have which was the Commendation and Direction given to the Church of Philadelphia Rev. 3.8 10 11. If thus we live and labour for Religion then Religion will revive and live 7. That we stir up our selves to take hold of God who hath hid his face from us that is to recover and retain the presence of God the grace and favour of God If we suffer God to depart Religion will die If God depart the Glory will be removed but if God return Religion will live for God is our life Deut. 30.20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God that thou mayest obey his voice and that thou mayest cleave to him for he is thy life O if all those who have a real interest in God and who have power with God would stir up themselves and set themselves by Faith in Prayer to take hold upon him we might we should certainly prevail with him to return to us to abide and continue with us as our God and Saviour for he delights to return and meet his People in such a way Isai 64.5 Thou meetest him that rejoyceth and worketh righteousness those that remember thee in thy wayes behold thou art wroth for we have sinned in those is continuance and we shall be saved Our returning unto God and Gods returning unto us will infer a blessed Resurrection of Religion That we may labour effectually in all these wayes to recover and preserve the life of Religion It is necessary 1. That we do and perform all with Mourning and deep Humiliation Mourning for and over our selves mourning for and over sinners mourning over our Families mourning over our Churches mourning over the rising Generations and over this whole People mourning under the sense of our own Sins and the Sins of others all the Sins of the times mourning under the sense of the dying state of Religion mourning under the sense of Gods displeasure of his departure and the woful effects of both mourning after God after the Lord Jesus Christ after the returns of his presence after his pardoning purging reconciling saving grace and mercy and all the effects thereof O that we could do all that we have to do even our whole work mourning in a frame and way of mourning with a spirit of mourning To that end we should set our selves apart retire our selves unto mourning as that mourning Prophet did Jer. 9.1 2. Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day night Oh that I had in the Wilderness the lodging-place of a way-faring man that I might leave my People go from them Mourn alone in secret places Jer. 13.17 My soul shall weep in secret places We should be mourning and alwayes without ceasing without intermission Jer. 14.17 Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day let them not cease Lam. 3.49 Mine eye trickleth down and ceaseth not without intermission Mourning with a deep and bitter mourning and lamentation sighing and crying bitterly unto the breaking of our loyns Ezek. 9.4 Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry Ezek 21.6 Sigh therefore thou Son of man with the breaking of thy loyns and with bitterness sigh before their eyes With an inward spiritual mourning with contrition humiliation and much soul-affliction admitting no comfort no common or carnal comfort Isai 22.4 Look away from me I will weep bitterly labour not to comfort me Mourning in a way of Prayer and Supplication Pray and Mourn and Mourn and Pray So Nehemiah he wept and mourned fasted and prayed Neh. 1.4 So Daniel Dan. 9.3 We must Sigh and Cry sighing and crying to God is the true voice of mourning and of mourners Our Prayers must be the voice of weeping Psal 6.8 9. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping we must mourn unto God So Nehemiah wept and mourned before the God of Heaven Nehem. 1.4 So bemoan our selves to him in our mourning that he may earnestly remember us still and that his bowels may be troubled for us and his compassions moved towards us Jer. 31.18 20. So mourn unto him as that our tears may drop into his Bottle and be written in his Book Psal 56.8 We must follow God mourning seek him mourning turn unto him mourning Jer. 31.9 They shall come with weeping and with supplication will I lead them Observe this is the way wherein God promiseth to revive his People and to raise them up by a Resurrection of Religion out of their deepest defection Jere. 50.4 In those dayes and at the time saith the Lord the Children of Israel shall come they and the Children of Judah together going and weeping as they go they shall seek the Lord their God they shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward Such a Mourning is the certain effect of the saving dispensation of the Spirit and converting Grace and is the only way of turning to God in a saving work of Conversion and reformation Zech. 12.10 11 12. And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of Grace and Supplication and they shall mourn in that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem And the Land shall mourn every Family apart c. Without such mourning there is no hope or possibility of any deliverance or salvation either from sin or judgement if we will not mourn we shall perish in our Apostasie Ezek. 24.23 Ye shall not mourn nor weep but you shall pine away for your iniquities it is most fearfully signal to a People when God leaves a People without a spirit of mourning and takes away his Mourners Jer. 16.5 Thus saith the Lord enter not into the house of mourning neither go to lament or bemone them for I have taken away my peace from this People saith the Lord even loving-kindness and mercys O if God shall please to frame us to such a mourning then he will most certainly save us from our Sin and Apostasie and turn us unto himself then he will prepare dispose and spirit us unto all his work we shall go on and go through with the work of God which now we can do nothing in when we come to labour in it mourning God will do all by his Mourners Isai 57.18 I have seen his way and I will heal him I will restore comfort to him and his Mourners O that we could mourn after this spirit of Mourners God is speaking mournfully to us by his Word he is mourning to us by his Ministry Mat. 11.7 God sets matter and cause of Mourning before us the wayes and works of God towards us call for Mourning Our Land begins to mourn under the sins of the times God is many wayes calling to weeping and mourning and baldness and girding Sack-cloth Isai 22.12 O that sincere Christians who have through Grace received the spirit and principle of mourning would stirr up themselves thereunto and beg this Grace of God it is your
Calling as Christians to mourn to be Gods mourners Sions Mourners O how much might you do for God and these Churches in this frame and way of mourning More especially if those of the Servants of God who are betrusted with the work of God and the publick weal of the People and these Churches were such Mourners and did labour in their work mourning Ezra Nehemiah were great Mourners and the work of the Lord prospered in their hands whilest they carried it on mourning Nehem. 1.4 Ezra 10.1 6. Joel 2.17 Let the Priests the Lords Ministers weep between the Porch and the Altar and say spare thy People O Lord Then the Lord will be jealous for his Land and pity his People 2. We must do what we do for the recovery and preservation of the life of Religion believing and obeying the Word of God I mean the Word of God as it hath been Preached and Delivered unto us by his Servants in the Ministry Those particular and extraordinary Messages which God hath sent to us by his Messengers those full and general Testimonies which God hath given by them against all the Sins of the times and unto all the duties of the times amplified in the delivery of them from the Word of God by so many solemn Words for Conversion whereby God hath charged us plainly expresly and fully with all our Sin and Apostasie judged and condemned us for it declared and denounced wrath and judgement against us in case of impenitency Yet withal most graciously calling of us unto Repentance and Reformation by many general Instructions Exhortations Directions Motives and Arguments proposed and pressed by Promises and Threatnings applied with much instancy and importunity and set home in the Application of them with very severe Admonitions and Warnings for our awakening Yea God hath made Application of his Word unto us in an extraordinary way and manner viz. In that great Ordinance wherein our Lord Jesus Christ was extraordinarily present to discover and to declare the summ of all that hath been spoken to us by the Ministry And whereby all the Churches have declared their conviction and published their confession and acknowledgement thereof Thus God hath spoken to us all that can be spoken suitable and proper to our state and condition we cannot tell what God can say more to us by the Ministry of his Word than he hath done but alas we have not hearkened nor believed nor obeyed those words of the Lord which have been sent unto us so that God may justly complain of us as of them Jer. 7.25 26. Since the day that your Fathers came out of the Land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my Servants the Prophets daily rising early and sending them yet they hearkened not unto me nor incleaned their ear and this God chargeth upon them every where as the great cause both of their utter defection from Religion and of their Destruction viz. because they would not hearken unto the Words of the Lord So 2 Chron. 36.16 Jer. 25.8 4. 35.15 Zech. 7.12 13. Yea God tells them plainly after their return from Captivity that it would never be well with them until they had hearkened unto the words of the former Prophets Zech. 7.7 Religion was never revived and raised they were never able to do any thing effectually in the work of Reformation neither did God work savingly for them by his Spirit until they had so done Neither may we expect any recovery of Religion or Salvation from Sin and Apostasie until we have hearkened to that is believed and obeyed that word Those Words of the Lord which he sent to us and which he is still sending unto us by his Servants And therefore O that Unconverted ones would hearken to the Words of the Lord which he hath sent to them for their awakening conviction humiliation and conversion believe and obey the Gospel that the work of Conversion might have a general and prosperous progress then Religion would revive and live And that those who are the sincere People of God would also hearken to the Word of the Lord which hath been spoken unto you to awaken and convince you to bring you to an humbling sight and sense of your own Sins and of the Sins of the times and of the wrath of God against your selves and against this People and these Churches as also to move and stir you up to quicken and strengthen you unto duty the duty of the times the work of Christs Churches you see all the general Sins and evils of the times growing and prevailing you see Religion decaying and dying You see this People and these Churches sinking and in great danger of perishing in this defection and apostasie you hear God threatning dreadfully and have seen his hand lifted up to Execution and you sit still do nothing are able to do nothing you are unable weak and feeble as other men unto and in the work of Reformation you fail utterly in all your essays to it and the reason is because you do not hear and obey the Word of God Believe it Christians you will never be able to exercise your Faith Hope or Confidence in God or to pray to God in good earnest you will never be able to ingage your hearts in the work of Reformation you will never find your selves quickened sanctified and strengthened thereunto and assisted therein until you have obeyed and subjected your very souls to the Word of God and so do ingage and labour in his work under the power of his Word there are none fit to intermeddle in Religious Reformation but those who tremble at the Word of God Ezra 9.4 Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the Word of the Lord Ezra 10.3 Now therefore let us make a Covenant with our God according to the counsel of my Lord and of those that tremble at the Commandment of God O Christians did you but once tremble at the Word of God you would find your Souls wonderfully raised in love zeal and courage unto and for his work more especially such of the Servants of the Lord who have any peculiar betrustments for others and for the Publick are more than others concerned to subject their Souls to the power of the Word of God Then they will find themselves extraordinarily spirited to their work and assisted by the Spirit of God Then they would prosper in their work Ezra 6.14 And the Elders of the Jews builded and prospered through the Prophesying of Haggai the Prophet and Zechariah Hag. 1.12 Then Zerubbabel and Joshua obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the Prophet Ver. 14. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel c. O that we generally and fully understood how much we are concerned thus to hearken to the Word of God God hath magnified his Word to New-England he hath wrought powerfully and gloriously for this People by his Word as for
their Children for ever And thus he moves them to set their hearts unto Religion Because it is their Life Whence we have this DOCT. That Religion it is the Life of the Covenant-People of God Our Text and Doctrine deliver the great and universal Reason of the Profession and Practice of our Religion Viz Because it is our Life Religion in the most full and comprehensive notion of it It is that whereby Man is qualified and capacitated to live unto God to live with God to live upon God to see and to injoy God in Christ as the Only and All-sufficient Author of Life and Object of Blessedness and Happiness as his last End and chief Good Religion comprehends Man's Deliverance from all both moral and miserable Evil both Sin Death and Hell as also all both moral and beatifical Good Holiness Happiness Grace and Glory And it is consummated in a perfection of Beatifical Vision and Fruition by the Light and Life of Heaven In the Explication I am to shew 1. That Religion is Life 2. That it is the Life of the Covenant-people of God 1. Religion it is Life that is 1. The true and pure Religion It is originally and only from God the living God the God of all Life who is Life it self in the abstract and the Fountain of Life to all living Religion it ariseth from and is founded in the very Being and Nature of the blessed God If there were no such God there could be no such Religion Religion it is of God both in a way of divine Revelation and in a way of divine Operation It is purely of divine Revelation respecting both the Doctrine of it the spiritual supernatural and saving Knowledge of it It is that whereby God hath revealed himself unto man and whereby man hath that saving Knowledge of God and Jesus Christ his Son which is Life eternal Joh. 17.3 It is that whereby God hath commanded Light to shine out of Darkness and by the enlightening power of his Spirit shined into our hearts and given us the light of the knowledge of his Glory in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4.6 It his marveilous Light 1 Pet. 2.9 Religion it is also from God in a way of divine Operation It is the most powerful Effect of the quickening power and operation of the Spirit of God as a Spirit of Life upon the creature hence it is phrased the Life of God Eph. 4.8 Religion it is the most glorious created Emanation of spiritual heavenly and divine Light and Life from God as the fountain of both Psal 36.9 For with thee is the Fountain of Life in thy Light shall we see Light 2. Religion it is also from Christ the Mediator It is founded in the Person Office and Work of Christ The being of Religion the light life good blessedness and happiness of it it is all from the Merit Satisfaction and Intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ and from the power and operation of his Spirit Religion it consisteth in our Faith in Christ and Obedience unto Him and in our practical and experimental Union Communion with his Person and the Application of all his Benefits even eternal Life Thus Religion it is our Life because thereby we are made partakers of Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life Joh. 11.25 The Way the Truth and the Life Joh. 14.6 By having of whom we have Life 1 Joh. 5.12 who is our Life Colos 3.4 Christ is the great PATRON and PROFESSOR of our Religion He hath confirmed it by his own personal Profession and Practice when on earth and is himself the great Apostle and High Priest of our Profession Heb. 3.1 Whence it is most properly called the Christian Religion 3. Religion it is respecting the Principles of it Life The Principles of it are living Principles Principles of Life Religion it is wrought into the hearts of men by the quickening power of the Spirit in that saving work of Grace wherein we are raised from Death unto Life wherein we are passed from Death unto Life 1 Joh. 3.14 Religion it is our spiritual Resurrection and so it is our spiritual Life 4. Religion in the practice of it it is the only way of Life It is by the performance of Religious Duties that men walk in the way of Life Practical Religion it is the narrow way which leadeth to Life Mat. 7.14 It is that way of Life which is above to the wise to depart from Hell beneath Prov. 15.24 It is the Everlasting Way Psal 139.24 5. Religion in the visible external Forms of it in all the religious Institutions Constitutions and Administrations which are of divine Appointment so it is the only Means of Life that whereby God gives Life or works Life In which sence it is said Salvation is of the Jews Joh. 4.22 Religion it is the living Waters the Waters of Life the Tree of Life which gives Life to the Nations Ezek. 47.8 9. Zech. 14.8 Rev. 22.1 2. Where Religion is there are all the Means of Life and the saving Improvement of those Means Where Religion is not there is no Day of Grace no Means of Grace no Life no Salvation 6. Religion it is that wherein and whereby man is brought to God to Christ to God in Christ. It is that whereby we do know God acknowledge him fear him believe hope and trust in him love serve worship and glorifie God and whereby we come to God converse with God have Communion with God and receive all saving Communications from God through Jesus Christ It is that whereby men move and act towards and upon God in and by which God dwells with men on earth it is that whereby we do apprehend cleave unto and live upon God as our Life Deut. 30.20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God and cleave to him for He is thy Life Thus Religion in the Principles of it it is Life in the Practice of it is the Way of Life in the visible and external Forms and Institutions of it it is the Means of Life and respecting the original Object and Ends of it it comes from and leads and brings us up unto God in Christ who is our Life Thus it is demonstrated that Religion is Life Secondly That Religion is Life to the Covenant-People of God that is 1. It is their spiritual Life that whereby they live spiritually It is that whereby every single Saint lives the Life of Grace and Holiness the Life of Faith and New Obedience The spirit and power of Religion in the heart it is Life to the Soul and gives being to the New Creature Rom. 8.6 To be spiritually minded it is Life Hence Religion it is that which makes the People of God a Living People God's People must be a living People Whenever God takes a People to be his People He quickens them with spiritual Life and makes them a Living People Ezek. 37.6 And ye shall live ' and ye shall know that I am
how many Protestant Churches in Saxony Bohemia Hungaria Poland France and other places have been dissipated and unchurched and that because of their decayings either as to the profession or practice of Religion If the Professors thereof be generally grown Formal and Lifeless it is a sad prognostick that a terrible Persecution is near at hand Upon which account wise men do with some dread behold the present state of the Protestant Interest in the World the names of those that are indeed alive being so very few As for the Churches in this Wilderness I am perswaded Christ will not suffer them to be made a Desolation as yet Though Israel was deeply revolted from the holy wayes of God in the dayes of Jehoahaz it is said 2 King 13.23 And the Lord was gracious unto them and had compassion on them and had respect unto them because of his Covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and would not destroy them nor cast he them from his presence as yet Nevertheless shaking Trials may come We have reason to expect them and God prepare us for them For great Sins are now common in New-England which were rarely if at all heard of but thirty years ago Prophaness groweth bold and is not easily suppressed There is much Hypocrisie and Formality amongst Professors nay and wise Virgins are asleep too It is beyond controversie that the late Judgements which New-England hath been bleeding under were an effect of Divine anger provoked by the sins of Men. But since God hath mercifully removed his hand those very sins the Lord hath been contending for are committed as much nay more than ever before It is a most awful and trembling consideration that the Holy Lord God almighty who though he may bear long will not suffer himself to be abused alwayes hath been mocked and dallied with more than once In the day of our late trouble several things were acknowledged to be Provoking Evils and Reformation in respect of them confessed to be necessary which since are made light of Austin did in his time wish that there might be a Synod called to consider of some effectual course for the suppression of that sin of Drunkenness amongst men in those dayes These Churches have in a very solemn manner met together by their Representatives to enquire into the causes of the Lords displeasure and the expedients for Reformation There was a gracious presence of Christ guiding his Servants in those Enquiries But what doth it all come to more than to leave the present Generation inexcusable before the World and before Posterity and before God in the day of his pleading with those that have known their Masters Will but have not done it The infinitely patient God hath waited for fruit three years since that endeavour and pretence to Reformation was published Our English Historians have Recorded that when the sins of the times brought heavy Judgements upon our fore-Fathers above nine hundred years ago a Synod did convene in order to the redressing of those evils There were thirty Ministers then found faithful who gave their Testimony but it would not be hearkened to so that God quickly sent the cruel Danes who for a long time brought the Land into miserable Bondage and Slavery What hours of Temptation may come upon us we know not Our case is the more dangerous and the Judgements impending like to be the more dreadful when if Repentance prevent not at last they shall fall down in that God hath stirred up the spirits of his Servants in the Ministry full many a time and with great earnestness to protest against the Sins and Apostasies of the times and to press for Reformation before the Decree bring forth but Alas hitherto with little success The words of that honourable Man of God Dr. Owen in his late Sermons in Luk. 13.1 2 3. Page 77. have a great deal of truth and weight in them Let us not saith he pretend that the Repentance and Reformation called for respects the publick enormous sins of the Nation in Atheism Prophaneness Sensuality Luxury Pride Oppression Hatred of the Truth Contempt of the Ministry of the Gospel and the like they do so indeed but not only they respect also the Decays in Faith Love Zeal with love of the World Conformity unto it Luke-warmness that are found amongst the most eminent Professors of Religion This is our present wound here lies our weakness namely in the want of a quick active zealous Ministry to call and stir up Magistrates and People to effectual Repentance and turning to God Unless this be given unto us I fear we cannot be saved If it be otherwise if we have a Ministry that really do attend unto their Duty in this matter then I shall think it the most pregnant sign of approaching Destruction Seeing it is apparent unto all that their Endeavours have neither Fruit nor Success Truly with us it hath been so They that have approved themselves faithful unto Christ and their own Consciences in this matter have indeed inward peace Yet they cannot but be sensible that they lose the good Word and good Will of some Men and are exposed to obloquy and reproaches For as the Excellent Person but now mentioned saith Page 90.91 The hardest and most difficult service that ever God called any of his Ministers unto excepting only Jesus Christ and his Apostles hath been in the endeavouring the Reformation of backsliding or spiritually decayed Churches These are the two Witnesses which in all ages have prophesied in Sack-cloth Such was the Ministry of Elijah which brought him unto that Conclusion and an earnest longing to be delivered by Death from his Work and Ministry 2 King 19.4 So was that of Jeremiah in the like season whereof he complains Chap. 15.10 John the Baptist in the same work lost first his liberty then his life And in after Ages Chrysostom for the same cause was hated by the Clergy persecuted by the Court and at length driven into Banishment where he died Most men care not how little a share they have in such a work as this whose reward will reach them according to the proportion of their engagement in it All Churches all Persons almost would willingly be let alone in the condition wherein they are They that would press them unto due Reformation ever were and ever will be looked on as their Troublers Nevertheless God hath given a spirit of Courage Zeal and Faithfulness unto several of his Ambassadors to discharge their Duty in bearing their Testimony and so to leave the success and their own Names also with that God whose they are and whom they serve And in special this Worthy Minister of Christ whose eminent Accomplishments are known unto all unto whom he himself is known hath a long time approved himself singularly Faithful unto God and the Souls of Men herein The strain of his Ministry in that Congregation where He that holds the Stars hath seen meet to place him hath been to urge Conversion
the Lord. V. 14. And shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live Hence Religion it is Life from the dead to any People Rom. 11.25 What shall the Receiving of them be but Life from the dead The Conversion of the Jews shall be Life from the dead to the World by a general and glorious resurrection of Religion 2. Religion it is the Life of the Covenant-People of God i. e. It gives them their spiritual Being and Constitution under Covenant-Relation unto God It gives a People their spiritual Standing before God as his People his Covenant-People It is the essence and substance of the Covenant Heb. 8.10 For this is the Covenant I will make with the House of Israel after those days I will put my Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People taken from Jer. 31.33 Religion in this sence constitutes the Covenant and is the spiritual Constitution of the Covenant-People of God 1 Pet. 2.9 But ye are a chosen Generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculior People It follows V. 10th Which in time past were not a People but now are the People of God Without Religion they were no People but Religion made them the People of God 3. Religion it is the Life of the Covenant-People of God as to their Political Constitution in visible Church-state and Order under the Administration of all Ordinances Religion gives a People their visible Standing under the visible Dispensation of God's Covenant and Administration of his Kingdom as in our Text. For it is your Life and by this thing ye shall prolong your days in the Land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it It was their Religion which gave them a Standing and Settlement in that Land the land of Promise in the full possession of their visible Covenant Interests and Enjoyments as the Covenant-people of God So that it remains a manifest plain Truth from the Word of God that Religion is the Life of the Covenant-people of God The Application follows VSE I. It is for our Information and Instruction in divers Particulars 1. That there is there can be but One only true real Religion and no more Religion hath been is and ever will be One the same unchangeably And because there is but One God but One Lord Jesus Christ One Spirit One work of Redemption One way of Application One Doctrine of Godliness One Faith One Obedience One and the same moral Worship One Covenant of Grace One Covenant-people of God One Family and Houshold of God One State both of Grace and Glory One Life One Heaven therefore consequently but One Religion All the sincere People of God in the World ever have been and ever shall be One in the Profession and Practice of this One Religion whereby all God's Elect are gathered together in One in Christ and perfected both in Grace and Glory unto the completion and perfection of the mystical Body of Christ which is the fullness of Him who filleth all in all Eph. 1.10 23. True it is the Apostle grants 1 Cor. 8.5 that there are which are called gods as there be gods many and lords many So there be that are called religions such religions many But as the Apostle concludes V. 6. but to us there is but One God and One Lord Jesus Christ So ought we to conclude that to us there is but One Religion which is the pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father Jam. 1.27 This is the Religion without which there is there can be no Life or Salvation 2. That this Religion it is the Supreme thing in this lower World viz. because it is in all respects our Life and that nothing else is so Religion in the full and whole nature and notion of it is the most glorious effect and product of divine Wisdom Power Grace Mercy Goodness Truth and Faithfullness yea of the whole divine Sufficiency and Efficiency in the accomplishment of all God's eternal Counsels concerning his own Glory in the Salvation of his Elect. Religion it comprehends all the whole Interest of God of Christ and of his Church and People in this World all that is heavenly spiritual and divine all that is of Heaven upon Earth respecting both State Interest and Enjoyment It gives a Being Standing to all Saints both in Grace and in Glory Oh! Religion it is a marvellous high and heavenly thing All the real worth and excellency that is in the World it is from Religion There would be nothing of God that is of the knowledge of God of the spiritual gracious and saving Presence of God were it not for Religion Those who are without Religion are without God in the World Eph. 2.12 We have no more of God than we have of Religion Again there could have been no Good or Goodness in the World had it not been for Religion The World would have been a meer Vacuum of all good nothing else but a receptacle of desperate Sinners a very Hell of Sin and Misery there could have been nothing of Light or Life or Grace Holiness or Happiness there would have been nothing but Darkness and Death and all kind of woe no news of Heaven no hope of Heaven yea there could have been no Heaven unto fallen Man without Religion Religion doth in a sence give being unto Heaven There had not been such Place or State of Blessedness unto Man neither had Man ever been capacitated to live in Heaven otherwise than by this Religion No wonder then that God by his Word doth extoll it and advance it as the most excellent inestimable invaluable incomparable thing Prov. 3.15 She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her And it is advanced because it is our Life Prov. 4.13 Keep her for she is thy Life V. 21 22. Keep them in the midst of thy heart for they are thy Life It is Religion that doth make the poor despised Saints of God the Excellent Ones of the Earth Psal 16.3 Prov. 12.26 It is Religion that doth make the Church of God beautifull the perfection of Beauty the Joy of the whole Earth Psal 48.2 Lam. 2.15 Yea an Eternal Excellency Isa 60.15 3. That it is the Infinite Grace Mercy and Goodness of God to any People that He doth give them Religion The greatest part of the World and of the Nations of the World are most miserable without it all the Pagan and Popish World O that so great so much the greater part of Mankind should so ly buried in gross Ignorance and Atheisme without God and Religion 1 Joh. 5.19 The whole World lieth in Wickedness So much the more is the Mercy of God magnified to such People and Nations unto whom He hath granted Religion in the light life and power of it It is the happiness honour and glory of any Nation or People It
be so much danger of the Death of Religion O then let all who love and desire life both temporal spiritual and eternal life and who fear death so great a death be moved to labour with all our hearts minds souls might and strength by all ways and means to recover and save the life of Religion which is our own life This Exhortation proposeth and presseth all the great and general Dutys of the Covenant People of God at such a time and in such a case as we are Moses applied all the whole Word of God at once to the People by this one Word of Exhortation Set your hearts unto all the Words c. because it is your life It is also the sum of all which our Lord Jesus propounds to the declining Churches Rev. 3.2 Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die I am though most unworthy called forth this day and set in this General Assembly to speak for the life of Religion to plead in the Name of the Lord and by the Word of the Lord for the life of Religion to plead for the life of dying Religion Oh! were the heart of N-Engl rightly and fully prepared resolved and set for the recovery and safety of the life of Religion God would then most graciously make clear and full discoveries of our whole way and work therein and of all the means thereunto Yea God himself would soon bring all to pass for us To this end we ought to be throughly convinced of and deeply humbled even unto shame and confusion of Face under the sense of the decaying dying state of Religion and withal charge judge condemn loath and abhor our selves for all that Sin and Apostasie whereby we have brought Religion into such a state Under such Conviction and Humiliation we must set our selves to labour unto the resurrection of Religion and that with extraordinary Zeal Courage Faith-fulness and Resolution in the improvement of all means with one heart and one soul as one man even as for our lives and more than for our lives still acknowledging that when we have done all that we can Religion must be revived not without the greatest Miracle of Divine Power Grace and Mercy by God himself Ezek. 37.12 O my People I will open your Graves That we may obtain the accomplishment of this great promise it will be necessary 1. That we do under an humbling heart-breaking sense of our present absolute and extream necessity of the mighty power and working of the Spirit of God in a way of Soveraign Grace and Mercy for the recovery of the Life of Religion labour unto an extraordinary exercise of Faith and Hope in God for it Plead and improve his Covenant and all his Promises to that end We have great encouragement from the Word of God so to do Hos 6.1 2. Come let us return unto the Lord After two dayes he will revive us in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight If we could thus come unto God by Faith he would revive us there is nothing more dangerously Symptomatical than when a People grow senseless secure stupid sottishly supine in the depth of Apostasie None of the declining Churches so irrecoverably gone as that of Laodicea and that because utterly senseless and secure Rev. 3.17 Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with Goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked So the People of Israel I mean the ten Tribes when they were sunk in their Apostasie past recovery God by the Prophet Elijah put them upon the utmost trial by that great proposal 1 King 18.21 How long halt ye between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him if Baal then follow him and the People answered him nor a word Observe the People answered him not a Word which fignifies plainly that although they were fully convinced of their Apostasie and manifested by their silence that they were judged and self-condemned yet they were so stupid and sottish under it that they were not at all careful nor concerned about it nor willing to trouble themselves their minds or thoughts with it God grant it may not be so with us 2. That we do carefully and very curiously observe and labour to understand the Time the Way the Work of the Lord when and wherein he is graciously willing and working to revive and raise up yielding up our selves unto him as the Subject of so great a Work It is the greatunhappiness and misery of any declining People not to understand when and how God is labouring with them to revive and raise them Hos 11.3 I taught Ephraim also to go taking them by their Arms but they knew not that I healed them Hence it was they abused all both ordinary and extraordinary means and mercies unto their own deeper defection and utter destruction as Hos 7.1 When I would have healed Israel then the Iniquity of Ephraim was discovered and the Sin of Samaria the more God laboured with them to heal them the worse they were until at last they became wilfully unwilling to be healed and even desperately resolute in their Apostasie Jer. 2.25 But thou saidst there is no hope no for I have loved Strangers and after them I will go So Jer. 18.12 Isai 30.15 This made the Prophet to lament to dolefully without hope Jer. 8.18 20. When I would comfort my self against sorrow my heart is faint in me the Harvest is past the Summer ended and we are not healed for the hurt of the Daughter of my People I am hurt I am black astonishment hath taken hold upon me That which broke the heart of his hope was they had not known nor improved the time and means of their healing and salvation and therefore now their case was hopeless and remediless this made our Blessed Lord Jesus to weep out the Bowels of his Compassion over Jerusalem in that doleful lamentation Luk. 19.41 42. And when he was come near he beheld the City wept over it if thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day the things which belong to thy peace but now they are hidden from thine eyes Verse 44. Because thou knewest not the time of thy Visitation So Mat. 23.37 O Jerusalem Jerusalem c. How often would I have gathered thy Children c. and ye would not behold your house is left unto you desolate When a People do not will not observe nor understand the time way and work of the Lord and so refuse to be healed and saved God doth then give them up as a reprobate People Jer. 6.29.30 The Bellows are burnt the Lead is consumed of the fire the Founder melteth in vain for the wicked are not plucked away reprobate Silver shall men call them because the Lord hath rejected them Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged
any more from thy filthiness until I have caused my fury to rest upon thee I the Lord have spoken it I will do it I will not go back neither will I spare neither will I repent If a People will not be healed and saved they must be they shall be destroyed O that we understood how much we are concerned to discern know and improve the present time lest the Harvest should be past and the Summer ended and the things of our peace of our temporal spiritual and eternal welfare should be hidden from our eyes 3. That we do wait earnestly upon God in an extraordinary way of Humiliation and Supplication under the Administration of his Word and Worship for the dispensation of his Spirit and of Converting Grace No hope no possibility of the Resurrection of Religion otherwise than by such a dispensation of the Spirit and Grace of God until God shall pour out his Spirit from on High Isai 32.15 Vntil the Spirit be poured upon us from on High and the Wilderness be a fruitful Field that De structions and Desolations were to remain upon them until God should work a general work of Conversion and the Resurrection of Religion thereby They were to remain dead and buried in their Graves until God should accomplish that great Fundam ental Covenant Promise Ezek. 36.26 27. A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will put my Spirit within you So Ezek. 37.13 14. When I have opened your Graves and brought you up out of your Graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live Therefore it is high time for us to seek the Lord until he rain Righteousness Hos 10.12 Of if God shall please to pour out his Spirit upon our Seed and his Blessing upon our Off-spring then there will be a glorious Resurrection of Religion with the rising Generation They shall spring up as amongst the Grass and as Willows by the Water-courses Isai 44.34 O that we could approve our selves an Humble Penitential Prayerful People prepared for such a dispensation of the Spirit and waiting upon God under the promise of it 4. That we strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die This is our Lord Jesus his Direction in terms Rev. 3.2 keep alive and cherish that of the life of Religion which is left the remains of it O Christians let dying Religion have a Reviving and a Resurrection in your hearts and lives live it up to life again there is there can be nothing more of the life of Religion kept in the World than what is preserved and upheld in the heart of a few and they are comparatively but a very few living and lively Christians there never hath been nor ever is but a little of Religion in the life spirit and power of it in this lower World it is a very choice rare thing in the best of times but there is never less of it than when sincere Christians are fallen into a frame and way of Declension nothing more deadly to Religion than the declension of Christians which strikes at the very heart and life of it so much the more should you labour to rise to the utmost height of attainment in Grace and Holiness even unto a conspicuous eminency therein that Religion may not only live but shine in all your Converses throughout your whole Conversations that you may shine as Lights in the World Phil. 2.15 16. Christians if you do not thus revive and raise Religion in your hearts and lives before you die you may not expect that it will long survive you though Religion cannot die so long as you live yet if you suffer Religion to live a dying Life in you you may fear that though it cannot die in you it may notwithstanding die with you 5. That we set our hearts unto and upon Religion Make it our highest our dearest even our heart-interest our whole our all as to Interest and Injoyment in this World that which we live for that which we live by that which is our Life viz. because it is that whereby we live to with and upon God in Christ let our Souls therefore be drawn forth after and ingaged unto Religion in esteem love zeal desire delight that our minds may be so exercised unto the Doctrinal Practical and experimental Knowledge of it as that we may be raised to real spiritual discoveries and apprehensions of the excellency glory and perfection of it with a transcendency above all the glories and perfections of this lower World That we may account all Worldly Interests and Injoyments but loss for the excellency of the Knowledge of it as the Holy Apostle did Phil. 3.8 And may by Faith also apprehend our own Interest in it with most certain assurance that it is ours our own and that nothing is so or so much ours our own as our Religion that is our God our Christ and our Religion as it is and because it is our life O if we could thus devote our selves to Religion become true real Votaries to Religion Religion would then revive and live 6. That we set our selves in whatsoever we have are or can do in a full and direct Subserviency to the Propagation and advancement of Religion Lay out our selves improve all time strength and gifts grace and estate power Authority interest influence unto our utmost capacity and possibility for Religion and that with utmost Care Conscience Zeal Courage Faithfulness in a way of stedfast perseverance through all incounters and conflicts to the last making of it our main design our whole work and business in all our transactions both with God and Man That we therefore labour servently and instantly with God in Prayer That for Zions sake we do not hold our peace and for Jerusalems sake we do not rest that we never hold our peace day nor night give him no rest until he establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth Isai 62.1 6 7. That we henceforth transact with God and one with another with religious sincerity in truth and faithfulness in and about that great and most important business of Reformation in suppressing all the great and general Sins and performing the great and general Duties of the times that we trifle dissemble falsifie no more therein as heretofore we have too much done and as the People of old did to their own ruin and destruction Jer. 3.10 Nothing hastned their utter defection and destruction more than their formal hypocritical Reformations That we also labour to retrieve and raise the visible Interest of Religion and advance it above the head of our chief joy Psal 137.6 That we do cleave by an Heart-Engagement to the Word Worship Ordinances Administrations Ministry Order Rule and Government of Christ in his Church to the whole Cause Interest and Kingdom of Christ That we keep the Word of his Patience and do not deny His Name but hold fast that which we