wait so long at your door, as you have made Christ wait upon you. Exhort. 7. Lastly, Let us all bless and admire the Lord Jesus for the continuation of his patience, not to ourselves only, but to that whole finful nation in which we live. We thought the treaty of peace had been ended with us; many good men look. ing upon the iniquities and abominations of these times, confidering the vanities and backfliding of professors, the heaven-daring provocations of this atheistical age, concluded in their own hearts, that God would make England another Shiloh. Many faithful ministers of Christ said within themselves, God hath no more work for us to do, and we shall have no more opportunities to work for God: when lo, beyond the thoughts of all hearts, the merciful and long-fuffering Redeemer makes one return more to these nations, renews the treaty, and with com. paffion rolled together, speaks to us this day, as to Ephraim of old, how shall I deliver thee? look upon this day, this unexpected day of mercy, as the fruit and acquisition of the interceffion of your great advocate in heaven, answerable to that, Luke xiii. 7, 8, 9. Well, God hath put us upon one trial more: if now we bring forth fruit, well; if not, the ax lies at the root of the tree. Once more Christ knocks at our doors, the voice of the bridegroom is heard; those sweet voices, Come unto me, open to me: your opening to Christ now, will be unto you as the valley of Achor, for a door of hope. But what if all this should be turned into wantonness and formality? What if your obstinacy and infidelity should wear out the remains of that little strength and time left you, and that former labours and forrows have left your ministers? Then actum eft de nobis, we are gone for ever; then farewel gospel, ministers, reformation, and all, because we knew not the time of our visitation. What was the dismal doom of God, upon the fruitless vineyard? Ifa. v. 5. "I will take away the hedge thereof, and "it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and "it shall be troddeu down: I will alfo command the clouds, " that they rain not upon it." The hedge and the wall are the fpiritual and providential prefence of God; these are the defence and fafety of his people; the clouds and the rain are the sweet influences of gospel-ordinances. If the hedge be broken down, God's pleafant plants will foon be eaten up; and if the clouds rain not upon them, their root will be rottenness, and their bloffom go up as dust; our churches will foon become as the mountains of Gilboa: therefore see that you know and improve the time of your visitation.. III. Use of confolation. I shall wind up this fourth doctrine, in two or three words of confolation, to those that have answered, and are now preparing to answer the design and end of Jesus Christ in all his patience towards them, by their compliance with his great de. design and end therein. O blessed be God, and let his high praites be for ever in our mouths, that at last Christ is like to obtain his end upon some of us, and that all do not receive the grace of God in vain. And there be three confiderations able to wind up your hearts to the height of praise, if the Lord hath now made them indeed willing to open to the Lord Jesus. Confideration 1. The faith and obedience of your hearts makes it evident, that the Lord's waiting upon you hitherto hath been in pursuance of his design of electing love. What was the reafon God would not take you away by death, though you paffed fo often upon the very brink of it, in the days of your unregeneracy? And what, think you, was the very reason of the revocation of your gospel-liberties when they were quite out of fight, and almost out of hope? why surely this was the reason, that you, and fuch as you are, might be brought to Christ at last. Therefore though the Lord let you run on so long in fin, yet still he continued your life, and the means of your falvation, because he had a design of mercy and grace upon you. And now the time of mercy, even the fet time is come, Praise yo the Lord. Confid. 2. You may also see the sovereignty and freeness of divine grace in your vocation: your hearts resisted all along the most powerful means, and importunate calls of Christ; and would have resisted still, had not free and sovereign grace overpowered them when the time of love was come. Ah, it was not the tractableness of thine own will, the easy temper of thy heart to be wrought upon; the Lord let thee stand long enough in the state of nature to discover that; there was nothing in nature but obstinacy and enmity. Thou didst hear as many powerful fermons, melting prayers, and didst see as many awakening providences before thy heart was opened to Christ, as thou haft since: yet thy heart never opened till now; and why did it open now? Because now the spirit of God joined himself to the word; victorious grace went forth in the word to break the hardness, and conquer the rebellions of thy heart. The gospel was now preached (as the apostle speaks, 1 Pet. i. 12.) "with "the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things, (faith "he) the angels defire to look into." Ah friends, it is a glogious fight, worthy of angelical observation and admiration, to behold the effects of the gospel preached, with the Holy Ghost fent down from heaven; to fee, when the Spirit comes along with the word, the blind eyes of finners opened, and they brought into a new world of ravishing objects; to behold fountains of tears flowing for fin, out of hearts lately as hard as the rocks; to fee all the bars of ignorance, prejudice, custom, and unbelief, Ay open at the voice of the gospel; to fee rebels against Christ laying down their arms at his feet, come upon the knee of fubmiffion, crying, "Lord, I will rebel no more; to see the proud heart centered and wrapt up in its own righteousness, now stripping itself naked, loading itself with all shame and reproach, and made willing that its own shame should go to the Redeemer's glory. These, I say, are fights which angels defire to look into. Certainly your hearts were more tender, and your wills more apt to yield and bend in the days of your youth, than they were now, when fin had so hardened them, and long-continued cuftom riveted and fixed them, yet then they did not, and now they do yield to the calls and invitations of the gospel. Afcribe all to fovereign grace, and say, "Not unto us, not unto us, but "to thy name give the glory." The observation and experience of our own hearts will furnish us with arguments enough to resist all temptations of and conceit. self-glorifying 1 Certainly you were born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God. Confid. 3. Lastly, This is a comfortable consideration, that he that waited upon you so long, and won your hearts at last; that hath gained you at the expence of so much pains and patience, will not now forsake you. Poor fouls, I question not but there are many fears and jealousies within you, that all this will come to nothing, and you shall perish at last. Divers things foment these jealoufies within your hearts: The weakness of your own graces, which alas, are but in their infancy; the sense you have of your own corruptions, and the great strength they still retain: The subtilty of Satan, who employs all his policies to reduce you; sometimes roaring after his escaped prey with hideous injections, which make your fouls to tremble; fometimes the discouraging apprehensions of the difficulties of religion, how far the spirituality of active obedience, and the difficulty of passive obedience is above your strength; fometimes feeling within yourselves sad alterations, by the hiding of God's face, and withdrawment of sweet and sensible communion with him. These, and such like things as these, cause many a qualm to come over your hearts; but chear up, Christ will not lose at last what he pursued so long; he that waited fo many years for thy foul, will never cast it away now he hath seated himself in the poffession of it. * SERMON V. * REV. iii. 20. Behold I stand at the door, [and knock] &c. IN the former point we have feen the Redeemer's posture, a posture of condescending humility, rather the potture of a servant than the Lord of all; Behold I stand at the door. We now come to consider his action, or motion for entrance, I stand and knock: This metaphorical action of knocking, signifies nothing else but the motions made by Christ for entrance into the fouls of finners; and affords us this fifth observation. Doctrine 5. That every conviction of conscience, and motion upon the affections of finners, is a knock of Christ from heaven for entrance into their fouls. This action of knocking is ascribed sometimes to the foul, and is expressive of its defires to come into the gracious prefence and communion of God; fo Mat. vii. 7. "To him that knocks "it shall be opened," i. e. to him that seeks by importunate prayer, fellowship and communion with the Lord: But here it is applied to Christ, and is expressive of his importunate defire to come into union and communion with the fouls of sinners. Here I shall open to you the following particulars: 1. What are the doors of the foul at which Christ knocks. First, What are the doors of the foul at which Christ knocks. You all know that term, Christ here useth, cannot be proper but meraphorical; it is a figurative speech, the door is that part which is introductive into the house, and whatever is introductive into the foul, that is the door of the foul. Now in the foul of man there are many powers and faculties that have this ufe, and are of an introductive nature, to let things into the foul of man. Some are more outward, as we may speak comparatively; and some more inward, as the doors of our houses are. Christ knocks orderly at them all, one after another, for the operations of the Spirit disturb not the order of nature. 1. The firft door that opens and lets into the foul is the un derstanding: nothing passes into the foul, but it must first come through this door of the understanding; nothing can touch the heart, or move the affections, but what hath first touched the understanding. Hence we read so often in scripture of the opening of the understanding, that being, as it were, the fore-door of the foul. 2. Within this is the royal gate of the foul, viz. The will of man, that noble and imperial power. Many things may pass into the mind, or understanding of a man, and yet be able to get no further; the door of the will may be shut against them. There were many precious truths of God let into the understandings of the Heathens, by the light of nature, but could never get further, their hearts and wil's were locked, and shut up against them; as you may fee, Rom. i. 18. "They held "the truths of God in unrighteousness; " that is, they bound and imprisoned those common notices the law of nature impressed upon their minds, concerning the being and nature of God, and the duties of both tables. These truths could get no further into their fouls, and, which is of fad and dreadful confideration, Chrift himself stands betwixt these two doors, in the fouls of many perfons; he is got into their understandings, and consciences, they are convinced of the possibility, and neceffity of obtaining Jefus Christ, but still the door of their will is barred against him, which drew from him that sad complaint, John V. 40. "You will not come unto me that you might have life." When this door of the will is once effectually opened, then all the inner doors of the affections are quickly set open to receive, and welcome him; defire, joy, delight, and all the rest, stand open to him: These are the doors at which the Redeemer knocks. Secondly, Next we must confider what is meant by Christ's knocking at these doors, and what that action implies. In the general, knocking is nothing else but an action fignificative of the defires of one that is without, to come in; it is a fign appointed to that end: And what is Christ's knocking, but a fignification to the foul of his earnest defires to come into it; a notice given to the foul of Christ's willingness to possess it for his own habitation? And it is as much as if Christ should say, foul, thou art the house that was built by my hand, purchased, and redeeined by my blood; I have an unquestionable right to it, and now demand entrance. More particularly, there are divers great things implied in this gracious act of Chrifl's knocking at the door of the foul. |