Use. Beloved, if this be so, I beseech you let us beg of God, if we find any stubbornness or renitency * in our souls to divine truths, the perform- * That is, ' striving against.' — G.
542 THE XiRIDr.'s LONf;iNG.
ance of the covenant of grace, Lord, thou hast promised fleshy and sen- sible hearts, tender and yielding aflfections. Oh now grant them, and work them.
Note. For, beloved, this you must know, howsoever God deals with us by way of covenant, yet when he comes to perform the covenant, he works, in a manner, our part and his own too. In effect, he makes a testament, and not a covenant. In a testament we bequeath ; we do not covenant and condition. So that, though God deals with his people by way of cove- nant, as if you repent, if you believe, if you obey, yet he gives, by way of testament, the grace that he bestows. Therefore, beg of God that, as he requires this condition, that we should assent and be pliable unto his word, so that he would make his covenant a testament and a will — I mean, that he would effectually work it, and make us to do it — this should be our desire of God. And so much the rather —
Motive 1, First, Because God honours us by it, in havinff our consent. Is not this a great honour to us, that he will not perform things without our consent ? For indeed he will not accomplish the work of our everlasting salvation without it. But then, if we set our seals to God's seal, and we consent once, we even bind God himself. When he seals to us, and we to him, we bind God almighty, and by that power of faith, subdue hell and all our opposite enemies. When we seal to the truth of God, and cry
* Amen,' it is a word that fills heaven and earth. There is not a joyfuUer word in the world, than when whole congregations can say and shout
* Amen.' When God says 'Amen' in heaven, if we presently can say
* Amen' to his truth upon earth, he will say ' Amen' to our salvation. Thus God honours us by it, when he comes for our consent.
Motive 2. We honour God ar/ain, hy our sealinrj to his truth. Faith is that which seals to God's truth, and 'Amen' is the very voice of faith.
Use 2. It is a pitiful thing, but common in the world, that God should have no more credit with us. Poor distressed souls will say 'Amen' to the lies of their own hearts, and presumptuous persons will say 'Amen' to a liar, to a murderer, to an enemy, to Satan. But God hath so little credit with us, that if he command, we will not say 'Amen ;' if he promise, we have no ' Amen' for him ; if he threaten, we bless ourselves, saying. We shall do well enough : ' We shall have peace, though we walk after the imagination of our own hearts, adding drunkenness unto thirst,' Deut. xxix. 19. When the Spirit of God saith, ' He will stir up a fire in his anger, and his wrath shall burn unto the lowest hell,' Deut. xxxii. 22, against all such as go on in their sinful courses, yet they will flatter them- selves. Well, beloved, we may shake off God's word in the ministry, as profane persons do ; but when God comes in the execution of his threaten- ings, then his wrath shall burn to hell, and not be quenched. Who can avoid or abide that dreadful sentence, ' Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,' Mat. xxv. 41. God's words are not as wind. Indeed, they are such a wind as will blow down all impenitent sinners to hell. AVe must have a legal 'Amen' to the threatenings of God, as well as an evangelical ' Amen' to the sweet promises. St John here, by the Spirit of God, saith ' Amen' to the promises of the time to come ; to wit, for the confusion of antichrist, for the conversion of the Jews, and for the glorious times to come, though he sees no evidence thereof for the present ; and so must we to all divine truths.
But we have another kind and company of men that must be taxed, that have indeed an ' amen ' and a seal, but it is to a blank. They are pre-
THE eeide's longing. 543
sumptuous persons, and such, which is worse, as will have God to say ' Amen ' to their courses. They will be naught* and sinful, and then study and strive to bring God's word to stand bent to their bow ; and so in their lying conceit make God say * Amen ' to their lusts. They account it not Buflficient to have their will, but they will have God to be of their mind too, and they will always get some daubers that shall say, ' Go on and prosper.'
An Ahab will always have his false prophets. What a wicked thing is this, that we should make an idol of God, and transform him into the like- ness of Satan, his enemies, to make him like that which he hates most. We will continue in our sinful courses, and make as though we had the word of God for us ; and, Oh we have the judgment of such and such, and thus bolster up ourselves by building upon such sandy foundations. When M'e should bring up our souls and resign them to God and his Spirit, we will bring God down to our bent, and make him to say this and that, agreeable to our carnal reason and corrupt affections.