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ings, instructed him in God's statutes, and therefore was good for him.* Crosses for Christ never did any hurt, but have been usually means of good; many Christians have blessed God for them; God sees we cannot live or do well without them; Paul gloried in the cross of Christ, took pleasure in distresses for Christ-and why then are we afraid of them, or would bargain to be secured from them? be ashamed of your nice and delicate spirits.

(2.) Some Christians are too apt to compound with God about these covenant mercies; † my meaning is, they can satisfy themselves without the whole series of covenant mercies, they are willing and content to be put off with some, and do not solicit all; they can apply some promises, not others—see a necessity of pardoning mercy, but do not plead and act faith for purifying, softening, quickening, enlightening mercies of the covenant. Consider, Christians, by thus doing,

[i.] You injure yourselves, you need all these covenant mercies; there is not one of the fore-mentioned blessings, that a Christian can live and thrive without; all are of great use, every one hath its peculiar excellency, a gracious soul cannot spare any of them; nay, it is a sin for it to be content with less than God hath promised; he that is not for all, is truly for none at all. The true owner will not divide; in one part of your life or other, you will want all covenant mercies; it is base unworthiness and ingratitude to slight any of them.

• Psalm cxix. 75, 67, 71.

+ In closing with offers of grace, we must be uniform. Earthly things God is pleased to retail. All have some, none have all. But in the heavenly treasure, he will not break the whole piece, and cut it into remnants; if God would cut off as much as would serve men's turn, he might have customers enough.—Mr. Gurmal's Christ. Armour, page 310.

[ii.] You dishonour God, and disparage these mercies, as if God were not able to give you all, and pay the whole debt of his free and full promise; as for example, suppose a rich tradesman owe you a sum of money, and you come to him and tell him you are willing to abate him so much, and compound with him, and take of him a shilling in the pound, or a pound in the hundred for the whole debt, he looks upon himself as disparaged, being a sufficient chapman, he will not have his ability or honesty questioned; but quickly answers, what do you think I am breaking? I will not be abated any thing, here is your money, I will pay you all. So God would not be compounded with; he looks upon it as a dishonour to his free grace and faithfulness, and bids the soul open its mouth wide, and promiseth to fill it, Psalm lxxxi. 10; that is, ask great things, many things, spare not, ask what thou needest, ask what I have promised, I am neither sparing nor backward in giving, stint not thyself in asking, I shall not send thee away empty; they that come for most, speed best; and when thou hast gone to the utmost extent of thy reach in asking, “I can, and will give thee abundantly more than thou art able to ask or think."-Ephes. iii. 20. O Christians, chide yourselves for your sinful mannerliness and modesty; and widen your contracted spirits for larger incomes of grace and mercy. Remember, these covenant supplies are all of mercy, not deserved; and they are mercies in the plural, containing large and liberal revenues to be communicated to indigent wanting souls.

(3.) God's children often do not live upon the mercies of the covenant; we blame them that have good estates, and live beneath them; and well we may, for it is a base and a beggarly practice, when persons have enough, but want power to eat, take their portion, and

enjoy the good of all they have; this is a sore evil, and a sad curse, and the contrary is good, and decent, a great blessing, and the very gift of God:* and O what a sad evil for the saints of God, the heirs of promise to live below their estates, none so rich as real saints, they are heirs to a vast inheritance; "God himself is their portion; yea, the portion of their inheritance, and of their cup, he maintains their lot;"† they have enough, and they cannot lose what they have. O at what a high rate should such rich heirs live! and what an unworthy degenerate spirit doth it discover to live in so beggarly a manner as most of us do! As,

[i.] To live so much by sense, and so little by faith; it is the gospel character of believers, to live by their faith; to walk by faith and not by sense, or sight, to see him that is invisible, to venture their all upon unseen grounds and O what a noble and generous, what a brave and a blessed life is the life of faith! and on the contrary, what a sorry and a sordid, what a beggarly and niggardly life is a life of sense! such a soul goes a begging, and craves a crumb of one, a morsel of another to make a meal of, and after all the soul's appetite is hungry and craving, and at the best, how quickly are such things gone! Alas, sirs, objects of sense will not carry you through the world; sense will sink with Peter where it cannot feel a bottom; it is faith only that will lift the head above water, and the heart above terror, when you must pass through a sea of sorrows in this tumultuous world. Christians, where is you faith? you are distinguished from others by this precious grace: the want of this undoeth us: hence it is,

[ii.] That God's children are so often at a loss, and

• Eccles. v. 18, 19.

+ Ps. xvi. 5.

Hab. ii. 4. Rom. i. 17 2 Cor. v. 7. Heb. xi.

know not what to do; no wonder if they be at their wits' end, when they are at their faith's end. Many circumstances, yea, any affliction will throw a saint upon his back when he stands not upon the feet of faith, or leans not upon Christ by faith. This is the reason why in temptation we cry out, God hath cast me off for ever, and he will be favourable no more; and we give up the buckler, and yield to Satan's assaults and demands, which make us become our enemies' sport; yea, any little loss or cross dismays us, as though we were undone, or as though, with poor Jacob once, our life were bound up in a lad, or bag, or such like things. Ah, dear sirs, where is your delight in God?* where is your encouraging yourselves in God? where is your rejoicing in the Lord with Habakkuk, when a cloud or curtain hath covered all your worldly enjoyments? why do you not oppose one God to all the armies of evils that beset you round? why do you not take the more content in God, when you have the less of the creature to take content in ? why do you not boast in your God? and bear up yourselves big with your hopes in God and expectations from him? do you not see young heirs to great estates, act and spend accordingly? and why shall you, being the King of heaven's sons, be lean and ragged from day to day, as though you were not worth a groat? O sirs, live upon your portion, chide yourselves for living below what you have; there are great and precious promises, rich enriching mercies; you may make use of God's all-sufficiency, you can blame none but yourselves if you be defective or discouraged. A woman truly godly for the main, having buried a child, and sitting alone in sadness, did yet cheer up her heart with this expression-God lives; and having parted Hab. iii. 17, 18.

Psalm xxxvii. 4.

+1 Sam. xxx. 6.

with another, still she repeated-Comforts die, but God lives; at last her dear husband dies, and she sat oppressed and almost overwhelmed with sorrow, a little child she had yet surviving, having observed what before she spoke to comfort herself, comes to her and saith," Is God dead? Mother, is God dead ?" this reached her heart, and by God's blessing she recovered her former confidence in her God, who is a living God. Thus do you chide yourselves-ask your fainting spirits under pressing, outward sorrows, does not God live? and why then doth not thy soul revive? why doth thy heart die within thee when comforts die? cannot a living God support thy dying hopes? thus, Christians, argue down your discouraged and disquieted spirits, as David did.-Psalm xlii. 5. But so much for that.

(4.) As Christians do not live upon, so they do not live conformably to these sure mercies of David, and that, in their frequently walking so

Unholily, unsteadily, uncomfortably and unfruitfully. [i.] Many of God's children walk unholily, unspiritually, untenderly, not with that conscientiousness, exactness, and closeness they ought to do. If God's children lived up to their mercies and privileges, O how holy would they be, seeing that these things shall be dissolved, and seeing we look for such things as we do; nay, since we see and feel such things mystically already, even a new heaven, and new earth, after a sort, in this new covenant dispensation, "what manner of persons ought we to be? and O how diligent should we be that we may be found of Christ in peace, without spot and blameless!" 2 Pet. iii. 11-14. But O Christians, how far we come short, yea, how inconsistent are our lives with our privileges! how incongruous are our duties to our mercies! yea, how different are

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