The Redeemer's Tears Wept over Lost Souls

Luke 19:41-42. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace! but now they are hidden from your eyes.

We have here a compassionate lamentation in the midst of a solemn triumph. Our Lord's approach to Jerusalem at this time, and his entrance into it (as the foregoing history shows) carried with them some face of regal and triumphal pomp, but with such allays, as discovered a mind most remote from ostentation; and led by judgment, (not vain-glory) to transmit through a dark umbrage, some glimmerings only of that excellent majesty which both his sonship and his mediatorship entitled him to: A very modest and mean specimen of his true indubious royalty and kingly-state. Such as might rather intimate than plainly declare it, and rather afford an after instruction to teachable minds, than beget a present conviction and dread in the stupidly obstinate and unteachable. And this effect we find it had, as is observed by another evangelical historian, who relating the same matter, how in his passage to Jerusalem the people met him with branches of palm-trees, and joyful Hosannas, he riding upon an ass's colt (as princes or judges, to signify meekness as much as state, were wont to do (Judges 5:10)) tells us, These things his disciples understood not at the first, but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things to him (John 12:16). For great regard was had in this, as in all the other acts of his life and ministry, to that last and conclusive part, his dying a sacrifice upon the cross for the sins of men; to observe all along that mediocrity, and steer that middle course between [reconstructed: obscurity] and a terrifying overpowering glory, that this solemn oblation of himself might neither be prevented, nor be disregarded. Agreeably to this design, and the rest of his course, he does, in this solemnity, rather discover his royal state and dignity by a dark emblem, than by an express representation; and shows in it more of meekness and humility, than of awful majesty and magnificence, as was formerly predicted (Zechariah 9:9): Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion: Shout, O Daughter of Jerusalem: Behold, your King comes to you: he is just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.

And how little he was taken with this piece of state, is sufficiently to be seen in this paragraph of the chapter. His mind is much more taken up in the foresight of Jerusalem's sad case; and therefore being come within view of it, (which he might very commodiously have in the descent of the higher opposite hill, Mount Olivet,) he beheld the city, it is said, and wept over it.

Two things concur to make up the cause of this sorrow.

1. The greatness of the calamity: Jerusalem (once so dear to God) was to suffer, not a scar, but a ruin; The days shall come upon you, that your enemies shall cast a trench about you, and compass you around, and keep you in on every side, and shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you; and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another.

2. The lost opportunity of preventing it; If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace! but now they are hidden from your eyes, verse 42. And again, You did not know the time of your visitation.

First, the calamity was greater in his eyes, than it can be in ours. His large and comprehensive mind could take the compass of this sad case. Our thoughts cannot reach far, yet we can apprehend what may make this case very deplorable; we can consider Jerusalem as the city of the great King, where was the palace and throne of the majesty of Heaven, vouchsafing to dwell with men on earth. Here the divine light and glory had long shone. Here was the sacred Shechinah, the dwelling place of the Most High, the symbols of his presence, the seat of worship, the Mercy Seat, the place of receiving addresses, and of dispensing favors: The House of Prayer for all nations: To his own people this was the city of their solemnities, where the tribes were wont to go up, the tribes of the Lord, to the testimony of Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord: For there were set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David (Psalm 122:4-5). He that was so great a lover of the souls of men, how grateful and dear to his heart had the place been where through the succession of many by-past ages the great God did use (though more obscurely) to unfold his kind propensions towards sinners, to hold solemn treaties with them, to make himself known, to draw and allure souls into his own holy worship and acquaintance! And that now the dismal prospect presents itself of desolation and ruin, ready to overwhelm all this glory! and lay waste the dwellings of divine love! His sorrow must be conceived proportionable to the greatness of this desolating change.

Secondly, and the opportunity of prevention was quite lost! There was an opportunity: He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: He came to them as his own. Had they received him, O how joyful a place had Jerusalem been! How glorious had the triumphs of the love of God been there, had they repented, believed, obeyed! These were the things that belonged to their peace; this was their opportunity, their day of visitation; these were the things that might have been done within that day: But it was now too late, their day was over, and the things of their peace hid from their eyes: And how fervent were his desires, they had done otherwise — taken the wise and safe course. If you had known! the words admit the optative form, [in non-Latin alphabet] being put, as it is observed to be sometimes with other authors, for [in non-Latin alphabet], utinam; O that you had known, I wish you had; his sorrow must be proportionable to his love. Or otherwise we may conceive the sentence incomplete, part cut off by a more emphatical aposiopesis, tears interrupting speech, and imposing a more speaking silence, which imports an affection beyond all words. They that were anciently so over-officious as to rase those words [and wept over it] out of the canon, as thinking it unworthy so divine a person to shed tears, did greatly err, not knowing the Scriptures (which elsewhere speak of our Lord's weeping,) nor the power of divine love (now become incarnate) nor indeed the true perfections and properties of human nature: Otherwise they had never taken upon them to reform the gospel, and reduce not only Christianity, but Christ himself to the measures and square of their Stoical philosophy: (But these have also met with a like-ancient confutation.)

One thing (before we proceed) needs some disquisition, namely, whether this lamentation of our blessed Lord does refer only or ultimately to the temporal calamity he foresaw coming upon Jerusalem. Or whether it had not a further and more principal reference to their spiritual and eternal miseries that were certain to be concomitant, and consequent thereunto? Where let it be considered,

1. That very dreadful spiritual plagues and judgments did accompany their destruction very generally; which every one knows who is acquainted with their after-story, that is, that takes notice what spirit reigned among them, and what their behavior was towards our Lord himself, and afterwards towards his apostles and disciples all along to their fearful catastrophe (as it may be collected from the sacred records, and other history,) what blindness of mind, what hardness of heart, what mighty prejudice, what inflexible obstinacy, against the clearest light, the largest mercy, the most perspicuous and most gracious doctrine, and the most glorious works, wrought to confirm it, against the brightest beams and evidences of the divine truth, love and power! What persevering impenitency and infidelity against God and Christ, proceeding from the bitterest enmity; ("You have both seen and hated me and my Father" (John 15:24).) What mad rage and fury against one another, even when death and destruction were at the very door! Here were all the tokens imaginable of the most tremendous infatuation, and of their being forsaken of God. Here was a concurrence of all kinds of spiritual judgments in the highest degree.

2. That the concomitancy of such spiritual evils with their temporal destruction, our Lord foreknew as well as their temporal destruction itself. It lay equally in view before him; and was as much under his eye. He that knew what was in man, could as well tell what would be in him. And by the same light by which he could immediately look into hearts, he could as well see into futurities, and as well the one futurity as the other. The knowledge of the one he did not owe to his human understanding; to his divine understanding (whereby he knew all things) the other could not be hid.

3. The connection between the impenitency and infidelity that prove to be final; and eternal misery, is known to us all. Of his knowledge of it therefore (whose law has made the connection, besides what there is in the nature of the things themselves) there can be no doubt.

4. That the miseries of the soul, especially such as prove incurable and eternal, are in themselves far the greatest, we all acknowledge. Nor can make a difficulty to believe, that our Lord apprehended and considered things according as they were in themselves, so as to allow every thing its own proper weight and import in his estimating of them. These things seem all very evident to any eye.

Now though it be confessed not impossible, that of things so distinct from one another as outward and temporal evils, and those that are spiritual and eternal, even befalling the same persons, one may for the present consider the one without attending to the other, or making distinct reflection thereon at the same time; yet how unlikely is it, these things bordering so closely upon one another as they did, in the present case; that so comprehensive a mind as our Savior's was, sufficiently able to inclose them both; and so spiritual a mind, apt no doubt to consider most what was in itself most considerable, should in a solemn lamentation of so sad a case, wholly overlook the saddest part! and stay his thoughts only upon the surface and outside of it!

That he mentions only the approaching outward calamity, (verse 43-44.) was that he spoke in the hearing of the multitude, and upon the way, but in passing, when there was not opportunity for large discourse; and therefore he spoke what might soonest strike their minds, was most liable to common apprehension, and might most deeply affect ordinary, and not-yet-enough-prepared hearers.

And he spoke what he had, no doubt, a deep sense of himself. Whatever of tender compassions might be expected from the most perfect humanity and benignity, could not be wanting in him, upon the foresight of such a calamity as was coming upon that place and people. But yet what was the sacking of a city, the destroying of pompous buildings that were all of a perishable material, the mangling of human flesh, over which the worm was otherwise shortly to have had dominion; to the alienation of men's minds from God, their disaffection to the only means of their recovery, and reconciliation to him, and their subjection to his wrath and curse for ever! When also it is plain he considered that perverse temper of mind and spirit in them, as the cause of their ruin! which his own words imply; that the things which belonged to their peace were hid from their eyes; and that the things he foretold, should befall them, because they knew not the day of their visitation.

For what could the things be that belonged to their peace, but turning to God, believing in himself, as the Messiah, bringing forth of fruits meet for repentance? From which also there must be another latent, and concealed meaning of their peace itself; than only their continued amity with the Roman State. Their peace with Heaven; their being set right, and standing in favor and acceptance with God. For was it ever the first intention of the things enjoined in the Gospel, but to entitle men to earthly secular benefits?

Nor can we doubt but the same things lay deep in the mind of our blessed Lord when he uttered these words, as when he spoke those so very like them (Matthew 23:37-38). O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the Prophets, and stone those who are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. These other were not spoken indeed at the same time, but very soon after: those we are considering, in his way to the city, these when he was come into it; most probably, by the series of the Evangelical History the second day, after his having lodged the first night at Bethany. But it is plain they have the same sense, and that the same things lay with great weight upon his Spirit; so that the one passage may contribute much to the enlightening and expounding of the other.

Now what can be meant by that [I would have gathered you as the hen her chicks under her wings?] Could it intend a political meaning? That he would have been a temporal prince and savior to them; which he so earnestly declined and disclaimed? Professing to the last his Kingdom was not of this world? It could mean no other thing, but that he would have reduced them back to God, have gathered and united them under his own gracious and safe conduct in order thereto, have secured them from the divine wrath and justice, and have conferred on them spiritual and eternal blessings. In a like sense their peace here, was no doubt more principally to be understood; and their loss and forfeiture of it, by their not understanding the things belonging thereto, considered and lamented.

Therefore the principal intention of this Lamentation, though directly applied to a community, and the formed body of a people, is equally applicable to particular persons living under the Gospel, or to whom the ordinary means of their conversion and salvation are vouchsafed, but are neglected by them and forfeited.

We may therefore thus sum up the meaning and sense of these words.

That it is a thing in itself very lamentable, and much lamented by our Lord Jesus, when such as living under the Gospel, have had a day of grace, and an opportunity of knowing the things belonging to their peace, have so outworn that day, and lost their opportunity, that the things of their peace are quite hid from their eyes.

Where we have these distinct heads of discourse to be severally considered and insisted on.

1. What are the things necessary to be known by such as live under the Gospel, as immediately belonging to their peace.

2. That they have a day or season wherein to know not these things only, but the whole compass of their case, and what the knowledge of those things more immediately belonging to their peace supposes, and depends upon.

3. That this day has its bounds and limits, so that when it is over and lost; those things are for ever hid from their eyes.

4. That this is a case to be considered with deep resentment, and lamentation, and was so by our Lord Jesus.

1. What are the things necessary, to be known by such as live under the Gospel, as immediately belonging to their peace. Where we are more particularly to inquire,

1. What those things themselves are.

2. What sort of knowledge of them it is that is here meant, and made necessary.

1. What the things are which belong to the peace of a people living under the Gospel? The things belonging to a people's peace are not throughout the same with all. Living, or not living under the Gospel makes a considerable difference in the matter. Before the Incarnation and public appearance of our Lord, something was not necessary among the Jews that afterwards became necessary. It was sufficient to them before to believe in a Messiah to come, more indefinitely. Afterwards he plainly tells them, if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins (John 8:24). Believing in Christ cannot be necessary to Pagans that never heard of him, as a duty, however necessary it may be as a means. Their not believing in him cannot be itself a sin, though by it they should want remedy for their other sins. But it more concerns us who do live under the Gospel to apprehend aright what is necessary for ourselves. That is a short and full summary which the Apostle gives (Acts 20:21): Repentance towards God, and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel finds us in a state of apostasy from God, both as our Sovereign Ruler and Sovereign Good, not apt to obey and glorify him as the former, nor enjoy him and be satisfied in him as the latter. Repentance towards God cures and removes this disaffection of our minds and hearts towards him under both these notions. By it the whole soul turns to him with this sense and resolution. [I have been a rebellious disloyal wretch against the high authority and most rightful government of him who gave me breath, and whose creature I am; I will live no longer thus. Lo now I come back to you, O Lord, you are my Lord and God. You I now design to serve and obey as the Lord of my life; you I will fear, to you I subject myself, to live no longer after my own will, but yours. I have been hitherto a miserable forlorn distressed creature, destitute of anything that could satisfy me or make me happy; have set my heart upon a vain and thorny world that had nothing in it answerable to my real necessities, that has flattered and mocked me often, never satisfied me, and been wont to requite my pursuits of satisfaction from it with vexation and trouble, and pierce me through with many sorrows. I have borne in the mean time a disaffected heart towards you, have therefore cast you out of my thoughts, so that amidst all my disappointments and sorrows, it never came into my mind to say, Where is God my Maker? I could never savor anything spiritual or divine, and was ever ready, in distress, to turn myself any way than (that which I ought) towards you. I now see and bemoan my folly, and with a convinced, self-judging heart, betake myself to you. The desires of my soul are now to your name, and to the remembrance of you. Whom have I in Heaven but you, or on earth that I can desire besides you.]

This is Repentance towards God, and is one thing belonging and most simply necessary to our peace. But though it be most necessary, it is not enough. It answers to something of our wretched case, but not to everything. We were in our state of apostasy averse and disaffected to God. To this evil, repentance towards him is the opposite and only proper remedy. But besides our being without inclination towards him, we were also without interest in him. We not only had unjustly cast off him, but were also most justly cast off by him. Our injustice had set us against him, and his justice had set him against us; we need, in order to our peace with him, to be relieved as well against his justice as our own injustice. What if, now we would return to him, he will not receive us? And he will not receive us for our own sakes. He must have a recompense for the wrong we had done him by our rebellion against his government and our contempt of his goodness. Our repentance is no expiation. Nor had we of our own, or were capable of obliging him to give us the power and grace to repent. Our high violation of the sacred rights and honor of the Godhead made it necessary, in order to our peace and reconciliation, there should be a sacrifice and a Mediator between him and us. He has judged it not honorable to him, not becoming him to treat with us or vouchsafe us favors upon other terms. And since he thought it necessary to insist upon having a sacrifice, he judged it necessary too to have one proportionable to the wrong done, lest he should make the Majesty of Heaven cheap, or occasion men to think it a light matter to have fundamentally overturned the common order which was settled between himself and men. The whole earth could not have afforded such a sacrifice; it must be supplied from Heaven. His co-eternal Son made man, and so uniting Heaven and Earth in his own person, undertakes to be that sacrifice, and in the virtue of it, to be a standing continual Mediator between God and us. Through him, and for his sake, all acts and influences of grace are to proceed towards us. No sin is to be forgiven, no grace to be conferred but upon his account. It is reckoned most God-like, most suitable to the divine greatness, once offended, to do nothing that shall import favor towards sinners but upon his constant interposition. Him has he set over us, and directed that all our applications to himself and all our expectations from him should be through him. Him has he exalted to be a Prince and a Savior, to give us repentance and remission of sins. Now to one so high in power over us, he expects we should pay a suitable homage. That homage the Holy Scripture calls by the name of faith, believing on him. God has set him forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:25-26). So that when by repentance we turn to God as our end, we must also apply ourselves by faith to our Lord Jesus Christ as our way to that end. Which till we do, we are in rebellion still, and know not what belongs to our peace. He insists that his Son, into whose hands he has committed our affairs, should be honored by us as he himself requires to be (John 5:23).

Now these two things sum up our part of the Covenant between God and us. By repentance we again take God for our God. Repenting we return to him as our God. By Faith we take his Son for our Prince and Savior. These things, by the tenor of the Evangelical Covenant, are required of us. Peace is settled between God and us (as it is usually with men towards one another after mutual hostilities) by striking a Covenant. And in our case, it is a Covenant by sacrifice, as you have seen. Nor are harder terms than these imposed upon us.

Do you now, sinner, apprehend yourself gone off from God? And find a war is commenced and on foot, between God and you? He can easily conquer and crush you to nothing, but he offers you terms of peace, upon which he is willing to enter into Covenant with you. Do you like his terms? Are you willing to return to him, and take him again for your God? To resign and commit yourself with unfeigned trust and subjection, into the hands of his Son your Redeemer? These are the things which belong to your peace. See that you now know them.

2. But what knowledge of them is it that is here meant? The thing speaks itself. It is not a mere contemplative knowledge. We must so know them as to do them; otherwise the increase of knowledge is the increase of sorrow. Your guilt and misery will be the greater. To know anything that concerns our practice is to no purpose if we do not practice it. It was a Hebrew form of speech, and is a common form, by words of knowledge to imply practice. It being taken for granted that in matters so very reasonable, and important, if what we are to do, once be rightly known, it will be done. Thus elsewhere the same great requisites to eternal life and blessedness are expressed by our Lord. This is life eternal to know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; it being supposed and taken for granted that a true vivid knowledge of God and Christ will immediately form the soul to all suitable dispositions and deportments towards the one and the other; and consequently to all men also, as Christian precepts do direct to all the acts of sobriety, justice and charity to which the law of Christ obliges. A habitual course of sin in any kind is inconsistent with this knowledge of the things of our peace, and therefore with our peace itself. All sin is in a true sense reducible to ignorance; and customary sinning into total destitution of divine knowledge. According to the usual style of the sacred writings, (1 Corinthians 15:34) Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God. (3 John 1:11) He that sins (that is, that is a doer of sin, [illegible], a worker of iniquity) has not seen God.

2. Such as live under the Gospel have a day, or a present opportunity, for the obtaining the knowledge of these things immediately belonging to their peace, and of whatever is besides necessary to that end. I say nothing what opportunities they have who never lived under the Gospel; who yet no doubt might generally know more than they do; and know better what they do know. It suffices us who enjoy the Gospel, to understand our own advantages thereby. Nor, as to those who do enjoy it, is everyone's day of equal clearness. How few in comparison have ever seen such a day as Jerusalem at this time did! — made by the immediate beams of the Sun of righteousness! Our Lord himself vouchsafing to be their instructor, so speaking as never man did; and with such authority as far outdid their other teachers, and astonished the hearers. In what transports did he use to leave those that heard him, wherever he came, wondering at the gracious words that came out of his mouth! And with what mighty and beneficial works was he accustomed to recommend his doctrine, shining in the glorious power, and savoring of the abundant mercy of Heaven, so as every apprehensive mind might see the Deity was incarnate, God was come down to treat with men, and allure them into the knowledge and love of himself. The word was made flesh. What unprejudiced mind might not perceive it to be so? He was there manifested and veiled at once; both expressions are used concerning the same matter. The divine beams were somewhat obscured, but did yet ray through that veil; so that his glory was beheld as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. This Sun shone with a mild and benign but with a powerful vivifying light. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. Such a light created to the Jews this their day. Happy Jews, if they had understood their own happiness! And the days that followed, to them (for a while) and the Gentile world were not inferior, in some respects brighter and more glorious (the more copious gift of the Holy Ghost being reserved to the crowning and enthroning of the victorious Redeemer) when the everlasting Gospel flew like lightning to the utmost ends of the earth; and the word which began to be spoken by the Lord himself, was confirmed by them that heard him, God also himself bearing them witness, with signs, and wonders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost. No such day has been seen this many an age. Yet wherever the same Gospel, for substance, comes, it also makes a day of the same kind, and affords always true, though diminished, light; whereby, however, the things of our peace might be understood and known. The written Gospel varies not; and if it be but simply and plainly proposed (though to some it be proposed with more advantage, to some with less, yet) still we have the same things immediately relating to our peace extant before our eyes; and diverse things besides, which it concerns us to be acquainted with that we may the more distinctly, and to better purpose understand these things. For instance,

1. We have the true and distinct state of the quarrel between God and us. Pagans have understood somewhat of the apostasy of man from God; that he is not in the same state wherein he was at first. But while they have understood that something was amiss, they could scarce tell what. The Gospel reveals the universal depravity of the degenerate nature even of all men, and of every faculty in man. That there is none that does good, no not one; and that every one is altogether become filthy and impure, that there is an entire old man to be put off; wholly corrupt by deceivable lusts, that the [illegible], the noblest powers are vitiated, the mind and conscience defiled, that the spirit of the mind needs renewing, is sunk into carnality; and that the carnal mind is enmity against God; and is not subject to his law, nor can be; nor capable of savoring the things of God; that the sinner is in the flesh, under the dominion and power, and in the possession of the fleshly sensual nature, and can therefore neither obey God, nor enjoy him; that it is become impossible to him either to please God, or be pleased with him. That the sinner's quarrel therefore with God is about the most appropriate rights of the Godhead; the controversy is who shall be God, which is the Supreme authority, and which is the Supreme good. The former peculiarity of the Godhead, the lapsed creature is become so insolent, as to usurp and arrogate to himself. When he is become so much less than a man (a very beast) he will be a God. His sensual will shall be his only law. He lives and walks after the flesh, serves various lusts and pleasures, and says who is Lord over me? But being conscious that he is not self-sufficient, that he must be beholden to something foreign to himself for his satisfaction, and finding nothing else suitable to his sensual inclination; that other divine peculiarity to be the Supreme good he places upon the sensible world; and for this purpose that shall be his God; so that between himself and the world he attempts to share the undivided Godhead. This is a controversy of a high nature, and about other matters than even the Jewish rabbis thought of, who when Jerusalem was destroyed, supposed God was angry with them for their neglect of the recitation of their phylacteries morning and evening; or that they were not respectful enough of one another; or that distance enough was not observed between superiors and inferiors, etc. The Gospel impleads men as rebels against their rightful Lord; but of this treason against the majesty of Heaven men little suspect themselves till they are told. The Gospel tells them so plainly, represents the matter in so clear a light, that they need only to contemplate themselves in that light, and they may see that so it is. Men may indeed, by resolved, stiff, winking, create to themselves a darkness amidst the clearest light. But open your eyes, man, you that live under the Gospel, set yourself to view your own soul, you will find it is day with you; you have a day, by being under the Gospel, and light enough to see that this is the posture of your soul, and the state of your case godward. And it is a great matter towards the understanding the things of your peace, to know aright what is the true state of the quarrel between God and you.

2. The Gospel affords light to know what the issue of this quarrel is sure to be, if it go on, and there be no reconciliation. It gives us other and plainer accounts of the punishments of the other world; more fully represents the extremity, and perpetuity of the future miseries, and state of perdition appointed for the ungodly world. It speaks out concerning the Tophet prepared of old, the lake of fire and brimstone; shows the miseries of that state to be the immediate effects of [reconstructed: divine] displeasure; that the breath of the Almighty as a river of brimstone always foments those flames; that indignation and wrath cause the tribulation and anguish which must be the portion of evil doers; and how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God! It gives us to understand what accession men's own unaltered vicious habits will have to their miseries; their own outrageous lusts and passions, which here they made it their business to satisfy, becoming their insatiable tormentors; that they are to receive [the things done] in the body, according to what they have done; and that what they have sowed [the same] also they are to reap; and what their own guilty reflections will contribute, the bitings and gnawings of the worm that dies not, the venomous corrosions of the viper bred in their own bosoms, and now become a full-grown serpent; what the society and insultation of devils, with whom they are to partake in woes and torments, and by whom they have been seduced and trained into that cursed partnership and [reconstructed: communion]; and that this fire wherein they are to be tormented together is to be everlasting, a fire never to be quenched. If men be left to their own conjectures only, touching the danger they incur by continuing and keeping up a war with Heaven, and are to make their own hell, and that it be the creature only of their own imagination; it is likely they will make it as easy and favorable as they can; and so are little likely to be urged earnestly to sue for peace by the imagination of a tolerable hell. But if they understand it to be altogether intolerable, this may make them bestir themselves, and think the favor of God worth the seeking. The Gospel imports favor and kindness to you, when it imports most of terror, in telling you so plainly the worst of your case if you go on in a sinful course. It makes you a day, by which you may make a truer judgment of the blackness, darkness and horror of that everlasting night that is coming on upon you; and lets you know that black and endless night is introduced by a terrible preceding day, that day of the Lord the business whereof is judgment. They that live under the Gospel cannot pretend they are in darkness so as that day should overtake them as a thief; and that, by surprise, they should be doomed and abandoned to the regions of darkness. The Gospel forewarns you plainly of all this: which it does not merely to frighten and torment you before the time, but that you may steer your course another way, and escape the place and state of torment. It only says this that it may render the more acceptable to you what it has to say besides; and only threatens you with these things if there be no reconciliation between God and you. But then at the same time,

3. It also represents God to you as reconcilable through a Mediator. In that gospel peace is preached to you, by Jesus Christ. That gospel lets you see God in Christ reconciling the world to himself, that sin may not be imputed to them. That gospel proclaims glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will towards men. So did the voices of angels sum up the glad tidings of the gospel, when that prince of peace was born into the world. It tells you God desires not the death of sinners, but that they may turn and live; that he would have all men be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth: that he is long-suffering towards them, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance: that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The rest of the world can but collect, from darker intimations, God's favorable propensities towards them. He spares them, is patient towards them, that herein, his goodness might lead them to repentance. He sustains them, lets them dwell in a world which they might understand was of his making, and of which he is the absolute Lord. They live, move, and have their being in him, that they might seek after him, and by feeling find him out. He does them good, gives them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. He lets his sun shine on them, whose far extended beams show forth his kindness and benignity to men, even to the utmost ends of the earth. For there is no speech or language where his line and circle reaches not. But those are but dull and glimmering beams in comparison of those that shine from the Sun of Righteousness through the gospel revelation, and in respect of that divine glory which appears in the face of Jesus Christ. How clearly does the light of this gospel day reveal God's design of reducing sinners, and reconciling them to himself by a Redeemer! How can you but say, sinner, you have a day of it? And clear daylight showing you what the good and acceptable will of God towards you is? You are not left to guess only, you may be reconciled and find mercy, and to grope and feel your way in the dark, unless it be a darkness of your own making. And whereas a sinner, a disloyal rebellious creature, that has affronted the majesty of heaven, and engaged against himself the wrath and justice of his Maker, and is unable to make him any recompense, can have no reason to hope God will show him mercy, and be reconciled to him for his own sake, or for anything he can do to oblige or induce him to it; the same gospel shows you plainly, it is for the Redeemer's sake, and what he has done and suffered to procure it. But inasmuch also as the sinner may easily apprehend, that it can never answer the necessities of his state and case, that God only be not his enemy, that he forbear hostilities towards him, pursue him not with vengeance to his destruction. For he finds himself an indigent creature, and he needs something beyond what he has ever yet met with to make him happy; that it is uneasy and grievous to wander up and down with craving desires among varieties of objects that look speciously, but which, either he cannot so far compass as to make a trial what there is in them, or with which, upon trial, he finds himself mocked and disappointed, and that really they have nothing in them. He finds himself a mortal creature, and considers that if he had all that he can covet in this world, the increase of his present enjoyments does but increase to him trouble and anguish of heart, while he thinks what great things he must shortly leave and lose forever; to go he knows not where, into dark gloomy regions; where he cannot so much as imagine anything suitable to his inclinations and desires. For he knows all that is delectable to his present sense he must here leave behind him; and he cannot divest himself of all apprehensions of a future state, wherein if God should make him suffer nothing, yet if he has nothing to enjoy, he must be always miserable.

4. The Gospel, therefore, further represents to him the final eternal blessedness, and glorious state, which they that are reconciled shall be brought into. They that live under the Gospel are not mocked with shadows, and empty clouds, or with fabulous Elysiums. Nor are they put off with some unintelligible notion of only being happy in general. But are told expressly wherein their happiness is to consist. Life and immortality are brought to light in the Gospel. It is given them to understand how great a good is laid up in store. The things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which otherwise could not have entered into the heart of man, the things of God's present and eternal Kingdom, are set in view. It shows the future state of the reconciled shall consist not only in freedom from what is evil, but in the enjoyment of the best and most delectable good. That God himself in all his glorious fullness will be their eternal and most satisfying portion. That their blessedness is to lie in the perpetual fruitive vision of his blessed face, and in the fullness of joy, and the everlasting pleasures which the divine presence itself does perpetually afford. And whereas their glorious Redeemer is so nearly allied to them, flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, who inasmuch as the children were made partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same (Hebrews 2:14), and is become by special title their authorized Lord, they are assured (of that, than which nothing should be more grateful to them) they shall be forever with the Lord; that they are to be where he is, to behold his glory; and shall be joint-heirs with Christ, and be glorified together with him, shall partake, according to their measure and capacity, in the same blessedness which he enjoys. You cannot pretend, sinner, who lives under the Gospel, that you have not the light of a day to show you what blessedness is. Heaven is opened to you. Glory beams down from there upon you to create you a day, by the light of which you may see with sufficient clearness, what is the inheritance of the saints in light. And though all is not told you, and it does not in every respect appear what we shall be; so much may be foreknown that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, and shall see him as he is (1 John 3:1-2). And because the heart, as yet carnal, can savor little of all this; and finding itself strange and disaffected to God, affecting now to be without Christ and without God in the world, may easily apprehend it impossible to it to be happy in an undesired good, or that it can enjoy what it dislikes; or, in the meantime, walk in a way to which it finds in itself nothing but utter averseness and disinclination,

5. The Gospel further shows us what is to be wrought and done in us to attemper and frame our spirits to our future state and present way to it. It lets us know we are to be born again, born from above, born of God, made partakers of a divine nature, that will make the temper of our spirits connatural to the divine presence. That whereas God is light, and with him is no darkness at all; we, who were darkness shall be made light in the Lord. That we are to be begotten again to a lively hope, to the eternal and undefiled inheritance that is reserved in the heavens for us. That we are thus to be made meet to be partakers of that inheritance of the saints in light. And as we are to be eternally conversant with Christ, we are here to put on Christ, to have Christ in us the hope of glory. And whereas only the way of holiness and obedience leads to blessedness, that we are to be created in Christ Jesus to good works to walk in them. And shall thereupon find the ways prescribed to us by him, who is the Wisdom of God, to be all ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. That he will put his Spirit into us, and cause us to walk in his statutes, and to account that in keeping them there is great reward. And thus all that is contained in that mentioned summary of the things belonging to our peace, Repentance toward God, and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ will all become easy to us, and as the acts of nature; proceeding from that new and holy nature imparted to us.

And whoever you are that live under the Gospel, can you deny that it is day with you, as to all this? Were you never told of this great necessary heart-change? Did you never hear that the tree must be made good that the fruit might be good? That you must become a new creature, have old things done away, and all things made new? Did you never hear of the necessity of having a new heart and a right spirit created and renewed in you; that except you were born again, or from above (as that expression may be read) you could never enter into the Kingdom of God? Were you kept in ignorance that a form of Godliness without the power of it would never do you good? That a name to live without the principle of the holy divine life would never save you? That a specious outside, that all your external performances, while you went with an unrenewed, earthly carnal heart, would never advantage you as to your eternal salvation and blessedness? And this might help your understanding concerning the nature of your future blessedness, and will be found most agreeable to it, being aright understood; for as you are not to be blessed by a blessedness without you and distant from you, but inwrought into your temper, and intimately united with you, nor glorified by an external glory but by a glory revealed within you: so nor can you be qualified for that blessed glorious state otherwise than by having the temper of your soul made habitually holy and good. As what a good man partakes of happiness here is such, that he is satisfied from himself, so it must be hereafter, not originally from himself, but by divine communication made most intimate to him. Did you not know that it belonged to your peace, to have a peace-maker? And that the Son of God was he? And that he makes not the peace of those that despise and refuse him, or that receive him not, that come not to him, and are not willing to come to God by him? Could you think, living under the Gospel, that the reconciliation between God and you was not to be mutual? That he would be reconciled to you while you would not be reconciled to him, or should still bear towards him a disaffected implacable heart? For could you be so void of all understanding as not to apprehend what the Gospel was sent to you for? Or why it was necessary to be preached to you, or that you should hear it? Who was to be reconciled by a Gospel preached to you but yourself? Who was to be persuaded by a Gospel sent to you? God, or you? Who is to be persuaded but the unwilling? The Gospel, as you have been told, reveals God willing to be reconciled, and thereupon beseeches you to be reconciled to him. Or could it seem likely to you that you could ever be reconciled to God, and continue unreconciled to your reconciler? To what purpose is there a daysman, a middle person between God and you, if you will not meet him in that middle person? Do you not know that Christ avails you nothing if you still stand at a distance with him, if you do not unite and adjoin yourself to him, or are not in him? And do you not again know that divine power and grace must unite you to him? And that a work must be wrought and done upon your soul by an almighty hand, by God himself, a mighty transforming work to make you capable of that union? That whoever is in Christ is a new creature? That you must be [of God] in Christ Jesus, who then is made to you (of God also) wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; every way answering the exigency of your case, as you are a foolish, guilty, impure, and enslaved, or lost creature? Did you never hear, that none can come to Christ but whom the Father draws? And that he draws the reasonable souls of men not violently or against their wills (he draws, yet drags them not) but makes them willing in the day of power, by giving a new nature, and new inclinations to them. It is sure with you not dark night, not a dubious twilight, but broad day as to all this.

Yes, perhaps you may say, but this makes my case the worse not the better; for it gives me at length to understand that what is necessary to my peace and welfare is impossible to me; and so the light of my day does but serve to let me see myself miserable and undone, and that I have nothing to do to relieve and help myself. I therefore add.

6. That by being under the Gospel men have not only light to understand whatever is any way necessary to their peace, but opportunity to obtain that communication of divine power and grace whereby to comply with the terms of it. Whereupon, if this be made good, you have not a pretence left you to say your case is the worse, or that you receive any prejudice by what the Gospel reveals of your own impotency to relieve and help yourselves; or determines touching the terms of your peace and salvation, making such things necessary thereto, as are to you impossible, and out of your own present power; unless it be a prejudice to you not to have your pride gratified; and that God has pitched upon such a method for your Salvation, as shall wholly turn to the praise of the glory of his grace, or that you are to be [of him] in Christ Jesus — that whoever glories might glory in the Lord. Is it for a sinner that has deserved, and is ready to perish, to insist upon being saved with reputation? Or to envy the great God upon whose pleasure it wholly depends whether he shall be saved or not saved, the entire glory of saving him? For otherwise, excepting the mere business of glory, and reputation: is it not all one to you whether you have the power in your own hands of changing your hearts, of being the authors to yourselves, of that holy new nature, out of which actual faith and repentance are to spring, or whether you may have it from the God of all grace, flowing to you from its own proper divine fountain? Your case is not sure really the worse that your salvation from first to last is to be all of grace, and that it is impossible to you to repent and believe, while it is not simply impossible; but that he can effectually enable you thereto, to whom all things are possible; supposing that he will (whereof by and by.) In fact it is more glorious and honorable, even to you, if you understand yourselves, that your case is so stated as it is. The Gospel indeed plainly tells you that your repentance must be given you. Christ is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance, and remission of sins. And so must your faith, and that frame of spirit which is the principle of all good works. By grace you are saved, through faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast: for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10). Is it more glorious to have nothing in you but what is self-sprung, than to have your souls the seat and receptacle of divine communications; of so excellent things as could have no other than a heavenly original? If it were not absurd and impossible you should be self-begotten, is it not much more glorious to be born of God? As they are said to be that receive Christ (John 1:12-13). But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And now that by being under the Gospel, you have the opportunity of getting that grace, which is necessary to your peace, and salvation; you may see, if you consider what the Gospel is, and was designed for. It is the ministration of the Spirit; that Spirit by which you are to be born again (John 3:3, 5-6). The work of regeneration consists in the impregnating, and making lively and efficacious in you the holy truths contained in the Gospel. Of his own good will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures (James 1:18). And again, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God (1 Peter 1:23). So our Saviour prays: Sanctify them through your truth, your word is truth (John 17:17). The Gospel is upon this account called the word of life (Philippians 2:16), as by which the principles of that divine and holy life are implanted in the soul, whereby we live to God, do what his Gospel requires, and has made our duty, and that ends at length in eternal life.

But you will say, shall all then that live under the Gospel obtain this grace and holy life? Or if they shall not, or, if so far as can be collected, multitudes do not, or perhaps in some places that enjoy the Gospel very few do, in comparison of them that do not, what am I the better? When perhaps it is far more likely that I shall perish notwithstanding, than be saved?

In answer to this, it must be acknowledged that all that live under the Gospel do not obtain life and saving grace by it. For then there had been no occasion for this lamentation of our blessed Lord over the perishing inhabitants of Jerusalem, as having lost their day, and that the things of their peace were now hid from their eyes, and by that instance it appears too possible that even the generality of a people living under the Gospel, may fall at length into the like forlorn and hopeless condition.

But are you a man that thus objects? a reasonable understanding creature? or do you use the reason and understanding of a man in objecting thus? Did you expect that when your own willful transgression had made you liable to eternal death and wrath, peace and life and salvation should be imposed upon you whether you would or not, or notwithstanding your most willful neglect and contempt of them, and all the means of them? Could it enter into your mind, that a reasonable soul should be wrought and framed for that high and blessed end, for which it is radically capable, as a stock or a stone is for any use it is designed for; without designing its own end or way to it? Could you think the Gospel was to bring you to faith and repentance whether you heard it or not? or ever apply your mind to consider the meaning of it, and what it did propose and offer to you? Or when you might so easily understand that the grace of God was necessary to make it effectual to you, and that it might become his power (or the instrument of his power) to your salvation, could you think it concerned you not, to sue and supplicate to him for that grace? when your life lay upon it, and your eternal hope? Have you lain weltering at the footstool of the throne of grace in your own tears (as you have been formerly weltering in your sins and impurities) crying for grace to help you in this time of your need? And if you think this was above you and without your compass, have you done all that was within your compass in order to the obtaining of grace at God's hands?

But here perhaps you will inquire, Is there anything then to be done by us, upon which the grace of God may be expected certainly to follow?

To which I answer, 1. That it is out of question nothing can be done by us to deserve it, or for which we may expect it to follow. It were not grace if we had obliged, or brought it by our desert under former preventive bonds to us. And 2. What if nothing can be done by us upon which it may be [certainly] expected to follow? Is a certainty of perishing better than a high probability of being saved? 3. Such as live under the Gospel have reason to apprehend it highly probable they may obtain that grace which is necessary to their salvation, if they be not wanting to themselves. For 4. There is generally afforded to such that which is used to be called common grace. I speak not of any further extent of it, it is enough to our present purpose, that it extends so far, as to them that live under the Gospel, and have thereby a day allowed them wherein to provide for their peace. Now though this grace is not yet certainly saving, yet it tends to that which is so. And none have cause to despair but that being duly improved and complied with, it may end in it.

And this is that which requires to be insisted on, and more fully evidenced; In order to which let it be considered, That it is expressly said to such they are to work out their salvation with fear and trembling for this reason, that God works (or is working) in them, that is, is steadily, and continually at work, or is always ready to work in them, to will, and to do, of his own good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13). The matter fails not on his part. He will work on in order to their salvation, if they work in that way of subordinate cooperation, which his command, and the necessity of their own case oblige them to. And it is further to be considered, that where God had formerly afforded the symbols of his gracious presence, given his oracles, and settled his Church, though yet in its [reconstructed: infancy], and much more imperfect state, there he however communicated those influences of his Spirit, that it was to be imputed to themselves if they came short of the saving operations of it. Of such it was said, You gave your good spirit to instruct them (Nehemiah 9:20). And to such, Turn, you, at my reproof, I will pour out my spirit to you, I will make known my words to you. Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand, and no man regarded, but you set at nothing my counsel, and despised all my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity, etc. (Proverbs 1:23-24). We see from where their destruction came, not from God's first restraint of his Spirit, but their refusing, despising, and setting at nothing his counsels and reproofs. And when it is said, they rebelled and vexed his spirit, and he therefore turned, and fought against them, and became their enemy (Isaiah 63:10), it appears that before, his Spirit was not withheld, but did variously, and often make essays and attempts upon them. And when Stephen immediately before his martyrdom thus addresses the descendants of these Jews, You stiff-necked, and uncircumcised — you do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do you (Acts 7), it is implied the Holy Ghost had been always striving from age to age with that stubborn people; for where there is no counter-striving there can be no resistance, no more than there can be a war on one side only. Which also appears to have been the course of God's dealing with the old world, before their so general lapse into idolatry and sensual wickedness, from that passage (Genesis 6:3), according to the more common reading and sense of those words.

Now whereas the Gospel is notably said to be the ministration of the spirit in contradistinction not only to the natural religion of other nations, but the divinely instituted religion of the Jews also, as is largely discussed in (2 Corinthians 3), and more largely through the Epistle to the Galatians, especially chapter 4, and whereas we find that, in the Jewish Church, the Holy Ghost did generally diffuse its influences, and not otherwise withhold them, than as a penalty, and upon great provocation, how much more may it be concluded that under the Gospel, the same blessed Spirit is very generally at work upon the souls of men, till by their resisting, grieving and quenching of it, they provoke it to retire and withdraw from them.

And let the consciences of men living under the Gospel testify in the case. Appeal, sinner, to your own conscience: have you never felt anything of conviction, by the word of God? Had you never any thought injected of turning to God, of reforming your life, of making your peace? Have no desires ever been raised in you, no fears? Have you never had any tastes and relishes of pleasure in the things of God? From where have these come? What from yourself? You who are not sufficient to think anything as of yourself, that is, not any good or right thought? All must be from that good Spirit that has been striving with you; and might still have been so to a blessed issue for your soul, if you had not neglected and disobeyed it.

And do not go about to excuse yourself by saying, that so all others have done too, it is likely at one time or other; and if that therefore be the rule and measure, that they that contend against the strivings and motions of God's Spirit must be finally deserted, and given up to perish, who then can be saved? Think not of pleading so for your neglecting and despising the grace and Spirit of God. It is true that herein the great God shows his sovereignty, when all that enjoy the same advantages for salvation deserve by their slighting them to be forsaken alike; he gives instances and makes examples of just severity, and of the victorious power of grace as seems him good, which there will be further occasion to speak more of hereafter. In the meantime the present design is not to justify your condemnation but procure your salvation, and therefore to admonish and instruct you, that, though you are not sure, because some others that have slighted and despised the grace and Spirit of God are notwithstanding conquered and saved thereby, it shall therefore fare as well with you; yet you have reason to be confident, it will be well and happy for you if, now, you despise and slight them not. And whether you do or do not, it is however plain that by your being under the Gospel you have had a day, wherein to mind the things of your peace (though it is not told you it would last always, but the contrary is presently to be told you.)

And you may now see it is not only a day in respect of light, but influence also; that you might not only know notionally what belonged thereto, but efficaciously and practically, which you have heard is the knowledge here meant. And the concurrence of such light and influence have made you a season wherein you were to have been at work for your soul. The day is the proper season for work, when the night comes working ceases, both because that then light fails, and because drowsiness and sloth are more apt to possess men. And the night will come. For (which is the next thing we are to speak to,)

3. This day has its bounds and limits, so that when it is over, and lost with such, the things of their peace are forever hid from their eyes. And that this day is not infinite and endless, we see in the present instance. Jerusalem had her day; but that day had its period, we see it comes to this at last, that now the things of her peace are hid from her eyes. We generally see the same thing, in that sinners are so earnestly pressed to make use of the present time. Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts (Psalm 95), quoted and urged in (Hebrews 3:7-8). They are admonished to seek the Lord while he may be found, to call upon him while he is near. It seems some time he will not be found, and will be afar off. They are told this is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation.

This day, with any place or people, supposes a preceding night, when the dayspring from on high had not visited their horizon, and all within it sat in darkness, and in the region and shadow of death. Indeed there was a time, we know, of very general darkness, when the Gospel day, the day of visitation had not yet dawned upon the world; times of ignorance, wherein God as it were winked upon the nations of earth; the beams of his eye did in a sort overshoot them, as the word [in non-Latin alphabet] imports. But when the eyelids of the morning open upon any people, and light shines to them with direct beams, they are now commanded to repent (Acts 17:30), limited to the present point of time with such peremptoriness, as that noble Roman used towards a proud Prince, asking time to deliberate upon the proposal made to him of withdrawing his forces that troubled some of the allies of that state, he draws a line about him with the end of his rod, and requires him now, out of hand, before he stirred out of that circle to make his choice, whether he would be a friend or enemy to the people of Rome. So are sinners to understand the state of their own case. The God of your life, sinner, in whose hands your times are, does with much higher right, limit you to the present time, and expects your present answer to his just and merciful offers and demands. He circumscribes your day of grace; it is enclosed on both parts, and has an evening as well as a morning; as it had a preceding, so it has a subsequent night, and the latter, if not more dark, yet usually much more stormy than the former! For God shuts up this day in much displeasure, which has terrible effects. If it is not expressly told you what the condition of that night is that follows your Gospel day; if the Watchman being asked, what of the night? does only answer it comes as well as the morning came; black events are signified by that more awful silence. Or it is all one if you call it a day; there is enough to distinguish it from the day of grace. The Scriptures call such a calamitous season interchangeably either by the name of night or day: but the latter name is used with some or other adjunct to signify day is not meant in the pleasant or more welcome sense: a day of wrath, an evil day, a day of gloominess and thick darkness, not differing from the most dismal night; and to be told the morning of such a day is coming, is the same as that the evening is coming of a bright and a serene day.

And here perhaps, Reader, you will expect to be told what are the limits of this day of grace? It is indeed much more difficult punctually to assign those limits, than to ascertain that there are such: but it is also less necessary. The wise and merciful God does in matters of this nature little mind to gratify our curiosity; much less is it to be expected from him, that he should make known to us such things, of which it were better we were ignorant, or the knowledge of which would be much more a prejudice to us than an advantage. And it were as bold and rash an undertaking, in this case, as it would be vain and insignificant, for any man to take upon him to say, in it, what God has not said, or given him plain ground for. What I conceive to be plain and useful in this matter I shall lay down in the following propositions, insisting more largely where the matter requires it, and contenting myself but to mention what is obvious, and clear at the first sight.

1. That there is a great difference between the ends and limits of the day or season of grace as to particular persons, and in reference to the collective body of a people, inhabiting this or that place. It may be over with such or such a place, so as that they that dwell there shall no longer have the Gospel among them, when as yet it may not be over with every particular person belonging to it, who may be providentially cast elsewhere, or may have the ingrafted word in them, which they lose not. And again it may be over with some particular persons in such a place, when it is not yet over with that people or place, generally considered.

2. As to both there is a difference between the ending of such a day, and intermissions, or dark intervals, that may be in it. The Gospel may be withdrawn from such a people, and be restored. And God often no doubt, as to particular persons, either deprives them of the outward means of grace, for a time (by sickness, or many other ways) or may for a time, forbear moving upon them by his Spirit, and again try them with both.

3. As to particular persons, there may be much difference between such, as, while they lived under the Gospel, gained the knowledge of the principal doctrines (or of the sum and substance) of Christianity; though without any sanctifying effect, or impression upon their hearts, and such as through their own negligence, lived under it in total ignorance hereof. The day of grace may not be over with the former, though they should never live under the ministry of the Gospel more. For it is possible, while they have the seeds and principles of holy truth laid up in their minds, God may graciously administer to them many occasions of recollecting and considering them, with which he may so please to cooperate, as to enliven them, and make them vital and effectual to their final salvation. Whereas, with the other sort, when they no more enjoy the external means, the day of grace is like to be quite over, so as that there may be no more hope in their case than in that of pagans in the darkest parts of the world, and perhaps much less, as their guilt has been much greater by their neglect of so great and important things. It may be better with Tyre and Sidon, etc.

4. That yet it is a terrible judgment to the most knowing, to lose the external dispensation of the Gospel, while they have yet no sanctifying impression upon their hearts by it, and they are cast upon a fearful hazard of being lost for ever, being left by the departed Gospel, in an unconverted state. For they need the most urgent inculcations of Gospel truths, and the most powerful enforcing means, to engage them to consider the things which they know. It is the design of the Gospel to beget not only light in the mind, but grace in the heart. And if that was not done while they enjoyed such means, it is less likely to be done without them. And if any slighter, and more superficial impressions were made upon them thereby, short of true and thorough conversion, how great is the danger that all will vanish, when they cease to be pressed, and urged, and called upon by the public voice of the Gospel ministry any more. How naturally [reconstructed: indolent] is the spirit of man, and apt to sink into deadness, worldliness and carnality, even under the most lively and quickening means; and even where a saving work has been wrought; how much more when those means fail, and there is no vital principle within, capable of self-excitation and improvement. O that they would consider this, who have got nothing by the Gospel all this while, but a little cold, spiritless, notional knowledge, and are in a possibility of losing it before they get anything more!

5. That as it is certain death ends the day of grace with every unconverted person, so it is very possible it may end with various before they die; by their total loss of all external means, or by the departure of the blessed Spirit of God from them, so as to return and visit them no more. How the day of grace may end with a person, is to be understood by considering what it is that makes up and constitutes such a day. There must be some measure and proportion of time to make up this (or any) day which is as the substratum, and ground laid down. Then there must be light superadded, otherwise it differs not from night, which may have the same measure of mere time. The Gospel revelation, some way or other, must be had, as being the light of such a day. And again there must be some degree of liveliness, and vital influence, the more usual concomitant of light; the night does more dispose men to drowsiness. The same Sun that enlightens the world, disseminates also an invigorating influence. If the Spirit of the living God does no way animate the Gospel revelation, and breathe in it, we have no day of grace. It is not only a day of light, but a day of power, wherein souls can be wrought upon, and a people made willing to become the Lord's (Psalm 110). As the Redeemer revealed in the Gospel, is the light of the world, so he is life to it too, though neither are planted, or do take root every where. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light that rays from him is vital light in itself, and in its tendency and design, though it be disliked, and not entertained by the most.

Whereas therefore these things must concur to make up such a day: if either a man's time, his life on earth expire, or if light quite fail him, or if all gracious influence be withheld, so as to be communicated no more; his day is done, the season of grace is over with him. Now it is plain that many a one may lose the Gospel before his life end; and possible that all gracious influence may be restrained, while as yet the external dispensation of the Gospel remains. A sinner may have hardened his heart to that degree, that God will attempt him no more, in any kind, with any design of kindness to him, not in that more inward, immediate way at all, that is by the motions of his Spirit, which peculiarly can import nothing but friendly inclination, as whereby men are personally applied to, so that another cannot be meant; nor by the voice of the Gospel, which may either be continued for the sake of others, or they continued under it, but for their heavier doom at length. Which though it may seem severe, is not to be thought strange, much less unrighteous.

It is not to be thought strange to them that read the Bible, which so often speaks this sense, as when it warns and threatens men with so much terror, as (Hebrews 10:26-29). For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy, under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, with which he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has [done despite to the Spirit of grace?] And when it tells us, after many overtures made to men in vain, of his having given them up, etc. (Psalm 81:11-12). But my people would not hearken to my voice: and Israel would none of me; So I gave them up to their own hearts' lust; and they walked in their own counsels; And pronounces, Let him that is unjust, be unjust still, and let him which is filthy, be filthy still (Revelation 22:11). And says, In your filthiness is lewdness, because I have purged you, and you were not purged; you shall not be purged from your filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon you (Ezekiel 24:13). Which passages seem to imply a total desertion of them, and retraction of all gracious influence. And when it speaks of letting them be under the Gospel, and the ordinary means of salvation, for the most direful purposes. As that, This Child (Jesus) was set for the fall (as well as for the rising) of many in Israel (Luke 2:34). As to which text the very learned Grotius glossing upon the words [illegible] and [illegible], says, Accedo iis qui non necdum eventum, sed & confilium, that he is of their opinion who think that not the naked event, but the counsel or purpose of God is signified by it, the same with [illegible]; and alleges several texts where the active of that verb must have the same sense, as to appoint, or ordain; and mentions divers other places of the same import with this so understood; And which therefore to recite will equally serve our present purpose, as that (Romans 9:33): Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone, and rock of offence. And (1 Peter 2:8): The stone which the builders refused is made a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed. With that of our Saviour himself (John 9:39): For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not, might see; and that they which see, might be made blind. And most agreeable to those former places is that of the Prophet (Isaiah 28:13): But the word of the Lord was to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. And we may add that our Lord has put us out of doubt that there is such a sin as that which is eminently called The sin against the Holy Ghost; that a man may, in such circumstances, and to such a degree, sin against that blessed Spirit, that he will never move, or breathe upon them more, but leave them to a hopeless ruin. Though I shall not in this discourse, determine or discuss the nature of it. But I doubt not it is somewhat else, than final impenitency, and infidelity; and that every one that dies, not having sincerely repented and believed, is not guilty of it, though every one that is guilty of it, dies impenitent and unbelieving; but was guilty of it before; so as it is not the mere want of time, that makes him guilty. Whereupon therefore, that such may outlive their day of grace, is out of question.

But let not such, as, upon the descriptions the Gospel gives us of that sin, may be justly confident they have not perhaps committed it, therefore think themselves out of all danger of losing their season of making their peace with God before they die. Many a one may, no doubt, that never committed the unpardonable blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, as he is the witness, by his wonderful works, of Christ's being the Messiah. As one may die, by neglecting himself, that does not poison himself, or cut his own throat. You will say, but if the Spirit retire from men, so as never to return, where is the difference? I answer, the difference lies in the specific nature, and greater heinousness of that sin, and consequently, in the deeper degrees of its punishment. For though the reason of its unpardonableness lies not principally in its greater heinousness, but in its direct repugnancy to the way of obtaining pardon, yet there is no doubt of its being much more heinous than many other sins, for which men perish. And therefore it is in proportion more severely punished. But is it not misery enough to dwell in darkness and woe for ever, as every one that dies unreconciled to God must do, unless the most intense flames and horror of Hell be your portion? As his case is sufficiently bad that must die as an ordinary felon, though he is not to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Nor is there any place, or pretense for so profane a thought, as if there were any color of unrighteousness in this course of procedure with such men. Is it unjust severity to let the Gospel become deadly to them, whose own malignity perverts it, against its nature, and genuine tendency, into a savior of death, as (2 Corinthians 2:16), which it is [illegible], that is to them, (as the mentioned Author speaks) who may be truly said to seek their own destruction? Or that God should intend their more aggravated condemnation, even from the despised Gospel itself, who, when such light is come into the world, hate it, show themselves lucifugae, tenebriones, (as he also phrases it, speaking further upon that first mentioned text,) such as fly from the light, choose and love to lurk in darkness? He must have very low thoughts of divine favor and acceptance, of Christ, and grace, and glory, that can have hard thoughts of God, for his vindicating, with greatest severity, the contempt of such things. What could better become his glorious majesty, and excellent greatness, than, as all things work together for good towards them that love him, so to let all things work for the hurt of them that so irreconcilably hate him, and bear a disaffected and implacable mind towards him? Nor does the addition of his designing the matter so, make it hard. For if it be just to punish such wickedness, is it unjust to intend to punish it? And to intend to punish it according to its desert, when it cannot be thought unjust, actually to render to men what they deserve?

We are, indeed, to account the primary intention of continuing the Gospel to such a people, among whom these live, is kindness towards others, not this higher revenge upon them; yet nothing hinders but that this revenge upon them, may also be the fit matter of his secondary intention. For should he intend nothing concerning them? Is he to be so unconcerned about his own creatures, that are under his Government? While things cannot fall out to him unawares, but that he has this dismal event in prospect before him, he must at least intend to let it be, or not to hinder it. And who can expect he should? For, that his gracious influence towards them should, at length, cease, is above all exception: that it ceasing, while they live still under the Gospel, they contract deeper guilt, and incur heavier punishment, follows of course. And who can say he should not intend to let it follow? For should he take away the Gospel from the rest, that these might be less punished? That others might not be saved, because they will not?

Nor can he be obliged to interpose extraordinarily, and alter, for their sakes, the course of nature, and providence, so as either to hasten them the sooner out of the world, or cast them into any other part of it, where the Gospel is not, lest they should, by living still under it, be obnoxious to the severer punishment. For where would this lead? He should, by equal reason, have been obliged to prevent men's sinning at all, that they might not be liable to any punishment. And so not to have made the world, or have otherwise framed the methods of his Government, and less suitably to a whole community of reasonable creatures; or to have made an end of the world long ago, and have quitted all his great designs in it, lest some should sin on, and incur proportionable punishment! Or to have provided extraordinarily that all should do and fare alike; and that it might never have come to pass, that it should be less tolerable for Capernaum, and Chorazin, and Bethsaida than for Tyre, and Sidon, and Sodom, and Gomorrah. But is there unrighteousness with God? Or is he unrighteous in taking vengeance? Or is he therefore unjust, because he will render to every one according to his works; to them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek glory, honor and immortality, eternal life: but to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile (Romans 2:6-9)? Does righteousness itself make him unrighteous? O Sinner, understand how much better it is to avoid the stroke of divine justice, than accuse it! God will be found true, and every man a liar, that he may be justified when he speaks, and be clear when he judges (Psalm 51:4).

6. Yet are we not to imagine any certain fixed rule, according to which (except in the case of the unpardonable sin) the divine dispensation is measured in cases of this nature. Namely, that, when a sinner has contended just so long, or to such a degree, against his grace and Spirit in his Gospel, he shall be finally rejected; or if but so long, or not to such a degree, he is yet certainly to be further tried, or treated with. It is little to be doubted, but he puts forth the power of victorious grace, at length, upon some more obstinate, and obdurate sinners, and that have longer persisted in their rebellions; (not having sinned the unpardonable sin) and gives over some sooner, as it seems good to him. Nor does he herein owe an account to any man of his matters. Here sovereign good pleasure rules, and arbitrates, that is tied to no certain rule. Neither, in these variations, is there any show of that blameable [illegible], or accepting of persons, which, in his own word, he so expressly disclaims. We must distinguish matters of right, (even such as are so by promise only, as well as others) and matters of mere unpromised favor. In matters of right, to be an accepter of persons, is a thing most highly culpable with men, and which can have no place with the holy God. That is, when a human judge has his rule before him, according to which he is to estimate men's rights, in judgment; there, to regard the person of the rich, or of the poor to the prejudice of the justice of the cause, were an insufferable iniquity; as it were also in a private person to withhold another's right, because he has no kindness for him. So even the great God himself, though of mere grace, he first fixed and established the rule, (fitly therefore called the Covenant, or law of grace) by which he will proceed in pardoning, and justifying men, or in condemning, and holding them guilty, both here, and in the final judgment; yet having fixed it, he will never recede from it; so as either to acquit an impenitent unbeliever, or condemn a believing penitent. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive. None shall be ever able to accuse him of breach of faith, or of transgressing his own rules of justice. We find it therefore said in reference to the judgment of the last day, when God shall render to every man according to his works, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, that there is no respect of persons with God (Romans 2:6-11). Yet (qui promisit paenitenti veniam, non promisit peccanti paenitentiam,) whereas he has, by his evangelical law, ascertained pardon to one that sincerely obeys it, but has not promised grace to enable them to do so, to them that have long continued wilfully disobedient and rebellious, this communication of grace is, therefore, left arbitrary, and to be dispensed, as the matter of free and unassured favor, as it seems him good. And indeed, if in matters of arbitrary favor, respect of persons ought to have no place, friendship were quite excluded the world, and would be swallowed up of strict and rigid justice. I ought to take all men for my friends alike, otherwise than as justice should oblige me to be more respectful to men of more merit.

7. Therefore no man can certainly know, or ought to conclude, concerning himself, or others, as long as they live, that the season of grace is quite over with them. As we can conceive no rule God has set to himself to proceed by, in ordinary cases of this nature; so nor is there any he has set to us to judge by, in this case. It were to no purpose, and could be of no use to men, to know so much; therefore it were unreasonable to expect God should have settled and declared any rule, by which they might come by the knowledge of it. As the case is then, namely, there being no such rule, no such thing can be concluded; for who can tell what an arbitrary, sovereign, free Agent will do, if he declare not his own purpose himself? How should it be known, when the Spirit of God has been often working upon the soul of a man, that this or that shall be the last act, and that he will never put forth another? And why should God make it known? To the person himself whose case it is, it is manifest it could be no benefit. Nor is it to be thought the holy God will ever so alter the course of his own proceedings, but that it shall finally be seen to all the world, that every man's destruction was, entirely, and to the last, of himself. If God had made it evident to a man, that he were finally rejected, he were obliged to believe it. But shall it ever be said, God has made any thing a man's duty, which were inconsistent with his felicity. The having sinned himself into such a condition wherein he is forsaken of God, is indeed inconsistent with it. And so the case is to stand, that is, that his perdition be in immediate connection with his sin, not with his duty. As it would be in immediate, necessary connection with his duty, if he were bound to believe himself finally forsaken, and a lost creature. For that belief makes him hopeless, and a very devil, justifies his unbelief of the Gospel, towards himself, by removing and shutting up, towards him, the object of such a faith, and consequently brings the matter to this state, that he perishes, not because he does not believe God reconcileable to man, but because, with particular application to himself, he ought not so to believe.

And it were most unfit, and of very pernicious consequence, that such a thing should be generally known concerning others. It were to anticipate the final judgment, to create a hell upon earth, to tempt them whose doom were already known, to do all the mischief in the world, which malice and despair can suggest, and prompt them to; it were to mingle devils with men! and fill the world with confusion! How should parents know how to behave themselves towards children, a husband towards the wife of his bosom in such a case, if it were known they were no more to counsel, exhort, admonish them, pray with or for them than if they were devils!

And if there were such a rule, how frequent misapplications would the fallible and distempered minds of men make of it? So that they would be apt to fancy themselves warranted to judge severely, or uncharitably, and (as the truth of the case perhaps is) unjustly concerning others, from which they are so hardly withheld, when they have no such pretence to embolden them to it, but are so strictly forbidden it. And the judgment-seat so fenced, as it is, by the most awful interdicts, against their usurpation and encroachments.

We are therefore to reverence the wisdom of the divine government, that things of this nature are among the arcana of it; some of those secrets which belong not to us. He has revealed what was fit and necessary, for us and our children, and envies to man no useful knowledge.

But it may be said, when the Apostle (1 John 5:16) directs to pray for a brother whom we see sinning a sin that is not to death, and adds, there is a sin to death, I do not say he shall pray for it; is it not implied that it may be known when one sins that sin to death, not only to himself, but even to others too? I answer it is implied there may be too probable appearances of it, and much ground to suspect and fear it concerning some, in some cases; as when any against the highest evidence of the truth of the Christian Religion, and that Jesus is the Christ, or the Messiah (the proper and most sufficiently credible testimony of which, he had mentioned in the foregoing verses, under heads to which the whole evidence of the truth of Christianity may be fitly enough reduced) do notwithstanding, from that malice, which blinds their understanding, persist in infidelity, or apostatize and relapse into it, from a former profession, there is great cause of suspicion, lest such have sinned that sin to death. Whereupon yet it is to be observed, he does not expressly forbid praying for the persons whose case we may doubt; only he does not enjoin it, as he does for others, but only says, I do not say you shall pray for it, that is, that in his present direction to pray for others, he did not intend such, but another sort, for whom they might pray remotely from any such suspicion: namely, that he meant now such praying as ought to be interchanged between Christian friends, that have reason, in the main, to be well persuaded concerning one another. In the mean time intending no opposition to what is elsewhere enjoined, the praying for all men (1 Timothy 2:1), without the personal exclusion of any, as also our Lord himself prayed indefinitely for his most malicious enemies, Father forgive them they know not what they do; though he had formerly said, there was such a sin as should never be forgiven; of which it is highly probable some of them were guilty: yet such he does not expressly except; but his prayer being in the indefinite, not the universal form, it is to be supposed it must mean such as were within the compass and reach of prayer, and capable of benefit by it. Nor does the Apostle here direct personally to exclude any, only that indefinitely and in the general such must be supposed not meant as had sinned the sin to death; or must be conditionally excluded, if they had, without determining who had, or had not. To which purpose it is very observable, that a more abstract form of expression, is used in this latter clause of this verse. For whereas in the former positive part of the direction, he enjoins praying for him, or them that had not sinned to death (namely, concerning whom there was no ground for any such imagination or suspicion that they had;) in the negative part, concerning such as might have sinned it, he does not say for him or them, but for it, (that is, concerning, or in reference to it,) as if he had said, the case in general only is to be excepted, and if persons are to be distinguished (since every sin is some one's sin, the sin of some person or other) let God distinguish, but do not you, it is enough for you to except the sin, committed by whoever. And though the former part of the verse speaks of a particular person, If a man see his brother sin a sin that is not to death, which is as determinate to a person as the sight of our eye can be, it does not follow the latter part must suppose a like particular determination of any person's case, that he has sinned it. I may have great reason to be confident such and such have not, when I can only suspect that such a one has. And it is a thing much less unlikely to be certain to one self than another, for they that have sinned to death, are no doubt so blinded and stupefied by it, that they are not more apt or competent to observe themselves, and consider their case than others may be.

8. But though none ought to conclude that their day or season of grace is quite expired, yet they ought deeply to apprehend the danger lest it should expire, before their necessary work be done, and their peace made. For though it can be of no use to them to know the former, and therefore they have no means appointed them by which to know it, 'tis of great use to apprehend the latter; and they have sufficient ground for the apprehension. All the cautions and warnings with which the holy Scripture abounds, of the kind with those already mentioned, have that manifest design. And nothing can be more important, or apposite to this purpose, than that solemn charge of the great Apostle (Philippians 2:12): Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; considered together with the subjoined ground of it (verse 13): For it is God that works in you to will, and to do, of his own good pleasure. How correspondent is the one with the other; work, for he works; there were no working at all to any purpose, or with any hope, if he did not work. And work with fear and trembling, for he works of his own good pleasure, that is, it were the greatest folly imaginable to trifle with one that works at so perfect liberty, under no obligation, that may desist when he will; to impose upon so absolutely sovereign, and arbitrary an agent, that owes you nothing; and from whose former gracious operations not complied with, you can draw no argument to any following ones, that because he does, therefore he will. As there is no certain connection between present time, and future, but all time is made up of independent, not-strictly-coherent moments, so as no man can be sure, because one now exists, another shall; there is also no more certain connection between the arbitrary acts of a free agent within such time; so that I cannot be sure, because he now darts in light upon me, is now convincing me, now awakening me, therefore he will still do so, again and again. Upon this ground then, what exhortation could be more proper than this, work out your salvation with fear and trembling? What could be more awfully monitory, and enforcing of it, than that he works only of mere good will and pleasure? How should I tremble to think, if I should be negligent, or undutiful, he may give out the next moment, and let the work fall, and me perish!

And there is more especial cause for such an apprehension, upon the concurrence of such things as these,

1. If the workings of God's Spirit upon the soul of a man have been more than ordinarily strong and urgent, and do now cease. If there have been more powerful convictions, deeper humiliations, more awakened fears, more formed purposes of a new life, more fervent desires, that are now all vanished and fled, and the sinner is returned to his old dead, and dull temper.

2. If there be no disposition to reflect and consider the difference, no sense of his loss, but he apprehends such workings of spirit in him unnecessary troubles to him, and thinks it well he is delivered and eased of them.

3. If in the time when he was under such workings of spirit, he had made known his case to his minister, or any godly friend, whose company he now shuns, as not willing to be put in mind, or hear any more of such matters.

4. If hereupon he has more indulged sensual inclination, taken more liberty, gone against the checks of his own conscience, broken former good resolutions, involved himself in the guilt of any grosser sins.

5. If conscience, so baffled, be now silent; lets him alone, grows more sluggish and weaker (which it must) as his lusts grow stronger.

6. If the same lively powerful ministry, which before affected him much, now moves him not.

7. If especially, he is grown into a dislike of such preaching, if serious godliness, and what tends to it are become distasteful to him, if discourses of God, and Christ, of death and judgment, and of a holy life, are reckoned superfluous and needless, are unsavory and disrelished; if he have learned to put disgraceful names upon things of this import, and the persons that most value them, and live accordingly. If he has taken the seat of the scorner, and makes it his business to deride, what he had once a reverence for, or took some complacency in.

8. If, upon all this, God withdraw such a ministry, so that he is now warned, and admonished, exhorted and striven with as formerly, no more. O, the fearful danger of that man's case! Has he no cause to fear lest the things of his peace should be forever hid from his eyes? Surely he has much cause of fear, but not of despair. Fear would in this case be his great duty, and might yet prove the means of saving him; despair would be his very heinous and destroying sin. If yet he would be stirred up to consider his case, from where he has fallen, and where he is falling, and set himself to serious seeking of God, cast down himself before him, abase himself, cry for mercy, as for his life, there is yet hope in his case. God may make here an instance of what he can obtain of himself to do for a perishing wretch! But

4. If with any that have lived under the Gospel, their day is quite expired, and the things of their peace now forever hid from their eyes, this is in itself a most deplorable case, and much lamented by our Lord Jesus himself.

That the case is in itself most deplorable, who sees not? A soul lost! A creature capable of God! Upon its way to him! Near to the Kingdom of God! Shipwrecked in the port! O sinner, from how high a hope are you fallen! Into what depths of misery and woe!

And that it was lamented by our Lord, is in the text. He beheld the city, (very generally, we have reason to apprehend, inhabited by such wretched creatures) and wept over it. This was very affectionate lamentation; we lament often, very heartily, many a sad case, for which we do not shed tears. But tears, such tears, falling from such eyes — the issues of the purest, and best governed passion that ever was — showed the true greatness of the cause. Here could be no exorbitancy or unjust excess, nothing more than was proportionable to the occasion. There needs no other proof that this is a sad case, than that our Lord lamented it with tears, which that he did, we are plainly told, so that touching that, there is no place for doubt. All that is liable to question is, whether we are to conceive in him any like sentiments of such cases, in his present glorified state?

Indeed we cannot think Heaven a place or state of sadness, or lamentation; and must take heed of conceiving anything there, especially on the throne of glory, unsuitable to the most perfect nature, and the most glorious state. We are not to imagine tears there; which in that happy region are wiped away from inferior eyes; no grief, sorrow, or sighing, which are all fled away, and shall be no more. As there can be no other turbid passion of any kind. But when expressions that import anger, or grief, are used, even concerning God himself, we must sever in our conception every thing of imperfection, and ascribe every thing of real perfection. We are not to think such expressions signify nothing, that they have no meaning, or that nothing at all is to be attributed to him under them.

Nor are we again to think they signify the same thing with what we find in ourselves, and are accustomed to express by those names. In the divine nature, there may be real, and yet most serene complacency, and displicency, namely, that are unaccompanied with the least commotion, and that import nothing of imperfection, but perfection rather, as it is a perfection to apprehend things suitably to what in themselves they are. The holy Scriptures frequently speak of God as angry, and grieved for the sins of men, and their miseries which ensue therefrom. And a real aversion and dislike is signified thereby, and by many other expressions, which in us, would signify vehement agitations of affection, that we are sure can have no place in him. We ought therefore in our own thoughts to ascribe to him that calm aversion of will, in reference to the sins, and miseries of men in general; and, in our own apprehensions, to remove to the utmost distance from him, all such agitations of passion or affection, even though some expressions that occur carry a great appearance thereof, should they be understood according to human measures, as they are human forms of speech. As (to instance in what is said by the glorious God himself, and very near in sense to what we have in the text) what can be more pathetic, than that lamenting wish (Psalm 81:13), "O that my people had listened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways!"

But we must take heed lest, under the pretense that we cannot ascribe every thing to God that such expressions seem to import, we therefore ascribe nothing. We ascribe nothing, if we do not ascribe to him a real unwillingness that men should sin on, and perish; and consequently a real willingness that they should turn to him, and live; which so many plain texts assert. And therefore it is unavoidably imposed upon us, to believe that God is truly unwilling of some things, which he does not think fit to interpose his omnipotency to hinder, and is truly willing of some things, which he does not put forth his omnipotency to effect. That he most fitly makes this the ordinary course of his dispensations towards men, to govern them by laws, and promises, and threatenings (made most express to them that live under the Gospel) to work upon their minds, their hope, and their fear, affording them the ordinary assistances of supernatural light and influence, with which he requires them to comply, and which, upon their refusing to do so, he may most righteously withhold, and give them the victory to their own ruin, though oftentimes, he does, from a sovereignty of grace, put forth that greater power upon others, equally negligent and obstinate, not to enforce, but effectually to incline their wills, and gain a victory over them, to their salvation.

Nor is his will towards the rest altogether ineffectual, though it have not this effect. For whoever you are that lives under the Gospel, though you do not know that God so wills your conversion and salvation, as to effect it, whatever resistance you now make; though you are not sure he will finally overcome all your resistance, and pluck you as a firebrand out of the mouth of hell; yet you cannot say his good will towards you has been without any effect at all tending thereto. He has often called upon you in his Gospel, to repent and turn to him through Christ; he has waited on you with long patience, and given you time and space of repentance; he has within that time, been often at work with your soul. Has he not many times let in beams of light upon you? Shown you the evil of your ways? Convicted you? Awakened you? Half-persuaded you? And you never had reason to doubt, but that if you had set yourself with serious diligence to work out your own salvation, he would have worked on, so as to have brought things to a blessed issue for your soul.

You might discern his mind towards you to be agreeable to his word, wherein he has testified to you he desired not the death of sinners, that he has no pleasure in the death of him that dies, or in the death of the wicked, but that he should turn and live, exhorted you, expostulated with you, and others in your condition, "turn, turn, why will you die?" He has told you expressly your stubbornness, and contending against him, did grieve him, and vex his spirit, that your sin, wherein you have indulged yourself, has been an abomination to him, that it was the abominable thing which his soul hated, that he was broken with the whorish heart of such as you, and pressed therewith, as a cart that was full of sheaves.

Now such expressions as these, though they are borrowed from man, and must be understood suitably to God, though they do not signify the same thing with him, as they do in us, yet they do not signify nothing. As when hands and eyes are attributed to God, they do not signify as they do with us, yet they signify something correspondent, as active, and visive power: so these expressions, though they signify not, in God, such unquiet motions and passions, as they would in us, they do signify a mind and will, really, though with the most perfect calmness and tranquility, set against sin, and the horrid consequences of it, which yet, for greater reasons than we can understand, he may not see fit to do all he can to prevent.

And if we know not how to reconcile such a will in God, with some of our notions concerning the divine nature; shall we, for what we have thought of him, deny what he has so expressly said of himself, or pretend to understand his nature better than he himself does?

And when we see from such express sayings in Scripture, reduced to a sense becoming God, how God's mind stands in reference to sinners, and their self-destroying ways, we may from there apprehend what temper of mind our Lord Jesus also bears towards them in the like case, even in his glorified state. For can you think there is a disagreement between him and the Father about these things?

And whereas we find our blessed Lord, in the days of his flesh, one while complaining men would not come to him that they might have life (John 5:40), elsewhere grieved at the hardness of their hearts (Mark 3:5), and here scattering tears over sinning and perishing Jerusalem; we cannot doubt but that the (innocent) perturbation, which his earthly state did admit, being severed, his mind is still the same, in reference to cases of the same nature; for can we think there is a disagreement between him, and himself? We cannot therefore doubt but that,

1. He distinctly comprehends the truth of any such case. He beholds from the throne of his glory above, all the treaties which are held and managed with sinners in his name, and what their deportments are therein. His eyes are as a flame of fire, with which he searches hearts, and tries reins. He has seen therefore, sinner, all along, every time an offer of grace has been made to you, and been rejected; when you have slighted counsels, and warnings that have been given you, exhortations and entreaties that have been pressed upon you, for many years together, and how you have hardened your heart against reproofs, and threatenings, against promises and allurements; and beholds the tendency of all this, what is like to come of it, and that, if you persist, it will be bitterness in the end.

2. That he has a real dislike of the sinfulness of your course. It is not indifferent to him whether you obey, or disobey the Gospel; whether you turn, and repent or no; that he is truly displeased at your trifling, sloth, negligence, impenitency, hardness of heart, stubborn obstinacy, and contempt of his grace, and takes real offence at them.

3. He has real kind propensions towards you, and is ready to receive your returning soul, and effectually to mediate with the offended Majesty of heaven for you, as long as there is any hope in your case.

4. When he sees there is no hope, he pities you, while you see it not, and do not pity yourself. Pity and mercy above are not names only; it is a great reality that is signified by them, and that has place there, in far higher excellency, and perfection, than it can with us poor mortals here below. Ours is but borrowed, and participated from that first fountain, and original above. You do not perish unlamented, even with the purest heavenly pity, though you have made your case incapable of remedy. As the well-tempered judge bewails the sad end of the malefactor, whom justice obliges him not to spare, or save.

And now let us consider what use is to be made of all this.

And though nothing can be useful to the persons themselves, whom the Redeemer thus laments as lost, yet that he does so, may be of great use to others.

Use. Which will partly concern those who do justly apprehend this is not their case; and partly such as may be in great fear that it is.

1. For such as have reason to persuade themselves it is not their case. The best ground upon which any can confidently conclude this, is that they have in this their present day, through the grace of God, already effectually known the things of their peace, such, namely, as have sincerely, with all their hearts and souls turned to God, taken him to be their God, and devoted themselves to him, to be his. Entrusting and subjecting themselves to the saving mercy, and governing power of the Redeemer, according to the tenor of the Gospel-Covenant, from which they do not find their hearts to swerve or decline, but resolve, through divine assistance, to persevere herein all their days.

Now for such as with whom things are already brought to that comfortable conclusion, I only say to them,

1. Rejoice and bless God that so it is. Christ your Redeemer rejoices with you, and over you; you may collect it from his contrary resentment of their case who are past hope; if he weep over them, he no doubt, rejoices over you. There is joy in heaven concerning you. Angels rejoice, your glorious Redeemer presiding in the joyful consort. And should not you rejoice for yourselves? Consider what a discrimination is made in your case! To how many has that Gospel been a deadly savor, which has proved a savor of life to life to you! How many have fallen on your right hand, and your left, stumbling at that stone of offense, which to you is become the head-stone of the corner, elect, and precious! From where is this difference? Did you never slight Christ? Never make light of offered mercy? Was your mind never blind or vain? Was your heart never hard or dead? Were the terms of peace and reconciliation never rejected or disregarded by you? How should you admire victorious grace, that would never desist from striving with you till it had overcome! You are the triumph of the Redeemer's conquering love, who might have been of his wrath and justice! Endeavor your spirits may taste, more and more, the sweetness of reconciliation, that you may more abound in joy and praises. Is it not pleasant to you to be at peace with God? To find that all controversies are taken up between him and you? That you can now approach him, and his terrors not make you afraid! That you can enter into the secret of his presence, and solace yourselves in his assured favor and love! How should you joy in God through Jesus Christ, by whom you have received the atonement! What have you now to fear? If, when you were enemies, you were reconciled by the death of Christ, how much more, being reconciled, shall you be saved by his life? How great a thing have you to oppose to all worldly troubles? If God be for you, who can be against you! Think how mean it is for the friends of God, the favorites of heaven, to be dismayed at the appearances of danger that threatens them from the inhabitants of the earth! What if all the world were in a posture of hostility against you, when the mighty Lord of all is your friend? Take heed of thinking meanly of his power and love! Would any one diminish to himself, whom he takes for his God? All people will walk, every one in the name of his God; why should not you much more in the name of yours, glorying in him, and making your [reconstructed: boasts] of him all the day long? O the reproach which is cast upon the glorious name of the great God, by their diffidence and despondency, who visibly stand in special relation to him, but fear the impotent malice of mortal man more than they can trust in his almighty love! If indeed you are justified by faith, and have peace with God, it becomes you so to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, as also to glory in tribulation, and tell all the world that in his favor stands your life, and that you care not who is displeased with you, for the things, with which, you have reason to apprehend, he is pleased.

2. Demean yourselves with that care, caution, and dutifulness that become a state of reconciliation. Bethink yourselves that your present peace and friendship with God is not original, and continued from there, but has been interrupted and broken; that your peace is not that of constantly innocent persons. You stand not in this good and happy state because you never offended, but as being reconciled, and who, therefore, were once enemies. And when you were brought to know, in that your day, which you have enjoyed, the things belonging to your peace, you were made to feel the smart, and taste the bitterness of your having been alienated, and enemies in your minds by wicked works. When the Terrors of God did beset you round, and his arrows stuck fast in you, did you not then find trouble and sorrow? Were you not in a fearful expectation of wrath and fiery indignation to consume and burn you up as adversaries? Would you not then have given all the world for a peaceful word or look? For any glimmering hope of peace? How wary and afraid should you be of a new breach! How should you study acceptable deportments, and to walk worthy of God to all well-pleasing! How strictly careful should you be to keep faith with him, and abide steadfast in his Covenant! How concerned for his interest! And in what agonies of spirit, when you behold the eruptions of enmity against him from any others — not from any distrust, or fear of final prejudice to his interest, but from the apprehension of the unrighteousness of the thing itself, and a dutiful love to his name, throne, and government. How zealous should you be to draw in others? How fervent in your endeavors, within your own sphere, and how large in your desires, extended as far as the sphere of the universe, that every knee might bow to him, and every tongue confess to him. They ought to be more deeply concerned for his righteous cause, that remember they were once most unrighteously engaged against it. And ought besides to be filled with compassion towards the souls of men, yet in an unreconciled state, as having known the terrors of the Lord, and remembering the experienced dismalness and horror of that state; what it was to have divine wrath and justice armed against you with almighty power! And to have heard the thunder of such a voice, I lift my hand to heaven, and swear I live forever, if I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on vengeance, I will recompense fury to my adversaries, vengeance to my enemies. Do you not know what the case is like to be, when potsherds, that should strive but with the potsherds of the earth, venture to oppose themselves as antagonists to omnipotency? And when briars and thorns set themselves in battle array against a consuming fire, how easily it can pass through, and devour, and burn them up together? And how much more fearful is their condition that know it not, but are ready to rush like the horse into the battle! Do you owe no duty, no pity to them that have the same nature with you, and with whom your case was once the same? If you do indeed know the things of your peace Godward, so as to have made your peace, to have come to an agreement, and struck a Covenant with him; you have now taken his side, are of his confederates (not as equals but subjects). You have sworn allegiance to him, and associated yourself with all them that have done so. There can thereupon be but one common interest to him and you. Hence therefore you are most strictly obliged to wish well to that interest, and promote it to your utmost, in his own way — that is, according to his openly avowed inclination, and design, and the genuine constitution of that Kingdom which he has erected, and is intent to enlarge and extend further in the world. That you do well know, is a Kingdom of grace; for his natural Kingdom already confines with the universe, and can have no enlargement, without enlarging the creation. Whoever they are that contend against him, are not merely enemies, therefore, but rebels. And you see he aims to conquer them by love and goodness; and therefore treats with them, and seeks to establish a Kingdom over them, in and by a Mediator, who, if he were not intent upon the same design, had never lamented the destruction of any of them, and wept over their ruin, as here you find. So therefore, should you long for the conversion of souls, and the enlargement of his Kingdom this way, both out of loyalty to him, and compassion towards them.

2. For such as may be in great fear, lest this prove to be their case. They are either such as may fear it, but do not; or such as are deeply afflicted with this actual fear.

1. For the former sort, who are in too great danger of bringing themselves into this dreadful deplorable condition, but apprehend nothing of it. All that is to be said to them apart by themselves, is only to awaken them out of their drowsy, dangerous slumber, and security; and then they will be capable of being spoken to, together with the other sort. Let me therefore

1. Demand of you: Do you believe there is a Lord over you, yes or no? Use your thoughts, for, about matters that concern you less, you can think. Do you not apprehend you have an invisible owner, and Ruler, that rightfully claims to himself an interest in you, and a governing power over you? How came you into being? You know you made not yourselves. And if you yet look no higher, than to progenitors of your own kind, mortal men, as you are; how came they into being? You have so much understanding about you, if you would use it, as to know they could none of them make themselves more than you, and that therefore, human race must have had its beginning, from some superior maker. And did not he that made them make you and all things else? Where are your arguments to prove it was otherwise, and that this world, and all the generations of men took beginning of themselves, without a wise, and mighty Creator? Produce your strong reasons, upon which you will venture your souls, and all the possibilities of your being happy, or miserable to eternity! Will your imagination make you safe? And protect you against his wrath and justice, whose authority you will not own? Can you, by it, uncreate your Creator, and nullify the eternal Being? Or have you anything else, besides your own blind imagination, to make you confident, that all things came of nothing, without any Maker? But if you know not how to think this reasonable, and apprehend you must allow yourselves to owe your being to an almighty Creator, let me

2. Ask of you how you think your life is maintained? Does not he that made you live, keep you alive? Whereas you have often heard that we all live, and move, and have our beings in him, does it not seem most likely to you to be so? Have you the power of your own life? Do you think you can live as long as you will? At least do you not find you need the common helps of food, and drink, and air, and clothing for the support and comfort of your lives? And are not all these his creatures as well as you? And can you have them, whether he will or no?

3. And how can you think that he that made and maintains you, has no right to rule you? If it were possible any one should as much depend upon you, would you not claim such power over him? Can you suppose yourselves to be under no obligation to please him, who has done so much for you? And to do his will, if you can any way know it?

4. And can you pretend you have no means to know it? That book that goes up and down under the name of his Word, can you disprove it to be his Word? If such writings should now first come into the world, so sincere, so awful, so holy, so heavenly, bearing so expressly the divine image, avowing themselves to be from God, and the most wonderful works are wrought to prove them his Word, the deaf made to hear, the blind to see, the dumb to speak, the sick healed, the dead raised, by a word only commanding it to be so, would you not confess this to be sufficient evidence that this revelation came from heaven? And are you not sufficiently assured they are so confirmed? Do you find in yourselves any inclination to cheat your children, in any thing that concerns their well being? Why should you more suspect your forefathers' design, to cheat you in the mere reporting falsely, a matter of fact? Was not human nature the same, so many hundred years ago? Did ever the enemies of the Christian name, in the earlier days of Christianity, when it was but a novelty in the world, and as much hated, and endeavoured to be rooted out, as ever any profession was, deny such matters of fact? Have not some of the most spiteful of them confessed it? Did not Christians then willingly sacrifice their lives by multitudes, upon the assured truth of these things? Have they not been ever since most strictly careful to preserve these writings, and transmit them, as wherein the all of themselves, and their posterity was contained? And where is now your new light? Where are your later discoveries, upon which, so many ages after, you are able to evict these writings of falsehood, or dare venture to disbelieve them?

5. But if you believe these writings to be divine, how expressly is it told you, in them, what the state of your case is Godward, and what he requires of you? You may see you have displeased him, and how you are to please him, as has been shown before in this discourse. You know that you have lived in the world mindless, and inobservant of him, not trusting, fearing, loving, or delighting in him, declining his acquaintance and converse; seeking your own pleasure, following your inclination, doing your own will, as if you were supreme, never minding to refer your actions to his precepts as your rule, or to his glory as your end. And from that word of his you may understand all this to be very displeasing to him. And that you can never please him by continuing this course, but by breaking it off, and returning to him as your Lord, and your God. That since your case did need a redeemer, and reconciler, and he has provided and appointed one for you; you are to apply yourselves to him, to commit and subject your souls to him, to trust in his merits, and blood, and submit to his authority, and government. And

6. Are you not continually called to this by the Gospel, under which you have lived all this while? So that you are in actual, continual rebellion against him all the while you comply not with this call; every breath you draw is rebellious breath. There is no moment wherein this lies not upon you, by every moment's addition to your time. And that patience of his which adds by moments to your life, and should lead you to repentance, is, while you repent not, perverted by you, only to the treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of his righteous judgment.

7. And do you not find, as his word also plainly tells you, a great averseness and disinclination in you to any such serious, solemn applying yourself to him, and your Redeemer? Try your own hearts; do you not find them draw back and recoil; if you urge them, do they not still fly off? How loath are you to retire, and set yourselves to consider your case, and to serious seeking of God in Christ! Both from a reluctancy, and indisposition to any such employment as this is itself; and from disaffection to that whereto it tends, the breaking off your former sinful course of life, and entering upon a better. And does not all this show you the plain truth of what the word of God has told you, that the Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, or the leopard his spots, as they do good, who are accustomed to do evil (Jeremiah 13:23)? That you have a heart that cannot repent (Romans 2:5), till God give you repentance to life (Acts 11:18), that you cannot come to Christ till the Father draw you (John 6:44). Do you not see your case then? That you must perish if you have not help from heaven? If God does not give you his grace, to overcome, and cure the averseness and malignity of your nature? That things are likely thus to run on with you as they have from day to day, and from year to year; and you that are unwilling to take the course that is necessary for your salvation today, are likely to be as unwilling tomorrow, and so your lives consume in vanity, till you drop into perdition? But

8. Do you not also know, sinner, (what has been so newly shown you from God's word) that, by your being under the Gospel, you have a day of grace? Not only as offers of pardon and reconciliation are made to you in it, but also as through it, converting heart-renewing grace is to be expected, and may be had? That what is sufficient for the turning and changing of your heart, is usually not given all at once, but as gentler insinuations (the injection of some good thoughts and desires) are complied with, more powerful influences may be hoped to follow? That therefore you are concerned, upon any such thought cast into your mind, of going now to seek God for the life of your soul, to strive, yourself, against your own disinclination; that if you do not, but yield to it, and still defer, it may prove mortal to you? For is it not plain to you in itself, and from what has been said, that this day has its limits, and will come to an end? Do you not know you are a mortal creature, that your breath is in your nostrils? Do you know how near you are to the end of your life? And how few breaths there may be for you between this present moment and eternity? Do you not know your day of grace may end before your life ends? That you may be cast far enough out of the sound of the Gospel? And if you should carry any notices of it with you, you who have been so disinclined to consider them, while they were daily pressed upon you, will most probably be less apt when you hear of no such thing? That you may live still under the Gospel, and the Spirit of grace retire from you, and never attempt you more for your former despiting of it? For what obligation have you upon that blessed Spirit? Or why should you think a Deity bound to attend upon your triflings? And

9. If yet all this moves not: Consider what it will be to die unreconciled to God! You have been his enemy, he has made you gracious offers of peace, waited long upon you, you have made light of all. The matter must at length end either in reconciliation, or vengeance! The former is not acceptable to you, are you prepared for the latter? Can you sustain it? Is it not a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God? You will not do him right, he must then right himself upon you; do you think he cannot do it? Can you doubt his power? Cast your eyes about you, behold the greatness (as far as you can) of this creation of his, of which you are but a very little part. He that has made that sun over your head, and stretched out those spacious heavens, that has furnished them with those innumerable bright stars, that governs all their motions, that has hung this earth upon nothing, that made and sustains that great variety of creatures that inhabit it, can he not deal with you? A worm? Can your heart endure, or your hands be strong if he plead with you? If he surround you with his terrors, and set them in battle array against you? Hell and destruction are open before him, and without covering, how soon are you cast in and engulfed? Sit down, and consider whether you are able, with your impotency, to stand before him, that comes against you with Almighty power! Is it not better to sue in time for peace?

But perhaps you may say I begin now to fear it is too late, I have so long slighted the Gospel, resisted the Holy Spirit of God, abused, and baffled my own light, and conscience, that I am afraid God will quite abandon me, and cast me off for ever. It is well if you do indeed begin to fear. That fear gives hope. You are then capable of coming into their rank who are next to be spoken to, namely,

2. Such as feel themselves afflicted with the apprehension, and dread of their having outlived their day, and that the things of their peace are now irrecoverably hid from their eyes. I desire to counsel such faithfully, according to that light and guidance which the Gospel of our Lord affords us in reference to any such case.

1. Take heed of stifling that fear suddenly, but labor to improve it to some advantage, and then to cure and remove it by rational-evangelical means and methods. Do not, as you love the life of your soul, go about suddenly, or by undue means, to smother or extinguish it. It is too possible, when any such apprehension strikes into a man's mind, because it is a sharp or piercing thought, disturbs his quiet, gives him molestation, and some torture, to pluck out the dart too soon, and cast it away. Perhaps such a course is taken, as does him unspeakably more mischief, than a thousand such thoughts would ever do. He diverts, it may be, to vain company, or to sensuality, talks, or drinks away his trouble; makes death his cure of pain, and to avoid the fear of hell, leaps into it. Is this indeed the wisest course? Either your apprehension is reasonable, or unreasonable. If it should prove a reasonable apprehension, as it is a terrible one, would the neglect of it become a reasonable creature, or mend your case? If it shall be found unreasonable, it may require time, and some debate to discover it to be so; whereby, when it is manifestly detected, with how much greater satisfaction is it laid aside! Labor then to inquire rightly concerning this matter.

2. In this inquiry, consider diligently what the kind of that fear is that you find yourselves afflicted with. The fear that perplexes your heart, must some way correspond to the apprehension you have in your mind, touching your case. Consider what that is, and, in what form, it shows itself there. Does it appear in the form of a peremptory judgment, a definitive sentence, which you have passed within yourself concerning your case; that your day is over, and you are a lost creature; or only of a mere doubt, lest it should prove so. The fear that corresponds to the former of these, makes you quite desperate, and obstinately resolute against any means for the bettering of your condition. The fear that answers to the latter apprehension, has a mixture of hope in it, which admits of somewhat to be done for your relief, and will prompt thereto. Labor to discern which of these is the present temper and posture of your spirit.

3. If you find it be the former, let no thought any longer dwell in your mind [under that form] namely, as a definitive sentence concerning your state. You have nothing to do to pass such a judgment, the tendency of it is dismal, and horrid, as you may, yourself, perceive. And your ground for it is none at all. Your conscience within you is to do the office of a Judge; but only of an under-Judge, that is to proceed strictly by rule, prescribed, and set by the sovereign Lord, and arbiter of life and death, there is one lawgiver who is able to save, and to destroy. Nor is your conscience, as an under-Judge, to meddle at all, but in cases within your cognizance. This about your final state is a reserved, excepted case, belonging only to the supreme tribunal, which you must take heed how you usurp. As such a judgment tends to make you desperate, so there will be high presumption in this despair. Dare you take upon you to cancel, and nullify to yourself the obligation of the Evangelical law? And whereas that makes it your duty to repent, and believe the Gospel, to absolve yourself from this bond, and say, it is none of your duty, or make it impossible to you to do it? You have matter and cases enough within the cognizance of your conscience, not only the particular actions of your life, but your present state also, whether you be as yet in a state of acceptance with God, through Christ, yes or no? And here you have rules set you to judge by. But concerning your final state, or that you shall never be brought into a state of acceptance, you have no rule by which you can make such a judgment; and therefore this judgment belongs not to you. Look then upon the matter of your final condition, as an exempt case, reserved to the future judgment, and the present determination thereof, against yourself, is without your compass and line, and most unsuitable to the state of probation, wherein, you are to reckon, God continues you here, with the rest of men in this world; and therefore any such judgment you should tear, and reverse, and, as such, not permit to have any place with you.

4. Yet since, as has been said, you are not quite to reject, or obliterate any apprehension, or thought touching this subject, make it your business to correct, and reduce it to that other form, that is, let it only for the present remain with you, as a doubt how your case now stands, and what issue it may at length have. And see that your fear thereupon be answerable to your apprehension, so rectified. While as yet it is not evident, you have made your peace with God, upon his known terms, you are to consider God has left your case a doubtful case, and you are to conceive of it accordingly. And are to entertain a fear concerning it, not as certainly hopeless, but as uncertain. And as yours is really a doubtful case, it is a most important one. It concerns your souls, and your eternal well-being, and is not therefore to be neglected, or trifled with. You do not know how God will deal with you; whether he will again afford you such help as he has done, or whether ever he will effectually move your heart to conversion and salvation. You therefore are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because (as was told you) he works, but of his own good pleasure. Your fear should not exceed this state of your case, so as to exclude hope. It is of unspeakable concernment to you, that hope do intermingle with your fear. That will do much to mollify and soften your hearts, that after all the abuse of mercy, and imposing upon the patience of God, your neglects and slights of a bleeding Savior, your resisting and grieving the Spirit of grace, he may yet, once for all, visit your forlorn soul with his vital influence, and save you from going down to perdition! How can your hearts but melt and break upon this apprehension! And it is not a groundless one. He that came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, will not fail to treat them well, whom he sees beginning to listen to his call, and entertaining the thoughts that most directly tend to bring them to a compliance with it. Your hope insinuating itself and mingling with your fear, is highly grateful to the God of all grace. He takes pleasure in them that fear him, and in them that hope in his mercy (Psalm 147:11).

5. But see to it also that your fear be not slight, and momentary, and that it vanish not, while as yet it has so great a work to do in you, namely, to engage you to accept God's own terms of peace and reconciliation, with all your heart and soul. It is of continual use, even not only in order to conversion, but to the converted also. Can you think those mentioned words were spoken to none such (Philippians 2:12-13)? Or those (Hebrews 4:1): Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short, etc. And do we not find an holy fear is to contribute all along to the whole of progressive sanctification (2 Corinthians 7:1)? Having therefore these promises (dearly beloved) let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And that by it he preserves his own, that they never depart from him (Jeremiah 32:40). Much more do you need it in your present case, while matters are yet in treaty between God and you. And as it should not exceed the true apprehension of your case, so nor should it come short of it.

6. You should therefore in order to this aggravate to yourselves the just causes of your fear. Why are you afraid your day should be over, and the things of your peace be forever hid from your eyes? Is it not that you have sinned against much light, against many checks of your own consciences, against many very serious warnings and exhortations, many earnest importunate beseechings and entreaties you have had in the ministry of the Gospel, many motions and strivings of the Spirit of God thereby? Let your thoughts dwell upon these things. Think what it is for the great God, the Lord of glory to have been slighted by a worm! Does not this deserve as ill things at the hands of God as you can [reconstructed: fear]? It is fit you should apprehend what your desert is, that perhaps mercy may interpose, and avert the deserved dreadful event. And if he has signified his displeasure towards you hereupon, by desisting for the present, and ceasing to strive with you as he has formerly done; if your heart has grown more cold, and dead, and hard, than sometime it was, if you have been left so as to fall into grosser sin; it is highly reasonable you should fear being finally forsaken of the blessed Spirit of God, and greatly fear it, but with an [reconstructed: awful] fear, that may awaken you most earnestly to endeavor his return to you, not with a despairing fear that will bind you up from any further endeavor for your soul at all.

And if upon all this (by death or otherwise) such a ministry be withdrawn from you, as God did work by, in some degree, upon you, and you find not in that kind, what is so suitable to your state and case; take heed lest you be stupid under such a stroke. Think what it imports to you, if God have, as it were, said concerning any servant of his (as Ezekiel 2:26) I will make his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, that he shall not be a reprover to you any more! Consider that God may by this, be making way that wrath may come upon you to the uttermost, and never let you have opportunity to know more, the things of your peace. Perhaps you may never meet with the man more, that shall speak so accommodately to your condition, that shall so closely pursue you through all the haunts and subterfuges, and lurking holes, wherein your guilty convinced soul has been accustomed to hide itself, and falsely seek to heal its own wounds. One of more value may be less apt, possibly, to profit you. As a more polished key does not therefore alike fit every lock. And your case may be such, that you shall never hear a sermon, or the voice of a preacher more.

7. And now in this case recollect yourselves, what sins you have been formerly convinced of, under such a ministry, and which you have persisted in notwithstanding. Were you never convinced of your neglecting God, and living as without him in the world? Of your low esteem and disregard of Christ? Of your worldliness, your minding only the things of this earth, of your carnality, pride, self-seeking, voluptuousness, your having been lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God? Of your unprofitableness in your station? Wherein you ought to have lived more conformably to Christian rules and precepts, according to the relations wherein God had set you? Were you never convinced how very faulty governors you have been, or members of families? Parents, or masters, children, or servants, etc.? What will this come to at last, that convictions have hitherto signified and served for nothing but increase of guilt?

8. Under all this weight and load of guilt, consider what you have to do for your souls! Consider yourself; are you to sit down and yield yourselves to perish? Consider, man, it is the business of your soul, and of your eternal state that is now before you. You have the dreadful flaming gulf of everlasting horror and misery in view — have you nothing left to do but to throw yourself into it? It seems to me you should sooner reconcile your thoughts to anything than that; and that, if anything at all is to be done for your escape, you should rather set yourself about it, and do it. You are yet alive, not yet in hell; yet the patience of God spares you, you have yet time to consider, you have the power to think yet left you — and can you use it no other way than to think of perishing? Think rather how not to perish. A great point is gained, if you are but brought to say, what shall I do to be saved? — which implies you both apprehend the distress of your case, and are willing to do anything that is to be done for your relief. And if you are brought to this, your circumstances may perhaps be such that you can only put this question to yourself, and are only yourself to answer it, without a living, present guide, which may therefore make such a help as this needful to you. Possibly some irresistible providence may have so cast your lot, that you are only now to be your own preacher — though it sometime was otherwise with you; and things were said to you most suitable to the condition of your soul, which you would not then consider. It is yet pressed upon you to consider now, with some design to direct your thoughts, that they run not into useless and troublesome confusion only. And your subject being what course you are now to take, that you may escape eternal wrath and ruin — it is obvious to you to apprehend that nothing is to be done against, or without God, but with him, and by him. Your utmost consideration can but bring the matter to this short point, that whereas you have highly offended the God that made you, incurred his wrath, and made him your enemy, either to resist, or treat and supplicate. That madness which would let you intend the former is not capable of consideration at all. For, if you consider, will you contend with omnipotency, or fight with an all-devouring flame? And as to the latter, it is well for you, that it can be the matter of your consideration, that you have any encouragement to turn your thoughts that way. You might have enemies that, being provoked, and having you in their power, would never admit of treaty, nor regard your supplications, but fall upon you with merciless fury, and leave you nothing to think of but perishing. Here it is not so with you. The merciful God has graciously told you fury is not so in him, but that — though if briars and thorns will set themselves in battle against him, he will easily pass through, and burn them up together — yet if any will take hold of his strength, that they may make peace with him, they shall make peace with him (Isaiah 27:4-5). You are to consider there is danger in your case, and there is hope, that your sin is not so little as to need no forgiveness, nor too great to be forgiven. Therefore, whoever's case this is, since you may be forgiven, if you duly apply yourselves, and must be forgiven, or you are undone, my further advice to you is, and you may, as to this, advise yourself, having nothing else left you to do.

9. That you cast yourselves down before the mercy-seat of God, humble yourselves deeply at his footstool, turn to him with all your soul, implore his mercy through Christ, make a solemn covenant with him, taking him to be your God, and devoting yourself to him, to be his, accepting his Son as your Lord and Savior, and resigning your soul with submission and trust entirely to him to be ruled and saved by him. That you are to do this the case is plain, and even speaks itself; how you are to do it may need to be more particularly told you.

1. Take heed that what you do in this be not the mere effect of your present apprehended distress, but of the altered judgment, and inclination of your mind and heart. The apprehension of your distressed dangerous condition may be a useful means and inducement to engage you more seriously to listen and attend to the proposals made to you in the Gospel. But if upon all this, it should be the sense of your heart that you would rather live still as without God in the world, and that you would never come to any such treaty or agreement with him, if mere necessity, and the fear of perishing did not urge you to it, you are still but where you were. Therefore, though the feared danger was necessary to make you consider yourself, and consider what God proposes to you; that consideration ought to have that further effect upon you, to convince you of the equity and desirableness of the things themselves which he proposes — summarily, of your betaking yourselves to him as your sovereign Lord, and supreme Good, to fear and love, obey and enjoy him, in Christ Jesus — and accordingly ought to incline your heart to that.

2. You are to consider in your entering into this covenant with God in Christ, that it is not a transaction for the present only you are about, but for your whole life. This God is to be your God, forever and ever, your God, and your guide even to the death (Psalm 48:14). You are to live in his fear and love, in his service and communion all your days, and must understand this to be the meaning and tenor of the covenant which you make with him.

3. And hence, therefore, it is plain that your whole transaction in this matter must proceed from a new nature, and a new vital principle of grace and holiness in you. What you do herein will otherwise neither be sincere nor lasting. You can never embrace religion for itself, without this, nor continue on in a religious course. What you do only from a temporary pang of fear upon you, is but from a kind of force that is for the present upon you, and will come to nothing, as soon as the impression of that fear wears off. The religion which is true, and durable, is not from a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). You must be a new creature, God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works — that you may walk in them. The life of the new creature stands in love to God, as its way and course afterwards is a course of walking with God. If your heart be not brought to love God, and delight in him, you are still but dead towards God, and you still remain alive to sin, as before. Whereas, if you ever come to be a Christian indeed, you must be able truly to reckon yourself dead to sin, and alive to God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:11). Whereupon in your making the mentioned covenant you must yield yourself to God, as one that is alive from the dead, as it is, verse 13 of the same chapter. A new nature and life in you, will make all that you do, in a way of duty, (whether immediately towards God or man, the whole course of godliness, righteousness and sobriety) easy and delightful to you. And because it is evident both from many plain Scriptures, and your own, and all men's experience, that you cannot be, yourselves, the authors of this holy new life and nature, you must therefore further in entering into this covenant

4. Most earnestly cry to God, and plead with him for his Spirit, by whom the vital unitive bond must be contracted between God in Christ and your souls. So this will be the covenant of life and peace. Lord! how generally do the Christians of our age deceive themselves with a self-sprung religion! Divine indeed in the institution, but merely human, in respect of the rooting and exercise. In which respects also it must be divine or nothing? What are we yet to learn that a divine power must work and form our religion in us, as well as divine authority direct and enjoin it? Do all such scriptures go for nothing that tell us, it is God that must create the new heart, and renew the right spirit in us, that he must turn us, if ever we be turned, that we can never come to Christ, except the Father draw us, etc. Nor is there any cause of discouragement in this, if you consider what has before been said in this discourse. Ask and you shall receive, seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you. Your heavenly Father will give his Spirit to them that ask, more readily than parents do bread to their children, and not a stone. But what if you be put to ask often, and wait long, this does but the more endear the gift, and show the high value of it. You are to remember how often you have grieved, resisted, and vexed this Spirit, and that you have made God wait long upon you. What if the absolute sovereign Lord of all expect your attendance upon him? He waits to be gracious — and blessed are they that wait for him. Renew your applications to him. Lay from time to time that covenant before you, which your selves must be wrought up to a full entire closure with. And if it be not done at one time, try yet if it will another, and try again and again. Remember it is for your life, for your soul, for your all. But do not satisfy yourself with only such faint motions within you, as may only be the effects of your own spirit, of your dark, dull, listless, sluggish, dead, hard heart, at least not of the efficacious regenerating influence of the divine Spirit. Did you never hear what mighty [reconstructed: workings] there have been in others, when God has been transforming and renewing them, and drawing them into living union with his Son, and himself through him? What an amazing penetrating light has struck into their hearts, as (2 Corinthians 4:6). Such as when he was making the world, enlightened the Chaos. Such as has made them see things that concerned them as they truly were, and with their own proper face, God, and Christ, and themselves, sin and duty, heaven and hell in their own true appearances! How effectually they have been awakened! How the terrors of the Almighty have beset and seized their souls! What agonies and pangs they have felt in themselves, when the voice of God has said to them, awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life! (Ephesians 5:14). How he has brought them down at his feet, thrown them into the dust, broken them, melted them, made them abase themselves, loathe and abhor themselves, filled them with sorrow, shame, confusion, and with indignation, toward their own guilty souls, habituated them to a severity [reconstructed: against] themselves, to the most sharp, and yet most unforced self-accusations, self-judging and self-condemnation; so as even to make them lay claim to hell, and confess the portion of devils belonged to them, as their own most deserved portion. And if now their eyes have been directed toward a Redeemer, and any glimmering of hope has appeared to them; if now they are taught to understand God saying to them, Sinner, are you yet willing to be reconciled, and accept a Saviour? O the transport into which it puts them! This is life from the dead! What, is there hope for such a lost wretch as I? How tasteful now is that melting invitation? How pleasant an intimation does it carry with it, Come to me all you that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest, etc. If the Lord of heaven and earth do now look down from the throne of glory, and say, what, Sinner, will you despise my favor and pardon, my Son, your mighty merciful Redeemer, my grace and Spirit still! What can be the return of the poor abashed wretch, overawed by the glory of the divine Majesty, stung with compunction, overcome with the intimation of kindness and love? I have heard of you, O God, by the hearing of the ear, now my eye sees you; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. So inwardly is the truth of that word now felt, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more, because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you, for all that you have done, says the Lord God (Ezekiel 16:63). But, sinner, will you make a covenant with me, and my Christ? Will you take me for your God, and him for your Redeemer and Lord? And may I, Lord! yet, may I! O admirable grace! Wonderful sparing mercy! that I was not thrown into hell at my first refusal! Indeed, Lord, with all my heart and soul. I renounce the vanities of an empty cheating world, and all the pleasures of sin; in your favor stands my life. Whom have I in heaven but you? Whom on earth do I desire besides you? And O you blessed Jesus, you Prince of the Kings of the earth, who has loved me, and washed me from my sins in your blood, and whom the eternal God has exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins, I fall before you, my Lord, and my God; I here willingly tender my homage at the footstool of your throne. I take you for the Lord of my life. I absolutely surrender and resign myself to you. Your love constrains me henceforth no more to live to myself, but to you who died for me, and did rise again. And I subject and yield myself to your blessed light and power, O holy Spirit of grace, to be more and more illuminated, sanctified, and prepared for every good word and work, in this world, and for an inheritance among them that are sanctified in the other. Sinner, never give your soul leave to be at rest until you find it brought to some such transaction with God (the Father, Son, and Spirit) as this; so as that you can truly say, and do feel your heart is in it. Be not weary or impatient of waiting and striving, until you can say, this is now the very sense of your soul. Such things have been done in the world (but O how seldom of latter days!) So God has wrought with men to save them from going down to the pit, having found a ransom for them. And why may he not yet be expected to do so? He has smitten rocks before now, and made the waters gush out; nor is his hand shortened, or his ear heavy. Your danger is not, Sinner, that he will be inexorable, but lest you should be. He will be entreated, if you would be prevailed with to entreat his favor with your whole heart.

And that you may, and not throw away your soul, and so great a hope through mere sloth, and loathness to be at some pains for your life; let the text, which has been your directory about the things that belong to your peace, be also your motive, as it gives you to behold the Son of God weeping over such as would not know those things. Shall not the Redeemer's tears move you? O hard heart! Consider what these tears import to this purpose.

1. They signify the real depth, and greatness of the misery into which you are falling. They drop from an intellectual and most comprehensive eye, that sees far, and pierces deep into things, has a wide and large prospect; takes the compass of that forlorn state into which unreconcilable sinners are hastening, in all the horror of it. The Son of God did not weep vain and causeless tears, or for a light matter; nor did he for himself either spend his own, or desire the profusion of others' tears. Weep not for me, O daughters of Jerusalem, etc. He knows the value of souls, the weight of guilt, and how low it will press and sink them; the severity of God's justice, and the power of his anger, and what the fearful effects of them will be, when they finally fall. If you do not understand these things yourself, believe him that did, at least believe his tears.

2. They signify the sincerity of his love and pity, the truth and tenderness of his compassion. Can you think his tears deceitful — his, who never knew guile? Was this like the rest of his course? And remember that he who shed tears, did, from the same fountain of love and mercy, shed blood too! Was that also done to deceive? You make yourself some very considerable thing indeed, if you think the Son of God counted it worth his while to weep, and bleed, and die, to deceive you into a false esteem of him and his love. But if it be the greatest madness imaginable to entertain any such thought, but that his tears were sincere and inartificial, the natural genuine expressions of undissembled benignity and pity, you are then to consider what love and compassion you are now sinning against; what bowels you spurn; and that if you perish, it is under such guilt as the devils themselves are not liable to, who never had a Redeemer bleeding for them, nor, that we ever find, weeping over them.

3. They show the remedilessness of your case, if you persist in impenitency and unbelief till the things of your peace be quite hidden from your eyes. These tears will then be the last issues of (even defeated) love, of love that is frustrated of its kind design. You may perceive in these tears the steady unalterable laws of heaven, the inflexibility of the divine justice, that holds you in adamantine bonds, and has sealed you up, if you prove incurably obstinate and impenitent, to perdition; so that even the Redeemer himself, he that is mighty to save, cannot at length save you, but only weep over you, drop tears into your flame, which assuage it not; but though they have another design, even to express true compassion, do yet unavoidably heighten, and increase the fervor of it, and will do so to all eternity. He even tells you, Sinner, you have despised my blood, you shall yet have my tears. That would have saved you, these do only lament you lost.

But the tears wept over others as lost and past hope, why should they not yet melt you, while as yet there is hope in your case? If you are effectually melted in your very soul, and looking to him whom you have pierced, do truly mourn over him, you may assure yourself the prospect his weeping eye had of lost souls did not include you. His weeping over you would argue your case forlorn and hopeless. Your mourning over him will make it safe and happy. That it may be so, consider further that

4. They signify how very intent he is to save souls, and how gladly he would save yours, if yet you will accept of mercy while it may be had. For if he weep over them that will not be saved, from the same love that is the spring of these tears, would saving mercies proceed to those that are become willing to receive them. And that love that wept over them that were lost, how will it glory in them that are saved? There his love is disappointed and vexed, crossed in its gracious intention; but here having compassed it, how will he joy over you with singing, and rest in his love! And you also, instead of being involved in a like ruin with the unreconciled sinners of the Old Jerusalem, shall be enrolled among the glorious citizens of the New, and triumph together with them in eternal glory.