to be amiss and yet still the cry is What 's the reason God is pleased to hide the reason and why why men cannot see wood for trees if we wait for immediate Revelations we may wait long enough there is no expecting of one to come from the dead to tell us Indeed we can hardly look any where but we may see causes apparent 1. Let every private person look at home take an account with his own heart and he shall see enough to mend there Out of doubt if we deal here ingenuously we shall finde that which may teach us to justifie God and declare him righteous in what concerns us 2. Look into Families and fee what disorders there are Children rising up against Parents and carrying themselves disobediently which hath a dreadful Curse denounced against it Parents neglecting the due care of their Children to nurture and bring them up in the admonition of the Lord cockering and making them their equals not keeping their due distances and too many families without the Worship of God in them being more like Pagan then Christian houses 3. Look into Towns and there you shall see disorders young 〈◊〉 despising the aged and carrying themselves contemptuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them vanity and 〈◊〉 abounding a selfish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the most together with a neglect of one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that love which is due one to another wholly in many 〈◊〉 Town-Societies rent in pieces with disorderly Contention 4. Look into Congregations and there you shall see confusions some contending with their Ministers and others biting and catching at one another some not agreeing about the setting up of the Of diâ—â—ances of God among them and others not contented when they have them but pulling them down again with might and main great emulations jealousies false surmises c. Ministers despised their Office questioned their Authority cast off and trampled upon then persons undervalued and 〈◊〉 their comfortable Supply and Maintenance neglected Ordinances 〈◊〉 frequented with 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 c. 5. Look into the Body Politick or Civil State and there you shall see the Sinews of our Civil Society wondrously loosened the want of Power in the Supreme Representative Body to strengthen them by reason of the necessary evils incident to a declining Popular Government and hence arise many misbehaviours which time forbids to mention 6. Look into the Body Ecclesiastical and there you shall see Churches some ready to exalt themselves above the Civil Magistrate and disowning his Civil Power in matters appertaining to Godliness others ready to renounce Confociation and Communion one with another and many the like and yet we still enquire What 's the reason Why is God displeased Why is all this nothing yes sure why who knows not that these are our distempers Obj. But there is some particular thing which must be known and this is either in Magistrate or Ministers or both when shall you finde in Scripture that God ever brought publick Judgements on his people but the sins of Princes Priests and Prophets were the causes of it and are so declared to have been and therefore we must enquire yet further Ans 1. This Objection is strange and impertinent it is as if a Physician should come to a person all over full of mortal wounds and yet neglects them all and strangely cries out There is one singular wound which I must finde out is not this to suffer the person wilfully to perish by letting him bleed out his life at the known wounds while he goes upon the discovery of one unknown Is not this New-Englands 〈◊〉 such as was once Judahs Isa 1. 5. and shall we yet grope as in 〈◊〉 after some singular thing I therefore fear that this is but a fond and hypocritical excuse to put off the edge of the conviction of present sins and keep up our credit too as if we would willingly know the minde of God But 2. Suppose there be some singular sin yet First It doth not need presently terminate upon the Magistracy and Ministry though wherein they may be wanting in their places the Lord give them to see reform it but it is not my work to scandalize those who cannot hear me speak yet I say the sin is not needfully theirs But 1. It may be universal a spreading and over-running distemper It is true indeed God sometimes speaks to these For your sakes they shall go into captivity but if we be wise and compare Scripture we shall elswhere hear God saying My people would have it so there is a concurtence a delight in it 2. It may be a sin which Magistrates and Ministers would fain reform but we will not be reformed our Form of Government both in Church and Commonwealth is partly Democraticall whose corruption and degeneracy being Anarchy the guilt of the errours of Administration fall upon the people especially if persons in Office and Place do their endeavour to rectifie and amend them but are over-powered nay though they attain an outward Reformation yet there may remain the guilt of that sin unrepented of upon a Land which God will not forget but though he may delay for a while will finde out a time to call to reckoning Josiah was the greatest Reformer in Judah that ever was yet though there were peace in his time Reade 2 Kings 22. 15. 23. 25 26. 3. Consider though I speak not to excuse sin in any where they may be guilty before God yet consider why hath God lately taken away so many of his precious Servants in the Ministry it is not to their damage or wrong they are gone to their rest have left a sinful and sorrowful world to be invested with a Crown of Glory and to be with Christ which is best but we are bereaved the Lights are put out of our Candlesticks they were despised here and they are now received to honour and glory and this may call us to solemn consideration Consider Isa 57. 1 Secondly Be it a singular sin and let it center where it will it seems we are to seek about it I tell you the way to know it is to reform what we do know God reveals himself by degrees to a people according to their improvement God hath told us of these and those things why should he discover any more since we mend not but make so ill use of what he hath discovered Let me tell you and I can assure you of it to be a truth prove it and you shall have experience of it If we repent from our hearts of our known sins God will either remove the stroke off from us or further discover what is provoking to him Return come Verba festinantes The words 1. Contain a general duty this duty is a serious Repentance implied in both words put together Return Esau went out from the Church despised the Priviledges of it his Posterity here is called upon to come back again Come i. e. Come to God to him from whoâ— you went away
name that can be put upon it viz it s own men see sin many times in its effects and that frights them but it cannot make them hate their sin but they think it good enough if it had not such consequences but when the face of it is uncovered and the souls eyes opened now he stands off his affections are slain Reas 2 From the Inconsistency of hating sin in the heart and closing with it in the life and practice will we alwayes keep company and hold intimate fellowship and drive a constant trade and commerce with one the sight of whom we loath an unreformed life is a plain denial and contradicting of all our verbal and professed repentance Tit 1 16 if we live in sin it makes nothing to the credit of the world much less to the allseeing eye of God to speak and profess against it Reas 3 From the nature of true repentance which is a change from what we were to some other thing a change of affections a change of profession and not only so but also a change of objects a turning from the creature to God Jer 4 â— now this implies a through reformation when the creature casts off all other things which it hath pursued 〈◊〉 seek to God alone Use 1 This may call us to the Examination Whether ever we truly repented or no of those sins which we have so often confessed to God viz where is our reformation Search throughly one and another of us remember what we have confessed and with what shews of sense and orow as if those sins had indeed been a burthen to us and we desireâ— to be rid of them but have they been amended have we truly relinquisht them if not assure we our selves God looks at himself as mocked at all this while and therefore if we be defective in this essential and substantial part of our repentance never enquire or ask of God wherefore his hand is stretched out still against us after so many Prayers and supplications have been poured out before him on solemn dayes The Reason is obvious and plain and he that runs may read it Use 2 Hence therefore let this truth move upon us to perswade us and to reclaim us from words to works from profession to practise from confession to amendment we have begun a good work in confessing but if it go no further the work is spoiled adde we therefore now to it reformation let us turn away from those sins we have drawn up so many protests against and let us shew a practical hatred of what we have verbally renounced Doct. 4. The bâ—st outward priviledges in the world if once they come to be trusted in are no better then lyes ver 4. trust not inlying words the Temple c. i. e. they have as great and grand a delusion in them and as surely deceive any that place their confidence upon them as any other deceit in the world whatsoever they are no better shelter nor will afford any greater security and safeguard to the soul then any other vain hiding place and therefore they that trust in them trust in falsehood a lye is that which is spoken to deceive the creature thus when men speak of their priviledges and rest on them they deceive their own selves Reas 1. Because God gives his blessing with these priviledges but conditionally i. e. according to the creatures improvement of them if they will make use of them aright they are a special benefit to them otherwise not 1 Chron 28 11 and therefore positively and absolutely to trust in these and not to carry a respect to the condition which is annexed to them it is to neglect and abuse Gods order of blessing who together with priviledges promiseth good to the faithful improver of them but threatens wrath and denounceth his judgements against the abusers of it and is therefore a great deceit Reas 2. Because the greater the blessing is if not answerably improved it brings the greater curse upon the Creature Mat. 11. 2â— that is Capâ—rnaums sin abuse oâ— Goâ—pel priviledges and therefore a special and extraordinary doom is past upon them the greater the mercy is the more sadly is God provoked by the abusing of it and therefore who ever escape it 's like to fare ill wich such as those Am. 3. 2. Use 1. To reprove our carnal confidence in the enjoyment of the means of grace and priviledges of the Gospel you that trust in your interests you have Sabbaths Sacraments liberty of nearest communion with God in his Ordinances c. and hereupon you are ready to think that God loves you and will not being a scourge upon you but conclude your selves to be exempted from any danger of misery and desolation let me tell you you trust in lying words you leane upon such a prop as will certainly fail and deceive you in the latter end Consider Jer. 9. 25 26. Use 2. To awaken us to bethink our selves what use it is that we make of the means of grace which we have and enjoy what good we get by the Ordinances think it not enough that we have and enjoy them you have the temple of the Lord among you the Word preached from Sabbath to Sabbath and the Sacraments administred these are high priviledges but all the benefit is in the use of them if we have them only to look upon and boast off and not to improve for our conversion to God and help forward in his ways they will become a snare to us in the end Doct. 5. 'T is the great sin of a professing people in the times of Apostacy to cover their gross iniquity under the veil of priviledges and performances ver 8 9 10. they thought if they did but come to Gods house and perform a few Ceremonies there offer sacrifices c. they might take the liberty to steal murder swear and what not thus we read of that bold and impudent woman who had not her name for nothing Prov. 7. 14 15. Reas 1. From their presumptuous trust in their priviledges as though God were bound to preserve his Temple he hath no other habitation in the world and therefore he will never depart from hence his glory is involved in our preservation and will he laugh in our ruine if he should destroy us his name would be routed out of the earth and therefore there is no danger that ever we should be cut off or cast out this was their presumption Mich. 3. 11. the Lord is among us no evil can betide us and therefore they steal judge for reward wrong the Innocent there is no danger Reas 2. From the secret Atheism and hypocrisie that is in the heart of vain man who thinks God takes no notice of their wickedness but is deceived by their pretended services men consider not that Gods all all seeing eye penetrates into all corners of the earth and the secrets of the heart and hence they think they may sin unseen Ezek. 8. 12.
now see your calling you are called one of Satans kingdome you are delivered from the powers of darkness labour then to walk no longer in the vanity of your mindes Are you Gods Children Live in holiness 1 Pet. 1. 14 c. Oh that this Providence might awaken those that have given up themselves to God and his Service to consider whether we have not too much gratified Satan by being too light too vain too excessive in taking liberty in worldly mirth and vanity too little spiritual in our course and conversation among men Let it then be a word of Warning to us to be more serious and cautious to our selves and wayes for the time to come 3. Let it move in you earning bowels of compassion towards those that are yet in Satans Kingdome and under his spiritual Jurisdiction you may here see a little though but a little yet so much appears here visible and demonstrative as may give a glimpse of discovery how sad and doleful the condition of poor unregenerate sinners is who are spiritually possest by Satan Let it then rouse up in you bowels of pity when you look in the faces of any such let it make you to mourn over them and pray for them and counsel and advise them as God gives you opportunity that if it may be you may be helpful to their escape out of the paws of the devouring Lion 4. Let it awaken you to watch your wayes and actions to be carefull to your lives and courses how you carry it before them who are yet in their vanity lest Satan make you his Stales to allure poor souls by If the Devil can belye the people of God to encourage others to hearken to him be sure he will make his market of your failings negligent walkings and whatsoever is done amiss by you at one time or other to draw others more seariesly after him and will it not be a sad thing that souls should follow Satan to their eternal ruine and perdition and you the live-birds that have drawn them into this net For the Lords sake for the love you bear to poor souls if there be any pity any compassion any desire to Gods glory or others Salvation look to your wayes and see they be exemplary Secondly You that are Vnregenerate labour to hear the voice of God in this Providence and learn by it 1. Let this Example teach you how cruel a Master you serve you see here that Satan whatever pretences he makes and fair promises he seeks to delude poor souls withall is in his heart set against all mankinde and he seeks only to destroy them and if once God lets him loose and gives him liberty he will soon shew his own nature and give evidence of his Cruelty This you have seen is but a little of that bitter spight he will exercise upon those who shall be wholly delivered into his hands You have little cause to boast of your condition it s a cruel bondage you are in the hands of one whose tender mercies are cruelty Oh that this might make you weary of Satans government that it might make you begin to discover his policies and flee from him 2. Let it shew you the great danger you go in every hour of being made a prey to Satan Consider how ready this Adversary is to fasten his Tâ—lons upon poor creatures if God permit him and consider that thou hast no security no ground to promise thy self that God will defend thee from him no not for a moment it is Gods goodness that he hath hitherto afforded thee his protection but thou hast no promise that he will continue it Yea consider how many Calls and Counsels how many Providences and Ordinances thou hast despised how often God hath come to thee and wooed earnestly for thy soul used heart-breaking intreaties with thee endeavouring to insinuate himself into thy very soul and yet thou hast hardned thy heart against all and resolutely refused think then what hast thou to say for thy self why thou mayest not speedily hear God say to the Devil Take the full and everlasting possession of such a soul and what will become of thee then 3. Hence let it be a loud Cry to you to Repentance You have had many Cries in your ears from the Word but you have not believed the report which Gods Messengers have brought Oh that you would believe when God addes such a Confirmation to the truth of his Word reade your own state in this poor Monument and think by what you see in her what is like to become of you in the state you are in hearken and you may heat God crying to you by her Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Lastly let me return once again to all that are here in Gods presence this day to humble themselves before him learn we hence for this day and hence-forward these two Lessons 1. Let us all examine by this Providence what sins they have been that have given Satan so much footing in this poor place sure the voice of God is loud to us and bids us to bring this matter upon search for though God be Soveraign yet it is to us a time of Consideration when Gods hand is out against us Hag. 1. 7. Let it then bring us upon a serious Triall of our selves and wayes that we may be able to trace God in his Providence and acknowledge his righteous Judgements let us ask whether our Contentions have not set open this door and invited Satan in I am sure these carry a very great resemblance of the Devils Cloven Foot Have not our Heart-Divisions grieved away the Spirit of God and given Satan this advantage I am sure they leave a people faulty Hos 10 2. and therefore lay them open to severe punishments these have been too generall sins and what have been in particular What a deal of Worldly-mindedness in the elder sort the vanity and looseness in the younger increased to such a height of impudency Let me adde the general light esteem there hath been among us of Gods holy and precious Ordinances and contempt of his Messengers these are crying sins and therefore may well be answered with loud-speaking Providences 2. Let us all joyn heart and hand to drive this Enemy out again Let that be our great business this day to implore God and beg his assistance and direction in so great a Work as this is and let us forthwith set upon it and follow it might and main and that in repentance of and humiliation for what is past and reformation for the fâ—ture let us search and try our wayes and turn again to the Lord Let us lay aside Envy and Malice throw down our Contention Strife and take up Peace and Love Let the Aged reform their Earthly-mindedness and the Youth their Vanity their Night-walkings and meâ—ry Drinking-meetings let the Judgements of God awe our hearts and leave such impressions behinde them as may powerfully lead us in
gives them a serious Answer Hence Doct. What-ever end a people have in enquiring it is the duty of Gods Ministers faithfully to answer them according to the minde and counsel of God See Jer. 42. 19 20. the people they dissembled but Jeremiah tells them the truth Reas 1. From the nature of their Office which is to be Watchmen which depends not upon the acceptance or not acceptance of their Message but is an absolute duty whose neglect cannot be dispensed withall whether they will hear or no Ezekiel must discharge his Office Chap. 2. 7. yea it lyes so upon him as the neglect of it brings him under the dreadfull menaces of Gods wrath Chap. 2. 18. he breaks his charge if he neglect it yea and hazards the undoing of those for whom he is set up to be a Watchman Reas 2. Because God will have a rebellious people left inexcuseable Ezek. 2. 5. though the prime end and natural tendency of the Ministry be for the Conversion and good of the people to whom they are sent yet God in just judgement will sometimes have it to be to increase their Condemnation and to make their misery more dreadful Line upon line c. is sometimes given to make a people stumble and fall Isa 28. 13. all this is for Gods glory the shine of the glory of his Justice when he shall come to recover the honour of his despised Counsels and Warnings and plead with a people for their wretched and inexcusable violation of both Covenants Vse I. See here a reason why Gods faithful Ministers use so little humane policy in the execution of their Place and Office should they connive at our sins â—ew pillows under our elbows fawn upon us or at the least speak in the dark and aloof off they were most likely in an eye of humane Reason to live more quietly and less hated he is ready to be accounted our enemy who tells us the truth How easily might they accommodate themselves to humane affections but they dare not do it but speak plain not because they are ignorant of the probability of what entertainment they are like to meet withall but because they dare not to be false to the charge and trust which God hath laid upon them I confess concerning some things there may be an indiscreet zeal in these there is a time to hold one's peace but in the discovery of the Counsels of God and laying open crying sins c. it 's not the fear or favour of man but the awful command of God which must be and is the Rule of the serious Minister who being sent from God must deliver his Embassie Vse II. Learn hence how faithful God is to us how unfaithful soever we be to him and to our own souls might we have our own desires we would hear nothing else but soothing and pleasant words he that preacheth sin and wrath is a Legallist a Micaiah he never speaks good to us thus would we go sleeping and secure to Hell run our selves jocundly into all misery such enemies are we to our own souls but how faithful is God who seeing us falling into the seas of wrath sends to awaken us out of our sleep to tell us of our evil wayes and to reclaim and bring us back That God hath ordained and set up the Office of the Ministry under that solemn and dreadful charge As they will answer it in the great day If they will not bring the guilt of the blood of souls upon their own heads to tell sinners of their wayes and give them seasonable and constant warning herein is the Faithfulness of God and his great Goodness wondrously exalted Vse III. Learn hence to account a plain-dealing Ministry to be of God however they cross our corruptions if any in the world are indeed sent of God to us then surely those who laying aside all self-ends and worldly interests lay themselves open to the hatred and persecution of the world hazard to lose our love and good will to be evil spoken of to suffer want and hard usage among us rath then be silent in an evil day rather then hold their peace and let us alone in our sins or palliate and dissemble with us in the Cause of God and our own souls Pray to God that you may alwayes have and enjoy such Ministers and that he would put this Spirit into his Ambassadors The morning cometh and also the night Here the Prophet answers them according to their particular enquiry about the success In which observe 1. A Concession The morning cometh It is true indeed you do for the present enjoy a season of prosperity though evil have been denounced against you and it cometh still i. e. you have still a short season behinde of day 2. A Warning and also the night i. e. as you have your morning so assure your selves you shall have your night think not nor deceive your selves into such a foolish hope as to promise your selves you shall never see adversity because you now live at ease and prosper 3. The words carry in them the face of an Argument he compares their condition to a Natural day in which there are two constituting parts viz. Day and Night light and darkness which naturally follow one upon another the day of the people of God usually as the Natural day begins with darkness and ends in light the wickeds day begins with morning but shall end with night Hence if they look for night to follow the clearest day why do they dream as if sorrow could not come in the room of their present pleasure and delight Hence Doct. 1. God may afford a sinning people a people designed for wrath a long morning of prosperity Edoms Morning cometh endureth a great while God thus spared the Amâ—rites an hundred and fourty years bare with the old World an hundred and twenty Reas 1. Because this is the day of Gods forbearance God is perfectly just and he shall be known to be so in the day of vengeance when the great Assizes shall be set and he shall render unto every one according to their works but mean while he hath a day of mercy wherein without any infringement to his Justice and Holiness he moderates the Sentence past upon sinners and delayes the fuâ—l execution of it mean-while conferring much of his goodness upon them Now the season of the shine of this Attribute of Mercy appearing in his Clemency and Benignity is properly here in this world God will have the glory of all his Attributes shine out and appear in his Efficiency now there is no room for nor knowledge of his Patience Long-sufferance and Goodness in Hell where the Cup of Wrath is without mixture God therefore now makes it appear in the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Rom. 9. 22. Reas 2. Because God hath in his Decrees not onely laid men out for punishment but for their measure and degrees of punishment which they come to by the height