Forty Sermons, Sermon 15
SERMON XV. OF THE ACCEPTED TIME, the Day of Salvation.
2 Cor. 6. 2.
Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of Salvation.
THE words foregoing, of which these I now read are the application, run thus: for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succour'd thee; which God saying in the 49th of Isaiah 8. signified as in the type, & in relation to the Church and Nation of the Jews he had days of Salvation, fit and proper seasons to deliver them from their affictions and calamities, (for Salvation often signifies that) had his foreign, tempus placentiae, time of grace, wherein he was well pleas'd to hearken to their cries and wants, and in those he heard and succour'd them: so in the Antitype, and in relation of the Christian Church and all the Members of it (for of these St Paul here useth it expresly) he hath his accepted time, days not onelyonly for such temporal deliverance, of which some will have the Salvation meant here, but much more for Salvation Eternal. But then as Kings, when they publish acts of grace and oblivion, do not onelyonly set & appoint, but limit out the time for Subjects to come in, submit and return to their fidelity and allegiance, which if once elapst, they are incapable of benefit by any such grant, cannot at least plead it: so it seems God does too, and it is not sure that whosoever, at what time soever, calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, Rom. 10. 13. but, as King David told him, they shall make their praier to thee in a time of finding Psalm 32. 6. in a time when his good pleasure it, the very word here Psalm 69. 13. and this time St Paul restrains here to the present now, meaning not onelyonly in the general now in times while they are under grace, are in the Covenant of it, and when the day-spring from on high hath visited them, and while they had the Gospel, that word of this Salvation: for whilest men live under this gracious dispensation, they may let the opportunities of laying hold of it go by them; while the light of the Gospel shines upon them, yet the day of Salvation may be quite gon out, of which St Paul here seems sollicitous for his Corinthians who had receiv'd the Gospel, least yet they may have receiv'd that grace in vain, and the Salvation should escape them. To prevent which, saith he, there is no other sure way but by seizing on the present, Behold now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation: so that the words afford these subjects of discourse.
1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God, and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us.
2. This time is limited, 'tis a day of salvation, consequently we may possibly outstand it, and may suffer it to pass irrecoverably.
3. The onelyonly sure way to prevent that, is to lay hold on the present, to begin now.
1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God, and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us.
The Text does make sufficient proof of this, for if the accepted time be now, and if now be the day of salvation, then there is such a day and time, which our Lord commanded to be preached to every humane creature in the world. Indeed the preaching of the Gospel is nothing else but publishing this truth, the Gospel being but a tender of Salvation upon pardon of whatever we have don amiss, and the accepting us, whenever we repent and truly turn to God, believing on him, and resolving to continue faithful to him, and all this assur'd to us by Covenant, such as God himself both made and ratified in the bloud of Christ; and to prevent exception, since he gave command to have this Gospel preach'd to every creature Mark 16. 15. and our Church does teach us in her Articles, that we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture, there is no pretence for controversy with a Preacher of the Gospel, who shall publish there is such an offer of Salvation made us all, a time wherein we may be sure to be accepted. Yea more, not onelyonly to ascertain but to work effectually this acceptance, howsoever wicked and rebellious we had bin, he sent his Son, the Son of God to be incarnated to treat a Reconciliation; for so chapter 5. 19. 'tis said, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses. For this he made him shed his bloud upon the Cross, and die and live again; for thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, that Repentance and Remission of sins might be preached in his name to all Nations Luke 24. 46, 47. Yea for that he gave this crucified Jesus all the Glory, Majesty and Power of Heaven; for him hath God exalted to his right hand to be a Prince and Savior to give Repentance and Remission of sins, Acts 5. 31. A wonderful Oeconomy if we reflect upon it, and sufficient to astonish both our faith and apprehension also, that the Great Creator and the onelyonly Lord of all things should make God man, and then ignominiously suffer a most cruel death that he might mediate and purchase for us terms of this acceptance and salvation, and make that ignominious sufferer, that dead man God, and give him all the Power of Heaven and Earth, that he might make us fit for, and bestow it on us. This strange transaction is no argument at all most surely, that to be at peace with us can be of any consequence to him, to whom felicity is most essential. Lord, what is man that thou art thus mindful of him, and the son of man that thou so regardest him? in whom, if we look thro him, we can find nothing in the world that's very notable, but onelyonly that he can defy his most Almighty Maker, so as nothing but the bloud of such a Mediator could be fit to satisfy for, nothing but Eternal Hell fit to revenge; and can defy his own concerns and interests so far, as to make that Eternal Hell his choice, his most deliberate option. But however the Oeconomy of this so strange a mediation, tho it cannot prove God is concern'd at all to have this Reconciliation wrought with us that we should be accepted and be sav'd; foraJob 22. 3. is it any pleasure to Almighty God that thou art just? or is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect? bJob 35. 6, 7.If thou be righteous, what givest thou him; or what receiveth he of thine hand? If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him; or if thy wickedness be multiplied, what dost thou to him? yet of how much the less consequence we are to God, it is so much the greater demonstration of his infinite benignity and goodness, who when he had no one motive in the world but pity to our lost condition, was so bountiful, that when all the compassion of Divinity would not serve our turn for the provision of a ransom, he took in Humanity, that God might give somwhat besides himself to purchase us a time of Grace, and a day of salvation.
Yet more, if we should trace him in his several ways of mercy which he constantly pursues those wretchless creatures, miserable us, in, that all that may be effectual and succeed to our Salvation, we should find he uses all means possible to engage us to accept of it: for not content with all his Son had don, he order'd a Succession of men to sollicite the same suit to the world's end. What God was in Christ doing, that he hath committed to us the ministry of; Now then we are Embassador…s for Christ, as if God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God, 2 Cor. 5. 20. a little before my Text foreign, saithcTom. 3. p. 611. St Chrysostome, when he that had obliged us infinitely, our Almighty Benefactor, and had bin as infinitely affronted and provoked with all ingratitude imaginable and all possible defiance, gave his own Son to be reconciled, and when they murder'd that Son when he came to mediate, and were so far from kearkning to him, that they crucified him, foreign, one would think 'twere time to leave such to themselves, and give them over as things hopeless and irreconcileable.
No, he sends others on the Embassy and will not let it fall; with all the soft and lowly arts of invitation they must pray you, and in Christ's name beg of you, and God does beseech you by them. Now did he please out onelyonly to expostulate it with us, why we will resolve to be at enmity with him and Salvation too, why we will die for ever; it would argue a concern for us, the apprehension of which ought to be very comfortable to us: but when God descends to beseech us, (the expression looks uncouth indeed, but yet it is not strange he should intreat that which he died for, beg of us what he ask'd for not with importent weak tears, but with strong cries on the Cross, with the bloudshed of his own onelyonly-begotten Son;) when he thus conveighs his importunate entreaties to us, that we would endure his kindness a … own eternal Blessedness, would suffer ourselves to be sav'd, it is impossible there can be more assurance given he would have us be so, that 'tis offer'd us and we may be accepted. Nor did he send these his Ambassadors as bare petitioners with emty importunities and meer intreaties of this, but they strengthen these proposals with exceeding great and precious promises, as St Peter calls them Epist. 2. 1. 4. promises both of the life that now is, and of that which is to come, St Paul says 1 Tim. 4. 8. yea and these as sure as that there is a God that made them. Neither are they wanting to inform us of the dangers we most certainly incurr if we refuse him, merely to affright us to him, to incline us to admit Salvation rather, and preferr it before everlasting misery: and all this by his express commission, they being set by God as watch-men to give warning to the wicked from him, as he tells Ezekiel c. 3. 17. And least their discourse should be too faint, and not have force to move us, God does frequently step in himself by providential acts; when unsubduable by Reason or Religion, deaf to our very interests we pursue our sinful satisfactions with ungovernable fierce carrier, he lays a Cross on us to trash us, or lets loose a feaver at us so to bring us low and make us sensible; or else he suffers our own evil counsels to entangle us, we are catcht in our own machinations and designs, he lets us tast the bitter fruit of our own doings, and our sins pull down calamities or mischiefs on us so far somtimes as to scare us with the landshape of their after expectations; having thrown us on the brink of destruction, laid us at the gates of the grave, at the very mouth of Hell, where if God had left us, we had bin sealed up, determin'd to the irreversible retributions of our iniquities; but he interpos'd to snatch us thence and set us further off, so to enlarge our time to be accepted in, and to lengthen the day of salvation to us. I challenge every man's experience to attest this, there is no man but his heart heart witness to it; and to this too, how when we have thrown our selves upon temtation, he is pleas'd to blunt or turn aside the edge of it: how often have we put our selves into those circumstances, wherein thousands have miscarried as to all considerations both of this world and the other? And inevitably we had don so, but that he was pleased to temper the malignity of the occurrences and divert the mischief, merely that he might preserve us for his opportunities. It is for this he watches over us, as he tells Jeremy 31. 28. when as, God knows, we are so far from importuning him to do it that we think not of him nor of our selves, do not so much as ask his cares, indeed neglect, affront them, yea deny them; yet he spares us for these blessed purposes, and is long-suffering to u…-wards, not willing that any should perish 2 Pet. 3. 9. Spares us that if possible he may find softer seasons wherein we may be more pliant, take impression more easily; therefore also he provides oft such a state of things as may be more effectual, more prevailing with us, as if indeed he waited for the time of our good pleasure, when himself should be acceptable to us, and his motions receiv'd by us. Yea and that they may be so, with these external methods there are also inward excitations and assistances afforded us. That he may both find and make these congruous seasons, he is either trying or solliciting and importuning frequently our very hearts, Behold, I stand at the door, and knock, saith he Rev. 3. 20. if any man bear and open, I will come in to him. 'Tis he, it seems, that waits to be admitted, and waits long too, foreign, I have stood knocking, and am there still doing so. Your hearts however barr'd against me by your contumacy, otherwise I that have the key of David and that open'd Lydia's heart, could not be kept out; but altho it be so, yet I do not pass by or stand at them unconcern'd expecting whether you will open and admit me, but I knock importunately and unwearied, by disquieting men in their Lethargick state of inconsideration and insensibility, by exciting apprehension to reflect upon their duty and their practice that is so distant from it and the danger of that; I attemt to rouse their Conscience, if so be when that is waked and troubled and affrighted, it may possibly prevail with them to be content to let a Savior in. Nor is he satisfied with standing still so, and expecting; for God is that very Father in the Parable, who when the Prodigal had wasted among riotous men and harlots all his portion, all the obligations of his Father's kindness, but at last made sensible by the extremity of want and hunger, and not able to find any sustenance elsewhere, then resolves on returning and acknowledging his fault, when he was yet a great way off, saw him and had compassion on him, did not stay his coming, but ran out to meet him, and fell on his neck to kiss him; yea fell lower in his kindness than the Son in his humiliation and acknowledgments, accepted him to all the dearness that relation enhanc'd by the recovery of what was lost and hopeless could pretend to. He is that Shepherd who went out to seek that lost sheep that ran from him, and that thought not of returning, who sought till be found it; and when it was wearied so with wilful stragling that it could not come back, carried it on his shoulders rejoicing. And now judge▪ I pray, between God and the Sinner, whether he have not Salvation offer'd him, and whether there be not a time wherein he may be certainly accepted if he come to God; when (in fum of that which hath bin said) 'tis plain, to preach the Gospel to us Sinners is to proclaim this acceptable year of the Lord, it is to tender us Salvation purchased for us, and confirm'd to us by the bloud of the Son of God, which Son of his, God, was incarnate, crucified, raised, and exalted to be Lord of Heaven and Earth to work it out, and to bestow it on us; and to direct us in attaining it he keeps a standing Embassy of men commissionated to advise, premonish and sollicite, to encourage to it, represent the dangers, if we follow other, our own counsels, and he suffers us to run our selves into some of them, that the tast may make us sensible: and however we pass him by scornfully, and make no applications to his Providence, but despise his cares of us, yet he delivers us to give us more time that we may not perish, yea diverts temtations when we seek them, or defeats the mischief of them when we throw our selves upon them and himself invites, beseeches, temts us, finds or else makes congruous seasons, and contrives such circumstances as may press, in fine, importunes, knocks and calls on us, and runs out to meet us, follows us, seeks till he finds us, carries us home to him. And what could have him don more to the Sinner, that he hath not don▪ And what we thus have seen him doing for particular persons, that he does much more unweariedly for Nations, in whose undisturb'd tranquillity and good righteous Government the Godliness and honesty, as well as wealth and quiet of particular men, St Paul saith, is concern'd: since in careless and loose Governments, and disturb'd and broken ones men equally grow vitious, dishonest and ungodly; and in too great calms as well as tempests are apt to make shipwrack both of Faith and of good Conscience. Therefore God expresseth his concern for Nations in most passionate words, He rejoiceth over them to do them good with his whole heart and with his whole soul Jer. 32. 41. and when the importunity of crying National enormities, and that are so far from being punish'd, they are not discountenanc'd, enforce him that he can forbear no longer to endeavor by some chastning to reduce them, yet in all their affliction he is afflicted dJudges 10. 16. Zech. 2. 8. Acts 9. 4.Isaiah 63. 9. and tho he correct them, yet he suffers, having all the bowels of a tender Parent to them, and cries out in most lamenting wishes, O that my people would have hearkned unto me! for if Israel bad walk'd in my ways, I should soon have subdued their enimies, and turned my hand against their adversaries, Psalm 81. 13, 14. And our Savior in like manner, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the Prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, Matt. 23. 37. Altho thou wilt endure no Envoies from me, no reconciliation, but against all Laws of Nations, which men do observe to all men, murderest all those Ambassadors that come from me, thy God, to treat it with thee, yet how oft would I my self have sav'd thee at the approch of imminent dangers? God does beseech the liberty of doing it, however obstinate they are against it. All the day long, saith he, I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gain-saying people, as St Paul expresseth it Rom. 10. 21. and himself saith, I have spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, Isaiah 65. 2. spread them out in entreaties & assistances, to give them help and to beg of them they would receive it. We know wheneExod. 17. 11. Moses stretched forth his hands for Israel, (in Praier saith the Chaldee) God still heard, and Israel prevail'd against their Enimies; and when his hands were heavy and he weary, yet while others held them up stretch'd forth to God, they still prevail'd, he heard still. But when God spreads out his hands to them all day long, as beseeching them that they would accept of his deliverances they gain-say it, and continue disobedient. Yea altho they make him serve thus with their sins, and weary him with their iniquities, as he complains by the Prophet Isaiah c. 43. 24. yet by the same Prophet he assures them, therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, c. 30. 18. and if all his waiting by their obstinate perverseness be made ineffectual, then he seems inconsolable. In Hosea 13. 14. he tells Ephraim, I would have ransom'd thee from the power of the grave, I would have redeem'd thee from death, from those calamities and enimies that threaten ruin and extinction to the Nation, O death, I would have bin thy plague, O grave, I would have bin thy destruction, would have brought to nothing every thing that did endanger or look fatal to thee; but now consolatio abscondita est ab oculis meis, comfort is hidden from mine eyes, and since there is no further application, remedy or help for thee, there is no consolation for me. As indeed comfort was hid from the eyes of Christ, and they were capable onelyonly of tears, he could not see Jerusalem but he wept over it, Luke 19. 41, 42. when once the things that did belong to the peace of that City were hid from their eyes, their day being ended, as he there tells them; for to that it may come, since this accepted time and the day of salvation being God's own chosen time and the day of his grace, it is also limited by him, we may outstand it, may suffer this day of Salvation to pass irrecoverably, the second thing I am to speak to.
I shall not undertake to prove 'tis limited, because 'tis here exprest but by a day, a very narrow scantling; yet our Savior so bespeaks Jerusalem, as if it had but that its day, when he spake to them, O that thou hadst known in this thy day, Luke 19. 42. and St Paul bids the Hebrews c. 3. 13. exhort one another while it is called to day. Yea more, as if that day were limited to one point of it, here 'tis worded so as that now is the time, now is the day; as if it were onelyonly that point of time that stabs it self, that present instant which expires the same first moment that it is: and yet our Savior when he had told Jerusalem of that their day, as if that their day were no longer than the Apostle's now, which as it now is, so now perisheth, even while it is; so did their day, for even in that their day, he tells them, now they are hidden from thine eyes. But passing these, that it is so both as to Nations and particular persons, Scripture will make evident. And my first instance shall be made in all the Nations of the Earth at once: God limited the time of his forbearance to the whole world, beyond which he resolved to be so far from using his endeavors to reclaim them, as that he would suffer them no longer Gen. 6. 3. My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. He was so wearied by their obstinacy, that he positively does determine that he would not still continue to be earnest with them, struggle to reduce them, since they were so stupid, wholly sensual, mere flesh. But before he would destroy them utterly he was content to try them yet so many years, and then he brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly. Again he tellsfGen. 15. 16. Abraham, that his Posterity, however it should be afflicted many years in a strange Land, yet in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Four Ages therefore they had yet allow'd them to return in, and prevent their ruin; but if they neglect that and go on to add sin still to sin, by then the measure will be heapt and the iniquity will be full. Again the Jews, God's own peculiar People, and Jerusalem his holy and beloved City had yet but its term, Dan. 9. 24. Seventy weeks are determin'd upon thy people, and upon thy holy City to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, to compleat that which shall bring full ruin on thy nation: and of those weeks it should seem as if the day on which Christ weeping over them wish'd, O that thou hadst known in this thy day, was the last of them; for he says, Now they are hidden from thine eyes.
Once more, the City Niniveh was yet more straitned; Yet fourty days and Niniveh shall be destroied, Jonah 3. 4. 'Tis true this sentence was not executed, for the mere denouncing of it gave them such a true sense of their own condition, made them so consider how they had deserv'd it, that the Scripture says they believed God, heartily acknowledg'd it would be just dealing with them, that they could expect no other. Whereupon they cried out mightily to God, and put themselves into a state of such humiliation, as whether for the severity or the universality of it, 'tis possible the world hath never seen an instance like it. And if he that did command all this were King Sardanapalus, as most of the Learned do conclude, a man whose name alone was set to signify all sensuality beyond whatever other character, was the expression of it to a Proverb, if he became so sensible upon one Sermon to require and practise such Mortification and Repentance, it is no wonder if God would not execute his sentence upon them that so severely executed it on their sins and on themselves. And truly those few that allow it not Sardanapalus, and yet place the Prophet Jonah not long after him, must be put hard to it to find out then so great a City, as he tells you Niniveh then was, and so great a King of it. But he, altho (as men of his vice possibly are apt to be somtimes) a little tender hearted, easily affected on some sudden passionate occasion, yet that being, as it mostly is, a fit of penitence, returning to his old abominable practices, after a short Reign his Kingdom was quite rent in pieces, and the City utterly destroied, himself beginning it. He had before inflam'd it with his lust, then he set fire to it, and left nothing after him besides his Epitaph, a greater and more lively character of sensuality than his whole life had bin: and so that City, tho it did lay hold upon the time of acceptance, seize the day of salvation, yet it quickly let it go again.
And as for persons I shall need to give one onelyonly instance, since 'tis of more than six hundred thousand men, and each in their personal capacity. All whomgNum. 1. 2, 3. Males, able to go out to war God brought from Egypt with a mighty hand on purpose to conduct them to the Land of Canaan, and possess them of it; every one of whom saw more of God's immediat presence and his Glory, had more express miracle of grace and favor and forbearance also, than yet ever any People in the world had: yet these had their time of favor limited, had their day for God's performance; which time while it lasted he endur'd their provocations of the highest measure, even when they made another God to lead them. But when that day came, and they were at the point to enter, andhDe…t. 1. 21. he bid them go in and possess it, and they would not make use of it, being scar'd with news of Enimies taller than they, and so distrusting God's help they repin'd they had not staid in Egypt rather; then as I live, saith God, because all these men have seen my glory, and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have temted me now these ten times, surely they shall not come into the Land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein; neither shall any of them that provoked me, see it Num. 14. 22, 23, 30. And of all that number but two onelyonly who provoked him not, Joshua and Caleb, enter'd it. This very instance, and the Prophe Davids application of it also Psalm 95. to the Jews of his time, that they would not be as their Forefathers, stubborn and untractable to all God's methods, standing out against them till it was too late, but that to day if they would hear his voice, they should be flexible and plaint: this, I say, St Paul in the third chapter to the Hebrews urges to the Christians, that they should also be so while 'tis called to day, while that their …odie, their day that was allow'd them lasted, least they should outstand it, and they also be excluded from the everlasting rest in the Heavenly Canaan. And he presses further in the sixth, how God do's finally withdraw his grace from those who in the day of it resist it, and makes no more tender of it to them; and illustrates this in the twelfth chapter with the history of Esau, who to satisfy a present appetite did sell his Birth-right, and the Privileges and the Blessing that of course attended it; and altho he sought it afterwards he was rejected, and …ound no place of Repentance, nothing that could make his Father change his mind, altho he sought it carefully with tears: and with the Parable of ground, which if when 'tis long water'd with the dew of Heaven, and hath drank that fatness which the clouds drop down, it shall bring forth onelyonly briars, or continue barren, 'tis no longer cultivated, but rejected, reprobated, no more fit to be water'd with the shours of Heaven, but burnt up with scorching heat. Our Savior'siLuke 13. 7, 8, 9. Parable about the Fig-tree too hath the same Apologue, which if with three years husbandry it bear no fruit, and in the fourth too, being manur'd more expresly, it fail also, cut it down then, least it cumber the ground.
Whether the term that limits this accepted time be meted out by years and months, so much time I will bear with them and expect, as the instance of the old world gives some color for; or whether it be not set to days and hours, but measured by their reckonings of iniquity, when they have made up and filled the Epha, their time shall be out, as the Amorites example and the Israelites in the wilderness would evince: or whether both ways, as Jerusalems and Ninivehs seem plain for, 'tis not for me to determin. Each or any of them does assure us that the time is bounded, beyond which there is no term, no day left if we do outstand that. O that thou hadst known in this day, saith he, but that being expir'd, then is the hour of darkness, now they are hidden from thine eyes; nor are they onelyonly hidden from their eyes, but God also shuts their eyes, sends them the spirit of slumber on them, that they may not see, not perceive, not understand, nor be converted, least he heal them. The Predeterminations that do limit out the Age of mens Repentance, seem much more unalterable than those are that bound the Age of Life. Good k2 Kings 20. 5, 6.Hezekiahs tears and praiers got him fifteen years accession to his days, time did go back for him, and he liv'd part of his Age over again. But when the life that is allotted for the possibilities of Repentance is spun out, when the day of God's expectation is once gon, we have no instance to produce that he will call back, or protract it to us: death may let go its hold, but obstinacy in sin does not; marble Monuments have heard and bin obedient, yielded up, but the stony hard heart will not. And indeed to be innexible arises from the very nature of that course and progress in sin that does weary out God's forbearances, outstands all his offers, wasts the whole day of salvation. For to pass by the instances of the old World and of the Amorites, of which we have no more account, but that these Amorites were given up so to unnatural sin and uncleanesses, that thelLev. 18. 28. Land spued them out; in the other, that the Daughters of men had effac'd all the thoughts and knowledg of God out of the very Sons of God, that the wickedness of man was so great thatmGen. 6. 5. every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was onelyonly evil continually. But in Israel, whom St Paul represents to us for caution, thus their state was; they had set their hearts on present satisfactions so eagerly and impotently, that whenever there was the least want of any, they repin'd that God had brought them out of Egypt; that their Jehovah should be at that distance from them as in Heaven, and their sustenance come thence too, quite discourag'd them, broke all their confidence and faith: they must have their Provisions and their Deity too nearer, cry out fornNum. 11. 4. Flesh-pots and theoExod. 32. 1. Calf of Egypt, that their meat and God too may be present. And altho God always answer'd their complaints by satisfying of them, miracle sustain'd them constantly; yet, as Moses told them, Deut. 29. 2, 3, 4. Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land, the great temtations which thine eyes have seen, the signs and those great miracles, yet ye had not an heart to understand, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day: they had no sense of them but what brute beasts were capable of having; onelyonly gaz'd as lookers on them; did not mind, consider, and much less discern how great he was that wrought those wonders, and how able, ready and desirous to supply whatever they could need or he had promis'd, and that whatsoever they might want 'twas sure they should not want a miracle to furnish, and by consequence had all obligation that could be imagin'd to believe in, trust upon him and his promises. But of this they were not sensible, made no such reasonings; but when ever any thing they had a mind to was not present, or when any danger look'd upon them, disbeliev'd and murmur'd still, flew in his very face, insomuch that God says Num. 14. 11. How long will this people provoke me, and how long will it be ere they believe me? Now after all those strong, most operative ways of making faith, they still persisting in their incredulity and most unreasonable and sensless doubtings, not believing him is but consequent they would not hearken to him, and be wrought on or perswaded by him; but resisted his will always, and, as it must follow, grew more and more stubborn and inflexible, that is, stiff-neck'd, as God calls them, having their hearts harden'd. For it is the nature of things harden'd to be such intractables. And being so to that degree that Miracles, God's most effectual method, could make no impression on them, that he labor'd in vain with them, he must needs abandon them, and give them over as incorrigible: and so having worn out all his methods, and by consequence all his forbearance, he swore they should not enter in Canaan; and however he endur'd them to live fourty years, their opportunity was dead and their day ended.
I might tell you how the same ill temper of that Nation, looking after present earthly satisfactions, consequently for a temporal Messiah, made them disbelieve, and hardned them against Christ's miracles and teachings, but that former instance serves my turn; and when St Paul proposes this Example to the Christians as a warning that they suffer not their day to pass them, least they be shut out of their eternal rest, their heavenly Canaan, he expresly cautions them against the same two things, that they fall not by the same ensample of unbelief Heb. 4. 11. and that their hearts be not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. Christ's Miracles, if they did not make faith of his person and commission, of the duties, promises and threats of the Gospel to the Jews, when present with them, we may fear their efficacy may be fainter in men at this distance: and if strong inclinations to the present, howsoever sinful satisfactions of their appetites, together with long practice and converse in them, have got a great love to them, 'tis most certain that this will not suffer them to receive the love of the Gospel; no not of its promises and blessednesses, all which are so averse and opposite to those satisfactions: and not loving it, it is impossible they can be willing to give credit to it. Yea those sensual affections blind the Understanding so that indeed it discerns not the truth of it, and engage the heart so that it gives no great heed to it; and then as Attention to it doth, the belief of it must decay. The man is onelyonly such a stupid Auditor of what is recorded in Scripture, as the Jews in the wilderness were Spectators of it, without faith or reflection; he considers not himself concern'd much in whatever it proposes, whether by injunction, threat or invitation, whether it do promise blessedness or denounce judgment, and so grows insensible of his condition as to either: and then coming thus to have no sense of his condition, therefore neither hath he any fear by reason of it, i. e. so far his heart is hardned, and so going on continuing in that state, it is so perfectly. And what that is, Pharaoh can inform us. 'Tis such an heart as admits no compunction, tho you let fly all God's arrows at it. No respect to God, what grounds soever of experienc'd goodness he have for it, softens it: if you beseech him on God's part, he is not mov'd, nor yields altho you threaten him; if God invite him by prosperity and kindness, he is ungrateful, and he grows more dissolute; but if he scourge him, he grows either senseless or else furious and desperate, shameless here, fearless of hereafter, of all humane things regardless, of Divine contemtuous: all past things are most perfectly past to him, he remembers nothing of the good or evil, so as to consider or make use of either; and altho he throw away the present, yet as if the future would never arrive, altho you lay before him certain death and the ensuing two Eternities, it is not possible to move him to provide for that Futurity. And then, when neither present, past, nor future can work any thing upon him, how is it possible to change him? Now 'tis no wonder if God give him over, when his state is thus unalterable. Indeed as this condition when 'tis grown thus irreversible, makes the state of Hell here as to sinning, so it seems to make the state of it hereafter as to suffering, adding weight and in some sort Eternity to its torments; for with the other grounds that shew it just for God to plague the little transient satisfactions of our sins with an immortal worm and everlasting burnings, this also is one, that the Sinner's appetite and resolution to sin is endless, and as much as in him lies eternal, and were he not cut off from the commission, his iniquity would be immortal. And it does appear so certainly, when if God set him out a time for his Repentance and their Reconciliation, and how great soever he have made his heaps, if he do not seal up the sum with this hard-heartedness and persevering obstinacy, if while there is yet any sand to run, he will consider and take up, then God will pass by all the rest, and cancel the whole reckoning; if yet he will refuse this mercy, will go on to fill his Ephah, and commits even while the life of his Repentance is breathing out its last, while the possibilities of mercy are upon their death-bed gasping, the accepted time and the day of Salvation just ending, there is no doubt, his will, his appetite and resolutions to it are immortal, and 'tis therefore also fit his worm should be so: and there is no security against this, but by laying hold upon the present; for behold now is the day of Salvation, the last thing I am to speak to.
I shall not press this from the common place of the uncertainty of this life, of which whatever we have past as death possesses, so the succeeding moments Judgment may lay hold of; we are sure of nothing but the present. But if we had not onelyonly the assurances which constancy of health and strength of constitution give but a lease of years, as Hezekiah had from God himself, we have no assurance of the time of acceptance. Many men, tho they live fast, furiously spend the stock of Nature, sin yet with a much fiercer carrier, as the horse, pJer. 8. 6.in Jeremies expression, rusheth into the battel, and they spend the day of Salvation faster. Men may deceive themselves by reckoning to repent hereafter. We cannot conclude with reason we have space left for it while our life lasts, since those opportunities are not always, and perchance not frequently, commensurate with the life or being of a profligate man or Nation: and when they end together 'tis not that their whole life or being was allotted to those opportunities, but when these are forfeit or extinguisht, God cuts off the other. Thus indeed he did destroy the old World, when the one hundred and twenty years for their repentance were expir'd; and several men are cut down out of time, as Job saith c. 22. 16. men that shall not live out half their days, as qPsalm 55. 23.David saith of the deceitful and the bloudy men, that drink their own Bloud when they thirst for others; men whose time for their acceptance went not out while their life lasted, because when it went out God cut off their life. But 'tis not always so. Not first in Nations: four Generations filled the measure of the Amorites iniquity, but five were past before destruction made approaches to them. Judah had its sentence of excision inr2 Kings 21. Manasses reign, but its execution was suspended till the time of Zedekiah near a hundred years. And again the things that belonged to the peace of Jerusalem were taken from them when they kill'd the Peace-maker, their day of Salvation too was darkned at Christ's Crucifixion, but the City liv'd yet fourty years. Nor secondly in persons: Pharaohs time was out at the sixth plague, but God at once upheld and hardned him until the tenth was past. And those six hundred thousand, that were doom'd for murmuring, were afterwards near fourty years in dying, liv'd so long to rebel against more miracles. Now all that time the state of all these, whether men or Nations, was irreversible, as to the doom past upon them. Did we know indeed our measure of iniquity, how many crimes we wanted to fill up our Ephah, make an end at once of sin and the day of Salvation also; 'twere no wonder if we did not think it necessary now to seize the opportunity, having yet so many sins good. But there are commissions of great bulk, few of which will do it; the men that sin post, soon arrive at the end of the race that is set before them. There are whose life is nothing else but perpetual variety of wickedness, and they will quickly make up their account; the constancy inflames the reckoning, and the sum does advance mightily: how know they but the next of any of these greater magnitudes may fill up the score? To such now onelyonly may be the accepted time. However
1. They that, whenever such considerations are suggested, will not at that present, even now resolve to attemt to break their sins off by repentance, it is plain they are intangled in them, love them so, that they resolve expresly not to part with them yet, tho they are made to consider by the course of all God's several workings for them and their own provokings, that they may have wasted almost all the stock both of God's methods and their own opportunities, and will venture doing it completely, rather than forego their darling customs. Now such a love to sin, as it works induration, (as I shew'd you) hardens mens hearts; so it does betray it, and evince they are in some degree so. Such a resolution is sufficient not onelyonly to provoke God to contract the measure and cut short the account Rom. 9. 28. but it self bids fair to fill it up. The present therefore must be their accepted time; and they do all that in them is to put out the day of Salvation, who do thus put off from them this Now.
2. Of this that hath bin said, whether Almighty God be now about to make the application, either as to what concerns the Nation or particular persons, is not may part to determine or debate;sActs 1. 17. It is not for us to know the times and seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. Many seem indeed to have uncomfortable expectations, great fears both as to the Nation; and I must say they have reason, we may justly fear those judgments which we have deserv'd most justly, and provok'd most heinously, wilfully, impudently; and great fears too as to Religion, nor without good cause, yet not because those men that earnestly desire a change talk of it as at hand with comfort. False, ungracious, treacherous Sons to their poor Mother, who do what they can to blast and weaken her, that they may have color to forsake her. But this they have talkt oft with great confidence, and he that sits in Heaven always laught their confidence to scorn, & we hope he will do so to the world's end. Sure I am there could be no fear of what they expect and wish so from comparison of the Religions; or if we would answer our Religion by our living. But there is great cause of fear we may provoke God to desert that reformation we deform so with our manners, and put out the Worship we unhallow. And inded a flood of Atheism and contemt of all Religion and Virtue, or the having a Religion that is next to that itself, looks like just dereliction of them, who would not let God be in their thoughts, nor Piety or Morality in their actions. Now if this be so, and by consequent these fears be reasonable & just, there can be no prevention but by closing now with the proposal of my Text by laying hold upon the present. Any least forbearance may make our state irreversible, and does certainly provoke God towards it; whereas, if now, when God shews us the rod, we would break off our sins, reform our selves, live up to our Religion, there would be no cause to fear destruction, since God's work were don, & whatever shall happen, all would work together for the everlasting good of those that did so. This, if earnest also, must preserve Religion to us. The certain and the onelyonly way to keep Religion is to practise it; it is impossible that they can take it from us while we live it, and without that no Religion, however current, can be useful to us. But this must secure our Faith here, and secure us of the end of our Faith, the Salvation of our Souls.