622 GO SERMON XVIIL Ha. Ixiv. 7. And there is none that calleth upon thy Name, that firreth up himself to take hold of thee, &c. THE HEY go on in the Confeffion of their Sins: Many a Man hath foon done with that: A general Notion of Sin is the highest Advancement in Repentance that many attain to. You may fee here, Sin and Judgment mixed in thorow other in their Complaint: They do not fo fix their Eyes upon their defolate Eftate of Captivity, as to forget their Provocations. Many a Man would spend more Affection, and be more pathetick in the Expreffion of his Mifery when it is pungent, nor he can do when he fpeaketh of his Sins. We would obferve from the Nature of this Confeffion, fomething to be a Pattern of your Repenance. And it is this. When the Spirit convinceth, and Men are serious in Repentance, then the Soul is more fearching, more univerfal, more particular in Acknowledgement of Sins. Thefe are Characters of the Spirit's Work. First, The Spirit difcovereth unto Men, not only Sin but the Loathfomnefs of Sin, its haincus Nature, how offenfive it is to God's holy Eye. Many of you know Abundance of evil Deeds, and call them Sins, but you have never taken up Sin's ugly Face, never feen it in the Glafs of the holy Law, Uncleannefs itself, because you do not abhor yourfelves; poor and low Thoughts of God maketh mean and fhallow Thoughts of Sin. You would be as Job vile, Chap. xl. 4. and albor yourfelves in Duft and Afte, Chap, xlii. 6. As God's Holiness grew great in your Eyes, Sin's Uncleanness would grow proportionabiỷ, Isa. vi. 3, 5. And here your Repentance halteth ja the very Entry. But Secondly, The Spirit difcovereth not only the Uncleannefs of Men's Natures, and leadeth them up to originał Corruption, but the Spirit also leadeth Men alongs all the Streams, not only thefe that break out, but these who go under Ground, and have a more fecret and fubtile Conveyance: It concludeth not only open Breaches of the Command under Filthinefs, but alfo all a Man's own Righteoufnels, tho' never fo. refined; it concludeth it alfo a defiled Garment, fo that the Soul can look no where but fee Sin and Uncleanness in its Ornaments and Duties. And thus it appeareth before God without fuch a Covering, openeth up its Soul, hideth not Sin with the Covering of Duties, but feeth a Neceffity of another Covering for all. Now therefore let the moft Part of you conclude, that you have never yet gotten your Eyes open to fee Sin or confefs it, because when you fit down to count your Sins, there there are many Things that you call not Sin, you use not to reckon your Praying and Repentance among Sins: Nay, because you have fo much Confidence in your Repentance and Confeffion, you have never repented: You must see a Neceffity of a Covering ofChrift's Righteoufnefs above all; Faith in Jefus muft cover Repentance and itself both, with the glorious Object of it. But alas, how foon are many at an End of Confeffion; fome particular grofs Actions may come Sum in Remembrance, but no more. up all your Confeffions, they have never yet pitched on the thousand Part of your Guiltinefs, no not in Kinds, let be in Number. ons in publick, and former Acknowledgements of Sins in private? Do you not yet return upon your own Hearts to lay home this fad Challenge. I have never repented, I do not yet repent: Muft not all your folemn Approaches be Iniquity, and Abomination, while your Souls are not afflicted for Sin, while you can see so few Sins, &c. The fafting Days of Scotland will be numbered in the Roll of greateft Provocations, because there is no real and spiritual Conviction of Sin among us: Cuftom now hath taken away the Solemnity, and there remaineth nothing but the very Name: Is this the Faft that the Lord choofeth? No, believe it, this hall add to your Provocation, and rather haften lingering Judgment, than keep it off; we would befeech you this Day,. pray for Pardon of former abused Fafts. If you had no more to mourn for, this might spend the Day and our Spirits both, and exhauft all our prefent Supplications, even the Wall of Partition that ftands between God and Scotland, which all our former folemn Humiliations hath builtup, a great deal higher than other Sins could reach. But Thirdly, The Spirit convinceth fpiritually, and particularly both; it con vinceth of fpiritual Sins, as we faid laft, of the Iniquity of holy Things, and efpecially of the most fubftantial Dutie: Faith and Prayer, Jobn xvi. 8, 9; there are not many of you have come this length to fee your want of Prayer. No, your own Words do witness against you, for you ufe to fay, I pray Day and Night, I believe in God with all my Heart. Now There is none that calleth upon thy therefore, out of your own Mouth fhall -you be condemned, when the Spirit con- Name.] Did not this People make many vinceth you of Sin, you will fee no Faith, Prayers, Ifa. i. 15. before the Captivity? no Prayer at the first opening of the And did they not cry, which noteth fome Eyes. But I add, there is no true Con- Fervency in it? And faft a little before feffion but it is particular, the Spirit'ufeth it in Jeremiab's Time, Chap. xi. 11. and xiv. 12. in the Time of it, Ezek. not to bewilder Mens Spirits in a geneviii. 18. Mic. iii. 4. Zech. vii. 3. How ral Notion only, and a wild Field of unknown Sins: And fuch are many of your hen is it that the Prophet now on the Watch-tower looking round about him to Convictions: You mourn for Sin (as you fay), and yet you cannot condefcend take up the Peoples Condition, and being on a Particular that burdeneth your Con- led by the Spirit fo far as to the Cafe of science; you grant you have many Sins, the Captives in Babel, can find no but fit down to count them, and there is Prayer, no Calling? And was not Daniel a fhort Count of them. Now, do you fo too, Dan. ix. 13. Lo, then here is not reflect back upon former Humiliati-the Conftruction that the Spirit of God pur 1 putteth on many Prayers and Faftings in à Land, There is none calleth on thy Name; there is none that prayeth faith fully and fervently, few to count upon that prayeth any. It may be there are many publick Prayers, but who prayeth in fecret, and mourneth to God alone? There are many Prayers, but the Infcription is, To the unknown God, to a nameless God, your praying is not a calling on his Name, as a known God and revealed in the Word. ly to reform it, but goeth on in that which you pray againft: We declare unto you the Truth, your Prayers are Abomination, Prov. xxviii. 9. The Wicked may have Prayers, and therefore think not to pleafe God and flatter him with your Mouths, when your Converfation is Rebellion: Since you hear not him in his Commands, God will not hear you in your Petitions, Prov. i. 24, 28. You ftopped your Ear at his Reproof, God will ftop his Ear at your Request. If you will go to Heaven by your own Righte oufnefs, I pray you follow more after it, make the Garment more to cover your Nakedness; the Skirt of a Duty is not fufficient. This then we would fay unto you, that there may be many Prayers in your Account, and none in God's. There are many Prayers of Men that God counteth no more of, than the howling of a Dog. First, The Cry of Mens Practices is often Secondly, When Iniquity is regarded louder than their Prayers, and goeth up in the Heart, (and Idols fet up in God's to Heaven, that the Cry of Prayer can- Place,) God will not own fuch a Wornot be heard. When Mens Conver- hip, but fendeth' a Man to the Idols he fation is flat contrary to their Supplicati- ferveth, Pfal. Ixvi, 18. Ezek. xiv. 3, 4. ons, Supplication is no calling on his Do you not often pray to God against a Name, but charming rather. Sodom's Corruption, when your Heart cleaveth Abominations had a Cry up to God, Gen. unto it, and what your Mouth faith, your xviii. 21. So Abel's Blood had a Cry Heart contradicteth? Light and Conscience for Vengeance, which Cain's Prayers often extort a Confeffion of beloved Sins, could not ouicry. Thus the Lord would while the Temper of the Heart hath not hear many Prayers, Ifa. i. 15. because this Language, Lord grant not my ReHands and Practices were polluted: You queft: And therefore, if there be a Prayer that know no Worship of God, but in for Pardon of Guilt, yet there is no fuch a folemn Duty; your Religion is thorough Refolution to quite the Sin; and fummed up and confined within the Limits as long as a Soul is not refolved to quite of Temple-worship, Family-exercife and the Sin, there can be no ingenuous ConPrayer; certainly the rest of your Con- feffion of it, and no Prayer for removverfation muft fpeak more: God will not ing the Guilt can be heard. You cannot hear but fuch as worship him and do his imploy Chrift in his Office of MediatorWill, John iv. 31. Your Prayer is a hip as a Prieft to interceed and offer dark Parable, if your Converfation expone Sacrifice for Sin, unless you as fincerely it not. This I fpeak for this End, to put imploy him as a Sanctifier and Redeemmany of you out of your falfe Ground of er; and therefore Prayer that feparateth Cónfidence: You have nothing but your Chrift's Offices, and calleth not on whole Prayers to truft unto; and for your Con- Chrift calleth not on his Name, for his verfation, you never go about it effectual-Name is Lord Jefus Chrift. How can the the Lord be inquired of by fuch a One Thirdly, There are many Prayers not heard, not known, because the Mouth outcrieth the Heart. It is the Sacrifice of the contrite Heart that God despiseth not. The Prayers of this People were fuch, Ifa. xxix. 13. They drew near with the Mouth, but the Heart was far away. It is Worship in Spirit and Truth that God loveth, Job. iv. 23. Since Prayer is a Communion of God with the Creature, a Meeting of one with God, and fpeaking Face to Face; God who is a Spirit and immortal, must have a Spirit to meet with, a Soul to speak to him. Fourthly, Many Prayers are not calling on God's Name: And no wonder that when People pray, yet the Spirit fay, None calleth on thy Name, for Prayer is made, as to an unknown God, and God is not taken up according to his Name, Name, which are his glorious Attributes, whereby he manifefteth himself in his Word. To call on God's Name, is fo to pray to God, as to take him up, as he hath revealed himself. And what is the Lord's Name? Hear himself speak to Mofes,Exod. xxxiii. 19. and xxxiv. 6, 7. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long fuffering, and abundant in Goodness and Truth. Keeping Mercy for thousands: Forgiving Iniqui ty, and Tranfgreffion, and Sin, and that will by no Means clear the guilty. Now to call on this Name, is for the Soul in Prayer, to have a fuitable Stamp on it: Every Attribute of God taking deep Impreffion in the Heart. And fo God's Name to be written on the very Petitions: And shortly, we may fay, the Spirit fhould have the Impreffion of God's Greatness and Majefty, of his Goodness and Mercy, of his Terribleness and Juftice. This is the Order that God proclaimeth his Name into. In the Entry, the Sup. plicant thould behold the glorious Soveraignity and infinite Distance between God and the Creature, that he may have the Stamp of Reverence and Abasement upon his Spirit, and may fpeak out of the Duft, as it becometh the Duft of the Ballance and Foot-ftool to do to him, who fitteth on the Circle of the Heaven as his Throne. And this I must fay, there is little. Religion and Godliness among us, because every Man is ignorant of God. Even God's Children do more study themselves, and their Condition, than God's Greatnefs and Abfolutenefs. Who fearches God's Infiniteness in his Word and Works till he behold a Wonder, and be drowned in a Mystery? O but the Saints of old did take up God at a greater Distance from the Creatures, they waded far into this boundlefs Ocean of God's Majefty, till they were over Head and Ears, and were forced to cry out, Who can find out the Almighty to Perfection? All thefe are but Parts of him, his Back-parts. There is more real Divinity and Knowledge of God in one of Job's Friends Difcourfes, one of David's Prayers, than now in twenty. Sermons of gracious Men, or many Prayers or Conferences of Saints. But withal you must ftudy his Goodness and Mercy, and this maketh up the moft Part of his Name; the Definition of God hath moft of this, fo that it may be faid truly, that Mercy is his Delight, Mercy. as it were, fwelleth over the reft: God were not acceffible, unlefs Mercy did temper it. Behold then Greatness to humble, and Goodness to make bold, that you may have Access. As Greatness fhould leave the Stamp of Reverence on your Petitions, fo fhould Mercy and Goodnefs imprint them with Faith and Confidence; and that the rather, because as Chrift is faid to be the Father's Face, and the Image of his Perfon, 2 Cor. iv. 6. and Heb. i. 3. So may he be called the Father's Name, and fo doth God himself call him, Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. The Angel that went before him in the Wilderness, whofe Voice they ought to obey, his Name is in bim, and this Angel Is Chrift Jefus, Acts vii. 37. 38. So then Christ Jefus is God's Name: God as he revealeth himfelf in the Word, is God in Chrift reconciling the World unto bimself, 2 Cor. v. 19. And there före Chriftians, you ought to pray al ways in Chrift's Name, and this is to call on his Name. Not only encourage yourselves to come to God, because of a Mediator, because he is God in Chrift, but alfo offer up all your Prayers in Jefus his Name, that his Name called on them may fanctify them, otherwife your af fectionne |