Cons UMMACF HAPP1-
HUMAN NATURE
and
All Mank lup in the NESS or MISERY. JI Foruns Sr Ar E.
Late Miniier of the Gospel at ET RICK.
ten
Carefully Reviied, bn earned . ae
Joux! li. 24,25. But Jesus did not commit bimfe If unto them „ 4 | b:caufe be knew "all Men And needed not that any - Sol '/tif7 of Man: For he knew whit was im Man. 4
Long. 19. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ys are 0. 2
Pay. xxvii. 19. As in Water, Face answrreth to Hees: £5 the Heart ＋ Man io Man.
A +, K 1 K K Printed and fold by PATRICK Mai.
RECOMMENDATION, By the Reverend Mr. MICHAEL BOSTON,
The Author's Grandson.
II UMAN NATURE in its FOURFOLD STATE, Jas the first Production of my venerable Ar: eftor mtroduced to the PuBLic, It made its first appearance in the year 1720. Since that period, it has unde gone at an average, One com plete EDITLION e Every two years. Twenty thousand Copies of it have been exported to AMERIC a, from one lingle City 1 SCOTLAND, besides thode that have been lent to the Continent from ENO LAND and IRELAND. Ihe rapid fac of the Bock upon its rd Publication, is a demani*r ative proof of the esteem in which it was then held: and the uninterrupted demand for it still, shie s that the Principles it inculcates, are yet hekl in repute. All that I need further to add, 1s, I bat the prefeat EU TT is printed from that one Reviicd and Corrected. by the Brno himself, and may therefore be elbeemed correct;
PREFACE.
FT is a maxim among wise men, That the know! edge of perlons is of as great use in the conduct of human life, as the knowledge of things: and ii i molt certain, that he u = knows the various tempers, humours, and dispolitions of men, who can find out their turn of thought, and penetrate into the secret 2 and principles of their acting, will not be at a loss to nd out proper means for compassing his ahns, wilt cally pre— serve himselt from snares, aad cither evite or overcoine dillicylties. But the knowledge of human nature, morally confde d, or, in other wor ds, of the temper and cisposition of the soul in its moral powers, is of much greater value; as it is of ule in he concerns of an unchangeable lite and world: he who is poleclied of so valuable a TE of knowledpe, is thereby capacitated 'to judpe arizht of himself, to 1 true Christiality, and to Conceive justly of perfect happiness, and consummate isery. "The depravity of human nature is fo plainly taugbt, yea inculcatod in sacred Seripture, and is so, obvious to every thitking man's obser vation, who searches his own breast, and resiecti duly on tis temper and actings, that it is lurprizins! lerange and wonderful, how it come: to pals, that this important tr auth 3s. so little uuderstool, yea so much di believed, by men who bear t the name of gospel Miniters. Are there not + {ons to be. found in a neighbouring nation, in the character of preachers, appearing daily in pulpits, who are Io ene ed wich their Bibles and ten! tel. es, that they zickcule the oor) ine of o. iginal hn as unintellig © jar gon! * th: y are persons of 2 moral life and conversation, they seem to hnagne, they cannot become better dan they are: if they are unmbral, the KCN to ind 1
a conceit, that they cal become viewous Ven "601908, When they please These are the nca uo by i e die Say of puman rat! "re, of greitmels or mind. 194 jene ls 85 ul, and geacrolity of spirit: as i they 1: endes to pe = krhemselves
that pride and el fishness are the bane of mankind, N of all the wrekedaetls, 2nd much of the mi ery to be found in this and in the other world; and is indeed that, wherein th e depravity of human nature properly consists. Upright Adam's nature faintly adumbrated the divine, in a moderate fselt-eikcem, an adequate self-love, and delightrul reflex ion on his own borrowed excellency, regulated by a just esteem of, and supreme love 10 his adored Creator: whence a peaceful serenit; y of mind, a loving, compassionate and benevoient disposition of sonal, a depth of thought, and brightness of. imagination, delightfull * employed 1 in thc rapturous contemplation of his Maker's infinite perfections; thus bearing the divine ring and relembling Gop that made him. But no fooner did he difobey the divine probatory command, than the fcales were BY his moderated self-esteam degenerated into pride, his adequate {clf-love shrunk into mere lane, and his delightful reflections on his own excellency, varied into the tickling pleasures of vanity and covccit; he loft view of the Author of liis be; ing, and he enceforth, instead of delighting in zum, first dreaded, and they despised him. The modett, and theretore hitherto anonymous author of the following di courses, Mr. 1 H0M1a5 BOSTON, having handled tl:is subjc ct in preaching Ut is own oblcure parochial congrepa— tion of Ettrick, in the therittdom ot Selkirk, bad a particular view to their benefit, in printing and publishing them,; and therefore the stile and method 1s Plain and simple, and the firlt edition printed on coarle paper, but the subject is fo compre: henlive and important, io well managed, and the book has been jo well received, that it now. appears in the world more embellished, (as well as better corrected than for: nerly. Let it suffice, to recommend it to those who have a right: taite of genuine Christ; anty, that all the Author's notions flow 10 directly from the sacred fountain, that It is to be doubted, It he has had much recourse to a other he! !'ps chan his Bible and his Gop for aslsiitance. Mean-time, 1 am aware of an. <xception from thele who rank th emsclyes among the pohte part of mankind, as that there is the {ame harsh peculia: ity of dialect im it „Which is commonly to be found in book s of practical divinity. B. it ] beg leave to blerve, That the dialect they except against, is borrowed from Sad red Scripture: and likeas it has pleased Gor, by the foolishug s 8 preaching to fave ae them that believe;”” fo allo to countenance what thay are dipi-1sed with, by tue e of bis Spirit on the minds ot“ 43 rue
true Christians, as their common experience witnesseth. How ever, I heartily wish, the exception were altogether removed, by tome persons digesting into a methiedical treatise, the views
of human nature in its primitive karten in its Cepraved condition, and in its retrieved state, who is master of modern stile, and throughly understands the subjects discourted in this book, that by becoming all things to all men, Some, viz. Ot all ranks and kinds of men, may be pained.
I am not to declahn at large in favours of - religion; this were to write a book by way of pretace. Many able pens have been employed | m recommending 1 t to the world hy strong arguments drawn from its usefulness to society, its tuitableness to the dipnity of the rational nature, and the ad- antages aril- Ing to men from it in this and the other World. But, after all, may not one be allowed to doubt, if religion be rightly tindoys stood by a'l its patrons? may not the beaaties and excellencies of a precious gem be elegantly delcribed by a naturalift, or Jeweller, who never aw the particular one he talked of, and knows little of its nature, less or the construction of its parts, and nothing of its proper ule? Are there not men of bright | Pts, who reason tinely in defence of religion, and yet are so much strangers to it, that they brand the persons who are ft
happy as to be possessed of it, with the hard name ot spiritualitts, |
reckoning them a kind of Epthusi wt, unworthy of their regard,
The truth is, Christianity is a my, mere reason doe: not comprehend it. There is a sp: jtval discerning necessary 16 its being rightly understood, whence it coines to pass that men of great learning and ab! lities, tho? they read the Scriptures with attention, and comment. learnedly upon them; yet do not, yea caunet, enter into the vein of thought E to the infp! red penman, becaufe they share nat of the lame Spirit; wherefure it is, that the Apostle Paul asserts, the natural, that is, varegenerate man, not to“ know the things of God, neither indeed
4e to be cap: able of knowing them, because they arc spiritually
„ discerned.“
From what has been said, it is easy to conclude, That no pedantic apology on the part of the Author, f for appearing in print, or fawning compliments to the courteous reader, on the part of the prefacer, are to be expected. Thie truth is, both
the one and the other are rather little arts, vailing pedantry | and conceit, than evidences of modeity and good-fense. It is
of more als: to recommend the perusal of the Look to per rsems of
all ranks and degrees, from a few fuitable topicks, than to shea
Whercin this Edition differs from the firsts That
V⸗ĩn CT vii
That in markind, however dite-encei! by their rank and {tation i the world, have an equal concert in what 15 revealed 004! cerniag another and ee e World, will be ready owned and it mut be as ready anted, that however n it may be for men of Icarning 5 parts, to pleaie theme) ves with tinenefs of language, jult. ets of thought, and exact corncetion in ritmgs upon 9 lubjects 3 Yer e ought 110 to indulge themselves in the same taite m dilcourtes on divine tungs, left they ex pole themselves to the juit cen sure of Acting with rhe lame inditer etion, as a person in dan: ger of tamifung by hunger, would be guilty of, it lie 8 rejected plan wholl me tood,
when offered to him t Or no O her. reason than the want of
pal: itable sauce, or order and plendor in serving it up.
The jadred n we call the Bible, has a pecular sublimity n it, Vailec with unusual dialed and Kcming inconnection: but it isnt therefore to be rejected by men who bear the name of Chriitians, as uncouth or un 'ntellipible ; true witdom dictates quite another thing: it countels us, by frequent reading, to acquaint ourselves well with it; become accuittomed to its peculiar phrales, and {carch into its sublimitics; upon thus ground, that the matters contained in it, are of the utmost consequence to us, and when rightly understoo d, yieid a refined delight, mach fuperior to what is to be found in reading the bett written books on the most entertaining subjects, What picad: for the parent is a plea for the progeny ; pre ictical discourses upon divine subjects are the genuine offepr) 3ng ot the sacred text, and onght therefore to te read c wes ully and with
attention, by persons of all ranks and 0 Erres, the they are indeed calculated for, and Pecik ty apted to duch as move low spheres of lite. 75
Let it, however, be à prevailing argument with persons all denominations, carefully to read books of practical divinity.
that man ny Of them are not written on the lan: E motires and.
Principles as other books are; the authors have often a peculiar divine call to publit them, and well-founded bope of their being uleful to advance Christianity in the world. In consequence whereof it is, that great numbers have reaped hencsit by reading them, specially in childhood and youth; many have been converted by them; and it may be queltiuned, if ever there was à true Christian, since the Art of Printing made these books common, who bas not, in Jonie Rage of life, reaped considerable advantage from tem. This book recommends itself in a particular manner, by its being a short subftantial system of | | Praea
practical divinity, in fo much, that it may with truth be aflerted, That a person who is {! oughty acquainted with all that is hers taught, may, without anger to his eternal interest, remain
Ignorant of other th uy dich pertain to the science called Divinity. It is there! arnestly recommended to the serious and frequent perusal ” a nt especially of sach as are in that stage of life called youth, are fo stationed in the world, as
not to be frequently op} ortuned to hear sermons, and read commentaries on the facred text.
It is doubtless incumbent on masters of families to make tome provision of spiritual as wel] as bodily tood, for thei children and servants; this is effectually done by putting practical books in their bands! : and therefore this book is bumbly and earn estly
recommended as a family-book, which all the members of it are
not allowed, but defired to peruse. As to the difference betwixt this and the former edition,
which gives it Fe it lies chiefly in the Arithor's not only
having revised the stile, but the thought in wavy places, and and corrected both, fo as to let several mmportant truths in a clearer light, and make the {tile of the bock now uniform, which formerly was not fo, becaule of the explications of pecu“ words and phrases m use amongst practical divines, especially e church of Scotland, Which were interipersed thro'',. e former edition, and introduced by another hand, for. fake of such perioas as arc not accustomed to them. It remams, that the pretacer not ain subjoin his name, which was cemcented in the firit edition, as a testimony that he eficems the Author, and values the book, but that he may
ther Oy recommend it i, g particular manner to the perusa of
crsons of his own acquaintauge. IF in his atfifting towards its Ang published, and in prefacin both editions, he has not run
.afent; he has what will bear hmm under” all censures: the
charitable will think no evil, and oth& - ill do as they ylease.
FDINBUKGH, 18th March, 1729.
—
1E FOr
I. The Starz of INNOCENCE, or Przxir IVE INTEGRITY, Disccursed from "Ecclcl? n. 29.
Man's original r. ighteoufnefs, 53 Page 3 His inderffand] 19 a lamp of 2 —— 4 His will {raght with the will of Hd, _ ib His alfections orderly and pare, — — The q-5imt; - of this righteousnels, — ——
| Lo of the world, — — —— #2 le forbidden tree a stay to keep him from falling. ih.
Instructions from "this late, —— — 14 Three forts of persons. reproved, - — 1
A lamentation over the rums, — —— 16 II. The STATE of- NATVU WE: Or, STATE of EG TIE
DEPRAVA TION. .
3 AT Man's nature is corrupted, 7 en, — P. 22
.
From God's word, — —— ib. From mens experience, and ob(-- en, — 27 Fallen A gam'e image, in eleven particusars natural tomen, 40 Of dlie cogr: ption of the under n Jin — 35 Wealness with respect th Fipiritual things, — . Three evid wg” of k, — — —— 37 Gross darkness in {, tna tungs, — — ib. Four evidenges 1 it, — — — 41 A bias in it: wo. eval, — — ib. Six ev ces Y that bias, — — — — 45 Ayeri' n tosirttual tri uten, — — 46 IL ee evidtnegs thovoot, — — 48 Pro nel, co lige ad fab. —— — 499 Miu natu bY Bont A a; — — — 50 Of the cortoption on 45 3 — — — an
Utter inab; Utv for what is ily g good, — cr
* The CONTENTS.
Two evidence: of it : 3 Pal versenels FC} 000,
Four evidences of it, . Es Five evideices of it, — cn 5
Enmity agalast God, —
Agalnst the being and nature of God, ——
Five queries, for conviction on this head, Against the S0 of God
Iu his prophetical office, — „ EX O C idences of it, — — — —P
In his priescly office, 3 a Three cyilences of it, — LIE EN
In his kingly office, „ r Three evidences of it, — — —
A peculiar maliguity against the priestly office ; corrnpt
nature lying cro to the polpe.-contrivance of talvation,
Four proof: of it, —— ck Bent to the way of the law, as a covenant of works, Four proots of it, — 3 Against the Spirit of God, — Abe Against the law as a rule of life, — Two evidences of it, —— — Contumacy against the Lord, — —
Bf, ricnels in reference to the chief end, — Of che corruption of the affections, += — — af the conicience,
— — of the memory The body partaker of this corruption, —— Ho man's nature was Corrupted, — | Tue doctrine of the corruption of nature applied, — The natural mai. can du notling but fin, —
God takes special notice gf the {in of our nature,
Kidences of mens overivoking the lin of their nature, Wherein that {in 18 10 be pectauy not a, —
Why it is to be Ipecially noticed, —— —
Ha- ; 52 T's 33 FK mnt 2 How to get a view ot the cor! UPTON OL NUYNTE,
$
' ? i "UP %y d 1 I T's natural fate, a state of wrath, © a —— q ar Y
J What 15518 N of REY 31-38 peas
cus
1 the W a LUG gdu ane! ? Wii ——
Wrath in the hand of God aging lum, ————
The CONTENTS. Os his body; fe,
On his enjoy ments, —— ——— 101 He is under the power of Satan, ——— ks ib. Hath no security for a moment's safety, —— 102
The Cote ass the state of wrath confirmed and vindicated, 109
They are under the covenant of works, 113 Their misery in that respect, — — — ib. They are without Gd. — 115 Their nusery in that respe cem _ ib. Instances of the wrath of God.. Gn 116 A view of the nature of God, whose wrath it js, 117
How toflee from Wann 118
Heap III. Man's Ur TER INA BIIITV to recover Iniselt, - Discourled from Rom. v. 6. john vi. 44. 9 two ways of man's recovering himself supposable, viz. the way of the law, and the way of the g hel, 124
Man unable to recover himself in the way of the law,
He cannot keep the commandments perfectly, — ih. The perfection of law-obedience, four-fold, — ib. He cannot satisfy the justice of God for bis fin, — 12
Object. God is merciful: we hope to be aved, if we do as well as v/e can. Answered, —.— ——— 129 lan unable to recover himself in the way of the gospel, to
embrace and use the help offered for his recovery, ib. Proven by leveral arguments, > ao 3: Object. (.) If we be under an utter inability to do any © * gond, how can God require us to doit? Answered, ib. Object. (2.) Why do you then cali us to believe, repent, and use the means? Aniwered, —— ou 132 Object. (3-) The te of means needless, seeing we art utterly
unable to help ouci-lves wut of the state of fin and wrath, Anstwered, =O —— . - I 34 Quest, Has God promised to convert and fave thein, whoin the use of means, do what they can toward; their own relief? Answered, —— —— ib. The Conclusion of this head.... ——— 135
The CONTENT S.
VI. The Stars of Gn ACE, O! Begun Recoriry,
" Heap I. LECENEZATION Discoursed from 1 Pet. i. 23. 1 | p. 135. | * the nature of re; generation, - — 138 Partial changes mistaken for this ch ange, 139 The change mad in regeneration, what it 33, _-- 140 In general, TEE ones — — 143 8 in particular, — wenn ED EW I 7 4 The mind *!Juminated, | =o conn | nee 225 be will renewed), — RE TIED ib, C::red of its utter 1nability to ged. 146 Eudued with a fixed aver to evil, —— ib. 2 à bent ang propeisity to good, 147 F. econciled to the covenant of p3:ce, —— 148 D innlen to recebve jesus Christ, 22 225 Il, Thie Addon > are Cl hanped, --- = ne 149 — — ef 16 ied, — — ih. — [He -uilated, — —— 150 The conlcience 1chewed, — — 157 The Ny bettered by regenerating grace, I52 The TH dy changed in respect of vie, —— 153 2 a _- le conversation changed, ib. The Tel olince betwixt natural and sritual generation, in nine pi - tculars — — 135 T 1:4! af one state, whether born again, or not, — 3 Some cates of Coul, eing Christians resolved, — 163 Case (i.) Thie precise time and way 0” one's conversion * known, .. — — — ib. Case (2.) —— Fin prevailing, ——— py: Caie (3.) Corruptions more violent than forme. ly, 154 - | Cast (4. ) — AffeMRions to the creature stronger than to the Cre: o. — Glowing affections to Cod g 20 , 165 Caie (5.)— 9 of hypocrites and po ates, a ter or — — 147 Case (6. Polling short of the saints nentoned Tel erz Do FE, and of others. * _ 159 Case (7 7. No child of = 2d fo t Et 2 ed, — 0. Case last.— Ztfanpe and unt ua 2] alictions, 179 The necesiity of repeneratic; — — — 177 To qu all fy 0132 to do 8990 — — — ib. To commwnon with God in dati:s, — 1 10 make one meet for Leaven, — 17 To one's being admeted iuto heaven, 75 Advices to the unvegenerate, — — — 27
The CONTENTS:
Hrap II. The Mys rica, UNION betwixt Christ and
Believers, discoursed, from John xv. 5. p. 179
General view of the Mystical Union, — 181
The natural stock of all men, Adam, — 184 —
Originally a choice vine, — ib.
F | Now a degenerate stock, — 185
| Fruits growing on the branches of the nature of the stock, ib.
A dead stock, — 187
The condition of the branches in that respect, ib.
i | The condition of the branches in that respect, ib. The suparnatural stock, into which the branches are ingrafted,
esus Christ, Ts 190
The branches taken out of the natural stock, and grafted into
the supernatural stock; the elect, | 191
How tliey are cut off fr om the natural stock in twelve partif | Chrilt apprchends the inner by his Spirit, 3
1 The {inner apprehends Christ by faith, ib.
How one may know one's self to be a pprehended of Christ, 205
The benefits flowing to believers from union with Christ, 207 |
Quest. It all true Christians be growing ones, what mall be said of these who, instead of growing,
are going back? Answered, ib. Quest. Do hypocrites grow at all? And if so, how:
shail we dittinguish betwixt their growth, and
the growth of the Christian? Answer cd, 22S. Fruitfulness, 471 Acceptance of their fruits of holiness, "246 Establishment and Support, 220, 228
The special care of the husbandman, — 23 . The duty of saints united to Christ, _— 234 A word to sumers, — — 237
Heap I. DEATH, discoursed from Job xxx. 23. p. 238
— Retr
Kir The CONTENTS. A short-lived vanity, — <— p. 242 A fiying vavity, _ — _ 244 The dottrine of death, a looking-glass, wherein to behold the vanity of the world, — — — 245 A store house, for contentment and patience, 246 A bridle to curb lusts conversant about the body, 248 H spring of Christian resolution, — 250 A spur to incite to prepare for death, — | 251
Heap II. The Difference betwixt the Righteous and the Wicked in their death, discourled from Prov, xiv. 32.
TI wicked dying are driven away, — 253 In what cafes a wicked man may be willing to die, 255 Whence they are driven, and whither, — 256
| Driven away in their wickedness, _ 257 The hopelesst ness of their state at death, * 258
Their hopes of peace and pleasure in this life cut t off, ib. They have uo solid grounds to hope for eternal happiness, ib.
Death roots up their delulsive hopes of heaven, 259
Makes their state absolutely and for ever hopeless, 260 Caution against false hopes of heaven: Characters of those
Exhortation to hasten out of a sinful state, 262
To be concerned for the salvation of others, 263
Ihe state of the godly in death, a hopeful state, ib. Christ their best friend is Lord of the other world, .
They will lave a safe passage to it, 5 264
A joyful entrance into it, 266
Object —Many of the godly, when dying. Full of to Ss
and have little hope. Answered, — 258
Death uncomfortable to them, in three cases, 269
Ten cases of saints anent death. Answered, — 275
' Considerations to bring saints in good terms with death, 374
Direct: ons how to prepare for death, — 375
Head III. The RESURRECTION, discoursed from
HE possibllity of the resurrection, — — 281
Who shall be railed, — _ en "8g
What shall be raised; — — — ib.
How the dead shall de raised, — — — 288
—
The cngerence betwixt the godly and the wicked, in their resurrection, — p. 288
The qualities of the raised bodies of the saints, — 293 The qualities of the raised bodies of the wicked, — 395 Comtort to the people of Gd, — — 296 Terror to all natural men, — — 298
Hr ap IV. The GENERAL JUDGMENT, difcoursed from
Mat. KX 31, 32, 33 34, 41, 46. p. 300 T. there shall be a General Judgment, proven. 301 Jesus Christ the Judge, —— 304 The coming of the Judge. — — 305 The summons given. — — 306 The Judge's sitting down in the tribunal. — ib. The compearance of the parties. — 308 The separation betwixt the righteous and the wicked, 309 The trial of the parties, — — 311 The books opened. — 313
Sentence pronounced on the saints. — 316 The saints judge the world. — — 2 Sentence of damnation on the ungodly. — 319 The execution. — 322 The gencral conflagration. — 223 The place and time of the judgment, unknown. 9
Terror to unbelievers. — — — 326 Exhortation to prepare for the judgment. — 328
HEAD V. The EINOGC DOM of HEAVEN, discoursed from
Mat. xx. 34. — _ — p · 329 "LE nature of the kingdom of heaven. 331 The faints Kingly power and don. — bb. Their ensigns of royalty. — — 332 White garments, on what occasion used: much of heaven
The country where this kingdom lies. — 338 The Royal city, — — — ib. The Royal palace, _ — won 339 The palace-garden. — _ — — 340 The Royal treasures. — — — ib. The temple in this kingdom. — — — 341
—
The fociety of the saints among themselves,
Society With the holy angels. Glorious communion With God and Christ, the per fectioh
Func of joy unspeakable, The eterna! duration of tins kingdom, The taints admillon to the kingdom,
of happiness, — f
The CONTENTS.
The gorious pretence of God and the Lamb, The full enjoyment of God and the Lamb,
By light,
They will see Christ, with their bodily eyes, They will fee God, with the eyes of the mind,
By expe immtal knowledge,
—
The quality in which they are introduced, Trial of the claiin to the Eugdom of heaven,
Duty and comfort of the heirs of the kingdom,
Exhortation to these who have no right to it.
HEAD VI. HELL discoursed of from Mat. xxv. 41. p. 3
HE curse under which the damned shall be shut up
Their misery under that curse,
in hell.
The punishment of loss, separation from God 5
The horror of separation from God, evinced by
several considerations,
The punihment of sense, departing into fire, Hell- sire more vehement ard terrible than any other, evinced by several considerations,
Six properties of the fiery torments in hell,
Three interences from this doctrine,
Society with devils in this miserable state,
The eternity of the whole, What etcrnity is,
What is eternal in the state of the damned, Reasonableness of the eternity of the punishment of the danmed, A measuring reed to measure our time, and endeayours (387
for salvation by, _ | A balance to discover the lightgess of what is falsly thought
_ | weighty, and the weight of what is falsly thought light, 389 Exhortation to flee from the wrath to come,
STATE
STAT ® L
The State of INNOCENCE, or Primitive Integrity, in which Man was created.
—
HO; ECCLES. vii. 29.
Lo, this only have I found, That God hath made Man upright: But they have sought out many Inventions.
HERE are four things very necessary to be known by all that would fee Heaven. First, What Man was in the state of innocence, as God made him. Secondly, What he is in the state of corrupt nature, as he hath unmade himself. gy What he must be in the state of grace, as created in Christ Jesus unto good works, if ever he be made a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. And, Lastly, What he shall bein his eternal state, as made by the judge of all, either perfectly happy, or compleatly miscrable, and that for ever. These are w—_ points, that touch the vitals of practical godliness, from whic most men, and even many a in these dregs of time, are quite estranged. I design therefore, under the divine conduct, to open up these things, and apply them. | I begin with the first of them, namely, The state of Innocence: that, beholding man polished after the similitude of a palace, tze ruins may the more affect us; we may the more prize that match h less Person, whom the Father has appointed the repaifer of the breach; and that we may, with fixed resolves, betake ourselves. to that way which leadeth to the city that hath unmoveable foundations. In the text we have three things: | | I. The state of Innocence wherein man was created, God hath made Man upright.” By Man here, we are to understand our first Parents; the archetypal pair, the root of mankind, the campendized world, and the fountam from whence all generations have streamed; as may appear by comparing Gen. v. 1, 2. In the day that God created Man, in the likeness of God made he him, male and female created he them, and blessed them, (as the root of mankind,) and called their. name Adam.” The original words is the same in our text, in this sense, man was made right, (agreeable to the nature of ”—_ whose work is perfect) without any. .
(
ah The Explication of the Nl. State I.
any imperfection, corruption, or principal of corruption in his
body or foul. He was made upright, that is, {traipht with the
wilt and law of God, without any irregularity in his foul. By the
set it got in its creation, it directly pointed towards God, as his
Chief end; which ftraipht inclination was reprefented, as in an
emblem, by :the erect figure of his body, a figure, that no other
| [living creature partakes of. What David was in a pgospel-sense,
that was he in à legal sense, one according to God's own heart, t
| altogether righteous, pure and holy. God made him thus: he |
Aid not first make him, and then make him righteous ; but in the |
L: "uy making of him, he made him righteous. Original righteousmuess was concreated with him; fo that in the same moment he
0 Was a Man, he was a righteous Man, morally good; with the
same breath that God breathed in him a living foul, he breathed
in him a righteous foul. | 4
2. Here is Man's fallen state : © But they have sought out
many inventions.” They fell bf from their rest in God, and fell
upon seeking inventions of their own, to mend theiricase; and
they quite marred it. Their ruia was from their own proper
motion; they would not abide as God had made them, but they
{ought out inventions to deform and undo themselves.
3. Observe here the certainty and importance of those things,
Lo, this only have I found, &c.“ Believe them, they are the
result of a narrow search, and u serious inquiry performed by the
Wiisest of Men. In the two preceeding verles, Solomon represents
Himself as in quest of goodness in the world, but the issue of it was
| He could find no satisfying issue of his search after it; though it
| was not for want of pains; for he counted one by one, to find dauVtt the account. Behokd this have I found, (faith the Preacher) Tc wit, That (as the fame word is read in our text) yet my | _ "foul seeketh, but I find not.” He could make no satisfying dis- | -covery of it, which might stay his enquiry. He found good Men | very rare, one as it were among a thousand; good Women more | rare, not one good among his thousand wives and concubines, 1 Kings xi. 3. But could that fatisfy the grand query, © Where — shall Wisdom be found?” No, it could not; (and if the experi- } ence of others in this point, run counter to Solomon's, as tis no reflection on his discerning, it can as little decide the question; which will remain undetermined till the last day.) But, amidst all this wncertainty,” chere is one point found out, and fixed: | This have I found.“ Ye may depend upon it as most certain 5 truth, and be fully satissied in it: Lo this!“ fix your eyes upon 22 it, as a matter worthy of most deep and serious regard; to wit, | that Man's nature is now deprayed, but that depravation was | | a | not
The Explication of the Text. © 3
not from God; for 4 He made Man upright;” but from them selves, They have sought out many inventions.
Doctrine, God made Man altogether righteous.
| IS is that state of innocence in which God set Man down in the world. Tis described in the holy Scriptures with a running pen, in comparison of the following states; for it was of no continuance, but passed as a flying shadow, by Man's abusing the freedom of his own will. I shall, £654 4. TEES] First," Inquire into the Righteousnels of this State wherein Man was ereated. - | TE Es 98d | Secondly, Lay before you some of the happy concomitants, and confeqyents thereof, Ed ID wes | . Lastly, Apply the whole. kph,
_ Of Man's Original Righteousness. | FlgsT, As to the righteousness of this state, consider, that as uncreated righteousness, the righteousness of God is the supreme. rule; fo all created righteousness, whether of Men or Angels, hath respect to a law as its rule, and is a conformity thereunto. A creature can no more be morally independent on God, in it's actions and powers, than it can be naturally independent on him. A creature, as a ereature, must acknowledge the Creator's wilt; as it's supreme law; for as it cannot be without him, so it must not be but for him, and according to his will: yet no law obliges, until it be revealed. And hence it follows, that there was a law which man, as a rational creature, was subjected to in his creation; and that this law was. revealed to him. God made man upright, says the text. This presupposeth a law to which he was conformed in his creation; as when any thing is made regular, or according to rule, of necessity the rule itself is presup -
posed. Whence we may gather, that this law was no other:
than the eternal, indispensible law of righteousness, observed in all points by the second Adam, opposed by the carnal mind, some notions of which remain yet among the Pagans, who, “ having not the law, are a law unto themselves, Rom. n. 1 5. In a word,
this law is the very fame which was afterwards summed up in the Ten Commandments, and promulgate on mount Sinai to the
Ifraclites, called by us the moral law: and Man's righteousness consisted in conformity to this law or rule. More. particularly, there is a two-fold conformity required of a man: a conformity of the powers of his soul to
=
e law, which you may call habit- . _ ual righteousness; and a conformity of all his actions to it, which is actual righteousness. Now, God made man babitually rigchten 3 cu
ood f —
4 Of Man's Original Righteousness. State I.
ous; Man was to make himself actually righteous: the former was the stock God put into his hand; the latter, the improvement he should have made of it. The sum of what I have said, is, that the righteousness wherein Man was created, was the conformity of all the faculties and powers of his foul to the moral law. This is what we call original righteousness, which man was originally endued with. We may take it up in these three things.
FIRST, Man's understanding was a lamp of light. He had perfect knowledge of the law, and of his duty accordingly: he was made after God's image, and consequently could not want knowledge, which is a part thereof, Col. iii. 10.“ The new Man is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him.” And indeed this was necessary, to fit him for universal. | Obedience, feeing no obedience can be according to the law, unless it proceed from a sense of the commandment of God requiring it. Tis true, Adam had not the law written upon tables of stone, but it was written upon his mind, the knowledge thereof being concreated with him. God impressed it upon his foul, and made him a law to himself, as the remains of it among the heath - ens do testify, Rom. ii. 14, 15. And seeing man was made to be the mouth of the creation, to glorify God in his works; we have ground to believe he had naturally an exquisite knowledge of the Works of God. We have a proof of this, in his giving names to the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and these such as express their nature. Whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof, Gen. ii. 19. And the dominion which God gave him over the creatures, soberly to use and dispose of them according to his will.({till in subordination to the will of God) seems to require no less than a knowledge of their natures. And befides all this, his perfect knowledge of the law, proves his knowledge in the management of civil affairs, which, in respe of the law of God, © a good Man will guide with discretion, Psal. cxii. 5. „ „ Sc oN DIY, His will lay straight with the will of God, Eph. iv. 24. There was no corruption in his will, no bent nor inelination to evil; for that is sin properly and truly so called: hence the apostle says, Rom. vii. 7. © I had not known fin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had faid, Thou shalt not covet. An inclination to evil, is really a fountain of lin, and therefore inconsistent with that rectitude and uprightness which the text expresly says he was endued with at his creation. The will of Man then was directed, and naturally inclined to God and goodness, tho' mutably. It was disposed, by its original make, to follew the Creator's will, as the Wee
Of Man's. Original Nigbieoufncs. 5
body; and was not left in an equal ballance to good and evil: for at that rate he had not been upright, nor habitually conform
to the law, which in no moment can allow the creature, not to be inclined towards God as his chief end, more than it can allow
Man to be a god to himself. The law was imprefsed upon
Adam's soul: now this according to the new covenant, by which
the image of God is repaired, consists in two things: 1. Putting the law into the mind, denoting the knowledge of it: 2. Writin
it in the heart, denoting inclinations in the will, answerable to the commands of the law, Heb. viii 10. So that, as the will,
when we consider it as renewed by grace, is by that grace natively inclined to the saine holiness in all it's parts which the law
requires; fo was the will of Man (when we confider him as God made lim at first) endued with natural inclinations to every thing
commanded by the law. For it the regenerate are partakers of the divine nature, as undoubtedly they are, for fo says the Scripture, 2 Pet. i. 4. And if this divine nature can import no less than inclinations of the heart to holiness: then furely Adam's will - could not want this inclination; for in him the image of God Was
hat the Gentiles shew the work of the law written in their hearts: but this
perfect. It is true, tis faid, Rom. ii. 14, 15.
_ denotes only their knowledge of that law, such as it is; but the Apoltle to the Hebrews, in the text eited, takes the word heart,
in another sense, distinguishing it plainly from the mind. And -
it must be granted, that, when God promiseth in the new covenant, * To write his law in the hearts of his people, it imports quite another thing than what Heathens have; for tho' they
have notions of it in their minds, yet their hearts po another way;
their. will has got a set and a biass quite contrary to that law; and therefore, the expression suitable to the present purpose, must
needs import, besides these notions of the mind, inclinations of | the will going along therewith; which inclinations, tho' mixed
with corruption in the regenerate, were pure and unmixed in upright Adam. in the matter of duty, fo his will stood inclined to what he knew. THrIRDLyY, His affections were orderly, pure and holy; which is a necessary part of that uprightness wherein man was created. The Apostle has a petition, 2 Thess. iii. 5. The Lord direct your hearts unto the love of God: that is, The Lord straight- En your hearts, or make them ly straight to the love of God: and our text tells us, man was thus made straipht. © The new Man is created in righteousness and true holiness,” Eph. iv. 24. Now this holiness as it is distinguished from righteautness, ma import the purity and orderliness of the affections. And thus the
A3 Apostle,
In a word, as Adam knew his master's pleasure.
6 f Man's Original Righteousness. State I,
Apostle, 1 Tim. ii. S. will have Men to pray, © Lifting up holy hands, witkout wrath and doubting:** because, as troubled water is unfit to receive the image of the sun: so the heart, filled with impure and disorderly aftections, is not fit for divine communications. Man's sensitive appetite was indeed naturally carried out towards objects grateful to the senses. For seeing Man was made up of body and soul, and God made this Man to glorify and enjoy him; and for this end to use his good creatures in subordination to himself: it is plain that Man was naturally inclined both to spiritual and sensible good; yet to spiritual good, the chief good as his ultimate end. And therefore his sensitive motions and inclinations, were subordinate to his reason and will, which lay ftraight with the will of God, and were not, in the least, contrary to the same. Otherwiss he should have been made up of contradictions; his soul being naturally inclined to God as the chief end, in the superior part thereof; and the fame soul inclined to the creature as the chief end in the inferior part thereof, as they call it: which is'impoilible; for Man, at the fame instant, cannot have two chief ends. Man's affections then, in his primitive state, were pure from all defilement, free from all diforder and distemper, because in all their motions they were duly subjected to his clear reason, and his holy will. He had allo an executive power answerable to his will; a power to do the good which he knew shonld be done, and which he inclined to do, even to fulfil the whole law of God. If it had not been so, God would not have required of him perfect obedience; for to say that the © Lord gathereth where he hath not strawed, is but the blalphemy of a wicked heart, against a good and bountiful God, Mat. XXV. 24. From what has been said, it may be gathered, that the original
righteousness explained was universal and natural; yet mutable. FIRST, It was universal; both with respect to the subject of it, the whole Man; and the object of it, the whole law. Universal I fay, with respect to the subject of it; for this righteousnets was diffused through the whole Man; it was a blessed leaven that leavened the whole lump, There was not one wrong pin in the tabernacle of human nature, when God set it up, however shattered it is now. Man was then holy in foul, body, and spirit: while the soul remained untainted, it's lodping was kept pure and undefiled: the members of the body were consecrated vessels, and instruments of righteousness. A combat betwixt fesh and spirit, reason and appetite; nay the least inclinatien to sin, lust of the fleih in the inferior part of the soul, was utterly inconsistent with this uprightness, in which man was created: and has been invented to vail the corruption cf Man's nature, and to obscure the | grace
Of Man's Original Righteousaess.
race of God in Jesus Christ: it looks very like the language of fallen Adam, laying his own tin at his Maker's door, Gen. iu. 12. The Woman whom thou gavelt to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did cat:** But as this righteousnels was universal in respect of the subject, becaule it spread through the whole Man, fo also it was universal, in respect of the object, the holy law: There was nothing in the law, but what was apreeable to his reason and will, as God made him: tho? fin bath now set him at odds with it: his foul was fhapen our, in length and breadth to the commandment, tho? exceeling broad: so that this original righteousness was not only perfect in parts, but in degrees. SECONDLY, As it was universal, so it was natural to him, and not supernatural in that state. Not that it was eflential to Man, as Man; for then he could not have lost it, without the loss of his very being; but it was con- natural to him: He vas created with it, andit was necessary to the perfection of Man, as he cate out of the hand of God: necellary to constitute hin in a state of integrity. Vet, | | THIRDLY, It was mutable; it was a righteousness that might be lost, as is manifested by the doleful event: Bis will was not ablolutely inditterent to good or cvil; God set it towards good only; yet he did not so fix and confirm it's inchuations, that it could not alter. No, it was moveable to evil: and that only by Man himself, God having given him a suificient power to stand in this integrity, if he had pleased; Let no Man quarrel God's works in this; for if Adam had been unchangeably righteous, he behoved to have been so either by nature, or by free gift:
by nature he could not be so, for that is proper to God, and incommunicable to any creature: if by tree gift, then no wrong was done him, in with-holding of what Le could not crave. Confirmation in a righteons state, is a reward of grace, given
upon continuing righteous, thro' the state of trial: and would
have been given to Adam, it he had stood out the time appointed for probation by the Creator; and accordingly is given to the faints, upon the account of the merits of Christ, who was obedient even to the death. And herein believers have the advantage of Adam, that they can never totally nor finally fall away from grace.
Thus was Man made originally righteous, being created in God's own image, Gen. i. 27. which consists in the positive quafities of Knowledge, Righteou ness and Holiness, Col. iii. 10. Ephes. iv. 24. All that God made was very good, according to their several natures, Gen. i. 21. And so was Man morally good, being made after the image of him, who is © good and upright,” Plal. xxv. 8. Without this, he could not have answered the great
end
8 Of Man's Original Happinest. State J.
end of his creation, which was to know, love, and serve his God, according to his will. Nay, he could not be created o.-herwile: for he behoved cither to be conform to the law, in his powers, principles, and inclinations, or not: if he was, then he was righteous; and it not, he was a sinner, which is absurd and horrible to imagine. = s Of Man's Original Happiness.
SECONDLY, I shall lay before you some of those things which did accompany or flow from the righteousness of Man's primitive state: Happiness is the result of holiness; and as it was an holy,
lo it was an happy state.
First, Man was then a very plorious creature. We have reason to suppose, that as Moses's face shone when he came down from the mount; so Man had a very lightsome and pleasant countenance, and beautiful body, while as yet there was no darkness of sin in him at all. But seeing God himself is glorious in holinels, (Exod. xv. 11.) surely that spiritual comeliness the Lord put upon Man at his creation, made him à very glorious creature. O how did light shine in his holy conversation, to the glory of the Creator! while every action was but the darting forth of a ray and beam of that glorious, unmixed light, which God had fet up in his soul; while that lamp of love, lighted from Heaven, continued burning in his heart, as in the holy place; and the law of the Lord, put in his inward parts by the finger of God, was kept by him there, as in the most holy: There was no
impurity to be seen without; no squint-look in the eyes, after
any unclean thing; the tongue spoke.nothing but the language of
Heaven: And, in a word, © The King's Son was all glorious
within, and his clothing of wrought gold.” | SECONDLY, He was the favourite of Heaven: He shone brightly in the image of God, who cannot but love his own image, where-ever it appears. Whfte he was alone in the world, he was not alone, for God was with him: His communion and fellowship was with his Creator, and that immediately: for as yet there was nothing to turn away the face of God from the work of his own hands; seeing fin had not as yet entered, which alone could make the breach. ; e | By thefavour of God, he was advanced to be confederate with Heaven, in the first Covenant, called, 'The Covenant of Works. God reduced the Law, which he gave in his creation, into the form of a Covenant, whereof perfect obedience was the condition: life was the thing promised, and death the penalty. As for the edndition, one great branch of the natural Law was, that Man believe whatsoever God shall reveal, and do whatsoever he shail | comos — —
Of Man's Original Happiness. 9
command: Accordingly God making this Covenant with Man, extended his duty to the not eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; and the Law thus extended, was the rule of Man's Covenant-obedience. How ealy were these terms to him, who had the natural Law written on his heart; and that inclining him to obey this positive Law, revealed to him, it seems, by an audible voice, (Gen. ii. 16.) the matter whereof was so very ealy? And indeed it was highly reasonable that the rule and matter of his Covenant-obedience should be thus extended: that which was added, being a thing in itself indifferent, where his obedience was to turn upon the precise point of the will of God, the plainest evidence of true obedience, and it being in an external thing, wherein his obedience or disobedience would be most clear and conspicuous. _ de |
Now, upon this condition, God promised him life, the continuance of natural life in the union of foul and body; and of spiritual life in the favour of his Creator: he promised him also eternal life in Heaven, to have been entered into, when he should
have passed the time of his trial upon earth, and the Lord should A
see meet to transport him into the upper Paradise. This promise of life was included in the threatning of death mentioned, Gen. ii. 17. For while God says, © In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;“ it is in effect, . If thou do not eat of it, thou shalt surely live:“ And this was sacramentally confirmed by another tree in the garden, called therefore, the Tree of Life, © Which he was debarred from, when he had sinned, Gen. iii. 22, 23. & —Lest he put forth his hand, and take allo of the Tree of Life and eat, and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden: Yet it is net to be thought, that Man's life and death did hang only on this matter of the forbidden fruit, but on the whole Law; for so says the Apostle,
Gal. i. 10. © It is written, Cursed is every one that centinueth
not in ll things, which are written in the Book of the Law, to
do them: That of the forbidden fruit, was a revealed part of Adam's religion; and so behoved expresly to be laid before him: but as to the natural Law, he naturally knew death to be the reward of disobedience ; for the very Heathens were not ignorant
of this: © Knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, Rom. i. 22. And moreover, the promise included in the threatning, seoured Adam's life according to the Covenant, as long as he obeyed the natural Law with the addition of that poktive command; fo that he needed nothing to be expressed to him in the Covenant, but what concerned the cating of the forbidden fruit: That eternal life in
Heaven
—
10 of Man's Original Happiness. State J.
Heaven was promised in this Covenant, is plain from this, that the threatning was of eternal death in Hell; to which when Man had made hunlelf liable, Christ was promised, by his death to purchase eternal life: and Christ himself expounds the promise of the Covenant of Works of eternal life, while he promiseth the condition of that Covenant, to a proud young Man, who tho' he had not Adam's stock, yet would nceds enter into life in the way of working, as Adam was to have done under this covenant, Matth. xix. I7, © If thou wilt enter into life, (viz. eternal life, by doing, ver, 16.) keep the Commandments.“ |
The penalty was death, Gen. ij. 17. © In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die: The death threatned was such, as the life promised was; and that molt justly, to wit, tem · poral, spiritual, and eternal death. The event is a commentary on this: for that very day he did eat thereof, he was a dead Man in law; but the execution was stopped, because of his posterity then in his loins; and another covenant was prepared; however, that day his body pot its deaths-wound, and became mortal. Death allo seized his foul: he lost his original righteousness and the favdur of God; witness the gripes and throws of Conscience, which made him hide himself from God. And he became liable to eternal death, which would have actually followed of course, if a Mediator had not been provided, who found him bound with the
cords of death, as a malefactor ready to be led to execution, Thus you have a short description of the Covenant, into which
the Lord brought Man, in the estate of innocence.
And seemeth it a small thing unto you, that Earth was thus confederate with Heaven? This could have been done to none
but him, whom the. King of Heaven delighted to henour. It was an act of grace worthy of the gracious God whose favourite he
was; for there was prace and free favour in the first covenant,
tho the exceeding riches of grace, (as the Apostle calls it,
Eph. ii. 7 ) was reserved for the second. It was certainly an act
of grace, favour, and admirable condescension in God, to enter
into a Covenant: and such a Covenant with his own Creature, Man was not at his own, but at God's disposal: Nor had he any
thing to work with, but what he had received from God. There
was no proportion betwixt the work and the promised reward.
Before that covenant, Man was bound to perfect obedience, in
virtue of his natural dependence on God: and death was naturally the wages of fin; which the justice of God could and would have required, tho' there had never been any covenant betwixt.
God and Man: but God was free; Man could never have required eternal life as the reward of his work, if there ERS | een
Of Man's Original Happiness. 11
been such a Covenant. God was free to have disposed of his creature as he saw mect: and if he had stood in his inteprity as
long as the world should stand, and there had been no Covenant
promising eternal life to him upon his obedience; God might have withdrawn his supporting hand at last, and so made him creep back into the womb of nothing, whence Almighty power had drawn him out: And what wrong could there have been in this, while God should have taken back what he freely gave? But now the Covenant being made, God becomes debtor to his own faithfulness: if Man will work, he may crave the reward on the ground of the Covenant: Well mipht the Angels then,
upon his being raised to his dignity, have given him that salutation, © Hail thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.” Thirdly, God made him lord of the world, prince of the inferior creatures, universal lord and emperor of the whole earth.
His Creator gave him dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, over all the earth, yea, and-ecery living thing that liveth upon the earth: “ he put all things under his feet,“ Psalm viii. 6, 7, 8. He gave him a power soberly to ule and dispose of the creatures in the earth, sea, and air. Thus Man was God's depute-governor in the lower world; and this his dominion was an image of God's sovereignty. This was common to the Man and the Woman; but the Man bad one thing peculiar to him, to wit, that he had dominion over the Woman also, 1 Cor. xi. 7. Behold how the creatures came te him, to own their subjection, and to do him homage as their lord; and quietly stood before him, till he put names on them as his own, Gen. ii. 19. Man's face {truck an awe upon them; the stoutest creatures stood astonished, tamely and quietly adoring him as their lord and
_ ruler. Thus was Man © crowned with glory and honour,”
Plalm vii. 5. The Lord dealt most liberally and bouatifully with lim, “ put all things under his feet; only he kept one thing, one tree in the garden out of his hands, even the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
But you- may say, And did he grudge him this? I answer, Nay; but when he had made him thus holy and happy, he gra—
ciously gave him this restriction, which was in its own nature, a
prop and stay to keep him from falling. And this I say, upon
these three grounds. (I.) As it was molt proper for the honour
of God, who had made man lord of the lower world, to aflert
his sovereign dominion over all, by some particular visible sign; so it was most proper for Man's safety. Man being set down in a beautiful barges, it was an act of infinite wisdom, and of grace too, to keep from him one single tree, as a vilthlc testimony, that
12 Of Man's Original Happiness. State I.
he must hold all of his Creator, as his great Landlord ; that fo
while ke saw himlelf lord of the creatures, he might not forget that he was {till God's subject. (2.) This was a memorial of his mutable [tate given in to him from Heaven, to be laid up by him for his great caution: For Mah was created with a free will to good, whick the Tree of Life was an evidence of: but his will was allo free to evil, and the Forbidden Tree was to him a memorial thereof, It was, in a manner, a continual watch-word to him against evil, a beacon set up before him, to bid him beware of dashing himself to pieces, on the rock of sin. (3.) God madE Man upright, directed towards God as the chief end. He set him like Moses, on the top of the hill, holding up his hands to Heaven: and as Aaron and Hur {stayed up Moses's hands, Exod. XV. 10, I1,-12. so God gave Man an erect figure of body, and forbid him the eating of this tree: to keep him in that posture of uprigbtness, wherein he was created. God made the beasts looking down towards the earth, to shew that their satisfaction might be brought from thence; and accordingly it does afford them what is commensurable to their appetite: but the erect figure of Mau's body, which looketh upward; shewed him, that his happine!s lay above him in God; and that he was to expect it from Heaven, and not from earth: Now this fair Tree, of which he was forbidden to eat, taught bim the same lesson; that his, happiness lay not in enjoyment of the creatures, for there was
2 want even in Paradise: so that the forbidden Tree was in effe&t -
the hand of all the creatures, pointing Man away from themselves to God for happiness: It was a sign of emptiness hung before the door of the creation, with that inscription, * This is not your rest,”
Fourthly, As he had a perfect tranguillity within his own breast, so he had a perfect calm without: His heart had nothing toreproach him with; conscience then had nothing to do, but to direct, approve and feast him: and without, there was nothing
to annoy him: The happy pair lived in perfect amity ; and tho”
their knowledge was valt, true and clear, they knew no shame: Tho” they vere naked, there were no blushes in their faces; for sin, the seed of shame, was not yet sown, Gen. ji. 25. and their beautiful bodies were not capable of injuries from the air; fo
they had no necd of clothes, which are originally the badges of
our shame: They were liable to no diseases, nor pains; and tho' they were not to live idle; yet toil, weariiess, and sweat of the brows, were not known in this state. | „
Fifthly, Man had a life of pure delight, and undreggy pleasure in this state: Rivers ef pure pleasures run through it: The
earth with the product thereof, Was now in its glory ; 4
Of Man's Original Happiness. 13
had yet come in, to mar the beauty of the creatures. God set him down, not in a common place of the Earth: But in Eden, a place eminent for plealantnels, as the name of it unports; nay, not only in Eden, but in the Garden of Eden; the molt pleasant spot of that pleatant place: a garden planted by God himself, to be the mansian-houije of this his favourite: As, when God made the other living creatures, he said, Let the water bring forth tie moving creature, Gen. i. 20. And, Let the earth bring forth the living creature, ver. 24. But when Man was to be made, he said, Let Us make Man," ver. 26. So, when the rest of the Earth was to be furnished with herbs and trees, God {aid, © Let the Earth bring forth grass, and the fruittree,” &c. Gen. i. II. But of Paradile it is said, God planted it, chap. ii. 8. which cannot but denote a singular exeellency in
that garden, beyced all other parts of the then beautiful Earth
There he wanted neither for necessity nor delight: for there was © every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for
food,“ ver. 9. He knew not these delights which luxury has
invented for the gratifying of lusts; but his deliglits were such as came out of the hand of God, without patlng thro' sinful hands, which readily leave marks of impurity oa what they touch: So his delights were pure, his pleasures refined: And yet may I shew you a more excellent way; wildom had entered into his heart: Surely then knowledge was pleasant unto his toul. What delight do fome find in their discoverics of the works of nature, by the scrapes of knowledge they have gathered | but how much more exquisite pleature had Adam, while lis piercing eyes read the book of God's works; which God laid before him, to the end he might glorify him in the same; and
therefore he had surely fitted him tor the work! but above all,
luis knowledge of God, and that as his God, and the communion he had with bim, could not but afford lim the most refined and
exquisite pleasure in the innermost recesses of his heart. Great
is that delight, which the saints find in these views of the glor of God, that thar souls are sometimes let into, while they are compassed about with many infirmities; but much more may well be allowed to sinless Adam; no doubt he relished these pleasures at another rate. |
Lastly, He was immortal: He would never have died, if he
had not sinned; it was in case of fin that death was tlireatned, Gen. ii. 17. which shews it to be the consequent of sin, and not of the sinless human nature: The perfect constitution of his
body, which came out of God's hand very good; and the right- B
a0uflres:
14 The Dodtriue of the State I. eousnesss and holiness of his foul, removed all inward causes of death: nothing being prepared for the grave's devouring mouth but the vile body, Philip. ii. 21. and © those who have finned,” Job xxiv. 19. And God's special care of his innocent creature, zecured him against outward violence. The Apostle's testimony is express, Rom. v. 12. By one Man fin entered into the world, and death by sin:“ Behold the door by which death came in! Satan wrought with his lies, till he got it opened, and so death centred; and therefore is he faid to have been © a murderer from the beginning, John viii. 44. |
Thus have I shown you the holiness and happiness of Man in this state. If any shall fay, What's all this to us, who never taited of that holy and happy state? They must know it nearly concerns us, in so far as Adam was the root of all mankind, eur common head and representative; who received from God our inheritance and stock to keep it for himself and bis children, and to convey it to them: The Lord put all mankind's stock (as it were) in one ship; and, as weBurselves should have done, be made our common father the pilot. He put a blessing in he root, to have been, it rightly managed, distused into all the
branches: According to our text, making Adam upright, he made Man vpright; and all mankind had that uprightness in
him, for, “if the root be holy, fo are the branches: But more of this afterwards: Had Adam stood, none would have quarrelled the representatian.
Us E I. For Information. This fhews us, (t.) That not 3
God, but Man himself Was the cause of his ruin: God made
him upright; his Creator set him up, but he threw himselr down: Was the Lord's directing and mclining him to good, the reason of his woful choice? Or did Heaven deal lo sparmgly with him, that his prefsins wants sent him to hell to seek supply? Nay, Man was, and is, the cause of his own ruin. (2.) God may molt jultiy require of Men perfect obedience to his law, and condema them for their not obeying it perfectly,
tho' now they have no ability to keep it: In fo doing, he
gathers but where he has strawed: He gave Man ability to keep the whole law; Man has loft it by his own fault; but his fin could never take away that right which God hath to exact perfect obedience of his creature, and to punish in cafe of disobedience. ' (2.) Behold here the infinite obligation we ly under to Jesus Christ the second Adam, who with his own precious blood has bought our eschcat, and frecty makes offer of it
State of Innocence applied,
again to us, Thof. xiii. 9. and that with the advantage of everlasting security, that it can never be altogether lost auy more, John x. 28, 29. Free grace will fix those, whom frec-will shook down into a gulf of misery.
UszE II. This reacheth a. reproof to three forts of persons. (1.) To these, who hate religion in the power of it, where-ever it appears; and can take pleasure in nothing, but in the world and their lusts. Surely those Men are far from riphtcousneis; they are haters of God, Rom. i. 30. for they are haters of his image. Upright Adam in Paradise, would have been a great
eye- sore to all such persons, as he was to the Serpent, whole seed they prove themselves to be, by their malignity. (2.) It.
reproves those who put religion to shame, and thoke who are alhamed of religion, befo.42 a graceless world. Ihere is a generation who make so bold with the God that made them, and can in a moment crufh them, that they ridicule picty, and make. a mock of ferioulness, © Against whom do ye sport youritlves!
Against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the
tongue?“ If. lvii, 4, Is it not against God kimself, whose
rmage, in some measure repaired on some of his creatures, makes thein fools in your eyes? But be not mockers, lest your bands be made strong, Isa. xxvii. 22. Holiness was the glory God put on Man, when be made him; but now sons of Men turn that glory into shame, kEcause they themselves glory in their shame. There are others that secretly approve-of relig*on, and in religious company will profess it; who at other times, to be reighbour-like are ashamed to own it; fo weak are they, that they are blown over with the wind of the wicked's mouth. A broad laughter, an impious jest, a filly gibe out of a prophane mouth, is to many an unaniwerable argument apainst religion and seriousness; for in the cause of religion, they are as filly doves without heart: O that such would consider that weighty word, Mark viii. 38. Wholoever, therefore, fall be ashamed of -me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also stall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the plory of his Father, with the holy angels. (2.) It reproves the proud {elf-conceited professor, who admires himseif in a garirent he kath patched tagether of rags, There are many, who, when once they have
gathered some scrapes of knowledge of religion, and have attained to some reformation of life, do swell big with conceit of themselves; a {ad sign that the effects of the fall ly so heavy upon them, that they bave not as yet come to themselves,
Luke.
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16 The Diftrine of the State I,
Luke xv. 17. They have eyes behind, to see their attainments,
but no eyes within, no eyes before, to see their wants, which would furely humble them; for true knowledge makes Men to ee both what once they were, and what they are at present; and fo is humbling, and will not suffer them to be content with any measure of grace attained; but puts them on to press forward, “ forpetting the things that are behind, Phil. ii. 1 3,14. But those Men are such a spectacle of commiseration, as one would be, that had fet his palace on fire, and were glorying in a cottage he had built for himsclf out of the rubbish, tho” fo very weak, that it could not stand against a storm.
Usx III. Of lamentation. Here was a stately building, Man carved like a fair palace, but now lying in ashes; let us stand and look on the ruins, and drop a tear: This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation: Could we chuse but to weep, if we saw our country ruined, and turned by the enemy iato a wilderness? If we A our houses on fire, and our
housholds perifhing kn the flames: But all this comes far short
of the dismal fight, Man fallen as a star from heaven! Ah!
may not we now say, © O that we were as in months past,”
when there were no stains in our nature, no clouds on our minds, no pollution in our hearts: Had we never been in better case, the matter had been less: but © they that were brought up in scarlet, do now embrace dung-hills:'' Where is our primitive glory now! Once no darknets in the mind, no rebellion in the will, no diforder in the affections. But ah! “ How is the faithful city become an harlot? Righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers: Our silver is become dross, our wine mixed with water: That heart which was once the temple of God, is now turned into a den of thieves: Let our name be Ichabog, for the glory is departed. Happy wast thou, O Man; who was like unto thee ' No pain or siekness could affect thee, no death could approach thee, no figh was heard from thee, till
these bitter fruits were plucked off the forbidden tree: Heaven
shone upon thee, and earth smiled: thou wast the companion of angels, and the envy of devils: But how low is he now laid, who was created for dominion, and made lord of the world The crown is fallen from our bead: wo unto us that we have sinned!' The creatures that waited to do him service, are now since the fall, set in battle-array againit him; and the least of them having commission, proves too hard for him: Waters overflow the old world; fire consumes Sodom; the Stars in their courses fight against Sitera; frogs, flies, lice, &c. turn
| EXCdt. OW
State of Innocence applied. 17
executioners to Phardoh and his Egyptians; worms eat up
Herod: yea, Man needs a league with the beasts, yea, with the very stones of the field,
fallen? How are we plunged into a gulf of mitery! The fun has
come down on us, death has come in at our windows ; our enemies have put out our two eyes, and {port themselves with
our miseries: Let us then ly down in our shame, and let our confufion cover us: Nevertheless there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Come then, O finner, look to Jesus Christ the second Adam: quit the first Adam and his Covenant; come over to the Mediator and Surety of the new and better Covenant; and let our hearts say, ! Be thou our Ruler, and let this
breach be under thy hand.” And let your © eye trickle down,
and cease not without any intermission, till the Lord look down and behold from heaven, Lam. iii. 49, 50.
FFF
The STAT E of NATURE, or of
Entire Depray ation.
H E A B I. The Sinfulnefs of. Man's Natural State.
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GENESIS vi. 5.
Hed God w that the wickedness f Man was great in the Earth, and that yy Imagination of the Thoughts
of his Heart was only Evil continudily.
E have seen what Man was, as God made him, a lovely and hap y creature: let us view him now as he hath
Job v. 13. having reasoi to fear, that every one that findeth un will ay him: Alas! how are we
unmade himfelf; and we shall see him a sinful and miserable creature. This is the sad state we were brought into by the
fall; a state as black and doleful, as the former was glorious,
and
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18 De Explication of the Tcxt. State II.
and this we commonly call, The State of Nature, or Man's Natural State, according to that of the Apostle, Eph. ii. 2.
* And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
And herein two things are to be considered: 1. The sinfulness,
2. The misery of this state, in which all the unregenerate do
lire. I begin with the sinfulness of Man's natural state, whereof the text gives us a full, tho” short account: * And God saw
that the wickedness of Man was great, &c.
The scope and design of thele words is, to clear God's justice in bringing the flood on the old world. There are two particular causes of it taken notice of in the preceeding verses, (J.) Mixt marriages, ver. 2. The sons of God, the posterity of
Seth and Enos, professors of the true religion, marricd with the
daughters of Men, the profane, cursed race of Cain: They did
not carry the matter before the Lord, that he might chuse for
of their fancy: They saw that they were fair; and their marriage with them, occasioned their divorce from God. Th was
one of the eauses of the deluge, which {wept away the old world. Would to God all the professors in our day, could plead not guilty: but tho” that fin brought on che deluge, yet the deluge hath not swept away that sin; which, as of old, so in our day, may jultly be looked upon, as one of the causes of the decay of religion, It was an ordinary thing among the Pagans, to change their gods, as they changed their condition into a married lot; and many fad instances the Chiiltien world affords of the fame, as if people were of Pharaoh's opinion, That religion is only for those that have ne other care upon their heads, Exod, v. 17. (2.) Great oppreilion, ver. 4“ There was giants in the earth in these days, Men of great stature, great strength and monstrous wickedness, ““ filling the earth with violence,“
ver. 11. But neither their strength nor trealures of wickedness
could profit them in the day of Wrath: Yet the gain of oppresfion {till carries many- over the terror of this dreadful example, Thus much for the connexion, ard what particular crimes that generation was guilty of: But every perlon that was swept away with the flood, could not be guilty of these things, and & Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?“ Thercfore in my text, there is a general indictment drawn up againit them all, „ The wickednels of Man was great in the earth,” &c. Aid this is welt ihstructed, for © God faw'iit.”” Two things are Jaid to their charge here. 1 „ | +. | 82 5 Py Rr | = First, c
Head J. The Explication of the Text. 10
First, Corruption of life, wickedne!ts, great wickednels. I underitand this of the wickedaets of their lives; for it is plainly distinguished from the wickednels of their hearts: 'The sins of their outward conversation were great in the nature oft them, and greatly aggravated by their attending circumstances; an. this not only among those of the race of curled Cain, but those of holy Setli: The wickednets of Man was great: And then it is added,“ In the earth:** (1.) Fo viadicate God's severity, in that he not only cut off sinners, but defaced the beauty of the earth; and swept off the brute- creatures from it by the deluge, that as Men had set the marks of their impiety, God might jet. the marks of his indignation, on the earth. (2.) To shew the hemousness of their fin, in making the earth, which God had to adorned for the ule of Man, a {nk of fin, and a {tage whereon to act their wickednels, in defiance of Ileaven: God saw this corruption of life; he not only knew it, and took notice of it, but he made then to know, that he did take notice of it; and that he had not forsaken the Earth, tho' they had forsaken Heaven. „ Secondly, Corruption of nature: “ Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually:** All their
wicked practices are here traced to the fountain and springhead; a corrupt heart was the source of all: The soul which was made upright in all its faculties, is now wholly disordered: The heart, that was made according to God's own heart, is now the reverse of it, a forge of cvil imaginations, a nk of inordinate aftetions, and a store-houle of all impicty, Mark vii. 21, 22. Behold the heart of the natural Man, as it is opened in our text: The mind is defiled; the thoughts of the heart: are evil; the will and affections are desiled; the imagination of the thoughts of the heart, (i. e. whatloever the heart frameth within itself by thinking, such as judgment, choice, purpoles, devices, defires, every inward motion) ; or rather, the frame of thoughts of the heart (namely, the frame, make, or mould, of these, 1 Chron. xxix. 18.) is evil: Yea, and every imagination, every frame, of is thoughts, is so: The heart is ever framin something, but never one right thing: the frame of thoughts, in the heart of Man, is exceeding various: yet are they never cast into a right frame: But is there not, at least, a mixture of good in them? No, they are only evil, there is nothing in them truly good and acceptable to God: nor can any thing be lo, that comes out of that torge: where not the Spirit of God, but the prince of the power of the air worketh, Eph. * 2. f | | vw 2a to
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20 The Explication of the Text. State II.
Whatever changes may be found in them, are only from“ evil te evil; for the imagination of the heart, or frame of thoughts in natural Men, is evil continually, or every day: From the first day, tothe last day in this state, they are in midnight darkness, there is not a glimmering of the light of holiness in them; not one holy thought can ever be produced by the unholy heart! O what a vile heart is this! O what a corrupt nature is this! the tree that always brings forth fruit, but never good fruit, wha tever soil it be set in, whatever pains be taken on it, must naturally be an evil tree: and what can that heart be, whereof every imagination, every set of thoughts, is only evil, and that continually? Surely that corruption is ingrained in our hearts, interwoven with our very natures, has sunk into the marrow of our souls; and will never be cured, but by a miracle of grace. Now such is Man's heart, fuch is his nature, till regenerating | grace change it: God that searcheth the heart saw Man's heart was so, he took special notice of it: and the faithful and true witness cannot mistake cur case, tho' we are most apt to mistake ourselves in this point, and generally do overlook it.
Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, say ing, What is that to us? Let that generatien of whem the text speaks, ee to that: For the Lord has left the case of that · ger ration on record, to be a looking- glass to all after generations, wherein they may fee their own corruption of heart, and what their lives would be too, if he restrained them not; for as in water face answereth to face, fo the heart of Man to Man,” Prov. xxvii. 19. Adam's fall has framed all Men's hearts alike in this matter: Hence the Apostle, Rom. iii. 10. proves the corruption of the nature, hearts, and lives of all Men, from what the Psalmist says of the wicked in his day, Pal. xiv. 1, 2, 3. Pal v. 9. Plal.-cxF 3. Pal x. 7. Pfal. xxxvi. 1. and from what Jeremiah faith of the wicked in his day, Jer. ix. 3. and from what Isaiah says of those that lived in bis time, Isa. lvü. 7, 8. and concludes with that, ver. 19. Now we know, that what things soever the law faith, it faith to them that are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.“ Had the history of the deluge been transmitted unto us, without the reason thereof in the text, we might thence have gathered the corruption and total depravation of Man's nature: for what other quarrel could a holy and just God have with the infants that were destroyed by the flood, seeing they had no actual fin? If we saw a wise man, who having made a curious piece of 7
Head J. The Explication of the Text. 21
and heartily approved of it when he gave it out of his hand, as fit for the use it was designed for, rife up in wrath and break it all in pieces, when he looked on it afterwards; would we not thence conelude the frame of it had been quite marred, lince it went out of his hand, and that it does not ferve for that use it was at first designed for? How much more when we fee the holy and wise God, destroy ing the work of his own hands, once solemnly pronounced by him very good, may we conclude that the original frame thereof is utterly marred, that it cannot be mended, but it must needs be new made, or loft altogether? Gen. vi. 6, 7. © And it repented the Lord that he had made Man on the earth, and it prieved him at his heart: And the Lord said, I will destroy Man,” or blot him out; as a Man doth a sentence out of a book, that cannot be corrected, by cutting off some letters, syllables, or words, and interljuing others here and there, but mutt needs be wholly new Framed. But did the deluge carry off this corruption of Man's nature? Did it mend the matter! No, it did not: God, in his holy providence, “ That every mouth may be stopped, and all the new world may become guilty before God, as well as the old, permits
that corruption of nature to break out in Noah, the father of
the new world, after the deluge was over. Behold him as another Adam, sinning in the fruit of a tree, Gen. ix. 20, 21. © He planted a vineyard, and ke drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent.” More than that, God gives the same reason against a new deluge, which he gives in our text for bringing that on the world: “ I will not, (faith he,) again curse the ground any more for Man's fake, for the imagination of Man's heart is evil from his youth,“ Gen. vill. 21. Whereby it is intimated, that there is no mending of the matter by this means; and that if he would always take the lame
_ course with Men that he had done, he would be always sending
deluges on the earth, seeing the corruption of Man's nature remains still: But tho' the flood could not carry off the corruption of nature, yet it pointed at the way how it is to be done; to wit, That Men mult be born of water and of the Spirit, raised from spiritual death in sin, by the grace of sesus Chrilt, who came by water and blood; out of which a new world of saints arise in regeneration, even as the new world of fiuners out of the waters, where tliey had long lain buried (as it were) in the ark: This we learn from 1 Pet. ii. 20, 21. where the Apostle speaking of Noali's ark, faith, © Whercin few, that is, eight souls, were sared by water: The like figure wherewtra
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22 | That Man's Nature State IT,
even baptism doth also now fave us.” Now the waters of the deluge being a like figure to baptism; it plainly follows, that they signified (as baptism * * the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Gheost.” To conclude then, these waters, tho' now. dried up, may serve us for a looking-glass, in which we may see the total corruption of our nature, and the necesfity of reger.eration. From the text thus explained, ariseth this weighty point of DocrRINE, which he that runs may read in it, viz. * Mans nature is now wholly corrupted.” Now is there a fad alteration, a wonderful overturn, in the nature of Man: where, at first, there was nothing evil, now there is nothing good. In prosecuting of this doctrine, I shall,
SECONDLY, Represent this corruption of nature im its several parts.
HKIRDLY, Shew you how Man's nature comes to be thus
corrupted, |
That Man's Nature is corrupted.
Man's Nature: to hold the glass to your eyes, wherein you may see your sinful nature? which, tho' God takes particular notice of it, many do quite overlook. Aud here we shall consult, 1. God's Word. 2. Men's Experience and Observation.
I. For scripture- proof, let us consider, oy
FIRST, How the Scripture takes particular notice of fallen Adam's communicating his image to his posterity, Gen. v. 3.
Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and
called his name Seth.” Compare with this, ver. 1. of that chapter: © In the day that God created Man, in the likeness of God made he him.“ Behold here how the image after which
Man was made, and the image after which he is begotten, are
epposed! Man was made in the likeness of God; that is, a holy and righteous creature: but fallen Adam begat a son, not in the lkeness ef God, but in his own likeness; that is, corrupt fnful Adam begat a corrupt sinful son. For as the image of God bore righteousness and immortality in it, as was cleared before, fo this image of tallen Adam bore corruption and death in it, 1 Cor. xv. 49, 50. compare ver. 22. Moses, in that fifth
chap-
Head J.
chapter of Genesis, being to give us the first bill of mortality that ever was in the world, ushers it in with this, that dying
ts corrupted, proven.
Adam begat mortals: Having sinned, he became mortal, according to the threatning; and fo he begat a fon in his own likenels, siaful, and therefore mortal: thus fin and death passed on all. Doubtlels, he begat both Cain and Abel in his own likeness, as well as Seth: But it is not recorded of Abel, because he left no issue behind him, and his falling the arlt sacrifce ta death in the world, was a sufficient document of it; nor of Cain to whom it might have been thought peculiar, because of his monstrous wickedness; and besides, all his posterity was drowned in the flood: but it is recorded of Seth, because he
was the father of the holy sced; and from him all mankind
fince the flood has descended, and fallen Adam's own likenels with them. |
SECONDLY, It appears from that scripture-text, Job xiv. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean! Not one.“ Our first parents were unclean, how then can we be clean? How could our immediate parents be clean? Or, how shall our children be fo? The uncleanness here aimed at is a sinful uncleanness; for it is such as makes Man's days Full of trouble: and it is natural, being derived from unclean parents: © Man
is born ef a Woman, ver. 1. And how can he be clean that is
born of a Woman!“ Job xxxv. 4. An omnipotent God whose power is not here challenged, could bring a clean thing out of an unclean; and did io, in the case of the Man Christ; but no other can. Every person that is born according to the course of nature, is born unclean: If the root be corrupt, so must the branches be: Neither is the matter mended, though the parents
be sanctisied ones; for they are but holy in part, and that b. grace, not by nature; and they beget their children as Men,
not as holy Men: Wherefore, as the circumcised parent begets an uncircumcised child, and after the purest grain is fown, we reap corn with the chaff; so the hobelt parents beget unholy
children, and cannot communicate their grace to them, as they
do their nature; which many godly parents find true, in their jad experience. | | |
THIRDLY, Consider the confession of the Psalmist David,
Psal. li. 6. © Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in fin did
my mother conceive me. Here he ascends from his actual fin, to the fountain of it, namely, corrupt nature: He was a Man according to God's own heart; but from the beginning it was net {6 with him: He was begotten in lawful marriage; but
When
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24 That Maus Nature State II.
when the lump was shapen in the wornb, it was a sinful tump. Hence the corruption of nature is called the Old Man; being as old as ourselves, older than grace, even in those that are tanRifed from the womb.
FouRTHLY, Hear our Lord's determination of the point, John iii. 5. © That which is born of the flesh, is flesh:'' Behold the univer{al corruption of mankind, all <re flesh: Not that all are frail, tho' that is a lad truth too; yea, and our natural frailty is an evidence of our natural corruption: but that is not the sense of this text: but here is the meaning of it, all are corrupt and finful, and that naturally: hence our Lord argues here, that because they are flesh, therefore they mult be born a gain, or else they © cannot ente into the kingdom of God,“ ver. 3, 5. And as the corruption of our nature evidenceth the ablolute neceility of regeneration, fo the absolute necetlity of regeneration plainly Proves the corruption of Our nature; for why should a Man necd a second birth, if his nature were not quite marred in the sirst birth? Infants mult be born again, for that is an except, (John ii. 3.) which admits of no exception.
And therefore, they were circumcised under the Old Testament
as having “ the body of the sins of the flesn, (which is conveyed to them by natural generation) to put off, Col. ji. 11. And now by the appointment of Jesus Christ, they are to be baptized; which lays they are unelean, and that there is no
falvation for them, but by the © washing of regeneration, and
ren2wing af the Holy Ghost,” Tit. i. 5.
FirraLyY, Man certainly is funk very low now, in compa- 11on of what he once was, God made lim but a © little lower than the angels:“ but now we find him likened to the beasts that perish: He hearkened to a brite; and is now become like one of them: Like Nebuchadaezzar, his portion (in his natural state) is with the beasts, © minding only earthly things,” Philip. i. 19. Nay, brutes, in some fort, have the advantage
of the natural Man, who is supk a degree below them: He is
more witlef, in what concerns him molt, than the stork, or the turtle, or the crane, or the swallow, in what is for their interest, Ter. viii. 7. He is more stupid than the ox or ass, Isa. i. 2. I bod him sent to {chocl, to learn of the ant, or emmot, which having no guide, or Icader to go before her; no overseer or officer to compel or {tir her up to work; no 1uler, but may do as she lists, being under the dominion of none; yet provideth her meat in the summor and harvest,” Prov. vi. 6, 7, 8. while the natura! Man has all these, and yet ex poseth N er _ etern:
Head TI. is corrupted, proven.
eternal starving: Nay, more than all this, the andre holds out the natural” Man, not only as Wanting the good qualities of those creatures; but as a compound of the evil qualities of the worlt of the creatures, in which do concenter the sierceness of the lion, the craft of the fox, the unteachableness of the v. ild als, the filthiness of the dog and (wine, the poiton of the asp, and such like: Truth itfelt calls them serpents, a generation of vipers; yea, more, even“ children of the devil,” Mat. xx1. 33. Join vi. 44. Surely then, Man's natnre is miser ably Rn ted,
LASTLY © * £ are by nature children of w. rath, Hb. it. 3 3. We are worth of, and liable to the wrath of Gol; "and this by nature: and Wherefore, doubtlets, we are by nature {:ntul creatures: We are condemned before we have done good or evil; under the curse, ere we know what it is: “ But will a lion roar in the forest while he hath po prey, Amos zi. & Ts is, Will a holy and just God roar in bis wrath against Man, if he be not, by his lin, made a prey for wrath?! No, be wilt not, he cannot. Let us conclude, then, that according to Ke word of God, man's nature is a corrupt nature.
II. If we consult experience, and objerve the calc cf the world in thele things that are obvious, to any pc ihn, that will not shut his eyes ap; Ainilt clear light; we will gu b perceive such fruits, as discover this root of bitternels: 1 fall Propose 4 few things, that may serve to convince us in this polit.
FIRST, Who sees not a flood of miseries orerfiowing the world! and whether can a man go, here he fall not di, bis foot, ir he go not aver head and ears in it? Every one àt i. One and abroad, in city and country, in PRIRCCS and cof tagcs, ig groaning under forme one thing or other, an grateful to him. Some are oppresled with pove! ty, lome chastned with sickness and pain, {ome are lamenting their lolles; none wants a crof3 of one sort or another: No Man's condition is fe fol 1 , bot there is lome thorn of uncasiness in it: And at length death the wages of sin, comes after these its harbingers, and sv7 ee bs ail away: Now, what but fin has opened the fluice? There is not a coiuplaint nor sigh heard in the world, nor a tear that falls from
our eye, but it is an evidence that Man is fallen as a star from |
Heaven; fer „God diftributeth forrow in his anger, '" Job Xxi. 17. This is a plain proof of the corrupticu: of nature; forasmuch as those that have not vet actually sinned, have their share of thelc sorrows; yca, and draw their sirst breath in the | E. world
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26 Thai Man- s Nature State II.
world weeping, as if they knew this world, at first fight, to be a Bochim, the place of weepers: There arc graves of the
. 4mallelt, as well as of the largest size, in the church-yard; and
there are never wanting fre! in the world, who like Rachel, © are weeping for their children becaule they are yot,” Mat. ii. 18. SECONDLY, Obierve how early this corruption of nature
begins to appear in young oncs: Solomon observes, that“ even a child is known by his doings, Prov. xx. 11. It may soon be
discerned, what way the Bias of the haart lies: Do not the children of fallen Adam, before they can go alone, follow their
father's footsteps? What a vast deal of little pride, ambition, curiosity, vanity, wilfulness, and averseness to good appears in them: And when they crcep out of infancy, there is a neceslity
of using „ the rod of correction to drive 3 way the foolshnels
that's bound in their heart,“ Prov. xxii. 15. Which shews,
that if grace prev ail not, the child will be as Ishmael, “ a v. 1d
els Man, as the word is, Gen. xvi. 13.
THIRDLY, Take a view of the manifold gross out- -breakings
of lin in the world: „“ The wiekedness of Man is yet great in
the earth: Behold the 3 fruits ok the corruption of our nature, IIos. iv. 2. By wearing and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adulter they br eak out (like the
breaking forth of water) and blood toucheth blood: The
world is filled with filthinels, and all manner of lewdnelss, wickedness, and profanity: Whence is this deluge of sin on the earth, but from the breaking up of the fountains "of the great deep,“ the heart of Man; “ gut ef which procced evil thoughts, adulterics, fornications, murders, thefts, cov ctousness, w hed. ness,” &c;.' Mark vii. 21, 22. Ye will, it may be, thank God with a whole heart, that ye arc not like these other Men: and indeed ye have better reason for it, than 1 fear, ye are aware of; for, „as in water, face ansv ercth-t6 face; Jo the heart of Man to Man,“ Prov. xxvii. 19. As looking into-clear water,
ye lee your own face; fo looking into your heart, ye may see
-other Men's there: and looking into other Men's, in them ye may fee your own : So that the most vile and profane wretches that are in the world should ferve you for a looking-glals, in which you ought to discern the corruption of your own nature: and if you do fo, ye would, with a heart tr uly touched, thank -God, and not yourselves, indeed, that ye are not as other Men, in your tives; seeing the corruption of nature is the fame in Nou, as in \ chew, i
a Fons
Head I. is corrupted, proven.
the world is thrown into by the lit of Men: Lions make not
a prey of lions, nor wolves of wolves: but Men are turned
wolves to one another, © biting and devouring one another : *
Upon how flight occasions will Men sheath their {words in one
another's bowels! The world is a wilderacts, where the clearest #1
fire Men can carry about with them, will not fright away the.
wild beasts that inhabit it, (and that becauie they are Men, 0
and not brutes,) but one way or other they will be wounded : 10
Since Cain shed the blood of Abel, the carth has been turned 0
into a flaughter-house; and the chace has been continued fince
Nimrod began his hunting; on the carth, as in the sea, the
reater {till devonring the lesser: When we lee the world in
fach 2 ferment, every one stabbing another with words or
swords, we may conclude there is an evil spirit among them:
- These violent heats among Adam's sons, speak the whole body
to be distempered, the whole head to be sick, and the whole”
heart faint: They surely preceed from an inward caule,
James vi. 1, © Lusts that war in our members.“ |
Fir THLY, Consider the neceslity of human laws, fenced with
terrors and feverities; to which we may apply what the apostle
says, I Tim. i. 9. That © the Law is not made for a righteous
Man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly, and
for finners,” &c. Man was made for socicty: and God himse:f faid of the first Man, when he had created him, that it was
not meet that he should be alone:“ yet the case is such now,
that, in society, he must be hedged in with thorns : And that
from hence we inay the better sce the corruption of Man's
nature, consider, (I.) Every Man naturally loves to be at full
| liberty himself; to have his own will for his law; and if be
would follow his natural inclinations, would vote himself out of
the reach of all laws, divine and human: And hence some, (the
power of whole hands has been antwerable to the natural inclination) have indeed made themselves ablutute, aud above
laws; agreeable to Man's monstrous defiga' at firit, to be as
gods, Gen. iii. 5. Let, (2:) There is no Man that would
Williagly adventure to live in a Jawleis focicty : and therefore
even pirates and robbecr une laws among themselves, tho? the
| whole {ociety cast off 91} refpedt to law and right: Thus Meu
* discover themlelyes to be conjcious of the corruption of nature,
not daring to trust one another, but upon security. (3) How Hy
dangerous foeyer it is to break thro? the hedge; vet the violence L
of lust makes many adventure daily to run the risk: They will F
28 That Man's Nature State II,
not only sacrifice their credit and conscience, which last is hieh-
Iv <eem'd in the world; but for the pleasure of a few moments, immediately succeeded with terror, from within, the:
Will tay themselves open to a violent death by the laws'ot the land wherein they live. (4.) The laws are often made to yield to Men's busts: Sometimes whole socicties run into tuch extravagancies, that like a company of prisoners, they break off their fetters, and put their guards to flight; and-the voice of laws cannot be heard for the noilg of arms: And seldom is there a time wherein there are not some persons fo great and daring, that the laws dare not look their impetuous luits in the face;
Which made David say, in the cake of Joab, who had murdered
Abner, ** Thele men, the sons of Zeruiah, be too hard for me,“ 2 Sam. iii. 39. Lusts sometimes grow too strong for laws, fo that the law is lacked, as the pulse of a dying man. Hab i. 3, 4. (F.) Consider what necessity often appears of ammending old laws, and making new ones; which have their rise from new crimes that Man's nature is very fruitful of: There would be no need of mending the hedge, if Men were not like unruly beasts, {till breaking it down. It is astonishing to fee, what figure the liraclites, who were separated unto God, from among all the nations of the earth, do make in their history; what horyble contusious were among them, when there was no King in Ifrael, as you may see, in the xyiii. xix. xx and xxi. chapters of Judpes: how hard it was to reform them, when they had the best of magistrates: and how quickly they turned afide again, when they got wicked rulers. I cannot but think, that one grand design of that facred history, was to dilcover the corruption of Man's natrre, the ablolute need of the Messiah, and his grace; and that we ought in the reading of it, to improve it to that end: How cutting is that word, the Lord has to Samuel, concerning Saul, 1 Sam. ix. 17. The fame shall reign over, (or, as the word is,“ Shall restrain,” ) my people.“ O the corruption of Man's nature! the awe and dread of the God of heaven restrains them not; but they mult have gods on
the earth to do it, to put them to shame, Judges xvi 7. SixI HI, Confider the remains of that natural corruption in the laints: Tho' grace has entered, yet corruption is not quite expelled; tho' they have got the new nature, yet much of the old corrupt nature remains; and these struggle together within them, as the twins in Rebekah's womb, Gal. v. 17. They find it present with them at all times, and m, all places, even in the molt retired corners: If a Man have an il! ers | his
CODY
Head I. s corrupted, proven. 29
he ma y remove; if he have an ill servant, he may put him away at che term; it a bade yoke- fellow, he may sometimes leave the house, and be free of molestation that way: But should the {aint po into a wilderneis, or set up his tent in some remote rock in the sea, where never foot of Man, beast, nor fowl had touched, there will it be with him: Should he be with Paul caught up to the third heavens, it shall come back with him, 2 Cor. Xii. 7. it follows him as the shadow doth the body; it makes a blot in the faireit line he can draw: It is like the fig-tree in the wall, which, how nearly foever it was cut, yet {till grew till the wall was thrown down; for the roots of it are fixed in the heart, while the faint is in the world, as with bands of iron and brass: It is especlally aftive when he would do good, Rom. Vii. 21 then the towls come down. upon the carcases: Hence often in holy duties, the spirit even of a faint (as it were) evaporates; and he is left ere he is aware, like Michal, with an image in the bed, instead of an husband; I need not stand to prove the remains of the corruption of nature in the godly, to themselves; for they groan under it; and to prove it to them,
_ were to hold out a candle to let Men fce the sun: and as for the
wicked, they are ready to account mole-hills in the faint, as big
as PS iS; if not to reckon them all hypocrites: Bur con—
sider thele few things on this head. (I.) “ If it be thus in
the preen tree, how musk it be in the dry?“ The saints are not born jaints; but made io by the power ot re generating: grace: Have they got a new nature, and yet fo much of the
old remains with them? How great must that corruption be in others, where it is altogether unmixed with grace? (2.) The saints gro an under the remains of it, as a heavy burden? hear the Apostle, Rom. vii. 24.0 wretched Man that I am! Who shall deliver me from tte body of this death?** What tho? the
carnal Man lives. at cale and. quict, and the corruption of
nature is not his burden: is he therefore free from it? No, ag, only be is dead, and feels not the {inking weipht: Many groan 1s heard from a {ick-bed; but never one from 4 gr. In the faint, as in the lick man, thcre is a mighty struggle; lite and Sack strieing for the mastery; but in the natural Man, as in the dead corpse, there js no noise, because death bears full sway. (3. + he godly Nan resists the old cor rupt nature; he strives to mortify it, yet it remains: he endeavours
to starve it, and'by that means to weaken it, vet it is active:
How must it spread then, and {trenpthen itself in that foul, where it is not star res put fed! And this is the calc of all un-
C3 regenc-
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20 That Man's Nature State II.
e ge- WhO mike prorition for che flesh, to tulhl the Juits thereof: If the garden of the diligent afford him new Work daily, in cutting off afid rooti: ig up; surely tiat of the fuggard mult needs be all grown over with thorns; LASTLY, I shall add but one vblerve more, and that is, That in every Man naturally the image of tal! en Adam does appear: Some children, by their atures and linea ments of their face, do, as it were, father theinselves: and thus we do relemble our first parents: Every one of us bear the image and
I impress of their fall upon him: ard to eyince the truth of 1 this, I do appeal to the coniciences ot all, in these following 1 particulars.
rst, Is not a finful curiosity natural to us? And is not this a print of Adam's image? Gen. ii. 6. Is not men naturally much more desirous © know new things, than to practise old known truti s? How like to old Adam do we look in this, itching after novelties, and disrelishing old fel:d doctrines? We seek after knowled, ge rather than holiness; and study most to know these things, Walch are least edifying: Our wild and roving fancies nee a bridle to curb them, while good solid affections mult be quickened ant i ipur red up. 2dly, If the Lo&D, by his holy lau and wile providence do put 2 restraint upon us, to keep vs back from any thing; doth not that restraint het the edge of our natural inclinations, and make us so much the kecner in our defires: : 20 M this edo we not betray it plainly that we are Adam's children, Gen. ni. 2, 2,0, 1 thick this cannot be denied; for daily” obleryation evinceth, that it is a natural principle, that“ Stolen 1 Waters are Twect; and bread caten in fecret, is pleafant,”” Prov. ix. 17. | ”Thewery Heathens are convinced, that Man w As possessed with this fp; it of contradition, tho' they Knew not the (pring of it. How often do Men give ticmfelves the loot in thele things, in which; if God had left them at liberty, they would have ' JF! _ bound up thenrielves { but corrupt 1. ture takes a pleJure j in the very jumping over the hedge: And is it not a repeating r of our father's folly, that Men w will rather climb for Forbidden fruit; than gather what is shaken off the tree of good proves dence to them, when they have God's expres allowance for it! Icy, Wi ch of all the children of Adam is not naturally If 0 oled to heir the “ instruction that causeth to err??? And was not this the rock our firit parents split upon! Gen. ji. 4, 6. | Tow apt is 15 eak Man, ever sünce that time, to parley with | Tteinptations! „ God lpeaketh once, ca twice, yet Man perceiv eth
Loads, —
21 ceiveth it not, Job xxl. 14. but readily doth he listen to Satan: Men might often come fair Oft if they would dilmit” temptations wit b abhorrence, When first the y. appcar ; if they would nip them in the bud, they would toon die away; but alas! when we ice the train laid for us, and the fire put to it, vet we stand till it run along, and we be blown up with its "BER
Head J. is Corrupted, proven.
4thly, Do not the eyes in our head often blind the eyes of
the mind? And was not this the very cale of our first parents? Gen. iii. 6. Man is never more blind than when he is looking on the objects that are most piealant to lene; Since the eyes of our first parents were opened to the forbidden fruit, Men's eyes have been the gates of destrustion to their fouls; at w bich inpure imaginations and finful desires have entered the heart, to the wounding of the foul, waltmg of the conscience, and bringing dismal eflects e on whole societies, as in Achan's case, Joshua vii. 21. Holy Job was aware of this danger, from these two little rowling bodies, which a very {mall {plinter of, wood will make useless; fo as ( ith that King who durst not, with bis ten thousand, meet him that came with twenty thouland against him, Luke xiv. 31, 32.) he sendeth and defireth conditions of peace, Job xxxi. I. e ] have made a covenant with mine eyes, &c. 5thly, Is it not natural for us, to care for the body, even at the expeace of the foul? T bis was one ingredient in the fin of our first parents, Gen. it. 6. Of how happy might we be, if we were but at half the pains about our fouls, that we bestow upon our bodies! if that queition, © What must do to be saved! (Acts xvi. 30.) did run but near as-oft throuph our minds, as those other questions do, © What shall we eat? what shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?““ Mat. vi. 21. many a (now) hopeles cate would turn very hopeful. But the truth js, most men liye as if they were nothing but a 75 of flesh: or as if their soul served For no other ute, but like salt, to kee the body from corrupting, 4 They are fest,” John "4 They mind the things of the flo „ Rom. vii. 5. and they © hve after the flesh,” ver. 13. If the consent of the flesh be got to an action, the consent of the conscience is rarely waited for: yea, the body is often served, when the conscience has entered a dissent. 6thlv, Is not every one by nature discontent with his present lot in the world; or with {ome one thing or other in it? This allo was Adam's cale, Gen. iii. 5, 5. Some one thing. is always milling; so that Man is a creature given to changes. And if aily doubt of this, let 580 look Over all their enjoy ments; go alter
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32 That Man's-Nature State II.
after 2 review of them, lien to their on hear ts, and they will
heay a secret murmnring for want of something: tho” perhaps, if they considered the matter aright, they would {ce that it is better for them, to want, than ts have that sametlung. Since the hearts of our first par ents fle w out at their eyes, on the forbidden fruit, aud a night of darkness was thereby brought on the world; their polter] ity have a natural disease, which Solomon calls, “ The wandring of the dcfires (or as the word is, The walking of the tou], $5 Eccl. vi. 9. This is a fort of a diabolical trance, wherein the foul traverseth the world; feeds itself with a thousand airy nothings; ; mnatcheth at this and the other created excellency, in Imagination and desire: goes here and there, and cvery where, except where it should go: And the foul is never cured of this disgase, till overcoming grace bring it back, to take up its everlasting rest in God thro? Christ: but till this be, if Man were set again in parade, the garden of the Lord; all the pleasures there would not keep him from bent, yea, and leaping over the hedge a second time. 7thly, Are we not far more cally impressed and influenced by evil counsels and examples, than by those that are good! You will see this was the ruin of Adam, Gen. it, 6, Evil example to this day, is one of Satan's master-devices to ruin Men: And tho' we have by nature, more of the fox than of the lamb; yet that ill property some observe in this creature, viz. That if one tamb \kip into a water, the rest that are near will suddenly follow, may be observed also in the disposition of the children of Men, to whom it is very natural to embrace an evil way, because they see others upon it before them: ill example has frequently the force of a violent stream, to carry us over plain duty: but cipecially, if the example be given by those we bear a great affection tos our affection, in that case blinds our judgment; and what we would abhor in others, is complied with, to humour them: And nothing is more plain, than that generally Men chuse rather to do what the most do, tͤan what the belt do. 8thly, Who of all Adam's sons needs be taupht the art of sewing sig· leaves together, to cover their bakedness? Gen. uti. 7. When we have ruined ourselves, and made oursel ves naked, to our shame; we naturally seek to help ourselves by e; and many poor shifts are fallen upon, as silly and insign ficant as Adam's s fig- leaves: What pains are Men at, to cover their sin from their own consciences, and draw all the tair colours upon it that they can? And when once convictions are fastened 25 them,
Head J. is corrupted, proven, 33 them, 0 that they cannot but see themselves naked; it is as | natural for them to; attempt to pin a cover to it out of their || own bowels, as for fishes to iwim 3 in the waters, or birds to fly in the air: Therefore the firit question of the convinced ia, 11 What {hall we do?” Acts ii. 27. How shall we qualify our- | selves? What shall we perform? Not minding that the new * creature is God's own workmanship, (or pn, | Eph. it. 10. il more than Adam thought of being clothed with "skins of {acri- "oF fices, Gen. ii. 21. MN
9thly, Do not Adam's children naturally follow his foot- 34 steps, in hiding themselves from the presence of che Lord,“
Gen. iii. 8. We are every whit as blind in this matter as he
was, who thought to hide himself from the presence of God | among the shady trees of the garden: We are very apt ce | ; promile ourselves more security in a lecret fin, than in one that qi | is openly committed: The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying. “ No eye shall fee me, Job xxiv. 15, |
And Men will freely do that in secret, which they wonld be ashamed to do in the presence of a child; as it darknese could hide from an all-seeing God: Are we not naturally careless of communion with God; ay, and averse to it? Never was there an communion betwixt God and Adam's children, where the Lori himself had not the first word: If he would l. em alone, they would never inquire after him: IIa. Ivii. 16.“ J hide me. 10 Did he seck after a hiding God?! Very far from it: — © He went on in the way of his heart.
Iothly, How loath are Men to confess sin, to take guilt aud shame to themselves? And was it not thus in the case before us! Gen. iii. 10. Adam confelleth his nakedness, which he could not get denied; but not one word he fas of his sins: here was the rea son of it, he would fain have hid it if he could: It is as natural for us to hide fin, as to commit it: Many fad inftances thereof we have in this world; but a far clearer proof of it we shail get at theday of judgment, the ** day in which God will judge the {ccrets of Men, Rom. ii, 16. Many a foul mouth will then be seen, v. In ch is now © w iped, aud {ai th, I lave done no v ckedness; Prov. xXX. 20.
LASTLY; Is it not natural for us to cetennate on sin, and transfer the Ft upon others? And 358 hen God examined our Etfnlty first parents, did not Adam lav the blant on the M“. oman,
Aid did not the W omn lay che blame on the Serpent: Gen. W. 12, 12. Now Adam's children nced not be taught this 1 91 111 =# 1 7 . 7 ** ? 67 5 1 £2 3 * 1 v I FE r if. {|
* 15 1 C 7 1001 DULO} UL Loy Ci] VV ell IPCax \L Cl. e Caunot
24 That Man's Nature State II. | pet the fact denied,) they will eunningly lisp out something to | essen their fault, and lay the blame upon another: Nay, fo | rertural is this to Men, that in the greatest of fins, they will lay | the fault upon God himself; they will blaspheme his holy pro- | vidence under the mistaken name of misfortune or ill luck, and thereby lay the blame of their sin at Heaven's door: And was not this one of Adam's tricks after his fall? Gen. iii. 12. And the Man said, the Woman whom thou gavelt to be with me, 1 sho gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Observe the order of |; the specch: He makes tis apology in the firft place; and then | | comes his confession: His apology is long, but his confession | || very short ; it is all comprehended in a word,“ And I did eat.“ [1 How pointed and distin is his apology, as if he was afraid his | meaning should have been mistaken ? © The Woman,” says he, _ or, © That Woman:” as if he would have pointed the Judge to his own work, of which wg read, Gen. ii. 22. There was but one Woman then in the world; fo that one would think he needed not have been so nice and exact in pointing at her; yet she is as carefully marked out in his defence, as if there had been ten thousand : © The Woman whom thou gavest me:“ here he speaks, as if he had been ruined with God's gifts: And to make the shift look the blacker, it is added to all this, Thou li gaveit tot ch me,” a constant companion, to stand by me | _ _aSa helper: This looks as if Adam would have fathered an ill delign upon the Lord, in giving him this gift: And after all, there is a new demonstrative here, before the sentence is compleat: he says not, The Woman gave me, but, © The Woman she gave me,” emphatically, as if he had i{aid, © She, even She gave me of the tree.“ This much for his apology : But his confesfion is quickly over, in one word, (as he spoke it) And I did eat:”' And there is nothing here to point to himself, and as little to shew what he had eaten: How natural is this black art to Adam's posterity ? He that runs may read it. So universally does Solomon's observe hold true, Prov. xvit. 3. % The foolishacls of Man perverteth his ways, and his heart TS fretteth against the Lord.“ Let us then call fallen Adam, Father : let us not deny the relation, sceing we bear his image. And now to shut up this point, sufficiently confirmed by * concurring evidence fram the Lord's word, our own expert- _ ence and observation; let us be persuaded to believe the doctrine of the corruption of our nature; and to look to tl second _— Adam, the blessed Jesus, for the application of his precious | | — blood, to remove the guilt of this fin; aud for the efficacy hg | ; is
—
*
Head I. 7s corrupted, proven.
| -*, "ms holy Spirit, to make us new creatures, knowing that except | 4 we be born again, we cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.”
Of the Corrupiion of the Understanding.
SECONDLY, I procced to inquire into the corruption. of nature, in the several parts thereof: But who can comprehend it? Who can take the cxat dimension of it, in its breadth, length, height, and depth? Theeheart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jer. xvii. 9. However, we may quickly perccive as much of it, as may be matter of dcepest humiliation, and may discover to us the absolute necessity of regeneration; ; Man in his natural state is altogether corrupt: Both foul and body are polluted, as the apostle proves at large, Rom. iii. 10,—18. As for the foul, this natural corruption has {pread it{elt through all the faculties thereof: and is to be found in the wider standing, the
will, the affections, the conscience, and the memory.
I. The understanding, that leading faculty is delpoiled of its primitive glory, and covered over with confusion: We have fallen into the 3 of our grand adversary, as Samsou into the hands of the Philistines, and are deprived of our two eyes: There is none that understandetb,“ Rom. iii. 11. * Mind and conscience are desiled, Tit. i. 15. The natural Man's
apprehension of divine things 3 is corrupt, Pfal. I. 21. Thou tUloughtest that I was altogether such an one as thylelf.”” His judgment is corrupt, and cannot be otherwise, sceing his eye is evil: and therefore the scriptures, that shew that Men did all wrong, lays, ©* Every one did that which is right in his own eyes, Judges XVII. 7. and xxi. 25. And his imaginations, or reasonings must be cast dowñ, by the power of the word, being of a piece with his judgment, 2 Cor. x. 5. But to point out
this corruption of the mind or understanding more particularly,
a let these tollowing things be considered.
| First, There is a natural weakness in the minds of 7! sen, with respect to spiritual things: The Apostle deterraines concerning every one that is not enducd with the or aces of the Spirit, „That he is blind, end-cannot see afar oft,” 2 Pet. i. 9. Hence the Spirit of God in the Scripture clattic S, às it wer, divine
| truths with earthly figures, even as parents teach their children, using similitudes, Hol. xii. 10. Which, tho' it doth not cure, yet "doth evidence this natural weakness in the minds of Men: But we want not plain proofs of it from experience:
— "Wo Wet
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36 Dye Corruption of State IT.
„ (T.) How hard a task is it to teach many people the common principles of our holy religion, and to make truths fo Plain as they may understand them? Here there must be Precept upon precept, precept upon precept: Line upon line, line upon line,” IIa. xxvili. 9. Try the fame persons in
other things, they shall be found “ wiler in their generation
than the children of light.“ They understand their work and business in the world, as well as their neighbours; tho' they be very stupid and unteachable! in the matters of God: Tell them
how they may advance their worldly wealth, or how they
may oratity their lui its, and they will quickly underftand these
things; ; tho' it is very hard to make them know how their scauls
may be saved; or how their hearts may find rest in Jesus Chritt. (2.) Consider these who have many advantages „ beyond the common gang of mankind; who have had tlie benefit of good education and initruction; yea, and are blest with the light of grace in that measure, w herein it is di{tributed to the faints on earth: yet how small a portion have they of the knowledge of divine things! What ignorance and confusion do
still remain in their inde! How "Wien are they mired, even in
the matter of practical truths, and spcak as+a child in these things: It is a pitiful weaknels that we cannot perceive the things which God has revealed to us; and it must needs be a finful weakness, fince the law of God requires us to know and believe them. (2-) What dangerous wiitakes are to be found amongst Men, in their concerns of greateit weight! what woful delusions prevail over them! do we not often fee those, who ntherwile, are the wisest of Men, the most notorious fools, with respe& to their soul's intereit, Matth. Ni. 25. Thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent.” Many that are eagleeyed in the trifles of time, are like owls and bats in the light of life: Nay truly, the life of every natural Man is but one continued dream and delusion, out of which he never awakes, till either by a new light darted from heaven into his foul, he come to himself, Luke xv. 17. or, * in hell he lirt up his eyes, chap. XVI. 24. And therefore in scripture- account, be he never so wise, he is a fool and a {imple one.
Secondlv, Man's understanding is naturalty overwhelmed with gross darkness in spiritnal things: Man at the instigation
ef the devil, attempting te break out a new light in his mind,
(Gen. iii. 5.) inftead of that, broke up the doors of the bottomleis pit; 10 as by the smoałk thereof, he was buried in darkness.
When God at firit had made Man, his mind was a lamp of light ; : a 4 but
Head I. the Understanding. 27
but now when he comes to make him over again in regeneration, he finds it darkness, Eph. v. 8.“ Ye were fometimes darknels.” Sin has closed the windows of the soul, darknels is over all that region: It is the land of darknels and shadow of death, where the light is as darkness: The Prince of darkness reigns
there, and nothing but the works of darknels are framed there.
We are born spiritually blind, and cannot be restored without a miracle of grace. This is thy cale, whosoever thou art, thou art not born again: And that you may be convinced in this matter, take these following Evidences of it. EvIDENCE I. The darkness that was upon the face of the
world before, and at the time when Christ came, arising as the
Sun of righteousness upon the carth : When Adam by his {in had lost that primitive light wherewith he was endued in his creation, it pleased God to make a gracious revelation of his mind
and will to him, touching the way of salvation, Gen. 1. I 5. This was handed down by him, and other godly fathers, before the flood: yet the natural darkness of the mind of Man prevailed fo far against that revelation, as to carry off all sense of true religion from the world, except what remained in Noah's family, which was preserved in the ark. After the flood, as Men multiplied on the earth, that natural darkness of mind prevails again, and the light decays, till it died out among the generality of mankind, and is preserved only among the posterity of Shem: And even with them it was well near it's setting when God called Abraham from serving other gods, Jofh.. xxiv. 15. God gives Abraham a more clear and full revelation, and he communicates the same to his family, Gen. xvii. 19. yet the natural darkness wears it out at length, save what was preserved among the posterity of Jacob: They being carried down into Egypt, that darkness prevailed lo, as to leave them very little sense of true religion; and a new revelation behoved to be made them in the wilderness: And many a cloud of darkness got above that, now and then, during the time from Moses
to Christ. When Christ came, the world was divided into Jews and Gentiles: The Jews, and the true light with them, were within an inclosure, Pfal. cxlvii. 19, 20. Betwixt them and the Gentile world, there was a partition wall of God's
making, namely, the ceremonial law; and upon that there was reared up another of Man's own making, namely, a rooted enmity betwixt the parties, Eph. ii. 14, 15. If we look abroad without the inclosure (and except those proselytes of the
| Gentiles, who, by means of some rays of light breaking forth
D unto
38 The Corruption of
unto them from within the inclosure, having renounced idolatry worshipped the true God, but did not conform to the Mosaical - rites) we see nothing but © dark places df the earth, full vf the habitations of cruelty,” Pal. Ixxiv. 20. Gross darkness covered the face of the Gentile world; and the way of falvation was utterly unknown among them: They were drowned in superstition and idolatry; and had multiplied their idols to such a vast number, that above thirty thousand are reckoned to have been worshipped by those of Europe alone: Whatever wisdom was among their Philosophers, “ the world by that wisdom knew not God, 1 Cor. i. 21. and all their researches in religion were but groping in the dark, Acts xvii. 27. It we look within the inclosure, and, except a few that were groaning and waiting for the consolation of Irael, we will [ce a gross darkness on the face of that generation: Tho' to them were committed the Oracles of God; yet they were molt corrupt in their doctrie: Their traditions were multiplied; but the knowledge of thejc things wherein the life of religion lies, was lost: Masters of Israel knew not the nature and necessity of regeneration, John i. 10. Their religion was to build on their birth-privilege, as children of Abraham, Matth. i. 9. to glory in their circumcision, and other external ordinances, Philip. hi. 2, 3. And to rest in the law, (Rom. ii. 17.) after they had, by their false glosses, cut it fo short, as they might go well near to the fulfilling of it, Matth. v. | |
Thus was darkness over the face of the world when Christ the true light came into it: and fo is darknels over every foul, till he, as the day-star, arise in the heart: The former is an evidence of the latter: What, but the natural darkness of Men's minds could still thus wear out the light of external revelation in a matter upon which eternal happiness did depend! Men did not forget the way of preserving their lives; but how quickly did they lose the knowledge of the way of falvation of their fouls; which are of infinite more weight and worth! When Patriarchs and Prophets teaching was ineffectual, Men behoved to be 1 of God himself, who alone can open tlie eyes of the understanding: But, that it might appear, that the corexternal revelation; there were but very few converted by Christ's preaching, © who spoke as never Man spoke, John xii. 27, 33, The great cure on the generation remained to be per- Formed by the Spirit accompanying the preaching of the,Apoitles; who, according to the promise, (John xiv. 12.) 25 | were
ruption of Man's mind lay deeper than to be cured by mere
were to do great works: And if we look to the miracles - wrought by our blessed Lord, we will find, that by applying the remedy to the foul, for the cure of bodily distempers, (as in the case of the Man sick of the pally, Matth. ix. 2.) be plainly discovered, that it was his main crrand into the world to cure the diseases of the soul. I find a miracle wrought upon one that was born blind, performed in such a way, as scems to have been designed to let the world fee in it, as in a glass, their case and
cure, Jolin ix. 6. He made clay, and anointed the eyes of the |
blind Man with the clay. What could more fitly represent the blindness of Men's minds, than eyes closed up with earth? Ifa. vi. 1.“ Shut their eyes; shut them up by anointing, or © cai{ting them with mortar,” as the word would bear: And chap. xlv. 18. He hath shut their eyes: The word properly signifies, “ He hath plaistered their ey es;“ as the house in which
the leprosy had been, was to be plaistered, Lev. xiv. 42. Thus
the Lord's word discovers the design of that {trange work; and by it shews us, that the eyes of our understanding are
naturally shut : Then the blind Man must go and wash oft this
clay in the pool of Siloam; no other water will ferve this
purpose: If that pool had not represented him, whom the
Father {cnt into the world, “ to open the blind cycs, (1a. x11. 7.) I think the Evangelist had not given us the interpretation of the name, which, he says, signifies, Sent, John ix, 7, And so we may conclude, that the natural darkness of our minds is {uch, as there is no cure for; but from the blood and
Spirit of Jesus Christ, whose eye-salve only can make us sce,
Evip. 2. Every natural Man's heart and life is a mass of darknels, diforder and confusion; how refined soever he appear in the sight of Men: © For we ourselves also, (faith the apostle Paul,) were fometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleafure:,” Tit. vi. 3. and yet at that time, which this text looks to, he was ** blameless, touching the righteousness which is in the law, Phil. ii. C. This is a plain evidence that ** the eye is evil, the Whole body being fall of darkness, Mat, vi. 23. The unrenewed part of mankind is
rambiing through the world, like so many blind Men, who wilk
neither take a guide, nor can guide themselves; and therefore are falling over this and the other precipice, into destruction :' Some are running after their covetousness, till they be pierced through with many forrows ; some sticking in the mire of sensality ; others daihing themselves on the rock of pride and {clf- D 2 *
40 The Corruption f State II.
conceit; every one stumbling on some one {tone of stumbling or other: all of them are running themselves upon the sword- point of justice, while they eagerly follow, whither their unmortified passions and affections lead them; and while some are lyin alone in the way, others are coming up, and falling headlong over them: And therefore, “ Wo unto the (blind) world, because of offences, Matth. xvii. 7. Errors in judgment swarm in the world; because it is night, “ wherein all the beasts of the forrest do creep forth:** All the unregenerate are utterly mistaken in the point of true happiness; for tho' Christianity hath fixed that matter in point of principle; yet nothing less than overcoming grace can fix it in the practical judgment: All Men agree in the defire to be happy; but amongst unrenewed Men, touchiag the way to happinels, there are almost as many opinions as there are Men; they being & turned every one to his own way,” Ia. li. 6. They are like the blind Sodomites about Lot's house, all were seeking to find the door, some grope one part of the wall for it, some another; but none of them could certainly say, he had found it: and fo the natural Man may stumble on any good but the chief good: Look into thine own unregenerate heart, and there thou wilt {ee all turned up- side-down, Heaven lying under, and carth a-top; look into thy life, there thou mayst fee, how thou art playing the mad-man, snatching at shadows, and neglecting the substance, eagerly flying after that Which s not, and slighting that which is, and will be for ever.
EvIPD. 3. The natural Man is always as a workman left without light; either trifling, or doing mischief: Try to catch thy heart at any time thou wilt, and thou shalt find it either weaving the spider's web, or hatching cockatrice-eggs, (Ifa. lix. 5.) roving thro' the world, or digging inte the pit; filled with vanity, or else with vilenels; busy doing nothing, or what is worse than nothing: A fad sign of a dark mind.
EvtD. 4. Tue natural Man is void of the faving knowledge of spiritual things: He knows not what a God he has to deal with; he is unacquainted with Christ; and knows not what fin is: The greatest graceless wits are blind as moles in thele thinos: Ay, but some such can speak of them to good purpose: And fo might these Israelites of the temptations, signs and miracles, their eyes had seen, (Deut. xxix. 3.) to whom nevertheless the Lord had not given an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto that day, ver. 4. Many a Man that bears the name of a Christian, may make mm con-
| {Os ellon
Head I. the Understandirg. 41 1
fession of faith, Exod. v. 2. T know not the Lord, neither will they let go, what he commands them to part with: God is with them as a prince in disguite among his subjects, whe | meets with ho better treatment from them, than if they were his fellows, Pfal. 1. 21. Do they know Christ, or sec his glory,
and any beauty in him for which he is to be desired? if they did, they would not flight him as they do: a view of his glory. Would so darken all created excelleucy „that they would take
him for, and instcad of all, and gladly close with him, as he offereth himself in the Gospel, John iv. 10. Psalm ix. 10, Matth. xiii. 44, 45, 59. Do they know what fin is, who hug the serpent in their bosom, hold fast deceit, and refuse to let it go! I own indeed they may have a natural knowledge of those things, as the unbelieving Jews kad of Christ, whom they law and conversed with: but there was ip iritual glory in him, perceived by velievers only, John i. 14. and in respect of that glory, the unbelieving“ world knew him not, verie 10. But the spiritual knowledge of him they cannot have; It is above the reach of the carnal mind, 1 Cor. ii. 14. The natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness nato him: neither can he know them, tor they aie spiritually difcerned.”” He may indeed discourse of them; but no other way than one can talk of honey or Vinegar, v! 120 11EVET tasted the sweetness of the one, nor the sournets of the other: He has some notions of spiritual truths, but fees not the thi ings 5355 that are wrapt up in the words of trut b, x Tim. „ Understanding neither what they lay, ner whereof the affirm.“ In a word, natural Men fear, kek, : "as. they know not what: Thus may vou ice Man's under standing haturally is overwhelincd with grofs da kneis 1 {piritual chings. THiRDLy, There! is in the mind of Mana natural bias to
A evil, whereby it comes io pass, that whatever difficulties it th 5 while QCC1 ie da avout thi gs LYMLY rf d, it acts * Ich a - great deal of ease in evil;- as being in that cate; 1h is own les tho ts of c 1004; DUtELMBIODING In the thoimdite ni ew rv le POL OYEL LC BCUODL, 1.15 a de Mrd. ATELOES 7 FG CBC, an becoin: 8 4 Sine nidse d: Wet us reflect a itte Ol thc
42 The Corruption of State II.
whereby he percciveth a thousand airy nothings; fo Man being struck blind to gll that is truly good, and for his eternal interest, has a light of another fort brought into his mind; his eyes are opened, knowing evil, and fo are the words of the tempter | verified, Gen. iii. 5. The words of the Prophet are plain, | IThey are wile to do evil, but to do good they have no know- | ledge,” Jer. iv. 22. The mind of Man has a natural dexterity y, to devise mischief: none are so sunple, as to want {kill to contrive ways to gratify their lusts, and ruin their souls; tho” the power of every one's hand cannot reach to put their devices in execution: None needs to be taught this black art; but as weeds grow up, of. their own accord in the neplected ground, fo doth this wisdom (which is ““ earthly, sensual, devilish,” James iii. 15.) grow up-in the minds of men, by virtue of the corruption of their nature: Why should we be surprised with g the product of corrupt wits; their cunning devices to affront Heaven, to oppose and run down truth and holiness, and to gratify their own and other Men's lusts? They row with the stream; no wonder they make great progreis: their stock is within them, and increaseth by uling of it: and the works of da:kneis are contrived with the greater advantage, that the mind is wholly deititute of spiritual light, which, if it were in them, in any mcalure, would fo far mar the work, 1 John mM. 9. © Wholoever is born of God, doth not commit lin:'* he does it not as by art, for © His seed remaineth in hin.” But on the other hand, © It is a sport for a fool to do mischief: but a Man of underitanding hath wiidom,”” Prov. x. 23. © Yo do witty wickedness nicely,” as the words import, is as a sport, or a play to a fool; it comes off with him calily: and why, but becaule he is a fool, and bath not wisdom; which would mar the contrivances of darkness? The more natural a thing is, it is done the more casily. - |
Evip. 2. Le: the corrupt mind nave but the advantage of one's being employed in, or preteat at some piece of fservice-to | God; that so the device, if not in itfelf iuful, yet may become sinful, by it's un'easonableness: it shall quickly fall on some device or expedicnt, by it's starting aside; which deliberation, in season, could not produce. Thus Saul, who witt not what to do, bef re the Priest began to consult God, is quickly determined whea once the Prieit's hand was in: us own heart then gave him an answer, and would not allow him to wait an answer from the Lord, 1 Sam. xiv. 18, 19. Such a devilish TH dexterity hath the caraal mind, in devising what may most | efetually divert Men from their duty to God. 5 |
Head I. the Understanding, 7.
spiritual things in imagination; as it the foul were quite immersed in flesh and blood, and would turn every thing into it's own shape? Let Men who are used to the forming of the molt abstracted notion, look into their own fouls, and they shall find this bias in their minds: whereof the idolatry, Which did of old, and (till doth, fo much prevail in the world, is an uncontestable
evidence: For it plainly discovers, that Men naturally would
have a visible deity, and sec what they worship : and therefore
they © changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an
image, &c. Rom. i. 23. The reformation of thele nations (blessed be the Lord for it) hath banished idolatry, and images too, out of our Churches: but heart- reformation only can break down mental idolatry, and banish the more subtile and refined image-worship, and representation of the deity, ont of the minds of Men: The world, in the time of its darkness, was never more prone to the former, than the unsanctified mind is
to the latter: And Hence are horrible, monstrous, and mishapen
thoughts of God, Christ, the glory above, and all spiritual things. Ep. 4. What a difficult task is it to detain the carnal mind before the Lord! how averse is it to the entertaining of good thoughts, and dwelling in the meditation of spiritual things! if one be driven, at any time, to think of the great concerns of his foul, it is no harder work to hold in an unruly hungry beast, than to hedge in the carnal mind, that it get not away to the vanities of the world again: When God is speaking to Men by his word, or they are speaking to him in prayer, doth not the mind often leave them before the Lord, like so many idols that have eyes, but see not, and ears, but hear not? The carcase is laid down before God, but the world gets away the heart: tho' the eyes be closed, the Man sces a thousand vanities: the mind, in the mean time, is like a bird get loose out of the cage, skipping from bush to bush; to that, in effect, the Man' never comes to himself, till he be gone from the presence of the Lord: Say not, it is impothble to get the mind fixed: It is hard indeed, but not imposlible: Grace from the Lord can do it, PH. cvit. 1. Agrecable objections will do it: A pleasant speculation will arrest the minds of the inquisitive:
the worldly Man's mind is in little hazard of wandering, when
he is contriving of business, casting up his accounts, or telling his money: if he answer you not at first, he tells you, he did not hear you, he was buly; his mind was fixed. Were we
adnmittcd iuto the presence of a king to petition for our lives,
”
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44 The Corruplion of State II.
we would bein no hazard of gazing through the chamber of presence: But here lies the cale, the carnal mind, employed about any spiritual good, is out of its element, and therefore cannot fix. 8 5
EvIp. 5. But however hard it is to keep the mind on good thoughts, it sticks as glue to what is evil and corrupt like itself! 2 Pet. ii. 14. © Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin.“ Their eyes cannot cease from fin, (fo the words are constructed, ) that is, their hearts and minds venting by the eyes, what is within, are like a furious beast, which. cannot be held in, when once it has got out it's head: Let the corrupt imagination once be let loose on it's proper object; it will be found hard work to call it back again, tho' both reason and will be for it's retreat: For then it is in it's own element; and to draw it off from its impurities, is as the drawing of a fish out of the water, or the renting of a limb from a Man: It runs like fire set to a train of powder, that resteth not till it can get no further. | |
Ev1D. 6. Consider how the carnal imagination supplies the want of real objects to the corrupt heart; that it may make sinners happy, at least, in the imaginary enjoyment of their lusts: Thus the corrupt heart feeds it{elf with imagination-fins: the unclean person is filled with speculative impurities, having eyes full of adultery; the covetous Man fills his heart with the world, tho' he cannot get his hands full of it; the malicious person, with delight, acts his revenge within his own breast: the envious Man, within his own narrow foul, beholds, with satisfaction, his neighbour laid low enough; and every lust finds the corrupt imagination a friend to it in time of need: And this it doth, not only when people are awake, but sometimes even when they are asleep; whereby it comes to pals, that these {ins are acted in dreams, which their hearts were carried out after, while they were awake. I know some do question the sinfulness of these things: But can it be thought they are consistent with that holy nature and frame of spirit, which was in innocent Adam, and in Jesus Christ, and should be in every Man! It is the corruption of nature then, that makes filthy dreamers condemned, Jude 8. Solomon had experience of the exercise of grace in sleep: in a dream he prayed, in a dream he made the belt choice; both were accepted of God, 1 i ings 1. 5,—15. And if a Man may, in his sleep do what is good and acceptable to God, why may he not allo when asleep, co that which is evil and displeasing to God? The lame 50/0:non
Head I. the Understan ding. 45
would have Men aware of this; and prescribes the best remedy against it, namely, The law upon the heart, Prov. vi. 20, 21. When thou sleepest, (says he, ver. 22.) it shall keep thee,” to wit, From sinning in thy sleep; that is, from sinful dreams: For one's being kept from sin, (not his being kept from affliction) is the immediate proper effect of the law of God imprest upon the heart, Psal. cxix. 11. And thus the whole verse is to be understood, as appears from verse 23. For the Commandment is a Lamp, and the Law is Light, and Reproofs of Instruction
are the Way of Life.” Now the Law is a Lamp of Light, as
it guides in the way of duty; and instructing reproofs from the Law, are the way of life, as they keep from sin: neither do they guide into the way of peace, but as they lead into the way of duty; nor do they keep a Man out of trouble, but as they keep him from fin: And remarkable is the particular, in which Solomon instanceth, namely the sin of uncleanness, “ to 13 thee from the evil Woman, and ver. 24. which is to be joinec with ver. 22 inclosing the 23d, in a parenthesis, as some versions have it: These things may sufhce to convince us of the natural bias of the mind to evil. x FouRTHLY, There is in the carnal mind, an opposition to spiritual truths, and an aversion to the receiving of them. It is as little a friend to divine truths, as it is to holiness: The truths of natural religion, which do, as it were, force their entry into the minds of natural Men, they hold prisoners in unrighteousness, Rom. i. 18. And as for the truths of revealed ren, there is an evil heart of unbelief in them, which oppoleth their entry; and there is an armed force—neceilary to captivate the mind to the belief of them, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. God has made a revelation of his mind and will to sinners, touchin
the way of salvation: he has given us the doctrine of his holy
word: but do natural Men believe it indeed? No, they do not; for © He that believeth not on the Son of God, believeth not God,” as is plain from 1 John v. 10. They believe not the 8 of the word: they look on them, in effect, only as air words; for these that receive them, are thereby made 5 partakers of the divine nature, 2 Pet. i. 4. The promises are as silver cords let down from Heaven to draw sinners unto God, and to watt them over into the promised land; but they caft them from them: They believe not the threatnings of the Word: As Mey travelling in desarts carry fire about with them, to fright away wild beasts; so God has made his Law a fiery Law, Deut, xxxi®l. 2. hedging it about with threats of wrath:
But
%
—
But Men naturally are more brutish than beasts themselves; and will needs touch the fiery smokir.s mountain, tho? they should “ be thrust through. with a dart. I doubt not but most, if not all of you, who are yet in the black state of nature, will here plead, Not gutity: But remember the carnal Jews in i Christ's time, were as confident as you are, and they believed 1 Moses, John ix. 28, 29. But he confutes their confidence, | roundly telling them, John v. 46. © Had ye believed Moses, 1 ye would have believed me.” Did ye believe the truths of 4 + God, ye durst not reject, as ye do, him who is truth itself: The 1 very difficulty you find in allating to this truth, bewrays that | unbelief Lam charging you with: Has it not proceeded fo far Mil with some at this day, that it has steeled their fore-heads with the impudence and impicty, openly to reject all revealed religi-
/ on? Surely it is out of the abundance of the heart their mouth x if speaketh.” But tho' ye set not your mouths against the
!
| 46 The Corruption of: State II. | b
Heavens, as they do, the same bitter root of unbelief is in all Men by nature, and reigns in you, and will reign, till overcoming grace captivate your minds to the belief of the truth: To convince you in this point, consider these three things: _EvIDENCE 1. How few are there who have been blest with an inward illumination, by the special operation of the Spirit ef Christ, letting them into a view of divine truths in their spiritual and heavenly lustre | How have you learned the truths of religion, which ye pretend to believe! Ye have them merely by the benefit of external revelation, and of your education; fo that you are Christians, just because you were not born and bred in a Pagan, but in a Christian country: Ye are strangers to the inward work of the holy Spirit, bearing witnels by, and with the word in your hearts; and so you cannot have the assurance ef faith, with respect to that outward divine revelation made in the word, 1 Cor, ii. 10, II, 12. And therefore ye are still unbelievers: “ It is written in the Prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every Man therefere that hath. heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me, fays our Lord, John vi. 45. Now ye have not come to Christ, therefore ye have not been taught of God; ye have not been fo taught, and therefore ye have not come; ye believe not: Behold the revelation from which the faith even of the fundamental principles in religion doth spring, Matth. xvi. 17, 18. © "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God:—Blesfed art thou Simon Bariona! for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.“ If ever the | Spurtkt
—
| Head , the Understanding.
47 Spirit of the Lord take a dealing with thee, to work in thee that faith, which is of the operation of God ; it may be as much time will be spent in razing the old foundation, as will make
thee find a necellity of the 3 working of his mighty power, and
to enable thee to believe the very toundation principles, which now thou thinkelt thou makeit no doubt of, Eph. i. 19.
EviD. 2. How many professors have made shipwreck of their faith (such as it was) in time of temptation and trial! Sec how they fall, like stars from Heaven, when Antichrist prevails, 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.“ God shall fend them strong delusions that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth.” They fall into damning delusions: because they never really believed the tr uth, tho' they themlelves and others too thought they did believe it. That house is built upon the land, and that faith is but illfounded, that cannot bear out, but is quite overthrown, when the storm comes.
Ev1D. 3. Consuler the utter inconsistency of most Men's
lives, with the principles of religion which they profess : ye
may as soon bring ealt and w est together, as their principles and practice: Men believe that fire will burn them, and therefore they v will not throw themselves into it; but the truth is, molt Men live as if they thought the golpel a mere fable, and the wrath of God revealed in his word againlt their unrighteousness and ungodliness, a mere {care-crow: If ye believe the doctrines of the word, how is it that ye are so unconcerned about the state of your souls before the Loxp? How is it that vou are fo little concerned with that weighty point, Whether ye be born again or not? Many live as they were born, and arc like to die as they live, and yet live jn peace! Do such believe the sinfulness and misery of a natural state? Do the
believe they are children of wrath? Do they believe there is no salvation without regencration? and no regeneration but what makes Man a new creature! If you belicye the promises of the word, why do vou not embrace them, and labour to enter into the promised reit? What sluggard would not dig for a hid treasure, if be really believed he might fo obtain it? Men will work and f{weat ior a maintenance, becaule they believe that by so doing they will get it: yet they will be at no tolerable pains for the eternal w eight of glory: W hy, but because they do not believe the word of promise! Heb. iv. 1, 2. If ye
believe the threatnings, how is it that you live in your fins, live out of Christ, and yet hope for mercy : Do such bclicye God to : | be
—
The Corruption of - | State II.
be the holy and just One, who will © by no means clear the _ puilty?” No, no, none believe, none, (or next to none) believe What a just Gop the Lo Ro is, and how severely he punisheth.” FirTRBT.y, There is in the mind of Man a natural proneness to lies and falshood, which make for the safety of lusts: They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies, Pfal. lvii. 3. We have this with the rest of the corruption of our nature, from our first Parents: God revealed the truth to them; but through the solicitation of the tempter, they first doubted of it: they disbelieved it, and embraced a lie instead of it: And for an uncontestible evidence hereof, we may fee that first article of the devil's creed, “ Ye shall not surely die, Gen. iii. 4. which was obtruded by him on our first parents, and by them received, naturally embraced by their posterity, and held fast, till a light from heaven oblige them to quit it: It spreads itself through the lives of natural Men; who till their consciences be awakned, walk after their own lusts; {till retaining the principle, That they shall not surely die.“ And this is often improved to that perfection, that the Man can say, over the belly of the denounced curse, “ I shall have peace, tho? I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst,” Deut. XXiX. 19. Whatever advantage the truths of God have over error by means of education, or otherwise error has always with the natural Man, this advantage against truth, namely, That there is something within him, which says, O that it were. true: So that the mind lies fair for assenting to it: And here is the reason of it: The true doctrine is, © The doctrine that is according to godliness,”” 1 Tim. vi. 3. And © the truth which is after godliness, Tit. i. 1. Error is the doctrine which is accorcing to ungodlinels; for there is never an error in the mind, nor an untruth vented in the world (in matters of religion) but what has an affinity with one corruption of the heart or other: according to that of the apostle, 2 Thesl. n. 21. They believed not the truth, but had pleasure in un- _ righteousness.” So that truth and error being otherwise attended with equal advantages for their reception, error by this means, has most ready access into the minds of Men in their natural state. Wherefore, it is nothing strange that Men rejects the simplicity of Gospel-truths and institutions, and i greedily embrace error and external pomp in religion, seeing | they are { agreeable to the lusts of the heart, and the vanity of the mind of the natural Man. And from hence also it is, that so many embrace atheistical principles; for none do it but = 1
Head J. the Understanding. 49
in compliance with their irregular passions; none but these, whose advantage it would be, that there was no Gad. LasTLY, Man is naturally high-minded; for when the gospel comes in power to him, it is employed in“ casting down imagtnations, and every high thing that exalteth itselt apaitst the knowledge of God,“ 2 Cor. X. 5. Lowlinels of mind is not a flower that grows in the field of nature; but is planted by the finger of God in a renewed heart, and learned of the lowly Jesus. It is natural to Man to think highly of himself, and what is his own; for the stroke he has got by his fall in Adam, has produced a false light, whereby moll-hills about him appear like mountains: and à thousand airy beauties present themselves to his deluded fancy: “ Vain Man would be wise, - (so he accounts bimself, and fo he would be accounted or by others,) though
Man be born like a wild afs's colt,“ Job xi. 12. His way is
right becaule it is his own : for “ every way of a Man is right
in his own eyes,” Prov. xxl. 2. His state is. good, because he knows no better: he is alive without the law, Rom. vil. 9. and therefore his hope is strong, and his confidence firm: It is another tower of Babel reared up against Hcaven; and fhall not fall while the power of darkness can hold it vp: The Word batters it, yet it stands; one while breaches are made in it, but they are quickly repaired: at another time, it is all made to shake, but {till it keeps up; till either God himself by his Spirit, raise an heart-quake within the Man, which tumbles it down, and leaves not one stone upon another, (2 Cor. x. 41.) or death
batter it down, and raze the foundations of it, Luke xvi. 22.
And as the natural Man thinks highly of himself, fo he thinks meanly of God, whatever he pretends, Pal. 1, 21. © Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyiclf.” The doctrine of the gospel and the mystery of Christ are foolishness to him; and in his practice he treats them as such, 3 Cor. i. 13. and ii. 14. He brings the word and the works of God in the government of the world, before the bar of his carnal reason; and there they are presumptuously censured and condemned, Hol. xiv. 9. Sometimes the ordinary reftraint of providence is taken off, and Satan is permitted to stir up the carnal mind; and in that case it is like an ant's nest, uncovered and disturbed 5
doubts, denials, and hellish reasons crowd in it, and cannot be
laid by all the arguments brought against tliem, till a power
from on high captivate the mind, and still the mutiny of the corrupt principles. |
Thus much of the corruption of the understanding ; which,
altho* the half be not told, may discover to you the absolute
eceslit y
30 Tue Corruption of State [T, necessity of regenerating grace: Call the understanding now Ichabod; for the glory is departed from it. Consider this, ye that are yet in the state of nature, and groan ye out your case before the Lord, that the San of Righteoulnels may arise upon you, before you be shut up in everlasting darkness. What avails your worldly wisdom? What do your attainnents in religion avail, while your undlerstanding lies yet wrapt up in its natural darkness and confusion, utterly void of the light of life ? Whatever be the natural Man's pitts or attainments, we must (as in the case of the leper, Lev. xii. 24.) pronounce him utterly unclean ; his plague is in his head.“ But that is not all: it 1s in his heart too, his will is corrupted, as ] shall shew anon.
Of the Corruption of the Will,
TI. The Will, that commanding faculty, (which sometimes was faithful, and ruled with God) is now turned traitor, and rules with and for the devil, God planted it in Man wholly a right feed; but now it is turned into the degenerate plant of a itrange vine.“ It was originally placed in a due subordination to the will of God, as was shewn before, but now it is gone wholly aside: However some do mapnify the power of free-will, a view of the spirituality of the Law, to which acts of moral dif- . cipline do in no ways answer; and a deep insight into the corruption of nature, given by the inward operation of the Spirit, convincing of fin, righteousness and judgment, would make Men find an absolute need of the power of free-grace, to remove the bands of wickedness from off the frec-will. To open up this plague of the heart, I offer these following things to be considered. _ FigrsT, There is, in the unrenewed will, an utter inability for what is truly good and acceptable in the fight of God: The natural Man's will is in Setan's fetters; hemmed in within the circle of evil, and cannot move beyond it, more than a dead Man can raise himself out of his grave, Ephesians 1:1. We deny him not a power to chuse, pursue and act, what on the matter is good; but though he can will what is good and right, he can will nothing ariglit and well: John xv. 5. Without me,“ i. e. separate from me, as a branch from the stock, (as both the word and context do carry it,) © ye can do nothing: to wit, nothing truly and spiritually good: His very choice and desire of spiritual things is carnal and felfish, John vi. 26. © Ye seek me, because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.“ He not | only comes not to Christ, but he cannot come, John vi. 44. And
th the o wit, desire e seek Je not 43. And
what
corrupt nature.
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Head I. the Will. 51
what can one do acceptable to God, who believeth not on him whom the Father hath sent? To evidence this inability for good in the unregenerate, consider these two things.
chuse, and the evil they shonld refuse; and yet their hearts
have no more power to comply with that light, than if they were arrested by some invisible hand? They lee what is right;
yet they follow, and cannot but follow, what is wrong: Their consciences tells them the right way, and approves of it too;
yet cannot their will be brought up to it: Their corruption to chains them, that they cannot embrace it; fo they sigh, and go backward, over the belly of their light. And if it be not thus, how is it that the word, and way of holiness meets with such entertainment in the world? How is it that clear arguments and reason on the side of piety and a holy life, which bear in themselves even on the carnal mind, do not bring Men over to that fide? Altho' the being of a Heaven and a Hell, were but
a may- be, it were sufficient to determine the will to the choice
of holiness, were it capable to be determined thereto by mere
reason: but Men, knowing the judgment of God, (that they
which commit such things are worthy of death) not only do the tame, but have pleasure in them that do them, Rom. i. 32. And how is it that these who magnify the power of free-will,
do not confirm their opinion before the world, by an ocular
demonstration, in a practice as far above others in holiness, as the opinion of their natural ability is above others? Or is it maintained only for the protection of lusts, which Men may hold fast as long as they please; and when they have no more ule for them, can throw them off in a moment, and leap out of
elilah's lap into Abraham's bosom? Whatever use some make of that principle, it does of itself, and in its own nature, cast a broad shadow for a shelter to wickedness of heart and life: And it may be observed, that the penerality of the hearers of the gospel, of all denominations are plagued with it: for it is a root of bitternels, natural to all Men; from whence do spring fo much fearlessness about the foul's eternal state; so many delavs and off-puts in that weighty matter, whereby much work is laid up for a death-bed by some; while others are ruined by a legal walk, and unacquaintedness with the life of faith, and the making use of Chrift for sanctisication; all flowing from the persuasion of sufficient natural abilities: So agrceable is it to
E 2. Ey1iv.
52 The Gorruption of State II,
Ev1D. 2. Let those, who, by the power of the spirit of bondage, having had the Law laid out before them, in it's spirituality, for their conviction, speak and tell, if they found them!-!;cs able to incline their hearts towards it, in that case 3 nay, 'f the more that light shone into their fouls, they did not find their hearts more and more unable to comply with it. There are fome, who have been brought unto the place of the breaking forth, who are yet in the devil's camp, that from their experience can tell, light let into the mind, cannot pive lite to the will, to enable it to comply therewith; and could give their testimony here, if they would: But take Paul's testimony concerning it, who, in his unconverted state, was far from believing his utter inability for good, but learned it by experience, Rom. vii. 9, 10, 11,13. I own, the natural Man may have a kind of love to the Law; but here lies the stress of the matter, he looks on the holy Law in a carnal dress; and fo while he hugs a creature of his own fancy, he thinks he has the Law, but in very deed ke is without the Law: for as yet he secs it not in its spirituality: ifhe did, he would find it the ver reverse of EV own nature, and what his will could not fall in with, till changed by the power of grace.
SECONDLY, There is in the unrenewed will an averseness to
good: Sin is the natural Man's element; he is loath to part
with it, as the fishes are to come out of the water into dry land. He not only cannot come to Chrift, but he will not come, John v. 40. He is polluted, and hates to be washen, Jer. xin.27. Wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be?“ He is sick, but utterly averse to the remedy: he loves his disease fo, that he loaths the Physician: Fe is a captive, a prisoner, and a slave; but he loves his conqueror, his jailor and master: He is fond of his fetters, prison and drudgery; and has no liking to his liberty. For evidence of this aversenels to good, in the will of Man, I shall instance in some particulars, 1 EVI DEN CE I. The untowarduess of children: Do we not see them, naturally, lovers of sinful liberty | How unwilling are they to be hedged in? How aveile to restraint? The world can bear witness, that they are, as bullocks unaccuttomed to the yoke; and more, that it is far eater to bring young bullocks tamely to bear the yoke; than to bring young children under discipline, and make them tamely submit to the restraint of liuful liberty. Every body may fee in this, as in a glals, that Man is naturally wild and wilful, according to Zophar's observe, Job xi, 12. that © Man js. born like a wild als's colt. What | Can
—
Head I.
can be said more? He is like a colt, the colt of an ass, the colt fa wild ass: Compare Jer. ii. 24. A wild als used to the vilderness, that snuffeth wp the wind at her pleasure, in her occalion who can turn her away!“
EVID. 2. What pain and difficulty do Men often find in
bringing their hearts to religious duties? And what a tafk is it to the carnal heart to abide at them? It is a pain to it, to leave the world but a little, to converse with God. It is not easy to
Horrow time from the many things, to bestow it upon the one
thing needful. Men often go to God in duties, with their faces towards the world; and when their bodies are on the mount of ordinances, their hearts will be found at the foot of the hill, ing after their covetousness, Ezek. xxxiit. 31. They are
45) wearied of well-doing; for holy duties are not agreeable
to their corrupt nature. Take notice of them at their worldly business, set them down with their carnal company, or let them
be sucking the breasts of a lust ; time seems to them to fly, and
drive furiously, fo that it is gone ere they are aware. But how
t:avily does it drive, while a prayer, a sermon, or a sabbath
I. £s? The Lord's day is the longest day of all the week with many; and therefore they must fleep longer that morning, and
go sooner to bed that night, than ordinarily they do, that the day may be made of a tolerable length: for their hearts say
within them, © When will the Sabbath be gone?“ Amos viii. 5.
The hours of worship are the longest hours of that day: Hence
when duty is-over, they are-like Men eased of a burden; and when sermon is ended, many have neither the grace nor the good manners to stay till the blessing be pronounced, but like the beasts, their head is away as soon as one puts his hand to loole them; why, but because while they are at ordinances,
they are, as Doeg, “ detained before the Lord, 1 Sam. xxil. 7.
rebel against the light,” Job xiv. 13. Light sometimes | entreth in, because he is not able to hold it out: but he loveth _ darknels rather than light. Semetimes by the force of truth,
the outer door of understanding is broken up; but the inner door of the will remains fast bolted. Then Justs rise againit light; corruption and conscience encounter, and fight as in the
field of battle; till corruption getting the upper hand, conscience is forced to give back: convictions are murdered: and truth is made and held prisoner, so that it can create no mors disturbance. While the word is preached or-read, or the rod o: God is upon the natural Man, sometimes convictions are
E 3 darted
the Will. 53
54 The Corruption of State II.
darted in on him, and his spirit is wounded, in greater or lesser measure: but thele convictions not being able to make him tall,
he runs away with the arrows (ti icking, 1 in his conscience; and at. length, one way or other, gets them out, and licks himself whole again, Thus, while the light shines, Men, naturally averse to it, wilfully shut their eyes; till God is provoked to blind them judieially, and they become proof against the word and providences too: fo they may go where they will, they can fit at ease; there is never a word from heaven to them, that poeth deeper than into their ears, Hol. iv. 17. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.”
Evi. 4. Let us observe the resistauee made by cle fouls, when the Spirit of the Lord is at work, to bring them from the power of Satan unto God. Zion's King gets no ) subjects but by stroke of sword, © in the day of his power, Pfal. cx. 2, 3. None come to him, but fuch as are drawn by a divine hand,
John vi. 44. When the Lord comes to the foul, he finds the strong Man Keeping the house, and a deep peace and fecurity there, while the ub is fast asie cep in the devil s arms: But“ the prey mast be taken from the mighty, and the captive deliv ered; * Therefore the Lord awakens the tine r, opens his eyes, and strikes him with terror, while the cloyds are black above his
head, and the {word of venzeance is held to his breast. Now
he is at no small pains to put a fair face on a black heart; to shake olf his fears, to make head against them, and to div ert
himself from thinking on the unpleasant and. ungrateful subject
of his foul” 8 Cale. If he cannot so rid biinself from them, carnal rea son is called in to help, and urgeth that there is no ground. tor fo great fear; all mav be w ell enough yet: and if it be ill With him, it will be ill with many. W hen the sinner is beat from this, and sees no advantage of going to bell with company, he resolves to leave his sins, but cannot think of breaking off o soon; there is time enourh, and he wil do it afterwards. Conscience says, To day if ye will Lear bis voice, harden not
your hearts. But he cries, To-morrow, Lord, to-morrow till that now 1s never like to
Jord; and just now, Lord: come. And thus, many times, he comes from his prayers and confosfions''s with nothin; but a breait full of sharper convictions; for the h cart doth not ala is cast up the sweet morsel, as soon a confirm is made with the mouth, Judges x. 10.---16. And wen conference obh eth them to part with lome lusts, others et as wicht eves and ight hands; and there are rueful a that are put away, as it was with the lirae): tes,
. Who,
-
Head J. the Will. 33
who, with bitter hearts, did remember ** the fish they did eat
in Egypt freely,” Numb. xi. 5. Nay, when he is o pressed, that he must needs {xy before the Lord, that he is content to part with all lis idols; the heart will be giving the tongue the lie. In a word, the foul, in this cate, will shirt from one thing to another; like a fish with the hook in his jaws, till it can do no more, and power come to make it succumb, as © the wild ass in her month, Jer. ii. 24.
TuIR DIY, There is in the will of Man a natural proneness to cvil, a woful bent towards sin. Men naturally are © bent to backsliding from God,” Hol. ii. 7. They hang (as the word is) towards backsliding; even as a hanging wall, whose „ breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.” Set holinets and life upon the one side, fin and death upon the other, leave the unrenewed will to itself, it Will chuse tin, and reject holiness, This is no more to be doubted, than that water, poured on the fide of a hill, will run downward but not upward, or that a flame will ascend and not descend. | ; |
EI DEN CE I. Is not the way of evil the first way the children of men do go! No not their inclinations plainly appear on the wrong fide, while yet they have vo cunning to hide them:
In the firit opening of our eyes in the world, we look a-squint, hell-ward, not heaven-ward. As foon as it appears we are reasonable creatures, it appears we are sinful creatures, Pfal. Ivii. 3. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go _ astray as soon as they be born.”” Prov. xxü. 15. © Foolishnelss is bound in the heart of a child: but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” Folly is bound in the heart, it is woven into our very nature. The knot will not loose, they must be broken asunder by strokes. Words will not do it, the rod must be taken to drive it away: and if it be not driven far away, the heart and it will mcet and knit again. Not that the rod of Itlelf will do-this: the fad experience of many parents testifies the contrary: and Solomon him{elf tells you, Prov. xxvil. 22. * Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar, among wheat, with a pestle, vet will not his foolishness depart from him.“ It is fo bound in his heart: But the rod is an ordinance of God, appointed for that end; which, like the word, is made effectual by the Spirit's accompanyiag his own ordinance. And this, by the way, shews that parents, in administriag correction to their children, have need, first of all to correct their own irregular paisions; and look upon it as a natter of awful folemnity, letting about it with much dependence on the Lord, and fol- | lowing
—
| 'S: 56 The Corruption of State II.
lowing it with prayer for the blessing, if they would have iteffectual. 8 5 Ev1D, 2. How easily are Men led aside to sin! The children who are not persuaded to good, are other ways fimple ones; easily wrought upon; those whom the word cannot draw to holinels, are led by Satan at his pleasure. Profane Esau, that cunning Man, Gen. xxv. 27. was as easily cheated of the blessing, as if he had been a fool oy an ideot. The more natural a thing is, it is the more easy: so Christ's yoke is easy to the saints, in so far as they are partakers of the divine nature: and fin is easy to the unrenewed Man; 'but to learn to do good, as ditficult as for the“ Ethiopian to change his {kin;” because the will naturally hangs towards evil; but is averse to good. A
child can cause a round thing to run, while he cannot move a
square thing of the same weight; for the roundness makes it fit for motion, so that it goes with a touch. Even fo, when Men find the heart easily carried towards fin, while it is as a dead weight in the way of holiness; we must bring the reason of this from the natural set and dispolition of the heart, whereby it is prone and bent to evil. Were Man's wil naturally, but in an equal balance to good and evil, the one might be embraced with as little difficulty as the other; but experience testifies, it is not o. In the sacred history of the Israelites, especially in the book of Judges, how often do we find them forfaking Jehovah, the mighty God, and doting upon the idols of the nations about them? But did ever one of these nations grow fond of Israel's God, and forsake their own idols? No, no; tho' Man is naturally given to changes, it is but from evil to evil, not from evil to good, Jer. ii. 10, 11. © Hath a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? But my people have changed their glory, for that which doth not profit.“ Surely the will of Man stands not in equal balance, but has a cast to the wrong fide.
Evip. 3. Consider how Men go on still in the way of fin, till they meet with a stop, and that from another hand than their own, Isa. Ivii. 17. © J hid me, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.” If God withdraw his restraining hand, and lay the reins on the sinner's neck, he is in no doubt what way to choose; for (observe it) the way of {in is the way of his heart; his heart naturally lies that way; it hath a natural propensity to fin. As long as God suffereth them, they walk in their own way, Acts xiv. 16. The natural Man is fo fixed in his woful choice, that there needs no more to shew he is off from God's way, but to tell he is upon his own.
Head I. the Will. "op
they do not last, Tho! his heart be firm as a stone, yea, harder than the nether mill-stone, in point of receiving of them; it 1s otherwise unstable. as water, and cannot keep them. It works against the receiving of them; and, when they are made, it works them off, and returns to its natural bias, Hol. vi. 4. & Your goodnels is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goeth away.” The morning cloud promiseth a hearty shower, but, when the sun ariseth, it evanitheth: the lun beats upon the early dew, and it evaporates; fo the hulbandman's
expettation is disappointed. Such is the goodness of the natural.
Man. Some sharp affliction, or piercing conviction oblidgeth him in some fort, to turn from his evil courlg: but his will not being renewed, religion is still against the grain with him, and therefore this goes off again, Psal. Ixxviji. 34, 36, 37. Tho' a stone, thrown up into the air, may abide there a little while; yet it's natural heaviness will bring it down to the earth again; and so do unrenewed Men return to the wallowing in the mire; because altho* they were washed, yet their {winish nature was not changed. It is hard to cause wet wood take fire, hard to make it keep fire: but it is harder than either of these, to make
the unrenewed will retain attained goodness ; which is a plain
evidence of the. natural bent of the will to evil. Evip. last. Do the saints serve the Lord now, as they were
wont to {erve fin in their unconverted state? Very far from it,
Rom. vi. 20. When ye were the servants of fin, ye were free from righteoutness.” Sin got all, and admitted no partner; but now, when they are the servants of Christ, are they free from fin? Nay, there are {till with them some deeds of the old Man, shewing that he is but dying in them. And hence their hearts often mispive them, and flip aside unto evil, when they would do good, Rom. vii. 21. They need to watch, and keep their
hearts with all diligence: and their {ad experience teacheth
them, That he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool,” .Yrov. xxviii. 20, If it be thus in the green tree, how mutt it
be in the dry? : | FouRTALY, There is a natural contrariety, direct opposition and enmitv, in the will of Man, to God himself, and his holy will, Rom. vii. 7. The carna! mind is enmity apainst God, for it is not subject to the La of God, neither indeed can be.“ The will was once God's deputy in the soul, set to command there for him; buthow: it is tet wp ag2inft him. If vou would have the picture of it, in it's natural tate, the very reverse of | the
58 The Corruption. of State II.
dhe will of God represents it. If the fruit hanging before one's N eyes, be but forbidden, that is sufficient to draw the heart after q it. Let me instance in the fin of profane swearing and curling, to which some are so abandoned, that they take a pride in them, belching out horrid oaths and curses, as if hell opened with the epening of their mouths, or larding their speeches with minced oaths, as faith, hath, fai'd ye, hai'd ye, and such like: and all this without any manner of provocation, tho' even that would not excuss them. Pray tell me, (1) What profit is there here? A thief pets something in his hand for his pains; a drunkard gets a belly-full; but what do ye get? Others serve the devil for pay; but ye are volunteers, that expect no reward, but your work itself, in affronting of heaven. And if you repent ö not, you will get your reward in full tale; when ye go to hell, your, work will follow you. The drunkard shall not have a drop of water to cool his tongue there. Nor will the covetous Man's wealth follow him into the other world: but ye shall drive on your old trade there® And an eternity shall th be long enough to give you your heart's fill of it. (2.) What pleasure is there here, but what flows from your trampling upon the holy law? Which of your senses doth swearing or curling gratify? If it gratify your ears, it can only be by the noife it makes against the heavens. Tho' you had a mind to
give up yourselves to all manner of profanity and sensuality,
re is so little pleasure can be strained out of these, that we must needs conclude, your love to them, in this case, is a love to them for themselves; a devilish unhired love, without any prospect of profit or pleasure from them otherwise. If any shall say, these are monsters of men. Be it so; yet alas! the world is fruitful of fuch monsters; they are to be found almost every-where. And allow me to say, They mult be admitted as the mouth of the whole unregenerate world against heaven, Rom. iii. 1.4. © Whose mouth is full of curing and bitterness. ver. 19. Now we know that what things foever the Law faith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth ma be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.“
I have a charge against every unregenerate Man and Woman, young or old, to be verified by the te{timonies of the Scriptures of truth, and the testimony of their own coniciences; namely, that whether they be professors or prophane, or whatever they be, if they are not born again, they are heart enemies to God: to the Son of God; to the Spirit of God; and to the Law of Gon. Hear this, ye carelels fouls, that live at ease in your | natural ate. Ist. Ye
Head T. the Will. 59
1st. Ye are “ enemies to God in your minds,” Col. i. 12. Ye are not as yet reconciled to him, the natural ennüty is not as yet slain, tho' perhaps it lies hid, and ye do not perceive it. (1.) Ye are enemies to the very being of God, Pal. xv. 1. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.“ The proud Man would that none were Hove himself: the rebel, that there were no King; and the unrenewed Man, who is a mass of pride and rebellion, that there were no God. He faith it in
| his heart, he witheth it were io, tho' he be ashamed and afraid
to ipeak it out. And that all natural Men are such fools,
appears from the Apostle's quetinga part of this plalm, * That
every mouth may be stopped, Rom. iii. 10. 11, 12, 19. I own indeed, that while the natural Man looks on God as the Creator and preserver of the world, because he loves his own self, therefore his heart riseth not against the being of his Benefactor: but this enmity will quickly appear, when he looks on God, as the Rector and Judge of the world, binding him, under the pain of the curse, to exact holiness, and girding him with the cords of death, becaute of his sm. Listen in this case to the
voice of the heart, and thou wilt find it to be, “ No God.“
(2-) Ye are enemies to the nature of God, Joh xxi. 14. © They ay unto God, Depart from us; for we defire not the knowledge of thy ways. Men let up to themselves an Idol of their
own fancy, instead of God; and then fall down and worship it.
They lovehim no other way, than Jacob loved Leah, while he took her for Rachel. Every natural Man 1s an enemy to God, as he is revealed in his word. An infinitely holy, just, powerful and true Beinp, is not the God whom he loves, but the God whom he loathes. In effect Men naturally are haters of God, Rom. i. 30. And if they could, they certainly would make tim another than what he is. For, consider it is a-certain
truth, “ That whatsoever is in God, is God: And therefore
his attributes or perfections are not any thing really distinct
from himsclf. It God's attributes be not himlelf, he is a compound Being, and so not the first being (which to fay, is blasphemous) for the parts compounding are before the compound itself; but he is“ Alpha and Omega, first and the lait.“
Now upon this, I would, for your conviiiion, propose to your consciences a few queries, (I.) How stand vour hearts affected to the infinite purity and holiness of God? Conscience will give an answer to this, which the tongue will not speak out: If ye be not partakers of his holiness, ye cannot be reconciled to it. The Pagans finding they could not be like God in
60 The Corruption of State IT.
holiness, made their gods like themselves in filthiness: and thereby discovered what sort of a god the natural Man would have. God is holy: can an unholy creature love his unspotted holiness? Nay, it is the righ.teous only that can “ give thanks at the remembrance of his holinets,”” Psal. Ixxxviii 12. God is light: can creatures of darknels rejoice therein! Nay, © every one that doth evil hateth the light, John ii. 29. For, © what communion hath light with darknels? 2 Cor. vi. 14. (2.) How stand your hearts aitefed to the justice of God? Ther is not a Man, who is wedded to bis lusts, as all the nnregenerate are, but would be content with the blood of his body, to blot that letter out of the name of God. Can the malefactor love his condemning judge? Or an unjustificd finner, a just God? No, he cannot, Luke vii. 47. To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.“ Hence sceing Men cannot get the doctrine of his justice blotted out of the Bible; yet it is such an eye- sore to them, that they strive to blot it out of their minds. And they ruin themselves, by presumiag on Wymercy; while they are. not careful to get a righteoutnew, wherein they may stand be- Tore his justice; but“ lay in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil,” Zeph. i. 12. (3.) How stand ve affected to the Omniscience and Omnipresence of God!
Men naturally would rather have a blind idol, than an allseeing God: and theretoredo what they can, as Adam did, to hide themlelves from the presence of the Lord. They no more love an all-seeing, every-where-prejent God, than the thief loves to have the judge witness to his evil deeds. If it could. be
carried by votes, God would be voted out of the world, and
closed up in heaven: For the language of the carnal heart is, „The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth,” Ezek. viii. 12. (4.) How stand ye affected to the Truth and Veracity of Gop? There are but few in the world, that can heartily subscribe to that sentence of the Apostle, Rom. iii. 4. „Let God be true, but every Man a liar.'* Nay truly, there are many, who, in effect, do hope that God will not be true to his word. There are thousands who hear the gospel, that hope to be saved, and think all safe with them for eternity, who never had any experience of the new birth, nor do at all concern themselves in that question, © Whether they are born acain, or not?” A question that is like to wear out from among
us At this day. Our Lord's words are plain and peremptory,
© Except a Man be born again, he cannot fee the kingdom of God.” What are such hopes then, but real hopes that God
(with
Head J. the Will. os #6x
with profoundest reverence be it spoken) will recal his word, and that Christ will prove a false prophet! What elle means the sinner, who, “ when he hearcth the words of the curse, blesseth himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, tho' I walk in the imagination of mine heart, Deut. xxix. 19- Lastly, How stand ye affected to the Power of God! None but new creatures will love him for it, on a fair view thereof; tho? others may flavishly fear him, upon the account of it. There is not 2 natural Man, bꝭt. would contribute to the outmost of his power to the building ofMnother tower of Babel, to hem it in. On these grounds, I declare every unrenewed Man ah enemy to God. | 2dly, Ye are enemies to the Son of God. That enmity ts Christ is in your hearts, which would have made you join the husbandmen, who “ killed the heir, and cast him out of the vineyard: if ye had been beset with their temptations, and no more restrained than they were. Am I a dog,” you will say, to have so treated my sweet Saviour? so faid Hazael in another case: but when he had the temptation, he was a dog
to do it. Many call Christ their sweet Saviour, whose consciences can bear witness, they never sucked fo much sweetness from him, as from their sweet lusts, which are ten times sweeter to them than their Saviour. He is no other way sweet to them than as they abuse his death and sufferings, for the peaceable enjoyment of their lusts; that they may live as they list in the world; and when they die, may be kept out of hell. Alas! it is but a mistaken Christ, this is sweet to you, whose souls lothe that Christ, © who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person.” It is with you as it was in the carnal Jews, who delighted in him while they mistook his errand into the world, fancying that he would be a temporal deliverer to them, Mal. iii. 1. But when he was come, and fat as a refiner and purifier of silver,” verse 2, 3. and cast them as reprobate silver, who thought to have had no small honour in the kingdom of the Messiah; his doctrine galled their coniciences, and they rested not till they imbrued their hands in his blood, To open your eyes in this point, which ye are so loth to believe, I will lay before you, the enmity of your
hearts against Christ and all his offices.
A
I. Every unregenerate Man is an enemy to Christ in his
- Prophetical office. He is appointed of the Father, the great
Prophet and Teacher ; but not upon the world's call, who, in their natural state, would have unanimously voted against him :
And
—
62g The Corruption of State II.
And therefore, when he came, he was condemned as a seducer and blasphemer. For evidence of this enmity, I will instance | in two things. | — EviDENCE T. Consider the entertainment he meets with, When he comes to teach souls inwardly by his Spirit. Men de what they can to stop their ears, like the deaf adder, that they Hay not hear his voice. They always resist the Holy Ghost. They defirg not the knowledge of his ways; and therefore bid him depart from them. The old calumny is often raised upon him, on that occasion, John x. 20.“ He is mad, why hear ye him?”” Soul- exercise raised by the spirit of bondage, is accounted by many, nothing elle but distraction, and melancholy fits; Men thus blaspheming the Lord's work, because they themselves are beside themselves, and cannot judge of these matters. | . EvID. 2. Consider the entertainment he meets with, when he comes to teach Men outwardly by his word. : | (I.) His written word, the. Bible is flighted: Christ bath left it to us, as the book of our instructions, to show' us what way _ we mult steer our courle, if we would come to Eminanuel's land. It is a lamp to light us through a dark. world to cternal | light. And he hath left it upon us, to search it with that dili- | -gence,. wherewith. Men dig into mines. for filver and gold, John v. 39. But ah! how is this facred treasure profaned by 14. many! They ridicule the holy word, by which they must be 4 | judged at the last day; and*will rather lose. their souls than their
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jest, dressing up the conceit of their: wanton wits in Seripture- Phrases; in which they act as mad a part, as one who would dig into a mine to procure metal to melt, and pour down his own: and his neighbour's throat. Many exhaust their spirits in read. ing romances, and their minds pursue them, as the flame.doth the dry stubble; while they have no heart for, nor relish of the _ holy word, and therefore seldom take a Bible in their hands. | What is agrecable to the vanity. of their minds, is pleasant and | taking: but what recommends. holiness.to. their unholy hearts, makes their spirits dull and flat. What pleasure will they find in reading of a profane ballad, or story-book, to whom the Bible i tasteles,, as the white of aw egg! Many lay by their Bibles with cheir Sabbath-day's clothes; and whatever use they have for their clothes, they have none for their Bibles, till the return od the Sabbath. Alas! the dust or finery about your Bibles, is a. witness now, and will, at the last day, be a witness of the enmity of your heartsagainst. Christ, as a Prophet, — OR D | this,
—
ad I. the Will. 1
this, among these who ordinarily read the Scriptures, how few are there that read it as the word of the Lord to their souls, and: keep communion with him in it. They do not make his statutes their counsellors, nor doth their particular case lend them to their Bibles. They are strangers to the solid comfort of the Scriptures. And if at any time they be dejected, it is something else than the word that revives them: as Ahab was cured of his
sullen fit, by the securing of Naboth's vineyard for him.
(2) Christ's word preached is despised. The entertainment mot of the world, to whom it has come, have always piven it, is that which is mentioned, Matth. xxii. 5. They made light
of it.” And for it's sake they are despised whom he has employed-to preach it; whatever other face Men put upon their contempt of the ministry, John xv. 20.“ The servant is not
greater than the Lord: if they have persecuted me, they will
also persecute you: if they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake. That Levi was the fon of the hatcd, seems not to have been without a mystery, which the world in all ages, }.ath unriddled. But tho” the earthen vessel, wherein
_ God has put the treasure, be turned, with many, into “' vessels
wherein there is no pleasure, yet why is the treasure itself
sighted? But slighted it is, and that with a witness this day.
* Lord, who hath believed our report?” To whom shall we speak ? Men can, without remorse, make to themsel cs silen t
Sabbaths, one after another. And, alas! when they come to ordinances, for the most part, it is but to appear (as the word
is, © to be seen, ) before the Lord, and to tread his courts,
namely, asa company of beafts would do, if they were driven -
into them, Ifa. i. 12. So little reverence and awe of God appears on their spirits. Many stand like brazen walls before the word, in whole corrupt conversation the preaching of the word makes no breach. Nay, not a few are growing worse and worle, under precept upon precept; and the relult of all is, © They go and fall backward, and be broken, and suared, and taken, Ifa. xxviii 13. What teais of blood are sufficient to Jament that (the gospel} the grace of God is thus 1eceived in
vain! We are but the voice of one crying; the Speaker is in
heaven; and speaks to you from heaven by Men: why do ve © refuse him that speaketh?*? Heb. xii. 25. God has made our Master heir of all things, and we are fent to court a spouse for
him. There is none {o worthy as he; none more unworthy than they to whom. this match is promised; but the prince of
dark-
—
—
COT
62g | The Corruption of State II.
And therefore, when he came, he was condemned as a seducer
and blasphemer. For evidence of this enmity, I will instancein two things. |
' When he comes to teach souls inwardly by his Spirit. Men de
what they can to stop their ears, like the deaf adder, that they Hay not hear his voice. They always resist the Holy Ghost. They delirg not the knowledge of his ways; and therefore bid him depart from them. The old calumny is often raised upon him, on that occasion, John x. 20. © He is mad, why hear ye him?“ Soul-exercise raised by the spirit of bondage, is accounted by many, nothing else but distraction, and melancholy fits; Men thus blaspheming the Lord's work, because they themselves are beside themselves, and cannot judge of these matters. |
Evip. 2. Consider the entertainment he meets with, when he comes to teach Men outwardly by his word. | 7
(1.) His written word, the. Bible is flighted : Christ bath left it to us, as the book of our instructions, to sno us what way
we mult steer our course, if we would come to Eminanuel's
land. It is a lamp to light us through a dark world to eternal
light. And he hath left it upon us, to search it with that diligence, wherewith Men dig into mines for filver and gold,
John v. 39. But ah! how is this facred treasure profaned by many! "They ridicule the holy word, by which they must be judged at the last day; and*will rather lose. their fouls than their jest, dressing up the conceit of their- wanton- wits in Scripturepbrases;, in which they act as mad a part, as one who would dig
into a mine to procure metal to melt, and pour down his own; and his neighbour's throat. Many exhaust their spirits in reading romances, and their minds pursue them, as the flame doth the dry stubble; while they have no heart for, nor relisn of the
holy word, and therefore seldom take a Bible in their hands. What is agrecable to the vanity. of their minds, is. pleasant and taking: but what recommends. holiness.to. their unholy hearts, makes their spirits dull and flat. What pleasure will they find in reading of a profane ballad, or story-book,'to whom the Bible
_ bs. tasteless, as the. white of an egg! Many lay by their Bibles
with their Sabbath-day's clothes; and whatever use they have for their clothes, they have none for their Bibles, till the return
os the Sabbath. Alas! the dust or finery about your Bibles, is
a. witness now, and will, at the last day, be a witness of the enmity of your hearts against, Christ, as a Prophet, ey” x | | this,
d „ the Will. 63
this, among these who ordinarily read the Scriptures, how few are there that read it as the word of the Lord to their souls, and: keep communion with him in it. They do not make his statutes their counsellors, nor doth their particular case fend them to their Bibles. They are strangers to the solid comfort of the Scriptures. And if at any time they be dejected, it is something else than the word that revives them: as Ahab was cured of his sullen fit, by the securing of Naboth's vineyard for him. (2) Christ's word preached is despised. The entertainment most of the world, to whom it has come, have always given it, is that which is mentioned, Matth. xxii. 5. They made light of it.” And for it's sake they are despised whom he has employed to preach it; whatever other face Men put upon their contempt of the ministry, John xv. 20. The servant is not greater than the Lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake. That Levi was the fon of the hated, seems not to have been without a mystery, which the world in all. ages, bath unriddled. But tho” the earthen vessel, wherein God has put the treasure, be turned, with many, into “ vessels wherein there is no pleasure, yet why is the treasure itself
sighted? But slighted it is, and that with a witness this day.
* Lord, who hath believed our report?” To whom shall we speak ? Men can, without remorse, make to themie'vcs silert
Sabbaths, one after another. And, alas! when they come o ordinances, for the most part, it is but to appear (as the word
is, © to be seen, ) before the Lord, and to tread his conrts, namely, asa company of beafts would do, if they were driven into them, Ifa. i. 12. So little reverence and awe of God appears on their spirits. Many stand like brazen walls before the word, in whole corrupt conversation the preaching of the word
makes no breach. Nay, not a few are growing worse and
worse, under precept upon precept; and the result of all is, They go and fall back ward, and be broken, and suared, and taken, Ifa. xxviii 13. What teais of blood are sufficient to
lament that (the gospel) the grace of God is thus 1eceived in
vain: We are but the voice of one crying; the Speaker is in heaven; and speaks to you from heaven by Men: why do ye
refuse him that speaketh?”? Heb. xii. 25. God has made our
Mister heir of all things, and we are sent to court a spouse for him. There is none fo worthy as he; none more unworthy
than they to whom this match is promised; but the prince of
dark-
64 The Grruption of State 1.
darkness is preferred before the Prince of Peace! A dismal darkness overclouded the world by Adam's fall, more terrible than
if the sun, moon aud stars had been for ever wrapt up in blackness of darkness; and there we should have eternally lain, had
not this grace of the golpel, as a shining sun, appeared to dispel
it, Tit. ii. 11. But yet we fly like night-owls from it; and like
the wild beasts, lay ourselves down in our dens; when the fun
ariseth, we are {truck blind with the light thereof; and, as
creatures of darkness, love darkness rather than light. Such is
the enmity of the hearts of Men apaint Christ, in his prophetical office. i
2. The natural Man is an enemy to Christ in his priestly office. He is appointed of the Father * a Priest for ever: that by his alone sacrifice and intercession, sinners may have peace with, and access to God; but Christ crucified is a stumblingblock, and foolishness to the unrenewed part of mankind, to whom he is preached, 1 Cor. 1. 23. They are not for him, as the © new and living way.“ Nor is he by the voice of the world, “an High Priest over the house of God.“ Corrupt nature goes quite another way to work.
EviDENCE I. None of Adam's children naturally incline to Teccive the bletsing in borrowed robes; but would always according to the spider's motto, © Owe all to themselves: and so climb up to heaven on a thread span out of their own bowels: For they “ desire to be under the law,“ Gal. iv. 24. And © po about to establish their own righteousness,” Rom. x 3. Man, naturally, looks on God as a great Maiter; and himfelf as his servant, that mult work and win heaven as his wages: Hence when conscience is awakened, he thinks that, to the end he may be saved, he must answer the demands of the Law; serve Gop as well as he can; and pray for mercy wherein he comes short: And thus many come to duties, that never come out of them to Jesus Christ: | |
Ey1D. 2. As Men naturally think highly of their duties, that
seem, to them, to be well done; fo they look for acceptance
with Gop according as their work is done; not according to the share they have in the blood of Christ! *© Wherefore have we fasted,” say they, “and thou seest not?“ They'll value _ themselves on their performances, and attainments: yea, their very opinions in religion, (Philip. iii. 4, 5, 6, 7.) taking to themselves, what they rob from Christ the great High-prielt. EviD. 3. The natural Man going to God, in duties, will always be found, either to go without a mediator, or with: more
ad I. the WIE 65
more than the only Mediator Jesus Christ. Nature is blind, and therefore ve:iturous: it sets a Man a-going immediately to God without Christ; to rush into his presence, and put their petitions in his hand, without being introduced by the lecretary of heaven, or putting their requests into his hand. So fixed is this disposition in the unrenewed heart, that when many hearers of the gospel are conversed with upon the point of their hopes of salvation, the name of Christ will scarcely be heard from their mouths. Ask them, how they think to obtain the pardon of fin? they will tell you, they beg and look for mercy, because. Gop is a merciful Gop; and that is all they have to confide in. Others look for mercy for Christ's fake: But how do they know that Christ will take their plea in hand? Why, as the Papists have their mediators with the Mediator, so have they. They know he cannot but do it; for they pray, confess, mourn, and have great desires, and the like; and fo have something of their own to commend them unto him: thy were never made poor in spirit, and brought empty-handed to Christ, to tay the stress of all on his atoning blood. „ N
3. The natural Man is an enemy to Christ in his kingly office. The Father has appointed the Mediator King in Zion, Psal. 1.6. And all to whom the gospel comes, are commanded, on their highest peril, to“ kifs the Son,” and submit themselves unto him, ver. 12. But the natural voice of mankind is, © Away
—
with him:“ as you may see, ver. 2, 3. They will not have
being born a King, Herod foes him, Matth. v. And e
when he was crucified, they set up over his head this accusation written,“ This is JEsus, the King of the Jews,“ Matth. xxvti. 37. Tho' his kingdom be a spiritual kingdom, and not of this world; yet they cannot allow him a kingdom, within a
kingdom, which acknowledgeth no other head or supreme, but
the royal Mediator. They make bold with his royal prerogatives, changing his laws, institutions and ordinances, modelling
his worship according to the devices of their own hearts; introducing new offices and officers into his kingdom, not to be found in the book of the manner of his kingdom; disposing of the external government thereof; as may best suit their carnal designs. Such is the enmity of the hearts of Men against
Zion's King. oe | Ey1D. 2. How unwilling are Men, naturally, to submit unto, aud be hedged in by the Jaws _ discipline of his kingdom! 3 As
66 The Corruption of State
As a King, be is a law-giver, (Isa. xxxii. 22.) and has appointed an external government, discipline and censors, to controul the unruly, and to keep his professed subjects in order, to be exercised by officers of his own appointment, Matth. xviii. 17, 18. x Cor, xii. 28. 1 Tim. v. 17. Heb. xiii. 17. But these are the great eye - sores of the carnal world, who love sinful liberty, and therefore they cry out, Let us break their bands asunder, and caft away their cords from us, Pfal. ii>3. Hence this work is found to be, in a special manner, a striving against the stream of corrupt nature, ,which, for the most part, puts such a face on the church, as if there were no King in Israel, every one doing that which is © right in his own eyes.“ |
Evip. 3. However natural Men may be-brought to feign submission to the King of saints, yet lusts always retain the throne and dominion in their hearts, and they are serving divers lusts and pleasures, Tit. iii. 3. None but these in whom Christ is formed, do really put the crown on his head, and receive the
kingdom of Christ within them. Eis crown is © the crown
wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his efpoulals.”? Who are they, whom the power of grace has not subdued, that
will allow him to set up, and to put down, in their fouls, as he
will? Nay, as for others, any lord shall sooner get the rule over them, than the Lord of glory: they kindly entertain his enemies, and will never absolutely resign themselves to his government, till conquered in a day of power. Thus ye may lee, that the natural Man is an enemy to Jesus Christ in all his offices.
But O! how hard is it to convince Men iii this point! They are very loth to take with it. And in a special mannerz the enmity of the heart against Christ in his priestiy office, seems to be hid from the view of most of the hearers of the gospel. Yet there appears to be a peculiar malignity in corrupt nature against that office of his. It may be observed, that the Socinians, these enenves of our blessed Lord, allow him to be properly a Prophet and a King, but deny him to be properly a Priest. And this is agreeable enough to the corruption of our nature; for under the covenant of works, the Lord was known as a
Prophet or Teacher, and allo as a King or Ruler; but not at
all as a Priest: fo Man knows nothing of the mystery of Christ, as the way to the Father, till it be revealed to him: And. when it is revealed, the will riseth up against it; for corrupt nature lies cross to the mystery of Christ, and the great contrivance of salvation, throngh a crucified Saviour, revealed in the gospel. For clearing of which weighty truth, let thele four things be censidercd. ZR FIRST,
.zead I, the Will. | 67
FIRST, The soul's falling in with the grand device of salvation by Jesus Christ, and letting the matters of {salvation on that footing before the Lord, is declared by the Scriptures of truth, to be an undoubted inark of a real faint, who is happy here, and shall be happy hereatter, Matth. xi. 6. And blessed is he, whosoever thall not be offended in me.“ 1 Cor. xxiii. 24.“ But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a {tumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called, beth Jews and Greeks, Christ, the Power of Gop, and the Wisdom of God.“ Philip. itt. 3.“ For we are the circumcifion which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ | Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Now how could this be, if nature could comply with that grand device.
SECONDLY, Corrupt nature is the very reverse of the gospel contrivance. In the gospel, God promiseth Jesus Christ as the great means of re-uniting Man to himself: he has named him as the Mediator, one © in whom he is well-pleased, and will have none but him, Matth. xvii. 5. But nature “ will have none of him, Pal. Ixxxi. 11. God appointed the place of meeting for the reconciliation, namely, the flesh of Christ; accordingly, © God was in Chrilt,”” (2 Cor. v. 29.) as the tabernacle of meeting, to make up the peace with sinners, but natural Men, though they should die for ever, will not come _ thither, John v. 40. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” In the way of the golpel, the {tnner must stand before the Lord in an imputed righteousness: but corrupt nature is for an inherent rightequsnelss: and therefore, so far as natural Men follow after righteousness, they follow after the law of righteousness, Rom. ix. 31, 32. and not after the Lord our righteousness. Nature is always for building up itself, and to have some grounds for boasting: but the great design of the Gospel, is to exalt grace, to depress nature, and exclude boasting, Rom, iii. 27. The sum of our natural religion is, to do good from and for ourselves, John v. 44. The sam of the gospel religion is, to deny ourselves, and to do good from and for Gi | Z EY
THIRDLY, Every thing in nature is against believing in Jesus Christ. What beauty can the blind Man discern in a crucified Saviour, for which he is to be desired? How can the will, naturally impotent, yea, and averse to good, make choice of him? Well may the soul then say to him in the day of the spiritual siege, as the Jebulites said to David in another case, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not
68 The Corruption of State I.
come in hither, 2 Sam. v. 6. The way of nature is to go into one's self for all; accortling to the fundamental maxim of unsanctiffed morality, © That a Man should trust in himself:“ which according to the doctrine of fatth, is mere foolishness; for so it is determined, Prov. xviii. 26. He that truiteth in his own heart is a fool.” Now faith is the soul's going out of itself for all: and this nature, on the other hand, determines to be foolishnels, 1 Cor. i 18, 23. Wherefore there is need of the working of mighty power, to cause finners to believe, Eph. i. 19. Isa. liii. 1. We see promises of welcome to sinners, in the gospel-covenant, are ample, large, and free, clogg'd. with no conditions, Isa. lv. 1. Rev. xxii. 17. If they cannot believe his bare word, he has given them his.oath upon it, Ezek. xxxiti. 11. And for their greater assurance, he has appended seals to his sworn covenant, namely, the holy sacraments. So that no more could be demanded of the most faithless person in the world, to make us believe him, than the Lord hath condescended to give us, to make us believe himlelf. This plainly speaks nature to be against believing, and these who flee to Christ for
refuge, to have need of strong consolation, (Heb. vi. 18.) to
blame their strong doubts, and propensity to unbelief. Farther
also, it may be observed, how, in the word sent to a secure, -
graceless generation, their objections are answered aforehand ;
and words of grace are heaped one upon another, as ye may read, Ifa. lv. 7. 8, 9. Joel ü. 13. Why? Because the Lord
knows, that when these secure sinners are throughly awakened, doubts, fears, and carnal reasonings against betieving, will be gong within their breasts, as thick as dust in a house, raised by fweeping a dry floor. | |
__ LasrLy, Corrupt. nature is bent towards the way of the Law, or Covenant of Works; and every natural Man, fo far as he sets himself to seek after salvation, is engaged in that way:
and will not quit it, till beat from it by divine power. Now
the way of salvation by works, and that of free grace in Jesus
Christ, are incensistent, Rom. xi. 6. And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more Work. Gal. ii. 13. © And the law is not of FAITH;
but the Man that DOTH them, shall live in them.“ Wherefore, if the will of Man naturally incline to the way of salvation by the Law; it lies cross to the gospel-contrivance. And that such is the natural bent of our hearts, will appear, if these following things. be considered.
OOO oo TIT;
1. The
dead I. the Will. 69
1. The law was Adam's covenant, and he knew no other,
as he was the head and representative of all mankind, that were
brought into it with him, and left under it by him, tho without |
strength to perform the condition thereof. Hence, this covenant is ingrained in our nature: and tho' we have lost our
father's {trength, yet westill incline to the way he was ser upon
25 our head and representative in that covenant; that is, by
doing to live. This is our natural religion, and the pyinciple
which Men naturally take for granted, Matth. xis. 16.“ What
good things shall I DO, that 1 may have eternal lite?*?
2. Contider the opposition that has alu ys been made in the
world against the doctrine of free grace in Jesus Christ, by Men
setting up-for the way of works; thereby discovering the natural tendency of the heart. It is manifest, that the great design of the gospel contrivance is to exalt the free grace of God
in Jesus Christ, Rom. iv. 16.“ Therefore it is of faith, that it
might be by grace.” See Eph. i. 6. and chap. ii. 7, 9. Al
golpel truths center in Christ : so that to learn the truth, is to
learn Christ, Eph. iv. 20. And to be truly taught, is to be taught
as the truth is in Jesus, ver. 21. All dispensations of grace and
favour from heaven, whether to nations or particular persons,
bave {till had something about them proclaiming a freedom of
grace; as in the very first separation made by the diving favour, Cain, the elder brother, is rejected; and Abel, the younger, accepted. This shines through the whole history of the Bible: but as true as it is, this has been the point principally opposed
by corrupt nature. One may well say, that of all errors in
religion, since Christ, the Seed of the Woman, was preached,
this of works, in opposition to free grace in him, was the. first
that lived; and it is likely to be the last that dies. There have been vast numbers of errors, which {prung up one after another, whereof, at length the world became ashamed and weary, so that they died ut: But this has continued from Cain, the first author of this heresy, unto this day; and never wanted some that clavs to it, even in the times of greatcit liglit. I do not without ground, call Cain tte author of it: When Abel brought the lacrifice of atonement, a bloody offering, of the firlings of his flock, (like the Publican, smiting on his breatt, and say ing, God be inerciful to me a finner:”*) Cain advanced with his thank-offering, of the sirst-fruit of the ground, (Gen. iv. 3, 4.) like the proud Phariiee, with his © God, I thank thee.” For, what was the cause of Cain's wrath, and of his murdering Abel? Was it not that he was accepted of God for his work? Gen.
8 The Corruption of State II.
iv. 4, 5. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own work; were evil, and his brother's righteous, (1 John ii. 22.) that is, done in faith, and accepted, when his were done without faith, and therefore rejected, as the Apostle teacheth, Heb. xi. 4. And so he wrote his indignation against justification and acceptance with God through faith, in opposition to works, in the blood of his brother, to convey it down to posterity. And since that time, the unbloody sacrifice has often swimmed in the blood of those that rejected it. The promise made to Abraham, of the Seed in which all nations should be blessed, was fo overclouded among his p- isterity in Egypt, that the generality of them saw no need of that way of obtaining the blessing, till _ God himself canfuted their error, by a fiery law from mount Sinai, which“ was added because of transgressions, till the Seed mould come, Gal, ii. 19. I need not insist to tell you, how Moses and the prophets had stil much ado, to lead the people off the conceit of their own righteousness. The ix. chapter of Deuteronomy is entirely fpent on that purpose. They were very gross in that paint in our Saviour's time; in the time of the Apostles, when-the doctrine of free-grace was most clearly preached, that error Jifted up it's head in face of clearest light; witneis the Epistle to the Romans and Galatians. And fince that time, it has not been wanting; Popery being the common fink of former heresies, and this the heart and'life ef that delusion. And finally, it may be observed, that always as the church declined from her purity otherwise, the doctrine of free grace was obscured proportionably. _ TY
3. Such is the natural propensity of Man's heart to the way of the law, in opposition to Christ ; that, as the tainted vessel turns the taste of the purest liquor put into it, so the natural Man turns the very gospel into law; and transforms the covenant of grace into a covenant of works. The ceremowal law was to the Jews a real gospel ; which held blood, death, and translation of guilt before their eyes continually, as the only way of falvation : yet their very table, (i. e. their altar, with the several ordinances pertaining thereto, Mal. i. 12.) was © a snare unto them, Rom. ii. 9. while they used it to make up the defects in their obedience to the moral law, and cleave to it fo, as to reject him, whom: the altar and sacrifices pointed them to, as the substance of all: even as Hagar, whose it was only to serve, was by their father brought into her mistress's bed; not without a mystery in. the purpose of God, “ For these are the two Covcuants,” Gal. iv. 24. Thus is the doctrine of the gospel
cor-
Head I. the Bak. 7t
corrupted by Papists, ang other enemies to the doctrine of free grace. And indeed, however natural Men's heads may be set right in this point; as surely as they are out of Christ, their faith, repentance and obedience, (such as they are) are placed by them in the room of Christ and his rigbteouiness; and so rusted to, as if by these they fulfilled & new law.
4. Great is the difficulty in Adam's sons their parting with the law, as a covenant of works. None part with it in that respect, but these whom the power of the Spirit of grace separates from it. The law is our first husband, and gets every
4 one's virgin- love. When Christ comes to the foul, he finds it married to the law; to as it neither can, nor will be married to another, till it be obliged to part with the sirst husband, as the apostle teacheth, Rom. vii. 1, 2, 3, 4. Now that ye may
see, what fort of a parting this is, consider,
£
(.) Ttis a death, Rom. vii. 4. Gal. ii. 19. Intreaties will
not prevail with the soul here; it faith to the first husband, as
Ruth to Naomi, The Lord do so to me, and more allo, if
ought but death part thee and me.“ And here sinners are true
to their word; they die to the law, ere they be married ts | Christ. Death is hard to every body: but what difficulty do
ye imagine must a loving wife, on her death-bed, find in partin
with her husband, the husband of her youth, and with the dear
children she has brought forth to him: the law is that husband; all the duties performed by the natural Man, are these children. What a struggle, as for life, will be in the heart ere they be got
7 parted ?I may have occasion to touch upon this afterwards. In
the mean time, take the Apostle's short, but pithy description of it, Rom. x. 3. For they being ignorant of God's righte-
$ ousness, and poing about to establish their own righteoutness, J rave not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.“ They go about to establish their own righteousness, like an
eager disputant in schools, seeking to establish the point in
4} question ; of like a tormentor, extorting a confession from one upon the rack. They go about to establish it, to make it stand: their righteousness is like a house built upon the sand; it cannot 7 stand, but they will have it to stand : it falls, they set it up
again: but still it tumbles down on them; yet they cease not
to go about to make it stand. But wherefore all this pains about a tottering righteousness? Because, sach as it is, it is their. own. What ails them at Christ's righteousness? Why, that would make them free-grace's debtors for all; and that is
what the proud heart by no. means can submit to. Here lies
the
72 The Corruption of State IT.
the stress of the matter, Pfal. x. 4. © The wicked thro tgubhe pride of his countenance, will not seek.” (to read it 'wttihou the supplement: ). that is, in other terms, © He cannot dig, and to beg he is ashamed.” Such is the struggle ere the soul die to the law. But what speaks yet more of this woful disposition of the heart, nature oft-times gets the mastery of the disease, infomuch that the soul, which was like to have died to the law, while convictions were sharp and piercing, fatally recovers of the happy and promising sickness; and (what is very natural) cleaves more closely chan ever to the law, even as a wife brought back from the gates of death would cleave to her husband. This is the issue of the exercise of many about their souls cafe: they are indeed brought to follow duties more closely'; but they are as far from Christ as ever, if not farther. |
2.) It is a violent death, Rom. vii. 4. © Ye are become dead to the law: being killed, slain, or put to death, as the word bears. The law itlelf has a great hand in this; the husband gives the wound, Gal. ii. 19.“ I, through the law, am dead to the law.“
can to please him, yet he is never pleased; but tosseth, harasseth, and beats her, till she break her heart, and death sets her free; as will afterwards more fully appear. Thus it is made evident,
that Men's hearts are naturally bent to the way of the law, =
and ly cross to the gospel- contrivance: and the second article
of the charge, against you that are unregenerate, is verified,
namely, that ye are enemies to the Son of God. 3dly, Ye are enemies to the Spirit of God.
therefore. resists the Holy Ghost,” Acts vii. 51. of the Spirit is to convince the world of“ fin, righteousness, and
judgment,” John xvi. 8. But O how do Men strive to ward
off these convictions, as ever they would ward off a blow,
threatning their loss of a right-eye, or a right hand! If the ©
Spirit of the Lord dart them in, fo as they cannot evite them, the heart says, in effect, as Ahab to Elijah, whom he both hated and feared, © Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?“ And indeed they treat him as an enemy, doing their utmost to stifle
He is the Spirit | of holiness; the natural Man is unholy, and loves to be fo, and The work _
counvictions, and to murder these harbingers, that come to prepare the Lord's way into the soul.
Some fill their hands with |. business, to put my convictions out of their heads, as Cain, who fell a building of a city: Some put them off with delays
| The soul that dies this death, is like a lov- | ing wife matched with a rigorous husband * she does what she
and fair promises, as Felix did: Some will sport them away in | con-
*
Head I. the Will. 73 company, and some sleep them away. The holy Spirit is the spirit of sanctification; whose work. it is to subdue Justs, and burn up corruption: how then can the natural Man, whose lusts are to him as his limbs, yea, as his life, fail of being an enemy to him. | 1 |
LasTLY, Ye are enemies to the law of God. Tho" the natural Man desires to be under the law, as a covenant of works, chusing that way of salvation in oppolition to the mystery of Christ: yet as it is a rule of life, requiring universal holiness, and discharging all manner of impurity, he is an enemy to it: Is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, Rom. viii. 7. For, (1.) There is no unrenewed Man, who is not wedded to some one lust or other, which his heart can by no means part with. Now, that he cannot bring up his inclinations to the holy law, be would fain have the law brought down to his inclinations: a plain evidence of the enmity of the
| heart against it, And therefore, “ to delight in the law of God,
after the inward man, is proposed in the word, as a mark of a gracious foul, Rom. vii. 22. Plal. i. 2. It is from this natural enmity of the heart against the law, that all the Pharisaical glosses upon it have arisen; whereby. the commandment, which is in itself exceeding broad, has been made very narrow, to the intent it might be the more agreeable to the natural disposition of the heart. (2.) The law laid home to the natural conscience, in its spirituality, irritates corruption. The nearer it comes, nature riseth the more against it. In that case, it is as oil to the fire, which instead of quenching it, makes it flame the more: When the commandment came, fn revived,” says the Apostle, Rom. vii. 9. What reason can be assigned for this, but the natural enmity of the heart against the holy law? Unmortified corruption, the more it is opposed, the more it rageth. Let us conclude then, that the unregenerate are heartenemies to God, his Son, his Spirit, and his law; that there is a natural contrariety, opposition, and enmity in the will'of man, to God himself, and his holy will. 3 ? FiFTHLY, There is in the will of man, contumacy apainst
the Lord. Man's will is naturally wilful in an evfl course. He
will have his will, though it should ruin him: it is with him, as with the leviathan, (Job xli. 29.) © Darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear The Lord calls to him by his word, says to him, (as Paul to the jaylor, when
he was about to kill himself,) ( Do thyself no harm.” Sinners,
„Why will ye die?” Ezck. xvii. 31, But they will not G heark-
*4 The Corruption of State IT, hearken, © Every one turneth to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle, Jer. vii. 6. We have a promise of life, in form of a command, Prov. iv. 4. © Keep my commandments, and live.“ It speaks impenitent sinners to be self-destroyers, wilful self- murderers. They transgress the command of living; a5 if one's servant should wilfully starve himself to death, or greedily drink up a cup of poison, which his master commands him to forbear : even so do they: they will not live, they will die, Prov. viii. 36. All they that hate me, love death.” O what a heart is this! It is a stony heart, (Ezek. xxxvi. 26.) hard and inflexible, as a stone: mercies melt it not, judgments break it not; yet it will break ere it bow. It is an insensible heart ; tho' there be upon the sinner a weicht of sin, which makes the earth to stagger; although there is a weight of wrath on him, which makes the devils to tremble; yet he goes lightly under the burden; he feels not the weight more than a —_ till the Spirit of the Lord quicken him, fo far as to feel it. 8 | | LASTLY, The unrenewed will js wholly. perverse in reference to man's chief and highest end. The natural man's.chief end is not his God, but his felf. Man is a mere relative, dependent, borrowed being: he has no being nor goodness originally from bimself; but all he hath is from God, as the first cause and spring of all perfection, natural or moral: dependence is woven into his very nature; so that if God should totally withdraw from him, he would dwind} into 2 mere nothing. Sceing then Whatever man is, he is of him; surely in whatever he is, he should be to bim; as the waters which come from the sea, do of course, return thither again. And thus man was created; directly looking to God, as his chief end: but falling into sin, he fell off from God, and turned into bimseff; and like a traitor usurping the throne, he gathers in the rents of the crown to bimleif : Now, this infers a total apostasy, and universal corruption in man; for where the chief and last end is changed, there can be no goodness there. This is the case of all men in their natural state, Psa]. xiv. 2, 3. © The Lord looked down. to see if there were any that did—seek God. They are all gone aside,” to wit, from God; “ they seek not God,” but .themselves. And tho' many fair ihreds of morality are to be found amongst them, yet there is none that doth good, no not one:“ For tho' some of them run well, they are still off the way; they never aim at the right mark. They are lovers of their own selyes, (2 Tim. it. 2.) more than ot ON: A. | here-
Free
Head J. the Will. 74
Wherefore Jesus Christ, having come into the world, to bring
men back to God again, came to bring them out of themselves,
in the first place, Matth. xvi. 25. The godly groan under the remains of this woful disposition of the heart: they acknowledge
it, and set themselves against it, in it's subtile and dangerous insinuations. The unregenerate, tho' most insensible of it, are under the power thereof; and whithersoever they turn themselves, they cannot move, without the circle of self: they seekthemlelves, they act for themselves; their natural, civil, and religious actions, from whatever spring they come, do all run into, and meet in, the dead fea of self. | 2 Most men are so far from making God their chief end, in their natural and civil actions, that in these matters, God is not in all their thoughts. Their eating and drinking, and such like natural actions, are for themselves; their own pleasure or necelsity, without any higher end, Zech. vii. 6. Did ye not eat
for yourselves??? They have no eye to the glory of God in these
things, as they ought to have, 1 Cor. x. 31. They do not eat and drink, to keep up their bodies for the Lord's service; they do them not, because God has said, © "Thou shalt not kill:“ neither do these drops of {weetness God has put into the creature, raise up their fouls towards that ocean of delight that is in the Creator, tho' they are indeed a sign hung out at heaven's door, to tell men of the fulness of geodness that's in God bimself, Acts xiv. 16. But it is self, and not God, that is sought in them by natural men. And what are the unrenewed Man's civil actions, such as buying, selling, working, &c. but“ fruit ta himselt?”* Hof. x. I. So marrying, and gwing in marriage, are
reckoned amongst the sins of the old world, (Rlatth. x xiv. 38 TH
for they had no eye to God tlie rein, to please him; but all they had in view, was to please themselves, Gen. vi. 3. Finally, Self is natural men's highest end, in their religious actions
They perform duties for a name, Matth. vi. 1, 2. or some otne;
worldly interest, John vi. 26. Or, it they be more refined, it is their peace, and at most their salvation from hell aud wrath or their own eternal happiness, that is their chief and highest end, Matth. xix. 16.—22. Their eyes are held, that they fee not the glory of God. They seek God indeed, but not for himself, but for themselves. They seek him not at all, but for
their own welfare: so their whole life is woven into one Web of practical blasphemy; making God the means, and self their end, yea, their chief end. 8 Ard
—
| heaven lies under, and earth a-top. affections be set on lawful objects, then they are either excessive
-
76 The Corruption of the Affections. State II,
And thus have I given you some rude draughts of man's will, in his natural state, drawn by scripture and men's own experience. Call it no more Naomi, but Marah: for bitter it is, and 2 root of bitterness, Cal it no more free-will, but slavish lust; free to evil, but free from good, till regenerating grace loose the bands of wickedneis. Now, fince ail must be wrong, and nothing can be right, where the understanding and will are fo
corrupt, I fall briefly dispatch what reinaius, as following of course, on the corruption of those prime faculties of the o-.
The Corruption of the Affections, the Conscience, and the Memory. The Body partaker of this Corruption.
III. The Affections are corrupted. The unrenewed man's affections are wholly disordered and distempered: they are as the unruly horse, that either will not receive, or violently runs away with his rider: So man's heart naturally is a mother of
abominations, Mark vii. 21, 22. For from within, out of the
heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, &c.* The natural man's affections are wretchedly misplaced; he is a spiritual monster: His heart is, where his tcet should be, fixed on the earth; his heels
are lifted up against heaven, which his heart should be set on,
Acts ix. 5. His face is toward's hell, his back towards heaven; and therefore God calls him to turn. He loves what he should hate, and hates what he should love: joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he should rejoice in: glorieth in his sh1me, and is ashamed of his glory; abhors what he should desire, and desires what he should abhor, Prov. ii. 13, 14, 15. They hit the point indecd (as Caiaphus did in another case) who
cried out on the apostles as men that“ turned the world upside
down,” Acts xvii. 6. for that is the work the gospel has to do in the world, where fin has put all things fo out of order, that If the unrenewed man's
or defective. Lawful enjoyments of the world have sometimes too little, but mostly too much of them: either they get not their due; or, if they do, it is measure pressed down, aud running over. Spiritual things have always too little of them. In a word, they are always in, or over; never right, only evil. Now here is a three-fold cord against heaven and holinels,
not easily broken: a blind mind, a perverse will, and disorderly
distempered affections. The mind swelled with {elf-conceit, | lay
Head I, The Corruption of the Conscience, 77
says, the man should not stoop: the will opposite to the will of God, says, he will not: and the corrupt attections rising against the Lord, in defence of the corrupt will, say, he shall not. Thus the poor creature stands out againit Gd and goodnels, till a day of power come, in which he is made a new creature. IV. The conscience is corrupt and defiled, Tit. i. 15. It is an evil eye, that fills one's conversation with much darkness and confusion; being naturally unable to do its office; till the Lord by letting in a new light to the foul, awaken the conicience it remains sleepy and unactive. Conscience can never do its work, but according to the light it hath to work by. Wherefore, seeing the natural man cannot spiritually discern spiritual things, (1 Cor. ii. 14.) the conscience naturally is quite uselesa in that point; being cast into such a deep sleep, that nothing but a saving illumination from the Lord, can set it on work in that matter. The light of the natural conscience in good and evil, fin and duty, is very defective: therefore tho' it may check for grosser fins; yet as to the more subtile workings of fin, it cannot check for them, because it discerns them not. Thus conscience will fly in the face of many, if at any time they be drunk, (wear, neglect prayer, or be guilty of any gross sin; who otherwise have a profound peace; tho' they live in the fin of unbelief, are strangers to spiritual worship, and the life of faith. And natural light being but faint and languishing in many things Which it doth reach, conscience in that case shoots like à stitch in one's fide, which quickly goes off; its incitements to duty, and checks for and struggles against fin, are very remiss, which the natural man easily gets over. But becaule there is a false light in the dark mind, the natural conscience following the fame will call evil good, and good evil,” Isa. v. 20. And fo it is often found like a blind and furious horse, which doth violently run down, himself, his rider, and all that doth come in his way, John xvi.2. . © Whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth God service.” .
Wien the natural conscience is awakened by the Spirit of conviction, it will indeed rage and roar, and put the whole man in a dreadful consternation, awfully summon all the powers of the foul to help in a strait; make the stiff heart to tremble, and the
knees to bow; set the eyes a-weeping, the tongue a- confessing; and oblige the man to cast out the goods into the fea, which it
apprehends are like to fink the ship of the soul, tho' the heart
{till goes after them. But yet it is an evil conscience, which
natively leads to despair, and will do it effectually, as in Judas's case ; unless either lusts prevail over it, to lull it aslcep, as in the | G 3 case
—
—
RES” - x
78 De Corruption of State II.
case of Felix, Acts xxiv. 25. or the blood of Christ prevail over it, sprinkling and purging it from dead works, as in case of all true converts, Heb. ix. 14. and x. 23. LasTLy, Even the memory bears evident marks of this corruption. What is good and worthy to be minded, as it makes but slender impreflion, fo that impression easily wears off; the memory, as a leaking vellel, lets it flip, Heb. ii. 1. As a sieve that is full, when in the water, lets all go when it is taken out; so is the memory, with respe& to spiritual things. But how does it retain what ought to be forgotten? Naughty things fo bear in themselves upon it, that though men would fam have them out of mind, yet they ftick there like glue. However forgetful men be in other things, it is hard to forget an injury. So the memory often furnishes new fuel to old lusts; makes men in old age to re- act the sins of their youth, while it presents them again to the mind with delight, which thereupon licks up the former vomit. And thus it is like the riddle, that lets chrough the pure grain, and keeps the refuse. Thus far of the corruption of the soul.
The body itself also is partaker of this corruption and defilement, so far as it is capable thereof. Wherefore the Scripture calls it sinful flesh, Rom. viii. 3. We may take this up in two things. (I.) The natural temper, or rather distemper of the bodies of Adam's children, as it is an effect of original un; fo it hath a native tendency to fin, incites to fin, leads the foul into suares, yea, is it{cIf a snare to the soul, The body is a furious -heaft, of such metal, that if it be not beat down, © kept under, and brought into subjection,“ it will cast the foul into much fin and misery, 1 Cor. ix. 27. There's a vileness in the body, (Philip. i. 21.) which as to the saints, will never be removed, until it be melted down in a grave, and east into a new mould, at the resurrection, to come forth a spiritual body: and will never be carried off from the bodies of those who are not partakers of the resur rection to life. (2.) It serves the soul in many fins. Its members are instruments, or weapons of unrighteoufness, whereby men fight agaiilt God, Rom. vi. 13. The eyes and ears are open doors, by which impure motions, and sinful desires enter the foul: © the tongue is a world of iniquity,”
James iti. 5. © an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, ver. 8.
By it the impure heart vents a great deal of its filthiness. © The throat is an open sepulchre, Rom. jj. 12. The feet run the devil's errands, ver. 15. The belly is made a god, Philip. Ui, 19. Not gy by drunkard, and riotous livers, but by every
=
Head 1. the Memery and Body. 79 natural man, Zech. vii. 6. So the body naturally is an agent for the devil; and a magazine of armour against the Lond,
To conclude, man by nature is whole corrupted: “ From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in
him.” And, as in a dunghill, every part contributes to the
corruption of the whole; fo the natural man, while in that itate,
rows still worse and worse. The foul is made worse by the body, and the body by the foul: and every faculty of the foul serves to corrupt another more and more. Thus much for the
second general head.
How Man's Nature was Corrupted.
THIRDLY, | shall shew how man's nature comes to be thus corrupted. The heathens perceived that man's nature was corrupted: but how sin had entered, they could not tell. But
the Scripture is very plain in that point, Rom. v. 12. By ene
man fin entered into the world.” , Ver. 19. © By one man's disobedience, many were made finners.” Adam's lin corrupted man's nature, and leavened the whole lump of mankind... We
putrisied in Adam, as our root. The root was poisoned, and fo the branches were envenomed: the vine turned the vine of Sodom, and so the grapes became grapes of gall. Adam, by his fin, became not only guilty, but corrupt; and fo transmits
guilt and corruption to his posterity, Gen. v. 3. Job xiv. 4. By his sin he stript himself of his original riphteousness, and corrupted himself:; we were in him reprelentatively, being represented by hin, as our moral head, in the covenant of works;
we were in him seminally, as our natural head: hence we fell
in him, and by his dilobedience, were made sinners, as Levi, in the loins of Abrabam paid tithes, Heb. vii. 9, 10. His first fin is imputed to us;. therefore justly are we left under the want
of his original righteousness, which, being given to him as a
common person, he cast off, by his fin; and this is necessarily followed, in him and us, by the corruption of the whole nature; righteousness and corruption being two contraries, one of which
must needs always be in man, as a subje& capable thereof.
for “ who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?”? Although it is sufficient to evince the riphteousness of this
And Adam our common father being corrupt, we are so too;
dispensation, that it was from the Lord, who doth all things well; yet to silence the murmurinps of proud nature, let these few things further be considered, (1.) In the covenant wherein
*
.
80 How Man's Nature State II. in Adam reprefented us, eternal happiness, was promised to him and his posterity upon coiidition of his, that is, Adam's perfect obedience, as the representative for all mankind : whereas, if
there had been no covenant, they could not have pleaded eternal life, upon their molt perfect obedience, but might have been, after all, reduced to nothing, notwithstanding, by natural justice they would have been liable to God's eterual wrath, in case of sin. Who in that case would not have consented to that representation? (2.) Adam had a power to ftand given him, being made upright. He was as capable to stand for himself, and all his posterity, as any after him could be for themselves. This trial of mankind, in their head, would soan have been over, and the crown won to them all, had he stood; whereas, had his posterity been independent on him, and every one left to act for himself, the trial would have been continually a-carrying on, as men came into the world. (3.) He had natural affections the strongest to engage him, being our common father. (4.) His own stock was in the ship, his all lay at stake as well as ours.
Fe had no separate interest from ours; but if he forgot ours, he behoved to have forgot his own. (5.) If he had stood, we should have had the light of his mind, the righteousness of his will, and holiness of his affections, with entire purity transmitted
unto us; we could not have fallen; the crown of glory, by his obedience, would have been for ever secured to him and his.
This is evident from the nature of a federal representation ; and
no reason can be piven why, seeing we are lost by Adam's sin, we should not have been saved by his obedience. On the other hand, it is reasonable, that he falling, we should with him bear the loss. Lastly, Such as quarrel this dispensation, must renounee their part in Christ, for we are no etherwise made finners by Adam, than we are made righteous by Chrift; from whom we have both imputed and inherent righteousness. We no more made choice of the second Adam for our head and representative in the second covenant; than we did of the first Adam in
the first covenant. . Let none wonder that such an horrible change would be
brought on by one fin of our first parents; for thereby they turned away from God as their chief end, which necessarily mfers an universal depra vation. Their fin was a complication of
evils: a total apostasy from God; a violation of the whole law. By it they broke all the ten commands at once. ( 1. They chose new gods. They made their belly their god, by their
sensuality: self their god, by their ambiion; yea, and the
devil
to, at our entrance, nor of the continuance of them, while we
devil their god; believing him, and disbelieving their Maker,
(2:) Tho' they received, yet they observed not that ordinance
of God, about the forbidden fruit. They contemned that ordinance so.plainly enjoined them, and would needs carve out to
themselves, how to serve the Lord. (3.) They took the name of the Lord their God in vai: deipiting his attributes, bis justice, truth, power, &c. They grosly profaned that facramental tree; abuseil his word, by not giving credit to it; abused that creature of his, which they should not have touched; and
viglently misconstrued his providence; as if God, by forbidding -
them that tree, had been standing in the way of their happiness; and therefore he suffered them not to escape his righteous judgment. (4.) They remembered not the Sabbath to keep it holy, but put themselves out of a condition te serve God aright on his own day. Neither kept they that state of holy rest, wherein God had put them. ( 5.) They cast off their relative duties: Eve forgets herself, and acts without advice of her hufband, te the ruin of both: Adam, instead of admonishing her to repent, . to the temptation, and consirms her * wickedness.
hey forgot all duty to their posterity. They honoured wot their Father in heaven; and therefore their days were not long in the land which the Lord their God gave them. (6.) Ther ruined themfelves, and all their posterity. (7-) Gave up themselves to luxury and sensuality. (8.) Took away what was not their own, against the express will of che great Owner. (9.) They bore false witness, and lied against the Lord, before angels, devils, and one another; in effect giving out that t ey were hardly dealt by, and that heaven grudged their happiness. (10.) They were discontent uh their fot, and coveted an
evil covetousnels to their house ; which ruined both them and
theirs, Thus was the image of God on man defaced all at once. The Doctrine of the Corruption of Nature applied. Usz I. For information. Is man's nature wholly corrupted? Then, |
I. No wonder the grave open its devouring mouth for ns, as
toon as the womb hath cast us forth; and that the cradle be
turned into a cofin, to receive the corrupt lump: for we are all, in a spiritual sense, dead-born; yea, and filthy, (Psal. xiv. 2.) noisome, rank, and ftinking as as a corrupt thing, as the word imports. Let us not complain of the miseries we are exposed
82 The Doctrine of the State II.
are in the world. Here is the venom that has poisoned all the springs of earthly enjoyments we have to drink of. It is the
human life in churches, states, families: in men's souls and bodies.
1. Bchold here, as in à glass, the spring of all the wickedness, profanity, and formality in the world; the source of all the disoi ders in thy own heart and life. Every thing acts like itself agreeable to its own nature; and fo corrupt man acts cor ruptly. You need not wonder at the sinfulness of your own heart and life, nor at the sinfulness and perverseness of others: if a man be crooked, he cannot but halt; and if the clock be set wrong, how can it point the hour right.
3. See here, why {in is so pleasant, and religion such a burden to carnal spirits : fin is natural, holiness not fo. Oxen cannot
feed in the sea, nor fishes in the fruitful fields. A swine brought into a palace, would get away again, to wallow in the mire.
4. Learn from this, the nature and necessity of regeneration. First, This discovers the nature of regeneration in these two things, (I.) It is not a partial, but a total change, tho' ime in this life. Thy whole nature is corrupted, and thereore the cure must go thro' every part. Regeneration makes not only a new head for knowledge, but a new heart, and new affections for holiness. © All things become new,” 2 Cor. v. 17. If one have received many wounds, shoutd be cured of them all, save one only, he might bleed to death by that one, as well as
A corrupt nature tends even to impurity.
_ a thousand. So if the change go not through the whole man,
it is naupkt. (2.) It is not a change made by human industry, but by the mighty power of the Spirit of God. A man must be * born of the Spirit,“ John iii. 5. Accidental diseases may be cured by men, but these which are natural, not without a miracla, John ix. 32. The change brought upon men by good education, or forced upon them by a natural censcience, tho? it may pass among men for a saving change, it is not fo; for our nature is corrupt, and none but the God of nature can ehange it. "Tho? a gardiner, ingrafting a pear branch into an apple- tree, may make the apple-tree bear pears; yet the.art of man cannot
change the nature of the apple-tree: so one may pin a new life
to his old heart, but he can never change the heart. Secondly, This also shew+ the necessity of regeneration. It is absolutely necessary in arder to AlVation, John iii. 3. Except a man be born again, he cannot fee the kingdom of God.” No unclean thing can enter the New Jerusalem: but thou art — un-
; clean,
corruption of man's nature, that brings forth all the miseries of
Head J. Corruption of Nature applied. 283
clean, while in thy natural state. If every member of thy body were disjointed, each joint behoved to be looked, ere the members could be set aright again. This is the case of thy soul, as thov hast ncard: and therefore theu must be born again; else thou shalt never see heaven, unless it be far off, as the rich man in hell did. Deceive not thyself: no mercy of God, no blood of Christ will bring thee to heaven, in thy unregenerate state: for God will never open a fountain of msrcy, to wash away his own holinels and truth: nor did Christ shed*his precious blood, to blot out the truths of God, or to overturn God's measures about the falvation of sinners. Heaven! What would ye do there, that are not born again? Ye that are no ways fitting for Christ the head. That would be a strange fight, a holy head,
and members wholly corrupt! a head full of treasures of grace,
members wherein are nothing but treasures of wickedness! a bead obedient to death, and heels kicking against heaven! Ye are no ways adapted to the society above, more than beasts for converse with men. Thou art a hater of true holinels: and at the fr{t fight of a faint there, would cry out, © Hast thou found me, O mine enemy!“ Nay, the unrenewed man, if it were po- {ble, he could go to heaven in that state, he would no otherwile go to it, than now he comes to the duties of holiness, that 18, leaving his heart behind him. |
UsE II. For lamentation. Well may we lament thy case, O natural man, for it is the saddest case one can be in out of hell. It is time to lament for thee; for thou art dead already, dead while thou livest; thou carriest about with thee a dead foul in a living body: and because thou art dead thou canst not lament thy own cate. Thou art loathsome in the sight of God;
for thou ee org corrupt. Thou hast no good in thee; thy soul is a mass of darkness, rebellion, and vileness before the
Lord. Thou thinkest, perhaps, that thou hast a good heart to God, good inclinations, and good defires: but God knows there 3s nothing good in thee, but every imagination of thine heart is only evil. Thou canst do no good; tho canst do nothing but fin. For, |
First, Thou art “ the servant of sin, Rom. vi. 17. and therefore © free from righteousness,” ver. 20. Whatever righteousness be, (poor soul) thou art free of it; thou dost not, thou canst not meddle with it. Thou art under the dominion
of fin, a dominion where righteousness can have no place. Thou
art a child and servant of the devil, tho? thou be neither wizzard nor witch: seeing thou art yet in the state of nature, John viii. 44. e
84 The Doctrine of ikke State II.
Ve are of your father the devil.” And to prevent any mistake, consider, that sin and Satan have two sorts of servants, (I.) There are some employed, as it were, in coarser work: thale bear the devil's mark in their fore-heads, having no form of godliness; but are profane, grosly ignorant, mere moralists,
not so much as performing the external duties of religion, bur
living to the view of the world, as sons of earth, only minding
earthly things,” Plilip. iii. 7 (2.) There are some emser
ployed in a more refined fort of service to fin, who carry the devil's mark in their right hand ; which they can, and do hide
from the view of the world. These are clois hypocrites, who
facrifice as much to the corrupt mind, as the other to the flesh, Eph. ii. 3. These are ruined by a more undiscernable trade of sin: pride, unbelief, self-secking, and the like swarm in, and prey upon their corrupted, wholly corrupted souls. Both are servants of the fame houtic; the latter as far as the former from rigbteousness.
SECONDLY, How is it possible thou shouldst be able to as any good, thou whose nature is wholly corrupt? Can fruit
grow where there is no root? Or can there be an effect without a cause? „ Can the fig-tree bear olive berries? Either a vine figs?“ If thy nature be wholly corrupt, as indeed it is, all thou dost is certainly so too; for no effect can exceed the virtue of its cause. “ Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit?“ Matth. vii. 18. |
Ah! What a miserable spectacle is he that can do nothing but fin? Thou art the man, whosoever thou art, that art yet in thy natural state. Hear, O sinner, what is thy cale.
First, Innumerable sins compass thee about. Mountains of guilt are lying upon thee: Floods of impurities overwhelm thee: Living lusts of all forts roll up and down in the dead fea of thy soul; where no good can breathe, because of the corruption there. Thy lips are unclean: the opening of thy mouth is as the opening of an unripe grave, full of stench and rottenness,
Rom. iii. 13. © Their throat is an open sepulchre.“ Thy
natural actions are fin, for © when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?”' Ze. viii 6. Thy civil actions are fin, Prov. xxi. 4. The plowing of the wicked is fin.” Thy religious actions are lin, Prov. xv. 8. © The facrifice of the wicked is an abomination to
to the Lord.” The thoughts and imaginations of thy heart,
are only evil. A deed may be soon done, a word soon spoken,
a thought swiftly passeth thro* the heart: but each of these is
Head . Corruplion of Vature applied. 83
an Item in thy accounts. O fad reckoning! as many thoughts, words, actions; as many fins.” The longer thou livest, thy accounts swell the more. Should a tear be dropt for every sun, thine head behoved to be waters, and thine eyes a fountain of tears; for nothing but sin comes from thee. Thy heart frames nothing but evil imaginations; there is nothing in thy lite, but what is framed by thine heart; and therefore there is nothing in thy heart or life but evil.
SECONDLY, All thy religion, if thou hast any, is lost labour: as to acceptance with God, or any saving effect to thyself, Art thou yet in thy natural state! Truly then thy duties are fins, as was just now hinted. Wonld not the best wine be lothsome in a * vellel wherein there is no pleasure?” So is the religion of an unregencrate man. Under the law, the garment which the flesh of the sacrifice was carricd in, tho' it touched other things, did not make them holy: but he that was unclean, touching any thing, whether common or sacred, made it unclean. Even fo thy duties cannot make thy corrupt soul holy, tho' they in themselves be good; but thy corrupt heart defiles them, and
makes them unclean, Hap. ii. 12, 13, 14. Thou wast wont to
divide thy works into two forts; some good, some evil; but thou mult cout again, and put them all under one head; for God writes on them all, © Only evil.” This is lamentable:
It will be no wonder to see those beg in harvest, who fold their
hands to sleep in seed- time: but to be labouring with others in the spring, and yet have nothing to reap when the harvest comes, is a very {ad case; and will be the case of all professors living
and dying in their natural state.
LASTIY, Thou canst not help thytelf. What canst thou do to take away thy fin, who art wholly corrupt? Nothing truly but sin. If a natural man begin to relent, drop a tear for his fin, and reform, presently the corrupt heart apprehends, at least, a merit of congruity: he has done much himself, (he thinks) and God connot but do more for him on that account. In the mean time he does nothing but sin: fo that the congruous merit is the leper that mult be put out of the camp; the dead foul buried out of sipht; and the corrupt lump cast into the pit.
How canst thou think to recover thyself by any thing thou canst
do? Will mud and fitth wash out filthiness? and wilt thou urge out sin by sinning? Job took a potsherd to scrape himself, because his hands were as full of boils as his body: This is the case of thy corrupt foul: not to be recovered but by 12 Christ, whole strength was dried up like a potsnerd, Pal. xxii. 1 5. | H Thou
86 "The Doctrine of the State II.
Thou art poor indeed, extremely miserable and poor, Revelation 1:17. Thou hast no shelter but a refuge of lies; no garmeut for thy soul, but filthy rags; nothing to nourish it but husks, that cannot satisfy. More than that, thou hast got such a bruise in the loins of Adam, which is not yet cured, that thou art without strength, Rom. v. ö. unable to do or work for thy self: nay, more than all this, thou canit not fo much as seek aright, but “ liest helpless, as an infant exposed in the open field, Ezek. xvi. 5. | Us E III. I exhort you to believe this fad truth. Alas! it is evident, it is very little believed in the world. Few are con- .cerned to get their corrupt converliation chanped; but fewer, by far, to get their nature changed: Most meu now nat what they are, nor what {pirits they are of: they are as the eye, which seeing many things never sees itle'F But until ye know, every one the plague of his own heart, there is no hope of your recovery Why will ye not believe it? Ye have plain scripture testimony for it; but you are loth to entertain such an ill opinion of yourselves. Alas! that is the nature of your disease, Rev. Ul. 17. Thou—knowelt net that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, aud blind, and naked.“ Lord, open their eyes to see it: before they die of it: and in hell lift up their eyes, and see what they will not see now. I shall shut up this weighty point of the corruption of man's nature, with a few words to another doctrine from the text. DocrTRINE. “ God takes fpecial notice of our natural corruption, or the {in of our nature.“ This he testifies two ways, 1. By his word, as in the text, © God faw—that every imagiration of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil coatinually. See Psal. xiv. 2, 3. 2. By his works: God writes his particular notice of it, and displeasure with it, as in many of his works, o especially in these two: | (I.) In the death of the infant children of men. Many miseries they have been exposed to: they were drowned in the. deluge, consumed in Sodom by fire and brimstone: they have been ain with the sword, dashed against the stones, and are still dying ordinary deaths. What is the true cause of this? On what ground doth a holy God thus pursue them! Is it the im of their parents? That may be the occasion of the Lord's railing the process against them? but it must be their own fin, that is the ground of the sentence passing on them: for the foul that sinneth, it shall die,“ saith God, Ezek. xviii. 4. Is it their -own actual fin? They have none. But as men do with toads
and
Head I. Corruption of Nature applied. 95
and serpents, which they kill at first sight, before they have done any hurt; because of their venemous nature; fo is it in this case.
(2.) In the birth of the elect children of God. When the Lord is about to change their nature, he makes the sin of their nature ly heavy on their spirits. When he minds to let out the corruption, the lance gets full depth in their fouls, reaching to the root of fin, Rom. vii. 7, 8, 9. The flesh, or corruption of nature is pierced, being crucified, as well as the affections and lusts, Gal. v. 24. | |
Us E. Let us then have a special eye upon the corruption and fn of our nature. God sees jt: O that we saw it too, and that fin were ever before us! What avails it to notice other fins, while this mother-sin is not noticed? Turn your eyes inward. to the {in of your nature. It is to be feared, many have this work to begin yet; that they have shut the door, while the grand thief js yet in the house uadiscovered. This is a weighty point, and in the handling ot it,
I. I shall, for conviction, point at fome evidences of mens overlooking the fin of their nature, v/hich yet the Lord takes particular notice of, (1.) Mens looking on themselves with such confidence, as if they were in no hazard of grofs fins. Many would take it very bainousty to get such a caution, as Christ gave his Apostles, Luke xxi. 24. © Take heed of surfeiting and drunkenness,” If any should suppose them to break out in 1 off abominations, they would be ready to fav, Am la dog?” 1
would raise the pride of their hearts, but not their fear and
trembling; because they know not the corruption of Ger nature. {2.) Untenderness towards those. that fall: Many in that case cast off all bowels of Christian compassion; for they do not * consider themselves, lest they allo be tempted,” Gal. vi. F. Mens passions are often highest against the faults of others, when fin sleaeps found!y in their own breasts. Even good David, when he was at his worst, was most violent against the faults of others. While his conscience was aslcep under his puilt in the matter of Uriah: the Spirit of the Lord takes notice, that © his anger was greatly kindled against the man,” in the parable, 2 Sam. xii. 5. And on good grounds, it is thought, it was at the same time that he treated the Ammonites so cruelly, as is related, ver. 31. © Putting them under saws, and under
barrows of iron, and under axes of iron; and making them pass throw the brick kiln.” Grace makes men zealous against fin in others, as well as in themlelvcs: but eyes turned inv nd to the corruption of nature, clothe them with pity and compassion,
88 God's niticing the Sin of Nature, State IT.
and fill them with thankfulness to the Lord, that they them- _ selves were not the persons left to be such spectacles of human frailty. (3.) There are not a few, who, if they be kept from affliction in worldly things, and from gross out-breakings in their converiation, know not what it is to have a fad heart. If they meet with a cross, which their proud hearts cannot stoop to bear, they will be ready to say, O to be gone: but the corruption of their nature never makes them long for heaven. Lusts {candalously breaking out at a time, will mar their peace: but the fin of their nature never makes them a heavy heart. { 4.) Delaying of repentance, in hopes to set about it afterwards, Many have their own appointed time for repentance and reformation: as if they were {uch complete masters over their lusts, that they can allow them to gather more strength, and yet overcome them. They take up resolutions to amend, without any eye to Jesus Christ, union with him, and strength from him; a plain evidence they are strangers to themselves; and so they are left to themlelves; and their flourishing resolutions wither; for as they see not the neceility, so they get not the benefit of the dew from heaven to water them. (5.) Men's venturing frankly on temptations, and promising liberally on their own heads. They cast themscives fearlesly into temptation, in confidence of their coming off fairly, but were they sensible of the corruption of their nature, they would? beware of entering on the devii's* ground: as one pirt about with bags of gun powder, would be loth to walk where | sparks of fire are flying, left he should be blown up. Seltjealousing well becomes Christians: © Lord is it I?' They that know the deceit of their bow, Will not be very confident that they shall hit the mark. (6.) Unacquaintednels with heartplagues: The knowledge of the plagues of the heart, is a rare qualification. There are indeed some of them Written in such great characters, that he who runs niay read them; but there are others more subtile, which few do discern. How few are there to whom the bias of the heart to unbelief, is a burden? Nay, they perceive it not. Many have had sharp convictions of other sins, that were never to this day convinced of their unbelief; tho' that is the sin specially aimed at in a thorough conviction, John xvi. 8,9.—* He will reprove the world of sin —becaule thoy believe not on me.“ A disposition to establish our own righteousuess, is a weed that naturally grows in every man's heart: but few sweat at the plucking of it up: it lurks undilcovered. The bias of the heart to the Way of the * | works,
Head J. Men's overlocking this Sin. 89
works, is a hidden plague of the heart to many. All the difficulty they find is, in getting up their heart to duties: they sind no difficulty in getting their hearts olf them, and over them to Jesus Christ. How hard is it to stave men oft from their own riphteousnels? Yet it is very hard to convince them of their leaning to it at all. Lastly, Pride and felf-conceit, A view of the corruption of nature would be very humbling; and oblige him that has it, to reckon himlelf the chief of sinners. Under greatest attainments and enlargements, it would be ballast to his heart, and © hide pride from his eyes.* The want of thorough humiliation, piercing to the {in of one's nature, is the ruin of many professors: for digging deep makes great difference betwixt wise and foolish builders, Luke vi. 48, 49. II. I will lay before you a few things, in which ye shonld lave a special eye to the {in of your nature. (1.) Have a special eye to it in your application to Jesus Christ. Do you find any need of Christ, which sends you to him as the Physician of souls? O forget not your disease when you are with the Physician. They never yet knew well their errand to Christ, that went not to him for the {in of their nature; for his blood to take away the guilt of it, and his Spirit to break the power of it. Tho' in the bitterness of your souls, you thould lay before him a catalogue of your fins of ommission and commission,
which might reach from earth to heaven; yet if the fin of your nature were wanting in it, assure yourselves, you have forgot the best part of the errand a poor sinner has to the Physician of souls. What would it have availed the people of Jericho, to have set before Elisha all the vessels in their city full of © the water that was naught,” if they had not led him forth to the fpring, to cast in the salt there? 2 Kings ii. 19, 20, 21. The application is easy. (2.) Have a special eye towards it in your repentance, whether initial or progressive, in your first repentance, and in the renewing of your repentance, afterwards.
Tho' a man be lick, there is no fear of death, if the sickness
strike not his heart; and there is as little fear of the death of sin, as long as the sin of our nature is not touched. Burt if ye would repent indeed, let the streams lead you up to the fountain; and mourn over your corrupt nature, as the cause of all fin, in heart, lip, and life, Psal. li. 4, . Against thee, thee only have I finned, and done this evil in thy fight. —Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.“ (4.) Have a special eye upon it, in your mortisication, Gal. v. 24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the slesn.“ It is the root
90 Sin of our Nature especially to be Noticed. State I, of bitterness, that must be struck at, which the ax of mortification mult be laid to; else we labour in vain. In vain do men
go about to purge the streums, while they are at no pains about the muddy fountain: It is vain religion to attempt to make the lite truly good, while the corruption of nature retains its ancient vigour, and the power of it is not broken. Lastly, ye arc to eye it in your daily walk. He that would walk aright, must have one eye upward to Jesus Christ; and another inward to the corruption of his own nature. It js not enough that we look about us, we must allo look within us. There the wall js
weakelt, there our greatest enemy lies; and there are grounds
for daily watching and mourning. | |
III. I shall offer some reasons, why we should especially notice the {in of our nature. < 5
1. Because of all sins it is the most extensive and diffusive. It goes through the whole man, and spoils all. Other fins mar particular parts of the image of God; but this doth at once deface the whole. A difease affecting any particular member of the body is ill; but that which affects the whole is worse, The corruption of nature is the poison of the old serpent, cast into the forntain of action: and lo infects every action, every breathing of the foul. *
2. It is the cause of all particular lusts, and actual fins, in our
hearts and lives. It is the spawn which the great Leviathan has left in the souls of men; from whence comes all the fry of actual fins and abominations. Mark vii. 21. * Out of the heart of men procced evil thoughts, adulteries, &c,' It is the bitter fountain: particular lusts are but rivalets running from it; which bring forth into the life a part only, and not the whole of what is within. Now the fountain is still above the streams: so where the water is good, it is best in the fountain; where it is ill, it is worst there. The corruption of nature being that which defiles all, itself must needs be the most abominable thing.
2. It is virtually all fin: for it is the seed of all fins, which
want but the occasion to set up their heads: being in the corruption of nature, as the effect in the virtue of its cause. Hence
it is called © a-body of death, (Rom. wi. 24.) as consisting of
the several members belonging to fiich © a body of sins, (Col.
1. 11.) whole life lies in spiritual death. It is the curied ground,
fit to bring forth all manner of noxious weeds. As the whole
nest of venemous creatures must necds be more dreadful, than
any few of them that come creeping forth; so the lin of thy
nature, that mother of abominations mult be worse than any
particular lults, that appear {turing in thy heart and life. 5
*
Head I. Why it should be especially Noticed. 97 did every fin appear in the conversation of the vilest wretch that ever lived; but look thou into thy corrupt nature, and
| there thou mayelt see all and every sin in the sced and root
thereof. There is a fulness of all unrighteousness there, Rom. i. 29. There isatheilm, wlolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery. and whatsoever is vile. Poslibly none of theie appear to thee
in thy heart: but there is more in that unfathomable deptli of
wickedness, than thou kuowelt. Thy corrupt heart is like an aat's nest, on which, while the stone heth, none of them appear: but take off the stone, stir them up, but with the point of a
straw, you will see what a {warm is there, and how lively they
be. Just fuch a sight would thy heart afford thee, did the Lord but withdraw the restraint he has upon it, and suffer Satan
to stir it up by temptation. | | 4. The fin of our nature is, of all fins, the most fixed and
| abiding. Sinful actions, tho” the guilt and stain of them may
remain, yet in themselves they are patsing. The drunkard is not always at his cup, nor the unclean person always acting lewdness. But the corruption of nature is an abiding sin: it remains with men in its full power by night and by day, at all
times, fixed as with bands of iron and brass: till their nature
be changed by converting grace; and the remains of it continue with the godly, until the death of the body. Pride, envy, covetousness, and the like are not always {Urring in thee, But the proud, envious, carnal nature is still with thee: even as the
clock that is wrong, is not always staking wrong; but the wrong set continues with it, without great intermission.
5. It is the great reigning sin, Rom. vi. 12. © Let not fin
therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lists thereof.“ There are three things you may observe in the corrupt heart. (1.) There is the corrupt nature; the
corrupt set of the heart, whereby men are unapt for all good, and fitted for all evil. This the apostle here calls, sin which reigns. (2.) There are particular lusts, or dispositions of that corrupt nature, which the apostle calls the lusts thereof; such as pride, covetousness, &c. (3.) There is one among these, which is (like Saul amongst the people) higher by far than the rest, namely, © the sin which doth so easily beset us, Heb. xi. 1.
This we usually call the predominate fin, because it doth, as it
wero, reign over other particular lusts; so that other lusts must yield to it. These three are like a river which diyides itself into
many streams, whereof one is greater than the rest. The corruption of nature is the river head, which has many particular
92 View of the Corruption of Nature. State II.
lusts, in which it runs: but it mainly disburdens itself into what is commonly called one's predominate fin. Now all of these being fed by the sin of our nature; it is evident that fin is the great reigning lin which never loseth its superiority over particular lusts, that live and die with it, and by it. But as in some rivers, the main stream runs not always in one and the same channel: fo particular predominants may be changed, as lust in youth may be succceded by covetousnels in old age. Now, what doth it avail to reform in other fins, while the great reigning sin remains in its full power? What tho' some particular lust be broken? If that fin, the {in of our nature keep the throne, it will jet up another in its stead: as when a water-course is opt
in one place, while the fountain is not dammed up, it will stream forth another wav. And thus some cast off their prodigality, but covetousnels comes up in its stead: fome cast away their profanity, and the corruption of nature {ends not its main stream that way as before: but it runs in another channel, namely,
in that of a legal disposition, self- righteoufness, or the like, fo that people are ruined by their not eying the fin of their nature.
LasTLY, It is an hereditary evil, Psal Ii. 5. © In fin did my mother conceive me.“ Particular lusts are not fo, but in the virtue of their cause. A prodigal father may have a frugal son:
but this disease is necessarily propagated in nature, and therefore
hardest to cure. Surely then, the word shou!d be given out
apainst this fin, as against the King of Israel, 1 Kings xxii. 31.
Fight neither with small nor great, fave only with this:“ for
this fin being broke, all other fins are broken with it; and while it stands entire, there is no victory. |
IV. That ye may get a view of the corruption of your nature, I would recommend to you three things. (1.) Study to know the spirituality and extent of the law of God, for that is the glass whereir- you may see yourselves. (2.) Observe your hearts at all times, but especially under temptation. Temptation is a fire that brings up the scum of the vile heart: do ye carefully mark the first risings of corruption. Lastly, Go to God through Jesus Christ, for illumination by his Spirit. Lay out your foul before the Lord, as willing to know the vileness of your nature: fay unto him, © That which I know not, teach thou me: and be willing to take in light from the word. Believe, and you shall see. It is by the word the Spirit teacheth,
but, without the Spirit's teaching, all other teaching will be to
little purpose. Tho' the gospel should shine about you, like the fun at noon-day; and this great truth be never fo plaigly preach-
Head I. Cone lusion of the first Head. 93
preached; you will never see yourselves aright, until the Spirit of the Lord light his candle within your breast: the fulness and glory of Christ, the corruption and vileness of our nature, are never rightly learned, but where the Spirit of Christ is teacher. And now to shut up this weighty point, let the conhideration of what is said, commend Christ to you all. Te that are brought out of your natural state of corruption unto Christ, be humble; still coming to Christ, and improving your union with him, to the further weakening of the remains of this natural corruption, Is your nature changed? It is but in part fo. The day was, ye could not stir. now ye are cured: but remember the cure is not yet perfected, ye still po halting. And tho' it were better with you than it is, the remembrance of what you were by nature, should keep youlow. Ye that are yet in your natural state, take with it: believe the corruption of your nature; and tet Christ and his grace be precious in your eyes. O that ye would at length be serious about the state of your souls! What mind ye to do? Ye mult die; ye mult appear before the judgment - seat of God. Will ye ly down, and fleep another night at ease, in this case? Do it not: for before another day, you may be sisted before God's dreadful tribunals in the gravecloaths of your corrupt state; and your vile souls cast into the pit of destruction, as a corrupt lump, to be for ever buried out
of God's fight. For I testify unto you all, there is no peace
with God, no pardon, no heaven for you, in this state: there 5 but a step betwixt you and eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord: if the brittle thread of your life, which may be broke with a touch, ere you are aware, he indeed broken while you are in this state; you are ruined for ever, and that without remedy. But come speedily to Jesus Christ; he has cleansed as vile fouls as yours; and he will yet * cleanse the blood that he
bath not cleansed,” Joel iii. 21. Thus far of the finfulnels of man's natural state
1 LAU bh The MISERY of Man's Natural State.
EPHESIANS ii. 3. W:—were by nalure the children of wrath, cven as athers,
—
AVING shewed you the snfuiness of man's natural state, I come now to lay butore you the mijery of it. A sioful | | {tate
94 The Explication of the Text. State II.
ftate cannot be but a miserable state. If fin go before, wrath follows of course, Corruption and destruction are so knit together, that the Holy Ghost ealls destruction, even eternal destruction, corruption, Gal. vi: 8. He that soweth to his flesh,
| shall of the flesh reap corruption: that is, everlasting destruction; as is clear from its being opposed to life everlasting, in the following clause. And so the Apostle having shown the Ephesians their real state by nature, to wit, that they were dead in sins and trespasses, altogether corrupt; he tells them in the words of the text, their relative state, namely, that the pit was
digged for them, while in that state of corruption: being dead
in fins, they were by nature children of wrath, even as others. In the words we have four things, I. The misery of a natural state; it is a state of wrath, as well as a state of sm. We were, says the Apostle, children of wrath, bound over, and liable to the wrath of God; under wrath in some measure; and, in wrath, bound over to more, even- the full measure of it in hell, where the floods of it go over the prisoners for ever. Thus Saul, in his wrath, adjudging David to die, (1 Sam. xx. 31.) and David, in his wrath, passing sentence of death against the man in the parable, (2 Sam, xii. 5.) say each of them, of his supposed criminal, He fha'l surely die: or, as the words in the first language are, He is a fon of death.“ So the natural man is a child of wrath, a fon of death. He is a malefactor dead in law, lying in chains of guilt: a criminal held fast in his fetters, till the day of execution; which will not fail, unless a pardon be obtained from his God, who is his Judge and party too. By that means, indeed, children of wrath may become children of the kingdom. The phrase
in the text, however common it is in holy language, is very significant. And as it is evident, that the Apostle calling natural men, the children of disobedience, (ver. 24
that they were disobedient children; for such may the Lord's own children be: fo, to the children of wrath, is more than
Gmply to be liable to, or under wrath. Jesus Chriit was liable
to, and under wrath; but I doubt we have not any warrant to say, he was a child of wrath. The phrase seems to intimate, that men are, whatsoever they are in their natural state, under the wrath of God; that they are wholly under wrath: wrath is, as it were, woven into their very nature, and mixeth itself with the whole of the man; who is (if I may fo speak) a very lunp of wrath, a child of hell, as the iron in the fire is all fires For men naturally arc children of wrath, come forth, io to speak,
means more, than
Head II. The Explication of the Text. 95
out of the womb of wrath: Jonah's gourd was the fon of a night, (which we render, © came up in a night, Jonah iv. 10.) as if it had come out of the womb of the night: (as we read of
a the womb of the morning, Psal. cx. 3.) and fo, the birth Following the belly whence it came, was soon gone. The sparks
of fire are called “ fons of the burning coal, job v. 7. marg.
it. xxi. 10. O my threshing, and the cors (or fon) of my
floor: threshen in the floor of wrath, and, as it were brought
forth by it. Thus the natural man is a child of wrath: “it
comes into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones,
Pfal. cix. 18. For tho? Judas was the only fon of perdition
amongst the Apostles; yet all men, by nature, are of the
2. There is the rise of this misery : Men have it by nature.
They owe it to their nature: not to their substance or essence:
for that neither is nor was fin, and therefore cannot make them
children of wrath ; tho' for {in it may be under wrath: not to
their nature as qualified, at man's creation, by bis Maker: but
to their nature as vitiated and corrupted by the fall. To the
vicious quality, or corruption of their nature (whereof before)
which is their principle of action, and ceasing from action, the
en]y principle is an unregenerate state. Now, by this natme,
men are children of wrath : as in time of peftilential infection,
one draws in death, together with the disease then raping.
Wherefore, seeing from our first being as children of Adam, we
be. corrupt children, shapen in iniquity, conceived in sin: we
are also, from that moment, children of wrath. | Gon
3. The university of this misery : All are by nature children
of wrath: © We, faith the Apostle, even as others: Jews, as
well as Gentiles. Those that are now by grace, the children
of God, were by nature, in no better case, than those that are
{it in their natural state. |
LASTLY, There is a glorious and happy change intimated
here: We were children of wrath, but are not so now; grace
has brought us out of that fearful state. This the Apostle says
of himself and other believers. And thus, it well becomes the
people of God to be often standing on the shore looking back
to the red- sea of the state of wrath, they were sometimes welt-
Erlag m, even as others.
Man's Natural State, a State of Wrath.
| D OCTRINE, © The State of Nature is a State of Wrath.” Every one in a natural unregenerate tate, is in a state of wrath.
96 Man's Natural State State II.
We are born children of wrath; and continue fo, until we be born again. Nay, as soon as we were children of Adam, we were children of wrath. | | |
T shall usher in what I am to say on this point, with a few observes touching the universality of this {tate of wrath; which may serve to prepare the way of the word into your consciences.
Wrath has gone as wide as ever fin went. When angels sinned, the wrath of God brake in upon them as a flood: © God
spared not the angels that finned, but cast them down to hell,”
2 Pet. ii. 4. And thereby it was demonstrated, that no natural excellency in the creature will shield it from the wrath of God, if once it becomes a sinful creature. The finest and the nicelt
piece of the workmanship of heaven, if once the Creator's image
upon it be defaced by sin, God can and will dash it in pieces, in his wrath; unlels satisfaction be made to jultice, and that image
be repaired: neither of which the sinner himself can do. Adam
sinned, and the Whole lump of mankind was leavened, and bound over to the fiery oven of God's wrath And from the text ye may learn, (I.) That ignorance of that state cannot free men from it: the Gentiles that knew not God, were by
nature children of wrath, even as others. A man's house may
be on fire, his wife and children perishing in the flames, while he
knows nothing of it, and therefore is uot concerned about it. Such js your case, O ye that are ignorant of these things! wrath
is silentsy sinking into your fouls, while you are blessing yourselves, saying, Ye shall have peace. Ye need not a niore certain token, that ye are children of wrath; than that ye never yet law
- yourlelves such. Ye cannot be the children of God, that never
yet saw yourselves children of the devil. Ye cannot be in the way to heaven, that never saw yourlelves by nature in the high road to hell. Ye are grosly ignorant of your state by nature; and so ignorant of God, and of Christ, and your need of him: and tho' ye look on your ignorance as a covert from wrath;
yet take it out of the mouth of God himself, that it will ruin
you, if it be not removed, Isa. xxvii. 11. It is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them, will not have
mercy on them.“ See 2 Thess. i. 8. Hof. iv. 6. (2.) No
ontward privileges can exempt men from this state of wrath;
kor the Jews, the children of the kingdom, God's peculiar people, were children of wrath even as others. Tho' ye be churchmembers, partakers of all church- privileges; tho' you be descended of godly parents, of great and honourable famiies; be
what ye will, ye are by nature, heirs of hell, children of wrath.
Head II. is a State of Wrath. | 97
{ 3.) No profession, nor attainments in a profession of religion, dy or can exempt a man from this state of wrath. Paul was
one of the straitest sect of the Jewish reiigion, Acts xxvi. 5. yet
a child of wrath, even as others, till he was converted. The close hypocrite, and the profane, are alike as to their state; however different their conversations be: and they will be alike
in their fatal end, Pfal. cxxv. 5. © As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with
the workers of iniquity.” (4.) Young ones that are yet but
setting out into the world, have not that to do, to make theinselves children of wrath, by following the graceless multitude.
| They are children of wrath by nature: fo it is done already:
they were born heirs of hell; they will indeed make themselves more so, if they do not, while they are young, flec from that wrath they were born to, by flecing to Jesus Christ. Lastly, Whatever men are now by grace, they were even as others,
by nature. And this may be a sad meditation to them that
have been at ease from their youth, and have had no changes. Now, these things being premised, I shall, in the first place, shew what this state of wrath is: next, confirm the doctrine: and then apply it. Ee | | I. Iam to shew what this state of wrath is. But who can fully describe the wrath of an angry God? None can do it. Yet fo much of it must be discovered, as may serve to convince men of the absolute necessity of fleeing to jesus Christ, out of that state of wrath. Anger in men is a passion, and commotion of the spirit for an injury received, with a desire to resent the fame. When it comes to a height, and is fixed in one's spirit, it is called wrath. Now there are no passions in God, properly speaking: they are inconsistent with his absolute unchangeablenels, and independency; and therefore Paul and Barnabas (to remove the mistake of the Lycaonians, who thought they were gods) tells them, they were © men of like putions' with themselves, Acts xiv. 15. Wrath then is attributed to God, not in respect of the affection of wrath, but the effects thereof. Wrath is a fire in the bowels of a man, tormenting the man himself: but there is no perturbation in God. His wrath does not in the least mar that infinite repose and happiness, which he hath in himself. It is a most pure and undisturbed a& of his will „producing dreadful effects against the inner. It is little we know of an infinite God: but condeseending to our weakness, he is pleased to speak of himself to us after the manner of men. Let us therefore notice man's wrath,
I but
98 Nang Nalural State State II.
but remove every thing in our consideration of the wrath of God, that argues unper tection: and fo we may ettain to some view of it, however scanty. By this means we are led to take up the w rath of God against the natural man in thefe three. FiRsT, There is wrath in the heart of God apainst him. The Lord approves him not, but is diffleased with him. Every natural man lies under the displeasure of God; and that is heavier than mountains of brals. Altho* he be plcaled with himtelf, and others be pleased Walh him too; yet God Io 1 down on him, as displessed. First, His pe: rlon is under God's displeasure: © Thou hatest all workers of iniquity,“ Pial. v. 5. A godly man's {in is di- pleating to God, yet his person | is (till acc pted in the belovy ed, 2 ph. j. 6. But God 15 angry with the wicked every day Pal. vii 11. There is a fire of wrath
burns con tinually againkt | him, in the heart of God. They are as dogs and swine, molt abominable creatures in the light of God. Tho their natural {tate be gilded ever with a thining
pr oiethon, yet they are abhoired of 4 N they's ire to him e
a molle in Lis nose,” Ha. lv..5. _ luke-warm water, to be
c spew ed. out of his mouth,” Rer. 3 iii. 16. ; WINEER ie; pulchres, : vl. 0k th. *in. 2 7. 8 Ul es ration 45 N V ipers, NI atth. . 34. 211d © pe 0 ple of " his Wr Ath, la. *. 5.
"Sp EONDLY, He is difplea fed with all they do: It is impol⸗ ble for them 2 him, being unbelievers, Heb. xi. 6. He hates their persons; and so hath no plcofure, in, but is dispbeased with their best works, Isa lvi. 3. Ile that sacrificeth a lamb, a> if he cut off a dog's neck, &c.” Their duty, as done by them, 1 is“ an abomination to the Lord,“ Prov. xv. 8. Aud as men turn their back upon them whom they are angry 177 o the Lord's refusing communion with che natural man in duties, is a plain indication of this wrath.
SECONDLY, There is wrath in the word of God agaiast 3 When wrath is in the heart, it sceks a vent by the lips: so Gu, sights aoainst the natural man with © the Word of his eh Ber. i. 16. The Lord's word never speaks good of him, but always curseth or condenmeth him. Hence! it is, that e he s awakened, the word read or preached, often increaseth hi; horror, First, It condemns all his actions, together with his corrupt nature. There is nothing he does, but the law declarcs it tobe ta. It is a rule of perfect obedience, from which be always in all things, declines; and fo it rejects every thing he doth as sin. Secondly it pronounceth his doom, and denguneth Ged's curl? against him, Gal. iii. 10. For as many as are
Head II. is a State of Mrath. 99
of the works of the law, are under the curse: for it is Written,
Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, which are
written in the book of the law, to do them.“ Be he never o well in the world, it pronounceth a woe from heaven against him, Ifa. iii. 11. The Bible is 4 quiver filled with arrows of wrath against him, ready to he poured in on bis foul, God's threctn nes in his word, hang over ka head as a black cloud,
ready to shower down on him ere ery motnent. I' word is indeed the saint s sec urity against wrath, but it binde the natural man's fin avd wrath together, as a certain pledpe of his ruin, it he continue in that rate, 89 the comloence being awakened, and perceiving this tie made by the Jaw, the man is filled with terrors in luis foul,
THIRDLY, There is wrath in the hand of God against the natural man. He ig under heavy strokes of wrath already, oy 1 liable to more.
rit, There is wrath on h's boy. It is a piece of cursed clay, whick.w ruth * nking Abe ) b Th tue of the threatnir (7 of the first covenant, Gen ie 17 * Ih the day that tho catest thereeh, thou shalt surcly die, Ti here h tC 03 a diicase, ©: pe her [titel that afects him, but it comes on hi: N with the tinge of God 1Gonation in it. Tune -) are 41. £3765 of deat} 55 ent before to
bind- the e pril Her ,
2dly, There is wrath upou lis tout, (J.) He can have no communion with God ; he is“ tochin, and Natl not stand in God's fight,” Pial.v. 5. When Adam finned, Cod turned bim
cut of Paradise: and natufal men are, as Adam left them,
banished from the gracious presence of the Lend; and can have no access to him in that stace. There is war betwixt hcaven and them: and fo all commerce is cut off, The 5 are without God in the world,” Eph. ii. 12. The fu is gone down on them, and there is not the lent Llenple of favour towards thera from heaven. (2.) Hence the foul is left to pine away in its
iniquit z. The natural darkucis of che r min 's, the a aversenc to good in their wills, the disorder ot their affections, and ditemper of their consciences, and all their natural plagues, are left upon them in à penal way; a and being lo left, increase daily.
God casts a portion of wor ld! y go X 5 to them, mote or less, as a bone is thrown to a dog: but alas! his wrath a gainst them appears, in that they get no grace. The Physician of fonls comes by them, and gocs by t them, aud Cures others besicle them; white they are consuming away in their miguity, end ripening dally for utter destruction. (3.0 Lucy ly open to
100 Man's Naturel State State II.
fearful additional plagues on their souls, even in this life. First, Sometimes they meet with deadning strokes; silent blows from the hand of an angry God; arrows of wrath that enter into
their souls without noise, Isa. vi. 10. Make the heart of this
people tat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lett they see with their eyes, &c. God strives with them for a While, and convictions enter their consciences; but they rebel against the light: and by a secret judgment, they are knocked en the head; so that, from that time, they do, as it were, live
and rot above ground. Their hearts are deadired; their affections withered: their conseiences stupisied: and their whole fouls blasted: * cast forth as a branch, and withered,” John xv. 16. They ate plagued with judicial blindness. They shut their eyes against the light, and they are given over to the devil, the god of this world to be blinded more, 2 Cor. iv. 4. Yea, God sends them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, 2 Thesl. ii. 11. even conscience, like a false light on the shore leads them upon rocks; by which they are broken in pieces. They harden themiclves against God; and he gives up with them, and leaves them to Satan and their own hearts, whereby they are hardned more and more. They are often given up unto vile affections, Rom. i. 26. The reins are laid on
their necks; and they are left to run into all excess, as their
furious lusts draw chem. Secondly, Sometimes they meet with quickning strokes, whereby their souls become like mount Sinai, where nothing is seen, but fire and smoak; nothing heard, but the thunder of God's wrath, and the voice of the trumpet of a broken law, waxing louder and louder: which makes them like Pashur, (Jer. xx. 4.) A terror to themselves.“ God takes the filthy garments of their sins, which they were wont to sleep in securely; overlays them with brimstone, and fects them on fire about their ears: so they have a hell within them. 3dly, There is wrath on the natural man's enjoyments, Whatever be wanting in his house, there is one thing that is never wanting there, Prov. iti. 33.“ The curle of the Lord is in the houle of the wicked.” Wrathis on all that he has; on
the bread he eats, the liquor he drinks, and clothes which he
wears. His basket and store are cursed, Deut. xxvml. 17. Some things fall wrong with ham; and that comes to pals by virtue of his wrath; other things go according to his with, and there is wrath in that too; for it is a snare to his foul, Proy. i. 32. © The prosperity of tools shall deitroy them.“ This
wrath turns his blessings into cui ses, Mal. ü. 2. 1 will cure
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devils, men, beasts, stones, heaven and earth, are in readine
Head IT, is'a State of Wrath. OE 101
* your blessings: ver, I have cursed them already.“ The holy
law is © a killing lecter o him, 2 Cor. hi. 6. The ministry of the colpel, a iavour oi death unto death, chap. ii. 15. In the lacrament of the Lord's supper, * he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,” 1 Cor. xi. 29. Nay, more than all that, Christ himself is to him, “ a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence,” 1 Pet. i. 8. Thus wrath follows the natural man, as his shadow doth his body. r
Athly, He is under the power of Satan, Acts xxvi. 18. The devil has overcome him, so he is his by conquest: his © lawful captive,” Ila. xlix. 24. * The natural man is condemned already,” John ii. 18. and therefore under the heavy hand of him that hath the power of death, that is the devil.“ And he keeps his prisoner in the 2 of a natural {tate, beund hand and foot, Ia. xi. 1. Laden with divers lusts,* as chains wherewith he holds them fast. Thou needest not, as many do, call on the devil to take thee; for he has a fast hold of thee already, as a child of wrath. | |
LASTLY, The natural man has no security for a moment's safety from the wrath of God its coming on him to the uttermolt. The curse of the law denounced against him, has already tied him to the stake: so that the arrows of justice may pierce his foul; and in him may meet all the miseries and plagues that flow from the avenging wrath of God. See how he is let as a
mark to the arrows of wrath, Pfal. vii. 11, 12, 13. © God is
angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his Word: he hath bent his bow, and made it ready; he hath also prepared for him the instruments of death.” Doth he ly
down to sleep? There is not a promise, he knows of, or can know, to secure him that he shall not be in hell ere he awake.
Justice is pursuing, and cries for vengeance on the {inner: the law casts the fire-balls of its curses continually upon him: wasted and long- tried patience is that which keeps in his life: he walks amidst enemies armed against him: his name may be Magor, Missabib, i. e. terror round about,” Jer. xx. 3. Angels, ls
on a word of command from the Lord, to ruin him, 5
Thus the natural man, lives, but he must die too; and death is a dreadful messenger to him. It comes upon him armed with wrath, and puts three sad charges in his hand. (I.) Death chargeth him to bid an eternal farewe! to all things in this world: to leave it, and make away to another world. Ah!
What a dreadful charge must this be to a child of wrath! He
He can
102 Man's Natural State State II.
can have no comfort from heaven; for God is his enemy: and curt as for the things of the world, and the enjoy ment of his lusts, i ang! which were the only springs of his comfort; thele are in a mo- +0 ment dried up to him for ever. He is not ready for another all world: he was not thinking of removing fo soon: or if he was, 1 yet he has no portion secured to him in another world, but that ed v Which he was born to, and was increasing all his days, namely, Caron 72 treasure of wratli.“ But go he must; his clay god, the grac world, must be parted with, and what has he more? There eyes was never a glimmering of light, or favour from heaven, to | tong his soul: and now the wrath that did hang in the threatning as |= un a cloud like a man's hand,” is darkning the face of the whole £96 heaven above bim: and if he © look unto the earth, (from |” that whence all his light was wont to come) behold trouble and ther darkness, dimness of anguish; and he fhalt be driven to darkness, pole Ila. vin. 22. (2.) Death chargeth soul and body to part till. Wra the great day. His soul is required of him, Luke xi. 20.ũd0 7] what a miserable parting must this be to a child of wrath! Care mu was indeed taken to provide for the body things necessary for ther this life: but alas! there is nothing laid up for another life to it; (1.] nothing to be a seed of glorious resurrection: as it lived, fo it ma) must die, and rise again Poful flesh; fuel for the fire of God's I&x)5 Wrath. As for the soul, he was never solicitous to provide for it. him It lay in the body, dead to God, and all things truly good; | befo and fo must be carried out into the pit, in the grave-cloths of | _ defi; its natural state: for now that death comes, the companions in oper fin muft part. (3.) Death chargeth the foul to compear before stop the tribunal of God, while the body hes to be carried to the Hoy grave, Eccles. xii. 7. © The spirit shall return unto God who Wh gave it.“ Heb. ix. 2, 7. © It is appointed unto all men once shall to die, but after this the judgment.” Well were it for the fin- | lasti: ful soul if it might be buried together with the body. But that into cannot be: it must go and receive its sentence; and shall be unde shut up in the prison of hell, while the cursed body lies im pri- (3.) oned in the grave, till the day of the general judgment. then When the end of the world, appointed of God, is come; the | his n trumpet shall sound, and the dead arise. Then shall the weary Proearth, at the command of the Judge, cast forth the bodies, the Jesu curfed bodies of tkefe that lived and died in their natural state. avoi © The sea, death, and hell, shall deliver up their dead,“ will Rev. xx. 12. Their miserable bodies and fouls shall be re- mou united, and they siste before the tributal of Christ, Then Ls to tl shall they receive that fea ful sentence, © Depart from me, ye 18 pe
cursed,
—
Head II. 4 State of Wrath. 103
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels, Matth. xx. 41. Whereupon © they shall go away into everlasting punishment,” ver. 49. They shall be eternally shut up in hell, never to get the least drop of comfort,
nor the least ease of their torment. There they will be punished with the punishment of loss: being excommunicated for ever from the presence of God, his angels and saints. All means of grace, all hopes of a delivery, shall be for ever cut off from their eyes. They shall not have © a drop of water to cool their tongues,” Luke xvi. 24, 25. They shall be punished with the unishment of sense. They must not only depart from God, bot depart into fire, into everlasting fire. There the worm, that shall gnaw them, shall never die: the fire that shall scorch them, shall never be quenched. God shall, thro' all eternity, hold them up with the one hand, and pour the full vials of wrath into them with the other. | . This is that state of wrath natural men live in; being under much of the wrath of God, and liable to more. But for a further view of it, let us consider the qualities of that Wrath.
(1.) It is irresistible, there is no standing before it. Who may stand in thy fight, when once thou art angry?“ Pal. Ixxxvi. 7. Can the worm, or the moth, defend itself against him that designs to crush it? As little can worm man stand
before an angry God. Foolish man indeed practically bies a
_ defiance to heaven: but the Lord often, even in this world,
opens such fluices of wrath upon them, as all their might cannot
stop; but they are carried away thereby, as with a flood. How much more will it be so in heli? (2.) It is unsupportable.
What one cannot resist, he will set himtelf to bear: but, Who
shall dwell with devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?* Gods wrath is a weight that will fink men into the lowest hell. It is a burden no man is able to stand under. © A wounded spirit who can bear it?* Prov. xviii. 14. (3.) It is unavoidable to such as will go on impenitently in their sinful course. © He that being often reproved, hardneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy,” Prov. xxix. 1. We may now fly from it indeed, by flying to Jesus Christ: but such as fly from Christ, shall never be able to avoid it. Whither can men fly from an avenging God! Where will they find a shelter? The hills will not hear them; the mountains will be deaf to their loudest cries; when they cry to them, to © hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. (4.) It is powerful and fierce wrath, Pfal. xc. 11. Who knoweth the
—
Man's Natural State Seats II.
the power of tune anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy Wrath.“ We are apt to tear the wiath of man more than we ought: but no man can apprehend the wrath of God to be more dreadtul than it really is: the power of it-can never be known to tlie utmost; seoing it is infinite, and (properly speaking) has no utmost: how fierce socver it be, either on earth, or in hell, God can still carry it further. Every thing in God 1s molt perfect in its kind; and therefore no wrath is fo fierce as his. O sinner, how wilt thou be able to endure that wrath, which will “ tcar thee in pieces,“ Plal. 1. 22. and“ grind thee to powder, Luke xx. 18. The history of the two she- bears, that tare the children of Bethel, is an awful one, 2 Kings ii. 22,24. But the united force of the rage of lions, leopards, and she-bears bereaved of their whelps, is not sufficient to, give us even a scanty view of the power of the wratiz of God, Hos. Xill. 7, 8. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them. I will meet them as a bear that is bercavei of her whelps, and will rent the caul of their heart, &c. (5.) It is penetrating and piercing wrath. It is burning wrath, and fiery indignation. There is no pain more exquisite, than that which is caused by fire; and no fire fo piercing as the fire of God's indignation, that“ burns into
the lowest hell, Deut. xxx. 22. The arrows of men's wrath
can pierce flesh, blood and bones; but cannot reach the soul: but the wrath of God will sink into the foul, and fo pierce a man in the most tender part. Like as when a person is thunder- "track, oft-times there is not a wound to be seen in the skin: yet life is gone, and the bones are, as it were, melted: fo God's wrath can penetrate into, and melt one's foul within him, when his earthly comforts stand about him entire, and untouched, as in Belshazzar's case, Dan. v. 6. (6.) It is constant wrath, running parallel with the man's continuance in an unregeneratc state; constantly attending him, from the womb to the grave.
There are few fo dark days, but the fun sometimes looketh out
from under the clouds: but the wrath of God is an abiding cloud on the subjects of it, John iii. 36. * The wrath of God abideth on him that believes not.”
miserable soul! If thou fly not from this wrath unto Jesus Christ thy misery had a beginning, but it shall never have an end. Should devouring death wholly {wallow thee up, and for ever hold thee fast in a grave, it would be kind; but thou must live again, and never die; that thou mayst be ever dying“ in the hands of the living God.“ Cold death will quench the flame of
man's
*
(J.) It is eternahb 0
Head II. '@ State of Wrath,
man's wrath against us, if nothing else do it: but God's wrath, when it has come on the sinner, millions of ages will still be the wrath to come, Matth. iti. 7, 1 Thesl. i. 10. As the water
of a river is still coming, how much foever.of it has passed.
While God is, he will pursue the quarrel. Lastly, how soever dreadful it is, and tho' it be eternal, yet it is most just wrath:; it is a elear fire, without the leaft smoak of unjustice. The fea of wrath raging with greatest fury against the sinner, is clear as chrystal. The Judge of all the earth can do no wrong. He knows no transports of passion, for they are inconsistent with
the perfection of his nature. Is God unrighteous, who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man,) God forbid: for then, how fhall God judge the world?“ Rom. wu: 5, 6.
The Doctrine of the State of Wrath confirmed and
vindicated,
II. I shall confirm the doctrine. Consider, (1.) How peremptory the threatning of the first covenant is: In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, Gen. ü. 17. Hereby fin and punishment being connected, the veracity of. God ascertains the execution of the threatning, Now all men being by.
nature under this covenant, the breach of it lays them under the curse. (2.) The justice of God requires that a child of sin be a child of wrath; that the law being breken, the sanction thereof should take place. God, as man's ruler and Judge, cannot but do right, Gen. xviii. 25. Now it is a righteous
thing with God to recompence fin with wrath, 2 Thell, i. 6.
He is © of purer eyes than to behold evil,” Hab. i. 13. And He hates all the workers of iniquity,” Psal. v. 6. (3.) The Horrors of a natural conscience prove this. There is a conscience in the breasts of men, which can tell them, they are sinners; and therefore liable to the wrath of God. Let men, at any time, soberly commune with themselves, and they will find
they have the witnels in themselves: © Knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of (4.) The pangs of the new-birth, the
death,” Rom. i. 32. work of the spirit of bondage on ele& fouls, in order to their convertion, demontrate this. Hereby their natural sinfulness, and misery, as liable to the wrath of God, are plainly taught them, filling their hearts with fear of that wrath. Now that this spirit of bondage is no other than the Spirit of God, whose work is to convince of fin, rigkteousnels, and judgment,
(John
106 The Doctrine of the State of Wrath, State II.
(John xvi. 8.) this testimony must needs be true; for the Spirit of truth cannot witnefs' an untruth. Mean-while, true believers being freed from the state of wrath, receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but receive the Spirit of adoption, Rom. iii. 15. And thercfore, if fears of that nature do arise, after the foul's union with Christ ; they came from the laint's own spirit, or from a worle, Lastly, The sufferings of Christ plainly prove this doctrine. Wherefore was the Son of God, a Son under wrath, but because the children of men weie children of wrath? He suffered the wrath of God, not for him self, but for those that were liable to it, in their own perions, Nay, this not only speaks us to have been liable to wrath ; but also that wrath mit have a vent, in the punishing of fin. If this was done in the green tree, what will become of the dry! What a miserable cate mult a sinner be in that is out of Christ; that is not vitally united to Christ, and partakes not of his Spirit? God who spared not his own Son, furely will not lpare such au one. |
But the unregenerate man, who has no great value for the honour of God, will be apt to rite up against his Judge, and in his own heart condemn his procedure. Nevertheless, the Judg: being infinitely just, the sentence must be righteous. And therefore, to top thy mouth, O proud finner, and to still thy clamour apainst the righteous Judge; consider, First, Thou art a sinner by nature, and it is highly reasonable that guilt and wrath be as old as fin. Why should not God begin to vindicate his konour, as soon as vile worms begin to impare it! Why shall not a serpent bite the thief, as soon as he leaps over the hedge? Why should not the threatning take hold of the finner, as soon as he casts away the command! The poilonous nature of the serpent affords a man sufficient ground to kill it, as soon as ever he can reach it; and, by this time thou mayst be convinced, that tky nature is a very compound of enmity apaint: God. Secondly, Thou hast not only an enmicy against Gd, in thy nature; but hast discovered it, by actual sins, which are
in his eye acts of hostility. Thou hast brought forth thy lust
into the field of battle against thy sovereign Lord. And now, that thou art such a criminal, thy condemnation is just: for, besides the sin of thy nature thou bast done that against heaven, which if thou had done against men, thy life behoved to have gone for it; and shall not wrath from heaven overtake thee! {1.) Thou art guilty of high treason, and rebellion against the King of heaven. The thought and wil of thy heart, which he
PPP EN *
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acted against him, in his state of exaltation. Thee th
Head II. confirmed and vindicated. 107
knows as well as the language of thy mouth, has been, “ Ne God,“ Pfal. xiv. 1. Thou hast rejected his government, blown the trumpet, and set up the standard of rebellion against bim; being one of these that fay, “ We will not have this man to reign over us,” Luke xix. 14. Thou halt itriven against, and quenched his Spirit; practically difowned his laws, proctaimed by his messengers; Ropped thine ears at their voice, and sent them away mourmng for thy pride. Thou hast conspired with his grand'enemy the devil. Although thou art a {worn servant of the King of glory, daily recaivinyg ef his tavours, and living on his bounty: thou art holding a correspondenee, and halt contracted a fr iendship with his greatest enemy, and art acting for him againit thy Lord ror © the Juits, or the devil ye will do,“ John vin. 44. (2.) Thou art a murderer before the Lord. Thou hast laid the stumbling-block of tlüne iniquity before the blind world; and hast ruincd the souls of others by thy finful course. And tho' thou dost not fce now, the time may come, when thou shalt tee tne blood of thy relations, neighbours, acquaintances and others, upon thy head, Matth. xvii. 7. Wo unto the world because of offences: Wo to, that man by whom the offence cometh.' Yea, thou art a self-murderer before God, Prov. viii. 36. le that finneth against me
wrongeth his own foul: all they that hate me, love death.
Ezek. xviii. 31. Why will ye die?“ The laws of men go as far as they can against the teit-murderer, denying his body a burial-place amongst others, and confiscating his goods: what wonder is it the law of God is so severe against foul-murderers? Is it ttrange, that they who will needs depart from God now, cost what it will, be forced to depart from him at last, inte
, everlaiting fire! But what is yet more criminal, thou art guilty
of the murder of the Son of God, for the Lorp will reckon thee amongst those that pierced him, Rev. i. 7. Thou hast rejected bim as well as the Jews did; and by thy rejc&ing kin, thou hast justified their deed, They indeed did not acknowjedge him to be the Son of God, but thou dost. What the did againft hun, was in a state of humiliation; but thou hast ngs will agpravate thy condemnation. What wonder then, it the vore of the Lamb, change to the roaring ef the Lion, againit the traitor and murderer.
Ohject. But some will say, Is there not a vast difproportion betwixt our fin, and that wrath vou talk of? auf
* . 2 FR 4.. 22 God punishes no more than the finger delervus. To rectify
Y Our
106 The Doctrine of the State of Wrath, State II.
(John xvi. 8.) this testimony must needs be true; for the Spirit of truth cannot witnefs' an untruth. Mean-while, true balievers being freed from the state of wrath, © receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but receive the Spirit of adoption, Rom. iii. 15. And thercfore, if fears of that nature do arise, after the foul's union with Christ ; they came from the laint's own spirit, or from a worse, Lastly, The sufferings of Christ plainly prove this doctrine. Wherefore was the Son of God, a Son under wrath, but because the children of men We, children of wrath? He suffered the wrath of God, not for him self, but for those that were liable to it, in their own perions, Nay, this not only speaks us to have been liable to wrath ; but also that wrath mut have a vent, in the punishing of fin. If this was done in the green tree, what will become of the dry ! What a miserable cafe mult a sinner be in that is out of Christ; that is not vitally united to Christ, and partakes not of his Spirit? God who spared not his own Son, {urely will not Ipare such au one. | |
But the unregenerate man, who has no great value for the honour of God, will be apt to rise up against his Judge, and in his own heart condemn his procedure. Nevertheless, the Jud;;2 being infinitely juit, the sentence must be righteous, And tacrefore, to top thy mouth, O proud finner, and to {till thy
clamour against the righteous Judge; confider, First, Thou
art a sinner by nature, and it is highly reasonable that guilt and wrath be as old as fn. Why should not God begin to vindicate his konour, as soon as vile worms begin to impare it! Why shall not a serpent. bite the thief, as soon as he leaps over the hedge? Why should not the threatning take hold of the finner, as soon as he casts away the commayd? The poilonous
nature of the serpent affords a man sufficient ground to kill it,
as soon as ever he can reach it; and, by this time thou may st be convinced, that tky nature is a very compound of enmity apainst God. Secondly, Thou hast not only an enmity against Ged, in thy nature; but hast discovered it, by actual fins, which are
in his eye acts of hostility. Thou hast brought forth thy lust
Into the field of battle against thy sovereign Lord. And now, that thou art such a criminal, thy condemnation is jult: for, besides the fin of thy nature thou hast done that against heaven, which if thou had done against men, thy life behoved to have gone for it; and shall not wrath from heaven overtake thee! (1.) Thou art guilty of high treason, and rebellion against the King of heaven. The thought and with of thy heart, 3 he
Hen
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God Pl
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_
Head II. confirmed and vi ndicated. 197
k:ows as well as the language of thy mouth, has been, “ Ns God,“ Pfal. xiv. 1. Thou hast rejected his government, blown the trumpet, and set up the standard of rebellion against bim;
being one of these that fay, “ We will not have this man to reign over us, Luke xix. 14.
quen iched his Spirit; practical! y disowned his law 8 proclaimed
by his mellengers; it. thine ears at their voice, and sent them aw ay mourning for thy pride. Thou hait conspired with his grand'ct: emy the devil. Although thou art a fworn servant of the King of glory, daily receiving ef his Favours, and liv ing o his boumt, hy art holding a correspondenee, and hast contracted a frieadfhip With his preate! {t enemy, and art acting tor him a againtt my Lord; tor © he luits, of the devil ye will do," John vin. 44. Thou art a murderer before the Lord. Thou hast laid fn stumbling- block of thine iniquity before the blind world; and hast ruined tlie souls of others by thy sinful course. And tho' thou dost not ice now, the time may come, when thou shalt ee tie blood of thy relations, neighbours, acquaintances and others, upon thy Lead, Matth. XV. 7. Wo unto the world because of ofcnces: ANG to,that man by whom the offence cometh. |
fore God, Prov. viii. 26. © He that sinneth avgaini: me wrongeth his own foul: all they that hate me, love death. Ezek. xviii. 31. Why will ye die?“ The laws of men go as far as they can against the el f-murde erer, denying his body a burial-place amongst others, and confiscating his goods: avhat
wonder is it the law of Gol is o severe against foul-murderers?
Is it ttrange, that they who will needs depart from God now, cost what it will, be forced to de part from him at last, inte
everlatting fire! But wh nat is yet more criminal, thou art guilty
of the murder of the Son of God, for the Lon Iii! rcckon thee amongst those that pierced Man, Rev. i. 7. Thou hast rejected him as well a the jews did; 3 by thy rejccung him, thou hast justified thei: r deed. T hey! indeed did not acknox — iedse him to be the Son of God, but thou dost. What the did againft him, was in a state of humiliation; but thou hast acted against him, in his state of exaltation. Thee things will aggravate thy condemnation. What wonder then, it the FOE of the Lamb, change to the roaring. of the Lion, against the traitor and 1 Object. But some will say, Is there not a betwixt our fin, and that w 'rath vou talk of? Laniwer, God Pnnihes no more than the finer delervcs.
2 vet difproportion wer, No: 1'o rectify Your
Thou halt itriven against, and
Yea, thou art a self-murderer be-
—
108 The Boctriae of the Sate of Wrath, State II.
your mistake, in this matter, consider, (1.) The vast rewards God has annexed to obedience. His word is no more full of fiery wrath against fan, than it is of gracious rewards to the - obedience it requires. If heaven be in the ꝓromises, it is altogether equal that hell be in the threatnings, If death were not in the balance with life, eternal misery with eternal happinels, where were the proportion? Moreover sin deserves the misery, but our best works do not deserve the happiness: yet both are set before us; sin and misery, holiness and happiness. What realon is there then to complain? (2.) How levere soever the threatenings be, yet all has enough ado to reach the end of the law. Fear him, says our Lord, © which after he hath killed, bath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him, Luke xii. 5. This bespeaks our dread of divine power and majesty; but yet how few fear him indeed! The Lord knows the sinners heart to be exceedingly intent upon fulfilling their lusts: they cleave fo fondly to those fullome. breasts, that a small force does not suffice to draw them from them. They that travel through desarts, where they are in hazard from wild beasts, have need to carry fire along with them: and they have need of a hard wedge that have knotty timber to cleave: Sv a holy law must be fenced with a dreadful wrath, in a world lying in wickedness. But who are they that complain of that wrath as too great, but those to whom it is too little to draw them off from their sinful courses? It was the many who pre- | tended to fear his Lord, because he was an austere man, that kept his pound laid up in a napkin: and so he was condemned out of his own mouth, Luke xix. 20, 21, 22. Thou art that man, even thou whose objection I am answering. How can the
wrath thou art under, and liable to, be too great, while yet it
is not sufficient to awaken'thee to fly from it? Is it time to relax the penalties of the law, when men are trampling the commands of it under foot? (3.) Consider how God dealt with his own Son, whom © he spared not, Rom. viii. 32. The wrath of God seized on his foul and body both, and brought him into the dust of death. That his sufferings were not eternal, flowed | from the quality of the sufferer, who was infinite; and therefore able to bear at once, the whole load of wrath: and upon that account, his sufferings were infinite in value. But in value they must be protracted to an eternity. And what confidence can a rebel subject have to quarrel (for his part) a punishment Execute on the King's Son? (4.) The sinner doth against God what- he can.
© Behold thou hast done evil things as thou c oul dit,”
hic! The
2. sinful head, lure u Thou ll. 12 bound what this.
out of
*
Pre
Head II.
couldst, Jer. iii. 5. That thou hast not done more, and worse; thanks to him who restrained thee; to the chain which the wolf was kept in by, not to thyself, No wonder God shew his power on the sinner, who puts forth his power against God, as far as it will reach. The unregenrate man puts no period to his finful course; and would put no bounds to it neither, if he were not restrained by divine power for wise ends. and therefore it is Just he be for ever under wrath. (F.) It is infinite majesty sin strikes against; and fo it is, in some sort, an infinite evil. Sin riseth in its demerit, according to the quality of the party offended. If a man wound his neghbour, his goods must go for it; but if he wound his prince, his life must go to make amends for that. The infinity of God makes infinite wrath the just demerit of lin. God is infinitely displeased with sin: and when he acts, he mult act like himself, and thew his displcafure by proportionable means. Lastly, Those that shall lie for ever under his wrath will be eternally sinning; and therefore must eternally suffer: not only in respect of divine judicial procedure; but because sin is its own punishment, in the fame manner that holy obedience is its own reward.
confirmed and vindicated.
The Doctrine of the Misery of Man's nature! State; „ applied. *
USE (r.) Of information. Is our state by nature a state of
Wrath! Then, |
I. Surely we are not born innocent. Thele chains of wrath, which by nature are upon us, speak us to be born criminals. The swaddling bands whergwith infants are bound hand and foot as soon as they are born, may put us in mind of the cords of wrath, with which they are held prisoners, as children of wrath.
2. What desperate madness is it for sinners to go on in their sinful course : What js it but to heap coals of fire on thine own head, and lay more and more fuel to the fire of wrath, to trealure up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, Rom. ii. 5.
Thou mayst perish, when his wrath is kindled but a little, Pfal.
ui. 12. Why wilt thou increase it yet more! Thou art already bound with such bords of death, as will not easily be loosed: what need is there of more! Stand, careless sinner and consider this. 3. Thou hast no reason to complain, as long as thou art out of hell. Wherefore doth a living man complain? Lam. uw. 39. If one who has forfcited 2; be, be bapithed his native
The Doctrine of the Misery of
country, and exposed to many hardihips; patiently, tecing his life is ipered. Do ye murmur, fer that ye are under pain or sickness? Nay, bless God ye are not there, where the worm never dieth. Dost thou grudpe that thou ant not in = goed a condition in the world as some of thy neighbours are? Be thankful rather, that ye are not in the case of the Se, Is thy substance gone from thee? Wonder that, the fire of God's wrath hath not consumed thyself. Kiss the rod, O sinner, and acknowledge mercy: for God punisheth us le than our iniquities deserve, Ezra ix. 13.
4. Here is a memorandum, both for poor and rich. (1.) 1 heꝛpoorest that go from door to door, and hath not one penny left them by their parents, were born to an inheritance. bei lirst father Adam left them children of wrath ; and continuing in their natural state, they cannot miss of it; for © this is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed to him by God, Job xx. 29. An heritage, that will furnish them with an habitation „who bave not where to lay their head: they * shall be cast into utter darkness,” Mat. xxv. 30. for to them „is re{erved the blackness of darkness for ever, Jude 13. where their bed shall be forrow, © They shall ly down in sorrow, Ita. I. 11. their food shall be judgment, for God will feed them with judgment, Ezek. xxxjv. 16. and their dritt“ Mall be the red wine of God's w rath, the dregs whereof a 1 = wicked of the earth shall wring out, and drink them,”
al. Ixxv. 8. I know, that these v ho are destitute of worldly 3 and withal wood of the knowledge arid grace of God, who therefore may be called the dev a's 5 poor, will be apt say here, We hope God will make us suffer all our misery in this world, and we shall be happy in the next: as if their miserable outward condition in time, would secure their happinet: | in | eternity. A grols an tatal mistake! And this is another inheritance they have, viz. lies, v any. and things wherein theris no profit,” Jer. xvi. 1. But the hail shall weep away the refuge of lies, Isa. xxviii. 17. Dost thou think, O sinner, that God who commands judges on car hs © not to respect the periin of the pour in judgment, Lev. xix. 1 5. will pervert judgment for thee? Nay, know for certa' n, that however miserable thou art here, thou shalt be eternally miserable hereafter, if thou lirest and diest in thy natural state. (2.) Many that have enough in the world, have far more than they know of. Thon Hast, (it may be) O unregenerate man, an estate, a good portion, or large stock left thee by thy father: thou hast improven
State II.
he may well bear all
Sees "HED red 4 ey 1
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canst know not c That chan gener is st Wong other. of de{ Well of thi proot man seriou 6 But into; Come ling C vii. © TONE | tient 30 voutl kang! there a £00 had p dave to thi ye th they 6. his © conce Nec a pier above neith him, rat ot th
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Man's natural State applied.
Head II. 112
it, and the sun of prosperity shines upon thee; so that then canit say with Esau, Gen. xxx1il. 9. * I have enough.” Bus know, thou hast more than all that, an inheritance Thou dost not confider of: thou art a child of wrath, an heir of hell. That is an heritage which will abide with thee, amidst all the changes in the w ould; ; as long as thou continuest in an unre— penerate state. When thou shalt leave thy substance to others; this shall go along with thy self, into another world. It is no wonder a flaughter-ox be fed to the full, and is not tuilcd as others are, Job ie he: 'w ken is reserved to the day of de{trudtion; they Hall be brow ght forth to the day of wrath." Well then, rejoice, let thine heart chear thee, walk in the ways of thine heart, and in tl. bebt of thine eyes: live above reproofs and warnings from the word of God; shew thyself a man of a fine spit, by casting off all fear ot God; mock at seriousness; live Jike thylel?, a child of wr ath, an heir of heil: gut know thou, that for all thele things God wil br: ng thee into judgment, Eccles. xi. 9. Aur thy self, thy breaking shall come suddenly, at an instant, Ila. z$x.1%3. For as the crack - ling of thorns under 2 pot, io is the laughter of a fool, Eccles. vii. 6. The fair blaze, and gicat note they ma 3 is quickly one; so shall thy mirth be. And tb ay that wrath that is now lently linking into thy foul, {hall make a fea: -fal i: ding.
5. Wo to him, that, like * Moab, hath been at cate from *. youth, Jer. xlvini. It. and never {aw the black cloud of Wrat! kanging over his head. There are many who f ha ve no changes, therefore they fear not God,” Pial. Iv. 19. They have lived in a good belief (as they call it all their days; that is, they never had poxrer to believe an ill report of their fouls state, Many have come by their religion too catily ; and as it came lightly to them, so ic will go from them, when their trial comes. 4 think men flee from w ath, m a morning dream? Or will
they flee from the wrath, thev never saw-puriuing them.
6. Think it not ttrauge if ye sce one in great distreis about his foul's condition, who was wont to be as jou ial, and as little concerned about salvation, as any of his ncigbbonr get a right view of himiclf, as in a tate of + picrced with sorrows , terrors, anxiety ! When a weiglit, quite above one's trength, lies upon. him, and he is along; he cen neither {tir hand nor foot: him, he'll struggle to get from under it. FPhramder-claps wrath from the word of God conv eved tothe foul by the 98 it ot the Lord, will surely kcep a man awake. ;
but W 5 One cenics to lift it ul
—
-
112 The Doctrine of the Misery of | State II.
Las T LV, It is no wonder wrath come upon churches and nations, and upon us in this land, and that infants and children yet unborn smart under it. Most of the society are yet children of Wrath; few are fleeing from it, or taking the way to prevent it; but people of all ranks are helping it on. The Jews rejected Christ; and their children have been smartin under wrath these sixteen hundred years. God grant that the bad entertainment given to Christ and his gospel, by this generation, be not pursued with wrath on the succeeding one. |
Us (2.) Of exhortation. And here, 1. I shall drop a word to these who are yet in an unrepenerate state. 2. To those that are brought out of it. 3. To all indifferently.
I. To you that are yet in an unregenerate state, I would found the alarm, and warn you to see to yourselves, while yet there is hope. O ye children of wrath, take no rest in this dismal tate; but flee to Jesus Christ the only refuge. Haste and make your escape thither. The state of wrath is too hot a climate for you to live in, Micah ii. 10. Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest.* O sinner knowest thou where thou art? Dost thon not see thy danger? The curse has entred into thy soul: wrath is thy covering, tlie heavens are growing blacker and blacker above thy bead: the earth is weary of thee, the pit is opening her mouth for thee; and should the thread of thy lite be cut this moment, thou art henceforth past all hopes for ever. Sirs, if we saw you putting a cup of poison to your mouth; we would fly to you and snatch it out of your hands. If we saw the houle on. fire about you, while ye were fait asleep in it; we would run to you, and drag you out of it. But alas! ye are in ten thouland times greater hazard; yet we can do no more but tell you of your danger; invite, exhort, beseech, and obtest you, to look to yourselves; and lament your stupidity and obstinacy, when we cannot prevail with you to take warning. If there were no hope of your recovery, we should be filent, and would not torment you before the time: but tho' ye be jost and undone, there is hope in lirael concerning this thing. Wherefore, I cry unto you in the name of the Lord, and in the words of the prophet, Zech. ix. 12. Turn ye to the strong hold, ye prifoners of hope.“ Flee to Jesus Christ out of this your natural state. | 5
Motive 1. While ye are in this state, ye must stand or fall according to the law, or covenant of works. If ye understocd this aright, it would strike through your hearts, as.a thousand darts. One had better be a flave to the Turks, condemned to
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Head II. Man's natural Stale applied. 113
the galleys, or under Egyptian bondage, than be under, the covenant of Works now. All mankind were broupht under it in Adani, as we heard before: and thou in thy unregenerate state, art still where Adam left thee. It is true, there is another covenant brought in: but what is that to thee, who art not brought into it? Thou mult needs be under one of the two covenants; either under the law, or under grace. That thou art not under grace, the dominion of fin over thee, manifestly evinceth; therefore thou art under the law, Rom. vi. 14. Do not think God has laid aside the first covenant, Mat. v. 17, 18. Gal. iii. 10. No, he will “ magnify the law, and make ic honourable.” It is broken indeed on thy part: but it is absurd to think, that therefore your obligation is dissolved. Nay, thou mult stand and fall by it, till thou canit produce thy discharge
from God himself, who is thy party in that covenant; and this
thou canst not pretend to, sceing thou art net in Christ.
Now, to give you a view of your milery, in this respect, consider these following things, (1.) Hereby ye are bound over to death, in virtue of the threatning of death in that covenant, Gen. ii. 17. The condition being broken, ye fall under the penalty. So it concludes you under wrath. (2.) There is no falvation for you under this covenant, but on a condition impossible to be performed by you. "The justice of God mutt be satisfied for the wrong you have done already. God hath written this truth in characters of the blood of his own Son. Yea, and you must perfectly obey the law for the time to come. So faith the law, Gal. ii. 12. * The man that doth them, shall live in then.“ Come then, O (inner, see if thou canst make ladder, whereby thou mayit reach the throne of God; stretch forth thine arms, and try, if thou canit fly on the wings of the wind, catch hold of the clouds, and pierce through these visible heavens; and then either climb over, or break through the jasper walls of the city above. These things shalt thou do, as {oon as thou shalt reach heaven in thy natural state, or under this covenant. _ (3.) There is no pardon under this covenant:
Pardon is the benefit of another covenant, with which thou hast
nothing to do, Acts xiv. 9. © And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be jultified by the law of Moses.* As for thee, thou art ia the hand of a merciless creditor, who will take thee by the throat, saying, © Pay what thou owest:? and cast thee into prison, there to remain till thou hast paid the utmost farthing: unless thou beest fo wile as to get. a sufficient N for yourself in time, who is
3 able
—
to do with Christ, while under this covenant.
114 The Doctrine of the Misery of State II.
able to answer for al! thy debt, and get up thy discharge, This Jesus Christ alone can do. Thou abidest under this covenant, and pleadest mercy: but what is thy plea founded on? There is not one promise of mercy or pardon in that covenant, Dost thou plead mercy, for mercy's fake? Justice will step in betwixt it and thee; and plead God's covenantthreatning, which he cannot deny. (4 ) There's no place for repentance in this covenant, fo as the {inner can be helped by
it. For as soon as ever thou sinnest, the law lays its curle on
thee, which is a dead weight thou canst by no means throw off; no, not tho? thine © head were waters, and thine eyes a fountain of tears, to weep day and night for thy fin.” That is,
© what the law cannot do, in that it is weak through the flesh,
Rom. viii. 3. Now thou art another profane Efau, that hath fold the blessing; and there is no place for repentance, tho' thou seekest it carefully with tears, while under that covenant.
( 5.) There is no accepting of the will for the deed under this
covenant, which was not made for good will, but good works, The mistake in this point rnins many. They are not in Christ,
but stand under the first covenant; and yet they will plead
this privilege. This 1s just as if one having made a feast for those of his own family, when they fit down at table, another man's servant that has run away from is master, should prefumptuously come forward and fit down among them: would not the master of the feast give such a stranger that check, © Friend, how camest thou in hither?' And fince he is none of
his family, command him to be gone quickly. Though a
master accept the good will of his own child for the deed, can a hired servant expect that privilege? (6.) Ye have nothing By the law of God a wonian cannot be married to two husbands at once: either death or divorce must diflolve the first marriage, ere she can marry another. So we mult first be dead to the law, ere we can be married to Christ, Rom. vii. 4. The la is the first
Husband ; Jesus Christ who raiseth the dead, marries the widow
that was heart broken and slain by the first husband. But
While the fon] is in the house with the first husband, it cannot plead a marriage relation to Christ ; nor the benefits of a
marriage covenant, which is not yet entered into, Gal. v. 4. © Chrilt is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.“ Peace, pardon, and such like benent, are all benefits of the covenant of grace. And ye mult not think to stazd off from Christ, and the marrlage
Head II. Man's natural State applic d. 115
riage covenant with him, and yet plead these bencfits; more than one man's wife can plead the benefit of a contract of marriage past betwixt another man and his own wife. Lailly, See the bill of exclusion, past in the court of heaven, apaintt all under the covenant of works, Gal. iv. 30. The fon of the bond-woman shall not be heir.“ Compare ver. 24. Heirs of wrath must not be heirs of glory. Whom the first covenant hath power to exclude out of heaven, the second covenant cannot bring into it. |
Objection. Then it is impossible for us to be saved. Answer, It is so, while you are in that state. But if you would be out of that dreadfut condition, basten out of that state. If a murderer be under sentence of death; so long as he lives within the kingdom, the laws will reach his life: but if he can make his escape, and get over the fea, into the dominions of another prince; our laws cannot reach him there. This is what we would have you to do: flee out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of God's dear Son; out of the dominion of the law, into the dominion of grace; then all the curses of the law, or covenant of works, shall never be able to reach you.
Motive 2. O ye children of wrath, your state is wretched,
r ye have lost God; and that is an unspeakable loss, © Ye are
without God in the world, Eph. ii. 12. Whatever you may call yours, you cannot call God yours. If we look to the earth, perhaps you can tel! us, that land, that house, or that herd of cattle, is yours. But let us look upward to heaven, is that God, that grace, that glory yours? Truly, you have neither part nor lot in that matter. When Nebuchadnezzar talks of Cities and kingdoms, O how big does he speak! © Great Babylon that I have built, my power, - my majci{ty;* but he tells a poor tale when he comes to speak cf God, saying, © Your God,” Dan i. 47. aud iv. 30. Alas! finner whatever thou hast, God is gone from thee, O the misery of a godless foul! Hast thou loft God? Then, (T.) The sap and substance of all that thou hast in the world, is gone. The godless man, have what he will, is one that hath not, Mat. xxv. 29. I defy the unregenerate man to attain to soul- satisfaction, whatever he postefseth, since God is not his God. All his days he eateth in darkness: in every condition, there is a secret dissatisfaction haunts his heart like a ghost: the soul wants something, tho?
Perhaps it knoweth not what it is: and fo it will be always,
till the foul return to God, the fountain of satisfaction,
12.) Thou canst do nothing to purpose for thy self; for God is
gone J
116 Alarm lo the Unregenerate, State II.
gone, * his seut is jeparted from thee,” Fer. vi. 8. like a leg out of joint hanging by, whereof a man hath no use, as the word there used doth bear. Losing God, thou hast lost the fountain ot good; and lo, all grace, all goodness, all the faving influences of his Spirit. What canst thou do then! What fruit canst thou briag forth, more than a branch cut off from the stock? John xv. 5. Thou art become unprofitable, Rom. ii. 12. as a filthy rotten dung fit only for the dunghill, (3.) Death has come up into thy windows, yea, and has settled on thy face; for God in whose favour is life, Plal. xxx. 5. is gone from thee, and fo the foul of thy foul is departed. What a lothsome lump is the body when the foul is gone? Far more lothsome is thy foul in this cafe. Thou art dead while thou livest. Do not deny it: seeing thy speech is laid, thine eyes closed, and all spiritual motion in thee cealeth. Thy true friends who ke thy case, do lament, because thou art gone into the land of silence. (.) Thou hast not a steady friend among all the creatures of God; for now that thou hast lost the Master's fav our, all the f family is set against thee.
Conscience is thine enemy: the word never {peaks good of thee : _ God's people lothe thee, so far as they see what thou art,
Psal. xv. 22. The beasts and stones of the field are bandel together against thee, Job v. 23. Hol. ii. 18. Thy meat,
&r ink, clothes, grudge io be ferviceable to the wretch that has Jolt God, and abuseth them to his dishonour. The earth groaneth under thee; ; Yea, © the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together, because of thee, and such as thou art, Rom. xxi. 22. Heaven will have nothing to do with thee; for © there shal lin no wise enter into it any thing that defileth,
Rev. xxi. 22. Only © hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming,“ If. xiv. 9. Lastly, Thy hell is
begun already. What makes hell, but exclusion from the
presence of God? © Depart from me ye cursed.” Now ye ae pone from God already, with the curse upon you. That shall
be your punishment at length (if ye return not) which is now
your choice. As a gracious state? is a state of glory 1 in the bud; To a graccless state is hell in the bud; which if it continue, will come to perfection at length.
Motive 3. Consider the dreadful laces of the wrath of God; and let them serve to awaken thee to. flee out of this state. Consider (1.) How it has fallen on men. Even in this world, many have been set up as monuments of divine vengeance; that others might fear, Wrath has iwept away
- mal-
Head II. Alarm to the Unregenerate, 117 1!
but cannot get a drop of water to cool their tongues. Believe
these things, and be warned by them; lest destru&tion come | | | upon thee, for a warning to others. (2.) Consider how wrath N | fell upon the fallen angels, whole cate is absolutely hopeless. | 1 They were the first that ventured to break the hedge of the 17 f | 5 divine law; and God fet them up for monuments of his wrath 7 bi 1
4 TS ; multitudes, who have fallen together by the hand of an angry Bop! | 1 God. Consider how the Lord spared not the old world, i | bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly : and z Wi 7 turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, con- 91 4,8 1 demned them with an overthrow, making them an example 61 g : unto those that after should live ungodly,” 2 Pet. jj. 5, 6. But . itt is yet more dreadful to think of that weeping, wailing and 14 k ' pnashing of tecth, amongst those, who in hell lift up their eyes, 1791.
against lin. They once left their own haibtation, and were 11 never allowed to look in again at the hole of the door; but 4 1 they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto 1 \ the judgment of the great day, Jude 6. Lastly, Behold how 1 ' i an angry God dealt with his own Son, standing in the room of TH ' Mi ele& sinners, Rom. vii. 32, God {pared not his own Son.“ Ss | Sparing mercy might have been expected, if any at all: If any if e person could have obtained it, surely his own Son would have 111 i pot it; but he spared him not. "The Father's delight is made 1 IM a man of sorrows: he who is the wisdom of God, becomes fore 1 amazed, ready to faint away with a fit of horror. The weight 1 of this wrath makes him sweat great drops of blood. By the Ni fierceness of this sire, his heart was like wax melted in the | midst of his bowels.” Behold here how severe God is against in! the sun was struck blind with this terrible fight, rocks iy were rent, graves opened, death, as it were, in the excels of a astonishment, letting its prisoners {lip away. What is a deluge, le a shower of fire and brimstone on Sodomites, the terrible noise 4414 } of a dissolving world, the whole fabrick of heaven and earth Tix | falling down at once, angels cast down from hea ci into the. 1 bottomlels pit? What are all these, I fay, in comparison with thi q this? God suffering! groaning, dying upon a crols! infinite s 5 holiness did it, to make {in look like itself, viz. infinitely odious. And will men live at case, while exposcd to this wrath. LasTLY, Consider what a God he is, with whom thon hast _ | to do, whose wrath thou art liable unto:; He is a God of infinite 'F} * knowledge and wisdom; so that none of thy sins, however 1 a | secret, can be hid fron: him. He infallibly finds out all means; ; hereby wrath may be executed toward the latisfying of Jutiice,
erer 4 ogy; war iS
/ | — sl ) 1 Alarm to the Unregenerate. State II. f He | justice. He is of infinite power, and fo can do what he will 1 it, i against the sinner. How heavy mult the strokes of wrath be, I hin which are laid on by an omnipotent hand! infinite power can He | make the sinner prisoner, even when he is in his greatest rage it? k against heaven: It can bring again the several parcels of duft, life | out of the grave; put them together again, reunite the foul Th; end the body, sist them before the tribunal, hurry them away 5 cliff to the pit, and hold them up with the one hand thro' eternity, 1 (2 0 while they are lashed with the other. He is infinitely just, and * il therefore mnst punish; it were acting contrary to his nature to 4 vol |” softer the sinner to escape wrath: Hence the executing of this y e ) ,rath is pleasing to bim; for tho' the Lord hath no delight in. fre: 41 the death of the sinner, as it is the destruction of his own crea- + ot | th ture; yet he delights in it, as it is the execution of justice: N toy 5 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and 3 hin Y an horrible tempest;* Mark the reason, For the righteons As Lord loveth riphteousnels, Pfal. xi. 6,7 I will cause my fury 0 wr to rest upon them, and I will be comforted,” Ezek v 13 * I alto 2 arc will laugh at your calamity,” Prov i 26 Finally, He lives rt for ever, to pursue the quarrel: Let us therefore conclude, Eg It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” b; Act Be awakencd then, O young sinner; be awakened, O old the sinner, who art yet in the state thou wast born in: our secu- by rity is none of God's allowance, it is the sleep of death: rise of 1 out of it ere the pit close its mouth on you: It is true, you may his put on a breast-plate of iron, make your brow brass, and your can hearts as an adamant; who can help it? But God will break ] that brazen brow, and make that adamantine heart, at last, to | fly into a thousand pieces: Ye may, if ye will, labour to put we: these things out of your heads, that ye may yet sleep in a found no skin, tho' in a state of wrath: Ye may run away with the 0 - frat arrows sticking in your consciences to your work, to work nate them away: or to your beds to fleep them out: or to com- 7 of t pany to {port and laugh them away: but convictions so stifled q. Go will have a fearful resurrection: and the day is coming, when Wes” the arrows of wrath shall fo stick in thy foul, as thou shalt Fan never be able to pluck them out thro” the ages of eternity, mo unless thou take warning in time. | | | fou But if any desire to flee from the wrath to come; and for lea that end, to know what course to take; I offer them these few 2 in advices, and obtest and betech them, as they love their own ud 4 {ouls, to fall in with them: (1) Retire yourselves into some | you F secret place, and there meditate on this your misery: Believe ro | ut, |
Head 1]. How to flee srom Wrath. 119
it, and fix your thoughts on it: Let each put the question to himself, How can I live in this state? How can 1 die in it? How will I rise again, and stand before the tribunal of God in it? (2) Consider feriously the fin of your nature, heart and life: A kindly sight of wrath flows from a deep sense of {in: They who {ee themiclves exceeding fmful, will find no great difficulty to perceive themlelves to be hors of wrath. (3) Labour to jultify God in this matter: To quarrel with God about it, and to rage like a wild hull in a net, will but fix you the more in it: Humnuliation of oul, betore the Lord, is necessary for an escape: God will not fel} deliverance, but freely pives it to thote, who see themlelves altogether unworthy of is tavour. Laitly, Turn your eyes, O prisoncrs of hope, towards the Lord Jetus Christ; and embrace him as he offereth himself, in the gospel, © There is no salvation in any other,“
Acts iv. 12. God is a consuming fire; ye are the children of
wrath: if the Mediator interpose not bet wixt him and you, ye are undone for ever. If ye would be fife, come under his shadow: one drop of that wrath cannot fall there, for he © delivereth vs from the wrath to come,“ 1 Thell. i. 10. Accept of him in his covenant, wherein he oftereth himself te thee: and fo thou shalt as the captive woman, redeem thy life, by marrving the Conqueror. His blood will quench that fire of wrath, which burns against thee: in the white raiment of his righteousness thou shalt be safe; for no ftorm of wrath can Pierce it. | | | |
II. I snall drop a few words to the faints.
First, Remember, —“ that ar that time, (namely, when ye were jn your natural state) ye were without Chriit—having no hope, and without God in the world.“ Call to mind that state, ye were in formerly; and review the misery of it. There are five memorials I may thence give in to the whole assembly of the-faints, who are uo more children of wrath, but heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, tho” as yet in their minority. (J.) Remember, that in the day our Lord took you by the hand, ye were in no better condition than others? O what moved him to take yon, when he past by your neighbours! he found you children of wrath, even as others; but he did not:
leave you so. He came into the common prison, here you lay
in your fetters, even as others: and from amongst the multitude of condemned malefactors, he picked out you, commanded
your fetters to be taken off, put a pardon in your hand and brought you into the plorious liberty of the children of God; while
120 Duty of these who ares State II. fl
| while he left others in the devil's fetters. (2.) Remember N ne 5 there was nothing in you to engage him to love you, in the day k th he first appeated for your deliverance. Ye were children of | br.
| ' wrath, even as others, at for hell, and altogether unfit for me” heaven: yet the King brought you into the palace: the King's? lal i Son made love to you a condemned criminal, and espoused you E-: ; to himielf, on the day in which ye might have had been led | T! forth to exccution. Even fo, Father, for fo it seemeth good | Ex
in thy sight, Matth. ix. 26. (3.) Remember, ye were fitter | 3
to be lothed than loved in that day. Wonder, that when he 15 70
{1w you in your blood, he looked not at you with abhorrence, att
and passed by you. Wonder that ever such a time could be as
* a time of love, Ezek. xvi.8. (4.) Remember, ye are decked tea
with borrowed feathers. It is his comeliness, which is upon ho
you, ver. 14. It was he that took off your prison garments, it!
and clothed you with robes of righteousness, garments of sal- | vation: garments wherewith ye are arrayed as the lilies, which to
toil not, neither do they spin. He took the chains from off wa
vour arms, the rope from about your neck; put you in such a live
dress as ye might be fit for the court of heaven, even to eat at be the King's table. (5.) Remember your faults this day: as wh Pharoah's butler, who had forgotten Joseph. Mind how you pla have forgotten, and how unkindly you have treated him, who the remembred you in your low estate. * Is this your kindness to | fro your friend!?“ In the day of your deliverance, did ye think, e All could have thus requited him, your Lord! | Full
SECONDLY, Pity the children of wrath, the world that Sol lies in wickedness, Can ye be unconcerned for them, ye who „ were once in the same condition? Ye have got ashore indeed, be; but your fellows are yet in hazard of perishing; and will not 58 |
ve make them all possible help for their deliverance? What 5 they are, ye sometimes were. This may draw pity from you, | * and engage you to use all means for their recovery. Sce it
ThizDry, Admire that matchless love, which brought you chai out of the state of wrath. Christ's love was. active love, he and © loved thy soul from the pit of corruption.“ It was no ealy _ work to purchase the life of the condemned sinner! but he: gave his life for thy life. He gave his precious blood to quench 10 that flame of wrath, which other wije would have burnt thee up. TH Men pet the belt view of the stars, from the bottom of a deep | ah pit: from this pit of misery into which thou wast cast by the 15
sirst Adam, thou maylt get the best view of the Sun of — | : Une $
Head II. Deliv. red from Wrath,
ness, in all its dimensions. He is the second Adam, who took | thee out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay. How. broad were the skirts of that love, which covered such a | multitude of fins! behold the length of it, reaching © from everlasting to everlasting,” Plal. cini. 17. The depth of it, going 1 0 o low as to deliver thee © from the lowelt hell, Pal. IXxXxvi. 13. (4 | | The height of it, in raising thee up to“ fit in heavenly places," 81 |
Be humble, carry low fails, walk softly all your years. Be not proud of your yifts, graces, privileges, or attainments: but remember ye were children of wrath, even as others. The peacock walks slowly, hangs down his starry feathers, while he looks to his black feet. Look ye to the hole of the pit, whence ye are digged, and walk bumbly as it becomes free grace's debtors.
be wholly his: to act for him, to suffer for him, and to do
whatever he calls you to. The saints have no reason to complain of their lot in the world, Whatever it be. Well may they bear the cross for him, by whom the curse was born away from them. Well may they bear the wrath of men, in his
cause, who has freed them from the wrath of God ; and chearfully go to a fire for him, by whom hell-fireis quenched to them, Soul amd body, and all thou hadst in the world, were sometimes under wrath : he has removed that wrath, shall not all these
be at his service? That thy soul is not overwhelmed with the
wrath of God, is owing purely to Jesus Christ; and shall it not then be a temple for his Spirit? That thy-heart is not filled with horror and despair, is owing to him only: to whom then should it be devoted but to him alone? That thine eyes are not blinded
with the smoak of the pit, thy hands are not fettered with chains of darkness, thy tongue is not broiling in the fire of hell, and thy feet are not standing in that lake that burns with fire
and brimstone, is owing purely to Jesus Christ; and shall not these eyes be employed for him, these hands a& for him, that tongue speak for him, and thefe feet speedily run his errands? To him who believes that he was a child of wrath, even as others, but. is now delivered by the blessed Jesus, nothing will appear too much, to do or suffer for his deliverer, when he has a fair call to it. L HL, Fo
*
i LasTLY, Be wholly for your Lord. Every wife is obliged | if to be dutiful to her husband; but double ties lie upon her who 1 ; was taken from a prison or a dunghill. If your Lord has de- 1 9 livered you from wrath, ye ought, upon that very account, to
—
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—
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:
Man unable State II.
III. To conclude with a word to all: Let no man think lightly of fin, which lays the sinner open to the wrath of God. Let not the fin of our nature, which wreaths the yoke of God's wrath io early about our necks, seem a finall thing in our eyes. Fear the Lord, because of his dreadful wrath. Tremble at the thought of fin, against which God has such fiery indignation, | Look on his wrath, and stand in awe, and fin not. Do you
think this is to press you to flavish fear? If it were fo, one had better be a slave to God with a trembling heart; than a free man to the devil, with a seared conscience and a heart of adamant. But it is not fo, you may love him, and thus fear Him too; yea, ye ought to do it, though ye were saints of the first magnitude. See Pfal. cxix. 10. Matth. x. 28. Luke xii. 3. Heb. xii. 28, 29. Altho' ye have past the gulf of wrath, being in Jesus Christ; yet it is but reasonable, your hearts shiver when ye look back to it. Your sin still deserves wrath even as the 1ins of others: and it would be terrible to be in a fiery furnace;
altho* by a miracle, we were so fenced against it, as that it
could not harm us.
H E A D III. Man's utter Inability to recover Himself.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time
- Christ died for the ungodly,
Joun vi. 44. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him.
E have now had a view of the total cortuption of man's
nature, and that load of wrath which lies on him, that
gulph of misery he is plunged into in his natural state. But
there's one part of his misery that deserves particular consideratian; namely, his utter inability to recover himself, the know - ledge of which is necessary for the due humiliation of a sinner.
What I design here is, only to propose a few things, whereby to
himf Himsl him help OY CC else his © offer deac
Not
Lor. reco bur stan ves died nev
ofe
pro
tall
liev 152 not ing fer
for
nnn „
Head III. to reeover himscif. 123
to convince the unregenerate man of this his inability ; that he may fee an absolute need of Christ, and of the power of his grace,
As a man that is fallen into a pit, cannot be supposed to help himself out of it, but by one of two ways; either by doing all dimself alone, or taking hold of, and improving the help offered him by others: fo an unconverted man cannot be supposed to belp himself out of that state, but either in the way of the law, or covenant of works, by doing all himself without Christ; or else in the way of the gospel, or covenant of grace, by exerting his own strength to lay hold upon, and to make vse of the help offered him by a Saviour, But alas! the unconverted man is dead in the pit, and cannot help himicif, either of these ways. Not the first way: for the {ir{t text tells us, that when our
Lord came to help us, © we were without strength,” unable to
recover ourselves. We were ungodly; therefore under a
burden of guilt and wrath ; yet without strength, unable to
stand under it: and unable to throw it off, or get from under it: so that all mankind had undoubtedly perished, had not Christ died for the ungodly, and brought help to them who could
never dave recovered themictves. But when Christ comes and
ofereth help to sinners, cannot they take it? Cannot they improve help when it comes to their hands! No, the second text
tells us, they cannot: No man can come unto me, (i. e. believe in me, John vi. 35.) except the Father draw him.“ This | is a drawing which enables them to come, who till then could
not come; and therefore eould not help themselves, by improving the help offered. It is a drawing, which is always effectual; for it can be no less than hearing and learning of the Father, which whoso partakes of, cometh to Chrilt, ver. 25, 'Therefore it is not drawing in the way of mere moral suasion, which
may be, yea, and always is ineffectual: but it is drawing by
mighty power, Ephel. i. 19. absolutely necessary for them that have no power in thenisclves to come and take hold of the offered help.
Ilearken then, O unregenerate man, and be convinced, that as thou art in a most miserable state by nature; so thou art
utterly unable to recover thyself, any manner of way. Thau
art rumed; and what way wilt thou go to work, to recover thyself? Which of these two ways wilt thou chuse? Wilt thor. try it alone! Or wilt thou make use of help? Wilt thou fal. on the way of works, or on the way of the gospel? I know very well, thou wilt not so much as try the way of the gospel, till once thou hast found the recovery imvrefticable, in the way
_
124 | Man unable State II. He
q the law. Therefore we shall. begin where corrupt nature: ver i teaches men to begin, viz. at the way of the law of works. , the
| I. Sinner, I would have thee believe that thy working will 5 act!
. never eifect it. Work and do thy best; thon shalt never be © thi
1 able to work thyself out of this state of corruption and wrath. fin,
5 'i'hou mult have Christ, else thou snalt perich eternally, It is 1 mu
1 oaly Chriit in you, can be che 5 8 cr glory. But if thou wilt lav
if | needs try it, then I mult lay before thee, ftom the unalterable. the
1 word of the living God, two things which thou must do for eve
If | thyself, And if thou canit do them; it mult be yielded, that ter
4 thou art able to recover thyself: but if not, then thou canst o co
| — aothing this way, for thy recovery. . tha
i} FIRST, If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command. {t1]
f ments,“ Matth. xix. 17. That is, if thou wilt by doing, enter ref
* into life, then perfectly keep the ten commands. For the scope sto
4} of these words is, to beat down the pride of man's heart; and of
i to let him fee the absolute need of a Saviour, from the impossi- Wi
| bility of keeping the law. The answer is given, suitable to the | mi
ii atilrels. Our Lord checks him for his compliment, Good W.
Fl Master,” ver. 16. telling him, © There is none good but one, th
I! that is God, ver. 17. As it he had said, you think yourself '; la-
* a good man, and me another? but where goodness is spoken of, | as
"ll men and angels may vail their faces before the good God. And to
0 as to his question, wherein he discovereth his legal disposition, | - br
fl Christ does not answer him, say ing, Believe and thou shalt be th
of faved :* that would not have been fo seasonable in the case of | if
if one, who thought he could do well enough for bimlelf, if he but Jo
knew what good things he should do; but, suitable to the of
! humour the man was in, he bid him © keep the commandments: | R
i keep them nicely and accurately, as thole that watch malefac- |! m tors in prison, lest any of them escape, and their life go for pl 1 their's. See then, O unregenerate man, what canst thou do in. th 18 this matter; for if thou wilt recover thyself in this way, thou H 1 mast perfectly keep the commandments of God. 1 — fe. And (1.) Thy obedience must be perfect in respect of tbe in "| principle of it; that is, thy foul, the principle ef action, must ® 1 be perfectly pure, and altogether without fin. For the lay © 4. . requires all moral perfection; not only actual, but habitual, and E | lo condemns original fin; impurity of nature, as well as v4 fe | actions. Now, if thou canst bring this to pass, thou snhalt b er able to answer that question of Solomon's fo as never one of _ W
| Adam's posterity could yet answer it, Prov. xx. 9. Who can bl
| jay, I have made my heart clean?“ But if thou canst not, the i | | 5 ver
Head III. fo recover” hinifelf. | „ 123 very want of this perfection is a sin; and so lays thee open to the curse, and outs thee off from life. Yea, it makes all thine
actions, even thy belt actions sinful, © for who can bi ing a clean thing our of an unclean Job xiv. 4. Ard dost thou think b
fin, to Pp thy self out of {in and misery? (2:) Thy obedience must also be persect in parts. It mult be as broad as the whole law of God: if thou lackest one thing, thou art undone; for the law denounceth the curie on him that continueth not in every thing written therein, Gal. iii. 10. Thou must give internal and external obedience to the whole law; keep all the commands, in heart and lite. If thou breakest any one of them, that will insure thy ruin. A vain thought, or idle word, will
{till shut thee up under the curse. (3.) It must be perfect in respect of degrees; as was the obedience of Adam, while he
stood in his innocence. This the law requires, and will accept of no lefs, Mat. xxit. 37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mint.“ If one degree of that love required by the law, be wanting; if each part of thy obedience be not icrewed up to
the greatest height commanded ; that want is a breach of the
law, and fo leaves thee still under the curse. One may bring as many buckets of water ta a house that is on fire, as he is able to carry: and yet it may be consumed; and will be fo, it he bring not as many as will quench the fire. Even fo, although thou shouldit do what thou art able, in keeping the commands; if thou fail in the least degree of obedience which the law en- Joins, thou art certainly ruined for ever; unless thou take hold of Christ, renouncing all thy righteousness as filthy rags. See
Rom. x. 5. Gal. iii. 10. Lastly, It must be perpetual, as the
man Chritt's obedience was, who always did the things that pleased the Father; for the tenor of the law is, © Cursed is he that continueth not in all things written in the law, to do them. 1 Hence, tho' Adam's obedience was for a while absolutely perfect; yet because at length he tripped in one point, viz. in eating the forbidden fruit, he fell under the curse of the law. If
dne should live a dutiful subject to his prince, till the close of his
days, and then conspire against him, he must die for his treason. Even fo, tho' thou shouldit, all the time of thy life, live in perfect obedience to the law of God: and only at the hour of death entertain a vain thought, or pronounce an idle word: that idle word or vain thought, would blot out all thy former righteousness, and ruin thee; namely, in this way, in which thou art
feeking to recover thyself, L 3 Now
—
offence, mul be infinite.
recover thy {elf in the way of the law.
State II.
Now such is the obedience thou muft perform, if thou wouldst recover thyself in the way of the law. But tho' thou thouldit thus obey, the law stakes thee down in the state of wrath, till another demand of it be satisfied, viz.
SECONDLY, Thou muit pay what thou owelt. It is undeniable thou art a sinner; and whatever thou mayelt be in time to come, justice mult be satissied for thy fin already chm— mitted. The honour of the law must be maintained, by thy {uffeging the denounced wrath. It may be thou bast chan ged r courle of life, or art now resolved to do it, and set about
the keeping of the commands of God: but what haft thou done, or what wilt thou do, with the old debt? Jour obedience to God, tho' it were perfect, is a debt due to him, for the time wherein it is performed; and can no more latisfy for former sins, than a tenant's paying the current year's rent can satisfy the master for all bygones. Can the paying of new debts acquit a man from old accounts? Nay, deceive not yourselves,
| you will find these laid up in store with God, and sealed up
among his treasures, Deut. Xxx. 34. I remains then, that either thou must bear that wrath, to which for thy sin thou art
liable, according to the law; or elfe, thou must acknowledge
thou canst nat bear it, and thereupon have recourse to the surety the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me now ask thee, art "thou able to
fatisfy the justice of God? Canst thou pay thy own debt?
Surely not: for, seeing he is an infinite God, whom thou halt offended, the punichment, being luited to the quality of the But fo it is, thy punishment or sufferinps for sin cannot be infinite in value, seeing thou art a finite creature: therefore they must be infinite in duration or continuance; that is, they must be eternal. And so all thy sufferings ig this world, are but an earnest of what thou must suffer in the world to come.
Now, finer if thou canst answer these demands, thou mayst
scious of thy inability to do any of these things, much more to do them all? Yet if thou do not all, thou dost nothing. Turn then to what courle of life thou wilt, thou art still in a state of wrath. Screw up thy obedience to the greatest height thou
canst; suffer what God lays upon thee, yea add, if thou wilt
to the burden, and walk under all, without the least impatience: E. all this will not satisfy the 3 of the law; and tbbereore thou art {till a ruined creature. Alas! inner; what art
thou doing, white thou strivest to help thyself; but deft not | re-
But art thou not con-
Head III. to recover himsclf.
receive and uaite with Jesus Christ? Thou art labouring in the fire, wearying thylelf tor very vanity; labouring to enter into heaven by the door, which Adam's in so bolted, as neither he, nor any of his lost posterity can ever enter by it. Doit thou not sce the flaming {word of justice keeping thee oft from the tree of life? Dost thou not hear the law denouncing a curse on thee for all thou art doing; even for thy obedience, thy prayers, thy tears, thy reformation of life, &c. because, beiug under the law's domiwon, thy belt works are not lo good as it requires nein to be, under the pain of the curse? Believe it, firs, if you live and die out of Christ, without being actually united to him as the tecond Adam, a life-giving Spirit, and without coming under the covert of his atoning blood: though ye should do the utmolt that any man on earth can do, in keeping the commands of God, ye {hail never see the face of God in peace, It you should from this moment, bid an eternal farewel to this world's joy, and all the affairs thereof; and henceforth busy yourlelves with nothing but the salvation of your souls: it you thould go into some wilderness, live upon the g1als of the field, and be companions to dragons and owls: it you should retire to some dark cavern of the earth, and weep there for your fins, until ye have wept yourselves blind, yea, wept out all the moisture of your body; if ye should confels with your tongue, until it cleave to the roof of your mouth; pray, till your knees grow hard as horns; fast, till your body become like a skeleton; and after all this, give it to be burit, the word is gone out of the Lord's mouth in righteousness, and cannot return; you should pom for ever, notwithstanding ef all tlus, as not being in Ehrist, John xiv. 6. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.“ Acts iv. 12. Neither is there falvation in any other,” Mark xvi. 16. © He that believeth not, shall be damned.“ Object. But God is a merciful God, and he knows we are
not able to answer his demands: we hope therefore to be saved,
if we do as well as we can, and keep the commands as well as we are able. Ans. (1.) Though thou art able to do many
things, thou art not able to do one thing aright: thou canst do
nothing acceptable to God, being out of Christ, John xv. 5. * Without me ye can do nothing.“ An unrenewed man, as thou art, can do nothing but sin; as we have already evinced. Thy best actions are fin, and fo they increase thy debt to justice; how then can it be expected they should lessen it? (2.) If Goc should offer to fave men upon condition that they did all they could do, in obedience to his commands: we have N
128 An Oljection drfwered. State II.
think, that these who would betake themselves to that way, should never be faved. For where is the man, that does as well as he can? Who sees not many false steps he has made, which he might have evited? There are fo many things to be done, fo many temptations to carry us out of the road of duty,
and our nature is fo very apt to be set on fire of hell, that we would surely fail, even in some point, that is within the compass
of our natural abilities. But (3.) Though thou shouldit do all thou art able to do, in vain doit thou hope to be saved in that way. What word of God is this hope of thine founded on? It isneither founded on law nor gospel, and therefore it is but a delusion. It is not founded on the pospel; for the gospel leads the foul out of itself, to Jesus Christ for all: and ic & eftablisheth the law, Rom. ii. 31. whereas this hope of yours c1unat be establisned, but on the ruin of the law, which God wil! “ magnity and make honourable.” And hence it appears, that it is not founded on the Jaw neither. When God set Adam a-working for happine's to him{clf, and his posterity, perfect obedience was the condition required of him; and a curse was denounced in cafe of disobedience. The law being
broken by him, he and his posterity were subject to the penalty,
for fin committed; and withal {till bound to perfect obedience : for it is absurd to think that man's sinning and suffering for his fin, should free him from his duty of obedience to his Creator,
When Christ came in the room of the elect, to purchase their _ falvation, the same were the terms. Justice had the elect under
arrest: if he minds to deliver them, the terms are known. He mult satisfy for their sin, by suffering the punishment due to it;
he must do what they cannot do, to wit, Obey the law perfectly,
and fo fulfil all righteousness. Accordinply, all this he did,
and so became “ the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believeth, Rom. x. 4. And now dost then think, God will abate of these terms to thee, when his own Son pot no abatement of them? Expect it not, though thou shouldst beg it
with tears of blood; for if they prevailed, they behoved to
prevail against the truth, justice and honour of God, Gal. ii. 10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which
are written in the book of the law, to do them.“ Verse 22.
And the law is not of faith, but the man that doth them shall
live in them.“ It is true, that God is merciful: he cannot but
be merciful, unless he fave you in a way that is neither consistent with his law nor gospel? Hath not his geodness and mercy &fficiently appeared, in sending the Son of his love, to uy
5 „What
Head III. Man unable io recover himself. 129
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh?** He has provided help for them that cannot help them- {elves: but thou, insensible of thine.own weakness, wilt needs think to recover thyself by thme own works; while thou art no more able todo it, than to remove mountai.cs of brass our of their place. A
Wherefore I conclude thou art utterly unable to recover thy selt, by the way of works, or of the law, O that thou wouldit conclude the fame conce ning thy self!
II. Let us try next, what the sinner can do to recover himself, in the way of the gospel: It is likely, thou thinkest, that howbeit thou canst not do all, by thyielf alone; yet Jesus Christ offering thee help, thou canst of thy self embrace it, and use it
to thy recovery. But, O inner, be convinced of thine absolute need of the grace of Christ, for truly there is help offered,
but thou can not accept of it: there is a rope cast ont to bale
ship-wrecked sinners to land: but alas! they have no hands to catch hold of it. They are like infants exposed in the open field that must starve, thb' their food be lying by them, unless one put it into their mouths. To convince natural men of this, let it be considered, |
FirsT, That although Christ is offered in the pospel, yet they cannot believe in him. Saving faith is the faith of God's ele; the tp&tiai gift or God to them, wrought in them by his Spirit. Safation is offered to them tlat will beiieve in Christ, but © how can ye believe?“ John v. 44. It is offered to them that will look to him, as lifted up on the pole of the gospel, Ha. xiv. 22. But the natural man is spiritually blind, Rev. Vi. 17. And as to the things of the Spirit of God, he cannot know them, for they are spiritually discerned, 1 Cor. ü. 1 4. Nay, whosoever will, he is welcome; let him come, Rev. XXxil. 17. But there must be a day of power on the sinner, before the will be willing, Plal. cx. 3.
SECONDLY, Man naturally bas nothing, wherewithal to
Improve, to his recovery, the help brought in by the gospel,
He is cast away in a state wrath; but is bound hand and foot, fo that ke cannot lay hold of the cords of love, thrown out to him in the gospel. The molt {kiltul artificer cannot
work without instruments, nor can the most cunning musician
play weil on an instrument that is ont of tune. How can one believe, how can he repent, whose understanding is darkness, Evh. „. 8. whose heart is a tony heart, inilexible, wienfible,
$298. 88%%1, 26, Whole affections are wholly disordered and
Giiterne
130 Man unable to recover himself. State II.
diltempered; who is averse to good, and bent to evil? The arms of natural abilities are too short to reach supernatural help: hence those who molt excel in them, are oft - times molt estranged from spiritual things, Matth. xi. 24. © Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent.” f THIRDLY, Man cannot work a saving change on himself: but so changed he mult be, else he can neither believe nor repent, nor ever ice heaven, No action can be without a suitable principle, Believing, repentins, and the like, are the product of the new nature; and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature. Now, what can the natural man do in this matter? He mult be regenerate, © begotten apain into a lively hope: but as the child cannot be active in his own generation; so a man cannot be active, but passive only, in his own regeneration. The heart is shut against Christ: man
cannot open it, only God can do it by his grace, Acts xvi. 14. He is dead in sin: he must be quickened, raised out of his grave:
who can do this but God himself? Eph. ii. 1, 5. Nay, he must
be “ ereated in Christ Jesus unto good works,” Eph. ii. 10.
These are works of omnipotency, and can be done by no
| Jess power.
large: how then can he obey the gospel? Hie nature is the
Very rererse of the golpel: how can he, of himself, fall in with that device of salvation, and accept the offered remedy? The corruption of man's nature infallibly concludes his utter inability to recover himself any manner of way: and whoso is conviaced of the one, must needs admit the other; for they stand and fall together. Were all the purchase of Christ offered to the unregenerate man, for one good thought, he cannot command it, 2 Cor. iii. 5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves
to think any thing as of ourselves.” Were it offered on condition of a good word, yet © how can ye, being evil, speak good things?“ Matth. xii. 25. Nay, were it left to your-
| selves, to chuse what is easiest, Fhrist himself tells you, John
xv. 5. Without me ye can do nothing.” | |
offering to help him; howbeit that resistance is infallibly overcome in the elect, by converting grace. Can the stony heart chuse but resist the stroke? There is not only an inability, but an enmity and obstinacy in man's. will by nature. God knows, natural man, (whether thou knowest it or not) that“ thou
art
—
Head III. Oljedtions answered. 131
art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brals, Ia. xlvii. 4. and cannot be overcome, but by him, who hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.“ Hence is there such hard work in converting a sinner. Sometimes he seems to be caught in the net of the gospel; yet
quickly he {lips away again. The hook catcheth hold of him: but he struggles, till getting free of it, he makes away with a bleeding wound. When good hopes are conceived of him, b
these that travel in birth, for the formmg of Christ in him;
there is oft- times nothing brought forth but wind. The deceitful heart makes many a shift to avoid a Saviour, and to cheat the man of his eternal happiness. . Thus the natural man lies sunk in a state of fin and wrath, utterly unable to recover himself. | | Object. (1.) If we be under an utter inability to do any good, how can God require us to do it? Ant, God making man
upright, Feclef. vii. 29. gave him a power to do every thing
he should require of him: this power man lost by.his own fault. We were bound to serve God, and to do whatsoever he commanded us, as being his creatures; aud also, we were under the superadded tye of a covenant, for that effect. Now, we having, by eur own fault, disabled ourselves: shall God lose his right of requiring our task, because we have thrown away the strength he gave us, wherewithal to perform it? Has the creditor no right to require payment of his money, beciuse the dcbitor has {quandered it away, and is not able to pay him? Truly, if God can require no more of us than we are able to
do; we need no more to fave us from wrath, but to make ourselves unable for every duty, and to incapacitate ourselves for ferving of God any manner of way, as profane men frequently
do: and fo the deeper one is immersed in sin, he will be the
more secure from wrath; for where God can require no duty of us, we do not sin in omitting it: and where there is no lin, there can be no wrath. (As to what may be urged by the unhumbled foul apainst the putting of our stock in Adam's hand: the righteousness of that dispensation was cleared before.) But moreover, the unrenewed man is daily throwing away the very remams of natural abilities; that light and strength which ate to be found amongst the ruins of mankind. Nay, farther, he will not believe his own utter inability to help himself; so that out of his own mouth he will be condemned. Even those who
make their natural impotency to good, a cover to their sloth,
do, with others, delay the work of turning to God from time te time; under convictions, make large promises of reformation,
Which
132 Ohjections answered, State II.
which afterward they never regard; and delay their repentance to a death- bed, as if they could help themselves in a mo
ment; which speaks them to be far from a due sense of their natural inability, whatever they pretend. |
todo: he can in justice punish them for their not doing it, notdebt of obedience: he has also power to cast the insolvent debtor into his prison, for his not paying it. Further, tho' unregenerate men have no gracious abilities, yet they want not natural abilities, which nevertheless they will not improve, There are many things they can do, which they do not, they will not do them; and therefore their damnation will be just, Nay, all their inability to good 1s voluntary; they will not come to Christ, Jobn v. 40. They will not repent, they will die, Ezek. xvii. 51. So they will be justly condemned: because they will not turn to God, nor come to Chrilt; but love their chains better than their liberty, and darkness rather than light, John in. 19. ; | | Object. (2.) Why do you then preach Christ to us; call us to come to him, to believe, repent, and use the means of salvation? Ans. Because it is your duty so to do. It is your duty to accept of Christ as he is offered in the gospel; to repent of your sin, and to be holy in all manner of conversation: these things are commanded you of God; and his command, not your ability, is the measure of your duty. Moreover, these calls and exhortations, are the means that God is pleased to make use of, for converting his clect, and working grace in their hearts: to them, © faith cometh by hearing, Rom. x. 17. while they are as unable to help themselves as the rest of mankind are. Upon very good grounds may we, at the command of God, © who raiseth the dead, go to their graves, and cry in his name, Awake thou that sleepest: and rise from the dead, and Christ thall give thee light,” Eph. v.14. And seeing the ele are not to be known, and diltinguished from others before conversion: as the sun shines on the blind man's face, and the rain falls on the rocks as well as on the fruitful plains; fo we
God himself directs as he sees meet. Moreover, these calls and _ exhortations are not altogether in vain, even tc those that are not converted by them. Such persons may be convinced, tho they be not converted: altho' they be not sanctified by these means, yet they may be restrained by them, rom running into
Now, it God can require of men the duty they are not oble
withstanding of their inability. If he have power to exact the
preach Christ to all, and shoot the arrow at a venture, which |
enat
Head III. O!jcftions answered. 133
that excess of wickednels, which otherwise they would arrive
at. The means of grace serve, as it were, to cmbalm many
dead fouls which are never quickned by them; tho' they do not reltore them to life; yet they keep them from {urelling fo rank as otherwile they would do. Finally, Tho? ye cannot recover yourlelves; nor take hold af the saving help offered to you in the gospel: yet even by the power of nature, ye may use the outward and ordinary means whereby Chrilt communicates the benefits of redemption to ruined sinners, who are utterly unable to recover themselves out of the {tate of fin and wrath.
Ve may, and ean, if ye pleale, do many things, that would set
you in a fair way for help from the Lord Jesus Christ. Ye may go so far on, as to be not far from the kingdom of God, as the discreet scribe had done, Mark xii. 34. tho' (it would seem) he was destitute of {upernatural abilities. Tho' ye cannot cure yourselves, yet ye may come to the pool, where many fuch diseased persons as ye are, have been cured: ye have none to put you into it, yet ye may ly at the side cf it; and © who knows but the Lord may return, and leave a blessing behind him,” as in the case of the impotent man, recorded, John v. 5, 6, 7, 8. I hope Satan does not chain you to your houses, nor stake you down in your fields on the Lord's day; but ye are at liberty, and can wait at the posts of wisdom's door, if ye will. And when ye come thither, he doth not beat drums at your ears, that ye cannot hear what is {aid; there is no force
upon you, obliging you to apply all you hear to others; ye may apply to yourselves what belongs to your state and condition: and when you go home, you are not fettered in your houses, where perhaps no religious discourse is to be heard; but ye may retire to some leparate place, where ye can meditate, and pose your conscience with pertinent questions, upon what ye have heard. Ye are not posfessed with a dumb devil, that ye cannot get your mouths opened in prayer to God. Yeare not so driven out of your beds to your worldly business, and from your worldly business to your beds again; but ye might, w ye would, bestow fome prayers to God upon the case of your perishing fouls. Ye may examine yourselves, as to the tate of your souls, in a solemn. manner, as in the presence of God; ye may discern that ye have no grace, and that ye are lost and
undone without it; and may cry unto God for it. These
things are within the compass of natural abilities, and may be
Practised where there is no grace. It must aggravate your
guilt, that you will not be at so much pains about the state and M
case
pious conclusion against your own souls.
God will do for you what ye cannot.
reading, God sent him an interpreter.
134 OLj:Aions answered., State IT,
Object, (3.) But all this is needless, secing we are utteily unable to keep ourselves out of the ftate of fin and wrath. Ans. Give no place to that delusion, which puts afunder what God hath joined, namely, the ule of means, and a sense of our own impotency. It ever the Spirit of God pracioully influence your souls, ye will become throuphly sensible of your abloluts mability, and yet enter upon a vigorous ule of means. Ye will
do for yourselves, as if ye were todo all; and yet overlook all
ye do, as if ye had doge nothing. Will ye do nothing for yourselves, because ye cannot do all? Lay down no such im- Do what you can; and it may be, while ye are doing what ye can for yourselves, © Underttandest thou what thou readest?”” {aid Philip to the Eunuch: © How can l,
aid he, except some man should guide mc,” Acts viii. 30, 31.
He could not understand the fcripture he read; yet he could read it: he did what he could, he rcad: and while he was The Ifrawites were in a great {trait at the red- sea: and how could they help themelves, when upon the one band were mountains, and on the
other, the enemies garrisom; when Pharaoh and his host were behind them, and the red-sea before them? What could they do? „“ Speak unto the children of Israel, faith the Lord to Moses, “that they go forward,” Exod. xiv. 15. For what
end should they go forward? Can they make a passage to
themselves through the sea? No: but let them go forward, saith the Lord: tho' they cannot turn fea to dry land, yet they can go forward to the shore: and fo they did: and when
they did what they could, God did for them what they could
not do. | Quest. Has God promised to convert and fave them, who in the ule of means, do what they can towards their own rcliet! Ans. We may not speak wickedly for God: natural men being firangers to the covenants of promise, Eph. ii. 12. have no Juck promise made to, them. Nevertheless they do not act rationa!ly unless they exert the powers they have, and do what they can. For, (I.) It is pofsible this course may succeed with them. It ye do what ye can, it may be, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourselves... This is sufficient to determine 4 man, in a matter of the utmost importance, such as this b.
regard your n And th
Acts may will WCC selve thou] ende elcaj his bt your Sama still, we b is pro he lo. them fo far Whic! ye [1 is pro place Opene no bo your
bility
we sec
defire
for gr
in you pravec
Head III. Conclusion of the Third Head. 135
Ads viii. 22. © Pray God if perhaps the thoughts of thy heart may be forgiven thee.” Joel ii. 14. Who knoweth if ke will return?“ If success may be, the trial should be. If ma Wreck at sea, all the failors and passengers had betaken themselves, each to a broken board for sarety; and one of then, should see all the rest perish, notwithitznding of their utmost endeavours to save themselves: yet the very potsibility of escaping by that means, would determine that one til! to do his beit with his board. Why then do ye not realon with * yourselves, as the four lepers did, who fat at the gates of Samaria, 2 Kings vii. 3, 4. Why do ye not lay, © It e lit. 44 {tiil, not doing what we can, we die; let ns put it to a trial, it oth 3 we be (saved, we shall live; if not, we thail but die.“ (2.) it -— is probable this course may succeed. God is good and mercitu- : 1 ll be loves to larprile mea with bis grace, and is often ““ found of 14. them that sought him not,” Ila. Ixv. 1. If ve do thus, ye are "1.46 Z sofar in the road of your duty; and ye are uling the means | 1 which the Lord is wont to bleis for men's spiritual recovery; 4: ve lay yourselves in the wav of th great Physician; and fo it 1 is probable ye may be healed, Lydia went, and others, to ihe 2 place © where praver was wont to be made;*” and © the Lo:d 1 opened her heart,“ Acts xvi. 13, 14. Ye plow and sow, tho' | T \ no body can tell you for certain, that ye will get so much as | | 1 your seed again: ye ale means for the recovery of your health, LE | tho' ye are not sure they will succeed. In these cases, proba - — bility determines you; and why not in this also? Importunity, g we see, does very much with men: therctore pray, meditate, f. dehire help of God,; be much at the throne of grace, supplicating. for grace; and do not faint. Tho' God regard not you, Who js in your present state, are but one mals of fn; universally debdraved, and vitiated in all the powers of your soul, yet he may regard his own ordinance. . Tho' he regards not your pravets, your meditations, &c. Yet he may revard prayer, meditation, and the like means of his own appointment, and fo bless them to you. Wheretore, if ye will not da chat ye can, ve are not 2uly dead, but you declare yoursclyes unworthy of cternal life. To conclude, let the saints adinire the freedom and power of grace, which came to thn in their helpless condition, made heir chains fall off, the iron gate to open to them; raised the allen creatures; and brought them out of the (tate of fin and vrath, wherein they would have lain and perished, had they ot been mercifully vifited. Let the natural man be sensible his utter inability ta recover himself. Ku thou art with- M 2
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136 Conclufion of the Third Head. State II. out strength; and oanst not come to Christ, till thou be drawn. Thou art lost, and canst not help thyself. This may shake the foundation of thy hopes, who ne' er sawest thy absolute need of Christ and his grace; but thinkest to shift for thyself, by thy civility, morality, drowsy wilhes and duties; and by a faith and repentauce, which have sprung up out of thy natural powers, without the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ. O be convinced of thy absolute need of Christ, and his- overcoming grace; believe thy utter inability to recover thyself; and so thou mayst be humbled, shaken out of thy self-confidence, and ly down 1a dust and ashes, groaning out thy miserable case before the Lord. A kindly sense of thy natural impotency, the impotency of depraved human nature, would be a step towards a delivery. N „„
Thus far of man's natural state, the state of entire cepravation. |
FFC
37 2 * | The State of Grace: Or, Begun Recovery.
15 zorn again, not of corruptible Seed, but .f in- | Cor le, by the Word of G:d, which hveth ani abideth for ever, . |
WV proceed now to the state of grace, the state of began recovery of human nature, into which, all that fi: partake of eternal happiness, are translated, sooner or Jatter,
while in this world. It is the result of a gracious change aha: | | 807
Head I.
*
The Texi Exptaines. -
upon these who shall inherit eternal life; wich change may be taken up in these two: (1.) Imopposition to their natural real state, the state of corruption, there is a chanye made upon them in regeneration; whereby their nature is changed. (2.) In opposition to their natural ietative state, the state of-wrath,
| there is a change made upon them, in their union with the Loi d
Jesus Christ; by Which they are let beyond the reach of condemnation. These theretore, name. y, regeneration, and union
changes on a sinner, constituting him in the state of pracc. The first of these we have in the text, together with the
outward and ordinary means, by which it is brought about. The apostle here, to excite the saints to the study of holinels, -
and particularly of -brotherly love, put them in mind of their
spiritual original. He tells them they were born again; and that of one incorruptible-feed, the word of God: This speaks ©
them to be brethren, partakers of the same new nattre ; Which is the root from which holiness, and particularly brotherly
love, doth spring. We were once both sinners; we mult be born again, that we may be laints. The simple word signifies * to be begotten; and so it may be read, Matth. xi.,11. © to be
conceived,” Matt. i. 20. and to be born,“ Matth. ü. 1
Accordingly the compound word uled in the text, may be taken in its full latitude, the last notion presupposing the two former:
and so regeneration is a supernatural real change on the whole man, fitly compared to natural or corporal generation, as will afterward appear. The ordinary means of regeneration called the seed, whereof the new creature is formed, is not corruptible seed. Of such indeed, our bodies are generated: but the spiritnal seed, of which the new creature is generated, is incorruptible; namely, “ the word of God which liveth and abideth
for ever.” The sound of the word of God pasleth even as other sounds do: bat the word lasteth, liveth and abideth, in respect of it's everlasting effects, on all upon whom it operates.
This word, „which by the gospel is preached unto you,” (ver. 25.) impregnated by the Spirit of God, is the means of
regeneration; and by-it are dead inners-raised to
* 2% f 8 Th again. All gracious persons, namely, such as are in a state of favour
with God, and endued with gracious qualities and dispositions, are regenerate persons. In discoursing this subject, I shall shew
What regeneration is: Next, W hy it is fo called: And then apply the doctrine. M 3 o of
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133 Toe Nature of Regeneration. State III. Of the Nature of Regeneration.
I. For the better understanding of the nature of regeneration, take this along with you in the Fest place. That as there are false conceptions in nature, fo there are also in grace: and by these many are deluded, mistaking some partial changes made upon them, for this great and thorough change. To remove fuch mistakes, let thele few things be considered. (1.) Many call the church their mother, whom God will not own to be his children, Cant. i. 6. My mother's children (i. e. false brethren,) were angry with me.” All that are baptized are not born again: Simon Magus was baptized, yet till “ in the gall of bitternels, and in the bond of iniquity, Acts viii. 13,23. Where Christianity is the religion of the country, many will be called by the name of Chritt, who have no more of him, but the name: —" wonder, seeing the devil had his goats among Christ's (M@p, in thele places, where but few professed the - Christian religion, 1 John ii. 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us.“ (2.) Good education is not regeneration. Education may chain up men's lusts, but cannot
change their hearts. A wolf is still a ravenous beast, though
it be in chains. Joash was very devout during the life of his
good tutor Jehoiada; but afterwards he quickly shewed what {pirit he was of, by his sudden apostasy, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2,1 7,18. Good example is of mighty influence to change the out ward man; but that change often goes off, when one changes his company; of which the world affords many fad instances.
3.) A turning from open profanity, to civility and sobriety,
alls fhort of this saving change. Some are, for a white, very loose, especially in their younger years: but at length they
reform, and leave their profane courses. Here is a change, yet
but such an one, as may be found in meg utterly void of the grace of God, and whose righteousness is fo far from exceetling, that it doth not come up to the righteousness of the Sexibes and | Pharisees. (4.) One may engage in all the outward duties of
religion and yet not be born again. Tho' lead be cafthinto
various shapes, it remains {till but a base metal. Mei may
escape the potlutions of the world, and yet be but dogs and
_ swine, 2 Pet, ii. 20, 22. All the external acts of religion are within the compals of natural abilities. Yea, hypocrites may
have the counterfeit of all the graces of the Spirit: for we read di true holiness, Eph: iv. 23. and faith unfeigned, 1 Tim. i. 5.
which shews us, that there is a counterfeit holiness, 2 2 IE | Sf 5 eign-
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Head I. The Nature of Regeneration 8 139
feigned faith. (5.) Men may advance to a great deal of strictness in their own way of religion; and yet be strangers to the new birth, Acts xxxvi. 5. After the molt strictest fect of our religion, I lived a Pbarisee.“ Nature has its own umsanctified strictness in religion. The Pharisees had fo much of it, that they looked on Chriit as little better than a mere libertiue. A man whole conscience hath been awakened, and who lives under the felt influence of the covenant of works, what will he not do, that is within the compals of natural abilities? It was
a truth, tho? it came out of a hellish mouth, that © {kin for skin,
all that a man hath will he give for his life, Job ji. 4. (6.) One may have sharp foul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many have been in pain, that have but as it were brought forth wind. There may be fore pangs and throws of confcience, which turn to nothing at last, Pharaoh and Simon Magus had such convictions, as made them desire the prayers of others for them. Judas repented bimself; and under terrors of conscience, gave back his il]-gotten pieces of filver, All is not gold that pglisters. Trees may blossom fairly in the spring, on which no fruit is to be found in the harvest; and Tome have sharp soul- exercises, which are nothing but foretaltes of hell. et
-The new birth, however in appearance hopefully begun,
may be marred two ways. First, Some like Zarah, Gen. xxXxviit. 28, 29. are brought to the birth, but go back again. They have sharp convictions for a while: but these po off, and
they turn as careless about their salvation, as profane as ever:
and usually worse than ever, their last state is worse than
their first,” Nat. xii. 45. They get awakening grace, but not
converting grace; and that goes off by deprees, as the light of the declining: day, till it issue in midnight darkness. _ Secondly,
Some like Ishmael, come forth too foop; they are born before the time of the promise, Gen. xvi. 1, 2. compare Gal. iv. 22, and'downward. They take up with a mere law work, and
stay not till the time of the promile of the gospel. They snatch at conlolation, not waiting till it be given them; and foolishly draw their comfort from the law that wounded them. They apply the healing plaister to themselves, before their wound be sufficiently searched. The law, that rigorous husband severely
beats them, and throws in curses and vengeance upon their
souls: then they fall a reforming, praying, mourning, promising and vowing, till this ghost be laid ; which done, they fall asleep again in the arme of ihe law ; but they are never shaken out of
140 The Nature of Regeneration. State III.
themselves and their own righteousness, nor brought forward to Jesus Christ. Lastly, There may be a wonderful moving of the aitections, in souls that are not at all touched with regenerating grace. Where there is no grace, there may, notwithstandinꝑ, be a flood of tears, as in Esau, * who found no place bf repentance, tho' he fought it carefully with tears, Heb. xii. 17, 'There may be preat flashes of joy; as in the hearers of the word, reprelented in the parable by the stony-grouud, “ who anon with joy receive it, Matth. xiii. 20. There may also be great desire after good things, and great delight in them too;
as in these hypocrites described, Ita. Iviii. 2. Yet they seck
me daily, and delight to know my ways.—They take delight in approaching unto God.“ See how high they may sometimes stand, who yet fall away, Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. They may be © enlightned, take of the heavenly gift, be partakers of the holy Ghost, taste the goed word of God, and the powers of the worldo come. Common operations of the divine Spirit, like a land flood, make a strange turning of things upside down. And when they are over, all runs again in the ordinary channel.
All these things may be, where the sanctifying Spirit of Christ
never rests upon the sou], but the stony heart {till remains; and in that case, these affections cannot but wither because they have no root. | . 8 i i
But regencration is a real thorough change, whereby the man is made a new creature, 2 Cor. v. 17. The Lord God makes the creature a new creature, as the goldsmith melts down the vessel of distionour, and makes it a vessel of honour. Man is, in respect of his natural state, altogether disjointed by
the fall; every faculty of the sonl is, as it were dislocate: in
regeneration the Lord looseth every joint, and sets it right again, Now this change made in regeneration is, 1. A change of qualities or dispositions: it is not a change of the substance, but of the qualities of the foul. Vicious qualities are removed, and the contrary dispositions are brought in
in their room. The old man is put off,” Eph. iv. 22. * the
new man put on, ver. 24. Man lost none of the rational faculties of his soul by sin; he had an understanding stil}, but it was darkened; he had ftill a will, but it was contrary to the will of God. So in regeneration there is not a new substance created, but new qualities are infused; light instead of darkness,
_ * righteousness instead of unrighteoufness.
2. It is a supernatural change; he that is born again, is born ef the Spirit, John in. 5. Great changes may be made by the
power
Head J. The Nature of Regeneration,
power of nature, especially when assisted by external revelation. 4 ff j And nature may be so elevated by the common influences of 1 k the Spirit, that one may thereby be turncd into another man, BY | 4 (as Saul was, 1 Sam. x. 6.) who yet never becomes a new 09 | | man. But in regeneration nature itself is changed, and we k Wi '| become partakers of the divine nature; and this must needs be q 5 a supernatural change. How can we that are dead in trespasses 1 q 5 and sins, renew ourselves, more than a dead man can raise him- 1 k self out of his grave? Who, but the sanctify ing Spirit of Christ | i can form Christ in a foul, changing it into the lame image? Who 1 3 but the Spirit of fanctification can give the new heart? Well 1 $ may we say, when we see a man thus changed,“ This is the I; finger of Ged.“ * 1 i 3. It is a change into the Vkeness of God, 2 Cor. ii. 18. ; nh 1 © We—beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are chang- i If & ed into the same image. Every thing that generates, generates 1 : its like: the child bears the image of the parent; and they that Wh | | are born of God, bear God's image. Man aspiring to be as ' £ God, made himself like the devil. In his natural state he re. 's sembles the devil, as a child doth the father, John viii. 44. *® Ye £7, - are of your father the devil.” But when this happy change ' 3 4 comes, the image of Satan is defaced, and the image of God £5 ? restored... Christ himself, who “ is the brightness of his Father's We FE glory,“ is the patteyn after which the new creature is made, 1 1 Rom. vii. 29. For whom he did foreknow, he also did pre- 9 1 destinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.“ Hence he
is {aid to be conformed in the regenerate, Gal. iv. 19 4. It is an universal change: all things become new, 2 Cor. vi. 17. It is a blest leaven that leavens the whole lump, the whole spirit, and soul and body. Original fin infects the whole i man; and regenerating grace, which is the salve, goes as far as. the sore. This fruit of the Spirit ivin all goodness: goodness Fs of the mind, goodness of the will, goodneis of the affeQions, . goodness of the whole Man. One pets not only a new head to know relipion, or a new tongue to talk of it; but a new heart do love and embrace it, in the whole of his conversation. When | + tie Lord opens the sluice of grace on the soul's new-birth day, } the waters run through the whole man, to purity and maks
| him fruitful. In these natura] changes spoken of before, there
„ate, as it were, pieces of new cloth put mto an. old garment; | a new lite sewed to an old heart: but the pracious change is a
33 thorough change, a change both of heart aud life.
142 The Nature of Regeneration, State III.
5. Yet it is but an imperfect change. Tho' every part of the man is renewed, there is no part of him perfectly renewed. As an infant has all the parts of a man,.but none of them are eome to their perfect growth; so regeneration brings a perfection of parts, to be brought forward in the gradual advances of sanctification, 1 Pet. it. 2. © As new born babes desire the sincere nalk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.“ Although in regeneration there is a heavenly light let into the mind; yet there is still fome darkness there: tho” the will is renewed, it is
not perfectly renewed; there is still some of che old inclination
to sin remaining: and thus it will be till that which is in part be
done away, and the light of glory come. Adam was created at his full itature; but they that are born mult have their time to-grow up: fo these that are born again, do come forth into the new world of grace, but imperfectly holy; though Adam being created upright, was at the same time perfectly righteous, without the least mixture of finful imperfection.
Lastly, Nevertheless it is a lasting change, which never goes off. The seed is incorruptible, saith the text; and so is the creature that is formed of it. The life given in regeneration, whatever decays it may fall under, can never be utterly loft, © His feed remaineth in him, who is born of God, 1 John ni. 9. Though the branches should be cut down, the root shall abide in the earth; and being watered with the dew of heaven, shall sprout again: for “ the root of the rightcous shall not be moved, Prov. xit. 3.
But to come to particulars.
First, In regeneration the mind is savingly enl'ghtned There is a new light let into the understanding, so that they who.were “ sometimes darknels, are now light in the Lord,” Eph. v. 8. The beams of the light af life make their way into the dark dungeon of the heart: then night is over, and the
morning light is come, which will shine more and more unto
the perfect day. Now the man is illuminated, |
I. In the knowledge of God. He has far other thoughts of God, than ever he had before, Hof. ii. 20.“ I will even betrothe thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord.“ The Spirit of the Lord brings him back to that questien, „ What is God??”” And catechiseth him anew upon that grand point, fo as he is made to lay, © I have heard of thee by
the-hearing of the ear: but now mine eyes seeth thee, Job.
xlii. 5. The spotless purity of God, his exact justice, his allfufficiency, and other glorious perfections revealed in his word, are,
Head IJ. The Mind illuminated.
are, by this new light, discovered to the soul, with a plamness
— Coen”
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and certainty that doth as far exceed the knowledge it had of these thinps before, as ocular demonstration exceeds common fame. For now he sees what he only heard of before.
2. He is enlightned in the knowledge of fin. He hath other thoughts of it, than he was wont to have. Formerly his sight could not pierce thro* the cover Satan laid over it: but now the Spirit of God [trips it before him, wipes off the paint and fairding; and he sees it in its native-eolours, as the worlt of evils:
exceeding sinful, Roni. vi. 12. O what deformed monsters do:
formerly beloved lusts appear! were they right. yes, he would pluck them out: were they right hands, he would consent to their cutting off. He sees how offensive sin is to God, how destructive it is to the foul; and calls himself fool, for fighting to
long againft the Lord, and harbouring that destroyer as a
bosom friend. | 3. He is instructed in the knowledge of himself. Regenerating grace causeth the prodigal to come to himself, Luke xv. 17.
and makes men full of eyes within, knowing every one the plague of his own heart. The mind being savingly enlightned, the man sees how desperately corrupt his nature is; what enmity against God and his holy law has long lodged there: so
that his soul lothes itself. No open sepulchre, no puddle, fo vile and loathfome in his eyes as himself, Ezek. xxxvi. 31. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were_not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your
own sight.“ He is no worse_than he was before: but the fun is shining; and fo these pollutions are seen, which he could not discern, when there was no dawning in him: as the word is, Ha. vin. 20. while as yet the day of grace was not broken with him. | |
4. Heisenlightned in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, x Cor; i. 23, 24. © But we preach Christ crucified, unto the sews a
{tumbling block, and unto the Grecks foolishness: but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power
of God, and the wisdom of God.“ The truth is, unregenerate men, tho' capable of preaching Christ, have not (properly speaking) the knowledge of him, but only an opinion, a goed opinion: of him; as one has of many controverted points of doctrine, wherein he is far from certainty. As when ve meet with a stranger upon the road, he behaving himself discreetly, ye conceive a good opinion of him; and therefore willingly converse with him: but yet xe will not commit your money
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dM The Mind illuminated. State HI,
to him; because, tho' you have a good opinion of the man, he is a stranger to you, ye do not know him. So many think well of Christ; but they will never commit themselves to him, seeing
they know him not. But faving ulumination carries the soul
beyond opinion, to the certain knowledge of Christ and his excellency, 1 Theft i. 5. © For vur gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” The light of grace thus discovers the suitablenels of the mystery of Christ, to the divine perfections, and
to the sinner's calc. Hence the regenerate admire the glorious plan of salvation through Chrilt crucified, lay their whole weight upon it, and heartily acquielce therein; for whatever
he be to others, he is. to them Christ, the power of God, and
the wisdom of God.“ But unrenewed men, not seeing this, are offended in him: they will not venture their fouls in that bottom, but betake themselves to the broken boards of their own righteousness. The fame light convincingly discovers a superlative worth, a tranicendant plory and excellency in
- Christ, which darken all created excellencies, as the rising fun
makes the ftars to Fide their heads: and so it engages © the merchant-man to sell all that he hath, to buy the one pearl of great price, Matth. xiii. 45, 40. makes the soul well content,
to take Christ for all, and instead of all. Even as an unskilful
merchant, to whom one offereth a pearl of great price, for all his petty wares, dares not venture on the bargain; for tho' he thinks, that one pearl may be more worth than all he has, yet he is not sure of it: but when a jeweller comes to him, and assures him, it is worth double all tis wares; he then preedily embraceth the bargain, and chearfully parts with all that he has for that pearl. Finally, This illumination in the knowledge of Christ, convincingly discovereth to men a fulness in him, sufficient for the supply of all their wants; enough te satisfy the boundless defires of an immortal foul. They are persuaded such fulness is in him, and that in order to be communicate: they depend upon it, as a certain truth; and therefore their souls take up their eternal rest in him.
4. The man is instructed in the knowledge of the vanity ef
the world, Plal. cxix. 96. J have ken an end of all perfection.“ Regenerating grace elevates the soul, sets it, as it were amongst the stars, Moin whence this earth cannot but appear a little, yea, a very little thing: even as heaven appeared before, while the soul was immersed in the earth. Grace brings a man into
a new world: while this world & reputed but a stage of vanity, : | | 2n
Head I. The Mind illuminated. 145
an howling wildernels, a valley of tears. God hath hung the sign of vanity at the door of all created enjoy ments; yet how do men throng into the house, calling and looking tor soinewhat that is satisfying; even after it has been a thousand tinies told them, there is no such thing in it, it is not to be got there, Ik, lei. 10. Thou art wearicd in the greatness of thy ways; yet {adit thou not, There is no bope.”” Why are men lo foolish? The truth of the matter lies here, they do not see by the light of grace, they do not spiritually discern, that sign of vanity. They have often indeed made a rational dilcovery of it: but can that truly wean the heart from the world? Nay, no more than painted fire can burn off the prisoner's bands. But the light of grace is the light of life, powerful and efficacious. | LasT1i.y, (To lum up all in one word,) in regeneration the mind is enlightened in the knowledge of spiritual things, 1 John ii. 20.“ Ye have an unction from the holy One, (that is, from Jesus Christ, Rev. in. 18. It is an allusion to the sanctuary, whence the holy oil was brought to anoint the priests,) and ye know all things, viz. necellary to salvation. Tho! men be not book-learned, if they be born apain, they are Spiritlearned; for all such are taught of God, John vi. 45. The Spirit of regeneration teacheth them what they knew not bcfore; and what they did know, as by the car only, he teacheth
them over again as by the eye. The light of grace is an overcoming lisht, determining men to aslent to divine truths on the
mere testimony of God. It is no easy thing for the mind of
man, to acquiesce in divine revelation. Many pretend great respect to the scriptures, whom, nevertheless, the clear scripture testimony will not divorce from their pre-conceived opinions. But this illummation will make men's minds run, as captives, after Chrilt's chariot-wheels; which, for their parts shall be allowed to drive over, and cast down their own © imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,“ 2 Cor. x. 5. It will make them
receive the kingdom of God as a little child,” Mark x. 15.
who thinks he has sufficient ground to believe any thing, if his father do but say it is so. | SECONDLY, The will is renewed. The Lord takes away the stony heart, and gives a heart of flesh, Ezck. xxxvi. 26. And fo, of stones raiseth up children to Abraham. Regenerating grace is powerful and efficacious, and gives the will a new let. Tt does not indeed force it: but sweetly, yet powerfully
: draws it, so that“ his people are willing in the day of his | N |
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145 The Will reneued. State III.
power, Plal. cx. 3. There is heavenly oratory in the Mediator's lips, to persuade sinners, Plal. xlv. 2. © Grace is poured into thy.lips.'”” There are cords of a man, and bands of love in his hands, to draw them after him, Hol. xi. 4. Love makes a net for ele& fouls, which will iafallibly catch them, and hale them to land. The cords of Christ's love are trons cords: and they need to be fo; for every {inner is heavier than u mountain of brass: and Satan, together with the heart itself, draw the contrary way: But love is strong as death; and the Lord's love to the soul he died for, is strongest love; which acts {> powerfully, that it must come off victorious. Z J. The will is cured of its utter inability to will what is good, While the opening of the prison to them that art. bound, is
proclaimed in the golpel : The Spirit of God comes to the
prison door, opens it, goes te the prisoner ; and by the power
of his grace makes his chains fall off: breaks the bond of iniquity, wherewith he was held in sin, fo as he could neither will nor do any thing truly good; brings him forth into a large
place,“ Working in bim both to will and to do of his good
pleasure,” Phil. ii. 13. Then it is that the soul, that was fixed to the earth, can move heavenward; the withered band is retored, and can be stretched out.
2. There is wrought” in the will a fixed aversion to evil. lu regeneration, a man gets a“ new spirit put within him,” Fzek. xxxvi. 26. and that “ spirit lusteth against the flesh,” Gal. v. 17. The sweet morsel of fin, fo greedily swallowed down, he now lothes, and would fain be rid of it; even as willinply as one, that bad drunk a cup of poison, would throw it up again. When the spring is stopt, the mud lies in the well unmoved: but when once the spring is cleared, the waters springing up, will work the mud away by degrees. Even to, while a man continues in an unregenerate state, fin lies at eats in the heart : but as soon as the Lord strikes the rocky heart, with the rod of his strength in the day of conversion, grace is in him © a well of water springing up into everlasting litg, John iv. 14. working away natural corruption, and graduaily purifving the heart, Acts xv. 9. The renewed will riseth up
> againit (in, strikes at the root thereof, and the branches tos.
Lusts are now grievous, and the foul endeavours to starve them:
the corrupt nature is the source of all evil, and therstore the
foul will be often lay ing it before the great Physician. O what foOrrow, shame, and selt-lothing fill the heart, in the day oy Zrace makes it's triumphant entrance into it? For now. tne
Head I, The Wil renewed, | £8 147
madman is come to himself, and the remembrance of his follics
cannot but cut him to the heart.
LAST LT, The will is endued with an inchpation, bent, and propensity to good. In its depraved tate, it lay quite asother way; being prone and pent to evil only: but now, by a pull of the omnipotent all-conquering arm, it is drawn From evil to good, and gets another jet. And as tne former set was natyral; fo this is natural too, in respect of the new nature givent! regeneration, which has its own holy lustings as well as the corrupt old nature hath its sinful lustings, Gal. v. 17. The will, as renewed, inclines and points towards God and godHnels.
When God made man, his will, in respect of its intention, was,
directed towards God, as his chief end; in respect of its choice, it pointed towards that which God willed. When man un— maile himself, his will was framed into the very reverse hercof: he made himself his chief end, and his own will his law. But when man is new made, in regeneration, grace rectifies this diforder in some measure, tho' not perfectly indeed; becaute we are but renewed in part, while in this world. It brings back the sinner, out of hintseif, to God as his:chiet end, truly, though not perfectly, Pal. Jxxi. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon carth that I desire behdes thee. Pbihp. i. 21. For to me to live is Christ. It makes hin to deny binfelf, and whatever way he turns, to point habitually towards God: who is the center of the gractous soul, its home, its dwelling-place in all generations, Pi]. xc. 1. By regenerating grace, the will is framed into 4 conformity to the will of God. It is conformed to his nrecep tive: will, being endued with holy inclinations, agrecable ty ever; one of his cominands. The whole law is impretsed on tl.
piion wakes such blots in kimsc} cannot road it: vet
heart. And altho' remaining carr the writing, that oft-times the man he that wrote it can read it at all times; it is never qinte plot ted out, nor can be. What he has written hehas Written, It fall stand; © For this.is the covenant, =I will put my laws into their nnd, and write them in their hearts,“ Heb. viii. 10. And it is X covenant of falt, a Perpetual covenant. It is alto conformed to his providential wil; # that the man will no more be master of his own process; nor care our his lot for Inmfelf. He learns to lay from his heart, © The will of the Lord be done, he shall chuse gur inheritance for ys, P14. ss. 4. Thus the will is disposed to fall in with those thin: . Which, in its depraved state, it could never be r-counciled to. Z
—
—
—
—
148 The Fill renewcd. State III.
Particularly, (1.) The Lord is reconciled to the covenant
ok peace. The Lord God promiseth a covenant of peace to
imners; a covenant which he himself hath framed, and reli. strated in the Bible: bat they are not pleased with it: nay au uarenewed heart cannot be pleased with it. Were it put into their hands, to frame it according to their mind; they would blot many things out of it, which God has put in; and put in many things, God has kept out. But the renewed heart is
entirely fatisfied with the covenant, 2 Sam. xxüi. 5. © He hath
made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure; this is all my falvation, and all my desire.“ Tho' the covenant could not be brought down to their depraved Will; their will is, by grace, brought up to the covenant; they are well pleased with it: there is nothing in it they would have
out; nor isany thing left out of it, which they would have in.
(2.) The will is disposed to receive Christ Jesus the Lord.
The soul is content to submit to him. Regenerating grace
undermines, and brings down the tow'ring imaginations of the heart, raised up against its rightful Lord: it breaks the iron
sine w, which kept the sinner from bowing to him, and disposed him to be no more stiff- necked, but to yield to himself. He is
willing to take on the yoke of Christ's commands, to take up the cross and to follow him. He is content to take Christ on any terms, Psal. cx. 3. Thy people shall, be willing in the day of thy power.“ Rea
Now, the mind being savingly enlightened and the will renewed; the sinner is thereby determined and enabled to answer the gospel-call. So che main work in regeneration is done; the Get of the heart is taken: there is room made for the Lord Jetus Christ, in the innermolt parts of the soul; the outer- door of the will being now opened to him, as well as the inner-door of the understanding. In one word, Christ is passively received into the heart; he is come into the foul by his quickning spirit. whereby spiritual life is given to the man, who in himself wa dead to fin. And his first vital act we may conceive to be an active receiving of sesus Christ discerned in his glorious excel lencies; that is, a believing on him, a closing with him, as dilcerned, offered, and exhibited in the word of his grace, the glorious gospel: the immediate effect of which is union with him, John i. 12, 13. © To as many as received him, to them gave he power (or privilege) to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his Name; which were born not 6:
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but \ | f C *
„
.
—
— . nei” Dor AIR
Head I. The Affettions change 159
or God,“ Eph. iii. 17. That Christ may dwell an your hearts by faith.“ Christ having taken the heart by ftorin, and triumphantly entered into it, in regeneration, the loul by Faith, | yields itself to him, as it is exprelied, 2 Chron. Xx. g. Thus... this glorious King, who came into the heart by Lis Spin; dwells in it by faith. The soul being drawn, runs; and being eftect - ually called, comes. |
THIRDLY, In regeneration, there is a happy change made on the affections; they are both rectisied and regulated.
1. This change reQtifies the affectione, placing them on suitable objects, 2 'Thell. li. 5. cc The Lord direct 5Gur hearts into the Love of God.“ The regenerate man's defires ate rectisied; they are set on God himself, and the things above. He who before, cried with the world, © Who will shew us any good!“ he changes his note, and lays, “ Lord lift up the light of thy countenance updn us, Pfal. iv. 6, Sometimes he law no beauty in Christ, for which he was to be defired ; but now he is all desires, he is © altogether lovely, Cant. v. 16. Thy
main stream of his defires is turned to run towards God: for
there is the one thing he defireth,”” Plal. xxviic 4. He de- {res to be holy, as well as to be happy; and rather to be gracious than great. His hopes which before were low, and staked down to things on earth, are now railed, and {et on the glory which is to be revealed. Ic entertains the hope of eternal
life, founded on the word of promise, Tit. i. 2. Which hope
he has, as an anchor of the soul,” fixing the heart under trials,
Heb. vi. 18. And it puts him upon purifying himself, © even as God is pure, John ij. 3. For he is begotten again unto a „lively hope, 1Pet. i. 3. His love is raised, and set on God himself, Psal. xxvii. 1. On his holy law, Pfal. cxix. 97. Tho
it strike against. his most beloved lust, he fays, „The law is
holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good, RO. vii. 12. He loves the ordinances of God, Pial. l<xxiv. !
How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of kosts?”? Being
a passed from death unto life, he loves the brethren, (7 John I. 13.) the peqple of God as they are called, 1 Pet. i. 10. He loves God for himself, and what is God's, for his fake. Yet, as being a child of God, he loves his own enemies. His heavenly Father is compassionate and benevolent: he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and fend-th rain on the juit, and on the unjust:? and thereforc he is in the Uke manner difposed, Matth. v. 44. 45. His hatred is turned against sin in himself and others, Plal. ci. 3. 1 hate the work N 3 | of
150 The Affectious changed. State III.
og them that tura aside, it shall not cleave to me. He groans under the remains of it, and longs for deliverance, Rom. vii. 24, & O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death??? His joys and delights are in God the Lord, in the light of his countenance, in his law, and in his people; because they are like him. Sin is what he chiefly fears; it is a fountain of {arrow to him now, tho' formerly a spring of pleasure. | | |
2: It regulates the affections placed on suitable objects. Our affections, when placed on the creature, are naturally exorbitant : when we joy in it, we are apt to oves-joy; and when we sorrow, we.are ready to forrow over-much : but grace bridles these affections, clips their wings, and keeps them within bounds, that they overflow not at all their banks. It makes a man haze his father and m ther, and wife and children, Fea, and his own life also, comparatively ; that is, to love them I:& than he loves Ged, Luke xiv. 26. It allo sanctifies lawful affections; bringing them forth from right principles, and elirecting them to right ends. There may be unholy defires
any love to him, but merely out of love to themselves. © Give us of your oil, faid the foolish virgins, for our lamps are gone ou,” Matth. xxv. 8. There may be an unsanctisied sorrow tor fin; as when one forroweth for it, not because it is dipleasing to God, but, only. because of the wrath annexed to it, as did Pharaoh, Judas, and others. So a man may love his father and mother, from mere natural principles without any respect to the command of God binding him thereto. But grace sanctifies the affections in such cases, making them to run in a new channel of love to God, respect to his commands, and regard to his glory. Again, grace {crews up the affections where they are too low. It gives the chief feat in them to God: and pulls down all other rivals, whet: er persons or things, making them ly at his feet, Pfal. Ixxiii. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I defire beside thee.” He is loved for himself: and other persons or things, for bis sake. What is lovely in them, to the renewed heart, is
gracious fouls they shine only by borrowed light. Tis accounts for the saints loving all men, and yet hating tbose that hate God, and contem ung the wicked as vile persans. They kate and contemn them tor their wickedness: there is nothing or God in that, and therefore nothing lovely nor hon: uvable in
after Christ aud his grace; as when men desire Christ, not from
sme ray of the divine ggodness appearing in them © for unto.
— ans
Head I. The Conscience renewed. 15t
it: but they love them for their commendable qualities, or. pertfections, whether natural or moral; because, in whomloever these are, they are from God, and can be traced to him as their fountain. Finally, regenerating grace sets the aflections fo firmly on God, that the man is disposed, at Gad's command, to quit his hold of every thing else, in order to keep his hold of Chrilt; to hate father and mother, in comparison with Christ, Luke xiv. 26. It makes even lawful enjoyments like Joleph's mantle, to hang loose about a man; that he may quit them when he is in hazard to be ensnared by holding then.
If the stream of our affections was never thus turned; we are, doubtless, going down the stream into the pit. If the Just of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, have the throne in our hearts, which should be possessed by the Father, Son, and holy Ghost; if we never had so much love to God,
as to ourselves ; if fin has been somewhat bitter to us, but never so bitter as suffering, never so bitter as the pain of being weaned
from it: truly we are strangers to this saving change. For grace turns the affections upside down, when-ever it comes into the heart. :
FoURTHLY, The conscience is renewed. Now, that a new light is set up in the foul in regeneration; conscience is enlightned, instructed, and informed. That candle of the Lord, (Prov. xx. 27.) is now snuffed and brightned; fo as it shines, and sends forth its light into the molt retired corners of the heart; discovering sins which the soul was not aware of before: and, in a special manner, difcoveriag the corruption or depravity of nature, that seed and spawn whence all actual fins proceed, This produces the new complaint, Rom. vil. 24. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? That conscience, . which lay sleeping in the man's bosom before, is now awakened, and makes its voice to be heard through the whole soul: and therefore there is no more rest for him in the sluggard's bed; he must get up and be doing, arise, haste and escape for his life. It powerfully incites to obedience; even in the most spiritual acts, which ly not within the view of the natural confcience; and powerfully restrains from sin, even from these sins which do not ly open to
the observation of the world. It urgeth the sovereign authority
of God, to which the heart is now reconciled, and which it willingly acknowledges: and fo it engageth the man to bis duty, whatever be the hazard from the world; for it fills the heart fo with the fear of God „that the force of the fear of man
.
The Memory teitered by Grace.
room therein.
which is in heaven.”
memories, Plal. cxix. 9: for with them thou hast quickned me.“ memory. Many have large, but unsanctified memories: which serve only to gather knowledge, whereby to aggravate their condemnation; but the renewed memory serves to“ remember his commandments to do, them,” fal. ci. 18. store-house, from whence a Christian is furnithed in his way to Zion: for faith and hope are often supplied out of it, in a dark
State III.
Flüs bath eapaged many to put their life in their hand; and follow the caute of religion they once contemned, and relolately walk ia the path they formerly abhorred, Gal. j. 23. © He which pertecuted us in times past, now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.” conscience to smart. It hath bitter remorse for fins past, which fills the foul with anxiety, sorrow and self loathing. And every new. reftexion on thele fins, is apt to affect, and make it; wounds bleed atresh with regret.
of tin and duty, for the time to come; being once burnt, it dreads the fire; and fears to break the hedge, where it was formerly bit by the serpent. Finally, The renewed conscience
drives the {inner to Jesus Christ, as the only physician that can draw out the sting of guilt; and whose blood alone can purge * the conscience from dead works, Heb. ix. 14. refusing all ease offered to it from any other hand. that the conscience is not only fired, as it may bein an unregenerate state; but oiled also with regenerating grace. + FirTHLy, As the memory wanted not its share of depravity,
it is also bettered by regenerating grace. The memory is weakned with respect to those things that are not worth their
and men are taught to forget injuries, and drop
their resentments, Matth. v. 44, 45. Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, —That ye may be (1. e. appear to be) the children of your Father
It is ftrengthned for spiritual things.
We have Solomon's receipt for an ill memory, Prov. ii. f.
My fon, saith he, forget not my law.“
kept in mind? * Let thine heart keep my commandments.”
Grace makes a heart-memory, even where there is no good
head-memory, Plal. cxix. 11. Thy word have J hid in my
The heart truly touched with the powerful fweetne!: of truth, will help the memory to retain what is so relished. Did divine truths make deeper impressions on our hearts, they
- would thereby impress themselves with more force on our
93. © 1 will never forget thy precepts,
Guilt now makes the
It is- made. tender, in point
And this is an evidence
But how shall it be
Grace lanctifies the
hour.
*
-
ich
Head 1. The Body Changed. 153
hour. It is the store-house of former experiences; and these are the believer's way-marks, by noticing of which he comes to know where he is even in a dark time, Pfal. xlü. 6.“ O m God, my foul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of orden, &c. It also helps the foul to godly forrow and self-loathing, presenting old guilt anew before the conscience: and making it bleed afresh, tho? the {tn be already pardoned, Pfal. xxv. 7. *f Remember not the fins of my youth.“ And where unpardoned guilt is lying on the sleeping conscience, it is often employed to bring in a word, which in a moment sets the whole foul a- stir: as when Peter remembered the words of Jesus,.—“ he went out and wept bitterly,” Matth. xxvi. 75. The word of God laid up in a sanctisied memory, serves 2 man to resist temptations, puts the sword in his hand against the spi.itual enemies, and is a light to direct his steps in the way of relig on and rightoeousness. | SIxXTHLY, There is a change made on the body, and the members thereof, in respect of their ule: they are consecrated to the Lord. Even the body is for the Lord, 1 Cor. vi. 12.
Ft is the temple of the holy Ghost, yer. 19. The members |
thereof, that were formerly instruments of unrighteousness unte sin, become instruments of righteousness unto God, Rom. vi. 13. Servants to righteousness unto holiness, ver. 19. The eye that conveyed sinful imaginations into the heart, is under à covenant, Job xxxi. to do fo no more; but to serve the foul in viewing the works, and reading the word of God. The ear that had often been death's porter to let in sin, is turned to be the gate af life, by which the word of life enters the soul. The tongue
that set on fire the whole course of nature, is restored te the
office it was designed for by the Creator; namely, to be an m'trument of glor.fying him, and setting forth his praise. In a wo-d, the whole man is for God, in foul and body, which by this blessed change are made his,
LasTLy, This gracious change shines forth in the conversation, Even the outward man is renewed. A new heart makes newness of life. When the King's daughter is all plorious within, her cloathing is of wrought gold, Pfal. xlv. 13. The lingle eye makes the whole body full of light, Matth. vi. 22. Tbis change will appear in every part of one's conversation, particularly in thele following things.
1. In the change of his company. Tho' sometime he despised the company of the saints, now they are the excellent in whom is all his delight, Pal. xvi. 3. © I am a companion of all | that
*
154 The Change shines forth State III.
that fear thee,”* saith the royal Pfalmijt, Psal. cxix. 63. A
renewed man joins himlelf with the saints: for he and they are
like minded, in that which is the'r main work and buknels;
they have all one new nature; they are travelling to Immanuel's land, and converse together in the language of Canaan.
In vain do men pretend to religion, while ungodly company is
their choic2 ; for a companion of foois shall be destroyed,
Prov. xiti. 20. Religion will make a man thy of throwing
himfelf into an ungodly family, or any unnecessary familiaricy
with wicked men; as one that is clean, will beware of going
into an infected house. TY
2. In hs relativeewapacity, he will be a new man. Grace
makes men gracious in their several relatious, and natively
leads them to the conscientious performance of relative duties.
It-does not ouly make good men, and good women; but makes
good subje ts, good huibands, good wives, children, servants,
and in a word, good relatives in the church, common-wealth,
and family. It is a just exception made against the religion of
many; namely, that they are bad relatives, they are ill
husb inds, wives, masters, servants, &c. How will we prove
ourselves to be new creatures, if we be still just fuch as we
were before, in our several relations, 2 Cor. v. 17. Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things
are passed away; behold all things are become new.“ Real
godlincis will gain a testimony to a man, from the con'cieuc's
of his nearest relations, tho? they. know more of his sinful inftrmities, than others do, as we lee in that case, 2 Kings iv. 2.
© Thy lervant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy
servant did fear the Lord.” | |
3. In the way of his following his worldly business, there is
a great change. It appears to be no more his all, as some time
it was. Though saints apply thernselves to worldly bulinci+,
as well as others; yet their hearts are not swallowed up in it.
It is evident they are carrying on a trade with heaven, as wel]
as a trade with earth, Philip. iii. 20. For our converiatio!
is in heaven.” And they go about their employment in the
world as a duty laid upon them by the Lord cf all; doing
their lawful butiness, as the will of God, Ephel. vi. 7. working,
because he has faid, © Thou shalt not steal.“ “ |
4. They have a special gpncern for the advancement of the
kingdom of Christ in che Nord: they espouse the interests ol
religion, „ and prefer Jerusalem above their chief joy,
; them
Plal. cxxxvii. 6. How privately soever they live, grace makes
Head J. in the whole conversation. _ 155
them a public spirit, which will concern itself in the ark and work of God; in the gospel of God; and in the people of God, eren these of them whom they never saw in the face. As children of God, they naturally care. for these things. The have a. new and nuwonted concern for the spiritual good of others. And no sooner do they talte of the power of grace ' themselves, but they are inclined to set up to be agents for; Christ and holiness in this world; as appears in the case of the woman of Samaria, who, when Christ had manifested himself to 3 her, went her way into the city, and laith unto the men, come, fee a man which told me all thinps that ever I did: Is not this the Christ?? John iv. 28, 29. They have seen and felt the evil of fin, and therefore pity the world ly ing in wichedness. They would fain pluck the brands out of the tire, remembrin that they themselves were plucked out of it. They will labour to commend religion to others, both by word and example; and rather deny themselves their liberty in indifferent things, than by the uncharitable ule of i, destroy others, 1 Cor. viii. 1. | © Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.” F. In their. use of lawful comforts, there is a great change. They rest not in them, as their end; but use them as means to help them in their way. They draw their satisfaction from che higher springs, even while the lower springs are running. Thus Hannah having obtained a fon, rejoiced not so much in the gift, as in the giver, 1 Sam. ii. 1. And Hannah prayed, and faid, My heart rejoiceth in the Bord.“ Yea, when the comforts of life are gone, they can subsist without them, and *.rejoice in the Lord, altho' the fig- ttee do not blossom,” Hab. 11. 17, 18. Grace teacheth to use the convenicncics of a present life pasfingly; and to shew a holy moderation in all things. The heart, which formerly immersed itself in these things without fear, is now shy of being over- much pleased with them;
-
nz Fences" es gr” eee ens ne
—
—
: and being apprehensive of danger, ules them warily : as the ©
| dogs of Egypt run while they lap their water out of the river 1 Nile, for fear of the Crocodiles that are in it.
© # LasrLy, This change shines forth in the man's performance „ of religious duties. He who lived in the negle& of them, will Io so no more, if once the grace of God enter into his heart. If
| 2 man be new-born, he will desire the sincere milk of the * | word, 1 Pet. ü. 2. Whenever the praverless person gets the 0 Sprit of grace, he will be in him a Spirit of supplication, 8 Zach. xi. 10. It is as natural for one that is born again to fall
156 The Resemblance betuixt natural State Ill.
a · praying, as for the new- born“ babe to fall a- ry ing, Ads ix. II. Behold, he pray eth.“ His heart will be a temple for # God, and his house a church. His devotion, which before was superficial aud formal, is now spiritual and lively; forasmuch as heart andi tongue are touched with a live- coal from heaven, I | and he rests not in the mere performing of duties, as caretul 8 | only to get bis talk done; but in every duty seeking communi. 18 * on with God in Chrilt, juitly considering them as means ap: pointed of God for that end, and reckoning himself disappointed 77 if he miss of it. Thus far of the nature of regeneration. =
A
The Resemblance betwixt Natural and Spiritual | Generation. 8.
II. I come to shew why this change is called regeneration, 1 being born again. It is so called, because of the resemblance betwixt natural and spiritual generation, which lies in the tollowing particulars. 5 | |
FIRST, Natural generation is a mysterious thing: and so i; 141 spiritual generation, John ii. 8. The wind bloweth where it 11 9 hiteth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tel! 11 whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that
1 is born of the Spirit.“ The work of the Spirit is felt, but his I 14088 way of working is a mystery we cannot comprehend. A new
470 liglit is let into the mind, and the will is renewed; but how b
| that light is conveyed thither, how the will is fettercd with 10
| cords of love, and how the rebel is made a willing captive, we n
| can no more tell, than we can tell, how the bones do grow I
Fi in the womb of her that is with child, Eccles. xi. 5. As a man fi
| bears the sound of the wind, and finds it stirring ; but knows m
E not where it begins, and where it ends: so is every one that 1s 0
147 born of the Spirit; he finds the change that is made upon him, w
— 14 but how it is produced he knoweth not. One thing he may ge
know, that whereas he was blind; now he seeth: but the sced W.
of grace doth * spring and grow up, he knoweth not how, PI
4 SECONDLY, Ia both, the creature comes to a being, it bad we
1 net before. The child is not, till he be generate; and a man tel
I has no gracious being, no being in grace, till ke be regenerate. cr
Regeneration is not so much the curivg of a sick man, as the he
quickning of a dead man, Eph. ii. 1, 5. Man in his depravec =
state is a mere non-entity in grace: and is'brought into a ne 4
being, by the power of kim, who calleth things that be not, Fon
Head I. and spiritual Generation. 157
as though they were; being created in Jesus Christ unto good works, Eph: ü. 10. Therefore our Lord jesus, to give ground ot hope to the Laodiceans, in their wretched and miscrable state, proposeth hünself as the beginning of the creation of God, Rev. ji. 14. Namely, the active beginning of it; for all things were made by him at first, John i. 3. From whence they might gather, that seeing he made them when they were nothing, he could make them over again, when worse than nothing: 2 the fame hand that made them his creatures, could make them new creatures.
Trn1RDLyY, As the child is merely paflive in generation, fo is the child of God in regeneration. Ihe one contributes noth- 1 ing to its own generation; neither does the other contribute > any thing, by way of efficiency, to its own regeneration: for
tho' a man may lay himself down at the pool; yet he hath no hand in moving of the water, no efficacy in performing of the cure. One is born the cluld of a king, another the child of
a beggar: the child has no hand at all in this difference. God
leaves some in their depraved state; others he brings into a
state of grace or regeneracy. It thou be thus honoured, no thanks to thee; for who maketh thee to differ from another?“
FoURTHLY, There is a wonderful contexture of parts in both births. Admirable is the structure of man's body, in which there is such a variety of organs: nothing wanting, nothing superfluous. The Pfalmist considering his own body, looks on it as a piece of marvellous work; I am fearfully and wonderfully made, faith he, Psal. cxxxix. I 4. and *curiously wrought
in the lower parts of the earth, ver. 15. That is, in the womb,
where I know not how the bones do grow, more than I know 1
what is a-doing in the lowest parts of the earth. In natural 9
generation, we are curiously wrought, as a piece of needle- 9
work; as the word imports: even so it is in regeneration, i
Pal. xlv. 14. © She shall be brought unto the King, in raiment = of needle- work, raiment curiously wrought.” It is the same word in both texts. And what that raiment is, the Apostle RK tells us, Eph. iv. 24. It is © the new man, which after God is th created in righteousness and true holiness. That is the raiment be saith in the same place, we must put on; not excluding the imputed righteousness of Christ. Both are curiously wrought, as master-pieces of the manifold wisdom of God. O the wonderful contexture of graces in the new creature! O glorious creature, new made after the image of God! It is grace for
grace
„
The Resemblance betuixt Natural State III.
-grac2 in Christ, which makes up the new man, John i. 16. Even as in bodily generation, the child has member for member in the parent: has every meinber the parent has, in a certain proportion.
FIrTHzLY, All this in both cases hath its rise from that which is in itself very (mall and inconsiderable. O the power of God, in making such a creature of the corruptible feed! and much more in bringing forth the new creature from so small beginnings: it is as © the little cloud like a man's hand,” which sprcad till heaven © was black with clouds and wind, and there was à great rain, 1 Kings xiti. 44, 45. A man gets a word at a
. dermon, which hundreds beside him hear and let flip: but it
remains with him, works in him, and never leaves him, till the little word be turned up- side-down by it; that is, till he become a new man. It is like the vapour that got up into Ahasuerus's head, and cut off sleep from his eyes, Esther vi. x. which proved a spring of such motions, as never ceased, until
Mordecai, in royal pomp, was brought on horse-back through
the street, proud Haman trudging at his foot ; the fame Haman
rfterwards hanged, Mordecai advanced, and the church delivered from Haman's hellish plot. The grain of mustard-{ced, becometh a tree, Matth. xii. 21, 22. God loves to bring preat
things out of {inall beginnings.
S1IXTHLY, Natural generation is carried on by degrees, 15 x. 10. Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and ci uddled me like checle?* So is regeneration. It is with the foul
ordinarily, in regeneration, as with the blind man cured by our
Lord, who first saw men as trees walking, afterwards saw every man clearly, Matth. viii. 23, 24, 25. It is true regene-
| _ speaking, a passing from death to life, the
foul is quickned in a momeat: like as, when the embryo is brought to perfection in the womb, the soul is infused into the lifeless lump. Neverthelels, We may imagine somewhat lc conceptian in spiritual generation, whereby the foul is prepared for quickening: and the new creature is capable of giowth, 1 Pet. ii. 2. and of life more abundantly, John x. 10. | SEvEnTHRYY, In both there are new relations. The regenerate may call God, Father; for they are his childien, John i. 12, 13. begotten of him, 1 Pet. i. 3. The bride, the amb's wife, (that is the church) is their mother, Gal. iv. 27-
They are related, as brethren, as sisters, to angels and ploritied
saints, the family of heaven. They are of the-heavenly stock: and the meanest of them, the -base things of the world,
* TER git, Mig: env ve . — PIE ee Me ot.
and spiritual Genertion, 159
Head I.
1 Cor. i. 28. the kinless things, as the word imports, who
cannot boast of the blood that runs in their veins, are yet, by
child. Every thing that generates, generates its like; and the
regenerate are © partakers of the divine nature, 2 Pet i. 4. the moral perfections of. the divine nature are in measure and degree communicated to the renewed foul, and thus the divine image is retrieved; so that, as the child resembles the father, the new creature resembles God lümself, being“ holy as he js holy.“ |
LasTLY, As there is no birth without pain, both to the mother and to the child; fo there is great pain in bringing forth the new. creature, The children have more or less of chese birth pains, whereby they are pricked in their heart, Adds ü. 37. The soul has fore pains when under conviction and humiliation, © A wounded spirit who can bear: The mother is pained, Zion travails, Isa. lxvi. 8. {he sighs, groans, crieth, and hath hardlabour, in her ministers and members, to bring forth children to her Lord, Gal. iv. 19. My little child rea of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.“ And never was a mother more feelingly touched with joy, that a man- child was born into the world, than she is upon the new birth of her children. But what is more ramarkable than all this, we read not only of our Lord Jesus Christ's travail (or toil of soul,)
Ifa. li. 11. but (what lies more directly to our purpose) of his
pains, or pangs, as of one travelling in child-birth; jo the word uled Acts ii. 24. properly fignifies. Well may he call the new creature, as Rachel called her dear-bought fon, Benoni, 3. e. The lon of my sorrow; and as she called another, Naphtali, i. e. My wrestling:' for the pangs of that travail put him to strong crying and tears, Heb. v. 7. yea, in © an agony and bloody sweat, Luke xxii. 44. And, in the end, he died of thele pangs, they became to him the pains of death, Acts ii. 24.
The Doctrine of Regeneration applied.
the state of grace or not. If ye be brought out of the state of
wrath or ruin, into the {tate of grace or salvation; ve are new
creatures, ye are born again. But ye will say, How shail we
know whether we be born again or not? Ans. Did you alk me, if the. sun were risen, and how you should know, whether it
O2 Were.
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—
*
OED >.
_
—
wich it was sometimes bound up from moving heaven-wards?
—
160 The Doctrine of Regeneration applied. State III.
were risen, or not? I would bid you look up to the heavens and sce it with your eyes. And would you know if the light be risen in your heart! Look in, and see. Grace is light, and
diicovers itielf, Look into thy mind, see if it has been illuminate in the Knowiedgeof God. Hast thou been inwardly taught what (God is? Were thine eyes ever turned inward to see the. felt, the sinfulness of thy depraved state; the corruption of th; nature; the ins of thy heart and life? Walt thou ever let into a view of the exceedinp sinfulness of fin? Have thine eves seen King jelus in his beauty; the manifold wildom of God in him, his transcendent excellency, and absolute fulness and sufficiency,
with tlie vanity and emptiness of all things else? Next, What
change is there on thy will? Are the fetters taken off, where- And has thy will got a new set? Dost thou find an aversion to fin, and a proneness to good wrovght in thy heart? Is thy foul turned towards God as thy chief end! is thy will new-moldel
into {ome meature of conformity to the preceptive and providential will of God: Art thou heartily reconciled to the covenant of peace, and fixedly disposed to the recciving of Christ, as he is offered in the gospel? And as to a change on your affections, are they rectified, and placed on right objects? Are your desires going on after God? Are they to his name and remembrance of him? Ia. xxvi 8. Are your hopes in him? Is your love set upon him, and your hatred set against fin? Does your offending a good God affect your heart with forrow, and do you fear sin
with respect to created comforts brought down, as being too high: and with respect to God in Christ, screwed up, as being
too low? Has he the chief seat in your heart? And are all your |
lawful worldly comforts, and enjoyments laid at his feet? Has
thy conscience been enlightned and awakened, refusing all ease,
but from the application of the blood of a Redeemer? Is thy
memory sanctisied, thy body consecrated to the service of God!
And art thou now walking in newnels of life? Thus ye may *
discover, whether ye are born again or not.
But, for your further help in this matter, I will discourse a little of another sign of regeneration, namely, The love of the
brethren; an evidence whereby the weakest and most timorous faints have often had comfort, when they could have little or
no consolation from other marks proposed to them. This the
Apostle lays down, 1 John iii. 14. We know that we have
passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” It | 18
*
.
hold on it, and love them for it. (
Head I. Trial of one's State, ET. en
is not to be thought, that the Apoitle, by the brethren in this lace, means brethren by a common relation to the first Adam, Foe to the second Adam Christ Jesus: becaule, however true it is, that universal benevolence, a'good-will to the whole race of mankind, takes place in the renewed sonl, as being a lively lneament of the divine image; yet the whole context {peaks of those that are the sons of God, ver. 1, 2. children of God, yer. 10. born of God, ver. g. distinguishing betwixt the children of God, and the children of the devil, ver. 10.. betwixt these that are of the devil, ver. 8. 12. and these that are of God, ver. 10. And. the text itielf comes in as a reason why we
' should not marvel that the world hates the brethren, the children of God, ver. 13. How can we marvel at it, seeing the
love of the brethren is an evidence of one's having passed from death to life? And therefore it were absurd to look for that
love amongst the men of the worgl, who are dead in trespasses
and lin. They cannot love the brethren: no marvel then that
they hate them. Wherefore it is plain, that by brethren here, are meant brethren by regeneration.
Now, in order to set this mark of regeneration in a true light,
consider these three things. (I.) This love to the brethren, is
a love to them as such. Then do we love them in the sense of
the text, when the grace, or image of God in them, is the chief motive of our love to them. When we love the godly for their godliness, the saints for their sanctity or holiness: then we love God in them, and so may conclude, we are born of God; for
every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is
begotten of him, 1 John v. 1. Hypocrites may love saints, on account of a civil relation to them; because of their obliging conversation; for their being of the fame opinion with themselves in religious matters: and on many other such like accounts, whereby wicked men may be induced to love the godly. But happy they, who can love them for naked grace in them;
for their heaven-born temper and disposition ; who can pick
this pearl out of a dunghill of infirmities in and about them; la
given to all, in whom the grace of God appears. They that love one saint, because he is a faint, will have love to all the faints, Eph. i. 15. They will love all, who to their discerning, bear the image of God. They that cannot love a gracious person in rags, but confine their love to these of them who wear gay cloathing, have not this love to the brethren in them. These who can confine their love to a party, to whom God has
3 nor
2.) It is a love that will be
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—
*
—
- Nate, by what has been said. Many have com
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132 Trial of One's State, * State III.
not consined his grace, are fouls too narrow to be put among
the children. In what points soever men differ from us, in
their judgment or way; yet if they appear to agree with us, in
love to God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and in bearing bis image; we will love them as brethren, if we ourselves be of the heavenly family. And (3.) If this love be in us, the more grace any person appears to be possessed of, he will be the more
beloved by us. The more vehemently the holy fire of grace
doth flame in any, the hearts of true Christians will be the more warmed in love to them. It is not with the saints as with
many other men, who make themselves the standard for others;
and love them fo far as they think they are like themselves. But, if they seem to out-shine, and darken them, their love is turned to hatred and envy; and they endeavour to detrad from the due praise of their exemplary piety; because nothing relisheth with them in the practice of religion, that goes beyond their own measure: what of the life and power of religion
appears in others, serves only to raise the serpentine grudge in
their Pharisaical hearts. But, as for them that are born again; their love and affection to the brethren, bears proportien to the degrees of the divine image they discern in them.
Now, if ye would improve these things to the knowledge of your state, I would advise you, (1.) To set apart fome time, when ye are at home, for a review of your case, and try your
fort and clearness as to their state, at a sermon; who in a little time lose it
again: because, white they hear the word preached, they make
application of it; but do not consider of these things more de-
| THberately and leisurely, when alone. The action is too sud:en
and short, to give lasting comfort. And it is often so indeliberate, that it has bad consequences. Therefore, set about this work at home, af'cr earnest and serious prayer to God for his
help in it. Complain not of your want of time, while the night follows the busy day; or of place, while the fields and out- Houses are to be got. (2.) Renew your repentance before the
Lord. Guilt lying on the conscienee, unrepented of, may darken all your evidences and marks of grace. It provokcs the
175 R 1 when 10 ses. Spirit of grace to depart ; and when he goes, our light cea
It is not fit time for a faint to read his evidences, when tlie candle is blown out by some conscience-wounding guilt. Lastly, Exert the powers of the new nature; let the graces ot the divine Spirit in you, discover themselves by action. It ye
would know whether there is a sacred fire in your breast, or not,
whether born again, or not. 163
not, ye must blow the coal for altho' it be, and be a live- coal, yet if it be under the ashes, it will give you no light. Settle in our hearts a firm purpose, thro' the grace that is in Chrill sus, to comply with every known duty, and watch again
every known lin; having a readinels of mind, to be instructed
in what ye know not. If gracious souls would thus manage
their inquiries into their state; it is likely, they would have a comfortable issue. And if others would take such a solemn
review and make trial of their state impattially, sifting them sel ves before the tribunal of their own consciences; they migyt bave a timely discovery of their own naughtiness: but the neglect of self· examination leaves most men under fad delusions,
as to their state; and deprives many saints of the comfortable
sigbt of the grace of God in them. | But that 1 may afford some further help to true Christians,
in their inquiries into their state; I shall propose and briefly
answer {ome cases or doubts, which may possibly hinder some persons from the comfortable view of their happy state. The
_ childrens bread must not be with-held ; tho' while it is reached
to them, the dogs should snatch at it.
Casx I. I doubt if I be regenerate, beeause I know not the precise time of my conversion; nor can 1 trace the particular steps, in the way in which it was brought to pals. Ans. Tho? it is very desireable, to be able to pive an account of the beginning, and the gradual advances of the Lord's work upon our fouls, as some faints can distinctly do, (howbeit the manner of the Spirit's working is {till a my stery,) yet this is not necessary to evidence the truth of grace. Happy he that can say, in this case, as the blind man in the gospel, © One thing I know, that
whereas I was blind, now I sec.“ Like as when we fee flames, we know there is fire; tho' we know not how or when it
began: fo the truth of grace in us may be discerned; tho! we know not how, or when, it was dropt into our hearts. It
thou canst perceive the happy change, which is wrought on thy.
foul; if thon findest thy mind is enlightned, thy will inclined to comply with the will of God in all things; especially to fal in with the divine plan of salvation thro' a crucified Redeemer - in vain dost thou trouble thyle}f, and” refuse comfort, becauthou knowest not how, and what way it was brought about. CasE 2. If I were a new creature, sin could not preva!
_ against me as it doth. Ans. Tho' we must not lay pillows fe
; boerites to rest their heads upon, who indulge themlelves i: their sins, and make the doctrine of God's grace subservient t h | th;
Cafes of Christians doubting State III,
their lysts, ly ing down contented! y in the bond of iniquity, like men that are fond or golden chains: yet it nust be owned, the uit man fillech feven times a-day, and iniquity may prevail
againit the children of Cod. But, if thou art groaning under
the weight of the body of death, the corruption of thy nature; loathing thy self for the fins of thy heart and lite; striving to mortity thy lusts; fleeing daily to the blood of Christ tor pardon ; and looking to his Spirit for sanctisication: tho” thou
mayst be obliged to say with the Psalmist,“ Iniquities prevail
against me!“ Yet thou mayest add with him, © As for our
transęressions thou shalt purge them away, Psal. Ixv. 3. The new ereature doth not yet possess the house alone: it dwelis
beside an ill neighbour ; namely, remaining corruption, the reliques of depraved natura These struggle together for the
mastery: © The flesh lufteth apaint the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh,” Gal. v.'r. And sometimes corruption prevails, bringing the child of God “ into captivity to the law of fin,” Rom. vii. 23. Let not therefore the prevailing of corruption, make thee in this case conclude, thou art none of God's children: but let it humble thee to be the more watchful, and
to thirst the more intensely after Jesus Christ, his blood and |
Spirit; and that very disposition will evidence a principle of grace in thee, which seeks the dest ruction. of sin, that prevails so often against thee. |
Cask 3. I find the motions of fin, in my beart, more violent, fince the Lord began his work on my soul, than they. were before that time. Can this consist with a change of my nature! Ans. Dreadful is the case of many, who, after God has had a remarkable dealing with their souls, tending to their retormation, have thrown off all bonds; and have become grosly and openly immoral and profane; as if the devil had returned into their hearts, with seven spirits worse than himself, All I shall fay to such persons is, that their state. is exceeding, dangerous: they are in danger of sinning against the Holy Ghost: therefore let them repent, before it be too late. But if it be not thus
with you: tho' corruption is beitirring itself more violently
than formerly, as if all the forces of hell were raised, to hold fait, or bring back a fugitive ; I lay, these stirrings may consist
with a change of your nature. When the restraint of grace is
newly laid upon corruption, it is no wonder if this last acts more vigorously than before, © warring against the law of the mind,” Rom. vii. 22. The motions of fin may really be rt violent; when a new principle is brought in to cast it 21
| ith „And,
.
lead l. their Regencration, resolved. 165
And, as the sun, sending its beams through the window, dilcovers the motes in the house, and their motions, which were
not seen before: so the light of grace may dilcover the riling |
"3 2nd actings of corruption, in another manner than ever the man
> {rw them before: tho' they really do not rise nor act more
15 vigorously. Sin is not quite dead in the regenerate foul, it is
1 but dying; and, dying a lingering death, being crucisied, no
wonder there be great fightings, when it is fick at the heart,
and death is at the door. Belides temptations may be more in
1 number, and stronger, while Satan is striving to bring you back
= who are escaped, than while he endeavoured only to retain
pve. After ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight
* of atflictions,“ lays the Apoille to the Hebrews, chap., x. 32.
But © cast not away your confidence,” ver. 34. Remember
* ing his“ grace is sufficient for you, and the God of peace will
* bruifse Satan under your feet shortly.” Pharaoh and his ' Egyptians neyer made such a formidable appearance against the Ilraelites, as at the Red-lca, after they were brought out of Egypt: but then were the pursuers nearest to a total overthrow, Exod. xiv. Let not this caie therefore make you raze your foundations; but be ye emptied of yourselves, and strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might; and ye thall come off victorious. 5 CASE 4. But when I compare my love to God, with my love to some created enjoy ments, I find the pulse of my affecti- Ions beat stronger to the creature than the Creator. How then can I call him Father? Nay, alas! these turnings of heart within me, and glowings of affection to him, which sometimes : I had, are gone; fo that I fear, all the love I ever had to the 3 | Lord, has beea but a fit and flash of affection, such as hypocrites \ |; ofcen have. Ans. It cannot be denied, that the predominant 1 | Jloveof the world, is a certain mark of an unrepenerate state, I John ii. 15, © If a man love the world, the love of the
3 Father is not in him. Nevertheless, these are not always the 3 strongest affections, which are molt violent. A man's affection _ be more moved on fone occasions by an object that is little 4 4 F regarded, than by another, that is exccediugly beloved; even casa little brook lometimes makes a greater noise than a preat i 4 e The strength of our afsections is to be measured by the rmness and fixedness of the root: not by the violence of their se Aactings. Suppose a person meeting with a friend who has been & long abroad, finds his affection more vehemently acting toward - his friend on that occasion, than towards his own wife and
child-
166 Cases of Christians doubting State III, children; will he therefore say that he loves his friend more | than them? Surely no. Even jo, although the Christian may find himself more moved in his love to the creature, than in his love to God: yet he is not therefore to be said to love-the creature more than God]; seeing love to God is always more firmiy rooted in a gracious heart, than love to any created enjoyment whatsoever: as appears when competition arises in such | manner, that the one or the other is to be forgone. Would 5 you then know your case? Retire into your own hearts, and there lay the two in the balance, and try which of them weighs © down the other. Ask thyself, as in the fight of God, whether | thou wouldst part with Christ for the creature, or part with the creature for Christ, if thou were left to thy choice in the | matter? If you find your heart disposed to part with whatis | dearest to you in the world for Christ, at his call; you have | no reason to conclude, you love the creature more than God: | | but on the contrary, that you love God more than the crea- | ture: albeit you do not feel such violent motions in the love of | God, as in the love of some created thing, Matth. x. 37. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.“ Luke xiv. 26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, —he cannot be my disciple.“ From which texts compared, we may infer, that he who hates, 1; e. is ready to part with father and mother for Christ, is, in our Lord's account, one that loves them less than him; and not one who loves father and mother more than him. Moreover, ye are to conlider there is a twofold love to Christ. (I.) There | is a lensible love to him, which is felt as a dart in the heart; and makes a holy love-sickness in the foul, arifing either from want of enjoyment, as in the case of the spouse, Cant. v. 8. & I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I ain fick of love.“ Or else from the fulness of it, as in that case, Cant. ii. 5. © Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am fick of love.” These glowings of affections are usually wrought in young converts, who | are ordinarily made „“ to sing in the day of their youth, | Hos. ji. 14. While the fire-edge is upon the young convert, | he looks upon others reputed to be godly, and not finding them | in luch a temper aud disposition as himseif, he is ready to censure them; and think there is far Jess religion in the world, than indeed there is. But when his own cup comes to settle below | the brim, and he finds that in himself, which made him question |
the state of others, he is more humbled, and feels more and 2 | | 8
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=
Head J. their Regeneration, resolved. 167
the necessity of daily recourse to che blood of Christ for pardon, and to the Spirit of Christ for sanctification: and thus grows downwards in humiliation: felf-loathing, and self-denial. 2.) There is a rational love to Christ, which, wichout these {-n{1bie emotions felt in the former case, evidences itself by a dutiful regard to the divine authority and command. When one bears luch a love to Christ, cho' the vehement ftirrings of affection be wanting, yet he is truly tender of offending a gracious God; endcavours to walk before him unto all plealing; and grieved at the heart, for what is displeasing unto him, 3 john v. 3. © For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Now, although that sensible love doth not always continue with you: yet ye have no reason to account it a hypocritical fit, while the rational love remains with you, more than a faithful and loving wife needs question her love to her husband, when her fondnels is abated.
CasE 5. The attainments of hypociites and apostates are a terror to me, and come like a shaking storm on me, when J am about to conclude from the marks of grace which I seem to find in myself, that I am in the state of grace. Anl. These things should indeed stir us up to a molt serious and impartial examination of ourselves: but ought not to keep us in a continued suspense as to our state. Sirs, ye lee the outfide of hypocrites, their duties, their gifts, their tears, &c. but ye see not their
inside: ye do not dilcern their hearts, the bias of their spirits.
Upon what ye see of them, ye found 2 judgment of charity, as to their {tate ; and ye do well to judge charitably in such a case, because ye cannot know the secret springs of their actings: But
ye are speaking, and ought to have a judgment of certainty, as
to your own state : and therefore are to look into that part of religion, which none in the world but yourselves can discern
in you; and which ye can as little {ce in others. An hypocrite's religion may appear far greater than that of a sincere foul: but, that which makes the greatest figure n the eyes of men, is often least worth before God. I would rather utter one of those groans the Apoltle speaks of, Rom. viii. 26. than shed Efau's tears, have Baalam's prophetic spirit, or the joy of the stony- ground hearers. The fire tha: shall try every man's work, will try, not of what bulk it is, but of what sort it is, 1 Cor. i. 13. Now, ye may know what bulk of religion another has: and what tho' it be more bulky than your own? God doth not regard that: Why then do you make such a matter of it; It is impossible for you, without divine revelation,
cer-
—
168 Cafes of Christians doubting State III. certainly to know of what fort another man's religion is: but ye may certainly know what sort your own is of, without
extraordinary revelation ;_ otherwise the Apostle would not
exhort the saints to give diligence to make their calling aud election sure, 2 Pet. i. 10. Therefore the attainments of hypocrites and apostates should not disturb you in your serious inquiry into your-own state. But I'll tell you two thinps wherein the meanest faints go beyond the most refined bypocrites. (.) In denyiug themselves, renouncing all conk:-
dence in themselves, and their own works, acquicscing in, being well-pleased with, and venturing their fouls upon God's plan of salvation thro' Jesus Christ, Matth. v. 3. Blefled are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
And chap. xi. 6. Blessed is he whosoever shall not be
offended in me.“ Philip. ii. 3. We are the circumcilion which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ sesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. (2.) In a real hatred of all fin; being willing to part with every lust, without exception, and comply with every duty the Lord makes, or shall make known to them, Pfal. cxix. 6. Then shall 1 not be ashamed, when I have respect uato all thy commandments.” Try yourlelves by these. | | Cas E 6. I fee mylelf fall fo far short of the faints mentioned in the scriptures, and of Teveral excellent persons of my own acquaintance. that, when I look on them, I can hardly took on myself as one of the same family with them. Anf. It is indeed matter of humiliation, that we get not forward to that measure of grace and holiness, which we fee is attainable in this life. This should make us more vigorously press towards the mark: But surely it is from the devil, that weak Christians make a rack for themselves of the attainments of the strong. And to yield to this temptation, is as unreasonable, as for a child to dispute away hq; relation to his father, because he is not of the fame stature with his elder brethren. There are saints of several sizes in Christ's family; some fathers, some young men, and some little children, John ii. 13, 14. | CASE 7. I never read in the word of God, nor did I ever
know of a child of God to tempted, and so left of God as I am;
and therefore no saint's case being like mine, I cannot but conclude I am none of their number. Ans. This objection arises to some from their unacquaintedness with the scriptures, and with
experienced Christians. It is profitable in this case, to impart
the matter to some experienced Christian friend, or to _ | : Bs godly
Head l. their Regeneration, resolved. 169
—
godly minister; This has been a blessed mean of peace to some persons; while their case, which appearcd to them to be lingular, las been evinced to have been the case ot other saints. The jcripture gives instances of very horrid temptations, wherewith the saints have been assaulted: job was tempted to blaipheme. this was the great thing the devil aimed at, ju the cate of that ercat saint, Job i. 11.“ He will curle thee to thy face.” Chap. ii. 9. © Curle God and die.“ Alaph was tempted to think, it was in vain to be religious, which was in effect to throw off all religion, Plal. Ixxiit. 3. © Verlly | have cleansed my heart in vain.” Yea, Christ himiself was tempted to cait himself down from a pinacle of the tem ple, and to worship the devil, Matth. iv. 6, % And many of the children of God have not only been
attacked with, but have actually yielded to very grots tempta=- |
tions for a time. Peter denicd Chriit, and cursed and swore that he knew him not, Mark xiv 71. Paul, when a per{ccuter, compelled even faints to blaspheme, Acts xxvi. IO, II. Many of the saints can, from their ad experience, bear Witnels to very gross temptations, which have aitonisted their spirite, made their very flesh to tremble, and sickened their bodics. Satan's fiery darts make terrible work; and will cost pains to quench them, by a vigorous managing of the shield of faith, Eph. vi. 16. Sometimes he makes fuch desperate attacks, that never. was one more put to it, in running to and fro, without intermission to quench the fire-balls incessantly thrown into his house by an enemy designing to burn the house about him; than the poor tempted faint is, to repel fatanical injections. But these injections, these horrid temptations, though they are a dreadful affliction, they are not the fins of the tempted, nnjefs they make them theirs by consenting to them. They will he
charged upon the tempter alone, it they be yot consented to;
and will no more be laid to the charge of the tempted party, than a bastard's being laid down at the chaste man's door, will fix guilt upen him. |
But, suppose neither minister nor private Christian, to whom
you go, can tell you of any who has been in your case; yet you ought not thence to infer, that your case certainly is singular, far less to give over hopes: for it is not to be thought, that every godly minister, or private Christian, has had the experience of all the cases a child of God may be in. And we need not doubt but some have had diltrefses known only to God, and their own consciences; and, fo, to others these distresses are
0 as if they had never been. FS and though the scripture do
Con-
State III. contain suitable directions to every case a child of God can be in; and these illust rated with a sufficient number of examples; yet it is not to be imagined, that there are in the scripturcs perfect instances of every particular case incident to the saints. Therefore, howbeit you cannot sind an instance of your case in the scripture; yet bring your case to it, and you shall find suit-
170 Cases of Christians doubting
able remedies Fes voy there for it. And study rather to wake use of Christ for your case, who has salve for all sores; than to know if ever any was in your case. Though one should
shew you an instance of your case in an.undoubted faint; yet
none could promise it would certainly give you case : for 2
scrupulous conscience would readily find out some difference.
And it nothing but a perfect conformity of another's case to
yours, will satisfy, it will be hard, if not impossible to satisiy
you. For it is with peoples cases, as with their natural faces: though faces of all men are of one make; and some are so very like others, that, at first view we are ready to take them for the same: yet if you view them more accurately, you will see something in every face, distinguishing it from all others; tho possibly you cannot tell what it is; wherefore I-conclude, that if you find in yourselves the marks of regeneration, proposed tg you from the word; you ought to conclude, you are in the slate
of grace, though your case were singular, which is indeed
unlikely.
_ Casx Last. The afflictions I meet with are strange and unusual: I doubt if ever a child of God was trysted with such dispensations of providence as I am. Ans. Much of what was said on the preceeding case, may be helped in this. Holy Job was assaulted with this temptation, Job v. 1. 44 To which of the saints wilt thou turn?“ But he rejected it, and held fast his integrity. The Apostle supposeth Christians may be tempted to“ think strange concerning the fiery trial, 1 Pet. iv. 12. But they have need of larger experience than Solomon's who will venture to say, „See this is new, Ecclef. i. 10. And what though in respect of the outward dispensations of provi-
| dence, it happen to you according to the work of the wicked!
You may be just notwithstanding; according to Solomon's observe, Kccles. viii. 14. Sometimes we travel in ways, where we cannot perceive the prints of the foot of man or beast; yet we cannot from thence conclude, that there was never any there before us: fo, albeit thou canst not perceive the footsteps of the flock in the way of thine asfliction; thou must not taerefore conclude, thou art the first that ever travelled that road.
But,
—
Thom > =o way
©
—
Head I. the ir Regeneration, resolved. | 171
But, what, if it were so, that thou wert indeed the first? Some one saint or other behoved to be the first, in drinking of each bitter cup the rest have drunk of. What warrant have you or I, to limit the holy One of Israel to a trodden path, in his dispensations towards us? © Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footstops are not known,“ Plal, Ixxvii. 19. If the Lord should carry you to heaven by some retired road, and let you in at a back-door, (fo to speak,) you would haveno ground to complain. Learn to allow fovereignity a latitude; be at your duty; and let no affliction cast a vail over any evidences, you otherwite have for your being in the {tate of grace: for © no man knoweth either their love or hatred by all that is before them, Ecclel. ix. 1.
Usx II. Ye that are strangers to this new birth be convinced of the absolute neceflity of it. Are all in the state of grace born again? Then ye have neither part nor lot in it who are not born again. I must tell you in the words of our Lord and Saviour, (and O that he would speak them to your hearte,) Ye mult be born again,” John ut. 17. And for your convic - tion conlider thele few things.
First, Regeneration is absolutely necessary to qualify you to
do any thing really good and acceptable to God, While you
are not born again, your best works ate but glistering sins; for thaugh the matter of them is good, they are quite marred in the making. Conhder, (.) That without repeneration there 33 no faith, and“ without faith it is impotlible to please God,“ Heb. xi. 6. Faith is a vital act & the new-born foul, The Evangelist, shewing the different entertainment our Lord Jesus had from different persons, some receiving lin, lome rooting him, points at regenerating grace, as the true rife of that ditierence, without which never one would have received him. tie tells us, that as many as received him, were these which were born—of God, John i. 11, 12, 13. Unregcnerate men nity presume; but true faith they cannot have. Faith is 2 lower, that grows not in the field of nature. As the tree cannot gro vw
Without a root, neither can a man believe without the new
nature, whereof the principle of believing is a part. (2.) Without regeneration a man's works are dead works, As is the principle, fo mult the effects be: if the lungs be rotten, the breath will he.mfavoury; and he who at best is dead in fin, his Works at beit will be but dead works. Unto them that are dctiled and unbelieving, is nothing pure—bcing abuntinable, and
—
172 The Necessity of Regeneration. State III.
+ disobedient, and unto every good work. reprobate, Tit. i.
I5, 16. Could we say of a man, that he is more blamelels in his life, than any other in the world; that he macerates his body with fasting; and has made his knees as horns with con— tinual praying; but he is not born again: that exception would mar all. As if one should say, there-is a Well-proportionecd body, but the foul is gone, it is but a dead lump. This is a melting confideration. Thou dost many things materially good, but God faith, All these things avail not, as long as 1 lee the old nature reigning in the man, Gal. vi. 15. * For in Jelus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumci{ion, but a new creature.“
If thou art not born again, (1.) All thy reformation is nauglit in the sight of God. Thou hast shut the door, but the thief is {till in the house, It may be thou art not what once thou wast, yet thou art not what thou must be, if ever thou seest heaven: for, © Except a man be born again, he cannot ice the kingdom of God, John ii. 3. (2.) Thy prayers are an abomination to the Lord, Prov. xv. 8. It may be, others admire thy seriousness; thou criest as for thy life: but God
accounts of the opening of thy mouth, as one would aceount of
the opening of a grave full of rottenness, Rom. iii. 13. © Their throat is an open sepulchre.“ Others are affected with thy prayers; which seem to them, as if they would rend the heavens: but God accounts them as the howling of a dog: They have not cried unto me with their beart, when they howled upon their beds,” Hof. vii. 14. Others take thee for a wrestler and prevailer with God: but he can take no delight with thee, nor thy prayers neither, Isa. lxvi. 3.“ He that killeth an ox, is as if he slew a man: he that sacrisiceth a lamb as if he cut off a dog's neck: he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol: Why that, because thou art yet in the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity. (3.) All thou hast done tor God and his cause in the world, though it may be followed with temporal rewards, yet is lost as to divine acceptance. This is clear from the case of Jehu; who was indecd rewarded with a kingdom, for his executing due vengeance upon the house of Ahab; as being a work good for the matter of it, because it was commanded of God, as you may sce, 2 Kings x. 13. Vet he was punished for it in his posterity, because he did it not in a right manner, Hos. i. 4 I will aveage the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.” God looks mainly to the heart: and if fo, truly albeit, thy outward appearance be fairer
3 than
Head I. The Necessity of Regeneration,
than that of may others, yet the hidden man of thy heart is lotiafoine; thou lookeit well before men, but art thou as Moses was, „fair to God,“ as the margin hath it, Acts vii. 20. 0 what a difference is there betwixt the characters of Ala and Ainaziah: The high places were not removed: neverthelels, Ala his heart was perfect with the Lord all bis days,” 1 Kings XVv. I 4+ Amaziah did that which was right in the tight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart, 2 Chron. xxv. 2. It ma
be thou art zealous agamit fin in others, and dost admonith them to their duty, and reprove them for their in; and they hate thee because thou doit thy duty. But l must tell thee, God hates thee too becaule thou dost it not in a right mannes; and that thou canit never do, whilit thou art not born again. Laitly, All thy struggles against fin, in thine own heart and life, are naught. The proud Pharitee afflicted his body with fasting, and God {truck his foul in the mean time with a sentence of condemnation, Luke xvii. Balaam struggled with his covetous temper to that degree, that though he loved the. wages of unrighteousnels, yet he would not win them by cursing Israel, but he died the death of the wicked, Numb. xxxi. 8. All thou dost while in an unregenerate state is for thyself: and | therefore it will fare with thee, as with a subject, who having reduced whe rebels, put the crown on his own head; and therefore leseth all his good service, and his head too. |
Object. If it be thus with us, then we need never perfor any religious duty at all. Anf. The conclusion is not just, No inability of thine can loose thee irom the duty God's law lays on thee: and there is less evil in thy doing thy duty than there is in the omitting of it. But there is a mids betwixt omitting of duty, and the doing of it. as thou dost it. A man ordereth masons to build a house: if they quite neglect the work, that will not be accepted; if they fall on, and build upon the old rotten foundation, neither will that please: but the must raze the old foundation, and build on firm ground. © Go thou and do likewise.” In the mean time, it is not in vain for thee, even for thee, to seek the Lord: for tho” he regards thee not, yet he may have respect to his own ordinance, and do thee
good thereby, as was laid before.
SECONDLY, Without regeneration there is no communion with God. There is a society on earth, whose © fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son Jesus Christ,“ 1 John i. 3. But out of that society all the unregenerate are excluded; for they are all enemies to God, as ye heard before at large. Now,
3 can
294- The Necessity of Regeneration, State III.
can two walk together, except they be agreed? Amos ili. 3.
They are all unholy: and what“ communion hath light with
darknels—Christ with Belial? 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15. They may have a shew and resemblance of holiness, but they are strangers to true holiness, and therefore without God in the world. How fad is this case, to be imployed in religious duties, but to have no fellowship with God in them! ye would not be content with your meat, unless it fed you; nor with your clothes, unless they kept you warm: and how can you satisfy yourselves with your duties, while they are not effectual to your communion with God? : Thirdly, Regeneration is absolutely neceffary to qualify you for heaven. None po to heaven but they that are made meet
for it, Col. i. 12. As it was with Solomon's temple, 1 Kings
vi. 7. so it is with the temple above: “It is built of stone made ready before it is brought thither:“ namely, of lively stones,
1 Pet. ii. 5. wrought for the same thing, 2 Cor. v. 5. for
they cannot be laid in that glorious building, just as they came out of the quarry of depraved nature: Jewels of gold are not meet for swine, and far less jewels of glory for unrenewed sinners. Beggars in their rags are not meet for kings houses; nor sinners to enter into the King's palace, without the raiment
of needle-work, Pfal. xlv. 14, 15. What wise man would
bring fishes out of the water to feed in his meadow? or send his oxen to feed in the fea? Even as little are the unregenerate meet for heaven, or is heaven meet for them, It would never be liked by them. 5
The unregenerate would find fault with heaven on several
accounts. As, (T.) That it is a strange country, Heaven is the renewed man's native country: lis Father is in heaven;
his mother is Jerusalem, which is above, Gal. iv. 26. He is born from above, John iii. 3. Heaven is his home, 2 Cor. v. I.
Therefore he looks on himself as a stranger on this earth, and his head is homeward. Heb. xi. 16. © They dehre a better
country, that is, an heavenly.” But the unregenerate man is the man of the earth, Psal. x. 18. © written in the earth, Jer.
xvii. 13. Now, home is home, be it never fo homely, therefore
he minds earthly things, Philip. iii. 19. There isa peculiar
| sweetness in our native soil; and hardly are men drawn to leave it, and dwell in a strange country. In no case does that prevail more, than in this; for unrenewed men would quit their pretensions to heaven, were it not that they see they cannot make
a better of it, (2.) There js nothing there of what 255 - RN 85 18 BN ight
Head I, De Necessity of Regeneration. 175 lght most in, as most agreeable to the carnal heart. Rev. XXI. 27. © And there shall in no wile enter into it, any thing that defileth.” When Mahomet gave out paradise to be a
lace of sensual delights, his religion was greedily embraced: for that is the heaven men naturally chuse. If the covetous man could get bags full of gold there, and the voluptuous man can pronise himself his sensual delights there; they might be reconciled to heaven, and meet for it too: but fince it is not fo, tho' they may utter foir words about it, truly it has little of their hearts. (3.) Every corver there is filled with that, which ef all things they have the least hking of: and that is holiness, true holiness, perfect holiness. Were one that abhors swine's | fleth, bidden to a feast, where all the dishes were of that fort of meat, but variously prepared; he would find fault with every dish at the table, notwithstanding all the art used to make them palatable. It is true, there is joy in heaven, but it is holy joy; there are pleasures in heaven, but they are holy pleasures; there are places to stand by in heaven, but it is holy ground.
That holiness that casts up in every place, and in every thing
there, would mar all to the unregenerate. (4.) Were they carried thither, they would not only change their place, which would be a great heart-break to them: but they would change their company too. Truly they would never like the company
there, who care not for communion with God here; nor value the fellowship of his people, at least in the vitals of practical godliness. Many indeed mix themselves with the godly on earth, to procure a name to themselves, and to cover the naughtiness of their hearts: but that trade could not be managed there. (5.) They would never like the employment of heaven, they care so little for it now. The business of the saints there, would be an intolerable burden to them, seeing it is not agreeable to their nature. To be taken up in beholding, admiring, and praising of © him that sitteth upon the throne, and of the Lamb, would be work unsuitable, and therefore unsavoury to an unrenewed soul. Lastly, they would find this fault with it, that the whole is of everlasting continuance. This would be a killing ingredient in it, to them. How would such as now account the sabbath-day a burden, brook the celebrat - ing of an everlasting sabbath in the heavens?
_ LasrTLy, Regeneration is absolutely necessary to your being admitted into heaven, John iti. 3. No heaven without it. The? carnal men could digest all these things, which make heaven fo uuluitable for them; yet God will never suffer them to _
176 The 2 of Regeneration. State III.
H thither: Therefore born again ye must be; else ye shall never it see heaven, ye shall perish eternally, For (1.) There is & bill = of exclusion against you. in the court of heaven, and against all 7 your sort: Except. a mau be born again, he cannot sce the 47
kingdom of God, 1 John iii. 3. Here is a bar before you, et that men and angels cannot remove. And to hope for heaven, T
over the belly of this an sentence, is to hope that God at
will recal his word, and facrilice his truth and faithfulness to 1
your safety; which is infinitely more than to hope the earth |} bi
shall be forsaken for you, and the rock removed out of his place 3 (2. ) There is no holiness wkhout regeneration. It is the new 3
man, © which is created in true holinels, Eph. iv. 24. And no 10
heaven without holiness; for © without holiness w man shall 6
see the Lord, Heb. xii. 14. Will the gates of pearl be opened, 6
to let in dogs and swine? No; their place is without, Rv. ye xx. 15. God will not admit such into the holy place of con- ur
| munion with him here; and will he admit them into the holiest | ye | of all hereatter? Will he take the children of the devil, and | th | give them to fit with him in his throne? Or will he bring the | ri | unclean into the city, whole street is pure gold? Be not deceived, F an | grace and glory are but two links of one chain, which God bas fu | - Joined, and no man shall put asunder. None are transplanted A | into the paradise above, but out of the hursery of grace below. in If ye be.unholy while in this world, ye will. be for ever miser- G
able in the world to come. (3.) All che unregenerate are w without Christ, and therefore having no hope while in that call, | to
Eph. ii. 12. Will Christ prepare mansions of glory for them, up
that refuse to receive him into their hearts? Nay; rather, will =
he not laugh at their calamity, who now set at nought all his ar counsel? Prov. i. 25, 26. Lastly, There is an infallible con- —_ nection betwixt a finally unregenerate state and damnation, | 6 rising from the nature of the things themselves: and from the | O
decree of heaven, which is fixed and unmoveable as mountains w!
of brass, John iii. 3. Rom. vin. 6. To be carnally minded is ut!
death. An unregenerate state is hell in the bud, It is eternal cal destruction in embryo; growing daily, tho' thou dost not di- m
cern it. Death is painted on many a fair face, in this lite. co Depraved nature makes men meet to be partakers of the inhe- ard
ritance of the damned, in utter darkness. (I.) The heart of | to
-stone within thee, is a sinking weight, as a stone naturally goes || ed downward ; so the hard stony heart tends downward to the | he bottomless pit. Ye are hardned against reproof: though ye Ove
are told your danger; yet you will not fee it, ye will not delieve nec
Head I. The Necessity of Regeneration. 177
it. But remember, that the conscience its being now seared with a hot iron, is a {ad presage of everlasting burnings. (2.) Your unfruitfulness under the means of grace, fits you for the ax of God's judgments, Matth. iii. 10.“ Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.“
The withered branch is fuel for the fire, John xv. 6. Tremble
at this ye despisers of the gospel: ir ye be not thereby made meet for heaven, ye will be like the barren ground, bearing briers and thorns, nigh © unto curling, whose end is to be burn-
_ ed,” Heb. vi. 8. (3.) The hellish disposition of mind, which
discover themselves in profanity of life, fit the guilty for the regions of horror. A profane life will have a miserable end. They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, Gal. v. 19, 20, 21. Think on this, ye prayerless persons, ye mockers of religion, ye cursers and swearers, ye unclean, and unjust perions, who have not so much as moral honesty to keep you from lying, cheating and stealing. What fort of a tree think ye it to be, upon which thele fruits grow? Is it a tree of
righteousness, which the Lord hath planted? Or is it not such
an one as cumbers the ground, which God will pluck up for fuel to the fire of his wrath? (4.) Your being dead in sin
makes you meet to be wrapt in flames of brimstone, as a winding sheet; and to be buried in the bottomless pit, as in a grave. Great was the cry in Egypt, when the first- born in each family was dead; but are there not many families, where all are dead together? Nay, many there are, who are twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Sometime, in their life, they have been rouzed by apprehensions of death, and its consequences; but now they are so far on in their way to the land of darkness, that they hardly ever have the least glimmering of light from heaven. (J.) The darkness of your minds presageth eternal darkness. O the horrible ignorance some are plagued with: while others who have got some rays of morning light into their heads, are utterly void of spiritual light in their hearts! If ye knew your
_ case, ye would cry out, Oh! darkness! darkness! darkness
making way for the blackness of darkness for ever! The facecovering is upon you already, as condemned persons; fo near are ye to everlasting darknels. It is only Jesus Christ who can stop the execution, pull the napkin off the face of the condemned malefactor, and put a pardon in his hand, Ila. xxv. 7. “ And he will destroy in this mountain, the face of the covering cast over all people, i. e. The face-covering cast over the condemned, as in Haman's case, Esther vii. 8.“ As the word went out
.
—
18 The Necessity of Regeneration. State III.
of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.” Lastly, The chains of darkness ye are bound with in the prison of your dewee state, Isa. Ixi. 1. fits you to be cast into the burning
ery furnace. Ah milerable men! Sometimes their consciences stir within them, and they begin to think of amending their ways. But alas! they are in chains, they cannot do it. "They are chained by the heart; their lusts cleave so fast to them, that they cannot, nay, they will not, shake them off. Thus you see what affinity there is betwixt an unregenerate state, and the
state of the damned, the state of absolute and irretricvable
misery; be convinced then, that ye mult be born again; put a high value on the new birth, and eagerly desire it.
The text tells you, that the word is the feed, whereof the new creature is formed: therefore take heed to it, and entertain it, for it is your life. Apply yourselves to the reading of the seripture, Ye that cannot read, cause others read it to you, Wait diligently on the proceting of the word, as by divine
appointment, the special mean of conversion 3 For—it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe, 1 Cor. i. 21. Wherefore cast not yourselves out of Christ's way: reje not the means of grace, lest ye be found to judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, Attend carefully to the
word preached. Hear every sermon, as if you were hearing for eternity: and take heed, the fowls of the air pick not up
this seed from you as it is sown. * Give thyself wholly to it, 1 Tim iv. 15, Receive it notas the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the word of Goch 1 Tbess. ii. 13. And hear it with
application, looking on it as a message sent from heaven to you _
in particular tho? not to you only, Rev, iii. 22. © He that hath. gs 0. © ” U an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Lay it up in your hearts, meditate upon it: and be not as the
, unclean beasts, that chew not the cud. But by earnest prayer
beg the dew of heaven may fall on thy heart, that the seed may spring up there. |
More particularly, (1.) Receive the testimony of the word
of God, concerning the misery of an unregenerate state, the
sinfulness thereof, and the absolute necessity of regeneration.
(2.) Receive its testimony concerning God, what a holy and
just one he is. (3.) Examine thy ways by it; namely, the thoughts of thy heart, ,the. expressions of thy lips, and the tenor
of thy life. Look hack thro” the several periods of thy life, and
see thy fins from the precepts of the word ; and learn from its
threatuings, what thou art liable to, on the account of 1
* Ss. Ros
Head II.
the fame word of God; as a glass which represents our ugly face in a lively manner. Were these things deeply rooted in the heart, they might be the sced of that fear and forrow, on account of thy- soul's (tate, which are necessary to prepare and stir thee up to look after a Saviour. Fix your thoughts upon
him offered to thee in. the gospel, as fully suited to thy case;
having, by his obedience to the death, perfectly satisfied the justice of God, and breught in everlasting righteousness. This may prove the feed of humiliation, desire, hope, and faith; and
put thee on to stretch out the withered hand unto him, at his
own command.
Let these: things sink deeply into your hearts, and improve them diligently. Remember, whatever ye be, ye Must be born again; elle it had been better for you, ye had never been born. Wherefore, if any of you shall live and die in an unregenerate state, ye will be inexcusable, having been fairly waraed of your hazard,
Joux xv. 5. I am the Vine, ye are the Branches,
HAVING spoken of the change made by regeneration on all 14 1 those that shall inherit eternal life, in opposition to their natural real state, the state of degeneracy; I proceed to {peak of the change made upon them, in their union with the Lord Jesus Chriit, in opposition to their natural relative state, the
state of misery. The doctrine of the saints union with Christ is
very plainly and fully insisted on, from the beginning of the 12th verse of this chapter; which is a part of our Lord's fare-well sermok\ to his disciples. Sorrow had new filled their hearts;
they were apt to say, Alas! What will become of us, when our
Jaster is taken from our head? Who will then instruct us?
Who will solve our doubts? How will we be supported under our difficulties and discouragements? How will we be able to
live,
The Text Explained. 179. Gas. . (4.) View the corruption of thy nature, by the help of
The Text Explained.
live, without our wonted communications with him? Wherefore our Lord Jesus Christ seasonably teaches them the mystery of their union with him, comparing himself to the vine itock, and chem to the branches. |
He compares, I fay, (1.) Himself to a vine stock, © I am the vine?“ He had been celebrating with his difciples the sacrament of his supper, that sign and seal of his people's union with himself; and had told them, © He would drink no more of the fruit of the vine, till he should drink it gew with them, in his Father's kingdom: and now he shews himself to be the vine, from whence the wine of their consolation should coms. The vine hath less beauty than many other trees: but is exceeding fruitful;,fitly representing the low condition our Lord was then in, yet bringing many sons to glory. But that which is chiefly aimed at, in his comparing himself to a vine, is to represent himself as the supporter and nourisher of his people, in
whom they live, and bring forth fruit. (2.) He compares them to the branches, ye are the branches of that vine. Ye are the branches knit to, and growing on this stock: drawing all
your life and sap from it. It is a beautiful comparison; as if he
had said, Jam as a vine, ye are as the branches of that vine. Now there are two forts of branches, (I.) Natural branches, which at first spring out of the stock: these are the branches
that are in the tree, and were never out of it. (2.) There are
ingrafted branches, which are branches broken off from the tree that first gave their life; and put into another that grow upon
it. Thus branches come to be on a tree, which originally were
not on it. The branches mentioned in the text are of the latter
sort ; branches broken off (as the word in the original language
_— namely, from the tree that first gave them life. None
of the children of men are natural branches of the second Adam,
viz. Jesus Christ the true vine; they are all the natural branches of the first Adam, that degenerate vine; but the elect are all of them sooner or later broken off from the natural stock, and ingrafted into Christ the true vine. e | Docr. * They who are in the state of grace, are ingrafted in, and united to, the Lord Jesus Christ.” They are taken out
of their natural stock, cut eff from it ; and are now ingrafted
into Christ as the new stock. In handling of this, I shall speak
to the mystical union, (I.) More generally. (2.) More
particularly. OP
State III.
FIRST, In the general, for understanding the union betwlxt the Lord Jesus Christ, and his ele, who believe in him and en him: | p |
1. It is a spiritual union, Man and wife, by their marriageunion, become one flesh ; Christ and true believers by this union, become one {pirit, 2 Cor. vi. 17. As one foul or spirit actuates both the head, and the members, in the natural body: fo the one Spirit of God dwells in Christ and the Christian ; for,“ IF any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, Rom. viii. 9. Corporal union is made by contract; fo the stones in a building are united: but this is an union of another nature. Were it poslible we could eat the fiesh, and drink the blood of Christ, in a corporal and carnal manner: it would profit nothing, Jolur vi. 63. It was not Mary's bearing him in her womb ; but her believing on him, that made her a saint, Luke xi. 27, 28. & A certain woman — said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.“ 0 5 | |
"4 It is a real union. Such is our weakness in our present
| Nate, so much are we immer sed in fin, that we are prone to form
in our fancy an image of every thing proposed to us: and as to whatsoever is denied us, we are apt to suspect it to be but a fiction, or what has no reality. But nothing is morg real, than what is spiritnal; as approaching nearest to the nature of him who is the fountain of all reality, namely, God himlelf. We do not see with our eyes the union betwixt our own soul and body; neither can we represent it to ourselves truly, by imagination, as we do sensible things: yet the reality of it is not to
be doubted. Faith is no fancy, but the substance of things hoped for, Heb. xi. Neither is the union thereby made betwixt | _ Chrisf and believers, imaginary, but most real: © for we are members of his body, of his flesn, and of his bones,” Eph. v. 30. 3. It is a most close and intimate union. Believers, regenerate persons, who fiducioully credit him, and rely on him, have put on Christ, Gal. iii. 2 7. If that be not enough, he is in them, John xvii. 23. formed in them, as the child in the mother's belly, Gal. iv. 19. He js the foundation, 1 Cor. iii. 11. They are the lively stones built upon him, 1 Pet. ii. 5. He is the head, and they the body, Eph. i. 22, 23. Nay, he liveth in them, as their very souls in their bodies, Gal. ii. 30. And, what is more than all this, they are one in the Father, and the Son, as the Father iin Christ, and Christ ia the Father, John xvii. 27. , Ord jo Q | That.
from their bodies, and their. bodies separate in a thousand pieces,
© als „A general View of © © State III.
That they all may be one as thou the Fatt er art in me, and Iin thee, they al so may be one in us.“
4. Though it is not a mere legal union, yet it is an union sustained in law. Christ as the cautioner, the Christians as the principal debtars, are one, in the eye of the law. When the
elect had run themselves with the rest of mankind, in debt to the justice of. God; Christ became surety for them, and paid
the debt. When they believe on him, they are united to him
An. a spiritual marriage union; which takes essect lo far, that
What he did and suffered for them, is reckoned in law, as if they
had done and suffered for themselves. Hence they are said to
be © crucified with Christ,” Gal. ii. 20. Buried with him,
Tol. ii. 12. Vea, raised up together, (namely, with Christ,)
and made. to fit together in heavenly places in Chrilt jesus,” Eph. ii. 6. In which places, saints on earth, of whom the Apoltle there speaks, cannot be said to be fitting, but in the way of
law reckoning.
5. It is an indissoluble union. One in Christ, ever in him.
Having taken up his habitation in the heart, he never removes,
None can untie this happy knots Who will. dissolve this union Will he himself do it? No, he will not; we have his word for it: I will not turn away from them,” Jer. xxxii. 40. But perhaps the signer will do this mischief for himself: No, he shall not, They shall not depart from me, faith their God, ibid. Can devils do it? No, unless they be stronger than Christ, and his Father too: Neither shall any man pluck them out of my band, saich our Lord, John x. 28. And none is able to pluck
them out of my Father's hand, ver. 39. But, what fay you of
death, which parts husband and wife; yea, separates the foul from the body? Will not death do it? No; the Apostle, Rom. viii. 38, 39. is persuaded that neither death, (as terrible as it is) nor life, (as desirable as it is) nor devils, those evil angels, nor
the devil's persecuting agents, tho they be principalities er
powers on earth; nor evil things present, already lying on us, nor evil things te come on us; nar the height of worldly felicity, nor depth of workdly misery; nor any other creature, gogd or M1, © shall be able to feparate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.“ As death separated Christ's soul from his body, but could not separate either his foal or body from his divine nature: so tho the saints should be separated
from their nearest relations in the world, and from all their
earthly. enjoyments; yea, though their souls should be separate their
—
Head II. the Mystical Dnion. 1By
their bones scattered, as when one cntteth or cleaveth wood:
yet soul and body, and every piece of the body, the smallest quft
of it shall remain uuited to the Lord Christ: for even in death, they, _y in Jefus,* 1 Thell. iv. T4. And ©he'keepeth all their bones,” Pfal
removed.” 4
I as TI T, It is a mysterious union. The gospel is a doctrine of mysterics. It discovers to us the substantial union of the three persons in one God-head, 1 John v. 7. © These three are
one: the hypostatical won, of the divine and human natures, - in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. iii. 16. God was manifest in the flesh: and the mystical union, betwixt Christ aud believers; this is a great mystery allo, Eph. v. 32. O what
mysteries are here! the Head in heaven, the members on earth, E really united! Christ in the believer, living in him, walking
him“ and the believer dwelling in God, putting on the Lord
Jesus, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood? this makes the salnts a mystery to the world; yea, a mystery to themsel ves. SECONDLY, I come now nwre particularly to speak of this
union with, and ingrafting into Jesus Christ. And, (1.) I shall consider the natural ftock, which the branches are taken out of. _ *(2.) The supernatural stock, they are ingrafted into. (3.) What
branches are cut off the old stock, and put into the new. (4.)
How it is done. And, lastly, The benefits flowing from this union and ingrafting.
Of the natural and supernatural Stocks, and the Branches, taken out of the-former, and ingrasted into the latter.
I. Let us take a view of the stock, Which the branches are taken out of. The two Adams, that is, Adam and Christ, are the two stocks: for the scripture speaks of these two, as if there
had never been more men in the world than they, 1 Cor.
XV. 45. The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickning Spirit, ver. 47. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.“ And the reason is, there were never any, that were not branches
of one of these two; all men being either in the one stock or iu the other; for in these two sorts all mankind ftands divided, ver. 48. © As is the earthy, such are they allo that are earthy. : and as is the heavenly, such are they alto that are heavenly.”
xxxiv. 20. Union with Christ, is the grace wherein - we stand firm and stable, as © Mount Zion, which cannot be
The.
184 Adam the natural Stock State III. The first Adam then is the natural stock: on this stock are the
branches found growing at first ; which are afterwards cut off,
and ingrafted into Christ. As for the fallen angels, as they had
nq relation to the first Adam, fo they have none to the second.
There are four things to be remembered here, (r.) That all mankind (the man Christ excepted) are naturally branches of the first Adam, Rom. v. 12. By one man fin entered into the worid, and death by fin: and fo death passed upon all men.
412.) The bond which knit us unto the natural stock, was the
covenant of works, Adam being our natural root, was made the moral root allo; bearing all his posterity as representing chem in the covenant of works. For, by one man's disobedieace many were made sinners,” Rom. v. 19. Now, there behoved to be a peculiaf relation betwixt that one man and the
many, as a foundation for imputing his fin to them. This relation did not arise from the mere natural bond betw*t him and us, as a father to his children; for fo we are related to our immediate parents, whose sins are not thereupon imputed to us
as Adam's sin is. It bchoved then to arise from a moral bond
betwixt Adain and us; the boxd of a covenant, which could be no other than the covenant of works, wherein we were united
to him as branches to a stock. Hence Jesus Christ, though a fon of Adam, Luke iii. 23, 38. was none of these branches; for
seeing he came not of Adam, in virtue of the blessing of marriage, which was given before the fall, (Gen. i. 28. © Be fruitful and multiply, &c.) but in virtue of a special promise made after the fall, (Gen. iii. 1.5. The Seed of the Woman shall bruile the serpent's head,) Adam could not represent him in a covenant made before his fall. (3.) As it is impossible for a branch
to be in two stocks at once; fo no man can be, at one and the
same tine, both in the first and second Adam. (4.) Hence it
evidently follows, that all who are not ingrafted in sesus Christ, are yet branches of the old stock; and so partake of the nature of the same." Now, as to the fi st Adam our natural stock: .Conlider, — | Lies Finsr,, What a stock he was originally. He was a vine oi the Lord's planting, a choice vine, a noble vine, wholly a rig"! seed. There was a confultation of the Trinity, at the planting
of this Vine, Gen. i. 26. Let us make man in our own image, after our on likeness.” There was no rottenness at the heart of if? There was sap and juice enouph in it, to have nourished all the branches, to bring forth fruit unto. God. My meaning is, Adam was made able perfectly to keep the command nts -
#
Head II. of all Man 189. God, which would have procured eternal life to himfelf, and to all his polterity: for seeing all die by Adam's disobędience; all should have had life, by his obedience, if he had stood. Consider,
Secondly, What that stock now is, ah! most unlike to what it was, when planted by the author and fountain ot all good. A blast from hell, and a bite with the venomous teeth of the old
serpent, have made it a degenerate stock, a dead stock; nay, a Elling stock. - | e
ist, It is a degenerate naughty stock. Therefore the Lord
God said to Adam, in that dilmal day, Where art thou!“ Gen. iii. 9. In what condition art thou now? How art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine, unto me? Or, where walst thou? VER „ not in the place of meeting wih me? Why so long a- coming? What meaneth this fearful Kan this hiding of thy self from me? Alas! the stock is degenerate, quite fpailed, become altogether naught, and brings forth wild
grapes. Converse with the devil is preferred eo communion
with God. Satan is believed; and God, who is truth itself, difbelieved. He who was the friend of God is now in conspiracy against him. Darknels is come into the room of light: ignorance prevails in the mind, where divine knowledge thone: the will, sometime: righteous or regular, is now turned rebel against its Lord: and the whole man is in dreadful disorder. Hefore I go further, let me stop and observe, Here is a mirror both for faints and sinners. Sinners, stand here and consider, what you are: and faints learn ye, what once ye were. Je sinners, are branches of a degenerate stock, Fruit ye may bear indeed; but now that your vine is the vine of Sodom, your | : grapes must of course be grapes of gall, Deut. xxxii. 32. The cripture speaks of two forts of fruit, which grow on the branches upon the natural stock:. and it is plain enough, they are of the nature of their degenerate stock. (1.) The wild grapes of wickeditess, Isa. v. 2. Thefe grow in abundance by influence from hell. See Gal. v. 19, 20, 21. At their gates are all manner of these fruits both new and old. Storms come trom heaven to put them back; but they (till grow. They are struek at with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God: conscience gives them many a secret blow: yet they thrive. (2.) * Fruit to themselves,” Hos. x. 1. What else are all the unrenewed man's acts of obedience, his reformation, sober deportment, his WP, 2 and good works? They are all done, chiefly for himelf, not for the glory of God. These fruits are like the apples of Sodom; fair to look at, but 5 to ashes, when handled and
tried
LY n 75 0 186 | De natural Stock, State III. tried. Ye think ye have not only che leaves of a profession, but the fruits of a holy practice too; but, if ye be not broken of fromthe old stock, and ingrafted in Chrift Jesus; God accepts 9 nor regards your fruits. | ere I must take occasion to. tell you, there are five faults will be found in heaven, with your best fruits. (T.) Their bitterness: © Your clusters are bitter, Deut. xxxii. 32. There is a spirit of bitterness, wherewith some come before the Lord,
in e ee duties, living in malice and envy; and which some
| er ors entertain against others, because they outshine them, y holiness of hfe, or because they are not of their opinion or
way. This, whereloever it reigns, is a fearful symptom of an.
unregenerate state. But, I do not fo much mean this; as that which is common to alFthe branches of the old stock; namely, the leaven of hypocrily, Luke xii. 1. which sowers and embitters every duty they perform. The wisdom, that is full of
good fruits, is without hypocrisy, James iii. 17. (2.) Their ill _ favour. Their works are abominable, for themlelves.are corrupt, Pal. xiv. 1. They all favour of the old {tock, not of the new: it is the peculiar priviledge of the saints, that they are
umto God a sweet favour ef Christ,” 2 Cor. ii. 15. The unregenerate man's fruits favour not of love to Christ, nor of the
blood of Christ, nor of the incense of his intercession; and therefore will never be accepted of in heaven. (3.) Their unripeness. Their grape is an unripe grape, Job xv. 33. There is no influence on them from the Sun of Righteousness, to bring them
to perfection. They have the shape of fruit, but no more. The matter of duty is in them; but they want right principles and
ends: their works are not wrought in God, John iii. 21. Their
prayers drop from their lips, before their hearts be impregnate with the vital sap of the Spirit of supplication : their tears fall from their eyewscre their hearts be truly softned: their feet tan
toe paths, and their way is altered; while yet their nature
is not changed. (4.) Their lightness. Being weighed in the
$1} - balances, they are found wanting, Dan. v. 27. For evidence vwhereof, yon may observe, they do not humble the soul, but lift
it up in pride. The good fruits of holiness bear down the branches they grow upon, making them to salute the ground. x Cor. xv. 10. I laboured more abundantly than they all:
yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” But the
blasted fruits of unrenewed men's performance, hang lightly on branches towering up to heaven, Judges xvii. 13. Now know
, that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to 4 =
—
—
Head II. a degenerate Stock. 187 ;
priest.” They Took indeed sohigh, that God cannot behold them, Wherefore have we fasted, lay they, and thou sfeest not?” Isa. lviii. 3. The more duties they do, and the better they seem to perform them, the less are they humbled, the more they are
lifted up. This disposition of the sinner is the exact reverse of what, is to be found in the fajnt. To men, who neither are in
Christ, nor are solicitous to be found in him, their duties are like
windy bladders, wherewith they think to swim ashore to Im- |
manue}'s land: but these must needs break, and they consequently fink; because they take 'not Christ for the lifter up of their head, Pfal. in. 3. Lastly, They are not all manner of pleasant fruits, Cant. vii. 13. Christ is a King must be served
with variety. Where God makes the heart his garden, he
plants -it as Solomon did his, with trees of all kinds of fruits; Eceles. i. 5. And accordingly it brings forth the fruit of the
Spirit „in all goodness, Eph. v. 9. But the ungodly are not
so: their obedience is never universal] ; there is always some one
thing or other excepted. In one word, their fruits are fruits of
an ill tree, that cannot be accepted in heaven.
2dly, Our natural stock is a dead stock, according to the
threatning, Gen. ii. 17. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.“ Our root now is rottenness, no marvel the
blossom go upfas dust. The stroke is gone to the heart; the
sap is let ont, and the tree is withered. The curse of the firft covenant; ke a hot thunder-bolt from heaven has lighted on it, and ruinedit. It is cursed now as the fipg-tree, Matth.
xxi. 19. Let no fruit grow on thee, henceforth for ever.“ Now it is good for nothing, but to cumber the ground, and
furnish fuel for Tophet.
Let me inlarge-a little here also. Every unrenewed man is
a branch of a dead stock. When thou seest, O sinner, a dead
stock of a tree, exhausted of all its sap, having branches on it in the same condition; Took on it as a lively representation of thy
soul's state, (I.) Where the stock is dead, the branches must
needs be barren. Alas! the barrenness of many professors plainzs strong enough to command, and to bind heavy burdens on the
ly discovers on what stock they are growing. Tt is easy to
pretend to faith, but shew me thy faith without thy works if.
thou canst, James ij. 17. A dead stock can convey no lap to
. the branches, to make them bring forth fruit. The covenant
of works, was the bond of our union, with the natural stock ;
but now jt is become weak through the flesh; that is, 228 t
the degeneracy and depravity of human nature, Rom. vii. 3.
snoul ·
shoulders of those who are not in Christ; but it affords no strength to bear tbem. The {ap that was once in the root, is now gone: and the law, like a merciless creditor, apprehends Adam's heirs, saying, © Pay what chou owest;* when alas! his effects are riotously spent. (3.) All pains and cost are lost on the tree, whote 1 life is gone. In vain do men labour to get fruit'on the branches Ii! when there is no fap in the root. First, The gardiner's pains are lost: ministers lose their labour on the branches of the old stock, while they continue on jt. , Many fermons are preached to no purpose, becaule there is nolife to give sensation. Sleeping men may be awakened; but the dead cannot be raised without a miracle: even fo the dead {inner must remain fo, if he be not
| ER” | s 088: The natural Stock, State III. |
restored to life, by a miracle of grace. BEE
SECONDLY, The influences of heaven are lost on such a tree: in vain doth: the rain fall upon it: in vain is it laid open to the | winter-cold and frosts. The Lord of the. vineyard digs about many a dead foul, but it is not bettered. Bruise the foot in a
| mortar, his folly will not depart.* Tho? he meets with man 4 crosses, yet he retains his lusts: let him be laid on a sick- bed, he | will there ly like a sick beast, groaning under his pain; but not {8 mourning for, nor turning from his -4in. Let death itself stare dim ia the face; he will presumptuously maintain his hope, as if he would look the grim messenger out of countenance. Some-
Fl times there are common operations of the divine Spirit perform- 1 ed on him: he is sent home with a trembling heart; and with 18 arrows of conviction sticking in his foul; but at length he pre- | | it vails against these things, and turns as secure as ever. Thirdly, | _. Summer and winter are alike to the branches of the dead stock. [ When others about them are budding, blossoming, and bringing 1 forth fruit: there is no change on them; the dead stock has no
growing time at all. Perhaps it may be difficult to know, in ff _- the winter, what trees are dead, and what are alive; but the | spring plainly discovers it. There are some seasons, wherein q there is little life to be perceived; even among saints; yet times | of reviving come at length. But even when the vine flourith- 1% eth, and the pomegranates bud forth, (when saving grace is dilcovering itself, by its 'hvely actings, wheresvever it is) the branches on the old steck are still withered: when the dry bones are coming together, bone to bone, amongst saints, the sinners bones are still lying about the grave's mouth. They are trees that cumber the ground, are near to be cut down: and will be cut down for the fire, if God in mercy prevent it not hy cutting them off from that stock, and ingrafting them into 1 1. | LASTLY)
.., and melt away as the snow in a sun-stine. (2) It acteth as
—
Head Il. Las TI Y, Our natural stock is a killing stock. If the stock
die, how can the branches live? If the sap be gone from the root
and heart, the branches must needs wither. In Adam all die, 1 Cor. xv. 22. The root died in Paradise, and all the branches init, and with it. The root is impoisoned, thence the branches tome to be infected: death is in the pot; and all that tafte of the pulse, or pottage are killed. -
Know then, that every natural man is a branch of a killing stock. Our natural root not only gives us not life, but it has a
killing power reaching all the branches thereof. There are four things, which the first Adam conveys to all his branches; and they are abiding in, and lying on, such of them as are. not inrafted to Christ. - First, A corrupt nature: He sinned, and bis nature was thereby corrupted or depraved; and this corruption is conveyed to all lis posterity: He was infected, and
the contagion spread itself over all his seed. Secondly, Guilt, that is an obligation to punishment, Rom. v. 21. By one man
fin entered into the world, and death by fin : and so death passed:
upon all men, for that all have sinned,” The threatnings of the
law, as cords of death, are twisted about the branches of the
old stock; to draw them over the hedge into the fire: Ang till they be cut off from this stock by the pruning knife; the sword
of vengeance hangs over their heads, to cut them down.
Thirdly, This killing stock transmits the curse into the branches: The stock as the stock (fer I speak not of Adam in his personal and private capacity,) being cursed; so are the branches, Gal.
ni. 10, For as many as are of the works of the law, are under
the curse,” - This curse affects the whole man, and all that belongs to him, every thing he possesses; and worketh three ways.
(.) As poison, infecting; thus, their © blessings are cursed,” Mal, ii 2. Whatever the man enjoys, it can do him no good,
dut evil; being thus impoisoned by the curfe. | His prosperity
in the world © destroys him, Prov. i. 32. The ministry of the
Fab is © a savour of death unto death,” to him, 2 Cor. n. 16. His seeming attainments in religion are cursed to him: his knowledge ferves but to puff him up, and his duties to keep him
back from Christ, (2.) It worketh as a moth, consuming and wasting by little and little, Hos. v. 12. Therefore will I bg
unto Ephraim as a moth.* There is a worm at the root, confaming them by degrees: Thus the curse pursued Saul, till it wormed him out of all his enjoyments, and ont of the very show he had of religion: Sometimes they decay like the fat of lambs,
à dead Stock. 1 189
*
10 = Chrift the supernatural Stock. State III. a hon rampant," Hes v. 14. © I will be unto Ephraim as a lion,”
The Lord (rains on them suares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest,” in such a manner, that they are hurried away
with the stream. He teareth their enjoyments from them in his wrath, pursueth them with terrors, rents their souls from their bodies, and throws the deadned branch into the fire. Thus the curse devours like fire, which) none can quench. Lastly, This killing stock transmits death to che branches upon it:
Adam took the poisonous cup and drunk it off: this occasioned =
death to himself and us: We came into the world spiritually dead, thereby obnoxious to eternal death, and, absolutely liable
_ to temporal death: This root is to us like the Scythian river,
which, they say, brings forth little bladders every day, out of
which come certain sinall flies, which are bred in the morning,
| Winged at neon, and dead at night: a very lively emblem of
our mortal state. / OS 3 Now, Sirs, is it not absolutely necessary to be broken off from
this our naturaꝭ stock? What Will our fair leaves of a profession,
or our fruits
duties avail, if We be still branches of the degenerate, dead and killing stock? But alas! among the many — tossed among us, fe are taken up about Bete, Whe--
eram I broken off from the old stock, or not? Whether am
I ingrafted in Christ, or not? Ah! wherefore all this waste!
Why is there so much noise about religion amongst many, who dan give uo good account of their having laid a good foundation, being mere strangers to experimental religion?
do not in mercy, timeously undermine the religion of many of
us, and. let us see we have none at all; our rost will be found
rottenness, and our blossom go up as dust, in a dying hour: Therefore let us look to our state, that we be not found fools
in our latter end.
[
III. Let us now view tlie supernatural stock, in which the
branches, cut off from the natural stock, are ingrafted. . Jesus
C hrist is sometimes called © the Brauch, Zech. ii. 8. So hoc is,
in respect of his human nature; being a branch, and the top
brauch of the house of David. Sometimes be isralled © a Root,”
Tfa. xi. 10. we have both together, Rev. xxü. 16. I am the root
and the off-spring of David David's root as God, and his off?
* Jprins as man: The text tells, that he is © the Vine, i. e. he, as
—
a Mediator, is the vine stock, whereof believers are the branches. As the sap comes from the earth into the root and stock, and from thence is diffufed into the branches; so by Christ, as Mediator, divine life is conveyed from tke fountain, unto these who
are
J fear, if God
Head II. ze Bled taten out. are united to hum by fanh, John vi 57 © As the living Father
hatk sent me, and 1 liye by che Father: fo he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.“ Now Christ is Mediator, not as God anly, as some have asserted: nor yet as man only, as the Papists generally hold: but he is Mediator as God: man, Acts xx, 28. © The church of God which be hath purchased with his blood,
Heb. ix. 14. Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit, offered
himself without spot ts God.“ The divine and human natures have their distin actings, yet a joint operation in this, discharging the office of a Mediator. This is illustrated by the similitude of a fiery {word, which at once cuts and burns: cutting it burneth, and burning it cutteth; the steel cuts, and the fire
burns: YVherefors Christ God - man, is the stock, whereof belevers are the branches: and they are united to whole Chrilt: They are united to him in his human nature, as being © members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones, Eph. v. 30. and they are united to him in his divine nature; for so the Apostle speaks of this union, Col. i 27. © Christ in you the hope of glory. And by him they are united to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost, 1 John iv. 15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwellettr in him, and he in God.“ Faith, the bond of this union, receives whole Christ God man: and ss unites us to him. as such. |
_ "Behold here, O believers, your high privilege.” Ye were once
branches of a degenerate stock, even as others: but ye are, by grace, become branches of the true Vine, John xv. 1. Ye are cut out of a dead and killing stock; and ingrafted /* in the last
Adam who was made a quickning spirit,” x Cor. xv. 45, Your loss by the tirft Adam is made up, with great advantage, by
Four union with the seeond. Adam, at his best estate, was but
a shrub, in comparison with Christ the tree of life. He was but a servant, Christ is'the Son, the Heir, and Lord of all things, © the Lord from heaven.“ It cannot be denied, that grace was
shown in the first covenant: but it is as far exceeded, by the
grace of the second- covenant, as the twilight is, by the light of the mid-day. : | ; ; | : |
III. What branches are taken out of the natural stock, ani 1 grafted into this Vine? Ans. These are the elect, and none other? They, and they only, are grafted into Chrilt; and consequently
none but they are cut off from the killing stock : For them alone
he interceeds,. that they may be one in him and his Father,* - John xvii. 9, 23. Faith, the bond of this union, is given to none elle: it is c che faith of God's cleft,” Tit, i. 1. The Lord passed
—
wwe —
How the Branches are taken out State III. | by many branches growing on the natural stock, and cuts off
only here one, and there one, and grafts them into the true Vine, according as free love hath determined. Oft does he pitch upon
the molt unlikely branch, leaving the top boughs; passing by the mighty, and the noble, and ealling the weak, bale, and despi{&d, 1 Cor. i- 26, 27. Yea, he often leaves the fair and smoqth, and takes the rugged and knotty: and such were some of you,
but ye are washed,” 1 Cor. vi. 11. If ye inquire.why so? We
find no other reason but because they were * chosen in him,” Eph. i. 4. Predestinated to: the adoption of children by jesus Christ,” ver 5. Thus are they gathered together in Christ: while the rest are left growing on their natural stock, to be afterwards bound up in bundles for the fire: Wherefore, to whomsoever the gospel may come in vain, it will have a blest
effect on God's elect, Acts xiti. 48, © As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed! Where the Lord has much people, the
ofpel will have much success, sooner or latter: Such as are to saved, will be added to the mystical body, of Christ. |
How the Branches are taken. cut of the natural Stock, and ingrasted inio the supernatural Stock. a 1v I am to shew how the branches are cut off from the natural stock, the first Adam, and grafted into the true Vine, the Lord Jelus Christ. Thanks to the husbandman, not to the
branch, that it is cut off from its natural stock, and ingrafted into a new one. The sinner, in his coming off from the fir!:
srock, is passive; and neither can nor will come off from it of his own accord; but clings to it, till almighty power make him to fall off, John vi. 44. No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him. And ch. v. 40.
ve will not come to me, that ye might have life.” The incrafted branches are © God's huibandry,? x Cor. ii 9. © The planting of the Lord,” Ifa. Ixi. 3. The ordinary means he make;
use of in this Work, is the ministry of the word, 1 Cor. iii. 9.
We are labourers together with God.” But the efficacy thereof is wholly from him, whatever the minister's parts or
iety be, ver. 7. Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither.
be that watereth: but God that giveth the increase.” The
Apostle preached to the Jews, yet the body of that people re- ,
mained iu infidelity, Rom x. 16. Who hath believed our report?* Yea, Christ himself, who spoke*as never man spoke, saith concerning the fucoess of his own ministry, * I have laboured in
vain, 4 N
}
*
*
Ee ret draw — —
Head II. 5 of the natural Stock. | 193
vain, I bave spent my strength for nought,” Isa. xlix. The ] branches may be hacked by the preaching of the word: but the | stroke will never go through, till it be carried home on them, | by an omnipotent arm. However God's ordinary way is, © by | the foolishness of preaching tolave them that believe, 1 Cor. i. 21. I The cutting off of the branch from the natural stock, is per- : Formed by the pruning knife of the Law, in the hand of the! Spirit of God, Gal. ii. 19. For I, through the law, am dead to the law. It is by the bond of the covenant of works, as I said before, that we are kuit to our natural stock: and therefore as a wife, unwilling to be put away, pleads and hangs by the marriage tie; so do men by the covenant of works. They hold by it, like the man who held the ship with his hands; and when one hand was cut off, held it with the other; and when both _ were cut off, held it with his teeth. This wilk appear from a _ distin view of the Lord's work on men, in bringing them oft | from the old stock; which I now offer in theie following particulars: | 3 FiksT, When the Spirit of the Lord comes t@ deal with a person, to bring him to Christ, he finds him in Laodicea's case, in a sound sleep of security, dreaming of heaven, and the favour of God, tho' © full of fin against the holy One of Isracl, Rev. ii. 17. Thou knowelt not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; and therefore he darts in some beams of light into the dark foul; and lets the man fee he is a lost man, if he turn not over a new leaf, and betake himself to a new covrle of life. Thus by the Spirit of the Lord, - acting as a spirit of bondage, there is a criminal court erected in TN the man's breast; where he is arraigned, accused, and condem- | a ned for breaking the law of God, convinced of sin and judgment, |
T John xvi. 8. And now he can no longer fleep securely in his | . former course af life. This is the fir{t stroke the branch gets, I in order to cutting off, | b \C SECONDLY, Hereapon a man forsakes his former profane e3 courles, his lying, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, stealing, and 9. 1uch like practices, though they be dear to him as right eyes;
Cy ne will rather quit them than ruin his soul. The ship is like to
* link, and therefore he throweth his goods over · board, that he JE” himself may not perish. And now he begins to bless himself in = his heart, and look Joyfully on his evidences from heaven; think- TY -
ing himself a better servant to God than many others, Luke
4 XVI. IT, © God I thank thee I am not as other men are, extor- |
al Uoners, unjust, adulterers,' &c. But he soon gets another stroke | RE R with |
fl 194 Hou the. Branches are taken ont State III.
with the ax of the law, shewing him that it is only he that doth —what is written in the law, who can be saved by it; and that his hegative holiness is too scanty a cover from the storm of God's wrath: And thus, although his fins of commission only vere heavy on him before; his sins of omilsion now crowd into his thoughts, attended with a train of law-curses and vengeance, And each of the ten commands diicharges thunder-claps of wrath against him, for his omitting required luties. EEE THIRDLy, Upon this he turus to a positively holy course of fe. He not only is not profahe, but he performs religious duties: he prays, seeks the knowledge of the principles of religion, strictly observes the Lord's day, and, like Herod, does many things, and hears sermons gladly. In one word, there is a great conformity in his out ward conversation, to the letter of both tables of the law. And now there is a mighty change upon the man, that his neighbours cannot wils to take notice of. Hence he is cheerfully admitted by the godly into their society, as a praying person, and can conter with them about religious matters, yegg.and about foul-exercile, which some are not ac- -quainted i And their good opinion of Hm confirms his good opinion of himself. This step in religion is fatal to many, who never get beyond it. But here the Lord reacheth the eleA-branch a farther {troke. Conscience flies in the man's face, for some wrong steps in his conversation: the neglect of some duty, or commission of fome sin, which is a blot in his converfation: and then the flaming sword of the law appears again over his head: and the curse rings in his ears, for he that continueth not in all things written in the law to do them,” Gal. ili. 10. 85 55 10 * FourTury, On this account he is obliged to seek another | ll #alve for his fore. He goes to God, coufesseth his fin; seeks the | _ a don of it, promising to watch against it for the time to come, ; and fo finds ease, and thinks he may very well take it, seeing tne Acripture saith, * If we confess our sins, he is faithful and ju to forgive us our sins, 1 Jehn i. 9. not ye; that he graips ata privilege, which is theirs only who arc ingrafted into Chrilt, and under the covenant of grace; and which- the branches yet growing on the old stock cannot plead. And; here fometimes there are formal and express vows made against such and fuch | fins, and binding to such and such duties. Thus many go 01 Be all their days; knowing no other religion but to do duties, and | to confels, and pray for pardon gf that wherein they fail, pro- pat miling themselves eternal happiness, though they are utc ob | 1cravg 25
.
her the me, the
Alps \Tilt, 5 Vt. . d MES uch 0 ON, and | pro- NN
rag
* Head II.
of the Natural Stock.
strangers to Christ.” Here many ele ones have been cast down wounded, and many reprobates have been i#}zin; while the wounds of neither of them have been deep enough, to cut them
off from their natural stock. But the Spirit of the Lord gives
yet a deeper stroke to the branch which is tobe cut off; shewmg him, that, as yet, he is but an out- side faint; and discovering to him the filthy lusts lodged in his heart, which te took no notice of before, Rom. vii. 9. When the commandment came, {in revived and I died.“ Then he fees his heart a danghill of hellish lusts; filled with covetousnels, pride, malice, filthiness, and the like. Now, as soon as the door of the chambers of his imagery is thus opened to him, and he secs what they do there in the dark, his outside religion is blown up as insufficient; and he learns a new lesson in religion; namely, That he is not a Jew which is one outwardly,” Ro. ii. 28.
sets to work more vigorously than ever, mourns over the. evils of his heart, and strives to bear down the weeds he finds grow - ing in that neglected 7 He labours to curb his pride and passion; and to banish speculative impurities; prays more fervently, hears attentively, and strives to get his heart affected in
every religious duty he performs; and thus he comes to think
himself not only an outside, but an inside Christian. Wonder
not at this: for there isnothing in it beyond the power of nature, or what one may attain to under a vigorous influence of the covenant of works. Therefore another yet deeper stroke is reached. The law chargeth home on the man's conscience, that he was a transprefsor: rom the womb; that he came into the world a guilty creature: and that, in the time of his ignorance, and even since his eyes were opened, he has been guilty of
many actual fins, either altogether overiocked by him, or not sufficiently mourned over: (For spiritual sores, not healed by the blood of Christ, but skinned over some other way; are calily
_ ruffled, and as soon break out again.) And therefore the law
takes him by the throat, saying, © Pay what thou owelt.” SIXTHLY, Then the sinner says in his heart, © Have patience
with me, and I will pay thee all; and so falls to work to pacify
_ repentauce, such as it is; bears patiently the afflictions laid upon him; yea, he afflicts himself, denies himself the use of his lawful
comforts, {ighs deeply, mourns bitterly, cries with tears for a pardon, tilt he hath wrought up his heart to a conceit of having obtaiged it x having thus done penanse for what is past, and ree
196 How the Branches arc taken out State III.
solving to be a good servant to God, and to hold on in outward
and inward obedience for the time to come. But the stroke must go nearer the heart yet, ere the branch fall off. The Lord discovers to him, in the glass of the law, how he sinneth in all he does, even when he docs the best he can; and therefore the dreadful found returns to his ears, Gal. ii. 10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, & c. When ye fasted and mourncd, saith the Lord, Did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?' Will muddy water make clean clothes? Will you jatisfy for one sin with another? Did not your thoughts wander in such a duty? Were not your affections flat in another? Did not your heart give a whorish look to such an idol? And did it ot rise in a fit of impatience under such an affliction? © Should 1 accept this of your hands? Cursed be the deceiver, which sacrisiceth to the Lord a corrupt thing, Mal. i. 13, 14. Aud thus he becomes lo far broke off, that he sees he is not able to satisfy the demands of the law. - Es
SEVENTULY, Hence, like a broken man, who finds he is not
able to pay all his debts, he goes about to compound with: lis
creditor, And being in pursuit of ease and comfort, he does what he can to fulfil the law; and wherein he fails, he locks that God will accept the will for the deed, Thus doing his duty, and having a will to do better, he cheats himself in a persuasion of the goodness of his state: and hereby thousands are ruined, But the ele pet another stroke, which looseth their hold in this case. The doctrine of the law is born in on their consciences; demonstrating to them, that exact and perfect cbedience is required by it, under pain of the curse: and that it is doing, and not wishing to do, which will avail. Wishing to do better will not answer the law's demands: and therefore the curse sounds again, © Cursed is every one that continueth not to do them:* that is, actually to do them. In vain is wishing then. EIGRTHLY, Being broken off from hopes of compouading with the law, he falls a-borrowing. He sces that all he can do to obey. the law, and all his desires to be, and to do better, will not save his soul: therefore he goes to Christ, intreating, that his righteousness may make up what is wanting in his own, aud cover all the defects of his doings and sufferings; that so Gor, for Christ's sake, may accept them, and thereupon be reconciled. Thus doing what he can to fulfil the law, and looking to Ch to make up all his defects, he comes at length, again to fleep 1: a sound {kin. Many persons are ruined this way. This wa: the error of the Galatians, which Paul in his epistle to them, | dil
Head I, of the Natural Stick. 197
disputes against. But the Spirit of God breaks off the sinner froat this Eold alfo 5 by bearing in on his conscience that great
truth, Gal. iii. 12. The law is not of faith: but the man thag doth them fhall live in them.“ There is no mixing of the law and faith in this business: the sinner must hold by one ôf them, and let the other go: the way of the law and the way of faith, are so far different, that it is not possible for a sinner to walk in the one, but he must come off from the other: and if he he for doing, he must do all alone; Christ will not do a part for him, if he do not all. A garment pieced up of sundry sorts of righteousnels, is not a garment meet for the Court of Heaven, Thus the man, who was in a dream, and thought he was eating, is awakened by the stroke, and behold his foul is faint; his heart
sinks in him like a stone; while he finds he can neither bear his burden nimself alone, nor cau he get help under it.
NINTHLY, What can one do, who muit needs pay, and yet
neither has as much of his own as w:ll bring him out of debt,
nor can he get as much to borrows and to beg he is ashamed? What can fach a one do, I say, but fell lumlelf as the man under the law, that was waxen poor? Ley. xxv. 47. Therefore the sinner beat off from so many holds, goes about to make a bargain with Christ, and to fell hiniself to the Son of God, (if I may fo speak) folemaly promising and vowing, that he will be a {servant to Christ, as long as he lives, if he l jave his foul. And here oft-times the sinner makes a personal covenant with Chriit, resigning himself. to him on thels terms; yea, and takes the. sacrament to make the bargain sure. Hereupon the man's great care is, how to obey Christ, keep his commands, and fo fulfil his bargain. And, in this the soul finds a falle, unsound peace, for a
While: till the Spirit of the Lord fetch another stroke, to cut off the man from this refuge of lies likewise. And that happens in this manner: When he fails of the duties he engaged to, and falls again into che sin he covenanted against it; it is powerfully carried home on his conscience, that his covenant is broken: so all his comfort goes, and terrors afresh seize on his foul, as one that has broken covenant with Christ, and commonly the man, to help himself, renews his covenant, but breaks again as before. And how is it possible it should be otherwise, sceing he is (till upon the old stock? Thus the work of many, all their days, as to their souls, is nothing but a makins and breaking such covenants, over and over again. |
Object. Some perhaps will Cy, Who liveth and sinneth not?
| Who is there that faileth not of the duties he is engaged to? If Fu | R 3 you
-
198 Hou the Branches are taken out State III.
you rejett this way as unsound, who then can be saved?? Answ. True believers will be saved; namely, all who do by faith take hold of God's covenant. But this kind of covenant is men's own Cayenant, devised of their own heart; not God's covenant revealed in the gosp=l of his grace: and the making of it is nothing
else, but the making of a covenant of works with Christ, confounding the law and the gospel; a covenant he will never subscribe to, though we should sign it with our heart's blood, Rem. iv. 14. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Ver. 16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the prouise might be sure to all the seed. Chap. xi.6. And if by grace, then it is no more of works; .otherwile grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more weo;k.! God's covenant is everlasting: once in, never out of it again; and the mercies of it are sure mercies, Ia. lv. 3. Put that covenaat of yours is a tottering covenant, never sure, but
broken every day. It is a mere servile covenant, giving Chrilt
{crvice for salvation: but. God's covenant is a filial covenant, in which the sinner takes Christ, and his salvation freely offered, and so becomes a soa, John i. 12. But as many as received bin, to them gave he power to become the sons of God: and being become a son, he serves his Father, not that the inheritance may
become his, but because it is his, through Jesus Christ. Sce
| Gal. iv. 24. and downward. To enter into that spurious C9venant, is to buy from Christ with money; but to take hold of God's.covenant is to buy of him © without money and without price,“ lia. 1x. I. that is to say, to beg of him. In that covenant men work for life; in God's covenant they come to Chrilt
tor life, and work from life. When a person under that covenant fails in his duty, all is gone: the covenant must be made over 7 But under God's covenant, although the man fail in his duty, and for his failures fall under the discipline of the covenant; and lies under the weight of it, till such time as lie has recourse anew to the blood of Christ for pardon, and renew his repentance: yet all that he trusted to for life and salvation, namely, the righteousness of Christ, still stands entire, and tlc. Covenant remaias firm. See Rom. vii. 24, 25. and viii. 1. Now, tho' some men spend their lives in making and breaking such covenants of their own; the terror upon the breaking of them wearing weaker and weaker by degrees, till at last it creates them little or no uneasiness: yet the man, in whom the good work is carried on, till it be accomplished in cutting hm Wi | 0!
Head Il. 7 the Natural Stock. Ev 199 ;
off from the old stock, finds these covenants to be as rotten cords broke at every touch: and the terror of God, being thereupan
redoubled on his spirit, and the waters, at every turn, getting”
in into his very foul, he is obliged to ceale from catching hold of such covenants, and to seek help some other way. TENTHLY; Therefore the man comes at length to beg at Christ's door for mercy: but, yet he is a proud beggar, standing on his personal worth: For, as the Papilts have mediators to plead for them, with the one only Mediator; fo the branches of the old stock, have always lomething to produce, which, they think may commend them to Chriit, and engage him to take their cause in hand: They cannot think of coming to the spiritual market without money in their hand: They are like persons who once had an estate of their own, but are reduced to extreme poverty, and forced to beg: When they come to beg, they still remember their former character; and though they
tave lost their substance, yet whey retain much of their former spirit; therefore they cannot chink they ought to be treated as ordinary beggars; but deserve a particular regard; and, if that be not given them, their spirits rise against him to whom they address themfelves for supply. Thus God gives the unhumbled linner many commen mercies; and shuts him not up in the pit, according to his deserving: but all this is nothing in his eyes. He mult be set down at the children's table, otherwise he reckons himself hardly dealt with, and wronged: tor he is not yet brought so low, as to think, God may be justified when he speaketh, (against him) and clear from ell iniquity, when he judgeth him, according to his real demerit, THFlal. i. 4. He thinks, perhaps, that even before he was enlightned, he was better than many others; he confiders his reformation of life, his repentance, the grief and tears his {in has cost him, his earnest desires after Christ, his prayers, and wrestlings for mercy; and useth all these now, as bribes for mercy, laying no small weight” upon them, in his addresses to the throne of grace. But here the Spirit of the Lord shoots a sheaf of arrows into the man's heart, whereby his confidence in these things is sunk and destroyed; and instead of thinking himself better than many, he
is made to see himself worse than any. The naughtiness of his
reformation of life is discovered: His repentance appears to him no better than the repentance of Judas; his tears like Efau's, and his desires after Christ to be. felfish and lothsome, like theirs Who sought Chrilt becaule of the loaves, John vi. 26. His an-
5 Iwer from God seems now to be, Away proud beggar, © How
-
C | | H:w the Branches are taken out
200 State III.
shall I put thee among the children? He seems to look sternly on him, for his lighting of sesũs Christ by unbclief, which is a sin he scarce dilcerned before: But now, at length, he beholds it in its crimson colours, and is pierced to the heart as with a thousand darts, while he secs how he has been going on blladly,
{ning agaiust the remedy of un, and in tne whole course of his
life, trampling on the blood of the Son of God. And now he is, in his own yes, the miserable object of law- vengeance, yca, and golpel-veageance too. „
ELEVENTHRHLY, The man being thus far humbled, will no more plead, © he is worthy for whom Chriit Mould do this thing:
but, on the contrary, looks on himself as unwarthy of Christ, and unworthy of the favour of God. We may compare him, in this case, to the young man who followed Christ, © baving a linen cloth cast about his naked body: on whom, when the
young mea laid hold, he left the linen cloth, and fled from them
naked, Mark xiv. 51, 52. Even fo the man had been following Christ in the thin and coldrife garment of his own personal worthiness; but by it, even by it, which he so much trusted to, the law catcheth hold of him, to make him prisoner; and then he is tain to leave it, and flees away naked: yet not to Chritt, but from him. If you now tell him, he is welcome to Chritt, if he will come to lim; he is apt to say, Can such a vile and
unworthy wretch as I, be welcome to the holy Jesus? Ifa
plaister be applied to his wounded foul, it will not ftick: He
fays, © Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord, Luke
v. 8. No man needs speak to him of his repentance, for his comfort; he can quickly espy such faults in it as makes it naught:.nor of his tears, for he is assured, they have never come into the Lord's bottle. He disputes himself away from Chriit,
and conclades, now that he has been such a slighter of Christ,
and is fuch an unholy and vile creature, he cannot, he will not, he oupht not, to come to Christ; and that he must either be in better case, or else he'l} never believe. And hence, he now makes his strongest efforts, to amend what was amiss in his way before: He prays more earnestly than ever, mourns more bitterly, strives apainst sin in heart and life, more vigorously, and
watcheth more diligently; if by any means he may, at length be fit to come to Christ. One would think the man is well humbled now: But ah! devilish pride lurks under the veil of al this seeming humility. he adheres {till; and will not submit to the righteousness of God, Rom. x. 3. He will. not come to the market of free At
Like a kindly branch of the old stock,
wit Son Wee not ver he
stro pon hol. the Wit! bect the; CO11
befe
hor! the Wit! Ot quie le brea com as w Ron
and,
„
. and a d * he 12 fome ont!
without money. He is bidden to the marriage of the King's | I N Son, where the bridegroom himself furnisheth all the guests witn wedding garments, stripping them of their own: but he will not come, becaule he wants a wedding garment; howbeit he is very busy making one ready. "This is sad work; and therefore he mult have a deeper stroke yet; else he is ruined. This stroke is reached him with the ax of the law, in its irritating power. Thus the law pirding the soul with cords of death, and holding it in with the rigorous commands of obedience, under the pain of the curse: and God, in his holy and wise conduct, | withdrawing his restraining grace; corruption is irritated, lusis 1 become violent, and the more they are striving against, the more | they rage, like a furious horse checked with the bit. Then do corruptions set up their heads, which he never faw in himself before. Here oft-times atheism, blasphemy, and, in one word, = | horrible things concerning God, terrible thoughts concerning | the faith, arise in his breast: so that his heart is a very hell W117 within him. Thus while he is {weeping the house of his heart, not yet watered with gospel grace, these corruptions which lay. quiet before in neglected corners, fly up and down in it like dust. JR He is as one who is mending a dam, and while he's repairing I breaches in it, and strengthening every part of it, a mighty flood J comes down, overturns his work, and drives all away before it, Z as well what was newly laid, as what was laid before. Read Rom. vii. 8,9, 10,13. This is a stroke which goes to the heart: FE nd, by it, his hope of getting him self more fit to come to Chritt, | is cut of: | . Las TI, Now the time is come, when the man betwixt hope 8 and despair, resolves to go to Christ as he is; aud therefore, like 4 . a dying man stretching himself, just before his breath goes out, | | bc rallies the broken forces of his soul; tries to believe, and in 4 some fort lays hold oa Jesus Christ. And now the branch hangs 1 on the old stock by one single tack of a natural faith, produced | by the natural vigour of one's own spirit, under a molt presling necessity, Pfal. Ixxvii. 34, 35. When he slew them, then ) they sought him, and they returned and ciiquired early after Dod. And they remembred that God was their rock, and the high God their Redeemer.“ Hof. viii. 2. * lirael shall cry unto me, My God we know tice. Eut the Lord minding to perfect his work, fetches yet another stroke, whereby the branch falls quite off. The Spirit of God convincingly discovers to the liner, bis utter inability to do any thing that is good: and so;- dieth, Rom. vii. 9. That voice powerfully strikes through his 1
soul, 10
*
FLO
*
—
into the true Vine,
How a Sinner is ingrasted into Christ, State III.
foul, © How can ye believe?“ John v. 44. Thou canst no more believe, than thou canst reach up thine hand to heaven, and bring Christ down from thence, And thus at leagth he ices he can neither help himself by working, nor by believing: and haviig no more to hang by on the old stock, he therefore fails off. Aud while he is distressed thus, leeing himself like to be swept away with the flood of God's wrath; and yet unable fo much as to stretch forth a hand to lay hold of a twig of the tree of lite, growing on the banks of the river: he is taken up, and ingratted
of fuith. |
By what has been said upon this head, I design not to rack or distress tender consciences; for though there are but few such, at this day, yet God forbid I should offend any of Chrilt's little But, alas! a dead sleep is fallen upon this generation; they will not. be awakened, Jet us go as near the quick as we will: and therefore, I fear there is onother fort of awakening abiding this sermon-proof generation, which shall make the cars of them that hear it to tingle. However, I would not have this to be looked upon as the sovereign God's stinted method of breaking off sinners from the old stock: but this 1 assert as a
Ones.
the Lord Jesus Christ giving him the spirit
certain truth, that all who are in Christ, have been broken off
from all these several confidences; and that they who were never broken off from them, are yet in their natural ftock Nevertheless, if the house be pulled down, and the old foundation
razed, it is all a case, whether it was taken down stone by stone,
or whether it was undermined, and all fell down together, Now it is, that the branch is ingrafted in Jesus Christ. And,
as the law, in the hand of the Spirit of God, was the instrument
to cut off the branch from the natural stock, fo the gospel, in
the hand of the fame Spirit, is the instrument used for ingrafting it in the supernatural stock, 1 John i. 3, That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, tha: ye also may have
fellowship and. with bis Son Jesus Christ.”
ith us: and truly our fellowship is with the Iather,
'The
gospel is the filver cord let down from heaven, to draw peril.- ing sinners to land. And, though the preaching of the law prepares the way of the Lord; yet it is in the word of the gospel,
that Christ and a sinner meet.
Now, as in the natural gratting, the branch being taken up, is put into the stock ; and being
put into it, takes with it; and fo they are united: even so in the
r ingrafting, 1
Christ apprehends the finner: and the
vner being apprehended of Christ, apprehends him: and is
they become one, Philip. iti. 12.
.
kim ap Me nev of | tot in life of C fuit; and to c he him S Ch 9 that look As. fort] the quic ing Rk the | mar. cove ners hom bein: lieve belie I liv shalt
bond
and!
N. Chrit The that mem
FrgsT, Christ apprchends the sinner by his Spirit, and draws him to himself, 1 Cor, xii. 13. For by one Spirit, we are al! baptized into one body.” The fame Spirit, which is in the 141 Mediator himfelf, he communicates to his elect in due time never to depart from them, but to abide in them, as a principle of life, Thus, he takes hold or them, by his own Spirit put. into them; and so the withered branch gets life. The foul is now in the hands of the Lord of life, and possessed by the Spirit of life: how then can it but live? The man pets a ravishing fight of Christ's excellency in the glass of the gospel: he lees him a full suitable, and willing Saviour; and gets a heart to take him for, and instead of Il. The spirit of faith furnisheth him with feet to come to Christ, and hands to receive him. What by nature he could not do, by grace he can; the holy Spirit working in him the work of faith with power.
SECONDLY, The Sinner thus apprehended, apprehends Christ by faith, and fo takes with the blesfed stock, Eph. iii. 17.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.“ The foul * that before tried many ways of escape, but all in vain, doth now $ look again with the eye of faith, which proves the healing look.
As Aaron's rod, laid up in the tabernacle, budded and brought forth buds, Numb. xvii. 8. So the dead branch apprehended by the Lord of lite, put into. and bound up with, the glorious quickninp stock, by the Spirit of life, buds forth in actual believing on Jesus Christ, whereby this union is compleated. We having the same spirit of faith—believe,” 2 Cor. iv. 13. Thus
the stock and the graft are united, Christ and the Christian are 4 married: faith being the soul's consent to the spiritual marriage
covenant, which, as it is proposed in the gospel to mankind sinvers indefinitely, fo it is demonstrated, attested, and brought home, to the man in particular, by the Holy Spirit: and so he, being joined to the Lord, is one spirit with him. Hereby a believer lives in and for Christ, aud Christ lives in, and for the believer, Gal. ii. 20. I am crucified with Christ, Nevertheless, L live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,” Hos. iii. 3. Thou shalt not be for another man, so will Jals be for thee.* The bonds then of this blessed union are, the Spirit on Christ's part, 5 andfaith on the believer's part. | Now, both the fouls and bodies of believers are united to Christ. © He that is joined to the Lord is ohe tpirit,” 1 Cor. vi. 17. The very bodics of belicvers have this honour put upon them, that they are © the temples of the holy Got, ver. 19. And © the members of C hrist, ver. 15. When ther sizep in the dult, they 5 | Heep
204 Inference. | State III.
© sleep in Jesus, 1 Thess. iv. 14. And, it is in virtue of this union they shall be raised up out of the dust again, Rom. viii. 11. © He shall quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.' In token of this mystical union, the church of believers is callech by the name of her head and husband, 1 Cor. xii. 12. For as the body is one, and hath many members, ——{o ali is Christ.” |
1. The preaching of the law is most. necessary. He that
would ingraft, mult needs use the snedding knife. Sinners have
many shifts to keep them from Chrilt; many things by which they keep their hold of the natural stock: therefore, they have need to be closely pursued, and hunted out of- their sculking holes, and refuge of lies. | | Yet, it is the gospel that crowns the work: © the law makes
nothing perfect.“ The law lays open the wound, but it is the
gospel that heals. The law * strips a man, wounds him, and leaves him half dead:* the gospel © binds up his wounds, pouring in wine and oil, to heal them. By the law we are broken
off: but, it is by the gospel we are taken up, and implanted in Christ. | ; | 3. © If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, Rom. viii. 9. We are told of a monster in nature, having two bodies differently animated, as appeared from contrary atfections at one and the same time; but so united, that they were served with the self-same legs. Even so, however men may
cleave to Christ, '* call theinfelves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel, Isa. xvii. 2. And they may be bound up as branches in him, John xv. 2. by the out ward
ties of sacraments: yet, if the Spirit that dwells in Christ,
dwell not in them, they are not one with him. There is a g ea: difference betwixt adhesion and ingrafting. The ivy clasps aud twists itself about the oak; but it is not one with it, for it {ti! grows on its own root: fo, to allude to Isa. iv. 1. many professors © take hold of Christ, and cat their own bread, and wear their own apparel, only they are called by his name. They...
stay themselves upon him, but grow upon their own root: they take him to support their hopes, but their delights are elsewhere. 4. The, union betwixt Christ and his mystical members, 13 sirm and indissoluble Were it so that the believer only apprehended Christ, but Chrilt app ehended not him; we could pronilse little on the stability of fuck an union; & might quietly oe | e 11
.
Hea clissol Chris Out © migh it the away ever the u
dissolved: but, as the believer apprehends Christ by faith; se Christ appreho vis him by his Spirit, and“ none snall pluck him out of his hand? Did the child only keep hold of the nurse, it might at length weary and let go its hold, and so fall away: but if the have her arms about the child, it is in no hazard of falling away, even though it be not actually holden by her: so, Whaterer sinful intermissions may happen in the exercise of faith, yet the union remains sure, by reason of the constant indwelling of the Spirit. Blessed Jesus? © All his faints are in thy hand,” Deut. xxxlii. 3. It is oblerved by some, that the word Abba, is the same, whether you read it forward or backward! whatever the believer's cale be, the Lord is fcill to him Abba, Father.
LASTLY, They have an unsure hold of Christ, whom he has not apprehended by his Spirit. There are many half marriages
here, where the soul apprehends Christ, but is not apprehended of him. Hence many fall away, and never rise again: they let
o their hold of Christ; and when that is gone, all is gone. hese are the branches in Christ, that bear not fruit, which the husband-man taketh away, John xv. 2. Quest. How can that be? Ans. These branches are {et in the stock, by a profession,
or an unsound hypocritical faith; they are bound up with it, in
the external use of the sacraments: but the stock and they are never knit; therefore they cannot bear fruit. And they need not be cut off, nor broken off; they are by the husband-man only taken away, or, (as the word primarily signisics) © lifted up;* and so taken away, because there is nothing to hold them:
they are indeed bound up with the stock ; but they have never
umted with it. | Quest. How shall I know if I am apprehended of Christ? Ani. You may be satisfied in this inquiry, if you consider and
apply these two things.
Fixsr, When Christ apprehends a man by his Spirit, he is so drawn, that he comes away to Christ with his whole heart: for true believing is © believing with all the heart,” Acts vii. 37.
| Our Lord's followers are like these who followed Saul at first,
© men whose hearts God has touched, 1 Sam. x. 26. When the Spirit pours in overcoming grace, they © pour out their hearts like water before him, Pial. Ix 8. They flow unto him, like a river, I{a. ii. 2. © All nations shall flow unto it,” namely, to © the mountain of the Lord's house.” It denotes not
only the abundance of converts; but the disposition of their
fouls, in coming to Christ : they come heartily and freely, as
drawn with loving kindness,” Jer. xxxi. 3. Thy people mu
206 * Signs of Christ's | State III.
be willing in the day of thy power, Pfal. cx 3. i. e. free, , ready, |
open-hcarted, giving themselves to thee as free-will offerings, When the bridegroom has the bride's heart, it is a ri güùt marriage: but tome give their hand to Christ, who give bi in not
their heart. They that are only driven to Christ by terror,
will lurely leave him again, when that terror is gone. T error may break a heart of ltone; but the picces into which it ig broken, {till continue to be {tone: the terrors cannot foften it into a heart of felh. Yet terror may begin the work, which love crowns, © The strong wind, the earthquake, and the fire going before: the {till small voice, in which the Lord is, may come after them. When the blesfed sesus is seeking sinuers to match with him, they are bold aud perver ie, they will not spcak with hiin, till be hath wounded them, made them captis ce, and bound them with the cords of death. When this is done, ten it is that he makes love to them, and wins their hearts. The Lord tells us, Hos. li. 16-——20. That his chosen 1frael thall
be married unto himself, But, how will the bride's consent be
won? Why, 1 in the first place, he will © bring her into the wilgerncis,' as he did the people When he brought them out of
_ Fgypt, ver. 14. There she will be hardly dealt with, {scorched
with thirlt, and bitten with serpents; and then he Will {peak comfortably to her,” or, as the expression is, he will speak upon her heart. The sinner is first driven, and then 2 to Christ. It is with the soul as with Noah's dove; she forced back again to the ark, because she could find nothing ale to rest upon: but, when the did return, she would have rested
on che outside of i it, if Noah had not © put forth his hand and
pulled her in, Gen. vii. 9. The Lerd {ends the avenger ot blood in pursuit of the crimina! ; and he, with a fad heart, leaves his own city; and with tears in his eyes, parts with his old acquaintance, because he dare not stay with them: and he flees for his life to the city of refuge. This is not at all hs choice, it is forced work; necessity has no law. But, when be comes to the gates, and fees the beauty of the place, the exccl- Tency and loveliness of it charms him; and then he enters it with heart and good will, saving, This is my rest, and here! will stay:' and, as one laid in another case, I had perished, unless I had perished.“ Sc ND, When Christ apprehends a soul, the heart is ditengaged From. and turned against, fin. As in cutting off the Dranch from the old stock, the great idol Self is brot oht down, he man is powerfully taught © to deny himself: lo, in in tHe appre⸗
hed
Head
bendint was be the Ap them, body ; in ther
When
race ; Eack nourist commi OWN CC wound saying, wherei
Wc. true be partici adop di, works, of grac them. being t all tke ately 1 stock, hath ocean saving unseare to Chr) I. 16, he not © Whe © or de I Cor. prehen Let us beforeapprebending a Sinner.
Head II.
kending of the sinner by bis Spirit, that union 15 diffolved, which | Was betwixt the man and his lusts, while he was in the flesh, as
the Apostle expresses it, Rom. viii. 5. his heart is loosed from them, thouph formerly as dear to him, as the members of his - body; as his eyes, legs, or arms; and, instead of taking plealure in them as some time he did; he longs to be rid of them.
When the Lord Jelus comes to a foul, in the day of converting
race; he finds it like Jeralalepy in the day of her nativity, Tack. xvi. 4.) with its navel not cut, drawing its tulsome * nourishment and satisfaction from its lusts: but, he cuts off this communication, that he may set the soul on the breasts of his own con solations, and give it rest in himself. And thus the Lord wounds the head and heart of fin, and the font comes to him saying, © Surely our fathers have inherited tics, vanity and things wherein there are no profit, Jer. xvi. 19. 7 -
Of the Benefits flrwing to true believers, from their union with Chri st.
V. And lastly, I come to spcak of the benefits flowing ts true believers from their union with Christ The chief of the particular benefits believers have by it, are just fication, peace, adoption, sanctification, growth in grace, Fruitfulness in good works, acceptance of these good works, establichment in a state of grace, support and a special conduct of providence about them. As for communion with Chrift, it is such a benefit, as being the immediate consequent of union with bim, comprehends all the rest as mediate ones. For Ibok, as the branch, immediately upon its union with the stock, hath communion with the stock, in all that is in it: fo the believer uniting with Christ, hath communion with bim; in which he launcheth forth into an ocean of happiness, is led into a paradise of pleasures, and has a faving interest in the treasure hid in the field of the gospel, the unsearchable riches of Christ. As soon as the believer is united to Christ, Christ himself, in whom all fulness dwells, is his, Cant. ü. 16. My beloved is mine, and Jam his.” And, © how shall | he not with him freely give us ALL things?“ Rom. vii. 22. * Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things-to come, ALLare yours,” I Cor. ii. 22, Thus communion with Christ is the great comprchensive blessing, necessarily lowing from our union with him. Let us now consider the particular benefits flowing from it,
tore- mentioned. 8 2 The.
203 Benefits flowing from Gbrist 10 Belicvers, Su ate III.
The First particular benefit that a sinner hath by his union with Christ, is Justisication; for being united to Christ, be hath communion with him in his righteousnels, 1 Cor. i. 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us W. dom and righteousness, He stands no more condemned; but justi. fed before God, as being in Christ, Rom. viii. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in heist Jesus. The branches hereof are pardon of lin, ard perional acceptance. | |
tit, His fins are pardoned, the guilt of them, is removed,
The bond ebliging him to pay his debt, is cancelled.” Got the
Father takes the pen, dips it in the blood of his Son, croitech the sinner's accounts, and blotteth them out of his debt-bouk, The sinner, out of Christ, is bound over to the wrath of God; he is under an obligation in law, to go to the prison of hell, d there to ly till he has paid the utmost farthing. This arsch from the terrible sanction with which the law is feneed, wh' th i no lels than denih, Gen. ii, 17. So that the sinner passing we bounds asligned him, is as Shemei, in another case, a man of death, 1 Kings it. 42. But now, being united to Christ, God saith, © Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom,”” Job xxx1ii. 24. The sentence of condempation 1s reversed, the believer is absolved, and set beyond the reach of the condemning law. His fins, which sometimes were set before the Lord, Plal. xc. 8. to that they could not be hid, God now takes and / casts them all behind his back,” Isa. xxxvii. 17. Ya, ke © casts them into the depths of the sca, Micah vii. 19. What falls into a brook may be got up again; but what is cast into the sea cannot be recovered. Ay, but there are lome shallow places in the sea: true, but their fins are not cast in there, but into the depths of the sea; and the depths of the sca are devouring depths, from whence they shall never come forth again. But, what if they da not fink? He will cast them in with force; to that they shall go to the ground, and fink as lead in the migitty waters of the > ade, blood. They are not on{y torgiren, but forgotten, Jer. xxxi. 34. © I wiltforgive their iniquity, ard I will remember their sins no more.“ And tho? their after- ins do, in themselves, deserve eternal wrath, and do actually make
them liable to temporal-{trokes, and fatherly chastilements according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, Pl. Ix? *.
30.—3 3. Yet they can never be actually liable to eternal wah
or the cur{e of the law; for they are dead to the law in Ch: 5 Rom. vii. 4. And they can never fall from thetr union Wa:” CES | Christ;
Chr Ro whi that by 1 4th mar iniq deb 2
2 C. righ righ nev
_ own
righ
the
fecti not fore dem may an o lay The and T ceivt veng lost | hin right unio! searc whit ii. 14 cause reckc to th right pard: Rom shall
Head II. Fuftificalion. 209
Christ ; nor can they be in Christ, and yet under condemnation,
Rom. viii. 1. © There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jelus.” This is an ference drawn trom that doctrine of the believer's being dead to the law, delivered by the Apostle, chap. vi. 16. as is clear from the 2d, 2d, and 4th verses of this vin. chap. And in this respect, the juftited man is © the blefsed man unto whom tke Lord imputeth not iniquity,” Psal. xxxil. 2. As one who has no design to charge a debt on another, sets it not down in his count-book. _ | 2dly, The believer is accepted as righteous. in God's sight, 2 Cor. v. 21. For he is © fonnd in Christ, not having his own righteousness, but that which 15 through the faith of Chrilt, the righteousness which is of God by faith,“ Phil. ti. 9. He could never be accepted of God, as righteous, upon the account of his own righteoulnels: because, at belt, it is but impertect; and all
righteousness, properly so called, which will abide a trial before
the throne of God, is pertect. The very name of it implies perfection: for unless a work be perfectly conform to the law, it is not right, but wrong: and so cannot make a man righteous before God, whole judgment is according to truth. Yet if justice demand a righteousness of one that is in Christ, upon which he may be accounted righteous before the Lord: * Surely shall such an one say, In the Lord have I rightcoulness,” Isa. xiv. 24. The law is fulhlled, its commands axe obeyed, its sanction is satisfied. The deliever's Cautioner has paid the debt. It was exacted, and he answered for it. |
Thus the perbon united to Christ, is justified, You may conceive of the whole proceeding herein, in this manner. The ayenper of blood pursuing the criminal, Christ, as the Saviour of lost finners, doth by the Spirit apprehend him, and draw him to himself; and he by Faith lays hold on Christ: so the Lord our righteousness, and the unrighteous creature unite. From this union with Christ, results a communion with him, in his unsearchable riches, and consequently, in his righteousnese, that white raiment which he has for clothing of the naked, Rev. Vi. 18. Thus the righteousness of Christ hecomes his: and because it is his by unquestionable title, it is imputed to him; it is reckoned his, in the judgment of God, which is always according to the truth of the thing. And fo the believing sinner having a riphteonsness which fully answers the demands of the law, he is pardoned and accepted as righteous. See lia. xlv. 22, 24, 25. Rom. iti. 24. and chap. v. 1. Now he is a free man: Who
all lay any thing to the charge of these whom God jultifieth?
Acts ii. 25, 27. and their Lie? Col. ii. 4.
219 Peace with God, State III.
Can justice lay any thing to their charge? No, for it is satissied. Can the law! No, for it bas got all its demands of them in selus Christ, Gal. i. 26. © I am crucified with Christ.“ What can the law require more after it has wounded their Head; pourcd in wrath, in full measure, into their Soul; and cut off their Life, and brought it into the dust of death; in lo far as it has done all this to Jelus.Chniit, who is the. r Head, Eph. i. 22. their Soul, Wbat is become of the sinner's own Ind-writing, which would prove the dcbt upon bim? Christ bas blotted it out, Col. il. 14. But, it may be just ier may get its eye upon it again: no, * he took it out of the way, But, O that it bad been torn in picces, may the sinner say: vea, so it is; che nails that pierced Chriit's hands and feet,
are driven through it, © he nailed it.“ -But what it The. torn
pieces be set together again? That cannot be; tor © he nailed.t to his cross, and his cross was buried with him, but will never rile more, fceing © Christ dieth no more:“ Where is the faceeovering that was upon the condemned wan? Christ has destroyed it, Ila. xxv. 7. Where is Geath, that stood before the sinner with a grim face, and an open mouth, ready to devour him? Chrilt has © fwvallowed it up in victory, verse 8. Glory, glory, glory to him that thus “ loved us, aud walked us from
our sins in his own blood
The second benesit flowing from the same spring of wnicn
with Christ, and coming by the way, of justification, is Peace;
peace with God, and peace of conscience, according to the measure of the sense the justified have of their peace with G00, Rom. v. 1. © Therchore being justified by raith, we have peace with Ged.“ Chap. xiv. 27. For the kingdom of God ts not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.“ Whereas God was their enemy before, now he is reconciled to them in Christ; they are in a covenant of peace wich lim; and as Abraham was, fo they are the friends of God. He is well pleased with them, in his beloved Son. His word, which spoke terror to them formerly, now speaks peace, if they rightly take up its language. And there is love in all his ditpensations towards them, which makes all work together for their good. Their conkiences are purged of that guilt a- d fithinets that sometinie lay upon them: his conseience- purif ing blood streams throuph their souls, by virtue of their union wich him, Heb. ix. 14. © How much more shall the blood, of Christ, —purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living Gud?” The bands laid oa Uicir consciences, by the _ of
they purg mor; hits + death We a but calls
about
wien aind h at an tions, to his may { lepal ENCES, mourt again, But ti and bt that ir leaves ate th; Elib the cal dartet!l lo fast, the ear sickens aud the
tomacl
Thx —
Head II. and Peace of Conseience. f 211 N God, acting as the tpirit oft bond age, arc taken off, never mores | | to be laid on by that hand, Rum. vii. 15. For ye bave not 1:44 : . p. , 7 i 4 " S. 4 * a; * 5 N
reccived the ipirit ot bondage again to tear. Hereby tiie can- {| science is quieted, as joon as the ou becomes Coucious of the 11 application of that blood; whiicah falls out sooner or later, ac- iN cording tothe mealure of faich, aud as the only wile God secs meet to time it. Unbelievers may have Houbled consciences, | which they may get quicted again: but alas! their cousciences | 1 become peaceable, ere they become pure; lo their peace is but ö
—
th 8 5 . * 8 11 the seed of greater horror and contulion. Carlesiness may give Mi [| ease for a while, to a lick conscience; men neglecting its wounds, 1 1 they close again of their own accord, before the hithy matter is i"! ! purged out. Many bury their guilt in the grave ot an ill me- | 1 { mory: conscience imarts a little; at length the man forgets his 171 : lin, and there is an end of it: but that is only an case before.
death. Rusinc se, or the affairs of life, often give ease in this cate, $i When Cain is banished from the presence of the Lord, be falls 1 ; a building of cities. When the evi spirit came upon Saul, be calls not for his Bible, nor for the pricits to converse with him about his cale; but for mukick, to play it away. 80 many, when their consciences begin to be uncaty, they hl their hends aud hands with business, to divert themiclves, and to regain eat at any rate. Yo, some will lin over the belly of their convictions, and lo some pet eale to their conkciences, as Fiazacl gave to his master, by stitfling lim. Again the performing of duties may give some ealè to a disquieted conic ence; aud this is all that legal pre tessors have recourle to, for quicting of their consciences, When conscience is wounded, they Will pray, confess, mourn, and resolve tu do so no more: aud lo they become whole 0 again, without any application of the blood of Christ, by faith. But they, whose consciences are rightly quieted: come for peace and purging to the blood of iprinkliag. Sin is a iweet morsel, that makes God's elect fick souls, ere they get it vernited up. It leaves a sting behind it, which some one time or other, will create them no little pain. | | Elihu fhews us both the case and cure, Job xxxiti. Behold the case one may be in, whom God has thoughts of love to. He darteth comictions into his conscience; and makes them Rick lo fast, that he cannot rid himself of them, ver. 16. © He openeth the ears of men, and scaleth their instruction,“ his very bed sickens, ver. 19. He is chastened allo with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong fam.“ He loseth Bis omach, ver. 20. His life abliorreth bread, aud bis foul dain ty 5 | cat.“
212 Peace with God, State III.
meat.“ His body pines away, lo that there is nothing on him but {kin and bone, ver. 21. © His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen, and-his bones that were not seen, stick out.” Tho' he is not prepared for death, he has no hopes of life, ver. 22. © His foul drawe:h near unto the grave, and (which is | the height of his milery) his life to the destroyers:? He is looking every moment When devils, these destroyers, Rom. ix. II.
carry away his soul to hell. O &eadful case! yet there is hope. God delipns to keep back his soul from the pit, ver. 18. altho' | he bring him forward to the brink of it. Now, see how the l fick man is cured. The phylician's art cannot prevail here: The disease lies more inward, than that his medicines can reach xt, It is foul-trouble that bas brought the body into this d:iorder, and therefore the remedies mutt be applied to the sick | man's foul and conscience. The phy sician for this case must be | a spiritual physician: the remedies must be spiritual, a righte- _ oulnels, a ransom or atonement. Upon the application ef these,
the foul is cured, the conscience is quieted, and the body recoh vers, vor. 23, 24, 25, 26. If there be a messenger with him,
| an mterpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his | uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and faith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom. His
| | fleth shall be fresher than a child's, he shall return to the days
of his youth. He shall pray unto God, and he shall be favourable unto him, and he shall fee his face with joy.” The proper i physician for this patient, is © a messenger, an interpreter, | | ver. 23. that is, as some ex positors, not without ground, understand it, the great Phy sican Jesus Christ, whom lob had called his Redeemer, chap. xix. 25. He is a Messenger, the
seasonably to the sick man. He is an Interpreter, the great he Interpreter of God's counsels of love to sinners, John i. 28. One among a thousand, even © the chief among ten thousand,” Cant. v. 10. One chosen out of the people,” Psal. Ixxxix. 29. One to whom the Lord © hath given the tongue of the learued,
to speak a word in season to him that is weary, Ifa. I. 4, 5, 6.
It is He that is with him, by his Spirit, now, to © convince him of fin and judgment.“ His work now is to shew unto him his uprightness, or his righteousness, i. e. the Interpreter Christ his righteousness z which is the only righteousness arising from the paying of a ransom, and upon which'a finner is © delivered trom going down to the pit, ver. 24. And thus Chrilt is said 8
| thele murderers, or man- layers, John vii. 44. will come and
MMlessenger of the covenant of peace, Mal. iii. 1. who comes
EL OE TEINS
Head II. and Peace of Constience. 213 declare God's name, Psal. xxii. 22. and to preach righte-
"ouliels,” Plal.xl. 9. The phrase is remarkable: it is not to
shew unto © the man, but © unto man, his righteousness; whieh not obscurely intimates, that he is more than a man, who shews or declareth this righteousness. Compare Amos iv. 13. He that formeth the mountains, and created the wind, and declareth unto man what is lys thought.“ There seems to be in it a [weet allusion to the first declaration of this righteousness unto man, or as the word is, unto Adam after the fall, while he lay under terror from apprehensions of the wrath of God: which declaration was made by the Mefsenger, the Interpreter, namely, the eternal word of the Son of God, called, Ihe voice of the Lord God, Gen. in. 8. and by him appearing, probably in human shape. Now, while, bv his Spirit, le is the Preacher of righteousness to the man, it is supposed the man lays hold on the oflered righteousneso; whereupon the ransom is applied to him, and he is delivered from going down to the pit: for God hatu
a ransom for hin. This is intinate to him: God saitb, Deliver him,” ver. 2 4. Hercupon his conicience, being purged by the blood of atonement, is pacined, and fweetly quieted: “he shall pray unto God—and ice his face with joy, which before he beheld with horror, ver. 26. That is a New Testament language, © Having an High-priest over the house of God,” he shall © draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having his heart sprinkled from an evil conscience,” Reb. x. 21, 22. But then, what becomes of the body, the weak and weary flesh? Why, his flesh snall be fresh:r than a child's, be shall
return to the days of his youth, ver. 25. Yea, all bis bones, (which-were chastened with strong pain, ver. 19.) shall say,
Lord, who is like nato thee?* Pfal. xxxv. 10.
A Third benefit flowing from union with Christ, is Adoption. Believers, being united to Christ, become children of God, and members of the family of heaven. By their union with him, Who is the Son of God by nature, they © become the sons of God,” by grace, Jobn i. 12. As when a branch is cut off from
one tree, and grafted in the branch of another; the ingrafted
branch, by means of its union with the adopting branch (as lome not unfitly have called it) is made a branch of the tame
stack, with that into which it is ingrefted ; fo Hnners being ingraf ted into jesus Christ, whose name is the Branch, his Father
is their Father, his God their God,” John xx. 17. And thus they, who are by nature children ct the devil, become'the child= ren of God, They have the Spirit of adoption, Rom. vii. 15.
namely,
—
—
—
*
| Alopti on. State III. namely, the Spirit of his Son, which bring them to God, as children to a father, to pour out their complaints in his bosom, and to seek necessary supply, Gal. iv. 6. Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Under all their weaknesles, they have fatherly pity and compassion shewn them, Pfal. ciii. 13. Like as a father pitieth his children: so the Lord pitteth them that fear bim.“ Altho' they were but foundlings, found in a desart land; yet now that to them belongs the adoption, he keeps
them as the apple of his eye,“ Deut. xxxii. 10. Whosoever pursue them, they have a refuge, Prov. xiv. 26. His children
shall have a place of refuge. In a time of common calamity, they have chambers of protection, where they may be hid, until * the indignation be overpast, Isa. xxvi. 20. And he is not on. their refuge for protection, but their portion for provision, in that refuge, Psal. cxlil. 5. Thou art my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living.“ They are provided for, for eternity, Heb. xi. 16. He hath prepared for them a city. And
what he sees they have need of for time, they shall not want,
Mar. vi. 31, 32. © Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.“ Seasonable correction is likewite their privilege as sons: FA they are not suffered to pass with their faults, as happens to others who are not children, but fervants of the family, and will be turned out of doors for their miscarriages at length, Heb. xii. 7. © If ve endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?“ They are heirs of, and shall inherit the promises, Heb. Vi. 12. Nay, they are heirs of God, who himself js © the portion of their inheritance,” Psal. xvi. 5. and joint heirs with Christ,” Rom. viii. 17. And because they are the childrea of the great
King, and young heirs of glory, they have angels for their attendants, who are © sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation, Heb. i. 14. | 2
A Fourth benefit is Sandtification, 1 Cor. i. 30. But of bim are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification.“ Being united to Chrilt, they partake of his Spirit, which is the Spirit of holiness. There is a
fulness of the Spirit in Christ, and it is not like the fulness of a
vessel, which. only retains what is poured into it; but it is the fulness of a fountain for diffusion and communication, which is alvays scudiag forth its water, and yet is always full. *
He Spi
fro! gra the not ste] An thre hes We pur mar are wit] are brar but alon and the the; "effec N unto they ciliec ly, v
yet 1 the c work Wher the l. wher there man; He d desigi he is | the N wind his Fa the hi
—
Head II. Sancti fication. 215
Spirit of Christ, that spiritual sap, which is in the stock, and from thence is communicate to the branches, is the Spirit of grace, Tech. xii. 10. And where the Spirit of grace dwells, there will be found a complication of all graces. Holiness is not one grace only, but all the graces of the Spirit: it is a constellation of graces; it is all the graces in their feed and root, And as the lap conveyed from the stock into the branch, goes thro” it, and thro' every part of it; so the Spirit of God sanctifics the whole man. The poison of sin was diffused through the whole spirit, foul and body of the man; and sanctifying grace pursues it into every corner, 1 Thell, v. 23. Every part of the man is sanctified, though no part is perfectly so, The truth we are sanctified by, is not held in the head, as in a prison; but runs, with its fanctify ing influences, through heart and lite. There arc indeed some graces in every believer, which appear as topbranches above the rest: as meeknels in Meles, patience in Job: but seeing there is in every child of God, a holy principle going along with the holy law, in all the parts thereof, loving, liking, and approving of it; as appears from their universal res ect to the commands of God: it is evident they are endued with all the graces of the Spirit; because there can be no more in the effect, than there was in the cause.
Now, this sanctifying Spirit, whereof believers partake, is unto them, (1.) A Spirit of mortisication. Through the Spirit they mortity the deeds of the body, Rom. viii. 13. Sin is cru cited in them, Gal. v. 24. They are *planted together (namely, with Christ, ) in the likenels of his death, which was a ling- - ering death, Rom vi. 5, Sin in the faint, tho' not quite dead,
yet is dying- If it were dead, it would be taken down from the crols, and buried out of his sight: but, it hangs there as yet, working and struggling under its mortal wounds. Lock, as when a tree-has got such a stroke as reaches the heart of it, all the leaves and branches thereof begin to fade and decay: so, where the sanctisy ing Spirit coraes, and breaks the power of fin, there is a gradual ccasing from it, and dying to it, in the whole man; fo that he no longer lives in the flcsh to the lusts of men. He does not make fin his trace and business; it is not his great delign to seek himself, and to satisfy his corrupt inclinations: bu he is for Immanuel's land; and is walking in the high-v ay to it,
the way, which is called, The way of holinese:“ Though the
wind from hell, that was on his back before, blows now full in
his face, makes his travelling uneasy, and often drives him off the high-way. (2.) Thus Spirit is a spirit of vivisication to them;
216 Suauctifeation. State III.
them; for he is the Spirit of life, and makes them live unto righteousness, Ezek xxxvi. 27. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.* These that
| have been © planted together with Christ, in the likeness of his
death, shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, Rom. vi. 5, At Chriit's resnrrection, when his foul was re-united with his body, every member of that blefied body was enabled again to perfomn the actions of lite: fo, the soul being influenced by the sanctifying Spirit of Chrilt, is enabled more and more to perform all the actions of spiritual life. And as the whole of the law, and not some scraps of it only, is wietteii on the holy heart; so believers are enabled to transcribe that law in their conversation. And although they cannot write one line of it without blots: yet God, for Christ's lake, accepts of the performances, in pcint of sanCtification: they beiug ditciples to his own Son, and led ay his own Spirit. . ME This sanctifying Spirit, communicated by the Lord Jesus to bis members, is the spiritual nourissiment the branches have from the Stock into which they are ingrafted; whereby the life of grace, given them in regeneration, is preserved, continued ane actuated. Ir is the ncurishment wberchy the new creature liveth, and is nourithed up towards perfection. Spiritual life needs to be fed, and must have supply of nourithment: and belicvers
derive the fame from Christ their head, whom the Father has
constituted the head cf influences to all his menibers, Col. ii. 19, * And not holding the head, from-which all the body by joints
and bands having nourishment ministred, or supplied, &c.“ Now,
this supply is, the lupply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,” Phil. i 19, The saints feed richly, eating Christ's flesh, and drinking bis
blood, for their {piritual nourishment : yet our Lord bimiself
teacheth us, that * it is the Spirit that quickneth,” even that
Spirit who dwells in that blessed body, Jobn vi. 63. The hu.
man nature is united to the divine nature, in the person of the Son, and so (like the bowl in Zecharial's candlestick, Zech. in.) lies at the fountain head, as the glorious means of conveyance of influences, from the fountain of the Deity; and receives not th Spirit by measure, but ever hath z fulness of the Spirit by reason of that personal union. Hence, believers being united to the man Christ, (as the seven lamps to the bowl, by their seven
pipes, Zech iv. 2.) © his flesh is to them meat indeed, and his
blood drink indeed: for, feeding on that blessed body, (1. e. ef fectually applying Christ to their souls by faith,) they partake more aud morc of that Spirit, whe dweheth therein, to 7
| | — | Head II. Sandification. 217 spiritual nourishment. The holiness of God could never admit of ar immediate union with the finful creature, nor (conse-— quently) an immediate communion with it: yet, the creature
Could not live the life of grace, without communion with the
fountain of life: Therefore, that the honour of God's holiness, and the salvation of siiiners, might jointly be provided for; the second person of the glorious Trinity, took, into a personal union with himself, a sinless human nature; that fo this holy harmless and undefiled humanity, might immediately receive a fulne!3
of the Spirit, of which he might communicate to his members
by his divine power and efficacy. And likeas, if there were a tree, having its root in the earth, and its branches reaching to heaven; the valt distance betwixt the root and the branches would not interrupt the communication betwixt tkei. What though the parts of mystical Christ, (viz. the head and the
embers, ) are not contiguous, as joined together in the way of a corpora] union? The union is not therefore the less real and effectual. Yea, our Lord himself shews us, that albeit we should eat his flesh, in a corporal and carnal manner, yet, it would profit nothing, John vi. 63. we would not be one whit
holier thereby. But the members of Christ on earth, are united
to their head in heaven, by the invisible bond of the self-same Spirit dwelling in both: in him as th head, and in them as the members, even, as. the wheels in Ezekicl's vision, were not contipuous to the living creatures, yet were united to them, by an invisible bond of one spirit in both; fo that when the living creatures went, the wheels went by that, and when the living creatures were lift up from the earth, the wheels were lift up, Ezek. i. 19. For,' fays the Prophet, © the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels,” ver. 20. .
Hence, we may see the difference betwixt true sanctisication, and that shadow of it, which is to be found amongst some strict professors of Christianity, who yet are not true Christians, are not regenerate by the Spirit of Chriit, and is of the lame kind with what has appeared in many sober heathens. True sanctinication is the result of the soul's union with the holy Jesus, the
first and immediate receptacle of the sanctifying Spirit; out of
whose fulness his members do, by virtue of their union with him,
receive sanctifying influences. The other is the mere product
of the man's own spirit, which, whatever it has, or icems to have
of the matter of true holiness, yet docs not arise from the supernatural principles, nor to the high aims and ends thereof: for, as it comes from self, fo it runs out into the dead {ca of self again;
218 Sroulh in Grace. State III.
and lies as viod of true holiness, as nature doth of grace. They
who have this basfard holinels, are like common boat- men, who ferve themlelves with their own oars: whereas, the ship bound for Immanucl's land, fails by the blowings of the divine Spirit.
How is it possible there should be true sanctification without Chrift? Can there be true lanWlication, without partaking of the Spirit of holiness? Can we partake of that Spirit, but by Jeius Chrift, * the way, the truth, and the life?” The falling. dey shall as soor make its way through the flinty rock, as in- ; fluences of grace {hall come from God to finners, any other wav,
but through him whom the Father has constitated the head of
influences, Col. i. 19. For it plealed ng Father, that in him J + l P
„mould all fulneis axyell:* and, chap. ü. © And not holding the head, from which all the body by a and bands having nour ishment ministred, and knit together, increaseth with tie increase of God.” fall away, from their seeming sanctihcation, and never recover it is because they are not branches truly knit to the true vine. Meanwhile, others recover from their decays because of their union with the life-giving stock, by the quickening Spirit, 1 John ii. 19. © They went out from us, but they were not t us: for if they bach bccn of us, they would no doubt have continned with us
A Fifth bei 3t is growth in grace. Having nourishment
ministred, chey increale with the increase of God,” Col. ii. 19.
de n ah teous {hall flourish like the palm-tree, he thall grow bke a Cedar in Lebanon,” Pal. xcii. 12. Grace is of a growing nature: in the way to Zion they go From strength to strength. Though the holy man be at firlt a little child in grace, yet at length he becomes a young man, a father, 1 John ji. 13. Tho he does but cr eep in the way to heaven sometimes; yet afterwards he walks, he runs, he mounts up with wings as eaoles, Isa. xl. 31. If a branch grafted into a stock never grows, it is 2 plain evidence of its not having knit with the ftock.
But some may perhaps fay, © If all true Christians be growing ones, what shall be {aid of these, who instead of growing, ere going back?” I answer, First, There is a great Giffarence between the Christian's growing simply, and his growing at all times. Hill true Christians do grow, but I do not Jay, then grow at all times. A tree that has life and nouristment, grows to its persection, yet it is not always growing; it grows not in
che winter. Christians allo bave their win ters, wherein the in-
Fuences of grace, neceflary for growth, are ceakd, Cant. v. L >
Hence see how it eomes to pais, that many
Vine, grow And the v with there
com and
morr
the s
whet
prese their top talle the g it is
Growth in Grace.
Head II. 219
sleep.“ It is by faith, the believer derives gracioss influence from Jesus Christ; like as each lamp in the candlettick, received oil from the bow], by the pipe going betwixt them, Zech. iv. 2. Now, if that pipe be stopt, if the saints faith ly dormant and unactive; then all the rest of the graces will become dim, an seem ready to, be extinguished. In consequence whereof, depraved nature will gather strength, and become active. What”
then will become of the foul? Why, there is still one sure ground
of hope. The saint's faith is not as the hypocrite's, like a pipe laid short of the fountain, whereby there can be no conveyance: it sull remains a bond of union betwixt Christ and the foul; and therefore, 4 because Christ lives, the believer shall live allo, John xiv. 19. The Lord Jetus puts in his hand by the hole of
the door, and clears the means of conveyance: and then influences for growth flow, and the betiever's graces look fresh and. green again, Hol. xiv. 7. They that dwelt under his shadow shall return: they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine.“ In the worit of times, the saints have a principle of growth in them, 1 John ui. 9. His seed rcmaineth in him.” And therefore after decays they revive again: namely, when the winter is over, and the Sun of righteoulnels returns to them with his warm influences. Mud thrown into a pool, may ly there at ease; but if it be cast into a fountain, the spring will at length work it out, and run clear as formerly. Secondly, Christians may mistake their growth, and that two ways. (I.) By judging of their cafe according to their present feeling: They observe themselves, and cannot perceive themsel ves to be
growing, but there is no reason thence to conclude they are not growing, Mark iv. 27. © The feed springs and grows up,
he knoweth not how.” Should one fix his eyes ever so stedfasti/ on the fun running his race, or ona a growing tree; he would not perceive the fun moving, or the tree growing: but, if he compare the tree as it now is, with what it was some years ago;
and consider the place in the heavens, where the sun was in the morning ; he will certainly perceive the tree has grown, and
the sun has moved. In like manner may the Christian know,
whether he be in a prowing or declining state, by comparing his
present with his former condition. (2.) Christians may mistake their case, by measuring their growth by the advances of the top only, not of the root. "Though a man be not growing taller, he may be growing stronger. If a tree be taking with the ground, fix ing itself in the carth, and spreading ont its roots; it is certainly growing, although it be nothing taller than
2 ferr
— ern.
formerly. So, albeit a Christian may want the sweet consolation and flashes of affection, which sometimes he has had; yet he be growing in humility, {elf-denial, and sense of necdy dependence on Jesus Christ, he is a growing Christian, Hos. xiv. 5. will be as the dew unto lirael, he shall east forth his roots as Lebanon.” | Quest. But do hypocrites grow at all? And if fo, how shall we distinguish betwixt their growth, and true Christian growth! Ans. To the first part of the question, hypocrites do grow, "The tares have their growth, as well as the wheat: and the seed that fell among thorns did fpring up, Luke viii. 7. only it did bring no fruit to perfection, ver. 14. Yea, a true Christian may have a false growth. James and John seemed to grow in the grace of holy zeal, when their spirits grew so hot in the cause or Christ, that they would have fired whole villages, for not reseiving their Lord and Master, Luke ix. 54. They laid, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, to confume them, even as Elias did?“ But it was indeed no fuck thing; and therefore be turned and rebuked them, ver. 55. and aid, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.“ To the second part of the question, it is answered, that there is a peculiar beauty in true Christian growth, distinguishing it from all false growth: it is universal, regular, proportionable. It is a growing up to him in all things, which is the head, Eph, Iv. 15. The growing Christian grows proportionably,in all the parts of the new man. Under the kindly influences of the Sun of righteousness, believers © grow up as calves in the stall,” Mal. iv. 2, Ye would think it a monstruous growth, in these creatures, if ye saw their heads grow, and not their bodies, or it ye {aw one leg grow, and anòther not: if all the parts do not grow proportionably. Ay, but such is the growth of many in ref gion. They grow like rickety children, who have a big head, but a lender body: they get more knowledpe into their heads, but no more holiness into their hearts and lives: They grow very hot outwardly, but very cold inwardly; like men in a sit of the ague. They are more taken up about the externals of religion, than formerly; yet as great strangers to the power ot godliness as ever. It a garden is watered with the hand, fome of the plants will readily get much, some little, and some 19 water at all; and therefore fome wither, while others are coming forward: but after a shower from the clouds, all come forward together. In like manner, all the graces of the Spirit grow proport ionably, by the special influences of divine grace,
Head II. Fruitfulness$, 222 v1 The branches ingrafted in Christ, growing aright, do grow in all the several ways of growth at once. They grow inward,. growing into Christ, (Eph. iv. 15.) uniting more closcly with 1 | him; and cleaving more firmly to him, as the head of influences, 1 74 which is the spring of all other true Christian growth. They * | 1 grow outward, in good works in their life and conversation. 1 They not only, with Naphtali, © give goodly words; but, like Joseph, * they are fruitful boughs.“ They grow upward in heavenly-mindedness, and contempt of the world; for their conversation is in heaven, Philip. ii. 28. Aud firally, they row downward in humility and self-lothing. The branches of the largest growth in Christ, are in their own eyes, less than the least of all saints, Eph. iii. 8. The chief of sinners,' 1 Tim. i. 15. More brutish than any man, Prov. xxx. 2. They see they can do nothing, no not fo much as * to think any thing, as of themselves,” 2 Cor. iii. 5. that they deserve nothing, being © not worthy of the least of all the mercies shewed unto them, Gen. xxxii. 10. and that they are nothing,” 2 Cor. xii. 2, A Sixth benefit is Fruitfulness. The branch ingrafted into Christ, is not barren, but brings forth fruit, John xv. 5. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.“ For that very end are fouls married to Chrilt, that they may bring forth fruit unto God,“ Rom. vii. 4. They may be branches in Christ, by profession, but not by real implantation, that are barren branches. Whosoever are united to Christ, bring forth the fruits of gospel obedience and true holiness. 3 Faith is always followed with good works. The believer is not *# only come out of the grave of his natural state; but he has put off his grave- clothes, namely, reigning lusts, in the which he walked sometime like a ghost; being dead while he lived in them, Col. ii. 7, 8. For Christ has said of him, as of Lazarus, © Loose him, and let him go.“ And now that be has put on Christ; he personates him, (so to speak) as a beggar, in borrowed robes, represents a king on the stage, © walking as he also walked.” Now the fruit of the Spirit in him is in all goodnels, Eph. v. 9. The fruits of holiness will be found in the hearts, lips, and lives of those who are united to Christ. The hidden man of the heart, is not only a temple built for God, and consecrated to him; but used and employed for him; where love, fear,.trust, and all the other parts of unseen religion are exer- _ cited, Phil. ii. 3.“ For we are of the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit.” The heart is no more the devil's © | M's common, where thoughts go free; for there even van thoughts I | | 3 ar 1-8
—
uage of Ashdod, but the language of Canaany.
In their eyes, because they are like hin,.
222 Fruitfulnsss. State III.
are hated, Psal. cxix, 123. But it is God's juclosure, bes aid about as a garden for him, Cant. iv. 16. It is true, there are weeds of corruption there, becaule the ground is not yet Perfectly healed: but the man, in the day of his new creation, is set to dress it, keep it. A live- coal from the altar has touched his lips, and they are purified, Psal. xv. 1, 2, 3. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who Hall dw ell in thy holy hill?
He that speaketh the truth in his heart. ite that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor taketh up a reproach against his neigh-
| bour.* There may be indeed a smooth tongue where there is a
false heart. The veice may be Jacob's, while the hands are Elau's. But, If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, that man's religion is vain,” James i. 26. The power of g odliness w ill rule over the tongue, though a world of iniquity. If one be a Galilean, his speech will bewray him, he'll not speak the lang- He will neither. be dumb in reli gion; nor will his tongue walk at random, lecing to the double guard nature hath given the tongue, grace ha- 5 added a third: The fruits of holiness will be found in his outward conversation, for hc hath clean hands, as well as a pure
heart, Plat. xxiv. 4. He is a godly man, and religiously dit charges the duties of the sirst table of the law: He is a righteous man, and honestly per forms the duties-of the second table. lu his conversation he is a good Christian, and a-good neighbour too. He carries it towards God, as if mens eyes were upon him; and towards men, as believing God's eye to be upon him. These things which God bath joined, in his Jaw, he dare not in his practice put asunder.
Thus the branches of Chrilt- are Full of good fruits.. And tnose fruits are a cluster of vital actions, whereof Jesus Christ is the principle and end: the principle; for he lives in them, and © the life they live is by the faith of the Son of God, Gal. i. 20. The end; for they live to him, and © to them to live i is Christ, Philip. i. 21. The dures of religion are in the world, like fatherjels children in rags: some will not take chem in, because they never loved them nor their Father: some take them in, because they may be serviceable to them: but the saints take them in for their Father's fake; that is, for Chrit's fake; and they are lovely O! whence is the new life of the saints! surely it couid never have been hammered out of the natural powers of their fouls, by the united force of al
created power. been
In eternal! eee should their womb have
are trees of righteousiels, Ila. Ixi. 3. So when others fade, they
_ Chrilt.” A rolling tone gathers no fog, and a wavering judgends, the ordinances of God. The courts of our Gad are the
manner appointed for these ends. It is not only a folemn pub-
Head It. Fruitfulncss.
been shut ap; but that being married to Chrift, they bring forth © fruit unto God, Rom. Vil. 4.
If you atk me, How your nourishment, growth and Fruitful- 1 rels may be forwarded? I otter these fc advices. {1.) Make | sure work, as to your knitting with the {tock, by faih unteigned; and beware of hypoerily: a branch that is Hot found at the heart, will certainly wither. The trees of the J.ord's pianting
bring forth fruit. Hypocrisy is a dileale in the vitals of religton, which will consume all at length. It ts a leak in the ship, that will certainly fink it. Sincerity of grace v.ill make it lasting, be it never so weak: as the swalleit tu ig, that is found at the heart, will draw nourishment from the stock, and grow, wnile the greatest bovgh that is rotten, can ncver recover, because it receives no nourishment. (2.) Labour to be ed fast in the truths and way of God. An unsettled and wavering judgment is a great enemy to Christian growth and fruitfulnese, as the Apostle teaches, Eph. iv. 14, 15. Ibat we henceforth be no more children, toiled to and tro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things, which is the kead, even
ment makes a fruitless life. Though a tree be never fo sound, yet how can it grow, or be fruitful if ye be still removing it ot of one su l into another? (3.) Endeavour to cut off the fuckers, | as gardeners do, that their trees may thrive. These are unmortified lusts. Therefore © moraty your members that are upon the earth,” Col. in. 5. When the Itrachites*pot meat to their lusts, they got leannels to their fouls. She that has many hungry children about her hand, and must be still putting into their mouths, will have much ado to get a bit put into her own. They mult refute the craving of inordinate affections, who would have their fouls to prosper. Lastly, Improve, for these
place, where the trees of righteousness flourish, Psal. ii. 13. The waters of the sanctuary are the means appointed of God, to cause his people grow as willows by the water-courses, . Therefore drink in with © defire the sineere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby,“ 1 Pet. ii. 2. Come to these wells of salvation: not to look at them only, but to draw water out of them. The sacrament of the Lord's supper is in a spec'al
lic profcifion; and a feal of our union and communion with
Christ; "1,
224 Acceptance of the Fruits of Molincs5, State Ill,
Christ ; but it is a means of molt intimate communion with him;
and strengthens our union with him, our taith, love, repentance, and other graces, 1 Cor. x. 26. Ihe cup of blessing which we bless, is it not che communion of che blood cf Thrist? The bread which we break, is it not the communionot the body of Chrilt?? And chap. xii. 13. We hate been all made to drink into one spirit.“ Give yourselves unto prayer: open your mouths wide, and be will nll them. By these means the branches in Christ. may be Further nourished, grow up, and bring forth much fruit. A event! benefit is, The Acceptance of their fruits of holinels barore the Lord. Though they be very imperfect, they
are accepted, because they favour of Christ the blessed stock,
which the branches grow upon; while the fruits ef others arc rejected of God, Gen. ii. 4, 5. And the Lord had respect uato
- Abel, and to his oflering : But unto Cain and his offering he had
not rc{pett.* Compare Heb. xi. 3. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrisice than Cain. O how defective are the saints duties in the eye of the law! The believer bimself espies many faults in his belt performances; yet the Lord graviously receives them. There is no grace planted in the heart, but there is a weed of corruption had by its side, while the saints
are in this lower world. Their very finerity is not without mixture of dishmulation or hypocrily, Gal. ü. 13. Hence there
are defects in the exercise of every grace; in the performance of every duty: depraved nature always drops something to {tain their beit works. There is still a mixture of darkgess with their cleareft light. Yet this does not, mar thei vi. 10. Who is fhe that looketh forth as the morning? or as the dawning?* Behold how Christ's spouse is esteemed and accepted of her Lord, even when she looks forth as the morning, whose beauty is mixed with the blackness of the night! © When the morning was looking out,” as the word is, Judges xix. 26, . e. in the dawning of the day, as we read it. So the very
. dawning of grace, and good-will to Christ, grace peeping out
from uhder a mass of darkness in believers, is pleatant and acceptable to him, as the break of day is to the weary traveller. Though the remains of unbelief make their hand of faith ts shake and tremble; yet the Lord is fo well pleased with it, that he employs it to carry away pardons and supplies ef grace, from the throne of grace, and the fountain of grace. His faith was effectual, who cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief, Mark ix. 24. Tho' the remains
acceptance, Cant.
—
Head II. Acceptance of the Fruits of Hilinefs. 225
fmnoaky; he turns his eyes from the smoak, and beholds the flame, how fair it is, Cant. iv. 10. How fair is my love, my sister, my spouse! The smell of their under garments of inherent holiness, as imperfect as it ls, is like the smell of Lebanon,” ver. 11. and that because they are covered with their elder brother's clothes, which make the sons of God to * fell as a field which the Lerd hath blefled.” Their good works are accepted: their cups of cold water given to a disciple, in the name of a disciple, shall not want a reward. Tho' they cannot offer for the tabernacle, gold, klver, and brass, and onyx-ftone, let them come forward with what they have; if it were but goats hair, it shall not be rejected; if it were but ram-skins, they shall be kindly accepted; for they are dyed red, dipt by faith in the Mediator's blood, and fo presented unto God. A very ordinary work done in taith, and from faith, it it were but the building of a wall about the holy city, is a great work, Neh. V'. 3. If it were but the beitowing of a box of ointment on Christ, it shall never be forgotten, Matth. xxvi. 13. Even“ a cup of cold water only given to one of Christ's Iittie ones, in the name of a dilciple thall be rewarded,” Matth. x. 42. Nay, not a good word for Christ, snall drop from their mouths, but it sha!l be registred in God's book of remembrance, Mal. iii. 16. Nor shall a tear drop from their eyes for him, but he will put it in his bottle, Pfal. Ivi. 8. Their will is accepted for the deed: their sorrow for the want of will, for the will itself, 2 Cor. viii, 12. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that. he hath not.“ Their groanings, when they cannot well word their defres, are heard in heaven; the meaning of thele groans is well known there, and they will be returned like the dove with an olive branch of pcace in her mouth. See Rom. viii. 26, 27. Their mites are better than other men's talents, Their lisping and broken sentences are more pleasant to their Father in heaven, than the molt fluent and flourishing speeches of those that are not in Christ. Their voce is {weet, even when they are ashamed it shouid, be heard; their countenance is comely even when they blush, and draw a vail over it, Cant. 1.14 The Mediator takes their petitions, blots out some parts, rectifies others, and then prelents them to the Father, in contequence whereor they pass in the court of heaven.
Every true Christian is a temple to God, It ye look for sacrifices, they are not wanting there; they offer the {acrifice of praile, and tazy do good; * with fuch jacriices God js well
pleas-
—
Establishment. State III. pleased,” Heb. xii. 15, 16. Christ himself is the altar that
fanaiges the gift, ver. 10. But' what comes of the skins and dung of their sacrifiees? They are carried away without the camp. If we look for incenle, it is there too. The praces of the Spirit are found in their hearts: aad tie Spirit of a crucitted Christ, fires them and puts them in exercile; likeas the fire was brouglit from the altar of burnt-offerinp, to set the incense on flame: then they mount heaven-ward, tike pillars of smoke, Cant. in. 6. But the belt ot incense will leave ashes behind it: yes indeed; but as the priest took away the ashes of the incense in a golden dish, and thaw them out; fo our great High- prielt takes away the ashes and refuse of all the saints fervices, dy his mediation in their behalf.
An Eighth benefit flowing from union with Christ, is Establihment. The Christian cannot fall away, but mult persevere unto the end, John x. 28. They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.“ Indeed if a branch
do not knit with the Rock, it will fall away when thaking winds
arise; but the branch knit to the stock stands fast, whatever winds blows. Sometimes a stormy wind of temptation blows from hell, and toffeth the branches in Christ the true vine; but their union wich him, is their security z moved they may be, but removed they never can be. The Lord © will with the temptation also make way to escape,” 1 Cor. x. 13. Calms are never of any continuance; there is almost always some wid blowing; and therefore branches are rarely altegether at rest, But fometimes violent winds arise, which threaten to rend them from off their stock. Even fo it is with saints; they are daily put to it, to keep their ground apainst temptation: but sometimes the wind from hell risetk so high, and bloweth fo furiouily, that it makes even top-branches to {weep the ground; yet being knit to Christ their stock, they get up apain, in spite of the most violent efforts of the prince of the power of the air, Plal, xciv. 18. When I (aid, my foot flmppeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.” fo far from being damaged, that he is benefited by it, in fo far as it discovers what hoid the soul has of Christ, and what hold Christ has of the foul. And look as the wind in the bellows, which would blow out the candle, blows up the fire: even {9 it often comes to pass, that such temptations Co enliven the true Christian, awakening the graces of the Spirit in bim; and, by that means, difcover both the reality, and the strength of grace
in him. And hence, as Luther, that great man of God, saith, | One
But the Christian improves by this trial; and is
Head II. Establishment.
One Christian who hath had experience of temptation, is worth a thoutind others.” |
Sometimes a stormy wind of trouble apd periecution from the men of the world, blows upon the vine, i. e. mystical Christ: but union with the stack is à fuflicient lecurity to the branches. In a time of the-church's peace and outward profperity, while the angels hold the winds that they blow not, there are a great many branches taken up, and put into the stock, which never knit with it, nor live by it, though they be bound up with it, by the bonds of external! ordinances. Id theje may stand a while on the stock; and stand with oreat eale, while the calm lasts, But when once the storms arise, and the wits blow, they will begin to fall off, one akter another: and the bighcr the wind riseth, the greater will the number be that falls. Yea, some strong boughs of that fort, when they fall, will, by their weight, carry ethers of their own kind, quite down to the earth with them; and will bruise and pret> down some true branches in such a manner, that they would ailo fall off, were it not for
. > . . - . >: \ p their being knit to the stock; in virtue whereof they get up
their heads again, and cannot fall off, because of that falt hold the stock has of them. Then it is that many branches, fometime high and eminent, are found lying on the earth withered, and fit to be gathered up and cast into the fire, Matth. xiii. 6. And when the fun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away- John xv. 6. Ha man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, aud is withered, and men gatker them, and cait them into the fire, and they are burned.“ But however vioic.tly the winds blow, none of the truly ingrafted branches, that are knit with the stock, are found missing, when the storm is changed into a calm, John xvii. 12. Those that thou gavest me, I Lave kept, and none of them is lost,” The least twig growing in Chritt sliall Rand it out, and subsist; when the tallest cedars growing on their own root, {hall be laid flat on the ground, Rom, viii. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Chritt? Shall tribulation, or diltreis, or persecution, or famine, or nakeduess, or peril, or ford?“ See ver. 36, 37, 38, 39. However severely. Isracl be fitted, yet mall not the leatt grain, or, as it is in the original language, a little stone fall upon the earth, Amos ix. 9. It is an allusion to the sifting of fine pebble {tones from among heaps of dust and land: tho' the {avid and dust fall to the ground, be blown away with the wind, and trampled under foot; vet there shall not fall on the carth so much as à little stone, sucli is the-exaRnets of
the
—
*
: Support. State Til, the gere, and care of the sifter. There is nothing more ready to fall on the earth than a stone: yet if professors of relipion be lively stones built on Christ the chief corner-itone; altho' they be little stones, they shall not fall to the earth, whatever storm beat upon them See 1 Pet. ü. 4, 5, 6. All the good grant in the church of Christ is of this kind; they are stones in reshect of
solidity; and lively stones, in respect of activity. If men be solid substantial Christians, they will not be like chaff tossed to
and fro with every wind; having so much of the liveliness that they have nothing of the {tone : and if they be lively Chriltians,
whole spirit will stir in them, as Paul's did, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry, Acts xvii. 16. they will not ly
like stones, to be turned over, hither and thither, cut and caryed, according to the lusts of men; having so much of the stone,
as leaves nothing of liveliness in them. EN Os Our God's house is a great house, wherein are not only vessels
of gold, but also of earth, 2 Tim. ü. 20. Both thele are apt to
eontra®t filthiness ; and therefore when God brings trouble upon
the church, he hath an eye to both. As for the vellels of gold, they are not destroyed, but purged by a hery trial in the furnace of affliction, as gold!miths purge their gold, Isa. i. 25. And I will turn my band upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross.“ But destruction is to the vessels of earth: * they shall be broken in shivers, as a potter's vessel, ver. 28. And the destruction (or breaking) of the transgressors, and of the sinners, shall be together.“ It seems to be an allusion to that law, for breaking the vessels of earth, when unclean; while vessels of wood, and consequently vessels of gold were only to be rinsed, Lev. xv. 12.
A Ninth benefit is Support. If chou be a branch ingrafted in Christ, the root beareth thee. The believer leans on Chrilt; 28 a weak woman in a journey, leaning upon her beloved husband, Cant. viii. 5. He stavs himself upon him, as a feeble old man stays himse!f on his staff, Ila. I. 10. He rolls himself on him, one rolls a burden he is not able to walk under, off his own back, upon another who is able to bear it, Pfal. xxii. 8. Marg. There are many weights to hang upon, and preis down the branches in Christ, the true Vine. But ye know, whatever weights hang on branches, the stock bears all; it bears the branch and the weight that is upon it too.
I{t, Christ supports believers in him under a weight of outward troubles. That is a large promise, Isa. xliti. 2. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee: aud ys
the
careles search à proc
fece, a,
!
Head II. Support.
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.” See how David was supported under a heavy load, 1 Sam. xxx. 6. His city Ziglag was burnt, his wives were taken captives, his men spoke of stoning him; nothing was left him but his God and his faith; but by his faith © he encouraged himself in is God.” The Lord comes and lays his cross on his people's shoulders; it presseth
them down ; they are like to fink under it, and therefore cry, < Master, fave us, we perish :' but he supports them under their
burden; he bears them up, and they bear their cross. Thus
the Christian having a weight of outward troubles upon him,
goes lightly under lus burden, having withal the everlasting arms underneath him. The Christian has a spring of comfort, which he cannot lole; and therefore never wants something to support him. If one have all his riches in money, robbers may take these away; and then what has he more? But though the landed man
be robbed of his money, yet his lands remain for his support. They that build their comfort on worldly goods, may quickly
be comfortleis; but they that are uvited to Christ, shall find eomfort when all the streams of worldly enjoy ments are dried up, Job vi. 13. Is not my help in me? And is wisdom driven
quite from me?” q. d. Though my substanee is gone; though
my servants, my children, my health, and soundness of body, are all gone; yet my grace is not gone too. Tho' the Sabeans have driven away my oxen and alles, and the Chaldeans- have driven away my camels; they have not driven away my faith, and my hope too: thele are yet in me, they are not driven from me; so that by them I can fetch comfort from heaven, when I can have none from earth. | | | ; 2dly, Christ supports his people under a weipht of inward troubles and discouragements. Many times heart and ficsh fail them, but then © God is the strength of their heart,“ Pal. Ixxjji. 26. They may have a weight of guilt pressing them. This is a load that will make their back to stoop, and the spirits to link: but he takes it off, and puts a pardon in their hazd, while they cast their burden over upon him. Christ takes the foul, as one marries a widow, under a burden of debt: and so when the creditors come to Christ's spouse, she carries them to her husband, confesseth the debt, declares she is not able to pay, and lays all over upon him. The Christian sometimes, through carelesiness, loseth his discharge; he canrot find it, k -wever he search for it. The law takes that opportunity; and bends u a process apainst him for a debt paid already. God hides his tece, and the soul is distressed. Many arrows go through the y: U heart
230 Support. State III.
heart now; many long accounts are laid before the man, which he reads and acknowledges. Often docs he tee the officers coming to apprehend him, and the prison door open to receive him. What else keeps him from taking utterly under discour— agements in this cafe, but that the everlasting arms of a Mediator are underneath him, and that he relies upon tte great Cautioner! Further, they may have a weight. of {trong lusts presling them. They have a body of death upon them. Death. is a weight that, pralserh the soul out of the body. A leg or an arm of death (if I may fo speak) would be a terrible load. (One lively lust will sometimes ly so heavy on a child ct God, that he can no more remove it, than a child could throw a giant from off him.) How + then are they supported under.2 whole. body of death? Why, their support is from the root that bears them, from the ever. lasting arm that is underneath them. © His grace is fusficient for them, 2 Cor. xili. 9. The great stay of the believer is not the grace of God within. him, that is a well, whole streams sometimes run dry: but it is the grace of God without him, the grace that is in Jesus Christ; which is an ever - flow ing fountain, to which the believer can never come amiss. For the Apostle tells us in the fame verse, it is the power of Christ: © Mot glad. ly therefore, faith he, will 1 rather glory in my infirmitics, tlat the power of Christ may rest upon me, or tabernacle above me, as the cloud of glory did on the Israelites, Which God spread for a covering, or shelter to them in the wilderness, Pial. cv. 3. compare lia. iv. 5, 6. So that the believer in this combat, like the eagle, first flies aloft, (by faith,) and then comes down en the prey, Psal. xxxiv. 5. © They looked to him, and were liphtened.* And finally, they have a weight of weaknels and waits upon them, but they © cast over that burden on the Lord, their strength, and he sustains them,” Psal. Iv. 22. With all thu wants and weaknesses, they are cast upon bim; as the poor, weak and naked babe, coming out of the womb, is cast into the lap of one appointed to take care of it, Pfal. xxii. 10. Though they be destitute, (as a shrub in the wilderness, which the fot of every beast may tread down,) © the Lord will regard them, Psal. cit. 17. It is no marvel, the weakest plant may be safe in a garden: hut our Lord Jesus Christ is a hedge for protechon to his weak and destitute ones, even in a wilderness. Object. But if the saints be supported, how is it that th all so often under temptation and difcouragements?' A Fr.) How long soever they fall at any time, they never fall of;
Abd that is a great matter. They are kept by the nt 7
Head II. De special Care of the Husbandman, 231
God through faith unto salvation, 1 Pet. i. 5. Hypocrites may so fall, fo as to fall off, and fall into the pit, as a bucket falls into a well when the chain breaks. But though the child of God may fall, and that fo low as the water goes over his head; yet there is {till a bond of union betwixt Chuäst and him: the chain is not broken; he will not go to the ground: he will be drawn up again, Luke 8x1. 31, 32. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you* as Wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.“ (2.) The falls of the saints flow from their not improving their” union with Christ, their not making ule of him by faith, for staying or bearing them up, Pal. xxvi. 13. © I had fainted, unless bad believed.“ While the nurse holds the child in her arms, it cannot fall to the ground: yet if the unwary child hold not by her, it may fall backwards in her arms, to its great hurt. Thus David's fall broke his bones, Psa}. li. 8. bat it did not break the bond of union betwixt Chrilt and him: The Holy | Spirit, the bond of that union, was not taken from lum, ver. 11. The Last benefit I shall name, is, The special care of the bhusbandman, John xv. 1, 2. *1 am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.— Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.“ Believers, by virtue of their union with Christ, are the objects of God's special | care and providence. Mystical Christ is God's vine, other sor WW cicties in the world are but wild olive-trees. The men of the I world are but God's out- field; the saints are his vineyard, which e he has a special propriety in, and a special concern for, Cant. vii. 12. My vineyard, which is mine, is before me.“ He that flumbers not, nor slceps, is the keeper of it, he * does keep it lest i WW any hurt it, he will keep it night and day: he in whose hand is
tir WW tlie dew of heaven, © will water it every moment,“ Isa. xvii. 2. a He drefseth and purgeth is, in order to further fruitfulness, . b, John xy. 2. He cuts off the luxuriant twigs that mar the fruitthe W fulness of the branch. This is done, especia“ y by the word, 10h and by the cross of afflictions, The saints need the ministry of oot WW the word, as much as the vineyard needeth one to dress and m, pruve the vines, I Cor. iii. 9. © We are labourers together with em
| God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.” And hou they need the cross too, 1 Pet. i. 6. |
And therefore, if we shou!d reckon the cross amongst the benefits owing to believers from their union with Christ, I Au. judge, we should not reckon it amiss. Sure! am, in their sufof erings they suffer with him, Rom. viii. 17. And the assurances ca Fe. EDS DE, mey
232 The special Care of the Husbandman, State III.
they have of the cross, have rather the nature of a promise, as
of a threatning, Plal. Ixxxix. 30, 31, 32, 33. If his children
forsake my law,—then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving Kindnels will I not utterly take from him: nor suffer my faith. fulness to fail.” This looks like a tutor's engaging to a dying father, to take care of his children left upon him; and to give them both nurture and admonition, for their good. The covenant of grace does truly beat the fpears of affliction into pruning hooks, to them that are in Christ, Isa. xxvii. 9. © By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin.“ Why then should we be angry with our cross? Why should we be frighted at it? The believer © must
take up his cross, and follow his leader, the Lord Jesus Christ,” |
He mutt take up his ilk-day's crofs, Luke ix. 23. If any man will come after me, let him deny himlelf, and take up bis cross daily.“ Yea, he must take up his holy-day?s cross too, Lam. n. 22. Thou hast called, as in a solema day, my terrors round
about.“ The church of the Jews had, of a long time, many 2
pleasing meeting at the temple, en solemn days, for the wortkip of God: but they got a solemnity of another nature, when God called topether, about the temple and city, the Chaldean army that burnt the temple, and laid Jerusalem on heaps. And now that the church of God is yet militant in this lower region, how can it be but the clouds will return after the rain? But the eros
of Christ (which name the saints troubles do bear) is a kindly
name to the believer. It is a cross indeed; but not to the believer's graces, but to his corruptions. The hypocrite's seemng graces may indeed breathe out their last on a cross, as thelc of the stony ground hearers did, Mat. xifi. 6. And when the san (of persecution, ver. 26.) was up, they were scorched: And because they had not root, they withered away.“ But never did one of the real graces in a believer die upon the cross
yet. Nay, as the candle shines brightest in the night, and the
fire burns fiercest in intense frost: So the believer's graces are, ordinarily most vigorous in a time of trouble.
There is a certain pleasure and sweetness in the cross, to them who have their senses exercised to discern, and to find it out, There is a certain sweetnes in one's seeing himself upon his tria!s for heaven, and standing candidate fer glory. There is a ple: fare in travelling over these mountains, where the Christian can see the prints of Christ's own feet, and the foot-steps of the flock, who have been there before him. How pleasant is it to à 12m
PSTTS
blows the burden off the man's back: and then he walks more | speedily on his way; after God hath drawn some pilded earth
embraces of a smiling world; and many good men have got wounds from outward prosperity, that behoved to be cured by
death. Often have spiritual imposthumes gathered in the breasts of God's people, in time of outward prosperity, and been thus broken and discussed by the cross. It is kindly for believers to be healed by stripes; although they are usually so weak as to
Head IT. The special Care of the Husbandman. 233
in the exercise of grace, to fee how a good God crosseth his corrupt inclinations, aud prevents his folly! How sweet is it to pchold these thieves upon the cross! How refined a pleasure is there in observiag how God draws away provision from unruly lusts, and fo pincheth them, that the Christian may get them governed! Of a truth there is a paradise within this thorn-hedge. Many a time the people of God are in bonds, Which are never Joosed, till they be bound with cords of affliction. God takes them, and throws them into a fiery furnace, that burns off their bonds; and then like the three children, Dan. ji. 25. they are loose, walking in the midst of the fire. God gives has children a potion, with one bitter ingredient: If that will not work upon them, he will put in a second, a third, and fo on, as there is need, that they may work together, for their good, Rom. vii. 289, With cross-winds he hastens them to the harbour. They are often found in such ways, as that the cross is the happiest foot they can meet with: and well may they salute it, as David did Abigail, saying, * Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
which sent thee this day to meet me, 1 Sam. xxv. 32. Worldly
things are often such a load to the Christian, that he moves but very slowly heaven-ward. God lends a wind of trouble that
from him, that was drawing his heart away from God, Zeph. in. 12. © I will also leave in the midit of thee, an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.“ It was an observe of an heathen moralist, That * no history makes mention of any man, who hath been made better by riches.* I doubt if our modern histories can supply the defect of ancient histories in this point. But sure I am, many have been the worse of riches; thousands have been hugged to death, in the
the cross. I remember to have read of one, who having an im- Pens in his ꝓreast, had in vain used the help of phylicians:
ut being wounded with a sword, the imposthume broke; and his life was saved by that accident, which threatned immediate
cry out for fear, at the sight of the pruning-hook, as if it were
the destroying ax : and to think the Lord is coming to kill them,
When he is indeed coming to cure them, | 1 "1 2
1 John ii. 6. If ye be brought from under the power of dars-
4 The Duties of Saints State III
I shall now conclude, addressing my self in a few words, first to saints, and next to sunners. | |
I. To you that are saints, I say, | |
First, Strive to obtain and keep up actual communion and fellowship with Jesus Christ; that is, to be still deriving fresh supplies of grace, from the fountain thereof in him by faith; and making suitable returns of them in the exercise of grace and boly
obedience. Beware of estrangement betwixt Christ and your.
fouls. If it has got in already, (which seems to be the cale of many in this day,) endeavour to get it removed. There are multitudes in the world that slight Christ, though ye should not flight him: many have turned their backs on him, that sometimes looked fair for heaven. The warm fun of outward peace and prosperity, has cansed some cast their cloak of religion rom them, who held it fait when the wind of trouble was blowing upon them: and © will ye also go away?* John vi. 67. The greatest ingratitude is stampt on your {lighting of communion with Christ, Jer. ji. 31. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel; a land of darkness? Wherefore say my people, We are lerds, we will come no more unto thee?* Oh! beloved, Ts this your kindness to your friend? It is unbecoming any wife to slight converse with her husband, but her especially who was taken
from a prison or a dunghill, as ye were, by our Lord. But
remember, I pray you, this is a very ill-chosen time to live at a
distance from God :—it is a time in which divine providence
frowns upon the land we live in; the clouds of wrath are gathering, and are thick above our heads? It is not a time for you
o be out of your chambers, Isa. xxvi. 20. They that now are
walking most closly with God, may have enough ado to stand when the trial comes; how hard will it be for others then, who are like to be surprised with troubles, when guilt is lying on their consczences unremoved. To be awakened out of a sound fleep, and cast into a raging sea, as Jonah was, will be a fearful trial. To feel trouble before we see it coming, to be past hope, before we have any fear, is a very fad case. Wherefore, break down your idols of jealousy, mortify these lusts, these irregular appetites and desires, that have stolen away your hearts, and left you, like Samson, without his hair, and say, I will go and return to my fiest husband; for then it was better with me than now,” Hof. ii. 7. | |
Secondly, Walk as becomes those that are united to Christ.
. . pe 0 f 4 . 1}. 1 U Evidence your union with him, by © walking as he allo walked,
Neis,
Pen
Head II. 24 united to Chrift. ; 235 ness, let your light shine' before men. Slüge as lights in the
world, holding forth the word of life,“ as the lanthorn holds the candle, which being in it, shines through it, Philip. h. 15, 16.
Now that ye profess Chrilt to be in you, let his inage shine forth
in vour convertation, and remember the busmess of your lives is to prove by practical arguments what ye profess. |
1. You know the character of a wife, She that is married, careth how she may please her husband' Go you and do likewise: Walk worthy of the Lord uato all pleafing,* Col. i. 10. This is the great bulinels of life; you muit please him, though it should displease all the world. What he hates must be hateful to you, because he hates it. Whatever tHusts come in fuit of your hearts, deny them, seeing © the grace of God has appeared teaching lo to do, and you are joined to the Lord. Let him be a covering to your eyes: for you have not your choice to make, it is made already; and you must not dishonour your
Head. A man takes care of his feet, for that, if he catch hold
there, it flies wp to his head. Shall I then take the members of | Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid,” says the Apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 15. Wilt thou take that beart of thine, which is Christ's dwelling-place, and lodge his
enemies there? Wilt thou take that body, Which is his temple,
and defile it, by using the members thereok, as the instruments of lin? _ |
2. Be careful to bring forth fruit, and much fruit. The branch well laden with fruit, is the glory of the vine, and of the husbandman too, John xv. 8 < Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, fo shall ye be my disciples.“ A barren tree
stands safer in a wood, than an erchard : And branches in Christ that bring not forth fruit, will be taken away and cast inte
3. Beheavenly-minded, and maintain a holy contempt of the world. Ye are united to Christ, he is your Head and Husband, and is in heaven: Therefore your hearts should be there allo, Col. wn. 1. © If ye then be rifen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Chritt sitteth at the right hand of God.“ Let the serpent's seed go on their belly, and eat the dust of this earth : but let the members of Christ be ashamed to bow down and feed with them.
4. Live and act dependently; depending by faith on Jesus Christ. That which grows on its own root, is a tree, not a branch, It is of the nature of a branch, to depead on the stock
for all, and to derive all its sap from thence. Depend on him | tor
— key
you 7
236 _ The Duties of Saints. State Ill.
for life, light, strength, and all spiritual benefits, Gal. .
I. live, yet not I, but Chrilt liveth in me: aud the life which I now live in the Ach, 1 he by the faith of the Son of God.“ For this cause, in rhe mystical union, strength is united to weakness,
life ta death, and heaven to earth: chat weaknels, geath and
earth, may monnt up on borrowed wings. Depend on him for
temporal benelits alio, March. vi. 2, © Give us this day our
daily bread.“ Ir we have trusted him with our eternal concerns, let us be ashained to distruit him in the matter of our provision in the world.
Lastly, Be of a meck dil polition, aud an uniting temper with the fellow members of Chriit's body, as being united to the meck Jesus, the blessed center of union. There; is a prophecy to this purpole concerning the kingdom of Christ, Isa. xi. 6. © The wolf shall dwell with the lamb; and the leopa: d thail ly down with the kid.“ It is an allusion to the beasts in Noah's ark. The beaits of prey, that were wont to kill and devour others, when once they came into the ark, lay down in peace with them: the
lamb was in no hazard by the wolf there; nor the kid by che leopard. There was a beantiful accomplishment of it in the ae church, Acts iv. 32. And the multitude of them that
elieved, were of one heart, and of one {ou].” And this prevails in all members of Christ, according to the meafure of the grace of God in them. Man is born naked, he comes naked into this world, as if God designed him for the picture of peace: and {urely When ke is born again, he comes not into the new world
of grace, with claws to tear, a {word to wound, and a fire in
his hand to burn up bis fellow- members in Christ - because they cannot see with his J. ght. Oh! gt is sed to fee Christ's lillies as thorns in one another's tides: Christ's lambs devouring one anether like lions; and God's diamonds cutting one another: vet it must be remembred, that sm is no proper cement for the members of Christ, tho Herod and Pontius Pilate may be made friends that way. The Apostle's rule is plain, Heb. X31. I 4. Follow peace with all men, and holiness.” To follow Peace no further than our humour, credit, and such like things, will allow us, tis too short: to pursue it further than holinels, that
8 conformity to the divine will allows us, is too far. Peace | is
preeious, yet it may be bought too dear: wherefore we mult rather want it, than purchase it at the expence of truth or holiness. But otherways it cannot be over dear bought; and it will always be precious in the eyes of the fons of peace. 3 An
Head II. The Duty of Sinners, 237
II. And now, sinners, what shall I say to you? I have given you some view of the privileges of these in the state of grace: ye have seen them afar off. But alas! they are not yours, because ye are not Christ's. The sinfulness of an unregenerate
state is yours; and the misery of it is yours also: but, ye have neither part nor lot in this matter. The puilt of all your fins lies upon you: ye have no part in the righteousness of Christ. There is no peace to you, no peace with God, no true peace of conlcience; for ye have no saving interest in the great Peace- Maker. Ye are none of God's family: the adoption we spoke of belongs not to you. Ye have no part in the Spirit of sanctification; and, in one word, ye have no inheritance among them that are sanctified. All I can say to you in this matter, is, that the case is not desperate, they may yet be yours, Rex. iii. 20. © Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.“ Heaven is proposing an union with earth still! the potter is making suit to his own clay, and the gates of the city of refuge are not yet closed. O! that we could compel you to come in.
Thus far of the State of Grace,
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The ETERNAL STATE: Or, State of consummate Happiness or Misery,
| Jos xx. 23. For I know that thou wilt bring me to Death, and to the Hacuse appointed for all Living, 1
1 Come now to discourse of man's eternal state, into which he enters by death. Of this entrance Job takes a solemn seridus view, in the words of the text, which contain a general truth, and a particular application of it. The general truth is supposed; namely, that all men must, by death, remove out of
this world; they must die. But, whither must they go? They must go © to the house appointed for all living;' to the grave, that darksome, gloomy, solitary, house, in the land of forgetfolness. Wheresoever the body is laid up, till the resurrection; thither, as to a dwelling-house, death brings us home. While We are in the body, we are but in a ledging-house: in an inn, on our way homeward. When we come to our grave, we come to our home, our long-home, Eecles. xii. 5. All living
must be inhabitants of this house, good and bad, old and young.
Man's life is a stream, running into death's devouring deeps. They who now live in palaces, mult quit them, and go home to this house; and they who have no where to lay their heads, shall thus have a house at length. It is appointed for all, by
him, whose counsel shall stand. This appointment cannot be
shitt-
Keie dhe ht af, 4.66 ww titke wa
Head II. The Certainty of Death, 229
shifted; it is a law, which mortals cannat transgress. Job's application of this general truth to himself, is expressed in these | : 3 :
words, © I know that thou wilt bring me to death,” &. He knew, that. he behoved te meet with death; that his foul and body behoved to part; that, God, who had let the tryl! t, would certainly lee it kept. Sometnnes Job was inviting dcath to come to him, and carry Him home to its house; yea, he was in hazard of running to it before the time, 0b Vil. l 55 * My soul chooseth strangling and death, rather than my life.“ But here he considers God would bring him to it; yea, bring him back to it, as the word imports, Whereby hc seems to intimate, that we have no life in this world, but as run-aways from death, which stretcheth out its cold arms, to receive us From the womb; but though we do then narrowly eicape its clutches, we cannot
escape long; we will be brought back again to it. Job knew
Although this doctrine be confirmed by the experience of all former generations, ever since Abel entred into the house appointed for all living; and though the living know that they thall die; yet it is ncedful to discourse of the certainty of death,
that it may be impressed on the mind, and duty conhdered. Wherefore consider fsirst. There is an vunalterabie statute of death, under Which men are concluded. It is appointed unto men once to die, Heb. ix. 27. It is laid up for them, as parents lay up for their children: they may look for it, and cannot mils it, seeing God has delipned and reserved it for them. There is no peradventure in it; © we must needs dic,” 2 Sam. xiv. 14. Though fone men will not hear of dcath, yet every man must fee death, Pia). Ixxxix. 48. Death is a champion afl mult grapple wich: we mult enter the lists with it, and it will have the mastery, Eccles. viii. 8. There is no man that hath power over the spirit, to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of wrath,” They indeed who are found alive at Christ's coming, shall all be changed, 1 Cor. xv. 51. But that change will be equivalent to death, will an{wer the purposes of it. All other persons must go, the common road, the way of all flesh. Sccondly, Let us consult daily observation. Every man * feeth that wise men die, likewise the Fool and brutish _ person,” Psal. xlix. 10. There is room enough, on this earth, for us, notwithstanding of the multitudes that were upon it, | be-
F % , 7 * — n 28 — hems * — . A te 8 1 0 off 4 2 —_— —— — a. — - — a y Sz = „ * a, JI __ 999 * - _ ye? — — wy 4 — 4. — 8 . * 4 — * — — —— : A008 * — * FO * C — =; — — — _— 5 2 * > p — A — . apo el 2 i ” — — 4 — * - —— — — — 4 * * — = * *
FE PRES —
„
249 The Certainty.of Death. State IV,
before us: they are gone to make room for us; as we mult depart to leave room for others. It is long since death began to
transport men into another world, and vast shoals and multitudes are gone thither already: yet the trade iz going on still; death is carrying off new inhabitants, daily, to the houle appointed for all living. Who could ever hear the grave lay, It is enough? Long has it been getting, but still it afceth. This world is like a great fair or market, where some are coming in, others going out; while the aflembly that is in it is confused, and the more part know not wherefore they are come together; or like a town situate on the road, to a great city, thro' which some travellers have past, some are passing, while others are only coming in, Kccles. i. 4. © One generation passeth away, and azother generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever,”
Death is an inexorable, irresistible messenger; who cannot be
diverted from executing his orders, by the force of the mighty, the bribes of the rich, nor the intreaties of the poor. It doth not reverence the hoary head, nor pity the harmless babe. The bold and daring cannos out- brave it: nor can the faint-hearted obtain a discharge in this war. Thirdly, The human body cConsists of perishing principles, Gen. 11. 19. Dult thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.“ The strongest are but brittle earthen vessels, easily broken in shivers. The loul is but meanly housed, while in this mortal body, which is not a house of stone, but a house of clay; the mud walls cannot but moulder away, especially seeing the foundation is not on a rock, but in the dust; they are crushed before the moth, though this insect be tender, that the gentle touch of a finger will dispatch it, Job iv. 19. These principles are like gun-powder; a very small spark, lighting on them, will set them on fire, and blow up the house. The {tone of a raisin, or a hair in milk, have choaked men, and laid the house of clay in the dust. If we consider the frame and
structure of our bodies, how fearfülly and wonderfully we are
made; and on how regular and exact a motion of the fluids, and
balance of humours, our life depends; and that death has as
many doors to enter in by, as the body hath pores; and if we compare the soul and body together, we may justly reckon, there is somewhat more astonishing in our life, than in our death; and that it is more strange, to fee dust walking up and down on the dust, than lying down in it. Though the lamp of our life be not violently blown out; yet the flame must go out at length, for want of oil. And what are those distempers and HKleases, we are liable to, but death's harbingers, that come to
pre-
*
Head J. Man's Life Vanity. 24
prepare its way? They meet us, as soon as we set our foot on
earth: to tell us at our entry, that we do but come into tlie
world to go out again. Howbeit, some are snatched away in a moment, without being warned by sickness or discase. Fourthly, We have fintul fouls, and therefore have dying bodies: death follows fin, as the shadow follows the body. The wicked mult die, by virtue of the threatning of the covenant of works, Gen. ii. 17. © In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.“ And the podly must die too; that, as death entred by fin; fan may go out by death. Christ has taken away the sting of death, as to them; albeit he has not as yet removed death itself. Wherefore though it fasten on them, as the viper did on Paul's hand, it shall do them no harm: but hecause the leprosy of sin is in the walls of the house, it must he broken down, and all the materials thereof carried forth. Lastly, Man's life in this world, according to the scriptureaccount of it, is but a few degrees removed from death. The scripture represents it, as a yain and empty thing, short in its continuance, and switt in its patling away. _
vanity.” If ye sulpect afflicted Job of partiality in this matter,
hear the wise and prosperous Solomon's character of the days of bis life, Eecles. vin. 15. All things have I seen in the days of my vanity,” i. e. my vain days.“ Moses, who was a very active man, compates our days to a sleep, Plal. xc. 5. They are as a cep, which is not noticed, till it be ended, The resemblance is pat: few men have right zpprehenstons of life, until death awaken them; then we begin to know we were living. * We spend our years as a tale that is told, ver. 9. When an idle tale is a-telling, it may affect a little; but when it is ended, it tz forgot: and fo is man forgotten, when the fable of his lite is
ended. It is as a dream, or vision of the night, in which there
is nothing solid: when one awakes, all evanisheth. Job xx. 8. * He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be fonnd; yea, he
shall be chased away as a vision of the night.“ It is but a vain
show, or image, Pfal. xxxix. 6. © Surely every man walketh in 2 vain shew.“ Man in this world, is but, as it were, a walking statue: his life is but an image of life; there is so much of
death in it.
-
If we look on our life, in the several periods of it, we will find it a heap of vanities. © Childhood and youth are vanity,” Eccles. xi. 10. We come into the world, the most helpless of
-
242 Man's Life Vanity. State IV. all animals: young birds and beasts can do sumething for tbem: a selves, but infant man is altogether unable to help hunself. Our d childhood is spent in pitiful trifling pleasures, which become the | 2 {corn of our own atter-thoughts. , Youth is a flower that soon Ir withereth, a blossom that quickly falls off; it is a space of tine WF t in which we are rash, foolish, aud inconsiderate, pleasing our- P selves with a variety of vanities, and swimming, as it were, a through a flood of them. But ere we are aware, it is past, and -S we are in midele-ape, encompassed with a thick cloud of cares, = through which we must grope ; and finding ourlelves beset with MF 8 pricking thorns of difficulties, throug: them we must force ow KM t way, to accomplish the projects and cont iivances of our riper I thoughts, And the more-we -iolace ourlelves in any earthly i... njoy ment we attain to, the more bitterness do we lind in part- | 1 ing with it. Then comes old- age, attended with its own train fc of imftrmities, “ labour and forroaw,” Pal. xc. 10. and fets us [ down next door to the gad in e word, All flesh is gras, ((e Ha. xl. 6. Every stage, or per of life, is vanity. Man at it his best state, (his middle-age, when che heat of youth 1s spent, If and the forrows of old-age have not yet overtaken him) is alto- 0 gether vanity,” Psal. xx:3ix. 5. Death carries off some.in the WM Ii bud of childhood, others in the blem of vouth, and others . b wien they are come to their fruit: few are left standing, til, 1 f like ripe corn, they forsake the ground: all die one time b or other. ; = DE 1 SECONDEY, Man's life is a short thing: it is not only 2 .t vanity, but a short-lived vawty. Consider, First, How the © Ife of man is reckoned in the scripture. It was indecd some- pP times reckoned by hundreds of years: but no man ever arrived . # at a thousand, which yet bears no proportion to eternity. n Now, hundreds are brought down to scorces; three score und ti ten, or fourscore, is its utmost length, Pfal. xc. 10. But sw ti men arrive at that length of lite. Death does but rarely wa: 1 4 till men be bowing down by reason of age, to meet the grade Qt Vet, as If years were too big a word for such a small thing as the . it life of man on earth; we find it counted by months, Job xv M 2 The number of his months are with thee.” Our course, lize TH Pp chat ot the moon, is run in a little time: we are always waxing b or waneing, till we disappear. Rut frequently it is reckoned 0 : by days; and these but few, Job xiv. 1. Man that is born ot q a woman, is of few days.“ Nav. it is but one day in scripture- : account; and that a hireling's day, who will precisely obter'® *. ex/hen his day ends, and give over his work, ver. G. Till bc shall | a,
%
Head I. Man's Life Vanity. 242accomplish as an tureling his day.“ Yea, the scripture brings it down to the shortest space of time, and calls it a morgent, 2 Cor. iv. 17. Our light affliction (though it last all our life long, ) is but for a moment.“ But el{cwhere it is brought down to yet a lower pitch, farther than which one caunot carry it, Psal. xxxix. 5. Mine age is as nothing before thee.” Agrezable to this, Solomon tells us, Eccles. iii. 2. There is a tune to
be born, and a time to die: but makes no mention of a time to kve; as if oup life were but a {kip from the womb to the grave. Secondly, Consider the various similitudes by which the scripa ture represents the shortness of man's life. Hear Hezekiah, Ha. xxxvti. 12. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life. The shepherd's tent is foon removed; for the flocks must not feed long in one place: Such is a man's ise on this earth, quickly gone. It is a web, he is incellaatly working; he is not idle so much as one moment: in a short time it is wrought, and then
it is cut off. Every breathing is a thread in this web, when the
last breath is drawn, the web is woven out, he expires, and then it is cut off, he breathes no more. Man is like grass, and
—
| like a flower, Isa. l. 6. © All ich (even the strongesi and molt
healthy flesh,) is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.“ The gras is flourituins in the morniag; but, in the evening, being cut down by tlie mowers, it is withered: fo man sometimes is Walking vp and down at egse in 3 . : g - IS; the morning; and in the evening, is ly ing a corpse, being knocked down by a ludden itroke, with one or other of death's weapons. The flower, at best, is but a weak and tender thing, of
fort continuance, where-ever it grows: but (obferve) man is not compared to the flower of the garden; but to the flower of the field, which the foot ot every beast may tread down at any time. Thus is our life liable to a thousand accidents every day; any of which may cat us of. But though we should escape all thele, yet at length this grass withereth, this lower fadeth of Hef, It is carried off, © as the cloud is consumed and vanitheth away, Job vii. 9. It looks big as the morning cloud, which promiseth great things, and raileth the expectations of the husbandman; bat the {un rijeth, and the cloud is scattered; death
comes, and man evanisheth. "The Apostle James proposeth the
question, What is your lite? chap.iv.14. Hear his own answer, It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” It is frail, uncertain, and lasteth not. It is a8 smoak, which gocs out of the chimney, as i it would darkei „ X 2 tue
* By ans
—
—
—
244 Man's Life Vanity. State IV. the face of the heavens ; but quictly is scattered, and appears no more: thus gocth man's life, and where is he! It is a wing, Job vii. 7. O remember that my life is wind.“ It is but a passing blast, a short puff, a wind that pasleth away, and cometh not again, Pla). Ixxvii. 39. Our breath is in our vol. trils, as it were always upon the wing to depart ; ever passi and repaisiag lixe a traveller ; until it go away for 8880 8 FS all, nos to return, till the heavens be no more. L ASTLY, Man's life is a {wift thing; not only a passing, but flying vanity. Have you not oblerved how fwittly a shadow hath run along the g ground, in a cloudy and windy day, suddeniy darkening the places beautified before with the beams of the
fun, but as suddenly disappearing! Such is the life of man va the earth, for © he fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not,
Job xiv. 2. A weaver's shuttle is very swift in its motion; in 2 moment it is thrown from one side of we web to the other: vet © our days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,” chap. vii. 6, How quickly is man tossed through time into eternity! See how Job detcribes the fwittnels of the time of life, chap. ix. 25. Now ny days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they sce no
good.” Ver. 26. They are hasted away as the {wift ships; as
the eagle that haiteth to the prey- He corgpares his days with 2 volt; a foot post; a runner, who runs speedily to carry tidings, and will make no stay. But, though the post were be Ahimaaz, who ov er- ran Cushi: our days would be swifter than he, for they flee away, like a man tleeing for his life, before the pursuing enemy; he runs with his utmost vigour, yet our days run as fast as ke. Howbeit, that is not all. Even he who i Acecing for his life, cannot run always; he mult needs fometines {and itil! , ly duwn, or run in fome-w here, as Sisera did int Jacl's tent, to refresh himlelf; but our time never halts. Therefore it is compar ed to slups, which can {ail night and day without intermulion, till they ve at their port; and | swift ships, 1 of desire, in which men quickly arrive at the desired havcn;
, thips of pleasure, that sail more {wiftly than ships of burden.
Yet the wind failing, the ship's courle is marred: but our time always runs with a rap id course. Theretore it is compared to the eagle fly ing: not with his ordinary fleht, ror that is not sufficient to represent the {wiftness of our day $; but when he flies upon his prey, which is with an extraordinary seittncls. And thus, even thus, our days fly away.
Having thus discour {ed of death, let us Improve it, in discertting the vanity of the world; in bearing up, with. Chriltian con- LC: **
*
Head tl. The Vanity of the World. 245
tentment and patience, under all troubles and difficulties in it;
in mortifying our lusts; in cleaving unto the Lord with purpose of heart, on all hazards; and in preparing for death's approach.
And, First, Let us hence, as in a looking-glass, behold the vanity of the world; and of all thele things in it, which men so much value aud esteem, and therefore set their hearts upon. The rich and the poor are equally intent upon this world; they bow the knee to it; yet it is but a clay god: they court the bulky vanity, and run keenly to catch the shadow; the rich man is hugged to death in its embraces; and the poor man wearies himself in the fruitless pursuit. 8 wonder if the
World's smiles overcome us; when we pursue it so eagerly, even while it frowns upon us?) But look into the grave, O man,
consider and be wile; liften to the doctrine of death; and learn, (1.) That hold as fast as thou canit, thou shalt be forced to let go thy hold of the world at length. Though thou load thyself with the fruits of this earth; yet all shall fall off when thou comest to creep into thy hole, the house, under ground, appointed for all living. When death comes, thou mult bid an eternal farewell to thy enjoyments in this world: thou must
leave thy goods to another: and © whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?“ Luke xii. 20. (2.) Thy portion of these things thall be very little ere long. If thou ly down on the grass, and stretch thy self at full length, and observe the print of thy body when thou risest, thou mayst see how much of this earth will fall to thy share at last. It may be thou shalt pet
a coffin, and a winding-sheet ; but thou art not sure of that:
Many who have had abundance of wealth, yet have not had so much when they took up their new house in the land of silence. But however that be, more ye cannot expect. It was a mortify ing lesson, Saladine, when dying, gave to his soldiers. He
called for his standard-bearer, and ordered him to take his winding-sheet upon his pike , and go ont to the camp with it,
and tell them, That of all his conquests, victories and triumphs,
he had nothing now left him, but that piece of linen to wra
bis body in for burial. Lastly, This world is a false friend, who leaves a man in time of greatest need; and flees from him when
he has most ado When thou art lying on a death- bed, all thy
friends and relations canndt rescue thee ; all thy substance cannot ransom thee ; nor procure thee a repriev e for one day; hay,
not for one hour. Yea, the more thou possessest of this world's
goods, thy sorrow at death is like to be the greater: for tho” one may live more commodiously in a palace, than in a cottage ; 1 yet
244 Man' Life Vanity. State IV. the face of the heavens ; but quel ly is scattered, and appears no
more: thus gocth man's life, and where is he? It is a wind, Job vü. 7. O remember that my life is wind.“ It is but a
passing blast, a short puff, © a wind that pasteth away, and cometh not again,” Psa). Ixxvii. 39. Our breath is in our 12
trils, as it were always upon the wing to depart; ever passiug ani repaising like a traveller; until it go away for good and all, nos to return, till the heavens be no more.
LASTLY „Man's life is a swift thing; not only a passing, but
© flying vanity. Have you not oblerveld how fwitthy a shadow
hath run along the ground, in a cloudy and windy day, sudden— iy darkening the places beautified before with the beams cf the tun, but as suddenly disappear ing! Such is the life of man om the earth, for © he fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not,
Job xiv. 2. A weaver's shuttle is very {witt in its motion; in 2 moment it is thrown from one side of whe web to the other: vet © our days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,” chap. vii. 6, How quickly is man tossed through time into eternity] See hoy Job describes the fwittnels of the time of life, chap. ix. 25. Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.” Ver. 26. They are hafted away as the {wift ships; as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.“ He compares his days with 2 post; a font post; a runner, Who runs fpcedily to carry tidings, aud will make no stay. But, though the post were be.
Ahimaaz, who over-ran Cushi: our days would be swifter than
he, tor they flee away, like a man fleeing for his life, before the
pursuing enemy; he runs with his atmoit vigour, yet our dags run as fast as lie. Howbeit, that is not all. Ex en he who i; Accing for his life, cannot run always; he mult nee ds fometimes
stand (till, 1y down, or run in fome-w here, as Sifera did into
Jael's tent, to refresa himlelf; but our time never halts. Therefore it is compar ed to ships, which can {ail night and day
without intermitsion, till they be at their port; and swift thips,-
ships of desire, in which men quickly arrive at the desired hav; or, ships of TR ure, that {ail more {wiftly than ships of burden. Yet the wind failing, the ship's course is marred: but our time always: runs with a Tapid course. Theretore it is compared to the eagle flying: not with his ordinary flight, for that is not saficient to represent the swiftness of our days; but when he flies upon his prey, which 1s with an extraordinary lwiftnete. And thus, even thus, our days fly away.
Having thus discoursed of death, let us improve it, in discerning the vanity of che world; in bearing up, with. Chr tian contel 15
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Head I. The Vanity of the World. 245
tentment and patience, under all troubles and difficulties in it;
in mortifying our lusts ; in cleaving unto the Lord with purpose
of heart, on all hazards; and in preparing for death's approach.
And, First, Let us hence, as in a looking-plass, behold the
vanity of the world ; and of all these things in it, which men
so much value aud esteem, and therefore set their hearts upon.
The rich and the poor are equally intent upon this world ; they bow the knee to it; yet it is but a clay god: they court the bulky vanity, and run keenly to catch the shadow ; the rich
man is hugged to death in its embraces; and the poor man
wearies himself in the fruitless pursuit. {Ok wonder if the world's smiles overcome us; when we pur
while it frowns upon us?) But look into the grave, O man, consider and be wile; liften to the doctrine of death; and learn,
(I.) That hold as fast as thou canst, thou shalt be forced to let go thy hold of the world at length. Though thou load thyself
with the fruits of this earth; yet all shall fall off when thou comest to creep into thy hole, the house, under ground, appointed for all living. When death comes, thou mult bid an
eternal farewell to thy enjoyments in this world: thou must
leave thy goods to another: and © whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?“ Luke xii. 20. (2.) Thy portion of these things thall be very little ere long. If thou ly down on the grass, and stretch thy self at full length, and observe the print of thy body when thou risest, thou mayst see how much of this earth will fall to thy share at last. It may be thou shalt pet a coffin, and a winding- sneet; but thou art not sure of that: Many who Fave had abundance of wealth, yet have not had so
much when they took up their new house in the land of silence. But however that be, more ye cannot expect. It was a mortifying lesson, Saladine, when dying, gave to his soldiers. He called for his standard-bearer, and ordered him to take his
winding-sheet upon his pike , and go ont to the camp with it, and tell them, That of all his conquests, victories and triumphs, he had nothing now left him, but that piece of linen to wrap
Lis body in for burial. Lastly, This world is a false friend, who leaves a man in time of greatest need; and flees from him when
he has most-ado When thouart lying on a death-bed, all thy
friends and relations canndt rescue thee; all thy substance cannot ransom thee; nor procure thee a reprieve for one day; nav, .
not for one hour. Vea, the more thou possessest of this world's
goods, thy forrow at death is like to be the greater : for tho”
one may live more commodiously in a palace, than in a cottage ; | Es TH 4 3 ved
ue it so eagerly, even
ye have little use for it.
246 A Stordhouse for
yet he may die more easily in the cottage, where he has very
State VV.
little to make him fond of life.
Secondly, It may serve as a store-house for Christian contentment and patience under worldly lesses and crosses. A lolz application of the - doctrine of death is an excellent:cmedy apainst fretting; and gives some ease to a rankled heart. When Job had sustained very great losses, he fat down contented with this meditation, Job i. 21. Naked came I out of my motner's womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” When providence brings a mortality or murrain among your cattle, how ready are you to fret and complain! But the scrious consideration of your own death (to which you have a notable help from such providential occurences) may be of use to Hlence your complaints, and quiet your rankled spirits. Look to the house appointed for all living, and learn, (I.) That ye mutt abide a sorer thrust, than the loss of worldly goods. Do not cry out for a thrust in the leg or arm; for ere long there will Le a home-thrust at the heart. You may lose your dearelt relations: the wife may lose her husband; and the husband his wife: the parents may lose their dear children, and the children their Parents. But if any of thele trials happen to you, remember you mult lose your own lite at last; and © wheretore doth a liwing man complain?“ Lam. iii. 39. It is always profitable to consider, under affliction, how our case might have been worte than it is. Whatever be consumed, or taken from us, it is cr the Lord's mercies that we ourselves are not consumed, ver. 22.
2.) It is but for a short space of time we are to be in this world, It is but little our necessities require in this short space of time; when death comes, we will stand in need of none of thele things. Why should men rac their heads with cares how to provide for to-morrow ; while they know not if they shall need any thing to-morrow ? Tho? a man's provision for his journey, be near spent, he is not difquieted, if he think he is near home: are
ou working with candle. light, andi there little of your cand!e left? It may be there is as little land in your glass? and if fo, (3.) Ye have matters of greater
weight that challenge your care. Death's at the door, bewa:e you lose not your souls. If blood break out at one part of ti body, they ule to open a vein in another part of it, to turn the {trea:;n of blood; and so to stop it. Thus the Spirit of Gg sometimes cures men of forrow tor earthly things; by opening
the keart-vein to bleed for fin, Did we pursue Teas onty things
Head 2 Cortentment ard Patience, 247
the more vigorously t that our: affairs 1 in thus life] P? -olper not, woe should thereby gain a double ady antage: our orldly forrow would be diverted, and our best treasure increased. ( 4.) Croiles of this nature will not last long. "The world's imiles aud trowns will be quic!.ly buried together in everlasting torgettulnets, Its siniles go away as the foam on the water: and its frowns are as a palling {titch in a man's fide. Time flies away with {witt wings, and carries our earthly comforts e, and crolles too, along | with it: neither of them will accompany us into the house ap- TH pointed for all living, Job ii. 17. © There the wicked cease from | troubling, and there the weary be at rest.” Ver. 13. © There the prisoners rest together, they hear not the voice of the oppressor.“ Ver. 19. © The Tmall and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.” Cast your eyes on eternity, _ ye will see, affliction here is but tor a moment. The truth „ our time is 10 very short, that it will not allow either our joys or griefs to come to per fection- Wherefore, let them that weep, be as tho chey weeped not; and they that rejoice, as tho” they rejoiced not, &c. 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30, 31. (5.) Death will put all men on a level. The king and the beggar must dwell in one houle, when they come to their journcy's end; tho their entertainment by the way be very different. The mall and the great are there, Job iii. 19. We are in this world | as on a stage: it is no great matter, whether a man act the part of a prince or a peasant; for when they have acted their parts, they mult both get behind the curtain, and appear no more. Lastly, If thou be not in Christ, whatever thy afflictions now be, troubles, a thouland times worle, are abiding thee in anothe world. Death will turn thy crosses into pure unmixed. cries: and then how gladly wouldtt thou return te thy former afflicted state, and purchale it at any rate; were there any poilibiltty of such a return. If thon be in Christ, thou mayst well bear, thy cross. Death will put an end to "all thy troubles. If a man on a journey be not well arne bene where he lodgeth only for a night, he will not trouble hi intelt much about the matter: 3 he 1s not to stay there; it is not his home. Ye are on the road to eternity let it not disquist you, that you meet with some hardships in the inn of this world. Fret not, because it is not so well with you as with jome others. One man travels with a cane in his hand: his fellow-traveller (perhaps) has but a common stick, or staff: either of them will lerve the turn. It is no great: natter which of them = yours; both will be laid alide when you come to your journey's end. N | Thirdly *
248 A Bridle to curb Lusts.
Thirdly, It may serve for a bridle, to curb all manner of lusts, particularly {ole conversant about the body. A serious visit made to cold death, and that solitary mansion, the grave, might be of good ple to repress them. es |
lt, It may be of ute to cause men remit of their inordinate care for the body; which is to many the bane of their fouls, Often do thele queltions, What shall we eat! What shall we drink? And wherewithal shail we be clothed?* leave no room for anocher of more importance, viz. © Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?“ The foul is put te the rack, to answer these mean queitions, in favour of the body; while its own eternal interests are neglected. But ah! why are men so buly to repair the ruinous cottage; leaving the inhabitant to bleed to death
State IV.
of his wounds, unbecded, unregarded? Why so much care for
the body, to the neglecting of the concerns of the immortal sou]? Ol be not so anxious for what can only serve your bodies; fince cre long, the clods of cold earth will serve for back and belly too. | | gg | 2dly, It may abate your pride on account of bodily endowments, which vain man is apt to glory in. Value not yourfelves on the blossom of youth; for while ye are in your bloaming years, ye are but ripening for a grave: and death gives the fatal.
_ ftroke, without asking any body's age. Glory not in your
strength, it will quickly be gone: the time will foon be, when you shall not be able to turn yourselves on a bed; and you mult be carried by your grieving friends to your long home. And
hat signifies your healthful constitution? Death does not always enter in soonest where it begins soonest to knock at the door; but makes as great dispatch with some in a few hours, as with others in many years. Value not yourselves on your beauty, which © shall consume in the grave,” Psal. xlix. 14. Remember the change death makes on the faireft face, Job xiv. 20. Thou changest his countenance, and sendeth bim away.“ Death makes the greatest beauty fo loathsome, that it must be buried out of sight. Could a looking-glass be uscd in the house appointed for all living; it would be a terror to these, who now look oftner into their glasses than into their Bibles. And what though the body be gorgeously arrayed? The finest clothes are but badges of our fin and shame; and, in a little will be exchanged for a winding-sheet; when the body will become a feast to the worms. | AO
zaly, It may be a mighty check upon sensuality and flesaly lusts, 1 Pet. i. 11, © I bescech you, as strangers and pilgrims,
Head I. A Bridle ts curb Lnj's. 249
abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the Hul.“ It is hard to cause wet wood take fire: and when the fire doth take hold of it, it is soon extinguithed. Sensuality makes men most unfit for divine communications, and is an effectual means to quench the Spirit. Iatemperance i in eating and drinking carries on the ruin of sou] and body at once; and hastens death, while it makes the man molt unmecet for it. Therefore, take heed to yourselves, lest at any wwe your hearts be overc bar ved with surkeiting and drunkenness; and fo that de Ly come upon you nawares,” Luke xxvi. 34. But O, how often is the {oul {truck through with a dart, in gratifying the Jenes! At thele doors destruction enters in. Therefore © Job made a covenant with his eyes, chap, x2x1. 1. Themouthof a strange woman is 2 deep pit; he char is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein,
Beware of lafciriousness; study modesty in your apparel, words and actions. The ravens of the valley of death will at length
| pick out the wanton eye: The obscene hithy tongue will ac
length be quiet, in the Jand of fiience! and ovim d Ich embracing the body in its eold arms, will e.tedtually alla, the heas of all Heshly lusts. LASTLY, In a word, it may check our cartlily mindechicso; nd at once knock down the lutt of the Hesii, the lu Sa the c. Fs
and the pride of life. Ah! if we mutt die, wh 312 we thus! Why fo fond of temporal things: fo anxio!: . ger them, so eager iu the embraces of them, lo mightily toro! .. vith the Tots
xxl. 6. Wit thou ict r 186 eyes upon chat w. m chu 1s not! For riches certainly make ae Wir ze, they lee away as an eagle towards heaven.” Riches and ail woridiy things are but a fair nothin g: they are that which. is not. They are not what they seein tSbe: they are all but on dec ts ics, that deceive the eye. ee they are not: there! 0 Finite.
ly more of nothingness and not being, than of 0 and real lit
iu che best of them. Wat is the world, and all that is in it, but a fashion, or fair thow, fuck a* men make on a it:ve, a passing arc r Cor. vii. 31. Royal pump is but a gaudy thow, or
appcaraace in God's account, Acts xxv. 735 1%e best name
they get is good things; but, oblcrye it, they ue only the wicked man's pode things. Luke xvi. 25. Thou in thy lifetime receivedit thy good things,“ lays Abraham in the parade
to the rich man in hell. And wel! nay he men of the word
call
—
250 A Spring of Christian Resolution, State IV.
call these things their goods: for there is no other good in them, about them, nor attending them. Now wilt thou set thine eyes upon empty shows and fancies? Wilt thou! caule thine eyes to fly on them, as the word is? Shall mens hearts fly out at their eyes upon them, as a ravenous bird on its prey? It they do, let them know, that, at length these shall fly as fast away from them, as ever their eyes flew upon them: like a flock of fair feathered birds, that settle on a fool's ground; the which, when he runs to catch them as his own, do immediately take wing, fly away, and, sitting down on his neighbour's ground, elude his expectation, Luke xii. 20. Thou fool, this night thy fou] shall be required of thee: then whose shall these things be? Tho' you do not make wings to them, as many do; they make themselves wings, and fly away; not as a tame hovie-bird, which may be catched again: nor as an hawk, that will sow where ne is by her bells, and be called a ain with the lare: but as an eagle, which quickly flies out of fight, and cannot be recalled. Forbear thou to behold these things, O mortal! there is no reafon, thou shouldit set thine eyes upon them. This world is a
Thou art attended by these things, as servants belonging to the inn, where thou lodge, they wait upon thee, while thou art
there; and when thou goest away, they will convoy thee to
the door. But they are not thine, they will not go away with thee; tut return to wait on other strangers, as they did on thee. Fifthly, It may serve as a spring of Christian resolution, to cleave to Christ, adhere to histruths, and continue in his ways, whatever he may suffer for so doing. It would much allay the fear of man, that bringeth a snare. © Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die?“ Isa. li. 12. Look on
pieces: for then shall ye despise them as foes, that are mortal ; whose terrors to others in the land of the living, shall quickly
ef our time, and the certainty of death, will teach vs, that all the advantage we can make by our apostacy, in time of trial, is not worth the while: it is not worth going out of the way to et it: and what we refuse to forego for Christ's sake, may quickly be taken from us by death. But, we can never lole it
what glory is it, that ye give up what ye bave in the world, when God takes it away from you by death, whether you will or not? This considerarion mav teach us to undervalue life itgreat inn, in the road to eternity, to which thou art travelling.
persecutors as pieces of brittle clay, that shall be dashed to
die with themselves. The serious coniideration of the snortness
fo honourably, as for the cause of Christ and his gospel : for,
Head I. A Spur inciting to prepare for Death, 251 self, and chuse to forego it, rather than to sin. The worst that men can do, is to take away that life, which we cannot long Keep, tho' all the world should conspire to help v< to retain the Spirit. And if we refule to offer it up to God, when he calls for it in defence of his honour, he can take it from us another way, as it farcd with him, who could not burn for Christ, but was afterwards burnt by an accidental fire in his house.
Lastly, It may ferve for a {pur, to incite us to prepare for 4 7 pur, pre
death. Consider, (1.) Your eternal state will be according to the state in lich you die: death will open the doors of heaven or hell to you. As the tree falls, {o it ihall ly thro' eternity. If the infant be dead- born, the whole world will not raife it te life again: and if one die out of Christ, in an unregenerate flate, there is no more hope of him for ever. (2.) Seriously confider what it is to go into another world: a world of spirits, wherewith we are very little acquainted. with spirits, to poor mortals, in this life! and, how dreadful is
the case, when men are hurried away into another v orld, nut
knowing but devils may be their companions for ever! let us then give all diligence to make, and advance, our acquaintance
-with the Lord of that world. (3.) It is but a short time ye
have to prepare for death, theresore, now or never: secing the time afligned for preparation will soon be over. Eccles. ix. 10.
© Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might: for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wildom iu
the grave, whither thou goeft.' How can we be idle, having 1o great a work to do, and fo little tin:e to do it in? But if the time be short, the work of preparation for death, though hard work,” will not last long. The shadows of the eveniug make the labourer work chcarfully, knowing the time to be at hand, when he shall be called in from his labour. (4.) Much of our mort time is over already: and the youngest of u>all cannot assure bimself, that there is as much of his time to come, us 15
past. Our life in the world is but a short preface to long eter- - nity: and much of the tale is told. Oh! shall we not double our diligence, when so much of our time is spent, and so little of our great work is done? (5.) The pretent time is flying away: and we cannot bring back time past, it hath taken an eternal farewel of us: there is no kindling the fire again that is burnt to ashes. The time to come is not ours: and we have no assurance of a share in it, when it comes. We hate notling we can call ours, but the present moment: and that is ffving away! how soon our time may beat an end we know not.
Die
How frighttul is converse
232 The Wicked dying, driven away State IV.
Die we must, but who can tell us, when? If death kept one set time for all, we were in no hazard of a surprise: but daily obser ration susws us, there is no such thing. Now the llyir 8 shadow of our life allows no time for loitering. The rivers run locedily into the fea from whence they came; but not so specdi- Jy as man to the dust from whence he came. The stream of time is the tote current, and quickly runs out to cteiuity, Laitly, If once death carry us off, there is no comiug back again to mend our matters, Job xiv. 14. If a man die, shall he live again? Dying * a thing we cannot pet a trial of; it is what we can do only once, Heb. ix. 27. © It is appointed unto men once to die, And that which can be but once done, and vet is of so much importance, that our all Tren on having it done icht; we have need to ute the utmost diligence, that 1 we may do it well. Therefore prepare for death, and do it tinicoully. -
If ye, who are unrepenerate, ask me, what ye shall do, to prepare for death, that ye may die lately?-1 avtwer, I have told. you already, what mult be donc. Aud that is, your nature and {tate must be changed: ye must be born again; ye mult be united to Jetus Christ by faith. Aud till this is done, Ve are not capable of other directions, which belong to one's qy ing comfortably; whercot we may di icourle afterwards in the
due place.
HE 4-3 The Difference betwixt the Righteous aud the Wicked 72 cir Death.
de Wicked is driven away in bi: Wickeqness: Righteous hath bupe in his Ds th.
PROVERBS
But the
Wi!1s text Looks like the cloud betwise the Israelites 12 having a dafk side towards the latter, and It represents death like
Kayptians: a bright Gas towards the former,
Pharaoh's javior, brizging the chief butler and the ct: ef baker the one to be refored to his office, and the
It shows the diterence betwixt the
Out of 018 P: Won $ other to be led to ere ution.
the difte F nian nam is fo chaff dies! is dr] it: 1 his li. for e hath of th. Wick: shall quent to the as for
hope! Femoy man ts the 0 passing ch aft b chamb Luke of this in 2 hy his lite garmei
and he
*
Head II. m their WW. ickedness. 1
the godly and ungodly in their death: who, as they act a very different part in life, lo, in death, have a vastly different exit. FIRST, As to the death of a wicked man: here is, (I.) The nianner of his passing out of the world, © He js driven away:* namely, in his death: as is clear from the opposite clause. He is forcibly thrust out of his place in this world; driven away as chaff before the wind. (2.) The state he palleth away in. He dies in a finful and hopelets state. First, In a sinful state: © He is driven away in his wickednets. He lived in it, and he dies in it: his filthy garments of sin, in which he wrapt up himfelf in his life, are his prison-garments, in which he shall ly wrapt up for ever. Secondly, In a hopeless stave: © But the righteous hath hope in his death: which plainly unports the hopeletine!s of the wicked in their death. Whereby is not mcant, that no wicked man shall have any hope at all, when he is a-dying, bur shall die in despair. No: sometimes it is fo indeed, but frequently it is otherwile: foolish virgins may, and often do hope to the last breath. But the wicked man has no solid hope: and as for the delusive hopes he entertains himself with, death will root them up, and he shall be for ever irretrievably miserable. SECONDLY, As to the death of a richteous man: © He hath hope in his death.“ This is ushered in with a but, importing a removal of these dreadful circumstances, with which the wicked man is attended, who * is driven away in his wickednels:? but the godly are not so. Not fo, (1.) In the manner of their passing out of the world. The righteous is not driven away as chaff before the wind: but led away as a bride to the marriagechamber: carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom, Luke xvi. 22. (2.) Not so as to their state, when passing out of this life. The righteous man dies, (I.) Not in a sinful, but in a holy state. He goes not away in his sin, but out of it. In his lite he was putting off the old man, changing his prisongarments: and now the remaining rags of them are removed, and he is adorned with the robes of glory. (2.) Not in a hopeless, but a hopeful state. © He hath hope in his death: He has the grace of hope, and the well- founded expectation of better things, than ever he had in this world: and though the stream of his hope at death may run shallow, yet he has still as much of it, as makes him venture his eternal interests upon the Lord Jesus Christ. * Doc r RINA +. 1
De Wicked dying, are driven away in their Wi:kedness,
| and in a hopeless State. |
In speaking to this doctrine, {1.) I shafl shew how, and in what sense, the wicked are © driven away in their wickedness,”
.
254 De Wicked dying, driven away State IV. at death. (2.) I shall discover the hopelessness of their state at death. And lastly 0 Apply the Whole. |
I. How, aud in what senie the wicked are © driven aw ay in their wickedness.” In discoursing of this matter, I shall br; ien inquire, (1.) What is meant by their being driven away.“ (2.) Whence tacy shall be driven, and whither. (3.) In what
respects they may be said, to be driven away in their wickednets, | But, before I proceed, et me advertise you; that you are niltaken if you tkink, that no per lons arc to be called wicked, but they who are avor vedly vitious and prophane ; as if the dev il
could dwell in none but thole whole name is legion. In (cripture account, all who are not righteous in the manner hereaficr explained, are reckoned wicked. And therefore the text divides the Whole world into two lorts, the rignteous and the wicked:
and ye will sce the lame thinp in that other text, Mal. ii. 16.
Then shall ye return, and discern be turen the righteous and the wicked.” Wherefore, if ye be not righteous, yearc-wicked, If ye have not an imputed rightcoulnels, and allo an implanted riphteousucks, or holincss; if ve be yet in your natural state, uaregenerated, not united to Christ by faith: howsoever moral and blameless in the eyes of men, your conversation may be; ye are the wicked, who shall be driven away in their wWickednch, if death find you in that state. Now,
FirsT, As to the meaning of this phrase, driven away; there are three things in it: the wicked shall Ve taken aw ay suddenly, violently, and irresfftibly.
First, Unrenewed men shall be taken away aden!) at death. Not that all wicked men die suddenly; nor that they are all wicked, who die fo, God forbid! But, (r.) Death commonly
comes upon them unexpected, and Ge surprisech them ; as the
deluge came surprisingly on the old world, tho' they were forcwarned of it long before it came: as tr he cometh on a woman with child, with surpriling suddenness; although looked for, and expected, 1 Theff.v. 3. Death feizeth them, as a creditor doth his debtor, to hale him to prison, Pfal. Iv. 15. and that when they are not aware. Death comes in, as a thick, at the
window, and finds them full of busy thoughts about this i fe,
Which that very day perish. (2.) Death always seizeth them unprepared for it: the old houle falls down about their ears, before they have another provided, When death casts them to the door, they have not where to lay their heads; unless it be on a bed of fire and brinistone. The soul and body are as it were hugging one another in mutual embraces; when death
CONS
Head IT, in their Wickednef, 25%
comes like a whirlwind, and separates them. (3.) Death hurries them away in a moment to destruction, and makes a moft dismal change: the man, for the most part, never knows where
he is, till“ in hell he lift up his eyes,” Luke xvi. 23. The foods
of wrath suddenly overwhelm his foul; and\'ere he is aware, he is plunged in the bottomlels pit.
Secondly, The unrenewed man is taken away out of the
World violentiy. Dri iving is a violent action: © he is chased out.
of the world,” Job xvili. 18. Fain woald he stay if he could: but death drags him away like a malefactor to the execution. He wught no other portion, than the profits and pleafures of this World; he hath no other; he really desires no other: 8 can he then g go away out of it, if he were not driven Quest. But may not a wicked man be willing to die! Ans. He may indeed be willing to die; but (oblerve ve) it is only in one of three cases. (1. In a fit of paslion, _by reason of some trouble that he is impatient to be rid of. Thus many persons when their passion has got the better of their reason, and w hen,
on that account, they are most unfit to die, will be ready to
cry, O to be gone! but should their desire be granted, and
death. come at their call, they would quickly shew they were | not in earnest; and that if they go, they must be driven av: ay
against their wills. (2.) When they are brim-full of despair, they” may be willing to die. Thus Saul murdered himself: and
Spira wished to be in hel}, that he might know the uttermost of
What he believed he was to suffer. In this manner men may seek after death, while it flies from them. But fearful is the
violence these do undergo, whom the terrors of God do thus
drive. (3.) When they are dreaming of happiness after death. Foolish virgins, under the power of delusion, as to their state, may be willing to die, having no fear of lying down in sorrow. How many are there, who can give no N e ground for their hope, who yet have no bands in their death! Many are driven to darkness sleeping; they go off like lambs, who would rore like lions, did they but know what place they are going to! thouph the chariot, in which they are, drive furiously to the depths of hell, yet they fear not, because they are fast asleep. Lastly, The unrepencrate man is taken away irresistibly.
He must go, though fore against his will. Death will take no refusal, nor admit of any deiay; tho? the man has not lived half bis days, according to his own computation. If he will
not bow, it will break him. IF he will not come forth, it will
pull the house down about his ears; for there he mutt not tay. S. 4 Al-
—
235 De Wicked dying, driven away
the judge gement.“
State IV. Althon gh the physician help, friends groan, the wife and the
children cry, and the man himself use his utmost efforts to retain
the Spirit, his soul is required of him; yield he must, and go where he shall neyer more lee light. | SECONDLY, Let us consider, whence they are dives. and whither. When the wicked die, (I.) They are driven out of this world, where they fianed;- into the other world, where they mutt be judged, and receive their particular sentences, Heb. ix. It is appointed unto men once lo die, but after this They shall no more return to their beloved earth. Tho' their hearts are wedded to their eart!? ly enjoyments, they mult leave them; they can carry nothing hence, How forrowfal mult their departure be, when they have nothing in view, so good as that which they rh behind them!
(2.) They are driven out of the society of the saints on ear ti,
into the lociety of the damned in hell, Luke xvi. 22. The rich
man also died, and was buried. Ver. 23. And in hell he litt up his eyes.“ What a multitude of the devil's goats do now take place among Christ's theep! but at death they shall be
led forth with the workers of iniquity,” Pial. cxxv. 5. There is a mixed multitude in this world, but no mixture in the other; each party is there set by themselves. Tho hy pocrites grow here as tares among the wheat; death will root them up; and they shall be bound in bundles for the fire. 3.) They are driven out of time into eternity. While time As with them,
there is hope; but when time gocs, all hope goes with it.
Precious time is now lavishly spent : it lies fo heavy upon the
hands of many, that they think themselves obliged to take scveral ways to drive away time. But beware of being at a loss what to do in life: improve time for eternity, whillt you 15 it: for ere long death will drive it from you, and you from
so as ye shall never meet again. (4.) They are driven out 0 = their specious pretences to picty. Death strips them of the
splendid robes of a fair profession, with which some of them
were adorned; and turns them off the stage, in the rags of a wicked heart and life. The word hypocrite proper ly signifies
a stage-player, who appears to be what indeed he is not. iv:
world is the stage on which these children of the devil per fonate
the children of God. Their shew of religion is the player's coat, under which one mast look, who will judge of them aright. Now death turns them out of their coat, and then they ap] pear in their native dress: it unveils them, and takes off their mall,
There are none in the other World, who prevend to be better | than
Head IT, in their Wictednesy. 257 than they really are. Depraved nature acts in the regions of horror, unallayed, and undijouifed. Laltly, They are driven away from all means of grace: and are set beyond the line, quite out of 211 projpect of mercy. There is no more an opportunity to buy o tor the lamp: It is gone out at death, and can never be lighted again. There may be offers of mercy and peace made alter tugy are gone; but they are to others, not to them; there are no juch offers in the place to which they are driven; thele offers are only made in that place, from which they are driven a Way. :
Lasrty, in what respect may they be said to be driven away
away in their sinful unconverted state. Having lived enemies to God, they die in a state of enmity to him: for none are tought into the eternal state of consummate happiness, but by the way of the tate of grace, or begun recovery in this life. The child that 1s dead in the womb, is born dead, and is cast out of the womb into the grave: so he who is dead, while he liveth, or is spiritually dead, is cast forth of the womb of time, in the same state of death, into the pit of utter misery. O milerable death, to die in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity! it had been incomparably better for such as die thus, that they had never been born. (2.) In regard they die sinning, acting wickedly against God, in contradiction to the divine law: for they can do nothing but sin while they live. So death takes them in the very act of finning; violently draws them from the embraces of their lusts, and drives them away to the tribunal
to receive their sentence. It is a remarkabie expreshon, Job
© their soul dieth in youth:* their lusts being lively, their defires vigorous, and expectations big, as is common in youth. And their life is among the unclean:* or, * and the company (or herd) of them dieth among the Sodomites:? 1, e. is taken away in the heat of their sin and wickedness, as the Sodomites were, Gen. xix. Luke vii. 28, 29. (3.) In as much as they are driven away, loaded with the guilt of all their fins: this is the winding-sheet, that © shall ly down with them in the dust, Job Xx, IT. Their works follow them into the other world: they
go away with the yoke of their transgressions wreathed about
their necks. Guilt is a bad companion in life, but how terrible
will it be in death! it lies now, perhaps, like cold brimstone on
their benum'd consciences; but. when death opens the way for sparks of divine vengeance, like fire, to fall upon it; it will make | | T 3 dread-
- dreadful flames in the conscience, in which the foul will be as jt
were wrapt up for ever. Lastly, The wicked are driven away in their wickedness, in so far as they die under the absolute power of their wickedne's. While there is hope, there is some restraint on the worst of men: and these moral endowments, Which God gives to a number of men, for the benefit of mankind in th:s lite,
are so many allays aud restraints upon the impetuous wickedne)z of human nature. But all hope being cut off, and these gifts
withdrawn, the wickedness of the wicked will then arrive at ns perfection. As the feeds of grace sown in the hearts of the elect, come to their full maturity at death: fo wicked and hell; Ih dispositions in the reprobate come then to their highest pitch, Their prayers to God will then be turned to horrible curses; and their praises to hideous blasphemies, Matth. xxii. 13. There snall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth. This gives a dismal, but genuine, view of the state of the wicked in another world.
II. I shall discover the hopelessness of the state of unrenewed mcn, at death. It appears to be very hopeless, it we consider these four things:
First, Death cuts off all their hopes and prospects of peace and plcasure! m this life. Luke xii. 19. Soul, thou hast much
goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink and be
3 Ver. 20. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night
thy foi] shall be required of thee ; then whole mall those things
be, which thou hast provided! They look for great matters in this world; they hope to increase their wea'th, to fee their tanalies prosper, and to live at ease: but death comes like a stormy wind, and shakes off all their fond hopes, like green fruit from eff a tree. When he is about to fill his belly, God fhall cait the fury of his wrath upon him,” Fob xx. 23. He may bepin a web of contrivances, for advancing his worldly interest: but before he gets it wrought out, death comes, and cuts it out,
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth: in that very
day bis thoughts perish,” Plal. cxlvi, 4. Secondly, When death comes, they have no solid grounds to
5 hepe for cternal happiness : * For what is the hope of the bypocrite, tho? he hath gamed, when*God taketh away his foul ?? Job xvii. 8. Whatever hopes they fondly entertain, they arc not founded on God's word, which is the only sure ground of
hope: ic they knew their own case, they would fee themsclves
only happy in a dream. And-indced what hope can they have! The law is plain against them, and condemns them. 1. he curles
e' it (these cords of death) are about them already. oy a”
:
„
Head II. The Hepelesness of the Unregenerate. 259
Saviour, whom they flighted, is now-their judge; and their
udge is their enemy. How then can they hope? They have bolted the door of mercy againit themselves, by their unbelict. They have despised the remedy, and therefore must die without mercy. They have no saving interest in Jesus Chrift, the only channel of conveyance, in which mercy flows; and therefore they can never taste of it. The sword of justice guards the door of mercy, so as none can enter in, but the members of the mystical body of Chrut, over whole heads is a covert of atoning blood, the Mediator's blogd. These indeed may pass without harm, for Justice has nothing to require of them. But others cannot pals, since they are not in Chritt: death eomes to them with the (ting in it, the sting of unpardoned guilt, It is armed against them with all the force the lanction of a holy law can give it, 1 Cor. xv. 56. The sting of death is fin, and the strength of fin is the law.“ When that law was given on Sinai, the Whole mount quaked greatly, ExoOd. xix. 18. When the Redeemer was making satisfaction for the elect's breaking of it, the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, Matth. xxvil. 51. What possible ground of hope then is there to the wicked man, when death comes upon him armed with the foree of this law? How ca he escape that fire, which © burat unto the midst of heaven? Deut. iv. 11. How fhall he be able to stand in that fnoke, that © ascended as the smoak of a furnace?“ Exod. xix. 18. How will he endure the terrible thunders and lightnings, ver. 16. and dwell in * the darkness, clouds and thick darkness?* Deut. iv. II.“ All theie resemblances heaped together, do but faintly represent the fearful tempest of wrath and
indignation, which fhall pursue the wicked to the lowelt hell: aud for everabide on them, who are driven to darknels at death,
Thirdly, Death roots up their delusfive hopes of eternal hap.
piness: then it is their covenant with death, and agreement. With heli is broken, They a:e awakned out of their golden dreams, and at length lift up their eyes: Job. viii. 14. © Whose hope sha!l be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.? They trust all shall be well with them after death: but this their trust is but a web woven out of their own bowels, with a great deal of art and industry. They wrap themselves up in this their hope, as the spider wraps herself in her web. But it 1s but a weak and flender defence; for however it may withstand the threatnings of the word of God; death, that besom of
dest ruftion, will sweep them and it both away, fo as there shall not be the least shred of it left them; but he, who this moment e will
ado: - - Cautions egainf} Skate IV.
will not let his hope go, shall next moment be utterly hopelese. Death overturns the houle built on the iand: it leaves no man under the power of delusion. |
Lastly, Death makes their state absolutely, and for ever hopeless. Matters cannot be retrieved and amended after death, For, (I.) Time once gone can never be recalled. If cries or tears, price or pains, could bring time back again; the wicked man might have hope in his death. But tears of blood will not prevail; nor will his roaring for millions of ages, cause it to return. The sun will not stand {till until the fluggard awake, and enter on his journey: and when once it is gone down, he needs not expect the night to be turned into day for his sake: he mult lodge thro” the long night of eternity, where his time lett him. (2.) There is no returning to this life, to amend what is amiss: it is a state of probation and trial, which terminates at death; and therefore we cannot return to it again: it is but once we thus live, and once we die. Death carries the wicked man to his own place, Acts i. 25. This life is our working day: death closeth our day and our work together. We may readily imagine the wicked might have some hope in their death; if, after death has opened their eyes, they could return to life, and
have but the trial of one Sabbath, one offer of Christ, one day,
or but one hour more, to make vp their peace with God: but, man lieth down, and riscth not till the heavens be no more: they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their fleep.” Job xiv. 12. Lastly, In the other world, men have no accels to get their ruined state and condition retrieved, if they never so fain would. © For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wildom in the grave whither thou goest, Eccles. ix. 10. Now a man may flee from the wrath to come; now he may get into a refuge: but when once death has done its work, the door is shut: there are no more offers of mercy, no more pardons: where the tree is fallen, there it must ly. | | |
Let what has been said be carefully pondered, and that it may be of use, let me exhort you. |
First, To take heed that ye entertain no hopes of heaven, but what are built on a solid foundation: tremble to think what fair hopes of happiness death sweeps away like -obwebs ; how the hopes of many are cut off, when they teem to themselves to be on the very threshold of heaven ; how, in the moment they expected to be carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, into the regions of bliss and peace, they are carried by devils into the society of the damned in hell, into tlie place of torment, and
*
Head I. false Hopes of Heaven. 261
regions of horror. I beseech you to beware, (1.) Of a hope built up, where the ground was never cleared. The wise builder digged deep, Luke vi. 48. Were our hopes of heaven never shaken? but ye have had good hopes all your days! Alas for it; you may lee the myftery of your case explained, Luke xi. 21. When a strong man armed Keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.” But if they have been shaken, take heed lest there have only some breaches been made in the old building, which you have pot repaired again, by ways and means of your own. I assure you, your hope (howloever fair a building it is,) is not to trust to; unless your old hopes have been razed, and you have built on a foundation quite new. (2.) Beware of that hope which looks briix in the dark; but loseth all its lustre when it is set in the light of God's word, when it is examined and tried by the touchitone ef divine revelation, 1 John ii. 20. For every onę that doth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, left his deeds should be reproved, Ver. 21. But he that doth the trikh, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manitest, that they are wrought in God.“ That hope, which cannot abide scripture- trial, but sinks when searched into by sacred truth, is a delusion, and not a true hope: for God's word is always a friend to the graces of God's Spirit, and an enemy to delusion. (3.) Beware of that hope, which ftands without being supported by scripture evidences. Alas! many are big with hopes, who cannot pive, becaule they really have
not any scripture- grounds for them. Thou hopest that all shall |
be well with thee after death: but what word of God is it, on which thou hast © been caused to hope? Psal. cxix. 49. What scripture- evidence hast thou to prove, that thy hope is not the hope of the hy pocrite? What hast thou, after impartial selfexamination, as in the sight of God, found in thytelf, which the word of God determines to be a sure evidence of his right to eternal life, who is possessed of it? Numbers of men are ruined with such hopes as stand unsupported by {cripture-evidence. Men are fond and tenacious of the!e hopes; but death will throw them down, and leave the self-deceiver hopeless. Lastly, Beware of that hope of heaven, which doth not prepare and dispoie you for heaven, which never makes your foul more holy, I john iii. 3. Every man that hath this hope in bim, purisieth himielf, even as he is pure.“ The hope of the molt part of men 1, rather a hope to be rree of pain and torment in another lite; than a hope of true happinets, the nature whereof is not understaod and discerned: dad therefore it stakes down in Roth and
;
.
*
Exhortation to Sinners.
State IV. indolence, and docs not excite to mortification and a heavenly lite. So far are they from hoping aright for heaven; that they must own, if they speak their genuine sentiments, removing out of this world into any other place whatsoever, is rather their
fear than their hope. The glory of the heavenly city does not at all draw their hearts upwards towards it; nor do they lift up their heads with joy, in the proipect of arriving at it. If they had the true hope of the marriape-day, they would, as the bride, the Lamb's wife, be making themselves ready for it, Rev. xix. 7. But their hopes are produced,by their ffoth, and their sloth is nourjshed by their hopes. Oh! Sirs, as ye would not be driven away hopeless in your death, beware of these hopes.
Raze them now, and build on a new foundation, lest death leave
not one stone of them upon one another, and ye never be able to hope any more. |
Secondly, Hasten, O sinners, out of your wickednels, out of your sinful state, and out of your wicked life: if ye would not at death be driven away in your wickednels. Remember the fatal end of the wicked man, as the text represents it. I know there is a great difference in the death of the wicked, in respect of some circumstances: but all of them, in their death, agree in this, that they are driven away in their wickedneis.' Some of them die resolutely, as if they icorned to be afraid. Some in
raging despair, so filled with horror, that they cry out, as if they were already in hell: others in sullen despondency, opprest with fears, infomuch,-that their hearts are sunk within them, upon the remembrance of mis- spent time, and the view they have
of cternity ; having neither head nor heart to do any thing tor
their own relief. And others die stupid: they lived like beasts,
and they die like beasts, without any concern on their spirits
about their eternal state. They groan under their bodily
distress, but have no sense of the danger of their souls. One may with almest as much prospect of success speak to a stone, as to speak to them: vain is the attempt to teach them, nething that can be said moves them. To discourse to them, either of the joys of heaven, or the torments of hell, is to plow aa a rock, or beat the air. Some die like the foolish virgins, dreaming of heaven: their foreheads are steeled against the fears of hell, with presumptuous hopes of heaven. Their business, Who would be useful to them, is not to answer doubts about the case of their souls; but to dispute them out of their false hopes. But which way soever the unconverted man dies, he is“ driven away in his wickednets.' G dreadful case! Qh, let the conlideration ry lg 4 : : 1OF-
Hea
horr sel ve Red: to hc live! And to he base. fins, you, 2s so Bp tion! but in th any alas wich of tl mali mak to a bear for
Head IT. State of the Gedly, &c. "WY
horrible a departure out of this world, move you tobetake yourselves to Jesus Christ, as an all-sufficient Saviour, an Almighty Redeemer. Let it prevail to drive you out of your wickednefs, to holiness of heart and life. Though you reckon it pleasant to live in wickedness; you cannot but own it is better to die in it. And if you leavs it not in time, you shall go in your wickednels to hell, the proper place of it, that it may be ict there in its own base. For when you are palling out of this world, all your fins, from the eldest to the youngeit of them, will {warm about you, hang upon you, accompany you to the other world; and, as so many furics, surround you there for ever.
| Lastly, O be concerned for others, especially for your relations, that they may not continue in their siaful natural state,
but be brought into a state of sal vation; lest they be driven way in their wickedness at death. What would ye not. do to prevent any of your friends dying an unimely and violent death? but zlas! do not ye lee them in hazard of being driven away in their
wickednels? Is not death approaching them, even the youngest
of them? And are they not strangers to true Christianity, remaining in that state in which they came inte the world? Oh! make haste to pluck the brand out of the fire, before it be burut
£20 ashes. The death of relations often leaves a {ting in the
hearts of these they leave behind them, for chat they did not do
for their fouls, as they had opportunity; and that now the.
opportunity is for ever taken out of their hands.
of he State of the Godly in Death, is a hopeful Stale.
We have seen the dark fide of the cloud looking towards ungodly men, passing out of the world: let us now take a view of the brigkt fide of it, shining on the gotlly, as they are entring upon their eternal state. In discoursing this subfect, 1 shall confirm this doctrine, answer an objection agaiust it, and then make some practical improvement of the whole. 1
For confirmation, let it be observed, That although the passage out of this wor!d by death, have a friphtful aspect to
oor mortals; and to miscarry in it mult needs be of fatal concquonce; yet the following circumstances make the state of the godly in their death, happy and hopetul.
First, They have a trusty good friend before them in the other world: Jesus Christ their belt friend, is Lord of that land to which-death carries them. When Joleph seat for his father
rag = nt;
2564 State of the Godly State IV,
to come down to him to Egypt, telling him, © God had made him Lord over all Egypt,” Gen. xlv. 9. and © Jacob faw the waygons Joleph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob revived,” ver. 27. He frankly re{otves to undertake the journey, I think, when the Lord calls a godly man, out of this werld, lie seads him fuch glad tidings, and {uch a kind invitation into the other world; that if be had faith to believe it, his spirit must revive, when he sees the waggon of death, which comes to carry him thither. It is true indeed, he has a weighty trial to undergo; after death the judgment.“ But the cafe of the godly is altogether hopeful; for the Lofd of the land is their husband, and their husband is their Judge: The Father hath committed
all judgment unto the Son, John v. 22. And surely the case
of the wife is hopeful, when her own husband is her judge; even such a husband as hates putting away. No husband is so loving and so tender of his spouse, as the Lerd Christ is of his. One would third, it would be a very bad land, which a wife would not willingly go to, where her husband is the ruler and judge. Moreover, their Judge is the Advecate, 1 John ii. 1. We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” And therefore they need not fear their being put back, and falling into condemuation. What can be more favourable? Can they think; that he who pleads their cause, will himself pass sentence
against them: Yet further, their Advocate is the Redeemer; they are © redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,” 1 Pet.
7. 18, 19. So when he pleads for them, he is pleading his own cause. Though an advocate may be careless of the interest of one who employs him; surely he will do his utmost to defend his own right, which he hath purchased with his money: And shall not their Advocate defend the purchase of his own blood!
But more than all that, their Redeemer is their head, and they are his members, Eph. v. 23, 30. Though one were h hilly as
to let his own purchase go, without standing up to defend his
right, yet surely he will not quit a limb of his own Body. Is not their case then hopeful is death, who are so closely linked
and allied to the Lord of the other world, who hath the keys of hell and death. 555 > . Secondly, They shall have a safe passage to another world. They must indeed go through the valley of the shadow of death; but tho? it be in itself a dark and shady vale, it shall be a valley
of hope to them: they shall not be driven thro! it, but walk
thro' it; as men in perfect safety, who fear no evil, Plal. xxi1. 4.
Why should they fear? They have the Lord of the land's safe | con-
Head H. in Death, hopeful. 265
conduct, his pass sealed with his own blood, namely, the blessed covenant, which is the sajat's death-bed comfort. 2 Sam. xxili. 5. Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting COVENANT, ordered in all things and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although ke cause it not to grow.“ Who then can harm them! It is fate riding in Christ's chariot, (Cant. ii. 9.) both thro! life and death. They have good and honourable attendants, a guard, even a guard of angels. These encamp about them in the time of their life: and surely they will not leave them in the day of their death. These happy ministering spirits are attendants on their
„ Lord's bride, and will doubtlels convey her fate home to his house. When friends in mournful mood stand by the faint's
bed-Jide, waiting to see him draw his last breath; bis soul is,
- TH } waited for of holy angels, to be carried by them into Abraham's boloin, Luke xvi. 22. The Captain of the saint's salvation is the Captain of this holy guard: he was their guide even unto death, and che will be their guide through it too. Plal. xxili. 4. © Yea,
though! walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
| pasgthat river, being confident it shall not overflow them; and maj walk through that fire, being sure they shall not be burnt by zt. 0 OT RET TI eath can do them no harm. It cannot even hurt their boqq;es: for tho' it separate the soul from the body, it cannot separate the body from the Lord Christ. Even death is to them
1 ni no evil; for thou art with me.“ They may without fear
upfin a grave, as in their Lord's cabinet. They lie in a grave | | mellowing; as precious fruit laid up to be brought forth to him | at the resurrection. The husbandman has corn in his barn, and corn lying in the ground: the latter is more precious to him than the former; because he looks to get it returned with in- 11 bo Even so the dead bodies of the saints are valued by their
\ | aviour: © they are sown in corruption, to be © raised in incor- \ | vuption: sown in dishonour, raised in glory,” 1 Cor. xv. 42,43. It cannot hunt their souls. It is with the fouls of the saints at J death, as with Paul and his company in their voyage, whereof ve have the history, Acts xxvii. the ship was broke in pieces, but we passengers got all safe to land. When the dying saint's speech is laid, his eyes set, and his last breath drawn, the soul Ldets safe away into the heavenly paradise, leaving the body to return to its earth; but in the por hope of a re · union * | Als globut Sleep in Jefus, 1 Thess. iv. 14. They continue members of Christ, though in a grave. Their dust is precious dust, laid
=_ State xf the Godly State IV.
- glorious resurrection. How can death hurt the godly ? it is 2 toiled enemy: if it cast them down, it is only that they may rise
up more plorious. Our Saviour Jesus Chriit © hath abotished-
DEarh, 2 Tim. i. 10. The foul and life of it is gone: it is but a walking shade that may fright, but cannot hurt saints: it is only © the shadow of death to them; it is not the thing itlelf: their dying is but as dying, or somewhat like dying. The Apostle tells us, It is Christ that died, Rom. viii. 34. Stephen the first Christian martyr, though stoned to death, yet but fell asleep, Acts viii. 34. Certainly the nature of death js quite changed with rcipeet to the saints. It is not to them, what it was to Jesus Chritt their head: It is not the invenomcd winating thing, wrapt up in the sanction of the first covenar-, Gen. ii. 19. In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.“ It comes to the godly without its sting: they may meet it with that salutation, O death, where is thy sting?* Is this Mara! Is this bitter death? It went out full into the world, when the | first Adam opened the door to it: but the second Adam hath broupht it again empty to his own people. I feel a sting, may the dying faint say; yet it is but a bce-sting, stinging only through the (kin; but O death, where, ts hy sting, thine old sting, the serpent's ng, that stings to the heart and foul? The sting of death is Sin: | the saint, and carry him' before the Judge, to answer for tlc debt he contracted, the debt will be found paid by the glorious Cautionèr: and he has the discharge to show. The thorn of guilt is pulled out of the mau's confeience; and his name is ee. of the black roll, and written among the living in Jerusalem. It is true, it is a great journey to go through the valley of the shadow of death: but the saint's burden is taken
away from off his back, his iniquity is pardoned, he may walk 5
at ease; no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast: the
redeemed may walk at. leisure there, free from all apprehensions
- of danger.
LasTLY, They shall have a joyful entrance into the other warld. Their arrival in the regions of bliss, will be celebrated with rapturous hymns of praise to their glorious Redeemer. A dying day is a good day to a godly man. Yea, it is his best day; it is better to him than his birth-day, or than the most
. Joyous day he ever had on earth. © A good name,” lays the wile man, is better than precious ointment: and the day of death, than the of one's birth,” Eccl. vii.1. The notion of the immort. of the soul, and of future happiness, which obtained
ut that is taken away. If death arrest
Head II. in Death, hopeful. 265
among some Pagan nations, had wonderful effects on them. Some of them when they mourned for the dead, did it in'wemen's apparel; that being moved with the indecency of the garb, they might the sooner lay aside their mourning, Other: | buried them without any lamentation or mourning; but had a ö sacrifice, and a feast for friends upon that occasion. Some were wont to mourn at births, and rejoice at burials. But the practice of some Indian nations is yet more strange, of whom it is reported, that upon the husband's deccase, his several wives were in use to contend, before the judges, which of them was
the best beloved wife: and she, in whole favours it was determined, with a chearfu! countenance, threw herself into the flames
prepared for her Lusbaud's corpse, was burned with it, and
reckoned happy; while the rest lived in grief, and were ac- a
counted miserable. But, howsoever lame notions of a future;
state, assisted by pride, assectation of applause, apprebensions of — Of. _ difficulties in this life, and such like principles, proper to deprav- q
ed human nature, may inssuence rude, uncultivated minds, when ;
strengthned by the arts of hell: O! what solid joy and consola- | tion may they have who are true Christians, being in Christ, \ | who * hath brought life and immortality to light by the gospel!” : 2 Tim. i. 10. Death is one of these * all things, that work
; together for good, to them that love God,“ Rom. viii. 28. {| : When the body dies, che sou] is perfected: the body of death | : goes off at the death of the body. What harm did the jaylor [| ; to Pharaoh's butler, when he opened the prison door to him, 4 and let him out? Is the bird in worse cafe, when at liberty, than N when confined in a cage? Thus, and no worse, are the fouls of 1 5 the saints treated by death. It comes to the godly man, as ill SF Haman came to Mordecai with the royal apparel and the horie, 1 „ Estheriv. 11. with commission to do them honour; howsocver A f aukwardly it be performed: I queRion not but Haman performed the ceremony with a very ill mein, a pale face, a down - look, and a cloudy epuntenance, and like one who came to hang him, rather than to honour him. But he, whom the king delighted to honour, bchoved to be honoured; and Haman,
n f Mordecai's grand ene ay, must be the man emploved to put this ik honour upon him. Glory, glory, glorv, blesliug and praise to 4 our Redeemer, our Saviour, our Mediator, by whole death, b grim devouring death is made to do such a od office to thosc, 2 hom it might otherwile have hurried away in their wickedness, 10 to utter and eternal destruction! a dying- day is, in itself, a joy- . | fulday to thegodly, it is their redemption day; when the cap-
£2 tives
263 An Oljection answered, State IV,
tives are delivered, when the prisoners are sct free, It is the day oi the pilgrims coming home from their pilgrimage; the day in which the heirs of glory return from their travels, to their own country, and their Father's house; and enter into actual possession of the glorious inheritance. It is their marriage-day; now is the time of espousals; but then the marriage is consummate, and a marriage-feast begun, which has no period. If fo, not the state of the godly in death a hopeful state?
OzJrtct. © But if the state of the godly in their death be so hopeful, how comes it to pass that many of them, when dying, are full of fears, and have little hope?” Axsw. It mult bg exYned, that saints do not all dic in onc and the same manner: there ls a diversity among them, as well as among the wicked: yet the worst case of a dying faint is indeed a hopeful one. Some die triumphantly, in a full assurance of faith, 2 Tim. iv. 6. The time of my departure is at hand. Ver. 7. I have fought a good fipht, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Ver. 8. Henceforth there is laid up for inc a crown of righteousiels.”
They get a taste of the joys of heaven, while here on earth; and
begin the songs of Zion, while yet in a strange land. Others die in a solid fiducial dependence on their Lord and Saviour: though they cannot sing triumphantly, yet they can and will say confidently, © The Lord is their God.“ Though they cannot triumph over death, with old Simeon, having Christ in his arms, and saying, © Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peate, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvatien,
Luke i. 29, 30. yet they can say, with dying Jacob, * I have
waited for thy salvation, O Lord, Gen. xlix. 18. His left hard
is under their head to support them; though his right hand doth |
not embrace them: they firmly believe, though they are not filled with joy in believing. They can plead the covenant, and
hang by the promise, alto their house is not so with God, as
they could wish. But the dying day of some saints may be like
that day mentioned, Zech. xiv. 7. © Not day, nor night.“ They
may die under great doubts and fears; setting as it were, in
cloud, and going to heaven in a mist. They may go mourning
without the sun, and never put off their spirit of heaviness, till death strip him of it. They may be carried to heaven through the confines of hell; and may be pursued by the devouring lion, even to the very gates of the new Jerusalem; and may be compared to a ship almost wrecked in sight of the harbour, which yet gets safe into her port, 1 Cor. iii. 15. If any man's * works {hall be burnt, be shall suffer loss: but he himself 10
Head II. © An Objection answered: 269
© be saved, yet so as by fire.” There is safety amidst their fears, but danger in the wieked's strongest confidence: and there is a plessed sced of gladness in their greatest forrows, Light is fown--- for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart, Pfal. xcvii. 11.
Now, faints are liable to such perplexity in their death,
because, tho' they be Christians indeed, yet they are men of alike
passions with others ; and death is a frightful object in itself, '
whatever dress it appear in: the stern countenance, with which it looks at mortals, can hardly miss of causing them shrink. - Moreover, the faints are of all me;: the most -jealous of theme felves. They think of eternity, and of a tribunal, more deeply thin others do: with them, it is a more {crious thing to die than the rest of mankind are aware of. They know the deceits of
the heart, the subtilities of depraved human nature, better than
others do. And therefore tney may have much ado to k ep up hope on a death-bed: while others pals off quietly, like shcep to the slaughter; the rather that Satan, who useth all his art to support the hopes of the hypocrite, will do his utmost to mar the peace, and increase the fears of the saint. Finally, The bad frame of spirit, and ill condition, in which death sometimes seizeth a true Christian, may cause this perplexity. By his
being in the state of grace, he is indeed always habitually prepared for death, and his dying safely is insured; but there is more requisite to his actual preparation, and dying comfortably; his spirit must be in good condition too. e Wherefore there are three cases, in which death cannot but be very uncomfortable to a child of God. (I.) If it seize him at a time when the guilt of some particular fin unrepented ot, is lying on his conscience; and death comes on that very account to take him out of the land of the living; as was the case of
many of the Corinthian believers, 1 Cor. xi. 30. For this cause
8 of unworthy communicating,) many are weak and ickly among you, and many sleep.” If a person is surprised with the approach of death, while lying under the guilt of fome unpardoned fin, it cannot but cause a mighty consternation. (2.) When death catches him napping. The mighty cry must be frightFul to sleeping virgins. The man who lies in a ruinous
house, and awakens not till the timber begins to crack, and tke
stones to drop down about his ears, may indeed get out of it safely, but not without fears of being crushed by itsfall. When a Christian has been going on in a course of security and back-
| Viding, and awakens not till death comes to his bed-lide ; it is
*
„
R TOE \ SA Fob. he Ne eas
270 Cases of Saints State IV.
no marvel # he get a fearful awakening. Lastly, When he bas lost fight of his faving interest in Christ, and cannot produce evidences of his title to heaven. It is hard to meet death withaut some evidence of a title to eternal lite at hand: hard to go through the dark valley without the candle of the Lord shining upon the head. It is a terrible adventure to launch out into eternity, when a man can make no better of it, than a leap in the dark, not knowing where he shall light, whether in heaven or hell. | | Nevertheless, the state of the saints, in their death, is always in itself hopeful. The presumptuous hopes of the ungodly, in their death, cannot make their itate hopeful; neither can the © hopelesness of a saint make his state hopelets: for God judgeth according to the truth of the thing, not according to mens opinions about it. Howbeit, the saints can no more be altogett er without hope, than they can be altogether without faith. | Their faith may be very weak, but it fails not; and their hope very low, yet they will, and do, hope to the end. Even while; the godly seem to be carried away with the streams of doubts x aud fears; there remains still as much hope as determines them: to lay hold on the trec of life, that grows on the banks of the \ rive. Jonah i. 4. Then I said, 1 am cast out of thy sight: f
yet | will look again towards thy holy temple.“
0 Usk. This speaks comfort to the godly againft the fear of v 1 death. A godly man may be called a happy man, before his |
it death; because, whatever befal him in life, he shall certainly 10
' be happy at death. You who are in Christ, who are true 10
1 Christians, have hope in your end; and such hope as may com- 1
4 | fort you against all those fears, which arise from the considera- t!
tion of a dying hour. This I shall branch out, in answering su
1 Tome cases brieffy. N G
1104 * is uneasy to me, not knowing what shall become of my family |: ve
It when I am gone. Axs w. The righteous hath hope in his death, 1
it as to his family, as well as to himself. Altho' you have little BB th
WI for the present, to live upon; which has been the case of many 9
ti ef God's chosen ones, 1 Cor. iv. II. We (namely, the Apostles, do!
ver. 9.) both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buf- lea
* feted, and have no certain dwelling-place.* And tho' you wa
have nothing to leave them, as was the case of that son of the the
prophet's, who did fear my Lord, and yet died in debt, which ma
he was unable to pay; as His poor widow represents, 2 Kings be 1
IW. I. yet you have a good friend to leave them to; a covenant- to!
Head II. anent Death, answered. 271
ed God, to whom you may considently commit them, Jer. xlix. 11. Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me.“ The world can bear witness of signal jettlements made upon the children of providence; such as by their pious parents have been cast upon God's providential care. It has been often remarked that they wanted neither provision nor education. Moses is an eminent instance of this. He, albeit he was an outcait infant, (Exod. ii. 3.) yet
was © learned in all the wifdom of the Egyptians,” Acts vii. 22.
and became King in jeshurum, Deut. xxx. 5. O! may we not be ashamed, that we do not securely trust him with the concerns of our families, to whom, as our Saviour and Redeemer
we have committed our eternal interests |
Cask II. © Death will take us away from our de ar friends;
ce yea, we shall not see the Lord in the land of the living, in the
ce blessed ordinances.” AN sw. It will take you to your best
friend, tlie Lord Christ. And the friends you leave behind you,
if they be 1.deed persons of worth, you will meet them again, when they come to heaven: and you will never be separated any more. If death take you away from the temple below, it
will, carry you to the temple above. It will indeed take you.
from the streams, but it will let you down by the fountain., If it put out your candle, it will carry you where there is no night, where there is an eternal day |
Cask III. I have fo much ado, in time of health, to satisfy
© myself, as to my interest in Christ, about my being a real
Christian, a regenerate man; that!] judge, it is almost impossi- ble I should die comfortably.“ Axsw. If it is thus with you, then double your diligence, to make your calling and election lure. Endeavour to grow in knowledge, and walk closely with
God: be diligent in self-examination,; and pray earnestly for
the Holy Spirit, whereby you may know the things freely given ye, of God, If you are enabled by the power and Spirit of Chritt, thus diligently to prosecute your spiritual concerns; tho' the time of your life be neither day nor night, yet “ at * evening time, it may be light.” Many weak Christians indulge doubts and fears about their spiritual state, as if they placed, at least, some part of religion in this impudent practice: but towards the priod of life, they are forced to think and act in another manner. The traveller, who reckons he has time to spare, may stand (till debating with himself, whether this or the other be the right way: but when the sun begins to set, he is forced to Jay afide his scruples, and refulutely to go forward on the
Lord thy God will not leave, but support thee, under them.
272 . Cafes of Saints State IV,
road he judges to be the right one, left he ly gut in the open fields. Thus fome Christians,, who perplcs themiulves much, throughout ue com le of their lives, with jcatous doubts and fears, content themscives when hey come to de, with tuch
evidenees of the safety of their state, as they £2144 1059 be latissied with before; and, by dispating less act themicives, and believiag more, court the puace they forty rejected, and
gain it too.
death easy, but it is not fo in spiritual d cc ν. I will not fay,
that a godly man cannot be in such a case, when he dies; bud!
believe it js rarely so. - Ordinarily (I tuppole) a cry comes to awaken sleepy virgins before death come. Samson is let to grind in the prison, until his locks grow again. David an! Solomon fell under great spiritual decays; but, before they died they recovercd their spiritual strength and vigour. However, bestir ye yourselves without delay, to“ strengthen the things that remain: your fright will be the less, that ye awake from spiritual sleep, ere death come to your bed- side: and you ought to:lose no time, seeing you know not how soon death may seize you. RES Cask V. It is terrible to think of the other world, that & world of- spirits which I have so little acquaintance with.“ ANsw. Thy best friend is Lord of that other world. Abraham's
bosom is kindly, even to these who never saw his face. After death, thy foul becomes capable of converse with the blessed
inhabitants of that other world. The spirits of just men made perte& were once such as thy spirit now is. And-as for the angels, howsoever they be of a superior nature in the rank of beings, yet our nature is dignified above theirs, in the man Christ and they are, all of them, thy Lord's servants, and lo thy fellow-servants. | | |
_ Casx VI. The pangs of death are terrible.“ ANS. Yet not so terrible as pangs of conscience, caused by a piercing sense of guilt, and apprehenfions of divine wrath, with which I suppole thee to be not altogether unacquainted. But who would not endure bodily sickness, that the foul may become sound, and every whit whole? Each pang of death will (et {in a step nearer the door; and with the last breath, the body of fin will breath out its last, The pains of death will not -Jast long; and the
CASE
Head II. anent Death, answered. 273
Cask VII. “ But I am like to be cut off in the midst of my days.” Answ- Do not complain, you will be the sooner at home: you have thereby the advantage of your fellow labourers, who were at work before you in the vineyard God, in the course of his providences, hides some of his saints carly in the grave that they may be taken away from the evil to come. An early removal out of this world prevents much fin and misery: and they have no ground of complaint, who get the residue of their years in Immanuel's land. Surely thou shalt live as long as thou hast work cut out for thee, by the great Master, to be
done for him in this world; and when that is at an end, it is
high time to be gone.
Cas E VIII.“ I am afraid of sudden death.” Ax Sw. Thou may indeed die so. Good Eli died suddenly, i Sam. iv. 18. Yet,
death found him watching, ver. 12. Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour the Lord doth come, Matth.
xxiv. 42. But be not afraid, it is an unexpressible comfort,
that death, come when it will, can never catch thee out of Christ; and therefore can never seize thee, as a jailor, to hurr thee into the prison of hell. Sadden death may hasten and faciltate thy passage to heaven, but can do thee no prejudice. CasE IX. © I am afraid it may be my lot to die wanting the exercise of reasan. AN Sw. I make no question but a
child of God, a true Christian, may die ia this case. But what
harm? There is no hazard in it, as to his eternal state: a discase
at death, may divest him of his rea son, but not of his religien.
When a man going a long voyage, has put his affairs in order,
aud put all his goods aboard; he himselt may be carried aboard
che ship sleeping: all is safe with him, aitheugh he knows not where he is, till he awaken in the ship. Even fo the godly man, who dies in this case, may die uncomtortably, but not unfafely.
_ Casx Last.“ Iam naturally timorous, and the very thoughts aof death are terrible to me.” Answ. The less you think on
death, the thoughts of it will be the more frightful: but make it familiar to you by frequent meditations upon it, and you may thereby allay your fears. Look at the white and bright fide
of the cloud: take faith's view of the city that bath foundations,
to mall you see hope in your death. Be duly affected with the body of fin and death, and frequent interruptions of your communion with God, and with the glory which dwells on the other {idedeath: this will contribute much to remove flavish fear.
It is pity saints should be so fond of life as they often are: they
eught always to bein good terms with death. When matters
arc
| 274 Considerations to bring Saints State IV,
are duly considered, it might well be expected every child of
God, every regenerate man, fhould generously profess concerning this life, what Job did, chap. vi. 16. * lothe it, I would not live always. In order to gain their hears to this desirable temper, I offer the following additional considerations.
FIRST, Consider the sinfulness that attends life in this world. While ye live here, ye sin, and see others sinning. Ye breathe infectious air. Ye live in a pest house. Is it at all strange to lothe such a life? (1.) Your own pilgrim's fores, are running. on you. Doth not the {in of your nature make you groan daily! Are you not sensible, that though the cure be begun, it is yet far from bein g perfected? Has not the leprosy got into the walls of the house, which cannot be removed without pulling it de wn? Is not your nature so vitiate, that no leis than the separation of the soul from the body can root out the disease? Have 790 not your fores without, as well as your sickness within!
o ye not leave marks of your pollution, on whatsoever passes
through your hands? Are not all your actions tainted aud
blemished with defects and imperfections? Who elle then should be much in love with life, but such whose sickness is their health,
and who glory in their shame? (2.) The loathsome sores of
others are always before your eyes, go where you will. The follies and wickedness of men are every-where conspicuous, and make but an unpleasant scene. The sinful world is but an unsightly company, a disagreeable croud, in which the most loath- {ome are the most numerous. (3.) Are not your own. loics
oftimes breaking out again, after healing? Frequent relapscs
may well cause us remit of our fondness for this lite. To be ever struggling, and anon falling into the mire again, makes weary work. Do ye never wish for cold death, thereby effectually to cool the heat of these lusts, which fo often take fire again; even after a flood of godly forrow has gone over them!
There is no society ia the world, in which every member of it doth not sometimes lay a tumbling block before the rest. Ihe best carry about with them the tinder of a corrupt nature, which they cannot be rid of while they live, and which is liable to be Kindled at all times, and in all places: yea, they are apt to inflame others, and become the uccasions of sinning. Certainly these things are apt to imbitter this life to the saints. SECOKDLY, Consider the misery and trouble that attend it. Rest is defirable, but it is not to be found on this fide of the grave. Worldly troubles attend all men in this lite, I by | WO.
„
Head II. to a dostrable Temper. 275
world is a sea of trouble, where one wave rolls upon another. They who fancy themselves beyond the reach of trouble; are mistaken: no itate, no stage of life, is exempted from it, The crowned head is furrounded with thorny cares. Honour many times paves the way to deep difprace: riches, for the molt part, are kept to the hurt of the owners. The fairest role wants not prickles; and the heavielt cross is sometimes found wrapt up in the gr eateit 2 comfort. Spiritual troubles attend the
saints in this life. They are like travellers travelling in a cloudy night, in which the moon sometimes breaks out from under one
cloud, but quickly hides her head again under another: no wonder they long to be at their journey s end. The sudden alterations the belt frame of (pirit | is liable to, the perplexing doubts, confounding tears, thort-liv'd joys, and long runnin Hrrows, which have a certain alfiuity with the present life, mutt needs create in the saints a delire to be with Christ, which is best of all.
LasTLY, Consider the great imperfections attendiug this life. While the foul is lodged in this catt tage of clay, the necessities of the body are many; it is always craving. The mud walls must be repaired and patched up daily, till the clay cot tage fall down
for good and all. Eating, drinking, flecping, and the like, arc
in themlelves, but mean employments for a rational creature; and will be reputed such by the heaven-born soul. They are badges of imperfection, and, as such, unpleasant to the mind,
alpiring unto that life and immortality, which is brought to light through the golpel: aud would be very grievous, if this state of things were of long continuance. Doth not the graci— ous soul often find itself yoked with the body, as with a companion in travel, unable to keep pace with it! ? When the Spirit is willing, the Aesh is weak. When the foul would mount upward, the body is as a clog upon it, and as a stone tied to the
foot of a bird attempting to fly. T he truth is, O believer! thy
foul in this body is, at best, but like a edt in a ring, where much of it is ablrur ed:4t 15 far lunk in the vile clay, till relieved by death.
I conclude this subje& with a 8 directions how to prepare for death, so as we may die comfortably. I speak not here of habitual preparation for death, which a true Christian, in virtue of his gracious state, never wants, from the time he is born again and united to Christ: but of ia) pr eparation or readiness, in relpe& of his circumstantiate case, frame, and di (position of
mind and spirit; the want of which makes even a saint very
unsit to die. > --PIRST;
| | \ 276 Directions how to prepare for Death. State IV.
FIRST, Let it be your constant care to keep a clean conscience, © a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward man, ' Acts xxiv-17. Beware of a standing controversy betwixt God and you, on account of some iniquity regarded in
the heart. When an honest man is about to leave his country, and not to return, he settles accompts with those he had dealings with, and lays down methods for paying his debts timeously; lest he be reckond a bankrupt, and be attacked by an officer, when he is going off. Guilt lying on the conscience is a
fountain of fears; and will readily {ting severely, when death stares the criminal in the face. Hence it is, that many, even of
God's cheldren, when a- dy ing, are made to with passionately, aid desire eagerly that they may live to do, what they ought to have done, before that time. Wherefore, walk closely with God, be diligent, strict aud exact in your course; beware of a loose, careless, and irregular conversation: as ye would not lay up for yourselves, anguith and bitterness of spirit, in a dying hour. And because, through the insirmity cleaving to us, in our present state of imperfection, in many things we offend all, renew your repentance daily, and be ever washing in the Redeemer's blood. As long as ye are in the world, ye will need to wash your feet, John xiii. 50. that is, to make application to the blood of Christ, anew, for purging your consciences from the guilt of daily miscarriages. Let death find you at the fountain; and if lo, it will find you ready to answer its call.
SEconDriy, Be always watchful, waiting for your change, Like unto men that wait for their Lord, that when he cometh © and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately, Luke xxi. 36. Beware of slumbering and sleeping, while the bridegroom tarries. To be awakned out of spiritual flumber, by a surprizing call, to pass into another world, is a very frightful thing: but he who is daily waiting for the coming of his Lord, shall comfortably receive the grim messenger, while he bei1olds
| him ushering in Him, of whom he may confidently say, This
© is my God, and I have waited for him.” The way to die
- comfortably, is to die daily. Be often essaying (as it were) to
die. Bring yourselves familiarly acquainted with death, by making many visits to the prave, in serious meditations upon it. This was Job's practice, chap. xvii. 13, 14. © I have made my © bed in the darkness.” Go thou, and do likewise; and when death comes, thou shalt bave nothing ado but to ly down. I
© have said to corruption, thou art my father; to the worm, P 1
thou art my mother and my filter,” Do thou say lo too; 2 5 | ou
=
Head II. Directions kiw to prepare for Death. 277 thou wilt be the fitter to go home to their house. Be frequently
| rellecting upon your conduct, and considering what course of hte you wisk to be found in when death arrests you: and act agaccordingly. When you do the duties of your station in life,
.
or are employed in acts of worship, thipk with yourselves, that it may be, this is the last opportunity; aud therefore act as it you was never to do more of that kind. When you ly down at night, compole your spirits as if you was not to awake, till the heavens be no more. And when you awake in the morning, consider that new day as your last; and live accordingly, Surely that night cometh, of which you will never see the morning; or that morning, of which you will never see the nipht. But which of your mornings or nights, will be such, you know not. | _TriRDLyY, Employ yourselves much in weaning your hearts from the world. The man who is making ready to go abroad, busies himself in taking leave of his friends. Let the mantle of earthly enjoyments hang loole about you, that it may be easily 1 dropt, when death comes to carry you away into another world. Moderate your affections towards your lawful comforts of life:
; and let not your hearts be too much taken with them. The
{ traveller acts unwisely, who suffers himself to be fo allured with
0 the conveniences of the inn where he lodgeth, as to make his
e necessa ry departure from it grievous. Feed with fear, and walk \ |
E thro* the world as pilgrims and strangers. Likeas, when the 1 corn is forsaking the ground, it is ready for the {ickle: when 1
e, the fruit is ripe, it falls off the tree easily: fo, when a Christian's 4 |
k heart is truly weaned from the world, ke is prepared for death,
e and it wil be the more easy to him. A heart disengaped fron {|
. the world is an heavenly one: and then are we ready for heaven, 740
n when our heart is there before us, Matth. vi. 21. 1d
d, of your title to heaven, for your support and comfort at the |
ds bour of death. The neglect hereof mars the joy and consolation
is | which some Christians might otherwise have at their death.
lie | Wherefore examine yourselves frequently, as to your spiritual |
to state, that evidences, which ly hid and unobserved, may be
by brought to lipht and taken notice of. And if you would manage
71 this work sucressfully, make solemn serious work of it. Set
ny apart some time for it. And, after earnest prayer to God, thro'
een Jesus Christ, for the enlightning influences of the Holy Spirit,
Jen ye may be enabled to understand his own word, to scern his own work in your souls; sist yourselves before the tribunal of your consciences, that ye may judge yourlelves in on dis weighty matter, A's: :: And
—
278 Directions howto prepare for Death, State iv.
And in the first place, Let the marks of a regenerate state |
particular text for that purpole; such as Prov. viii. 17. © I love them that love me.“ Compare Luke xiv. 26. If any man © come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life allo, © he cannot be my dileiple.* Plal. cxix. 6. Then shall I not
be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.” 3
A
Pfal. xvii. 23. I was also upright before him: and I kept
* myself from mine iniquity.” Compare Rom. vii. 22, 23.
For I d2light in the law of God, after the inward man: but
* 1 see another law in my members warring against the law of
my mind,” &c. 1 John iu. 3. And every man that hath thi
hope in him, purifieth hin self, even as he is pure.“ Matth. v. z. Bleised are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 4 heaven.* Philip. it. 3. For we are the circumcision which
* worship (or serve) God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus,
and have no confidence in the flesh.” The sum of the evidence
arising from thele texts, lies here. A real Christian is one wh
loves God for himself, as well as for his benefits; and that with a supreme love, above all persons and all things: he has an awful and impartial regard to God's commands: he opposeth and wrestleth against that sin, which of af others most easily beset:
him: he approveth and loveth the holy law, even in that very point, wherein it strikes against his most beloved lust: his hope
of heaven engageth him in the study of universal holiness ; in the which he aims at perfection, though he cannot reach it in this
life: he serves the Lord, not only in acts of worship, but in the
whole of his conveisation; and as to both, is spiritual in the principle, motives, aims, and ends of his service: yet he sees nothing in himself to trust to before the Lord: Christ ard his fulness is the stay of his foul; and his confidence is cut off from all that is not Christ, or in Christ, in point of justificatiqn, or acceptance with God; and in point of sanctification too. Every one in whom these characters are found, has a title to heaven, according to the word. It is convenient and profitable to mart such texts for this special use, as they occur, while you read the scriptures, or hear sermons. The marks of a regenerate state thus fixed; in the next place, impartially search and try your
own hearts thereby, as in the fight of God, with dependence on
Him for spiritual discerning, that ye may know whether they be in you or not. And when ye find them, form the conclusia Jejiberately and distinctly; namely, that therefore you are fe-
*
—
be fixed, from the Lord's word: and have recourse to somne
Head II. Hirections how to prepare for Death. 279
te generate, and have a title to heaven. Thus you may gather 1 , "$$ |
de evidences. But be sure to have recourse to God in Cbrist by
de F earnest prayer, for the testimony of the Spirit, whole office is to
m 7 hear witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God,
x Rom. viii. 16. Moreover, carefully observe the courle and
0, method of Providence towards you; and likewise how your ot 7 fsyulis affected under the fame, in the various steps thereot :
pt and examples: fo fhall ye perceive, it the Lord deals witl you
3. aas he useth to do unto those that love his name 3? and if you be
ut (going forth by the footsteps of the flock,” this may afford you
of comfortable evidence. Walk tenderly and circumspectly; ard
is BF the Lord will manifest bimself to you; according to his promise,
3. John xiv. 21. He that hath my commandments and keepeth
oft WF © them, he it js that loveth me: and he that loveth me, shall be
ch © loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest
us, © myself to him.“ But it is in vain to think on successful self- 14 ice examination, if ye be loose and irregular in your converlation. | No __ LasTLy, Dispatch the work of your day and generation \| It with speed and diligence. * David, after he had served lus own i W. generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, Acts xiii. 36. 1. nd B God has allotted us certain pieces of work of this kind, which \ | ets TH ought to be dispatched before the time of working be over. 70 Ty Eccles. ix. 10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with +1 Je © thy might: for there is no work, nor knowledge, nor wisdom | the in the grave, whither thou goest.. Gal. vi. 10. As we have his TH © therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially 1 the | © unto them who are of the houshold of faith.“ If a passenger, v the TH after he is got on shipboard, and the ship is getting under fail, q sees remember that he has omitted to dispatch a piece of necessary i
is TH business when he was ashore, it must needs be uneasy to him; | om even fo reflection in a dying hour, upon neglected seasons, and lost opportunities, cannot fail to disquiet a Christian. Whereey fore, whatever is incumbent upon thee to do for God's honour, ell and the good of others; cither as the duty of thy station, or by | ars special opportunity put into thy hand, perform it seasonably, if jo thou wouldst die comfortably. | | | ate on” > ON; | Aa 2. HEA D be: | N re- |
— nol
—
JOHN v. 28,
Marvel not at this: Fir the Hour is coming, in the which all that are in the Graves, sball hear his Viire.
Ver. 29. And shall come forth, they that have done Gd,
THESE words are part of the defence our Lord Jesus Christ -
makes for himself, when persecuted by the Jews for curing the impotent man, and ordering him to carry away his bed
on the Sabbath; aud for vindicating his conduct, when accufcd
by them of having thereby profaned that day. On this occasion he professeth himself not only Lord of the Sabbath, but alsy Lord of life and death; declaring in the words of the text the resurrection of the dead to be brought to pals by his power.
This he introduceth with these words, as with a solenm preface,
Marvel not at this, i. e. at this strange discourse of mine: do not wonder to hear me, whose appearance js fo very mean in your eyes, talk at this rate: for the day is coming, in Which the dead shall be railed by my power. 5
Observe in this text, (1.) The doctrine of the resurrection asserted, “ All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and
5e shall come forth.” The dead bodies, which are reduced to
dust, shall revive, and evidence life by hearing and moving. (2.) The author of it, Jesus Christ, the Son of man, ver. 27. The dead shall hear his voice, and be railed thereby. (3.) The
number that shall be raised, * All that are in the graves, i. c. all
the dead bodies of men, hovsoever differently disposed of, as it
were, in different kinds of graves; or all the dead, good or bad.
They are not all buried in graves, properly so called; some are burnt to asnes, fome drowned, and buried in the bellies of
sihes;
Head II. The Possibility of the Resurrection. 281
fishes ; yea, same devoured by man- eaters called Cannibals: but
whereloever the matter or substance, of which the body was composed, is to be found, thence they shall come forth. (4.) The great distinction that shall be made betwixt the godly and the
wicked. They shall indeed both rise again in the resurrection.
None of the godly will be missing: though perhaps they either bad no burial, or a very obscure one: and ail the wicked shall
come forth: their vaulted tombs shall held tl:em no longer than
the voice is uttered: But the former shall have a joyful rciu—
rection to life, whillt the latter have a dreadful refuriection to
damnation. Lastly, The jet time of this great event: there 1s a hour, or certain fixed period of time, appointed of God for it. We are not told when that hour will be, but that it is coming: for this, among other reasons, that we may always be ready.
There flall be a Resurrection of the Dead.
In discoursing of this subject, I shall first shew the certajuty
of the resurrection ; next, I shall inquire into the nature of it;
and lastly, make some practical improvement of the whole. I. In thewing the certainty of the resurrection, I shall evince, (I.) That God can raise the dead. And, (2.) That he will
doit; which are the two grounds or topics laid down by Christ
himself, when disputing with the Sadducces, Matth. xxii. 29. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”
FIRST, Seeing God is Almiphty, surely he can raise the dead. We have instances of this powerful work of God, both in the Old and New Testament. The fon of the widow in Sarepta, was raised from the dead, 1 Kings xvii. 22. The Shunamite's
son, 2 Kings iv. 35. And the man cast into the sepulchre of
Elisha, chap. xiii. 21. In-which we may observe a gradation, the second of these miraculous events being more illustrious than the first, and the third than the second: The first of these persons was raised when he was but newly dead; the prophet Eljah who raised him, being present at his decease. "The second when he had lain dead a considerable time; namely, while his
motlier travelled from Shunem to mount Carmel, (reckoned
about the distance of sixteen miles,) and returned from thence to her house with Elisha, who raised him. The last, not till they were burying him, and the corpse was cast into the prophet's grave. In like manner in the New Testament, Jairus's
ER. dauph-
—
282 The Pessibility of the Resurrection. State IV.
daughtcr, (Mark v. 41.) and Dorcas, (Acts ix. 40.) were both ralsed to lite, when lately dead; the widow's fon in Nain, when they were carrying him out to bury him, Luke vii. 11, 1 5. And Lazarus, when stinking in the grave, John xi. 39, 44.
Can men make curious glasses out of ashes, reduce flowers into ashes, aud raise them again out of thele ashes, restoring them to their former beauty; and cannot the great Creator who made all things of nothing, raise man's body, after it is reduced into dust? It it be objected, ** How can men's bodies be raifed up again, after they are dissolved ãnto gust, and the ashes of many generations are mingled together?“ Scripture and not reason Furnish the answer: “ With men it is impossible, but not with Gad.“ It is absurd for men to deny that God can do a thing because they see not how it may be done. How {mall a portion do we know of his ways! how absolutely ingapable are we of conceiving distin&ly of the extent of almighty power, and much more of comprehending its actiags, and the method of its procedure! I question not, but many illiterate men are as great zufidels to many chymical experiments, as some learned men arc
to the doctrine of the resurrection: and as these last are ready.
to deride the former, fo © the Lord will have them in derifion.” What a mystery was it to the Indians, that the Europeans could by a piece of paper, couverse together, at the distance of {cine
kundreds of miles? And bow much were they astonished to fe
thein with their guns, produce as it were thunder and lightning in a moment, and at pleasure kill men afar off! Shall some men do such things as are wonders in the eyes of others, because they cannot comprehend chem: and shall men confine the infinite power of God within the narrow boundaries of their own shallow capacities, in a matter noways contrary to reason!
An inferior nature has but a very imperfe& conception of the
power of a superior. Brutes do not conceive of the actings of reason in men; and men have but lame notions of the power oi angels: how low and inadequate a conception, then, mult a finite nature have of the power of that which is infinite! though we cannot conceive how God acts, yet we ought to believe he
can do above what we can think or can conceive of. | Wherefore, let the bodies of men be laid in the grave; let them rot there, and be resolved into the most minute particles: or let them be burnt, and the ashes cast into rivers, or thrown up into the air, to be scattered by the Wind: let the dust of a thousand generations be mingled, and the streams of the dead bodies wander to aud fro in the air: let birds or wild beafts 8 | 5 the
—
Head III. The Pessibiliiy of he Resurrectian. 283
the dead bodies, or the fishes of the {ca devour them, so that the
arts of human bodies, thus destroyed, pass into substantial parts of birds, beasts, or fishes; or what is more than that, let maneaters, who themselves mult die, and rise again, devour human
bodies; and let others devour them agam: aud then Jet our
modern Sadducees propose the question in thele cases; as the ancient Sadducees did, in the case of the woman, who had becn married to seven husbands successively, Matth. xxii. 28. We answer, as our blessed Lord and Saviour did, ver. 26.“ Le do err, not knowing the {criptures, nor the power of God.“ We belicve God to be omniscient, and omnipotent; ipsinite in
knowledge and in power: and hence, agreeabic to the dictates
of reason, we conclude the poslibility of the refarrection, even
in the cates suppoled. 1
Material things may change their forms and shapes, may be
relolved into the principles of H they are formed: but the
are not annbilated, or reduced to nothing; nor can they be fo, by any created power, God is omniscient, his understanding is infinite: therefore he knows all things whatsocver; what they were at any time, what they are, and where they are to be found. Thouph the country man, who comes into the apothecary's shop, cannot find out the drug he wants; yet the apothecary himself knows what he has in his shop, whence it came, and where jt is to be found. And in a mingle of many different
seeds, the expert gardener can diltingwsh betwist feed and secd.
Why then may not omniscience distinguth betwixt dust and dust? Can he, who knows all things to perfection, be liable to any mistake about his own creatures? Whoso bulieves an inlinite understanding, mult needs own, that no mals of dust js fo jumbled together, but God perfectly comprehends, aud infall.bly knows how the most minute particle, and every one of them, is to be matched. And therefore, he knows where the particles of each dead body are; whether in the earth, fea, or air, how confused soever they ly. And particularly, he knows where to find the primitive substance of the man- cater; lowsoever evaporated or reduced, as it were into at vapour, by fweat or perspiration: and how to separate thy pai ts of the bod ythat Was
eaten, from the body of the eater, ow focver incorporate, or
made one body with it: and fo understands, not only how, but whence, he is to bfing back the primitive substance of tlie maneter to its proper place: and al'o to separate, from the mancater's body that part of the devoured body which goes into its substance; akd is indeed but a very small part of it. It is erin
tne
the resurrection of damnation.” Theis words relate 0, ard
—
284 The Certainly of the Resurrection. State Iv.
the bodies of men, as of all other animals, or living creatures, are in a continual flux: they grow, and are sustained by daily food; fo small a part whereof becomes nourishment, that the molt partis evacuate, And it is reckoned that, at least, as much of the food is evacuate inseastbly by perspiration, as is voided b
other perceptible ways. Yea, the nourishing part of the food, when affimilate, and thereby become a part of the body, is evacnate by perspiration through the pores of the skin, and again supplied by the use of the food: yet the body is still reckoned one, and the same body. Whenee we may conclude, that it is not essential to the resurrection of the body, that every particle of the matter, which at any time was part of a human body should be restored to it, when it is raised up from death to lite, Were it fo, the bodies of men would become of so huge a size,
that they would bear no resemblance of the persons. It is fufficient to denominate it the same body that died, when it is risen again; if the body that is raised, be formed in its former proportions of the same particles of matter, which at any time were its constituent parts, howlsoever it be refined: likeas, we reckon it is the same body that was pined away by long sicknch, Which becomes fat and fair again after recovery. |
Now, to this infinite understanding, join infinite power, whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself:“ and this glorious great work appears most reasonable. If omnifcience discover every little particle of dust, where it is, and how it is to be matched; cannot omnipotence bring them, and join them together in their order? Can the watch- maker take up the several pieces of a watch, lying in a confused heap before him, and set each in its proper place; and cannot God put the human body into order, after its dissolution! Did he speak this world
into being out of nothing; and can he not form man's body out of its pre- existent matter? If he © catleth those things, which be
not, as though they were;' surely he can call things that are dissolved, to be as they were, before the compound was resolved into its parts and principles; Wherefore, God can raile the dead. And, © Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?“ Acts xxvi. 8. SECONDLY, God will do it. He not only can do it; but he certainly will do it, because he has said it. Our text is very full to this purpose, “ All that are in their graves shall hear bis ct voice: and sha!l come forth; they that have done road, unto the resurrection of life; and they that bave done evil, unto
| Head III. The Certainty of the Resurrection. 285
are an explanation of, that part of Daniel's prophecy, Dan. xii. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the carth, shall awake, some to everlasting lite, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”* The which appears to have been calculate to confront the doctrine of the Sadducees; which the Holy Ghost knew was to be at a great height, in the Jewuh
church, under the persecution of Antiochus. There are many
other texts in the Old and New'Testameats that might here be adduced; such as Acts xxiv. 15. And have hope towards God,
© which they themselves also allow, that there fhall be a resurrection of the dead, of the just and unjust.” And Job xix.26,27. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in © my flesh shall I see God: whom ] shall fee for myself, and mine (eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins-be con- © sumed within me.” But I need not multiply testimonies, in a matter so clearly and frequently taught in sacred scripture. Our Lord and Saviour himself proves it, against the Sadducces,
in that remarkable text, Luke xx. 37, 38. Now that the dead
© are raised, even Moses thewed at the bush, when he calleth the (Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of laac, and the (God of Jacob; For he is not a God of the dead, but of the
( living: for all live unto him.“ These holy patriarchs were. now dead: nevertheless, the LORD JEBOvan is called their Gop, namely, in virtue of the covenant of grace, and in the
sense thereof; in which sense, the phrase comprchends all blefledness, as that, which by the covenant, is secured to them who are in it, Heb. xi. 16. God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.“ He is not called the God of their souls only; but their God, the God of their persons, fouls and bodies; the which, by virtue of bis truth andfaithfulness, must have its full effect on the dead, who, in as far
as they are dead, are far from all blessedness; but on the living,
who alone are capable of it; therefore, since God is still called their God, they are living in respect of God, altho' their bodies are yet in the grave; for in respect of him, who by his power can restore them to life, and in his covenant has declared his will and purpose to to do, and whose promise cannot fail, they al are to be reckoned to live; and, cdnlistent with the covenant, their death is but a sleep, out of which, in virtue of the same covenant, securing all bleticdnels to their persons, their whole man, they mult and shall certainly be awakned. The Apoltle Paul proves the rclurreion at large, 1 Cor, xv. and shews it to be a fundamental article, the denial whereof is subversive of
Chris-
286 The Nature of the Resurrection. State IV.
Christianity, ver. 13, 14. If there be no resurrection of the © dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Chrift be not risen, they is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.”
To aflist us in conceiving of it, the {cripture gives us types of the resurrection of the dead; as the dry bones living, Ezek. xxxvii, Jonah's coming out of the whale's beily, Mat. xii. 40. And nature affords us emblems and resemblances of it, as the sun's setting and rising again; night and day, winter and summer, fleeping and awaking; swallows in winter lying void of all appearance of life, in ruinous buildings, and fubterranequs caverns, and reviving again in the spring season; the ferds dying under the clod, and thereafter springing up again: all which, and the Hke, may justly be admitted, as deligned by the God of nature, though not for proofs, yet for memorials, . of the resurre ction; whereof we have assurance from the scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 36. © Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickned, except C it die. | |
II. Ishall enquire inte tlie nature of the resurrection, stiew ing, ist, Who shall be raised. 2dly, What shall be railed. Zdly, How the dead shall be raised. | „„
First, Who shall be raised. Our text teils us who they are; namely, All that are in the graves,” i. e. all mankind, who are dead. As for thele persons who shall be found alive at the second coming of Christ; they shall not die, and soon thereatter be raised again: but such a change shal! suddenly pass upon them, as shall be to them instead of dying and rising again; so that their bodies shall become like to those bodies which are raised out of the graves, 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52. We shall not all % sleep, but we shall all be changed: In a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye.” Hence these who are to be judged at the great day, are distinguished into quick and dead, Acts x. 42. All the dead shall arise, whether godly or wicked, just or unjult, (Acts xxiv. 15.) old or young; the Whole race of mankind, even these who never saw. the sun, but died in their mother's
belly, Rev. xx. 12: © And I faw the dead small and great stand & before God.” The sea and carth shall give up their dead, withont reserve, none shall be kept back. 5
Secondly,. What shall be mailed? The bodies of mankind. A man is said to die when the soul is separated from the body, © and returns unto God who gave it, Eccles. xii. 7. But it is the body only which 1s laid in the grave, and can be properly faid to be raised: wherefore the resurrection is, strictly ipeaking, competent to the body only. Moreover, it is the same oy
Head III. The Nature of the Resurrection. 287
that dies, which fliall rise again. At the resurrection, men shall not appear with other bodies for substance, than thete which they now have, and which arc Jaid down in the grave: but with the self-same bodies endowed with other qualities. The very notion of a resurrection implies this; f{tnce nothing can be said to rise again, but that which falls. But to illustrate it a little, First, it is plain from scripture-teftimony. The Apostle tells, it is © this mortal which must put on immortality, 1 Cor. xv. 53. and that Christ © shall change our vile body, that it may be < fashioned like unto his glorious body,” Philip. iii. 21. Death in scripture- language, is a sleep; and the resurrection an awaking out of that fleep, Job xiv. 12. which shews the body rising up, to be the self- same that died. Secondly, The equity of the divine procedure, both with respect to the godly and the wicked, evinces this. It is not reckoned equal among men, that one do the work, and another get the reward. Though the glorifying of the body of saints, is not, properly speaking, and in a strict lense, the reward of their services or sufferings on earth: yet this is evident, that it is not at all agreeable to the manner of the divine dispensation, that one body serve him, and another be glorified: that one fipht, and another reecive the crown.
How can it be imagined that the temples of the Holy Ghost
(as these bodies of believers are termed, 1 Cor. vi. 19.) should
always ly in rubbish ; and others be reared up in their stead :
That these members of Christ (ver. 15.) fhall perish utterly, and other bodies come in their room? Nay, surely, as these
bodies of the saints now bear a part in glorifying God, and some
of them suffer in his cause; so they shall partake of the glory that is to be revealed. And these bodies of the wicked, which
are laid in the dust, shall be railcd again; that the same body,
which sinned, may suffer. Shall one bady fin here, and another suffer in hell for that sin? Shall that body, which was the soul's companion in fin, ly for ever hid in the dust; and another body, which did not act any part in sinning, be it companion in torment? No, no; it is that body, which now takes up all their thoughts to provide for its back and belly, that shall be raised
vp, to susfer in hell. It is that tongue that is now the swearing,
lying tongue, which will need water to cool it, in eternal flames. These same feet, that now stand in the way of sinners, and carr men in their ungod!y courses, shall stand in pe burning lake. And these now covetous and lascivious eyes, thall take part in the fire-and smoak of the pit.
Thirdly,
>
Tor nee HIS 4
283 The Nature of the Resurredion, State IV.
- Thirdly, How the dead shall be raised. The same Jesus, who was crucified without the gate of Jerusalem, shall, at the Jait day, to the conviction of all, be declared both Lord ang
Christ : appearing T3 of the world, attended with luis
mighty angels, 2 Thell. i. 7. he © shall descend from heaven with * a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumy
of God, 1 Thess. iv. 16. The trumpet shall found, and the
dead shalt be raised, and these who are alive, changed, 1 Cor. xv. 52. Whether this shout, voice and trumpet do
denote some audible voice, or only the workings of divine power, tpr the railing of the dead, and other awful purposcs of that day, (tho' the former seems probable) I will not pokitively
determine. There is no question but this coming of the Judge of the world will be in greater majesty and terror, than we can
- conceive: yet that awtul grandeur, majesty and state, which
was displayed at the giving of the law, viz. © thunders heard, lghinings and a thick cloud upon the mount seen, the Lord descendiug in fire, the whole mount quaking greatly, and the voice of the trumpet waxing louder, and louder, (Exod. xix. 16, 18, 19.) may help forward a becoming thought of it. However, the {ound of this trumpet shall be heard all the world over; it shall reach to the depths of the sea, and into the bowels cf the earth. At this loud alarm, bones shall come together, bone
to his bone: the scattered dust of: the dead shall be gathered together, dust to his dust; „neither shall one thrust another,
they shall walk every one in his path:' and meeting together again, shall make vp that very fame body, which crumblcd into dust in the grave. And at the fame alarming voice, shall every
soul come again into its own bedy, never more tobe separated.
The dead can (tay no longer in their graves, but muit bid a eternal farewel to their long homes: They hear his voice, and must come forth, and receive their final sentence. | Now, as there is a great difference betwixt the godly ard
the wicked in their life, and in their death; fo will there be allo in their resurrection. | |
The godly shall be raised up out of their graves, by virtue of the Spirit of Christ, the blessed bord of their union with him, Rom. viii. 11. © He that railed up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.“ Jesas Christ arose from the dead, as the first-fruits ot them that flept, 7 Cor. xv. 20. So they that are Christ's shall follow at his coming, ver. 22. The mystical Head having got above the waters of death, he cannot but bring forth the members after him in due time. | They
"© land.
Head III. The Nature of the Resurrection. : 289
They shall come forth with inexpressible joy; for then shall that passage of scripture, which, in its immediate lcope, respected the Babylonish captivity, be fully accomplished in its extensive spiritual view, Ia. xxvi. 19. Awake and ting, ye that dwcll in the dust.“ As a bride, adorned for her husband, goes forth of her bed- chamber unto the marriage, so shall the saints go forth of their graves, unto the marriage af the Lamb. Joseph had a joyful out-going from the prison, Daniel from the lion's den, and Jonah from the whale's belly; yet thole are but faint representations of the saints out-going from the grave at the resurrection. Then shall they sing the song of Moles and of the Lamb, in highest strains; death being quite swallowed up in victory. They had, while in this life, sometimes sunp, by faith, the triumphant song over death and the grave,“ O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy vidory?'? 1 Cor. xv. 55.) But when they {ing the same, from sight and sense; the black band of doubts and fears, which frequently disturbed them, and disquieted thor minds, is for ever cashicred.
May we not suppose the foul and body of every faint, as in
mutual embraces, to rej ce in each other, and triumph in their
happy meeting again? And may not one imapine the body to
addreis the foul thus? © O my foul, have we got together again,
© after so long a separation! art thou come heck into thine old
* habitation, never more to remove! O joyful meeting! how
* uniike is our present state to what our case was, when a separation was made bet wixt us at death! now is our mourning
turned into joy; the light and gladnchs fometimes sown, are
* now sprung up; and there is perpetual fpring in Immanuel's
Blessed be the day, in which I was united to thee ;
* whose chief care was to get Christ in us the hope of glory,
and to make me a temple for his Holy Spirit. O blessed Soul,
* wiich, in the time of our pilgrimage, kept thine eye on the
land then afar off, but now near at hand! thon tookest me u
in secret places, and there mad'st me bow these knees before
* the Lord, that I might bear a part in our humiliations before
him: and now is the due time, and I am lifted up. Thou didst
* employ this tongue, in confessions, petitions and thankspivings ;
© which henceforth shall be employed in praising, for evermore.
© Thou mad'ft these (sometimes) weeping eyes low that seed of
* tears, which is now sprung up in joy that shall never end. I
Vas happily beat down by thee, and kept in subjection; while
* others pampered their flesh, and made their bellies their gods,
to their own destruction : and, now I gloridusly arise, to take
my place in the mansions of glory whilst they are dragged -
B out
290 The Nature of the Resurrection. State Iv.
© out of their graves, to be calt into fiery flames. Now, my
Soul, thou shalt complain no more of a lick and pained body;
thou shalt be no more clogged with weak and weary flesh: I
* shall now hold pace with thee in the praises of aur God for
* evermore.. And may not the Soul say? © O happy day, in
* which I return to dwell in that blessed Body, which was, and
© 18, and will be for ever, a member of Chriit, a temple of the
Holy Spirit! now shall I be eternally knit to thee: the silver
cord shall never be loosed more: death fball never make another separation betwixt us. Arise then, my Body, and come
away: and let these eyes which served to weep over my tins,
© behold now with joy the face of our glorious Redeemer; lo!
this is our God, and we have waited for him. Let these cars,
which served to hear the word of life, in the temple below,
* thele feet, that carried me to the congregation of s:ints on
earth, take their place now among thelc who stand on mount
© Zion above. And let that tongue, which confefied Chriit he.
fore men, and used to be still dropping something to his com-
£ mendation, join the choir of the upper-house in his praifcs for
< evermore. Thou shalt fast no more, but keep an cverlaiiin;
© feast: thou shalt wecp no more, neither shall thy countenance:
be overcloaded ; but thou fhalt shine for ever, as a star in tl
* firmament. We took part together in the fght, come now,
et us go together to receive and wear the crown.“
But, on the other hand, the wicked shall be raised by the power of Christ, as a just Judge, who is to render vengeance to his enemies. The same divine power, which shut up their fouls in hell, and kept their bodies in a grave, as in a prison, shall bring them forth, that soul and body together may receive the dread- Ful sentence of eternal damnation, and be shut up together in the prison of hell! They shall come forth of their graves, with unspeakable harror and consternation. "They shall be draggcd forth as so many malefactors out of a.dungeon, to be led to execution; crying to the mountains and to the focks, to fall on them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb. Fearful was the cry. in Egypt, that night the destroying angel went through and flew their first-born. Dreadful were the shouts, at the earth opening her mouth, and swallowing up Dathan and Abiram, and all that appertained to them. What hideous crving then must there be, when, at the sound of the last trumpet, the earth and the sea shall open their mouths, and
aft forth all the wicked world, delivering them up to the ay?
)
© o44 GDE EEERr
Head III. The Nature of the Resurrection. 291
ful Judge? How will they cry, roar, and tear thems{clves! how will the jovial companions weep and how], and curse one another! how will the earth be filled with their dolctul shrieks and lamentations, while they are pulled out like sheep tor the laughter? They who, while they lived in the world, were profane debauchees, covetous worldlings, or formal hypocrites, shall then, in anguish of mind, wring their hands, beat their breasts, and bitterly lament their case: roaring forth their complaints, and calling themselves beasts, fools and madmen, for having acted fo mad a part in this life, and not having believed what they then fee. They were driven away in their wickedness, at death: and now all their fins rife with them, and like fo many serpents, twilt themsclves about their wretched fouls, and bodies too, which now have a frighitful meeting, after a long separation. |
Then we may suppose the miserable body thus to accost the foul, © Halt thou again found me, O mine enemy, my worst
enemy, savage foul, more cruel than a thousand tygers?
C Cursed be the day that ever we met! O that I had remained
(a lifaless lump, rotten in the belly of my mother; and had
* never received sense, lite, nor motion, O that I had rather
© been the body of a toad or fserpent, than thy botly: for then I
© had lain still, and had not sden this terrible day! If Fbchoves
© to be thine, O that I had been thy ass, or one of tly dogs,
rather than thy body; for then wouldst thou have taken more
true care of me than thou didst. O cruel kiidnel 1 hast thou
„thus hugged me to death, this nourished me to the slaughter?
Is this the effect ef thy teiderress for me? Is this what Jam
* to reap of thy pins aud concen about me! What do riches
*and plcasure ava now, when this fearful reckoning is come,
* of which thou had{t fair warning ? O cruel grave, why didst
© thou not close thy mouth upon me tor ever? Why did!t thou
not hold fast thy prisoner? Why bast thou shaken me out,
c Wiüle J lay stül, and was at rest * Cu sed Soul, wherefore didft
© thou not abide in thy place, wrapt up in flames of fire?
* Wherefore art thou come back to take me also down to the
© bars of the pit? Thou madtl me an iv{trument of unrightcouk—
* ness ; and now I must be thrown into the fire, This tongue
$ was by thee emploved in mocking at religion, cursing, {wear-
„ing, lying, backbiting, and boasting; and with-held From
6 plorifying God: and now it mult not kave fo much as a dre j
* of water to cool it in the flames. Thou didst with draw wine
ears from hearing the sermons which gave warning of this day.
—
292 The Rualities of the raised State IV.
Y Thou foundest ways and means to stop them from attendito sca sonable exhortations, admonitions and reproots. Bat
* why didic thou not stop them from hearing the found of this
* dreadful ty iunpet! Wiy doit thou not now rove and tly
away on the wings of imagination, thereby, as it were, trant:
porting me during thele frightful transactions, as thou was
wont to do, wien I was set down at serons communions,
prayers, and godly conferences: that I might now have as
© little sense of the one, as I formerly had of the other? But,
* ah! J must burn for ever, for thy love to thy lusts, thy pro-
* fanity, thy sensuality, thy unbelicf and hy pocrisy. |
But may not the foul answer? * Wretched and vile carcase,
fam I now driven back into thee, O that thou hadst lain for
* ever rotting in thy grave! Had I not torment enough before?
© Mult I be Hut to thee again, that being joined together as two
dry sticks for the fire, the wrath of God may the more kecn]y
* burn us up? It was by caring tor you, Llolt myselk. It was
* your back and your belly, and the gratifying of your senses,
„Which ruined ine. How often was I ensaared by your cars!
* How often betrayed by your eyes? It was to {pare you, that
I neglected opportanities of making peace with God, loitered
* away sabbaths, lived in the neglect of prayer, went to the
© houle of mirth, rather than to the houte of mourning ; and
© that I chused to deny Christ, aud toriake his cause and interc!its
© in the world; and fo am fallen a sacrifice to your curled eat.
When at any time my conscience began to awake, and 1 was
fetting my sest to think of my bs, Fea the milery I have felt
since we parted, and now fecl, it Was you e diverted nie from these thoughts, and drew me off to make provision tor © thee, O wretcl: ed th. By your filken cords of flessily lasts EI was drawn to deltruction, over the belly of my light ard © conscience: but now they are turned into iron chains „with © which I am to be held under wrath for ever-more. Ab! wretched profits! ah, cursed pleasures! for which I must Iy
for ever in utter darkness.“ But no complaints will then avail.
46 Othat men were wile, that they understood this, that they % would consider their latter end!“
As to the Qualities with which the bodies 97 the saints shall be endowed at the resurrection; the Apostle tells us, they ihall be raised incorruptivle, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, 1 Cor. XV. 42, 43, 44. © It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is fown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It lown in weaknels, it is raised in power. It is fown a natural body, 1 1* 28 ralied 2 ritual body. FIRST;
ARR. oc.
the and irs Ale. Was felt nie 1 for lusts aud with Ah! ist ly wall, they
; shall 7 (hall „Cor. mor-
It 1S atural
Head HE: Bodies of the Saints. 293
FIRST, The bodies of the saints shall be raised incorruptible, They are now, as the bodies of others, a very mals of corruption, full of the feeds of diseases and death; and when dead, hecome so nauseous, even to their dearest friends, that they mult be buried out of their sight, in a grave, there to rot and be consumed: yea, lothlome lores and diseases make some of them very unfightly, even while alive. But at the resurrection they leave all the seeds of corruption behind them, in the grave; and rise ncorruptible, incapable of the least indisposition, ficknels, or fore; and much more of dying. External violences and inward causes of pain shall for ever ccase: they shall feel it no more: yea, they shall have an everlaiting youth and vigour; being no more lubject to the decays which age produced in this life. | |
SECONDLY, They shall be glorious bodies; not only beauti— ful, comely, aud well proportioned, but full of splendor and brightnefs. The most beautiful face, aud best proportioned body that now appears in the world is not to be-named in comparison with the body of the meanest saint at the resurrection; for, „then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun,”
Matth xiv. 43. If there was a dazzling glory on Moses's face,
when he came down from the mount; and if Stephen's face was as jt had been the face of an angel,“ when he stood before the council, how much more shall the faces of the saints be beautified and glorious, full of sweet agreeable majesty, when they have put off all corruption, and shine as the sun? But observe, this beauty of the saints is not restricted to their faces, but diffuses itself through their whole bodies: for the whole body is raised in glory, and shall be fashioned like nnto their Lord and Saviour's glorious body: in whole transsiguration not only did his face * shine as the sun,” but also © his raiment was white as the light, Matth. xvii. 2. Whatever defects or deformities the bodies of the saints had, when laid in the grave, occalioned by accidents in life, or arising from secret causes of their formation in the womb, they shall rise out of the grave free of all these. But suppose the marks of the Lord Jesus, the scars or prints of the wounds and bruises some of the saints received while on earth, for his sake, should remain in their bodies after the resurrection; like as the print of the nails remained in the Lord Jesus's body, after his resurrection; these marks will rather be badges of distinction, and add to their glory, than detract from their beauty. But how soever that be, surely Isaac's eyes shall not then be dim, nor will Jacob | B b 1 halt;
292 The Qualities of the raised State IV.
* Thou foundest ways and means to stop them from attending to seasonable exhortations, admonitions and reproofs. Baut why didit thou not stop them from hearing the found of this
© dreadful timnpet? Way doit thou not now rove and tly _ AWay on the wings of imagination, thereby, as it were, tran{- - porting me Wenn tbele frightful transactions, as thou was © wont to do, wien I was fect down at sermons, communions, prayers, and godly conferences: that I might now have as
little sense of the one, as I formerly had of the other? Bur, © ah! I must burn for ever, for thy love to thy lusts, thy pro-
* fanity, thy sensuality, thy unbelick and hypocrisy.”
But may not the soul answer? © Wretched and vile carcase, © am I now driven back into thee, O that thou hadst lain for ever rotting in thy grave! Had I not torment enough before! © Mult I be kit to thee again, that being joined together as two dry sticks for the fire, the wrath of God may the more kecrly burn us up? It was by caring tor you, 1 lost myself. It was your back and your belly, and the gratifying, of your senscs, © which ruined ine. How often was I ensnared by your cars! Ho often betrayed by your eyes? It was to spare you, that £ I neglected opportunities of making peace with God, loitered away sabbaths, lived in the neglect of prayer, went to the © houle of mirth, rather than to the houle of mourning; and * that I chuled to deny Christ, aud forlake his cause and interc!ts © in the world; and fo am fallen a lacrifice to your cursed ea. When at any time my conscience began to awake, and I was E fetting my {c/t to think of my tins, and the misery I have felt since we parted, and now feel, it was you th: at diverted nic © from these thoughts, and drew me off to make provision tor
c thee, O wretched flcth. By your silken cords of flessily lasts
CI was drawn to del struction, over the belly of my light ard © conscience: but now they are turned into iron chains, with © which I am to be held under wrath for ever-more, Ah! wretched profits! ah, cursed pleasures! for which I must Iy for ever ia utter darkness. But no complaints will then avail. 46 O that men were wile, that they underitood this, that they c would consider their latter end!“
As to the Qualities with which the bodies of the saints 120 be endowed at the resurrection; the Apostle tells us, they ihall be raised incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, 1 Cor. xv. 42, 43, 44. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It lown in weatnels, it is raised in power. It is fown a natural body, it is ralied a 5yiritual body,” FIRST,
val. they
Fall {hall Cor.
neorthis life.
Head III. Bodies of the Saints, 292
FirsT, The bodies of the saints shall be raised incorruptible. They are now, as the bodies of others, a very mals of corruption, full of the feeds of diseases and death; and when dead, be— come so nauseous, even to their dearest friends, that they must be buried out of their light, in a grave, there to rot aud be consumed: yea, lothlome sores and discases make some of them very unfightly, even while alive. But at the resurrection they leave all the feeds of corruption behind them, in the grave; and rise;ncorruptible, incapable of the least indisposition, sickness, or lore; and much more of dying. External violences and in ward causes of pain shall for ever cease: they shall feel it no more: yea, they shall have an everlasting youth and vigour; being no more lubject to the decays which age produced in
SECONDLY, They shall be plorious bodies; not only beauti— ful, comely, aud well proportioned, but full of splendor and brightness. The most beautiful face, and best proportioned body that now appears in the world is not to be named in comparison with the body of the meanest saint at the resurrection; for, © then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun,” Matth xii. 43. If there was a dazzling glory on Moles's face, when he came down from the mount; and if Stephen's face was as jt had been the face of an angel, when he stood before the council, how much more sha!l the faces of the saints be beautitied and glorious, full of sweet agreeable majesty, when they have put off all corruption, and shine as the sun? But observe, this beauty of the saints is not restricted to their faces, but diffuses itself through their whole bodies: for the whole body is raised in glory, and shall be fashioned like unto their Lord and Saviour's glorious body: in whole transfipuration not only did his face * shine as the sun,” but also © his raiment was white as the light, Matth. xvii. 2. Whatever defects or deformitizs the bodies of the saints had, when laid in the grave, occasioned by accidents in life, or arising from secret causes of their formation in the womb, they shall rise out of the prave free of all these. But suppose the marks of the Lord Jesus, the scars or prints of the wounds and bruises some of the saints received while on earth, for his sake, should remain in their bodies after the resurrection; like as the print of the nails remained in the Lord Jefus's body, after his resurrection; these marks will rather be badges of distinction, and add to their glory, than detract from their beauty. But how soever that be, surely Isaac's eyes shall not then be dim, nor will Jacob
294 The Qualities of the raised State IV,
Halt; Leah shall not be tender-eyed, nor Mephibosheth lame of his legs. For as the goldimith melts down the old crazy vessel, and casts it over again into a new mold, bringing it forth with a new lustre; so shall the vile body which lay diflolved in the grave, come forth at the resurrection in perfect beauty, and comely proportion.
TRHIR DIV, They shall be powerful and strong bodies. The strongest men on earth being frail and mortal, may justly be reckoned weak and feeble: in regard their {trength, how loever preat, is quickly worn out and contumed. Many of the saints now have bodies weaker than others; but“ the feeble am: 20G them, (to allude to Zech. xii. 8.) at that day, shall be & David, and the house of David shall be as God.” A grave divine fays, s, that one shall be stronger at the resurrection, than an hundred, yea, than thoulands are now. Certainly great, and vastly great, must the strength of glorined bodies be; sees '- ing they shall bear up under ay* EXCEL ding and eternal wei;
Of wor y. The mortal boly 15 not at all adapted to hacks 4 state. Do transports of joy occatzon death, as well as exccitive grief does? And can it bear up under a weight of glory? Can | it lubsist! in union with a soul filled with heaven's raptnres! Surely no. The mortal body would fink under that load, and such a fill would make the earthen pitcher to fly all in pieces. The scripture has plainly told us, that flesh aud blood (namely, ) in their prelent trail state, though it were the flesh and bloud ot a giant, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Cor. xv. 50. How strong mult the bodily eyes be, which, to the foul's eternal comfort, shall behold the dazzling glory and splendor of the
new Jerusalem; and ftedfastly look at the tranicendent glory and brightness of the man Christ, the Lamb, who is the light oc that city, the inhabitants whereof {hall shine as the sun? The Lord ofheaven doth now, in mercy, hold back*the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it; that mortals may not be confounded with the rays of glory, which shine forth from it, Job xxvi. 9. But then the vail shall be removed, and they made able to bchold it, to their unspeakable joy. How ftrng ng
must their bodies be, who shall not rest night ner day; but be without intermission for ever employed in the heavenly temple, to ling and proclaim the praises of God, without wearinels,
which 3 is a weakness incident to the frail mortal, but incompe- 4
ten to the glorified body! LASTLY, They (hall be spiritual bodies. Not that they
shall be changed i into spirits; but they shall be spiritual, in
=
an es!? and Ces. . d of 50. terthe lory it Or The F his not from they Tang at be nple, inels,
demp =
they
Head III. Budies of the Saints. 295
respect of their spirit-like qualities and endowments. The body shall be absolutely subservient to the foul, 4ubjeet to it, and influenced by it; and therefore, no more a clog to its activity, nor the animal appetites a snare to it. There will be no need to beat it down, nor to drag it to the service of God. The foul in this life, is so much influenced by the body, that in feripturesty le it is said to be carnal: but then, the body mall be spiritual, readily serving the soul in the business of heaven; and in that
only, as if it had no more relation of earth, than a spirit, It
will have no further need of the now necessary supports oj life, namely, food and raiment, and the like. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more,” Rev. vii. 16. For in the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.“ Then shall the saints be strong without meat or drink, warm without cloaths, ever in perfect health without medicine, and ever fresh and vigorous, thouch they shall never sleep, but * serve him night and day in his temple,” Rev. vii. 15. They will need none of these thinps | more than spirits do. They will be nimble and active as spirits, and of a most refined confiitution. The body that is now Iumn'th and heavy, shall then be moft fprightly. No such thing as melancnoly shall be found to make the heart heavy, and the spirits flag and fink. © Where the carcase is, there mall the saints, as so many eagles be gathered together.” I shail not further dip into this matter: The day will declare it.
As to the Qualities of the bodies of the wicked, at the resur— rection: I find the fcripture speaks but little of them. Whatever they may need, they shall not get a drop of water to coo! their tongues, Luke xvi. 24, 25. Whatcver may be faid of their weakness, it is certain they will be continued for ever in lite; that they may be ever dying: they shall bear up, how soever unwillingly, under the load of God's wrath, and shall not Faint away under it. © The fmoak of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And they have no rest day nor night.” Surely they shall not partake of the glory and beauty of the faints. All their glory dies with them, and fhall never rise again. Daniel tells us, They shall awake to shame, and everlasting contempt,” chap. xii. 2. Shame follows sin, as the shadow followeth the body: but the wicked in this world walk in the dark, and often under a disguise: nevertheless, when the Judge comes in flaming fire, at the last day, they will be brought to the light; their mask will be taken off, and the shame of their nakedness will clearly appear to themselves and
296 Comfort to the People of God. State IV.
others, and fill their faces with confufion. Their shame will be too deep for blushes: but all tw. thall gather blacknels, at chat day, when they faglt 0 forth of tlicir graves, as matefactors out of their prilons to execution; tr their resurrection is the returrection of damnation, ike createtlt beauties, who now pride themselves in their comclinels of body, not regarding their detormed fouls, will then appear with ghastly countenarces, a grim and deatii-lixe v ape. Their looks will be rrightful, and they witl be horrible spectacles, coming forth of their graves like internal furies out of the pit. They shall rise alfo to everlafting contempt. They shall then be the most contemptible creatures, filled with contempt from Gud, as vellicls of dithonour: Whatever honourable uses they have been employed to, in this world; and filled alio with contempt from men. They will be most despicable in the eves of the faints, even of those saints, who gave them honour here, either for their high station, the gifts of God in them, or becaule they were of the fame hu— man nature with themlelves. But thei shall their bodies be a5 fo many Jothsome © carcaies, which they thall go forth and look upon with abhorrence: yea, they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh,” Ila. Ixvi. 24. The word here rendered“ an abhorring, is the same which in the other text is rendered © contempt;* and Isaiah and Daniel point at one and the lame thing, namely, the
lothsomness of the wicked, at the resurrection. They will be
lothsome in the eyes. of one another. The unclean wretches were never so lovely to each other, as then they will be lothsome: dear companions in sin will then be an abhorring, each one to his fellow: and the wicked, great and honourable men, shall be no more regarded by their wicked subjects, their lervants, their slaves; than the mire in the streets.
USE I. Of comfort to the people of God. The doctrine of
the resurrection is a spring of consolation and joy unto you.
Think on it, O believers, when ye are in the houwe of mourning, for the loss of your godly relations or friends, © that ye forrew not, even as others which have no hope;' for ye will meet again, 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. They are but lain down, to“ relt in their beds, for a little while, (Isa. lvii. 2.) but in the morning of the resurrection they will awake again, and come forth of their praves. The vessel of honour was but coarse, it had much alloy of base metal in it; it was too weak, too dim ard inglorious, for the upper-house, whatever lustre it had in thc lower one. It was crackt, it was polluted; and therctore t behoved to be melted down, that it may be refined and fashiove
as ok 110 2, ud the | be. es the each nen, lerge of Vol. ning, rrew meet rest nornforth t had n ard in the fore it hioned more
Head III. Comfort to the People of Gad. 297
more glorioussy. Do but wait a while, and you sliall {ee it come forth out of the furnace of earth, vying with the stars in brightness; nay, as the fun when he goeth forth in his might. Have you laid your infant children in the grave? You will ice them again. Your God calls himself © the God of your lecd;* which, according to our Saviour's exposition, secures the plorieus resurrection of the body. _ Wherctore let the covenant you embraced, for vourlelt, and your babes now in the quit, comfort your hearts, in the joytu} expectation, that, by virtue thereof, they shall be raised up in glory; and that, as being no more infants of days, but brought to a full and perfect stature, as is generally supposed. Be not discouraged by reason of a
weak and sickly body; there is a day coming, when thou shalt
be every whit whole. At the resurrection, Tmmnotty hall be
no more liable to his often infirmities;' bis body, that Was
weak and sickly, even in youth, shall be raised in power:
Lazarus shall be heal and found, his boay being vaised incor—
ruptible. And althouph, perhaps, tui Weakness will not allow
thee, now, to po one furlong to net the Lord in public ord:-
nances; yer the day cometh, when the body snall be no more a clog to thee, but thou shalt mect the Lord in the air, 1 1 fl.
iv. 17. It will be with tle faints coming up from the prave,
as with the Ifraclites, when they came out of foypt, Plab. cv. 37. © There was not one feeble perion among den tribes!? Halt thou an uncomely, or detormed bedy? Te a plory within, which will then fer all right without; according to all the desire of thine heart. It shall rife a clorimis, beautiful, handlome, and well-proportioned body. its micemelinels, or deformities may po with it to the grave, but chey shall not come back with it, O, that these, who are now fo detirous te be beautiful and handion.e, would not be too hafly to assect it with their foolish aud sinful arts; but wait and study the heavenly art of beautifving the body, by enceavorring now to becomes all glorious within, with the praces of God's Spirit! this woud at length make them admnable and everlasting beauties. Thou nwst indeed, O believer, crapple with death, and shalt get the fire fall: but thou shalt vise again, and come off victorious at last, Thon mult go down to the prave, but though it be thy long home, it will not be thine everliiting home. Thou wilt not hear the voice of thy friends there; but thou shalt hear the vvice of Christ there. Thou mayst be
carried thither with mourning, but shait come up tom it res
Joicing, Thy friends indeed will jeave thee there, but thy God
Will
298 Terror to all unregenerate Men. State lV.
will not. What God said to Jacob concerning his going down to Egypt, (Gen. xlvi. 3, 4.) he says to thee, anent thy going down to the grave, Fear not to go down—l1 will go down with thee—and I will surely bring thee up again.“ O solid comfort! O glorious hopes! Wherefore comfort yourselves, and one another with these words,” 1 Thefl. iv. 18.
UsE II. Ot terror to all unregenerate men Ye Mh are yet iu your natural state, look at tlùs piece of the eternal it3te; and consider what will be your part in it, if ye be not in time brought into the state of grace. Think, O sinner, on that day, when the trumpet shall found, at the voice of which, the bars of the pit shall be broken asunder, the doors of the grave shall fly open, the devouring depths of the fea shall throw up their dead, tlie earth cast forth hers; and death every-where in the excels of astonishment, shall let go its prisoners; and thy. wretched foul and body shall be re-united, to be listed before the tribunal of God. Then, if thou hadst a thousand worlds at thy dispolal, thou would{t gladly give them all away, upon condition thou mightest Ly still in thy grave, with the hundredth part of that ease, wherewith thou hast sometimes lain at home, on the Lord's day: or (if that cannot be obtained, ) that then mightest be but a spectator of the transactions of that day; as thou hast been at some folemn occasions, and rich gospel fealt: : or, (if even that is not to be purchased,) that a mountain, or a rock might fall on thee, and cover thee from the face of the Lamb. h! kow are men bewitched, thus to trifle away the precious time of life, in (almost) as little concern about death as it they were like the beasts that perish! some will be tel! where their corpie mult be laid; while yet they have not feiously considered, whether their graves shall be their beds, where they shall awake with joy in the moriing of the resurrection: ici prisons, out of which they shall be brought to receive the fearful sentence. Remember, now is your fcectime; and as ye sow, ye shall reap. God's seed-time begins at death; and at the resurrection, the bodies of the wicked, that were {own * Full of fins, that ly down with them in the dust,
(Job xx. 11.) shall spring up again, sinful, wretched, and vile. Your bodies, which are now instruments of sin, the Lord will lay aside for the fire, at death; and bring them forth for the fire, at the resurrection. That body, which is not now employ ed in God's service, but is abused by uncleanness and lasct viousnci, will then be brought forth in all its vilenels, thenceshall
forth to lodge with unclean spirits. The body of the di unkard
Wem d lasci. thence: | unk ard
shall
f appear the bri ighter. resfurrection of the just.
> Telus C
: God with your bodies.
q the Holy Ghost ;
Head III.
Terror to all unregenerate Men. 299
snall then stagger by reason of the wine of the wrath of God, poured out to him, aid poured into him, without mixture. These, who how please themielves in their revellings, will reel to and fro at another rate; when, instead of their songs and musick, they fhall hear the found of the last trumpet. Many toil their bodics for worldly gain, who will be loth to diltrets them tor the benefit of their fouls; by labour, unreasonably hard, they will quite disi:tt them for the fervice of God; and,
when they have done, will reckon it a very good reason for
shi fting duty, that they are already t: rec! out with other business:
but the day cis th, when they will be made to abide a yet greater strel They will-75 several mites tor back and belly, who will n Ot 90 hai f the v ay tor the peod of their immortal souls; they Will be! ik kl v and via! '© On the Lord:s da Vs wha will be to erab ly Well all the rest of che Week But when that trumpet {ouids, the dea! yy Ind thor feet, and one shall be
ming in that great coagregatim When che pa es of the {nints shine as Ge lan, frartul iv i. 10685 5f their persecutors be. Fearful will their con It ton be, win {rirctn 85 tain up the saints in_nasty prisons, Migge, burned them 0 hes,
hanged them, and ituck up their heads and hands in pub places, to fr;oht others from the ways of righteousness which. they 1 for. Many faces now fair, will then gather blacknels. They shall be no more admired and carellcd for that beauty, which has a worm at tlie — chat will cause it to issue in lothlomness and deformity. Ah! what is that beauty, under which there lurks a monltruous defomed, and graceless hearts! What but a forry paint, a flight vari th. which will leave the body so much the more ugly, before that flaming- fire, in which the Judge shall be © revealed from heaven, takin Vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel, 2 Thess. i. 7. 8. They shall be stript of all their ornaments, and not have a rag to cover their nakednese: but their carcales shall be an abhorring to all flesh, and serve as a foil to {et off the beauty and glory of the rightcous, and make it Now is the time to secure, for yourselves, a part in the The which if ye would do, unite with brit by faith, rising tpiricuall from fin, and glorifving He is © the resurrection and the life,” If your bodies be members of Christ, temples of they shall certainly arise in glory. Get into this ark now, and ye shall come forth with; joy into the new
* world.
John xi. 28.
200 The General Judgment. State IV.
world. Rise from your sins: cast away these grave-clothes putting off your former lusts. How can one imagine, that these, who continue dead while they live, shall come forth, at the last day, unto the resurrection of life? But that will be the privilege of all those, who having first consecrated their fouls and bodies to the Lord by faith, do glorify him with their bodies, as well as their fouls; living and acting to him, and for him, yea, and luffering for him too, when he calls them to it.
—
H hen the Son of Man shall come in his Glory, an the hy 1 with him, then fhall he fit upon the Throne of his Glory. ER OE, And. him hall he gathered all Nations; and hc shatl s*parate them one from another, as a Shepherd divideth his Sheep from the Goats. 3 And he fhall fit the Sheep on his right Hand, but the Goats en the left. | 5 3 Then fhall the King say unto them on his right Hand, Come ye blessed, &c. Dato them on the left Hand, Depart from me ye cursed, &c. |
And these shall go away into everlassing punishment:
but the Righteous into Life eternal. -
1 ei ee d these, found alive at the III dead being raised, and these, found alive a b pin ar of the Judge, changed. follows the _ judgment, plainly and. awfully described in this portion
: a | atic | lowing parscripture; in which we shall take notice of the fa | | en (1.) The coming of the Judge, When the Lg 8 Man shall come in his glory,” & c. The Judge is Jesus aj 4 the Son of Mau; the same, by whose almighty power, *. +y
—
Hea God,
Ver. | Medi 118 O\ angel (2.) there thron partie great the fa fore h the el lelves the da set on on the ver. 3 Courts Wrote Wrote the pa being: The e iackee
This
and can
before hi
The Ap.
Head IV. The General Judgment. 30
God, the dead will be raised. He is also called * the. King,“ ver. 34. The judging of the world being an act of the Royal Mediator's kingly office. He will come in glory; glorious in us own Person, and having a glorious retinue, eve all the holy angels with him, to minitter unto him at this great tolemnity. (2.) The Judge's mounting the tribunal. He1s a King, aud therefore it is a throne, a glorious throne, * shall {it upon the throne of his glory, ver. 31. (3.) The compearance of the parties. These are all nations; all and every one, small and great. of whatsoever nation, who ever were, arc, or {hall be on the face of the earth; all shall be gathered before hin; sisted before his tribunal. (4. The forting of them. He shall separate the ele& sheep and reprobate goats, setting each party by themselves: as a shepherd who feeds his theep and goats together all the day, separates them at night, ver. 32. The godly he will {ct on his right hand, as the molt honourable place; the wicked on the left, ver. 33. Yet so as they (hail be both before him, ver. 32. It seems to be an allusion to a custom in the Jewish courts, in which, one fat at the right hand of the judge, whe wrote the sentence of ablolution;. another at ther left, who wrote the sentence of condemnation. (5.) The fentencins of the parties, and that according to their works; the rig trons being absolved, and the wicked condemned, ver. 24, 41. Lastly, The execution of both sentences, in the driving away of we wicked into hell, and carrying the godly to heavch, ver. 4.
DOCTRINE. . There shall be a general Judgment. This doctrine 1 fhall, (I.) confirm, (2. ex/!aing and (3-). apply. | | 1. For confirmation of this great truth, that hes shall be a general judgment. . | FIRST, It is evident from plain scripture-teftimonies. The world has in all ages been told of it.
the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, &c. Daniel describes it, chap. vii. 9, 10. I beheld till the the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did fit, whose garments was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool: his throne was Ike the fiery
flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued
and came forth from before him: thousand thousands stoeod before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.“ The Apostle is very express, 2 5 xVii. 31.“ He hath appointed
Enoch beforc the flood, | taught it in his prophecy related, Jude, ver. 14, 15. Behold
302 That there shall be a
State IV.
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by
that Man whom he hath ordaincd.'”” See Matth. xvi. 27. 2 Cor. v. 10. 2 Thesf. i. 7.8.9. 10. Rev. xx. 11. 12. 13. 14.15. God has not only faid it, but he has sworn it, Rom. xiv. 10, II. We muit all stand before the judgment-scat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, faith the Lord, cvery knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.“ So that the truth of God is most solemnly plighted for it. LL. SECONDLY, The rectoral justice and goodness of God, the sovercign Ruler of the world, do necesiarly require it, asmuch as they require its being well with the righteous, and ili with the wicked. Howbeit, we often no fee wickedness exalted, while truth and righteoushels fall in the {treets; piety oppressed, white profanity and wrelipion do triumph. This is lo very ordinary, that every one, who sincercly embraceth the way of Holiness, must, and doth lay lis account with the lols cf all he Das, which the world can take away from him, Luke xiv. 26. If any man com to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. But it is inconsistent with the justice ani gootnels of God, that the affairs of men should always continue in this fate, which they appear in, from one generation to another; but that every man be rewarded according to his works: and since that is not done in this life, there mast be a judgment to cerme: “ Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you: and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord jesus mall be revealed from heaven, 2 Thess. i. 6, 7. There will be a day, in which the scales will be turned, aud the wicked shall be called to an account for all their fins, and suffer the due punishment of them; and the pious ihall be the prosperous: for, as the Apostle argues for the happy resurrection of the faints, © If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most niiserable, 1 Cor. xv. 19. lt is true, God sometimes punitheth the wicked in this life, that men may Know, © he is a God that jadgeth in the earth;* but yet much wickedness remains unpunifhed, and undiscovered; to be a pledoe of the judgment to come. If none of the wicked were -punished here, they would conclude that God had utterly forlaken the earth; if all of them were punished in this life, men -would be apt to think, there is no after reckoning. Therefore, zin the wildom of God, some are punished now, and some not.
Sometimes the Lord smites sinners in the very act of fin; to
—
Head
shew ur
and wil long, ei forgets them. the imp dead an ten trib unhapp walked ed not | out of |} 11 there sh to conv to all xvil. 31 sealed, 1 dead.
Marg.)
cregent humilja: and con and tha
Herea
of powe he was this ver
the trut
great ei Christe! Lord C both of
Las: within! the lav witness, excusin: man, v over th profliga upon t! moning
Head IV.
shew unto the world, that he is witnels to all their wiekedness,
General Judgment, proven. 303 and will call them to an account for it. Sometimes he delays long, ere be strike; that he may discover to the world, that he forgets not mens ill deeds, though he does not presently punish them. Besides all this, the fins of many do out-live them; andthe impure fountain, by them opened, runs. long after they are dead and gone: As in the case of seroboam, the sirst king of the ten tribes; whole sin did run on all along unto the end of that unhappy kingdom, 2 Kings xvii. 22. The children of Iiracl walked in all the sins of Jeroboim, which he did; they departed not from them, Ver. 23. Until the Lord removed liracl out of his fight.” 3 | | T HIRDLY, The resurrection of Christ is a certain proof, that there snall be a day of judgment. This argument Paul useth to convitice the Athenians, says he, He hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead, Acts Xvit. 31. The Judge is already named, his patent written and sealed, yea, and read before all men, in his rising again from ths cad. Hereby God hath given assurance of it, (or offered faith,
Marg.) He hath by raising Christ from the dead, exhibited his
eredentials as Judge of the world. When, in the Gays of his humiliation, he was fisted before a tribunal, arraioned, accused,
and condemned of men; he plainly told them of this judgment,
and that he himscif would be the Judge, Matth. xxvi. 64.
Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man itting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.“ And now that
he was raised from the dead, tho' condemned as a blasphemer on this very head; is it not an undeniable proof, from heaven, of
the truth of what he asserted? Moreover, this was one of the
great ends of Christ's death and resurrection, „for to this end
Christ both died and rose, aud revived, that he might be the
Lord (i. e. The Lord Judge, as is evident from the context,) both of the dead, and of the living, Roni. xiv; 9.
LASTLY, Every man.bears about with him a witness to this
within his own breast, Rom. ii. 15, © Which ew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conkicrce ailn bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean-while accusing, or elle exculing one another.” There is a tribunal crected within every man, where conscience is accufer, witnols, and jadge, binding over the sinner to the judgment or God. This fills the molt profligate wretches with horror, aud inwardly {tings them, upon the commission of fome atrocious crime; in efet sum— moning them to answer for it, before the judge of the quick and
=
*
ITC vs
.
*
_
304 The Coming of Jesus Christ the Judge. State IV.
dead. And this it doth, even when the crime is fecret, and hid trom che eyes of the world. It reacheth those, whom the laws
of men cannot reach, becaule of their power or craft.
men have fled from the judgment of their fetlow-creatures: yet, go where they will, conscience as the supreme Judge's officer, {till keeps hold of them, reserving them in its chains to the judgment of the great day. And whether they escape-punishment from mea, or fall by the hand of public juitice, when they perceive dearth's approach, they hear from within of this
afterreckoning; being constrained to hearken thereto, in thele the
most serions minutes of their life. If there be some, in
whom
nothing of this doth appear, we have no more ground thence to conclude against it, than we have to conclude, that because fome men do not proan, therefore they have no pain; or
that dying is a mere jest, because there have been, who have A good face may be put upon
seemed to make little else of it.
an ill conscience: and the more hopeless mens case is, they reckon it the more their interest to make no reflections on their
state and case.
But every one, who will consult himself seriousty, shall find in himself the witness to the judgment to eome. Even the heathens wanted not a notion of it, though mixed with
fictions of their own.
they heard of the general judgment, ver. 31.
Hence, theugli some of the Athenians, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, mocked,” Acts xvii. 32. yet there is no account of their mocking, when
II. For explication, the following particulars may serve to give some view of the nature and transactions of that great day.
FIRST, God shall judge the world by Jesus Christ.
will judge the world in righteousress, by that man whom he
hath ordained,* Acts xvii. 31.
The Plalmist tells us, that
* God is Judge hiniself,” Psal. I. 6. The holy blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is Judge, in respect of judicia! authority, dominion, and power: but the Son incarnate is the Judge, in respect of dispensation, and special exercise. of that power. The judgment shall be exercised or performed by hin, as the Royal Mediator; for he has a delegated power of Judg— ment from the Father, as his servant, his King, whom he hath © set upon his holy hill of Zion, (Pfal. ii. 6.) and to whom lee © hath committed all judgment,” John v. 22. This is a part ot the Megtator's exaltation, given him, in consequence of his voluntary humiliation, Philip. ii. 8, 9, 10. © He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the crols. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him, and given him 2
name,
Hea name, over e name Joshu kiiee | self, XIV. I shall 1
SE into t heave his eo be fou Numb iu the of buf Was in Son of they into Likev drank
Even
vealed WII ti table, with t some's ment
the bu down mirth
the w half b; bride, fore t Ever
8 holy 4 die for spised: the wi
Head IV. The Coming of 7-/us Christ the Judge, 205
name, which is above every name, (i. e. power and authority over all, to wit,) That at (or in) the name of Jesus (not the name Jesus, as common to others, as do Justus, Col. iv. 11. and Joshua, Heb: iv. 8. which is above every name, that) every Knee shall bow.“ The which is explained by the Ar oltle himself, of © standing before the judgment-scat of chi, Roni. xiv. IO, IT. So he who was judged and condemned of men, shall be the judge of men and angels.
SECONDLY, Jesus Christ the Judge, descending from heaven into the air, (1 Thess. iv. 16, 1 15 mall come in che clouds or heaven, with power and great glory, Matth. xxiv. 20. This his eoming will be a mighty surpr] ze to the world, which will be found in deep erte Hy foolish virgins sleeping, and the wile Numbering. There will then be much luxury aud debauchery iu the world, little fobriety and w atchfulnels; a oreat throng of business, but a great scarcity of faith and boliiefs.: A ft was in the days of Noah, fo also sha!l it be in the days of the Son of man. They did cat, they dran k, they married wives, they Were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark: and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise allo as it was in the days of Lot: they did eat, they
drank, they bought, they {0 d, they planted, they duilded: JETS
Even thus shall it bei in the day, Wien the Son of man is revealed,? Luke 3 xvii. 26,27, 28, 30. Will turprite some at markets, buying and felling; others at table, eating and drinking, and making merry: others buty Wich ET new plantings; some building new houses; nay, some's wedding-day will be their own, and the world's judyment Tey, But the Judge cometh! the markets are marred;
the buyer throws away what he has bought; the seller casts down his money: they are raised from the table, and their mirth is extinguished in a moment; tho? the tree be set in the earth, the oardener may not stay to cast the earth about it; the workmen throw away their tools, when the house is but half built, and the owner regards it no more; the bridegroom, bride, and guests, must leave the wedding-feast, and appear before the tribunal: for, © Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, Rev. i. 7. He shall come most ploriousty: for he will © come in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels, Mark vii. 38.
spised and rejected of men: but when he comes again, to judge the world, such shall be his visible glory and majesty, that it
O63 tha
The coming of the judge
When he came in the flesh, to die for sinners, he laid aside the robes of his glory, and was de-
—
—
—
„
306 The Summons. State IV,
Mall cast an, eternal vail over all earthly gloryy/and fill his greatest exemics with fear and dread. Never had prince, or potentate in the world, such a glorious train, as will accompany this Judge: all the holy angels shall come with him, for his honour and service. Then he, who was led to the cross with a band of soldiers, will be gloriously attended to the place of judgment, by (not a multitude of the heavenly host, but) the whole holt of angels; © all his holy angels, fay the text. TaiRvDLy, At the coming of the Judge, the {summons are given to the parties, by the sound of the last trumpet; at which the dead are raised, and these found alive changed; of which before, 1 Thefl. iv. 16, 17. O loud trumpet, that thall ve heard at once, in all corners of the earth, and of the fea! O wonderful voice, that will not only disturb those who sleep in the dust; bat effectually awaken, rouze them out of their sleep, and raise them from death! Were trumpets founding now, drums beating, furious soldiers crying and killing men, women and children running and shrieking, the wounded groaning and dying; those who are in the graves, would have no more di{turb- _ ance, than if the world were in most profound peace. Yea, were stormy winds calting down the lofty oaks, the {eas roaring and swallowing up the ships, the most dreadful thunders going along the heavens, lichtnings every-where flashing, the earth quaking, trembling, opening, and iwallowing up whole cities, and burying multitudes at once; the dead would still _ enjoy a perfect repose, and sleep soundly in the dust; though their own dust should be thrown out of its place. But at the sound of this trumpet they shall all awake. The morning 1s come, they can sleep no longer; the tune of the dead, that they must be judped: they must get out of their graves, and appear before the Judge. 7 . FoukxrALY, The Judge shall fit down on the tribunal; he x shall fit on the throne of his glory. Sometime he stood before a tribunal on earth, and was condenmed as a malefactor: then shall he fit on his own tribunal, and judge the world. Sometime he hung upon the cross, covered with shame: then he shall sit on a throne of glory. What tis throne shall be, whether a bright cloud, or what else, I shall not inquire. Our eyes will give an answer to that question at length. John faw a great white throne, Rev. xx. 11. lis throne (lays Danicl) was ike the fiery flame, and his wheels as burniag sire, chap. vil. 9. Water er it be, doubtless it shall be a throne glorious beyond expression; and, 10 comparilon With Wich, the most glorious
throne
—
thro it wi begp
line; Nev judg
Mhe similt to ar being etern we g out {cen Iical} eye O their to re God, TRdici, With, SON, be a 1 lion fe given * hath 10 ap stand ll inf. again proces theref,
Words
out-w3
Head IV. The Judge fittirg down on the Tribunal. 207
throne on the earth is but a {eat ov a dunghitl; and the sight of it will equally surprise kings, who lit on thrones in this lite, and beggars, who sat on dupghills. It will be a throne, for statelinels and glory, suited to the quality of him who shall fit on it. Never had a judge such a throne, aud never had a throne iuch a judge on it. : Leaving the discovery of the nature of the throne until that day, it concerns us more nearly to consider what a Judge will {it upon it; a point in which we are not tett to Uncertain conjectures. The Judge on the throne will be (1 ) A visible Judge, visible to our bodily eyes, Rev. i. 7. © Every eye {hall fee him.” When God gave the Jaw on mount Sinai, the people faw no similitude, only they heard a voice: but when he calls the world to an account, how they have oblerved his law; the wan Christ being Judge, we shall see our judge with oar eyes, either to our eternal x pfort or confusion; according to the entertainment we givEhim now. That very body which was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem, betwixt two thieves, shall then be {cen on the throne, shining in glory. We now fee him symbo— lically in the sacrament of his füpper: the saints see him by the eye of faith: but then, all thall see him with these eyes now in their heads. (2.) A Judge having full authority and power, to render unto every one according to his works. Christ, as God, bath authority of himlelf; and as Mediator, he hath a Judicial power and authority, which 1s Father has invested him with, according to the coverant betwixt the Father and the Son, for the redeinption of sinners. And his divine glory will be a light, by which all men shall fee clearly to read his commislion for this great and honourable employment. All power is given unto him in heaven and in earth,” Matth. xxvin. 18, He * hath the keys of hell and of death,” Rev. i. 18. There can be no appeal from his tribunal: sentence once past there, mult stand for ever; there is no reversing of it. All appeals are from an inferior court to a superior one; but when God gives sentence against a man, where can he find a bigher court to bring his process to? This judgment is the Mediator's judgment; and therefore the last judgment. If the Intercessor be against vs, who can be for us? If Christ condemn us, who will ablolve us? (3-) A Judge of infinite wisdoni. His eyes will pierce into and clearly discern, the most iutricate cases. His omniscience qua- Lies him for judging of the most retired thoughts, as well as of words and works. The most subtle sinner, shall not be able to „ out-wit him, nor, by any aritul management, to pailiate the crime.
308 The Compearance of the Parties. State IV.
crime. He is he {carcher of hearts, to whom nothing can be hid or perplexed; bur © all things are naked and gpen unto his eyes, Heb.iv. 13 (4 ) A molt just judge; 8, of perfect integrity. He is * The righteous Judge, +: Tim. iv. 8.) and his throne, A great wiite thrune,' (Rev. xx. II.) from whence no judgment thall proceed, but what is most pure and spotless. The "Fhebans painted justice blind, and without hands: for judges ought not to respect persons, nor take bribes, The Areopagites judged i in the dark; that they might not regard who spoke, but what was spoken. With the Judge on this throne, there will be no respect of persons; he will neither regard the persons of the rich, nor of the poor; but jult judgment shall go forth in every one's caule. Lastly, An omnipotent Judge, able to put his sentence in execution. The united force of devils and wicked men will be altogether unable to withstand him. They cannot retard the execution of the sentence against them, one moment; far lels can they stop it altogether. . 1 housand thousands (of angels) minister unto bim, Dan. 10. And, by the breath of his mouth, he can drive the curled herd whither he plealeth,
FIFTHLY, The partics shall compear. These a are men and devils. Although thele last, the fallen angels, were, from the first moment of their sinning subjected to the wrath of God, and were cast down to hell; and whercsoever they go, they carry their hell about with them: yet, it is evident, that they are * reserved unto judgment,” (2 Pet. ii. 14.) namely, © unto the judgment of the great day,” Jude 6. And then they shall be solemnly and publickly Judged, 1 Cor. vi. 3. Kno ye not that we shall judge angels?” At that day they shall answer for their trade of finning and tempting to sin, which they have been
carry ing on from the beginning. Then many a hellish brat,
which Satan has laid down at the saints door, but not adopted by them, shall be laid at the door of the true father of it, that is, the devil. And he shall receive- the due reward of all the dishonour he has done to God, and of all the mischief he has done to men. Those wicked spirits now in chains (though not in such strait custody, but that they go about, like roaring lions,
secking whom they may devour, ) shall then receive their final sentence, and be shut up in their den, namely, in the prison of hell; where they {hall be held in extreme and unspeakable torment through all eternity, Rev. xx. 10. And the devil that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone,
where the beast and the false prophet are, and mall be tormented
Gay
cale < tribu dition cep te. every a livir gation grace hiding presen almig] {eat o all na of ang © The ele& 1 reprol this w shall e which inhabi his th. 3 8 righte being left. trial b plain c lepara mentic them t © up tc
opposi life; v under 1
they ar
Head IV. The Separation, &Cc. 209
But what we are chiefly concerned to take notice of, is the cale of men at that day. All men must compear betore this tribunal. All of each sex, and of every ape, quality and condition; the great and {:nall, noble and ignoble; none are excepted. Adam and Eve, with all their sons and daughters; every one Who has had, or, to the end of the world, shall have, a living Joul united to a body; will make up this great cong eation. Even those, who refused to come to the throne of grace, shall be forced to the bar of justice: for there can be no hiding from the all-seeing Judge, no flying from him who is present every- where, no resisting of him who is armed with almighty power. © We must all stand before the judgment— seat of Christ,* 2 Cor. v. 10. Before lim shall be gathered all nations, days the text. This is to be done by the ministry of angels. By them shal] the elect be gathered, Mark xii. 27. © Then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds.” And they allo shall gather the
reprobate, Matth. x11. 40, 41. © So fhall it be in the end of
this world, The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity.” From all corners of the world shail the inhabitants thereof be gathered to the place where he shall set his throne for judgmeat.
SIXTHLY, There shall! be a separation made betwixt the righteous and the wicked; the Fate company of the cle& sheep being set on Christ's right hand, and the reprobate goats on his left. There is no necessity to wait for this cparation, till che trial be over; since the parties do rise out of their graves, with plain outward marks of distinction, as was cleared before. The leparation seems to be effected by tha: double gathering before mentioned; the one, of the elect, Mark. Iii. an the other, of them that do i iniquity, Matth. xii. 41. The tle d, being caught F wa, together in the clouds, meet the Lord in na Air, (1 Theft,
17.) and so are set on his right hand: andthe reprobate left on the earth, (Matth. xxv. 40. ) upon the Judge's left hand. Here is now a total f. paratio on of two Parties, who werealways opposite to cach other; in their pri ncip! ies, aims, and manner of life; who, when t- wether, W . 2 burden the one to the other under which the one gon ned, and the other raged : but nog they are freely part ted, never to come together any more. The
iron
State IV.
iron and clay, (allude to Dan. ii. 41, 43.) which could never mix, are quite separated: the one being drawn up into the air, by the attractive virtue of © the stone cut out of t mountain, namely, Jesus Christ: the other left upon its earth, to be trod under foot. | |
Now let us look to the right hand, and there we will see a glorious company of saints, shining as so, many stars in their orbs: and with a cheartul countenance beholding him, who litteth upon the throne, Here will be two wonderful sights, which the world used not to fee. (1.) A great congregation of saints, in which not so much as one hypocrite. There was a bloody Cain in Adam's family, a cursed Ham in Noah's family, in the ark; a treacherous Judas, in Christ's own family: bu: in that company shalt be none but sealed ones, members of
210 The Separation betwixt
Christ, having all one Father. And this is a fight reserved for
that day. (2.) All the godly upon one Zde. Seldom or never do the saints on earth make such a harmony, but there are some jarring strings among them. It is not to expected, that men who {ce but in part, though they be all going to one city, will agree as to every step in the way: no, we need not look for i: in this state of tmperfe&ion: But at that day, Paul and Barnabas
mall meet in peace and unity, Mough once the contention was
so sharp between them, that they departed asunder, the one from the other, Acts xv. 29. There shall be no more divisions, no more {separate standing, amongst those who belong to Christ. All the oodly of the different parties shall then be upon one side; seeing, whatever were their differences in lesser things, while in the world, yet, even then, they met and concentred all in one Lord Jesus Christ, by a true aud lively faith, and in the on
way of holiness, or practical godliness. And the naughty hy;
pocrites, of whatloever party, {hall be led forth with the workers of iniquity.
Look to the left hand, and there vou will see the crirsed goats
-
(all the wicked ones from Cain to the lait ungodly person who shall be in the world,) gathered together into one molt miser. able congregation. There are many assemblies of the wicked now; then there shall be but one. But all of them {hall be
esent there, brought together as one herd for the slaughter, Keltowing and roaring, weeping and howling for the miseries come, and that are coming upon them. (And remember thou fhalt not be a mere spectator, to look at chese two so different companies; but mult thyself take thy place in one of the two,
id thalt share with the company, whatever hand it be upon.)
These
He: The; wou it We shall floor hand the 1 right fur ter ri!
Will they are 1 and the le the u Turk stand _ peopl EXOTC powe oppol in one in fin whor Who! inthe ren, inires OW misere ONS; 7 inTea, SS. be diff be hid made cleare Me: bring thier it Judge
in the
Head IV. the Righteous and the Wicked. 311
These who now abhor no society fo much as that of the saints, would then be glad to be allowed to got in among them, though it were but to ly among their. feet. But then not one tare shall be found with the wheat; be will throughly purge his floor.“ Many of the ri-ht-hand mon of this world, will be lefthand mei in tbat day. Many, who mult have the door and the right hand of chese, Who are better than they, (if“ the righteous be more eilen than his neighbour,” ) shall then be turned to the tet hard, 1: molt despicahle wretches. O how terrible will this jepur rien 55 to the w 1Wodly | how dreadful will this gathering tl tg er into one co. npany be! what they will not believe, they wil then sde, namely, that but few are saved. - They think. cav..c BY e, (0 be neigh bour-like, and can tecurely follow de © thc: but the multitude on the left band will yield them © mort. Flow 6k It ting the ungodly Christian, to fee himicir t2t on the fame hand with Turks and E agans! how ll it gait men to find themicives standing, protane Prolcit ande with idolatrous Papilts; Praying people with their profuns acighbours, who mocked at religious exercises: tor ma al rte, trangers tothe newW-birth and the power of god! incls, with perfecutors! now there are many opposite locieties in the world, but then all the ungodly all be in one society And ho o dreadful will the faces of cOmpan! 108 in fin be to one another there! wheat doleful thricks, when the whoremonper and his whore shall meet; when the drunkards, who have had many a jowal day together, shall sce one another in the face: when the Runden and wite, this patents and child ren, the master and servants, and neighbours; who have been mares and stumbiing blocks to one ano! her BL tt ze ruin of their own souls, and thiete of their relatives, shall meet again in that miserable society! Then will there be curses instead of falut 1tions; and tearing 7 of themselves, and raping against one another, inf tead of the wonted embraces CEVENTHLY, i lic parties hall be tried, The trial cannot be difficult, in regard the Judge is onmifcient, and nothing can de hid: from him. But, that his righteous judgment ma be made evident to all, he will set the ludden tha
clearest liglit. at that trial, eo 5.
Men shall be tried, Fi: it, Upon their works: for © God Mall "ring every work into 3. dg nent, wich every {ecret thing, v bether it be good, or whether it be evil,“ Eecles. xii, 14. The Judge will try evcry man's conversation, and {ct bis deeds done. in the body, with alt the circumstances there of, un a true light.
—
py Of G&rknets in
Thea
312 The Trial of the Parties. State IV,
Then will many actions commended and applauded of men, as
good and just, be dilcovered to have been evil, and abominable,
in the sight of God: and many works, now condemned by the world, will be approven and commended by the great Judge, as good and just. Secret things will be brought to light: and what' was hid from the view of the world, thall be laid open. Wickedness, which hath kept its lurking place 3 in spite of all
human search, will then be brought forth, to the glory of God,
and the confulion of impenitent finners who hid it. The world
appears now very vile, in the eyes of those who are exerciser
to godliness: but it will then appear a thousand times more
vile, when that, which is done of men in secret, comes to by difcovercd. Every good action shall then be remembees: - and the hidden religion and good works, most industriously concealed by the saints, from the eyes of men, fhall xo more ly hid: for though the Lord will not allow men to proclaim every man his
Sen gooduess; yet he himself will do it in due time. Secondly, Their words shall be judged, Matth. xii. 37. © For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.“ Not a word spoken for God, and his cause in the world, from love to himself, shall be forgotten. They are all kept in remembrance, and shall be brought forth as evidences of faith,
and of an interest in Christ, Mal. iii. 16. Then they that feared
the Lord, spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkned, and hd it: and a book of remembrance was written before
him. Ver. 17. And they shall be mine, faith the Lord of hosts,
in that day when J make up my jewels.” And the tongue which
did run at random, thall then confess to God: and the speaker
fall find it to have been followed, ard every word noted tliat dropped from his unsanctisied lips. © Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, Matth. xii. 36. And if they shall give account of idle
* ords, that is, words spoken to no good purpose, neither to
God's glory, one s n, or one's neigh hour's good: how much more shall men's wicked words, their sinful oaths, curls, lies, filthy communications, and bitter words be call d over again, that day” The tongues of many shall then fall upon thernlelycs, and ruin them. Thirdly, Mens thoughts shall be brought into judgment: : the Judge wil make manifest the counsel of their
hearts, 1 Cor. 6 Thoughts go free from man's judgment,
but not From as ane of the heart - searching God, who knows men's thoughts, without the help of signs to discern
| Ben by. The a pr: 88 cf mens actions will then he
brought
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Head IV. The Books opened. 313
brought to light; and the sins, that never came further than the heart, will then be laid open. O what a figure will man's corrupt nature make, when his inside is turned out, and all his speculative impurities are expolcd! the rottenness that is within many a whited {epulchre, the speculative filthiness and wantonness, murder and mabgnity, now lurking in the hearts of men, as in the -ehamber of imagery, will then be diicovered; and What good was in the hearts of any, shall no more lie concealed. If it was in their hearts to build a houle to the Lord, they shall hear, that they did well that it was in their heart.
This trial will be righteous and impartial, accurate and
searching, clear and evident. The Judge is the righteous Judge,
and he will do right to every one. He has a just balance for
good and evil actions, and tor honest and falie hearts. The sig-Jcave cover of hypocrisy will then be blown aside, and the hvpocrite's nakedness will appear; as when the Lord came to 1udpe Adam and Eve, © in the cool (or, as the word is, in the wind) of the day,” Gen. it. 8. The fire (which tries things molt exquisitely) shall try every man's work, of what tort it is, 1 Cor. ini. 13. Man's judgment is oft-times perplexed and confused, but here the whole process shall be clear and evident, as
written with a sun-beam. It shall be clear to the Judge, te whom no case can be intricate; and to the parties, who shail be convinced, Jude 15. And the multitudes on both sides, shall see the judge is clear when he judgeth: for then the heavens shall declare his righteousness, in the audience of all the world; and io it shall be universally known, Pial. 1. 6. ”
On these accounts it is, that this trial is held out in the scripture under the notion of opening of books; and men are said to be © judged out of thote things written in the books, Rey. XX. 12. The judge of the world, who iafallibly knoweth all things, hath no need of books to be laid before him, to prevent mistake in any point of law or fact: but the expression points at his proceeding, as molt nice, accurate, just, and well grounded, in every step of it. Now, there are four books that shall
be opened in that day. 5 FIRST, The book of God's remembrance or omniscience,
Mal. ii. 19. This is an exact record of every man's state,
thoughts, words, and deeds, good or evil: it is, as it were, &
day-book, in which the Lord puts down all that passeth in mens
hearts, lips, and lives; and it is a-filling up every day that one lives. In it are recorded mens fins and good works, secret and open, with all their circumstances. Here axe registred all their
-
214 Die Books opened. State IV.
privileges, mercies temporal and spiritual, some- time laid te
their hand; the checks, admonitions, and rebukes, given by
teachers, neighbours, asflictions, and mens own consciences; every thing in its due order. This book will serve only as a libel in respect of the ungodly; but it will be for another use in respect of the godly, namely, for a memorial of their good. The opening of it is the Judge's bringing to light what is written in it; the reading as it were, of the libel and memorial,
respectively in their hearing.
SECONDLY, The book of Conscience will be opened, and
. shall be as a thousand witnesses to prove the fact, Rom. ii. 15.
© Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their
. conscience also bearing witness.” Conscience is a censor going
with every man : whithersacver he goes, taking an account of
his deeds done in the body; and, as it were noting them in a
book ; the which being opened, will be found a double of the
| former, so far as it relates to one's own state and case. Much
is written in it, which cannot be read now, the writing of
conscience being in many cases, like to that which is made with
the juice of lemons, not to be read, til it be held before the fire;
but then men shall read it clearly avd distinctly: the fire which is to try every man's work, will make the book of conscience legible in every point. Tho' the book be sealed now, (the conscience blind, dumb and deaf,) the seals will then be broken, and the book opened. There shall be no more a weak or. miinformed conscience among those on the. hand, or these on the left. There shall not be a silent conscience, and far less a seared conscience amongst all the ungodly crew: but their consciences shall be most quick sighted, and most lively, in that day.
None shall then call good evil, or evil good. Ignorance of what sin js, and what things are fins, will have no place amoug
them: and the subtle reasonings of men, in favour of their lusts,
will then be for ever baffled by their own coniciences. None shall have the favour (if I may so speak, ) of lying under the soft cover of delusion: , but they shall all be convicted by their conscience. Nill they, will they, they shall look on this book, read, and be contounded, and stand speechless, knowing that
nothing is charged upon them by miltake ; since this is a book,
which was always in their own custody. Thus shall the Judge make every man see himself, in the glass of his own conscience, which will make quick work. 9 5 THIR DIV, The book of the Law shall be opened. This ook is the staudard and rule, by which is known what is right,
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Head IV. The Books opened. - v1
and what is wrong; as also, what sentence is to be passed accordingly, on these who are under it. As to the opening of this book, in its statutory part, which shews what is sin, and what ie duty; it falls in with the opening of the book of conscience. For conscience is set, by the Sovereign Lawgiver, in every man's breast, to be his private teacher, to shew him the law, and his private pastor, to make application of the fame; and, at that
day, it will be perfectly fit for its office; fo that the conscience, ..
which is most stupid now, shall then read to the man, most accurate, but dreadful lectures, on the law. But what seems
(mainly at least) pointed at, by the opening of this book, is the
opening of that part of it, which 8 the reward of mens works. Now, the law promiseth life, upon perfect obedience:
but none can be found on the right hand, on on theteft,/ who will pretend to that, when once the book of con sclence is opened, it threatneth death upon disobedience, and witkeffeftually bring
it upon all under its dominion. And this part of the book of the law, determining the reward of mens works, is -opened,
enly to shew what mult be the portion of the ungodly, and that
there they may read their sentence before it be pronounced. But it is not opened for the sentence of the saints; for no sentence absolving a sinner could ever be drawn out of it. The law promiseth life, not as it is a rule of actions, but as a covenant of works? And therefore innocent man could not have
demanded life upon his obedience, till the law was redaced into the form of a covenant; as was. shewn before. But the saints
having been, in this life, brought under a new covenant, namely, the covenant of grace, were dead to th. law, as a covenant of works, and it was dead to them. Wherefore, as they shall not
have any fears of death from it, so they can have no hopes of fe from it, since they are not under the law, but under grace, Rom. vi. 14. But, for their sentence, another book is opened; of which in the next place. | Thus the book of the law is opened, for the sentence against all those on the left hand: and by it they will clearly see the justice of the judgment against them, and how the Judge proeeeds therem according te law. Nevertheless, there will be this difference, namely, that these who had only the natural law, and lived not under any special revelation, shall be judged by
that law of nature they had in their hearts: which law bears,
* that they who commit (ach things, (as they will stand convicted of,) are worthy of death,” Rom. i. 22. But these, who dad the written law, to whom the word of God came, as it has
*
*
„
.
316 Sentence pronounced on the Saints, State IV. founded in the vilible church, shall be judged by that written Jaw. So lays the Apoltle, Rom. ii. 12. For as many as have sinned without (the written) law, shall perish without (the
written) law: and as many as have sinned in the law, Ge, under the written law,) shall be judged by the (Written) law.” Lasrzry, Another book shall be opened, which is the book of life,” Rev. xx. 12. In this, the names of all the elect are written, as Christ {aid to his disciples, Luke x. 20. Your naines are written in heaven.“ This book contains God's gracious and unchangeable purpose, to bring all the elect to eternal life; and that, in order thereto, they be redeemed by the blood of his Son, effeftually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and raised up by him at the last day without fin. It'is now lodped in the
Mediator's hand, as the book of the manner of the kingdom:
and having perfected the work the Father gave them to do; he shall, on the great day produce, and open the book, and present the persons therein named, * faultless before the presence of his
glory, Jude 24. Not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing,“ Eph. v. 27. None of them all, who are named in the book, shall be missing. They shall be found qualified, according
to the order of the book, redeemed, called, justified, santified, raised up without spot: what remains then, but that, according to the same book, they obtain the great end, namely, everlasting life. This may be gathered from that precious promise, -
Rev. ui. 5. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; (being raised, in glory:) and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. But I will confch> his name,
(it shall be, as it were, read out among the rest of God's cleet,)
before my Father, and befare his angels.” Here js now the
ground of the saints absolviture, · the ground of the blessed sentence they shall receive. The book of life being opened, it will
be known to all, who are elected, and who are not. Thus far
of the trial of the parties.
sentence on the saints, © Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,“ Matth. xxv. 34. It is most probable, the man Chrilt will pron-unce it with an audible voice; which not only all the saints, but all the wicked likewise, shall hear and understand. Who can concave the inexpressible joy, with which these happy ones ihall hear these words? Who can imagine that fulnels of Joy, which shall be poured into their hearts, with these words
reaching their ears? And who can conceive how much of hell
shall
Head IV. Sentence pronounced on the Saints. 217
shall break into the hearts of all the ungodly crew, by these words of heaven! It is certain this sentence shall be pronounced
before the sentence of damnation, Matth. xxv. 34. Then thall
© the King say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed, &c. © Ver. 41. Ihen shall he say,allo to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, &c.* There is no need of this order, that the saints may, without fear or astonishment, hear
the other sentence on the reprobate : they who are rajle@ in glory, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, presented without
spot, and whole souls (for the far greater part of them ) T.z>e
been so long in heaven before, shall not be capable of any such
fear. But hereby they will be orderly brought in, to lit av judgment, as Christ's aflessors, against the ungodly; whole torment will be aggravated by it. It will be a helt to them, to be kept out of hell, till they see the doors of heaven opened to receive the saints, who once dwelt in the same world with them; and perhaps in the same country, parish, or town; and sat under the same miaistry with themselves. Thus will they see heaven afar off, to make their hell the hotter. Like that
unbelieving lord, 2 Kings vii. 19, 20. they shall see the plenty,
with their eyes, but shall not eat thereof. Every.word of the blessed sentence shall be like an envenoimed arrow {hot into their hearts, while they see what they bave lost, and from thence gather what they are to expect. |
This sentence passeth on the saints according to their works, Rev. xx. 12. But not for their works, nor tor their faith neither,
as if eternal life were merited by them. The fentence itself
overthrows this absurd conceit. The kingdom they are called to, was prepared for them, from the foundation of the world; not left to be merited by themselves, who were but of yesterday. They inherit it as lons, but procure it not to themselves, as servants da the reward of their work. They were redeemed
by the blood of Christ, and clothed with his spotless righteousness, which is the proper cause of the sentence. They were also qualified for heaven, by the sanctification of his Spirit; and hence it is according to their works; fo that the ungedly world shall see then, that the Judge of the quick and dead docs good to them, who were good. Therefore it is added to the ieutence, For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat, &c. Ver. 35,36.
which doth not denote the ground, but the evidence or their
right to heaven; as if a judge should say, he absolves a man pursued for debt; for the witnesses depone, that it is paid already. So the Apostle says, 1 Cor. x. 5. © But with many of | De 3 | | then
318 The Saints shall judge the World. State IV.
* them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in © the wilderness.“ Their overthrow in the wildexnefs was not the ground of God's displeasure with them, but it was an evidence of it. And thus our Lord teacheth us the necessary connexion betwixt glory and good works, namely, works evangelically good; works having a respect to Jesus Christ, and done out of faith in him, and love to him, without which they will
not be regarded in that day. And the saints will so far be
Judged according to such worl.s, that the degrees of glory
amongst them shall be according to these works: for it is an eternal truth, © He that soweth iparingly, shall reap sparinply,? 2 Cor. ix. 6. | | Thus shall the good works of the godly have a glorious, not a gratuitous reward; a reward of grace, not of debt, which will fill them with wonder at the riches of free grace, and the Lord's condescending to take any notice, especially fuch public notice, of their poor worthlels works. The which seems to be the import of what they are said to answer, faving, © Lord, when law we thee an hungred, &c. Ver. 37, 38, 39. And may they not justly wonder to fee themselves set down to the marriage-supper of the Lamb, in consequence of a dinner or supper, a little meat or drink (such as they had) which they gave to an hungry. or thirsty member of Christ, for his fake? Oh plentiful harvest following upon the seed of good works! river; of pleasure springing up from (perhaps) a cup of cold water
given to a difciple, in the name of a disciple! eternal mansions of glory rifing out of a night's lodging given to a faint, who was a stranger! everlasting robes of glory given in exchange of a
new coat, or (it may be) an old one, beftowed on some saint, who had not necessary clothing! a visit to a sick faint, repaid by Christ himself, coming in the glory of his Father, with ali His holy angels! a visit made to a poor prisoner, for the cause of Christ, repaid with a visit from the Judge of all, taking away the visitant with him to the palace of heaven, there to be ever
with himself! the. things will be matter of everlasting wonder;
and should stir up all, to sow liberally in time, while the seectime of good works doth last. But it is Christ's stamp on good works, that puts a value on them, in the eye of a gracious God; which secms to be the import of our Lord's reply, ver. 40. In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of thete my 5 brethren, ye have done it unto me.“
IX. Now the {aints having received their own sentence,
F they (hall judo? the world, 1 Cure Vs 2. This Was not tula
Head Iv. Sentence of Damnation. 319
filled, when the empire became Christian „ and hristians were
made magistrates. No, the Pfalmift telis us, © "Platz honour
c have all the saints,” Plal. cxlix. 9. Aud ie Apostle in the
forecited place, adds, And if the world {h:ll judged by you,
Care ye unworthy to judge the Imallest matters?“ Ver. 3.
Know ye not that we fuall judec angels!“ Leg called, they
come to receive their Ki. , i the view of an els and en:
they go, as it were, from che bar to die tl. one: Lo him that
© oycrcomet!!, will I grac.c to. Wich me ou my tarone,”
Rev. iii. 21. They shall not oniy judge the world, ia Christ
their head, by way of commuaio e bim; by their werks
compared with these of the ung ody; or, by wc.y ol teftimony
against them:; but they shall. be 812:Jors ro Jefii> Christ the
Judge, giving their voice against chein, consenting to his judg—
ment azgust, and saying Amen, to the doom pronounced agaiust
all the ungodly : as is said of the faints, pon the judgu ent of
the great whore, Rev. xix. 1, 2. Lialiclujah, tor true and
rigbteous are his judgments.“ Thus the upright fhall have
© dogrinion over than, in the morning of the resurrection, Pial.
xlix. 14. Then, and not till then, hall that fully be accor-pe
lished, which ye may read, Plal. cxlix. 6, 7, 8, 9. Let the
high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged {word
in their hand, to exccute vengeance upon the heather, and
* punichinents upon the peopic :— This honour have all ls faint.“
Oh! what a {trange turn of affairs will appear here! what an
altonifhing fight will it be, to see wicked church-men and statesmen standing as criminals before the saints, whom sometimes
they condemned as heretics, rebels and traitors! to fee men of
riches and power stand pale- faced before these whom they oppressad! to lee the mocker stand tremblin g before thele he
mocked: the worldly-wile man before these whom he accounted fools! then shall the deipiled faces of the saints be dreadful
faces to the wicked: and thole who sometimes were the longs
of the drunkards, shall then be a terror to them. All wrongs
mult be richted at length, and every one set in his proper place.
TENTRLIV, The Judge shall pronounce the sentence of
damnation on all the ungodly multitude. © "Then shall he lay
* alfo unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed,
* Into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,”
Ver. 41. Feartil doom! and that from the same mouth, from
whenceproceeded the {entence of abtolution before: It was an
aggravation ef the misery of the Jews, when their city was de-
{troyed, that they were ruined by one, who was ITN
3 Sentence of Damnation | State VI.
darling of the world. Oh! what an aggravation of the misery
of the wicked will it be, that be shall pronounce this sentence also! to hear the curse from mount Zion, must needs be most terrible. To be damned by him, who came to fave finners,
must be double damnation. But thus it shall be. The Lamb
of God shall rore, as a lion, against them! he shall excommunicate, and cast them out of his presence for ever, by a sentence from the threne, faying, © Depart from me, ye cursed:* He shall adjudge them to everlasting fire, and the society of devils for evermore. And this sentence also, we suppose, shall be pronounced with an audible voice, by the man Christ. And all the faints shall say, © Hallelujah, true and righteous are his judgments.“ None were so compassionate as the saints, when on earth, during the time of God's patience. But now that time is at an end; their compassion on the ungodly is swallowed up
- In joy, in the Mediator's glory, and his executing of just judgment, by which his enemies are made his footstool. Though
sometimes the righteous man did weep in fecret places for their
pre, and becaule they would not bear; yet then he © snall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, Pkl. lvit. 10. No pity shall then be shewn to them, from their nearest relations. The godly wife shal! applaud the justice of the judge, in the condemnation ef her ungodly husband: the godly husband shall say Amen to the damnation of her who lay in his bosom: the godly parents shall fly Hallelujab, at the passing of the sentence against their ungodly child: and the godly child shall, from his heart, approve
the damnation of his wicked parents, the father who begat him,
and the mother who bore him. The sentence is just: they are Judged according to their works, Rev. xx. 12.
There is no wrong done them. For I was an hungry,” faith our Lord, © and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye geve me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and yeclothed me not: fick, and in prison, and ye vilited me not, ver. 42, 43. These are not only evidences of their ungodly and curicd state, but mosi proper causes
and grounds of their condemnation: for though good works do
not merit salvation, yet evil works merit damnation. Sins of
dne kind only, namely, of omissien, are here mentioned; not that these alone shall then be discovered, (for the opening of
the books lay all open, ) but · because these, though there were no more, re sufficient to damn unpardoned sinners. And if men shall be condemned for fins of omitlion, much more for {is
—
Head iv, on the Ungodly. 32
of commission. The omission of works of charity and mercy, is condescended on particularly, to stop the mouths of the wicked; for it is most just, that he © have judgment without mercy, thatyhath shewed no mercy,” James ii. 13. The mentioning of the omission of acts of charity and mercy towards the distressed members of Christ, intimates, that it is the judg— ment of those who have heard of Chriit in the gospel, that is principally intended here, in this portion of scripture; and that the fighting of Christ will be the great cause of the ruin of those who hear the pospel: but, the enmity of the hearts of the wicked against himself, is discovered by the entertainment they now give to his members, In vain will they say, When saw we thee an hungred, or 6 - thirst? &c. ver. 44. For the Lord reckons, and will reckon, the world's 1,nkindress to his people, unkineness to himself: © In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me, ver. 45. O meat and drink unhappily foared, when a member of Christ was in need of it! O wretched neglect, that the stranger saint was not taken in! it had been better for them, they had quitted their own room, and their own bed, than he had wanted lodgmg. O curled cloathing,
may the wicked lay, that was in my house, locked up in my
chest, or hanging in ny Wardrobe, and was not brought out to clothe such a ane! O that I had stripped myself, rather tlian he had gone away without cloathing? Cursed business, that vert ed me from visiting such a sick aint? O that I had rather watche ed whole nights with him. Wretch that I was? why cid 1 it
at ease in my house, hen be was in p ihn, and did not visit
hun? But now the tables are turned: Chist's servants tha!! eat, but I shall be hungry; his servants shall drink, but I shall be thirsty; they rejoice, but I am ashamed, Ita. XV. 12, They are taken in, but 1 am cast out, aud bid depart: {> are cloathed with robes of glory, but 1 walk 2ked, 2nd they fre
my shame, Rev. xvi. 15. They are now rai] pp on Ligh,
beyond the reach of sickness or pain; but I mnt 1.4 ly down * in sorrow, IIa. I. 11. Now fil they go to the palace of heaven, but I must go to the 4i% oy of hell.
But if our Lord thus reients men's nepleAing to help his people under these, and the like distresses; wit may they expct, who are the authors and instruments of them? It they shall be fed with wrath, who fed them wot, hben they were hungry; what shall become of those, W 7. rb A H d them, and took their own bread away from them: Vs Lat a Full
322 Senience on the Ungodly. State IV.
cup of wrath shall be the portion of those, who were so far from giving them meat or drink, when hungry or thirfty, that
they made it a crime for others to entertain them, and made
themselves drunken with their blood! they must lodge with devils for evermore, who took not in the Lord's people, when strangers: then, what a lodging shall those have, who drave them out of their own houses, out of their native land, and made them strangers? Men will be condemned for not cloathing them, when naked: then, how heavy mult the sentence of thcle be, who have stript them, and made them go without cloathing! Surely, if not che of them in sickness, or in a prison, shall be so severely punished: they shall not escape a most heavy doom, who have cast them into prisons, and have put them under such hardships, as have impaired their health, brought sickness on them, and cut their days in prifon, or out of prison; To put a face upon. such wicked practices, men will pretend
to retain an honou for Christ and religion, while they thus | treat his members, walking in his ways, and keeping the truth.
They are here represented-to fay, ©When saw we thee an hung- © red, or a-thirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, © and did not minister unto thee? Ver. 44. As if they should fay, Our bread, drink, lodging, cloathing, and visits, were indeed refused, but not to Christ; but to a set of men, of a bad character, men who-* turned the world up-side down,” (Acts xvii. 6.) who: © troubled. Ifrael, (2Kings xviti. 17.) an humorous and fantastic sort of people, having laws diverse from all people; factious and rebellious, (they did not keep the king's
3 laws, ) and therefore a very dangerous let of men; it was not pig king's profit to suffer them, Esther iii. 8. But altho
men cast iniquity upon the godly, and give them ill names, that
ey may treat them as criminals; all these pretences will avail — — in the great day, before the righteous Judge, nor before their own consciences neither; but the real ground of their enmity. against the saints, will be found (to their own conviction) to be their enmity against Christ himself, This seems to be the import of the objectiomof the damned, (ver. 44. and of the anfwer to it, ver. 45) In as much as ye did it not 61 the least of these, ye did it not to me. yoda Sentence e on both parties, follows the full execution of the same, ver. 46. And thele shall go away
| e STAR 75, © into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
The damned shall get no reprieve, but go to their place without
delay; they shall be driven away from the judgment · seat into
hell:
Head
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Head IV.
hell: and the saints shall enter into the King's palace, (Psal. xlv. 15.) namely, into heaven, the seat of the blessed. But our Lord Christ, and his glorious company, shall keep the field chat day, and fee the backs of all their enemies'; for the dam-
The General Conflagration. 328
ned go off first.
In this day of the Lord, the great day, shall be the 82 conflagration; by which those visible heavens, the earth, and sea shall pass away. Not that they shall be annihilated, (or
reduced to nothing, ) that is not the operation of fire: but they | shall be dissolved, and purged by that fire, from all the effects
of sin, or of the curse, upon them; and then renewed, and made more glorious and stable. Of this conflagration, the Apostle Peter speaks, 2 Pet. iii. 10. But the day of the Lord © will come, as a thief in the night: in the which the heavens
© shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat: the earth allo, and the works that are © therein shall be burnt up.“ See also ver. 7, 12. And of the renewing of the world, he adds, ver. 13. Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens, and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
It seems most agreeable to the scriptures, and to the nature of the thing, to conceiye this conflagration to follow after the general judgment; sentence being past on both parties before it.
And I judge it probable, that it will fall in with the putting of
the sentence in execution against the damned; fo as they shall (according to their sentence, depart, aud the heavens and the
earth pass away, together and at once, at that furious rebuke
from the throne, driving away the damned out of the wald, (in this fire) to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Even as, in the delupe, with which the Apostle Peter compares the conflagration, or burning of the world, (2 Pet. ii. 6, 7.) the world itself, and the wicked upon it, perished together; the same water which destroyed the earth, Iweeping away the inhabitants. wicked shall at all stand on the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, (2 Pet. ii. 13.) and as for this earth, it shall flee away; (which seems to denote a very quick dispatch,) and it kall flee from his face, who fits on the throne, Rev. xx. IT. And I faw a great white throne, and him that fat on it, from
whose face the earth and the heavens fled away.” The exec ution of the sentence on the wicked, is also thus expressed; they * shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence The original
word
For it is not likely, that the
—
324 The General Cin flagration. State IV.
word is the same in both texts, the which, being compared, seem to say, that thele creatures abused by the wicked, being left to stand, as witnelses acainit them in the judgment, are, after sentence past on their abusers made to pals away with them from the face of the sudge. It 1 is true, the fleeing aw ay of the carth
and heaver is natiael (Rev. xx. 11.) belore tize judgment:
but that will no: prove its g0.ng before the judgment, more than the narrating of the 3x; dy rent, ver. 12. before the resurrection, ver. 13. will prove tie jaqgment to be before it. Further it is remarxal le, in the execution of, d lenterce, Rev. . 14, 15. tua not only the revrobate we cast into the lake, but death and hell are c a into it iiwwile+ All effects of 1in, and of the curic, are removed wat of the world, (for which very cause shall the confiagration de,) d they are conlined to the place of the datancd. Beiwdes all this, it is evident the end of the world is by the conflagration: and the Apollle tells us, 1 Cor. xv. 24; 25.) that Tren cometh the end, when he thall have deliver: a up the kingdom to God, even the Father: „hen he shall hase put down all rule, and all authority, and power, For he muit reign, til he hath put all enemies und er © his feet. ihe which lait, As it must be done before the end; so it seems noc to be done, but by putting the sentence in execution, past in the Cay of judgment, against the wicked. Now if the buxring of Sodom and Gomorrah, that are (ct forth for an exainple, (Jude 7.) was fo dreadivl: how terrible will that day be, when the whole world shall be at once in fiznes! kow v All wrerched worldlnos look, when their darling
world shall be all on fire? Then shall strong castles, and tow ering Facts wich all their rich furuiture, go up together in one flame with the lowelt cottages. What heart can fully conceirc the terror of that day to the wicked, When the whole fabric of heaven and earth shall at once be dissolved by that fire! when that milerable company shall be driven fron the tribunal to the pit, with fire within them, and fire without them; and fire behind them, and on every hand of'them; and fire before them, awaiting them! in the lake: whither this fi re (for ought appears} may follow them!
As for the particular place of this Judgment, though some point us to the valley of Jehoshaphat for it, yet our Lord, who infallibly knew kit, being ased the question. by his disciples, Where Lord!“ told them only, Wheresoever the body i is, © thither will the eagles be gathered together, Luke xvi. 37.
After whichantwer, it is too much for men to renew the question.
Pro the)
Goc YCac c ne And min {hal
I wha
U con your Iofle © the "vel judg you, Wor] who In ex Judo Vou 1 whe1 rage in cot the t. body your
Head IV. Comfort to the Salus. 225
As for the time when it shall be; in vain do men search for what the Lord has purpolely kept lecret, Acts i. 8. © It is not for you to know the times or the sealons, which the Father has put in his own power.“ The Apostle Paul, after having very
lunly described the second coming of Christ, 1 Thief. iv. 16,17. adds, (chap. v. 1, 2.) © But of the times and scasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord {o cometh, as a thief in the
night.“ Nevertheless; {ome in several ages, have made very
bold with the time; and several particular years, which are now
pait, have been given out to the world, for the time of the end,
by men who-have pried into the secrets of God. Time has proclaimed to the world their rathnets and folly: and it is like] they will be no more happy in their conjectures, whose determinate_ tine is yet to come. Let us rest in that he cometh. God hath kept the day hid trom us, that we may be every day ready for it, Matth. xxv. 13. Watch thercfore, for ye know c neither the day nor the hour, wherein the Son of man cometh,” And let us remember, that the la{t day of-our life will determine our (tate in the last day of the world: aud as we die, fe shall we be jaaged.
I shall now ihut up this sabject, with some application of what has been said. |
UsE I. Of comfort to all the faints. Here is abundance of consolation to all who arc in the state of grace. Whatever be your asflic ions in the world, this day will make up all your
© the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with © yellow gold,” Pfal. Iv. 13. Though the world reproach, judge and condemn vou; the Judge will, at that day, absolve you, and bring forth your righteousness as the light. The world's fools will then appear to have been the only wise men who were in it. Tho” the crofs be heavy, you may well bear it
in ex pectation of the crown of rightcousness, which the righteous
Judge will then give you. If the world do despise you and treat you with the utmost contempt, regard it not: the day cometly wherein you shall sit with Christ in his throne. Be not discouraped, by reason of manifold temptations; but resist the devil, in confidence of a full and compleat victory; for you shall judge the teinpter at last. Tho' you have had wrestliug now with the body of fin and death; yet ye shall get all your enemies under your feet, at length, and be presented faultless before the presence of his glory. Let not the terror of that day dispirit you, Ee When
.
—
—
—
—
his tribunal.
Terror to Unhelicvers. State IV.
when you think upon it: let these who have lighted the Judge, and continue enemies to him, and to the way of holiness, droop and hang down their heads, when they think of his coming: but lift e up your heads, with joy, for the last day will be your
| best day. The Judge is your Head and Husband, your Redeemer
and your Advocate. Ye must appear bcfore the judgment-seat,
but ye shall not come into coademnation, Join v. 44. His com.
ing will not be against you, but for you. Ile came in the flesh, to remove the lawful impediments of the spiritual marriage, by his death; he came in the gospel to you, to espouse you to him. self: lie will come, at the lait day, to folemnize the marriage, and take the bride home to his Father's house. * Even io come © Lord Jesus.” | | | Usx II. Of terror to all unbdievers. This may serve to ewaken a secure pereration, a world lying in wickedness, as if they were nexer to be called to an account for it; and Nighting
the Mediator, as if he were not to judge them. Ah! how few have the lively impressions of the. judgment to come] moit men
tive, as if what is Jaid of it, fron, the word, were but idle tales,
The profane lives of many, speak the thoughts of it to be far from their hearts, and in very deed make a mock of it before. the world, saying, in effect,“ Where is the promile of his coming!“
The hypocrily of others, who blind the eyes of the world with a solendid profession, being in appcarance Christ's sheep, while they are indeed the devil's goats, is an evidence, that the great separation of the sheep from the goats is very little laid to heart. How do many indulge themselves in secret wickednels, of which they would be ashamed before witnesses: not considering that their most secret thoughts and actions will, at that day, be discovered, before the great congregation | how eagerly are mens
| hearts set on the world, as if it were to be their everlasting
habitation! the solemn assemblies, and public ordinances, where
in the Judge is upon a transaton of peace with the criminals,
are undervalued: mens bcarts wil! {wim like feathers in the waters of the sanctuary, that will sink like stones, to the bottom, in cares of this life: they wil! be very serious in trifles of this World, and. trifle in the most ferious and weighty things of another world. But O! consider the day that is approaching, in which Christ shall come to judgment; the world shall be \ summoned, by the sonnd of the last trumpet, to compear before The Judge shall fit on his throne, and all nations hall be sisted before him; the separation shall be made betwixt che godly and the wicked, the books opened, and the dead Wage Wy | | F wal
Head out of t and the It w wrap v of som kings, | their m their cr marks profane curses c seat, a no faitl Judge, with et.! delicate es, drag the jon! learned
the at!
fane, a murder Which {
the wo
had to world 1 | prosper 0 Chrilt, of per{: found i with u | Thy {it
| part in
Sinne hom fore 1 Anda! nounta bee fro io War | ount t! ag of t udge
bag)
*
—
Head IL. Terror to Uubclicvers. 227 out of them, one party shall be adjudged to cverlasting lite, and the other to everlaiting fire, according to their works.
It would be a fight of admirable cuiiolity, if thou couldst
of some high rock, from whence thou mightett cfpy wicked kings, princes, judges, and great ones of the carth, rising out of their marble tombs, and brought to the bar, to answer tor all their cruelty, injustice, oppression, aud 5: ofanity, without any marks of dittinction, but what their wiczedueis puts upon them :
profane, unboly and unfaithful church-m cn, pursued with the
curses of the ruined people, from the ra ves to the judgment— seat, and cha ged with the blood of s, to whom they pave no faithsul Wwarung: mighty men ftw trembling before the Judge, unable to recover their Wente holdnelts, to out wit him wich their subtilities, or defend themselves by their strength: delicate women cast forth of their graves, as abominable branches, dragged to the tribunal, to answer for their ungodly lives: the jgnorant, suddenly taught in the law, to their colt; and the learned declared, before the world, fouls ard labor'ous trifters; the atheist convinced, the hypocrite vnmeiked; and the profane, at long run, turned serious about his eternal state: secret murders, adulterics, thefts, cheats, ard other works of darkness, which {corned all human search, dico red and laid open betore the world, with their mot minnte cv onmitances: no repord had to the rich, no pity thewn to the poor: the s(cales of the world turned; oppressed and despiscd piety set on, high; and | prosperous wickedoets af | t brovght sov, all, not fond in | Christ, arraigned, convicted, and condemned, „ ithout rpc of persons, and driven From the tribunal to the pit; while chese found in him, at that day, being absolved before the world, fo with him into heaven. Nay, but thou capst not fo escape, TH Thy{if, whosoever thou art, not beg in Christ, must bear a part in this tragical and frightful action. Sinner, that fame Lord Christ, whom thou now despisest, > whom thou woundeft through the sides of his messengers, and before whom thou dost prefer thy lusts, will be thy Judge. And a neglected Saviour will be a severe judge. Of what 4 nountain, what rock wilt thou get to fall on thee, and hide hee from the face of him that fitteth on the throne? Thou hast {10 a rock within thee, a heart of adamant, fo that thou cant ount the darts of the world as stubble, and laugh at the shakgag of the spear: but that rock will rent, at the sight of the 2 udge; that hard heart will then break, and thou snalt weep | Ee2
.
and
wrap up thy self in some dark cloud, oi hide thy self in the cleft.
328 Ecxhoriation to prepare for Judgment. State IV.
and wail, When weeping and wailing will be to no purpole. Death's bands will fall off; the grave will vomit thee out; and. the mountains shal! tkip from thee; and the rocks refule to oa thee to powder. How will thele cursed 1555 abide the
ight of the Judge! behold he cometh! where is the profane swearer, who tore his wounds? The wretched worldling, now e arena or his god? The formal hypocrite, who kified kim, and betrayed him? The despiser of rhe g gospe, who sent him away in his messengers groaning, profaned his ordinances, and trampled under foot his 1 precious blood? O murderer, the fin man is thy Judge: there is he whom thou didst fo maltreat: behold the neplected Lamb of God appearing as a lion agaiist thee. How will thine heart endure the darts of his fiery looks! that rocky heart now kept out against him, shall then be blewn up: that face, which refuleth to blush n- W, shall then patacr blackness: arrows of wrath shall pierce, where arrows of con- Vittion cannot enter now. What wilt thou answer him, when he riseth up, and chargech thee with thy uabelief and impcrü— tency? Wilt thou fav, thou wast not warned? Conscicnce within thee will give thee the lie: the secret groans and weariels of those, who warned thee, will witnels the contrary, If
a child or a tool did tell yon, that your house were on fire, von would immediately ran to quench 1 it; but, in matters of eternal concern, men will first fil their bear ts with prejudices against the messengers, and then cait their message behind their backs. But these filly shifts and pretences will not avail, in the day of the Lord. How will these curicd cars, now deaf to the call of the gospel, inviting sinners to come to Chr ist, hear the fearfu Antes ice, © Depart from me, ye 1 ursed, into, cverlasting fire,
pi repared for the gevil and his angels?“ No fleepy hear: + (hall be there: no man's heart will then wander: their hearts aud eyes will then be fixed on their misery, which they will not 110 W believe. O that we knew in this our day, the things that belong to our peace.
LASTLY, Be exhorted to believe this great truth; and believe it fo as you may prepare for the judyment betiines. Set up a lecret tribunal in your own breasts, and often all vour- {elves to an account there. Make the Jud,: ic your friend in time, by closing with him in the offer of the goj; pel; and give all di! gence, that ve may be found in Chriit, at that day. Cail of the works of darknels, and live, as believing vou A! ©: at all times, and wm all places, under the eve of your Tu” ge, W wy will
6 bring every Work into judgment, W ich cvery {ecret og: Be | ruit
fruit Stud men tow: hous denc merc Tak aimi! your hypo own It is in a g utter shall
himse were the L ing: in the
to seak lastin 9 pronnu the org
Head V. The Kingdom of Heaven, 329
fruitful in good works, knowing that as ye sow, ye shall reap.
Study piety towards God, righteousness and charity towards:
men. Lay up in store plenty of works of charity and mercy
towards them who are in distress, especially such as are of the
houshold of faith, that they may be produced that day as eviz
dences, that ye belong to Christ. Shut not up your bowels of
mercy, now, towards the ncedy; lest ye, then, find no mercy. Take heed, that in all your works, ye be single and sincerè;
aiming, in them all, at the glory of your Lord, a testimony of
your love to him, and obedience to his command. Leave it to hypocrites, who have their reward, to proclaim every man his own goodness, and to sound a trumpet, when they do their alms. It is a base and unchristian spirit, which cannot have satisfaction in a good work, unlels it be expoled to the view of others: it is utterly unworthy of one, who believes that the last trumpet shall call together the whole world; before whom the Judge himself shall publish works truly good, how {ecretly soever they
the Lord. Let your loins be always girt, and your lamps burning: so when he comes, whether in the last day of your life, or in the last day of the world, ye shall be able to say with Joy, * Lo, this is our God, and wc have waited for him.”
HEAD Y
The KINGDOM of HEAVEN.
Then shall the King. say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you From the foundation of the world.
| HN from this portion of scripture, which the text is a
part of, discoursed of the General Judgment ; and being
to leak of the everlasting happiness of the aints, and the everlasting misery of the wicked, from the respective sentences to be
5 upon them, in the great day ; 1 shall take them ia the or
is brit pat upon the righteous, so the execution thercof is sirst.
| | Ee z beder wherein they ly before us; the rathey that, a sentence”
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'
*
330 The Kingdim of Heaven. State IV. begun, though possibly the other may be fully executed before
it be compleated.
The words of the text contain the joyful sentence itself, ty. gether with an historical introduction thereto, which GIVES us an account of the Judge prononncing the Eatence! * the King,” Jelus Christ: the parties on whom! it is given, © them on his ri t hand; and the time when, © then;* as soon as the trial is over, Ot these I have {poken. already. It is the sentence itself we ate now to consider, Come, ye blefted of my Father,' &c. Stand a- back, O ye profaue goats; have away all unre; generate fouls, not united to Jebus Christ: this js not for you. Come, Oye faints, brought out of your natural state, into the ttate of grace; bchd1d here the state of glory awaiting you, Here is glory It down to us in words and 4% ables; a iooking-plaik, iu Which you may see your exerlasting happinef>; a scheme (or drave] ) 5 Christ's Father” s houle, where 1 11 ere are many manfion s.
This glorious sentence bears two things. (I.) The conephe _ happiness to which the faints are aj! adged, „the Kingdom, {2.) I heir folemn admithon to it,“ 8 ye biciled of my Father, inherit, &c. First, Their compleat bappinese i
kingdom, A kingdom is the top of worldly felicity; there iy
nothing on earth greater than a kingdom: therefore the neden weight of glory in heaven is held forth to us under that notion.
But it is not an ordinary kingdom, it is © the kingdom ;* tl
Kingdom of heaven, surpassing all the kingloms of the eart! in glor y, honour, profit and pleasure, infinitely more than they d
in these c;cel the low and inglorious condition of a beggar | n rags and on a dung}uill. Secondly, There is a solemn admiltic: of the saints unto this their kingdom, © Come ve, inherit the kingdom.“ In the view of angels, men and devils, they are invested with royalty, and folemoly 5 before the vy hole world, by Jesus Christ the heir of all things, who hatin all power in beaven, and in earth. Their ripht to the kingdom is solemnly rec ognized and owned! They are admitted to It, as undoubted heirs of the kingdom, to poslels it by. inneritance er lot, as the word properly hgnifies; because of old, inheritances were designed by lot, as Canaan to Iiracl, God's first-born, as
they are Ele: Exod. iv. 22. And because this kir gdom is the
Father's kingdom, therefore they are openly acknowledged in their admission to it, to be the blessed of Christ's Father: the which blessiug was gien them long before this sentence; but is now solemnly recopiniic 4 and confirmed.to them by the Nedi:-
dor, 413 145 F aner“ * "oy 1e * J vi i able, he { lay 8 not, 6 Ye | 6 Viel-
| Head V. The Saints Kingly Power. 331
1 blefjed of the Fat! er, but, e biciled of iny Father 1 to sew us, that al} bleslings bestowed upon us, are derived from the Father, the fountain of blethng, as he is the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we are blelted, Eph. i. "i
And finally, they are admitted to this Kingdom, as that which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world,” in God's eternal purpose, before the, or any of them were; that, 5 J all the world may tee eternal lite to be the free gift of God. DOCTRINE. |
The Saints Pall be made compleatly happy in the Pf? : session of the King dim of Heaven,
Two things I shall here inquire into, (1.) The nature of this kingdom. (2.) The admission of the faints thereto, And then 1 hall make fome practical improvement of the whole.
Fiks1, As to the nature of the kingdom of heaven, our knowledge of it is very impertect; fo, © Eye hath not fen, nor Cear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him,” 1 Cor. ii. 9. As, by familiar 1elsemblances, parents instruct their little children, concerning things, of which otherwile they can have no tolerable notion: lo our gracious God, in contemp— lation of our weakncois, is pleated to represent to us heaven's happiness, under itmlitudes taken from eartkiy things, glorious in the eyes of men; since naked diicoverics of the heaven! glory, divested of earthiy reseinblances, would be tov bright for our weak eyes, and in them we. would but lose onrielves.; Wherefore now, one can but fpeak as a child of thele things, which the day will fully diicover. | ;
The state of glory is represented under the notion of © a kingdom; a kingdom among men, being that in which the greatest number of earthly good things doth concernter. Now every {aint shall, as king, inherit a kingdom. All Christ's subjects shall be kings, each one with his crown upon his head: not that the great King shall divest himiclt of his royalty, but ne will make all his children partakers of his kingdom.
I. The faints shall have kingly power and authority given them. Our Lord gives not empty titles to his favourites; he makes them kings indeed. The dominion of the faints will be a dominion far Exceeding that of the greatest monarch ever Was on earth. They will be absolute matters over fin, that sometime had dominion over them. They will have a compleat rule over their own spirits; an entire management of all their affec-
47a figs
232 The Saints Ensigns of Royalty. State IV. tions and inclinations, which now create them so much molestation: the turbulent root of corrupt affeftioms fliall be for cver expelled out of that kingdom, and never be able any more to give them the least disturbance. "They shall have © power over the nations, the ungodly of all natons, * and shall rule them with a rod of iron, Rev. ii. 26, 27. The whole world of the wicked shall be broken betore them : Satan shall be bruised under their feet, Rom. xvi. 20.
a temptation on them any more: but he will be judged by
them; aud, in their fight, cast with the reprobate crew into
the lake of fire and brimitone. So shall they rule over their oppressors. Having fought the good fight, and got the victory, Chrift will entertain them as Joshua did ks captains, causing * come near, and put their feet on the necks of kings, h. X. 24. | | | a II. They shall have the enfipns-of royalty. For a throne, Christ will grant tem“ to fit with him on his throne,” Rev. Jl. 12. They will be advanced to the highett honour and dignity they are capable of; and, in the enjoyment of it, they will have an eternal undisturbed repose, after all the toffings they meet with in the world, in their way to the throne. For a
crown, they shall © receive a crown of glory, that fadeth not
© away,” 1 Pet. v. 4. Not a crown of flowers, as s{ubje@s being conquerors, or victors, sometimes have got: such a crown quickly fades, but their crown never fadeth. Not a crown of gold, fuch as earthly kings do wear: even a crown of gold is often
staincd, and at belt can never make them happy who wear it. But it shall be a crown of glory. A crown of glory is a crown
of life, (Rev. li. 10.) that life which knows no end: a crown
which death can never make to fall off one's head. It must be an abiding crown; for it 1s © a crown of righteoulnels,”* 2 Tim. iv. 8, It was purchased for them by Chrift's righteousness, which is imputed to them; they are qualified for it by inherent
righteousness ; God's righteonlness or faithfulness seeures it to
them.” They {hall have a sceptre, “a rod of iron, (Rev. h. 27.)
terrible to all the wicked world. And a {word too, a two- edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the
© heathen, and punishment upon the people,” Pal. cxlix. 6, 7. They shall have royal apparel. The royal robes in this kingdow are white robes, Rev. iii. 4. They shall walk with me in white.” And these Jast do, in a very particular manner, point at the inconceivable glory of the state of the faints in
gie-
He shall never be able to fasten
heaven, The Lord is pleased often to represent unto us ibe
PLIES
Head V. Whits Garments. 333
lorious state of the saints, under the notion of their. being clothed in white garments. It is promised to the overconier, that che shall be clothed in white rajment,' Rev. hi. 5. The elders about the throne are clothed in white raiment, chap. iv. 4 The multitude before the throne are clothed with white robes, chap. vii. 9. arrayed in white robes, ver. 13. made Whiterin the blood of the Lamb, ver. 14. I own the last two testimo- Lies. adduced, do respect the ftate of the saints on earth: but withal the terms are borrowed from the state of the church in heaven, All garments, properly so called, being badges of sin and shame, shall be laid aside by the saints, when they come to their state of glory. But if we consider on what occasions
white garments were wont to be put on, we shall find much of heaven under them. |
First, The Romans when, they manumitted their bondser vants, gave them a white garment, as a badge of their freedom. So thall the saints that day pet on their white robes; for it is the day of the glorious liber ty of the children of God, (Rom. vii. 21.) the day of the redemption of their body, ver. 23. They shall no more fee the houle of bondage, nor ly
any more among the pots. If we compare the state of the saints on earth with that of the wicked, it is indecd a state of
freedom; whereas the other is a itate of slav ery 2 but in compariton with their state in heaven, it is but a servitude. A saint on earth is indeed a young prince, and heir to the crown; but
his motto may be, derbe,“ for © he differeth nothing g from 9 servant, chough he be lord of all, Gal. iv. I. What arg
the groans of a saint, the fordid and base work he is sometimes Found employed in, hs black and tattered parments he walks in, but badgcs of this comparative servitude? But from the day the saints come to the crown, th ey reccive their compleat freedom, and serve no more. They {hall be fully freed from
sin, wluch of all evils is the worst, both in iulelf, and in their
appreh zenston too: how great then must that freedom be, When
these Egyptians whom they fee to-day, they shall see them
again no more for ever? 1 hey hall be free from all temptation to sin: . Satan can! Ave n0 accels LO tempt them any more, by binself, nor by his agents. A full answer will then be g given
12 that petition, they have so often repeated, © Lead us not
into temptation. Nolithing serpeat can come into the para— dise above: no snare nor tr: ap can be la'd there, to catch the feet of the saints: they nay walk there tearlelly, for they can be in no hazard: there are no lions dens, no mountains of the
leop-
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334 White Garments: State IV,
leopards, in the promised land. Nay, they fhall be set beyond the possibility of linning, for they shall be confirmed in goodness, It will be the consummate freedom of their will, to be for ever | Unalterably determined to good. And they shall be freed from all the effects of lin: © There shall be no more death, neither | © forrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,“ Kev. xxi. 4 What kingdom is like unto this? Death makes its way now into a palace, as easily as into a cottage: sorrow fills the heart of one who wears a crown on his head: royal robes are no fence against pain, and crying by reason of pain. But in this kingdom no milery can have place. All reproaches fhall be wiped off; and never shall a tear drop any more from their eyes. They shall not complain of desertions apain; the Lord will never hide his face from them: but the Sun of righteousness shining upon them in bis meridian brightness, will dispel all clouds, and give them an everlasting day, without the least mixture of darkness. A deluge of wrath, after a fearful thunder-clap from the throne, will sweep away the wicked from before the judgment-seat, into the lake of fire: but they are, in the first place, like Noah brought into the ark, and ont of harm's way. | | Secondly, White raiment hath been a token of purity. Therefore the Lamb's wife is arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, Rev. xix. 8. And those who stood before the throne,
—
Lamb, ' chap. vii. 14. The saints shall then put on the robes of perfect purity, and shine in spotless holiness, like the sun in his strength, without the least cloud to intercept his light, Absolute innocence shall then be restored, and every appearance of fin banished far from his kingdom. The guilt of lin, and the reigning power of it, are now taken away in the saints; nevertheless sin dwelleth in them, Rom. vii. 20. But then it shall be no more in them: the corrupt nature will be quite removed, that root of bitterness will be plucked up, aud no vestiges of it left in their fouls: their nature shail be altogether pure and finless. There shall be no dari-ncfs in their minds; but the understanding of every faint, when he is come to his kingdom, will be as a globe of pure and unmised light. There shall not be the least aversion to good, or juclination to evil, in their wills: but they will be brought to a perfect conformity to the will of God; blest with angelical purity. and fixed therein. Their affections thall not be liable to the least disorder or irregularity: it will cost them no trouble to keep them right: they 3 a u
© washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
—
Heat fuch 2
refine thing amid! amon the d purit; fected away nels <
por him th r } tin
Head V. White Garments. 335
fuch a set of purity, as they can never lose. They will be fs refined from all earthly drols, as never to favour more of an thing but heaven. Were it possible they should be set again amidst the ensnaring objects of an evit world, they fhould walk among them without the least desilement; as the sun shines on the dunghill, yet untainted, and as the angels preserved their purity in the midit of Sodom. Their graces shall then be pertected: and all the imperfections now cleaving to them, done away. "There will be no more ground for complaints of weak ness of grace: none in that kingdom shall complain of au ill heart, or a corrupt nature. © It doth not yet appear what we © thall be, but—when he shall appear, we fhall be like him, 1 Jobn it). 2. | Thirdly, Among the Jews, these who desired to be admitted into the priestly ofice, being tried, and found to be of the priest's line, and without blemish, were clothed in white, and enrolled among the prieits. This seems to be alluded to, Rev. iii. 5. Ile that overcometh—the faint shall be clothed in white © raiment, and J will not blot out his name out of the book of life.“ So the saints (hall not be kings only, but priests withal; for they are © a royal priest- hood, 1 Pet. 1. 9. They will be prielts upon their thrones. They are judically found descended from the great High-Priest of their profession, begotten of him by his Spirit, of the incorruptible feed of the word, and without blemish: so the trial being over, they are admitted to
be priests in the temple above, that they may dwel! in the house
of the Lord for ever. There is nothing upon earth more glorious thank kingdom, nothing more venerable than the priesthood: and both nieet together in the glorified state of the saints, * The general assembly of the fir-.-born,” ( Heb. xii. 22.) whose is the priesthood, and the double portion, appearing in their white robes of glory, will be a reverend and glorious company. That day will shew them to be the persons, whom the Lord bas chasen out of all the tribes of the earth, to be near unto him, and to enter into his temple, even into his holy place. Their prieithood, begun on earth, shall be brought to its perfection, while they shall be employed in offering the sacrifice of praise to God and the Lamb, for ever and ever. They pot not their portion, in the earth, with the rest of the tribes: but the Lord binself was their portion, and will be their double portion,
through the ages of eternity. Fourthly, They were wont to wear white raiment, ina ume of triumph; te the which also there seems to be an allusion, | Rey.
_
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336 White Garments, State IV.
+
Rev. ii. 5. © He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in n white raim: ent.“ And what is heaven, but an everlasting th triumph! None get thither, but such as sight, and overcome too. 20 Though Canaan was given to the Israclites, as an inheritance, la they bchoved to aquer it, ere they could be possessors of it. W' The saints, in this world, are in the field of battle; often in red MM ©Y garments, gar ats ratiod 1 in blood: but the day approacheth, | ho in Which they all stand before the throne, and before tle 1 Lamb, * cloth ed with white robes, and palms in their hands, :
(Rev. \ Vii. 9.) having obtained a compleat victory over all thcir Th enemics. The palm was ule as a sign of victory ; becaule that
tree, opp refed with weights, vic Ideth not, but rather thooteth | wh tp W 1 And palm- trees were carved on the doors of the | = most holy place, (1 Kings vi. 32.) which was a special type ot 4 3 n; for heaven is the place, which tlie Fam its are received ines into, as c ON QUETOTS. * Behold the 30% and peace of the saints in their white robes, 4 The bee arising from the view of palt dangers, and of riches be y and © our f 9 uned at the very door of death, do most sensib! ;'y OG touch one?s hear t: and this will be an ingredlient in the everlast— 10 thi ing happincis of the faints, Which - old have had no place in elf. the heaven of innocent Adam, and his sinless offspring, 1 a W bum to have stood. Surely the glorited faints will not orgs Wor! the entertainment they met with in the world; it will be! fight the glory of God to _ zember it, and allo for the beictiienin "01 of their 3 Jo The Sicilian king, b „ birth the lou of a poten, * tt acted a wile part, in that he would be served at his table, with Pirit e a pt the Wich could not but put an a od ump!: sweetness in his meals, not to be relfhed by one born heir to Es the crown. Can ever meat be {© sweet to any, as to the hungry 15 Joy man! Or can any have such a relish of Plenty, as he who has: = 4
been under pinching straits: The more difsicultiés the laints. the
bave passed through, in their way to heaven, the place will be 8
the sweeter to them, when they come at it. Every happy gy JL stroke, truck in the spiritual warfare, will be a jew el in their rer K crown of glory. E ach victory obtained against sin, Satan, and Ute. the World, will raile their crimaphant joy the higher. The AR
remerabrance of the:crofs will ee the crown: and memory of their travel through the wilderness, will put an ad. 6itiony verdure on the fields of glory; while tl ey walk thro
is their no plat heir fo
them, minding the day, when they v ent mourning, without 1 the sun. | Ul thej And now that they appear triumphing in white robes, it 1s 1 bgu they have obtained an honourable peace; sluch a peace 3 their
errupt,
Waich t
Head * White Garmen!s. 337
their enemies can disturb no more. So every thing peevuliarly adapted to their militant condition is laid aside. The lword 18 laid down; and they betake themsclves to the pen of a ready writer, to commemorate the praises of him, by whom they overcame. Public ordinances, preaching, facraments, shall be i honourably laid aside; there is no temple there, Rev. xxi. 22. Sometimes these were sweet to them: but the travellers being all got home, the inns, appointed for their entertainment by the way, are shut up; the candles are put out, when the sug is risen; and the tabernacle used in the wilderness, is folded up, when the temple of glory is come in its room. Many of the laints dutieww3!] then be laid aside; as one gives his staff out of his hand, when he is come to the end of his journey. Praying shall then be turned te praising: and, there being no fin to eonfels, no wants to feek the supply of; contellion and petition fhall be swallowed up in everlasting thanklgiving. There will be no mourning in heaven: they have sown in tears, the rea ing time cf joy is come, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, Rev. xxi. 4. No need of mortification there; and self· examination is then at an end. They will not need to watch. any more; the danger is over. Patience has had its perfect Work, and there is no ule for it there. Faith is turned inte; fight, and hope is {waltowed up in the ocean of sensible and full enjoyment. All the rebels are subdued, the saints quietly set on their throne; and fo the forces, needful in the time of the {piritual warfare, are disbanded; and they carry on their tri- 1 uniph in profoundelt peace. | a Lastly, White garments were worn, on festival days, in token
of joy. And fo shall the faints be clothed in white raiment; for; 1 they shall keep an everlafting sabbath to the Lord, Heb. iv. 9.
There remaineth therefore a rest (or keeping of a sabbath) to * the people of God.” The sabbath, in the esteem of saints, is
the kingdom of heaven; so shall their garments be always white. They will have an eternal rest, with an uninterrupted oy: for heaven is not a resting place, where men may sleep out an eternity; (there they rest not day nor night,) but their work is their rest and continual recreation, and toil and weariness have no place there. They rest there in God, who is the centre of heir souls, Here they sind the complement, or satisfaction of all their desires; having the full enjoyment of God, and uninerrupted communion with him. This is the point, unto the Waich till the soul come, it will always be restleso: but, that: Ff point
the queen of days: and they shall have an endless sabbatism in
The Country, the Royal City, State ly.
t is true, lome learned div ines place this eity in the earch: be | : til
333 He point reached, it refts ; for he is the last end, and the soul can the go no farther. It cannot understand, will, nor delire more; mos but in him it has what is commensurable to its boundless delwes, reig This is the happy end of all the labour of the saints; their toil four and sorrrows issue in a joyful rest. The Chaldeans measurins ston the natural day, put the day first, and the night last : but the thei Jews counted the night first, and the day last. Even fo, the F then wicked begiu with a day of rest and pleasure, but end witl; a then night of everlasting toil and. sorrow: but God's people have 4A their gloomy night first, and then comes their day of eternsl flour .rest. The which Abraham, in the parable, observed to the wie rich man in hell, Luke xvi. 25. Son, remember that thou in are ( © thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus none evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” mort III. It one enquires where the kingdom of the saints lies! It blesse
is not in this world; it lies in © a better country, that is, an the ] © heavenly,” (Heb. xi. 106.) a country better than the belt of gates this world; namely, the heavenly. Canaan, Immanuel's land, there. where nothing is wanting to complete the happiness of the in- No 1 \ Habitants. This is the happy. country, blest with a perpetual the ii spring, and which yieldeti. all things, fr necessity, conveniency now, and delight. There men shall eat angels food; they shall be Love entertained with the hidden manna, (Rcv. ii. 17.) without be- af the ing set to the painful gathering of it: they will be fed to the brace full, with the product of the land falling into their mouthe, V. . without the least toil to them. That land enjoys an everlasting F many day, for there is no night there, Rev. xxi. 25. An eternal sun. F Over.
- thine beautifies this better country, but tssere is no scorching even t heat there. No clouds shall be seen there for ever: yet it is no: F have a land of drought ; the trees of the Lord's planting are set by . to ak the rivers of water, and shall never want moisture, for they wii nity h have an eternal supply ef the Spirit, by Jesus Christ, from his F and g Father. This is the cauntry from whence our Lord came, and & honou whither he is gone again; the country which all the holy pa: being triarchs and prophets had their eye upon, while on earth; and it be a which all the saints, who have gone before us, have fought their inhabi way to; and unto which, the martyrs have joyfully swimmed, | unfit f through a sea of blood. This earth is the place of the saints] them pilgrimage: that is, their country, where they find their ever t his lasting rest. c | their r IV. The royal city is that great city, * the holy Jerusalem, | allowa described at large, Rev. xxi. Io. to the end of the chapter — 8 om
Head V. The Royal Palace. |
the particulars of the description seem to me te favour those most, who point us to the other world for it.) The saints shall reipn in that city, whose wall is of jasper, (ver. 16.) and the foundations of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones, (ver. 19.) and the street of pure gold, (ver. 21.) (o that their feet shall be set on that, which the men of this world set their hearts upon. This is the city God hath prepared for them, Heb. xi. 16. A city that hath foundations, (ver. 10.) A continuing city,” (chap. xiti. 14.) which thall stand and flourish, when all the cities of the world are laid in ashes; and - which shall not be moved, when the foundations of the world are overturned. It is a city that never changeth its inhabitantsg none of them shall ever be removed out of it: for life and immortality reign there, and no death can enter into it, It is blessed with a perfect and perpetual peace, and can never be in the least disturbed. Nothing from without can annoy it; the” gates therefore are not shut at all by day, and there is no night there, Rev. xxi. 25. There can nothing from within trouble it. No want of provision there; no scarcity; no discord amongst the inhabitants. Whatever contentions are amonpst the saints now, no vestige of their former jarrings shall remain there. Love to God, and to one another, shall be perfected: and these of then, who stood at greater distance here, will joy fully embrace and delight in one another there. 3 V. The royal palace is Christ's Father's house, in which are many mansions, John xiv. 2. There shall the saints dwell for ever. That is the houle prepared for all the heirs of glory, even these of them WHO dwell in the meanest cottage now, or have not where to lay their heads. As our Lord calls his saints to a kingdom, he will provide them a hose suitable to the dignity he puts upon them. Heaven will be a convenient, spacious and glorious house, for those whom the King delighteth to honour, Never was a house purchased at fo dear a rate as this, being the purchase of the Mediator's blood; and no less could it be afforded for to them: never was there fo much ado, to fit inhabitants for a house. The saints were, by nature, utterly unfit for this house, and human art and industry could not make them meet for it. But the Father gives the designed inhabitants to his Son, to be by him redeemed: the Son pays the price of their redemption, even his own precious blood; that, with the allowance of justice, they may have acceis to the house: and the holy Spirit sanctisies them by his grace; that they may be meet to-eome in thither, where no unclean thing can enter. And no EF mar-
%
ver.
240 The Palace garden, and Royal Treafures. St. IV.
marvel, for it is the King's palace, they enter into, (Psal. xlv. 15.) The house of the kingdom, where the great King keeps his court, where he has his throne, and shews forth his glory, in a fingular mariner, beyond what mortals can conceive. VI. Paradise is their Palace-gauden. © This day shalt thou be with me in paradlise, said our Saviour to the penitent chief en the cross, Luke xxiii. 43- Fieaven is a paradile for pleasure
and delight, where there is both wood and water: A pure
river, of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb; and of either {ide of the 6 river, the tree of life, which bears tavelve manner of fruits, and © yields her fruit every month, Rev. xxn. 1,2. How hapy * might innocent Adam have been in the earthly paradise, Where there was nothing wanving for necessity, nor delight]! Eden was the most pleasant spot of the uncorrupted earth, and paralile
the most plealant spot of Eden; but what is car thi in comparison
of heaven? The glorified faints are advanced to the hea ealy _ Paradise, There they shall not only lee, but eat of the tres: life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God, Rev. ii. 7, They shall behold the Mediator's glory, and be {atisfied with his goodness. No flaming tword will be there, to keep the way of that 8 of life, but they shall freely eat of it, aud live for And they shall drink of th e river of lealures, (Pal. xxxvi. 8.) thele sweetest and purest pleasur es, the Which Immanucl's land doth afford; and shall swim in an occan of unmixed delight for evermore.
VII. They shall have royal treasures, sufficient. to support the dignity they are advanced unto. Since the {trcet of the royal city is pure gold, and the twelve gates thereot at twelve pearls; their treasure must be of that which is better than gold or pearl. It is an eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. iv. 17. 0
recious treasure! a treafure not liable to insensible corr wor ion, 0 moths or ralt; a t1 reasure which none gan steal from them, Matth. vi. 20. Never did any kingdom attord (uch a precious treasure, nor a treasure of such variety; for, he that gver⸗ © cometh shall inherit all things, Rev. xxi. 7. No tre alures on earth are stored with all things: it they were all put toge ther in one, there would be far more valuable things wanting in that one, than found in it; This then is the pecuiar treasure of these kings, who inherit the kingdom of heaven. They EY
want nothing, that may contribute to their Full [atis faction. Now they are r! ch ih hope: but then they Will ka in hand. Now all things are theirs w respect of right: 0
Le their rieb es
*
Heal Vo De Temple and Society. 24%
all shall be theirs in possession. They may go for ever through Immanuel's land, and behold the glory and riches thereof, with the satisfying thought, that all they sce is their own. It is pit these should ever be uncaly under the want of earthly good things, who may be sure, they shall inherit all things at length. VIII. Albeit there is no (material) temple therein, no mediate serving of God in the ule of ordinances, as here on earth; yet, as for this kingdom, © The Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the temple of it, Rev. xxi. 22. As the temple was. the glory of Canaan, fo will the celestial temple be the glory of heaven. The saints shall be brought in thither as a royal priesthood, to dwell in the houle of the Lord for ever; for Jesus Christ will then make every saint a pillar in the temple of God, and he shall go no more out, (Rev. iii. 12.) as the Priests and Levites did, in their courses, go out of the material temple. There the saints shall have the cloud of glory, the divine presence, with most intimate, unmterrupted communion with God: there they shall have Jesus Christ as the true ark, wherein the fery law shall be for ever hid from their eyes: and the mercyfeat, from which nothing shall be breathed, but everlasting peace and good- will towards them: the cherubims, the society of holy angels, who shall join with them in eternal admiration of the myltery of Chriit: the golden candlestick, with its seven lamps, for © the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, Rev. xxi. 23. The incense- altar, in the intercession of Christ, who ever liveth to make intercession for them, (Heb, vii. 25.) eternally exhibiting the merits of his death and sufferings, and efficaciously willing for ever, that these, whom the Father hath given him, be with him: and the shew-bread table, in the perpetual feast, they shall have together, in the enjoyment of God. This leads me more particularly to consider, IX. The Society in this kingdom. What would royal power and authority, ensigus of royalty, richest treasures, and all other advantages of a kingdom, avail without comfortable fociety? Some crowned heads have had but a sorry life through the want of it: their palaces have been but unto them as prisons, -and their badges of honour as chains on a prisoner: while hated of all, they had none they could trust in, or whom they could have comfortable fellowship with. But the chief part of heaven's _ happiness lies in the blessed society the saints shall have there.
For clearing of which, consider these few things: |
First, The society of the saints, among themfelves, will be no small part of heaven's happiness. The communion of saints Ft 3 on
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342 De Society of Saints. State V.
en earth is highly prized by all these who are travolling thr! the world unto Zion and companions in {in can never have such true pleasure and delight in one another, as sometime the Lord's people have in praying together, and converhng abuut these things which the world is a stranger to. Here the saints are but few in a company, at best: and some of them are {© posted, as they seem to themselves to dweli alone: having no access to sluch, as they could freely unbosom themlelves to, in the matter of their spiritual cale; They figh and say, © Wo js me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits © there is no cluster to eat—the good man is perithed out of the earth, Mic. vii. 1, 2. But in che general assembly of the firit born in heaven, none of all the saints, who ever were, or will be on the earth, shall be mitsing. They will be all of them together in one place, all pofleis one kingdom, and all it down together to the marriage {upper of the Lamb. Here, the best
of the saints want not their finkul imperfections, making their
fociety lels comfortable: but there they shall be perfect, with
out spot or wrigkle, or any such thing, Eph. v. 27. Amt al}
natural, as well as sinful imperfections are then done awas ;
they © shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,” Dan. xii. 2, There we will sec Adam and Eve in the heaveniy paradise, freely eating of the tree of life; Abraham, Ilaac and Jacob, a
all the holy patriarchs, no more wandering from land to land,
but come to their everlasting rest ; all the prophets feeding their eyes on the glory of him, of whole coming they prophesied ; the
twelve Apoltles of the Lamb, fitting on their twelve thrones;
all the holy martyrs in their long white robes, with thei; eroOwns on their heads; the godly Kings advanced to a kingdom which cannot be moved; and them that turn many to righieousness, shining as the stars for ever and ever. There will we see our godly friends, relations and acquaintances, pillars in the temple of God, to go no more out from us. And it is more than probable, tlrat the saints will know one another in heaven:
that, at least, they will know their friends, relatives, and thee
they were acquainted with on earth, and such as have been mo! eminent in the church: howbeit that knowledge will be purged from all earthly thoughts and affections. This seems to be ineluded.in that perfection of happiness to which the saints shall be advanced there. If Adam knew who and what Eve was at first sight, when the Lord God brought her to him, (Gen. ii. 23,24.)
why should one question, but husbands and wives, parents and“ child rer, will know cach other in glory? If the Thessalonians,
CON -
Mead V. _. Society with the Argels. 343
converted by Paul's ministry, shall be his © crown of 1cjoiemg in the presence of our Lord jesus Chrit, at his coming,” (1 Thell: ii. 19.) Why may not one conclude, that m-ni!ters fhall know their people, aud people their ministers in heaven! Aud if the disciples, on the mount oft tranShpuration, Knew Moses and Elias, whom they had never seen beryre, {Matth. ii. 19.) we have ground to think, we shall now them too, and such as they, when we come to heaven. "The communjon of
Dian.
saints shall be most intimate there; * they shall lit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, Matth. viii. 11. Lazarus was carricd by the angels into Abraham't bosom, (Luke xvi. 23.) which denotes molt intimate and familiar society. And thouph divevlity of tongues shall cease, (1 Cor. xi. 8.) I make no question, but there will be an use of speech in heaven; and that the saints will glorify God in their bodies there, as well as in their spirits, speaking forth his praises with an audible voice. (As for the language, we shall understand, what it is, when we come thither.) When Paul was caught up to the third heaven, the seat of the blessed, he heard there unspeakable werds, which it is not lawful for a man to utter, 2 Cor. Xii. 4 Moles and Elias, on the mount with Christ, tatked with him, Matth. xvii. 3. and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem, Luke ix. 31. Secondly, The faints will have the focietv of all the holy angels there. An innumerable complny of angels shall be Companions to them in their glorified fate. Happy were the Mepherds, who heard the song of the heavenly hoit, when Christ” was born 2 but thrice happy they, who ihall join their voices with theirs, in the choir of faints and angels in heaven, when lie shall be glorihed in all, who shall be about him there. Then fhall we be broaght acquainted wich the blessed fpirits, whe never tinned. How bright will thete morning-stars shine in the holy place! they were mini{tring spirits to the heirs of salvation, loved them for their Lord and Master's lake; encamped round about them, to preserve them from danger: how joyfully will they welcome them to their everlasting habitations; and rejoice to {ee them come at length to their kingdom, as the tutor doth in tlie prosperity of lis pupils! The faints shall be no more afraid of them, as {ometimes they were wont to be: they shall then have put off mortality, and infirmities of the flesh, and be themselves, as the angels of God, fit to entertain communion and | fellowship with these shining ones. And bath being brovpht | under one head, the Lord Jesus Chiitt; they fhall join in the |
344 Communion with Cod and Christ. State V
praises of God, and of the Lamb, saying, with a loud voice, * Worthy is the Lanib that was flain, &c. Rev. v. 11, 12. Whether the angels shall (as some think) assume airy bodies, that they may be seen by the bodily eyes of the saints, and be in nearer capacity to converse with them, I know not: but as they want not ways of converse amongst themselves, we have reason to think, that converiation, betwixt them and the saints, shall not be for ever blocked up. 5 Laftly, They spall have society with the Lord himself in heaven, glorious communion with God and Christ, which is the perfection of happiness. I chuse to speak of communion with God, and the Man Christ, together; because as we derive our grace from the Lamb, fo we will derive our glory from him too; the Man Christ being (if I may be allowed the expression, ) the ecntre of the divine glory in heaven, from whence it is diffuse4 unto all the faints. This seems to be taught us by these scriptures, which express heaven's happiness by being with Chrilt, Luke xxiü. 43. This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.“ John xvii. 24. Father, I will that these also, whom thou hast given me, be with me.“ (And remarkable to this purpose is
what follows, © that they may behold my glory“) 1 Thess.
iv. 17. So shall we ever be with the Lord,” the Lord Christ, whom we shall meet in the air. This allo seems to be the import of these scriptures, wherein God and tize Lainb, the slain
Saviour, are jointly spoken of, in the point of the happiness of
the saints in heaven. Rev. vii. 17. © For the Lamb which is in the mid{t of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them © unto living fountaias of waters: and God shall wipe away all © tears from their eyes.“ Chap. xxi. 3. Behold the tabernacle © of God is with men, and he will dwell with them,' to wit,
as in a tabernacle, (so the word signifies,) that is, in the flesh of
Christ, (compare John i. 14. and ver. 22.) The Lord God © Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple of it.“ Here lies the chief happiness of the saints in heaven, that without which they could never be happy, tho' lodged in that glorious place,
and blessed with the society of angels there. What I will
venture to say of it, shall be comprised in three things.
- I, The saints in heaven shall have the glorious presence of God, and of the Lamb: „ God himself shall be with them,” Rev. xxi. 3. And they shall ever be with the Lord. God is every-where present, in respe of his essence; the saints militant have his special gracious presence: but in heaven they have his
| loriqus presence, There they are brought mear to the ah
Head V. The Presence of God. 3343
of the great King, and stand before him, where he shew's his inconceivable glory. There they have the tabernacle of God, on which the cloud of glory relts, the all-glorious human nature of Christ, wherein the fulyets ot the Godhead dwells, not vailed as in the days of his humiliation, but shining through that blessed flesn, (that all the faints may behold his glory,) and making that body more glorious than a thouland suns: fo that the city has no need of he sun, nor ot the moon; but * the 2 glory of God goth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, (properly, the candle thereof,) Rev. xxi. 23. i. e. The Lamb is _ luminary, or luminous body, which gives light to the city; the sun aud moon now give kght to the world, or-as a dls lightens a dark room; and the light proceeding from that glorious luminary, for the city is*the glory of God. Sometime that candle burnt very dim, it was hid under a bushel, in the time of his humiliation; but that, now and then, it darted out some rays of this light, which dazzled the eyes of the spectators: : but now it is set on high, in the city of God, where it shines, and shall shine tor ever, in perfection of plory. It was fometines laid aide, as a stone disallowed of the builders: but now
It is, and for ever will be, the light or luminary of that cty; and that, like unto a stone molt precious, even like a jasper
Who can conceive the heppiness of the saints, in the presencechamber of the great King, where he fits in his chair of state, making his glory eminently to appear in the Man Christ? His gracious d makes a mighty change upon the saints in this world: his glorious preience e in heaven then must needs {crew
up their graces tg the; ir pe? tection, and clevate their capacities. The {ants do ae 'cuce, that the presencc of God now wikh them in his grace, can make a little heaven or a fort of hell: how great then mut t the glory of heaven be, by his presence there? in his glory! Ita carsic, in fome fort, be autifics a cottage or prison, how will the {hining lun beautily a palace or paradise! ne pracieus presence of G. d wade a wilderness lightlom to Moles, the valiey of the shadow of death to David, a fiery furnace to the three children: : what a ray ing beauty shall then arise from the fun of righ tet nel, shining in his meridian brightness on_th e [trcet of the City, laid with bare gold? This glorious pre esence of God in heave wil put a plc rv on the saints themlelves. The pica' aht garde 1 hath no beauty, We cn tlie darkness of the molt fits down n it; but the [Np {but puts a Blory on the b! ackelt mwuntains: fo ticle whe arc now eas
bot-
.
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346 Enmyment of God and the Lamb. State IVY.
bottles in the sinoak, when set in the glorious presence of God, will be glorious both in foul and body.
2dly, The saints in heaven shall have the full enjoyment of God and of the Lamb. This is it that perfectly satisfies the rational creature; and here is the saints everlasting rest. This will make up all their wants, and fill the desires of their fouls, which after all here obtained, {till cry, Give, give; not without some anxiety, because tho* they do enjoy God, yet they do not enjoy him fully. As to the way and manner of this enjoyment,
. eur Lord tells us, John xvii. 3. This is life eternal, that they
© may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom © thou hast sent.“ Now. thefe are two ways, how a desirable object is known molt perfectly and satisfy ingly; the one is by sipht, the other by experience: fight satisfies the understanding, and experience fatishes the will. Accordingly one may say, that the saints enjoy God and the Lamb in heaven, (I.) By an intuitive knowledge. (2.) By an experimental knowledge,
both of them perfect; I mean, in respect of the capacity of the
creature; for otherwise a creature's perfect knowledge of an
jiafinite Being is impossible. The saints below enjoy God, in that knowledge they have of him by report, from his holy word
which they believe; they lee him likewise darkly in the glasb of
ordinances, which do, as it were, represent the bridegroom's
picture, or shadow, while he is absent: they have also tome experimental knowledge of him, they tafte that God is good, and that the Lord is gracious. But the saints above shall not need a good report of the King, they shall fre hünself; therefore faith ceaseth: they will behold his own face; therefore ordinances are no more; there is no need of a glass: they shall drink, and
drink abundantly of that whereof they have tasted; and fo hope
ecaseth, for they are at the utmost bounds of their desires. 1. The saints in heaven shall enjoy God and the Lainb, by
sight, and that in a most perfect manner, 1 Cor. xiii, 12. For © now we see through a plass darkly; but then face to face.“
Here our fight is but mediate, as by a glass, in which we sce not things themselves, but the image of things: but there we
fall have an immediate view of God and the Lamb. Here our knowledge is but obscure; there it shall be clear without the
least mixture of darkness. The Lord doth now converle with his faints, through the lat tesses of ordinances: but then shall they be in the presence-chamber with him. There is a vail now on the glorious face, as to us: but when we come to the upper hense, that vail, through which some rays ef beauty are now
dart
*
darted, will be found entirely taken off; and then shall glorious excellencies and perfections, not seen in him by mortals, be clear-
. ly discovered, for we shall see his face, Rev. xxii. 4. The
phrase seems to be borrowed from the honour put on some in the courts of monarchs, to be attendants on the king's person. We read, Jer. lili. 25. of © leven men of them that were (Heb.
© Seers of the king's face,” i. e. as we read it,) near the king's
© person,” O unspeakable glory! rhe great King keeps his court in heaven; and the saints shall all be his courtiers, ever near the King's person, seeing his face. The throne of God, and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him,
© and they shall fee his face, Rev. xxii. 3, 4.
(.) They shall fee Jelus Christ with their bodily eyes, since -he will never lay aside the human nature. They will always behold that glorious blelled body, which is personally united to
the divine nature, and exalted far above principalities and powers, aud every name that is named. There we will see, with our eyes, that very body which was born of Mary at Bethlehem, and crucified at Jerusalem betwixt two thieves; that blessed head that was crowned with thorns; the face that was {pit upon; the hands and feet that were nailed to the crol:, all shining with unconceivable glory. The glory of the Man
Christ, will attract the eyes of all the saints, and he will be for ever admired in all them that believe, 2 Theft. i. 10. Were
each star, in the heavens, shining as the sun in its meridian brightness, and the light of the sun so increased, as the stars, in that case, should bear the same proportion to the sun, in point of light, that they do now; it might possibly be some taint re- 4emblance of the glory of the Man Christ, in comparison with that of the saints; for though the saints shall shine forth as the sun; yet not they, but the Lamb shall be the light of the city. The wise men fell down, and worshipped him, when they faw
bim a young child, with Mary his mother, in the house. But
O] what a ravishing sight will it be to see bim in his kingdam,
on his throne, at the Father's right band! The Word was
made flesh.“ (John i. 14.) and the glory of God shall shine through that flesh, and the joys of heaven spring out from it,
unto the saints, who shall see and enjoy God, in Christ. For,
since the union betwixt Christ and the saints is never diffolved, but tiey. continue his members for cver; and the members cannot draw their lite, but from their Head; seeing that which is dependent on the head, as to vital influence, is no, member: chercfore Jesus Christ will remain the everlasting bond of union
Head V. Enjoyment of God and the Lamb. 347
—
State IV.
Full Enjoyment of God,
betwixt God 6d the saints; from whence their eternal life sh all!pring, John xvii. 2, 3. Thou hast given him power over
* all H-th, that he should give eternal lite to-as many as thou
* hast g ven him. And this is life eternal, that they might know
© thee the only true God, &c.“ Ver. 22, 23. And the plory which thou gaveit me, 1 have given than, t that they may be one, even as we are one: I in chem, and thou in me, that they * may be made pertect in one. Wherctore, the immediate enjoyment of Gud in heaven, is to be understood, in respet of the laying aside of word and sacraments, and such external means, as we cipy God by in this world; but not, as if the saints should then. cast off their dependence on their Head for vital influences: nay, © the Lamb which is in the nudst of-the throne, (hall feed them, and shall lead them unto Uv ing foune tains of Waters, Rev. vii. 17.
Now, when we shall behold him, who died fgr us, that we might live for evermore, whose matchless love made Rim swim through the Red-sea of God's wiath, to make a path in the midst of it for us, by which we might pals safely to Canaan's land: then we will fee what a glorious one he was, who suffered all this for us; what entertainment he had in the upperhouse; what ballelujaiis of a: gels could not hinder him to hear the groans of a perithing multitude on earth, and to come doven for their help: and ao a glory he laid aside for us. Then Will we be more © able to comprehend with all saints, what is * the breadth, and length, and depth, and heighth: and to © know the love of Christ, which palleth knowledge, Eph. ii. 19. When the saints thall remember, that the waters of wrath he was plunged into, are the walls of salvation from whence they draw all their by; that they have pot the cup of salvation, in exchange of the cup of wrath his Father ave him to drink, which his ftolels human nature shivered at; how will their
hearts leap within them. burn with feraphick love, like coals of
juniper, and the arch of heaven ring with their songs of salvation : The Jews celebrating the feait of tabernacles, (Which was the
most joy ful of all their feasts, and Ualted feven days,) went once
every day about the altar, singing bosannd, with their myrtle, palm and willow- RE Bic in their hand, (the two former fans of victory, the last of chastity,) in the mean time bending their boughs towards t he altar. W hen the saints are presented as 2 chaste virgin to Christ, and as conquerors have got their palms in their hands, how joyfully will they compals the altar ever- Wore; and ling their holannas, or rather their ballclujahs about it,
Head V. and the Lamb. 242
its bending | their Palms towards! it, acknoy lcd: ging nemselves to owe all unto che Lamb that was {lain, and redee; ned ther
5 * blood ! and to this agrees what John faw, Rev. vii. 9, 10. A great multitude - Atood before the thror e, and betore the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and! Paus in their hands: and cried. with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our © God which fitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
(2. ) Ti eV shall {ee God, Natth..vis.; The y oo 111 be ba "PY in secin! z the Father, Son, an holy Ghost (not with their bod! * | Ti, . but) 13 wich tlie mot
Eves, in re. beet of 1 God 38 i vilible, I JE FF tra with the eyes of their underitanum? ; being 1055
if 4 . L 2 had 8 248 147 fy Fs * IN a 2 Pied wy fult, and C 16:14 k 11 W — ge \ 1 0d 1 (a! 8 3 4 thin 85 * - ? - — 7 7 7 I y 35 * 1 of a2 * 28 ! * _ o. whicirthe creature 15 Capable. Ok. L his is cat! Ted e beat) lets 2 - ® =. FF, % nec 8 1 1 1 vilion, and is the Pertestion of the understanding, tlie utmolt
teria thereor. It 1s but an oblcure delineation Gf the glory ot: God, that mortals can ave on earth; a night, © a it were, of his back part, a id. 23. But there they will lee 145 Face, Rev. xxii. 4. They shall fee him in the full ness of his glory, and. bebold bim nelly;- Whereas it is but a passing view they can f here, Exod. xxNiv. 6. There is a vast diflerence betwixt the flaht ofa king in his nit if it-cloth es, quickly pasting by vs 3: 4:0 a fixed leiture view of Ki m fit ri! on his throne in is royal robes, his crown on his head, and lis sceptre in his hand: . dif erence: will there de, between the greatest niavifestation of God that e. er a faint had on earth; aud the display of his glory, that shall be seen in heaven. There the Sins [hall eternally y, Without inte rruption, 3 their eyes upon him, and be ever viewing his glorious perfections. And as their bodily eyes shall be fire engthned and fitted, to be 1014 the glori— ous masesty of the man Christ; as cagles gaze on the fun, withe out being blinded e 0 cheir a8 ds {hall have fuck an elevation, as will fit then to fee God in his glory; their cgpacities hall be enlarged, accor ding to the measure in which he all be pleased to communicate himself unto them for their compleat happiness. | This blitsful fight of God, being quite above our present capacities, we mult needs be mock in the dark about it. But it {eems to be something else, than the sight of that glory,
which we will fee with our badily cyes, in the saints, and in the
Lead ha ver for no created chnig can be our chief good and happiness, nor fully satisfy our u; and it is plain, that A Wage are somewhat dukrent from God lümself. There
'Gg fore
—
Tae
—
can never have an ade q. late conception of God; they c: comprehend that which 1s infinite.
.
the glorifed all walk eternal!
Anthem with nes
ee God, in whom all the.
in the creature.
1 spoil,
250 Full En joyment of God, State IV.
fore I conceive, that the foul: of the saints shall see God himself: so the seripture teach us, that we {hall © {ee face to face, and know even as we are known,” 1 Cor. xii. 12. And that * we shall sce him as he is, 1 John jn. 2. Ho beit the lan in
They may touch the but cannot grasp it in their arms. They Cain with one glance of their eye, behold what grows on every tide: but the divine perfections w 11 be y,
mountain,
ll unb. unded field, 1! K ch seeing more and more of Gud: e end of that which is in nit their.vellcls to this Ocean every moment, a. * v waters. What a ravishing. fight would it be, to fee all the perfections, er lovely qualities, that are
scattered here ind there am ong the crea ture, gathered t ther into one! but even tuch a fight would be infi nitely "I ib this bF£{<tul light the feine shail Fg ave in heaven. Fer th ev | F all eminently Apa, with infinitely more; ven rot there i,. ' n In him hall tex and nothing but what is dentable. Then shall they be perfect!) latissied, as to the love of God towards tem, which they are now ready to question on every turn. They will be no more {et to persuade themselves of it by marks, sigus, and testimonics: they will have an intuit 55 Knowle age of it. They shall (With the profoundest reverence beit spoken) look into the heart of God, and there (ce the love he bore to them from all eternity, and the love and cocd-will he will bear to them for evermore. The glorificd shall kave a most clear and diltiuct underitanding of 27% ne truths, for „in 7 his light we shall see light,” Pial. xxxi. 9. Ihe light of glory will be a compleat commentary on the Db ble, and lose all the Hard and knotty questions 1 in div ty. There is no joy on earth, comparable to that which ariseth from che e discovery of truth; no difcovery of truth com! parable tothe dite ery of scri ipturc⸗ truth, m: ade by the Spirit "5 the Lord unto the foul. I rCjuice Lat thy word, says the Plafmist, © as one e that findeth rea: Plal. cxix. 162. Yet it is but an imperfect discovery Ave have of it white here. How ravishiug then will it be, to
{ince they can ne They may bring
ver come to th
sual no tettige tobe found
ice CYE AY thing dctirable O,
Pe the opening of the whole treasure, hid in that field! the;
{hall also be let into the underitanding of the works of God, The beauty in the works of creation and providence will then Natural knowledge wul be brought to
pere {et in A due” light,
perte cern out, most VICW man the ab Ce ne{s clea Son for {ter} just! eter elec Eat:
Head V. | and the Lamb. 35
perfect on by the light of glory. The web of providence, concerning the church, and all men whatsoever, will then be cut
out, and laid before tliè eyes of the saints, nn it will appear 4
Pt mot beautiful mixture; fo as they thall [ty together, on the
view of it, © He hath done all things well.” : But, in a 5 ectal manner, t the work of redemption hail be the eternal wonder of the saints, and they will admire and praife the glorious contriv = ance fir ever. Then shall they get a full Vew of its suitableness to the divine pertections, and to the cate of sinners: aud clearly read the covenant, that past betwixt the Father and the Son, from all <ternity conic ng their falvation, They shall for ever wonder and praise, and praile and wonder at the my -
{terics of We eh and love, goodness and holinets, mercy and
Juitice, appearing in the glorious deve. Their Gals hall be eternally Hetisfied With the light of God himself, and 1 their election by the Father, their rede 2 by the Son, aud application there t to 8 by the H. Is Spirit.
2. The saints in heaven shall enjoy God in Christ by experimental knowledge, which is, when the object it self is given and
tern thcrent, The Lab shall lead them wito lv ing fountains Fof waters, Rev. vii. 17. Tilele are no other but God himself;
© the fou tat n of living waters,“ who will fully and freely communicate himself unto them. He will pour cat of his go-dness eternally into them = als} and then fl they bave a molt lively
sensation, in than most part of a Gals, of all that goodness they heard. aud believed to be in him; and of what they see in bim by. thc Ht of glorv. Js will be an everialting pract! 5 pole nr yl that. wh ch men and angets e aunot fuficiently uno, to wit,“ God himelt shall be their God,“ Aer xi. 3. God will comnmuea.e hiünfelf unto them fully: they will no More ve {ct to alte of the frreams of divine wood> nc in orditances, as the, were went, but shall drink at the
fountain-head, Toes will be no m6 ce enter tained with {ps and
a full possessiom of their inker.tances;; and the Lord will open his treasures of poodness N them, that their enjoyment may be full. In ey mall not be tinted to any meaiure: but the ei-
G 4" Joy
eat heritage, shall then enter into
—
—
wr > mer HRC
232 F. ll Enjoyment of Goo &c. State IV.
Joyn ent mall 90 as far as their en]; arge. Capi cit'e can -react
Az a Narrow. ve: fel can not contain the oce An, 10:1 either can the
fin: te creatute comprche nd an innüte good: but no matic
| c Hall be {ct to ihe enjo, ment, Ho what. arileth fromm the Ca pa- * 4 4 . 1
city of tie creature. Sot thet. altho' there be Ges; CES Hf „ vet all hällbe tiled; and have What they can end 0m e Would be canable to hold more than others, there W. 5 Want to any or. them, all alk! be fully satiticd, and pe
blesled in the full enjoyment of divine goodness, accord; t
. ˙ Aware wa r ten enlarged CAN ies. As W.1C
ted, some contaia more, others lets; .yct-2 wb; What they can contain. The olorited shall have ali; in G0, for the latib faction of all their desires. No creited thing c afford atiefaction to all our defires: clothes may warm us, : ; they cannot feed us; the light is comfortable, but camot ao} us. But in God we hall! have all our Jelires, and: we thi]
cbesire nothing without. him. They (hall be the nepes Ones, that de{::e nothing but what is truly defirabie; and With Rave all they desire. God will be all in all to the fa ints: he wilt be their fe, health, riches, honour, peace, and all g things. He will communicate himself freely to tie: the door of acccis to lim shall never be shut again, for. one moment. They may, when tiey will, take of the fruits of the tree of life, tor th bey will sind it on each {ide the riv ery, Rey: Xii. 2. There will be no vail betwixt God and them, to be drawn alle; but his fulnels shall ever stand open to then. No door to knock at, in hexrven; no aiking to go before recen. ing; the Lord will allow his people an unrestrained familiarity with himself there. : Now they are in part malle Pa: takers of the divine nature:
but then t! ney {hall P. riectiy; partake of it; that is to say, Go. ]
weill communicate to them his own image, make afl his. goodhess
not only pass before them, but pais into them, an stat
1 [] linage of all his own en upon them so far as the ereatur?
is C dap. ble to receive the same; from hence shall retult a perfee ene to him, 1
Pfalmilt seens to have had 1 \ EW, Plal. vii. 15. IL hal bi 4 satissied, wnen I awake, wit a thy. likenets 15 the perfection wy I;
1 4 ö . God's image, following ie n the beatifick ion. And t Hs
John, 1 John iii. 2. We sha!l bs like him; for we mal!
bet wirt God | and tlie saints: . God ma M Dt 111 Li n al.
} : ts Oh. bo NOR eager 4
pletes the happinels of. the creature. And this is what is
Head V. Fulness of Toy: 252 in God, in the way of a molt glorious and perfect union; for bhea th: a they dwell in love made perfect. God is love, and che that dwellcth in love, dwelicth in God, and God in him,” 1 Johm iv. 16. How will the faints knit with God, and he with them! when he shall see nothing in them but his own image! when their love shall arrive at its pertection, no nature, but the divine nature, being lełt in them; and all imperfection fwallowed up in that glor! ious transformation into the likenets of God! their love to the Lord being purged from the dross of fe- love, shall be molt pure; so as they will love nothing but God, and in God. It sha!l be no mote faint and languishing, but burn like coals of jun'per. It will be a light without darknels, a fluning fire without fnoak. As the tive-coal, when all the
moisture is gone out of it, is all tire; fo will the saints be ail,
love, When they come to the fall enjoyment of God in heaven, by men By e and experimental knowledge of him, by liglit and full p participation of the divine © oodnels..
Last fly, \F rom this glorious Pielence and Enjoyment shall arise an un! (peak: ible py, which the laints {hall be filled with. * In thy prelence is Tul iets of joy, Psal. xvi. rr. The saints fometines enjoy God in the won ld Wien their eyes being held, that they cannot perceive it, they have not the comfort of the EnJOV = ment; but then, ail mistakes being renwved, they ihall not only enjoy God, but roll in the enjoy ment with inexpretlible joy and {ati hob: The detue of carthly things reeds tor ment, and the enjpyment of them often ends in loathing. But tho” the oloritied faints shall ever desite more and more cf God, their desires shall not be mixt with the leait anxiety, twice the fulnels of the Godhead stands always open to thema; therefore they shall hunger no more, they shall n ot has the lcalt uneasinels, in their eternal appetite after the hidden manna: neither shall continued enjoyment breed loathing; they shall never think they have too much; therefore it is aided, Neither shall the y sun light upon them, nor any heat * Rev. vii..16. The enjoyment of God and the Lamb will be ever fresh and new to them, thro' the ages of eternity: for they mall drink of living fountains of waters s Where new Waters are continually spring: ng up in abundance, ver. 17. They sha cat of the tree of life, which, for variety, affords twelve manner of fruits, and thele always new and fresh, for it yields every month, Rev. Xxi. 2. Their jog shall be pure and unmixcd, without any dregs of forrow: not flight and momentary, 46 [lid and ev GL without interruption. They will enter int jo, Matth. xxv.5 "I:
. TOs ot oo eating
254 Fulness of Joy. State IV. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.“ The expression is ses what unufual, and brings me in mind of that word of our sufler— ing Redeemer, Mark xiv. 34. My foul is exceeding lorrowtul £ unto death.“ His foul was beset with lorrows, es the wo: d,
there used, will bear, the floods of forrow went round: 4 bout him, encompailing him on every hand; whichertoever he turned his eyes, forrow was before him; it sprang in upon them fron
Hhcaven, earth, and hell, all at once: thus was he entred into sorrow, and therefore faith, Pial. Ixix. 2. I am come into deep Waters, where the floods overflow me.“ Now wherefore all this, but that his own might enter into joy? Joy sometimes
enters into us now, Wich much ado to get accefs, while we are
CO! e e ed with sorrows: but then joy shall not only enter into
3, bat we shall enter into it, and swim for ever in an occan of
1 la : where we will see nothing but joy, whitherfoever we tun eur eves.. The presence and e of God and the Lambo vill fatisfy us with pleasures for cvermore : and the glory of Our {ouls vox bodies, arising from thence, will afford us ever!ait; delight. The {pirit of heavineis, how closely soever it cl ares to 2nv of the faints now, shall drop off then: their weeptng stall be turned into songs of joy, and bottles of tears shall ite in rivers: of plealu: es. Happy they who now fow in tears, whici {hall spring up in jov, in heaven, and bow their heads there with a weight of plory upon them. Thus far of the {Ocietv in this kingdom or the saints. X. In the last Place, The kingdom shall endure for ever As every thing in it is eternal, so the saints hall have an un
doubted cer tainty and iull al "ON auce of the eternal duration ot
the fame. Plus is a neceslary ingredient in periect happiit>: for the least nacertaiatv, as to the continuance of a1 ny good w th N „is not without fome tear, anxlety a! id torment; od th:
tore is utterly inconsistent with p erfect happiness. But the g ” 3 {hall never have fear, nor cause of fear, of any loss: the ©! shall be ever with the Lord, 1 Thess. iv. 17. They shalt:
attain the ful I eriwalion, tha ten othing hall be able to feparat.
them from the love of God: ; nor from oy full enjoy ment
him, for ever. The inheritance reser ved in heaven is incerr -
tible; it hath no i le of corruption in it{eit, to make it iinble to decay, but endures for evermore: It is undefiled; nozung from without can mar its opt nor is there any thing in it{elf to offend thole who ergy it: And therefore it fadeth not away; but ever 111.128 in its native lustre; and primitive beauty, 1 Pet. i. 4; IIitherto of the nature of the kingdom of heaven, SECONDLY)
lead V. The Saint's Admission into the Ringd;m 255
can th gal _ REI. . . 8 31 8 . SEGO NDL.Y, Proceed we now to speak of the nd:niifli on of
IE, R 1 EC rer s | upon EWA TL: 1 885 0 tl.) 1e Ira de „on, Thi tie Cal! Unto
*
} * . \ * MS /2 Le, * d. *\ + . } b " \ 1 then from the flüge, ty comes to then Kinditom. ( 2:) 1 he — 1 ; \ 136. 15 v4 q ' . , * . 17 71 j 7 184 5 i guatrev mee in mow ACE AGINICTLEC 111d introduced 10 17
. Their dammilion, the text liews: to Le bv a votes ren the throne; the King calling to them trom the throne. before angels and men, to come to their Kingdom, Come, and Go, arc but short words: but they will be such as will afford matier of thought. to all mankind, through the ges ot eternity fnce IF 01 115 Sale Tk pends Ever 1 alting "pL * die (+ 4nd 55 (30 3 ever! Lt SC 1998s er. N OUr Lord bid K 1e Worit G 411ne
x* Iz - \ i +2 1 4 3 1 . IJ R ho bear the-gof pet, Come: but tie moll part Wil not come * * wy
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(Matt Ni. 5 9 Linen er in ttther, But whom Vie
i the rest of the * 04 I „
356 Quality in which they are introduced. State IV.
World, he opened the everlasting doors of their hearts, entred into them hincif, and fhut them again; fo as sin could never re- enter, to reign there as formerly: and now he opens heaven's doors to them, draws his doves into the ark, and {huts them in there; fo as the aw, de aud heil, can never get tliem out again. Tue saints in this bfe were still labouring to enter into that rest: but Satan was always pullug them back, their coru; tion alva ay di 2 Win 2 them down; in fo much that they have sometimes been lett to Fang by a hair ot a promile, (it I may be allowed the espielsion) Sy Without fears of Tulln 1810 the Jake of fire: but now Caritt gives the word tor their admitlion; thev ate brought in, and put beyoud all hazard. I. altly, Thus he spcaks to them, as the person Introducing them mto the kingdom, into the presence- chamber of the great King, and unto the throne. Jet us Chritt is the great Secretary of cava, whose it is to bring the jaints into the gracious pre leiice of God:
and to whom alone it belongs to bring them into the glorious presence of God in heaven. Truly heaven would be a range
place to them, if jesus was not there : : but the Son will introduce his brethen into bis Father's kingdom; they shall go in
with him to the ma rage, Matth. xxv. 10.
II. Let us consider in what quality they are introduced by him.
Fixs T, He brings them in as © the blessed of his Father: fh runs the call from the th \rone, Come ye blessed of my Father. It is Christ's Father's house they are to come into: therefore he puts them in mind, that they are blessed of his Father; dear -o the Father, as we ell as to himself. This is it that makes heaven home to them; namely, that it 1s Chiilt's Father's house, Where we may be assured of we come, bcing married to the Son, and being his Father's choice tor that ver y end, He brings be in for his Father's s fake, as well as for bis on: they are th ie blessed of his Father; who, as he is the fountain of the Deity, is allo the fountain of all ble{fings conferred on the children of
men. They are these to whom God designed well from cter—
nity. „They were blefsed in the eternal purpose of God, being elected to everlasting life: at the opening of the book of lite,
their names were found written therein. So that, bringing them to the kingdom, he doth but bring them to what tie
Father, from all eternity, designed for them: being saved by the Son, they are * saved accor ding to his (1. 8. the Father's) purpose,” 2 Tim. i. 9. They are these to w! om the Father
has spoken well, He spake well to them in his word, 3 iu
Head V. Quality in which they are introduced, 35
must now receive its full accomplithment. They had 110 promile of the Kingdom, lived and died in the tant oft aral LOW they COINEe 10 receive the t! ing; pro: 1 Ted; Unto N em Eas done well. A gift is often in scripture called a bleffing;
and God's bletliag is ever real, Ike laac's bluting, by win Tacob became is heir: they Were all by gracc jultilled, lancti⸗
*
17? 40 5g then, 3 tit at (ol Cit WII. His OWN at \V ©3736 (;i 81 ack Vo 111
3 in Gin ing them their King (nn, in the 1 3 ent nent ot
elf tor ever? Finally, They are thefe whon God has conth Hel sec rated; the which allo is a for! peure notion of blesiing, 1 Cor. x. 10. God et them apart for himi-!f, to be kings and prieits unto bim; and the Mediator introdaceth them as juch to their kingdom and priefthoud.
SECONDEY, Chit lit! roduceth them 25 heirs of the Kingdom to the actual possesli, 54 of E Come, JC blelled, 1 inher! it t.
kingdom.” They are the children of God, by regeneration and adopiion':; ““ And it chulchen, then bars; heirs of God, and iQ nt heirs wih Chriflt,, Rom, viii. 17. TI is the Sener
alembiy or the Art- Born betore the throne: their minor ity 1$ overpast, and the time appointed of the Father for their rece! 25 ing of their inheritance is come. Ihe AIdlator Pi: irchaled the inheritance for them with hb own blood; their fighits aud evidences were dran long ago, and registred in the Bible; navy,
they had infeftment of their inl.er1 itance in the pcrion of sesus
Christ, as their proxy, when he ascended into heaven, © whither
to them. It was from ermiiy-the divine purnofe, that chere i
ments winch might
all d
358 Trial f the Claim, &c. State IV. and ready for him ; as at Saul's table David's place was empty,
when he was not there to eceupy it himself, 1 Sam. xx. 25. And now that the appointed time is come, they are brought in to take their several places in glory; set apart and reserved for them, till they should come at them.
Uss. I shall shut up my discourse on this subject, with a word of Application. (I.) To all who claim a right to this kingdom. (2.) To these who have indeed a right to it. (3.) To these who have not a right thereto.
First, Since it is evident, there is no promiscuous admission into the kingdom of heaven, and none do obtain it, but thele whose claim to it is solemnly tried by the great Judge, and after trial, sustained as good and valid; it is necessary that all of us impartially try and examine, whether, according to the laws of the kingdom, contained in the holy scriptures, we can verily and make good our claim to tis kingdom? The hopes of heaven which most men have, are built on fuch fandy foundations, as can never abide the trial; having no ground in the word, but in their own deluded fancy: such hopes will leave those wü entertain them, miserably disappointed at last. Whercfore it is not only our duty, but our interest, to put the matter to a fair trial, in time. If we find, we have no right to heaven indeed, we are yet in the way; and what we have not, we may obtain; but if we find we have a right to it, we will then have the comfort of a happy prospect into eternity; which is the greatest comfort one is capable ct in the world. If ye enquire, % How ye may know whether ye have a right to heaven, or ce not?” Ianswer, ye must know that by the state ye are now in. If ve are yet in your natural state, ye are children of wrath, and not children of this kingdom: for that state, to them who live and die in it, issues in eternal milery. If you be brought into the state of grace, you have a just claim to the state of glory; for grace will certainly issue in glory at length. This Kingdom is an inheritance, which none but the children of God can justly claim; now we become the children of God, by regeneration and union with Christ his Son: © and if children,
de then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, Rom.
viii. 17. Thelz then are the great points upon which one's evidences for the state of glory do depend. And therefore I refer you to what is said on the state ot grace, for clearing of
you as to your right to glory. | | 5 If you be heirs of glory, © the kingdom of God is within you, by virtue of your regeneration and unioa with Christ, (1.) \The: Ng-
Head V. Trial of the Claim, &c, 2359
kingdom of heaven has the throne in thy heart, if thou halt a i} ripht to that kingdom: Chrilt is in thee; and God is in thee; and having chosen him for thy portion, thy fon has taken up its everlasting relt in him, and gets no kindly relt but in him; as the dove, until she came into the ark. To him the fout habi itually inclines, by virtue of the new vature, the divine nature, Vic h the heirs of lor; v are partaker S Ot, Psa. Ixx311.2 5.* Whom have I in heaven but thee. And there is none upon earth that I c defire besides thee.” (2 5 The jaw of heaven are in thy heart, if thou art an heir of heaven, Heb. viii. 10, © will put my ]aws into their mind, and write them in their hearts.” Thy mind is enlightned in the knowledge of the laws of the Kingdom, by t the Spirit of the Lord, the jnliructor of all the heirs of glory: for ver may want inftrudtion, lurc an heir to a crown shall not want it. * It is Written in the prophets; And they shall call be taught of God,“ John vi. 45. Therefore, tho? father and mother leave them early, or be in no concern about their Christian education, and they be soon Pt to work for their daily bread; yet they thall not lick teaching. Withal thy heart is changed, and thou bearcst God's image, wiicl |; conlists in righteousnets and true holinels, Eph. iv. 24. Thy soul is * reconciled to the whole law of God, aud nk war with a il known sin. In vain do they pretend to the holy kingdom, who are not holy in heart and life; for, © Without ho! nese, no man {hall ce {ee the Lord, Heb. xii. 14. If heaven is a rest, it is for spiritual labourers, and not for loitcrers. If it is an eternal triumph, they are not in the way to it, who avoid the spiritual warf:.re, and are in no care to subdue cor uption, relist tempta— tion, and to cut their way to it, through the opposition made by the devil, the world, and the flesh. (3-) The treasure in heaven is the chief in thy cfteem aud desire, for 1t is your trea⸗
sure, and © where your treasure is, there will your heart be af, Matth. vi. 21. It it is not the things tl. at are seen, but the things that are not seen, which thy hear Lis in createst care and concern to obtain; if thou art drin ga trade with heaven, and thy chief business lies there; it is a len thy treasure is there, for thy heart is there. But if thou art of these, who wonder why so much ado about heaven 850 eternal life, as if less miglit serve the turn: thou art jke to have nothiug ado with it at all. Carnal mea value themselves 4 on their treasure upon earth; with them, the things that are not seen are weighed down by the things that are scen, aud no losses do s much affect them as Karthly losses: but the heirs of the cron of glory will value
themr
Fea
560 Duty and Comfort. State IV,
themf-bres most on ther treasures in heaven, and will not put their; rivate eitate in the balance with their Kingdom: nor will o_ les of the former gh so near their hearts, as the thoughts of e 1015 © the latter. Wheze thele first fruits of heaven are to 2 Found, the eternal weight of glory will surely follow after; while the want of them mut be admitted, according to the word, to be an n Ex dence of an heir of wrath. _ SECONDLY, Let the heirs of the kingdom behave themselves suitable to het character and 4; pity. Live as having the faith and hope df this glorious Kune dom: : set your cony ersation be in he: whe Phil P- is 40. Let „ar Guls delighit in commumson with God winle ye are on earth, ice ye look for your happi— nels in communion with him in heaven. Let your speech and ations flavour 0 Fbeiven: and, in your manner 'of lite, look like the COUNLYY to WV mch YE arc C04 ; that it may be aid of \ OU, as of f Gideon! 2 brethren, Judges vill. 18. Each one rejemb! led the children of 2 king. Maintain a holy contempt of the world, ard of the things of the wor! i; Altno” others, whose earthly things are their best things, do ler their hearts upon them; vet it becoine > You to set your feet on them, since your best thin are above. TFhis world is but the coun try, through Which lies vour road to Immanuel's land: therefore pass thro! it as Pi'grims and strangers; and d'p not into the incumbrances of it, 10 as to retard vou in vour journev. It is unworthy of one born to a palace, to set his heart on a cottage, to dwell there: and of one running for a prize of gold, to go off his way, to gather the stones of the brook: but much more is it unworthy of an heir of the kingdom of heaven, to be hid among the tuft of this world, when he should be going on to receive his crown 1 5 ze set before you „ch alengeth 1 vour outmolt zeal, activi ity a id diligence; and! Oly c ourage, ref folution, and mapnanimity, become those who are to l the crown. Ye cannot come at it, without fighting your way to it, throvgh JIficulties From without, and from es: but the Kiran before vou is futficlent to balancs them all, tho? ve should be called to refit even unto bland. Prefer Christ's cross before the world's crown; and wants in the way of duty, before ease ard wealth bn the way of sin: 5* Chao! 'C. ratker to fer afflict:on with th © © pe:ople of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a ic ahn, Feb. xi. 25. In a common inn, [tran gers (perhaps) fare b. tter than the children: but! here lies the di fference, the ch. ren
are to pay nothing for what they have got; but the {tr2:: ers get thar bill, and must pay cat vpleatly for all the) rel bad.
of glory,
Hezd V. Duty and Comfort: 36
Did we consider the wicked's after- reckoning for all the smiles of common providence they meet with in the world, we would not grudge them their good things here; nor take it amiis that God keeps our belt things last. Heaven will make up all the Hints losles, and all tears thall be wiped away from their eves there.
It is worth observing, that there is such a variety of seripture notions of heaven's happiness, as may luit every afflicted cafe of the saints. Are they opprettel? The day cometh, in whicle they shall have the dominion. Is their honour laid in the duit? A throne to lit upon, a crown on their head, and a sceptre in their hand, will raile it up again. Are they reduced to poverty? Heaven is a trensure. If they be forced to quit their own habitations, yet Christ's Father's houle is ready for them. Are they driven to the wilderneis? There is a city prepared for them. Are they banished from their native country,? They shall inherit a better country. If they are deprived of puvlick ordinances: the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple there, whither they are going; a temple, the doors of which, none can shut. If their life be full of bitterness, heaven is a paradile for pleasure. It they groan under the remains of {piritual bondage, there is a glorious liberty abiding them. Do their defiled garments make them ashamed? The day cometh,
in which their robes shall be white, pure and spotless. The battle against flesh and blood, principalities and powers, is in- .decd {ore; but a glorious triumph is awaiting them. If the toil and labours of the Chiristlan- life be great, there is an everlaiting rest for them in heaven. Are they judged unworthy of society in the world? they shall be admitted into the society of angels in heaven. Do they complain of frequent interruptions of their communion with God? There they shall go no more out, but shall sce his face for ever- more. If they are in darkness here, eternal light is there. If they grapple with death, there they shall have everlasting life. And to sum up all in one word, He that overcometh shall inherit all things,“ Rev. xx). 7. He shall have peace and plenty, profit and pleasure, every thing desirable; full satisfaction to his most enlarged defires. Let tho expectants of heaven, then, lift up their heads with joy, gird up their loins, and so run, as they may obtain; trampling on every
thing that may hinder them in the way to the kingdom. Let
352 The Conclusion. | State IV, 1 H.
heaven, be stirred up to leek it with all diligence. Now is the me time, wherein the children of wrath may become heirs of glory; FF ©: and when the way to everlasting happiness is opened, it is not fro time to fit (till and loiter. Raise up your hearts towards the # fho glory that is to be revealed: and do not always ly along n Y ©} this perishing earth. What can all your worldly enjoyments #5 avail you, while you have no solid ground to expect heaven, 1 © 1 after this life is gone? These riches and honours, profits and Y 50, pleasures, that mult be buried with us, and cannot accompary thr us into another world, are but a wretched portion, and will f the leave men comfortlels at long run. Ah! why are men so fond eve in their life-time to receive theirpood things! why are they not thir rather in care, to secure an interest in the kingdom of heaven, den which would never be taken from them, but afford thema F upo portion, to make them happy through the ages of eternity! if his you desire honour, there you may have the highest honour, and. 24l. which will last, when the world's honours are laid in the dvst; Whi If riches, heaven will yield you a treasure; and, there are plea- Aue sures for evermore. O!] be not despisers of the pleasant land, 1 Goc neither judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life: but marry seaf the heir, and heaven shall be your dowry; close with Christ, en as he is offered to you in the gospel, and ye shall inherit al! (1. things. Walk in the way of holiness, and it will lead you te men the kingdom. Fight against sin and Satan, and ye shall receive - bold the crown, Forsake the world, and the doors of heaven will the be open to receive you. | mh 1 on | a nareces. H - O0
MATTH. XXV. 41.
Then spall ze say also unto them on the left Hand, || is de Depart from me, ye cussed, into everlasting Fire, Gd
prepared for the Devil and his Angels. ff | getl, XXY ER there no other place of eternal lodging but Heaven, Icrip
V.Y 1 should here have cloled my discoursę of man's eternal prop state: but seeing in the other world, there is a Prison for the ercat
wicked, as well as a Palace for the saints, we must allo enquire | We | into
Head VI. The Curse of the Wicked. 262
into that Itate of everlasting misery; the which the worst ot men may well bear with, without crying,“ Art thou come to © torment us before the time?“ Since there is yet accels to ily from the wrath to come: and all that can be laid of it, comes short of what the damned will feel; for © who knoweth the. rower of God's anger?“ |
The last thing our Lord did, before he left the earth, was, He lift up his hands, and blessed his disciples,” Luke xxiv. 50, 51. But the last thing he will do, before he leave the throne, is to curse and condemn lis enemies; as we learn from the text, which contains the dreadtul sentence, wherein the everlasting misery of the wicked is wrapt up. lu which three. things may be taken notice of. First, "The Mality of the condemaed, * Ye curied.”” The Judge finds the curse of the law upon them as transgressors, and sends them away with it, from his presence, into hell, there to be fully execute upon them. zdly, The Putfishment which they are adjudged to; and to which they were always bound. over, by virtue of the curse. Aud it is two fold, the punishment of Iols, in separation from God and Christ, © Depart from me:“ and the punishment of sense, in most ex quisite and extreme tormeats, © Depart from. © me into fire.“ 2diy, The aggravation of their torments. (t.) They are ready for them, they are not to expect a moment's respite. The fire is prepared, and ready to catch hold of those who are thrown into it. (2.) They will have the society of devils in their torments, being shut up with them in hell. They mult depart into the same fire prepared for Beelzebub the prince of devils, and his angels; namely, other reprobate angels who fell with him, and became devils. It is
aid to be prepared fur them; because they sinned, and were cor
demned to heil, before man baned. This peak further terror to the damned, that they malt go into tlie fame torments, and place of torment with the devil and his angels. They bhearkned to his temptations, and they mult partake in bis tormeuts: his works they would do, aud they must receive the wancs, which is death. In this life they joined with.devils, in enmity against
| God and Christ, and the way of holiness ; and in the other they
mutt lodge with them. Thus all the goats shall be shut up together for that name is common to devils and wicked men, in Icripture, Lev. xvii. 7. Where the word rendercd devils, properly signifies hairy ones, or goats, in the shape of which creatures, devils delighted much to appear to their worshippers. x 4 | (3.) The
tion thereot, diey mit depart into everlasting fire. This js jt
254 The Curse under which tate IV. (3.) The last aggravation of their torinent is the eteruat dura. that puts the cape- stonè upon their misery, wamely, that it mall never have an end. 1 DocTRINE, Theo wick. d shall be shat up under the case of Gii, in everlasting Mifcry, with the Devils in Hull.
After having evinced that there shall be a resurrection of the body, and a ceneral judgment, I think it not needful to lnsist to prove the truth of future punishments. The fame conscie: ce there is in men of a future judgment, bears witness also of: he truth of future punishment. (And that the punishment of the damned thall not be annibilation, or a reducing them to nothing, will be clear in the progress of our ditcourse.) In treating of this awful subject, I shail inquire into these four things. (:.) The curle under wiich the damned shall be shut up,
2.) Their misery under that curse. (3.) Their society with devils in this miserable ftate. (4) The cternity of the Whole.
I. As to the curse under which the damned hail be shut v2 in hell; it is the terijble sentence of the law, By which they are bound over to the wrath of Gad, as transgressors. This curte
does not first seize them, when, standing before the tribun:!,
tliey receive their sentence : but they were born under it, they led their lire under it in this world, they died under it, roi:
with it out of their graves; and the Judge sinding it upon them, | sends them away with it, into the pit; where it shall ly on
them thro” all the ages of eternity. By nature all men arc under the curse; but it is removed from the ele, by virtue dd their union with Christ. It abides on the rest of sinful mankind, and by it they are devoted te destruttion, * separated to eri as one may delcribe the curse from Deut. xxix. 21. An the Lord shall separate him unto evil.“ Thus shall the daimnc!,
for ever, be persons devoted to destruction: separate and let | apart from among the re{t'of mankind, unto evil, as vetlets of th
wrath, set up for marks to the arrows of divine Wrath; 6 made the common receptacle and shore of vengeance.
This curse hath its first fruits on earth, which are a ph of the whole lump that is to follow. And hence it is, tha: -* temporal and eternal benefits are bound up together, under tr same expressions in the promise to the Lord's people, as a. Xxxv. 10.“ And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, 4 come to Zion, &c. relating both to the return from 5 5
REST cw wes -acaco-_-ec.iccnkcnuctrtncdsc ec oe ee ons a i,
—
viz
so temporal and eternal mileries, on the enemies of God, are
sometimes wrapt up under one and the fame expression in the threatning, as th. xxx. 33. For Tophet is ordained of old;
cc yea, for the King it is prepared; he. hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood, the breath of ce the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.” Which
relates both to the temporal and eternal destruction of the
Assyrians, who fell by the hand of the angel before Jerusalem.
See also Ifa. Ixvi. 24. What is that judicial blindnels to which many are given up, © in whom the God of this world hath -
blinded their eyes, (2 Cor. iv. 4.) but the fir{t fruits of hell and of the curse? Their fun is going down at noon day; their darkness increaling as if it would not stop, till it issue in utter darkness. Many a lash, in the dark, doth conscience give the
wicked, which the world doth not hear of: and what is that,
but that the never-dying worm is already bega to pnaw them?
And there is not one of these, but they may ** call it Joseph,
for the Lord shall add another: or rather,“ Gad, for a troop cometh.” These drops of wrath are terrible forebodings of the Full shower which is to follow. Sometimes they are given up to their vile affections, that they have no more command over them, Rom. i. 26. So their lusts gro up more and more towards perfection, if I may fo speak. As in heaven grace comes to its perfection, so in hell sin arrives at its highest pitch; and as fin is thus advancing upon the man, he is the nearer and
the liker to hell. There are three things that have a fearful aspect here. First, When every thing that might do good to
mens fouls, is blasted to them; so that their blesliugs are cursed, (Mal. ii. 2.) sermons, prayers, admonitions, and reproofs,
which are powerful towards others, are quite inefficacious to
them. 2dly, When men go on finning still, in the face of plain rebukes from the Lord, in ordinances and providences: God meets them with rods in the way of their fin, as it were striking
them back; yet they rush forward. What can be more like
hell, where the Lord is always smiting, and the damned always
sinning apainst him? Lastly, When every thing in one's lot is turned into fuel to one's lusts. Thus adversity and prosperity,
poverty and wealth, the want of ordinances, and the enjoyment
of them, do all but nourish the corruptions of many. Their vicious stoinachs corrupt whatsoever they receive, and all does
but increase noxious humours. But the full harvest foilows in that misery which they shall for ever ly under in hell; that wrath, which, by virtue of the
h 3 Curle,
Head Vl. the Damned are shub up. 265:
lon, and to the saints going to their eternal rest in heaven: even
—
—
366 The Curse of the Damned, State lV.
Curse, shill come upon them to the uttermost: the which is i 2 Curie fully executed. This black cloud opens upon them, 2d the terrible thunde: bolt sträkes them, by that dreadful VOICE from the throne, '* Depart from ny ye e curled,” Kc. Which Will give the whole wiked world a dismal view of what is in
ie@bokyin of I ecurie, It is 61. A voice of extreme indignation and wrath, a farivus rebuke from the Lion of the tribe of Judah. His ids will be most terrible to them: his eyes will t ist flames of fire on them: and his Wor a wil! pierce their hearts like envenomed arrows When he will thus leak them out of dis presence for ever, and by his wor: chalk: them away fron; before the throne: they will fee how bcenly wrath burns in 1s heart against them for their sins. (2.) It is a voice of extreme alisdain and contempt from the Lord. Time was when t! ey Were e pit icd, besought to pity themselves, and to be the Lords; but t hey despised bum, they would none of him: but now {hall they be buried out of his light, under everlasting contem} it, (3.) ILis a voice of extreme hatred. Hereby the Lord fhuts them out of his bowels of love and merc y. Depart, ye 14 curled,” q. d. I cannot endure to look at you; there is not ene purpote of good to you in mine heart; nor shall ye ever hear one word more of hope from me. Lastly „It is a voice of eternal rejection from the Lord. He commands them to be
1 ne, and fo caits them off for ever. Thus the doors of heaven
are shut against them; the gulf is fixed between them and it, and they are driven to the pit. Now should they cry with all potlible earneftness, © Lord, Lord, open to us!” they will hear nothing but“ Depart, depart, ye cursed.” Thus shalt the damned be shut up under the curse. b Us E First, Let all these who, being yet in their natural state, are under the curse, consider this, and flee to jesus Christ be⸗ times, that they may be delivered fromvit. How can ye sleep In that state, being wrapt up in the curse! Jesus Christ is now faving unto you, Come, ye cursed; J will take the curse from ef you, and give you the blessing. The waters of the lanctuary are now running, to heal the cursed ground; take heed to improve them for that end to your own souls, and fear it as hell, to get no spiritual advantage thereby. Remember that the miry Places ( which are neither sea, nor dry land, a fit emblem df hy pocrites,) and the marshes, (that neither breed sishes, nor bear trees: but the waters of the sanctuary leave them as they nd them, in their barreavel..) hall not be hcald; (fecivg they porn the only remedy.) © they shall be given to salt, (left pi
cc Water, and luke oil mto nis bones,
der cternal barrenness, set vp for the monuments of the wrath of God, and concluded ror ever under the curte,) Lzek. xivieit. wy Let all cursers consider this, whole mouchs arc filled with ring themtelves and others. He who ** clothes hiniclt with 40 curling, fshall nid the cur fe“ TOA into his bowels like Mal. cix. 18. ) it repentce prov art it not. He shall get all his unprecations apainst pin fully answered, in that day wherein he ttasds before the tribunal of God: and hall find the Kung weigat of the curse ot G0, which he 11 kes 1 t of AoW. 5 II. x proceed to peak of the mite; 'y of The damned, under that curte: a miser 3 icli the tongues of mic aud al. gels cannot sutficjently express. God alwa as acts like bimself; no favours. can be equal to his, and his wrath and terrors are without a parallel. A- the saints in heaven are adv anced t the Rigliest pitch of! happinets „ to the damned in hell arte at the beig ht of misery. I'wo things here 1 shall soberly inqu e into,
the pumishun ent of Lols, and the punith: neut of Sense in bell But lince these alto are such things 15. cye has not feen, nor ear
heard, we mutt (as Geographers: do,) leave a large void for thi unknown land, winch the day W] ill dilcover. |
FIRST, The punishment of Lots, which the damned shall
indergo, is? separa tion from the Lond? as we learn from the text, if Depart from me, ye curled,” This will be a stone ppon their grave's mouth, as © the talent of lead,” Zech. v. 7,8. that will hold them down tor ever. They th: Vil be cternally scprrated from God and Chrilt. Chiilt is is the way to the TH 'ather, but ihe way. as to them, shall be everlastingly blocked up; the bridge shall be drawn, a. ind the great pul Ir fixed; - fo shalt ' they
Ya shut up in a state od eternal fc: paration From God ther. ther,
Son, and the Ht ly £ (hof They N be locally epa: ted from the IF in Chrüt, and Mall never come into the {eat of the blessed, where he appears in his glory, but be cast into utter da; knels, Matth.xx11. 12. They cannot nen! local! y leparated from God, they cannot be in a place where be is not, since he is, ard will be prese; nt every- Where: Ir 50 make my bed in bell, 10 says the Pfalmist, © behold thou art there,” P. ial. xx xix. 8. But they shail 48 milerable beyond expretion, in a relative leparation from God. Tho' he Will be present in the ver centrę of their fouls, (if I may fo ex Sore it,) whvle they are v-rapt ap in fiery flames, in utter darkness, it shall not only be to teed than with the vinegar of his wrath, to entertain them With ti:s einanations of his rev enging iche; but they shaTl
Head vl. Their Mifery in Hull 3
368 The Punishment of Lass in Hell. State IV. [ never taite more of his goodness and bounty, nor have the lealk | glinple of hope from him. They wall lee his heart to be ab- 5 c solutcly alicuated trom them, and that it cannot be towards them; but that they are the party against whom the Lord will have an indignation tor ever, They {hall be deprived of the glorious prelence and enppyment of God: they shall have no part in the beatitick vision : nor see any thing in God towards them, but one wave of wrath rolling at the back of another, This will bring upon them overwhelming floods of sorrows for evermore. They shall never taste of the rivers of pleasures the saints in heaven eby; but shall have an everlasting winter, and a perpetual nipiit, becaule the Sun of righteousness has departed from the, and lo they are left in utter darknels. So great as heaven's happiness is, fo great will their loss be; for they can have none ot it for ever. | This separation of the wicked from God will be, {1.) An involuntary separation. Now they depart from him, they will not come to him though they are called, intreated, and-obtested to come: but then they shall be driven away from him, when they wonld gladly abide with him. Although the question, * % What is thy beloved more than another beloved!“ is freq- TH! vent now amongtt the despisers of the gospel, there will be no such question among all the damned crew ; for then they will see that man's happinels is only to be found in the enjoyment of God, and that the loss of him is a loss that can never be balan- . ced. (2.) It will also be a total and utter separation. Albeit 1 the wicked are in this Jife separated from God, yet there is a kind of intercourse betwixt them: he gives them many good gifts, and they give him, atleast, some good words: fo that the peace is not altogether hopeless. But then there shall be a total separation, the damned being cast into utter darkness, _ Where there will not be the least gleam of light or favour from the Lord: the which will put an end unto all their fair words to him. Lastly, It shall be a final separation ;- they will part with him never more to meet, being shut up under everlasting horror and despair. The match betwixt Jesus Christ and unbelievers, which has fo often been carried forward, and put back again, shall then be broken up for ever: and never shall one message of favour or good- will go betwixt the parties any more. This punishment of loss, in a total and final separation from God, is a misery beyond what mortals can conceive, and which the dreadful experience of the damned can only sufficiently un- 1 fold. But that we may have some conception of the horror of 1 it, let the following things be considercd. Ist, Sed
*
Head VI. The Punishment L. in Hell. : 269 |
ist. God is the chief good, and therefore to be separated
from him, mult be the chiefevil. Our native country, our re- b lations, and our life, are good: and therefore to be de orived of | them we reckon a great evil: and the better any 1 ng is, 10 much the greater evil äs the loss of it: he rcfore, God being the chief good, and no good comparadle to lim, there can be no loss fo great as the loss of God. The full 10) ment of tim \ is the highest pinacle 91 f happiness the creature is ca pable ot ar- | riving at: to be fully and inally eparate d Fromm him mult then be the lowest itep of mijery W hich the rational creature mult be reduced to. To be cast off by men, by. good men, by the x beit of men, is heavy: What mult it! chen be, to be ri jecd ted of 1 Gd, of goodnets ittef! f 3 zy, God is the fountain of all goodness, From winch all 80. nels flows unto the creatures, and by Wluch it is cont inued |: in then, and to then. Whatever goodneis or perfection,
natural as well as moral, 1 is in any creature, it is from God, and depends upon bit, as the light is f. om, an, d depends on the i sun: for every created being, as suck, is a dependent one. f Wherefore a total separation from God, wherein all comfort- | 3 able communication betwixt God and a rational creature is 10 absolutel) blockes up, melt of necessit 2 brin ig along with it a total eclipse of al! ligbt, of coinfort, and ease, whatsoever. If
there is but one window, or open; 3 in a house, and that be quite snut up; it is ev ident there can be nothing but darknels in that house. Our Lord tells us, (Matth. xix. 17.) © There is A © none good but one, that is God. Nothung good or comfort- 4 able is originally from the creature 3 whatever good or comfortable thing one finds in one: self, as health of body, peace of mind; whatever sweetness, rest „ pleasure, or delipht, one finds in other creatures, as in meat, Ana, arts and sciences: all these are but some Faint ravs of the vine per fections, communicate from God unto the creature, and depending on a-conllant influence from him, for their conversation, which failing, they would immediately be gone; for it is imp 91 Hble that any createc thing can be to us more or better than what God makes it to be. All the rivulets of comfort we dri nk of, within or f without ourselves, come from Gad as their spring-head: the churse of which row ards us being itopt, of necefsity they must l] dry up. So that when God goes, all that is good and comfortable OCs Wit 1 Him: all eale and quict of body or mind, Hol. ix. 12. Wo also t them, when I depart rom them.“ W hen the wicked arc totally and a 101 zrated From: | an, al!
370 The Punishment of Lofs in Hell. State IV. all that is comfortable in them, or about them, returns to its fountain, as the light goes away with the sun, and darknci; fuccceds in the room thereof. Thus, in their separation from Gad, all peace is removed far away from them, and pain in body and anguish of soul succeed to it: all joy goes, and unmited forrow settles in them: all quiet and rest separate from them, and they are filled with horror and rage: hope flees away, and despair seizeth thentr, common operations of the Spirit, which now restrain them, are withdrawn for ever, and fin comes to ity utmost heighth. And thus we bave a dismal view of the horrible spectacle of {in and misery, which a creature proves, when totally separated from God, and left to itself; and one may sce this separation to be the very hell of hell.
Being separated from God, they are deprived of all good. The good things, which they set their heart upon in this wor, are beyond their reach there. The covetous man cannot enjoy
his wealth there, nor the ambitious man his honours, nor the sensual man his pleasures, no not a drop of water to cool his tongue, Luke xvi. 24, 35. No meat nor drink there to strengthen the faint;. no sleep to refresh the weary; and no mutick, nor pleasant company to comfort and chear up the sorrowful. And as for these: good things they despised in the world, they shall never more hear of then, nor lee them. No offers of Chriit there, no pardous, no peace; no wells of salvation in the pit of destruction. In one word, they {hall be deprived of whatsoever might comfort them, being totally and fwally separated from God, the fountain of all goodness, | 3dly, Man naturally defires to be happy, being withal conscious to himself that he is not self-suffieient; and therefore has ever a d3{tre of something, without. himself, to make him happy: and the soul being, by its natural make and constitution, capable of enjoying God; and nothing else being commensurable to its desires; it can never have true and solid rest, till it rest in the enjoymeut of God. This desire of happinets the rational creature can never lay aside, no not in hell. Now while the wicked are on earth, they seek their satisfaction in the creature; and
when one fails, they go to another : thus they put off their time
— N — * - with vain hopes. But, in the other world, all comfort in the
creatures having failed together at once; and the shadows they
in the world, deceiving their own fouls, and luring them on
are now purluing, having all of thein evanished in a moment;
they shall be totally and finally separated from God, and ice they have thus lost him, So the doors of earth aud heaven both 4 e. 8 | are
Head VI. The Punishment of Loss in Hell. 37t
are shut against them at once. This will create them unspeakable anguish, while they shall live under an eternal gnawing hunger after happiness, which they certainly know shall never be in the least mealure satissied, all doors being closed on them. Who thea can imagine how this separation from God shall cut the damned to the heart! How will they-rore and rage under it, and how it will stiug them and gnaw them through the apes of eternity! ! |
athly, The damned shall know that some are perfectly happy in the enjoyment of tlmt God, from wv how they themselves are separate: And this will aggravate the sense of their loss, that they can never have any share with these happy Ones. Bein separated from God, they are separated from the society of the glorified saints and angels. They may fee © Abraham atar off, * and Lazarus in his bosom, (Luke xvi. 23.) but can never
*
come into their company: being, as unclean Jepers, thrust out
without the camp, and excommunicated from the presence of
the Lord, and of all his holy ones, It is che opinion of some, that every person in heaven or hell, shall hear and fee all that passeth in either state. Whatever is to be laid of this, we have ground from the word to coucluce; that the damned shall have a very exquilite knowledge of the happinels of the saints in heaven; for what else-can be meant by the rich man in hell his lecing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom? One thing is plain in this cale, that their own torments will give them such notions of the happiness of the saints, as a sick man has of health, or a prisoner has of liberty. And as they cannot fail of reflecting on the happiness of those in heaven, more than they can attain to contentment with their own lot: lo every thought of that haps piness, will aggravate their loss. It would be a mighty torment to a hungry man, to lee others liberally feasting, while he is so chained up, as he cannot have one crumb to stay his gnawing appetite. To bring muke and dancing before a man labouring under extreme pains, would but increase his anguish: How then will the songs of the blelied, in their enjoy ment of God, make the damned rore under their separation from him! Fthly, They will remeinber that time was, when they might have been made partakers of the blessed state of the saints, in their enjoyment of God: and this will aggravate their sense of the loss. All may remember, there was once a possibility of it that sometime they were in the world, in {ome corners of which the way of salvation was laid open to mens view; and may
wilh they had gone round the world, till they had found it out.
*
—
89 nad
—
372 The Punishmert of Loss in Hell. State IV.
Despisers of the gospel will remember with bitternese, that lu Chr: 1 with all lus benefits was offered to them, that they we exhorted, intreated, and pressed to accept, but AAR not; and that they were warned of the misery they feel, and obtested ta flee from the wrath to come, but th ey wouts not hearben. The gospel-offer flighted will make a 85 hell, and the lofs of an offered heaven will be a sinking weiglit on th ie spirits of unbelicyers in the pit. Some will remember that there Was a ery; of their being eternally happy; that sometime de,
cemed to stand fair for it, and were not far from the king] 7 of God; that they had once aim: x conlented to the blcif | bargain, the pen was in their hand, (as it were,) to sign the marriaoe-contract betwixt Christ and their fouls; but unhappily they dropped it, and turned back from the Bord to their lusts again. And has will remember that they thovolt
themselves sure of hexven, but, being blinded with pride and seif-conceit, they were above rinarices, and beyond instruction, and would not examine their {tate, which was their ruin: but then they shall in vait wish, they had reputed themselves the worlt of the congregation in which they lived: and curse the fond-conceit they hat of themselves, and that others had f them too. Thus it will sting the damned, that they might have escaped this lols.
LasTLY, They will fee the loss to be irrecoverable; that they mufst etern: ally lv under it, never, never to be repaired, Might the damned, after millions of ages in hell, regain what they have lost, it would be some ground of hope; but the prize is gone, and can never be recovered. And there are two things here, which will pierce them to the heart. (f.) That they never knew the worth o it, till it was irrecoverably Loit, Should a man give away an earthen pot full of gold for a trifle, never knowing what Was in it till it were quite gone from hum,
and; vast recovery : how would this foolish action gall him, up: on
the a scovery of the riches in it! such a one's case may be a faint relemb! ince of the case of delpisers of the gospel, when in hell they lift up their eyes, and behold that, to their torment, which they will not ee n. W, to their salvation. (2.) That they have
Int it for lofs and dung; fold their part of heaven, and not.
laricked themselves w ith the Price. They lost heaven for earth
ly profits and pleasures, and now both are gone together from: then, The qrunbard' cups are gone, the covetous man's gain, the voluptuous man's carnal deliohts, nd the sluggard' S ease: nothing je left them to comfort t them now. The happ: nels they loft remain indeed, but they can have no part in it for ever.
enn a 3
Head VI, The Punishment of Sense in Holl. 373
UsE. Sinners be perfuaded to come to God through Jesus Christ, uniting; with him through a M.diator; that ye may be preserved from this fearful separation from him. O be afraid to live iu a state of kpiration from God, lest that which ye now make your choice, become your eternal punishineiit hercafter! Do not reject cominunion with God, cast not off the communi— on of saints; for it will be the milery of the damned to be driven out from that conmunion. Ceale to build up the wall of separation betwixt God and you, by continuing in your finful courses: repent rather in time, and so pull it down; lest the cape-{tone be laid upon it, and it stand for ever between you and happinels. Tremble at the thoughts of rejection and separation from God. By whomsvever men are rejected on the
earth, they ordinarily find some pity to them; but if ye be
thus separated from God, ye will find all doors shut against you. Ye will find no pity from any in heaven: neither saints nor
angels will pity them whom God has utterly cast off: nonswill pity you in hell, whe: there is no love but lothing; all being lothed of God, lothing him, and lothing one another. This is a day of losses and fears. I shew you a loss, ye would
do well to fear in time; be afraid lest you lole God: if ye do,
a long eternity will be spent in roaring out lamentations for this loss. O horrid stupidity! men are in a mighty care and concern to prevent worldly lofics: but they are in hazard of losing the enjoyment of God for ever and ever, in hazard of losing heaven, the communion of the blessed, and all good things for son] and body in another world: yet as carelels in that matter, as if they were uncapable of thought. O! compare this day with the day our text aims at. This day is heaven opened to them, who hitherto have rejected Christ, and vet there isroon, if they will come: but that day the doors shall be shut. Now Christ is saying unto you, Come: then he wilt say, Depart: seeing ye would not come, when ye were bidden. Now pity is shown: the Lord pities you, his servants pity you, and tell you, that the pit is before you, and cry to vou, that ye do yourselves no harm: but then ye shall have ne pity from God nor man. | SECONDLY, The damned shall be punished in hell with the
Punishment of sense; they must depart from God into everlasting fire. I am not in a mind to dispute, what kind of fire it is,
which they shall depart into, and be tormented by for ever,
whether a material fire, or not? Experience will more than
latify the curiosity of those, who are dispolcd rather to om | I1 ; 2
*
74 The Punishment of Sense in Hell. tate IV.
about it, than to seek how to escape it. Neither will I meddle
with chat question, Where it is? It is enough, that the worm
which never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched, will be
found somewhere by impenitent sinners. But (T.) I shall
evince that, whatever kind of fire it is; it is more vche. neut and terrible than any fire, we, on earth, are acquainted wich. (2) Lhall condescend on fome properties of chese hery torniec!s, As to the 11t, of these: Burning 1 is the inott terrible pun Tr meat, and briags the most exquilite pain aud torment with it, By what reward could a man be induced to hold but lis band in the flame of a candle for an hour? All ima, ginary p'ealures on earth would never prevail with the moit vOuptuous mil, to venture to lodge but one half hour in a burning fiery, Furnace; nor would all the wealth in the world prevail with the me t covetous to do it. Yet, on much lower terms, do niost met! 5 in effect, ex pose theinselves to everlaiting site in hell, whico is more en ent and terrible than any fre we on earth arc acquainted with; as will appear Oy the to How Co lideratjonz. 1. As in heaven grace being brought to its perfection, profit and pleasure d alto arrive At. their eight tiere; 3 lo, {in being come to its height in hell, the evil of punishment doch alto arrive at its perfection there. W hercfozc, as the Joys in Heaven are far greater than any joys which the saints obtain on earth,
tlie punishmeats of hell must be grcater thai any earth | y tors
ments -whatloever; not only in eipect of the continuancè r them, but allo in respect of de.CINCNCy and exquilitcucls.
2. Why are the things of the other world represented to us in an earthly dress, in the word ; but that the weakness of our capacities in such matters ( which' the Lord is pleated to condescend unto) does require it; it being always supposed, that these things of the other world are in their kind more perfect, than that by which they are represented ! ' When heaven is reresented to us under the notion of a city, with gates of pearl, and the street of gold: we look not to sind gold and pearls there, which are so mightily prized on carth, but lomething
more excellent than thelc fineit and most precious things iu the
World: when therefore we hear of hell- sire, it is necessary we understand by it something more vehement, piercing, and tormenting, than any fre ever seen by our eyes. And hece it is worth considering, that the torments of hell are held forth under feveral other notions than that of fire lumply: and tlie rea- Fn of it is plain; namely, that hereby, what of horror is want- Sig in one notion of hell, is sapplicd by another. MW. by | is | Jiear
Head VI. The Punishment of Sense in Hell. 875
heaven's happivels represented under the various notions of a: Treasure, a Paradise, a Feast, a Rest, &c. but that there is not one of these things sufficient to express it? Even so hell torments are represented under the notion of fire: which the damned are calt into. A dreadful representation indeed! yet not sufficient to express the milery of the state of sinners in them. Wherefore we hear allo of the second death, (Rev. xx. 6.) for
the damned in hell shall be ever dying: of © the wine-press of
„the wrath of God,” (chap. xtv. 19.) wherein they will be
© trodden in anger, trampled in the Lord's fury,” (Isa. Ini. 3 )-
pressed, broken, and bruiled, without end: * the worm that dieth not,” (Mark ix. 44.) which shall eternally gnaw them: a bottomless pit, where they will be ever sinking, Rev. xx. 3.
It is not sunply called“ a fre,” bnt © the fake of fire aud brimftone,” (ver. 19.) © a lake of fire burning with brimstone, “
(chap. xix. 20.) than which, one can. imagine nothing more
dreadful, Yet, because fire gives light, and light (as Solomon observes, Ecrlef. xi, 7) © is sweet:* there is no light there, but
darkness, utter darkneis, Matth. xxv. 30. For they musthave an everlasting night, since nothing can be there, which isin any measure comfortable or refreftiing.. |
3. Our fire cannot affect a spirit; but by way of sympathy
with the body, to which it is united; but hell fire will not only
perce into the bodies, but directly into the souls of the damned ;
for it is © prepared for the devil and his angels these wicked
spirits, whom no fire on earth; can hurt. Job complains heavily
under the chastisement of God's fatherly hand, faving, © The
* arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof
drinketh up my spirit,“ Job vi. 4. But how will the spirits
of the damned be pierced with the arrows of revenging justice!
how will they be drunk up with the. poison of the curse on these
arrows! siow vehement must that fire be that pierceth directly
into the foul, and makes an everlasting burning in the spirit, the
molt lively and tender part of a man, wherein wounds or pain
are molt intolerable ! |
LasT3yY, The preparation of this fire evinceth the inexprelfile vehemency and dreadfulness of it. The text calls it © pre- * pared fire,” yea, the prepared fire by way of eminency. As the three children were not cast into an Ordinary fire, but a fire prepared on a particular design, which therefore was exceeding hot, the furnace being heated seven times more. thau ordinary, Dan. ji. 19, 22. So the damned shall find in hell a prepared fire,
the like to which was never prepared by human art; it is a fire Ii 2 | et.
>
mms”.
—
>
376 The Punishment of Serfe in lil. State VI.
of God's own preparing, the ꝓroduct of infinite wisdom or a par ticular desigu, to demonstrate the molt strict and severe divine justice againlt hu; ; Which may sufficiently evidence to us the unconceivable ex quisiteness thereof. God alw avs acts in a pecuhar way becoming his 'own infinite greatness, whether for, or againlt the c.! feature: at- therefore: as the things he hath prepared for them that love him, are great and good beyond expression or conception: so one may "conclude, that the th ing
ke hath prepared apainst those who hate him, are great an: 1 terrible beyond what men can either lay, or think of them, The pile of Tophct 1 is fire and much v nod, (the coals of that © fire are coals of juniper, a kind of wood, "wh ich set on tte, © burns most fiercely, Plal. cxx. 4.) and che breath of the Lad, * like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it,“ Ia. xxx. 33. Fire is more or lel> viotent, according to the matter of it, aud the breath by which it is blown: what heart then can t I. conceive the horror of coals of juniper, blown up with the
breath of the Lord? Nay, God hiniiclf will be © a conlum'ng fire” (Deut. iv. 24.) to the damned; intimately present, as a
devouring fire, in their fouls and bt Hex: It is a teaiful thing to fall into a fire, or to be shut up in a fery furnace, on cart; :
put the terror of these evanisheth, when one copliders, how
fearful it is to fall into the hands 45 the liuoing God,“ which
3s the lot of the damned: for, © Who fhall dwell with the de- 6c vouring fire? Who mall dwai with everlasting burnings!“ Ia. xxxiii. 14.
As to the second point proposed, namely, © the properties, of the fiery torments in hell.
I. They will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a burning fiery furnace, the fire wakes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no wender untouchedq; what part then can have ease, when the damned s 'm in a lake of fire burning with brimstone? There will their bodies be tormented, and scorched for ever. And as they sinned, so shall they be tor mented, in all the parts thereof; that they shall have no sound fide to turn them to: for what soundnels or cafe can be to any part of that body, which being separated from God, and all refreshment from him, is still in the pangs of the see: md death, ever dying, but never dead? But as the soul was chief in sin ming, it w. ill be chief in suffering too, being filled brimful of the wrath of a i1mrevenging God. The damned shall ever be under deepeit impressions of God's vindictive justice against them: and this fre
Will
-
JJC
Head VI, The Punishment of Sens in Hell. 377
will melt their souls, within them, like wax. Who knows the power of that wrath which had fuch an effect on the Mediator, standing in the room ot singers, Plal. xxti. 14. © My heart is „like wax, it is-melted in the midst of my bowels!” Their minds shall be filled with the terrible appreheusions of God's implacable wrath: and Whatever they can think upon, past, present, or to come, will aggravate their torment and anguish. Their Will shall be crossed in all things for evermore: as their Will was ever contrary to the Will of God's precepts; so God in his dealings with them, in the other world, shall have war with their Will for ever. What they would have, they shall not in the least obtain: but what they would not, shall be bound upon them without remedy. Hence no pleasant affection shall ever spring up in their hearts any more: their love of eomplacency, joy, and delight, in any object whatsoever, thall be pluckt up by the root; and they will be filled with hatred, fury, and rage, against God, themselves, and their fellowcreatures, whether happy in heaven, or miserable in hell, as they themselves are. They will be funk in forrow, racked with anxicty, filled with horror, galled to the heart with trettinp, and continually darted with delpair; which will make them weep, pnash their teeth, and blaspheme for ever. Matth. xxö. 13. © Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into utter darkness; there thall be weeping and pnashing of teeth.“ Rev. xvi. 21. © And there tell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blaiphemed God becaule of the hail; i for the plague thereof was excceding great.“ Conlcience will be a worm to gnaw and prey upon them; remorte for their fins shall seize them, and torment them for ever, and they shall not be able to shake It off, as sometimes they did; for in hell © their worm dieth not,“ Mark ix. 45, 46. Their memory will serve but to aggravate their torment, ard every new reflection will bring another pang of anpuish, Luke xvie 25. -
But Abraham faid, (viz. to the rich man in hell,) Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedit thy good things.” 2. The torments in bell are manifold. Put the case, that a man were, at one and the {ame tine, under the violence of the
gout, gravel, and whatsoever disenses and pains have ever met:
together in one body; the torment of such a one would be but light in comparison with the torments af the damned. For as,
in hell there is an absence of all that is good and defirable, fo | there is the confluence of all evils there; since all the effects ot”
dead bodies which are burned. blacknels of darkneis, without the Jealt comfortable glean of
4358 The Punishment of Sen/e in Hell. State IV.
{in and of the curse take their place ini it, after the last judgment,
Rev. xx. 14. And death and hell were cast into the lake of * fire.” There they will find aprilon they can never escape out of; a lake of fire, wherein they will be ever {wimmin g and burning; a pit, where they will never fad a bottom. The worm that dieth not shall feed on them, as on bodies which are interred: the fire that is not quenched, shall devour them, as
Their eyes thall be kept in
light: their ears filled with the right tal! vellings of the interual crew. They Mil taste nothing but the vinzgar -of God's wrath, the dregs of the cap of vis fury. The stench of the burning lake of brimstone will be the smell there; and they thall feel extreme pains for evermote.
* 3. They will be molt exquisite ad vehement torments,
eauling ** weeping, Wailing, and g gnashing. ot teeth,“ Matth. X11j. 42. and xxii. 13. They are reprelepted to us under tlie notion of pang 1 in travail, which are very sharp and exquisite. So says the rich man in nell, Luke xvi. 24. I am tormented,
"y (to wit, as one in the pangs of child- bearing „0 in this flame.“
An! dreadful pangs; horrible travail, in which both soul and
body are in paugs together; helpless travail, hopeless and endled? the word uled for hell, Matth. v. 22. and in divers other
places of the New Testament, properly danates * the. alley of Hinnom;“' the naine being taken Bras the valley of the children of Hinnom, in w! hich was Tophet, (2 Kings Xx11. 10.) where idolaters offered their children to Mbloch. This is 1a. to have been a great brasen idol, with arins Ike a man's: the Which being r heated by fire withia it, the child was let in the
| Suroing arms of the idol; and, that i ic parents might not hear
the shrieks of the child burning to death, they beat drums in the timę of thekorrible sacrifice; hence the place had the name Topbet. Thus the exquisiteness of the torments in hell are pointed out to us. Some have endured grievous tortures on
earth, with a surprising obstinacy and undaunted courage: but
meus courage will fail them there, when they sind th emiss] ves fallen into the hands of the living God; and no out- gate to by e xpe qed t: for ever. It is true, there wil] be degrees of torment m hell: © It shall be more tolerable for Ty re © aud Sidon, than „ for Chorazin and Bethfida, Matth. xi. 21, 22. But the:
least load of wrath there, will be able fog how can the heart of the creature en: lure, or his Darga be {fo
ong, when
God hinkclt is a consum ng fue to him? Whcu the tares pre boun
— * ear TRIS ons 1-79 oa Irv
*
He d VT. The Punishment of Sense in Hall. 370
bound in bundles for the fire, there will be bundles of covetous
persons, of drunkards, protane Ivwearers, unclean perious, formal hy pocrttes, inbolieve rs, and detpners ot the golpel, and the
like : the teveral bundles being catt to Hell- lire, lome Will
burn more keenly than others, according as their sins have been
more heinous than the it ot others a ficrcer flame will le. oY the
bundles of the profane, than the bundle of unsanctilied _ .
the furnace will be hotter to thote who finacd at xin{t ligbt, |
than to thele who lived in darknels, Luke xii. 37, 38. © That.
servant which knew his Lord's will; and prepared not him+
{elf, neither did according to his will, {hill be beaten with.
© many {tripes. But he that knew not, ad did commit things
cc worthy ot stripes, shall be beaten. with few {tripes.” But
the sentence common to them all, (Matth. xiii. 30. Bind
them in bundles to burn them, ö (peaks the greatest vehemency and exquisiteness ot the lowest degree of torment in hell.
4. They will be uninterrupted ; there. is no intermiffion
there; no case, no not tor a moment. I hey & shall be tor-
„ mented day and night for ever and ever,” Rev. xx. 10. Few
are fo tossed in this world; but sometimes they get rest ; but the
damned shall get none: they took their rest in the time PRONE.
ed of God for labour. No {torms-are read; ly seen, but there
some shnce between showers : but no intermiflion in the tore
that falls on the wicked in bell. There deep will be c Alling
unto deep, and the waves of wrath continually rolling over
them. There the heavens will be always black to them, and
they shall have a perpetual night, but o Fei, Rey. Ki. 18.
ah. They have no rest day nor ni, ght. |
5. 1 ey will be unp: 'tied. The punishments inflicted on the
greatest malefactors on earth, do draw forth fore compassion
from them who behold them m their torments: but the damned shall have none to pity tl zem. God will not pity them, but
laugh at their calamity,” Prov. i. 26, "The blefsed company
in heaven stiall rejyice. in the execution of God's righteous judgment, and fins while the smoke riseth up for ever, Rev. xix. 3.
ever and ever.“ No compassion can be expecicd from the
devil and his angels, who delight | in the run of the children of
men, and are, and will be for ever void of pity. Neither will
one pity another there, where every one is weeping and pnashing his teeth, under bis own insupportable anguish and pain.
There natural affections will be extinguished : the parents will
not love their children, nor children their parents ; the mother
Wil
380 The Pan ispment of Senft in Hell. State IV. will not pity the daughter in thele flames; nor will the daughter pily the mother : the lon will shew no regard to his father there, nor the servant to his matter, where every one will be roaring under his own torment.
LasSTiy, To complete their miser y, their torments shall be etcrual, Rev. xiv. 14. And the smokè of their torment ascendech up tor cver and ever.“ Ah! what a frightful cale is this, to be tormented in the whole body and foul, and that not with one kind of torment, but many; all of these most exquisite, and all this without any intermission, and without pity trom any!
| what heart can conceive those things without horror! Nevertheless, if this most mijerable case were at length to have an end, that would afford tome comfort: but the torments of the damaed will dave no end; of the which more afterwards. Us. Learn from this, (I.) The evil of fm. Itis a stream that will carry down the sinner, till he be swallowed up in an
ocean of wrath. The pleasures of fin are bought too dear, at
the rate of everlasting burnings. What availed the rich man's purple clothing and sinnptuous fare, when, in hell, he was wrapt up in purple flames, and could not have a drop of water to cool his tongue? Alas! that men should indulge themlelves in fin, which will be such bitterness in the end; that they should drink so greedily of the poisonous cup, and hug that serpent in their bosom, that will Ring them to the heart, and gnaw out their bowels at length! 2. What a God he is, with whom we have to do: what a hatred he bears to lin, and how severely he punisheth it. Know the Lord tobe most just, as well as most merciful; and think not that he is fuch an one as you are: away with that fatal mistake ere it be too late, Plal. I. 21, 22.
Thou thoughtelt ihat I was altogether such an one as thyielt:
© but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine
eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you
in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” The fire prepared for the devil and his angels, as dark as it is, will serve to dijcorer God to be a severe Revenger of sin. Lastly, The absolute necessity of flecing to the Lord Jesus Christ by Faith z the same necessity of repentance, and holiness of heart and life. The avenger of blood is-pursuing thee, O sinner! haste and escape to the city of refuge. Walsh now in the fountain of the Mediator's blood, that you may not perish j in the lake of fire. Open thy heart to him, lest the pit close its mouth on thee. Leave thy sins, else they will ruin thee: kill them, else they will be thy death for ever. | Let
Head VI. The Punishment of Sen/e in Hell. 28x
Let not the terror of hell-fire put thee upon hardening thy
1 heart more, as it may do, it thou entertain that wicked thought, 3 viz. ** There is no hope, Jer. ii. 25. which, perhaps, is more rife among the hearers of the gospel, than many are aware of, But there is hope for the worst of sinners, who WI come unto sesus Christ. Ir there are no good qualifications in thee, (as, certainly, there can be none in a natural man, none in any man, but what are received from Chrift in him,) know, that he has not suspended thy welcome on any pou qualifications : do thou take himself and bis falvation, treely oftered unto all, to whom the golpel comes. © Wholoever will, let him take of the water of life freely,” Rev. xxij. 17. Him that cometh ce to, me, I will in no ways cast out,“ John vi. 37. It is true, thou art a sinful creature, and canst not repent; thou art unholy, and canst not make thy self holy: nay, thou hast essay ed to repent, to forsake sin, and to be holy, but (till missed of repentance, reformation, aud holinefs ; and therefore, © Thou
„ saidst, There is no hope. No, for I have loved strangers, and after them will 1 go.” Truly, no marvel, that the success has not answered thy expectation, since thou hast always begun thy work amiss. But do thou, first of all, honour God, by believing the testimony he has given of his Son, namely, that | eternal life is in him: and honour the Son of God by bchevina | on him, that js, embracing and falling in with the tree offer of f Christ, and of his salvation from sin and from wrath, made to. 3 thee in the golpel, trusting in him confidently fer righteousness — to thy justification, and alto for sanctification; seeing © of God 1 © he is made nto us both righteousness and sanctisication,“ a th 1 Cor. i. 30. Then, if thou hadst as much credit to give to the word of God, as thou wouldst allow to the word of an 1 honest man offering thee a gift, and saying, take it, and it is 1 thine; thou mayst believe that God is thy God, Christ is thine, 4 his falvation is thine, thy fins are pardoned, thou haft strength r in bim for repentance and for holivels: for all these are made x over to thee in the free offer of the gospel. Betieving on the —_ Son of God, thou art justified, the cute is removed. And be while it lies upon thee, how is it possible, thou shouldlt bring pe BY forth the fruits of holiness? But, the curse is 1emoved, that 1 death, which seized on thee with the first Adam. (ccording to 3 the threatving, Gen. ii. 17.) is taken away. In censequence de. of Which, thou shalt find the bands of wicked net (tow holding PT thee fast in impenitency) broken asunder, as the bands of that 1 death: so as thou wilt be able to repent indeed from the heart: : tho.
—
Socicty with Devils. State IV.
thou shalt find the spirit of life, on whose departure that death ensued, returned to thy foul; so as thenceforth thou shalt be enabled to live unto righteousness. No man's case is fo-bad, but it may be mended this way, in time, to be perfectly right in eternity: and nd man's case is so good, but another way being taken, it will be marred for time and eternity too.
III. The damned shall have the fociety of devils in their miserable state in bell: for they must depart into fire prepared * tor the devil and his angels.” O horrible company! O frightful association! who would chuse to dwell in a palace haunted by devils? To be confined to the most pleatant spot of earth, with the devil and his internal furies, would be a most terrible confinement. How would mens hearts fail them, and their hair stand up, finding themselves environed with the helli{
crew, in that case! but ah! how much more terrible mutt it
be, to be caft with the devils into one fire, locked up wich them in one dungeon, fhut up with them in one pit! to be closed up in a den of roaring lions, girded about with serpente,
\ surrounded with venomous asps, and to have thy bowels eaten
out by vipers, all together, and at once, is a comparison too law, to shew tile milery of the damned, shut up in hell with the devil and his angels. They go about now as roaring lions,
seek ing whom they may devour: but then shall they be confined in their dens with their prey; they shall be filled to the brim with the wrath of God, and reccive the full torment, (Matth. viii. 29.) which they tremble in expeQation of, (James ii. 19.) being cast into the fire prepared for them, How will these lions roar and tear! how will thele serpents
hiss! these dragons vomit out Fire! what horrible anguish will
seize the damned, finding themselves in the lake of fire, with
the devil who deceived them; drawn hither with the silken
cords of temptation, by these wicked spirits; and bound with them in everlasting chains under darkness! Rev. xx. 10. And the devil that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone; where- de beast, and the false prophet are; and shall be tormented day and night for ever.“
O! that men would consider this in time, renounce the devil and his lusts, and join themselves to the Lord in faith and holiness. Why fhould men chuse that company in this world, and delight in that society, they would not defire to associate with m the other world? Those who like not the company of the saints on earth, wil! get none of it in eternity: but as godiels company b their delight now, they will afterwards get enough
where we can find no bottom; a labyrinth, cannot extricate ourselves, and where we ihall ever lose a
Head VI. Miserable State if the Damned. 383
of it, when mey have an eternity to pats in the roaring and blasph eming society of devils aad reprovates in hell. Let those who ule to invocate the devil to take th. an, lober'y contider, that the company so often inet ted, will be terrible at last, when cone.
IV. Aud lastly, Let us consider the eteru' ty of the wholz, the everlasting continuance” uf the alerable state of the damned iu hell. £
FIRST, If I could, I lin! d thew what eternity is, I mean the creature's ciernit) /. But who can mature the waters of the ocean? or who can tell you tlie d. LYS, years, and ages of
eternity, which arc infinitcly wor e thau the my ot bow. ocean?
None can comprchend cternity, but che cternal God, Eternity
is an ocean, whereof we will never fee the thore: it is a derp,
from whence we
door. There are two things one may say of it, (t.) It has a beginning. God's eternity I is no beginn ng. but the creature's
eternity has. Soinetime there was no lake of fire; and those
who have been there, for foine thousands of years, wers once,
in timg, as we now are. But (2.) It shall never have an end. The first who entered into the eternity of wo, is as far from the end of it, as the last, who shall go thither, will be at his
entry. They who have | zunched oat Furthelt into that Ocean,
are as far from land, as they were the first moment they wer t into it: and thousands of ages after this, they will be as far
from it as ever. Wherefore, eternity, which is before us, is a duration that hath a begimung, but no end. without a middle, a beginning without an end. After millions
It is a bevinning
of years past in it, {till it is a becinning. God's wiath, in hall, will ever be © the wrath o come.“ but there is no middle 0 | eternity. When millions of ages arc past in cternity, what is pait bears no propor tion of what is to COINL 3 no not so much as one drop of water, falling from the tp of one's finger, bears to all the waters of the ocean. There i no end of it: while God is, it shall be. It is an entry wichout-an out- gate, a continual succeivon of ages, a vials always ruuning, which thall never run out.
RNs
33 1 . Eternity f the miscrable Stite IV.
number of the stars, but no number of the ages of eternity. When you lee a W ater running, think how vain a thing it would be, to fit down at It, and wait till it should run out, that you may pats over; look how new water {till {ucccads t that which paileth by you: and therein you will have an image of eternity, which 1 x river that never drics up. They who wear rings, have an image of eternity on their Fingers; and they who handle x the wheel, have an emblem ot etern! ly before them, : Tor to which part 5567 er of the ring or whee! one Looks, one Will fil fee another part beyond it; aud on u natloever moment of eternity vou coudeicend, there is still another beyoin dit. When you arc abroad in the Fields, and behold the pile- of the prals on the earth, which no man can reckon; think with yourselves, that, were as many thowuland of years to come, as there are piles of grals on the ground, even thote would have an end at length, but eternity will have none. When you look to a mountain, imagine in your hearts, how Jong would it be, ere that mountain should be removed, by a little bird coming but once every thoutand years, and carrying away but one grain of the dust thereof at once; the mountain would at length be removed that way, and broucht to an end; but eternity will never end. Suppole this w ith respect to all the mount ins of the earth; nay, with respect to the whole plube of tlie earth; the prains of dust, whereot the whole carth is made up, are not infinite, and therefore the last grain wou'd, at Tong. run, come te be carried away, in the way iupposed: but when that floweit work would be brought to an Cid, eternity would be, in effect but beginning.
These arc some rude draugits of eternity: and now add milery and woe to this eternity, wha LNgUE Can expres | it! What heart can conceive it? In what balance can that miler; and that woe be weighed?
SECONDLY, Let us take a view of what is eternal in the Nate of the dumned in hell. Whatlocver is included in the fearful sentence, determining their eternal late, is everlasting: therefore all the dolcful ingredients of their milcrable state will be everlalting; they will never end. The text expressly declares the Fire, into which they mult depart, to be everlasting Fire, And our Lord elfe here tells us, "that i in hell © the Fire shall never be quenched,” (Mark ix. 43.) with an eye to the valley of Hinnom, in 8 ch, besides Fe already mentioned fire, tor burning of the hes of Moloch, there was allo
another Fire burning continually, to consume the dead e | an
Sr bas. ——
„
* oe Eien int $I —
—
Head VI. State of the Damned. 383
and filth of serusalem: fo the seripture representing hell- sire by the fire of that valley, speaks it not only to be most exquiite, but also evertafting. Seeing then the damned muit depart, as cursed ones, into everlasting fire, it is evidence that,
1st, The damned themleives shall be eternal: they will have being for ever, and will never be subltantialiy destroy od, or annilülated. To what end is the fire eternal; it thete who are cast into it, be not eternally in it! It is plain, the everlasting continnance of the fire, is an aggrovation oi the milery of the damned: but lurely, if they be annihilated, or fubltantially destroyed, it is all a case to them, whether the fire be everlasting, or not. Nay, but they depart iuto everlasting tire, to beaeverlastingly punished in it, Matth. xxv. 40. They thall go away into everlasting punishment.” Thus the execution | of the sentence, is a certain dilcovery of the meaning of it. The warm that dieth not, mult have a subject to live in: they, who shall have “ no reit, day nor night,“ (Rev. xiv. II.) but shall be © tormented day and night for ever and ever,” (chap.xx.10.) will certainly have a being for ever and ever, and nat be brought into a state of eternal rest in annihilation. Destroyed indeed they shall be: but their destruction will be an everlasting destruction, (2 Thess. i. 9) a destruction of their well-being, but not of their being. What is deitropeq, is not therctore auti— hilated: “ Art thou come to destroy us?“ fazl the devil unto Jesus Christ, Luke iv. 34. Howbeit, the devils are afraid of torment, not of annihilation, Matth. vii. 29. Art thou come © lithzr to torment us before the time?“ Fhe state of the damed is indeed a state of death: but fuch a death it is, as is oppolite only to a happy life; as is clear from other notions of their state, which necetlarily include an eternal existence, of which before. As they who are dead in fin, are dead to Gd and holiness, yet live to tin: so dying in heil, they live, but separated from God, and his favour, in which life lies, Pfal. XxX. 5. They shall ever be under the pangs of death ; ever dying, but never dead, or ablolutely void of life. How defirable would fuch a death be to them! but it will fly from them tar ever. Could each one kill another, or could they, with their own hands, rent themielves into litelels pieces. their miler wouid quickly be at an end: but there they mult live, wha chuicd death, and refused life; for there death hives, and ths end ever begins. |
2dly, The curse shall ly upon them cternally, as the everlasting Ain, to hald them in the everlaiting fire: 4 chain that 5 | K K shall
ce that would come from thenece.?* They fhatl for ever, "a Lo the horrible fociety of the geril 2 and his angels. There will be 110 change of company for cvermore, in that re 2108 of darkness.
Their torment in the sire will be ev e g 18 they mult. live
fo jr ever in it. Several authors both ancient and modern, teil
s of earthen- slax, or Salammapder's hair: that cloth made of ir, being cast into the sire, is so tir from being burnt or c. mv 5 |
that it is only made clean thereby as other things ate by wal ing. But, however that is, it is certain, the Namnecl ih. al! b 8 tormente. 4 for ever and ever in hell fire, and not {ubTantially destroyed, Rev. XX. 10. And indeed nothing is arnitilatcd by fire, but only diffolved. Of what nature soever bell-fire is, no question, the Jaime God, who kept the bodies of the three children from burning in Nebuch adnezzar's fiery furnace, can also keep the bodies of the damned trom any such dillolution by bellhre, as may infer privation of life. L ASTLY, Their knowledge and sense of their misery shall be cternal, and they shall assuredly know that it will be etcruz), How desirable would it be in them, to have their senses for ever locked up, and to lose the conlciousneis of their own misery; as one may rationally suppole ic to fare at length with for en in the punishment of death inflicted on them on earth, and as it is with some mad people! jn their mijcerable case! but that agrees not with the notion of „ torment tor ever and ever, nor the Worn 40 that d dieth not.“ Nay, thev will ever have a lively feeling of their miscry, and ltrongest impressions of te Wrath of Cad against th em. And that dreadful intimation of the eternity of their punishment, made to them, by the Judge, 1 in their sentencc, Will fix sach impreitions of the eternite of their miserable state upon their m! inds s, as they will never be able to lay aside, but will. cohtiaue with them ever wore, t. to complete tlicir misery Y 8 T 11s
Head Vl. Stale of the Damned. 387
This will Gil them with everlailing gelpa r, a most tort menting
paihen, wa nich will continually rent their hearts, 2s It were in 1 thowand PISCES: To {ce floods of wrath ever coming, and never to ceale; to be ever in torment, and withal to know there shall never, never, be a rclcale, will be the cape-stone put on the milcry of the Gamned, It © hope deterred, maketh the beart-sick, (Prov. xii. 12.) bow killing will be, hope rooted
up, slain outr! wht, and buried for ever out. of the Trextare? 8
fight! this will ill them with batred and rage apainst God, their known irrecondlleable enemy; ard under it, they will roar for ever like wild bulls in a net, and sill the pit with blalplieniies evermore.
LAS TLV, I might here shew the rea sonableness of the eternity of the punisnment of the damned; but 1 already (poke of its in vindicating the justice of God, in his fab} jc cting men in thor natural Nate to eternal wrath, I only rtnünd you of three thüngs, (1.) The infinite diguity of the Party oftended by sin, requires an infinite prrishment to be inflicted for the v indication 1 bis hondur: since the demerit of iu riseth according to the
ignity and excclicncy of the ber fon avainst whom it is comdistant from God, to whom be is indebted for all that ever he had, 1 impiying, any good, or perfection whatloever, This then requires an infinite punihment to be inflicted on the sinner, the which, since it cannot, in him, be N in value, must needs be infinite in du: ration, that is to ay, eternal. Sin is a Kind of
iusiuite evil, as it wrongs an finite God; and the guilt and
duilement thereof i is never taken away, but endures for ever,
unless the Lord himiclt in mercy do remove it. Ged, who is often; ded, is eternal, his being never comes to an end: the heful. foul is i: mortal, and the man shall live for ever: the finner being without strength, (Rom. v. 6.) to expiate his guilt, can never put away the eflcuce; therefore it ever remains, unless the Lord do put it away himself, as in the elcct, by his Son's blood. Wherefore the par ty oliended, the offender "AD 4 the oitence, ever remain! DE, the punishanent cannot but be eternal.
(2.) The sinner would bave continued the cou: fe of his provo-
Cations. God, for ever w. end, if God had not put a check to it by 6 ath. As leng as the were capable to act
against him, * this world, they did it; and ther efore jd he
„the will act against them, while ll
helis:; that! is, for r. God who Jud Tet) of the W ul, 1 jatents, and inc! mati N CG 4 the E cant, may Let *. &s just! 7
A Messuring Reed.
ju'tly do against sinners, in punishing, as they would have done again't him, in finning. Lastly, (tho' I put not the stress of
the matter here, yet) it is just and reasonable the damned suffer
eternally, since they will fin eternally in hell, “ gnashing their
teeth,“ (Mattb. viii. 12.) under their pain, in rage, envy,
and grudge, (compare Acts vii. 54. Pal. cxii. 10. Luke xi. 28.)
and blaipheming God there, (Rev. xvi. 21.) whither they are
driven away in their wickednel:,”” Prov. xiv. 42. That the
wicked be punished for their wickedness, is just : and it is noways jnconlistent with justice, that the being of the creature be
continued for ever: wheretorc, it is just, that the damned,
continuing wicked eternally, do suffer eternally for their wickedacts. The misery, under which they fin, can neither free
tein from the debt of obedience, nor excule their sinning, and
make it blameless. The creature, as a creature, is bound ufto
obedience to his Creator, and no punishment, inflicted on hin,
can free him from it, more than the malefactor's prisons, irons, whipping, and the like, do set him at liberty, to commit anew the crimes for which he is imprisoned, or whipt. Neither can the torments of the damned excase or make biameless their horrible sinn'ng under them, more than exquisite pains, inflicted vpon men on earth, can excuse their murmuring, fretting, and blaspheming against God under them: for it is not the wrath 4 God, but their own wicked heture, that is the true cause of their sinning under it: and so the holy Jesus bore the wrath of God, without so much as one unbecoming thought of God, and far less any one unbecoming word. |
Usx I. Here is a Measuring-Reed: O! that men would apply it. First, Apply it to your time in this world, and you will find your time to be very short, A profpe&t of much time to come, proves the ruin of many fouls, Mien will be reckoning their time by years, (like that rich man, Luke xii. 19,20.) when it may be, there are not many hours of it to run. But reckon as you will, laying your time to the measuring- reed of eternity, you will see your * age is as nothing. What a sma!] and inconsiderable point is sixty, eighty, or a hundred years, in respect of eternity? Compared with eternity, there is a greater difproportion, than between a hair's breadth and the circum-
COD
tate IV.
ference of the whole earth. Why do we sleep then in such a
DOOR TEAS F
the flesh; are, all of them together, lin enough
Head VI. A Balarce of the Sanfluary, 289
say, “ To what purpose is this walte?”? Alas! if it were to be
| judged by our, diligence, What is it that we have in view; as to
the most part of us, no man could thereby conjecture, that we have eternity in view. If we duly considered eternity, we couid not but conclude, that, to Jeave no means appointed of God unessayed, till we get our {alvation secured; to refule rest or comfort in any thing, till we are sheltered under the wings of the Mediator; to purine our preat interest with the utmost vigour, to cut off lusts dear as right hands and right eyes, to set our faces refolutely against all dissiculties, and sight our way through all the opposition made by the devil, the world, and h for eternity.
UsE II. Here js a Balance of the Sanctuary, by which one may understand the lighitucls of what is fally thought weighty; and the weight of some things, by many reckoned to be very light.
Firit, Some things seem very weighty, which weighed in this. bala ice, will be found very light. 975 Weigh the world, and all that is in it; “ the lust of the flesn, the lust of the eyes, & and the pride of life, and the whole will be found light in the balance of eternity. Weigh herein all worldly, profits, gains and advantages; and you will quickly see, that a thousand worlds will not quit the cost of the eteruity of woe. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and & lose his own soul?' Matth. xyi. 26. Weigh the pleasures
of sin, which are but for a season, with the fire that is everlasting, and you mult account yourselves fools and madmen, to run the hazard of the one for the other. (2.) Weigh your afflictions in this balance, and you will find the heavielt of them very
light in respe& of the weight of eternal anpuish. Impatience under affliction, especially when worldly troubles do fo imbitter mens spirits, that they cannot relish the glad tidings of the gostzel, speaks great regardlessness of eternity. As a small avd inconsiderable loss will be very little at heart with him, who fees himself in hazard of losing his whole estate; fo troubles in the world will appear but light to him, who has a. lively view of eternity. Such a one will stoop, and take up his cross, whatever it be, thinking it enough to escape eternal wrath.
(3.) Weigh the most difficult and unealy chities of religion here,
and you will no more reckon the yoke of Christ unsupportable.
Repeatance and bitter mourning for fin on earth, are very light in comparison of eternal weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in heil. To wreftle with God in prayer, weeping and making supplication for the blessing iu time, is far easier than to
4 Exbortation to fic from Math. State IV.
ly under the curse through all eternity. Mortification of the 4 most beloved Just is a light thing, in compariso: n with the second 71 death in hell Lastly, Weigh your convictions in this balance. O! how heavy do these ly upon many, till they get them sh 8185 off! They are not dilp: ied to fall in with them, but frive + vet clear of them, as ofa might) burden. But the worm of an Ill conscience, will acither die nor flecp in hell, though one may now lull it alleep for a time. And certainly it is easier to entertain the sharpest convictions in this ie, o as they may lend ene to Christ, than to have them seed thr ever in the con science, while in hell one is totally and finally separated from him. SECONDLY, But on the other hand, (I. ) Weigh sin in tl is balance; and, tho' now it seems but a light thing to you, ve will find it a weight sufficient to turn up an eter nal weight of wrath upon you. Even idle words, vain thoughts, and unprotable actions, weighed in this balance, and considered as sollowing the finger into eternity, will each of them be heavier than the sand of the sea: wime idly spent will make a weary c.ternity. Now is your seed- time; thoughts, words and acti— | ons are the seed sown; eternity is the harvelt: though the sced Ls - now lies under the clod, unregarded by molt men, even the least f grain shall spring es at length: and the fruit Will be according { to the fred, Gal. vi. 8. © For he that soweth to his flesh, th i * of the flesh reap corruption, (i. e. destruction); but he wi 1's soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” if (2.) Weigh in this balance your time, and opportunities ss grace and salyation, and you will find them very weighty. 1 Precious time and seasons of grace, sabbaths, communions, * prayers, sermons, and the like, are by mauy now ga- days made light of: but the day i is coming, when one of these will be reck-
„ r eee
oned more valuable than a thousand worlds, by those who now
have the least value for them. When they are gone for cver, ö and the hols cannot be retrieved; these will fee the worth of 3 them, who will not now sce it. 1
| UsE III. and last. Be warned and stirred up to flee from. 1 the wrath to come. Mind eternity, and closely ply the work: of your salvation. What are you doing, while you are not fo! doing? Is heaven a fable, or hell a mere scare- crow: Mult we;
live eter nally, and will we be at no more pains to ęscape everlasting mite: Y? Will faint wishes © take the kingdom of heaven;
by Force??? And wal such drowiy endeav ours, as most men; satisfy themselves with, be accounted *<* flying from the Wrath;
© to come?” Ye who have already fled to Christ, up, aud be th
*
a URS
lend VI. | Ex hora tig 4N fo flee fr 592 7 7460. 391
ec Fear in 1-witch is able to destroy boch bedy ard soul in hell,“
2 Matth. x. 23. Renember, ye are not attended into heaven:
* arc but ! 10 50 ar date state: . The EVEN Arms bave a, aw n you it of the put of. Wrath Were plunged into, in your natural state; they are 10111 underneath 1 on, tha: ye can
never fall down into it again: neverthelets, 50 have not yet got
vp to the top of the rock; tlie dc N below 05 iaFei htful; 5 at it, and hasten your ascent, Ye ul aré vet in vour natural state, lift up y OUur cy 7 and la 2ke. V 1e of the eter} strte:
ach co cone. FF not ti 110 YOu! 5 ac ven! PI * 19 U Pn 45 2 1410;31}C113% long 7, nor
the old pus Ot t his work any more. Today it ye will bear
his FINS, harden not your hearts:“ loft he wear in his wrath
that ye hall never enter into bis reit. It is no time to linger in a state of siu, as in Scam, a Leu tire and brimitone are coming down on it from the Lord. Take \ warning in time: they
wo Arc iu ho}! 1, are not trouble. 0 Wich tuch Wa: "mins 30; but are mraged against themiclves for that they 18 when they had it. 8 Cont! ider, I pray you, [x7 1 uneasy 1 f night on a loft bed, in pertet have lleep, but cannot get it low often will one un 4
=
tis to ly onc whole 3 wth, when one very fen would ecp being depar ted front him. & wish tor reit! How full of % dreadful mut it then be to Iy in lorrow, wrapt up in fcorchi, Ra mos ny wo 1, gh: eternity, in that place were they have no test diy nor night 12. How terrible would it be to lire under bo let pajas of the cholie or
gravel, for forty-or fixty years together, without ans interimiflion! Yet that is but a very fralt th bo in compar'tn of eternal
IS 5. ' ile tossings to and fro! But an!
But will not every montent, in eternity 0 WOE, COIN A month, and every hour e „ear, m that niolt wretched 44 de! perate condition? Hence e, Cr a nd ever, as it werea double and ty. Tlic lick man iii the ui ht, toll.
Ing to and fro on his bei, {1y s, it will never be day; c. nplains t lad his. TH Ever continues never, never abates. Are thele petty time-eternities, witch men torm te themlelves, in their Own imaginat! ons, o. very grievous? Alas! then NOW grievous low ut werly unsup portable mult real eternity of woe, and ail manner of miserics be! Laitls
* There Will be pace enouph there ts
392 Exhortation to flee from Mratb. State IV.
to reflect on at! the itls of one's heart and lite, which one cannot get time to think of now; and to fee that all that was faid of the mpenitent finner” 224 1rd, was true, and that the haif was not told. Idere will be space enough in eternity to think on delayed repentance, to rue one's follies, when it is too late; and in x ftate past remedy, to speak forth their fruitless withes:; eO that I had never been born! "That the womb had been my ec grave, aud I had never {cen the lun! O that I had taken
warnmg in time, and fled from his wrath, while the door of © mercy was standing open to me! O that 1 had never heard Cc
the gospel, chat I had lived in some corner of the wortd, where * a Saviovr and the great sal vation were not once named!“ But all in vain. What is done cannot be undone; the opportunity is loit, and can never be retrieved; time is gone, and cannot be recalled. Wherefore improve time, while you have it, and do not wilfully ruin yourselves, by stopping your eat to the gospel-call.
And now if ye would be sa ved from the wrath to come, and never go into this place of torment, take no rest in your natur al state; believe the sinfulness and misery of it, and labour to get out of it quickly, fleeing unto Jelus Christ by faith. Sin in you is the feed of hell: and, ir the guilt and reigning power of it be not removed in time, they will bring you to the second death in eternity. There is no Way to get them removed, but by recciving of Christ, as he is offered in the gospel, for justification and fa:\Hification: : and he is now offered to you with all his salvation, Rev. xii. 12, 17. And behold, I come quickly, and my reward © is with me, to give every man according, as his work shall be. And the Spirit and the bride 2 say, Come. And let him that
"© heareth, sav, Come. And let him that isa-thirst, Come. And © whosoever will, let lim take the water of life freely,” Jeius Christ is the Mediator of peace, and the Fountain of holinels: he it is Who © detivereth us from the wrath to come. There * is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jetus, who % walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, Rom. vill. f. And the terrors of hell, as well as the | joys of heaven, are set before you, to stir you up to a cordial receiving of him with all his sal ration; and to determine you unto the way of faith and holwuels, in which alone you can escape the rang fire, Mav the Lord hi insclf make thein effectual to that end
Thus far of Man's Eternal State: the wn bead it is ö an admits | no suecceding one for ever,