Chapter 4

CHAP. IIII.

It's required of the dead that they live, and that we must not cease from running when the Lord ceases from drawing. 2. Commands put on obligations to duties to such as are indisposed and unable. 3. We are to pray under deadness. 4. Deadness renders not men lawless. 5. The wicked shift of such as pray not for the present, because they are indisposed; but promise they shall pray, praise, &c. when a spiritual disposition comes on.

IF the meaning of some be by requiring a moral command to fit us for duties, that such a command is enough, because it's a Gospel-command. Then is it false that a moral command, as such, can fit or ripen us for duties: for (Ephesians 5:14) therefore he says, Awake you that sleepest (and it's more than sleeping, there being life in a sleeping man) and arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light. Here is both precept and promise given to the dead, who of themselves cannot live: yet it's morally required that they live; and (John 5:25) the dead in the graves are to hear the voice of the Son of man. And the Lord binds the command on these that were as the men of Sodom (Isaiah 1:5): A sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, the seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters. v. 10. Wash you. v. 16. Make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Isaiah 42:18. Hear you deaf, and look you blind, that you may see. So the Apostle Peter charges Simon Magus (Acts 8:22): Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thoughts of your heart may be forgiven you. And Jeremiah speaking to a hardened Prince, speaks as to the earth that has no ears (Jeremiah 22:29): O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord. And it's a vain thing to think that these are to be confounded, the obligation to obey, and the impotency and indisposition to obey. For man's wicked weakness cannot remove the obligation which the Lord in his holy Law lays on us: for wasting that brings on inability to pay, makes neither the debt to be unjust, nor does it loose the creditor from his right to crave and pursue the broken man, except we say that poverty may pay all the debts in the world.

2. The Lord lays on rebukes, where he knows Cain cannot answer (Genesis 4:6): Why are you wroth? If you do well, shall you not be accepted? So the Lord speaks to Pharaoh (Exodus 9:17): As yet exaltest you yourself against my people, that you will not let them go? Deuteronomy 32:6. Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Psalm 95:10. Forty years long have I been grieved with this generation; it's a people that do err in heart, they have not known my ways. So says Elias to Ahab (1 Kings 21:20): You have sold yourself to work evil in the sight of the Lord. Psalm 4:2. O you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you follow vanity and seek leasing? Psalm 58:4. They are like the deaf adder, which stops her ear. 5. Which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer. And because we are ready to excuse ourselves from our impotency, the Holy Ghost bears this upon them as a charge (Jeremiah 13:23): Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots? Then may you do good that are accustomed to do evil. 2 Peter 2:14. Having eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease to sin (Deuteronomy 29:2, 3).

3. Threatenings and curses are charged upon every one who abides not in all that is written in the book of the Law to do it (Deuteronomy 27:26). And yet it's beyond controversy that no flesh can keep the Law so as it requires, else Jesus Christ died in vain (Galatians 3). See Deuteronomy 28:4. We are not freed from an obligation to obey and run, even we who are renewed in the spirit of our mind, because the Lord draws not. For charges and commands are laid upon us under indispositions; yes the Lord speaks to such as lived in suffering times, who could not choose but they must be in much heaviness. Philippians 4:4. Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say rejoice. So speaks he to weak ones (Ephesians 6:10): My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. So speaks Christ to fainting John, when in a swoon he could not command himself (Revelation 1:17): Fear not, I am the first and the last. And to the perishing disciples (Matthew 8:26): Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? And the mourner is most indisposed to believe (Isaiah 50:10): He that walks in darkness, and has no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay on his God. We are bidden be upon the wing and ready, though we be dumpish and indisposed (1 Thessalonians 5:17): To obey that, pray without ceasing, in all things give thanks. Yes, under all contrary dispositions and habits of unbelief we are to act (Isaiah 41:14): Fear not, worm Jacob.

2. Our very graves owe living to God, and our sinful deadness ought to yield to Christ living in us; our heaviness owes rejoicing to him, as the night is to remove at the dawning of the day, and the cloud is to disappear and vanish at the out-breaking of the sunlight.

3. We are to pray under deadness, as David does (Psalm 119): Quicken me in your way; quicken me in your righteousness; quicken me according to your word, &c. v. 37, 40, 88, 107, 156, 159. Deadness, when David had much of the fullness of God, has been creeping on seven times, and he seven times prays for quickening, like one that is every hour in a swoon; out of one swoon he falls in another, he makes signs to such as are near by to be comforted with wine and apples, as the Spouse (Canticles 2:5). And therefore this is but a childish shift, I am dead and indisposed, and therefore will not pray, nor believe, nor hear, nor go about any such duties. Because you are dead and indisposed, are you therefore lawless, and freed of all debt of duties which are imposed by either the Law of God? Or 2. the constraining love of Christ? Or 3. bonds and ties laid on you by the free grace of Christ, and the state you are in, being now translated from death to life?

Object. I'll go about duties when I am free and spiritually disposed.

What warrant from the Word to delay duties, that by present obligation of the Law of God are to be done while it is today, lest hardness of heart come on?

What assurance can any man have tomorrow, or the next hour, more than the present hour, when deadness is on, that he shall be master of the Spirit's breathing on him, to fetch spiritual dispositions? Now omission of praying, and of other duties, is a heinous sin. Can sin be a hire to purchase or buy the breathings of the Holy Ghost? Did ever man get sweet access to God through the Mediator Christ in prayer, who delays praying because he wants a praying disposition? And can the Lord welcome in the Mediator Christ the man who fathers the sinful omission of prayer, and other duties, upon the holy Spirit of God? Loose professors delay their repentance upon this, when they are old and a dying they shall be more fit for repentance.

An indisposition to pray is a great affliction to a godly soul; and the so afflicted is to pray to remove that indisposition, and to seek in prayer a spiritual disposition to pray; and that 'pray continually' is not 'pray only when a spiritual disposition to pray is on,' for that should be far from praying continually; and that (Psalm 50) 'Call upon me in the day of trouble' suffers no such exception, 'Pray to me in trouble, but not except you be spiritually disposed': for it has this good sense, call and pray in the day of trouble, and in the hour when the spirit is under the soul-trouble of desertion and indisposition, and when the Lord hides his face and shines not. So the want of a spiritual disposition is the frowning of God upon the soul; and it's an ungracious heart which will not pray when the Spirit in his shining influences withdraws. And therefore

It's not the Spirit of the Lord, but the spirit of Satan, which suggests any such carnal arguing. I have no heavenly disposition for the present, therefore I will not pray; for the Spirit of the Lord quickens men to duties, and that is known to be a spirit from hell that weakens men in praying, or in any duties.