Doctrine 6: When God Has Brought His Chosen to Bewail Their Sins, He Will Make a Gracious Discovery of This Fountain

DOCTRINE. VI. When God has brought his Chosen to bewail their Sins, especially the Affronts which they have Offered to Christ, and to Pray to him for Mercy, he will then make a gracious Discovery of this Fountain to them.

The rise of this Doctrine is from the Coherence of the Text with that which went before. God had promised to pour out such a spirit upon them (Zechariah 12:10 &c.). And here he tells us that in that day this Fountain shall be Opened. In the former Doctrine we considered this benefit as it refers to the Church in general, and particularly to God's Ancient people, considered as a People: in this we come to take an account of it as it refers to Persons, and is applied to men in Conversion; which we are to suppose to be included in the former, as the spiritual aim of it. And that we may come at the right sense of this Doctrine, observe these Conclusions.

1. That there are those whom God has chosen in Christ, to be made partakers in his saving benefits. We before observed that if we would take the consideration of the great affair of God's grace appearing in the good will that he manifests to sinful man, at the rise of it, we must follow it up to the eternal purpose of God, in which the whole scheme of it was laid out. Now in this purpose of his there was a designation of them that should be the subjects in whom this grace was to shine forth; and accordingly all was accommodated for the illustration of it in such a subject. When therefore the Apostle discourses of these spiritual blessings, he runs them up here (Ephesians 1:3–4): According as he has chosen us in Christ &c.

2. That Christ must be Opened to these as a Fountain for sin and uncleanness, in order to their being Saved by him. Salvation supposes something that they are to be Saved from, which is their present misery. He that is under no evil, needs no Salvation; they are only the distressed that want it, or will be advantaged by it. And this Salvation must be applied to the removal of that from which the evil derives: now that which is man's infelicity derives from sin and uncleanness; it is the guilt and the pollution of sin that hurts them. As therefore Christ is appointed for this, so he must be discovered to them as such a one, how else shall they accept of and entertain him as so? Which they must do, if ever he profit them; for it is by faith that they receive him, and so are advantaged by him.

3. That there is a time when God will Open and Apply Christ to these. They are born in their natural estate strangers to Christ, and far from Salvation (Ephesians 2:3). We were children of wrath, even as others. They may live a great while in their alienation from him, and refuse him, though he offers himself to them: they ever do so till he comes with power. But because he has chosen them to obtain Salvation by Christ, he will therefore bring them to this Fountain, and make them to partake in a title to it, and effectual influences of it upon them. Our Savior has plainly asserted that in (John 6:37): All that the Father has given me shall come to me. If Election has pitched upon a person, Vocation will without fail, sooner or later find him out, and bring him home.

4. That in order to his so Opening this Fountain, he will produce the fore-cited effects in them, by the power of his Spirit, namely a spirit of mourning, and a spirit of supplication. This is the way in which he makes Christ effectual in men, for the ends of his being a fountain to them.

Now for our right taking up of this order, let us observe in general, that we are considering of such as are converted to God, under and by the dispensation of the Gospel and Ordinances, and the effectual application of them. As for God's proceeding with elect infants, who die before they are capable of being so treated, we are not now enquiring after that. Here then more particularly let these things be considered.

1. That we must distinguish between the Opening of the Fountain doctrinally, and savingly. As to the outward discoveries of Christ which are made in the Gospel and Ordinances, they are made to all promiscuously to whom the means of grace are sent, and the great truths which concern Christ and Salvation by him are urged upon them: but where the Spirit of God does inwardly reveal Christ in the souls of any, and makes them sharers in his Salvation, he always brings them to such a frame. Such therefore are the only blessed ones (Matthew 5:4): Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

2. That we must distinguish between Passive and Active Conversion. This distinction is generally received among the Orthodox, and by all them who acknowledge that there are the habits of saving grace infused into us, in order to our being able to exert grace in our lives; and the Apostle plainly shows the difference (Galatians 5:25): If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. Passive Conversion then is that change which is made in us in Regeneration, by the infusion of all saving graces into us, of which it is said (2 Corinthians 5:17): If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature. Active Conversion consists in the exerting and exercising of these graces. The former is done by the Spirit alone; in the latter he co-operates with us. And we may take from hence this brief account of the present affair.

1. That God's Elect do many times long despise the offers of Christ that are made to them in the Gospel. God will have his own to know, that their Conversion, as well as their Salvation, is of grace, and that they have a nature in them as full of obstinacy and enmity as others: he therefore leaves them for a season, to resist his Spirit, and to show the desperate malignity that is in them; and they neglect the things of their peace, withstand the offers of a Savior, and quench the motions of the Spirit in them, that accompany the calls of the Gospel. This Ephraim confesses of himself (Jeremiah 31:18): You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Yes, sometimes violently to oppose and persecute his Church: such a one was Paul, when a Pharisee (Philippians 3:6): Touching zeal, persecuting the Church.

2. That there are some common legal works wrought in the Elect, antecedent to their Regeneration, or Passive Conversion. The Spirit of God is wont to begin with men by convictions and terrors, by setting the Law home on their consciences, which make them afraid: and those are wrought not only in God's children, but in others also; and the Elect themselves do too frequently stifle these motions, out-grow these awakenings, and return again to their former security: the time of their new-birth is not yet come, and God hereby lets them see what enemies they are to their own salvation, and that if he had not come with Almighty efficacy to them, they had refused him to their destruction, as well as others. How many such common works have some out-grown; and become worse after them? And yet they have had their months in which God has taken them, because he had an immutable love for them. See for this (Isaiah 57:17, 18): I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart: I have seen his ways, and will heal him.

3. That all saving qualifications are wrought in them at once, in Passive Conversion. When the Spirit of God comes to produce this great change in the sinner, he infuses into him all his sanctifying graces: there is a new man created in him (Ephesians 4:24). There is a perfection of parts, though not of degrees: sanctification is throughout (1 Thessalonians 5:23). There is therefore no order in the production of these saving qualities in the soul, but they come in all at once. In Conversion whole Christ is put on, it is therefore called a new birth (John 3:3). And it is the babe of grace which is born, and it has all its members entire.

4. That God draws the man to exert these graces in Active Conversion, after the manner of a Rational Agent. In the exerting of grace, the man is not only active, but voluntary too; he acts as a cause by counsel. As therefore there is the co-operation of God in this, as well as his operation in the former, according to (Philippians 2:13): It is God which works in you, to will and to do, of his own good pleasure. So he works upon the rational faculties or powers that are put into man; and having sanctified them, he draws them forth to put the new nature into act, upon sight, deliberation, and with persuasion. He is not drawn to it by mere instinct, but he knows what he does, and why he does it: he has a foundation on which he acts every grace; he knows whom he believes in, and why he so does (2 Timothy 1:12): I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day; and so of the rest. God is therefore said to draw us with the cords of a man (Hosea 11:4).

5. In this Conversion the soul betakes itself to Christ by faith, as to a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. The great grace celebrated in the Gospel is faith, by which we close with Christ for life, wherein we comply with the main article of the New Covenant; and therefore salvation is ascertained to it (John 3:16): Whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This grace is not before the others in being, though it leads in the exercise, and does indeed influence all the other, being that which fetches in help from Christ for the acting of them. Now Christ is the immediate object on whom faith fixes; it believes in him for all the good that it wants, and sees to be stored in him; and that which draws it so to rely on him, is the discovery it has made of his sufficiency and readiness to answer its great necessity; which is, to be delivered from the guilt and defilement of sin; and that because it apprehends all this to be fountained in him, that it may be communicated by him to all those that stand in need of it; and this it does upon the invitation given in the Gospel, to all that are oppressed with the burden of sin, to come to him for succor against it.

6. This faith is always accompanied with true repentance. In active Conversion these two graces are in conjunction. I shall not here meddle with the disputes, which of these two graces is the first: if we speak of their production, they are together, and so there is no priority of any grace, they being created in the same instant: if we speak of the order of nature in their activity, faith must have the precedency, because it influences all the other; for though there is a legal repentance before Conversion, yet that which is Evangelical follows upon it, and is no further pleasing to God, than as it is exercised by faith: but in respect to order of time, the man repents and believes at once, and so they are together. It is a penitent faith, and a believing repentance that is exerted; they are therefore conjoined (Acts 20:21): Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.

7. For the right exerting of these graces, there is the exercise of a Spirit of mourning, and of supplication. There is a principle of this, or there is such a Spirit habitually put into the man when he is new made, but the improvement of it is in the practising of faith and repentance. Here then,

1. For the exerting of true repentance, he draws out a Spirit of mourning. In repentance we turn from sin to God, in which turning, there is not only an abstinence from the outward acts, but a cordial renouncing and forsaking of those sins which we rightly repent of; and for that end we must be made to see them to be evil and mischievous, and that we have foolishly turned from God to them; the genuine effect whereof upon the heart, is to bemoan ourselves by reason of them: and hence the Scripture annexes mourning to repentance, as an inseparable concomitant of it, hence that in (Jeremiah 31:18): I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning of himself, &c. And for the producing of this mourning, God offers the conviction of the evil and bitterness there is in our sins (Jeremiah 2:19): Know and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that you have forsaken the Lord your God, &c. Now there are two passages to be observed in this mourning.

He bewails all his sins. Godly sorrow is for sin: that is the procuring cause of all the sorrows that poor man is exposed to, and is therefore that which peculiarly calls for our mourning; and this belongs to that sorrow which the Apostle tells us is so serviceable to true repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10), "Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of." It is by this that we embitter sin to ourselves, and stir up in us a hatred of it: for, though sorrow be a mixt affection, yet it mainly partakes of hatred, which is a separating affection, and makes us to reject the object of it. Now if this sorrow be genuine, it is universal; it bears a respect to all sin; because if it be right, it is excited by the apprehension of the great evil there is in sin, in the nature, as well as in the effects of it; which evil being in all sin, it must needs extend to all: hence that (Psalm 119:104), "I hate every false way;" and where this hatred is, there will be sorrow for our having hurt ourselves by it, and therein dishonoured God.

He more peculiarly laments the affronts that he has offered to Christ, who has been set before him in the tenders of grace. This therefore is peculiarly remarked in Zechariah 12:10: "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only son, and be in bitterness for him, as one is in bitterness for his first born." Where the Gospel comes, and Christ is exhibited, together with the need that men have of him by reason of sin; the convictions whereof are laid before men to persuade them of the necessity they stand in of having him to be their Savior; and men have made light of these invitations which have been given them; they have not been persuaded of their misery by sin, and brought to accept of Christ to rescue them from it, and have accordingly despised him, neglected him, chosen lying vanities before him, and remained in their unbelief; this is the great provocation under the Gospel (John 3:19): "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men choose darkness rather than light." This sin therefore they shall peculiarly mourn for and resent with the greatest sorrow.

For the exercising of faith, this spirit of mourning is ever accompanied with a spirit of supplication. The first breathings and breakings forth of faith are in prayer. When once Paul was converted, that is the next news we hear of him (Acts 9:11): "Behold he prayeth." This is the first sign by which the new-born Christian discovers that he has life in him. True prayer supposes a principle of faith in the man, for only such a prayer as is spirited with it is acceptable to, and prevalent with, God (James 5:16): "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much;" compare chapter 1:5, 6: "Let him ask of God, but let him ask in faith." God has therefore made it a medium for our participation in the blessings engaged in the New Covenant (Ezekiel 36:37): "I will yet be enquired of for this by the house of Israel to do it for them." In which prayer,

He confesses and bewails his sins before God. Confession of sin is, if not an essential part, yet an inseparable adjunct of prayer, by which sinful man addresses God for mercy; hence the promise so runs (Proverbs 28:13), "He that confesseth and forsaketh shall find mercy:" and for this reason, when God invites backsliders to return, and promises them acceptance, he enters that caution (Jeremiah 3:13), "Only acknowledge your iniquity." Nor indeed can we rightly come to Christ for a pardon and cleansing, unless we lay open our malady before him; so that there is a tacit confession of sin in the very petitions that are put up on this account: but God expects that in our solemn addressing of him, we be explicit in it (Leviticus 26:40): "If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass, &c."

He requests his converting grace. There must be a root of conversion in the man, before he can sincerely desire or petition to be converted; and indeed gracious mourning, confession, and supplication, do follow after that inward and transforming work of the Spirit in the man (Jeremiah 31:19): "After that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed, &c." However, in the actual turning of the soul to God, the man finds that it is not in his own power to turn himself, but that he must have it given him of God; and accordingly he asks it of him: thus did Ephraim, verse 18, "Turn you me, and I shall be turned;" and God directs Israel to use such words (Hosea 14:2), "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously;" and these cries are drawn forth by the efficacy of preventing grace.

He professes his acceptance of, and reliance upon, Christ for salvation. He acknowledges that Christ is an all-sufficient Savior, that there is a fulness of virtue in this fountain to take away all sin and uncleanness from him: he answers the call of the Spirit in the Word, and embraces the promise annexed to it, and echoes back to it with acceptance and gratitude, as (Psalm 27:8), "When you saidst, seek you my face, mine heart said to you, your face, Lord, will I seek;" (Jeremiah 3:22), "Return you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings; behold we come to you, for you are the Lord our God:" and thus is the everlasting Covenant passed between God and him; now is he united with the Fountain of Grace, and all the saving virtue of it is derived to him, and this is the usual method of divine grace, in bringing a sinner to participate in the saving benefits which were purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ for him.

USE 1. For information in two or three particulars.

We have here a rule to judge of the efficacy of the Gospel in the dispensation of it. There is a great deal of reason why the people of God should observe, not only who enjoys the Gospel in which Christ is opened to men, and where it is that Christ is most clearly and distinctly declared in his whole work; but also what fruit or efficacy there is of it; how far the virtue of this fountain for the ends of its being opened, is made evident by the effects of it upon men: and though the work of application, wherein Christ is made to us righteousness and sanctification, for the pardoning and cleansing of our sin, be a secret work, and no man can certainly know it of another, except by extraordinary revelation; and though the things which are the concomitants of this, and evidence to it, namely, a spirit of mourning and supplication, are not so obvious, but that men may be mistaken about them, inasmuch as there may be secret prayer, and bewailing of sin, that is sincere, and accepted with God, which makes no noise; and there may be a show of much of this, but whether it be sincere, and proceeds from such a spirit given to us, can be judged of only charitably; yet there is usually so much to be discerned on this account, by such as observe the times, as may make the hearts of such as fear God, glad or sad, and many times there are too awful evidences of the general prevailing of the contrary spirit, by the notorious appearance of such things as are inconsistent with this. If we speak on a public account, when God intends to pour out much grace upon a people, he will give a spirit of mourning and prayer; and therefore when there is but a little of this, and much of the contrary to be observed, when it is as (Isaiah 22:12-13), In that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth; and behold joy, and gladness, slaying of oxen, and killing of sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine; let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. When instead of reforming the sins that are among men, there is nothing mended, but they rather grow worse; it says, that if there were a spirit of mourning, it would not be so. And when prayer is neglected; particularly in families, and there are so many houses without it, as is complained, it is to be supposed that secret prayer is neglected too; and much more that the spirit of supplication is greatly wanting. No, though there be many fasts kept, for the bemoaning of the prevailing sins, making of humble confessions of them to God, and asking of his pardon and healing; yet if this be all, and there is nothing amended, nor is the work of the present day in this regard pursued; it will bespeak, that the day for the plentiful accomplishment of this promise that we have under our present consideration, does not as yet commence. And let serious Christians judge by such rules, and say, whether they do not see great occasion for lamentation on this account. The same observation is also applicable to particular persons.

We may hence learn what little reason the most have to boast of Christ as a fountain of salvation to them. It must needs be a sad sight, to see with what security and confidence the generality do nourish themselves, as if they nothing doubted of a title to Christ, and life by him, and take it amiss to have the reality of it so much as questioned, who yet cannot bear the test of the truth in hand, but must needs fall before it, and stand condemned by it. If it be, as it is, a great truth, that where God applies Christ to men, in the benefits which he has purchased for sinners, he pours out upon them a spirit of mourning and supplication, certainly then, all such as are without such a spirit, must needs be strangers to such an application: and without doubt, where such a spirit is put into men, there will be the exerting of it in their lives and practices. When therefore there is nothing of this, but the quite contrary notoriously appearing, such men's faith must needs be presumption, and their boasting is of a false gift. Think of this then, all you who are so far from mourning for your sins, that you can live in them quietly and contentedly, no, you rejoice in iniquity, and take the greatest satisfaction in gratifying of your carnal lusts, who are never well, but when you are devising mischief on your beds, and putting it in practice as soon as opportunity affords; you that can make a mock of sin, that can drink your stolen waters, and eat your bread in secret, and wipe your mouths, and say, we have done no wickedness. You that can boast of your lewd pranks, and show your sin as Sodom, and hide it not; you that join hard in hand with your lewd companions, and encourage one another in your wicked courses, surely you never had the healing virtue of this fountain applied to you; and to hope to have your sins pardoned, and yet not cleansed is a vain hope. Think of this also all you prayerless ones, who instead of calling upon God's name, abuse it, and take it in vain by your profane taking it into your mouths; who can live days, and months, and years without so much as a formal addressing of God; whose houses will one day rise up against you, and testify that you never prayed in them, either by yourselves, or with your families; who never carried your iniquities to God as a burden too heavy for you to bear, and with strong cries besought him to take them away by a free pardon, and powerful purging. Let all such know, that how presumptuously soever you may now cry, Lord, Lord, there is a time coming, if mercy prevent not, when he will say, I never knew you, depart from me all you workers of iniquity. And be not deceived, for God is not mocked.

3. This shews us who they are that are like to enjoy the clearest discoveries, and most plentiful applications of Christ to them: certainly they are such to whom God imparts the largest measure of a spirit of mourning and supplication. Where God intends to build highest, he will lay the foundation lowest. The greatest spiritual mourners are appointed for the more abundant consolations. They are the humble and contrite whom God delights to dwell with, and to revive (Isaiah 57:15). Christ's anointing had a special regard for such as these, and therefore his applications will be eminently made to them (Isaiah 61): The Lord has anointed me, &c. to bind up the broken hearted, to appoint to them that mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, &c. Does God then bring you into godly sorrow? Does he make sin bitter to you? Does he fill you with grief at, and cause you deeply to bewail your sins before him? Be not discouraged, but take it as a good omen, and wait for the consolations of his Spirit; remember what he has said (Psalm 126:5): They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. It is also certain, that when God excites in us a heart to pray to him, and fills us with ardent desires, and groans unutterable, after him for his grace, for his pardoning, for his cleansing of us, and we cannot let him alone; it is a sign that he has great mercies to bestow on us, which in this way he will communicate to us. God, who has promised that his shall pray to him (and it is he who gives prayer to his own) has assured us of a gracious audience, and a good return to our prayers (Jeremiah 29:12, 13, 14): Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will hearken to you, and you shall seek me and find me, &c. Be not then discouraged; and though you may not at present experience those sensible apprehensions of the efficacy of the Fountain, for the taking away of your sin, yet doubt not that God will in the best way do it for you, and give you the experience of it to your abundant consolation. God will exalt his grace on you in this way, and make it to appear how great is his kindness to you, in taking off your guilt, and washing away your pollution: and when you are suitably prepared so to glorify him, he will fill you with the discoveries of his love, for which you shall admire him for ever.

USE 2. For examination, let us hereby prove whether ever this Fountain were savingly opened to us, and it concerns all to put themselves upon this trial. For motive then, consider,

1. You are all by nature under the guilt and defilement of sin. Sin and uncleanness are hereditary to all Adam's children, and they derive to them in the channel of natural generation; for this we are told (Ephesians 2:3): We are children of wrath, even as others; and he demands and resolves (Job 14:4): Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. This then is the condition in which every one is born. Adam's first transgression was ours by a legal imputation, and his corrupt image which he contracted, instead of God's image which he lost, is ours by propagation; and thus we come into the world guilty and filthy creatures (Psalm 51:5): Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. And this guilt and defilement are increased by all the actual sins that we have committed since we came into the world.

2. Except this be done away, it will be your ruin. All sin in its own nature and operation is deadly. Sin and death are closely connected each with the other (Romans 5:12): By one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. The guilt that adheres to sin binds the man under the curse, and that is death (Ezekiel 18:4): The soul that sins, it shall die. The law has already past the sentence upon the man, and unless it be removed it will without fail take place on him: and the defilement of sin is itself the very spiritual death of the soul: it has deprived the man of the life of sanctification, and he can no more perform a gracious action, than a dead man can a living action; hence that expression (Ephesians 2:1): You were dead in trespasses and sins. So that as long as it abides on him, he cannot at all answer the end of his creation.

3. Nothing else can do it for you but this Fountain. There is a sufficiency of virtue in it for this end; God provided it for this very purpose, and he does nothing in vain: it therefore never failed of producing this effect, where it was savingly applied. But except you repair here, all your other attempts will prove lost labor: this salvation is no where else to be had (Acts 4:12). There is nothing else that can expiate the guilt of sin, or make atonement to the justice of God for the remission of it, but this one sacrifice of Christ: thousands of rams will not procure it, God therefore blows upon them with contempt (Micah 6:6, 7, 8). Nor will all the waters of Abana and Pharpar cleanse this leprosy; it is only the blood of Christ that is cleansing, and that blood does cleanse from all sin (1 John 1:7).

4. Except it be applied to you it will not have this saving efficacy. Christ does not profit all; although his virtue be sufficient, yet all are not pardoned and healed by him: there are multitudes that perish in their sins notwithstanding; and that not only of those to whom he was never revealed in the Gospel, but of such also, who have been told of, and invited to come to him: and from where is this, but because application has not been made of him to them for this end? Sinners that are outwardly called, perish as well as others, and the reason is because they do not answer the call, and come to the waters, the threatening is therefore declared against such (Proverbs 1:24, &c.): Because I have called and you refused, &c. I will also laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear comes, &c.

Till then you know that he has been thus applied to you, your condition must needs be dubious. It is from the work of application that we are to fetch our evidence of our safe estate. It is not enough that there is a Christ, and that he is a fountain of salvation, but is he ours? For this reason professors are put upon it to prove and try themselves; and the enquiry is not, whether there be such a fountain, and there be a fulness in it, but whether Christ be in us (2 Corinthians 13:5). Know you not your own selves, how that Christ is in you, except you be reprobates? And hence we have such an expression (Colossians 1:27): Christ in you the hope of glory. And though, if the thing be so, your state is out of danger, yet till you know that it is so, you cannot enjoy inward quiet or satisfaction.

There are many who cheat themselves with false hopes on this account. The natural security in sinful man, makes him ready to take easy satisfaction about his good estate; and the delusions of Satan, and the false reports of a carnal mind, and the fair shows which there are in a common work of the Spirit, are snares which they are entangled by: there is upon this account great need to be cautioned against rash presumption, lest otherwise you labor of a pernicious mistake; thus the Apostle to them (1 Corinthians 6:9): Be not deceived.

The doctrine in hand affords you a sure rule of trial. Whatever difference there may be, in the manner or degree of mourning, or of the impressions which are made on the conscience, by the terrors of the Lord; yet, when God makes the Gospel effectual for the application of the virtue of this fountain to a sinner, he always gives a Spirit of mourning and prayer; that is, he gives grace to mourn and pray after a godly manner. If therefore you can discover this to be in you, and are not mistaken about it, you have an evidence that will not deceive you. Put yourselves then upon the trial of them severally, and that by such rules as follow.

Has God poured upon you a Spirit of mourning for sin? Have you received the grace of God by sorrow? And for proof of this,

Did you ever mourn at all for sin? If not, this trial is resolved at once. He that never mourned for sin, did never partake in the saving virtue of this fountain: and it is to be feared that a great many forward professors will fall at this first trial. There are many that build high, but did never dig for a foundation. The stony ground hearer's religion begins with joy, as (Matthew 13:20): He hears the word, and anon with joy receives it. It may be you have mourned for the fruits of sin, for your outward losses, bereavements, reproaches, pains, etc., but it has not been the sin that procured them, but the things themselves that stirred up your sorrow: and if the sin itself was not bitter to you, you never repaired to the grace of Christ to take it away.

Have you mourned after a godly sort? It may be you have been touched with remorses of conscience, and sin has been set home upon you with terror: but that may be, and yet be only a part of the punishment of sin in this life: there is therefore a double sorrow for sin, godly and worldly (2 Corinthians 7:10). And is yours a godly one? Try it by these things.

Have you ever felt the bitterness of sin itself? Many an one finds sorrow by his sins, and is forced to acknowledge that his sin has brought it upon him, who yet is not led by it to see and believe that sin is in its own nature so vile and evil as to be odious. It may be he only reads it in the law, and he sees that God will maintain his own law; but meanwhile he lays the blame, not on the sin that procured his sorrow, but on the law that had such a sanction in it: and he is therefore sorry for his sin, only because he is sorry that there is such a law, that will not suffer him to sin with impunity. This is no godly sorrow: it is not acted by humility, but by pride and prejudice; and he says as they (Ezekiel 33:10): If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how shall we then live?

Have you been deeply oppressed with the burden of sin, so as thereby to be made weary of it? Though God improves the troubles and mischiefs procured by sin, to bring us to see the evil of it, and cry out by reason of the bitterness there is in it, yet in a kindly mourning, sin itself is made to be a burden that we cannot tell how to bear, and hereupon we long to be rid of it, and earnestly seek after a freedom from it; thus it was with Paul (Romans 7:24): Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? We seek a pardon, for we are undone without it: but we seek the death of sin too, nor can we be at quiet, but in the assurance and experience of the beginning of it in us, and a comfortable persuasion that it will ere long be wholly destroyed: hence that groan of his (Psalm 38:4): Mine iniquities are gone over mine head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.

Has your mourning reached to, and fixed upon the sin of your nature? It is not enough to have bewailed this or that particular actual sin, although God usually makes the conviction of, and the sorrow for such, to be leading to the other: but he that has truly mourned for sin, has been led up from there to the fountain of corruption which is within, and that has driven him to seek after the fountain of grace which is in Christ: and always true mourning ceases not, till it comes here, and lays out its greatest lamentations here. Thus it did in David, in the forecited (Psalm 51:5), and in the Church (Isaiah 64:6): We are all as an unclean thing; and in Paul (Romans 7:21): I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me.

4. Has this sorrow wrought in you to a true repentance from sin? Repentance is one of the saving works of the Spirit wrought in application, and wherever Christ is communicated to any as a fountain of grace, there will be this effect of it. Now godly sorrow is an ingredient of this repentance, and therefore if it be right, it will ever accompany such a thing. Repentance is a cordial turning from sin to God: sorrow for sin is that which helps and promotes this turning, if it be kindly; for it is a separating affection, and as it derives from hatred of that which procures our trouble, so it will express it, in carrying us away from it. Hence that (2 Corinthians 7:9): "You sorrowed to repentance, for you were made sorry after a godly manner." If then you have mourned never so bitterly for sin, yet if you have not reached to such a repentance, it has not been right; nor will it evidence your being in Christ.

5. Has this sorrow kindled in you a universal hatred of sin? When God embitters sin to us, it is to make us to loathe it; and if this hatred be of the right stamp, it will not only be against that one sin that has done us the present sensible harm, but all of the kind, but every thing that bears the nature of sin on it. We can say as he (Psalm 119:104): "I hate every false way." And the reason is, because, if we mourned for sin under the consideration of its being sin, we shall be engaged against every other sin, in which we see the same grounds of hatred or detestation. He that mourns for one sin, and can in the mean while hug another in his bosom, and dally with it, does not mourn aright for any.

6. Has your sorrow looked back to the sins of youth? Where God does indeed give a spirit of mourning, he will make a thorough work of it, he will lead the soul into a soaking consideration of all that has been grievous to his holy Spirit; he will bring to mind old sins, and those that had been forgotten before, and embitter them to us, and the reason is because those sins also must be repented of, for which there must be a suitable sorrow. Time will not wear off the guilt of any sin, but Christ must cleanse it with his blood, and in order thereto we must carry it to him for cleansing; and we cannot do so aright, but by bemoaning ourselves before him for it. David therefore in his address to God runs up here (Psalm 25:7): "Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions."

7. Have you in you a habitual frame of spiritual mourning? Godly sorrow is not a land-flood, that is raised by some storm, and is dried up again soon after that is over, but it is a living spring, it is a habitual grace in the soul, and for that reason it is called a spirit of grace (Chap. 12:10). And this appears in a constant promptitude to mourn for sin upon every occasion. Every sight of sin stirs up this godly sorrow. Whenever you feel any stirrings of concupiscence within, it makes you to cry out, "Oh wretched man, who shall deliver me" (Romans 7:24). If at any time you are overtaken with any sin, it makes you to groan, and bewail yourselves, and say as he (Psalm 38:18): "I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin." No, if you see others to sin, though they commit it without remorse, yet you cannot but mourn for it, as he (Psalm 119:136): "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not your law." And verse 158: "I beheld the transgressors and was grieved, because they kept not your word."

8. Have you been duly affected in particular with the affronts which you have offered to Jesus Christ? This is specified (Chap. 12:10): "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." There is nothing more bitter to one that is truly converted, than the ill entertainment that he has given to a Savior, who came to him, and offered himself to be one to him. It may be you have led a sober life, and cannot charge yourselves with the immoralities which others have fallen into: but you have lived under the calls of the gospel, and have been many a time invited, and solicited to come to Christ, to take him for a Savior; but you have made light of it, neglected him, been content without him. You have often been inwardly striven with by the motions of the Spirit, but you have quenched them, and grieved him thereby. You have lived in your unbelief, and been contented so to do; you have had a low esteem of him, and of his salvation; you have relied on your own righteousness, and not submitted to his; you sought him not, would not come to him for life; and thus you went on from year to year, till he came to awaken and bring you home to himself. Now all these things come to mind, and they carry an emphatic consideration in them to make you vile in your own eyes, and bewail your impenitence. If ever you looked to Christ with an eye of faith, it has been with a mournful eye.

2. Have you experienced a spirit of supplication? We observed that it is inseparable from the former: and would you be rightly informed about this, prove yourselves by these things.

1. Have you found kindled in you a restless desire to be delivered from sin? True prayers are the offering up of our real and cordial desires to God; and hence by discovering the truth of our desires, we may come to know what our prayers are. Now there is none that prays aright against sin, but he that longs insatiably to be rid of it. There are many that pray to have those miseries removed which they undergo for sin; but this is but howling, and not praying: that is a right expressing of our request on this account (Hosea 14:2): "Take away all iniquity." But the heart must go with it, which it will never do, till we are weary of sin, and the presence of it is a heavy burden to us.

Have you found that this deliverance is no where else to be had? The right prayer, which God hears and accepts, is the prayer of the needy, the poor, and the destitute (Psalms 102:17). Christ's office is to succour him that has no helper (Psalms 72:12). As such therefore he expects that we come, saying as (Hosea 14:3), "Ashur shall not save us, &c. For in you the fatherless findeth mercy." And that we may thus pray, it is requisite that we have a deep sense imprinted on us, that this is our condition. God makes the soul to despair of any succour from any other hand, he is not only in a pit where there is no water, but his eyes fail him (Isaiah 41:17). He finds himself to be engulfed in the waves of destruction, and cries out as they when just ready to be swallowed up (Matthew 8:25), "Lord, save us, we perish."

Have you been encouraged to go to God in prayer for this with hope? A spirit of supplication is a gracious frame, that is put into the heart by the Spirit of God; and there are the graces that are used in the exerting of it: the principal of these is faith, and the first stirring of it is usually in hope; which hope is always at work, and moves in the genuine prayers of the people of God. This hope has not always alike strength in it; but yet it has that degree of it, whereby we are enabled to look with some expectation of receiving the good we ask for, at the hands of God. In your distress by reason of sin, you resolved to go to God for help against it; and what was it that drew out this resolution? Was it not an apprehension that Christ was such a fountain for sin, and at least a resolve that the thing is not impossible; thus therefore he argued (Jonah 3:9), "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?"

Have you freely confessed your sins in the aggravations of them? Right confession always flows from a spirit of prayer. God expects it (Jeremiah 3:13): "Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, &c." David therefore tells us in what way he went for, and how he obtained a pardon, and the healing of his sins (Psalms 32:5): "I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgavest the iniquity of my sin." And this confession has been full and free, and without any covers; for he there says, "Mine iniquity have I not hid." It is a false heart that petitions help against sin, and in praying for it pleads excuses and extenuations: this proceeds from a spirit of bondage, and not from a spirit of adoption.

Have you humbled yourselves to God's foot in your prayers to him? A spirit of prayer is a soul-humbling, a soul-abasing spirit; hence that (Psalms 9:12), "He forgets not the cry of the humble"; and (Psalms 10:17), "Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble: you will prepare their heart, you will cause your ear to hear." He that prays as he ought to God, for pardon and acceptance in Christ, is deeply sensible of his great vileness by reason of sin, and of his utter unworthiness of mercy; and hence he goes with a rope on his head, and sackcloth on his loins, that is, he resigns himself to God, with all the testimonials of his acknowledging that he has no dependence on anything but free grace; that he has nothing of his own, nor can he oblige God. He therefore carries that with him in (Daniel 9:8, 9), "To us belongs confusion of face; to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses." And his address is in that form (Psalms 25:11), "For your name sake O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great."

Have you prayed for the purging as well and as earnestly as for pardon? Doubtless he that knows what it is to be guilty before God, will be very importunate in asking forgiveness, and well he may, for who can stand before God's anger? But a kindly resentment of guilt, so as to justify God who condemns, will be accompanied with an apprehension of the vileness of sin, and that will make us weary of the presence of it, and to loath ourselves for it, and will draw out our cries to have it taken away; both these therefore are included in that (Hosea 14:2), "Take away all iniquity."

Are your prayers importunate, or in good earnest? There are many that pray in good words, and it may be with much of noise too, and yet not from a spirit of supplication: they are not importunate and cordial requests which they put up. He that is in earnest, will take no denial, but will press with greatest urgency and resolution: one of the ancients complains of himself, that when he prayed against his lusts, he was afraid lest God should answer him: this was not from the Spirit of grace. And if you are in good earnest, you will watch the answer of your prayers, to see what return there is of them (Psalms 85:10), "I will hear what God the Lord will say" (Psalms 130:5), "My soul waits for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning."

Do you persevere in prayer? As it is the duty of all God's people so to do (Ephesians 6:18), "Praying always, &c. watching thereunto with all perseverance," so it is one property of the Spirit of prayer, and there is a double perseverance to be eyed in this; you are constant and unwearied in your duty, you pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). You resolve as (Psalms 116:2), "I will call upon him as long as I live." And you hold on in it against all that would discourage you. If you have not a present answer according to desire, it does not beat you off, but quickens your ardor, and you say as (Isaiah 8:17), "I will wait on the Lord, who hides his face." If he repulse you, you turn his very repulses into arguments, as that poor woman did (Matthew 15:25, 26).

And does the sense of sin always drive you to prayer? Do your consciences at any time reflect, and charge guilt on you? Does this always bring you upon your knees, and cause you to pour out your hearts in supplication? Do you find the stirrings of inward concupiscence, and the law in your members warring against the law of your mind? What course do you take to get it mortified? Is prayer now not neglected? These are the motions of a Spirit of supplication in a child of God. This course we find David is on all occasions taking in the Psalms.

USE 3. For exhortation, in several particulars.

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1. Do it mournfully. Dry addresses to God are insignificant things, and will find no acceptance. Beg of God then to bestow such a Spirit upon you, and labor to express it with all suitable deportment. Labor therefore to embitter your sin to yourselves, with all the proper considerations that may make it vile, and fill you with the deepest sense of your misery by reason of it. This is the only way for you to give God his glory both of his righteousness in condemning you, and his rich mercy in pardoning and healing you. You will never come humbly, unless you come mourning: and this is the way to obtain the blessing from him. God takes distinct notice of this, and he is pleased with it; see (Jeremiah 31:18, with 20). I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, &c. Is Ephraim my dear Son? &c. And we find that Christ was anointed purposely for the relief of such (Isaiah 61, begin.).

2. Do it with supplications. If ever God gives you the experience of the virtue of the fountain in you, for the taking away of your sin and uncleanness, he will make you to pray for it; he has said (Ezekiel 36:37), I will be sought to, &c. Seek his face and favor, confess your sins, and keep not silence; seek to him in Christ's name, and present your petition before him: this is the right returning to God (Joel 2:12). By thus doing you will acknowledge Christ to be the fountain of grace, when you do seek it of him, and call upon him for it. And for your encouragement, know it, that if you do indeed thus seek him, you shall find him. If a persecuting Saul prays to him, he observes it, and accepts it of him (Acts 9:11). Behold he prays. Yes, he has said (Psalm 50:15), Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.

2. Let this stir up mourners to pray. Are there any, whose sins are made their burden, and they are in bitterness by reason of them? Instead of nourishing despondent and despairing thoughts in you, and making you to hide away from God, let it drive you to him, to seek his face and favor, his pity and pardon: let it draw forth that request from you in (Psalm 41:4), Heal my soul for I have sinned against you. This is the fittest posture to pray in, and God is ready to hear such in their souls' distress, that cry to him for his help; David puts both together (Psalm 6:8, 9), The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping: the Lord has heard my supplication. It is good to come to God in such a case, and make an argument of it, as he did (Isaiah 38:14), Oh Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me.

3. Let the children of God nourish this spirit in them. A spirit of mourning and of supplication is the proper evangelical spirit; it is therefore one of the properties that belong to them whom Christ has pronounced blessed (Matthew 5:4), Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Nor is it only proper in our first returning to God, but you will have occasion to use it as long as you live: while you carry about with you a body of death, you will never be without occasion for bitter mourning and lamentation; you will see reason to go softly all your days; and as long as sin stirs in you, and leads you into captivity, you will need the pity and help of God, the virtue and efficacy of the fountain to derive fresh supplies of pardon and healing to you; and therefore prayer is a duty that you cannot do without; and no prayer is acceptable to God, but what proceeds from such a spirit.

4. Be we here directed what to pray for, and endeavour to promote in others. We ought to seek and use means for the salvation of sinners, and peculiarly for those to whom we are tied by the bonds of near relation; and if ever they be saved, they must repair to this fountain for it; and if they so do, and succeed, it must be with mourning and supplication. Let us then use means to bring them to this, by showing them their need, and showing them where their help is, and how it is alone to be obtained; and let us bring them to God, and ask for them this grace: and if we see them brought into distress, and made to enquire how they may find redress, let us nourish this in them, and not go about to suppress or stifle it.

5. This calls all those on whom God has poured such a Spirit, to thankfulness to him for it. Has God given us truly to mourn and pray by reason of sin, he has done us an unconceivable kindness; there is no greater token of his everlasting love; it says that he has been laying a foundation for eternal life in us; these tears, and these cries have solid consolation in them; they are his gift, and he gave them to us that so he might bring us to himself, and put us into the way of blessedness. Let this then be one thing for which we praise him, and let this nourish and strengthen such a frame in us, to consider that eternal joy is secured to it, for we are assured in (Psalm 126:5, 6), They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy; he that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.