more fear he hath Spiritual mercies for your souls Psal 130.4 There is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared It is impossible that the true fear of the Lord should bee planted and advanced in the heart without this consideration this mercy is pardoning mercy it is Soul mercy other considerations with this are usefull to ballance the Spirit but this is principally attractive this is the very door of the fear of the Lord where this is shut there is no way unto repentance Jerem. 2.25 But thou saidest there is no hope for I have loved strangers and after them I will go And Chap. 18.12 And they said there is no hope but wee will walke after our own devices and wee will every one do the imagination of his evil heart If God had no mercy for men it would be vain to perswade them to fear if men had not some kind of hope they would be hellishly wicked And that I might yet advance this Motive in your Souls take these particulars 1. He is willing to be reconciled to thee although he can destroy thee 2 Cor. 5.20 Now then we are Embassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ that you be reconciled to God he hath ways enough to make thee stoop without wooing of thee and can dash thee in pieces when he pleaseth yet he beseecheth thee he intreats thee though hee hath no need of thee but thou hast need of him what need hath God of thee more then of the Heathens or Indians or Turks who know him not he could as easily have invited them as thee at this day he invites thee though thou art as the damned thy nature is as corrupt as theirs and thy sins as great as others before they were cast in there Rom. 3.22 23. There is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God O what impression should these have upon thy soul if thou wouldest give them their full allowance upon thy soul in meditation 2. He moves them to fear him by his mercies he might require it by his power without mercy hee might have called for as much duty and have given no encouragement at all unto it but beloved what heart-ensnaring language doth he speak Isa 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon The Lord might have chosen another manner of Stile then this 3 He offers thee better termes then thou art like to meet withall else-where the world cannot bid so faire nor perform so faithfully as he doth See that Promise which the Lord makes to the returning sinner Isa 55.1 2 Ho every one that thirsteth come yee to the waters and he that hath no money come ye buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without price vers 2. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me and eat yee that which is good and let your soul delight in fatnesse c. Search and finde where the Devil the World and Sin promiseth and when and to whom he gives such a thing as is held out attainable in following God 4 If thou hast tasted of mercy thou canst not but acknowledg that it is an engaging thing Tit. 2.11.12 For the grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world 5. If thou pretendest to Saintship and are not drawn by mercy surely thou hast a frame of spirit much different from the Saints of old for the love of God constrained them 1 Cor. 5.4 they had beseeching spirits which were very much affected with such arguments as I shewed you Rom. 12.1 6. If these are not perswasive motives how then art thou under that promise Hos 3.5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God and David their King and shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the latter dayes 7. Is it not reason that thou shouldest do Gods work when he hath provided one to do thine he hath sent a Christ unto thee who offers himself to be thy life and thy strength and he tells thee That he hath left Heaven for a time that he might come down and make such an offer of himself to sinners and wilt thou not leave a little of the world to offer up thy self to him Shall the kind proffers of Christ in the Gospel meet with no returns Canst thou do lesse then offer up all that thou hast or art as a reasonable sacrifice to him who so freely offers thee himself in his Son to be thy righteousnesse wisdom sanctification and redemption In a word to be all and in all to thy soul Canst thou deny him thy time who offers thee Eternity Is thy present time and condition and ability too good to give out to him who offers thee more in Christ then thy present condition is able to bear more then can enter into thine heart to conceive Reserve nothing from him of thy little who gives thee with a reserve for this reason because thy present condition is not capable of all he intends thee Sixthly Consider how quick the Lord is with some men to cut them off without giving them many warnings or suffering them to grow up to such a measure of sin as he does others as he did Nadab and Abihu And that Gods coming to Judgement will appear quick when ever it comes 1. Though thou mayest have a smooth time in sin yet when that time of pleasure in sin is past it will seem very short Ask the old man and he wil tel that his Youth was quickly gone and Age came suddenly upon him Is not the life past like a tale that is told If God should suffer thee to live a full age and then cut thee off in thy sin wouldest not thou seem to go down quickly into hell 2. If you compare the time past with Eternity God is not slack concerning his comming saith the Apostle you will finde him quick enough when he comes Art thou come say the spirits to torment us before the time as some say before the end of the World and I exclude not that but how did the Divel know the end was not yet But it intimates that although the Divel had so many thousand years to tempt yet he thought it too soon to be troubled 3 He may be quick in that he wil be unwelcome and unwelcom guests when ever they come wil come too soon 4 When he cometh latest he will come before thou lookest for him he will come unawares and so wil be quick with thy soul notwithstanding all this patience the evil servant said not I have no Master nor that his Master wil
thou think that when thou hast served them night and day with the heat and fervency of all thy affections that he will be put off with a cold sleepy drousie profession Will he not say See such a man pretends to Religion to act for me did he act so heavily and drousily for sin doth he act so for himself in things of self-concernment Away with such pretenders saith the Lord that will not act for me at the same rate that they have acted for the world and for themselves and their own lusts 13. Consider what an honour it is to be employed for God to be called the servant oâ— the most High David envied the very Sparrow that built about the Altar when he was shut out and wilt thou shut out thy self when God cals thee to such honorable employment Psalm 84. the people of God who have known how to value their relations to God have valued the very worst things of Christ and the least imployment for him above the best things in the world as in Moses Heb. 11.24 25 26. Moses refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh's daughter chusing rather to suffer with the people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season vers 26. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures in Egypt And in David Psalm 84.10 For a day in thy Courts is better than a thousand I had rather be a Door-keeper in the house of my God then to dwell in the tents of Wickednesse Art thou seeking and thirsting after honour and honourable imployments behold here it is to remember thy Creator to be busied about him and for him thou art never like to get so much honour and repute at the last by serving sin and Lust as thou maist get in serving the Lord Rom. 6.21 What fruit had you in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end thereof is death You have the two Genuine and Natural fruits of sin Shame and Death and to this we may oppose that of the Wise man Prov. 3.16 Length of dayes is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour Prov. 4.8 Exalt her and she shall promote thee shee shall bring thee to honour when thou doest embrace her 14. Consider his great bounty to his Servants You shall alway hear them that are sincere with him speak well of him yea very largely of his freenesse and fulnesse to their Souls I might compasse you with a cloud of Witnesses if I should call in all the Saints in the Old and New Testament to speak out their experience which they would willingly do to commend their Lord and Master to the world but I shall onely call in two or three to speak for all the rest Gen. 32.10 saith Jacob I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy Servant for with my staffe I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands He found when he had cast up his accompts he was paid with an over-plus it would be too long a story to hear David tell how good he had found God you have him largely speaking of the bounty and goodness of God to his Soul Psal 34. upon which he spends the whole Psalm yet while he was speaking he feared that men would hardly judge aright of this by hearing they would apprehend more by tasting he calls therefore upon men vers 8. O taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him God is better known by experience then by notion he would perswade them not to content themselves with hear-sayes that God was good but desires them to make triall of him and of his wayes certainly David knew the force of this Argument to draw Souls to be more and more in love with God Ps 66.16 Come and I will declare what God hath done for my soule hearing how liberall and free the Lord is to others encourageth us to expect great things from him also specially if we finde him generally so free We know a Servant is very ambitious to serve a free Master and if he be generally free to all his Servants it encourageth him to expect something in his service if he hears every Servant in the Family to commend him and cry up his bounty Thus it is with God all that are his Servants in deed speak very freely of him David gives a notable hint of this In his Temple doth every one speak of his glory he layeth this down I suppose as an argument to presse to this duty he had used many others from the Works of God he draws one from the practice of his Saints because they do speak well of him and tell large experimentall stories of his glory 15. Consider his faithfulness in his Promises he is yea and Amen with Souls he is at a word what he promiseth he gives and much more then what we can expect David useth this as an argument because there is no unfaithfulness in him there was never any Soul that ventured on any promise of his that ever found him worse then his word nay when he promised and that very largely too and by them hath heightened the desires and expectations of his people he hath reserved to himself a liberty of coming in beyond their expectations 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen ear hath not heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them which love him If these considerations were faithfully laid together and seriously weighed and applyed to our spirits would they not perswade us to draw that conclusion which we finde upon the same account Jer. 10.7 Who would not fear thee O King of Nations and if we do not learn the skil of setting the Lord in such considerations as these before us we shal never excel in his fear The second Head follows How this considering and setting God before us doth make way for and advance the fear of God in our hearts I shal explain this in the ensuing particulars First it serves to ballance and six the vain light and frothy unconstant spirit of man it helps much to the putting his heart into a serious frame by setting the glory of the great Omniscient and Omni-present God before him men will be more circumspect in their behaviours when they conceive themselves to be in the presence of some great one the want of this makes men vain and vile in the World Psal 73.11 12. And they say how doth God know and is there knowledge in the most high Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world they increase in riches doth God know say they we are not under the eye of the Lord and therefore we need not trouble our thoughts about him and what follows these are the ungodly ungodliness in practice must needs follow those that have cast the thoughts of God farre from them
and flourishing and if thou dost now give up thy self to the work of the Lord thou mayest in all probability bee serviceable to him but in thine old age all thy affections wil be weakned especially those which should most of all render thee serviceable to God 2 Thy Affection of Love and Joy and Zeal Desire and Hope which do most of all quicken souls and honour the work of God in their hands these will be all fallen and there will be nothing left but weakness and faintness and fear and passion and peevishness and how will these things honor the Lord O it is very necessary that wee should have an eye to our Affections in the great work of God for if these bee lost the glory of the work falls to the ground for the affections are the very hands that lay hold on Christ and the feet that run after him and the instruments with which we work for him lose not this time if ever thou wouldest take a time wherein God may be glorified by thee Secondly Now all thy senses are freshest and quick and thy soul most active and thou art best able to taste of that sweetness which is in the ways of the Lord and although the sweetness of the ways of God do not consist in satisfying the senses external neither is godliness as the Familist makes it a sensual life yet when the body is decayed and the soul weakned as to all its exercises the soul is not deprived onely of the relish which it had of carnal things but even of spiritual ones also the reason why we shall enjoy so much more of God in Heaven then we do or can do here is because our bodies shal be fitted to our souls we shal have none of the incumbrances of flesh and weakness and indisposition through sickness and old age which now do hinder us and therefore it must needs follow that the better the soul is Organized and fitted for action through the strength and vigour of all the faculties the more capable it is of communion with God and of tasting the sweetness that is in his wayes Bring a man that is sick and weak never such precious and pleasing meat and drink he affects them not because his palate is weak and he cannot taste the sweetness that is in them Old Age is the sickness of Nature then she begins to be feeble and it cannot be expected that the soul can act at the same rate either in Naturals or Spirituals which it did when it was in the middest of its strength A man cannot do so much work when his assistants and servants are all gone from him as he could when he had them all at command the soul wants many of her attendants they are dead or drousie and very uselesse every member of the body and every faculty of the soul is very weak and lame and there is little expected from them If ever thou wouldest highly put a difference between the ways of God and the ways of sin and thou wouldest relish the sweetness that is in following the Lord Jesus make tryal in thy youth whilst thou art in the prime of thy strength for the breasts of his consolation are ful and require much strength to draw them they are of so pure and spiritual a nature If thy senses were so quick and comprehensive as Adams were in innocency yet there is more then enough in the Lord Jesus and in his ways to exercise them and to satisfie them David speaks largely of his experience in this thing Ps 19. They were sweeter then the honey and the honey-comb And in Psalm one hundred and nineteen he commends them beyond all other good things and speaks elsewhere of this he sets out the fulness and variety of sweetness which the ways of God afford by this expression Rivers of pleasure Psalm 36.8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatnesse of thy house and thou shalt make them drink of the rivers of thy pleasures We may have another much like to this Psalm 16.11 In thy presence is fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore O what a great mistake is there amongst many who refuse to give their youth to the Lord because they cannot spare that from their pleasures they think that the devoting that unto the Lord would be the spoil of it let not Saten delude any of your poor souls thus any more there are pleasures at Gods right hand and rivers of pleasure for Souls to drink of who follow Jesus Christ when the summer brooks which Satan leads you to will all be dried up Le thim not draw you off from God with a pretence that there is no pleasure to be had in him but whenever he draws you after pleasures tell him how that you have heard That the wâ—y of God are sweet and that you will make tryal of them whether they are so or not whilst you are in the midst of your strength and best able to distinguish betwixt sweet and bitter good and evil and when thou hast gotten but a taste of the sweetnesse of the ways of God thou wilt have an answer at hand for him when he comes and tells thee Thy youth is fittest for pleasure tell him then it is fittest for God at whose right hand are pleasures everlasting which thon wilt never more exchange for his deceivable lusts Thirdly Now thou hast an opportunity to deny thy self for Jesus Christ and to commend the ways of God unto the world and to set a high price upon them for the enjoyment of Christ in them when thou dost deny the vain pleasures of sin when thou mayest enjoy them what a low value dost thou set upon Jesus Christ and the ways of the Lord when thou wilt follow him at no other time but in that which in thy own judgement is fit for nothing else although in truth it is most unfit for that This cannot bean act of selfdenial when we wil never come to God til we have nothing to deny or part withal for him thou canst not then say that thou forsakest any thing of the world to come unto Christ when it hath already forsaken thee what pleasure wilt thou deny to follow God in thy old age in that day when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in it here wil be no room left for self denial in many things but now it lies in the way evidently to make out thy self-denial for now whilst thou art in the strength of thy dayes and many temptations to enjoy the world and many ways to enjoy it also now to renounce all and come into Christ will be an eminent act of self-deniall all men will say loe here is one who hath left all to follow the Lord and wil not this beget an high esteem in men of the ways of God when they shall fee thee prizing it above all profits and pleasures and preferments and Friends and Companions when they see thee
casting these under foot when they are to be enjoyed will they not say Surely there is much sweetness in the ways of God that this man denies himself in all these things to follow them If ever thou wouldest honour the ways of God and set them up high in the hearts of men and be eminent in this act of self-denial lose not thy youthful days but begin to follow the Lord Jesus whilst the world and the pleasure of it are following thee so shalt thou be a true Disciple of the Lord Jesus Fourthly The work is great which thou art called to and therefore fittest for thy youth we know that we use to single out the morning for the choicest employment which requires greatness of strength and parts and truly the work of the Lord is in this sense a morning work for it will call for the vigor and strength of thy affections Strive to enter in at the strait gate Luk. 13.24 Philip. 3.14 I press toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Men do wonderfully mistake the ways of the Lord when they think that the sleeping doating age is good enough for him truly this is according to those conceits and fancies which they have of the worship of God and their thoughts are so low because they are so much strangers to it but if such souls were set truly about the work they would find it so much above the strength they have when strongest that they would easily be convinced of the vanity of making delays and putting it off til a time when they must expect less Oh what folly is there in mens hearts and how little reason wil those delayers have to stand by them at the last day when they delay the workbecause it seems hard and difficult and yet they put it off to a time wherein it must needs be much harder then now it is Friends take heed of this folly it is too common amongst us It is against reason and against our practice in all other things and if the devil had not a great power over men this deceit of the heart would be discerned we see men will not do so in other things they will study the season proper to every work but this of their souls the Husbandman will not put off his Summer work till Winter nor his Winter work til Summer he wil chuse to do the work that is most painfull and laborious before the heat of the day if a man walk by the Sea wal find a smal breach that is made in upon the Land he will not passe it by and say let it alone until the next week or year for says he it will grow much bigger by that time he will not make delays when he is sure that delays will make more work let us but study the seasons for our souls as they do let us do every thing to the best advantage the work is great begin when thou wilt but the longer it be before thou begin it the more difficult thou wilt finde it and the lesse strength thou wilt have to go through with it therefore begin in thy youth Fifthly It is a long work and therefore calls for the morning of thy Age he that would run this race should set out early We know if a man have a long Journey to go or a Race to run upon some forfeiture he will covet for as much of the day as it is possible for him to enjoy he will set out very early by the first appearance of day if we did but know what it is to be a Christian we should not think our day too long to spare any of it from our work especially of our choycest hours Three things makes this work long 1 Want of knowledge we have many things to seek after 2 Want of experience in those things which we have in notion 3 Much imployment First in regard of knowledge we should begin betimes how many things are we ignorant of the Gospel is ful of Mysteries the Worship of God is a Mystery and we know but in part when we know most and yet may always know more then we do If we consider our Naturall estate we are ignorant of every truth of God as it is in Jesus we know nothing aright 1 Cor 2.14 The naturall man cannot perceive the things of God therefore seeing there is no true knowledge of God and of Spiritual things till we set our faces and hearts Heaven-wards we had need begin betimes If we look to our after-knowledge which is a fruit of conversion it is so weak and imperfect and there is so much ignorance in so many of the things of God that then we should say O that we had begun sooner with God! then might we have been teachers of others whereas now we have need to be taught the very principles of Christ if we begin at the first hour of the day yet we shall find the work so long in this regard that when the night comes we shall acknowledge that the day hath not been large enough or we have not been active enough to be acquainted with every Mystery of the Lord and we must leave some things to learn when we come to Heaven Secondly In respect of Experience how many things are there which we get in notion which we are content withal and seek not for the experience of it this requires much time to seek after the experience and power and conformity to those truths of which we are convicted in our judgements thou maist learn many things in a Notional way in a short time but experience of all these things is not so soon obtained The Physitian reads many things and they seem rational to him but this seems not enough to him until he gets some experience of these things til he hath made trial of them it wil require much time for thee to put every truth so to the touchstone as to be able to speak to it from thine own experimental Knowledg and this will advise thee to begin betimes with the Lord. Thirdly In regard of imployment O when thou comest into Christ thou wilt find abundance of work to do too much for the little time that is allotted thee if thou lookest upon those without to labour to bring them in to Christ thy bowels wil sound toward them and thou wil say in thy heart O that I had come in sooner that I might have pittied those poor souls sooner in regard of those who are within there are some weak and they call for thee When thou art converted then strengthen thy brethren some are doubting and call for thee to comfort them some are fallen and cal for thee to restore them yea the strong as well as the weak have need of thee O there is work enough for thee to do amongst the Saints if there were none in the world if thou hadst Methusalem's Age to spend And seeing Jesus Christ hath so much