Use 1 FRom all that hath been said, I would draw three great Uses.1
First, Such as are still in their natural estate, who never yet did relish any sweetness in the things of God; let me beseech them in the bowels of Christ, that they would labour to get these Characters of the Godly, engraven upon their hearts; though godliness be the object of the worlds scorn and hated (as in Tertullians daies, the name of a Christian was a2 crime) yet be not ashamed to espouse godliness; know, that persecuted godliness, is better than prosperous wickedness; what will all the world avail a man, without godliness? To be learned and ungodly, is like a Devil transformed into an Angel of light; to be beautiful and ungodly, is like a fair picture hung in an infected room; to be honourable in the world and ungodly, is like an Ape in purple, or like that Image, which had an head of gold upon feet of clay; ‘tis godliness, (Dan. 2. 33) that en-nobles and consecrates the heart, making God and Angels fall in love with it.
Labour for the reality of godliness, rest not in the common workings of Gods spirit; (Col. 1. 6) think not that it is enough to be intelligent and discurive, a man may discourse of Religion to the admiration of others, yet not feel the sweetness of those things in his own Soul: the Lute gives a melodious sound to others, but is not at all sensible of the sound it self; Iudas could make an elegant discourse of Christ, but did not feel vertue from him.
Rest not in having your affections a little stirred; an hypocrite may have affections of sorrow, as Ahab; affections of desire, as Balaam, these are sleight and flashy, and do not amount to real godliness. Oh I labour to be as the Kings daughter, glorious within, Psa. 45. 13.
That I may perswade the sons of men to become godly, I shall lay down some forcible Motives and Arguments, and the Lord make them as nails fastened by his spirit.
Motive. 1 Let men seriously weigh their misery, while they remain in a state of ungodliness; which may make them hasten out of this Sodome: the misery of ungodly men appears in nine particulars.
1 They are in a state of death, Eph. 2. 1. dead in3 Trespasses: dead they must needs be, who are cut off from Christ, the principle of life; for as the body without the soul is dead, so is the soul without Christ. This spiritual death is visible in the effect, it bereaves men of their senses: sinners have no sense of God in them, Ephe. 4. 19. who being without feeling: all their moral endowments, are but strewing flowers upon a dead corpse; and what is hell, but a sepulchre to bury the dead in.
2 Their offerings are polluted; not only the (Pro. 21. 4) Ploughing, but the praying of the wicked is sin, Prov. 15. 8. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: If the water be foul in the well, it cannot be clean in the bucket; if the heart be full of sin, the duties cannot be pure: In what a strait is every ungodly person, if he doth not come to the Ordinance, he is a contemner of it, if he doth come, hee is a defiler of it.
- Such as live and die ungodly, have no right to the Covenant of Grace, Eph. 2. 12. At that time ye were without Christ, […], strangers from the Covenants of Promise. And to be without Covenant, is to be like one in the old World, without an Ark. The Covenant is the Gospel-Charter, which is enriched with many glorious priviledges, but who may plead the benefit of this Covenant? Surely only such whose hearts are in-laid with grace. Read the Charter, Ezek. 36. 26. A new heart will I give you, and I will put my spirit within you: Then it follows, ver. 28. I will be your God. A person dying in his ungodliness, hath no more to do with the New Covenant, than a Ploughman hath to do with the priviledges of a Corporation.
Gods Writing is always before his Seal, 2 Cor. 3. 3. Ye are declared to be the Epistle of Christ, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in Tables of stone, but in fleshy Tables of the heart. Here is a golden Epistle, the writing is the work of Faith, the Table it is written in, is the heart, the finger that writes it is the spirit: Now, after the Spirits writing, follows the Spirits sealing, Ephes. 1. 13. After ye believed ye were sealed with the Spirit; that is, ye were sealed up to an assurance of glory: What have ungodly men to do with the seal of the Covenant, who have not the writing?