Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

none, I the Lord will hear them," &c. Against want of friends:-"When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Against oppression and imprisonment:"He executeth judgement for the oppressed, he looseth the prisoners." Against whatsoever plague or trouble":-He is the God of all consolation: how disconsolate soever a man's condition is in any kind, there cannot but, within the compass of all consolation, be some one or other remedy at hand, to comfort and relieve him :-and so much, by the way, of the invitation in general.

In the invitation, we have the matter of it, and the motives to it. The matter is conversion; without that, the hand which is lifted up in threatening, will fall down in punishing: and where that is, God hath a book of remembrance for his jewels, when his wrath burneth as an oven against the stubble".

SECT. 4. But this conversion then must have two conditions in it :-First, It must be Ad Dominum,' to the Lord; not merely philosophical, to some low and general dictates of reason, such as Aristotle, or Plato, or Epictetus, or Plutarch, or the like heathen moralists, could furnish us withal, without self-denial, lowliness of Spirit, or faith in Christ".

Nor merely political, to credit, or profit, or secular ends, propter famam, non propter conscientiam," as the orator speaks; or as our prophet hath it, "for corn and for wine "." As good be an empty vine, as bring forth fruit only to ourselves.

But it must be spiritual unto the Lord. "If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return unto med." And not only Ad Dominum,' to the Lord; for that may be done falsely, and flatteringly, with a halting and divided heart. By the force of semi-persuasions, like that of Agrippa 1, and

• Isai. xli. 17. Psalm lxviii. 10. s Psalm xxvii. 10. lxxii. 12. t Psalm cxlvi. 7. ☐ 1 Kings viii. 37, 38, 39. Isai. xxvi. 18. y Mal. iii. 16. • Rom. x. 3. Heb. xi. 6. Non sunt bona, quæ non de radice bona procedunt. Ea ipsa opera, quæ dicuntur ante fidem, quamvis videantur hominibus, laudabilia, inania sunt, ut magnæ vires et cursus celerrimus præter viam. Aug. Enarr. in Psalm 31. Vide de Spirit. et Lite. c. 20, 21. 26. Contra duas Epist. Pelag. 1. 3. c. 7. ep. 106. de fide et operibus, c. 14. contra Julian. 1. 4. c. 3. a Nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert. Plin. 1. 1. ep. 22.5. Nihil opinionis causa, omnia conscientiæ faciam. Senec. de Vita Beata, c. 20. 3. d Jer. iv. 8. e Jer. iii. 10.

Hos. vii. 16. f Acts xxvi. 23.

< Hos. x. 1.

Orpah, complimenting with God, and then forsaking him. By the force of compulsory impressions, like that of Pharaoh and Israel in the wilderness. Promises on the rack *, and pride when there was respite again; thawing in the sun, and freezing in the shade; melting in the furnace, and out of it returning unto hardness again,-like the prophet's cake, burnt on the one side, and dough on the other. But it must be,

[ocr errors]

Secondly, Usque ad Dominum;' so much the original word importeth. A full, thorough, constant, continued conversion, with a whole, a fixed, a rooted, a united, an established heart, yielding up the whole conscience and conversation to be ruled by God's will in all things.

in us.

SECT. 5. The motives to this duty are two: First, His mercy, he is yet thy God; no such argument for our turning unto God as his turning unto us. Adam looks on him as a judge, and hides; the prodigal looks on him as a Father, and returns. As the beam of the sun, shining on fire, doth discourage the burning of that; so the shining of God's mercies on us, should dishearten and extinguish lust This is the use we should make of mercy. Say not, "He is my God; therefore I may presume upon him; but he is mine, therefore I must return unto him. Because he is God, I will be afraid to provoke him; and because he is mine, I will be afraid to forfeit him. He is so great, I must not dare to offend him; he is so precious, I must not venture to lose him."-His mercy is a holy mercy, which knows to pardon sin, but not to protect it. It is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the presumptuous.

Secondly, His judgement, and that expressed rather as our act than his, "Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." If mercies" do not work upon love, let judgements work upon

h Exodus viii. 8. ix. 27, 34.

g Ruth i. 14. i Psalm lxxviii. 34, 37. k Semisauciam hac atque hac versare voluntatem. Aug. Confess. 1. 8. c. 8.Plerique ipsius pœnitentis pœnitentiam agunt. Ambros. de Poen. 1. 2. c. 9.'Enáλanλoi ènì тоîs áμаρтhμаσi μeтávoiai. Clem. Alex. 1. 2. Strom. 13.-Irrisor est, non pœnitens, qui adhuc agit quod pœnitet, &c. Isidor. de Summo Bono.—Magnam rem puta, unum hominem agere: præter sapientem, nemo unum agit; cæteri multiformes sunt. Sen. ep. 120.-Ambros. Offic. 1. 2. c. 22. 1 Joel ii. 12. Acts xi. 23. Psalm lvii. 7. Ephes. iii. 27. Psalm 1xxxvi. 11. Heb. xiii. 9. m Joel ii. 12, 13. Isai. lv. 6, 7. Jer. xxxi. 18. Hos. iii. 5. Psalm cxxx. 4. Acts ii. 38. Matth. iii. 2. Isai. Ixiv. 9. intelligatur. Cypr. in Demerr.

"Qui beneficiis non intelligitur, vel plagis

fear. Extremities are a warrant unto importunities. Even beathen-mariners P in a storm will cry mightily upon God. When there is a deluge coming, is it not time for Noah to fear, and to prepare an ark ? What meanest thou, O thou sleeper, to lose the season and benefit of God's visitations"? When there is a tempest over the ship, heavy distresses and distractions both at home and abroad, to be so secure in thy wonted impenitency, as if thou hadst had no sins to procure these judgements, or no sense to feel them? as if there were agreements, and sealed covenants between thee and the sword that it should not touch thee? If thou be falling, is it not high time to consider thy ways? to search and to judge thyself? to have thine eyes like the windows of Solomon's temple, broad inwards', to find out thine own provocations; and as David speaks", to keep thyself from thine own iniquity?

Thus when, in one and the same time, mercies and judgements are intermixed, then is the most solemn season to call upon men for repentance. If we felt nothing but fears*, they might make us despair; if nothing but mercies, they would make us secure. If the whole year were summer, the sap of the earth would be exhausted; if the whole were winter, it would be quite buried. The hammer breaks metal, and the fire melts it; and then you may cast it into any shape. Judgements break, mercies melt; and then, if ever, the soul is fit to be cast into God's mould. There is no figure in all the prophets more usual than this, to interweave mercies and judgements, like those elegancies which rhetoricians call oúμapa, to allure and to bring into a wilderness 2. And this of all other is the uépa xploμos, as physicians call

• Dant animum ad loquendum libere ultimæ miseriæ, Liv. 1. 29. P Inops Senatus auxilii humani, ad Deos populuni et vota vertit: jussi cum conjugibus et liberis supplicatum ire, et pacem exposcere Deum. Liv.1.3.7.—Cum stupet cœlum, et aret annus, Nudipedalia denunciantur: Magistratus purpuras deponunt, fasces retro avertunt, precem indigitant, hostiam instaurant. Vide Tert..adv. Psychicos, c. 16-Clem. Alex. Stro. 1. 6. p. 453. Edit. Heins. - Sozom. 1. 9. c. 6.-Brisson. de form. 1. 1. q Heb. xi. 7. r Perdidisti tot mala, si nondum misera esse didicisti. Sen. ad Helvid.-Perdidistis utilitatem calamitatis, et miserrimi facti estis, et pessimi permansistis. Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. 1. c. 33. s Isai. xxviii. 15. * 1 Kings vi. 4. u Psalm xviii. 23. Εκαστος τῶν κακούργων ἐκφέρει τὸν αὐτοῦ Sraphy. Plut. de sera numin. vindicta, Wyttenb. p. 34. contra Marcion. 1. 2. c. 13. y Voss. Rhet. 1. 5. c. 12. sect. 7.

* Vide Tertul.

z Hos. ii. 14.

it; the critical time of diseased people, wherein the chief conjecture lieth, whether they be mending or ending, according to the use which they make of such interwoven mercies.

SECT. 6. I have cursorily run over the first part of the context, the invitation unto repentance, as intending to make my abode on the second, which is the institution how to perform it. Therein we have, First, A general instruction, "Take unto you words." Secondly, A particular form, what words they should take, or a petition drawn to their hands, "Take away all iniquity, &c."

Of the former of these, I shall speak but a word. It importeth the serious pondering and choosing of requests to put up to God. The mother of Artaxerxes, in Plutarch, was wont to say, that they who would address themselves unto princes, must use phμao Buooivos, silken words. Surely he that would approach unto God, must consider, and look as well to his words as to his feet. He is so holy and jealous of his worship, that he expects there should be preparation in our accesses unto him: preparation of our persons, by purity of life; preparation of our services, by choice of matter; preparation of our hearts, by finding them out, stirring them up ", fixing them, fetching them in ', and calling together all that is within us, to prevail with God *.

The services which we thus prepare, must be taken from him. They must not be the issues of our own private and fleshly hearts for nothing can go to God, but that which comes from him. And this phrase seemeth to import these three things: First, We must attend unto his will', as the rule of our prayers. Secondly, We must attend unto his precepts and promises ", as the matter of our prayers. Thirdly, We must attend unto the guidance of his holy Spirit", as the life and principle of our prayers, without which we know not what to ask.

b Plutarch. Apophthegm.

a Vide Gorrai Definit. Medic. e Josh. xxiii. 9. John iv. 22. Eccles. v. 1, 2. Gen. xxxv. 2, 3. 1 Sam. xvi. 5. Isai. i. 15, 16. d Quantum à præceptis, tantum ab auribus Dei, longe sumus. Tertul. de Orat. c. 7.—Οὐδέ πη ἐστὶ, κελαινεφέι Κρονίωνι Αἵματι καὶ λύθρῳ πεπαλαγμένον εύχε Táaobai, Homer. Iliad. §. 267. Job. xi. 13. e John ix. 1. Luke xv. 17, 18.

f Sacerdos parat fratrum mentes, dicendo 'Sursum corda.' 82 Sam. vii. 27.

2 Chron. xxx. 19.

h Isai. lxiv. 7.
11 John v. 14.

i Psalm lvii. 7, 8.
m 2 Sam. vii. 25.

Cyprian. de Orat.

Zach. ii. 10. Job xxxvii. 19. Vide Aug. Ep. 105. Et Ep. 121. c. 15.

Psalm ciii. 1.
Rom. viii. 36.

And prayers, thus regulated, are most seasonable and sovereign duties in times of trouble; the key which openeth a door of mercy; the sluice which keepeth out an inundation of judgements. Jacob wrestled and obtained a blessing. Amos prayed, and removed a curse P. The woman of Canaan will not be denied with a denial. The people of Israel will beg for deliverance even then, when God had positively told them, that he would deliver them no more. Jonah will venture a prayer from the bottom of the sea, when double death had seized upon him, the belly of the deep, and the belly of the whale; and that prayer of his did "open the doors" of the Leviathan, as the expression is, Job xli. 14, and made one of those deaths a deliverance from the other.

O let the Lord's remembrances give him no rest. There is a kind of omnipotency in prayers, as having an interest and prevalence with God's omnipotency. It hath loosed iron chains; it hath opened iron gates"; it hath unlocked the windows of Heaven; it hath broken the bars of death ". Satan hath three titles given him in the Scripture, setting forth his malignity against the church of God: a 'dragon"," to note his malice; a serpent",' to note his subtilty; and a 'lion', to note his strength. But none of all these can stand before prayer. The greatest malice, the malice of Haman, sinks under the prayer of Esther; the deepest policy, the counsel of Ahithophel, withers before the prayer of Davidd: the hugest army, an host of a thousand thousand Ethiopians, run away like cowards before the prayer of Asa.

How should this encourage us to treasure up our prayers, to besiege the throne of grace with armies of supplications, to refuse a denial, to break through a repulse! He hath blessed those whom he did cripple: he hath answered those whom he did reproachs: he hath delivered those whom he

r Judg. x. 13, 15.

t Acts Fulmen de cœlo pre

• Hos. xii. 4. p Amos vii. 1, 7. q Mat. xv. 24, 27. * Dei potentiam servi preces impediebant. Hieron. ad Gaudentium. xvi. 25. 26. "Acts xii. 5, 10. * 1 Kings xviii. 41. cibus suis contra hostium machinamentum extorsit, suis pluvia impetrata, cum siti laborarent. Jul. Capitolin. in Antonino. Vide Justin. Martyr. Apol. 2. Tertul. Apol. c. 5. 39, 40. • Gen. iii. 1.

Et ad Scapulam, c. 4.

y John xi. 40, 43. z Rev. xii. 3. Esth. iv. 16. d 2 Sam. xv. 31. * 2 Chron. g Matth. xv. 26, 28.

b 1 Pet. v. 8.

xiv. 9, 11, 12.

f Gen. xxxii. 25, 28.

« ForrigeFortsæt »