in prayer. And for the prevalency and good effect of this we have the famous example of the woman of Canaan, Matt. xv. 22-28. Direct. 9. Make this the business of your life. Look upon it as the main thing you came into the world for. Lay out the strength of your souls about it. Drive on this as if you had nothing else to mind or do: Make this your work to get the Spirit of God to be in you, and all other things subordinate and subservient. to this. Do not think that for a sinner to obtain all the gracious operations of the Spirit in himself, to get a due sense of sin as most odious and loathsome, and to rest his soul upon Christ as most precious, and to show forth all the blessed fruits of the Spirit in his conversation, is a work easily or quickly done: And yet you must not rest till you come to this, till there be the apparent, manifest, full breathings and operations of the Spirit in you. As mercy is not like to come to us till the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high; so let us wait and labor till the Spirit be poured out upon us, singly and generally, that the wilderness may become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest, and so those mercies and blessings which are consequent to this may be derived down to, and settled upon us. For a close, let every sincere one, whose heart is upon the work and glory of Christ, heartily and earnestly join with the Psalmist in that prayer and profession of his, Ps. liii.6. "O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad." GOD'S EYE 8) ON ТНЕ СON TRI ТЕ, OR A DISCOURSE SHOWING THAT TRUE POVERTY AND CONTRITION OF SPIRIT AND TREMBLING FOR THE OBTAINING AND RETAINING OF DIVINE ACCEPTATION. AS IT WAS MADE IN THE AUDIENCE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF BY MR. WILLIAM ADAMS, PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN DEDHAM. "Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." Matt. iii. 9. "A man's pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit." Prov. xxix. 23. "I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord." Zeph. iii. 12. BOSTON IN NEW ENGLAND, PRINTED BY RICHARD PIERCE FOR SAMUEL SEWALL. 1685. SERMON. ISAIAH lxvi. 2. "For all those things hath my hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." THIS chapter and the foregoing contain the last and concluding sermon of this prophet, in the public audience of the Jews, or that did concern and was proposed to the general body of that peoplein which discourse the Lord does by the prophet declare the removal of the glory and of his kingdom from them to another people and withal mentions their particular sins, and their obstinacy in them; for which he would thus deal with them in removing from and rejecting of them. But yet notwithstanding to evidence his love and faithfulness to this people that had been so near him, and that he had so graciously manifested himself to, the Lord promises to preserve a remnant in this calamity, whom he would follow with signal favors wherever they should be cast, and reserve to better times. In the finishing and making up of his prophecy the prophet intermixes many things by way of comfort to the godly, and threatening to the wicked under all the great revolutions of Providence that should happen in the accomplishment of what was here foretold. And because this people of the Jews both good and bad did too much confide in the temple and the external rites and ordinances of God's worship attended among them, while in the mean time they were not suitably spirited nor did suitably carry themselves, the prophet in the beginning of this chapter beats them off from the carnal confidence, and shows them the true way of obtaining and retaining divine favor, declaring that it would be vain confidence to rest in any external signs of God's presence or what of God's order had been, or was among them. This was a theme that has been always so distasteful a 83 subject, so hard to be taken down by a visibly professing people under spiritual declension and defection, that some expositors conclude that it was for this very prophecy, that the people procured the prophet Isaiah to be put to death. And we know that Stephen's reciting and improving this passage in the first, and this verse, was in great part a cause of that rage the Jews expressed against him, Acts vii. 49, 50, 54. "As saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me, saith the Lord? or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?-When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But the more hard such words are to be borne, the more need there is that they should be spoken; and therefore the prophet faithfully delivers this message from the Lord, (ver. 1). "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest?" To beat down the vain confidence of the Jews, as if because God's temple was among them, therefore he could not go from them; the Lord here holds forth and asserts to them his incomprehensible greatness; "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool." He filled heaven and earth with his presence, yea heaven and the heaven of heavens could not contain him: He is not included in, or confined to any place: Hence he demands, "Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest?" This demand imports in general, that there could be no house built that should hold or contain God, wherein he might rest and repose himself; and in particular, upbraids them with imagining that the great God was confined to, or detained in the temple, as an idol in some cell or house framed for it; as if he could find no rest any where else but there. It is true, the temple was a great help, privilege and advantage to them; as it was a means of God's worship, and sign of God's presence among them; but they fondly supposing God to be bound to them thereby, made it of a help to become a hindrance. In the text we have, 1. What God had done, expressed by way of concession or affirmative relation; which as things past, could give no security for future good: "For all those things hath my hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord." 2. What God would do, expressed by way of promise, which might be constantly and certainly depended upon: "But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word." Concerning the former part of the words, there arise two questions: Quest. I. What is the antecedent to the relative those, those things which it is said God had made, and that they had been? |