Jeroboam that he only of the house of Jeroboam went to his grave in peace because there was some good thing found in him Sometimes and most ordinarily God worketh upon peoples hearts in their riper state of which are the most plentiful instances in Scripture You read of the thief upon the Cross converted in the last day of his life and what we find in Scripture we find God still doing in the dispensations of his Providence The age in which we have lived hath afforded many instances of children whose hearts we may charitably judg from the accounts we have had of them God had in their very childhood Regenerated and Sanctified them Blessed be God we are not without some instances of persons and those not a few whom God hath wrought upon in their more adult estate and some also in their old age though Examples of that still are and ever were very rare This is the first variety obvious to every Eye 2. A second variety observable is in the means which God is pleased to make use of For these God never tied himself to the same means The preaching of the Gospel was always made use of by God as the most ordinary means It was at the preaching of Peter that Three Thousand Souls were in one day converted and the Apostle telleth us that it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believed 1 Cor. 1.21 And the Apostle tells us that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God But yet God hath made use though more rarely of other means the means which God first used to the Eunuch seems to be his reading in the Prophet Isaiah Sometimes God made use of Providences you read of many converted and induced to believe in Christ upon the account of his Miracles and still God is pleased to use the same variety of means Generally indeed God maketh use of the preaching of the Gospel sometimes he sanctifieth the reading of the word sometimes he maketh use of Providences I think I have sometimes read concerning Waldus the Father of those ancient Protestants called the Waldenses that the seeing of one of his companions suddenly drop down dead was the first means of his conversion we read of a great dread that fell upon People upon the sudden death of Ananias and Saphirah My self have known one that would acknowledg that his hearing of Bells Ring for persons dead was a great means to beget serious thoughts in him First of turning unto God It pleased God to make use of Manasses his Chains to turn his heart and the imprisonment of Paul Acts 16. to convert the Goaler and his whole Family Sometimes God useth the instructions of Parents sometimes one means sometimes another as it pleaseth him 3. A third observable variety respecteth The manner of Gods working upon Souls It is true in some especially two respects God dealeth a-like withal 1. He forceth no Soul he indeed maketh it willing and giveth to will but the Soul in its conversion to God moveth willingly and freely 2. Secondly He putteth forth an Almighty power as to every Soul that is converted The Soul is made willing but it is in the day of the Lords power Psal 110.3 But yet the effects of this power are not always the same all are not drawn in the like manner some are drawn by a Silken Thred others by Iron-Fetters some God works upon in a more rough way some in a more soft and gentle way Some are a little or not at all under the Spirit of bondage others are Months and Years under it they are filled with the Lords terrors and cry unto him out of the belly of Hell before he heareth them some are drawn with the Cords of love only others with the Chains of fears Some are as it were insensibly drawn and the Spirit of God as it were slippeth into their Souls without any noise they become Temples of the Holy Ghost and there is neither the noise of Ax nor Hammer heard about the Spiritual building others are terrified like the Jaylor Acts 16. cast down to the Earth like Paul both in order to conversion and their reception of converting Grace 2. Secondly You shall observe That God sometimes makes his way to the heart by the head sometimes he begins at the heart and by that maketh his way to the head my meaning is sometimes God begins his work upon knowing persons who have been Catechised out of the Law and from Children have had a knowledg of the Holy Scriptures sanctifying their first Principles to them and reflecting upon their Hearts and Consciences the notions of truth which they have been bred up in the Holy Spirit bringing to their remembrance what of God they have formerly heard from Ministers Parents or Goverours As to others God maketh his way from the heart to the head They have great degrees of ignorance as to the truths of God but God blesseth his word so far as that they can apprehend they are in a lost condition and must look for another righteousness besides their own and take up a new course of life they hear of a Saviour come into the World of a fulness in him and a readiness to save unto the utmost those who by faith come unto him this makes them to inquire return and come to seek for Spiritual knowledg as for Silver and to dig for it as for hidden treasure and by following on to know the Lord they came to know him But this is enough to have hinted you as to the varieties to be observed in Gods methods of working in the conversion of Souls Let me in the next place shew the reasonableness of the Divine workings in this great work 1. And first as to the variety observed in point of time 1. Some are converted young Possibly God may do it that he may Crown the indeavours of Parents Governours and thereby engage others to take care of the Souls of their Correlations committed to their charge Some Parents are very solicitous for the Spiritual good of their children whetting upon them their lost condition by Nature often minding them of Eternity and calling upon them to remember their Creator in the days of their youth now where any will do this God takes notice of it and will often Crown those Domestick labours with a desired success for the encouragement of others God gives in to their prayers the Souls of their Children oft-times while yet they are Children It is said of Monica the Mother of Augustine that she was a woman of many tears and prayers for her Son and Ambrose was wont to comfort her telling her that it was impossible that a Child of so many tears should perish It is not impossible indeed that some should perish who have been Children of many tears and prayers for whom godly Mothers have travailed in pain again till Christ should be formed in them there is no merit in our prayers and tears neither hath
them This is no observing of them Observing them argues a fixing of the eye of the mind as well as the body upon them without which a transient view of them is of very little significancy and import unto men 2. In a diligent reposing them in our minds this is that which we call a remembring of them The Lord doth his great work to be had in remembrance This is a consequent of the other we remember little of those things we only cursorily view as they come before us but when we six our eyes upon them and apply our minds to the knowledg of them then we remember them 3. In a continued and repeated view of them and reflexion upon them That man that suffereth not the great and daily workings of Divine Providence to pass by his eyes as a tale passeth through his ears which he heedeth not nor applieth his mind unto but fixeth his eye and mind upon them lodgeth them in his memory frequently reflecteth upon them repeateth and re-considereth them in his thoughts that is a wise man and he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord And that brings me to the second Question in the Explication of the Proposition Quest 2. How is he wise how is it an argument of wisdom and doth he appear to be a wise man who observeth these workings of Providence Wisdom is sometimes taken in a larger sense so a knowing understanding man is a wise man sometimes in a stricter sense as it signifieth a practical habit directing the life and conversation sometimes as comprehending both and so I shall take it in the Proposition He is a wise man he will have more knowledg and understanding than another man and will know better how to order and direct himself in the several parts of his Conversation 1. He will be a more knowing and understanding man We use to say Experience is the mistris of fools Experience maketh a fool wise and indeed without it notions give little wisdom we speak in the commendation of the ablest persons in any art or profession such a one is an experienced man and the more experienced any one is in his art or course the better you account him in it Nothing is so well learned by rule and precept as by example and president Hence it is a common maxim of these times That the study of books accomplisheth none so much as the study of men doth Knowledg is much increased by experimental observation By this Much of the knowledg of God will be let into the soul We cannot see God as he is in his own light we must behold him in his word and in his works From the Word of God we get a great knowledg of God what he is as to his Divine Being and in his glorious Attributes but the knowledg which we have of God from his Word is both confirmed in us and increased by his works of Providence and our observation of them as well as of his great work of Creation And that 1. As they establish the Proposition of the word and confirm our faith in it Psal 48.8 As we have heard so haeve we seen in the city of our God God will establish it for ever Demonstration confirms us in our notions The Church had before learned it that God would establish his Church but now they were confirmed in it when they had seen it in the Works of Providence what they had before heard from the mouth of Gods Prophets and Messengers indeed a notion is but a probationer in our souls until we come to have it established by Faith and Demonstration 2. An observation of Providence doth also increase knowledg as it expounds to us the word of God and giveth us a more certain clear and distinct knowledg of the revelations of it We do not know how to expound some words of God but as we are taught the meaning of them by his Providential Dispensations in the fulfilling of it Gods dispensations in the world both toward his Church and the enemies and persecutors help us to understand both his promises and his threatnings 2. He who observeth the motions of Divine Providence will also know better how to order and direct his life I told you that Wisdom strictly taken is a practical habit directing this He that thus observeth will best know how to order his Conversation But will some say Is not this to make Providence our rule I answer It is one thing to make the Providence of God an argument to justifie our actions which the word condemneth Another thing to take occasions from Providence for the performance of our duty Providence alone is no rule of our actions but the word which is the rule of our actions is more sealed and confirmed to us by Providence Though Providences give no rule yet they wonderfully confirm and establish a rule when what we have read and heard in the word we see in the dealings of God it giveth a new life and makes a new impression of the rule upon our hearts God hath said Blood-thirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days and honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God give thee Now when we see God cutting off cruel and bloody men in the strength of their years or cutting off a stubborn and rebellious Child in his youth it wonderfully confirmeth the word to us and helpeth us to guide our Conversation so as we may not tread in their steps and be partakers of their Judgments 2. Again Though Providence be no rule as to particular actions yet it is a great help to us as to the three great principles of all our spiritual actions which are Faith Fear Love It is true the Proposition of the word is the object of our Faith when a soul giveth assent to the Proposition of the word because of the Authority of God who hath revealed it and this is the reason why wicked men though they have the Scriptures as well as others yet walk not in the light of them because they believe them not they assent not to the Propositions of Truth that are revealed in them but either say in their heart That it is but the fancy and invention of men or else flatter themselves with the hopes of impunity saying with those in Deuteronomy That they shall have peace although they walk according to the imaginations of their own hearts But now when a man observeth the Providence of God exemplifying and verifying the Word of God it much helps his faith in the word especially as to those in whose heart God hath wrought a previous habit of Faith It is true in this case the Providences of God will do little alone we have the words of Christ They have Moses and the Prophets if they will not believe they will not believe if one should rise from the dead But where a soul is first taught of God to give
Spirit for tolluntur in altum ut lapsu graviore ruant they are set in slippery places they are mounted up to Heaven but they shall be thrown down to Hell It will be a great piece of a sinners infelicity in Hell that he hath had an external felicity upon earth But I have shewed you this largely in the opening of the Doctrine This is enough to have spoken to the first thing in a Christians duty under such a dispensation 2. I proceed to a second thing wherein the duty of a child of God lieth under such a dispensation of Providence as I have been discoursing of That is living a life of faith This is called Trusting in the Lord vers 3. Committing our way unto the Lord vers 5. Resting on the Lord vers 7. Trust in the Lord vers 3. and verily thou shalt be fed it may be read and is read by some Feed upon truth the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Psalmist useth three or four words here expressive of this Duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some translate hope so the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all translate feed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 devolve it is also translated dirige detege confide the last word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some translate expect some beg or desire The first word is used vers 3. which as I told you some translate hope some translate trust there is no great difference for all hope doth imply trusting and no man trusteth but he will hope I will turn you to some other texts where the same word is used Psal 25.2 O my God I will trust in thee let me not be ashamed Prov. 28.26 He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool Jer. 7.8 Behold you trust in lying words that will not profit Psal 118. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man In short it signifieth to repose a confidence in another for the effecting of something for our advantage from which act of the mind proceedeth another which is hoping which is the souls motion in expectation of a thing The second expression as we translate it is verily thou shalt be fed as others feed on truth It is the word that is ordinarily used in Scripture and translated truth the word translated feed is also what is ordinarily so translated those that translate it verily take it adverbially but how 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated thou shalt be fed I do not understand and therefore prefer the other reading of some learned men and feed upon truth so truth is the object and feeding signifies the act And thus it beareth a proportion to that Text Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by faith wicked men feed upon the wind Hos 12.1 upon Ashes Isaiah 44.20 But saith the Psalmist feed thou upon truth the truth of Gods word It may be thou canst not feed upon bread thou haste not that to eat but if thou canst not feed upon bread feed upon the promises feed upon truth O doctrinam auream saith a grave Author debere 〈…〉 â—â—stram alimoniam omnem vitam in hac terra conjunctam habere fidem O golden sentence that all our livelihood in this world is faith A third expression is Commit thy way unto the Lord Ar. Montanus translateth it roul the Arabick version discover thy way unto the Lord the word is used Gen. 29.38 and they shall roul the stone Prov. 26.27 He that rouleth a stone it shall return upon him The fourth time is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we translate it rest in the Lord others be silent to the Lord So Lam. 3.26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait I shall not much insist on that word there is a double rest 1. A rest of confidence 2. A rest of silence of which more when I come to speak of the duty of patience under this dispensation You have heard the words expressive of the Act there are two words in these verses that express the object of this Act Truth The Lord Jehovah God is the objectum quod Jer. 17.3 4. Cursed be he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm God is the object which the soul is to trust in The word of truth is the next object the object by and through which and upon the account and incouragement of which we trust in God at such a time The object of faith is the truth power and goodness of God revealed to the child of God in the word There are usually mentioned two acts of faith The first is called Assent by which the soul agreeeth to the Proposition of the word as a true saying The second is an Act of recumbency a resting upon the promise a resting upon Gods truth power and goodness as declared and held forth in his word This is that which prophane persons in our age to shew their Atheism as well as wit call a lolling upon Christ and his promise Rolling our selves and resting upon Jehovah and upon the word of truth are as you see Scripture-terms of which we need not be ashamed Hence if you ask me what it is for the soul of a Christian to live by faith in an evil time I answer it lyeth in two things 1. In the souls fixed and steady assent unto those Promises which God hath made to his People suted to such a dispensation These are many and more than one sort they are written in the Scripture and brought to our minds by reading and by hearing the word of God the business of faith is to unite the soul to these words and to command the soul into a fixed and steady assent to them that the soul shall no more doubt of the fulfilling them than of any thing of more sensible demonstration These Promises might be brought under several heads I intend not to inlarge this discourse so far as to treat of all I shall only instance in two sorts and speak something to them 1. The first is those promises which God hath made for the destruction of wicked men though set upon the highest pinacle of honour power and prosperity of which you have divers in this very Psalm vers 2. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither like the green herb vers 9. For evil doers shall be cut off vers 10. Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be So vers 13 15 17 20 22 28 38. Psal 1.4 They shall be as the chaff which the wind bloweth to and fro The Scripture is full of such words as these 2. The second sort are those Promises which God hath made for the protection and preservation of his people under the pressures of ungodly men Psal 125.3 The rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous Psal 46.5 God is in the midst of his Church therefore it
by the way of efficiency Therefore God must be the Author or these Divines make him the Author Or because God is the Author of his own judgments and paenal dispensations and God sometimes punisheth sin with sin therefore God must be the Author of sin taken properly as it is an oblique action contrary to his Law This is forsooth their proof of that crimination when-as there are no Divines in the world but think it not only blasphemy but non-sense to talk of God as the Author of sin which must be an action contrary to the will liking and approbation of God as the very nature of sin doth import 2. Their second Crimination is That God hath damn'd his creatures out of his meer Prerogative and Soveraignty We do indeed think and must so think till our Adversaries can possess us with other Idea's and notions of God than either Scripture or reason will help us with That there is nothing which either hath or shall come to pass in the world but God did know from all eternity neither can we conceive how God should know any thing but because he willed it either in a way of efficiency or to permit it We do say that God had a jus absolutum from eternity an absolute right over his creatures to determine how he pleased concerning them But we also say That in his paenal dispensations he acteth not according to his Soveraignty and absolute right and that every mans destruction is of himself and the proximate and meritorious cause of the punishment and eternal ruin of any Soul is his own sin God doth not condemn any Soul but for sin recompensing their own iniquities upon their heads and whatsoever is absolute and Soveraign right his Law from which he never varieth in the motions of his Providence is The soul that sinneth shall die Where is the difference then What maketh this great clamour and odious representation of eminent Divines as to the method of Gods proceedings in his actual Providence Papists Arminians Calvinists all are agreed That the wages of sin is death The soul that sinneth shall die God will condemn none but for sin Only it seems they are not agreed as to the Nature and Attributes and Prerogatives of God Those Divines whom they call Calvinists must assert God to have the same Power over his creatures which a Potter hath over the clay This the other will not understand though God expressly told it the Prophet Jeremy and the Apostle from him hath expressly told it us and this is all the difference that I can understand 3. Vse Thirdly you may from hence learn How the Righteousness of God shall be cleared in the last day in the condemnation of sinners although it hath not pleased him to give to all a power to that which is truly and Spiritually good This is a point which very many in this Generation also will not understand but the fault is in themselves If God say they hath not given to all men a power to repent and to believe how shall he be righteous in the condemning of Sinners There is no consequence at all in this but upon this Hypothesis That except men have a power to do that which is Spiritually good they are in no capacity to do that which is morally evil Whether they have a power to repent or to believe without the effectual Grace of God yea or no Certainly they have a power in a thousand things to break the Law of God yea and to do also many things which are contained in the Law of God and although the doing of these things would not save them yet certainly the omiting of them or doing contrary to them may give God a righteous cause to condemn them Suppose one of you who are Fathers to have two Sons both of them wild and fond of their play and eager at it you call them both to come to you and tell them that if they will come you will give them both mony to go and buy such things but if by such a time they have not those things and appear to you in and with them you will certainly whip them One of these Children hearkens to you leaves his play comes running to you and begs the money you promised him then procures the things and appeareth to you in the habit you desired and you are well pleased with him The other Child is mad of his play which if he would he might leave he could not have the things without mony out of his Fathers Purse but he will not leave his play nor stir a foot towards his Father nor so much as ask his Father for mony his Father indeed sends him no mony but shuts him out of his sight and ordereth him to be severely whipt because that he would not leave his idle game and come to him and ask the mony of him which he promised and because he had not bought the things and appeared before him in that habit and dress which he had commanded will not one say this foolish Child is right served shall his Father be judged unrighteous or severe because he gave the Child no mony as he did the other and the Child could come by the things without mony and if it had them not could not appear in or with them before his Father The case is much the same betwixt God and us God seeth two Men or Women both his Creatures alike in Adam both born in Trespasses and Sins wildly playing over the hole of the Asp and the den of the Cockatrice sporting themselves in Sin and in an hourly danger of Hell-fire God calleth them by his Ministers to leave their Sins and to turn unto him he saith let him that hath been drunk be drunk no more let him that hath been unclean be unclean no more let him that hath told a lye that hath broke my Sabbaths lye and break my Sabbaths no more let him read my Word and hear my Word and let him come and pray unto me and beg of me an heart to believe and to repent and I will give it him and he that believeth shall be saved but in the great day it shall be found That he who hath not repented and hath not believed shall be damned One of these sinners leaveth off his leud courses falls to an external Discipline readeth the Word heareth the Word of God applyeth himself to God by Prayer beggeth of God an heart to repent and to believe his Gospel God hears him gives him a power gives him repentance unto Life and a saving Faith in Christ and he obtaineth everlasting Salvation The other is mad of his Lusts and after them he will go let what will be the issue of it he will not read the Word not hear that his Soul may live nor so much as ask special Grace of God not to plead with God for Faith or Repentance God giveth them not to him he dieth in his impenitency and unbelief God throweth him into Hell
in Scripture I find three Answers to this Question The one is that of St. Peters Acts 2.31 Repent and be Baptized another is that of St. Paul Acts 16.31 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved The other is that of our Saviour to the young Man asking him What good thing he should do that he might inherit Everlasting Life Saith our Saviour Keep the Commandments Those three Texts will give you compleat directions 1. Keep the Commandments You will reply but you tell us that no Man is able to keep the Commandments but because you cannot do all which God doth require can you do nothing Well but you will say Shall we be saved if we do all that we can to keep the Moral Law I Answer No What then 2. St. Peter tells you Acts 2.38 Repent and be Baptized you will reply but it is God who must give repentance unto life True we say God must change the heart the Blackamore cannot change his skin nor the Leopard his spots But cannot you consider your sins Cannot you turn from open sins Do what in you lieth in order to your Repentance Well but you will say If we do this Is this enough I Answer No What then 3. St. Paul telleth you Act. 16. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved Still you will say But is not Faith the gift of God Have we a power to believe We Answer No It must be given to men on the behalf of Christ to believe But cannot you read the Word of God Cannot you come and hear the Word preached When you have heard it Cannot you meditate therein Cannot you apply your souls to the Word though it be Gods work to apply the Word to your souls and make it to dwell in you Cannot you beg of God a power to believe God will not be wanting to that soul that is not first wanting to it self The difference betwixt us and the bold Patrons of free-will lies here They hold that a man hath a natural power and ability to actions formally and spiritually good This we deny but yet say That man hath a power to actions that are morally and materially good and if he would go about as far as his Natural power would help him though indeed he could merit nothing at the hand of God We do not believe that God would be wanting to him as to habits of spiritual and effectual grace Now this is that which I am pleading with you for that you might not destroy you selves 1. That you would not give your self a liberty and let your selves loose to do things contrary to the Law of God wherein you might restrain your selves 2. That you would not neglect to do those things which God requireth of you and which are in your power to do I shall conclude this but with Two very weighty considerations 1. No punishment is more justly and smartly inflicted than that which a man hath chosen and wilfully brought upon himself when a man hath chosen death rather than life and judged himself unworthy of everlasting life and despised his own mercy certainly every man must say he is justly punished and adjudged to that portion which he hath chosen to himself 2. Secondly As no punishment is so justly and smartly inflicted so none is more intolerable to be born There will be in Hell another fire which shall never go out but this will be the worm that shall never die I have done and shall shut up my Discourse with the words of Moses I have this day set before you life and death blessing and cursing I have told you which way you must go down into the pit of destruction if ever you come there you must of your selves go into it O let not your destruction be of your selves especially considering what God hath done and what he is daily doing to evidence that in him is your help if you will apply your selves unto him SERMON LI. Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the Law shall also perish without the Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law THE business I am upon as you know is the expounding some hard Chapters in the Book of Divine Providence I am upon the last head upon which I propounded to speak to some appearing difficulties viz. Gods unequal dispensations of Grace whether such as are more common or such as are more special and saving as a basis to this Discourse I have premised and handled Two preliminary Propositions 1. Prop. That God in the dispensations of his grace acteth by Prerogative in a way of Soveraignty freely and unaccountably 2. Prop. That in his paenal dispensations of this nature he never proceedeth but justly upon the previous demerits of sinners I now come to speak to some Questions relating to these dispensations of Divine Providence The Two first of this nature which I shall speak to relate to Gods unequal distributions of common grace but such as are spiritual means in order to the obtaining of special and effectual grace and his unequal distributions of special and effectual grace without which none can be saved I shall put both these together and for a short Discourse upon these I have made choice of this Text. The business of the Apostle in this excellent Epistle is to establish the great Doctrine of the Gospel concerning the Justification of the soul before God by the righteousness of Christ on Gods part imputed and reckoned to sinners and on mans part apprehended and applied by Faith in opposition to the Doctrine of the Doctors of the Jews who held the Justification of the Soul by the works of the Law In opposition to whom he had laid down his grand Proposition Rom. 1.17 That the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith That is That righteousness wherein a Soul another day must stand just and righteous before God is not a righteousness of our own arising from our performance of the Law but the righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel which is apprehended and made ours by Faith His first Argument by which he proveth this is obvious to any considerate Reader If any be justified by works they must either be the Gentiles or the Jews but neither are the works of the Gentiles such as will justifie them Nor are the works of the Jews such as will justifie them As to the Gentiles he proveth at large Chap. 1. That their works were such as were so far from Justifying them That the wrath of God was revealed against them for the wrath of God is revealed against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and as he at large sheweth the works of the Heathen were works of most notorious ungodliness and unrighteousness and therefore could not possibly justifie them So in this Chapter he proveth that the works of the Jews were not such as could justifie them before God for though they condemned
to the matters of the Gospel which his Country-men did not own especially those who had Educated him for after the strictest Sect of Religion amongst the Jews he liv'd a Pharisee so that his scandalous actions were bottomed only upon a mistake But others now are prophane by a principle What principle not a principle of error in the understanding not rightly conceiving of the truths of God But a principle of malice and hatred in the will and affections to any thing which crosseth their lusts they hate the image of God where-ever they see it they would have the strait-gate wide enough for Drunkards Adulterers Sabbath-breakers Lyers all sorts of sinners against the very light of Nature and Reason and the most indisputed Texts of Scriptures to enter in and persecute all those who oppose them in this thing a sin under the Gospel very near to if not the sin against the Holy Ghost you never read of one of these converted Now these and such-like other prophane persons are not only scandalous in the Eyes of Gods people but in the Eyes of the men of the world and although God sometimes changeth the hearts of debauched and prophane persons though seldom the hearts of persecutors from this principle yet he rarely suffers them to excel or to be in any eminent station or of any remarkable note in his Church when-as therefore he designeth any soul to any eminent station or place in his Church or to do him any eminent service in any civil state the Providence of God ordinarily seizeth upon their hearts in their youth and keepeth them from those debaucheries in their life as may expose them to the obloquie of the world and make them say Is Saul also amongst the Prophets For a former prophane and notoriously scandalous life would much hinder that reputation of theirs in the eye of the world which is necessary in a rational way to make what they shall afterwards say and do for God acceptable unto the world Hence it is that you shall observe that Ministers if they be leud in their lives seldom or never do any good in their places Ducimur praeceptis trahimur exemplis they are reasonably judged but to act a part who call men to holiness and live unholily themselves every one is ready to say to them Physician heal thy self and to say within themselves If these men did in very deed believe what they talk to us they would not themselves live contrary to what they teach And although a converted soul who hath formerly been prophane doth not so yet his former life is a wound upon his honour and reputation which is of great concern to those to whom he preacheth God therefore ordinarily where he designeth a person for an eminent station or work doth prepare him for it seizing him when young for himself 4. Fourthly God calleth some in their old age at their very last hour That there may be no room left for any soul to despair of Divine grace It was Augustines Observation of old He called one that none might despair and but one that none might presume God calleth men into his Vineyard some of them at the eleventh hour that the oldest sinners might have hope that the most decrepit sinner might not say I am a dry tree it is too late for me to think of repenting and turning unto God yea indeed God may be conceived for this reason to call some at all hours some at the sixth some at the nineth some at the eleventh hour that sinners in all the periods of their lives might have hope and some grounds of incouragement to turn unto God when they see that at all hours some have been converted and turned unto God and have found favour with him But this is enough to have spoken to have shewn you the reason of the variety which the Providence of God shews us as to this his first work of conversion and bringing home souls with respect to time Let us now a little consider the reasonableness of the Providence of God making use of a variety of External means most ordinarily I told you he maketh use of the publick preaching of the Gospel Thus you read of most in Scripture converted sometimes of the private instruction of friends Thus when John the Baptist's preaching had been blessed to send Two of his Disciples unto Christ Andrew being one he brings Peter his Brother and when Christ had found Philip Philip was an instrument to bring Nathaniel and the woman of Samaria Joh. 5. was an instrument to commend Christ to those of her City though indeed when they came to hear and see Christ they told her That now they believed not so much for what she had told them as for what themselves had heard and seen and sometimes God maketh use of other Providences as I have more largely shewed you in my former Discourse Now this is very reasonable 1. That God may honour his own Ordinances He hath appointed the foolishness of preaching for the salvation of the Elect. He hath said Hear and your souls shall live He hath told us that Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God and hath told us How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher or preach except they be sent It is but reasonable therefore that God having set up such an Ordinance as Preaching and established such an order of Officers in his Church as that of Pastors and Teachers should in the ordinary and most usual course of his Providence concur with it and bless it and the labours of those who are employ'd in it to the conversion and bringing home of souls He hath said of old Wheresoever I record my name to dwel there I will meet my people and bless them Gods name is stamped upon the Ordinance of Preaching he hath Commissionated his Ministers to go Preach and Baptize he hath told them that he will be with them to the end of the world God must honour his own Institution and give a being to his own word 2. Yet secondly It is also reasonable that we should understand That God is not tyed up to any means and know that Conversion is Gods work not a Ministers Paul may plant and Apollos may water but God must give the increase now this would not be understood if God never used any other means than the preaching of Ministers to convert souls God will therefore sometimes work immediately sometimes by different means Reading the word as in the case of the Eunuch the counsels reproofs and exhortations of others as in the case of Peter and Nathaniel Afflictions as in the case of Manasses Miracles as in the case of many of whom you read in the Gospel that they were converted to let us see that God although he useth means yet is not limited to them 3. Thirdly God may be conceived to use the means of private instructions and counsels for
in spiritual nourishment Though it be true in Bodies that all who are fed with the same bread and drink the same drink do not thrive alike yet suppose a body to be fed with improper food or not to have half enough it is no great wonder if it doth not grow so fast as another body that hath a plenty of food and that food too which is good and proper for it It is the same case with the soul that also must have its food The souls food is the Scriptures Ordinances Influences For the first indeed we have them we have them in our own language so that we can understand them but yet every one cannot read an inexcusable fault in Parents and such as have the government of youth especially in the age wherein we live nor have all the like means of having them read to them and being made to understand them But the great difference lies in Ordinances St. Peter adviseth Christians to desire like New-born Babes the sincere milk of the Word that they might grow thereby He doubtless speaketh of the Word preached the Promise Psal 92.13 is Those that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God The House of the Lord is the Church of the Lord and there is a promise of growth to all those that are planted in it yet as in our Gardens and Fields there are different sorts oft-times so in the Church of God which is a large Field there are different soils for Christians There is a great deal of difference in that preaching under which Christians sit One man preacheth in the inticing words of mans wisdom another in the perswasive words of mans wisdom another in the evidence and demonstration of the spirit and with power Some Christians possibly live where they scarce ever hear a good Sermon but some Harangues of Oratory or some rational Philosophical Discourses of which they understand little or nothing Others live under plain lively powerful preaching where the Preacher makes it his business to study the souls of his people and proportioneth his preaching accordingly so as the Babes have their milk and others their stronger meat Teaching them as they are able to receive instruction It is no wonder if such Christians who are under the best means be found most thriving God working in the use of means where means can be had It is true Christ once and never but once that we read of made use of clay and spittle to cure the blind mans eyes And when our Lord was himself upon the Earth attending his own Garden and the Plants in it though he had a fulness of wisdom and power too and had many things to say unto them yet saith he John 16.12 you are not able to bear them now And it is said Mark 4.33 With many such parables spake he the Word unto them as they were able to hear it Now if Christians live under preachers who either make no conscience what they preach unto people but fill up their time either with idle Fables or Invectives against Parties or some florid or Philosophical Discourses as if their study were directly contrary to that of the Apostles whose great care as he tells us was so to order his preaching as the faith of his hearers might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Now their preaching seems to be so directed and ordered as that the faith of their hearers might not rest in the power of God but in the wisdom of men It is no wonder if such Christians do not grow in grace in proportion with others who live under more adequate and proper means God useth not ordinarily to work miracles and their ordinary spiritual food is not proportioned to any such thing as the spiritual proficiency of those that hear them 2. Secondly A great reason of this difference lieth also in the differing natural tempers of Christians Amongst other Metaphors by which the Holy Ghost expresseth the Conversion and Regeneration of souls by that of Engraffing is one Rom. 11.17.19.23 24. The soul is ingrafted into Christ Now those who are skilled in planting know that according to the different nature of the plant the growth is faster or slower more or less Some plants grow much more freely than others a Cion of one sort of fruit will shoot up as much in one year as a Cion of another species will shoot in two or three years Truly it is so in the Spiritual Plantation Christ is the Stock into which we are all ingrafted there is no fault there but now the Cions that are ingrafted into Christ are not all of the same nature and temper And although Grace makes a great change and alteration and doth much correct a natural temper yet it doth not root out Nature nor work the change in a moment nor in all the same proportion of time There are several tempers which much hinder the appearance of growth in grace Some are naturally of vain airy light spirits some of proud and high spirits some of froward teachy passionate stubborn spirits Others are naturally of more solid serious tempers of more low and humble of more meek and pliable spirits Now where it happens that there is a change wrought in some persons of airy and light spirits or such as are proud and high or froward and passionate and stubborn a progress and growth in habits and exercises of grace will not be so soon evident and apparent as in those souls that are of sweeter and more gentle and ductile spirits Much grace will make but a little show where there is an ill natural temper and humor 3. Thirdly An ill neighbourhood doth make a great deal of difference in the growth of grace We see in Plants an ill neighbourhood of Plants doth much hinder growth There is scarce any Plant will thrive much near an Ash the like might be observed of other Trees which experience tells us are ill neighbours to Plants Rake up Fire in Ashes if it keepeth alive it is all It is so with Christians that are ill-yoaked that live in ill Families or Neighbourhoods There is some Wood they call Quench-coal Rotten Wood is mostly so The truth is the company of all carnal worldly men is of that nature they are all Quench-coals to the life of Grace and discourage that holy fire which the Spirit of God hath kindled in the souls of his people If a Christian be engaged in such society whether necessarily as in Conjugal relations and indeed in most Domestick relations or voluntarily if such a Christian keeps his sincerity it will be well it can hardly be expected that the profiting of such Christians should appear unto all or indeed that they should grow in proportion unto other Christians who are engaged in a better converse and are under the daily Instructions Exhortations Reproofs and Admonitions of others who as Brethren take themselves concerned to consider them and to
more reasonable more excellent What we know then of God must needs be from Reason or Revelation Reason brings us in knowledg by raising Conclusions from Principles These Principles are of two sorts Philosophical or Scriptural I call those Philosophical Principles which reason as it now resideth in us justifieth and which without the help of the Word of God are allowed by all or the most of men especially if cultivated by any ingenuous education being either common natural principles or such as are established by studies upon deliberate thoughts with the help of sense and improvement of discourse and ratiocination Thus Reason will tell us that there is a God but one God That he must be the first being the first cause more excellent in the perfections of his being than any creature and an hundred things of a like evidence Or else it concludeth from revealed Principles having first a sufficient evidence That the holy Scriptures are the word of God who cannot speak falsly These Principles now are such propositions as without the surer word of Prophesie we could never have had any just evidence of Such now are the Doctrines of the Trinity The Incarnation of Christ The Personal union of the Divine and Humane Nature in him and many others In the discovery and justification of such Conclusions as Reason gathereth from the first sort of Principles lyeth the work of a Philosopher as a Philosopher In the discovery and proof of such Propositions as are partly evidenced from Reason but more fully from Scripture lies the work of a Christian Philosopher In the discovery proving and applying of such Propositions as have their Evidence partly from Reason and more fully from holy Writ or as cannot be at all concluded unless building upon Scriptural foundations but are founded in Scripture and may be illustrated imperfectly from reason and shewed not to be improbable nor unreasonable lyes the work of the Minister of the Gospel who is to convey the knowledg of God to his people And the true reason why some even of these silver Trumpets which belong to the Sanctuary give an incertain sound is because neither the Principles of natural Reason nor Revelation appear to all men in the same light We say The best Philosopher is not as yet born Our age tells us how generally Principles of Philosophy are exploded and it may be some of them justly too which we when we were boys thought to lye very near Demonstration and doubtless in the next age something now admitted will be judged as faulty It hath pleased God to subject our understandings to this vanity Now we having no way unless God would from Heaven speak to us to know any proposition of Truth but from the exercise of our Reason concluding either from Principles purely natural or from Propositions of Revelation in Scripture every one naturally judging himself obliged to believe according to the evidence he hath from his understanding there must and will be different apprehensions until which will never be men have all either the same degrees of Natural Reason or Scriptural knowledg which will be advantaged if there be any who think that all Propositions are to be weighed by the ballance of Natural Reason and that the holy Scripture as to the sense of it must come into that scale and make but in-weight giving only an auxiliary help to the Evidence of the most sublime Propositions of truth Nor is there any help for this The Church of Rome which your Ladiship knows pretends to wondrous Miracles hath indeed devised a palliating cure for this setting up an Infallible cheat to judg of all Controversies and by fire and faggots and all barbarous cruelties and inhumanities forcing men to acquiesce in the Decisions of that ridiculous Judg. But in the mean time mens Consciences apprehend themselves before one who is no Judg in the ease and the sore festreth and rotteth to the bone for the Pope can make none to alter his mind And a little reason might tell the Quacks of that Colledg that if it be not in the power of a man to believe what he hath a mind to believe it is much less in the power of a foreign power to compell him to it The Protestant cure is certainly more humane and reasonable yea and more Apostolical too They set forth sums of sound Doctrine to which they only annex that of the Apostle Phil. 3.15 Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if any in any thing be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you Only Protestants require as the same Apostle directs Rom. 14. That if any hath a particular faith different from that of the Church wherein he liveth he should have it to himself before God Thus the Knowledg of God is acquired from his word reading it being Catechised out of it hearing it opened and preached by the comparing of spiritual things with spiritual by the use of reason and discourse in the Velitation of Questions arising from the seeming contradictions in Holy Writ c. But there is also another mean of Divine Knowledg that is by his exterior works by which much of the Knowledg of God is gained improved and encreased These works are either of Creation or of Providence Creation was the work of the first six days from which God hath ceased long since but the things created remain and much of the Knowledg of God is to be gained from thence by the help of sense which sheweth us the things and reason which helpeth us to conclude that there being so many noble effects there must be a first and more noble cause there being so many excellent Beings there must be a first and most perfect and excellent Being Nothing created could give an Existence to it self Hence the Apostle telleth us That the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen from the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead Rom. 1.20 So that they are without excuse because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God For the Book of Scriptures we blessed be God! have it in our Vernacular Tongue we have means to teach us to read we have Catechisms and Confessions of Faith containing the Epitome and substance of them we have the various labours of holy and learned men to make us to understand them scarce any thing seemeth to be wanting to this age for the gaining of this excellent knowledg by this mean but persons giving themselves up to Reading Hearing Meditation Christian Conferences and Prayer For the Book of Creation methinks it is like a great Bible in some Religious Gentlemans Hall that lyes always open we cannot move a step in the world nor lift up an eye to Heaven but our eye is upon one page or another of it If men will not read the Wisdom of God in the sagacity and wisdom of some Creatures nor the power and greatness of God in the
produced to demonstrate to the world and that we cannot see this before is our weakness and imperfection The malice of men in the persecutions of Gods People looketh upon us with an horrid aspect these indeed God doth not effect but he hath willed they should be and hath told us they must come yea and he worketh too permitting others to bring them about and suffering them in the execution of their malice whom he could easily hinder but when these things are over we often see both infinite wisdom and goodness too in them How should the salvation of Sinners have been purchased if God had not permitted Judas to have betrayed his Master Pilate to have condemned him and the Jews to have nailed him to the Cross had it not been for the persecution of the Jews how should the Gospel have gone to the Gentiles But yet for a close of this discourse and that we may not mistake our Duty we ought not to be so far satisfied upon the Contemplation of this great truth but that 1. We must be piously affected with the sad Providences which God measureth out to his Church and People What saith the Psalmist If I forget thee O Hierusalem let my right hand forget her cunning The sad rebukes of Gods Providence ought by us to be laid to heart Though persecutions and other punishments be contrivances of infinite wisdom and products of certain and infinite love yet to the present sufferers they may be punishments of sin and marks of Divine displeasure and therefore ought not to pass over our heads without our taking some notice of them and the causing of some sad thoughts within us the crucifying of Christ was the product of infinite wisdom and goodness to the People of God but yet a just cause of sadness to the Disciples of Christ We must take things as they appear to us being not able to see to the end and bottom of Gods designs That they shall at last issue in the Glory of God and the good of his People is indeed matter of faith and will be matter of joy to us when we see it but in the mean time it is matter of sadness to us to see Gods Vineyard rooted up his People eaten up like bread and wicked men suffered to devour those that are more righteous than themselves 2. Again We have reason to be afflicted both for our own sins and the sins of others Although it be as to the event true that both our own and others sins shall issue in Gods Glory yet it is as true that God hath no need either of ours or any others lyes for his Glory and that God is both by our sins and the sins of others actually dishonoured That they are made to issue in Gods Glory is the product of Gods Wisdom not our oblique and irregular action or intention and therefore they ought to be causes of sad reflexion to us But thus far we may satisfie our selves 1. That as I said before the event was necessary and nothing that hath come to pass could with our utmost care and diligence have been otherwise than it is We may talk after the manner of men and reason after the measures of humane probabilities If such a thing had not been another had not followed but there is nothing issued in time but was ordered from all eternity 2. We ought again in this to be satisfied That of whatsoever the Lord hath promised nothing shall fail We are full of unbelief and when we see Gods Providence working as we judg directly contrary to what he hath promised we are presently giving up all for gone and lost but if every thing be wrought according to the Counsel of the Divine Will and the Holy Scriptures be such part of this will as he hath pleased to reveal to us God knoweth both what he hath said and how he hath laid things in his eternal thoughts and sooner shall Heaven and Earth pass away than any word he hath spoke Prov. 19.21 Isa 40.8 The counsel of the Lord shall stand and the word of our God shall stand for ever 3. And lastly As I have before told you we may be thus far satisfied That whatsoever doth or ever shall come to pass in the world shall serve Gods great ends because it is ordered by the Counsel of the infinitely wise God and therefore must necessarily serve his designs In the end of the world we shall say God could not have had so much Glory but for such a persecution such a disorder Surely the wrath of man shall praise him SERMON II. Heb. XI 3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear THE last time I shewed you That God hath from eternity setled all events by an eternal purpose according to the Counsel of his Will nothing cometh to pass in time but what was determined before time I told you my design was to discourse concerning Gods Acts of Providence which are acts in time and particularly to discourse some things relating to actual Providence which do not fall into ordinary discourse and often give occasion of trouble to the spirits of Christians but in order to that I thought it reasonable First to discourse a little of Gods Settlement of all futurities things which were to be fulfilled in their season by an act of his eternal Counsel Nor can I yet come fairly at my intended subject without speaking to Gods first Act in time that was Creation concerning which we must suppose a Decree of God according to that known Rule in Divinity Decretum Dei ejus executio exquisitissime conveniunt nihil est in Dei opere quod non fuit in decreto nihil fuit in decreto quod non sequitur in opere That is the Decree of God and the execution of that Decree most exquisitely agree God worketh nothing but what he first decreed and he decreed nothing but hath had or shall have its issue in his working and when we say God doth any thing we by it do understand no more than a new effect of his eternal Will According therefore to the Counsel of his Will God first made of nothing the world and all that is therein And indeed according to some notion of Providence amongst Divines this is a part of it Now for a foundation of a short Discourse upon this subject I have chosen this Text. The Apostle subjoyneth the words of my Text to a description of Faith which he had given vers 1. Where he had told us That faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen In the second verse he had told us That by this the Elders had obtained a good report Here he saith By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God c. In the Text you have 1. A Divine assertion The worlds were framed by
God things which are seen were not made of things which do appear You have the work of Creation described in its Causes Negatively the world did not make it self one part of it did not make another then Positively it was framed by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word used 2. You have the way described how we come to comprehend this in our understanding By faith The Proposition of the Text is this Prop. That by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by God and the things which are seen were not made by those things which do appear Here are two things 1. The worlds were framed by the Word of God the things seen were not made of those things which do appear 2. We understand this Through faith In the opening of these I must enquire 1. What is here meant by the Worlds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 What is the meaning of this That the worlds were made by the Word of God 3. What is the meaning of this That the things which are seen are not made of those things which do appear 4. What is here meant by faith or through faith 5. How do we understand it by faith that the worlds were framed by God After this I shall come to the Application Quest 1. What is here meant by the Worlds The word here used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth often signifie an age sometimes and so generally in St. John's Gospel Eternity but is sometimes in Scripture translated World Matth. 12.32 The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Matth. 13.32 39 40 49. The harvest is the end of the world Heb. 1.2 By whom he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worlds The term properly signifieth The duration of the world but in Heb. 1.2 and here it must signifie the Mass the things of it It carries here its own Interpreter with it in the other part of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things which are seen but neither is that term adequate to it the object of Creation is larger than the objects of Sense Spirits are not seen but yet they are created Let Moses expound it Gen. 1.1 In the beginning God created the heaven and earth In short all the Creatures whatsoever is not the Creator must here fall under the notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world and all that is therein excepting him who as the Creator made all and filleth heaven and earth the world and the things thereof the world and the persons therein heaven and earth the world of things and the world of persons this world was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. The word in the Greek signifies to make to joynt or fit together to restore it signifieth to make or rather to make up according to our English Idiom to perfect It is used Matth. 21.16 Thou hast perfected praise we translate it perfect or perfected Luk. 6.40 And be you perfect 2 Cor. 13.11 1 Thes 3.10 That we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith Heb. 10.5 A body hast thou prepared or made me So Heb. 13.21 The world was made established made perfect by God Vt totum quidpiam quod suis omnibus partibus apte inter se cohaerentibus componitur The worlds gave not a being to themselves they were not eternal and of an original from themselves nor made of any casual concurrence of Atoms according to the Heathens Philosophy but they had their Original their perfection their establishment from God 2. The word signifieth to be made perfect to joynt to be put together The world is a beautiful composition it hath not only a Being but a beautiful Being all the parts of it being fitted and joynted together this is also from God it oweth not only its Being and Original unto God but whatsoever it hath of Beauty and Ornaments that one part of it is fitted to another the beautiful composition of it the subordination of the parts of it one to another all this is owing unto God This is part of the sense of it 1 Cor. 1.10 That you may be perfectly joyned together Whoso looketh upon the Creation wistly must see it consist of a great variety of things but all fitted together so as there is no discord but a beautiful subordination of things in that vast composition so as they serve one another and notwithstanding all their different affections and qualities yet they destroy not nor invade each other this also is from the Lord. The world was not only by God made and produced out of a not-being into a being but it was fitted ordered joynted together by God 3. The word signifieth also to restore and bring again into order what is disordered and so it is used sometimes to mend nets Rem lacer am aliquam resarcire collapsam reparare And this seemeth to be the primary and most proper signification of the word Thus it is translated restore Gal. 6.1 If a brother be fallen restore such a one A Metaphor say some taken from Chyrurgions putting a bone out of order into its place again The world at first made perfected established and joynted by God in the Fall of Adam was disordered and put out of joynt God by sending his Son put the world in joynt again set its broken bones created a new heaven and a new earth Thus also the worlds were made as it were made again and restored by God But I take the two former senses rather to agree to this place where the Apostle rather speaks of the first Creation of the world by God than of the Redemption of it by Jesus Christ The world then was made that is it had its first Original its Order Ornaments beautiful composure from a Divine creating Power it did not give a Being nor a Beauty and Perfection to it self The Verb is passive it had its Original from another and this other was he whom we call God But Quest 2. What is the meaning of this that the worlds were made by the Word of God None can understand here by the Word of God the Holy Scriptures which are called the Word that is the revealed will of God spoken by holy men as they were inspired by God Nor do I think that the same is meant here by the Word of God that is understood John 1.1 In the beginning was the word of that word it is said That it was with God in the beginning that it was God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made that is to be understood of Christ Of him our Apostle saith Heb. 1.2 By whom also he made the worlds but besides that the Gospel of John seemeth to be the only Scripture in which the second person in the Trinity is stiled the Word neither is he there call'd the Word of God it is there said The word was God and in
the beginning with God but he is no-where call'd the word of God I chuse therefore rather to interpret it of that word of Power and Command which Moses Gen. 1. telleth us God used in the making of the world and the fitting and joynting of it together He said Let there be light and there was light c. Thus the Worlds were made by the Word of God so as the term is both exclusive of any other instrumental cause in the Creation of the world and expressive of the true instrumentally efficient cause which was the mighty powerful commanding virtue of the Word of God And this is enough for the explication of this term But Quest 3. What is the meaning of this that the things which are seen are not made of those things which do appear The Vulgar Latin Version reads Vt ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent that visible things should be made of those which are invisible by a transposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but our Copies are otherwise If by the invisible things be meant those invisible things of God the Apostle speaks of Rom. 1.20 His eternal power and godhead So it is true and the sense much the same with what went before but else it is as Beza saith Perperam immo false Some would make the sense of the words this That the world was not made of those things which now do appear to us and are the objects of our senses but of invisible principles and elements which are not now the objects of our senses Others thus That it was made according to an invisible Platform and Idea which was Plato's notion Others say That by invisible things or things which do not appear is to be meant nothing that must be an invisible thing and the world was not made of any pre-existent matter but it was created that is produced out of a meer and total not being into a being Which sense if we allow the Apostle by it as to the Creation of the world asserteth the Truth of God against the Heathen Philosophers who could not by reason comprehend how something especially such a something as the world is should come out of nothing and therefore grew very vain in their imaginations about the pre-existing matter of which the world should be made Estius and Calvin also take notice of a much differing sense as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it were to be read thus We by faith understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God that they might be the looking-glasses of those things which do not appear The thing indeed is true for the Apostle telleth us Rom. 1.20 That the invisible things of God are known by the things that are made But I cannot agree it the sense of this Text not only for that which Beza noteth that it is a very harsh interpretation to interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because as Pareus observeth it seemeth not to be any thing of the Apostle's design to express the end here why the World 's were made by God I do therefore take the Text to be a Divine assertion of the Creation of the World against the vain imaginations of the Heathens who either dream't that it was eternal or made of a casual concourse of Atoms or from some Idea's It was saith the Apostle made of nothing by the Word of God of nothing that doth appear And so I have done with the first Member of the Proposition That the worlds were framed by the Word of God the things which are seen were not made of those things which do appear I proceed to the second Mem. 2. That we understand this by faith Here I shall speak to two things 1. What is here meant by faith 2. How do we by faith understand this Faith in Scripture sometimes signifieth the object of faith the Word of God Thus Gal. 1.23 He which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which he once destroyed Thus you read of the hearing of faith Gal. 3.2 Received you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith that is of the Word of God particularly the Gospel sometimes it signifieth the act of faith which as it respecteth the Proposition of the word for its object is a firm and steady assent the agreement of the mind to the truth of the Proposition as it respecteth the person of the Mediator is a resting relying and recumbency upon him which is what we call the justifying act of faith you may understand the term Faith in either sense By the word of faith revealing it and by our souls acting faith in agreeing and assenting to the truth of that word we understand that the world heaven and earth was at first brought into being fitted and joynted together by the powerful Word of God commanding the production of all those Beings which are in the world and that beauty and order in which we see them placed But secondly How doth the Apostle say we understand it by faith May not this be understood by Reason if it may what need Faith in the case or why or how doth the Apostle say by faith we understand this Wherein doth Faith give us a further knowledg of this than Reason hath given the Philosopher To which I answer Undoubtedly reason hath gone a great way and may go a great way to make men understand that the world was made by God That the world was eternal was indeed the opinion of a great Pagan Philosopher but his master Plato was of another mind and he is said to have learned it from Hesiod and the most and wisest amongst the Heathens acknowledged that the world was at first by a Divine power produced out of a not-being into a being Nor indeed would their Reason allow them to judg otherwise the infinite motions the measures of things in the world their order and succession their alterations and corruptions duly considered forbiddeth reasonable souls with any consistency to themselves to affirm the world to have had an eternal existence All motions must be in time and have had a being all successions and corruptions of things plainly speak that they had a beginning if we had no assistance in the proof of it from the word of faith 2. The same Reason will agree that it gave not a first being to it self nothing is the efficient cause of it self experience tells us that it is not in the power of a man to make the least hair of his head white or black much less to make an hair Man is the noblest sublunary Creature but cannot make the meanest vegetable all that his art can do is but to counterfeit and dissemble nature if it be but as to a spire of grass or to the meanest flower of the field Now if it were not eternal if it did
not make it self if one part of it did not make another it must be made by God The worlds comprehending Angels and Men sensitive and vegetative creatures these all having had a beginning and none of them being able to give being to another we must in reason find out a more powerful and excellent first being that must give being to all the beings in the world This first being is that glorious infinite being whom we call God In short he that further considereth the world in its structure and composition as one part is knit and united to another he that considereth the multitude of the creatures their magnitude the great and excellent powers vertues and qualities of some of them the Symmetry of the several parts of the world their subordinations each to other must needs in reason and by the force of that conclude That the worlds were made by God So that the Apostle's words must not be understood exclusively not as if we could no way but by faith understand this It may be understood by Reason and many that knew nothing of Faith yet confessed it and agreed it from the evidence of their Reason Yet is not Faith and Reason to be confounded Reason concludeth from connate natural principles Faith from acquired revealed principles neither evidence contradicteth each other We understand it by reason more darkly confusedly imperfectly faintly by faith we understand it more clearly distinctly more perfectly and fixedly By Reason we understand a little thereof by the Revelation of faith we understand it fully Let me a little further open this to you in three or four particulars 1. Reason rather sheweth us that the world then that the worlds are made by Gods It rather evidenceth to us the Creation of sublunary things which are subject to our senses whose natures and accidents we understand than of those things which are above the air Reason will evidence to us that the men of the world the beasts and plants are made by God but we see the wits of the world disputing whether there be any spirits or no Reason layeth hold upon the alterations and corruptions of sensible beings that have quantity and concludeth their Original from their corruptibility but when we come to speak of those Beings that have no quantity but are meerly spiritual and not subject to those changes and corruptions Reason is at a loss in a great measure here Faith Revelation which is the object of Faith must help us That teacheth us the worlds were made by God the world of invisibles and things not subjected to sense as well as the world of sensibles Reason will help us to conclude God the Father of all flesh but not that he is the Father of all spirits while it prompteth us to dispute whether there be any such Beings as Spirits yea or no. Reason would hardly have agreed such Beings as Angels if Revelation had not come in to make it a foundation to stand upon but by faith we understand it Supposing the holy Scriptures to be the Word of God it is clear enough there and we cannot agree to the Scriptures but we must agree to it both that there are such Beings as Spirits substances without sensible matter and that they were also made by God being some of those things in the Heavens of which God was the Creator 2. Supposing that Reason will tell us That the worlds were made by God yet it will not tell us That they were made by the Word of God Reason as I have before hinted will go a great way to perswade even an Aristotelian that the World was not from eternity but that it was made by a Divine omnipotent Being pre-existent to it insomuch that some of Aristotle's Disciples in other things here deserted him and took themselves so much concerned for their masters Reputation as to dispute whether he ever meant it yea or no. And the great Philosopher himself though he seemeth to have been fixed in his notion about the worlds Eternity in many places yet in some particular passages of his writings particularly in his Book De Generatione seems to have wavered disputing which way God went to work in making of the world And the fancies of the great Philosophers ran very wild in this point some will have it that he first made a Chaos or heap of confused matter and out of that heap all particular things as the Glass-man or Potter maketh his Vessels or the Brick-maker maketh his Brick and Tile as if it had not been as easie by one work for God to have made out of nothing all particular things as to have made a Chaos out of nothing that should in it potentially contain all the species of particular Beings Others would have that Heap or Mass call'd the Chaos to have been eternal out of which God produced all things so it should have been an improper Creation not ex nihilo materiae from a nothing of pre-existent matter but ex nihilo subjecti capacis from a nothing of a subject capable to receive such forms But that God produced all things out of a meer nothing or not-being of matter and by the word of his power gave a being not only to all particular forms of beings but to all matter and particular beings saying Let there be light and there was light let there be a firmament and it was so This is a thing Reason could never dream of never from any connate principles conclude it This faith tells us the Word of God revealeth to us Reason could never discern never conclude though it might conclude the thing that the worlds were made by God yet it could not conclude the modus or manner of the thing how God should do it or that he did it by the word of his power This we could not by reason comprehend or understand 3. Reason giveth us a confused general notion that the worlds were made by God but faith giveth us a distinct account of particulars the order manner and method of them Reason will tell us the world could not be eternal that it could not give an Original to it self that it must be produced by a more noble and excellent being But now for the circumstances of the Creation the order the time the manner that the world was created in six days that light was first created then the celestial bodies and then the terrestrial c. What was done the first day what the second what the third c. Reason tells us not Reason will tell us that the first man was Gods Creation for he could not be eternal he could not give being to himself he must be produced by a more excellent being but that the woman should be made of the rib of man That man should be made according to the Image of God That he was made the sixth day after the rest of Gods Works and had a Dominion given him over them This Faith learns us Reason telleth us nothing of it 4.
Lastly Reason creates in the soul at best but a faint assent to this Proposition That the worlds are made by God and still leaveth the mind under incertain fluctuations and doubts about it By faith we understand saith the Text we are not properly said to understand those things of which we have only a general confused indistinct knowledg and to which we only give an incertain languid assent The great Philosopher in the world as you have heard hath doubted whether the world were made at all or had an eternal existence Others whether it had not its Original from a casual concourse of Atoms infinitely vain have been unsanctified mens imaginations as in other things so concerning the Original of the world and optimus Philosophus we say non nascitur We are disputing still the most confessed conclusions which are no more than the structures of Reason So that indeed we are beholden to Faith to the Revelation of the word which is the object of Faith and to the habits of Grace habits of faith for the settlement of our minds in Propositions of truth It is but an auxiliary advantage as to Divine Propositions which Reason gives us our mind is not set at rest and settled by them A luxuriant wit and fancy maketh all the perswasion and confirmation of them from Reason very incertain Faith only brings the Soul to a rest about them and gives the soul a clear distinct certain notion and understanding of them By Reason we rather think and opine than understand and certainly know that the worlds were made by God But this is enough for the Explication I come to the Application of the Doctrine This in the first place may help to confirm our Faith concerning the Divine Being the Vnity of it Vse 1 and the Trinity of persons in it the worlds were made by God Then there must be a God whose being was pre-existent to the world and this God must be infinite in Power and in Wisdom The producing of things out of a not-being into a being required an infinite power the producing of such a variety of Beings many of which were furnished and adorned with such excellent perfections and qualities the kniting and joynting of all together and putting them in such an excellent subjection and subordination each to other required an infinite wisdom a wisdom paramount to any created wisdom yea above all the wisdom of the Creatures had all their wisdoms been united This being infinite in Power and Wisdom must be God In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Gen. 1.1 God alone spread out the heavens Job 9.8 He made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that therein is Yea thus the Lord proveth himself to be God I am the Lord and there is none other forming the light and making the darkness vers 7. And thus the true and living God standeth distinguished from Idols Jer. 10.11 The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens He hath made the earth by his power he hath established the world by his wisdom and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion Thus the Apostle argues Heb. 3.4 Every house is builded by some but he that made all things is God yea and this God is one The uniformity of this great structure the beauty and order and subordination of all things in it do abundantly prove this by Reason But Faith yet more confirmeth it Mal. 2.10 Have we not all one father hath not one God created us Indeed as I before said the structure and fabrick of it sheweth that one will willed it one wisdom contrived and directed it and that one hand framed it And this one God is three persons the Father of whom are all things 1 Cor. 8.6 The Son by whom are all things for without him was nothing made that is made Joh. 1.3 By him he made the worlds Heb. 1.3 The Holy Spirit that moved at the first upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.1 Thou sendest forth thy spirit and they were created Psal 104.30 Job 33.4 The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Hebrew Gods created I think it is well said of a grave Author Constans aliqua certa ratio pluralis numeri de Deo usurpati reddi alia nequit quam personarum pluralitas There can be no other steady certain reason given why the Hebrew word so ordinarily translated God should be in the plural number but to notifie to us the plurality of persons in the Divine Being all three are but that one God who made heaven and the earth The School-men determine right that there is an infinite space from nothing to something and therefore nothing but the infinite power of an infinite God could bring any thing out of a not-being into a being From hence we may easily conclude what a God we serve Vse 2 we serve him that made heaven and earth and consequently one who is 1. Infinite in power 2. Excellent in wisdom 3. Admirable in goodness and mercy 1. Infinite in Power and Greatness To produce the least thing and bring it out of a not-being into being as I argued before speaketh an unmeasurable infinite power What power doth it then require to produce all the various kinds and species of Creatures the great bodies of the Heavens and the Earth and all those great bodies in them both out of a meer nothing and not-being into an existence and being Ex magnitudine creaturarum Deus magnus intelligitur c. From the greatness of the Creatures saith Augustine we may understand the greatness of God What an infinite and immense God do we serve What nothings of being and of power must we be compared with him All the nations of the earth are to him as the drop of a bucket as the small dust of the ballance 2. Excellent in wisdom The contrivance of the fabrick and structure of the world speaketh this But what an abundance of wisdom hath the great Creator scattered up and down the Creation What a natural sagacity is not in man only but in many brute Creatures What abundance of moral prudence and discretion is observed and to be found in many earthly Princes Their Ministers of State and Counsellers and in others of an inferior order What infinite wisdom appears in joynting the world and making the several parts of it to fit and to serve one another and to compound the different qualities of creatures to the service each of other and of the Universe Oh the infinite wisdom of the only wise God! yet how little do we see of it 3. Yea and his infinite goodness also is apparent in the Creation of all things Whoso looketh upon the usefulness of the Creatures to each other their joynt subserviency to their end and particularly their usefulness and subserviency to
man who hath by the Law of Creation a Dominion and Rule over all must cry out Who is like unto thee O Lord who is like unto thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises working wonders We may from hence observe the vanity of those Philosophers of this world who would either make the world Vse 3 as fitted and joynted together to be eternal and without a beginning or at least some Chaos or heap of confused matter to have been so as also of those who as to the Creation of the world will have God at first to have made such a confused Chaos or Mass and then out of that to have made all things The Potter indeed must have such an heap of Clay before he can make his Pots of several sizes and fashions but if he were to create this Clay certainly he would go the furthest way about for by the same power that he must first have to give being to his Clay he might make his several sorts and sizes of Vessels and save himself that double labour I conclude by Faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Power or by the Word of God His Power was the efficient cause of it his Goodness the final cause of its Creation his Wisdom the exemplary cause 4. Vse 4 We may from hence learn the usefulness necessity and excellency of faith Faith taken for the object of it Faith taken for the habit and act of it The Word of God the habit of Faith the exercise of it they are all useful We have great magnifyings of Reason and indeed Reason is a noble faculty it is that to the soul which the eye is to the body which light is to the eye but Faith is not useless because Reason is useful yea Reason must ride but in the second Chariot Reason would have taught us little of Spirits indeed we by Faith know little of them but we know so much as God will please to reveal we had known much less if left only to what conclusions we could have raised from natural principles Reason would have taught us nothing in particular how and in what order or in what time the world was made Nay 2ly There is not an use of Faith only but a necessity of it The Creation of the world is an object of our Faith and to be received upon the credit of the Word of God we must so assent to it as by our assent to give an homage to Gods Authority in revealing it this we cannot do but by Faith Finally from this discourse appeareth the Excellency of Faith it maketh us to understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God it puts our mind beyond doubts and endless disputes and incertain fluctuations it leaveth us not to the endless inquiries of Philosophy how these things could be c. Lastly Vse 5 Learn hence how every inanimate and brute creature praiseth God and how infinitely all rational creatures are obliged to the service and obedience of God 1. How every inanimate and brute creature praiseth God The heavens saith the Psalmist declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night declareth knowledg there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard their line is gone out to the end of the earth and their words to the end of the world In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun c. Psal 19.1 2 3 4. There is no Creature but giveth a mute praise to God they shew the Lords Glory and praise him as the picture finely drawn doth praise the Limner or the building praiseth the Mason or Carpenter as any great effect praiseth its efficient cause And this is a thing we ought to attend and observe in our Contemplation and use of the Creatures we should view God in them see how God is glorified in their brave and useful structure and composition Oh how sweet a Contemplation would this be if we could view the Glory Power Wisdom infinite Goodness of the Creator in them all But secondly How particularly is man concerned to praise love and serve God the Creator of Heaven and Earth to man he hath alone given Reason to make conclusions to man hath he given the word of Faith for man he hath made all these things and given him a Dominion over the work of his hands Now who planteth a vineyard saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 9.7 and eateth not of the fruit thereof The world is a great Vineyard God hath planted it he hath let it out to the Sons of men as his husband-men Should he not eat of the fruit thereof The inanimate Creatures they declare the glory of God the Heavens declare his Glory the Earth sheweth his handy-work the Sun the Moon the Stars carry the high Praises and Glory of God to the utmost ends of the Earth Do not you that are Fathers think your Sons obliged to serve and to honour you Yet you were but partial causes of their being God did much more than you to their production Doth not the Master think his servant is obliged to serve and to honour him because he hath made him he hath raised him up to some capacity of living in the world to some dignity The Potter thinketh that he may command the Pots which he hath made and shall not man be the servant of the most high God who made him and who made the world for him 1. In Reason he ought to be so he oweth his being his well-being all that he hath all the accommodations of his life unto God 2. God expecteth it from him Nulla necessitate coactus saith Holy Augustine nulla sua cujusdam utilitatis indigentia permotus sed sola bonitate ac liberrima voluntate fecit Deus quicquid fecit God was not compelled to make the world he needed it not he made it meerly of his own goodness and for the use of man Can any one think that God doth not expect homage and service from man And from hence three things must follow 1. That the presumptuous sinner must necessarily be the most unnatural creature he serveth not the end of his Creation The grass was made for the food of the beast that serveth its end it grows is cut down c. The beasts serve their end they were made for the use of man for his food his covering they dye daily are clipped shorn flea'd and all for man only the sinner serveth not his end He was made for the Honour and Glory of God he doth nothing less yea his whole life is a dishonouring God an abusing of his holy name and things 2. That this sinner is the most ingrateful creature in the world he acts from his will and choice with the use of Reason Now doing so considering that not only he is born in the Lords house and is his Creation but all the Creatures upon which he lives by the use of which his life
the work of the Son and the work of the Holy-Ghost So that when we assert a Divine Providence extensive to the whole Creation this is that which we mean That as the blessed Trinity did at first by an Almighty power bring the worlds both Heaven and Earth and all creatures therein out of a Not-being into a Being so he doth still wisely and powerfully influence the whole creation preserving their Beings and several faculties of all his creatures and so far directeth permitteth and governeth their actions that they shall answer the ends for which he created and so qualified them especially the great end of his glory For saith Solomon he made all things for himself and for him as well as of him are all things saith the Apostle The School-men say that Gods Being is esse fixum a fixt and unalterable Being in which there can be no variableness no shadow of change his name is I AM he is the same yesterday to day and for ever But the creatures Being is esse fluxum a mutable Being we see changes and varieties every day in their Beings in their Motions the whole creation is but one great Sea in a continual flux and reflux Now as God by his Decree of Providence from eternity determined these successions varieties and motions so like a great King mighty in Counsel and wonderful in working he upholdeth them to them and he governeth them in their effects So that as the former Doctrine of creation excluded the Pagan conceits either of the worlds eternity or casual composition of it and gave God the glory of that his first and great work of creation so this is opposed to the Atheistical conceits of those who would have the created world to be either a principle to it self of its standing or preservation in the order it is or as a great Machine or Engine moving from some great wheels that move all the rest which is said to be the Peripatetick Doctrine and much suits our Judicial Astrologers or moving from any other first principle than the will command or influence of God This is a great point giving God the glory of His and his Sons hitherto working We live in a generation when Atheism aboundeth otherwise it were needless to establish so great a principle Aristotle thought he deserved to be answered with a Gallows that denied it Suffer me a little to confirm your faith in it by arguing it 1. From the Creation 2. From the Nature of the Divine Being 3. From the effects which are our daily objects of sense in the World 4. From the more sure word of Prophesie 1. That the worlds were first made by God I before shewed you Our eyes are continually exercised in the view of a vast Theater and 't is but a little of it that we behold The Heavens that are visible to us are replenished with great and vast bodies the Sun Moon and Stars in the Heavens are great Clouds containing vast quantities of water The Earth is full of multitudes of species infinite individuals of all sorts all indued with a variety of contrary faculties and qualities so are the wide Seas The Earth hangs in the midst of the air These things have lasted some thousands of years The inanimate creatures still keep their Stations The Sun is not wearied nor worn out in its course though it runs it with a strange swiftness every day The Moon is where and as it was the fixed Stars keep their abodes and the wandring Stars yet go not out of their road The Earth drops not down under us nor doth the Sea invade the Earth not a species of creatures is lost from the first Creation Individuals indeed perish but as one generation goeth another comes the species in competent numbers is preserved The creatures move and work in a subordination to the good each of others the production and being of no creature antedates the being or production of another upon which it lives Those that renew their lives with the year have their table spread before they appear The silk-worms egg quickens not but in proportion to the budding of the Mulberry Each creature knows its season when to fly from colder Countreys in which it could not endure the winter into what is warmer Creatures have a care provided for them while they are not able to provide for themselves which then as naturally leaveth them as it before wrought for them The Bee and Ant provide for the winter in short a thousand such instincts and inclinations might be insisted on Countreys that have most poysons have most antidotes few Countreys have sufficiency for themselves but must be beholden to their neighbours Take any one body but especially that of Man who is a little world in himself study but your selves and consider how many Vessels how many limbs and instruments must daily be kept clean and entire How many humours joynts and members must be kept in order to keep you alive and in any degree of health and capacity to the operations of humane life I would now fain know whence all this is Will any ascribe all this to a fate or order at first set Suppose any would say so he must needs conceive an omnipotent Divine Being at first setting the joynts of the world in such an order and surely it were as easie for him to suppose the same being upholding and preserving them in order yea and in acknowledging the former he must be forced to acknowledg the latter We see a skilful workman making a Clock or Watch consisting of many wheels and little instruments that shall have and keep their several motions 24 48 hours suppose it were two or three months suppose it were so many years yet we see at last it must not only be wound up but by daily motion the wheels and other parts though made of hardest mettals decay How is it that in so many thousand years the Sun Moon and Stars are not worn nor abated in their light That by the daily motions of mans body his instruments of motion are not sooner worn out his bones are not of Brass nor his sinews of Iron if they were less than seventy years would wear them out Will any say things are not under a fate but are left to move at their pleasure We know there are multitudes of natural Agents that move not upon election or counsel but naturally and necessarily how come these influenced For those that do move from Counsel and have a Will to guide them Let but any consider what a confusion would presently be by the wayward actions of Children and Servants in his own house if they had nothing but their own wills to guide and govern them What an heap of confusions every City or Town would make if all inhabitants were left to their own wills and government and he will easily conceive what a place of ataxy mischief and disorder the world would be if God did not daily work and rule in the midst thereof
Scripture was written since which time Prophecy and unwritten Revelations are much ceased not further to be expected God may yet reveal himself to some particular servants of his but we are not to expect such Revelations nor are they the object of faith Now herein hath the stupendous Providence of God been eminently seen that when so many thousand books wrote since the Scriptures were written are lost and there is no memorial almost of them and the Scriptures have had more enemies than any of them more that have endeavoured to corrupt them and to destroy them yet God hath preserved this store-house of spiritual food and kept it from corruption by the extraordinary care of the Jewish Church the multiplying of translations guiding and governing of those who have been employed in them Nor hath the Providence of God been less seen in maintaining Ministers and Teachers of his word In the Jewish Church when the ordinary officers failed and were corrupted God from time to time raised them up Prophets who were his extraordinary Embassadors to teach his people In Christs time he calls Fishermen to the Apostleship and in all succeeding Ages though there have been sometimes more sometimes fewer able and faithful Ministers yet God hath so ordered that there never have wanted some and a competent number to break the bread of life and to feed his people with wisdom and with spiritual understanding No sort of men have been more maligned hated persecuted yet God hath upheld the order and taken care for the souls of his people that they have continually had faithful stewards of the mysteries of God 4. The Providence of God is admirable in preserving man in his spiritual capacity in the daily influence of his spirit attending his word and sanctifying his institutions The word is in it self but a dead letter the Preaching of the word is far from a mean adequate to so great an effect as is the conversion and edification of souls God is therefore pleased to join his quickening spirit to the word where he pleaseth blessing and sanctifying it I am not of their judgment who think that there is such a constant concurrence and influence of the Spirit with the preaching of the Gospel that if men will do what in them lies they may repent believe c. I know no Scripture which will justifie that notion but certain it is that the holy Spirit doth ordinarily join it self with the preaching of the word like the wind blowing where it pleaseth and none knoweth the motion of it convincing men of sin of righteousness and of judgment 5. Lastly The Providence of God preserveth men in their spiritual capacities by supplying them with strength and succour against their spiritual enemies their own flesh the world the Devil all which with a variety of temptations strike at our spiritual welfare But this is much of kin to what I said before I shall add no more to this discourse concerning Gods Act of Providence as in the preservation of beasts so of men and that in their single natural capacities In their Social and Political capacities and finally in their Spiritual capacities I shall only add some few words of application This in the first place may inform us Vse 1 How great that God must necessarily be whom we serve he is the Creator of the ends of the Earth of the Heavens of the Seas of all things and it is he who preserveth both man and beast he preserveth all men in their single and natural capacities this I opened before He preserveth all men in their Political capacities all his people in their Spiritual capacities It is an ordinary observation in the Kingdoms and Empires of the world that when they have grown to a great bigness they have perished with their own bulk and weight No Monarch hath been found sufficient to preserve them by his wisdom and Counsels And I remember the Historian speaks of it to the great honour and as a wonderful thing in one of the first Roman Kings that he put the Roman Kingdom it was no more then into such an order that it was governed as if it had been but one Family But how much doth it speak the Glory and Majesty the Immensity and Omnipresence the Efficiency and Activity of God who at the same time is working over all the Earth in all the Empires and Kingdoms in all the Cities and Towns in it defeating Ahitophels discovering Plots and Conspiracies ruling the spirits of unruly men so as the whole Universe is kept in order and the thousands and ten thousands of men in it that know not the yoke of Reason and Religion are yet bridled by his Providence and kept in some just order and decorum and made in stead of running one upon another and destroying one another mutually to be subservient one to another I say how great how wise how infinite how glorious in power must this God be Secondly Observe how much mercy passeth over our heads Vse 2 which we do take little or no notice of We are fearfully and wonderfully preserved and that in every capacity I shewed you it before as to our natural capacity few think of that what a strange working of Providence there must be to keep our souls in life but one day It is as much remarkable in our Political capacity I remember when Christ sent out his Disciples to Preach he told them That he sent them out as lambs amongst wolves It is true indeed not only of Gospel-Preachers but of all sober and vertuous men that would live in the world but according to the Laws of Reason and Moral vertue They are in the world as lambs amongst wolves Let but any one consider how many lewd unrighteous debauched men are in all places such whose only rule is their lusts how full the world is of men that make no conscience of murthers rapes thefts oppression and other enormities and then stand and wonder at the Providence of God that in any part of the world there is any thing of order and decorum observed that men have any thing which they can call their own that the lives of Princes or sober people are secured What can it be attributed to but the mighty power of Divine Providence that we have no more murthers rapes thefts c. we see laws punishments will not restrain all nor the same men at all times how or whence is it that they restrain any or at any time I will conclude this with what the Psalmist so often maketh the foot in that his admirable song of Providence Psal 107 Oh! that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works to the children of men Oh that Princes would praise the Lord for his goodness It is by him that they reign that they have a days liberty to decree justice by him that the Counsels of Ahitophel are defeated the conspiracies of ungodly men are discovered that the spirits of unruly and unreasonable
apparent tendency to the ruin of the whole interest of God in the World if possibly not to leave Christ a Name in the Earth nor Religion pure and undefiled Religion a footing in any place he that runs may read this day that the malice of some is against no form in Religion but the life and power and practice of Holiness The Devil their Master hath given them a command like that of Benhadads Fight neither against small nor great Neither against Conformists nor Non-conformists but against the life and practice of Religion only Who seeth not that although a man hath a further latitude than others of his brethren as to matters of Conformity yet if he liveth an holy life if he presseth Holiness in his Pulpit and practiseth it in his Conversation he maketh himself a prey to the common Enemies both of Gospel Faith and conversation But trouble not your selves Christians The Lord reigneth the Frogs out of the bottomless pit may through Gods permission get out and croak a while but to the pit they must return again A sad time it was when the Enemy said to the Soul of the man according to Gods own heart Flee as a bird to the mountains when the wicked bent their bows and made their arrows ready upon the string that they might privily shoot at the upright in heart Psalm 11.2 When the foundations were destroyed and the godly knew not what to do what comfort at such a time Observe the same Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes behold his ey-lids try the children of men I shall conclude this branch of Application with that Psalm 99. v. 1 The Lord reigneth let the people tremble he sitteth between the Cherubims let the Earth be moved the Lord is great in Zion and he is high above all people Let them praise the Lords great and terrible Name for it is holy Lastly Vse 3 This Doctrine is a foundation for a great deal of Exhortation Every good Christian upon hearing this Doctrine concerning Gods providential Kingdom should be saying What now is my Duty what ought I to do if the Lord reigneth I will tell you in five or six particulars and so shut up this Discourse concerning the main and principal acts of Divine Providence 1. An exercise of Faith seems a very reasonable piece of duty to be concluded from these premises By Faith here I understand not an assent to the Proposition of the word nor yet a resting upon the person of the Mediator which is the justifying-act of faith but committing of our selves unto God and casting our care upon him in all estates and conditions a thing often called for in Scripture Cast thy burthen on the Lord Psal 55.22 Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you 1 Pet. 5.7 Commit thy way unto the Lord Psal 37.5 So Job 5.8 Prov. 16.3 Sometimes it is called a Trusting in God Psalm 4.5 and 7.1 Pro. 28.25 and 29.5 Isa 57.13 c. Power and Love are the things that support and justifie one in trusting and putting confidence in another This Doctrine concerning the general Providence of God in governing all justifies him as to his Power to be the true and sole Object of our confidence We can trust in none else but may be controuled The greatest Princes of the Earth are but men under the authority of one who is higher than they and a mans trust in them oft-times is but like the Jews trusting in Egypt which the Prophet compareth to a leaning to a bruised reed and upon a broken staff which are not able to bear the weight of a mans body but if he leaneth upon them they will run into his hand If God be against us man cannot protect from him nor deliver out of his hand therefore saith the Psalmist Psalm 118.8 9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princes but he whose Kingdom is over all must needs be a proper Object of our confidence and as our confidence in God is warranted from general Providence as to the power of God so as to his love it is secured from special Providence but of that I hope to speak distinctly only a word here lest any should say But although the Kingdom of God be over all so that upon the account of his Power I may trust in him yet how doth it appear his Power shall be put forth for me I shall but offer four Meditations to you 1. That the glory of God is the great end that he aimeth at in all his actions He made all things for himself he preserveth he governeth the World for himself 2. That whereas God hath a twofold glory from his Creation Passive and Active One wherein the creature doth nothing from an inward principle thus the Heavens declare the glory of God and every creature speaks of his glory The other wherein the creature is Active acting out of intention and design and from the principle of its own will This latter is that which is most pleasing to God and acceptable 3. That God is capable of receiving no further glory from his creatures than what floweth from the predication of his praise and the doing of his Will 4. Lastly That from hence it must needs follow That God is more glorified by his Church and by his Saints than by all the Creation besides God is mutely and passively glorified by other creatures but in his Temple men speak of his glory The children of men and amongst them only those who are born of God do voluntarily and out of choice bring glory to God God if I may so speak wrests his glory from others as from Pharaoh c. God indeed in some sense may be said to be actively and voluntarily glorified by all Professors but only by that little flock whom he hath chosen to himself with a full intention voluntarily and sincerely They are the favourites of him whose Kingdom is over all Supposing then God to have a Dominion and Government over all and to be continually in the exercise of it surely if Haman could say Whom should the King delight to honour but me They may with much better right and advantage say For whom should the great King of kings and Lord of lords exercise a Rule and a Dominion For whose advantage should the Lord govern the World if not for those who most freely chearfully voluntarily serve the greatest end and design which he hath in the World viz. his own glory and can sincerely sum up all the desires of their Souls in that one Petition Let the Lord be glorified surely therefore the children of God have all obligations imaginable upon them under all vicissitudes of Providence to trust in God and to commit their ways unto the Lord. But this is but the first Duty 2. A Second Duty which this Doctrine of
up amongst them so they have had an ambition still to arrogate this Name to themselves The Arians would be the only Church since that the Papists the Protestants think they have the best claim and great disputes there are for this Honourable Title I will not say this will determine the cause but it will go a great way That body of people professing Christ against whom the gates of Hell cannot prevail Matth. 16.18 In the midst of which God appears to be by a more special powerful Protection keeping it that it shall not fall Psalm 46.5 That people which the Lord keepeth and watereth every moment lest any should hurt it keeping it night and day Isa 27.3 That people round about whom the Lord is as the mountains are round about Jerusalem Psalm 125 v. 2 Who can say as Psalm 124 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us Then the waters had over-whelmed us the proud waters had gone over our souls I say that people amongst those that lay claim to the honourable Title of the Church of God seem to have the best claim for it is the Church for which God exerciseth a special Providence I will not say This alone will prove any party the true Christian Church but where-ever we see a people professing faith in Jesus Christ holding the Doctrine of the Gospel crying To the Law and to the Testimony for the trial of her Doctrine Worship and Discipline and God watching over this people strangely preserving multiplying and encreasing them using the ministry of his Word amongst them to convert and build up Souls delivering them in a constant series and succession of Providence from their Enemies far more and more mighty than they are we may join our selves to them The anointed of the Lord the Church of the true and living God is doubtless before us Though these special Providences will not make an argument alone yet they are a far better argument than the Popish pedegree they pretend to in a succession from St. Peter or Antiquity or their pretended Vnity or Miracles indeed rather to be called lying wonders I know no promises of these things to the Church to the end of the World but I know many promises for special Providence attending them And certainly that Body of Christian people called Protestants I mean that people in all the parts of the World that are now called by that name for the name beareth date but from the German Reformation but I say that Body of people united in their Doctrine and Worship can lay the fairest claim to this of any others No people hath been more strangely preserved than they witness those in the valleys of Piedmont and Lucerne and Bohemia none more strangely preserved nor whose number hath been more strangely encreased nor their Doctrines more strangely prevailed A Christian by observing which way special Providence hath most moved may get much wisdom and much help himself in making a judgment which is the true Church 2. Yea and he may also much help himself in judging of those in the World who are the true Saints and people of God who they are that dwell in the secret of the most High as the Psalmist speaketh for they generally abide under the more particular shadow of the Almighty It is true there are some rare instances of persons that walk close with God whom yet God followeth with a series of severe Providences such an instance was Job and such particular instances we see in our time to let us know that outward prosperity is not the Saints portion God hath provided some better things for his people But take now any considerable number of people in any City or Place that so far as we can judg walk more close with God and in a more strict observation of his law than others do and oppose these to a like number of persons in that place that give a liberty to their lusts and walk by no such rule and observe number for number who are most under the special Providence of God preserving them from dangers and in dangers who are most blessed with special Providences as to length of life health c. you will remember that I told you we must abate for particular instances of Gods own people whom he picks out to make examples of saith and patience and to be his witnesses unto the world in a time of trial Who observeth not how strangely God preserveth and blesseth some people that fear him and walk closely with him and I do believe the observation will justifie it self concerning any considerable number of such persons compared with a like number of others So that although none can conclude himself or herself a child of God from some particular special Providence no not from a series and course of them yet where men and women walk close with God Gods special Providences attending them will much evidence even to others that they are not hypocritical in their professions 2. But secondly The observation of Gods special Providences towards our persons our families our Church will much make us to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. The love of our friend to us is not seen so much in some acts of his goodness which others experience as much as we as in some special things which he doth for us and doth not or will not do for others The observation therefore of special Providence helps much to affect our hearts with the love of God God in trying our love to him saith to us What do you do more than others and as our love to God is so tried so Gods love to us is so evidenced this is that which hath always set the hearts of the people of God admiring God This was that which set the Psalmist upon admiring Gods goodness to mankind Psal 8.4 What is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that thou shouldest remember him If you read on you will see that which affected the Psalmist was Gods special Providences to man making him little lower than the Angels cloathing him with glory and honour putting all things under his feet c. This made David understand the loving kindness of the Lord 1 Sam. 7.18 Who am I O Lord and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto and this was yet a small thing in thy sight O Lord. God aggravates our sins from the special Providences he hath blessed us with as in the case of David 2 Sam. 12. and Saul Moses argueth the Israelites to duty from Gods special Providences to them in the four first Chapters of Deuteronomy nothing makes us so much as them to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. Oh therefore observe consider what God hath done and what he daily doth for you more than
upon you to honour God more than others God hath done infinitely more for you than for Heathens Now what a shame it is that an Heathen should out-doe you in any thing yet give me leave to tell you that while you only do some actions that are materially good not formally and truly many Heathens have done as much as you An Heathen may do and many of them have done and that with some good intention actions materially good that is such things as God commanded Many of them have been eminent instances of moral vertue Justice charity temperance liberality c. many of them have professed to love vertue for the sake of vertue Wherein can you excel them but by doing actions which are formally good designing Gods glory acting in obedience to Gods will regulating your selves as to the manner by Gods word you have the word the Gospel of God oh how reasonable it is that our conversation should be as becomes the Gospel of Christ The Heathen else that lives up to his light of nature out-does us and it will as our Saviour tells us be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of Judgment than for us 3. But Lastly Let the Saints of God see what an obligation to all manner of duty and holiness lies upon their souls they are the most special objects of special Providence God takes more care for all men than for Oxen or for the grass of the field he exerciseth a more special Providence for that body of people which make up his visible Church than for all the earth besides but yet what is that special Providence which God exerciseth for meer formal professors or for any other men in the world in comparison of what they have experienced Any thing of more special distinguishing Grace is a great Specialty of Providence and that in the best and highest sort of good things viz. those which concern the salvation of the Soul Oh what doth God expect what doth God require from you what should you do more than others More particularly This Doctrine of special Providence calls to you 1. For more extraordinary degrees of Love 2. For more special acts of Faith 1. For more eminent degrees of Love Psal 31.23 O Love you the Lord all you his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer Reason argueth thus with us that the reciprocations of our love ought to bear proportion to love received If saith our Saviour you love them that love you what reward have you the law of nature commandeth us to love and by actions of kindness and duty to express our love to them who have expressed their kindness to us and the same reason requires the reciprocations of love to be proportionable God therefore declaring especial love to you you are bounden in a special duty to him Let our Saviours question be often in your thoughts What do you do more than others If you for whom God hath sent his Son to dye and into whose hearts he hath sent his Spirit the Spirit of Adoption Supplication Consolation and whom the Lord hath from the womb watched over and preserved by a more special peculiar Providence bearing you as upon Eagles Wings and gathering you as an Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings I say If you do no more for God than others do not under such influences nor such Providences you must certainly act beneath and short of your duty This dependeth upon what I told you before of the reasonableness of the reciprocations of love in some commensurate proportions 2. It calleth to them who fear God for special exercises of faith you have reason more to trust and depend upon God than others because God hath declared a more special care and Providence for you The ground of all faith is the word and promise of God Now special promises call for a more special and peculiar faith What though another man cannot trust God contrary to a sensible or reasonable appearance yet you have reason to do it because God hath declared more his care for you and the workings of his Providence for your preservation and deliverance than for others God hath promised to save defend and deliver you not after the workings of his ordinary Providence You may therefore say with David The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear He is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid Psalm 27.1.3 Though an Host should encamp against me my heart should not fear though war should rise against me in this I will be confident But thus much shall serve to have discoursed concerning the Specialties of Divine Providence SERMONS XII XIII Rom XI 33. O the depth both of the wisdom and knowledg of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out I Have finished my Discourse concerning the principal Acts of Divine Providence both generally and specially I have discoursed concerning Gods general Acts in preserving and governing all his creatures and concerning God's more special preserving and governing of some creatures I am now come to discourse concerning the Methods of it concerning which we must cry out with this great Apostle O the depth both of the wisdom and knowledg of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out My Text is the conclusion of an exceeding deep discourse which the Apostle had made concerning the Rejection of the Jews which he proves to be neither Total nor final In the ten first verses he proveth that it is not Total V. 2 God did not cast off his people whom he did foreknow V. 5 There is a remnant according to Election As it was in Elias's time he thought and complain'd that he was left alone and they sought his life also but he was mistaken God at that time had seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal V. 7 He saith The Election had obtained though some though the most of them were rejected yet the Elect amongst them were not rejected and this he proveth to have been but according to what was prophesied V. 11 He proveth that this Rejection should not be final There should be a fulness of them V. 12. Receiving of them V. 15. They should be again grafted in V. 23 24. It is but V. 25. till the fulness of the Gentiles should come and then all â—srael should be saved This Discourse is mixed with several arguments to prove the assertion and with several reflections upon the Gentiles whose present state was better than theirs shewing them their duty negatively and positively not to be high-minded but humble To fear c. Now look as a man wading in deep waters when he finds the water go over his head and trip up his heels he cries out O I shall be drowned and endeavours to get back again So doth the blessed Apostle he had been wading into the great deeps of Gods counsels and ways
a credit to his word if his faith be weak and languid the exemplifying of the thing revealed in the Word of God by the issues of Providence tendeth much to the confirmation of the souls faith and assent and therefore it is laid to the charge of the Israelites as a great aggravation of their sins That they believed not for all his wondrous works And this was the great aggravation of the sin of the Pharisees and the Jews that lived in the time when our Saviour was upon the Earth that although the Providence of God had declared Christ to be the Son of God by his doing such works as no man ever did and by such evident signs and tokens as never before were declared as to any man yet they believed him not to be the Son of God 2. As Faith is one great principle of all our spiritual actions so Fear is another Now the observing of Divine Providences much conduceth to this It is particularly remark't by the Holy Ghost upon the sudden death of Ananias and Saphira That a great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard of those things And in the Law of Moses you shall find God commanding exemplary Justice to be done upon some remarkable offenders for this very end That all Israel might hear and fear It is particularly said Jonah 1.16 When Jonah had told them the cause of the storm and they had thrown him over-board Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered sacrifices and made vows Severe Providences without the word make men startle and put them into a passion of fear but when they follow a word of threatning and they do but see God doing what in his word he hath said he will do this must needs have a great power and influence upon the heart especially upon the hearts of such as before had an habit of Divine Fear wrought in them though it were smothered with the ashes of too much carnal security 3. Love to God is a third principle of spiritual action an habit wrought in the soul of every Child of God but not at all times so lively and quick and working as it ought to be Now the observation of Gods good and gracious Providences serves hugely to excite it and to blow up the Coals of it in the soul Psal 37.23 O love you the Lord all his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer But this will be further enlarged upon in my discourse upon the second branch of the Proposition which I now come to discourse upon Mem. 2. Whoso observeth the Providences of God he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I take the word understand here to signifie three things 1. Knowledg 2. A more clear and distinct knowledg 3. A more demonstrative and experimental knowledg 1. He shall know the loving-kindness of the Lord understand it with reference to the Church and People of God for Gods Providence is like the Cloud which conducted the Israelites out of Egypt and through the Red-sea it hath a light-side which hath an aspect upon Gods Israel and it hath a black and dark-side towards his enemies Now he who observeth Divine Providence will know this That all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those that fear God Psal 25.10 A slight and transient view of Divine Providence will not bring a man to the knowledg of this but a wist view and observation of Divine Providence in the course and series of it will do it The word of God speaketh much of the Love and Favour of God to his People Providence to the strict and constant observer of it will confirm all these words God himself speaking after the manner of men to Abraham speaks as if he had not known his love and obedience to him till he had made an experiment of it and saw that he would not have withheld from him his Son even his only Son We know nothing of the loving-kindness of God before we see it experimented and brought into demonstration in comparison with what we know upon such an evidence and this we gain by our considerate observation of the motions of Divine Providence 2. He who observeth the motions of Providence shall have a more distinct knowledg of the loving-kindness of God He shall not only know that God is good to Israel and to all that are of a clean heart but he shall also see something of the Methods of God in the exercise of his loving-kindness When we speak of the Love and Favour of God to his People we are prone to understand by it nothing but pleasing Providences grateful to our senses now the loving-kindness of God is not only seen in pleasing dispensations but in adverse Providences also Whom he loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth All things are yours saith the Apostle This knowledg must be gained by observation Sense looks upon cross dispensations of Providence and it may be Reason judging of them from present appearances and effects cryeth out All these things are against me Here is nothing of promised loving-kindness in all this Is his mercy clean gone doth his promise fail for evermore But whoso observeth Divine Providence will in these things also understand the loving-kindness of the Lord and know that it is the method of Divine Providence to deal out the loving-kindness of God to the Souls of his People through crosses and tryals and afflictions in a way which at present they do not understand and know but shall know hereafter No affliction saith the Apostle is joyous at present but grievous but it bringeth forth afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 3. Vnderstanding thirdly may signifie experience and indeed there is no such understanding as experience gives Every Child of God that observeth Divine Providence shall find it let the wind of it blow which way it will giving him an experiment and demonstration of the Love of God to his Soul But thus much shall serve to have spoken to the Explication of this Proposition in both branches I come to the proof of it to shew you how it appeareth That he who observeth the motions of Divine Providence and he alone shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. It will appear to you if you but consider 1. That however things go in the course of Providence yet it is most certain that they are mercy and truth to them who fear God For this we have a certain word Psalm 25.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies And again Psalm 73.1 Truly God is good to Israel In my former Discourse I shewed you three Objects of special Providence 1. Rational creatures are a more special object of Providence than either inanimate or brute creatures 2. Amongst rational Creatures those men and women in the World which make
God thus speaking to you under its darkest Dispensations Think you that I am about to destroy the Promise or by my motions to make it of no effect No I am come not to destroy a tittle of a promise Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not a tittle of the promise shall fail I am not by these motions destroying the promise whatever your sense may dictate to you or whatsoever your reason may prompt to you I am but fulfilling the promise Therefore I say at such a time look to your hearts that they abide by the promise Let it be the case of the Church in which we live or the case of any particular Soul still keep to the Word the promise to the Church is sure the promise to the particular Soul is sure Providence is not moved out of its way it is only got a little out of thy sight if thou canst but wait for it it will come into thy road again and go with thy expectation most certainly to the fulfilling of the Promise Take that one word Eccles 8.12 13 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely it shall be well with them that fear God which fear before him But it shall not be well with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days which are as a shadow because he feareth not before God Consonant to which is that Isa 3.10 11 Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with them for they shall eat the fruit of their doings Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him Now these words both of Promise and of Threatning are sure words yet such as to which the Providence of God makes our faith stagger more than as to any other It often goes out of what we take to be its road in order to the accomplishment of these words we see wicked men prospering growing great in power honour riches yet their ways are such as he that runneth may read that the fear of God is not before their eyes Well be it so yet let not your hearts fail as to the promise keep close to it you will see Providence return to what you call its Road again If a Sinner do evil an hundred times if he liveth an hundred years yet the Word of the Lord shall be justified upon him So if a child of God be chastened an hundred times if Religion and Reformation and the interest of God in the World be brought under the hatches an hundred times yet Magna est Veritas praevalebit Truth shall prevail at last and Gods people shall have the day at last Consider O Christian thou canst not give God a greater honour than to believe when thou doest not seee This is a faith like Abraham's who believed in hope above hope or contrary to hope Rom. 4 who believed when he had nothing else to trust to but that God was able to raise up and save from the dead Say in the prosperity of Sinners I will have nothing to do with them For I know it shall be ill with them though they thrive and prosper some months and years yet I know the reward of their hands shall be given them In the adversity and afflicted estate of Gods people say with those will I cast in my lot for I know it shall be well with them Take heed that the Providence of God draw you not from the Promise Lastly will some say What is our duty with reference to Providence at such a time I will open this in four or five particulars with which I will shut up my Discourse upon this Observation 1. Search and see whether some miscarriages of thy own hath not carried Providence out of thy sight and turned it out of its right line I told you before that Providence is never out of its way it is always moving upon Gods Errand but it is often out of our sight and our sins are the cause of that its motion You know under what a multitude of Promises the Jews were as the seed of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as the posterity of David c. Promises for great measures of outward prosperity notwithstanding which they were carried captives into Babylon and there endured an hard bondage of seventy years Isaiah tells them the Reason Your iniquities have separated betwixt God and you and your sins have made him to hide his face from you What do the godly amongst the Jews under this Dispensation Lam. 3.39 40 Let us say they search and try our ways and return again to the Lord this is undoubtedly the duty of the Church the duty of every particular Soul When thou seest God turned out of his way as thou thinkest and not doing by thee as thou didst expect search and see whether thy miscarriages have not caused that withdrawing or turning aside It is true Gods punishments of his people are not always for sin he may sometimes do it to try their faith their patience their adherence to him but this is a secret to us Two things are certain in this case 1. That God doth most ordinarily punish them for their sins 2. That he never punisheth them but they have sin'd enough to warrant it an act of justice and to give them cause of suspicion and of Soul-humiliation so as a searching and trying of their ways in the day of divine chastenings can never be improper or out of season 2. Look to your faith in the Promise It is the Promise is the object of Faith and Providence no further than it relateth to the Promise A time of dark Providences is usually a time of great temptations It is so oftentimes on Gods part that is God designs his peoples trial It is so often from Satan who takes the advantage of those hours to suggest to the Soul It is so as to the World they pierced Davids heart in such an hour as with a sword when in it they said unto him Where is thy God become Psalm 42. It is so in it self considering that we are but flesh and how ready the language of that is Surely I have cleansed my hands in vain I have washed mine hands in innocency for nothing Or that of Saul This evil is of the Lord why should I wait for him any longer Therefore I say Look to your Anchor-hold in such a day Thus doth David Why art thou cast down O my Soul why art thou disquieted within me trust thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God Psalm 42. So doth the Church Micab 7.8 Rejoyce not over me O mine Enemy when I fall I shall rise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me The Heathen Poets have a story that Vlysses in his sailing home being to pass the Syrens who were wont to allure Mariners with their melodious tunes towards them while their ships were dashed in
calls to us for Psalm 37.1 Neither be thou envious at the workers of iniquity And the Wiseman Prov. 3.31 Envy not the Oppressor Prov. 23.17 Let not thy heart envy Sinners You have an usual saying It is better to be envied than pitied the meaning is to be in a state of prosperity which usually is the Object of Envy than in a state of adversity which is usually the Object of pity It is not so here It is better to be a child of God though an Object of pity than a Sinner though an Object of Envy Prosperity slayeth the fool nor is he ever so near ruin as when he is at the highest There is a story of a custom they had in Persia to gratifie a condemned Malefactor for an hour before his Execution with whatsoever he should desire which of us should have envied such a poor wretch for that hours pleasure Sinners are never so near ruin as when they are at the highest O then envy them not in their heighths 2. Much less fret and repine against God for allowing them such a preheminence over thee as to their outward estate God hath his wise and just ends in it both in suffering them to grow high and thee to continue in a low and afflicted state by the former he ripeneth them for Judgment by the latter he prepareth you for Mercy Fret not because of evil-doers saith the Psalmist Psalm 37. ver 1. We cannot dive into the bottom of Gods Counsels but if this observation of the motions of Providence be true we may see cause enough not to fret our selves nor to murmur and repine at God we have no reason to repine at God when we see his Providence working towards our deliverance and towards the downfal of his and our Enemies Thus it is according to this Observation when we are brought most low and the Enemies of God are suffered to mount most high 3. Certainly if this be true the flourishing state of sinners should be no temptation to us so much as to desire to take part with them Solomon joins them together Prov. 3.31 Envy not thou the Oppressor neither chuse any of his ways My son saith Solomon If sinners entice thee consent not thou unto them though they say we shall find all precious substance we shall fill our houses with spoil The words of Sinners are nothing so enticing as their prosperous state for riches and honour and rule and pleasures not many can resist the temptation of them but certainly if the heighths of these to sinners be prognosticks of their ruin if we could consider their pride their riches honours plenty dominion as things which set them nearer unto ruin they would be no temptations desire not to rise and thrive and grow great and domineer with wicked men lest thou also fall with them 2. But in the last place let us from hence conclude the duty of a child of God in his lowest state or in the lowest state of the Church and people of God I will open it in few particulars and so conclude First To glory in Tribulation The Apostle maketh this one of the fruits of justifying faith Rom. 5. St. James would have the rich Christian rejoyce in that he is made low Ja. 1.10 A depth of misery in the people of God always makes way for mercy and the redemption and salvation of the people of God is never nearer than when in humane appearance it seems to be furthest off Indeed this must be the rejoycing of faith for the eye of sense at such a time is quite put out Besides the circulation of Divine Providence which is evident to those who look wistly upon the motions of Providence in the World there is a great deal more to give the people of God at such a time cause of rejoycing they are more prepared for mercy their Enemies are more prepared for vengeance it is then a fit season for God to work for his glory c. Secondly This should learn the people of God patience under all their sufferings pressures and oppressions Patience is a grace of which we may say as Solomon of a Friend or a Brother It is made for adversity There are many arguments to perswade Patience that is a quiet calm submission to God under frowns of Providence but nothing more effectual to our hasty and impatient frail natures than to hear that the burthen of God upon our shoulders shall not lie there long when we can hope that Nubecula est transibit it is but a storm and it will over What said our Saviour to his Disciples Could not you watch with me one hour The prospect of the shortness of an Evil doth very much alleviate it and relieve our spirits under the burthen of it That miserable Emperour had no other relief under his most cruel torments than Hoc non est Eternitas this is not Eternity Now what an argument is this for a Christians patience and fortitude for him to think when his case is worst when his burthen most pincheth him then his deliverance is nearest even at the door They say in a dark morning the darkness is always thickest just before break of day In the Mount of the Lord it shall be seen I am sure it is always darkest just before break of day with the Church and the people of God As the pains of a Woman in travel encrease so the hour of her delivery more hasteneth and there is no worse sign of a long travail to her than little and lingring pains The Women at such a time will sometimes say to those that enquire after the Woman in pangs We want more pain Truly it is so oft-times with the Church of God They want more pain more pressures and oppressions they are not brought low enough for a mercy O let us be patient then under the greatest trials Great trials never last long You know what the Martyr said We have a bad Dinner but we shall have a better Break-fast Thirdly This calleth aloud to the people of God at such a time for the exercise of faith Indeed this is the proper time for faith to work As too much light blinds the Eye instead of helping it so doth sense blind the Eye of Faith Sense followeth Providence but Faith stands by the Promise and exerciseth it self upon that When the Providence of God is most out of our sight then is the time to lay the fastest hold upon the Promise As there are degrees of darkness in nights some are much more dark than others so there are degrees of darkness in the Churches nights sometimes there is a darkness in it which may be felt when Providence is so far from giving a light to us like that of the Sun that it doth not give us the light of a Candle Here now Christians stand concerned to shew that they do not live by the light of Providence but by faith in the word of God which still is the same and
same as of my former observation Because thus he gets himself most glory The Glory of God is the great end of all his actions he worketh for himself for the Honour and Glory of his own great Name Now God hath more Honour and Glory by these accomplishments than if he should bring them to pass by greater and more probable means The Apostle gives this very reason 1 Cor. 1.29 Why God chose weak things to confound those that are mighty c. That no flesh should glory in his presence 1. His power is thus more magnified He thus appears to be a great God a mighty God though it be true that the Power of God is equally exerted when he worketh by great means as by small had we spiritual eyes or did we look upon means as we ought to do as deriving all their efficacy from God yet de facto it is not so to us and therefore you shall in Scripture observe God often declaring that he would work this or that in this or that manner that his People might not say that they had done this by their own might or power The lesser appearance there is of second Causes the more the efficiency of the first Cause is evident so God getteth himself a great deal of Glory by working in the day of mans smallest things 2. As I also told you under the former head God getteth himself more Glory by the praises of his people he is more admired in his workings more praised and adored for his workings The Enemies are also hereby enforced to confess the works of the Lord and to acknowledg the greatness of his Power But having enlarged upon these things under the former observation I shall add no more here but come to the Application Vse 1. The first Use I shall make of this point shall be what the Prophet Zechariah hath made before me Zech. 4.10 Who hath despised the day of small things The Prophet propoundeth it by way of Interrogation but it contains a Precept in the bowels of it Learn not to despise the day of small things it is usually Gods day It may be a day of small things as to the Church the state of it may be very sad the case of it very low little humane means or probabilities may appear of the amendment of its state all things may seem to make against the interest of God and Religion Now I say let no man despise this day of small things It may be a day of small things with the particular soul the case of it may be very sad it may be full of dejections full of despondencies hurried with temptations it may have hope and but a little hope light shining in upon it at a poor crevice let none now despise this day of small things Two things I would press upon you 1. Not to despise this day 2. To perform what is your positive duty with reference to such a day 1. I say first Despise not such a day Persons or things may be despised two ways 1. Directly 2. Interpretatively Take heed of despising it directly Take heed of despising it interpretatively We despise a person or thing directly when in our hearts we contemn him or it and have a low and poor estimate of him or it and express it by any outward sign as words gestures c. Thus the Enemies of the Jews scorned the Jews employed in re-building the City and Temple when they said What will these feeble Jews do if a fox go up he will break down what they have builded It was it seems a day of small things with the Jews their Enemies despised them and mocked at them Thus Sennacherib despised Hezekiah when he offered his Commissioners two hundred horses if his master could set riders on them Take heed of this despising Thus the Popish party in Germany despised the day of small things in the beginning of the Reformation by Luther when they bid him go into his Cell and pray Lord have mercy upon me The issue in all three cases shewed that they had no reason as to any of them to have despised the day of small things Providence usually brings forth its greatest works in such a day But besides this despising 2. There is an interpretative despising of such a day Take heed of this also thus we may despise things 1. When we do not give that due regard to them which we ought Thus our Saviour telleth you A man cannot serve two masters but he will cleave to the one and despise the other that is not give that due regard which he ought to give to the other He that neglecteth what ought not to be neglected doth interpretatively despise when we have not that due value for a thing we ought to have we despise it Thus Esau despised his birth-right saith the Apostle we no where read that he spake contemptuously of it but he did not duly value it he sold it for a contemptible price a mess of pottage 2. When because of the smallness of means our hearts fail in the use of the means we have or as to the promise this is a despising of the day of small things Now I say take heed of despising such a day any of these ways it is usually Gods day Let your rule be this If a work or issue of a work be for Gods Glory if it be the matter of a Divine Promise though there may be but a small appearance of means for the accomplishment of it take heed of despising it either directly or interpretatively Who hath despised such a day saith the Prophet intimating that none ought to despise it none hath any just reason to despise it 2. But secondly Do what is your duty in such a day you will say What is that I will open it in three things 1. Vse the means you have 2. Exercise a faith in God beyond the probable effect of those means 3. Make up in prayer what you will want in action through a want of means Of each of these a word or two 1. Vse those means and grounds of hope which you have If David hath but a sling and a stone to go out against Goliah with yet he will use them Means that have a natural vertue in them or a divine institution have Gods stamp upon them and must be used leaving the event and success unto God we must neither idolize means by attributing the divine Efficiency to them nor yet tempt God by a neglect of them when God affords us them You shall observe God sometimes commanding the use of means which had no rational tendency to the production of the effect as what influence could the Israelites blowing with Rams-horns and the Army encompassing the City seven days have upon the walls of Jericho yet the Israelites were bound to use them because they had the stamp of a divine Institution upon them It is much the same case when they have a natural vertue or a rational tendency there
is a divine stamp too though of a different nature what means are proper must be used how mean soever they appear in our eyes What proportion was there betwixt Jonathan and his Armour-bearer and the whole Garrison of the Philistines between Jeroboams Army and Abijahs This but four hundred the other eight hundred thousand between the Army of Asia and that of the Ethiopians and Lubims 2 Chron. 14. God often works yea he ordinarily worketh by small means and Providence brings forth its great work in the day of mans small things If we be sure that we are in Gods way and about his work let the means be what they will if lawful and rational it is our duty to use them God must be honoured in his own Institutions and sought in his own way though the means be small and our humane hopes small yet if we expect Gods blessing this mercy must be sought in the use of those means which the Providence of God layeth before us 2. But secondly The duty of a Christian will lye much in the exercise of his Faith in God beyond the probability of the means This is the great duty of a Christian and the very end which God aimeth at in cutting us short of means many times I think we may say Vbi media deficiunt ibi fides incipit where means begin to fail there faith begins to work Where we are out of sight as to means there 's a room for faith For it is saith the Apostle the evidence of things not seen By faith here I mean a trusting and relying upon God as a God able and faithful But to open this a little more clearly to you I will shew you 1. In what cases we may warrantably exercise a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of means 2. What means we may use for the help of our faith in this case 3. What encouragements we may take to our selves in such a case to set our faith on work 1 Quest In what cases may a Christian exercise faith in God for the accomplishment beyond the vertue efficacy and probability of humane means to be used in order to it 1. To this I answer The object of faith must be a Promise It is ridiculous to talk of an exercise of faith in God for an accomplishment for which we have no word to warrant us in the expectation of it But now a Promise may be either particular or General of old many had particular persons and the Nation of the Jews had particular promises made to them by God immediately or mediately by his Prophets we have no such God hath left us unto his written Word There are many general promises which shall be made good still to particular Churches and persons Hence is our difficulty to conclude what it is we may exercise a faith in God for bringing to pass To direct you a little 1. Where you have a particular promise the case is plain Some such there are as for the destruction of Antichrist c. 2. In the want of a special particular Promise a general promise is a sufficient object for our faith General promises made to the Church and people of God are applicable to particular Churches and particular Saints 3. Every Precept doth imply a Promise God hath certainly promised a blessing upon the doing of that which he hath commanded us to do no man serveth God for nothing 4 Whatsoever issue certainly conduceth to the glory of God is under a Promise God hath resolved to glorifie himself and he ordereth all his actions in order to that end The substance of all this amounts to thus much We may exercise a faith in God and trust in him for accomplishing by his Providence whatsoever in his Word he hath either more particularly or generally promised or whatsoever he hath commanded us to act in tendency unto or whatsoever doth certainly tend to the glorifying of his great and holy Name Now if any thing of this nature be upon the wheel although we see the present visible means in order to the accomplishment of it be small and in all appearance disproportioned to the greatness of the event yet a Christian using what lawful means the Providence of God lays before him may warrantably trust in God for the exerting a further power for the accomplishment of it than is in the means which at present are apportioned to it But this is now an hard thing to us Let me therefore secondly direct you what you should do in a day of small things for the advantaging of your faith in this noble Exercise I shall offer but two things in the Case 1. Keep your Eye as much off the means and as much upon God as you can We have so much of sense and reason in us that we are very prone from one or other of them to take all our measures about future events If we would keep our hearts steady in a time of such exigencies as these we must shut the Eyes both of our sense and reason Faith credits a Proposition neither upon the demonstrations of the one of these nor the conclusions of the other but the meer authority of God Men count it wisdom when they are upon precipices never to look downward but upward if they look downward their weak heads are apt to be giddy Christians in such stresses of Providence as these are have nothing else to do if they look downward their sense their reason saith how can these things be If God would make windows in heaven saith that Nobleman these things could not be Our poring upon means in the day of our small things hindereth the exercise of our faith in God If the foundations be destroyed saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 what can the righteous do Means are the foundations of our natural hopes now if these be destroyed if there be little or nothing of these what can we do Wicked men are indeed at their wits-ends they despond and despair but saith the Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men God is still where he was and hath the same power the same knowledg of things the same rule and dominion Twice in Scripture Abraham is propounded to us as a noble Example and a father of the faithful in this thing Rom. 4. God had promised him a Son a Son of his Wife Sarah he grew to be an hundred years old his Wife many years past child bearing here was no means yet Abraham believeth for a Child and he was not weak in the faith saith the Apostle Rom. 4.18 19 20. How doth he behave himself The Apostle telleth you That he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarahs womb he staggered not at the Promise but was strong in faith giving glory to God being fully perswaded that what he had promised
unlawful thinking to add to the day of small things this way Abraham failed in this going in to Hagar so did Asa in the instance beforementioned though he acted otherwise when the Ethiopians and Lubims were against him Indeed nothing is more contrary to faith than this it speaketh a plain distrust in God nothing is more improper and needless supposing the truth of this Observation 4. The last thing to be done in such a case is Prayer to God to supply by his arm what is wanting in humane means To this Asa and Abijah all the servants of God in such distresses have had recourse God will be found in a way of Prayer SERMON XVIII Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am pointing you to some observable things in the motions of Divine Providence though the way of God in it be in many things unsearchable and past finding out Three Observations I have already made justified them by plenty of instances and endeavoured to give you some reasonable account of them and suted some Application to them I proceed now to a fourth which you may take thus Observ 4. The Providence of God as to its works relating to his Church and people rarely as to circumstances answereth the expectations and confidences of the best of Gods people I will open it in two things 1. God never faileth the grounded expectations of his people as to any thing which he hath promised Psa 9.18 The expectation of the poor shall not perish Their expectation is upon God and their Souls wait for God Psalm 62.5 and their expectation and confidence in him shall not fail They that trust in him shall not be ashamed It is made the portion of a wicked man Prov. 11.7 Prov. 10.18 that his expectation shall perish but the hope of the righteous shall be gladness The Wiseman saith His expectation shall not be cut off Prov. 23.18 The reason is plain The expectation of good men is an expectation of faith and the object of faith is the word of God and heaven and earth shall pass away before one tittle of Gods word be it of promise or precept shall fail Many promises as to the Jews and as to Gospel-Churches are fulfilled some are yet to be fulfilled Antichrist is yet to be destroyed The Jews doubtless are to be called in a more plentiful manner than they have yet been There are many Scriptures that seem to assure a more united peaceable glorious state of the Church Now these Promises are matter of Gods peoples expectations and as to the things promised the expectations of the poor people of God shall not perish for ever the things shall certainly be accomplished If their hopes and expectations and confidences might fail the word of God the truth of God might fail but this cannot be 2. But secondly as to circumstances you shall observe God rarely answereth the confidences and expectations of the best of men unless they be part of the Promise By circumstances I understand whatsoever is not essential to the thing promised Particularly 1. Time when a thing is done 2. Place where a thing is to be done 3. Particular persons by whom as Instruments God will do his work 4. Particular means or actions by which the things should be brought to pass These and such like I call Circumstances as to which Gods Providence often fails not only the earnest desires and expectations but the highest perswasions and confidences of men yea even of such as fear him 1. As to persons Who if he had not exactly considered the Promise subjoined to what God had said they should four hundred years be servants to the Egyptians and it was not like Joseph should indeed live so long but I say if he had not considered that but only received a notion of the delivery of Israel out of Egypt would not have thought Joseph should have been the man who should have given conduct to that motion Who would have expected it from Moses a poor Hebrew child exposed to the next tide in a thin Ark of Bulrushes yet by Moses Providence did the work When Moses had done that work and given them forty years conduct in the Wilderness and was grown an experienced Commander who would not have thought and expected that he should have led them over Jordan and given them possession of the promised Land But Moses must die and his servant Joshua must do it In the captivity of Babylon the believing Jews doubtless had great expectation of a deliverance according to the Promises so often repeated by the Prophet and unquestionably they had their expectations upon this and that person probable to have done it but who could have dreamed that Cyrus should be the man The Army of Israel under Saul might reasonably have expected that some or other of the great Soldiers which were at that time doubtless in the Army of the Israelites should have encountred Goliah Who could have thought of a Shepherd's coming and doing of it with a sling and a stone There is a Promise under the New Testament for the bringing down of Antichrist the ruin of Babylon how often have mens expectations been upon this or that or the other Prince to have done it and to what strange confidences have some even good people grown that this or that person should be the man should pull Antichrist out of his Seat we see hither to God hath failed all their expectations the person appears not that shall do that great work and when he shall appear it is likely that it shall be one never talk'd of never thought of Secondly As to Time We have a strange curiosity to know the times and seasons which is not for us to know but are reserved only to God Tell us say the Disciples when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the World Matth. 24.3 Acts 1.6 Wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel There are three great Promises or four concerning the Churches of God the fulfilling of which we yet expect 1. That for the destruction of Antichrist 1 Thess 2.7 8. 2. For the full conversion of the Jews Rom. 11.26 to speak nothing of many other Texts which look that way 3. Christs second coming of which you know the Scripture speaketh plentifully 4. A more calm and flourishing and peaceable state of the Church which many Scriptures also seem to look toward whether for a thousand years precisely under the conduct of Christs coming personally or no hath you know been much disputed but the generality of the most inquisitive Divines into the will of God do think there shall be a more peaceable and calm state of the Church of God Now it is strange to observe the curiosity of many in searching out the precise time when these things or some of them should begin or be Some have fixed this
a knowledg too high too deep for thee Providence usually bringeth home both the promises to the Saints and the threatnings to the Sinners in a way quite different from what they looked for or it may be expected it in I have spoken enough already to take Christians off this but yet because it is a great point a thing wherein we are prone to slip and wherein our slipping is more than ordinarily dangerous let me spend a little time further to argue you out of this vanity and to direct your Souls in the expectation of the fulfilling of Divine Promises 1. Consider how much the strength of your souls is spent and how vainly in the expectations of your own fancies As the expectation of that for substance which God never promised is but the expectation of our own fancy so neither is the expectation of what God hath promised under such circumstances as are no part of the promse Now the strength of our Souls runneth much out in such expectations Let a man but fancy that in such a year Babylon shall fall The Jews shall be called The thousand years shall begin That by such a time the Church in distress or his Soul in distress shall be delivered It is strange to observe how the Soul will spend it self upon such a Notion the thoughts of men run upon it their wits are bent to interpret dark Scriptures into their own fancies it presently becomes the main article of their faith and the great argument of their hope and the whole subject of their discourses and at last possibly they are enforced to acknowledg that they had a lye in their right hand The Prophet useth the expressions upon an higher argument but yet they are applicable here Why spend you your strength for that which is not bread and your labour for that which will not profit There is nothing that is bread for a Soul but the Word of God it hath pitied my Soul many times to observe many otherwise I hope serious persons how they have spent themselves in such Enquiries and expectations as these Consider secondly how the faith of your souls is often endangered and shaken by your disappointments in these things I do but name this again for I before enlarged upon it How ready are we to dis-believe the Promise wholly because it comes not in the circumstances that we fancied it would come The Apostle was aware of this great Evil and therefore when some had been prophecying in the Church of the Thessalonians of a sudden coming of Christ to Judgment he writeth to that Church 2 Thess 2.1 2 Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as if the day of Christ were at hand Let no man deceive you by any means The Apostle saw that this hasty and ungrounded expectation of Christs coming under such circumstances as he had now here revealed did not only tend to the troubling of Christians when they saw themselves disappointed but also to the shaking of their faith as to the thing it self and therefore beseecheth them by the coming of our Lord Jesus and by their gathering together unto him what can be the meaning of that but this If ever you expect the joyful coming of Christ and would keep your faith steady as to it if ever you would be with us gathered unto him concern not your selves in those who would limit the Promises to the circumstances of their own fancying Let them pretend Revelations of the Spirit or wrest the word of God yet faith the Apostle let them not deceive you You have an eminent instance of this shaking of Christians faith so consequential to this limiting of God to circumstances Luke 22.31 There was a Promise of redeeming Israel Christ had been crucified and three days were passed and they had heard nothing tending to their expectation say they We trusted it had been he which should have redeemed Israel and besides all this to day is the third day since these things were done Their faith began to shake as to the main Promise because Providence in the accomplishment of them did not fit it with the circumstances which they had fancied Thirdly Consider it much hindereth that duty of waiting upon God which the Scripture so often presseth upon us I need not mention particular Scriptures there is hardly any one duty more pressed upon Christians in Scripture than this patient waiting upon and for God Now how doth that Soul wait upon God that limits God to his circumstances of time place means persons he indeed waiteth upon those circumstances a while but when he is disappointed as to them he knoweth not how to wait upon God any longer The Soul which truly waiteth on God leaveth circumstances unto him You will say unto me in the next place What then is the duty of a Christian with respect to the Promises whether concerning the Church or his own soul in particular I answer to receive and embrace them and be perswaded of the truth of them and leave unto God the way time manner and circumstances for fulfilling of them which he hath not revealed going on in the way of our plain duty till God shall please to give a being to his Word You shall see your duty Heb. 11.13 These all died in the faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off and were perswaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth What promises were these The promises of Canaan of the Messias Abraham saw Christs day and rejoyced saith our Saviour They received these promises in their ears God revealed his will for these things they saw them afar off as things like to come to pass many years after they were perswaded of them of the truth of them that God would give them a being they embraced them with thankful believing hearts and lived so as that they confessed themselves strangers and pilgrims of the Earth in a constant course of self-denial and fulfilling the will of God and in a crucifixion to the World they never stood troubling themselves to search out the particular time and circumstances when and which way God would do these things but kept in the faith of the Promise leaving circumstances unto God Let us go and do likewise I shall conclude this discourse with a Text of our Saviours Luke 17.20 21 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God should come He answered and said the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation Neither shall they say Lo here or Lo there for behold the Kingdom of God is within you Let me a little open these words to you The Kingdom of God that is the great things which concern the Kingdom of God these are not brought to pass and come
that are to be my hearers Let me therefore go on Doth therefore any of you say unto me Seer What seest thou I answer yet once more I observe in the motions of Actual Providence Observ 21. That God commandeth his sensible blessings most upon those individual persons and those societies of the children of men that live in the most exact conformity to the Divine Rule Here are two terms in this Observation upon the Explication of which I will a little insist Quest 1. What is meant by sensible blessings Quest 2. What I mean by the most exact conformity to the Divine Rule Good things are distributed several ways in order to our comprehension of them by our understandings amongst others this is one distribution of them they are either sensible or insensible By sensible good things I understand such as are obvious to our senses and perceptible by them By insensible such as have a reality of good in them but yet not such as our senses discern Thus David saith It is good for me that I have been afflicted but yet afflictions are not sensible good things all such are the objects of our joy and delight Now saith the Apostle no affliction at the present is joyous but grievous but it bringeth forth the quiet fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised therewith But I say God commandeth sensible blessings mostly upon persons and societies living in the best square and most exact conformity unto the Divine Rule 2. Further yet Sensible blessings are capable of a double notion they are either such as are obvious only to the inward senses of those that are made partakers of them such are peace of conscience joy in the holy God that serenity and tranquillity of mind which is the effect of righteousness the new-name which none knoweth but he that hath it but there are other good things which are the objects of our more exteriour senses such are health prosperity success in trade c. blessings in relations c. Now my Obsersation is That the Actual Providence of God doth usually distribute good things of this nature to such persons and such societies of persons as live to the truest square and exactest conformity to the Divine Rule That is a general and must be opened also The Divine Rule as to families and persons is of a great compass but the whole of it is reducible to three heads viz. Piety Justice and Charity under each of these are several particulars but none which fall not under one of these generals 1. Piety consists in the internal and external acts of homage which we owe unto God Our internal acts are Fear Faith Love Our external acts are principally Prayer and Praise reading the word c. 2. Justice is an habit disposing us to give every one their due 3. By Charity I mean here mutual brotherly love Now look where these things best prosper there God commandeth most sensible blessings in the ordinary motions of his Provilence Particular instances may be exceptions from a general rule but ordinarily it is so What the Psalmist saith of one of these is true of all There God commandeth the blessing Psal 133.3 There where it may be interpreted with reference to the words which immediately precedes the mountain of Zion but I take it to be far more proper to refer it to the first verse which contains the argument of the whole Psalm O saith the Psalmist how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity This he illustrateth by two similitudes the one is the oyl which was poured upon the head of Aaron and ran down to the skirts of his garment Vers 2. The other is the dew of Hermon that descended on the mountain of Zion for saith the Psalmist there the Lord commandeth the blessing even life for evermore There where where brethren together dwell in unity it is as true there where Religion is exercised where all relations give their due one to another there God commandeth the blessing Now for the proof of this I shall but appeal to your experience and what you see every day 1. Look into the world there you shall see nations of various complexions some in which the true God is worshipped in a true manner others wherein Devils are worshipped or stocks or stones or if the true God be indeed worshipped yet it is not as he hath directed but by images and superstitious rites and observances some nations that are nothing else but rapine and violence and oppression full of strife and hatred and malice and wars and dissensions You on the other side will see other Nations amongst whom the true God is worshipped and that in a true manner where are good laws against oppression and injustice and for distributive and commutative Justice where men are not hunted and persecuted for their consciences towards God Mark if God doth not command the blessing of riches trade c. more upon the latter than the former It is true some of those Countreys where these iniquities are found are naturally richer than others in minerals and the Native Commodities of the Countrey but for adventitious riches which come from Trade and Commerce and for other sensible blessings observe if they be not poured out in a greater plenty upon Nations that in matters of Religion civil Justice and Unity have been regulated by laws conformable to the Word of God than upon other Nations where none of these things have been regarded 2. If you will straiten your prospect look upon any Cities or Towns or any kind of political societies you will see some of these places such as Egypt was of which Abraham said The fear of God was not in that place where all their Religion is to persecute those that have any thing of Religion in them No rules of justice and brotherly love are observed but they are full of violence and oppression and fraud there is nothing in them but the inhabitants biting and devouring one another the cry of the oppressed is in their street Other places you will find where Religion is cherished and countenanced where the word of God is livelily and powerfully preached and men live in some seeming awe of it where rules of civil Justice are observed and men can have Justice in Courts of Judicature and the people live in peace and amity one with another observe again which of these God most commandeth his blessing upon I might appeal to your like observation concerning families and particular persons But it is no more than every one may observe Consider what an Hell upon Earth some Cities some Families are in comparison of others and see what makes the difference both in the beauty and in the prosperity of them And it needs must be so if you please to consider 1. The natural tendency of these things to so happy products 2. That God in pursuance of his many promises doth there command the blessing First In
to repent how standeth it with the sincerity and truth of God to command them to repent or believe or how will it stand with Divine Justice to condemn them for not repenting or believing For this general command of men to repent and to believe is not only made use of to destroy the Doctrine of Election and the certainty of the Covenant of Grace but also to destroy special and effectual Grace My business is not at present to establish those great truths which are abundantly spoken to by others and I have elsewhere and at other times spoken abundantly to them but only to vindicate the Providence of God upon the supposal of the truth of them and to shew you that the Universality of the Ministerial Gospel-call maketh no argument against them I say then supposing man in his lapsed state to have no power to repent yet it is consistent enough with the truth and seriousness of God with his purity and holiness or any other attribute of his perfection to call all men to repent neither doth such his call of them imply any such natural innate power in them 1. What if man in his lapsed estate by nature hath no power to any action that is spiritually good not to believe nor repent yet is it not his duty to do both and had not our proparent a power given him of God to do whatsoever was necessary in order to his eternal salvation His duty is because God commandeth it my Text saith he commandeth now all men to repent and certainly in Adam both he and all of us had a power to do whatsoever was the will of God as to his own and our salvation in that estate wherein God created him and us in him Hath God lost his right to demand his due because man hath lost his power to pay it I know the Remonstrants and Socinians generally deny this and say and they say true that Adam had not a power to repent and believe in Jesus Christ that is a specifick power but neither were these necessary in that state nor indeed practicable Adam was created a just man that needed no repentance needed no faith in a Mediator but Adam had a power and we in him to all in that estate necessary if Adam and we in him have by voluntary transgression made any thing more necessary and God upon a Covenant of Grace hath restored us upon the performance of such other things I hope Gods justice shall not be impeached for his not giving us a power to do those things also whereas we originally had a sufficiency of power to do all God required of us in that state Aquinas sufficiently determines this point Aq. sum §. 1. quest 95. art 3. Adams reason saith he in the state of innocency being subjected to God and his inferiour faculties being subjected to his reason he had in some sense all graces omnes virtutes and that both in habit and act which do not imply an imperfection repugnant to that state others only in the habit c. He instanceth in repentance only and saith Adam had faith both in the habit and act but he speaks of faith only as respecting God and the proposition of the word not as respecting a Mediator for the object for we all know that in that state there was no need of a Mediator and consequently faith in the Mediator implieth the imperfection of a lapsed state repugnant to the perfection of the primaevous state of innocency It is enough we had in Adam a sufficiency of power to do all necessary to our salvation in that estate It was our transgression made any thing else necessary 2. You heard under the former head That God may have many wise ends why he now calleth all men to repent though he did not intend that upon that call they should repent or believe 3. Although lapsed man hath no power of himself to repent or believe without the special effectual grace of God yet he hath a power by vertue of that Common-Grace which God denieth to no man to do much in order to his repentance and believing 4. What if we should leave it for a question to be decided at the great day whether Reprobates shall be condemned strictly for not believing in sensu diviso that is not receiving of Jesus Christ and resting upon him as their Saviour or for not believing in sensu composito not doing what in them lay that they might believe God calleth all men to repent and to believe it is true it is not in their power to exert an act of faith or a salvifick act of repentance but it is in their power to read the word to hear it to meditate upon it to consider their sins to leave many of them as to the external act I always thought it a very idle question An homine faciente quod in se est Deus teneatur gratiam dare Whether if a man did what lay in his power to do God be bound to give his effectual saving grace For I dare say an instance cannot be given of any that hath done what lies in his power to whom God hath denied his effectual grace but Deus tenetur is a very hard saying Who can make God a debtor to his creature who hath given unto him and it shall be repaid him If we could not say any thing to justifie God in condemning sinners who have no power to any spiritual act for not believing not repenting yet I think the matter would not be much for in the great day we shall find God will have enough to say for condemning sinners for omitting what was in their power to do or acting contrary to it though he should say nothing to them for not doing that which without his special grace is confessedly not in the power of lapsed man But enough is spoken to vindicate this motion of Divine Providence My Text is true God now by his Ministers calleth all men to repent and he may do it with consistency to his truth and sincerity to his holiness and goodness notwithstanding the certainty of his election and his certain knowledge of who are his having wrote their names in the book of life and notwithstanding the certainty of the Covenant of Grace as to persons and the certainty of the persons for whom Christ hath died and the impotency in fallen man to exert any truly spiritual act such as those of faith and repentance must be Let us now consider how this Discourse may be useful to us by way of practical Application Vse 1. And in the first place this may be of use to you to restrain you from approving of the bold sayings of those who reflect upon the truths of God and would turn them into falshoods because forsooth their narrow apprehensions cannot reconcile them to the truth sincerity holiness and goodness of God Let God be true and men liars let him be good infinitely good though all men be bad This quarrelling
was corrected and which when he was a child he deprecated and would gladly have cut in pieces Let me shew you a little that these things which we disgrace with the name of Evils and of which the holy and gracious God is not ashamed to be the Author are not Evils but such as deserve a better name and such good things as are some of the greatest goods the child of God meets with on this side of Heaven To this purpose we will consider them 1. As they contribute to the Predication of the Holiness and Justice of God and the making him to be feared and adored in the world 2. As they many ways contribute to the happiness of those that shall be saved 1. I say first as they predicate the glory of Gods Justice and Holiness Justice and Holiness are two eminent Attributes of the Divine Being so essential unto it as if he should not be just and holy he could not be God Now the Holiness and Justice of God could never be so known in the world but for the afflictions troubles and punishments which are abroad in it God is infinitely removed from our senses we can only read him in his word and in his works The word of God evidenceth these two Attributes to us by faith for the word is the object of faith and faith is the evidence of things not seen The word of God speaketh God a just and holy God and therefore we believe it but as in a State the Justice of the Magistrates would never be seen in making good Laws and discoursing just things if he never put them in execution so neither should we ever have any demonstration of the Justice and Holiness of God if it were not for those afflictions and punishments of sinners by which he declareth to the world his abhorrence of sin and the exactness of his Justice I remember the Apostle Rom. 3.25 telleth us That Christ was set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare Gods righteousness and God being about to destroy Pharaoh saith I will get me honour upon Pharaoh What honour the honour of his Justice and Righteousness It is the great interest of God to declare unto the world his Justice and Holiness How else should he have the revenue of his glory from these Attributes Now I say Evils of punishment are upon this account great goods and were necessary if they were causative of no other than this good If God obtained no more from them than the Proclamation of his Holiness and Predication of his Justice and Righteousness yet this were enough and thus much he gains from his punishment of the worst of men if they be not made better by them yet God is by them made more glorious and declareth his righteousness The argument is this Those things cannot be evil however we may miscall them which immediately tend to make God more glorious in the eyes of the world but this all Evils of punishment do they speak God a pure and holy God and a just and righteous God But there is much more to be said than this is 2. They very much contribute to the good of such as shall be saved 1. They contribute to make us better while we live here and 2. To make us eternally happy hereafter It is only the foolish child that as I said before quarrelleth at the rods and ferula's that correct the wildness and wantonness of its youth The grown man blesseth God and thanks his master for them He that spareth the rod saith Solomon hateth the child but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes Prov. 13.24 and advising Parents again saith Prov. 23.13 14. Withhold not correction from the child for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not dye thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell In short 1. By afflictions Souls ordained to life are kept from hell 2. By afflictions such souls are fitted for the Kingdom of Heaven 1. I say first By afflictions as by a divine sacred means the souls of such as are ordained unto life are saved from hell If mans rod may be a means to such a blessed end Gods rod will certainly do much more the rod and reproof give wisdom Prov. 29.15 Solomon tells us That foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him Prov. 22.15 It is as true as to the Children of God as it is with reference to the Children of men Have not you observed a tender Mother sometimes seeing a foolish child too busie with the fire or candle taking the childs hand or finger and holding it so near that it scalds or burns it self so learning the burnt child to dread the fire God hath never a child but is too too ready to be playing with hell-fire playing over the hole of the Asp and den of the Cockatrice God takes his childrens fingers and scalds them a little with the fire of Hell in their Consciences making them to be a continual terror instead of a continual feast or with the Candles of Afflictions and outward trials and thus they are delivered from Hell Adam had never seen death he had only heard of it in the threatning in case he did eat of the Tree that stood in the midst of the Garden he put out his hand and took of the fruit and did eat his posterity shall now see and feel death they shall be in deaths often and have leisure to think if the torments of the stone or the gout be so great what will the torments of Hell be If I am not able to stand under the terrors of an affrighted Conscience for a few months how shall I abide everlasting wrath That so he may be more wary and afraid Demonstrations of the truth of the word have a great force with our unbelieving hearts God hath therefore in infinite wisdom and goodness so ordered it that one while his people shall be in the fire of a Fever another while in the darkness of a divine desertion By the first they shall learn to conclude how hot the fire of Hell must be by the later how dreadful that utter darkness shall be which shall be the impenitent sinners portion what it is to be forsaken of God for ever upon the hearing that dreadful sentence Depart from me you cursed into everlasting burnings prepared for the Devil and his Angels They shall sometimes find Satan at their right hand to learn them what it is to be with the Devils to all eternity they shall sometimes want bread to eat and water to quench their thirst and left from thence to conclude what the condition of a Dives is that would in those flames be glad of a cup of cold water to cool his tongue they shall have extremities of pains for a little time in some particular joynts and limbs and thence gather what the torments of the whole body
shall not fall Mat. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Psal 94.14 For the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance Mica 4.4 11 12. So quite through this Psalm there are many promises of the same import Now the work of faith is to perswade the soul of the certainty and undoubted verity of these words of God to settle the soul in this perswasion That sooner shall Heaven and earth pass away than any of these things shall fail which God hath spoken Then the work of faith is further to carry out the soul without any carping trouble or disputing to rest wholly upon these words A Christian seeth the word of God what he hath said for its relief now faith teacheth the soul to agree this as the word of him who cannot lye or repent and calleth upon the soul to trust in God for the fulfilling of it to roll it self upon the promise and to commit it self its cause its way unto the Lord the soul of a Christian is very solicitous and careful for the concern and interest of God in the world faith teacheth the soul to cast its care the burthen of its spirit upon the Lord assuring it that God careth for it Faith speaketh to the soul in the language of Solomon Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Justice and Judgment in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they I say this is a great piece of the Child of Gods duty in such a time when the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side and the people of God are troden under foot as the mire in the streets It is the Will of God concerning them The just shall live by faith This is the proper time for the exercise of Faith when the eye of sense faileth Faith is the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for The proper operation of Faith is where sense faileth where God is trusted and not seen Blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet believe This is Opus diei in die suo Though the people of God ought to be careful of all duty at all times yet they ought to have a special regard to the duty of their day the seasonableness of a duty addeth much to the weight and importance of it The foundations are shaken saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 4 What shall what can the righteous do Mark what follows The Lords Throne is in Heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men This is that life which the Saints have lived yea and they have lived well upon it When David had lost all the Amalekites had taken Ziglag and in it all that he had 1 Sam. 30.6 the Text saith David encouraged himself in God the Truth Power and Goodness of God nor did he hope in God in vain as you shall read in that story What had Hezekiah to live upon but Faith when Sennacherib had besieged him with his mighty Army and ranted against him and the God of Heaven too after that rate you read What had all the Patriarchs all the Saints and Servants of God to live upon but Faith of whom you read Heb. 11. Nor is there any life which so glorifieth God as this it eminently glorifieth three Attributes of his his Power Goodness and Truth No man will trust in a bruised Reed or lean upon a broken Staff therefore the Apostle speaking of Abrahams faith Heb. 11. saith He believed that God was able to raise him from the dead and again Rom. 3 He believed that he who promised was able to perform It giveth God the glory of his goodness for the expectation of his soul is the Mercy and Goodness of God and it also giveth God the glory of his truth for the proximate object of Faith is the Word and Promise of God O therefore let this be your care when you cannot live by sense live by Faith It is the happiness of a Child of God he hath something to live on in the worst of times Psal 34.10 The young Lions shall be hunger-bit but there is no want to them that fear the Lord. One would think that of all creatures the Lion should be most out of danger of being hunger bit The Lion the King of the Forest all other Beasts are subject to this Beast yet if an old Lion that cannot run for its prey that hath lost much of its strength may be hunger-bitten one would think a young-Lion that is in its full strength should not Yes saith the Psalmist a young Lion may be hunger-bitten those that have most of the world wicked men that have greatest honours greatest power great advantages to provide for themselves they may be hunger bitten they may come to want but there shall be no want to them who fear the Lord there shall be no time so ill but they shall live if they cannot live upon bread they shall feed upon truth How much better is the estate of a godly man than that of his neighbour It is a great point this a great piece of duty Let me therefore a little further enlarge upon it three ways 1. Shewing you how a Christian may know if he liveth this life 2. Directing you in order to it 3. Perswading it by Arguments 1. Will some Christian say how shall I know if I live this life Suffer me to give you five or Six Characters of it 1. It is a Spiritual life Our life saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God What Christ sometimes said to his Disciples when they would have had him to have eaten something that a Child of God may say to all the world I have meat to eat you know not of His life is a spiritual life such is the life of Faith both with respect to the subject and to the object of it As to the subject of it it is the soul that lives the body lives by bread the soul lives by truth by the promise There are many that in evil days their bodies have enough to feed upon but their souls have nothing hence their hearts become like Nabals dead as a stone yea and as to the object it is spiritual too he that feedeth upon truth feedeth upon Jehovah It is the truth of God in the word which the soul liveth upon the soul of a Believer can no more live upon Words and Syllables than another soul No but it is the truth of God in these words his power and ability to perform what he hath said his inclination and good-will to the performance and his truth and faithfulness Every life in an evil day is not a life of faith some may live upon fancy and foolish hope some may live upon means with which their eye feedeth them another may live upon a Roman spirit of his own Tu
ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito These men may live at Sea in the midst of troubles and never think of God and Christ nor upon the power goodness and truth of God but upon an O socii neque enim ignâ—ri sumus ante malorum O passi graviora c. or some such thing but this is not to live upon faith if thy soul liveth the life of faith thy heart is alive in an evil time and the life and courage of it is maintained from God thy heart is maintained from the Truth Power and Goodness of God 2. This life of Faith is a quiet life It is a quiet life as to passions Faith hath a wonderful power to keep the mind in a calm serene temper It is the unbelieving soul that fretteth and sumeth and vexeth all turbulent passions upon Gods providence are the products of unbelief The Prophet telleth us He that believeth maketh not haste Faith dryeth up immoderate tears scatters the storms of fears maketh the soul to cease from anger and forsake wrath It quieteth the tongue so as it doth not charge God foolishly it keeps a man from all murmuring and flyings out against God from all indecent and extravagant flying out against men who are Gods instruments I held my peace because I knew it was thy doing David believed that God had done what was done he dust not mutter or repine because the Lord had done it And so as to action I mean irregular actions Take an unbeliever and let him be in any streight or distress he is unquiet and turbulent and makes no conscience what means he useth to set himself at liberty but he that believeth maketh not haste he who by faith eveth the promise gives credit to it and hath committed himself to the Power Goodness and Truth of God for the accomplishment of it as he is not hasty with his spirit to murmur fret and vex because it is not presently made good to him so he is not hasty with his tongue to charge God foolishly nor in his action He dareth not use any sinister or unlawful means to quit himself of any difficulty in which he is entangled he believeth that God will preserve uphold deliver him and in his own time find out some lawful way and means and the belief of this restraineth him from impatience or any thing which should be a fruit and indication of it 3. Again The life of Faith is an expectant life The Apostle telleth us that Faith is the evidence of things not seen Hence Faith hath always two daughters which are its genuine off spring 1. Hope which is the souls looking up or looking out for those things of which Faith giveth an evidence or assurance Faith assureth hope expecteth and this is so inseparable from Faith that it is often in Scripture put for Faith and only differeth in this that Hope is an expectancy upon faith's evidence and the certainty which it giveth the soul of the thing promised in the word Every hope indeed doth not speak faith but every grounded hope doth there is an hope of an hypocrite which groweth up like the rush without mire and the flag without water Patience is another daughter of Faith I shall have occasion to speak to that more fully hereafter Faith assureth the thing to the soul Hope looketh out for it and expects it Patience keeps the soul still and waiting for it If you ask me what the soul expecteth what it waiteth for it must needs be that of which Faith hath given the soul an evidence that is the Promise The Promises are of various natures for outward mercies such as Protection Deliverance c. Spiritual mercies such as inward Support Strength Consolations Eternal happiness 4 Again The life of Faith is an active life The operation of Faith doth not terminate in a meer speculation The activity of Faith lieth 1. In the diligent use of all natural and rational means which God hath appointed in order to the obtaining of the mercy of which faith hath given the soul an evidence and assurance As Faith doth quiet the soul and restrain it from the use of all unlawful means so it doth quicken and engage the soul in the use of all lawful and proper means The reason of which is because Faith can assure the soul of no mercy but in that manner and order and under those circumstances in and under which God hath promised to bestow it Now God hath promised mercies in the use of means so it quickeneth and engageth the soul to the use of means as a piece of the Will of God in order to the obtaining of our desired mercy 2. It lyeth in the use of all spiritual means and here Prayer in a special manner Prayer being the general spiritual means to be used for the obtaining of any mercy Daniel chap. 9 understood by Books that the time was come for the fulfilling of the 70 years captivity and this faith of his as to what he read in the Books quickned him up to pour out that fervent prayer unto God Dan. 9. 5. The life of Faith is a cheerful and joyous life you read in Scripture of a joy and peace which attendeth believing Rom. 15. Believing the glory of God is a great means to make the soul to rejoyce in the hopes of it Now the reason of this joy is the strength of that evidence which faith doth give the soul for joy is nothing else but the complacency of the soul or rather the expression of this complacency upon the souls union to its desired object Now according to the nearness and fulness of this union so is the joy Faith giving the soul a great and unquestionable evidence of the thing doth also give unto the soul a proportionable joy 6. The life of Faith is a crucifying dying life to the world This is the victory saith the Apostle by which we overcome the world even our faith Faith looketh up to the Cross of Christ and by it the heart of a Christian is crucified to the world and the world is crucified to his heart The proper operation of Faith is to work against hope for indeed if once the mercy cometh in sight so as sense cometh in play faith ceaseth as well as hope Hence the operation and exercise of Faith must needs crucifie the heart of a Christian to the world to sense and to all sensible objects Faith made Abraham overlook his own body which was now dead and Sarahs dead womb it made him to overlook the Knife and the Altar and the loss of Isaac's natural life and only to consider that God was able to raise him up from the dead it maketh a Christian overlook all seeming difficulties in regard of sense and all contrarieties whatsoever indeed seemeth to be in his way Now by these things you may try your selves whether you live the life of Faith under sad and dark Providences yea or no. By this time methinks
I hear some of you saying to me But how should we come to live this life what should we do that in dark and troublesom times we might live this life of Faith Let me give you something of advice in the case and then conclude with two or three Arguments 1. Study the Scriptures and observe the promises reposited in that storehouse for the people of God at all times and for all sorts of mercies The promises are those words by which men live The Scripture is a rich Store-house of mercy it is full of promises promises for this life and that which is to come there is in them a salve for every sore and this is well worth a Christians observation to see how God in his word hath fitted him with a plaister for every wound when thou findest the promises respecting thy state in particular indeavour to whet them upon thy heart It is a metaphor which God useth as to his precepts Deut. 6. and as it is the duty of a Child of God to whet the Precepts upon his heart to engage and quicken him to obedience so it is his duty to whet the promises upon his soul for his consolation The Scripture is full of comfortable words O be not ignorant of them it is a large and full store-house O be acquainted with it 2. Learn to live upon God in prosperity and fulness The Soul that maketh the Lord its portion in a time of prosperity and fulness will scarce be to seek in a day of emptiness and adversity Our too much living upon the creature while we have it will hinder our wholly living upon God when we want it Take heed of living too much upon your creature-enjoyments when you have them learn in the greatest affluence of the creatures in the greatest overflowings of your cup to live upon God and to say of them This is not my portion Saint Paul had his heart crucified to the world and dyed daily O how hard doth the Soul find it to live upon God in an evil time that hath not learned to live upon God in a good day and while it goeth well with him as to outward enjoyments You that are at ease in the world and do not know the evil that others meet with learn this lesson before the evil day cometh upon you and surpriseth you Learn to live upon God before you have nothing else but a God to encourage your self in 3. Observe the practice and experience of the Saints of God David lived by faith when he had nothing in the world left him he encouraged himself in his God Job lived by faith when he said Though he kills me yet I will put my trust in him Say to your Soul my Soul why should not I go and do likewise Why should I not do as David and Job did I have the same promise the same power truth and goodness of God to trust to and to live upon which any of the Servants of God have formerly had 4. Call thy heart off its disquietments indeavour to convince thy self of the sinfulness of them there is much in this as to one that is a true Christian if one that is a Child of God can effectually perswade himself that it is his sin to have his heart dead in an evil day to have his heart dejected because the Providence of God bloweth a cross upon him it will go a great way with him to command his heart off its disturbance Thus doth David Psal 42.11 why art thou cast down O my Soul why art thou disquieted within me trust still in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God 5. Lastly strengthen your hearts with a resolution to trust in God though he killeth me saith Job I will put my trust in him See what David doth Psal 55. He had been bitterly complaining of the prosperity of the wicked and his own afflicted state in the close of the Psalm he cometh to give both himself and others good counsel v 22.23 Cast thy burthen upon the Lord he shall sustain thee he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved But thou O God shalt bring them down into the Pit of destruction bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days but I will trust in thee I have done with this discourse when I have commended this life of faith to you by two or three arguments 1. It is a life in death light in darkness strength in weakness comfort in misery the Soul that can live this life is a great conquerour over tribulation anguish persecution famine nakedness peril Sword yea it is more than a Conquerour Rom. 8.35 You shall see how it is with a Christian which hath learned to live the life of faith 2 Cor. 8.9 he may be troubled on every side but he will not be distressed he may be perplexed but he will not be in despair he may be persecuted but he will not be forsaken cast down but he will not be destroyed is not this a rare life A persecutor may take away the life of nature from a Christian but he cannot deprive him of his life of faith faith will keep the head of a Christian above water in the greatest deeps of trouble and affliction Read Heb. 11. and observe in how many difficulties in how many deaths that noble army of Martyrs lived by virtue of faith Yea and they lived well and cheerfully as you will find there Our Saviour adviseth his disciples to lay up for themselves treasure in Heaven where no moth came to corrupt no thieves to break through or steal Is it not an excellent thing for a Christian to have a life beyond the gun shot of a persecution beyond the mercies or cruelties of bloody wretches The life of faith is such as makes a man post funera vivere nay in funere vivere to live when he is dying Paul was in deaths often yet lived by fatih he saith of himself and others of the servants of God that they were killed all the day long yet they lived still they lived by faith The life of faith cannot be taken away by any evil hand No nor can the comfort and sweetness of it be touched or empaired by the Sons of Belial 2. It is a distinguishing life The unbeliever may live the life of a beast which is the life of a beast he may live the life of a man which is the life of reason but notwithstanding this he may perish for ever but he that liveth the life of faith shall not perish he who liveth this life shall live for ever 3. Lastly It is a free and independent life We account in the world that that man liveth the best life that liveth the freest life in least dependency upon others Hence we do not account the life of a Beggar or a Servant or a Child so good a life as the life of him that lives upon none but upon what he
second place get an acquaintance with the promises of God Two Sorts of promises you must be acquainted with if you would bring your hearts into this frame of silent waiting for God 1. All those promises that are made to the Church and people of God for support and comfort in and under troubles and deliverance out of them of which the Scripture is full such as these Psal 94.14 The Lord will not cast off his people nor forsake his inheritance Read at your leisure Psal 128.6 Jer. 29.10 Mic. 4.4 11 12. Isa 27.5 7 8. Isa 33.20 Jer. 33.6 A second sort of promises are those that are specially made to this waiting upon God Psal 37.9 Psal 27.14 Isa 40.13 Wait upon the Lord and he shall strengthen your heart They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength like the Eagle they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint The promises in Scripture of this nature are very many These are but a specimen of them 3. Lastly Labour to be acquainted with the ways and methods of Divine Providence which is to deal out dispensations of mercy to his people not presently but after their waiting upon him some time Habakkuk 2.3 The vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak it shall not lie though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come it will not tarry The Church in her Song saith Lo this is our God we have waited for him to this is our God we have waited for him we will rejoyce and be glad in his Salvation 2. Secondly Beg of God a waiting frame of Spirit As there is nothing more sinful in it self nor more tormenting to our selves in an evil day than an impatient hasty Spirit so there is nothing more conducive to our glorifying of God nor to the quiet of our own Spirits than a silent waiting Spirit This the God of Heaven must give and he giveth it to them that ask him beg of God those graces which may dispose thee to this patient waiting I might instance in many habits of grace necessary to bring the soul into this waiting temper I will touch only upon 4 or 5. 1. Beg Faith of God Faith in his Word and Promise He that believeth maketh not haste The hastiness and impatience of the Soul floweth from its distrust in God for the fulfilling of his Word 2. Hope is another gracious habit which disposeth the Soul to waiting we hope for what we see not for what we see why do we any longer wait for 3. Humility is a third the proud soul thinks much to wait he looketh upon mercy as his due and thinketh that God wrongeth him whiles he withholds it from him the humble soul believeth that it deserveth nothing and is therefore willing upon the least crevis of hope to wait upon God 4. Pray for patience a passive patience this is necessary in order to the bearing of evils Lastly Pray for meekness a froward Spirit is always an hasty Spirit and knows not how to wait Now to press this duty upon you I shall but name to you several Considerations leaving them to be digested and inlarged upon in your private thoughts 1. Consider first It is the work of thy day The question is what God would have a child of his do when the enemies of Religion and godliness are very high and rampant and the people of God are low poor and afflicted and God suffereth wicked men to devour those who are more righteous than themselves as if men were under the same providence as the Fish of the Sea and the Beasts of the Earth where without any regard to right or wrong the greater devoureth the less at such a time as this what should a good and righteous man do Let Solomon answer Prov. 20.22 Say not I will recompence evil but wait on the Lord and he shall save you Hence you shall every-where in Scripture find the Church and people of God resolving upon it and the Lord when he instructs his people what to do in an evil day this is that which he directeth Isa 60.9 Zech. 3.8 Hab. 4.5 Isa 8.17 2. It is that which God hath alone left for you to do in such a day Our Eyes of sense in such a time are quite put out we have nothing to do at such a time but to stand still and see the Salvation of God Jer. 14.22 Are there any amongst the Gentiles that can give rain therefore we will wait upon thee we have nothing else to do we have none else we can wait upon therefore we will wait upon thee 3. It is that which hath been the practice of all the people of God and what they have called their souls to in evil times Psal 52.9 Psal 62.5 Indeed it is the whole business and life of a child of God It was the practice of the Church Mic. 7.7 And of Job The Saint hath the promise of heaven but he must wait for it 4. Thou hast ground enough to do it the Power of God the Goodness and Truth of God are certainly a sufficient ground of encouragement to any soul to wait upon God who hath promised help and is so true that he cannot lie who is able to help and to do more abundantly than we stand in need of and who is Infinite in Goodness and wanteth no love to prompt him to come in to the relief and succour of his people 5. Waiting upon God gives God the honour of many Attributes It giveth Him the glory of his Soveraignty His Wisdom His Power His Truth and His Goodness 6. It is a great evidence of your Faith He that believeth maketh not hast 7. It is that which in a day of evil will distinguish you from wicked and ungodly men they cannot wait upon God but break out into fits of impatience c. 8. There is nothing so effectual in an evil day to help thee to keep down thy corruptions to silence thy temptations You have heard it in that to which many promises are made That your waiting upon God is pleadable as an argument for the mercy which you desire In short there are very many Arguments might be used to perswade this silent waiting upon God but I have before spake to many of them and shall therefore add no more to this Discourse SERMON XLIX Rom. IX 15. For he saith unto Moses I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion I Am as you know attempting to expound the hard Chapters of Divine providence giving you some account of those Motions of it which to us appear most difficult I have brought these under some heads propounding to speak 1. First To such as concerned the exhibition of the Covenant of works after the establishment of the Eternal Covenant of Redemption and Grace And 2. The Exhibition or tender of grace to all indefinitely after the Decree of
as is sufficient And this indeed some do seem to say When they find out for us another object for saving Faith than Christ and his Gospel and tell us that Abel and Enoch excercised their Faith and such a Faith as pleased God whose object was not Christ but only such Propositions as these That God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him This is indeed a new Doctrine in our Nation but it is but a Transcript of what the Socinians and Arminians V. Bertium contra Sibran P. 69. 70. 71. have long since said That the Gentiles were saved by a Faith in God believing That God is and that he is a rewarder of those that seek him By a Faith only apprehending things remote from humane sense as some amongst us Phrase it now Bertii discep Epist 73.76 but translating Bertius and after the same rate speak the Socinians generally denying Faith in Christ necessary to Salvation and making only a Faith in God necessary but the Scripture telleth us That there is no other name under Heaven by which a man can be saved besides that of Jesus Christ neither is there Salvation in any other But upon that Hypothesis That the Preaching of the Gospel is the ordinary External means it cannot be said That God hath given to all means sufficient 2. But Secondly For the more Spiritual Internal means which is the effectual grace of God it is certain that is not given to all for then all would be saved but of that more by and by There are those that think every man hath a sufficiency of inward Spiritual means who liveth under the preaching of the Gospel The Socinians in their known Catechism Confes Rem cap. 17. Episcopius disp 46. Colloq Hag. P. 258. propound this Question Whether there be not a need of an inward gift of the Spirit to inable us to believe the Gospel They Answer No. The same Song is sung by Smalcius Socinus Ostorodius and the Arminians generally say the same thing the business is they make no more necessary than a moral Suasion which all have to whom the Gospel is preached that supposed they say Man hath in his own will a power to believe repent c. But the Scripture tels us It is given to us on the behalf of Christ to believe That Faith is not of our selves it is the gift of God with a multitude of Texts more of the like import now most certain it is that if there be any such operation of the Spirit necessary all men have not a sufficiency of means If we be not sufficient of our selves to think one good thought as the Apostle tels us If without Christ we can do nothing If God must give to will and to do what power hath man to any thing which is truly and Spiritually good For those that sit under the preaching of the Gospel they have all the same moral Suasion they have all the same rational powers and faculties how cometh it I would fain know to pass that one of them repents and believeth when others are hardned and continue lock't up in unbeleif Is it from themselves that one mans will inclineth well and not anothers then surely there is another Principle of Spiritual life another Fountain of good besides God which is plainly to contradict the Scripture which every where maketh God the Fountain of life and of all good But this is the first thing only which I offer to you in this cause 2. Secondly How is it possible that all should have sufficient grace but that all must be saved God telleth St. Paul 2 Cor. 12.9 My grace shall be sufficient for thee was it possible after that promise he should have been overborne or overcome with his temptation I would ask for what this pretended grace given to all should be sufficient Will they say for Salvation How can any be said to have a sufficiency of grace to save them who yet are not saved nor ever shall be saved All that can be pretended is That every man and woman hath a reasonable Soul that is not denied and that is naturally endued with power enough to do whatsoever Spiritual action God hath required of man in order to his obtaining Salvation having either the works of God to represent God unto him which is all that the Heathen have or the word of God the holy Scriptures which they may read and hear preached So that this same sufficient grace which they contend for is nothing else but a reasonable Soul The works of God in Nature and the word of God in the Scriptures or at most preached to them Those who restrain sufficiency of grace to those who have the Gospel preached to them Grevinchovius Con. Ames 212. Remonstra Colloq Hag. P. 258. tell us plainly That the word preached is the instrument the consummatory instrument of God for our Faith conversion c. And deny that in the business of conversion the holy Spirit putteth forth any other power and they say There is more force in the word of Reconciliation than in a Lazare prodi Lazarus come forth Well but what shall become of the Heathen who have not this word of Reconciliation how have they a grace sufficient It cannot be denied but they have the works of God sufficient to convince them That God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him and they have reasonable Souls to make such conclusions upon the prospect of the works of God and a Faith in Christ as Mediator is not they say necessary to Salvation for thus none could believe in Christ before he came if you will believe them A Faith in God as a supreme being and as a rewarder of them that seek him being sufficient especially considering that Faith is nothing else but an obedience to the commands of Christ Socinus in praectel Theol. 1.17 fol. 93. and this is the very form and essence of Faith Socin fragm de Just P. 51. Now this must be understood so far as we know them and they are revealed to us This was the old Doctrine of Socinus and his followers and in this sence they say Sufficient grace is given to all in order to their Salvation because they believe nothing of what we call grace viz. A particular internal influence and operation of the holy Spirit begetting in us a lively Faith in Jesus Christ necessary to any but that every man hath a natural power to do all that God required of him and may be saved if he will but use that power to the use of which there needeth not any special influence of God But man may be a God to himself a principle of the greatest good inclining his own heart to that which is Spiritually good For that God should give unto any grace sufficient for his Salvation and yet it should not be effectual is indeed a contradiction for it must be sufficient and insufficient 3. Again If there
him Certainly a very cogent argument Those whom God hath received into his favour into a fellowship and communion with him no Christians ought to judge despise or reject but God receiveth such as are weak in the faith It is very absurd to think that a person should be fit for the favour of God and for fellowship with God and should not be worthy of nor fit for fellowship with those who are the children and servants of God The same argument holds and constraineth in all these Cases which I have been opening to you 1. Seest thou therefore one Who is weak unto his spiritual duty and is often halting and complaining of his weakness he is not able to resist his temptations nor to get a Victory over his corruptions the sons of Zerviah are too hard for him He cryeth out with David Iniquities prevail against me He complains he cannot so fix his thoughts upon God so keep up his Faith and Hope in God as he desireth to do Do not despise do not judge or condemn such a Christian pity him pray for him help him what thou canst but do not judge him God may have received him yea and hath received him if his heart be but right and sincere with God if the bent scope and design of his heart be for God and his endeavour be a pressing hard after God though he hath not yet attained God must in his Family have Babes as well as grown Persons In his Fold he must have Lambs as well as Sheep the Providence of God hath so ordered it in infinite wisdom He accepteth none according to their degrees in grace but according to their truth in grace and sincerity Remember that thou also wert sometimes weak and it is by grace if yet thou beest more strong nay thou that art strong mayest again be made weak What art thou if God with-draweth his holy spirit from thee If God letteth loose Satan against thee Thus the Apostle Gal. 6.1 endeavoureth to perswade Christians to a charitable endeavour to restore such as are fallen in the spirit of meekness considering saith he thy self lest thou also be tempted See what the Apostle saith upon this head Rom. 15.1 We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification for even Christ pleased not himself 2. Secondly Seest thou one that is under a divine desertion as to the quickening influences of the spirit of God He walks in the wayes of God but he doth not move to them nor in them with that alacrity of mind with that cheerfulness and liveliness of spirit that another doth he complaineth that his chariot wheels drive heavily He comes to duty rather as a burthen and task than with any spiritual pleasure and delight As I said in the other case so I say in this if thou canst add any oil unto his wheels do but do not clog them more with thy rash censures and uncharitable judgement thou doest not know what his soul suffers how he already groaneth under this burthen and is discouraged under this distemper and therefore far be it from thee to add affliction to his affliction God hath received this mans soul if he be sincere if he be pressing after God under this burthen of affliction God is not onely just in these dispensations of Providence but he is wise also Just he is as he by them punisheth his peoples sins And art thou free from sin for the demerit of which thou mayest also fall under the like providence but he is wise also Thereby humbling and proving his people that he may do them good in the latter end thereby quickening them to stir up themselves to follow hard after God and thereby also offering to thee opportunities for thy charity and brotherly help a spiritual friend and brother being made for a day of trouble 3. Thirdly Seest thou a soul walk heavily all the day long crying out as David Lord wherewith wilt thou comfort me He neither liveth in the bright and clear Vision of God nor yet in the perfect view of his own sincerity he is smitten of God and afflicted and his soul refuseth to be comforted Here again is another object of thy charity and possibly the greatest object which the whole world affordeth for there is no sorrow like the sorrow of that soul that walks heavily all the day long crying out Where is my God become I shall not be large in perswading pity and charity for such poor souls for he must not have the heart of a man but of a beast that doth not pity souls which are thus afflicted You have heard that there are many such souls whom yet God hath received God doth not equally distribute his dispensations of consolitary grace to all that truly love and fear him no not to the same souls Judge not anothers truth of grace by thy own joy and peace if thy joy and peace be truly consequent to thy believing and the effect of faith in thy soul and what Christ left to his Disciples it will not be constant it hath not been alwayes the same thou hast also had thy sad hours if there be a difference in degrees this concludeth nothing against thy brother If therefore thou canst speak a word in season if thou canst comfort another with the same comfort wherewith thy own soul hath been comforted heretofore of God do it but judge charitably of thy afflicted brother upon whom the hand of God under these dispensations lieth very heavily 4. Fourthly Seest thou another whose soul is not grown and thriven in grace to that degree that thine is his habits are not yet so confirmed his joynts not so well knit exercise again thy charity if thou doest but see him hold on his way though thou doest not see he groweth stronger and stronger God hath promised that he shall grow he hath not promised that his growth shall be visible unto thee Remember you must give allowance both for the time he hath stood in the Lords Garden and also for the means which God hath afforded him while he hath stood there I observe that God judgeth of men with allowance for their temptations Behold saith the Apostle the Patience of Job The patience of Job Job indeed did sometimes shew much patience but withal he discovered eminent impatience Witness his third Chapter where you find him cursing the day of his birth and other parts of his Book where he wisheth for death and complaineth severely of Gods dealing with him yet saith God Behold the patience of Job God measured Job 's grace with his temptations If indeed Job had brake out into those great errors and extravagancies of passion not being under high and great temptations he had shewed himself very impatient but the Lord considers what temptations were upon his servant and considering them he pronounceth holy Job a very patient man We must learn
life and peace A carnal mind doth not onely bring a Soul to eternal death in the last issue of it but it puts a great death upon his Life and Peace I mean his Spiritual Life and Peace It is impossible that the Soul that is intangled in the businesses of the World in a more than ordinary manner should find his Soul either so free for or so strong in the performances of spiritual duty as that Soul who hath less of the cares and business or concerns of the world upon it The Soul of a Man is not infinite in its powers and cannot be with equal degrees of intention employed upon two different much less contrary things While we are in the world we must be conversing with the men of the world and handling the things of the world we must else as the Apostle speaks in the case of converse with sinners Go out of the world but the less the Soul is ingaged in them the less the Heart is set upon them and its intention and affections taken up with them therefore it will be more free as to its spiritual business and stronger in the performance of it Let every one therefore learn that excellent lesson of the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Let those that have Wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as they that possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it 3. Thirdly Be diligent in waiting upon God in the institutions of his publick worship and consciencious in such attendance The Preaching of the Word of God is the great Ordinance of God for perfecting the Saints both as to their number by the work of Conversion and as to their graces by giving out further measures and manifestations of himself to his peoples Souls he createth the fruit of the Lips peace Christians therefore who wait for these influences are concerned to wait upon the Lord in his own way It was Gods ancient promise That wheresoever he recorded his name to dwell there be would meet his people and bless them And considering that although the blessing of Grace doth not depend upon the Instrument let Paul plant and Apollos Water God must give the increase and he that planteth is nothing nor he that watereth any thing yet God dealing with reasonable Souls useth to deal with them in reasonable wayes I do not think it enough for Christians to go to Church and hear Discourses out of Pulpits but to wait upon God under such Preaching of his Word as may appear and approve it self to them as having a rational tendency to the improvements of their Soul in Grace There are kinds of Preaching under which a Christian may sit long enough before he find his Soul quickened or strengthened or improved by them You may remember I gave you that as one reason why some receive more gradual manifestations of Divine Love than others because they have better means than others have or make a better use of means than others do I take a consciencious use of the more external means to lie much in three things 1. In a good election of them 2. In a sincere and diligent attendance upon them 3. In an after repetition of them to our selves and a more private application of them to our own hearts 1. I say first in a good election of them Though Preaching of the Word be the general means yet the Preacher and way of Preaching makes a vast difference in this means and the concurrence of God to all the purposes of Grace is upon experience found to be evidently more where the means appear in the eye of reason more proper If the Preacher ordinarily preacheth not to the understanding and capacity of the hearer or not to the conscience and hearts of hearers but fills up his time with other things impertinent to the Souls Spiritual Duty or wraps up his Duty in such Parables and Mysteries of Phraise and Abstruseness of Notions that the hearer can make nothing of it he can have little hope to profit by it and he will shew little conscience in attendance upon them Our Saviour you know gives this account why he spake to the Scribes and Pharisees and ordinary Jews in Parables but to his Disciples opened those Parables and spake more plainly and intelligibly Mat. 13.13 14. Therefore speak I to them in Parables because they in seeing see not and in hearing bear not neither do they understand and in them is fulfilled the Prophecy of the Prophet Isaias c. but v. 16. Blessed are your Eyes for they see and your Ears for they hear 2. Secondly In a sincere and diligent attendance upon them That Soul which will meet God in his Ordinances must in hearing hear he must go out with a design to meet God and he must hoc agere while he is waiting upon God Our Saviour asks his Disciples when they had been hearing John the Baptist What they went out for to to see It is a question we should all propound to our selves when we go to wait upon God in his Ordinances Now what doth my Soul go out for to do what is its end in this motion God ordinarily meeteth his People according to the sincerity of their designs which indeed maketh their attendances upon God seekings or not seekings of Gods Face 3. It lies in a practical application and whetting the Word hard upon our hearts and consciences This is the digesting of the Word this now is a piece of Holiness of great import to those that seek after the further manifestations of God and higher measures of Grace any growing whether it be in Faith or Love Nor is the Reading andPreaching of the Word onely to be attended but the Holy Sacraments also Baptism which we have generally received in our Infancy to be improved And the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to be conscienciously attended There is a great improvement to be made of Baptism in order to our Spiritual Strength and Vigour I have handled that in a particular Discourse in some of your hearing and must not now enlarge upon it it is our great error that we make no more use of our Baptism than we do The Apostle Rom. 6. draweth great arguments from it to strengthen us unto Holiness The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is called by the Apostle The Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ The meaning of that I do not understand if it doth not signifie That it is an Ordinance wherein if it be duly and conscienciously attended upon Christ doth communicate the vertue of his death Now I am sure all Christs manifestations to the Souls of his People are a part of that purchase It is true it doth not necessarily work these effects nor is God bound necessarily in this manner to concurre with it he is a free agent in all his effluxes of Divine
for his not repenting not believing according to his Word Is there any unrighteousness with God in this case more than in the Fathers dealing with the Child upon the former Supposition What pretence is there for it The Sinner you will say could not repent could not believe without the special Grace of God which was never given him No more could the Child buy those things the Father willed it to have and come before him with unless the Father first gave it mony the Child had no mony of its own But the Child might have left its play it might have read and heard the Word he might have come to God by Prayer and begg'd of him a soft and contrite heart and a believing heart he had power to do all this and had he done this God had not been wanting to him in his further Grace To him that hath shall be given saith our Saviour that is to him that hath and useth and proveth what Gifts and Graces he hath as he ought to do shall be given more Grace But this the poor wretch hath not done but dieth an hard-hearted an impenitent and unbelieving wretch what unrighteousness is there with God in his condemnation he perisheth in his own iniquity his blood is upon his own head his damnation lieth at his own door his destruction is of himself his help might have been from God if he had not been wanting to himself O sinful men are not the Lords ways equal Yes yes they are our own ways that are unequal the straight ways of the Lord are only made crooked by our idle fancies our proud hearts and corrupt reasons and foolish misprisions Vse 4. In the last place let me apply this discourse by way of Exhortation it will afford matter of Exhortation 1. To the people of God 2. To the men of the World those I mean that are not yet converted unto God 1. To Gods People 1. To you it speaketh to make you more afraid of sin for the time to come Sin in Scripture is ordinarily resembled by sickness and a disease Now what is true of sickness is true of Sin every sickness is not unto death but every sickness hath something of death in it it leadeth to the Grave it is not the last stroke at the giving of which the Tree falleth but it is a blow in order to the fall of it Every sin doth not bring forth death yea as to you No sin shall bring forth death because Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ but every sin hath something of the nature of a self-ruining and destruction in it The wages of every sin is death the natural tendency of every sin is unto death It is the Gift and Free-Grace of God that as to you prevents it and although your sins do not bring forth an Eternal ruine and destruction to you because the Blood of Christ and the Intercession of Christ hath prevented and will prevent that yet your sins may bring forth many lesser deaths to you for them you may be in deaths often for them there may be a death of your peace and comforts as there are no temporal Evils which sin may not bring upon the people of God so there are few spiritual Evils on this side of Hell to which it doth not subject them So that although you be not under the danger of an Eternal ruine yet you are under the danger of so many deaths so many destructions as may justly lay a Law upon you and make you afraid of sinning against God 2. But Secondly This calleth to all of you to admire the Divine Grace by which you are saved I hope it is the portion of many of you to whom I am speaking you are not yet got up to the new Hierusalem but you are in the right way that leadeth thereunto O cry Grace Grace unto the hand which set you upon that Shore It is true of you you also by sin had destroyed your selves by Grace you are saved you were once Fire-brands as well as any others are you now brands pluckt out of the Fire It was the hand of Grace that pluck'd you out You hath he quickned saith the Apostle Ephes 2.1 who were dead in Trespasses and sins Amongst whom also we had our conversation of old according to the Lusts of the Flesh you also were once acted by the Prince of the Air who yet worketh in the Children of Disobedience and were by Nature the Children of Wrath as much as others It is a sweet though in some sence a bitter meditation to cast a thought back and think Lord How had I also destroyed my self How near was I going to the Pit of Eternal ruine and destruction Nay how often yet is our Salvation from God We are every day destroying our selves we lye down with sin enough to justify God in destroying us before the Morning and rise up every day with sin enough to justify God in destroying us before the Evening By Grace we are saved 2. But Secondly let me speak to those which can have no such good hope through Grace They yet are in their natural State and condition in the Gall of bitterness and in the very bands of iniquity Sirs it is that which I have often told you and I wish the sound of it may never be out of your Ears you are Creatures ordained to Eternity when you dye you dye not like brute-Beasts Death will not determine your beings you shall be either Eternally happy or Eternally miserable All that I have to say to you is to plead with you that you would not ruine your selves and let me tell you that if ever you perish it must be because you have destroyed your selves Do not fright your selves with thoughts of Gods eternal decrees secret things belong to God revealed things to us Whatever Gods secret counsels and purposes be this is his revealed will The Soul that sinneth and that alone shall dye Trouble not your selves with any such thoughts as these If I be not elected do what I will I shall be damned If God hath cast me off I shall labour in vain It is the Sluggard saith Solomon which saith There is a Lion in the way We cannot ascend up into Heaven to search Gods Books there is no need of it The Word is near us even in our mouths that telleth us that God never destroyeth any Soul but the meritorious cause of it is in himself and this we know that all sin is voluntary O then take heed of destroying your selves by wilful and presumptuous sinning against God Nature teacheth every Man to look to himself as to his Life Health Estate and shall not our reasonable Nature instructed by the Word of God prompt us to take care of our selves as to our Eternal Interest You will say unto me what shall we do that we may not de destroyed for who liveth and sinneth not against God I have before told you that