her Violence which should act her by the power of a sweet principle from within and put boote in beame as we say securing her of a good and safe issue of her labour For then she would not put forth her selfe so earnestly and violently by her owne strength but calmely and quietly rest her selfe well satisfied in the comfort of that spirit which can effect her desire and subject her owne endeavours and performances to the spirit of grace As the Prophet Esay telleth those Jewes who strove to overcome their enemies by the aide of forraine confederates Esay 30. your strength is to sit still follow not your own violent motion but trust to the Lord and let your streame runne in his runne softly as the waters of Silâ—e so I say to this violent selfe stand still behold the salvation of God and you shall see your enemies all scattered not by your strength or might but by the power of God We know what strife a man useth in his trade who hath no inward principle of skill to enable him in comparison of a skilfull workeman the one is more painfull then the other but the latter hath more ease in his worke And hence it is that selfe hath so continuall a toile to hold correspondence with grace as fast as corruption rebells shee falls to damming and stopping the course of it but the more she dammes up the passage the higher the waters swell and rise so that she must needs give them some way and course at last and grow weary of resistance whereas the poore soule whose heart is humbled and broken feeles the streame and torrent to be turned another way and so she needs not alway resist and dâ—mme it up because it s prevented by a stronger motion And in truth selfe-violence is no better then selfsloth in this respect for she findes as small fruit of her strife as of her ease neither are blessed when she is lazy she is snared with accusation and when she is satagent and busie shee is discouraged with ill successe the Lord aiming at this that so shee may be weary of her selfe There seemes I grant for the present while selfe keepes her motion a great deale of zeale in selfe performances as one said of himselfe that while he praied out of himselfe he praied with far more zeale passion and expression then when hee praied by the spirit of grace and supplication Selfe being very full and free in her owne element but barren and off the hookes if out of it And this violence may appeare further in the frequency and difficulty of selfe-performances for as wee see where there be fewest good and solid dishes of meate at a table there will bee the more slight ones with their covers upon them as if there were some great matter under so is it with Selfe the lesse substance she hath the more shews shadowes the more pompe and ostentation Mâ—tth 23. Mica 6. The Pharisees and those Hypocrites in Micah were fuller of their traditions washings and clensings offerings of costly and excessive services then the faithfull worshippers who rested rather in a little and good viz to walke humbly and righteously with God then in a world of drosse As a drunkard so long as he can use his tongue and his feete thinkes himselfe sober whereas the truly temperate suspects himselfe at every turne so here selfe lookes at her owne motion not how regular and orderly it is As a boy unskilfull in writing when his hand is led delights still to stir it and to move his hand of himselfe and so blurs and blots more then he writes so selfe will be stirring and doing full of her owne spirit in praying fasting hearing and the like no man can be zealous enough to please her Christ himselfe was not good enough for a selfe-pleasing hypocrite The Lord loves no double diligent ones but those who being led by the spirit of selfedeniall and grace rest themselves upon the power of a promise not to be idle but as abhorring to make more haste then good speed Lastly Self if she be defeated of what she would 4. Her disappointment is sore disquieted and unsetled The greater her heat and violence was in motion the deeper is her discontent if crossed Concerning which I shall have more occasion to speake in the next verse Here only it shall bee sufficient to give a touch of it When Selfe is held off and delaied she falls upon God Oh! what a wofull fruit of all my labour is this that God should so long keepe me from my desires and thus long crosse me hence come cavills against God as if he did them wrong thus to disappoint them selfe is querulous Esay 58. Esâ—y 58. Mal. 3. full of tedious accusations and baskings of her selfe much like one that cannot swimme who yet will beat the waters and this comes partly from presumption and partly from bondage as thinking she should deserve better from God and yet feels all ill within whereas a poore soule being beaten off one way yet feeling a support within girds her selfe the more about and looking at the unchangeable faithfulnesse of God interprets his delaies no otherwise then the Syrophoenician did Christs answers not to be cordiall but trying her faith self-deniall O Lord saith she although thou beatest me off Matth. 15. thou meanest not to reject me for that were contrary to thy office to save the scattered ones of Israel Therefore O Lord here I lye at thy feete if thou kick me away and have no pleasure in me I can say nothing doe with me as thou wilt I am not at mine owne but thy dispose and if it seem good to thy wisdome to deferre me I shall thinke it meeter for the time present then to be satisfied since it s ever best for me to be as thou wilt have me knowing it shall be one day as thou hast promised And surely well may I adde this fourth marke to the former for as selfe hath no bounds of humility and modesty when she is pleased with her duties
Consumption A great gash of a sword upon a fleshie part arme or thigh carries more bloudy shew with it but the drawing of a small wyre through the heart is far more mortall the prick of a pin there is worse then the wound of a sword upon the legge To finish this use constantly all spirituall lively quickning ordinances and the more lively dispensed the rather Side with them that are spirituall cast thy lot into their lap mourne with them laugh with them gaine or lose with them trade with them of all duties meanes or graces oftenest trade with the most spirituall especially faith the life of all both in one condition of life and other such meditations as thou feelest will leave thee most heavenly and carry thee farthest off thy self traffique most withall knowing that a carnall lukewarme spirit is alway at the doore offering it selfe but a spirituall will not bee kept save by strong hand Preferre this spirit of grace in thy wife child or friend before the most beautifull rich or politicke fellow in all the Country love such an one with all his infirmities rather then another with the best accomplishments Also use Gods afflicting hand wisely for that fire is needfull oft-times to quicken inward hearts as the fire of thy heart to helpe the heat of thy fingers and feet and thereby God would visit thy spirit and keep it in temper So much for this first branch Branch 2 Secondly if by any meanes thou be sunke and decayed in this spirit of Grace Admon Recover again thy temper if it be lost by what meanes never lin till thou hast recovered it againe Many wayes this may be and never fals out more frequently then in these false-hearted dayes Sometimes by overmuch piddling about the bables of this world for every of us must have some vanity or other to while our selves about sometimes by more sad plodding about profit and commodity or by multiplicity of businesse and more irons in the fire then we can well manage over-stocking our selves with cares and employments which we cannot compasse sometime by sadde accidents in our course as ill successe in our trades distempers through unequal yoking in marriage wrath frowardnesse and discontent betweene couples or by rash suretiship which proves a great snare to the spirit by bad debtors by decay in our estate through improvidence and unskilfulnesse by false friends bringing us into trouble by quarrels and sutes in Law especially with potent adversaries by bad children not answerable to their education and hopes These weare and teare out the spirit of Grace disguise a man and weaken his zeale care tendernesse yea oft make him ashamed to put forth himselfe for God lest his poverty be cast in his teeth They intercept a mans times and seasons for God as the hearing of the Word frequently hinder our joy liberty or leisure to set up God in the family or to maintaine secret interest with him they hamper the affections from expressing that grace which is within There bee other occasions also within as ease and sloth wearinesse of a base heart also some mixt of both as want of good Ministery or removall of dwellings which oft are a great hurry to a good mind which is not in her power and liberty in such cases want of good examples or helpe of private friends sorting together in the wayes of God All these helping a wofull world of Declensions the Devill and a base heart must needs damp and coole many and alas when this disease is not cured betimes it will at last breake out into worse evils sad revolts breach of peace and losse of conscience with ill report and scandall which are not easily cured Therefore for such this I say Dost thou come to see this thine estate Dost thou perceive hereby thy precious spirit to be weatherbeaten and halfe blasted thy fatnesse and sweetnesse to be gone thy selfe to become as a dry branch and as one in whom there is no forme or beauty to be desired as in times past Mourne for it as for the losse of a jewell Say thus Who shall give me the wings of a Dove Psal 55.6 Ier. 2.2 that I may flee into the Wildernesse and there with a pensive soule call to mind the love of my youth which the Lord in those first cords of his and drawings of my heart inspired mee withall Oh! how little did I then looke for such a change When I was one of the children of the bride-chamber I was merry and joyfull But now I had need to fast and mourne Then I knew not what sorrow and sinne meant but went in and out with God at pleasure Oh! that some happy messenger from God might bring me newes of the recovery of of my spirit again to that temper whereof it was wont to be yea if it were but newes of a way by which it might be once restored Well if thou wilt not give God over he will not forget thee For why if thou be sure that ever this spirit was indeed wrought in thee by the worke of God whose workes are perfect like himselfe then know that this spirit is eternall And therefore as I advise thee to tremble at thy deadnesse and lukewarmnesse so yet I adde lin not till some beame of ray of that old spirit of Grace as the Sun through a cloud shine into thy prison wals and cause thy flesh to returne againe through faith in his promise as the flesh of a little child If things indifferent or crosses have disguised thee the worke will be the lesse to file thee bright againe because the leprosie is but in the skinne But if any speciall and grosse sinne have fretted inward and rusted thy spirit wasted thy first love then let it smite thee as an arrow piercing thy liver desire God to flayte and gaster thee out of that lap and bosome Simil. as Sampson out of Delilah's As they who worke in Coalepits if once they see their candle to burne blew make away with all haste possible lest they be choaked So thou whiles any life and spirit remains hast thy selfe out of this sadde damp and looke up to him to prevent utter death who hath promised to establish thee with his free spirit and so to renue it that it might never againe waste or decay in thee See that it doe not Thou hast felt the danger of losing it and the presence of God to thy soule by it If God have gathered it up againe as water spilt on the ground and girded up the loynes of thy soule with a second girdle of renewed zeale and fervour of heart lock thy doore upon thy beloved clip him faster in thine armes then ever and sinne no more lest a worse thing befall thee Fifthly this Use leads me to another and more weighty one of Use 5 Examination Examination to try thy selfe about this spirit of Grace whether ever it were wrought in thee soundly or not There is no
of that habit and savour of grace which makes the sound heart desire and resolve to be be good whether any other in the world be so besides himselfe or not The life of the child was so deare to the true mother that although it went against the edge yet she chose rather the false mother should have it then it should be slaine And therefore it was adjudged to her as her owne So is it here A true heart would cose any losse rather deny it selfe to the death then the life of religion should be indangered because it is bred in her bosome So then you see brethren Positives comming from life cannot be assembled by the heart which is dead and unsound An hypocrite for his humour would have the the child religion into his possession for his credit not for love of the life of it for he will starve and kill it for lacke of good keeping only the true mother that bare it and knowes the price of it will nurse and nourish it with her breasts Try thy selfe by this Any Ape will imitate somewhat in a man but he can neither laugh nor speake for lack of Reason Fourthly trie this spirit of Grace by the object Grace strikes at the root By the object the order and equality thereof falshood at the branches onely The zeale love and grace of the spirit is chiefly and mainly against the chiefe corruption of the heart then of life and it is first earnest for the maine most weighty matters of God and then for second things Not first for the latter and then for the former Againe it is orderly equall not preposterous and disproportioned Great are the cries of many Separators from our Communion against corruptions abuses in our Church But you shall scarce marke any order in their spirits They begin not at home are not zealous against the abuses of their owne soules see not the pride and desperate selfe-love of their owne hearts The glory of God in their owne Reformation they will not looke at Separatists frō our Church how blind in the discovery of their owne corruptions but suffer themselves to swarme with all base evils see no want of Charity Mercy Compassion Discretion in themselves If they would see their owne beames they might the better discover others But alas if there were no Church abuses to speake of their occupation would cease And why speake they of these abuses Not as becomes them in patience and innocencie to wait for a blessed redresse but to overthrow the Church quite and pull downe the very frame and foundations of it yea to raze it to the ground which never did any of those who are ten times more judicious then the best of them attempt or intend And so they bring an aspersion upon others to be as giddy and rash as themselves who yet as much abhorre it as they do those abuses If the Spirit of Grace of a sound humble and tender heart cleaving to the Word close to the Ordinances could be found in them If Christ and the worke of Faith and Regeneration were as great objects in their eye as outward administrations of the Church we might hope better of their persons then now we can So I might instance in other particulars Many men have zeale affections in them but how do they improve them Surely not upon the reall things of the Gospell but upon personall objects censuring such as equal not themselves in their supposed grace judging men for their ignorance infirmities errors Whereas the spirit of Grace looks inward 1 Cor. 13. it is mercifull long-suffering meeke loving hopeth all things endureth all things it judgeth her selfe in secret and leaves others to stand or fall to their owne Master So likewise the Spirit of Grace is free as the Apostle saith from all partiality and hypocrisie A false spirit cleaves to this Minister or to that for some by-respects Cephas Apollo Paul Rom. 14 4. Iam. 3.17 1 Cor. 3.22 shall goe for his money and accordingly is carried in such affection sometimes above the clouds sometimes lower then the earth in likes and dislikes But a sound spirit loves all the faithfull Ministers of Christ with sutable tendernesse of heart though the measure be as the peculiar relation stands and holds the same affection constantly to all for Christs sake The badge of their Master procures honour to them in his heart whether old young neere farre off the gifts and graces of God though lying diversly are the object of his love Not only will a faithfull Minister be for God in Pulpit but out of it also not zealous in publique and in private as another common person A good heart will not affect a strict closenesse upon the Sabbath and then upon other dayes loose or carelesse in the duties of the second Table using all sorts of companies taking all liberties breaking promises paying no debts running up and downe with neglect of calling and family this is no spirit of grace but of corruptiom guilded over with some file of zeale without substance Fifthly the carriage of the spirit of Grace discernes it from the spirit of unsoundnesse For you shall commonly find The carriage of it that although a false heart will be as earnest zealous and forward as an honest yet one fly or other of selfe reflection will bewray whence it comes even from pride and seeking it selfe It cannot beteame and afford the Lord the cleere and entire honour of the action except in the dressing it licke her owne fingers As a rat behind the painted cloth so doth falshood discover it selfe herein It is as oyle in the hand which cannot be held in If it be in a Preacher you shall find it thus Truly you must pardon mee I was put to it upon a sudden but I trust to your patience why Oh! to draw on praise and admiration Oh saith another I could not satisfie my self in what I did Another will aske How did you taste my doctrine to day even as feast-makers cannot bid their friends welcome be merry but there must be a tang of folly You must pardon us for our poore cheere when yet they know they abound so here Others cannot bring forth a point but it must be with a preface I am to speake to you of a speciall point and I doubt it will search the most of us to the quicke Sundry miscarriages of an unsound heart discovered a point that few of you have heard till now and many there are so full of themselves that if they heare any man of worth praised for his worth they are upon thornes till they can set another copie of their own by the other to blemish it I was the first man saith one that first brought the Gospell into the town I was the man who hunted out such a drunkard and brought such an Adulterer to shame I do such and such good to the Ministery to the poore and the like I have
five or six things pag. 579 Enlargers of promises beyond their due bounds to be reproved pag. 581 Exhortation to get the â—pirit of true grace and conversion to God 886 And such as have attained the same to stand fast therein ibid. Vrging of it upon all sorts and conditions and especially his owne congregation ibid. F. Favour of Nature in a civill person how many wayes it may be enlâ—rged As by the Lawes of men education examples of abstinent and morall persons pag. 104. 105 We must be Fools ere wee can become wise to salvation pag. 232 Faith the onely eye to behold the mysteries of salvation pag. 234 Faithfulnesse is the center whence all the graces of a servant are derived pag. 296 Faithfull servants may hee comforted 314. foure or five particulars of encouragement ibid. Faithfull ones in greater things will much more be so in smaller 427 Reasons of it ibid. Explications of the point two or three pag. 429 Faith what it is not what it is how wrought see the particulars pag. 480. It may be where assurance is not ibid. Why it is called obedience and consent pag. 486 Faith a most pretious thing in the nature of it 495. Shee hath the prerogative of all other graces of the Spirit ibid. and that in sundry respects ibid. Faith consists of two parts Selfe-renouncing and Selfe-resigning Read at â—â—rge of both ibid. Feare of God a singular meane to keep the heart close to God pag. 559 Faith in applying of promises how to be practised in our severall needs distempers 1 in the return of old guilt and accusation after mercy obtained 2. In some eclipsing of Gods gracious presence and walking darkly and deadly 3. Feare of falling into some scandall and never persevere 4. In sicknesse poverty losses and crosses enemies unfaithfull friends the prosperity of the bad 5. Not hearing of thy prayers 6. Troubles above other mens persecutions c. Feare of death pag. 584 Faith in promises and performances is a most pretious jewel and why 612 True faith is performing faith and how ibid. yea when shee is at the lowest ibid. Faith in performances must bee set on worke threewayes 1. To take measure of the promises 2. To let upon God for performance 3. To strengthen it selfe by experience 615. Contrary misery of unbeliefe Vide Vnbeliefe pag. 616 False cures have a false spirit the remedy whereof is worse then the disease pag. 864 G. Grace is free proved and discoursed and cleared 9. 10. Objections answered As first this were to translate a crâ—me upon God 2. Man hath liberty left him to receive grace or refuse 3. God will not be wanting to such as are not wanting to themselves 4. Grace is universall as the fall is 5. Else God should require obedience of man to that which hee never gave him power to doe 6. Christ the second Adam was fully and in all points contrary to the first Adam and as the offence was so is grace 7. How else shall a Minister dispence the Gospel aright 8. Else God doth unjustly in making the remedy worse then the disease or in offering it deceitfully to such as hee hath fore-barred 9. From the instance of a Prince offering pardon c. 10. The dâ—versitie in men ariseth from themselves from page 11. to page 14. God is not tied to as in outward blessings or protection 23. Nor yet in like measures of grace except we beleeve and pray 24. Nor yet in a like administration of his Church in prosperity ibid. because of her sinnes ibid. Gods courses and seasons in drawing home men are divers and manifold pag. 26 Gods will double and the difference ibid. Gods way in converting any is chiefly to subdue carnall savour to the obedience of Christ pag. 59 God useth silly instruments to doe great things or if great then either he makes them great of meane or else mean in their owne eyes pag. 67 God delights to confound great ones by small and poore things pag. 68 God is jealous of his own glory ibid. God useth mean instruments to doe his worke and why ibid. 71 Gifts and graces of themselves do no more cause pride in such as have them then ignorance causeth humility pag. 73 Godly Ministers must not onely use but also lay downe and renounce their service for God if hee shall call them to it pag. 78 Grace is best accepted by such as are most empty of it pag. 154 Gods people who have shot the gulfe of Self in conversion must also deny themselves in conversation 183. Causes why so few deny themselves for Christ ibid. Gods people must not bee ashamed or weary of sincerity because of carnall worldlings pag. 185 Godly Christians must so hate carnal reason that they also shun just aspersion of foolishnesse pag. 213 God befooles carnall reason pag. 226 God himselfe and the Word justifie policie Vide policy Grounding upon stable principles of truth necessary for each Christian 254. Good grounds must bee laid at first pag. 256 Gods people must beware of the boasting of ungrounded hypocrites pag. 260 Godly themselves so farre as led by Selfe when they are defeated rage 268. yet with difference from hypocrites ib d. Gods hearers will bee at Gods dispose for blessing pag. 273 Great men must submit their great spirits meekly to God pag. 274 God hath speciall reason to delay his work in the conversion of his pag. 282 God will never lin with his owne tiâ— he have throughly tamed their rebellion pag. 291 God stands countable to good servants pag. 295 Grace adds all qualifications to a servant 295. As first wisedome â—o behold God the authour of all relations 2. Subjection of spirit which consists of two branches 1. Selfe-deniall 2. Serviceablenesse ibid. It sets faith on worke three wayes 1. Purging out such distempers as possesse them 2. Furnisheth it with speciall gifts 3. Puts it into actual exercise pag. 301 Grace is easie to them who are bred for it pag. 363 How it is called a burden and how ease ibid. God looks that his servants should do some singular thing for him pag. 395 Gods counsels most sincere of all pag. 424 Gods faithfulnesse to us in the main things must teach us to trust him in the smaller pag. 433 God hath a season wherein at last he accomplisheth the worke of grace in his elect pag. 439 When as God is that to the soule which formerly sinne and vanity have been it 's a signe that the soule is resigned up to God pag. 500 Gods commands exceed mans in point of unlimitednesse and soveraignty pag. 524 Gods remedies are perfect but mans are crazie pag. 587 God over-rules the silly creature to worke gâ—eat effects above it selfe pag. 590 Gods performances are alway as good if not better then his promises Reasons of it 1. Because he is Iehova the being of all the promises 2. In respect of his honor 3. Whatsoever is in God is eminently so 4. For strengthning his servants
Jesus lying at the stake with thy guilt as thy surety for whose sake the deadly enmity of God is abated toward thee And doth this cause thee to take more thought for thy soule then to dispute with God Well then feed thine heart with this thought that the Lord will save some and whom save those whom its provided for even those who can beleeve that free mercy is as well worth the embracing as soveraignty is worth the fearing and therefore determine with themselves rather with a trembling foot to goe towards the former then with a blasphemous mouth to goe to hel Leave Gods secrets and try him in his revealed will and way he hath professed that none who chuse life shall dye none shall endure the disadvantage of their sin who come to Christ as having discharged them from it by bearing it for them Chuse then to live 1 King 20.33 Ahab had Benhadad at a great advantage If his power had driven Benhadad to be stout and desperate there had beene no remedy but he must have dyed upon his owne sword But he left the sharpe point of his advantage and be thought himselfe that the Kings of Israel were mercifull His servants put him in hope that he might possibly fall into mercifull hands This drew him to give over despaire and to chuse hope and therefore with trembling acknowledgement of the advantage and with ropes about their necks he sends to this King for release and pardon and sped of it Do thou so and prosper chuse the hope and renounce the despaire All Gods people having two things set before them by the one whereof they cannot chuse but perish by the other they may possibly escape they being led by the spirit of hope grace forsake bondage terror and despaire and light upon the other And that conducts them by a doore of hope to the Pallace of pardon When those lepers who were shut out from all company and reliefe laid together the sad spectacle of the assured dying in the city with the possible though perilous hope of life in the campe of Aram 2 Kings 7.3.4 Adventure upon the promise what did they They put their lives in their bosomes they counted them no more worth then a straw under their feet if they save us we shall live say they if they kill us we are but dead men better is it for us to die with adventuring for life then to die here in coole bloud and so they were saved Doe thou so Know it there is no poore soule who was ever freed from Gods advantage and wrath save they who gave finall free sentence against themselves as making full account to perish if mercy did not save them at a narrow and a dead lift even a hundred to one Hast thou ever passed this narrow adventure Then though in respect of thy selfe its an hundred to one but thou perish yet in respect of God and his promise upon which as a sure bottome thou venturest thou canst not but be saved All the difficulty is in the adventure Loth are men to carry their lives so loose skin for skin and all they have they will give for life Job 1. But they whom God hath brought to be at his uttermost advantage will give over all their owne props hopes helpes duties devotions and performances and carry their lives in their bosome if they perish by venturing upon the promise they perish but to be sure by not beleeving they must perish He that is brought to this point may say truely if I had not perished I had perished indeed my perishing was my happinesse In thus doing thou hast hope but otherwise none Ninthly yet so venture thy selfe as a forlorne wretch upon the Lord Venture not at hap-hazard but upon a sure stay Branch 9 and as one that goes not to worke at a meere hap-hazard but as one else lost venture upon a promise as a sure stay and refuge which cannot faile thee If thou be under this condition the Lord puts thee not upon a meer adventure which may prove well or ill but upon the promise of the sure mercies of David whereof nothing can defeate thee Esay 5 5.3 Unbeleefe may hold thee some while at the staves end but such a one as thou art called to know that thy feares are taken away and turned to an hope which shall not be ashamed Take no thought for the advantage which Justice had thee at the Lord will see to that and hath seene already to it in casting it upon his sonne If thou object Object but he hath onely so done for the Elect. I answer Still goe thou to the markes of his revealed will Answ If thou confesse the advantage to thee belongs the redresse which Christ hath merited by satisfying the claime of justice Esay 53. The Lord hath laid this penalty upon one whom he loved more deerely then ever he hated thy sinne feare not therefore but he is appeased If thou canst humbly come in and plead it for thy selfe thou art one upon whom the Lord will not serve himselfe by condemning thee having already in the flesh of his owne Sonne served himselfe to the uttermost that thou mightst goe free Now the Lord hath ceased his plea and turned it to a desire that thou wouldest be reconciled which if thou art content to be it s no rash venture but it s a taking hold upon his strength to make peace and thou shalt have peace Esay 27.5 If thou wilt not esteem of this strength of offred reconciliation already wrought for thee without thy cost to be far more precious then the former advantage of wrath is terrible Thou shalt be found to ascribe more to the guilt of a finite creature then to the satisfaction of an infinite God and the offer of an infinite reconciliation Come in then and lay hold upon this refuge with strong consolation Heb. 5. end Take no more thought what becomes of the plea of justice then the Lord himselfe doth if he will have free mercy rejoyce above soveraigne justice why then shouldst thou shrug at it and why should thou grudge thy selfe that which God can beteamed thee and so destroy thy selfe rather then set thy seale to his offer to be happy True it is thou hast beene so soaked under the former anguish of the Lords justice and advantage that thou canst not so easily forget it and the newes of this mercy seemes an incredible thing unto thee but remember that the Lord is willing thou out-grow thy feares by degres though it be not suddenly done yet be not sullen and wilfull and time shall work it mercy shall in time subdue thy suspicious heart Incline onely have a comming soule to this offer and the Lord who suffred thee long in thy rebellions Esay 55.4 shall much more be patient toward thee in thy timorous and weake approaches toward his grace he shall spare thee as a father spares his child that
the fittest way as he thought for that purpose and being mistaken in that is glad to heare of his errour and to mend it speedily 4. He abaseth himselfe below his condition so farre as to stand at the Prophets doore to crouch and creepe in the sense of his disease for the cure thereof with exceeding reverence to the Prophet All which although they might seem onely naturall effects of a man under trouble yet being orderly steps to a greater worke in Gods purpose and some of them in a sort religious acts of one that acknowledged a divine power to heale him doe argue that somewhat was in him toward the effect And yet loe here steps in a techie toy that is Yet crossed by self conceit a toy and prich his prejudicate and forestalled heart conceited against the meane appointed by God and this was that he looked to be healed another way more easie present and familiar to his humour How viz. that Elisha himselfe would come forth and by applying his hand to the place worke the miracle And this marred all the former attempts and besides hindred him first from marking the message which contained a plaine easie mercifull and familiar way of healing with a charge from God to wash and a direct promise of cure thereby without any colour or exception all which so solemnly delivered might very well have pierced an heart not exceedingly prejudiced and deluded both for the reverence of God and for his owne ends If Eglon an heathen King Judg 6. hearing of a charge from God no way assuring him of good was so obeysant as to come off his throne and worship God how much more might Naaman but lo his preconceit letted him from it As also from seeing his false heart full fraught with rage against the Prophet when yet he seemed to stoope so low and doe so much reverence and to conclude from yeelding nakedly to the way of God rather then to lose his labour and carry home his disease and from obeying the Command And just so may the case stand with such as have made as many spirituall steps toward conversion as Naaman did toward his cure They may first be brought to a deepe plunge under sense of sinne and the curse Application of the ground to the doct in hand for the clearing of it What faire hopes men have and that by the word of terror convincing their conscience under this they may be most wearisome and restlesse They may be kept from shaking off their terrour by other objects of pleasure profit or worldly contents they may heare of a remedy by one of wisdomes handmaids like well of the glad tidings long after it make speed towards it neglect no cost means or attendance upon it joy in the turning themselves out of their errours and mistakes and the appearance of more hope of ease they may honor the instrument with exceeding reverence wait at the posts of wisdome not houres or dayes but moneths and quarters thinking long till some seasonable answer come unto them thinking themselves happy that they may speed at last And yet how dashed when all their labour is ended And yet when the point should come to an issue and the fruit to be borne then shall one selfe or other either selfe-ease or selfe-will or selfe-wit and conceit assisted with carnall reason yea selfe-endeavours selfe-devotion selfe-mixtures of her owne with God bereave the soule of all strength to bring forth one or other selfe I say shall step in or be cast in by the divell as the gourd into the pottage to marre all to set the chiefe worke as far behinde as it seemed before to be set forward in so much that the voice of God both commanding to beleeve and promising speedy ease and forgivenesse shall be as a thing farre off And whereas the obedience of faith is or ought to be the upshot of the cure lo this selfe shall so blindefolde the minde and disable the heart from marking pondering and applying the promise thereby as if there were nothing in it whereas in truth all steps toward grace without this are frivolous yeâ— the base heart shall thinke this more frivolous then all the rest stumble at it cavill be discontent and flye off as if it had wrong that her endeavours and paines be not accepted without it which in truth is no other then to quarrell with God that her owne way may not be preferred to his and seeing that may not be rather to choose not to be healed at all but abide still in her old condition then not to prosper by her owne way and device I have desired to open the point at large because I make it the ground of a large doctrine whereof I would have none make question So much for the ground of the text Naamans selfe conceit and ours may differ in the speciall though the same in kind But I foresee that my hearers will by and by run to enquire whether this tech of Naaman be in their brests or no and whether it hath hindred their endeavours and also that all well affected Christians would be loth to lose their labour and sweat if they knew how to prevent it till they have enjoyed the promise And therefore I must tell them that I gather a generall point from a particular Naamans selfe was one branch of many but there be many more all as dangerous to them as this to him Seeing then I thinke it will be desired that they might know the severall sorts of this monster and the markes of this secret else selfe I meane therefore ere I reason or apply the point I will stay a while upon the discovery of the severall sorts of this disease so returne to the point againe if God please in the matter of Application I thinke none will deny that of all other lets of grace and salvation this of selfe is the most dangerous and the reason is because it is most inward and immediate I may say of it as Paul speakes of uncleannesse all other sinnes are without the body but this within a disease of the intrailes and bowels Selfe the most dangerous enemy because most inward and immediate Even so all other lets and enemies of Christ are outward Satan hath many injections temptations by Atheisme by the needlesnesse difficulty yea impossiblenesse of prevailing he hath many base colours to delude the heart withall by the contrariety of Christ to the corrupt spirit of man the world also hath many base and false principles to beat off the heart by as the disdaine of them that are so zealous 1 Cor. 6.18 the erroneous opinions which it hath of Christ and the profession of his truth Others hurt by this most mortally but all these are without and more easily avoided the power of the Word sooner scatters these mists The greatest mischiefe comes from within and were it not for selfe they could not prevaile by all their baits
nature of this wofull Selfe A second gound of this point is from comparison with others For Reason 2 how easie a conclusion is it to make especially selfe being the Logician I see thus many adulterers From comparison with others liers and swearers despise God and all goodnesse contemne the meanes and scorne the light because their workes are evill now I for my part am a diligent hearer of the word a countenancer of Ministers a worshipper of God in my family and perhaps more yea a renouncer of all open sins and therefore must not I needs be led by a spirit of more excellent nature then they are Surely if I had their spirit I should be led to the same evills which yet now I abhorre Nay more when these hypocrites shall not onely compare themselves with others Selfe upholds herselfe by false comparisons but with themselves and say such a one was I wont to bee a grosse cozener and oppressor a cheater a covetous wretch uncleane and base but since I have heard and professed the Gospel I have abhorred such stuffe and am not onely in mine owne opinion but in the judgement of others another man Oh I say what a shrewd argument is this for one that cannot or will not compare himself with the word and trie himselfe by the markes of a beleever to give sentence on his own side which to doe for one not converted to God how doth it overthrow all his former shewes affections and duties and hinder him from true conversion indeed A third reason may be from Satan whose pillers are pitched more Reason 3 deeply and dangerously upon selfe Satan imbarks himself more deepâ—y in selfe then in other lusts then upon any other more open offender I say upon this privy-selfe especially Grosse persons doe but little hurt no nor such open hypocrites as whose shews are openly confuted by their owne practice for why each one stoppes his nose at them and they themselves comming once to the touchstone of the word have no great colour for themselves but more easily fall in peeces and give up their weapons to the battery of the law and power of the word convincing them But it is not so here For when Satan can so delude an unsound heart by the sweetnesse of selfe as to resist the dint of the truth and harden himselfe in his pretended religion and duties against the Lord Jesus and the spirit of faith and grace hee sleepes securely in his den knowing that such an one is under locke and key and is not like by any probability to get out of so excusing and erroneous a conscience and condition for he is as ready to damne himselfe for his owne ends as for Satans and therefore is under a more deepe chaine then any other sinner is True it is Satan chuseth rather out of the excesse of his wickednesse to debaush mens consciences but if once he can be resolved by sure markes that selfe beares sway above grace which is no hard thing for him to doe who can convey himselfe so cunningly into the bent and frame of mens carriages he knowes himselfe as sure of such abiding so as of men of more prophane and odious conversation Lastly how just is it with God to give over such to the hardnesse of Reason 4 their owne hearts to detaine the truth of God in unrighteousnesse Selfe deludes dangerously by Gods just giving her over to her own way and to lurke still in their owne den of ease and selfeconceit who having cleerely conceived his will and knowing that all who gather without Christ doe but scatter and except the Lord make the soule an habitation for his spirit all our building is but in vaine a meere Babell of confusion and a Castle in the aire yet shall withdraw their heart from God in the maine worke of selfedeniall and selling all that they might buy the pearle I doubt not but there are many unsound ones who know it not but doubtlesse the number of such is few in comparison of others To him that hath shall be given but from him who hath not shall bee taken away that hee seemeth to have Matth. 25.29 And so much also may serve for Reason I come now according to my order to answer a question A Question answered How may a man discover this mischiefe in his heart Since this mixt selfe is so dangerous a mischiefe as to deprive the soul of all her labour and hopes how might a man come to some discovery of selfe that so he might the more easily be prepared to cast it out and prevent the danger of it betimes ere it be remedilesse Seeing the conceiving hereof may make much for the application of the doctrine following I will a little insist in answering the question Therefore I say that the nature of this disease may partly appeare in the degrees of it and partly in the footprints and passages of it of both a little and first of the first Answ These degrees may the better be conceived if we consider that privy selfe as I have noted is that chiefe fort and refuge which old Adam imbarkes himselfe in 1. By her degrâ—es for the avoiding of Christ and the promise according then to the degrees of this bulwarke of flesh and the danger thereof Selfe may bâ—â— perceived by 3. properties the degrees of this selfe may be I conceive then that we may refer all this secret mischiefe to these three degrees The first in selfe presuming 1. Presumption The secoâ—d in selfe fearing The third in selfe withdrawing Selfe presuming is that corruption which holds off Christ in the preparation of the Law Gospel such as these feeling of the soul to be in an utter strait and in an absolute need of Christ mourning after him desiring him and taking paines for him with the like These all if they be soundly wrought in the soule proceeding not onely from legall abasement but also Evangelicall tidings of peace by the good things which onely Christ hath purchased cannot proceed from any principle in our selves Howbeit selfelove is so prone to presume of that to bee wrought truly in us which she covets and wishes to be wrought out of a desire of her own welfare that she easily mixes her selfe with the offer and promise and not staying her full time to weigh duâ—y the nature thereof takes her owne pangs and hopes and selfeloving conceits to be true preparations Now whereas every abiding worke of grace must have a principle in it above selfe-ends and selfe-love therefore what marvell if such flashes of presumptuous selfe vanish and leave the soule as new to beginne as ever it was 2. Self-fearing A second degree is selfe fearing which may befall him who hath shot the former gulfe for it lies in another extremity and runnes as much on the left hand as the other did on the right thinking though ungroundedly that although some worke hath beene
and affections Esay 40. finding that fruit and successe which she fancieth to her owne labours but thinkes her content and peace to come from grace so when her sparkles are out and gone wherewith shee compassed her selfe then she growes slavish dead hearted discontent and yet rather then she would by such experience renounce her owne crazy hold she will returne to her old course and trie what further hopes she shall enjoy by her new attempts till she be forced at last to lie downe in confusion repent of her trade too late of this sure also is the carriage of such as upbraid God for his hard dealing with them by the better successe of others who are got before them this savors of some desire and emulation I grant but it comes from many pangs of selfe as ease muttering that they cannot have their wills of God upon lesse adoe also of rankenesse and sullen unthankefulnesse for that they have already And although I doe not say that all in this case of deseate doe directly give God over and quite revolt from him as Naaman here would have done yet they returne to their old acquaintance with selfe and so welter out their daies in utter misery understand me in all this discourse to speake of Selfe as it is unsubdued in the hypocrite not as it is a relique of evill in those who belong to grace Thus much for the carriage of it The third generall The end of Selfe she alway aimes at her owne ends The third and last point is the end of Selfe which is sutable to the ground and proceedings thereof The summe is Selfe lookes at her owne ends and ends in her selfe all her scope is by her long trade shufflings subtilties and flingings about to rivet her selfe so deeply into her own way and device that at the last she may be out of all gunshot and danger and rest in her selfe-religion without disturbance To this end she doth so much harden her selfe against the conviction of the word when she knoweth or may know her estate to be dangerous even that she might at last be wholly quit of all such callings upon See Hosea 10.1 Zach. 7.5.6 and gasterings by the spirit of God and her owne conscience and so through Satans malice keepe her owne possession in peace even as if she would secretly steale away Gods grace without his consent and triumph over him by having her will on him The poore soule boasts in God but she in her selfe and sacrificeth to her owne nets till the Lord by his terrors flaite her and with the besome if not of his law yet of his wrath sweepe downe those cobwebbes which with much adoe she hath woven The end of the Lord in the manifold turnagaines and doubts feares and distempers which a poor soule meets with is quite contrary even that being tried with her owne corruptions she might give over her owne inventions and be weary of fighting any longer under the banner of Selfe and cast themselves upon his promise and so put the Lord in the stead of selfe to be all in all with them and returne no more to their old trade I say the Lords aime in all his is this to make selfe stincke unto them and as the proverbe saith the corruption of the finest matter stinkes worst so that the fiâ—er more subtill and wiredrawne selfe hath beene in deceiving the soule the more the soule may abhorre her after a divorce once made But as for selfe she is most deplored and desperate in that wherein a poore soule is most happy that is in the end of her course by that time that the latter is at rest the former is come about to most uâ—ter misery For though she be where she would be yet because she is deceived in that shee hath chosen she must therefore feed upon ashes instead of bread and vanity as a whirlewind must carry her away as the Lord by Esay speakes of Idolaters A barren principle can bring forth no other fruit Esay 57. all labour so taken is as a stone rolled upon the hill violently returning at length upon the roller if shee would have subjected her selfe to be led by the spirit of grace she should have obtained the same ends which the Lord seeks from a saved soul that is to adore the wonderfull and inconceivable glory and riches of his grace in Christ and to swallow and drowne selfe in this streame And as once a wise man hearing a proud fellow boast of his land brought him a short mappe of Athens and bid him shew whereabouts his lands lay which abated the high thoughts of the yong Gentleman exceedingly So doth the Lord shew to his owne people the Map of his glory which is the whole ground way and end of saving lost mankinde which when they wisely behold selfe vanisheth and finds no place for if that which moved the Lord so principally to pitty faln man was not the good of the creature for then the more saved the more his end should have beene fulfilled but the magnifying of himselfe and of his sundry excellencies which else must have beene concealed and had it not beene that God had respected this man had lien still in his woe how can a poore creature behold this gulfe but of necessity the thought of it must make selfe and her ends to be despised as not worthy to be named the same day much lesse to come into competition with God and to forestall him of his due that selfe might be clothed with his spoiles Oh! the very image of such a base conceit is loathsome in such an heart as knowes that while God is served she must stand by and bee content to waite as happy if this waiting of hers upon Gods ends may bring her to be happy at last in him and with him as counting it happier to perish in glorifying him if it could be then to be glorious in her selfe And so much for the answer to this question viz. how the nature of this enemy may be perceived in her degrees and steps now I come to the use of the whole doctrine The first is to admonish all who would not lose their labour and travaile Vse 1 in the matter of grace Admonition to discover and abandon the concurrence of selfe in that weighty businesse And this I urge upon two sorts First Branch 1 To the unregenerate Three particulars 1. Behold the tricks of self seekers Secondly obtainers First behold the tricks and fetches of this enemy Then consider the danger and sad consequence of losing all our labour for the sake of it And lastly resolve in both respects for ever through mercy to renounce it For the former infinite are those subtilties which are in the bugit of this traitor I will name two or three by which a wise heart will guesse at the rest and especially at her owne One is this Selfe will not onely deny much for grace but even
naturall and beloved object The truth hath not made them free for if it had they would forsake all for it and buy it whatsoever it cost them but not sell it whatsoever they might have for it Besides they know not what spirit they are of while peace lasteth and the Gospel runnes in the streame of their liberties gifts services commodities and advantages who but they An humble and zealous Christian would almost tremble to heare their protestations their engagements for God and truth the cause of Christ and Religion who but they in their fastings and prayers deepe detestation of the sinnes of the times and mourning for the sorrowes of such as suffer But let the winde turne to another coast so that they see the enemies of truth lay hard to their free hold and they must either sadly suffer indeed for that they have professed or else bewray themselves to be hypocrites Then they shew upon what hinges their doore hanges and turnes even upon Selfe and selfe-love Then they wax stiffe for themselves then they cleave to the creature their ease and welfares their liberties and worldly contents Why this Alas They understood not their owâ— spirit and therefore it laid them in the suds ere they were aware Now their great declaiming against the sinnes of timeservers and selfe-loving hypocrites is turned to apologize for their inconstancy selfe-love and ends of their owne Moreover another cause is they sought not Christ simply and honestly for himselfe but for somewhat which might bee gotten from him to serve their owne turne by his meanes They know not how to licke themselves whole upon the Lord Jesus for any thing they lose for him and therefore they are loath to venture any more then they must quite make forfeit of If they knew whom to trust for amends or could beleeve that hundred fold requitall for God and his Gospel which is promised to all that lose any thing for him Oh! it would lithe their hearts exceedingly to suffer any thing for him To conclude they consider not what a poore bargaine they make of it when they sell the honour and glory of the Lord Jesus for the redeeming of a poore transitory content here below they consider not that they fish with a golden hooke for minums if they lose their hooke upon a shrag of triall and temptation they can never make amends againe for it by all they catch though the fish were fairer Conscience is no commodity to weigh in the balance against ease and carnall profits and pleasures as Elisha asked Gehazi Is this a season to purchase olives and vineyards and menservants or maidservants They consider not what poor and silly figleaves they sow together to cover their nakednesse when they pretend a necessity of serving God their owne way that way which will hold best agreement with their own ends to shun serving him his way of suffering which contradicts their self-love In all these respects and in many more let us not wonder at the wofull declension of these revolting times which leave the Lord Jesus himselfe to sinke or swim Nay further let us not be offended overmuch at such as at their first entry and onset upon Religion seemed so zealous as to chalenge all enemies of Christ and began to suffer for him But having born the brunt a while and felt the triall too hot and too heavy for them have with more shame and reproach revolted from him then ever they began to suffer with honour and commendation And sithence it fareth thus let all whom it concerneth Counsells to helpe this Exhortation to approve their faith and fidelity to the Lord Jesus as it doth concerne all who will not prove hypocrites now in these wofull daies strive for the holding up and preserving the entire honour and esteem of Christ his Grace his truth profession and Gospel both in their owne soules with sincerity and before men without shame or cowardize Consider poore soule by whose strength thou standest do not look too wisely upon next hand examples of staggerers and timeservers though perhaps thou hast admired them for their zeale and gifts know them by their fruits stagger not at their revolts But looke to Jesus the author and finisher of thy faith Heb. 12.2 who for the hope set before him and the love to thy soule and salvation despised the shame and endured the crosse Behold if examples do so much affect thee the patternes of those faithfull ones who in all ages have borne witnesse to Jesus and not esteemed their credits or goods or lives so that they might vindicate the glory of Christ and discharge the trust which in baptisme and much more in their conversion to God was committed to them to be faithfull souldiers and to contend for the truth against Divell and his instruments the world and their own fleshly selfe-love The Lord hath had in all ages some who have though it a businesse of importance to sticke to Christ and his honour whatsoever it cost them although thy strength be small the trialls of the malicious sharpe and fiery as darts yet if thou canst deny thine owne selfe humble thy soule be little in thine owne eies be above thine owne ends and sensuality Then that God who hath suffered thousands of subtill selfe-loving hypocrites to fall on thy right hand and thy left shall keepe thee safe in the midst under the covert of the wings and shadow of his Almighty power Psal 92.7 Counsells And to this end and purpose first get faith in Trialls more pretious then gold and looke not to suffer for Christ by thine owne strength but get strength from him whom thou sufferest for Get thee his innocency be sure thy cause be good joyne with it a good conscience two excellent banners to fight under and then by prayer beg from Christ that strength courage meeknesse simplicity selfe-deniall unashamednesse to confesse him and to suffer for him which becommeth one who hath received thy being of grace and the hope of welbeing of glory for ever from him Beleeve that hee who nayled all enmity of Satan and the gates of hell to his crosse hath risen by the might of his Godhead and is at his right hand will so provide that the remnant of their conquered and captivated malignity and malice shall never prevaile against thee If ever thou tookest hold of his strength to save thee from hell and from perishing trust him for strength to overcome all earthly enemies he can and will subdue them unto thee divert them disarme them disable them and give thee full redemption from them If ever hee built thee soundly upon his rocke feare not neither stormes nor sands nor tempests nor any assaults shall ever cause thy building to ruinate but thou shalt stand because built upon a rock Secondly be not heedlesse and carelesse of trouble but be well settled and informed in thy judgement concerning the weight and the importance of the truth of God Let
the whole Army of corrupt Arguments which both within and without beset the soule against the naked truth of the promise before ever he set them at liberty And the truth is onely the worke of regeneration is able both to drein away this spring and floud of contradiction and to dry up her streames that they may not so abundantly flow out to beare downe all the force of truth in us or perswade us to conversion And the same spirit it must be which must turne our streame to run another way and take off this rolling doore of our corruption from the old hinges to open and move a contrary way Onely Grace must consume all our base inventions which man hath found out against God as Eccles 7.29 Civils against Religion sundry of theâ— named That this Sect of Religion is everywhere evill spoken of If once a Christian ever a slave a beggar a foole These Preachers tell us many tales of a tub against sinne and of the judgements of God but the best is wee see not thunder and lightning to follow upon every word they speake If all were so cursed whom they declaim against they would looke as blacke as foot there would bee no living among men but thankes be to God we see all things still continue as they were and men are as white in the face as they were wont buy and sell goe to markets and faires to Ale-houses and merry meetings their pleasures and good fellowships as free and fast as ever Therefore we see they would but rob us of our liberties and make us such fools as themselves which God forbid it were pitty that for their pleasures the world should be so turned Iopsie-turvie Others come in and backe themselves with this That your best Preachers are no better then they should be and in corners they are as other men Some thinke if religion once beare sway then their trades must be forsaken they must sell all and give it to good â—â—lke and Preachers not unlike to the Popish Jesuites who in their Sermons tell the people that English Protestants have long tailes and hornes in their foreheads and looke as grizely as Ghosts and some grinne like Dogges and the like Againe others cavill say These Christians are so sad and melancholick that I am afraid I should die of no other disease save of very thought and care Others come neerer and consider God would have their lusts and lewd qualities from them which are necessary evils to them they cannot part with them Religion is better to make shew of for mens ease as Machiavil said then to make us sound at heart and so cost us much paine Others cavill and say The best cannot tell whether they shall be saved and they can hope as well as others and so hope well and have well Others thinke it impossible to change their natures and to be converted They have assayed often but they finde little come of it and they love no worke which is never at an end nor then neither They love that religion which a man can tell what to make of and come to a point but as for that which is never content but first men must forgoe their lusts then their liberties then themselves beleeve repent and bee broken-hearted this is precise and curious not for their tooth Others say If yee heare the Preacher yee will lose your wits and drowne or fore-doe your selves Others yet come closer and cavill thus Wee see the more we are terrified for sinne the further we are from God God hath not appointed all to bee saved all cannot mourne or beleeve it is the gift of few we know not whom God hath chosen men may fall away after they have beleeved and if some say true the justified may revolt and be damned and they can be no worse though they never begin Many goe so farre as few can match them and yet for one cause or other they must prove hypocrites and lose their labour therefore they will save theirs altogether they had as good sit for nought as toyle for nought Others say their corruptions doe so weary them that they shall never get through them and others are afraid that they shall never persevere but at one time or other fall foully and dishonour their Religion therefore dare not give the on-set To conclude others have taken offence at the rigour of the Law and so run out to seek old liberties alledging that bondage to be most irksome And others who proceed further yet say This and such like doctrines of Selfe doe discourage them they feare that a man cannot be rid of it and they see it is hard even for the best to discerne the Spirit of God from a mans owne Endlesse it were to reckon up all cavils onely the Lord must change the heart ere it be rid of these her inventions To dispute for God is a great work of grace And much more must the Lord turne the streame a contrary way ere the soule wax resolute against all such objections and bee turned to dispute for God to hold close to the promise and to devise as many as strong and as witty reasons for her owns salvation as before shee did against it Some instances of disputing for God To argue thus is not common The Lord hath his number and will ever have and they are such as leaving his secrets cleave to his revealed will Such as are loaden with their corruptions mourne after ease not for ease onely of their feare and guilt but to take the yoke of Christ upon them in stead thereof Such if any may claime the promise And such an one through mercy I am Few indeed shall be saved but then as few lament after God till they finde him and many glorious lights fall away but then their light was in themselves they were not humble True it is the elect are knowne to God but yet such as will first beleeve shall in time know themselves to bee elect And why should I thinke my inducements to beleeve to bee so weake or few Nay rather why should not I if I be lead by the Spirit of Grace turne disswasives into perswasives and sway all objections to the naked promise Surely Caleb did so And Gods reasons are many and strong Num. 14.5.6 Mee thinkes it is a strong motive that the Lord will leave none but such as forsake him first His meaning seemes very cordiall unto me when he bids a sinner be reconciled For why There is bottomelesse patience in his heart to forbeare smiting hee hath mercy cut off his owne plea he hath neglected no meanes to satisfie his owne justice hee that would not refuse to forgoe his onely sonne will not lose his cost surely he meanes well to a poore wretch He hath received a ransome declares himselfe to be appeased wishes us to be so threatens us if wee refuse His Spirit is annexed to his offer he allureth draweth encourageth and yet
late being men wholly ungrounded in the principles yet under pretence of zealous magnifying the freedome of grace and power of faith how have they puffed up themselves in a conceit of their owne perfection and maintained that they need not pray daily for pardon Oh wofull pride Moreover beware ye Ministers of Christ of preaching Christ carnally of envy rather then good will and of swerving from the plaine and effectuall demonstration of the spirit whereunto all learning and parts are too meane to serve and attend Beware I say of taxing such as although they affect not your course yet come not shorâ— of you in sufficiency and worth Farce and stuffe not your Sermons with quaint and neate words frequent quotations of Fathers and languages whenas God knowes you make it some of you but a vaile to hide your ignorance among them that are simple Alas oftimes your false Latin and Greeke bewraves you to the judicious Peter converted not three thousand at once with such preaching Be wise unto sobriety I deny not but among the learned or in controversies handled among them there is good use of tongues and arts oftimes 1 Cor. 14.21.22 But to the simple idiot ye are but signes of Gods wrath no instruments of Grace Again affect not morall subjects alone in your Ministery though there be use thereof but especially strive to goe against the carnall edge of the people and first ground them in those things which are spirituall urge the doctrine of originall sinne faith in the promise selfe-deniall the new creature mortification taking up the crosse preparation for death and the comming of Christ other things will fitly follow if once your peoples hearts be truly broken and moulded in Christ they will soone take the stampe of your morall doctrines but if ye beginne with these you shall as soone take an hare with a tabor as draw them to savour that which jarreth with their carnall reason So much for you my brethren Now for you the people and hearers I say this be not led away with Object 2 partiality and conceit in heaping up to your selves teachers of your own despising others People in divers things but in all simplicity embrace such and all such with an indifferent spirit according to the proportion of their gifts who are meet to do you good God hath made them all yours to serve your souls be not so base as to embondage your selves and cleave to such or such persons or parts neglecting the maine scope of common edifying occasion not jealousie and distaste among Gods Ministers themselves by your folly as ye must needs doe if they be not the wiser but cull out each mans speciall gift and make use thereof as given you to the supply and furniture of each part of the body with most apt and meet grace and ability for her need Discourage not Gods Ministers who are faithfull by balking theif Ministry and cleaving to strangers and perhaps inferior to them These are pangs of carnall wisdome and savour not of that spirit which is from above pure and peaceable Jam. 4. Much lesse be drawne away from sound teaching to carnall jangling that so ye may learne an easie way to heaven forsaking that one way which is truth and life Affect not pompuous words great shews such as set forth themselves with carnall complements and ostentation admire them not perhaps because you would faine come from Church with as whole a skin as yee brought loath to be galled because your conscience is crazy therefore ye seeke to such And just it is with the Lord to plague people for this carnality of yours with Ministers just like themselves lips and lettuce cup and cover agreeing that each may be a stumbling block to the other So that although you live as ignorant and blinde as blocks or bats yet you shall glory in the flesh of each other saying you have one of the Belwethers of the Country as good learned peaceable and good a fellow as any in the Kingdome Oh! how doth Satan infatuate the world with the golden cup of formall devotion through such that he might cry downe the power and sincerity of the truth Furthermore although you affect the most Religious Ministry yet rest not in the person fasten not your faith upon man his worth zeale holinesse beleeve not for mans sake but for that power and efficacy which you discover in the ordinance let Gods truth be that into which your assent resolves it selfe Joh. 5. end least otherwise Satan buffet you in the time of trouble that you never distinguished persons from thinges and the demonstration of truth from mans excellency Againe catch not at new points forsaking old grounds nor at choice similitudes allusions and discourses I observe it among some of you that if God vouchsafe us sometime more neate expressions then ordinary how are you taken with them Oh! such a Sermon such a point how it affected you take heed your braines deceive not your hearts chuse out speciall Sermons by the peculiarinesse of conviction and perswasion not by pleasing conveiance of words Besides looke not at the outside of thinges but at their spiritualnesse looke not at a Minster as a friend or one that stands up to fill the roome to serve the cure and to stoppe confusion 2 Cor. 3.1 But so let men thinke of us saith Paul as the dispensers of the mystery of Christ whatsoever their infirmities errors and wants be and of the manifold graces of God as messengers of reconciliation as helpers of your joy not to domineer and play Rex but to feede the flocke and to seale them up by the promise to beget them to travell againe of them till Christ be formed in them which thinges if they were looked at by the people alas that unsavoury and carnall eye wherewith they behold the Minister would be turned into a spiritual their feet would be beautifull they would give them their very eies Rom. 10. and count them as men of tenne thousand Job 33. Men weigh not their gold in large hoppe scales but in small ones for the nonce and so they weigh truly so let not the Minister of God be put in common carnall ballances but in the weights of the sanctuarie Then the Minister should be a Shekel indeed and have double honour and maintenance and be received as in the name of a Prophet above a common man you whose soules are ingaged to him as an instrument of your salvation Matth. 7. can tell what I meane Such say with Paul 2 Cor. 5. I know no man now according to the flesh but according to their grace and spirituall use Inure your selves to it now and at sickenesse and death it will be sweet for you to heare God in him I mean your Minister losing upon earth that which he hath formerly forgiven in heaven But I see that I have broken my bounds I must breake off abruptly and leave that which
the old and new Testament For tell me why hath God so furnished his word with such stories of his power and greatnesse transcending our reason and our thoughts as much as the heavens doe the earth Esay 55.8 but that our soules might be filled with his excellency And thinke nothing too hard for such a God to doe If he have dried up the sea Jorden stopped mouthes of Lions raised up the dead and fed six hundred thousand men and women without corne or flesh of beasts made water gush twice out of a rocke give a woman of ninety years old power to conceive c. doth he not deserve to be set up above carnall reason Doth he not deserve at our hands more then a faint fulsome grant with Martha thou canst doe all things Doth he not deserve a peculiar faith for this and for that for raising this dead man now at this time For quickning this dead heart at this instant by this Sermon For softning this hard heart For converting this soule to God Oh! how justly reproveable must such a villany needs bee And surely this let me adde if it be so base an evill in respect of the dishonour to God must it needs bee so in respect of the mischiefe which it causes unto our selves Did ever any man hate his owne selfe doth he not love and cherish his owne flesh What an unnaturall evill then is this which chuseth rather here with Naaman to perish with the holding of a carnall will and conceit then by denying it and clasping to the word to be happy for ever Sure that which is so derogatory to God and so unnaturall to our selves must needs deserve sharpe reproofe Fourthly it must needs be a reproveable evill which doth so desperately Reason 4 trench upon all the Attributes of God Power Truth Mercy Justice Providence and Alsufficiency Which questions all cavills against all so that the doctrine before handled viz. That carnall reason is a maine enemy to all the matters of revealed truths is a full reason of this doctrine that it is justly reproveable Other sinnes seeme to undoe the acts of God as his morall commands But this undoes the Lord himselfe in a sort in those things wherein God is himselfe so that either God must not be God a promise must not be a promise Christ must be no Christ no satisfaction no redemption or else carnall sense must perish Both in strict tearmes cannot stand together God hath testified himselfe in his word admirable in this one attribute viz. Providence for his Churches good in the greatest straits Who reading the strange passages of that one deliverance in Esters time Esters story how God concurred just with each circumstance of time of occasion as then to cause the Kings sleepe to depart when Mordecai was in greatest perill and reproach Then when the banquet was prepared that all other opportunities should bee fore laid to oppresse Haman and to exalt Mordecai If a man would compile a story according to his owne wish for the demonstration of Providence could hee frame a more punctuall one Read Ezra's story Daniels Iosephs doth not a naked hand of God appear in them And yet carnall reason would say That if there were windowes in heaven God could not now save his Church as hee hath done in their times in Elija's Elisha's and others What is this but to limit the holy one of Israel to our owne measure of working And so I may say of all other his Attributes Nay carnall reason is such a deepe gulfe as is able to swallow downe the greatest evidence that ever God gave to the world of himselfe both his Godhead and Attributes which is the sending of the Lord Jesus in the flesh into the world to walke live suffer and dye for the salvation of the Elect What can so secure the soule of the truth of Gods nature persons and realnesse in all his promises as this to cause the eternall God to be personally one with our mortall flesh Might not the holy Ghost Heb. 1.1.2 say That this way of God hath greater demonstration in it to stablish a beleeving soule then all that ever were besides And yet what use makes carnall reason hereof Doth it not turne all to a meere story without any ground-worke of faith or perswasion We thinke that the exhibiting of Christ concerned the Jewes who saw him and if wee had lived with him as they we should have abhorred to distrust him as they Why Did not God give them full assurance of himselfe by his Sonne Read Act. 17.38 Had not they as cleere proofes out of the Prophets that he was and none save he could bee the Messia and yet their carnall reason did so abhorre him to be their Messia that they hated him to the death Justly then may I conclude that this sinne is a reproveable one So much also for reasons I proceed now to the Use If this evill be so reproveable it is pitty it Vse 1 should want her due and escape terror or reproofe Terror to sundry The first Neuters Atheists and Epicures and ignorant ones reproved Pitty that any should justifie the wicked against God! Let them therefore come in the dint of this reproofe who are grossest in this kinde Neuters and Atheists who if they do not obstinate their spirits to thinke of all Gods matters and the frame of Religion according to their carnall sence yet are as deeply careles of rejecting and bearing it down by the stream of the word as Gallio was carelesse of the Apostles and their opposites How many are there who like them in Peter mocke at the Scriptures threats and terrors of it 2 Pet. 3. saying Where is the promise of his comming Lo all things are still as they were wont to be the times seasons affaires of men and course of the world therefore wee thinke the world will endure alway Oh ye Atheists One yeare with God is as a thousand and a thousand are as one day Do ye judge the comming of Christ by that which befalls in the space of forty or fifty yeares of one mortall life Doe not all things decay and cannot the Lord shake the powers of heaven and restraine the influence of the upper bodies from the lower at his pleasure But of this saith Peter they make themselves wilfully ignorant that all things were made of nothing and shall returne to nothing they perswade themselves that they ever were and so shall continue Such a seminary there is and such a tale of scurfe here among us even of practicke Atheists who are led by sense as brute beasts that me thinkes I feele my spirit sinke and faile within me when I should scare them out of their dens These are those prophane Swine who although they rise not up openly to desie God and his word and threats yet like sensuall Epicures void of all understanding they live in a profession of infidelity onely differing from Pagans in that they carry
to all the truth of God without neglect so especially to those maine truths which they most sticke at and come shortest of that their insight into Gods method and way may be more evident unto them As for novelties and fancies of men of unstable minds ready to carry them away from the simplicity of the Gospell whether erroneous opinions or things which have some truth but yet for the present are not pertinent or profitable but might under some pretence of zeale and devotion withdraw them from their grounds ere they be setled which I observe to be a notable trick of the Divell to disorder the course of a soule travelling towards heaven they are shy thereof and cannot close with it Let every one that desires to know himself to thrive to Godward well marke this whole Section So much for this third marke Another is That such a soule strives after that which makes most Marke 4 for her owne good and for the justifying of God Even that foolish modesty which holds many under the hatches that they will not open themselves to any but keepe the Divells counsell to their owne hindrance and thereby nourish unbeleefe the longer in themselves when they are convinced of it as its long ere many will be they abhor it using all means with Paul if by any they may attaine faith at last They doe not as Ahaz who being willed to aske a signe from God to confirme his promise refused it and let all goe at six and sevens pretending that he needed none but would leave it to God without such adoe Esay 7. But he is rebuked for greeving of God by such slightnesse who loves that his people should take order to resist their infidelity and hasten to beleeve using every ordinance each occasion for the atchieving of such a grace Such a restlesse spirit they are led by who keepe the price of the high calling of God in their eie loth to lose it Phil. 3. and preserving the tender care and inquiry after it in their soules as an object of greatest excellency A bottomlesse carelesse spirit to get and lose as fast and to spill that pretious liquor which God hath been long putting into them they loath and detest 2 Joh. 8. and still seek to make up a full reward to themselves and cannot be quiet till the Lord give into their bosomes measure heaped up and running over that they may be at rest If they have any bottomlessenesse it is for the world and the cares of it but as for grace they keep all they have and still are on the gaining hand till they attaine their desire Psalm 84. No faintnesse there shall be but from strength to strength they goe full fast till they appeare before God in Sion Fifthly as they are alway hastening the Lord and impatient in Marke 5 respect of their importunity of desire Psal 70.5 so yet they are patient in respect of discontent unweariedly waiting upon the Lord for the accomplishing of their petition They have learned that lesson of the Psalmist Blessed are they that wait upon him and of Ieremy Lamen 3.25 It is good to wait patiently upon the Lord. It s much to them that the Lord will come and bring healing in his wings at last requiting long delay as Malachi speakes with speed Mal. 3. and as for urging the particular time when he will come and how soone they leave it to him whose the seasons of mercy are by whom onely the day of sealing is appointed they must wait They attend upon a Soveraigne God who shewes mercy to whom and when he pleases Rom. 9. yet also his mercies are fare to them whom hee hath called to the hope thereof Therefore their part is to get the spirit of supplication alway attending the Spirit of grace Zach. 12.10 which will hold out with the Lord without fainting and concurre with him in his time of ease In which respect it makes not haste but considers that each day hastens Gods time For as it is in the second comming of our Lord Jesus Matth. 24. end so it is in his first None knowes whether he will come at noonetide or at the evening midnight or cockcrowing but come he will So whether in youth or middle yeares or old age thou knowest not whether in a short time or after a long season whether in thy hearing or at the sacrament or in prayer or at a fast or in some great crosse or at thy death its unknowne Thou hast a promise come he will and therefore wait upon him thou art not too good and when he comes thou shalt not repent thee Marke 6 Againe this is another marke That such a soule suffers not it selfe to be taken up so deeply with the common mercies of the earth that the mercy of pardon and salvation should lose her price and wax stale with her Oh she strives to put difference alway between the content which blessings of this life bring and those which the mercy of heaven affords Give Esau a messe of pottage and his longing is satisfied Give a child a bright counter Heb. 12. and he will forgoe a gold angell It pleases a foole as well to have his bable as a Kings Crowne why Because he is a fool and discernes not so a wretch that never came in the favour of mercy will equall it to any common thing fill his belly give him ease cloath his body fill his purse and you may rob him of his birthright So hee have content any way and for the present he is well Not so that soule that longs for mercy For why It compares one with other and makes as much difference as between gold and drosse holds firmly the esteem of mercy to herself and will not suffer the base vanishing creature to come between her and home and steale her heart away by such rattles and feathers as these are Zach. 12.10 It comes here to minde what Zachary speakes That the spirit of grace goes with the spirit of compassions There are such compassions towards the Lord in a poore soule as there are in the Lord towards it In the Lord there are tender mercies as that other Zachary speakes Luke 1. Through the tender mercies of our God mercies of tendernesse and compassion to a poore miserable lost sinner reaching to forgivenesse These are peculiar not common or such as he bestowes upon them whom he pitties not in their miserie Now therefore that soul that partakes these tender mercies is as tender of them and doth so prize and esteem them that no other mercy can steale away the affections of the soule therefrom nor stall the heart therein much lesse make tender mercies to wax stale and common but still the price thereof rises till the Lord fill her therewith Marke 7 Lastly note this out of Naamans example That a perpetuall and sure marke of a man who is grace and faithward is this that his old perversenesse
so mistakes and misconstrues must either deceive himselfe in looking for more or defraud himselfe in looking for lesse then the promises containe in them What a continuall vexation is it then to erre about the extent of those things wherein to erre is above all other errors most dangerous and remedilesse Many more reasons might bee added but the substance thereof will occurre otherwise Vse 1 I proceed to the Uses First this point is Terror to all in generall who doe not beleeve the whole body of truth according to it selfe Of Terror Branch 1 without the which promises cannot possibly be construed aright Now alas Truths of God must not be taken by tradition and prejudice but from the whole body of truth beleeved as Gods what a common error is this Who beleeves or deducts promises from the rocke of truth as marble pillars digged out of the whole quarry Men take the whole truth of God for the most part from the tradition of men from the interpretation of others which is no other save upon trust as their Parents Masters or teachers have instil'd it into them and I grant its meet to be so at first for so those Samaritans John 4. at first harped upon the truths preacht by Christ by the information of the woman But they did not rest there till by her they were drawne to heare him speake himselfe and then they told her plainly that they resolved their faith not into her report but Christ himself It is with many of us as with Papists who use the Church to bee the principle of their faith whereas she should onely be a guide an informer and directresse It s not to be doubted but the Church is the preserving and sustaining pillar of truth in point of guiding the soule to the truth for had not the Church nursed us taught and train'd us up where had we been But this must not be enough to stablish us except we meane to disguise our selves and bewray our sandy foundation when tempests and troubles shall try what is in us no we must put a difference betwixt our drawing to the truth and our beleeving the truth and never rest till the bright morning starre of the Word the Lord Jesus hath risen in our hearts who will cast such a through light into them as shall shine from East to West Matth. 24. and enlighten us in all truth yea lead us into all truth by his Spirit Churches judgement must guide us principle us in the truths of Scripture that Spirit I meane which assists his word in the hearts of all humble and teachable ones This will cause us not to take here a shred and there another such a command or such a promise as pleases us not knowing what to make of the rest but to set open our whole hearts unto the whole truth the whole body thereof that it may enter into us possesse and dwell in us plentifully in every part it will present to our eyes that God of truth speaking in his word and piercing thereby into the very marrow and bones dividing the thoughts and carrying the soule into the streame of that excellency of his whereby we may be convinced of his truth it will shew us the truth of the written word in the eternall word of the Father full of Grace and Truth the way the truth and the life in whom who so beleeves to salvation doth also beleeve all and every truth which ever came out of his mouth and wee shall no more doubt of that then of Christ himselfe in whom all truth is established and gathered as the whole verge of a garment into one knot so that as no man bids us to prove that its day light when the Sunne shines so wee shall need no proofe or demonstration of any particular part of the word having embraced Christ that eternall word of God into our bosomes because he brings all his truths with him and having himselfe fulfilled that one great promise of his incarnation and redemption hath also in that made good all the other promises and made them Yea and Amen to the praise of his glory Oh therefore The Spirit of Christ must be our first planter of truth in the soule how wofull is the condition of such as forsake this way of faith and goe to dig pits which will hold no water boasting that nothing shall ever pull them away from the truth no feares persecutions change of times and I know not what away with thy vain brags If thou hast not first planted thy selfe upon Jesus the body of truth thy particular knowledge of truths will vanish of it selfe for he who gathers not with Christ scatters but how much more when thy slight building shall be shaken with crosses and enemies Therefore gaster your selves from such frothy bottomes as will deceive you get truth first planted in your soules with the love of it for some reall and maine good which it hath done you Terrour to all Popish and blinde maintainers of truth upon error and opinion and when Christ shall have brought his truth with the saving comfort of it into you it will hold your hearts close to it never to goe from it it shall keepe your hearts and mindes in the knowledge of God it shall discover to you that rich hoord of promises which are hid in Christ out of whom they are but as the sound of many waters and vanish as fast as they come This will teach us a rule of conceiving truth aright This will scatter all mists of error darkenesse mistakes from the minde and purifie the heart by the obeying of the truth as Saint Peter speakes 1 Pet. 1.22 2 Pet. 1.19 yea it will be a light shining in a darke place and guiding the feet into the way of peace Abhorre then a patched confused knowledge of truth destitute of the truth in Jesus as thou wouldest abhor and loath utter blindenesse and arrant ignorance it selfe in the highest degree For indeed setting aside the shew of it it s but cousen germane to it who abhors not a misbeleeving Turke or Jew as a very infidell Who loaths not an Hereticke Papist Pelagian or a Schismaticke as we doe misbeleevers Yea in some respect worse because they are so leavened that it is easier to draw a Pagan not prejudicate to the faith then such It s true that the other have more of truth in them then the other But they doe so corrupt confound and misapply truths they maintaine not truth in the accord and the harmony of truth therefore they hold truth rather to overthrow truth then to establish it and in effect are greater enemies to the promises and to the truth in Jesus then they can seeme friends to some kindes of truth whatsoever their abettors and patrons would or can speake in their defence So much for this first Secondly and more particularly its terror to all audacious and impudent Branch 2 spirits of hypocrites Of
the next verse The cure then of Naaman is that which in these latter words is to be considered and first of the holy Ghost his expression 1. The expression His flesh came againe as the flesh of a little childe for of this I will say somewhat ere I come to the main point Many words had been used to expresse Naaman his obedience how punctuall it was and now as many are used to expresse the cure how entire and perfect it was as if God would not come short of him but be as punctuall in full curing of him as hee had been in close obeying God Who doubts of the perfect cure of such a Leper as was made of a scurvie loathsome nasty skin like the skin of a little childe that is as whole as he was borne So that it notes a perfect restitution of Naaman to his former integrity of soundnesse Gods remedies are perfect ones But mens are lame and crazie Mens remedies are alway lame ones if they heale one way they hurt another We use to say of Physicall courses purgings bleedings as they helpe in point of present cure and remove present death and danger so yet they leave a touch upon the body afterward and leave either some other aile behinde or else take away strength abate the spirits or other like and all to shew us that mans medicines are like himselfe and that is crazie doubtfull and dangerous so that not long after the same or worse maladies and diseases follow but to bee sure death Hence arose that proverbe Many Remedies are worse then the diseases themselves And all commodities in this life carry inconveniencies after them Perhaps they are one way beneficiall and two wayes prejudiciall But Gods cures are like himselfe perfect intire and absolute No more leprosie is heard of to grow upon Naamans skin after God had done with him he came no more into the hands of other Physitians through relapse into the old distemper Eccles 7.14 No man can finde out any thing after God But hee can finde out sundry failings after men when they have done their best I will not insist upon it onely it may briefly teach us these two Items First to turne our doting eyes from the perfection of any creature here by reason of those crackes and flawes which are in the best of them We must turn our doting eye from the perfection of the creature What petty Deities and Idols are Physitians esteemed among carnall people for their skill in curing diseases especially if their gift be any more then ordinary Say it be but in any one kinde or disease as a Consumption Feaver Dropsie or the like especially if when others have given over the cure as desperate they take it in hand and effect it What money what honour is thought enough to requite a man Nay as Patients teach them so how doe Physitians learne to dote upon themselves And how will they boast themselves like petty Kings of their supposed skill Oh! if this medicine saith one wil not heale him nothing in the world will doe him good And another I healed him saith he when no other could turne his hand to it And I will pawne all I have upon my skill that I heale him Could God himselfe speake any more Let me not bee thought to speake disdainfully against the persons of any learned or religious Physitians much lesse their profession both which I honour and am bound to doe while I live for the good received from them through Providence And I know many there are in this kinde eminently religious and well deserving But onely by so just occasion one Item I would give to Physitians Physitians must know themselves only instruments of Providence for such as God will heal and another to Patients To the former this That as they are conversant most what about searching out naturall causes symptomes and cures of diseases So no profession is more subject to Atheisme and prophanenesse then such except the Lord subdue and captivate their spirits and skill under his Providence making them servants to attend it for the good of such as to whom God hath appointed life by meanes and no otherwise For why Who knowes not but many recover of diseases in the judgement of Physitians incurable And how many there are in whom nothing save safety appears who yet in the midst of the Physitians security dye instantly All to shew that the passages of life and death are not in mans hand but in the Lords who oft-times delights to blind-fold the wise and prudent in their own sense and to doe good by those who are of meaner parts Not but that the parts of learned Physitians are to bee esteemed who cannot be too well parted since they deale in so pretious a subject as the life of the most excellent creature man but that with parts they joyne a God adore him and set him up in their souls as supreame and chiefe treading themselves under feet in point of that Royall prerogative of saving life Alas how doth the Lord humble our confidence daily when hee crosseth our conjectures and betrayes our folly both in our hopes of recovery when there is none and in our despaires when there is no cause What mortall man whose breath is in his nostrils would not here submit and lay downe his weapons at the feet of the Lord of life and death confessing himselfe a foole and that both in his owne case and others the Lord may and doth often conceale from him the reall cause and truth of Diseases 2 Kings 4.27 The holy Prophet Elisha led by a Divine and miraculous Spirit humbly professed it to Gehazi in the womans case who came for her dead childe The Lord saith hee hath hidden it from me And shall not we say so who are poore silly ones to him even as a base ignorant empiricke is to us and much more So for people how insolent are they in this kinde People very fond in magnifying the outward cause and neglecting God Robbing God of his honour and setting up base man in his throne Oh saith one such a Physitian let me have or let such a sickeman have and upon my life he will heale him Let the upper milstone runne upon the nether and I warrant your corne betweene will be grown What Is there no more in it then so Is there no God Oh cry you mercy saith one I forgot that now I speake as a man Nay rather like an Atheist and so let a Physitian whom they like visit them his comming is to them as good a medicine as the physicke he brings If Physitians would abhorre and tremble at such Patients and Patients such Physitians mules scratching each others itch they would learne more humility and divinity Honour the Physitian and spare not so thou give him no more then is due to an instrument Let him and thou sanctifie both physicke and receits by prayer and faith and behold it as
I finished the last Lecture yet this one day of our Lecture being the last that you and I are like to teach and heare each other and the last of our yeare requiring that I should say somewhat unto you Also my studies having reached fully to another Sermon and besides this fourth part of the Chapter craving some connexion with the three other handled already I have set apart this day to this end One point may give light to al the particulars following being 7. if God permit To wit to handle some one such point out of the whole Harmony of these five Verses following as may give you some generall light into the whole context for time will not permit us to go through all These five verses then as I told you in their Title containe the remoter consequences of Naamans obedience To give you a briefe view and taste of them these they are First there is the true spirit of the cure to be evidently discerned in this new Convert feeling the truth of the Word in himselfe and virtue let out from heaven into Jordan to heale him he takes it not as a common thing and like a blocke without sense but is presently and instantly and erresistibly ravished as with a new spirit begotten by the worke of God upon his soule as well as his body The Lord darting grace of mercy and compassion into his heart as well as health into his flesh to intimate unto him by whose providence from first to last he was guided to so strange an effect Lo he comes to the Prophet with a spirit of impotencie admiration and zeale to acknowledge the Lord with all fervor of spirit and to knit his heart for ever in love unto him for this cure of body and soule Secondly feeling himselfe unable to reach the Lord himselfe he goes to his Prophet the next instrument of his good forgets his former discontent and entirely embraces him as the Prophet of God sent unto him for this purpose and to him he directs his thankfulnesse which fell short of God himselfe Thirdly hee enters solemne league with the Lord to be a close client of his for ever ejuring all former false and idolatrous service and vowing himselfe wholly to the Lord and his worship for time to come Fourthly he takes hold and possession of the Church of God acknowledging it to be the onely true Church and therefore scruing himselfe into it that although his face was Aram ward yet his heart was to Jerusalem ward and to the true and onely place where the Lord had visible residence and presence at this time And this although he testified by a weake and poore expression of taking with him the earth of the holy Land Yet the inward soundnesse of heart exceeded his weake signification Fifthly he discovers his unfained conversion by a most tender sense of that sin whereby he had formerly most offended God viz. his presence at the worship of Rimmon this darts into his converted soule even as a dash of the tooth-ach or the sting of an hornet Sixthly he is exceedingly pierced with feare and care how he might nourish that sparkle which God had begun in him and how he might shun and prevent that rocke of offence at which he had mortally stumbled before Seventhly he is very glad to aske direction while it was now to be had how he might order his whole course for time to come which being darke and doubtfull for the present hee therefore craves the Prophets advice and prayers unto which the Prophet gives him a mercifull answer These are the parcels of this fourth generall I can but goe over the first The point then is this Where God workes a true cure upon any soule Doctr. Every true cure hath the spirit of the cure attending it there he also workes the spirit of the cure By a cure I meane conversion of a soule from Idols not Rimmon but lusts and vanities to the living God By the spirit of a cure I meane that instinct and disposition that due temper and quality which such a cure deserveth at the hands of the cured And I say not the spirit of him who is cured but the spâ—rit of the cure that is such a spirit as the mercy of him that heales the soule instils into it viz to be for God who hath beene for it Onely this As Gods cure hath beene gracious so is the spirit of the cure zealous and as his worke hath beene entire whole and unfained to the good of the soule that it might no more returne to folly so is the spirit of the cure sincere intire constant God hates patchery and halfe cures and the spirit of the cure hates halfe thankes halfe love halfe affections In a word the spirit of a sound cure of a soule is a tender spirit the very first fruits of the heart enlightned with faith forgiven renued and warmed in the wombe of mercy the most naturall peculiar acceptable and well pleasing fruit of the soule to God What the spirit of a cure is It stands in a tender love truly called the first love a tender joy in God tender compassions towards him tender jealousie of that which might provoke â—im tender care to please him tendernesse of spirit both to him in affections of desire and delight and also for him in zeale and revenge defence and taking up armes for him And it rests not in him but descends to a tender love to his Truth Worship Services Sacraments Sabbaths Servants and all which hath any relation to God even for his sake This in short is that I meane by this spirit of a cure I pitch upon this point the more willingly because it hath an easie comprehension of all those seven consequences of the cure above named And although each of them be distinct yet because this is my last Lecture I am glad that one doctrine hath so good a lot as to give you though but in generall and farre off a view of the whole For in this spirit of the cure all those fruits of Naamans returne from Jordan may be coucht together as a garment into one knot Explication of the Doctrine Marke then for explication sake thus much It is with the soule in point of spirituall cure as with the body in case of a bodily Who being heal'd by some odde rare Physitian of a mortall disease and such an one as all the Physitians in the country could not turne their hands unto yea such as all others gave over as desperate and past their skill by some odde Physitian I say one of a thousand who himselfe could not have heald it neither except he had by divine hand beene peculiarly made and train'd up for the very nonce to be skilfull in such a disease and such a one as will by no meanes take money or fees but scornes it only stands upon doing good preventing sad wreck of the diseased that he might get himself a name of
questions Prayers confessions and the like who doth not wish himselfe in their case except it be some errant blocke who discovers his brutishnesse all are ravisht to see such early beginnings The Lord knowes the fittest way to worke upon men Sooner will a young novice by his active spirit of the cure stir up others then some solid and grave Disciples because the spirit of the one is more stirring active and drawing than the other Fourthly there is in the cure of the soule converted to God Reas 4 such an irresistible power and impotencie From that irresistible power of Grace in the soule especially in the first turning home of it that there is no choaking quenching or damping of it It resembles her originall Seed leaven mustard-seed are things of an active and encreasing nature Leaven in a little while will sowre all the lump Hence are those expressions of the Saints Thy Word was in mee as coales of fire in my bosome Can a man carry them there and not be burnt I would have kept in thy words saith David but such was the nature of them that they would not be concealed I had no rest nor peace till I had uttered them to Congregations Peter could not hold Christ in his bosome till he had uttered himselfe to Nathaniel That woman of Samaria had fire in her bosome when she went to tell her kindred citizens the news of Christs discourse The love of God workes in the breasts of his Saints as it first wrought in his owne he having conceived it once could not cease till it had discovered it selfe to poore sunken Adam and hee would rather chuse to make his onely Sonne a Masse shame then he would not expresse it Even such is the same love having once wrought in them it is as the new wine in the caske which must have vent or else it will breake It is like Josephs affection to Benjamin all must be had out from him Gen. 45.14 and he must utter himselfe to him and fall upon his neck with a kisse and teares The newer any thing is the more forcible So is it with love The Apostle hath a sweet word to expresse it The love of Christ constraines us 2 Cor. 5. The word signifies 2 Cor. 5.14 gathers us up together as a beast hemmed in a Pinfold hath an appetite after liberty so the spirit of love finds it selfe straitned till it breake out And 1 Cor. 13. love is bountifull and working 1 Cor. 5. full of affection hopeth all things endureth all things and the like The fifth God is the God of order and loves sutablenesse of Reas 5 Age and Temper youth naturally is hot and full of expressions God is the God of order it is comely for young ones to be so their lusts were so before grace therefore grace must be so also I restraine not this heat to meere youth for if God do convert elder ones as Naaman there is a spirituall youth or first age even in them also grace at the first is most operative be the yeares what they may be but especially when grace falls upon tender yeares as for the most part that is the season ere the soule be sapped in lewd customes then it quickens those hot spirits which it meets with to singular expressions Reas 6 Lastly by this spirit the Lord provides matter and argument of convincement For the due convincement of such as after may wax luke-warme and loose and inward checke for time to come if at any time his people shall revolt from this grace of first conversion The Lord knowes our mold and fashion just Psal 103. We seem at our first setting forth to the journey so trimme and so prepared that no troubles nor difficulties shall daunt our resolution But by that time wee have travelled a while what with the ill way what with ill weather bad successe and what with our owne weary and crazie spirits within we waxe unto ward and stagger whether we should goe forward or no. The Lord knowes how many waies this first spirit of the cure flagges and wanzes in us sometimes the abundance of iniquity causes the love of many to waxe cold this degenerate formall world is ready to quench our spirit the presidents of many zealous and painfull professors who are turned drunkards uncleane worldlings Epicures and sinfull wretches 2 Pet. 3. ult do shake us The errour of the wicked puls us from our stedfastnesse feare of some men flattery of others but especially a cursed heart on the one side giddie presuming venturous on the otherside slavish fearfull and distrustfull distempers us so that although we keep from grosse evils yet we are far from that frame of zeale closenesse and watching which we have found onely peace from Now when it falls out thus and that crosses debts ill marriage care of children and other disguisements come upon the necke of the other then is the Lord faine to step in and take us to taske to upbraid us and cast us in teeth with our first spirit of cure our early first love sweet affections covenants humble feare watchfull care diligent paines zealous spirit Luk. 23.31 What was this done in the greene tree and shall it not be done in the dry What shall first beginnings shame thee Didst thou begin in the spirit if yet thou didst so and wilt thou now end in the flesh Oh! is there not enough in that never dying spirit of an immortall hope of salvation to carry thee on in thy poore course with equalnesse of affection Say the edge be a little blunted what is metall gone too is the steele worne out of the backe That first spirit of sound joy in God should by this day have bred in thy belly a welspring of water flowing to eternall life Oh! for shame strengthen the weary hands Heb. 12.13 and feeble knees and correct the crooked that it turne not out of the way Thus the Lord charmes a declining spirit by an experiment of her owne and brings her backe with sorrow and shame to her former temper So much for Reasons Use 1 Now for Use first is the spirit of a true Convert thus zealous for God This then teacheth us a difference of cures and that all are not alike for there are many to be sure farre from this temper and frame of spirit Instruction with an item Not every cure hath such a stroake in the soule of a man thus to change qualifie and act his spirit to and for the Lord. And all to teach us to try our spirits and to be afraid to rest in any base counterfeit cures which afford none of this life and operation Who doth not now a dayes boast himselfe to have gotten this through cure Counterfeit cures very common in the world true cures rare If once baptized and professe the Gospell it is treason in these dayes to put a difference betweene men Alas yee poore wretches
the spirit within you shall put the difference though others hold their peace The base degenerate carnall spirit of men now a daies boasting of a cure and conversion but still the same for their temper and frame of spirit or else in a base outside of zealous performances and shewes of good without any cordiall geniall spirit of self-deniall tendernesse and love to holinesse bewrayes sufficiently whence their cures came Tell mee I pray was there such a spirit of a cure in him whom Christ cured at the Poole after 38. years disease Joh. 5. as was in that blind man Ioh. 5.7 Ioh. 9.7 8 9. Joh. 9. When the former of these was in healed what news were there he went to the Pharisees and there jangled but Christ heard no more of him so that after meeting him in the Temple he told him Thou art now healed but sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee A sad item so soon after Alas what wonder it was a cure of the left hand a bodily cure of lame feet not of a lame spirit and thereafter came of it no spirit of tendernesse thankes acknowledgement or engagement followed And what came of those cures in the wildernesse which befell the Israelites when the Lord had heald them of their bondage taken away the feare of Pharaoh his hoast Exod. 12. compared with 15. c. and with Num. 11. 15. and the danger of the red Sea when hee had removed the sad disease of famine and thirst sent them quailes in plenty dropt Manna from heaven into their bellies and fill'd them with the Rocke which gusht out and followed them with water when as there was a plague gone out among them Aaron with his censer went and stood betweene the living and the dead and staid it when scorpions were let fly among them to sting them to death the Lord set up a brazen one upon a Pole to looke upon that beholding it they might escape What came of all these cures Nothing their carcasses fell in the wildernesse after all these themselves grew as base murmurers rebels and breakers of Covenant as ever But as for any true spirit of a sound cure I meane any remembring of him that had healed them alas it was farre from them and why I pray you Surely because the cure was but by halfes not a full and sound one it came from one Physitian but not from the like purpose of heart it reacht their bodies but toucht not their soules How many are there among us whom the Lord hath wrought cures upon Some of us he hath cured of our poverties and filled our purses with money paid our debts and set us on foot others have beene cured of our ill Names healed in point of our bad yoak-fellowes others of us have beene healed of our diseases of body agues consumptions dropsies and God hath betrusted us with second lives like Hezekiah whē as we would have given the hope of them for a straw but to what end have all these boones befallen us surely to make us more ranke proud jolly in our selves we have had a spirit of our cures too but it is such as the disease had beene much better then the remedy and had beene like to have held us in more humblenesse and feare then our cures Eccles 13.5 I may say with Salomon I have seene a misery under the Sunne a cure bestowed upon a poore sicke man to the ruine of him 2 Chron. 28.22 Is not this a fearfull cure Ahaz because he was worse for crosses is thus branded This is King Ahaz what shall our brand be who are worse for our cures But this is not all the preposterousnesse of it That all the hope of these seemed to be before their cure False cures have a preposterous spirit O then if God would not destroy them of this disease but let them live what manner of ones would they prove but when they lived what deivlls have they proved That good King sung Esay 38.19 The living the living shall praise thee But these may cry The living shall do thee more dishonour then ever And to leave these others have beene healed by a better hand by the Ministry of the Spirit they have beene healed of their ignorance uncleannesse profane lives they have gotten knowledge reformation of some grosse evils but what shall we say of them Is the spirit of a cure seene upon them Can any man say that grace hath bred in them tendernesse of conscience love to the people of God a change of heart Alas no such matter Nay there are some who are not so much as rid of their grosse lusts and yet make great shew of zeale and forwardnesse Note As lately one arrested by the hand of God with sudden feare of death emptied himselfe of all and confessed that hee was habited in a custome of adultery with three or foure harlots about the same time and yet an hearer noter repeater of Sermons and a kind of Professor Cures now are all mens cases All will be religious and that shall be the cover of all their ranke lusts plaisters are now applyed to all sores let them be as festred within as rankled and corrupt as they will not to speake of secret evils of wrath frowardnesse rage unmercifulnesse rebellion of heart worldlinesse and the like Alas these men have no leasure to thinke of they seeke religion as drunkards seeke drinke to besot and disable their consciences from stirring and stinging of them Misery of such as rest in false and halfe cures What shall I say of such Alas there is no spirit of a cure to be seene in them they want the sound cure which a spirit of conversion hath in it God hath two closets of plaisters and medicines the one outward the other secret in the former hee keepes universall salves for all sores in the other Medicines for an hard heart a proud spirit unbeleefe subtilty hollownesse imponitency To the former men flock apace and if they can get them they care for no more But the heart which God onely askes for runnes full of all excesse and so long as the still stream of outward Religion possesses them with security of their estate they never lay ought to their hearts till wrath and hell-fire flash in their faces and feare surprizes Hypocrites Esay 33.13 Then all turnes to horrour and who shall endure everlasting burnings But oh yee wofull people Might you not have beene admitted into the inner closet if you had preased hard to it yes verily That paddle and adoe which you have made to soder and play the Hypocrites might have beene better spent and sped better to purchase a sound cure never to be repented of Tell me if a man that hath a dangerous sore upon his body content himselfe with going to a base Quacksalver with a budget at his backe and get of him a little salve in a clout to skinne his sore
at times or a little water in a glasse to keepe it sweet will this prove a cure Or if he go to a cunning Chirurgion and he tell him I can cure you and make you as sound a man as ever you were but then you must be at some cost endure some paine be content to be lanced or to have your sore search'd to the quick or to have the dead flesh deeply corrasived and then to be tented and to be patient till it be quite healed But then the sore man should say Alas here is cost I am loth to waite so long Can you not bind it up for me the whiles and keepe it warme and the Ague from taking it if you can I le be content a while and hereafter I will come againe But by that time the sore is gangreen'd or fistulated or hath taken the bone and marrow and the Cihrurgion tels him it is incurable his legge must be cut off or it will cost him his life Would any man praise this man Surely such are many lazars cures even such as will make them creeples or bed-rid ones But sound cures we heare of few In the feare of God take warning All cures are not of one sort God can bee slight with the slight and sound with the sound Therefore come unto him open thy wound move him to pity thou art but a dead man if he helpe not come ere thy heart be quite hardned and past hope confesse his skill submit to his cure let him search tent and handle thee as he will If a sound cure be thine aime to get an heart truly purged of thy humours broken beleeving and repentant know the Lord can cure thee wholly as good cheape as by halfes renounce thy patchery and hollownesse and come to plaine termes and he can make thy flesh come againe as a childs But know that till then no spirit of a cure will be seene in thee nothing save a shifting shuffling doubtfull darke and staggering course will be come by Onely this sound cure will create a spirit of cure in thee to be a zealous humble and close Christian to be for the honour of Him who hath delivered thee from death and hell which no Physitian under Heaven save him selfe could have done for thee Use 2 Secondly Terrour this may be terrour to all whose frame is contrary Branch 1 to this spirit of Grace and Conversion So farre from being for God his Glory his Gospel and Ordinances so farre from the spirit of thankes Terrour to all such as nourish open and notorious diseases in themselves zeale and joy for grace and pardon that they still continue in the myre of their owne filth and still wallow in their defilements of covetousnesse prophanenesse uncleannesse and the like wofull wayes So contrary to the spirit of such as God hath healed that they carry about and upon them the nasty and leprous skin of Naaman An heathenish brutish and ignorant mind void of all light of truth an uncircumcised heart a rebellious obstinate and impenitent course fraught with all sinne possesses them I may say these rather have the spirit of deepe and mortall disease upon them then the spirit of a cure they carry that in their bosomes which is farre more mortall then Naamans disease To wit the spirit of old Adam of blindnesse bad customes the spirit of the earth and their lusts nay worse the spirit of rebellion malice and untractablenesse of heart they will not be reproved nor convinced but fight against the Lord and his truth yea some of them against their owne light which is as contrary to the spirit of Grace as can be Oh! the sinnes they commit are committed with an high hand they were never slaine by the killing letter of the Law but are alive jolly and secure their sinne weares a Crowne the King is not higher when he weares his Crowne then these are when they are in their Alehouses their games their adulterous and ungodly practises Their tongues are their owne for they were never redeemed with a price their passions humours are violent Their thoughts Psal 12.5 1 Cor. 6.20 Esay 13.22 a very through-fare for the Devill as Esay saith an habitation of Dragons and Ostriches so furious so false in their dealings so intemperate that none can live by them Brethren it is one thing to have sinne another to have a spirit of sinne A spirit of wrath is a prevailing habitednesse of it a spirit of revenge is a restlesse spirit never quiet till it have wreckt it selfe upon an enemy a spirit of uncleannesse is to be given over to it a spirit of the world is when not onely the soule hath the world but the world hath it It is one thing for a man to fall into a river and to have some water got into his body A spirit of sin what and how fearfull it is Heb. 13.5 another to lie under water and to be drown'd in it The Apostle Heb. 13.5 tels us of a conversation in covetousnesse or the love of silver as the word is which is then when a man is in the power of that lust when it hath got the soule into her snare and chaines so that the flame and bent of it is for gaine all the thoughts affections and devices of the heart are that way sleeping waking alone or in company in calling or in worship of God worky dayes or Sabbaths all is fish comes to net with such a base heart as is powred out after that Idoll And Brethren how many still of our people are such as these So farre from the spirit of Grace tendernesse 2 Cor. 4.4 compassions bowels of deare affection to God to his truth and Name that rather the spirit of the Prince of this world rules in them acts and carries them as sworne slaves of hell and foes of grace according to his owne pleasure Oh brethren these are the sadde times wherein the true spirit of Grace and of a converted soule are rare dainties Since the power of the Gospel hath beene resisted God hath given men over to the spirit of all sensuall prophanenesse The spirit of roysting swearing drunkennesse long lockes and all lust yea scorning the Gospell and all wholsome Ministery is come in stead thereof That promise of powring out the spirit of prophecie upon all flesh is gone The spirit of the Stewes and Alehouse Ioel 2. ignorance and every man for himselfe is come in The faces of men and women are altred with their spirits into the faces of Lions Wolves and foxes The Gospel serves either for a stalking-horse of hypocrites or a scare-crow of the lewd Except God be a breaking off our whole frame and knocking together of our old brasse and pewter to melt us and mould us anew in the Furnace of affliction I know not what to thinke of the spirit that rules among us If Heathens should see some of us it would make them loath the Gospel and
embrace their gods Bacchus Venus and the rest more strongly then ever Enough wee have who are of the spirit of Caiphas his Hall and those that spited scorned and spit at Christ crying Crucifie him not many whose spirits are towards him tender to his glory to his mercy and grace to his poore Church and people Oh the spirit of ambition selfe-love is now all in all What should I say to such except they be accursed by Gods owne mouth that never any good should seaze upon them let this point in Gods feare scare them Me thinkes thou shouldst not heare of such a spirit of Grace and tendernesse as I speake of but thy soule shoâ—ld tremble and thy heart throb in thy bosome to consider what a contrary spirit of corruption and hell thou walkest with Oh! if God should leave thee to this spirit of thine owne to be conceited of thy selfe to feare no danger to be carelesse what may betide thee and to adde drunkennesse unto thirst what shall become of thee what is wanting save hell it selfe to make up the woe of such a soule And yet I tell thee this is not farre off from thee Read Deut. 29. Deut 29.15 If any man hearing the words of this booke and the curses thereof shall yet say in his heart I shall have peace I shall fare well I feare nothing Especially if conceited of its owne welfare the wrath of God shall smoke out against such a man and God will not be entreated of him for why he is over head and eares in the spirit of gal bitternesse a thousand to one if ever he recover Therefore looke about thee in season As the Lord said to Elijah in the cave so say I to thee Up arise and goe forth for thou hast a great journey to goe ere thou come at the Horeb of God I wish thee to goe by mount Sinai and hath thy base spirit throughly with those terrours of God 1 Kings 19.7 which may gaster thee with some feeling of thy condition Sinne is got into thy spirit and hath seated it selfe deeply in the entrals of thy soule A great gulfe is set betweene thee and the spirit of grace therefore pull downe thy rebellious heart and as Peter said to Simon Magus try by all meanes whether this thy sinne may be forgiven thee The spirit of grace is joyned with the spirit of mourning Acts 8.22 Try whether God cannot bring thee out of one spirit of bitternesse into a contrary for he promiseth that all humbled ones shall be in bitternesse as a thing steept in vineger as he that is in bitternesse for the losse of his onely sonne Zach. 12.10 Bitternesse of a prophane and presumptuous heart must be turned into the bitternesse of a broken and subdued spirit Oh! that ever I should exalt folly so highly and disdaine mercy yea kill the Lord of life as I have done Read Acts 2. Acts 2. where this prophecy was fulfilled in such as crucified Christ himselfe and yet being pierced in heart for it the Lord powred the spirit of grace into them and annointed them with oyle of gladnesse and joy so that they who murthered him had the first hansell of life and pardon from him Oh blessed art thou if the like portion might befall thee who hast ventured as farre as they did So much for this Branch 2 Secondly it is terrour to all Neuters and Sceptiques whose spirit seemes not so ranke and cursed Indifferency Neutrality of spirit worse then prophanenesse Numb 23. 25. but yet is as deepe and dangerous because they maintaine a vile spirit of indifferency and mediocrity in stead of this spirit of grace They say as Balac did to Balaam Neither blesse nor curse In this respect they are worse then the former because they utterly abandon all sense of the Gospel and become fulsome Atheists upon point neither hot nor cold fish nor flesh They would seeme to hate open villanies But then they much more abhorre the spirit of the Gospel Their spirits are flat and flash whereas the spirit of the Gospel is tender Luke 14. ult zealous and powerfull Wofull ones hanging betweene Heaven and Earth cast downe from Heaven vomited up from the earth Salt which hath lost his savour good for nothing no not for the dunghill All their skill stands in selfe-concealments forsooth their religion and conscience may not be known What can you worke wonders can you carry coales in your bosomes and not be burnt Such have their Religion to chuse Doubtlesse the not burning of your bosomes by this fire argues that there is not one coale of the Altar fallen upon them you are Quench-coale no sparkle of grace can kindle upon your cold hearth you must needs be ashamed of the Gospel because the spirit of magnifying it and of justifying wisdome is not in you but rather an aloofe dead and Gallio-like spirit is in you Whether you serve Christ or Beliall whether you be Popish or Protestant who but God can judge And surely you lie fulsome upon his stomach Acts 18.15 as luke-warme water and that which makes you happy in your own conceit will prove you accursed in Gods It were better you were hot or cold then thus wambling and next to be vomited for ever out of the mouth of him Revel 3.19 who never returnes to his vomit Under pretext that thou darest not trust men thou betrayest God and the spirit of the Gospel a remedy worse then the disease To be as wise as a Serpent I disswade thee not But shall this destroy that naked simplicity and spirit of love to God and his truth which where it cannot goe will creepe and play at small game rather then sit out What Matth. 10. 2 Cor. 10.4 because we cannot expresse our selves in such acts and services as we would or have done shall we serve God with neither might spirit or courage at all Is that command dispensable and confined to this season or to that hath God no need of thee in dangerous times or because thou darest trust no man wilt thou therefore trust no God Shall the Gospel carry thee no further then ease and the serving of thine owne fleshly turne will concurre Wilt thou dare to doe any thing against the spirit of the Gospel because thou hast not elbow-roome sufficient to act that part as thou wouldest It is just with God to take it quite from thee because thou walkest contrary to it And to give thee over to a close spirit of thine owne that thou shouldest jeere and scorne the zealous as Micoll did David dancing with his Ephod before the Arke 2 Sam. 6.20 Was not the King a goodly foole to day How many of these Neutrall spirits have growne to it Let it gaster us from it and teach us to nourish such a spirit in our bosomes as the Gospel hath wrought if ever any such were wrought and to be farre from disdaining
it He that cooles and checkes his own spirit from zeale and grace It commonly growes to open prophanenesse will in a short time be a secret discourager and checker of others How many are there of yeeres and discretion enough in other matters who will baite their children and servants from their diligence in hearing and zeale in profession How many will say I my selfe was as hot as you but now time and experience they should say time the Mother of truth which hath discovered their hollow hearts have made me wiser And I warrant you say they as hot as you seeme we shall have a cooling card for you and in time when children grow on and debts encrease and an hard world besets you you also will change your zeale into wisdome and become as temperate ones as we and abate your great resolutions How many are there whose great flames are now quailed and become as cold as ashes But woe be to such Satan hath entred into them againe though he seemed to be cast out at the first let none that have any dramme of this grace of the Gospel be damped for such as these For he that hath bred in them this spirit either can keepe them from such temptations or else can make their spirit rise above them and encrease Matth. 12.45 whereas the end of such revolters as these shall bee worse then the beginning So much also of this second sort Thirdly this is terrour to all Pelagian Popish and Carnall Branch 3 spirits Pelagian spirits farre from the true spirit of a cure which are as opposite to the Spirit of Grace and conversion as light and darknesse The spirit of a true cure of Jordan differs in all points from this spirit of selfe and free-will The one is for God and his glorious grace sets him up in the soule with admiration and thankes But the other is to set up and glorifie it selfe and the will of the flesh to make God stoop to man to fetch him from Heaven to the barre of humane censure there to answer for himselfe why he should not vouchsafe grace to this man as well as that both being equally disposed and if the Lord answer Because it is of my free love to shew mercy to whom I will Rom. 9.13 14 15. they strive with him and tell him This his pretended mercy is meere injustice and cruelty above the most mercilesse Tyrants to make a man and damne him when he hath done to prescribe him a rule which he never gave him power to performe and to require that of him which himselfe hath by an eternall fore-decree disabled him from O wofull pride Shall potsherds contend with their Maker Esay 45.9 If they will needs clash let them clash with potsherds and try which pot is stronger but to quarrell with the Potter how impudent and bootlesse is it And yet thus it is Note it who will The ancient spirit of conversion tender love and zeale to God and his truth never prospered since this bastard spirit of selfe and free-will came upon our stage It blasted all sincerity and gracious affections as sensibly as the East-wind blasts the tender buddes of the Spring What was Naamans spirit I pray so long as his Abana and Pharfar lasted Surely opposite to the Prophet to Jordan and the promise So is it with this Nothing will downe with the spirit of selfe save to pick quarrels with free grace it is no wonder that they are opposite to men 1 Thes 2.15 who are so contrary to God himselfe Tell me where will yee picke out a Pelagian spirit which ever was zealous for God tender to his glory jealous of offending him or carefull to please him The like I may say of the spirit of Popish devotion Popish spirits likewise standing in the bare letter of the Law of duties of outward ceremonies and performances putting a Religion into the worke wrought and deed done What doth all the dunghill and drosse of Popery seeke to establish save a carnall Religion What doth it so much abhorre as selfe-deniall except it be in some externals for the meriting of Heaven what is so odious to it as faith to justifie Alas That pleads for salvation by justice and not by grace It uses Christ onely for a meere formall person to beare her name Esay 4.1 2. but shee will beare all her charges her owne selfe And under a colour of some glorious ceremonies and outward worship what doth she but muzzle the mouth of conscience and nuzzle the soule in a rotten peace which either will carry her to hell laughing or else breake out into utter horrour and desperation I aske but this question When as once the Lord hath truly turned the soule to God what is more odious irksom to it then that which overthrows the Word and Promise and sets up in stead of it a Religion of mans braine and inventions garnisht and disht out with the shreds and dregges of flesh without a droppe of true bloud of Christ or one sparke of the spirit of grace Who wonders that wheresoever this trash becomes there the true preaching of the Lord Jesus the power of the Gospel the honour and esteeme of the Ministery of Reconciliation is trodden in the dirt and cast out as unsavoury But I cease and leave this Use of terrour and come to an Use of reproofe And that shall be of all such as in times past have seemed to be the first head of the Professors in this kind for their spirit of zeale and love to the Gospel but have now catcht a fall and Use 3 cannot get up on their legges againe Reproofe but remaine and welter in a lukewarme and degenerate estate boâ—h in the sight of God and his Church Brethren the time hath beene Revolters from their zeale and grace of the Gospel are in a sadde case in some of our memories that men have thought no Ministery zealous enough for them but wish'd with David Let the righteous smite me and it shall be as balme But now these men are growne weary of such loath reproofe and will teach Ministers what and how farre they shall order their discourse Each thing spoken in particular is spoken against them They who would have given their very eyes to Gods Minister and with Naaman here Psal 141.5 Gal. 4.15 thought neither gold nor silver nor changes of rayment good enough for him wil scarce give two brasse farthings to keepe them in their places At first who but they to get them in and now who but the same men to hunr them out What Are we become your enemies for telling you the truth is this your great spirit of the Gospel shall I say or of selfe-love The time hath beene when you came new minted as you thought out of Jordan that such tendernesse of conscience was upon you for God that you would scarce take up a pinne or a sticke of another mans lest
with what an humble sober heart he used life it selfe and much more all inferior comforts whose tenant at will he confessed himselfe to be and with what an heart he commended his spirit into the hands of him that gave it as oft as he lay downe to his rest And sure it is the little acknowledging of this Soveraignty and salvation of God is the cause why many of us are compelled to learne it by sad experience who else might enjoy it with more freedome Gods not being tyed to us in grace urges Prayer for daily assisting grace as very necessary The like I might speake touching Gods spirituall safeguard of our soules and the salvation of his Church The Lord is not absolutely tyed to us in these respects We should humble our soules for these also and say thou canst Lord if thou wilt vouchafe me such a measure of comfort by beleeving peace in my conscience admiration at thy love burning zeale for thy glory compassion and brokennesse of heart for my breaches of covenant and daily failings Thou hast the key of the wombe of heaven of the deepes the grave and of mine heart Lord the restraints or enlargements thereof are from thee Thou hast promised thy grace shall be sufficient 2 Cor. 12.7 Esai 63.13 but my wretched proud defiled soule may provoke thee to shrinke in thy graces thy rolling of bowels and opennesse of spirit But yet thou art the soveraigne Lord of thine owne good things thou canst if thou wilt remoove my tickling heart after the world mine envy pride hypocrisie Thou canst if thou wilt purge out my sloth deadnesse hardnesse of heart security unthankefulnesse and the like Oh Lord these cause me to walke sadly and to grone daily for ease Oh that thy good pleasure were to perfect thy first grace with this second assistance and efficacy and to cast in all those promises to the first which concerne mortification and a new creature Oh that I might not provoke thee by my wilfulnesse and unbeliefe to restraine the influence of heaven from mee and to make thy clowdes as brasse and mine heart as iron Lord thou mayst in thy soveraigne free grace enlarge thy selfe let not my base rebellious distempers dry up the welspring of thy promises God gives not account of all his matters And to conclude the Lord is a soveraigne God also in respect of his administration of his whole militant Church Although she be his spouse and hath a right to all his goodnesse yet God gives not an account of all his matters nay oftentimes she incurres a premunire with God and by her former lazy Laodicean temper of a fulsome carelesse surfeted spirit deserves that the Lord should use his soveraignty and prerogative of discipline over her for her correction and amendment Therefore although he take not his loving kindnesse from her yet Sins of the Church the cause of Gods hiding himselfe her Lethargy and Palsey frame her wearinesse and contempt of his ordinances and their power may cause him to chasten her with the rods of men Now we are in such cases of wanting the meanes of injury and violence of times encroaching of enemies inundation of errors and profanenesse and decay of love and zeale in the better sort very prone to taxe Gods wisedome and call him to our barre as if we would teach him more wisedome See Jer. 12.1.2 But alas the Lord is a soveraigne God and knowes what physicke our maladies require he knowes our rust will not be filed off without much rubbing and scowring He lookes at the generall ends of his providence which are to punish severely the declensions and revolts of such as professe his Name let us not wonder that our praiers sticke in their ascent and prevaile little we looke still at meanes and ordinances to be still as we have beene but the Lord lookes at the melting and purging out our drosse and trying us whether we be reprobate silver or no. In this case what shall we doe call for our prayers backe againe and give the Lord over No surely let us know we can goe no whither to speed better if we leave him but confesse his soveraigne power might force him to a decree against us lie low licking the dust of his feet John 6.68 2 King 23.2.3 c. Jer. 45.5 Psalm 119. Mica 7.9 with Iosia and his people striving as much against the streame as we can and craving our owne lives may be given us as a prey if we can speed for no more but however not forsaking our covenant nor giving him over through a sullen discontented heart till either he plead our cause and bring forth our light or else make our poore lives tolerable in the midst of our sorrowes and teach us wisely and faithfully to serve our time So much for the second Use Thirdly this doctrine is confutation and reproofe of the enemies of Vse 3 Gods soveraignty or the cavillers and abusers of it First Confutation of all Cavellers against the Soveraignty of God all such as take away the ground of this soveraignty of God For if it be so as many dreame that man is only in a darke dungeon yet still hath his eyes in his head to see and apprehend light if it be offred and a liberty of will by Sort. 1 the benefit of light to embrace and receive it sure it is God hath not man at such a deepe advantage as we speake of ye must marke all the grace of such men is the will of the flesh upon generall enlightning Secondly Sort. 2 all that fight against the royall freedome of Gods dispensation of grace by the meanes to some and not to others both being every way alike I say equally distant from it or from any propension and accommodation toward it either within or without Oh! it frets them to the very heart to heare that there should be any such liberty ascribed to God! They confesse that on mans part there may be some barres to hinder grace But they cannot endure it that when the object lyes indifferently disposed then soveraignty should reject or receive upon meere will no reason at all appearing this cuts them to the heart that they may not bind the hands of God behind him to carry himselfe alike to all who lye in equall and faire correspondence to it But O ye wretches goe learne what this meanes not of the willer or the runner but of mercy Not our making toward grace but graces making towards us saves us Rom. 9. Thirdly it reproves our carnall vanity who in our thoughts will be bold Sort. 3 to prefer such to Gods grace as please us well for their gifts hearings repeatings of sermons doing duties and forwardnesse without teaching them to humble their soules and cast out their Pharisaicall spirit which hinders more then all their gifts further them Oh! Matth. 8. as those Jewes spake of that Ruler that he deserved he should doe him the
favour of healing so these thinke it were but reasonable that God should grant mercy to such a towardly and zealous childe or novice But as that Ruler hearing of their words to Christ came himselfe and abased himselfe cast off his merit and his building of a Synagogue professing himselfe unworthy under whose roofe Christ should come and so prevailed so must thou deale with the soveraignty of mercy if ever it be thine No no not the appearances of man can bind the Lord but his free love must overrule him The most poore despised impotent and silly wench among all thy brood may speed of mercy when the bravest wittiest and hopefullest of thē goes without Look at none despise none by the outward semblance Grace is free who knowes but thou mayst be an instrument of soveraignty to breed some savor of mercy even in that wife of thine which hath long beene most averse in spirit in that poore drudge of the kitchin who hath come last to prayers that child which of all the rest seemes of least capacity its not the easinesse of our heart to accept nor the rebellion thereof to refuse but the invinciblenesse of the Lords soule who cannot be pulled from his Elect and the efficacy of grace and powerfull mercy which carries the will of the creature before it not by compelling or necessitating of it but by a sweete perswasion and drawing it by his owne cordes to beleeve it making it of nilling willing and of willingable and effectuall to embrace it Sort. 4 Fourthly it must stop all the base cavills of men Oh! saith one I have spent the best part of seven yeares to obtaine a broken heart and cannot get it I see such and such can so melt and be so lowly upon the first hearing of the Word and grow to some measure of faith in short time as is incredible Surely if I had belonged to God I had long since been accepted Why Is not God the soveraigne giver or denier the furtherer or delayer of his owne grace Is not mercy his owne to give at his pleasure Is it not thank-worthy if thou get it at the eleventh houre even upon the Crosse with the theefe Esay 65.1 Is God tyed Is he not sometime found of them that seeke him not who never dreamt of him but walked in their ignorance and jolly in their lawlesse way And doth he not suffer some that seeke him with a Pharisaicall heart to goe without yea although they seeke him humbly and painefully doth not he know his owne best season Is thine eye evill because his is good doth he tie himselfe alway to one course God courses in the drawing home of his very divers No surely some he inclines to the meanes and breeds an hope a farre off others he holds under the meanes a long time in darkenesse the truth is he is tyed to no course to no persons seasons meanes or measures Turne thine impatience to humble selfe-deniall and adore God in his liberty goe to worke aright and ascribe to no meanes nor to thy selfe but his meere good pleasure and this will Sort. 5 prove the neerer way home though it seeme further about Fifthly doe not abuse this doctrine to forestall thy care in the use of meanes Doe not waxe out of measure wicked in shaking of all diligence to heare because God hath the whole strength in his owne hand to determine as he pleases But know that as the end so the meanes and the ordering thereof is in his hands Wouldst thou deny thy selfe all succors of the creature to feed and cherish thee because if the Lord have appointed thee to live Sort. 6 thou shalt live and if to dye no meanes shall sustaine thee Also doe not by this doctrine disorder the secret and revealed will of God but reverendly distinguish and observe both The one is that by which hee hath determined the ends Gods will double with the difference The other whereby he appoints the duties of men The one is unknowne to thee adore it but snare not thy selfe with it let not that forestall thy care and diligence in use of the meanes appointed by the revealed will Say not thus if I knew my selfe ordained to salvation I would apply my selfe willingly to them but how doe I know whether I belong to God Quest and shall not use the meanes in vaine to encrease my judgement Answ I answer thee Election is not revealed to any to encourage them to use meanes or beleeve But meanes of faith are offered to incourage to beleeve The knowledge of Election in such as attaine it flowes from faith not faith from it Fall thou to the meanes as God offers them which shall bee a signe unto thee of an humble and plaine heart and descant not upon that thou knowest not a signe of a froward rebellious spirit Thou art in the dungeon the Lord offers thee a ladder to come out cords and rags to hale thee up As Ebedmelec did to Ieremy Should Ieremy standing in his mire Jerem. 38.11 have felt more will to descant upon Ebedmelecs purpose in the casting in of rags and cords then desire to apply himself to the way of comming out might he not have lyen long enough there but if God have given thee the heart of Ieremy to tremble at the dungeon thou wilt not find leasure to quarrel with Ebedmelec what his meaning is unto thee but simply judge his meaning by his act his love by his cords and say thou mayst leave me here still with my cordes upon my shoulders but it seemes not so by thy offer for then thou mightst have spared this labor Therefore I obey thy charge and trust thee for drawing me up who gavest me thy cords and when I am drawne out then will I say now I know thy good will by the effect thereof Doe so in this case and prosper And so much for this second generall arising from the whole context And also for this time Let us pray c. THE SECOND LECTVRE VPON THE NINTH VERSE 9 So Naaman came with his horses and charets and stood before the dore of Elisha 10 And Elisha sent a messenger c. WEE come now beloved more closely to the words themselves Entrance upon the ninth vers and begin with this ninth verse as an introduction to the points following to the twentieth although it containe none of the five generalls which I intend chiefely to dwell upon yet it is the key to unlocke the doore of entrance upon all It containes the immediate occasion of the miraculous cure and conversion of Naaman Containing the Antecedents of the cure of Naaman and of those antecedent passages which lead unto it both the message of Elisha and Naamans entertaining thereof of which after But for this ninth verse sithence it hath in it some maine points of doctrine which depend upon the connexion of former verses we must open them first as all points gathered out of