Book 10

Acts 2:37. And when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and said to them, Men and Brethren, what shall we do?

There be two things especially observable in that disposition of heart, which the Lord requires and works in those he will draw to Christ, [illegible], and Humiliation. The necessity of both these, we declared the last day, as that they were not only to be looked at for complement and conveniency, but such as are of necessity required, that the heart may be fitted for the impression of faith, and by it for the entertainment of the Lord Christ; for if the sinner be so settled in secure contentment of his own condition as that he thinks he need not change; or if he must, he is so confident of his own ability, that he can change himself, and out of himself, and out of his own strength relieve himself, he will never go out to another for succor and supply. Contrition loosens a man from his sin, makes him see an absolute necessity to be another man, or else he is a damned man. Humiliation loosens a man from himself, makes him see an utter insufficiency in what he has or does, for to procure the least spiritual relief to his soul; now the coast is clear, that faith may come to us, and we by that be enabled to come to Christ.

We are now to pursue these two according to the order propounded. And first of the former, the sum of which work may thus be described:

Contrition is that preparative disposition of heart, when by the sight of sin, and the punishment due to the same, the soul is brought to sound sorrow for it, and so brought to detest it, and to sequester itself from it.

The description stands upon two passages mainly.

- 1. The causes which bring in this contrition. - 1. Sight of sin. 2. Sorrow for sin. - 2. The effects which nextly discover this, and whereby it comes to be known. - 1. Detestation of sin. 2. Sequestration from sin.

And here I desire that still may be remembered which I mentioned and discovered before, that all these are things rather wrought upon us by the impression and motion of the Spirit, than performed by any inward principle, and habitual power of grace received, and this the manner of the expressions in the words of the description plainly intimates; the soul brought to see his sins, brought to sorrow for them, brought to detest them, and sequester itself from them: for the sinner would not look upon the loathsomeness of his soul, and the filth of his sinful distempers, but the Lord lays it before him, and holds his apprehension to it, follows him with the remembrance of it, and forces his thoughts to give attendance thereunto. (Psalm 51:3) My sin is ever before me; which way soever he turns his thoughts, his sins stared him in the face, and were full in his view; they dwelt with him, and were daily in his presence, that wherever he was, they were, he could not look off from them, look which way he would.

2. The sinner would shake off the sorrow that now seizes upon him, and seems to overbear him like a mighty stream, he labors to beat back the blow, and to make an escape from under the stroke of the truth that stabs and wounds his heart, with the direful expression of God's displeasure, and dreadfulness of the evil that does attend him; but he can neither avoid it, nor remove it, neither keep himself from the wound, nor cure it. (Psalm 40) Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, that I cannot look up: a similitude taken from the prey that flies from the pursuer, though he would have fled from the terrors of the Almighty, wrested and rescued himself from under the attachment, yet they overtake him, and take such hold of him that he cannot escape. (Psalm 38:2) Your arrows stick fast in me, and your hand presses me sore; he would have plucked out the arrows of God's indignation, but his skill and strength failed him, he could not be eased, they could not be removed from him: until at length, the soul feeling the wrath of the Almighty, and seeing no way to avoid an everlasting separation from the Lord, if yet his sins be entertained by him, being thus pressed by the power of that undeniable truth, which lays open the loathsomeness of his sin, and makes him feel the bitterness thereof, he is carried with detestation against it, and driven to make a sequestration from it. Of the fuller meaning of both these, when we shall come to the particular scanning of them, in their proper place.

For the ground of my following discourse I have taken the words of the text, in which you have the grounds and hints of all the former truths, not implied only by way of collection, but expressly [illegible] down, and professedly aimed at as evidently discovering the manner of God's dealing herein.

The knowledge of their sins set down with the causes thereof, when they heard these things. Hearing — not that every hearing, or bare hearing would serve the [illegible], for it's beyond question, that thousands do, and many there did hear those savory truths seasonably dispensed by Peter, which were never either thoroughly convinced, nor had their hearts in any manner affected therewith; the meaning therefore must needs be this, when by their hearing they rightly discerned, and clearly conceived those things, that is, the nature of those sins, which Peter had discovered and charged so punctually upon them; Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ. When they so heard that they yielded and assented fully to that which was [illegible] peremptorily [illegible] by the Apostle, then they were pricked to the heart.

We have then here the sight and knowledge of their sin, together with the causes by which they came to attain it, and those were here intimated in the words.

Their conviction, in that they stood here indicted and accused by Peter, and condemned in their own consciences that they were the guilty persons, guilty of no less than the blood of the Lord Jesus the Son of God, and Savior of the world, who is now advanced at God's right hand as Lord and King, and shall come in flaming fire as a Judge to condemn them for their bloody sins; who came in the flesh as a Redeemer to save them from their sins: but they rejected him and their own mercy and safety; and this, says the Apostle, admits no opposition, no disputation at all — "Let the house of Israel know assuredly" [illegible], it is a truth that stands as Mount Zion, that cannot be stirred: it is beyond all caviling, questioning, doubting, [illegible] all probability or [illegible] to be other, a truth not subject to any slipping or uncertainty; so the word signifies.

The particular application that the Apostle here uses of their special sins — he does not hover in generals, shoot at rovers, but lets fly point blank in the faces of them: "This Jesus whom you have crucified." He names not any other, blames not any other now, says not [illegible] was a wretch that betrayed Christ, the soldiers cruel and injurious that took him and bound him; Pilate [illegible] fearful and unjust that condemned him — he will not now speak to men absent; but you are they that crucified him, you that cried, let his [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] us — you shall have blood enough, plagues enough: this particular application sets hard, [illegible] deep; they heard these their sins thus ripped up, and themselves arrested for them.

There is a serious [illegible] and attention here also implied. The word is in the participle "hearing," noting a continued act — hearing, bearing these sadly, attending and pondering them in their thoughts; they came then to be pierced. Thus we have the sight of their sins here laid open to us, together with the causes thereof.

The second thing in this contrition is sound and thorough sorrow, and that is expressed in the next phrase: they were pierced not in their eyes only, which made them weep, but in their hearts, which made them bleed inwardly with godly sorrow.

Their detestation and sequestration appears in the last words: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" We will do anything, suffer anything, command what you will, enjoin what you please, be it never so hard, we will endeavor it; never so cross to our hearts or comforts, we will bear it; better be anything than be thus [illegible] — let us be in any condition, that once we might be freed from this sinful and accursed condition, in which we be.

We have taken liberty to lay out our work with as much plainness and openness of order as we may; because we shall have occasion to remind you of the particulars in our future proceeding, and how the several [illegible] serve each other's turn, in their place and order.

Before we come to the particulars, one point [illegible] in the very entrance, which will be very serviceable to make way for all the truths following, and therefore we shall take in that at this time, that it may be as a harbinger to make room for all the rest. And it arises from a right consideration of the parties to whom [illegible] here speaks, and with whom his word so prevailed, and took place. [illegible] verse 36 he tells them, that same [illegible] whom you have crucified. They were therefore such as had rejected, blasphemed, [illegible] the Lord of Glory; those who in a bloody manner [illegible] away the life of [illegible], who came to take away their sins. Is it possible, is it credible, that ever mercy should be extended to such? That ever good should be wrought in such? Yes — lo here, when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts. They whose hands were imbrued in the blood of Jesus, their hearts are now [illegible] with godly sorrow, and so made fit to receive grace and mercy.

Hence the doctrine is:

Stubborn and bloody sinners may be made broken-hearted sinners: bloody, hellish, abominable [illegible] may yet obtain broken hearts; worse than these could hardly be conceived or imagined, and yet God makes work of these knotty, wayward spirits. It was said of him that betrayed Christ, it had been good for him that he had never been born. What shall we say of them that murdered our Savior? They are in the highest rank of the most wicked men that ever were born, yet even such as [illegible], who also opposed the word and gospel of grace, the disciples and apostles, the preachers and publishers of grace, the Author and God of grace; yet such as these have now their hearts broken, and in some measure prepared to be partakers thereof.

The Apostle speaks of the Gentiles (Romans 1:29), that they were full of all unrighteousness; there can hardly be added anything to the largeness of the expression: no sin worse for the kind, more for the number, greater for the measure, for they had all unrighteousness, all the kinds of evil, and all degrees in the largest extent they were full, and yet of such the Apostle professes (1 Corinthians 6:9), when he had mentioned a heap of most loathsome and hideous abominations: Do you not know that no unrighteous person shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, self-polluters, extortioners, covetous persons, shall ever enter into the Kingdom of God: then verse 11, And such were some of you, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. Some such as these were savingly brought home to God. Indeed, when corruption becomes like an old cankered sore of long continuance, and the sinner incorrigible under all the choicest means that have been used, yet then the Lord works the cure (Isaiah 57:18): I was angry with him for his evil lustings, and he went on in the stubbornness of his own heart, there is no help if the disease grow worse for the dressing — the Prophet adds, I have seen his ways, I will heal him, and lead him, and restore comforts to him, and to those that mourn with him; as if he should say, Ah poor creature, he cannot see himself nor me, yet I see him, and his way, he wounds himself, but I will heal him; he deludes himself, but I will heal him; sink he must in his own sorrow, but I will succor him, and supply to him (Isaiah 48:4): I know you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow is brass; and yet verse 17, I am the Lord your Redeemer that teaches you to profit, and leads you by the way you should go. The Lord bows an iron sinew, and makes it bendable to his will: the Lord makes snowy saints of scarlet sinners; scarlet we know is twice dyed in the wool, and in the web and cloth, and therefore it is beyond all the skill and art of man to alter it. Yet though our sins be such, bred in our natures, committed in our lives, and therefore beyond our reach [illegible], and the power of all means and performances we can take up to remove them, yet the Lord has undertaken it, and he will do it (Isaiah 1:18).

There is a threefold argument to settle this truth.

Taken from the largeness of his mercy, which is as himself, infinite; and therefore infinitely exceeds all our wants, and can supply them, all our weaknesses and infirmities, and therefore can forgive them, and remove them as he will, as though they had never been (Isaiah 55:7): Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return to the Lord, for he will abundantly pardon, and to our God, for he will have mercy. But the discouraged sinner might perhaps reply, It is mercy that I have abused, and his pardons he has tendered, yet I in the time of my folly have trampled under my feet, and therefore with what face could I beg mercy, or upon what ground could I think ever to receive it? He answers, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts than your thoughts: there is no proportion, no comparison, the earth is not of a valuable consideration to the heavens, but like a center in the circumference, it is as though it was not. So here, the thoughts of God's mercy to pardon you is so far beyond the evil of your ways, and thoughts to condemn, that they are as though they were not: nay, though you could not believe it, or think it, yet the Lord could and would do it. This is one of his names, He keeps mercy for thousands (Exodus 34:7), he has it in store for thousands, and forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, that is, all kinds and degrees of sin; and he must be thus, or else he were not God: for did our sins exceed his mercies, our weakness his strength; were Satan more malicious to tempt [illegible], and powerful to overcome [illegible], than he was gracious to defend, and Almighty to deliver, then were he not God if anything were impossible to him, or had power above him; and hence the Lord delights to set forth the praise of his mercy, and therefore when sin is most vile, and heinous, and hellish, then does he express his compassion in a most glorious manner; it's the glory of the physician when the disease is most deadly, then to do the cure (Isaiah 43:24-25): You have wearied [illegible] with your iniquities, and made me to serve with your sins, behold I, even I am he that blots out your transgressions for my name's sake; that is to say, None but a God of endless mercy could do it, therefore behold it, acknowledge it, I will blot out your iniquities, and remember your sins no more. This is the dispute of the Apostle (Romans 5, last verse), having said that our justification, reconciliation, and life comes by grace, he adds, why then serves the law? He answers, That sin might abound, that sin might be increased, and become more and more heinous, because against an express law, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more; the Lord gave (as it were) sin all advantages to do its utmost, and yet then grace would abound so much the more in conquering and reigning over sin: and therefore it's certain, if all sins in the world (that against the Holy Ghost excepted) should meet in one soul as waters in the sea, the mercy of the Lord would abound much more, [illegible] those sins did abound.

The merits of our Savior Christ are of an [illegible] satisfying virtue, and exceed the venom of the guilt of all sins (Romans 5:18). So Paul constantly disputes, If by the offense of one sin entered to [illegible], much more by the death and obedience of our Savior righteousness entered to eternal life. And therefore it was that our Savior was pleased to receive our nature even from the vilest of sinners, that he might show himself a Savior from all sins (Matthew 1). Hence also his blood is called a fountain set open for Judah and Israel, to wash in, for sin, and for uncleanness (Zechariah 13:1), that is, for all kinds of sinners, and all sorts of sins. So that were your heart a sink, a Sodom, a hell of wickedness, if the water of this fountain might pass through and be applied, it would cleanse all. For our Savior [illegible] the infinite wrath of his Father, which was due for our sins — more he needed not, no, should not, no, could not have suffered, if he died for a thousand worlds of his elect, if they had come from the loins of our first parents. And I do believe there is virtue enough there to pardon the sin against the Holy Spirit if it were applied, but because it was committed against the work of the Spirit so directly, it is not just he should, and there is no other that will; for the Spirit works from the Father to the Son, and therefore last of all, so that they both have put forth their works before, and if therefore his be wronged, he will not apply, and there is none else that can; if the work of the Father be wronged, Christ may intercede; if he be blasphemed, the Spirit may apply; but if he be despised, there is none left that will or can.

Because the power of the [illegible] is such that he can conquer and overcome all, which with his own honor he can attempt to remove (as all, but that which is committed immediately against his operation) he will and does: this is the ground of overcoming which the Apostle gives (1 John 4:4), You have overcome the world, because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. That also which Paul propounds for the cleansing of the most loathsome puddles (1 Corinthians 6:11), But you are washed, but you are sanctified in the name of Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God; for that Spirit is above all unclean spirits, and therefore when he will come and work upon the soul, and cleanse it from all its corruptions, sin, and the world, and the devil, and all give way, they cannot hinder his work.

So that if the mercy of God be infinite, able to forgive all; the merits of Christ of infinite virtue, able to satisfy for all; and the Spirit of infinite power to conquer all, then the worst of sinners may become broken-hearted sinners, when the Lord will please to look upon them.

We have here matter of admiration to see and stand amazed at the riches of God's mercy and grace, which succors the most desperate sinners, relieves at the hardest straits, saves even from the nethermost hell. It's the collection the Prophet makes from the ground formerly mentioned (Micah 7:18), Who is a God like you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of your heritage, because mercy pleases him. He intends pardon to such who have nothing that can purchase it, do nothing that can deserve it; indeed practice nothing which is in any manner pleasing, which might persuade him to it; indeed when he is displeased with all things but his own mercy, and indeed can be pleased with nothing else, when they dishonor his name, wrong his justice, reject his commands, and grieve his Spirit, everything provokes him, yet because his mercy pleases him, therefore he does good against evil, therefore he overcomes all their evil in goodness. Indeed, when sinners out of their impenitence, and malignant enmity of their spirits, would destroy themselves and his mercy also, and cast away his compassions; his mercy is pleased to honor itself, and to save them — who is a God like this God? And what mercy like this mercy? He is not like the idols of the heathens, even themselves being witnesses, for the followers and favorites of idol gods, who [illegible] upon them in time of prosperity, and devote themselves to their worship, yet in the day of distress, their idols leave them in the lurch, and they are forced to look to the Lord for relief (Jeremiah 2:27). In the time of their trouble they will say, Arise and save us. But the hope of Israel is not like them — when the disease is most deadly, he then cures; the condition of the sinner most desperate, he then delivers; out of the jaws of Satan and bottom of hell, he then rescues.

It's the prerogative he takes to himself: Your destruction, O Israel, is of yourself, but in me is your help (Hosea 13:9). It's that praise which the saints give as the proper due of the Lord (Psalm 103): Praise the Lord, O my soul, who forgives all your sins, and heals all your diseases. And Jonah leaves this cure upon record after he was landed by the [illegible] (Jonah 2:6), Yet have you brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God; and (Jonah 2:9), Salvation is of the Lord.

Here is a ground of encouragement to sustain the hearts of such forlorn creatures as are sunk down in desperate discouragement, as past help and hope; to provoke them yet to seek out for help and recovery, and to expect to receive it from the hand of the Lord. That disease is not past remedy which has been cured: nor the condition past hope that has been recovered. As bad and vile as you have been humbled and brokenhearted, and why not you saved? Turn but your thoughts aside, and attend the text, and trust your own eyes; behold, look here upon the most loathsome hellhounds that [reconstructed: ever] the Sun saw; or the Earth bore, listen and hear these hideous blasphemies, they belch out against the Son of God, they cried, away with him, away with him; not him, but Barabbas; they chose a murderer rather than a Savior: behold their butcherly hands imbued in the blood of Jesus, some goring his side, others nailing his feet, piercing his pure and holy hands; and that they might be bloody creatures indeed, they do not only shed his blood, but they keep his blood upon record for their condemnation, say they, His Blood be upon us, and upon our Seed. That which they have done, and desired for their own ruin, is it not just but they should have it? Do you not wonder that the Earth did not open and swallow them? That the Lord did not thunder from Heaven, and immediately destroy them? Or that he sent not legions of devils to drag those wretches' souls out of their bodies to send them packing to the pit? And yet stay but a little, and see what God has done, in the midst of all this hellish wickedness, look a little further; they who took away the life of Christ, he is now taking away their [reconstructed: sins], and guilt from them; they crucified him, and he is now crucifying their cursed corruptions; they pierced his tender body to put an end to his days, he is now piercing their souls with godly sorrow to put an end to their sins and [reconstructed: sorrows]. Come here therefore all you poor desolate undone creatures, you whose sins are written with a pen of iron, and graven with the point of a diamond; they stand upon record in every coast and corner; you stout-hearted rebellious sinners, the seats of the place where you sit, the stones in the street where you walk, the walls of the houses where you dwell, the decks of the ships where you have sailed, and the shores where you have landed, and the wildernesses where you have travelled, they can bear witness against you of the contempt of God's truth, the neglect of his ordinances, unprofitableness under all, you slight all counsels and admonitions, you are among the number of them that are laden with lusts, ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. So that the floods of iniquity seem to compass and overwhelm, and might force you to sink down in irrevocable discouragement. I confess your condition is extremely desolate and dangerous; yet it's possible, it may be; there is a peep-hole of hope it may be otherwise; and happy it is for you that there is yet a may be left, that God has not sealed you up to condemnation, and turned the tombstone upon you. Look up a little, you are yet alive, oh therefore lay about you while yet opportunity and possibility lasts. Say, Lord, these sinful wretches that opposed your grace, so long resisted your ordinances, your servants, yes, crucified the Lord of Life, and yet their hearts are now wounded for their sins; oh break my heart also, humble my soul also.

Indeed, but I cannot think it; truly I dare not, I cannot, I am ashamed to beg mercy who have so long abused it. Why mark what the Apostle says, (Ephesians 3:20) God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all you can think or ask. All this while the presumptuous secure sinner, he stands by and hears all this, and he blesses himself in his lazy course, contents himself with this possibility, and here takes up his stand, but neglects to do anything that may attain it.

Oh is it not a pity to cast such dainties before dogs, and pearls before swine? Did I say, it was possible? True, I said so indeed; but it's a pity you [reconstructed: were present] in the hearing of it, it's a pity to speak such precious encouragements to such poisonous and malignant spirits, that will pervert all to their own ruin. The word is past, and cannot be recalled, but take these preservatives or corrosives rather to eat out that impudent corruption.

Know, though it be possible, yet it is not possible to you, nor any power you have, nor any means you can use, (Matthew 19:36) With man this is impossible.

In fact, know, that so long as you continue in that careless, presumptuous, self-confidence, it is not possible that God should save you, (Hebrews 3:18) He has said it, and sworn it, that they who rest in their carnal confidence, they shall never enter into his rest: and God will not, or rather, cannot deny himself, and his oath.

As it's possible God may, so it's possible he may not break your heart, and it's a great suspicion he will not, if you so impudently abuse his mercy, patience, and long suffering, whereby he calls you to repentance, and would melt your rebellious heart, (Romans 2:4) You, after the hardness of your heart which cannot repent, treasure up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath. It's a shrewd suspicion if you strive long against his Spirit, and slight the season, he will cease to strive with you and take away the season, (Luke 19:42) If you had known at least in this your day the things belonging to your peace, but now they are hid from your eyes.

It will cost much labor and long time, before it be done in an ordinary way: and therefore if you are wise for your soul omit no time, be faithful to do what you can, and yet fearful, because it's in God's hand to do what He will. Therefore seek seasonably, tremblingly, and unceasingly to the Lord to do this work for you. It's not the dipping, but rubbing and soaking an old stain that will fetch it out; you must soak and steep your soul with godly sorrow. It's not salving, but long tenting an old sore that will do the cure. It may be it will make you go crying to your grave, and well if you get to heaven so at last.

This shows the [illegible] nature and the inconceivable heinousness of the sin of despair, which rushes the sinner upon irrecoverable ruin, and would seem to overcome the mercy of God, wherein he overcomes himself, lays a man's present comforts and future hopes waste at once, beyond the reach of any relief or recovery, puts the soul beyond the sight and expectation of any succor and supply that might support it in the least measure. That look as when the ship runs aground, or splits upon a rock near shore, or within the sight of land, there is yet a possibility, that some help may come from the coast to them, or they at least may be carried to land, and so swim out; but when the vessel is now carried into the main ocean, that it should then founder in the waves, or be overwhelmed in the midst of the sea, they are wholly without sight of land, or least hope of any relief, there is no eye to [illegible] them in their misery, and therefore none to pity them, nor any hand to help them, or any means within the ken of providence for them to conceive they might expect deliverance. So it is with this in comparison of all other sins (the unpardonable one excepted) whatever other [illegible] surprise the soul, whatever the nature, or number, or heinousness be, heightened with all circumstances that may attend, as long as the soul can look out to the infiniteness of God's mercy and free grace, the invaluable efficacy and virtue of the merits of the Lord Christ, his death and obedience, a man is within sight of land, when the ship is split he may swim to shore. Look to me all you ends of the Earth, and be you saved, says the Lord (Isaiah 45:22). There is yet hope in Israel touching this thing; for it is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation, That Christ came to save sinners, whereof I am chief, says Paul (1 Timothy 1:16). And as the heaven is high above the earth, so are the thoughts of God above our thoughts (Isaiah 55). But this sin of despair sinks a man's heart and comforts as a stone flung into the midst of the sea, carries a man beyond the ken and compass of the boundless favor and compassions of the Lord. To go no further than the doctrine delivered, the malignity of this evil herein discovers itself, as that which brings the greatest dishonor to God, and irrecoverable danger to the soul.

It's deeply injurious and dishonorable to the Almighty, it sins against more of God, and tramples the riches of his graces and tender mercies under the feet of contempt, and counts the covenant of life and salvation in the gospel, not only a common thing, but a vain thing; it [illegible] God's truth and faithfulness, and his enlarged favors into his face with scorn, as unable to help, and unworthy to be attended. And when all the glorious attributes and excellencies of God have met together in contriving and accomplishing the salvation of a sinner, in despite of all the power of hell and darkness; this dashes and blurs all with the highest disdain, and contumelious indignity that may be. There was an infinite power, wisdom, and goodness put forth in making a world of nothing, adorned and enriched with such beauty and goodness, which each man may see in the frame thereof: but in the plotting and performing the great work of redemption, there was wisdom beyond all the wisdom in the work of the creation; power beyond and above all that power; God said, let there be a world, and it was so: but saying will not serve the turn here, it must be the sending of his own Son, the death and suffering of Jesus Christ, it must cost him his life before lost man could be restored to life again. Here was mercy above all the former bounty and goodness; that goodness then vouchsafed continued not with man, nor he in it; but this is everlasting mercy, which does not only put us into the possession of grace and glory, but keeps us there in despite of all the power and policy of devils, all the treachery and weakness of our own hearts. Despair casts the crown of all his power, and wisdom, truth, and faithfulness down to the dust, and proclaims to all the world, in our apprehension, our weakness is beyond his power, it cannot support us, our folly too hard for his wisdom, it cannot lead and enlighten our minds, our misery and sins surpasses the virtue of his mercy, it cannot help and relieve us.

This is the reason why the Lord cannot endure the least appearance of these desperate pangs, as deeply injurious to the honor of his name, and that in the greatest excellency (Isaiah 40:27). Why say you, O Jacob, and do you speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over of my God? Let no more such words be heard, the Lord cannot endure to hear you speak so, or to have you think so; you cast the most vile insufferable indignity upon the Lord that may be. You drooping discouraged hearts, you think it is the loathsomeness of your own sins, the vileness and unworthiness of your own persons that you look at in all those dreadful complaints you make. Is there water enough in the sea to cleanse this sink of hellish rebellions in this wretched nature? Can such loathsome abominations of so deep a dye, of so long continuance, committed against so much light, grace, committed against knowledge and conscience, against patience and goodness, and that multiplied from day to day, can these be pardoned? Mercy should be accessory to its own dishonor if it should show mercy to such a wretch which has so abused it. Know assuredly, you speak against the Lord all this while, while you would seem to speak against your own wretched distempers; so the Psalmist (Psalm 78:19): Indeed (they not only sinned more, and provoked God, as in the former verses, but) they spoke against God, saying, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? You blaspheme and speak against his power, which is not able to work it; against his wisdom, which cannot contrive it; against his mercy, which is not willing, or not able to succor you: it was the greatest sin that ever Cain committed, when he said his sin was greater than could be forgiven (Genesis 4). Then your heart is more sinful than God can be merciful, Satan more able to damn you than God is able to save you; then God is no God, and Christ is no Christ, and the Spirit no Comforter; indeed, this is to make the Devil, which is the worst of all creatures, and sin which is no creature, but weakness, and worse than the Devil himself, to be above God, and the Lord Jesus, and the blessed Spirit of Grace; worse than which blasphemy, Hell itself can hardly afford any. Hear therefore and fear, and forever abhor that such thoughts should once come into your minds, such words proceed out of your mouths.

As it's dishonorable to God, so it's dangerous, indeed, deadly to the soul: it not only crosses a man's present comfort, darkens our evidence, sense, and assurance of God's favor; but utterly cuts off all possibility from the soul for ever expecting the least drop of refreshing, or smile of God's face. For hope in the heart is the last sprout or sucker in the root of the tree, whereby it lives and stands. Though the soul see nothing, feel nothing, have nothing, yet hope says it may be otherwise, this proud heart may be abased, this sturdy heart may be forced to stoop, this unbelieving heart though it has had, and abused, and slighted, and been unprofitable under so many means, and after so many prayers, promises, resolutions, continues still, yet it may be otherwise says hope; this holds up the head from sinking, the heart from failing. But despair takes away this, you have tried, used the means, expected help, but you see it comes to nothing, no, there is no hope it will ever be, set your heart at rest, it will never be. This stops all the passages, that there is no hope for any good or comfort to accrue to the soul. This is the instrument of death, whereby the enemy at once makes an end of the very life of our comfort: the hope of salvation is made the helmet of a Christian; so the Apostle (1 Thessalonians 5:8): Put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. Well-grounded evidence and assurance of God's love in Christ, is as it were the head, and the highest top of a Christian's comfort, hope is the helmet; for when our sense and feeling, experiences and performances, indeed our hearts fail, in regard of any present sweet, or refreshing we have, yet hope says, it may be it will be better hereafter, and this holds the aching head of a Christian. The Devil who ever fights at the head, labors to shake our assurance and comfort, and if he can dash a man's hopes by despair, he kills him dead in the head, there is no help nor recovery to be looked for; know this, and be wary and wise for after times.

Second, as it dams up the way, and stops the passage, that there is no possibility of any good to come, so it deadens all a man's endeavors, takes off the edge of a man's abilities, puts all out of joint and off the hooks, that there is no striving after a good when there is no hope to attain it. All men that are carried by counsel (if not fools or madmen) they ever have an end in their eye, at which they look, and for which they labor; this is the mark they shoot at, the prize they run for, for this they devise and contrive means, and use what they have attained, improve what they take in hand, in hope the end they have attended, may be brought about. Now where there is no hope (which despair casts off) there is no good to be expected, therefore no possibility to attain our end, therefore no reason to attend our labor in that behalf. Why should I seek (says the despairing man) when I have no hope to find? Why should I spend my labor in praying, hearing, reading, improving any ordinance, when there is no possibility I should speed, that ever God should help, or hear, or bless? As good sit still, as rise and fall. So Cain when he had laid that desperate conclusion, my sin is greater than can be forgiven, he flies into the land of Nod, drowns himself in sensual delights, but forsakes the Lord. The hope of good is the lodestone of a man's labor, it carries on our course with speed and resolution: so they in (Jonah 3:9): Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? Therefore do these two things:

Let not Satan make conclusions from our weaknesses, nor do you listen to them, nor believe them if he should make them. We should be wary not to suffer ourselves to be deluded by his false collections. Your conscience says your corruptions are strong and many, and of long continuance; therefore there is no hope, says Satan; temptations are violent and subtle, says your experience, you feel them so, therefore there is no expectation of relief or abatement, says Satan; the inference is unreasonable, and grossly false, the sins of Manasseh, Paul; these converts in the text were such, and yet such received the work of grace and mercy also, therefore listen not to him who is the father of lies.

Look not to the power of means we do enjoy, the abilities we have, the performances we take up, for we shall find them all broken staves, and bruised [illegible], they will not only break under us, but pierce us [illegible]; they will fail us and our hearts also, there is no sufficiency for our succor, and therefore no sound ground of hope. But we should keep our eye constantly and continually upon the sufficiency of God's saving health, and incomprehensible power, who is able to do abundantly above all that we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

Do you not see, says the enemy, the means do not work, your prayers do not profit, the abilities you have, and the endeavors you take up, serve rather to increase your sin than to help you, they nor you are able to subdue the least sin, to gain the least assurance, not able to procure the least peace: True, be it so, yet God is able. Thus our Savior to his disciples dismayed with the difficulty of the work, Lord say they, who then can be saved? he answers, With man it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). It is not possible, says Satan, so many ways have been tried, so many means used, and yet all is in vain; Ay but says Christ, though with man and means it is impossible, yet with God it is possible. (Psalm 73:26) My [illegible] fails, and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever. So much for that point.

We are come now to inquire the particulars expressed in the description, and here also presented to our view. And first touching the sight of sin, whereby the sinner is made rightly apprehensive of his own corruption, and his condition by reason thereof. The point from there is this:

There must be a true sight of sin, before the heart can be truly broken for it. A right apprehension goes before through contrition; the judgment must be rightly enlightened to see the nature of our sins before the heart can be pierced with that sense and sorrow that is meet. This is God's way which he takes, in whose hand it is only to do this work (Job 36:8-11). When sinners come to be bound in fetters, and held in cords of affliction, then he shows them their work, and their transgressions wherein they have exceeded; and then bows their ear to discipline, and commands them to turn from iniquity. So repenting Ephraim professes it was the course the Lord took with him; After I was instructed I repented (Jeremiah 31:19). That which the eye sees not the heart rues not, that which is not apprehended by the understanding, is not affected by the will; so in (1 Corinthians 14:24-25) when [illegible] word comes home in power and plainness, so that the thoughts of his heart come to be discovered, he falls down, and says, God is in you of a truth. The want of this was the reason why the woman of Samaria manifested such saucy impudency, and peremptory boldness, in her conference with our Savior, though she could not be ignorant that those abominable loose haunts of hers would call to heaven for revenge; but when our Savior laid his hand upon the sore, and let the light shine in her face, and points at the vileness of her practice, You have had five husbands, but he whom you now have, is not your husband; she then becomes sensible of his sovereign wisdom, and her own wretchedness (John 4:18-20). So it was with Paul, when the Lord met him going to Damascus persecuting the saints; he saw not the sinfulness of his course, and therefore was senseless of it. Saul, Saul (says Christ) why do you persecute me? Then he answers, Who are you, Lord? Jesus said, I am Jesus whom you persecute, it is hard for you to kick against the pricks: when he understood the evil of his way, then he stood trembling and astonished, saying, Lord, what will you have me to do? (Acts 9:5-6). Before the Corinthians were made conscious of their own carelessness, neither pitying the soul of the incestuous Corinthian, nor yet seeking to reform his sin, they gloried over him, and prided themselves in their own conceited excellency; but when the Apostle had discovered their miscarriage and failings, what sorrow and care did it work in them, and what serious endeavor to reform the guilty party. The doctrine is true, we shall endeavor to make it plain, and therefore we shall open several particulars, the right conceiving whereof will be as a key to unlock the treasury of this truth, that each man may take what will serve his turn.

Inquire therefore we will

By what means, and after what manner God works this sight of sin.

How far the sinner may be said to be active in it.

Wherein this true sight and apprehension properly consists, and so discovers itself.

The reason of this truth, and the Lord's order in this proceeding.

And then we shall make application of it.

By what means, or after what manner the Lord works this sight of sin.

To which I shall answer in four conclusions: Or the answer to which inquiry, will be expressed in four particulars.

The righteous law of God, as it is the rule of our lives, so it is the discoverer of our sins, and swervings therefrom; and by the light thereof, together with that little light of common principles, of piety and love left upon our consciences, we come to have our corruption made known to us (Romans 3:20), by the law is the knowledge of sin; insomuch that Paul, a learned Pharisee, one that profited in the Jewish religion more than his equals; he was yet at a loss in discerning and judging of the turnings and distempers of his heart, before he takes the light and lamp of the law. So himself professes (Romans 7:7): I had not known that lust had been a sin, those first stirrings of the body of death, and secret lingerings and inclinations to that which is cross to the will of God, though there be no consent given to them, no delight taken in them, but that the law said, you shalt not lust, the sentence of the law set down his judgment, and therefore the Apostle James compares it to a perfect and curious looking-glass, wherein each man may see the least blemishes or motes, if he will present himself before it (James 1:25). But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, will lay his mind, and heart, and life level to the law of God, and hold his heart and apprehensions to the righteous judgment, and sentence of it, it will plainly discover the smallest imperfections, the least stirrings of the most hidden distempers that arise; so (Romans 2:14) the heathens with the twilight or starlight of the remainders of the law written in their heart passed sentence against themselves, touching the sinfulness of their course.

But this is not all, nor yet enough, to make us to attain a right sight of our sins, unless the Lord put a new light into our minds, within, as we have the light of the law, and counsel of God shining without to us; otherwise the law may be, and will be a clasped book, and a dead letter; we shall see little in it, or receive little from it. So Paul, (Romans 7:9). I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived. Without the law, how could that be, since he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, trained up at the feet of Gamaliel? a doctor of the law, professed it, and practised it, according to the most exact sect of the Pharisees, as he speaks? But the meaning is, that he was without the power of it, and the spiritual life, and lively efficacy of the law. It was a dead and a killing letter. Look what the sense of the words, or some evidence of reason or arguments could hold out to a natural understanding; the bark, and shell, and outside of such directions, he took and entertained. But the spiritualness of the law — for the law is spiritual, says Paul — and that spiritual and lively power of conviction and direction, it puts forth upon the souls of the saints, who are subject to it, and therefore indeed receive the work of it. This Paul once in the time of his unregeneracy was destitute of, and then he was alive; that is, in his own overweening, and self-deluded conceit, he concluded himself to be a living Christian, to have the power and truth of grace, and to live the life of it. So that it's possible, nay it's ordinary, and nothing more usual, than for men to be without the law, when they have the law; to be without the life of it, while they have the letter of it; to be without the law as a sovereign rule to their lives, while they take upon them the profession of it; to be without the spiritualness of the law, and so to miss the end of it that is closing with God, as our last end, and chief good, which is the sap, the pith and substance of the law, though they have the appearance of the practice of it. (And if they miss the end of the law at which it aims, and to which it tends, they must needs fall short of the wisdom and counsel, and spiritual efficacy of the law, which should direct them.) So in (2 Chronicles 19:3). Now for a long time, Israel had been without the true God; that is, his true worship that would bring them to him; and that is the meaning of that phrase, (Ephesians 2:12). Without God in the world; that is, without the true worship of God: so that they who want the true worship of God, are without God. So they who have the manner of the true worship, and want both spirit and truth, in which God will be worshiped, they have the appearance, but want the spirit and truth of the true manner they have. So of the rest. Thus it is with thousands in the church, which hear, and know, and have the letter of the law, and yet are indeed without the power and spirit; and therefore they neither see the evil of their sins by it, nor yet receive any spiritual direction from it, nor indeed know any such thing; and therefore though their carriages are somewhat reformed, yet their inward corruptions are not observed, at least not reformed, or they made sensible of them: As it is with a purblind man, he may see things of a greater bulk, as a great print, or the like; but the smallest print, or the least pricks, he perceives not. So it is with a purblind Christian who cannot see afar off, (2 Peter 1:9). If there be some loathsome and gross sins discovered, he can see them; but to see the stirrings of sin in his nature, and the secret inclinations of his soul to sin, and the base aims and ends that are up and down in his heart in the performance of holy duties, to see the smallest print of the law discovering secret and spiritual wickedness in the heart, that a man that has no more than nature cannot see. And therefore (for we come to the point) the Spirit of Bondage is required which may let in the light of the law into the mind, and set on the power of it mightily upon the consciences of sinners, and so dazzle their eyes, and daunt their hearts with the dreadfulness of their sins, (Romans 8:15). You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear: as who should say, it's a gift, and it must be received, or else we shall not by all that we can do, attain the bondage and thralldom of that base condition in which we are (whereof more afterward in conviction.) The law is a hammer, but it will not break the flint unless the hand of the Spirit take it and use it; a hammer in the hand of a child will not move the stones; so the law in the hand of a man or minister, it is as a rod to whip us to Christ; but unless the Spirit take it into his hand, we shall never feel the blow or smart, and so be forced to go. Hence that phrase, (John 16:8-9). I will send the Spirit, and he shall convince, it's his prerogative; he is appointed, by him it's only performed.

The two former may agree to a false-hearted hypocrite, he may have a lighter stroke of the Spirit of Bondage, and the law may convince him, and his own heart condemn him, and he may go away in dreadful horror for his sins, and yet it does not remove the rule of ignorance and darkness out of the mind, but the saints of God have the two former and they have this further, namely, such a thorough stroke of the spirit of bondage as takes away the rule of darkness and removes the sovereignty and authority of it from the mind — this I take to be the meaning of that phrase (Acts 26:18), to turn them from darkness to light. When the Lord will work thoroughly, he will not only scatter the [reconstructed: fogs] and disperse the grossest of the dimness and darkness of a man's mind, and leave the soul under the power of it for all that. The hypocrite may be dazzled and astonished by the light of the truth breaking upon him, but yet his understanding is under the power of darkness, but the saints of God are turned from it, that is their understandings are delivered from under the power of that darkness that was in them before. Conceive it thus: when the night comes darkness overspreads the face of the earth, and though there be moonlight, or some flash of lightning sometimes, that may something take off the grossness and blackness of darkness but yet it is dark still, the moonlight or starlight does not remove the rule of darkness — but when the sun arises in the east we say it is day break, and you shall see apparently when light comes with a command of the sun, it scatters the darkness that was in the air, it removes the rule of it, and it rules there itself. So it is with the spirit of bondage: when he comes to a hypocrite he enlightens him with starlight or moonlight as it were, so that the grossness of darkness and blindness is scattered, that now a terrified hypocrite sees his sins, and is able to discourse of sin and of the law of God and to discover it to others, and yet it is but moonshine — it makes not day, the root and rule of darkness is there still, which stops and hinders the intercourse of the dispensations of God to the soul. But now in a godly man whose understanding is turned from darkness to light, when the truth and light of it has by the spirit of bondage been [illegible] on upon the mind and conscience, you shall see day breaking as it were, he then sees himself and his sin and he sees God and Christ, as the sun of righteousness shining gloriously in his eyes dazzling of him with such a light as he never saw nor knew before, so in (Acts 9), the scales of ignorance and blindness fell from the eyes of his mind and he was turned from the power of darkness, and that light which was let in to his understanding could never be overcome again by all the darkness in the world.

4. When the spirit of God has let in this light of the law in the specification of it, as it belongs to the saints, and so has turned the understanding from darkness, he leaves a set upon the understanding Godward, that it is ready, it is that way-ward, to receive any truth that comes in the impression of it; and this is the turn of the understanding to light, it was before turned from God, and set hell-ward, sin-ward under the [illegible] of darkness and acted thereby, wholly to bestow itself upon the creature in the room of God. As when Adam sinned the whole man was turned from God to the creature and sin, so now in conversion, the whole man is turned from sin and the creature to God again, and therefore the understanding from darkness to light. And hence it is that a poor ignorant creature that has come many years to the congregation, and has learned nothing he understands nothing, remembers nothing, or if out of the strength of memory he remember something yet he knows no more the thing than a parrot. But when God has once turned him, and left this set upon his understanding, and the day is broken as it were and the rule of darkness removed, and a new light set up there — now he never comes but he takes something, he can understand it, and remember it, there is no subject but he will get something of it, because his understanding is heaven-ward. I have known some by experience, that though they have been wise and witty enough for outward things, yet so senseless and sottish in the things of God, that they could sit and hear a sermon of an hour long, of those very sins they have been guilty, and yet it has been to them as though it had never been, yet afterward they have professed it, that at such a time, the light of the word broke in upon my soul, and after that I never heard the minister preach but I received something, and my heart did close with more than I could bear away, but I could understand then, and remember also, ever after that time. This is palpably true in cases of conscience; I will issue this point thus (2 Peter 2:9): who has called you out of darkness to his marvelous light, the soul now begins to wonder and to be amazed, at the vileness of sin, at the frame of his heart, at the patience of God that has suffered him so long, and he marvels with himself where he has been, and what he has been doing all his days — he is in another world (as it were) and if ever you have had this work of the spirit calling and turning of you from darkness to light it will [illegible] you a wondering, you will see sin and yourself and grace and Christ and the ordinances and all after another fashion than ever you saw them before.

How far the sinner may be said to be active in this sight of sin.

The answer to this may be expressed in several particulars, that that way of God and the work of his spirit may more distinctly be discovered.

There is a weakness, impotency and insufficiency in the understanding to reach this right discovery of sin, for however there remains so much glimmering in the twilight of natural reason, and so much sensibleness in the stupid benumbedness of the corrupt conscience of a carnal man, that it can both see and sensibly check for some grosser evil, or some such sins, or venom of sin, as crosses his own peace and comfort, or those ends which he sets up as the chiefest good at which he aims — but to search into the entrails of sin, and discern the spiritual composition of the accursed nature thereof, he can in no wise attain this by all the labor and light he has (2 Peter 1:9). He that lacks these things (that is, these heavenly graces whereof the chief were faith and heavenly knowledge mentioned before) he is blind and cannot see afar off; he may (like a purblind man) give guess, or have a confused conceiving of things, after a dim and dazzling fashion, if the things be near, as the man in the gospel saw men walking like trees — but there be secrets in sin, depths in the distempers of men's hearts, which are far removed from outward appearance and ordinary apprehension; these he cannot perceive.

As it is in natural things and the several actions which issue from them, each man is able to hear the sound of a man's words, to discern the sense and reason of them, and will easily grant from the received principles of reason that they come from a man, and evidence undeniably that there is a reasonable soul there, which is and must needs be the cause thereof, because they are properties that appertain to creatures of that kind alone, and argue a life of the highest excellency — nor trees nor beasts can do so, it is beyond their kind and the bounds of their ability. But what this reasonable soul is in the constitution and composition thereof, this is further removed from our sense, and so from our apprehension, and it will exercise the most sharp and ablest understanding, and that furnished with learning and reading to apprehend or discover. So it is in sin: when we hear the falseness of men's language, when they speak they care not how, to cover their own shame or deny that which might bring danger to them, when we see the cruelty and fierceness of their carriage in stealing or killing, each man out of ordinary principles will condemn those — these be as it were the words and hands of sin. Ah, but the spiritual pride and sovereignty of will, which lifts up itself above the law and will of God, jostles his holiness and holy command to the wall — this is the inward soul of sin; thousands which condemn the former have and harbor and maintain these to their dying day; they never saw the evil of them. How the sound of their actions strike outwardly they hear and observe, but how the wheels of their mind and will go inwardly and swerve all the day long and all their lives long in the whole inward frame of the whole man, they be as far to seek as though there were no such thing. The conscience checks and the worst of men see the loathsomeness of the evil, if he should stab and take away the life of a man, but every blasphemer stabs the Lord and yet his conscience does not so check him there, because he sees the grossness of the one — it is near — but the spiritualness of the other he does not see, it is far off.

To stick in the medium and fall short of the object is feebleness; that is the proper intent of the Apostle when he lays open the [reconstructed: feebleness] of the wisdom of the most eminent heathen (Romans 1:21) — they knew God but did not glorify him as God, but became vain in their discourse, that is, they fell short of their end, of God whom they pretended to worship; they missed of him. That was their vanity, and they worshipped the creature in the room of God. And hence the Prophet expresses the practice of such as those who be wholly misguided in their course by reason of their mistakes (Isaiah 5:20): they call evil good and good evil, they put darkness for light and bitter for sweet, and therefore it is they are so easily cozened by Satan and do so easily cozen themselves. And upon this ground it is, though they in (Acts 17:23) worshipped an unknown God, and Paul would have taught them the true God whom they ignorantly worshipped, they would follow their own fancies and worship gods of their own making. But the true God blessed forever they might have heard of him and been instructed concerning him, his being and worship — they would not own nor entertain the Apostle's counsel in that behalf. Or rather, verse 32, they mocked him when he spoke to them of [illegible] things.

There is an incapability in our minds to receive this spiritual light by which we might be enabled to come to the right discovery of our corruptions, (John 1:5). The light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. This is the condition of every man by nature, so the Apostle, you were darkness (Ephesians 5:8). Now one opposite will oppose and resist another, but will not, in fact cannot entertain another, and hence the Apostle gives that to be the ground of that resistance against the truth (2 Timothy 3:8). They are men of corrupt minds, therefore they resist the truth as Jannes and Jambres did. As it is in nature when any sense has lost its right temper and wholesome constitution, it is not possible to put forth its operation, with any right discerning or discovery of that which comes to it, the taste is corrupt, the tongue tainted and overgrown with some canker, it cannot taste nor relish things aright, when the right constitution of the eye is altered by a blow or any putrefying wen that breeds there, [illegible] will perceive nothing, in fact it cannot; so here. When the eye of the understanding has lost its primitive [illegible], and becomes stained and polluted with putrefying sensual delusions it comes to be reprobate touching the doctrine of faith, or that which ought to be believed, not able to relish the truth in a right manner; and this their practice gives evidence of beyond all doubt, the revelation of the truth, which is in way of discovery of corruption, and that which would touch them to the quick, they are not able nor willing in truth without offence to hear. But the power of it to be pressed and pursued they are not able to bear, but there is present mutiny in their thoughts and apprehensions, I say, not able to hear with quietness the truths which be of a discovering nature; when our Savior told them there must be more than an outward formal communicating with him, as the Fathers did eat Manna and are dead, but they that would live by him must eat his flesh and drink his blood, they returned, this is a hard saying, who can bear it? (John 6:60). And (John 3:20) he that does evil comes not [illegible] the light, lest his deeds should be reproved; indeed, this is the reason they [illegible] darkness rather than light, because it suits best with the darkness of their minds; and as the very manifestation is tedious to hear, so the power of it, if pressed and set on, they are not able to bear; that's the scope of the Parable (Matthew 21:34). When the messengers were sent to require fruit, that is, holiness, they beat some, and stoned others, and others they abused (Acts 7:51). When [illegible] brought the candle home to their bedside, and would discover the roots of their corrupt carriages to the consciences of them all, you stiff-necked and hard-hearted, you have ever resisted the Spirit of the Lord; their hearts burst with anger, they cast him out and stoned him. And indeed here the Apostle calls us to look as to the magazine of all mischief, the armory and ammunition house, from where all the distempers and affections of the heart are furnished out to their sinful practices, as so many enterprises they take in hand (Ephesians 4:18), they are strangers to the life of God, it is because they walk in the vanity of their minds. So again in (Colossians 1:21) they were alienated from God, and bent upon evil practices; and he adds the root and reason of all, they were enemies to God in their minds, in their apprehensions, or the largest reach of the best reason they had. And in this the Apostle makes the fort-royal in which Satan places and plants all the choicest of his artillery (2 Corinthians 10:4); there are in the mind of a natural man, strongholds of imaginations, which exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.

The Lord Christ [illegible] the understanding to bear that almighty stroke of his Spirit, whereby he destroys the sovereign power of carnal reason, and [illegible] it to receive the prevailing impression of his spiritual light, which searches the secrets of sin in the soul. The conclusion intimates a double work of the Spirit. 1. It destroys the sovereignty of carnal reason. 2. It leaves in the room of that an impression of spiritual light; and in both these the understanding is merely passive, for so it's added, it's forced to bear the one, it's fitted to receive the other.

It destroys the overswaying authority of carnal reason; it was Satan's policy to turn the understanding from the Lord, and attendance to the truth; [illegible]. 3. Has God said you shall not eat? Oh, question it not, fear it not, you shall be as gods; and so she turning aside, and perverting the eye of reason to listen to the delusion suggested, her light was dimmed, and she justly overborne with the force of the falsehood presented, because she took off her mind from eyeing of the command, and turned it to attend the strength of that delusion, and was so acted by it, she conceived, though falsely, that it was good to get knowledge, when the tasting that fruit was the only means to lose all the knowledge she had; and from the abuse of her own mutability, her mind becomes perverted from light to darkness, from the way of truth which God had found out, to the by-path found out of her own finding. Now the Lord Christ who comes to destroy and undo the works of the Devil, he begins where Satan ended, he turns from darkness, he takes down the supremacy of that carnal reason, by which all the sons of Adam in their natural and corrupt condition are constantly both ruled and carried in their whole course; and that's the reason of the Apostle's coupling those two together, (Ephesians 2:3) speaking of the conduct of the ungodly, he says, they did the wills of [illegible] flesh, and of their discourses; their carnal reasonings had ever one oar in the boat; and it's ever found true, there is no man upon knowledge commits a sin, but ever he [illegible] some pretense of carnal self-deceiving reason why he does so, and therefore it is called the stronghold of Satan, and the Lord Christ, he first forces this fort, demolishes and casts down the frame of it; so that though there be some remainders continue still in the mind, while that remains in the body, and we in the world, yet it's never made a place of retreat to a [illegible] convert, wherein he can [illegible] himself, and stand it out against any truth; (2 Corinthians 10:4) he pulls down strongholds, such as are highest and hardest to win; and that which is added, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against God, [illegible]. Reasonings of the flesh; and nothing but the power of God can do this, the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God. For though Adam being in a mutable condition, might slide away from the government of God as well as submit, yet after he had withdrawn himself from under the Covenant and wisdom of God in the Law given him, it was just with God to deliver him up to the authority of his inventions, and there to stake him down, that nothing but the sovereignty of Christ who had satisfied for this his folly and carnal reasoning should be able to restore him from the power of them. This makes me construe the meaning of those words of Paul so, as that which best gives in evidence of the dependence, [illegible] (Ephesians 4:21-22): if you have heard, and been taught, as the truth is in Jesus, then put off the old man, etc. The truth as it is in the Bible only, or dispensed in any ordinance, or as it was in the Covenant of the First Adam, will never do it; but as it is in the hand of Jesus, the head of the Second Covenant when he comes to [illegible] a holy seed, and call home his sons to himself, he will then make the old man fall. And this the Lord Jesus forces the understanding to submit to, and this is easily yielded on all hands; for it's commonly confessed by philosophers and divines that there is a constraining force in the undeniable evidence of argument [illegible] on by the Spirit, that the judgment is necessitated to fall under, and yet hereby no liberty is prejudiced, for that is in the will. Thus Paul's commission runs (Acts 26:18): to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. What is the opening of the eyes distinct from that which follows? It may be [illegible] that common enlightening in the history, matter, and truth of the Scripture wherein the understanding must in reason be informed, and themselves also yield a full assent, and so far be persuaded of the truth and goodness of the doctrine of the Gospel; for it's opposite to all the rules of reason and providence, that persons should step from profaneness in the depth of it, to the height of Christian piety and holiness, but there must be a passing through the common truths that are in the way and road to come to that end. First, a man must know there was a Christ, and who he was, and what he did, and wherein that redemption of his is recorded in the Scriptures, and of what value and infallibility they be. Then we come to see our former follies and delusions in which we were drowned, and so to be turned from darkness, that we cast away the former forgeries of our carnal reasonings; where note, that Paul turns them, not they themselves, that it's from darkness, they were nothing but darkness, and darkness could not, nor would not turn from itself, therefore from a more sovereign light in Christ that darkness must be removed. In all which the soul behaves itself merely passively, and is wrought upon, and that by an overruling power.

The second operation mentioned follows without fail, and by force of constraining reason; the sovereignty of darkness being removed, there is room made for the ready spirit of light, of the guidance of the Spirit of Christ, as the Head of the Covenant, who begins to set up his throne, where Satan had his hold; and this is like the sun-rising, whose beams spread themselves from one end of the heavens to the other, and nothing is hid from the light thereof. So there is not the most secret corner or crevice of our corrupt hearts and consciences, but the beauty and shine of the [illegible] of this light will discover it; and this seems to me to be called the spirit of the mind, as that which best [illegible][illegible] the intent of the Spirit in the place; for it is the mere impression of the Spirit falling upon the [illegible] now turned from darkness (Ephesians 4:23), where the Apostle describing the two parts of sanctification; mortification, verse 22. Put off the old man, in reason it should have followed immediately, and put on the new man, he inserts this by the way, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, in the passive form; and then, put on the new man, that is to say, this renewing is another work, and is to be referred to another place, and it answers none so fitly and fully as this place; and the word also suits it beyond imagination, [illegible], a comparison taken from earth turned a new and another way: so should the act of the understanding be turned afresh, and lie constantly under the light and guidance of the Spirit; and here we are merely passive. That which is merely the act and impression of the [illegible] to the entertainment of the mind, is merely passive; but this is the mere act and impression of the Spirit, as the beams of the sun dispersing themselves into the air. Again, that which is wholly darkness, that cannot be active or causal of any spiritual light; but the mind naturally is mere darkness (Ephesians 5:8).

This light so received, the understanding being overpowered with it and acted by it, acts also in the virtue thereof, and so the sinner may be said [illegible] to see and understand, for he does so, but in a right order and after a right manner conceived. In a right order, for (as before) of himself he had an impotency to this, indeed an incapability of this spiritual light, before he was forced from the holds of his carnal reason and made fit to receive it. In a right manner: the understanding being acted and moved by the power of this light does move again, so that the action [illegible] not so much from any habitual principle of grace, of which a man has the free use and command at his own pleasure, and so does act or not act by it as he will: for so experience tells us it is not. The sinner at first would not see his sins were it in his power and might he have his own mind, he would have the ghastly visage of them gone out of his sight. Indeed he uses all the ways and contrives all the means he can, that he might put them out of his thoughts, that they might not come into his consideration or remembrance. It is against the heart and hair, utterly against his will, that he cannot get off it; which argues that he acts not so much here, as a cause by counsel, out of his own choice and habitual disposition of which he has the command, but merely as he is acted; and after when the spirit withdraws, he cannot so see them though he would, as that phrase (Galatians 4:9) after you have known God or rather are known of God. It is not so much from our own ability we have from within that we do it, but because he looked upon us we look back again upon him. As a looking glass reflects the light not from any light it has of its own, but because the light of the sun falls upon it, so that it is true to say, the light is reflected by it rather than it reflects the light. For because the light [illegible] reflect [illegible] it comes to be reflected. So Job complained (Job 13:26), You make me to possess the sins of my youth. So David (Psalm 77:4), You keep my eyes waking.

Wherein this true sight, and apprehension of sin properly discovers itself.

I answer, a true sight of sin has two conditions attending upon it; or it appears in two things: we must see sin, 1. Clearly. 2. Convictingly, what it is in itself, and what it is to us, not in the appearance and paint of it, but in the power of it; not to [reconstructed: fathom] it in the notion and conceit only, but to see it with application.

We must see it clearly in its own nature, its native color and proper hue: it's not every slight conceit, not every general and cursory, confused thought or careless consideration that will serve the turn, or do the work [reconstructed: by saying], we are all sinners; it is my infirmity, I cannot help it; my weakness, I cannot be rid of it; no man lives without faults and follies, the best have their failings, in many things we offend all. But alas all this wind shakes no corn, it costs more to see sin aright than a few words of course; it's one thing to say sin is thus and thus, another thing to see it to be such; we must look wistfully and steadily upon our distempers, look sin in the face, and discern it to the full; the want of which is the cause of our mistaking our estates, and not redressing of our hearts and ways (Galatians 6:4). Let a man prove his own work. Before the goldsmith can sever and see the dross asunder from the gold, he must search the very bowels of [reconstructed: the ore], and try it by touch, by cast, by hammer, and by fire; and then he will be able to speak by proof what it is; so here. We perceive sin in the crowd and by hearsay, when we [reconstructed: hear] some common [reconstructed: and] customary expressions taken up by persons in their common converse, and so report what others speak, and yet never knew the truth, what either others or we say, but we do not single out our corruptions and survey the loathsomeness of them, as they come naked in their own natures; this we ought to do. There is great odds between the knowledge of a traveler, that in his own person has taken a view of many coasts, passed through many countries, and has there taken up his abode some time, and by experience has been an eyewitness of the extreme cold, and scorching heats, has surveyed the glory and beauty of the one, the barrenness and meanness of the other; he has been in the wars, and seen the ruin and desolation wrought there; and another that sits by his fireside, and perhaps reads the story of these in a book, or views the proportion of these in a map, the odds is great, and the difference of their knowledge more than a little: the one saw the country really, the other only in the story; the one has seen the very place, the other only in the paint of the map drawn. The like difference is there in the right discerning of sin; the one has surveyed the compass of his whole course, searched the [reconstructed: depths] of his own heart, and examined the windings and turnings of his own ways, he has seen what sin is, and what it has done, how it has made havoc of his peace and comfort, ruinated and laid waste the very principles of reason and nature, and morality, and made [reconstructed: him] a terror to himself, when he has looked over the loathsome abominations that lie in his bosom, that he is afraid to approach the presence of the Lord to bewail his sins, and to crave pardon, lest he should be [reconstructed: overwhelmed by] them, while he is but confessing of them; afraid and ashamed [reconstructed: that] any man living should know but the least part of that which he knows by himself, and could count it happy that [reconstructed: he] was not, that the remembrance of those hideous evils of his might be no more; another perhaps hears the like preached or repeated, reads them writ or recorded in some authors, and is able to remember and [reconstructed: report] them. The odds is marvelously great. The one sees the history of sin, the other the nature of it; the one knows the relation of sin as it is mapped [reconstructed: out], and recorded; the other the poison, as by experience he has found and proved it. It's one thing to see a disease in the book, or in a man's body, another thing to find and feel it in a man's self. There is the report of it, here the malignity and venom of it.

But how shall we see clearly the nature of sin in his naked hue?

This will be discovered, and may be conceived in the particulars following. Look we at it: first, as it respects God. Secondly, as it concerns ourselves. As it has reference to God, the vileness of the nature of sin may thus appear.

It would dispossess God of that absolute supremacy [reconstructed: that] is indeed his prerogative royal, and [reconstructed: and] in a peculiar manner appertain to him, as the diamond of his crown, and [reconstructed: glory] of his Deity, so the Apostle, he is God over all blessed forever (Romans 9:5). All from him and all for him, he is the absolute first being, the absolute last end, and herein is the [reconstructed: sum of] his glory. All those attributes of [reconstructed: Wisdom], [reconstructed: Truth], Holiness, Power, Justice, Mercy, the shine and concurrency of all these meeting together is to set out the inconceivable excellency of his glorious name, which exceeds all praise, yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, the right of all and so the rule of all and the glory of all belongs to him.

Now herein [reconstructed: lies] the inconceivable heinousness of the hellish nature of sin, it would jostle the Almighty out of the throne of his glorious sovereignty, and indeed be above him. For the will of man being the [reconstructed: crown] of all his workmanship, all for his body, the body of the soul, the mind to attend upon the will, the will to attend upon God, and to make choice of him, and his will, that is next to him, and he only above that: and that should have been his throne and temple or chair of state; in which he would have set his sovereignty forever. He did in an especial manner intend to meet with man, and to communicate himself to man in his righteous law, as the rule of his holy and righteous will, by which the will of Adam should have been ruled and guided to him, and made happy in him; and all creatures should have served God in man, and been happy by or through him, serving of God being happy in him; but when the will went from under the government of his rule, by sin, it would be above God, and be happy without him, for the rule of the law in each command of it, holds forth a threefold expression of [reconstructed: authority] from the Lord, and therein the sovereignty of all the rest of his attributes.

- 1. The Powerful Supremacy of his just will, as that he has right to dispose of all and authority to command all at his pleasure; What if God will? (Romans 9:22) My Counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure (Isaiah 46:10). And as it is true of what shall be done upon us, so his will has Sovereignty of Command in what should be done by us — we are [illegible] say the will of the Lord be done. David's warrant was to do all God's wills (Acts 13:22), and our Savior himself professes (John 6:38) that he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him, and therefore his wrath and jealousy and judgment will break out in [illegible] that be disobeyed. - 2. There is also a fullness of wisdom in the law of God revealed to guide and direct us in the way we should walk (Psalm 19:7); the law of God makes wise the simple (2 Timothy 3:15); it is able to make us wise to salvation. - 3. There is a Sufficiency of God to content and satisfy us. Blessed are they who walk in his ways, and blessed are they that keep his Testimonies (Psalm 119:1-2). Great prosperity have they that love the law, and nothing shall offend them (verse 16), and in truth there can be no greater reward for doing well, than to be enabled to do well. He that has attained his last end cannot go further; he cannot be better.

Now by sin we jostle the law out of its place, and the Lord out of his Glorious Sovereignty, pluck the Crown from his head, and the Scepter out of his hand, and we say and profess by our practice, there is not authority and power there to govern, nor wisdom to guide, nor good to content me, but I will be swayed by my own will and led by my own deluded reason and satisfied with my own lusts. This is the guise of every graceless heart in the commission of sin; so Pharaoh — who is the Lord? I know not the Lord, nor will I let Israel go (Exodus 5:2). In the time of their prosperity see how the Jews turn their backs and shake off the authority of the Lord: we are Lords (say [illegible]) we will come no more at you (Jeremiah 2:31), and our tongues are our own — who shall be Lords [illegible] us? (Psalm 12:4). So for the wisdom of the world, see how they set light by it as not worth the looking after it (Jeremiah 18:12) — we will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his own evil heart. Indeed they set up their own traditions, their own idols and delusions, and lord it over the law, making the command of God of none effect (Matthew 15:8-9). So for the goodness of the word (Job 22:17; Malachi 3:14): it is in vain to serve God and what profit is there that we have kept his ordinances — indeed his Commandments are ever grievous. It is a grievous thing to the loose person that he cannot have his pleasures but he must have his guilt and gall with them; it is grievous to the worldling that he cannot lay hold on the world by unjust means, but Conscience lays hold upon him as breaking the law. You that know and keep your pride and stubbornness and your distempers, know assuredly you do jostle God out of the Throne of his glorious Sovereignty and you do profess: Not God's will but your own (which is above his) shall rule you; your [illegible] reason and the folly of your mind is above the wisdom of the Lord and that shall guide you; to please your own stubborn crooked perverse spirit is a greater good than to please God and enjoy happiness, for this more contents you. When you consider but your Course, do you not wonder that the great and Terrible God does not smash such a poor insolent worm to powder, and send you packing to the pit every moment?

2. It smites at the Essence of the Almighty and the desire of the sinner is not only that God should not be supreme but that indeed he should not be at all, and therefore it would destroy the being of Jehovah. (Psalm 81:15) Sinners are called the haters of the Lord. (John 15:24) They hated both me and my Father. Now he that hates endeavors, if it be possible, the annihilation of the thing hated, and it is most certain that were it in their power, they would pluck God out of Heaven, the light of his truth out of their Consciences, and the law out of the Societies and Assemblies where they live, that they might have elbow room to live as they please. Indeed whatever they hate most and intend and plot more evil against in all the world, they hate God most of all, and intend more evil against him than against all their [illegible] besides, because they hate all for his sake. Therefore wicked men are said to destroy the law (Psalm 119:126); the adulterer loathes that law that condemns uncleanness; the earthworm would destroy that law that forbids covetousness. They are said to hate the light (John 3:21), to hate the saints and servants of the Lord (John 15:18) — the world hates you. He that hates the lantern for the light's sake hates the light much more; he that hates the faithful because of the image of God and the grace that appears there hates the God of all grace and holiness most of all. So God to Sennacherib (Isaiah 37:28): I know your going out and your coming in, and your rage against me. Oh, it would be their content if there was no God in the world to govern them, no law to curb them, no justice to punish, no truth to trouble them. Learn therefore to see how far your rebellions reach — it is not arguments you gainsay, not [illegible] counsel of a minister you reject, the command of a [illegible] you oppose, evidence of rule or reason you [illegible]; but be it known to you, you fly in the very face of the Almighty, and it is not the Gospel of Grace you would have destroyed, but the Spirit of Grace, the author of Grace, the Lord Jesus, the God of all Grace that you hate.

It crosses the whole course of Providence, perverts the work of the creature and defaces the beautiful frame, and that sweet correspondence and orderly usefulness the Lord first implanted in the order of things. The heavens deny their influence, the earth her strength, the corn her nourishment — thank sin for that. Weeds come instead of herbs, cockle and darnel instead of wheat — thank sin for that (Romans 8:22). The whole creature (or creation) groans under vanity, either cannot do what it would or else misses of that good and end it intended, breeds nothing but vanity, brings forth nothing but vexation. It crooks all things so as that none can straighten them, makes so many wants that none can supply them (Ecclesiastes 1:15). This makes crooked servants in a family — [illegible] can rule them — [illegible] inhabitants in towns, crooked members in congregations; there is no ordering nor joining of them in that comely accord, and mutual subjection. Know they said, the adversary sin has done all this. Man was the means between God and the creature to convey all good with all the constancy of it, and therefore when man breaks, heaven and earth break all asunder; the conduit being cracked and displaced there can be no conveyance from the fountain.

In regard of ourselves, see we and consider nakedly the nature of sin, in four particulars.

It is that which makes a separation between God and the soul, breaks that union and communion with God for [illegible] we were made, and in the enjoyment of which we should be blessed and happy (Isaiah 59:1-2). God's ear is not heavy that it cannot hear nor his hand that it cannot help, but your iniquities have separated between God and you, and your sins have hid his face that he will not hear. For he professes (Psalm 5:4) that he is a God that wills not wickedness, neither shall iniquity dwell with him. Into the new Jerusalem shall no unclean thing enter, but without shall be dogs (Revelation 21:27). The dogs to their kennel, and hogs to their sty and mire: but if an impenitent wretch should come into heaven, the Lord would go out of heaven; iniquity shall not dwell with sin. That then that deprives me of my greatest good for which I came into the world, and for which I live and labor in the world, and without which I had better never to have been born; indeed that which deprives me of a universal good, a good that has all good in it, that must needs be an evil, but have all evil in it. But so does sin deprive me of God as the object of my will, and that wills all good, and therefore it must bring in truth all evil with it. Shame takes away my honor, poverty my wealth, persecution my peace, prison my liberty, death my life, yet a man may still be a happy man, lose his life, and live eternally. But sin takes away my God, and with him all good goes; prosperity without God will be my poison, honor without him my bane; indeed, the word without God hardens me, my endeavor without him profits nothing at all for my good. A natural man has no God in anything, and therefore has no good.

It brings an incapability in regard of myself to receive good, and an impossibility in regard of God himself to work my spiritual good, while my sin continues, and I continue impenitent in it. An incapability of a spiritual blessing: why transgress you the commandment of the Lord that you cannot prosper, do what you can (2 Chronicles 24:20)? And he that being often reproved hardens his heart, shall be consumed suddenly and there is no remedy. He that spills the medicine that should cure him, the meat that should nourish him, there is no remedy but he must needs die, so that the commission of sin makes not only a separation from God, but obstinate resistance and continuance in it, maintains an infinite and everlasting distance between God and the soul. So that so long as the sinful resistance of your soul continues, God cannot grant the comforting and guiding presence of his grace; because it is contrary to the covenant of grace he has made, which he will not deny, and his oath which he will not alter. So that should the Lord save you and your corruption, carry you and your proud unbelieving heart to heaven, he must nullify the Gospel (Hebrews 5:9 — he is the author of salvation to them that [illegible] him) and forswear himself (Hebrews 3:18 — he has sworn unbelievers shall not enter into his rest); he must cease to be just and holy, and so to be God. As Saul said to Jonathan concerning David (1 Samuel 20:30-31): so long as the son of Jesse lives, you shall not be established, nor your kingdom. So do you plead against yourself, and with your own soul: so long as these rebellious distempers continue, grace and peace, and the kingdom of Christ can never be established in your heart. For this obstinate resistance differs nothing from the plagues of the state of the damned, when they come to the highest measure, but that it is not yet total and final, there being some kind of abatement of the measure of it, and stoppage of the power of it. Imagine you saw the Lord Jesus coming in the clouds, and heard the last trump blow: arise, you dead, and come to judgment. Imagine you saw the judge of all the world sitting upon the throne, thousands of angels before him, and ten thousands ministering to him, the sheep standing on his right hand, and the goats at the left. Suppose you heard that dreadful sentence, and final doom pass from the Lord of Life (whose word made heaven and earth, and will shake both): depart from me, you cursed. How would your heart shake and sink, and die within you in the thought thereof, were you really persuaded it was your portion? Know, that by your daily continuance in sin, you do to the utmost of your power execute that sentence upon your soul. It is your life, your labor, the desire of your heart, and your daily practice to depart away from the God of all grace and peace, and turn the tombstone of everlasting destruction upon your own soul.

It's the cause which brings all other evils of punishment into the world, and without this they are not evil, but so far as sin is in them. The sting of a trouble, the poison and malignity of a punishment and affliction, the evil of the evil of any judgment, it is the sin that brings it, or attends it (Jeremiah 2:19). Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you, know therefore that it is an evil, and bitter thing that [reconstructed: you have] forsaken the Lord. Jeremiah 4:18. Your ways and doings have procured these things to you, [reconstructed: this is your wickedness, because] it is bitter, and reaches to the heart. Take miseries and crosses without sin, they are like to be without a sting, the serpent without poison, you may take them, and make medicines of them. So Paul (1 Corinthians 15:55), he plays with death itself, sports with the [reconstructed: grave]. Oh death, where is your sting? Oh grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin. All the harmful annoyance in sorrows and punishments, further than either they come from sin, or else tend to it, they are rather improvements of what we have than parting with anything we do enjoy, we rather lay out our conveniences than seem to lose them, yes, they increase our crown, and do not diminish our comfort. Blessed [reconstructed: are] you when men revile you, and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil of you for my sake, for great is your reward in heaven (Matthew 5:11). There is a blessing in persecutions and reproaches when they be not mingled with the deserts of our sins; indeed, our momentary short affliction for a good cause, and a good conscience, works an excessive exceeding weight of glory. If then sin brings all evils, and makes all evils indeed to us, then is it worse than all those evils.

It brings a curse upon all our comforts, blasts all our blessings, the best of all our endeavors, the use of all the choicest of all God's ordinances: it's so evil and vile, that it makes the use of all good things, and all the most glorious, both ordinances and improvements evil to us. Haggai 2:13-14. When the question was made to the priest: if one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of the holy things, shall it be unclean? And he answered, yes. So is this people, and so is this nation before me, says the Lord; and so is every work of their hands, and that which they offer is unclean. If any good thing a wicked man had, or any action he did, might be good, or bring good to him, in reason it was the services and sacrifices wherein he did approach to God, and perform service to him, and yet the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 28:9) and (Titus 1:15). To the pure all things are pure; but to the unbelieving there is nothing pure, but their very consciences are [reconstructed: defiled]. It is a desperate malignity in the temper of the stomach, that should turn our meat and diet into diseases, the best cordials and preservatives into poisons, so that what in reason is [reconstructed: meant] to nourish a man should kill him. Such is the venom and malignity of sin, makes the use of the best things become evil, no, the greatest evil to us many times (Psalm 109:7). Let his prayer be turned into sin. That which is appointed by God to be the choicest [reconstructed: means] to prevent sin, is turned into sin out of the corrupt distemper of these carnal hearts of ours.

Hence then it follows: that sin is the greatest evil in the world, or indeed that can be. For, that which separates the soul from God, that which brings all evils of punishment, and makes all evils truly evil, and spoils all good things to us, that must needs be the greatest evil, but this is the nature of sin, as has already appeared.

But that which I will mainly press, is, sin is only opposite to God, and cross as much as can be to that infinite goodness and [illegible] which is in his blessed Majesty; it's not the [illegible] distresses that men undergo, that the Lord distastes them for, or estranges himself from them. He is with Joseph in the prison, with the three children in the [illegible], with Lazarus when he lies among the dogs, and gathers the [illegible] from the rich man's table, indeed with Job upon the dung-hill, but he is not able to bear the presence of sin. Indeed, of this temper are his dearest servants, the more of God is in them, the more opposite they are to sin wherever they find it. It was that he commended in the church of Ephesus, that she could not bear those that were wicked (Revelation 2:3). As when the stomach is of a pure temper and [illegible] strength, the least surfeit or distemper that befalls, it presently distastes and disburdens itself with speed. So David noted to be a man after God's own heart, he professes (Psalm 101:3, 7), I hate the work of them that turn aside, he that works deceit shall not dwell in my house, he that tells lies, shall not tarry in my sight. But when the heart becomes like the stomach, [illegible] weak it cannot help itself, nor be helped by physic, desperate diseases and dissolution of the whole follows, and in reason must be expected. Hence see how God looks at the least connivance, or a faint and feeble kind of opposition against sin, as that in which he is most highly dishonored, and he follows it with most hideous plagues, as that indulgent carriage of Eli toward the vile behavior of his sons for their grosser evils (1 Samuel 2:23). Why do you such things, it's not well my sons that I hear such things — it is not well, and is that all? Why, had they either out of ignorance not known their duty or out of some sudden surprisal of a temptation neglected it, it had not been well, but for them so purposedly to proceed on in the practice of such gross evils, and for him so faintly to reprove. The Lord looks at it as a great sin thus feebly to oppose sin, and therefore verse 29 he tells him, that he honored his sons above God, and therefore he professes, far be it from me to maintain your house and comfort, for he that honors me I will honor, and he that despises me shall be lightly esteemed, verse 30. Hence it is the Lord himself is called the holy one of Israel (Habakkuk 1:12), who is of [illegible] eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity, no not in such as profess themselves saints, though most dear to [illegible], no, nor in his Son the Lord Jesus, not in his saints (Amos 8:7). The Lord has sworn by himself, I abhor the excellency of Jacob; whatever their excellencies, their privileges are, if they do not abhor sin, God will abhor them (Jeremiah 22:24). Though Coniah was as the signet of my right hand, from there would I pluck him. In fact, he could not endure the appearance of it in the Lord Christ, for when but the reflection of sin (as I may so say) fell upon our Savior, even the imputation of our transgressions to him, though no iniquity was ever committed by him, the Father withdrew his comforting presence from him, and let loose his infinite displeasure against him, forcing him to cry out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken [illegible]?

Indeed, sin is so evil, (that though it be in nature, which is the good creature of God) that there is no good in it, nothing that God will own; but in the evil of punishment it is otherwise, for the torments of the devils, and punishments of the damned in hell, and all the plagues inflicted upon the wicked upon earth, issue from the righteous and revenging justice of the Lord, and he does own such execution as his proper work (Isaiah 45:7). Is there any evil in the city, namely of punishment, and the Lord has not [illegible] it? I make peace, I create evil, I the Lord do all these things. It issues from the justice of God that he cannot but reward every one according to his own ways and works; those are a man's own, the holy one of Israel has no hand in them; but he is the just executioner of the plagues that are inflicted and suffered for these. And hence our blessed Savior becoming our surety, and standing in our room, he endured the pains of the second death, even the fierceness of the fury of an offended God; and yet it was impossible he could commit the least sin, or be tainted with the least corrupt distemper. And it's certain it's better to [illegible] all [illegible] without any one sin, than to commit the least sin, and to be freed from all plagues. Suppose that all miseries and sorrows that ever befell all the wicked in earth and hell, should meet together in one soul, as all waters gathered together in one sea. Suppose you heard the devils roaring, and saw hell gaping, and the flames of everlasting burnings [illegible] before your eyes; it's certain it were better for you to be cast into those inconceivable [illegible] than to commit the least sin against the Lord. You do not think so now, but you will find it so one day.

But if sin be thus vile in its own nature, why do not men so discern it, so judge it?

That I may give a full answer to this question, I shall first show the causes of mistake: and secondly, the cure. For the first, there's a fivefold cause why though sin be so vile, and so great an evil, yet naturally men do not see it so.

First, the delusion of Satan dazzles the eyes of our minds, and puts false colors upon courses, paints over the foul face of vice and corruption with the appearance of virtues, and so the deluded sinner like Jacob in the darkness of [illegible], takes Leah for Rachel, bad for good. So the disciples took their passion for zeal, shall we call for fire from heaven to destroy the [reconstructed: Samaritans], because of their [illegible] dealing, as Elijah did? Our Savior returns, you know not what spirit you are of (Luke 9:55), that is, it's your rash anger that transports you, not the spirit of zeal that guides you. Judas pretends providence and compassionate care for the poor, when it was to promote his own profit (John 12:6). Lukewarmness goes masked under the name of [illegible]; licentious wantonness in the abuse of the privileges of the Gospel, goes veiled with the profession of the liberty of the Gospel, and while they profess, they must not be servants to men, they serve their own distempered affections.

Men judge their sins according to the present sense and feeling of the flesh, and the verdict of their sensual appetites pass thereupon, and sit down under the sentence of their corrupt hearts, and they report of things according as they relish them. It is [reconstructed: with] a sinful soul as with a sick body; the sick man that is distempered in his [reconstructed: stomach], and his mouth out of taste, and his palate out of temper, he reports of his [reconstructed: food] and diet he takes as his palate relishes it: So that in issue he tells you not what in truth it is, but how and what he tastes; bitter things he calls sweet, because they are so to his taste; sweet things bitter, because they are so to his sense, though far otherwise in themselves. So it is with a distempered heart, though otherwise gracious, if yet it judges of them according to the relish of carnal reason, or the present apprehensions, their inordinate passions would put upon them; Jonah in a feverish fit of a passionate distemper, he strikes he cares not whom, falls out with God, his providence, nay, his counsel though most seasonably, sweetly dispensed to him, Do you do well to be angry Jonah? Yes (says he) I do well to be angry, and that to death (Jonah 4:9). His passion like the palate of his sick soul, relishes it so, to his own inordinate distemper, and so he judges it. The heart of Ahab was inordinately transported with a venomous hatred against Micaiah, and his message, though it was no other counsel than the Lord had revealed, and he charged him to speak as in his name; yet it is no wise pleasing to his palate, and so he speaks of it, Did not I tell you he would not speak good to me (1 Kings 22:8, 18)? So it was with Asa, when the prophet seasonably and sadly condemned his distrustful carriage (2 Chronicles 16), out of an unbelieving, wrathful disposition he cannot relish it, but it carries the taste of an insolent contempt and therefore he imprisons him, and very likely all those that came to speak for him, and plead in his behalf, for so the words follow, He put many of the [reconstructed: people] into prison, verse 10. While he was in this distemper his spirit could savor nothing nor yet perceive the bitterness of his heinous and high-handed provocations against the truth of the Lord and his servants.

Though the mind be enlightened and the judgment also convinced of the sinfulness of the course, and his conscience is privy [reconstructed: to it] and gives him many a pluck yet he does not perceive the plague and venom in it, because he judges it by the present profit he sees or pleasure he receives from it, and so in truth sees the profit and the pleasure and contentment but sees not the sin. As it is with the bitterest pills when they are sugared or covered over with some pleasing conserve, they are swallowed readily without the least appearance of distaste or [reconstructed: disgust], and the reason is easy to conceive [reconstructed: — he] tasted nothing but the sugar, though he took the pill down in it. So it is with many base and wretched lusts, which are the very gall of bitterness, and carry deadly poison with them, they are so sugared, and covered over with applause and credit in the world, pleasing contents or earthly conveniences, that the mind is so taken up with the sweet and suitableness he eyes in them, that it attends not the right judgment of the sin but lets it down without any consideration. Satan plays here the cunning apothecary and therefore orders his physic so, as he would have it retained or kept in the stomach (like a potion) not cast and vomited up again. Hence in all his enticements to evil there is nothing but pleasing contents presented, that the sin may not be perceived or scarce thought upon, he shows the bait but hides the hook. In all his discouragements whereby he would scare and keep off the heart from duty, he casts in nothing but difficulties, impossibilities, hazards and [reconstructed: fears], and [reconstructed: dreadful] expectation of insufferable calamities, that the dreadfulness of the danger may take off the heart from affecting or the mind from attending the duty. Thus the sinner sees not the good of the duty, but the ghastly visage of desperate inconveniences, that seem to attend it. The extorting, cheating merchant, the idling laboring man look only to the gain they get, not the wrong they do. The adulterer has the delight in his eye that may suit and satisfy the flesh, not the stain he leaves upon his soul and the guilt upon his conscience, and the wrath he treasures up until the day of reckoning. Thus [reconstructed: the] thieves entice their companion to side with them in their course (Proverbs 1:13): we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our [reconstructed: houses] with [reconstructed: spoil]. So the harlot inveigle the young man, and presents nothing before him, but promises of pleasing content (Proverbs 7:18, 22-23): I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, perfumed it with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon, come let us take our fill of love. Thus she forces him with her fair words, and he follows [reconstructed: her] like an ox to the slaughter, and a fool to the stocks, till a dart strikes through his liver and he knows not that it is for his life. So the enemy with the first Adam, you shall be as gods (Genesis 3), and [reconstructed: with] the second Adam: All these kingdoms with all the glory of them will I give you (Matthew 4).

On the [reconstructed: other hand] he [reconstructed: scares] off from holy services by showing nothing but the [reconstructed: terrors] of the evil that attend them, that so the soul attends not the good of the duty that follows it. Thus he prevailed with Peter: he laid before him the fearfulness of the danger now [reconstructed: imminent] and such as in [reconstructed: likelihood] might draw on death, and his thoughts were so taken up with attendance to that, that he had no leisure to consider the loathsomeness of his lying, cursing, blasphemy and unfaithfulness in denying his Master until at last Christ looked, and he remembered and he went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26, last verse). So they looked upon the stature of the giants, the height of their walled cities, and their iron chariots and therefore did not expel them, and so they became thorns in their eyes and pricks in their sides. Bribes blind the eyes of the wise, because the understanding looks not upon the cause, but them, and the cause in them. So the pleasures of sin bribe the heart and blind the eye.

A fourth ground of mistake is because men judge of the evil of their sins by the patience and long suffering of God, which he extends towards them in the midst of their deservings; that because they are not now troubled they think they shall never be plagued, because that judgment is not presently executed it will never be inflicted. Out of a secret kind of atheism and desperate slighting of the truth of God, in the vileness of their sins which it discovers, and the judgments it denounces. This was their guise in Psalm 50:21. I held my tongue and said nothing, and you thought wickedly that I was such a one as yourself; but I will reprove you and set your sins in order before you. It is so at this day, men judge God's connivance and forbearance a kind of allowance, and because he forbears to reprove them, that therefore he will never come into judgment against them; when men see the way of the wicked prosper, and them exalted that rebelliously transgress, they conclude sin is not so dangerous as ministers would bear men in hand, nor God so severe against it or them. And therefore they look at the threats of scripture as words of course used as in way of policy that God only would awe and scare men but does not purpose to condemn men. Why do you not see (say they) that the most base on earth have commonly the best portion and largest allowance of the most pleasing contents? Do not their breasts run full of milk, and their bones full of marrow? Do not their eyes stand out with fatness, and have they not more than their hearts desire (Psalm 73)? When such as walk with most exactness are fed with bread of sorrow and water of affliction as their constant diet. We see no such danger in sin, nor no such indignation the Lord bears against it. Upon this ground it was that the profane, in Malachi 3:15, make open protestation against the practice of godliness, We count the proud happy (say they). The strength of this temptation took Asaph aside, and almost turned him out of the way (Psalm 73:2), when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, and the Lord's bounty and forbearance, he thought he had cleansed his heart, and washed his hands in vain. And it was too hard for all the art he had to help himself. The wise man makes it a conclusion, which is settled in the hearts of all the sons of men beyond all doubt (Ecclesiastes 8:11): Because sentence is not speedily executed, therefore the hearts of the sons of man are wholly set to do evil: because the Lord out of his long-suffering abates them the present feeling of the plagues and dreadfulness of their sins, therefore they determine it, there is no such poison in them.

The fifth and last cause of mistake, is want of that morning light, that spiritual knowledge of God, and his sovereign good pleasure over his creatures, whereby he has right to rule in the hearts of men, and they are bound to conform themselves to it. When the Lord Christ would discover the error and falseness of that self-conceited presumption the church of Laodicea had of her own worth (Revelation 3:17), 'You say you are rich and increased in goods, and lack nothing:' the reason he gives from where this erroneous apprehension came, was her ignorance; she knew not that she was poor and miserable, and blind, and naked; she wanted eye salve to anoint [illegible] eyes that she might see. The last resolution of these [illegible] in a sinful carriage, our Savior refers here, John 15:21. All these things they will do to you, because they have not known him that sent me. They wanted a spiritual understanding, and right conceiving of God, and that was the reason they rushed into the crowd of all evils in a heedless and careless way without any consideration.

The cure of these mistakes is by a double means.

Look upon your sins as they will look upon you at the day of death, and the day of judgment, for there they will look with a ghastly visage when all the profit you have gained, the pleasure you have taken, the content you have promised to yourself, will take their leaves of your sins, and of your soul also, and nothing will be left but the [illegible] and guilt of them. It is said of Moses (Hebrews 11:25), that he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin, which were but for a season; that is, sin remains always with the wicked, but the pleasure does not — that is but for a season, and that is but the time of God's forbearance, that he is pleased to abate the sinner of his displeasure and vengeance; at the utmost it is but for the term of this life. At the day of death and judgment the pleasures of sin will be out of season. There is no pleasure the adulterer can take in his lusts then, the drunkard in his cup, the covetous worldling in his wealth — they are out of date, the season is gone, the applause of the proud, and the pomp of the great ones is out of season; only the guilt and filth of sin remains, stares them in the face, and gnaws their conscience, and eats their flesh, as James speaks, as it were with fire, cries day and night in the ears of the Lord of Hosts against them. It is said of the Whore of Babylon at her fall (Revelation 18:14), that the fruits that your soul lusted after are departed from you, all things which are dainty and goodly are departed from you, and you shall find them no more at all. Let your sins now appear as they will then appear, when all the pleasing, and dainty, and goodly contentments that you promised to yourself are departed, when all the paint, and colors, and covers are removed, all the sweetness whereby they were flavored are taken away, and your distempers are stripped naked of them, and you cannot find them no more. The proud, malicious, [illegible], peevish, that have pleased themselves in their sinful distempers, and continued in them, they will find their sins indeed, and they will find them [illegible] down with them in the grave, where they will rot and rise with them to judgment, and go with them to hell: but the thought and remembrance of their delights, the looking upon the harlots, and sight of their fellow drunkards, shall increase their torments, and they shall curse themselves, and the day that ever they saw one another. Upon this consideration it was that [illegible] gave the awakening [illegible] (2 Peter 3:10): The time will come when the heavens shall melt with fire, and the earth, and all the works thereof shall be burnt up. All the riot of the epicure, the rage of the oppressor, the greedy pursuit of the worldling, all the works on earth shall be consumed — no more gatherings and drinkings with drunkards; only that which touched the Lord as an eternal God shall continue, and that is the holiness of that obedience that was sincere, that was performed to God; and the guilt of the sin that was committed against him — all the carnal contents that accompany a sinful course, they are but works of the earth, they will be consumed. But that which was against heaven, and against God, that will never be consumed; neither wildfire, nor hellfire will consume that; but it will live there to work your everlasting ruin. Labor therefore to make these things present with your heart, and real to your own apprehension; be not deluded by God's long [illegible] — the longer the blow is coming, the heavier it will be; the greater [illegible], the greater vengeance; and you that [illegible] had the treasury of God's bounty and goodness [illegible] out to you, you treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of God's [illegible] judgments.

Strive mightily to [illegible] a [illegible] sight of God himself, as he is pleased to dispense himself in his holiness and goodness to the soul to be enjoyed as [illegible] all-sufficient good, beyond all created excellencies in the creature. It was the advice of our Savior (Revelation 3:18): I counsel you to buy of me eye-salve that you may anoint your eyes, that so you may see. For darkness is not seen but only by the help of light, crookedness by the rule of straightness; he that knows not the rule of true Latin will never be able to know what is false, and so it is in any art — he that knows not the rule of building, planting, he will never discover an error in either. The like we may say and conceive touching the discovery of sin, because it is a swerving from the righteous and holy will of God in his government and communication of himself to the creature — it is a professed jostling with that, and his wisdom and goodness therein. Unless [illegible] eyes be anointed with eye-salve to see him and the purity and spiritualness of his pleasure, as that which only should rule us, and only can satisfy us, we shall never see [illegible] in its own nakedness and nature. And hence it is, when the wicked in the trouble and terror of their consciences feel the fierceness of the fury of the Almighty [illegible] upon their souls, they know now the smart of sin, and God also as a [illegible] Judge, whose anger they can neither avoid nor bear: this is only a consequent and a fruit of sin, and comes after it. But to see aright the sovereign [illegible] of his wisdom to guide them, and the all-sufficiency of his goodness far exceeding all created excellencies, and their [illegible] as a going from both these — if they be misguided in the one, they cannot but mistake the other. Job (Job 42:4): I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore, I [illegible] myself — when [illegible] saw God clearly, he saw his [illegible]. So the convert in (1 Corinthians 14:24), when he had the thoughts of his heart [illegible] and made manifest, [illegible] God is in you of a truth, because he neither saw God [illegible] himself before, and when he sees the one, he sees [illegible]. (1 John 3:7): He that [illegible] sin, has neither seen him, nor known him; and these be the terms of true conversion so set by the Apostle: turned from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18), that is, they fell short of the sovereign power and holiness of God before.

We have [illegible] with the First, What it is to see sin [illegible]: We are now to inquire of the Second, Wherein this true sight of sin [illegible], that is, we must see it also convictingly; what it is to us in the work of it, as well as what it is in itself, in the nature of it. This appears in a double act, or in two things:

- 1 We must apply sin particularly to ourselves. - 2 It must be settled with an overpowering strength, upon a man's own soul.

We shall open both these in the order proposed.

He that sees his sins convictingly, must [illegible] content himself with the [illegible] and speculation of sin, to speak freely of it, to [illegible] out the [illegible] of his corruption, or to lay [illegible] the [illegible] thereof in a judicious and pregnant [illegible]. This a wicked man may learn, this a right godly man may sometimes do, and yet do himself [illegible] by it. Therefore it is required he must see it with a particular application of it to himself and his own estate [illegible] the same sentence upon those he [illegible] in his own [illegible], which he did upon any when they [illegible] presented to his own [illegible] in the [illegible] without [illegible]. There are two things [illegible], we shall open both.

He must [illegible] eye inward, follow his own [illegible] home [illegible] his own [illegible], and cause his own judgment [illegible] upon his own [illegible] and corruptions. This is called in [illegible] [illegible] into a man's [illegible] — 1 [illegible], If the people of Israel [illegible], and [illegible] them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they [illegible] them [illegible], if they shall bethink themselves: the original thus; if they shall bring it back to their own heart. They had common apprehensions of sins as they saw them committed by others, or as the word revealed them in the evil of their own nature; but they did not look inward to the loathsome vileness of [illegible] evils which lay in their own bosoms, until they came into captivity. Thus the Prodigal is said to come to himself (Luke 15:17), he had lived without any search and consideration of his own ways, lost himself in letting loose his thoughts in the eager pursuit of his own lusts; now he began to take an account of his own course, to see how the case stands with him, in regard of his own corruption and condition in particular. The want of this the Prophet Jeremiah makes to be the principal [illegible] why men rush into the commission of sin, and continue therein; without any [illegible] (Jeremiah 8:5-6). Why is this people of Jerusalem slidden back with a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, and refuse to return: they [illegible] themselves with some false imaginations, quiet themselves by some self-deceiving mistakes, and so think they need not, and therefore do not return; the reason is rendered in the next words; I listened and heard, and no man repented; and why that? No man said, what have I done? They bring not their own conduct to the scrutiny; each man will be ready to be eagle-eyed into other men's occasions; and can easily inquire, and question; and determine, and say, others have done thus, and so, here such have fallen, therein such and such have failed, but no man says, What have I done? And therefore they become fearless of what they have done, and careless of what they do: but each man rushes into his own wretched course as the horse into the battle; because he carries not the light of the truth into each [illegible] and [illegible] of his conscience, to pry into the secret [illegible] of his own spirit, and judge aright of that, else be his knowledge never so large, he will get little good by it. The [illegible] that has its full charge, if it carry but level, give fire to it, it hits and kills the live mark at which it is shot, but [illegible] hurts the shooter unless it recoil in the full power, then the man that discharges it hardly escapes with life. It is so with the understanding that stands charged, that is, fully informed with a clear discovery of the nature of sin, it is able to dart in that light into the minds of others, that may dazzle their eyes, daunt and wound their consciences with the dreadful apprehensions of the [illegible] of their evils, and work their hearts through the blessing of the Lord to a godly remorse for it: but unless their own thoughts recoil back again upon their own miscarriages, and the falseness of their own hearts, they will never be awed, or humbled, or helped against their own sins thereby. Here is then the rule we must arrest our own souls in [illegible]. Achan was never troubled all the while he heard there was an [illegible] thing in the camp in general, but when the lot had found him, and all Israel had charged the evil upon him, then his heart failed. So we should not content ourselves to know and confess that sin is an execrable thing in general, which causes God's gracious presence to be estranged from [illegible], [illegible] leave not before we see the lot fall upon Achan; [illegible] you [illegible] attach your own heart, take it in the very fact, and as men deal with mutinous traitors, drag your wretched and rebellious heart before the tribunal of the Lord, and deal faithfully, and give in [illegible] against it; say, Lord, there be many traitors and rebels abroad in the world which dishonor your name, grieve your [illegible], [illegible] your kingdom, [illegible] your law, look [illegible] there they be; [illegible] heart that has been stubborn and proud, it is my mind that is vain, my affections loose; my life barren and unprofitable; here are those [illegible], unclean [illegible], [illegible] desires, no [illegible], [illegible] here they be, Lord [illegible] they [illegible].

We must also pass sentence impartially without any respect to any private end, or ease or quiet, which our own carnal hearts would happily [illegible] into the consideration; These and these sins are as bad and as base and as dangerous in this vile heart of mine as in any heart I know under the cope of Heaven if not worse, indeed whatever abomination is in the bottom of Hell, and in the heart of Beelzebub, the spawn of the like sins and of the same hellish nature, are in my soul, they are the seed of the Serpent and that they break not out into the like hideous practices it is no thank to my corrupt nature that hinders me, but your Grace and providence restrains me from such evils. It is our desperate weakness, and a great part of our misery, that we are apt to be favorable to our own follies, that sin should be of another appearance and apprehension when we see it in ourselves than when we pass sentence upon it as it is presented in the word and in its own nature. Impanel a jury of the most wicked, indeed the worst of men that have been trained up under the Preaching of the word and confess the Scriptures to be the word of God which cannot deceive, and let the text be propounded and their opinions be asked in that case, 2 [illegible] 1:9, The Lord will come in Flaming Fire rendering Vengeance to them that know him not, and obey not the Gospel, they will all give in their verdict as one man with one mind, such as be guilty of such disobedience, must certainly have this [illegible] Vengeance from the hand of the Almighty, but infer, therefore this is [illegible] lot and allowance from the Lord, because they have not, they do not obey the Gospel [illegible], their [illegible] do testify so much. Now the case is altered, when it is once come to their [illegible], it is another kind of ignorance and [illegible], and [illegible] another [illegible] acted than [illegible] they.

This [illegible] of our [illegible] self [illegible] hearts, the Philosopher in the practice of men even by the twilight of the common Principles of reason remaining in the decays of nature observed. For taking it for granted that no man does will evil under the name of evil but as it comes under the appearance of some good and that all men easily grant and freely confess that Drunkenness, Injustice, Intemperance are evil, the question then grows how these men judging these carriages to be evil, are daily taken aside with the Commission of them. Ask the Drunkard whether [illegible] be unlawful, he confesses it loathsome and yet commits it, Ask the Blasphemer whether [illegible] be a sin, He will profess it detestable at one breath, and practice it at the next. Thieves themselves count it unjust that any by cunning should deceive them, cry out of falsehood and yet by force [illegible] others; the ground is here. When the question is put and propounded in the general, they will grant it; when it comes to their particular for such a man at this time upon this occasion in this company for such an end, to be loose or tipple in this manner this is not unlawful. For in these the Devil casts in [illegible] or [illegible], Credit, Friendship, Familiarity (as the Lawyers alter the Case by circumstances) and by these he would put another [illegible] upon [illegible] carriages and [illegible] make them [illegible]. [illegible] hearts they give in evidence of [illegible], [illegible], [illegible], [illegible] our [illegible], and [illegible] would have the sentence [illegible] them, that in case they may be [illegible], and not utterly [illegible]. So David saw sin in the [illegible] own [illegible]; So [illegible] her [illegible], when he himself [illegible] of the [illegible] (Genesis [illegible]:24). Therefore you [illegible] your [illegible] with [illegible] Application, that they are in you as in others, and [illegible] in you [illegible] you [illegible] in [illegible].

[illegible] The [illegible] them apply [illegible] upon our Consciences: otherwise such a particular apprehension may and will suddenly pass away, and the streams of our distempers will easily alter and corrupt our understandings, and bring the cause quite about. This particular application will be as a sudden flash of Lightning sliding through our minds, which leaves all as dark as ever when once over, therefore there must be a settling of this with an overpowering strength, leaving it there enrolled that it may stand upon record in a man's Conscience. The former arrests the sinner, this latter lays hold upon him, pins him, and imprisons him as it were, until he have answered what the truth has against him, herein lies the life and power of a conviction and if it be of the right stamp and carry indeed an overpowering virtue in it, it will appear in three things.

It must be, 1. Undeniable, 2. Immovable, 3. Victorious and invincible.

Conviction must carry an undeniable evidence with it that as the truth has laid and pleaded an action against the soul, so the understanding may be forced to confess it, and sits down satisfied under the uncontrollable authority thereof and of the truth therein. The Scriptures are so pregnant, reasons so plain, arguments so strong, that though before they did not see, they could not think it, or be brought to believe, that their sins were so heinous or their condition so miserable, yet they now know not how to gainsay it. Thus [illegible], when he stood upon the terms of his [illegible] at several times when God had terrified him by the discovery of himself, he then yields the day, Job 7:20, I have sinned what shall I do to you, O you preserver of men — that is, I have no reasons to allege, no excuses to make, no arguments to plead, I [illegible] the action, I have sinned. Thus the Lord took down the height of [illegible] of the Word, that as it is said of Stephen, they could not [illegible] the Spirit by [illegible] he [illegible]; [illegible], though the [illegible] would gainsay, yet [illegible] and [illegible] [illegible] 18:15. Indeed, but [illegible]. So the Spirit follows the soul, and [illegible], and removes these Cavils and Objections that the sinner makes, and still shows and says, indeed, but this is your sin, and [illegible] will be your damnation; that the sinner is [illegible] to yield, and say, this is the Truth, I cannot [illegible] it; it is my condition, I cannot deny it; this is my sin, and will be my [illegible], I cannot but expect it.

It must be immovable, of such [illegible], that as it [illegible] understanding to sit down under the evidence of the truth as confessing of it; so it keeps it under the sting and [illegible] of it. That as it is with the bird in the net, the more she stirs to get out, the faster she is taken: so with the sinner, the more he desires to fly from the [reconstructed: conviction], to [reconstructed: escape] it, the more strongly the truth takes hold of him in the terror of it. So [reconstructed: go] where he will, do what he will, go wherever he will, the truth will go with him as a jailer with the malefactor; for the truth is so [illegible] when [illegible] brings in the discovery of our sins at the first, that it [illegible] a man weary of each [illegible], each condition, [illegible], and of his life, that [reconstructed: he] could wish not to be; that he may not be under the terror of it. And therefore though he cannot [illegible] the evidence of it, yet he would [reconstructed: seek] some [reconstructed: means] and shifts that may be to take off the [reconstructed: weight] of the dreadfulness of it, or make an escape from under the stroke and strength of it: but all in vain; for the conviction is immovable, no man can take it off if God set it [reconstructed: on]. All the carnal reasonings, corrupt pleas, sinful cavils, whereby men would put by the blow, they do all vanish before this light, [reconstructed: as mists] before the sun. The more he opposes it, the more he is under guilt, and so the strength of the convicting truth; his sins waylay him in every place; he sees his sins dished out before him on the table where he eats, lie down with him in the bed where he rests, when he dreams they terrify him, when he awakes they are as so many sergeants to arrest him, and summon him to judgment they are imprinted in the paths where he walks, and wherever he goes, he sees his sins going before him, and he going to hell with them.

Such an immovable discovery the Lord set upon the heart of Job when he let in the light of himself, that he sits down in silence, and has not one word to say, no way to wave it or to slip aside from under the evidence of it (Job 40:4-5). Once have I spoken, but I will say no more; indeed twice, but I will go no further. While his friends were talking with him, their arguments were so feeble that he could find a way out, and could free himself from the stroke, and deliver himself from the force of the blow: but now the conviction besieged him with such evidence that no carnal reason could relieve him, stops all passages that there is not a muse or crevice for him to creep out, therefore he sits down in silence, sees he cannot ease himself, nor wind away by any pretences and wiles he can devise. It is so with a corrupt heart beleaguered with the light, so that if his carnal friends, or ignorant neighbors, his loose companions would strive to take off his thoughts, alter his apprehensions, and abate the edge of the blow, and [reconstructed: try] to put in bail for him; his state is not so miserable and helpless, nor his sins so vile, quiet your heart, there is mercy with God, and satisfaction in the merits of Christ. He replies, I have often deceived myself with such devices, miserable comforters are you all. I have thought as you do, and said that which you speak in former times; but alas, these shifts will not serve the turn. Christ came not to comfort sinners, but to convert them also; to humble sinners as well as redeem them; he came to save sinners but to destroy their sins first; I never found [illegible]. I must not expect the other, nor you either. This is to [reconstructed: captivate] the thoughts, to bring them under [reconstructed: subjection], under the authority of the truth that they may not once hush or [reconstructed: escape] (2 Corinthians 10:5). And this is that spirit of [reconstructed: bondage] the Apostle speaks of (Romans 8:15). It makes us [reconstructed: aware] of our slavery, and binds a man hand and foot as it were, fences his way with fears, besets his passage on every side with expectation of evil, which he cannot tell how to bear, or how to avoid; he sees he can procure no [illegible] nor [illegible] to himself, and fears he shall never obtain any from the Lord, dares not commit sin as formerly, yet cannot tell how to be freed from it. So that as Reuben sometimes in another case, so the sinner in this, and I, where shall I go (Genesis 37:30)? Evils appear from every quarter which way soever he looks; if to heaven, there is justice to punish; if to hell, there are devils to torment; into himself, there is conscience to accuse; on earth in his daily course, there is nothing but his daily rebellions, and his confusion daily before his face, and the truth is the more terrible because he has withstood [illegible] so long. That as it fares with the prisoner that had the freedom of the prison while he carried himself fairly, but because he has been taken in some false pranks, and plotting an escape, he is now laid in the [illegible] with [illegible], now never like to [reconstructed: see a free] day, or look for any breathing. So here, my estate is more miserable because I have opposed the means that might have procured my help, the checks of conscience, I have smothered or slighted; many warnings I have had, but willingly forgot them; many sad reproofs that laid hold [reconstructed: on] me, but I studied how to wrest away my thoughts; it is just with God to load me with curses, which would never look for comfort from God in a right way. [illegible]

Lastly, this conviction is victorious and invincible — it does not only stop the mouth of carnal reason, and the cavils thereof, but also displaces it. It not only stills the [illegible] and pretenses of the sinner, but makes the mind and heart give attendance to the truth, to be subject to it, and to take the impression thereof. For otherwise the sinner thus tired and dazed by the daily laying at of the truth, may either perhaps lie still, though not cavil with it; yet not give attendance to it. But in a stupid kind of [reconstructed: sottish] senselessness, wear out the blow, and so waste away to nothing, as many out of sorrow have become like senseless blocks. Though their practice has not been evil, yet they have had no heart to good; or else they fall to desperate profaneness or professed opposition; when they cannot escape the prison, they'll break the prison, and lay violent hands upon the Keeper (Romans 1:18). They hold down the truth in unrighteousness, they imprison the truth while the truth should imprison them, therefore when the Lord will settle an overpowering conviction, he makes it victorious. Therefore he is said (Job 36:9-10), when he shows them their transgressions, he commands that they return from iniquity. [illegible][illegible] break out, and overbear and force the mind and heart to give attendance and take the impression of it, as when the conqueror and he that [illegible] got the victory, comes in place, all give attendance to his [illegible]. The want of the maintaining this [illegible] power of a conviction, I take to be the cause why many even of God's own are so [illegible] taken aside after all the helps they do enjoy, and the resolutions they take up. I have often wondered when a man has been [illegible] with much bitterness in days of humiliation such and such evils, begged for grace and help, and resolved against them; they know and [illegible] it's in [illegible] to cavil, or think to make an escape, [illegible] they reject such a [illegible], and [illegible] they [illegible][illegible] aside, and that strangely and [illegible] they fall [illegible][illegible][illegible] [1 page duplicate][1 page duplicate] with their old corruptions. They do not put this conviction into commission, they do not make it victorious, or maintain it so, or the authority thereof, so as to force attendance. When the [illegible] is good, and [illegible] mill tight, why does it not go? There is not so much water kept as to drive it, because they have let out the stream and strength another way; therefore there is not so much power in a conviction as to force attendance, and to drive the heart to obedience. Therefore as Paul said to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:15-16), Meditate upon these things, and continue in them, or be in these things. So you must be in a conviction, and continue under it if you would find it victorious, and then it will be so first or last, and will eat out all opposition, though with much ado. As it is with Aqua fortis if laid upon iron, though it does not at once, and suddenly, yet secretly and insensibly it will eat the iron in pieces. So it is with a truth which God will make victorious, it will lie upon the spirit of a man, and eat there, and work there, and break out effectually, it may be many years after (Job 33:16). This is called the sealing of [illegible] instruction; which is to add authority and sovereignty to it, as when the edict was sealed by the entreaty of Haman, there was no opposing, no gainsaying of it.

The reasons of the point (which was the fourth particular attended in the explication) come now to be considered: and these are two.

The first is taken from [reconstructed: the] order which the Lord in the way of his providence and work of nature has placed between the mind and the [reconstructed: will], the understanding and will of man. These two faculties have a near kind of correspondence, the one to help forward the work of the other. Knowledge and understanding is the inlet into the soul; nothing comes to the heart nor [reconstructed: can] work upon it but so far as knowledge makes way, etc., and ushers it in (as it were) into the presence of the will and leaves an impression thereof upon it. [reconstructed: They] use to say that which the eye sees not [reconstructed: the] heart rues not; that which the understanding conceives not, the will is not, no, cannot be affected with, if good to embrace it, if evil to be [reconstructed: grieved] and troubled therewith. It's the method [reconstructed: he] observed in God's dispensation towards him, when his heart was brought to a hatred against the evil of his ways (Psalm 119:107): "By your Commandments have I got understanding, therefore I hate every false way." Unless a right understanding go before, a thorough hatred will not follow after. As it is in the body, unless the stomach receive and hold and convey also the purgation either to the spleen or lower parts of the body, be the receipt never so strong, yet will it never stir the humor, or trouble nature though the distemper were abundant and dangerous. Because in an ordinary course of providence, there is no way [reconstructed: to] come to the humor but by this means. It's so in the soul: be the truths delivered attended with never so much terror and power, able to sink the heart of a sinful creature as not able to endure the dread of it, if yet the understanding conceives not the nature of such truths, nor convey and settle them seriously and convincingly upon the heart, it's not at all stirred in the least measure therewith, much less troubled with the danger discovered therein, because they cannot reach the heart, therefore can never work upon it. As through ignorance we commit sin because we see not the evil in it, so after commission we sorrow not because we apprehend not the [reconstructed: guilt] and danger (Acts 3:17): "I know that through ignorance you did it, as did also your Fathers." (1 Corinthians 2:8): "For had they known it they would never have crucified the Lord of life." It fares with a false-hearted [reconstructed: sinner] as it did with the wife of Jeroboam, when she came to inquire of her sick child — all the while she had received no certain evidence, whether it would [reconstructed: die] or live, her heart was [reconstructed: stayed] and comforted in her present hopes. But when Abijah the Prophet related the message of the Lord: "Come in, you wife of Jeroboam, why do you feign yourself to be another? Behold I am sent to you with heavy [reconstructed: tidings]. The Lord [reconstructed: will] bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam and will cut off him that is left. Get you home to your house, and as soon as your feet enter into your house the child shall die." This sunk her hopes. So it fares with a false-hearted ignorant sinner: he may be quieted with the present apprehension of his good condition when he has no evidence to the contrary. But when the Lord sets up an overpowering conviction in the mind which may give in [reconstructed: a clear] and infallible witness of its [reconstructed: false] and [reconstructed: miserable] estate — [reconstructed: Oh,] you false-hearted hypocrite, why do you feign yourself to be another? And befool yourself with vain hopes. Behold, here is heavy tidings sent to you from the Lord of hosts. You are yet in the gall of bitterness, in the bond of iniquity, and if you die so, you [reconstructed: will] certainly [reconstructed: be cast away] from the presence of the Lord forever. This fastening the truth upon the conscience comes home and forces the heart to feel and to be affected therewith.

Ignorance frustrates wholly the end of all the means we use, and the endeavors we take up for reformation of the evils of our hearts and lives. For.

First, it misleads all our endeavors so that they succeed not; it misleads our whole course and our proceedings against our sins, and out of mistakes presents our corruption as appearing sweet through our misguided apprehension, and causes us to oppose our Savior Christ and his truth that would subdue them. This Paul professed to be the ground of his [reconstructed: former] carriage: when he should have persecuted the enemies of the Church, he [reconstructed: persecuted] the Church, and that out of [reconstructed: ignorance] (Philippians 3:6): "concerning zeal I persecuted the Church" — so far from finding his sin bitter to him [reconstructed: or] having his heart broken from it, as that [reconstructed: he embraced] the practice of it with the greatest expression of zeal, as that which deserved the best of his endeavor and wherein he might spend the best of his pains. And that you may see how ready we are in the dark to put up snakes in our bosoms instead of sweet [illegible], he nakedly and ingenuously confessed where his [reconstructed: ignorance] led: "I did verily think in myself I should do many things against the Name of Jesus" (Acts 26). He that conceived it as a matter of duty to do such things, his heart upon such grounds under such delusions would never be carried against these. Ignorance will make a man swallow the worst [reconstructed: of] any change (John 16:2): "the time will come that they who shall kill you, will think they do God good service." That which keeps the soul insensible of the bitterness of sin, and from feeling of the weight of sin, that will also keep it from being weary of it, and willing to part with it. It's a popish practice and a principle of the power of darkness: ignorance is the mother of devotion. When men cannot tell how to lead themselves or see their own way, you may lead them [reconstructed: any] way you will, and if once Satan can keep a man from the sight of his sin he will keep him sure under the command of sin, and drive him to do his drudgery, and that with delight and resolution. When the Philistines had put out Samson's eyes, they led him where they would and made him do what they would. Paul in his ignorance strikes a friend instead of an enemy, and strikes — he neither knows nor [reconstructed: cares] who (Acts 9): "Who are you, [reconstructed: Lord]?"

As thus ignorance misleads a man's whole course so that it succeeds not, so it perverts the power of all means that they profit not, misapplies all the means he has, and so spoils them and his own peace and comfort also, insomuch that his corruptions grow more strong and incorporated into him and he more unwilling to part with them, and that's the fruit of ignorance. The promises and comforts of the Gospel which do not appertain to him, he catches greedily at them, as a portion provided for [illegible] and goes away with that dream, and swells unmeasurably [illegible] presumption and self-confidence. Are not all the congregation holy? What needs this severing and differencing of men? What are [illegible] who would be the only saints? Are not we all sinners, and Christ died for such and for us as well as for them? The threatenings and curses which the Lord denounces against the ungodly [illegible] cast them away with a fearless contempt, as such as do in no wise touch them or concern [illegible] particulars, and therefore should not trouble them. Tush, say they, we have made a league with death and a covenant with Hell, and when the destroying scourge passes over, it shall not come near to them (Isaiah 28:15). Indeed they do commit evil, and yet say they are delivered by the Lord (Jeremiah 7). Thus they grow [illegible] and hard-hearted; the wholesome counsels and directions of the word, which should be light to their feet, and a discovery of all their failings, they slight the exact attendance thereto as that which God will not exact at their hands, because in many things we sin all, and so become careless or negligent as though they should not answer, and the Lord would not exact what they cannot do. It is with an ignorant sinner in the midst of all means as with a sick man remaining in an apothecary's shop, full of the choicest [illegible] in the darkest night: though there be the choicest of all receipts at hand, and he may take what he needs, yet because he cannot see what he takes, and how to use them, he may kill himself or increase his distempers, but never cure any disease. So here with an ignorant person, he enjoys all means, and yet abuses them; he may increase his corruptions, but not reform them; his heart grows more hard, and his corruptions more strong, but he cannot in reason expect any help.

Hence we learn by way of instruction: an ignorant [illegible] is a naughty heart, whether out of blindness they do not, or out of profaneness they will not understand, and look into their estates. He that never saw his sin aright, he never yet saw good day, nor the least appearance of any saving work of God's grace in his soul; indeed he is so far from attaining such a condition, that in truth he is not in the way to it. We will go no further than the consideration of the former truth, and then let your conscience be judge in the case propounded. Suppose then you should hear a distressed creature under the terror of his conscience freely and candidly lay open his condition to you. The day is yet to dawn and the hour yet to come, that ever he was touched with any sense of sinful rebellions; never yet godly sorrow came into my soul, nor remorse into my conscience for all my many [illegible] before God and men; wounds of conscience, burdens of spirit, and brokenness of heart for our daily departures and provocations they are wonders and riddles. I have heard of such dispositions, but am a stranger to the having of the least work that way. I appeal to your own conscience, what would you think of such a party, who thus confesses, and is as he confesses? Methinks I hear you answering, and your heart shaking before you give it: What! Senseless of his sin! How fearful is his estate! Where there is no sense, there can be no sorrow, no repentance, therefore no Christ, nor pardon, nor salvation, for unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Never broken, God will never bind; so far from being good that he is not yet in the way to receive any good. Woe to him that has thus sinned, and thus continues. Oh poor ignorant creature, your own mouth has condemned you; you have [illegible] against your own soul; you never had a true sight of your sins, therefore you could never have a true sense of them, or sorrow for them. You never had a sound apprehension; you cannot have a thorough contrition for them. It came not near your heart to break it, when it never touched it in truth; nay, it never was within your view to see it in a right manner. See yet your misery further in [reconstructed: enlarging upon] these several degrees following:

There is no evil you can prevent, no good you can receive, no mercy you can expect: and when you have looked sadly upon these, you will have your load.

Liable you are to all the hazards that devils can devise or intend, men endeavor, or yourself deserve. A blind man is subject to all kind of injurious dealings from the feeblest persons, indeed from children; plot they may, he cannot perceive; do they may, he cannot avoid. It is so with an ignorant person in his spiritual condition: he is a prey to his sins, and a spoil in the hands of Satan that catches him at his pleasure, and carries him headlong and hoodwinked to everlasting destruction; every snare entraps him, allurement entangles him, temptation foils him; he can see nothing, prevent nothing, but goes like an ox to the slaughter, and a fool to the stocks, and knows nothing. Nay, were there no devils to tempt you, you would run into all evils of your own accord. An ignorant heart like a blind man stumbles at every block, falls into every ditch, indeed rushes with greediness to the practice of the most hellish evils. It was the Jews' case: out of ignorance they chose Barabbas a murderer, and rejected the Lord of Life; they were violent to take away his blood, that came to take away their sins, and this out of ignorance. For so our Savior in his prayer, Father forgive them, they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). He that walks in darkness knows not where he goes, though he go to Hell (1 John 2:11).

There is no good he can receive from any means remaining in this blindness. Counsels do not take place; [reconstructed: it] cannot persuade, judgments, threatenings do not awaken, admonitions, exhortations are of no force, they are beyond the reach of all these, they cannot come at them, therefore cannot work upon them. But as in some desperate diseases when they are come to the greatest extremity, as in a quinsy, when it has swelled beyond measure, that speaking and swallowing are wholly hindered, each man that sees will easily conceive, and conclude, Alas, he is but a dead man, he can take nothing, therefore it's not possible he can continue. The disease indeed is curable, but how should his physic cure him, or his diet nourish him, if he can take neither, there is no good to be expected, to be done, when he can take nothing that can do him good. So it is in the soul, ignorance stops the passage of the power and work of all God's ordinances: there is no corruption, but the means are mighty through God to relieve, if they could be taken; were the heart proud, if the word were received and welcomed, it would humble it; if stubborn, it would soften and calm it; if unclean, it would purge it. But ignorance stops all the passages, intercepts the work of the word, the understanding conceives it not, and the heart cannot profit by it, nor be bettered therewith.

There is no mercy you can expect: and this is able to [reconstructed: sink] a man's heart and hopes in irrecoverable discouragements; for though our endeavors prevail not, means prosper not, yet mercy can outbid both, and relieve beyond both; but if mercy suffers you to be blinded, mercy will suffer you to be damned. It's God's own resolution expressed (Isaiah 27:11): They are a people that have no understanding, therefore he that made them, will not save them, in fact, he will show no mercy to them. It's the determination, he has [reconstructed: fixed it] as a conclusion beyond control (Hosea 4:14): The people that do not understand, shall perish. It's the last execution he will put forth (2 Thessalonians 1:8): He will come in flaming fire; rendering vengeance to them that know him not. They are the mark in the first place, against which the fiercest of his fury expresses itself. They that will not now see their sins by the word, they shall be forced to see them, and to look them over by the flames of [reconstructed: hell] at the day of judgment.

Hence again it follows: to be hard to be convicted is a dangerous sin, and a dreadful curse to the party that is tainted with such a disposition of spirit. We will go no further than the doctrine delivered, and that will give in undeniable evidence to both parts of the collection.

1. To be hard to be convinced, is a dangerous sin; and that more ways than one.

He sins against his own soul; the happiness and peace of it as being accessory, and that in a special manner, to his own everlasting ruin, and imbrued his hands in his own blood as it were; when the helps that God has appointed, provided, and now also presents before him, and puts into his hands, he willingly, yea willfully rejects, refuses the use of them, and opposes the work of them, and so consequently his spiritual good that might come thereby. When the patient out of sullenness, and waywardness of spirit, refuses the physic or diet provided for his good; at last nature becomes so low, that he is utterly disabled to take it, and so is starved and [reconstructed: perished], each man concludes, he was accessory to his own death. So when God has sent his faithful servants to admonish you, his ministers to convince that gainsaying spirit of yours, to ransack the corruption of your cankered conscience, so that the core might have been searched, and your distempers [reconstructed: cured]. Who knows what good might have been wrought, what benefit you might have received, had you but suffered and received the helps provided for that end; which when you did oppose, and not suffer yourself to be convinced, you did oppose your own everlasting welfare, and therefore are guilty of your own blood (Luke 7:30). The publicans and sinners justified God, and were baptized; but the scribes and Pharisees rejected the counsel of God against themselves, that is, against their own good and happiness. Indeed, so the apostle to the gainsaying Corinthians, when he had disputed long, and manifested the truth in the clear evidence of it (Acts 18:14), and they gainsayed still, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment in sign of distaste and indignation, and said, your blood be upon your own heads, I am clean, he was innocent. And so one day you will be forced to confess, and to clear the innocency and faithfulness of God's servants, I was the cause of my confusion, my own wayward gainsaying spirit, else I might have been recovered; they did their duty with much painfulness, but my perverse spirit would not receive that counsel, which would have directed and comforted me, but now condemns me. So Paul to the contradicting Jews (Acts 13:46): Because you put away the word, and judge yourself unworthy of eternal life: you will then be forced to yield it, I am unworthy that ever the promises of the gospel should establish my heart who would not be convinced of the goodness of them, unworthy that ever the gospel should be the savor of life to me, who have cast it behind my back as unsavory salt.

He sins against the ordinances, the faithfulness, truth, and free grace of God therein revealed and dispensed for his everlasting good; he casts all these behind his back, and out of a slight neglect will not give the least entertainment to it. This quarrelling disposition, like a queasy stomach, spoils the physic when he cannot endure to take it, flings away the dainties provided when he is not willing, nor has not a heart or appetite to feed on them; and how heinous this contempt is, the apostle intimates (Hebrews 2:3): How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?

It sins against God's Spirit in a more than ordinary manner; he would seem in his gainsaying frame to try masteries with the Lord, and in the highest strain of rebellion, to contest with the Almighty Spirit of Christ in the utmost defiance, as refusing to yield in the least appearance. I call it the highest strain of [reconstructed: rebellion] to try masteries with the Almighty, and that may be thus observed.

When our Savior was to leave the world, and to go to Heaven to possess the glory he had with the Father before all worlds, he comforts the hearts of his Disciples touching his departure with the consideration of the incomparable benefit that would accrue therefrom (John 16:7): It is expedient for you that I go away, so if I go not away, the Comforter will not come, but if I depart I will send him — that is, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus would not dispense the powerful work of his Grace in such an abundant measure, unless he ascended to the Throne of his Grace; for the largeness of the dispensation thereof, and that in reason until that time, the Spirit was not yet given, because Christ was not yet glorified (John 7:39). When he ascended up on high he then gave gifts to men even for the rebellious (Ephesians 4:8). And herein appears the powerful dispensation of his Grace, and operation of his Spirit: then when the Comforter is come, he shall convince the world of sin, he shall set down the consciences of the sons of men in the sight of their vileness and guilt. This is as it were [reconstructed: the] Master-piece of the work of the Spirit, when he is sent from Heaven, from the Father and the Son with full commission and power, from our Savior, advanced to the highest pitch of supremest excellency of his Kingly, Prophetical, and Priestly Offices, and that for this end in the first place as the prime and hardest work to convince the world of sin. Now to gainsay and contradict this Spirit in this work, for which he has received this commission, is to contest for mastery with the Almighty (Hebrews 12:25): If they escaped not who refused Moses who spoke on earth, how shall we escape if we refuse him that speaks from Heaven? And this is the highest strain of rebellion, when a [reconstructed: man] will not give way nor yield in the least but [reconstructed: shut] out this authority of the Spirit from having any entertainment, even in the suburbs [reconstructed: of] our apprehensions and understandings, while we continue in this gainsaying frame; there wants nothing but light and malice to make it [reconstructed: the] sin against the Holy Ghost. Here is the heinousness of the sin.

See the curse of it that is dreadful.

You make way for Satan in the means which are appointed by God to oppose him (John 13:27). The Devil entered into Judas with a sop, so he enters with an admonition and counsel while you oppose that truth which should help you against his power and subtlety, but yield yourself fully to be possessed by both. You will not be guided by the counsel of God, therefore you shall be cozened by the delusions of the Devil.

Christ in his righteous dealings and according to your just deservings delivers you up to the power of Satan, when you were willing to yield up yourself to his possession, as Paul says in (1 Timothy 3:20), delivering Hymenaeus and Philetus to Satan, and in church discipline obstinacy in the least evil is answerable to the greatest offense, because by that means the soul shakes off the authority of the Lord Jesus, and so is to be cast out.

Because you have gainsaid his dispensations, he will have no more dealing with you (Matthew 23, last verse): you shall see me no more. He will pass by and not speak with you. He will instruct [reconstructed: others], admonish others, but he will [reconstructed: warn] you no more, reprove you no more. He will not change a word with you in the [reconstructed: way]. 'My [reconstructed: Spirit] shall not always [reconstructed: strive]' (Genesis 6:3). That Spirit which you have resisted and opposed shall stir in you and strive with you no more. You would not see, you shall not see therefore; you would not have your conscience stirred, it shall be seared therefore.

You are every day ripening for [reconstructed: destruction], and reserved in the chains of darkness till the judgment of the great [reconstructed: day], and therefore your condition is like that of the Devil himself — you have only the liberty of your chain, that is, liberty to increase your sins and your plagues. When the Lord would prepare a people for destruction he [reconstructed: says] (Isaiah 6:10): he seals them up under the curse of a [reconstructed: reprobate] mind and a hard heart. Hear indeed but understand not, and see indeed but perceive not; make the heart of this people fat, and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and convert and be healed.

Instruction: why men of the greatest ability for depth of brain and strength of understanding are most hardly brought to brokenness of heart and to be wounded with godly sorrow for their sins; the ground is from the point in hand, because they are hardest brought to see their sins; the power of carnal reason does so mightily prevail in them being now in their natural condition, the strength of their abilities becomes wholly perverted to their own hurt, and the maintaining of their own distempers, their subtlety deceives themselves and they abuse the sharpness of their wit to beat back the authority of the [illegible] and to wind away from the evidence of argument that is [illegible] to their view. They shut out the light of the truth from coming into their hearts, and therefore it is not [illegible] it should work upon them [illegible] or effectually prevail with them for God. Hence that peremptory [illegible] of the Apostle: not many wise men after the flesh (1 Corinthians 1:26), because the wisdom of the [illegible] is enmity against God (Romans 8:7). [illegible] it is as a weapon in the hand and under the command of our fleshly hearts; it fortifies most strongly against the evidence and efficacy of the truth, will not suffer a conviction to fasten upon the conscience, and therefore no godly sorrow to affect the soul of a sinner. As it is in war when the trenches and outworks are slight, and the wall of the city is low, and the castle is weak, it is no matter of danger or [illegible] for a wise commander with competent forces to surprise it, to carry the place, and conquer the people — their defense was but feeble; but were their outworks strong, their walls high, the citadel and castle impregnable, it will abide many assaults and stand out long, even against the [illegible] power that shall [illegible] them, and will perhaps be forced to raise the [illegible] and [illegible] place as not able to prevail. It is so in our spiritual condition, when the Lord comes to lay siege to the soul of a sinful creature who is now under the power of darkness, and the sovereign command of his corruptions which rule as supreme lords over him: there is no conversion without conviction (as has been shown in [illegible] the point). It is not possible the heart should be content to leave sin unless the understanding clearly sees the loathsomeness of it; the outworks and walls of the soul are our apprehensions and understanding, and where there is wiliness, depth, and subtlety of [illegible], large reaches of carnal reason — these the Apostle calls strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4) — and they will abide the battery and force of the most plain evidences and strongest arguments that can be devised and alleged with the best skill, and yet hold out against all. Where the opposition is not so strong the entrance is more easy, and subjection is sooner yielded to the evidence of the truth. This is the ground the prophet gives of that invincible stiffness, pride, and contempt of Babylon, as being unteachable under all dispensations: Your wisdom and your knowledge they have perverted you, or caused you to rebel (Isaiah 47:10). It was the reason of that stubbornness of which the Lord complains in the scribes and [illegible] the great rabbis of the world (Luke 7:30-31): the publicans and sinners [illegible] God because of John the Baptist's doctrine, and so yielded themselves and were overcome by the evidence of the truth; but the scribes and Pharisees rejected the counsel of God — they put it by and would not suffer the counsel of God to take place or to prevail with them. Paul never found worse entertainment and greater opposition than at Corinth and Athens, the [illegible] of sciences and storehouse of learning and learned men, the excellency of whose parts and the conceit of [illegible] and wisdom did so transport them, and puff up their earthly minds, that they slighted the simplicity that was in Christ and trampled upon the meanness of the gospel (Acts 17:18). Philosophers of the Epicurean and Stoic schools encountered Paul and said, "What will this babbler say?" and at verse [illegible] some mocked — as though the [illegible] of the meaner sort, though they had no heart to receive the gospel, yet they had no skill to resist, or were able, and [illegible] dared not grapple with his arguments. These only who had more learning gave the encounter, and openly contemned both his purpose and doctrine. As it is with men who are but weak and unskillful at the weapon, not able to [illegible] a blow or put by a thrust — it is no hard matter to get within them — but those who are [illegible] of defense are dexterous and handy at their weapons, and there is little hope to hit them or to come within them. So here, men of meaner capacities and of shallow reach yield more easily and are forced to let fall their weapons; but such who are skillful are masters of defense, can devise devices, the subtlety of their own reason is [illegible] by [illegible] suggestions, they will catch almost any blow and put by the plainest truth for the present push, so that there is no hope to come in to them. And this also is the ground why your painted formalists and subtle hypocrites who are grown cunning in the craft of profession (for so they make it) are so hardly brought on to believe — publicans and sinners and harlots shall go before them. And for this cause it is our Lord so marvelously distastes this condition (Revelation 3:17): I would you were either cold or hot. Lukewarmness is worse than profaneness, not that false shows are worse than grosser evils when heart and life, outside and inside are both ill, but in truth because such are more difficult to be convinced of their evils, and therefore not likely to be amended or brought out of them — as if he said: if you were openly naught, you might be brought to see and acknowledge your naughtiness. Here Paul issues the strength of that resistance against the Lord and his gospel (Colossians 1:21): enemies in your minds by wicked works; but in the original, enemies by reason of your discourses, set or intent on evil works. It is the first step to wisdom to become a fool, and that is hard to him that is highly in love with his own wit.

Examination: we may hence gain certain evidence whether ever the Lord [illegible] made any entrance upon this great work of preparation and so any expression of his purpose [illegible] to call us to himself to this day or not. Perhaps the Lord Christ has been knocking often at your door as he passes by in the dispensation of his ordinances in the ways of his providence in which he has walked toward you, has called in upon your conscience, presented the guilt of your sins and laid heavy things to your charge, and knocked hard at your door, awake you that sleep, so that you have heard a confused noise as it were that made you a little to look about, but has the Lord ever lifted up the latch as though he were resolved to come in? Has he laid hold upon and begun to grapple with that graceless heart of yours and held this [illegible] of discovery of sin to your mind as to constrain you to look intently upon it indeed to see it clearly and convictingly according to that which has formerly been spoken? Know and conclude you may, you are in the right way, and the Lord begins to deal with you as he does with those that he intends good to. But are you a stranger to these dispensations of the Lord and dealings with your mind and heart? You may indeed have notice and hear a rumor of Christ passing by and the excellency of his grace, but of any purpose of making his abode with you, you never could have the least [illegible] thereof to this day.

How then shall we know whether we fall short of this true sight of sin or not?

We will take both particulars mentioned into consideration, that so we may take a true measure of our own estate, and track the footsteps and impressions of the work of the Spirit upon our souls. I will touch the first in a word, and treat more largely upon the second, to wit, touching the convicting sight of sin, because there lies the life and stress of this doctrine.

If then we see sin clearly, naked, and in its own nature, namely, this resistance and opposition against God as the greatest evil of all other: it will thus be discerned, this sight will keep the heart in cold blood from careless adventuring upon the commission of sin. You must still remember my purpose is not to dispute of sanctifying knowledge, or to give in evidence of that, for we are in this place to look at that light that is let in in this preparative work, and this first branch of it, which how far it may go, or whether it can agree to a hypocrite, I will not now dispute, that only I will infer from it, is beyond exception; that in cold blood, that is, take such a man out of the hurry of a temptation, when he is himself not drunk with some overbearing distemper, for then he knows not where he is, or what he does, and therefore may adventure to do anything, but when a sinner is come to himself, and the sight of his sin as before disputed, it will suffer him carelessly to adventure upon the commission of that which appears such in his own apprehension, even the greatest evil of all. The dreadfulness then of this duty apprehended, will drive the soul to a stand, and stop the sinner in his proceeding, that he dare as well eat his flesh, and take a lion by the claw, and a bear by the tooth, as to have his hand in that which is the heaviest plague of all in his own judgment. There is no man living, but as he has something which he prizes as the chief good, in which his soul takes content, so the loss of that, or that which is contrary to that, he looks at as the most unsupportable evil that can befall him. That the soldier should take the lie or challenge, and have the contempt of cowardice put upon him, and sit still, and not seek to revenge the wrong as he conceives it, he cannot bear it. That the [illegible] young man should sell his possessions, and part with all to the poor, it is such an insufferable loss, he will rather part with Heaven, the very hearing of it makes his heart heavy, and himself to go away sorrowful (Matthew 19:22). Yes, that which nature has made dear to all, to see death before a man, and danger such as will undoubtedly hazard the loss of life; how do we fear the thought of it, fly the sight, avoid the occasion of it? Did you see your sins and the hellish resistance of your heart against God to be a greater evil than all these? Did you really judge them such, believe them (as the men of Nineveh did Jonah's threatening (Jonah 3:5)) to be such? It is certain it would amaze your heart, that you would be as loath to rush into evil, as you would be to run upon a spear's point, or cast yourself into the mouth of the lion to be torn in pieces. Take a rebellious sinner beset with the horror of his conscience, so that he sees Hell gaping for him, and the devils ready to seize upon that hellish heart of his, how he loathes then the least appearance of those corruptions, the evil of which he sees in the punishment only? How tender is he to avoid the occasion of them? When the evil of your punishment is now over and out of mind, did you but know that resistance and rebellion of your heart against God, his grace, his Spirit, his truth aright, as greater than all those evils, and is now present with you, you would be so far fearful not heedlessly to adventure upon the practice of it. When Judas saw where his covetousness had brought him, he flung away his thirty pieces (Matthew 27:3). And it is certain, all the scribes and Pharisees in the synagogue, and all the money in the country of Judea, could not have prevailed with him had they been then tendered to him; much more had he seen the [illegible] had been a greater evil than the vengeance that did [illegible] (Acts 19:16, 19). When the evil spirits prevailed against the seven sons of Sceva, fear fell on them [illegible], and many of them had used curious arts, brought their books together, and burnt them before them all. When the hearts of these converts were pricked, and they craved counsel what they should do, Peter amidst many other counsels which he suggested, adds this, verse 40, Save yourselves from this crooked generation; you that are in Parthia, Mesopotamia, Phrygia, Galatia, you [illegible] among many professed enemies to the Lord Christ and his truth, therefore save yourselves from their society, and verse 44, they came and abode together, and sold their goods and parted them as every one had need.

[illegible] to this you disobedient children and rebellious servants, who have the commands of parents and masters, counsels of servants and neighbors daily suggested and pressed upon you; listen to this you heedless professors, who have the Word and precepts of God daily published in your ears, and proclaimed in your hearing, and you go away informed, convinced, and the heart cannot gainsay but it ought to stoop, your conduct should not be wayward, your words sharpish, your behaviors uncomely: and yet you dare, you do [illegible], carelessly adventure at the next time and [illegible] upon the same sins; you may talk what others say by [illegible], [illegible] profess in words that sin is the greatest evil of all, but in truth you never saw sin to this day, much [reconstructed: less] saw it to be the greatest evil of all. A little evil, were it but the [illegible] of so much of your blood by stripes, or the loss of so much money, were you punished in your purse for such recklessness, they would cause you to set your mind, and heart, and hand to your work, the loss of your life, and soul, and Heaven, and God, and all would prevail more with you; but in truth you never yet knew what the loss of these meant, and therefore not what your sin is that brings the loss of all.

Thus much for the sight of sin [illegible]; come we now to inquire of the second, and here let us make privy search as to who they are that see sin convictingly, by the evidence of the former doctrine, and that will be an indictment against four sorts of persons, whose practices give in undeniable proof, that they fall short of this dispensation of God aright, they never found this work upon their minds.

The first are such, who are unwilling to come within the rule and discovery of the truth, that will lay open a man's loathsome corruptions, which are yet beloved, and lodge too near the heart. If he might have his will, he would not meet with that truth that would meet with his courses, whereby he gives his sensual spirit exceeding great content; unwilling to hear that to be an evil, which he is unwilling to reform; loath that such and such either dispositions or conduct should be condemned as wicked, which he is loath to part with; he loves not to have this or that to be a rule, or a duty, and yet he fears it will prove so, and therefore desires not to hear of it, lest he should be forced to practice it; and therefore he is most at ease when he is least within the sight, and call, and command of such truths which he knows do so narrowly and deeply concern him: and therefore he deals in this case with the dispensations of the Word, as men use to do that are in debt and danger of law and creditors; they fly the country when they know the undersheriff has any writ out against them, or else betake themselves to some privilege places, where they may be freed from the arrest of the officer. So these labor to be there where the truth in reason is not likely to exercise any jurisdiction, they willingly desire to be without the reach of it, and therefore willing to live in such places under such ministries where their consciences may not be troubled, their hearts and ways searched, and they brought to yield subjection by an overpowering hand. And here sometimes it comes to this, and that by the confession of their own mouths, when God has broken in upon their hearts, that they have been afraid to be in the company of such men that they suspected would either convince and call to such practices, or yet to come to the congregations while such truths were in scanning and consideration: or as a formal knight once professed (in the country from where we came) he would not come to the assembly until the minister had made an end of such a text. Thus [illegible] spirit was carried towards Micaiah, when all his trencher chaplains, the false prophets, had dressed a dish on purpose to fit his tooth and turn, had brought in a verdict that they knew would please his humor, and content his carnal desire; Jehoshaphat in simplicity of heart, that he might indeed in sincerity seek after the mind and counsel of God, inquires, Is there here any prophet of the Lord that we might inquire of him? He answered, There is none but one Micaiah, and I hate him, for he never prophesies good, but evil to me (1 Kings 22:8). He did not suit his humor, nor please his palate, therefore he was not willing to hear that from him, that perhaps he should be unwilling to do. So they in Isaiah's time, they would give the prophet his text, and tell him what points he should handle also; they said to the seers, see not; and to the prophets, [illegible] not right things; prophesy smooth things (Isaiah 30:10). And so dealt those [illegible]-hearted [illegible] with our Savior, when he pressed spiritual and searching truths upon them, they were not able to digest them; this is a hard saying, who can hear it, and from that time says the text many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him (John 6:66). And hence it is persons of this temper are most pleased when their sins or duties are discovered in some general discourses, because they then suppose they may creep away in the crowd, and their particular either conditions or corruptions will not be attached, and they and them brought to the trial; but when it comes to meet with him in the narrow, and touch him in his particular, these persons begin to storm (Acts 7:51-52). They heard Stephen quietly rip up the rebellious conduct of the Jews; but when he came home to their doors, and held the candle to their eyes, and gave in special evidence to convince them also, they were not able to endure it: Yet stiff-necked and hard-hearted as your fathers, so do you; they were slayers of the prophets, and you the betrayers and murderers of the just one; when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and gnashed upon him with their teeth, etc.

If yet the Truth will come in upon them, and the light will shine in their faces that it cannot be avoided, if they cannot prevent the seeing of it, then they fall to gainsaying, they strive mightily to stop the passage of the Truth, and to darken the evidence of it, to take off the edge and force of that which they conceive will fall most heavily upon them, and constrain them to alter their course, and lay down those distempers they are very loath to leave (Acts 18:6). They opposed themselves. They deal with the Truth as subtle lawyers do with a good cause, when the strength of it is such that they are not able to withstand, they labor to hide the point of the argument, and to hide that wherein the stress of the cause lies, and fall hotly upon some side business, or else deal most in those things which are most probable, but indeed do not touch the point. So a spirit that is not willing to be convinced, he will endeavor to decline the strength of an argument, and look least to that where the stress and the weight of the rule or duty lies that most concerns him, or his course, when he sees the stream and force of reason coming in upon him, he will hinder or interrupt the delivery of it, and turn it another way, or raise some blinds, and cast in some cavils, like the putting out of the light, or if not hinder the observation, yet take off the attendance and consideration of it, he will get off from that as soon as may be, he will not stay there where the strength of the conviction lies, but foist in many objections, start other considerations, that so he may lose the argument, and himself lose the power of the Truth that might prevail with him. Thus Elimas the Sorcerer (Acts 13:10), when Paul and Barnabas had preached, and he labored to turn away the deputy from the faith — Paul thus speaks to him, O full of all subtlety (he had a sleight of hand to any wickedness) why do you crook the straight ways of the Lord. He cast in many cavils, put in many suspicions and pretences that he might not look at the simplicity of the Truth delivered. The word there used in the original implies a sleight of hand as we call it, when such wily spirits can turn themselves into all shapes, to [reconstructed: slip past] the evidence of the Truth; so many windings and turnings, so many twistings of devices, so many outs and doubtings, that may becloud the manifest discovery of a duty which ought to be done, or a sin that ought to be avoided, and so in conclusion loses the Truth, and the benefit of it also, through God's just judgment, and their own just deservings. So the Scribes dealt touching our Savior when he had cured the eyes of the blind man (John 9), they would have taken him off from the attendance to the work to have slighted the person of our Savior — We know (say they) this man is a sinner, etc. As it is said of a fish called the Sepia, when the fisherman comes to follow her, she casts forth a kind of black humor with which she [reconstructed: darkens] the water, and puts him to a loss in his proceedings. Whereas an honest heart that is willing to be convinced, he looks most at that where there is most light, and most strength, and is desirous to attend that which gives in greatest evidence to overcome the heart. So Eli spoke to Samuel (1 Samuel 3:17), hide nothing from me. Job (Job 6:24), teach me and I will hold my tongue — he will quietly hear all, and attend that most, which may carry the cause to his conscience.

If yet the evidence of the truth be such that he cannot gainsay, his mouth is stopped and his reasons are spent, he has nothing to oppose — there is a third distemper which is as bad if not worse than the two former: a restlessness of spirit to raise new quarrels and disputes against the determination of the truth, which formerly he could not resist. When he is caught and held in the strength of argument, is taken captive and prisoner, he would fain rescue himself with a restless jangling; he sees more, and can say more though no man else can see it, nor he make good what he pretends. He cannot answer yet will not yield, cannot maintain his [reconstructed: positions] yet will not forsake them. As lawyers they'll bring the cause about again, and have a fresh hearing in this and that court; the reasons are the same, and were answered before, yet he brings them over again and just in the place where he was, his arguments are at an end. If his spirit were so, but there is more in it (he says) and he cannot see through it, and yet cannot tell how to prove his own argument or answer another's. These spirits are like quicksilver which yet no man has attained any skill to fix. So the rulers, elders, and Scribes, when they knew not how to dash the glory of the Gospel and the powerful dispensation thereof — mark how restlessly the venom of their spirits transported them against reason (Acts 4:15-17): they communed among themselves saying, what shall we do to these men, for that indeed a notable [reconstructed: miracle] has been done by them is manifest to all men, and we cannot deny it, but let us strictly charge them that they speak no more in this name. When in reason they should have inferred: we cannot deny the miracle and so not the truth, let us not deny the liberty to speak. So they in (John 9:24), when it was apparent Christ had cured the man, wrought the miracle, and so gained honor in the heart of the man — therefore they had fished up and down to weaken that, and it would not do. It appeared he was blind (to his parents), that Christ had cured him, so himself affirmed. Then they come to this — give God the praise, we know this man is a sinner. But what is that to the purpose, or how do they know that? He answered, whether he be a sinner or no I know not — one thing I know, whereas I was blind he has opened my eyes; and this was to the purpose. Then said they, what did he do to you? how did he open your eyes? I have told you already, etc. — they are upon the same hinges, not stirred a hair's breadth. Here are no reasons but only wrestlings of stomach — we are Moses' disciples, but this fellow we know not where he is from.

If it be so that all these devices against the truth serve not his turn, in the fourth place he sets himself against the truth — he cares not for argument, but he will stand against the truth, and then God in his just judgment leaves him (2 Thessalonians 2:18): he gave them up to strong delusions that they might believe lies, that they might be damned, because they received not, but opposed the truth. Thus it was with Balaam (Numbers 24:1) — he went out not as formerly, but resolved to curse Israel whether God would or no, and this is to hold down the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). I told you before that in conviction, when the heart is thoroughly convicted, it lies still under the work of God, but here the heart opposes the word of God. (Exodus 10:28) says Pharaoh to Moses, "Get out of my sight — the day you see my face you shall die." Moses says, "I will see your face no more," but God sends to him and kills his firstborn and afterwards drowns himself. It is certain that if the truth follows a man home to his beloved sin, if he be a dog he will snarl against it, and resolve to keep his sin. As the proud men there said (Jeremiah 44:16-17), "As for the word of the Lord you have spoken to us, we will not hearken to you;" and if a man goes thus far he is very near to the sin against the Holy Ghost, and if ever God bring him home to himself it is by some strange judgments.

Exhortation to provoke the desires and quicken the endeavors of all that have heard or read the doctrine delivered and opened to lay out their labor and that to the utmost of all their abilities never to give the Lord rest, nor rest to their own souls, before they get this true sight of sin, if ever they hope to see the work of God's grace in their hearts here in this world, or to see the face of God in glory, in that other world that is to come. Brethren, let not Satan deceive you, nor suffer yourselves so far to be deluded as to dream of another course or to devise a shorter cut to grace and glory, for it is certain if you do, you will fall short of your hopes and comforts and all. This is the way that God has appointed and he will bless, the order which he has set in his infinite wisdom and which he will prosper. If you would find his blessing walk in his way, if you expect success attend his order and direction which he has left to bring us to his Christ, and so to life and happiness. If you see not your sins you are in hazard never to see good day while you live nor when you die. Christ is said to stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open to him, he will come in and sup with him (Revelation 3:20). Saving contrition is a shooting back the bolts of our base lusts, a severing and unlocking the heart from the sovereignty of one's noisome corruptions, that stop the passage and hinder the coming of our Savior; this clear and convicting sight of our sins, is as it were the lifting up of the latch, or letting in of the key, the powerful dispensation of the truth and operation of his spirit whereby the knot and combination between sin and the soul is broken and severed, and the way made that the authority of the truth may come at the heart and work kindly upon it for good. An error here in the entrance is hardly ever recovered — to miss here is marvelously dangerous, it spoils our whole proceeding in the great work of our calling and everlasting comfort as the naturalist and physician observe an error in the first concoction is never recovered in the second, for the Lord in his wisdom and the course of nature has so ordained, that each part does that which is its proper and peculiar work but does not rectify or redress that which was done amiss by another, and so the goodness of the nourishment is never recovered or the body strengthened or health so comfortably preserved hereby as were to be desired. So it is in the entrance of [reconstructed: this] great work of preparation for Christ and our effectual bringing home to him, never see sin aright, the soul cannot be affected with it in a right manner, never truly see the need of a Savior, never seek after him or come to him; this thorough sight of sin is as it were the setting open of the window whereby the light and good of the truth, and the loathsomeness [reconstructed: of sin] is laid open to the soul, and comes in a main upon the conscience to prevail with it — whereas shut this window and stop this passage, the soul is cooped up in the dungeon of darkness and delusion, be the ordinances never so powerful the means never so effectual there [reconstructed: is] no coming into the heart, no hope to work upon it or to prevail with it for good; the evil of sin is not acknowledged, and therefore not prevented, that which his reason cannot see, a man cannot shun, the excellency and necessity of a Christ is not discerned and therefore not endeavored after as were meet. It befalls the soul, smote with this spiritual blindness as with the Assyrian host when they came to surprise Elisha (2 Kings 18:19-20). He prayed, Lord smite this people with blindness, and he did so and they saw nothing before they were in the midst of their enemies — so here, when the sinner is misguided by the dimness of his deluded mind he goes on in an evil way, and knows not where he goes, or where he is, before he be in the bottomless pit. Oh be wise and wary therefore that we err not here, lest we rush into ruin and that past all recovery. Expect then God's blessing upon our endeavor but in God's order, and attend his work in his own way. It is the aim of our Savior in sending and the office of the Holy Ghost in coming into the world when he intends to work effectually the saving good of his people, to entitle them to the pardon of their sins, and to establish their hearts under the government of his spirit (John 16:7-8). If I depart I will send the Comforter, and when he is come he will reprove, he will convince, and set down the world by [reconstructed: the] conviction of sin of righteousness, of judgment, of righteousness, that the law is satisfied, justice answered, and that fully, because he that was in prison is now released, and therefore the debt paid, and he gone to heaven, to his Father. Of judgment the power of his kingdom and government erected and set up in the souls of his servants and children, in that by death he overcame him that had the power of death that is the Devil, and therefore he is judged and falls in his cause as having no right nor in reason can challenge no rule in the hearts of those, for whom Christ has satisfied divine justice, and therefore are free from that authority that sin and Satan had of them thereby. But before we can share either in the righteousness of Christ for our justification or the rule of his spirit in our sanctification, the Holy Ghost must and does convince us of sin, that we have rejected and not entertained this Savior. If we do not convincingly see our sin in settling upon the root of our corrupt rebellions and casting away the riches of Christ's mercy and the rule of his grace, it is not possible that those spiritual benefits should ever be made ours. As ever therefore you desire to see and find the mercies of Christ sealed up to your consciences, in pardoning of sins and acceptation of your persons; as ever you would find the kingdom of Satan cast down in your hearts, and the government of his grace and spirit there set up; labor for this clear and convicting sight of sin, begin you where the Holy Spirit begins that you may find his presence with you, and his effectual power and blessing to accompany your endeavors in that way. Catch not disorderly at pardon, look not for peace of conscience or hope to see the government of Christ's grace set up in your souls before you come to [reconstructed: see] your sins by convicting evidence of the Holy Ghost. The holy spirit of grace will not cross his course to gratify our corruption. That I may further set on the exhortation, I shall endeavor to do these two things.

- First, To propound some means to help in [illegible] work. - Secondly, Some motives to quicken you therein.

The means are these that follow.

First, let us labor to see that inconceivable excellency of holiness that is in the Lord, and search we into the [illegible] and the righteous laws there recorded for the direction of our daily course, and that will make us see the loathsomeness of our own hearts and the vileness of [illegible]. As it is said of darkness, it cannot be seen by itself, but it is light that discovers itself and darkness; it is as true of sin, it is not by itself to be discerned, for it is spiritual darkness. The light of God's holiness and wisdom, which by sin are wronged, and the law which is transgressed — these are both lights: God is light and in him is no darkness (John 1:5). The law is a light and the commandment a lamp to our feet (Proverbs 6:23). And by the sight of both these we come to have a full discerning of sin which is opposite to them both.

Our ignorance of God breeds the ignorance of our own hearts, and the hidden ways of wickedness, and the cunning conveyances of corrupt distempers which are there in (Psalm 14:1-2). The fool has said in his heart there is no God, and then it follows they are become abominable — he makes no bones of any sins at all. For herein lies the spiritual evil of sins and that hidden poison and malignity of the corruption of our natures, that they jostle professedly against the Almighty so far as he is pleased to communicate himself to us in the ways of his holiness and goodness. Thus the blasphemer is said to pierce God by his oaths (Leviticus 24:11), and the wicked are said to walk contrary to him (Leviticus 26), to [illegible] him, to weary him, to load him. While then we see not him whom we do oppose by our sins, no wonder that we neither see nor are sensible of the sins by which we do oppose him. Whereas could we grope after the Almighty as the Apostle professes we may, because he is not far from any of us — indeed in him we live and move in every spiritual action of our minds and hearts. So that did but a wicked man, or could he perceive that in every thought of his mind, motion of his will, stirring of any affection, that he did jostle with the infinite holiness and purity of the Lord, who meets with him in every action and motion of his mind and will — it were able to sink the soul of a sinful creature, and make him sit down confounded in the sight of the loathsomeness of his own [illegible] nature, as being wholly opposite to so infinite a good in all he is or does. Thus it was with Job when the Lord had schooled him out of the whirlwind and discovered the surpassing excellency of his glory to him — he puts him beyond all pleas of his own worth (Job 40:4): Behold, I am vile. Indeed, more expressly he gives this as the reason of the discovery of his own wretchedness: I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes (Job 42:4). So it was with the Corinthian who was convinced by the preaching of the Word — he saw God before he saw the secret vileness of his own heart presented to his view (1 Corinthians 14:24): God is in you of a truth. Search we into the holy law of God, and examine our hearts and lives thereby, and see how far they stand guilty of the breach thereof. But view the compass of the law, and what is virtually contained therein; for though the words are few, yet the things are many that are comprehended in them. And especially look not at the letter, but at the spiritual sense and mind of the Almighty in each thing there required — that the whole heart must close with God and his will, as the chief good; look at and lift up his glory as his last end in every duty we do. And that we make a breach in all those particulars in every sin we do commit: our heart is not with him, nor do we make choice of him, set not up his name, but seek our own base ends thereby, and serve ourselves, and not him.

By this narrow search, and daily observation of our daily course, we shall be able to see the frame of our hearts and conduct presented to our view, and so discern to the full, the loathsomeness of those noisome [illegible] that, leprosy-like, overspreads our whole man. Thus James advises (James 1:25) that we should look ourselves into the law of liberty — that is a crystal and clear glass, and will discover what is amiss even to a mote, the smallest sins and [illegible], and that to their full view. Paul, a learned Pharisee, saw more of sin, and more of himself by the law, than either [illegible] conceived, or suspected to [illegible] to him (Romans 7:7, 9): I had not known that lust had been sin, but that the law says, You shall not [illegible]. Nor did he think himself bad, or his condition so miserable, but when the law came — that is, the light and discovery of the law — he perceived his sin alive, but himself dead.

When the Lord in any Ordinance by the Truth, shall discover our sins, our Conscience shall come in as a witness to [reconstructed: testify], or as a Sergeant and Officer by Commission from the Almighty to arrest and condemn us for any evil, we should attend both; to see God's mind to the utmost therein, and then it's certain we shall see. We must beware that neither out of carnal fear, nor sensual security of our sinful hearts, we be willing to lay aside the evidence of the truth as content not to hearken to the verdict of it, [reconstructed: or] desirous not to listen to the dictate of Conscience, but to shake off the consideration of either, lest we should sink down in discouragement. It's certain, Truth is terrible, and the dictates of Conscience are dreadful when they come with Commission from the Almighty; yet true it is, walking humbly under God's hand, we should be so far from fearing the discovery of our sins, that we should be comforted in this, that they are discovered to us: and we should compose our hearts in quietness with the right consideration of the manner of God's dealing in this kind, and commune with ourselves on this manner: It's a fearful thing indeed to fall into the hands of the Almighty, who is a consuming fire, but yet herein the faithfulness of the Lord is seen, he deals so with me as he does with those that he intends good to; he makes his own see their sins, and that [reconstructed: plainly], before they ever see his pardon of them, or power against them: if he never convinces, he never [reconstructed: pardons]. He sent his holy Spirit into the World for this purpose, to perform the work; this is the way to Grace and Christ, I bless his Name I am in the way. I will hearken to the evidence of the Truth that I may understand all that God intends, and listen to the checks of Conscience that I may know to the full the nature of my sin; when we have a little inkling either by an Ordinance, or Conscience, take hold of the least intimation, and leave it not until you come to the bottom, and perceive the utmost vileness in such a course. It was so with David who took hold of the reproof of the Prophet Nathan; and though he mentioned but one thing wherein the grossness and greatness of the evil appeared, yet hence he took occasion to overlook his whole course, to consider every circumstance, and to ravel out all until he came to the bottom, he confesses all the falseness of his heart which he used in the contrivance of that evil, and leaves not there until he comes to the root of all, the wretchedness of his nature, that original corruption in which he was born and bred (Psalm 51:5-6). Behold Lord, I was warmed in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me, but you love Truth in the inward parts: but I would have colored over my vile carriage, and by false pretences I would have hidden the filthiness of my sins, by sending for Uriah, and sending him to his own house to have lain with his wife, that so he might have fathered the sin without suspicion. This was the guise and disposition of Eli (1 Samuel 3:17), he enjoins Samuel not to [reconstructed: hide] anything from him of all the things that the Lord had spoken; he would hear all, and know the worst of all: So it ought to be with every man, that in earnest, desires to know the evil of his sin. If the Word discover, Conscience accuse for any sin, take the first notice and inkling, cease not to make full inquiry, and see what will become of it, search to the very bottom.

Labor to take all those cursed Cavils, the wily shifts and devices which carnal Reason casts in, to break the blow as it were, and to defeat, and put by the Authority of the Truth: So that the edge and powerful operation of an Ordinance is wholly blunted and hindered, that it prevails not with the heart, nor can the judgment [reconstructed: settle] set down by evidence of Argument and Reason, which comes to be darkened by such Cavils and devices. Here is then the great skill, and ought to be the chief care of a Christian; not to consult with flesh and blood; at least to clear the coast of all such carnal reasonings, that the evidence of the Truth may be entertained without gainsaying, and attain its proper powerful effect upon the mind and heart.

These Cavils and Shifts are commonly referred to three heads.

- 1 To lighten the evil of sin, that it is not so heinous and dangerous a matter as ministers seem to make it. - 2 If it were so dangerous, yet the danger may easily be prevented. - 3 If it cannot be prevented, yet it may be suffered without any such extreme hazard, as many fear, and others would bear the world in hand.

To remove these out of the way, that so the work of Conviction may go on with more success, we shall shortly speak to all of them in the order propounded.

It's incident to all men naturally to have a slight apprehension of their sin; partly they do not know it, partly they are loath to be troubled and disquieted with it; and therefore out of their own ignorance and security they would easily persuade themselves, it's not so heinous and dangerous, that so they may not fear so much to commit, nor care so much to reform them when once they are fallen, nor yet suffer themselves to be overborne with terror and discouragement, though they continue in them. This lessening of the heinousness and dangerousness of sin issues upon a fourfold ground for the most part.

The commonness of sin, makes men not start at the commission of it; that which so many do, and so ordinarily, and perhaps such who are for their parts and places of no mean esteem, they imagine and conclude they may safely do. We are sinners say they, and good now, are not all so? If it go ill with us, then God be merciful to many. We have our failings, we are not alone, we have many fellows, who lives without them? If we were so gross as such, you had just reason to condemn us, and we to condemn and loath ourselves, but being no other than the most are, I hope there is no great matter in it.

I answer in three things:

1 The more common your sin, the more [illegible] it is, and the heavier your curse will be from the Lord. The more they be that oppose the Lord and his truth, the more need of your help, and the greater had been your love to him and his cause now to stand by it, and the greater your falseness and unfaithfulness to forsake both, and to join sides with the wicked. See how unkindly he takes the suspicion and appearance to be carried away in a common defection, [illegible] (John 6:66). When many went back and walked no more with Jesus, if commonness might have given encouragement, the disciples had warrant enough to have carried them in the stream, yet see how ill the Lord takes the least inclination or suspicion that way: Will you also go away? See how heavily the anger of the Lord breaks out against such apostates (Judges 5:3): Curse you Meroz (said the Angel of the Lord), indeed, curse you Meroz bitterly, because they went not out to help the Lord against the mighty. When opposition grows fierce, and the numbers grow to be many, and the power mighty of such as become adversaries to the [illegible], [illegible] who then becomes careless of the Lord and his cause, the curse of God comes out against such in a peculiar manner, he aims at them by name: Curse you such who go not out to help the Lord against the mighty pride, the mighty stubbornness, the mighty [illegible] and unprofitableness, and base earthly-mindedness [illegible] gets footing, and grows common in the places, and among such with whom we [illegible].

2 As it shows your curse to be heavy, so your estate to be miserable, and your soul as yet destitute of any saving work of God's grace. You are in the road and broad way to destruction, and this is one evidence it's the common track: Broad is the gate, wide is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in there (Matthew 7:13). It's easy to find, and as easy, yet certain you shall perish in it. It's made a description of a child of wrath and such who are dead in sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2:2): Who walk according to the course of this world according to the prince of the air, who rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience. Do you walk in the common road according to the course of the world? You are in the kingdom of darkness, and are ruled by the prince of darkness and shall go to everlasting darkness. Dead fish swim down the stream. You are a dead man if you go with the stream of the world.

Therefore the Apostle James gives it as an evidence of true religion and a man truly religious (James 1:27): This is true religion to keep a man's self unspotted of this present evil world. If a man say he be religious and yet refrain not his tongue, the religion of that man is vain. If a man will lie and rail and shift up and down because others do so, truly the religion of that man is vain, and so his hopes and comforts will be.

The commonness of this sin does exceedingly aggravate it and make it out of measure sinful, even of a poisoning and spreading and infectious nature, it's not confined within a man's own compass and conscience, it's not a sin in a man's self but there be many sins in this one, it becomes the cause of sin to many others. Many are provoked and encouraged to the practice of the like evils by your practice. Examples are of a constraining nature; Peter dissembles and many are snatched [illegible] by his example to do as he did (Galatians 2). Many are strengthened and confirmed in their wickedness because they have your example to warrant them — they will certainly perish. But their blood will be required at your hand: you were the man that did lead them to an ungodly course and did harden them therein. And the name of God and his truth will be blasphemed among the heathen for your sake (Romans 2:24). How can they but conclude that religion allows such an ungodly course which men dare so commonly to commit, and to continue in without remorse or reformation.

The second shift whereby our carnal hearts would keep off the evidence of conviction is this: as the commonness seems to [illegible] our corruption, so the naturalness is made pretense to excuse it. Here the plea is ready whereby men would challenge pity [illegible] connivance as their debt: It is my disposition or constitution, I cannot mend it; it is my nature, I cannot alter it. All flesh is frail, God knows what we are made of, how feeble we be, and he does not expect perfection at our hands, no man counts his coat the worse because there [illegible] some motes in it, or casts away his gold because there is a flaw or mark in it: it's my natural infirmity, and has not each man his failings? Would you have us be saints?

Saints? Indeed, either saints or devils. The Lord would have you to be so. This is the will of God, even your sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3). The law would have you to be so (1 Peter 1:15): Be holy in all manner of conversation. Your profession would have you to be [illegible]: Let every one that calls upon the name of the Lord depart from iniquity (2 Timothy 2:19). And he that has this hope purges himself as he is pure (1 John 3:5). That generally, but to come a little nearer, and to show the vanity of this shift, I answer,

First, this excuse that would cover one sin, discovers another; and your plea does give in undeniable evidence that all the means of grace that ever you have enjoyed, and God has granted, has never wrought upon you, nor prevailed with you for good to this very day, nor have you received benefit or profit from it; but all the pains that has been taken with you is like water spilt upon the ground. For that's the manner of the Lord's proceeding with the soul of a sinner, when he intends savingly and effectually to work upon him, he changes his nature, gives him another heart, and as it was said of Saul in a like case (1 Samuel), he makes him another man. It's the prophecy of the power of the Gospel: the leopard becomes as a lamb, and the lion as a kid (Isaiah 11:6); the savage, harsh, and [illegible] distempers, which like a fretting leprosy, possessed the nature of sinners, are taken away when the Lord comes to take possession of them, or to prevail with them in the power of any ordinance. It's the first step in the profession of the Gospel: he that will be Christ's disciple must deny himself, he must be able to say as the blind man whom our Savior cured: I was blind, but now I see; I was dead, but now I am alive; I was of a proud, peevish, wayward, waspish, contentious, froward, quarrelsome disposition, could agree with nobody, nor with myself neither, but since the Lord has met with me, and wrought upon me by his Word and Spirit, I am not I; I have another mind, and another heart, and another carriage and conversation than formerly. He that is in Christ, and Christ in him, he is a new creature, and has a new nature, he strives most against that to which he is most addicted by his own disposition, he watches how to prevent that, he fears all the day long lest he should be surprised with it, fortifies most in the improvement of all means against that, confesses that with most sorrow and bitterness, seeks with most care and diligence to obtain help from Heaven to subdue that, and commonly gets the greatest ground against the same.

Have you then the same corrupt nature? Conclude you may and write upon it, you have never prayed aright, heard aright, you have never received a sacrament aright to this day, you have never profited by any means you have enjoyed, or duties you have performed to this day.

Your disease and distempers are desperate, and likely never to be cured, and you recovered out of them: when they come to be natural as it were, and yield to no remedy (Jeremiah 13:23): Can the Blackamoor change his skin, and the leopard his spots? No more can they learn to do well who are accustomed to do evil. There be some spots of filth which are cast upon our coats and flesh, there is a sooty blackness with which our garments and our skins are sometimes sullied with by something from without, which may be cleansed and washed away with little labor in a short time; but [illegible] which grow out of nature, as moles and growths in the body, there is little hope that ever they should be altered as long as nature itself continues. It is so with distempers: when some sudden occasions or temptations from without taints and pollutes the soul, there is hope in Israel that some spiritual means, like healing medicines seasonably applied, may help and recover. But when men out of a corrupt inclination are customarily carried in the continuance of some distemper, it [illegible] like another nature, he may lose his life and soul, but is like never to lose his lust, that will go to his grave, and so to Hell with him. (Job 20:11-12) When wickedness is sweet in a man's mouth, when he hides it under his tongue, when he spares it, and forsakes it not, his bones are full of the sins of his youth; they have been bred and brought up with him, grown and continued and increased daily with them; he would not leave them, they will not leave him, they shall lie down in the dust with him, rise with him to judgment, and go to Hell with him in the end.

Your person comes most to be abhorred and loathed by the Almighty, for which you vainly conceive you may be pitied. We pity a man that drinks poison because it's not his disposition to be so, but the infection that befell him; but the spider and the toad we abhor the sight, and not endure to touch them, because they are [illegible] a poisonous nature. So it is with the spiritual plague of your soul; even the dearest of God's servants may be surprised with a pang of pride, overborne with a sudden hurry of passion, and frowardness, and the Lord pities, and pardons, and passes it by, and will not lay it to their charge, because it was their disease, not their disposition, their temptation and surprise; not their purpose, the Lord looks at it so. You have heard of the patience of Job (James [reconstructed: 5]:11). But when such noisome lusts become natural, and that we live in them, as in our element, when we have, and keep, and own an accursed poisonous nature, it's that which the Lord detests; the froward in spirit is an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 3:32). In the old law it was observed, that when the leprosy tainted the skin, but did not spread, the leper was pronounced clean; but if it did fret into the flesh, it was unclean; to teach us, that though we had leprous distempers that tainted and defiled our performances, yet if they did not fret into the flesh, our affections taken aside with them, the Lord looks at us as clean in his Christ, because it was not we that in our hearts purposed the evil, but sin that prevailed against our purpose; but if we hugged them in our bosom, laid them near to our hearts, and took them as our natures, we were loathsome in the sight of God.

The third shift whereby a carnal heart comes to lighten the heinousness of his evil, and therefore looks not at it as so loathsome as he should and it deserves, is because he can put off the blame from himself (as he conceives) upon his companions, who either by their [illegible] and persuasions, have deluded him, and led him into sinful courses, beyond his intention and sometimes contrary to his desire: and therefore he concludes he may justly free himself from blame, and lay the blame upon them wholly. It was the fault of such and such, I am free. Had not they counselled it, I had never committed the sin; had not they persuaded me, I had never purposed it, it was not in my thoughts, but they allured, deluded, and drew me to it. Let them be charged with the guilt, and bear the punishment, I hope I may be excused. This manner of sinful shifting of our faults to another is that which all of us have [illegible] from our first parents. It was their practice immediately after the fall, and we their posterity have made it a precedent to our posterity to this day. When the Lord challenged Adam for his offence and breach of covenant, why have you done this? he puts it [illegible] to the woman, the woman to the Serpent (Genesis 3:12-14). The woman which you gave me (says Adam) she gave to me, and I did eat. The woman she takes the rebound and puts the ball behind her: the Serpent beguiled me. But all in vain, this could not free any of them from the punishment or excuse them from the fault.

To show the feebleness of this foolish pretense, I shall answer several things.

The aggravation of the evil of this sin, in yielding to the corrupt counsel of loose and bad companions, and the suffering of a man's self to be [illegible] by their delusions, appears in this, that they who are here [reconstructed: guilty of this] do in this their practice prefer the folly of man before the wisdom of God, their falsehood above his truth, serve their turn and base ends, maintain their honor, and that in an ungodly way, rather than the honor of the eternal God from whom they have received all they do possess, to whom they owe themselves, and should improve all they have and are to his praise. And yet they do not only set up base men but even the lusts of men before the honor of the Almighty, and profess so much by their practice: it is not the command of God but the corrupt [illegible] of vile men shall carry us, not his promises though great and precious, but their persuasions shall prevail with us, [illegible] suffer the name and honor of the Lord to lie in the dust, in fact trample it under their feet that they may promote their persons, and [illegible] credit of their proceedings though wretchedly wicked. And what greater indignity can be offered to the great God of heaven and earth, who will require it at your hands, when your companions will not open their mouths to excuse you nor can defend you from his vengeance. The [illegible] of this conspiracy against the Lord he himself acknowledges in Eli's indulgence, yielding out of the easiness of his spirit to his sons in their profane carriage, in that he did not proceed with that rigor and severity as the [illegible] of their carriage did justly [illegible] for. The Lord does plainly and peremptorily charge him with a double evil (1 Samuel 2:29-31): that they kicked at his sacrifice, that is, cast contempt upon his holy things, and honored his sons, and that in their lewdness above him, when out of a feeble childishness he would suffer his sons to abuse God's ordinances, and not administer a sharp reproof or execute a just and severe censure suitable to the nature of the fact upon them. He gave so far allowance to the contempt of God's ordinances and was more willing to please them than God, therefore the Lord denounces his direful displeasure against him: he repented him of all the good he had intended, and would pursue him and all his posterity to the utter confusion of their faces, because you have kicked against my [illegible], and have honored your sons above me, therefore the [illegible] shall come, I will cut off your arm, etc. For those that honor me shall be honored, and those that despise me shall be despised. Thus the Lord dealt with [reconstructed: Jehoshaphat] when he inconsiderately joined sides with Ahab (2 Chronicles 18:2). [reconstructed: Should] you love those that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon you from before the Lord. Soldering with the society of the wicked is to [illegible] it against the God of all the world: the Lord cannot bear it but his anger breaks out immediately against such.

By your yielding to the counsel of the ungodly you do [illegible][illegible] in their wickedness, and appear as a [illegible] in the [illegible] with them, strengthen their hands and encourage their hearts, steel their faces and make them resolutely bold, and impenitently impudent in their ungodly [illegible]. They dare venture to say and do whatever evil may serve their turns, and maintain what they do without either fear or care, to hear or reform, because they have others to maintain them in what they do. As the Scripture speaks of Absalom's rebellion (2 Samuel 15:12): The conspiracy grew strong for the people [illegible][illegible] with Absalom, the company and increase of his numbers added encouragement to his rebellious course. Whereas had the people forsaken him, his project and proceeding must needs have fallen to the ground, and he been forced to have forsaken his rebellious course, and hence it was [illegible] policy and that accursed counsel he gave to Absalom to enter into his father's concubines, in the view of the people, that he might settle the hearts of the people more sure to him, in that there was no hope of reconciliation and agreement between him and his father, and so establish his own safety. Common soldiers, if their numbers increase, though they be but weak and unskillful, yet give encouragement to the trained band, and the commanders themselves; indeed their very appearance in the field, though they strike not a stroke, helps much in the fight. So the prophet in the former place charges this evil upon [illegible] in siding with Ahab in his design (2 Chronicles 29:2): Should you help the ungodly? He that yields to the counsel of the ungodly, and joins hands with them in their way and work, he helps the ungodly, and is guilty of their sin and blood. You that are resolved to soldier with the society of the ungodly, and so suit them in their way, to maintain what they say and do, let them say and do what they will, you help a false tongue to lie, a malicious heart to reproach and [illegible], an unjust hand to oppress, for you will defend what they do, let them do what they will — that is worthless.

You that are thus deluded and taken aside with the enticings of others, though the Lord looks at them as leaders into evil, and so will reward them, yet know you must, that your condition is far worse, in some [illegible] more dangerous than theirs, and your plagues will prove more heavy; so [illegible] are you from hoping for any [illegible] or pity to yourself, because you are [illegible], that your sin and judgment will hereby be increased. It is the sad doom of our Savior, and worthy of most serious consideration (Matthew 23:15): Woe be to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites; for you compass sea and land to make a proselyte; that is, to make one of their sect and humor, one of their hang-bys that must be pinned to their sleeves, melt into their opinions, and embrace their practice; when they have made him their own, their sworn vassal, all of a string, that they can stir him and turn him as they will, mark the issue; they make him twice more the child of the devil than themselves. That perdition comes to be their portion, and hell for their inheritance, they are the heirs of it, and they have a double portion there; their plagues twice more heavy, and therefore their sins must carry the same proportion, twice more vile than those that were their leaders into that lewdness. Brethren, what a dreadful thing is it for one to think of it — the Scribes and Pharisees who were cruel oppressors, [illegible] exactors, who devoured widows' houses, false hypocrites, blind guides, painted tombs, serpents, and a generation of vipers, who cannot escape the damnation of hell, and one would think hell itself had scarce any worse. Yet when they had misled some poor sneaks, and deluded some ignorant silly people by their importunities, and painted appearances of holiness, brought them to the bent of their bow, captivated them wholly to their opinions and practices, what a dreadful thing is it to think that these poor [illegible] creatures should be twice more the children of hell than such, who to common apprehensions might seem to be the scum of hell. Hear and fear, and let your hearts sink and shake within you, you poor [illegible] creatures, take a measure of your condition by the former example. Imagine you saw a proud Pharisee, a man of a [illegible] tongue full of turnings and windings, he cannot live without lying, he is froward in spirit, and [illegible] not to [illegible] the straight ways of the Lord, that he may please his own will, suit his own humor, bend the rule to his mind, not his heart to the rule; one of an uncontrollable spirit that will contend with God and men if they [illegible] him in a sinful course. Suppose you saw this man receive his sentence at the day of judgment, and sent down to the pit — For without shall be liars, etc. (Revelation 22:15). They who pervert the straight [illegible] of the Lord are the children of the devil (Acts 13:10). And such as sow contentions among brethren, and are contentious, and obey not the truth, tribulation, and wrath, and anguish, shall be upon the soul of every one such (Romans 2:8). He has taught you his trade of lying, misled you into the like perverse, contentious courses — how shall you escape the damnation of hell? Oh, you will reply: Lord, it was his counsel that deceived me, his [illegible] and insinuations that drew me to those evils, I had never done them else: I hope therefore I may be pitied, though he be plagued; I may be excused, though the curse fall upon him, who was the cause and author of all. No, no, poor misguided creature, you are utterly mistaken; he is the child of the devil, and has received now his [illegible], you hear him yelling in the bottomless pit; he has his load more than he can bear; but you are twice more the child of hell, this is able to sink your heart with the very thought of it. Your slavery is far greater, your obstinacy more, and therefore your recovery harder than his; he is a slave to his sins, you are a slave to the man and sin and all; he will hear reason if it be propounded, you know nothing, and therefore receive nothing unless you be allowed by your leader, the less hope that ever you should be convinced or reformed. The Lord is forced [illegible] to let in the flashes of the fiercest of his fury into the faces of such misguided creatures, to bring them to the consideration of him and themselves, and to deal pointedly for their conviction (Psalm 50:18). When you saw a thief, you consented, and you were partaker with adulterers — that is, they persuaded [illegible], and you did embrace their persuasion. You sit and speak against your brother; he points out the time, the place, the company, the crew, among whom they sat. These things you have done, and I kept silence, and you thought that I was altogether like you; but I will reprove you, and set your sins in order before you. Oh consider this, you that forget God. You forget, you misguided sinners, that God was present, and saw what you plotted, that God is omniscient, and knows what you intended, that he is the righteous judge of all the world, and will bring the secret things of darkness to light, and make known the hidden counsels of the heart. Therefore let me end with the advice and counsel of Moses; do not think to excuse yourselves, because deluded by your company, but leave counsel and company, share not in their sins and societies, if you will not share in their plagues (Numbers 14:26). Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, touch nothing of theirs, their counsels and persuasions; and they [illegible] his counsel good, and [illegible] own experience gave proof — they fled and cried when the earth opened, lest the earth swallow us up also. So be not you deceived also, lest you be damned also: stay not among wicked company lest you perish among them.

A fourth shift which seems to lessen men's sins, and to take off the strength of conviction, and the danger of the evil, is the strength of such provocations which (as they pretend) constrain them against the heart and hair to the commission of evil, and therefore might excuse them in it. Why say men under such assaults, their speeches were so harsh and uncomely, I had almost said unchristian, and cross to rule, their carriage so cross and unreasonable, beyond the compass of humanity, yea, cross to common sense, their provocations so great, so many that they were insufferable, they would have angered a saint. If there fell anything uncomely (as it's impossible but in reason it should) the fault is in him that gave the provocation; a man in that case may seem to be freed from blame, such unreasonable passages would put an angel beyond his patience, flesh and blood cannot bear it.

True flesh and blood cannot bear it, therefore flesh and blood cannot please God, therefore flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; flesh and blood cannot save you, therefore should not rule you, if you will hear the rule of Christ, it's plain (1 Peter 3:9). We must not render evil for evil, railing for railing, and if any man desire to see good days, and to seek peace; this is the way which God appoints and blesses: If you will see the practice of our Savior Christ, it's also plain and precedential, he gave his cheeks to the buffeters, and [reconstructed: his back] to the smiters, and as a lamb was dumb before the shearer in all his sufferings; and he was more innocent than you, suffered more wrong, had more reason and authority also, if it had been a rule so to have righted himself: But he would not do so (1 Peter 2:23). When he was reviled, he reviled not again; nay, the text says, he durst not do so, and that when he dealt with the Devil, the accuser of the brethren, for so many interpreters understand the place, and I cannot see but it's safe and suitable; safe for the sense, and suitable to the context. (Jude 8-9) reproving that sin of reviling, verse 8 he confutes and condemns it thus, Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the Devil, he [reconstructed: disputed] about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation. This Michael who appeared now as the Messenger of the Covenant, and in the form of a servant, and therefore contested with Satan, as in the days of his flesh when tempted. If Christ durst not, how dares any man? If not to the Devil, how any to such as are in dignity?

But come we nearer to the shift, and examine the vanity of it; and that will appear in two things:

1. It's very unreasonable. 2. Very dishonorable, that others' provocations should prevail with us to break out to any unseemly practice.

It is an unreasonable thing, because another [reconstructed: did] me wrong, that therefore I should wrong the Lord, my soul, my place; it's not an evil in truth, but an honor, and will be a man's comfort, and bring a reward with it, to bear an injury, harsh dealing, and hard measure; Blessed are you when men persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you, they bring great reward. But to revile, and deal harshly with others, because so dealt with, is to be injurious to God, to my profession, to the peace and comfort of my own conscience: Because a man cuts my finger, should I go and stab my heart? Men would look at it as a way of frenzy: Because men set themselves against me, should I set God against [reconstructed: me] also? This is the Apostle's cure (1 Peter 3:12). The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. Nay, how cross to common sense is it, when you think the carriages of men are unreasonable, their provocations insufferable, yet you will do the like, and so condemn yourself by your own doing.

It's marvelous dishonorable to God: We do not [reconstructed: hold] up his name that is called upon by us, and express the virtues of him that has called us to his marvelous light, and out of the world, that we might shine as lights in a crooked generation; what serves your strength for but for a time of trial? You say flesh and blood cannot bear, why good now? What serves your grace for, but to do other and better than flesh and blood can do? This kind of distemper overtook Moses and it cost him dear, and the Lord would not once vouchsafe to hear an excuse or to abate him of the [reconstructed: penalty] (Psalm 106:31-32). It went ill with Moses for [reconstructed: their] sakes because they provoked his spirit, so that he spoke unadvisedly with his lips. Therefore Moses himself said (Deuteronomy 1:37) the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, saying you shall not go into the land. Nay (Deuteronomy 3:26) the Lord would not hear him, saying, speak no more to me of this [reconstructed: matter]. This is a great dishonor to God and grace, when we are overcome of evil, whereas we ought to overcome evil with goodness (Romans 12:21).

Whereby men labor to put by the stroke of the truth, that either it shall not hit at least not wound, either not touch them, or not trouble them, it is they FORGET their duty wholly and therefore did it not. The throng of business pressed in upon them, and that something unexpectedly, did distract them, that crowd of occasions coming in like a mighty sea did so take up their thoughts and surprise and hurry them, they remember not what they should do and therefore did not perform what they ought, it was the slip of a man's memory, no such great matter, nor will be so sadly charged upon a man they hope, It were hard if it should, It was but my forgetfulness. But? forget your duty, man? What could you say more wherein you may aggravate your fault in a most heavy manner? Is not this the express will of God, that a man should do with all his might what his hand finds to do (Ecclesiastes 9:10)? That he should abide in the calling to which God has called him (1 Corinthians 7:20)? Is not this the great errand of a man's life, the end why we came into the world to do God's will? The only charge that is laid upon us by the Almighty — we are not charged to be rich or honorable, to gain the profits and pleasures of this world, there is not such a [illegible] to be seen in the whole Bible; you only live to discharge your duty, if you forget that, you forget why you live, and the very excuse is a far greater sin than that was which you did seem to excuse, and your punishment will be answerable when out of your own mouth you will be condemned. As it was said to him in the story, when the Prophet in his own person would discover the King's carelessness, to him he disguised himself as the King passed by, and so passed by him and said (1 Kings 20:39): Your [illegible] went out into the midst of the [illegible], and [illegible] a man brought a man to me, saying, Keep this man, if by any means he be missing, then shall your life be for his life, and as your servant was [illegible] here and there, he was gone; and the [illegible] of Israel said, so shall your judgment be, you yourself have decided it. Let me speak to you in a like manner. The Lord has given you his holy commands in charge, the grace of God, the gospel of grace which has appeared and which brings salvation teaches men to deny ungodly and unworldly lusts, and to live godly and soberly in this present evil world, and to be zealous of good works (Titus 2:13-14), that we [reconstructed: should] mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we might live (Romans 8:13), but if we walk after the flesh we shall die. These evangelical commands you are bound to observe, if by any means they be wanting you lose your life, if you lose them; forget these, and God will forget you. Now you return your excuse, that while you were busy here and there, busy in planting, and building, busy in plotting and contriving your own carnal contents, your heart busy and eager in the pursuit of earthly occasions and employments, your thoughts busy in devising and acting means, in observing and improving opportunities, your hand busy in endeavoring to the utmost of your power and skill to accomplish these, either sinful, or at the best earthly conveniences you minded these so much; the other was wholly out of your mind; out of your own mouth shall you be condemned, so shall your judgment be, you heedless sinful creature, you have decided the matter, they that forget God shall be turned to Hell (Psalm 9:17). They who mind earthly things — their end is damnation (Philippians 3:21). God in mercy will not mind you, he will not mind the prayers you make, he will not mind your complaints, your necessities you present before him.

Thus generally: For a particular answer I shall do two things.

- 1. Show who those be that make this shift. - 2. How this aggravates their sin.

Who those be that make this excuse, that each man may take his portion, that those may not be burdened by mistakes who desire to burden themselves, that we may not bruise the broken in spirit. There be two sorts of forgetful persons.

First, such who in the sense of their own feebleness and brittleness of memory are not able to keep the wholesome truths, those heavenly treasures which many times are entrusted to their care and observance, but those precious promises, precious comforts and directions, they slip away out of their weak memories like pure liquor out of a leaking vessel, which makes them sit down in silence, and their hearts sink in discouragement loaded with the loathsomeness and greatness of the evil, that they cannot tell how to bear it, nor yet to bear up their hearts under the weight of it, they conceive it so heinous, so dangerous a sin; that which we cannot retain, say they, how shall we have the use of it, how shall we answer the loss of such glorious truths, and the very weight of the evil shakes their very hopes many times. And you shall ever observe the favor the Lord shows to such weak ones and the work of his grace in them, that though through the scantness and narrowness of their memories, they are not able to keep things in their order and to make report of them; yet so much as they have present use for they will have that at hand. And such truths which they shall have need of for after times they are never generally called to the practice of them, but they are called to their minds, God's Spirit brings them to remembrance — their hearts by faith received them and hold them (Matthew 13:23), but the narrowness of their memory was like a house that had but scant rooms, kept them in a lumber together, but there they were, and therefore the [illegible] brings them forth (John 14:26). The Comforter [reconstructed: shall] bring all things to your remembrance. These are not the persons we now speak to, for they lighten [reconstructed: and] lessen their evil by this means, these find it heavy and load [reconstructed: their] hearts with godly sorrow for it.

2. There is therefore another sort, whose wound of [illegible] lies not in the weakness of their memories, or scantness of [illegible] that they cannot retain the truths commended to them, and come within their charge, but such who stuff their minds and memories so full of earthly occasions, or attendance to some distemper that either they keep out or crowd out the remembrance of their duty and think because it was not in their minds, therefore they have plea sufficient if it be not in their practice, and thus their disposition and spirit is worse than their carriage and behavior, and this their excuse increases their sin, in three things, or adds a threefold aggravation to it.

They give in undeniable evidence that they do not only neglect the service but that they have no love to it; not only their endeavors are wanting but their hearts and faithfulness, are wanting also to the Lord and his work, love and faithfulness will cause attendance and remembrance wherever it is. The man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves, he dreams of her in the night, has her in his eye and apprehension when he awakes, muses on her as he sits at table, walks with her when he travels and [illegible] with her in each place where he comes. So it would be with you, if you [illegible] little and make that your excuse, it is certain you love little, if you mind not, you [illegible] not the Lord and his ways (Psalm 119:97). Oh [illegible] I do love your law, it is my meditation day and night — so the saints (Isaiah 26:8). The [illegible] of our hearts are towards you, and the remembrance of your name. And therefore the Psalmist again [illegible], your Commandments are ever with me. The heart of the lover keeps company with the thing beloved. If you mind not to practice the duty it is certain you may conclude you [illegible] yet had love to the Lord Jesus and his service.

This forgetfulness, not minding that which is your charge, shows you never had a high esteem, never yet set a price upon the [illegible] of the ways and will of God, you undervalue your duties and look at them as things of little worth and therefore are out of sight, and out of mind; refuse things that are of mean account with us, we lay them by, cast them into any blind corner, we judge them not worth the remembrance and therefore we bestow not our memories upon them — but if there be a pearl of price, some special and rare jewel, each man cares [illegible] he lays it, and can easily find it and that in the dark. So it is when you look at the commands the Lord gives and the duties he requires as matters of no great consequence, and therefore bestow not your thoughts or remembrance about them — see how the prophet argues from this ground (Jeremiah 2:32). Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire, yet my [illegible] have forgotten me days [illegible] number; so where their esteem is, their memories are also. It is certain it is a base [illegible] heart of the duties which are in daily practice and the discharge of his place, which ought to be his daily wear. A man should put on Christ, his holiness, meekness, etc. and [illegible] themselves with a quiet and modest and peaceable spirit, yet these are not in his way nor his thoughts. It is certain you care not so much for God's command as a frothy-headed maid does for a clout. Weigh then but in serious consideration, the wretchedness of your pretense; should you hear a servant or a child excuse their idleness or disobedience to master or father on this manner, I hope you will excuse my neglect, and pardon [illegible] disobedience, because I do not love your person, [illegible] or esteem your place or command — were not [illegible] to aggravate the evil, no way to excuse it. Such is the silliness of this shift of yours, when you would make your forgetfulness to lessen your fault. Because you do not love the Lord nor reverence his holy law, this increases the evil exceedingly.

It argues a sensual, sottish, atheistical disposition of heart to live without God and [illegible], in our course [illegible] to put off the apprehensions of Christians and men — these are joined together (Ezekiel 23:35). You have forgotten me and cast me behind your back — to live an outlaw upon earth, when we attend not, mind not a law by which we live. Your duty is plain which is required, the sin evident that is forbidden, you neglect the one and commit the other, and this is the balm that heals and helps all: I did not once think of it. It was wholly out of your mind, I did quite forget it; why then forget you are a Christian, indeed a man, forget there is a God, that there is a heaven to reward [illegible], a hell to torment you, forget you have a soul to be saved or sins to be pardoned, or avoided until you feel the plagues of them, which you [illegible] never be able to forget nor yet to bear.

Another shift which keeps off the edge and power of a conviction, is the deadly and destroying hazards they expect, and great extremities which they fear will [illegible] befall, if they should not dispense with some sins in such cases: Hence it is their arguments come on armed with such unanswerable interrogations in their apprehensions; Why? what would you have us do? You little know the desperate straits to which we are driven, were you but in our places, we are persuaded you would not only pity us in what we have done, but would do the same things; Alas, would you have us beggar ourselves? undo our families? destroy our liberties and comforts? indeed, hazard — no, lose our lives? Herein we hope the Lord will allow us some dispensation or connivance: thus they with one [illegible] consent, not only desired, but took it for granted they should also obtain their desire, which to them appeared so reasonable (Luke 14:18). [illegible] guests began to excuse themselves; one has hired a farm, and he must go and see it; another a yoke of oxen, and he must try them; and therefore I pray you have me excused; another has married a wife, and he cannot come, and [illegible] desires he may be excused — that is, we conceive the case so equal and reasonable, we suppose we need not speak ourselves, you will plead our excuse, which indeed pleads for itself. Should not a man preserve his state, and therefore in a way of providence go visit his farm? should he not attend his calling? if he be called to follow the plow, why should he not follow it?

For answer, I shall shortly leave two or three Scriptures with you: Is it not one command of the Gospel, that they that will live godly in Christ must suffer persecution, and through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of heaven (2 Timothy 3:12)? He that will save his [reconstructed: life] shall lose it (Matthew 16:25). He that loves [reconstructed: father] or mother more than me, is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37). If you are so far from yielding obedience to the Gospel, as to refuse the terms of it, can you be excused? To fear man more than God, to preserve your own ease more than his honor, can you be excusable? To attend the comforts of this world with the loss of the peace of your conscience, to look after the preservation of your life, and neglect the salvation of your soul; neither God, nor man, nor angels, nor devils, nor your own conscience will excuse you.

The seventh shift and forgery whereby our carnal reason would [reconstructed: evade] and defeat the power of the truth, and lessen the loathsomeness of sin, is that which seems to them so reasonable, even to common sense, as that it admits no denial; and it is taken from the holiness and spiritualness of the law, to which they are bound, and that overbearing strength of the body of sin, and original corruption, [reconstructed: by which] they are wholly disabled to the performance thereof; so that there is not only a difficulty, but even an impossibility to corrupt nature, and to men in their natural condition, to answer the exactness thereof. Does not the text say [reconstructed: that] such cannot cease from sin (2 Peter 2:14)? That which is [reconstructed: born] of the flesh, and comes from it, is flesh (John 3:8-9). Are not the words plain, that the prince of the air rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience, and that he takes them captive at his will (2 Timothy 2, last verse)? In fact, if the holy Apostle who had the Spirit of grace, yet found his distempers bear up so hard, and make head against him, that they soiled him, and put him to the worse, and forced him to cry out as under captivity and bondage, "I see another law in my members carrying me captive; Oh wretched man, who shall deliver me" (Romans 7). If he that had received the power of grace against his sin, was yet so overborne, what can they be able to do that are yet in their natural condition (and have nothing but sin) as all the sons of Adam are since the fall? That as [reconstructed: sailors] in a storm are forced by the rage of winds and weather to go where they will carry them, not where they should; men pity them for what they suffer, do not [reconstructed: blame] them for what they cannot do: so it is with the strength of distempers, which like a mighty stream, carry us uncontrollably to the commission of evil, and it is impossible for us to prevail against. Alas, what can nature do in such a case, if God will not help? Is it fair that men be put upon impossibilities? Or that they should be punished for that which cannot be avoided? It is not in man to direct his own ways, to subdue his own sins: we are nothing else but a lump of corruption, the Lord knows we do what we can, and we hope we shall not be condemned for what we cannot do.

I answer, the Lord knows, and your conscience knows, and the world knows, you speak a horrible falsehood, or to use the phrase of Scripture, you lie, and speak not the truth. More particularly I answer four things.

You do not do what you may and can do. [reconstructed: The] Lord has left in you the remainder of many natural abilities, has lent you the help of many common [reconstructed: gifts] and graces, which by art and education have grown to some ripeness, and you have found the strokes of his Spirit partly restraining you from evil, and constraining you to good; and you neither have, nor do put forth actions and endeavors answerable in any measure. It was said of them, it is as true of you (Romans 1:21): when they knew God, they [reconstructed: glorified] him not as God. The unprofitable servant was not condemned so much because he had no talent, but that when he had received a talent, he idled away his time and talent, hid it in a napkin, he traded not, gained not consequently (Matthew 25:25). This is your condition, you are in his rank, your sin the same, and your sentence will be the same; you have [reconstructed: not] one, but many talents; has not the Lord given you a mind to conceive, and a memory to retain things? Why can you not lay out these for the Lord and his truth, as well as to lavish out both in the pursuit of the world, and your own lusts, and lying vanities? You may read the Bible as well as other vain books, seek the communion of saints, and your legs would carry [reconstructed: you] to them, as well as to riotous company. In fact, you are not only faulty in not doing what you can, but even neglecting, [reconstructed: yes,] opposing the practice of those duties to which your judgment would carry you, and [reconstructed: your conscience] constrain you (Romans 1:18); you hold down the truth in unrighteousness, when your reason supports it, your conscience provokes and calls, this you should, this you ought to do, and yet you neglect it. Yes, let your own experience give in evidence in this behalf; you idle away your time in the ways of your calling, and the work of the Lord, read not, [reconstructed: meditate] not, pray not in private, recall not the things heard, [reconstructed: walk] not in your place with meekness, but crooked carriages, peevish and contrary speeches, rugged behaviors attend you in your daily course. Answer me out of your own heart: would not so much money for hire, such reward promised and performed, persuade you to do such duties, or reform such sins? Would not the fear of some displeasure, at least the sharpness of some punishment, compel you to reform outwardly; to find your heart, and tongue, and mind, and force you to pray, and read, and recall, make you bite your lip, and compose your carriage, not to speak a cross word, or vent a passionate speech? You wretch, does twenty pounds, or a whipping post give you any grace — you had therefore ability, which you never did improve as you might.

Secondly, be your weakness what it will be, or inability, that is not the worst; but that which adds to the heap of the [illegible] of your evil, and the height of it, you are not yet WILLING to be made ABLE, to receive the grace which the Lord in the Gospel has prepared and now tenders, and would give you, [illegible] you but willing he should (Revelation 22:17). Oh every one that will let him come to the waters, for the Gospel does not require that a man should believe by his own power, nor yet condemn him because he does not, but that he will not incline his ear, and suffer the power of the Truth to take place with him, and prevail with him for good. Christ comes to his own, and he comes with grace and life, but they receive him not (John 1:10-11). Indeed, our Savior professed it to them, You will not come to me that you might have life (John [illegible]:40). And light is come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light (John 3:19). Men love their distempers, hug and [illegible] their lusts, they are weary of the Word that would reveal and remove their corruptions (Romans 8:7). The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law, nor can be: it has not any spiritual good, it will not bear the power of the Truth, that would pluck away our corruptions, and take place in us. Do not plead so much therefore you are not able, but go to the bottom, you would not be made able — you would have your proud heart, and not be made humble; you would have your loose heart, and not be purged: when you are in Hell, and are tormented with these, and for these, know you have had your will, and therefore why do you complain?

In fact, it is your disposition to withdraw yourself from those means, and not to give attendance, and leave yourself under the stroke of the Word that would take away your unwillingness (John 3:20). He that does evil, hates the Light, and comes not to the Light, he went away sorrowful (Matthew 19:22). And after that time, many of his disciples went away from him, and walked no more with him, because his words were spiritual and piercing, which they could neither hear nor bear.

Not attending for redress and help against the stubbornness and perversity of your heart, it is a just and righteous thing with God to stake you down under all those distempers, that you may be deluded with them, hardened in them, and damned for ever for them, and you have no more than you have righteously deserved (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11). Because they did not entertain the Truth in the love of it, therefore he gave them up to the activity of error, that they might believe lies; and it is the best reason that ever yet appeared to my apprehension, why the woman who in reason could not but know the serpent could not speak, yet would and did talk with it: but she had begun before not to love the Truth, being set to till the garden, and to keep it (Genesis 2), that is, to keep the wild beasts out of it; she did not do so, therefore God gave her up to be deluded by the serpent: the like may be said of Balaam's conference with his ass; in reason he should have fled from his ass, not have fallen in conference with him; but when men delight not to have God in knowledge, no marvel that he delivers them up to a reprobate sense (Romans 1).

Whatever difficulty and impossibility attends your weakness, you are the cause of it, and therefore must bear all the evil that is a consequent of it. The debtor that has borrowed a sum of money, at the day of payment, if he shall return this answer, that the money he borrowed he has drunk away, whored or played it away; so that having spent his stock, it is now impossible he should satisfy his creditor. Does he not deserve to be punished, not only for his not payment, but for his prodigality which brought that upon him?

The Eighth Cavil, whereby our carnal hearts would shift off the authority and evidence of the Truth, as that it shall not be able to set down the conscience by an overpowering conviction, is, that the sins themselves are SLIGHT, of small consequence, not worthy any such serious consideration, much less any trouble of heart, that should drive a man to a stand, and cause him to sit down in silence and sorrow, as under just condemnation: alas, they were but some sudden words, and they were gone and past, and if there were no worse I'd say, the world were at a good pass; or they were but the present and inward [illegible] of the heart, and the superficial thoughts of my mind, no body knew but myself, neither did nor could they hurt any body but myself, and are not thoughts free? Or lastly, were it a failing in practice, it was but in a petty thing, a very trifle not worth the while to spend time to take notice of it; some windy words, superficial and sudden thoughts, petty failings, and they are so far from troubling the heart, as that they touch it not; so far from sitting down convinced of the evil of these, as might break the heart, as that they see no weight, nor just cause at all to burden it, they go away as Samson with the Gates of Gaza, and felt them not.

We shall therefore take the particulars into special consideration, and see what heinousness there is in these sins, when they are weighed in the Balance of the Sanctuary: and we shall begin with words, and examine what is the weight of the evil that is in them; and that will appear in many particulars.

Look at them in their own nature absolutely, your words have such weight that they are able to sink your soul into the bottomless pit, and to pass sentence of life and death upon you; for so our Savior, By your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned (Matthew 12:37). This is one part of the indictment upon which the judgment is executed at the great day by our Savior, When he shall come with ten thousand thousands ministering to him; to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds, and of all their hard speeches, which they have spoken against him (Jude 14:15). Those harsh expressions, the unkind language, currish, rugged, and cutting speeches, whereby they would daunt and kill the hearts of the saints; the secret scorns, and contempts, and reproaches, whereby they have tossed the names of the saints in their meetings, merriments, and upon their ale-benches; perhaps there is no man besides your mates that hears you, no witness can accuse you, no judge that can pass sentence: The Lord Jesus he comes for this end, and you are the man, and your speeches are the matter of your indictment; of these he will convince you, and for these execute judgment upon you at that great day, he will make you sit down in silence, he will stop that wicked mouth of yours, you shall not have a word to speak for yourself then: this is the charge that the Lord puts in against such wretched hypocrites, who think to carry all things covertly and cunningly that no man may lay hold of them; the Lord pulls them out by the poll (Psalm 50:19). You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit: It is his trade, his lips are the forge of falsehood, his mouth is as it were the mint of lying reproaches, of backbiting, he sits at it, keeps his shop, it's the sale and ware that is vented upon all occasions, when his companions, as his chapmen, come to buy: So the text, You sat and spoke against your own mother's son, etc. these things you have done, the Lord keeps these words upon record, and sets them in order at the day of judgment, Oh consider this, you do not now consider, the Lord does, and he will tear you in pieces, as you have torn the names of his servants by your taunts and reproaches; and in truth it's no marvel, for your language and customary speech gives a taste of the temper of your soul and spiritual condition, and is a sad evidence of your corrupt and graceless estate (James 1:16). If any seem to be religious, and bridles not his tongue, the religion of that man is vain; his language loose and frothy, his words peevish and irritable, perverse and scornful, the religion of that man is not worth a rush, his prayers are vain, his hearing vain, his profession he will never do good with it, never receive good or benefit from it: As we say of money, the sound of it shows whether it [illegible] pure or base, true or counterfeit, it sounds like brass or copper, it's certainly counterfeit, it has not the sound of silver, or as we say of bells, the ring of them discovers whether they [illegible] of base matter, or of right [illegible]; so here, a man's speech is the discoverer of a man's spirit. If his heart be the author of a good matter, the tongue will be as the pen of a ready writer (Psalm 45:1). Those words that come from grace in the speaker, will administer grace to the hearers; empty words do show an empty heart. You are one of those, and your speech betrays you, said they to Peter: A jeering and scoffing tongue is a note of an Ishmaelite; by that Ishmael was discovered to be of the flesh (Galatians 4). In a word, as a stinking breath argues a corrupt stomach and [illegible] lungs; so it is with base and vain language, it argues a corrupt and rotten heart: As lightly therefore as you regard these vain and windy words of yours, you will one day find the load of them so heavy, that they will be like a millstone to sink you down into irrecoverable [illegible], so that your life and death lies in your words as little as you make of them.

Look at them with respect to others, cast them into the balance of comparison and consideration, with the evil of others, and thereby the greatness of their evil will more evidently appear: I answer therefore in the second place, The evil of your words is in some regard, I say, in some regard, worse than the evil of your heart; though that be the storehouse and treasury of noisome distempers, and the warehouse which furnishes a man's whole course, yet corrupt language adds a deeper dye, and makes those evils of the heart more loathsome: As there is more store of commodities in the warehouse, yet the false light of the shop makes them so much the worse, because it makes them not appear as they are; words darken much of the truth that is in the heart, which would make against sin, and covers and colors over that which is evil, that it might not appear to be such, that the heart purposes and concludes certainly it will have it, because it likes it: yet could a man but hear the private verdict which knowledge and conscience gives, 1. He should see them consenting to the truth: 2. Condemning the will of sin. Reason tells the heart, this is the way and the will of God, and you should not reject it; this is your duty, and God's command, you perish for it if you do oppose; here truth appears as well as distempers. But when the cause comes to be [illegible] and pleaded outwardly by words, the tongue hides the verdict of knowledge and conscience, suffers not their testimony, or the truth once to come to light. But the corruption that the heart would have, it pleads for it under the color and pretense of that which is lawful and allowable; So much light and knowledge as would discover the sin that is suppressed. The evil that was there suppressed, that is by color of cunning and false words, varnished over, and pleaded for under pretense of that which is good and lawful. So that here is a double evil more in our words than in our hearts.

1. A silencing of the truth, when the testimony of judgment and conscience must not come to light.

2. Coloring of the loathsomeness of sin that it might not appear like itself, by the paint and varnish of lying words. Thus some translate that of James, and though it be not the full meaning, yet I see not but it is part of the meaning; the tongue is a world of evil (James 3:6), is an ornament of evil, when lying language [illegible] fair colors and pretences upon foul and unlawful practices. So the paint of words hides the foul visage of sin. Thus you shall observe in the Scribes and [reconstructed: Pharisees] (Acts 4:16-17), it's manifest to all, and cannot be denied; yet that it spread no further, let us strictly [reconstructed: charge] them that they speak no more in this name. If [reconstructed: their] consciences might have been heard to speak, they would have testified that the wonder is great, and argues the finger of God, and the worth of the men, and that it should be published, and God honored; but their tongue turns it another way, this man is but an impostor, his name must not be had in regard, his person in respect, so it was with them they would have forced the blind man to have spoken against our Savior (John 9:24). This man is a sinner give glory to God, and so endeavored to have him deny the truth of the miracle, which in their own hearts they did undoubtedly acknowledge; so it was with the false witnesses packed by Jezebel, let conscience be examined and suffered to give in evidence and you see the truth, Did Nabal blaspheme God and the King? No, is he worthy to die? No, is it not treachery for any to plot and pretend this? It is so, says conscience there is no truth at all but treachery; but their false tongues hide the truth, and put an appearance of truth upon that which is false.

Sometimes a man out of an ignorant custom or neglect holds forth more evil in his words, than he either conceives or attends in his own apprehension, this is usual among children conversing with naughty and lewd company, they speak the evil words they hear frequently with their mates when they know not what they speak, or what the words imply that they speak. It may possibly be conceived that many of those children who cried to Elisha come down you bald pate (2 Kings 2:23), spoke what was commonly said among their parents, not knowing the evil of the words they spoke.

All the while the evil is confined and concealed in the closet of the heart it's not dangerous, nor yet infectious to any, but only to the soul of the party that harbors it. But when the wickedness of the heart walks abroad in our words, and communication it conveys a taint and pollution with it; and herein lies a greater evil in our words than in our hearts in point of infection, the heart is like a dunghill of noisome abominations, but our speech and words let out the steam of it, which is able to annoy all that are in presence or pass by with the stench of it.

Compare the evil of our words with our practice also, and it will appear that in many particulars the scales will be cast this way, and the [illegible] of the evil will lie here.

Our words are as it were the panders and provokers, more universally to all kinds of evil than our practice can be; there be many sins that come not within the compass of our practice as errors, false opinions, and those that do they come not within our power or possibility for the while. But there is no error so gross, no delusion so loathsome but our speech can vent and broach it. No practice so [illegible] but by our words and communication we can present it together with all the occasion to the heart to draw forth those sinful inclinations there, to linger after and to seek for opportunity to commit it (1 Corinthians 15:33). Evil words corrupt good manners and the Apostle specifies none but implies a taint and pollution of all, the sting of the Serpent we know spreads over the whole body, taints all the blood at an instant, so there is the poison of asps that is under the lips of the ungodly, so the Apostle (James 3:6), the tongue among the members defiles the whole body, conference and communication affects the whole man, [illegible] up the heart to effect, the head to plot, [reconstructed: the] eye to look, the hand to work, etc. Speech drives the choleric man into a passion the melancholic man into discontent, the loose and vain person to be transported with his lusts, and uncleanness. Therefore the same Apostle compares it to a [reconstructed: fire] (verse 5), behold how great a matter a little fire kindles; a spark of fire sets a whole house, a whole town on a flame, before one be aware.

As words taint more universally so they [reconstructed: are] of greater force and prevail more powerfully draw more effectually to the commission of evil, the sin is committed and the commission leaves a scandalous example behind it, and that as it were passively and in silence presents itself to the memory of him that attends it. But our words do not passively present a thing to the view of another, but awaken him and work upon, and actively, and prevailingly call out any inclination to an evil, and that with [illegible] and overbearing importunity. Examples only offer the bait if the heart will nibble and take it but words and persuasions take hold upon a man, and will have no nay before they obtain their [illegible], so the adulterous woman (Proverbs 7:21), with much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him, so (Judges 16:16), Delilah laid siege and made battery at the heart of Samson, at last wearied him out and wrought him to her own will and his ruin, an evil example is like the presenting of an army before a place and summoning of it, but speech is like a constant beleaguering of a city which will force it to surrender and therefore I have ever judged it more dangerous to live with a person of an ill language than of an evil life, because a man's practice will be but seldom and occasional and mainly an enticement to some one kind of evil, but speech pursues a man with variety of enticements. Words are arrows, and he that shoots a whole quiver will hardly miss but wound with some or other at the last.

The evil of the tongue is a kind of restless, unweariable, untameable wickedness, the practice of sin [illegible] such that sometimes a man's years permit not the pursuit of it, or the time suits not, or the place fits not, or a man's ability and strength makes him unapt and wholly unable to take it up, so nature desires [illegible] and rest, and the commission of sin is at an end, the thief must leave his trade of robbing, the drunkard his company, the adulterer his lusts, when age and sickness comes in upon him and their able strength is now spent. But the evil of the tongue begins with a man in his tender years, when the child knows not the mystery of sin nor yet has ability to practice it, yet he can prate and talk of it. This grows up with him to his riper years, and when his strength and nature decays and a man grows towards his grave yet the evil of his tongue grows lively and active; and when a wretch is able to do nothing yet then is he able to read lectures of villainy and wickedness which he has learned in his life and practiced in the lewdness of his carriage from his youth. As it is with old huntsmen when their legs fail that they cannot follow the game, yet they will sit and hear the cry and lure after the hounds, when they can do little else. So here, this I take to be the meaning of that of James which exercises the apprehensions of interpreters, and it is marvelously hard to find the full mind of God therein (James 3:6). It sets on fire the whole course of nature and itself is set on fire of Hell, that is, by the hellish delusions and temptations of Satan.

Two things I suppose are especially implied in the text.

1. The violence and untameableness of this evil cannot be stopped, it carries all before it; not only propounds a temptation to evil, but counsels, indeed commands; if not that, entreats; if that take not place, pursues all these, perseveres to importune, till the importunity kindles in the heart like a mighty flame which cannot be quenched. So when Demetrius had pressed his companions with such prevailing arguments of profit [illegible], you know that by this trade we have our living, presently they were all upon a flame, and the voice prevailed by the space of two hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians (Acts 19:28). When they heard those sayings so they were kindled and carried away with Herod's speech, the voice of God, and not of man (Acts 12:22).

2. This untameable evil of the tongue has not its dates and periods, its spring and fall as it were, but sets on fire the whole course of nature, that is, grows up with us from our beginnings, and goes along with us in our daily course until we lie down in our graves. When children can know nothing nor learn to do nothing, yet they will easily take in naughty words and tattle them when they know not what they talk. In a word this is the full meaning, so near as I can guess, whereas the feebleness of our childhood unfits us for the knowing and practicing of some evil, our [illegible] years frees us from some, as childish sports and vanities, decrepit age utterly [illegible] us to most, the [illegible] evil of our tongues sends in a vein and current of wickedness through our whole course, the folly and [illegible] of our childhood unfits us not for this, or our riper years frees us not, but such count it as suitable to their condition, our decrepit age hinders us not, but the vanity of the tongue casts a venom through all, nor is a man wearied with such [illegible] as that he craves end or ease, but is as fresh at night as he was in the morning, in his youth as he was in his childhood, in his decaying age as he was in his riper years. This hellish fire [illegible] fuel and matter to nourish it in a man's whole course, therefore it is said it is set on fire of Hell. Because our natures are easily tainted with this poison and takes it in almost unawares, you cannot keep children from learning the language especially that which is nought which they hear, nor can you force them to leave it or forget it, they grow up to ripeness and readiness in it without either care or pains, Joseph swears the court oath, and the children speak half Ashdod and half Hebrew.

That you may see how far you are deceived in slighting the evil of your words, know if there be any evil in the world it is in manner and measure in them (James 3:6). The tongue is a world of evil, a university, a universality of all wickedness in it, and it is an ornament of all evil besides (the word will carry both, and I would include both) — whatever evil is on earth among men, in Hell among devils and the damned, whatever wickedness the manners of all countries have invented, the condition of all men have practiced, or the hearts and [illegible] of men contrived, the tongue shares in all these. It is the chief secretary to all estates of sin and sinners, the interpreter of men's minds and translator of these evils between man and man. In a word, whatever evil is in the heart or mind of a man's self, the tongue has vented it, whatever has been done by others, seen or observed, the tongue has related and reported it. It is that which will cover all the foulness, excuse or lessen the loathsomeness of the most vile evils, has varnished and decked over the most detestable practices with some pretenses of liberty or indifference, and has been the lawyer which has undertaken to plead the cases of the vilest ways of evil that ever were.

Having seen the vileness of sinful words; now let us proceed to consider of our thoughts, the first stirrings of the distempers of our hearts that suddenly and presently vanish away, men imagine there cannot be such evil in them, nor are they to charge themselves so deeply for them as ministers would have them believe. No man, say they, can see or know the thoughts of our hearts, and therefore they cannot be offensive or scandalous to any and therefore it is not possible they should be discouraged from doing any good they desire or intend, or provoked to the practice of any evil that may be dangerous to themselves or dishonorable to the Lord. Besides they appear not so soon to our apprehensions but they pass away in an instant, and are as though they had never been, and what great evil is in them, and why should the soul be so deeply [illegible] with them and the sinner be forced to feel so great sorrow for them? This is to make them worse than they are, and ourselves more miserable than we should be.

The evil of your thoughts and stirrings of the distempers of your heart are hidden and spiritual, and they pass away before you can perceive them, much less judge of them aright, but did you but see them as they are, and upon thorough search could truly find out the bottom of that baseness and filth that is there, they would appear exceeding loathsome and heinous to your own apprehension, as he said, the sin of the soul, is the soul of sin. The sin of the body, is the body and carcass of corruption; that is, in the sinful motions of the soul, of the mind and heart, there is the life, poison, and power of corruption, putting forth itself in the utmost activity of the venom and malignity of it. The actions of the body are tainted with the pollution of sin by consent, as the distempers of the mind and heart appear in them, and are acted by them; the body is as it were an accessory in the evil and wickedness; the mind is the principal, that contrives all, uses only the body as an instrument to vent its own venom and wickedness by.

More especially see the heinousness of the evil of your thoughts and heart, in the particulars following.

First, in regard of God. The sinful poison of your thoughts does estrange you from God, carry you in professed opposition against him; so that the sinner comes by this means to resist the Almighty, as it were to his very face.

Let me open both these in a few words.

Your inordinate thoughts take you off from yielding attendance to the Lord, that you fall off from him, and the guidance of his wisdom in the rule, before you fall into any sin: here came in the first breach between God and the soul, and by this the breach is continued and increased daily in our departing from him. This I know (says the wise man) that God made man right, but he sought out many inventions, or findings (Ecclesiastes 7, last verse). He was made for God, and should have eyed him directly, and kept himself under the operative dispensation of his spiritual government, in which he would not have been awanting to him, but he would have carried him to his end, and kept him so in happiness, that is, carried him to himself, and kept him with himself for ever. But he found out findings; so the words. When he should have looked to the will of God as the compass only appointed to steer his course by, he should have looked to the law which the Lord had found out as the line and level of his life, which would not have failed to have led him to his duty, and quickened him in it. He was not content with the rule and way that God had found out, but he finds out an invention out of the vanity of his mutable mind, looks to that, and is wholly led aside by that from the Lord. So that when he should go from rule to rule, for the guidance of [illegible] daily course, he goes from one vanity to another, from one vain thought to another, from one device to another; as they said, let us devise devices. As in a well ordered army, break the rank in one place, and you bring ruin and confusion upon the whole: here was the right order in which we were made, and we should have kept rank and file; the mind and judgment should only have attended God; the will attend our judgment, the affections wait on the will, the actions issue as the execution of all. Here Satan routed Adam, broke this rank upon the first [illegible], takes off the mind from attending the covenant, command, and direction of the Lord, "The day you eat thereof, you shall surely die," and listens to the [illegible] and forgery of Satan, "You shall not die at all;" and so falls into the commission of the sin, which brought condemnation upon him and his whole posterity; and [illegible] the [illegible] came in thus between God and the soul, so it is daily made greater by this means. As a man once having missed his way, the further he [illegible], the further he goes from the right way. Such is the raveling of our own imaginations, we [illegible] ourselves the longer we continue in them. After we are overborne with the hurry of our thoughts, we are [illegible] a [illegible] with our [illegible], [illegible] God, his promises, our directions and comforts, cannot tell where to find our hearts. This the Apostle gives as the fountain and first cause of those overflowing evils, and fearful backslidings from God (Ephesians 4:17). The Gentiles [illegible] the vanity of their minds, and so become strangers from the life of God. Thus David by the sinful devices of his own mind departs so far from God, that he cannot find any evidence of his love, or sense and feeling of his favor; he plots the commission of the sin, then the covering of it, therefore sends for Uriah, would have sent him to his house; when that took not, but resolves the contrary, then he plots his drunkenness that he might forget his resolution; when that succeeds not, he sends him back to the army, and delivered him up to the hand of the enemy in the issue. So by inordinate attendance to unruly thoughts, the sinner is taken aside so strangely from the Lord, and so overwhelmed with the guilt and pollution of sin, that partly he dare not, and many times is so bewildered and [illegible], that he knows not how to recover himself, and come home to God.

The evil of our thoughts carries the soul in professed opposition against God; for it is by the spiritual operations and actions of our minds that we meet with the Lord, and have a kind of intercourse with the Almighty, who is a Spirit. For all outward things are for the body, the body for the soul, the soul is immediately for God, and therefore meets as really with him in the actions of understanding, as the eye meets with the light in seeing; which no other creature can do, nor no action of a bodily creature does. Our senses in their sinful and inordinate swervings, when they become means and inlets of evil from their objects, they meet with the creature firstly, and there make the jar: it is the beauty of the object that [reconstructed: stirs] up to lust by the eye, the daintiness of the diet that provokes to [reconstructed: excess] by the taste, the harsh and unkind language that provokes to wrath and impatience by the ear: but the mind and understanding touches the Lord directly, meets with his rule, and with God acting in the way of his government there, and when it goes off from the rule as before, and attends its own vanity and folly, it jostles with the Almighty, stands in open defiance and resistance against him. This also appeared in Adam's sin: out of the folly of his own deluded thoughts, he would have dethroned the Almighty, and hoped by Satan's counsel to set himself in the room of God: "You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3), and he saw it to be good to get knowledge, and so purchase a deity to himself, and so put it to trial. Thus the wicked openly profess — they say to the Almighty, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of your ways" (Job 21) — when they desire not to have the wisdom of God rule in their minds, but set up their own foolish imaginations, they say then to God, "Depart from us"; they shake off the authority of the truth, and with that the sovereignty of the Lord himself and his government. Hence the Apostle (Colossians 1:21): they were enemies, and where lay that enmity? In their minds, in their [reconstructed: understanding], in their discourse, in the exercise of the largest act of their understandings, wherein the use of the whole faculty appears, and this enmity appears in the fruit of it, which will undoubtedly follow, namely, evil works. Hence (Romans 8:7), the wisdom of the flesh is said to be enmity against God; not an enemy to him that would sometimes cross and oppose him, but enmity — the whole being and working of it is carried in constant opposition against the law. And upon [reconstructed: this] ground it is, when the Apostle Peter would show Simon Magus the heinousness of his sin, he stays not in the outward expression, but calls him directly to consider the thoughts of his heart, where that [reconstructed: corrupt] language was minted, and from where it proceeded. When [reconstructed: Simon saw] that by laying on of the hands of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit was [reconstructed: given], he perceived how he might get a prize, and therefore he fell to bargain, tries the market: "What shall I give?" etc. The Apostle, carried with a zealous indignation against so vile a demand, which cast so much contempt and contumely upon the Holy Spirit, and the gift thereof, answers with a holy disdain, and denounces a curse: "Your money perish with you" — that is, you are in a perishing condition, and this money of yours which you conceive will further your proceedings, will perish also; yet he adds a caution for his recovery: "Oh pray, if it be possible, that the thought of your heart may be forgiven" (Acts 8:22-23) — that is, your sin is so heinous, so execrable, so detestable, it is almost past all possibility of pardon. It is not in the tongue which uttered the word, nor in the hand which offered the money, nor yet so much in your eye that saw the work done, for all these met not so directly, so immediately with the Lord. The words were propounded to the Apostles, the money should have been paid to them; but oh, it was the hellish villainy of his mind and apprehension which did so basely esteem of the gifts of God's Spirit, as if they might be valued or purchased with money. He did so conceive, as if the Holy Spirit of Grace should lackey after his lusts, and be at the beck and command of such a proud rebellious wretch, as that it should be disposed and dispensed according to his will and humor. This was in his mind and thought, and this made it so heinous an evil, that the Apostle put it to a "may be, if it be possible"; so that the hellish evil of our imaginations, and cursed contrivements of our thoughts, may put a man almost beyond possibility of pardon. So in the sin against the Holy Spirit, it is said our Savior saw their thoughts (Matthew 12:25); those gave in evidence of the dreadfulness and inconceivable heinousness of those contumelious speeches against our Savior, when they said, "He casts out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils." It is not said he heard their words, though blasphemous, but he saw their thoughts, they issued out of their apprehensions — their thoughts being calm and quiet, it was not some base pang or passion; but when they had no provocation, their own thoughts carried them against the evidence of all truth, merely out of the venom of their own hearts. This was unpardonable blasphemy; and in truth there is no creature but a reasonable creature that can close not with the creature only, but with God in his rule, that can sin, nor is there any sin properly but where the mind and heart is an ingredient in it. So the ravished maid, though her body was abused, yet her person was not charged as guilty of sin, nor she polluted therewith, because her judgment was not there assenting, nor her heart yielding to it.

Look at thoughts in regard of all the other evils of our lives which are acted, and appear in our daily course, we may from there come to take a guess at the greatness of the evil of our thoughts, for it will appear they are the causes of all other evils, and therefore it cannot but be concluded there is more and worse evil in them than in all the rest. A man's imaginations are the forge of villainy, where it's all framed, the warehouse of wickedness, the magazine of all mischief and iniquity, from where the sinner is furnished to the commission of all evil, in his ordinary course; the sea of abominations, which overflows into all the senses, and they are polluted into all the parts of the body, and they are defiled and carried aside with many noisome corruptions (Matthew 15:19). Out of the heart comes murders, adulteries, thefts; there is the nest where all these noisome vermin are bred (Matthew 12:34). Out of the abundance of the heart the tongue speaks, and the hand works: If there be pride and snappishness in a man's speech, stubbornness in a course, [illegible] in a man's conversation, there is abundance of all these, and more than these within. The imagination of our mind is the great wheel that carries all with it; that loathsome and execrable wickedness, worse than which the sun never saw, the earth never bore (that unpardonable sin excepted) the killing of the Lord Jesus the Lord of Life, the seed of it was, a thought cast by [illegible] into the heart of Judas (John 13:3), it was warmed with a covetous disposition, and so brought forth that hideous treachery, the [illegible] of the Lord Jesus.

If [illegible] be evil in the tongue that [illegible] it, is it not worse in the heart that indites it? Wickedness in our actions and speeches, are but the brats and brood of our minds and hearts, there they were conceived and fashioned in all the parts and proportions of wickedness as in [illegible] womb, a man's practice does but like the midwife, bring them into the world, into open view, it makes the evil appear, but evil in the very heinousness was there before: in fact, the mind has not a hand in the plotting only of all these evils, but it puts forth a special power in the execution of the works, which otherwise would be at a stand. The mind does not only conceive, but it travels for deliverance, and brings it forth into action; that is the meaning of the place which carries both depth of difficulty and excellency in it (Isaiah 5:18). There is a generation which draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with cart-ropes. We will open two things here.

- 1. What these cords and cart-ropes are. - 2. How they draw.

First, cords are, counsels, false pleas, forged and plausible pretences, which are ordered and contrived as though they were twisted together as a cord, strongly to persuade and prevail, and they are cords of vanity, which the vanity and misguided apprehension of carnal [illegible] has twisted. Cart-ropes have the same sense, only with this aggravation, it implies more strength and subtlety; the most sedulous contrivements, the most subtle and restless underminings of colorable excuses that may take off all the strength of argument that oppose the way, [illegible] inconvenience that might hinder the work, so that they carry all before them; thus God is said to [illegible] the cords of the wicked (Psalm 129:4), when they drew their plow over the backs of the righteous.

To draw iniquity, is by the strength of cunning contrivements, the greatest subtlety of the most feigned pretences that carnal reason can coin; by these I say prevailingly to persuade, and carry even without fear or opposition to the practice of sin, that is to draw, etc. That look when the load is at a stand, and the cart at a stall, they set more force to it, and draw it out notwithstanding all [illegible] and resistance to the contrary: so here. Thus the unjust steward (Luke 16:3-4), he said within himself, I am resolved what to do: thus the harlot when the young man seemed not willing to listen to her first allurements, but came on heavily, she put to her cart-rope, and plucked him by force (Proverbs 7:14, 21). See the contrivings of her carnal reasonings as the twistings of so many cords to make even a cart-rope, to hale him with a kind of violence to this villainy: arguments she [illegible] to persuade him, impediments she removes that may hinder him: her arguments are subtle, and secretly contrived, she pretends (which is not common among harlots) her profession, indeed, serious practice of religion, she had peace-offerings with her, that is, the remainders of them, and so provision, and that in a plentiful manner for her support; and that which was more, then she had offered her free-will offerings, that of purpose she came to meet him, that God in providence had put the opportunity into her hands, Lo, I have found you, and that all conveniences and contents are fitted at home: as touching any inconveniency that might be suspected or feared, that coast is clear, the good man is not at home; and thus she [illegible] him with false pretences. So the prophet declares the prevailing power of carnal reasonings, that they carry a man uncontrollably in his course that he cannot be stopped (Isaiah 50, last verse). Hence it is the wise man passes sentence of a man's estate by the common road of his thoughts. As the mind is, the man is; as the frame and constant stirring of the heart, so is his estate and condition (Proverbs 12:2). A good man obtains favor of the Lord, but a man of wicked devices will he condemn, because such a man is an ungodly man, who must not look to find favor with him, or acceptance from him.

Again, look we at the large extent of this spiritual wickedness of the mind, which cannot be bounded; the unavoidableness of it, it cannot be prevented; and in both we shall see, and be forced to confess the aggravation of this evil: there is a compass wherein a man's words and actions may be confined, a man cannot vent the venom of his words, or express his poisonous and wretched practices among all men, not among many, many times; but there are no limits nor bounds to be set to the thoughts of a man's mind, or the lusts and desires of the heart. Were a man never so full of malice and hatred, he cannot murder many; perhaps he dare not adventure upon one, but yet his mind can plot, and his heart desire, and both privately assent and approve the destruction of many millions, indeed, most of the world at one clap: as the tyrant that wished that all in Rome had but one neck, that he might cut it off at a blow. Herein is the extent of the murder of the mind; this may be multiplied and acted every hour of the day, and each minute of an hour. The adulterous mate has not liberty, and it may be not possibility to satisfy his lust by commission of it with one whom his heart is [illegible] after, yet he can lust after her, and many thousands more, and the thoughts of the mind can inwardly conceive the villainy, [illegible] give assent to it; and this is the adultery of the heart, this may be acted and continued each moment of the day. So that there is an endless, boundless kind of infiniteness in this evil of the mind, it meets with an infinite God, and so swerves in an infinite manner from him.

Again in an ordinary course, and look at the power of the creature, it cannot be stopped nor hindered, we may gag the tongue, manacle the hands, fetter the feet, and so prevent their actions, yet in all places, at all times upon all occasions in all companies, let all men do what they can, the thoughts will be working, and the affections of the heart stirring after such evils as they be addicted to.

As the evils of our whole course have their rise and cause from our thoughts, so are they nourished also hereby: our imaginations are the womb where wickedness is conceived; so are they also the breasts and dugs where they are maintained and nursed up, the sinews of the strength of our distempers lie in the lustings of our mind and heart; when the soul sucks the sweet of a distemper by daily meditation, lies at the dug as it were, draws out the spirits and quintessence of any noisome lusts and temptations, by daily attendance, bestowing his mind and thoughts thereupon; from which the soul comes to be incorporated into a lust, and wholly under the strength and power of it, so that though the evil is not outward and scandalous, yet it becomes more heinous in the sight of God: as it is in distillations, the spirits of wine, and some drops of chemical oil, are of more force than a great part of the substance taken in the grossness of its nature, and do more cheer and quicken, and comfort in a cordial manner. So it is in the soul, by the daily musing and acting of our thoughts, upon the occasion of any corruption presented; our meditation is the distillation which draws out the spirits of pride or passion, or lusts, and becomes marvelously confirmed in these, and transported by these to our spiritual prejudice, they grow strong in us, and we under the power of them. Thus Jonah while he sits down in a muddy distemper and attends the vanity of his own thoughts, he rows drunk with his passion, so that he neither knows God nor himself; not only doing that which is wrong, but he will [illegible] that which he does, I do well to be angry to the death, says he. Hence it is the apostle suggests that caution (Romans 13:14), Make no provision for the flesh; the meditation and musing of our minds, is the plentiful provision we make for the welcoming and maintaining of any distemper: when we let our thoughts loose to view the compass [illegible] any harsh carriage, and injurious dealing, we make provision for anger and revenge, and the heart comes to be carried with violence of wrath and rage; thus and thus he dealt with me, so unkindly, so injuriously, and that to my disparagement in the presence of such; and this sets him all on a flame. When we pore upon our infirmities and weaknesses we provide for discouragements, and we sit and sink down under them, and so strengthen those corruptions, that otherwise have received their death's wounds, and would be weakened and waste away. As it is with old decayed bodies which are subject to fainting fits, and are ever and anon swooning away, the pouring in of some cordial water will fetch them up again, and add new strength and cheer. The flesh here, is original corruption; the old man, which in the saints is dying away, and decaying daily, but our meditation puts as it were Aqua vitae into the old man's mouth, adds vigor afresh, and sometimes makes it with violence to prevail.

Lastly, while the swarms of vain imaginations keep thoroughfare in our minds and the noisome steams of sinful affections are rising, boiling, and bubbling in our bosoms, there is little expectation that the power of any means should come in upon the soul or prevail with it for good, the crowd of imaginations stops the passage so that there is no coming to speech with the soul, the hurries of [illegible] to transport it and take up the whole strength of it, that it can neither attend nor stay upon any thing besides (2 Corinthians 10:4), therefore called the stronghold, where Satan entrenches and fortifies himself against all the means of grace [illegible] may cast him out, for while the stream of the thoughts are turned another way, the ear hears nothing, the understanding minds nothing, the heart embraces nothing, there is no place or room there, and from that it is, as our Saviour speaks, the word cannot take place in them (John 8:37). Therefore the prophet's advice to Jerusalem when he would have her cleansed and saved, he directs her to dislodge her vain thoughts: wash your heart O Jerusalem that you may be saved, how [illegible] shall vain thoughts lodge within you (Jeremiah 4:14). Those vain thoughts are those carnal reasonings whereby the sinner would put by the authority of the truth, that so the sinner might neither see the loathsomeness of his sin, nor the danger of his estate, or the necessity to recover himself out of it, and if these thoughts lodge in him there will be no entertainment for the power of any ordinance or counsel that will take place with him, nor reproof awe, nor exhortation persuade, he casts out and keeps off any thoughts of any necessity to be washed, and so to be saved. If then by those vain thoughts your heart is estranged from God, and carried in [illegible] against him, if they be the cause of all sins committed and continued in, if the hindrance of all means that might procure our good, then is their evil exceeding [illegible] and therefore we should so judge it and so be affected with it.

We come now to speak of a third [illegible] alleged to excuse sin and to show the slight [illegible] the soul [illegible] of it, namely, suppose the failing was in practice, yet because the matter or thing in which the offence was committed was but small, men look at it as a petty business, a very trifle, not worthy [illegible] taking notice of, and therefore account it as an [illegible] of folly and childish weakness to be troubled with so [illegible] a thing, or to have the heart deeply affected with it more than the matter deserves, and a man in reason should. It was but taking of a penny or shilling too much, putting off a cracked commodity without suspicion by sleight of hand; lazing out a man's time, ever seeming to be doing and yet doing little; outbidding a man in a bargain by a wile, and he never the wiser; these are but tricks of wit, matters of no consequence, and why should conscience be troubled for these? A man is [illegible] the worse for them — why should he judge the worse of himself or his condition? Such [illegible] in a man's coat make it never a whit the more unseemly, such poor petty things in a man's carriage makes it never a whit the more uncomfortable. As the eye of man perhaps discerns not these things, the law cannot reach them nor the magistrate punish them, why should any man punish himself or [illegible] a torment and rack to his conscience for them? The things are little and petty.

The less the things are the more heinous your fault is, and the greater your guilt, as it thus appears. The less love you show to the Lord if you will break with him for a trifle, sets the honor of his great name, obedience to his holy law, contentment to his good Spirit at so low a rate, as that you will dare to jostle injuriously against all these for a very shadow, which in your own account is as much as just nothing, where there is truth and strength of love the hardest things seem light and things of the greatest worth little. As Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and it seemed short and time little because he loved her (Genesis 29:20). Ask me what you will for dowry, said [reconstructed: Shechem], Hamor's son, and I will give it, only give me the maid (Genesis 34:12).

Among men in ordinary conversation which lies within the compass of humanity, he never prizes a man's friendship or favor who fails him in common courtesies, and denies their desires, or refuses to gratify them in things of no great worth. I thought I might have commanded a greater matter at your hands than so; but when I see you stick with me for such a trifle, there is little love when so little a matter can hinder the work of it. A gracious heart will part with all for Christ, and you will part with Christ and his mercy rather than part with a little profit or pleasure, or rather, with a beggarly lust that your heart takes delight in. The Apostle calls it the labor of love (1 Thessalonians 1:3). Love is laborious, lays out itself to give content to that which is beloved. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you (John 15). You do nothing for the Lord, and your love is very little, or else that which is, is nothing worth in God's account. Look at the practice of Judas — so [reconstructed: hellish] and detestable as not to be named nor remembered among men; and the loathsomeness that lay in the bottom was this, that he sold the Lord Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; a goodly price, says the Prophet (Zechariah 11:12). Turn but the tables, judge your practice by this pattern: you set the Gospel of Christ, and the government of the Spirit of Christ at a far lower rate, even the thirtieth part of the price that he set; indeed, sell him to satisfy a base lust or humor of your own heart. It was a just reproach whereby Absalom checked the falseness of [reconstructed: Hushai], who forsook David as he conceived in his distress, and followed his enemy into the camp: Is this your love to your friend? To leave him thus in the lurch, and do nothing for him in the day of distress. The reproof was sharp and just, so far as reason could reach; but it falls far more justly, far more heavily upon you. Is this your love to the name of the Lord Jesus, that you should slight it? To his law, that you should despise it, [illegible]? Is this your love to his Spirit, that you should grieve it? And that for a trifle, for a twopence, for a booty, for a bargain, which will make you a beggar when you have got all you can gain by it; and that when there is no allurement worth the looking after that might entice you, no danger or difficulty that might hinder you in your duty and receiving a blessing and comfort therefrom.

The less the thing is, the less care and conscience you express for the good of your own soul. When you will run the hazard of [illegible] happiness for the gaining of a little profit, so many pence in the shilling, so many shillings in the pound; or rather, the giving satisfaction to a lazy, sinful, sensual humor. Alas, poor creature, had you no more for your soul but pence and shillings, a little laziness for your life and happiness, and salvation — do you value your soul of no greater worth? Our Savior in the Gospel sets a higher price upon it (Matthew 16:25-26): What will it profit a man, if he should win the whole world, and lose his own soul, [illegible] what shall he give in exchange for his soul? That is to say, a man should be a loser by the gain, and a beggar by the bargain if he had all. And yet, deluded creature, you will sell your comfort, the peace of your conscience, the salvation of your soul for a thing of nothing. The whole world is vanity, nothing, and less than nothing, and you will part with your happiness for that which is far less than that which is less than nothing. When Naaman came to the Prophet to be cured of the leprosy of his body, and so to save his natural life, and he was directed and enjoined by the Prophet to wash seven times in Jordan, he began to take it in distaste as a course that was too mean and base for his comfort and cure: Are not (says he) the waters of Pharpar and Damascus better than the waters of Jordan? His servants seasonably and wisely checked the carelessness of his own safety and recovery; Had the Prophet commanded you some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more when he says, wash and be clean (2 Kings 5:12-13)? The greatest labor should have been undertaken to preserve your life — what carelessness is this to neglect the least that may procure your safety? It is so here: our sick, sinful, leprous and polluted souls lie now at hazard ready to perish; had the Lord enjoined us to the heaviest task, things of greatest danger and difficulty to be done and suffered for the safeguard of [illegible] souls, would we not, should we not have done them? Parted with a limb for our lives, our lives for our souls? And shall we not be willing to part with the paring of our nails, these poor, empty, lying vanities, for our everlasting happiness? What atheistical carelessness is this, that men should live as if they had no souls to be saved, nor sins to be pardoned, not care to do the least thing that might procure their everlasting good, and greatest welfare.

The less the things [illegible] in which you give yourself liberty to transgress without any touch or trouble, the greater the wickedness of your heart. For such a kind of course argues undeniably that your soul is fully possessed with the source of corruption, when it runs out at every chink, runs over upon every occasion, and is [illegible] to the commission of evil. And a man is put beyond all color of reason that may excuse, or any pretence that might lessen it before God or men: it argues the veins are full of blood when the body bleeds in several parts without provocation; it is certain the channel is full, and the stream strong, when it fills each creek, and goes speedily and swiftly when there is no gale stirring. So it is certain, it argues strength of distemper, and source of sinful corruption in the soul, when the heart is carried to the commission of evil upon each trifling occasion that is [illegible]. The less the thing is that might draw you, the greater the corruption of your heart, that like a mighty stream transports you to the practice; so that there is no reason to be rendered, but only the wretchedness of your own spirit, why you fall into such an evil. When the Lord charged the Israelites with the consideration of his kindnesses, and their departings from him (Judges 2:2), he thus presses them, Why have you done this? So when this question shall be put to you, Why are you lazy in your place? Careless of a command, so easy to be done, so daily before your eye that you cannot but attend it? Why do you outreach in your dealings, cheat in your sellings? Why there is nothing to be alleged but the poisonous imposthumes of corruption that break out of your heart, when there is no temptation without to provoke a man, no bait to entice him, no fear of evil on the one side to force him to sin, to avoid danger; there is no weight of worth in any profit or pleasure by your own confession, that might justly stir you, or take you aside to go against justice, command, conscience, your own comforts and [illegible]: there is nothing but the power of your own lusts, the perverseness of your own will, the strength and distemper of your own affections, that [illegible] and hurries you to the commission of such sins. It was the evidence of the lewdness of Israel's whoredom that did prostitute herself to all lovers without gift (Ezekiel 16:30). How weak is your heart? The strength of her sinful inclinations was such, that she did not stay till temptation came and surprised her, but she sought temptations before they came, and did prostitute herself to every occasion with eagerness. This also was the guise of them who transgressed for a morsel of bread. As it is in the balance, when a dram or a grain will fetch up the scales, it [illegible] it fully loaded with the weight that carries it strongly that way. When your own mouth confesses the things are of no consequence, nor worthy consideration, no sweet of [illegible] that might delight, there is no price of any commodity that might carry any weight with your will and affections to cast them that way. It is an argument undeniable, and beyond gainsaying, your heart is loaded with lusts and corruptions, that so easily cast the balance that way, even the least dram, the least inkling of any occasion that comes in that scale. The less the occasion, the more and stronger your corruption, and such as cannot be excused, therefore it is usually most severely plagued by the Lord, because there is more sinfulness in an action where there is less provocation, and more heart and affection to it. As it was in the offerings of those that cast into the Corban; the widow that cast in two mites, the text says by our Savior's verdict, she cast in more than they all (Luke 21:3), because there was more heart there, more unfeigned bounty and liberality, though the money and gift was less: so it is here; there are most noisome corruptions in your heart, vented upon the least occasion; the thing you covet it may be is but two mites, a penny or twopence in the shilling more than is just, when men's necessities force them to seek supply. But there is a sink of immoderate covetousness in your heart, that against command and conscience, knowledge and comfort, you will transgress for a trifle. The less the thing is, the easier the command of a governor; the more hellish your carelessness and perverseness that will not attend it, when it is before your face, and may be performed without any trouble at all. And this is the cause why the Lord most commonly does most severely punish such a practice, because there was more heart, and so more poison in the sin, when there was less occasion to commit it. So it was in Lot's wife (Genesis 19:26): she looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. It was but a cast of her countenance, a look of her eye, one would have thought it had been but a little matter; the thing was little and easy, and therefore more easily it might have been discharged, therefore the [illegible] desire was exceeding strong, and the provocation exceeding great, and the [illegible] sharp and remarkable when the command is plain and express, the duty so open before us that it cannot but be discerned, easy and familiar to be [illegible]. It is a [illegible] current of corruption and [illegible] impudence, to sin in the face of a command, and under the eye and check of conscience, therefore our Savior leaves a star as it were, a memorandum upon that part of the story: Remember Lot's wife, beware how you go against an express charge in services which may easily be accomplished (Luke 7:32). The like you may see (Numbers 15:31-32) in the man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath: look we at the thing itself, what can any man imagine of less moment, and smaller consequence, to gather a few sticks; he was alone, he enticed no man to the like evil, and it should seem not in so open a place, for they found him, but if you look into the foregoing verse it is a special instance of one that should sin presumptuously; there is most of the venom and poison of a man's heart in such a practice.

We have now done with the first sort of those pretences whereby our carnal reason would beat back the evidence of the truth, and cast in some fogs and mists some forged cavils, which might cloud and eclipse the full discovery of the authority of the truth, that so the filth of sin might never be discerned, nor the heart consequently affected therewith as it should. And here Satan uses all the subtlety and policy that lies within the compass of his power. For he knows full well if he dash the work of the truth in the very entrance and beginning of it, he will then keep it from ever coming to perfection. If the strong man can keep his door shut, he must needs keep all his substance and his house safe also. And herein answerable lies the primitive and chief work of the Holy Ghost — he is sent of purpose to convince the world of sin, to silence all flesh and to captivate every thought. And therefore we have labored to chase away those [illegible], to [illegible] those clouds and fogs, which darkened the shining of the truth of the Gospel, when the sinner cannot but see the evil and danger of sin, which is now so evident it cannot be denied.

The second sort of cavils is here. He cannot but confess the danger, yet he vainly hopes he can prevent it, and that further quiets him and encourages him in his sinful course — the hope of escape. The [illegible] of carnal reason in this kind are four: Either God will not regard it; or if he does, [illegible] he will not require it, and call to an account; or if that, he can satisfy for it; or if none of these, the Lord will not be rigorous but he will abate it.

All these pleas issue from the atheism of the heart of the sons of men, whereby they neither know God nor themselves. We shall pursue them in their places and order, but briefly.

Such is the deluded folly of men's minds, that they confine the Almighty to their compass, and therefore sottishly conceive that the Lord is so attentive to the great affairs of heaven and the place of his holiness, and the glory of his own name, that he looks not after the things here below nor regards the carriages of the sons of men, that creep up and down like so many poor ants upon the face of the earth. So that either the Lord has covered himself in thick clouds, and retired himself to the [illegible] of his glory that he cannot see, or else he attends matters of greater moment and consequence to order in his infinite wisdom, and therefore lays these aside without any regard. And if once this forgery finds entertainment it sets open a gap to any kind of profaneness, makes men careless and fearless what they do because God regards not what is done (2 Peter 3:1-2). So those scorners which walk after their own lusts, saying where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation — [reconstructed: do you] not see how men provoke God and prosper? And has it not been so in all ages, [illegible] wicked and ungodly continue in sinful courses and yet succeed according to their own content. It was so in the former ages, it went best with the worst men, it is so in this, and will be so to the end. The Lord looks not after the mean occasions of men upon earth, finds himself employment in the affairs of heaven; it matters not what the desert of our sins be, we shall never feel what they do deserve. So those rulers (Amos 7) they put away the evil day far from them, and then they cause the seat of violence to come near (Psalm 73:10-11). Those blasphemers who set their mouths against heaven and their tongue walks through the midst of the earth, and they say how does God know this, and is there knowledge in the most high? Upon this ground it is that they let loose themselves in the fearless pursuit of [illegible] loathsome abominations. Then said he to me — the Angel of the Lord of Hosts — the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness; for they say the Lord has forsaken the earth, the Lord sees not (Ezekiel 9:9). For since here we must learn to chase out and keep out such imaginations, by setting up the light of the truth in our minds and listening wholly to it. So the psalmist shows the cause, and applies the cure (Psalm 94:8): Understand, you brutish among the people, and you fools when will you be wise. He that planted the ear shall not he hear; he that formed the eye shall not he see? Indeed the Lord professes to take notice of these men's ways in an especial manner, and to make privy search after them (Zephaniah 1:12). He will search Jerusalem with candles and visit such as sit upon their lees and say who sees us — you shall find he knows both good and evil and he will work both as a reward to such as deserve. This Job felt by experience (Job 14:16): For now you number my steps, do you not [reconstructed: watch over] my sins, my transgression [reconstructed: is] sealed up in a bag. And you shall find it so — the Lord will follow you step by step, and track and trace you in all your wanderings and keeps an account of all your sins sealed up as it were in bags.

But if the Lord does see and observe all our evils, yet he is patient and will pass them by, and put up those many [illegible], being pitiful and compassionate to poor creatures, knowing they be but dust.

True it is the Lord out of his long sufferance, will bear long with the base dealings of the sons of men, yet out of the purity and holiness of his nature he cannot but bring them to account and trial for all the swervings of their lives (Psalm 50:18). Thus the secure sinner counted the Lord's patience a kind of connivance, and allowance of him in ungodly ways: I held my tongue and you thought wickedly that I was such a one as yourself, that God could wink at wickedness, look aside at the slips and swervings of the ungodly, and suffer them to go away with it; but all in vain. For I will reprove you, and set your sins in order before you, consider this you that forget God: so likewise in (Ecclesiastes 11:9), rejoice O young man in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the ways of your youth, and walk in the sight of your eyes but know that for all these you shall come to judgment. The Lord will arrest you for the wrong done to his holiness, and follow the suit against your soul for all your injurious dealings, and he himself will come in against you as a swift witness. If your conscience condemn you God himself is greater than your conscience and he knows all things, and will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart. When all those dunghill stains of adulterous lusts, and malicious, envious and covetous desires, shall be laid open to the view of the sun, all those swarms of foolish and wicked imaginations, shall be then discovered, it is better therefore that you should see them now, in the day of grace: better you should have them now discovered to your conscience for your humiliation, than at the day of judgment for your confusion.

But if the Lord will require all, then I hope I may use means to satisfy for all, when my day begins to decline, and my sun to set, and my glass is run, when I am dropping down to the grave, and groaning upon my sick bed. I will then betake myself to my prayers and tears and repentance for my sins, I will sorrow for my sins, seek to God for mercy, I will repent and reform the evil of my ways, and the Lord will remove the plague of them.

In your declining days will you do this? Oh deluded creature, who knows but this day or before you have read over this book the Lord may take away your soul, who knows whether you shall have time to seek, or a heart to seek, or God will accept of you when you seek.

Whether a time or no — whether the date of God's bounty, the day of grace and period of God's patience, be come to an end. When you have abused many opportunities, whether ever he will give you leave or time once to look out, when your tongue shall be faltering in your mouth and your eyes fallen in your head, your heart sink and die within your bosom, not able to sigh out one desire, and the Lord snatch you out of the land of the living before you can see or consider where you are going (Luke 19:41-42). If you had known at least in this your day, the things that belong to your peace but now they are hidden from your eyes, the things of their peace were before their eyes, and yet were hid from their eyes (Revelation 2:21, 23). I gave her a day to repent, but she repented not, therefore I will cast her into a bed and kill her children with death. She had no more days of repentance but of ruin, she was cast into a bed of sorrow and had not time to pour out her prayers.

If you have time, who knows that God will give you a heart, to seek for mercy or sue for grace; it is true God may help you, but it is as true God may harden you, he may humble you and he may leave you, and it is most likely he will. You which have refused to hear, he will refuse to help (Ezekiel 24:13): I would have purged you and you would not be purged — you shall never be purged more (Jeremiah 51:9). We would have cured Babylon but she would not be cured, leave her then — leave them to the blindness of their minds that would not be enlightened, leave them to the hardness of their hearts that would not be converted. He will not always strive who has stood so long and knocked so often, you shall see him no more quickening, awing, affecting of you.

Or if you have a heart to seek in your manner, who knows whether God will accept it or no? You would not regard his calls and warnings, and he will not respect your prayers and cries (Proverbs 1:28): Then shall they call but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me. (Hebrews 12:17) Esau found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears. Nay, he may send you as he did the Israelites to the idols of your heart (Jeremiah 2:28): But where are your gods that you have made? let them arise and save you.

But lastly if I cannot satisfy for my evils, yet out of his bounty and mercy he may abate me of the plagues — the mercies of God are great, and his compassions large, and thus the mercies of God which were provided to bring men from their corruptions to repentance, through the abuse of carnal hearts become means to make them secure in their dregs (Deuteronomy 29:19). When all the plagues were threatened, yet they bless themselves and say, I shall have peace though I walk in the imaginations of my evil heart. So they in Isaiah made a covenant with death and hell.

The sin against mercy is one of the greatest sins that ever you commit. You turn the grace of God into license (Jude 4), and such are ordained of old to condemnation; you despise mercy and abuse it, you shall therefore be condemned by mercy not saved by it. God must not be just and so not God, if he save you without satisfaction to his justice. The Lord cannot wrong himself to relieve you, dishonor himself to deliver you (Exodus 34:7). He will by no means clear the guilty — it is one of his names and himself, and he cannot deny himself, and if his justice be not satisfied your plagues cannot be abated.

If a carnal man sees he cannot prevent the danger of sin, then he says I will bear it, if I be damned I will suffer it as I may if it come to the [illegible]. Let me have my sins though the Devil have my soul, let me have the sweet of the pleasures of sin in this world though I never see the face of God in glory, this is a most forlorn and devilish resolution.

But do you know what you say? True, you shall bear your damnation, but you are never able to bear it without breaking under it, being helpless and hopeless forever. O woe to you that ever you were born! O poor creature! If I should cease speaking and all of us join together in weeping and lamenting your condition it were the best course; it is impossible you should ever bear God's wrath. Let these three things be considered.

Judge the lion by the paw, judge the torments of Hell by some little beginnings of it, and the dregs of God's vengeance by some little sips of it, and judge how unable you are to bear the whole, by your inability to bear a little of it in this life. In terror of conscience, as the wise man says, a wounded spirit who can bear? When God lays the flashes of hell fire upon your soul you cannot endure it. Whatever a man can inflict upon a poor wretch may be born, but when the Almighty comes in battle array against a poor soul how can he undergo it? Witness the saints that felt it, as also the wicked themselves who have had some beginnings of hell in their [illegible]; when the Lord has let in horror into the soul of a poor sinner, how is he transported with an insupportable burden. When it is day he wishes it were night, and when it is night, he wishes it were day, all the friends in the world cannot comfort him. Indeed many have sought to hang themselves, to do anything rather than to suffer a little of the vengeance of the Almighty, and one man is roaring and yelling, as if he were now in Hell already and admits of no comfort; if the drops be so heavy, what will the whole sea of God's vengeance be? If he cannot bear the one, how can he bear the other?

Consider your own strength, and compare it with all the strength of the creatures; and so if all the creatures be not able to bear the wrath of the Almighty, as Job says (Job 6:12), Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh as brass, that must bear your wrath? As if he had said, it must be a stone or brass that must bear your wrath. Though you were as strong as brass or stones, you couldn't bear it: when the mountains tremble at the wrath of the Lord, shall a poor worm or bubble and shadow endure it?

Conceive this much: if all the diseases in the world did seize upon one man, and if all the torments that all the tyrants in the world could devise, were cast upon him; and if all the creatures in heaven and earth did conspire the destruction of this man, and if all the devils in Hell did labor to inflict punishment upon him, you would think this man to be in a miserable case, and yet all this is but a beam of God's indignation. If the beams of his wrath be so hot, what is the full sun of his wrath, when it shall seize upon the soul of a sinful creature in full measure?

In fact, if yet you think to lift up yourself above all creatures, and to bear more than they all, then set before your eyes the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, he that creates the heavens, and upholds the whole frame thereof; when the wrath of God came upon him only as a surety, he cries out with his eyes full of tears, and his heart full of sorrow, and the heavens full of lamentation, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). Oh you poor creature, if you have the heart of a man, gird up the loins of your mind, and see what you can do: do you think to bear that which the Lord Jesus could not bear without so much sorrow? Yet he did endure it without any sin or weakness. He had three sips of the cup, and every one of them did sink his soul; and are you, a poor sinful wretch, able to bear the wrath of God forever?

Yield to the evidence of the truth thus [illegible], beyond all opposition and gainsaying, and sit down in silence under the authority of it, and let it settle upon your soul; neither question it any more, nor hear anything against it, when it has been heard formerly so fully scanned and determined upon such undeniable grounds. Shut the door against the appearance of any sinful shifts, admit no conference with carnal reason any further; say, that coast is clear, that case is concluded; my corrupt heart has had a full hearing.

All the cavils and devices that ever the policy of Hell could coin, or the falseness and deceitfulness of my own heart could [illegible] or frame, have been alleged, followed, and pressed to the utmost, they have been answered and confuted, and the definitive sentence is passed against my own soul, by the full consent of my own apprehension; I yield the day, I confess the case, I hold up my hand and plead guilty. These are my sins, they are so heinous, so dangerous, I could never have conceived, I could never believe it before, but now I yield and confess it freely; these are the abominations that I have committed, it's Hell that I have deserved; I am an undone man, a poor forlorn damned creature; this is my [illegible], I cannot prevent it, nor can I bear it, I do not now question it. Awake with this in the morning, sit down with this at the table, walk with this all the day long, and let this truth rest with you, when you betake yourself to rest, and it will over-power and affect your heart. So Job when his heart came off kindly in a godly remorse for his transgressions, he suffers the [illegible] of his condition to lodge and stay with him, he lies under it, and looks at nothing else (Job 7:20). What shall I do to you, O you preserver of men, I have sinned; that is to say, I have no arguments to allege, no excuses to make, I can say nothing, nor do nothing in my own defense; only I must say I have sinned, you are the preserver of men, and unless you succor me, I must perish, I cannot preserve myself. If the corrosive be never so keen, the salve never so searching and operative, indeed, though it were applied to the rawness of the sore, the very proper place for its work, if you stir it continually, now take it off, then lay it on; it will never work effectually, [illegible] thoroughly, or kindly heal the wound; but you must bind it on, let it stay upon the place by the space of so many hours, then you shall find the proper and powerful operation thereof. So it is with the sovereign and convicting truths of Christ, when all cavils have been answered, and all the pleas which a man's self-deceiving heart has put in, have been removed; so that the truth finds passage to the conscience, and is applied aright to the soul; unless it settle there by a silent subjection to the strength of it, and admit no further questioning nor debating when the cause is determined by undeniable evidence, it never works kindly, nor prevails [illegible] effectually as otherwise it would. It's [illegible] policy and practice he daily attends; when Scriptures are so pregnant, and arguments come in with such strength that no carnal pretenses can stand before them, though he retires for the present, and seems to leave the cause; yet upon the next occasion, when any advantage is presented, he brings about the business again, and follows the temptation afresh, and puts in some pretense, while he questions the truth he hinders the operation of it for the while, while we are parleying and disputing what we should do, we omit so long to do what we ought, and unfit ourselves to do what we intend and are resolved of formerly. Therefore when all cavils have been silenced, let not these brawlers appear again, nor suffer them to renew their suits and [illegible] any more, but cast them out of consideration (as we do use to cast bills and barrators out of the court when the causes have been heard) settle the heart under the sentence of the truth, and let it sit down there; hear nothing against the determination of the Word, but out of the Word; and then it's certain that determination will never alter before your condition alters. Give your soul for gone really according to the righteous judgment of the truth, and stop all passages that no carnal reason may come to the speech of your soul, or pretend any way of rescue, and you will presently perceive, it will break kindly under the blow, or else look out for relief elsewhere. Go aside then and parley with your spirit, and say, The Word upon serious search and examination has determined it, my conscience confesses it, and I now see the loathsomeness of my sin, and wretchedness of myself and condition, I go up and down the world as a condemned creature whose doom is passed, and look daily for the day and hour of execution, that death consume my days, my body drop down to the dust, and my sinful, proud, polluted soul be dragged down into Hell among the devils; to avoid it, is impossible; to bear it, is intolerable; woe to my soul that thus I have sinned, and who shall, who can deliver from this sin, and this death? Talk not, trouble not me with dispute what my sin and my condition is, but Oh, help me out of it, if it may be. And it's certain, if your soul abide here, it will sink under unsupportable sorrow, and soak itself in it, for this will take away the sight and sweetness of anything that may refresh and support the wounded soul, because he will see his sins in the bitterness and venom of them, wherever he is, and whatever he does, and as that which poisons all the best of the comforts of this life. He sees his sin in his prosperity, which is but the fatting of him for the slaughter. He sees his sin in his honor, he is advanced the higher that his downfall may be the more miserable. God fills his belly with his hidden treasures of this world, that he may treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. As it is with [illegible], if it pass through the fire only, it hardly warms it; but if it lie under the blowing of the [reconstructed: fire], it will melt it. When we take away carnal shifts, and bring the soul to the sight of sin, we put it into the fire, but that only warms it a little; but when it sits down under the sentence, it's then under the furnace, and that will melt it. Thus our iniquities are said to lay hold of a man (Psalm 40:12). When we are under the sentence which the Word passes upon our sin, we are then under the reach of our sins, and they then lay hold of us, and that will cause that we shall not be able to look up.

All those truths that we shall hear publicly dispensed out of the word, or we shall privately read in it, which concerns our corruption of which we stand guilty, or that condition into which we are brought by reason of our sin; we must take them home to ourselves, as the special portion the Lord has appointed to us in particular, and we must make particular application of them in a peculiar manner to ourselves; for by this means there is more light without, whereby our sins and estates are more fully discovered, more eye-salve and spiritual sight conveyed to our minds, whereby the eye of our understanding is more clearly enlightened to see our sins, and our misery in them. He that joins many fires together, they will not only warm him, but scorch him if he stand near them. So it is with the Word which is a fire, the joint testimony of so many Scriptures, or so many [illegible] admonitions taken and applied near, as those which attend our particular, they will not only warm and affect the heart a little slightly, but scorch a man's conscience with the terror, as well as clear a man's apprehension with the light; that is one thing in (1 Corinthians 14:24). The simple idiot when he comes before God in the assembly, and the Word is published and seconded; the text [illegible], he is judged of all, and condemned of all, and so the thoughts of his heart are made manifest, and [illegible] falls down, and says, these sins are mine, I have committed them; all these plagues, and threatenings, and judgments are mine, I have deserved the Lord should lay them upon me; all this guilt belongs to me, how shall I answer it, or be able to undergo it? All these thus taken home by spiritual application, become as so many weights added to the burden, which makes it unsupportable. Look as it is in surgery, it's not enough to have the salve, and apply it, indeed, and bind it also; but it must be [illegible] renewed, and so quickened, and then it will work [illegible], and marvelous forcibly. So it is when by our own conviction, and the dispensation of the ministry, the light of our apprehension is made more clear by the instruction of the Word, the strength of our own conviction established by the conviction of the Word, we apply afresh, follow them, and fasten them afresh upon our souls, and that makes them prevail more effectually than before, like a fresh gale, it makes us go faster on the way we intended.

Make and keep the evil of sin really present in your apprehension; and that's the last way to see the vileness of it, and find the venom of it in its greatest efficacy. It was the observation of the natural philosophers, and experience and reason gives in approbation of the course; the nearer we bring an object of evil to our view, the more it affects and stirs the heart of him that beholds, when they would terrify a malefactor, and wrest out a confession of truth, they [illegible] the gibbets and instruments of death that be prepared, set him upon the rack, make him ascend the ladder, that the nearness of the evil now approaching may strike terror, and fasten fear and dread upon his soul; deal you so with your own heart for your spiritual good. See the evil of sin in the execution of it upon others, and set them before your eyes, and act it also upon yourself by a thorough consideration of your own course.

Set the evil of sin before your eyes in the execution of it upon others. This was the advice the Lord gives to the rebellious and unbelieving Jews [illegible] — he would have them sensible of the danger of their own [illegible]; he sends them to see the ruin that sin has [illegible], the havoc it has wrought in the places of greatest renown, persons of greatest respect for their [illegible] and account before God and men (Jeremiah 7:12). Go now to my place, which was in Shiloh, where I set my Name at the first, and see what I have done to it, for the wickedness of my people Israel. Though that was the place of my worship, where in my name and honor was great, and therefore might in reason be preserved; they the people of my choice and [illegible] ones, and therefore might expect pity and commiseration, yet were destroyed and laid waste without remedy and recovery. So will I do to this house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. So also when he would make them see the loathsomeness of their unnatural departing away from him to other gods, he sends them to other nations, that they may convince and condemn them for their course, so contrary to reason, and the very carriage of the heathen (Jeremiah 2:10). Pass over to the [reconstructed: isles] of Kittim, and send to Kedar, etc. Not that they should make a journey there by their bodily presence, but send their thoughts afar off, and in serious consideration present those evils really to their own view, see what sin has done to others, and be persuaded it will bring the like evil upon their own souls. Let me so speak to you, and do you so practice. Go, hard-hearted sinner, to the Red Sea, and hear there Pharaoh belching out his blasphemy against the Lord, "Who is Jehovah? I know not Jehovah, nor will I let [reconstructed: Israel] go." See there the wheels of his chariots taken off, and he and his Egyptians crying and flying, "Let us fly from the face of Israel, for the Lord fights for them." See them drowning and dying, and their dead carcasses cast upon the shore. This is the hideous and direful destruction that hardness of heart has wrought. Go, rebellious sinner, into the wilderness, into the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: see them rising up against the Lord and his officers, and reproaching their persons and proceedings, "You take too much upon you, you sons of Levi, seeing all the congregation are holy" (Numbers 16:4). Stay but a while, and see them standing in their tent doors, they and theirs, and see presently the earth opening and swallowing up them, and all that appertained to them; they went down alive to the pit, [illegible] to Hell: and hear all Israel flying at the cry of them, lest the earth swallow us up also. See the others that offered incense burning in the [illegible]; and see what rebellion against God, his officers, and ordinances works. Go, proud-hearted wretch, to Babylon, see Nebuchadnezzar walking and vaunting himself upon the top of the turret; [reconstructed: wandering] among the beasts of the field; and from there pass on to the palace of Herod: see him set upon his throne venting his venom against the dear servants of the Lord, and the people crying, "The voice of God, and not of man" (Acts 12:22). He taking the honor to himself in his heart, and not giving it to God: follow him there into his chamber, and see him breathing out his heart upon the bed of sorrow, the lice eating out his [illegible]. Go, covetous, earthly-minded [illegible], to Jerusalem to Judas; hear him there plotting and bargaining with the scribes and Pharisees, [illegible] the Lord Jesus, the Lord of [illegible], for thirty pieces of silver; see him [illegible] and [illegible] money, and so betraying his Master: follow him there into the High Priest's hall, see his pale face, his ghastly looks, and shaking hands; hear him yelling out of the horror of his heart, "I have sinned" (Matthew 27:3-4). See him flinging his money away; and follow him there, and behold him putting the [reconstructed: rope] about his neck, sighing out, "the blood of Jesus, the innocent blood, the blood of Jesus; let me not be, rather than be thus miserable" — and with that he [illegible] himself headlong, and his bowels gush out, and his soul departs out of his body, and the devils they lay hold upon it. Send your thoughts post to Hell after him; hear him there cursing the day that ever he was born, the head that plotted it, the heart that desired it, the scribes and [illegible] that consented, and gave it, and the tongue that said, "Hail, Master." Behold what desperate evils [illegible] will drive a man to, and what insufferable desolation it draws with it.

As you see the execution of the evil upon others, so act upon yourself by present consideration; danger and death when they are at hand and in present expectation they put men upon real expressions, when they see [they] must die, and they must come to answer, sins will appear as they are, and they must suffer what they do deserve, there is no shift then, their hearts and hopes shake and sink. Act therefore your own death and your own judgment, and bring in a real account of your condition by daily and real consideration, die daily, and drag your heart to the trial of God's tribunal, see what you can make of it now, that you may know what to expect then. Go apart, and keep Assizes or at least Sessions with yourself: I see my sins and my condition, let me see how I can give an account for them and how I can answer to the Lord and his law, or how I can bear that which follows; first or last I must come to trial, let me [prepare] myself beforehand to it. Suppose [that] I heard the last [trumpet] blow, Arise you dead and come to judgment, [and] I saw Christ coming in the clouds with thousands, suppose I beheld the thrones set and the Lord Jesus summoning all flesh; when the books shall be opened, and all hidden things brought to light, when the wicked shall not be able to lift up their [heads] but call to the mountains to cover them, they are not able to abide the trial, and therefore cannot endure the terror of the lamb. You cannot but say those are your sins of which you never yet repented, that your curse and condemnation is such as you are not able to avoid, you cannot answer for the one, nor bear the other. Therefore bring it up to this conclusion: let me not rest in this condition now that the word and my conscience tells me I shall never find comfort therein at that day.

Let me now draw towards a conclusion by setting on the exhortation with two or three motives.

And first consider the danger of the mistake herein: to miss here is to miscarry forever in the great work of our conversion, without any possibility of recovery or redress; if God never lets a man see his evil it is certain he never recovers him out of it. When he will prepare a people for destruction and cut out a people on purpose for confusion, and make them ripe for plagues he takes this course (Isaiah 6): go your ways and make the eyes of this people dim and their ears heavy that in seeing they may see and not perceive, hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should be converted and I should heal [them], keep them there and they be safe enough from ever receiving any saving good. So our Savior (Matthew 6:21-22): the light of the body is the eye; if the light within you be darkness how great is that [darkness], the whole [body] is so; a wound here is never [healed], there is no hope of any good coming to a soul [wrapped] up in [darkness]. It is made a character, a brand that [is set] upon such as are reprobates (Matthew 13:13): to you [it is given to know] the mysteries of the kingdom, but to [them] in [parables], that seeing they might see and not understand. If there be but one gate to come into the way, miss that and you miss the way; so here, therefore when men are but one step between them and destruction they are thus discovered (Matthew 24:37): they ate, they drank, they married and knew nothing until the flood [came] and destroyed them all. As in a town where there is but one entrance or passage, block up that, there [is no] coming in, no going out, and [there is] no [way] of relief; they go not out to seek any, none come in to bring any [aid], so here when the mind is blinded, there is no [possibility] of the coming in of any good or for [any to] receive [it], the passage of grace and of mercy is wholly blocked up. Therefore our Savior is said to come to [bless every] one [of y]ou by turning of you from your [iniquities], therefore you must see them before you turn from them; no seeing, no turning, no blessing (Acts 3:26).

It is the easiest way of all other; it eases a man of that last reckoning, and arrears to come; a seasonable and timely discovery of sin makes a man [avoid] occasions of evil and prevent them, it sets up a fear in the heart and stops a man that he dare not venture to commit them. He that walks in darkness knows not where he goes and therefore must needs go to ruin, he lies open to all evil that comes, he discerns it not, he will do any evil be it never so loathsome, he perceives no such evil, he takes sour for sweet, poison for [food] and preservatives, and swallows down anything though death be in it. (John 16:2) They shall think they do God good service when they [kill] you; and says Paul I was a persecutor, blasphemous and injurious, and through ignorance I did all this (1 Timothy 1:13). The kingdom of Satan is the kingdom of darkness; while he keeps men in ignorance and hoodwinked he can carry them where he will; when the light of the Gospel is once [set] up his jurisdiction falls to the ground, nor can he prevail as before. It was a good woman's speech [illegible] desiring that her children might be instructed [and] catechized that their reckoning might be less and their account more easy than hers, having lived in ignorance. Children under parents, and servants trained up under good masters that show them the evils of their ways and keep them and affright them from those evils, they come on so easily to Christ, and are carried so gently that they know not what terror means, timely conviction keeps them from the pollutions of the world.

Lastly it is the safest and surest way. See our sins we must first or last either here to our humiliation or hereafter to our confusion; and we had better see them by the light of the Gospel while we are within sight of [illegible] that we may be relieved, than to see them by the [reconstructed: light] of Hell when there is no remedy. If the eye be [reconstructed: single] the whole body is full of light (Matthew 6:22). If we would judge ourselves we shall not be judged of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:31). Who would not now be convinced that he may then be acquitted — see his sins now for his humiliation, that he may never have them then laid to his charge (Jeremiah 50:20). In those days and at that time says the Lord the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none, and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon their iniquities and will remember their sins no more. How should this encourage you to seek out for your sins now, to search your heart and to look into your life, when as indeed if you do so see your sins as to sorrow for them and by this sight and sorrow you be driven to a Savior, your sins may be sought for but they shall be found no more.

When they heard this.

The description of contrition stood of two parts whereby the nature of the work was especially discovered.

Partly in the causes of it: sight of sin, sorrow for sin.

Effects of it: [illegible] of sin, sequestration from sin.

Concerning the sight of sin so far as it serves our turn in a true conviction of it, in that they stood here as accused by Peter and condemned in their own consciences as guilty of no less than the blood of Jesus, we have already spoken.

The second thing in the text to be considered is the means how this was wrought. And these are two.

The first is a particular application of their special corruption. The Apostle does not hover in the general and shoot at rovers, but comes close to them, charges them expressly in a special manner, and lets fly in the very faces of them: this Jesus whom you have [reconstructed: crucified] — he names not, he blames not any other, he says not Judas was a wretch that betrayed him, the soldiers cruel that took him, Pilate base and fearful and [illegible] that condemned him — no, this is the Jesus and you are the men that have committed this villainy. A person could not be more innocent, a practice more bloody — you are men that stand guilty of this horrible abomination of crucifying the Lord of Glory. The doctrine from hence is this.

A plain and particular application of special sins by the ministry of the word is a special means to bring the soul to a sight of, and sorrow for them.

Plain application and powerful conviction [illegible] together. Let the house of Israel know that God has made him Lord and Christ whom you have crucified — you are the men I mean, this is your sin I mention. Thus our Savior the great Prophet of His Church, who spoke as never man spoke and best knew how to deal with deceitful hearts, he lays his finger upon the sore, and mark how he pinches with particulars, as his ordinary manner of dispensation was to the Churches (Revelation 3:2): I know your works, you have a name to be alive but you are dead. I say you are hypocritical, and I know what I say, and I tell you openly what I know — you have a form of profession but you have no heart nor life nor power of religion in your course. He that could not err in what he did teach, he teaches what ministers should do in their dispensation. And there was nothing more usual with our Savior than to point out particular sins and sinners: Woe be to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites (Matthew 23). And therefore he does not closely and covertly as it were give a kind of intimation, afar off what he would, and leaves [reconstructed: them] to pick and search out his meaning; but tells them their own in English as we say — plucks them out by the pole, goes not behind the door to tell men their faults, but gives in testimony against their sin and that to their teeth (Luke 16:15). When the Pharisees in an impudent manner began to mock at him, he lets fly point blank: You are they that justify yourselves but the Lord knows your hearts. Indeed it was the charge he gives to all his prophets, when they were to deal with the Jews and to dispense his counsels to them (Hosea 2:1-2): Plead with your mother, plead, tell her she is not my wife. "Plead" is a law term — call her by name, summon her into the court of conscience, follow the suit against her, lay the charge and plead the action against her particular sins. Thus Stephen (Acts 7:51): You stiff-necked and hard-hearted, you have always resisted the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did so do you. So the Apostle frequently (Acts 4:10-11): be it known to you and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus etc. whom you have crucified — this is the stone refused by you builders, you are the men, and this is your evil.

The reasons shall be touched in a word.

The place and duty of a minister requires this, who has a special charge, and therefore should have a particular care to foresee, and so to prevent the particular and special evils, which he perceives to blemish the Christian course, and endanger the spiritual comforts of the people under his guidance and of whose safety he must give an account; and this will not be done unless a man single out the persons and set home their sins in special. The steward is not only to know [illegible] several conditions of the persons in the family but to provide a portion suitable for each, if ever the safety of the whole be provided for; and the cordials for the weak, milk for the little ones, and stronger meat for those who are of able strength. The skill of the physician and the only way to cure a settled and inward distemper as the dropsy or falling sickness, is not to give the patient an ordinary purge, a common receipt; that every quacksalver will do and do no good at all; but he must have that wisdom to hit the humor, and to provide ingredients that will suit the temper of the party and the [illegible] nature of the disease. So it is the part of a skillful minister to hit the humor of the heart of a sinner, to make a receipt on purpose to meet [illegible] the particular distemper such as will work upon, or sluggishness pride hypocrisy, perverseness and as the medicine does upon the spleen or choler, and so the Lord to the prophet (Ezekiel 16:2): Cause the house of Israel to know their abominations. The sedulous shepherd who indeed would provide for the welfare of his sheep — it is not enough that by common survey he casts his eye upon them, but he must pen them, and handle them, search them and [illegible] them, [illegible] to their several ails, and such maladies to which they are subject. So a faithful minister must [illegible] with poor sinners, as with the sheep commended to [illegible] care and custody; he must find them in their particular evils, and follow them with application of special helps.

The necessity of sinners requires this: for this manner of the delivery of the truth, it awakens and stirs up the mind and heart of the hearer to a more serious attention to that which is spoken, and settles the heart upon a more thorough consideration of himself and his ways; to both of which the soul of a sinner rocked as it were asleep in the security of a sinful course, is reluctant to come; not willing to hear anything that would trouble him in his sins, and very ready to lay aside the consideration of that he hears in that behalf. Whereas particular application provokes to the practice of both, calls a man by name as it were, that he must come to his answer; he cannot avoid it, it will not suffer him to make an escape before he give in his answer. This flings in the light so full into men's faces that it forces them to look about them. General truths generally do little good. That which is spoken to all, is spoken to none at all. No man heeds more than he must with such things he has little heart to, or takes little delight in. An indictment or attachment without a name, read, published, and proclaimed in the face of the world, no man is either troubled at it, or reclaimed by it; but when the name is recorded, and the man challenged, it makes him consider how to get a surety, or pay the debt, or prevent the danger. So is it with a general reproof, no man will own it, and therefore no man reforms by it, or is forced to seek out. Thus Nicodemus never left caviling before the Lord came home to his own person, and touched him to the quick (John 3:10): Are you a master in Israel, and do you not know these things? See and be ashamed; a master not to know that which a scholar might and should. It is not enough that we be stirring in the house, and people be up, but we must knock at men's doors, bring a candle to their bed-sides, and pinch the sluggard, and then if he have any life he will stir. While the ministers of the Lord are preaching and publishing the mind and counsel of God in the assemblies, there is some stirring in God's house, but yet the secure person sits and sleeps on the stool as the sluggard in his bed, unless some special application pinch him [illegible] the quick: then he begins to look up, and ask who is there? So it was with David, 'you are the man' did prevail more with him than all the [illegible] (2 Samuel 12). As the noise of a gun far off makes the fowl listen, but one scattered shot that falls upon the wing or leg makes them cry and stir. All the common discourse came not near David, but 'you are the man' — three words like three small shots awakened him with a witness.

The nature of the word calls for this manner of dispensation as that which suits and serves best for the end and work of it. It makes it hit sooner, and pierce more deeply and prevailingly into the heart: the speech of the minister and his words are like darts and arrows, the right and particular applying them is the level carriage of them to the heart, and so they hit unavoidably, and fasten strongly thereupon. General discourses are like arrows shot at a great height at all adventures without aim, and so without success or special profit, or powerful work upon the hearer; men come and go away not touched, not troubled, not affected with any thing. The word is compared to a sword, the explication is like the drawing of it. So the truth in the naked nature and virtue of it comes to be [illegible]; but the flourishing of the sword will never do the deed. But he that handles it suitable to the end and work of it, he must follow the blow if he purpose to force his enemy either to [illegible] or yield. So it is with the truth: down-right blows put sometimes the most cunning fencer past his sense; so [illegible] cunning hypocrites beyond all their shifts. See how the woman of Samaria (John 4:18-19) put off our Savior with fond cavils, saucy and contemptuous speeches, until our Savior met with her in particular, Go call [reconstructed: your] husband, she answers, I have no husband; our Savior comes within her, You have had five husbands, and he whom now you have is not your husband, in that you say right, you poor sinful adulteress; then she fell before our Savior. It is in a man's spiritual as it is with a man's outward estate. The bond lies forfeited, and the careless debtor or bankrupt he looks not out to pay. He hears the news of a writ out for him, but sees none to arrest, and therefore he grows fearless. But when the sergeant arrests him, and drags him to prison, you will not provide for your debt to pay, provide then to go to prison, that makes him begin to send to friends, to gather up his [illegible], sell his commodities, crave bail and surety. So it is with careless prodigal sinners which suffer their souls and salvations to lie forfeit, and yet look not out, until some particular word meet and make an arrest upon the soul, and the minister by his commission like the sergeant seizes upon him, you will not forsake your sins, you must therefore perish in your sins. He then begins to bethink himself what to do.

We here see the reason why there is so little good done by the ministry of the word upon the hearts of ungodly men: many hypocrites lie skulking under the covers of deceit, and are not discovered; many proud hearts not humbled, but go on in their sturdy distempers; many sleepers sit and snort in their security, and go hoodwinked down to destruction, and see nothing before they sink into the pit. We do not knock at men's doors, we do not bring the light to their bed-sides, we do not pinch them indeed with sharp and particular reproofs, and those set on to purpose; we do not put them [illegible] their fence, we do not keep them under the arrest of some conviction, so that they cannot make an escape; but each carnal reason rescues them from the hold of some common truths that perhaps are delivered. Oh we level not, we hit not, we apply not the word so home, so particularly as the occasions, conditions, corruptions of men require; and therefore it prevails not with that power, finds not that success which otherwise it might. Common reproofs are like the confused [illegible] in the ship when the mariners were rowing Jonah to the shore, notwithstanding all which, Jonah lies and sleeps under-hatches: but when they go down to him, and laid hold upon him, and awakened him with a witness, Arise you sluggard, and call upon your God, lest we all perish (Jonah 1:5). He then began to bethink himself where he was, and what he had done; and then remembered that though he had feared and served the God of Heaven, yet by [reconstructed: his] rebellion he had departed away from him. So here, all the while we take up men's minds, and exercise their ears and thoughts with some hovering discourses, and common words of course, We are all sinners, In many things we offend all, All flesh is frail; but I hope better things of you, I hope there is none such among you.

Those daubing discourses and roving reproofs, toothless, powerless dispensations, like arrows shot a cock-height, they touch not, trouble not, and in the issue profit no man at all. They come proud and stubborn and perverse and careless, they sit so and return so, day [illegible] day and year after year. But you should shake up a sinner, go down under the hatches to Jonah set upon the hearts of men in particular — Awake, you [illegible]. You a master of a family and [illegible] not, [illegible] not those that are under you? You a servant yet stubborn and [illegible], and [illegible] not to those that are set over you in the Lord? Are you a wife and do you not reverence and obey with [illegible] him whom God has made your head and guide? Are you a member of a Christian congregation, and have the name of Christ called upon you, and are you treacherous to the covenant of Christ, opposing the government and spirit of Christ, and despising the [illegible] of the Lord Jesus? Awake, you [illegible] masters and rebellious servants, perverse wives, treacherous and [illegible] members; know that your religion is vain and yourselves also while these distempers rest in your bosom; call upon your own hearts for [illegible] and repentance, and to God for mercy that you perish not. Thus when Peter was recovered out of his fall, and had the blood of Christ running warm in his veins, and the power of the spirit of the Lord now setting on the right hand of the Father filling his heart with love to his Savior and zeal for his glory — see how sharply [illegible] applies the keenest [illegible] to cut the consciences of all to whom he speaks without fear or partiality (Acts 4:10-11). Be it known to you, O you rulers and all you people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus of Nazareth whom you have crucified, you have slain the just and innocent one and desired a murderer to be given to you, etc. — and see the success, God added daily to the church such as should be saved. It's Cartwright's expression, when our Savior sent out the sons of thunder then Satan fell like lightning from heaven, the right leveling the ordinances of Christ will [illegible] make battery in the kingdom of Satan; sharp reproofs make sound Christians. It's a course which God commends in Scripture, and has not failed to bless. When the angel pleaded the indictment so punctually, so plainly against the people, their hearts broke all in pieces under such blows, they lifted up their voices and wept, they left caviling and replying, and fell to weeping [illegible] (Judges 2:4).

Here see the reason why the best preaching finds the least and worst acceptance at the hands of rebellious sinners, that which works, and troubles most, that they most distaste, that which gives the least quiet to them, to that they give the least respect and liking. Like children they love raw fruit which will breed worms and sickness, rather than worm-seed though that would prevent both. So men love raw and windy discourses to please sinful humors, and corrupt hearts, rather than some bitter and particular reproofs which would make them sound in the faith. Ahab will nourish four hundred false prophets at his table, feed them with dainties, and make choice provision for them, that they may feed his humor, and speak good things to him; when he is not able to abide the sight, scarce to hear the name of Micaiah the prophet of the Lord, who would speak the counsel of the Lord without fear and partiality (1 Kings 22). So they in (Isaiah 30:10) — They say to the seers, see not; and to the prophets, [illegible] not to us right things; [illegible] smooth things — such as might suit their sensual appetites, and would go down without chewing. And it's strange to see when such men have told a grave tale, and vented a heartless, toothless discourse, neither pith nor power in it; I say, it's strange to see what admiration and esteem such carnal hearts will set upon such persons and expressions; great their parts, prudence, and discretion: Oh how sweet and seasonable their discourse, how glad to hear, and how unwearied to attend such — and all the while they may sit and sleep in their sinful condition, and neither have their consciences awakened, nor their corruption discovered. Squeamish stomachs had rather take [illegible] a whole week together than a bitter potion one day. This is the disease which Paul complains of as incident to the last age of the world; and therefore advises his student Timothy (2 Timothy 4:2-3) — to be instant in season, out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort, for the time will come that men will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their proper lusts, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers: itching ears must be scratched, not boxed.

Information: It's not only in the liberty, but it's the duty of a minister, according as the text suits, and the condition of the hearers answers, to aim at the sins of the persons and people to whom he speaks. Particular application implies a special intention of the parties (1 Kings 21:20). When Ahab met Elijah, he saluted him on this manner, Have you found me, O my enemy? He answers him, I have found you — that is to say, it was my duty to do so, and therefore I have endeavored it, and according to my desire and endeavor I have accomplished it, I came on purpose. If the watchman does not warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at his hand (Ezekiel 33:8). The necessity of the people, the nature of the work which he intends, and the charge of his place which lies upon him, calls for this at the hands of a minister. Will not common sense conceive it reasonable, that the physician discover the nature of the disease that troubles the patient, and put in such ingredients as may purge the particular humor; it's the choicest skill he can use, and the chiefest good he can do; and therefore he should intend it and endeavor it in a special manner. Would you not have the commander in the field search the particular disorder in the camp, and pursue the reformation of it in each special passage thereof? Herein the faithful execution of his place appears.

This I speak the rather to crush that vain cavil of captious spirits; Why did not the minister mean me, intend me? if the word meets with their corruptions, and begins to ransack and search the festered sores of their guilty consciences?

I answer four things:

If [illegible] heart misgives you that you are [illegible], he did mean you, he should mean you. If your heart condemn you, know that God is greater than your conscience, and knows more than he can express, or you perceive in yourself.

However it is, He had you in his intent in what he said; If you were faulty, to reform the evil; if not faulty, to forewarn you: For a faithful minister should intend the good of all in all it [illegible], and they should receive it.

If perhaps you be freed from the outward practice of the evil, yet you have the spawn of it in your soul, and that which will provoke you to it, and that corrupt part has given approbation to the evil; you have not set yourself so much against the evil, and that has made you so far share in the evil, and so justly subject to share in the reproof. Thus the Apostle charges the Jew (Romans 2:1). When the Jew would plead his innocency from such evils of the Gentiles, because he is ready to condemn and judge them in that behalf, says the Apostle, You therefore that judge another, you condemn yourself, for you yourself do the same things; but it might have been replied, We do not, we are not whisperers, backbiters, guilty of [illegible], malice, covetousness, etc. Interpreters answer, that the Apostle's meaning is, Though they committed not such evils, yet the corruption of their nature suited with them, and so shared in them, and therefore justly liable to the like [illegible] of the law more or less.

He meant what he said, and what his words meant — If there be any evil in them, bear witness of the evil (John 18:23), and it's just a man should bear his blame. Would you fish more out of a man's meaning than you can find in his words? I fear you mean to be a caviller. It's a certain argument of a captious and contentious disposition, and commonly of a man that carries a galled conscience, that seeks ways and means to make a fault when he cannot find one.

It's a word of [illegible] exhortation, first to ministers, second to people. To ministers, what they should do: To the people, what they should desire.

To the ministers: They have a pattern here for their [illegible]. If we will be faithful to our places, and the work commended to our care, faithful to the souls of the people; if we would further the work of the Lord, and the word, and see the fruit of our labors to the conviction and conversion of such as belong to God's counsel: This is God's way in which we must walk if we purpose to find God's blessing, that others may reap the profit, and we the comfort of our pains at the great day of our account; we must by particular application make men see their sins, if ever we hope they shall see the salvation of the Lord.

How to steer our course in this so delicate a channel, and so tender a work, these following directions will not be unseasonable.

First, We must learn to ground our application upon the blessed word of the Lord rightly apprehended, and opened plainly by undeniable evidence. Then our application will come with uncontrollable power to the conscience, when it comes guarded with authority and [illegible] of the truth; and men cannot but give way to those reproofs, when they cannot gainsay the evidence of God's mind and counsel therein. That however carnal hearts will secretly be weary of them, yet they will not dare openly to oppose them, because they perceive that they must oppose the counsel of God plainly dispensed therein, and in their own conscience also. Therefore I have ever judged it most seasonable, if I would pursue a sinful course breaking out, not by the by to pull it into a discourse, but to take a text on purpose, wherein it is plainly condemned. That the people may hear God in his word speaking before we speak; this is to show our commission before we do execution, and this will stop men's mouths. Never balk anything that is in the text, never wrest anything out of the text that is not there, for that savors too much of a man's own spirit or passion, or private ends, all of which must be avoided as much as hell. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God (1 Peter 4:11), not our fancies, or passions, or conceits, but let God's oracles be heard only.

It's lawful for a minister so to cast the mold, and carry the frame of his application that the guilty parties may conceive it, and their consciences find and feel [illegible], that they be the parties that the Lord points out, and intends of purpose to [illegible] and pursue (Matthew 21:41, 45). Thus our Savior lays out the corrupt carriages of the scribes and Pharisees, and paints them out so vividly that they felt him, and were forced to give in evidence of their own condemnation against themselves; as in verse 41, They say, he will miserably destroy those wicked men; and verse 45, When the chief priests heard this, they perceived that he spoke of them.

In case either some false opinions are spreading, or some corrupt and sinful practices are likely to grow and leaven and that speedily and dangerously, it's lawful in way of caution and prevention to discover men's sins and errors in their own words, that others may avoid them the better, and they be ashamed of them the more. Thus Peter discovers the faults and wretched behavior of the Jews to our Savior in their own words (Acts 3:14): you denied that holy and just one and desired a murderer to be granted to you — not him but Barabbas. (1 Corinthians 15:22) How say some among you, that there is no resurrection? No, it's lawful to name special persons in an evil, if there may thereby be special warning given to others from falling. So Paul to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:15): of whom is Phygellus and Hermogenes — it's Calvin's [illegible] upon the place, they were more famous, and therefore their apostasy might be a means to draw others, therefore he gives warning concerning them. If any man say this is to shame men, I answer their sins should be made shameful, and they should take shame for them, that they may sorrow for them and forsake them.

Let our application go so well guarded and fenced against all exceptions and cavils that a sinner may not be able to rescue himself or make an escape by carnal reason. As (Acts 6:10), it's said they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. (Matthew 22:34) Our Savior Christ put the Sadducees to silence.

Let it be done with pity and tender compassion to men's souls, though with zeal and indignation against their sins. (2 Timothy 2:24-25) the servant of the Lord must be patient and gentle towards all in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. As a surgeon may be most compassionate when he cuts most deep even to fetch up the core, and therefore the Apostle adds both to Titus, show all meekness to all men, and therefore to the Cretians and yet rebukes them sharply (Titus 1:13). He that is truly meek, and pities the souls of men most, he will show least pity to their sins; all sharpness of rebuke and yet all meekness of spirit do well accord.

The exhortation to the people is that as ever you desire to see your sins and have your hearts brought to sorrow for them, you must desire it and delight in it, that you may have the light brought home to your souls in way of particular application to your own sins, there is no means so effectual as this, therefore desire God that your ministers may take such pains that they may speak to your consciences.

Take three considerations here.

Weigh sadly that when the minister speaks in way of application so as to discover your sins, he does no more than he may, nay no more than he should in point of conscience, his life lies at stake if he should not deal plainly and faithfully. And therefore know it is unreasonable for you to quarrel with the minister, or with that he speaks when he has the word for his warrant in what he does.

Look at the good of the dispensation of an ordinance and overlook the [illegible] of it. As some would not see but drink of the medicine minding the wholesomeness and bearing with the unpleasantness of it for the present. As it is wearisome to the surgeon to be raking in the sore, so it is to the minister, but it is for your good, and therefore though it be painful and cross to your carnal affection yet you should take contentment in such a dispensation of the word as is such an effectual means of your good.

When you find your heart [illegible], consider that a quiet taking in of sharp reproof is a sound argument of the sincerity of your heart and truth of your love to God and his word. When a man [illegible] to be shaken in his comforts, and a sharp and keen reproof comes home to a man, to force him to see and be humbled and reform his evil ways, if he can [illegible] receive and yield [illegible] to such a reproof, it is a sign his heart is sincere in the sight of God when he says as they did (Zechariah 13:6), these are the wounds I received in the house of my friends.

When they heard this.

We heard before that application and special discovery of our particular corruptions, what force it had to break the heart. We have here yet a second means couched in the manner of the [illegible] expressed in the text. The word is read in the participle, and carries a kind of [illegible] endeavor with it, a [illegible] of mind about that which was heard. In hearing they heard it, and when the sermon was over, and they had received the message of the Lord delivered by the Apostle, when they (perhaps) were departed, yet that word departed not out of their ears and hearts. They heard it over again, they mused upon it, it stuck by them, their thoughts recoiled afresh upon the consideration thereof, it pressed heavy upon their hearts; conviction brings the sin, application lays it, meditation settles it upon the heart, that it sinks under it as unsupportable.

Hence then the doctrine is,

Through meditation of sins applied, is a special means to break the heart of a sinner.

As men that are stoned and pressed to death, while the stones are few that are cast, and the weight not great, may be they are troubled and wounded in some measure but their bones are not broken nor yet their lives hazarded, but while they still continue flinging and adding to the number and weight, their bones break and their lives fail under the overbearing pressure that is put upon them. A serious thought and right apprehension and application of a sin, touches and troubles the sinner; but daily meditation flings in one terror after another, and follows the soul with fresh consideration of yet more sin, and yet more evil, and that more heinous and yet more dangerous beyond all apprehension and imagination; so that a sinner is stoned to death as it were and breaks under the burden of it. Thus the repenting church (Lamentations 3:19-20), in remembering my affliction, the wormwood and the gall my soul has them still in remembrance and is humbled in me, in remembering I remembered, they were daily musing and continually poring and that made them pierce inwardly; look as it is in the body it is so in the soul; food minced if never [illegible] and digested, it never nourishes; a potion prepared and given if not retained and kept in the stomach it never purges or works properly for cure. So here in the soul, application carves out a fit potion of truth to the sinner, but meditation is that which digests it and makes good blood of it. Application compounds the potion, a particular reproof which is keen in the working brings it home, but meditation retains it, that so it may work properly and put forth the [illegible] powerful effect for the loosening of those loathsome lusts; which are like noisome and corrupt humors, which threaten the death and ruin of the soul. This is one thing which is undoubtedly implied in that place by the consent of all interpreters that I know (Psalm 77:10); while the prophet was taking up his thoughts with attendance to his own distempers and sinful provocations, and the Lord's departure from him by reason of the same, he sits down almost overwhelmed with the direful apprehension thereof, I said this is my death, but I will remember the changes of the right hand of the Most High. This poring upon his own sins and [illegible] was his death, therefore he turns the tables and turns his thoughts another way and that was the cure of those discomforts, even the remembrance of the former expressions of God's favor and faithfulness. It is also one part of the meaning of that text (Psalm 40:12): my sins have taken such hold of me that I cannot look up, when we lay hold upon them by serious meditation then they lay hold upon us, and when our minds attend not but slip aside from the serious consideration of them then they slip away from us.

For explication we shall.

- 1 Show what this meditation is. - 2 Apply the general doctrine to the particular occasion, and see how this helps forward this work. - 3 We shall make use.

For the first. Meditation is a serious intention of the mind whereby we come to search out the truth, and settle it effectually upon the heart.

An intention of the mind; when one puts forth the strength of their understanding about the work in hand, takes it as an especial task whereabout the heart should be taken up and that which will require the whole man, and that to the bent of the best ability he has, so the word is used (Joshua 1:8). You shall not suffer the word to depart out of your mind, but you shall meditate therein day and night, when either the word would depart away or our corruptions would drive it away, meditation lays hold upon it and will not let it go, but exercises the strength of the attention of his thoughts about it, makes a business of it as that about which he might do his best, and yet falls short of what he should do in it. So David when he would discover where the stream and overflowing strength of his affections vented themselves, he points at this practice as that which employs the mind to the full (Psalm 119:97). Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day, love is the great wheel of the soul that sets all going, and how does that appear? It is my meditation day and night; the word in the original signifies to swim, a man spreads the breadth of his understanding about that work, and lays out himself about the service wherein there is both difficulty and worth.

Serious.] Meditation is not a flourishing of a man's wit, but has a set bout at the search of the truth, beats his brain as we use to say, hammers out a business, as the Goldsmith with his metal, he heats it and beats it, turns it on this side and then on that, fashions it on both that he might frame it to his mind; meditation is hammering of a truth or [illegible] propounded, that he may carry and conceive the frame and compass in his mind. [illegible] salute a truth as we pass by occasionally but solemnly entertain it into our thoughts; not look upon a thing presented as a spectator or passenger that goes by: but lay other things aside, and look at this as the work and employment for the present to take up our minds. It's one thing in our diet to take a snatch and away, another thing to make a meal, and sit at it on purpose until we have seen all set before us and we have taken our fill of all, so we must not cast an eye or glimpse at the truth by some sudden or slight apprehension, a snatch and away, but we must make a meal of musing. Therefore the Psalmist makes it the main trade that a godly man drives, professedly opposite to the carriage of the wicked, whether in his outward or inward work, in his disposition or expression of himself in his common practice; whereas they walk in the corrupt counsels of their own hearts, stand in the [illegible] of sinners, not only devise what is naught, but practice and persevere in what they have devised, and sit in the seat of the scorners; a blessed man his road in which he travels, his set trade he meditates in the law of God day and night: that is the counsel in which he walks, the way in which he stands, the [illegible] in which he sits. Look at this work as a branch of our Christian [illegible], not that which is left to our liberty, but which is of necessity to be attended and that in good earnest [illegible] a Christian duty, which God requires, not a little available to our spiritual welfare.

The end is doubly expressed in the other part of the description.

- 1 The searching of the truth. - 2 The effectual settling of it upon the heart.

The search of the truth: Meditation is a coming in with the truth or any cause that comes to hand, that we may inquire the full state of it before our thoughts part with it, so that we see more of it or more clearly [illegible] fully than formerly we did, this is one thing in that of the Prophet (Hosea 6:3). Then shall you know if you follow on to know, when we track the [illegible] of the truth, in all the [illegible] until we have viewed the whole progress of it, from truth to truth from point to point. This it is to [illegible] for wisdom (Proverbs 2:2) when men have found a mine or a vein of silver, they do not content themselves, to take that which is uppermost and next at hand within [illegible] which offers itself upon the surface of the earth, but they dig further as hoping to find more, because they see somewhat. So meditation rests not in what presents itself to our consideration, but digs deeper, gathers in upon the truth, and gains more of it than did easily appear at the first, and this it does.

1 When it recalls things formerly past, sets them in present view before our consideration and judgment, meditation sends a man's thoughts afar off, calls over and revives the fresh apprehension of things done long before, marshals them all in rank together, brings to mind such things which were perhaps quite out of memory, and gone from a man, which might be of great use and special help to [illegible] our condition according to the quality of it; may be conscience starts the consideration but of one sin, but meditation looks abroad, and brings to hand many of the same, and of the like kind and that many days past and long ago committed. This distemper now sticks upon a man and brings him under the arrest of conscience and the condemnation thereof. But says meditation, let me mind you of such and such sins at such and [illegible] times, in such and such companies, committed and multiplied both more and worse than [illegible] that now appear so [illegible] and so troublesome to you; meditation is as it were the register and remembrancer, that looks over the records of our daily corruptions, and keeps them upon file, and brings them into court and fresh consideration [illegible]. (Job 13:26) You make me to possess the sins of my youth: this makes a man to renew the sins of his youth, makes them fresh in our thoughts, as though new done before our eyes. This interpreters make the meaning of that place (Job 14:17): My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and you sew up my iniquity; though God does thus, yet he does it by this means in the way of his providence, that is, by recounting and recalling our corruptions to mind, by serious meditation we sew them all up together, we look back to the lineage and pedigree of our lusts, and track the abominations of our lives, step by step, until we come to the very nest where they are hatched and bred, even of our original corruption, and body of death, where they had their first breath and being, links all our distempers together from our infancy to our youth, from youth to riper age, from there to our declining days. So David, from the vileness of his present lusts is led to the wickedness in which he was warmed (Psalm 51:5). This was typed out in the old Law by the chewing of the cud; meditation calls over again those things that were past long before, and not within a man's view and consideration.

Meditation takes a special survey of the compass of our present condition, and the nature of those corruptions that come to be considered: it is the traversing of a man's thoughts, the coasting of the mind and imagination into every crevice and corner, pries into every particular, takes a special view of the borders and [illegible] of any corruption or condition that comes to be scanned (Psalm 119:59): I considered my ways, and [illegible] my feet to your testimonies; [illegible] turned them upside down, looked through them as it were; a present apprehension peeps in as it were through the crevice or key-hole, looks in at the window as a man passes by; but meditation lifts up the latch and goes into each room, [illegible] into every [illegible] of the house, and surveys the composition and making of it, with all the blemishes in it. Look as the searcher at the sea-port, or custom-house, or ships, satisfies himself not to overlook carelessly in a [illegible] view, but unlocks every chest, rummages every corner, takes a light to discover the darkest passages. So is it with meditation, it observes the woof and web of wickedness, the full frame of it, the very utmost selvage and outside of it, takes into consideration all the secret conveyances, cunning contrivements, all bordering circumstances that attend the thing, the consequences of it, the nature of the causes that work it; the [illegible] occasions and provocations that lead to it, together with the end and issue that in reason is like to come of it (Daniel 12:4): Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase: meditation goes upon discovery, [illegible] at every coast, observes every creek, maps out the daily course of a man's conversation and disposition.

The second end of meditation is, it settles it effectually upon the heart. It is not the dashing of the water at a sudden push, but the standing and soaking to the root, that loosens the weeds and thorns, that they may be plucked up easily. [illegible] not the laying of oil upon the benumbed part, but the chafing of it in, that supples the joints, and eases the pain. It is so in the [illegible]; application lays the oil of the Word that is searching and savory, meditation chases it in, that it may soften and humble the hard and [illegible] heart: application is like the conduit or channel that brings the stream of the truth upon the soul; [illegible] meditation stops it as it were, and makes it soak into the [illegible], that so our corruptions may be plucked up kindly by the roots.

This settling upon the heart appears in a three-fold work.

It affects the heart with the truth attended, and leaves an impression upon the spirit answerable to the nature of the thing which is taken into meditation: (2 Peter 2:8). It is said of Lot, in seeing and hearing, he vexed his righteous soul. Many saw and heard the hideous abominations, and were not touched nor affected therewith. No more had he been, but that he vexed and troubled his own righteous soul, because he was driven to a daily consideration of them which cut him to the quick. The word is observable, it signifies to try by a touch-stone, and to examine, and then upon search to bring the soul upon the rack: therefore the same word is used, (Matthew 14:24). The ship was tossed by the waves; the consideration of the abominations of [illegible] place raised a tempest of trouble in Lot's righteous soul. This the wise man calls laying to the heart, (Ecclesiastes 7:1-2). It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter; for this is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart. When the spectacle of misery and mortality is laid in the grave, yet savory meditation lays it to a man's heart, and makes it real there in the work of it. The goldsmith observes that it is not the laying of the fire, but the blowing of it that melts the metal: so with meditation, it breathes upon any truth that is applied, and that makes it really sink and soak into the soul; and this is the reason why in an ordinary and common course of providence, and God's dealing with sinners, (leaving his own exceptions to his own good pleasure) that most men in the time and work of conversion have that scorn cast upon them, that they grow melancholy. And it is [illegible] thus far in the course of ordinary appearance; the Lord usually never works upon the soul by the ministry of the Word to make it effectual, but he drives the sinner to sad thoughts of heart, and makes him keep an audit in his own soul by serious meditation, and pondering of [reconstructed: his] ways; otherwise the Word neither affects thoroughly, nor works kindly upon him.

It keeps the heart under the heat and authority of the truth that it is taken up withal, by constant attendance of his thoughts. Meditation keeps the [reconstructed: soul] under an arrest, so that it cannot make an escape from the evidence and authority of the truth, so that there is no way, but either to obey the rule of it, or else be condemned by it. But escape it cannot, meditation meets [illegible], stops all the evasions and sly pretences the false-hearted person [reconstructed: would] counterfeit. If a man should deny his fault, and himself guilty, meditation will evidence it beyond all gainsaying, by many testimonies which meditation will easily call to mind; remember you not in such and such a place: upon such an occasion, you gave way to your wicked heart to do thus and thus; you know it, and God knows it, and I have recorded it. If the [reconstructed: sinner] would lessen his fault, meditation aggravates it; or if he seem to slight it, and look at it as a matter of no moment, yet meditation will make it appear, there is greater evil in it, and greater necessity to bestow his thoughts upon it than he is aware of.

Hence it is meditation lays [reconstructed: it] to the soul, and cuts off all carnal pretences that a wretched self-deceiving hypocrite would relieve himself by; and still lies at the soul, this you did, at that time, in that place, after that manner; so that the soul is held fast prisoner, and cannot make an escape; but as David said, (Psalm 51:3). My sins are ever before me: consideration keeps them within view, and will not suffer them to go out of sight and thoughts; and therefore it is Paul joins those two together, (1 Timothy 3:15). Meditate in these things, and be in them.

It provokes a man (by a kind of over-bearing power) to the practice of that with which he is so affected: a settled and serious meditation of any thing, is as the setting open of the flood-gates, which carries [reconstructed: the] soul with a kind of force and violence, to the performance of what he so bestows his mind upon; as a mighty stream let out turns the mill. (Philippians 4:9) Think of these things, and do them: thinking men are doing men. (Psalm 39:3) While I was thus musing, the fire broke out, and I spoke: the busy stirring of meditation is like the raising of a tempest in the heart, that carries out all the actions of the man by an uncontrollable command. I considered my ways, and turned my feet to your statutes: right consideration, brings in a right reformation with it.

The nature of the duty is thus opened; let us apply it now to the particular, and give in the reasons of the truth, why this meditation brings in this contrition, and heart-breaking.

I might argue from the former description, that which makes a thorough search of our [illegible], and settles them effectually upon the soul, that is a fit means to break our hearts with them; but thus meditation does, as it has been formerly disputed, therefore it is a fit means to break the heart.

But I shall add a double argument briefly; they both shall be taken from the special effects of meditation, which are marvelously pregnant to this purpose. These come nearer to the point in hand, and apply the general doctrine to this special occasion.

Meditation sharpens the sting and strength of corruption, that it pierces more prevailingly; it draws out the venom, the quintessence of the evil of a corruption, and lets in that upon the heart and conscience of a sinner, which stings and torments him in greatest extremity: makes him see more in his distemper than ever he suspected, makes him feel it far worse than ever he could have imagined it could have been. As it is in the art of chemistry and distillation, by their dexterity and skill in that course; they draw out the very spirits of the metal, or herb, or liquor, as the spirits of wine, the oil of gold, etc. and five drops of that will work more strongly than five [illegible], five spoonfuls of the body of the herb, or water in the gross, because there is nothing but spirits as it were gathered together in a narrow room, and therefore they are active in the highest degree. If it be spirits of poison, it kills suddenly, it's present death, past recovery; if of cordial or preservative, they comfort and refresh beyond imagination, [illegible] and strangely. So here; meditation is this spiritual chemistry, or the art of holy distillation, which draws out the spirits of the poison and bitterness that is in corruption, spiritualizes the plague and venom of the vengeance that attends every transgression; and though it was never so small in the eye of the world yet it stings the heart more than the greatest evil which is committed, if not mused on, nor attended.

Thus David when by consideration he had viewed [illegible] his course, saw the infinite loathsomeness of it, that it sunk his heart; which for the while, when he attended it not, did not stick upon him, nor trouble him. He looks now at the root of sin from where it came, at the extent in the highest strain in spiritual wickedness: Against you, you only have I sinned (Psalm 51:4). I said in my haste, in my sudden foolish apprehension, it was but against a man, my servant, my subject, and vassal, and therefore no such great matter nor grievous evil, if I as a prince did gratify my own desire; but now I see it was against you, you only, the God of justice, and mercy, and fidelity, and truth. That was the extent of it, how far it went. Again, Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God: he now saw upon more serious consideration, it was not a point of policy, a slight of subtle and secret conveyance that would color over the business, and free him from blame, because he intimated his mind to Joab to act it. But now he saw it was not Joab's treachery, nor the sword of the Children of Ammon (2 Samuel 11), but it was he that had taken away the life of Uriah: the dead body of Uriah was dished out to him as his breakfast every morning. Thus for the extent of it. Again, upon consideration he looks to the [illegible] of it; You, Lord, love truth in the inward parts: now he [illegible] his sending for, his [illegible], his welcoming of Uriah, his pretense of care to send him to his own house, was nothing but apparent treachery against the law of God, and light of his conscience, and knowledge which the Lord had set up in him. The root that bred and fed these bitter fruits, was his [illegible] heart, and body of sin, yet not so mortified, which he brought from his cradle, which the Lord loathes, as a God of truth, who loves truth, who may justly condemn him and reject him for his departing from it, doubling and dissembling in a continual falsifying to Uriah by all his fair speeches, and glozing pretenses, he [illegible] to express his respect to him.

Meditation does not only pinch the heart with the present apprehension of sin committed, but by the daily attendance upon the evil of iniquity now considered, it holds the heart upon the rack under [illegible] and unsupportable pressures. 2 Peter 2:8. Lot daily seeing and hearing of the loathsomeness of their hideous and unnameable abominations, vexed his righteous soul. Many saw and heard as much as Lot, and perhaps more, and yet were never troubled thereby; no more would he have been, but that he tormented his righteous soul by the daily consideration of these abominations practiced. The word [non-Latin text] is marvelously pregnant: it signifies, 1. To prove and examine by means of the rack, or by way of torment, to make inquisition touching the truth. So Lot kept his soul upon the rack of restless vexation, as by the continual hearing, so by the constant consideration of the hellish villainy of the Sodomites; and therefore the Evangelist uses it to signify the boisterousness of a storm when the sea is raged by the wind to the height of violence and rage (Matthew 14:24). Meditation raises a storm or tempest of distress in the soul. A sudden and present apprehension, a flashy thought of the evil of sin, is like the flourish of a sword afar off, which a man neither [reconstructed: feels] nor [illegible] at the utmost; it is but like the glance and fall of a blow, which it may be ripples the skin, whereas deep and thorough meditation is as it were a doubling of the blow, that steady recoiling of a man's thoughts, is the stabbing of the heart through and through again, makes the sinner bleed inwardly and abundantly. When the sinner would put by the stroke of the truth, and shake off the danger of the sin now discovered, and applied, and set on, meditation follows the blow home, and puts the soul beyond its sense; nay, it is so, it must be so, it will be so: believe it, and expect it, for you shall find it worse than others do express, or you can conceive; for this is the voice and verdict which meditation gives in. The Prophet Jeremiah expresses the nature of the departure of the people from the Lord, thus: "It is an evil and a bitter thing that you have departed away from the living God" (Jeremiah 2:19). And yet Job tells us, and experience and profession of the wicked proclaims it to all the world, that wickedness is sweet in the mouth of the ungodly, he hides it under his tongue; though he spare it and forsake it not (Job 20:12-13), but keep it still within his mouth, as a pleasing morsel to his [illegible]. If you ask the reason why these bitter pills seem so sweet to a base heart, among other reasons, this is one: it fares with a man's sins as sometimes [reconstructed: we] see it in the medicine of the body; bitter pills if they be swallowed of a sudden, there is little sense of the bitter and unpleasant taste of them, or at least it lasts not long; but if they be chewed over and over, they will then appear as they are, and a man will be compelled to confess the extreme bitterness that is therein. So it is with wickedness to a carnal heart: your pride, and stubbornness, perverseness, and rebellion, and carelessness, and laziness, and your foul uncleanness, they are a pleasant morsel to your profane and [illegible] hearts, you roll them under your tongues, and take delight in them; it is because you swallow them down without any chewing, any serious consideration; you swallow down your pride, and [reconstructed: waywardness], and disobedience; whereas did you but chew these things, and weigh them in a right consideration, you would then feel that which one day you shall find, there is bitterness in the end.

Meditation is that which increases the weight of the evil of sin, presses it down upon the conscience, and burdens the heart with it until it break under it. It gleans up, and rakes together all the particulars, adds daily to the load, and lays on until the axletree splits asunder, and the heart fails and dies away under the apprehension of the dreadfulness of the evil. This some, and those very judicious, make the meaning of that inference and dependance (Job 14:16-17): "You seal up my transgression in a bag, and sew up my iniquity together," and surely the mountain falling comes to nothing; that is, You heap up the hideous remembrance of all my provocations, and surely neither rocks, nor mountains, nor any power was able to bear, and not break under the unsupportable weight thereof. As it is in war, when the numbers are few, and the parties that give the onset are weak and feeble, it is not hard then either to resist their power, or avoid and escape their pursuits; but when many thousands, it may be some hundreds of thousands join all forces together to give the onset, they usually say they overbear the contrary party, and break their ranks with their very numbers and crowd of the multitudes that overlay them utterly. It is so in this spiritual contestation with the sinful distempers of our hearts; it may be we spend some few and flashy thoughts about them, and look over them after a heedless manner, when either the truths of God are dispensed to our conviction, or our sins discovered; they neither touch nor trouble our hearts, we cast off such thoughts, or cast them away, or break through them easily. But meditation musters up new armies of arguments, levies and calls in new forces of all special, particular, aggravating circumstances, whereby the heinousness of the evil is so abundantly brought home with that overbearing evidence to the heart, that it is forced to fall under it.

You say it was your infirmity, you were ignorant and knew it not, it was a temptation that surprised you, you were not aware of it, the matter was not great and therefore you hope there is a place for pardon and pity so that neither others need to be offended, nor you troubled for it. Think it over again, call meditation to counsel, when you have sent your thoughts afar off, and viewed the compass of your course with all the considerate circumstances that attend thereupon be it but the casting aside of the command of a superior, in a common and ordinary occasion of your calling, see to what it will amount when meditation has cast all into the balance. It will appear the thing was open and easy, that of which you have been often forewarned, often commanded to the contrary, when there was no trouble to do it, no profit to neglect it, and therefore there was no pretense or temptation from without to take you aside — and therefore you did it wittingly, willingly, ordinarily against knowledge and conscience, against the promises you have made to man, confessions you have made to God, confessed and continued in this evil. The less the thing, the worse your heart, the greater your offense that will trample a command under your feet for a trifle, your spirit never affected with this, nor have you made conscience of it to this day. This argues a heart that not only hates sin but hates to be reformed (Proverbs 13:13). It is a hellish heedlessness of a graceless heart, it shakes the evidence of your estate, and hope of any comfort. This is the reckoning you must make, hear and know it for your good, says meditation, for so it is. He that reverences a command shall live. But he that despises a command shall die for it. This is your estate and your misery — this is that which broke the heart of Peter exceedingly (Mark 14:72), though the cock had crowed, and Christ looked upon him, yet he stood it out, but when he remembered the words of our Savior and thought thereon, then he wept. When he bethought himself, had cast all things together, brought in the [illegible] of account, he went out and wept bitterly — he laid all the heightening circumstances together: that he who was not only a Christian but entertained as a servant, called as an Apostle of Christ, who was forewarned of his backsliding, had promised and resolved so strangely against it, that he should not only forsake his master secretly, but openly deny and renounce him, indeed hellishly blaspheme and curse, and that [illegible] often, and now especially in this time of trouble, in the day of our Savior's distress, when the innocency of his cause, the honor of his person, indeed his life was at hazard — that such a servant and Apostle should so basely and blasphemously forswear and renounce his master and Redeemer, and that upon so slight an occasion as the voice of a damsel, etc. He laid all these together and laid them to his heart, he was not able to hold — he went out and wept bitterly.

Here is matter of humiliation to every soul in the sight of God, who may sit down in silence and return home with shame to our own habitations, and here with sad hearts recall and remember our sins this day, and lift up our guilty hands to heaven for the neglect of so holy a duty which is grown so far out of date, and men are grown so far from lending their endeavor to the discharge of this duty, that (as they speak of the Holy Spirit in [illegible] case, most may say of this) they make it a question whether ever there was such a thing, such a service in the world. Some are faulty in a [illegible], some in a lesser degree, but all in one degree or [illegible][illegible] justly to be condemned as coming exceeding [illegible][illegible] this service, and so fall short of God's [illegible][illegible] us, and his blessing upon us, and miss in the [illegible][illegible] of the good we would do and the comfort we [illegible][illegible]. Therefore we should go aside and plead the sentence of the defiled leper: behold I am unclean, I am unclean (Leviticus 13:45). Every man fails in this — let every man candidly own and acknowledge his sin, and that is the best way to make us to be humbled and abased for it. Let every man lay his hand upon his heart, take it to himself: Oh, this laying aside the duty of meditation — it is my sin. So say you husbands, and answer you wives: it is our sin also. Speak you parents to your [illegible]: this is our sin, we have not practiced nor taught it. Answer the children and confess: no wonder we did not know it, therefore never did it, nor ever could endeavor after it. And it is our shame — each man has a mind and can spend it tirelessly where he sets himself; set but the covetous man about the world, the voluptuous man about his pleasure, each man about his comforts and conveniences, and we sit at it. No, no man will suffer his thoughts to be taken off from these — they eat with them, drink with them, walk with them, talk with them. What a loathsome thing it is: others muse how to commit sin, and we not how to redress it — they meditate how to contrive their own ruin, and shall not we how to prevent it?

Shortly, there be two sorts of people whom this matter of complaint may especially concern, and those are either such: 1. Who stand in professed opposition to this practice; 2. Who continue in an open neglect thereof, and conceive they may have a dispensation for their carelessness.

First, those who were typed out by the unclean beasts in the Law, who never chew the cud nor call over their courses by serious meditation, who studiously endeavor to contrive all ways and means how they may take off their minds from this service; their care for themselves and their counsel also to others, is to shake off these dumps as they call them; they look at this mopish kind of melancholy musing as a practice deeply prejudicial to their peace and comfort, conceive it as a piece of extreme folly, as though a man should not find trouble enough in the world, but should devise means to torment and vex his own soul; and therefore they avoid the meditation of the danger of [illegible] sins, as their rack and engine of insufferable vexation, and that upon a double ground. Partly, that they might not be crossed in their sensual [illegible], but that they might have elbow room and go on with ease in their ungodly lusts, whereas the consideration of the danger of our sinful [illegible] damps and dashes men's delights, deadens men's endeavors and hearts, knocks off their wheels so that they draw heavily, spoils all the sport as we say, and deprives them of the pleasures they did expect. Therefore it is a rule of [illegible] (Amos 6:3-5): they put far away the evil day, and then [illegible] the seat of violence to draw near, etc. [illegible] — the thoughts of that would spoil the other. Partly, it arises from hence: the hidden guilt of their own consciences makes their hearts misgive them; the number of their abominations is so great, the nature so heinous, the plagues so direful and dreadful which attend upon them as their due, that they are afraid to view the ugly visage of their sins, or to take a right scantling of the dreadful plagues they must expect, and therefore study to forget both, that they may not be tired with either, as bankrupts are loath to view their account books when they cannot pay their debts — they would not remember what they are not able to satisfy.

To these men I would say two things. 1. By way of terror to awaken them. 2. By way of advice to counsel them.

Let them know their folly. When they would avoid their misery they take the only way to increase it. They keep in the fire, and make it flame more; dam the stream and cause it to swell over the banks; while they defer [illegible] accounts they increase the debt and the danger also. You will not see your sins — you shall see them; you will not see them here by the light of the word for your humiliation, you shall see them by the flames of Hell fire, and there be forced to read over all your wretchedness for your everlasting ruin; you would not have your hearts break for them while there was hope to be [reconstructed: eased], you shall burn in the [illegible] pit when you will be beyond hope ever to be recovered. You would forget them, and cast them behind your back: know assuredly your distempers will meet you like an armed [illegible], [illegible] will remind you of them, these things you [illegible] done, and set them in order before you and tear you in pieces when there will be none to deliver you (Psalm 50:21-22). Then you will curse yourself and your [illegible], and wish, oh that I had hearkened, oh [illegible] had [illegible].

Let this counsel be acceptable to such. Fear to commit sin, but never be afraid to see it, and [illegible] the vileness of it to the full, and the worse they appear to your apprehension, the better and more [illegible] your condition and estate is. A [illegible] and [illegible] knowledge of a disease is the ready means to cure it. Do you remember them, God will forget them; [illegible] them be in your [illegible] and the Lord will cast them out of his, and [illegible] away his face from your sins, when you [illegible] turn your mind and thoughts to a thorough [illegible] and [illegible] of them (Jeremiah 31:18-20): [illegible] have heard [illegible] bemoaning himself etc. I will surely have mercy upon him, says the [illegible].

Another sort, though they give allowance and approbation to the duty proposed, yet [illegible] many [illegible] to plead, why either (as their case stands) they may be [illegible] or dispensed with in the neglect of it. 1. Here then comes into consideration the hindrances the men plead which may excuse the omission of the duty. 2. The ways and helps how to remove them, which go hand in hand. We [illegible] handle both together, namely the causes and the cure of this neglect.

The first and main hindrance whereby men are taken off from this so spiritual a service, is a conceit that goes current in the world that it is a matter only of indifference, this daily meditation; and so left by God himself, and therefore we should not exact more than the Lord requires, and so lay burdens upon men, when we would profess we call for obedience at their hands; and therefore we should not impose a needless necessity upon men but leave it to their Christian liberty — he that can receive it let him (as our Savior in another case), he that does not, cannot be blamed. You have the cause, attend now the cure; you see the hindrance, consider the help, that [illegible] remove this stone out of the way.

1. Know then, it was the profession of the Prophet David that he would take up this service (Psalm 119:15): I will meditate in your precepts and have respect to your ways. (Verse 23): Princes did sit and speak against me but your servant did meditate in your statutes. Again (verse 48): I will meditate in your statutes. And he does not do this as a special convenience, nor yet as a peculiar duty proper to him, but upon such grounds as belong to all, and therefore will call for it of all. (Verse 97): Oh how I love your Law, it is my meditation all the day. You will not deny but you are bound to love the Law of God, and then certainly if that cause is there, this effect will of necessity follow. In fact, it is the way of all the saints (Psalm 1:1-2): it is as necessary as not to sit in the seat, walk in the counsels, and stand in the way of sinners — so necessary is it to meditate in the Law of God, and that to have your set meals, your appointed times and turns for meditation.

2. The want of this is given as the cause why men are carried headlong to the practice of loathsome evils (Isaiah 44:19). No man considers in his heart. Jeremiah 8:6: I [reconstructed: hearkened] and heard, but they spoke not [illegible]. No man says with himself, what have I done? The want of this hastens the righteous judgments of the Lord (Psalm 28:5): because they regard not the operation of his hands, therefore he will destroy them and not build them up.

3. The use of this affects and fits the heart to the duties that are to be discharged. It is a preparative to many daily performances in our Christian course; it quickens the holy dispensations of the soul, charges it with confessions and petitions seasonable and savory, that they may be delivered with feeling and affections when the heart is boiling of a good matter (Psalm 45:1). So (Psalm 102:1): I will pour out my meditation — that is, his prayer; meditation was the mint or anvil upon which our prayers should be made. And therefore divines refer it to the third Commandment as that which is a harbinger to all holy duties we do to God, stirring up the faculties of the whole man to that reverent attendance which becomes the majesty of the Almighty (Ecclesiastes 5:1); and the advice of the wise man is to look to our feet, as in the public so in private also.

As by way of preparation it fits for spiritual services before we do them, so it confirms and settles the good of them to our souls when they are done. Then shall your profiting appear, if you meditate upon these things (1 Timothy 3:15). Sermons will not profit though we hear and that attentively. Sacraments will not profit; conference, reading will not profit, though we studiously for the present turn and bestow ourselves thereupon, unless we meditate afterward. As exercise before meat to stir up the stomach to receive meat, so digestion after meat, if we hope to have any strength — meditation is both: it stirs up the affection to the duty, and then digests the good and sap of the service and turns it into good blood. Tuum illud est quod Meditatio facit [illegible].

Secondly. Men complain they have no time; occasions so many, business crowds in so with such multitudes, our minds, and heads, and hearts, and thoughts are so taken up, one crowds out another, we have no time.

I answer: 1. Have you no time to repent, and to break your heart for sin? No time to fit and quicken your spirit to service? No time to profit by all the spiritual means? Then have no time to be saved, to maintain the comfort and peace of your conscience.

2. Must God only be loser, and his worship go to the wall? Must he only be crowded out of our minds, and heads, and hearts? How unreasonable is this?

3. Redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16). Pluck some opportunity, and rescue it from meat, and sleep, and company, and recreation. (Psalm 119:148): I prevent the morning watches that I might meditate in your statutes. He had as many employments as you, being a king, and yet he did attend this duty; so you may, and so you should.

4. I desire no more time to this duty in the day, than each day you squander and spend away unprofitably. And let any man observe his own course, and record but his expense — and that needlessly — of his time, he will say, thus much I spent vainly here, and thus much there, and why might not that have been spent in meditation for the helping forward of the work of God in my soul?

The great complaint is the unsteadiness of their [reconstructed: own] thoughts, which (as they conceive) [reconstructed: arise] from some kind of natural [reconstructed: infirmity], whereby they are wholly disabled in their own apprehension, and common experience, to keep their minds to any set employment and exercise in this so serious a work of meditation. They are so off and on upon every occasion — a [reconstructed: roving] and wandering frame of imagination, that cannot dwell upon a thing. Nay, though they resolve it sadly, withdraw themselves from all other occasions into their private closets, and there retire and set themselves on purpose about this business, as being convinced it is so needful, and being persuaded it would be so profitable to them, yet immediately they are taken off; they are gone from their task, when they had begun now to bestow their attention upon the duty. That look what a shaking palsy is to the head — there is no stilling of it, while a man lives it will follow him — so this shattering and giddiness of our minds unsettles us when we would be most serious, and does accompany us in every retired corner, and that upon every turn, as a disease and distemper of our natural apprehension. And it seems there is an impossibility to reform this feebleness, and therefore we hope we may be excused if we cannot perform this service, which is so necessary, and which we also endeavor, but as all men may see, we cannot accomplish.

I answer,

- 1 Generally. - 2 Particularly.

Be it that this shaking palsy, this vertigo and giddiness of spirit, is a disease which has seized upon the faculty of the understanding as a hereditary curse, which comes from the sin of Adam, and is communicated more or less to all his seed. You should labor to look at it as a sickness, and therefore not to maintain a disease, but seek a remedy how you may be recovered out of it. Your understanding is full of blindness; and ignorance naturally is one part of the image that was imprinted upon you by the nature of your first parents received. You would not therefore plead for your ignorance, and sit down well satisfied with it, but be more studious to amend it, and seek to Heaven, and be studious and diligent in the use of all means that you may be healed and cured of it. So do here: take this giddiness of mind as a fruit of the forbidden tree, as a curse of that carelessness and non-attendance which surprised our first parents, whereby they slipped aside from under the stream of God's providence and blessing, and so undid themselves and all their posterity. Only see the evil of it, and seek to be freed and delivered therefrom.

Several things I would suggest here by way of help.

See what is the breeding and the seeding root — the next and immediate cause of this fickle and unsteady roving of your mind — and redress that, and the cure will follow. And the cause will be most easily thus discovered, and so also removed.

Observe whether those wandering thoughts that are roving in a restless manner from one thing to another, like your fluttering butterflies which fall upon many herbs, but draw out honey from none: observe I say, whether those unsteady thoughts pass upon the multitude and variety of things, which have no coherence one with another, no dependence one upon another, but here and there, and everywhere, as your vagrant beggars that have no settled abode: or else observe, though a man's thoughts be full of variety and uncertainty, straggling here and there, and compassing many coasts to and again, yet for the issue, they border and but for the most part upon some one subject, or aim at one thing mainly, though spaniel-like they coast up and down, and cross all ways, and meet with multitudes in their course, yet their game is that which at last they look at. So here.

If the [illegible] and [illegible] of your imaginations be of the first kind, it issues merely out of the frothiness and emptiness of your understanding, and the wound lies in the vanity of that faculty: As it is with a boat or bark that is put to sea, if neither loaded nor ballasted, every wave tosses it to and again, the least breeze of wind that blows almost overturns it, because it's empty, wants [illegible], and [illegible] must needs [illegible]. So here, when the understanding is not [illegible] the blessed truths of God, is not fraught with the wisdom, and [illegible], and comfort of the Word, by which it should both receive light and ability to steer our Christian course according to the stability and [illegible] of the rule, it floats up and down with frothy and foolish apprehensions.

The cure then is here plain; If your wanderings come from this cause, store your understanding with the heavenly truths of the Lord, let your mind be furnished and fraught with the rich and precious promises, commands, and comforts of the Word; let them be ballasted with these, and they will make your thoughts steady and settled in your constant and daily employments: Thus the Apostle, (Ephesians 4:14) when he persuades, that they be no more children carried up and down with every wind of doctrine; and those are nothing but the devices and conceits of men, the sleight of men's brains; he adds verse 15. Truth in Love: so the word, attend you the truth, and have your mind taken up with that, and possessed by the power thereof: this will make a man steady and unmovable, that nothing may take him aside. Therefore David makes that coherence, as though the one would undoubtedly bring in the other: I hate vain thoughts; how did he attain that? Your law do I love (Psalm 119:113). It's the physician's direction for the state of our bodies; the best way to fence the stomach against wind, and the head against lightness, which comes by that, is to feed heartily, and make a full meal of that which is cordial and nourishing, nothing better to expel wind, and preserve against it. So it is in the state of your soul, to preserve our minds from windy and vain imaginations, is to have our understandings fully taken up with the blessed truths of God as our daily and appointed food.

If your wandering thoughts be of the second kind — such as be ranging up and down upon the variety of many objects, yet in the end they ever border upon the [reconstructed: same] thing — it is then certain, the wound lies in the affection firstly. Some affection or other, either of love, fear, sorrow, hatred, is inordinate and violent, and that transports a man's apprehensions and thoughts, to [reconstructed: range] after it, and to send post from one coast to another quarter, to lay out themselves in whatever special occasions shall present themselves that [illegible] satisfaction. As for instance, when the covetous [reconstructed: man is] forced and constrained by Conscience to [reconstructed: engage] in a serious meditation about his own estate — [reconstructed: he has] no sooner retired into his Closet to attend that work, [reconstructed: than] forthwith his affections present some earthly object, starts something which concerns the benefit of his outward estate, as one while may be the hazard of a debt, that he is now like to lose, his debtor's estate growing low, and he behind hand, and that he pursues as a [illegible] for the while; when he has run himself out of breath there, and gone as far as he can, anon he starts a fresh hare, a bargain that came to [reconstructed: him] of late, and he conceives there may be a booty in that, that he also follows with much eagerness, lays out his [reconstructed: wits] to the utmost, how he may contrive [reconstructed: and manage] it according to his desire: no sooner is he off from that, but then sends post haste to his lot and harvest, there he is casting [reconstructed: about] how to order all to advantage. Here are now roving imaginations that range over hedge and ditch in much variety, but still they aim at the same thing, border all together upon earthly contentments, and how to compass them, they do center there still; therefore it is an argument undeniable, the unsteadiness of your thoughts arose from this distempered affection. The like I may say of the unclean person, whose affections are fastened upon his lusts, he sends his thoughts far and wide how to prevent what he fears, how to bring about what he desires; one while he looks at the [reconstructed: wrong] that some did to him, that stood in his light, and crossed him in his intended course and match, his mind wholly taken up with the consideration of the greatness of the wrong that has been done him, busied with diligent search and inquiry how to prevent their proceedings, how to repay them in their own coin, and to deal harshly with them, because they dealt subtly or unkindly with him. Another while he is suiting himself [reconstructed: with] all conveniency that either means or friends can make, purchasing such outward comforts, and that with [reconstructed: great] pains, and dividing cares, because he knows such outward [reconstructed: means] of wealth, and state, and lands, will be very advantageous to accomplish his own ends. Here be variety of thoughts, which fetch a compass far and wide about many particulars; yet they aim all at this, how to satisfy his sensual desires, therefore the wound was there. The [reconstructed: navigator], because the channel is narrow, and the wind somewhat scant, he touches in many places, tacks about, and fetches many points, but still because it is to attain the haven; therefore each man in reason concludes, that was the cause that invited him to all that variety in his course. It is so in the carriage of the soul; the cause why a man fetches such a compass, and tacks about in his own contrivances; now this, now that; one while one way, another while this or that presented and pursued busily; yet in the issue we land all our thoughts, and look at the last how to bring in content to such a lust: it is certain the vanity of that lust occasioned and drew the vanity of your thoughts after it.

The cause being thus conceived, the cure is fair and easy to comprehend; namely, cure these inordinate and raging lusts, and there will follow a still and quiet composure of mind; purge the stomach if it be foul, and that will ease the pain of wind in the head, because that is caused by the fumes that arise from there. Take off the plummet, or lessen but the weight of it, the minutes though they hurried never so fast before, yet will not move at all, or at least very slowly and quietly. So here, take off the poise of the affections, purge away these noisome lusts which carry and command the head, and send up dunghill steams which distemper the mind, and disturb it, and those windy imaginations will cease, and those thoughts of the mind like the minutes, either will not move, or move in order and manner as may help and not hinder. Here the great skill and care ought to be to labor the cleansing and sanctification of such affections which are most tainted, and where the vein and force of original corruption, either through custom, or constitution, or company, has vented itself most usually, and so has taken up the soul, and gained, and so exercised greater power over it. For as in bruised or weak parts, all the humors run there, so commonly this corruption is the link and drain of the soul, all distempered thoughts, and other inferior lusts, empty themselves, and become servants to this. If once the affections had gained such a taste and relish of the sweetness that is in Christ, and his Truth, that all these baggage and inferior things here below seemed sapless, and that the heart were endeared to him and his Truth, and carried strongly [reconstructed: toward] both, this would carry the thoughts vehemently, and keep them so strongly to both, that they would be so far from wandering away from Christ, that they would not be taken from bestowing the strength of their intentions about him (Psalm 119:97). Oh how I love your Law, it is my meditation all the day; verse 93: I will never forget your precepts, for thereby you have quickened me; verse 23: Princes sat and spoke against me, but your servant did meditate in your statutes. In reason he would have conceived it [reconstructed: a fit] time for him to bethink himself how to prevent their fury, and it would cost him sad thoughts of heart how to provide for his [reconstructed: life] and safety; no truly, your servant did meditate in your law.

Possess your heart with an [illegible] consideration, and a holy dread of the glorious presence of the Almighty, who sees and ponders all your paths, and therefore will take an account, and that strictly, of all the out-strainings of your thoughts when you come to give attendance upon him, and to draw near into his presence, in some peculiar and [illegible] service. There is a kind of heedless wantonness which like a canker breeds in our atheistical dispositions, whereby we see not the rule that should guide us, we lay aside also the consideration of that power that does rule us, and will bring us to judgment, and so missing the guide that should show us the path, and the power that should awe us, and constrain us to keep the road, a man's mind pours out itself to every vanity that next offers itself to its view. Whereas were we aware of his presence, and awed with it, it would cause us to eye him, and attend him in his way and work, wherein he commands us to walk with him. As it is with truant scholars who are sporting and gaming out of their place, and from any serious attendance upon their books, when nothing will still them, and force them to their studies, as soon as ever there is but the least inkling of the master, or any eye they can cast upon his approach, they are all as still as may be, repair [illegible] to their place, fall close, and set their minds to their work; O Master, Master, our Master is yonder; there follows stillness and attendance presently. Our truant and wanton minds are of this temper, we are apt to straggle out of our places, or from giving attendance [illegible] those special services which the Lord calls for at our hands, and to lay out themselves upon things that are not pertinent, and further than we are awed with the apprehension of God's sight and presence, who calls for the daily attendance of our thoughts when we draw near to him, does see and observe our carelessness, and will proceed in judgment, and [illegible] punishment upon us for it, it's scant [illegible] to hold the bent of our thoughts awfully to the business we have in hand. It was the curse which attended Jonah when he departed away from the [illegible] of the Lord, and from following his command, he followed lying vanities (Jonah 2:8). And it's [illegible] peculiar plague which is appointed in the way of providence, and the Lord's righteous proceedings to befall all who bestow not their hearts upon him (Ephesians 4:21). They walk in [illegible] [illegible] of their minds; and the reason is [illegible], they are strangers from the life of God. When our thoughts start aside from under the government of God's wisdom, the rule of truth and stability, they wander up and down in the ways of error and vanity, and find no end or measure, follow vanity, and become vain, nor can they attain any stability before they return there. As your vagabond beggars, and vagrant persons in the country from where we came, there is no possibility to fasten them to any employment, or settle them in any place before they come under the eye of authority, and power of the magistrate. So fares it with our vagabond and vagrant thoughts; further than they are under the eye of God, and awed with his presence, it's not possible to stop them from the pursuit of vanity, or confine them to settled consideration of that which [illegible] our duty and comfort. The rule is one, like it [illegible] accompanied with stability and rest; if once we go astray from that, there is neither end nor quiet in error, but restlessness and emptiness. The sea, while it keeps the channel, the course is known, and the mariners can tell how to advantage their [illegible]; but if once it exceeds the banks, no man can tell where it will go, or where it will stay. Our imaginations are like the vast sea, while we eye the rule, and are ordered by the authority of it, we know our compass; but once go off, and we know not where we shall go, or where we shall stay.

Be watchfully careful to observe the first wanderings and out-strayings of your thoughts, how they first go off from the attendance to the work in hand, and look off from the matter, you set yourself to meditate in [illegible]; immediately recall them back, bring them to their task again, and set them about their intended [illegible]. If [illegible] they fly out and follow fresh occasions that [illegible] or a man's corruptions shall suggest, take them at the first turn and often again settle them upon the service, until at last by constant custom our mind and thoughts will buckle handsomely to their business, after they be kept in by a daily care. I have heard huntsmen say when they have young dogs, raw and that had not been entered nor acquainted with their sport, if a fresh [illegible] come in view, or some other unexpected prey cross them in their way, they forsake the old scent and follow that which is in their eye, but their manner is to [illegible] at them off, and call them away from that, and then to bring them to the place where they left their former pursuit, and there set them to find the scent afresh, until at last being often checked and constantly trained up they will take and attend the first game. So here, with our wandering minds which are not trained up to this work of meditation, if they begin to fly off and follow a new occasion, suffer not your thoughts to range, but bring your mind back again, and set it upon the former service, and then by your constant care and God's blessing your mind will fall in sweetly and go away with the work. Or as men use to do with some kind of wand that is warped and bent somewhat much one way, they bend it a little, at the first and there hold it, bend it and hold it, at last it comes fully to the fashion they desire it. So here often bend and hold your mind bent to the work in hand (Hebrews 2:1); let us give earnest heed to the things we have heard; our roving thoughts are like riven vessels, if the parts be not glued and the breaches brought together again by strong hand, they will leak out, so here, and so forth.

The fourth hindrance which is here pretended is their unskilfulness and unhandiness to this service, which many even conscientious Christians in the bitterness of their souls complain of, as that which wholly [illegible] and discourages them to the work. They say, that [illegible] of the truth, and the dictates of their own conscience does give in full evidence and undeniable, that they should attend the duty, and in obedience to God's command they set about the work, but at the very entrance they are at an utter loss, at a period in their own thoughts, at a stand within themselves, and cannot stir a [illegible] forward. They want materials one while upon which they should spend their thoughts, another while they want skill, after what manner to exercise their apprehensions about it that they might do good on it. In a word their weakness they find to be so great and the service to be so strange and hard to them, that they cannot but conceive it to be impossible to them, ever to attain the skill, and to what purpose is it to endeavor it if they cannot attain it?

I answer what need any further argument than your own words, to constrain you to the duty now discovered? The more unskilful you are, the more need you have to learn; the greater the weight and worth of the duty, the greater diligence in reason you should use in [illegible] attendance to it. There is neither weakness nor want of power, nor skill in God to do you good, whatever weakness, or want you find in yourself, and if you need much, as he has much in his hand so he will give abundantly to satisfy your desire and to fit you for the performance; others have attained it, why may you not receive it? He has bestowed it upon others why may you not expect it? Wisdom gives subtlety to the simple, and sharpness to the idiot (Proverbs 1:4). Your dullness and heaviness should increase your diligence and endeavor and not discourage you when the tool is dull men [illegible] to more strength (Ecclesiastes 10:10). Every thing must have a beginning, while we are endeavoring, God is blessing, if we never set about a work we shall never compass it. You will not expect the child should know a trade before he learns it, and are well content the child see seven years over his head, before you look to see him attain any perfection; and in the greatest works and where we have least ability, why should we think to attain any dexterity without long endeavor? And this adds to our encouragement, it is the season and time wherein the Lord has promised much of his spirit and presence, and therefore we may look for it. The weak shall be as David (Zechariah 12:8). David we know was eminent and marvelous [illegible] in this service, you [illegible] weak and foolish and feeble, be it so yet you have a promise, you may be as David; who made David so skillful? Why the same God lives still, who is all-sufficient and therefore can, who has promised and therefore will help you also.

A word of caution. Hence loose company is a deadly enemy and hindrance to the conversion of a sinner. That which does exceedingly prejudice the work of meditation, and so of brokenness of heart, that hinders the work of conversion for that is the way to it. But there is no greater hindrance to be found on earth to holy meditation than frothy company and companions, while a man is in the crowd among such wretches there is no possibility in reason that one should search his own heart and examine his own way, take any account by serious consideration what his course has been or what his condition is. There is little hope of any possibility that ever the word should settle upon the soul or stay with the sinner in the evidence or prevailing power of it, or that the mind or heart of a poor creature should settle upon that, suck out the sap and virtue of it and continue under the stroke and authority of it while he continues with such varlets, which like the greedy fowl of the air, pick out the seed of the word out of the minds of such with whom they do converse, and stop the passage as it were with their prejudices they cast against man and message, that they may never attend it, or if yet they talk with it as a passenger, yet never entertain it as an in-dweller to continue with them. And therefore they act the part not of God's ministers or such as would be helpers to the spiritual good of others, but the part of Satan's factors, when God is pleased to parley with a sinner, and to speak terror to his conscience out of the word that they may be troubled and tumbled and so find rest at the day of Christ. These quacksalvers send the distressed sinner to sports, pastimes and recreations, and merry company, that they take up their thoughts and take off their minds from attending to their sins or the truth, that is, take off the [reconstructed: salve] that should cure them, spill the physic that should heal their maladies; thus they ease their terrors for the while that they may increase their torment forever. Accursed comforters, or rather they take up the Devil's name and office — Apollyon — destroyers of the souls of men. Therefore holy Peter gave that advice to these hearers: Save yourselves from this crooked generation, that is, your safety and their society cannot stand together, you must not continue with them, if you would have the power and comfort of the word continue with you. And therefore experience shows God so disposes ever in the dispensation of the work of his grace either the sinner that is wounded will shake off his wicked company, or else the counsel of the word and the work of God's spirit. Hence that of the apostle (Ephesians 5:14): Stand up from the dead and Christ shall give you light. And (2 Corinthians 6:17): Come out from among them and be separate, and then I will receive you, and walk among you. God will not walk with you if you will walk with the world, there is no coming into communion with Christ, unless we come out there. Christ tells his disciples (John 15:19): I have chosen you out of the world.

Exhortation. We here see the way that the Lord has chalked out before us the means which in mercy and in way of his providence he has provided and appointed to break our hearts, to bring us to his son and so to life. We are therefore to be exhorted to attend and follow the counsel of the Lord that we may expect and so receive his blessing; even with conscientious diligence and studious endeavor to press on to the performance of this service. Some happily never knew it, looked not at it as a labor or task that did [illegible] to them, let such now own it, and set about it with all [illegible] might. Others it may be have been convinced of the duty, and have been forward in the practice of it in former times, and forced to it in the [illegible] of their distress, but now are fallen back and grown weary in their way. Those are to be persuaded to proceed on with more cheerfulness and speed. He that never knew the work let him now learn it. He that has set about it in former times let him be forever quickened and encouraged in it. Join all your counsels and resolutions you that are children and servants in the same family, members in the same assemblies, neighbors in the same place and plantation, and [illegible] upon each other to this holy course; (Lamentations 3:40) Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Say so one to another, you that are privy to the wretchedness of your own hearts and lives, we complain and that justly of a giddy slightness of spirit. We meet with many strokes of the word, stirrings and recoilings of spirit, our hearts misgiving us, many checks of Conscience, and motives (we think) of the Holy Ghost cast into our minds but nothing stays with us, sticks upon us, they pass away insensibly, and leave no impression, no power behind them we wash away all. We cannot but see and wonder at the unreasonable hardness of our heart, and condemn ourselves, who have had so many blows from God's hand and they break not, so many dreadful threatenings we hear out of the word daily able to shake the heart of a Devil, we stir not, we are not affected therewith. Our corruptions are heinous for their nature, many for their number, accompanied with direful plagues from the Lord, are daily before our eyes, have driven many to untimely deaths and so to Hell. We cannot but acknowledge all this and yet we be not touched with any saving remorse for them. We have had all helps, and the Lord has tried all conclusions upon us, and yet all in vain. Who knows but we have been negligent this ordinance, and therefore God has cursed all others, we have not used this means as well as others, and therefore we have got benefit by none. Who knows but the want of this has hindered the success of all other that we have had and used in our times and places. Oh then recover our former carelessness, send our thoughts a far off and survey our former conversations, let us search and consider our own ways who knows but the Lord may turn our hearts to him? Let us question our own souls and say to ourselves what have we done? That it may be beyond question that God has humbled, pardoned and accepted of us. What is the reason that one sinks under the sin that another never feels? It is with our sins as with our burdens he that sees a weight and it may be lifts at it, but if he never lay it upon his shoulder, or if it be laid, he never keeps it there but casts it off immediately, he will never be touched or troubled with it, which another dies under as not able to endure. So it is here our sins and iniquities are a burden too heavy for any man to bear and not to break under them and they who are forced to feel the least of them are compelled to confess as much; as the Devils and damned in Hell, the wicked in horror of Conscience my punishment is greater than can be endured. Others whom God abates of the execution of his displeasure for the present, these men look at them, and may lift at them a little by some sudden flashy and flitting apprehension, as they hear or read, etc. But by meditation to bind this burden upon their Consciences, that the heart cannot get from under it, they are not able to abide the weight of them, therefore will not abide the thought of them; they [illegible] off, and cast away the burden, and so they never feel it, before the infinite Justice of the Lord seizes upon their souls by everlasting discouragement. Better we set them in order before our eye and trouble our hearts with them than that the Lord should set them in order before us at the day of Judgment, and tear us in pieces when there shall be none to deliver us.

To help in this so hard a business, let me speak something.

1. By way of provocation to stir you up to this work. 2. By way of direction to guide you in it.

To provoke your hearts to it take these considerations.

Let every man take it to himself as his own task, charge it upon his own soul, as a service which by unavoidable necessity, lies upon him which he may not neglect. This will awaken the soul to the work, say, it's my debt and I must pay it. It's my duty appertaining to me, and required at my hand, and I must discharge it: as I will answer it at my peril at the day of accounts. Our lazy hearts if they can find any dispensation or exception they will slip the collar and put off the performance, call therefore upon yourself as sometimes they upon Ezra, Arise you sluggish and slothful soul, the matter belongs to you, to me? You'll say, that's a likely matter indeed, I am a silly maid, an ignorant youth, or an aged and decrepit creature, my memory and [illegible] worn out, I pray you have me excused, my place my ability suits not, my times and leisure in the multitude of [illegible] many occasions permit not, such and such who have abilities can, such who have leisure and opportunity may, such who have dexterity and skill in such performances, should indeed both own the duty and perform it but alas my place and abilities suit not, my time and leisure in the multitude of so many occasions permit not, therefore it cannot belong to me. Yes, to young ones and ignorant ones, it appertains to you, does it not appertain to you to be humbled, and to turn your feet to the testimonies of the Almighty? Does it not appertain to you to be blessed and to have your ways made prosperous in which you walk? If you would come to God's end you must attend God's way. If you would attain a blessing and success from God, you must use the means appointed by him for good. Go your ways you poor creatures, commune with your own hearts, and set down this for an everlasting conclusion, Come, we can tell how to muse and plot about the pleasures of a sinful course, how we may commit them: Oh it appertains to us to meditate of the danger of our wicked ways, how we may reform them, and avoid it; we can tell how to muse upon the wayward perverseness of our own spirits, that we may break the righteous laws of God; let us consider the evil of our ways that we may turn our feet to his testimonies.

Consider how much you run in arrearages, and how far you are cast behind hand in this spiritual service; how unacquainted with it in former times, and how [illegible] since you have known the way, and therefore so much more need you have to double your diligence, and to recover your former carelessness with more studious and conscientious endeavor to your utmost. He that has much work, and little time, has reason to be exceeding laborious: he that has a long journey, and sets out late, had need to make haste: he that has many ancient reckonings almost past remembrance, he must resolve to sit at it, and that it cost him the setting on to make any [reconstructed: thorough accounts], when you are to call over the folly of your childhood, the vanity of your youth, the rebellion of your riper years, to search into the sinful distempers of your heart, which you have long harbored, and your miscarriages worn out of mind and remembrance, it will cause you to sit at it night and day, and to bring in those [illegible], and to read them over, it's almost impossible for your life, and therefore you must labor hard. Zechariah 12:10-12: When the Lord shall pour out the spirit of grace and supplication upon the Jews, they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn apart, the wives apart, and the husbands apart, etc.

Consider what need you have of this holy ordinance, that will compel you to prize it, and to use it also; it's that which will yield some supply in most of all your spiritual wants, lend a hand [illegible] support in most of your feeblenesses, which may befall, and would hinder you in a Christian way. Your memory is weak; you do attend the holy Word of God, and many times close with the [illegible] and precious comforts, but alas they are gone and slip away: meditation will strengthen your feeble memory, and though these blessed truths would depart, yet it will stay them and retain them with you. Joshua 1:8: The words of this book shall not depart away from you; how [illegible] we prevent that? You shall meditate therein day and night. Your apprehensions are shallow, and you narrow in your conceiving; meditation will ripen and enlarge your judgment, so that you shall exceed the most judicious and learned. Psalm 119:99: I have more understanding than all my teachers; how came that about? For your testimonies are my meditation. You are simple and imprudent in your way, not able to discover or prevent the over-reachings of such as be wily and cunning in their contrivements; meditation will sharpen your apprehensions, and make you able to discern the secret conveyances and slights of the false-hearted, and to prevent the danger of them. Psalm 119:98: I became wiser than my enemies, because your commandments were ever with me, and that was by meditation. Your spirit is sluggish and weary, you lack life and mettle in the discharge of your duty, pray without sense, and confess without sorrow, beg mercy, and do not feel moved by it; meditation will quicken you in conference, make you apt and ready to all undertakings, store you with matter, laden your apprehensions and tongue, warm your affections, and make you go with readiness to the work; meditation adds as it were, wind to a man's sails, and wings to a man's endeavor. While I was musing, my heart burned, then spoke I with my tongue (Psalm 39:2-3). If then your memory be weak, and you need that which would strengthen it; your apprehension narrow and dull, you need that which would enlarge it; your spirit dull and sluggish, and you need that which may add quickening virtue thereunto, a full stream that may turn the wheel; behold meditation is the medicine, it has a Probatum est upon it, approved of all the saints, and the cure left upon record. Your needs are great and manifold; so do you prize this means, and use it for your good.

Consider the sovereign virtue of this spiritual service, and special ordinance of God, as that which sucks out the sap and sweet of all other dispensations of God, and means of grace, wherein he discovers himself to us, so that though they be good in themselves, yet the good of them is not received but by meditation: As it is in the body naturally, be it that your meat is choice that is provided, the dressing neat and wholesome, the appetite strong and sharp, and that a man feeds liberally and heartily of such dainties set before him, though these provisions be never so savory and cordial, and able to refresh and strengthen, yet all labor is lost, and meat lost also, if his digestion be naught, Nature is loaded and [reconstructed: burdened], but never nourished thereby. So it is in the soul, be the means of grace never so powerful and precious, sappy and spiritual, opportunities great to enjoy them, liberties and desires ready to attend them, to hear, and read, and confer, receive the seals, etc. These are excellent, and of special use in themselves, but unless by meditation we digest this food, the head and heart may be loaded, but little spiritual knowledge or power with a spiritual blessing will be reaped from it. (Joshua 1:8) You shall meditate in it day and night; then you shall make your way prosperous; then you shall have good success: would you have the Word that is preached, and the administration of the seals savory and seasonable, admonitions prosperous, when they are dispensed to your soul? To what purpose else have we them, and enjoy them? If not prospered, they are certainly accursed; that is the scope of all ordinances, the end and good of all church liberties and privileges: would you be sure when you go to the congregation, you shall have good success in hearing, you shall be quickened, good success in receiving, you shall be strengthened in assurance of eternal life? When you fall to meditating, then, then I say, expect the Lord will make all prosperous and successful to your soul; and before that time the Lord does not promise you either blessing or success, nor can you expect it, nor are you likely to receive any. Our profession in the church, is like the trade we drive in Christianity, and meditation it is that brings in all the profit and gain, wherein the life and comfort of all performances and ordinances do consist. And that wherein the upshot of all our desires are brought in. The reproof was sharp and seasonable, met with your corruption, and touched your heart in a special manner, and you say, I pray God we may profit by it. The examination and trial, was narrow and straight, came indeed to the quick, drove me to stagger and stand; our liberties and privileges are precious we enjoy in New England, I pray God we may profit by them; so say I, I pray God you may. But if your heart be with your prayer, I would only advise you the way to obtain what you desire. That of Paul to Timothy, (1 Timothy 4:15-16). Meditate upon these things, and be in them, and you shall profit, and your profiting will appear to all. The wicked will be forced to see it, and wonder at it; the saints will see it, and rejoice in it; it will appear to your own heart, and you may be comforted in it.

These be motives to provoke you, and compel you to pay your debt honestly: You are marvelous behind hand; your own ease should draw you now to pursue it; you have most need, and necessity should force you to attend it; the blessing goes along with it, and that should [reconstructed: encourage] you to be glad to continue in it.

The second particular propounded, is how to direct you herein; and here, this art of meditation is that which has exercised the pens of many, and the thoughts of more; and the desires of men are not herein yet satisfied, who find it most hard to practice, and yet more than ordinarily difficult to know what they should practice: I shall suddenly lay forth the compass of it so far as concerns the occasion in hand.

The meditation of our sins, so far as may be serviceable to set forward the work of contrition, has two parts:

- 1. Following the enquiry of the nature of corruption. The rule to authorize to the work. Manner how to proceed in the work, survey the particulars severally. Sum them up jointly, see the value of them. - 2. Fastening of it upon the soul.

That we may follow the footsteps of a corruption, and track a distemper to the full, we must have our commission that must authorize us, and carry us on in our course. And here the direction is this:

We must go out to this work of meditation in the virtue of an ordinance, and so of commission from God: We must attend a word that must guide us in it, and look to Christ and [illegible] promise, and set our grace to work, that by the power of his might, and the help of his grace, we may both be enabled and preserved in the service; for such is the ticklishness of our corrupt hearts, and the infecting and tainting nature of sin, that it's hard to meddle with it, but some pollution will cleave to us by it. And it is that which the saints, and those most sincere, have found by experience, and in much bitterness have complained of, that [illegible] they have set themselves about this work by meditation of their sin, their hearts have suddenly been carried aside with it, and tainted with a kind of delight in it, when they intended to loathe and abhor themselves in the consideration thereof. Thus by the abuse of this duty, we come to be molded and melted into the temper of sin by meditation, when we intended to be burdened with it. The error and mistake is here; We do not bring the authority of the Word, and power of Christ, and help of his grace against sin, which would both discover and subdue it: But we bring the temptation, and occasion, and our corrupt hearts together, they solder and suit one with another, like tinder to the spark, it increases the fire, not quenches it, provokes a corruption, not kills it. This is to make a quarrel with a man's lust, when out of our own strength we enter into a contestation with our distemper; we act under the covenant of works, by an irritating power we add to the strength and dominion of sin. Whereas did we go against it in the covenant of grace, we should destroy the dominion of it (Romans 6:14). Sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under the law, but under grace. Thus if a man have grace. But if it be in the way of seeking and receiving grace, then attend the Word, and in the authority and commission from there received, be carried on: Go against your corruption in the virtue and power of the Word, not in any power of your own: As constables, though mean, yet they use the king's name.

For the manner of our proceeding, to make a full inquiry into the several passages of a sinful distemper, the directions are three:

First, look at the root and rise of a sinful practice, from where it springs, inwardly, otherwise we shall never come to the core of a corruption, or see where the loathsomeness of a lust lies. The sting of the serpent is small, and the skin pleasing, but the poison is spreading and deadly. Beware that there be not a root of bitterness (Hebrews 12:15). Thus our Savior he leads his disciples to the right discovery of their carriage when they asked whether they might not imitate the practice of Elijah, to call [illegible] down from heaven upon the heads of the Samaritans, because of their unkind dealing (Luke 9:54). Did one look but at the outside of the expression, the pattern they propound, and the pretence they made, there would no great matter of discovery appear; therefore our Savior leads them inward, says he, You know not what spirits you are of. The voice is the voice of Jacob; your pretence is fair, as Elijah's zeal was good; but you have not the spirit of Elijah, not the love of God, but the love of yourselves, even the spirit of self-love and pride, etc.; there is little exception that can be taken from anything that appears outwardly, their abscessed matter lay within. The spirit of sin is in the spirit of a man's practice; maybe it's but a short and snappish speech, a wayward carriage in a silent manner, and [illegible], you go away, and say nothing. But from what spirit came this? From your heart in hideous disdain and contempt, with [illegible] of hatred, as though it had been a fiend of hell, look to your spirit.

When you have known the womb of wickedness, where the active power of a corruption lay, and from where it came, look secondly to the [illegible] and breeding of sin, how the frame and constitution of a corruption comes to be fashioned inwardly, before it be brought forth into practice (James 1:15). Lust when it has conceived, brings forth sin: Sometimes a man conceives and travails of a monstrous birth, of an abominable and hideous villainy, and yet no man can so judge it before it appear in the full birth, and so the complete constitution thereof. This conception of a lust appears in the concurrence and combination of a corrupt heart, and carnal reason. 1. The affections pursue eagerly the evil, and the will resolves peremptorily, this lust I must satisfy, this [illegible] way I will walk in. 2. Carnal reasonings are like the formative force, or like the spirit in the seed; it casts about by all cunning contrivements, subtle devices, to compass and bring it about, and to cover and color it over with the fairest pretence they may: But when the parts and proportions of a perverse carriage, the framing of our loathsome lusts come to view, they then appear direful and dreadful. That David should send for Uriah, entertain him kindly, tender him and his comfort, so as to send him to enjoy his own comfort at his own house, that he should advance him to that respect, and put that honor and trust upon him, as to put him into the forefront of the battle, who can blame anything? But to do all this to cover his adultery, and at last to suck the blood of the innocent that he may enjoy his lust, here is a hellish brood, a monstrous birth: So it was with Absalom's fair language, etc. To this place appertain all those rebellious oppositions which make head against all rule and reason; when the light of knowledge would gainsay, motions of the Spirit persuade and forewarn, do it not; checks of conscience control; yet against knowledge and conscience, and the motions of the Spirit, they break through, and pursue their lusts; the light of knowledge carnal reason darkens, the motions of the Spirit they quench, the checks of conscience they [illegible]. So it is in the perverse carriage of rebellious servants, etc.

Follow sin by the fruits of it, as by the bloody footsteps, and see what havoc it makes in every place, wherever it comes: go to the prisons, and see [reconstructed: so] many malefactors in irons, so many witches in the dungeon; these are the fruits of [reconstructed: sin]; look aside, and there you shall see one drawn out of the pit where he was drowned; cast your eye but hard by, and behold another lying weltering in his blood, the knife in his throat, and his hand at the knife, and his own hands become his executioner; from there go to the place of execution, and there you shall hear many prodigal and rebellious children and servants upon the ladder, leaving the last remembrance of their untimely death, which their distempers have brought about. I was born in a good place where the Gospel was preached with plainness and power, lived under godly masters, [illegible] religious parents; a holy and tender-hearted mother I had, many prayers she made, tears she wept for me, and those have met me often in the dark in my dissolute courses, but I never had a heart to hear and receive. All you stubborn and rebellious, hear and fear, and learn by my harms; hasten [reconstructed: from there] into the wilderness, and see [reconstructed: Korah], [reconstructed: Dathan], and Abiram going down alive to Hell, and all the people flying and crying lest we perish also; lo, this rebellion has brought [it to pass]. Turn aside but to the Red Sea, and behold all the Egyptians dead upon the shore; and ask who [reconstructed: slew] them, and the story will tell you a [illegible] was the cause of that direful confusion: [reconstructed: From there] send your thoughts to the cross where our Savior was [reconstructed: crucified], he who bears up heaven and earth with his power, and behold those bitter and briny [reconstructed: tears], [reconstructed: and his] hideous cries, My God, my God, why [reconstructed: have] you [reconstructed: forsaken me]? And make but a peep-hole into Hell, [illegible] your ear and listen to those [reconstructed: shrieks] of the devils and damned, cursing the day that ever they were born, the [illegible] that ever they enjoyed, the mercies that [illegible], the worm there [reconstructed: dies not], and [reconstructed: the fire there burning never] goes out, and [illegible], and it will do so to all that [illegible] it. Say therefore, and why not I among the witches upon the place of execution, with malefactors? why not I in Hell with the devils? Since my sins are as theirs, my plagues might have been, and in the end will be as theirs, unless I repent.

Direful are those plagues that sin brings upon the sinner; but these are not the worst — or rather, in truth, the least part of that evil that sin procures, and pulls upon the souls of those who give themselves to it. Here is the venom of the vengeance, and the dregs and malignity of that mischief that accompanies it, in those spiritual desolations and ruins it leaves upon the soul, those not to be conceived, much less uttered by the tongues of men and angels. Let us look inward, and dig deeper.

Commission of sin makes a man senseless and remorseless in it, puts a man beyond the consideration and thought of amendment, either capability of good or to look after it; it takes off endeavor, indeed desire, and thought of recovery out of our wretchedness: such were they of whom the Apostle speaks (1 Timothy 4:2), having their consciences seared with a hot iron; as it is with seared parts, whatever gashes or stabs come, they have no sense or feeling of them; whatever judgments are denounced, threats proclaimed in a man's ears, executed before a man's eyes, the seared conscience is stupid and fearless, it feels nothing, is affected with nothing. So it was said of the heathen (Ephesians 4:19), they were past feeling; God frowns from heaven, the Word threatens, devils accuse, their own judgments condemn the loathsomeness of their practice, and men bear witness, and cry shame of the sottishness of their course, their distempers are such that they stink above ground, and yet they poor creatures feel nothing, but bless themselves in their present condition (Romans 2:5). They have hearts that cannot repent, heaping up [reconstructed: wrath] against the day of wrath.

The daily and ordinary commission of any one sin delivers up the sinner to become a prey to the power of all corruptions, even the most detestable; sin lays waste the soul so that it becomes a thoroughfare, and lies open to the most hellish provocations or distempers that can be presented before it, and nothing comes amiss. That's the inference: when the heathen had no delight to have God in their knowledge, had no liking to such and such righteous and good ways of God, he delivered them up to a reprobate sense (Romans 1:28); they had no delight to be ruled by the truth, and the wisdom and holiness thereof, no delight [reconstructed: to] know or relish any good. God takes them at their word, and leaves them in the hands of their sins — they should have minds that should never know the truth, hearts that should never approve of it. See presently when the soul is thus laid waste what a drove and inroad of hideous abominations come in, and take possession, and make a prey and spoil of the poor wretched creature as they will — then (verses 29-30) they are full of all unrighteousness, covetousness, fornication, envy, proud boasters, heady, high-minded, [reconstructed: covenant] breakers, false, unfaithful, disobedient, unnatural; nothing is amiss whatever the heart of Beelzebub or the bottom of Hell can harbor. It's the ground of the coherence of that place also (Ephesians 4:19): who being past feeling, they have given up themselves to work all uncleanness with greediness. The poor creature is at the [reconstructed: call] and beck of any base abomination; no temptation presses in but prevails, no allurement is presented but it surprises and takes aside, no corruption [reconstructed: stirs] but it carries and acts him without gainsaying. The Devil and his distempers take him alive and take him at their pleasures, lead him as they [reconstructed: please], and he knows not where he is before he is in the bottomless pit. This is the quintessence of vengeance, an unseen evil; [reconstructed: and] in truth inconceivable — the terrors of death and the torments [reconstructed: of] Hell are nothing in comparison of this. When the glorious and blessed God, through the just desert of sin, leaves the creature at the lust of Satan and his distemper — "Look, he is in your [reconstructed: hands], do what you will with him; I will have nothing to do with him more" — this is the sentence passed upon the backslider (Proverbs 14:14): the backslider in heart shall be [reconstructed: filled] with his own ways, he shall have his belly [reconstructed: full]. Thus as the saints are sealed up in the day of redemption, the wicked are [reconstructed: sealed] up under the sovereignty of their sins [reconstructed: until] the day of destruction: "You [reconstructed: shall] have your pride and stubbornness and [reconstructed: rebellion] — be forever proud and forever [reconstructed: stubborn], and forever [reconstructed: hard]-hearted, continue so and perish [reconstructed: so]." There is no judgment like to this, and this is the [reconstructed: penalty] of sin, and that which the Lord reserves as the choicest of all his plagues, the last and worst (Proverbs 1:26-28, 31): "You shall call, but I will not hear; you shall seek me, and shall not [reconstructed: find] me." One would think this is heavy, and harder measure could hardly be found — yes, the Lord has worse: "Because you despised my counsel and set at nothing all my reproof, [reconstructed: therefore] they shall eat the fruit of their own ways and be full of their own devices." They who [reconstructed: scheme] and devise devices to contrive contentments to their own carnal and corrupt [reconstructed: desires] carry a forge of falsehood and [reconstructed: deceit] about them — to succeed in these, one would have thought, is the [reconstructed: greatest] content such a person could take. True, it is so, and that is the greatest and most dreadful plague that could befall them. When the Lord Christ takes away [reconstructed: the light] of himself and his Spirit from the [reconstructed: sinner] and leaves him wholly to himself and the power of Satan and his own [reconstructed: vile] distempers — nothing of God's wisdom [reconstructed: but] their own folly shall mislead them, nothing of God's [reconstructed: holiness] but the perverse rebellion of their own hearts shall rule them and so destroy them. This is to be in Hell before he comes there, and so to be a devil before he comes among them.

They come to be helpless in regard of all means that the Lord has provided, or the mercies that the Lord has offered to them, and does yet strive with them in. It's sin that stops the intercourse between God and the soul, his ordinances and our consciences, takes and [illegible] the passage, that the power of the means never work upon us, the sweetness of his mercies never affect us, the virtue of his ordinances find no place, leave no impression upon the soul. This is the fruit which the prophet lays forth of the rebellions and [illegible] of the Jews, which made them ripe for everlasting ruin (Isaiah 6:9-10): Make the heart of this people [illegible], and their ears heavy, and by that time they are sure enough for ever seeing the face of God, or receiving [illegible] by any means; seeing they may see and not perceive, hearing they may hear and [illegible] understand, lest they be converted. They are far enough from conversion and so from salvation. It's that also which is of necessity implied in the former expression: they shall be filled with their own devices, so there is no entrance, no acceptance of any direction from the will and word of God. As it is in vessels that are brimful of liquor ready to run over, there is no room for a spoonful of the most precious liquor to be put into them. So through the just desert of their sin they are so fully possessed with the power of their corruptions which have had commission to rule them, that as our Savior said (John 8:37), there is no place for the word. Their minds so full of pride of their own carnal reason, that there is no room for instruction to direct or inform them, their hearts so full of stiffness and perverseness, that there is no place for reproof that may prevail with them and reform them, the spirit so full of falseness and ready to take hold upon [illegible], that there is no place for the [illegible] of the truth to frame them to the [illegible] and singleness of carriage as suits with God's mind. So that all means of grace and ordinances take their leave of the sinner, work no more upon that heart that has [illegible] long and so often opposed the work thereof. [reconstructed: Jeremiah] 51:9: We would have healed Babylon, [illegible] she would not be healed, leave her then — leave instructions, and leave exhorting, etc. So it is with the ordinances: the Lord passes by and will not so much as speak a word to a rebellious heart; the threatenings that troubled before, now stir not; the instructions that convinced before now awe not at all; the reproofs and exhortations that awakened and affected the heart, now slide away like water upon a rock, and there is no print or the least appearance of any impression left behind. The ruin of men's comforts, lives and liberties which sin has brought are open, but oh the woeful desolation of souls — could it be seen of all, as it is felt of some whose heart God touches, it would make sin exceeding sinful and unsupportably evil, as they in the prophet complained bitterly: Why are our hearts hardened from your fear? (Isaiah 63:17).

Besides this bitter fruit which the sinner is forced to taste of sin in his own particular, let us view the extent of that evil which sin does to others; and that partly which is common to every corruption of whatever kind or degree, whether it is great or small, open or secret, whether more loathsome and not [illegible] to the eyes of men, or that which is esteemed less in the account of the world. That which is an ingredient into the nature and constitution and making up of every corruption is that it makes a breach upon the righteous law of God — that is, not only shakes off the rule and sovereignty of the law, but prefers in truth the supremacy of our lusts before the authority of the Lord himself, which he has and ought to exercise over our souls. For the sinner in the practice of any sin proclaims this to the world: it's not the royalty of the righteous law of God but my own distemper shall rule me; not his will but my own wayward corruption shall [illegible] the balance; it's not the wisdom of the word but my folly, and the vanity of my ignorant mind shall lead me in what I do; it's not the goodness of the law of God's holiness but the pleasing corruptions of my own carnal heart shall content me. In a word, each man professes God shall not be his God, but he sets up his lust in his place and does homage to it — than which what greater indignity can be done to the Almighty? All men look at it as a most hellish expression of the Jews: [illegible] him but Barabbas. Barabbas was a murderer, vile and base, yet a man, and therefore something of God in him; but more hideous is the hateful blasphemy which the practice of every sinner proclaims — not God but sin. He advances sin in his choice, which is nothing but baseness itself, above the infinite holiness of the only blessed God. So their profession was: they said to the Almighty, depart away from us, we desire not the knowledge of your ways. You say in your heart as much, when in the secret resolution of your soul you bade humility depart — the pride of your own heart should carry you; to meekness depart; so to the God of grace and holiness depart — the knotty stoutness of your own spirit was the liege Lord you yielded homage and obedience to. Out of men's atheism and ignorance this is not thought on, and therefore men think their sins little, nor are they apprehensive of that infinite wrong that they do to the holy and infinite Majesty of the blessed God.

Besides this wrong that is common to all sins, there are some especially open and scandalous that become out of measure sinful.

Committed against many mercies, against many means; against many mercies with which God has [illegible] and allured them, that he might have overcome their unkind hearts, with his tender compassions, had they but a spark of any good nature or ingenuity within them. Thus they sin against more of God, and therefore their sin becomes unmeasurably [illegible] against the bowels of a Father that has yearned towards them: the blood of a Christ that has been shed for them; the tears of a Savior that have been wept over them, "Oh that you had known in this your day"; the consolation and intimations of the Spirit who has striven and entreated, "Oh do not do so and sin against God," and yet impudently, presumptuously and pertinaciously you would break through all these armies of compassions, to commit that sin that will be your ruin — how vile your carriage and how just your plague. Thus Nathan pleads with David when he would lay open the loathsomeness of his evil before him (2 Samuel 12:7-9). "Thus says the Lord God of Israel — I anointed you King over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and if that had been too little I would moreover have given you such and such things. Why have you despised the command of the Lord?" The heart of the holy man sunk down in sorrow: "I have sinned." Indeed these coals of fire if gathered and heaped up — I mean these compassions rightly considered and weighed, and laid upon the heart — they are able almost to melt the most flinty disposition (Judges 2:1-3). So the Angel overbore the rebellious spirits of the Israelites: "I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you into the land which I swore to your Fathers, and I said I will never break my Covenant with you, and you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land, you shall throw down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice — why have you done this?" And it came to pass when he spoke these words to all the Children of Israel that the people lifted up their voices and wept. This broke their hearts all in pieces, though perverse and rebellious, they ceased answering and fell to weeping, their tears and mourning were instead of words they would return in their defense.

Against many means with which the Lord has striven with us to stop us in the pursuit of sin, and to reclaim us from our miscarriages; God hems in a poor creature on every side by public dispensations and private [illegible] by ordinary and extraordinary helps, way-lays a sinner and hedges up his path [illegible] thorns, and builds a wall about him that he might find the ways of ungodliness no more (Hosea 2:8). He that adventures upon the commission of sin against such means, and breaks through such armies of ordinances, there is a multiplication of many sins in the commission of one, because it is against the multiplication of many truths, or one truth in a manifold dispensation; he sins against so many instructions, so many comforts, so many counsels he has heard. Confessions he has made, and prayers he has put up for himself, and others have made in his behalf; every one of these dispensations has an action against the soul because it has been wronged by the sinner (John 12:48). "He that hears and rejects has one that judges, even that word that I have spoken and he has heard will judge him" — says our Savior Christ. Those reproofs that you have heard and not submitted to, instructions that you have heard and not embraced — you shall need no other judge, those will judge you, and how heavy will that judgment be then (John 15:22). "If I had not come, they had had no sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin."

Wrong to our brethren — their honor, and lives, goods and good names, especially when open and scandalous; we sin against the souls of our brethren, lay stumbling blocks before them, and here one sin may become many millions of offenses, as the numbers may be many that shall hear of it. Who knows how others may be emboldened and encouraged in sin by our example? How others hindered, and provoked to speak evil of the good ways, of God's grace because of our wretchedness? Woe be to the world because of offenses (Matthew 18:7). Who knows but the blood of many who perish by our means may be required at our hand? Indeed, that our sinful example may live when we are dead (2 Samuel 12:14). "By this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme" (Romans 2:24) — "the name of God is blasphemed among the heathen through you" — and therefore the Prophet David, though God has pardoned his sin, and published it by Nathan, he would not pardon himself, but left his repentance upon record as well as his fall. Peter went out and wept bitterly that others might hear of his sorrow and humiliation for his sin who had heard of his backsliding. Many will lie and curse with Peter, but he that has his grace will go out with Peter and mourn bitterly. Many can easily fall into filthiness as David, but if he has his spirit he will labor to have his heart and bones broken with David.

Add to all the former the time wherein a man has continued in his sins and the frequency of them, having often committed one and the same sin, stumbling again at the same stone, and taken aside again by the same [illegible] and temptations after they have been confessed, bewailed, resolved against (Psalm 78:32). "For all this they sinned still," etc. (Psalm 40:12). "They are more than the hairs of my head, I am not able to look up." Thus we must survey separately the particulars which may be able to present the vileness of sin to us, but that is not all nor yet sufficient — but,

We must sum them up jointly by serious meditation, that so they may fall upon the heart in the full weight of them, and prevail more effectually — and this also helps forward the work of contrition in a special manner. He that parts every stick in the bundle and takes them severally and singles them one from another, he may carry them easily and lightly, never be loaded or troubled with them; but when he has gathered them from several places where they lay scattered, and [reconstructed: binds] them together, he will then find them a burden he is not able to lift, much less able to stand under and bear. So here, that is also another and special work of meditation: besides those mentioned formerly, it does not only look over the several aberrations of man's practice, and gather up our particular miscarriages scattered up and down in our daily course, but lays and bundles them all together, and so they become a burden unsupportable. That seems to be one part of the meaning of the place, (Psalm 38:4): My sins are passed over my head, and are become too heavy for me to bear. It is a comparison (say interpreters, and those very judicious) taken from waters: that, look as the land-floods when the waters flow in from every rivulet and gutter, and from every hill and furrow; at last they meet all in the main channel, and so becomes an overbearing stream that swells above the banks, and bears down all before it; whereas each petty gutter was such as any might wade through, and step over; the might of the flood none can withstand. So it is here with meditation: it does not only search the several aberrations and goings aside in the several occasions of our life, which when they are singled one from another seem very small; yet when our several distempers, and daily swervings become like the drops of rain, not falling forty days and forty nights, but may be so many months or years of continued provocations; the great depths of the corruption of our nature are set open, and our sins like the waters of the sea gathered together by sad musing, pass over our heads, and are past our strength to bear them, and without special supporting mercy would sink us into everlasting discouragement. As it is with a bankrupt arrested: some petty debts or small bills that are charged upon him, he might easily answer, and be able without any great difficulty to discharge; but when all his bills are brought in from each creditor, and his [reconstructed: debts] summed up, the total sum amounts to so much that it sinks his estate, and breaks his back utterly. So here, a slight apprehension of such and such slips, or some circumstances of our miscarriages, look over them severally, they [reconstructed: seem] but little in themselves; but laid together, and taken in the full sum to which they amount, the guilt and filth of them will appear inconceivable and unsupportable, that the sinner will never be able to answer, or to bear.

It is the mind and intention of the Spirit — the meaning, indeed, the proper meaning of that word, (Mark 14, last verse), when he had thought of his sins, says our translation; when he had cast all the particular and heightening circumstances together, as the word properly signifies; when he had summed up his several miscarriages by a serious meditation, then his heart broke within him. Though the cock had crowed, and our Savior had looked upon him, and he remembered at a sudden push of apprehension his evil, yet he stood it; but when he had laid all together, cast up the total sum of his fearful departures from the Lord, by denying, falsifying, cursing, with all the aggravating circumstances — that he that was not only a Christian, but entertained as a servant, indeed called to be an Apostle, who was so seasonably, and with such earnestness forewarned of his backsliding and false dealing, who had promised and resolved with such courage against it, that he should not only forsake his Master in a covert manner, but openly and shamefully renounce him, indeed [reconstructed: even] blaspheme and curse, and that often, and now especially in this [reconstructed: hour of] trouble, in the day of our Savior's distress, when the innocency of his cause, the honor of his person, indeed his life lay at hazard, that such a servant and Apostle should so basely and [reconstructed: wickedly] deny and forswear his Master and Redeemer, and that at this time of need, upon so slight an occasion, as the voice of a simple girl, or some ordinary man — he laid all these together, and [reconstructed: pressed] them upon his heart, and he was not able to bear it, but went [reconstructed: out], and wept bitterly.

The art of meditation appeared especially in two things, as the special and proper parts of it.

1. The following of [reconstructed: sin] in a full search and [reconstructed: reckoning] after it, and that has been dispatched in all the particulars of it, when we have viewed all the particulars of sin, and brought in the whole and full sum together.

The second part of meditation is in the fastening of meditation thus discovered upon the heart. All this while the sinner has been gathering and bringing in the several circumstances, as it were so many single sticks scattered here and there, and bundled all together as it were by a joint consideration that they may be attended in their full weight; and lastly, the sinner has lifted at them by meditation, and found them heavy, but it has not as yet laid them and pressed them upon his soul, that he might feel them piercing and pinching as a burden unsupportable.

The second thing now to be attended as the last part of this heavenly art, and holy duty, is to fasten these sins upon our souls in the full weight thereof.

This is done in two things:

- 1 By grappling with the heart. - 2 By getting above, or getting the better of the heart.

In the first of these we act meditation as far as our endeavor will go: in the second the Lord arms it with power to do that it should, and we cannot by the best of all our diligence and ability. In the former the soul is put in suit, the sum of the several bills being charged upon it. In the latter we have sentence passed, and execution done upon the soul, that it is forced to seek out for payment and satisfaction, and that is awarded from under the hand of the Spirit in the high court of heaven.

To begin with the first of these, how meditation grapples with the heart, I shall in short set forth to you, in three directions or rules.

- The first comes within the soul. - The second lays hold upon it. - The third drags it to the throne of justice, and drives it to seek out for payment, and satisfaction.

It's the skill of meditation to come within the soul, and surprise it with the pursuit of the evil of sin, which has now been laid open in so large and apparent manner. It's the cunning of wrestlers before they fasten upon the adversary whom they intend to foil and bring under, they gather in upon them with the greatest wiliness and dexterity they may, and then they lay hold with such advantages that they are not able to escape their hands. It's so in this spiritual service — it's the chiefest dexterity in meditation to gather in upon the heart, that is, the will and affections (where the sink of sin lies, and who are wedded to their distempers) that it shall be forced to come under the evidence of the truth, and the [reconstructed: weight] of the evil of sin so discovered. It's one thing to sum up debts, and show them to the bankrupt; another thing to serve a writ of them, to summon him to the court that he may answer and give satisfaction. It's one thing to relate a man's bills, as a servant, an accountant may; another thing to charge them upon him. So here, meditation showed the corruption, now summons and serves a subpoena upon the soul; before it played the part of an accountant, brought in all bills; now takes the place of a sergeant, lays them to the charge, and attaches the sinner. Meditation you must know, includes the highest strain of the strength of reason, in the utmost extent of it; it's not the whole (nay indeed it's the least part of the) work of meditation, to search and take a survey of the compass of corruption in all the circumstances thereof apprehended to the full, but it puts home an apprehension to the full, follows it, and [reconstructed: presses] it upon the heart, and causes it to attend for the while.

Herein lies the excellency and efficacy of meditation — that it forces the truth and discovery of sin with that [reconstructed: pressing] evidence upon the heart, that it cannot but own it as his debt, acknowledge what is his due, and the danger to which he is justly subject by reason thereof, and is now compelled to find and confess itself to be under the sovereign authority of the truth, to be in the guilt of sin which it has committed, and the punishment of sin that it has deserved thereby. The case is now so clear it sees it cannot but own the guilt and it cannot avoid the punishment. This is the reason rendered by the prophet of the sottishness of the deluded idolater, that he cannot see his own folly and madness in worshipping an image of wood — he stifles the strength of reason and sets not [reconstructed: forth] that overbearing evidence of truth which his own experience would give in to his heart. Isaiah 44:16: He burns part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he roasts flesh, indeed he warms himself and says, "Aha, I am warm"; with the residue thereof he makes a God, even a graven image — he falls down and worships it. What's the ground that any living man should so far go against common sense? He answers in verse 19: None considers in his heart, to say, I have burnt part, I have roasted and warmed myself, and shall I make a God of the rest? The strength of reason in a right way would easily have forced such a conclusion upon the heart; but the corruption of the heart stifled and intercepted the power of reason and dampened the evidence thereof, because it was not followed and fastened by the power of meditation. No man considers in his heart — the want of consideration made the heart not find nor own the evidence of that inference and truth. For we find this in our corrupt hearts naturally — when sin and guilt comes to be charged upon us, and the dreadfulness of both are presented to our view, we willingly would hide ourselves from the evidence and power of the truth, as Adam from the presence of the Lord. If we cannot deny it, yet excuse it, that the fault was in such and such — they are to be blamed, they were the cause and they [reconstructed: led] me to the commission, I therefore am to be excused. Or if not excuse it wholly, yet mince and lessen it; if not slight it, and cast it aside as that which neither needs nor deserves consideration. As the bankrupt — the debts he is not willing to pay he is willing not to think of. Here now is the fruit and virtue, the power and profit of meditation — it dashes and scatters all these delusions and deceits, stops the passage as it were, that none of all these carnal and false pretences can keep off the stroke of the truth, and the sting of sin from the heart. No, no, replies meditation: these and these are your corruptions — you must own them; the evidence of them are such and so plain you cannot excuse them; the aggravations so many, so great, you cannot lessen them; the plagues heavy and unavoidable, you cannot prevent them. Thus it is — know it for yourselves, these are your sins, these will be your ruin. And I summon you here to answer it before God in the sight of men and angels at the great day. When the heart cannot shuffle, nor shift, nor shake off the strength and clearness of the truth, it's compelled to own its sin and misery — though perhaps not willing to leave the one, nor knows not how to avoid the other.

True indeed, then meditation has attained its proper and powerful work, and is effectually blessed of God when our hearts are so affected with the evil of our sins, as in our judgments rightly informed we did conceive them, and in our most serious [reconstructed: deliberations] concluded them. Indeed we should [reconstructed: strive] to our utmost to attain this, and never give the Lord rest, nor our own souls any rest, until our hearts feel the bitterness of sin, as by meditation we have found it made known in the word. This is beyond our power and reach — only it's good to run after it, and though we cannot go as far as we should, yet thus far we may go.

We may put the heart to silence for the while, stop and stifle such gainsayings for a time and turn, and get the last word of the will, as it were, notwithstanding the waywardness thereof. This has its marvelous use, and leaves a great restraint upon the soul that it dare not vent itself in ungodly practices but with a kind of awe and fear. It deals with our souls as the angel with Sarah, when she laughed in herself as conceiving it impossible she should have a son in her old age, though the angel had said it (Genesis 18:12). The Lord asked why did Sarah laugh, and she denied it because she was afraid and said, I did not laugh; but the Lord followed her and held her to it, and would not let her go away so, or rather, you did laugh. So when the heart would fly off from the evil that is evidenced, and charged, either excusing or lessening the heinousness of the evil, or slighting the danger of it: either it was not my fault or it is not so great, or the punishment is not so grievous and fearful as men would bear us in hand. Hold the heart to it, and do not suffer it to go away. Yes it was you that did it, you must own it, you shall find it upon your score one day. You know and God knows and I know it, the time when they were committed, the manner how, and how aggravated with many heightening circumstances: it is so, know it; and your damnation sleeps not, do not slight it, you will never be able to endure it. Yes but I can: God will abate it, or I can bear it. Or rather, you cannot; God cannot abate it if you live in your sins, and you cannot bear it. Take the leave of your heart thus when you go to bed; this is your condition, this will be your misery. The sum of this first rule returns to these three particulars.

1. Summon the heart to answer the charge. 2. Force the heart to own it. 3. Silence the heart for the while under it.

When thus meditation has come into the heart, let it lay hold upon the heart: that is the second thing in this fastening — when it has arrested the soul with the undeniable evidence of the truth, then keep it under the arrest, as officers do such as they have attached, not suffering them to go out of the room, nor to be out of their sight or presence. When you have with strong hand, as it were, forced your heart by the power of the truth raised by meditation from every coast, as it were from all particular circumstances and occasions, so that it yields the charge which it cannot gainsay, owns the guilt under which it lies, and the punishment which it has deserved, and sits down silent under the sovereignty of the truth which it cannot control — keep the heart under this awful disposition continually. Do not suffer your mind to go off from the duty of meditation, or your will and affections from under the impressions which were left upon it thereby. For if you thus give way out of sloth, or weary negligence, you are in danger not only to lose your labor, but to leave your soul much worse by the abuse of an ordinance, than it was before you enjoyed the liberty and practice of it. As iron or any metal once melted, if it cools, it grows more hard than before, and more unfit to be fashioned to any use; it is so with the heart awed and melted, as it were, and made compliant under the power of meditation — if once you grow careless, and it grows cold, it becomes more unteachable, hard, and unfit to receive any impression of the truth, with whatever power it be dispensed. Therefore by daily consideration keep the power of the truth, and the discovery of your sins within view still, before the eyes and sight of your soul, so that you may keep the same heat and temper of spirit — that awful, submissive, and silent subjection to the authority of the truth, the terror and dreadfulness of your own sins. Here our greatest watchfulness is to be employed to follow this direction, because of the policy of Satan, the proneness of our own hearts, and the professed opposition that the spirits of the sons of men have against this dispensation on God's part and this disposition on ours. We are loath to bear it; Satan and the wicked are loath to suffer it in us — to have the rod daily shaken over us, the filth and guilt and plagues due to our sins continually presented and pressed upon our consciences; it is exceedingly tedious and irksome to our natures. Flesh and blood is very loath to bear it; Satan and the world are unwilling we should continue in such a course, because they know it is the surest way to make us weary of our lives and of our sins. Therefore our corrupt hearts are willing to shake off such considerations, and they are as restless to pull our hearts from under the power of such an ordinance. It will be our comfort — let it be our care — to have daily meditation keep us company in our daily course; it will keep the heart in an awful and submissive temper. Therefore the Apostle joins both together (1 Timothy 4:15): Meditate on these things, and be in them, under the power and prevailing virtue of them. As it is sure of all, so of this truth also (John 8:31-32): Continue in the truth, and it shall make you free. It is not enough for an old festered sore to make it open, but we must keep it open — not only lance it, but tent [illegible]: to force a truth by meditation lances the sore; attention to the same truth in meditation is the tenting of the sore, and that brings, though a slow, yet a perfect cure. Press the heart with the daily consideration of the discovery of sin formerly set on; it will tire a man out of his distemper, and force the soul either to leave its meditation or its corruption. It was that which caused the venom of God's vengeance, and the poison of his own abominations to enter into his bones. (Psalm 51:4): My sin is ever before me. And this is the peculiar work of meditation — to keep things in present view and fresh apprehension; it keeps sin ever before a person's eyes. The sinner is forced to walk and talk with it, to wake and sleep with it, to eat and drink his sins and the curses due to him for the same; they are [illegible] out to him in every cutting, and [illegible] before him in every [illegible] that is set at the table. (Psalm 119:98): It was meditation that drew out the marrow [illegible] quintessence of counsel and wisdom out of the commandment, so that David came to have more understanding than the ancient; because your commandments are ever with me. Meditation drains and draws out the dreadful venom of a person's distempers, and makes it ever with him — wherever he goes, in every [illegible] he takes, the guilt of his sins is before him to accuse, and hell gaping to devour him. Wherever he is, his sin and guilt, his fears and terrors, his curses and confusion are with him to astonish him to all eternity. To have a wound or sore is troublesome, but to be raking in it daily, though it were never so small, were in truth intolerable. So it is here: meditation is the multiplication of all these stings and terrors.

When meditation has thus taken hold of the heart, it then drags it to the throne of justice, and then drives it to seek out for payment and satisfaction, without which it cannot be eased nor delivered. This is the boundary marker, within which the bounds and limits of meditation are to be confined, so that it may be ordered and acted rightly, according to the method of the Almighty and a right rule. When the soul is summoned to answer the charge, and is under the arrest, and not able to escape, it finds now the severity of God's justice that exacts all, even the utmost — the greatness of the debt, and its own inability to answer; yet pay he must, or else he must perish. It drives the soul to see a need of a Christ and mercy, and that it ought to seek out there for relief and satisfaction: this is the aim of the duty, and God's end in fastening thus the filth and guilt and desert of sin upon the soul, and it should be our end also. And here a threefold extreme to which the soul is very subject in the exercise of this service is especially to be avoided.

1. Desperate discouragements. 2. Hellish provocations. 3. False conceivings of the measure of God's work, or the manner of his proceedings, which we frame to ourselves in our own thoughts.

All which are aberrations from the right way and Rule, and prove marvelous prejudicial in our proceeding. And the Enemy strives to put us upon all these by all the malice and policy he can use. If he cannot keep us in security, and hinder us from setting out in a Christian course, his next endeavor is to wrack us upon rocks, and shoals, and sands, and so to hazard our passage. A word of all.

First, we must beware of desperate discouragements in the consideration of our evil ways: for first Satan uses all the crafts and wiles that he can, that we may not see our sins, if we never know the danger, we will never avoid, can never escape it. But if he sees the sinner resolved to make a thorough search, and to make work of it, he then labors to carry him as much to the contrary extreme, that he shall see nothing but sin; before he bore him in hand, he needed no pardon; now he persuades him there is no hope of pardon: Before his estate was safe and good, and need not be altered, nor he trouble himself about it; it's now so vile and desperate, there is no help, and cannot be recovered: Before he soothed up the sinner, it was in his power to reform when he would; now he persuades there is no possibility in Heaven or Earth to relieve. Do you not see (says Satan) the greatness of the guilt of your former sins that's daily before you, the power of present corruptions prevailing more and more? Do you not see that all the means you have, and endeavors you use, do you no good? Only you increase your sin the more, by the abuse of duties and ordinances; and God has forsaken you, rejected your person, cast out your prayers, blesses not his ordinances to you for good: talk not of grace and mercy, you have deluded yourself with those dreams too long; look not out for any such relief which you know you have formerly neglected, and it's now too late to expect: cease further troubling yourself, sit down in your sorrows, and sink under the weight of your sins, that is the reward you have deserved, and the portion that is prepared for you of the Lord. This is Satan's logic, who would have us to abuse this blessed ordinance, and to go beyond the bounds and lawful limits of meditation set out by the Lord himself; who would have us to see and search our sins, so as to see a need of mercy, and to seek out after the unsearchable riches of his grace, [illegible] to keep us in our sins, but that we may be carried out to him who will recover us out of them. Abraham considered not his own dead body, or Sarah's barrenness (Romans 4:19). He considered them so far as to put him beyond hope in himself, that he might hope above hope; and it's the Lord's command (Isaiah 45:22), Look to me from all the ends of the earth, and be saved. Look upon your sins, miseries, dangers, depths of despair, but look up to me out of all these.

The second extreme is hellish provocations, which we are to watch against in this work. When the sinner has set himself as he conceives [illegible] God's way, and about his work, and yet finds no success in what he does, our self-seeking hearts are apt to [illegible] with the Lord, snarl at his [illegible], and so rise [illegible], and fly in the face of the Almighty: [illegible] that wretched king said in [illegible] siege of Samaria (2 Kings 6:33), This evil is from the Lord, why should I wait any longer? So the soul, I have done what I can, endeavored what I am able, he does not bless what I do, I find no more strength, but my corruptions grow strong, my heart worse, my hopes and comforts less, I do but increase my sin, and hasten my [illegible] in what I do, why should I endeavor any more?

I answer in three things briefly.

1. Do not set too high a price upon our own performances, and overween our worth, and over-value the services we do, for that is a root of bitterness, and a cause of these hellish risings; when we secretly imagine God does not consider our care, and the weight of our work and endeavor; if he did, he would otherwise reward us: As Paul says (Romans 9:20), "No, but, O man, who are you that replies against God?" 2. Beware, I say, beware of bringing the righteous command, and holy law of God, which discovers our sins, and requires our duties, and our ability and feebleness together; as though the power and principle of the work must come from us, and we go out in that. For there will follow high and hellish provocations, fierce and fell rebellions against the Lord, when out of your own heart you do tug against your own heart and corruption: for instead of the first principle of working (which is not in us, but in the Lord Jesus) we become the first principle of sinning; and then direful and dreadful effects will follow, which I confess I am afraid to speak, lest I should occasion some tender hearts through mistakes to question. 3. Check and [illegible] all those risings with that of the Apostle (Romans 9:21-22), What if God will not? And deny any spiritual power of your own, and stand still, and expect no principle of any performance in yourself, but that which is from God, in and by his Word, and let him alone with your heart: Say, I have nothing, it's fitting I should have nothing, it's righteous that God should give me nothing. I do not expect to do any spiritual good of myself, nor yet expect that God should give me grace for what I do (because all that I do is sin) only I know it is with him to do what he will; the will, the power, and the work is all from him; therefore I will lie in his way, and be at the pool, it may be he will cast me in: I know he can, and who knows but he may, if not, I have no reason to rise up against him.

Men devise new rules, and make new gospels of their own, and set such a measure to themselves in their own apprehensions, which unless they can compass, they are resolved to take no content; no, not to follow any other direction than that they have coined in their own conceit; and thus they please themselves in their own apprehensions, and resolve to dwell in the consideration of their sins, until their hearts were brought so low, see themselves so vile, the soul so thoroughly broken under the weight of their evil, and their own unworthiness, else what have they to do with a Christ, or once to look toward him.

How we come to grapple with the heart by meditation, we heard before; and because this work is wearisome in itself, and tedious to our corrupt nature, to be ever raking in the wound, set a man's heart upon the rack, and keep it in restless disquiet, that the venom of a man's guilt and plagues should ever be before his eyes, and the summons to judgment ever sounding in his ears; the soul is not able to bear the unsupportable weight thereof, and therefore it cannot get to Christ to be cured and healed; it winds and turns every way that yet it may be eased, therefore the sinner tries all conclusions that possible may be, that he may drive away the dismal thoughts of his sinful condition, and cast aside those stabbing considerations that makes his heart die within him. Therefore he turns every stone, if he can drink it out, or game it out, or work it out, or pray it out, or any ways, or by any means wear out the thoughts that weary him of his life.

Thus he strives if he cannot get good by his meditation, yet to get rid of it; because he cannot be bettered by it, he would not be troubled with it. As the patient when he is not able to bear the extremity of the corrosive, that would eat out the proud flesh, takes it off and lays it aside, rather keep his sore though it hazard his life than suffer the smart of it, and maybe his perversness costs him his life. A serious consideration set on, and kept on upon the soul, is like this extreme corrosive, the rebellious heart is not able to endure the continuance of it, and therefore at last it will make an escape from under the sting and strength of it, if possibly it may; and usually it does, unless the Lord put forth his powerful hand in some special help: and therefore herein lies the last, and the hardest part of meditation, to get above the heart, and to get the better of it. And to this purpose, the directions are three.

Labor to possess your heart aright with a dreadful fear of your sinful and desperate condition: maintain it alive in yourself, that it may go along with you, that will keep your meditation alive also, and mightily prevailing. Where a man's fears are, his thoughts will be, they carry a man's consideration uncontrollably with them. Fear is a faithful watchman, it sends post between the head and heart, it calls up our consideration and thoughts, and carries them along with them, as the occasion is presented; and it's beyond all a man's skill, either to prevent the coming, or gainsay the power and overbearing force of fears. If once Satan get the heart fearless, it becomes careless and thoughtless, as I may so speak. Eliphaz couples them together (Job 15:14): "You cast off fear, and restrain prayer; you have taken off the activity of fear: fear has fallen from his authority, and then it follows you restrain prayer." Fear keeps sentinel, gives the [reconstructed: watch-word] daily to the soul of the approaching plagues, as the deserts of our sins, calls up the best ability of our minds, and strength of our thoughts to attend the [reconstructed: danger], so that there is no sleeping nor idling under such a watchman. What will be the judgments which your sins deserve, who can conceive? And how soon they may come, who can tell? Come they will, that's certain; but when they will come, that's uncertain: think, and ever be musing how to prevent those evils, that you are never able to avoid, nor bear. Job compares fear to an army of mighty force, that commands where it comes (Job 30:15): "Terrors are turned in upon me, they pursue me [reconstructed: as] the wind;" therefore by an over-ruling command they call for attendance of the strength of the mind and man, and they cannot be put off, or laid aside, or silenced, but press a man to his most serious consideration, to be exercised with all diligence, how to foresee and prevent the evils expected (Psalm 48:6). Fear is said to seize and lay hold upon the sinner, as travail upon a woman with child. We know when the appointed time of travail comes on, there is no preventing or delaying of the work, as that the party can stay till the [reconstructed: appointed] day, or week, or hour; nor yet can she put off her work to another, as she may do her other occasions, as a friend may go this way for her, a servant may do that which she desires; but when her throes come, nobody can stay them, nobody must bear them but herself, and she will be forced to mind, and attend them and her own help, whether she will or no. The fear and dreadful expectation of God's righteous judgments deserved and threatened, let them seize upon the sinner, and let him travail under the terror of the Almighty. If God should come and call me to answer, how should I help myself? If the Lord does (as the times are in his own hands) what should I judge or think of my condition? In a sinful and miserable estate I am (I am sure) and how soon the pit may shut her mouth upon me, that I may be past hope and help, I know not; high time therefore to think how to be affected with this, and how to be freed from this damnable condition. If the good man of the house did know the thief would come, he would certainly watch, he would listen attentively at every stirring (Matthew 24:43). Fear says the evil will come, and makes a man ever be thinking how to prevent it before it comes. As in a siege, he that keeps the noise of the drum, the sound of the trumpet, the clattering of spears, the report of the cannon in his ears and fears, he will be kept awaking, and be forced to attend upon his watch, and stand [reconstructed: at] his guard for his life. So do you as the psalmist said (Psalm 9, last verse): "Put them in fear O Lord that they may know themselves to be but men." They will know they are sinful and mortal and wretched [reconstructed: men] that must come to death and judgment.

Awaken conscience, call for the help of it, and put it into commission, and it will put forth an overruling power, for the settling of our apprehensions in their attentive employments; when sometimes they are routed and put by their proper exercise, by the unruly and inordinate distempers of our hearts. For reason and understanding are the underlings, as it were, of inferior and lower rank, and can but as servants and attendants offer and propound to the will and affections what they [illegible] and conceive may be most convenient, and the wretched waywardness of our hearts will either snub or silence them, reject or cast them away, you befool reason, damp and pervert the light of judgment, tell reason she is a fool and is deceived and drive it to another search — sometimes in the saints [illegible] and will are for the work. The one pleads for it the other approves and desires it; and yet the violence and outrage of some overbearing corruptions take off Meditation and hinder it against the heart and hair against our judgment and desire. Now conscience is to be called in, who has received a supreme authority, to oversee both, to right all such disorders and to see that the mind have its free scope, for the exercise of Meditation in its times and turns. And that this is so, experience of all men in all ages will give in evidence undeniable; the godly, their conscience is controller in their whole course by the beck and least intimation of whose authority, the frame of their spirits inwardly and their carriages outwardly are [illegible], so as they can do nothing against the truth (2 Corinthians 13:8) and dictate of their conscience — they could do anything against their credit and comfort and profit, indeed their very lives [illegible] not against their conscience. Witness again the wrestlings of the spirits of the ungodly, when their [illegible] reason has contrived all ways and shifts their hearts earnestly desired, also how to stifle and stop the mouth of conscience, to silence its dictates, that they might proceed in the practice of their lawless course, without stop and trouble and disquiet and the sad remembrance of that guilt and [illegible] which conscience tires them with, but all in vain — when conscience is armed with authority and exercises that authority which is given it, is in its place and does the [illegible] of [illegible] place. But I say you must put it into commission; God can and does when he will, but we should also give way and help forward this work as we are able, according to that direction for our spiritual good in this behalf, for it is with conscience as it is with men of worth in the country from where we came — though they be as holy and gracious and wise when they are out of the commission of the peace as when they are in; yet then (when they are out of the commission) though they be willing and desirous according to the [illegible] the Lord has given them to see and so to reform all wrongs and disorders yet they want power. So it is with conscience, when through our careless and rebellious carriage, it is either blinded or stifled, and so its place and exercise of its power is utterly hindered; we must therefore [illegible] conscience into its commission as much as in us lies; that is, help forward the exercise of that sovereign authority with the right of which conscience stands possessed according to the place the Lord has set it in. Here are three directions.

Let nothing join with conscience in the command it gives and power it exercises but the holy and righteous law of God. This is that which makes the simplicity of the eye which our Savior mentions (Matthew 6:22), and that which adds that overruling virtue and [illegible] to it, insomuch that the text tells us: where the eye is single the whole body is full of light. That eye I suppose is not bare reason or understanding enlightened, though that sense is savory and included: but there is, I conceive, somewhat more — that eye is here meant according to the light and direction of which the whole body is acted and ordered, that is, a man's whole course and conversation is guided in a right way. That is by virtue of conscience especially which has an overpowering command with it, to act and carry out all the dispositions of our hearts and actions of our lives, suitable to the light and level of the law of God, according to which it accuses or excuses; this single eye is a conscience sincere, when nothing interrupts the work of conscience, but the law acts it, and it acts the man. Thus the office conscience exercises is from God and for God.

Keep conscience trembling and tender, that it may be eagle-eyed, and easily sensible of the least evil — and do you accustom yourself to be sure to take notice of the least intimation it gives. This gives, as I may say, encouragement to conscience and helps forward the work, and honors that authority which it exercises. Thus David was at the beck of his conscience even for the appearance and bordering of evil (1 Samuel 24:[illegible]): his heart smote him because he had cut off Saul's skirt.

Take undoubtedly the sentence of conscience rightly guided to be God's own sentence. That which he will own and make good upon all the sons of men at the great day of [illegible]; it will pass current and prevail then either for your condemnation or for your absolution. It should therefore prevail with you for your direction in this world — you will be judged by it then, it stands you in hand to be ordered by it now. Revelation 20:12: The books were opened, and the dead were judged out of those things written in their books according to their works.

Thus there is some help and assistance lent to Meditation that it may awe and keep under the heart, and these have their use and fruit also in their time and measure — but yet a corrupt heart left to itself will sooner or later shut out Meditation and silence the serious exercise of its own thoughts against its sin and itself to arraign himself every day to sit in judgment and pass the sentence of condemnation upon his own soul, he is not able to endure. He will not part with his sin and yet he cannot take pleasure in his sin upon these [illegible]. He will shake off his fears and sear his conscience, silence his [illegible] that neither his thoughts nor terrors may trouble him any more, and so return again to his old haunt and there perish.

Unless the Lord (in the last place) put to his Almighty hand and send his spirit from heaven to set on the work so that it shall undoubtedly succeed, [illegible] the malice of Satan and the opposition of our own corrupt hearts. An under officer of meaner rank may happily be too weak to cope with a company of profane varlets, and therefore it may be they scorn and slight both his person and place, until the Prince himself come with numbers and power, he will certainly bring them under, or be the ruin of the whole company. So when the fears God [illegible] sent in be scattered, the dictates of Conscience, as his officer, be laid aside; the Lord himself will take the [illegible] to task and so restlessly pursue the sinner with his own [illegible], that he will not respite him for the least refreshing from the evil that presses in upon him; (Job 7:14) How long will you not depart from me, nor let me alone until [illegible] swallow down my spittle? It is not the fire but the blowing of the coals that melts the metal to become fit matter for a vessel to be made. It is not the Law that breaks the heart of a sinner, for he neither is nor can be subject to the Law (Romans 8:7), but it is done by the spirit of Humiliation, who has it in his own hand, and must blow up this fire or it will not melt else; strike with this hammer [illegible] certain he must or else the heart will never break: (Job 13:26) He makes a man possess the sins of his youth. When he has not minded them, may be forgot them; he revives them again and presents them afresh to the view of the mind, keeps the eyes waking, etc.

They were pricked to the heart.

From the means we are now to come to the work itself, which is attended here with the subject or parties to whom it does appertain and in whom it was wrought and these are considered in a double respect: and so they will afford us a double instruction. This pricking it was not of all but some only who heard the word upon whom it prevailed with saving success; some were pierced, some went away not touched not stirred therewith. As it fares with scattered shot when the piece is discharged against the whole flock or flight of the fowl, some are hit and slain with it, some sit still are not frightened nor stirred with it.

Hence the doctrine is.

The same dispensation of the word which is powerful and profitable to some is unprofitable to others.

They be together at the same time, in the same seat with the same ability, intention and devotion, and yet one is benefited by the means, the other receives no good from it. And all the people heard John preaching, and the Publicans justified God being baptized of him, but the Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves (Luke 7:29-30). So again (Acts 18:6, 8), some [illegible], others opposed and [illegible]. Christ himself is laid as a stone of stumbling for the rising and falling of many (2 Corinthians 2:16). The word [illegible] some is a [illegible] of life [illegible] life, to others the savor of death to death.

Because God has several ends to attain in these dispensations; the execution of his justice in a righteous manner, the punishment of the sins of the wicked by the means he affords, to recover them out of their sins and the conveyance of the work of his grace to those that belong to the election of his grace. It is a strange inference God makes and way that he takes in the sending of his messengers (Matthew 23:34): behold I will send you Prophets and Apostles, and some of them you shall scourge, and some you shall [illegible] and crucify; this was to gratify their corrupt wills and so dishonor his own ordinances, how can this stand with his justice? Yes, herein is his justice exceedingly magnified, that the [illegible] of all that [illegible] been shed might come upon them. No, which is yet most strange; God then sends the most glorious means of salvation to a people, when in his righteous judgment the work of conversion shall be furthest off and they aggravate their condemnation. The Prophet had his tongue touched with a coal from the Altar, marvelously gifted and fitted, and himself unwearied, but mark what his commission was (Isaiah 6:9): go, says the Lord, make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy lest they be converted, and should heal them. This was the way to convert them, and yet by this [illegible] they are hardened and set further off from conversion than they were before; the choicest medicine and purest air meeting with corrupt and decaying bodies, kills immediately. So here. Our Savior resolves it (Matthew 13:11): it is not in the power or parts or improvements of some above others but to you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given. The same fire we know will melt the metal which shall make vessels of honor and dishonor. He makes the wicked without [illegible] he makes his saints serviceable to his own mind.

That herein he might show the [illegible] goodwill and pleasure (Romans 9:18): he has mercy on whom [illegible] will, and whom he will, [illegible] — has not the Potter power over the clay, to make one vessel to honor, another to dishonor? He shows that the issue and event of all comes only from his own purpose and pleasure. So the Apostle resolves it (Romans [illegible] 22): what if God will? So the Evangelist also (John 12:37-39): though Christ [illegible] done many miracles, yet they believed not; why did they not believe? He adds, therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah had said he has blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they should not be converted. Here our Savior comes, and sits down in admiration (Matthew 11:25-26): I thank you Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent of the world, and have revealed them to babes, even so, O Father, because it seemed good in your sight.

It should provoke in us all, the [illegible] fear in the [illegible] of the greatest means; our deadliest bane may come from the best ordinances; this is speeding medicine, it will work either one way or other, either kill or cure. Now is the Ax laid to the root of the tree ([illegible] 3:10). When Christ came, then was their destruction coming on with most haste (2 Corinthians [illegible]). When the [illegible] had discovered the excellency of his Gospel, in the plainness and power of it, he leaves with that supposition: if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to [illegible] perish. When Moses was coming, [illegible] where he [illegible] excellent means of grace; [illegible] 11. [illegible]

[illegible] of these, as though they had inherent, prevailing power in themselves. Bless not yourself barely by having of these; say, I may have these Ordinances, and yet have death as well as life: indeed, I may hear of Christ, may seek after him, and enjoy his presence here in the means, and yet never have any saving good by any of these (Luke 2:34). He is as well for the fall of many, as for their rising.

Exhortation to stir us up to use all means; and when you see the benefit received by some, seek you also for a blessing upon them; as Esau said, bless me, me also. So say you, such [illegible] proud heart has found the Word humbling of him, such a discouraged heart has felt the Word comforting of him; Lord, let the Word humble me also, pierce me also, comfort me also. The Husbandman sows, and waits for the first and latter rain, and as David said, my eyes fail for your salvation, saying, when [illegible] will you comfort me? When will you enlighten me, quicken me? When will you break my heart? When will you make me spiritual, and painful, and thriving in [illegible] Christian course.

Lastly, Return praise and thanksgiving to the Lord for what you [illegible] receive, and find in the powerful dispensations of the Word. God has marvelously separated his mercy to you, in giving not medicine, but health in it; not bread, but the staff of nourishment with it; not the Word, but the life and profit of it. Be you marvelously thankful and careful not to come and hear as [illegible], but set your heart to the Word, bring a [illegible] to the hearing of it. Do not pour out your words in prayer, but pour out your [illegible], etc.

Again secondly, Look who these are, who are now wounded and pierced with the preaching of Peter, and we shall find them some of the [illegible] of the [illegible] and [illegible] of [illegible] wretches, who were not only guilty of the death of [illegible], but such who now set themselves in an inhumane manner against the Apostles of Christ; and carried themselves with [illegible] and contempt against their persons and proceedings, the publishing [illegible] of the great things of God in the [illegible] strain of opposition; for if you look back into the 12th and 13th verses, you shall there see the miracle of tongues wrought a twofold effect in the hearers; some were amazed, verse 12, some mocked, verse 13, and to these Peter addresses his speech, his spirit being stirred in a holy indignation against so hellish distempers, against the gracious and miraculous expression of the Spirit of the Lord; to them he says, verses 14-15, [reconstructed: Be] it known to you, that these men are not drunk as you suppose, etc. To these [illegible] and deriders he now speaks, and they are now pricked. Some [illegible] wounded, and these were the worst, and such as did oppose.

Hence the doctrine to be observed, [illegible]

The Lord many times makes the Word pierce and prevail most powerfully in the hearts of sinners for their everlasting good, when they oppose the power thereof, and their own good therein.

In a word. The Lord often makes the Word work effectively, when the scornful heart is [illegible] against the work, and [illegible] at a distance from it. This is the Lord's profession (Isaiah 43:21). Even the people that he formed for himself, and such [illegible] should show forth his praise, those whom [illegible] would make most [illegible] to himself, [illegible] so did; yet see in the following words how he found these, and when he formed these for his own [illegible] (Isaiah 43:24-25). You [illegible] no [illegible] cane [illegible] sacrifices: [illegible] of his Ordinances, and cast his commands behind their back, indeed, you have made me serve with your sins, and you have wearied me with your iniquities; instead of serving God, they made his Ordinances, and the privileges he provided, and so his love, and mercy, and himself therein, to serve their [illegible] and sensual hearts; they put God to it, his patience and long-suffering, that he could no longer endure their lewdness. Yet then he adds, he would do most good to [illegible] when they had no care of their own good; and then enlarge his compassions to them when they multiplied [illegible] provocations against him. I, even I for my own sake, will blot out your iniquities, and remember your sins no more. This was God's dealing with Ephraim, and the season of that his saving health he extended towards him, when he rushed on in the ways of [illegible], according to the ways of his own heart (Isaiah 57:17-18). For the iniquity of his covetousness, of his evil lustings, I was [illegible] with him, I [illegible] him, I hid myself and was angry, and he went on perversely in the way of his own heart; here is the highest strain of rebellious stubbornness of spirit. When God is angry he smites the soul, and hides away himself; yet to be perverse in the midst of all these heavy expressions of his displeasure that might reform him, indeed, to go on after in the [illegible] of wickedness. If ever a people seemed to be past cure, prepared for ruin and confusion, past all hope either of enjoying or profiting by the means; this might seem to be the time, these the men; but God's ways and thoughts are not as ours: for mark the next words; I have seen his ways, and I will lead him, and heal [illegible], and [illegible] comfort to him, and those that mourn with him. Then God will see him, when he cannot see himself; then God will heal his perverseness who cannot help himself; then God will guide him when he cannot guide himself; then he will make him mourn, and others mourn, with him, and mourn for him, and he will comfort them both. And our Savior for this very end, has ascended up on high to receive gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that the Lord may dwell among them also (Psalm 68:18; Ephesians 4:8).

This may suffice for the proof of the point: See the [illegible] of it laid open in [illegible] particulars.

He presses in upon men by the prevailing work of his grace in his ordinances, before they look after him or their own welfare, prevents their imaginations and desires. When [reconstructed: they are] snorting in their sins, sit down securely, well satisfied with their careless and corrupt condition: the things of grace, and Christ, and mercy, are not so much as in their thoughts or dream; the Lord beyond their expectation, lets in the discovery of himself, and [reconstructed: the] manifestation of the work of his Spirit, before they be aware of it (Joshua 24:2 compared with Acts 7:2). Thus it was in the calling of Abraham, when the Lord brought him to himself, and made him the father of the faithful, when Terah and he were drowned in idolatry, without God, without Christ, and without hope, never heard of any such thing as life in a Savior by faith, never hearkened after it, but worshiping the idols of the heathen. The God of glory, says Stephen, appeared to our father Abraham, when he [reconstructed: was] in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran; when he dwelt in the midst of idolaters, and never had the least thought or apprehension of the covenant of grace; the Lord then appeared to him, and bade him come out from your country and kindred, and from your father's [reconstructed: house], and so from their idolatrous practices. God finds men before they seek him, he makes known himself before they inquire after him (Isaiah 65:1): I am [reconstructed: found] of them that asked not after me, I am found of them that sought me not; I said, behold me, behold me, to a nation that was [reconstructed: not] called by my name. How often have we heard it, and known it in our own country; the Lord has sent a minister to see the country, and visit his friends, and it has been the day wherein he has been pleased to visit the heart of many a careless ignorant creature, who came idling as to a May-game, or Morris dancing, and dropped into the assembly, and the word has laid hold on him before he has been aware of it; how often has the loose prodigal come to riot it at the fair and market, and has been drawn in to hear beyond his purpose, cross to his desire, and wished himself out of the place, and yet has heard that before he departed, which has been a word of life and peace to his soul, for which he saw cause to bless God to all eternity. Matthew is sitting at the receipt of custom, minds how to take money, Peter and James are casting a net into the sea, to see how to make provision for themselves; Christ calls them to himself, and so to an interest in grace and glory, when they had not so much as a thought that way. It is that of the apostle (Romans 9:30): The Gentiles who sought not after righteousness, they have attained to righteousness, and yet the Jews who pretended great pains and search that way, they fell short of it.

As the Lord presses in upon men before they be aware, and beyond their purposes, so many times he takes the worst of men, whose hearts and lives are at the greatest distance from the holiness of his word and ways: thus our Savior declares that the publicans and harlots, such as were in the rank of the most notorious wretches, go before the scribes and Pharisees into the kingdom of heaven (Luke 3:9-10; Luke 7:29), which carried a form and appearance of godliness in the view of the world. And you shall observe the Lord to gather the most glorious churches in the places, and among the people where there have been the puddles and sinks of all wickedness. [reconstructed: Rome], Corinth, Crete, notorious and [reconstructed: infamous] in all [reconstructed: the world] for hideous and hellish abominations, and yet there the Lord [reconstructed: planted] churches of the greatest beauty, saints of most glorious excellency of grace, such as were destitute of no grace, and yet the place destitute of no villainy (2 Corinthians 6:7). When he had reckoned up a catalogue of most accursed villainies, yet professed God brought precious gold out of dirt and [reconstructed: dross]: Know you not that no [reconstructed: fornicators], idolaters, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God; and such were [reconstructed: some] of you. Verse 10-11: But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified by the name of Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

The Lord Jesus prevails with those that are the most refuse persons, even when they are in the rough and height of all their wretchedness; when they are in the extremest outrage and running riot in the ways of wickedness, beyond the bounds of modesty and moderation. Our Savior Christ stops not Paul in his proceeding, when his injurious and blasphemous carriage was in the bud and beginning, while his Spirit was stirring with the pangs of pride and [illegible], that he stood as a Spectator, and [reconstructed: consented], and kept the garments of those that stoned Stephen (Acts 22:20), not yet attaining that impudence and violence to lay hands on the saints, and to fly upon the prey. But when he became more mad in malice and cruelty, and became a principal in such outrages, a leader in bloody persecutions (Acts 26:11), that he goes armed with authority, breathing out threatenings and slaughter (Acts 9:1), resolves to attach and imprison all sorts of [reconstructed: both] sexes, men and women that profess the name of Jesus. When he is running full career in such [illegible] and cruelty, the Lord then meets him, unhorsees him, takes his weapons out of his hand, [reconstructed: cancels] his commission, and causes him to bear his name, who had before blasphemed it, to care for all the churches who before destroyed them, he makes him fall at his foot, and follow his [reconstructed: banner] and colors, Lord, what will you have me to do? The [reconstructed: jailer] beyond his place, commission and allowance, he scourges and cruelly handles Paul and Barnabas, and when he prides and pleases himself in his cruelty and [illegible] behavior towards the poor servants of the Lord, he then takes him to task (Acts 16:30), pulls him down upon his knees and forces him to seek for mercy and direction from those to whom he showed no mercy nor humanity before, he trembling fell down saying, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? The Lord stops not Manasseh's outrage when he enters first upon his kingdom (as he easily could have done) but suffers him to fill up the measure of his iniquity, so that the bottom of hell could not afford abominations more or worse than were practiced by him, he filled Jerusalem with blood, shut up the doors of the sanctuary, gave himself to witchcraft and conjuring. The Lord now grapples with him by the power of his grace, and after his mighty provocations, persevering also in those desperate courses; the Lord humbles him mightily under his almighty hand and brings him to the obedience of his will (2 Chronicles 33).

The reasons of the point are four.

The greatness of his power is hereby discovered, and that he has laid salvation upon one that is mighty, that when all the power of darkness has proceeded to his highest pitch, when the subtleties of hell and all the venom of the corrupt heart of man furthered by all advantages, that the world and counsel and company of ungodly have brought in all forces, to manage and maintain a wicked and ungodly course — herein appears that power of the Almighty whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself; in that he batters down all the strongholds of the hearts of the sons of men and every high thought that lifts up itself against the obedience of his truth, dashes all those temptations and delusions whereby the enemy has advanced his kingdom in the hearts of his captives and vassals, so that Satan and all his fortifications shall go down like lightning before the dispensation of the truth: this is indeed the power of God to salvation (Romans 1:16), this is the outstretched arm of the Almighty revealed in this so wonderful a work (Isaiah 53:1), thus the Apostle (2 Corinthians 10:4), the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God, to cast down strongholds. It was that which [reconstructed: Jethro] observed wisely and as truly concluded (Exodus 18:11), Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for in the thing wherein he dealt proudly he was above them. It is most true in this case, herein it appears that the Lord is greater than all gods, the god of pride and stubbornness, the god of self-love and self-confidence, the god of covetousness and uncleanness; greater than all the devils in hell, than all the temptations in the world, and all the distempers in the hearts of sinners, because in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them. As he said, I know not the Lord, I will not let Israel go. So when they deal proudly — I know not the command of a Christ to obey it, I know not the reproof of a Christ to reform by it, I know not, I acknowledge not the threatenings and terrors of the truth which are denounced — know that God can if he will, and it is certain he will if he ever takes pleasure in you to bring you out of bondage, he will be above you in all these. When you shall see the sturdy stoop, the stubborn yield, and he that was fierce and proud as Beelzebub himself to fall at the foot of Christ, tremble at every truth, melt under the least admonition and counsel, herein you may know the greatness of God indeed. When Peter's chain fell, the iron gate [reconstructed: opened of its own accord], he concluded it was a message of God. And therefore Moses looks to this in God when he desires the removal of the great provocations of the [reconstructed: Israelites] (Numbers 14:17), I pray you let the power of my Lord be great according as you have said. When the walls of [reconstructed: Jericho] fell to the ground, [reconstructed: at] the sounding of rams' horns, it argued the breath of the Almighty went out with them. So to see the mighty fortes of carnal reason which men have reared against the force of the truth, and when they have entrenched themselves in the desperate resolutions of the self-willed waywardness of their own hearts yet to become easy, yielding, and under, so that a child may lead them — the greatness of God's power appears in this.

The riches of mercy is hereby especially magnified which [illegible] all the baseness [illegible] our hearts, the miscarriages of our lives, beyond all our unkindnesses when they are beyond measure, herein the Lord seems to give way to the wickedness of the sons of men, to swell [illegible] the common bounds, that his mercy may appear to be beyond all bounds, and boundless and bottomless — that's the virtue of the salve when the wound is deadly to heal it, the excellency of the physic when the disease is past hope, and help, then to recover it. Romans 5, last verse: When the Apostle had disputed concerning the freeness of grace he asks this question why was the Law added? He answers, that sin might appear and be aggravated, because the Law was given, and the end of that, and the use that God made of it, that where sin abounded grace abounded much more, when sin has done what it can by all advantages, mercy will do more than sin, that as sin had reigned to death so grace might reign to life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God suffered pride and rebellion to reign in Paul, for this end that his mercy and patience towards him might be exemplary (1 Timothy 1:16). Hence it is that the times wherein [illegible] gets ground and prevails they are called the times of mercy wherein that gets [illegible] (Ezekiel 16:5-8). When the Church was weltering in her blood and had neither [illegible] in herself nor succor [illegible] without, then was the time of love, not a time when it was deserved but a season wherein it should be magnified, otherwise in reason the Lord might have taken many other times more suitable to his love. No, the more vile and miserable they were — herein is the sovereign virtue of his love and mercy to make them acceptable and beloved.

Look we at the condition of the parties from where also another reason of the dispensation of the Lord may be discovered, hereby the Lord stains the pride of all flesh, and confounds all the carnal confidence that men seem to place in the creature. For should either the wisdom of the wise, the pomp of the rich, the parts and pains and studies and dexterity of the prudent and learned, the honor and magnificence of the mighty, and the Monarchs of the world should have found the profit of the means or received the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit in his ordinances for their [reconstructed: saving] good — men would have eyed and honored those excellencies, and doted upon them, hung all their hopes and confidence upon the presence and work of these. So that the conclusion out of carnal reason would have issued here, none but such should have had any good, none of all these that had these outward [illegible] should have wanted it, and so some would have been discouraged, that could not attain these, others would presume and be secure that did possess them, and the Lord have been deprived of that honor both of confidence and dependance that was due from all. That the Lord might lay all these excellencies in the dust and forever wean the hearts [illegible] men from setting their hopes thereupon, he takes the weakest and the worst and those also when they are at the greatest [illegible] of all baseness and wretchedness, they shall outstrip all those in whom there is this seeming worth, of all the surpassing eminency that the Earth can afford. Thus the Apostle disputes (1 Corinthians 1:26): you see [illegible] [illegible], not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble — these are the three excellencies in the world. The [illegible] abilities of wit and learning, the nobility of birth, the privilege of our place and state. The Lord [illegible] [illegible] whole course of carnal excellency, he chooses the [illegible] to confound the wise, the weak to confound the mighty, base things, that are not, to bring to nothing things and things that are, nothing of any probability or possibility in an ordinary way, that might have attained any good, being wholly set against it, nothing of ingenuity or moderation or common [illegible], but when they grow desperately wicked yet then the Lord does good that no flesh may glory in his presence. That it is not in your wealth or parts or endeavors or outward pomp — behold these poor base creatures, base in their condition and yet more base in their carriage, scarce worse in the bottom of Hell, yet these are called. Oh how will it confound the wise to see the foolish of the world brought to the knowledge of Christ when they never knew the things belonging to their peace, how will it confound the civil and subtle hypocrite who had painted over his profession with appearance of Godliness to see a profane wretch whose lewdness time was when he loathed, as though his person were not fit to be looked on, yet now pulled out of his sink and dunghill, made a glorious saint in heaven when he shall be cast out among dogs. So the Prophet (Ezekiel 16, last verse).

Look we at the work itself, there is also a depth of infinite wisdom in this dispensation to bring that about in many hearts, and that by this means, and that with most success the Lord suffers many to go to a great excess of sin, before he lays hold upon them, or seems to take them to task, that the grossness of the evils might make way for their more easy conviction; and so for the entry of the Word upon their souls, and their subjection to the power and evidence thereof. Men or hypocrites of a smooth refined carriage, when they carry a conformity in their course to the ways of godliness, and have strength of carnal reason to make the best of an unblameable life, it's hard for any to come within them, either to pass a sentence of their present condition, because love hopes the best, when it can bring no evidence of the contrary evil, much less to persuade their estate is unsafe and not sincere; but when the Lord lets loose Satan, or some loathsome lusts upon them, that they become scandalous and notoriously [illegible], and their [illegible] appears in their foreheads, then they yield to go out of the camp, and confess they are unclean. As the physician when he would cure the cold palsy, he is content to cast his patient into a burning fever, because he can tell how to come the better to the cure. So here, our Savior wishes (Revelation 3:17), I would you were either hot or cold, because then he could tell how to deal with her; if either truly good, he would encourage; if openly wicked, he would then convince her, he knew how to apply the means, and she would be content to receive it; but when she conceives herself rich, she will receive nothing; wise, she will hear nothing. So I have known some in experience, that would take it in indignation that any should question their grace, until the Lord left them to some foul falls, gross cozenage, scandalous drunkenness, etc., that has made them go deeper, etc.

The [illegible] operation of the Word, the breaking, and so converting the heart of a sinner depends not upon any preparation a man can work in himself, or anything he can do in his corrupt estate for the attaining of life and salvation. For had the Lord expected the good use of a man's free will in the employment and exercise of the works of civility and outward moral behavior, had he looked for the husbanding of the stock of those moral abilities which are left in corrupt nature, or [illegible] by the [illegible] of providence in the restraining strokes of common grace, or had the Lord stayed until these [illegible] had either valued the worth of the apostles and their administrations, and painfully improved the advantages of the means of grace and [illegible] now brought home to their doors, or brought a teachableness of spirit to the ordinances. If either the preparation and saving conversion of the souls of men had depended upon any such improvement of themselves, it is certain they had not now been made broken-hearted sinners, or savingly brought to the Lord, and for ought any man can tell had never attained it. But when cross to the course of humanity they mocked and scorned both [illegible] persons and message of the apostles contrary to truth, they cast reproaches and contumelious contempt upon them, [illegible] men are full of new wine, or rather when they were carried with professed opposition, malignant enmity against their persons and dispensations, yet now the Lord presses in upon them, by the prevailing power of his spirit and word and does good to them, when they set themselves by all the policy and rage they could to oppose the work of the Lord and their own everlasting welfare. Clear it is therefore that this spiritual dispensation of breaking or calling of them home depends not upon any preparation which was done, nor any performances all which for the present were professedly opposite to their own welfare; but merely upon the power and good pleasure of the Lord, and the work of his spirit which he puts forth when it seems best to himself. It is not in him that wills or runs, says the apostle, he puts both together and denies success to both, that so he may take off all the cavils that could be made or indeed pretended. For had it been said the means were powerful and in a plentiful manner bestowed but men would not do what they might and ought, may be there was a slight [illegible], some powerless wishing but there wanted the strength of endeavor. Behold he excludes both. It is not him that wills only, or rather let him run for it, put to the best of his abilities, that will not do the deed. It is not there but in the good pleasure of him that shows mercy (Romans 9:17). And hence it is that the very spirit of bondage, terror and astonishment, and sensible troubles of heart, which many times wicked men that fall finally short of saving grace, yet attain in some measure or degree — even that is beyond the reach of a man's own power. We have not received the spirit of bondage to fear (Romans 8:15) — even that is a gift and must be received and is dispensed freely, all that a natural man can do cannot call for his old terrors and troubles which out of his sensuality he has devised ways to wear out, unless the Lord will set them on by his hand. And hence the apostle makes the exception so general to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:9): Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. So the resolution is into the free grace of God and the sovereignty of his purpose, issues not from any work of ours, hangs not upon that hinge. And hence it is the Lord denies the communication of means to some whom he foresees would use and husband them to better advantages and bestows them upon such who neither prize nor profit by all they have, or rather are open contemners and opposers of the truth. Woe be to you Chorazin, woe be to you Bethsaida, for if the great works that have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would long before this day have repented in sackcloth and ashes (Matthew 11:21). Indeed he affirms (Ezekiel 4:6) if he had sent Ezekiel to a strange people and of hard language such as had never heard of the things of God and grace they would have hearkened to him when the Jews rejected his counsel and the commands of God dispensed by his means. Hence it is the Lord to show the sovereign freedom of his pleasure, that he may do with his own what he will, and yet do wrong to none, he denies pardon and acceptance to those who seek it with some importunity and earnestness (Proverbs 1:28) — they shall seek me early and shall not find me — and yet bestows mercy and [illegible] known himself to some who never sought him (Isaiah 65:1). That we may [illegible] from hence forever to fear and avoid that heretical doctrine of the Arminians so deeply dangerous to the salvation of men's souls and so exceedingly derogatory to the glory of God's free grace in Christ, who maintain that if we do what we can, and improve the natural abilities we have, and the means we do enjoy, God will not deny to give us the grace supernatural we want. An opinion so gross that the Popish school will not abide by it, and the most ingenuous of the Jesuits themselves do professedly oppose and condemn. For besides that it destroys the comfort of a sinner and dashes the hopes of all the sons of men, for if none should be saved but those that do what they can, it is certain never any man either in nature or grace did what he [illegible] either improving his natural abilities as he might according to special opportunities and liberties put into his hand, nor [illegible] faithful ever to husband their grace according to what they received and was expected, and might also be justly challenged at their hands. If therefore their hopes had their support here, their hearts and hopes and comforts and happiness and all would fail them, and they must needs have their lives and their everlasting condition ever in doubt and suspense, and in issue sink down in everlasting discouragement. But I say besides this it destroys the whole frame of grace in the carriage of it.

First it undermines the very foundation of the dispensation of grace which proceeds as we have heard from the purpose and good pleasure of the Almighty — there our Savior looks as at the fountain from where all spiritual favors proceed (Matthew 11:26): I thank you Father, etc., even the Father because it pleases you (2 Timothy 1:9), called not according to our works and free will, but according to his purpose and free mercy (Romans 11:19). Whom he will he hardens, and whom he will he shows mercy to soften and converts; he does not expect how we improve the freedom of our wills and perform our works, but he gives both will and deed — whereas this opinion resolves the issue of my conversion and so of salvation into my own purpose, and as he said makes God's free grace lackey after man's free will. For it is in a man's power and pleasure to do what God has put into his own power according to his own will, if I will do but what I can, if I will and improve abilities and advantages afforded, but as I may according to this conceit, God will never deny me the grace I want, the mercy and salvation I do endeavor after. So that the last resolution in this way is left upon a man's own free will, if he will not do what he may, he misses his good, if he does what he can, he shall not fail to receive it.

It cuts the very [reconstructed: sinew] of the Covenant of [reconstructed: Grace], and the freedom thereof. For upon this ground and grant, it's not in God's hand to dispose of his own mercy, but it is in my hand, and left in my choice; if I will improve liberties and advantages, I may have the grace I want; if I will reject both, then it's my folly and negligence, I must bear the blame, and endure the misery, and thank myself, when it was in my own power, to provide for my own comfort. This course issues and returns into the Covenant of Works: these Paul sets in such a direct opposition, as that they cannot stand the one with the other (Romans 11:6): if of grace, it is no more of works, for then grace was no more grace; if of works, then not of grace, for then works were no more works. What then — Israel has not obtained, that is to say, it was not the bulk and body of the people, nor in the power, ability, or performance of any person; but the election has obtained: not because Israelites, not because they had such privileges, not because they used such ordinances, and took up the performance of duties required; but because elected, therefore called, therefore justified. The contrary course which issues the obtaining of grace into the improvement of abilities and advantages, returns as I said into a [reconstructed: Covenant] of Works, for the condition in the ultimate resolution still remains in my power, the staff is left in my hand. It's all one upon point to have [reconstructed: money] enough in my hand to pay, and to have it in my power to command, if at my pleasure in another hand; and so I dispose of God's mercy, and my own good in the issues. Whereas in the Covenant of Grace, all is firstly, freely, wholly, and only in the hand of the Lord to dispose, to whom he will, what, when, and after what manner he will. In this Covenant he does not require the condition only; but the Lord Christ as the Second Adam, he performs the condition also; not only requires new hearts, but puts new spirits into us; not only commands us to believe, but enables us; and as he himself speaks, gives us to believe (Matthew 13:11).

This crosses the end of the Covenant, and the scope of the whole course, and administration of the means of life and salvation; which is to set forth the glory of the riches of God's grace in the eyes of all, and to the consciences and acknowledgments of all hearts, a return of all [reconstructed: glory] to him, and a total dependence upon him for ever. Therefore the Lord chose the base and despicable things that are not, to confound things that are (1 Corinthians 1, last verse), that no flesh should glory in his sight, and that he that glories, might glory in the Lord. By what law is boasting excluded? by the law of works? In fact, but by the law of faith (Romans 3:27). For if Abraham had been justified by works he had whereof to glory (Romans 4:2). And therefore as in the material, it's so in the spiritual temple, the laying of the first and lowest stone, and adding of the last, all the people cried, Grace, Grace; and hence the whole chain is as it were of God's own making and tying, whom he predestinated, them he called; and whom he called, them he justified; and whom he justified, them he glorified (Romans 8:30), and the end and issue of all, is set down by the holy Apostle (Ephesians 4:15), when all the churches shall meet at the great day of Appearance in the unity of the faith, it is to the acknowledgment of the Son of God. By whom were you called, humbled, justified, adopted, sanctified? By the Son of God, receive all from him, return all to him. But this opinion plucks the crown from Christ's head, the glory from his work, the praise from his grace, and gives it to the will of man, and the improvement of those abilities and opportunities the Lord has put into his hand; because by this means he makes himself to differ. For set Paul and Judas in the same rank, let them enjoy the same means, share in the same liberties, advantages, opportunities, one as the other: Paul by the good use of his free will, he plays the good husband, he does what he can, and he obtains what he wants, and receives grace; Judas plays the prodigal and unthrift, does not what he should and might, and therefore he wants grace: so that they were both equal in the privileges and opportunities they received from God, they differ not there; that Paul has that grace which Judas wants, he may thank his own pains and improvement, and glory in himself and them. In fact, Paul is not bound to be thankful to God for anything more than Judas; for he had no more from God by this opinion than Judas, what he had and received more, it was by his own improvements, which to conceit, is a most hellish delusion.

Lastly, if by the improvements of abilities and advantages we certainly receive spiritual grace, then this must follow: either because such improvement deserves grace; or does immediately and nextly dispose the soul to receive grace; or that such improvements have a promise made to them from God. But none of all these can be granted.

They cannot deserve grace, because when we have done what we can, we must conclude as we shall have cause to confess we are unprofitable (Luke 17:10). The plowing, and so the praying of the wicked is sin, his most beautiful performances are from the flesh, and so sinful, and deserve the just wrath of God, and therefore no grace nor glory (John 3:8).

They do not, nor can dispose the soul, as that it may be thereby a fit subject to receive grace: those actions which leave the soul under the power of sin, and acted by sin, and a man in a natural condition, those still leave the soul indisposed to grace; for the natural man perceives not the things of grace, nor can he receive them (1 Corinthians 2:14). They found him in the world, and they leave him in the world, and the world cannot receive the Holy Ghost (John 14:17). Natural and corrupt actions cannot prepare immediately for supernatural grace.

There is no promise of giving saving grace to such, and none could ever be shown. That which sometimes the Arminians pretend, but press it with no great confidence, is in Matthew 25:29, in the parable of the talents: To every man that has, shall be given; and to him that has not, shall be taken away, even that he has. Hence, he that has and uses his natural abilities well, shall be given supernatural. Answer: That gloss corrupts [illegible] text, and does not suit with the scope and circumstances of the parable, as has been made good by many arguments, by such as have diligently searched into the sense of the place. The unprofitable servant that used not his talents well, he is to receive that sentence, [illegible] must be cast into utter darkness; which were it understood according to the former opinion, it would infer an apparent falsehood. He that did not improve his talent, was forthwith to be cast into utter darkness; but many that do not use their natural abilities, and the special advantages well, have been formerly, and will without question be brought home to Christ and happiness (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Know you not, that no adulterer, covetous reviler, extortioner, shall inherit the kingdom of heaven; but such were some of you, but you are washed, but you are cleansed. (1 Peter 4:2) It is sufficient that in time past we have had our conversation among the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, [illegible], excess of riot, revellings, and abominable [illegible]. These did not use their natural abilities well, and yet were not cast out into utter darkness; therefore the using of the natural abilities is not the having, or the using of the talent there meant. [illegible] I suppose the meaning of the phrase is, by him that has is meant the man that is truly gracious; the talent is the Gospel; by having, is the receiving and [illegible] of it in a good and honest heart, and the sanctified use of it in a saving manner. For the evangelists' expressions seem undeniable to evidence this meaning (Matthew 13:11-12): when our Savior Christ had told his disciples it was given to them — that is, it is the peculiar special work of the Spirit of grace in your hearts — to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to them it is not given; he adds the reason and proof in the next verse: for to him that has, he that in sincerity entertains the Gospel shall have a further communication of the truth, and sweetness of the Gospel to his soul; but whoever has not, whoever entertains not the Gospel in truth and uprightness, from him shall be taken away the Gospel, which by a seeming profession of false-hearted, lazy entertainment he would seem to have, but never had in sincerity. The like connection is found (Mark 4:24-25): Take heed what you hear, and to you that hear — that is, that do take heed what you hear — more shall be given; for to him that has, shall be given; but [illegible] that has not — that is, that does not take heed what he hears, and so receives not the Word in sincerity — from him shall be taken even that he has.

But if the saving work of the Word does not depend upon my endeavor, why should I endeavor any further, any longer, or attend the use of the means, or practice answerable to that end?

You yourself, and all your services being in a natural estate, are as a menstruous cloth, both in themselves, and in the sight of God's pure eyes, unanswerable to God's mind, and the rule of the law, and therefore cannot save you; yet your sinful neglects, impudent and scornful contempt of the way and means of grace, will undoubtedly damn you. This is condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness more than light (John 3:17). The scribes and Pharisees despised the counsel of God against themselves (Luke 7:30).

The law and command was given to Adam in innocency, and to you in him, to husband all advantages, and to lay out yourself in all your sufficiencies to advance God's name, and to do his will; to love him, and serve him with all your mind, and with all your might (Matthew 22:37). However you are changed, yet the law is not changed; however your ability is not the same, by reason of [illegible] wound you have taken by original corruption, yet your duty is the same to this day. God's will is done in heaven, and should be done on earth. The debtor that borrows the money, and stands bound to the creditor to answer the debt, though his state alter, and he be impoverished, and made unable to pay, yet his bond for payment continues in full force against him, and he will be constrained to make it good.

Though all that you can do can neither prepare you for grace, nor purchase grace for yourself, yet the means through divine institution are mighty; God by them can work effectually, and if it seem good to his good pleasure, he will; wait upon him only for that good you want, from whom only it can be received. As the lepers in the time of the famine resolved to try what might be done by others for their safety, who could do nothing for themselves. That is God's way and means; try what God will do, in whose pleasure it is to give, or deny. I might add what divines speak, and seasonable [illegible] to the point in hand. While you are endeavoring as you can, it lessens your sin, and prevents further plagues, to which you will be subject, through God's just judgment, and your own just deserving. Ahab's [illegible] humiliation prevented the [illegible] plague, though it did not free him from the eternal (1 Kings 21:29). "Do you see [illegible] Ahab humbles himself, I will not bring the evil in his days."

A patient that has a wolf in her breast, and a [illegible] gout, knows neither can be recovered, yet both may be eased by use of physic, and moderate diet; and therefore he intends both. Cast away the evil of your works, but keep your works still; keep some rules if you cannot keep all: better save one side of your [illegible] good, than both bad. If you cannot avoid all sin, avoid as much as you can.

Is it then beyond the power, and any possibility of man to attain grace?

Yes. It is not in man to direct his own way (Jeremiah 10:23). It is beyond the power of a dead man to restore himself to life. And our Savior is express and peremptory in giving sentence in this case and his determination is conclusive (Matthew 19:26), when he said, it is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, as for a rich man to be saved: The disciples ask who then can be saved? He returns this definitive answer, With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Look we at the power and performances of man, there is no sufficiency [illegible] possibility: for of ourselves we are not able to think a good thought (2 Corinthians 3:5). But if we look at the almighty power of God, there is nothing hard to him, who has hardness at command.

But is any man tied to impossibilities, and can any be punished because he [illegible] not [illegible] that which is impossible to him?

Impossibilities are of two sorts. First, some are absolute — that exceed the compass of our being, or all that ability we ever received. Second, impossibilities by supposition, which though the things be possible, indeed easy in their nature, and with reference to their first order, and institution; yet by reason of some inconveniences, hindrances, weaknesses which fall in beside, and cross to the course and constitution of things as they were at first; that which formerly might easily have been compassed, there is in ordinary course no possibility to attain to it. And to such [illegible], a man may be justly tied, and failing in his performances, may justly be punished by the law of nature, nations, right reason, and the righteous rule of God. The [illegible] has borrowed so much money, which he may improve, and is bound to repay at such a day appointed; if he through his prodigality and riot, shall vainly mis-spend, not only the sum he borrowed, but his stock, a fair estate to which he was born, so that it is now impossible to him, thus impoverished to satisfy. May not the creditor according to all the rules of right and reason require his money, and in the default of payment, punish or imprison? No nation ever questioned it. It was not only possible for Adam, but easy to love God above all; if he through his fall, has brought impossibility of payment upon himself, the Lord may in justice require it, and punish him for it. And certain it is, God justly may and does deny reprobates grace; not only because they do not what they may, but also because they do that which through the corruption of their own hearts they cannot avoid: as namely because of the enmity of the wisdom of the flesh, they are not, nor cannot be subject to the law, and [illegible] will of God (Romans 8:7).

That for which God condemns the wicked, for that he denies them grace and glory: for condemnation implies both, and cannot admit either. But they are condemned, not only because they do not so much, but because they did such and such duties to false ends: not because they did not fast and pray, but because they did both to a wrong end, to serve themselves and lusts, and not to serve God: and yet they could not aim at God's glory as their last end. If for the not doing of such duties they should and might do, they only want [illegible], then if they had done such and such according to their power (as they could) and improvement of their abilities, then they had received grace undoubtedly, which has been fully confuted by the former arguments. To issue this point, that we may fence ourselves against so dangerous a conceit, let us take in, and store our hearts with some saving truths, as a sovereign antidote against such falsehoods: and herein I shall not only speak my own judgment, but the judgment of all my fellow brethren, as I have just cause, and good ground to believe, that so you may receive them [illegible] truths under the testimony of many witnesses (Isaiah 58:3-6).

Ballast therefore your heart with the conclusions following:

All men are by nature, dead in sins and trespasses.

A dead man cannot prepare himself for life, much [illegible] has power to procure it.

The Lord in the work of conversion, does not only by moral persuasion propound the truths of the gospel, and enlighten the mind, but puts a principle into the heart of such as he brings effectually and savingly home to himself.

In this work of God, the sinner at first is merely patient.

That men may [illegible] this from God, every man is bound to wait upon him, in the means he has appointed, and according to the utmost of his power, improve all abilities and advantages he has.

When any man has improved his abilities to attend the means of grace, neither has used his ability to oppose, and cavil at the means, it is in God's freedom to take either, or refuse both, for it is not in him that [illegible] and runs, but in God that shows mercy (Romans 9:16).

Comfort. Here is ground of incomparable encouragement, and in truth, of inconceivable refreshing to hold up the heads and hearts of the most wretched sinners in the most forlorn condition, able to shore and prop up the soul with some possibility of good, that it sink not down, and be swallowed up with desperate discouragement. I am almost afraid to cast such pearls before swine: and when I do but think or suspect that any carnal wretch should abuse this kindness, and turn this grace of God into wantonness; if it do not depend upon my doing, I will do nothing, let God do all. I am forced almost to bite in my words, and my heart almost misgives me, as loath to cast away such compassions of the Lord upon such hellish varlets, who out of the venom of their spirits would turn these choice preservatives into poison. Yet because it is like a piece of board left after the wreck when the ship is broken as the last means of relief; as a cord of compassion let fall among a company of poor perishing creatures, ready to be overwhelmed with the floods of iniquity, and who knows but some may catch it at the last cast, before they go hence, and be seen no more. Let me therefore bequeath this encouragement to you as my last will, even the words of a dying man, before you and I appear before the dreadful presence of the Lord. Know then, you are yet in the land of the living, and bless God you are so; and know, because it's the will and pleasure of God to do good to some of the worst of men as he sees [illegible], therefore there is yet hope while there is life; some little peep-hole of hope, like a pin's head, a possibility there is you may receive good. You see here how he prevails with the spirits of [illegible] most perverse, they have their hearts [illegible], though it be [illegible] the hair [illegible] heart and all, [illegible] when they [illegible] and wounded the godly [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] poor disciples. [illegible] your hearts echo then from every corner of the assembly, Pierce me, me [illegible]; Pardon me, me also; Humble me, me also; [illegible] your abundant goodness and good pleasure. If the [illegible] be [illegible] so dangerous, and in appearance [illegible]; [illegible] the disease be [illegible] so deadly, and in the apprehensions of all, past help, if the physician and [illegible] be known to have cured and helped in such cases, and that he yet lives; the patient will yet support himself with such inferences, why may not my sore be cured, my disease healed, so the Lord lives who has done as much for forlorn sinners and why not for me, poor wretched creature, say so, you say [illegible].

This is the scope of God's counsel and his very purpose why he leaves such patterns of the freeness of his compassions, that yet forlorn creatures might look to him, from the depth of their most desperate misery. Let not the Lord fail of his intention, nor you of your comfort (1 Timothy 1:16). I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious, however for this cause I obtained mercy that in me [illegible] Christ Jesus might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. That they might hope still for good as he received it, and know they may be made partakers of it upon the same terms that he was, set the pattern of this compassion [illegible] your eyes, and see yet a possibility of relief. We shall sever a little the particulars that each man may suit his own condition with that most [illegible] him, here is that which answers to every necessity and complaint.

One complains his wants are so many, he cannot [illegible] however they should be supplied, another complains his spirit so perverse, he knows not how it can be subdued, a third his rebellions so open, so gross against the Almighty and all the means of life, it's [illegible] that ever the Lord should pass by such hellish provocations, I [illegible] all your complaints are just and weighty, your condition very dangerous. And let me tell you, did your relief and help depend upon your preparations and [illegible] or [illegible], it's certain your hearts and [illegible] and hopes would utterly fail and give up the ghost. Here is the anchor of your hopes that where your help lies is here, and leave not this anchorhold — the Lord can do good and will, against all indispositions and oppositions of spirit, and carriages to the contrary, as he sees fit. And therefore you may lift up your head and say then it may be to me, yes, to you never so weak, to the perverse and rebellious. Attend what the Lord says, take his word and take it with you.

You see and confess your person baser than the earth that bears you, your mind full of blindness, stupidity, sottish and unteachable; in the things of God, you have heard so many able men, enjoyed so many means of conviction and information, and all has slipped away like water spilt upon a rock, and why should I think that ever I should be convinced or instructed or any light ever set up in this sottish mind of mine.

True you have been taught by men, and man and means have happily done their best, and truly they are nothing, and you are nothing, and all that they and you can do is nothing, indeed but they shall all be taught of God, says the text. Christ now in heaven did more by the Ministry of Peter, than in his bodily presence he did, in fact (go further than that) than his bodily presence could do, though he spoke as never man spoke. No matter how dull you are if God will teach you, how weak if God will strengthen you. Be your wants what they will be or can be, the all-sufficient God wants neither wisdom nor power nor mercy to do what you can need, and he will, for your good. And his power pitches his tent, and takes pleasure to show itself in weakness. You are foolish, God chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:26-27). You are not anything you should be, God delights to call things that are not as though they were, and therefore may call and choose you also. They are not only dry but dead bones which the Lord makes to live (Ezekiel 37:2). Can these dead bones live? They are not only miscarrying but barren wombs which the Lord makes to bear, and be fruitful. Not only when things are under hope but when there is nothing in present appearance or expectation then God can do it (Romans 4:24). When it is not only beyond your power and ability God can support you, and strengthen you, teach and quicken you when it is beyond not your apprehension, but your very thought and hope; he has done so, [reconstructed: and will] do so, he lives still, and can do so to you also.

True my weaknesses are many but that's not all, nor yet the worst, the waywardness and perverseness of my own heart adds the greatest weight to my misery and wretchedness — not only destitute of any spiritual good, but not willing to be made better, my brow as brass and my neck like an iron sinew, as the Lord complains (Isaiah 48:4). My heart harder than the nether millstone (Job 41:28). If life and salvation were laid before me and that I might have heaven and grace for taking or entertainment of it, yet I would neither have word, nor Christ nor heaven itself unless I might have my will in heaven, such is the invincible stiffness and desperate perverseness of my spirit; unless I may have what I will when it comes upon the narrow, God must not have his glory, nor service nor subjection nor allegiance nor duty in the least [reconstructed: measure] discharged. I must burn, for I can neither break nor yield: nor mercies persuade me, nor judgments awe me, I can receive no good, indeed I can see no reason why God should do any good to me that would not have it.

Here is the dead lift, and the wonder of all wonders, the overpowering of the sovereignty of a stubborn self-willed heart, [reconstructed: this is] the throne where Satan dwells; which [reconstructed: exposes] the doctrine of free will to be a doctrine of devils and that which drives the soul to everlasting discouragement, pretend what such deceivers can to the contrary.

But the former doctrine affords support, and that which will bear up your heart even in this particular also — your salvation depends not upon your own will, for then neither you nor any flesh should be saved. But God shows mercy to whom he will show mercy (Romans 9:19). As nothing can deserve his mercy so nothing can resist his good pleasure, when he will show it, he will make you find it and others see it. Of his own good will he begot us by the word of truth (James 1:18); it's not according to the will of Satan, for then no man should be saved, it's not according to the will of man fallen, for then no man could be saved. But he dispenses the work of his grace according to his own will, and his counsel shall stand, and he will do what he will (Isaiah 46:11), let the will of men and devils oppose it to the utmost of their power. Quiet your heart — I cannot do anything that might purchase, nor yet in truth would I have grace if God would give it, only it is with God to do good to this miserable soul of mine as he will, who does what he will in heaven and in earth, his will be done and blessed be his holy name for ever and ever: and there stay yourself. It was the expression of a man in heavy perplexity of conscience finding the crossness of his will to snarl at the Lord's dispensation, his heart sunk within him, with unsupportable horror, that he had [reconstructed: committed] the sin against the Holy Ghost; and with many prayers and tears he sought to heaven to bring his heart to an under subjection to the good pleasure of the Lord, but the Lord left him to his own perverseness, nothing he could do, could prevail with his own spirit. And he professed against that cursed cavil of the Arminians, that reproach of the doctrine of God's free grace which leads to despair and discouragement, openly acknowledging that if his own salvation depended upon his own will, he should perish irrecoverably: but that only held his heart in some hope that his happiness was in God's hand, and that it merely depended upon the will of the Lord, to give him a heart to fear and serve him or else his heart would fail. And it was a wholesome speech of a gracious woman that had a great deal of do with her own heart, when she could not find her heart to come off so willingly to give way as she ought to what her judgment allowed, she besought the Lord to give her such a disposition of heart whether she would or no.

You yet reply, that which adds to the heinousness of my evil is this: these loathsome distempers have not been harbored in my own breast only, confined in my own bosom, which yet had been too much, but they have broken out into the most fierce and professed rebellion and that in the highest degree. I have been a professed opposer of the gospel and the power thereof, an open Rabshakeh, a ringleader and encourager to such that would revile and reproach the righteous and good ways of God's grace, a jeering Ishmaelite of such as with [illegible] of conscience had care to walk therein, and have resolved and attempted also even with an impudent face and a brazen forehead to outbrave the authority of the truth, and made it matter of scorn to drop and give in to the most dreadful threatenings that could be denounced out of the word. I have trampled all the entreaties of the Lord and tender offers of mercy underfoot, so that when I have called over my course and viewed my carriage in cold blood I have wondered that the Lord has not made me a spectacle of his displeasure before I departed out of the place, that the very earth did not open and swallow me quick as Korah [illegible] and Abiram. So that God cannot be God unless he do avenge himself and pluck the praise of his justice [illegible] the heart's blood of such a wretch — no, he should be accessory to the dishonor of his own name if he should show mercy to such who openly, impudently in a hellish haughtiness of heart have trampled his mercy under their feet.

True, flesh and blood could not do it — no, the heart [illegible] of man cannot think it, how this should be, did we measure God's compassions according to our narrow scantling; but God's thoughts are not ours, nor his ways ours. So far as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy to them that fear him (Isaiah 55; Psalm 103:11) — infinitely above and beyond our own desires and thoughts, our imaginations and expectations. They are, I confess, amazing expressions of miraculous compassions of the Lord, yet such they are as he is pleased to manifest to sinful dust and ashes. He can tell how to have the honor of his justice and to save your soul, you sinful rebel. No, he can tell how best to provide most for his own glory when he pardons most sins: "I beseech you, pardon my sins, for they are many" (Psalm 25:11). He lets the power of darkness proceed to its full strength, that the power of his exceeding mercy might show itself in delivering from the nethermost hell. He gives sin advantage that it might do its worst, and reign to death, that so his grace might reign over sin and death to eternal life, according to the sovereignty of his will whereby he subdues all things to himself (Ephesians 3:21). And here you may yet feel firm bottom to bear up your fainting heart from sinking down into everlasting discouragement.

Thus you see the compass of this encouragement which issues from God's free grace. But lest some proud flesh should arise by this healing preservative if it should heal too fast — to keep you under this encouragement and yet to keep you from presumption — take these cautions.

It is possible God may do you good, notwithstanding all indispositions and oppositions. But know [illegible] for certain he never will do it but in his own way. If he saves you he will humble you; if he pardons that guilty soul and conscience of yours, he will pierce both to the quick. There is not a possibility he should save your soul [illegible] your sin also — set it down for an undeniable conclusion: I cannot have my stubborn and rebellious heart and have any hope that ever I shall have either grace or mercy. If you will sin that mercy may abound (as the Apostle brings in the sons of Belial, speaking, Romans 6:1), you may have your sin, but upon these terms you shall never have mercy. Either expect that God should take away your sin, or else never expect he should prevent your ruin.

When the Lord lets in some light to discover the loathsomeness of your corrupt nature, and begins to grapple with your conscience, so that you stand convicted of the vileness of your own ways, the worth and excellency of his grace — when God has you upon the anvil and under the hammer to break you, in the fire to melt you — [illegible] fear, fear, lest you should make an escape from under the hand of the Lord and fall back again to the old base course. It is a dreadful suspicion of God's direful displeasure, lest either the Lord will cease to do you any further good, or give you up to those hellish departures, so that you should make yourself everlastingly incapable of mercy.

It's a sore suspicion that the Lord purposes to leave striving, and to meddle with you no more, when the Lord suffers you to wind away from under the power of the means which formerly you were subject to. It's God's usual manner to make such inexcusable, and never make them good, that they might go self-condemned, and so go to Hell. It's that of the Prophet [illegible] which he makes a symptom of the outcast condition of the Jews that they were dross (Jeremiah [illegible]:30): Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord has rejected them. How proves he that? Verse 29: The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed in the fire, the founder melts in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. To this purpose is that of our Savior, when he had long striven with the rebellious Jews, clucked to them as a hen to her chickens, and would have gathered them under the wing of his saving Providence, by the preaching of the Gospel — and yet nothing would prevail, they would drive Christ out of their sight — and he smites them with a plague answerable (Matthew 23, last verses): you shall see me no more, until you shall say blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. And this his word has taken hold upon them to [illegible] day, the poor forlorn Jews have not had a sight of Christ these sixteen hundred years, scriptures they have, prophecies, promises — indeed they have the Gospel while they [illegible] the Gospel — for so the Apostle (Galatians 3): The Gospel was preached to Abraham saying, in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. They see all this but the veil is over their eyes, they see no Christ in promises, ordinances, and therefore no salvation, leaving secret things to God. So it befalls many falsehearted apostates when God has had them in the fire and they come out too hastily from horror and humiliations, before half melted — it's a great venture they never come to Christ, but [reconstructed: wane away] in a powerless kind of formality and content [illegible] with the enjoyment of some outward privileges and ordinances and names of profession. They have the scriptures and ordinances but never see a Christ in any of them, nor will the Lord look upon them, nor once speak to them when he passes by, but let them live and perish as heartless, Christless men. Thus our Savior dealt with his people in former times when he had sent the spies into the land of Canaan (Hebrews 3:18; Numbers 14:23), and they returned convinced by their own experience of the goodness of the land as flowing with milk and honey, and out of a slothful cowardice because there were iron chariots and walled cities, and mighty giants, they withdrew the duty and God's charge, and disheartened also the people. The text says the Lord swore in his wrath they should not enter into his rest. When God swears, it shows his purpose is unchangeable and his execution will not be altered. Canaan is a type of the kingdom of grace and so of glory, when the Lord lets in some evidence of the excellency thereof and the heart cannot but acknowledge it, [illegible] leaves off rather than it will take the pains to grapple with those giant-like corruptions, that iron and [illegible] hardness of heart. Why should you not fear lest God should swear you shall never enter into his rest, you should never find the power of the death of Jesus in killing the body of death, so that you should cease from your own works, and from the sinful distempers of your corrupt heart.

Fear again, lest the Lord give you up to your old distempers, that you should make yourself everlastingly incapable of any good, and sin that unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. When you go against those convictions of your conscience, those tastes of approbation which sometimes your heart took in the good Word and ways of God — for by this backsliding you are in the ready way to run upon that rock. This was that which helped Paul — the possibility of mercy (1 Timothy 1:14): But I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly, it was his zeal that he persecuted the Church, that is, his blind zeal. But should he have done so against the dictates of his conscience, and the evidence of truth in his own heart, he could hardly have seen a way for mercy. So the Apostle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 6:8): The earth that often drinks in the rain, and yet brings forth thorns [illegible] is near, is near to cursing, whose end is to be burned. The rain is the Word, heard, understood, embraced, acknowledged, and yet have their malicious venomous conspiracies against the Gospel of God, and saints of Christ, and that in [illegible] like thorns under the leaves, like briars under pretense of moderation and humility, can scratch bitterly — it's a heavy suspicion their end will be burning. Take heed you do not content yourself in your rebellious condition; for upon this supposition that you will have this, you put yourself out of any possibility of good, go against God's order, course, and covenant, and the whole work of redemption. Christ comes to bless his by turning them away from their sins (Acts 3, last verse); and therefore when the Lord comes to hale you out of your sins, take heed you do not go from under God's strivings, lest he strive with you no more.

Exhortation. We have hence special motives to quicken the desires, and provoke the endeavors of the most carnal minded men in the world, to attend with all the care and diligence they may upon the means of grace.

But you will tell us, it is not in our preparations, performances, and improvements, that our spiritual good depends, there is nothing we can do can procure it, it depends wholly upon the good pleasure of the Lord. Why then should we trouble ourselves to endeavor anything?

I answer, the inference is the quite contrary way: all is in God and his good pleasure, attend therefore upon him in his own means, that you may receive all from him. If a man should reason thus: I can do nothing for myself, therefore I will take a course that no man shall do anything for me; it were not a weakness, but a kind of madness; but rather in common sense a man would be provoked to press his own heart thus; I can do nothing of myself, therefore I must attend upon God in those means which he uses to do for all those he uses to do good to. So the disciples to our Savior when he would arm them against his departure, Will you also go away? (John 6:68). They answer, Lord, where should we go? you only have the words of eternal life. Christ only can humble and convert, Christ only has peace and pardon, therefore only go to him. We are so wise for our bodies, where one is most likely to succeed, every man is most willing to go, especially considering as nothing can purchase his favor, [illegible] nothing can [illegible] the expression of his good pleasure when he will, go therefore whatever your condition is. When you are at the weakest, here is supply: as he said, Why stand you gazing, fainting, and famishing? Get you into Egypt for corn, that we may live, and not die (Genesis 42:1-2): though you live in the height of the perverseness of your heart, in the outrage of your rebellion, though you carry a scornful contemptuous spirit with you, yet go; who knows when is God's time, what he may do? Bring your own souls, your rebellious servants, and disobedient children, fall down at the foot of Christ in his ordinances, and say, Here are a company of hellish, traitorous hearts, which bring proud, stubborn, scornful, rebellious distempers, like so many bloody weapons, even to wound your good Majesty with; Oh pluck these weapons out of our hands, these treasons out of our hearts, that would pluck us to you, and so to destruction. As we cannot deserve anything, so our wretchedness cannot hinder your work.

And because you don't know the season of mercy, take all seasons, you don't know what time God may or will work; because it is in his own pleasure, therefore attend upon him at all times (2 Timothy 2:25). Proving if at any time God will give you repentance.

Attend upon him in all ordinances; because it is in his pleasure to breathe in which he will, and to bless which he will for your spiritual comfort. Sow your seed in the morning, and in the evening, because you don't know which may prosper, this or that (Ecclesiastes 11:6). You don't know whether prayer, or meditation, or reading will prosper, and which of these, or any other ordinance God will bless for the saving good of your soul.

When you find the Lord stirring, moving, enabling, and working in you, move, and work also: as the mariner when he finds the gale coming any way, he tacks about [illegible] way to take the advantage. God was tampering with the heart of Agrippa, it was at a ha, now a ha, You have almost persuaded me to become a Christian, says he to Paul (Acts 26:28). Ah what a pity was it he should fall back again.

It's a matter of wonderment able to swallow up the heart of a sinner with the everlasting admiration of this [illegible], unmatchable kindness of the Lord. (Micah 7:18) Who is a God like to you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage: he retains not his anger forever, because he [reconstructed: delights] in mercy; he will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities, and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. You that have tasted how good the Lord is, and found this truth made good in your own hearts by your own experience; as Paul was accustomed to recount his course, I was a persecutor, blasphemous and injurious, but I obtained mercy (1 Timothy 1:15-16). I doubt not but many of you may say, if ever there was a fiend in hell, or a rebel upon earth, I was one; an opposer of the gospel, a despiser of the means of grace, a hater of the holy ways of the Lord, and his servants that walk therein: yet then God did me good, when I desired and [reconstructed: pursued] my own hurt. Get you home you blessed saints, and in the secret of your closets call heaven and earth together, and leave these compassions upon record. Say, the time was this carnal mind of mine plotted my wretched [reconstructed: destruction], and mine own ruin, but then the Lord prevented both; I opposed [reconstructed: his] entreaties, and he yet pursued me, and would take no [reconstructed: denial]; he called after me, wept over me, Turn you, turn you, why will you die (Ezekiel 33:11)? I provoked him, he pitied me; I resisted him, he embraced me; I said I would have none of him nor his grace, he said he would have no denial; I resolved to walk on in the stubbornness of mine own [reconstructed: ways], and to perish in the despite of all means, and he would and did show me mercy in the despite of the pride and rebellion of this heart, or else I had never seen this day, nor never had hope to see his face in glory. Be astonished and confounded at this, O you devils, and come down you blessed angels from heaven, and magnify this mercy. Leave this in your last will and testament to your little ones, O you fathers; leave this as a pattern of compassions to all ensuing ages, that they may love this God, and fear this God, etc.

They were pierced in their hearts.

The persons have been considered in those respects which were material and suitable to the aim of the text: we are now come to inquire of the work itself, that is termed here piercing. 2. The place or subject in which this was, it was in their hearts. Pierced] The word in the original is a compound, and implies more than bare pricking; nor have we any English word fit to express it. A shivering and pulling all asunder; for it is so to prick as to pierce and enter, dig on every side, to pierce not overly, but quite through the soul, as some of the ancients render it. It's found only in this place in the New Testament, though the Seventy Interpreters used it often in the Old, in the [illegible] of several words in several places, according to the intent thereof. But that is remarkable, that the Hebrew root which they sometimes expressed by the word in this place, it signifies such a kind of piercing as when the body of a travelling woman is wounded with the sorrow of childbirth, when the child is severed from the womb, and brought into the world. And it usually implies as here, a work of sound sorrow laid upon the soul, whereby sin and the soul come to be parted each from other. And this resemblance and similitude between this spiritual sorrow and piercing stands in three particulars.

1. Piercing and digging is ever grievous and tedious to the part that feels it. 2. There is a loosening and parting of those things which were united and closed before, there is dissolutio continui, as the physician speaks; the parts that were firm and continued, become now to be parted and severed more or less one from another. 3. By this severing and sundering the parts, there is a way and a passage made, that corruption, or any other humor which was in the part may be drawn out. So in sound sorrow, there be three things answerably.

The soul comes to be wounded and pained extremely with the pressure of corruption, stung with those distempers which stab and torment the heart.

Hence the cursed union between sin and the soul comes to be loosened, when the sinner cannot find that sweetness in his lusts which have suited with him so exceedingly in former times. When this sweetness like the solder by which the heart and corruption lay couched so near, and so incorporate as it were, that they became one continued thing, is as I may say, by this prevailing sorrow, melted and removed; the knot and combination between our hearts and our lusts, come to be broken.

Hence there is way made for the letting out of those corruptions to which the soul was endeared formerly, and the sinner brought from under the supreme and sovereign commanding power of his distempers. Thus the church converted in (Hosea 2:8), when they had sought their lovers, and could not find them, followed them, and could not overtake them, they begin to take up other thoughts, I will go to my first husband, for it was better with me then, than now.

Heart.] It properly signifies that chief part in a man's body, wherein the fountain of the vital spirits lies; that which lives first (as they say) and dies last; that's the natural signification. But here it's spiritually understood, and it's put for the will and affections, which have their proper place of abode there, and express their special operations in a principal manner, according as objects are presented, and occasion offered: and thus it's taken in this place (not to trouble you with other variety of apprehensions), thus you shall find it frequently in the Scripture; the heart shall fear (Deuteronomy 28:67), joy of heart (Isaiah 65:14), sorrow of heart (Leviticus 26:16), etc. And out of the heart comes murders and adulteries (Matthew 15:19), all which carry undeniably the work of the will and affections, according as they put forth several operations as they meet with several objects. So that this was not a slight and overly rippling of the skin, but a piercing to the quick, reached to the very heart-root, that which cut asunder the sovereignty of the choice of the will, and made that stand back, and go off from those loathsome corruptions, which were as near as the soul to the soul; and they were all pricked as one man in the one and the same manner in the heart; they were all wounded, as though there had been but one heart in them all. Hence we shall propound divers points, and pursue that which is the main.

Sins unrepented of, and continued in, make way for piercing and perplexing terrors.

I say, unrepented, and continued in, make way for terror. They do not always immediately let in gall and wormwood into the soul, presently after the acting of them; plagues are then in preparation, and only those overbearing and dreadful judgments which the Lord is devising against the ungodly, are then in the birth, and the Lord will not bring them forth until they be come to their full growth, as the fittest time for the execution of his vengeance. It fares with sinners, as it does sometimes, and for the most part with malefactors; they make an escape from the hand of justice, and they please themselves in the practice of their wickedness, and contenting their own lusts, until their destruction surprises them so, as they cannot avoid it, nor bear it. Had you but seen these scorners and despisers of our Savior formerly, when they run riot in their outrage and opposition, carried all before them, as if they had the world at will, Away with him, away with him; not Christ, but Barabbas. You would have conceived, nay, if you had asked themselves, they would have concluded, they had been beyond all gun-shot, terrors and perplexities could not have touched, much less seized upon them. Yet see them here, and see how their condition is altered; they who scorned the Apostles, now come trembling to them; they who cared not what they did before, now are at their wits' end which way to turn themselves; and it's certain, the fire was then making, which now scorched; the sins were then committed, which now sunk their hearts with unsupportable horrors. There be pleasures of sin, but they are but for seasons (Hebrews 11:25), and those are but the seed times of sorrows and judgments. Joy is sown for the righteous, and sometimes in deep sorrows; the longer it is growing and ripening, the larger is the harvest of comforts. So troubles and horrors, hellish and heartbreaking amazements, are sown for the wicked, and that in their greatest delights; and the longer these are in growing and ripening, their harvest of horrors of conscience will be out of measure dreadful. As the Prophet to those who carried all before them in their sinful contriving (Jeremiah 5:31): The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests bear rule by their means, and the people love to have it so; all well met: But what will you do in the end thereof? They might have answered, We do what we list: Yes, for the while; but what will be the end? So (Job 20:12-14): Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, and though he hide it under his tongue, though he spare it and forsake it not, yet his meat is turned in his bowels — it's the gall of asps within him. (Revelation 18:7): How much she has glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her. (James 1:12): When lust has conceived it brings forth death; when lust is conceiving then terror is hatching.

The reason is in a word. The heart comes to be more estranged from God the God of peace and comfort, and therefore terror and astonishment is now in the mint and preparation for them. The heart grows more hard as it grows more secure in the continuance of evil, so more unfit and incapable either of mercy offered, or of the benefit and saving good of any means that are provided by the Lord. And therefore the [reconstructed: terror] is more dreadful when it comes [reconstructed: at last] to be discovered, and the plagues more insufferable when they come indeed to be executed upon them or threatened against them. A rankling sore is hardly cured, and with much heartache when it is. Surfeit of long continuance is recovered with much difficulty (1 Samuel 12:19): that which they would not acknowledge and reform before is now most dreadful, pray for us to the Lord that we die not, for we have added to all our sins this evil of asking a King. The [reconstructed: guilt] of Joseph — when their cruel dealing came but into their remembrance, how did it cut their hearts? — (Genesis 42:21): we are verily guilty concerning our brother, his blood is required at our hands.

Learn we therefore not to judge the condition of a sinner, or the nature of a sinful course, according to the present delights which they seem to take or the pleasing sweetness they pretend they [reconstructed: find], in the ways of wickedness. With which they are so far deceived and their carnal and deluded hearts are so far taken aside and ravished as it were, that they think it, nay conclude it, there is neither heaven nor happiness to be compared to that — and such a sudden glitter dazzles the eyes many times of the Lord's dear ones, when they look upon the painted appearance of things, as at the present push they come presented and beautified with the trappings of pleasure and profit and ease, and honorable heart's contents (Psalm 73:2). This made Asaph's foot almost slip and turn aside from the righteous and good ways of God's grace, while he was deceived with the present pomp of the proceedings of the wicked men. Indeed he professed that not only he stumbled but many were wholly taken aside with this delusion (Psalm 73:10). Many come here — that is, side with the society of the wicked — because full cups of water are administered to them and a confluence of outward and present comforts are cast in upon them. The cure he himself found when he went into the Sanctuary and also prescribes it to others; namely when he beheld the end of those men (verse 17), and those their ways — what will be the end of deceiving and reproaching, lying and dissembling. That is the way to judge aright of sinful proceedings, and the certain way not to be deceived by them. Look not upon the rich man as he fares deliciously every day, but look at him as he is frying and scorching in flames and therein crying, 'Oh Father Abraham, let Lazarus dip but the tip of his finger to cool my scorching tongue,' when he obtains not a drop of water — whereas poor Lazarus is at a feast in Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:19, 24). Look not at Judas as plotting with the scribes and Pharisees and prospering in his purpose, as pleasing himself in his project and pocketing his thirty pieces (Matthew 27:3). This is but for a season — but stay a while, and turn aside a little, and see how he is forced to vomit out his morsel, and in hellish horror to roar out his wretchedness, 'I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.' And follow yet further and see his end — he ends his days and his comforts together, his covetousness continued in so long before, prepared a halter for his ruin. Look not upon Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, when they ruffle it out in the pride of their hearts, and out-brave Moses, and the authority of his place, 'you take too much upon you, you sons of [illegible]' — but see the earth open and swallow him and his company of rebels and all the people flying and crying 'lest we perish also' (Numbers 16:31-33).

It is one (and not the least) part of the power of the redemption of our Savior that he gave himself for us, that he might deliver us from this present evil world (Galatians 1:4) — not because the world only, or evil alone, but from the presentness of it, to deliver and free our hearts and apprehensions from the too much attending and false conceiving of those present appearances of these false lying vanities. We cannot judge amiss if we look at the end of godly men, and a godly life, not at the present inconveniences that are light and momentary which do attend them. Consider the upright and mark — the end of that man is peace (Psalm 37:37). Perplexed he may be, but his end is he will be pardoned; full of doubts and distractions, but his end is to be settled and quieted for ever. You have heard of the patience of Job, and of the end that the Lord made with him — judge that well, and you will not miss to judge aright (James 5:11). See what end sin and a sinful course make, and then you will not pass sentence amiss.

It will be our greatest comfort and should be our greatest care to rise presently from our falls and recover our souls without delay, from such failings with which we are many times overtaken. Our first care should be not to sin; our next care, not to continue in it if we be surprised therewith. A green wound is easily and successfully cured in an ordinary course, when your old rankled sores hardly admit of any recovery. When the member is sprained or out of joint, to delay or neglect to set it, and that with most speed, it is likely never to grow strong — [illegible] — almost impossible it should be made straight. Deal so with your heart in the work of seasonable and sound repentance, for there is the like danger. Better we judge our sin, than that we should be judged, indeed condemned for them; better we begin with speed to see our evils, and lie in the way to seek for mercy, than that our careless security should make way and preparation to hasten piercing and overbearing plagues. It were to be wished we should never be taken aside or plucked away with false fears, to speak hastily and by unbelief basely to deny the Lord Jesus, and his righteousness — but if we have failed and that shamefully as Peter, go out immediately, and weep with him bitterly for our base departures (Matthew 26, last verse). The Lord bears not a fearless continuance in any distemper — if David [reconstructed: bides it] securely in base lusts, the Lord will break his bones for it. David therefore takes himself here — no sooner sees God withdrawing, but he seeks him with instancy and importunity (Psalm 30:7-10).

It's a word of terror and astonishment to such who venture to continue in their sinful distempers, because they never found so much as a touch of any [illegible] in their souls for any of those distempers they have continued in. Know such must assuredly, that sin is of the same poisonous nature as ever, and the word as true, and God as just as ever; and therefore their sins they have continued in have all this while made way for overbearing perplexities, which they will certainly bring upon your souls; the less you have felt therefore the more you may expect, and without doubt you shall find and receive. There is wrath to come; tribulation and wrath and anguish will be and must be upon the soul of every man that sins; if you had none as yet, there is the more behind; when those noisome abominations that have so long nestled in your bosom, and there lie as it were in ambush, will march in upon you like armed men, and sink your [illegible] in everlasting discouragements; deceive not therefore yourselves with the present content you seem to find in your corruptions that you can trample upon Christ's ordinances and servants, go away with it, without any trouble or control. See these poor creatures and consider their condition what it was and now is, they stuck not to profess open rebellion against our Savior, Away with him, crucify him, and they carried all before them, with a high hand and so continued, from the Passover to Pentecost many weeks together, the poison of their sins that pleased their spirits so much in the practice of them now begins to work trembling and astonishing confusion to their souls — the pleasure of sin is but for a season, and when that is gone look for the like gall and wormwood. As it is in the body while the abscess and gross humors are gathering, the party finds no matter of grief, until at last when it comes to a full growth and breaks suddenly, and proves present death that cannot be prevented, and then all the filth and abscessed matter issues out of the ears and mouth and each man can see it, when no man can help it. It is so with a cankered conscience and a corrupt heart who has hugged and harbored his distempers with pleasure and content and so continued. Until the Lord break open the [illegible] and then those hideous abominations let in the dreadful terrors of the Almighty, which overwhelm the soul of a sinner with unsupportable horrors; the Apostle thus concludes it [illegible] (Galatians 6:7-8): be not deceived, God is not mocked, as you sow, so you must reap, if you sow to the flesh, of the flesh you shall reap corruption — it may be your ruin is growing but not ripe, the harvest of horror is not yet come, but be not deceived God is not mocked you shall reap and your crop will be confusion and perdition, the Lord himself has so revealed it.

(Deuteronomy 32:35) in due time their foot shall slide. Stay but the time, indeed he determines it fully as that which he will not fail to accomplish (Deuteronomy 29:20-21): [illegible] men bless themselves, and bear up their heads bravely against all the peal of plagues that were rung in their ears, the Lord resolves upon it, his anger shall smoke against that man to cut him off from the land of the living, etc.

Pierced.

As their sins made way for this terror, so the word set it on. Hence,

The truth is terrible to a guilty conscience when it prevailingly takes place there.

It's a hammer that breaks, a fire that scorches, an axe sharp and keen that cuts and wounds the soul of a wicked, unrepentant sinner. (Acts 7:54) When they heard these things they were cut to the heart.

Because it is a witness to accuse, a judge to condemn, an executioner to torment such poor creatures, as I might make all these good in particulars, it's said (Revelation 11:10) that when the two witnesses were slain, the inhabitants of the earth solaced themselves and sent gifts one to another, because those that tormented them that dwelt upon the earth were taken away.

Matter of trial, those who are careful hearers may without fail discover their condition, by the word that is dispensed. Are you sick of the saving dispensations of the holy and righteous will and law of God, you sit and shake under it as that which passes the doom and sentence upon you, which you are not able to endure nor avoid, do not deceive yourself with any vain conceivings of your estate, or please and delude your heart with the mistaken apprehensions and approbations of other men, it's certain your heart is naught and condition also. If you are sick of the truth, [illegible] not side with it, nor receive approbation from it, when it comes in the strength and terror of it. As we say of men that are sick at sea, the cause is not in the tempest but in the stomach, because there be corrupt and noisome humors there, it's those that raise stir and trouble in the stomach and not the [illegible], when the stomach is purged and clear, the passenger can sleep in the most tempestuous seas, so it is where the heart is truly emptied and the conscience purged from dead works (Hebrews 9:14), the sharpest truths would find most welcome and entertainment.

But does not the truth carry terror with it and that even the best tremble at it?

It's true they do so but with a double difference.

The word though it ever speaks against the corruptions of those that are sincere hearted, yet it ever [illegible] sentence on their [illegible] both for the acceptation of their persons and the happiness of that condition they are in through grace, and if it appear other to them, it is because their judgments are darkened through temptations, misguided through some [illegible] — (Micah 7) Are not my words good to them that walk uprightly. (Isaiah 3:10) Say to the [illegible] it shall go well with them. The Lord and his word says no [illegible] — man ought to say any other, there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ (Romans 8:1) — but it's otherwise with the wicked. The word not only [illegible] condemns their sins but their persons also. Because they are one with their sins and incorporated into them, and carried with the power of them. (Isaiah 3:12) Say to the wicked, woe to them, for the reward of their evil works [illegible] to them.

The saints of God ever find [illegible] in the [illegible] and most keen threatenings, and their hearts tremble at them because the [illegible] of God is there, [illegible] submit to them and close with God in them, they take them as [illegible] to cure the [illegible] in them, not [illegible] kill them, and therefore take [illegible] in them, and they will still say: the word of the Lord is good, and hence are desirous to hear all, to know the worst, and the whole mind of God — so Eli (1 Samuel 3:17) — hide nothing from me, that which wounds most deep and works most kindly he welcomes it with a glad heart, because he knows his welfare is there. Whereas a false [illegible] flies from the terror of the truth (Matthew 19:22) — he went away sorrowful — they say to the seers see not, and to the prophets, prophecy not right things but smooth things (Isaiah 30:10). He is loath to hear what his heart does not like, and willing to put by the power and darken the evidence of the truth, that appears dreadful to him by reason of his sins.

Come we now to the main observation, wherein the pith of this spiritual truth consists and that's in two things.

- 1. Gross and scandalous sinners God usually exercises with heavy breakings of heart before he brings them effectually to himself. - 2. Sorrow for sin when it's rightly set on, pierces the heart of the sinner through, that is rightly affected therewith.

To the first.

Gross and scandalous sinners God usually exercises with heavy breakings of heart before he brings them effectually to himself.

These desperate wretches who had stained their hands in the blood of the Lord Jesus, and now in an impudent manner set themselves to out-brave the servants of Christ, and his word and ordinances also: the Lord he handles them roughly, suitable to their rebellious conduct toward him; they had pierced the body of our Savior, and exercised his soul with unsupportable sorrows; he pierced their hearts, they openly and impudently professed their cruel and accursed rage, not him, but [illegible]; Crucify him, crucify him. He forces them to proclaim the loathsomeness of this their way, in the view of the world: they before the multitude, scorned the Apostles; he forces them now in the face of the people, to reverence and acknowledge them as the dear servants of God. The Lord knows how to deal with men, answerable to their sinful dealings with him, and the [illegible] of their hearts, and does thus with scandalous ones, and not only those whose lewdness and wickedness lies open to the view of the world, but with such also who are many times more retired, and carry it more cunningly and closely from the eyes of men, if yet their evils be gross, in which they live and lie; as such which oppose the light of reason, the dictates of conscience, the remainder of those common principles which are left in the corrupt nature of men; as murder, theft, forgeries, adulteries, though mole-like they carry it never so secretly, dig deep to hide their counsel, and contrivance from God and man, yet commonly God breaks open their conscience, breaks in with dreadful terror upon such, plucks those sweet morsels out of their maws, and constrains them to vomit out those bosom abominations by open confession after one manner or other, to some one or many. I say, it's God's usual manner so to deal with such, which implies he may deal so with others, but usually so with these.

Not that he may not, nay sometimes deals not so with others, whom by the strokes of his restraining grace, he has preserved and kept untainted from such loathsome abominations, and refined by a civil and comely fashion and carriage.

If either he purposes to use them as choice instruments in his [illegible], and improve them in some special service to set [illegible] and promote his own praise, as men use to season their timber more than ordinary, if they intend to use it in some more than ordinary service; and when they mind to raise the building marvelously high, they commonly, according to a course of prudence, lay the foundation exceeding low.

Or if the Lord intends to manifest himself to the soul of a sinner with some ravishing sweetness, with enlarged and amazed communications of the assurance of his love, joys unspeakable and glorious: it's ordinary with the Lord to abase the heart exceedingly under the dreadful apprehensions of its own vileness, that it may be the more fitted to receive such special comforts, not to surfeit with them by security and pride. Great revelations have great humiliations go before them; the ebb is very low before the tide comes with greatest strength and height; otherwise the soul would never be able to bear such overbearing expressions of God's love, and communications of himself, but would certainly abuse them. If the keel of the boat were little and narrow, a large sail would overturn it, not convey it to the haven. Great assurances and glorious joys, are too great a sail for a heart that is not widened with enlarged contritions and humiliations. God would make Job a pattern of patience, to all posterities, therefore he exercises him with all extremities in all kind of sharp and piercing sorrows, and heavy desertions (James 5:11; Job 1:12; Job 2:4).

The Lord shakes the heart of Isaiah in the sense of his own unworthiness, Woe is me (says he) I am undone, I am a man of polluted lips; before he would reveal to him those hidden Prophecies concerning the dispensation of his displeasure among the nations, and those mysterious depths of the glad tidings of the Gospel, which were kept secret from the beginning of the world. Paul is buffeted with fierce assaults by the splinter in the flesh, that he might not be too much lifted up by Revelations, that he might know he was not yet in the third heavens, but in the midst of a hurry of distempers, and a Hell of Devils. These are but some exempt cases, and that in some persons for some special ends. But with gross and scandalous persons it's God's usual way so to deal, not that he is tied, or has tied himself to this manner of dealing upon necessity, but that he has expressed it to be his good pleasure so to dispense himself to such notorious rebels, as that way which best suits the counsel of his own will, and the attaining his own end, his glory, and their best good; and if ever he make an exemption for causes best known to his own blessed Majesty in bringing such to himself that he deals tenderly with them at the first, it will hardly ever be found, but they taste most [illegible] afterwards, when perhaps they least [illegible] them, and yet are made better able to bear them. When the delivery has been speedy, the after-throws have been many and hazardous many times: If such men get somewhat an easy bargain at first, there be hard pennyworths, heavy after-claps they meet withal beyond their expectation, and it commonly never fails. The Rule is general the Prophet delivers touching God's dispensation, and I know not but it may hold here, (Psalm 18:27). With the froward you will deal frowardly, the place is hard for the apprehension of it in the fair and full sense of it. The words that go before will give in some light; With the bountiful you will show yourself bountiful; with the perfect you will be perfect; with the pure, you will show yourself pure; and with [illegible] perverse or froward, you [illegible] show yourself froward; you will make yourself deal frowardly. To speak to the pinch of the Point but in two words. I conceive [illegible] to be the meaning [illegible] the place, and the mind of God in it. He that walks with God in the exercise of the Rule in a [illegible] manner, God [illegible] meet with him in it, and give him the [illegible] and comfort that follows and flows from it: he that conscientiously keeps the Rule, shall be more fitted for to keep it, and to share in the blessing and [illegible] of it: he that deals bountifully in virtue of the Rule, he shall be more apt to that duty, and shall find bountiful dealings from the hands of others, God and men: he that is upright, thorough, and simple in spirit and practice, he shall be more exact every way, and find peace and praise as the fruit of that: he that is pure, that is, not only contents himself to be simple and sincere hearted in his whole course, but is daily purging himself, and cleansing his own heart, [illegible] severing himself from such taints and remainders of distempers that appear, and [illegible] to clear up the Rule in the beauty and excellency thereof to himself, that he may see more of it, submit more freely and fully to it; the Lord will make himself pure to him. So the word. God will let in pure instructions, that no darkness or dimness may stumble him, or cause him to mistake; pure evidence of pardon, and acceptance, no guilt may unsettle him; pure comforts and peace that no doubts or fears may discourage him; pure holiness and power of [illegible], that no strength of corruption may blur the image of God in him, or darken the evidence of the work of grace received. But [illegible] a man will be froward, crook the Rule, go cross to the Command, and will walk in the vanity of his own [illegible], and stubbornness of his own spirit, oppose the power of the Truth, not willing to look upon, or abide to hear of the purity of it. God will show himself froward towards such a one, he will [illegible] you, and cross you in your whole course, and in all your comforts; you crook and wind away from the Rule to content your sins, God by his righteous Law, by virtue of the provoking power thereof, will deliver you up to the power of your sins, and to all the terrors, and plagues, and expressions of his [illegible], that attend thereupon: and in the days of your distress, when nothing will help you but the holy Word of God, God will then deal with you, and follow you with the [illegible] of your own [illegible], you would not see the holiness and purity of God's Precepts, you [illegible] have a mind not able to attend, or receive, or remember any thing that may be for your direction, support, or comfort, but only live upon your own guilt, and the terrors that attend thereupon, and the perverseness of your own heart will be your own plague: In your froward pangs you flinch and fling, care not what you say or do; God can be as [illegible] as you, nor hear prayers, nor regard your complaints, nor pity your necessities, but pursue you with his plagues, let fly on every hand the fierceness of his displeasure; God can and will hamper you if you had a heart as fierce as a [illegible] of Hell, make you weary of your part, be as perverse as you will or can be. And therefore the word in the place is marvelously pregnant, it signifies to contend with another, as one that wrestles will do, wreath and [illegible], and turn his body every way, that he may meet with his adversary with whom he is to grapple. So the Lord will meet with you at every turn; the greater your opposition has been against him, the greater expression of his displeasure shall you be sure to [illegible], and that in the most dreadful manner. The sins of Manasseh were high handed, and hellish abominations, mighty provocations, out of measure sinful (2 Chronicles 33:11). Therefore God abased him mightily, fettered, and [illegible], and humbled him mightily, and made him cry mightily before he could [illegible] audience and acceptance with him: the cruel and harsh carriage of the jailor (Acts 16), exceeded his commission, and so the bounds of common humanity, to deal worse with the distressed than either their fact deserved, or the Law permitted, or authority allowed him in that behalf, a [illegible] transported with deadly indignation against the ways of God and his people, and as it appears by the circumstances of the story, a man that pleased [illegible] in such unreasonable practices; the Lord therefore handles him answerably to the harshness of his spirit, makes the earth quake and the prison totter, the bolts break, and the door fly open, and at last his heart begins to shake and die within him, notwithstanding the fierceness of his spirit. So Paul (Acts 9), he comes trembling to crave the counsel of those whose presence formerly he loathed.

There is a threefold ground; from where the reasons of this point may be fetched; which will evidence that this manner of proceeding best suits with the infinite wisdom of God, look we at God, at others, at the sinner himself, with whom the Lord is now trading.

The holiness of God's nature, and exactness of his truth, not only commends, but even seems with some kind of comely necessity, to call for such a manner of dispensation. The Lord styles himself, the holy One of Israel, a God of purer eyes than can endure to behold iniquity, not able to pass by sin in the least appearance of it; and therefore leaves so strict a charge, beware lest there be an evil thought in your heart, and abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5). When the Lord is to convince the sinner of sin, to express his mind and displeasure against him, because of those his evils, so scandalous and detestable to all that have but the least spark of saving knowledge and grace; indeed loathsome to the very light of conscience in corrupt nature. Should the Lord easily and overly [reconstructed: pass] them by, with some small [reconstructed: show] of some little dislike, it could not but impeach his purity, and make himself accessory to the dishonor of his own holiness. When Eli proceeded not with that zeal against [reconstructed: the] evil of his sons, as the [reconstructed: heinousness] thereof might justly have provoked him to, but after a slight manner manifested a heartless dislike of it; the Lord [reconstructed: said] (1 Samuel 2:39). That he honored his sons before him, rather respected their carnal content, that they might not be so [reconstructed: severely] ashamed, and justly [reconstructed: punished] as they did deserve than the honor of his name and the excellence of his ordinances and worship, that they might be preserved in that purity and attended with that awfulness and holiness of heart as was fitting. Now that which God abhors and punishes so severely in another, it is not possible that the least appearance of any so great an evil should be justly charged upon the holy one of Israel, for he should deny himself to be God if he should deny the exactness of his own infinite holiness, and he should not be just, should he not manifest the glory of his holiness, according to the excellence and [reconstructed: greatness] thereof. True it is that out [reconstructed: of] mere grace and mercy the Lord Christ brings the soul of a sinner from his sin, but the same mercy that would save the sinner, cannot but destroy the sin and express its detestation [reconstructed: of] it, otherwise may [reconstructed: one] say, and the rebellious sinner think, that either the word requires more than it needs and the saints do more than they ought, or else the Lord is not holy as men imagine, when [reconstructed: they express] so great detestation against so gross and scandalous evil which the Lord looks at with so little dislike.

In regard of others, the sharpness of this dispensation of the Lord against such scandalous and notorious offenders, seems to be very necessary, lest the hearts of the wicked should be encouraged and their hands strengthened to adventure to commit, and [reconstructed: carelessly] reform the greatest evils when they shall observe some of their crew and company, who were as bad or worse than themselves, yet [reconstructed: finding] acceptance and forgiveness at the hands [reconstructed: of] the Lord upon such easy terms and with so little trouble, It's that of [reconstructed: the] wise man (Ecclesiastes 8:11). When [reconstructed: the punishment of] a malefactor is but delayed, it's in the [reconstructed: hearts of the] sons of men to take encouragement to [reconstructed: do] evil, If the delay of the punishment which is not long, do so encourage them when that is but little and slight, how will that embolden in a fearless kind of impudency to proceed to any outrage, when they can promise themselves pardon upon the same terms which others have found before them, in the like case and condition with themselves? Therefore the Lord in his infinite wisdom, does so temper the sweetness of his mercy, and the severity of his wrath, in the recovery of a lost and forlorn wretch; riches of mercy to the soul to save that, rigor of severity against the loathsomeness of sin to destroy that; so that none should be discouraged to seek for pardon of the greatest wickedness, and yet none encouraged to continue the shortest time in the least sin, since God's displeasure is so dreadful against all. It was the course that the Lord prescribes to his vicegerents here on earth in their proceedings against sin, that it should be such, that all Israel may hear and fear, and do no more so (Deuteronomy 17:13). He will not be wanting to do that against sin which he would have to be done by others, he will hamper all such rebels, that the rest of the company shall have little cause to bless themselves in any of their sinful ways.

In regard of the sinner himself, it's safest for him that he may be thoroughly recovered from his corruption for the present, and preserved against it for the time to come. Recovered for the present, he needs heavy blows, or else he is like never to have any good by them. As with trees that are rooted deep, and of long time and continuance, ordinary winds have settled them, it must be a hurricane that must pluck and tear them up from their roots. So when the sinner is rooted in [reconstructed: his] wretched distempers: the wood that is knotty, there must be sharper wedges, and the heaviest beetle, and the hardest blows to break it: So it is with the hard, and stupid, and knotty heart of a scandalous sinner. As with the stomach filled with stiff and noisome humors, easy physic, and gentle receipts may perhaps stir the humors, but it must be strong ingredients, and a great quantity that must remove it. So with a corrupt heart.

This is a means also to preserve him from it afterward; if once he have thoroughly smarted for his sin, he will fear to meddle with it; [reconstructed: If] he have felt the danger of the surfeit, he will taste the sweet-meat no [reconstructed: more].

Trial. We have here ground of discovery how to pass a safe sentence touching the spiritual estate of some persons, namely, the easy and sudden conversion of such who have been grossly wicked, or scandalously vile: by grossly wicked, I mean such who have been taken aside with some loathsome abominations, though they carry it never so covertly, as your close [illegible], fornications, thefts, murders, continued forgeries of falsehood and injustice: by scandalously vile, I mean such who have continued in an open tract of professed opposition against the power of godliness: I say, the easy and sudden conversion of such, gives just ground of suspicion why they may question the truth of the work, and others justly suspect it, [illegible] their judgments be settled by sad proof, long experience, and that upon serious observation. It's not God's ordinary way, and therefore men should take more than ordinary trial before they trust, or in truth you trust [illegible] self. The proceeding of God in his word and providence, are according to the rules of wisdom, and the right order of causes and means, by which he has appointed to bring about his own will, and the work of his grace in the hearts of his. To save men per saltum is not God's usual way, that works of greatest weight and difficulty, should be done in so little time, and with so little labor and trouble, in other cases you would think it [illegible]; why should you judge the contrary reasonable in this, which is hardest, and the weightiest work of all other, unless you have more than ordinary warrant for it? When men grow rich of a sudden, and to a great estate, and those who observe their course, see neither ways nor means in reason how to raise it, each man concludes, it's not his own estate, but other men's stock that he braves it withal, for he is worse than nothing, or else he never truly came by it, so that a state sometime questions such. So here, when a man grows up to a great estate of grace, and no man can tell how; [illegible] so many quarters or years, he was as base a wretch as the earth bore, not fit to sit with the dogs of a man's flock, his carriage so refuse and vile, as that he was not fit for the society of moral men, that no man could tell how to believe his words, or to trust his dealing; and is he now of a sudden come to the top of religion? A sweet, godly, gracious man, fit to be made a member of a congregation; how came he to such a large measure of grace and godliness? Surely not as other men use to do, and therefore it's a great suspicion he came not truly by his grace, nor is he truly that he seems to be; great sins cost other men great sorrows; grievous scandals cost great grief of heart, great heart-breakings, humiliations and satisfactions: great grace and power against sin, great pains, and the highest strain of exactness in speeches and practices; they that knew and see the conversations of such, never saw nor knew any such matter; it's certain he, and all the Christians in the world, may justly question his uprightness, [illegible] yet he be not worse than nothing, if there were a true inventory taken of his estate in grace; out of the depth of profaneness to come to the height of holiness at unawares it's a work of delusion, not of true conversion to God. Trees that are planted in God's orchard, they take root downward, and then bring forth fruit upward: upstart Christians are like Jonah his gourd, grow [illegible] and [illegible] presently, flourish and fade, and all in a day. Untimely births are never true, nor yet of continuance; when an old sore is healed too hastily, it never proves sound, it's [illegible] over, [illegible] cured, festers inwardly, proves more grievous and dangerous than at the first: the skillful surgeon will tell you it must be searched, lanced, tented, before it attain its full and perfect cure. So it is with that cankered corrupt [illegible] of yours, who have lived and continued in those loathsome abominations which you have hugged in your bosom, it must be lanced by the cutting knife of the law, and the dreadful curse thereof, searched by the soul-saving preaching of the gospel, and daily tented with constant contritions and breakings of heart, otherwise know assuredly, that those hellish lusts of yours will imposthume within your soul, and in issue break out more loathsomely, and your latter end will be worse than your beginning. To find little or no hardness in that which in your reason you conceive and conclude to be the hardest work of all, how can you but suspect you are cozened and mistaken? Make it your own case in another thing, and be your own judge; [illegible] you enjoined to drain a quagmire, or a dirty rotten swamp, to fit it for the plough, and should any man seem to persuade it would cost but little time or labor, might easily be dispatched, you would scarcely with patience hear such an expression, as that which is expressly contrary to common sense, why should men speak of impossibilities, or think that men should conceive that reasonable that is against reason; not only trees felled, stubbed, removed, but the ground gained which is not arable, and all this in a short space with ease? Look now into your condition with this resemblance, and be your own judge; you have a dunghill heart, a soul like a dirty swamp, those hellish abominations which have taken up your mind, and will, and affections, in which you have continued, and to which you have been accustomed, so that your heart is like a standing puddle of profaneness, which have weakened and wasted the very faculties of your soul; so that your heart is not fallow ground, as the Prophet speaks — Plow up the fallow ground (Jeremiah 4) — it's not [illegible] ground, even abilities so wasted and disordered with your wretched and unreasonable lusts, and do you think that these abilities can be [illegible] easily, and your spirit made good soil, even a good and honest heart, without extraordinary power on God's part, and more than ordinary labor on yours. When the covetous young man that was glued to the world, and had his heart riveted in restless and immoderate desires after these earthly things; so that all the directions which our Savior gave, and the great offers he made of heaven and salvation, could not take off his affections, but he went away sorrowful; says our Savior, How hard is it for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; it's easier for a cable rope to enter in at the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of grace here, and glory hereafter (Matthew [illegible]:22-24). He spoke of one, it's true of all by the like proportion; how hard is it for a rich man, it's as true to say, how hard is it for a riotous, unclean, malicious, voluptuous, self-conceited, rebellious wretch; he that has scandalously continued in these, accustomed himself to these, how hard is it for such says the text. And do you find it easy? A holiday task, and a trifling labor, that which may suddenly be done without such trouble; either Christ is deceived, or you are mistaken; either the word fails, or your apprehension fails: whether the Scriptures or your conceit is to be believed, let your heart judge, unless you will be an atheist. The word in reason never wrought that work, nor will it give in evidence and approbation thereof. The Prophet Isaiah 46, last, describing a rebellious sinner, he thus speaks of him; Hearken you stout-hearted, who are far from righteousness. A man that has gone many years, and that with much speed and labor one way, which is downhill, to return to the same place when the way is more difficult, with a little time, and less labor, there is little probability, if possibility in reason. So here, you have hurried headlong in the ways of wickedness, have had full wind and tide, Satan's temptation, your own corruption, to carry you with mighty violence many years together in your [illegible] course, do you think suddenly and easily to [illegible] back? No, believe it, you must take many a weary step, send out many a heavy sigh, tug at it with continual prayers and tears, and the utmost improvement of all your [illegible], nay it will cost you hot water, the setting on before you see that day.

I read of a double expression: 1. Of the Devil's going out. 2. Of his casting out, [illegible]. 12:43, When the unclean spirit goes out, etc. which is done by [illegible] outward and serious reformation, and some sudden resolution wrought out of terror, to forsake such and such courses; this smokes Satan out of his house, etc.

COMFORT. This is ground of great support, and in truth of strong consolation, to shore up the hearts of forlorn and scandalous creatures, when they lie under the most direful strokes of God's heaviest displeasure. When the loathsomeness of their lives, and hellish abominations of their hearts are presented to their view, their consciences now accuse, and the Lord from Heaven by his infinite indignation encamps against them with armies of terrors, so that to their sight and sense there is nothing appearing but present ruin and confusion: Yet out of the strong, comes sweet; greatest safety issues out of the heaviest searchings and breakings of heart. Here is now ground of strong support to bear your [illegible] above all these devouring horrors, which like so many waves would overwhelm your soul. The more miserable you find your condition, [illegible] more comfortable it is. It seems a riddle, carries the appearance of contrariety and impossibility, and yet upon proof and trial, will prove an infallible truth. The heavier the blows be, which come from God's hand for those gross evils of yours, there is more probability of [illegible] serious intention of good to your soul: The greater your strokes are at present, the greater your hopes are of some spiritual relief and refreshing in future times. And there is no greater plague upon earth, hardly such another in hell, [illegible] a wretch should prosper in his wickedness and go suddenly down to the bottomless pit before he sees where he is. It was the carriage of a great commander in his time, yet marvelously sharp in the execution of military discipline, when a soldier had deserved death by martial law, if he seemed to smile upon him it was a messenger of death, and therefore his old soldiers that saw [illegible] manner of his proceeding, whenever he appeared to laugh they looked then for a doom, insomuch that an ancient follower of his coming before him for some miscarriage, his general carrying himself in a silent manner; he breaks forth in this manner. Good my Lord do not smile on me, for he then knew the [illegible] execution would be the next he should hear of. It is here most certain and so judge of it. If your carriage and your conscience likewise give in testimony of the loathsomeness and vileness of your corrupt conversation, that your behavior is detestable to any who have any spiritual discerning, yes to moral persons; if the Lord seem to smile upon you, not so much as check you in your scandalous way, know that the sentence of destruction is the next that is like to ensue (Matthew 23:34-35). I will send you prophets and apostles and some you shall kill and stone etc. that the blood of all the prophets may come upon you, fulfill the measure of your sins and so receive the fullness of the measure of plagues. [illegible] can you escape the damnation of hell (verse 32-33). 1 Thessalonians 2:15: The Jews both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, they please not God and are contrary to all men, to fill up their sins always, for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. When [illegible] have elbow room in their wretched ways, and are not crossed in their hellish corruptions, the wrath is come upon them to the utmost. This is the dregs of God's vengeance, the utmost of God's indignation, you can hardly be worse if not in hell. Whereas great heart-breakings for sin give in more than a little hope, and probability of good intended, see this in the several degrees of it, and all follow from the doctrine delivered.

It shows, poor forlorn wretch that you are in the way of mercy. God deals so with you as he usually does with those with whom he will deal well in the end, he has [illegible] left you to yourself and your sins, and ceased striving with you to stop you and recall you from your sinful course, as commonly he does when he delivers up a soul to the power of his corruption, with whom he intends no more to meddle (Isaiah 1:5). So he proceeds with the perverse and obstinate Jews, why should you be smitten any more, you fall away more and more; As the Father with the prodigal, my counsels cannot move you, my blessings allure you, all my corrections I have laid upon you do not reclaim you, take your course therefore, and so casts him out of his family, and takes no [illegible] care of him. But he whom he corrects most sharply for his faults, it is yet a pregnant evidence for the while that he purposes to keep him. This is the day of God's visitation, may be the last time of asking yet it is the time of [illegible] and grace and the date of mercy. God is yet wrestling with you as loath to leave you to the malice of Satan, and the power of your distempers, as he does with them that he purposes to do good to (Isaiah 6:9). When God would [illegible] people for [illegible], and devote and set them apart to destruction this is the way he takes: Go make the hearts of this people fat, fatness implies [illegible] brawny kind of stupidity, and senselessness of spirit. Then such persons are ripe and ready for destruction; when God plucks up the stake and gives a forlorn wretch the round rope, let him have his will; Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone (Hosea 4:17). He that is unjust let him be unjust still; he that is filthy let him be filthy still. Indeed this is that which casts a [illegible] beyond the compass of the compassions of the Almighty, when the Lord [illegible] he will not meddle nor make, he will have nothing to do with such vile creatures (Hosea 4:14). I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they [illegible] adultery, therefore the people that does not understand shall fall. But when God will take pains and trouble himself with such a rebel, has you upon the anvil, and bestows so much fire and so much melting, yet [illegible] is hope that he may make you a vessel of grace, and for the Lord's use.

There is some expectation that the work may prove more speedy and successful, as it is in the body, in old festered sores, he that ripples the skin, and lays easy salves, he will be long in doing a little, and yet fail at last, when he has done all, he that lances to the bottom, in reason is like to bring out the core, and to hasten the cure, both with speed and success; the stronger the physic stirs and works upon the humor, the sooner the patient recovers, and health returns with some stability and continuance. It is so in the soul, those old cankered lusts which have been of long continuance in a corrupt heart, some slight terrors or sudden flashes of God's displeasure, which may a little trouble the conscience and ripple the skin as it were, they pass away presently and leave the root of the distemper untouched, at the least not removed, so that the corruptions grow more fierce and violent, and so break out in a more loathsome manner than ever formerly. Whereas those direful and overbearing horrors, in a way of rational providence are of a more prevailing nature, to astonish the heart, shake the conscience of the wicked, and ransack the very core of those hideous corruptions, which have been long harbored and lodged within. Thus the Lord dealt with the revolting and apostatizing Israelites (Hosea 2:6-7): He hedged their ways with thorns and built a wall before them, and they shall seek their lovers and shall not find them, and then shall she say I will [reconstructed: return] to my first husband, etc. Had the hedge been so [illegible] and easy and the wall so low that they might have broken through the one or leaped over the other, she would have made a hard shift but she would have followed and found her lovers; but the hedge was made of thorns [illegible] and insufferable sorrows, and necessities unavoidable, not to be endured, not to be removed, and those wearied her out of all pretended delights she had formerly taken. This is the method that God [illegible] (Hosea 5:12, 14; Hosea 6:1): 1. First I will be a moth, 2. if that will not do I will be a lion, 3. if that will not do I will leave them and go to my place, withdraw his comforting and protecting presence; and then we hear [illegible]: Come, let [reconstructed: us] return to the Lord for he has torn and he will heal us; this did it.

This [illegible] way for our spiritual comfort is a special blessing if he be pleased to follow the [illegible] with his blessing. For it is a special means to bring in clearer evidence and [illegible] assurance both of the soundness of the work and the certainty of a man's good estate, all the days [reconstructed: of] his life, if the Lord be pleased to second these heavy breakings of heart with his blessing. For it is the nature of [illegible], when they are set in opposition to make each other appear more [illegible]. For a conscientious [illegible] to be made of a [illegible], [illegible] is so [illegible] a [illegible] especially when the dreadful expressions of God's displeasure have been so amazing in the eyes of all that have been the spectators and in a peculiar manner astonishing to the soul of the profane creature that has felt the arrows of the Almighty sticking fast in him, [illegible] he cannot be but restless before he gets relief and help, so he cannot but know it when he has gained it, the change is great and open, God's dispensation so glorious. This man is able to say, at such a time in such a place, by such a man, out of such a [illegible], the Lord was pleased to speak home to my heart to make known himself, myself and sin to myself, which caused my soul to die within me, in the sense of my vileness and misery, and from that time forward, followed me daily with fears and horrors, the venom of vengeance drinking up my spirits until in such and such a manner and by such means he was pleased to work my heart to his own terms, made me glad to seek him importunately, yes restlessly, and more glad to find him sealing up the truth of his free love by his own Spirit in the word of truth. This man can tell how he came by his grace, and can tell what to say and show for heaven, and happily unless it be through his own careless neglect may carry the assurance with him to his grave. Whereas such as the Lord does sweetly but secretly draw to himself, in an insensible and undiscernible manner, restrains them from common evils, trains them up under godly parents, religious government, good company and spiritual means of instruction, and so implants by little and little into the Lord Jesus, without their private knowledge or apprehension, however their estate is good, and their condition safe in itself, yet they gain little evidence or maintain little assurance thereof in their own hearts, but upon every turn are questioning and quarreling, doubting and staggering, touching their condition, whereas they that come to their grace by many and great troubles retain it commonly with great evidence. Thus Paul, when the Lord Christ had made a glorious conquest over his proud, rebellious and malicious heart, against the holy ways of his truth and [illegible], he could tell and did upon all occasions when the field was fought, how the Lord Christ got the day over his hellish distempered heart. Thus he relates God's dealing (Acts 26:10-15; Acts 22:1-14): And so issues, having obtained help of God I continue until this day thus it was, so it is; thus it was wrought, so maintained.

And though it be true I confess that no man should or will break his arm, that he may have it the stronger for the setting, or know how it is set; or therefore be careless to become scandalously vile, that God may be gloriously merciful: yet through the riches of mercy which makes our losses gains. The certainty of the assurance we find, does countervail and exceed the terrors and horror we felt. Give me the man who can say, I was blind but now I see; I know I was in prison but am now delivered; it is not delusion but a vision and real accomplishment of the work by the Almighty hand of God.

Lastly it is honorable for a poor scandalous wretch to be under such heavy breakings of heart, and therefore it should be comfortable to him. I rather mention this to stop the mouths of the refuse rabble of the world, and to show the desperate mistakes to which carnal reason carries us, out of the pride of our own spirits; we know that sin is [illegible] and shame loathsome, even to nature especially corrupt and proud, to be forced to acknowledge the one, to take the other. It appears very direful to the apprehension of all the sons of Adam. And therefore when the Lord is pleased to hold a scandalous wretch upon the rack and to make him roar out his wretchedness, vomit out his sin and take the shame he has deserved — his companions that have conversed with him, and his friends that have honored him, they are driven to their dumps in discouragement and discontentment, and cry out the man is undone, and curse the day that ever the minister came into the country, and blame his folly and silliness that he would attend to what he said and be troubled with anything he heard, to bring an everlasting blemish upon himself. No: I say there's no such matter. This is the greatest honor that yet ever befell him in this world, and will be a means of blessing to him in another. It is a shame to commit sin but not to have the heart breaking under the apprehension of it. Indeed it is an expression of God's favor and, as it may prove, a sign of God's special love, if it be rightly improved. God thus far honors a poor wretch that he will speak to him as he passes by. Should a prince that was provoked by the conspiracies and rebellions of many traitors, as he passed by, should he vouchsafe to send to, and call upon some one to reclaim him from his crew, and company and courses, and that upon very equal terms he might find acceptance and pardon and peace — when he will not so much as look after others, or change a word with them — would not this be accounted matter of marvelous respect from the king, and honor to the man? So here. As David begs favor from the Lord (Psalm 119:132): "Be merciful to me, and look upon me as you are accustomed to do to those who desire to fear your name" — he takes it to be the highest pitch of his happiness to be so dealt with. If God deal with you as with these, as he dealt with the jailor, as he dealt with Paul whom he made a choice vessel for himself, are you not highly honored? Why should God knock at your door and call in upon your conscience, etc.

Advice to ministers, whose place and calling it is, under the Lord, to deal with such persons under such diseases. Hence we may see a right way in holy prudence how to proceed with them, in the times of temptations and their saddest distresses of spirit. See what God does, and that we may do. As God deals so we may deal as the safest way and most likely to find [illegible].

When therefore we have fortified the heart with hope, in regard of the sufficiency of God's free grace, and possibility of relief from him — as that he is able to do excessive exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20) — as in desperate cures men use cordials to fortify against faintings of heart, that they may better bear the hardness of the cure: this being supposed, then the rule is. The sharpest recipes are most seasonable in a right manner of proceeding, and that in three things.

- 1 Be not slight in the searching. - 2 Be not too hasty to heal; - 3 Be not too suddenly confident of the cure.

Not slight in the search, for that is most dangerous, and an error here can hardly ever be recovered; go therefore to the quick, see the bottom, if ever you hope to make work of it, or to lend help indeed. He that cleaves knotty logs must have the sharpest wedges and hardest blows. Here pity is unseasonable and greatest cruelty. When out of [illegible] we are afraid to put men to pain, we increase their pains and hasten their destruction (Jeremiah 6:14): "they have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly." The Apostle teaches another way (Titus 1:13): "reprove them sharply that they may be sound in the faith." Sharp reproofs make sound Christians. He shows greatest love and mercy which follows the Lord in love and mercy. Indeed it is a course that procures most ease to the party; the corrosive that eats away the proud flesh brings soonest ease because that proud flesh and humors bring all the pain. So these dreadful overbearing threatenings abate the pride of the heart, and a man's perverseness, and so bring ease, for the waywardness of our own wills works our own woe, and here, not to trouble men's sins and consciences is indeed to trouble their peace and comfort in issue. Thus Samuel (1 Samuel 12:20): he lessens nothing of their sin, only sends them forth to mercy for relief. "You have indeed done all this wickedness, yet do not forsake the Lord."

Be not too hasty to heal the wound. More haste than good speed draws desperate inconveniences with it and may hazard their comforts while they live. Old and deep sores, as they have been long in gathering corrupt humors, so they must have a time to waste and wear them away, which will not be done in a moment; old stains must lie long in soak, and have many fresh washes before in reason they can be cleansed. So old distempers which have taken strong possession, and are of long continuance — perhaps if the cure be too hasty, it will hazard our comforts. The Israelites left war too suddenly with the Canaanites; they [reconstructed: made tributaries of] them, and did not destroy them; and they proved goads in their sides, which they could not get rid of all their days (Judges 2:3).

Be not suddenly confident of the cure. Let men be probationers in our apprehensions, let them proceed in a fearful and painful way to make proof of the inward disposition of their hearts, by their outward practices in a constancy of a holy conversation. As Solomon said of Adonijah (1 Kings 1:52), Let him show himself a worthy man. This creating of professors, making men Christians by our applause and approbation, because they have attained the under strokes of horror, skill and ability to holy services, proves the bane of their souls, the blemish of their profession, and a breach of their peace; either they have turned wretches again, or else have been overtaken with their carelessness, so that they have been foiled by gross falls, and hardly ever recovered their peace and comfort though they have taken off the scandal. Therefore as John the Baptist told them, if indeed you purpose to [reconstructed: flee] from the wrath to come, bring forth fruits worthy of amendment (Matthew 3:8), such as will carry weight, and fetch up the scales as it were, and undoubtedly evidence the work of grace.

Matter of Caution and Direction to such whom God has exercised with such heavy breakings of heart for their scandalous courses; beware you be not weary, and labor to make an escape from under the dispensation of the Lord, but give welcome to it; help forward the work, do not resist it, make way for the dispensation of the Lord, do not oppose it, and therefore possess your heart with a necessity of subjection to it. Why should you think to have an exception? Be rather fearful you should not find the truth of the work of these terrors, than that you should be fearful to endure these; if he will land you in Christ, he will toss you in this manner. As a patient having a [reconstructed: dangerous] wound, he enquires what the [reconstructed: physician] did to others, and how the salve did work upon others in his case, and if he find the salve and working be the same, he hopes that he also shall be cured. So here.

Exhortation. Improve the utmost of our endeavor to keep ourselves, and all ours from scandalous sins. Restraining grace is but common grace, yet is it a great favor of the Lord that he will curb and restrain a man; by this means the work of conversion is more easy, and such persons freed from dreadful terrors that seize upon others (Mark 12:34), You are not far from the Kingdom of God. [reconstructed: Let's] bring our children as near to heaven as we can, it is in our power to restrain them, and reform them, and that we ought to do: As it was the speech of a godly woman, she [reconstructed: desired] that all means might be used to restrain her children, that if it were possible their reckoning might not be so heavy as mine, [illegible].

A profane course cannot hinder the irresistible work of God's grace.

It's true, but though God may save your soul, yet he may scorch your soul in the flames of hellfire, and make you weary of your part, and of your lusts and all. Are there no terrors dreadful, but those of the torments of the damned in hell? Yes, you will find it, you may pay dearly for all your pleasures in sin, for all your fleshly lusts, before your hearts be brought off from them: therefore you that are parents, join your helping hands to this great and good work, beat down the stubbornness, do what you can to restrain the looseness and profaneness of the spirits of your children, though it's not in your power to bring them in, yet bring them as near to the Kingdom of God as you can, etc.

They were pricked in their hearts.

The last doctrine which is considered touching the work itself.

Sorrow for sin [reconstructed: rightly] set on, pierces the heart of the sinner through, that is truly affected with it.

They were pricked, not in their eyes to weep for their sins, so Esau could; not in their tongues only to confess their sin, so Judas did, I have sinned in betraying innocent blood; nor in their hands alone to reform it outwardly, so those apostates did (2 Peter 2:20), They escaped the pollutions of the world through the acknowledgment of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: but it reached their hearts, their souls bled inwardly: their souls were most guilty, and had the greatest hand in the commission of those bloody and execrable cruelties; the fountain of their sorrow, did rise as high as the beginning of their sin; soul sins, and soul sorrows.

Nor was the stroke slight, not the rippling of the skin, a lighter touch, a sudden pang, a sigh and away; in fact, not only lanced and gashed, the rotten abscesses of the corruptions of their hearts in a great measure, but ransacked the very root of the corruption, pierced the heart quite through; through and through again as it were, let out the core of the most inward, and most retired corruptions, that were lodged in their bosom and bottom of their hearts. And this work proceeded not from any power of their own, nor from the liberty and freedom of their wills, as that which they made choice of, and out of their own ability did readily put forth, but it was set on by the hand of the Almighty, in the entrance in which they were patients, went against the heart and hair, and wholly beyond their purposes and expectations: So the words are in the passive form; they were pricked, they did not prick themselves. In fact, certainly could they have told how to prevent it, how to remove it, or to procure any ease and relief to themselves, they would never have cried out as men in a maze, and astonishing straights of spirit, What shall we do? Thus God proceeds when he purposes to make a thorough work. When God was purposed to set upon the revolting people of the Jews, and to bring them savingly home to himself (Hosea 13:4), so [illegible] carry it, according to the foregoing and following words, I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt, and there is no Savior besides me, verse 4, and blames also the stubbornness and folly of their spirits, not yielding so readily, and taking the advantage of God's dealing for their good, verse 13. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him, he is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children, that is, the Lord in mercy offers himself to the Israelites under their terrors as a midwife, that would make way for them out of their sins and sorrows. Now in this [illegible] of his towards the people to be converted, he professes, that he will meet with them [illegible] a bear bereaved of her whelps, he will rend the caul of their hearts, verse 8, the words are, the closure and shutting up of their hearts; sinners are shut up under the power of their distempers, as the Apostle says, all men by nature are shut up under unbelief (Romans 11:32), especially there be some closets and secret corners and conveyances of soul, wherein the most sweet and delightful abominations are hugged and harbored: the Lord leaves not a poor wretch, if indeed he intend his good, before he breaks open those great depths, rests not before he come home to the root, and let out the heart's blood of your lusts, and then their death will undoubtedly follow.

And hence it is this sorrow is compared to such as enter into the very inwards of nature, and sinks the soul with unsupportable pressures: when that great conversion and return of the Jews to the entertainment of the Gospel shall be brought about by the Lord. The Prophet sets forth the greatness of that sorrow of theirs, under a double similitude. First, (Zechariah 12:10) They shall mourn for him, as the mother mourns for her only son, and for her firstborn: the mourning of a tenderhearted mother for her son, her firstborn, and for her only son, he adds all degrees of grief: if she had possessed many, she might more easily have wanted one, or at least parted with it; or had it been any but her firstborn which had the first of her strength, and the first of her love, yet she might have borne it with more quietness: but when all these meet together, her life and comfort is wrapped up in the life of the child, the mourning becomes unmeasurable, fills the heart as it were. Secondly, It shall be like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon, when all Israel lamented the death of their good Josiah, the light of their eyes, the breath of their nostrils, the comfort of their souls (2 Chronicles 35:25). Therefore the original words which lay open this work, are of marvelous weight, and discover the overpowering virtue thereof, (Isaiah 57:18) The Lord dwells with him that is of a contrite spirit. (Isaiah 61:6) The Lord binds up the broken heart. The first of which signifies to pound to powder, and to bring to small dust; it is so used, (Psalm 90:3) You bring man to the dust of death, again you say, return you children of men. That as the hardest stone when it's broken all to small pieces, and powder as it were, it's easy and yielding under the touch of the hand, whatever ruggedness and resistance was in it before. So it is with the soul that is pounded to powder, so that there is not any unbroken, or any whole part to be found there, no soldering in any secret manner with any retired distemper; but the weight of godly sorrow has shattered all asunder, distress of conscience has brought it to dust, parted all the privy closures with any particular of any distemper, all that knotty stiffness and perverseness of spirit in siding with any corruption is now taken off. The soul comes easily to give way to the authority of the truth, that would take any sinful lust away. To the like purpose is that of Job (Job 23:16) when the armies of God's indignation had encamped against him, and the terrors of the Lord had drunk up his spirit; says he, God makes my heart soft, or has melted my soul; the word signifies a severing and separation of one thing from another, and is opposite to settling and fastening, making firm, stiff, and hard, as that of Pharaoh (Exodus 9, last verse) Pharaoh hardened his heart, his soul fastened by an invincible resolution to the sinful purpose of his malicious detaining and oppression of the Jews. When the fierceness of God's displeasure brought home by the breathings of the Spirit of God upon the soul, it makes it melt like wax before the fire, makes it easy to give way to the impression of the pleasure of the Lord, that his Spirit may take away any of those lusts that have been of [illegible] league with the heart. Hence lastly it is, that in the phrase of Scripture, the sinner is said to be in [illegible], or the soul to be embittered by God, when he is brought and held under the sense of the loathsomeness of his sins, and himself by reason thereof; so that all the sweet that his greedy heart takes in any pleasing lust, is wholly taken away. The physician observes, and reason teaches, that sweet things only nourish, but bitter things cleanse, the nature of the stomach abhors the presence of them, expels them, takes no pleasure therein, receives no nourishment therefrom. So with the sinner in his condition, when the Lord [illegible] out the bitterness of sin upon him, he can find no food relish, no delight in his former distempers, which he followed with that violence, and fed so eagerly upon, even to surfeiting in former times, they will not go down with him now. It's a dreadful thing now to him, to take the least taste of them by any serious consideration or remembrance, when formerly he could have made a meal of them by daily meditation, when wickedness was sweet in his mouth, and he hid it under his tongue, but now it's turned to the gall of asps, and he is not able to endure the poison and bitterness of it, but it makes him heartsick, in the sight and sense of it.

For the opening of the point, it will be needful to inquire after five particulars.

1. The manner how this sound sorrow seizes upon, or is brought in upon the soul. 2. How God sets it on, and makes the soul truly affected with it. 3. How far the sinner is, or may be said to be active in it. 4. What is the behavior of the heart under this stroke, being truly affected. 5. The reason, and then the use.

To the former of these:

The manner how this sorrow is brought in upon the soul.

It is threefold in God's ordinary dispensation, (reserving exceptions, as he sees fit in his own infinite wisdom.)

It is either successively, and by degrees; suddenly, and at once; or insensibly to the heart of the sinner who receives it.

Successively, when the Lord would leave the track and footsteps of his faithfulness and truth upon record to the observation of the wise-hearted, he then leaves plain impressions of the power of his grace and Spirit, [illegible] his proceedings with such as he [illegible] to bring effectually home to himself; that the goings of our God and King may be seen in the sanctuary, and in the souls of his servants, and it may be attended in these several degrees (Psalm 68:24).

First, the Lord lets in some unexpected flashes of spiritual truth, discovering the evil of sin in the general, and the dangerous conditions of such as stand guilty thereof, and continue therein, which were never considered, nor before that time conceived of, by him that has been an ignorant and careless hearer of the Word: who came to the means either by constraint, or custom, or complement in a way of course for company sake, never set price upon the means, nor attended to the truth and goodness thereof, and therefore the ordinances were as the waters that pass by, left neither power nor profit upon the soul. But now there is some evidence of truth which God so directs and darts in, that it flashes like lightning into his face, leaves a kind of amazement upon his mind, and like a sudden blow frightens the [reconstructed: spirit] of the sinner, so that he begins to stagger, and is driven to give some attendance to that of which he never took notice before, not knowing well [reconstructed: what] to make of himself, nor yet of that which he heard, only he is forced to observe something he never formerly regarded. Hence therefore [reconstructed: arose] a confused kind of tumult and lumber of thoughts within himself, he begins to be in a muse what such things mean, where they tend, is at a loss with himself, and knows not which way to take; I never heard so much as now, if all be true that I have heard, and the Minister has preached; there is more in sin than ever I imagined, and my condition more miserable than ever I did conceive. This bewildering of spirit drives him to make inquiry, the things seem strange, he begins to search [reconstructed: whether] they be true or no. So they to Paul, disputing concerning false worship, and their idolatrous practices (Acts 17:19-20): You bring strange things to our ears, we would know therefore what these things mean. So it was with Paul at his first bringing home to God (Acts 22:6): There shone a great light from Heaven about him, and he heard a voice, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? The thing was strange, but what it was he could not tell, and therefore he makes yet further inquiry, Who are you, Lord? As the poor woman having heard the Minister preach out of that text (Isaiah 27:11): They are a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them, will not [reconstructed: save] them: he that created them, will not show mercy to them. It came so directly cross to her own conceivings, that she repaired to one of her neighbors, to know whether those words were in the Scripture yes or no, and what those Scriptures were: for she said, If he that made us will not save us, Lord be merciful to us, who will? who can? So these sudden dazzlings and dartings in of the truth, force men to fall on questioning; inquire they do, come they will, resolve to hear more of those strange novelties; and the greater search they make, the greater certain truth they perceive, the law peremptory, the Word plain, threatenings certain, and the Lord just, his sin most heinous, and his condemnation certain and approaching, so that he cannot tell how to avoid it, or how to bear it.

Hence fear surprises him forthwith, pursues him [reconstructed: with] a [reconstructed: fearful] expectation and [reconstructed: dread] of what [reconstructed: will] befall him; I know what I have deserved, and I hear what the Word has threatened against such, and I know God is true, and cannot deny his Word nor himself, and he is just, and cannot but execute in his time what has gone out of his mouth, has not all ages manifested this? The experience of all men proved it undeniable? Did ever any provoke the Lord and prosper (Job 9:4), and can I in reason expect it should be other and better with me, than it was with any that was ever before me? Can I be so foolish to think that God should send another Christ, devise other Scriptures, make a new causeway, or a back door to bring such a wretched rebel as I am to Heaven, contrary to his own Word and will? God has said, Woe to the wicked, it shall go ill with him; who can say the contrary, and who can expect but he will accomplish what he has said? The Word excepts no man; what folly is it then that I should except myself? (2 Thessalonians 2:12) That all they might be damned that have pleasure in unrighteousness; if I take the same pleasure, I must look for the same plagues. (Luke 13:5) Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish: if I be in that condition, I must expect the same condemnation, and be likewise accursed and confounded, and cast out from the presence of the Lord. It is certain it will be so, and it is uncertain how soon it may be: What if God does? Who knows but God will? What if God should pluck me out of the land of the living? I may truly, justly suspect it may be so, and fear it will. When I lie down, I shall never rise more; when I go forth, I shall never return more; when I depart from the house, I should take my leave and never see Sabbath more, nor the assembly of the saints more: why may not my meat be my poison? my table my ruin? my bed my grave? all creatures instruments of death to me, who have been an enemy to God. So that their hearts begin to fail them for fear (Luke 21:26). Thus the [reconstructed: sinner trembles] under the [reconstructed: weight] of his [reconstructed: guilt] (Acts 19:27). Adam at the coming of the Lord into the garden feared and fled (Genesis 3:10). This is the fruit of the spirit of bondage (Romans 8:15), and the distressed sinner becomes as Pashur a terror to himself (Jeremiah 20:3-4). The flying of a [reconstructed: bird], the [reconstructed: rustling] of a leaf, the shadow of darkness and approach of the night like the shadow of death; he knows not but the devils may have received a commission this night shall they [reconstructed: snatch] away your soul [reconstructed: from] you, and drag it down to hell.

While the sinner is fearing the evil that is deserved, behold the feet of the officer now approaching to see present execution, and therefore the Lord in the third place puts a commission into the hand of Conscience, really to attach and arrest the soul of a sinner, to fasten all those curses upon the soul, and to force it to feel the venom of those punishments, which were formerly threatened and feared. That as it was said to Belshazzar when he was carousing in his cups, and bowls of the Sanctuary, and the handwriting came out against him: the appearance of it frightened him with the expectation of some direful evil; but the present execution of it ushered in ruin upon him and his Kingdom (Daniel 5:28, 30). So the Prophet, to you be it spoken, you are weighed in the balance and found too light, your Kingdom is departed from you. So Conscience as God's officer comes to see execution done, and therefore comes authorized as a sergeant to arrest, as a witness to accuse, as a judge to condemn; tells the soul you are weighed in the scales of the Sanctuary, and found too light, your doom is past, your destiny is determined, your sentence set down, and your salvation is departed from you, that which you did fear is now befallen you, and you must feel it to your woe (Psalm 140:11). Wickedness hunts the wicked man, but it overtakes them also. If Conscience condemns, God is greater than our Conscience and he condemns much more. His iniquities lay hold upon him so that he is not able to look up (Psalm 40:14). You have feared the punishment of sin before man, and have not [illegible] to commit sin before God, and thus you have sealed up your condemnation casting away the goodness of the Lord. If you do evil, sin lies at the door (Genesis 4).

From this flows the fearful expression of the displeasure of the Almighty, the dreadful wrath of the Eternal, like the mighty waves of the sea, overwhelm and sink the soul of the sinner in desperate discouragement.

There are 2 things in sin: first, the [reconstructed: stain] of it, and second, the punishment that comes from it — the stain in it and the sting and tartness of it, contrary to me, and contrary to God; contrary to my honor and shames me, contrary to my quiet and peace and troubles me, contrary to my safety and destroys me. And this second, the sinner is first most sensible of; the plague of sin first stings and stabs the heart. Because nature seeks its own preservation, and self-love carries all men readily and easily to provide for their own safety; and here sorrow begins usually when the Lord by the ministry of Conscience awakened, encamps about the sinner with all the curses of his righteous law broken; besieges him with the armies of his indignation and his fierce wrath follows him at every turn. So that now [reconstructed: wherever] he is, whatever way he turns himself, his sins and plagues compass him about, on every side; if he look to heaven, he sees a just God there ready to destroy him, before him are his sins ready to accuse him, within him nothing but guilt to condemn him, below him hell opening her mouth prepared to receive him, and the Devils at [illegible] to torment his wretched [illegible] as soon as it [illegible] depart out of his body. And [illegible] behold [illegible] pale [illegible], those weak hands, and feeble knees that the poor creature becomes not worth the ground he goes on, [illegible] himself and weary of his life. The Lord dishes out his sins and plagues to him on the table where he [illegible], writes them upon the canopy of the bed where he lies; his pressures and miseries become unsupportable and insufferable: and were it not that God sustains with one hand as he beats him with the other, a wounded Conscience no man can bear. From this it is that in such horror men betake themselves to the pit, to the knife, to the halter, rather choosing not to be, than to be so miserable. In these perplexities the sinner as a man under his burden would shift shoulders, try all conclusions, turn every stone, wind every way, if any way he could get ease or relief. And if the counsel of carnal friends can lessen the trouble, company allay it, false reasonings of his own vain mind abate it, time and continuance wear out the terror, his confessions and reformations put in bail upon his Conscience, and quiet it, or some false mistakes of pardon, and mercy heal the wound — (he walks in a wily way how to serve sin and yet God too, how to keep in with the truth upon some fair terms and yet attend his own ends) — the man is where he was, returns to his old sinful distempers, and the latter end proves worse than the beginning, he dies in the birth (Proverbs 18:14; Matthew 12:45). Thus millions of men perish, go within the view of Canaan, and never possess it, cast away in the very haven, within the sight of land, and never arrive.

But he whom God loves he will not leave here; and though his hand be upon the sore, and his eye upon the sting and terror, the plagues and judgments that are daily before his eye, the Lord will force him to look further, to see and feel something more, and worse than ever yet he found, before he have done with him; therefore he makes the wound deeper, rests not before he be at the root of the heart quite through, comes to the very quick and sees the bottom. Hence the Lord leads the soul from the terror and sting of sin, to view the stain and filth of it, which was more dear to the soul than its own [illegible], and yet worse to the soul than all the misery and vexation that could befall it. Open here a little; there is something in the will above the natural or physical being of it, look at its being merely as it arises from the power of those natural principles, of which its made; there is something above these and so better than these, to which these are subject and subordinate; namely those divine principles of grace which were at the first imprinted upon it, and by which those natural abilities should be carried beyond their physical being to close with God and so attain an eternal, and in that [illegible] a supernatural happiness. I say in that sense supernatural though it was Naturae debitum, because Adam should not, or rather could not please God, put forth such a divine act out of the faculties of understanding and will, for then the [illegible] in Hell now might please him, for their natural faculties still remain, but it was as they were acted and carried by the image of God, wisdom, holiness and righteousness that were bestowed upon them. So that these principles of grace in the will, were above the will, and better than the natural being of it.

Since the fall of Adam original corruption is come into the place and room of that original righteousness, and by a sovereignty of power takes possession of the heart and will so (and so the whole man) rules it, carries it, captivates it, in subjection and subordination to itself. So that to a son of Adam now in the state of sin, corruption exercises a sovereign power and command over the will, and is better to the sinner than his natural being, corrupt self is of more power, and more near and intimate to the soul than natural self. Hence the soldier will rather lose his life than take the lie, he will fight for it, and die for it, his honor is nearer to his heart than his being. Thus the ambitious among the heathen; the desire of vain glory among the Jesuits, that they may be canonized for saints, makes them put their necks into the halter; and a corrupt heart will lose Christ, and ordinances and safety and life and all rather than not satisfy his own humor. So Saul, kill me that it may not be said the uncircumcised slew me — after he had been dead he would never have felt the disgrace, but his ambitious humor was more dear than his blood.

When the blow reaches here then you are come to the root of the heart, and the heart is pierced quite through when the heart and the power of corruption are parted. Therefore when the Lord intends to make thorough work with a poor wretch whom he has upon the rack, in his horror and perplexities there he holds him; he shall not go or get from there before he go further and forces the sinner to further consideration; If it be so why am I thus, you look upon hell and the torments of it as loathsome and fearful, what are your sins then that deserve these, you view your plagues which are direful and insufferable, what are your sins then that procure these, says the Lord. (Psalm 107:17) Foolish men are plagued because of their transgressions. (Psalm 38:8) there is no quietness in my bones by reason of my sin. (Jeremiah 4:18) your sins and iniquities have brought these, therefore your wickedness is bitter, because it reaches to the heart. Here the Lord brings and here keeps the soul; my sins are before me. (Psalm 51:3) he leaves the thoughts of his punishment and turns his eye to the power of his distemper, and the distance that they work between God and his soul. Here Satan bestirs him that he may darken the way of the distressed sinner and deceive him by some wily fetch; And therefore he devises how he may shift shoulder, and change his habitation, and not be thrust wholly out, And therefore he is well content to gratify the sinner here, that he should look upon some sin that is attended with shame, and loathsome to the light of nature to the dictates of the common principles of natural conscience, and there he will suffer him to lay on load and to follow it with great fierceness and indignation that so when the heart is come to a calm, and the storm is over he may take aside with some lesser evils that he may but color them over with the pretense of religion. Thus many men have changed their special corruptions, not truly parted with them, and for the while have fallen short of this thorough sorrow. The Devil does with sin as great men with their houses, they have their winter houses and their summer houses, and they remain there where they have most convenience and suitability; so when a man's special sin of his constitution has fallen, and the parties have conceived the day is theirs, their hearts have been truly broken; when the Devil only alters his habitation, they grow to be disobedient servants and sharp wives and that under pretense of religion; the servant must go pray when he should go to work, his Master is a carnal man: the wife contrary and perverse, her husband wants the power of religion, why should she look at him? And this upon my own knowledge, has discovered the [illegible] and has been a means to many to begin again, and to make thorough work, therefore the Lord follows the soul afresh, that it must feel sin as sin and therefore every sin and else none truly. Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things written in the law (Galatians 3:10). There must not be great breaches, but no breaches, not gross sins but no sin, that God will bear or we should keep; do you not know, says Saul to Jonathan, that as long as the son of [reconstructed: Jesse] remains alive, you will never be established (1 Samuel 20:31)? So conscience to the soul that as long as the league and life of any of these distempers [reconstructed: continue], do you not know, you will never, you can never be established in the kingdom of grace. In fact the sinner begins now to reason with himself why was I born, why came I into the world? Wherein consists my good or what is my happiness? Is it not to please God, to be one with him, and happy in so being; should I carry this proud stubborn, rebellious heart to heaven with me, heaven would be a hell to me, and I a devil in it. Now however this work be thus punctually in the several parts of it discovered, and however it is even in special distances many times thus also stamped upon that soul. Yet the Lord does not bind himself to leave such plain tracks and footsteps of proceedings with a poor [illegible] at all times, and therefore we must not limit the holy one of Israel to be at our allowance and liking, or confine him to the compass of our conceits and desires. Therefore it pleases the Lord to dispense himself in a various manner in dealing with various sinners, and those we shall add in a word.

Sometimes then in the second place, the Lord suddenly sets on the blow, and leaves mighty and prevailing impressions at the very present, speedily and unexpectedly goes through stitch with the work, pierces the soul through at one thrust. Sometimes at one sermon, may be in the handling of one point, nay some one sentence, or some special truth, the Lord is pleased to arm it and discharge it, with mighty power and uncontrollable evidence, that it astonishes and shivers the heart of the sinner all in pieces; as it is in the [illegible] of a piece it may be one scattered shot or splinter hits and kills when all the rest miss; so with the splinter of a truth when directed aright, God lets in so much of the amazing beauty of his own holiness and purity, the dreadfulness of his displeasure, and the infinite opposition in himself to the least corruption, and consequently that abhorred [illegible] in the nature of sin even the smallest, that look as it is with terrible thunder and lightning, it melts all before it, and that most where there is opposition against it — even the league that is between the heart and the lust — soaks into the very root of the soul; and hence under such a sudden thunderclap, such mauling blows now and then, the sinner dies and faints away under it in the very place where he sits, sometimes roars out as one that has received his death's wound in his bosom, and that he has heard his doom, and was delivered up into the hands of the Devil ready to drop into the dungeon, and to be carried post to the bottomless pit; and such soul-sinking and confounding terrors, which takes off a serious and judicious consideration of the [illegible] assaulting, they vanish away for the most part and come to little or nothing when the tartness of the horror is once allayed. But sometimes lastly the sinner takes in the truth kindly and contains himself, has his load as much as his heart can bear, for the while as much as [illegible] and soul can hold together, goes away, droops and buckles under his burden, steps into a solitary place and hangs the wing as a fowl that is shot; the saving truth thus set on lies gnawing and eating at the heart blood of a sinner (as aqua-fortis does in iron) leaves it not until it eats asunder the league between the lust and the heart. Thus this lively truth in the soul like strong physic in the bowels walks up and down the world with a man, is working night and day, he cannot avoid the evidence and light of it, he cannot lessen nor hinder the operation of it. Now he questions with this or that Christian, then resolves to speak to such a minister and to reveal his whole condition and to crave his counsel; he is often going and turns back again, almost at the door and yet goes away again, sometimes enters into speech and his heart misgives him, he pretends another [illegible] and departs again; all this while the soul bleeds inwardly, the truth is stirring, and the physic working, till at last it over-bids the darling distemper, then the coast is clear, the heart grows to more liberty and his speech more free. Thus Paul expresses God's manner of proceeding with the Corinthian convert (1 Corinthians 14:29): when the word is dispensed in plainness there comes in one unlearned and unbelieving, he is convinced of all and judged of all — that is, the evidence of the word convinces him and judges him and his [illegible] — and it follows the secrets of his heart are made manifest, those retired and private haunts of sin in the soul are discovered, so he will fall down and say God is in you of a truth. He saw more of God, and his majesty and purity, more of his own sin and the filthy puddle of his own distempers; it was the wisdom of God to discover those hidden things of darkness, and brought the loathsomeness of them to light; it was the holiness [illegible] of God that shows the heinous and hellish poison thereof; it was the power of God that did conquer the prevailing dominion of these distempers to which the heart was subject. And this was the Lord's dealing with Paul, he assaults the main hold and strength of his rebellion, and drives him at the first dash as it were to look where the loathsomeness of his evil lay. Saul, Saul why do you persecute me? I am Jesus: you persecute that Jesus that came to redeem you, oppose that grace that would sanctify and bring you to glory, trample upon that blood that would free you from the guilt and curse which you have brought upon yourself. Thus lastly it was with Job in that new conversion (as I may say) that the Lord worked in him (Job 42:4-5): I have often heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you, I abhor myself in dust and ashes; when God lets in a sight of himself, and a sight of [illegible], from there the soul begins not to abhor his plagues and punishments which the other feels or fears, he abhors not Hell and the torments thereof, but abhors himself, the pollutions, and impurity of his own soul, which are worse than all the everlasting burnings of the bottomless pit. And hence is that phrase (Ezekiel 36:32): They shall loathe themselves, not their miseries, though they were more than they could bear; not their judgments, though heavier than they could endure, but they loathe their own souls, the hellish exorbitances, swervings and departures of heart from God, that they had held any connivance or correspondence with their lusts.

Lastly, God's manner of [illegible] is sweet and secret, and works insensibly [illegible] spirits of such who do receive it, when and [illegible] to [illegible] infinite wisdom, whose [illegible] (Romans 11:33).

He can and does sometimes [illegible] the soul in the [illegible], as it is commonly conceived he did John the Baptist (Luke 1:44).

Many times he begins to tamper and trade with the spirits of his, when they are young and tender, and their years few, drops in some grain of the immortal seed of the word, which takes root by the powerful operation of the Spirit, and grows up with them as they grow in years (2 Chronicles 34:3). While Josiah was yet young, [illegible] eight years old he began to seek after the God of his fathers, and declined not to the right hand, or to the left. So the Lord seemed to deal with Joseph, and to reveal himself to him, and to Samuel very young, at about fourteen years.

Sometimes God keeps his own by the strokes of his common graces, restraining from scandalous evils, and constraining by means appointed and blessed to that end, the holy [illegible], the counsels and examples of godly parents, the society of such who are [illegible], the power of the ordinances under which they are bred and brought up, toling and tilling of their [illegible] and affections by many moral persuasions, to the love and liking of the excellency of a holy course, which he knows how to present, and by which to [illegible] out the exercise of all those moral abilities they are endowed with, and at the last insensibly, and yet truly [illegible] them off from the root of old Adam, and implants into the [illegible] Vine Christ Jesus; Lydia and Zacchaeus are precedents of God's proceeding in this case; hence it is that many a godly man and true convert, never knew the time of his conversion, only he knows he was blind, and God has brought him to see the wonders of his way and truth.

Only a threefold caution is [illegible] to be attended.

Though the manner of God's dealing be diverse, and degrees of this work of contrition differ in most, [reconstructed: yet] the nature and substance of the work is really and truly wrought in all that are effectually called out of the world, themselves, and sins to the Lord Jesus; as shall after appear when we come to give in the evidences of the point in hand; only now it shall suffice to propound these two places, [reconstructed: Malachi] 3:1. Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way [reconstructed: before] me, and the Lord whom you [reconstructed: seek] shall suddenly come into his temple; and this preparation his harbinger John Baptist discovers (Luke 3:5). Every mountain shall be brought low, and the valleys filled, crooked things made straight, and rough things plain, and then all [reconstructed: flesh] shall see the salvation of the Lord. And the evidence [reconstructed: of] this appears in the question they made, What shall we do? It's God's way of entertainment which himself prescribes (Revelation 3:2). Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man will open the door, I and my Father will come in to him, and sup with him. Unless the door be opened, there is no expectation of Christ's coming and supping: now all men are shut up under unbelief, and so the power of their sins; the opening of the heart is the loosening of the soul from the league of these lusts, which is done by contrition; true, a man may pick the lock, or break the lock, open the door and lift up the latch gently, or else unhinge it with violence and noise, that all the house and all the town may hear, but it's opened both ways.

Though a man truly called, happily cannot tell the time of his conversion, yet every one should, and if gracious, he can give such proper and special evidence, such never failing and infallible fruits of this work, that they may undoubtedly discover to others, and ascertain to his own soul, that the stroke is struck indeed, that he has been called out of the world, and from darkness to his marvelous light, that the Lord has broken his heart kindly, or else he cannot [illegible] he will ever bind him up with his saving and healing compassions.

It's a safe way to view over these primitive and first impressions of the Lord upon the soul, and a principle of grace received to renew and act over daily these first editions, and spiritual dispositions imprinted upon the heart: they were first [reconstructed: stamped] upon us but after grace received, they may and should be [reconstructed: renewed] by us, we should act them over again. This is the advice and direction which our Savior so seasonably and so sadly leaves upon record upon the conscience of his disciples: When Peter was [reconstructed: warned] of his fall and denial of his Master, he also leaves this receipt with him, [illegible] his recovery after the wound taken, When you are converted, strengthen your brethren (Luke 22:32). Peter was converted before, and called effectually to Christ, and by faith made one with him; and this faith he did not, nay could not lose, for Christ prayed his faith should not fail: but in our falls, there is a weakening and blemishing of this work of conversion, and an aversion in some measure left upon the soul, therefore we should labor a new conversion, that is, renew and act over the work of conversion, be broken hearted, humbled, drawn to Christ afresh; and as necessary as the renewal of the act of faith, is the repairing and renewing of these acts also, for there is no going to Christ, if we go not out of sin and self. Hence again our Savior, when he would take off and reform that ambitious humor which had vented itself among the disciples, when each man strove to be highest, one at the right hand, another at the left, the rest they disdained this [illegible] pang; our Savior applies this receipt to [illegible] this corruption (Matthew 18:2-3). Jesus called a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said to them, Verily I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. The disciples were called, and so converted, truly, savingly humbled, and yet they must renew and act over again these first impressions of the powerful operations of the Spirit of God, be broken hearted, loosened from your lusts as at the first, be abased and brought to nothing in your own sense and apprehension as at the first, be drawn to Christ as at the first; and there is more reason and greater necessity of this, than men are readily aware of. For,

A wound here is never recovered in any following work upon the soul, unless we go back, and begin again; miss here, and we miss all, spoil all our proceedings in progress of the work of grace. He that enters not at the right gate, the faster he goes, the further out of his way. Never loosened and divorced from the league with some darling lust, you cannot be espoused to Christ, therefore not called, therefore not justified, [reconstructed: nor] sanctified, nor glorified; your reformations are false, your peace counterfeit, and all your comforts you imagine you have, they are mere forgeries and delusions; you are fast in the devil's clutches as long as you have your sins, he has you at command. The metal that is not melted, there is no making, polishing, perfecting any vessel for any use with it.

Clear this, clear all, that is, we make way for the evidences that appertain to our comfort and spiritual condition in our whole course: mark all the recoilings of our consciences, the misgiving of our hearts, the staggering and doubting of the truth of God's work, or the assurance of God's love, they turn still upon this hinge, here they fortify; Oh the lusts I brought with me from my cradle, the old haunt of heart, the old sin, therefore I am the old man still. Here the main knot, and the great question remains still.

The looking over, and skillful discerning of these first impressions left upon us, may, indeed in truth will stand by us, and relieve us in the darkest days of our greatest distresses; and we may find some foothold here, when all the rest seem to be gone from us, to our own sense and apprehension. It is God's usual way many times to put his servant to it, as he tried Abraham, to make them sacrifice their Isaacs, even to burn the [reconstructed: tokens] and pledges he has given them for the [reconstructed: confirmation] of the covenant, and established their hearts therein. For Isaac was all the pledge that the Lord had given, that in his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed: now he commands him to cast his evidence into the fire, brings him to his beginnings (Genesis 22:1-2). So the Lord does often with his: enlargements fail, the heart is dead, their graces bedridden, their peace disturbed, their assurance gone; so that they find nothing, feel nothing in their own sense and apprehension, all is in the ashes; God begins with them upon the bare board, as we say, they sit down with a heart yielding and melting, a heart burdened with sin, though it cannot disburden itself, a heart loosened from his lusts, willing that God should remove them, though he cannot subdue them.

The second thing to be opened is,

How God sets on this sorrow, and makes the soul to feel sin its greatest evil, when naturally it finds greatest content in it.

Or,

How it is possible that the soul [reconstructed: being] wholly possessed with sin, can be made to feel the weight of sin as to be severed from it, where there is no room for a habit in the subject, there can be no work of a habit; for habits of grace and sin work so far as they be in their subject, and have [reconstructed: influence] from the subjects in which they be: corruption must be in the heart, before it carry and command the heart; grace must be in the soul, before it can act and quicken the soul to its work. Now how the soul should come to feel, and be loosened from its corruption, when there is nothing in it but corruption, when God comes to work upon it, how does God bring this about?

If by sorrow a man be [reconstructed: loosened] from sin, then it must have this [reconstructed: sorrow] before it be loosened, because it is an effect of it. If so, then it must have a gracious frame, and be possessed with the presence of grace, when it is wholly possessed with sin, which cannot be.

I answer: In these secrets and depths of God's spiritual dispensations with the souls of men, we must learn to be wise to sobriety, and adore the ways of God which are too wonderful for us; and if any paths of his providence in an ordinary course are beyond our ken, and past finding out, I suppose his dealings with the consciences and hearts of men in their conversion are some of the chief. It is of our natural birth David speaks (Psalm 139): I am fearfully and wonderfully made, much more may it be said of our new birth: the wise man (Ecclesiastes 11:5) says, [reconstructed: as] you know not the way of the Spirit, [illegible] do grow in the womb of her that is with child, so you know not the [reconstructed: work] of God, nor of his Spirit, how he fashions the frame of the mind and heart of him he will bring home to himself; curious we should not be, careless we must not be. I shall leave therefore some such [reconstructed: general] expressions, so far as my light goes, and occasion the judicious to consider further, for the further clearing of God's work.

That which I shall say here for the answer and explication of the second thing, I shall cast into [reconstructed: certain] conclusions, [reconstructed: as] I conceive that is [reconstructed: the] easiest and most open way to help the weak.

In a right sense it [reconstructed: may] be truly said, that sin is truly cross and opposite to the nature of the soul, and the greatest evil that does or can [reconstructed: befall it]: I say, opposite to the nature of the soul in a right [reconstructed: sense]; look at the soul in respect of the end for which it was created, and that impression which is [reconstructed: stamped] and left upon it to this day, whereby it is restlessly carried in the search, and for the procurement of that good for which it was made, though it [reconstructed: knows not] the right [reconstructed: nature] of what it is, and falls short in the [reconstructed: attainment] of it. The soul was made for [reconstructed: a high] end, and good, and therefore for a better than itself, therefore for God, therefore to enjoy union with him, and communion with those blessed excellencies of his, so far as they are communicable, and it were capable; this impression remains still upon the soul, though the work thereof is wholly prejudiced, and it itself disappointed wholly of that good which would satisfy the desires thereof, and it misses. [reconstructed: Now] being possessed with sin, the judgment is blinded and deluded that it mistakes utterly, and perceives not this good, and so pursues other things in the room of it, yet restless and unsatisfied in what it has, and attains, but it has not that for which it was made; thus Paul speaks of the Romans (Romans 2:14): being without the law, they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience excusing or accusing; this ever appears in the heart corrupt, I was for a [illegible]; the ambitious man he seeks his [illegible], [illegible] man the world, [illegible] gets the booty, and yet is not [illegible] in that which he gets; I [illegible], and [illegible] which should [illegible], and yet [illegible] does not satisfy. And [illegible] they know no [illegible] of these, and are not satisfied with these, therefore they are [illegible] carried after more of these vain [illegible], [illegible] honor, more wealth, more [illegible]; the [illegible] blinded [illegible] the [illegible] and [illegible] with them, [illegible] by what light, [illegible] is carried to no other by the power and principles it has. This is the reason the Apostle Peter gives, why carnal hearts [illegible] see spiritual [illegible] (2 Peter 1:9): because they are blind; and cannot see [illegible] things are far [illegible], and blind men [illegible] reach [illegible], [illegible] they [illegible] the light, help, and [illegible] the [illegible], and the [illegible].

Hence the reason follows.

That which crosses the end and good of the soul for which it was made; that is so far contrary to the nature of the soul and the greatest evil that can befall it.

But sin as such, and such, and that only crosses the end and greatest good of the soul.

If sin in the venom and pollution of it were discovered, and brought home effectually to the nature of the soul, it might be made sensible thereof and deeply affected and burdened therewith; this follows undeniably from the former. That which carries the crossness of the greatest evil to the nature of the soul — were it but so seen, did it but so act upon the soul — it would affect it with the greatest grief and burden; for sorrow in all the proportions of it issues from these two grounds. A crossness of an evil truly apprehended by the judgment, and the venom acting really upon us; where these are in a greater or lesser measure, there sorrow is greater or less; upon this ground the Apostle evidences the grief and burden of the creature (Romans 8:22): For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now, and that because it was made subject to vanity, and this is their vanity because their end is crossed, and so their good is hindered: for whereas it is their desire to serve such as may serve God, when they serve the humors and corruptions of carnal men, they become vain and miss their end, and so their good, and this is, as it were, a grief to them. Were the venom of sin but discovered and acted upon the nature of the soul it could not but groan under the evil and vanity thereof as that which wholly deprives it of its end and good.

While the soul stands fully under the power of corruption, possessed with it and acted by it, it is not possible it should apprehend the evil of sin, nor the nature of the soul taste the venom thereof. Sin carries no crossness of opposition of evil to itself, and therefore [illegible] disquiet to itself, [illegible] so no separation from itself. But sin wholly possessing and wholly acting the soul it makes the mind and heart apprehend, not according to the nature of the soul and impression left upon it when created, but according to the distemper by which it is possessed and carried. So did they to Samuel (1 Samuel 8:19), they said, no, but we will have a King; (Jeremiah 18:12) so they to Jeremiah: we will walk every one in the imagination of his own heart. Give the sick man the most pleasant potion — though the physician profess it, and give reasons, and others by experience find it so — he no sooner tastes it but he puts it away, as that which is exceeding bitter, because his taste is corrupted, and tongue furred with the foulness of his stomach; he relishes the drink not according to what they say and what it is, or what the natural constitution of the palate would persuade, but what his distemper which now possesses and disorders his taste tells him. So it was with Judas, though he was told before, that it were better he had never been born, that would not do the deed — his covetous heart found another relish; indeed, when he flung away his money out of vexation, yet he relished his murder still, and therefore hanged himself. And this is the reason why they who sin against the Holy Ghost, even against the evidence of reason, the corruption of their heart relishes other than reason tells.

The Lord Christ by the irresistible power of his Spirit does countermand the authority of sin; makes it appear that its commission has come to an end, the date of it is expired. Namely, sin after Adam withdrawing himself received a commission from divine justice, that [illegible] the soul would not be ruled by him and his law; it should be possessed and acted by corruption; the date of the commission lasts until the Lord Jesus the second Adam who [illegible] for the sinner comes by covenant to take the soul to himself; and then he appearing in this behalf, sin is forced back, and not to exercise her power, and then the evil of sin is brought home to the soul and set on with the full venom of it, and the nature of the soul is made sensible of it — I say made sensible and deeply affected therewith. This, I think, is the binding of the strong man (Matthew 12:29), whereby the Devil's armor — that is his commission by virtue of which [illegible] holds the soul — is taken away from him; stop the sluice and stream that drives the mill, and then you turn the wheel another way, which otherwise while under the source of the stream cannot be stirred. Thus God commands the soul to return from iniquity (Job 36:10). And if he does but stop the commission for a sudden turn, then there may follow a taste which such as sin against the Holy Ghost may have, of whom the Apostle speaks (Hebrews 6:4-6).

The Lord Jesus by the virtue of his death puts an end to the commission that divine justice gave, and disannuls the right and power that sin challenged and by which it acted the soul of a sinner, whereby it kept the soul under its command that no means could work upon it or be made effectual to it. (1 Peter 3:18) Christ died for us that he might bring us to God. For when Adam (and so we in him) willfully departed from God and would not be guided by his righteous law and just will, divine justice gave a commission to sin to take vengeance of the soul, and keep it under, that no good may come to it or it receive any; now Christ by his death having satisfied justice, the commission is cancelled, there is nothing on God's part which hinders; and there is nothing on our parts can hinder, the authority of sin is disannulled, his claim made void; that soul is mine, says Christ, hands off [illegible], hands off sin; the claim answered, authority disannulled, power stopped, now there is way for light to come to the mind; and for the nature of sin as discovered to be set on upon the soul, and it made to feel the venom thereof, as upon those terms it may, as above. So our Savior ([reconstructed: Revelation] 1:18): I was dead but am alive, and I have the keys of hell and death — that is, has supreme authority to shoot back all bolts, to open all doors. As the first Adam by natural generation [illegible] power and commission from divine justice to turn the souls of his children from God to sin, so the second Adam having satisfied and answered divine justice, has power to turn the soul from Satan and sin to God; Satan and sin are at his devotion, the soul at his command.

The third particular to be opened.

How far the soul is or may be truly said to be active in this work of contrition, or this spiritual sorrow, when it comes to receive the right impression of it for sin as such:

The answer may be conceived in the following particulars.

There is no power in man to remove that resistance that is in his heart against God and the work of his grace; that which out of its own corrupt principles does wholly resist and cannot but resist, the operation and dispensation of all spiritual means, that would prevail with it for good, that cannot take away the resistance; for resistance cannot take away resistance; it implies a palpable contradiction, as that which is professedly cross to common sense; but the corrupt heart of a natural man while he is in the state of nature, and corruption, does and cannot but wholly resist, the work of God's spirit and grace and all the saving operations of all the means thereof. The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary (Galatians 5:17). And what is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:7), that is the temper and inward constitution of a soul in its natural condition, it is wholly born of the flesh, and therefore nothing but flesh, and therefore can do nothing but resist the spirit; indeed it cannot but oppose whatever would take that resistance away; for it is a received rule of reason and confessed of all hands, every thing desires the preservation of itself, and its being, otherwise the being and the causes that made up the being should be cross to the thing, if it should endeavor its own destruction, in fact a thing should be opposite to itself. Hence it is that the corruption of the heart will put forth all the skill and strength it has or by the contrivements of carnal reason, can compass to fortify and preserve itself against the spiritual and saving dispensation of the work of God's spirit in his own ordinances, because wicked men look at the power of it as that which works the ruin of their lusts; therefore they labor to avoid the light if they can, if not that, to oppose it, and overbear it by their delusions, if not that, to destroy it; they will not hear the truth, or gainsay what they hear, or abhor and loath what they cannot many times gainsay, in fact endeavor to destroy what they so hate and are tormented with. The wisdom of the flesh cannot be subject to the law (Romans 8:7), the heart rises up in arms, and indignation against the soul-saving and uncontrollable evidences of the truth, they will not be ruled by the holiness of it, and they cannot endure the terror and majesty of it. [illegible] sometimes the Philistines dealt with the Ark when it came into the field, they thus spoke one to another there was never such a thing heard of as this, these are the Gods that destroyed the Egyptians in the Red Sea, quit yourselves like men, O you Philistines, that you be not servants to the Hebrews. They say of the word as sometimes of our Saviour (Matthew 21), this is the Heir come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours, they cannot have their lusts so long as the power of the word would overtop and cross them, therefore Herodias prefers John Baptist's head before half the kingdom, that she might be quiet in her sins.

Before the soul can act against the evil of sin or for the removal of this resistance wherein the destroying venom of sin lies, and that which stops the passage of the power of the ordinance and the work of grace, it is necessary that the Lord should not only concur with the [illegible] of the will of a sinner to lead or draw forth the act thereof which he has ability to express, but he must let in an influence of the [illegible] power and virtue into the faculty of the will, whereby it may be enabled to put forth an act to which it formerly had no power of itself. It is a subtle pang of Pelagianism and the Arminians some of their successors have licked up that loathsome heresy of theirs at this day: and [illegible] this delusion and cunning pretense of theirs they would color over those rotten and poisonous conceits; and hence it is they labor to bear men in hand, that they labor to set forth and exalt the honor of God's free grace, they profess that without the preventing grace of God, man's free will and all that ability he has left in nature since the fall is able to do no spiritual good. The words are fair but the intent is false and [illegible], and indeed they do secretly and cunningly undermine the work of God's grace while they pretend indeed to advance it. For the meaning is this: God must enlighten men's minds and reveal the things of life and happiness to men's wills, excite, stir up and call forth their hearts to the embracing of that which is good, and concur with him in their endeavors to the performance of the work or else they can do nothing, so that upon this grant, God's free grace in the work of conversion, calls forth and concurs with that act which man's free will has sufficiency to put forth, which is to make man share with God in his work, and to part stakes with him.

But the truth is this: the Lord must let in an influence of some special motion and operation and leave some impression of spiritual power upon the will to enable it to act, not only to concur with the act thereof. God gives a man ability whereby he may will, does not [illegible] with him by assistance and providence when he wills as one in whom we live and move.

Of the first of these it's true which many of the ancients speak, God works without us, many things in us, that is, to which we being in no causal ability at all, God gives us ability to do that which is pleasing and spiritual, to the obtaining for which, we had no causal ability of our own; when the Lord Christ raised Lazarus now dead and smelling in the grave, he did not concur with the action and motion of his soul in rising out of the grave, but without any causal concurrence or help of Lazarus, he put a soul into his body, whereby he was enabled to stir and move. So it is with a soul dead in sins and trespasses, when the mind and will have no ability for any spiritual act, not able to take off that deadness and indisposition that is there, the Lord without the will, without any causal concurrence of it, lets in ability into it for the work, and concurs with it in the work. So Paul expresses this manner of God's work (2 Corinthians 4:6): He causes light to shine out of darkness, he gives light and being out of darkness, without the help of light, and then concurs with the light in the shining of it, God lets in an influence to the will, not only lends a concurrence to the work.

The influence of this spiritual power whereby the Lord takes away this sinful resistance, is not by any gracious habit of sanctification, but by an irresistible motion of the work of his Spirit upon the soul: By a gracious habit of sanctification, I mean those spiritual graces of wisdom, holiness, righteousness, in which Adam at first was created, and according to which, all the elect and called are renewed according to the image of him that created them (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). These gracious habits are so many spiritual and supernatural principles as it were left in the soul, whereby it is in a state of life and grace, and liberty and free will to any good; and therefore as those that are agents by counsel, they are [reconstructed: masters] of their own work, can act or not act, can act more or less according to their own choice. And I follow the apprehension of those authors who conceive that the removal of this resistance is not by any gracious habit of sanctification, but by the irresistible motion of the work of the Spirit; and therefore they call it Actual Grace, the other Habitual: A work of the Spirit assisting, the other a work of the Spirit inhabiting, or dwelling in the heart; the one a principle of grace in us which we have from communion with Christ; the other the work of the Spirit upon us, to bring us from our sins to union with the Lord Jesus; and that upon these grounds:

All habits (as it is in the nature of all qualities) have their being in their subjects, before they work in their subject: Reason and nature teaches and presupposes he must have skill before he can use it, gain the knowledge of an art before he [reconstructed: can] work by it; I cannot do the work of the trade, alas I have no skill, nor ever was brought up to it; for take the heart according to the condition in which we now look at a sinner, it's wholly under the power of resistance, carried in total opposition against God, and all the works of his grace; and therefore consider him in this time and turn, and go no further, there is no room, or next capability of a gracious habit or spiritual principle to be there, therefore it cannot work there. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, nay he cannot do it (1 Corinthians 2:14). The world cannot receive the Comforter (John 14:21).

Where there is a capability to receive, there is some kind of consent and agreement, but so as yet it cannot be here in a heart fastened to its lusts; where there is a total opposition, there is no fit disposition to receive, but while the soul is under the power of this resistance, there is a total opposition, and therefore there can be no consent.

Again secondly, all gracious habits of sanctification are part of the image which we receive from the Second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:49): As we have born the image of the first Adam, so shall we also bear the image of the second Adam, and so also part of our spiritual communion with Christ, of whose fullness we receive grace for grace (John 1:16), and are transformed from one degree of glorious grace to another (2 Corinthians 3, last verse).

All communion presupposes union; no sap in the branches, unless growing to the tree; no life in the member, unless united to the head (John 15:4). Unless you abide in me, you can have nothing, do nothing (Ephesians 4:15-16). Grows up in him in all things, who is our head, by whom the body aptly compacted together, according to the effectual working, etc. First in-being then working.

No union but by an act, for no qualities close with their object but by an act. But now look at the soul in this present condition, as it comes to consideration in this place, as to have the resistance removed, and itself turned from sin, and in way to be turned to God. Should this be done by a gracious habit? Then there should be communion with Christ, before any union to him, or acting upon him; all which imply so many impossibilities, and cross the whole course of God's dispensation.

Those gracious habits, when and wherever they be in any subject, it becomes free (sometimes the actions thereof are suspended and cease, as in sleep) and then the act and order of things, is according to their own liberty in an indifference; so that were either the resistance against the work of grace to be removed, or the heart carried to God from hence, it were in our choice to be converted, or not converted, when it has been proved, our conversion is wrought irresistibly, and determined to one side, not issuing from the liberty of our choice, and therefore it is brought about by the irresistible impression of the work of the Spirit. In a word, to issue this point, look as it is in the will of every son of Adam, when he comes to be averted, and turned [reconstructed: from] God to sin in the course of natural generation; so it is in a right proportion in the [reconstructed: will] of every man begotten of the second Adam, when he comes to be turned from sin to God in spiritual conversion. Look at the will of a child in the course of natural generation, as it is created by God, and comes holy and undefiled out of his hand; as the question, how comes the will of the child to be turned from God to sin? It cannot be by any actual sin of its own, it has committed none; it cannot be by any corrupt quality first put into it, before it was turned from God, and by which, that turning aside is wrought, for then it should be under the power of sin, while yet it is under the power of God. But by virtue of Adam's sin, and the curse that attends the breach of the covenant, and by means of the next parent in the work of generation; the body made wonderfully, and the soul created holy by God, he as an unskilful workman, by the virtue of the curse, acting the work of generation under the power of the curse, and power of a perverted will, turns the set of the soul from God, joins body and soul in a wrong and exorbitant manner; hence they [reconstructed: come] to be in a disorderly frame, the wheels run wrong, under the power of original corruption, and struck wrong by actual transgression; so that there is the strength of the curse, the push of divine justice, and the perverting stroke of the next parent turns the soul from God to sin, from which it comes to be wholly possessed and acted by corruption.

So it is by proportion in a contrary manner in the work of conversion, when the Lord Jesus comes to bring the sinner home, he does not put sanctifying grace into the heart, to bring the heart from the power and rebellion of sin, for then it should be under the power of grace and sin together; but by the mighty impression and motion of his Spirit takes off the resistance, and turns the soul from sin to himself in Christ, in whom accepting of it as adopted in his Son, he leaves the impression of his image, and all gracious abilities whereby the heart may be carried towards him, and act for him in all things.

In the removal of this resistance, for the conquering and overpowering this opposition, that a carnal heart naturally carries against God and his grace, the will of the sinner itself is a mere patient, and the soul is only a sufferer and acts not, but is acted upon; for the heart and will of a sinner being possessed and overpowered with corruption, that which is the subject of his corrupt quality, and acted by it, has no power to expel it, that which is wholly carried by resistance, cannot will to remove that resistance out of it, but in truth resists all that resists or opposes that. Only the Lord by the mighty impression of the powerful operation of Spirit over-bears that opposition in the soul, and forces the soul to feel the stab and venom of sin, though it use all means and ways it can to avoid the stroke of it, but all in vain, for the arrows of the Almighty stick fast in him. And all this is done, and may be without any prejudice to any liberty that the Lord has put into the will, for the will may be forced to suffer even against its will, without any wrong to the liberty thereof, as the damned do in Hell at this day, and shall through all eternity, and shall never be able to get from under the terrors of the Almighty.

For the meaning of that received expression, the will cannot be compelled, is this: in all the acts the will puts forth, it is a cause by counsel, and acts from the inward power and ability that is implanted in it; to be compelled, is to act by constraining force from without: now for the will to act from its own power inwardly, and yet to be acted by a contrary power from without, are contradictions. The will then (in a word) cannot be constrained to do, but it may be constrained to suffer without any the least prejudice to liberty; and so it is here in this work I now mention, a mere sufferer.

Thus (Job 36:10), the Lord is said to command men from iniquity; he not only directs, but by a sovereign power carries the soul from iniquity. Thus lamenting Ephraim entreats (Jeremiah 31:18), Turn me and I shall be turned, you are the Lord my God. And Paul was sent (Acts 20:18) to turn men from darkness to light; and so the whole frame of Scripture runs: they are said to be wounded, burdened, [reconstructed: pressed down], when they should avoid the blow, and remove the burden, were in their choice, but they are pressed under the hand of the Lord, which they are not able to escape, though not able to undergo it. Hence it is that though by reason of the presence of the body of death that yet remains, there will be some stirrings of distemper, which will raise up some mutinies and conspiracies against the work and preventing grace of God, yet there will never be power nor possibility, so far to resist as to hinder the work of conversion, and effectual bringing of the soul to God. As in an army wholly defeated, and routed, and scattered, their commanders slain, and strongholds taken, and their country possessed; though some roving troops may perhaps pilfer and forage up and down here and there in secret, when they are not observed; yet they are never able to make head, or come into the field. So here.

Lastly, when this resistance is removed, and the right, power and challenge which sin made, annulled, the soul comes yet further to yield consent that there should be an everlasting divorce made between it and her former lusts and lovers, and is in earnest content they should for ever be estranged from her, and she from them. And in this consent which the soul yields for this separation, which is the great knot, it moves only as under the power, and in the virtue of the motion of the Spirit. So that divines thus speak, this consent is not of ourselves, though not without ourselves. There is no power in the soul, by which as a principle and beginning of the work it's carried to the work, but acts as prevented by the impression of the power and motion of the Spirit, in virtue of which it's acted and enabled to this consent; so that the act of God's exciting and working grace, does not concur with the power that is in the will, to put forth this consent, but as a principle leaves an impression of power upon the will, by the virtue of which it's moved, and so moves in and to this consent. As the will of a child of Adam, in generation it turns from God to sin, not by any first power of its own, but by the perverting work of the next parent, who under the virtue of the curse and God's divine justice, turned it from the Lord, and the authority of the law, and put it under the authority of sin: so the will of him that comes to be begotten of the Second Adam, does turn from sin to God, not by any power or principle it has of its own, but by the impression of the operation of his Spirit by which it is turned, and in virtue of that it turns. Take an instance: suppose the first grace offered, or the voice of God's call tendered to the will that now has the resistance taken off; the question now grows, how the will comes to give her consent to this act or first grace; this consent must come either from the will only; or partly from the will, and partly from grace; or from grace only. To say from the will only, is heretical, and perfect Pelagianism in the highest degree, which exalts nature above grace, nay, to make it perfect without it. If from grace and the will both, as diverse principles, then there is a concurrence of our will by a power of its own with the power of grace at the same instant to this work of consent, then there is an ability in the will to begin its work, and to meet and concur with grace, without grace so far in a spiritual act: as for instance, the father and the child both draw a boat; the father puts more strength to the work, the son also from a principle of its own puts forth some strength, and both these concur and meet in the motion; the beginning is several from each as several causes, though both meet in the act: so that grace concurs with the power of the will to this motion, does not give power and principle by which it moves: and this also is heretical and Pelagianism; for thus far, and in that beginning, the will closes with grace without the power of grace, which is cross to the Apostle, and to all the former conclusions. Whereas it is in this consent, the first call of grace prevents, and wholly moves the will, and the will in the [illegible] of that motion, moves to the call, and consents: as it is in the echo, the voice stirs the air, the air in virtue of that stir, returns the voice again.

Among some searching disputes, I meet with such an expression, which I shall propound and explicate, because it makes way for the understanding of the thing in hand; the will does consent or will, but does not make itself to consent, but is made so by another. Their meaning is this:

- 1. The will does put forth the act of consent, and so far it's the cause of it. - 2. But it was not the cause of that power by which it was enabled to consent, but that it received, and by that it was enabled to it. So that this seems to be the order in which God proceeds.

God takes away that resistance by the irresistible operation of his Spirit, when the soul, having that impediment removed, it comes to be in the next passive power, and immediately disposed to a spiritual work, vult moveri.

God leaves a powerful impression upon the will, acts this capability to carry it from sin in a right order to God; at the entrance of which, the soul is moved, and takes the impression; having taken the impression or motion, it moves again, and in virtue of that is said to act and consent, so that this consent is not from ourselves, though not without ourselves.

And thus we are put beyond any principle of our own, or to be the beginners of our own work, by anything we have in ourselves, which cuts the sinews of the Covenant of Works; and here many times God will bring us to our beginnings, to the bare board, even to leave our souls with him, that he may carry us from sin to himself, and act us upon himself, and keep us with himself for ever. Thus David (Psalm 119:29), [illegible] could not take it away himself (Hosea 14:2): take away all iniquity; they leave themselves in God's hand, that the Lord would cause them to turn from iniquity.

So that in this condition, it's true to say a man has not a principle of concurrence with God, as by sanctified habits we have; but the Spirit puts in us a power by which we are carried to God.

The Fourth Particular for opening of the point.

The behavior of the heart under this stroke; and that appears in the particulars following:

When this sorrow is rightly set on, and the soul rightly affected therewith, the sinner has the loathsomeness of corruption ever in his sight, keeps it ever within his ken: he could not be brought before to take to heart the heinousness of [illegible] evil; ministers pressed him with it in public, others minded him of it in private, forewarned him of the direful venom and [illegible] that lay in those distempers of his, that one day he was like to feel to the hazard of his everlasting happiness, it would be bitterness in the latter end. But he turned the deaf ear to all, would not so much as take it into consideration, not once look back into the danger of his rebellions, nor listen to anything that may force the same upon his soul; but now the case is altered; he that could not be brought to see sin before, now he will see nothing but sin, cannot be brought to look off from it, he feels now the plague of those provocations of his, and finds by woeful proof and experience the truth of all that formerly has been told him, and has time enough now to recount the savory counsels, those seasonable reproofs, directions and entreaties which would have kept him from the commission of those evils, the heinousness of which he is not able to conceive; the bitterness and poison of which he is not able to bear, now he is constrained to feel the sting thereof. He has now leisure to survey the folly and perverseness of his spirit in former times and to sit down in silence and shame; now he can seal to that as an eternal truth of God which before he cast behind his back as slight and vain; Oh, I now see the ministers were faithful watchmen which foresaw the danger, and foretold me how dreadful the evils would be which did attend my distempers, if I would not leave my sin, mercy and blessing would leave me, and my heart feels it so. The Christians were loving and compassionate which labored by earnest and affectionate entreaties to withdraw me from the ways of wickedness, which withdrew me from God, and by woeful experience I find it so. Though it were a sharp, yet it was a sure and safe word that I have often heard, but would never receive, it were better to cut off my hand and to pluck out my eye and to enter lame and maimed into the Kingdom of Heaven, lame and maimed in comforts and credit, and carnal and sensual delights, than to have [illegible] these and go to hell, where the worm never dies and the fire never goes out, and now my conscience confesses it is so, Lord where was my mind that could not see this? How hard and senseless my heart that could not be affected with this? The sinner thus wounded, his hand is ever upon the sore, his eye upon his distemper, as the extreme danger that hangs over his head, and the deadliest enemy that is in pursuit of his soul; he sleeps and wakes and eats, and drinks with this, as his daily diet, and a standing dish; carries it up and down as his daily companion, (Psalm 51:3). Listen to him when he sighs out his prayers in secret, you will observe his complaints run upon this, confer with him, inquire of his condition, his speech ever returns to this point, and all his questions lead still to the discovery of the loathsomeness of his rebellions. As it is with a commander or general of the field when he sees the enemy come on furiously, his numbers many, his power great, his soldiers skillful and courageous so that he sees all lie at stake, the shock is like to be sudden and fierce, either conquer all or lose all; a prudent commander seeing where the stress of the battle and the strength of the enemy lies, and the safety or ruin of the whole consists; he leaves the thoughts of comforts, conveniences, wife and family, the profits and privileges which he has formerly enjoyed and prized; bends all his thoughts, exercises the utmost of all his [illegible] now to defeat the enemy how to encounter him, how to overcome him, and this takes up the whole mind and the whole man, it is vain to attend other things when the neglect of the enemy's approach is the loss and overthrow of all. So it is with a broken-hearted Christian when the numberless company of those hellish abominations of heart and life, lay siege against and threaten his everlasting ruin, either he must destroy them or they will undoubtedly destroy his comforts; he leaves the consideration of other things and looks to the main chance. If my sin live I die for it — either I must be separated from them or they from me; and therefore bends all his forces, bestows all his thoughts how the heinousness of this may be forever discovered, and the heart forever freed from the power and authority thereof. The Apostle Paul has his sin ever in his eye, he keeps it in fresh remembrance and consideration, never has occasion to mention anything of himself but still he strikes upon that string, to me the least of all saints and then the chief of all sinners, I was a persecutor and blasphemer, the main evil was there, and his eye and thoughts were most upon that. So the lamenting church (Lamentations 5:16): woe to us because we have sinned, the plague, famine and sword though they were beyond measure grievous, yet the plague-sore of their sins was heaviest upon their hearts and most in their thoughts. So it is with a contrite sinner, his complaints and thoughts return here as to their center, publish the comforts, promises and privileges of the Gospel, the sinner acknowledges the promises are precious, the comforts are sweet, the privileges great, and happy they that ever they were born that have a title to them; but alas what have I to do with these, my heart is yet hard, and my sins yet unsubdued. Those keep good things from me; lay open all the threatenings of the word, the plagues the Lord has prepared, the curses, judgments and punishments that are recorded in the Scripture and ever were inflicted by the justice of the Lord, the contrite sinner looks presently beyond these plagues to his sins, which is the cause of all these and worse than all these, and that gives the sting and evil to all these evils — what shall I do, I have sinned, deliver me from blood-guiltiness O God, not from the sword, though that was threatened, but from his sin.

The sinner that has his heart thus truly affected and pierced through with his sins, is marvelous tender, easily to be convinced, of a yielding disposition, that is, freely and readily enlarged in the open acknowledgment of an evil that is discovered and he stands guilty of. As it is with the body when it is pierced or pricked with a stiletto. He bleeds inwardly it may be but so as the blood has no vent, nor the party relief; hence the life is in hazard, but when its thrust quite through, though the wound be greater and wider yet the danger is less, because the party bleeds kindly and naturally, the wound is more [illegible] to be cleansed and healed, there is no fear of festering and rankling inwardly, but the surgeon may readily come at it for the cure. So it is when the soul is wounded aright with godly sorrow for its sin, it bleeds kindly and naturally, ready to see the evil, the core, the root of that corruption from where it comes, and willing and open hearted that the saving word of the truth, either of instruction, reproof, comfort or exhortation may be applied for cure and recovery. A broken hearted sinner falls immediately before the power of the word, takes the sin presently home to himself, whenever or whatever is presented with evidence to him, without cavilling or gainsaying, shifting or winding away from under the authority thereof. That resistance and gainsaying opposition is now removed, which formerly took possession: and the irresistible power of the Spirit has flung down those strongholds of Satan and sin, has conquered and captivated the high thoughts of the mind and sturdy rebellions of the heart to the obedience of the Lord Jesus, and therefore there is an entrance and easy passage made for the truth to take place and the heart to take the impression thereof with some pleasing content. Parts of the body which are wounded, broken and sore, and very sensible of the least stir or touch of anything that comes near them, they feel presently and are affected with some trouble — oh say we, it's my broken arm, my sore hand, the least touch it goes to my heart. It's so with broken spirits — they are presently sensible of the least touch of any truth, the least intimation or discovery of any sin that comes by the by, if from a work that falls occasionally, it feels it forthwith, yields it, and owns it, without any more ado. That's the deceit of my heart which I never saw before, that's my distemper to which I have been addicted: the law is holy and good, but my heart naught, and sold under sin (Romans 7). This was the temper of good [reconstructed: Josiah] at the reading of the law which the Lord observes and so much [reconstructed: commended] (2 Chronicles 34:27): because your heart was tender, and melted when you heard the words of this law, he took the impression of the truth at the first, without the least appearance of any opposition, in any particular or rising of spirit against them, though the severity and sharpness of the threatenings were marvelous cross not only to a corrupt heart but to the outward comforts, and eminent privileges of his place, pomp and prosperity of his crown, and kingdom. The heart is melted and broken, is conquered by the truth, and therefore can do nothing against it. But can do anything against its own lusts, and the pleasing corruption of his own nature. This is part of that preparation which the Baptist, the Harbinger of our Savior made, to make this plain, for his coming into the hearts of his as into his temple (Luke 3). The rough things shall be made plain, and crooked things straight, the rugged and sturdy gainsayings of a rebellious heart, are taken away and it's made easy and readily yielding to the evidence of any part of God's will, it finds a plain passage into the soul, no rub in the way, no rising against the righteous and good will of God. If anything be doubtful he is easy to be informed; if amiss, to be reproved and amended thereby. Those crooked aims and by-ends also whereby false-hearted hypocrites serve their turn of the Lord Jesus, seek for grace and mercy either to quiet the horror of their [reconstructed: conscience], promote their own credit, or under a profession against sin to get more liberty to commit sin, to sin without suspicion or distraction — these rugged distempers must be leveled, and the spirit of a man made pliable, simple and sincere, and then all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord. And unless this be done, set your heart at rest, you can never see God's salvation. True indeed, I confess the truth many times may be secret and such as at the present exceeds the reach and apprehension of weaker judgments. And here will be, and in some [illegible] may, a long inquisition and painful and tedious search for the right discovery where the narrow way lies. But there is great odds between an inquisition and serious enquiry that we may see the truth, and a quarrelling against the evidence thereof that we may not see it. Inquisition is one thing, contention against the truth is another; that all the saints should endeavor, this none but the ungodly will practice, for it's given as a never failing note of a graceless person who is appointed to destruction, to them who are contentious and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness (Romans 2:8), for where the one is not the other will be. Contentious persons join sides with their sinful distempers against the truth, and authority of the righteous law of God. Openly to maintain a professed opposition against the truth is so loathsome to common sense and [illegible] even to the remainders of light left in the [reconstructed: conscience] of a natural man, that hardly any man is come to the height of wickedness that he dare openly own a course so hellish, and absurdly unreasonable, and therefore your cunning hypocrite colors over his treachery under another pretense. And therefore his conspiracy comes under the name of enquiry, but in the issue if the will of God suit not with his will, and his [illegible] commands cross the corruptions of his heart, which he is resolved to maintain, he casts all away in [reconstructed: contempt and scorn]. So they to the prophet [reconstructed: Jeremiah] (Jeremiah 42:3), they said to the prophet [reconstructed: Jeremiah], let our supplications be accepted before you, and [reconstructed: pray] you [reconstructed: to] the Lord your God that he may show us the way [reconstructed: wherein] we may walk and the [reconstructed: thing] we may do. And verse 5: The [reconstructed: LORD] be a true and faithful witness [reconstructed: between] us, if we do [reconstructed: not] even according to all things for which the Lord [reconstructed: our] God shall [reconstructed: send] to us, whether it be good [reconstructed: or] evil we will obey. But when he had consulted with the Lord and returned his mind that they should not go down to Egypt, which no way suited their private resolutions which they had taken up within themselves, they oppose him to his very face and give him the lie (Jeremiah 43:2): you speak falsely, the Lord your God has not sent you to say, go not into Egypt to sojourn there. When he did not speak that which they would have him. Thus your false-hearted hypocrites deal with the truth of God, as the Jews dealt with Paul who banded themselves together and bound themselves under a curse, that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul, and they carried it thus — they came to the priests (Acts 23:14-15): we have bound ourselves, and so on. Now go with the counsel, signify to the chief captain that he bring him down to you tomorrow as though you would enquire something more fully; and we, before he comes near, will be ready to kill him. So treacherous hypocrites deal with the truth — their enquiries are indeed conspiracies against the wisdom and counsel of the Lord, they say they would enquire more perfectly, and see more and more fully what the mind of God is. But if things please not their palate, suit not their notion, answer not their corrupt desire, and carnal ends, they are resolved what to do, only ask God leave to do what they please, and therefore they make no bones to cross the truth when it crosses their expectation. When that which is answered they cannot remove it, that which is alleged they cannot gainsay, yet hold their own apprehensions and so cast the commands of God behind their back, and refuse utterly to follow them. Whereas a broken-hearted sinner who has this resistance taken away, he in earnest is content to part with his corruption, and therefore readily gives way to whatever truth is revealed in the evidence thereof. Both these dispositions the Apostle expresses as contrary one to another answerable to the contrary conditions of nature and grace (Romans 6:17): But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin — that is an evidence of their natural condition. But you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered; that is, they were ready and easy to take the impression of every truth that was published and dispensed to them. Certain it is, he that is not willing to be convinced, and to give way to the authority of the truth made known, and to submit thereto, is led with his own lusts, and is a servant of sin to this very day.

He who has his [illegible] pierced through, and is truly affected with his sins, loathes himself and his soul for it, sees that shame is his due, and that which his sin has deserved, and therefore is willing to take that which is his due and desert, desirous to shame and dishonor that which has been the greatest shame and blot to his person and profession, and the greatest dishonor to God; this is made the guise and behavior of all those whom God does kindly and really break off from their sins, and bring them to himself (Ezekiel 36:31): "Then shall you remember your evil ways and doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities, and for your abominations" (Ezekiel 6:9): "And they that escape of you, shall remember me, because I am broken with your whorish heart, which has departed from me, and with your eyes which go a whoring, and they shall loathe themselves for the evils they have committed in all their abominations" (Ezekiel 16, last verse): "Then you shall remember, be ashamed and confounded, and never open your mouth more." The soul in this condition sees and feels now the [illegible], and the greatness of the evil of sin, that rebellion and opposition by which it has been carried against God, and the separation it has made from him; and therefore it loathes that most, wherein most of this evil is harbored, and by which it has been practiced, and that is his soul which has been the sink of these sinful distempers, the root from where all these bitter fruits arise and grow, the fountain, or dunghill rather, from where all those [illegible] steams of loathsome abominations have been sent, in speeches, practices, and behavior, in our daily course; the filth of sin is most loathsome, and there is most of that in the heart, therefore he loathes that most of all. It is true, there be some sins so detestable to the light of nature, and the common principles left in a corrupt conscience, that they are not fit to be named — murders, adulteries, [illegible], and sodomy, brutish drunkenness, and excessive riots, which abase a man below the very brute creatures, and make the earth spew out such inhabitants, as fitter for the company of devils, than the communion of men. It is a shame to speak of those things which were done of them in secret (Ephesians 5:12). And therefore reprobates do, and hypocrites can, and all, even the worst of men, may when they come to themselves in cold blood, and take things in a right consideration, loathe these practices because shameful and scandalous, fling filth in their faces, disparagement upon their persons, and cast them out of the society and communion of reasonable men, and make them abhorred of humanity, even a terror to themselves; but alas when this is over, they look not to the nest of these noisome abominations which lodges in their bosoms, where they have their being and breeding in their hearts, the cage of these unclean birds, the den of these brutish lusts; but if they can wipe the mouth with the harlot, and wash their hands as Pilate did, and keep themselves from the contempt of men, and the stroke of authority; they can maintain a secret communion between these lusts and their souls, and suck out the sweet of these by speculation, and never be troubled nor affected therewith. Judas flings away his money, he fingers that no more, looks at his treasonable practices as detestable to the very Scribes, but he still keeps his murder in his heart. But when a sinner is indeed pierced quite through the heart, and feels inwardly the [illegible] and evil of sin, he loathes that most, and his heart most of all, that is most guilty and tainted with it. In the soul, there is [illegible] it were the soul of sin, the [illegible] and poison of it, and he opposes that most, that has opposed the Lord, [illegible] Spirit, and the Word and Work of his Grace, the [illegible] of this mind, the perverseness of this will, the distempers of these corrupt and carnal affections; he is at [illegible] with his own heart, that ever it has held any kind of connivance and correspondence with any corruption, ever been acted by it, carried with it, that ever it has combined and conspired with sin and Satan in [illegible] against the righteous and holy One of Israel, the great God of Heaven and Earth; and here he finds work enough, even matter of abasement all his days, he [illegible] down in shame, and is covered with confusion as with a cloak, and never lifts up his head more, because he [illegible] that about him, that will daily mind him of his own baseness. [illegible] It is now his daily task to oppose that which opposed the Lord, resist that which has resisted the work of Grace, conspire against the treacheries and plottings of his own heart, where all the conspiracies against God and his holy law have been hatched. Job was vile before, but he saw not the vileness of his heart.

He fears all sin, and all provocations to sin, because he has felt the evil of all, and knows the danger of all; any inclination from within, any temptation from without, any appearance in the least measure that might provoke to it. Therefore these two are put in way of opposition; Blessed is the man that fears always, but he that hardens his heart, shall fall into mischief (Proverbs 28:14). That is, a hard heart feels [illegible], knows not the evil of [illegible], and therefore [illegible] like the [reconstructed: horse] into the battle to his ruin; but if the heart be truly wounded and contrite, truly affected with sin, as having experience of the danger of it, it will come no more there; he that has been scorched with those flames will come no more into that fire. As men who have wounded parts, broken an arm or a leg, how careful are they where they sit, where they go, they will come near nothing that may hurt, cannot endure any thing near, lest it should so much as touch or trouble. So the Apostle advises (Hebrews 12:13), 'Make straight steps to your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.' Lame men observe every step they take, every stone upon which they tread, see and view the place where they set their feet, search and set all right, come there no more. So here, a broken spirit [illegible] every thought, weighs every word, takes notice of the least [illegible] of his heart, the first appearance of any occasion or temptation. Thus they fear all sin above all other evil, in fact, the least sin above the greatest plague, because he has felt them by proof and experience to be such; fears rather he shall not be sound, than not quiet. He that fears one sin, and yet is careless to fall into another, he never seared nor sorrowed aright; sorrow for sin will not make a man commit sin by sorrowing: if he fear, or take notice it is a sin, it is enough. And hence it makes watchful to [illegible] prevent the evil. So Joseph (Genesis 39:10-11), he would not lie by her, nor be with her, avoided her company that would withdraw his communion from the Lord. It makes a man speedy to avoid the [illegible], he [illegible] the place, left his garment rather than his [illegible]; he that would not fall into the pit, will not come near the bank. As after a [illegible], the party cannot endure the sight, the [illegible] of it, and are careful to [illegible] the appearance [illegible] the [illegible] of such evils ([illegible] 19:11). I [illegible] your [illegible] in my heart, that I [illegible] sin against you.

He is [illegible] to attend all [illegible], but accounts most of those [illegible] work [illegible] [illegible] and [illegible] [illegible] the [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] of corruption [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] heart, and [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] the [illegible] from it. Though the truths which are delivered, carry dread with them to the conscience, rack the heart of the sinner in restless horror and perplexity; are like the bitterest pills, and the sharpest corrosives, cross to the sinful security, and that natural quiet the soul does covet, indeed, to his credit and outward comforts and conveniences in which he pleased himself, yet he is content his hand should be cut off, and his eye plucked out; that is, that the [illegible] truth of God, and powerful and plain dispensation thereof should pluck away those darling distempers, be they as profitable as a hand, as dear as an eye, rather than they should once pluck his heart from the Lord; quarrels with the loathsome abominations of his nature which now are discovered, but gladly welcomes those soul-saving truths that would slay and subdue those sins, and not quarrel with them. The word of the Lord is a good word, though a convicting, terrifying, indeed, a condemning word to his own apprehension; he that is sensible of his burden as unsupportable and passing strength, he is best pleased with that ease. A wise patient, when by his trial he has found it, and the consent of learned physicians and surgeons have concluded that his gangrenous part must be cut off and cauterized, cannot be healed; though his nature shrink at it, yet reason and his own preservation makes him desire and choose the sharpest instrument, because by that his life and safety is best procured. The sinner that finds the burden of his sin the heaviest of all others, and a disease most deadly to his soul, the sharpest truths he accounts the safest, and therefore takes most content therein, there shall no course that can be prescribed, be it never so tedious to flesh and blood, no means that shall be appointed to him, be they attended with never so much danger and difficulty, but he readily addresses himself to the use thereof, and easily submits himself to the counsel, and authority, and command of God therein; willing that God should do anything with him, that he might do good to his soul, and remove that which he feels to be the greatest evil of it. As Eli to Samuel (1 Samuel 3:17), Hide nothing from me, though the heaviest and hardest of the message that he was to report; a broken-hearted sinner will [illegible] capitulate with the Almighty, stick with God unless he may have his own [illegible], or look for some abatement from the Lord, if the corruption be more than ordinary strong, and the means which are to be used be marvelously cross, not only to a man's corruption, but to one's outward comforts, indeed to nature itself; indeed the heart under this disposition yields quietly that the Lord should take his own course, any course with it, if he will but take away his corruption with which he is plagued most of all, and of which he desires most of all to be freed and delivered, if it were the good pleasure of the Almighty (Zechariah 14:6). These are the wounds wherewith I was wounded in the house of my friends. In case of resolution of it, come to the highest sum and to the hazard of a man's whole estate even to his open beggary, if God appoints it, he will bear it, if that be a means to remove his distemper, he will not balk it, he can part with his estate, if he may part with his covetous disposition by that means. If the heart be loosened from the world it is not hard to leave the things of the world. But if the stroke be but overly that has taken off, and abated only the edge of inordinate desire after these things, but there lies a root of bitterness and base covetousness within, though a man may take the receipt in some degrees of it to restore to some shillings and crowns and pounds, but when it comes to hundreds, the heart is not loosened from all, and therefore leaves God and his ordinance rather than his own lusts. So the covetous young man when it came so that he must sell all and give to the poor, He went away sorrowful (Matthew 19:20, etc.). He would rather go away from Christ than suffer him to take away his covetous disposition.

Again: In Confession there is also a stress which a proud and perverse heart is wholly unable to undergo, unless the Spirit be deeply affected with unfeigned sorrow, and so fitted to apply and bear so keen a corrosive to eat away his corruption; especially if it be the confession of some secret, and some shameful distemper, as in case all other means be improved, the Lord refuses to give pardon, or power, or peace, he then calls for attendance upon this ordinance. And the contrite sinner when he understands God's mind herein, he freely, fully pours out his acknowledgment into the bosom of such, whose help he craves in that case; and as his heart is loosened from his corruption, so his confession issues naturally from him, improving of it as a means appointed by the Almighty that he may shame his sinful course, and himself for it, and be forever separated from both; therefore confessing and forsaking are joined together (Proverbs 18:13) and (1 John 1:7) he that indeed confesses; God is faithful to forgive, this is to judge ourselves (1 Corinthians 11). Whereas the sinner that is yet riveted in the wretched distempers of his own soul, the Lord when he has him upon the rack of conscience, may perhaps wrest a confession from him; but it is by a constraining hand, and against the grain wholly, he would be eased of his plagues, not of his sin. So God [reconstructed: sought] out Achan, pursued Judas, and laid hold on both, and pulled the acknowledgment by force out of their mouths, which they did to ease them of their sorrows, not as a means to help against their sin (Joshua 7; Matthew 27). Lastly, it easily falls under the evidence of an admonition administered so far as it reaches the evil of his sin, though perhaps unseasonably or disorderly administered, neither out of that love it should, nor in that prudent manner it ought to be: If yet he perceives that it helps him to remove his corruption, he is glad of it, and takes advantage thereby to get the heart more convinced, and estranged from its distemper. When Joab so rudely reproved the unseasonable and excessive sorrow of David for the death of Absalom (2 Samuel 19:6-7), expressions not befitting a subject [illegible] to a prince, when Shimei cast [illegible] and [illegible] reproaches upon him (2 Samuel 16:7, 10), Come out, you bloody man, you man of Belial, the Lord has returned all the blood of Saul upon you; he retired into his own bosom, takes notice of the guilt of his own sin in the death of Uriah, he puts up all these provocations because he perceived God's displeasure in them, let him alone, God has commanded him to curse, [illegible] he will do good to me. Though the physic was ill mingled, and given in a worse manner, yet he takes both, and hoping to receive help against his corruption by both; whereas the painted hypocrite who never had his heart touched with any true remorse for his many rebellions; observe how perversely [illegible] he will be under a stinging reproof, quarrel with the man, the manner of the delivery of it, etc.

A broken-hearted sinner feels his covetousness worse than beggary, and therefore restores all readily; his sin worse than shame, and therefore freely confesses it; than scorn or contempt, and therefore bears the sharpest reproofs after the most unsavory and disorderly manner dispensed: he is weary of his distemper, and therefore willing to bear the sharpest means that shall be tried upon him [illegible] to remove it; use any, even the most difficult and tedious that may subdue those distempers in his [illegible].

He is restlessly importunate in seeking relief from God against his sin, and not satisfied in having anything but deliverance from sin by Jesus Christ. He is RESTLESS and SEEKING: So that should the Lord reprieve him from his present plagues, abate him of the [reconstructed: ease] he has found, and those pressures and [reconstructed: terrors he] has felt, should the Lord [reconstructed: free] him of all his horrors, [reconstructed: ease] him, and take present [reconstructed: rest] from the troubles and occasions of his Conscience; his sorrows would seize upon him afresh, and his fears pursue him without intermission; and the reason is, because the same cause continues, and therefore there must be the same effect, as long as his sin continues unsubdued, he will continue to sigh out his sorrows, and his prayers; for they were not the crosses of the world, poverty in his Estate, disparagements which were cast upon his person, pressures and persecutions from the rage of unreasonable men, nor yet the torments of Hell prepared or suffered, that did sink the soul of a contrite sinner: No, it was the crossness of his corrupt heart to the holiness of the Almighty, his opposition against him, and separation from him, that was the burden unsufferable and unsupportable; and as long as this remains unsubdued, there is no end of his sorrows, nor end of his prayers in suing to the Almighty for succor and relief. So David (Psalm 38:3): There is no soundness in my flesh, because of your anger, nor is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin, for my iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me, and he goes mourning all the day long. Remove therefore all miseries, troubles, [reconstructed: griefs], punishments, let the man free. As long as the bitterness of sin rightly set on by the hand of God remains, he will [reconstructed: find] no rest in himself, and it is certain he will give God no rest (Lamentations 3:49). My eye trickles down, and ceases not, without any intermission till the Lord look down and behold from Heaven: For it is an everlasting Truth; Sorrow for sin, if right, ever drives a man from sin to God, never from God to sin; that which is appointed in way of Providence, to take off the resistance of the corrupt heart against God, and our crossness to him, that in reason cannot make way for any resistance, or crossness against him, to convince the soul. He that truly sorrows for his departure from God, as contrite sinners do, he is driven nearer to God, but never departs away from him, by his sorrow; And therefore he that by reason of the horror of his heart is hurried and carried to the commission of sin in his ordinary course, he never truly found the burden of sin, for common sense will teach men that has any consideration about him; he that is truly sensible of his burden, and in earnest willing to be freed from it will not purposely and willingly add to his burden. He that is [reconstructed: desiring] God should take away his distemper will not go away from God, that so he may keep his distemper; he went away sorrowful says the text, therefore his sorrow was worldly, causing death, he went away to his own ruin; Achitophel to the rope, Judas to the gallows, Cain to the Land of Nod, the knife, the pit, being hideous sins, comes from a sorrow that chooses sin before misery, not from a sorrow that burdens with sin more than misery; and therefore he never puts an end to his cries before he sees an end of his sins. As a man oppressed and crushed under his burden and has no power to help himself, and none by to succor him, hear how he cries help, help, and never ceases to cry help till he dies.

Again he is not satisfied in having anything but deliverance from sin by Christ; If nothing but a Christ can ease and deliver him, nothing but he can satisfy him, it is certain if anything cured you besides a Savior, something wounded you and troubled you besides sin, you have been in horror of heart, anguish and perplexity of spirit in the very flames of hell, and under the fierceness of the fury of the Almighty, and now the terror is [reconstructed: gone] and trouble is over, quieted and eased, healed and comforted; but how did you come by quiet and comfort, how healed how recovered? Did time and continuance wear it away? Did your pleasures and delights remove it? Did your prayers, performances put in bail upon your Conscience, and you stopped the mouth of it with this, you have seen, confessed, resolved? Or do you lick yourself whole by your reformations? You have not been put beyond your shifts by the Almighty, you have made a shift to pray it out, weep it out, fast it out, when those fail, shifted it off by your promises and vows and resolutions, and so [reconstructed: never] saw an absolute need of a Christ, nor what it was to be brought to him, but have made a shift to scramble it out; It is certain as the Lord lives, and your soul lives, you never knew what sorrow for sin meant, or conversion meant or Christ, or Salvation meant to this very day: It was that which Paul speaks of himself (Philippians 3:8-9). That I may win Christ and be found in him, etc.; his brokenness of heart and sorrow for sin did in a restless way drive him there, he could not be satisfied without Christ.

The Reasons of the Point.

Because this sorrow is only true, God accounts it, and the saints and sinners shall so find it. All other sorrows, whatever pretenses or appearances are put upon them, they are in truth but counterfeit and false, and men will fail in their hopes and fall short of their ends, and expectations that trust in them are not of the right make, nor have they the right stamp of the spirit of contrition upon them — sorrow for the shame that befalls, the punishment that pinches and lies heavy, wrath and vengeance that scorches the conscience, though this is good in its place as it makes way for another, yet if it goes no further men fall short of this work, and in the end of their comforts also. This is in the way but he that sits down here will never come to his end — untimely travails [illegible] untimely births; this we must do but this is not all, and if we find no more, our sorrow is no true sorrow. Truth ever carries conformity to the nature of the thing; the palate that tastes a thing truly [illegible] it as it is, bitter things as bitter, he sees a thing truly that sees it as it is. But he that shall taste [illegible] things sweet, he that shall call black blue, we say it, and sense [illegible] it, he is deceived. So here, he that finds the burden of the punishment and feels his plagues heavier than his sins, he does not feel things as they are, nor passes a righteous judgment upon them according to their [illegible], for it has appeared and has been proved that the least sin weighs down the heaviest plague. The heart tastes evils as the stomach tastes meat; if your sin be less than your miseries, your mouth is out of taste. It was that which he charged upon Job (Job 36:21): you have chosen sin rather than affliction.

Because without this sorrow the heart can never be separated from his darling corruption, the league between the soul and sin cannot be broken and dissolved. Perhaps there may arise some squabbles and slight quarrels between the heart of a sinner and his distempers, but that there should be a real divorce without this sorrow rightly set on, it is impossible, for it is open to every man's experience that which is sweet and pleasant to the soul, that wherein it finds content, it will never cast away; love and delight are affections of union, where things appear pleasant there is no cause of parting; sorrow and [illegible] are affections of separation; unless the Lord therefore take off these pleasing contents and embitter the baseness and filth of his lusts to the soul and force him to feel them as such to be the bane of the soul he will [illegible] part company. Therefore it is these go together: when wickedness [illegible] sweet, he [illegible] it, spares it and forsakes it not; things that are sweet the stomach holds them, they must be bitter and then it vomits them. Perhaps a sinner may wrangle for a turn and fall out with his distempers because they do him some unkindnesses, [illegible] his commodity or ease, and so forth, but they will fall in hand readily if there be no further ground of [illegible] and forget all those unkindnesses (Luke 23:34). The wicked will rather lose his life than his railing distemper. The dog returns to his [illegible], because he loved not the pain of his [illegible]; he casts out the vomit, yet because he loved the [illegible], he returns to his vomit again. Indeed [illegible] is not restrained by his terror from his sin, but is acted by the power of it, while he was under the terror of it. So that there is nothing in the world that will sever between the heart and its lust (Proverbs 27:22): bray a fool in a mortar yet will not his folly depart from him.

By this the great bar and hindrance of the coming of our Savior is removed, even the hellish resistance whereby the soul was carried against him. For it is a peremptory truth (Galatians 4:17): the flesh lusts against the Spirit; and the conclusion is express (John 3:9): that which is born of the flesh, is flesh; but every son of Adam being wholly born of the flesh, does wholly resist the Spirit. They who are wholly flesh, do wholly resist; they who do wholly resist, cannot receive; for receiving, and wholly resisting, cannot stand together; therefore this resistance of a fleshly heart must be removed, and that is done by this [illegible]. That sorrow whereby the bar and hindrance which stops the coming of our Savior is removed, that sorrow is of necessity required; but by this sorrow that hindrance is removed.

In regard of ourselves: either the heart must thus be pierced, or else a man without this in his natural condition, is capable and disposed to receive faith and Christ; either necessary thus to be disposed, or nature without this, is fit to entertain him; but that is professedly contrary to the truth (2 Corinthians 2:14): the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God (Romans 8:7); the carnal mind is not subject to the law, neither can it be. It is not possible there should be two suns in the firmament, two kings in one throne, two gods in one heart, to be in heaven and hell at once, to serve God and Mammon. So that as God must give grace before we have it, so he must give us power to receive it, or else we are not capable of it. A subject cannot be capable of contrary habits at the same time (John 5:45): how can you believe who seek honor from man?

Hence therefore it is plain, that the substance and truth of this preparative work, it must be and is stamped upon all that belong to God, though it is in a diverse manner wrought in the most. If this sorrow be only true and of the right stamp, if by this, sin is severed from the soul, the hindrance of our Savior's coming removed, and the soul made capable of faith and Christ, then this of necessity is required of all, and it is certainly wrought in all whom the Lord brings effectually home to himself.

Here is matter of complaint we may justly take up against this secure age in which we live, and it shows, how little, very little saving sorrow there is in the world, and therefore how little saving grace; if no preparation, no implantation, certainly, never fitted for a Christ, never made partakers of him; never hewed or squared to the building, and therefore never put as spiritual stones into the building. Had we but Jeremiah's fountain of tears we might mourn day and night, that there is no true mourning; and if the Lord should send an [reconstructed: angel] to see and mark such as mourn in secret, how few should he find; the former doctrine is a bill of indictment and falls very heavy upon five sorts of people.

Your heedless and fearless professors, who notwithstanding lift up their head full high, and would bear the world in hand that they desire sincerely to fear the Lord, nay pretend a conscientious care to God's command; and conceive they have been affected with their sin and that not in a small measure, but have had both sight of, and sorrow for their failings and they hope to good purpose, and would be loath (prejudice being laid aside) it should appear to be other. You say well and if you prove what you say happy it is for you, which I [reconstructed: sincerely] desire. But are you willing to put your case to the trial? Let us a little parley about the business and because we will deal plainly, your own practices and your own consciences shall bring in evidence and those I hope are beyond exception, you careless servants in the family; you careless hearers in the assemblies, and you careless professors in the plantations, you are here indicted that the practice of this heart-breaking sorrow for sin is a stranger to you, and you a stranger to it in your daily course, we shall then agree upon the grounds on which we shall proceed.

You will not, you cannot deny, but you have wholesome and savory counsel daily suggested, the commands of God are line after line, precept after precept here a little and there a little, and your duties daily laid before you in public, in private, your failings bewailed, grace and help begged from the Lord for you; the truth, your judgments do not gainsay and your hearts cannot but approve, as lawful and suitable to your places and according to God's mind, yet no sooner out of the assembly where you hear, out of the presence of your master who commands, from your knees where you have prayed and confessed, but the commands are laid by, that is not attended, this not discharged, that is neglected, you return again to the old distempers; and you say you did not remember it, you have [reconstructed: forgotten] it, you did not think of it. What need we more evidence? Your own words shall be your own [reconstructed: witness], and appeal to your own conscience, let that be your own judge; did you ever hear any man that [reconstructed: groaned] under the load that was too heavy for him, wearied with the burden that is beyond his strength, as not able to bear, nor to ease himself, say he did not remember the burden that [reconstructed: oppressed] him, he did not think of the weight of the load that clogs and tires him; would you not [reconstructed: count] such expressions as cross to common sense, or would you not conclude either the man had no burden or else his words had no truth?

Ah but you say; if they had been gross evils it had been something, but they are petty things and therefore need no great care; what need we any more evidence, your own words will be your own witness, therefore you care only for great sins, fear only gross and scandalous evils, then your care and fear is naught, and your course so, and your conscience so, and your condition also, he that feels all sin as such, he fears all sin, indeed the least sin more than the greatest evil, if you fear only loathsome and scandalous practices, your fear is false and your heart false your sorrow was never found nor yet your condition; that I must confess when I [reconstructed: consider] men's infinite heedlessness, if they did know what God were, or what sin was, what conscience, what a command, what the reckoning to come were, did not most men live without God in the world they could not live so.

The second sort who are hence shut out from having any share in this godly sorrow, or the thorough impression of the work of the Spirit, is the treacherous formalist. Formalist I term him because he carries the face of religion, the garb and guise of godliness in outward appearance and would be counted a friend to the truth, so far as he may serve his own turn of it, and he is content to be at league with the Gospel, provided he may make his own terms, and attain his own ends; namely that he may have allowance in some lusts and yet [illegible] honored also among the people, with the title of an honest, godly, and good man. But when his carnal ends are not answered, and the word requires more than he has, and commands more than he would do, and would pluck away his beloved lust that he is loath to part with; he then begins to set up secret conspiracies in his heart against the evidence of the doctrine, and therefore I call him a treacherous hypocrite, because he may happily bite the lip and go away for the while, and says little but he bears a secret grudge against the strictness of such truths that are beyond his pitch and strain, and when time comes he will be revenged of them, in the mean time his heart is inwardly tired with them and goes off from them. This the [illegible] calls the counsel of the wicked, when wicked hearts call a counsel and sit in counsel against the commands of God: and Job prays earnestly that God would keep him, and free him from it. Job 21:16. Let the counsel of the wicked be far from me, namely a reserved resolution to have his distemper, rather than to have and welcome that word that would remove it. Whereas we have heard a broken-hearted sinner is willing to attend all means, but those especially that would help him most and free him from his corruptions: this treacherous wretch notwithstanding his pretended love to the word, yet when it comes to it, he is willing to be rid of the word, not rid of his corruption, so far from being weary of his sin, that he is weary of the minister, or Christian brother that would remove it, of the word that would subdue it. This was the temper of those formalists that followed our Savior for the loaves, that is the Gospel for their own ends, when our Savior pressed a spiritual and convicting truth upon them which might carry them beyond their own false aims or else would condemn them utterly as such as had no life of grace in them, unless [illegible] eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you (John 6:53), nor were it possible they should attain the life of glory. They answer, This is a hard saying, who can bear it? It pinched them to the quick, and searched the very core of their corruption, and they were resolved to bear their sin, but could not bear the saying of our Savior; the presence of their sins was pleasant, they could welcome them, but the power of the Truth was hard, they could not endure that; indeed, they speak as though it were a matter impossible, who has power to submit to it? Truly none but a heart truly pierced with godly sorrow: and therefore it is added, verse 66, From that time, many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him, because they would walk in their own ways, and wicked practices, therefore they chose rather to forsake the company and ministry of a Savior, than to forsake their own distempers. Thus it has been often seen in the country from where we came, many a formal wretch has been at great cost and charges, laid out himself and estate to bring a faithful preacher to a place; and when the soul-saving dispensation of the Word has either discovered his falseness, and laid open the cursed haunts of a carnal heart, shook his hopes, and beat all the holds he had of the goodness of his estate, and battered them before his eyes: He that had the greatest hand to bring the means and ministry to the place, if he cannot cunningly undermine the man, he would rather leave the place, than live under the ministry that would take away his lusts. This was the wound of the young man, because he wanted this brokenness of heart, not being rightly burdened with his corruption, nor loosened from it (Matthew 19); he went away from that counsel of our Savior that would have plucked away his earthly, covetous humor which did take place in him. He went away sorrowful: all the while our Savior's conditions suited his crooked ends, and carnal reason, he gave way and welcome to what he was advised, All these [illegible] I have done from my youth up, this is so as I would have it; but when our Savior went further, Go sell all, that was beyond his pace and expectation; and he went away, he could not bear the counsel, and therefore would not hear it. Thus it befalls many a man that the Lord has brought here, confined him to the narrow compass of the Covenant of the Gospel: all the while he lived at large as it were, and [illegible] constantly or occasionally attended upon the preaching of the Word, and carried an approved kind of conformity to it, in the judgment and opinion of such as only attended the general strain of his profession, and so walked aloof off in way of Christian [illegible] and loving entertainment of the Truth, all went well. But when he comes to be folded in the fellowship of the faith, and that men follow him home to his doors, and watch him in his retired carriage, and have occasion to grapple with his spirit in the particulars which concern his particular [illegible], as when he had failed and offended, and therefore follows him with medicine answerable and appointed for the purpose, a seasonable admonition: poor sinful creature, he is not able to [illegible] the discipline and government of Christ, to [illegible] under it, he begins secretly to [illegible] [illegible] undermine the strictness of those [illegible] that formerly he came into these parts for, that he might seek them, find and enjoy them as [illegible] often professed. It is said of Herodias, when John the Baptist would give no [illegible] to her lust, but professed openly against it, so that she must be forced to reform it, or to have gall and wormwood with it, either not have it, or not have any [illegible]; the text says (Mark 6:19), she waylaid him, and left not the plotting of her purposes until she procured his ruin, she watched him a turn, and was revenged of him. So it is with a carnal heart, he is so far from being troubled for sin, that he is troubled he cannot commit it; so far from being plagued with the corruption (as Solomon speaks, he that sees the plague of his own heart, the plague of pride, the plague of a perverse, sluggish, heedless heart) that he is plagued and tormented with those spiritual truths, and power of those ordinances, that will not suffer those lusts to lodge in his bosom, nor suffer him to lie and live in them with any quiet or content. Thus when sin should be grievous as the Psalmist speaks, the ways and commands of God are ever grievous to such, it is a grief to him to be counseled, checked, crossed in a sinful course: was [illegible] any man truly sensible of a burden that would not be [illegible]? Any man oppressed with a load, that would not be content to have it removed, and taken away from him? Of this temper were those the Lord delivered up to a reprobate sense (Romans 1), who did not delight to have God in their knowledge, they bear a secret spite against such saving truths as would search the core of those noisome corruptions of their hearts. It is certain such never knew what godly sorrow for sin meant: since we have heard that such are willing to attend all means, but take most content in those that work most powerfully for the removal of their special distempers.

A third sort who fall short of this saving work, is, your self-conceited Pharisee, who has such an overweening apprehension of his own worth and excellency, that [illegible] is not able to take shame for [illegible] sin, and therefore cannot endure to be convinced of it. What he will not do, he will not know, loath to confess his course shameful and vile, because then he concludes there is no color of common sense to continue in it, but he must be forced to reform it, unless he would openly proclaim to all the world, that he is resolved to go against knowledge and conscience, which is too loathsome and gross, even to ordinary profaneness. Therefore he pretends nothing but the search of the truth, [illegible] further information of the mind of the Lord, and if that once could appear, how glad would he be to receive it, and more glad to follow it, because this plea is beyond exception, [illegible], carries an appearance of conscientious and judicious watchfulness in a man's course, which cannot [illegible] a cavil, but is secretly resolved of the conclusion, the reasons shall never be plain to him that would press and persuade to the practice of that which does not please his [illegible] heart, which he purposes to satisfy. Let men say what they can, if he may have approbation and allowance from others to follow his own heart, it will be more credit for him, and he shall find more ease; if not, he determines to do what he pleases without leave and allowance, holds out this in his ordinary and daily profession. It's the way of truth he desires to find, the rule he would see, the mind of God he endeavors to know and follow; that he pretends, but intends indeed to walk in his own way, and follow his own mind. And therefore if things answer not his intents, suit not his expectation, but arguments seem strong that persuade to the contrary, and the evidences of reason look and lead another way: he then keeps afoot his old course, confesses he is yet in the dark, those reasons do not carry him, those arguments do not convince him, he desires further light, and shall be willing to submit and follow, that is, if men would be willing to submit to his conceit, and follow his humor. Thus he holds his sin, and holds his inquiry, keeps off all conviction that he may keep his corruption, and his course in it. As we know it in the country from where we came, some wily-headed persons get possession of a living, keep the owner in suit and restless wrangling many years together, against the evidence of their own conscience and reason, because so long they can keep the living, and reap the commodity of it. So while men keep an inquiry, and dispute what they should do, all that while they do what they please, but only waiting for better light (Numbers 23:34). When Balaam had gone against the express counsel and command of God, to listen to Balak to gratify his malicious desires, the angel of the Lord met him, and withstood him in the perverseness of his way, he crooked his way, and perverted his path against God's express charge. Observe how pliably he comes in to the angel's reproof, 'I knew it not that you stood in the way, now therefore if it displeases you, I will get me back.' He knew it displeased God, and though he said so, yet he kept his disposition and resolution to curse Israel, and so to displease God still, and therefore he contrives all ways to compass his [illegible], and therefore here he builds seven altars, and there he builds seven altars, that he might ask leave of the Almighty, and when that would not do it, he went without leave (Numbers 24:1). This is one part of that of the prophet to lay hold of deceit; and so of sin, whereas a broken-hearted sinner as we have heard, because the holds of sin are cast down, and the crossness and resistance of the [illegible] removed, and his soul loosened from his sin, he is easily willing to be convinced, sensible of the least inkling and intimation of any evil that is or shall be discovered, and sits down under the evidence of it [illegible]. But when reasons are so pregnant that he cannot gainsay, and answers so undeniable that they cannot be shaken, yet to stand off from the truth, with a pretense of waiting for a further discovery, argues a person strengthened in the stiffness of his spirit, which holds out truth at the staff's end, and was never yet subdued to the sovereignty and authority thereof. He keeps the blow off, and therefore breaks not under it, shuts the truth out of their souls, and therefore it stirs not, works not at all upon the soul; such are far off from God.

The fourth sort is your complaining Hypocrite, whose conscience has been awakened with horrors and fears, and the heart startled with the terrors of the Almighty, and affected with the sight and sense of his sins, and the venom and dread of those curses that the truth has revealed, and fastened upon the soul; he sees he is now in God's hand, and that he has him at an infinite advantage; to bear it, is beyond his power; to avoid it, is beyond his skill; to resist is useless, and against reason and sense, that were to hasten his own ruin; his heart is filled with grief, and his eyes with tears, and his mouth with heavy complaints to God, to man, and he is free and full this way, and that usually, and this he hopes may move the Lord to pity, and to spare him, and abate him of those plagues which he has declared in his holy Word, and he cannot but confess he has deserved by reason of his sin; and he presumes this will go for good pay with the Lord, considering those many human infirmities that do attend us since the Fall, and that it is beyond our power to help ourselves, and free ourselves from our corruptions; thus he keeps his complaints and keeps his sins, he mourns over his distempers, and maintains them while he does so; thus they bathe their sins, as he said, but do not drown them with those heart-breaking sorrows, which in truth are poison to them: thus it was with Ahab when he had received that dreadful message from the mouth of the Lord, that he would require the blood of Naboth at his hand, and cut off his house, he rent his clothes, and put on Sackcloth, and fasted, etc. (1 Kings 21:27). The Lord himself observes how he acts this work of [illegible], and that in a comely manner, stage-player like, and abates him for the present execution of the plague; the Lord loves his own work and ordinances; that as it is with a parent that affects a child, the very picture of it pleases him; so it is with God, he likes his ordinances, and the acting and using of them: but this did not cure, but increase his corruption, for he that was an enemy to Elijah (verse 20), he professed after (1 Kings 22:8) he hated Micaiah, his sorrow was too overly and slightly, he rent his clothes when he should have rent his heart. Thus it was with those Hypocrites (Isaiah [reconstructed: 58:2-3]), We have fasted, say they, and you regard not; we have humbled our souls, and you respect it not; the Lord answers, You fast for strife and debate, and to seek your own pleasure; they made way for the maintaining and practicing their sins, not for the removal of them from their hearts; and it's admirably strange how this delusion will cozen a man, and how far it will carry him, it will make him Sermon-proof, and help him to [illegible] his heart against the most sharp and searching words. As he, how came he to desire and delight in the most powerful preaching, and yet never knew what it was to need a [illegible], or to be relieved by him? Answer: I conceive such threatenings are intended against them that will not repent and sorrow for their sins, but that will I. Nay, it has been found by experience from the confessions of many, that they would weep over their sins, and then fall to commit them; men make their lamentation over their distempers, and then return to the commission of them: as old friends weep at their parting, not because they would be quit one of another, but it's a grievance they should part, and they hope to meet again shortly.

The fifth [illegible], [illegible] the discouraged Hypocrite, whom the Lord has exercised under his heavy displeasure, and the poison of his corruptions has been gall and wormwood to his conscience, the floods of iniquities have followed at the heels, and forced him to find his heart, and prayers, and endeavors, and yet all in vain, he finds no relief at all, no ease, no good at all, by any means the Lord has appointed, and he improved according to his ability; the sinner sinks down in desperate discouragement, and casts off the thoughts of mercy, and the continuance of any further endeavor, he sees no profit accruing, and concludes there is no possibility of obtaining, his hands grow feeble, and his heart faint, he concludes, as good sit still, as rise and fall; I shall never attain it, thus, and so long I have tried, and therefore why should I endeavor it? So wretched Saul (1 Samuel 28:15), God has forsaken me, and answers me, neither by Urim, nor by [illegible]: thus also that wicked King (2 Kings 6, last verse), This comes of the Lord, why should I pray to him, or wait upon him any longer? And thus it was with them (Ezekiel 33:10), men pine away in their sins, lie under the weight, and never look out for help. This is not [illegible] or brokenness of heart, for that makes a man restlessly importunate in seeking the Lord; it's not therefore sorrow for sin, but a kind of sullen waywardness of spirit, a dogged kind of self-willed disposition, because the pressures grow heavy and unbearable, and the Lord withdraws himself from our desires, [illegible] it's beyond our power and ability to relieve ourselves, God denies to hear, and will not help, and we cannot help ourselves, nor command help elsewhere; in sullen waywardness the heart casts off any further attendance upon the Lord.

Whereas godly sorrow rightly set on, and that for sin, and departure from God, will not suffer the soul to depart further; that which takes away the resistance of our corrupt hearts, that will not suffer them yet further to depart, these desperate discouragements are valleys and ditches that must be filled up before the Lord Christ comes into the soul (Luke 3:5).

TERROR. It shows the direful condition of all hard-hearted [illegible], who are not only in the chains of darkness, and held with the cords of their own iniquities (as the Scripture speaks) but shut up in the dungeon of everlasting destruction, and locked in within the iron gate of a hard [illegible] stupid heart without the least preparation, or expectation of good from the Almighty.

This hardness is double; there are two sorts, at least two [illegible] of it.

- 1. Such as sleep in a careless and secure course, never yet saw, at least were not sensible of the plague of sin, or the sting and punishment that is attending thereupon. - 2. Such as have been in the fire, scorched with the fury of the Almighty, which has drunk up their spirits, but when God has abated them of the expression of his displeasure, and allayed the flame, they grow cold and careless; as the iron that has been heated with a long and strong fire, grows more hard when it grows once cold, than ever it was before: They have been gashed, and [illegible] in pieces with the terrors of conscience; but [illegible] worn out their terrors, and fears, they are more seared and senseless than ever.

Such who are drowned in senseless security, have their hearts glutted and surfeited with pleasures, and [illegible] of the flesh and contents of this present world. To sit moping in a corner, sink under the burden of their sins and smoke out their days in a melancholic pressure and pensiveness of spirit, they account it a matter of scorn, a silly kind of sottish behavior unbecoming persons of a generous spirit; they wonder what men ail, and conclude it is more in men's conceit, than that there is any just cause for such a carriage; for they bless God they never knew what it meant, and they hope they never shall; and hence they fearlessly adventure upon the practice and commission of known evils; and it never stuck in their stomach, nor are they troubled with it, but are delighted in it; that which is a plague to the broken hearted saints, they are plagued with their pride and froward perverseness of spirit, but it is a pastime, a may-game, it is their [illegible] and matter of merriment in their meeting; my [illegible] rebuked me sharply, says the servant, my mother chided me, says the child, but I think I [illegible] them, they would have their way and will, and would have it done after their manner, and I did it with a witness, so ill-favoredly, that I know it vexed all the veins of their hearts, that is the way to weary them, and there they solace themselves, ah it is roast meat to them; and thus it is a pastime to a fool to do wickedly: but know you are a hard-hearted fool, a graceless wretch in the wise man's account; do not our plantations groan under such sons of Belial? Such senseless [illegible] do they not swarm in our streets? Are not our families pestered with such? Esau-like when he sold his [illegible]; ate and drank, and rose up and went his way, not affected with what he had lost, not ashamed of what he had done, but [illegible] of all; or like the man in the Gospel possessed with the devil, sometime he cast him into the fire and sometime into the water, so these rush headlong into sin, and impudently continue in such [illegible] courses; they commit sin, and continue in sin, hasten God's wrath, and their own ruin, and go away senseless of all, so that it is now seasonable to take Jeremiah's complaint, I [illegible] and heard and no man said what have I done (Jeremiah 8:6). He might and did hear of hideous vile evils without any diligent hearkening, see and meet loathsome distempers without any searching; but when he followed men home wondering, in what quiet do these men live? What comfort do these men find? How do they bear up their hearts under such hellish carriages? I will go see how they lie down in their beds, and whether they dare sleep or no under such transgression and such guilt, and when he came he hearkened, surely I shall now hear them mourn bitterly, afflict their hearts with unfeigned grief, there is no such thing, no man said what have I done? Not a word of that, it was the least part of their care, the furthest off their thoughts. And this is the temper, the condition and disposition of scores, hundreds of you that hear this word at this instant. Is not the day yet to dawn, the hour yet to come that ever you shed a tear, sent up a sigh to heaven, in the sense of your evils, or set yourself in secret to bewail your distempers before the Lord? God knows and your hearts know, the chambers where you lodge, and the beds where you lie, can bring in witness against you, you are strangers to this blessed brokenness of heart, indeed enemies to it; you were pricked, no not so much as in your eyes nor in your tongues, God and his word and all means that have been tried could never wrest a tear from your eye, not a confession out of your mouth, you will commit your follies and die in the defense or excuse of them: but to have your heart affected in serious manner with the filth of your sinful distempers, it is to you a riddle to this day. In fact there are thousands in the bottomless pit of hell that never had the like means as you, never committed the like sins, and yet never had such a senseless sottish heart under such rebellions, as yourself. Woe be to you that laugh now, you shall mourn: those flinty spirits of yours will not break now, they shall certainly burn, you draw a light harrow now, you find no burden of your pride and stubbornness, rebellions, idleness, and noisome lusts, they are no burdens, you can go bolt upright with them and Samson-like carry the very gates of hell upon your backs and never buckle under them, well the time will come you will call to the mountains to fall upon you, and the hills to cover you, from the infinite weight of God's everlasting displeasure. Taste a little the sting of this sin, and see the compass of this accursed condition of yours and go no further than the point in hand.

You are far without the walk of the Almighty, there is no dealing and intercourse between you and the holy one of Israel, the Almighty passes by and will not so much as change a word with you or cast a look [reconstructed: upon] you to leave any remembrance of himself upon your soul; you live as though you had nothing to do with him nor he with you, nothing to do with grace or heaven; the Holy Spirit awes some, humbles others, some it quickens that were sluggish, establishes others who were weak, only you are senseless of any operation of the Lord, you have a heart that puts away the presence of the Lord out of your mind if it were possible; your fleece is dry when there is dew upon all the earth — this is that which the Apostle discovers to be the cause of that heavy curse of the heathen (Ephesians 4:18), strangers from the life of God by reason of the hardness of their hearts. Oh you have a [reconstructed: hard] heart, and lead a strange life, even as opposite to God as darkness to light, hell to heaven, differing only in degree from that [illegible] which appears most eminently among the Devils and damned, even to be an adversary to God and his grace, to stand it out in defiance with the divine goodness of God, his power and faithfulness; Pharaoh [reconstructed: hardened] it, but you do it, [reconstructed: standing] it out with the Almighty and impudently dare the great God — who is Jehovah? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let my heart go to yield subjection and service to him; I know no authority of a command that shall rule me, nor admonition that shall awe or reform me. Thus you are a stranger to the wisdom of God, the folly of your own self-deceiving mind and heart leads you and deludes you, you are a stranger to the grace and holiness of the Lord; the perverseness and rebellion of your own wretched heart takes place only with you, yes a stranger to mercy, and to the compassions and consolations of the Lord Jesus, and his blessed Spirit, who chooses your own ruin, loves your own death, following lying vanities and forsakes the mercies purchased and tendered to you.

Upon these terms in which you now stand God has appointed no good for you while you continue in this temper: as he said, write this man childless, so write upon it, write your soul graceless, that shall never prosper (Isaiah 61:1-2). The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good [reconstructed: tidings] to the meek to bind up the brokenhearted, liberty to the captives, opening of the prison to those that are bound, to appoint to them that mourn in Zion; beauty for ashes, the garment of gladness for the spirit of heaviness. You hear the glad tidings of mercy, pardon and peace, grace of life, that passes understanding, joy unspeakable, rich and plentiful redemption from all sins and miseries, which God has laid up in his everlasting decree, and laid out in the great work of redemption by the Lord Jesus, but you may set your heart at rest, as long as you see that hard heart of yours you shall never see a good day; joy, and comfort, and liberty, they are not your allowance, they are children's bread, it is prepared, intended, and appointed of purpose for others, you have no share and portion in all these precious things of life; hands off, you hard-[reconstructed: hearted] wretch. There is good [reconstructed: tidings] from [reconstructed: God], [reconstructed: the] poor shall be enriched, the mourners comforted, but no good to you; no, look at the second [reconstructed: verse], there is other provision the Lord makes for stiff-necked creatures, he proclaims a year of Jubilee, a day of acceptance from God to the distressed; but there is a day of vengeance of our God, to those that are of a contrary disposition; there is vengeance, and it is from God, he will be revenged upon you for all the contempt of his truth, grief done to his Spirit, resistance of his grace, he will rain fire and brimstone, storm and tempest upon you, this shall be the portion of your cup, for the conclusion is peremptory (Job 9:4): Who ever [reconstructed: hardened] his heart against the Lord, and prospered? Can there any example be alleged that will evidence it? Any reason given or conceived that might prove it possible? Search the stories of so many generations, and inquire since the day that God created [reconstructed: man] upon earth, if there were ever such a thing heard. When there were Giants upon earth, the whole earth was filled with violence; all the world [reconstructed: set] themselves in open rebellion against God; God opens the windows of heaven, and the fountains of the great [reconstructed: deep], and sends in a deluge of his displeasure and wrath, and destroys those hard-hearted rebels from off the face of the earth. Me thinks I hear those flinty stiff-necked wretches, [illegible] and crying, drowning and dying, and roaring out their wretchedness, those loose libertines, eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, and knew nothing — that is, and would know nothing; their cups in their hands, and queens in their arms, and despair in their mouths: Oh we shut our ears, and hardened our hearts against the striving of God's Spirit, the call of God's messengers, the warning and entreaties of God's patience: We would not receive counsel and terms of peace and mercy, and therefore we now perish without mercy, cursing one another, and breathing out their last; Cursed be the day that ever I knew you, by your carnal deceits I was strengthened; Cursed be you and your company, by your example I was deluded and hardened. Thus they are accursed, and go cursing down to the depth of the sea, and so to the depth of the bottomless pit.

It is beyond the scope of our Savior's coming into the world, and the commission he has received for the great work of Redemption to communicate grace and life to you in the condition in which now you are; (Luke 19:10), The Son of man is come to [illegible] and save that which is lost; not such as was miserable, for so all was, but such as were sensible of that undone condition in which they lay. Indeed, his expression is peremptory, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, (Matthew 9:13). Those who thought themselves whole, in a safe and secure estate, he had no commission to call or comfort such; they [illegible] be broken before he binds them, weary and laden before he eases them, wounded before he will pour in the oil of mercy to heal and relieve them: Hence it was that when our Savior had prepared his feast, killed his fatlings, and drawn forth his refined wines, and sent and invited his guests, all pleaded their excuses, and refused to come, not being hunger-bit, and sensibly affected with their own miserable estate, and the need they had of supply from those rich provisions of a Savior, their careless and secure hearts could relish other sensual care, and swinish contentments which they had at home; when men set no price, see no need of those dainties and rarities of the riches of grace and salvation, purchased by Christ, and offered in the Gospel, he peremptorily concludes, Such shall never taste of them, (Luke 14:24).

The second sort of hard-hearted sinners, or of a further and higher degree in this hardness, are such as have been exercised under the displeasure of the Almighty, [illegible] had many stabs by the Truth, and threatenings of the Word, and have had many bruises and blows from the dispensations of God in his ordinances, deeply affected, and almost [illegible] with the danger of their own estates, and the dreadfulness of those everlasting burnings which now they felt in their souls, and were not able to bear; but at last they have SHOOK OFF THEIR TERROR, [illegible] away the vexation, and trouble that lay upon their spirits; and now they grow more fierce and hard-hearted than ever before, and dare out-face and out-brave the severest threatenings, the most dreadful judgments that can be denounced, and which they find and confess themselves liable to; having their conscience seared with a hot iron, (1 Timothy 4:2), and themselves becoming fearlessly impudent to adventure upon sin, without the least touch of any remorse or trouble for it. The time was they confess they sat with trembling hearts under the dispensation of the Word, and so silly and feeble spirited they were, that their hearts failed with fear, and [illegible] away in the apprehension of the heinousness of their sin, and the insufferable plagues that were due to it. But now that day is [illegible], those days are past, they have got more wit and skill than to be scared with such bugbears, they can tell how to fence themselves against such fears and disquiets, they can sit and hear, and attend all that can be said, let them speak while they will, and wear their [illegible] to the stumps, they can hear all, and slight all; in fact, rather than fail, deride and make a mock of what they have heard, but to be troubled at what they hear, they are [illegible] such babies, they are not so much as stirred with any thing. Oh, woe to you that ever you saw your heart at this pass, the greater will your trouble be one day: The devils believe and tremble, and do you not stir? Are you in hell here on earth before you come there? And do you come short of the devils themselves in sensibleness of heart, and can you content yourself, yes, bless yourself in this condition? Hear what God has determined against you, and will certainly bring upon you, (Deuteronomy 29:19): He that shall [illegible] the words of this curse, and shall bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart, [illegible] drunkenness to thirst, the wrath of the Lord will smoke against that man, to cut him off from the land of the living, etc.

But before I part with you, suffer me to spread the dreadfulness of your condition before your face, and leave it upon record in your conscience, that you may say you [illegible] forewarned. Know therefore your case is almost desperate, and beyond cure, your doom draws on and hastens, which you can [illegible] escape, your plagues are beyond the utmost of all extremity, which you cannot conceive, much less endure.

First, your case to common reason (leaving secret things to God) seems past cure; it's a great suspicion the day of grace is over, the date of mercy past, the period of God's patience come to an end; all means have been used, and conclusions tried with you, the invincible stiffness of your spirit has won the day, you have tried masteries with all means, law and gospel, promises, [illegible] and [illegible], the unconquerable hardness of your heart has out-bid all dispensations, you are cannon-proof, law-proof, gospel-proof, threatening-proof; there is no other means of good in heaven or earth, and you are worse by them; all which are provided to better others, and have so done: without means you have no reason to think that God will work, and you have had the trial of all, and you are beyond [illegible] in your stiffness, and therefore beyond all helps in an ordinary way (Proverbs 29:1). He that being often reproved, [illegible] his heart, shall be destroyed, and that without remedy: he that casts away the salve that should cure him, spills the medicine that should recover him, casts away the meat that should nourish him, how should he be either cured or supported? There are no commands that awe, no promises persuade, no terrors awaken, then there is no remedy: he must be deluded that opposes the wisdom that only can guide him, he must be cursed that resists the mercy that only can save him, he must be damned that [illegible] upon the blood of Jesus, that only would redeem him, there is no other remedy, no other name but the name of Jesus whereby men must be saved (Acts 4:12). Indeed, not only means fail him, but God himself seems to forsake (Genesis 6:3). My Spirit shall not always strive with man: he has striven by his terrors, by his mercies, striven and laid hold upon you by heart-breaking [illegible]; turn, why will you die? turn, and cause others to return, and so iniquity shall not be your ruin (Ezekiel 33:11). Oh that there were such a heart in them to fear me always, that it might be well with them (Deuteronomy 5:29). But you have wound away from God's hand, and forsaken him, and he has forsaken you; there is word and promises, but no God in them, terrors and [illegible], but no God in them; you are without God (Ephesians 2:12), and are you not then without hope? When the throes of a laboring woman leave her, her life leaves her — so here.

It's said of a company of despisers of Christ, that they [illegible] him again to themselves (Hebrews 6:6). When they resist one Christ, and resist that salvation that has been offered, either they must have another Christ, or he anew crucified if ever they be saved. So there must be a new Christ, and new Scriptures, before such miserable wretches can be relieved, the blood of Jesus, the Spirit and promises of Jesus; grace and salvation has been tendered to these stubborn-hearted, and they have opposed and cast all away; either there must be another Christ, or he must die again: all the commands and comforts in the Word, all the rules and directions, [illegible] and counsels, have been used and tried without any profit and prevailing power, therefore there must be another covenant, [illegible], and Scriptures, if you are saved; that's incredible, therefore the other impossible; [illegible] can you escape that neglect so great salvation? (Hebrews 2:2). I appeal to yourselves — you will go from the law to the gospel, from justice to mercy, but where will you go when you have departed away from mercy, and mercy is departed away from you.

Your judgment hastens, you cannot escape it nor prevent it, and truly it's coming more speedily and suddenly than you are aware of. You bring upon yourself swift destruction, and though you sleep yet your damnation sleeps not. The earth that often receives rain from heaven, and yet brings forth thorns is near to cursing (Hebrews 6:8); look every day that God should curse all your comforts, your out-goings, and your in-comings (Proverbs 28:14). He that hardens his heart falls into mischief, falls into it, and is overwhelmed with it all of a sudden; he may fall into any temptation, he opposes that counsel that should preserve him, falls into sins, he casts away that grace, and resists that spirit that should strengthen him; indeed, being past feeling, such a one will run to commit all wickedness with greediness (Ephesians 4:19). Hell and devils and [illegible] are let loose upon such, the light of nature, evidence of reason, dictates of conscience, authority of the law, terrors of judgments, entreaties of mercies, the hard heart has cast away all these, and therefore rushes into whatever evil comes next, against conscience, command, reason, sense, nature; men put off the principles, not of humanity, but of sense, and become more base than the beasts themselves, do that which beasts will not do, and morality is ashamed to speak. As the ship when the anchors are broken, and cable cut and a mighty tempest arises, she is wholly left to the rage of wind and weather. When men harden their hearts God swears they shall never enter into his rest (Hebrews 3, last verse).

Ground of comfort to support the sinking spirits of broken-hearted sinners when they seem to faint under the fierce displeasure of the Almighty, and to be [illegible] with the unsupportable weight of the wickedness of their own souls which they are neither able to avoid, nor [illegible] to undergo.

Here hence is matter of sound refreshing both to the parties that are the patients, and bear [illegible] bitterness and burden of their sorrow; to their friends, who as spectators do mourn with them, and are affected with a fellow feeling of the evil of that which they find by experience; let me speak a word separately to them both.

Know therefore to your comfort you distressed soul, this sorrow and anguish which now oppresses you, it is not to death, in fact it is the only way and means to deliver from death, from the death of sin, and that security in which you lie, without either sense of your misery, or the least appearance and possibility of deliverance, from the death everlasting of your soul to which you were hastening amain. As it is with a dead body when with rubbing, chafing, and pouring in of hot waters there is some kind of warmth coming and overspreading the parts, there is good hope the soul is again returning, the man reviving again. It is so in this spiritual quickening of a soul dead in sin, stone dead, stiff and insensible of the distempers that lodge within him, and take possession of the whole frame of the inward man, as stiff coldness takes possession of a dead body. When the Lord begins to affect the sinner and makes him thoroughly sensible with godly sorrow, by rubbing and chafing in of sharp reproofs and passionate exhortations, there is a kind of spiritual warmth coming into the soul, and certain evidence like a harbinger or immediate forerunner of life, and [illegible] which will undoubtedly take up their [illegible] in the soul. He that goes in the valley of tears he [illegible] on comfortably because he goes in the right way to Zion, they shall go weeping and mourning with their faces toward Zion (Isaiah 50:4). This is the guise and the way of such who are traveling towards the holy land, Immanuel's Land, the land of Promise; they may be content to bear the hardness of the way when they are sure to attain the end of their journey, the salvation of their souls, that will pay the charges and recompense the labor and quit cost in the issue. It is the traveler's conclusion that carries them through the harshest way they meet withal: he has never an ill day that has a good night, and when he finds the marks of the way that are given him, the directions that are suggested to discover his approach to his own home, that makes him [illegible] all the rest. As happily they may be to this purpose, [illegible] you are passed so many days' journey you shall come [illegible] last to a most tedious and heavy way, and deep waters such as you must be forced to swim, can feel and find no bottom, yet if you keep the right causeway there is no danger at all. It is a sad way, but safe, and then know you may, you are nearer home, [illegible] danger is past, and the worst is over, you are within sight of your own house. When the traveler who has taken these directions, and retains his marks in his mind, when he finds that by experience which has formerly been spoken, the way marvelous heavy, tedious, he sticks fast in the mire and clay, soon the waters are so deep that he feels no bottom, he remembers and concludes now I know where I am, I am sure I am in the right way and certainly near home. This makes him devour all the difficulties wet and weary; he feels he fears nothing, he thinks of nothing, but his wife will welcome him, his children rejoice in him, his friends refresh and accompany him, there he shall take up his lodging and refresh his weary nature. So here, in your spiritual travel when the weight [illegible] your sins which of all other is the heaviest, the loss of a God, and his favor and presence which are depths and floods of distress which come even to the soul, there you find no bottom, they are unsufferable, unsupportable. Then lift up your head, know this is the right way to Christ, and you near home, even within the ken of the Promise of eternal life. You will come immediately to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant, your head and husband, who will wipe away all tears from your eyes, who will embrace and welcome you in the arms of his mercy into the bosom and bowels of his love, and rejoice over you with everlasting joy. Come you mourning weary and weather-beaten sinner, I have wept for you and died for you, and prayed for you, and looked many a long look for that distressed soul. Oh be humbled, be estranged and divorced from your lusts, when will it once be, oh welcome, though come weary and tired, no sooner there arrived but the Spirit of comfort shall pour peace into your conscience which passes all understanding, and joy unspeakable and glorious. All the firstborn of God they will come about you and be glad to enjoy your fellowship, and the innumerable company of angels will sing Hallelujahs in heaven, peace on earth and good will towards men. God and Christ, heaven and earth, men and angels rejoice in you and your condition, and why may you not be refreshed in it? There is no other way whereby God can according to covenant convey spiritual good to you, no other way whereby you can receive it. Be therefore forever comforted in your condition, God must cut if he cure you of a stony heart, God must wound that secure and careless soul of yours if ever he heal it, so himself professes it is the method he takes in relieving the misery and distressed and sinful condition of a son of Adam (Isaiah 19:22): the Lord shall smite Egypt and shall heal it, and they shall return to the Lord, and he will be entreated of them, and he will heal them.

Oh but my terrors have been many formerly but never as now passing strength; my burdens were [illegible] before, but never such as now beyond all extremity, above all the ability I have, beyond all possibility I can conceive, to endure and not to die under them in everlasting discouragement never to look for any good.

Therefore your comfort is never so near as now; as in childbirth, so in this new birth, the stronger and sharper the throes, the more speedy and successful the deliverance. As it is in the cure of an old festered sore, all the while it breaks and runs there is some ease, but there is yet no cure while the core remains; when that is pressed out though it be with much pain and extremity, yet then the healing comes on with most speed. When your sorrows have seized upon you and you have breathed out your sighs and complaints to God, there has happily been some ease. Oh but there was a core of some bosom lust or corruption that lay within, and yet not loosened and dislodged, and there is no perfect cure or healing that will befall so long as that remains, and there must be much pressing, much struggling by word and prayer, before that will part. And when your heart parts from that, know undoubtedly, health and salvation and comfort is near.

Comfort? Alas what do you speak to me of comfort? Who am unfit and unworthy, nor have any right to it. Light is sown for the righteous and joy for them that are upright in heart, indeed but they have it hardly for whom it was prepared — even planted and sown of purpose — it's their harvest, let them reap it and receive it. But what have I to do with it, to put my sickle into another's corn, who am a sinful unrighteous wretched creature?

Not only the righteous who by the power of grace can subdue sin, but even the mourners in Zion who by the spirit are burdened with their sins — these I say have allowance, and that from God, to share in this comfort. Blessed are they that mourn, they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:3). You say you are not, you find none for the present; be it so, that is not in the promise but it's sure enough you will be, that is sufficient. God will make you wait for it, and beg for it, and prize it before it comes, that you may be thankful for it when it comes; it shall be in God's time and in due time, and if you would have it before, know you are not fit to receive, nor God willing to bestow. You have it not in hand, but it is [illegible] in hope; it will be and will not fail, and the reversion of it is sufficient to support you to live in hope. Or rather it is a portion provided on purpose and came for this very end (Isaiah 61:3): to appoint to them that mourn in Zion beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness for the spirit of heaviness. Indeed God himself will come for this end to bring consolation to your soul.

That's a likely matter indeed, when the vileness of my corruption makes me loathsome to myself, and weary of my own soul — how justly may God loathe me and estrange himself, who is so great and holy a God.

That which you conceive a cause why God should withdraw his presence, it's that why he delights in you; your sins are loathsome, that's true, but to loathe your sin, and yourself for them, it's that which makes way and room for the Lord's both love to you and presence with you (Isaiah 57:17). Thus says the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity: I dwell with him also that is of a humble and contrite spirit, to revive the heart of contrite ones.

The greatness of God and holiness of God takes most content in a broken heart burdened with sin and loosened from it. And herein the doubts of a distressed soul may be answered, and discouragements also cured and removed: will so great a God vouchsafe to call upon so base a creature, so holy a God, so sinful, so filthy and polluted a sinner? Indeed, behold — God reveals himself in the height of all his greatness and holiness and professes he has but two habitations where he takes [illegible], that is, the highest heavens and a broken heart, that sees his own weakness and therefore the greatness and power of God is most [illegible], it acknowledges its own vileness [illegible] own filthiness, and there the holiness of God is most honored, feared and advanced. Therefore the [illegible] for God to dwell in where his honor may most of all be advanced; and he comes with his cost, and for this intent and purpose, that he may revive and quicken, therefore he will not, therefore he cannot miss of his end, and the attaining of that he intends nor you of your comfort.

It's matter of comfort to such [illegible] are friends and well-wishers to those burdened and distressed creatures; mourn for them you should, but yet be comforted with them you ought. For if you desire their good in truth and in earnest, it's certain they are now, and never were before in the road of mercy, in ready way, indeed the only way to attain favor and everlasting compassions from the hand of the Lord. It's now the day of God's visitation, the Lord seemed to pass by as a stranger before, as though he cared neither for them, nor the welfare and comfort of their souls, but suffered them to live and die in their sins not so much as looking after them: behold now is the day of their visitation, wherein the Lord comes to visit the sinner, and to inquire touching the eternal prosperity of the soul, to loosen him from the power of his lusts, and to free him from the prevailing power of those corruptions, that would certainly ruin his happiness, indeed now the Spirit seems to travail upon the soul until the Lord Jesus be formed in him, when as formerly he bore the image of sin and Satan, so the Father of the Prodigal when his heart had been pinched under the pressures and miseries of his baseness brought upon him, and constrained him to take thoughts of forsaking his former course, see what solace it was to his Father. For this my son was dead but is alive again, he was secure, he is now affected with the sight and sense of his sin, he was hard-hearted and perverse in his way, now he is pliable and yielding to any impression. I speak it the rather because carnal persons conceive that this broken heartedness is a kind of curse, and that which makes men unsuitable to their places, and unserviceable wholly for any employment; the profane husband, the unjust master, the loose companion, curse the day that ever the minister came among them; the wife was vain and frothy to suit [illegible] folly; but now the former [illegible] is turned into mourning, she grows mopish and melancholy, there is no content in her: the apprentice that was as the glove to the hand, fitted his turn at all times, at all assays, would lie for his humor, cheat for his profit, but now indeed is grown so tender and conscientious, he dare do nothing, there is no service in him; his companion that would ruffle it out in mirth and jollity, has become so pensive under the pressure of his conscience, that there is no society in him; they look at them as lost and undone persons, the preacher has spoiled them, they are fit for nothing. And so also some poor ignorant people whose ways were civil and moral, and never acquainted with God's manner of dealing in such cases; when they see their friends, and children, and kindred, sinking under the sense of their sin, and God's displeasure, their hearts taken up wholly with attendance to their own spiritual necessities, and taken off from all other occasions; they look at it as a kind of madness and distraction, and they fear they will not come to themselves again, when in truth they never came to themselves before now, nor in truth considered where they were, or what they did: whereas this broken-heartedness does not impair any man's abilities, but turns them the right way, and improves them for the Lord's advantage; it makes men unhandy to sin, but fit for the service of the Almighty; only it is a spiritual sickness, and you must in reason wait till the extremity be over, before the party can be free for any work but this, because he finds this most needful: he that takes physic retires into his chamber, but it is not to hinder his employment, but further it for future time; the child when he sees the grapes a pressing, he falls a crying; and fondly conceives his father spoils them, to bring [illegible] out of them: the unexperienced stander by imagines that the pieces of gold that are put into the refining pot, and that into the fire, will utterly be spoiled, until he sees a vessel of gold framed out of them, glorious for show and service, he then changes his mind. So here; when you [illegible] the Lord putting men into the furnace of his fierce wrath, scorching their consciences, know, the Lord has them now in the [illegible], and intends to make them vessels of grace and mercy, who before were vessels of dishonor, fit for nothing but to serve sin and Satan, help you [illegible] the work, and [illegible] in it; and as Paul in a like case wished, that not only they, but all; your friends, and children, and kindred, [illegible] not almost, but altogether such as they are, broken-hearted sinners.

Direction: How to carry ourselves toward distressed sinners in this condition, who are thus pierced to the heart, whose perplexities of spirit are such they cannot express, and their pressures beyond strength, more than they are able to undergo. We should yearn toward them in mercy, and put on the bowels of tenderness and compassions toward them in lending what possible relief may be to the utmost of our abilities; not only religion will enjoin this, and reason persuade, but even nature and humanity might compel and constrain us to this. It was that which the law enjoined (Deuteronomy 22:4): "You shall not see your brother's ox or his donkey fall down by the way, and hide yourself from him; but you shall surely, surely help him" — that is to say, let all alone, use no pleas, make no excuses, this must and ought to be done. Does God take care of oxen? No, it is for our sakes it was spoken. Shall the ox be burdened, and not the heart under pressures be relieved? Shall the donkey fallen be raised again, and the conscience bowed and crushed under the weight of everlasting vengeance, not be comforted? There life natural is only endangered, here eternal salvation is hazarded; therefore their greater need calls for the greater pity. As Job complained (Job 19:21): "Have pity upon me, O my friends, have pity upon me, for the hand of God has touched me." The spirit of a man will [illegible] his infirmity, but a wounded spirit, who can bear? Lend a hand therefore at such a dead lift, and help him to bear that, that no creature of himself is able to undergo. Have such in your minds daily, carry them in your prayers, keep them daily in your hearts. When a party is in a fainting fit, dying away, how readily does humanity lead men to lend present help; one man holds, another rubs and chafes, a third applies warm clothes, each man strives to come first, and to do most. I pray you take of my water, take of my bottle, etc. — that is but a sudden [illegible] over the heart that will suddenly pass away. But this is a wound that has pierced through the soul, bleeding and sinking with hellish horrors, breathing out his sighs: Oh when, oh when will it once be? He that has not put off humanity, and the very nature of a man, he cannot but put on tenderness and commiseration toward such. And therefore what shall we think of those, who instead of tenderness and pity, which they should express toward such, their hearts rise in bitterness, and indignation against them? "Yonder be your broken-hearted persons, etc. — it's no great matter, you may see what they have got by sermon gadding." What may we think of such? We may say, and think as Job speaks: he that is in misery, should be comforted by his brothers, but men have forsaken the fear of the Lord (Job 6:14). It's an evidence of an Egyptian when an Israelite is going out of Egypt, he stinks in his nostrils. Indeed, a sad argument of a soul devoted to destruction (Deuteronomy 25:17-19).

Exhortation: as to proceed the right way, so never to rest until [illegible] come to the right pitch of this saving sorrow, otherwise we shall lose our labor, all the pains, and [illegible], and trouble we take, will prove indeed unprofitable, we shall lose our labor, and our souls and all. We should not content ourselves therefore with a slight touch to have the skin happily a little rippled, or the heart stabbed now and then with an overly stroke, but stay not until we come to the bottom; to be pierced through and through again, until we see our [illegible] bleeding out their heart blood, and the core of our corruptions coming out. True it may be, it will cost hot water, time and toil, before that day come: be it so, but it will quit cost whenever it comes; the longer the seed time, the larger the harvest. They [illegible] sow in tears, shall reap in joy, let us not lose all for a little. The patient will tell you, why should I be cut for the stone in the kidneys, if the stone never be taken away, and I cured? Has then the punishments which have been threatened, the strokes and terrors of conscience which you have felt, the dreadful displeasure of the Almighty, which has been denounced and seized upon your soul, have they happily wrested tears [illegible] of your eyes, bitter confessions out of your mouth, and forced you to pensiveness in your carriage, and perplexity in your spirit? All this is good so far; but it will do you no good, if you go no further. Say with yourself, what sorrow have I more than Judas had? What do I do more than Cain did? What difference between my complaints, and Esau's tears? Do I out of horror of heart, vomit out my sins by confession? So did Judas. Do I make restitution? So did Judas. Do I wander up and down racked in a restless condition? So did Cain like a vagabond upon the face of the earth. Do I sue to God for a blessing? So did Esau, and that with tears, and that with importunity. Take not up your stand here, but say, Oh Lord, that I may have something more than hypocrites, do something more than reprobates can do; have I suffered all these terrors, wept all these tears in vain? If so be it be in vain; Oh let me not have sorrow only, but that true sorrow that may cause repentance never to be repented of. Go then beyond all horrors and fears, and stay not before you find and feel your sin worse than all your plagues, or else you never felt them aright. Look not to punishments that are cross to your comfort and [illegible], but look to the stubbornness and resistance of [illegible] heart, which [illegible] cross to God and his holiness, and holy laws. [illegible] that be heaviest of all other evils, which indeed is the greatest evil of all. This too much has [illegible] the new [illegible] makes many [illegible] Christians, still born, not begotten again to a [illegible] hope (1 [illegible]); they heal themselves before God heals them, make [illegible] before sound [illegible]; not that they can apply too soon, if they apply truly; but they think they do apply [illegible] they neither do [illegible] [illegible]. Keep your heart in [reconstructed: soak] by godly sorrow until you [illegible] your corruptions like noisome weeds come up kindly by the roots. [illegible] [illegible] feel sin as sin in the bitterness thereof, that you fear all sin in the least appearance thereof: that whatever shall be conceived, or be discovered to be such, the [illegible], notice, inclination, disposition, or suspicion thereof, your heart may [illegible] to come [illegible] any provocation leading that way, and may readily listen to whatever may [illegible] help or direction to avoid it or subdue it. Bear your burden till the Lord ease you, be in prison, and let the iron [illegible] into your soul, until the Lord [illegible] and deliver you, and bring you out of the house of bondage. Then shall your mouth be filled with laughter, and your heart with joy, and that joy shall no man take away from you. Travel the appointed months of mourning, and then you shall be delivered with success, and attain the [illegible] that will stand by [illegible].

How may we get help against the stubbornness of [reconstructed: our] hearts, against that resistance and [illegible] that we find in ourselves to this contrition of [illegible]?

The directions are three.

Do not tug with this resistance in your own power, or any ability that is in you; do not in your own strength contest with that rebellion, for it is certain this will make it excessively rebellious. When you seem to [illegible] violence to yourself, you will be more [illegible], nay you will grow to a kind of fierceness and [illegible] of opposition against the work of God's grace. Sin becomes out of measure sinful by the commandment (Romans 7:13), and instead of quarreling with your sins, you will quarrel with the Almighty. And if I do what I can, why should not God help me? Mark, now you are quarreling with God; and because you cannot do what you should, you will do nothing: this is ordinary and usual, you will find a hellish fierceness of spirit upon this turn.

You will say, what shall I do?

Come and bring your soul into God's presence, lay yourself down in his sight, and tell the Lord that you are a traitor, and which is worse, you cannot but be so, that is your misery. Make known all the base abominations of your heart and life before the Lord, and all that [illegible] and opposition that you find in your soul to Christ and his grace, beseech him to take away the treachery and falseness of your heart, beseech him that he would do that for you that you cannot do for yourself. Tell him that you would choose not to be, rather than to be thus treacherous. Tell him that he has said, he will take away the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26), and that it is not in your power to put it away, and therefore leave your soul there, beseeching him to make known himself as a God hearing prayers, pardoning sins, and subduing iniquities. Plead the Covenant of Grace, and the promises of it, that all is freely, and firstly, and wholly from himself, that he must make us his people, he must make us humble and broken-hearted. Look to Jesus Christ, and beseech him that [illegible] the keys of hell and death, that he would unlock those brazen gates and doors of your heart (Revelation 1:18).

Do not fear the terror of the Truth, so [illegible] to step aside from under it, and withdraw yourself from the [illegible] of it, but think of the goodness of it; as a man, though he fear the bitterness of the pill, yet knowing it's a means of his health, he is willing to take it: So here. When God moves, move you; when he stirs, stir you; many a man neglects [reconstructed: the] stirrings of the Spirit of God, and never has the like again, and then on his death bed cries for his old terrors. Oh therefore when the Truth meets you and stirs you, keep [reconstructed: your] heart under it, and follow the blow in secret, and bless God that has opened your eye, and [reconstructed: touched] your heart in any measure, and let your heart lie still under the stroke of the Truth: the want of this is the reason why many a soul is so long under the workings of Contrition, and never grows to any settlement, because [reconstructed: they] keep not their hearts under the power of the Truth, which would thoroughly break the heart for sin (2 Kings 13:19). The Prophet bids the King smite, and he smote three times and ceased, whereupon the man of God was wroth, saying, you should have smitten five or six times; then you had smitten the Syrians till you had consumed them. So when God has been grappling with your heart, and would have plucked you out of the paw of the lion; you have prayed once, or twice, or three times, it may be; and then after a while, your care, and diligence, and endeavors are over; you should have prayed six times, you should give God no rest, nor your own soul any rest, you should never cease striking until you have destroyed those corruptions of yours.

Possess your soul with the ticklishness and danger of that condition you are in. In regard of the secrecy and difficulty of the work, how easily may I be deceived, and how dangerous is it if I be; a failing here can never be repaired afterward; if never broken for sin, then never broken from sin, then never united to Christ, and then you shall never see the face of God in glory: think how many have miscarried in this place: as when a mariner sees the mast of a ship, he fathoms the water, and tacks [reconstructed: about], and looks about him, lest [illegible] we split upon the rocks also. So do you look to yourself here, thousands have sunk and split themselves here, and you are in danger; and know, that if you do [illegible] here, you are [illegible] forever.

They said to Peter, and the rest of the Apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?

Here we have the carriage of these converts, as a fruit of that piercing and brokenness of spirit, which was wrought in them by the power of the [illegible], the inward disposition of the heart discovers itself by the outward expression of their speeches and [illegible] here laid forth before us, as [illegible] special effect which followed presently, and [illegible] therefrom. The breaking of the clouds by [illegible] and [illegible], brings a storm with it usually; the [illegible] in their speeches; argued thunder and lightning in their spirits: look how the temper and constitution of the body goes, so the pulse beats in his proportions answerable; the spirits few, and heart faint, and actions feeble, it moves marvelous weakly; if the [illegible] be marvelous quick and speedy, the physician will tell you there is a fever stirring, and it may be hazardous, that has now seized upon the nature of the party: Look as our hearts and consciences are affected within, so will be the [illegible] of our words and actions without [illegible] their [illegible] was deep, and their [illegible] are bitter, which here they make. In it observe two things.

- 1. The parties to whom they tender their complaint, Peter and the Apostles. - 2. The [reconstructed: complaint] itself.

The part [illegible] are described and set forth two ways, 1. In regard of the office to which they were now called: Peter and the Apostles. 2. In regard of that esteem and respect they [illegible] them, they lovingly and tenderly here greet them, men and brethren, a style and appellation that holds forth endeared affection with it, so far are these men altered from what they were, from what they said, from what they did, before they scorned them, now honored them, not long since they reproached them, are not these men full of new wine? And now behold they reverence and fear before them, they rejected their counsel before and are now forced to crave it, indeed right glad to hear and receive it. In a word, they repair to them as messengers of Christ, they [illegible] them as brethren, the world you see is well amended.

Look at the complaint as it looks to the parties and there we have two points we shall speak briefly to them both.

They whose hearts are pierced by the ministry of the word, they are carried with love and respect to the ministers of it.

Men and brethren, they be words of honor and love, and they spoke them seriously and affectionately, they mocked them before, and they now embrace them, they cared not what terms of reproach they cast upon their persons, they know not now what titles of love and tenderness to put upon them, they now fall at their feet as clients, who flouted them before as enemies, so it was with the jailer (Acts 16:30-31, 34). How kindly does he use Paul and Silas whom [reconstructed: before] he handled so churlishly, beyond the bounds of reason and humanity, he entertains them in the best room of his house who before thought the worst place in the prison too good for them. He bathes their wounded parts which he had whipped and stocked before, fears and trembles before them as his counselors, whom he handled most harshly [reconstructed: before] as prisoners; he feasts them as his guests whom he had struck as malefactors; the wind was in another door, the man is of another mind indeed is another man than he was. God had no sooner opened the heart of Lydia to attend the word but her affections were exceedingly enlarged, towards the dispensers thereof (Acts 16:15), so that the cords of her loving invitation led Paul and held him captive, he professed she compelled them, that is, by her loving and affectionate expressions, prevailed with them for a stay. And while Paul had the Galatians under the pangs of the new birth and Christ was now forming in them, they professed they would have plucked out their eyes and have given them to the Apostle (Galatians 4:15).

Naaman has no sooner his leprosy healed, and his heart humbled and cut off from his corruption, but he professed himself and what he had is at the devotion of the Prophet, and that not out of complement but in truth (2 Kings 5:15). Take a blessing from your servant.

Reasons are two.

They see and know more than formerly they did, when happily the crooked counsels of others deceived them, and their own carnal reason cozened and deluded their own souls that they misjudged the men and their doctrine also. As that they did not speak the truth, or else had some crooked and self-seeking ends in what they spoke; as either to gratify other men's humors whom they would please or else to set up their own persons and praise and esteem in the apprehensions of others as singular men and more than of an ordinary frame; and therefore would wind men up to such a high pitch of holiness, and force them to such a singular care to fly the very appearance of all evil, when it is more than needs and more than God requires, and more than any man can do — but now they find by proof and are forced out of their own sense and feeling to acknowledge the truth of what they have spoken, and what they have heard, and themselves also, to be the faithful ambassadors of the Lord Jesus, and therefore [illegible] to be believed and attended in their dispensations and honored of all. So Paul (2 Corinthians 4:3): We hope we are made manifest to your consciences. Thus the woman of Samaria when our Savior came home to the quick and met with the secrets of her heart, she then fell from her taunting and slighting of our Savior to admiring of him — Come, says she, behold the man that told me all that ever I did, is not he the Christ (John 4:29). Look as Nebuchadnezzar said (Daniel 4, last verse), now I know the God of Daniel is the true God, and now I praise the living God — so when they have been in the fire, and God has had them upon the anvil, now I know what sin is, now I know what the danger is, now I know what necessity there is to part with sin. When the patient has found the relation and direction of the physician has proved real it makes him prize and honor his skill and counsel, for ever; and for ever to have his custom. [illegible] the Pythonist was compelled from the power of Paul's administration to confess, these are the servants of the living God which show to us the way of Salvation (Acts 16:17), so here.

[illegible] they see more and can therefore judge better of the worth of persons and things; so their conscience now has more scope, and the light of reason has more liberty, and allowance to express that they know, and nothing now can withstand and hinder. For while men are held captive under the power of their lusts and corruptions of their hearts, in which they live, and which for the while they are resolved to follow; though [illegible] reason happily do yield it, and their own hearts and consciences cannot but inwardly confess it, the persons are holy, the [illegible] are [illegible] which they condemn and dangers dreadful which they [illegible]; yet to profess so much openly to others, and to the world were to judge themselves while they would acquit others, and condemn their own courses, while they [illegible] praise and honor the carriages and persons of others, [illegible] therefore darken the evidence of the word by [illegible] and reproaches, [illegible] the witness of [illegible] and stop its mouth that it cannot speak out. Thus [illegible] (Romans 1:18): they hold down the truth in unrighteousness — when the truth that is by their judgments assented to, and by their hearts yielded, and therefore should break out and give in testimony to the good ways of God: their corrupt and unrighteous and [illegible] hearts hold it prisoner, will not suffer it either to appear to others or prevail with themselves. As it [illegible] with the Scribes and Pharisees when the wonder was wrought by Peter, say they (Acts 4:16), that indeed a notable [illegible] miracle has been done by them is manifest to all [illegible] dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny [illegible] (that is, they would have done it if they could) but that it spread no further, let us charge them strictly that they speak no more in this name. But here when the conscience of a poor sinner is convinced, and the heart wounded, and that resistance and gainsaying distemper is taken off and crushed, now [illegible] is in commission and has [illegible] scope and the coast is now clear that reason may be heard, now the broken-hearted sinner will speak plainly, these are the guides that God has set up, their direction I will attend, these are the dear and [illegible] servants of the Lord whom I must honor, and with them I would [illegible] trust my soul, not with the blind guides, and [illegible] teachers, who daub with untempered mortar and are not trusty to God, nor their own souls, and therefore cannot be [illegible]. Oh send for such though [illegible] lifetime they could not endure the [illegible], abide the presence, nor allow them a good word [illegible] their persons and proceedings and professions — indeed that they will confess — but it was directly against their own judgment and knowledge and conscience; my own heart often gave my tongue the lie, when I did so speak and so [illegible] their conversation, otherwise, I must have condemned [illegible] own course and conscience also, but the Lord is with them, and the [illegible] is with them, and a [illegible] will undoubtedly follow them. Ask why these poor pierced sinners did not go to the Scribes, they would tell the truth. Oh it was [illegible] that deceived us, led [illegible] drew us to the commission of this hellish wickedness; we cannot call them teachers but [illegible], they could never help themselves, therefore not help us.

Instruction: Sound contrition and brokenness of heart brings a strange and a sudden alteration into the world, varies the price and value of things and persons beyond imagination, turns the market upside down; makes the things appear as they be, and the persons to be honored and respected as they are in truth, that look what the truth determines, reason approves, and conscience witnesses, that account is current in the hearts and [illegible] of those, whose hearts have been pierced with godly sorrow for their sins. Because [illegible] not by outward appearance as it is the guise of men [illegible] corrupt minds, but upon experience, that which they have found and felt in their own hearts, what they have seen and judged in their own spirits, they cannot but see so and judge so of others. Those who were mocked as men full of new wine, are now the precious servants of the Lord, flouted to their [illegible] not long since, now they attend them, honor and reverence them, yes, fall at their very [illegible]. It was before men and drunkards, now men and brothers, the world you see is well amended but strangely altered. It was said of John Baptist the forerunner of our Savior, and the scope of [illegible] doctrine was mainly to prepare the way for the Lord, it is said of him that Elijah has come and has reformed all, [illegible] a new face [illegible] frame in the profession of the Gospel (Matthew 17:11). He turned the disobedient to the wisdom of the just men, the hearts of children to the fathers, so that though they were so degenerate that Abraham would not own them had he been alive, yet when the ministry of John had hammered and melted them for the work of our Savior, they became wholly altered, their judgments altered and their conduct also. For in truth the reason why men see not the loathsomeness of other men's sins, or else have not courage to pass a righteous sentence upon them, is because they were never convinced to see the plague sore of their own corruptions, never had their hearts affected with the evil of them in their own experience, but their own conscience was misled out of authority, and stifled so that it dared not outwardly condemn that which inwardly they could not but approve. They therefore who either do not see their own evil, or dare not proceed in open judgment to condemn, they will either not see or not pass a [illegible] judgment upon others. So Paul intimates to Agrippa (Acts 26:8-9): let it not seem strange, O King, for I myself did think I should do many things against the name of Jesus, which I also did — that is to say, while you so [illegible] you will see as I [illegible], and do as I did. But after God had entered into [illegible] with him and spoken dreadfully to his soul, he is another man and of another mind; he destroyed the churches, now takes care of them; he that hated the name and Gospel of Jesus counts all things dung and dross for the excellent knowledge of Jesus. The world is well amended but it is marvelously altered, and therefore we have found this man a pestilent fellow (Acts 17:16); he has subdued the state of the world.

Terror: this shows the dreadful and miserable condition of all those who, after all the light that has been let into their minds, conviction into their [illegible], horror into their hearts touching the evils that have been committed and come now to be discovered to them, they loathe the light that has laid open their evils, distaste those persons and preachers and Christians most that have dealt most plainly to discover the loathsomeness of their distempers. It shows the [illegible] corruption of the mind and heart that grows worst under the best means, and cleaves most to its sins under all the choicest means that would pluck their sins from their heart, and their heart from them. They are either fools or madmen that [illegible] endure the presence of the physician without whose help they could not be cured. This is made an evidence [illegible] the estrangement of God's heart from a people, and an immediate forerunner of their ruin (Isaiah 9:13-14, 17): For this people turns not to him that struck them, neither do they seek the Lord, therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and [reconstructed: rush], one day; therefore the Lord shall have no pity on their young men nor mercy on their fatherless, for everyone is a hypocrite. It takes away all pity in God, all hopes in themselves of any good. After Pharaoh had many qualms and recoilings of spirit by Moses dealing with him, and the miracles which he had wrought for his repentance, and at last sides with the hellish stiffness of his own stubborn heart, so that he cannot endure the speech or presence of Moses any more (Exodus 10:28): get yourself from me, see my face no more, for the day you see my face you shall die. God sends Moses no more, but sends his plagues to destroy his firstborn — he will not see the face of Moses; he shall feel the fierceness of the wrath of the Lord.

He that is truly pierced by the ministry of the word is busy to inquire and ready to submit to the ministers of God making known his mind therein.

Those who never had thought of their own condition never craved nor cared for the counsel and direction of any in the things of God, seeing no need of either, but now the case is otherwise — every man's heart is now full of fears and his mind [reconstructed: full] of doubts, and he is stored with questions. They all with one mouth, and one mind, as one man that had but one heart, they said — one spoke it, but all consented — that is to say, that is all our cases, that is all our [illegible], men and brothers, we can find no rest in our hearts nor resolution in our judgments, we could not but come and seek, and we shall be more glad to receive counsel and guidance from you. So that brokenheartedness does two things which are the two parts of the doctrine.

1. It makes men busy to inquire. 2. Ready to receive direction from faithful ministers.

A true fight and sense of a man's sinful condition sets men upon the search, awakens men out of that senseless security in which they were buried, makes them look about them, puts them upon the serious consideration of their own spiritual condition, not long before they scant thought whether they had souls to be saved, or sins to be pardoned, or mercy and grace to be looked after, they never put it to the question what they could say or show for heaven, but now they begin to think with themselves what they are; this is set forth to be the guise and behavior of converting sinners when God begins to tamper with the hearts, for the alteration of their states. In those days and at that time, when God has stirred their hearts to recover themselves out of the Babylonian Captivity ("Deliver yourself O Zion, [illegible] who dwells with [illegible] daughter of Babylon") see how they bestir themselves (Jeremiah 50:4): going and weeping shall they go and [illegible] the Lord their God: weep still, and go still, sorrow still, and seek still; they who stirred not a foot before, nor looked after the Lord, nor their own happiness and comfort. So it was with Ephraim, when the Lord began to work his heart to a right apprehension of himself (Jeremiah 31:18), while he was in his natural condition, he was like an untamed bullock, unaccustomed to the yoke; but when the Lord had taken him to task, then he begins to [illegible] with himself, and betake himself to new thoughts, verse 19: when I was turned, I repented; when I was instructed, I struck upon my thigh. Thus John the Baptist's hearers, when once the word wrought kindly upon them, it made them all busy and inquisitive, even as one man (Luke 3:10-15): the people came and asked, the publicans inquired, the rude soldiers also began to demand, Master, what shall we do? This disposition of spirit set men going who sat still before as in a dream. The covetous publicans whose thoughts were after their gain, how to compass their commodities from every quarter; the rude and unruly soldiers, who cared for nothing, nor thought of nothing, but how to satisfy their own lusts, and suit their own corrupt desires, all was fish that came to net; and the sottish multitude who merely followed the sight of their eyes, after a brutish manner minded that which concerned the outward man — what shall we eat? what shall we drink? what shall we put on? — in all likelihood had never a thought of God, nor of themselves, whether there were a heaven to be expected, or a hell to be avoided, but followed their present pleasures; see now how serious and inquisitive they be, they now conclude something must be done, and they would willingly know what course they ought to take: when God sets upon men's souls, then they set upon their service.

The reasons are two:

Because they now feel the evil they never feared before, now they see the danger and misery hanging over their heads, able to overwhelm them, and sink their hearts, which they never suspected formerly. And therefore now, not only reason [illegible] them, but their own safety, nature and [illegible]-love will force them to bestir themselves to the utmost of their strength, and improve all their abilities to the utmost of their power, to prevent such overbearing evils, and provide for [illegible] own relief and welfare; and so the more to use all diligence here, because they are unknown, and yet spiritual, which concern their eternal estate, and therefore cause most fear, and threaten most hazard, and therefore constrains them to seek [illegible] and near for succor and relief. So it was with the prodigal when he came to [illegible], before he had not the right [illegible] of his reason, nor conceived of things as they were, but as frantic men fall, into fire and water, and fear nothing, [illegible][illegible][illegible][illegible] nothing; but now being come to the [illegible] of his understanding, he considers, How many servants are in my father's family, that have bread enough, and I [illegible] with hunger? (Luke 15:17) then he [illegible] himself, I will arise and go to my father, and say, etc. So it is with many prodigal, [illegible], deluded creatures; they spend time and strength, and lay out themselves; [illegible] nothing, and therefore fear no after-claps, until the time of famine, and day of [illegible] and horror come in upon them; they never saw need of reading, hearing, prayer, seeking and inquiry: but now when they find themselves besieged with sins and plagues, and daily expect the execution to be done, heaven frowning, hell gaping, their consciences [illegible], and themselves dropping down to the grave, and their souls to hell, they think it high time, and more than time to bestir themselves, to do what they can, and to cry for help and direction in so desperate distresses and danger; I will arise, and go confer; I will arise, and go inquire; I will arise, and go pray. The whole need not the physician, therefore they do not send, nor yet are they willing to receive, nor care to inquire, or take any physic; but when the disease grows fierce, and life is in danger, then send out messengers, [illegible] far and near for a physician, search every bush, inquire of every man what might be good, what have you [illegible]? what would you advise? So here. Thus God dealt with his people when he would awaken them (Hosea 5, last verse): in their affliction they will seek me early; then (Hosea 6:1): come let us return to the Lord, he has wounded, and he will heal. The full soul loathes the honeycomb, but never looks out for provision; but the [illegible] soul, that is now starving, runs if he can, if he cannot run, he will go; if he [illegible] go, he will creep; inquires where he may have food, uses all means to get, he will buy, or beg, or borrow. So here, etc.

They begin now to see the folly of their own conceits, and that confidence which in former times they had; how easily they could procure their own comfort, and how certainly without fail they could provide for the [reconstructed: salvation] of their own souls, and everlasting happiness; they said it, and thought what they said, that there needs not so much [reconstructed: ado] to get to Heaven; at the time of [reconstructed: death], and before their departure draws on; it's but bewailing [reconstructed: their] sins, and seeking to God for mercy; Oh but when it comes to it, they [reconstructed: find] another [reconstructed: harder] matter of it than ever formerly they did [reconstructed: think], they [reconstructed: are] at an utter loss with themselves, they know not what [reconstructed: course] to take, which [reconstructed: way] to turn; they know not, poor creatures, how to come at a Christ; no, how to [reconstructed: reach] him, how to attain [reconstructed: to] pardon or peace: And therefore now (though [reconstructed: too] late it may be) they see they know not what to do, or how to turn their hand to any spiritual work, which in pride of heart, said and concluded, they could [reconstructed: do] any thing: They are made of nothing but doubts and questions; If you knew the gift of God, you would ask of him, and he would give you Water of Life (John 4:10). You know not that you are poor, and wretched, and [reconstructed: blind], and [reconstructed: naked] (Revelation 3:17). Those that are ignorant of the way, will [reconstructed: ask of] any man, ask of any child: So a soul under [reconstructed: convictions] and ignorances, will inquire of any Christian, ask of any minister that may direct him in the way he should take.

This doctrine is a bill of indictment against a world of ungodly men, who live in the church, who may here read their doom, and the dreadfulness of their own condition discovered beyond all denial; namely, to be such who as yet were never troubled, never so much as touched with a thorough sight and sense, of their own baseness, and cursed corruptions of their natures and lives; they are so far from being broken by the truth, and battered all to powder by the power of an ordinance, that indeed the day is yet to come that they [illegible] any [illegible] blow, from the [illegible] Word of the Lord [illegible] on upon their consciences, by the hand and good Spirit of the Almighty, and that is evidenced out of the [illegible] had they received the like impression with these converts, they would have been [illegible] upon the like practice with them, had their spirits been broken as theirs, they would have been as [illegible] to seek out for succor and relief as [illegible] do; but alas this duty appears not scant in the lives of men, therefore this [illegible] is far enough [illegible] their hearts: If you had been sick as they, you would have inquired of the physician as they; but where is the man almost that has put the question to his own conscience, propounded the question seriously to others, out of the sense of his own want, for to make narrow search of his own estate, 'Men and brethren, what shall I do?' He never saw need to do anything, nor had heart to do anything; men therefore had never desire nor endeavor to seek direction; when he has been loath that men should put him to pains, and press him to diligence, and doing in this behalf. They make it a matter superfluous, and needless trouble thus to be taken up; what needs all this ado? (say they) and therefore they are willing to sit down with ease, but do nothing: they are settled upon their dregs, and endure not stirring, it's a kind of hell, and like the appearance of death, to be pressed to diligent inquiry, to make their calling sure (2 Peter 1:11). The state of the world is somewhat like that which the angels express upon the proof they had, when they went to survey the frame of things (Zechariah [illegible]:11): We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold all the earth sits still, and is at rest. Walk we from one plantation to another, from one society to another; nay, which is yet a further misery, from one assembly to another, all the earth sits still, and is at rest; there is no stirring, no trading in Christianity; men ask not, inquire not after the purchase of the precious things of the gospel, what shall I do to be quit of myself? What shall I do to be severed from my sins which have pestered me so long? prejudiced my peace so much, and if it continue, will be my ruin? As though Christ were taking the charter of the gospel from the present generation, and were removing the marks, there is no stirring, trade is dead, men come dead, and sit so, and return so to their habitations, there is deep silence, [illegible] shall not hear a word. What spiritual good they get, what they need, or what they desire; men are willing to do nothing, and therefore they will not inquire what they should do; certain it is, the Word never wrought kindly upon you, nor prevailed with that carnal and hard heart of yours to this day in any saving [illegible] for your spiritual good: you never knew what it was to be [reconstructed: lost], [illegible] you never had a stir of heart to inquire the way to Zion, it's made an argument of a man in the bonds of [illegible], in the depth of his [illegible] distemper (Romans 3:11): They have no [illegible], [illegible] do they seek after God; and it's made an evidence of Satan's rule (Luke 11:21): When [illegible] strong [illegible] keeps the palace, all his goods are at peace; but when a stronger comes and [illegible] him, he takes from him all his armor wherein he trusts, and divides the spoil. The house and palace, is the heart and spirit of a sinner; his [illegible] and furniture, are all those noisome lusts by which he [illegible][illegible], and exercises [illegible] power in the sinner; and as the apostle says, fights against the soul; as despair is the head-piece; unrighteous, and careless, and unconscionable walking, is the [illegible]; carnal reason the sword; unbelief the shield; and an indisposition of heart to yield to the terms [illegible] the [illegible], is that whereby the sinner is prepared to walk in the way of [illegible], his feet shod, fit for every evil work. While Satan is [illegible] furnished with the armor of darkness, all his goods are at peace, he does without any trouble, act the soul, and wrong the comfort and happiness of the soul, and so the honor of the Lord; [illegible][illegible] his goods, it's all he desires, endeavors, takes as the gain of his labor and diligence in his temptations: Does Satan act you by his temptations, and so increase both your guilt and ruin thereby? [illegible] are [illegible] his goods in peace? [illegible][illegible], your woe, your [illegible], is Satan's wealth and substance, he has what he [illegible], and does what he will, and you are not troubled with anything, nor will trouble him by seeking out for relief and deliverance, inquiring [illegible] what you may do to be rescued and [illegible]; know, Satan has his armor on, and he seeks your heart as his palace, under his sovereign power and command to this day; nor is there any preparation, nor the [illegible] inkling or intimation of [illegible] of that wretched [illegible] of yours: you [illegible] in this secure condition as one that meddles not, has nothing to do with the things of grace and life. As it was said (Judges 17:7) of the men of [illegible], who dwelt careless, quiet, and secure, far from the Sidonians, and had no business with man: It's a picture of this [illegible] temper, and secure condition of yours, you [illegible] far from the state and grace of glory; you have no business with Christians, with ordinances, officers; you have nothing to say, or to demand touching eternal life; you know nothing, yet inquire not what you should do; have nothing, yet [illegible] not for help and succor; you have no business that pertains to heaven with any man living, your business lies not with the Word, and the Lord and his Word have as little to do with you; that shows your heart is not there, nor your portion there. As each man's affection and expression of himself is where his employment lies, as [illegible] as a bee, they carry their businesses in their very countenance, their words sound that way, their behavior, look that way, every man has something [illegible] say in that which pleases, that which pinches him, and questions go up and down, what shall we eat? and what shall we drink? and with what shall we be clothed? And yet we may hearken and hear (as Jeremiah speaks) and no man [illegible], what have I done, what shall I do to be [illegible]? (Jeremiah 8:6): Look into the families where men live, observe the occasions with which men meddle, and employ themselves, [illegible] of the persons with whom they converse, you [illegible] scarce hear a question; every man is [illegible] after the things that may suit his own [illegible] heart, and yet seek not after the things that concern their peace: Look at men in their necessities, or take them in their employments, [illegible] is no end of men's [illegible]: In sickness we fill men's ears, weary men's hearts with inquiries what means [illegible] be attended, what course taken up: let it be matter of commodity that may accrue, men are as full of their questions, as the sunshine is full of motes; what? and when? and after what manner may occasions best be [illegible], to compass a man's content? This seems good, but how may that be avoided? That is more profitable, but how may this or that inconvenience be prevented? And yet as though men had no souls, or had nothing to do with grace, and life, and salvation, they have nothing to say for heaven, nay, nor about heaven. Our hearts work not this way, which argues the Word never wrought kindly, either for the discovery of your sin, or the breaking of your heart for it. If men were wounded they would fill your ears with their sighs, and your hearts with their complaints. So here, they would not give God rest, nor you rest, if their hearts were restless in their distresses; you keep my eyes waking, I cannot sleep, says the Psalmist (Psalm 77:4). God will keep your eyes waking if ever he works kindly.

Why? But is it not possible, indeed ordinary, even for reprobates themselves in the time of their troubles and terrors, when fears and doubts assail them, to be earnest in their seeking, importunate in their complaints, and endless in their questions, with every Christian with whom they meet, and every minister that they know?

Yes, it is common even for hypocrites so to do, therefore you have not attained the highest degree of the profession of a hypocrite, do not reach the carriage of a reprobate; they are far from Heaven, and you are far off from them; you are in the lowest rank of hypocrites, you have not yet had a look towards Zion, or a thought of eternal happiness: you are not come into the market, not so much as cheapened the things of grace: Though therefore the presence of such a carriage does not certainly evidence a good estate, yet the absence of it does undoubtedly demonstrate that you are in the worst estate of men. It is, as we use to call it, a negative note, though the affirmation of such a thing does not discover the truth of grace, yet the denial evidences the want of grace; constantly to reject and refuse is the note of a wicked man, and yet to attend the [reconstructed: means] of grace does not discover a godly man: For as it is in nature, there are many things in man which go to the being of man, which yet do not distinguish him; as to have a sensitive nature, etc. without which he cannot be a man, yet to have sense does not distinguish man from other sensitive creatures. And hence it comes, the denying of sense destroys the being of a man, yet the presence of sense does not distinguish a man from a beast. So it is here, a disposition busily to inquire after the means of grace and mercy does enter the being of a broken-hearted Christian, yet it does not distinguish a Christian truly broken-hearted from one legally terrified; look at it in their general carriage, and inquiry after the ordinances, and things of God.

But is there no difference between the search and busy inquiry which a heart truly broken makes from that which a hypocrite under legal terrors does sometimes express?

I answer: If we look at the specificity and spiritualness of their carriage, there is a threefold difference:

In the ground from which they arise; that inquiry which comes in truth from a heart genuinely broken, it issues from the filth and poison of his sin, which puts the thoughts of a sinner beyond his compass, as not able to conceive, and the heart beyond his hopes, as not able to undergo; My sins are a burden too heavy for me; they are innumerable, I am not [reconstructed: able] to look up (Psalm 38:4; Psalm 40:12): Therefore the thoughts and heart set the whole man to work; the tongue to complain of, and inquire a way of release, the endeavor to pursue it. That of the legalist issues out of nature, which feels her hazard, and therefore seeks for her preservation, and calls for help; thus they howled upon their beds, but did not cry to God (Hosea 7:14). As the lion in the [reconstructed: gin] roars for relief.

In the end, the terrified hypocrite is frequent in his complaints, busy in his inquiries, sometimes to gain ease — and that is most usual — sometimes also to ingratiate themselves in the hearts of the faithful and to gain their esteem, that they should look at him and account of him as a broken-hearted saint, as one that [reconstructed: has] been exercised with the indignation of the Almighty. Esau would have his blessing, Judas his guilt removed. A broken-hearted sinner [reconstructed: seeks] not his ease or honor but God; going and weeping they shall go and seek the Lord their God, not themselves (Jeremiah 50:4); he seeks God's face to ingratiate himself with him, and to get his favor.

In the efficacy and virtue, because his business lies with sin, his seekings will be restless and importunate, and inquiries for direction and help against sin as long as sin and he lives. The legalist, when his terrors and fears are removed or eased, he has done what he would and he desires to do no more, and therefore inquires no further what he should do.

Here is matter of Direction: we hence see the ready way, and never failing means to set an edge upon our desires and put life into our endeavors, to make us sedulous and busy in seeking after the Lord and the things of his grace. Maintain a right sight of the [illegible] of your sin, the [illegible] thereof which will delude you before you [illegible] aware, and may be, endanger your peace and comfort before you do discern it. Maintain a right sense and feeling of the evil of your sin, this broken-heartedness as at the first, you will then inquire as at the first, pray and seek as at the first. As it is with the patient when the disease is over, health and ease comes on [illegible], he then begins to lay aside physic, to neglect his diet prescribed, never seeks to the [illegible] nor sends for further counsel. Oh but if his old fits befall him, he is then as careful to use his old physic, send presently to the physician for fresh counsel and advice. So it will be with the soul of a sinner, when once the wound is healed, and God [illegible] allayed the venom of the vengeance which sin brought with it, and the heart grows up in some evidence of the work, and assurance of God's love, so that the worst is past and the [illegible] is over. Men begin to lay aside their diet, and that careful [illegible] they ought to use, the daily renewed repentance they should take up, until the Lord lets loose their lusts afresh, their old fits and force of their [illegible] distempers seem again to overbear them, which hazard their truth and peace — they begin to find their hearts, and prayers, and begin again to be awakened to the work. The Corinthians were careless either of the sin or misery [illegible] persons, or their own duty and careful endeavor to reform, until the Apostle [illegible] sharply to them, and affects their hearts with godly sorrow — this set them all to work: what care? in what fear? what zeal did it provoke them to express, both in their carriage towards him, and in their daily course before God? (2 Corinthians [reconstructed: 7]:11). Paul's new [illegible] with his corruptions and the body of [illegible] makes him renew his complaints (Romans 7:24): Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? When God left a splinter in the [illegible], and sent a messenger of Satan to buffet him, this made him to bestir himself to purpose (2 Corinthians 12): I besought the Lord three times, that is many times, and with much importunity — he [illegible] post haste to heaven [illegible] supply [illegible]. In the city besieged, the way to make them [illegible], and [illegible] their attendance, is to give the alarm upon every occasion. He that is in a [illegible] ague, though upon his better day he feels no fit, yet he is [illegible] and watchful of himself where he goes and what he does, [illegible] he expects his fit, and he knows he may hasten it and hazard his life. It is so with a Christian: we are in the leaguer continually, though not assaulted — our [illegible] like [illegible] lie in our bones though we have a better day now and then — expect the [illegible] and give the alarm and look for our [illegible] before it comes, that will make us busy and watchful to prevent it, that it may never come. In their affliction they will seek me early (Hosea 5, last verse). God is forced sometimes to withdraw, and go away, that he may force his saints to seek after him.

They are ready to submit to the ministers of God, making known his mind — the very words which they express argue such a disposition of spirit: they come as patients to the physician to know his advice, that they may take it. As clients to the lawyer, to understand his counsel that they may follow it. So it was with Paul when God set upon his heart, and intimated his mistake to him — that it was hard for him to kick against the pricks — he trembling and astonished said, Lord what will you have me to do? (Acts 9:6). Not his own will but God's he attends now, not what he would have done, but what God would have done. When God's arrows are sharp and stick fast in the hearts of his enemies, the people fall under him (Psalm 45:5).

Because the pride of their carnal reason is now conquered, the Lord has dashed and confounded the overweening conceit which once they had of their own worth and the excellency of their own abilities. They now see that all the wit in the world does not keep common-wealth in their brain, that their apprehensions are not oracles, but that they are and have been miserably mistaken, and see now by experience the vanity of their imaginations, and that they have been deluded by the darkness of their own [illegible] hearts. When they professed themselves wise they became fools (Romans 1).

And therefore they are ready to lay down their own conceits, and to follow God's counsels — they begin to [illegible] and suspect their own blindness, and therefore yield easily to the directions of others. A man that is bewildered, and has lost himself, he is content that a child should show him the way, that he conceives has but any acquaintance with the coast. So it was prophesied of converts in the time of the Gospel (Isaiah 11:6), that a child should lead them — even the meanest that brought arguments should prevail with them, especially the ministers of the Gospel of whose wisdom and faithfulness, and acquaintance with the way and will of God they have had [illegible] experience.

That stubbornness and rebellious resistance of their wills, out of the sovereignty whereof they durst set themselves against God and heaven, is now tamed and subdued. So that they dare not gainsay, but become pliable to the holy and acceptable will of God, and ready to take the impression of his good pleasure, when it appears and is presented before them. The hardest pebble, when it is broken and [illegible] to powder, will take any impression that is put upon it. So Job joins these two (Job 23:15-16): Job is afraid of God's presence, for God has melted or made my heart soft, and the Almighty has troubled me. And hence when God had schooled him out of the whirlwind and tamed the stiffness and perverseness of his spirit, see how he yields himself to God's hand, to do anything with him, even works like wax: Behold I am vile, once have I spoken but I will say no more, twice but I will proceed no further.

Because they have found the truth of the word, and the terror and authority thereof made good upon their souls, and that they cannot now but acknowledge and admire, and therefore dare not but readily submit to it as knowing, they cannot resist but with their own ruin, and their own safety consists in subjection to it, which they could never formerly be persuaded of, before he found it by woeful experience, how terrible God has been out of his Sanctuary (Psalm 110:3). "Your people shall be willing in the day of your power," so the woman of [illegible] when the truth of our Savior's speech pierced her heart, like a two-edged sword, she then falls to admire him when before she had [illegible] both his speech and practice.

[illegible] Here see the reason of that [illegible] and wayward unteachableness that sometimes appears in the hearts of God's [illegible], they are reluctant to know, weary to give [illegible] to the evidence of God's counsel, they want broken-heartedness, and therefore want this measure of teachableness; as it is with an unruly colt it costs him many a blow first, before he be brought to be at command; so it is with the unruly heart of man, which must have many sad strokes and blows before it be thoroughly subdued to the obedience of God's will. Men never knew what sin meant almost. Isaiah 66:3: "I will look," says the Lord, that is, with a gracious look of mercy upon this man that trembles at my word; that trembles at a counsel lest he should despise it, at commands, promises, lest he should not receive them. The Lord is terrible out of his holy places. When the terror of the truth of God is fallen upon the soul, then whatever exhortations, directions come from the word he dares not resist or gainsay, but submit and fall under the will of God made known there; then a man will fear to go from under a command as to go to hell itself.

Examination — we may hence know whether ever the word has wrought kindly, and left this impression of broken-heartedness, this is a never-failing evidence: As your subjection is to the word, so your contrition is. If the word has pierced you, the word will awe you. (1 Thessalonians 1:6) Our Gospel came not in word but in power; and you became followers of us and of the Lord. Did the word overpower your heart? Then you are a follower of the faithful ministers of God who left those impressions upon your soul; the word is mighty through God and brings every thought into the obedience of Christ, hence (2 Corinthians 8:5) they gave up themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God, so far as they set forth the Government of Christ.

This falls heavy upon two sorts.

Those that are open rebels, sons of Belial, that acknowledge no Lord, no Law — what, to tremble at every word that is delivered? No, they are not such babies, etc.

Conspirators and traitors that pretend and profess subjection and yet maintain rebellion in their hearts, they yield feignedly, but when it comes to reality to stoop to the authority of the truth, they will not — these are traitors to the truth. [illegible] The Swiss will be enemies when they cannot serve their own turns, and friends when they do. [illegible] The Papists in England they are content to take the benefit of the Law, but when it comes to take the oath of Allegiance they will by no means do it because they are sworn vassals to the Pope, or Pensioners to the King of Spain, though they equivocate to serve their own turns: so these when they come to take the oath of Allegiance to set up Christ as supreme in their hearts and minds, to submit to the power of the truth, then they take up arms against Christ and his word, and will not submit. This is the evidence of a servant of sin (Romans 6:17): when men receive the power of the Gospel they are not servants of sin else they are (Psalm 45:5); a man that will not fall before the truth, the arrows of Christ never stuck fast in his heart.

What shall we do?

We have done with the parties, to whom the complaint was made, men and brethren, etc. The complaint itself is full of bitterness: some things are implied in it, some things expressed. That which is implied in this complaint may be attended in four particulars.

Their ignorance and inability how to help themselves.

An absolute necessity to come [illegible] of this condition, which now they find themselves in.

A secret hope to receive advice and relief from the Apostles.

The price and excellency they now put upon the [illegible] from their sins; for this is the end of their request, that which is supposed and implied as the end of their complaint, namely to be delivered from that which was the plague sore of their souls, and did so extremely pierce and pinch them. That which the jailor in the like case did openly mention, and these also did intend: "Sirs, what shall I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30), namely from those sins which now overwhelm his soul.

Sinners in distress of conscience are ignorant and unable to help themselves.

The manner of the speech proclaims so much to each man's experience, at the very first inkling and hearing of it. They speak as men at their wit's end: what shall we do? We know not what to do, it's beyond our skill and above our reach; either to bear or avoid, to make an escape from his sins and the plagues due to them. As Reuben said when he went down into the pit, and found not his brother Joseph there, (being sold before) he returned to his brethren, the child is not, and I [reconstructed: where] shall I go? (Genesis 37:30). So it is with the soul in distress of conscience, seeing itself forsaken of God. Because he has forsaken him by his backslidings and departures, God is gone, my God is not, to this poor soul, and [reconstructed: where] shall I go? Where shall I look? If to heaven, there justice will reject and condemn me; if to hell, there the devils are ready to torment; should I take the wings of the morning and fly to the utmost parts of the earth, there the wrath of the Almighty shall pursue, and if I look into my own soul, there is a conscience to accuse [reconstructed: me, and] a hell of horror to confound me forever. [illegible] makes it more [illegible] how to get either relief or release. We are at a loss in our thoughts how we may find succor and deliverance. You [reconstructed: who] are the seers of Israel, show us the way of help. Paul acknowledges as much at his first conversion (Acts 9:6), when the Lord had met him, and discovered the evil and [reconstructed: danger] of his way, he then conceived he did not well, and yet could not conceive what to do, Lord, what will you have me to do? I do not know, and therefore I cannot tell how to do your will, nor yet how to procure my own peace. When the Israelites were driven to perplexities by the expression of God's [reconstructed: displeasure] against their [reconstructed: sinful] carriage in choosing themselves a king, and [reconstructed: they] cried out, [reconstructed: Pray for] us, for we have sinned (1 Samuel 12:[illegible]), they dared not go to the throne of grace themselves, but forced out of guilt and horror, they were ready to go the wrong way, and therefore Samuel by seasonable prevention stops their passage, You have sinned, yet turn not aside from following the Lord. That is to say, the distressed sinner, as a traveler in amazement, when they have once missed their way, the further they go, the further they go aside.

Reasons are two.

The [reconstructed: ways] of Grace and Life, to which men are to turn at the times of their Conversion, they are hidden and secret; and men in their Natural Condition, when the Lord is pleased first to stop their passage, and build a wall before them, they are wholly unacquainted with the narrow path that [reconstructed: leads] to Christ and life, by reason of that inbred blindness of their minds, and the daily [reconstructed: course] of their lives, and that from their [illegible]. For [illegible] is [illegible] part of the description of the Grace; [reconstructed: Strive] to enter in at the straight gate, for straight [reconstructed: is] the gate and [reconstructed: narrow] is the way that leads to Life, and [reconstructed: few there be that] find it (Matthew 7:13-14). It's but one [reconstructed: way] and a narrow one; [reconstructed: there] be thousands of thousands of [reconstructed: broad] paths and [reconstructed: men may] miss it, and there is but one way to hit [reconstructed: it] and [reconstructed: how hard to] find it self, and [illegible]. Therefore men are said to be strangers from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them (Ephesians 4:18). As men that never went a strange way, they cannot tell whether they go right or wrong, they know not where they are; and as Travelers speak when they are in remote places, I am out of my knowledge, I was never in these Coasts before: So it is with all men Naturally, they are but strangers when they fall unexpectedly upon the Coasts of Conversion and Contrition, they are at a loss, and wholly unacquainted with the Coast of such a Condition, know not where they are, or what to make of it or themselves (Romans 3:17). The Apostle speaking of men's conceivings of the ways and works of Christ, yet in their Natural blindness, Destruction and Calamity are in their ways, the way of peace they have not known; they think they are in the road to Heaven, when they are posting down to Hell; yes, even such who have lived long under the means, and have heard much of the Lord Jesus; in fact, it may be have preached much of him, and that with no small approbation; yet when they are come to these straights, and brought to these amazing horrors of Spirit, they plainly show, indeed, are forced nakedly to profess they never had any sound discerning either of the work of Grace, or the way to Christ, but are very Children, Novices, No-bodies in these Spiritual Mysteries. So it was with these in this place, in such a multitude now brought home to the faith, no question but many of them had enjoyed many means, and been long trained up in the Truth of the Scriptures, and the Doctrine of Moses, and the Prophets, indeed, Paul professes of himself before his Conversion, That he profited in the Jews' Religion above many of his equals, and that he was exceeding zealous in his way: yet when the Lord met him in his way, and speaks to him from Heaven, he knew not what way to take; but Ananias is sent on purpose to teach him (Acts 9). The ground is here when the Spirit comes to convince, to reveal sin to the soul, and a man's self to himself, things now begin to be real, and seem other than ever formerly they did; sin is another thing, Grace, and Godliness, Faith, and Christ, and Salvation, are other things than formerly they did appear to the soul. So that the sinner is as it were in another world, wonders where he has been, and what he has done, stands amazed at his own folly and madness, that he should so wonderfully mistake, that he should ever take contentment in those sinful carriages, which are the only cause of his ruin and confusion, sees he is gone so far out of the way, that how to get in again he is wholly ignorant. It's true, men speak much of sin, and can talk much of Christ, and may have heard and read much of faith, yet know nothing but empty words, not know the thing when they should use it: He that spells by rote, may be will not spell a Letter of the Book when he is put to read. So your formal Professors, Carnal Hearers, may be out of Custom and constant attendance upon the means, can make a shift to speak out their Lecture, and speak somewhat freely of Faith, and Christ, and Conversion, and yet come to distress, and feel the stroke of the Truth and terror in their hearts, if they be put to read to the use, and improvement of anything heard; they know not the thing, nor their own hearts, nor yet the Nature of their distempers. So it was with [reconstructed: Nicodemus], our Savior was constrained to point with that fescue, and put his finger upon the Word, and tell him, that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit; yet he is in a mist, understands not what Christ meant, nor what his own condition was, How can these things be? (John 3:9).

As through their inbred blindness, and unacquaintance with the Ways and Works of Christ, they cannot discern the means of relief; So by reason of their distraction under the pressures of their present extremity, they are weary to attend, and unwilling to listen and conceive aright, any means that might procure their succor and comfort. As we see in present fears and affrights, or extreme or sudden sorrows, we are not our selves, and so become indisposed and [illegible] to conceive of that which is offered plainly to consideration, and which otherwise we were able to judge aright of, and improve it to our present advantage (Hebrews 12:5). A person fainting under afflictions and troubles, is wholly unable to [reconstructed: receive] any means to support him. So here, when men's thoughts are hurried with apprehension of evil, which in the most dreadful manner are presented to their view, and their hearts possessed with the feeling of them, they have no leisure to lay out their thoughts and minds to provide for means of help themselves, nor yet to receive them when they are offered by others (Exodus 6:9). The bitterness of the oppression was so great that they listened to the voice of their misery, but would not hearken to Moses' Counsel.

Instruction. [illegible] men in distress of spirit, when and while the Lord is pleased to exercise them under his Almighty hand in this Work of Contrition, they are soon misled by the delusions of the subtle, and carried aside by the corrupt [illegible], and cunning devices of such as be false Teachers. They who are feeble, are soon foiled, even by the assaults of such as have either policy to undermine, or power in any measure to [reconstructed: overcome]. They who are [reconstructed: dim-sighted], much more if blind, are easily and presently misguided and led out of the way, and he not able to prevent it, nor yet in any way of probability like to get in, and recover himself.

Now this is the under and weak condition of brokenhearted sinners they are out of their ken and compass, the ways of God in that so sad and spiritual a work and trade with the soul, they do not know, and therefore are unfit to seek, and so in reason unable to find it out; and therefore it's easy for them to be led into Samaria instead of Dothan, and the Devil by his factors to lead them into false ways, for which they are commonly hardly recovered; if they grow false at this [illegible] of their life, he may there be lodged to his dying day; for this is like the fall in a man's cradle, may be, never get fully recovered again. And upon this ground it is that false teachers when they make a trade to wind into men's affections, and win them to the entertainment of their erroneous conceits: If they would spread their erroneous opinions which go under pretense of Free Grace, and painted with the appearance of holiness and exactness, they hearken out where any be in [illegible] of spirit, in trouble and distress of conscience, they fall in with them immediately, and work them to their own minds and wills; [illegible] they are tender hearted, and fearful to refuse whatever comes under [illegible] color of Free Grace, they are now at a stagger and unsettlement, ignorant how to help themselves, and therefore likely and ready to receive what help can be lent; they know not what way to take, and therefore may be led any way upon the sudden, and at a present push. These are the Devil's brokers that beguile unstable souls (2 Peter 2:14). And Paul was afraid that the new converts might be cozened by the wily carriages of the false apostles which would work upon their simplicity (2 Corinthians 11:3). I [illegible] by any means, as the [illegible] beguiled Eve [illegible], so their minds should be corrupted from [illegible] simplicity of the truth in Christ. We see in the [illegible] of fowls, when one has received a shot, either to the breaking of the leg, or the laming of the wing, and so lags behind their fellows, not able well to find the way, or not to fly far, the fox perceives a prey, which he pursues. And it is [illegible] in the country where we came from, kites and buzzards observe when the lambs fall, and those they prey upon with the [illegible] opportunity, if not prevented. It is so here, these false teachers are like these ravenous birds of prey, and subtle foxes: If they perceive any who are of a wounded spirit, that the arrows of the Almighty stick fast in them, and that they are forced to hang the wing, and go [illegible] and discouraged, at a loss in their own thoughts; they presently make a prey of such, they know not how to relieve [illegible], and therefore are [illegible] to listen to any that will [reconstructed: confidently] pretend ways and means of relief.

Here is matter of advice to all mourners in Zion; those that the Lord now has upon the anvil, and is melting and framing to his own mind to make them vessels of mercy; they must be marvelously wary, [illegible] carefully circumspect that they be persons of approved faithfulness and sincerity, to whose counsel they do commit themselves, and betrust their condition; and when they [illegible] so [illegible], then they must keep [illegible] prepared heart, what advice they are not able by reason to [illegible] say, they have then I say (then, when such a one of tried uprightness and faithfulness is [illegible]) great reason to yield to. They know not how to advise themselves, therefore fall before the advice of others; they know not how to do themselves good, and therefore should be content to receive good from others. As it is in nature, it is so in grace; women in childbirth, when they come to travel, they will not take every one that offers herself to do them service, but hearken after such who are experienced midwives, [illegible] they attend their counsel, and take their [illegible], when they are not able to succor themselves in such necessities. So it is in this spiritual new birth, and travel of the soul; let him [illegible] a man of trust and experience, able to [illegible] the soul in the day of misery; [illegible] leave your [illegible] to the counsel of [illegible] when you are at a loss, and not able to counsel your [illegible]; and it's a special print and impression of the work of God's [illegible], that he commonly carries the hearts of the perplexed, and their own spirits carry [illegible] to such who have been most exercised under such [illegible], and [illegible] of [illegible] sincerity; as these came not to the scribes and Pharisees, who happily had been leaders and abettors to them in their sinful miscarriages, their hearts [illegible] them they were as [illegible] as they, and for ought that they knew, as ignorant of a better way as themselves, and therefore they were unable to give advice, and they not willing to repair there to ask it. And it's commonly so with such, if men be left to themselves, and not over-ruled with carnal friends, or else some subtle wretches that come in sheep's clothing, press in upon them, beyond either their thoughts or desires: then happily they may surprise them, and prevail too much; and if once they gain an interest, and ingratiate themselves, they are hardly brought off; because that which first takes place in case of distress, leaves the deepest impressions upon the spirit. But when men repair to the wise-hearted in their extremities; take in this truth, and keep it ever with you, I am ignorant, and know not at this time in this necessity to direct myself: therefore as I shall seek God in such means of counsel, so I will yield and deliver up myself to that direction, which in reason according to God, is suggested, and I have no reason, but only fears and suspicions of my carnal heart to oppose. So God sends Cornelius to Peter (Acts 10:6). Blind men, and such as are in darkness, and can see no light nor way neither, they should suffer themselves to be [illegible] by the hand by such who can lend them light and help also.

A sinner pierced truly with sorrow for sin, sees an absolute necessity to come out of the sinful condition in which he is.

Therefore they do so [illegible] complain in the text, Men and Brethren, what shall we do? Let's do anything, suffer anything, be anything; let's not be, nor remain in this condition whatever it cost us, whatever become of us. They put in no provision, no caution upon which they would receive counsel, or which they would desire might be allowed or granted; but we will do anything that we may not do the devil's drudgery, or the dunghill service of sin; be anywhere, [reconstructed: do] anything, rather than under the guilt and power of those loathsome abominations which have lorded it over us. Therefore I call it an absolute necessity of being quit of, and coming out of this wretched estate.

And this absolute necessity may be conceived in three things:

There is no terms of toleration of sin which can be proposed; there are no articles of agreement which can be offered, no way of composition that can come into consideration: as suppose I may have with secrecy, with quiet, with credit; indeed, suppose my conscience would not trouble me; indeed, the Lord abate me of his anger for the while; indeed, I may suck out the sweetness of it without any suspicion, without any vexation or distraction to myself for the while. No, this will not do the deed, nor [reconstructed: serve] the turn, if I have all these, and have my sin, and be a slave to that. No, their complaint is [illegible], not of the want of these. (Mark 9:49) If your eye offend you, pluck it out; if your foot offend you, cut it off: it's better to go [reconstructed: halt into] heaven, than having both eyes and feet to go to hell. So the [reconstructed: soul] would be content to be maimed in credit, quiet, comfort.

[reconstructed: There is] no reservation of any sin of any kind, if one, if little, if sweet, if profitable; no, the soul would not touch an unclean thing (2 Corinthians 6:17). He does not say, no gross unclean thing, but nothing, not even to touch it. So [reconstructed: our] Savior to the young man: There is one thing wanting, go and sell all that you have (Mark 10:21).

Admits no case of exception, whatever difficulty or danger may be presented or can be conceived in the compass of a man's apprehension; indeed there cannot befall any [illegible] or pretence which carries any reality with it, why the soul should continue any entertainment with any corruption, and therefore it casts out all [illegible], pleas, pretences, [illegible] that carnal reason might cast in, [illegible] one should lose his friends and favor and fellowship of such as are or have been never so near or dear to him — why that should not stick (Deuteronomy 33:9). Indeed, not only to leave them but to do execution upon them, for so the case may be, and it is supposed by interpreters when it is said the Levites knew not their brethren, that has reference to that story in (Exodus 32), where the Levites were enjoined to slay each man his brother. So Peter's advice here following the text: save yourselves from this crooked generation. Indeed, were [illegible] the loss of a man's life, [illegible] also comes within this necessity; there is no necessity to hinder to part with this life, there is a necessity he should part with his sin (Daniel 3:17-18): we care not to answer you in this thing, O King, our God can deliver us but [reconstructed: if] he will not, we will not fall down and worship your golden image.

The reasons are three.

The sinners thus affected feel experimentally the [illegible] of God's justice, which [illegible] proceeds [illegible] the sinner, for whatever [illegible] it meets with, and whatever the sinner be. That [illegible] men [illegible] in the [illegible] of a sinful course, they [illegible] and promise to [illegible] freedom, and escape from the [illegible] of God's [illegible], or at least such a mitigation [illegible] as may allay the extremity of the fear of the evil they did expect; or take off the pleasure or pursuit of sin in which they did delight, yet now under the stroke or [illegible] they [illegible] by proof they were misguided in their thoughts, and [illegible] in [illegible] hopes. For such is the [illegible] of God's righteous [illegible], that he does and will undoubtedly [illegible] and find out all, and is absolutely resolved to execute punishment upon all, and therefore there is an absolute necessity they should renounce and abandon all, even the most beloved and least suspected distempers, which formerly like atheists they foolishly thought God did not attend, or at least would not trouble himself with, but wink at them or pass them by, which now they find far otherwise. God's justice is peremptory in punishing, and therefore they must be as peremptory in abandoning their lusts; they cannot avoid the justice of the Lord, and therefore they must avoid their sins. Whatever deluded hope they had formerly of God's connivance, now they see themselves deceived — be the corruption never so secret he will search it, who professes (Zephaniah 2:11) that he will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish them that are settled upon their lees, who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good neither will he do evil. The lees lie at the bottom such as no eye sees when the vessel is set on broach, they carry the matter so covertly as if it were beyond either apprehension or suspicion, but God will search it. It was spoken of the times of Josiah when reformation was general, and with great applause and approbation of all hands; religion seemed to be entertained: yet men settle upon their lees, had their retiring corners for their corrupt lusts, while they carried all before them, and seemed to be most exact. (Isaiah 29:10, 16) There was a generation that dug deep to hide their counsels from the Lord, but their turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as potter's clay, that is to say, even those privy conveyances are as the clay in the hand of the Potter, God sees them and will act and order as he sees fit. Thus Achan saw and took and [illegible] and carried and hid it secretly in his [reconstructed: tent], but God found him and his falseness and forgeries, and forced him to acknowledge so much. As the most secret so the smallest transgressions — divine justice stabs the heart of a sinner with them. Not only Achan who committed, but Israel who did but neglect their watch and care, to keep him from or recover him [illegible] of it, they also smart (Joshua 7:1) — an evil which the best of them neither saw nor considered, therefore the Lord was constrained to mind [illegible] of it, in the day of [illegible], what means this, Israel has sinned (verse 11) — as who should say the hand is in a wrong box, you miss that which is of the most weight. Moses's hasty expression in smiting the rock, or Lot's wife looking back — a man would have thought not to be evils of [illegible] a nature, and so heavily to be punished. It fares with the contrite and brokenhearted sinner, as it did with the woman sick of the bloody issue, who strove to touch our Savior that she might be healed. Our Savior openly discovers her evil carriage, who was it that touched me? When she saw that she could not be kept secret, she came trembling and acknowledged what she had done. So when the soul under the horror of God's revenging hand, [illegible] that indeed he cannot be kept secret, but now God sees his evils and will pursue them, he falls down flat before the Lord, and concludes the absolute necessity of it that God should punish every evil, and therefore it is absolutely necessary he should part with it. This the wise man intimates (Ecclesiastes 11, last verse): rejoice, O young man, in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the ways of your youth, but know that for all these things you shall come to judgment, that is to say, did you indeed know that? — you would not, you would not dare, go on in the sins of youth.

Now the sinner (I say now) in this state and under this stroke, [illegible] an inability in himself, indeed utter [illegible] the weight of the [illegible] sin, which is [illegible] soul by the Almighty and therefore is now put [illegible] and [illegible] conditions and [illegible] that his [illegible] him before with all [illegible]. But [illegible] definitively, no more ado, no further talk; I see I cannot bear the sting of the least sin, and therefore I must not keep it. Heretofore he could make a shift to shake off the fear of the threatenings of the word, which were denounced to stop the mouth of his conscience, which whispered bitter things in his bosom, and to wear away the [illegible] that stuck in his heart; and therefore foolishly thought he could make a [illegible] to bear the weight that should befall, that he might possess and enjoy the pleasures and content his [illegible] courses did promise to his carnal heart. But he finds it otherwise; his heart fails him under pressure of one sin (Psalm 130:3): If you, Lord, should mark what is done amiss, who should [illegible] it. An ignorant soul settled in his secure condition out of self-deluding pride of his own spirit, would [illegible] that he could abide the misery and so the danger that might accrue to him by his distemper, and so is fearless to maintain it. But now he finds he is not able to abide that which his sin does bring, let him put the best of all his abilities together to improvement [illegible]. 14: can your heart endure, etc. — the time was they thought their hearts could endure; the frolic Epicure, and flinty-hearted sinner, he wonders at the feebleness of the distressed and broken-hearted, that they should be such children, persons of such feeble and milksop dispositions to sink at a sermon and be troubled at the words of a preacher. Tush, his conscience is cannon-proof, he can hear and bear all and yet [illegible] and bless himself in the pursuit of his lusts, as before times. Oh, you [illegible] do so, while men deal with you, you may avoid their blow or make an escape out of their hands; but when God shall deal with you in that day when you fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10), who lives to torment you to eternity — what will you do? The shadow and appearance of the handwriting shook Belshazzar's heart when he was quaffing in his cups, in the ruff of his riot — what would the stroke of that hand have done? And this hand now the [illegible] finds, and finds himself absolutely unable to [illegible] the evil of [illegible] sin, and therefore concludes it absolutely [illegible] to be [illegible] of it whatever it cost him. He knows now by proof, this evil to be such as that no other can equal it: the evil such as no contrary good in this world can countervail it. And therefore he sees reason and chooses never to have any good in this world, rather than to have his sin, to part with all, rather than not part with this, or be plagued with it. Rather undergo all evils, and suffer the utmost extremity, [illegible] suffer his sin to remain with him (Matthew 16:26): What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul.

The broken in heart he sees now by proof also, the cursed combination that is among corruptions, a league [illegible] lusts; if any corruption rules in the heart, it makes a man a slave to whatever distemper presents itself to the soul. In a word: he that will keep [illegible] sin keeps himself under the power of all corruptions; he keeps off the power of all the means of grace and good for working upon or prevailing with the soul for its [illegible] welfare.

The keeping of one sin keeps possession for Satan, and his right to the soul, and under the allegiance of all the accursed lusts that either can come from without or arise from within: one [illegible] the sovereignty, but he is a slave to all, as special occasion may be offered; he will serve any [illegible] that he may suit the beloved distemper of his heart [illegible] (2 Timothy 2, last verse): the [illegible] takes them captive according to his will. And therefore it is [illegible] of the thorny [illegible], in that the moment of [illegible] they fell away [illegible] (Luke 8:15): where [illegible] it — namely, it gave [illegible] to whatever either error in opinion or [illegible] in practice [illegible], or satisfied the [illegible] desire of the soul. He that misses the right way, he is for any byway that comes next in view; a city that is under the command of the chief captain, they must be subject to the outrage of any or all of his [illegible], or underlings, that will but execute his will and attend his tyrannous commands. So it is in the soul: if one lust rules it, it is a slave to whatever distemper may be serviceable and seem to give content to that; they went as they were led (1 Corinthians 12:1-2).

The heart pierced with this thorough sorrow perceives also by woeful experience, that the keeping of one corruption keeps off the power of any ordinance so that it cannot work kindly or [illegible] effectually for any spiritual good; it weighs down [illegible] the work of an ordinance. The headstrong and [illegible] would have a king, and they would hear no counsel nor yet take the most substantial argument into consideration that did concern their peace and prosperous proceeding in their way (1 Samuel 8:18). The [illegible] idolaters ran madding after their idols; they cast off all the advice of the prophet with scorn and contempt (Jeremiah 44:16): As for the word which you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken to you. Indeed, when they are set upon it, they profess plainly, there is no hope, but we will walk every one after the vanity of his own imaginations (Jeremiah 18:12). So that the sinner now [illegible] and resolves, either he must part with all, or else forever be deprived of all good, and be a slave to all sin.

Trial: We may hence gain undoubted evidence, whether ever our hearts were soundly soaked in this godly sorrow for sin [illegible] or no. Contrition, if it be of the right stamp, has a constraining power with it to force the heart against corruption; it silences all shifts, puts by and puts off all false pleas, scatters all sluggish pretenses, that are made in behalf of our distempers, [reconstructed: in] a word, it casts the balance against all carnal reasons, that are [reconstructed: alive] and stirring, and usually cast in by Satan, and our sensual disposition to keep us in our former estate, and to procure some, if not toleration, yet mitigation in our [illegible] against our [illegible]; it lays and leaves a pressing [reconstructed: weight] upon the soul that overbears whatever may come on the contrary part, to plead for any connivance for any sin in any kind. As we say in the proverb, there is no reasoning against sense — a man has no patience to hear words [illegible] or appearances which are against a man's feeling and experience; if any bystander should persuade a man the potion is pleasant when a man [reconstructed: tastes] it [illegible], and his stomach [reconstructed: rejects] it; or that the fire is cold when he finds it [reconstructed: hot] and burning; he can hardly give him the hearing, but disdains him an answer: say what you will, I regard not what you say, shall I not trust my eyes, or so far befool myself as to go against my own feeling? I pass not what you speak in that behalf. So it is with a broken-hearted sinner — whatever Satan shall suggest, his carnal friends and companions counsel, his deceitful heart pretend, or plead what need he be so strict in his way, so [reconstructed: resolute] against his sin, so resolute to abandon all his former courses and his ancient [reconstructed: companions] with whom he has had so much content, there is no such need now to set upon the work, hereafter will be time enough, or no such danger in maintaining a dalliance with such and such distempers, which are no great matter, nor is there any great harm in them — the burdened sinner has not patience to hear, but disdains to enter parley about such things as he has passed sentence upon long before this day: tell not me, talk not to me of such things; there is no speaking against my own experience, I have felt and found the contrary, my heart knows otherwise and that by woeful [reconstructed: experience], therefore I pass not what you speak. God will allow none, I can bear none, no not the sting of the least sin, when God will let it in, nor you neither when once the Lord will pursue you with the least expression of his displeasure, I cannot have any sin seem it never so small, but I must [illegible] under the power of all, nor ever have any possibility of any good. As Ruth to Naomi when she advised her to stay or return when she came with her, she puts an end to all such persuasions: entreat me not, for I will not leave you (Ruth 1:16); so [reconstructed: it] is with a soul sensible and soundly affected with the evil of his sin — he is beyond [illegible] and carnal reasonings, he will hear nothing, the soul is overpowered with a sovereign kind of absolute necessity, he has found by proof, which puts to silence whatever can be said to the contrary. Q. d. cease reasoning about that for which no reason can be [reconstructed: given], [reconstructed: press] not that which has no ground of persuasion, it [reconstructed: will not] admit a case of exception, therefore I will not once take it into consideration — nothing can be spoken of weight or worth, and therefore [reconstructed: forbear] to speak further. It is not necessary I should not be poor, [illegible], despised; it is absolutely necessary I should not be sinful. I have no [reconstructed: command] from God that I should not leave and lose my life, my liberty, but I have a [reconstructed: clear] charge without all exception: I should leave my sin. Are you come to that with the three Children (Daniel 3:17-18): our God can deliver, but if he will not, be it [reconstructed: known] to you, [reconstructed: we] will not fall down and worship, and so forth — it is necessary we should maintain the truth of God's worship; it is not necessary [reconstructed: we] should maintain our lives. Do you resolve with them (Hosea 14:3): Assyria [reconstructed: shall not] save us, [reconstructed: neither] will we go down to [reconstructed: Egypt], nor say any more to the work of [reconstructed: our own] hands, you are our gods — I will no more be proud or perverse, no more loose or vain, [illegible] listen to the pleasing dalliance of my own heart; [illegible] is determined long since, by long and woeful experience — it is beyond consideration. Keep your spirit ever in that temper, and you will keep [reconstructed: an] undoubted evidence of the sound work of contrition with you.

Hence therefore this doctrine [illegible] a bill of [illegible] against [illegible] of [illegible], [illegible] short of this [illegible] of God; [illegible] Christ and Heaven, fall away totally and finally from the truth in the end.

The first sort are your NEUTERS, who study to compose all their course with prudence and convenience, but conceive it not so safe to put a necessity upon each service in this kind, but only serve their own turn; and that is the compass they steer by, and walk by. As your neutral towns, they pay to both the armies, but fight for neither, only keep their own safety and peace. So it is with those neuters in religion — they would negotiate with Christ and the rule, and enter into articles of agreement with the Gospel; therefore they take up, profess, and practice godliness, but with cautions and provisions, that they may walk at [reconstructed: ease] in their own deluded hearts; but to put it to the [illegible] of this absolute necessity, and that they may dispense as they [illegible] fit, that they will decline — they count it and conceive it matter of comeliness and convenience, indeed prudence and Christian wisdom, indeed necessary if occasions suit, to attend the narrow [illegible] of God's command: if occasions suit, provided that no [illegible] and desperate inconveniences and hazards appear to the contrary, they plead a dispensation to relieve themselves by; to be necessitated and tied to inconveniences they conceive it unreasonable. Thus the merchant, [illegible] willing and ready to [illegible] his day, and [illegible] payment, and perform his [illegible] according to promise, if means and moneys come in comfortably, and his [illegible] may be served as well as his creditor paid, then it is necessary: but if [illegible] upon [illegible], and he cannot pay but with much [illegible] to his estate, either to part with that which is profitable, or upon low rates and for loss; then he [illegible] he may be dispensed [illegible], and it is not necessary [illegible] in that case to pay. If a man [illegible] in the world, then it [illegible]; [illegible] is at [illegible] in [illegible] estate, [illegible].

The wife that is froward, she [illegible], had she a head and husband so wise, and able, and gracious, there were reason and necessity she should carry herself in a [illegible], and sweet, and humble manner: but one that [illegible] fit for his place, nor answers her comfort, nor his carriage so prudent as she could desire; if then she carry herself pettishly and perversely, in such a case, a toleration may be given. So these persons put no necessity of parting with their sins, but of preventing their inconveniences. It's certain, you never found the evil of sin, that can take and leave your sin with these exceptions; you never seek Christ for himself, but only as he may serve you; not take his, but make your own [illegible]. But if ever God do you good, he will make you know that God [illegible] lays a necessity upon a gracious man (nor in truth upon any man) to sin, but [illegible] necessity, and that absolute, he should not sin. And therefore all those pleas, alas my occasions many, my necessities great, pinching extremities prevailed with me; but as soon as conveniences suit, then I will, etc. Therefore you [illegible] be just and true in promises and performances, only when you have no necessities, when your conveniences serve not for conscience sake: No, you will find you had better go maimed and halt, with your [illegible] eye plucked out, and your right hand cut off, than to keep your sins, and go to Hell with them. When your convenience suits, you will serve God; and when God's convenience serves, he will save you.

There is another sort of formal professors, that pretend great kindness, and large affection to the Lord, and the Gospel, and therefore profess they will go far to accommodate the Lord Jesus, and give him full and free entertainment. Only there is a reservation they make to themselves of that which shall not be much prejudicial to the presence of his Majesty, if God will abate them [illegible], that is all they look for. As men that take in mates, they let all, but reserve only a room to themselves, and they [illegible] they go very far to please them: So these men will keep some one lust, and they must be spared in that. Rachel reserves her father's idols; Ananias and Saphira, they give half, and keep half (Acts 5:2). It's certain you never knew the evil of sin, if you never [illegible] an absolute necessity to part with all. You say, The Lord be merciful to me only in this; No, you will never have mercy if you keep this. You say, Is it not a little one, and my soul shall live? It's certain, your soul cannot live, if you cannot leave this.

Instruction. We here see the reason of all that uneven and unsteady walking of many men: Sometimes they are zealous, and sometimes cold and careless, men are off and on, sometimes so [illegible] that they cannot abide the appearance of any sin; sometimes bold to adventure upon that which they know to be evil. This is certain, either you never had the work of contrition, or you keep it not alive in your soul (1 Corinthians 5:1-2). You are puffed up, and do not mourn? If they had mourned for the evil, they would have been zealous to reform.

Direction, how we may keep a readiness of heart to [illegible] every corruption and occasion leading to it, that a man may have a steady, even spirit; keep your heart affected daily with the evil of your sins, and that will overbear all corruptions and inclinations to any sin at any time. As the naturalists say of the nightingale, she sets her breast against [illegible] thorn, that when she begins to nod, the thorn may awaken her; he that lies hard, will not sleep long.

Two rules here.

Keep the judgment settled, conscience convinced, and heart [illegible] of this truth, that the evil of sin is so great, that no evil is equal, no good can countervail it; and then this will certainly follow, you will rather choose to have nothing in this world, [illegible] than to have your sin; and part with all profits, and commodities, and comforts, [illegible] not to part with your sin; suffer any evil rather than sin; lose any good, rather than keep your sin. Keep this in the thoughts of our hearts forever; there is no evil like to my sin (Matthew 16:26). What shall a man profit to win the world, and lose his soul?

Do not give a hearing to any consideration of any cavil that is cast in to the contrary. Say it's past consideration, do not therefore entertain the motion: As in the Chancery or courts of justice, when a cause has been tried, and proved by witnesses, and sentence past upon it; if a wrangler shall then put in a motion, the judge will not hear him, but casts out [illegible] motion. Deal so with your own [illegible] reason and [illegible]; when you have seen and found the greatness of the evil of sin by your own trial and experience, if now carnal reason should put in and say, This is to be considered, and that is to be considered; cast out all these cavils, give no audience to any motion made for any toleration for sin. And this is the way to keep the channel [illegible], and the passage current, that your souls may be carried cheerfully in the stream of God's truth; and that will make a man ever like himself; keep this truth [illegible] in your [illegible], there is an absolute necessity of it, I must not sin. It's inconceivable what this truth in the lively work of it will do.

There is a secret hope with which the Lord supports the hearts of such as are soundly contrite.

Though the case be dangerous, and their condition miserable, they do not cast away all as though it were utterly impossible; they do not say, Men and [illegible], there can nothing be done; we see nothing ourselves, and we [illegible] you discern nothing, and we conclude there [illegible] will [illegible] can do any good. In fact, their words seem to issue from another principle and foundation, what shall we do? That is to say, there may be ways we see [illegible], [illegible] of [illegible] which [illegible] through our folly and ignorance of this condition, and unacquaintedness with the dealings of the Almighty, and his special and mysterious dispensations with the sons of men, do not conceive, nor can they come so easily and readily within our reach and apprehension; yet we suppose, you that are the Seers of Israel, and the spiritual physicians to the souls of [illegible], sinful creatures: you that are of God's counsel, and acquainted with his secrets, we should yet think it, there is yet something to be done; Oh that we may know it, and that direction that may do us good. So that there is a secret kind of unknown expectation in their hearts, as presuming there is some course to be taken for their [reconstructed: cure] and comfort. It is true, sometimes there be strong assaults of [illegible] in by [illegible], strong suggestions of impossibilities, which of a sudden seem to [illegible] over the soul; when after long strife and [illegible] held against our corruptions, we are frequently and desperately foiled with the violence of our own distempers, and our own [illegible], the sinner out of height [illegible] too much [illegible] of spirit, is ready to [illegible] away all. I shall one day perish: All men are liars. The soul tired with extremity, and by constant consideration, as it perceives; so it supposes its condition forlorn, upon a sudden push; may lay aside all, willing to look no further; the Lord by this means in his infinite wisdom, out of the deceit of our carnal reason, and by a present pang and outrage of [illegible], does crush and confound all the pride and [illegible] of [illegible] reason, which by no other way perhaps could so easily be quelled; when our own carnal [illegible] conclude according to our misguided [illegible], there is no way of escape, or means to shift. Where is now your wit that thought to [illegible], your power that thought you were able to [illegible] up your [illegible]?

But this is but a present push, like the rage of a [illegible] by [illegible] fall of rain, a hurry of spirit, a [illegible] as it were: But when the soul comes to itself, as the man that swooned away, it lifts up itself, and looks out, It may be, and it's possible.

Let me therefore,

1. Show you in a [illegible] or two, the nature of this hope, and [illegible] it differs from that which [illegible] wrought in the [illegible]; it's wholly of another kind in the nature, and the work of it. 2. The reason why God leaves this hope.

First, touching the nature of this hope, I term it, a secret kind of unknown expectation; by which the heart is carried on to look for relief and help, which out of the sense of its own burden, and preservation of it [illegible] it willingly would have, but knows not where to find it, nor yet obtain it, [illegible] it did appear.

It may be discovered in two things:

In the rise and ground of it; the Lord leaves upon the understanding of a [illegible] sinner, a real apprehension of his own [illegible] in such [illegible], and about such conditions, and yet [illegible] of the experience and knowledge of others, and [illegible] of Providence in such difficulties beyond his reach; both which lead the [illegible] and apprehension of a man to look out, and provokes the heart in this [illegible] condition, to put forth [illegible] endeavor, because all the [illegible] of possibilities, are not stopped up, and [illegible] of relief wholly taken away. For be it he know none; yet this also he [illegible], there may be some way, and others may and do [illegible] conceive more [illegible] of succor than his shallow conceiving is able to know, or has [illegible] to [illegible] therefore look out he will, and expect what further may be made to appear in the way of Providence, and from direction and skill of others. And hence it is they come here upon the [illegible], [illegible] and brethren, What shall we do? We [illegible] are [illegible] a [illegible] in our own thoughts, we are strangers to our own hearts and distempers, and distresses, to which through our just deservings we have brought ourselves: yet you that have more experience, and better acquaintance with the dispensations of the Almighty in such dealings with miserable creatures, though we know not what may help [illegible] selves, yet we know that we have need to seek for succor, and we know not but we may speed; therefore we are resolved to put it to the trial, put it to the venture, see what will become of it. Upon this ground the Ninevites resolve to betake themselves to seek out for their own preservation from the destruction [illegible] and now drawing on (Jonah 3:9): Who can tell if God will turn, and show mercy, that we perish not? [illegible] can [illegible] it is beyond all the skill we have to contrive, and the power we have to accomplish anything for our own [illegible]; but yet we cannot tell but God may turn from his [illegible] wrath, and leave a blessing behind him [illegible] of a curse; as men who fall into strange and desperate sicknesses, the danger they see, but cannot see how to cure themselves; yet the apprehension of their own ignorance, and consideration of the experience and wisdom of others, is thus far a help, as to provoke them to seek out, not altogether without expectation of supply from them; for though they easily conceive they understand not what is good for their own sicknesses, yet they cannot conclude but others do or may understand more than themselves. So here, Men and brethren, we knew not our sins before, nor now how to be quit of them. You that from God, know how to discover them, we cannot but think, but you may show us a way of escape and deliverance, and therefore we cannot but inquire; though the sinner cannot say it will, yet he does not know it will not be; therefore I term it an unknown expectation, it secretly sways and carries the heart.

Hence this hope is confused and uncertain, it does not, nor can bottom the heart in any grounded assurance, and settle it upon any certainty, for the attainment of that which now it needs; but keeps this on foot in the consideration of the sinner, that there be unknown passages of possibilities for his spiritual relief, and therefore this sends the heart out after search and inquiry. And those possibilities provoke the sinner to put to, with what diligence and endeavor may be to see what he can make of them, whether they will hit or miss, what will become of him and his comforts, that he may know what to make of himself and his condition, which as yet he knows not (Joel 2:13). Who knows if God will return? Who knows whether these sins may be pardoned, grace and mercy shall be extended to this miserable soul of mine? Who knows what will befall? I will yet try what shall befall, I will see the issue: such a kind of possible uncertainty caused the lepers to make proof what would be the event; they may slay us, and yet they may save us. So Benhadad's servants, Ahab may proceed in his indignation against us, and yet he may also pardon, therefore we will try. So the soul here. Whereas the hope that issues from faith, and is found in the hearts of believers as the fruit thereof, it has a sure and clear ground, to sustain and settle it, upon which a man's hopes may hang, and a special and infallible assurance it brings that will never fail; that is as certain which is thus in hope, as that which we have in hand; that which is in expectation, as that which we have in present possession; so called, the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast (Hebrews 6:19). This hope never makes ashamed (Romans 5:5). A man never misses of his expectation, as the ground of our hope is most sure, and the success is most certain, and the ground is the love and faithfulness of God in the undoubted performance of the promises he makes (Romans 5:4). Because the love of God is [illegible] in our hearts by the [reconstructed: Holy] Spirit.

[illegible] this unknown expectation arises from the apprehension of some [illegible] presented, which because they are unknown what they may be, therefore the restless contrite sinner puts forth his endeavor to prove what will be the issue.

The reasons are [illegible] summed up in so many words.

Because this hope is a hidden support whereby the heart is under-propped from sinking utterly under those unsupportable evils, which it feels now in part, and fears still daily to come in upon them, and yet not only beyond his strength but beyond his thoughts: and therefore as the Lord smites with the one hand, he sustains and upholds him by the other. It is the reason which the Lord alleges why he will not always contend lest the spirit should fail before him, and the souls that he has made (Isaiah 57:16). As the wise physician when the disease is violent and the portion strong, he [illegible] the heart with some cordial, lest while he should purge the humor he should destroy nature, the Lord is as a wise merciful physician, he would melt us by godly sorrow but not consume us, he would have us lose our sins but not our hopes.

This hope is an inlet into the soul whereby the Lord makes way for the work of the means; hereby the contrite sinner is ready to attend, and give entertainment to the ordinances, while he has any hope of any good to be communicated to himself, because the patient knows not but the receipt may do him good, he is content to take it and try what it will do; whereas desperate discouragement stops all the passages, that the power of an ordinance cannot come to take place. Upon this ground it was Naaman's servants persuaded their master (2 Kings 5:15) to give way to the means prescribed by the prophet for his cure. If he should prescribe some great matter you would surely do it, how much more when he says, wash and be clean, if washing be a [illegible] of cleansing, the very possibility of cleansing should easily make him give way to prove what washing might do. When men bore holes, they drive pins marvelously readily with much ease, hope sets open the heart to any ordinance, that it may easily find attendance and acceptance as the cripple to Peter (Acts 3:3), he gave ear expecting something — expectation draws attention, he looked upon them as desirous to receive good; look what the spring is to the watch, the poise or weight to the minute, no stirring without it. So is hope to our endeavors, the plowman plows in hope, sows and reaps in hope (1 [illegible] 9:10). Hope is the great wheel which carries the life of our endeavor; the runners would not run in the race, the mariner sail in the sea, were there not possibility for the one to attain the goal, the other the haven, and the wise man when he would set all on going, he [illegible] hope on work, keeps that in their eyes as that which would keep them constant in their course (Ecclesiastes 11:6). Sow your seed in the morning, and in the evening let your hand rest, and what is the prevailing reason to provoke to such unwearied diligence? It is hope of good, you know not whether this or that will prosper, [illegible] whether both alike; do both, if either of both may do that for us that is useful and may answer our need and expectation.

Instruction: We here see the reason why Satan draws out all his forces, uses the depth of his delusions on the one side, sets all the policy and power of Hell to work on the other side, and tries all conclusions to the utmost of his skill, if by any means he might hamstring a man's hopes, put the distressed sinner beyond all possibility and expectation of good, and then he has him close prisoner, past recovery, not once looks out for deliverance, he is his own; the [illegible] off the hinges, nor opens, nor shuts to give way to them that pass in or out, but rather is a trouble and stops their way. It is so here, [illegible] Satan can but unhinge the heart of the hope and expectation of relief and help, he makes the contrite soul wholly incapable of all comfort or support, there is no [illegible] between heaven and him, but is an outlawed wretch an outcast, beyond the compass of God's compassion and kindness, and sits down confounded in his own accursed condition and [illegible] further. It is a stratagem usual and common among commanders, in the taking of towns and walled cities, when provisions (as they understand) are low and short within, they block up all passages; there is none can come out, none can go in (as the scriptures speak in that kind) none go out to [illegible] or procure provision, none come in to bring any, and then they certainly conclude the [illegible] is theirs, they must either yield or famish in such a time, the like is the policy of the enemy and it is a direful [illegible], and undoubtedly procures the speedy destruction of the soul that cuts off a man's hopes, and blocks up the soul from the possible expectation of any good: it deadens the [illegible], deadens the ordinance, deadens a man's diligence, no going out by endeavor to procure any spiritual release, no coming in by the power of any [illegible] to work any good in the soul, and hence it is that the enemy darts in such temptations and by his wiles and subtleties casts a man into such a condition at least to his persuasion, that it is utterly beyond all consultation and consideration either of our souls, or others, and therefore there is no further seeking out but sinking irrecoverably in a man's distress. And therefore [illegible] hastens the soul in a [illegible] [illegible] of [illegible], to pass such determinations upon a man's estate, that makes him past appearance of recovery or [illegible], and so [illegible] the reach of reason or relief. As either a man's [illegible] [illegible] past and his [illegible] determined in heaven: He was before [illegible] worlds [illegible], the [illegible] is [illegible] and the [illegible] never to be reversed, or else the date of mercy is [illegible], and the day of grace is past here on earth; God has set a period to his patience, and long sufferance and those are expired; he will not always strive with man, and it is not fit, nor reasonable he should. Jezebel had her time to repent, allowed by the Lord, and she repented not, and then God cast her into a bed of [illegible] and slew her and her children. Jerusalem had a day of peace, 'Oh that you knew the things that belong to your peace in this your day, but now they are hid from your eyes;' after the day was over, the darkness grew [illegible] gross that she did not, nor could not see things before her eyes and this is your condition just, says Satan. So many motions of the spirit, so many checks of conscience, so many [illegible] and strokes under the ordinances, and yet outlasted all, and so the time of mercy also, now it is too late. Or else it surprises the thoughts of the distressed with the hideous apprehensions and remembrance of some hellish distemper of spirit to which the sinner is privy; that it is other and worse than ever he yet conceived, [illegible] all circumstances considered, it amounts to no less than the sin against the Holy Ghost, for if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more [illegible] for sin (Hebrews 10:26), and this is your case says Satan beyond all question, when after many motions of the spirit and persuasions cast in, many secret entreaties, many misgivings of heart, 'do not do so, do not do it,' and yet you have despised the very spirit of grace, you have been enlightened, and had many pleasant relishes of joy and peace under the good word of God, and yet fallen back again, and so fallen away, therefore it is impossible you should be restored or renewed by repentance. Then should you pursue that which is impossible to be attained, this dams up all passages, he cannot endure to hear of any, or attain the use of any means when it is impossible to receive any benefit by all that can be used.

Thus Satan deals with the discouraged sinner, as the thief with the weary traveler who is unacquainted with the way and lost in which he is, he leads him out of the road far into the forest without the knowledge and call of any passerby, or expectation of any means of relief and then he has opportunity to spoil him of his substance, and of his life also. So Satan deals with the distressed, unacquainted with his own estate, under this trouble and stroke of contrition, carries him aside with such misconceivings of his own condition, that he leads him into bypaths beyond the knowledge and compass of reason, and any [illegible] consideration, so that he will neither seek nor receive any helps. Be wise therefore, and watchful both for the discovery and perceiving these policies and delusions of the enemy which draw on irrecoverable destruction with them; be sure therefore you keep the rule of God's revealed will and direction for your own ways, while you keep under the guidance of the word, you are under God's wing; therefore in a word or two, to wipe away this false and wily pretense of the enemy.

When the enemy would have you pry into the ark, would carry you to heaven to [illegible] the rolls and records of God's eternal counsel, you must not repel [illegible] temptations and repress such pride and presumptuous attempts of your own vain mind, with that charge of the Almighty, tell him and your own soul, that secret things belong to God, but things revealed belong to you (Deuteronomy 29:29). It is God's advice, to search and try our own hearts and turn to the Lord (Lamentations 3), and not to search his decrees. Look at what is done in [illegible] own heart, which you may do and should by warrant from the word and direction thereof. But to look into the decrees of heaven, what has been determined there, is beyond your line and limit also. It is sinful curiosity and presumption which God does condemn and you must conscientiously avoid; know Satan leads you out of the way, and therefore be fearful to listen to him.

Touching the date of grace and day of mercy, it is true which the Lord has taught that God will not always strive, [illegible]; it is as true and evident also, that while the Lord is pleased to [illegible] means, to work with them and to awaken the heart by them, by convictions of conscience and [illegible] of a man's condition and his corruption, and drives the sinner to sad thoughts and searchings of heart, it is certain where these thoughts and stirrings are there God is striving by his spirit, in his ordinance. And it is Satan's policy and purpose by such vain cavils to withdraw them from under the power of the means, to take [illegible] their attendance thereupon, and so endeavor to [illegible] thereby, when the strong man cannot be at peace in his house (Luke 11:22); it is certain that is the time when there is a stronger than he, is now breaking in upon him.

For the counterfeit appearance, and the ugly [illegible] of the sin against the Holy Spirit, which Satan would put upon your [illegible], that by that means he might deaden your heart, and damp and [illegible] your endeavors, and prejudice the work of grace and repentance that now the Lord calls you to, and you also begin to look after, I answer (not now to be long here) the fear of the sin, and complaint against [illegible], that the heart is burdened with the apprehension and thoughts of it, and sighs secretly to be [illegible] from it, is argument enough that you are free from this evil, but God would make you feel what sin can do, that is, put you beyond help: and your own emptiness, who can do nothing for yourself when it comes to a dead lift. In a word, if you would outshoot the Devil, and outwork his temptations to promote your own welfare and peace; be ever watchful and conscientiously resolute, to oppose that evil most to which he tempts you; be most sedulous in the improvement of means in the use of which he would most discourage you, and the most of the delusions will come to nothing. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).

Hence we may observe how easy it is with the Lord to confound a poor creature, to make his own hands his executioner, his own reason his [illegible], indeed his very conceit, and imagination of his mind to hasten his confusion, and that irrecoverably to himself, if he shall but stop a little crevice of hope and lead aside a man's deluded reason into the appearance of impossibilities, as into a by-path, the soul will sink immediately, and be the greatest enemy in earth or hell, to its own everlasting happiness. He will seek no good if wanting, will receive none, if offered and pressed, indeed expect none, whatever can be presented or laid forth, either in the works of providence, or in the infinite power of the Almighty God, and one conceit will do this if God sees it on, as well, indeed more than all the devils in hell could do, if they should set all the power of darkness on work. So it was with [illegible] (Daniel 4:30). God dashed all his power and pomp with one deluded and misguided thought, a conceit of a beast made him unfit for crown or kingdom or counsel or communication of men, so that he that would have all for his honor and majesty, he neither knew what honor or majesty was, nor could receive any, nor yet his kingdom would give either to him.

Exhortation: To provoke our souls by all good means to nourish this hope in our hearts forever. It is said of hope that it comes from faith and is the anchor of the soul (Hebrews 6). But it is true of this also in its measure, for where there is some hope of getting good it will enable a man to endeavor. Look what the spring is to the weights of the clock — [illegible] — there is no stirring of the one without the other; as it is in nature, so grace in physic, all the vitals must be especially [illegible] because a wound in the vitals is deadly. It is so in a man's spiritual course: if a man would have his endeavor kept, then keep his hope alive, and say, though I do not know it shall be, yet I do not know but it may be, [illegible] I will hope and wait. Two rules here.

Maintain in your own heart an apprehension of your own ignorance for your own relief: men are apt to measure God's dealings by their own apprehensions; you say you cannot see it, yet maintain this in your heart, I will wait upon God; for there is more than I can see. Isaiah 42:16: I will lead the blind by a way that they do not know, and I will not forsake them, says the Lord. God has unknown passages of providence for your good.

Maintain in your heart a real, constant persuasion of the all-sufficiency that is in God for your supply above all that which you can conceive, and that will hold up your heart, for the [illegible] of hope is a possible good (Matthew 9:33). There was never such a thing seen in Israel; therefore though your heart tells you, there was never a sinner as I am, yet God is able to do that which never was done in Israel, therefore expect still what may be. Again, though you cannot conceive it, yet know there is a sufficiency in God able to do it (Job 5:8-9): I would seek to God, and to God would I commit my cause, which does great things, and unsearchable, and marvelous things without number. This may support your heart, and carry you on with some hope in a waiting way.

They who are truly pierced for their sins, do in a special manner, prize and covet deliverance from them.

For this is the scope of their complaint, and the end and aim of their request, that they might be freed from that which they found so bitter, and indeed unsupportable to their souls; and it's implied in their speech; that which in the like case was openly expressed by the Jailer (Acts 16:30). He came trembling and astonished, saying, what must I do to be saved? Not what shall I do to be eased of my distraction, cured of my fears, freed from my shame; but what shall I do to be saved from my sin? He was plagued most with the remembrance of that, prizes most freedom from it: the venom of his transgression is that which lies heaviest upon his heart; and therefore it is, to be safeguarded from that is of highest esteem in his account. Saved from the guilt of sin, as that which sets the Almighty at a distance from him, and raises the controversy between God and the soul, and forces him to withdraw his favor, and loving kindness, which is better than life, which David felt by woeful experience, and therefore sues with such importunity (Psalm 51:14): Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, you God of my Salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. After the commission of these evils by David, the Lord threatened the sending of the sword that might hazard the safety of his person, and the prosperity of such as should succeed him. So Nathan (2 Samuel 12:10): The sword shall never depart from your house: he threatens to raise up cruel and subtle conspirators out of his own bosom and bowels; as Absalom, out of his own counsel and kingdom, as Achitophel, and Jeroboam, whose plottings and conspiracies should shake the pillars of the kingdom, and the peace of his government; all which were marvelously bitter potions, and heavy expressions of God's displeasure, but the sting of all those troubles, the venom of all that vengeance issued from his sin, that is the evil in all evils, and therefore he overlooks all the rest, and seeks most earnestly to be rescued from this. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness: it's not the cruelty of the sword that will destroy, nor the conspiracy of enemies that desire to undermine my crown, and kingdom, and safety, which I so much fear, nor so much labor to be freed from; but deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God of my Salvation — that is to say, that is the deliverance I look for, and long for; and here in the salvation of a God will appear, and show it, and wherein the soul of your servant shall most rejoice.

Saved also they would be from the [illegible] of corruption, which carries the soul from God, and keeps the [illegible] estranged from him: and hence it is the [illegible] church makes [illegible] the matter of their most bitter complaint (Isaiah 63:17): Why have you hardened our hearts from your fear, and caused us to err from your ways? When they withdraw their hearts from God, he [illegible] his gracious presence and [illegible] from them: when they would not deliver up themselves to the authority of his truth, and holy will, to be ruled thereby, he delivered them up to the power of their own perverse spirits, they that would not be guided in his [illegible] by his holy Spirit, they should be hardened from his fear by the perverseness of their own spirits: this is the most dreadful plague of all plagues, the deliverance from which they so highly prize, and seek it with such importunity, Look down from heaven, your holy habitation, where is the sounding of your bowels? Are they restrained? Oh why have you hardened our hearts from your fear?

The price the contrite sinner puts upon this deliverance from his sin, discovers itself in four particulars.

In the lack of this, the soul is not, cannot be quieted, though it does enjoy all other things the world can afford, and his heart could desire: the want of this takes off the sweetness of all the comforts; contentments, the sap and [illegible] of all privileges, and the confluence of all earthly excellencies that can be enjoyed in this pilgrimage, when the soul is under the pressures of God's displeasure, and the tyranny of his own distempers, which carries him from God, and keeps him under the dreadful indignation of the Almighty, present him then with the beauty of all the choicest blessings that ever any man had on earth, yes, whatever others hoped for, but in vain. Put them into his hand, conceive him possessed of the fullness of all worldly perfections, crowns, kingdoms, honors, and preferments, the broken heart [illegible] all under [illegible] with neglect, what is that to me, says the soul? Had I all the wealth to enrich me, all honors to advance me, pleasures and delights to content me, and my sins still to damn me? Miserable man that ever I was born in the [illegible] of all these falsely conceived comforts. This sour sauce spoils all the sweet-meat, this dram of poison makes deadly all the delights and pleasures that [illegible] can be attained or expected. As [illegible] when he was recalled from his banishment, and had the liberty and use of his house, and all the conveniences and helps that were at his command, but was charged not to see the king's face: upon a two years' trial he found a straightness of all his comforts in these enlargements; [illegible] he thus expresses his resolution to [illegible] (2 Samuel 14:32): What avails me to be at Jerusalem, and in my house, to come from Geshur, if I may not see the king's face? Let me see his face, and let him [illegible] me. It is so with the broken-hearted sinner; What avails it me to be compassed about with all conveniences my heart can desire, and be compassed about with my corruptions? To see all earthly happiness heaped up together, but never to see the face of God in another world? The belly filled, and back clothed, and house stored, and the soul damned, and cast out from God's presence, in whose presence, there is fullness of joy, and pleasures for evermore? These are but dead things, sapless shadows, and are to a man of a contrite spirit, as though they were not, indeed the [illegible] he has, [illegible] more trouble he has, because there is more sin, and more guilt, more curse and condemnation; he sees in all, and expects by all from God, and so remains restless in all.

He is content with this, though he wants all the rest, because he prizes this more than all. Skin for skin, and all that a man has, will he give for his life; and life and all for the salvation of his soul. For sin now he [illegible] it, now he has found it to be more bitter than death; and therefore to be saved from it, he judges, and that truly, to be better than life itself: willing not only these things should not be, but that himself should not be, that he might not be sinful: Let the Lord take all away, yes life and all, only take away my sin, and it suffices; he counts it the best day that ever yet dawned, the best news that ever came to his distressed conscience, if he can gain any assurance, get any evidence, but one good look from heaven, a smile of God's face and [illegible], that the sins he has seen, he shall never see them more; the corruptions that have [illegible] and plagued him in his daily conversation, indisposed him to do the duties God required, and unfitted him for the [illegible] Christ has purchased, God has tendered to him in his holy Word: That pride that [illegible], those passions, that perverseness, and self-willed waywardness of heart that has been the plague-sore of his soul, have interrupted the comfort of his heart, peace of his conscience, communion with his God. The very possibility and expectation that the Lord may save him from the guilt and power of those prevailing distempers, supports his spirit. But if he can but live to see the day that the thing is done, he desires to live no longer: Lord, let your servant [illegible], since my eyes have seen your [illegible] (Luke 2:29-30). Since you have [illegible] lusts, mighty stiffness [illegible] all convictions, though [illegible]; gainsay all arguments, though never so [illegible]; slight all directions though never so [illegible] evident, mighty self-confidence, and hellish haughtiness of spirit, whereby I could swell above man and means, and God himself: Let your servant depart in peace; this peace, let it never be interrupted; this saving power of your spirit never weakened, never enfeebled more. Let me lose my life with the [illegible], let me die that they may never live more. And therefore the distressed Christian sees not the meanest Christian in the [illegible] miserable condition, but he prefers him above all the [illegible] on earth, and wishes himself in his place. Oh if my soul were in his soul's stead, saved from his corruption, therefore he is in a safe and a blessed condition. Salvation, if it be of the right stamp, to deliver from sin, not to ease from plagues and sorrows, such a kind of saving carries ever satisfaction with it, has a [illegible] fullness which answers to all — poor and imprisoned, yet saved though; persecuted, reproached, yet saved though; despised and killed, and yet saved; delivered from his [illegible], there is no evil of the first or second death that shall hurt him, [illegible] have any power over him: And therefore the contrite sinner contents himself in this, as Jacob in a like case, I have enough, Joseph is yet alive; I have enough, my soul shall yet be saved. In a wreck, he that saves his life, is abundantly satisfied. When so many thousands suffer [illegible], split all their professions, hopes, and comforts upon the rocks and sands of pride and self-love; Oh what a mercy, satisfying mercy, that you who were in as much danger as they, stand alive upon the shore, when they are dying, and drowning, and [illegible], under the power of their sins.

The [illegible] sinner [illegible] price, he is resolved in good [illegible] readily to endeavor anything to compass that he makes so much [illegible] of, [illegible]. [illegible] and brothers, what shall we do? Command what you will, we shall do it; give what [illegible] please, we shall follow them; prescribe the means you see [illegible] shall improve them; [illegible] it is you shall [illegible] enjoin, be it never so cross to our own carnal [illegible], never [illegible] and hazardous [illegible], we shall not haggle and [illegible] you, but we shall endeavor [illegible], and [illegible]. What shall we do? Whatever [illegible], we shall do what we can; and [illegible] to do what we cannot out of our weakness perform, or out of our ignorance so readily conceive how to accomplish. So they (Isaiah 30:22). The converts there, it is said, they [illegible] the [illegible] of silver, and ornament of gold, and cast them away as a [illegible] cloth, and say, get away from here. The price and worth of their image might have enticed them; if not to have kept them, yet converted them to their own use; but they cashier them wholly, without the least consideration of any commodity that they might have contrived for their own content from them. So Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8). When once he began to be sensibly affected with his corrupt and covetous course, and the danger thereof, and the evil therein, see how comfortably restitution (which is so difficult a work) comes off at hand, without any grudging, because that was the means appointed by God to quit his heart and hands of the guilt of that sin. Behold Lord, half that I have, I give to the poor; and if I have wronged any man by forged accusation, I restore him four-fold. So lastly, the holy Apostle Paul, when the Lord Jesus had discovered his sin, and abased his heart in the right apprehension of it; so that he is come to God's purpose, What do you want me to do? Behold I will send you far hence to the Gentiles (Acts 26:17-19). He did not consent with flesh and blood, nor so much as pretend either doubt or [illegible], but immediately addressed himself to follow the direction. That which a man prizes indeed, he will bid fair for, nor will he stop for a little cost, but is resolved to have it whatever it [illegible], and therefore [illegible] not for the cost at all. So it is here, a [illegible] sinner comes easily and resolutely to God's terms, to do anything.

He that [illegible] this price upon salvation, and [illegible] from sin, his heart is upon it, and his prayer is improved for the most part for this particular; his thoughts about it [illegible]. Listen to him in [illegible] secret devotions, his confessions about this, his petitions spent upon this — he harps upon this [illegible] still. But for things of the world they are out of his mind, his thoughts [illegible] them, as though he [illegible] nothing, or cared for nothing, or [illegible] — Oh, deliver me [illegible]. Ask him what he would have or desire, if he might obtain and have what he would; he answers, Oh that I might be saved — as Abraham for Ishmael (Genesis 17:18), [illegible] that Ishmael might live before you; [illegible] he for his own soul, Oh that my soul may live before you. Or as blind [illegible] said, Oh that my eyes might be opened, and that my heart might be opened and freed from my corruptions — Oh that Jesus Christ would do this for me, who cannot do it for my [illegible].

Because [illegible] distressed soul finds the presence of all other things do no whit prejudice a man's everlasting happiness — either the good or comfort of his soul, either the having or [illegible] of his spiritual [illegible]; the presence of [illegible] which may [illegible], do not [illegible] of any [illegible] person. A [illegible] is never a whit the worse, and the Lord loves him never a whit the less, because his pressures and sorrows [illegible] upon him; but that is the season of God's saving health, [illegible] is most near when there is most need, and our [illegible] makes way for the enlargement of his love and mercy to us. Joseph [illegible] prison, and God is with him; with his in the fire, [illegible] it [illegible] not, and the waters that they drown [illegible]; God [illegible] the [illegible] (Isaiah 43:2). God [illegible] more [illegible] and [illegible] himself to [illegible], than [illegible] the greatest [illegible] (Daniel 3:25) — [illegible] the [illegible] is seven times [illegible], and the three children [illegible] into it, then the Son of God [illegible] visibly with them in the [illegible] thereof. [illegible] and [illegible] all manner of [illegible], then God does all manner of good — for great [illegible] your reward in heaven. So that what the Apostle enjoins, the sinner now finds true by proof, that we have reason to count it all joy when we fall into many temptations (James 1:2-4). For in all those wants which [illegible] befall, become [illegible] and entire, and want nothing spiritually, and [illegible] the contrite is content to bear these, when he finds they do not hinder the happiness of the soul.

He now finds that the presence of his sins only poisons all the comforts he has with a curse, and [illegible] off the hope and expectation of any blessing from the hand of the Lord — in all the dispensations, in the ways of providences, or ordinances, towards him, nothing can prosper. Why transgress you the commandment of the Lord, for you cannot prosper? Sin stops the passage, and puts him beyond all possibility of [illegible] or good [illegible] to be extended towards him; for the Lord's determination is past, and it is peremptory: there is no peace to the wicked, says my God (Isaiah 57:21) — he has said it, the word is past out of his mouth, and no [illegible] can [illegible] it. You know what a [illegible] to the messenger (the thing was so reasonable) — What! peace, so long as the [illegible] of your mother [illegible] remain (Joshua 7:12). It is that which the Lord professes, so peremptory: I [illegible] be with you no more, except you destroy the [illegible] thing from [illegible]. God [illegible] his blessing and [illegible] in all the [illegible] of [illegible]; for [illegible] is the meaning — he would not be with [illegible] in [illegible] warring, in [illegible] going forth, and coming in; he will not be with them in [illegible], in receiving, praying, improving [illegible]. [illegible] shall not work, prayer [illegible], [illegible] place — a man [illegible] have them, but no [illegible] in [illegible], no Spirit with [illegible], no blessing upon them, no good from them at all. That which poisons all the [illegible] and [illegible] — indeed in truth the evil of all evils with it.

He now finds the removal of [illegible] would set open the floodgate of the infinite favor and goodness of the Lord, [illegible] in amain upon the [illegible] (Jeremiah 5:24). Your [illegible] withhold good things from you — God does not withhold them or keep them from us [illegible] only through the desert of our sins; his arm is not [illegible] that he cannot help, nor his [illegible] heavy [illegible] he cannot hear, [illegible] power that he cannot, nor mercy that he will not help. It is his desire: Oh that there were such a heart in them that they might fear me and keep my commandments, that it may go well with them and theirs for ever (Deuteronomy 5:29). Indeed he has taken a solemn oath: As I live says the Lord, I desire not the [illegible] of a sinner but that he [illegible] repent and live (Ezekiel 18:32). So that he wants not mercy, but we want [illegible], unworthy of the mercy he tenders, and incapable — indeed unwilling to receive the grace he offers. Oh [illegible] man that will, let him come, and [illegible] of the [illegible] of life freely (Revelation 22:17). If you [illegible] it, God will give [illegible], and no man wants it, [illegible] — it is he that will have it, and it is his corruption that keeps him so that he [illegible] not, indeed is not subject, indeed would not be made able to receive this mercy. Come out of them my people, [illegible] and touch not the [illegible]; and he offers himself readily: I [illegible] be [illegible] God, I [illegible] and walk with them — he will constantly [illegible] comfort them by [illegible] (2 Corinthians 6:18-19). He will walk up and down and see their [illegible] for them, answerable to all their needs and [illegible]. [illegible] which brings [illegible] and the [illegible], [illegible] we should prize as a good — above all [illegible] things we should prize it.

Instruction: We here see the [illegible] why most men in the world [illegible], [illegible] not after [illegible] of the physician; never looked for [illegible], because they were never sensible of their thraldom, etc.

Reproof: A bill of indictment to accuse and [illegible] thousands, giving in evidence that they never [illegible] the work of God upon their souls. Two sorts especially.

The secure sinner who is so far from seeking and coveting deliverance that he will not take it when it's offered, but is content to be in the prison of his natural condition and to lie in the bolts and [illegible] of his sins still. Of this temper were those Jews in captivity that had so long lived in Babylon they were content to remain there when liberty was proclaimed and the way opened, "deliver yourself, O Zion, you that dwell with the daughter of Babylon" (Zechariah 2:7), yet they stayed behind in captivity still. So it is with many a sluggish [illegible], he is content to perish rather than do anything to deliver himself, he blesses himself in his misery and so is a devoted slave to the Devil. As (Exodus 21:6), if when the servant had his liberty to go out free, he said plainly I love my master I will not go out free, then his ear was to be bored with an awl, and he was to be his servant forever, the boring of his ear did signify his yielding obedience to the command of another. So when Christ comes to set a man at liberty, offers mercy and grace and pardon, if a man then say, I love my master pride, perverseness and idleness, let me have and live in my sins — if God say Amen, you are a bond servant of [illegible] forever, you [illegible] a miserable [illegible] creature forever.

The sluggish professor or hypocrite that has had some conviction of his sins and remembrance of the stings of his distempers, and some promises and purposes of amendment — the blow is no sooner over, but all is at an end, lazy prayers and feeble endeavors. But when it comes to the point he will do nothing, he will give you the hearing of counsel and admonitions, you would think the man were in a very good temper, you may wind him about your finger. But in cases of trial you shall find him just where he was, he will do nothing, nay will do contrary to what he professed to submit to. He is not thorough and real in his desire and endeavors for deliverance from sin, etc.

We are now come to these things that are plainly expressed [reconstructed: in] the words. And here we shall content ourselves with two collections, which are most plain, and suit best to our present purpose in hand.

They who are truly pierced with godly sorrow for their sins are willing openly to confess them, when they are called to do so. Or: true contrition is accompanied with confession when God calls to it.

So do these converts here in the place, they come here of their own accord, they do not stay till they be arrested and summoned to the court; but they readily arrest, indict, arraign and accuse themselves before Peter and the rest of the Apostles. Men and brethren you have discovered many sins and the dreadful condition of the sinners who [illegible] guilty thereof, lo we are the men, thus and thus we have done. By us the Lord Jesus was opposed and pursued, by us he was [illegible], railed upon and blasphemed, by us it was that he was [illegible], and we are they that have embrued our hands in his most precious blood. We are they that [illegible] it and [illegible], [illegible] him, [illegible] with him, not him, [illegible]. Nay they roundly, readily, told all — this in secret we plotted against [illegible] life and liberty, thus we consented to those that should attempt the treason and [illegible] them in their [illegible] and [illegible] proceeding. We [illegible] they that gloried and rejoiced in the unrighteous [illegible] of the innocent Son of God, we applauded [illegible] selves in that we so prospered in our unjust practices, oh so would we have it. Men [illegible] plainly here [illegible] it, we openly and nakedly acknowledge it, they are our [illegible] which you have discovered, and we are the sinners against whom you have truly proclaimed the judgments of God — our sins intolerable, and our condition miserable. [illegible] are the men, we are those accursed, cruel [illegible] whereof you speak and what shall [illegible] do? Observe the like expression in the like estate and condition, when all sorts of people came to the Baptist's ministry, and the Lord was pleased to direct him to pierce their hearts by the preaching of the truth; they lay open their sins and sores before him and crave help and relief, as it appears by [illegible] he gives, he applies several directions according to the several diseases (Luke 3:12-13). Then came the publicans, anon the soldiers saying what shall we do? and he answers suitably: they made known their maladies and he applies the [illegible]. As it is in an inward cankerèd sore, if it be lanced thoroughly and to the quick, it then bleeds kindly and freely: so with the soul, if the heart feel the sin really, the tongue will freely express it, when the season shall require — the point is clear, we will see [illegible] we can make it plain.

There be three particulars in the doctrine which desire [illegible].

- 1. When a sinner is called into [illegible]. - 2. When confession is serious and hearty. - 3. How contrition [illegible] in such a confession

To the first of these.

Before I can come to lay forth the [illegible] I must premise two things.

That sins are of three sorts, as they come to our present [illegible], in the case in hand.

First some [illegible] public and notorious done in the sight of the sun, open to the view of all, that are in the place to see it, [illegible] come to the hearing of it. Such are practices which are impudent when men are fearless and [illegible] in their way, they declare their sin as Sodom (Isaiah 3:9), all may see, and they care not much what they do, so in the case of Eli's sons (1 Samuel 2:17, 23).

Secondly, some are private between party and party to which none are privy but themselves, either the offense done to another. As Joseph's mistress when they were alone entices him (Genesis 39:7). The adulterous woman meets with the young man, allures, yes tempts him impudently by her loose speech and behavior. Or [illegible] they are associates together in the same evil, as of Simeon and Levi; brethren in iniquity (Genesis 49:5).

Thirdly some sins are secret where no eyes see, no man living apprehends, but a man's heart and conscience, he commits the evil alone, and he alone knows it and God only who knows the secret of all [illegible].

By open confession, I understand, the discovery and acknowledgment of the sin to any who knew not of it before, whether it be publicly to many or privately to some one; because a man is brought thus, to open himself to such, and to make them privy to that which formerly he did not apprehend. These two things thus by way of preparation premised, the answer to the first question will be referred to three heads, touching public, and [illegible] and [illegible][illegible], [illegible] all which particulars there be particular directions to settle a man's judgment, and to [illegible] practices, in a right way.

[illegible] public sins, [illegible][illegible][illegible] here; whatever sins have been publicly committed or being private come to be made public, of such God [illegible] public acknowledgment and confession, two branches [illegible] I will touch both.

If the public scandals and evil which have broke out in our practice to the offence of others, and stumbling of the weak, the grief of the good, the encouragement of the wicked, who may be provoked in the like conduct or confirmed in them by reason of our example; then it is requisite and necessary, men should take open shame by solemn acknowledgment. It is the rule which Christ has left to the Church, who sin openly rebuke openly (1 Timothy 5:20), and if a rebuke according to the rule of God ought to be dispensed, it ought to be received. And that is a main end [illegible] on both hands ought to be looked at, both in giving and receiving public censure, that the delinquent be ashamed, and brought to acknowledge his sin and judge himself for it. So Joshua to Achan (Joshua 7:19), tell me what have you done? (1 Thessalonians 4:14) If any man obey [illegible] the Gospel, note such a man, set a brand upon him by a sad censure that he may be ashamed and so see his evil and come to acknowledgment of it. And hence men should lay shame upon him and he accordingly ought to take it. And when men are out of the Church that the power thereof cannot reach them, the connivance and [illegible] of human laws will not see execution done upon them; it is commonly the way of providence, that the Lord does force men to do that out of horror of conscience which they will not do out of conscience to God's holy command. Sometimes the Lord arrests men upon their sick beds and constrains them to bear the shame of that, which they would not be brought to see in the days of their folly. Then send for such and such who have been deeply wronged by me, for such who have been corrupted by my example, the evil counsel that I have given, the loathsome conduct and unsavory language, and speeches that I have expressed, those subtle insinuations, and baits that I have laid to entice and entangle them, I desire now that God would pardon and they forgive. Indeed such who have been ringleaders to their wicked and lewd courses were not able to abide their persons and practice, either take him away, or remove me hence, says the sick party. Thus they brought their [illegible] and [illegible] them openly in the view of all, when once God brought their hearts to a thorough sight and sorrow for their sin (Acts 19:19). Sometimes upon the place of execution God constrains me [illegible] vomit out their wretchedness, to leave shame upon themselves, and to [illegible] their [illegible] for a reproach and [illegible] behind them, and to confess now to be condemned, when they would not confess in humility to seek and receive [illegible] to be pardoned. Oh beware by my example that you never rebel against parents, reject the counsel and [illegible] of governors, that was my sin, has been my bane, and made me rush on headily to my own ruin and confusion. In fact,

Secondly, if the commission of them were private and yet they be made public by [illegible] way in a course of providence, still God calls for confession answerable, as the season shall require and opportunity [illegible], as suppose a man's secret fact come to open view, either by others care, or by the weakness of any according to my defect, in all these cases open acknowledgment is requisite. As for instance in the particulars, the house is broken, the goods stolen, conveyed and hid, at length the owner sees, challenges, pursues him in the open court of justice and yet righteously; and that which was cunningly carried before comes now openly to be censured again. Suppose that there is an offence given to a brother in Church Covenant and while the [illegible] is in [illegible] and depending between them [illegible], the party offended against the rule of our Savior, carelessly and [illegible] relates this to several persons, some without, some within the Church and they also report it heedlessly to others, so that it grows common and the report public. Though they of the Church (for the rule of our Savior binds them properly because they have power to reform or prevent evil, and does not in many cases reach others out of that relation) though they, I say, did sinfully and disorderly make it public, yet this is ground sufficient for a gracious heart, and that according to God's command, to [illegible] the open shame of the evil, as seeing God's hand so pursuing of him, for purposes best known to his Majesty; for the reality and venom of the scandal, issues properly from his sin, though the report came occasionally and disorderly from others.

Since then the scandal goes so far, and the hurt likely to be so common by means of his sin, it is requisite the salve should be as large as the sore, that the report of the confession for the recovery of the evil, may go as far as the infection has done by the report of the evil committed. In fact, if through my just desert, it be made public, when private counsels take not place, nor admonitions awe, nor reasons prevail, when no private means that the Lord Jesus has appointed, [illegible] have been improved, do good, but that they are constrained to appeal to the public; this shows the strength of the distemper, and the danger of it; and therefore the sinner needs more deeply to be affected with it, and with greater shame and sorrow to bewail it. As when the offender will not hear one, nor yet two or three, that the stiffness and obstinacy grows so high that the brethren are constrained to call in the help of the whole congregation, and our Savior is constrained to raise the whole army, the body of the Church, to make head against an evil, it argues the corruption grows malignant and deadly, and the condition dangerous and desperate, and therefore the confession must be suitable, must [illegible] in soak, and be of more than usual efficacy, or else it will in reason be no way satisfactory.

Touching private sins, in case of wrong and injury that is done between man and man; miscarriages are expressed between party and party in the daily occasions of their lives, in which they are to deal one with another. The Apostle's rule is plain and pregnant, without doubt and dispute (James 5:16): Confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another. In our common conversation, miscarriages commonly break out and appear, either harsh, unkind, discourteous or injurious in their conduct; men should not slight such evils, and sit down carelessly in regard to the healing or removing of them; but be as careful to apply the cure as men are heedless to avoid the sin; get a heart conscientious and ready to [illegible] those evils, and that constantly, as we are ready to commit and practice them, else our prayers and our comforts will be prejudiced, which by this advice may be quickened and enlarged each for others [illegible]; for while we commit offenses, and not [illegible] we set our hearts and [illegible] at a distance one from another, and therefore we cannot pray so affectionately and [illegible] as otherwise we would, did [illegible] see the hearts of our [illegible] so easily coming in to the authority of the truth, and so affectionately carried against the sinful [illegible] of their own souls. This [illegible] the ground of that so [illegible] a warning, which our Savior suggests (Matthew 5:23-24): When you come to offer your sacrifice, and remember that your brother has [illegible] against you, that is, has any just exception against any sinful miscarriage, go first and be reconciled, and then come and offer.

Touching secret sins, there is the [illegible] difficulty, how to discern when a party is called of God to make confession thereof.

For answer, there be three rules which may serve for our right information therein.

If the Lord shall (as he has promised in his holy Word) seal up the acceptance of our persons, and the pardon of our sins, as it seems good to his will, when we shall make confession thereof to himself; we then need not, [illegible] in truth we should not make confession of our secret sins to man. First, [illegible] it is God may, indeed many times, in fact most usually does evidence the [illegible] of our sins to our souls, when we humbly and unfeignedly bewail them to himself. So the Apostle John concludes it as beyond question (1 John 1:9): If we confess our sins, God is faithful, and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity; in fact, we shall not only have forgiveness granted in Heaven, but evidenced to our hearts on Earth (Proverbs 28:13): He that confesses and forsakes, shall find mercy. If a man's confession be of the right make, not counterfeit, but current, he shall not only have mercy [illegible] for him in the record, but he shall have the use of it, find the sweetness of it, he shall find mercy pardoning, pitying, pacifying, comforting, and saving mercy. As when we have sought the thing that we have in our house, we say we have found it, when we have it in our hand, and for our use. Indeed, God is marvelously ready to meet the sinner halfway in his mercy and compassions, when he perceives that with a serious purpose of heart he sets himself [illegible] this work (Psalm 32:5): I said (says the prophet) I will confess my sin, and you forgave [illegible] iniquity. The unfeigned purpose of spirit this way, God takes in good part, and is so marvelously pleased therewith, that he gives him pardon, and forgives his sins, before he can mention by his words what he purposed in his mind (1 Kings 8:38): Whatever prayer shall be made by any man that shall know the plague of his heart, he will hear in Heaven, and forgive, etc.

And in this case, we need not, indeed we should not make confession of our secret sins; for we have no command to carry us to this, no example to warrant such a practice, nor yet have we the institution of any ordinance, which may challenge our attendance to it. And this you must carefully heed, and maintain against that cunning forgery of the Popish confession, which they have imposed upon all their followers and drudges. Their [illegible] and opinion is this:

That every man is bound once, at the least before the Sacrament, to confess in particular all and every one of his mortal sins, whereof he stands guilty, into the ear of the priests; the memory whereof by due and diligent premeditation, may be had, even such as are hidden, and are against the two last commands of the Decalogue, together with the circumstances which may alter the kind of the sin; if not (say they) let him be accursed.

This canonical institution, is the erecting of an engine of cruelty, to rack men's consciences, and pick men's purses to satisfy their own greedy covetous desires; and to set up their lawless sovereignty in the hearts of such, who have captivated themselves to their directions and counsels: for thus they have a noose upon men's consciences, and hold men between hopes and fears, leaving them between Heaven and Hell, as they suit their minds. If they please their humors, then they pardon them, and pull them out of Hell: if they satisfy not their expectations in giving so much for good use, or paying so much yearly to further the Catholic cause, then their sins are such, to Hell they must go, they cannot be acquitted. This made their drudges even weary of their lives, as never seeing an end of their misery, nor knowing what would become of their souls. And it is that which is called by John in the [illegible], the torment of a scorpion when he stings a man (Revelation 9:6): that men shall seek death, and [illegible] not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them. And holy and judicious Brightman expounds it of this sting, that the Jesuits keep men upon the rack of this confession, never knowing what will become of their souls, nor an end of their misery, further than it suits their conceits. And the Popish school who were more ingenuous, have delivered in their judgments, from these unnecessary burdens, which the Jesuits as hard task-masters, have laid upon other men's [illegible], and which they will neither [illegible] nor move the least finger to [illegible] any ease.

That which the soul has obtained from Heaven at the hands of God, that is needless we should desire from the hands of men, whose only help is to evidence God's mind. But by humble confession in secret to God, the soul has received pardon from Heaven, sealed up in his bosom by God's Spirit, and the testimony of his own [illegible]; therefore it is needless to desire it from the hands of men, when we have what we desire, and that in a better manner than they can give it.

Again, to be wise above that which is written is unlawful; and to do more than we have warrant for is ever unacceptable to God: but the Lord in his Word requires no more before the Sacrament, but that a man should [illegible] himself, and by the exercise of faith and repentance, gain assurance of the pardon of his sin, not go to confess his secret sin to another; therefore to do that is more than Christ and the Gospel [illegible], or God will accept.

When the soul lies under the guilt of secret sins, if the Lord in the use of all other means, denies either power or peace — power to oppose and master the corruption; so that still the soul is overborne by the violence and malignity of it — or denies peace, so that the old guilt returns afresh, after all prayers and confessions we make, cries and [illegible] we put up in fervency and importunity to the Lord: after the improvement of all means of reformation and repentance; yet the Lord, for reasons best known to himself, denies to seal up the assurance of love, and the forgiveness of sin to the conscience, then the Lord calls to this duty of confession, to such who are fitted and enabled to lend help and relief under God in such a case. That which the Lord has promised to bestow, and we are bound to obtain, we are bound consequently to use all [illegible] means appointed by God for this purpose, that we may be made [illegible] thereof. But the pardon of our [illegible], the acceptance of our [illegible], and the peace of our [illegible], God has promised to bestow, and we are bound to obtain; therefore we must improve all means to this end. If then we find by experience that God is not pleased to dispense power or peace by our own [illegible], on improvements of all means by ourselves, he then calls us to use the help of the prayers and counsels of others, who are called the [illegible] of our faith and joy; who are appointed to build us up in our holy faith: whose duty it is, to comfort the feeble minded, and to instruct the ignorant; and whose prayers are effectual means to obtain the removal of sicknesses, and the forgiveness of sins (James 5:15).

And some sins there are, as secret adultery and murder, which God never usually pardons to the heart of the offender, but he compels him to lay open those hellish corruptions by open confession to some other. In fact, as he never usually pardons them to his, commonly he never suffers them to go away [illegible] even in the wicked; but when men are not willing to take shame by private confession, he forces them by horror of conscience to vomit out their [illegible] in the face of the world, and to bear their [illegible], and leave [illegible] names an everlasting reproach when they [illegible] out their [illegible] upon the [illegible], or upon the [illegible] of their sicknesses, before their bodies drop down to the [illegible], and their souls be dragged by the devils into Hell.

In case of secret [illegible], if the wrong has been done, either [illegible] by some [illegible] of deceit, or injuriously by [illegible] to take away the goods of another; if [illegible] cannot be made otherwise, God [illegible] calls, either to reveal the evil to some other, who is faithful, and may do it; or [illegible] the party himself, who may [illegible] the satisfaction. [illegible] (I say) [illegible] cannot otherwise be made; for if [illegible] may, then we should never spread a scandal, when we may cover it without prejudice of the rule, and our brother's profit. But if restitution cannot comfortably and conscientiously be made, without the manifestation of the evil, as in many cases it cannot, then God calls for the use of this means to attain this end.

2. When is this confession serious and hearty?

It [illegible] be discerned when confession comes to be serious and hearty, if it has the equal [illegible], and is made up of the [illegible] following, it is then of the right make, and [illegible] according to [illegible] course of the [illegible].

It must be free: it comes off cleverly, flows naturally and ingeniously from a [illegible] sinner; the soul that is truly burdened does not by a [illegible] kind of unwillingness [illegible] from [illegible] duty, or [illegible] a retreat from the [illegible] of the truth, [illegible] soldiers [illegible] to do, when the service is unwelcome; but the [illegible] clear, and their spirits [illegible] for the [illegible], [illegible] proceed on without any [illegible] giving [illegible]. And [illegible] appears thus in the manner of their [illegible], in [illegible] managing this occasion in three things.

They [illegible] easy to yield to [illegible] evidence is brought in against them, to [illegible] to any [illegible] arguments of weight, to [illegible] before the strength [illegible] reason that shall be rendered, to lay forth their guilt, and [illegible] loathsomeness of their evil, [illegible], they are glad of that light. And therefore if men for [illegible] of the right [illegible] of the several and particular [illegible] of a practice, cannot so fully give in evidence of the evil, because it was hid from them in some [illegible], or [illegible] for want of consideration, did not pursue it [illegible] as they might and ought, but that there is [illegible] and room left for a cavil: a distressed convert will not take the advantage of men's ignorance, mistakes, or misapprehensions to make an escape from the evidence of truth; which the conscience tells that it deeply [illegible] him; or espies on every side to find a muse by the mistaking of a word, to put off an apparent testimony of that which his heart knows he is faulty in, and that which the party fully intended. But he answers to the scope of the question, evidence or accusation, and that which he knows to be suitable to the nature and substance of the charge, and that which touches his miscarriage, and that in the aim of the speaker; he sees the party's aim, and is privy to his own guilt; and he owns the thing, and yields the conviction: this you would, though your words do [illegible] reach it, and this is true, and this was my practice, and is my sin, without either cavilling or excusing, or mincing the matter; this is the guise of the sinner that is heart-sick of sin. But he that is sermon-sick, or shame-sick, etc., he stands upon his fence, [illegible] catches for words, spies out any advantage in [illegible] manner of the expression, if there be but the least syllable of a circumstance, either too much or too little, and if there be but a [illegible] he creeps out at it, and conceits and concludes he [illegible] safe. No man ever heard me say so; no man can prove that I ever said those words: it is [illegible], no, did I? Here [illegible] such and such that are able to witness it from your own mouth; and when testimony is produced, and they constrained to yield, they [illegible] indeed so and so, but such and such was not their expression: in the mean time, the [illegible] is all one, and the scope of the speech they well perceived, carried nothing but the reality of the matter with it. What a [illegible] kind of falseness, and foolish wiliness of spirit is this, to [illegible] the passage and power of the truth, my own conviction, and peace, by a willful [illegible] silly mistake of a word? And thus [illegible] deal with their sins; as [illegible] such as be [illegible] with traitors, deal with the search and inquiry after them; instead of helping others to seek and find them, they by their wiliness lead aside the officers, and make them overlook the secret conveyances which are most suspicious, and most likely to receive them; which shows they are of the pack of the conspiracy, and intend rather to hide the rebels, than to pursue and attach them. The sinner truly distressed, is of another temper; in an easy kind of plainness lays open his heart to any [illegible] of light, that may discover his evil without any shifting and doubling. He is suspicious of the evil of his own spirit, and as willing to see them as any man besides, because they more hazard his well-being, and therefore he is willing to welcome any light that any one brings him to that end; Nathan's accusation, and David's confession, are as the voice, and the echo, I have sinned against the Lord (2 Samuel 12:13). He needed not to bring in the great inquest for the trial: so it was with Judah, when Tamar his daughter was found to play the harlot, and was now brought to her examination, and so to her punishment, she sends the message to her father-in-law; By the man whose these are, am I with child: and she said, discern I pray you whose these are, the signet, the bracelet, and the staff. Mark his return, how easily he yields, would not so much as traverse the cause, or call for a proof, when the thing was plain without any brabling or cavilling, confesses the thing, ceases any further suit, no not a debate; Judah [illegible], and said, She is more righteous than I (Genesis 38:25). In the things that are doubtful, it is usual, and no more than what conscience and command requires, to debate to see the truth; but when the fault and offence is plain, then to maintain debates and cavils, is indeed to devise ways how to darken the discovery of the truth by confused quarrelling, to make an escape out of a fault, as a malefactor to convey himself away in a crowd. Thus false-hearted Saul, when he pretended the accomplishment of God's will and the execution of the work about which he was sent; Come you blessed of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord, to whom Samuel, [illegible] the [illegible] of sheep, and [illegible] of the [illegible] etc. (1 Samuel 15:14-15), one would have thought there had been so much convicting evidence, as would have stopped the mouth and sunk the heart of the man under the [illegible] of so gross [illegible] falsehood. Yet he will not yield, [illegible] about the business [illegible], the people spared [illegible] of the [illegible], and the [illegible] for sacrifice, and the rest we have [illegible], I construed the command so, and took your [illegible] to be that, namely sacrifice must ever be attended, and then all the rest must be cut off. How is it possible that common sense could put such a [illegible] so [illegible] charge, go kill all, etc., that is, spare [illegible]? Yet a wily heart must have some way to raise a cavil; he comes heavily off to confession.

As a contrite sinner is easy to yield the evil by way of conviction; so ready to [illegible] it by open [illegible] acknowledgment, upon any occasion according to [illegible] nature of the offence; he [illegible] so [illegible] from being troubled to do this; that he is troubled and restless in himself until it be done; and therefore if there be an opportunity to invite him, he takes it without [illegible]; if a [illegible], he longs for it, and desires it, [illegible] if none will provoke him he is studious to seek an occasion, and to press in upon some opportunity, that if it be a public evil he may publish his acknowledgment: if a wrong he desires not until another comes or sends, but he sends, he goes to him to bewail it. [illegible] secret he will not stay to be asked or have his confession wrested from him, by [illegible] of reason, and [illegible] argument, but [illegible] more ready to tell all, than another is willing to bear, not give [illegible] man to guess at some wickedness by [illegible], but [illegible] out [illegible] some discovery to make his evil appear most [illegible]. A [illegible] a right [illegible] position of [illegible] of spirit, is like a body in a right temper and constitution, if it be [illegible] in a [illegible] there is more trouble to stay and [illegible] the bleeding than to provoke it to bleed. So here, and hence though there was no horror of [illegible] to [illegible], no authority to require, no counsel [illegible] to persuade, he could not satisfy his own heart, he could not be quiet before he had satisfied the rule, and proceeded in open hostile manner against his sin; but a false heart after conviction which was [illegible] with great difficulty; he must be drawn like a [illegible] to a stake to make open confession [illegible] the cause may require; and when he comes by constraint, Conscience drags him, or Authority compels him to it. His [illegible] sticks in his teeth, he lisps them out so wearily, hacks and [illegible], stops here and [illegible] there, as though he would say something because he must speak; and yet is afraid he shall say more than he would: therefore bites in his words one way, sometimes turns his speech another way, if any speech seems too open, or to give too much advantage to the truth, he [illegible] himself and begins to qualify what he has said, he would not be mistaken, he meant thus and thus — that is, his meaning is to conceal as much as he can.

And hence a man must propose so many questions, ask so many questions, [illegible] interpretations of what a [illegible] has said when he has [illegible] what he will, [illegible] though a man should pull a confession from a man, as an untimely [illegible], which he were not [illegible] willing to bring into the world, and when he has [illegible] on what he can, he can hardly make anything of what confession he has made; but a heart that is burdened to [illegible], pricked to the quick and parted from his [illegible], his expressions come off kindly and issue naturally from him, not in a [illegible], quaint kind of strain as though he would coin a confession, but with that freedom and readiness as though his spirit was [illegible] into such expressions; his heart was severed from his [illegible], the passage [illegible] plain, and he would banish them by an open confession, and therefore watchfully takes the occasion that may suit the work. Acts 19:19: they that used unlawful and curious arts, they brought their books and burned them in the sight of all, they were not summoned to this service by authority, they came of their own accord, etc. And this was [illegible] with Paul to take advantage by the solemnity of the place and people, to publish [illegible] sin and shame, and to be [illegible] it in the view of the world, no man either [illegible] or expecting any such thing, and he freely unbosomed his heart and said more against himself than all the world could say. The [illegible] you may read, Acts 26:9: I utterly thought I ought to [illegible] things against the name of [illegible], which thing I also did, [illegible] up the prison, compelling them to [illegible] and being exceeding mad [illegible] them, etc.

[illegible]

He takes the evil to himself and does not lay it upon another, and is carried with greatest vehemency against that in the sin that was most vile, and that he will not mince; he is far from [illegible] blame upon another, to [illegible] other men's evils, when he comes to acknowledge his own, as conceiving the more [illegible] they appear, his may appear less; in fact, now is the time wholly to attend his own, and especially to bewail that most whereby he has most offended. When the potion or vomit works upon the humor mainly, then it works kindly. So Judah (Genesis 38:26): she is more righteous than I, and they (1 Samuel 12:19): we have added to all our other sins this evil.

As it must be free so it must be full: it comes from the bottom and brings out all before it; he does [reconstructed: not] content himself to maintain the practice or [illegible] that [illegible] scandalous and wicked, but lays open and [reconstructed: lays bare] the bitter root of those base distempers, out of which those evils were brooded and brought [reconstructed: forth]; they are the cause of all, and worse [reconstructed: still] together with those by ends and base [illegible], and those [illegible] that [illegible] the [illegible] from the [illegible] Lord, whatever aggravating circumstances has any weight in the apprehension of the soul, it sets [reconstructed: out] all; the scandal will apparently argue these, and a wise [reconstructed: and godly] Christian will [reconstructed: see] all these in their working, and a sincere heart desires to take most shame [reconstructed: for] these, and therefore is full in the confession, so David goes to the root of those [illegible] miscarriages, even [illegible] sin, and his accursed contrivements to give content to his lusts, and therefore he complains of that (Psalm 51:3-4): you love truth in the inward parts, and the truth I have despised and opposed. This is to be attended as another thing in the comparison, to pour out the heart like water in acknowledgments, there is nothing that remains behind, as there is in oil and those kind of things that be of a more tenacious disposition. This was eminent in the acknowledgment of the holy apostle (1 Timothy 1:13): I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious, but I did it ignorantly through unbelief, not to lessen his evil, but that he might look to the bottom of it. A true contrite [reconstructed: heart] deals with these hidden treasures of evil, as [reconstructed: Hezekiah] did with the treasures of his house to the Babylonish [reconstructed: ambassadors] (Isaiah 39:4): then said Isaiah, what [reconstructed: have they seen]? [reconstructed: He] answered, all that [reconstructed: is] in my house, there is nothing in [reconstructed: my] treasures that I have not showed them; so it [reconstructed: is with] a simple-hearted convert, he will turn the inside of his heart outward, there will be nothing among the hidden treasures of iniquity, when he is called to confession, that he will not nakedly present [reconstructed: to] God and the world, and that without stickage, without demurs and [illegible], he will not cut off his [reconstructed: confession by halves] as though his heart [illegible], for what he had [illegible], but [reconstructed: throw] open the floodgate to the full, that he may leave nothing behind that he may fully and plainly see the bottom. He is ready to [illegible] frame of [illegible], as [illegible] were wrought [illegible] heart, that so he [reconstructed: might] dissolve, [reconstructed: unravel] and undo the web and work of [reconstructed: sin], and therefore he will tell you, my [reconstructed: carriage you know], and the world knows, it has been scandalous my carriage loathsome, Oh but my heart in that sin was worse than my carriage, the pride and malice, perversness and [illegible] of my own heart carried me by main force against many checks of my conscience and inward misguidings to that practice to serve my own distempered lusts, and when it was done, and discerned to be scandalous, the invincible [reconstructed: stubbornness] of my own heart would not suffer me to stoop to the evidence of the truth, but I set carnal reason on work, that since I could not deny it were done, yet I might put color, construction, some meaning and interpretation upon it, that it might appear to be done lawfully, at the utmost that it was only a mistake and out of ignorance, which the most able and exact is incident to. And all this was with reluctance and against my own [illegible]: therefore if I found any that were easy and favorable and were ready to be carried away with some [reconstructed: fair] appearances, to those I often repaired, to them I complained and professed my simplicity, and yet willingness to see, that so I might screw myself into their affections to pity me, and so to be unwilling to hear anything against my person or cause and [reconstructed: if] the man speaks honestly and means plainly, I wish there may be no prejudice and then sat I in counsel with my own corrupt heart, and mind, how to carry the frame of the business in the fairest pretense. I plotted how I might make an escape, and wind away from such evidences and expressions which pinched most narrowly, and there I would put in some word, or else [illegible] they were spoken to some other end, or start up some new occasion to [reconstructed: turn] the discourse another way, and to another thing, and made them lose the pursuit of that which indeed pinched, and thus I committed many evils in the defending of one, and broke many rules under pretense of making up one breach; but from these wretched grounds, to these wicked ends in this disorderly manner by a plotted kind of studied villainy, I have wronged God, the truth, my profession, my [illegible], my own soul, this is my wretched disposition I would see and say the worst of it, etc. This is as I said to [reconstructed: unwind] the clew of a wretched course that he may see the end and utmost of it. So to lance the sore that the core may come out from the bottom, and then the cure will undoubtedly follow, which cannot be so attained, as long as it continues.

Sometimes persons that want boldness, and ability, cannot so fully open themselves in public always; yet the frame of their spirits and expressions will ever aim at such a thing, to the apprehension of such as have any spiritual eye salve about them because their confessions [illegible] ever minted out of their own hearts, and the loathsomeness of such evils with which they are and have been loaded. But for a man that comes to confess his evil, to forget the main evil he came to confess, is such a heavy hand of God, to discover a counterfeit confession, that it would make a moral man that had but understanding about him sit down confounded, under the [illegible] curse of God's displeasure, and the right consideration of the [illegible] of his heart.

And this is the second ingredient into a serious confession, it must be full, the whole compass is contained [illegible] these two particulars that I may sum up that shortly which has been largely spoken. 1. Full in regard of relation of the things, My son, says Joshua, give Glory to God, and tell me what you have done, hide nothing from me (Joshua 7:19). 2. Full in regard of opposition of the heart, the [illegible] fully relates all the heart, fully opposes all, sets itself wholly to drag all to the place of judgment and see execution done upon all; As it were said in the law and enjoined to him that should discover a brother or a friend that enticed to idolatry, his eye should not pity, nor his hand spare, but he should fling the first stone at him, so here in [illegible] we should bring out all our distempers, yet they may receive the sentence of condemnation; neither should I pity, nor your hearts spare, but see execution upon them, that I may take away evil; to confess, is to speak as God does, to speak together with him, to see sin, to sentence sin as the Lord does. To make a full relation of a sin, and yet the heart to maintain a reserved device how to contrive some colorable [illegible], by some caution and interpretation to entertain it, is hellish hypocrisy. As the [illegible] quarrels with her mate before her husband, [illegible] so she may meet with him without the suspicion of her husband. So the [illegible] will readily without any hesitation, acknowledge his sin and error in one sense, that so as occasion serves, he may plead for it, and only pretend another sense.

The confession is then serious, when [illegible] leaves the soul base, and makes the sinner put his mouth in the dust; looks at himself as vile, loathes his sin, and himself for it, and is desirous that the evil, and he for it, may be loathed of all that have heard and known it, willing that [illegible] himself and sin, should by all, forever be dishonored, who have dishonored God; To us belongs shame and [illegible] of face, forever to be opposed and rejected, who have rejected his Truth, that [illegible] hearts of all should be estranged from it, and from that frame of spirit which acted him, because they have estranged him and others from God (Daniel 9:8): he would shame himself, and therefore is content others should cast shame upon him (Ezekiel 36:31-32). Then they shall [illegible] themselves for all their abominations which they have committed (Lamentations 3:29-30): He [illegible] alone, and [illegible] silence, because he has borne it upon him; he puts his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.

The soul by this serious confession, intends to take an advantage against his sin, and so much more engages his heart, by the witness of God, and men, and angels, to keep himself from [illegible] from all [illegible] and provocations thereunto, and holds his heart in a holy bent of [illegible] forever, not once to admit any consideration or pretense of any carnal reason, that may seem to leave the least enticement that way; When temptations come, and corruptions stir as formerly, this stops him: I have [illegible] these [illegible] before all, and they are condemned by all, therefore I will not, I dare not give way; [illegible] 16, last, That you may remember, and be confounded, and [illegible] open [illegible] mouth any more, because of your [illegible].

3. How does contrition bring in this confession, and enlarge the heart this way?

I answer upon three grounds; all which are so many arguments of the point propounded.

Taken from that bitterness which the soul in this contrite disposition, [illegible], and that undeniably to be in those distempers in which it has taken so much content in former time; the poisoned loathsomeness which now it has [illegible] experimentally to be in such pleasing lusts, and which formerly have [illegible] the delight and diet of the soul: and therefore it is the heart [illegible] the sinner is not able to brook or [illegible] them, [illegible] vomits them out with vehement distaste, and insufferable disdain, abandons them by open confession. In the body we see it, the stomach when it was clogged with abundance of gross and foul humors, as in the disease called Pica, it will [illegible] upon [illegible] and ashes, and loam wall will down as desirable diet, because such noxious diet suits best with [illegible] humors which [illegible] in the stomach, but when it is recovered and brought to any wholesome constitution, if [illegible] with any such provision which is [illegible] loathsome and [illegible] up to it, it is [illegible] sick, and [illegible] be eased before [illegible] cast it out. It is so with the [illegible] when once he has attained this wholesome constitution, and disposition of a contrite spirit. Those noxious abominations which seemed so sweet and savory to his sensual and base heart, that it could digest them as its only diet and delight; corrupt lusts were most suitable to corrupt nature, and no marvel that the toad and spiders lick up poison which is so agreeable to their poisonful nature; but when the Lord has wrought this through contrition, as a wholesome disposition and constitution of soul, so that not only the punishment of it which is tedious, but the poison and filth becomes more detestable and grievous to the sinner, the heart is not able to suffer the loathsome bitterness thereof, but forthwith endeavors to cashier it utterly by acknowledgment, and confession, that the very scent and savor, yes, the least remembrance of it may be forever removed. Pain will make the dog vomit out his meat, sense of punishment constrained Judas to cast out his morsel, fling away his money, the bribe of the bloody treachery and treason of his; but had they been both poisoned, the one with his meat, the other with the venom of his sin, it would have worked more freely and fully in both; That godly sorrow which was wrought in the hearts of the Corinthians, who bore with the [illegible] person a long while, and the [illegible] person [illegible] who committed the evil (2 Corinthians 7:10), it wrought a clearing in the one, as the text expressly [illegible], and no question in the other upon the same ground, that is, a naked, full, and free-hearted acknowledgment; Godly sorrow like a strong potion, clears the stomach, casts out the core, suffers no remainders behind, of any secret reservation of a wretched distemper, in any degree or circumstance, makes a clear conscience quit of any combination, with any lust in the least correspondence. When the corruption which is gathered in the [illegible] sore, grows ripe and rotten, it will break presently, though no man lance or touch it, and [illegible] plentifully and abundantly. So with this through contrition, it works a separation, and therefore an evacuation, loosens the affection from the sin inwardly, and [illegible] it wholly by acknowledgment.

It's true, in nature, and grace, and reason, each thing [illegible] itself, and therefore expels its contrary, to the utmost distance it may, that it may neither find nor fear any annoyance, or hazard therefrom; and therefore we find in diseases, fevers and agues, when nature by the help of medicine has gained some strength, it forces the malignant humor as far from the heart as it can — it breaks forth into the lips, and then it's conceived and [illegible], the fits will end, the danger is over. So it is with the soul when it's helped by the Spirit in piercing the soul with godly sorrow — he causes the disease and distemper to break forth into the lips by open confession, and forces it as far as may be from ever annoying the heart any more. The sweetness of sin is in this taken off; contrition severs it from the heart, confession vomits out and removes it, that it may never annoy the soul, or disturb the peace of a man's conscience any more.

The distressed sinner now comes [illegible] to feel, and so too to know the danger of sin, as undoubtedly hazarding a man's everlasting happiness and welfare, and to find also by woeful proof his own weakness, and inability either to prevent it or bear it, or remove it and help himself against that eternal ruin and confusion which God has threatened, and he must expect, and shall endure by reason of the same. He thought indeed in the time of his folly, that preachers in point of policy, presenting sin in a more dreadful visage and appearance, than there was just cause, or reason would in truth conclude; at least he imagined (if the worst befell) that either he would remove the guilt, or avoid the plague, or subdue the strength of such distempers that did threaten God's displeasure, and his destruction: but now he finds it otherwise. Indeed, his own conscience — in fact, his own sense and experience — does abundantly confute his folly and mistakes, that notwithstanding all the ways he can take, and means he can use, guilt still continues, he cannot remove it, plagues he cannot avoid, violence and venom of his corruption he cannot master, nor help himself against the [illegible] command and authority — they yet live, and are mighty. And therefore he is forced to send up to heaven daily, and to seek out the faithful servants of the Lord, that they may lend a helping hand for his relief — that may help him by their prayers when he sees his own prevail not, guide him by their counsel, when through his own ignorance he is at a loss in his thoughts, and cannot direct himself, that they may tend and heal his sore, when out of unskilfulness he cannot [illegible] how to dress the wounds of his own diseased and distressed spirit. Thus nature does not only teach men, but necessity compels all when they find themselves helpless to call — indeed, cry for help — and to send far and near for help to such in whose power it is to support; when men have used all kitchen remedies, and taken some ancient recipes they have by them, and yet the disease grows desperate, and the cure more difficult, they presently speed out to those who are able and learned physicians for counsel and cure. He that fears an onset, he would have a second in the field with him — so here. God has given the tongue of the learned to some to speak a word in season to a weary conscience (Isaiah 50:4). To others God has given a dexterous hand to joint the souls and comforts of such, who by some dangerous fall, and sudden surprisal of distempers have made a breach in their spirits and peace (Galatians 6:1). You that are spiritual, joint such a man with a spirit of meekness, handle him skillfully, and gently and tenderly. To some again God has given precious recipes, rare experiences of his peculiar mercies, to their own souls, which few have heard, almost none besides themselves have had the like proof (2 Corinthians 4:1, 4). Paul was afflicted and comforted, that he might [illegible] and comfort others in afflictions (2 Corinthians 2:11). He professes he was not ignorant of Satan's methods, but was well acquainted with his stratagems, having been in so many pitched fields, so many sieges. Hence it is that these poor wounded sinners in the text press in upon the apostles as skillful and experienced [illegible] for such as were in spiritual distress: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" — that is, you understand we are ignorant, and know not what way to take; you are experienced, and we unacquainted wholly with God's dealings and directions, and perceive not what to do. Besides, were men's abilities equal, yet many eyes see more, and many hands can do more than one; as in some wounds which we cannot reach by our own hands, another though weak and unskilful, will lend ready help, will search and tend the wound we cannot touch nor reach — the meanest Christian has more experience in some case than those who are far more able, and you cannot reach it, nor come at it, he will search it with ease.

A contrite sinner is willing to take shame, and therefore willing to open himself and his sin, that he may bear the shame that is due to him for it. He sees now the vileness of sin, and himself vile because of it, and therefore looks at shame as his due desert, which he has merited at the hands of God and man, and therefore accounts it but reasonable that he should be dishonored and rejected of others, who has [illegible] the great name of God, and cast shame and contempt upon the good ways of his grace. He sits down really convinced of his own baseness, and therefore does not compliment and speak words of course against himself; he will say, "I am so and so vile, and wretched," and does not condemn himself that others might acquit him, not [illegible] his person and practice that others might praise and pity him. But as it was said of them, they should wash themselves, and judge themselves worthy to be cut off, and condemned, and therefore worthy to be despised and trampled upon as unsavory salt; and hence he is willing out of a holy indignation to shame himself, and the sinfulness of [illegible] heart and life, which has been a shame to his profession, and cast shame upon the righteous and holy ways of the Lord.

That which takes away all the hindrances of this holy duty of confession, and puts the soul upon the necessity of the performance, that must needs fit the soul for the discharge of this service. But contrition takes away the hindrances, which are these three: either a man would not have his sin removed and subdued; or else he need not help to that purpose; or else he is afraid and ashamed to take help, which is provided in that behalf.

But this work of contrition makes a man willing to be helped against his sin, makes him see a need, and seek for help; makes him willing to take shame, and he sees a necessity he should, that he may receive help against his sins. Therefore contrition fits and enables the soul to a right confession of sin.

Instruction: We here see the reason of those sinful windings and turnings of devices, which generally appear in men's practices after the commissions of evil, when they should be brought to a naked acknowledgment of their errors herein: so many ways to escape, so many sleepy, senseless shifts to save their own stake, their credit and respect, yield nothing, though they can gainsay nothing with color of reason, they spend their wits and thoughts, and lay about them to the utmost skill of all the carnal reason they have, to catch the blow, to defeat and put by the stroke of the truth, the force and evidence of the argument that would discover their evil. In a word; here is the root and reason of those turnings aside from the authority of the truth — they never came where this contrition of heart grew, nor yet indeed knew what it means; they never saw sin aright, their souls were never sensibly affected with the dreadfulness of the scandal they give to others, and the guilt they bring upon their own consciences; for all which they must one day answer. It is said (Luke 3:6-7) that when God prepares way for the coming of the Lord Jesus, or the coming of it within the sight and understanding of salvation, that crooked things must be made straight, before any flesh can see the salvation of the Lord. There are crookings of carnal reason in the heart of every man naturally; it was the great ingredient into the first sin of Adam, and has been his curse ever since, to find out findings (Ecclesiastes 7), to invent inventions, to make an escape from the truth, and so to walk in the vanity of their own mind; and unless the Lord beat a man in the fire of his fury, hold him upon the anvil, beat him, and break him by the hammer of the law, in this work of contrition, this crookedness will never be removed, nor he come within the sight of salvation, and it is made one part of the description of a man that is out of the path of peace (Isaiah 59:8): They have made their [illegible] crooked.

By way of reproof, it dashes that dream of the wicked, and cursed imagination of carnal men who conceive, that to fall under the foot of contempt according to the desert of our evil doings, they conceive it a point of greatest disparagement and wickedness that can be imagined, and to take up [illegible] abode in that abased condition, either by some reach of policy not to prevent such an evil; or when it does befall, to be shiftless, as to sink under it, and not to be able to struggle out, they look at such, and leave it upon record in their observation, as very simpletons, such as are destitute either of wit or courage, to swallow down such indignities, and never be sick of them, these persons they note as feeble, and the [illegible] base. A hellish delusion, directly contrary to the truth here delivered, and the practice of these converts, now truly broken-hearted with godly sorrow for their sins — that which issues from the power and work of God's Spirit upon the soul, it argues neither feebleness nor [illegible] and such is this practice, and therefore it argues neither.

First, not feebleness, because it is of a conquering, of a commanding power, and that against the greatest forces of sin and Satan, which they bring into the field: our own carnal ends, and high conceited excellency of our worth, the seeking ourselves, and setting up our own persons, and names, and praises, are the very stumps of Dagon, which stand longest, the very heart blood of the body of death; the high and overweening thoughts of the sovereignty of our wills, and worth, they are the holds of Satan: to batter down the strongholds, and to make us lie down in the dust, and to be abased in the sight of God and man in quiet subjection, is indeed to subdue the power of darkness, a work to which we must be enabled by the power of the Almighty, far beyond the might of all creatures, much less shall feebleness be able ever to compass it. If you think it is so easy, go your ways, and do you likewise: alas, poor deluded creature, it is such a task that your heart misgives you at the very onset, and you are never able to turn your hand to it: you must have allowance from your lusts, and stubbornness of your own heart, and ask leave of your pride and vain glory; and when all is done, you cannot so much as feign a confession, such a slave and underling you are to your sinful distempers, even slavery itself, that they will not suffer you to speak a word to cross your own wayward spirit, and condemn the wretchedness of your carnal carriage; which by the power of the spirit of contrition, these poor servants of the Lord can do; not verbally, but really and seriously, as in the sight of God. Which shows there is more than the strength of a man's self that must [illegible] — indeed destroy a man's self; that is, his self-pride and praise.

As there is no feebleness in this, so neither is there the least baseness in so blessed a service, and work of such excellency as this is, a behavior truly honorable and such as indeed becomes persons of the greatest account with God and man: [illegible] were the diamond in Solomon's Crown (Ecclesiastes 1:1). The words of a soul gathered to his people, the son of David, King in Jerusalem — they were titles of honor, but this was the top of all. It was a higher sovereignty, to bewail his sin, and seek unfeigned reconciliation to the Church, and by serious and thorough satisfaction, to [illegible] acceptance, than to sit in the throne of Israel; by that he was above his subjects, by this he was above himself; by that he had power over his people; by [illegible] he prevailed over the power of darkness, hell and devils and distempers; by that he was above the Kingdom and ruled it according to his own will, by this he is above his will, which was above the King, yea above his corruption, and lusts who lorded over will, and King, and Kingdom, and all. Indeed this is so eminent a service — however it seems otherwise to the deluded minds of men — it makes way for the [illegible] pitch of all that happiness we ever hope to obtain, here on earth or hereafter in heaven (1 Corinthians 15:28); the pinnacle of all perfection to which we can be advanced, [illegible] that God may be all in all: [illegible] when a sinner lies under the foot of loathsomeness, has nothing, does nothing, receives nothing [illegible] himself unworthy to be looked at, worthy to be loathed of heaven and earth; now God is all in all, not only [illegible] all for him — such is his nothingness in himself — but here is the glory of all power and wisdom and mercy to overcome his unworthiness and to make him fit to receive anything. Besides, look at [illegible] work itself, [illegible] is the greatest victory, and those must be the greatest conquerors of all, who have conquered and made spoil of all the glory of the world. The heathen King wished there were more worlds to conquer; he that is willing to bewail his sins and take shame for them, he has conquered all those worlds and the conqueror himself, and those high thoughts that conquered him; it is a degree above glory willingly to be content to want it, than indeed to enjoy it.

Ground of Examination and Trial: If we would ever gain assurance or bring in evidence and proof to our own souls and others, that indeed our hearts have been broken for our sins and so turned from our sins in a saving manner to God here in the kingdom of grace, that we may undoubtedly assure ourselves that we shall see his face in glory in another world; try your heart and condition by the former truth. Lay your soul level to the doctrine formerly delivered; if you find this work of God, you may undoubtedly conclude there is the spirit of God. And however it seems so mean in the eyes of men, yet the greater the power of the Almighty is seen in it, to lay mountains low and level; the hand of the Lord must do this. As the Magicians in Egypt professed touching the lice, that wonder which the Lord then expressed — though it were in a thing very little and despicable to the eye — yet they confessed, this is the [illegible] finger of God; they were not able to turn their hand to that work. So do you upon thorough search find this disposition of spirit, that you do see that infinite loathsomeness in your corruptions, and in your heart being tainted with it; so noisome the plague sore of sin, and your soul and self so defiled with running provocations thereof, that in truth you are loath to see your heart, to own it or to have it, which has nothing but loathsomeness in it, and you conceive you are worthy indeed that others should judge so of you, as you judge of yourself; however this frame of spirit may seem marvelously mean and despicable in the eye of the world, know you may and conclude you should, this is the very finger of God; flesh and blood has not revealed this, has not wrought this in you, but the spirit which is from God. That which is at odds with all the excellency that is flesh and blood, that which is opposite to it and tramples upon the glory and pride of it, that must needs be more than flesh and blood (Ezekiel 16:2). I will establish my covenant, and you shall know I am the Lord, you shall know me, and own me, and believe in me, as your God and your Lord; then you shall remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame. When God sets open the fountain of his free grace in the soul, these streams will follow.

Hence then this doctrine brings in a heavy indictment against sundry sorts of men, and gives undeniable evidence that as yet they never knew what it was to be broken-hearted for sin, or turned savingly from sin, the stupid senselessness of whose spirits is wholly incapable of this holy blush, and confusion of face and heart.

First of those who through the hardness of their hearts by their constant custom and continuance in their sin are beyond the sense of it or shame for it; whose faces are settled, and their consciences seared with a hot iron, so that there is no sting at all or check that [illegible] them, but [illegible] a seared part is without sense or feeling, they practice their wretchedness, and profess it, are convinced of it and go away not touched, nor troubled with it, shrink not, retire not with any sense of fear or shame, for what they have done; such are never like to see the filth of their sins, before they see them by the flames of the fierceness of God's wrath in the fire of hell. Of this hellish temper were those forlorn creatures (Jeremiah 8:6): I listened and heard but no man repented him saying what have I done? They take not their sins into consideration, nor attend the danger but every man turned to his own course as the horse rushes into the battle, nothing stops them or affrights them. (Verse 12) Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they be ashamed, their minds were wholly [illegible], they did not see the vileness of their sins, and their hearts hardened, they could not be sensible of them. So the Prophet Isaiah complains (Isaiah 3:9): they declare [illegible] sin as Sodom, they commit evil openly and they are bold and brazen-faced, to persist in what they do commit, they care not who knows it and they shame not to own it. I know, says the Lord, your brow was brass, and your neck like an iron sinew, the heart buckles not, it is an iron sinew, the face blushes [illegible], it is brass, harlot-like.

Another sort who are so far from bearing the shame they do deserve, that out of their impudence they do rather cast shame upon the truth itself that would discover their sin and so the messenger that brings it. Thus out of this devilish wretchedness and [illegible] they dare to flout God to his face, and cast scorn and contempt upon the truth, rather than they will lie under contempt themselves. And therefore it is the prophet looks at it as desperate, beyond hope or help (Hosea 4:4): let no man strive with another or reprove him, for this people are as they that strive with the priest, they contemn him and his reproof, so far are they from being content to take it, or the due shame which it discovers. Of this stamp were those impudent scorners, who jeered the Prophet to his face, and made a jest of the threatenings he delivered (Isaiah 22:12): In the day the Lord called to weeping and mourning and baldness and to girding with sackcloth, and behold joy and gladness, slaying of oxen and killing of sheep, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. That is to say, do you not hear the dreadful threatening that Isaiah has denounced? do you not expect to die, masters? Do not your hearts shake within you to hear such tidings? Let us not die fasting, we will take our meat sure before our enemies take away our lives, if we must die as the prophet says, let us be merry before our death. It was revealed to me, says the Prophet, from the Lord of hosts: surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you, till you die — that is, never. So tell the rebellious servant of his or her rugged carriage, unruly language, that they have tongues set on fire of hell, [illegible] in wording of it, slighting and gainsaying (Titus 2:9): Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters, to please them well in all things, not answering again. Because they are stopped from answering peevishly, therefore they will not modestly and in meekness of wisdom ask counsel and direction from a Governor. Tell them ask your mistress, inquire of your master — no, no, I must not speak, I promise you, would I were Governor. They cannot sin, they must be pleased in all things, whether they please God or no.

Thus because their devilish heart cannot bear the truth, they flout the truth and cast it away in a scorn, as though they should say, you may see what sweet rules the scripture gives for the government of servants, nay how unequal and unreasonable they be, which is such hideous and hellish blasphemy, that the heart of Beelzebub in his cold blood would blush to vent it. These two sorts out of a stupid impudency are not capable of [illegible], there be two other sorts that out of subtlety of pride are unwilling to bear it, such are those who in the third rank, seek up [illegible] shameful hidings that may be imagined, struggle as for life to the utmost of their power and policy, that they may shift off the shame, and make an escape from under that righteous reproach and contempt [illegible][illegible][illegible] vileness of their conduct, have justly brought upon themselves, sometimes in silence burying and hiding of it. As Judah his incest (Genesis 38:23), when he sent the kid and found not the harlot, he was content to let her go away with his ring and bracelet, lest (says he) we be ashamed. So David would have covered his folly with [illegible], by sending Uriah to his own house (2 Samuel 11). And for a time the very servants of the Lord may be surprised with this sinful shifting away of their shame from them, and all that while never see their sincerity nor find peace, but when they are brought to see their sin, then they yield immediately (2 Samuel 12:13): I have (says David) sinned against the Lord. Sometimes by falsehood, gainsaying and denying, so Gehazi (2 Kings 5:25): Where have you been Gehazi, your servant went nowhere. Sometimes coloring, excusing, putting it off as Saul to Samuel — first it were not done, then the people did it, then he did it, but for sacrifice, and for love to God's worship (1 Samuel 15), and in the issue he would be helped against his shame but not against his sin, yet honor me before the people (verse 30), he does not say let me be humbled before the people who have sinned before them. Of this rank are these: when the stalls of conscience and the pressures of their spirits constrain them to confess, and seek for ease, their complaints are like lapwings' cries, farthest from their nest or their bosom distempers which lie in the deep, only their acknowledgments are so general and of such evils that more or less belong to all, and therefore they conceive they are yet under a safe cover, little shame will fall to their share. Oh they are proud, and dead-hearted, and have a deal of self within them; the issue is here, and the English is this: I say I am thus, and who is not so more or less? And so a little shame will come to their allowance and allotment. And if their words which fall from them give a prudent man advantage of further inquiry, and just suspicion to lay his hand upon the loathsome sore, you will see what shuffling, and winding, and biting of the lip, will presently appear.

The fourth and last sort are such who, when the arrows of the Lord have stuck fast in them, and the venom thereof has drunk up their spirits, when the poison of their sin and pangs of conscience like a strong potion has made them extremely sick that they are not able to conceal their evils any longer, but the vengeance of the Lord forces them to vomit out all their filth to the full, as a stirring potion kept in works with much violence — but when it is over and they have thus taken the shame, it is with no content to them, it is a secret torment, that their own tongues have gone beyond their own intents. They do inwardly repine, and befool themselves, and could eat their flesh that ever they should lay themselves open so to contempt. And therefore they begin to devise ways and means how to mitigate the matter, that it may not seem loathsome nor they so vile by reason of it, and therefore they make constructions of some things, and interpretations of others, and then lay the extremity upon their distemper which was fired and followed by Satan — that they belied themselves in some things and said they knew not what. And thus like the unclean dog they lick up their vomit again; they cannot be rid of the shame and wash away the filth they have flung in their own faces, but they are in no wise content with it, and therefore would gladly get it off by all the means they can devise. Thus their sins come to be healed too soon, like a sore that closes too fast, not being daily tented and opened, and so it festers again and proves dangerous. So it is with the soul when it is not tented with daily taking shame for the evil, and so kept open — it again rankles and grows worse.

But how shall we know that we are content to take shame for sin, by a right confession of it.

I answer, that will appear in four particular evidences.

The heart that is indeed content to take shame for the sin it has committed, and stands guilty of, it has this disposition wrought in it, and expresses this affection also, as occasion serves; namely, it opposes not that truth which does evidently discover a man's [illegible], and how worthily he deserves it, though it does it sharply. To be content with a thing, and to be opposite against the same thing, implies a professed contradiction, which neither reason allows, nor common sense will admit: He that is content in earnest with the portion and condition that is carved out to him, in the course of providence, when it's offered he welcomes it, when it's come, and that he has it in his possession, closes with it as that which is a suitable good, and most serviceable to him for the present necessity, all circumstances considered. A humbled heart takes his shame as a sick man does his physic, he could heartily wish he did not need it, and yet as the case stands, he cannot want it, but in reason he shall want his cure and health; the potion is loathsome to take, and troublesome in the working of it, but the disease he knows to be far worse, and more dangerous, which he conceives may be purged by the use of this means, and therefore seeks it earnestly, and is not content without it, and glad indeed to be so troubled, because he may be eased as he hopes. So it is with a heart truly sensible of sin, and turned from it, looks at this shame as a most loathsome and tedious potion, and could have wished, and that heartily, he had never need of it, had never so miscarried himself as to have deserved it; but as the case now stands, the dishonor done to God's name and truth, the scandal to others, the danger to the spiritual and everlasting welfare of his own soul, he looks at the truth which shall be most evident, and most sharply set on as the most special recipe, and sovereign medicine, which he is glad to seek, and more glad to take, that the noisome distempers may be taken from his soul, the dishonor from God's name, and scandal from before the way of his brethren. [illegible] to have a thing, and crossness of spirit to resist that which brings it, cannot stand together; and in this sense it is you shall find the saints pray so earnestly, and affectionately for the keeping away of shame sometimes (Psalm 119), Turn from me rebuke and shame; and again, Let me not be ashamed. And sometimes again so willingly to welcome and entertain it, We lie down in our shame, and are covered with confusion (Jeremiah 3). [illegible] Shame is a heavy curse, as deserved by sin, and justly inflicted from the Lord; but to accept of it with an humble abasedness of heart, as the punishment of our [illegible] from the hand of the Lord, this is indeed the work of grace; and a gracious heart will not side against that truth, which will pass the sentence of shame upon it, as the just fruit of our evil doings, and as a means so sanctified, to work a hatred against it in ourselves, and to remove the scandal of it from others; and therefore strives not by restless cavils and evasions to make an escape from the evidence of the Word in the work of conviction, when a man's errors should be discovered; nor yet does repine at, nor bear a private grudge after the conviction, lies not under the truth as the [illegible] upon the rack, which he therefore bears, not because indeed he cannot help himself against it, with all the troublesome [illegible] he can use; but his soul inwardly approves of that word which judges his person and practice vile as himself does. Thus the word in the original, which [reconstructed: signifies] confession properly, [illegible], to speak as God speaks, to judge as God judges of his sin; this has been the constant guise of the saints, touched sincerely with remorse for their sin. A word rebukes David, You are the man; presently, I have sinned, says he. A wink or a look of the Lord Jesus, makes Peter lie at his foot, Go out and weep bitterly, who had immediately before in a faithless cowardice basely denied him. As it is with a steed of a tender mouth, feels his bit [illegible], the [illegible] check of the rider stays him, turns him which way he will: So it is with a tender conscience, falls under the greatest shame that the least evidence of argument will check him with all. So Hezekiah, though [reconstructed: it] were a sharp word, and the threatening [illegible] (Isaiah 39, last), yet says he, The Word of the Lord is a good [reconstructed: Word]; my heart is naught, my carriage naught, my apprehensions naught and erroneous, but the Word of the Lord is good; and the holy Apostle in that inward combat, speaks in the name of all the saints in the like case (Romans 7:14), For we know that the Law is spiritual, holy, and good. We — that is, all that know God, the work of his grace, the purity of the truth; they, and I and all, confess the Law is spiritual, that is forever to be honored, loved, obeyed, but I am carnal; a good and holy Law, but an evil and unholy heart. True it is, that carnal and hollow-hearted hypocrites, may sometimes have their consciences so far awed with the sovereign power of the truth, that they may yield [illegible] to it, and in outward appearance readily profess their approbation of it, with the condemnation of themselves, and their own courses, because they have no other way to gain ease and quiet to their own consciences, now clamoring against them, or their acceptance with men, their carriages being gross and inexcusable, and therefore must so far bear the shame, because he sees he cannot excuse his folly, or sin being so open, but he shall be accounted impudent in denying and sinning; but all this while his heart is carried with an inward distaste against it, and by a private spite embittered so as to conspire secretly the disparagement of it. As it fared with those treacherous Jews when they saw no way, and therefore had no hope to take away the life of Paul by open violence; then they did cunningly plot it, by a color of fair pretense, and carried it, thus (Acts 23:14), They would have him brought down out of the castle, as though they would inquire something more perfectly of him; and we, before ever he comes near, will be ready to kill him. So these false-hearted creatures make it by their [illegible] pretenses, that they would inquire more perfectly concerning the truth; the servant craves counsel how he should subdue the ruggedness of his spirit, the contrary wife how she should overcome her wayward, peevish [illegible], they will inquire more perfectly, as though they would obey perfectly, submit perfectly, be perfect servants, wives, etc. But alas, there is a conspiracy in their hearts against the strict ways of God. So it was with Balaam, he has never done sacrificing to inquire the will of God, and yet his heart inwardly opposes and resists his will, and this showed itself in open violence, and contempt of the command and charge (Numbers 24:1).

A heart content to take the shame, is not offended with the party, friend, or enemy, that will lay the shame upon him; he knows it is the burden which he ought to [illegible], and if therefore any man will give him a lift, and help him to take it up, he will take it kindly at his hands. It's against common sense to conceive that one should be offended with another, or take it grievously that he does anything which he knows would, and he conceives will give him content. No man can be offended in reason with the party for such a carriage or doing, such a thing, wherein he is contented, and with which he is pleased. True it is, shame in itself, is exceeding distasteful to flesh and blood, and in truth nothing more cross and contrary to an ingenious spirit. Praise is the privilege and prerogative of a reasonable agent, who acts by counsel, and therefore other creatures are not so capable of it, nor do we give it as their due, we commend not the fire for burning heavy things, for falling downward; they cannot but do their work, and therefore no praise, no thanks to them for their deed; but agents as men and angels who work by counsel, who have wit and wisdom to contrive several ways, conceive the best, and will and care to follow that when they might have done other out of their liberty. Shame therefore crossing a man in his special privilege, his proper freehold, it must in itself be very grievous, and a tedious burden, but as he sees his duty in it, and the good that comes by it, and moreover his just desert by reason of his vileness, he is not offended with the presence of the surgeon, but he is glad to see him, and his [illegible], though sharp and [illegible] which may lance his abscess, and so save his [illegible], whereas a naughty heart who would not have another take away his [illegible], he is vexed inwardly at the least, that he lays the shame and disparagement upon him for it. See this difference in those two kings, Ahab and [illegible], the one a self-seeking deluded [illegible], when he was under the whip and terror of God's stroke and wrath, he then humbles his soul, fasts and prays, and that in print as it were, acts his part in that extraordinary duty with outward [illegible], and therefore in reason it cannot but be conceived he bewailed his sin, confessed his failings, and yet he that hated Elijah (1 Kings 21:20), he hates also Micaiah (1 Kings 22:8). There is yet one Micaiah, as if saying, we are rid of the most of them, but yet one is our vexation, and I hate him, because he hates my sin, and will never speak good, that is, speak that which pleases my corruption, and therefore displeases me. But good Jehoshaphat he was not willing to hear his words, much less able to bear them, and therefore expresses himself quite contrary, 'Let not the king say so'; and of the same frame he was when it came home to his own particular (2 Chronicles 19:2), when Jehu the seer met him after the battle, and his [illegible], and set a heavy reproof upon him, 'Should you help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord?' 'Therefore there is wrath upon you from the Lord'; the text intimates he was no whit offended with the message, or the man, but yielded to the one, and lovingly [illegible] the other, and set presently about the reformation. When Abigail met David now upon his march so justly provoked, armed also with power and rage; and therefore if we should look at her, that was to discover the [illegible] of his proceedings, and stop him therein, or at David so wronged and provoked, and now upon the sign as the chief commander in the head of his troops, to be [illegible], and that by the voice of a woman, in reason it [illegible] be conceived that ever she should have brought him, whose heart was like the heart of a lion, and now in his heat transported with wrath, to have [illegible] himself, and [illegible] down under the shame of his wrath. Yet oh, the power of a gracious spirit, he is content upon all these disadvantages to see his sin, and take his shame with a thankful heart, 'Blessed be God, and blessed be your counsel, and blessed be you, who has discovered the sinfulness of my rage, and has kept me from shedding blood' (1 Samuel 25:32), and it's not only his practice, but his prayer, 'Let the righteous smite me, it shall not break my head, it shall be as a precious oil' (Psalm 141).

But may not, and do not many times, even such who are truly gracious, have their spirits embittered, and their boisterous passions carried against such who shall lay the shame upon them by reason of their sin? See what [illegible] did to the seer, when he handled him hardly, and dealt roughly with him, 'Herein you have dealt foolishly'; the text says, he was wroth with the seer, and put him into prison (2 Chronicles 16:10).

As touching the example, the strangeness of the carriage, his practice so gross, he imprisons the Prophet, and crushes others who in likelihood stood for the Prophet, increases in his evil, and grows further off from God, goes off the stage without any record of repentance, as verse 11, 12. The strangeness of the carriage I confess, makes me sometimes wonder where the truth of grace was; and if a man [illegible] to be troublesome, and to quarrel with [illegible] course, he might darken the evidence of his uprightness. That which is said of him, is only two things: 1. His heart was perfect all his days. 2. He did that which was right, as David his father. To which I could say, that this comparison, and so perfection is only to be attended in regard of that particular at which it points, namely, in maintaining the truth of worship, and therein he held it out from first to last; which [illegible][illegible]; but whether in his whole he were so, the story evinces not, and his miscarriages expressed, [illegible][illegible] and in which he lives and dies, without any record of reformation, speaks dreadfully against him, his last being the worst. He sought to the physician, and not to God, and so dies; the same phrase you may see used in a like sense, 1 Kings 11:6. Solomon's heart was not perfect with God as David's was, that is, though he had truth of grace, yet he was not perfect and entire in maintaining the truth of his worship. If a man may not be perfect in some case, and yet sincere; so he may be perfect in some other, and yet not sincere: for if the absence of it does not take away sincerity, the presence of it will not argue and conclude it. But we will keep the road, because the consent of the judicious carries it that way; and so I answer secondly.

It's possible for a gracious heart in a present push of a temptation to have his spirit rising, and through the strength of pride, and passion to be carried with dislike of the party, who shall by evidence of truth, set on his sin and shame; but this is but in a pang, and surprisal, he is not now himself, this is not the man, and therefore his state is not to be judged by this.

In fact, thirdly, in case the party be not convinced of the equity and truth of the discovery, and of his own evil, in stumbling at the parties that dispensed it, he may [illegible] long in such a distemper, and so proceed harshly upon such erroneous ground, to be offended with such expressions, because he conceives he justly may. This perhaps may be the ground of Asa his former proceeding in so fierce a manner with the Prophet, as conceiving that he had gone beyond his commission, and either reproved him not so justly as he should, at the least not in that under and respective manner, as became the power and sovereignty of Asa, or subjection which the Prophet should have remembered and acknowledged to be due; and this may seem somewhat probable because he claps him close prisoner, puts him into little ease, as being guilty of no less than high treason committed against his person, Junius, in locum. But while the soul is thus deluded and taken aside with a proud, self-deceiving frame, if we may look at the remarkable hand of God against such distempers as the example of Asa presents it before us, such persons will each day be more blinded and unable to see their sin, so was he; more acted by the power of it, and taken aside by it, so was he, he puts others into prison not long after; more liable to some direful destroying plagues, so was he, his disease strange and irrecoverable; and in reason is like to die without comfort to his conscience, or honor to his name; so did he.

In the fourth place, whatever becomes of the former example, leaving secret things to God's good pleasure, the rule of truth stands as Mount Zion, and will never fail. He that after conviction by any instrument sent of God, and revealing his way according to his will, despises such a messenger, despises him that sent him (Luke 10:16). He that after conviction, seeing the truth and authority of Christ, stumbles yet at him, and is offended at Christ, it's a note he shall be ruinated by the Lord, he that falls upon this stone, shall be broken to pieces; he that is offended at the Lord Jesus, shall perish. He that is offended at such whom he sends as messengers of his mind and truth, and that after conviction and information, is offended at the Lord Jesus; therefore such a one must [illegible] perish, has no part in the Lord Jesus, nor yet were ever made partakers [illegible] the saving work of his grace.

He that [illegible] with a contented heart, is neither restlessly [illegible], nor discouraged in the bearing of it; for to be contented, and yet discouraged, cannot stand together; but such a soul sits down in silence, submits himself [illegible] under the hand of the [illegible], [illegible] away well [illegible] with whatever disparagement is cast upon him, by reason of his desert, and takes it as an allowance set out to him by the Lord; he can look upon it, and lie down [illegible] it, with [illegible] and quietness of spirit: So the Apostle recalls and recounts his former loathsome miscarriages upon each occasion, breaks kindly with the fresh abasement of himself in the sight of God and man; I was a persecutor, blasphemous and injurious, not worthy to be called an apostle, for I persecuted the Church, Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am chief. So (Daniel 9:17). Oh Lord, Righteousness belongs to you, but to us, shame and confusion of face; he looks at it as their due, owns it as their portion, which is appropriated to them, and belongs to them of right, and rests satisfied therein. In fact, the heart truly called, is here indeed most comforted, when it can take the greatest shame with greatest content, and that when it seems most loathsome, and himself for it. The sick patient is most comforted with the vomit when it works most vehemently, [illegible] he knows the more sick it makes him, the sooner it will make him well; but when it lies like a dead drug in the stomach, stirs him least, endangers him most, Oh says the patient, it made me marvelous sick, but I was marvelous glad, it wrought kindly upon the humor, and I expect a cure, my stomach is much cleansed, [illegible]; the greatest shame that ever I received, did me the most good, was the best medicine I could ever take, I had never parted with my sin, but my shame weaned me from it. Whereas a false heart never yet truly turned from his sin, and sincerely humbled; if the venom of God's vengeance give him a vomit, and make him cast out all his [illegible] by confession in his own face, there follows such faint wrestlings of spirit, such restless and [illegible] hurries of thoughts, sits down disconsolate, Rachel-like, cannot be comforted, because their honor is not, their credit and respect is not, lies bleeding as they suppose, and not likely to be recovered; he cannot look upon his reproach, but he is weary of his life, his spirit faints, his [illegible] will not down, his [illegible] departs, what avails all if yet his shame remains? he would be anything and anywhere, rather than under the foot of contempt.

A heart that is content to take shame will not choose unlawful means in cold blood and upon consideration to remove it; he is discontented with his sin, not with his shame, he will not therefore choose sinful means to be freed from it; So the good thief (Luke 23:41). we are justly here receiving the due reward of [reconstructed: our] deeds; the punishment and plague a heart [reconstructed: abased] takes as just, and therefore will not do that which is unjust to be quit of them, whereas the haughty [illegible] is so impatient under reproach that he will rather break under his shame than with quietness bear it, he cares not what he does or suffers if he may not suffer that, So Abimelech (Judges 9:54). Saul (1 Samuel 31:4). Achitophel (2 Samuel 17:23). all of them used unlawful means to be rid of their shame, Job was of another temper though his [illegible] were strong to carry him, and counsel wretched which was given to persuade him to another course (Job 2:9). do you still continue in your [reconstructed: integrity] blessing God, and dying, that is, you may see what you get by your holiness and dependence, is it not better not to be than to be thus, this is the meaning, but his answer shows another resolution shall we receive good from the hand of God and not evil? the good God owes us not, and yet he gives it, the evil we deserve and therefore should be quiet if he bring it.

The fourth use is for exhortation, If you know these things as I am persuaded you do; then be entreated in the name of the Lord Jesus to walk in that way that God has revealed, this is the baseness of our hearts we are loath to unbuckle our vile and secret distempers, they are shameful themselves and yet we are loath to take shame for them; therefore deal openly and freely with yourselves, and confess your sins [reconstructed: openly] and fully that God may deal [illegible] with you; has the [illegible] at any time [illegible] in this horror into your soul and is your heart now troubled at the word, and after all your prayers and tears, and pains and means using with uprightness, do your [illegible] still remain? are they not yet subdued? can you not yet get assurance of the pardon of them, I say then cast away your shameful hiding and [illegible] of sin; and do not say what will men and ministers say of me, away with these shifts, God calls you to confession, the saints have done it, and you must, in fact you will if ever your [illegible] be kindly broken as it should be, in some measure pleasing to God and profitable to yourself.

But some may say how should we do it?

For answer to this, I will first give some directions how to do it; secondly I will give some motives to work our hearts to the same.

Be wise in choosing the party to whom you confess your sins, for every wide-mouthed vessel is not fit to receive precious liquor; so this confession is not to be opened to every carnal wretch that will blaze it abroad, nor to every godly man, no nor minister neither. The minister to whom you confess ought to have these three graces.

First he must be a skillful and able minister of God, one that is trained up and is master of his art, and so experienced that he might be able in some measure to find out the nature of the disease; not that any minister under heaven, can give pardon to a poor sinner, but only he is able ministerially to do it under God; he must be able to approve himself as the minister of God; he must have the tongue of the learned and be able to speak a word in season (Isaiah 50:4). he must be able to break the heart and prepare the soul for Christ, and then to apply the promises of the Gospel to him.

He must be a merciful physician, one that will pity a poor soul; they that have experience of trouble and misery in themselves are most compassionate to others in distress, he that has been tossed in the sea will pity others that have been in the same danger.

Lastly he must be a faithful Minister, one that will not fit men's humors, nor answer the desires of their hearts in speaking what they would have him, but his faithfulness must appear in two things, 1. In dealing plainly with a man about his spiritual estate; whatever a man's place and condition be, if he have a proud heart he must labor to humble him, he must apply a salve fitting for the sore; 2. And he must be faithful in keeping secret the sin that is laid open to him, that nothing may fly abroad, not even after his death except it be in some cases.

Now what remains but that you all be moved to take up this duty, and provoke your hearts freely to confess your evil ways, to which purpose let me give you three motives.

First because it is a very honorable thing and will exceedingly promote the cause of a Christian: you will hardly yield to this on the sudden; a man thinks that if the Minister knew his vileness he will abhor him for it; but (I assure you brethren,) there is nothing that does more set forth the honor of a Christian, and win the love of a Minister than this; Indeed it is a shame to commit sin but no shame to confess sin upon good grounds: indeed when the heart comes kindly off, it is [illegible] to see how a faithful Minister will approve of such persons, his love is so great towards them, Oh says the Minister it did me good to hear that man confess so freely, I hope the Lord has wrought kindly in him; certainly now he is in the way to happiness; Oh how I love him, I could be [illegible] to put that man in my bosom; whereas this superficial and loose dealing of yours is loathsome to us, do you think we perceive it not, yes we may feel it with our fingers and when you are gone I tell you what we think, surely that man is [illegible] he has a hollow heart, he is not willing to take shame to himself for his sin, his confession never came to the bottom.

[illegible] is a [illegible] of great [illegible]: I take this to be the only cause why many a man goes troubled and gets neither comfort in the pardon [illegible] of his sin, nor strength against it, [illegible] he [illegible] not off kindly in this [illegible] of confession; when you do nakedly open your sins to a faithful Minister, you go out in battle against sin and you have a second in the field to stand by you; but especially there is comfort in this particular, [illegible] the Minister will discover the lusts and deceits of your heart which you could not find out, and he will lay open the [illegible] of Satan, and that means of comfort that you never knew; I am able to speak it by experience, this has broke the neck of many a soul, even because he would go out in single combat against Satan and do what he could, not revealing himself to others for help, was overthrown for ever. As it is with the abscessed part of a man's body, when a man lets out some of the corrupt matter and so skins it over, never healing it to the bottom, at last it cankers inwardly and comes to a gangrene, and the part must be cut off or else a man is in danger of his life, so when you let out some corruptions by a superficial confession but suffer some bosom lust to remain still, as malice or uncleanness, etc. then the soul cankers and Satan takes possession of it, and the soul is carried into fearful abominations. Many have fallen foully, and lived long in their sins and all because they would not confess freely, therefore as you desire to find out the deceitfulness of your corruptions confess them from the bottom of your souls.

This open and free confession may maintain the secrecy of the soul, for the only way to have a man's sins covered, is to confess them, that so they may [illegible] be brought upon the stage before all the world.

Oh says one, this is contrary to common reason; we are afraid to have our sins known, that is our trouble, we keep our sins close, because we would preserve our honor.

I say the only way for secrecy, is to reveal our sins to some faithful Minister, for if we confess our sins God will cover them; if you take shame to yourselves God will honor you; but if you will not confess your sins, God will break open the door of your hearts, and let in the light of his truth and the convicting power of his Spirit and make it known to men and angels to the shame of your persons for ever. If Judas had taken notice of his sin and yielded to Christ's accusation, and desired some conference with Christ privately, and said good Lord, I am that Judas that hell-hound, that have received mercy from you in the outward means, and have been entertained among your people, yet it is I that have taken the thirty pence, Lord pardon this sin and let this iniquity never be [illegible] to my charge. I doubt not but though Judas his soul could not be saved (because that now we know God's decree of him) yet God would have saved him from the public shame that was cast upon him for it; but he did not so but hid his malice in his heart, and professed great matters of love to Christ and killed him, and thus he thought to cover his [illegible] wisely; but what became of that? The Lord forced him to come and throw down his thirty pieces, and to vomit out his sin to the everlasting shame of his person, I have sinned says he in betraying innocent blood. So you that keep your sins as sugar under your tongues, you will be loose and unclean and malicious and covetous still, well, you will have your thirty pieces still, and they are laid up safe as Achan's wedge of gold [illegible], remember this, God will one day open the closets of your hearts; and lay you upon your death-beds, and then perhaps you will prove mad and vomit up all, were it not better to confess your sins to some faithful Minister now? If you will not give the Lord his glory, he will distrain for it, and have it from your heart blood as Julian the Apostate said, when the arrow was shot into his heart he plucked it [illegible] and cried saying, You Galilean, you have overcome me, the Lord distrained for his glory, and had it out of his heart blood.

We are now come to the last doctrine laid forth in the words, and that is.

The soul that is truly pierced with godly sorrow for sin, is carried with a restless dislike against it, and separation from it.

This is the main thing that was in the eye and aim of these [illegible], and intended principally in their complaint; Men and brethren the sins which you have discovered we cannot but own, and therefore we do confess them openly and freely, in the sight of God and you his servants and the dangers which you have also made known by reason thereof, we cannot but expect, the evils are great which we fear, oh the sins are far worse by which we have offended, what shall we do? Direct anything we will follow it, command anything we will obey and submit to that with glad hearts that we may be rid of those evils; It had been happy for us that we had never listened to the counsel of the scribes and Pharisees and been led by their examples, or carried with the crowd, to the commission of such bloody evils, the guilt whereof is so great the vileness of loathsomeness whereof is so hellish and unconceivable, but that which is done and past cannot be recalled; but what shall we now do, is there nothing to be done against these high-handed abominations, which have done so much dishonor to God's name, indignity to the Lord Jesus the Lord of life, so much injury to our own souls, and hazarded our everlasting happiness and comfort, what shall we do? If anything that can be done by others, we will seek far and near for help, if anything that can be done by ourselves we shall [illegible] it to the utmost of our power, is there nothing to be done that we might have the blood of these sins of ours which have taken away the blood of the Lord Jesus this is not an estate to be rested in, a [illegible] in which we must continue and quiet ourselves, we should be willing to do anything against [illegible] sins and selves; therefore the doctrine hence follows, [illegible], Sound contrition brings the soul to detestation against sin and sequestration from it. When the people lamented [illegible] the Lord who had [illegible] himself so long time from them, Samuel that he might have assurance of their sorrow that it were good, and that they might give in evidence their hearts were upright, he puts them upon this trial: If indeed you will return to the Lord, put away your idol (1 Samuel 7:3). This was the practice of those converts (Hosea 14:1-4). When they had taken words, and desired the Lord to take away their iniquity, the proof of their sorrow and repentance is shown in that profession of theirs, Ashur shall not save us, nor will we go down to Egypt, nor will we say to the works of our hands, you are our Gods; these were their special sins and their protestation is bent in a peculiar manner to abandon them forever. Those also who were convinced of their sinful departures from God by their curious arts (Acts 19:19), to show [illegible] detestation of their sins, they came all as one man, and were all of one mind; they burned their books in the view of all the people, before all men that the memory of such evils might be abhorred, and the very instruments which had been abused to the practice of them might be removed from the face of the earth. A [illegible] heart that makes a true [illegible], he is said in the phrase of Scripture to speak and judge as God does of sin, and to [illegible] the same sentence [illegible] it; Now God's mind is, and the conclusion he has set down is this, you shall blot out the memory of them from under heaven, and so would a broken heart do with his distempers.

There be two particulars in the doctrine, wherein the double effect of sound contrition is discovered:

- 1. Detestation of sin. - 2. Sequestration from sin.

We will handle them both apart. Begin we first with that hatred and detestation, which the heart truly burdened carries against sin: For the opening of which we shall discover,

- 1. What is the nature of this hatred. - 2. How it does discover itself, and may be discerned. - 3. The reasons why this is required in this work of preparation.

To the First.

To distinguish this work of hatred, as it is appropriate to this place, and comes now to consideration, from the like disposition and operation of soul which [illegible] wrought by the Holy Spirit, and expressed by the saints in the further progress of the work of application; before it arises to the full breadth and further perfection, to which the Believer arrives: It is a discovery which is attended with much difficulty and hardness; to lay out the peculiar bounds and limits of it, that each work may take that which is peculiar to itself, and not interfere upon the other; it is a matter marvelously intricate and narrow for the search. We shall labor to be wise to sobriety, so far as light goes, and the Lord helps. We shall cast that which we would speak by way of explication, into several conclusions, as apprehending that the [illegible] and most familiar way to communicate what may lend some little direction this way.

As the first Adam did depart from God, and in him all [reconstructed: his] Posterity; so the second Adam, the Lord Christ, does bring back all his again to God the Father by the contrary way. In the departure of Adam and his Seed, this is plain to common apprehension: there was first an aversion, or turning from God; then a conversion, or turning of the soul to the creature: this is the usual course, and the usual [reconstructed: course]. They have [reconstructed: forsaken] the fountain of living waters, and dug to themselves pits that will hold no water (Jeremiah 2:13). Adam attends not God's direction, and then he attends the delusion of the enemy, contents not himself in what God had found, but finds out findings; therefore our Savior brings back his contrary way, begins where Satan ends as it were. There must be an aversion and turning from the creature, before there can be a conversion to God; he came from God to the creature, he must return from the creature to God: but [reconstructed: this] aversion is first, that is, from his abusive cleaving to the creature. For in truth, [reconstructed: sin] is nothing else but an [reconstructed: inordinate] affecting of these inferior things: ambition is the inordinate affecting of praise, the airy applause of men; covetousness an inordinate seeking and [reconstructed: clinging] upon the world; uncleanness, an unruly [reconstructed: and] unreasonable pursuit of the delights of the flesh. In a word, a perverted and exorbitant will inordinately following and pursuing the creature, not from God, for God, but from a sinful disposition to self-ends; this is the frame of evil in the heart, the woof and web of wickedness lie there. Now the Lord Jesus, he comes (1 John 3:8-9) to destroy the works of the devil; the original is, to [reconstructed: loosen], and unravel, undo, or take down [reconstructed: his] work, as the word implies; and therefore he begins to pull down his work where he ended it, namely, he first works an aversion from sin, and the creature sinfully affected, and then in nature and order there will be conversion to God. The point of the compass cannot stand north and south together; first it must stand from the south, before it stand north: the face of the soul cannot stand God-ward, and sin-ward, and creature-ward. This is the course of the Scripture, and the constant expression of it; to turn from idols to the living God, from darkness to light, from Satan to God.

There is nothing in the soul that can turn the soul from sin and the creature; that which is wholly possessed and wholly acted by an inordinate affection to the creature can never turn from the creature (1 Peter 4:2). All men live according to the lusts of men, and the will of the Gentiles; indeed, they fulfill the desires of the flesh, and walk after the prince of the air (Ephesians 2:2).

As a man cannot turn himself, so this first aversion from sin, and the creature, is not wrought by any gracious habit that is put into the soul by the Lord, that is, that is not the way and means by which this first aversion and turning from sin is wrought; and the reasons are:

First, all gracious qualities and habits (as all other accidents and attendants upon things) never have any being but in a subject; and therefore must first be there, before they can put forth any operation. Wisdom must first be in the mind before a man can act wisely; skill must be in the head and understanding of the artificer, before he can work, build, and plant skillfully; holiness, righteousness, patience in our hearts, before we can work holily, patiently. And that is the reason though we have the same faculties of mind and will before our conversion, as we have after, yet we neither do nor can put forth any gracious action before, but after grace.

Hence it follows, that if the first aversion from sin were wrought by a habit of grace, we should first have this, that is, the habit of grace should be in the soul before it should work this aversion of the soul from sin: but that implies a contradiction, that a man should have grace, and yet be wholly averted from God for the least moment.

Secondly, if the soul be incapable in that condition, and under that consideration to receive the habit of grace, then there cannot be a gracious habit in the soul to work anything: but while the soul is wholly possessed and acted by sin, it is not capable of a gracious habit, no more than it is possible to be in light and darkness together. The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, it is not subject, in fact it cannot be subject to the law; if not subject, then it cannot receive the gracious impressions of it (Romans 8:7); and (John 14:17) it is said of the Comforter, that the world cannot receive him. The issue is, if a gracious habit neither is, nor can be there in the soul wholly possessed and averted from God by sin, then this aversion from sin cannot be wrought by it.

Though the Lord does not put a gracious habit INTO the soul, by which this may be done, yet the Spirit of contrition puts forth an irresistible power by which it works UPON the soul; thus turned from God to sin, to return it from sin to God. For the Spirit in the work of application sustains a double office, and so a double respect:

As a Spirit assisting,

As a Spirit inhabiting,

And yet the same Spirit of regeneration in such as shall be saved (taking regeneration in the breadth thereof, including the whole work) though the operation be double or diverse, according to the diversity of the subject, as the soul of a sinner, upon which the work of application must be made according to the degrees thereof.

The Spirit works upon the soul in preparation, to make way for gracious habits, but never inhabits the heart, makes the soul a temple without some gracious qualification (1 Corinthians 6:18-19). You are the temples of the Holy Ghost: Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:17); there is the Spirit inhabiting. Yet it is said, the world cannot receive the Spirit, because they do not see him, nor know him, but you know him, for he dwells in you, and abides with you (John 14:17). Yet those who are nothing for the while, but the world, the Spirit does work upon such to call them out of the world, by turning of them from darkness to light.

The Lord Christ as the Second Adam, and the Head of those whom he shall bring back, and beget to God the Father, in the virtue of his death he brings a release from under the hand of Divine Justice, to reverse that commission which sin and Satan had, to fasten the soul to the creature, and so to sin, and by sin and the creature to rule in it: For when Adam jarred and jostled against the law, the law was strong and hard, that is, just; the law and the Lord in justice pushed Adam away from him, sin takes occasion to fall in, and by that advantage (when Divine Justice, by reason of his provocation, pushed him away) it carries him to the creature, and the Devil by sin and the creature challenges sovereignty over him: The Lord Jesus by and in the virtue of his death, suffering and satisfying Divine Justice, delivers both himself and his from the authority of sin: God raised him from the grave, because it was impossible he should be held by the sorrows and power of the grave, and therefore not by the power of sin and darkness (Acts 2:24), for they had no power but by virtue of Divine Justice; which being now appeased, their commission is reversed and repealed: By death Christ destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil (Hebrews 2:14). So our Savior gives the ground of comfort and release to his, I was dead, and [reconstructed: am] alive, and behold I have the keys of hell and death (Revelation 1:18). The Lord says to sin, hands off, that soul is mine, and does therefore by the power of his Spirit, not only stop the work of sin, but overbears, and abolishes, and takes off the right of rule which Satan by sin challenged, he brings the soul off from the sovereignty of sin, into another jurisdiction.

The Lord having forced the sinner (about which I formerly disputed) to feel sin as it is sin, to be cross to the end of his being, though not to the corruption of the soul, yet to the nature of the soul; and therefore as it is possible that the soul may be forced to [reconstructed: feel it], so now upon feeling, the soul finds it to be a most bitter thing, and that to the being of the soul, as an immortal creature made next for God as its last end. And therefore (observe) though it want spiritual and supernatural ability to enter into combat, or vanquish a corruption by any grace received, yet being sensible by the Spirit of contrition of the evil of it, and so loosened from it, it becomes subject, and stands readily prepared to [reconstructed: receive] any impression of the power of the Spirit, whereby the exercise and power of sin may be stopped, and the challenge of any right of rule and sovereignty may be shaken off, and forever destroyed, and the soul be carried to God in Christ, to be owned, ruled, and blessed forever. So that when Christ as the Second Adam, and head of the covenant, comes to take a soul, and to [reconstructed: bring] him from sin to God the Father; look by what irresistible power he acts in opposition and [reconstructed: detestation] against it, as cross to his glory, the soul wanting power of its own, it takes advantage to fall in and yield to that power, and is acted and moved by the like opposition and detestation against its sin, according as the impression of the Spirit is left upon him: And hence it comes, the sinner is transported with that holy [reconstructed: zeal], and indignation at such times [reconstructed: after]ward he does never find, [reconstructed: it] may be, can never again attain to. As the Gibeonites when all the princes of the cities and provinces were gathered together against them, they had not power in themselves to oppose, yet withdraw themselves they would from under their rule and confederacy, and yielded themselves to the authority and sovereignty of Joshua, though it were to hew wood and draw water; or as the boat that is run aground, and has neither tackling nor [reconstructed: oars], yet by a mighty wind, and a spring tide, he is carried with more speed to the haven than by all [reconstructed: his own efforts] and helps he could ever after attain: So the soul being acted wholly by that power and impression of the [reconstructed: Spirit], having yet no principle of its own, it is carried with a detestation against sin; here Christ applies this power only, afterward in sanctification we apply the power of Christ's death to this end with him.

This is the first work of God in the extent of it, and the way he takes to turn the soul from sin and the creature: fear stops him, sorrow tires him, hatred turns him. Fear troubles his sin, sorrow loosens it, hatred abandons it. Fear finds the knot, grief unties it, hatred dissolves and breaks it off. Fear questions the lawfulness of the match between sin and the soul, sorrow gives in proof and evidence out of sense of the evil of it, hatred annuls the league, and sues out an everlasting divorce between sin and the soul. This hatred is the hatred of preparation, not of sanctification; the difference between which may be discerned by the former discourse.

That in sanctification is from the Spirit inhabiting; this from the Spirit assisting.

That of sanctification is by a gracious habit infused into the soul; this is without a habit, the Spirit only by [reconstructed: an] irresistible motion working upon the soul.

In that there is an inward principle received, whereby we meet with Christ, and concur with him to the work; here we have no habit, and therefore no inward principle to meet with Christ, he wholly and only [reconstructed: works] upon us, and we act, as acted by him. Take the wheels of a watch out of place, if you will bring them into the right room and place, they will then move, because there is a principle of motion put into it. So of a member out of joint, if you will by strong hand pull and move it to the place, being wholly moved, it will move into his order and rank, it does not concur or meet with your hand for the jointing of itself, but stirs wholly and only as stirred; but being settled and confirmed in the place, it will move to your hand, and concur with your hand to help itself. So here: That hatred in sanctification we receive from our union with Christ; this the Spirit works upon us to make way to bring us to union with the Lord Jesus; we must turn from our sins, before we come to God, there must be an aversion from sin, before there can be a conversion to God; we cannot be under two covenants; in the first Adam, and the second; grow upon two stocks together. It's said that Adam begot a son in his own image, that a son was generated by the first Adam, the act of generation was no part of the image, but the image is the corruption of nature that came by generation: So that we are united, that's none [reconstructed: of] Christ's image, but the image of Christ, which is [reconstructed: our] communion with him in his graces, this image and these graces issue from our union. The sum in short then is this: There must be an aversion from sin, before conversion to God: there is nothing in the soul that can work this, but Christ must do it. When Christ works this, it is not by any habit of grace infused into the soul, but by the motion and work of the Spirit upon the soul. In this work, Christ as the head of the covenant by [reconstructed: virtue] of his death, whereby he satisfied the law, brings a release from the hand of divine justice, to reverse and repeal that commission by which sin had authority over the soul and Satan by sin; [reconstructed: so] that the act of sin is stopped, and the right of the rule of sin is wholly [reconstructed: abolished] and made void; the contrite sinner feeling the evil of sin and yet no power of himself to oppose and subdue, look in what opposition and detestation the [reconstructed: mighty] power of the Spirit goes out against sin as acted by the impression of that power, it acts by opposition and detestation against its sin and is turned from it.

2. How this hatred discovers itself and how it may be discerned.

This hatred is attended with a continual fear of the presence and the deadly infection of sin, and so with a constant watch against it; or a watchful fear is a never failing work whereby this hatred [reconstructed: expresses] itself, in the carriage and daily conversation of a [reconstructed: penitent] sinner, the venom of sin which formerly he has felt, the plague and vengeance which those his distempers has brought upon him, leaves so fresh and yet so [reconstructed: deep] a remembrance of them upon his soul that the very thoughts of them frighten him, but any temptation or provocation that may draw him to the [reconstructed: commission] of the like is so loathsome that the least appearance that looks that way he sees presently and shakes at it, [reconstructed: dreading] it as the [reconstructed: mouth] of hell, as that which will hazard the happiness of the soul and [illegible] as present [illegible] to him. As it is in the work of nature in the body of a man, he that has surfeited upon some sweet meat or some pleasing potion that has been prepared in a gilded cup, and happily suited with his palate for the present, but in issue had in reason hazarded his life, in his own sense and each man's apprehension, but that the Lord was merciful; you need not [reconstructed: persuade] him with arguments, the loathing of [reconstructed: his] stomach and the very hatred and antipathy that nature has against that which procured the hazard, will make him watchful and shy how he is deceived in that kind any [reconstructed: more], the very sight of the medicine jar, the scent or smell of the potion, indeed the least suspicion that such a receipt is coming towards him, [reconstructed: causing] him to fear and fly, his stomach begins to turn, rises from the [reconstructed: table], removes out of the room, [reconstructed: the] frame of nature begins to fail and shake with the remembrance of the [reconstructed: danger past] and with the fear of the like danger; It behoves me to look what I take, it had like to have cost my life, therefore I will come there no more. So it is with a [reconstructed: penitent] sinner that has felt the poison of those pleasing distempers upon which his sensual [reconstructed: appetite] has [reconstructed: gorged] itself in the days of his folly which now he has found by woeful [reconstructed: experience] to be gall and wormwood to his conscience, the bane of his peace, and would have been the ruin of him, and his soul before this day, but that it has pleased the Lord to [reconstructed: spare] him for the present, and not to execute his vengeance upon him, as he has deserved by reason of his former [reconstructed: sins]; therefore he cannot abide the sight of the place where the sin was committed, the presence of the party, the companion that enticed, indeed fears the falseness and treachery of his own heart, lest that again should betray him, thus you see in David's [reconstructed: case] (Psalm 101:3), I hate the work of them that turn aside it shall not cleave to me; Hatred is eagle-eyed to observe the proceedings of the enemy, and out of a watchful fear [reconstructed: to] stop the passage, and to keep his approach that he cannot come near to us. Happily temptations may press in with violence upon the soul, and the strength of distempers may make fierce [illegible], make batteries, indeed make a breach happily and overbear the sinner, for the push: [reconstructed: Such] is the fear and watch that the heart is carried [reconstructed: along] through this [reconstructed: hatred], that it will prevent their approach or at least never yield to their power; A chaste matron that truly hates the unchaste [reconstructed: advances] of adulterous mates, they may pester her, trouble her, lie at her from day to day, though she cannot keep herself happily from being tempted, yet she will keep herself unspotted, she will not be unchaste nor unfaithful: So it is with a heart that [reconstructed: is] carried with detestation against evil, though distempers and temptation may pester it, yet they shall not cleave to it, nor it cleave to them; It may do that which it hates as Paul (Romans 7:15), what I hate that I do, yet it will hate its own doings, and its own self so far as overborne thereby; the outworks may be taken, yet the soul ever entrencheth herself in this holy hatred of heart, and either it will force them to fly, or it will fly from them; though it cannot be quit of these inmates but still they will abide in the soul, indeed [reconstructed: grieving for] them, and the soul for them. This is the order and method, that the Apostle lays forth in this work, when the Corinthians came to be touched with godly sorrow, what indignation, what fear, what zeal, what revenge? etc. (2 Corinthians 7:11). When the heart carries a detestation towards a corruption it stands against it as an enemy, then follows fear which is a behavior suitable to provide and prevent the policies, plottings, and waylayings thereof upon all occasions, look as it is with a city that has been besieged with a potent and malicious enemy, if once the siege be raised and the forces of the enemy put to rout and scattered, how will the besieged party by a watchful fear stand upon their guard, stand sentinel night and day, send out their scouts, and dispatch a party in every coast to discover the carriage of the enemy, takes all the passages, maintains a narrow search, no man goes out, no man comes in, but inquires and learns the intent of the enemy, whether he gathers forces, and makes head again, watches strictly to [reconstructed: stop] his approach with the first appearance, it is [reconstructed: yet] fresh in their minds into what great distress they were formerly brought, what cruelty they suffered, and that there was but a hair's breadth between them and death, with what fear and care will they labor to prevent the like bondage again, as the Philistines cried one to another when the ark came into the field, for the safeguarding of their lives and liberties, quit yourselves like [reconstructed: men], O you Philistines, lest you become servants to the Hebrews. So it is with the sinner who has been besieged and held captive, under the tyranny and sovereignty of sin and Satan, when the Lord by the power of ordinances shall cast down the strongholds, stop the act of sin in the strength and stream of it, annul and make void the authority of any right or claim the sin could challenge in this work of contrition, and so rescues the soul and raises the siege that Satan laid and maintained against its distempers as the deadliest enemy it has in all the world. No sooner is the soul revolted from under the tyranny of corruption, but the fear of the former misery forces a man to marvelous circumspection, to maintain a careful watch, as suspicious of a surprise, lest the old distempers should gather head again; if any temptation or occasion be presented, any appearance of any provocation which may lead to the entertainment of any evil be cast in, how does the heart shrink and shake as though the enemy were now afresh approaching; what narrow search and inquisition does the soul set up in its daily course, weighs the words he speaks, examines each thought and stirring of affection, whether there be any treacheries plotted, any correspondence held, any preparation made for the recalling and entertainment of the former lusts and corruptions. Fear gives the alarm presently, sets [reconstructed: them] to work to prevent the evil, cries out to heaven for succor and relief; the disobedient child, the stubborn and careless servant, were their hearts brought to this detestation of these their distempers you would see a new world, they would mind themselves of their own miscarriages, though you never reminded them, they would check themselves for carelessness though you never reproved them, they would be heartsick of the stirrings of such rebellions, though you never reckoned with them in that behalf; their own heart would call to their remembrance their former extremities; It was not long since you were arraigned before the tribunal of the Lord, cast and condemned by the witness of the word, the verdict of [reconstructed: their] own consciences and by the testimony of God [reconstructed: himself] who is greater than your consciences; and yet [reconstructed: you were] respited, through the long sufferance of the Lord, and [reconstructed: the] riches of his mercy, you saw cause enough for ever [reconstructed: to] abhor those abominations and yourselves for [reconstructed: them]; therefore God forbid I should rush into those evils [reconstructed: again] and plunge myself into everlasting confusion [illegible] of body and soul, I have cause to hate them as my enemies, I will never harbor them as my friends.

Where this hatred is thoroughly wrought in the [reconstructed: soul] against sin, it seeks the destruction of sin in one's [reconstructed: self] first, and in others also, so far as comes within the compass of a man's place and [reconstructed: calling]; the indignation [reconstructed: begins] at home, and it is carried most strongly against the [reconstructed: sins] of our own hearts, which are our greatest enemies, and have done us the greatest harm, and we by them [reconstructed: have] done the Lord the greatest dishonor, and we know [reconstructed: them] most in all the loathsomeness of them, and in all the [reconstructed: heinousness] and heightening circumstances thereof, than [reconstructed: we] can be acquainted with the measure and scale of any other's miscarriages, and therefore the true convert sets himself most to seek the ruin and rooting out of them which would have wrought the ruin of his soul, but there he rests not, but whatever sins come within his reach, [reconstructed: he] labors the removal of them, out of the families [reconstructed: where] he dwells, out of the plantations where he lives, out [reconstructed: of] the companies and occasions, with whom he has occasion to meet and meddle at any time; he that [reconstructed: hates] treason indeed, pursues the pack of conspirators, [reconstructed: where] ever they become, until there be not one remaining [reconstructed: in] the nation; open both these a little.

1. He labors the destruction of sin in his own [reconstructed: soul] and that two ways. 1. He does what he can himself. 2. He seeks for help from others that they may send in new supply of forces to do what he cannot.

He sets himself to the utmost of his power to procure the utter ruin of his lusts; as [reconstructed: these] enemies, if there be a settled hatred indeed, they are not satisfied, until they have the blood of each other, so it is here. It is not to weaken the work of sin, to stop the spreading of it, to confine the compass of it, to some private course, or yet to imprison [reconstructed: it] by restraint that it may not stir abroad, nor yet have the liberty of the prison, but be laid aside as the malefactor in the dungeon, no — this hatred seeks the death and the not being of it, and until then it is restless in pursuit. As David with his enemies (Psalm 78:37): I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them, neither did I turn again until they were consumed, a contrite heart deals so with his distempers. He ceases not until he sees his desire upon his [reconstructed: enemies], until he has his will of him. And if we view the expression of the Scripture, we shall see how hatred vents itself against such as be enemies, whose destruction it intends, partly by [reconstructed: force], partly by conspiracy, it is said of the Egyptians, that God turned their hearts to hate his people, and the fruit of that is in the following words, and they dealt subtly with them, what that subtlety was, the text discovers (Exodus 1:10). First they oppressed them with heavy burdens, then they plotted by treachery to kill their males in the birth, that so in issue they might take away their strength and numbers also, in the issue [reconstructed: this] is subtlety which is one way how hatred expresses itself. Again if we look at (Psalm 83:2-6), the enemies of the Lord and his Church, who [reconstructed: hate] his hidden ones, [reconstructed: they] have consulted together with one consent and are confederate, Moab, Ammon, and [reconstructed: Edom], etc.; there is a combination of all policies and power to overbear and destroy them. This is the nature of hatred when it is disordered and unwarrantable in a wrong way; and the exercise and expression of it will be in some measure proportionable when it is put forth in a right manner according to the rule of God and the operation of his Spirit against sin. The contrite soul when it is carried with this hateful detestation against its own abominations, by a spiritual kind of prudence, observes where the first stirrings and male strength of our corruptions appear in the birth and breeding of them, in our minds and hearts, where the root [reconstructed: and] spawn of those loathsome abominations have their warming and hatching in the heart. There hatred employs all prudence that may be to stifle those distempers in the first stirrings of them, crush the cockatrice in the shell, kill the serpent in the egg, that they may never have being nor be brought forth into the world if it be possible. But if by policy, these spiritual enemies cannot be undermined, then this hatred brings the combined forces of confederated power of the whole man and his whole endeavor to destroy the nests of those noisome lusts, what head can contrive, heart desire, handwork, the endeavor accomplish, head, and heart, and hand, desires, endeavors, tears, prayers, in a deadly feud to pursue the [reconstructed: spiritual] enemies to their not being.

Thus he does what he can in himself, and when that is not enough [reconstructed: he] seeks for help against these hellish abominations from God by his Saints and all such ordinances which he has appointed for his succor. In a word the carriage of the heart of a contrite sinner under this kindly hatred thus discovers itself: he is willing to attend any means, but gives most welcome to such as will do most execution in the slaughter and destruction of his sins, for that is his aim; nor will he compliment with the Lord, nor is he squeamish, [reconstructed: or] stomached, that each dispensation must answer his expectation [reconstructed: exactly], or else it will not down. As it was with Naaman when Courtier-like state-compliment more prevailed with him than his own health: I had thought he would have come and laid his hand upon [illegible], and called upon his God. So if the counsel be suggested in such a [reconstructed: manner], and such intimations, the admonition with such meekness or by such a man, etc. — then he can hear and receive; otherwise he will be well contented rather to quarrel with the manner that crosses him than embrace the truth which may help him against his sin. No, this is far from a contrite heart; he passes not much how or what the means are, or manner of the dispensation, if he find it to give a deadly blow to his distemper — that is what pleases him, he can easily pass by all the rest. As, be the person never so mean and [reconstructed: unfit] to the service, or the time unseasonable, as in Abigail — a General upon his design to be crossed and countermanded by a woman; a spirit that had not been very humble, and hated his sin more than any enemy, would have found many cavils, but he saw how it suited the slaughter of his sins, and he receives it gladly. Nay, be the manner rude and rugged, either not suiting the place of him that speaks, nor the person to whom it is spoken, yet the broken heart takes it quietly, as in that of Joab to David (2 Samuel 19:5-7); though the physic was good it was too hot, yet because it was wholesome, the King took it down. Nay, when neither the person nor manner nor matter itself which is spoken are answerable to the service, yet if he sees the hand of God to come out against his corruptions, he takes that advantage against his distemper and passes by the other. (2 Samuel 16:7, 11) — when Shimei cursed David, let him alone, says he, the Lord has bidden him curse; it may be the Lord will look upon me for good, etc. As Saul entertained the message of the Ziphites concerning David whom he hated and whose death he hunted after (1 Samuel 23:19): then came the Ziphites to Saul saying, does not David hide himself with us in strongholds, in the wood, in the hill of Hackelah — now therefore, O King, come down according to all the desire of your heart, and our part shall be to deliver him into the King's hand. And Saul said: blessed be the Lord, for you have had compassion upon me; go and prepare, see his place where his haunt is, and take knowledge of his lurking places where he hides himself. So the contrite sinner that seeks the death and [reconstructed: destruction] of his sins gladly welcomes whatever means are most searching — sharpest reproofs, clearest discoveries, convicting arguments that will discover the haunts and lurking places of a man's lusts and secret shiftings of devices. Oh, these hit the desire of his heart; he counts them blessed counsels, blessed reproofs — blessed be you of the Lord that have compassion on my soul, to take those distempers from me that would take away my soul from God, and life and happiness from my soul. Nay, the soul will say: I see something, but oh, search more narrowly, examine yet more thoroughly all the sinful windings and turnings of my heart, and I will join with you in all such convictions and [reconstructed: reproofs]; and if there be any way of wickedness, any crevice and corner of falsehood to be found in the whole frame of my heart, I hope God will reveal and remove, and I will deal nakedly. Such smitings are as precious balms that do not break the head, but bring a healing virtue, comfort a man's heart, content his head and apprehensions also.

Thus he proceeds against his own sin, but there this hatred [reconstructed: stops] not; but he labors also the removal of sin in whoever he finds it, wherever he is, and with whoever he converses. If there be any corruption stirring, his enemies appearing, his hatred stirs immediately, his heart rises against it, and attaches the traitor. If any be under pressures, he pities them tenderly; if in distress of spirit, he comforts in much compassion, and fortifies against the common enemy. If he sees any go out of the way, led aside with their own distempers, Satan's delusion, he cannot keep off from counseling, reproving, persuading. The servant that could side it with fellow servants in stubborn, idle, and [illegible], and consent with them, suit with them, give them counsel, keep their counsel before — they were brethren in iniquity — but when his heart comes to be pierced, and the soul transported with hatred, you shall [reconstructed: see] the wind in another door. If he sees them lazy and idle, he will quicken them; if stubborn and perverse, he will seasonably advise and pursue them with reproofs, and if his [reconstructed: counsel] cannot take place, he will make his complaints to the Governor for redress; he cannot endure to see sin thrive, and the traitor live. But if the Lord put any authority into his hand, he will express it to the utmost of all his power, and that with the utmost indignation that the nature of the thing will bear. As good Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:4-6): he commanded to break down the altars, cut down the groves, carved and molten images, made dust of them, and burnt the bones of the priests upon the altar in the detestation of their sacrifices. Nay, he took away all the abominations of all the countries that pertained to Israel, and made all that were present to serve the Lord. This indignation expresses itself against sin, and all that pertains to it, and have been instruments to the commission of it. As an adulterous woman in [reconstructed: anguish] of conscience, tore the hair that she had curled, and disfigured the face that she had painted, and prided herself — loathed to look upon the headdresses and garments which she had worn to make her beauty a bait and a [reconstructed: snare] to others. So Mary Magdalen, etc.

But if yet the notion of those noxious corruptions cannot be utterly destroyed, but sins live, and are mighty abroad, and remain in the heart: this hatred is beyond all hope and possibility of reconciliation, admits no terms of peace, no condition of agreement that can be devised or offered, will be entertained, holds out the quarrel and opposition to death; indeed, is willing to die, and put an end to his days, that he may see an end of his abominations. As God with Amalek (Exodus 17, last verse), he commanded it to be written [reconstructed: as] a memorial in a book, for God has sworn he will have war with [reconstructed: Amalek] forever, and put out his name from under Heaven; this hatred as in deadly feuds gives no quarter, the soul will not give tribute to his corruptions, and serve his own turn of them, but wages war with them until they be utterly destroyed from off the face of the earth. The counsel that God gave to the Israelites, [illegible] carefully and exactly keeps; Be sure you make no covenant with them, but smite them, and utterly destroy them (Deuteronomy 7:23, etc.).

Reasons of the point are three.

Without this; there [illegible] no way to come to Christ; for there is no coming of faith into the soul: No man can serve two masters; for if he love the one, he will hate the other; if he cleave to the one, he will despise the other: you cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24). If (says Samuel) you will prepare your hearts to seek the Lord, put away your idols (1 Samuel 7:3). Those must first be removed, if God be received: there is no halting between two: no man can be in the first and second Adam together: the soul cannot be married to two husbands at once. The conclusion of our Savior is [illegible] and [illegible] (Luke 14:26): If any man come [illegible] me, and hate not his father and mother, wife and children and friends (and therefore much more his sins) in comparison of Christ, he cannot be my disciple, he is not worthy, that is, not fit to be Christ's disciple.

Without this there is no salvation can be expected from Christ; for this is the method of mercy, the order of God in the dispensation of life to lost man, and so [illegible] was intended and appointed. God sent [reconstructed: his] son from heaven to bless you by turning every one of you from his iniquity (Acts 3:26). He will turn you from your evil way if ever he bless you; and it was the way the prophet prescribed of old (Ezekiel 18:30): turn you from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruin. And Christ came to save his people from their [illegible] (Matthew 1:21); that is the first [illegible] to salvation — you cannot be safe if your sins be safe. Christ will not [illegible] you and your sins too; if you will save them he will not save you; this is the great condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness more than light — he that loves his sins, loves his death.

Sin is the only enemy of the soul, that which is hateful to God and man and makes us hateful also. And therefore is the fittest, [illegible] indeed the only proper object of our hatred. They are lusts that [illegible] against the soul (1 Peter 2:11); there is nothing in the world that could prejudice the peace and comfort of the soul, were it not poisoned with sin. Blessed [illegible] you when men persecute you and hate you and speak all manner of evil of you falsely (Matthew 5:12). Could men speak all evil and do all evil against us and let [illegible] do that [illegible] is sinful to deserve it, these cannot hinder our blessedness but increase it.

Matter of bitter complaint to see how few there be in the world who ever knew what this hatred of sin meant. And therefore yet were never [illegible] with any sound broken heartedness for it — such as Job [reconstructed: speaks of (Job 20:12-13)] who hide their corruptions under their tongues as [illegible] pleasant morsel, spare it and will not forsake it. Instead of hating their sin, they hate the word that would discover it, the minister that preaches against it, the man, the magistrate, the law that would reform it. Instead of loathing their sins, they loathe the [illegible] of the lives, the exactness of the ways of such who indeed set themselves most against sinful carriages; once cross them in their courses, you have stirred a [illegible] nest; they ruin all on heaps.

This is a [reconstructed: touch]-stone of the truth of [reconstructed: the] work of contrition, whether [reconstructed: the] Lord have left the mighty impression of this preparative [reconstructed: work] upon the soul of a sinner. That the league between the heart and [reconstructed: its] lusts is [reconstructed: broken], not alone [reconstructed: in] the [reconstructed: love] [reconstructed: and pursuit] of evil, nor yet to avoid, and go aside from the occasion that may lead to it under some present pang, but you have put off the love of sinning — (why, blessed be God) the combination is come to nothing; sorrow has [reconstructed: severed] the knot and union between your soul and your darling [reconstructed: sin]. This hatred breaks the knot and union fully; you are now divorced from your former lovers, you fear the approach of them, and rather choose to see the blood of them, than to enjoy the presence of them. Stay but God's time, and be persuaded, in his best season he will take you into the bosom of his love, which will be better than life itself to you. You are in the hand of Jesus and under his charge; he that has rescued you from the rage of the devils, and from the right that sin ever claimed in you, he will never lose his labor, nor shall you lose your [reconstructed: comfort] and happiness in the issue. He has bound the strong man — the strongest of your corruptions that heretofore have too much, and too easily prevailed with you — had got your affection, and the strongholds of your heart, those strong temptations and [reconstructed: snares] by which Satan, as by so many garrison soldiers, maintained possession in your soul; yet now this strong man is bound, his holds battered and his garrison abandoned. So that there is a spoil made of all his goods; the temptations that formerly found entertainment, they are now abhorred, his suggestions and delusions that found easy entrance and acceptance are now loathed, and your heart set against them; the Lord Christ is now about to own you as his proper possession, and then he will never part with you more. Your heart trembles at the least inkling of the return of your distempers, seeks the destruction, and would see the undoing of them; you are weary of life merely because they live, and are resolved never to entertain terms of peace with them, though you never see a quiet day in the world. [reconstructed: And] the work is the Lord Christ's — he will own it; it is true and thorough, he will never leave it, until he has brought it to perfection and your soul to eternal happiness. But alas, this truth as a touchstone shows the contrition of most in the world to be counterfeit — that many have been in the fire, heated but never melted, as with metal the parts of it battered, but never fully severed, the dross from the ore, and therefore there can never a vessel be made for any honorable use and service thereof. In a word, the doctrine passes sentence of sad condemnation upon four sorts of persons as such who never [reconstructed: truly wrought] in the work; we shall point very briefly at the particulars, that each man may take his portion.

First, the careless and fearless Christian is cast out of the number of these contrite sinners whom God does prepare for his Christ and mercy — such as walk heedlessly up and down the world, not awed with any watchful fear of the temptations and occasions and snares which are laid in their way to entrap them, or with the treachery and deceitful lusts which suddenly draw them aside, to common neglect of duties which they reform not, or transport and carry them with pangs of passions and distempers, and they amend not. Certainly either these know not these to be sins, or else do not know them and hate them as dire and dreadful enemies to their souls. It could not be but their hearts should shake at the sight of them, and the dangerous assaults which they cannot but know, if they know them to be [illegible], but they will hazard their everlasting happiness. People who live without watch or fear think they have no enemies, or no war [illegible] at hand, and if you live in this Laish-like fearless fashion, you never knew the war of a Christian, nor the enemies they have, nor are in the condition of a Christian, [illegible] have the heart of a Christian to this hour within you. And therefore Jude so [illegible] those atheists and sensual wretches, who were [illegible] of God's spirit, which are spots in your feasts, feeding themselves without fear (Jude 22). These are blemishes in the body of the Church, spots in the assemblies of Christians, who speak without fear in the companies where they converse, walk without fear in families where they live, walk without fear in the occasions with which they have to deal. And the Apostle adds, they are withered, twice dead and plucked up by the roots — far enough from having any spiritual life or any preparation to that. Consider how in nature, reason [illegible] and experience make evident: if there were a malicious enemy with a powerful and mighty army now making his approaches to the city, and attempting the siege, if the alarm should be given by the watch to the city, a messenger dispatched to each man's door, if any were so careless that he would not attend; or attending the [illegible] stirred not, or perhaps for fashion's sake stirring, if yet he labored not by a watchful fear to provide for the assault, and attend the [illegible] of command, repair to the place for defense of the city — there is no man but would conclude, certainly he is a party, he is not an enemy to the army that does besiege. Every loyal and faithful subject shakes at the apprehension of the power and rage of the adversary, who is now likely to make havoc of all and that without mercy. So it is here: the violence of temptation from without, and the strength of corruptions from within, fight against the soul. You that are a disobedient child, a rebellious self-willed servant, a perverse and [illegible] wife, an ignorant [illegible] hearer — the alarm is given in public, concerning these armies of lusts that are come out against you, notice given in private, your fellow servants counsel, the master commands, indeed confessions are made of your evils [illegible] you resist, petitions put up for grace before you [illegible] abroad. And yet no sooner off your knees out of the presence of the Lord, but you are as though you had never known any such thing — you stumble at the same stone, taken aside with the same temptations and distempers, as though you had never heard your sin discovered, as though you had never been counseled, never been commanded, as though you had never bewailed it to this day. Idle and stubborn and perverse and wayward and self-willed — so far from fearing these evils, that you did not remember them, or think of them; or if you did, you fear rather that you should be forced to reform them, rather than that you should commit them. As sure as the Lord lives, you are a party and in league with these distempers — you are not an enemy. If [illegible] you had found the venom and poison of these [illegible] and had been persuaded of the destroying nature of these spiritual [illegible], which make havoc of your soul, the very appearance and apprehension of these would have been dreadful. If there were but a roving thought in a man's mind, any small stirring of a distemper in a man's heart, any temptation, any the [illegible] enticement to the committing of the evil — how would your heart shake at the sight of it, fear and fly and cry for help against it, if you had known it and hated it as your deadly enemy. So Paul cries out as fearful men do, when he perceived the stirrings of those noxious distempers of his heart, the law of the flesh — how to avoid or prevent or overbear he could not tell; he cries out, "Oh miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7, last verse). The want of this is the cause of all that heedlessness and adventurousness in [illegible] carriages, that they are so commonly taken aside with their distempers before they scarcely tell where they [illegible]. For I appeal to any [illegible] conscience, indeed to common [reconstructed: sense], whether it is possible or no — and let any man make work of it — that a city which has the enemy [illegible] should [illegible] remember it is besieged? That cannons should now be playing and battering, and the people within not think that they are assaulted? Unless either they know not what war means, or else they join with the enemies in it. So it is here: when a [illegible] mind is plotting how to act, his heart stirs, and [illegible] corruption boiling and bubbling in his bosom, the alarm is given — the Philistines are upon you, sins and devils are upon you — and yet a man forgets the condition he is in, [illegible] what he is commanded, counseled, admonished. This in (Proverbs 13:13) is given as a note of destruction: he that despises the command shall die, and that is contrary to fearing a command mentioned before.

A second sort are NEUTERS in religion who cares not much which end goes forward, provided they [illegible] go on quietly in their way, they would be of no side if they could be safe so. Much they would not do against sin, only that which is grossly vile they could wish might be reformed. They will no great matter for religion, only they could wish that this rigor and strictness might not be pressed, because in both these extremes they conceive there is trouble. Oh peace is a precious thing, this wretched politician would have peace with sin, peace with Christ, and peace with ordinances, peace with drunkards and profane wretches, and peace with such as walk exactly before God. His motto that writ upon his door, and that his measure, every man's good word, love of all men, so in [illegible] he loves neither God nor [illegible], nor his own soul in the conclusion, but our Savior's determination is definitive and peremptory, he that is not with me, is against me, and [reconstructed: he] that gathers not, [reconstructed: scatters], nay (James 4:4) he that will be a friend to the world is an enemy to God. Moderation and discretion is the compass by which this man steers; it is not men and brethren what shall we do? But rather what shall we do? Of little meddling comes much ease, if he may have that, he has his end, to be at war with his enemies is a [illegible] life, the temper of his zeal is like the warmth of his bed, not as hot as fire that would scorch him, nor yet so cold as fire as would chill him but just so warm as he may sleep in it. As neutral cities in time of war they pay to both sides because they would have war with neither, with the sincere and upright he will seem as they are, and with the ungodly he will be and do as they: Gallio-like he cares for none of those matters, if he may have his own matters if anything appertaining to sin or godliness, he will not trouble himself further than his own [illegible], and profit are interested in it; he will do nothing against his sin, and he is likely to have nothing at the hand of the Lord, for he loathes and hates him that never loathed nor hated his corruption, he will vomit with indignation such lukewarm varlets out of his mouth (Revelation 3).

The third sort is your LAZY HYPOCRITE who will be abundant in his purposes and professions against his sin, smokes out his days in powerless and [illegible] resolutions, wishings and wouldings but does nothing to purpose, [illegible] not himself in a restless pursuit against his evil. Hatred where it is settled and thorough carries all a man's endeavors with it, calls a man into the field, [reconstructed: when Hanun saw] he was hated of David, he gathers all his forces for offense and defense, and [reconstructed: hires] besides. War among [illegible] requires the whole man, with his time and strength, he that goes to war does not entangle himself, but leaves all his occasions, that might attend the enemy, he spies privately where his haunts are, what [illegible] he may take, where his holds are to demolish them, where his provision comes, to intercept [illegible], and to cut off his convoy, levies what forces he may and sends far off for succor and supply. When the lazy hypocrite makes his complaints against his distempers, and rests in his complaints, bewails his wretchedness and corruptions, but to a resolved war he will [illegible] go. You will do nothing upon point against those lusts, that have done so much evil against Christ and your own soul, is not the day yet to dawn, the time yet to come, that ever you set yourselves in earnest in battle array against your evils (Luke 13:24)? A sleepy kind of seeking that many do which shall never enter into grace, many shall seek to enter and shall not be able, but to strive to rise up against your corruptions and to maintain professed war against your sin that you do not — that you will not do. How many directions have you heard and yet attend not counsels and [illegible] not, means and ways have been presented and pressed and you improve none of them? Have you ever searched and tried your own ways, that you might see the haunts of your hearts and prevent them? Have you observed where the strongholds of sin and Satan are, high thoughts and self-conceitedness and labor to raze them, where the provisions have been made by musings and meditations that so you might stop and stifle those thoughts and so starve and famish your lusts? Have you cast yourself into the holy communion of the saints that you might levy new forces of counsels and directions? Have you sent to heaven and pursued God with importunate entreaties, for to send in succor and support, against those abominations which are too many and too strong for you? Your endeavor is not thorough, your [illegible] therefore is not sound.

The fourth sort is your treacherous hypocrite, who pretends great indignation against his sins, that he may keep them and that without suspicion, as such who are the receivers of thieves — they cannot hide them in their own houses, unless they make hue-and-cry after them in other places. The adulterous woman rails against her [illegible] in the view and hearing of others, that she may meet him in secret when no man may mistrust him or her; these are spies and Satan's intelligencers that hold private correspondence with their corruptions while they profess greatest opposition against them. As Hushai, David's friend, he pretended service to Absalom, that he might serve David, discover and defeat the counsel of Achitophel and [illegible] proceedings (2 Samuel 15:3-5). So here: they cannot devour widows' houses, unless they make long prayers, so they [illegible] (Isaiah 58:2-3). They fast and pray against their sins, that they may more freely commit them, not that they may please God, but that they may do their own pleasure. They can do anything against counsel — they quarrel at it; against the power of a [illegible], they endeavor to defeat it; against the evidence of conviction, they strive to darken it, and cavil at it; sees how the coast is, gives intelligence to his distempers. This and that argument is alleged, devises how to answer it; this reproof is administered, devises how to defeat it. As Rahab sent the men of the city upon a fruitless errand (Joshua 2:5): "Pursue after them quickly, and you shall overtake them," when she had brought them up, and hid them in [illegible] housetop. So it is also with conspirators and receivers of traitors: if they can lead the officer or searcher into some byplace, they will be as [illegible] and [illegible] to follow things to the utmost; but come home once to their own houses where the traitor is indeed — if they cannot hide them, rather than they shall do execution, they will defend them, but not deliver them up into the hands of the officer. How often and ordinary is it to every man's experience to cry out of pride and [illegible], carnal confidence that is in their [illegible], and that truly and justly — the stumps of that Dagon remain, the body of death yet continues, those lustings of the old man — but bring it home to their own doors, let it concern them in their [illegible] occasions, in any controversy between man and man, where the fault is to be found, and the blame to be laid, sin to be confessed, that these distempers are to be attached in their hands, they will do anything against arguments and the evidence of reason, but nothing against their sins. Such are they (John 6:60) that sought Christ for [illegible], etc. If Christ will be their cook, he shall be their king. But if they press them beyond their pace, and discover their falseness, and how far short they fall of the spiritual work of faith in Christ, they fall out [illegible]: "It's a hard saying, who can hear it?" And those dissemblers (Jeremiah 43:2), when the prophet did but cross them in their courses, would have plucked the carnal corrupt desires from their heart; they fly in his face, and profess they will die in the quarrel. They hate not their sin, but the ordinance that would discover their sins; they would not destroy their sins, but the evidence of reason that would condemn their sins.

So much for detestation of sin.

The second particular to be considered in the doctrine is a sequestration from sin. It is a word common among those that attend upon the law, when men are at a controversy about goods and land, and the cause is depending, the goods or land is sequestered, set aside and put into the power of any parties, but set aside till the case be decided. So under this preparative work the soul is sequestered from sin: when God has made a man see sin, and willing to hate it, the soul and sin are at controversy, the soul revolts from under the authority of sin, and says sin is not my ruler, I cannot rule myself, and sin shall not rule me. It was by usurpation that it has had so long possession of me, but it shall not domineer in my soul any longer. And therefore the poor distressed sinner is glad that Christ is stirring in the word, and says he, I am resolved never to yield to the authority of sin more, I will sue out a sequestration, and oh that my heart may be left in the hand of the Spirit of Christ. I was not made for sin, but for God; oh that I may be delivered from my sin, that I may come at God again. And now he is content that God would [illegible] him into hell, so he would free him from his sins (Hosea 14:8). Ephraim shall say, "What have I to do any more with idols?" (Romans 11:24). The soul is now as a graft cut off from the stock of old Adam; it grows not to it, nor is fed by it any more.

This sequestration discovers itself by two acts.

- 1 There is no allurement can entice the soul. - 2 No evils that can drive the soul to its former sin.

First, nothing can entice the soul to [illegible] sins; no allurements can prevail with him, no thoughts of [illegible] delights or future pleasure can [illegible] him to fall in with his old [illegible]. [illegible], but says he, I know the hook, [illegible] none [illegible] that bait; I know the cup and the guilt, but I know the poison also. He will never [illegible] again to folly; he resolves never to see the faces of his sins more.

No present evils, [illegible], [illegible] the soul to entertain [illegible]; he has found [illegible] than these — better to be in chains than in the [illegible] of darkness. Fire and faggot [illegible] wildfire, but he has felt [illegible], [illegible] rather to fear [illegible] of a God rather than the [illegible] of all the [illegible] the world. And hence the face of the [illegible] towards God, and as [illegible] the king [illegible] he [illegible] not [illegible] to the [illegible] again to die there. So it [illegible] with a broken [illegible], [illegible] his great request to God that he may not go [illegible] again to his [illegible]. In this [illegible] from sin the [illegible] as [illegible], etc.

We here see the reason of all those [illegible] and [illegible] of such [illegible] promised better things, the [illegible] to his [illegible], the [illegible] to his [illegible], and the [illegible] man to the world after [illegible] — they are the same men they [illegible], [illegible] to their former follies, and are as bad as ever. These men were never cut off from their corruptions, the union was there still, the soul was in league and love with sin still, and therefore it [illegible], [illegible]: [illegible] be [illegible], and therefore they [illegible], and grow worse and worse many years after. If you have a privy lust harbored in your heart that will be your ruin, you will be as bad or [illegible] than ever.

Exhortation: to [illegible] all our endeavors to see a [illegible] of it, and to seek to heaven that God may work it in us, let this be always in your prayers: Lord, that I may hate my sin, that I may put off the love of sinning — whatever you hate, sin is worse than that; it's worse than reproach, disgrace, sickness, poverty. Your love to sin should be turned into hatred, and your hatred to it should be greater than ever your love has been. And if you do not hate your sin, it's certain the God of Heaven will hate you — the froward in heart is an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 3:32). You yourself [illegible] an abomination to the Lord, if your sin is not an abomination to you.

If you will part with your sins the Lord will set his love upon you (Jeremiah 3:1): though you have done evil things as you could, yet return to me. It's said in Judges 10:15-16, when the people of Israel came bewailing their sins, crying for mercy, and putting away their gods, that then the soul of the Lord was grieved for the misery of Israel, and he had mercy on them. He is the same God still, and if he sees you grieving for your sins, he will grieve for your sorrows. When Ephraim bemoaning himself, judging himself for his sin, and crying out to the Lord, turn me, and I shall be turned, it's said he heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, and his bowels were troubled for him, and I do earnestly remember him still, I will surely have mercy upon you, says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:18-20).