all; we know the worth of fouls, and how great a service it is Infer. 4. Hence we also infer the great dignity of the ministe- Yet how have their persons and office been vilified and despised in this degenerate age! how many learned, pious, laborious, peaceful ministers of Christ have, in this age, been hunted up and down in the world as wild beafts, been made the filth and off-fcouring of all things unto this day? 1 Cor. iv. 13. The word signifies that dirt and filth which Scavengers rake together in the streets, to be carried to the dunghill, VOL. IV. Iil 1 No doubt but Satan drives a great design in this to invalidate Infer. 5. Is Christ present in his ordinances, what a strong en Infer. 6. What an unspeakable lofs is the loss of the gospel, fec. ing the presence of Chrift comes and goes with it? When the gospel departs, the fpirit of Christ departs with it from among men; no more converfions, in God's ordinary way, are then to be expected: well therefore might the Lord say, Hofea ix. 12. Woe to them when I depart from them. The fpirit may, in fome sense, depart, whilst the ordinances are left standing, for a time, among the people; but then expect no such bles fings or benefits from them. But when God takes away ordinances and spirit too, woe indeed to that people; and are there not fins amongst us presaging such a judgment? O England! reflect upon thy barrenness under it; where be the fruits answerable to fuch precious means? The gospel is a golden lamp, the graces of the spirit communicated by it are golden oil; as in that stately vision, Zech. iv. Will God maintain fuch a lamp, fed with such precious oil, for men to triffe and play by ? And no less ominous and portentous is that bitter enmity - to the gospel, and the serious profeffors of it, which (I cannot speak without horror) is every where found among us; this great hatred brings on the days of visitation, and the days of recompence, with a fwift and dreadful motion upon any people, Hofea ix. 7. Infer. 7. If Christ be present, by way of spirit and energy in bis ordinances, then there is no reason to despair of the conversion and falvation of the greatest finners that yet lie dead under the gospel. What though their hearts be hard, their understanding dark, and their wills never so perverse and obstinate? all must give way, and open in the day of Christ's power, when his spirit joins himself with the word. This makes it an irresistible word; 'tis glorious to observe the hearts of publicans and harlots opening and yielding to the voice of Christ, Matth. xxi. 31. What were those three thousand persons pricked at the heart by Peter's fermon, Acts ii. 36. but the very men that, with wicked hands, had crucified the Lord Jesus? And what were the converted Corinthians, but idolators, turned from dumb idols, whoremongers, adulterers, effeminate? &c. 1 Cor. xii. 2. and vi. 11. God hath his elect among the vileft of men: the gospel will find them out, and draw them home to Christ, when the spirit animates and blesseth it. Well might the apoftle therefore say, that the gospel preached with the holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, is an object worthy for angels to behold with admiration, & Pet. i. 12. What though Satan has strongly fortified their souls against Christ, with ignorance, prejudice and enmity; yet the weapons of our wat tare are mighty, through God, to pull down these strong holds. Despair not therefore of your carnal and dead-hearted relations, bring them to the gospel upon the encouragement of these words of Christ, Johnv. 25. "The hour cometh, yea, and now is, that the dead "shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it " small live." Infer. 8. Is Christ spiritually present in his ordinances? O then what an endeared affection should every gracious foul bear to the ordinances of God! They are the walks of Christ, and his spirit, the appointed times and places for your meeting and communion with him; there your fouls first met with Christ; there you began your acquaintance with him; there you have had many sweet converses with him since that day; they were the feed of your regeneration, 1 Pet. i. 23. the bread of life, by which your fouls have been sustained ever since, and therefore to be more elteemed by you than your necessary food, Job xxiii. 12. Here you have found the richest cordials to revive and recover your drooping spirits, when ready to fink away in a faint fit under fin within you, and afflictions upon you. No wonder David's foul even fainted for the courts of God, Pfal. cxix. 50. and that Hezekiah defired a sign on his fick bed, that he should go up to the house of the Lord. Here are the choiceft comforts of the faints upon earth; all our fresh springs are in Zion, Pfal. lxxxvii. 7. What a dungeon, what a barren wilderness were this world without them! Prize the ordinances, love the ordinances, wait affiduously upon the ordinances, and pray for the liberty and efficacy of the gospel, that it may set no more in your days, nor in the days of your pofterity. * ** SERMONIII. REVEL. iii. 20. Behold I [Stand] at the door and knock; &c. HAVING finished Christ's folemn preface, and cleared the manner of his prefence in his churches and ordinances; I now come to a third observation which is necessarily implied in these words, "Behold I stand at the door and knock;" and that sad truth therein implied is this, Doct. That the hearts of men are naturally locked up, and fast barred against Jesus Chrift their only Saviour. If it were not to, what need were there of all that pains and patience, used and exercised by Chrift, in waiting patiently, and knocking importunately for entrance into the hearts of men? To keep a clear method in this point, three things must be stated in the doctrinal part. 1. How it appears the hearts of men are thus shut up. 3. That no power of man can remove these bars. First, That all hearts are naturally shut and made fast againft Christ, is a fad but certain truth; we read, John i. 11, 12, "Не came unto his own, and his own received him not," &c. He came unto his own people, from whose stock he sprung up; a people to whom he had been prefigured in all the facrifices and types of the law, and in whom they might all clearly difcern the accomplishment of them all. His doctrines and his miracles plainly told them who he was, and whence he came; yet few difcerned or received him as the Son of God. Christ found the doors of mens hearts generally shut against him, save only a few whose hearts were opened by the Almighty power of God, in the way of faith, ver. 12. These indeed received him, but all the rest excluded and denied entrance to the Son of God. So 5. "While he yet spake, behold a bright cloud overshadowed "them; and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, this " is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him." He bids them search the scriptures, and critically examine his perfect correspondence to them, John v. 39. Enough, one - would think, to open the door of every man's understanding and heart, to receive him with fullest fatisfaction; and yet, after all, behold the unreasonable obstinacy and resistance of their hearts against him, ver. 40. "Ye will not come unto me, that ye might " have life." Not a foul will open, with all the reasons and demonftrations in the world, till the Almighty power of God be put forth to that end. If another come in his own name (faith he, ver. 43.) him will ye receive; any body rather than the Son of God: Every cheat can impose upon you eafily, 'tis to me only your hearts have such strong aversions. Now there is a twofold shutting up of the heart against Jesus Christ. 1. Natural. 2. Judicial. 1. Natural. Every foul comes into this world shut up and fast closed against the Lord Jesus. The very will of man, which is the freest and most arbitrary faculty, comes into the world barred and bolted against Christ, Rom. viii. 7 "The carnal mind " is enmity against God; for it is not subject unto the law of "God, neither indeed can be." Phil. ii. 13. "'Tis God that "worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good plea"fure." This is a dismal effect of the fall. Who feels not strong aversations, violent rebellions, and obstinate resistances in his own heart, when moving towards Christ in the first weak and trembling acts of faith? 1 1 |