peace of God, which paffeth all understanding, shall guard our heart." God maketh our calling and election fure in us, by ftirring our hearts up to be diligently exercised in adding one grace unto another, and in growing in every grace, as 2 Pet. i. Therefore we must attend upon all spiritual means of growth and quickening: fo fhall you have a further entrance into the kingdom of Jefus Chrift: that is, you fhall have more evident knowledge of your entrance into the kingdom of grace here, and likewise into the kingdom of glory hereafter. Those that do not fo, fhall have no comfort either from the time paft, for they fhall forget they were purged from their fins, or from thoughts of the time to come, for they fhall not be able to see things far off.

2. If affurance be in a leffer degree, yet yield not to temptations and carnal reasonings: if our evidences be not fo fair, yet we will not part with our inheritance. Coins, like old groats that have little of the ftamp left, yet are current. We lofe ou comfort many times, because we yield fo easily, because we have not such a strong and clear feal of falvation as we would; to be born down that we have none at all, is a great weakness: exercife therefore the little faith thou haft, in striving against fuch objections, and it will be a means to preferve the feal of the fpirit.

3. Because this fealing is gradual, we fhould pray as Paul, Ephef. 1. " for a fpirit of revelation," that we may be more fealed (the Ephefians were fealed, for whom Paul prays, and fo the Coloffians; yet) that God would reveal to their spirits, more and more, their excellent condition. There are riches of affurance ; the apostle would have them to labour not only for affurance, but for the riches of it; that will bring rich comfort, and joy and peace. Times of temptations and trial may come, and fuch as, if we have not ftrong affurance, we may be forely troubled, and call all into queftion. This may be the fad condition of God's own children, and from this, that in times of peace, they contented themselves with a leffer degree of this affurance and fealing.

Laftly, be watchful over your own hearts and ways, that according to what you have now learned, you grieve not the spirit, "for by it you are fealed;" intimating, that if in any thing we withstand and grieve the fpirit, we fhall in fo doing, prejudice ourselves, and fuffer in the comfort and evidence of our fealing.

THE

CHURCH'S COMPLAINT

AND

CONFIDENCE.

IN THREE SERMONS.

ISAIAH lxiv. 6, 7, 8.

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are

as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities "like the wind have taken us away.

"And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that flirreth up himfelf to take hold of thee: for thou hast bid thy face from us, and "baft confumed us, because of our iniquities.

"But now, O Lord, thou art our Father, we are the clay, and thou our potter; we are all the work of thine hands.”

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T

HE words are part of a blessed form of prayer, prescribed to the church long before they were in captivity. It begins at the 15th verfe of the former chapter," Look down from heaven, behold from the habitation of thy holiness," &c. The bleffed prophet Isaiah was carried with the wings of prophetical spirit over many years, and fees the time to come, the time of the captivity; and God, by his spirit, doth direct them a prayer, and this is part of the form. For God in mercy to his people, as he forefaw before what would become of them, fo he vouchfafes them comfort beforehand. It is very useful to use forms: the 102d pfalm, it is a form of pouring out the foul to God,

when

THE CHURCH'S COMPLAINT, &c.

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when any man is in mifery, as you fee in the preface. These verses are a part of a form prescribed for the pouring forth an afflicted foul-" We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness," &c. These words are,

First, an humble confeffion of fin.

And first of the fins of their nature, of their persons themfelves, "We are all as an unclean thing."

And then of the fins of actions, "all our righteousness is as filthy rags."

And then in the third place, a confeffion of the fin of nonproficiency, of obduration, and fenfeleffness, that notwithstanding the corrections of God, they were little the better." There is none that calleth upon thy name, or that stirs up himself to take hold of thee."

In the second place, there is an humble complaint of the miferable estate they were in by their fins. "We all fade as a leaf, our iniquities like the wind have taken us away, thou haft hid thy face from us, and confumed us, because of our iniquities." The complaint is fet forth in thefe four claufes.

And then an humble fupplication, and deprecation to God, in verfe 8. and fo forward. "Now, Lord, thou art our Father, we are the clay, thou art the potter, we are all the work of thy hands," &c. These be the parcels of this portion of scripture.

But we are all as an unclean thing, &c.

Here is first an humble confeffion. And firft obferve in general, what afflictions will do, especially afflictions fanctified; that which all the prophetical fermons could not do, that which all the threatnings could not do, affliction now doth. Now when they were in captivity and base estate, they fall a humbling themfelves. So the Prodigal, nothing could humble him but afflictions. "By the waters of Babylon we fat down and wept;" all denunciations of judgement before they came to the waters of Babylon could not make them weep. One affliction will do more than twenty Sermons, when God teacheth and chastiseth too, when together with teaching there is correction, then it is effec tual. And this is the reafon of God's courfe, why when no

thing else will do, he humbles his people with afflictions; because he cannot otherwise teach them.

Affliction withdraws that which is the fuel of fin: for what doth a finful difpofition feed on? upon pleasures, and riches, &c. Now when affliction either takes these things away, or imbitters them if we have them: then that which fin carried us to, and what we fed our own base earthly lufts with, being gone, when a man is ftripped of thefe, he begins to know himself what he is; he was drunk before. I deem a man in prosperity little better than drunk, he knows neither God, nor himself, nor the world, he knows it not to be a vain world: he knows not himself to be vanity, to be an empty creature, except he confift in God, and make his peace with him; he knows not God to be such a holy God, and such an angry God for fin: but when affliction comes, and withdraws, and ftrips him of those things that made him fierce against God, then he begins to know God, and to tremble at the judgments of God: when he begins to fmart, he begins to know himself to be a mad man, and a fool, and a fot: he did not know himself before in his jollity: but now he knows the world indeed as a vain world. Bleffed be that affliction that makes us know a gracious and good God, and the creature to be a vain creature, and ourselves, out of the favour of God, to be nothing. You fee what afflictions will do.

God doth use to break men, as men ufe to break horses, they ride them over hedge and ditch, and over plowed land, uneven grounds, and gall them with the fpur, and with the bit, and all to make them tractable: and then afterwards they ride them gently, and meekly, and rather fo than otherwife. So God is fain to carry his children over plowed lands, he is fain to break them in their wickedness, to bring their ways upon their heads, he is fain to gall them, and humble them every kind of way, that they may carry him, that he may bring their spirits under him, that may lead them in the ways that lead to their own comfort.

he

Let us never murmur therefore at God's hand, but willingly yield at the first: what doth a stubborn horfe get, but the fpur, and stripes? and what doth a man get that stands out, when God comes to humble him by affliction, and intends his good? nothing but more ftripes. To come to the parts.

We are all as an unclean thing, &c. Here first you fee there is an humble confeffion.

I will not

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enlarge myself in the point of humiliation, but fpeak a little, becaufe this is the day of humiliation, the occafion is for humiliation, all this is to bring us low, to humble us, to make us know ourselves. Without humiliation Chrift will never be fweet unto us, and the benefit of health, &c. will never be precious to us. I mean by humiliation, when God humbles us, and we humble ourfelves, when we join with God, when God humbling of us, and our humbling of ourselves go toge her, then mercy is fweet, and favour and protection is fweet; when God pours his judgements on others, and fpares us.

Now humiliation, it is either real, or inward, or verbal.

Real humiliation indeed, that is, our humbling ourselves by fasting, especially when it is joined with reformation of our wicked ways, or elfe it is a mockery of God, as it is in ifaiah lviii. "to hang down the head a while," and in the mean time to have a hard heart, to fhut up our bowels to your brethren: but that is a real kind of humiliation when we think ourselves unworthy of the creatures of meat or drink, of any refrefhing for this humiliation of fasting is a kind of profeffion (though we fpeak not fo) that we are unworthy of thefe things. But all is nothing, without inward humiliation of the foul; verbal humiliation is in words (as we fhall fee after in confeffion) and it must come from inward humiliation of fpirit.

Therefore (confidering it is here the firft difpofition of God's people) let us labour to work upon ourselves thofe confiderations that may make us humble. I will name a few.

First, to bring ourselves to the glass of the law; examine ourfelves how short we have been of every commandment.

2. But especially to bring ourselves to the gofpel; we hope to be faved by Christ: and have we mourned for our fins, "as one mourneth for his firft-born?" Our fins have wounded Christ. Have we preferred Chrift in our thoughts above all the things in the world? have they all been dung to us? Have we had that bleffed efteem of the gracious promifes of the gospel and the prerogatives therein set forth, that they have been fo precious to us, that we have undervalued all to them, as St. did? A bafe efteem of the gospel is a great fin-" How fhall we escape if we neglect fo great falvation?" Suppose we be not enemies to the miniftry and to holinefs of life expreffed in the gofpel, as many curfed creatures are; yet a base esteem and un

dervaluing