Hosea 14:2–3 Continued (Edward Reynolds)

Ver. 2, 3. — So tcill we render the calves of our lips. Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: 7ieither will we sai, any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless Jindeth mere!/.

In the whole context we have before observed two general parts, Israel’s prayer, and Israel’s promise. The prayer we have handled, and now to,

II. The promise, wherein are two things to be considered: 1. The covenant itself. 2. The ground upon which they make it, God’s mercy to the fatherless. First, then, of the covenant, wherein they promise two things: 1. Thanksgiving for God’s hearing and answering of their prayers. 2. A special care for amendment of their lives.

“So will we render the calves of our lips.” D’lS irnsw The apostle out of the Septuagint reads this, Knpn-oi’ x“^fw>’! “the fruit of our lips,” Heb. xiii. 15. It is the use of the Scripture to describe spiritual duties by expressions drawn from ceremonies and usages under the law; as repentance is called washing, Isa. i. 16; and prayer, “incense,” Psal. cxli. 2; Ilev. v. 8; and the righteousness of saints, “fine linen,” in allusion to the garments of the priests. Rev. xix. 8; and Til. c“pus chTiki. Christ, “an altar,” whereby both our per-I’r’i’cap“*.’”“’ ^°”* ^^’^ services are sanctified and accepted, Heb. xiii. 10; llom. xii. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 5; Isa. lvi. 7. Thus here, the spiritual sacrifices of praise arc called “calves,” to show the end of all sacrifices, which were ordained for the stirring up j,“toI^*ap.T«’’ct of spiritual aflections and praises to God, A’u’s.’rt”?“v.’S-r.’iui. *”’! ‘■’’’’° to intimate the vanity of cere- 1(1. cap. 6. rt Ep’uii. monial without real services. The beast on the altar was but a carnal, but the faith of the heart and the confession of the mouth was a reasonable, sacrifice. No point more insisted on in the prophets than this, Isa. i. 1 5; Micah vi. 6 — 8; Amos iv. 4, 5; V. 21; Psal. I 1.3 — 15; lxix. 30 — 36. They had idolatrously dishonoured God with their calves of Dan and Beth-el, and they had carnally and superstiliously placed all worship and holiness in the calves of the altar; but now they resolve to worship God neither

politicly, after human inventions, nor perfunctorily, with mere outward ceremonies, but spiritually, and from inward affections; for the lips are moved by the heart.

Now, thanksgiving is further called “the calves” or sacrifices “of our lips,” to intimate, that after all God’s rich mercies to us, in pardoning our sins, and in multiplying to us his gi-ace and spiritual comforts, we, like beggars, have nothing to return but the bare acknowledgments and praises of our lips, words for wonders: and those words, too, his own gifts; we caimot render them to him before we have received them from him. Psal. cxvi. 12, 13; Matt xii. 34; 1 Chron. xxix. 16.

“Asshur shall not save us.” To the general confession of sin intimated in those words, “Take away all iniquity,” there is added here a particular detestation of their special sins, with a covenant to forsake them, lest waxing wanton with pardon and grace, they should relapse into them again. The sum is to confess the vanity of carnal confidence, betaking itself to the aid of men, to the strength of horses, to the superstition of idols for safety and deliverance. All which they are now at last, by their experience and by their repentance, taught to abandon, as things which indeed cannot, and therefore they are resolved shall not, save them.

By the Assyrian is here intimated all human succour procured by sinful correspondence, by a synecdoche of the part for the whole. But he is particularly mentioned, 1. Because he was the chief monarch of the world, to show that the gi’eatest worldly succours are vain, when they are relied upon without, or against, God. 2. Because the Scripture takes notice often of it as their particular sin, the sending unto, relying upon, and paying him tribute for aid and assistance, Hos. v. 13; vii. 11, 12; 2 Kings xv. 19, 20. 3. Because instead of helping, he did greatly afflict them. Their flying to him was like a bii’d’s flying into a snare, or a fish’s avoiding the pole wherewith the water is troubled, by swimming into the net, 2 Kings xv. 29; Hos. xiii. 4.

“We will not ride upon horses.” By “horses” we are to understand the military preparations and provisions which they made for themselves, both at home and from Egypt, 2 Chron. i. 16; Isa. xxxi. 1.

“Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. Ye are our gods.” By “the work of” their “hands” are meant their idols, which were indebted to their hands for any shape or beauty that was in them. The same hands which formed them were afterwards lifted up in worship to them, Isa. xliv. 10, 17; xlvi. 6 — 8; Jer. x. 3, 15; Acts xix. 26. Time was when we said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Eg)-pt,” Exod. xxxii. 4; 1 Kings xii. 28; but now we will not say so anymore, for how can a man be the maker of his Maker?

“For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” This is the ground of their petition for pardon and grace, and of their promise of praises and amendment, God”s mercy in hearing the prayers, and in enabling the performances, of his people. It is a metaphor drawn from orphans in their minority, who are, 1. Destitute of wisdom and abilities to help themselves. 2. Exposed to violence and injuries. 3. Committed for that reason J to the care of tutors and guardians to govern and pro- I tect them. The church here acknowledges herself an * outcast, destitute of all wisdom and strength within, of all succour and support from without, and therefore betakes herself solely to God’s tuition, whose mercy j can and is wont to help when all other help fails.

This is the last link of that golden chain of repent- Vance, made up of these gradations: 1. A humble address unto God. 2. A penitent confession of sin. 3. An earnest petition against it. 4. An imploring of grace and favour. 5. Thanksgiving for so great benefits. 6. A covenant of new obedience. And, lastly, A confidence and quiet repose in God.

Let lis now consider wnat useful observations the words thus opened will afford. As we see that after they have petitioned for pardon and grace, the’ then restipulate and undertake to perform duties of thankfulness and obedience, we would, in general,

Obs. 4. True penitents, in their conversion from sin, and humiliation for it, not only pray to God for mercy, out moreover covenant to express the fruits of those mercies in a thankful and obedient conversation. AVhen first we are admitted into the family and household of God, we enter into a covenant. Therefore circumcision, whereby the chilcben of the Jews were fh-st sealed and separated for God, is called “my” God’s “co-Tenant,” Gen. xvii. 4, because therein God did covenant to own them, and they did in the figure covenant to mortify lust, and to serve him, without which they visitabo r were in his sight but uneu-cuincised still. omr.es popuios in- “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, chM^”’°F,„,,“e-’° that I will punish all them which are cir- <t<puo< eiri TTdi.- cumcised with the uncu-cumcised,”-S3-Sy

Tar TrepiTeTWjjue- i, ii. - 1

K)i.ca«po/3i.crTiat ,17-1^3 7lD upon all that are circumcised auTw,. bepiuag. y uncircumcision, Jer. ix. 25. The nations joined in the following verse with Judah, who Hcrodoi. 1 2 Arte- ‘•° “uucircumcised, did yet use bamis apud Euseb. ciiTumcision, as the learned have observi.°9. ?27” ()rig” “m ed; but being out of covenant with God, Rom. L 2. cap. 3. y. y accouuted to them as uncircumcision, and so was that of the Jews too when they broke covenant with God, Rom. ii. 28, 29; Acts vii. 51. And as the Gentiles being converted are called Jews, and said to be born in Zion, Psal. lxxxvii. 4, 5; Gal. vi. 10; 1 Cor. xii. 13; so the Jews living Cameron, de Eccies. impeuitently are called Gentiles, Cap. M. Nee hoe no- naanitcs, Amoritcs, Hittites, Ethiopians, Br“e mi’?t.Sa-’ Sodomites, Ezek. xvi. 3; Hos. xii. 7; compSSonriS- Amos ix. 1; Isa. i. 10. In like manner “mt;.’jgdIo5’“‘’8. baptism among Chi-istians is called by the et eont. Marcion, I. apostle am’ciSi)aciiig dyaOtjs ‘nT(pu>Tiyiia fig Qibv, which the learned interpret the answer, or covenant, of keeping a good conscience towards God, 1 Pet. iii. 21. ‘E7rfpwn;^a, a question or interrogation, which some would have to be the conscience making interpellation for itself to God; others, to be as much as loKtjjiaaia, the examining of a man’s self, like that before the Lord’s supper, 1 Cor. xi. 28. I rather take it as an allusion to the manner of John’s baptism, wherein the people fii’st confessed, and consequently renounced, sin; and being taken into Christ’s service, or into that kingdom of God which was at hand, inquired what work they were to do. And we find the same word in Luke iii. 10,” And the people “InripuTiov aitrbv,” asked him, saying, “ATiat shall we do then?” whereby is intimated, an engaging of themselves by a solemn promise and undertaking to the practice of that repentance unto which John baptized them. * AVhence arose that grave form of the ancient churches, wherein questions were proposed to the person baptized touching his faith and repentance, renouncing the world, the flesh, and the devil, with a solemn answer and stipulation obliging thereunto. M hich custom seems to have been derived from the practice used in the apostles’ time, wherein profession of faith unfeigned, and sincere repentance, was made before baptism, Acts ii. 38; viii. 37; xvi. 33; xix. 4.

* Aug. lib. de Fide ct Operibus c. 9. Tertul. ad Mart. c. 2. et 3. et de Coron. Milit. c. 3, et 13. de Habitu. Mulieb. c. 2’. de Spectacul. c. 24. etlib. de Idolatria. Apol. c. 38. luterrogatio legitimaet Ecclesiastica. Firmilian. apud Cyprian, ep. 75. et ib. ep. 70, et 76.

f Dignaris eis,quibus omnia debita dimittis, etiam promissionibus tuis debitor fieri. Aug. Conf. 1. 5. c, 9. Non ei aliquid dediraus, et tenemus debitorem. Unde debitorem? quia promissnrest. Nondicimus Deo, Domine redde quod accepisti, sed redde qund promisisti. Aug. in Psal. xxxii. Cum prouiissum Dei redditur justitia Dei dicitur. Justitia enim Dei

This is the first dedicating of ourselves, and entering into a covenant with God, which we may call, in the prophet’s expression, the subscribing, or giving a man’s name to God, Isa. xliv. 5.

Now the covenant between us and God being perpetual, “a covenant of salt,” Jer. xxxii. 40; 2 Chron. xiii. 5. As we are to begin pal“-agf“i’,;Yet’i-t. it in our baptism, so we are to continue it “• =’ ‘’’:’“i”’”.J”

T-, 1 1 n n Gen. xuc. 16, 17, 2G.

to our lives end, and upon ail nt occa- stuck. Antiquit. sions to repeat and renew it for oui- fur- aKratu’ra; ami-’ ther quickening and remenibrancing unto J,* J iibTsr.’’“”’ duties. So did David, Psal. cxix. 106; so Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 20 — 22; so Asa and the people in his time, 2 Chron. xv. 12, 13; so Hczekiah, 2 Chron. xxix. 10; XXX. 5, 23; so Josiah, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31, 32; so Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra x. 3; Neh. ix. 38.

The reasons enforcing this duty may be di’awn from several considerations.

1. From God in Christ, where two strong obligations occur; 1. His dealing with us. 2. Our relation to him.

1. His dealing with us. He is pleased not only to enter into covenant with us, but to bind himself to the performance of what he promises. Though whatever he bestow upon us is all matter of mere and most free grace, wherein he is no debtor to us at all, yet he is pleased to bind himself to acts of grace. Men love to have all their works of favour free, and to reserve to themselves a power of alteration or revocation. But God is pleased that his gifts should take upon them in some sense the t condition of debts; and although he can owe nothing to the creature, yet he is content to be a debtor to his own promise; and having at first in mercy made it, his truth is often engaged to the performance of it, Rom. xi. 35; Job xxii. 3; xxxv. 7,8; Micah vii. 20.

Further, his word is established in heaven; with him there is no variableness, nor shadow of change; his promises are not yea and nay, but in Christ Amen, 2 Cor. i. 20; if he speak a thing it shall not fail. Josh. xxi. 45. He spake and the world was made; his word alone is a foundation and bottom to the being of all his creatures: and yet, notwithstanding the immutable certainty of his promises, when they are first uttered, for our sakes he is pleased to bind himself by further ties; free mercy secured by a coA’enant, and a firm covenant secured by an oath, Deut. vii. 12; Luke Quid est Dei .eri i. 72, 73; Heb. vi. 17, IS; that we, who, ;;?”’’53;;,’’ii’|’5oJ,V like Gideon, are apt to call for sign upon mitio, et infideiium

,., * ., i.iii quEedamincrepatio?

Sign, and to stagger and be aislieartenecl Aug.deCir.Dei,Ub. if we have not double security from God, ‘°’ “■■■ ^”^ we, whose doubting calls for promise upon promise, as our ignorance does for “precept upon precept,” may-, by “two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie — have a strong consolation.” Now if God, whose gifts are free, bind himself to bestow them by his promise; if God, whose promises are sure, bind himself to perform them by his oath; how much more are we bound to tie ourselves by covenant to God, to do those things which are our duty to do, unto the doing whereof we have such infirm principles as a mutable will and an unstedfast heart.

2. Our relation to him. We are his, not only by a property founded in his sovereign power and dominion over us, as our Maker, Lord, and Saviour, Psal. c. 3; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20; but by a property growing out of our own

est quia redditum est quod pvninissum est. .lmbros. in Rom. iii. Justum est ut veddat quod debet. Debet autem quod poUicitus est. Et hfcc est justitia de qua praesumit apostolus promissio Dei. Bern, de Grat. et lib. Arbit. Licet Deus debitum alicui det, non tamen est ipse debitor, quia ipse ad alia non ordinatur, sed potius alia ad ipsum, et ideo justitia quandoque dicitur in Deo condecentia sua; bonitatis. Aquin. part 1. qu. 21. art. 1. Nulla alia in Deo justitia nisi ad se quasi ad alterum, ut sibi ipsi debitum reddat secundum condecentiam bonitatis, et rectitudinem voluntatis suk. Scotus 4. dist. 4G. qu. 1.

voluntarj- consent, whereby we surrender, and yield, and give up ourselves unto God, Rom. vi. 19; 2 Cor. viii. 4. We are not only his people, but his willing people, by the intervention of our own consent, Psal. ex. 3. We give him our hand; nin’S T’-i:n give your hand unto the Lord, “)-ield yourselves unto the Lord,” 2 Chron. xxx. 8, an allusion to the manner of covenants or engagements, Prov. vi. 1; xvii. 18; Ezek. xvii. 18. AVe offer up ourselves as a free junjctrgoniiiius, oblation, Rom. XV. 16, and are thereupon siiSius!’” “‘■ called “a kind of first-fruits,” James i. 18. “(ft”’ romnJlJaque We are hls, Bs the wife is her husband’s,

interest as this ever presupposes a contract. As in ancient forms of stipulation there was asking and answering: Spondes? S-pondeo. Promittis? Promilln. Dabis? Dabo. As in contract of marriage, the mutual consent is asked and given. Gen. xxiv. 58; so it is here between God and the soul, the covenant is mutual, Gen. xvii. 2. He promises mercy, to be our “exceeding great reward,” and we promise obedience, to be his “willing people;” and usually according as is the proportion of strength in our faith to believe God’s promises of mercy to us, such is also the proportion of care in our obedience to perform our promises of duty to him.

2. From ourselves. And here covenants are needful in two respects. 1. In regai’d of the falseness and deceitfulness of our corrupt hearts in all spiritual duties. The more cunning a sophister is to evade an argument, the more close and pressing we frame it; the more vigilant a prisoner to make an escape, the stronger guard we keep upon him. Our hearts are exceeding apt to be false with God. One while they melt into promises and resolutions of obedience, as Pharaoh and Israel did, Psal. lxxviii. 34 — 37, and i],v,r-j nrcnsionr presently forget and harden again. Lot’s bicili’i’ in’ uK“rt ^^’’’^ ““‘’s ““*■ °f Sodom for fear of the eicimm non exti’r- judgments, but ouicklv looks back again jfi.nm puiininre vi- out of love to the place, Or some other Bt”m. ser’m’T’in curiosity and distemper of mind. Saul Aisum. Mar rcleuts towards David, and quickly after

persecutes him again, 1 Sam. xxiv. 16 — 20; xxvi. 1, 2. This is the true picture of man’s heart, under a strong conviction, or in a pang of devotion, or in ‘time either of sickness, or some pressing affliction, on the rack, in the furnace, under the rod, nothing then hut vows of better obedience; all which do oftentimes suddenly vanish as “the early dew,” and wither away like Jonah’s gotird. Therefore, both to acknowledge and prevent this miserable pcrfidiousncss of such revolting hearts, it is very needful to bind them to God with renewed covenants; and since they are so apt with Jonah to run away and start aside, to neglect Nineveh and to flee to Tarshish, necessary it is to find them out and to bring them home, and, as David did, to fix and fasten them to their business, Psal. lvii. 7.

2. In regard of the sluggishness to duty natural to us. We are a])t to faint and be weary when we meet with any unexpected difficulties in God’s service, lo esteem the wilderness as bad as F.gvpt; to sit down as Ilagar did, and cry, to think that half way to heaven is far enough, and almost a Christian progress enough; that baking on one .side will make the cake good enough; that God will accept of bankrupt payment, a noble in the pound, part of our hearts and duties for all. Now, to correct this torpor, this AXiyoi|/i;;^in, as the apostle calls it, 1 Thess. v. 14, this pusillanimity, and

faint-heartedness in God’s service, we must bind it on ourselves with renewed covenants, and put to the more strength because of the bluntness of the iron, Eccl. X. 10. A covenant does as it were twist the cords of the law, and double the precept upon the soul; when it is only a piecept, then God alone commands it, but when I have made it a promise, then I command it and bind it upon myself. The more feeble our hands and knees are, the more care we should have to bind and strengthen them, that we may lift them up speedily, and keep them straight, Heb. xii. 12, 13; and the way to effect it is to come to David’s resolution, ‘■ I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress,” Psal. xvii. 3. Mere empty desires will not keep weak faculties together broken bones must have strong bands to close them fast again: a crazy piece of building must be cramped with iron bars to keep it from tottering: so if we would indeed “cleave unto the Lord,” we must bring “purpose of heart,” even strong resolutions. Acts xi. 23. Cleaving will call for swearing, Deut. x. 20. As it should be our prayer, so also our purpose, to have hearts united to fear God’s name, Psal. lxxxvi. 11; whence the phrases of preparing, fixing, confirming, establishing, rooting, grounding, and other like, so frequently occurring in the Scripture, 2 Chron. xxx. 19; 1 Chron. xxix. 18: Eph. iii. 17; Heb. xiii. 9; James V. 8.

3. From regard to our brethren, that by a holy association and spiritual confederacy in heavenly resolutions, every man’s example may quicken his brother, and so duties be performed with more vigour and fervency, and return with the greater blessings. If fire be in a whole pile of wood, every stick will burn the brighter, even the greenest wood will take fire in so general a flame. Men usually have more courage in the body of an army, where concurrent shoutings and encouragements do, as it were, infuse mutual spirits into one another, than when they are alone by themselves. David rejoiced in but recounting the companies and armies of God’s people when they went uj) to Jerusalem in their solemn feasts, Psal. lxxxiv. 7. And therefore most covenants in Scripture were general and public, solemnly entered into by a great body of people, as that of Asa, Josiah, and Nehemiah, the forwardness of every man whetting the zeal of his neighbour, Prov. xxvii. 17.

4. From the multitudes, strength, vigilance, malice, assiduous attempts of all our spii-itual enemies, which call upon us for the stronger and more united resolutions. For common adversaries usually gain more by our faintness, and divisions, than by their own strength.* Therefore soldiers use to take an oath of fidelity towards their coluitry and service. And + Hannibal’s father made him take a solemn oath to maintain perpetual hostility with Rome. Such an X oath have all Christ’s soldiers taken; and at the Lord’s supper, and in solemn humiliations, they virtually renew the same, never to hold intelligence or correspondence with any of his enemies.

The first thing in a Christian man’s armour mentioned by the apostle. Eph. vi, 14, is the§ girdle, that which binds on all the other armom-, ( for so we read of girding on armour, Judg. xviii. 11; 1 Kings xx, 11,) and that girdle is truth. Which we may understand either doctrinally. for stedfastness and stability of judgment in the doctrine of Christ which we profess, not being “carried about with every wind of doctrine,” but “holding fast the form of sound words,”” knowing

t Liv. lib,.’55. Appian. in Iherieo et Lybico. Polyb. 1. .3.”

1 Vid. Tertiil. de Coron. Milit, ell,

Cinpere est militarc. apud Plaut. Et stare distinctuni, crat pa-n-ii militatis gcniis. Sucton, Sui<la! ^wivuffCai est iia@ovliltaui, ct Zuii/i), JuvttM’t, unde dicitur Deus balleumrcguiu dissolvcre. ilob xii. 16.

whom we believe,” and the certainty of those things wherein we have been Instructed, Eph. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 12, 13; Luke i. 4; or else morally and practically, for stedfastness of heart in the faithful discharge of those promises which we have made unto God, ( for so faithfulness is compared to a girdle, Isa. xi. 5,) whereby we are preserved from shrinking and tergiversation, in times of trial and in our spiritual warfare. And this faithfulness, the more it is in solemn covenants renewed, the stronger it must needs be, and the better able to bind all our other arms upon us. Christ’s enemies will enter into covenants and combinations against him and his church, Psal. ii. 1, 2; lxiv. 5, 6; lxxxiii. 5 — 8; Acts xxiii. 12; Jer. xi. 9; and our* own lusts within us will many times draw from us oaths and obligations to fulfil them, and make them vincula iniquitatU, conti-aiT to the nature of an oath, 1 Kings xix. 2; Mark vi. 23: how much more careful should we be to bind ourselves to God, that our resolutions may be the stronger and more united against so many and confederate enemies!

This point serves, I. For a just reproof of those who are so far from entering into covenant with God, that indeed they make covenants with Satan his greatest enemy, and do in their conversations as it were abuse those promises, and blot out that subscription, and tear off that seal of solemn profession which they had so often set unto the covenant of obedience; such as those in the projihet’s time, who had “made a covenant with death, and with heU” were “at agreement,” Isa. xxviii. 15. Men are apt to think that none but witches are in covenant with the devil, because such are in the Scripture said to be “consulters with familiar spu-its,” Deut. xviii. 11; but, as Samuel said to Saul, “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,” 1 Sam. xv. 23, every stubborn and presumptuous sinner has so much of witchcraft in him, as to hold a kind of spiritual compact with the dedl. We read of the serpent and his seed, Gen. iii. 15; of the dragon and his soldiers. Rev. Aiteriiu mse ntm ‘^^- ‘’ J “^ some siuuers being of the devil, ‘’IIS’D’11IJk’’s’St”’ aiiimted by his principles, and actuated Teri. de Hoioi. cap. by hls Will and commands, 1 John iii. 8; M jieb.’c. 8. de 2 Tim. ii. 26. Satan tempting, and sin-CuituFoemm.cap.5. jjgg embracing and admitting the temptation upon the inducements suggested, has in it the resemblance of a covenant or compact. There are mutual agreements and promises, as between master and servant, one requiring work to be done, and the other expecting wages to be paid for the doing of it; as in buying and selling, one bargains to have a commocbty, and the other to have a price proportionate. Thus we read in some places of the service of sin, John viii. 34; Rom. vi. 16; 2 Pet. ii. 19; and in others, of the wages belonging to that service, Heb. xi. 25; 2 Pet. ii. 15; Jude 11; and elsewhere of the covenant bargain and sale for the mutual securing of the service and of the wages, 1 Kings xxi. 25. Wicked men sell themselves, bargain and grant away then- time, and strength, and wit. and abilities, to be at the will and disposal of

Mane piger stertis, „ ‘, „, ,^

surge.inqiiitavaiitia, batan, tor such profits, pleasures, honours, ?ut!’s2g’ermmtT advantages, as are laid in their way to Pere.’^atynlT’ allure them; and thus do they as it were with cords bind themselves to sin, Prov. V. 22. Ahab bought Naboth’s vineyard of the devil, and sold himself for the price in that purchase. Balaam, against the light of his own conscience, and the many discoveries of God’s dislike, never gives over his endeavours to curse God’s people till he had drawn them into a snare by the Midianitish woman, and all to this end, that he might at last overtake the wages of iniquity which he ran so greedily after, Numb. xxii. 21; xxiii.

* Kai Toils yz ttowtov avTwv k.

Tiov opKtofiotxtwv avayKTiu irpoatiyayt, iraioa yap Tiva kutu-Oycatj Kat iirl tmv airXdyyvtuv ainov rd opKut irotnuas,

1, 14, 29: xxxi. 16; Jude 11; Micah vi. 5; Rev. ii. 14; 2 Pet. ii. 15. Jezebel binds herself by an oath to murder, 1 Kings xix. 2. Judas makes a bargain for his Master’s blood, and at once sells a soul and a Saviour, for so base a ])rice as thirty pieces of silver. Matt. xxvi. 15. Profane Esau makes merchandise of his birthright, whereunto belonged the inheritance, or double portion, the princely power, and the office of priesthood, the blessing, the excellency, and the government. Gen. xlix. 3; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; all which he parts with for one morsel of meat, Heb. xii. 16; being therein a type of all those profane wretches, who deride the M’ays of godliness and promises of salvation, cb-owning themselves in sensual delights, and esteeming heaven and hell, salvation and perdition, but as the vam notions of melancholy men, having no other God but their’ belly, or their gain, Phil. iii. 19; 1 Tim. vi. 5.

So much monstrous wickedness is there in the hearts of men, that they add spurs and whips, to a horse which of himself rusheth into the battle. When the tide of their own lusts, the stream and current of their own headstrong and impetuous afl’ections, do carry them too swiftly before, they yet hoist up sail, and, as it were, spread open their hearts to the winds of temptation, precipitating and urging on their natural lusts by voluntary engagements; tying themselves yet faster to misery than Adam by his fall had tied them, and making themselves, not by nature only, but by compact, “the childi’en of wrath.” One makes beforehand a bargain for drunkenness, another contrives a meeting for uncleanness, a third enters into a combination for robbery and cozenage, a fourth makes an oath of revenge and malice; like Ananias and Sapphka, they agree together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord, Acts v. 9. Like Samson’s foxes, they join together with fii-ebrands to set the souls of one another on fire, as if they had not title enough to hell except they bargained for it anew, and bound themselves, as it were, by solemn obligations, not to part with it again.

Oh that every presumptuous sinner, who thus sells himself to do wickedly, would seriously consider those sad encumbrances which go along with this his purchase. Those who would have estates to continue in such or such a succession, as they themselves had preintended, have sometimes charged curses and execrations upon those who should alienate, or go about to alter the property and condition of them. ‘These many times are causeless curses, and do not come. But if any man will make bargains with Satan, and leill buy the pleasures of sin, he must know that there goes a curse from heaven along with such a purchase, which will make it at the last but a -yXvui-KiK^ov, a sweet bitter, like John’s roll, which was sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. Rev. x. 10; like Claudius’s mushroom, pleasant, but poisonous; that will blast all the pleasures of sin, and turn all JjboTok.tOTumvSJ’ethe wages of iniquity in aurum tholosa- »’«=■ Tacit. Annai. num, into such gold as ever brought de- vid. a. ceii. ub. 3. struction to its owners. It is said of Cn. ctokiaiiiicseufortia, Seius, that he had a goodly horse, which Jo;;„’y“sju%in’ora, had all the requh-ed perfections of stature, J;’j,1,|lJ.’^”s,^jS5a feature, colour, strenarth, proiiortion, meiiisdeubaomcuio

1.,, .,, 1.1*. Tenenato, nee tanti

comeliness, but withal this misery ever guumfaciasyoattended it, that whosover became its ‘c’S?^’.’ ^Irti’.S. owner was sure to die an unhappy death. This is the misery that always accompanies the bargain of sin; how pleasant, how profitable, how advantageous soever it may seem to be to flesh and blood, it has always calamity in the end, it ever expires in a miserable death. Honey is very sweet, but it turns into the bitterest choler. ‘The valley of Sodom was one of the

ETTEiTa kaTrXayxvi-vtv atira in-ra -riuii dWwv. Dion, cle Catilina, 1. 37. Inter csetera vid. Euscb. Hist. Eccles. 1. 6.

most delightful places in the world, but is now become a dead and a standing lake. Let the life of a wicked man run on never so fluently, it has a mare morlitum, a dead sea, as its termination. O, then, when thou art making a covenant with sin, say to thy soul as Boaz said to his kinsman, Ruth iv. 5, 6, At what time thou buyest it, thou must have Kuth the Moabitess with it; if thou wilt have the pleasures, the rewards, the wages of iniquity, thou must also have the curse and damnation that is entailed upon it; and let thy soul answer, as did the kinsman, No, I may not do it, I shall mar and spoil a better inheritance.

II. This may serve for an instruction to us touching the duties of solemn humiliation and repentance. We must not think we have done enough when we have made general acknowledgments and confessions of sin, and begged pardon and grace from God; but we must withal further bind ourselves fast to God by engagements of new obedience, as holy men in the Scripture have done in their more solemn addresses to God, Neh. ix. 38; Psal. li. 12 — 15; for without amendment of life prayers are but bowlings and abominations, Hos. vii.

14; Prov. xxviii. 9. Quantum a pres- ^“‘capfio?“‘” ceptis, tatitttm ab auribus Dei longe sumus.

No obedience, no audience. A beast will ‘TT when he is beaten; but men, when God punishes, should not only cry, but covenant.

To the performance whereof, that we may the better apply ourselves, let us a little consider the nature of a Duonim rioriiimvc Teligious covcuaut. A covenant is a c°nir«M’*v’i“iJn. ‘^^^tual Stipulation, or a giving and reh.i.s.ie paciii ccivin” of faith between two parties,

undo mutua ex fltjc i i. i i

data ct acctpia wherebv Uiey do unanimously agree in oniur obiiguiio. inviolable sentence, or resolution. Such a covenant there is between God and true believers, he giving himself as a reward to them, and they giving themselves as»servants to him. He willing and requiring the service, and they willing and consenting to the reward; he promising to be their God, and they to be his people, Heb. viii. 10. A remarkable form of joint and mutual stipulation we have, Deut. xxvi. 17 — 10, “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to wallc in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his Judgments, and to hearken unto his voice: and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandment.s; and to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken.” M’here we have both the mutual expressions of intimate relation one to another, and the mutual engagements to universal obedience on the one side, and to high and precious benefits on the other, growing out of that relation. For, because God is mine, I am bound to serve him; and, because I am his, he has bound himself to provide for me. There are two parts of the covenant: 1. That which consists in God’s promise to be om- God, which, in general, imports thus much, God’s giving himself in Christ to us, and, together with Christ, all other good things. Benefits relative, in justification from sin, and adoption to sons. Benefits habitual, a new nature by regeneration, a new heart and life by sanctification, a quiet conscience by peace and comfort. Benefits temporal, in the promises of this life. Benefits eternal, in the glory of the next. Thus is Christ made of God to us wisdom, in our vocation, converting us to faith in him; righteousness, in our

Socrati cum multa miilii pro suis facultatibus offorrcnt, ^schincs, pauper auditor, ciiiil, inquit, dignum to quod dare tibi pussim mvcnio, et hoc uno inodo paupcrcmme esse scntin, itaquc dono tibi quod uniuu babeo, mcipsum. Seneca de Beuif. lib. i. cap. 8.

justification, reconciling us to his Father; sanctification, in our conformity to him in grace; and rcdemj)- tion, from all evils or enemies which might hate us here, and unto all glory which, may fill and everlastingly satisfy us hereafter, 1 Cor. i. 30. This part of the covenant we are not ‘now to consider, but, 2. That part of the covenant which concerns our engagement to God, wherein we promise both ourselves and our abilities to him, to be his people and to do him service. The material cause of this covenant is whatsoever may be promised to God; and that is, 1. Our persons. 2. Our service.

1. Our persons. “AYe are thine,” Isa. Lxiii. 19. Giving our own selves to the Lord, 2 Cor. viii. 5; not esteeming ourselves our own, but his that bought us, 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20; and being willing that he who bought us should have the property in us, and the possession of us, and the dominion over us, and the liberty to do what he pleases with us ;* being contented to be lost to ourselves, that we may be found in him, Phil. iii. 9. If sin or Satan call for our tongue, or heart, or hand, or eye, to answer, These are not mine own, Christ has bought them, the Lord has set them apart for himself, Psal. iv. 3; they are vessels “meet for the master’s use,” 2 Tim. ii. 21; I am but the steward of myself, and may not dispose of my Master’s goods without, much less against, his will and commands.

2. Our senices; which are, 1. Matters of necessity; 2. Matters of expediency; and, 3. Matters of praise. All which may be made the materials of a covenant.!

1. Matter of duty and necessity. As David by an oath binds himself to keep God’s righteous judgments, Psal. cxix. 106. And the people in Nehemiah’s time enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law, and to observe and do all his commandments, Neh. X. 29.

2. Matter of circumstantial expediency, which, in Cliiistian wisdom, may be conducive to the main end of a man’s life, or may fit him for any special condition to which God calls him. So the Rechabites promised theii- father Jonadab, and held that promise obligatory in the sight of God, not to drink wme, nor to build houses, &c., Jer. xxxv. 6, 7; because by that voluntary hardship of life they should be the better fitted to bear that captivity which was to come upon them; or because thereby they should the better express the condition of strangers amongst God’s people, upon whose outwai’d comforts they would not seem too much to encroach, that it might appear that they did not incorporate with them for mere secular, but for spiritual, benefits. It was lawful for Paul to have received wages and rewards for his work in the gospel as well of the churclics of Achaia, as of Macedonia and others, as he proves, 1 Cor. ix. 4, 14; yet he seems upon the case of expediency, that he might “cut ofif occasion from them, which” desired “occasion,” and might the better promote the gospel, to bind himself by an oath, (for so much these words, “As the truth of Christ is in me,” do import, as the learned have observed,) never to be burdensome in that kind to those churches, 2 Cor. xi. 7 — 12. Lawful tilings, when inexpedient and gravaminous, may be forborne by the bond of a covenant.

3. Matter of thanksgiving and praise to God; in which case it was usual to make, and to pay, vows. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” saith David; “I will take the cup of salvation,” (a.s the use of the Jews was in their feasts and sacrifices of thanksgiving, Luke xxii. 17,) “I will pay

t Sunt quacdam qua; etiam non volcntcs debcmus: quaedam cliam qua: nisi vovcrimus non debemus, sed postquam ca Deo promittimus nccessario ca rcddcrc constringunur. Aug.

my vows unto the Lord.” Wiereby it appears that godly men, when they prayed for mercies, did, likewise, by vows and covenants bind themselves to return tribute of praise in some particular kind or other, upon theii’ prayers being heard, Psal. cxvi. 12 — 14; cxxiii. .2, 3: so .Jacob did, Gen. xxviii. 22; so Jephthah. Judg. xi. 30, 31; so Hannah, 1 Sam. i. 11, 27, 28; so Hezcldah, Isa. xxxviii. 20; so Jonah, chap. ii. 9; and so Zaccheus, to testify his thankfulness to Christ for his conversion, and to testify his thorough mortification of covetousness, which had been his master-sin, did not only out of duty make restitution where he had done wrong, but out of bounty engaged himself to give the half of his goods to the poor, Luke xix. 8.

The formal cause of a covenant is the plighting of our fidelity and engaging of our truth to God in that particular which is the matter of our covenant. AVhich is done two ways; either by a simple promise and stipulation, as that of Zaccheus; or in a more solemn way, by the intervention of an oath, or curse, or subscription, as in the case of Nehemiah and the people, Neh. ix.

The efficient cause is the person entering into the covenant; in whom these things are to concur:

1. A clear knowledge, and deUberate weighing of the matter promised, because error, deception, or ignorance, are contrary to the formal notion of that consent, which in eveiy covenant is intrinsical and necessary thereunto. Non videtur co?ise)itire qui errat.

2. A fi’ee and willing concuiTence. In omni pactaintercedit actio spontanea, and so in every promise. Not but that authority may impose oaths, and those as well promissory as assertory. Gen. xxiv. 3; 1 Kings ii. 42; Ezra x. 3, 5; as Josiah made a covenant and caused the people to stand to it, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31, 32. But that the matter of it, though imposed, should be such in the nature of the thing as that it may be taken in judgment and righteousness, that so the person may not be hampered in any such hesitancy of conscience as will not consist with a pious, spontaneous, and voluntary concm-rence.

3. A power to make the promise, and bind oneself by it. For a man may have power to make a jjromise which is not finally obligatory, but upon supposition; as a woman might for her own part vow, and by that vow was bound up as to herself, but this bond was but conditional, as to efficacy and influence upon the effect, to wit, if her husband heard it and held his peace, Numb. XXX. 3, 4, 14.

4. A power, having made the promise, to perform it. And this depends on the nature of the thing; which must be, first, possible, for impossibilium iiidta est obtigatio. No man can bind himself to things impossible. And next, lawful, in regard either of the necessity, or expediency, or some other allowableness in the thing. For turpe est jure impossibile, we can do nothing but

that which we can do rightfully. Sinful qus scd°r?Sim”;’’ things are in consti-uction of law impospieiup. j,iranieniuni gible, and SO Can induce no oblisation.

non est vinculum ‘,.

iniquitatis. vid. A Servant can make no promise to the PTOtarefSor’ dishouour Or disservice of his master; KeTareiMnler- Hor a chUd or pupil, Contrary to the will seSc“‘“” “’ ^’^”’’ °^ ^’^ parent or guardian; nor a Christian, to the dishonour or against the will of Chi’ist whom he serv es. In every such sinful engagement there is intrinsically dolus, error, deceptio, the heart is blinded by the deceitfulness of lust, Eph. iv. 18, 22; Heb. iii. 13; 2 Pet. i. 9; 2 Cor. xi. 3. And these things are destructive to the nature of such an action as must be deliberate and spontaneous. Promises of this kind bind to nothing but repentance.

From these considerations we may learn what to judge of the promises which many men make of doing service to God.

1. Some join in covenants as the greatest part of that tumidtuous concourse of people, who made an uproar against the apostle, were gathered together, they “knew not wherefore,” Acts xix. 32. Such do not understand the things which they promise; as if a man should set his hand and seal to an obligation, and not know its contents or conditions. Such are all ignorant Christians, who have often renewed their covenant of new obedience and faith in Christ, and yet know not what the faith of Christ is, or what is the purity, spirituality, and comprehensiveness of that law to which they have sworn. As the apostle saith of the Jews, If they had known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; we may say of many of these, If they knew the purity and holiness of those things which they have powcd to keep, they either would not have entered into covenant with God at all, or would be more conscientious and vigilant in their observation of it. It is a sign of a man desperately careless, to run daily into debt, and never so much as remember or consider what he owes. If there were no other obligation to tie men to the knowledge of God’s will, this alone were sufficient, that they have undertaken to serve him, and therefore by then- own covenants are bound to know him. For surely many men who have promised repentance from dead works, if they did indeed consider what that repentance is, and to what a strict and naiTow way of walking it confines them, would go nigh, if they dm’st, to plead an error in the contract, and to profess that

a service, and so repent ot then’ repent- ••ii’am pmnitenuse

T-»,-.i- ip pa?nitentiam satisfaance. hut m this case, ignorance ot ciet, eritque tanto what a man ought to know, cannot void “ufifto’’“mSo?fi the covenant which he is bound to make, tSiS.1” ’ and, ha ing made, to keep; but his covenant exceedingly aggravates his ignorance.

2. Some make many fair promises of obedience, but ii; is on the rack, and in the furnace, or as scholars under the rod. Oh if I might but recover this sickness, or be eased of this affliction, I would then be a new man, and redeem my mispent time. And yet many of these, like Pharaoh, when they have any respite, find out ways to shift and elude theii” own promises, and, like melted metal taken out of the furnace, return again to their former hardness. So a good divine observes of the people of this land in the time of the great sweat in king Edward’s days, (I wish we could find even so much in these days of calamity on which we are fallen,) as long as the heat of the plague lasted, there was crying out of, We have sinned; mercy, good Lord, mercy, mercy. Then people of the highest rank cried out to the ministers. For God’s sake tell us what shall we do to avoid the wrath of God. Take thesa bags, pay so much to such a one whom I deceived, so much restore to another whom in bargaining I over-reached, give so much to the poor, so much to pious uses. But after the sickness was over, they were just the same as they were before. Thus in times of ti-ouble men are apt to make many prayers and covenants, to cry to God, “Ai-ise, and save us,” Jer. ii. 27. “Deliver us only, we pray thee, this day,” Judg. x. 15. They inquu-e early after God, and flatter him with their lips, and own him as their God, and Rock of salvation, and presently start aside like a deceitful bow. As Austin notes, that in times of calamity

11 iixiiiil- Quos Tides petuthe VerV heathen would tlOCk to the lanter et procaciter

Christian churches to be safe amongst chrisu’sunTiniis them. And when the Lord sent lions gS JiadJ’mS’ur amongst the Samaritans, then they sent “™„7ciS“^’m’ to inquire after” the manner of the God sniissent. oeciv. of the land,” 2 Kings xvii. 25, 26. Thus °”’’- ‘’ ‘• ‘• many men’s covenants are founded only in terrors of conscience. They throw out their sins as a merchant at

sea his rich commodities in a tempest, but in a cahn wish for them again. Neither do they throw away the property over them, but only the dangerous possession of theni. This is not a full, cheerful, and voluntary action, but only a languid and inconstant velleity; contrary to that largeness of heart and fixed disposition which Christ’s own people bring to his service, as David and till- noljles of Israel offered willingly and with joy unto the Lord, 1 Chron. xxix. 17.

3. Since a covenant presupposes a power in him that makes it, both over his own will, and over the matter, thing, or action which he promises, so far as to be enabled to make the promise; and since we of ourselves have neither will, nor deed, nor sufficiency, either to think or to perform, Rom. vii. 18; 2 Cor. iii. 5; Phil, ii. 13. We hence learn, in all the covenants which we make, not to do it in any confidence in our own strength, or in any self-dependence on our own hearts, which are false and deceitful, and may, after a confident undertaking, use us as Peter’s used him; but still to have our eyes on the aid and help of God’s grace, to use oiu- covenants as means the better to stir up God’s graces in us, and our prayers to him for further supplies of it. As David, “I will keep thy statutes;” but then. “O forsake me not utterly,” Psal. cxix. 8. Our promises of duty must ever be supported by God’s promises of grace; when we have undertaken to serve him, we must remember to pray as Ilezekiah did, “O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me,” Isa. xxxviii. 14. Our good works cannot come forth from us, till God first of all work them in us, Isa. xxvi. 12. He must perform his promises of grace to us, before we can ours of service unto him. Nothing of ours can go to heaven except we fii-st receive it from heaven. We are able to do nothing but in and by “Christ which strengtheneth” us, John xv. 5; Phil. iv. 13. So that every religious covenant which we make has indeed a double obligation in it; an obligation to the duty promised, that we may stir up ourselves to perform it; and an obligation to prayer, and recourse to God, that he would furnish us with grace to perform it: as he that has bound himself to pay a debt, and has no money of his own to do it, is constrained to betake himself to sup|)lications that he may procure the money of some other friend.

4. The final cause of a covenant is to induce an obligation where wa.s none before, or else to double and strengthen it where one was before, to be vinculum conservaiidw fidei, a bond to preserve truth iincufum “uo’nf- and fidelity. Being subject to many Slciiu’Sy’ond”“’ temptations, and having backsliding and ii’.v-™”G,lroriiito. revolting hearts, a])t, if they be not kept Thoiq.. ,ie Ktpub. up to service, to draw back from it, thcrchb. 6. cnp. 8. -^ ‘, 1 11

tore we use ourselves as men do cowardly soldiers, set them there where they must fight, and shall not be able to run away, or fall oH’ from service.

III. This should serve to humble us on a twofold consideration:

. Of the falseness and unstedfastness of our hearts, which want such covenants to bind them, and, as it were, fasten them to the altar with cords: as men put locks and fetters upon wild horses, whom otherwise no enclosure would shut in. Our hearts, as Jacob said of Keuben, Gen. xlix. 4, arc “unstable as water;” “weak,” as the prophet calls them. * Moist bodies (as water is) non conlinentur xitis termini.s; do not set bounds to themselves, as solid and compacted bodies do, but shed all abroad, if left to themselves; the way to keep them united together is to put them into a close vessel: so the heart of man can set itself no bounds, but falls all

* ‘Xypovrd AoniaTov olKfKa fip’it. Aristot.tlc (icnpr.et Corrupt, lib. 2. cap. 2. Hinc qui viinm aiiiil mollom, remissam, voluptuariam, in banc ec ilium partem tlcxilcm dicuiitiir. Bioi, ^riv riti vyp6v Kai diappiotrra. Cbrye. liom. xiii. xiv. et Suidce,

asunder, and out of n-arae, nf avaxvaiv, as the apostle’s expression is, 1 Pet. iv. 4. if it be not fastened and bound together by such strong resolutions. Sometimes men, either by the power of the word, or by the sharpness of some affliction, are quickened and infiamed to pious purposes, like green wood which blazes while the bellows are blowing; and now they think they have their hearts sure, and shall continue them in a good frame, to-morrow shall be as this day. But presently, like an instrument in change of weather, they ai’c out of tune again, and, like the chameleon, presently change colour; and, as Chr’SOstom saith, the preacher, of all worlimen, seldom ““”’a,’,?;^!.’’“‘’”’’ finds his work as he left it. Nothing but the grace of God balances and establishes the heart, and holy covenants are an ordinance or means which he has been pleased to sanctify to this purpose, that by them, as instruments, gi-aee, as the principal cause, might keep the heart stedfast in duty. If, then, Isaiah bewail the uncleanness of his lips, and Job suspect the uncleanness and wandering of his eyf s, what reason have we to be humbled for this unstedfastne-ss of our hearts, from whence the diffluence and looseness of every other faculty ptoceed!

2. If we must bewail the falseness of our hearts that stand in need of covenants, how much more should we bewail their perfidiousness in the violation of covenants! that they take occasion even by restraint, like a river that is stopped in its course, j:p„„,„, ,, f,^^^, to grow more unruly; or, as a man ct «i, obic’c unor after an ague, which took away his sto- XaLQu»tL6.c. mach, to retm’n with stronger appetite to “’ sin again. To crucify our sins, and in repentance to put them, as it were, to shame, and then to take them down from the cross again, and fetch them to life, and repent of repentance; to vow, and “after vows to make inquiry,” Prov. xx. 25; this is a very ill requital to Christ. He came from glory to sirffer for us, and here met with many discouragements, not only from enemies, but from friends and disciples; Judas betrays him, Peter denies him, his disciples sleep, his kinsfolks stand afar off; yet he does not look back from a cross to a crown, and though he be tempted to come down from the cross, yet he stays it out, that he might love and save us to the uttermost: but no sooner are we out of Egypt and Sodom, than we have hankering aflTections to return, at the least to look backwards again. ‘W’e engage ourselves to be ruled by the word of the Lord, as the Jews did, Jer. xlii. 5, 6: and with them. Jer. xliii. 2, when we know his word cavil against it, and shrink away from our orni resolutions. Oh how should this humble us, and make us vile in our own eyes! God is exceeding angry with the breach of but human covenants, Jer. xxxiv. 18; Ezek. xvil. 18; how much more with the breach of holy covenants between himself and us! He threatens to revenge severely the quarrel of his covenant. Lev. xxvi. 2.i; and so doubtless he now does, and will do still, exce])t we take a penitent revenge upon ourselves for it. And therefore,

l’. Having entered into covenant, we should use double diligence in our performance of it. quickening and stirring uj) ourselves thereto by the consideration,

1. Of the .stability of his covenant with us, even “the sure mercies of David,” Isa. liv. 8, 9; Iv. 3. To break faith with a false person were a fault, but to deceive him that never fails nor forsakes us, increases both the guilt and the unkindnes.s.

2. Of his continued and renewed mercies. If he wore a wilderness unto us, ^“‘p2l’^;”’ there might be some colour to repeat us

iiypm tlicitiir o iliKaTaipopot ih Tiiv lidovAt. Ejusanimum qui nunc luxurift ct la«civii difHuit. Terent. Heaulon. Mossallina facilitate adulterorum in fastidium versa ad incuguitas libidines proflucbat. Tacit. Annal. 1. 11.

THK PROPHECY OF HOSEA,

of our bargain, and to look out for a better senice. But it is not only unthankfulness, but folly, to make a forfeiture of mercies, and to put God, by our breach of covenant with him, to break his with us too, Jer. ii. 5 — 8; xxxi. 31 — 34; IVumb. xiv. 34; Jonah ii. 8.

3. Of our baptism and the tenor thereof, wherein we solemnly promise to keep “a good conscience,” and “to observe all things whatsoever” Christ commands us, 1 Pet. iii. 21; Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. From which engagement we cannot recede without the note and infamy of greater perfidiousness. To take

?erah?^nl dl’caratb Chnst’s pay and do sin service, to be a hosiibus regit.,,.. do- subicct to Michael and a pensioner to the dura capiat nisi dragon, to wear the livery of one master SUsrS^TeAui. and do the work of another, to be an dj prsliript cap. Israelite in title and a Samaritan in truth, this is either to forget or to deride our baptism, 2 Pet. i. 9, for therein we did as it were subscribe oui’ names, and list ourselves in the register of Zion; and as it is a high honour to be enrolled in the genealogies of the church, so is a great dishonour to be expunged from thence, and to be “written in the earth,” and have our names with our bodies putrify into perpetual oblivion. Jer. xvii. 13; Neh. vii. 64. 65.

4. Of the seal and witnesses whereby this covenant has been confirmed. Sealed in our own consciences by the seal of faith, believing the holiness of God“s ways, and the excellency of his rewards, for “he that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true,” John iii. 33; mutually attested by our spirits, feeling the sweetness of duty, and by God’s Spirit, revealing the certainty of reward, Rom. viii. 16; and this in the presence of angels and saints, into whose communion we are admitted, 1 Cor. xi. 10; Ileb. xii. 22; so that we cannot depart from this covenant without shaming ourselves to God, to angels, to men, and to our own consciences. Yea, the font where we were baptized, and the table where we have sacramentally eaten and drank the body and blood of Christ, and the very seats where we have sat attending to his voice, like Joshua’s stone. Josh. xxiv. 22, 27. will be witnesses against us if we deny our covenant, though there be no need of witnesses against those who have to do with the Searcher of hearts and the Judge of consciences, that consuming fire whom no lead, no th-oss, no reprobate silver, no false metal, can endure or deceive, no Ananias or Sapphira lie unto without their own undoing.

5. Of the estate which these covenants refer to, and the tenor whereunto these services are annexed, which is “eternal life.” After we have had patience to keep our short promises of doing God’s will, he will perform his eternal promises of giving himself unto us. And who would forfeit an inheritance for not payment of a small homage or quit-rent reserved upon it? If we expect eternal life from him, there is great reason we should dedicate a mortal life to him. Let us not pay our service in dross, when we expect our wages in gold.

Having handled the general doctrine of our entering into covenant with God, I shall now proceed to the particulars to which they here engage themselves, whereof the first is a solemn thanksgiving, “so will we fender the calves of our lips.” All the sacrifices of the Jews were of two sorts: some were ilastical, propitiatory, or expiatory, for pardon of sin, or impetration of favour; others were eucharistical, “sacrifices of thanksajiving,” (as the peace-offerings. Lev. vii. 12.^ for mercies obtained, Psal. cvii. 22. With relation to these, the church here, having prayed for forgiveness of sin, and for the obtaining of blessings, doth hereupon, for the further enforcement of those petitions, promise to offer the peace-offerings of praise, not in the naked and empty ceremony, but with the spiritual life and substance, namely, the calves of their lips, which are moved

by the inward principles of hearty sincerity and thanksgiving.

From hence we learn, that sound conversion and repentance enlarges the heart in thankfulness towards God, and disposes it to ofi’er up the sacrifice of praise. And this duty here promised we may consider,

I. Ut mater iam pacti, as the matter of a covenant or compact, which we promise to render to God in acknowledgment of his great mercy in answering the pravers which we put up to him for pardon and grace. It is observable, that most of those psalms wherein David implores help from God, p;’aYmra“inqVtm» are closed with thanksgivings to him, as J^’^’^Ji’^JS,’,!?, Psal. vii. IT; xiii. 5, 6; lvi. 12, 13: lvii. »f;,’°“>Vsi’^ e. 7 — 11; David thus by a holy craft insmuating himself into God’s favour, and driving a trade between earth and heaven, receiving and returning, importing one commodity and transporting another, letting God know that his mercies shall not be lost, that as he bestows the comforts of them upon him, so he would return the praises of them unto heaven again. Those countries that have rich and stajile commodities to exchange and return to others, have usually the freest and fullest traffic and resort of trade made to them. Now there is no such rich return from earth to heaven as praises; indeed to celebrate appreciatingly his goodness towards us is the only tribute we can pay to God. As in the flux and reflux of the sea. the water that in the one comes from the sea to the shore, does in the other but run back into itself again: so praises are as it were the return of mercies into themselves, or into that bosom and fountain of God’s love fi-om whence they flowed; and therefore the richer any heart is in praises, the more speedy and copious are the returns of mercy to it. God has so ordered the creatures amongst themselves, that there is a kind of natural confederacy and mutual negociation amongst them, each one receiving and returning, deriving to others, and drawing from others what serves most for the conservation of them all, and every thing by various interchanges and vicissitudes flowing back into the original from whence it came; thereby teaching the souls of men to maintain the like spiritual commerce and confederacy with heaven, to have all the passages between them and it open and unobstructed, that the mercies which they receive from thence may not be kept under and imprisoned in unthankfulness, but may have free course in daily praises to return to theii- fountain again. Thus Noah, after his deliverance from the flood, built an altar, on which to sacrifice” the sacrifices of thanksgiving,” that as his family by the ark was preserved from perishing, so the memory of so great a mercy might in like manner by the altar be preserved too. Gen. “viii. 20. So Abraham, after a weary journey, being comforted with God’s gracious manifestation of himself unto him, built an altar, and “called on the name of the Lord,” Gen. xii. 7, 8; and after another journey out of Egypt, was not forgetful to return to that place again. Gen. xiii. 4; God’s presence drawing forth his praises, as the return of the sun in sjiring and summer causes the earth to thrust forth her fruits and flowers, that they may as it were meet and do homage to the fountain of their beauty. If Hezekiah may be delivered from death, Isa. xxxviii. 20; if David from guilt. Psal. Ii. 14; they promise to sing aloud of so great mercy, and to associate others with them in their praises: “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways,” and “will sing to the stringed instruments.” Guilt stops the mouth, and makes it “speechless,” Matt, xxii. 12, that it cannot answer for one of a thousand sins, nor acknowledge one of a thousand mercies. AVhen Jacob begged God’s blessing on him in his journey, he vowed a vow of obedience and thankfulness to’ the Lord, seconding God’s promises of

mercy with his promises of praise, and anslerinfr all the parts thereof: “If God will be with mc, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will fjive mc bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God.” If he single out me and my seed, to set us up as marks for his angels to descend to, with protection and mercy, and will indeed give this land to us, and return me “to my father’s house in peace;” then “this stone, which I have set up for a pillar” and monument, “shall be God’s house, for me and my seed to praise him in: and accordingly we find he built an altar there, and changed the name of that place, calling it Beth-el, the house of God; and God, El-beth-cl, the God of Beth-el. And lastly, if God indeed will not leave nor forsake me, but will give so rich a land as this unto me, I will surely return a homage back,” of all that thou shall give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” So punctual is this holy man to resti])ulate for each distinct promise a distinct praise, and to take the quality of his vows from the quality of God’s mercies, Gen. xxviii. 13 — 22; XXXV. 6 — 15. Lastly, Jonah out of the belly of hell cries to God, and vows unto him a vow, that he would “sacrifice with the voice of thanksgiving,” and tell all ages that “salvation is of the Lord,” Jonah ii. 9. Thus we may consider praises as the matter of the church’s covenant. II. Ut fruclum pa’nilenliw, as a fruit of true repentance, and deliverance from sin. AMien sin is taken away, when grace is obtained, then indeed is a man in a right disposition to give praises to God. ‘When we are brought out of a wilderness into Canaan, Deut. ■-iii. 10, out of Babylon to Zion, Jer. xxx. 18, 19, then saith the prophet, “Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry.” When Israel had passed through the Red Sea, and saw the Eg)“ptians dead on the shore, the great type of our deliverance from sin, death, and Satan, then they sing that triumjihant song, !Moses and the men singing the song, and Miriam and the women answering them, and repeating over again the burden of the song; “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea,” Exod. XV. 1, 20, 21. When a poor soul has been with ■Jonah in the midst of the seas, compassed with the floods, closed in with the depths, brought down to the bottom of the mountains, WTapt about head and heart and all over with the weeds, and locked up with the bars of sin and death; when it has felt the weight of a guilty conscience, and been terrified with the fearful expectation of an ajiproaching curse, lying as it were at the pit’s brink, within the smoke of hell, within the smell of that brimstone and scorchings of that unquenchable fire which is kindled for the devil and his angels; and is then, by a more bottomless and unsearchable mercy, brought to dry land, snatched as a brand out of the fii’e, translated into a glorious condition, from a law to a gospel, from a curse to a crown, from damnation to an inheritance, from a slave to a son; then, then only, never till then, is that soid in a fit disposition to sing praises unto God. When God has forgiven all a man’s “iniquities,” and healed all the “diseases” of his soul, and redeemed his “life from destruction,” or from hell, (as the Chaldee renders it,) and crowned him “with loving-kindness and tender mercies,” turning away his anger, and revealing those mercies which

are “from everlasting” in election “to *»’nSJ’mi’„”’’ everlasting” in salvation, removing his «cMllpnTm’!”.5l.°a’ii. ^ius from him “as far as the east is from grm. 2. in akciu. the west;” then a man will call ujjon his

soul over and over again, and summon

Est in raalonim potcstato poccaro; ut autcm pcccando hoc vel hoc ilia mala faciaiit, non est in illonnn potestate, sed iJi’i dividcntis tencbras, et ordinaulis eas, ut hiuc ctiam quod

eveiT faculty within him, and invite every creature w ithout him, to “bless the Lord,” and to ingeminate praises to his holy name, Psal. ciii. 1 — 22. As David begins that Psalm with “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” and ends it with “Bless the Lord, O my soul;”’ so the apostle, making mention of the like mercy of God to him, and of the exceeding abundant grace of Christ, in setting forth him who was “a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious,” “for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting,” begins this meditation with praises, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord;” and ends it with praises, “Now unto the King eternal, immoital, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen,” 1 Tim. i. 12 — 17. It is impossible that soul .should be truly thankful to God, which has no apprehensions of him, but as an enemy, ready to call in, or at the least to curse, all those outward benefits which, in that little interim and respite of time between the curse pronounced in the law and executed in death, he vouchsafes to bestow. And impenitent sinners can have no true notion of God but such. And therefore all the verbal thanks which such men seem to render to God for blessings, are but like the music at a funeral, or the trumpet before a judge,’ which gives no comfortable sound to the mourning wife, or to the guilty prisoner. III. Ut medium impetrandi, as an argument and motive to prevail with God in prayer. For the church here prays for pardon, for grace, for healing, not only with an eye to its own benefit, but to God’s honour. Lord, when thou hast heard and answered us, then we shall glorify thee, Psal. 1. 15. “I will praise thee,” saith David; “for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation,” Psal. cxviii. 21. It is true, if God condemn us, he will therein show forth his own glory, 2 Thess. i. 9, as he did upon Pharaoh, Rom. ix. 17; in which sense the “strong” and “terrible” ones are said to “glorify” him, Isa. xxv. 3, 5, because his power in then- destruction is made the more conspicuous. But we should not therein concur to the glorifying of him. “AVhat profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?” Psal. xxx. 9; lxxviii. 10, 11. “The lilin, the living, he shall praise thee,” Isa. xxxviii. 19. This is a frequent argument with David whereby to prevail for mercy, because else God would lose the praise which by this means he should render to his name, Psal. vi. 4, 5; cxviii. 17. God indeed is all-sufficient to himself, and no goodness of ours can extend unto him. Job xxii. 2; xxxv. 7; yet as parents y„, Riorijm delight to use the labour of then- chil- <i»i“i< non proper dren in things which are no way bene- Aquin.’s?.’’,” S?^’’ ficial to themselves, so God is pleased “’ ‘■ “‘” ‘°’ to use us as instruments for setting forth his glorv’, though his glory stands in no need of us, though we cannot add thereto one cubit. He has made all men in ustis profundarum cogilationum suarum, for the uses of his unsearchable counsels. fi“ccupli.’ uf. i” The Lord hath made all things for him- J™V.’.“■Ji’um self; vea, even the wicked for the dav of;”’’,”;’”’• °’°°,ii,^

.,,,*,. ..,., •, propter tuo*. liffn.

evd, Prov. xvi. 4. ct he is pleased to •••’ Y” ^“‘’ esteem .some men “meet” for uses for which others are not, 2 Tim. ii. 21, and to” set apart some for himself, and for those uses, Psal. iv. 3; Isa. xliii. 21. * God by his wisdom ordereth and draweth the blind and brute motions of the worst creatures to his own honour, as the huntsman does the rage of the dog to his pleasure, or the mariner the blowing of the wind to his voyage, or the artist the heat of the fire to his work, or the physician the bloodthirstiness of the leech to a cure. But godly men are fitted to bring

fariunt contra voluutatcm Dei, noa implcatur nisi voluntas Uci. Aug. de pr<B. Sauct. c. lU.

actually glovy to him, to glorify him operatively, 1 Cor. X. 30, 31; Eph. i. 11, 12. And this is that in which God chiefly delights.

Our Saviour bids his disciples cast their net into the sea, and -n-hcn they had di-awn their net, he bids them bring of the fish which they had then caught, and yet we find that there was on the land before a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread, John xxi. 6 — 10; thereby teaching us that he did not use their industry for any need that he had of it, but because he would honour them so far as to let them honour him with their obedience. And therefore even then when God tells his people that he needed not their services, he calls yet upon them for thanksgiving, Psal. 1. 9, 14.

This then is a strong argument to be used in prayer for pardon, for grace, for any spii-itual mercy. Lord, if I perish, I shall not praise thee, I shall not be meet for my Master’s uses. Thy glory will only be forced out of me with blows, like fire out of a flint, or water out of a rock. But thou delightest to see thy poor servants operate towards thy glory, to see them not forced by power but by love to show forth thy praises. And this we shall never do tQl sin bo pardoned. God can bring light out of light, as the light of the stars out of the light of the sun, and he can bring light out of darkness, as he did at first; but in the one case there is a meetness for such a use, in the other not. Now we are not meet subjects for God to reap honour fi-om, till sin be pardoned, till grace be conferred. Then we shall give him the praise of his mercy, in pitjdng such grievous sinners; and the praise of his power and misdom, in healing such mortal diseases; and the praise of his glorious and free grace, in sending salvation to those that did not inquire after it; and the praise of his patience, in forbearmg us so long, and waiting that he might be gracious; and the praise of his wonderful providence, in causing all things to work together for our good; and the praise of his justice, by taking part with him against our own sins, and joining with his grace to revenge the blood of Christ upon them. A potsherd is good enough to hold fii’e, but nothing but a sound and piue vessel is meet to contain wine or any rich depositum.

IV. Ut jprinciptum operandi, as a principle of emendation of life, and of new obedience. Lord, “take away all iniquity,” and receive us into favour, then will we be thankful unto thee, and that shall produce amendment of life: “Asshur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. Ye are our gods; for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” A thankful apprehension of the goodness of God in forgiving, giving, saving, honouring us, is one of the principal foundations of sincere obedience. Then the soul will think nothing too good for God, who has showed himself so good to it. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” saith the prophet David, Psal. cxvi. 12: and a little after, “O Lord, ti’uly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid;” that is, a home-born servant, thine from my mother’s womb. It is an allusion to those who were %orn of servants in the house of their masters, and so were in a condition of servants. Partus sequitur ventrem. If the mother be a handmaid, the child is a servant too; and so the Scripture calls therajilios domus, children of the house, Gen. xiv. 14; xv. 3; xvii. 12;

* Si mihi irascatur Deus, num illi ego similiter redirascar? non utique sed pavebo, sed contremiscam, sed veniam deprecabor. Ita si me arguat, non redarguetur a me, sed ex me potius justificabitur; nee si me judicabit, judicabo ego eum, sed adorabo; si dominatur, me oportet servire; si imperat, me oportet parere; nunc jam videas de amore quam aliter sit. Nam cum amat Deus non aJiud vult quam amari. Bern, serm. 83. in Cantic.

Lev. xxii. 11. His heart being enlai-ged in thankfulness, presently reminded him of the deep engagements which bound him to service even from the womli. True filial and evangelical obedience arises from faith and love. Faith shows us God’s love to us, and thereby works in us a reciprocal love to him; “We love him, because he first loved us,” 1 John iv. 19. This is the only thing wherein a servant of God may answer him, and may de simili jimluain rependere vicem, as Bernard speaks, return back to God what is his own gift. * If he be angry with me, I must not be angry again with him, but fear and tremble, and beg for pardon; if he reprove me, I must not reprove, but justify him; if he judge me, I must not judge, but adore him: but if he love me, I must take the boldness to love him again, for therefore he loves, that he may be loved. And this love of ours to Christ makes us ready to do every thing which he requires of us, because we know that he has done much more for us than he requires of us. “The love of Christ,” saith the apostle, “constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead;” that is, either dead in and with him, in regard of the guilt and punishment of sin, so as to b& freed from the damnation of it; or dead by way of conformity to his death, in dying unto sin, and crucifying the old man, so as to shake ofi’ its power and strength. And the fruit of all, both his dying and our loving, is this, “that we should not live unto ourselves, but unto him which died for us, and rose again,” 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. Thus love argues from the greater to the lesser, from the greatness of his work for us to the smallness of ours unto him; if he died to give us life, then we must live to do him service.

t Fear produces’ only servile and unwilling performances. As those fruits which grow in winter, or in cold countries, are sour, unsavoury, and unconcocted, but those which grow in summer, or in hotter countries, by the warmth and influence of the sun are sweet and wholesome; such is the difi’erence between those fruits of obedience which fear and which love produces. The most formal principle of obedience is love, and the first beginnings of love in us to God arise from his mercies to us being thankfully remembered; and this teaches the soul thus to argue, God has given deliverances to me, and should I break his commandments? Christ gave himself to redeem me from all iniquity, and to make me in a special manner his own, therefore I must be “zealous of good works,” Tit. ii. 14; therefore I must “show forth the praises of him who hath called me out of darkness into his marvellous light,” 1 Pet. ii. 9. No more frequent, more copious common-place in all the Scriptures than this, to call for obedience, and to aggravate disobedience, by the consideration of the great things that God has done for us. Dent. x. 20, 21; xi. 7 — 9; xxxii. 6, 7; Josh. xxiv. 2 — 14; 1 Sam. xii. 24; Isa. i. 2; Jer. ii. 5,6; Hos.ii.8; Micah vi. 3 — 5. In the law a ransomed man became the servant of him who bought and delivered him; and upon this argument the apostle calls for obedience: “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s,” 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. We have but the use of ourselves, the property is his, and we may do nothing to violate that.

V. Ut instrumentum Divines glorieB, as a means and instrument of publishing God’s praises. There is

t Vere Christianas est qui plus amat Dominum quam timet gehennam, ut etiam si dicat illi Deus, utere delieiis carnalibus sempiternis, et quantum poles pecca, nee morieris nee in gehennam mitteris, sed mecum tantummodo non eris; exhorrescat et omnino non peccet; non jam ut in iUud quod timebat nou incidat, sed ne iUum quem sic amat offendat. Bern, de Catechizaad. Rudibus, c. 17.

an emphasis in the word “lips.” Sometimes it is a diminutive word, taking away from the duty performed, as Matt. XV. 8, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me:” but here it is an augmentative word, which enlai’ges the duty. rendering it more comprehensive. “1 will sacrifice tinto thee,” saith Jonah, •’ with the voice of thanksgiving,” Jonah ii. 9. God regards not the sacrifice if this be not the use that is made of it, to pubUsh and celebrate the gloi- of his name. The outward ceremony is nothing without the thankfulness of the heart, and the thankfulness of the heart is too little except it have a voice to proclaim it abroad, that others also may learn to glorify and admire the works of the Lord. It is not enough to “sacrifice,” not enough to sacrifice “the sacrifices of thank.sgiving,” except withal we “declare his works with rejoicing,” Psal. evii. 22. There is a private thankfulness of the soul within itself, when, meditating on the goodness of God, it does in secret return the tribute of a humble and obedient heart back again unto him, which is to praise God on the bed: and there is public thanksgiving, when men “tell of all the wondrous works” of God “in the congregation of his saints,” Psal. sxvi. 7, 12; cxlix. 1, 5. Now here the church promises this public thanksgiving, it shall not be the thankfulness of the heart only, but of the lips too; as it is noted of the thankful leper, that he “with a loud voice glorified God,” Luke xvii. 15. “The living, the living, he shall jjraise thee,” saith Hezekiah. But how should they do it i” “The fathers to the chilcken shall make known thy truth,” Isa. xxxviii. 19. There are some affections and motions of the heart which sto]) the mouth, being of a cold, stujiefactive, constringent nature, as the sai) p’nid!^’’.’ HoiSiiiu stays and hides itself in the root while it pSm.wctCT. is winter; such is fear and extremity of

grief. “Assemble yourselves,” saith the prophet, “and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there; for the Lord our God hath put us to silence,” Jer. viii. 14; Isa. x. 14. Other affections open the mouth, are of an expansive and dilating nature, know not how to be straitened or suppressed; and of all these, joy, and sense of God’s mercy, can least contain itself in the compass of our narrow breast, but will spread and communicate itself to others. A godly heart is in this like to those flowers which shut when the sun sets and the night comes, and open again when the sun returns and shines upon them. If God withdraw his favour, and send a night of affliction, they shut up themselves and their thoughts in silence; but if he shine again, and shed abroad the light and sense of his love ii))on them, then their heart and mouth are wide open towards heaven in lifting up praises unto him. Hannah prayed silently so long as she was in bitterness of soul, and of a sorrowful spirit, but as soon a-. God answered her ])rayers, and filled her heart with joy in him, presently her mouth was enlarged into a song of thanksgiving, 1 Sam. i. i;i — 15; ii. 1 — 10.

There is no phrase more usual in the Psalms, than to sing forth praises unto God; and it is not used without a special emphasis. For it is one thing to “praise,” and another to “sing praises,” Psal. cxlvi. 1, 2. This Apud pwu cuiit is, to publish, to declare, to speak of ini’miniiJ’iSai. abundantly, to “abundantly utter the cmirtrt. canFiin- mcmorv of” God’s “great goodness,” that

lur. Quinbl. lib. 1. ., .. .l i.

c.p. la N« auur “onc generation may praise thy works to ““rw,’,n”mtirn. another, and declare thy mighty act.s.” ApX«.IlJI“a». Via. cxlv. 4, 7. And therefore we find,! u!*’“” ‘” most solemn thanksgivings, that the people of (lod were; wont in great companies and with musical instruments to sound forth the praises of God, and to cause their joy to be heard :if;ir off, Nch. xii. 27, 43; Isa. xii. 4 — 6; Jer. xxxi. 7. Ibis then is the force of the expression: Lord, when

thou hast taken away iniquity, and extended thy grace and favour to us, we will not only have thankful hearts, every man to praise thee by himself; but we will have thankful lips to show forth thy praise, we will stir up and encourage one another, we will tell our children, that the generations to come may know the mercy of our God.

This is a great part of the communion of saints, to join together in God’s jiraises. There is a communion of sinners, wherein they combine together to dishonour God, and encourage one another in evil, Psal. lxiv. 5; lxxxiii. 5 — 8; Prov. i. 10, 11. five was no sooner eauglit herself, but she became a kind of serpent, to deceive and to catch her husband. A tempter has no sooner made a sinner, but that sinner will become a tempter. As, therefore, God’s enemies hold communion to dishonour him; so great reason there is that his servants should hold communion to praise him, and to animate and excite one another to duty, as men that draw at an anchor, and soldiers that set upon a service, are wont to do so with mutual encouragements, Isa. ii. 3; Zeeh. viii. 21; Mai. iii. 16. The holy oil for the sanctuary was made of many spices compounded by the art of the perfumer, Exod. xxx. 23 — 25, to note unto us that those duties are sweetest which are made up in a communion of saints, each one contributing to them his influence: as in winds and rivers, where many meet in one they are strongest; and in chains and jewels, where many links and stones are joined in one they are richest. All good is diffusive, line leaven in a lump, like sap in a root; it will find the way from the heart to every faculty of soul and body, and from thence to the ears and hearts of others. Every living creature was made with the seed of life in it, to preserve itself by multiplying. Gen. i. 11, 12. And ot all seeds, that of the S])irit is most ligorous; and in nothing so much as in glorifying God, when the joy of the Lord, which is our strength, puts itself forth to derive the praises of his name, and to call in others to their celebration, 1 John iii. 9; 1 Pet. i. 23.

From all which we learn some means, amongst man) others, whereby to try the truth of our conversion. 1. By the life and workings of true thankfulness to God for pardon of sin, and acceptance into favour. Certainly, when a man is converted himself, his heart will be enlai-ged, and his mouth will be filled with the praises of the Lord; he will acquaint others to what a good God he is turned. If he have found Christ himself, as Andrew and Phili]), and the woman of Samaria did, he will jiresently report it to others, and invite them to come and ste, Johu i. 4], 46; iv. 29. If Zaccheus be converted, he receives Christ joyfully, Luke xix. C. If Matthew be converted, he entertains him with a feast, Luke v. 29. If Cornelius be instructed in the knowledge of him, he will call “his kinsmen and near friends” to partake of such a banquet. .lets x. 24. If David be converted himself, he will endeavour that other sinners may be converted too, and will show them what the Lord has done for his soul, Psal. Ii. 13. The turning of a sinner from evil to good, is like the turning of a bell from one side to another; you cannot turn it but it will make a sound, and report its owni motion. Ho that has not a mouth open to report the glory of God’s mercy to his soul, and to strengthen and edify his brethren, may justly question the truth of his own conversion. In Aaron’s garments (which were types of holiness) there were to be golden bells and [loincgranates, which (if we may make any allegorical ap|)lication of it) intimates to us, that as a holy life is fruitful and active in the duties of spiritual obedience, so it is loud and vocal in sounding forth the prai.ses of God. and thereby endeavouring to edify tlic church. Gideon’s lamps and pitchers were accompanied with trumpets: when God is pleased to put any light of

Vei;. 2, 3.

grace into these earthen vessels of ours, we should have mouths full of thankfulness to return to him the glory of his goodness.

And as that repentance is unsound which is not accompanied with thankfulness, so that thankfulness is but empty and h)-pocritical which does not spring out of sound repentance. ‘We are wont to say that the words of fools are in labris nata, born in their lips; but the words of wise men are e sulco pectoris, di’awn up out of an inward judgment. “The calves of the lips” are no better than the “calves of the stall” in God’s account, if they have not a heart in them. Without this the promise here made to God would be no other than that with which nurses deceive their little children, when they promise them a gay «S!b SubLoS.’”’ golden new-nothing. Praise in the mouth Tertui. de Patria, wltliout repentance in the heart, is like a sea-weed that grows without a root; like the pouring of balm and spices upon a dead body, which can never thoroughly secure it from putrefaction; like a perfume about one sick of the plague, whose sweet smell carries infection along with it., It is not the mentioning of mercies,

wiaT’r.’iama’’’’ but the improviug of them to piety, Ta’’Tcii°Ge.°i?iem. whlch Bxprcsses our thankfulness to God. Alex.’ Strom. 1. 7. God sBts 6 very blcssiug upon our score, iiu.s imitatis est. and expects au answer and retui-n suitse-ec, Epist. 65. ^^-^^^ jy compares Chorazin and Bethsaida with T)Te and Sidon; and if their lives be as bad as these, their punishment shall be much heavier, because the mercies they enjoyed were much greater. The not rightly, using mercies is being unthankful for them. And it is a heavy account which men must give for abused mercies, Deut. xxxii. 6; Amos ii. 9 — 1 6; Lidie xiii. 7; Heb. vi. 7, S. Sins against mercy, and under mercy, are “the first-ripe fruit;” when the sun shines hottest, the fruits ripen fastest, Amos viii. 1,2; Jer. i. 11, 12. God does not bear so long with the provocations of a church, as of those that are not a people; the sins of the Amorites were longer in ripening than the sins of Israel. “When judgment is abroad, it will begin at the house of God.

2. But further, we should be so much the more earnestly pressed to this, by how much it is the greater evidence of our conversion unto God, and by how much more apt we are to call for mercies when we want them, than with the leper to return praises when we enjoy them. Ten cried to be healed, but there was but one that returned glory to God, Luke xvii. 11 — 19. Vessels will sound when they are empty; fill them, and they are presently dumb, len we want mercies, then with Pharaoh we cry out for pardon, for peace, for supplies, for deliverances; but when prayers are answered, and our turn served, how few remember the method which God prescribes, “Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me,” Psal. 1. lo; yea, how many, like swine, trample on the meat that feeds them, and tread under foot the mercies that preserve them! How many are so greedily intent upon the things they desire, that they can neither see nor value the things they enjoy! Oinins I’entinatiocaca est. It is noted even of good king Hezekiah, Seneca de Beneflc ‘^^^ ‘^^ “I’^^’l^’^d not again according 1.^3. c. 3. Lw. ub.’ to the benefit done unto him,” 2 Chron. xxxii. 25. Therefore we should be exhorted in our prayers for pardon and grace, to do as the church here does, to promise the sacrifices of thankfulness and obedience, not as a price to purchase mercy, (for our good extends not to God, Psal. xvi. 2,) but as a tie and obligation upon ourselves, to acknowledge and return the praise of mercy to him that gives it. And to this the apostle exhorts us, “Let your requests be made known unto God,” not only “by prayer and supplication,” but “with thanksgiving,” Phil. iv. 6;

1 Thess. V. 17, 18; 1 Tim. ii. 1; which we find to l;u-. e been his own practice, Eph. iii. 14. — 21. ‘^’o .^liouiu keep a catalogue of God’s mercies to quicken Uo to duty, as well as a catalogue of our own sins to make US cry for mercy. And to this duty of thanksgiving we may be excited by the consideration of,

I. God’s greatness. ‘■ Great is the Lord, and” therefore “greatly to be praised,” Psal. cxlv. 3. The praises of God should be according to his name, Psal. xlviii. 10; xcvi. 8. All tilings were made for no other end, but to return glory to him who made them. Because all things are “of him,” therefore all must be “to him.” Rom. xi. 36. And this the very figure of the world teaches us. For a circular line ends where it began, and returns back into its original point, by that means strengthening and preserving itself For things are usually strongest when nearest their original, and the more remote from that, the weaker they grow; as a tree is strongest at the root, and a branch or bough next the trunk or stock, and the further out from thence, the smaller and weaker it grows; and the further it is from the original of its being, the nearer it is to not being. So all creatures are hereby taught, both for the preservation of that being which they have, and for the supply of those perfections which they want, as well as for the setting forth of the greatness of their ilaker, (out of whose infinite being all finite beings are sustained and perfected,) to run back to God, for whose sake they are, and have been created. Rivers come from the sea, and therefore run back hito the sea again; the trees receive sap from the earth, and within a while pay it back in those leaves that fall down to the earth again. Now as God has made all creatures thus to show forth the glory of his greatness, so he will have them do it by those principles, and in that manner of working, which he has planted in them. Inanimate and mere natural creatures are bid to praise the Lord, Psal. cxlviii. 8, 9; but this they do blindly and ignorantly, like the arrow which flies toward the mark, but understands not its own destination, being directed thither by an understanding without and above itself. And thus when any thing by the natural weight and inclination of its own form moves to the ])lace where it may be preserved, or draws to it those further degrees of perfection whereby it may be improved, and have more of being communicated to it, it may truly be said to praise the Lord, in that it obeys the law which he planted m it, and is by his wise providence carried back towards him, to derive its conservation and perfection from the same fountain from whence proceeded its being. But now, reasonable creatures being by God enriched with internal knowledge, and that knowledge in his church exceedingly raised by his manifestation of himself in the word as then’ uttermost blessedness, he therefore requires that we should work actively, and with intention of the end for which he made us, guiding all our aims and inclinations towards his glory by that internal knowledge of his excellency which he has implanted in us, and revealed to tis. And indeed all other creatures are in this sense said to glorify God, because the infinite power, wisdom, goodness, and perfection of God which are in their beings and workings so notably relucent, do become the object of reasonable creatures, to contemplate upon, and by that means draw forth admiration and adoration of him.

II. God’s goodness. He deserves it at our hands. He gives more to us than we are able to render unto him. The sun shines on the moon with its own glorious light; the moon returns but a faint and spotted light upon the world. We can return nothing to God but that which is his own, 1 Chron. xxix. 16, and it is returned from us not with that purity with which it came to us. We cannot send forth a thought round

about us, but it ■nill rctuni with a report of mercy, and that mercy calls for a return of praise. But above all, the goodness of God mentioned in the text, “Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously,” this calls for “the calves of the lips” to be offered, as in the new moons, with trumpets and solemnity, Numb. x. 10. The beams of the sun, the more directly they fall on the body of the moon, fill it with the more abundant light; so the more copious and remarkable God’s mercies are to us, the more enlarged unto him .should be our praises. Therefore true penitents that have more tasted of mercy, are more obliged to thanksgiving, Psal. cxlvii. 20. “Excellent .speech becometh not a fool,” Prov. xvii. 7; but “praise is comely for the upright,” Psal. xxxiii. 1. For as God is J^iiS^J,^’™. most dishonom-ed by the sins of holy cuiaturpiu.de.o- nicu wlicu tlicv are committed against

lorat. AOD19SU ,., ,, •,/.,. i,

imsnundiiiam mini- light, and break lorth into scandal, 2 iri?nt!a’.’3sci°,»c. Sam. xii. 14, so is he most honoured by yudCuitSiiu’’^” the confession and praises of holy men, because they know more of his glory and goodness than others, and can rcjjort greater things of him. Wicked men speak of God by hear-say, and by ,, .. notion onlv, but holy men by intimate

E-it locus uDi Tere.. ‘, J i. i, i

<iuicscen« et iiuieiiis experience; as the queen oi bneba knew

tmnino nonjudtSs’ more of Solomon’s wisdom from his mouth

“^nSfSi’li’erara than from his fame. He that sees but

{lora, et p«rv. mom. the outward court and buildings of a

Id. wr. 23. Ul Cant., ...., “,

palace, can say it is a glorious jilace i but he that, like the ambassadors of the king of Babylon in Hezekiah’s time, shall be admitted to see “the house of his precious things,” and all the treasures of the palace, can speak much more honourably of it, 2 Kings XX. 12, l.’i. Every one might see and admu’e the stones of the temple without, who were not admitted to view the gold and curious workmanship within. The more intimate communion a man has with God as a Redeemer, the more glorious and abundant praises can he render unto him. Besides, .,,, ... praise is the language of heaven: the

Ilia domus Icrtitiie 1,1. 1., •,.

Ml, ui. iniiitiic. Ilia whole happiness oi the saints there is to

domuft laudis. ista /-i j 1 .1. 111

oiationu. Both. Gujoy God, and their whole business is iS.?’ ‘° °°’’’“‘- to jiraise him. And they who are to live in another country, will be more solicitous to leani the language, and fore-acquaint themselves with the manners and usages of that country, than they who have no hopes nor assurance of coming thither. As they who have hope to be like Christ in glory, will purify themselves, that they may in the mean time be like him in grace, 1 John iii. 2, 3; so they that have hope to praise him for ever in heaven, will “study the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,” before they come thither. And indeed none can jiraise God but they that can abase and deny themselves. Wicked men in all duties serve and seek themselves; but the very formality of praise is to seek God, and to make him the end of our so doing. The apostle exhorts us to offer ourselves “a living sacrifice,” Kom. xii. 1; that is to say, to separate ourselves for God and for his uses. The sacrifice we know was God’s, for his sake it was burnt, and broken, and destroyed. M’e must be such sacrifices; deny ourselves, be lost to ourselves, not .serve, nor seek, nor aim at ourselves; but resolve to esteem nothing dear in comparison of God’s honour, and to be willing any way, whether by life or by death, that he may be magnified in us, Acts xxi. 13; Phil. i. 20. Love of communion in natural creatures is stronger than self-love; stones will move ujiward, fire downward, to preserle the universe from a vacuity, and to keep the compages of nature together. How much more is, and ought to be, the love of God himself in the new creature stronger than self-love, whereby it seeks and serves itself! And without this all other services are but as

Ananias’s lie, lies to the Holy Ghost, kcc])ing to ourselves what we would seem to bestow upon him. Lifting up the eyes, beating the breast, spreading the hands, bending the knee, hanging down the head, levelling the countenance, sighing, sobbing, fasting, howling, all nothing else but mocking of God. And we may say of such men, as the emperor of him that sold the glasses for pearl, (though in a sadder sense,) Imposluramfociitnt el palientur. They deceive God, and fail in his precepts, and they shall be themselves deceived, and fail in their own expectations; for “the expectation of the M icked shall ])erish,” Prov. x. 28.

III. By a consideration of ourselves, and that in a two-fold point of view. 1. Of our natural torjior and sluggishness to this duty. As the Dead Sea drinks in the river Jordan and is never the sweeter, and the ocean all other rivers and is never the fresher; so we are apt to receive daily mercies from God, and still remain insensible of them, and unthankful for them. God’s mercies to us are like the dew on all the ground, our thanks to him like the dew on the fleece. A’’e are like fishermen’s wheels, wide at that end which lets in the fish, but narrow at the other end, so that they cannot get out again; greedy to get mercy, tenacious to hold it, but unthankful in acknowledging or right using it. The rain comes dovm from heaven in showers, it goes up but in mists. We sow in our land one measure, and receive ten; yea, Isaac received a hundred-fold, Gen. xxvi. 12; hut God sows ten, it may be a hundred, mercies amongst us, when we scarce return the praise and the fruit of one. Our hearts in this case are like the windows of the temple, 1 Kings vi. 4, wide inward to let in mercies, but narrow outward to let forth praises. Now as husbandmen use, where the nature of land is more defective, to ex- ]iend on it the more importunate labour; so, having hearts so earthly for the performance of so heavenly a duty, we should use the more holy violence upon them. And as the widow extorted justice from an unjust judge by her continual coming, Luke xviii. 5, we should press, and urge, and with ingeminated importunity charge this duty ui)on ourselves, as does the psalmist, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” Psal. cvii. 8, 1 o, 21, 31. 2. Of our own benefit. For indeed all the benefit which arises cut of this duty redounds to us, and none to God. His, .y, „n,„ii. glory is infinite, and eternally the same, J^»’^ c.i.ira there neither is, nor can be, accession to that by all our praises. AMien a glass reflects the brightness of the sun, there is but an acknowledgment of what was, not any addition of what was not. >’hen an excellent orator makes a pancgjTical oration in praise of some honourable person, he does not infuse any dram of worth into the person, but only sets forth ani declares that which is to others. A curious picture praises a beautiful face, not by adding beauty to it, but by rcjiresenting that which was in it before. The window which lets light into a house, does not benefit the light, but the house into which the light shines. So our praising of God serves to quicken, comfort, and refresh ourselves, who have interest in so good a God; or to edify and encourage our brethren, that they may be ambitious to serve so honourable a Master; but our praises add no lustre or glory whatever to God.

But further, the right performance of this duty is founded on the due apprehensions of God’s being good, and of his doing good, Psal. cxix. G8; or on his excellency in himself, and his goodness towards us. In the former respect it consists in adoring and extolling the great name of God, ascribing in our hearts anil mouths all blessedness unto him, acknowledging his infinite majesty in himself, and his sovereignty over us his poor creatures, Excd. xv. 1 1; Micah vii. 18 j and so

Wl

covering our faces, and abhorring ourselves in his sight, Isa. vi.; Job xlii. 5, 6; not daring to question any of his deep, absolute, and most unsearchable counsels; but because all things are of him, to acknowledge that all things ought to be for and to him, and are to be reduced to the ends of his glorv, by the counsel of his own will, Kom. ix. 20, 21;“xi. 33, 36; Matt. xi. 25, 26; Psal. cxxxv. 5, 6; Job ix. 12; Eph. i. 11. In the latter respect, as he is the God in whom we “live, and move, and have our being,” and hope for our blessedness; so it imports, fu-st, a glorying and rejoicing in him as our alone felicity, Psal. xxxiii. 1; Hab. iii. 18; Phil. iv. 4. Secondly, a choosing and preferring him above all other good things, making him our end and aim, in life, in death, in doing, in suffering, Rom. iv. 7, 8. Thirdly, a thankful acknowledgment of all his mercies, as most beneficial unto us, and most gratuitous and free in regard of him, 2 Sam. vli. 1 8; Lam. iii. 22, 23. Lastly, a constant endeavour of a holy life, so to bring forth fruit, to do the will of God, and to finish his work which he has set us, so to order our conversation aright before him, as that he may have ascribed to him the glory of his authority over the consciences of men, and of the power of his love shed abroad in then- hearts; and that all that see our conversation may say. Doubtless, the God whom these men serve after so holy a manner, for whom they despise all outward and sinftil pleasures, is a holy and blessed God, infinitely able to comfort, satisfy, and reward all those that so conscientiously and constantly give up themselves to him, John xv. 8; xvii. 4; Psal. 1. 23; Deut. iv. 6, 7; Matt. v. 16; 2 Cor. ix. 13; 1 Pet. ii. 12.

The second particular in their covenant is, amendment of life, and a more special care against those sins of carnal confidence, and spiritual adultery, whereby they had formerly dishonoured and provoked God. From whence there are two observations which ofi’er themselves.

Obs. 4. True repentance and sound conversion, as it makes a man thankful for the pardon of sin past, so it makes him careful against the practice of sin for the time to come, especially those particular sins whereby he had formerly most dishonoured God, and defiled his own conscience. This doctrine consists of two parts, •flhich we will consider asunder.

AikI fii-st, of this care and purpose of amendment in general. AVhen the poor converts who had been guilty of the most precious and innocent blood that ever was shed, began to be convinced of that horrible sin, and found those nails wherewith they had fastened the Lord of glory to a cross, pricking and piercing their own hearts, with what bleeding and relenting affections did they mourn over him! with what earnest importunities did they inquire after the way of salvation wherein they niigiit serve and enjoy him! never were their hands more cruel in shedding that blood, than their hearts were now solicitous to be bathed in it, to be cleansed by it, Acts ii. 37. The poor prodigal, who is the emblem of a penitent sinner, when he came to himself again, or bethought himself, as the phrase is, 1 Kings viii. 47, (for we do never depart from God, but we do withal forsake and lose ourselves, and are transported with a spiritual madness from our right minds,) immediately grew to a resolution of arising out of that base and brutish condition, and of going home to his father, and by that means to his wit and senses again. So when, by John’s preaching of repentance, men were turned to the wisdom of the just, (for all unrighteousness is folly and madness,) and were prepared for the Lord, we immediately find what a special care they had to be informed in the ways of duty, earnestly inquiring after that new course of obedience in which they were now to walk, Luke iii. 10, 12, 14. All true penitents are of the same mind with these in the text,” Neither will we

say any more,” and, “‘ATiat have I to do any more with idols?” ver. 8; as Ezra in his penitent prayer, “Should we again break thy commandments?” chap. is. 13, 14. “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more;” and when we repent of sui, it must be with a repentance “not to be repented of,” Rom. vi. 9, 12; 2 Cor. vii. 10. “The time past of our life must suffice us to have M’rought the will of the Gentiles,” 1 Pet. iv. 3.

This care arises from the nature of true repentance, which has two names usually given it. 1. Mtrdroin, a change of the mind; the heart is framed to have other and truer notions of sin, of grace, of heaven, of hell, of conscience, of salvation, than it had before; for the mind of wicked men being defiled, they can frame to themselves none but impure apprehensions of spiritual things, as a yellow eye sees every thing yellow, and a bitter palate imparts to every thing its bitterness. 2. MirafiiXiui, a change of the cares and endeavours of life; that whereas before a man made provision for the flesh, and his study and care was how to satisfy the lusts of his own heart, Rom. xiii. 14, what he should eat, what he should (kink, wherewith he should be clothed; now his care is how he may be saved, how he may honour and enjoy God, Acts ii. 37; xvi. 30. The fti’st question in repentance is, “What have I done?” Jer. viii. 6; and the next question is, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Acts ix. 6. And this care repentance works,

1. By a godly sorrow for sin past. It brings into a man’s remembrance the history of his former life; makes him with licaviness of spirit recount the guilt of so many innumerable sins, wherewith he had bound Iiimself as with chains of darkness; the loss of so much precious time raispent in the service of such a master as had no other wages to give but shame and death; the horrible indignities thereby offered to the majesty and justice of God; the odious contempt of his holy will and sovereign authority; the daring neglect of his threatenings, and undervaluing of his rewards; the high provocation of his jealousy and displeasure; the base corrivalry and contesting of sinful lusts with the grace of the gospel, and the precious blood of the Son of God; the gainsaying, and wrestling, and stubborn antipathy of a carnal heart to the pure motions of the Spirit, and word of Christ; the presumptuous repulses of him that stands at the door and knocks, waiting that he may be gracious; the long turning of his back, and thrusting away from him the word of reconciliation, wherein Christ by his ambassadors had so often besought him to be reconciled unto God: the remembrance of these things makes a man look with self-abhorrence on himself, and full detestation on his former courses. And he now no longer considers the

silver or the gold, the profit or the ““”’’Z^J^^’^’J^ pleasure of his wonted lusts, though they Ttpa xpv<ri.c re be never so delectable or desirable in the Aci™S?B?tnens. eye of flesh; he looks upon them as ac- JPp”,’’,^“‘“‘”- “‘’• “■ cursed things to be thrown away, as the converts did upon their costly and curious books, Acts xix. 19; Isa. xxx. 22; xxxi. 7. Sin is like a plaited picture; on the one side of it, to the impenitent, appears nothing but the beauty of pleasure, whereby it bewitches and allures them; on the other side, to the penitent, appears nothing but the horrid and ugly face of guilt and sliarac, whereby it amazes and confounds them. Thus the remembrance of sin past, (which they are very careful to keep always in then- sight, Psal. Ii. 3,) does, by godly sorrow, work special care of amendment of life for the time to come, 2 Chron. vi. 37, 3S; Psal. cxix. 59; Ezek. xvi. 61 — 63; xx. 43.

2. By a present sense of the weight and burden of remaining corruptions, which work, and move, and put forth what strength they can to resist the gi’ace of God in us. As the time past wherein sin reigned, so the

present burden of sin besetting us is esteemed sufficient, and makes a man careful not to load himself wilfully with more, being ready to sink, and forced to cry out under the pain of those -nhicli he unwillingly lies under already. *A very glutton, when he is in a fit of the gout, or stone, wUl forbear those meats which feed such painful diseases. A penitent sinner is continually in pain under the body of sin, and therefore dares not feed so dangerous and tormenting a disease. fThe more spiritual any man is, the more painful and burdensome is corruption to him, Rom. vii. 24; for sin to the new man is as sickness to the natural man. The more exquisite and delicate the natural senses are, the more are they sensible and affected with that which offends nature. Contraries cannot co-exist without strife. The Spirit will lust against the flesh, and not suffer a man to fulfil the lusts of it, Gal. v. 16, 17! the seed of God will keep down the strength of sin, 1 John iii. 9.

...<,,, 3. By a holy iealousv, and godlv fear

Koi’t n-ojez. ^Arist, 01 the falscuess and backsliding of our Ki.L-t. 1. 2. c. 5. corrupt heart, lest, like Lot’s wife, it should look back towards Sodom, and, like Israel, have a mind hankering after the fle.sh-pots of Egypt, the wonted profits and pleasures of forsaken lusts. A godly heart prizes the love of God, and the feelings of sj)iritual comfort from thence arising, above all other things, and is afraid to lose them. It has felt the burnings of .sin, the stingings of those fiery serpents, and has often been forced to befool itself, and to beshrew its own ignorance; and, with Ephi-aim, to smite upon the thigh. Like the burnt child, it dreads the fire, and dares not meddle any more with it; it considers the heaviness of God’s frown, the rigour of his law, the weakness and fickleness of the heart of man, the difficulty of finding Christ out when he has withdi-awn himself, and of recovering light and peace again, when the soul has wilfully brought itself under a cloud; therefore it will not venture to harden itself against God. Thus godly fear keeps men from sin. Job xxxi. 23; Psal. iv. 4; cxix. 120; Prov. xxviii. 14; Eccl. ix. 2; Jer. xxxii. 40; Phil. ii. 12.

4. By a love to Christ, and a sweet recounting of the mercies of God in him. The less a man loves sin the more will he love Christ. Now repentance works a hatred of sin, and thereupon a love of Christ; which love is ever operative, and putting forth itself towards holiness of life. As the love of God in Christ towards us works forgiveness of sin, so our reci])rocal love, wrought by the feeling and comfort of that forgiveness, works in us a hatred of sin. A direct love begets a rejlex love, as the heat wi-ought in the eai’th strikes back again a heat up into the air. The woman in the gos])cl having much forgiven her, “loved much,” Luke vii. 47. “We love him because he first loved us;” and love will not suffer a man to wrong the thing which he loves. AMiat man ever threw away jewels or money when he might have kept them? except when the predominant love of something better made these things comparatively hateful, Luke xiv. 2G. M’hat woman could be persuaded to throw away her sucking child from her breast to swine or dogs to devour it? Our love to Christ will not suffer us to cast him off, or to throw his law behind our backs. New obedience is ever joined to pardon of sin and repentance for it, by the method of God’s decrees, by the order and chain of salvation, and arises out of the internal character and disposition of a child of God. We arc not sons only by adoption, appointed to a new inheritance; but we are sons by regeneration also, partakers of a new nature, designed to a new life, joined to a new Head, descended

iiriviv iv. Clearch. apud Atben. 1. 14. c. ].

from a new Adam, to whom therefore we are, in “the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings,” to be “made conformable,” Phil. iii. 10. The apostle uses many excellent and weighty arguments to enforce this upon us. Col. iii. 1 — 4: “K ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Clu’ist, who is our life, .shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” 1. Our fellowship with Christ: we are “risen with” him: what he did corporally for us, he does the same spiritually in us. As a Saviour and Mediator, he died and rose alone; but as a Head and Second Adam, he never did any thing but his mystical body and seed were so taken into the fellowship of it, as to be made conformable to it. Therefore if he rose as a Saviour to justify us, we must, as members, be therein fashioned unto him, and rise spiritually, by heavenly-mindedness and a new life, to glorify him. 2. AVe must have our affections in heaven, because Christ is there. The heai-t ever turns towards its treasure; where the body is, thither will the eagles resort. 3. He is there in gloiy at God’s right hand; and grace should move attracted to glory, as the smaller particles of matter to the larger mass. And he is there on our business, making intercession in our behalf, providing a place for us, sending down gifts to us. And the client cannot but have his heai-t on his own business, when the advocate is actually stii-ring about it. 4. We are “dead” with Christ, as to the life of sin; and a dead man takes no thought or care for the things of that life from whence he is departed. A man naturally dead looks not after food, or raiment, or land, or money, or labour; and a man dead to sin takes no more care how to provide for it. 5. In Christ we have a new life, therefore we should have new inclinations suitable to it, and new provisions laid in for it. A natural man feeds on worldly things by sense, a spiritual man on heavenly things by faith and conscience. We can have nothing from the first Adam which is not mortal and mortiferous; nothing from the Second which is not eternal and life-giving. AATiatever the one gives us shrinks and withers into death; whatever the other, springs and flourishes into immortal life. Our life, therefore, being new, the affections which serve it, and wait upon it, must be new likewise. 6. This life is our own; not so any thing in the world besides. I can purchase in the world only to me and mine heirs for ever, but spiritual purchases are to myself for ever. And every man’s affections are naturally most fixed upon that which is most his own. T. It is i. hidden life, the best of it is yet unseen, 1 John iii. 2; and though the cabinet which is seen be rich, yet the jewel which is hidden in it is much richer. And as there is a sinful curiosity in lust to look after the hidden things of iniquity, and to hanker after forbidden jileasures, so there is a sjjiritual curiosity or ambition in grace, to aspire towards hidden treasures, to ])ress forward towards things that are before us, “to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.” As Absalom, being brought from banishment, longed to see the face of his father, 2 Sam. xiv. 32; so the soul, delivered out of the land of darkness, never thinks it sees enough of light. When God did most intimately reveal himself to Moses, Moses did most earnestly beseech him to show him his glory, Exod. xxxiii. 11, 18. The more sweetness we find in the first-fruits, in so much of Christ as is revealed to us, the more strong are our affections to the whole haiTCSt, to that abundance of him which is hidden from us. A few clusters of grapes

t Conflictus miscrabilis. Aug. de Nupt. ct Conciipis. 1. 2. c. 1. Quo quis pejus ee habct, minus scntit. Senec. Epist. and bunches of figs will inflame the desire of enjoying that Canaan which abounds with them. 8. It is “hid with Christ,” so hid as that we know where it is. “Hid,” so that the enemy cannot reach it, but not hid from the faith of the child. 9. It is hid “in God.’’ It is life in the fountain, Psal. xxxvi. 9. Every thing is most perfect in its original source, and this is such a fountain of life as has in it fulness without satiety, purity without defilement, perpetuity without decay, and all-suflficiency without defect. Lastly, it is but i hid, it is not lost; hid like seed in the ground;” when Christ,” ‘■■ the Sun of righteousness,” “shall appear,” this life of ours in him will spring up and appear glorious.

Now, next let us consider this care of repentance against a man’s own more particular and special sins. -V^shur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods.“” Israel had been guilty of very many ])rovocations, but when they come to covenant with God, and to renew their repentance, their thoughts and

I cares are most set against their carnal confidence and spiritual adultery; their most unfeigned detestations, their most serious resolutions, were against these their’:’ most proper sins. True repentance works indeed a ‘•. general hatred of “every false way,” Psal. cxix. 128, and suffers not a man to allow himself in the smallest f sin. Yet, as the dog in hunting the deer, though he drive the whole herd before him, yet fixes his eye and scent on some one in particular, which is ‘: KoiTTQ. ^6 singled out by the dart of the huntsman; ‘“IpSrRhe”. so, though sound conversion do work a universal hatred of all sin, because it. is sni, (for hatred is ever against the whole kind of a ihing.) though every uiemljer of the old man be mortified, and every grace of the new man shaped and fashioned in us, yet the severest exercise of that hatred is against the sins to which the conscience has been more enslaved, and by which the name of God has been more dishonoured. A man that has many wounds, if there be any of them more deep, dangerous, or nearer any vital part, than another, though he will tend the cure of them all, yet his chiefest care shall be towards that. As the king of SjTia gave command to his army to single out the king of Israel in the battle, 1 Kings xxii. 31, so does repentance lay its batteries most against the highest, and strongest, and most reiguhig- sin of the heart; and by how much the more a man prized it before, by so much the more does he deust it now. Before they counted no silver nor gold 1 10 good to frame then- idols of, their ear-rings shall U’l to make them a calf, Exod. xxxii. 3; but when they li’pent, nothing can be too base to compare them, or to cast them unto, Isa. ii. 20; xxx. 22.

Human nature is the same in all men, yet some faculties are more vigorous in some, and others in others; some w’itty, others strong; some beautifid, others proper; some have a quick eye, others a ready tongue; some for learned, others for mechanical professions; as some grounds take better to some kind of grain than to others: so in the new man, though all the graces of Christ are in some degree and proportion shaped in every regenerate person, yet one excels in one giace, another in another: Abraham in faith. Job in patience, JNIoses in meekness, David in meditation, Solomon in wisdom, Phinehas in zeal, Mary JIagdalene in love, 1,1 eodtm prato bos i” labour. And so is it in the old iieiiiam quint, ca- man too! though by natm’e we have all bc(iu°m™sonK!” the members of original corruption, yet ^’’’ ‘”*■ these put themselves forth in actual vigour differently. One man is more possessed by a proud devil, another by an unclean one; Ahaz superstitious, Balaam ambitious, Cain envious, Korah stubborn, Esau profane, Ishmael a mocker, the young man

a worldling, Mark x. 22. According to different complexions and tempers of body, (by which habitual lust is excited and called forth into act,) or according to difi’erences of education, countries, callings, converse, and interests in the world, so men are diti’ercntly assaulted with distinct kinds of sin; and most men have then- peccalum in deliciis, which they may more properly call their own, Psal. xviii. 23. And as this sin is usually the special bar and obstacle that keeps men from Christ, as we see in the example of the young man, Mark x. 22, and of the Jews, John v. 44; xii. 42, 43; so when Christ has broken this obstacle, and gotten the throne in a man’s heart, then the chief work of repentance is to keep this sin from gathering strength again: for as they say of some kind of serpents, that, being cut in pieces, the parts will wriggle towards one another, and close and get life again: so, of all sins, a man is in most danger of the reviving of his ow’n proper corruption, as being like the nettle, whose roots are so crooked, are so catching to the ground, that it is a work of much care to keep the ground clean of them after they are weeded out.

And therefore repentance sets itself particularly against that sin, as a special argument of sincerity. “I was also upright” (saith David) “before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity,” Psal. xviii. 23. And “he that is begotten of God” (saith the apostle) “keepeth himself,” 1 John v. 18; which he does certainly with most vigilance there, where he is in most danger of being assaulted. Thus David had, in that gi-eat and scandalous fall of his, stained his conscience with impure lust, with the guilt of blood; and that not out of ignorance, or common infirmity, or sudden passion and surprisal of some hasty temptation, (which might haply have consisted with uprightness,) but seriously, and deliberately, using many cunning arts and carnal shifts of sinful wisdom to colom- and daub it over; and further, by this means had given a great blow to the holy name of God, and caused his enemies to blaspheme, as Nathan tells him, 2 Sam. xii. 14: therefore, in his penitential psalm, these four things he principally insists upon, “a clean heart,” deKverance from “blood-guiltiness,” “truth in the inw’ard parts,” and opportunity to “teach transgressors” the way of God, that they may be converted, Psal. li. 6, 10, 13, 14. Thus Zaccheus; worldliness and defrauding had been his sin, restitution and liberality are the evidences of his repentance in special for that sin, Luke xix. 8. So Marv Magdalene: her sin had been uncleanness, her eyes vessels and factors for adultery, her hah- a net platted and spread to catch sinners; she remembered her wanton kisses, her provoldng perfumes: and now in her conversion, where her sin had been most prevalent, there her sorrow was most penitent, and her repentance most vigilant; her eyes vessels of tears, her kisses humbled, or rather advanced to the feet of Christ; her hair a towel to wipe oft’ those tears which she judged too unclean to wash such holy feet; her ointment poured out upon a new Lover, who had anointed her with his grace, Luke vii. 37, 38. The sin of the jailer against Paul and Silas was cruelty, and the fitrst-fruit of his repentance was courtesy; he “brought them out” of a dungeon into his own house, from the stocks to his table, became an host instead of a jailer, a surgeon instead of a tormentor, and “washed their stripes,” Acts xvi. 19 — .34. This was Daniel’s method of working repentance in Nebuchadnezzar, persuading a proud, oppressing tjTant to justice and mercy, Dan. iv. 27; and Paul’s with Felix, preaching before a corrupt and lascivious judge of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” Acts xxiv. 25; and with the learned and superstitious philosophers, in a learned discovery, making known to them their “unknown God,” Acts xyii. 23. So John, the preacher of repent-AN EXPOSITION OF

ancc, laid his axe to the root of every tree, to the radical and prevailing lust in every order of men; to extortion in the publican, and to covotousncss in the people, to violence in the soldiers, to carnal confidence in the Pharisees, Matt. iii. 7; Luke iii.O — 14. And so Christ with the young man, “One thing thou lackest,” Mark x. 21; and to the woman of Samaria, “Go, call thy husband,” John iv. 16, when indeed he was an adulterer, and not a husband.

The reason of this care of repentance is, 1. Because in godly son-ow this sin has lain most heavy upon the conscience. Hereby God has been most of all despised and dishonoured, our consciences most wasted and defiled, our hearts most hardened, our affections most bewitched and entangled. It has been a master-sin, that has been able to command and to di’aw in many other servile lusts to wait upon it. Many wounds, even after they have been healed, will on change of weather affect the part wherein they were with acute jiains; and therefore men usually are more tender of that part, and keep it warmer: as the apostle saith, that on our dishonourable parts we bestow the more abundant honour; so, on such an infirm and tender part, we bestow the more abundant care; and the like do we in those wounds of the soul which are most apt to bleed afresh.

2. Hereby (as was said before) we testify our uprightness. AVhen we will not spare our beloved sin, nor roll it under our tongue, nor hide it in our tent; when we will not muffle nor disguise ourselves like Tamar, nor hide amongst the bushes and trees like Adam, or in the belly of the ship with Jonah, nor spare any wedge of gold with Achan, or any delicate Agag, any fatUng sins, with Saul; but with David will show that we “hate every false way,” by throwing the first stone at our first sin, that which lay nearest and closest to our bosoms, which the Scripture calls cutting off the right hand, and plucking out the right eye. Matt. v. 29, 30; as Cranmer put that hand first into the fire, with which he had before subscribed to save his life. The story of the Turkish emperor is commonly known, who being reported so to dote on one of his concubines, as for love of her to neglect the affau’S of his kingdom, caused her to be brought forth in great pomp, and cut off her head before his bashaws, to assure them that nothing was so dear to him but that he could willingly part from it to attend the public welfare. This was an act of cruelty in him, but the like is an act of penitence in us, when we can sacrifice the dearest affections wherewith we served shi. Let Christ kill our Agag, though delicately appareled, and divide the richest of all our spoils. If we be learned, we shall direct all our studies to the fear of God, Eccl. xii. 12, 13. If rich, we shall lay up a foundation of good works against the time to come, and consecrate our merchandise as holy to the Lord, 1 Tim. vi. 18, 19; Isa. xxiii. 18. If wise, if honourable, if powerful, if adorned with any endowment, our liusiness will be, with Bezaleel and Aholiab, to adorn tlic gos])el with them all; from our gold to our goats’ hair, to lay all out upon the sanctuarv, Exod. xxxi.; to make those members and al)ilitics which had been Satan’s armour, and weapons of unrighteousness, to be now weapons of holiness, and dedicated unto Christ, Kom. vi. 19. This is the holy revenge which “godly sorrow” takes upon sin, 2 Cor. vii. 10, 11.

If many men who proiess repentance, and think they are already long ago converted unto God, woidd examine the truth of their conversion by this touchstone, it would minister matter of much humiliation and fear to them, when their own heart would reply against them as Samuel against Saul; Hast thou indeed, as thou profcssesf, done the work of the Lord in destroying Amalek, “what mcancth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which

I hear? “what mean these worldly and covetous practices, these lascivious or revengeful speeches, these earthly, sensual, or ambitious lusts? are these Agags spared and kept delicately, and canst thou i)lease thyself in the thoughts of a sound repentance? Did Paul fear that his God would “humble” him for those that had not repented amongst the Corinthians, because there were envyings, strifes, and debates amongst them? 2 Cor. xii. 20, 21; and wilt thou presume on thy repentance, and not be humbled when thou findest the same tilings in thyself? Hast thou never yet proclaimed defiance to thy beloved sin? made it the mark of thy greatest sorrows, of thy strongest prayers and complaints unto God? Hast thou never stirred up a holy indignation and revenge against it? and above all things, taken off thy thoughts from the meditation and love of it? and found pleasure in the holy severity of God’s book and the ministry thereof against it? made no covenant with thine eye, put no knife to thy throat, set no door before thy lips, made no friends of unrighteous mammon? Dost thou still retain hankering affections after thy wonted delights, as Lot’s wife after Sodom? and are the flesh-pots of Egypt desirable in thy thoughts still? “Be not high-minded, but fear.” There is no greater argument of an unsound repentance than indulgent thoughts, and reserved deUght and complacency in a master-sin. The devU will diligently observe and hastily catch one kind glance of this nature, (as Ben-hadad’s servants did, 1 Kings xx. 33,) and makt use of it to do us mischief. David had been free from some of his greatest troubles, if he had not relented towards Absalom, and called him home from banishment; he no sooner kissed Absalom, than Absalom courted and kissed the people to steal their hearts away from him. As there are in points of faith fundamental articles, so there are in points of practice fundamental duties. And amongst them none more primary, and essential to true Christians, than self-denial, ISIatt. xvi. 24; and this is one special part and branch of self-denial, to keep ourselves from our own iniquity, and to say to our most costly and darling lusts, Get ye hence. Asshur away, idols away, I will rather be fatherless than rely upon such helpers.

Obs. 5. True repentance and conversion take off the heart from all carnal confidence, either in domestic preparations of our own, “we will not ride ujjon horses;” or in foreign aid from any confederates, especially enemies of God and his church, though otherwise never so potent, “Asshur shall not save us;” or, lastly, in any superstitious and corrupt worship, which sends us to God the wrong way, “neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. Ye are our gods;” and causes the soul in all conditions, be they never so desperate, so desolate, so incurable, to rely only upon God. It is verj’ much in the nature of man fallen, to affect an absoluteness and a self-sufficiency, to seek the good that he desires within himself, and to derive from himself the strength whereby he would rejiel any evil which he fears. This staying within itself, reflecting ujjon its own power and wisdom, and by consequence affecting an indeijcndence of any superior virtue in being and working, making itself the first cause and the last end of its own motions; is by divines conceived to have been the first sin by which y,y j,cmt. the creature fell from God, and it was?’’’.’“‘• ;rt% ‘a 63 the first temptation by which Satan pre- AJual’tTooUr, b. i! vailed to draw man from God too. For *”’’ *’ since next to God eveiy reasonable created being is nearest to itself, we cannot conceive how it should turn from God, and not in the next step turn to itself; and by consequence, whatsoever it was in a regular dependence to have derived from God, being fallen from him, it does by an iiTCgular dependence seek for from itself. Hence’ it is that men of power are ajit to

G15

deify their own strength, and to frame opinions of absoluteness to themselves, and to deride the thoughts of any power above them, as Pharaoh, Exod. v. 2, and Goliath, 1 Sam. xvii. S, 10, 44, and Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. iii. 15, and Sennacherib, 2 Kings xviii. 33 — 35; Isa. x. 8 — 14: men of wisdom, to deify their own reason, and to deride any thing that is above or against their own conceptions, as Tyrus, Ezck. xxviii. 2, 6, and the Pharisees, Luke xvi. 14; John vii. 48 — 52; Acts Iv. 1 1; Isa. xlix. 7; liii. 3, and the philosophers. Acts xvii. 18, 32; 1 Cor. i. 22, 23: and men of mo-I’ality and virtue, to deify their own righteousness, to rely on their own merits and performances, and to deride righteousness imputed and precarious, as the Jews, Rom. X. 3, and Paul before his conversion, Rom. vii. 9; Phil. iii. 6, 9. Thus natural is it for a sinful creature, who seeks only himself, and makes himself the last end, to seek only to himself, and to make himself the first cause and mover towards that end.

But because God will not give his glory to another, nor suffer any creatiu-e to encroach on his prerogative, or to sit down in his throne, he has therefore always blasted the policies and attempts of those who have aspired to such absoluteness and independency, making them know in the end that they are “but men,” Psal. ix. 19, 20, and that the Most High ruleth over all; and that it is an enterprise more full of folly than it is of pride, for any creature to attempt to work its own safety and felicity out of itself. And as men usually are most vigilant upon their immediate interests, and most jealous and active against all encroachments thereupon; so we shall ever find that God singles out no men to be such notable monuments of his justice and their own ruin and folly, as those who have vied with him in the points of power, wisdom, and other Divine prerogatives, aspiring unto that absoluteness, self-sufficiency, self-interest, and independency which belong unto him only. And as he has by the destruction of Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Herod, and clivers others, taught us the madness of this ambition; so docs he by our own daily preservation teach us the same. For if God has appointed that we shoidd go out of ourselves to things below us for a vital subsistence, to bread for food, to house for harbour, to clothes for warmth, much more has he appointed that we should go out of ourselves for a blessed and happy subsistence, by how much the more is required for blessedness than for life, and by how much the greater is our impotency to the greatest and highest eird.

Yet so desperate is the aversion of sinful man from God, that when he is convinced of his impotency, and driven off from self-dependence, and reduced to such exti’emities as should in reason lead him back unto God, yet when he has no horses of his own to ride upon, no means of his own whereby to escape evil, he will still betake himself unto creatures like himself, though they be enemies to God, and enemies to him too for God’s sake (for so was the Assyrian to Israel): “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the AssjTian, and sent to king Jareb,” Hos. v. 13. If he must beg, he will do it rather of an enemy than of God, yea, though he dissuade him from it, and threaten him for it. Ahaz would not believe though a sign were offered him, nor be persuaded to trust in God to deliver him from Rezin and Pekah though he promised him to do it; but under pi-etence of not tempting God in the use of means, will weary God with his provocation, and rob God to pay the Assyrian, who was not a help but a distress to him, 2 Kings xvi. 5, 8, 17, 18; 2 Chron. xxviii. 20, 21; Isa. vii. 8, 13; xxx. 5.

Well, God is ofttimes pleased to waylay human counsels, even in this case too, and so to strip them,

not only of their own provisions, but of their foreign succours and supplies, so that they have no refuge left hut unto him. Their horses fail them, their Assyrian fails them, Hos. vii. 11, 12; viii. 9, 10. Their hope has nothing either sub ralione boni, as really good to comfort them at home; or sub ratione auxilii, as matter of help and aid to support them from abroad. They are brought as Israel into a wilderness, where they are constrained to go to God, because they have no second causes to help them. And yet even here, wicked men will make a shift to keep oft’ from God, w-hen they have nothing in the world to turn to. This is the formal and intimate malignity of sin, to decline God, and to be impatient of him, in his own way. If wicked men be necessitated to implore help from God, they will invent ways of their own to do it. If horses fail, and Asshur fail, and Israel must go to God whether he will or no. it shall not i|,eJia“TOTt’”i.” be to the God that made him, but to a JJ“‘- i’»s=’“‘^ ‘”pgod of his own making; and when they have most need of their glory, they will change it into that which cannot profit, Jer. ii. 11. Thus foolish was Jeroboam, as to think his kingdom shovdd be established by two calves at Dan and Beth-el, and by that means rooted out his own family, and at last ruined the kingdom, 1 Kings xii. 28,’ 29; xiv. 10, 15; 2 Kings xvii. 21 — 23; Hos. viii. 4, 5; x. 5, 8, 15. Thus foolish was Ahaz, to seek help of those gods which were the ruin of him and of all Israel, 2 Chron. xxviii. 23. Such a strong antipathy and averseness there is in the soul of natural men to God, as that when they are in distress they go to him last of all; they never think of him so long as their own strength and their foreign confederacies hold out, and when at last they are driven to him, they know not how to hold communion lith him in his own way, but frame carnal and superstitious modes of worship to themselves, and so in their very seeldng him provoke him to forsake them; and the very things whereon they lean, go up into their hand to pierce it, Isa. xv. 2; xvi. 12.

Now then the proper work of true repentance being to turn a man the right way to God, it takes a man off from all this carnal and superstitious confidence, and directs the soul in the greatest difficulties to cast itself with comfort and confidence upon God alone. So it is prophesied of the remnant of God’s people, that is, the penitent part of them, (for the remnant are those that came up ‘• with wee|)ing and supplications,” seeking “the Lord their God,” and asking “the way to Zion with their faces thitherward,” Jer. xxxi. 9; 1. 4, 5,) that they should “no more again stay “themselves “upon him that smote them,” but should “stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth,” and should “return unto the mighty God,” Isa. x. 20, 21. They resolve the Lord shall save them, and not the Assyrian. So say the godly in the psalmist, “An horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.” “Our soul waiteth for the Lord: he is our help and shield,” Psal. xxxiii. 17, 20. They will not say any more, “■V’e will flee upon horses, we will ride upon the swift,” Isa. xxx. 16. “At that day,” saith the prophet, speaking of the penitent remnant, the gleanings of Jacob, “shall a man look to his ]Iaker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images,” Isa. xvii. 7, 8. And again, “Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and li’om the multitude of mountains,” that is, from the idols (which they had set up and worshipped in high places”): “truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel,” Jer. iii. 23. “Neither will we say any more to the work of ovu: hands, Ye are our gods.”

So then, the plain duties enjoined in the latter part of these verses are these:

1. To trust in God, who is all-sufficient to help; who is Jeho•ah, the Fountain of being, and can give being to any i)roniise, to any mercy which he intends for his people; can not only work, but command; not only command, but create deliverance, and fetch it out of darkness and desolation: he has “everlasting strength;” there is no time, no case, no condition, wherein his help is not at hand, whenever he shall command it, Isa. xxvi. 4.

2. Not to trust in any creature. 1. Not in Asshur, in any confederacy or combination with God’s enemies, be the’ otherwise never so potent. Jehoshaphat did so, and his “shijjs were broken,” 2 Chron. xx..“55 — 37. Ahaz did so, and his people were distressed, 2 Chron. xxviii. 19 — 21. It is impossible for God’s enemies to be cordial to God’s people, so long as they continue cordial to their God. There is such an irreconcilable enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, that it is incredible to suppose that the enemies of the church will do any thing which may, per se, tend to the good of it, or that any end and design by them pursued can be severed from their own malignant interest. Let white be mingled with any other colour, and it loses its own beauty. It is not possible for God’s people to join with any that are his enemies, and not lose thereby their own purity. He must be as wise and as potent as God, that can use the rage of God’s enemies, and convert it, when he has done, to the good of God’s church, and the glory of God’s name, and be able at pleasure to restrain and call it in again. We must ever take heed of this dangerous co;npetit!on between olir own interests and God’s; to be so tender and intent upon that, as to hazard and shake this. Jeroboam did so, but it was fatal to him, and to all Israel. The end of Judah’s combining with the AssjTian was, that they might rejoice against Eezin and RQjnaliah’s son; but the consequence of it, which they never intended, was, that the Assyrian came up over all the channels, and over all the banks, and overflowed, and went over, and reached “even to the neck,” and if it had not been Immanuel’s land, would have endangered its destruction. If Israel for his own ends join with Asshur, it will hardly be possible for him in so doing, though against his own will, not to promote the ends of Asshur against God’s church, and against God himself. And yet the prophet would not have, in that case, God’s people to be dismayed, or to say, “A confederacy,” “A confederacy;” but to “sanctify the Lord of hosts himself,” and make him their “fear,” and their “dread,” who :vill certainly be “a sanctuary” unto them, and will “bind up” his “testimony,” and “seal the law among” his “disciples,” when others shall “stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken,” Isa. viii. 6 — 18. If we preserve Emmanuel’s right in us, and ours in him, all confederacies against us shall be broken, all counsels shall come to nougi t.

2. Not in horses, or in any other human preparations and provisions of our own. “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we” (saith David) “will remember the name of the Lord our God,” Psal. XX. 7. That name can do more with a sling and a stone, than Gohath with all his armour, 1 Sam. xvii. 45. It is “a strong tower” for protection and safety to all that flee into it, Prov. xviii. 10. Whereas horses, though they be “prepared against the day of battle,” yet “safety is of the Lord,” Prov. xxi. 31. Horses are “tlesli, and not spu-it,” and their riders are “men, and not God;” and cuised are they that make “flesh “their” arm,’’ and depart from the Lord, Isa. xxxi. 1 — 3; .Tor. ii. 5. No, not in a variety of means and ways;’ M Ip, which seems to be intimated in the word

riding, from one confederate to another; If Asshur fail,

1 will post to Egvpt; if one friend or counsel fail, I will make haste to another; a sm very frequently charged upon Israel, Isa. xx. 5; lvii. 9; Jer. ii. 36, 37; Hos. vii. 11. These are not to be trusted in, 1. Because of the intrinsical weakness and defect of ability in the creature to help. Every man is a liar, either by imposture, and so in purjjose; or by impotency, and so in the event, deceinng those that rely u])on him, Psal. lxii. 9.

2. Because of the ignorance and defect of wisdom in us to apply that strength which is in the creature to the best advantage. None but an artificer can turn and govern the natural efficacy of fire, wind, water, to the works of art. The wisdom whereby we should direct created virtues to human ends is not in or of ourselves, but comes from God, Exod. xxxvi. 1,2; Eccl. vii. 24; ix. 11; Isa. xxviii. 26 — 29; James i. 5.

3. Not in idols, not in conuipting the worship of God. Idols are lies, and teachers of ,„ fd„i„i„(^ „enlies, and promisers of lies to all that trust dacium cum tota

1 X -i t n TT 1 •’ t r eubstiuitia ejus

m them, Jer. x. 1 — 16; Hab. u. 18; mendax sit. Ttrt. Rev, xxii, 15. An idol is just “nothing unJciJoiViS^’i-’ in the world,” 1 Cor. viii. 4; and that “”-’“’ ‘”.’iP’P,^’: whicn IS nothing, can do nothing tor j;’™^-^ ai=s- “i those that rely upon it. Whatever a ■kxpCi’ a«upa man trusts in, in time of trouble, must?”’/’” “‘” sln.h.^ needs have these tmngs m it to ground ‘”.*J; „ -.. that confidence upon: -rvfiZov (^oyjfpi

1. A knowledge of him and his wants. ^“‘- ‘“‘’”■ ■*’’°’’- Therefore we are bid to trust in God’s providence over us for all outward good things, because he “knoweth” that we have “need” of them, Alatt. vi. 32.

2. A loving and merciful disposition to help. A man may sometimes receive help from such as love him not, out of policy and in pursuance of other ends and designs; but he cannot confidently rely upon any aid which is not first founded in love, I ever suspect and fear the gifts and succours which proceed from an enemy; they will have then’ own ends only, even then when they seem to tender and serve me; therefore David singles out God’s mercy as the object of his trust, Psal. lii. 8.

3. A manifestation of that love in some promise or other, engaging to assist. For how can I with assurance, and without hesitancy, expect help there where I never received any promise of it? Here was the ground of David’s, Jehoshaphat’s, Daniel’s trust in God, the word and promise which he had passed to them, 1 Chron. xvii. 25 — 27; Psal. exix. 42; 2 Chron. xx. 7; Dan. ix, 2.

4. Truth and fideUty in the care to make these promises good. This is that which makes us so confidently trust in God’s promises, because we know they are all “yea and amen,” that it is “impossible for God to lie,” or deceive, or for any to “seek” his face “in vain,”

2 Cor. i. 20; Josh. xsi. 45; Heb, vi. 18; Isa. xlv. 19.

5. Power to give being and effect to whatsoever is thus promised. That which a man leans upon, must have strength to bear the weight which is laid upon it. This is the great ground of oui” trusting in God at all times, even then when all other helps fail, because he is “I am.” that can create and give a being to ever)’ thing which he has promised; because “power belongeth unto” him, and “in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength,” and nothing is “too hard,” no help too great, for him who “made heaven and earth,” and can command all the creatures which he made to serve those whom he is pleased to help, Psal. lxii. 8, 11; Exod. iii. 14; Isa, xxvi. 4; Gen. xviii. 14; Jer. xxxii. 17; Psal. cxxi. 2; Matt, viii, 2, Now whosoever seeks for any of these grounds of trust in idols, shall be sure to be disappointed. Knowledge they have none, Isa. xliv, 9, and therefore love they have none, for how

can that love any thing which knows nothing? Truth they have none, neither of being in themselves, nor of promise to those that trust in them; the very essence of an idol is to be a lie, to stand for that which it is not, and to present that to which it is most unlike, Isa. xl. 18; xliv. 20; Jer. X. 14 — 16. And power they have none, either to hear or save, Isa. xli. 23, 24, 28, 29; xlv. 20; xlvi. 7. And therefore that repentance which shakes off confidence in idols, not only converts a man to God, but to himself: it is not only an impious, but a sottish thing, and below the reason of a man, first to make a thing, and then to worship it. to expect safety from that which received being from himself, Isa. xlvi. 6, 7. These are the three great props of carnal confidence, foreign interests, domestic treasui’es, superstitious devotions: when men “please themselves in the children of strangers,” and have their land ‘■ full of silver and gold,” and “treasures,” full of “horses” and ‘• chariots,” and “full of idols;” when they hoard up provisions and preparations of their own, comply with the enemies of God abroad, and corrupt the worshi]) of God at home; these are the things for which God threatens terribly to shake the earth, and to bring down and to make low the loftiness of man. if he do not (as Ephraim here by long and sad experience) penitently renounce and abjure them all, Isa. ii. 6 — 9.

And now, this is matter for which we all may be humbled. There is no sin more usual among men than carnal confidence, to lean on our own wisdom, or wealth, or power, or supplies from others, (o deify counsels and ai’mies, or horses and treasures, and to let our hearts rise or fall, sink or bear up within us, according as the ci-eature is helpful or useless, nearer or farther from us; as if God were not a God afar off, as well as near at hand. This we may justly fear, God has, and still will visit us, because we do not “sanctify the Lord of hosts himself” in our hearts, to make him our “fear” and our defence, and that he will blow upon all such counsels and preparations as carnal confidence deifies.

Therefore we must be exhorted to take off our hopes and fears from second causes, not to glory in an arm of flesh, or to droop when that fails us; not to say in our prosperity, our mountain is so strong that we shall not be shaken; nor in our sufferings, that our wound is incurable, or our grave so deep that we shall never be raised again. But to make “the name of the Lord” our “strong tower;” for “they who know thy name will trust in thee.” And for direction herein we must learn to trust in God,

1. Absolutely and for himself, because he only is absolute and of himself. Other things, as they have their being, so have they their working and power of doing good or evil only from him, Matt. iv. 4; John xix. 11. Nihil rex majiis ■’^“‘^ therefore, till he take himself away, uhSs” “t.S ‘’”r ‘^h°“Sl’ ^6 take all other things away utabeatereino. se- from US, we have matter of encouragemVnMEaiijnt msi” mcut and rejoicing in the Lord still, as ioq’’°ubi’’be“e St Davld and Habakkuk resolve, 1 Sam. mawieTr,’”^^ ^^^- ^’ ab. ill. 17, 18. All the world cumiuo- Bern. ier. cannot take awav any promise from any servant ot (jod; and there is more ot reality in the least promise of God, than in the greatest performance of the creature.

2. To trust him in the way of his comin°qi1t«?*,’“oii’(e mandments, not in any precipices or pre-Se’S!’Jet°2.’’de Ad- sumptious of our own. “Trust in the vent In viis gusto- Lord, and do good,” Psal. xxxvii. 3. First

diet, nunquid m „ ‘. “, ’ ,.,

ptacipitiis Bern, tear him, and then trust in him; he is a jCTy 14. in Psa. Qui „ yy „ „ shield” only unto such, Psal. exv. 11. It is high insolence for any man to lean upon God without his leave, and he allows none to do it but such as fear him, and obey the voice of his servants, Isa. 1. 10.

3. To trust him in the way of his providence, and the use of such means as he has sanctified and appointed. Though man lives not by bread alone, but by the word of blessing which proceeds out of the nioutli of God; yet that word is by God annexed to bread, and not to stones; and that man would not tnist God, but mock and tempt him, who would expect to have stones turned into bread. If God has provided stairs, it is not faith, but fiu’, not confidence, but madness, to go down by a precipice: where God prescribes means and aftbrds secondary helps, we must obey his order, and implore his blessing in -their use. This was Nehemiah’s way; he prayed to God, and he petitioned the king, Neh. ii. 4. This was Esther’s way; a fast to call upon God, and a feast to obtain favour with the king, Esth. iv. 16; V. 4. This was Jacob’s way; a supplication to God, and a present to his brother, Gen. xxxii. 9, 13. This was David’s way against Goliath; the name of the Lord his trust, and yet a sling and a stone his weapon, 1 Sam. xvii. 45, 49. This was Gideon’s way against the Midianites; his sword must go along with the sword of the Lord, not as an addition of strength, but as a testimony of obedience, Judg. vii. 18. Prayer is called sometimes a lifting up of the voice, sometimes a lifting up of the hands, to teach us, that when we pray to God, we must as well have a hand to work, as j,,; p„hibebunt a tongue to beg. In a word, we must w, sed non prop-

- *^. ... ,, ,, terniede ccelo deuse second causes in obedience to bod s scendt.ii. votis order, not in confidence of their help. proiuSis’lLiv. l s. The creature must be the object of our ^^y^j’l’^l f diligence, but God only the object of our itpocaiei, «<=.

. ‘1 J J p,, jj Superst.

ti-ust.

Now, lastly, from the ground of the church’s prayer and promise, we learn, that the way to mercy is to be in ourselves fatherless. “The poor” (saith David) “committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless,” Psal. x. 14; cxlvi. 9. When Jehoshaphat knew not what to do, then was a fit time to direct his eye unto God, 2 Chron. xx. 12. When the stones of Si’on are in the dust, “the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come,” Psal. cii. 13. When Israel was under heavy bondage, and had not Joseph as a tender father to provide for them, then God remembered that he was then- Father, and Israel his firstborn, Exod. iv. 22. Nothing will make us seek for help above ourselves, but the apprehension of weakness within ourselves. In those creatures that are weakest, nature has put an aptitude and inclination to depend on those that are stronger. The vine, the ivy, the hop, are taught by nature to clasp and cling and wind about stronger trees. The greater sense we have of our own vileness, the fitter disposition are we in to rely on God. “I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord,” Zeph. iii. 12; Isa. xiv. 32. When a man is proud within, and has any thing of his own to lean upon, he will hardly trust in God, Prov. iii. 5; xxviii. 25. Israel never thought of returning to her fh’st husband, till her way was hedged up with thorns, and no means left to enjoy her former lovers, Hos. ii. 6, 7- When the enemy has shut up and intercepted all her passages to Dan and Beth-el, to Egj-pt and Asspia, that .she has neither friends nor idols to flee to, then she thinks of returning to her first husband, even to God.

Now irom hence we learn, 1. The condition of the church in this world, which is to be as an orphan, destitute of all succour and favour, as an outcast, whom “no man seeketh after,” Jer. xxx. 17. Paul entertained low thoughts of the world, and the world thought as basely of him. “The world” (saith he) “is crucified unto me, and I unto the world,” Gal. vi. 14. Before conversion, the world is an Egj-pt to us, a place of bondage; after conversion, it is a wilderness to us, a place of emptiness and temptations.

2. The backwardness of man towards gi-ace; we go not to God till we are brought to extremities, and all other helps fail us. The poor prodigal never thought of looking after a father, till he found himself in a fatherless condition, and utterly destitute of all relief, Luke XV. IT, 18.

3. The right disposition and preparation for mercy, which is to be an orphan, destitute of all self-confidence, and broken off from all other comforts. “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I ;he God of Israel will not forsake them,” Isa. xli. 17. God will “repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone,” Deut. xxxii. 36, when there is dignus vindice nodus, an extremity fit for Divine power to interpose. Christ is set forth as a physician, which supposeth sickness; as a fountain, which supposeth uncleanncss; as meat, which supposeth emptiness; as clothing, which supposeth nakedness. He never finds us till we are lo.st sheep; when we have lost all, then we are fit to follow him, and not before.

4. The roots of true repentance. Nos pupilU, tu miiericors. The sense of want and emptiness in ourselves, the apprehension of favour and mercy in God. Conviction of sin in us, and of righteousness in him, John xvi. 9, 10; of crookedness in us, and of glory in him, Isa. xl. 4, 5.

Hereby room is made for the entertainment of mercy; where sin abounds, grace will more abound, and the more the soul finds itself exceeding miserable, the more will the mercy of God appear exceeding merciful, Rom. V. 20: and hereby God shows his wisdom in the seasonable dispensing of mercy then when we are in greatest extremity; as fire is hottest in the coldest Aleather. God delights to be seen in the mount, at the grave, to have his way in the sea, and his paths in the deep waters. Jlercies are never so sweet as when they are seasonable, and never so seasonable as in the very turning and critical point, when misery weighs down, and nothing but mercy turns the scale.

5. How to fit ourselves for the mercy of God, namely, to find ourselves destitute of all inward or outward comfort, and to seek for it only in him. Beggars do not put on scarlet, but rags, to prevail with men for relief:* as Ben-hadad’s servants put on ropes when they would beg mercy of the king of Israel. In a shipwreck a man will not load him Mith money, chains, treasure, rich apparel; but commit himself to the sea naked, and esteem it mercy enough to have tabulam post 7iauJ’ragium, one poor plank to carry him to the shore. It is not exaltation enough to Joseph except he be taken out of a prison to honour.

0. That we should not be broken with diffidence or distrust in times of trouble, but remember it is the condition of the church to be an orphan. It is the way whereby Moses came to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; when his own parents durst not own him, the mercy of a prince found him out to advance him; and when he was nearest to perishing, he was nearest unto honour.

In the civil law we find provisions^Sol?&Si’,£ ct ws’^e for such as were cast ovit, and cxi-ce. 40. coct. d« nosed to the wide world, some hosiiitals

..■ct. 1 3. Vide to entertain them, some liberties to com-J,fnl°*i.!™«|;59. fort and relieve their misery. .lnd a like care we find in Christ; the Jews had no sooner cast out the man that was born blind, whose ])arents durst not be seen in his cause for fear of the like usage, but the mercy of Christ presently found him, and bestowed comfort upon him, John ix. 35.

Mcnilici cum clccmosynam petunt, non pretiosas vcstesostciulunt, sed seminuda membra, aut ulcera si habuerint, ut cJiius ad miscricordiam videiitis animus iiicliiietiir. Bern. scr. 4. dc Advent.

This is the true David,t to whom all helpless persons, that are in distress, in debt, in bitterness of soul, may resort and find entertainment, 1 Sam. xxii. 2.

7. To behave ourselves as pupils under such a Guardian; to be sensible of our infancy, minority, disability to order or direct our own ways, and so deny ourseh es, and not lean on our own wisdom; to be sensible how this condition exposes us to the injuries of strangers, for because we are “chosen out of the world, therefore the world hateth” us; and so to be vigilant over our ways, and not trust ourselves alone in the hands of temptation, nor wander from our Guardian, but always to yield to his wisdom and guidance. Lastly, to comfort ourselves in this, that while we are in our minority, we are under the mercy of a Father; a mercy of conservation by his providence, giving us all good things richly to enjoy, even all things necessary unto life and godliness; a mercy of protection, defending us by his power from all evil; a mercy of education and instruction, teaching us bj’liis word and Spirit; a mercy of communion, many ways familiarly conversing with us, and manifesting himself unto us; a mercy of guidance and government by the laws of his family; a mercy of discipline, fitting us by fatherly chastisements for those further honours and employments to which he will advance us; and when our minority is over, and we once are come to a perfect man, we shall then be actually admitted into that inheritance immortal, invisible, and that fadeth not away, which the same mercy which at first purchased, now prepares and reserves for us.