(2.) When you scorn at reproof, when you are not only actors, but defenders of sin, and bear up yourselves impudently and stubbornly in your transgressions : Jer. vi. 10, ' To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear ? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken ; behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach.^ They are of an unteachable, untractable disposition ; they
240 SERMONS UPON EXODUS TV. 2L
think we rail when we do reprove. The devil hath then two victories — one by the scorn and opposition that is cast on the reprover, and the other by the hardening of the heart of the fretting and reproved sin- ner ; that anger that should be turned upon the sin is turned upon the reproof.
(3.) When ordinances grow powerless. You live under ordinances, and receive no profit by them ; you have much means, and can see no fruit : Isa. vi. 9, 10, ' Hear ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.' The word is powerful ; if it softens not, it hardens.
(4.) When our worldly comforts are apt to prove a snare to us : Mai. ii. 2, ' I will curse your blessings, yea, I have cursed them already, be- cause ye do not lay it to heart.' When your table is made your snare, your meat becomes your poison, your estate is but as golden fetters to bind and chain your heart to the world ; your honours blow you up. When you do not take comforts as the mercies and blessings of God, to • praise him for them, and to devote yourselves in the strength of them to his service.
(5.) When corrections go away without fruit : Jer. v. 3, ' Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved ; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction ; they have made their faces harder than a rock, they have refused to return.' God will have an account of every dispensation ; afflictions are upon the register as well as mercies. Christians should never advance more in Christianity than under the cross.
(6.) When we are lazy and loath to admit Christ into the heart. It being thronged with creature comforts, we keep him at the door knocking, and will not open to him : Rev. iii. 20, ' Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; ' Cant. v. 3, ' I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on ? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them ? ' This laziness and spiritual security is a cause and beginning of hardness of heart.
(7.) When trivial and slight temptations prevail against the sense of our duty ; when for a piece of bread, and handfuls of barley they will transgress, and sell the righteous for a pair of shoes ; when they are as a stone to God's counsels, but as wax to all other things.
(8.) When the heart grows vain and frothy ; for a slight heart will be an hard heart ; or God gives men over to a reprobate sense and an injudicious mind. These are the' forerunners of hardness of heart, which we should beware of, and carefully watch against.
SERMON UPON GENESIS III. 15.'
It (i.e., the seed of the luoman) sliall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel — Gen. iii. 15.
These words are a part of the gospel preached in paradise, or the first promise of grace and life made to mankind, now fallen and dead in sin. As God was cursing the serpent, he draweth out this comfort to our first parents, who were confounded with the sense of sin and their defection from God. Satan's condemnation is our salvation. He did the first mischief, therefore the crushing of his head giveth hope of our deliverance out of that state of misery into which he hath plunged us.
The words are dark in comparison of the larger explications of the grace of God by Jesus Christ which were after delivered to the church. Who would look for a great tree in a little seed ? Yet the seminal virtue doth afterward diffuse and dilate itself into all those stately and lofty branches in which the fowls of the air do take up their lodging and shelter. So do these few words contain all the articles and mysteries of the christian faith, which are the fountains of our solid peace and consolation. In the seed of the woman is contained all the doctrine concerning the incarnation of the Son of God ; in the bruising of his heel, his death and sufferings ; in the crushing of the serpent's head, his glorious victory and conquest. As obscure as the words are, an eagle-eyed and discerning faith could pick a great deal of comfort out of them. The ol Trpea^vrepot, ' the elders,' mentioned Heb. xi, 2, the antediluvian fathers, so famous throughout all ages for their laith and confidence in God, had no other gospel to live upon. Abel, that offered a better sacrifice than Cain, Enoch, that walked with God, Noah, that prepared the ark, did all that they did in the strength and upon the encouragement of this promise.