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Cases of Conscience Resolved - John Owen · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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  Speaker 1: Discourse one to three of cases of Conscience resolved. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information, ought to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Cases of Conscience resolved by John Owen.
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  Speaker 1: Question what conviction of a state of sin and of
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  Speaker 1: the guilt of sin is necessary to cause a soul
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  Speaker 1: sincerely to look after Christ? Answer? There is one thing
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  Speaker 1: only that I shall at present speak to, and that
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  Speaker 1: is this, What is the lowest condition that hath the
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  Speaker 1: nature of conviction in sincerity? So as that souls may
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  Speaker 1: not be discouraged from closing with Christ because they have
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  Speaker 1: had no greater convictions of sin? And I shall speak
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  Speaker 1: to it on this account, because although the things that
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  Speaker 1: have already been spoken by others are true, and such
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  Speaker 1: as those who have spoken them have found them to
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  Speaker 1: be true by the Word and their own experience, yet
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  Speaker 1: it may be others have not come up in their
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  Speaker 1: experience unto such a distinct observation of the work of
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  Speaker 1: conviction as hath been laid down, that they may be
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  Speaker 1: discouraged for seeing conviction is so indispensably necessary. Some may
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  Speaker 1: say it hath not been thus and thus with me,
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  Speaker 1: according as hath been declared. Therefore I would only show
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  Speaker 1: what I judge to be so necessary, as that without
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  Speaker 1: it a soul cannot be supposed sincerely to have closed
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  Speaker 1: with Christ. And we have all made our profession of
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  Speaker 1: choosing and closing with Christ. As I would be loath
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  Speaker 1: to say anything that might discourage any lest they should
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  Speaker 1: have failed in the very necessary work of conviction. So
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  Speaker 1: I would not betray the true truth of God nor
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  Speaker 1: the souls of any Therefore I shall place it upon
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  Speaker 1: this what Jesus Christ doth indispensably call men unto in
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  Speaker 1: order to believing in Him that is indispensably required of them,
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  Speaker 1: And this I shall manifest out of two or three
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  Speaker 1: places of scripture Mark two seventeen. I came not to
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  Speaker 1: call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now this calling
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  Speaker 1: them unto repentance is a calling them unto it by
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  Speaker 1: the faith which is in him. The apostle saith one
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  Speaker 1: Timothy one fifteen. It is a faithful saying and worthy
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  Speaker 1: of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world
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  Speaker 1: to save sinners. What kind of sinners doth Christ call
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  Speaker 1: whom he calls to repentance. He calls to faith, and
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  Speaker 1: whom he calls to faith, that they may truly believe.
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  Speaker 1: They are sinners, opposed unto them that are righteous. I
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  Speaker 1: came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance
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  Speaker 1: the righteous. Who are those righteous? The scriptures tell us
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  Speaker 1: of these very men that they were two sorts of them, first,
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  Speaker 1: such as trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and
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  Speaker 1: despised other men. As long as a man trusteth in
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  Speaker 1: himself that he is righteous, Christ doth not call that
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  Speaker 1: man to believe. So long as a man is persuaded
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  Speaker 1: that his condition is good enough, he shall do well enough.
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  Speaker 1: That man hath no warrant to believe. Another description of
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  Speaker 1: these very persons, though upon another occasion, is given by
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  Speaker 1: the apostle Paul Romans ten three, where he says they
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  Speaker 1: were ignorant of the righteousness of God, and went about
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  Speaker 1: to establish their own righteousness. Though they did not come
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  Speaker 1: to trust in themselves for righteousness, yet sought righteousness, as
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  Speaker 1: it were, by the works of the law, and went
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  Speaker 1: about to establish their own righteousness. Jesus Christ doth not
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  Speaker 1: call these men to believe. These righteous persons have no
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  Speaker 1: ground for believing. What is the conclusion lost sinners, Saith Christ.
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  Speaker 1: This is that I require of you so that this
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  Speaker 1: is what I assert to be indispensably necessary, namely, that
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  Speaker 1: they are so far convinced that they are sinners as
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  Speaker 1: to state and course, that they are not righteous in
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  Speaker 1: themselves and can have no righteousness in themselves. I say, therefore,
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  Speaker 1: when a person is not really convinced that he is
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  Speaker 1: not righteous, he is not under the call of Jesus Christ.
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  Speaker 1: And if he doth believe this, he is under a
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  Speaker 1: sovereign dispensation. And let not such despond. Another direction of
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  Speaker 1: Christ is the whole need not the physician, but they
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  Speaker 1: that are sick Matthew nine twelve. There are, in my
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  Speaker 1: apprehension two things in a sick person that have need
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  Speaker 1: of a physician. First, he hath an uneasiness. A man
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  Speaker 1: who is sick, though he would shift it, yet his
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  Speaker 1: uneasiness will cause him to send for a physician. Saith Christ.
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  Speaker 1: I come to such persons who say they can find
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  Speaker 1: no rest or ease in their present conditions. It may
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  Speaker 1: be they have often tried this and that, and see
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  Speaker 1: all will not do. They are sick still conscience reflects,
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  Speaker 1: and their hearts are burdened, and they must have relief
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  Speaker 1: or they shall not be free. Secondly, there is a
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  Speaker 1: fear that it will end in death. This puts the
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  Speaker 1: sick person upon sending for a physician. When the soul
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  Speaker 1: is made uneasy in its state and condition, can find
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  Speaker 1: no rest or ease, it thinks if I abide here,
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  Speaker 1: I shall be lost forever. This soul doth Christ call
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  Speaker 1: this man will be at the charge of a physician,
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  Speaker 1: cost what it will. There is another word of Christ
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  Speaker 1: very remarkably speaks just to the same purpose. Matthew eleven
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  Speaker 1: twenty eight. Come unto me, all ye that labor and
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  Speaker 1: are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. A
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  Speaker 1: soul finding itself under wont laboring after something whereby it
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  Speaker 1: may be accepted with God. I will not confine this
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  Speaker 1: to extraordinary instances, for sometimes he is found of them
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  Speaker 1: that sought him not. But the ordinary case of a
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  Speaker 1: laboring soul before closing with Christ is to abstain from sin, pray,
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  Speaker 1: more or less, be found in duties and under strong
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  Speaker 1: desires to be accepted with God. And what is the
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  Speaker 1: end of these labors and endeavors? They labor and are
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  Speaker 1: weary that as they see their labor comes to no effect,
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  Speaker 1: they do not find rest and peace and acceptance with God.
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  Speaker 1: And here is the turning point Isaiah fifty seven. Ten
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  Speaker 1: thou art wearied in the largeness of thy way. Yet
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  Speaker 1: sayst thou not, there is no hope when the soul
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  Speaker 1: hath labored for acceptance with God and comes to be weary. Saith, Christ,
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  Speaker 1: come unto me, No, Saith, the light of nature come
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  Speaker 1: unto me. Trust unto your own endeavors, Saith a soul.
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  Speaker 1: I will try what it will do. I will not
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  Speaker 1: say there is no hope Saith Another I will not
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  Speaker 1: say so, I will go unto Christ. This is he
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  Speaker 1: whom Christ calls. Now these things I do account indispensably necessary,
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  Speaker 1: antecedently to believing as to the substance of them. And
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  Speaker 1: this I hope hath been found in all our souls.
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  Speaker 1: And if we have obtained so far, we need not
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  Speaker 1: then question whether our clothes with Christ be sincere or not.
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  Speaker 1: This is all that I dare assert to be absolutely
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  Speaker 1: and indispensably necessary. Many pretend to believe, though they were
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  Speaker 1: never convinced thoroughly that they were not righteous, never were
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  Speaker 1: sick in their lives, never had fears that they should die.
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  Speaker 1: These are contrary to the express rule Christ hath given.
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  Speaker 1: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, not
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  Speaker 1: those that say there is hope, but those that say
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  Speaker 1: there is no hope. Question seeing, the act of closing
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  Speaker 1: with Christ is secret and hidden, and the special times
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  Speaker 1: and seasons of our conversion unto God are un unto most.
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  Speaker 1: What are the most certain evidences and pledges that we
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  Speaker 1: have cordially and sincerely received Christ and returned unto God? Answer?
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  Speaker 1: I do acknowledge. The inquiry is very large, and such
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  Speaker 1: as we may be straitened in through the abundance of it,
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  Speaker 1: We shall only speak plainly some few things that to
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  Speaker 1: me are an evidence of a sincere closing with Christ
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  Speaker 1: and receiving of Christ, such as I know, have been
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  Speaker 1: of use unto some. First, when there is a permanency
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  Speaker 1: and abiding in the choice we have made of Christ,
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  Speaker 1: notwithstanding opposition against it, that we shall be sure to
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  Speaker 1: meet withal I do not speak to the nature of
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  Speaker 1: the choice, or the means of it, how the mind
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  Speaker 1: is prepared for it. But I speak unto the poorest,
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  Speaker 1: the weakest of the flock that may be inquiring whether
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  Speaker 1: they have made a sincere choice of Christ or not.
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  Speaker 1: I say they may try it by the permanency and
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  Speaker 1: abiding in their choice against opposition. And there are two
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  Speaker 1: sorts of oppositions that will try us and shake us
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  Speaker 1: as to our choice, as I have found it, if
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  Speaker 1: I have had any experience of these things, one opposition
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  Speaker 1: from charges of the guilt of sin and the law.
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  Speaker 1: Two opposition from temptations unto sin. One, there will, even
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  Speaker 1: after sincere believing and closing with Christ, be many a
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  Speaker 1: heavy charge brought against a soul from the law and
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  Speaker 1: the guilt of sin in the conscience. Now, in such
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  Speaker 1: a case, the inquiry is what the soul abides by
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  Speaker 1: when it is shaken. Why, truly, if a man go
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  Speaker 1: only upon mere convictions, on such shaking impressions of the
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  Speaker 1: guilt of sin, he will be very ready and inclined
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  Speaker 1: in his own mind to tack about to some other
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  Speaker 1: relief he puts out fair for his voyage. The storm arises,
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  Speaker 1: the ship will not carry him. He must tack about
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  Speaker 1: for another harbor. I have known it so with some,
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  Speaker 1: and experienced when the wind hath sat very strong that
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  Speaker 1: way with myself, when the guilt of sin hath been
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  Speaker 1: charged with all its circumstances. The soul hath been very
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  Speaker 1: hardly able to keep its hold. Yet, notwithstanding resolved, I
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  Speaker 1: will trust to Christ. But it hath been tacking about
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  Speaker 1: to self again. I must remedy this. Have relief for
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  Speaker 1: this from myself. I cannot abide by it and live
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  Speaker 1: wholly upon Christ. And when the storm is over, then
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  Speaker 1: I will go out to sea again. I say this
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  Speaker 1: is no good sign to me when things are so.
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  Speaker 1: But when a soul, in all those charges that sometimes
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  Speaker 1: come upon it, abides the issue here, I will trust
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  Speaker 1: upon Christ. Let the worst come upon me. This I
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  Speaker 1: call a permanency in our choice against opposition. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you have experience of it. Two, there must be a
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  Speaker 1: permanency in our choice of Christ against temptations unto sin,
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  Speaker 1: as well as against the charges from sin. Truly, the
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  Speaker 1: former of abiding with Christ against the charges from sin
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  Speaker 1: is our daily work. It is sometimes more high and pressing,
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  Speaker 1: but it is our daily work. But there are also
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  Speaker 1: temptations unto sin. It may be to the neglect of
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  Speaker 1: our duty, or to a compliance in any evil way
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  Speaker 1: which we are subject unto. While in the body and
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  Speaker 1: perhaps great sins. Here. Joseph's reply applied to Christ is
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  Speaker 1: that which doth argue our choice of Christ to be sincere?
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  Speaker 1: How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God?
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  Speaker 1: When the soul can draw a prevailing argument from that?
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  Speaker 1: How shall I do this and relinquish my Lord Christ?
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  Speaker 1: I will not do this against him whom I have chosen.
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  Speaker 1: This is a good argument if frequently reiterated that our
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  Speaker 1: choice of Christ is sincere. Secondly, growing up in a
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  Speaker 1: love under the person of Christ is a great evidence
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  Speaker 1: to me me of a sincere choice of Christ. It
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  Speaker 1: is a blessing field that is before me. But I
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  Speaker 1: shall but hint things unto you. When the soul hath
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  Speaker 1: received Christ, it cannot but study Christ. And though it
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  Speaker 1: is no argument against the sincerity of a man's faith
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  Speaker 1: and grace that he doth principally regard the officers and
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  Speaker 1: graces of Christ and the benefits we have by Him,
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  Speaker 1: yet it is an argument against the thrift and growth
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  Speaker 1: of it, For a thriving faith and grace will come
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  Speaker 1: to respect principally the person of Christ. I mean this,
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  Speaker 1: when the soul studies the person of Christ, the glory
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  Speaker 1: of God in Him, of his natures, the union of
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  Speaker 1: them in one person, of his love, condescension and grace,
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  Speaker 1: and the heart is drawn out to love him and cry. Doubtless.
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  Speaker 1: I count all things but loss and dung for the
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  Speaker 1: excellency of Christ, Jesus my Lord. What is thy beloved
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  Speaker 1: more than another beloved? My beloved is white and ruddy,
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  Speaker 1: the chiefest among ten thousands. He is altogether lovely. To
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  Speaker 1: see an excellency, a desirableness in the person of Christ,
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  Speaker 1: so as to grow in admiration and love of him,
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  Speaker 1: is to me an evidence that, when all fails, besides
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  Speaker 1: will greatly support the soul and persuade it that its
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  Speaker 1: choice is true. Nay, it is one of the most
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  Speaker 1: spiritual evidences. For I much question whether an unregenerate man
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  Speaker 1: can love Christ for his own sake at all. But
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  Speaker 1: it is a good sign of growth when our love
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  Speaker 1: to the person of Christ grows, when we meditate much
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  Speaker 1: upon it and think much about it. I could show
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  Speaker 1: you wherein the beauty of Christ's person doth much consist,
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  Speaker 1: but I have not time now to do it. Thirdly,
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  Speaker 1: another evidence to me of the soul's having made a
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  Speaker 1: sincere choice of Christ is when it continues to approve,
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  Speaker 1: judge well of and every day more and more to
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  Speaker 1: see the glory, the excellency, the holiness, the grace, which
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  Speaker 1: is the way of salvation by Jesus Christ approves of
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  Speaker 1: it as not only a necessary way, a way it
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  Speaker 1: has betaken itself too, because it must unavoidably perish in
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  Speaker 1: any other way, but when it approves of it to
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  Speaker 1: be a most excellent way in pardoning sin freely through
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  Speaker 1: the atonement he hath made and the imputation of His
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  Speaker 1: righteousness unto us. While the righteousness, the holiness, and the
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  Speaker 1: grace of God in all this is glorified saith the soul.
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  Speaker 1: What a blind, wretched creature was I that I did
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  Speaker 1: not see an excellency in this way before? It is
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  Speaker 1: better than the way of the law and the old Covenant.
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  Speaker 1: I approve of this way with all my heart. If
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  Speaker 1: all other ways were set before me and made possible,
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  Speaker 1: I would choose this way of going to God by
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  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, as the best way that brings most glory
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  Speaker 1: to God and most satisfaction unto the creature, and is
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  Speaker 1: most suited to the desires of the heart. I would
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  Speaker 1: have no other way, I am the Way, the Truth,
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  Speaker 1: and the Life, says Christ. And this I will abide by.
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  Speaker 1: Whatsoever becomes of me, replies the soul. Though I should perish,
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  Speaker 1: I will abide by it. Since God hath given me
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  Speaker 1: such a discovery of the glory of saving sinners by Christ,
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  Speaker 1: that is inferior to nothing but the glory of Heaven.
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  Speaker 1: I see that glory to God in it, that exultation
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  Speaker 1: to Christ, whom I would love, that honor to the
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  Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, and safety to my own soul. That I
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  Speaker 1: will abide by it. A growing in the approbation of
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  Speaker 1: this way gives some assurance that we have made a
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  Speaker 1: true and sincere choice of Christ. Give me leave to
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  Speaker 1: add this one thing. More. Fourthly, that a delight in
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  Speaker 1: obedience unto God by Christ in the ways of his
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  Speaker 1: own appointment is a great evidence that we have chosen Christ,
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  Speaker 1: and he us chosen him as our king, prophet and priest.
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  Speaker 1: The ways of the worship of God in his Church
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  Speaker 1: and ordinance are the ways and worship of God in Christ,
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  Speaker 1: which he hath appointed. Take these things abstractly and in themselves,
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  Speaker 1: and we should be apt to say of them as
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  Speaker 1: was said of Christ. There is no beauty in them,
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  Speaker 1: nor glory glory that they should be desired. There is
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  Speaker 1: much more outward beauty and glory in other ways that
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  Speaker 1: Christ has not appointed. But if we love the ways
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  Speaker 1: Christ hath appointed, because He hath appointed them, then we
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  Speaker 1: choose those ways because we have chosen Him to be
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  Speaker 1: our king, and that is it which gives them beauty
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  Speaker 1: and life. And when the ways of Christ's appointment grow
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  Speaker 1: heavy and burdensome to us, we are weary of them
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  Speaker 1: and are willing to have our neck from under the yoke.
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  Speaker 1: It is a sign we grow weary of Him who
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  Speaker 1: is the author of them. And this is a great
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  Speaker 1: sign that we never made a right and sincere choice
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  Speaker 1: of him. Many other things might be offered as evidences
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  Speaker 1: of sincere closing with Christ. But these are some which
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  Speaker 1: have been of use to me, and I hope they
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  Speaker 1: may be so unto some of you. Question, what concern
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  Speaker 1: have we in the sins of the day wherein we live? Answer?
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  Speaker 1: All sins may be referred to two heads, first irreligion,
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  Speaker 1: secondly immorality. First irreligion, and that may be reduced to
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  Speaker 1: two heads atheism and false worship. You may add also,
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  Speaker 1: particularly the contempt of all instituted worship. It takes up
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  Speaker 1: much of the sins against the first table. However, at
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  Speaker 1: present I shall only speak of the first of them.
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  Speaker 1: As to atheism. Then it may be no age can
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  Speaker 1: parallel that wherein we live. Consider all the ways whereby
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  Speaker 1: the atheism of man's heart may discover itself. For take
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  Speaker 1: it absolutely, and in the seat of it. It is
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  Speaker 1: found only in the heart of man, unless some one
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  Speaker 1: or other prodigious instance breaks out sometime, as we have
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  Speaker 1: had in our days. But otherwise the fool hath said
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  Speaker 1: in his heart there is no God. The heart is
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  Speaker 1: the seat of atheism. But we consider the ways whereby
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  Speaker 1: this atheism may and off manifest itself. One by horrid, cursed,
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  Speaker 1: blasphemous wearing, which is a contempt of the name of God.
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  Speaker 1: And when did it ever more abound in this nation?
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  Speaker 1: Two by reproaching of the spirit of God. Perhaps this
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  Speaker 1: is the peculiar sin of the nation at this day,
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  Speaker 1: and that the like hath not been known or heard
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  Speaker 1: of in any nation under the sun. Three by scoffing
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  Speaker 1: at all holy things, at the scriptures, at everything that
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  Speaker 1: carries a reverence and fear of God, so that a
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  Speaker 1: man who dare profess a fear of God in what
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  Speaker 1: he doth makes himself a scorn. Four. Contempt of all
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  Speaker 1: God's providential warnings is another proof of atheism. Never had
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  Speaker 1: a nation more warnings from God's providence, nor ever were
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  Speaker 1: they more despised. These things, Brethren, are not done in
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  Speaker 1: a corner. They are perpetrated in the face of the sun.
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  Speaker 1: The steam of them darkens the whole heaven, and they
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  Speaker 1: abound more and more every day. Secondly, shall we go
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  Speaker 1: to the other head viz immorality, and see how it
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  Speaker 1: is there? It would be an endless thing to go
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  Speaker 1: over the sins that reign among us. Oppression, blood, uncleannes, sensuality, drunkenness,
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  Speaker 1: all to the height raging and reigning in the nation.
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  Speaker 1: I mention these things as a matter to be bewailed
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  Speaker 1: before the Lord by us this day, and we ought
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  Speaker 1: to be affected with the consideration of them. Unto this
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  Speaker 1: great prevalency and predominancy of sin in the whole nation,
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  Speaker 1: there is added a strange and unspeakable security. The truth is,
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  Speaker 1: men were a little awakened one while in the nation,
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  Speaker 1: when the judgments of God, the pestilence, the fire, the sword,
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  Speaker 1: and the year after another warning from Heaven were upon us.
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  Speaker 1: Then there was a little awakening, like a man out
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of a dead sleep that lifts up his head and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: rubs his eyes for a time. But I can say
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: this that it is now towards forty years since God
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: enabled me to observe something in the world, And to
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: my knowledge, I never observed this nation in that state
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of security wherein it is at this day. For even
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: in former time, there were warnings continually that God had
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a controversy with the nation, and those that had any
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: fear of God spake one to another about it, and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: we saw and found their warnings were not in vain.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: But here is now a general security. Men complain of straits,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: want poverty, and the like. But as to anything wherein
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: God hath to do with the world, either my observation
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: doth greatly deceive me, or I never saw I think
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: so general a security as at this day in this church.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And this security hath reached us all, even the churches
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: of God themselves. These things are matter of fact. The
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: whole question is whether we are greatly to be concerned
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: in these things or not. They are the sins of
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: wicked men. And they are the sins of the persecutors
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of God's people and the like. And what have we
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to do with them? The Psalmist of Old said that
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: rivers of tears ran down his eyes, because men do
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: not keep the law of God. And you know that
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: God doth set a special mark upon those not that
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: are free from the abominations of the age, but upon
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: those that mourn for the abominations that are in the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: midst of us. It will not be enough for us
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that we are free from those abominations unless we are
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: found to mourn for them. Brethren, our own hearts know
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we are guilty in this matter, and that we had
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: needs seek the face of God this day to give
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: us a deeper sense of these things than we have obtained.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: The name of God is blasphemed. The spirit of God reproached.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: A flood of iniquity spreads itself over the nation, the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: land of our nativity, over the inheritance of Christ, over
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a nation professing the Reformed religion. All things go backward,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: everything declines. Indeed, Brethren, if you will not, I do
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: acknowledge here before you, and to my own shame, I
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: have great guilt upon me in this matter that I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: have not been sensible of the abominations of the nation
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: so as to mourn for them and be humbled for them,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: as I ought to have been. And you will do
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: well to search your hearts and consider how it is
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: with you, whether indeed you have been affected with these things,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: or whether you have not thought all is well, while
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: all have been well with yourselves and families. And it
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: may be with the Church that may have no trouble.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Upon that account, the security that is now upon the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: nation is dismal. And I may say, I see no
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: way or means whereby the nation should be freed from
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the security. The conduct of the ministry which they are under,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: generally is not able to free them from the security,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: nor the dispensation of the word that it seems to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: be a security from God to lead on the nation
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to judgment the means for the removal of it and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the awakening of us being laid aside. And if it
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: comes this way or that way anyway, though we see
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: not the mourning of it, you will find yourselves concerned
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in it. Who may abide the day of His coming.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: We may do well, brethren, to consider the state of
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the Church of God, and the world among ourselves and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: our own condition. I need not tell you how it
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: is in the world, but this I can say that,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: to my apprehensions, the interest of Christ and the Gospel
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: was never so fast going down in the world since
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: it came into it as at this day. I will
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: give you my reason of what I say. When the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Gospel was first planted and brought into the world, the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: devil was not able to bring the Church into its
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: apostasy under six or seven or eight hundred years, and
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that by degrees. Since the time of the Reformation, the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Church was progressive. For about seventy years it stood at
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: a stay about the same proportion of time, And ever
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: since it hath been going backward straightened in all places.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: The power of it decays, and the peace of it
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: is taken away, and destruction everywhere seems to lie at
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the door. Many, indeed, are in great misery and distress.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Some I have heard of lately sold for slaves for
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the testimony of their conscience. How is it with the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Church of Christ in this nation? Truly, some in great poverty,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in great affliction, in great distress. And I am afraid
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we and others have not hearts to relieve them as
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: we ought to do in a due manner. However, let
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: us help them with our prayers. And that which is
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: worst of all there seems to me, I must acknowledge
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: it to be a very great decay in all churches
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: of Christ in the nation, especially among those of us
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: who have had most peace, most prosperity, That which we
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: call zeal for God is almost quite lost among us.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Some of us have almost forgot whether there be such
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a thing as the cause and interest of Christ in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the world. We who have cried and prayed about it,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and had it upon our hearts, have sat down in
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: our narrow compass, and almost forgot there is such a
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: thing as the interest of Christ in the world. So
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: as to have an active zeal for the ordinances of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: God according to rule, as God requires of us our
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: primitive love. How is it decayed value of the ordinances
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of Christ and the society of His people for edification?
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: How cold are we grown in these things? How little
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is the Church society upon our hearts, which some of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: us remember when it was the very joy of our souls.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Truly we have reason to lift up our cry to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: God that He would return and visit the churches and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: pour out a new, fresh, reviving spirit upon them. That
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: we fall not under the power of these decays till
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: we come to formality and God withdraws himself from us
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and leaves us, which he seems to be at the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: very point of doing. Then, brethren, let us remember our
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: own church, that God would in an especial manner revive
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the spirit of life, power, and holiness among us. That
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: He would be pleased to help the officers of the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Church to discharge their duty and not suffer them to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: fall under any decay kay of grace or gifts unfitting
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of them to the discharge of their office to the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: edification of the Church. That He would give them also
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to bewear and take heed of formality as to the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: exercise of gifts in their administration. And that He would
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: take care of us. Since we are apt to fall
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: under these things, let us pray that we may be
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: acted by the spirit of God and enlivened by the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: grace of God in all things we do have. Any
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: of us any particular occasions in reference to temptations, trials,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and troubles, we may bear it upon our hearts to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the Lord this day. This is much better than by
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: multiplying a company of formal bills. The Lord help us
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: to know the plague of our own hearts, and to
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: be enabled to plead with the Lord upon this opportunity
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: for grace and mercy to help us in every time
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: of need. End of Discourse one to three, Discourse four
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to six of Cases of Conscience resolved by John Owen.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Question how
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: may we recover from a decay of the principle of grace? Answer?
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: We have been speaking concerning the decay of the principle
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of grace, and I will now offer you some few
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: thoughts that may be applied unto our recovery from the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: decay of this principle, in doing which I shall tell
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you no more than I think I have found myself.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: If we would recover spiritual life, we must come as
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: near as we can unto and abide as much as
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: we are able to, at the well head of life.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Christ is the spring of our spiritual life. He is
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: every way our life. It is in a derivation of
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: life from Christ and in conformity to Him that we
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: must look for our spiritual life. Before I mention how
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: we should approach unto and lie at this well head
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of life. Let me observe to you this one thing,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that when there is a general contagious disease, the plague,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: or the like, every man will look to his health
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and safety with reference to other occasions, but will be
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: most careful in regard to the general contagion. Now, if
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: forsaking this spring of life be the plague of the age,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and the plague of the place where we live, and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the plague of Christians, we ought to be very careful
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: lest this general contagion should reach us more or less,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: one way or other. It is evident to me, who
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: have some advantage to consider things as much as ordinary men,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that the apostasy, the cursed apostasy that spreads itself over
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: this nation, and whose fruits are in all ungodliness and uncleanness,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: consists in an apostasy from and forsaking the person of Christ.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Some rite of how little use the person of Christ
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: is in religion, none but to declare the doctrine of
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the Gospel to us. Consider the preaching and talk of men.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: You have much preaching and discourse about virtue and vice.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: So it was among the philosophers of old. But Jesus
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Christ is laid aside, quite as a thing forgotten, as
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: if he was of no use, no consideration in religion,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: as if men knew not at all how to make
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: any use of him as to living to God. This
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: being the general plague, as is evident of the apostasy
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of the day wherein we live. If we are wise,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: we shall consider very carefully whether we ourselves are not
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: influenced more or less with it. As where there is
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a general temptation, it doth more or less try all men,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the best of believers, and prevail more or less upon
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: their spirits. I am afraid we have not some of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: us that love for Christ, that delight in Him, nor
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: do make that constant abode with Him. As we have done.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: We have very much lost out of our faith and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: our affections, Him who is the life and center, the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: glory and the power of all spiritual life, and of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: all we have to do with God, Jesus Christ himself.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I brought it in only to let us know that
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: if we would revive our spiritual life and believe it,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: If any of us are not concerned in our spiritual decays,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: these are sapless things, and will be heard with as
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: much weariness as spoken. We are to abide more at
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the well head of life. It is the direction of
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: our Lord Jesus Christ. Abide in me. Unless you abide
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: in me, you can bring forth no fruit, And every
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: such branch shall be so and so purged. But you
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: will say, how shall we do so? How shall we
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: abide more than we have done at this well head
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of life? One? We are to abide at the well
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: head of life by a frequency of the acts of
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: faith upon the person of Christ. Faith is that grace,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: not only whereby we are implanted into Christ, but whereby
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: we also abide in Him. If so methinks, the frequent
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: actings of faith upon the person of Christ are a
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: drawing near to the well head of life. And though
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: we are to put forth a vigor, the earnestness, the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: watchfulness of our hearts unto obedience, yet a ceasing to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: continue in the acting of faith upon the person of Christ,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: even under the vigor of our own endeavors, by those
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: general outward desires of walking with God and living to
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Him will weaken us, and we shall find ourselves losers
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: by it. Do you all understand me? I am not
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: teaching the wise and more knowing of the flock, I
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: would speak unto the meanest. I say, suppose we should
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: resolve with great earnestness, diligence, watchfulness to abide in duties,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: in inward duties, to watch over our hearts, which is
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: required of us. Yet if in our so doing we
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: are taken off thereby from frequent actings of faith upon
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Christ as the spring of our life, we shall decay
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: under all our endeavors, watchfulness and multiplication of duties. Wherefore,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: my brethren, let me give you this advice that you would,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: night and day, upon your beds, in your ways, upon
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: all occasions, have the exercise of faith upon the person
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of Christ, faith working by a view of Him as
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: represented in the Gospel, by trust in Him, and by
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: invocation of Him, that He may be continually nigh unto you.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: And you cannot have him nigh unto you unless you
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: make yourselves, by these actings of faith, through His grace,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: continually nigh unto Him, so you will abide at the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: well head. I could show you those excellent advantages that
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: we should have by continually being near to Christ, who
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is the overflowing spring of grace, and from whence it
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: will issue out to us if we abide with Him,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: be nigh to Him, and keep up to this well head.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Two abyie with Him in love. Oh, the warm affections
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: for Christ which some of you can witness concerning yourselves,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: That your hearts have been filled with all towards Christ,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: when you have been under His call to believe on Him.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And it is a marvelous way of abiding with Christ.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: To abide with Him by love, which is called cleaving
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to God and Christ. It is the affection of adhesion
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and gives a sense of union. How then, shall we
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: get our hearts to abide with Christ by love? This
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: is a subject that if I were to preach upon,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: how many things would presently offer themselves to us, From
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the excellency of His person, from the excellency of his love,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: from our necessity of him, the advantages and benefits we
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: have by Him and his kindness towards us. All these
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: things and many more would quickly present themselves unto us.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: But I will name but one thing, and I name
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: it the rather because I heard it mentioned in prayer.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Since I came in labor to have your hearts filled
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: with a love, to Jesus Christ, as there is in him,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: made a reprice presentation of all divine excellencies. This was
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: God's glorious design. It is not to be separated from
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: his design of glorifying himself in the work of redemption.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: For a great part of God's glorious design in the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: incarnation of Christ was in him to represent himself unto us,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: who is the image of the invisible God, the express
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: image of his person. Now, if you do but consider
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Christ as God is gloriously represented unto you in him,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you will find him the most proper object for divine love,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: for that love which is wrought in your hearts by
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the Holy Ghost, for that love that hath sweetness, complacency,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: satisfaction in it. Then let us remember that we exercise
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: our minds to consider Christ as all the lovely properties
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of the divine nature and counsels of His will as
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: to love and grace are manifested by Christ. If we
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: would abide at the well head of life, we must
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: abide in these things, and let love be excited to
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Christ under this especial consideration, as he who represents the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: supreme object of your love, God himself in all the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: glorious properties of his nature. Three, add meditation here unto
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: study Christ more and all things of Christ delight more
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: in the hearing and preaching of Christ. He is our
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: best friend. Let not the difficulties of the mystery of
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: His person and grace deter you. There are wonderful things
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: of the counsels of heaven and of the glory of
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the Holy God in the person of Christ as the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: head of the Church. If you would be found inquiring
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: into them, an unsearchable treasure of divine wisdom, grace, and
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: love are laid up in Christ. Therefore, meditate upon them more.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Let me assure you this will prove the best expedient
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: for the recovery of our spiritual life. And I will
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: abide by this doctrine to eternity, that without it we
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: shall never recover spiritual life to the glory of God
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: in Christ. Four. And then, brethren, seeing we have in
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: the next place felt decays in the midst of the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: performance of multiplied duties, labor to bring spirituality into your duties.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: What is that, you will say, and wherein doth it consist?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: It is the due exercise of every grace that is
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: required to the discharge of that duty. Let every such
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: grace be in its due exercise, and that is to
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: be spiritual in duty, as for instance, would a man
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: be spiritual in all his prayers. Let him then consider
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: what grace and what exercise of grace is required to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: this duty. A due fear and reverence of the name
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: of God, faith, love and delight in him, and humble
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: sense of his own wants, earnest desires of supply, dependence
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: upon God for guidance, and the like. We all know
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that these are the graces required to the discharge of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: this duty of praying by the Holy Ghost. And let
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: these graces be in a due exercise, And then you
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: are spiritual in this duty is the duty charity giving
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: us supply to the poor. There is to be a
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: ready mind, a compassionateness of heart, and obedience under the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: command of Christ. In that particular, these are the graces
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: required to the discharge of that duty, and to watch
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: against the contrary vices. So that if we would bring
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: spirituality into duty, it is to exercise the graces that
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: are required by the rule to the performance of that duty.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I shall only Father give you this one caution. Have
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a care that your head in notion and your tongue
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: in talk. Do not too fast empty your hearts of truth.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: We are apt to lay it up in our heads
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: by notions, and bring it forth in talk, and not
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: let it be in our hearts, And this weakens spiritual
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: life greatly. We hear the word preached, and it is
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: of great concernment what account we shall give of the
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: word that hath been preached unto you. For we that
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: preach must give an account of our preaching, and so
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: must you of what you hear. And many a good
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: word is spoken, truly, and yet we see but little
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: fruit of it. And the reason of this is that some,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: when they hear it, take no farther regard of it,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: but let it slip, as the Apostle speaks Hebrews two
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to one. And if we complain of the treacherousness of
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: our memories, it is the most harmless way of the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: slipping out of the word. It is not the treachery
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: of our memories, but of our hearts and affections that
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: makes the heart like a broken vessel, that makes all
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the rents in it where the water runs out. As
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: the comparison is, the word slips out by putting your
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: affections into carnal exercise, and it quickly finds its way
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: to depart from the heart that gives it no better entertainment.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: We talk away a sermon and the sense of it,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: which robs us both of the sermon and the fruit
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of it. A man hears a good word of truth,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and instead of taking the power of it into his heart,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: he takes the notion of it into his mind and
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: is satisfied. Therewith, but this is not the way to thrive. God,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: grant that we may never preach to you anything but
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: what we may labor to have an experience of the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: power of it in our own hearts, and to profit
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: ourselves by the word, wherewith we design to profit others.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: And I pray God grant that you also may have
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: some profit by the word dispensed to you, that it
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: slip not out through carnal affections, and be not drawn
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: out through notions and talks, with a regardlessness to treasure
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: it up in your hearts. These things we are diligently
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to attend unto if we would recover our spiritual losses
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: that we are complaining of, And that not without just cause. Question.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: It was queried by some how we may make our
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: application unto Christ, not in general, but under what notion
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: and apprehension of the person of Christ. Answer because some
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: seem to apprehend there might be danger in terminating our
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: worship upon the nature of Christ as a creature. I
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: shall give you my thoughts and directions in it, And
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and first you must observe. We are to have no
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: conceptions in our acting of any duty towards Christ or
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: about Him, but with respect unto his person. As he
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: is God and Man in one person. It is not
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: lawful for us to have any apprehensions of Christ, to
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: make any application to him as man only, nor is
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: it lawful for us to have any apprehensions of Him
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: as God only. But all our apprehensions of Christ, and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: all our addresses unto Him, must be as God and
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Man in one person. So he is, and so he
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: will be to all eternity. The union is inseparable and indissoluble.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: And for any man to make his application unto Christ,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: either as God or as man, is to set up
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a false Christ. Christ is God and Man in one
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: person and no other. So in all our actings of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: faith upon Him and application unto him, we ought to
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: consider him as he was the seed of David, and
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: as God over all blessed forever, in one person. This
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: makes the great idolatry among the papists. In the image
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: of Christ, they represent the human nature of Christ, separated
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: from his deity, for they can make no representation of
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: one that is God and man in one person. Hereby
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: they become guilty of double idolatry, referring the mind unto
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: one that is a man and no more, and doing
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: it by means of an image. Secondly, the person of
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Christ is the immediate and proper object of all divine worship.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: The worship of Christ is commanded in the First Commandment.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: By worship, I intend faith, love, trust, subjection of soul,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: invocation on the name of Christ, every act of the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: soul and mind, whereby we ascribe infinite divine excellencies unto God,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: which is the worship of the mind. See John five
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: twenty three. It is the will of God that all
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: men should honour the Son, even as they honor the Father.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: How do we honour the Father by divine faith, trust, love,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and worship, making him our end and our reward. So
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: the Son is to be honored and as to the
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: divine person of the Son of God, being of the
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: same nature, essence, and substance with the Father, there is
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: no dispute of that among them by whom his deity
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: is acknowledged. Thirdly, the divine person of the Son of
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: God lost nothing of his glory and honor that was
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: due unto him by the assumption of our human nature.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Though thereby he became the son of Man as well
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: as the Son of God, a lamb for sacrifice. Yet
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: he is still in his whole and entire person the
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: object of all that worship I spake of before, and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the whole Church of God agree together in giving that
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: worship unto him. Revelation five, verses eight, nine, eleven to thirteen.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: And when he had taken the book, the four beasts
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: and four and twenty elders fell down before the lamb,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: having every one of them harps and golden vials full
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: of odors, which are the prayers of saints. And they
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: sung a new song, saying, thou art worthy to take
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: art slain and hast redeemed us unto God by thy
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: blood out of every kindred and tongue, and people and nation.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: worthy as the Lamb that was slain, to receive power
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: and riches and wisdom and strength, and honor and glory
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: on the earth, and under the earth, and such as
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: are in the sea, and all that are in them,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: heard I saying, blessing and honor and glory and power
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the Lamb, forever and ever. Jesus Christ is here distinguished
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: from the Father. There is he that sitteth upon the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: throne and the lamb, and he is considered as incarnate
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: as a lamb slain. And yet there is all the glory, honor, praise,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: and worship that is given to him that sitteth upon
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: the throne the Father given to Jesus Christ, God and Man,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the lamb slain who hath redeemed us with his blood. Fourthly,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: this person of Christ, God Man, must not be so
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: much as severed by any conception of the mind. For
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: distinction as God and man. He may be considered two ways,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: either absolutely in himself or in the discharge of his
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: mediatory office. And this double consideration produceth a double kind
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: of worship to the person of Christ. One consider Christ
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely in his own person, as the son of God incarnate,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: and so he is the immediate and ultimate object of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: our faith, prayer and invocation, so that a man may, lawfully,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: under the guidance and conduct of the Spirit of God,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: direct his prayer immediately to the person of Christ. You
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: have the example of Stephen in his last prayer, Lord
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Jesus saith, he receive my spirit. These were the words
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: of our Lord Jesus Christ when he died, Father, into
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: thy hands, I commit my spirit. And Stephen, when he died,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: committed his spirit into the hands of Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: for that is the name of the son of God incarnate,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: he shall be called Jesus, for he shall save you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: from your sins. Into thy hands I commit my spirit.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: So that a person may make an immediate address in
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: his prayers and supplications unto the person of Christ as
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: God and Man. I look upon it as the highest
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: act of faith that a believer is called unto in
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: this world to resign a departing soul into his hands,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: letting go all present things and future hopes. To resign,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I say, a departing soul, quietly and peaceably into the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: hands of Christ. Now this Stephen did, with respect unto Jesus, Lord, Jesus,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: receive my spirit. Then he left himself by faith. So
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: we may apply ourselves unto him upon any other account
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: in the acting of faith, upon any other occasion. Two
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: consider Christ in the discharge of his mediatory office, and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: under that formal consideration as discharging his mediatory office. He
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: is not the ultimate object of our faith and invocation.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: But we call upon God, even the Father, in the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: name of Jesus Christ. We through Christ have believed in God.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Saith Peter in one of his epistles, And it implies
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: a contradiction to have it otherwise, For the calling him
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: mediator showeth he is a means between God and us,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and so it is contradictory to say our faith is
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: terminated in his mediatory office. This he calls asking the
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Father in his name, you shall ask the Father in
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: my name, that is expressly plead the intervention of the
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: mediation of Christ. And so the Apostle tells us in
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: that grand rubric and directory of church worship Ephesians two eighteen,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: by whom we have access by one spirit unto the Father.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: The Father is proposed as the ultimate object access in
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: our worship, and the Spirit is the affecting cause enabling
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: us unto this worship, and the Son is the means
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: whereby we approach unto God. All that I shall add
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: here unto is this. Seeing there is in scripture a
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: double worship of Christ that is immediate, for his person
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: is considered absolutely and as mediator between God and man.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Which of these ought we principally to apply ourselves unto
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I answer plainly one. Our direction for solemn worship in
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the church generally respects Christ as mediator in scripture. The
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: general worship that is to be performed unto God in
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the assemblies of the Saints doth look upon Christ as
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: executing his mediatory office. And so our address is unto
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: the Throne of Grace. By him, By him we enter
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: into the Holy Place through him, and by Him unto God.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I bow my knees unto God, the father of our
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ Ephesians three twelve. God considered as the
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the proper ultimate
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: object of the solemn worship of the Church. Two. In
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: treating and dealing about our own souls under the conduct
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of the Spirit of God, it is lawful and expedient
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: for us in our prayers and supplications to make addresses
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: to the person of Christ. As Stephen did question, how
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: may we make our addresses to Christ for the exercise
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of grace, that is, that we may have grace strengthened
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: and be ready for all exercise? Or how may we
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: make application to Christ that we may receive grace from
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Him to recover from decays? Answer? I think the direction
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: given by our Savior himself is so plain and doth
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: so fall in with our experience, that we need not
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: look much farther save He. Unless ye abide in me,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: ye cannot bear fruit. The business we aim at is
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: fruit bearing, which consists as much in the internal vigorous
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: actings of grace as in the performance of outward duties.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: To be faithful in our minds and souls, as well
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: as in our lives. The way for that saith our Savior,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: is abide in Me. And unless we do so, he
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: tells us plainly, do we whatever we will, else we
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: cannot bring forth fruit, so that the whole of our
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: fruitfulness depends upon our abiding in Christ. There cannot then
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: be much more said unto this business, but to inquire
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: a little what it is to abide in Christ. Certainly
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: it is not a mere not going off from Christ,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: as we say, a man abides when he doth not
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: go away. For I hope that under all the decays
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: we have complained of and want of fruitfulness, yet we
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: have not left Christ and gone away from Him. We
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: have so far abode in Him, as the branch abideth
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: in the root, from whence it hath its communication and supplies. Therefore,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: there is something in particular included in this abiding in Christ,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: dwelling in Christ, and Christ dwelling in us. And there
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: seems to be this in it, that to abide in
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Christ is to be always nigh unto Christ, in the
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: spiritual company of Christ and in communication with Christ. It
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: doth not lie in a naked essential act of believing
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: whereby we are implanted into Christ and will not go
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: from Him. But there is something of an especial spiritual
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: activity of soul in this abiding in Christ. It is
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: abiding with Him and in His presence. And as this
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: abiding with Christ must be by some acts of our souls,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: let us consider what acts those are which may give
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: a little farther light into this matter. And first it
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: must be, certainly by some act of our minds. Secondly
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: by some act of our wills. Thirdly by some act
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: of our affections. And thus we abide with Christ, which
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: is the way certainly to bring forth fruit. First there
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: is an abiding with Christ in our minds. Now, this
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to me is in contemplation and thoughts of Him, night
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and day. I sought him on my bed in the night.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Saith the spouse to consider very much the person of Christ,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to contemplate upon him as vested with his glorious office,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and as intrusted and designed by the Father. To this work.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: We all saith the apostle with open face, beholding the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: glory of God, as in a glass, are changed into
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the same image, from glory to glory by the spirit
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: of the Lord. My brethren, that which you and I
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: are aiming at is to be changed into the same image,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: that is, into the image and likeness of the Glory
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: of God in Christ. I dare boldly say that by
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: those of us who have reason to have daily apprehensions
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: of our going out of the world and leave this
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: state of things, that we have no greater desire, nor
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: is there anything more frequent in our minds than this,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: that we may be more and more changed into that
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: image before we go out of this world. For we
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: are looking after perfection in likeness to Christ. Therefore, aged
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Christians especially will bear witness that there is nothing now
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: we long for more than to be more and more
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: changed into the image and the likeness of Christ. How
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: shall we get to this? Why, saith he? The way
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: is by looking steadily upon Christ, as a man looks
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: with an optic glass to an object at a great distance.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: We behold him, saith He, by looking steadily upon Christ
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: himself and the glory of God in Him. Now there
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: is a wonderful, large object for us to behold. For
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: when you look upon the glory of God in Christ,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: you have what you please of Christ. For the object
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: of your eye and view, the person of Christ, the
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: office of Christ, the merit of Christ, the example of Christ,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the death of Christ, and what you will so you
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: will be much intent in your thoughts and minds, much
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: in immediate contemplation about Christ. I do not know how
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: you find it, brethren, but it is the advice I
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: would give you, who are aged Christians and not likely
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: to continue long in this world, to exercise yourselves in
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: immediate contemplations upon Christ. All the teachings you have had
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: from ministers, the principal end of them, have been to
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: enable you to this. And really, if I know anything,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: we shall find them accompanied with a sweet transforming power
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: beyond what we have had experience of in other ways
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: and duties. We shall be changed into the same likeness. Well,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: then we abide with Christ in the acts of our mind,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: by immediate thoughtfulness and contemplation upon Christ, in the night,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: upon our beds, and in our walkings, and by the wayside,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and in times we set apart for meditation, we are
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: greatly to labor after an intuitive view of Christ, that
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: is a direct view in the contemplation of Christ. Secondly,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: if you will abide with Christ, there must be an
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: acting of your will in it also, and that is
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: in great diligence and carefulness about that obedience which Christ
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: doth require in all the instances of it. This is
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a great way of abiding with Christ, when we labor
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: to have our wills in a readiness unto all the
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: instances of obedience that Christ requireth at our hands. Let
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: that be the question, whether it be the will of
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: God that we should do thus or not, And if
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: it be so, pray let us be ready to show
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: we do abide in Christ by yielding cheerful and willing
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: obedience to Him in this instance and duty which He
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: calleth us unto, and so in all other things. I
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: would have every one of us think often of this matter,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: what it is Christ requires of me personally in a
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: way of duty and obedience. And I would have us
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: labor to have in great readiness all things which Christ
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: requires of us, And especially brethren, I would have this
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: in a readiness that Christ requires of me, to walk
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: very circumspectly and carefully, to keep myself from spots and
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: pollution and defilements by converse in the world. This Christ
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: requires at all times, in all instances, and upon all occasions.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: What have we been preaching? What have former teachers been
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: instructing us in all that you are taught, is that
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: you should come to the knowledge of all instances of
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: duty and the way of them, which Christ requires at
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: your hands. And if ye know these things, happy are ye?
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: If ye do them? This is your fruit bearing a
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: direct contemplation upon Christ. Wherein I would beg that both
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: you and my own soul would be found more to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: abound while we are in this world. And you will
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: find Christ, in the discharge of this duty, will make
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: very near approaches and frequent visits to your hearts, more
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: in the discharge of this duty than of any other.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: And to have our hearts in a readiness to comply
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: with every instance of obedience Christ requires at our hands. Thirdly,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: there is an abiding with Christ in point of affection.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: There may be love and delight in all these things.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: If there be not very spiritual contemplations, will be a bar.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: There is no duty that is required of any man
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: in this world, so spiritual, so heavenly, so evangelical, But
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: through want of love and delight a man may be
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: slothful in performing of it. I may tie myself to
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: do so this hour or that hour, and have no
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: benefit to my own soul give any glory unto God.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: If there be not love and delight in it, they
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: will sweeten the duty and refresh the heart of God
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and Man Christ and Us. So labour, brethren, and pray
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: greatly for it, that you may abide with Christ with delight,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: that you may find a sweetness and refreshment in it,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and that every season of retiring unto Christ may bring
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a kind of spiritual joy and gladness to your hearts.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Now you have a great opportunity, having shaken off the
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: occasions of life and other concernments, to dwell with Christ.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Now it is a good time. End of Discourse four
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: to six, Discourse seven to nine of Cases of Conscience
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: resolved by John Owen. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: public domain. Question when our own faith is weakened as
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: to the hearing of ours our prayers? When we ourselves
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: are hindered within ourselves from believing the answer of our prayers,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: have no ground to expect we should be heard, or
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: ground to believe we are heard. What are those things
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: that greatly weaken our faith as to the answer of
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: our prayers, that though we continue to pray, yet our
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: faith is weakened as to the hearing of our prayers,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: And what are the grounds that weaken men's faith in
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: such a state? Answer. If our hearts are not duly
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: prepared to the consideration of the great and glorious properties,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: presence and holiness of God, and duly affected with them
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: in our preparation for prayer, it is certain we can
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: have no faith for the hearing of our prayers. It
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: is also of great importance that we consider a right
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: in what state the things we seek for are promised,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: whether temporal things that are left to God or spiritual
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: that lie under our promise, and so we may press
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: God immediately about them. There are two things that are
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: certainly great weakeners of our faith as to God's hearing
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: our prayers. First, the one is that intermixture of self,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: which is apt to creep into our prayers in public,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: especially in the congregation, and assemblies self reputation in the
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: exercise of gifts or whatever it be. Weakens our faith
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: as to the expectation of God's hearing our prayers. Secondly,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the other is that we pray with earnestness and fervency,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: with noise and clamor of speech, but do not industriously
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: pursue the things we pray for. Unless we watch and
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: follow after these things, we shall not have ground of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: faith for the hearing of our prayers. As for instance,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: when the soul is burdened with a corruption. There is
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: nothing we are more fervent in prayer unto God against.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Yet when we have done this we take no more
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: care to get it mortified. Whereas our faith that our
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: prayers may be heard. In this thing, we must pursue
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: our prayers, or it will weaken our faith. As to
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: the hearing of them. We all pray, But do we
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: believe that God will hear and answer our prayers. I
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: shall not speak unto the nature of that faith we exercise,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: or what assurance we may have of God's hearing our prayers.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: But I will tell you plainly what hinders in us
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: the answer of our prayers. One, we are not clear
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: that our persons are accepted. God had respect unto Able
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: and his offering, and not under Cain and his offering.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: We can have no more faith that our prayers are
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: heard than we have faith that our persons are accepted.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: How many of us are dubious and know not whether
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: we believe or know or are the children of God
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: or no. According as our faith is as to the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: acceptance of our persons, so ordinarily our faith will be
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: as to the hearing of our prayers. I do acknowledge
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: that some time, under extraordinary darkness or temptation, whilst a
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: person doth not at all know, nor hath any assurance,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: what is his own condition, whether approved or rejected of God.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Yet the Holy Spirit of God many times gives assurance
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: of the hearing of that prayer which is poured out
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: in the anguish of the soul. But let us bring
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: things unto a good issue between God and our souls,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: and not complain that our prayers are not heard when
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: we are negligent to come unto the assurance of faith
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: about the acceptance of our persons. We have had many
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: days of prayer and have not seen that return of
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: our prayer. That we designed. This evil lies at the
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: bottom that we have been dubious as to our state
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: of acceptance with God. Let us labor to amend it. Two.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Another thing is this pray. While you will, you will
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: not believe your prayers are answered. If you indulge any
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: private lust, or do not vigorously endeavor the mortification of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: it according to what the scripture and duty require. If
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: any lust ariseth in the soul, and we do not
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: immediately engage to mortify it as God requires, it will
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: break out and weaken our faith in all our prayers. Therefore,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: if you will be helped to believe the answer of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: your prayers, labor to search your hearts. Do not think
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: that no corruption is indulged, but such as break out
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: into open sin. It may be you do not know
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: the corruption you indulge. Labor therefore to find it out,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: and you will find how your faith is weakened. Thereby.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Three again, want of having treasured up former experiences of
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: the hearing of prayer, we have not provided as we
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: ought in this matter. If we have laid up manifold
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: experiences of God's having heard our prayers, it would strengthen
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: our faith that God doth hear them. It may be
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: some have prayed all their days. God hath kept their
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: souls alive. They have not wickedly departed from God, and
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: they have obtained particular mercies. Why such ought to keep
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: a constant record of God's hearing their prayers. Every discovery
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: made of Christ that draws our souls more to love
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Him and engageth us to cleave unto Him. Is our
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: experience of God's hearing our prayers. Four, I might add,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: when we ourselves are not sensible that we arise unto
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: that fervency of prayer that is required of them that believe.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: If we pray in the congregation, in our closets or families,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: and when we have done, are not sensible that we
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: have risen up unto that fervency that is required, we
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: cannot believe our prayers are answered. It is the duty
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: of all men to pray unto the Lord, but it
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: is incumbent on none more than those who have really
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: and sincerely given up themselves unto God, and yet in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: truth have no comfortable persuasion concerning their condition. That is
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: a state wherein I am so far from discouraging prayer,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: that it is your season for prayer in the whole
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: of your lives. When Paul was first called before such
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: time as he had evidence of the pardon of his sins,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: it is said, behold, he prays, if they truly attend
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: unto their state and condition, they may be sure to
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: be the persons of whom also it will be said, Behold,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: they pray, and even in these prayers they may exercise
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: faith when they have not faith to believe that their
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: prayers are heard. But while in this condition, it will
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: be hard to believe that their prayers are heard, when
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: they cannot believe that their persons are accepted. Question when
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: may anyone's sin, lust, or corruption be esteemed habitually prevalent? Answer?
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: I shall promise some few things before a come to
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: answer the question. First, all lusts and corruptions, whatsoever have
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: their root and residence in our nature, the worst of them,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: four saith the apostle James one, verse fourteen. Every man
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: is tempted of his own lust. Every man hath his
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: own lust, and every man hath all lust in him.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: For this lust or corruption is the deprivation of our nature.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: And it is in all men, and in the root
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: and principle of it. It is in all men, even
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: after their conversion. So saith the Apostle. Concerning believers Galatians five,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: verse seventeen. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, so that
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: ye believers cannot do the things that ye would. What
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: doth the flesh lust unto? Why it lusts unto the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: works of it, What are they? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, strife, sedition, heresy, envy, murder, drunkenness, reveling,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and such like the flesh. Lusteth unto all these things
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: in believers, the worst things that can be mentioned. Whence
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: is that of our Savior, which yields to me a
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: doctrine which is a sad truth, but so plain that
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: nothing can be more. He foretells marvelous troubles, great desolations,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and destructions that shall come upon the world, and befall
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: all sorts of men, and says it is a day
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: that as a snare shall come on all them that
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: dwell on the face of the whole earth. Nothing makes
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: me more believe that day, that terrible day of the Lord,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: is coming upon the face of the whole earth, than this,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: that it comes as a snare. Men do not take
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: notice of it? Do you therefore, take heed to yourselves,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: you that are my disciples, believers, take heed to yourselves,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and drunkenness and the cares of this life. And so
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: that day come upon you at unawares the doctrine I
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: observe from thence is this that the best of men
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: have need to be warned to take care of the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: worst of sins in the approach of the worst of times.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Who would think when such troubles, distresses, desolations were coming
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: upon a nation in that place the disciples of Christ
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: should be in danger of being overtaken with surfeiting and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: drunkenness and the cares of this life. Yet he who
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: is the wisdom of God knew how it would be
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: with us. Nay, what if a man should say from
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: observation that professors are never more in danger of sensual
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: provoking sins than when destruction is lying nearest at the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: door in that day, saith he take care. Secondly, another
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: thing I would premise is this that this root of
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: sin abiding in us, as I have showed, will, upon
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: its advantage, work unto all sorts of evils, which should
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: give us a godly jealousy over our souls and over
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: one another. Saith the Apostle Romans seven, verse eight. Sin
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: wrought in me all manner of concupiscy Thirdly, if it
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: be so that sin doth thus always abide in us,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: and will, upon occasions work to all its fruit, to
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: all manner of concupiscence. Then the mortification of sin is
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: a continual duty that we ought to be exercised in
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: all our days. Colossians three, verse three. Ye are dead,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: and your life is hid with Christ in God, a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: blessed state and condition. I desire no better attainment in
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: this world than this holds out. But what duty does
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: the apostle infer from? Thence therefore, say THEE mortify your
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: members which are upon the earth? What I pray fornication, uncleanness,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: inordinate affections, evil, concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. The
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: mortification of sin is a duty incumbent upon the best
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: of saints. Fourthly, the fourth thing I would premise is this,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: that a particular sin doth not obtain a signal prevalency
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: without it hath some sence signal advantage. For our corrupt
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: nature is universally and equally corrupt. But a particular sin
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: obtains prevalency by particular advantages. It would be too long
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: to speak of all those advantages. I shall name two,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: whereunto others, may be reduced. One the inclination of constitution
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: gives particular advantages under particular sins. Some may be very
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: much inclined to envy, some to wrath and passion, others
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: to sensual sins, gluttony, drunkenness, uncleanness, to name the things
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: which our Savior names and warns us of. It is
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: with respect here unto that David said he would keep
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: himself from his iniquity, as some think, I have only
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: this to say that it hath been much from the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: fallacy of the devil that men have been apt to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: plead constitution and the inclination of their constitution, to the
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: extenuation of their sin, when indeed it is an aggravation.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I am apt to be passionate in my nature saith one,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: I am sanguine, saith another, and love company. They make
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: their natural inclinations to be a cover and excuse for
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: their sin. But this I must say as my judgment,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: that if grace does not cure constitution sins, it hath
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: cured none, and that we can have no trial of
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the efficacy of grace if we have it not in
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: curing constitution sins. The great promise is that it shall
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: change the nature of the wolf and the lion of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: the bear, the asp and the cockatris, and that they
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: shall become as lambs, which it can never do if
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: it doth not change it by an habitual counterworking of
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: inclinations arising from constitution. If grace, being habitual, doth not
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: change the very inclination of Constitution, I know not what
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: it doth. That is the first advantage whereby particular sins
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: come to have signal advantage and prevalency two outward occasions,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: and I refer them unto two heads. First to education.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Particular sins get advantage by education. If we do, even
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: in education, instruct our children to pride in their fineries
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and deportment to themselves. If we teach them to be proud,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: we heap dry fuel upon them till such time as
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: lust will flame. Let us take heed of this. It
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: is an easy thing to bring forth a proud generation
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: by such means. Secondly, society in the world, according to
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: occasion of life, is that which inflames particular corruptions. According
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: as men delight in their converse, so corruption will be
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: provoked and heightened by it. I have spoken all these
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: things previously to show you where lies the nature and
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: principle of the danger we are going to inquire into,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and how it comes to that condition. Now, I shall
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: inquire a little into the question its how we may
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: know whether a particular corruption be habitually predominant or no. Brethren,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: I take it for granted the vilest of those lusts
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: which our Savior and his apostles warn us against to
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: mortify and crucify, may be working in the hearts and
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: minds of the best of us, And that a particular
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: lust may be habitually prevalent, where for particular reasons it
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: never brings forth outward effects. Therefore, look to yourselves, I say, then,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: when the mind and soul is frequently and greatly as
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: there are occasions urged upon and pressed with a particular
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: lust and corruption, this doth not prove that particular lust
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and corruption to be habitually prevalent. For it may be
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: a temptation. This may all proceed from the conjunction of
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: temptation with indwelling sin, which will make it fight and war,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: and use force and lead captive. But suppose a person
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: be in that condition, how shall he know whether it
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: be a temptation in conjunction with in dwelling sin in general,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: or whether it be an habitual prevalency of a particular corruption.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: I answer one, it is not from the prevalency of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: corruption these three ways. First, if the soul be more
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: grieved with it than defiled by it, it is a
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: temptation and not a lust habitually prevalent. In this case,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: when a heart is so solicited with any sin, sin
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: and grace are both at work and have their contrary aims.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: The aim of grace is to humble the soul, and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: the aim of sin to defile it. And the soul
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: is so far defiled as by the deceitfulness and solicitations
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: of sin, consent is obtained. Defilement ariseth not from temptation
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: as active upon the mind, but from temptation as admitted
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: with consent. So far as it consents, whether by surprisal
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: or long solicitations, so far it is defiled. It is
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: otherwise of the soul be more grieved with it than
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: defiled by it. Secondly, it is so when the soul
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: can truly and doth look upon that particular corruption as
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: its greatest and most mortal enemy. It is not soldiers
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: who have ruined my estate, nor a disease that hath
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: taken away my health, nor enemies who have ruined my
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: name or opposed me, but this corruption, which is my
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: great and mortal enemy. When the soul is truly under
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: this apprehension, then it is to be hoped. It is
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: the power of temptation, and not the prevalency of lust
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: or corruption. Thirdly, it is so also when a man
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: maintains his warf and his conflict with it constantly, especially
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: in those two great duties of private prayer and meditation,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: which if once the soul be beat off from it,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: is driven out of the field, and sin is conqueror.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: But so long as a man maintains the conflict in
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: the exercise of grace in those duties, I look upon
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: it as a temptation and not an habitual prevalent lust. Two.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: I shall now proceed to show when a corruption is
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: habitually prevalent. And here is a large field before me.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: But I shall only speak some few things. First, when
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: a man doth choose or willingly embrace known occasions of
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: his sin, that sin is habitually prevalent. There is no
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: man that hath the common understanding of a Christian, and
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: hath any corruption or lust working in him, but he
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: knows what are the occasions that provoke it. No man,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: unless he is profligately wicked, can choose sin for sin's sake.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: But he who knows what are the occasions that stir up, excite,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and draw forth any particular corruption, and doth choose them
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: or willingly embrace them. There is the habitual prevalency of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: sin to a high degree in the mind of that man,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: whosoever he be. For sin is to be rejected in
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: the ac ocasion of it, or it will never be
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: refused in the power of it. Two, let a man
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: fear it is so when he finds argument against it
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: to lose their force. No man is under the power
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: of particular corruption, but will have arguments suggested to his
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: mind from fear, danger, shame, ruin against continuing under that corruption.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: When a man begins to find these arguments abate in
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: their force, and have not that prevalency upon his mind
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: they have had, let him fear there is a habitual
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: prevalency of his corruption. Thirdly, when a man, upon conviction,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: is turned out of his course, but is not turned
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: aside from his design, when he traverseth his way like
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: the wild ass in her occasion, who shall turn her aside?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: If you meet her or pursue her, you may turn
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: her out of her way, But still she pursues her design.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: Men meet with strong conviction of sin, strong rebukes and reproofs.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: This a little puts them out of their way, but
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: not from their design or inclination. The bent of their
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: spirit lies that way still, and the secret language of
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: their heart is that it was free with me to
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: be as in former days. Certainly, a corruption is habitually
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: present if it seldom or never fails to act itself
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: under opportunities and temptations. If a man who trades cheats
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: every time he is able to do so, he hath
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: covetousness in his heart. Or if a man, whenever opportunity
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: and occasion meet together to drink, doth it to excess.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: This is a sign of an habitual corruption, if he
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: be not able to hold out scarce at any time
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: against a concurrence of temptation and opportunity. Fourthly, when the soul,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: if it will examine itself, will find it is gone
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: from under the conduct of renewing grace, and is at
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: the best, but under the evidence of restraining grace, are
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: under the conduct of renewing grace. And I grant that sometimes,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: when under the power of corruption and temptation, even they
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: have broken the rule of renewing grace, God will keep
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: them in order by restraining grace, by fear of danger,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: shame and infamy, by outward consideration set home upon the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: mind by the spirit of God, which keeps them off
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: from sin. But this is but sometimes, But if a
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: man finds his heart wholly got from under the rule
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: of renewing grace, and that he hath no leading or conduct,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: but restraining grace, his sin hath got the perfect victory
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: over him. That is, he would sin on to the
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: end of his life, were it not for fear of shame, danger,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: death and hell. He is no longer acted by renewing grace,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: which is faith and love. Faith working by love. A
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: man who hath a spiritual understanding may examine himself and
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: find under what conduct he is. Fifthly, lastly, when there
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: is a predominant will in sinning, then lust is habitually prevalent.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: Sin may entangle the mind and disorder the affections, and
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: yet not be prevalent. But when it hath laid hold
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: upon the will it hath the mastery question whether lust
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: or corruption habitually prevalent be consistent with the truth of grace? Answer.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: This is a hard question. There are difficulties in it,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: and it may be it is not precisely to be determined.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: I am sure we should be wonderful careful what we
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: say upon such a question which determines the present and
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: eternal condition of the souls of men. Supposing we retain
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: something of what was spoken in stating a lust or
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: corruption so habitually prevalent, because this is the foundation of
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: our present inquiry, I shall bring what I have to
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: say upon this question to a few heads, that they
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: may be remembered. I say, then, first, it is the
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: duty of every believer to take care that this may
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: never be his own case. Practically, we shall meet with
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: straits enough, and fears enough, and doubts enough about our
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: eternal condition, though we have no lust nor corruption habitually prevalent. Therefore,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: I say it is the duty of every believer to
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: take care this may never be his case. David did
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: so Psalm nineteen, verse twelve and thirteen. Who can understand
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: his errors, saith he cleanse thou me from secret faults,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Then shall
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: I be upright and free from the great offense. He
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: acknowledges his errors and sins, and prays for cleansing, purifying pardon.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: But for presumptuous sins, sins with a high hand, and
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: every habitual corruption which hath something of presumption, Lord, keep
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: back thy servant from them, saith he. The Apostle's caution
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: is to the same purpose he Brews twelve, verse fifteen,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: lest a root of bitterness spring up. There is the
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: root of bitterness in every one which I look upon
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: as a corruption in some measure habitual. If it springs
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: up under great defilement, and I beseech you, brethren, beg
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: of God for your souls and mine, that we may
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: be careful, this be never our case. Secondly, the second
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: thing I would observe is this, whatever may be said
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: concerning its consistency with grace, it is certainly inconsistent with peace.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: I wish we would remember what description was given before
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: of this prevalent corruption, that we might consider the things
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: now applied unto it. Here, though I would be as
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: tender as of the apple of mine eye in these things,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: I will not fear to say this, that the peace
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: which any one hath concurring with a prevalent corruption is security,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: not peace. I know men be at great peace under
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: prevalent corruptions, and live upon good hopes that they shall
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: be accepted with God, that it shall be well with
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: them in the latter end, and that they shall have
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: power one time or another against this corruption, and will
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: leave it when it is seasonable, and strive against it
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: no more than they have done. But all such peace
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: is but security under prevalent corruption. There is a drawing back,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: For I would state the matter thus, a person who
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: is a professor, and hath kept up to duties and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: obedience till some lust, hath gotten strength by constitution, temptations,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: or occasions of life, and hath drawn him off from
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: his former renovation in walking with God. There is then
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: a drawing back. Now, Saith Apostle, if any man draws
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: back my soul, hath no pleasure in him Hebrews ten,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: verse thirty eight. And when God hath no pleasure according
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: to the several degrees of backsliders. It may be that
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: is meant of final apost hostacy. He doth not intimate
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: any thing that is a ground of peace to the soul.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: So Isaiah fifty seven, verse seventeen. For the iniquity of
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: his covetousness, I was wroth and hid myself from him.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: If there be an incurable iniquity of covetousness or any
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: other iniquity, whether manifest unto us or no, God is
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: angry and doth hide himself from us. I pray, brethren,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: let us examine our peace, and if we find we
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: have a peace that can maintain its ground and station
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: under prevalent corruption, trust no more to that peace. It
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: will not stand us instead when it comes to a trial. Thirdly,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: the third thing I would say is this that if
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: a prevalent corruption be not inconsistent with the truth of grace,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: it is certainly inconsistent with the true exercise of grace.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: It is not indeed inconsistent with the performance of duties,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: but it is inconsistent with the true exercise of grace
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: in the performance of duties. It is often seen and
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: known that persons under prevalent corruption will multiply duties thereby
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: to quiet conscience and to compensate God for what they
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: have done. Amiss persons may multiply prayers, follow preaching, and
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: attend to other duties when they use all these things
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: through the deceitfulness of sin, but as a cloak unto
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: some prevailing corruption. But in all those duties there is
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: no true exercise of grace. The true determination of this
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: question depends on a right exposition of one John two,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: verse fifteen. If we could understand that verse, it determines
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: this point. Love not the world, neither the things that
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: are in the world. If any man love the world,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: the love of the Father is not in him. There
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: is the question whether prevalent corruption be inconsistent with true grace.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: I know the words may have this construction. If any
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: man do make the world his chiefest good. If any
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: man put the world in the place of God, then
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: the love of the Father is not in him. He
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: hath either received no love from God, or he hath
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: no love to God as a father in Christ. But
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: indeed the apostle speaks unto believers, I am apt to think,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: speaks not of the whole kind, but degrees. If there
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: be a prevalency of love of the world. There is
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: no prevalency of the actings of the love of the Father.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: That they do not concern the habitual principles of the
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: love of the world and of the love of the Father,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: but the prevailing actings of the one and the other.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: And accordingly, it may be said of all other graces whatsoever,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: that where there is a prevalency of the acting of sin,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: there is a suspension of the exercise of grace. Brethren,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: if any of us have been under the power of
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: prevalent corruption, I will be still tender and speak what
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: ought to be received and believed. Whether people do or not,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: it is much to be feared. And we have lost
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: all our prayers and hearing because we have not had
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: a true exercise of grace in them. Some exercise there
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: may be, but a due and true exercise of grace
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: will be laid asleep by prevalent corruption. And therefore let
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: us take heed of prevalent corruption, as we would take
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: heed of losing all things that we have wrought our praying, hearing, suffering, charity,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: for want of a due exercise of grace in them. Fourthly,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: I shall grant this that spiritual life may be in
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: a swoon when the spiritual man is not dead. There
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: is a kind of delinquium of the spirits called swooning
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: away that may befall believers, which suspends all acts of life,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: when yet the man is not dead. So I say,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: though I should see a man through the prevalency of corruption,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: have all the evidences of a spiritual life cast into
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: a swoon, Yet I will not presently conclude the spiritual
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: man is dead. Take the case of David. From the
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: time of his great fall and transgression in the matter
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: of Uriah until the coming of Nathan. The prophet persons
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: are generally inclined to believe that the spiritual life was
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: in a swoon when the spiritual man was not dead.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: His fall, as an honest man said, beat the breath
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: out of his body, and he lay a long time
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: like a man dead, by reason of that power which
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: one signal sin left in his soul. And take that
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: as a great instance that one sin not immediately taken
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: off by great humiliation, leaves great and even habitual inclinations
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: in the soul to the same sin, so that some
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: ascribed it unto the corruption of our nature. For it
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: is a great and difficult question in divinity, how one
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: particular sin, as the sin of Adam was, should bring
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: in habitual corruption to our nature, to which some answer thus,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: that any one single moral act performed with a high hand,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: hath great ala liquity in it, disposing our whole nature
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: to corruption. David, by that single act of flagrant wickedness,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: did continue in it for so long a space of
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: time till Nathan came and administered some good spirits to
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: him that relieved him out of his swoon. Wherefore, I
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: say that I will not judge a person to be
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: spiritually dead, whom I have judged formerly to have spiritual life,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: though I see him at present in a swoon, as
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: to all evidences of the spiritual life. And the reason
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: why I will not judge so is this, because if
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: you judge a person dead, you neglect him, you leave him.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: But if you judge him in a swoon, though never
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: so dangerous, you use all means for the retrieving of
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: his life, so ought we to do to one another
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: and our own souls. Fifthly, there is a prevalency of
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: sin that is inconsistent with true grace, which may befall
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: those who have been professors. So the apostle doth plainly
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: declare Romans six verse sixteen. Know ye not that to
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: whom ye yield yourself servants to obey his servants, ye
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: or of obedience unto righteousness. There is such a serving
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: of sin as puts a man into a contrary state. Sixthly,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: I shall add but one thing more, and that is this.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: There may be a corruption, sin or lust habitually prevalent
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: as to whatsoever evidences the person in whom it is
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: or others can discern. And yet the root of the matter,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: the root of spiritual life, be notwithstanding in the person.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: Suppose then there be such a prevalency that the soul
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: judges to be habitual. How shall we know whether the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: root of the matter be in such a person or no.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: If the soul hath any thing left of spiritual life,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: there will be something of vital operations in that soul. Now,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: the vital operations that give evidence the soul is not
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: absolutely slain by prevalent corruption are opposition and humiliation. So
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: long as the soul, though it be never so much captivated,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: is conscious to itself of a sincerity in the opposition
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: it makes there is an evidence of a vital operation,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: as likewise, where it is constant in its humiliation. On
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: that account, But if it be farther inquired, how it
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: may be known that this humiliation is sincere? I answer,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: it cannot be known from its vigor or efficacy. For
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: that overthrows the question. For if the opposition was vigorous
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: and effectual, it would break the power of lust and corruption,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: so that it would no more be prevalent. But two
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: ways it may be known, one by its constancy. If
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: the root of the matter be still in us, there
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: will be a constant opposition to every act of any
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: prevailing corruption. Whatsoever, I do not speak about violent temptations,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: but ordinary cases in which I know not. Whence we
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: should conclude the root of the matter is in that
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: man who doth not make a sincere opposition to every
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: instance of the acting of prevalent corruption. If a man
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: can pass over one and another instance of prevalent corruption
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: without any humiliation for it, the Holy Sovereign God show
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: him grace and mercy. But it is to me the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: way of a serpent upon a stone. I see it
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: not I know it not two. It is sincere if
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: it be from its proper spring, that is, if the
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: opposition be not from conviction, light, or conscience only, but
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: from the will of the poor sinner, I would do otherwise,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: I would have this sin destroyed. I would have it
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: rooted out, that it should be no more in me.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: My will lies against it. However it hath captivated my
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: affections and disturbed my course. That is all I dare
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: say upon this question. That there may be an habitual
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: prevalency of corruption, which may seem so to them in
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: whom it is, as also to those who converse with them,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: And yet the root of the matter be in them.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: We may we know the root of the matter by
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: the acting of spiritual life, in opposition going before and
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: humiliation coming after. We may know the sincerity of these
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: vital actings by their constancy and by their spring, if
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: we are constant in them, and if they arise from
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: our wills. End of Discourse seven to nine, Discourse ten
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: to twelve of Cases of Conscience, resolved by John Owen.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Question what
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: shall a person do who finds himself under the power
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: of a prevailing corruption, sin, or temptation. Answer, I shall
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: premise only this one thing, and then inquire whether it
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: belongs to us or no. This prevalency hath many degrees.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: It may be a prevalency to outward scandal, or to
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: the utter loss of inward peace, or to the disquieting
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: and divesting of us of that tranquility of mind, usually
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: which Christ calleth us unto. Now pray, consider that I
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: speak to it equally and in every degree. And perhaps
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: there may be none of us, but at one time
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: or other, after inquiry, will have had experience in one
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: degree or other, either to disquietment, loss of peace, or scandal.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: What shall such a person then do who finds it
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: so with him? I answer, first, he should labor to
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: affect his mind with the danger of it. It is
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: not conceivable how subtle sin is to shift off an
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: apprehension of the danger of it. Notwithstanding this, says the man,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: yet I hope I am in a state of grace
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: and shall be saved and come to the issue of
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: it at one time or other, And so the mind
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: keeps off a due sense of the danger of it.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: I beseech you, brethren and sisters, that if this be
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: your condition, labor to affect your minds that this state,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, will end in hell. And
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: let not your minds be relieved from the apprehension that,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: upon due and good grounds of faith, these ways go
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: down to the chambers of death. Do not please yourselves,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: imagining you are members of the church and have good
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: hopes of salvation by Jesus Christ. But consider whether this
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: tends and affect your minds with it. Secondly, when the
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: person is affected with the danger of it, the next
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: thing to be done is to burden his conscience with
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: the guilt of it. For the truth is, as our
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: minds are, upon many pretenses, slow to apprehend the danger
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: of sin, so our consciences are very unwilling to take
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: the weight of the burden of it as to its guilt.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: I speak not of men of seared consciences that lay
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: what weight you will upon them, will feel none, but
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: even the consciences of renewed men, unless they use all
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: the ways and means whereby conscience may be burdened, as
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: by apprehensions of the holiness of God, of the Law,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: of the love of Christ, and of all those things
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: whereby conscience must be made to feel the weight of
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: its guilt. No sooner doth it begin to be made
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: a little sick with the sense of the guilt of sin.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: But it takes a cordial presently here this sin hath
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: taken place, It hath contracted this and that guilt. I
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: have been thus long negligent in this or that duty.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: I have thus long engaged in this or that folly,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: and been so given up unto the world. I must
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: take to Christ by faith, or I am undone. It
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: is afraid of making its load. But let conscience bear
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: the burden, and not easily shift it off unless it
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: can by true faith, guided by the word loaded upon Christ,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: which is not a thing, of course, to be done. Thirdly,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: what shall we do in case we have this apprehension
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: of its danger and can be thus burdened with its guilt?
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Pray for deliverance, how you will say, There is in
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: the scripture's mention of roaring Psalm thirty two, verse three,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: the voice of my roaring, and likewise of shouting Lamentations
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: three verse three. I shouted and cried. This is a
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: time to pray that God would not hide his face
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: from our roaring, nor shut out our prayers. When we
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: shout unto him, that is, to cry out with all
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: the vigor of our souls. Christ is able to succor
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: and help them that make an outcry to him. The
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: word signifies so, and our word succor signifies a running
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: in to help a man who is ready to be destroyed.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: These may seem hard things to us, but it is
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: a great thing to save our souls and to deliver
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: ourselves from the snares of Satan. Fourthly, treasure up every
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: warning and every word that you are convinced was pointed
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: against your particular corruption. There is none of you who
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: may have the power of particular corruptions. But God, at
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: one time or other, in his providence or word, gives
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: particular warning that the soul may say, this is for me,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: I must comply with it. But it is like a
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: man that sees his face in a glass and goes
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: away and immediately forgets what manner of man he was.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: There is an end of it. But if God give
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: you such warnings, set them down, treasure them up, lose
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: them not. They must be accounted for. He that being
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: often reproved, hardens his heart shall perish suddenly. And that
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: without remedy. Fifthly, I shall mind you of two rules,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: and so have done one in your perplexities. As to
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: the power of sin, exercise faith that, notwithstanding all you
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: see and find that you are almost lost and gone,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: there is a power in God through Christ, for the Son,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: abduing and conquering of it. Two, it is in vain
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: for any to think to mortify a prevailing sin, who
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: doth not, at the same time, endeavor to mortify all
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: sin and to be found in every duty. Here is
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: a person troubled and perplexed with a temptation or corruption.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: Both are the same. In this case, he cries, Oh,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: that I were delivered. I had rather have deliverance than life.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: I will do my endeavor to watch against it. But
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: it may be this person will not come up to
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: a constancy in secret prayer. He will go up and
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: down and wish himself free, but will not be brought
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: up to such duties wherein those lusts must be mortified. Therefore,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: take this rule along with you. Never hope to mortify
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: any corruption whereby your hearts are grieved, unless you labor
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: to mortify every corruption by which the spirit of God
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: is grieved, and be found in every duty, especially those
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: under which grace thrives and flourishes. What is our duty
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: with respect to dark and difficult dispensations of God's providence
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: in the world? Answer in anser unto this question, Three
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: things are to be considered. First, what are in a
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: scripture sense, those things that make a season of providence
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: dark and difficult? Secondly, what are the open signs of
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: the coming and passing of such a season over us? And? Thirdly,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: what are our special duties in reference to our entering
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: into and passing through such a season? First, what are
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: those things that make a season of providence dark and difficult?
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: I find four things in scripture that make a dark
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: season of providence, and if I mistake not, they are
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: all upon us. One. The long continued prosperity of wicked men.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: This you are sensible, is the most known case of
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: all the Old Testament Psalm seventy three, Jeremiah twelve, Verses
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: one to three, habakuk I Verse four, verse thirteen, and
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: many other places. The holy men of old did confess
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: themselves in great perplexity at the long continued prosperity of
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: wicked men and their long continued prosperity in ways of wickedness.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: Give but this one farther circumstance to it, the long
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: continued prosperity of wicked men in their wickedness. When the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: light shines round about them to convince them of that wickedness,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: and God speaks in and by the light of his
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: word against them, that is a trial. When all things
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: were wrapped up in darkness and idolatry, it is no
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: wonder at the patience of God. But when things come
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: in any place to that state, that many continue prosperous
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: in wickedness, when the day is upon them that judges them,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: it is a difficulty. Two. It is a difficult season
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: of providence when the church is continued under persecution and
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: distress in a time of prayer, when they give themselves
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: to prayer. The dit seems mentioned Psalm eighty verse four,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: O Lord, how long wilt thou smoke against the prayer
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: of thy people? This made it hard that God should
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: afflict his church and keep her under distresses, and suffer
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: the furrows to be made long upon her back, and
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: continue her under oppression from one season to another. There
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: may be evident reason for that, but saith God call
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: upon me in the time of trouble, and I will hear.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: God hath promised to hear the church. Will not God
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: avenge the elect that call upon him day and night?
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: He will do it speedily. Now, when God seems to
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: be angry with the prayers of his people, that is
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: a difficult season. When they cry and shout and God
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: shuts out their prayers, that makes a dark providence. As
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: the other difficulty is evidently upon us. So I hope
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: we have this difficulty to conflict withal, that the anger
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: of God continues to smoke against the prayers of his people,
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: as having stirred up many a blessed cry to himself,
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: for there is a time when He will hear and
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: answer their prayers. Three. It is a dark and difficult
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: dispensation of providence when the world and nations of the
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: world are filled with confusion and blood, and no just
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: reason appearing why it should be so. When our Savior
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: foretells a difficult season Matthew twenty four and Luke twenty one,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: he says there shall be terrible times such as never were.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: there shall be wars, bloodshed and earthquakes, and the very
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: elect shall hardly escape. Therefore, God calls such a time
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: a day of darkness, yea of thick darkness Joltovus two,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: a dark, gloomy day. There is nothing to be seen
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: in all the confusions that are in the world at
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: this day, but that the frogs of unclean spirits are
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: gone forth to stir up the lusts of men, to
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: make havoc of one another. Four. It adds greatly to
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: the difficulty of a season when we have no prospect
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: whither things are tending and what will be their issue.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: There are two ways whereby we may have a prospect
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: of things that are in being, by the eye of
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: God's providence when we perceive which way that looks, and
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: by scripture rule. The truth is, we are in a
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: time wherein no man can discern a fixed eye of
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: Providence looking this way or that way. What will be
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: the issue of these things, Whether it will be the
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: deliverance of the church or the desolation of the nation
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: and straightening of the church. Whether God will bring good
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: out of them in this generation or any other time,
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: none knows. This makes it difficult. Psalm seventy four, verse nine.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: We see not. Our signs have no tokens what God
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: intends to do. Neither is there among us any to
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: tell us how long There is none of these things
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: but make a season difficult and providence dark. But when
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: all of them concur together, they cannot but greatly heighten it.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: And I think they are all upon us. Secondly, what
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: are the open signs of the coming and passing of
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: such a season? Over us? There are three tokens or
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: outward evidences of a difficult season. It is so one
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: when God's patience is abused. You know that place Ecclesiastes eight,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: verse eleven. Because judgment is not speedily executed upon an
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: evil work. Therefore the heart of the sons of men
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: is fully set in them to do evil things. Pass
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: Thus men fall into wickedness, great wickedness. Their consciences fly
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: in their faces, and they are afraid. The power of
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: their lusts carry them into the same wickedness again, and
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: their consciences begin to grow a little colder than they were.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: No evil comes of it, and judgment is not speedily executed,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: and so their hearts at last come to be wholly
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: set to do evil. Hence, others that look on say,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: here are men given up to all wickedness. Surely judgment
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: will speedily come upon these men. Judgment doth not come.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: God is patient, and so they themselves turn as wicked
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: as the former. Abusing of God's patience is an evident
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: sign of a dispensation of the displeasure of God in
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: his providence. And if ever it was upon any it
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: is upon us. And men learn it more and more.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: Every day. Everyone talks of other men's sins, and seeing
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: no judgment falls upon them, they give themselves up to
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: the same sins. Two it is so when God's warnings
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: are despised, when Thine hand is lifted up, they will
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: not see. That is a difficult season for saith God.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: The fire of Thine adversaries shall consume them. Never had
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: people more warnings than we have had, warning in heaven
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: above and war wwning on the earth beneath warnings by
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: lesser judgments, and warnings by greater and warnings by the word.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: God's hand hath been lifted up. But who takes notice
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: of it? Some despise it, and others took of it
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: as a tale to be told. And there is an
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: end of it. Who sanctifies the name of God in
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: all the warnings that are given us. The Lord's voice
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: crieth unto the city Mica six, verse nine. But it
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: is only the man of wisdom of substance that seeth
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: the name of God in these his cries unto the city,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: by his warnings from heaven and earth, signs and tokens,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: and great intimations of His displeasure. Three an inclination in
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: all sorts of people to security, and to take no
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: notice of these things. I have spoken unto this business
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: of security formerly, and I pray God warn you and
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: myself of it, for I believe none of us are
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: such strangers to our hearts. But can we say that
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: under all these warnings there is an inclination to security,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: and if God did not prevent it, we should all
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: fall fast asleep under all the judgments that are round
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: about us. Any of these things show that we are
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: under a difficult dispensation of providence. But where all concur
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: God be merciful to such a people. It is the
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: opening of the door to let out judgments to the uttermost. Now,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: if this be such a season, as I do verily believe,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: we are all sensible it is then, thirdly, what shall
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: we do? What are our special duties in reference to
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: our entering into and passing through such a season? I
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: might speak unto the peculiar exercise of those graces which
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: are required unto such a season, as faith, resignation to
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: the will of God, readiness for his pleasure, waiting upon God,
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: weanedness from the world, and the like. But I will
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: only give you three or four duties which are peculiarly
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: hinted in such a season, and so have done one.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: Our first duty is that we should meet together and
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: confer about these things. Malachi three, verse sixteen and seventeen.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: A good place in difficult seasons, such as some of
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: us have seen, the day of the Lord was coming
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: that would burn as an oven. Then they that feared
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: written before him for them that feared the Lord and
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: Saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: make up my jewels, and I will spare them as
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: a man spareth his own son that serveth him. When
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: was this in a time of great judgment and great sin,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: when they called the proud happy, and they that wrought
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: wickedness were set up, and they that tempted God were
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: even delivered, that is appeared to be delivered. It is
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: the great duty of us all, as we have opportunity
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: and occasion to confer about these things, about the causes
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: of them. What ariseth from the profane, wicked world? What
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: from a persecuting, idolatrous world, And wherein we are more concerned,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: What from a professing generation? And see how we can
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: sanctify the name of God in it. We might have
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: as great advantages as any under the face of Heaven
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: for the discharge of this duty, if we did but
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: make use of that prize which God hath put into
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: our hands. But if we are fools and have no
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: heart to improve it, the blame will be our own.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: You have opportunities for meeting and assembling. I fear there
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: are cold affections in your private meetings. I wish there
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: be not. It may be some thrive and grow, I
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: hope so, and others are cold and backward. It is
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: not a season for it. If God would help us
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: to manage this church aright, and as we ought to do.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: There can be no greater advantage under such a season
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: than we enjoy. But we want voluntary inspection, and the
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: Lord lay it not to our charge. We have deferred
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: it so long. Much want of love might have been prevented,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: many duties furthered, and many evils removed, if we had
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: come up to the light God hath given to us.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: But we are at a loss, and God knows we
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: suffer under it for want of discharging our duty. That
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: is the first thing, to speak, often one to another,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: to sanctify the name of God by an humble, diligent
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: inquiry into the causes of these dispensations and preparation for
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: these things. Two. The second duty in such a season
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: is privately for every one of us to inquire of
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, in prayer and supplication, what shall be the
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: end of these things? You have a great instance of it,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: Daniel eight, Verses thirteen and fourteen. Then I heard one
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: one saint speaking, and another saint said, unto that certain
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: saint which spake, how long shall be the vision concerning
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation? To give
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: and he said, unto me, unto two thousand and three
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. I suppose
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: there is something of the ministry of angels in it.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: For this saint inquires. But the answer is made to Daniel.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: One saint said unto another saint, and he said unto me.
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: But the speaking saint was Jesus Christ. There was the
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: Holy One that spake, which he calls a certain saint.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: But the derivation of the word is one that revealeth secrets.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: There was an application made unto Jesus Christ, who is
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: the revealer of secrets, to know how long? And you
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: will find in the scriptures in difficult dispensations, that is
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: very many times the request of the saints to God God,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: how long Daniel eight for six and eight, How long
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: shall it be to the end of these wonders? And O,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: There is an humble application by faith and prayer unto
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ to know the mind of God in these
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: things that will bring satisfaction into our souls. Do not
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: leave yourselves to wander in your own thoughts and imaginations.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: It is impossible. But we shall be debating things and
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: giving a rational account of them. But all will not
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: bring us satisfaction. But let us go to Jesus Christ
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: and say to him, O Lord, how long? And he
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: will give in secret satisfaction to our souls. This is
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: the second thing. Frequently confer about these things, and press
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ to give your soul satisfaction as to these dispensations.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: And then three. Another peculiar duty required in such a
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: season is to mourn for the sins that are in
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: the world. That is recommended to us is Equiel nine.
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: When God had given commission unto the sword to slay
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: both old and young, he spared only them that mourned
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: for the abominations that were done in the land. We
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: come short in our duty in that matter, in being
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: affected with the sins of the worst of men. God
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: being dishonored, the spirit of God blasphemed the name of
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: God reproached in them. We ought to mourn for their abominations.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: We mourned for the sins among God's people, but we
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: ought also to mourn for those abominations others are guilty of,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: for their idolatries. Murders, bloodshed, uncleanness. For all the abominations
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: that the lands about us, as well as our own,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: are filled with. It is our duty in such a
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: season to mourn for them, or we do not sanctify
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: the name of God, and shall not be found prepared
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: for those difficult dispensations of God's providence which are coming
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: upon us. Four. The fourth and last peculiar duty, which
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: I shall mention, is to hide ourselves. And how shall
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: we do that the storm is coming? Get an ark,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: as Noah did when the flood was coming upon the world,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: which is stated for a precedent of all judgments in
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: future times. There are two things required to provide an ark,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: fear and faith. First, fear by faith, Noah being moved
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: with fear, prepared an ark. If he had not been
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: moved with the fear of God's judgments, he would never
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: have provided an ark. It is a real complaint we
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: are not moved enough with the fear of God's judgments.
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: We talk of dreadful things as can befall human nature,
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: and expect them every day, But yet we are not
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: moved with fear. Yet were they not afraid? Saith? Jeremiah,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: nor Rent their garments, nor do we do so. Habakuk
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: upon the view of God's judgments was in another frame,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: Chapter three, verse sixteen. When I heard saith he my
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: belly trembled, My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness entered
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: into my bones, and I trembled in myself that I
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: might rest in the day of trouble. This is the
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: way to find rest in the day of God's judgments.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: We are afraid of being esteemed cowards for fearing God's judgments.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: And then second, we cannot well provide an ark for
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: ourselves unless we be guided by faith as well as
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: moved by fear. By faith, Noah prepared an ark. How
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: many things there are to encourage faith. You have heard
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: the name, the properties of God, and the accomplishment of
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: the promise of God by virtue of all those properties
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: encourage faith in providing an ark. But you will say,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: we are yet at a loss. What this providing of
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: an ark and hiding of ourselves is. A prudent man
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: foresees the evil and hides himself. God calls us to
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: enter into the chamber of providence and hide ourselves till
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: the indignation be overpassed. If we knew what this it was,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: we should apply ourselves unto it. I will tell you
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: what I think. In one instance, give no quiet to
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: your minds until, by some renewed act of faith, you
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: have a strong and clear impression of the promises of
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: God upon your hearts and of your interest in them.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: If it be but one promise, it will prove an ark.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: If under all these seasons, moved with fear, acted by faith,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: we can but get a renewed sense and pledge of
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: our interest in any one promise of God. We have
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: an ark over us that will endure, whatever the storm be.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: Think of it, and if nothing else occur to you,
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: apply your minds to it. That you may not wander
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: up and down at uncertainties, but endeavor to have a
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: renewed pledge of your interest in some special promise of God,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: that it belongs unto you, and it will be an
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: ark in every time of trouble that shall befall you.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: I did at two meetings inquire among ourselves what was
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: required in the time of approaching judgments and calamities that
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: the world hath been and is like to be filled
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: withal And God was pleased to guide us to the
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: discovery of the necessary exercise of many graces, and the
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: necessary attendance unto many duties for that end and purpose.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: And we did design to spend our time this day
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: to beg that God would give us those graces and
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: stir them up by His spirit unto a due exercise,
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: and that He would help us unto such a performance
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: of those duties, that when the Lord Christ shall come,
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: by any holy dispensation of His providence, we shall be
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: found of Him in peace. That was the especial occasion
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: of allotting the present time unto this duty. No ways,
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: excluding the reasons, occasions, and matter of prayer which at
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: other times we attend to for ourselves, the Church and
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: the nation, I would offer a few words that may
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: stir us up unto this duty. The Scripture doth everywhere
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: upon all such occasions call expressly unto us for a
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: special preparation by the exercise of grace in reformation and holiness.
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: Judgment must begin at the House of God. And what
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: will be the end of them that obey not the Gospel?
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: What then is our duty? Why saith he seeing that
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: all these things shall be dissolved, all this outward frame
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: of things. What manner of persons ought we to be
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: in all holy conversation and godliness. Brethren, we ought at
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: all times to attend unto all holy conversation and godliness.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: But saith the apostle. The approach of judgment is a
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: peculiar motive thereunto seeing that all these things are to
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: be dissolved. It is true, seeing Christ hath died for us,
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: washed us in his blood, and given his Holy spirit
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: unto us what manner of persons ought we to be.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: But the great motives are not exclusive of occasional exercises.
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: But give an addition unto them. Take heed that you
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: be not overtaken with surfeiting and drunkenness, with any excess
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: in the use of the creature. What if it be so,
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: then that day will come upon you at unawares, the
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: day when all shall be dissolved, the day of judgment,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: the day of approaching calamities. You ought at all times
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: to take care of these things. But if your minds
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: are not influenced in the consideration of the approach of
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: that day, you are not my disciples. I do not
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: at all speak under what preparations are required. I could
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: also reflect on those places where God expresseth his great
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: displeasure against such who did not labor for a peculiar
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: preparation upon approaching calamities Isaiah twenty two, verses twelve to fourteen.
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: I called for mourning and fasting and girding with sacloth,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: and you betook yourselves unto feasting on all occasions. Surely
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: saith the Lord, this iniquity shall not be purged from
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: you till ye die. And it is reckoned among the
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: sins of the most profligate persons, that when God's hand
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: is lifted up and ready to strike, they will not
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: see so as to learn righteousness. Isaiah twenty six, verse eleven.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: Let us therefore beg for grace. Though God multiplieth warnings,
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: makes appearances of mercy, and then writes death upon them,
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: and entangles everything in darkness. Yet our work goes slowly
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: on in preparation. Cry earnestly unto God for such supplies
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: of His grace and spirit that may effectually bring us
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: unto Him, that we may no longer abide in the
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: frame wherein we are. There are three things, and no
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: more that I know of. Others may be named, but
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: they may be reduced unto these three heads that are
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: required of us in reference unto approaching judgments, and there
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: is not one of them through which we can pass
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: or which we can perform in a due manner comfortably
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: unto ourselves and unto the glory of God. Without we
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: have some singular and eminent preparation for it. And they
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: are these. First, that we ourselves stand in the gap
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: to turn away the threatened judgments. Secondly, that we may
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: be fit for deliverance, if it please the Lord graciously
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: to give it unto us Saith Christ, speaking of great calamities,
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: lift up your heads, for the day of your salvation
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: draws nigh. Thirdly, that we may cheerfully and comfortably go
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: through the calamities if they shall overtake us. These three
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: are comprehensive of all the threats of approaching judgments and
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: darkness that encompass us at this day. Now, there is
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: not one of them that we can be any way
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: fit for, unless our hearts and lives be brought into
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary preparation according as God calls and requires. I
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: do not know whether we believe these things or no,
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: but they will be shortly found to be true. First,
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: who dares among us to propose himself to stand in
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: the gap to divert judgments from the nation. Otherwise rise
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: than in a formal manner, who is not prepared by
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: these things we have spoken of, and hath not some
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: good and comfortable persuasion of his own personal interest in Christ,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: And hath not freed himself from those sins that have
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: procured these judgments, And who lives not in a resignation
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: of himself unto the will of God. Who dares to
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: do this, we shall provoke God if we think to
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: stand in the gap and turn away judgments from the nation,
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: when we see ourselves are concerned in procuring those judgments. Secondly,
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: we cannot be meet for deliverance unless we are thus prepared.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: I have heard a notion preached and spoken upon other
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: occasions which I confess I never liked, and the more
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: I consider it, the more I dislike it. And that
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: is that God, in the deliverance of his people, works
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: for his own name's sake, that he may have all
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: the glory, that it shall be seen merely to be
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: of grace. And therefore He will oftentimes deliver his people
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: when they are in an unreformed and unreforming condition, that
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: He may shame them and humble them by His mercy
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: and grace afterward. I know no rule of scripture upon
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: which this notion may be grounded, nor one instance or
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: example whereby it may be made out. Here lies the
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: truth of it. When there are two things concurring in
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: the deliverance of the Church, God will deliver them, notwithstanding
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: all their sins and unworthiness, without any previous humiliation in themselves.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: First when God hath fixed and limited a certain season
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: in his word and promise for their deliverance. And secondly,
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: when antecedent unto their deliverance, they want means for humiliation.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt when
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: they were in a very bad condition, an ignorant, stubborn,
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: faithless generation. But both these things were concurring. God was
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: engaged in point of his promise that at the end
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: of four hundred thirty years he would visit and deliver them.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: And they were deprived of all ordinances of worship in Egypt.
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: Not a sacrifice could they offer while they were there.
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: Not a sabbath, I believe, though it is not expressed
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: in scripture. Could they observe the way of worship and
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: knowledge of God was taken from them. So when God
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: delivered the children of Israel out of Babylon, they were
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: in no very good condition. But God was engaged in
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: point of promise as to that time that at the
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: end of seventy years they should be delivered. And in
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: Babylon they had no means for instruction or reformation, no
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: temple nor sacrifice. These were denied. But whenever God doth
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: afford unto persons all the means of grace for humiliation, reformation,
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: and turning unto himself, it may be as good as
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: ever they shall in this world. That God did ever
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: deliver that people out of their distresses. When they refuse
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: to be reformed, humbled, or to turn unto Him, Neither
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: instances of scripture nor God's dealing with his church will
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: make this good. Therefore, it is vain for us to
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: expect anything of this nature. If indeed, for so many
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: year years we had been thrown into a wilderness condition
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: and had no preaching, no assemblies, no administration of ordinances,
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: no warnings or charges from God, we might have expected
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: the Lord would have given us deliverance. But to us
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: who have had all these things and yet will not
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: make use of what we have now at present, we
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: have no ground to expect any such thing. Therefore, I
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: confess neither by rule, instance, or example do I expect
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: deliverance until God come in to work a thorough change
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: and reformation in our hearts and lives, which makes it
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: very necessary to be preparing to meet God in the
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: way of his judgments. Thirdly, the third thing that may
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: lie before us is how we may cheerfully go through
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: the calamities which may overtake us. I will say no
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: more unto that, because it is that which we did
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: expressly insist upon in our former discourses. As to the
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: best of us who have been long in the ways
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: of God, woeful will be our surprisal when the days
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: of calamity come. If we have lived in negligence of
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: complying with the calls and warnings of God that we
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: have had to bring ourselves unto a more even and
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: better frame, we shall find our strength to fail us
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: and have our comforts to seek and be left to
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: inward darkness when outward darkness increaseth, and not know whither
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: to cause our sorrows to go. These things, brethren, I
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: thought fit to mention unto you, that if it be
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: the will of God, they may be of use to
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: take us off from those false hopes and false expectations
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: which we are wonderfully ready to feed ourselves withal. In
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: such a day as this is wherein we live, it
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: is high time for us to be calling upon God
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: for this end. End of Discourse ten to twelve, Discourse
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: thirteen to fourteen of Cases of Conscience resolved by John Owen.
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The prophet
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: Daniel tells us, when he understood by books, namely the
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: writings of the prophet Jeremiah, that the time wherein the
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: great contest between Babylon and the Church was to have
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: its issue was come to a point. Then saith he,
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: I set my face to seek the Lord with prayer
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: and supplications and fasting. And if you will read his
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: prayer you will find nothing of confidence, nothing of self description,
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: but a deep acknowledgment of sin. We our Kings, our princes,
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: our fathers, our Church have all sinned, so as that
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: to us belongeth shame and confusion of face. And never
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: had such shame and confusion of face befallen the Church,
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: as would have befallen them if they had been disappointed
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: in that trial. But he adds unto thee belongs mercy
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: and forgiveness. There he issues the whole business upon mercy
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: and forgiveness. Though he knew by books that the time
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: was come, Truly, brethren, we do not know by any
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: scripture revelation as he did that the time is come
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: wherein the long contest and conflict between Babylon and the
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: Church will have its issue. But it looks like it
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: in the Book of Providence, and so like it that
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: it is a plain duty we should give ourselves, unto
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: prayer and supplication, that it do not issue in shame
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: and confusion of faith, which belongeth unto us by reason
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: of our sins. It is that contest which is now
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: under consideration, and which seems to be coming to its issue,
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: and all men are in expectation of it. It is
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: the greatest save one that ever was, For the greatest
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: contest that ever was in this world was between the
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: person and the Gospel of Christ on the one hand,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: and the devil and the pagan world the other. And
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: the next to that is the contest between Christ in
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: his officers and grace in his gospel and worship, and
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: an Antichrist. And it is at this day upon its trial,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: in as signal an instance as ever it received. The
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: question is as to us and our posterity, whether Christ
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: or Antichrist, whether the worship of God or of idols,
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: whether the effusion or waiting for the effusion of the
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: Spirit of God in his worship, or for all manner
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: of superstitious impositions. This is the present contest, and it
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: may be under heaven. There never was a more signal
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: instance of the issue of this contest than will be
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: in these nations in these days. I do not say
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: presently or speedily, but this you all know is our state.
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: I mention it only to let you know that there
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: is more than an ordinary earnestness and fervency of spirit
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: and wrestling with God required of us at this day
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: for the case of Zion, the interest of Christ and
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: defeating of his adversaries. What way God will work we
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: know not. If He be at work. He hath said
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: that when a flood was cast out of the mouth
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: of the dragon to swallow up the woman everywhere, and
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: we have had a flood cast out of the mouth
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: of the dragon to swallow up the whole interest of
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: Christ in this nation. The earth lifted up herself and
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: helped the woman and turned aside the flood. Good Old
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: Eli's heart trembled for the ark of God. The interest
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: of God and the truths of Christ are yet among us,
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: but hardly beset by the Philistines. And whether they may
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: not take them I know not. God only knows. But assuredly, brethren,
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: our hearts ought now to tremble for the ark of God,
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: that God would continue it among us and not give
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: his glory into the hands of the adversary. I have
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: mentioned these things only for this end, that, if God will,
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: our hearts may be a little warmed upon all occasions
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: in this great contest and conflict between Christ and Antichrist.
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: To come in with our prayers to the help of
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: the Lord and of the ark of the Lord, that
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: we may see a blessed issue of this trial and
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: not be covered with that shame and confusion of face
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: which belongeth unto us. This meeting is for conference, and
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: I would ask you a few questions. First, Whether do
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: you think there are extraordinary calls and warnings of God
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: towards this nation at this time. Secondly, if there be
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: what is the voice of these calls? Thirdly, whether any
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: sort of men, believers or churches are exempted from attending
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: unto and complying with these calls of God, For there
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: lies a reserve in our hearts. The nation is very wicked.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: I shall not repeat the sins of the nation. The
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: warning is general to the nation, the body of the people,
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: and God testifies his displeasure against them. Now the inquiry
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: is whether there be any rule that we, who profess
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: ourselves believers and a church, should count ourselves exempted from
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: a particular compliance with these extraordinary calls of God, that
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: they are for others and not for us. If the
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: the innocent job nine, verse twenty three, and the good
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: figs went first into captivity. Fourthly, what have we done
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: hitherto in order to it that may evidence itself to
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: be an answer to a compliance with the calls of
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: God which we have owned here before the Lord. We
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: have been speaking of it, and it becomes me to
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: judge that we have had good and sincere desires after it,
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: and neither the Church nor anyone in the Church shall
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: have any reflections from me beyond evidence. It becomes me
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: to judge that we have had in ourselves good intentions,
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: and since endeavors after it, though they have been, it
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: may be no way suitable or proportionable to the present occasion.
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: And therefore I must say that in an eminent and
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: extraordinary manner, as yet we have done nothing. We have
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: not consulted of it yet what we should do, and
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: what it is in particular that the Lord, our God
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: requireth of us, nor declared our designs and intentions for
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: a universal compliance with these great calls of God for
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: repentance and turning unto the Lord. I mourn over myself
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: day and night. I mourn over you continually. I do
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: not see that life and vigor in returning unto God,
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: either in our persons or in our church relation, as
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: I could desire, And give me leave to say from
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: an experience in my own heart, I am jealous over you.
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: We may proceed to consider something of outward duties afterward,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: but as yet we are not at all come to it,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: but only to inquire into our hearts what we have
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: done in compliance with these calls of God in the
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: reformation and change of our hearts, and vigor of spirit
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: in walking with Him. I speak it with all tenderness,
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: that none might take offense. But I do acknowledge to
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: you that I have not myself attained, nor can I,
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: though I am laboring to bring my heart to that
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: frame which God requireth in us. All, at this time
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: I find many obstructions. If you have attained, I shall
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: rejoice in it with all my heart and soul. But
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: if not help them that are laboring after it. I
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: intend no more at present but this to settle upon
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: our souls a conviction that we have not as yet
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: answered the calls of God in the heart. For if
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: we have all apprehensions we have complied. The work is
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: at an end. I hope we may in due time
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: go on to consider all the ways and instances whereby
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: we may reform and return unto God. But in the
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: meantime I offer this to you that unless the foundation
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: of it be laid in a deep and broken sense
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: of our past miscarriages and present frames. And I can
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: see in the church some actings of a renewed spirit
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: with vigor and earnestness to pursue our recovery and return
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: to God. I shall much despond in this thing, But
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: let us be persuaded that we are to lay this
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: foundation I desire. We may agree upon this, that it
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: is our duty to get a deep sense upon our
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: hearts as the first thing God aims at in his
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: calls of our past miscarriages and of our present dead,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: wretched frame, in comparison of that vigor, liveliness and activity
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: of grace that ought to be found in us. Ought
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: we not to lay the foundation here? If so, then
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: we ought to apply ourselves unto it. It may be,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: though it be so with some that they have such
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: a lively, vigorous acting of faith in a deep and
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: humble sense of their past miscarriages. Yet it is not
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: so with others. And we are looking for the edification
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: of the whole. And therefore, brethren, do we judge at
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: our present duty to labor to affect our hearts deeply
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: with a sense of our present unanswerable frame unto the
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: mind of God and Christ, and of our past miscarriages.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: If it be so, let us every day pray that
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: God would keep this thing in the imagination of the
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: thoughts of our hearts, not only of ourselves, but of
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: one another. Observe the phrase of the Holy Ghost. When
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: you come to the thoughts of the heart, you think
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: you can go no farther. But saith David, I pray,
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: O Lord, preserve this in the imagination of the thoughts
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: of the heart of thy people, that is, in the
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: first internal framing of our thoughts. There must be a
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: frame acting and coining thoughts. If I may so say
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: continually in us to this purpose. But I recommend this
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: to you that if this be a truth, and we
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: are convinced, it is our duty to labor to affect
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: our hearts with a sense of the unanswerableness of our
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: souls and the frame of our minds into the will
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: of God and the whole weliness of Christ, who is
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: coming to visit his churches. What manner of persons ought
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: we to be, not such as we have been. We
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: should labor for a deep sense of this. And I
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: hope it may not be unsuitable unto you, For if
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: any of us have any corruption, temptation, or disorder in
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: our spirits and ways to conflict withal in vain, believe me,
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: shall we contend against this unless we lay this foundation.
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: I know one great means for the beginning and carrying
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: on of this work is by earnest crying unto God,
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: by prayers and supplications and humiliations. I am loath to
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: issue it there. I have seen so many days of
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: humiliation without reformation that I dare not issue it here.
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: We shall make use of them as God shall help us.
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: I desire that church would do so if they find
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: in themselves a sense of duty and a heart crying
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: to God in sincerity and truth. I have now been
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: very long, though very unprofitable, in the ministration of the Word,
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: and I have observe the beginning of churches and wish
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: I do not see the end of them in this
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: their confidence of mere profession and the observation of these
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: duties of humiliation. God knows. I have thought often of
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: this thing, and I say I dare not issue it here.
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: Let us have as many as we have hearts for
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: and no more, and as many as shall end with reformation,
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: but no more. But let us all begin among ourselves.
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: And who knows but that God may give wisdom to
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 1: this church. I am ready to faint and give over
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: and to beg of the Church, they would think of
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: some other person to conduct them in my room without
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: these disadvantages. The last day will discover I have nothing
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: but a heart to lead you in the ways of
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: God to the enjoyment of God. End of Discourse thirteen
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: to fourteen. End of Cases of Conscience, resolved by John
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: Owen