Use 3. If this power hath not virtue one tcaij, it ivill have virtue another ; if it draws not and quickens, it will have virtue to confound. The threaten- ings of God against sins, that they are willing to live in, w^as made good, as Zechariah, i. 6, saith, ' Where be your fathers and the prophets ? ' They are dead and gone, ' but their words catch hold ' of your fathers. They be gone ; they threatened for these and these sins, and their threats remain. Moses is dead, but the threats extend to the people of the Jews, and stick upon them. The prophets and apostles are dead, but the threat- enings of the sins of the times light upon the people, and they feel them now in hell ; as Rev, vi. 2, it is said ' that Christ, who rideth on the white horse of the gospel,' and goeth to conquer and to conquering, he ' goeth with his bow, and woundeth as he goes,' either to conversion, to alter their wicked course of life, or to confusion. There is an arrow shot in every man that heareth, and that either maketh him better or worse.
Obj. But you will say. What efficacy is there in the word, when men leave not off their swearing and deboistf courses of life ?
A)is. I answer, There is an efficacy on these very persons even before they come to hell, which doth as it were gape for them, unless they alter their ways. There is an efficacy in hardening their hearts for the present, for every sermon maketh them worse and worse ; and is it not a terrible judgment to be hard-hearted ? Son of man, ' harden this man's heart,' Isa. vi. 10. What ! with preaching ? That is the way to soften them ; but if they stoop not to it, it shall harden them. Every sermon they hear striketh them more and more with hardness, till they have filled up the measure of their sins, and then God payeth them home with confusion in hell for ever. Is it not a judgment of God to sink deeper and deeper in sin ? If you ask who is the most wretched man of all that liveth in the church ? Surely those that will hear many things, and yet will go against them ; that will set their wills against God's will, and set their authority against God's authority ; that will live as they list, and live as they please ; for every sin they commit is a step deeper to hell, and the more they have their wills, the more they shall be tormented against their wills. * That is, ' wages, reward.'— G. t That is, 'debauched.' — G.
874 COMMENTARY ON
No man so deeply tormented as the_v that will have their lasts most freely, for God will Lave his will lirst or last. And the deeper they fall into sin here, the deeper they shall be in hell hereafter. What is the punishment in hell '? To sutler what they would not. Now, your wilful persons, of what rank soever, that despise the law of God and reason, though never so free and never so great, a wilful person is in the most dangerous condition ; because he sinketh deeper and deeper in rebellious courses, and therefore his account will be heavier ; and when conscience is awakened, it will charge sin on them with more terror than on other men. Because ho would have his will, God will pay him home with sullering that that shall be clean contrary to his will. And therefore Icurn to stoop to God, submit to the ordinances of God ; and labour that it may be effectual, and that we may find it effectual, since all is of God.
Use 4. The jmircr, and the cfftcacij, and the excellency of it ; I join prayer torjether with the ordinance. Lift up the heart to God, that God would accompany what we hear with his own Spirit, and accompany the receiv- ing of the sacrament and every ordinance with his own Spirit, to make it effectual, for they be dead ordinances without it. As food to a dead man, or cordials poured into a dead man's mouth, they have no efficacy ; and therefore desire God to afford his Spirit, to quicken us by the ordinance. And if we have spiritual life, that he would more and more increase it by his ordinance, and make our studies oratoria, places of prayer, as well as studies ; because the virtue of all is of God. And think not to break through things with your own wit,* which is it that hath made all the heretics in the world. They will break through things with their own wit, and not submit to God's truth ; and this makes profane men. They will not submit their profane wills to God's rule. Therefore know that thou canst not do it without the Spirit of God, joining prayer with the ordinance, for the Spirit.
I beseech you, take these things to heart. I cannot enlarge them. That that hath been spoken may be sufficient to stir us up to a care of the ordinances. Let me say this and no more at this time : It will bring an ill report upon all God's ordinances, if we are not careful to get good by them. We bring reproach upon them. How ? God saith his word is mighty to salvation, and it is his strong word to salvation, and his arm, but we by hearing and growing no better, shew there is no such thing. Our lives deny it, and therefore the word will conclude it. Look upon many a Christian, he heareth the word, and converseth about it, but what power hath it in him ? Surely, if there were any such power, it would appear in them that attend upon it. If there be such power in the ministry, why is their lives no better ? And so the word is reproached to be a dead word, and the sacrament a dead ordinance. And therefore in honour of God, and the blessed things of God, I beseech you, labour to go to God by prayer, and attend on the means, and to find more virtue and power, and never give over till w^e find something in ourselves above the nature and course of other men. And then we shall honour the ordinances of God, and shall witness that they be powerful, that we have felt their power casting us down in ourselves and lifting us up in God, resisting of temptations, subduing our corruptions, enabling us to go through adversity and all conditions. And then we credit and adorn our profession, and grace religion, when we find the Spirit of God making these things effectual