Heaven for revenge but when our Savior laid his hand upon the sore and let the light shine in her face and points at the vileness of her practice Thou hast had five Husbands but he whom thou now hast is not thy Husband she then becomes sensible of his soveraign wisdom and her own wretchedness John 4. 18 19 20. So it was with Paul when the Lord met him going to Damascus persecuting the Saints he saw not the sinfulness of his course and therefore was senceless of it Saul Saul saies Christ why persecutest thou me Then he answers Who art thou Lord Jesus said I am Jesus whom thou persecutest it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks when he understood the evil of his way then he stood trembling and astonished saying Lord what wilt thou have me to do Acts 9. 5 6. Before the Corinthians were made conscious of their own carelesness neither pitying the soul of the incestuous Corinthian nor yet seeking to reform his sin they gloried over him and prided themselves in their own conceited excellency but when the Apostle had discovered their miscarriage and failings what sorrow and care did it work in them and what serious endeavor to reform the guilty party The Doctrine is true we shall endeavor to make it plain and therefore we shall open several particulars the right conceiving whereof will be as a key to unlock the Treasury of this Truth that each man may take what will serve his turn Enquire therefore we will By what means and after what manner God works this sight of Sin How far the sinner may be said to be active in it Wherein this true sight and apprehension properly consists and so discovers it self The Reason of this Truth and the Lords Order in this proceeding And then we shall make Application of it By what means or after what manner the Lord works this sight of Sin To which I shall Answer in four Conclusions Or the Answer unto which Inquiry will be expressed in four Particulars The Righteous Law of God as it is the Rule of our Lives so it is the Discoverer of our Sins and swervings therefrom and by the light thereof together with that little light of common Principles of Piety and Love left upon our Consciences we come to have our corruption made known to us Rom. 3. 20. By the Law is the knowledg of sin insomuch that Paul a learned Pharisee one that profited in the Jews Religion more than his equals he was yet at a loss in discerning and judging of the turnings and distempers of his heart before he takes the light and lamp of the Law So himself professeth Rom. 7. 7. I had not known that lust had been a sin those first stirrings of the Body of death and secret lingrings and inclinations to that which is cross to the wil of God though there be no consent given to them no delight taken in them but that the Law said thou shalt not lust the Sentence of the Law set down his Judgment and therefore the Apostle James compares it to a perfect and curious Looking-glass wherein each man may see the least blemishes or motes if he will present himself before it James 1. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein will lay his mind and heart and life level to the Law of God and hold his heart and apprehensions to the righteous Judgment and Sentence thereof it will plainly discover the smallest imperfections the least stirrings of the most hidden distempers that arise so Rom. 2. 14. the Heathens with the twi-light or Star-light of the remainders of the Law written in their heart past Sentence against themselves touching the sinfulness of their course But this is not all nor yet enough to make us to attain a right sight of our Sins unless the Lord put a new Light into our minds within as we have the Light of the Law and Counsel of God shining without unto us otherwise the Law may be and wil be a clasped Book and a dead Letter we shall see little in it or receive little from it So Paul Rom. 7. 9. I was alive without the Law once but when the Commandement came sin revived Without the Law how could that be since he was an Hebrew of the Hebrews of the Tribe of Benjamin trained up at the feet of Gamaliel a Doctor of the Law prosessed it and practised it according to the most exact Sect of the Pharisees as he speaks But the meaning is that he was without the power of it and the spiritual life and lively efficacy of the Law It was a dead and a killing Letter Look what the sence of the words or some evidence of Reason or Arguments could hold out to a Natural Understanding the bark and shell and outside of such directions he took and entertained But the Spiritualness of the Law For the Law is Spiritual saies Paul and that spiritual and lively power of Conviction and Direction it puts forth upon the souls of the Saints who are subject to it and therefore indeed receive the work of it This Paul once in the time of his unregeneracy was destitute of and then he was alive that is in his own overweening and self-deluded conceit he concluded himself to be a living Christian to have the power and truth of Grace and to live the life of it So that it 's possible nay it 's ordinary and nothing more usual than for men to be without the Law when they have the Law to be without the Life of it while they have the Letter of it to be without the Law as a Soveraign Rule to their Lives while they take upon them the profession of it to be without the Spiritualness of the Law and so to miss the end of it that is closing with God as our last end and chief good which is the sap the pith and substance of the Law though they have the appearance of the practice of it And if they miss the end of the Law at which it aims and unto which it tends they must needs fall short of the Wisdom and Counsel and Spiritual efficacy of the Law which should direct them So in 2 Chron. 19. 3. Now for a long time Israel had been without the true God that is his true Worship that would bring them to him and that is the meaning of that Phrase Ephes. 2. 12. Without God in the World that is without the true Worship of God so that they who want the true Worship of God are without God So they who have the manner of the true Worship and want both Spirit and Truth in which God will be worshiped they have the Appearance but want the Spirit and Truth of the true manner they have So of the rest Thus it is with thousands in the Church which hear and know and have the Letter of the Law and yet are indeed without the Power and Spirit and therefore
Work of the 〈◊〉 it brings in the light of the truth as a mighty 〈◊〉 with more strength and plainness to the heart 〈◊〉 draws out this act of divine Faith whereby it 〈◊〉 this as a truth of God For look what the 〈◊〉 of another man may do in the use of the Word 〈◊〉 Ordinance that my Reason used in such a manner 〈◊〉 to God may do But another man by the 〈◊〉 of Reason or strength of Argument out of the 〈◊〉 may convince my Conscience nay settle and 〈◊〉 my heart in assurance of a truth which formerly I saw not and therefore it is said Acts 14. 22. they confirmed the souls of the Disciples exhorting them c. True it is the Grace and Habit of Faith is presumed and was wrought before by the 〈◊〉 power of the Spirit which raised Christ from the dead 〈◊〉 being wrought the truths of God under the exercise of 〈◊〉 Reason will not only settle our judgement in knowing but our assurance of Faith in 〈◊〉 firmly beleeving and embracing for first truths 〈◊〉 to the understanding to be judged before they be 〈◊〉 up and presented to the heart to be beleeved Psal. 9. 10. They that know thy name will trust in 〈◊〉 This is eternal life to know thee Joh. 17. 3. 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 1. 3. Through the knowledge of our Lord 〈◊〉 Savior For a blind hood-winkt Faith is the 〈◊〉 of Apostates and Papists of Deceivers and 〈◊〉 but not the Faith of Gods Elect. Secondly This Evidence is laid out according 〈◊〉 its proper object according to which it looks in 〈◊〉 place and in this Dispute Namely 1 Its 〈◊〉 aright to what spiritual benefit we shall have Or 〈◊〉 the possession or partaking of what we do enjoy 〈◊〉 Christ and these are rather some spiritual priviledge or blessings received and manifested by our 〈◊〉 tions than the Qualifications themselves as the 〈◊〉 terms of the Question do undeniably determine Hence its plain according to the Opinion of 〈◊〉 that hold the 〈◊〉 of the Question 〈◊〉 ed It is not touching the 〈◊〉 of Faith in 〈◊〉 Soul because this Evidence in the Question 〈◊〉 Faith wrought Again it s not touching any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on or Qualification of Grace to be wrought in 〈◊〉 Soul For I take 〈◊〉 to be an everlasting truth The 〈◊〉 never doth give nor can there be any vidence that God will work the first Condition Grace or the first Grace in the Soul before it be 〈◊〉 for as we heard Evidence carries Two things 〈◊〉 it 1 God reveals his Will to or work upon the 〈◊〉 2 There is both Science issuing from that 〈◊〉 wisdom that hath been set up in the mind and 〈◊〉 of Faith which embraceth that truth and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 firmly being so cleerly and firmly assented 〈◊〉 Hence it follows necessarily and 〈◊〉 That which presupposeth the first Grace wrought 〈◊〉 the Soul and is an effect of that that cannot be 〈◊〉 before the first Grace be wrought but Evidence 〈◊〉 presupposeth spiritual science and assurance 〈◊〉 Faith therefore it cannot be before the first Grace 〈◊〉 before Faith be wrought 〈◊〉 the Soul Hence that 〈◊〉 the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. last Who knows the mind 〈◊〉 the Lord but we have the mind of Christ because 〈◊〉 have the Spirit of Christ and that cannot be had without Faith Gal. 3. 14. That we may receive the Promise of the spirit through Faith Those Promises then which imply the working of 〈◊〉 Condition of the Covenant or the first Grace do 〈◊〉 Three things 1 What God alone can do as 〈◊〉 to his peculiar Prerogative 2 What 〈◊〉 will do for his that is Such as shall come of his Son Christ the second Adam 3 What the means 〈◊〉 manner is by which he will do it As The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents 〈◊〉 I will take away the heart of stone and give 〈◊〉 an heart of flesh c. That is I alone can do 〈◊〉 and I will do it for those that are the Seed of the Covenant for still such Promises have an eye to the Covenant of the Church and the Faithful 〈◊〉 it as 〈◊〉 will Circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed c. And by the manifestation of the Fulness and Freeness of this Mercy of mine I will work it There is an irresistable light which the Lord lets into 〈◊〉 mind at the first call which makes way for Faith and is a direct act of Knowledge which turns the 〈◊〉 of the Soul to look to that fulness of power and 〈◊〉 of mercy by which the heart is drawn to 〈◊〉 but the reflect act of evidence by which we are assured of what God hath done to us and for us 〈◊〉 whereby we see that we do see is after this and implyes the thing done before we see it The issue is The object of this Evidence we now speak of is not gracious Qualifications wrought 〈◊〉 to be wrought but our right to or possession of 〈◊〉 Priviledges as thou art my Son thy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accepted thy sins are pardoned But how 〈◊〉 shouldest be brought to these or have thy heart framed to receive these that is not attended at all the spiritual Priviledges which we have or hope 〈◊〉 mainly attended in this work of Evidence are Pardon and Forgiveness in our Justification our Adoption and Acceptation to be Sons and the Reconciliation of our Persons to the Lord and our happiness 〈◊〉 These are the spiritual Benefits which are here considered and about which the 〈◊〉 is meant The Third term to be opeend in the Question is Immediate Evidence without respect to Faith or any saving Qualification Its called Immediate in this Dispute not because it is without the word or not by means of the Word for to deny that would be too loathsom 〈◊〉 but immediat in respect of 〈◊〉 condition going before out of which it might 〈◊〉 For however the Question propounded grants 〈◊〉 Faith and Grace is there yet the Evidence must be had without eying or attending any thing of a Qualification I 〈◊〉 a double Pretence which 〈◊〉 this kind of Curiosity First a fear least they should prejudice the freeness Grace if any Condition or Qualification in any 〈◊〉 should be attended 1 A Conceit directly and expresly contrary to 〈◊〉 very letter of the Text and intendment of the 〈◊〉 Rom. 4. 16. Therefore it is of Faith that it might by Grace and if the being of Faith in the relying 〈◊〉 Christ in the act of it do not hinder free Grace 〈◊〉 less will the seeing of it 2 Besides if a 〈◊〉 attended would 〈◊〉 free Grace then the Covenant of the Gospel 〈◊〉 not attend and by name expresly require 〈◊〉 or else it should not be a Covenant of 〈◊〉 3 It s Free Grace that makes and works the 〈◊〉 and when it s wrought there is nothing given 〈◊〉 it or the Party who beleeves for his Faith but 〈◊〉 its an Empty hand to take
grievous yet the plague-sore of their sins was heaviest upon their hearts and most in their thoughts so it is with a contrite sinner his complaints and thoughts return hither as to their center publish the comforts promises and priviledges of the Gospel the sinner acknowledgeth the promises are precious the comforts are sweet the priviledges great and happy they that ever they were born that have a title thereunto But alas what have I to do with these my heart is yet hard and my sins yet unsubdued Those keep good things from me Lay open al the threatnings of the word the plagues the Lord hath prepared the curses iudgments and punishments that are recorded in the scripture and ever were inflicted by the justice of the Lord the contrite sinner looks presently beyond these plagues to his sins which is the cause of al these and worse than al these and that gives the sting and evil unto al these evils what shal I do I have sinned deliver me from blood guiltiness O God not from the sword though that was threatned but from his sin The sinner that hath his heart thus truly affected and pierced through with his sins is marvelous tender easily to be convinced of a yielding disposition i. e. freely and readily enlarged in the open acknowledgment of an evil that is discovered he stands guilty of As it is with the body when it is pierced or pricked with a stiletto He bleeds inwardly it may be but so as the blood hath no vent nor the party relief hence the life is in hazard but when it s thrust quite through though the wound be greater and wider yet the danger is less because the party bleeds kindly and naturally the wound is more 〈◊〉 to be cleansed and healed there is no fear of festering and rankling inwardly but the Chirurgeon may readily come at it for the cure So it is when the soul is wounded aright with Godly sorrow for its sin it bleeds kindly and naturally ready to see the evil the core the root of that corruption from whence it comes and willing and open hearted that the saving word of the truth either of instruction reproof comfort or exhortation may be applyed for cure and recovery A broken hearted sinner fals immediately before the power of the word takes the sin presently home to himself when ever or what ever is presented with evidence to him without cavilling or gainsaying shifting or winding away from under the authority thereof That resistance and gainsaying opposition is now removed which formerly took possession and the irresistible power of the spirit hath flung down those strong holds of Satan and sin hath conquered and captivated the high thoughts of the mind and sturdy rebellions of the heart unto the obedience of the Lord Jesus and therefore there is an entrance and easy passage made for the truth to take place and the heart to take the impression thereof with some pleasing content parts of the body which are wounded broken and sore and very sensible of the least stir or touch of any thing that comes nigh them they feel presently and are affected with some trouble Oh say we it s my broken Arm my sore Hand the least touch it goes to my heart It 's so with broken spirits they are presently sensible of the least touch of any truth the least intimation or discovery of any sin that comes by the by if from a work that fals occasionally it feels it forthwith yields it and owns it without any more ado That 's the deceit of my heart which I never saw before that 's my distemper unto which I have been addicted the law is holy and good but my heart naught and sold under sin Rom. 7. this was the temper of good 〈◊〉 at the reading of the law which the Lord observes and so much 〈◊〉 2 Chron. 34. 27. because thy heart was tender melted when thou heardest the words of this law he took the impression of the truth at the first without the least appearance of any opposition in any particular or rising of spirit against them though the severity and sharpness of the threatnings were marvailous cross not onely to a corrupt heart but to the outward comforts eminent priviledges of his place pomp and prosperity of his Crown and Kingdom the heart is melted and broken is conquered by the truth and therefore can do nothing against it But can do any thing against its own lusts and the pleasing corruption of his own nature this is part of that preparation which the Baptist the Harbenger of our Savior made to make this plain for his coming into the hearts of his as into his temple Luk 3. The rough things shal be made plain and crooked things straight the rugged and sturdy gainsayings of a rebellious heart are taken away and it 's made easy and readily yielding to the evidence of any part of Gods wil it finds a plain passage into the soul no rub in the way no rising against the righteous and good wil of God If any thing be doubtful he is easy to be informed amiss to be reproved and amended thereby Those crooked aymes and by ends also whereby falshearted hypocrites serve their turn of the Lord Jesus seek for grace and mercy either to quiet the horror of their 〈◊〉 promote their own credit or under a profession against sin to get more liberty to commit sin to sin without suspicion or distraction these rugged distempers must be levelled and the spirit of a man made plyable simple and sincere and then all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord. And unless this de done set thy heart at rest thou canst never see Gods Salvation True indeed I confess the truth many times may be secret and such as at the present exceeds the reach and apprehension of weaker judgments And here wil be and in some 〈◊〉 may a long inquisition and painful and tedious search for the right discovery where the narrow way lyes But there is great ods betwixt an inquisition and serious enquiry that we may see the truth And a quarrelling against the evidence thereof that we may not see it Inquisition is one thing contention against the truth is another that al the Saints should endeavour this none but the ungodly wil practise for it 's given as a never failing note of a graceless person who is appointed to destruction to them who are contentious and obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness Rom. 2. 8. for where the one is not the other wil be contentious persons joyn sides with their sinful distempers against the truth authority of the righteous law of God openly to maintain a professed opposition against the truth is so loathsom to common sence and 〈◊〉 even to the remainders of light left in the 〈◊〉 of a natural man that hardly any man is come to the height of wickedness that he dare openly own a course so hellish and
M R Hooker's First Second Third Fourth Fift Sixt Seventh and Eighth Books made in New-England THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION By the effectual Work of the Word and Spirit of Christ for the bringing home of lost Sinners to God The first eight Books In which besides many other seasonable and Soul-searching Truths there is also largely shewed 1. Christ hath purchased all spiritual good for HIS 2. Christ puts all HIS into possession of all that Good that he hath purchased 3. The Soul must be fitted for Christ before it can receive him And a powerful Ministry is the ordinary means to prepare the heart for Christ. 4. The Work of God is free And the day of Salvation is while this Life last and the Gospel continue 5. God calls his Elect at any Age but the most before old Age. 6. The Soul is naturally setled in a sinful security 7. The heart of a Natural man is wholly unwilling to submit to the Word that would sever him from his sins 8. God the Father by a holy kind of violence plucks His out of their corruptions and draws them to beleeve in Christ. By that Faithful and known Servant of Christ Mr. THOMAS HOOKER late Pastor of the Church at Hartford in New-England somtimes Preacher of the Word at Chelmsford in Essex and Fellow of Emmanuel Colledg in Cambridg Printed from the Authors Papers written with his own Hand And attested to be such in an Epistle By Thomas Goodwin And Philip Nye London Printed by Peter Cole at the sign of the Pringting-press in Cornhil neer the Royal Exchange 1656. To the Reader READER IT hath been one of the Glories of the Protestant Religion that it revived the Doctrine of Saving Conversion And of the new creature brought forth thereby Concerning which and the necessity thereof we find so much indigitated by Christ and the Apostles in their Epistles in those times But in a more eminent manner God hath cast the honor hereof upon the Ministers and Preachers of this Nation who are renowned abroad for their more accurate search into and discoveries hereof First For the Popish Religion that much pretend to Piety and Devotion and doth dress forth a Religion to a great outward Gaudiness and shew of 〈◊〉 and wil-worship which we confess is entermingled with many spiritual strains of self-denial Submission to Gods wil Love to God and Christ especially in the writings of those that are called Mistical 〈◊〉 But that first great and saving Work of Conversion which is the foundation of al true piety the great and numerous volumns of their most devout writers are usually silent therein Yea they eminently appropriate the word Conversion and thing it self unto 〈◊〉 man that renounceth a Secular life and entereth into Religious orders as they cal them and that Doctrine they have in their discourses of Grace and free wil about it is of no higher elevation than what as worthy Mr. Perkins long since may be common to a Reprobate though we judg not al amongst them God having continued in the midst of Popish Darkness many to this day and at this day with more Contention than 〈◊〉 not scandalous in their lives having in 〈◊〉 Knowledg the Form of Truth by 〈◊〉 adding thereunto some outward 〈◊〉 Duties Such Persons we mean as 〈◊〉 were in our Pulpits plainly 〈◊〉 but Civil Moral 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 really but such kind of Professors of 〈◊〉 as Mutatis mutandis are found 〈◊〉 Turks of Mahumotanism who 〈◊〉 the Principles of that 〈◊〉 and are devout in Duties to God 〈◊〉 thereby through the meer 〈◊〉 of Natural Devotion and Education 〈◊〉 Laws and Customs of that Religion 〈◊〉 also through Moral Honesty are not 〈◊〉 in their Lives Such like 〈◊〉 amongst us have been and that 〈◊〉 a New 〈◊〉 of Religion with 〈◊〉 also from others the Ignorant 〈◊〉 Prophane professedly received 〈◊〉 the Communion of Saints as visible Saints 〈◊〉 Principle and Practice hath as it 〈◊〉 needs weakened and embased the 〈◊〉 purer stamp of the Doctrine of 〈◊〉 as then held forth with such evidence of difference from these 〈◊〉 Profession not only by encouraging such boldly to take on them to be 〈◊〉 as it were by Authority but also by having checked and flatted the spirits 〈◊〉 themselves that would teach it seeing that this Real Application in Practice and Principle to such Moral Christians as Saints is a manifest Contradiction unto al 〈◊〉 can be Doctrinally said in the Pulpit to the contrary concerning the power 〈◊〉 this great work in true Saints And 〈◊〉 the Profession of Religion hath been levelled and diffused into that bulk and commonness that the true marks of saving Graces are as to the open discerning much worn out and wil be more and more if this should obtain Or else as great a Cause as any other a special Profession of Religion being 〈◊〉 Mode and under Countenance Hence many have been easily moved to see what might be in Religion and so attend to what is said about it and upon listening thereto their spirits have been awakened and surprized with some light and then with that Light they have grown inquisitive into what this or that Party of Religion holds what the other or what a fourth And thinking themselves at liberty as the Principle of the times is to chuse as men in a Market what that Light wil lead them to they accordingly fal in either with this or that particular perswasion and this is al of many mens Conversion And yet because such become zealously addicted to such or such a 〈◊〉 some of the Professors of each of which others that differ own as truly Godly therfore they are presently adopted owned as Saints by the several Followers of such Opinions And each sort thinks much that those who embrace their Opinion should not be accounted and esteemed Religious 〈◊〉 all others that do sincerely 〈◊〉 the power of it Thus men Tythe 〈◊〉 and Cummin and leap over the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Regeneration namely 〈◊〉 for sin the 〈◊〉 sence of their Natural Condition the Difficult work of Faith to 〈◊〉 them Union and Closing with Christ Mortification of lusts c. which works where they are found and visibly held forth none are to be disowned for other Opinions consisting with the 〈◊〉 yet so as without these no Opinion of what Elevation soever can or doth constitute a man Religious Now look as when among the Jews Religion had run into Factions and Parties and the power of it thereby was 〈◊〉 lost God then set down John 〈◊〉 amongst them a sowr and severe Preacher Urger of the Doctrine of 〈◊〉 and preparative Humiliation for sin which he comparatively to what was brought in by Christ termeth the Baptism of Water though withal 't is said that in the Close of his Doctrine 〈◊〉 pointed unto Christ Saying unto the people that they should beleeve on him that should come after him that is on Jesus Christ. Yet this he did but 〈◊〉 at for the
nor can testifie that For he is the Spirit truth he cannot be deceived himself he will not 〈◊〉 ceive us he is the Spirit of God he cannot lye 1 〈◊〉 he cannot tell it much less give approbation or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereunto But the former 〈◊〉 made appear undeniable That it is a Falshood and an 〈◊〉 to say any man living hath right to or can challenge 〈◊〉 spiritual good in Christ before he doth Beleeve 〈◊〉 is no such thing to be found in the Word of 〈◊〉 Therefore the Spirit will never testifie that To affirm that the Spirit should say to any 〈◊〉 that he is in a state of Grace when he is in a state 〈◊〉 Sin that he is justified when he is Condemned 〈◊〉 little less than Blasphemy If the Spirit doth reveal a mans good Estate to 〈◊〉 it is for this purpose that he may know it and he 〈◊〉 inable him to receive that intimation that he may discern it else the one of these Two will follow 〈◊〉 Spirit should reveal this for no end if no good 〈◊〉 got by it or else not attain his end if the party 〈◊〉 not be able to understand what it doth reveal If 〈◊〉 former he should not be a wise Worker If the 〈◊〉 he was not a powerful Worker But know and understand this Testimony the Soul cannot by any power either of Nature or Corruption 1 Cor. 2. 14 The natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God neither can he know them because they 〈◊〉 spiritually discerned Nay Rom. 8. 7. The 〈◊〉 of the flesh is not subject unto the law therefore 〈◊〉 unto the Lord nor his Spirit If it be beyond Nature or Corruption then it 〈◊〉 be Grace that must help a man to discern it and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be a qualification and the first 〈◊〉 of this k nd of saving knowledge must be an 〈◊〉 unto Faith if not Faith it self Fides est ex 〈◊〉 notitia This is eternal life to know thee the 〈◊〉 true God Joh. 17. 3. Two Inferences from the former Cases of Conscience thus Resolved These Two Cases being thus cleered 1 That an 〈◊〉 hath no right to any spiritual Good in 〈◊〉 And 2 That the spirit of God doth never 〈◊〉 known this to such a Soul Hence it s cleer 〈◊〉 manner and order that men have devised to make own the mind of God to a man and to give comfort the Soul in distress being cross to these truths now 〈◊〉 is an Erroneous and False way As for 〈◊〉 You being in distress about your Sins and 〈◊〉 under the Spirit of Bondage you must first lay 〈◊〉 in the bottom lay him in the foundation Christ 〈◊〉 first be yours and so united to you and your 〈◊〉 forgiven by him before you have any Faith or 〈◊〉 qualification wrought in you This Opinion 〈◊〉 sayes That Christ may be united to the Soul and 〈◊〉 be Justified and Adopted before he have any 〈◊〉 it is a dangerous Opinion a desperate 〈◊〉 that I may say no worse of it Mark what 〈◊〉 here 's the plot of all prophaness the ground of loosness and famalism A man may have Christ 〈◊〉 be Justified and Adopted while he is without 〈◊〉 and therefore while he is under the power of Sins and the Spirit of God may witness this And 〈◊〉 though a man fall into any Sin or live in any sin 〈◊〉 it be he may have recourse to this 〈◊〉 this witness of the Spirit and that 's enough If a man say Prove it Are you in a state of Grace Is Christ yours Prove it then Prove it say they that I cannot do but the Spirit witnesses this to me Ay but prove this witness of the Spirit that it is from God according to his Word They will be forced to confess I cannot prove it neither to my self nor to another only thus I must beleeve it and you must beleeve me I was in trouble and distress about my Sins and then there was a voyce from Heaven the spirit did witness to me That Christ was mine and my Sins were pardoned c. This is a Spirit of Delusion the Devil is there Whatever the Spirit of God sayes it is that which the Scriptures say Therefore if you have a testimony which is not to be found in the Scripture nor can be proved and made good by the Scripture it is the testimony of the Devil not 〈◊〉 the Spirit of God for the Spirit of God and the Word of God ever go together therefore if you say you Have a witness of the Spirit and the Word say No I 'le say It is a Delusion Secondly Hence it follows also There are 〈◊〉 Promises wherein any saving good is Revealed or Evidenced to the Soul but either they are such 〈◊〉 God promiseth to work the Condition or suppose the Condition already wrought either 〈◊〉 mentioning a qualification or necessarily implying 〈◊〉 including the same out of other places to be collected where the same is professedly handled All spiritual good Redemption Justification Salvation purchased by Christ were intended only for them that do beleeve therefore there is no Promise in the Scripture but doth evidence this Sometimes you have the Covenant laid down in 〈◊〉 lump as it were in a brief Expression as in a 〈◊〉 sum comprehending all the whole frame and then 〈◊〉 several actions in their distinct order and manner 〈◊〉 Gods working are to be attended and conceived as though they had been more fully and in the several branches set forth unto us Take a tast of some few Gen. 3. 5. The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head The head of Satan implys Three things Policy Power and Poyson To break this head is to crush and confound all these The Policy and and Power of Satan is overthrown in the work of vocation when the Soul is turned from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God the venom and poyson of Satan is taken away partly in the 〈◊〉 and punishment which is done away in Justification partly in the stain and pollution of sin which is removed in Sanctification All these Christ doth in 〈◊〉 hearts of all his and some of these all the Saints of God must have evidence of before they can gain evidence that they are within the compass of this Covenant Thus the Apostle John disputes 1 Joh. 3. 3. to 5. Every one that hath this hope purifieth himself as Christ 〈◊〉 pure Why For sin is the transgression of the law and Christ was manifested to take away our sins therefore vers 6. whosoever abideth in him sinneth not Christ came to take away sin and therefore he that abideth in Christ cannot abide in sin and vers 8. The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil So again Jerem. 31. 33. I will be their God and they shall be my people Zach. 13. last I will say it is my people and they shall say thou art the
Lord our God Here again is the sum of the Covenant comprised and all the particulars with the manner of the work included and presupposed as the Apostle once for all expounds these and the like passages 2 Cor. 6. 16. I will be their God and they shall be my people wherefore come out from among 〈◊〉 and be ye separate and touch no unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a father to you and ye 〈◊〉 be my sons and daughters saith the Lord 〈◊〉 If they touch no unclean thing but be separate 〈◊〉 Sin Self and the Creature and so come out of 〈◊〉 these in preparation and come to him in effectual vocation then he will be a father to them in his Christ and make them his Children in Adoption and then he will write his laws in their hearts and renew them to that Holiness which in Adam they lost and so enable them to walk in his wayes And therefore when the Lord promiseth by the 〈◊〉 Isa. 43. 25 I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own names sake and will not remember 〈◊〉 sins that is I do justifie thee freely when I have made thee to beleeve by my free grace For it cannot be conceived that the Lord would pass the Sentence of Absolution upon her while she remained in the 〈◊〉 of Unbelief For then that of the Apostle should fail It s one God that justifies the Jews by Faith and the Gentiles through Faith Rom. 3. 30. Therefore look the 20 and 21 vers of this Chapt. for we must not have one place justle against another and there you shall 〈◊〉 it is said I will do this and that for my People my Chosen which are Beleevers and of them and unto them it is said vers 25. I will blot out thy sins for my own sake The resolving of these Cases and information of these Doubts infers undeniably thus much That there is no Absolute Promise that either gives or maintains assurance of our good estate but such only wherein God engageth 〈◊〉 to work the Condition or else doth of necessity imply it wrought It will be said That the Covenant of Grace is free and issues out of the free Mercy of God in Christ and therefore the Lord hath not in it any respect to any thing we have or do It s all confessed and yet there is no prejudice at 〈◊〉 accrews to the Cause in hand Free Grace is the Fountain of all It makes the 〈◊〉 it works the Condition it maintains the 〈◊〉 which is wrought Ephes. 2. 8. By Grace 〈◊〉 ye saved through Faith And though God both require and work the 〈◊〉 Eph. 2. 8. Faith is the Gift of God Yet it not for our Faith or for the worth of any Grace 〈◊〉 is in us that we have life and salvation but by 〈◊〉 and those as means and wayes by Grace 〈◊〉 and provided to give life 〈◊〉 is of 〈◊〉 Grace doth it not therefore require 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 Party that is Justified nor yet suppose him to be 〈◊〉 The Apostle openly contradicts such a 〈◊〉 Rom. 8. 30. Whom he called them he justified 〈◊〉 is also of Free Grace and yet doth it 〈◊〉 suppose Sanctification and Holiness in the Party 〈◊〉 must possess it Without Holiness no man shall 〈◊〉 the Lord Heb. 12. 14. As my Glorification doth 〈◊〉 hinder the freedom of my Justification because it 〈◊〉 before it so my Justification doth not hinder the 〈◊〉 of my Vocation because Vocation goes 〈◊〉 it but only shewes the order and manner of Gods 〈◊〉 Third Case of Conscience Though a man can have no Right to any Spiritual 〈◊〉 in Christ without Faith and though the 〈◊〉 never witnesseth this without or before Faith 〈◊〉 when Faith is there when some gracious 〈◊〉 is wrought may not doth not the Spirit 〈◊〉 a mans good estate without any respect to 〈◊〉 or any gracious Qualification existent in the 〈◊〉 I Answer So marvelous secret and unsearchable are the Dispensations of the Spirit unto the Soul 〈◊〉 as the wind blows where it 〈◊〉 thou hearest 〈◊〉 sound of it thou knowest not whence it comes 〈◊〉 whither it goes So it is here The hidden 〈◊〉 ousness of the manner of the Spirits work in the 〈◊〉 of it is so hard to discern that to make any approach so as to discover the way of God and to undermine an Error entrenching thereabout by 〈◊〉 of Reason is more than ordinarily 〈◊〉 and therefore for our better proceeding in Answer 〈◊〉 this Question I shall Endeavor to do these 〈◊〉 Things 1 State the Question and open it in the 〈◊〉 thereof 2 Give in such Arguments as we conceive 〈◊〉 plainest Evidence with them to settle 〈◊〉 Truth 3 Answer some such Objections as are of greatest weight For the right 〈◊〉 of the Question in 〈◊〉 to the Case propounded I lay down this Conclusion The Spirit of God never gives in immediate 〈◊〉 of any right we have to or that we are made 〈◊〉 of any benesit from Christ without respect 〈◊〉 some Qualification gracious Disposition or Condition in the Soul There are Three Particulars to be Opened for the right understanding of this Conclusion First What is meant by Evidence Answer 〈◊〉 light of 〈◊〉 let in on Gods part and 〈◊〉 on ours whereby either we have or may have 〈◊〉 true and never failing ground of right discerning 〈◊〉 what is so manifested and apprehended so that Evidence 〈◊〉 First That God by his Spirit manifests his 〈◊〉 and our Good and that we either do or may 〈◊〉 it for our Comfort For it s the aim of the 〈◊〉 to understand this Evidence with Application 〈◊〉 the truth to our own particular estate For we 〈◊〉 not now what the Word is in it self or what 〈◊〉 Spirit doth in the ordinary dispensation thereof 〈◊〉 that is light in it self and makes all things 〈◊〉 indifferently at all times Eph. 5. 13. but here we 〈◊〉 this Discovery and Manifestation of the Mind 〈◊〉 God as it comes home to our Particular that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hearts may be settled As Luke 24. 32. He opened the Scriptures vers 45. He opened their 〈◊〉 that they might understand the 〈◊〉 and so the truth was more cleer and their sight 〈◊〉 cleer 1 Cor. 2. 12. He hath given us his spirit 〈◊〉 we may know the things that are freely given to 〈◊〉 of God 1 Joh. 5. 20. He hath given us an 〈◊〉 that we may know that we know him Secondly This right discerning on our part is not 〈◊〉 a certain knowledge or science of that good 〈◊〉 is thus witnessed to us but an assurance of Faith whereby the heart embraceth it as true to it 〈◊〉 good for it The one of these is a help to the 〈◊〉 sanctisied reason or reason exercised about 〈◊〉 truths is an instrument appointed by God in the and of his Spirit to beget this act of Faith for 〈◊〉 exercised about the Word and
names sake Here 〈◊〉 no Qualifications you 'l say whereas if you 〈◊〉 but look into some Verses of the Chapter going 〈◊〉 as vers 20. he speaks to his People His 〈◊〉 these are said 〈◊〉 21. to be such as he had 〈◊〉 for himself and vers 22. he calls them Jacob 〈◊〉 Israel that is The Israel of God as the Apostle 〈◊〉 them Gal. 6. 16. true beleevers Hos. 14. 4. I 〈◊〉 love them freely therefore here 's no 〈◊〉 because none expressed But mark the 1 2 and 〈◊〉 verses you shall find who those are that the Lord 〈◊〉 freely such as having fall'n by their iniquitie Return to the Lord saying Take away all iniquity 〈◊〉 shall not save us in thee the fatherless sind mercy that is Those that have such Qualifications as these they are the Persons whom the Lord 〈◊〉 freely It is impossible it should be 〈◊〉 Rom. 4. 23. As Abraham was justified so must we but he was justified by Faith and therefore there 〈◊〉 no Promise revealing Justification or Adoption but either it doth expres or imply this condition of 〈◊〉 When the Spirit doth Evidence my Justification or Salvation out of the Word it doth it one or these Two wayes Either by the Application of some general Promise in which each Particular and so myself as a particular am included Or 〈◊〉 there 〈◊〉 some special Word appointed appropriated to me alone and is spoken to none but me as Isa. 45. 〈◊〉 Thus saith the Lord to his anointed to Cyrus c. None was here intended but Cyrus This second 〈◊〉 a Familistical Dream and forceth men to Revelations without the Word because there is no such expression to be found in the Word 〈◊〉 therefore sober-minded men who have their senses about them dare not entertain it perceiving indeed as the 〈◊〉 is that such a Conceit is little better than a Frenzy The first way then of Evidencing must needs be taken Whence I Reason Whatever is testified to the Soul by way of Application of the General to the Particular or by way of Collection of the Particular from the General that is ever done with respect to a Condition As it thus appears by Induction the Evidence must needs run in this manner Either All men are Justified but thou art a man therefore thou art justified Or All Sinners are justified but thou art a sinner therefore thou art justisied Or All Self-denying beleeving sinners are justified but thou art such a one therefore thou art justified The Two First here are false only this Third 〈◊〉 last is true and that carries a Qualification 〈◊〉 it If a man fly to Election and say All the Elect are justified that 's false Or thus 〈◊〉 the Elect shall be called and justified that is no 〈◊〉 of Evidencing neither for as was shewed 〈◊〉 there can be no Evidence i. e. Science and 〈◊〉 of Faith of the working of the first 〈◊〉 before it be wrought therefore there is no 〈◊〉 way but the applying of a General including a 〈◊〉 to my self in particular as All that 〈◊〉 as Abraham are justified but I am one 〈◊〉 them This is good To make the Spirit testifie a falshood and my 〈◊〉 to receive it is unlawful to charge untruth 〈◊〉 the Spirit is blasphemous to bring my self into 〈◊〉 by-path that is erroneous But to make the 〈◊〉 testifie that Pardon and Adoption belongs to any 〈◊〉 falls upon any subject without respect to a 〈◊〉 is to make the Spirit testifie a falshood 〈◊〉 it is to make it testifie cross to a rule of Truth which the Spirit of God hath given in the Word For the Rule of Truth is plain Rom. 8. 30. Whom 〈◊〉 called them he justified and them he glorified Therefore to say the Spirit will witness to one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not called is to make him witness against 〈◊〉 Rule Joh. 1. 12. To them that receive him he gave 〈◊〉 to be the Sons of God It s a staple Rule Therefore no man is a Son before he receive Christ therefore to make the Spirit to witness to a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Son of God when he hath not received Christ would make him speak Cross to this Word of Truth Look how the Covenant of Grace testifies a mans good estate and the interest he hath to any spiritual good in Christ so the spirit of Grace doth 〈◊〉 it fo the Spirit of Grace and the Covenant of 〈◊〉 go hand in hand and otherwise how could it 〈◊〉 true That the Gospel should be sufficient to make 〈◊〉 man perfect and compleat in the spiritual 〈◊〉 of his Soul as well as in those things which 〈◊〉 mainly and meerly Essential to eternal life 2 〈◊〉 3. 16. And here is the limits and bounds of that comfort the Spirit is sent to bring its confined 〈◊〉 this compass Joh. 14. 26. I will send the 〈◊〉 and he shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you when he comes 〈◊〉 a Comforter when that is the main scope of 〈◊〉 Commission to make known all the grounds of Comfort to the Saints and to let in the good of them into their Souls when he remembers them of all 〈◊〉 and teacheth all things appertaining thereunto 〈◊〉 ads no more but recals what Christ hath said Besides that testimony which is beyond the Gospel should not be tryed by the Gospel for that which 〈◊〉 beyond the measure cannot be measured by it 〈◊〉 Gospel is the Rule of our Faith and of our Comfort and if this testimony was beyond the reach of the Gospel it could never be judged by it This would not only set open a Gap to all Delusions but break down the banks that the sea of all sottish Imaginations may break in upon the mind and apprehensions of a man and carry them away with mighty violence without controul But the Covenant of Grace doth 〈◊〉 our interest in these Priviledges ever with an eye and respect to some spiritual 〈◊〉 It is the tenure of the Gospel according to the very letter and naked terms of it Mark 16. 16. Go preach the Gospel 〈◊〉 that beleevs shall be saved they and they only and none but they therefore it follows he that 〈◊〉 not shall be 〈◊〉 Jer. 31. 33. This is the 〈◊〉 that I will make with the house of Israel I will 〈◊〉 my laws in their hearts and in their inward 〈◊〉 will I put them Look to the Covenant as made 〈◊〉 Adam Gen. 3. 15. as renewed with Abraham He beleeved and it was counted for righteousness Gen. 15. 6. And so it is in the whole frame of the 〈◊〉 still the Covenant of Grace gives witness to 〈◊〉 mans good estate with respect to Faith therefore 〈◊〉 the Spirit of Grace doth testifie also If God the Father intended these Priviledges 〈◊〉 to such under such a respect or Condition Christ 〈◊〉 all these benefits for such alone and the 〈◊〉 applyed them only unto such then the 〈◊〉 witnesseth the
Possession of those spiritual 〈◊〉 unto such only Because the witnessing of 〈◊〉 Spirit is of equal extent with Gods intent in 〈◊〉 these with Christs intent and purpose in 〈◊〉 these with its own work in applying 〈◊〉 Whatever respect makes a thing an adequat 〈◊〉 of a work in such a kind all works of that 〈◊〉 are ever applyed to that thing under that 〈◊〉 The King gives a Charter in His Royal Grant 〈◊〉 such who are Free-men of such a Corporation 〈◊〉 that bought it Purchased only for such there is 〈◊〉 ground in true right and reason why they should 〈◊〉 bestowed upon any but such nor can any apply Priviledge aright unless he do apply it with an eye 〈◊〉 such a Condition that must stear the whol course 〈◊〉 a righteous proceeding in that kind That which 〈◊〉 the Formalis ratio of the subject in Application 〈◊〉 must needs be attended in every work of 〈◊〉 either of Comfort or Priviledge if 〈◊〉 the Rule aright But it hath appeared in brief 〈◊〉 That such who shall be the seed of the 〈◊〉 to them God the Father intended these 〈◊〉 Priviledges Joh. 3. 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever should 〈◊〉 in him should not perish but have eternal life 〈◊〉 them as such Christ Purchased these Joh. 17. 〈◊〉 I pray not for the World but for them that shall 〈◊〉 And so the Spirit applyes as when Paul 〈◊〉 appointed to 〈◊〉 the Gentiles this was his 〈◊〉 He was to turn men from Satan to God that 〈◊〉 they might receive remission of sins and 〈◊〉 So the Spirit by the Ministry of the Word makes 〈◊〉 of these Priviledges and never otherwise and therefore never gives other witness Upon what ground the Evidence of Science 〈◊〉 Knowledg of my Justification and Adoption 〈◊〉 according to truth upon that ground ariseth my 〈◊〉 of Faith for both these I told you in 〈◊〉 Explication were included and must be 〈◊〉 in the work of Evidence and it s as 〈◊〉 out of the Principles of right Reason and Experience and Scriptures also that alone which my 〈◊〉 judgeth my 〈◊〉 embraceth there is nothing 〈◊〉 come to the Wil but by the Understanding what 〈◊〉 Eye sees not the Heart affects not No light come into this Room but by this Window Look therefore what the Understanding apprehends and 〈◊〉 it apprehends it so is it presented to the Heart 〈◊〉 so by the Heart is it entertained Joh. 4. 10. 〈◊〉 thou known thou wouldst have asked him water 〈◊〉 he would have given thee water of life So the 〈◊〉 Joh. 4. 42. Now we beleeve because 〈◊〉 have heard him and know that this is the 〈◊〉 of the World this is cleer But now My Knowledge and Science if true 〈◊〉 sound it ever issues out of the Concurrence and 〈◊〉 together in my Apprehension of a 〈◊〉 Qualification 〈◊〉 the Priviledges and 〈◊〉 Priviledges received thereby For it s a ruled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Course of Reason That Knowledge 〈◊〉 Science that is sound judgment of a truth ever issues out of a simple term or one thing as one 〈◊〉 it self 〈◊〉 Instance I express in word or attend in my 〈◊〉 Pardon that word or term Adoption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take them several and asunder Here 〈◊〉 no Judgment can be 〈◊〉 nor can any that hear 〈◊〉 or conclude 〈◊〉 the having or not 〈◊〉 of any of these So again Sin Faith 〈◊〉 I cannot judge what these are or in whom 〈◊〉 are there is neither Knowledge nor 〈◊〉 nor Comfort comes hence But dispose and 〈◊〉 them together As An Unbeleever is Pardoned I judge this 〈◊〉 now because 〈◊〉 things are joyned together 〈◊〉 natures agree not and the expression is not as 〈◊〉 things be 〈◊〉 i s a false Proposition or 〈◊〉 cross to the Scripture He that beleeves not 〈◊〉 condemned Joh. 3. 18. A Beleever is 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 Answers the nature of the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 truth a d meaning of the 〈◊〉 and therefore its true I so judge it and so 〈◊〉 it and so only if I either know it aright or 〈◊〉 it aright And mark this knowledge issues 〈◊〉 the right apprehension of both parts as they 〈◊〉 together which 〈◊〉 be but only by a 〈◊〉 Qualification The Sum then is If the right and true Knowledge of the Application of any spiritual Priviledges 〈◊〉 from the attendance of the 〈◊〉 subject and quality with which it is disposed then my Evidence and Assurance must arise so too But so my Knowledge ariseth therefore so my Assurance must arise also The like you may say and it will be seasonable and exceeding useful to consider it No 〈◊〉 or witness can be attended without the thing 〈◊〉 and that according to the mind of the 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 you must take one with another to make up an Evidence to look upon those simple expressions Pardon Mercy Redemption and run away with them and the sweetness in them and 〈◊〉 look at the right disposition of them according to the witness of the Spirit and mind of the testifier it s not possible to have either sound Faith or 〈◊〉 in this way because I cannot have true Knowledge thus Thou Unbeleever Uncalled Art Pardoned 〈◊〉 false Before thou knowest the right disposition 〈◊〉 these together thou canst not pass a right Judgment or have a right Evidence Christ came to 〈◊〉 sinners beleeving humbled sinners That is true To come to an End Hold these Principles in the Severals and so you shall be able to see the frame 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 how it lies 1 None but Parties Qualified viz. 〈◊〉 are the subjects of these 〈◊〉 Joh. 3. 16. Joh. 3. last 2 The Spirit never witnesseth these 〈◊〉 but according to this meaning He alwayes means those who are 〈◊〉 true subjects of these Priviledges and 〈◊〉 only according to the meaning of the Word 3 We cannot know the Testimony of the Spirit-unless we know it according to 〈◊〉 meaning Therefore we must of necessity know the qualification of the Person Receiving as 〈◊〉 as the Priviledge and Blessing Received I must know my self a Beleever as well as Justified Adopted because this is the meaning of the Word and Spirit This may suffice for Arguments to confirm the truth propounded We shall now remove a stumbling stone or two out of the way and omitting all others I shall only Answer Two Objections which carry either 〈◊〉 or seeming probability with them From that of 1 Joh. 5. 7 8. There be three that 〈◊〉 record in heaven the Father the Word and 〈◊〉 Spirit and these three are one And there are 〈◊〉 that bear witness in Earth the Spirit Water and Blood and these three agree in one Here say some are several sorts of 〈◊〉 one distinct from another one before another and one more excellent than the other and therefore 〈◊〉 one may be without respect to the other the witness of the Spirit without attending either Water or Blood either Sanctification or
any saving Work If there were no Doubt moved no Question Controverted by way of any seeming Collection from the place the very Mysterious depths of the 〈◊〉 herein delivered drives all Interpreters to a stand and puts the most Judicious beyond their thoughts so that there is more 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 the mind of God in the words then to make Answer to the Objection hence collected We will 〈◊〉 Shortly open the meaning of the Words 2 Then 〈◊〉 what may be truly Collected from them and 〈◊〉 it will appear that the Objection fetched from 〈◊〉 will find no footing in this place The scope of the Apostle in vers 4 5. is That 〈◊〉 Christ is the Son of God and that Faith which 〈◊〉 the world must look to him and rest 〈◊〉 him This he 〈◊〉 to me to prove and explicate in both the parts of it in vers 6. And secondly amplyfieth it in the following 7. and 8. verses His proof is taken from 〈◊〉 type of his Priestly-Office the truth whereof he accomplished in the great Work of Redemption He that comes by water and blood he is the son of God But Jesus Christ came by water and blood His comming implys 1 His Fathers Sending 2 〈◊〉 Own Undertaking that great Work of our Recovery not only by Water as the Levites who were washed Numb 8. 6. 7. but by Blood also as the Priests Levit. 8. 6. 22 23 24. By Water I conceive is meant The Holiness of his Nature in which he was Conceived and for which end he was overshad owed by the Spirit By Blood is meant that Expiation and Satisfaction he made to the Law of God by shedding his Blood So that He that had all that and 〈◊〉 all that which was shadowed by the Priests He is that Jesus the son of God for 〈◊〉 And the Spirit bears witness because the Spirit is Truth This seems to me to be the fairest sense and to be preferred before all that I can see brought By Spirit in the First place is meant Gods 〈◊〉 the Holy Ghost By Spirit in the Second place I do think 〈◊〉 is meant For so you shall find the word used 2 Cor. 4. 13. Having the same Spirit of Faith So that the Spirit of God comming from the Father and the Son would testifie by the aspertion of this Water and Blood that my Faith is true when it assures my heart that this Jesus is the Son of God 2 He amplifies this proof by bringing in the number of witnesses and the manner of their witnessing For their number they are Six The Father sending The Son coming The Spirit certifying in this 〈◊〉 manner of working they are distinct and herein appear to be distinct witnesses and this their witness is from Heaven signifying where they are and from whence they express their witness The Father speaks from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Mat. 3. last The Son professeth so often of himself That he came out of the bosom of the Father John 1. 18. John 3. 13. No man can ascend to Heaven but the Son of man who came down from Heaven John 6. 38. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that sent 〈◊〉 Lastly in Mat. 3. last The Spirit of God descended down upon him in the likeness of a Dove these speak from Heaven and their expressions are 〈◊〉 in the word without us whether we beleeve or no. Three again speak and witness from Earth for Christ dwels in us here on Earth the Spirit Water and Blood There is no doubt but by Water is meant Sanctification by Blood Justification all the Question lies upon the third What is meant by Spirit Under correction I take it It 's meant of Faith for besides that 2 Tim. 1. 7. all graces are called the Spirit we have received the Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound mind this is expresly so named 2 Cor. 4. 13. we having the same Spirit of Faith this is most safe and most sutable to the analogy of Faith and the intendment of the Text. There are but Three great Works unto which all the rest may be referred Vocation Justification Sanctification all these in us give in witness and evîdence That Jesus the Savior of the World must be the Son of God sent of him who sends also his Spirit into our hearts to work thus in us and by these works to evidence to us Himself and his Office The Truths then which according to the right meaning of the words may hence be collected are these There be six Witnesses Three of these witness from Heaven and their Testimony is left in the word without us The other three from Earth from the operation of the work of Grace and these are within us Al these agree in this as the thing winessed 〈◊〉 Jesus the Saviour of his People is the Son of God The witness of those from Heaven is greater than that which is on Earth But touching the witnessing of my good 〈◊〉 without respect to a gracius disposition or qualification there is not a syllable in the Text that sounds that way or carries any appearance to that purpose If every Work of Grace or the truth of a gracious qualification be witnessed by the Spirit and is lastly resolved therinto So that I Beleeve the work of Grace in me to be true because the Spirit witnesseth it then I must have an absolute ground to Beleeve the Spirit I wil open this Phrase the witness of the Spirit on an absolute ground Either it s meant 〈◊〉 the witness of the Spirit is attended without any respect to a work that is witnessed then its false and absurd that I should discern the witness of the Spirit without any respect to the thing witnessed 〈◊〉 made known to me by it for as hath been 〈◊〉 before witness and the thing witnessed go both together Or it s meant thus That when I have received the witness of the Spirit to my self then I 〈◊〉 prove it upon an absolute ground Hath Christ purchased al spiritual good for His for Beleevers Hence then we may see the 〈◊〉 of the faithful and the priviledg of those that 〈◊〉 above all people upon earth To you the Father intended al the treasuries of grace and glory in your stead Christ suffered performed all that the Law required and Justice exacted for you it is he hath purchased al that good that you need doth not that please you al you can desire doth not that quiet you nay all that you can receive through al eternitie doth not that satisfie There is none like unto you never the like was done for any as for you It was Moses Collection and caused his wonderment in the Consideration thereof Deut. 33. 29. When he had recounted the wonderful Preservations the Lord had wrought Priviledges he honoured them with and bestowed upon them he breaks forth into these expressions Blessed art thou
and therefore nor Hell nor Sin nor 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 can ever prejudice it It 's the 〈◊〉 which our Savior usually gives of the powerful 〈◊〉 wonderful communication of himself to sinners 〈◊〉 in that 17. chapter of John 〈◊〉 2. That he 〈◊〉 give 〈◊〉 life to as many as thou hast given 〈◊〉 vers 6. I have manifested thy Name to those 〈◊〉 thou hast given me 〈◊〉 8. I have given unto 〈◊〉 thy words and they have received them and 〈◊〉 12. Those that thou 〈◊〉 me I have 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 of them 〈◊〉 lost i. e. Those whom the Father 〈◊〉 mended to the care and keeping of Christ as if 〈◊〉 should say I will have all these to be 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 fied our saviour he undertakes to purchase and 〈◊〉 fect redemption for them and it therfore 〈◊〉 he gives them his word and gives them 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 he will not loose them and they cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are given into the hands of Christ nor 〈◊〉 nor temptations nor Delusions shall ever 〈◊〉 to take them out of his hand Upon this 〈◊〉 it is our 〈◊〉 puts the necessitie of the 〈◊〉 of sinners that belong to him John 10. 16 〈◊〉 other sheep which are not of this 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 called yet 〈◊〉 up in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of mercy when the Lord Jesus undertooke for 〈◊〉 them also I must bring and they shall hear my 〈◊〉 And let it be observed by any whom the 〈◊〉 hath effectually brought home to himself if 〈◊〉 Look into their first 〈◊〉 in all the dealings of 〈◊〉 Lord the 〈◊〉 of him self in the wayes of 〈◊〉 ordinances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards them 〈◊〉 shall generally and easily observe some impressions 〈◊〉 power of the prayer and the vertue 〈◊〉 the blood 〈◊〉 purchase of Jesus by all judgments corrections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their faylings or performances what 〈◊〉 good or 〈◊〉 hath 〈◊〉 them what ever good or 〈◊〉 hath been done by them the Lord hath either 〈◊〉 or restrayned reformed convinced quickned to 〈◊〉 endeavours and overwrought all and never left 〈◊〉 till the stroke was struck indeed to the full Hence 〈◊〉 a Saint of God can say that the Lord 〈◊〉 been 〈◊〉 with him from the time of his 〈◊〉 and all along in the places where he lived 〈◊〉 strange horrors and strokes of conscience 〈◊〉 strange sins that he fell into 〈◊〉 and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 for them Grace 〈◊〉 wrought yet that 's true but its working the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the blood of Christ is now at 〈◊〉 and will never leave the Soul for which Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there be a full and effectuall application of 〈◊〉 saving good see all this and in a holy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wonder at the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 of Jesus Christ. To direct the hearts of distressed and 〈◊〉 sinners how to demean themselves in the work 〈◊〉 Application for their own succour and relief look 〈◊〉 to this purchas and blood of Christ if ever you 〈◊〉 have the work goe forward When some times the means of Grace are 〈◊〉 and leave some sad impressions and remembrances 〈◊〉 their owne conditions upon them what they are 〈◊〉 what they should be how far short they fail of 〈◊〉 which the Lord requires the rule and their 〈◊〉 Comforts may justly call for at their hands 〈◊〉 their consciences are struggling within them 〈◊〉 present them with Direfull apprehensions of the 〈◊〉 of their sins and the punishments which they 〈◊〉 diserved when they feel the Lord also striving 〈◊〉 them by the Convictions of his spirit and the 〈◊〉 expression of his heavie Displeasure by reason of the sins and yet are at a stall and a stand in their 〈◊〉 spirits they can make no worke of it forward 〈◊〉 cannot goe and backward they dare not goe 〈◊〉 they have that cannot repent they cannot part 〈◊〉 their sins nor give way and welcome to the 〈◊〉 tie of the truth that might worke upon them nor 〈◊〉 power of the promises of the gospell which might 〈◊〉 their soules to the Lord Jesus and here the 〈◊〉 may stand long And it 's hard but one time or 〈◊〉 God meets with every man that lives under the 〈◊〉 there are many knocks that men have in their 〈◊〉 that all the town knows not of I must not do 〈◊〉 nor be thus I must either be another man or a 〈◊〉 man and then the man is at a set backward he 〈◊〉 not forward he will not What will you doe now O Looke to the power of the blood and purchase 〈◊〉 Christ that is the effectuall meanes to attaine this 〈◊〉 it never fails to bring application with it as suits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good pleasure of the Lord no 〈◊〉 but this can 〈◊〉 it and this never fails to attain this end 〈◊〉 let the eye of thy soul look thither still Doe not 〈◊〉 trouble thy selfe to pry into Gods counsells 〈◊〉 suffer thy self to be bewildred in such curious 〈◊〉 as to search the depths of Gods everlasting 〈◊〉 whether thou wert elected or no thou wilt 〈◊〉 thy selfe there because that way is unlawfull 〈◊〉 thou medlest with that which belongeth not to 〈◊〉 Secret things belong to God But this is 〈◊〉 that as the blood of Christ hath purchased all good 〈◊〉 the end of this purchase is the application of it which 〈◊〉 will never fayle to attain Thou wilt say O that I 〈◊〉 that the blood of Christ had purchased for me 〈◊〉 with that for thou shalt never have the work of grace or the knowledg of grace but by the vertue of this blood therfore you must look to this to worke 〈◊〉 if you would have both What God will do 〈◊〉 that to him this is the means he hath appoynted 〈◊〉 the attainment of this end therfore look thou to that As the Leaper said to our Saviour if thou wilt 〈◊〉 canst make mee clean here onely cleansing 〈◊〉 is to be had thither he looks there he waits and Submits that 's his Dutie whether God will give it or no that's in the libertie of his owne free will that 〈◊〉 Leaves to him So do thou whether God will do 〈◊〉 for thee or no that 's his prerogative if he give thee nothing he ows thee nothing but that Christ hath purchased it for this end and that I should expect it from hence that 's his will and my dutie Wee have doné with the extent of this application to whom it appertaines we are now to enquire into the second branch of the Doctrine 2. The manner how it 's wrought The principle saith thus It 's made theirs the Doctrine thus They are put into possession of all saving good by Christ. Here three things are implyed 1 They cannot make it their own 〈◊〉 they cannot put themselves into possession 2 The manner and order how this is done 3 The cause that doth it Of these we shall speak in their order 1. It is not in any Mans power to make 〈◊〉 of any Spirituall good which
〈◊〉 Power of God in the conversion of a 〈◊〉 is far more secret and Spiritual such as we are 〈◊〉 able to reach It is the prayer of the Apostle for the Ephesians Chap. 1. 17 18. that they might know the working of his mighty Power in working Faith it is the most mysterious of all the works of God it shakes the 〈◊〉 of the ablest Divines upon Earth Comfort to releeve the hearts of sinners against desperate discouragements when the floods of iniquity 〈◊〉 in amain upon the soul the sinner looks to his 〈◊〉 to Gods Ordinances and Providences and 〈◊〉 the Work of God that should be wrought in him and 〈◊〉 what ods and disproportion there is between his Soul and that blessed Work that should be in him why truly this is the only help to a soul in such a case with man it is impossible but not with God for with him all things are possible Matth. 19. 26. Though there be such a vast disproportion between thy own ability and this Work that thou shouldest never attain 〈◊〉 if thou wert left to thy self yet know that Christ by the Almighty Power of his Spirit is able to do it for thee But the soul will say the truth is there is not so much disproportion but there is as much opposition in my soul to the work of Grace why should God ever give me that mercy which I would not have and that Grace which my soul hath so much opposed this is another depth Why yet know thou that Gol can overwork all these and will do so for thee if thou seek unto him But know this to thy ever lasting terror That if thou do 〈◊〉 thus in the hardness and opposition of thy heart against Christ and his Grace that this Power of the Lord that would convert thee will put forth it self to confound thee to thine eternal ruine Exhortation Not to defer the time 〈◊〉 Grace but every soul of us with trembling hearts to attend upon the Lord in the use of means that he may be pleased to work his own good Work in us It 's that the Apostle exhorts unto Phil. 2. 12. Workout your 〈◊〉 with fear and trembling and he gives the reason of it For saies he it's God that worketh in you to 〈◊〉 and to do of his own good pleasure that is it is in Gods hand to help us or to forsake us either 〈◊〉 make the means effectual for our saving good or else to withdraw his presence and blessing from them while we do enjoy them 〈◊〉 Be 〈◊〉 fearful not to slight any Ordinance God hath appointed as Naamans 〈◊〉 said to him Go and try it he that now counsels you to it may bless it and work by it if it please him Secondly Tremblingly fear to fall short of Gods Power in an Ordinance for a man may fall short of God and Christ and Grace and all good even while he doth enjoy the Ordinances of God and live under them therefore say as Elisha did Where is the Lord God of Eliah Here is the Word and here is the Ordinance but where is the Lord God of this Word the God of Preaching and Praying It is not in the Minister or the means to do good to my soul but Lord speak thou the word and it shall work upon my soul as he said 2 Kings 4. 29 30. As the Lord lives 〈◊〉 will not leave thee till thou go with me do thou so when the Lord gives thee means say I will not leave the Lord until he make this Counsel this Word this Ordinance effectual for my saving good Be also tremblingly fearful when the Lord works by any Ordinance lest you should go out from or with draw your self from the power of it when you find and feel somthing more than Man and Means and Ordinances Oh let it not slip away the Lord was in that word do not suffer that stroke to go away because God is there now the Lord is working be you sure to follow the blow and give not over wrastiing 〈◊〉 striving with the Lord until he bless you with the 〈◊〉 working of his Word and Spirit and so apply unto thy soul all Spiritual Good in Jesus Christ. BOOK III. LUK. 1. 17. To make ready a People prepared for the Lord. HAving dispatched the Nature of Application in the General The Parts thereof come to be Considered in the next place These are Two 1 A Preparation of the Soul for Christ. 2 An Implantation of the Soul into Christ. That so having the Son we may be sure to have life 1 Joh. 5. 12. possessing him who is the heir of all we may be possessed of all both Temporal and Spiritual Blessings with him But before the Soul can be engrafted into the true Vine Christ Jesus it must be prepared and fitted thereunto by the powerful work of the Spirit of God upon it being not fit to receive a Christ by Nature and unable to fit its self thereunto by any liberty of Will or any sufficiency natural it hath When then these Two Works are imprinted upon the Soul the Sinner comes to take full possession of a Savior and to have all those Spiritual good things which Christ hath Purchased applyed unto him And thus these Two taking up the whole Nature of Application it 's manifest they must be the Parts of Application as reason inforceth The First is thus Described Preparation is a fitting of a sinner for his Being in Christ. The words of the Text will afford us full ground for the Handling and Discovering of this Truth To prepare a People fitted for the Lord Which words make known the main Task that was imposed upon John the Baptist and that great Work of his Ministery being the Forerunner of our Savior Christ wherewith he was betrusted and for which he was every way fitted with Gifts and Graces proportionable Therefore it s said in the beginning of the Verse He shall come in the Spirit and Power of Elias i. e. He shall have that large measure of gracious and Ministerial Gifts that special presence and assistance of the Spirit of the Lord accompanying of him as somtimes Elias had that so in the corrupt and declining state of the Church which was now exceeding great he might set things in a better frame build up the Breaches made taking off those Dissentions Errors and Divisions which had spread over the Body and eaten into the Bowels of the Church of the Jews like a Gangrene or Cancer And therefore as it was foretold of him so it was performed by him Matth. 17. 11. He did restore all things Namely such was the lively and over-ruling power of his Ministery that he wrought the Hearts of the Children otherwise 〈◊〉 and rebellious to the wisdom of the just men that laying aside all carnal wisdom of the 〈◊〉 which was enmity against God and caused 〈◊〉 and strifes among men they came to judge 〈◊〉 of things that were excellent to
such a Christ pleaseth us well but such a Christ will never do us good 2 This makes a man bold to adventure upon the commission of the grossest evill this makes him fearless to continue in it makes him negligent and regardless by godly sorrow and saving repentance to recover out of it he passeth not he cares not to take his poyson and to drink it in as his daily dyet he carries his 〈◊〉 about him and that which will undoubtedly cure him he may yet maintain union with Christ and communion with his cursed Lusts. 3 This makes a man slight in holy servises so as neither to put a price upon them nor to see an excellencie in them or iudg aright of the necessity of such performances he becomes sleepy and heartless in what he doth he is sure of a Christ that will answer all and therefore he troubles not himself with holy duties if he stumble upon the doing of them so if he neglect the doing of them so he hath a way to help all he can have a Christ he conceives without these and therefore he makes no great matter whether he do these or no. 4 Nay if he may have union to Christ while he is in his corruption if so he is then in a good estate for he that hath the son 〈◊〉 life 1 John 5. 12. Therefore he may have evidence of his good estate without the sight of any saving qualification because he may have a Christ and so be in a good estate without any saving qualification And therefore this Evidence must needs come from an immediate revelation from Heaven for there is no appearance no manifestation of it on Earth either in our hearts or lives in what we have or do and therefore then our good estate may be sure unto us by Christ when we have nothing but sin and do nothing but commit sin And hence because both graces and gracious actions may be wanting in this union to Christ because separable from it thererefore the want of them cannot infer the deniall of a good estate nor the presence of them conclude the certainty of a good estate because they are not proper and peculiar to such a condition for then they could not be severed from it which they may And thus this one Delusion like an Egyptian fog darkens the whol Heavens even the bright beams of the Sun of the Gospel and the everlasting Covenant of Gods free grace cuts the sinews of sincerity and eats out the blood and spirits of the power nd presence and life of Grace and under a pretence of advancing Christ and Free Grace destroies his Kingdom and frustrates the coming of Christ into the World For he came for this end 1 John 3. 8. To destroy the Works of the Devil the Apostle concludes it verse 10. as a proof beyond all question or exception the child of the Devil is manifest in this He that hates his brother and works unrighteousness is the Child of the Devil and yet upon this grant and according to this ground a man may do both these and yet be united unto Christ and so be blessed of him Look we therefore at these so desperate 〈◊〉 not as Rocks and Sands where men may suffer Shipwrack and yet be recovered but like a devouring Gulf or Whirl-pool whereinto whosoever comes there is no hope nor help to come out as cutting a man off from the careful and consciencious use of the means appointed by God in the Gospel to recover him As a Ship that is foundred in the midst of the main Ocean without the sight of any succor or hope of Relief Besides then the Arguments formerly alleaged I shall propound some other to fortifie against this so dangerous a Deceit Reasons to prove that Christ cannot be united to the Soul while it is in its Natural Condition and the state of Unbeleef Taken from John 14. 17. Christ saies he would send them another Comforter even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive Every man while he is in his corrupt and natural condition he is one of the World Eph. 2. 2. When in times passed ye walked according to the course of this world vers 3. Among whom also we had our Conversations in times past in the lusts of the flesh How otherwise could they be called 〈◊〉 of the World unless they were in it They who cannot receive the Spirit cannot receive the Lord Jesus nor union to him but men Naturally cannot receive the Spirit therefore they must be called out of the World and from the Power of Satan and so be prepared and then receive Faith that so they may receive 〈◊〉 But Conversion being a Creating Work a Work of Creation needs 〈◊〉 preparation to 〈◊〉 or for it 〈◊〉 his Word is 〈◊〉 he calls men his people who are not his people and by calling them so he makes them to be so Preparation is required to the implantation of the 〈◊〉 into Christ not 〈◊〉 regard of God or his work upon us as though he needed any help to the execution of his holy wil but in regard of the thing wrought in us for he working all things according to the counsel of his own will and the rules of his Infinite Wisdom he needs not any help in his work yet it is 〈◊〉 his perfection and sufficiency to go against the wise Order set down in the Dispensation of his Providence for the bringing about of this work the causes of a thing do not help God in Working or Creating they are necessarily required to make up the thing wrought or created there is nothing in a blind eye 〈◊〉 may help God to restore it to sight yet God according to reason must put a power and ability of sight or a 〈◊〉 faculty before he will nay indeed can bring forth seeing God can turn Water into Wine but in reason he must destroy the Nature of Water and then make Wine for it implies a contradiction to say that Water should remain Water and yet have Wine made out of it So it is in the soul he can change a proud and unbeleeving heart into a 〈◊〉 heart but he must first destroy the power of unbeleef 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can bring in faith He that is under the power of infidelity and corrupt Nature he is under the guilt of his sins and in the state of condemnation John 3. 18. He that beleeves not is condemned already and vers 36. The wrath of God abides upon him But he that is in Christ to him there is no condemnation Rom. 8. 1. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Matth. 3. last and for his sake with all that are in him Now to be in the state of condemnation and acceptation together in the state of Life and death to have the wrath of God abiding and the good pleasure of God resting upon a party at the 〈◊〉 time 〈◊〉 a perfect contradiction and so impossibilities in
aboundantly pardon Isaiah 55. 7. We have hence a ground of tryal whereby we may gain certain evidence whether ever we came the right way to Christ or that Christ is come or that we have any grounded hope that he will come unto our souls If Christ fit the soul he wil certainly never loose the soul if he prepare it for 〈◊〉 he will undoubtedly possess it by his spirit and grace Our Savior is not either so weak or unwise so weak 〈◊〉 at he cannot accomplish his work and intended end 〈◊〉 unwise that he will loose his labor or leave his work without success as though he had mistaken himself and enterprised that that either he could not or should not accomplish This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between Restraining and Preparing Grace the Lord may restrain a soul for other Ends but if he 〈◊〉 the soul it is for Christ and he will never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that End There be 〈◊〉 other ends for which the Lord in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sees fit to curb and keep in the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 wicked and restrain the rage of their 〈◊〉 distempers why he should take of the edge and keens and 〈◊〉 the sury and hellish fiercness that 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 hearts of wretched and unreasonable men who are 〈◊〉 by Satan according to his will and ruled by him even the Prince of the Air who is an enemy to Gods glory and to mankind As first that the Lord might shew his power and that absolute soverainty he hath over the worst men the worst of Creatures those infernal 〈◊〉 and the worst and most violent of all their corruptions and that he hath the reins of all their violence and rage 〈◊〉 his own hand and orders it and their wills and wickedness not as they please but as he 〈◊〉 and therefore he inlargeth their commission and recals 〈◊〉 commission as he pleaseth And therefore as Jab speaks of the Sea Job 38. 11. He 〈◊〉 the bounds and compass of their course which they shall not pass thus far and no further So to the Devil he tels 〈◊〉 punctualy how far he shall proceed he is in thy hand only save his life Job 2. 4. Which was a 〈◊〉 to Satan as though God had said break this Bottle but do not spill this Wine thus the Lord 〈◊〉 in Pharoah when the Israelites were to go out Exo. 11. 7. There was not a dog moved his tongue against man or beast that they might know that I am the Lord. That by this means he might provide for the subsistance and continuance of the society of Men in Churches and Commonwealths especially the relief and safety of his own Servants whereas had but wicked men their wills it 's certain there was no being nor breathing nor living for the Saints upon the face of the Earth the Dragon the Devil in his instruments doth so malignantly pursue the woman that is the true Church and Children of God Rev. 12. 13. The Lord therefore breaks their teeth pares their nails and cuts short their tether 〈◊〉 they cannot do as they would As Laban said to Jacob Gen. 31. 29. It is in the power of my hand to do thee harm but the God of thy Father spake unto me saying speak unto Jacob neither good nor bad It is in the wills and power of wicked Men and Devils to do harm to the people of God but the Lord will not suffer them to act that rage and malice that is in their hearts and so not to do that hurt which otherwise they could and would So to Abimelech the Lord whispers his displeasure in the 〈◊〉 Gen. 20. 3. And so restrained him from that which his own heart would have carried him unto That he might indeed put his Servants to a more narrow search and to cause them to look to their heart 〈◊〉 and not content themselves with the lighter strokes of common impressions and 〈◊〉 since many have something like preparation and yet fall short of any saving work the Saints may be careful to go further and not content themselves with 〈◊〉 Copper and counterfeit appearances of hearts prepared for a Christ and breachings after him but to 〈◊〉 themselves as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and walk 〈◊〉 a jealousie and a suspicious fear over 〈◊〉 and return and search and 〈◊〉 question with themselves Am I no other No better 〈◊〉 I as such Then I shall fall and perish as 〈◊〉 1 John 2. 19. Had they been of us 〈◊〉 would never have gone out from us There must be heresies and that amongst you 〈◊〉 saith Paul to the Corinths that they that are sincere hearted may be tryed 1 Cor. 11. 9. When there is fal e Coyn goes up and down each wise man examines what he hath and what he takes Now those upon whom legal terrors and these restraining strokes are laid for 〈◊〉 and the like ends in the counsel of the Lord In the issue the strength of their corruptions like waters that are stopped break out with greater violence the Lord le ts loose their distempers upon them and commonly these blows leave them at a greater distance from the Lord Christ than ever before and many times a Reformation of a mans own is but a Preparation for Sin He that is otherwise cannot be hid 1 Tim. 5 25. It had been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandement and so to return with the Sow that was washed to wallow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again and with the Dog to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dogs that lick up their vomit grow more filthy than ever so such as these grow the most 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adversaries to Christ and his Gospel that 〈◊〉 Earth They seemed to be prepared by God 〈◊〉 it was as I say for other ends than for Christ and when these ends are attained in Gods secret Counsel he usually plucks up the stake and le ts loose their tether that they may hurry headlnog to everlasting ruine But if the Lord do not only curb a sinner or hack and rough hew him a little by the word but cut him off as a branch or scion fit for a savior he will never let him lie and wither Look then to those sinful lusts those special and beloved corruptions unto which thy heart hath ben so strongly tyed and linked and whereby Satan and thy corrupt heart have intrenched themselves and set up as so many strong holds against the Lord Christ the work of his spirit and power of his truth as being in league and confederacie with these noysom distempers Hast thou felt the tyranny and treachery of them that bondage and bitterness unto which thou art brought that thou longest and breathest after relief and deliverance and the comming of a Christ that thou mayest deliver up thy self and all into his hands and thou findest thy soul opposite to that that hath been opposite and cross to Christ Isay 59. 20. The Redeemer shall come out
Conscience such strength 〈◊〉 truth which like a mighty stream may carry an understanding Hearer When the Apostle was to come amongst the flanting Orators and silken Doctors of Corinth which so excelled in Eloquence he brings the tryal of their Ministery unto this touch 1 Cor. 4. 19 20. I will know not the speech of them that are 〈◊〉 up but the power for the Kingdom of God stands not in word but in Power It s not the 〈◊〉 of words not the sound and tinckling of a company of fine Sentences like apifh toyes and rattles that will commend our Ministery in the account of God there is no Kingdom no Power of the work of the Spirit the heavenly Majesty of an Ordinance is not seen in such empty shels and shaddows A building with painted walls and no pillars would be of little use and less continuance A body framed out of Colours may be a picture of a Bird or Beast but a living Creature it cannot be because it wants the soul and substance which should give life and vertue thereunto So it is when a multitude of gay Sentences are packed together without the sinnews and substance of convicting Arguments there may be the picture of a Sermon but the life and power of Preaching there wil not be in any such expressions That a Minister may be Powerful an inward 〈◊〉 heat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and holy affection is required answerable and suitable to the matter which is to be communicated and those adde great life and 〈◊〉 to the delivery of the truth Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things Mat. 12. 35. Where then there is a heart awanting the chiefest part of Speech the pith and heart of it is gone for the several affections out of which the words arise make an impression and work alike temper of Spirit in him to whom we utter and express our selves Thus we speak from heart to heart and that is the best way to be in the 〈◊〉 of the Hearer and the only way to make our words take place and prevail He that mourns in speaking of sin makes another 〈◊〉 for sin committed An Exhortation that proceeds from the heart carries a kind of Authority and Commission with it to make way for it self not to return before it confer with the heart of him that will give attendance to it 〈◊〉 Discourses talk only with the 〈◊〉 they go no further because they 〈◊〉 no deeper then from the understanding of him 〈◊〉 speaks The Doctrine of the Gospel is like the 〈◊〉 upon the herbs and the dew upon the grass 〈◊〉 32. 2. The strength and stirring of holly affections is like a 〈◊〉 wind or tempest makes the truth delivered to press in with more power and speed and to soak more deeply even to the heart root of him 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 will receive it It may be here enquired for Explication of the Point How a Ministery thus 〈◊〉 and Powerful 〈◊〉 work Answ. To speak only so much here as concerns the Place leaving Particulars until we 〈◊〉 of the several Parts of Preparation know we must the preparing work of a plain and powerful Ministery stands in Two Things It discovers the secrets of Sin makes known the close passages of the Soul to it self and that in the ugliness thereof Heb. 4. 11. The Word of God is 〈◊〉 in Operation sharper than any two edged sword 〈◊〉 betwixt the Soul and the Spirit and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This was the work that Paul aimed at in the 〈◊〉 of the Gospel 2 Cor. 4. 4. Pandling the Word of God not deceitsully but plainly by 〈◊〉 of the truth he commended himself to 〈◊〉 mans Conscience in the sight of God As though he had said Speak Oh ye blessed Saints of 〈◊〉 was not Paul in your 〈◊〉 Did he 〈◊〉 every corner of your Consciences 〈◊〉 you cannot but acknowledge it your hearts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 as much A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Corruption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of luch to whom the Word is spoken and blessed The 〈◊〉 Souldiers the refuse Publicans all 〈◊〉 and stand 〈◊〉 at the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Luke 3. 11 12. they all said Master what shall we do 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 at the Bar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Judge upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence it is the time of the 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 is called The 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 day of the Lord Mal. 4. 5. 〈◊〉 that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 10. 5. The weapons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the 〈◊〉 Ministery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 down strong 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thought to the Obedience of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Savior the Chief Master of the Assemblies is said to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scribes Matt. 7. last Not to tell a man a 〈◊〉 tale a toothless sapless 〈◊〉 so that the hearers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are gone are never stirred never troubled for their sins nor quickened onward in Obedience But when the power of the 〈◊〉 the presence and Majesty 〈◊〉 the Lord 〈◊〉 appears in his Ordinances they then carry 〈◊〉 with them and bear down all before them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lightning forsakes his hold and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is forced to give way to the Government of the King of Saints Strong Physick either Cures or Kills either takes away the 〈◊〉 or life of the 〈◊〉 so it is with a spiritual and powerful Ministery it will work one way or other either it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hardens converts or condemns those that live 〈◊〉 the stroak thereof For observe we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Word is but an Instrument in the hand of 〈◊〉 who dispenseth the same 〈◊〉 to his good 〈◊〉 and the counsel of his own Will working when and upon whom he will and what he will by 〈◊〉 The Sword in the hand of him that wields it may as easily killas defend another answerable to the affection of him that strikes therewith It is so with the Word which is the Sword of the Spirit It is the savor of life unto life but then and to those only to whom the Lord will bless the same and the savor of death unto death then and unto those when such a 〈◊〉 is denyed Such as be Ministers may hence see the Reason of that little success we find that little good we do in the Vineyard of the Lord Our Pains 〈◊〉 not our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not with the hearts of men not one 〈◊〉 levelled not a crooked piece 〈◊〉 not one poor Soul prepared for a Christ after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quarters years travelling in the work of the 〈◊〉 The time was Satan fell like lightning suddenly speedily when the Disciples of Christ as Sons of 〈◊〉 delivered the Gospel in the power and demonstration of the Spirit But now Satan stands up 〈◊〉 full strength takes up his stand maintains his 〈◊〉 in the hearts of men notwithstanding all that 〈◊〉 see done
even the very plagues 〈◊〉 hell I have had many Exhortations Instructions Admonitions and Reproofs and as powerful means as may be which 〈◊〉 never did me any good The Lord be merciful to such a poor soul and turn his heart that he may lay hold of Mercy in due time Exhortation Is it so That a plain and powerful Ministery is the means of Preparing the soul of a poor 〈◊〉 for the Lord Jesus Why then when you hear the Word plainly and powerfully preached to you labor that the Word may be so unto you as it is in it self It is a preparing Word labor you that it may prepare your hearts to receive Christ And you that be Hearers every one labor to save the Soul of another let the Father speak concerning his Children and the Husband concerning his Wife and his Family and the Wife concerning her Husband Oh when will it once be when will the time come that my Child may be fitted for the Lord when will it be that my poor Family my poor Wife my poor Husband shall be prepared for the Lord the Lord grant that it may be if not this Sabbath yet on another if not this Sermon then at the next Labour therefore to give way unto the VVord of God and suffer your Souls to be wrought upon by it for the word is powerful to prepare your hearts but the Minister must hew and square your hearts before they can be prepared for the Lord Jesus and you must suffer the words of Exhortation as the Apostle sayes Heb. 13. 22. So likewise suffer the words of Conviction of Reproof of Admonition and hold and keep your hearts under the Word that you may be wrought upon thereby And as when men have set Carpenters a work to build an House then they come every day and ask them How doth the work go on How doth the building go forward When you are gone home do you so reason with your selves and ask your own hearts how the work of the Lord goes forward in you Is my heart yet humbled Am I yet fitted and prepared for Christ I thank God I find some work and power of the Word and therefore I hope the Building will go forward BOOK IV. 2 COR. 6. 2. As he saith in an acceptable time have I heard thee in the day of Salvation have I succoured thee THe general Doctrine of Preparation being dispatched Proeced we to a further enquiry of the Particulars under it And there we have to enquire The 1 Quality 2 Parts of this Work The Quality of this 〈◊〉 wherein are Comprehended those Common Affections which firstly and properly appertain to this Place and as the 〈◊〉 and Spirits pass through the whole Body of a man So these general Considerations convey over a savor and virtue of such truths as they do contain to all the Particulars which follow and 〈◊〉 in reason are to be handled before the rest The quality of this Preparation is to be attended in Two things 1. The Freeness of the Work wrought 2. The Fitness of the time wherein it is Effected For the Discovery of both which I have made Choice of this Text as affording susficient ground for this Discourse 〈◊〉 he saith in an accept able time c. In the handling of which words we shall endeavor Three Things 1 What the Scope of the Text is that so it may appear it naturally fits our purpose and the Point in hand which comes to be 〈◊〉 2 The Sense and Meaning of the words is to be 〈◊〉 into and such Truths to be Collected which serve-our turn and intendment 3 We shall pursue the Explication of each of them in their Order The Scope of the Text which I conceive worth the while a 〈◊〉 to be attended will appear by the Connexion 〈◊〉 it hath with the foregoing 〈◊〉 and the dependance of it is to be fetched 〈◊〉 the 17 th 〈◊〉 of the former Chapter 〈◊〉 from the Consideration of the priviledge and 〈◊〉 they were advanced unto in Christ the Apostle infers and calls sor that newness of life and obedience answerable to that kindness of the Lord and the condition unto which 〈◊〉 were advanced 〈◊〉 any man be in Christ he must be a new 〈◊〉 bebold old things are past all things are made new 2 Cor. 5. 17. And this he shews from the author of this Grace who disposeth of it God 2 From the Mediator who hath purchased it Christ 3 From the Means appointed to Convey and Communicate it to such for whom it was ordained to 〈◊〉 The Ministery of the Apostles All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself through Christ Vers. 18. And whereas the Corinthians being heathens might object True he hath reconciled you Jews but what is that to us He addes in 〈◊〉 19. That God was in Christ reconciling the world 〈◊〉 Beleevers both of Jews and Gentiles to himself and for this cause and to this end hath 〈◊〉 the word of Reconciliation to his Apostles for their good that while they as Ambassadors entreated God by them did beseech them to be reconciled unto him And this was done upon susficient warrant and in a way of righteous proceeding for Christ who knew no sin was made sin even for them 〈◊〉 who should beleeve that they might be made the righteousness of God in him vers last Having thus shewed a full and 〈◊〉 ground for their reconciliation and also of his own Commission for that end He further presseth it in the first Verse of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If God be thus Gracious Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Commission so Large We 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 together with God 〈◊〉 you 〈◊〉 you receive not the Grace of God i. e. the 〈◊〉 that word of Grace that bringeth Salvation to 〈◊〉 in vain 〈◊〉 receiving benefit by it and comfort from it to your own Conversion and Salvation And whereas they might Reply It is not in our power to receive the spiritual good of this word nor 〈◊〉 in you that are Apostles to work it or if both were granted it s not yet the Season fitter opportunity will be afforded hereafter To all these the Apostle Answers in the words of the text True the Blessing is the Lords but the Endeavor 〈◊〉 be Ours We must Plant and Water it s in Gods Prerogative and depends upon his good Pleasure to give Encrease however the Time now fits the 〈◊〉 are now afforded and though we cannot Do what we should and ought yet let us do what we can and though we have no Power of our selves to Compass our everlasting Comforts yet we have Gods own VVord and most gracious Promise That in an acceptable time he will hear us And that presumes then that we must pray In the day of Salvation he will help and by that it s taken for granted we must take pains and behold now is the day of Salvation now is the acceptable time let us therefore now call earnestly upon him for a Blessing walk
good of any While life lasts and the Gospel is continued that is the particular Season and Period wherein the Lord expresseth his good pleasure to work graciously upon the Souls of His. Its in this Season and day of Salvation he performs his Promise For as the Lord may take what time he will so hath he made it known it is his Will to take this time and season when he purposeth to fasten upon the Soul of a sinner for his Spiritual good To omit the Two Former wholly the Two Latter Points we intend only to trade in and to entreat of To Begin then with the First The Work of God is altogether Free It proceeds meerly out of Gods favor and good will it s his acceptation not ours Unless he put forth that Almighty hand of his and take us unto his Grace it s not in our liberty nor ability to take hold of the offer of his Mercy or to reap any saving benefit therefrom Rev. 21. 6. To him that thirsts I will give of the water of life freely It s a gift and free also though one thirst never so earnestly desire it never so constantly endeavor to attain thereunto yet unless the Lord do more out of mercy than any can procure by any sufficiency or worth of his own he will gain nothing As it was in the Building of the Material Temple the laying of the bottom stone upon which it was founded and the adding of the top stone when it was finished and attained its perfection the whole multitude with one consent and one voice acknowledged the only Cause thereof Grace Grace Zech. 4. 7. Much more is it true in the rearing up and erecting of the Spiritual Frame in the Soul from the first entrance of it in Preparation till it come to be consummate in Glorification all comes from the Favor and Free Grace of God This Freeness of this Work appears in Three Particulars First Free it was for God whether he would provide any other Way and Means of Salvation whether he would appoint another Covenant when the first was broken and made void through Adams default The Lord was not bound to set up Adam again when by his carelesness and neglect he had mispent that stock of Grace he had bestowed upon him The Lord was not bound to Recover and Redeem Adam from the power of Sin and Death when through his own folly he had cast away himself and posterity In a word Free it was to the Father to 〈◊〉 this Covenant Free to Christ to Undertake it Free to the Holy Ghost to accomplish it God gave his Son Joh. 3. 16. Christ gave himself Tit. 2. 14. Both gave and sent the Holy Ghost as Commissioner from them both to be the finisher of this work Gal. 4. 6. And if wholly given then it must be wholly free As its Free for God to appoint so it depends upon his good pleasure to reveal and make known the means of Grace as seems best to his heavenly Wisdom why it rains upon one City and not upon another why the dew of heaven the Doctrine of his holy 〈◊〉 is sent to one people and not to another That he reared up a wall of Separation between Jew and Gentile Ephes. 2. 11. 14. That light is in Goshen and darkness in all the parts of Aegipt besides Exod. 10. 22. 23. That to the Jews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 1. But he dealt not so with other Nations neither have they not known his wayes Psal. 147. last Why Paul is sent for into Macedonia and forbidden to go into 〈◊〉 Acts 16. 6 7 8 9. The Apostles charged not to go into the way of the Gentiles ' Mat. 10. 5 6. not to enter into the Cities of Samaria but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel His own will is the Rule of all this and there is no other Reason to be rendered There were many Widdows in Israel when the 〈◊〉 were shut up three yeers and six months 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great 〈◊〉 was through all the Land but 〈◊〉 of them was Elias sent save only to that one Woman a Widdow of Sarepta Luke 4. 25. 26. There was many Leapers in Israel in the time of Elizeus but none Clensed save only Naaman the Syrian In a word All these Blessings are Gods Own and may he not Do with his Own what he will Free Lastly in regard of the work of the Means that ever they prove profitable unto any or work 〈◊〉 in the hearts of any for their eternal welfare its only from Gods good pleasure to give good success to some which he denyes to others This is the ground which the Evangelist gives of this different Dispensation of a Blessing upon the same Means Mat. 13. compare 11. with 13 14. The Scribes and Pharisees in Hearing they hear and not understand in Seeing they see and not perceive that is They attend dayly and yet do not profit observe dayly and yet do not prosper in their endeavors their hearts waxt fat when others were humbled their ears made heavy when others were bored to entertain the truth And if the cause be enquired our Savior answers Verse 11. To you my Apostles it s given to know the Mysteries of the ' Kingdom but unto them it s not given It is beyond the compass of all inferior Causes that can be conceived That Paul breathing out threatning against the Church coming in open field in 〈◊〉 and professed Rebellion against Christ should have the Lord Jesus revealed to him and in him this I say is beyond the reach of any cause in Nature and therefore the Apostle points at a higher hand It pleased God saith the text to reveal his Son in me Gal. 1. 15. And then also when he opposed and fiercely persecuted his Son in his Members was there at this time any improvement of natural abilities or the remainder of the image left 〈◊〉 man after his fall was there at this time any 〈◊〉 trading with the Talents of Common Graces which should move the Lord in way of 〈◊〉 to give 〈◊〉 and spiritual Graces Was there any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fitness now in the Spirit of Said to 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are groundless dreams of men meerly cozened and 〈◊〉 with their own carnal devices Again That the great Doctors of the Law who were honored as Guides of others for their Parts and 〈◊〉 should despise the Counsel of God against themselves and the 〈◊〉 and Publicans people of most desparate and for 〈◊〉 courses should entertain the Baptists Doctrine and Gospel The resolution of all at last must come to this The 〈◊〉 of the Lord shall stand and 〈◊〉 do whatsoever he will Thither our Savior repairs and there 〈◊〉 rests I thank thee O 〈◊〉 Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the 〈◊〉 and prudent and 〈◊〉 revealed them unto 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 Even so O Father for so it 〈◊〉 thee
gather the 〈◊〉 whilest it is fresh while time and strength 〈◊〉 take the pleasures of the world and enjoy the 〈◊〉 of my heart not now to sit moping in a 〈◊〉 go drooping and sorrowing for my sins when 〈◊〉 hair grows gray and decrepit age comes on 〈◊〉 yeers hence when my Sun grows neer the setting 〈◊〉 Life begins to decline and my strength to decay 〈◊〉 shall than have leisure to talk of holiness to turn 〈◊〉 a new leaf and betake my self to my Beads and 〈◊〉 of Grace in the mean time these jolly 〈◊〉 speak unto Preparation and Humiliation as 〈◊〉 somtimes to Paul Go your way for this 〈◊〉 and when we have a convenient time we will 〈◊〉 for you Answ. Thou fool this night may thy soul be 〈◊〉 from thee Luke 12. 20. How knowest thou but the Lord may pluck thee out of the land of the living and send thee packing down to thy own place give thee thy Portion with Unbeleevers and Despisers of his Grace and then all thy thoughts perish thy time is past and Repentance too late when the Pit hath shut her mouth upon thee how fond to think to have leisure to Repent when thou wilt not have time to Live 2 Be it the day of thy Life continue yet the day of Salvation may be ended for this is but a minute or moment of that span of time a point or 〈◊〉 of that opportunity If the Lord remove his 〈◊〉 take away the light of his Word dam up the fountain of Grace and stop the well-springs of Salvation thou mayest perish for thirst and live to 〈◊〉 the folly of the neglect of Means when happily thou shalt not know where they be nor yet have liberty and ability to enjoy them if thou knewest while therefore the day of our life and the day 〈◊〉 Salvation the Mart of Mercy lasts both which are but short and uncertain let us be watchful to observe and careful to take all advantages to buy the chiefest and best Commodities Humiliation and Faith Especially considering it may be any 〈◊〉 particular day as our Savior to Jerusalem Oh that thou hadst known at least in this thy day Luke 19. 42. When the Word is mighty and the Spirit speaks powerfully unto thy soul when the undeniable evidence of the Truth convicteth thy judgement and the keen threatnings thereof cuts and lanceth thy corrupt Conscience to the Core and the Lord raps at the door of thy heart by the hammer of the law Oh now follow those motions and cherish them make much of a little and suffer the blessed Ordinance of God to have its full blow upon thy Soul go aside and consider seriously with thy self Certainly the Lord came home this day unto my heart touched me to the quick and met with my particular Corruptions withstood me to my face and by the authority of his Truth like the naked Sword in the hand of the Angel stopped me in my Course and bad me back again assuredly this is my part a Portion carved out in special 〈◊〉 my Soul this 〈◊〉 is my day of Salvation in which the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to work the good work of his grace 〈◊〉 me True it may be so and for ought that thou 〈◊〉 I or any under heaven know it is so Remember 〈◊〉 thou hadst a fair offer and take heed how 〈◊〉 dost refuse it lest thou never have the like 〈◊〉 Break therefore through all Oppositions cast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 listen to no alurements to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 while 〈◊〉 is called to day harden not thy 〈◊〉 And as Paul to his Company Acts 〈◊〉 thou never to see their faces more I know as one of the 〈◊〉 brings in his sins our old 〈◊〉 like old 〈◊〉 will threap kindness from 〈◊〉 plead prescription and continuance we have 〈◊〉 long taken much sweet Counsel together 〈◊〉 much delight and content Give us warning 〈◊〉 before you give us a discharge let us 〈◊〉 our 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 for the while and hereafter let 〈◊〉 think of amendment Thus the same Father when 〈◊〉 had often resolved to renounce his bosom 〈◊〉 and the beloved lusts of the flesh still that sounded in his ears To morrow to morrow as the burden of Satans song To morrow soon enough hereafter time enough thus while he was startling and 〈◊〉 by the terrors of his Conscience he lulled him and rocked him a sleep again by delayes 〈◊〉 at last in a holy kind of violence and indignation of heart breaks through all demurs nomore delayes no longer but cryes out Why not to day why not to day Lord and from that day following God gave him victory Go thy wayes and do thou likewise stand not haggeling and dallying with the Almighty set down a resolution like the Laws of the Meads and Persians never to be revoked that thou wilt from this 〈◊〉 and ever hereafter wait upon the 〈◊〉 of grace and give way to the work therof Dispute no more but determine thus with thy self Why yet am I here in the land of the Living yet 〈◊〉 this side the bottomless pit the Lord still tenders the offers of Salvation strives still with this sturdy heart of mine I know not how soon I may be taken from the Means or the Means from me or the Blessing of the Lord from us both while therefore the spirit speaks to my Soul Seek thou my face give me a heart to eccho back again Thy face Lord will I seek this day After all this the heart still sings loath to depart and the deluded finner lingers after his lust as Lot after Sodom and therefore puts in a new Plea on this manner Imagine the worst should I put off this fair and kind Call of the Lord Yet since it is in my power to entertain it hereafter there is not so much danger though I now refuse it Answ. Be it granted Thy life might be prolonged the words of the text do most apparantly dash this presumptuous conceit It s the Season of Gods acceptation It s not in thy power but depends meerly upon his good Will We are not the Patrons of the means of Grace much less of their work it is not in our Gift the Sending and Blessing of both issues only from the good pleasure of the Almighty prolong not then put not off the time deny not Gods gracious offer lest thou never have offer again he that now holds out the golden Scepter of Mercy to receive thee hath an Iron rod wherwith he can 〈◊〉 thee to nothing and break thee in pieces like a Potters vessel He that hath the Keyes of David and now sets open the gate of Salvation he can shut it and no man shall open it any more and when thou hast stayed too long and comest too late thou mayest knock hard with the foolish Virgin and cry aloud with Esau and yet receive neither Blessing nor Birthright and its just with God it should be 〈◊〉 that the Word which thou hast dispised should
Grace and Salvation but be they never so weak God can 〈◊〉 be they never so stout God can bend be they never so fast rooted in their rebellions God can and doth separate betwixt sin and their souls and recover them Behold this is the Finger of the Almighty When the Disease hath entred 〈◊〉 the Bowels and rotted in the bones of the sick the Physick then to cure the Physitian then to recover that is skill more than ordinary by the confession of all So here in the soul to make the Black-more to change his hew the Leopard his spots to make a gray headed sinner whose corruptions like a canker hath eaten up his heart by dayly custom to bring him to sound contrition and broken heartedness therein the outstretched arm of the Lord is expressed in his utmost strength My Power is made perfect in weakness saith the Lord 2 Cor. 12. 9. It 's the perfection of Power to prevail over such difficulties Thus of the First Part the Second follows God doth call most of his before Old Age. And therefore when he went forth at the Eleventh hour he reproves them before he entertains them Why stand ye here all the day idle as who should say You have lost the season of your work and hope of your reward the day is over there is no time for you to labor and there is no reason that I should either hire you or reward you it 's not my usual course nor custom yet for once go you also into my Vineyard Therefore the most usual time of Conversion is betwixt the third and the ninth hour in our middle Age about twenty and betwixt thirty and forty many are before some are after but most and most usually are wrought upon at this time There is a good pleasure as the Original hath it a season for every thing Eccles. 2. 1. and this seems to be the fittest time for this work whether we respect Man or God A man at this Age hath better Materials as I may so say wherein or whereupon the frame of Conversion may be erected or imprinted by the 〈◊〉 of the Spirit and that firstly If we look at the composition of Nature and the constitution of soul and body for in Infancy a man lives little 〈◊〉 than the life of a Plant or Beast feeding and sleeping growing and encreasing or else he takes up himself with delights of outward objects most agreeable to his Sences Walks after the sight of his own eyes Eccles. 11. 9. both which exceedingly 〈◊〉 the work of reason but when these are towards 〈◊〉 full perfection and Nature hath attained her 〈◊〉 work then the Understanding begins to shew 〈◊〉 self in her operations Invention is then most 〈◊〉 to apprehend the Judgment to discern Memory to retain and the Affections tenderest and nimblest to imbrace any thing offered and most pliable to be wrought upon As it is with Wax if it be made too soft it cannot hold any impression if too hard it will receive none but when it 's in temper most pliable then it 's most fit to receive and retain the stamp So Infancy is too weak and waterish it 's not able to fadom or fasten upon the depths of Argument Age grows sturdy with 〈◊〉 and will not listen to the Reasons of those Truths it s not willing to imbrace only in the middle Age when Reason is come to some ripeness there is then some more convenient advantages to be taken for the Lord to imprint the stamp of Grace upon the soul which the hand of his own Spirit can only do Look we again at Corruption In this Age 〈◊〉 Understandings are sooner 〈◊〉 as having not so long continued in the known practice of 〈◊〉 whenas the aged and decrepit who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the burden of their sins being setled long and 〈◊〉 upon their 〈◊〉 wedged in their 〈◊〉 and incorporated into sinful customs their hearts grow hard their understandings blind and their affections overcome with the deceitfulness of sin difficult it is to perswade their Reason to acknowledg the vileness of their sin but almost impossible to have their hearts wrought to a deteftation of it Trees withered and rotten are altogether unfit to be transplanted nor likely to prosper if they be So is it with aged men like these Trees withered in their wickedness yea as Jude speaks Corrupt Trees twice dead Jude 12. First by Original corruption Secondly by a continued and setled custom in Actual 〈◊〉 who have taken 〈◊〉 root in their rebellions they are most unfit to be transplanted and ingrafted into the true Vine Christ Jesus by Conversion and Faith The Bow that 's often 〈◊〉 and stands long one way is not bowed the other way but with much violence The soul proportionably which is turned from God and hath 〈◊〉 bent by long continuance in a base course though it 's possible it may be brought back again and put into a right frame yet it will cost the setting on before it can be accomplished and a world of difficulties must be gone through usually before it be done Thirdly and lastly As this is the fittest Age in regard of the Subject that must receive it so likewise in regard of the End why Grace is given which is to 〈◊〉 forth the praise of God and the Power of his Grace and by an holy Conversation to express the 〈◊〉 of him who hath called us from darkness to his marvelous light 1 Pet. 2. 9. for Grace destroyes not the powers and faculties of Nature but 〈◊〉 them removes not abilities but rectifies them doth not take them away but turns them to their 〈◊〉 end and use while then the parts of the body 〈◊〉 powers of the soul are in their prime best 〈◊〉 then may they be improved by the blessed Spirit 〈◊〉 the Lord and his Grace to the best advantage of 〈◊〉 Name Thus Grace damps not deads not the 〈◊〉 ction of love if strong and lively but directs it 〈◊〉 God his Truth and Children Grace abates not 〈◊〉 edg of Courage and Resolution but brings as stout and yet stragling Soldier into his right 〈◊〉 and Rank to be imployed in the defence of the Gospel Though God can work with any tool yet 〈◊〉 in he manifests his Wisdom that he will chuse 〈◊〉 to whom he gives great fitness to the performance 〈◊〉 those great and honorable imployments unto 〈◊〉 they are designed Hence Paul might in many other so in this respect also be called a choyce 〈◊〉 to carry Christs Name among the Heathens 〈◊〉 9. 15. being his Zeal was fiery his Love earnest 〈◊〉 Courage resolute his Judgment deep his Spirit undaunted and fit for dispatch all these faculties being as so many vessels filled with Grace prepared and guided by the Power of Gods Spirit might be fit Instruments to carry and convey the Gospel and the glory of the unsearchable Riches of Christ to the ends of the Earth Who sitter to care for all the Churches 2
only evil and that continually It 's part of that Image received from the first Adam and that Seed of wickedness in which we were warmed which was born with us and grows up with us and will go to our graves with us and to Hell afterwards unless the Lord relieve and deliver And therefore 〈◊〉 expresseth the Pedegree of this perversness of Spirit Acts 7. 51. Ye stiff-necked and hard-hearted ye have ever resisted the Spirit of God as your Father did so do ye See this unwillingness expressing it self in the several degrees of it A carnal heart is unwilling to make out after the discovery of the Truth and like Bats live most at ease when they have least light fly abroad in the night the less knowledg they have the less trouble they find and therefore they are willing to make no enquiry to know that they are not willing to do Rom. 3. 11. It 's one part of the description of a Natural mans condition There is none that understands none that seeks after God or if they do somtimes seem to express some pains this way to seek after the Truth it is as a Coward pursues his enemy he is afraid to find and therefore keeps aloof off not willing to take notice of that which may be troublesom and therefore looks after that which least concerns him for the rest he lets it lie by 2 Pet. 3. 3. They are willingly ignorant content not to know that which they will not do if they did know If yet the Lord bring home wholsom Counsels and Directions even to their doors sends out the light of his Truth by the Ministry of his faithful Servants to shine in their faces and the sound thereof to beat in his Ears they are loth to hear of the Ear Ioth to shew their unfeigned acceptance and readiness of Spirit to take acquaintance of the Truth As you may have seen somtimes a Churl when he hath seen some body coming that might happily have deserved entertainment and the Law of Honesty and common Humanity might have caused him to lodg them he presently slips aside and turns away that he may not meet them and see them and salute them lest he be forced to receive them So these men when they perceive the evidence of some troublesom Truths are like to meet with them in the mouth as we say they are-not able to avoid the power of them and yet not able to take up the practice of them like troublesom guests put them to charges and lie heavy upon them they are desirous to make an escape from the power of such Arguments play least in sight and loth they are to meet a Truth that comes attended with constraining Reasons Job 22. 14. They say to the Almighty depart from us we desire not the knowledg of thy 〈◊〉 yea Isa. 30. 10 11. They say to the Seers see not and to the Prophets 〈◊〉 not cause the holy One of Israel to cease from us the presence of the Truth is marvelous grievous they look at it as an overpassing burden as he of Elias Hast thou found me O 〈◊〉 Enemy Were it not for shame they could be willingly content to give a Discharge and Pass for its departure as he to Amos chap. 7. ver 12. 〈◊〉 away to thy own Country and prophesie there If yet the Lord will continue the Truth and him under it he begins to clip the wings of the Truth and breaks as it were the strength of the blow that it may not enter so deep to the dividing of the Marrow and the 〈◊〉 and take away such secret and sweeter evils stops as it were the passage of the Truth that it cannot proceed so far and prevail so much as it would they will keep the truth in a 〈◊〉 as we 〈◊〉 prisoners at a door look abroad but not at liberty so they are not willing the Truth should be at liberty as they dealt with our Savior he made as though he would have gone further but they 〈◊〉 him and as it were with-held him by force So men deal with the Truth which is of a large extent and would go through a mans life in his several occasions these men are not willing to serve the Truth but make it serve 〈◊〉 and their turns Thus many hold General Rules but bring such down to Particular Practices in the several Branches there they are not willing the jurisdiction of the Truth should extend so far Thus corrupt hearts deal with the Truth as sick men of weak and 〈◊〉 ick eyes deal with the light some light they would have but to have it come clearly and 〈◊〉 upon them they are not able to brook that therefore they say draw the Curtain there the Sun comes full in mine eyes 〈◊〉 not drunk with Wine wherein is excest Eph. 〈◊〉 18. they yield to the Evidence of the Text and letter of the Scripture therefore be not drunk with the world do not affect that too much 〈◊〉 stay there To take and deta in another mans goods is open theft 〈◊〉 the acknowledgment of all Thou shalt not steal therefore to Covenant and not to keep to borrow and not to return to owe and not to pay is 〈◊〉 detain that which is not 〈◊〉 therefore it 's 〈◊〉 theft 〈◊〉 draw the Curtain 〈◊〉 the Sun 〈◊〉 full in my face Deut. 12. 31. Thou shalt not worship the Lord thy God as the Heathen Idolaters 〈◊〉 the Truth have his full scope now therefore not as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draw the Curtain a little 〈◊〉 that way Fashion not your selves according to the world Rom. 12. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in loose locks and long Hair therfore not in your Garments neither why should you imitate their vanity in the one or in the other since both are worldly If yet the Power of the Truth and the evidence of the Argument take off all these pretences and would seem to compel the Judgment then a corrupt heart calls in all Forces leavies new Armies of Arguments to maintain its own Station and withstand the 〈◊〉 and therefore though the thing be plain and be see it yet he will not be satisfied but seeks 〈◊〉 as hoping to 〈◊〉 some Dispensation for it self or some evasion out of the Word Numb 23. Balaam consults again with God after he sufficiently understood the mind of God Now therefore I pray you stay with me this night that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more why he knew before and the Lord had told him plainly 〈◊〉 shalt not go thou shalt not curse he wel understood Gods mind but he would have had him of another mind therefore he devises waies still to try verse 14. here he must have seven Altars if he might bribe God with his Sacrifices to give him leave to go and curse them But if he can find no allowance to dispense with the Truth then he begins to invent Cavils and carnal Reasonings against it he cannot get it by running he will
but is acted by another As it was in the raising of Lazarus when he stank in the Grave not only those noysom distempers were removed and the unnatural 〈◊〉 which attended his body chased away but the 〈◊〉 also was returned and brought again to Union 〈◊〉 his Body So here The Nature of this Drawing and special 〈◊〉 of it It s the motion and powerful Impression of the Spirit of God upon the Soul not any habit of Grace in it nor any act of the Soul which concurs with the work of God in this first stroak of Preparation For The soul that is wholly possessed by the Habits of Sin is not yet capable of the Habit of Grace 〈◊〉 my flesh dwels no good thing Rom. 7. 18. The Vessel cannot be ful of filthy and puddle water and at the same time receive that which is pure It is the aim of this work to make way and room for the Habit of Grace to be received and therefore it is not a habit nor any act of a habit in the soul as yet Therefore it s said God first turns from darkness and then to light Acts 26. 18. Takes away the heart of stone before he gives a new heart Ezek. 11. 19. This is the influence of Light and Vertue into the Mind and Will by the receiving whereof they may be elevated and lifted up above their own ability to supernatural Works in future times and therfore this cannot be the act of the Will and 〈◊〉 since they cannot of themselves let in any 〈◊〉 into themselves Therefore the Lord takes 〈◊〉 to himself as his own Work Hither belongs 〈◊〉 Question Whether Nature or Grace be the first subject of 〈◊〉 Nature cannot For 1 Cor. 2. 14. The 〈◊〉 man receives not the things of God nor can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet Grace cannot do it for 〈◊〉 there should be Grace before the FIRST 〈◊〉 Grace is attended in a double Respect 1 As it 〈◊〉 a habit or gracious quality received into the Soul As it is a gracious impression upon the soul The 〈◊〉 must be prepared before any habit of Grace 〈◊〉 be received but there needs no disposition in 〈◊〉 soul to receive the work of the Spirit that must 〈◊〉 there needs no preparation to make way 〈◊〉 the work of Preparation but there needs 〈◊〉 to make way for the habit That which 〈◊〉 the first disposition needs no former not yet 〈◊〉 any former It s not Nature but the Soul prepared that is the 〈◊〉 of the First Habit. The Soul unprepared 〈◊〉 the Subject of the Spirit that prepares it The Means how God works the Cords by which 〈◊〉 Draws The Spirit of the Lord lets in some powerful light 〈◊〉 the Truth into the Soul when he is passing on in 〈◊〉 wayes of destruction and tels him This is not 〈◊〉 right way to Life and Salvation you must go 〈◊〉 way if ever you go to heaven The poor deluded blinded Creature never dreaming of 〈◊〉 such matter so that he drives the sóul to 〈◊〉 thoughts If this be the streight way to happiness 〈◊〉 have been out of the way al my life time If this 〈◊〉 true my Condition is miserable Isa. 65. 1. I 〈◊〉 sought of them that asked not for me I am found 〈◊〉 those that sought me not Thus the shepheard pursues the wildring sheep If he had not found it it 〈◊〉 never found home How many give in Evidence 〈◊〉 of their own Experience in this kind I never doubted of my estate nor ever 〈◊〉 of any necessity to be other or do other I went as others did it may be for fashion sake either company carried me or custome prevailed with me or may be the novelty of the thing inticed me to go I as little thought of my death as ever to have my sin and shame discovered Job 36. 9. When the Lord gets man into fetters then he shews them their transgressions and how they have exceeded Thus the Lord is said To stand and knock at the door of the soul when the sinner is fast asleep Rev. 3. 20. He dazles the apprehension by some mighty flash of truth like lightning darted in which makes the soul at a maze by reason of the suddenness and unexpectedness and strangness of it This knock makes the sinner so far to hear and to take notice of it that some body is at the door and causes him happily to make enquiry Who is there So Acts 9. 4 5 6. There shines a suddain Light about Paul and a voyce heard from heaven Saul Saul Why persecutest thou me As who should say Thou art utterly mistaken thou knowest not where thou art what thou doest thou mistakest a Friend in stead of an Enemy And therefore he amazed and astonished Answers and 〈◊〉 Who art thou Lord Thus the sinner is made to look about him where am I this is not the way to Heaven And though the soul would shut its eyes against the Evidence and Power of the Truth which carries a kind of amazing vertue with it and therefore invents shifts to defeat the work of it yet the Lord wil follow it and fasten it upon the soul so as that it shal not avoid it he that stands knocking at the door wil lift up the latch and make the Truth break in as the Sun rising wil break through the least crevis This is the first means whereby the Lord comes to lay hold upon the mind and soul of a sinner he hath the sinner in chase as it were that he cannot get out of his sight or make an escape Thus by the hook of Instruction he laies hold upon him He encloseth him with the Cords of Mercy whereby he 〈◊〉 the soul and compasseth the heart on every side with the tender of his compassions Hosea 11. 4. I drew them with the Cords of a man the bonds of love this the Lord doth to take off those desperat discouragements which otherwise would dead the heart and split the hopes of a forlorn sinner and so pluck up his endeavors by the roots under the appearance of impossibilities It can never be attained why therefore should it be expected or endeavored after To abate therefore of these overbearing 〈◊〉 which otherwise would sink the heart and swallow it up the Lord casts in some discovery of the largeness of his compassions and intimates there is no danger to be feared in coming to the Lord because there is none intended When Christ stands at the door and knocks men are afraid to let in Enemies that intended our ruine so it 's 〈◊〉 the sinner he is afraid of Gods Justice because of his 〈◊〉 deservings What is Christ at the door Is it not that Christ whose Grace I have refused whose Spirit I have grieved whose Words I have cast 〈◊〉 my back he certainly comes to destroy me who have destroyed his Truth and trampled his honor 〈◊〉 my feet And therefore the Lord lets in that Evidence to the
successively As the same vessel is capable of puddle and pure water the same eye is capable of sight and blindness So the Will at several times as several impressions may be made upon it is capable of Sin and Grace Jer. 4. 3. Break up 〈◊〉 fallow ground of your hearts The Nature of man is arrable ground though now it lie fallow by 〈◊〉 of the weeds of wickedness the brambles of Baggage base lusts have over-run it yet it may be 〈◊〉 the soul may be converted again So men are called Living stones 1 Pet. 2. 5. Though the frame of the heart like that goodly building of Jerusalem have not a stone left upon a stone yet the stones wil 〈◊〉 again And hence though there be not the next passive power in a soul possessed with sin to receive the things of God because the soul is wholly possessed with corruption so becomes wholly indisposed thereunto It being impossible that Two Contraries should be in the same subject at the same time that the body distempered with unnatural heats should receive a natural and moderate temper at the same time cannot be yet remove the unnatural and the body is capable of the natural Hence it is the soul hath ever in it a remote power to partake of Grace As the Soul is ever seeking of a better but because it cannot meet with it it is unsatisfied which shews it was made for a better Which makes me that I cannot yet see Why there is any need to flye to the Obed ential power which men marvelous Judicious betake themselves to in this Dispute When a Creature hath not a capability in its kind and nature to entertain such an impression further than it yeilds to the Almighty hand of God to make it what he wil As Matt. 3. 9. God is able of stones to raise up Children unto Abraham Stones wil yeild to God to make them Children But under favor I conceive that is not here needful That God should make a new Faculty or give another natural power than before as he must do if he make Bread or Children of stones As a Wheel that runs wrong you need not another Wheel but another and a right 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 The Faculty of the Will attended only in its natural being and ability cannot Will a spiritual or supernatural good but must have aspiratual and supernatural power put into it to enable it to put forth a 〈◊〉 work Because nothing can act beyond the bounds of its being and ability The Trees grow but move not the bruit Creatures move but Reason not Wicked men can Reason and Will natural and corrupt things because they have Reason Nature and Corruption And Morral things also because they have some 〈◊〉 of the Spirit as wil carry them to act seemly between man and man but to close with God and his Holiness and the purity and spiritualness of a Rule they cannot 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receives not the things of God Prov. 24. 7. Wisdom is too high for a fool If the Will out of a Nature Ability or Faculty could chuse a supernatural good then where there is this Faculty this act may be put forth Then the Devils and Damned in Hell may love God above al make choice of the chiesest good and close with the last end and so might be happy For they have this faculty of Will The Promise is full and free Let him that Wills take of the water of life and live for ever Rev. 22. 17. Hence its plain its a false Opinion and grounded on a false bottom and principle that to have an indifferency to any thing propounded to take it or not to take it is that liberty which issues from the nature of the Will Because it issues not from the Faculty at al to wil a supernatural good no more than from a dead man to take meat As a Wheel doth not run round because wood or iron but because the art of wheel-making is imprinted upon it because so framed and fashioned If therefore the question be asked If the Will be not free in Preparation Answ. There is no Will in the first work of Preparation there is the Faculty of Will but not the act of Will The Corruption that takes possession of the Will and rules in it it utterly indisposeth the soul to receive any spiritual power from God and consequently disenables it to put forth any spiritual or supernatural work It is not subject to the Law of God neither can be Rom. 8. 7. It wil not beat the impression of the power of the Spirit Job 8. 37. The Word of Christ found no place in the Jews that were under the power of their Corruptions Acts 13. 46. They put away the Word from them yea Truth is a trouble and a torment to a Carnal heart and the nature of the thing evinceth so much Matthew 6. 24. Ye cannot serve two Masters God and Mammon Joh. 5. 44. Ye cannot believe that seek honor one from another Rom. 2. 4. The hard heart cannot repent Shut up we are under unbelief and we shut out the Lord Jesus who comes not unless the door be opened It is not possible that contraries should be at the same time in the same subject Though there be no force afforded to the Faculty of the Will yet the power of Corruption must by a holy kind of Violence be removed before any spiritual power can be imprinted upon the soul wherby it may put forth any spiritual act First I say There is no violence offered to the Faculty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that as it hath been proved before is a capable subject both of Grace and Sin successively and in order as the air is capable of light and darkness indifferently and the one being removed the other is entertained with ease and readiness without any compulsion there needs none it requires none here As the same wax wil receive several and contrary impressions at several times so the soul which hath been made partaker of the image of God is also capable of the print impression of the image of old Adam when once the gracious disposition hath been defaced it 's capable of receiving the impression of Gods Image again when once Adams image is dispossessed Yet Secondly There must be a holy kind of violence offered unto Corruption before it can be dispossessed and removed and so way and room made for the entertainment of Faith and Christ thereby Reasons are Either Corruption must by violence be taken away or else it wil naturally and of its own accord go away and depart from the soul. For it hath been in the former Conclusions manifected That there must be a spiritual power put into the will before it can put forth a 〈◊〉 act And while Corruption takes place there is no place of entertainment 〈◊〉 this spiritual ability therefore Corruption must be removed by violence Naturally it wil not go away therefore by
and the venom of the Serpent in the other Why Have they not nay continue they not to do the lusts of the Devil to this day They have the Spirit of sin and Satan within them and therefore they are their Children and therefore sin and Satan 〈◊〉 a right and title to them Is it not again writ Rom. 6. 16. Know ye not that to whom you yeild your selves servants to obey his servants you are As who should say It is a ruled case common and confessed by the verdict of al. If ye yeild your selves to obey sin you are the servants of sin therefore saies sin and Satan since we have such law on our side for our right we crave our right for these have yeilded themselves servants to my temptations saies Satan and to my allurements saies the World and to my instigation saies Sin therefore they are our Servants therefore let us have them still To which the Lord Answers and Justice also Replyes While they did remain the seed of the Serpent and in the state of the Children of wrath so long you have reason to have them and right to challenge them and therefore it is you have detained them as Prisoners to your pleasure to this day Yea but saies the Father The Lord Jesus whom I have sent he hath undertaken to pacifie my wrath and purchase their deliverance and so hath done for he hath bought them of Divine Justice and therefore hath right now to make them the seed of the Covenant of Grace and to bring them to himself and life as they are and have been the seed of the Serpent and estranged from me and happiness and therefore he hath not only done for them what was required on their behalf but he wil work in them what may be answerable to the Covenant and the Condition of it therfore your claim is nothing This under correction I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 8 2 3 4. which is mysterious and dark and dazels the eyes of Judicious Interpreters that several senses appear to the several apprehensions of men we wil open it briefly as we pass by and apply it to our 〈◊〉 And that which I suppose wil give some light to the true intent of the place and wil be as a Key to the Scripture and set open the sense that an easie apprehension may give a sad guess at the purpose of the Spirit is this I suppose the words must be understood of the work 〈◊〉 the Spirit wrought in us and the impressions of Grace left upon the Soul not of the work of Justification which is wholly without us in the Lord Jesus our Surety and only counted ours And this that Phrase in the 4 th vers seems to me of necessity to imply Where it is evident that the end of the former work of Christ is made this That the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Whereas in the work of Justification the truth of the work the meaning of the Lord and expression of Scripture is other 2 Cor. 5. last Christ was made sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him not in our selves That Righteousness for which we are Justified is fulfilled for us by Christ and is in him it s not fulfilled in us For it is the Doctrine of the Popish Sect who are adversaries to Gods Grace that we are justified for any thing wrought in us and for which we are for ever to renounce them And hence it is Phil. 3. 7. Not having mine own Righteousness but that which is of God in Christ Therefore not in us properly This being granted I shal shortly give you the meaning of this 3 d. Vers. For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh The Apostle had evidenced the state of a man in Christ by the fruits of it He walks not after the flesh but after the spirit Vers. 1. The Question might be How comes that about He Answers Vers. 2. The Law of the spirit of life which is in Christ as the Head hath freed me and so al his Body and each Member from the Law of Sin that is The Soveraign Rule of Sin and Death But why was the Spirit of Christ necessarily required to do this since the mind of God is in the Law revealed and my Obedience required therein Is it not enough that I understand this and thereby be enabled to follow it The Apostle answers No It was impossible for the Law to enable a man to walk after the Spirit and to be free from the Law of sin for so the Causal For knits this Verse as a proof of the former not because the Law was faulty but because our Flesh our natures were corrupt and thence it is not enough the Lord should tell and teach unless there be some other Spirit and Power to enable But how then comes this other Spirit He Answers 〈◊〉 3. God 〈◊〉 his Son to take our Nature upon him who was like unto us in all but sin and he sent him to take our Nature 〈◊〉 i. e. For the Removal of sin And these words are to be referred to those going before he sent not to those after he condemned sin As thus He sent his Son in the similitude of sinful Flesh for sin for the removal of sin and he condemned sin in the Flesh i. e. In the Vertue of the Sufferings of his Flesh he did abolish and destroy the 〈◊〉 and Jurisdiction of sin so that sin as we may say hath lost his Cause and is as we 〈◊〉 to speak non suited fails wholly in al the Pleas it can or doth make for any right it hath to the Soul of a sinner As we say of a man that is Cast in Law that the Cause went against him His Cause is Condemned or his Cause is Damned his Claim is false and feeble and hath no force to carry the thing he would So here Sin fails of its Claim is wholly Cast in the Suit that it makes for the Challenge of the Soul Divine Justice delivered it into its power because it was wronged but must now deliver it out of the Claim and Authority of sin being satisfied And from hence this will be attained That the Righteousness which the Law requires may by the Spirit of Christ be wrought in me 〈◊〉 by way of 〈◊〉 hereafter in perfection To the like purpose is the meaning of that place also 1 〈◊〉 4. 6. For for this end was the Gospel preached to them that are dead that they might be judged according to men in the flesh but live according to God in the spirit In the sirst Verse from the Death and Sufferings of our Savior he perswaded those to whom he wrote That they should 〈◊〉 that Application by way of proportion That
dull the acts of it in the daily exercise of spiritual Duties Look as it is in a Bowl that is strongly byassed one way and so carried to the mark however by many rubs and ruggedness of the way it may be turned aside and justled out of the right tract yet it sets toward the mark and is carried that way and wil fal that way by the force of the byas that doth over-sway it So it is here The Spirit of the Lord that layes hold upon the soul is like the weight of this byas that is fastened to it and closeth with it So that however the strength of temptation or corruption may by a 〈◊〉 violence justle the soul out of the way and out of that right and righteous proceeding in which 〈◊〉 ought to walk yet the over-swaying hand of the Spirit wil keep the bent and set of it towards the Lord and his Truth 1 John 3. 8. Christ was manifested that he might destroy the works of the 〈◊〉 that he might Analise and unravel and undo 〈◊〉 it were and take in pieces that frame of wickedness which Satan had set up in the heart and turn it up-side-down When the Soul was turned from God unto sin and the Creature Christ came that 〈◊〉 might be turned from sin and the Creature to God again The word is the same with that Joh. 2. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 destroy or take down this Temple And here 1 Joh. 3. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So to loosen one tyed in Bands So the Lord Christ doth the works of Satan Satan may grapple with the Soul and lay violent hands upon the Heart but bind it he can never more or make it a servant to himself Quest. 6. Why is this Work of Attraction given to the Father as in the text None can come to Me but whom the Father Draws I Answer This Work as all Actions which pass upon the Creature and leave some change there are equally and indifferently wrought by al the 〈◊〉 in the most Glorious and Blessed Trinity and so are truly understood of al and truly given 〈◊〉 but only they are in several places in an 〈◊〉 manner attributed unto some because of some peculiar Consideration that may be attended by 〈◊〉 of some Circumstancees in the place and so the intendment of the Spirit and aim of the Text may rightly be attended and conceived in this place 〈◊〉 shall a little explicate and unfold both that al mistakes may be prevented This Work of Drawing is Common to all 〈◊〉 Three Persons That which issues from the Deity and 〈◊〉 firstly that must indifferently belong to al the Persons For as al the Persons have the same individual Essence wholly and equally communicated they are al one God The Unity of the God-Head is a of it and al in a like manner at once given to them 〈◊〉 And thence it follows That as the same Essence 〈◊〉 the same both Attributes and Actions which appertain to the God-Head or be done by the God-Head are wholly and joyntly affirmed of all the Persons They al are Infinire Eternal Omnipotent 〈◊〉 Create Redeem Call Convert Sanctifie because these Actions are Creatures therefore 〈◊〉 the first Being but from the First therefore from the God-Head and therefore are truly said to 〈◊〉 done by al that have the God-Head and are truly said to be God and so by al the Persons Again Look we to the language of the Spirit 〈◊〉 the Scripture we shal see that either the very 〈◊〉 of the text so speaks as here or else the same thing in the same 〈◊〉 in some variety of Explication 〈◊〉 given unto al. That which is here said of the Father our 〈◊〉 speaks upon the like occasion of himself Joh. 12. 31. And I if I be lifted up shall draw all people to me The same word here and there is used The 〈◊〉 work also intended though not in the same expressions is affirmed of the Holy Ghost Joh. 16. 9 10. I will send the Spirit and he shall Convince of Sin of Righteousness of Judgement This Conviction is the special work of the Spirit in this great 〈◊〉 of Attraction Lastly It s a known and received Principle of 〈◊〉 That the Persons differ each from other 〈◊〉 in some Internal and Incommunicable relative 〈◊〉 whereby the Personallity of each is 〈◊〉 and the Person distinguished as begetting 〈◊〉 the Father to be begotten to the Son to proceed 〈◊〉 Both to the Holy Ghost And so the Order 〈◊〉 Manner of the Working of each which of 〈◊〉 follow herefrom as the Father works of 〈◊〉 and first in Order the Son from the Father and 〈◊〉 in Order the Holy Ghost from Both and 〈◊〉 last in Order And therfore observe from 〈◊〉 before we pass That it is a dangerous Deceit 〈◊〉 a desperate Mistake so to appropriate this work 〈◊〉 the Father and some other actions to the Son 〈◊〉 Holy Ghost as that we should thereby bring in 〈◊〉 Ranks and Conditions of Christians As 〈◊〉 Example From this Fancy men have forged such 〈◊〉 of the Works of the Persons and such 〈◊〉 suitable of Christians who receive such 〈◊〉 As they Attribute Drawing to the 〈◊〉 Liberty to the Son Power to the Spirit and 〈◊〉 such are under the Fathers Work such under 〈◊〉 Sons Work but yet are not attained to the work 〈◊〉 the Holy Ghost And such who are to be under 〈◊〉 work of the Spirit and so to be sealed they have 〈◊〉 al the former Whereas in truth and according 〈◊〉 the simplicity of the Scriptures al these works 〈◊〉 saving and al of them wrought by al the 〈◊〉 and he that is under the work of the Father in 〈◊〉 of these is also under the work of Christ and 〈◊〉 Spirit in them al. For as Drawing before is 〈◊〉 to al as wel as the Father the like we may say of Liberty and Power Doth the Son set us free 〈◊〉 8. 31. So doth the Spirit For 2 Cor. 3. 17. Where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom The law of the spirit of life hath freed us from the law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. Doth the spirit seal us Ephes. 1. 13. So doth the Father also 2 Cor. 1. 12. He that consirmeth and sealeth us is God who hath given unto us his holy spirit So likewise our Savior who hath the two edged sword in his hand Rev. 2. 17. He gives the white stone and the new name that no man knows That is the secret of Adoption and seal of Sonship yea it is general What ever he sees the Father do even those things the Son doth also Joh. 5. 19. We must be 〈◊〉 and wary therefore that we be not taken aside 〈◊〉 that Delusion Though this Work be wrought by al yet it is attributed unto the Father here in the text because the manner of his work is herein more plainly discovered and expressed also experimentally unto the heart and that as here he
heart is the alone work of God It is not in him that Wills nor in him that Runs 〈◊〉 in God that shews Mercy You know many of you hundreds for ought I know that you never knew what Christ and his Grace meant and you know your hearts close with your sins though you dare not give way to them Now mark when you come and hear the mind of God and the Ministers speak unto you and the Will of God is published Oh! Go your wayes home and say As the Lord lives I will not leave thee until the Lord hath spoken to my soul till I find the effectual work of the Word and Spirit of God drawing my soul from my sins to Jesus Christ. Therefore call for that same shewing Mercy which the Apostle speaks of Rom. 9. 16. So then it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of God that sheweth mercy When you have run what you can and willed what you are able then look up to the Lord to shew you Mercy the Minister hath spoken what he can and I have heard what I can but Lord shew Mercy and never leave until you have found that the Lord hath shewed you Mercy in this work of drawing your Soul from Sin to Christ. FINIS THE Application OF Redemption By the Effectual Work of the Word and Spirt of Christ for the bringing home of lost Sinners to God The Ninth and Tenth Books Beside many other seasonable and Soul-searching Truths there is also largely shewed â—â—The heart must be humble and contrite before the Lord will dwell in it â—â—Stubborn and bloody Sinners may be made broken-hearted â—â—There must be true sight of sin before the heart can be broken for it â—â—Application of special sins by the Ministry is a means to bring men to sight of and sorrow for them â—â—Meditation of sin a special means to break the heart â—â—The same word is profitable to some not to others â—â—The Lord somtimes makes the word prevail most when its most opposed â—â—Sins unrepented of makes way for piercing Terrors â—â—The Truth terrible to a guilty conscience â—â—â—Gross and scandalous sinners God usually exerciseth with heavy breakings of heart before they be brought to Christ. 11. Sorrow for sin rightly set on pierceth the heart of the sinner throughly 12. They whose hearts are pierced by the word are carried with love and respect to the Ministers of it And are busie to enquire and ready to submit to the mind of God 13. Sinners in distress of conscience are ignorant what they should do 14. A contrite sinner sees a necessity of coming out of his sinful condition 15. There is a secret hope wherewith the Lord supports the hearts of contrite sinners 16. They who are truly pierced for their sins do prize and covet deliverance from their sins 17. True contrition is accompanied with confession of sin when God calls thereunto 18. The Soul that is pierced for sin is carried with a restless dislike against it By that Faithful and known Servant of Christ Mr. THOMAS HOOKER late Pastor of the Church at Hartford in New-England somtimes Preacher of the Word at Chelmsford in Essex and Fellow of Emmanuel Colledg in Cambridg Printed from the Authors Papers written with his own Hand And attested to be such in an Epistle By Thomas Goodwin And Philip Nye London Printed by Peter Cole at the sign of the Printing-Press in Cornhil neer the Royal Exchange 1657. READER IT hath been one of the Glories of the Protestant Religion that it revived the Doctrine of Saving Conversion And of the new creature brought forth thereby Concerning which and the necessity thereof we find so much indigitated by Christ and the Apostles in their Epistles in those times But in a more eminent manner God hath cast the honor hereof upon the Ministers and Preachers of this Nation who are renowned abroad for their more accurate search into and discoveries hereof First For the Popish Religion that much pretend to Piety and Devotion and doth dress forth a Religion to a great outward Gaudiness and shew of 〈◊〉 and wil-worship which we confess is entermingled with many spiritual strains of self-denial Submission to Gods wil Love to God and Christ especially in the writings of those that are called Mistical 〈◊〉 But that first great and saving Work of Conversion which is the foundation of al true piety the great and numerous volumns of their most devout writers are usually silent therein Yea they eminently appropriate the word Conversion and thing it self unto 〈◊〉 man that renounceth a Secular life and entereth into Religious orders as they cal them and that Doctrine they have in their discourses of Grace and free wil about it is of no higher elevation than what as worthy Mr. Perkins long since may be common to a Reprobate though we judg not al amongst them God having continued in the midst of Popish Darkness many to this day and at this day with more Contention than ever that plead for the Prerogative of Gods Grace in mans Conversion And for the Arminian Doctrine how low doth that run in this great Article this we may without breach of Charity say of it That if they or their followers have no further or deeper work upon their hearts than what their Doctrine in that point calls for they would fal short of Heaven though those other great truths they together therewith teach God may and doth savingly bless unto true Conversion he breaking through those Errors into some of their hearts And how much our reformed Writers abroad living in continual wranglings and Disputes with the Adversaries of Grace have omitted in a Practical and Experimental way to lay open and anatomize the inwards of this great work for the Comfort and settlement of poor souls many of themselves do greatly bewayl And to find them work and divert them from this it hath been the Devils great Policy who is at the head of all those Controversies as also ever since Pelagius time to this very day to make that dry and barren plot of Ground namely the naked dispute of the freedom of mans wil to be the great seat of this War as the Pope did the Conquest of the Holy Land in the darker times to find al Christian Princes work and thither to draw al the forces and intentions of mens minds jejunely in a great part Phylosophically to debate what power mans wil for-sooth hath in the Summity and Apex of Conversion to resist or to accept the Grace of God and so whether Moral perswasions only be not Sufficient or that Physical Pre-determinations be not also requisite to Conversion whilest in the mean time al those intimate actings of a soul in turning to God The secret particular passages both on Gods part and on the souls part which are many and various by which the soul is won over unto God and Christ those treaties the souls of men hold with God and Christ for justifying and
they neither see the evil of their sins by it nor yet receive any spiritual Direction from it nor indeed know any such thing and therefore though their carriages are somwhat reformed yet their inward corruptions are not observed at least not reformed or they made sensible of them As it is with a pur-blind man he may see things of a greater bulk as a great Print or the like but the smallest Print or the least pricks he perceives not So it is with a pur-blind Christian who cannot see afar off 2 Pet. 1. 9. If there be some loathsom and gross sins discovered he can see them but to see the stirrings of sin in his Nature and the secret inclinations of his soul to sin and the base aims and ends that are up and down in his heart in the performance of holy Duties to see the smallest Print of the Law discovering secret and spiritual wickedness in the Heart that a man that hath no more than Nature cannot see And therefore for we come to the Point the Spirit of Bondage is required which may let in the light of the Law into the mind and set on the power of it mightily upon the consciences of sinners and so dazle their Eyes and daunt their hearts with the dreadfulness of their sins Rom. 8. 15. You have not received the spirit of Bondage again to fear as who should say it 's a gift and it must be received or else we shall not by all that we can do attain the bondage and thraldom of that base condition in which we are whereof more afterward in Conviction The Law is a Hammer but it will not break the Flint unless the hand óf the Spirit take it and use it a Hammer in the hand of a Child will not move the stones so the Law in the hand of a man or Minister it is as a Rod to whip us unto Christ but unless the Spirit take it into his hand we shall never feel the blow or smart and so be forced to go Hence that Phrase John 16. 8 9. I will send the Spirit and he shall convince it 's his Prerogative he is appointed by him it 's only performed The two former may agree to a false-hearted Hypocrite he may have a lighter stroke of the Spirit of Bondage and the Law may convince him and his own heart condemn him and he may go away in dreadful horror for his sins and yet it doth not remove the Rule of Ignorance and darkness out of the mind but the Saints of God have the two former and they have this further viz. such a through stroak of the spirit of bondage as takes away the rule of darkness and removes the Soveraignity and Authority of it from the mind this I take to be the meaning of that phrase Acts. 26. 18. to turn them from darkness to Light When the Lord wil work throughly he wil not onely scatter the sogs and disperse the grossest of the dimness and darkness of a mans mind and leave the soul under the power of it for all that The hypocrite may be dazled and astonished by the light of the truth breaking upon him but yet his understanding is under the power of darkness but the Saints of God are turned from it that is their understandings are delivered from under the power of that darkness that was in them before Conceive it thus when the night comes darkness overspreads the face of the Earth and though there be Moon-light or some flash of Lightning sometimes that may something take off the grossness and blackness of darkness but yet it is dark stil the Moon-light or Starre-light doth not remove the rule of darkness but when the Sun ariseth in the East we say it is day break and you shal see apparently when light comes with a Command of the Sun it scatters the darkness that was in the ayr it removes the rule of it and it rules there it self So it is with the spirit of bondage when he comes to an hypocrite he enlightens him with Star-light or Moon-light as it were so that the grossness of darkness and blindness is scattered that now a terrified hypocrit sees his sins and is able to Discourse of sin and of the Law of God and to Discover it to others and yet it is but Moonshine it makes not day the root and rule of Darkness is there stil which stops and hinders the entercourse of the dispensations of God unto the soul. But now in a Godly man whose understanding is turned from darkness to light when the truth and light of it hath by the spirit of bondage been 〈◊〉 on upon the mind and Conscience you shal see day breaking as it were he then sees himself and his sin and he sees God and Christ as the sun of righteousness shining gloriously in his Eyes dazling of him with such a light as he never saw nor knew before so in Acts. 9. the scales of ignorance and blindness fell from the Eyes of his mind and he was turned from the power of darkness and that light which was let in to his understanding could never be overcomē again by al the darkness inthe world 4 When the spirit of God hath let in this light of the law in the specification of it as it belongs unto the Saints and so hath turned the understanding from darkness he leaves a sett upon the understanding God-ward that its ready it s that way-ward to receive any truth that comes in the impression of it and this is the turn of the understanding to light it was before turned from God and sett hell-ward sin-ward under the 〈◊〉 of darkness and acted therby wholly to bestow it self upon the creature in the room of God As when Adam sinned the whol man was turned from God to the creature and sin so now in Conversion the whol man is turned from sin and the creature to God again and therfore the understanding from darkness to light And Hence it is that a poor ignorant creature that hath come many years to the Congregation and hath learned nothing he understands nothing remembers nothing or if out of the strength of memory he remember something yet he knows no more the thing than a Parrat But when God hath once turned him and left this sett upon his understanding and the day is broken as it were and the rule of darkness removed a new light set up there now he never comes but he takes somthing he can understand it and remember it there is no subject but he will get somthing of it because his understanding is heaven-ward I have known some by experience that though they have been wise and wittie enough for outward things yet so senceless and sottish in the things of God that they could sit and hear a Sermon of an hour long of those very sins they have been guilty and yet it hath been to them as though it had never been yet afterward they have professed it that
's a five-fold Cause why though sin be so vile and so great an evil yet naturally men do not see it so First The delusion of Satan dazles the eyes of our minds and puts false colors upon Courses paints over the foul face of vice and corruption with the appearance of vertues and so the deluded sinner like Jacob in the darkness of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 takes Leah for Rachel bad for good So the Disciples took their passion for zeal Shall we call for fire from Heaven to destroy the 〈◊〉 because of their 〈◊〉 dealing as Elias did Our Savior returns You know not what Spirit you are of Luke 9. 55. q. d. it 's your rash anger that transports you not the Spirit of zeal that guides you Judas pretends Providence and compassionate care for the poor when it was to promote his own profit John 12. 6. Lukewarmness goes masked under the name of 〈◊〉 licentious wantonness in the abuse of the priviledges of the Gospel goes vailed with the Profession of the Liberty of the Gospel and while they profess they must not be servants to men they serve their own distempered affections Men judg their sins according to the present sence and feeling of the flesh and the verdict of their sensual appetites pass thereupon and sit down under the sentence of their corrupt heaats and they report of things according as they relish them It is 〈◊〉 a sinful soul as with a sick body the sick man that is distempered in his 〈◊〉 mach and his mouth out of tast and his pallat out of temper he reports of his 〈◊〉 and diet he takes as his pallat relisheth it So that in issue he tels you not what in truth it is but how and what he tasts bitter things he calls sweet because they are so to his Tast sweet things bitter because they are so to his sence though far otherwise in themselves So it is with a distempered heart though otherwise gracious if yet it judgeth of them according to the relish of carnal Reason or the present apprehensions their inordinate passions would put upon them Jonah in a feaverish fit of a passionate distemper he strikes he cares not whom falls out with God his Providence nay his Counsel though most seasonably sweetly dispensed to him Dost thou well to be angry Jonah Yea saies he I do well to be angry and that unto death Jonah 4. 9. his passion like the pallat of his sick soul relisheth it so to his own inordinate distemper and so he judgeth it 1 Kings 22. 8. 18. The heart of Ahab was inordinately transported with a venemous hatred against Michaiah and his message though it was no other counsel than the Lord had revealed and he charged him to speak as in his Name yet it is no wise pleasing to his pallat and so he speaks of it Did not I tell thee he would not speak good to me So it was with Asah when the Prophet seasonably and sadly condemned his distrustful carriage 2. Chron. 16. out of an unbeleeving wrathful disposition he cannot relish it but it carries the tast of an insolent contempt and therefore he imprisons him and very likely all those that came to speak for him and plead in his behalf for so the words follow He put many of the 〈◊〉 into prison 10. verse while he was in the this distemper his spirit could savour nothing nor yet perceive the bitterness of 〈◊〉 hainous and high handed provocations of his against the truth of the Lord and his Servants Though the mind be enlightened and the judgment also convinced of the sinfulness of the course and his Conscience is privy 〈◊〉 and gives him many a pluck yet he doth not perceive the plague and venome in it because he judgeth it by the present profit he sees or pleasure he receives from it and so in truth sees the profit and the pleasure and contentment but sees not the sin As it is with the bitterest pills when they are sugred or covered over with some pleasing Conserve they are swallowed readily without the least appearance of distast or 〈◊〉 and the reason is easie to conceave 〈◊〉 tasted nothing but the Sugar though he took the pill down in it So it is with many base and wretched lusts which are the very gal of bitterness and cary deadly poyson with them they are so Sugared and covered over with applause and credit in the world pleasing contents or earthly conveniences that the mind is so taken up with the sweet and suitablness he eyes in them that it attends not the right judgment of the sin but lets it down without any consideration Sathan playes here the cunning Apothecary and therefore orders his Physick so as he would have it retayned or kept in the Stomach like a potion not cast vomited up again Hence in all his enticements to evil there is nothing but pleasing contents presented that the sin may not be perceived or scant thought upon he shewes the bait but hides the hooke In all his discouragements whereby he would skare and keep off the heart from duty he casts in nothing but difficulties impossibilities hazards and 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 expectation of unsufferable calamities That the dreadfulness of the danger may take off the heart from affecting or the mind from attending the duty thus the sinner sees not the good of the duty but the ghastly visage of desperate inconveniencies that seem to attend it The extorting cozening Chapman the idling laboring man look only to the gaine they get not the wrong they do The Adulterer hath the dilight in his eye that may suit and satisfy the flesh not the stain he leaves upon his soul and the guilt upon his Conscience and the wrath he treasures up until the day of reckoning Thus 〈◊〉 Theeves entice their Companion to side with them in their course Prov. 1. 13. we shal find al precious substance we shall fil our 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 so the Harlot inveigles the young man and presents nothing before him but promises of pleasing content Prov. 7. 18. 22. 23. I have decked my bed with coverings of Tapestry perfumed it with Mirrh Aloes and Cinamon come let us take our sil of love Thus she forceth him with her fayre words and he followes 〈◊〉 like an Ox to the slaughter and a Fool to the stocks till a dart strike through his Liver and he knoweth not that it is for his Life So the enimy with the first Adam ye shal be as Gods Gen. 3. and 〈◊〉 the second Adam Al these Kingdoms with al the Glory of them wil I give thee Math. 4. On the 〈◊〉 he 〈◊〉 off from holy services by shewing nothing but the 〈◊〉 of the evil that attend them that so the soul attends not the good of the duty that follwes it Thus he prevayled with Peter he layd before him the fearfulness of the danger now eminent such as in 〈◊〉 might draw on death and his thoughts were so taken up with attendance to
about This particular application wil be as a sudden flash of Lightning sliding through our minds which leaves all as dark as ever when once over therefore there must be a settling of this with an overpowring strength leaving it there enrolled that it may stand upon record in a mans Conscience The former arrests the sinner this latter layes hold upon him pinions him and imprisons him as it were until he have answered what the truth hath against him herein lyes the life and power of a conviction and if it be of the right stamp and carry indeed an overpowring virtu in it it will appear in three things It must be 1. Undeniable 2. Immoveable 3. Victorious and invincible Conviction must carry an undeniable evidence with it that as the truth hath layd and pleaded an action against the soul so the understanding may be forced to confess it and sits down satisfied under the uncontroulable authority thereof and of the truth therein The Scriptures are so pregnant reasons so plain arguments so strong that though before they did not see they could not think it or be brought to beleeve that their sins were so heinous or their condition so miserable yet they now know not how to gainsay it Thus 〈◊〉 when he stood upon the terms of his 〈◊〉 at several times when God had terrified him by the discovery of himself he then yeilds the day Job 7. 20. I have sinned what shal I do unto thee Oh thou preserver of men q. d. I have no reasons to alledge no excuses to make no arguments to plead I 〈◊〉 the action I have sinned Thus the Lord took down the height of of the Word that as it is said of Stephen they could not 〈◊〉 the Spirit by 〈◊〉 he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though the 〈◊〉 would gain say yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 18. 15. Nay but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Spirit follows the soul and 〈◊〉 and removes these Cavils and Objections that the sinner makes and still shews and saies nay but this is thy sin and 〈◊〉 will be thy damnation that the sinner is 〈◊〉 to yield and say this is the Truth I cannot 〈◊〉 it it is my condition I cannot deny it this is my sin and will be my 〈◊〉 I cannot but expect it It must be Immovable of such 〈◊〉 That as it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understanding to sit down under the evidence of the Truth as confessing of it so it keeps it under the sting and 〈◊〉 of it That as it is with the Bird in the Net the more she stirs to get out the faster she is taken So with the sinner the more he desires to fly from the 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 it the more strongly the Truth takes hold of him in the terror of it So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where he will do what he will go whether he will the Truth will go with him as a Jaylor with the Malefactor for the Truth is so 〈◊〉 when 〈◊〉 brings in the discovery of our sins at the first that it 〈◊〉 a man weary of each 〈◊〉 each condition 〈◊〉 and of his life that 〈◊〉 could wish not to be that he may not be under the terror of it And therefore though he cannot 〈◊〉 the Evidence of it yet he would 〈◊〉 some 〈◊〉 and shifts that may be to take off the 〈◊〉 of the dreadfulness of it or make an escape from under the stroak and strength of it but all in vain for the Conviction is immovable no man can take it off if God set it 〈◊〉 All the Carnal Reasonings corrupt Pleas sinful Cavils whereby men would put by the blow they do all vanish before this Light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Sun The more he opposeth it the more he is under guilt and so the strength of the convicting Truth his sins way-lay him in every place he sees his sins dished out before him on the Table where he eats lie down with him in the Bed where he rests when he dreams they terrifie him when he awakes they are as so many Sergeants to arrest him summon him to Judgment they are imprinted in the paths where he walks and where ever he goes he sees his sins going before him and he going to Hell with them Such an immovable discovery the Lord set upon the heart of Job when he let in the light of himself that he sits down in silence and hath not one word to say no way to wave it or to slip aside from under the evidence of it Job 40. 4 5. Once have I spoken but I will say no more yea twice but I will go no further While his friends were talking with him their Arguments were so feeble that he could find a way out and could free himself from the stroak and deliver himself from the dint of the blow but now the conviction besieged him with such evidence that no carnal reason could relieve him stops all passages that there is not a muse or crevis for him to creep out therefore he sits down in silence sees he cannot ease himself nor wind away by any pretences and wiles he can devise It is so with a corrupt heart beleaguer'd with the light so that if his carnal friends or ignorant neighbors his loose companions would strive to take off his thoughts alter his apprehensions and abate the edg of the blow and 〈◊〉 to put in bail for him his state is not so miserable and helpless nor his sins so vile quiet your heart there is mercy with God and satisfaction in the merits of Christ. He replies I have often cozened my self with such devices miserable comforters are ye all I have thought as you do and said that which you speak in former times but alas these shifts will not serve the turn Christ came not to comfort sinners but to convert them also to humble sinners as well as redeem them he came to save sinners but to destroy their sins first I never found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must not expect the other nor you neither This is to 〈◊〉 the thoughts to bring them under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Authority of the Truth that they may not once hush or 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 10. 5. And this is that spirit of 〈◊〉 the Apostle speaks of Rom. 8. 15. It makes us 〈◊〉 of our slavery and binds a man hand and foot as it were fenceth his way with fears besets his passage on every side with expectation of evil which he cannot tell how to bear or how to avoid he sees he can procure no 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 to himself and fears he shall never obtain none from the Lord dares not commit sin as formerly yet cannot tell how to be freed from it So that as Reuben somtimes in another case so the sinner in this and I whither shall I go Gen. 37. 30. evils appear from every quarter which way soever he looks if to Heaven there is Justice to punish if to Hell there are Devils to torment into himself there is Conscience to accuse on Earth
that made thee a little to look about but hath the Lord ever lifted up the latch as though he were resolved to come in hath he layd hold upon and begun to grapple with that Graceless heart of thine and held this 〈◊〉 of discovery of sin to thy mind as to constrayn thee to look wishly upon it indeed to see it clearly and convictingly according to that which hath formerly been spoken Know and conclude thou maiest thou art in the right way and the Lord begins to deal with thee as he doth with those that he intends good unto But art thou a stranger to these dispensations of the Lord and tradings with thy mind and heart Thou mayest indeed have notice and hear a rumor of Christ passing by and the excellency of his Grace but of any purpose of making his abode with thee thou never couldst have the least 〈◊〉 thereof unto this day How then shall we know whether we fall short of this true sight of sin or no We will take both Particulars mentioned into Consideration that so we may take a true scantling of our own estate and track the Footsteps and Impressions of the work of the Spirit upon our souls I will touch the first in a word and entreat more largely upon the Second to wit Touching the convicting sight of sin because there lies the life and stress of this Doctrine If then we see sin cleerly naked and in it's own Nature namely this resistance and opposition against God as the greatest evil of al other It wil thus be discerned This sight will keep the heart in cold blood from careless adventuring upon the commission of sin You must stil remember my purpose is not to dispute of sanctifying knowledg or to give in evidence of that for we are in this place to look at that light that is let in in this preparative work and this first Branch of it which how far it may go or whether it can agree to an Hypocrite I will not now dispute that only I wil infer from it is beyond exception That in cold blood i. e. Take such a man out of the hurry of a Temptation when he is himself not drunk with some overbearing distemper for then he knows not where he is or what he doth and therefore may adventure to do any thing but when a sinner is come to himself and the sight of his sin as before disputed it wil suffer him carelesly to adventure upon the Commission of that which appears such in his own apprehension even the greatest evil of all The dreadfulness then of this duty apprehended wil drive the soul to a stand and stop the sinner in his proceeding that he dare as well eat his flesh and take a Lyon by the claw and a Bear by the tooth as to have his hand in that which is the heaviest plague of all in his own Judgment There is no man living but as he hath somthing which he prizeth as the chief good in which his soul takes content so the loss of that or that which is contrary to that he looks at as the most unsupportable evil that can betide him That the Soldier should take the lye or challenge and have the contempt of cowardice put upon him and sit stil and not seek to revenge the wrong as he conceives it he cannot bear it That the 〈◊〉 yong man should sel his possessions and part with all to the poor it is such an unsufferable loss he will rather part with Heaven the very hearing of it makes his heart heavy and himself to go away sorrowful Mat. 19. 22. Yea that which Nature hath made dear to all to see death before a man and danger such as wil undoubtedly hazard the loss of life how do we fear the thought of it fly the sight avoid the occasion of it didst thou see thy sins and the hellish resistance of thy heart against God to be a greater evil than al these didst thou really judg them such beleeve them as the men of Niniveh did Jonahs threatning Jonah 3. 5. to be such It 's certain it would amaze thy heart that thou wouldest be as loth to rush into evil as thou wouldest be to run upon a Spears point or cast thy self into the mouth of the Lyon to be torn in pieces Take a rebellious sinner beset with the horror of his Conscience so that he sees Hell gaping for him and the Devils ready to seize upon that hellish heart of his how loaths he then the least appearance of those corruptions the evil of which he sees in the punishment only how tender is he to avoid the occasion of them When the evil of thy punishment is now over and out of mind didst thou but know that resistance and rebellion of thy heart against God his Grace his Spirit his Truth aright as greater than all those evils and is now present with thee thou wouldst be so far fearful not heedlesly to adventure upon the practice of it When Judas saw whether his Covetousness had brought him be flung away his thirty pieces Matth. 27. 3. And it 's certain all the Scribes and Pharisees in the Synagogue and all the money in the Country of Judea could not have prevailed with him had they been then tendred to him much more had he seen the 〈◊〉 had been a greater evil than the vengeance that did 〈◊〉 Acts 19. 16. 19. When the evil spirits prevailed against the seven Sons of Sceva fear fell on them 〈◊〉 and many of them had used curious Arts brought their books together and burnt them before them all When the hearts of these Converts were pricked and they craved Counsel what they should do Peter amidst many other Counsels which he suggested ads this verse 40. Save your selves from this crooked generation You that are in Parthia Mesopotamia Phrigia Galatia you 〈◊〉 amongst many professed Enemies to the Lord Christ his Truth therefore save your selves from their Society and verse 44. They came and abode together and sold their goods and parted them as every one had need 〈◊〉 to this you disobedient Children and rebellious Servants who have the Commands of Parents and Masters Counsels of Servants and Neighbors dayly suggested and pressed upon you listen to this you heedless Professors who have the Word and Precepts of God dayly published in your Ears and proclaimed in your hearing and you go away informed convinced and the heart cannot gainsay but it ought to stoop your carriages should not be wayward your words sharpish your behaviors uncomely and yet you dare you do 〈◊〉 carelesly adventure at the next time and 〈◊〉 upon the same sins you may talk what others say by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profess in words that sin is the greatest evil of al but in truth you never saw sin to this day much 〈◊〉 saw it to be the greatest evil of al. A little evil were is but the 〈◊〉 of so much of thy blood by stripes or the loss of
with him Thus Elimas the Sorcerer Acts 13. 10. when Paul and Barnabas had preached and he labored to turn away the Deputy from the Faith Paul thus speaks to him O full of all subtilty he had a slight of hand to any wickedness why dost thou crook the strait waies of the Lord. He cast in many cavils put in many suspicions and pretences that he might not look at the simplicity of the Truth delivered The word there used in the Original implies a sleight of hand as we cal it when such wily spirits can turn themselves into al shapes to 〈◊〉 by the evidence of the Truth so many windings and turnings so many wimblings of devices so many outs and doubtings that may bemist the manifest discovery of a Duty which ought to be done or a sin that ought to be avoided and so in conclusion loseth the Truth and the benefit of it also through Gods just Judgment and their own just deservings So the Scribes dealt touching our Savior when he had cured the Eyes of the blind man John 9. they would have taken him off from the attendance to the work to have slighted the person of our Savior We know say they this man is a sinner c. as it 's said of a Fish called the Sepia when the Fisher-man comes to follow her she casts forth a kind of black humor with which she 〈◊〉 the water and puts him to a loss in his proceedings whereas an honest heart that is willing to be convinced he looks most at that where there is most light and most strength and is desirous to attend that which gives in greatest Evidence to overcome the heart So Ely spake to Samuel 1 Sam. 3. 17. bide nothing from me Job 6. 24. teach me and I wil hold my tongue he wil quietly hear al and attend that most which may carry the cause to his Conscience If yet the evidence of the truth be such that he cannot gainsay his mouth is stopped and his reasons are spent he hath nothing to oppose there is a third distemper which is as bad if not worse than the two former A restlesness of spirit to raise new brabbles and quarrels against the determination of the truth which formerly he could not resist When he is caught and held in the strength of Argument is taken captive and prisoner he would fain rescue himself with a restless jangling he sees more and can say more though no man else can see it nor he make good what he pretends He cannot answer yet wil not yield cannot maintain his 〈◊〉 yet wil not forsake them As Lawyers they 'l bring the cause about again and have a fresh hearing in this and that Court the reasons are the same and were answered before yet he brings them over again and just in the place where he was his arguments are at an end if his spirit were so but there is more in it he saies and he cannot see through it and yet cannot tell how to prove his own argument or answer anothers these spirits are like quicksilver which yet no man hath attained any skil to fix so the Rulers Elders and Scribes when they knew not how to dash the Glory of the Gospel and the powerful dispensation thereof mark how restlesly the venome of their spirits transported them against reason Acts. 4. 15. 16. 17. they communed amongst themselves saying what shal we do to these men for that indeed a notable 〈◊〉 hath been done by them is manifest to all men and we cannot deny it but let us straightly charge them that they speak no more in this name when in reason they should have inferred we cannot deny the Miracle and so not the truth let us not deny the liberty to speak so they in John 9. 24. when it was apparent Christ had cured the man wrought the Miracle and so gained honour in the heart of the man therefore they had fished up and down to weaken that and it would not do It appeared he was blind to his parents that Christ had cured him so himself affirmed then they come to this give God the praise we know this man is a sinner But what is that to the purpose or how know they that he answered whether he be a sinner or no I know not one thing I know wheras I was blind he hath opened my eyes and this was to the purpose Then said they what did he to thee how opened he thine eyes I have told you already c. they are upon the same hinges not stirred a haires breadth Here are no reasons but only wrestlings of stomack we are Moses Disciples but this fellow we know not whence he is If it be so that al these devises against the truth serve not his turn in the fourth place he sets himself against the truth he cares not for argument but he wil stand against the truth and then God in his just judgment leaves him 2 Thes. 2. 18. he gave them up to strong delusions that they might believe lyes that they might be damned because they received not but opposed the truth thus it was with Balaam Numb 24. 1 he went out not as formerly but resolved to Curse Israel whether God would or no and this is to hold down the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1. 18. I told you before that in Conviction when the heart is throughly Convicted it lies stil under the work of God but here the heart opposes the word of God Exo. 10. 28. saies Pharaoh to Moses get thee out of my sight the day thou seest my face thou shalt die Moses saies I wil see thy face no more but God sends to him and kills his first born and afterwards drownes himself It 's certain that if the truth followes a man home to his beloved sin if he be a dog he wil snarl against it and resolve to keep his sin Jer. 44. 16. 17. as the proud men there said as for the word of the Lord thou hast spoken to us we wil not hearken unto thee and if a man goes thus far he is very neer to the sin against the Holy Ghost and if ever God bring him home to himself it is by some strange judgments Exhortation to provoke the desires and quicken the endeavors of al that have heard or read the doctrin delivered opened to lay out their labour that unto the utmost of all their abilities never to give the Lord rest nor rest unto their own souls before they get this true sight of sin if ever they hope to see the work of Gods Grace in their hearts here in this world or to see the face of God in Glory in that other world that is to come Bretheren let not Satan deceive you nor suffer your selves so far to be deluded as to dream of another course or to devise a shorter cut to Grace and Glory for its certain if you do you wil fal short of your hopes and Comforts and all This
is the way that God hath appointed and he wil bless the order which he hath set in his infinite wisdom and which he wil prosper If you would find his blessing walk in his way if you expect success attend his order and direction which he hath left to bring us to his Christ and so to life and happiness If you see not your sins you are in hazard never to see good day while you live nor when you dye Christ is said to stand at the dore and knock and if any man wil open unto him he wil come in and supp with him Rev. 3. 20. Saving Contrition is a shooting back the boults of our base lusts a severing and unlocking the heart from the Soveraignty of ones noysom Corruptions that stop the passage and hinder the coming of our Saviour this clear and convicting sight of our sins is as it were the lifting up of the latch or letting in of the Key the powerful dispensation of the truth and operation of his spirit whereby the knot and combination between sin and the soul is broken and severed and the way made that the authority of the truth may come at the heart and work kindly upon it for good An error here in the entrance is hardly ever recovered to miss here is mervailous dangerous it spoyles our whol proceeding in the great work of our calling and everlasting comfort as the naturallist and Physitian observe an error in the first concoction is never recovered in the second for the Lord in his wisdom and the course of nature hath so ordayned that each part doth that which is its proper and peculiar work but doth not rectify or redress that which was done amiss by another and so the goodness of the nourishment is never recovered or the body strengthened or health so comfortably preserved herby as were to be desired So it is in the entrance of 〈◊〉 great work of preparation for Christ and our effectual bringing home unto him never see sin aright the soul cannot be affected with it in a right manner never truly see the need of a Savior never seek after him or come to him this through sight of sin is as it were the setting open of the window whereby the light and good of the truth and the loath 〈◊〉 of sin is laid open unto the soul and comes in a main upon the Conscience to prevayl with it whereas shut this window and stop this passage the soul is cooped up in the dungeon of darkness and delusion be the ordinances never so powerful the means never so effectual there 〈◊〉 no coming into the heart no hope to work upon it or to prevail with it for good the evil of sin is not acknowledged and therefore not prevented that which his reason cannot see a man cannot shun the excellency and necessity of a Christ is not discerned and therefore not endeavoured after as were meet It befalls the soul smote with this spiritual blindness as with the Assyrian Host when they came to surprize Elisha 2 Kings 18. 19. 20. He prayed Lord smite this people with blindness he did so and they saw nothing before they were in the midst of their enemyes so here when the sinner is misguided by the dimness of his deluded mind he goes on in an evil way and knowes not whither he goes or where he is before he be in the botintoless pit Oh be wise and wary therefore that we err not here least we rush into ruine and that past alrecovery Expect then Gods blessing upon our endeavour but in Gods order attend his work in his own way It is the aym of our Saviour in sending and the office of the Holy Ghost in coming into the world when he intends to work effectually the saving good of his people to intitle them to the pardon of their sins and to establish their hearts under the government of his spirit John 16. 7. 8. If I depart I wil send the Comforter and when he is come he wil reprove he wil convince and set down the world by 〈◊〉 conviction of sin of righteousness of judgment of righteousness that the law is satisfied justice answered and that fully because he that was in prison is now released and therefore the debt payd and he gone to heaven to his Father Of judgment the power of his Kingdom government erected and set up in the soules of his servants and children in that by death he overcame him that had the power of death that is the Devill and therefore he is judged and falls in his cause as having no right nor in reason can challenge no rule in the hearts of those for whom Christ hath satisfied divine justice and therefore are free from that authority that sin and Satan had of them thereby But before we can share either in the righteousness of Christ for our justification or the rule of his spirit in our Sanctification the Holy Ghost must and doth convince us of sin that we have rejected and not entertained this Saviour If we do not convictingly see our sin in settling upon the root of our Corrupt rebellions and casting away the riches of Christs mercy the rule of his Grace it s not possible that those spiritual benefits should ever be made ours As ever therefore you desire to see and find the mercies of Christ sealed up unto your Consciences in pardoning of sins and acceptation of your persons As ever you would find the Kingdom of Satan cast down in your hearts and the government of his Grace and spirit there set up labor for this clear and convicting sight of sin begin you where the Holy spirit begins that you may find his presence with you his effectual power and blessing to accompany your endeavours in that way Catch not disorderly at pardon look not for peace of Conscience or hope to see the government of Christs Grace set up in your souls before you come to 〈◊〉 your sins by convicting evidence of the Holy Ghost The holy spirit of Grace wil not cross his course to gratify our Corruption That I may further set on the exhortation I shal endeavour to do these two things First To propound some means to help in 〈◊〉 work Secondly Some motives to quicken you therein The means are these that follow First Labor we to see that unconceivable excellency of holiness that is in the Lord and search we into the 〈◊〉 and the righteous laws there recorded for the direction of our daily course and that wil make us see the loathsomness of our own hearts and the vileness of 〈◊〉 As it s said of darkness it cannot be seen by it self but its light that discovers it self and darkness It s as true of sin it is not by it self to be discerned for it is spiritual darkness the light of Gods Holiness and wisdom which by sin are wronged and the law which is transgressed these are both lights God is light and in
him is no darkness John 1. 5. The law is a light and the Commandement a lamp unto our feet Prov. 6. 23. And by the sight of both these we come to have a ful discerning of sin which is opposite to them both Our ignorance of God breeds the ignorance of our own hearts and the hidden waies of wickedness and the cunning conveyances of corrupt distempers which are there in Psal. 14. 1. 2. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God and then it followes they are become abominable he makes bones of no sins at al for herein lies the spiritualness or spiritual evil of sins and that hidden poyson and malignity of the corruption of our natures that they justle professedly against the Almighty so far as he is pleased to communicate himself unto us in the waies of his Holiness and goodness Thus the blasphemer is said to pierce God by his oaths Levit. 24. 11. and the wicked are said to walk contrary to him Levit. 26. to 〈◊〉 him to weary him to load him while then we see not him whom we do oppose by our sins no wonder that we neither see nor are sensible of the sins by which we do oppose him Whereas could we grope after the Almighty as the Apostle professeth we may because he is not far from any of us nay in him we live and move in every spiritual action of our minds and hearts So that did but a wicked man or could he perceive that in every thought of his mind motion of his wil stirring of any affection that he did justle with the infinite Holiness and purity of the Lord who meets with him in every action and motion of his mind and wil It were able to sink the soul of a sinful creature and make him sit down confounded in the sight of the loathsomness of his own 〈◊〉 nature as being wholly opposite to so infinite a good in all he is or doth thus it was with Job when the Lord had schooled him out of the whirlwind discovered the surpassing excellency of his Glory to him he puts him beyond al pleas of his own worth Job 40. 4. Behold I am vile yea more expresly he gives this as the reason of the discovery of his own wretchedness I have heard of thee by the hearing of the Ear but now mine eye sees thee wherefore I abhor my self in dust and ashes Job 42. 4. So it was with the Corinth who was convinced by the preaching of the Word he saw God before he saw the secret vileness of his own heart presented to his view 1 Cor. 14. 24. God is in you of a truth Search we into the holy Law of God and examine our hearts and lives thereby and see how far they stand guilty of the breach thereof but view the compass of the Law and what is vertually contained therein for though the words are few yet the things are many that are comprehended in them And especially look not at the Letter but at the Spiritual Sense and Mind of the Almighty in each thing there required that the whol heart must close with God and his Will as the chiefest good look at and lift up his Glory as his last end in every duty we do and that we make a breach in al those particulars in every sin we do commit our heart is not with him nor make we choyce of him set not up his Name but seek our own base ends thereby and serve our selves and not him By this narrow search and dayly observation of our dayly course we shal be able to see the frame of our hearts and carriages presented to our view and so discern to the ful the loathsomness of those noysom 〈◊〉 that leprosie-like overspreads our whol man Thus James adviseth James 1. 25. that we should look our selves into the Law of Liberty that is a Cristal and cleer Glass and wil discover what is amiss even to a mote the smallest sins and 〈◊〉 and that unto their ful view Paul a learned Pharisee he saw more of sin and more of himself by the Law than either 〈◊〉 conceived or suspected to 〈◊〉 to him Rom. 7. 7. 9. I had not known that lust had been sin but that the Law saith Thou shalt not 〈◊〉 nor did he think himself bad or his condition so miserable but when the Law came that is the light and discovery of the Law he perceived his sin alive but himself dead When the Lord in any Ordinance by the Truth shall discover our sins our Conscience shall come in as a witness to 〈◊〉 or as a Sergeant and Officer by Commission from the Almighty to arrest and condemn us for any evil we should attend both to see Gods mind to the utmost therein and then it 's certain we shal see We must beware that neither out of carnal fear nor sensual security of our sinful hearts we be willing to lay aside the evidence of the truth as content not to hearken to the Verdict of it 〈◊〉 desirous not to listen to the dictate of Conscience but to shake off the Consideration of either lest we should sink down in discouragement It 's certain Truth is terrible and the Dictates of Conscience are dreadful when they come with Commission from the Almighty yet true it is walking humbly under Gods hand we should be so far from fearing the discovery of our sins that we should be comforted in this that they are discovered to us and we should compose our hearts in quietness with the right consideration of the manner of Gods dealing in this kind and commune with our selves on this manner It 's a fearful thing indeed to fall into the hands of the Almighty who is a consuming fire but yet herein the faithfulness of the Lord is seen he deals so with me as he doth with those that he intends good unto he makes His see their sins and that 〈◊〉 before they ever see his pardon of them or power against them if he never convinceth he never 〈◊〉 He sent his holy Spirit into the World for this purpose to perform the work this is the way to Grace and Christ I bless his Name I am in the way I wil hearken to the Evidence of the Truth that I may understand al that God intends and listen to the checks of Conscience that I may know to the full the Nature of my sin When we have a little inkling either by an Ordinance or Conscience take hold of the least intimation and leave it not until you come to the bottom and perceive the utmost vileness in such a course It was so with David who took hold of the reproof of the Prophet Nathan and though he mentioned but one thing wherein the grosness and greatness of the evil appeared yet hence he took occasion to overlook his whol course to consider every circumstance and to ravel out all until he came to the bottom he confesseth al the falsness of his heart
it was said to him in the story when the Prophet in his own person would discover the Kings carelesness to him he disguised himself as the King passed by and so passed by him and said 1 Kings 20. 39. Thy 〈◊〉 went out into the midst of the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 a man brought a man to me saying Keep this man if by any means he be missing then shal thy life be for his life and as thy servant was 〈◊〉 here and there he was gone and the 〈◊〉 of Israel said so shal thy judgment thy self hath decided it Let me speak to thee in a like manner The Lord hath given thee his holy commands in charge the Grace of God the Gospel of Grace which hath appeared and which bringeth Salvation teacheth men to deny ungodly unworldly lusts to live Godly soberly in this present evil world to be Zealous of good works 2 Titus 13. 14. that we 〈◊〉 mortisy the deeds of the flesh that we might live Rom. 8. 13. but if we walk after the flesh we shal dy these Evangelical commands thou art bound to observe if by any means they be awanting thou loosest thy lise if thou loosest them forget these and God wil forget thee Now thou returnest thy excuse that while thou wert busie here and there busie in planting and building busie in plotting and contriving thine own carnal contents thy heart busie and eager in the pursuit of earthly occasions and imployments thy thoughts busie in devising and acting meanes in observing and improving opportunities thy hand busie in endeavouring to the utmost of thy power and skil to accomplish these either sinful or at the best earthly conveniences thou mindest these so much the other was wholly out of thy mind out of thy own mouth shalt thou be condemned so shal thy judgment be thou heedless sinful creature thou hast decided the matter they that forget God shal be turned to Hell Psal. 9. 17 They who mind earthly things their end is damnation Phil. 3. 21. God in mercy wil not mind thee he wil not mind the prayers thou makest he wil not mind thy complaints thy necessities thou presentest before him Thus generally For a particular answer I shal do two things 1. Shew who those be that make this shift 2. How this aggravates their sin Who those be that make this excuse that each man may take his portion that those may not be burdened by mistakes who desire to burden themselves that we may not bruise the broken in spirit There be two sorts of forgetful persons First such who in the sence of their own feebleness and brickleness of memory are not able to keep the wholsom truths those heavenly treasures which many times are commended to their care observance but those precious promises precious comforts directions they slip away out of their weak memories like pure liquor out of a leaking vessel which makes them sit down in silence and their hearts sink in discouragement loaded with the loathsomness and greatness of the evil that they cannot tel how to bear it nor yet to bear up their hearts under the weight of it they conceive it so hainous so dangerous a sin that which we cannot retain say they how shal we have the use of it how shal we answer the loss of such glorious truths and the very weight of the evil shakes their very hopes many times And you shal ever observe the favour the Lord shews to such weak ones and the work of his grace in them that though through the scantness and narrowness of their memories they are not able to keep things in their order to make report of them yet so much as they have present use for they wil have that at hand and such truths which they shal have need of for after times they are never generally call'd to the practice of them but they are call'd to their minds Gods spirit brings them to remembrance their hearts by faith received them and hold them Mat. 13. 23. but the narrowness of their memory was like a house that had but scant roomes kept them in a lumber together but there they were and therefore the 〈◊〉 brings them forth John 14. 26. The comforter 〈◊〉 bring all things to your remembrance These are not the persons we now speak unto for they lighten a d lessen their evil by this means these find it heavie and load 〈◊〉 heurts with Godly sorrow for it 2. There is therefore another sort whose wound of 〈◊〉 lyes not in the weakness of their memories or scantness of 〈◊〉 that they cannot retain the truths commended to them and come within their charge but such who stuff their minds and memories so ful of earthly occasions or attendance to some distemper that either they keep out or croud out the rememberance of their duty and think because it was not in their minds therefore they have plea sufficient if it be not in their practice and thus their disposition and spirit is worse than their carriage and behavior and this their excuse it encreaseth their sin in three things or ads a three fold aggravation to it They give in undeniable evidence that they do not only neglect the service but that they have no love to it not only their endeavours are wanting but their hearts and faithfulness are wanting also to the Lord and his work love and faithfulness wil cause attendance and remembrance where ever it is The man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves he dreams of her in the night hath her in his eye apprehension when he awakes museth on her as he sits at table walks with her when he travels and 〈◊〉 with her in each place where he comes So it would be with thee If thou 〈◊〉 little and makest that thy excuse its certain thou lovest little if thou mindest not thou 〈◊〉 not the Lord and his waies Psal. 119. 97. Oh 〈◊〉 I do love thy law it is my meditation day and night so the Saints Isa. 26. 8. The 〈◊〉 of our hearts are towards thee and the remembrance of thy name And therefore the Psalmist again 〈◊〉 thy Commandements are ever with me The heart of the lover keeps company with the thing beloved If thou mindest not to practice the duty its certain thou may est conclude thou 〈◊〉 yet hadst love to the Lord Jesus and his service This forgetfulness not minding that which is thy charge shewes thou never hadst a high esteem never yet sett'st a price upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the ways and wil of God thou undervaluest thy duties and lookest at them as things of little worth and therefore are out of sight and out of mind refuse things that are of mean account with us we lay them by cast them into any blind corner we judg them not worth the remembrance and therefore we bestow not our memories upon them but if there be a pearl of price some special and rare jewel each
and do more cheer and quicken and comfort in a cordial manner So it is in the soul by the dayly musing and acting of our thoughts upon the occasion of any corruption presented our Meditation is the distillation which draws out the Spirits of pride or passion or lusts and becomes marvelously confirmed in these and transported by these to our spiritual prejudice they grow strong in us and we under the power of them thus Jonah while he sits down in a muddy distemper and attends the vanity of his own thoughts he rows drunk with his passion so that he neither knows God nor himself not only doing that which is naught but he wil 〈◊〉 that which he doth I do well to be angry unto the death saies he Hence it is the Apostle suggests that Caution Rom. 13. last Make no provision for the flesh the Meditation and musing of our minds is the plentiful provision we make for the welcoming and maintaining of any distemper when we let our thoughts loose to view the compass 〈◊〉 any harsh carriage and injurious dealing we make provision for anger and revenge and the heart comes to be carried with violence of wrath and rage Thus and thus he dealt with me so unkindly so injuriously and that to my disparagement in the presence of such and this sets him al on a flame when we pore upon our infirmities and weaknesses we provide for discouragements and we sit and sink down under them and so strengthen those corruptions that otherwise have received their deaths wounds and would be weakened and wast away As it is with old decayed Bodies which are subject to fainting fits and are ever and anon swooning away the powring in of some Cordial Water wil fetch them up again and ad new strength and cheer The Flesh here is original corruption the old Man which in the Saints is dying away and decaying dayly but our Meditation puts as it were Aqua vitae into the old mans mouth adds vigor afresh and somtimes makes it with violence to prevail Lastly while the swarmes of vain imaginations keep through-fare in our minds and the noysom steems of sinful affections are rising boyling and bubling in our bosomes there is little expectation that the power of any meanes should come in upon the soul or prevayl with it for good the croud of imaginations stop the passage so that there is no comming to speech with the soul the hurries of 〈◊〉 to transport it and take up the whol strength of it that it can neither attend nor stay upon any thing besides 2 Cor. 10. 4. therefore called the strong hould where Satan intrencheth and fortifyeth himself against al the means of Grace 〈◊〉 may cast him out for while the stream of the thoughts are turned another way the ear hears nothing the understanding minds nothing the heart embraceth nothing there is no place or room there and thence it is as our Saviour speaks the word cannot take place in them John 8. 37. therefore the prophets advice to Jerusalem when he would have her clensed and saved he directs her to dislodge her vain thoughts wash thy heart O thou Jerusalem that mayest be saved how 〈◊〉 shal vain thoughts lodg within thee Jer. 4. 14. those vain thoughts are those carnal reasonings whereby the sinner would put bye the authority of the truth that so the sinner might neither see the loathsomness of his sin nor the danger of his estate or the necessity to recover himself out of it and if these thoughts lodg in him there wil be no entertainment for the power of any ordinance or counsel that wil take place with him nor reproof awe nor exhortation perswade he casts out and keeps off any thoughts of any necessity to be washed and so to be saved If then by those vain thoughts thy heart is estranged from God and carryed in 〈◊〉 against him If they be the cause of al sins committed and continued in if the hindrance of al means that might procure our God then is their evil exceeding 〈◊〉 and therefore we should so judg it and so be effected with it Wee come now to speak of a third 〈◊〉 alleadged to excuse sin and to shew the slight 〈◊〉 the soul 〈◊〉 of it viz. suppose the failing was in practice yet because the matter or thing wherin the offence was committed was but SMALL men look at it as a petty business a very trifle not worthy 〈◊〉 taking notice of and therefore account it as an 〈◊〉 of folly and childish weakness to be troubled with so 〈◊〉 a thing or to have the heart deeply affected with it more than the matter deserves and a man in reason should It was but taking of a penny or shilling too much putting off a cracked Commodity without suspicion by slight of hand lazying out a mans time ever seem to be doing and yet do little out-bid a man in a bargain by a wile and he never the wiser these are but tricks of wit matters of no consequence and what needs Conscience be troubled for these a man is 〈◊〉 the worse for them why should he judg the worse of himself or his condition such 〈◊〉 in a mans coat make it never a whit the more unseemly such poore petty things in a mans carriage makes it never a whit the more uncomfortable As the eye of man happily discerns not these things the Law cannot reach them nor the magistrate punish them why should any man punish himself or 〈◊〉 a torment and rack to his Conscience for them The things are little and petty The less the things are more hainous thy fault is and the greater thy guilt as it thus appears The less LOVE thou shewest to the Lord if thou wilt BREAK with him for a trifle Sets the honour of his great name Obedience to his holy Law contentment to his good spirit at so low a rate as that thou wilt dare to justle injuriously against al these for a very shadow which in thine own account is as much as just nothing where there is truth and strength of Love the hardest things seem light and things of the greatest worth little As Jacob served seven years for Rachel and it seemed short and time little because he loved her Gen. 29. 20. Ask me what thou wilt for dowry sayd Shecher Hamors son and I will give it only give me the mayd Gen. 34. 12. Amongst men in ordinary converse which lyes within the compass of humanity he never prizeth a mans friendship or fayor who fayles him in common curtesies and deny their desires or refuse to gratify them in things of no great worth I thought I might have commanded a greater matter at your hands than so but when I see you stick with me for such a trifle there is little love when so little a matter can hinder the work of it A gracious heart wil part with all for Christ and thou wilt part with Christ and his mercy rather than part
of their course their distempers are such that they stink above ground and yet they poor creatures feel nothing but bless themselves in their present condition Rom. 2. 5. They have hearts that cannot repent heaping up 〈◊〉 against the day of wrath The daily and ordinary commission of any one sin delivers up the sinner to become a prey to the power of al corruptions even the most detestable sin lays wast the soul that it becomes a through-fair and lyes open to the most hellish provocations or distempers that can be presented before it and nothing comes amiss that 's the inference when the heathen had no delight to have God in their knowledg had notliking to such and such righteous and good wayes of God he delivered them up to a reprobate sence Rom. 1. 28. they had no delight to be ruled by the truth and the wisdom and holiness thereof no delight 〈◊〉 know or rellish any good God takes them at their word and leaves them in the hands of their sins they should have minds that should never know the truth hearts that should never approve of it See presently when the soul is thus layed wast what a drove and inroad of hideous abominations come in and take possession and make a prey and spoyl of the poor wretched creature as they wil then ver 29. 30. they are ful of all Unrighteousness Covetousness Fornication Envy proud Boasters beady high minded 〈◊〉 breakers False Unfaithful Disobedient Unnatural nothing is a miss what ever the heart of Belzebub or the bottom of Hel can harbour It 's the ground of the cohaerence of that place also Eph. 4. 19. Who being past feeling they have given up themselves to work al uncleanness with greediness the poor creature is at the 〈◊〉 and beck of any base abomination no temptation presseth in but prevayles no allurement is presented but it surpriseth and taketh aside no corruption 〈◊〉 but it carryes and acts him without gainsaying the Devil and his distempers take him alive and take him at their pleasures lead him as they 〈◊〉 and he knows not where he is before he be in the bottomless pit This is the quintessence of vengeance an unseen evil 〈◊〉 in truth unconceavable the terrors of death and the torments 〈◊〉 hell are nothing in comparison of this When the glorious and blessed God through the just desert of sin leaves the creature at the lust of Satan and his diftemper Loe he is in your 〈◊〉 do what you wil with him I wil have nothing to do with him more this is the sentence passed upon the backslider Prov. 14. 14. the backslider in heart shal be 〈◊〉 with his own wayes he shal have his belly 〈◊〉 Thus as the saints are sealed up in the day of Redemption the wicked are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 up under the soverainty of their sins 〈◊〉 the day of destruction thou 〈◊〉 have thy pride and stubbornness 〈◊〉 be thou for ever proud and for ever 〈◊〉 and for ever 〈◊〉 hearted continu so and perish 〈◊〉 There is no judgment like to this and this is the 〈◊〉 of sin and that which the Lord reserves as the choycest of al his plagues the last and worst 1 Prov. 26. 28. 31. Yee shall call but I wil not hear yee shall seek me and shall not 〈◊〉 me one would think this is heavy and harder measure could hardly be found yes the Lord hath worse because ye despised my counsel and set at naught al my reproof 〈◊〉 they shall eat the fruit of their own wayes and be ful of their own devices they who srame and devise devises to contrive Contentments to their own carnal and corrupt 〈◊〉 carry a forge of falshood and 〈◊〉 about them to succeed in these one would have thought is the 〈◊〉 content such a person could take true it is so and that is the greatest and most dreadful plague that could befal them When the Lord Christ takes away 〈◊〉 of himself and his spirit from the 〈◊〉 and leaves him wholly to himself and the power of Satan his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distempers nothing of Gods wisdom 〈◊〉 their own folly shal mislead them nothing of Gods 〈◊〉 but the perverse rebellion of their own hearts shal rule them and so destroy them this is to be in hell before he come there and so be a Devil before he come among them They come to be helpless in regard of all means that the Lord hath provided or the mercies that the Lord hath offered unto them and doth yet strive with them in Its sin that stops the entercourse between God and the soul his ordinances and our Consciences takes and 〈◊〉 the passage that the power of the means never work upon us the sweetness of his mercies never affect us the virtue of his ordinances find no place leave no impression upon the soul This is the fruit which the prophet layes forth of the rebellions and 〈◊〉 of the Jewes which made them ripe for everlasting ruine Isa. 6. 9. 10. Make the heart of this people 〈◊〉 and their ears heavy and by that time they are sure enough for ever seeing the face of God or receiving 〈◊〉 by any means seeing they may see and not perceive hearing they may hear and 〈◊〉 understand least they be converted They are far enough from conversion and so from salvation It s that also which is of necessity implyed in the former expression they shal be filled with their own devises so there is no entrance no acceptance of any direction from the wil and word of God As it is in vessels that are brim ful of liquor ready to run over there is no room for a spoonful of the most precious liquor to be put into them So through the just desert of their sin they are so fully possessed with the power of their corruptions which have had commission to rule them that as our saviour said John 8. 37. There is no place for the word Their minds so ful of pride of their own carnal reason that therē is no room for instruction to direct or inform them their hearts so ful of stifness and perveriness that there is no place for reproof that may prevail with them and reform them the spirit so ful of falsness and ready to take hold upon 〈◊〉 that there is no place for the 〈◊〉 of the truth to frame them to the 〈◊〉 and singleness of carriage as suits with Gods mind so that all means of grace and ordinances take their leave of the sinner work no more upon that heart that hath 〈◊〉 long and so often opposed the work thereof 〈◊〉 51. 9. We would have healed Babilon 〈◊〉 she would not be healed leave her then leave instructions and leave exhorting c. so it is with the ordinances the Lord passeth by and wil not so much as speak a word to a rebellious heart the threatnings that troubled before now stir not the instructions that convinced before now awe not at al the reproofs
these are your sins these will be your ruin And I summon thee here to answer it before God in the sight of men and Angels at the great day When the heart cannot shuffle nor shift nor shake off the strength and cleerness of the Truth it 's compelled to own its sin and misery though happily not willing to leave the one nor knows not how to avoid the other True indeed then Meditation hath attained its proper and powerful work and is effectually blessed of God when our hearts are so affected with the evil of our sins as in our judgments rightly informed we did conceive them and in our most serious 〈◊〉 concluded them and indeed we should shine to our utmost to attain this and never give the Lord rest nor our own souls any rest until our hearts feel the bitterness of sin as by meditation we have found it made known in the word This is beyond our power and reach only its good to run after it and though we cannot go as far as we should yet thus far we may go We may put the heart to silence for the while stop and stisle such gainsayings for a time and turn and get the last word of the wil as it were notwithstanding the waywardness thereof This hath its mervailous use and leaves a great restraint upon the soul that it dare not vent it felf in ungodly practices but with a kind of awe and fear It deals with our souls as the Angel with Sarah when she laughed in herself as conceiving it impossible she should have a son in her old age though the Angel had said it Gen 18. 12. the Lord asked why did Sarah laugh and she denied it because she was afraid and sayed I did not laugh but the Lord followed her and held her to it and would not let her go away so nay but thou didst laugh So when the heart would fly off from the evil that is evidenced and charged either excusing or lessening the hainousness of the evil or slighting the danger of it either it was not my fault or it s not so great or the punishment is not so grieous and fearsul as men would bear us in hand Hold the heart to it and do not suffer it to go away Yes it was you that did it you must own it you shal find it upon your score one day you know and God knows and I know it the time when they were committed the manner how and how aggravated with many heightning circumstances It is so know it and thy damnation sleepeth not do not slight it you wil never be able to endure it Yes but I can God wil abate it or I can bear it nay you cannot God cannot abate it if you live in your sins and you cannot bear it Take the leave of your heart thus when you go to bed this is your condition this wil be your misery The sum of this first Rule returns to these three particulars 1 Summon the heart to answer the charge 2 Force the heart to own it 3 Silence the heart for the while under it When thus Meditation hath come into the heart let it lay hold upon the heart That 's the Second thing in this fastening when it hath arrested the soul the undeniable Evidence of the Truth then keep it under the arrest as Officers do such as they have attached not suffered them to go out of the room nor to be out of their sight or presence When thou hast with strong hand as it were forced thy heart by the power of the Truth raised by Meditation from every Coast as it were from all particular circumstances and occasions that it yield the Charge which it cannot gainsay owns the guilt under which it lies and the punishment which it hath deserved sits down silent under the Soveraignty of the Truth which it cannot controul keeps the heart under this awful disposition for ever Do not suffer thy mind to go off from the Duty of Meditation or thy wil and affections from under the impressions which were left upon it thereby For if thou thus givest way out of sloth or wearish negligence thou art in hazard not only to lose thy labor but to leave thy soul much worse by the abuse of an Ordinance than it was before thou did'st enjoy the liberty and practice of it As Iron or any Mettal once melted if it cool it grows more hard than before and more unsit to be fashioned to any use It 's so with the heart awed and melted as it were and made coming under the power of Meditation if once thou growest careless and it grows cold it becomes more unteachable hard and unfit to receive any impression of the Truth with what ever power it be dispensed Therefore by dayly consideration keep the power of the Truth and discovery of thy sins within ken stil before the eyes and sight of thy soul that so thou mayest keep the same heat and temper of Spirit that awful under and silent subjection to the Authority of the Truth the terror and dreadfulness of thine own sins and here our greatest watch is to be improved to follow this direction because the policy of Satan the proneness of our own hearts and professed opposition that the Spirits of the sons of men have against this Dispensation on Gods part and this disposition on ours we are loth to bear it Satan and the wicked are loth to suffer it in us to have the rod dayly shaked over us the silth and guilt and plagues due unto our sins continually presented and pressed upon our consciences it 's exceeding tedious and irksom unto our natures Flesh and blood is very loth to bear it Satan and the world are unwilling we should continue in such a course because they know it 's the next way to make us weary of our lives and of our sins therefore our corrupt hearts are willing to shake off such considerations and they are as restless to pluck our hearts from under the power of such an Ordinance It wil be our comfort let it be our care to have dayly meditation keep us company in our dayly course it wil keep the heart in an awful and under temper Therefore the Apostle joyns both together 1 Tim. 4. 15. Meditate on these things and be in them under the power and prevailing vertue of them As it 's sure of al so of this Truth also John 8. 31 32. Continue in the Truth and it shall make you free It 's not enough for an old cankered sore to make it open but we must keep it open not only lance it but tent 〈◊〉 to force a Truth by Meditation lanceth the sore attention to the same Truth in Meditation is the tenting of the sore and that brings though a slow yet a persect Cure Dog the heart with the dayly consideration of the discovery of sin formerly set on it wil tire a man out of his distemper force the soul either to leave
she wil be forced to mind and attend them and her own help whether she wil or no. The fear and dreadful expectation of Gods righteous Judgments deserved and threatened let them seize upon the sinner and let him travel under the terror of the Almighty If God should come and cal me to answer how should I help my self If the Lord do as the times are in his own hands what should I judg or think of my condition In a sinful and miserable estate I am I am sure and how soon the pit may shut her mouth upon me that I may be past hope and help I know not high time therefore to think how to be affected with this and how to be freed from this damnable condition If the good man of the house did know the Thief would come he would certainly watch he would listen attentively at every stirring Matth. 24. 43. Fear saies the evil wil come and makes a man ever be thinking how to prevent it before it comes As in a Siege he that keeps the noise of the Drum the sound of the Trumpet the clattering of Spears the report of the Canon in his ears and fears he wil be kept a waking and be forced to attend upon his watch and stand 〈◊〉 his Guard for his life So do thou as the psalmist said Psal. 9. last Put them in fear O Lord that they may know themselves to be but men they wil know they are sinful and mortal and wretched 〈◊〉 that must come to death and judgment Awaken Conscience cal for the help of it and put it into commission and it wil put forth an overruling power for the settling of our apprehensions in their attentive employments when somtimes they are routed and put by their proper exercise by the unruly and inordinate distempers of our hearts For reason and understanding are the underlings as it were of inferior and lower ranck and can but as servants and attendants offer and propound to the wil and affections what they 〈◊〉 and conceive may be most convenient and the wretched way wardness of our hearts wil either snub or silence them reject or cast them away you befool reason damp and pervert the light of judgment tel reason she is a fool and is deceived and drive it to another search somtimes in the Saints 〈◊〉 and wil are for the work The one pleads for it the other approves and desires it and yet the violence and outrage of some overbearing corruptions take off Meditation and hinder it against the heart and hayr against our judgment and desire Now conscience is to be called in who hath received a supream authority to oversee both to right al such disorders and to see that the mind have its free scope for the exercise of Meditation in his times and turns And that this is so Experience of all men in al ages wil give in evidence undeniable the Godly their Conscience is controuler in their whol course by the beck and least iutimation of whose authority the frame of their spirits inwardly and their carriages outwardly are 〈◊〉 so as they can do nothing against the truth 2 Cor. 13. 8. dictate of their Conscience they could do any thing against their credit and comfort and profit yea their very lives 〈◊〉 not against their Conscience Witness again the wrastlings of the spirits of the ungodly when their 〈◊〉 reason hath contrived al waies and shifts their hearts earnestly desired also how to stifle and stop the mouth of Conscience to silence his dictates that they might proceed in the practice of their lawless course without stop and trouble and disquiet and the sad remembrance of that guilt and 〈◊〉 which Conscience tyres them with but al in vain when Conscience is armed with authority and exerciseth that authority which is given it is in his place and doth the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 place but I say you must put it into commission God can and doth when he wil but we should also give way and help forward this work as we are able according to that direction for our spiritual good in this behalf for it is with Conscience as it is with men of worth in the countrey from whence we came though they be as holy and gracious and wise when they are out of the commission of the peace as when they are in yet then when they are out of the commission though they be willing and desirous according to the 〈◊〉 the Lord hath given them to see and so to reforme al wrongs and disorders yet they want power So it is with Conscience when through our careless and rebellious carriage it is either blinded or stifled and so his place and exercise of his power is utterly hindred we must therefore 〈◊〉 Conscience into his commission as much as in us lyes i. e help forward the exercise of that soveraign authority with the right whereof Conscience stands possessed according to the place the Lord hath set him in Here are three directions Let nothing joyn with Conscience in the command it gives and power it exerciseth but the holy and righteous Law of God This is that which makes the simplicity of the eye which our Saviour mentions Math. 6. 22. and that which addes that overruling vertue and 〈◊〉 thereunto insomuch that the text tells us where the eye is single the whol body is ful of light That eye I suppose is not bare reason or understanding enlightened though that sence is savory and included but there is I conceive somewhat more that eye is here meant according to the light and direction whereof the whol body is acted and ordered that is a mans whol course and conversation is guided in a right way That is by vertue of Conscience especially which hath an overpowring command with it to act and carry out al the dispositions of our hearts and actions of our lives suitable to the light and level of the law of God according to which it accuseth or excuseth This single eye is a conscience sincere when nothing interrupts the work of Conscience but the law acts it and it acts the man thus the office Conscience exereiseth is from God and for God Keep Conscience trembling and tender that it may be Eagle Eyed and easily sensible of the least evil and do thou accustome thy self to be sure to take notice of the least intimation it gives This gives as I may say encouragement to Conscience and helps forward the work and honors that authority which it exerciseth Thus David was at the beck of his Conscience even for the appearance and bordering of evil 1. Sam. 24. 〈◊〉 his heart smot him because he had cut off Sauls skirt Take undoubtedly the sentence of Conscience rightly guided to be Gods own sentence That which he wil own and make good upon al the sons of men at the great day of 〈◊〉 It wil pass current and prevayl then either for thy Condemnation or for thy absolution It should therefore prevail
his sight and that he that glories might glory in the Lord. By what Law is boasting excluded by the Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith Rom. 3. 27. For if Abraham had been justified by Works he had whereof to glory Rom. 4. 2. And therefore as in the Material it 's so in the Spiritual Temple the laying of the first and lowest stone and adding of the last all the people cried Grace Grace and hence the whol chain is as it were of Gods own making and tying Whom he predestinated them he called and whom he called them he justified and whom he justified them he glorified Rom. 8. 30. and the end and issue of all is set down by the holy Apostle Eph. 4. 15. when all the Churches shall meet at the great day of Appearance in the unity of the Faith it is to the acknowledgment of the Son of God By whom were you called humbled justified adopted sanctified By the Son of God receive all from him return all to him But this Opinion plucks the Crown from Christs Head the Glory from his Work the Praise from his Grace and gives it to the will of man and the improvement of those abilities and opportunities the Lord hath put into his hand because by this means he makes himself to differ For set Paul and Judas in the same rank let them enjoy the same means share in the same liberties advantages opportunities one as the other Paul by the good use of his free will he plaies the good Husband he doth what he can and he obtains what he wants and receives Grace Judas plaies the Prodigal and Unthrift doth not what he should and might and therefore he wants Grace so that they were both equal in the priviledges and opportunities they received from God they differ not there that Paul hath that Grace which Judas wants he may thank his own pains and improvement and glory in himself and them Nay Paul is not bound to be thankful to God for any thing more than Judas for he had no more from God by this Opinion than Judas what he had and received more it was by his own improvements which to conceit is a most hellish delusion Lastly If by the improvements of Abilities and Advantages we certainly receive Spiritual Grace then this must follow Either because such improvement deserves Grace or do immediately and nextly dispose the soul to receive Grace or that such improvements have a promise made to them from God But none of al these can be granted They cannot deserve Grace because when we have done what we can we must conclude as we shal have cause to confess we are unprofitable Luke 17. 10. The plowing and so the praying of the wicked is sin his most beautiful performances are from the flesh and so sinful and deserve the just wrath of God and therefore no Grace nor Glory John 3. 8. They do not nor can dispose the soul as that it may be thereby a fit subject to receive Grace Those actions which leave the soul under the power of sin and acted by sin and a man in a Natural condition those stil leave the soul indisposed to Grace for the Natural man perceives not the things of Grace nor can he receive them 1 Cor. 2. 14. they found him in the world and they leave him in the world and the world cannot receive the holy Ghost John 14. 17. Natural and corrupt actions cannot prepare immediately for Supernatural Grace There is no promise of giving saving Grace to such and none could ever be shewed That which somtimes the Arminians pretend but press it with no great confidence is in Matth. 25. 29. in the Parable of the Talents To every man that hath shall be given and to him that hath not shall be taken away even that he hath Hence He that hath and useth his Natural abilities wel shal be given Supernatural Answ. That gloss corrupts 〈◊〉 Text and doth not suit with the Scope and Circumstances of the Parable as hath been made good by many Arguments by such as have diligently searched into the sence of the place The unprofitable Servant that used not his Talents wel he is to receive that Sentence 〈◊〉 must be cast into utter darkness which were it understood according to the former Opinion it would infer an apparent falshood He that did not improve his Talent was forth with to be cast into utter darkness but many that do not use their natural abilities and the special advantages wel have been formerly and wil without question be brought home to Christ and happiness 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Know ye not that no Adulterer Covetous Reviler Extortioner shal inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are clensed 1 Pet. 4. 2. It is sufficient that in time past we have had our Conversation among the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness 〈◊〉 excess of Riot Revellings and abominable 〈◊〉 These did not use their Natural abilities wel and yet were not cast out into utter darkness therefore the using of the Natural abilities is not the having or the using of the Talent there meant 〈◊〉 I suppose the meaning of the Phrase is by him that hath is meant the man that is truly gracious the Talent is the Gospel by having is the receiving and 〈◊〉 of it in a good and honest heart and the sanctified use of it in a saving manner For the Evangelists Expressions seem undeniable to evidence this meaning Matth. 13. 11 12. When our Savior Christ had told his Disciples it was given to them q. d. it 's the peculiar special work of the Spirit of Grace in your hearts to know the mysteries of the Kingdom but to them it is not given he ads the reason and proof in the next verse for to him that hath he that in sincerity entertains the Gospel shal have a further communication of the Truth and sweetness of the Gospel to his soul but whosoever hath not whosoever entertains not the Gospel in truth and uprightness from him shall be taken away the Gospel which by a seeming profession of fals-hearted lazy entertainment he would seem to have but never had in sincerity the like connexion is found Mark 4. 24 25. Take heed what you hear and unto you that hear i. e. that do take heed what you hear more shal be given for to him that hath shall be given but 〈◊〉 that hath not i. e. that doth not take heed what he hears and so receives not the Word in sincerity from him shall be taken even that he hath But if the saving work of the Word doth not depend upon my endeavor why should I endeavor any further any longer or attend the use of the means or practice answerable thereunto Thou thy self and al thy services being in a natural estate are as a menstruous cloth both in themselves and in the sight of Gods pure eyes unanswerable to Gods
delivers touching Gods Dispensation and I know not but it may hold here Psal. 18. 27. With the froward thou wilt deal frowardly the place is hard for the apprehension of it in the fair and full sence of it The words that go before will give in some light With the bountiful thou wilt shew thy self bountiful with the perfect thou wilt be perfect with the pure thou wilt shew thy self pure and with 〈◊〉 perverse or froward thou 〈◊〉 shew thy self froward thou wilt make thy self deal frowardly To speak to the pinch of the Point but in two words I conceive 〈◊〉 to be the meaning 〈◊〉 the place and the mind of God in it He that walks with God in the exercise of the Rule in a 〈◊〉 manner God 〈◊〉 meet with him in it and give him the 〈◊〉 and comfort that follows and flows from it he that conscienciously keeps the Rule shal be more fitted for to keep it and to share in the blessing and 〈◊〉 of it he that deals bountifully in vertue of the Rule he shal be more apt to that Duty and shal find bountiful dealings from the hands of others God and men he that is upright thorough and simple in Spirit and practice he shal be more exact every way and find peace and praise as the fruit of that he that is pure that is not only contents himself to be simple and sincere hearted in his whol course but is dayly purging himself and clensing his own heart 〈◊〉 severing himself from such taints and remainders of distempers that appear and 〈◊〉 to cleer up the Rule in the beauty and excellency thereof to himself that he may see more of it submit more freely and fully to it the Lord will make himself pure to him So the word God wil let in pure instructions that no darkness or dimness may stumble him or cause him to mistake pure evidence of pardon and acceptance no guilt may unsettle him pure comforts and peace that no doubts or fears may discourage him pure holiness and power of 〈◊〉 that no strength of corruption may blur the Image of God in him or darken the Evidence of the Work of Grace received But 〈◊〉 a man will be froward crook the Rule go cross to the Command and wil walk in the vanity of his own 〈◊〉 and stubbornness of his own Spirit oppose the power of the Truth not willing to look upon or abide to hear of the purity of it God will shew himself froward towards such a one he wil 〈◊〉 you and cross you in your whol course and in al your comforts you crook and wind away from the Rule to content your sins God by his Righteous Law by vertue of the provoking power therof wil deliver you up to the power of your sins and to al the terros and plagues and expressions of his 〈◊〉 that attend thereupon and in the daies of thy distress when nothing wil help thee but the holy Word of God God wil then deal with you and follow you with the 〈◊〉 of your own 〈◊〉 thou would'st not see the holiness and purity of Gods Precepts thou 〈◊〉 have a mind not able to attend or receive or remember any thing that may be for thy direction support or comfort but only live upon thine own guilt and the terrors that attend thereupon and the perversness of thine own heart wil be thine own plague In your froward pangs you flinch and fling care not what you say or do God can be as 〈◊〉 as you nor hear prayers nor regard your complaints nor pity your necessities but pursue you with his plagues let fly on every hand the fierceness of his displeasure God can and wil hamper thee if thou had'st a heart as sierce as a 〈◊〉 of Hell make thee weary of thy part be as perverse as thou wilt or canst be And therefore the word in the place is marvelous pregnant it signifies to contend with another as one that wrastles wil do wreath and 〈◊〉 and turn his body every way that he may meet with his adversary with whom he is to grapple So the Lord will meet with thee at every turn the greater thy opposition hath been against him the greater expression of his displeasure shalt thou be sure to 〈◊〉 and that in the most dreadful manner The sins of Manasseh were high handed and hellish abominations mighty provocations out of measure sinful 2 Chron. 33. 11. Therefore God abased him mightily fettered and 〈◊〉 and humbled him mightily and made him cry mightily before he could 〈◊〉 audience and acceptance with him the cruel and harsh carriage of the Jaylor Acts 16. exceeded his Commission and so the bounds of common Humanity to deal worse with the distressed than either their Fact deserved or the Law permitted or Authority allowed him in that behalf a 〈◊〉 transported with deadly indignation against the waies of God and his People and as it appears by the circumstances of the story a man that pleased 〈◊〉 in such unreasonable practices the Lord therefore handles him answerably to the harshness of his spirit makes the Earth quake and the Prison totter the bolts break and the door fly open and at last his heart begins to shake and die within him notwithstanding the fierceness of his Spirit So Paul Acts 9. he comes trembling to crave the Counsel of those whose presence formerly he loathed There is a Three-fold Ground from whence the Reasons of this Point may be fetched which will Evidence That this manner of proceeding best suits with the insinite Wisdom of God look we at God at others at the sinner himself with whom the Lord is now trading The Holiness of Gods Nature and exactness of his Truth not only commends but even seems with some kind of comely necessity to call for such a manner of Dispensation The Lord stiles himself the holy One of Israel a God of purer eyes than can endure to behold iniquity not able to pass by sin in the least appearance of it and therefore leaves so strict a charge beware lest there be an evil thought in thy heart and abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thes. 5. When the Lord is to convince the sinner of sin to express his mind and displeasure against him because of those his evils so scandalous and detestable to al that have but the least spark of saving knowledg and Grace yea loathsom to the very light of Conscience in corrupt Nature Should the Lord casily and overly 〈◊〉 them by with some smal 〈◊〉 of some little dislike it could not but impeach his Purity and make himself accessary to the dishonor of his own Holiness When Eli proceeded not with that zeal against 〈◊〉 evil of his Sons as the 〈◊〉 thereof might justly have provoke 〈◊〉 him unto but after a slight manner manifested a heart-less dislike of it the Lord 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 2. 39. That he honored his sons before him rather respected their carnal content that they might not be
measure of Grace and Godliness Surely not as other men use to do and therefore it 's a great suspicion he came not truly by his Grace nor is he truly that he seems to be great sins cost other men great sorrows grievous scandals cost great grief of heart great heart-breakings humiliations and satisfactions great Grace and power against sin great pains and the highest strain of exactness in speeches and practices they that knew and see the Conversations of such never saw nor knew any such matter it 's certain he and al the Christians in the world may justly question his uprightness 〈◊〉 yet he be not worse than nothing if there were a true inventory taken of his Estate in Grace out of the depth of prophaneness to come to the height of holiness at unawares it 's a work of delusion not of true conversion to God Trees that are planted in Gods Orchard they take root downward and then bring forth fruit upward Upstart Christians are like Jonah his Guord grow 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 presently flourish and fade and al in a day Untimely births are never true nor yet of continuance when an old sore is healed too hastily it never proves sound it 's 〈◊〉 over 〈◊〉 cured festers inwardly proves more grievous and dangerous than at the first The skilful Chyrurgeon wil tel you it must be searched lanced tented before it attain its ful and perfect Cure So it is with that cankered corrupt 〈◊〉 of thine who hast lived and continued in those loathsom abominations which thou hast hugged in thy bosom it must be lanced by the cutting knife of the Law and the dreadful curse thereof searched by the soul-saving preaching of the Gospel and dayly tented with constant contritions and breakings of heart otherwise know assuredly that those hellish lusts of thine wil imposthume within thy soul and in issue break out more loathsomly and thy latter end wil be worse than thy beginning To find little or no hardness in that which in thy reason thou conceivest and concludest to be the hardest work of all how canst thou but suspect thou art cozened and mistaken Make it thine own case in another thing and be thine own Judg 〈◊〉 thou enjoyned to drain a Quagmire or a dirty rotten Swamp to fit it for the Plough and should any man seem to perswade it would cost but litte time or labor might easily be dispatched thou would'st scarsly with patience hear such an expression as that which is expressly contrary to common sense why should men speak of impossibilities or think that men should conceive that reasonable that is against Reason not only Trees felled stubbed removed but the ground gained which is not arable and al this in a short space with ease Look now into thy condition with this resemblance and be thine own Judg thou hast a dunghil heart a soul like a dirty swamp those hellish abominations which have taken up thy mind and will and affections in which thou hast continued and unto which thou hast been accustomed so that thy heart is like a standing puddle of prophaneness which have weakened and wasted the very faculties of thy soul so that thy heart is not fallow ground as the Prophet speaks Plow up the fallow ground Jer. 4. it 's not 〈◊〉 ground even abilities so wasted and disordered with thy wretched and unreasonable lusts and dost thou think that these abilities can be 〈◊〉 easily and thy Spirit made good soyl even a good and honest heart without extraordinary power on Gods part and more than ordinary labor on thine When the covetous yong man that was glewed to the world and had his heart riveted in restless and immoderate desires after these Earthly things so that all the directions which our Savior gave and the great offers he made of Heaven and Salvation could not take off his affections but he went away sorrowful saies our Savior How hard is it for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven it 's easier for a Cable rope to enter in at the eye of a Needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Grace here and Glory hereafter Matth. 〈◊〉 22 23 24. He spake of one it 's true of all by the like proportion how hard is it for a rich man it 's as true to say how hard is it for a riotous unclean malitious voluptuous self-conceited rebellious wretch he that hath scandalously continued in these accustomed himself to these how hard is it for such saies the Text. And doest thou find it easie a Holy-day task and a trifling labor that which may suddenly be done without such trouble either Christ is deceived or thou art mistaken either the Word fails or thy apprehension fails Whether the Scriptures or thy Conceit is to be beleeved let thine heart judg unless thou wilt be an Atheist The Word in reason never wrought that work nor wil it give in Evidence and approbation thereof The Prophet Isai. 46. last describing a rebellious sinner he thus speaks of him Hearken ye stout-hearted who are far from righteousness A man that hath gone many yeers and that with much speed and labor one way which is down-hil to return to the same place when the way is more difficult with a little time and less labor there is little probability if possibility in reason So here thou hast hurried headlong in the waies of wickedness hast had ful wind and tide Satans temptation thine own corruption to carry thee with mighty violence many yeers together in thy 〈◊〉 course dost thou think suddenly and easily to 〈◊〉 back No beleeve it thou must take many a weary step send out many a heavy sigh tug at it with continual prayers and tears and the utmost improvement of al thine 〈◊〉 nay it will cost thee hot water the setting on before thou seest that day I read of a double expression 1. Of the Devils going out 2. Of his casting out 〈◊〉 12. 43 When the unclean spirit goes out c. which is done by 〈◊〉 outward and serious reformation and some sudden resolution wrought out of terror to forsake such and such courses this smoaks Satan out of his house c. COMFORT This is ground of great support and in Truth of strong consolation to shore up the hearts of forlorn and scandalous Creatures when they lie under the most direful strokes of Gods heaviest displeasure When the loath somness of their lives and hellish abominations of their hearts are presented to their view their Consciences now accuse and the Lord from Heaven by his infinite indignation encamps against them with Armies of terrors so that to their sight and sence there is nothing appearing but present ruin and confusion Yet out of the strong comes sweet greatest safety issues out of the heaviest searchings and breakings of heart Here is now ground of strong support to bear thy 〈◊〉 above all these devouring horrors which like so many waves would overwhelm thy soul. The
the other she would have made a hard shift but she would have followed and sound her lovers but the hedg was made of thorns 〈◊〉 and unsufferable sorrows and necessities unavoydable not to be indured not to be removed and those wearied her out of al pretended delights she had formerly taken This is the method that God 〈◊〉 Hos. 5. 12. 14. Hos. 6. 1. First I wil be a Moath 2 if that wil not do I wil be a Lion 3 If that wil not do I wil leave them and go to my place withdraw his comforting and protecting presence and then we hear 〈◊〉 Come let 〈◊〉 return unto the Lord for he hath torn and be wil heal us this did it This 〈◊〉 way for our spiritual comfort in a special blessing if he be pleased to follow the 〈◊〉 with his blessing For its a special means to bring in clearer evidence and 〈◊〉 assurance both of the soundness of the work and the certainty of a mans good estate al the dayes 〈◊〉 his life if the Lord be pleased to second these heavy breakings of heart with his blessing For it is the nature of 〈◊〉 when they are set in opposition to make each other appear more 〈◊〉 For a conscientious 〈◊〉 to be made of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 especially when the dreadful expressions of Gods displeasure have been so amazing in the eyes of al that have been the spectators and in a peculiar manner astonishing to the soul of the prophane creature that hath selt the arrows of the Almighty sticking fast in him 〈◊〉 he cannot be but restless before he get relief and help so he cannot but know it when he hath gained it the change is great and open Gods dispensation so glorious This man is able to say at such a time in such a place by such a man out of such a 〈◊〉 the Lord was pleased to speak home to my heart to make known himself my self and sin to my self which caused my soul tody within me in the sence of my vileness and misery and from that time forward followed me daily with fears and horrors the venom of vengeance drinking up my spirits until in such and such a manner and by such means he was pleased to work my heart to his own tearms made me glad to seek him importunately yea restlesly and more glad to find him sealing up the truth of his free love by his own spirit in the word of truth This man can tel how he came by his grace and can tel what to say and shew for heaven and happily unless it be through his own careless neglect may carry the assurance with him to his grave Whereas such as the Lord doth sweetly but secretly draw unto himself in an insensible and undiscernable manner restrains them from common evils traynes them up under Godly Parents religious government good company and spiritual means of Instruction and so implants by little and little into the Lord Jesus without their privity or apprehension however their estate is good and their condition safe in its self yet they gaine littl evidence or maintain little assurance thereof in their own hearts but upon every turn are questioning and quarrelling doubting and staggering touching their condition whereas they that come to their grace by many and great troubles retain it commonly with great evidence Thus Paul when the Lord Christ had made a glorious conquest over his proud rebellious and malicious heart against the holy wayes of his truth and 〈◊〉 He could tel and did upon al occasions when the field was fought how the Lord Christ got the day over his hellish distempered heart Thus he relates Gods dealing Acts. 26. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Acts. 22. 1. to the 14. And so issues having obtained help of God I continue until this day thus it was so it is thus it was wrought so maintain d. And though it be true I confess that no man should or wil break his arme that he may have it the stronger for the setting or know how it is set or therefore be careless to become scandalously vile that God may be gloriously merciful yet through the riches of mercy which makes our losses gaines The certainty of the assurance we find doth countervail and exceed the terrors and horror we felt Give me the man who can say I was blind but now I see I know I was in prison but am now delivered it s not delusion but a vision and real accomplishment of the work by the Allmighty hand of God Lastly its honourable for a poor scandalous wretch to be under such heavy breakings of heart and therefore it should be comfortable to him I rather mention this to stop the mouths of the reffuse rabble of the world and to shew the desperate mistakes unto which carnal reason carryes us out of the pride of our own spirits wee know that sin is 〈◊〉 and shame loathsom even to nature especially corrupt and proud to be forced to acknowledg the one to take the other It appears very direful to the apprehension of al the sons of Adam And therefore when the Lord is pleased to hold a scandalous wretch upon the wrack and to make him roar out his wretchedness vomit out his sin and take the shame he hath deserved His companions that have conversed with him and his freinds that have honored him they are driven to their dumps in discouragment and discontentment and cry out the man is undone and curse the day that ever the Minister came into the countrey and blames his folly and silliness that he would attend to what he saied and be troubled with any thing he heard to bring an everlasting blemish upon himself No I say ther 's no such matter This is the greatest honor that yet ever befel him in this world and wil be a means of blessing to him in another It is a shame to commit sin but not to have the heart breaking under the apprehension of it Nay it is an expression of Gods favour and as it may prove a sign of Gods special love if it be rightly emproved God thus far honors a poor wretch that he wil speak to him as he passeth by Should a Prince that was provoked by the conspiracies and rebellions of many Traitors as he passed by should he vouchsafe to send unto and cal upon some one to reclaime him from his crew and company and courses and that upon very equal terms he might find acceptance and pardon and peace when he wil not so much as look after others or change a word with them would not this be accounted matter of marvelous respect from the King and honor to the man So here As David begs favour from the Lord. 〈◊〉 119. 132. be merciful to me and lookupon me as thou usest to do upon them that desire to fear thy name he takes it to be the highest pitch of his happiness to be so dealt withal If God deal with
not in your power to bring them in yet bring them as neer to the Kingdom of God as you can c. They were pricked in their hearts The last Doctrine which is considered touching the Work it self Sorrow for sin 〈◊〉 set on pierceth the heart of the sinner through that is truly affected therewith They were pricked not in their eyes to weep for their sins so Esau could not in their tongues only to confess their sin so Judas did I have sinned in betraying innocent blood nor in their hands alone to reform it outwardly so those Apostats did 2 Pet. 2. 20. They escaped the pollutions of the world through the acknowledgment of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but it reached their hearts their souls bled inwardly their souls were most guilty and had the greatest hand in the commission of those bloody and execrable cruelties the fountain of their sorrow did rise as high as the beginning of their sin soul sins and soul sorrows Nor was the stroke slight not the ripling of the skin a lighter touch a sudden pang a sigh and away nay not only lanced and gashed the rotten imposthumes of the corruptions of their hearts in a great measure but ransacked the very root of the corruption pierced the heart quite through through and through again as it were let out the core of the most inward and most retired corruptions that were lodged in their bosom and bottom of their hearts And this work proceeded not from any power of their own nor from the liberty and freedom of their wils as that which they made choyce of and out of their own ability did readily put forth but it was set on by the hand of the Almighty in the entrance whereof they were Patients went against the heart and hair and wholly beyond their purposes and expectations So the words are in the passive form they were pricked they did not prick themselves Nay certainly could they have told how to prevent it how to remove it or to procure any ease and relief unto themselves they would never have cryed out as men in a maze and astonishing straights of Spirit What shall we do Thus God proceeds when he purposeth to make a through work When God was purposed to set upon the revolting people of the Jews and to bring them savingly home to himself Hos. 13. 4. so 〈◊〉 carry it according to the foregoing and following words I am the Lord thy God from the Land of Egypt and there is no Savior besides me ver 4. and blames also the frowardness and folly of their Spirits not yielding so readily and taking the advantage of Gods dealing for their good ver 13. The sorrows of a travelling woman shall come upon him he is an unwise son for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of Children q. d. The Lord in mercy offers himself to the Israelites under their terrors as a Midwife that would make way for them out of their sins and sorrows Now in this 〈◊〉 of his towards the people to be converted he professeth that he will meet with them 〈◊〉 a Bear bereaved of her whelps he wil rend the caul of their hearts ver 8. the words are the closure and shutting up of their hearts sinners are shut up under the power of their distempers as the Apostle saith all men by Nature are shut up under unbelief Rom. 11. 32. especially there be some closets and secret corners and conveyances of soul wherein the most sweet and delightful abominations are hugged and harbored the Lord leaves not a poor wretch if indeed he intend his good before he breaks open those great depths rests not before he come home to the root and let out the heart-blood of thy lusts and then their death wil undoubtedly follow And hence it is this sorrow is compared to such as enter into the very inwards of Nature and sinks the soul with unsupportable pressures when that great conversion and return of the Jews to the entertainment of the Gospel shal be brought about by the Lord. The Prophet sets forth the greatness of that sorrow of theirs under a double similitude First Zach. 12. 10. They shall mourn for him as the mother mourns for her only son and for her first born the mourning of a tender hearted mother for her son her first born and for her only son he adds al degrees of grief if she had possessed many she might more easily have wanted one or at least parted with it or had it been any but her first born which had the first of her strength and the first of her love yet she might have born it with more quietness but when al these meet together her life and comfort is wrapped up in the life of the Child the mourning becomes unmeasurable fils the heart as it were Secondly It shall be like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon when al Israel lamented the death of their good Josiah the light of their eyes the breath of their Nostrils the comfort of their souls 2 Chron. 35. 25. Therfore the original words which lay open this work are of marvelous weight and discover the overpowring vertue thereof Isai. 57. 18. The Lord dwels with him that is of a contrite spirit Isai. 61. 6. The Lord binds up the broken heart The first whereof signifies to pun to pouder and to bring to smal dust it is so used Psal. 90. 3. Thou bringest man to the dust of death again thou sayest return ye children of men That as the hardest stone when it 's broken al to smal mammocks and pouder as it were it 's easie and yielding under the touch of the hand what ever ruggedness and resistance was in it before So it is with the soul that is punned to pouder so that there is not any unbroken or any whol part to be found there no sodering in any secret manner with any retired distemper but the weight of godly sorrow hath shatter'd all asunder distress of Conscience hath brought it to dust parted all the privy closures with any particular of any distemper all that knotty stiffness and perversness of spirit in siding with any corruption is now taken off The soul comes easily to give way to the Authority of the Truth that would take any sinful lust away To the like purpose is that of Job Job 23. 16. when the Armies of Gods indignation had encamped against him and the terrors of the Lord had drunk up his spirit saies he God makes my heart soft or hath melted my soul the word signifies a severing and separation of one thing from another and is opposite to setling and fastening making firm stiff and hard as that of Pharaoh Exod. 9. last Pharaoh hardened his heart his soul fastened by an invincible resolution to the sinful purpose of his malicious detaining and oppression of the Jews When the fierceness of Gods dupleasure brought home by the breathings of the Spirit
irresistable operation of his Spirit when the soul having that impediment removed it comes to be in the next passive power and immediately disposed to a Spiritual Work vult moveri God leaves a powerful impression upon the will acts this capability to carry it from sin in a right order to God at the entrance of which the soul is moved and takes the impression having taken the impression or motion it moves again and in vertue of that is said to act and consent so that this consent is not from our selves though not without our selves And thus we are put beyond any principle of our own or to be the beginners of our own work by any thing we have in our selves which cuts the sinews of the Covenant of Works and hither many times God wil bring us to our beginnings to the bare board even to leave our souls with him that he may carry us from sin to himself and act us upon himself and keep us with himself for ever Thus David Psal. 119. 29. Take from me the way of lying 〈◊〉 could not take it away himself Hos. 14. 2. Take away all iniquity they leave themselves in Gods hand that the Lord would cause them to turn from iniquity So that in this Condition it 's true to say a man hath not a principle of concurrence with God as by sanctified habits we have but the Spirit puts in us a power whereby we are carried to God The Fourth Particular for opening of the Point The behavior of the heart under this stroak and that appears in the Particulars following When this Sorrow is rightly set on and the soul rightly affected therewith the sinner hath the loath somness of corruption ever in his sight keeps it ever within his ken he could not be brought before to take to heart the hainousness of 〈◊〉 evil Ministers pressed him with it in publick others minded him of it in private forewarned him of the direful venom and 〈◊〉 that lay in those distempers of his that one day he was like to feel to the hazard of his everlasting happiness it would be bitterness in the latter end but he turned the deaf ear to al would not so much as take it into consideration not once look back into the danger of his rebellions nor listen to any thing that may force the same upon his soul but now the case is altered he that could not be brought to see sin before now he wil see nothing but sin cannot be brought to look off from it he feels now the plague of those provocations of his and finds by woful proof and experience the truth of al that formerly hath been told him and hath time enough now to recount the savory counsels those seasonable reproofs directions entreaties which would have kept him from the commssion of those evils the hainousness whereof he is not able to conceive the bitterness and poyson whereof he is not able to bear now he is constrayned to feel the sting thereof He hath now leisure to survey the folly and perversness of his spirit in former times and to sit down in silence and shame now he can seal to that as an eternal truth of God which before he east behind his back as slight and vain Oh I now see the Ministers were faithful watch-men which foresaw the danger and foretold me how dreadful the evils would be which did attend my distempers If I would not leave my sin mercy and blessing would leave me and my heart feels it so The Christians were loving and compassionate which laboured by earnest and affectionate entreaties to with draw me from the wayes of wickedness which with drew me from God by woful experience I sind it so Though it were a sharp yet it was a sure safe word that I have often heard but would never receive It were better to cut off my hand to pluck out mine eye and to enter lame and maimed into the Kingdom of Heaven lame and maimed in comforts and credit and carnal and sensual delights than to have 〈◊〉 these and go to hell where the worm never dyes and the fire never goes out and now my Conscience confesseth it is so Lord where was my mind that could not see this how hard and senseless my heart that could not be affected with this the sinner thus wounded his hand is ever upon the sore his eye upon his distemper as the extream danger that hangs over his head and the deadliest enemy that is in pursuit of his soul he sleeps wakes eats and drinks with this as his daily diet a standing dish carryes it up and down as his daily companion Psal. 51. 3. My sin is ever before me listen to him when he sighes out his prayers in secret ye shal observe his complaints run upon this confer with him enquire of his condition his speech ever returns to this point and al his questions lead stil to the discovery of the loathsomness of his rebellions As it is with a commander or General of the field when he sees the enemy come on furiously his numbers many his power great his souldiers skilful and couragious so that he sees al ly at stake the shock is like to be sudden fierce either conquer al or loose al A prudent commander seeing where the stress of the battle and the strength of the enemy lyes and the safety or ruin of the whol consists he leaves the thoughts of comforts conveniencies wife and family the profits and priviledges which he hath formerly enjoyed and prized bends al his thoughts exerciseth the utmost of al his 〈◊〉 now to defeat the enemy how to encounter him how to overcome him and this takes up the whol mind and the whol man its vayn to attend other things when the neglect of the enemyes approach is the loss and overthrow of al. So it is with a broken hearted Christian when the numberless company of those hellish abominations of heart and life lay siedg against and threaten his everlasting ruin either he must destroy them or they wil undoubtedly destroy his comforts he leaves the consideration of other things and looks to the main chance If my sin live I dye for it either I must be separated from them or they from me and therefore bends al his forces bestows al his thoughts how the hainousness of this may be forever discovered the heart forever freed from the power and authority thereof The Apostle Paul hath his sin ever in his eye he keeps it in fresh remembrance and consideration never hath occasion to mention any thing of himself but stil he strikes upon that string to me the least of all Saints and then the chiefest of all sinners I was a persecuter and blasphemer the main evil was there and his eye and thoughts were most upon that So the lamenting church Lam 5. 16. wo to us because we have sinned the plague famine and sword though they were beyond measure
work of the spirit is the treacherous formalist Formalist I tearm him because he carryes the face of religion the garbe and guise of Godliness in outward appearance and would be counted a friend to the truth so far as he may serve his own turn of it and he is content to be at league with the Gospel provided he may make his own terms and attain his own ends namely that he may have allowance in some lusts and yet 〈◊〉 honored also among the people with the title of an honest Godly and good man But when his carnal ends are not answered and the word requires more than he hath and commands more than he would do and would pluck away his beloved lust that he is loath to part withal he then begins to set up secret conspiracies in his heart against the evidence of the doctrine and therefore I cal him a treacherous hypocrite because he may happily bite the lip and go away for the while and sayes little but he bears a privy grudg against the strictness of such truths that are beyond his pitch and strain and when time comes he wil be revenged of them in the mean time his heart is inwardly tyred with them and goes off from them this the 〈◊〉 cals the counsel of the wicked when wicked hearts cal a counsel and sit in counsel against the commands of God and Job prayes earnestly that God would keep him and free him from it Job 21. 16. Let the counsel of the wicked be far from me namely a reserved resolution to have his distemper rather than to have and welcome that word that would remove it Whereas we have heard a broken-hearted sinner is willing to attend al means but those especially that would help him most and free him from his corruptions this treacherous wretch notwithstanding his pretended love to the word yet when it comes to he is willing to be rid of the word not rid of his corruption so far from being weary of his sin that he is weary of the Minister or Christian brother that would remove it of the word that would subdue it This was the temper of those formalists that followed our savior for the loaves that is the Gospel for their own ends when our savior pressed a spiritual and convicting truth upon them which might carry them beyond their own fals aymes or els would condemn them utterly as such as had no life of Grace in them unless 〈◊〉 eat the flesh and drink the blood of the son of man ye have no life in you John 6. 53. nor were it possible they should attain the life of Glory they answer This is a hard saying who can bear it it pinched them to the quick and searched the very core of their corruption and they were resolved to bear their sin but could not bear the saying of our Savior the presence of their sins was pleasant they could welcom them but the power of the Truth was hard they could not indure that nay they speak as though it were a matter impossible who hath power to submit to it truly none but a heart truly pierced with Godly sorrow and therefore it 's added verse 66. From that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him because they would walk in their own waies and wicked practices therefore they chose rather to forsake the company and Ministry of a Savior than to forsake their own distempers Thus it hath been often seen in the Country whence we came many a formal wretch hath been at great cost and charges laid out himself and estate to bring a faithful preacher to a place and when the soul-saving dispensation of the Word hath either discovered his falsness and laid open the cursed haunts of a carnal heart shook his hopes and beat all the holds he had of the goodness of his estate and batterred them before his eyes He that had the greatest hand to bring the means and Ministry unto the place ifhe cannot cunningly undermine the man he would rather leave the place than live under the Ministry that would take away his lusts This was the wound of the yong man because he wanted this brokenness of heart not being rightly burdened with his corruption nor loosened from it Matth. 19. he went away from that Counsel of our Savior that would have plucked away his Earthly covetous humor which did take place in him He went away sorrowful al the while our Saviors conditions suited his crooked ends and carnal reason he gave way and welcom to what he was advised All these 〈◊〉 I done from my youth up this is so as I would have it but when our Savior went further Go sell all that was beyond his pace and expectation and he went away he could not bear the Counsel and therefore would not hear it Thus it befals many a man that the Lord hath brought hither confined him to the narrow compass of the Covenant of the Gospel Al the while he lived at large as it were and 〈◊〉 constantly or occasionally attended upon the preaching of the Word and carried an approved kind of conformity thereunto in the Judgment and Opinion of such as only attended the general strain of his profession and so walked aloof off in way of Christian 〈◊〉 and loving entertainment of the Truth al went wel but when he comes to be foulded in the fellowship of the Faith and that men follow him home to his doors and watch him in his retired carriage and have occasion to grapple with his spirit in the specials which concern his particular 〈◊〉 as when he had failed and offended and therefore follows him with Physick answerable and appointed for the purpose a seasonable admonition poor sinful Creature he is not able to 〈◊〉 the Discipline and Government of Christ to 〈◊〉 under it he begins secretly to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 undermine the strictness of those 〈◊〉 that formerly he did como into these Parts for that he might seek them find and enjoy them as 〈◊〉 often professed It 's said of Herodias when John Baptist would give no 〈◊〉 to her lust but professed openly against it so that she must be forced to reform it or to have Gall and Wormwood with it either not have it or not have any 〈◊〉 the Text saies Mark 6. 19. she way-laid him and left not the plotting of her purposes until she procured his ruin she watched him a turn and was revenged of him So it is with a carnal heart he is so far from being troubled for sin that he is troubled he cannot commit it so far from being plagued with the corruption as Solomon speaks he that sees the plague of his own heart the plague of pride the plague of a perverse sluggish heedless heart that he is plagued and tormented with those Spiritual Truths and power of those Ordinances that wil not suffer those lusts to lodg in his bosom nor suffer him to lie and live in
them with any quiet or content Thus when sin should be grievous as the Psalmist speaks the waies and Commands of God are ever grievous to such it 's a grief to him to be counselled checked crossed in a sinful course was 〈◊〉 any man truly sensible of a burden that would not be 〈◊〉 any man oppressed with a load that would not be content to have it removed and taken away from him Of this temper were those the Lord delivered up to a reprobate sence Rom. 1. who did not delight to have God in their knowledg they bear a secret spleen against such saving Truths as would search the core of those noysom corruptions of their hearts It 's certain such never knew what Godly sorrow for sin meant since we have heard that such are willing to attend all means but take most content in those that work most powerfully for the removal of their special distempers A third sort who fall short of this saving Work is your self-conceited Pharisee who hath such an overweening apprehension of his own worth and excellency that 〈◊〉 is not able to take shame for 〈◊〉 sin therfore cannot endure to be convinced of it what he wil not do he wil not know loth to confess his course shameful and vile because then he concludes there is no color of common sence to continue in it but he must be forced to reform it unless he would openly proclaim to al the world that he is resolved to go against Knowledg and Conscience which is too loathsom and gross even to ordinary prophaneness therefore he pretends nothing but the search of the Truth 〈◊〉 further information of the mind of the Lord and if that once could appear how glad would he be to receive it and more glad to follow it because this plea is beyond exception 〈◊〉 carries an appearance of consciencious and judicious watchfulness in a mans course which cannot 〈◊〉 a Cavil but is secretly resolved of the Conclusion the reasons shal never be plain to him that would press and perswade to the practice of that which doth not please his 〈◊〉 heart which he purposeth to satisfie let men say what they can if he may have approbation and allowance from others to follow his own heart it wil be more credit for him and he shal find more ease if not he determines to do what he list without leave and allowance holds out this in his ordinary and dayly profession it 's the way of Truth he desires to find the Rule he would see the mind of God he endeavors to know and follow that he pretends but intends indeed to walk in his own way and follow his own mind and therefore if things answer not his intents suit not his expectation but Arguments seem strong that perswade to the contrary and the evidences of Reason look and lead another way he then keep afoot his old course confesseth he is yet in the dark those reasons do not carry him those arguments do not convince him he desires further light and shal be willing to submit and follow i. e. if men would be willing to submit to his conceit and follow his humor thus he holds his sin and holds his enquiry keeps off al conviction that he may keep his corruption and his course in it As we know it in the Country from whence we came some wily headed persons get possession of a living keep the Owner in suit and restless wrangling many yeers together against the evidence of their own Conscience and Reason because so long they can keep the Living and reap the Commodity of it So while men keep an enquiry and dispute what they should do all that while they do what they list but only waiting for better light Numb 23. 34. when Balaam had gone against the express Counsel and Command of God to listen to Balack to gratifie his malicious desires the Angel of the Lord met him and withstood him in the perversness of his way he crooked his way and perverted his path against Gods express charge observe how pliably he comes in to the Angels reproof I knew it not that thou stoodest in the way now therefore if it displease thee I will get me back he knew it displeased God and though he said so yet he kept his disposition and resolution to curse Israel and so to displease God still and therefore he contrives all waies to compass his 〈◊〉 and therefore here he builds seven Altars and there he builds seven Altars that he might ask leave of the Almighty and when that would not do it he went without leave Numb 24. 1. This is one part of that of the Prophet to lay hold of deceit and so of sin whereas a broken-hearted sinner as we have heard because the holds of sin are cast down and the crossness and resistrance of the 〈◊〉 removed and his soul loosened from his sin he is easily willing to be convinced sensible of the least inkling and intimation of any evil that is or shal be discovered and sits down under the Evidence of it 〈◊〉 but when Reasons are so pregnant that he cannot gainsay and Answers so undeniable that they cannot be shaken yet to stand off from the Truth with a pretence of waiting for a further discovery argues a person strengthened in the stiffness of his Spirit which holds out Truth at the staves end and was never yet subdued to the Soveraignty and Authority thereof he keeps the blow off and therefore breaks not under it shuts the Truth out of their Souls and therefore it stirs not works not at all upon the soul such are afar off from God The fourth sort is your complaning Hypocrite whose Conscience hath been awakened with horrors and fears and the heart startled with the terrors of the Almighty and affected with the sight and sence of his sins and the venom and dread of those Curses that the Truth hath revealed and fastened upon the soul he sees he is now in Gods hand and that he hath him at an infinite advantage to bear it is beyond his power to avoid it is beyond his Skil to resist is bootless and against Reáson and Sence that were to hasten his own ruin his heart is filled with grief and his eyes with tears and his mouth with heavy complaints to God to man and he is free and full this way and that usually and this he hopes may move the Lord to pity and to spare him and abate him of those plagues which he hath denounced in his holy Word and he cannot but confess he hath deserved by reason of his sin and he presumes this wil go for good pay with the Lord considering those many human infirmities that do attend us since the Fall and that it is beyond our power to help our selves and free our selves from our corruptions thus he keeps his complaints and keeps his sins he mourns over his distempers and maintains them while he doth so thus they bath
mourning and then thou shalt be delivered with success and attain the 〈◊〉 that wil stand by 〈◊〉 How may we get help against the stubbornness of but hearts against that resistance and 〈◊〉 that we find in our selves to this contrition of 〈◊〉 The Directions are Three Do not tug with this resistance in thine own power or any ability that is in thee do not in thine own strength contest with that rebellion for it 's certain this wil make it excessive rebellious when thou seemest to 〈◊〉 violence to thy self thou wilt be more 〈◊〉 nay thou wilt grow to a kind of felness and 〈◊〉 of opposition against the Work of Gods Grace Sin becomes out of measure sinful by the Commandement Rom. 7. 13. and instead of quarrelling with thy sins thou wilt quarrel with the Almighty and if I do what I can why should not God help me Mark now you are quarrelling with God and because you cannot do what you should you wil do nothing this is ordinary and usual you wil find a Hellish fierceness of Spirit upon this turn You wil say What shall I do Come and bring thy soul into Gods Presence lay thy self down in his sight and tell the Lord that thou art a Traitor and which is worse thou canst not but be so that 's thy misery make known al the base abominations of thy heart and life before the Lord and al that 〈◊〉 and opposition that thou findest in thy soul to Christ and his Grace beseech him to take away the treachery and falsness of thy heart beseech him that he would do that for thee that thou canst not do for thy self tel him that thou would'st chuse not to be rather than to be thus treacherous tel him that he hath said he will take away the heart of stone Ezek. 36. 26. and that it is not in thy power to put it away and therefore leave thy soul there beseeching him to make known himself as a God hearing prayers pardoning sins and subduing iniquities plead the Covenant of Grace and the Promises of it that al is freely and firstly and wholly from himself that he must make us his People he must make us humble and broken-hearted Look to Jesus Christ and beseech him that 〈◊〉 the Keyes of Hell and Death that he would unlock those brazen gates and doors of thy heart Rev. 1. 18. Do not fear the terror of the Truth so 〈◊〉 to step aside from under it and withdraw thy self from the 〈◊〉 of it but think of the goodness of it as a man though he fear the bitterness of the Pill yet knowing it 's a means of his health he is willing to take it So here When God moves move thou when he stirs stir thou many a man neglects 〈◊〉 stirrings of the Spirit of God and never hath the like again and then on his death bed cries for his old terrors Oh therefore when the Truth meets you and stirs you keep 〈◊〉 heart under it and follow the blow in secret and bless God that hath opened thine eye and 〈◊〉 thine heart in any measure and let thy heart lie stil under the stroak of the Truth the want of this is the reason why many a soul is so long under the workings of Contrition and never grows to any settlement because 〈◊〉 keep not their hearts under the power of the Truth which would throughly break the heart for sin 2 Kings 13. 19. The Prophet bids the King smite and he smote thrice and ceased whereupon the man of God was wroth saying thou should'st have smitten five or six times then bad'st thou smitten the Syrians till thou had'st consumed them So when God hath been grapling with thy heart and would have plucked thee out of the paw of the Lyon thou hast prayed once or twice or thrice it may be and then after a while thy care and diligence and endeavors are over thou should'st have prayed six times thou should'st give God no rest nor thy own soul any rest thou should'st never cease striking until thou hast destroyed those corruptions of thine Possess thy soul with the ticklishness and danger of that condition thou art in In regard of the secrecy and difficulty of the work how easily may I be deceived and how dangerous is it if I be a failing here can never be repaired afterward if never broken for sin then never broken from sin then never united to Christ and then thou shalt never see the face of God in Glory think how many have miscarried in this place as when a Marriner sees the Mast of a Ship he fathoms the Water and tacks 〈◊〉 and looks about him lest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we split upon the rocks also So do thou look to thy self here thousands have sunk and split themselves here and thou art in danger and know that if thou doest 〈◊〉 here thou art 〈◊〉 for ever They said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles men and brethren what shall we do Here we have the carriage of these Converts as a fruit of that piercing and brokenness of Spirit which was wrought in them by the power of the 〈◊〉 the inward disposition of the heart discovers it self by the outward expression of their speeches and 〈◊〉 here laid forth before us as 〈◊〉 special effect which followed presently and 〈◊〉 therefrom The breaking of the clouds by 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 beings a storm with it usually the 〈◊〉 in their speeches argued thunder and lightning in their spirits look how the temper and constitution of the body goes so the pulse beats in his proportions answerable the Spirits few and heart faint and actions feeble it moves marvelous weakly if the 〈◊〉 be marvelous quick and speedy the Physitian wil tel you there is a Feaver stirring and it may be hazardful that hath now seized upon the Nature of the party Look as our hearts and consciences are affected within so wil be the 〈◊〉 of our words and actions without 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 was deep and their 〈◊〉 are bitter which here they make In it observe Two things 1. The parties to whom they tender their complaint Peter and the Apostles 2. The 〈◊〉 it self The part 〈◊〉 are described and set forth two wayes 1. In regard of the office unto which they were now called Peter and the Apostles 2. In regard of that esteem and respect they 〈◊〉 them they lovingly and tenderly here greet them men and bretheren a stile and compellation that holds forth endeared affection with it so far are these men altered from what they were from what they said from what they did ere while they scorned them now honored them not long since they reproached them are not these men ful of new wine and now behold they reverence and fear before them they rejected their counsel before and are now forced to crave it yea right glad to hear and receive it In a word they repair to them as messengers of Christ they 〈◊〉 them as bretheren the
for further counsel Oh but if his old fits befal him he is then as careful to use his old Physick send presently to the Physitian for fresh counsel and advice So it wil be with the soul of a sinner when once the wound is healed God 〈◊〉 allayed the venom of the vengeance which sin brought with it the heart growes up in some evidence of the work and assurance of Gods love so that the worst is past and the 〈◊〉 is over men begin to lay aside their diet and that careful 〈◊〉 they ought to use the daily renewed repentance they should take up until the Lord le ts loose their lusts afresh their old fits and force of their 〈◊〉 distempers seem again to overbear them which hazard their truth and peace they begin to find their hearts and prayers and begin again to be awakened to the work The Corinthians were careless either of the sin or misery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persons or their own duty and careful endeavor to reforme until the Apostle 〈◊〉 sharply to them and affects their hearts with godly sorrow this set them al awork what care in what fear what zeal did it provoke them to express both in their carriage towards him and in their daily course before God 2. Cor. 19. 11. Pauls new 〈◊〉 with his corruptions and the body of 〈◊〉 makes him renew his complaints Rom. 7. 24. Oh wretched man that I am who shal deliver me from this body of death when God left a splinter in the 〈◊〉 and sent a messenger of Satan to buffet him this made him to bestir himself to purpose 2 Cor. 12. I besought the Lord thrice that is many times and with much importunity he 〈◊〉 post hast to heaven 〈◊〉 supply 〈◊〉 In the City besiedged the way to make them 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their attendance is to give the alarum upon every occasion He that is in a 〈◊〉 ague though upon his better day he feels no fit yet he is 〈◊〉 and watchful o himself where he goes and what he does 〈◊〉 he expects his fit he knowes he may hasten it and hazard his life It is so with a Christian we are in the leaguer continually though not assaulted our 〈◊〉 like 〈◊〉 lye in our bones though we have a better day now and then expect the 〈◊〉 and give the Allarum and look for our 〈◊〉 before it come that wil make us busy and watchful to prevent it that it may never come In their affliction they wil seek me early Hos. 5. last God is forced somtimes to withdraw and go away that he may force his Saints to seek after him They are ready to submit to the Ministers of God making known his mind the very words which they expresse argues such a disposition of spirit they come as Patients to the Physitian to know his advice that they may take it As clyents to the Lawyer to understand his counsel that they may follow it So it was with Paul when God set upon his heart intimates his mistake to him that it was hard for him to kick against the pricks he trembling astonished Lord what wilt thou have me to do Acts 9. 6. not his own wil but Gods he attends now not what he would have done but what God would have done Psal 45. 5. When Gods arrows are sharp and stick fast in the hearts of his enemies the people fal under him Because the pride of their carnal reason is now conquered the Lord hath dashed and confounded the overweening conceit which once they had of their own worth and the excellency of their own abilities they now see that al the wit in the world doth not keep common-wealth in their brain that their apprehensions are not Oracles but that they are and have been miserably mistaken and see now by experience the vanity of their imaginations and that they have been deluded by the darkness of their own 〈◊〉 hearts when they professed themselves wise they became fools Rom. 1 And therefore they are ready to lay down their own conceits and to follow Gods counsels they begin to 〈◊〉 and suspect their own blindness and therefore yield easily to the directions of others A man that is bewildred and hath lost himself he is content that a child should shew him the way that he conceives hath but any acquaintance with the coast So it was prophesied of Converts in the time of the Gospel Isa. 11. 6. That a Child should lead them even the meanest that brought arguments should prevail with them especially the ministers of the Gospel of whose wisdom and faithfulness and acquaintance with the way and wil of God they have had 〈◊〉 experience That stubbornness and rebellious resistance of their wills out of the soveraignty whereof they durst set themselves against God and heaven is now tamed and subdued So that they dare not gainsay but become plyable to the holy and acceptable wil of God and ready to take the impression of his good pleasure when it appears and is presented before them The hardest peble when it is broken and 〈◊〉 to pouder it wil take any impression that is put upon it So Job joynes these two Job 23. 15. 16. Job is afraid of Gods presence for God hath melted or made my heart soft and the Almighty hath troubled me and hence when God had schooled him out of the whirlwind and tamed the stiffness and perversness of his spirit see how he yields himself to Gods hand to do any thing with him even works like wax Behold I am vile once have I spoken but I wil say no inore twice but I wil proceed no further Because they have found the truth of the word and the terror and authority thereof made good upon their souls and that they cannot now but acknowledg and admire and therefore dare not but readily submit thereunto as knowing they cannot resist but with their own ruine and there own safety consists in subjection thereunto which they could never formerly be perswaded of before he found it by woful experience how terrible God hath been out of his Sanctuary Psal. 110. 3. thy people shal be willing in the day of thy power so the woman of 〈◊〉 when the truth of our Saviors speech pierced her heart like a two edged sword she then fals to admire him when before she had 〈◊〉 both his speech and practise 〈◊〉 here see the reason of that 〈◊〉 and way-ward unteachableness that sometimes appears in the hearts of Gods 〈◊〉 they are awk to know wearish to give 〈◊〉 to the evidence of Gods counsel they want broken heartedness and therefore want this measure of teachableness as it is with an unruly Colt it costs him many a blow first before he be brought to be at command so it is with the unruly heart of man which must have many sad stroaks and blows before it be throughly subdued to the obedience of Gods wil. Men never knew what sin meant almost
entertainment of their erroneous conceits If they would spread their erroneous Opinions which go under pretence of Free Grace and painted with the appearance of holiness and exactness they hearken out where any be in 〈◊〉 of spirit in trouble and distress of Conscience they fal in with them immediately and work them to their own minds and wils 〈◊〉 they are tender hearted and fearful to refuse whatever comes under 〈◊〉 color of Free Grace they are now at a stagger and unsettlement ignorant how to help themselves and therefore likely and ready to receive what help can be lent they know not what way to take and therefore may be led any way upon the sudden and at a present push These are the Devils Brokers that beguile unstable souls 2 Pet. 2. 14. And Paul was afraid that the new Converts might be cozened by the wily carriages of the false Apostles which would work upon their simplicity 2 Cor. 11 3. I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by any means as the 〈◊〉 beguiled Eve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so their minds should be corrupted from 〈◊〉 simplicity of the Truth in Christ We see in the 〈◊〉 of Fowls when one hath received a shot either to the breaking of the Leg or the laming of the wing and so lags behind their fellows not able wel to find the way or not to fly far the Fox perceives a Prey which he pursues And it is 〈◊〉 in the Countrey whence we came Kites and Buzzards observe when the Lambs fal and those they prey upon with the 〈◊〉 opportunity if not prevented It is so here These false Teaches are like these ravenous Birds of Prey and subtil Foxes If they perceive any who are of a wounded spirit that the Arrows of the Almighty stick fast in them and that they are forced to hang the wing and go 〈◊〉 and discouraged at a loss in their own thoughts they presently make a prey of such they know not how to relieve 〈◊〉 and therefore are 〈◊〉 to listen to any that wil considently pretend waies and means of relief Here is matter of ADVICE to all mourners in Zion those that the Lord now hath upon the Anvil and is melting and framing to his own mind to make them Vessels of Mercy they must be marvelous wary 〈◊〉 carefully circumspect that they be persons of approved faithfulness and sincerity to whose Counsel they do commit themselves and betrust their condition and when they 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 then they must keep 〈◊〉 prepared heart what Advice they are not able by reason to 〈◊〉 say they have then I say then when such a one of tried uprightness and faithfulness is 〈◊〉 great reason to yield unto They know not how to advise themselves therefore fall before the Advice of others they know not how to do themselves good and therefore should be content to receive good from others As it is in Nature it is so in Grace Women in Child-birth when they come to travel they wil not take every one that offers her self to do them Service but hearken after such who are experienced Midwives 〈◊〉 they attend their Counsel and take their 〈◊〉 when they are not able to succor themselves in such necessities So it is in this Spiritual new Birth and Travel of the Soul let him 〈◊〉 a man of Trust and Experience able to 〈◊〉 the Soul in the day of misery 〈◊〉 leave your 〈◊〉 to the Counsel of 〈◊〉 when you are at a loss and not able to counsel your 〈◊〉 and it 's a special print and impression of the work of Gods 〈◊〉 that be commonly carries the hearts of the perplexed and their own spirits carry 〈◊〉 to such who have been most exercised under such 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 sincerity as these came not to the Scribes and Pharisees who happily had been leaders and abettors to them in their sinful miscarriages their hearts 〈◊〉 them they were as 〈◊〉 as they and for ought that they knew as ignorant of a better way as themselves and therefore they were unable to give advice and they not willing to repair thither to ask it And it 's commonly so with such if men be left to themselves and not over-ruled with Carnal Friends or else some subtil wretches that come in sheeps cloathing press in upon them beyond either their thoughts or desires then happily they may surprize them and prevail too much and if once they gain an interest and ingratiate themselves they are hardly brought off because that which first takes place in case of distress leaves the deepest impressions upon the spirit But when men repair to the wise-hearted in their extremities take in this Truth and keep it ever with you I am ignorant and know not at this time in this necessity to direct my self therefore as I shall seek God in such means of Counsel so I will yield and deliver up my self unto that direction which in reason according to God is suggested and I have no reason but only fears and suspicions of my carnal heart to oppose So God sends Cornelius to Peter Acts 10. 6. blind men and such as are in darkness and can see no light nor way neither they should suffer themselves to be 〈◊〉 by the hand by such who can lend them light and help also A sinner pierced truly with sorrow for sin sees an absolute necessity to come out of the sinful condition in which he is Therefore they do so 〈◊〉 complain in the Text Men and Brethren what shall we do Let 's do any thing suffer any thing be any thing let 's not be nor remain in this Condition whatsoever it cost us whatever become of us They put in no provision no caution upon which they would receive Counsel or which they would desire might be allowed or granted but we wil do any thing that we may not do the Devils drudgery or the dung-hil service of sin be any where 〈◊〉 any thing rather than under the guilt and power of those loathsom abominations which have lorded it over us Therefore I cal it an absolute necessity of being quit of and coming out of this wretched estate And this Absolute Necessity may be conceived in Three things There is no terms of tolleration of sin which can be proposed there be no Articles of Agreement which can be offered no way of Composition that can come into consideration As suppose I may have with secresie with quiet with credit nay suppose my Conscience would not trouble me yea the Lord abate me of his Anger for the while nay I may suck out the sweetness of it without any suspicion without any vexation or distraction to my self for the while No this will not do the deed nor 〈◊〉 the turn if I have al these and have my sin and be a slave to that No their complaint is of the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 not of the want of these Mark 9. 49. If thine eye offend thee pluck it out if thy foot offend thee cut 〈◊〉 off it 's better to
this ground it was Naamans Servants perswaded their Master 2 Kings 5. 15. to give way to the means prescribed by the Prophet for his cure If he should prescribe some great matter thou would surely do it how much more when he saith wash and be clean if washing be a 〈◊〉 of clensing the very possibility of clensing should easily make him give way to prove what washing might do When men bore holes they drive pinns mervailous readily with much ease hope sets open the heart to any ordinance that it may easily find attendance and acceptance as the Criple to Peter Acts 3. 3. he gave car expecting something c. expectation draws attention he looked upon them as desirous to receive good look what the spring is to the watch the poyse or weight to the minute no stirring without it so is hope to our indeavors the Plough man plowes in hope sows and reaps in hope 1 〈◊〉 9. 10. hope is the great wheel which carries the life of our endeavor the runners would not run in the race the marriner sayl in the Sea were there not possibility for the one to attayn the goal the other the haven and the wise man when he would set al on going he 〈◊〉 hope on work keeps that in their eyes as that which would keep them constant in their course Eccles. 11. 6. Sow thy seed in the morning and in the evening let thy hand rest and what is the prevailing reason to provoak to such unweariable diligence its hope of good thou knowest not whether this or that wil prosper 〈◊〉 whether both alike do both if either of both may do that for us that is useful and may answer our need and expectation INSTRUCTION We here see the reason why Satan draws out all his forces useth the depth of his delusions on the one side sets all the policy and power of Hell a work on the other side and tryes all conclusions to the utmost of his skill if by any means he might hamstring a mans hopes put the distressed sinner beyond all possibility and expectation of Good and then he hath him close prisoner past recovery not once looks our for deliveance he is his own the 〈◊〉 off the hinges nor opens nor shuts to give way to them that pass in or out but rather is a trouble and stops their way It s so here 〈◊〉 Satan can but unhinge the heart of the hope and expectation of relief and help he makes the contrite soul wholly uncapable of al comfort or support there is no 〈◊〉 between heaven and him but is an out-lawed wretch an out-cast beyond the compass of Gods compassion and kindness and sits down confounded in his own accursed condition and 〈◊〉 further It is a stratagem usual and common amongst commanders in the taking of towns and walled cityes when provisions as they understand are low and short within they block up al passages there is none can come out none can go in as the scriptures speak in that kind none go out to 〈◊〉 or procure provision none come in to bring any and then they certainly conclude the 〈◊〉 is theirs they must either yield or famish in such a time the like is the policy of the enemy and its a direful 〈◊〉 and undoubtedly procures the speedy destruction of the soul that cuts off a mans hopes and blocks up the soul from the possible expectation of any good it deads the 〈◊〉 deads the ordinance deads a mans diligence no going out by endeavor to procure any spiritual release no coming in by the power of any 〈◊〉 to work any good in the soul and hence it is that the enemy darts in such temptations and by his wiles and subtilties casts a man into such a condition at least to his perswasion that its utterly beyond al consultation and consideration either of our souls or others and therefore there is no further seeking out but sinking irrecoverably in a mans distress And therefore 〈◊〉 hastens the soul in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 to pass such determinations upon a mans estate that makes him past appearance of recovery or 〈◊〉 and so 〈◊〉 the reach of reason or relief As either a mans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 past and his 〈◊〉 determined in heaven He was before 〈◊〉 worlds 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 never to be reversed or else the date of mercy is 〈◊〉 and the day of grace is past here on Earth God hath set a period to his patience and long sufferance and those are expired he wil not alwayes strive with man and it s not fit nor reasonable he should Jesabel had her time to repant allowed by the Lord and she repented not and then God cast her into a bed of 〈◊〉 and slew her and her children Jerusalem had a day of peace Oh that thou 〈◊〉 the things that belong to thy peace in this thy day but now they are hid from thine eyes after the day was over the darkness grew 〈◊〉 gross that she did not nor could not see things before her eyes and this is thy condition just saies Satan So many motions of the spirit so many checks of Conscience so many 〈◊〉 and strokes under the ordinances and yet out stood al and so the time of mercy also now it is too late Or else surpriseth the thoughts of the distressed with the hideous apprehensions and remembrance of some hellish distemper of spirit unto which the sinner is privy that its other and worse than ever he yet conceived 〈◊〉 al circumstances considered it amounts to no less than the sin against the holy Ghost for if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledg of the truth there remains no more 〈◊〉 for sin Hebr. 10. 26. and this is your case says Satan beyond al question when after many motions of the spirit and perswasions cast in many secret entreaties many misgivings of heart do not do so do not do it and yet you have dispised the very spirit of Grace you have been enlightened and had many pleasant rellishes of joy and peace under the good word of God and yet fallen back again and so fallen away therefore its impossible you should be restored or renewed by repentance Then should you pursue that which is impossible to be attained this dams up al passages he cannot endure to hear of any or attain the use of any means when its impossible to receive any benefit by al that can be used Thus Satan deals with the discouraged sinner as the thief with the weary traveller who is unacquainted with the way and lost in which he is he leads him out of the road far into the forrest without the ken and cal of any passenger or expectation of any means of relief and then he hath oppertunity to spoile him of his substance of his life also So Satan deals with distressed unacquainted with his own estate under this trouble stroak of contrition carryes him aside with such misconceivings of his
a whit the worse and the Lord loves him never a whit the less because his pressures and sorrows 〈◊〉 upon him but that is the season of Gods saving health 〈◊〉 is most neer when there is most need and our 〈◊〉 makes way for the enlargement of his love and mercy to us Joseph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prison land God is with him with his in the fire 〈◊〉 it 〈◊〉 not and the Waters that they drown 〈◊〉 God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 Isa. 43. 2. God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. 25. 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 is seven times 〈◊〉 and the three children 〈◊〉 into it then the Son of God 〈◊〉 visibly with them in the 〈◊〉 thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 all manner of 〈◊〉 then God doth al manner of good for great 〈◊〉 your reward in Heaven So that what the Apostle enjoyns the sinner now finds true by proof that we have reason to count it all joy when we fall into many temptations James 1 2 3 4. For in al those wants which out 〈◊〉 befal become 〈◊〉 and intire and want nothing spiritually and 〈◊〉 the contrite is content to bear these when he finds they do not hinder the happiness of the soul. He now finds that the presence of his sins only poysons all the Comforts he hath with a curse and 〈◊〉 off the Hope and Expectation of any blessing from the hand of the Lord in al the Dispensations in the waies of Providences or Ordinances towards him nothing can prosper Why transgress ye the Commandement of the Lord for ye cannot prosper Sin stops the passage and puts him beyond al possibility of 〈◊〉 or good 〈◊〉 to be extended towards him sor the Lords determination is past and it 's peremptory there is no peace to the wicked saies my God Isai. 57. 21. he hath said it the word is past out of his mouth and no 〈◊〉 can 〈◊〉 it You know what a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Messenger the thing was so reasonable What! peace so long as the 〈◊〉 of thy mother 〈◊〉 remain Jos. 7. 12. It 's that which the Lord professeth so peremptory I 〈◊〉 be with you no more except you destroy the 〈◊〉 thing from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God 〈◊〉 his blessing and 〈◊〉 in al the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 is the meaning he would not be with 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 Warring in 〈◊〉 going forth and coming in he wil not be with them in 〈◊〉 in receiving praying improving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shal not work Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 place a man 〈◊〉 have them but no 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 no Spirit with 〈◊〉 no Blessing upon them no good from them at al. That which poysons al the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay in truth the evil of al evils with it He now finds the removal of 〈◊〉 would set open the floodgate of the infinite favor and goodness of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in amain upon the 〈◊〉 Jer. 5. 24. your 〈◊〉 with-hold good things from you God doth not with-hold them or keep them from us 〈◊〉 onely through the desert of our sins his arm is not 〈◊〉 that he cannot help nor his 〈◊〉 heavy 〈◊〉 he cannot hear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power that he cannot nor mercy that he wil not help It s his desire Oh that there were such a heart in them that they might fear me and keep my commandements that it may go wel with them and theirs for ever 〈◊〉 5. 29. Nay he hath taken a sollemn oath As I live saith the Lord I desire not the 〈◊〉 of a sinner but that he 〈◊〉 repent and live 〈◊〉 18. 32. so that he wants not mercy but we want 〈◊〉 unworthy of the mercy he tenders uncapable Yea unwilling to receive the grace he offers Oh 〈◊〉 man that wil let him come and 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 of life freely Rev. 22. 17. If you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it God wil give 〈◊〉 and no man wants it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it s he that wil have it and it s his corruption that keeps him that he 〈◊〉 not nay is not subject nay would not be made able to receive this mercy Come out of them my people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and touch not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he offers himself readily I 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 God I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and walk with them he wil constantly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comfort them by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cor. 6. 18. 19. He wil walk up and down see their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for them answerable to al their needs and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which brings 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we should prize as a good 〈◊〉 above al 〈◊〉 things we should prize it INSTRUCTION We here seethe 〈◊〉 why the most men in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Physitian never looked for 〈◊〉 because they were never sensible of their thraldom c. REPROOF A bil of inditement to accuse and 〈◊〉 thousands giving in evidence that they never 〈◊〉 the work of God upon their souls Two sorts especially The secure sinner who is so far from seeking and coveting deliverance that he wil not take it when it s offered but is content to be in the prison of his natural condition and to lye in the boults and 〈◊〉 of his sins stil. Of this temper were those Jews in captivity that had so long lived in Babilon they were content to remain there when liberry was proclaimed and the way opened deliver thy self O Zion thou that dwellest with the daughter of Eabilon Zach. 2. 7. yet they stayed behind in Captivity stil so it is with many a sluggish 〈◊〉 he is content to perish rather then do any thing to deliver himself he blesseth himself in his misery and so is a devoted slave to the Devil as Exo. 21. 6. If when the servant had his liberty to go out free he said plainly I love my Master I wil not go out free then his ear was to be bored with an awl and he was to be his servant for ever the boaring of his ear did signify his yielding obedience to the Command of another So when Christ comes to set a man at liberty offers mercy and grace and pardon if a man then say I love my master Pride perversness and Idleness let me have and live in my sins if God say Amen thou art a bond servant of 〈◊〉 for ever thou 〈◊〉 a miserable 〈◊〉 creature for ever The sluggish professor or hypocrite that hath had some conviction of his sins and remembrance of the stings of his distempers and some promises and purposes of amendment the blow is no sooner over but al is at an end lazy prayers and feeble endeavours but when it comes to the poynt he wil do nothing he wil give you the hearing of counsels and admonitions you would think the man were in a very
before their bodies drop down to the 〈◊〉 and their souls be dragged by the Devils into Hell In case of secret 〈◊〉 If the wrong have been done either 〈◊〉 by some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of deceit or injuriously by 〈◊〉 to take away the goods of another if 〈◊〉 cannot be made otherwise God 〈◊〉 calls either to reveal the evil to some other who is faithful and may do it or 〈◊〉 the party himself who may 〈◊〉 the satisfaction 〈◊〉 I say 〈◊〉 cannot otherwise be made for if 〈◊〉 may then we should never spread a Scandal when we may cover it without prejudice of the Rule and our Brothers profit But if restitution cannot comfortably and conscienciously be made without the manifestation of the evil as in many cases it cannot then God calls for the use of this means to attain this end 2. VVhen is this Confession serious and hearty It 〈◊〉 be discerned when Confession comes to be serious and hearty if it have the equal 〈◊〉 and is made up of the 〈◊〉 following it 's then of the right make and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to 〈◊〉 course of the 〈◊〉 It must be free It comes off a hand cleverly flows naturally and ingeniously from a 〈◊〉 sinner the soul that is truly burdened doth not by a 〈◊〉 kind of unwillingness 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 duty or 〈◊〉 a retreat from the 〈◊〉 of the Truth 〈◊〉 Soldiers 〈◊〉 to do when the Service is unwelcom but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cleer and their Spirits 〈◊〉 for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceed on without any 〈◊〉 giving 〈◊〉 And 〈◊〉 appears thus in the manner of their 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 mannaging this occasion in three Things They 〈◊〉 easie to yield to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evidence is brought in against them to 〈◊〉 to any 〈◊〉 guments of weight to 〈◊〉 before the strength 〈◊〉 Reason that shal be rendred to lay forth their guilt and 〈◊〉 loathsomness of their evil 〈◊〉 they are glad of that light And therefore if men for 〈◊〉 of the right 〈◊〉 of the several and particular 〈◊〉 of a practice cannot so fully give in Evidence of the evil because it was hid srom them in some 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 for want of consideration did not pursue it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they might and ought but that there is 〈◊〉 and room left for a Cavil A distressed Convert wil not take the advantage of mens ignorance mistakes or misapprehensione to make an escape from the evidence of Truth which the Conscience tels that it deeply 〈◊〉 him or espies on every side to find a muse by the mistaking of a word to put off an apparent testimony of that which his heart knows he is faulty in and that which the party fully intended But he answers to the scope of the Question Evidence or Accusation and that which he knows to be suitable to the Nature and substance of the Charge and that which toucheth his miscarriage and that in the aim of the Speaker he sees the parties aim and is privy to his own guilt and he owns the thing and yields the Conviction this you would though your words do 〈◊〉 reach it and this is true and this was my practice and is my sin without either cavilling or excusing or mineing the matter this is the guize of the sinner that is heart-sick of sin but he that is Sermon sick or shame-sick c. he stands upon his fence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 catch for words spies out any advantage in 〈◊〉 manner of the expression if there be but the least syllable of a circumstance either too much or too little and if there be but a 〈◊〉 he creeps out at it and conceits and concludes he 〈◊〉 safe No man ever heard me say so no man can prove that I ever said those words It 's 〈◊〉 No did I Here 〈◊〉 such and such that are able to witness it from your own mouth and when testimony is produced and they constrained to yield they 〈◊〉 indeed so and so but such and such was not their expression in the mean time the 〈◊〉 is al one and the scope of the speech they wel perceived carried nothing but the reallity of the matter with it What a 〈◊〉 kind of falsness and foolish wiliness of spirit is this to 〈◊〉 the passage and power of the Truth mine own conviction and peace by a wilful 〈◊〉 filly mistake of a word And thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deal with their sins as 〈◊〉 such as be 〈◊〉 with Traitors deal with the search and enquiry after them instead of helping others to seek and find them they by their wiliness lead aside the Officers and make them over-look the secret conveyances which are most suspicious and most likely to receive them which shews they are of the pack of the Conspiracy and intend rather to hide the Rebels than to pursue and attach them The sinner truly distressed is of another temper in an easie kind of plainness laies open his heart to any 〈◊〉 of light that may discover his evil without any shifting and doubling He is suspicious of the evil of his own spirit and as willing to see them as any man besides because they more hazard his wel-fare and therefore he is willing to welcome any light that any one brings him to that end Nathans Accusation and Davids Confession are as the Voyce and the Eccho I have sinned against the Lord 2 Sam. 12. 13. he needed not to bring in the great Inquest for the Tryal So it was with Judah when Thamar his Daughter was found to play the Harlot and was now brought to her examination and so to her punishment she sends the Message to her Father in Law By the man whose these are am I with Child And she said discern I pray thee whos 's these are the Signet the Bracelet and the Staff Mark his return how easily he yields would not so much as traverse the cause or cal for a proof when the thing was plain without any brabling or cavilling confesseth the thing ceaseth any further suit no not a debate Judah 〈◊〉 and said She is more righteous than I Gen. 38. 25. In the things that are doubtful it 's usual and no more but what Conscience and Command requires to debate to see the Truth but when the fault and offence is plain then to maintain debates and eavils is indeed to devise waies how to darken the discovery of the Truth by confused quarrelling to make an escape out of a fault as a Malefactor to convey himself away in a crowd Thus fals-hearted Saul when he pretended the accomplishment of Gods wil and the execution of the work about which he was sent Come thou blessed of the Lord I have performed the commandement of the Lord to whom Samuel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of sheep and 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 c. 1. 〈◊〉 15. 14. 15. one would have thought there had been so much convicting evidence as would have stopped the mouth and sunk the heart of the man under the 〈◊〉 of so gross 〈◊〉 falshood Yet he wil
As the Magicians in Egipt professed touching the liee that wonder which the Lord then expressed though it were in a thing very little and despicable to the eye yet they confessed this the 〈◊〉 finger of God they were not able to turn their hand to that work So dost thou upon through search find this disposition of spirit that thou dost see that infinite loathsomness in thy corruptions and in thy heart being taynted therewith so noysom the plague sore of sin and thy soul and self so defiled with running provocations thereof that in truth thou art loath to see thy heart to own it or to have it which hath nothing but loathsomness in it and conceivest thou art worthy indeed others should judg so of thee as thou judgest of thy self how ever this frame of spirit may seem mervailous mean and despicable in the eye of the world know thou mayest and conclude thou shouldst this is the very finger of God flesh and blood hath not revealed this hath not wrought this in thee but the spirit which is from God That which is at ods with al the excellency that is flesh and blood that which is opposite to it and tramples upon the glory and pride of it that must needs be more than flesh and blood Ezek. 16. 2. last I wil establish my covenant and thou shal know I am the Lord thou shalt know me and own me and beleeve in me as thy God and thy Lord then thou shalt remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame When God sets open the fountain of his free grace in the soul these streams wil follow Hence then this doctrine brings in a heavy inditement against sundry sorts of men and gives undeniable evidence that as yet they never knew what it was to be broken-hearted for sin or turned savingly from sin the stupid sencelessness of whose spirits is wholly uncapable of this holy blush and confusion of face and heart First of those who through the hardness of their hearts by their constant custome and continuance in their sin are beyond the sence of it or shame for it whose faces are settled and their consciences seared with a hot iron so that there is no sting at al or check that 〈◊〉 them but 〈◊〉 a seared part is without sence or feeling they practice their wret chedness and profess it are convinced of it and go away not touched nor troubled with it shrink not retire not with any sence of fear or shame for what they have done such are never like to see the filth of their sins before they see them by the flames of the fierceness of Gods wrath in the fire of hell of this helish temper were those forlorn creatures Jer. 8. 6. I hearkend and heard but no man repented him saying what have I done they take not their sins into consideration nor attend the danger but every man turned to his own course as the horse rusheth into the battle nothing stops them or affrights them v. 12. were they ashamed when they committed abomination nay they were not at al ashamed neither could they be ashamed their minds were wholly 〈◊〉 they did not see the vileness of their sins and their hearts hardened they could not be sensible of them so the Prophet Isa. compluins chap. 3. 9. they declare 〈◊〉 sin as Sodom they commit evil openly and they are bold and brazen-faced to persist in what they do commit they sear not who know it and they shame not to own it I knew saith the Lord thy brow was brass and thy neck like an iron sinnew the heart buckles not it s an iron sinnew the face blusheth 〈◊〉 its brass harlot-like Another sort who are so far from bearing the shame they do deserve that out of their impudency they do rather cast shame upon the truth itself that would discover their sin and so the messenger that brings it Thus out of this devilish wretchedness and 〈◊〉 they dare to flout God to his face and cast scorn and contempt upon the truth rather than they wil lye under contempt themselves and therefore it is the prophet looks at it as desperate beyond hope or help Hos. 4. 4. let no man strive with another or reprove him for this people are as they that strive with the priest they contemn him and his repro of so far are they srom being content to take it or the due shame which it discovers of this stamp were those impudent scorners who jeared the Prophet to his face and made a jeast of the threatnings he delivered Isa. 22. 12. In the day the Lord called to weeping and mourning and baldness and to girding with sackcloath and behold joy and gladness slaying of oxen and killing of sheep let us eat and drink for to morow we shal dye q. d. do you not hear the dreadful threatning that Isaiah hath denounced do ye not expect to dye masters do not your hearts shake within you to hear such tidings let us not dye fasting we wil take our meat sure before our enemies take away our lives if we must dy as the prophet saith let us be merry before our death It were revealed to me saies the Prophet from the Lord of hosts surely this iniquity shal not be purged from you til you dye that is never so tel the rebellious servant of his or her rugged carriage unruly language that they have tongues set on fire of hel 〈◊〉 in wording of it slighting and gainsaying Titus 2. 9. Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters to please them wel in al things not answering again because they are stopped from answering frampfully therefore they wil not modestly and in meekness of wisdom ask counsel and direction from a Governor wish them ask your Mistres enquire of your Master no no I must not speak I promise you would I were Governor they cannot sin they must be pleased in al things whether they please God or no. Thus because their devillish heart cannot bear the truth they flout the truth and cast it away in a scorn as though they should say you may see what sweet rules the scripture gives for the Government of servants nay how unequal and unreasonable they be which is such hideous and hellish blasphemy that the heart of Belzebub in his cold blood would blush to vent it These two sorts out of a stupid impudency are not capable of 〈◊〉 there be two other sorts that out of subtilty of pride are unwilling to bear it such are those who in the third ranck seek up 〈◊〉 shameful hidings that may be imagined strugle as for life to the utmost of their power and policie that they may shift off the shame and make an escape from under that righteous reproach and contempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vileness of their carriages have justly brought upon themselves sometimes in silence burying and hiding of it As Judah his incest Gen. 38. 23. When he sent the kid
much less able to bear them and therfore expresseth himself quite contrary Let not the King say so and of the same frame he was when it came home to his own particular 2 Chron. 19. 2. When Jehu the Seer met him after the Battel and his 〈◊〉 and set a heavy reproof upon him should'st thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord therefore there is wrath upon thee from the Lord the Text intimates he was no whit offended with the Message or the man but yielded to the one and lovingly 〈◊〉 the other and set presently about the reformation When Abigail met David now upon his march so justly provoked armed also with power and rage and therefore if we should look at her that was to discover the 〈◊〉 of his proceedings and stop him therein or at David so wronged and provoked and now upon the sign as the chief Commander in the head of his troops to be 〈◊〉 and that by the voyce of a woman in reason it 〈◊〉 be conceived that ever she should have brought him whose heart was like the heart of a Lyon and now in his heat transported with wrath to have 〈◊〉 himself and 〈◊〉 down under the shame of his wrath yet Oh the power of a gracious Spirit he is content upon all these disadvantages to see his sin and take his shame with a thankful heart Blessed be God and blessed be thy Counsel and blessed be thou who hast discovered the sinfulness of my rage and hast kept me from shedding blood 1 Sam. 25. 32. and it 's not only his practice but his prayer Let the righteous sinite me it shall not break my head it shal be as a precious Oyl Psal. 141. But may not and do not many times even such who are truly gracious have their spirits imbittered and their boisterous passions carried against such who shall lay the shame upon them by reason of their sin See what 〈◊〉 did unto the Seer when he handled him hardly and dealt roughly with him Herein thou hast dealt foolishly the Text saies he was wroth with the Seer and put him into prison 2 Chron. 16. 10. As touching the Example the strangeness of the carriage his practice so gross he imprisoneth the Prophet and crusheth others who in likelihood stood for the Prophet encreaseth in his evil and grows further off from God goes off the Stage without any record of Repentance as ver 11 12. The strangeness of the carriage I confess makes me somtimes wonder where the Truth of Grace was and if a man 〈◊〉 to be troublesom and to quarrel with 〈◊〉 course he might darken the evidence of his uprightness That which is said of him is only two things 1. His heart was perfect all his daies 2. He did that which was right as David his Father To which I could say That this comparison and so perfection is only to be attended in regard of that particular at which it points namely in maintaining the Truth of Worship and therein he held it out from first to last which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether in his whol he were so the story evinceth not and his miscarriages expressed and in which he lives and dies without any record of reformation speaks dreadfully against him his last being the worst He sought to the Physitian and not unto God and so dies the same Phrase you may see used in a like sence 1 Kings 11. 6. Solomons heart was not perfect with God as Davids was i. e. Though he had truth of Grace yet he was not perfect and intire in maintaining the Truth of his Worship If a man may not be perfect in some case and yet sincere so he may be perfect in some other and yet not sincere For if the absence of it doth not take away sincerity the presence of it wil not argue and conclude it But we will keep the Road because the consent of the Judicious carries it that way and so I Answer Secondly It 's possible for a gracious heart in a present push of a Temptation to have his spirit rising and through the strength of pride and passion to be carried with dislike of the party who shal by evidence of Truth set on his sin and shame but this is but in a pang and surprisal he is not now himself this is not the man and therefore his state is not to be judged by this Nay Thirdly In case the party be not convinced of the equity and truth of the discovety and of his own evil in stumbling at the parties that dispensed it he may 〈◊〉 long in such a distemper and so proceed harshly upon such erroneous ground to be offended with such expressions because he conceives he justly may this happily may be the ground of Asa his former proceeding in so fierce a manner with the Propher as conceiving that he had gone beyond his commission and either reproved him not so justly as he should at the least not in that under and respective manner as became the power and Soveraignty of Asa or subjection which the Prophet should have remembred acknowledged to be due and this may seem somwhat probable becaus he claps him close prisoner puts him into little Ease as being guilty of no less than high Treason committed against his person Jun. in locum But while the soul is thus doluded and taken aside with a proud self-deceiving frame if we may look at the remarkable hand of God against such distempers as the example of Asa presents it before us such persons wil each day be more blinded and unable to see their sin so was he more acted by the power of it and taken aside by it so was he he puts others into prison not long after more liable to some direful destroying plagues so was he his disease strange and irrecoverable and in reason is like to die without comfort to his Conscience or honor to his name so did he In the fourth place Whatever becomes of the former example leaving secret things to Gods good pleasure the Rule of Truth stands as Mount Zion and wil never fail He that after conviction by any Instrument sent of God and revealing his way according to his wil despiseth such a messenger despiseth him that sent him Luk. 10. 16. He that after Conviction seeing the Truth and Authority of Christ stumbles yet at him and is offended at Christ it 's a note he shal be ruinated by the Lord he that falls upon this stone shall be broken to pieces he that is offended at the Lord Jesus shal perish he that is offended at such whom he sends as Messengers of his Mind and Truth and that after Conviction and Information is offended at the Lord Jesus therefore such a one must 〈◊〉 perish hath no part in the Lord Jesus nor yet were ever made partakers 〈◊〉 the saving work of his Grace He that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a contented heart is neither restlesly 〈◊〉 nor
Reasons three Because he finds that  1 The presence of other evils will not hinder him in his spiritual estate 615 2 The presence of sin alone poysons all good things to him 616 3 The removal of this would set open the flood-gates of mercy 617 Uses two hence  1 See the reason why most men prize not Salvation because never broken-hearted ibid 2 Reproof to  1 Secure sinners 618 2 〈◊〉 Professors ibid. DOCT. 17. True Contrition is accompanied with Confession of sin when God calls thereunto 619 For Explication three things  1 When a sinner is called to Confession 619 1 Publick sins must be publickly confessed 621 2 Private sins to the persons wronged 624 3 Secret sins 625 1 If a man hath confessed them to God and he hath pardoned he need not should not confess them to men 626 2 If the Lord deny pardon and power then he calls him to confess unto man 628 3 In case restitution cannot otherwise be made he must confess to man 629 2 When is Confession serious and hearty 630 1 When it is free that is when a man is  1 Easie to be convinced ibid. 2 Ready to acknowledg 633 3 And takes the evil to himself 636 2 When it is full and that in regard of ibid. 1 Relating sins as they are 638 2 The opposition of the heart against them 639 3 When it leaves the sinner base in his own eyes 640 4 When he intends to take advantage against himself and his sin by it ibid. 3 How doth Contrition bring in this Confession 641 It causeth a man  1 To see the danger of sin ibid. 2 To feel the bitterness of it 643 3 To be ashamed of himself and sin 645 Uses four hence  1 Instruction See the reason of sinful turnings and windings to hide sin 646 2 Reproof to such as think it weakness and baseness thus to confess a mans sins 647 3 Tryal whether a man hath been brought to this frame of spirit thus to confess sin when called thereunto 650 It discovers the falsness of four sorts  1 Such as out of hardness of heart and custom are without all sence of sin 651 2 Such as instead of bearing the shame of their sins cast shame upon the Truth that discovers sin 652 3 Such as seek for shameful hidings to cover sin 653 4 Such as repent of their Confessions 654 How to know we are content to take shame for sin by a right Confession of it 655 1 He opposeth not the Truth that discovers his sin and shame ibid. 2 He is not offended with the man that is the Instrument 656 3 He is not disquieted in the bearing of it 636 4 He will not chuse unlawful means to be rid of it 665 4 Exhortation to attend the duty of Confession when thou art called thereunto ibid. Be wise in chusing the Party to whom you confess He must be  1 Skilful 666 2 Merciful ibid. 3 Faithful 667 Motives to Confession  1 It 's an honorable thing ibid. 2 A matter of safety 668 3 A Means of Secrecy ibid. DOCT. 18. The soul that is pierced for sin is carried with a restless dislike against it and separation from it 670 Branch 1. Detestation or hatred of sin Concerning which for Explication two things 672 1 What is the Nature of this hatred of sin here in Contrition discovered in six Conclusions 673 1 As Adam and all his departed from God so Christ brings back all his to God in a contrary way 673 2 There is nothing in the soul can turn it from sin 674 3 This first aversion from sin is not wrought by any habit of Grace put into the soul. ibid. Reasons two Because  1 Gracious habits cannot act before they have being in the soul as the subject of them 675 2 The soul in its natural estate is uncapable of receiving the habit of Grace ibid. 4 Yet the Spirit puts forth its power upon the soul to turn it from sin to God ibid. 5 Christ as the Head of the Covenant takes away the Commission that sin and Satan had to hold the soul. 676 6 The soul in the Nature of it being forced to find sin bitter is loosened from it and so becomes subject to the power of the Spirit turning of it from sin to God 677 2 How this hatred may be discerned 680 1 It is attended with a continual fear of the deadly infection of sin ibid. 2 It seeks the destruction of sin Hence 684 1 He opposeth sin most in himself ibid. 1 He doth what he can against it 685 2 He seeks help from God in Christ. 686 2 He seeks the removal of it in others where-ever he finds it 688 3 It admits no terms of agreement 689 Reasons three Because  1 Without this there is no room for faith 690 2 Without this no expectation of Salvation from Christ. ibid. 3 Sin is the only enemy of the Soul 691 Uses two hence 1 Humiliation that there are so few in the world that know what this hatred against sin means ibid. 2 Tryal discovering such as never had this hatred against sin wrought were never contrite As ibid. 1 Careless fearless Professors 693 2 Neuters in Religion 696 3 Lazy Hypocrites 697 4 Treacherous Hypocrites 698 Branch 2. Sequestration from sin  Which discovers it self in two things  1 No allurements can entice 700 2 Nor miseries force the soul to former sins ibid. Uses two hence  1 Instruction See the reason of all revolts and backslidings want of this separation 701 2 Exhortation to seek to the Lord that he would work this in us ibid. FINIS The Names of several Books Printed by Peter Cole in Leaden-Hall London and are to be sold at his Shop at the sign of the Printing-press in Cornhil neer the Exchange Eight several Books by Nich. Culpeper Gent. Student in Physick and Astrologie 1 The Practice of Physick containing seventeen several Books Wherein is plainly set forth The Nature Cause Differences and Several Sorts of Signs Together 〈◊〉 the Cure of all Diseases in the Body of Man 〈◊〉 chiefly a Translation of The Works of that Learned and Renowned Doctor Lazarus Riverius Now living Councellor and Physitian to the present King of France Above sifteen thousand of the said Books in Latin have been Sold in a very few Yeers having been eight times printed though all the former Impressions wanted the Nature Causes Signs and Differences of the Diseases and had only the Medicines for the Cure of them as plainly appears by the Authors Epistle 2 The Anatomy of the Body of Man Wherein is exactly described the several parts of the Body of Man illustrated with very many larger Brass Plates than ever was in English before 3 A Translation of the New Dispensatory made by the Colledg of Physitians of London Whereunto is added The Key to Galen's Method of Physick 4 The English Physitian Enlarged being an Astrologo-Physical Discourse of
the vulgar Herbs of this Nation wherein is shewed how to cure a mans self of most Diseases incident to Mans Body with such things as grow in England and for three pence charge Also in the same Book is shewed 1 The time of gathering all Herbs both Vulgarly and Astrologically 2 The way of drying and keeping them and their Juyces 3 The way of making and keeping all manner of useful Compounds made of those Herbs The way of mixing the Medicines according to the Cause and Mixture of the Disease and the part of the Body afflicted 5 A Directory for Midwives or a Guide for Women Newly enlarged by the Author in every sheet and Illustrated with divers new Plates 6 Galen's Art of Physick with a large Comment 7 A New Method both of studying and practising Physick 8 A Treatise of the Rickets being a Disease common to Children wherein is shewed 1 The Essence 2 The Causes 3 The Signs 4 The Remedies of the Disease Published in Latin by Dr. Glisson Dr. Bate and Dr. Regemorter translated into English And corrected by N. 〈◊〉 A Godly and Fruitful Exposition on the first Epistle of Peter By Mr. John Rogers Minister of the Word of God at Dedham in Essex The Wonders of the Load-stone By Samuel Ward of Ipswitch An Exposition on the Gospel of the Evangelist St. Matthew By Mr. Ward Clows Chyrurgery Marks of Salvation Christians Engagement for the Gospel by John Goodwin Great Church Ordinance of Baptism Mr. Love's Case containing his Petitions Narrative and Speech Vox Pacifica or a perswasive to peace Dr. Prestons Saints submission and Satans Overthrow Pious Mans Practice in Parliament Time Mr. Symsons Sermon at Westminster Mr. Feaks Sermon before the Lord Major Mr. Phillips Treatise of Hell of Christs Genealogy Eaton on the Oath of Allegiance and Covenant shewing that they oblidge not Eleven Books of Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs lately published As also the Texts of Scripture upon which they are grounded 1 The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment on Phil. 4. 11. Wherein is shewed 1 What Contentment is 2 It is an Holy Art and Mystery 3 The Excellencies of it 4 The Evil of the contrary sin of Murmuring and the Aggravations of it 2 Gospel Worship on Levit. 10. 3. Wherein is shewed 1 The right manner of the Worship of God in general and particularly In Hearing the Word Receiving the Lords Supper and Prayer 3 Gospel Conversation on Phil. 1. 17. Wherein is shewed 1 That the Conversations of Beleevers must be above what could be by the Light of Nature 2 Beyond those that lived under the Law 3 And sutable to what Truths the Gospel holds forth To which is added The Misery of those men that have their Portion in this Life only on Psal. 17. 14. 4 A Treatise of Earthly-Mindedness Wherein is shewed 1 What Earthly-mindedness is 2 The great Evil thereof on Phil. 3. part of the 19. Verse Also to the same Book is joyned A Treatise of 〈◊〉 and Walking with God on Gen. 5. 24. and on Phil. 3. 20. 5 An 〈◊〉 on the fourth fifth sixth and seventh Chapters of the Prophesie of Hosea 6 An Exposition on the eighth ninth and tenth Chapters of Hosea 7 An 〈◊〉 on the eleventh twelfth and thirteenth Chapters of Hosea being now compleat 8 The Evil of Evils 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 Sinfulness of Sin on Job 36. 21. 9 Precious Faith on 2 Pet. 1. 1. 10 Of Hope on 1 John 3. 3. 11 Of 〈◊〉 by Faith on 2 Cor. 5. 7. Twelve several Books of Mr. William Bridge Collected into one Volumn Viz. 1 The Great Gospel Mystery of the Saints Comfort and Holiness opened and applied from Christs Priestly Office 2 Satans Power to Tempt and Christs Love to and Care of His People under Temptation 3 Thankfulness required in every Condition 4 Grace for Grace or the Overflowing of Christs Fulness received by all Saints 5 The Spiritual Actings of Faith through Natural Impossibilities 6 Evangelical Repentance 7 The Spiritual Life and In-being of Christ in all Beleevers 8 The Woman of Canaan 9 The Saints Hiding-place in time of Gods Anger 10 Christs Coming is at our Midnight 11 A Vindication of Gospel Ordinances 12 Grace and Love beyond Gifts A Congregational Church is a Catholick Visible Church By Samuel Stone in New England A Treatise of Politick Powers wherein seven Questions are Answered 1 Whereof Power is made and for what ordained 2 Whether Kings and Governors have an Absolute Power over the People 3 Whether Kings and Governors be subject to the Laws of God or the Laws of their Countrie 4 How far the People are to obey their Governors 5 Whether all the people have be their Governors 6 Whether it be Lawful to depose an evil Governor 7 What Confidence is to be given to Princes The 〈◊〉 Samaritan Dr. Sibbs on the Philippians The Best and Worst Magistrate By 〈◊〉 Sedgwick The Craft and Cruelty of the Churches Adversaries By Matthew Newcomen A Sacred Penegerick By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Barriffs Military Discipline The Immortality of Mans Soul The Anatomist Anatomized King Charls his Case or an Appeal to all Rational Men concerning his Tryal Mr. Owens stedfastness of the Promises A Vindication of Free Grace Endeavoring to prove 1 That we are not elected as holy but that we should be holy and that Election is not of kinds but persons 2 That Christ did not by his Death intend to save all men and touching those whom he intended to save that he did not die for them only if they would beleeve but that they might beleeve 3 That we are not justified properly by our beleeving in Christ but by our Christ beleeving in him 4 that which differenceth one man from another is not the improvement of a common ability restored through Christ to all men in general but a principle of Grace wrought by the Spirit of God in the Elect. By John Pawson Six Sermons preached by Doctor Hill Viz. 1 The Beauty and Sweetness of an Olive 〈◊〉 of Peace and Brotherly Accommodation budding 2 Truth and Love happily married in the Church of Christ. 3 The Spring of strengthening Grace in the Rock of Ages Christ Jesus 4 The strength of the Saints to make Jesus Christ their strength 5 The Best and Worst of Paul 6 Gods eternal preparation for his Dying Saints The Bishop of Canterbury's Speech on the Scaffold The King's Speech on the Scaffold The Magistrates Support and Burden By Mr. John Cordel The Discipline of the Church in New England by the Churches and Synod there A Relation of the Barbadoes A Relation of the Repentance and Conversion of the Indians in New-England By Mr. Eliot and Mr. 〈◊〉 The History of Monstross and his Actions for 〈◊〉 the First His passions for Charles the Second King of Scots The Institutes of the Laws of England by John Cowel Octavo A description of the Grand Signiors Seraglio or the Turkish Emperors Court By John Greaves Octavo The reigning error Arraigned at the Bar of scripture and
Covenant and shall be 〈◊〉 gotren of him by spiritual regeneration 1 Pet. 1. 3 4 He hath begotten us again to a lively hope to an 〈◊〉 heritance immortal that fades not away and 〈◊〉 serves us through faith unto salvation The 〈◊〉 must be begotten and born before he can be Heir 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So here The Doctrine formerly delivered doth 〈◊〉 dash this Imagination and 〈◊〉 If Christ 〈◊〉 sed all for Beleevers as 〈◊〉 then they must be such 〈◊〉 fore they can challenge and take this Purchase as 〈◊〉 own it is the Condition that Christ requires 〈◊〉 which he communicates all that saving and 〈◊〉 good Take these Arguments for the further 〈◊〉 of this Truth The First is taken from 1 Joh. 5. 12. He that 〈◊〉 the Son hath life in him are hid all the treasures 〈◊〉 Wisdom and Knowledg yea of Grace and 〈◊〉 and therefore it is said 〈◊〉 Father 〈◊〉 given 〈◊〉 us eternal life and that life is in his Son v. 11. 〈◊〉 is the Fountain of all blessings that hath them the 〈◊〉 that communicates them The Spirit 〈◊〉 all of God to the Saints but the Spirit takes all 〈◊〉 the Son before he so doth Joh. 16. 14 15. He is 〈◊〉 accomplishment of all promises in him they are 〈◊〉 and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. All Promises all 〈◊〉 all Life is in Christ Therefore He must be had 〈◊〉 they can be enjoyed But there is no enjoying of 〈◊〉 but by Faith 1 Joh. 12. To as many as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave power to be the Sons of God to as many as 〈◊〉 on his name We have him not before we 〈◊〉 him we receive him not before we beleeve in 〈◊〉 upon this condition God gives his Son John 3. 16. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that as many as beleeved in him should not perish but have everlasting life God gives him to none but such as beleeve God gives Salvation by him to none but by this means Joh. 17. 3. This is eternal life to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou bast sent This is the knowledg of Faith and it is said to be life because it is the only means to bring and derive life from God in Christ to us So that They who alone have Christ they only have life But Beleevers only have Christ. Therefore they only have title unto life Those only have title to Life and Salvation who are under the compass of the Covenant of Grace For there are but Two Covenants under which all men are 〈◊〉 the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Grace Rom. 6. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you because ye are not under the law but under grace Gal. 3. 17. the law which was 430 years after cannot make the Covenant of God in Christ of none effect The Covenant of Works was Do and live The Covenant of Grace Beleeve and live Adam had the stock in his own hand and might of himself by Grace received have wrought out his own Salvation All the fall'n Sons of Adam must receive it from 〈◊〉 because they have it not of themselves But I assume no man can be under the Covenant of Grace that is not under the Condition of Faith for 〈◊〉 is that only which brings him into it and estates him 〈◊〉 it and therefore Gal. 3. 9 20. this is made the proper difference and indeed the full description of 〈◊〉 in these estates they which be of Faith are 〈◊〉 with faithful Abraham They which are in 〈◊〉 Covenant of Grace are said to be such as are of 〈◊〉 of the stock and linage and generation of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrought by the Spirit and Word the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Christ thereby and so hath its 〈◊〉 birch and Being by Faith Faith giving subsistance 〈◊〉 him as he is a Christian But vers 10. They that 〈◊〉 of the Works of the law that is those that are 〈◊〉 the power of the breach of it by Adam they are 〈◊〉 the Curse they act by the power of the breach 〈◊〉 the Covenant of Works and therefore are under 〈◊〉 just judgments of God denounced against such as 〈◊〉 and die therein Hence then I Reason They who are not under the Condition of 〈◊〉 Covenant of Grace they cannot be assured groundedly of their good estate But they who are not Beleevers are not under 〈◊〉 Compass and Condition of the 〈◊〉 of Grace And therefore they cannot be assured of 〈◊〉 good estates They who are really and in truth in the state 〈◊〉 Condemnation they cannot have any grounded evidence of their Salvation and Comfort therefrom because these two are opposite one to another professedly contrary one against the other and therefore can 〈◊〉 more possibly agree together then to be darkness 〈◊〉 light to be in Hell and Heaven together But he 〈◊〉 is without the grace of Faith he is Condemned already he is now under the Sentence and Doom 〈◊〉 utter Condemnation 〈◊〉 3. 18. He is cast in all 〈◊〉 Courts in Heaven and Earth the Law condemns 〈◊〉 because he doth not Do it the Gospel condemns 〈◊〉 because he doth not Beleeve it he cannot satisfie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor yet comes up to the Condition of the 〈◊〉 Therefore Faith is said to be counted for 〈◊〉 Rom. 4. 9. and Rom. 3. 30. It is one God 〈◊〉 justifies the Circumcision by Faith and the 〈◊〉 through Faith It is the common way 〈◊〉 indeed the only way whereby Justification is 〈◊〉 to all the Sons of men who shall ever be made 〈◊〉 thereof This is the 〈◊〉 going link of Pauls 〈◊〉 Rom. 8. 30. Whom he called them he justisied 〈◊〉 whom he justified them he glorified It s as 〈◊〉 to be Justified before we be Called as it is for 〈◊〉 man to be 〈◊〉 before he be Justified and this 〈◊〉 Calling out of World Sin and Self unto God in Christ undoubtedly includes the Work of 〈◊〉 in it and ever leaves spiritual and saving 〈◊〉 and qualifications upon the Soul Hence 〈◊〉 He that is really under the state of Condemnation cannot challenge any interest in eternal life or have any evidence that his estate is good But he that Beleeves not is Condemned already Called he is not Justified he cannot be in this Condition Therefore he can Challenge no Interest in nor hath any grounded Assurance of Eternal Life A Second Case of Conscience Whether the Spirit of God doth not or may not by a special and immediate revelation witness some spiritual good as pardon of Sin Adoption Justisication to a man before he doth Beleeve It s true a man himself cannot by discourse make it good to himself or to another unless he have Faith But may not the Spirit of God witness to him without and before Faith The Answer is Negative The Reasons 〈◊〉 Two That which is a Falshood and an Error 〈◊〉 the Covenant of Grace the Spirit of God never 〈◊〉 nor will