for public ordinances. He that makes conscience to wait upon God in private, shall find by experience that God will wonderfully bless public ordinances to him, Micah ii, 7. My design is not to set up one ordi- nance of God above another, nor to cause one ordinance of God to clash with another, — the public with the private, or the private with the public, — but that every ordinance may have its proper place and right, the desires of my soul being to prize every ordinance, and to praise every ordinance, and to practise every ordinance, and to improve every ordi- nance, and to bless the Lord for every ordinance. But as ever you would see the beauty and glory of God in his sanctuary, as ever you would have public ordinances to be lovely and lively to your souls, as ever you would have your drooping spirits revived, and your languish- ing souls refreshed, and your weak graces strengthened, and your strong corruptions weakened under public ordinances, be more careful and conscientious in the performance of closet duties, Ps. Ixiii. 1-3. Oh how strong in grace ! Oh how victorious over sin ! Oh how dead to the world ! Oh how alive to Christ ! Oh how fit to live ! Oh how prepared to die ! might many a Christian have been, had they been but more frequent, serious, and conscientious in the discharge of closet- duties. Not but that I think there is a truth in that saying of Bede — the word church being rightly understood— viz.. That he that comes not willingly to church shall one day go unwillingly to helL But,
[16.] Sixteenthly, Consider, the times wherein we live call aloud for secret prayenr. Hell seems to be broke loose, and men turned into in- carnate devils •} land-destroying and soul-damning wickednesses walk up and down the streets with a whore's forehead, without the least check or control : Jer. iii. 3, ' Thou hast a whore's forehead, thou re- fusest to be ashamed ;' chap. vi. 15, ' Were they ashamed when they committed abomination ? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.' They had sinned away shame, instead of being ashamed of sin. Custom in sin had quite banished all sense of sin and all shame for sin, so that they would not suffer nature to draw her veil of blushing before their great abominations. They were like to Caligula, a wicked emperor, who used to say of himself, that he loved nothing better in himself than that he could not be ashamed. The same words are repeated in chap. viii. 12. How applicable these scrip- tures are to the present time I will leave the prudent reader to judge. But what doth the prophet do now they were as bold in sin and as shameless as so many harlots ? That you may see in Jer. xiii. 17 : * But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places,' or secresies, ' for your pride ; and mine eye shall weep sore ' (Hebrew, weeping weep, or shedding tears shed tears ; the doubling of the verb notes the bitter and grievous lamentation that he should make for them), 'and run down with tears.' Now they were grown up to that height of sin and wickedness, that they were above all shame and blushing ; now they were grown so proud, so hardened, so obstinate, so rebellious, so mad upon mischief, that no mercies could melt them or allure them, nor no threatenings nor judgments could any ways terrify them or stop them. The prophet goes into a corner, he retires himself into the most secret
' Ourtiiis, an heathen, could say that he was an undone man that knoweth no ehame.
194 THE PRIVY KEY OF HEAVEN. [MAT. VI. 6.
places, and there he weeps bitterly, there he weeps as if he were re- solved to drown himself in his own tears. When the springs of sorrow rise high, a Christian turns his back upon company, and retires himself into places of greatest privacy, that so he may the more freely and the more fully vent his sorrow and grief before the Lord. Ah, England, England ! what pride, luxury, lasciviousness, licentiousness, wanton- ness, drunkenness, cruelties, injustice, oppressions, fornications, adul- teries, falsehoods, hypocrisy, bribery, atheism, horrid blasphemies, and hellish impieties, are now to be found rampant in the midst of thee ! Ah, England ! England ! how are the Lord's Sabbaths profaned, pure ordinances despised, Scriptures rejected, the Spirit resisted and derided, the righteous reviled, wickedness countenanced, and Christ many thou- sand times in a day by these cursed practices afresh crucified ! Ah, England 1 England ! were our forefathers alive, how sadly would they blush to see such a horrid degenerate posterity as is to be found in the midst of thee ! How is our forefathers' hospitality converted into riot and luxury, their frugality into pride and prodigality, their simplicity into subtilty, their sincerity into hypocrisy, their charity into cruelty, their chastity into chambering and wantonness, their sobriety into drunken- ness, their plain-dealing into dissembling, their works of compassion into works of oppression, and their love to the people of God into an utter enmity against the people of God I &c. And what is the voice of all these crying abominations, but every Christian to his closet, every Christian to his closet, and there weep, with weeping Jeremiah, bitterly, for all these great abominations whereby God is dishonoured openly. Oh weep in secret for their sins who openly glory in their sins, which should be their greatest shame. Oh blush in secret for them that are past all blushing for their sins ; for who knows but that the whole land may fare the better for the sakes of a few that are mourners in secret ? But however it goes with the nation, such as mourn in secret for the abominations of the times, may be confident that when sweep- ing judgments shall come upon the land, the Lord will hide them in the secret chambers of his providence, he will set a secret mark of de- liverance upon their foreheads that mourn in secret for the crying sins of the present day, as he did upon theirs in Ezek. ix. 4-6.