Nay let me argue from the manner of men, as the Prophet doth, Mal. i. 8, “Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?” Will thy governor, nay, thy neighbour, who is as thou art, alter an injury done to him, be pleased with thee, if thou do but leave off to do him any more such injuries? Will he not expect an acknowledgment of the wrong done? Is it not Christ's rule (Luke xvii. 4) that he who seven times trespasseth against his brother, seven times turn again, saying, I repent? David would hardly trust Ittai to go up and down with him, who was but a stranger (2 Sam. xv. 19), how much more if he had done him some great wrong, and then refused to confess it? And how shall we think that it can stand with the honour of the most high God, that we seem [pg 6-012] to draw near unto him, and to walk in his ways, while, in the meantime, we do not acknowledge our iniquity, and even accuse, shame, judge, and condemn ourselves? Nay, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked,” Gal. vi. 7.
This is the first necessity of the duty which this text holdeth forth. The Lord requireth of us not only to do his will for the future, but to be ashamed for what we have done amiss before.
The other necessity of it, which is also in the text, is this: That except we be thus ashamed and humbled, God hath not promised to show us the pattern of his house, nor to reveal his will unto us; which agreeth well with that, Psal. xxv. 9, “The meek will he teach his way;” and ver. 12, “What man is he that feareth the Lord? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose;” and ver. 14, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.” There is sanctification in the affections, and here is humiliation in the affections, spoken of as necessary means of attaining the knowledge of the will of God. Let the affections be ordered aright, then light which is offered shall be seen and received; but let light be offered when disordered affections do overcloud the eye of the mind, then all is in vain.
In this case a man shall be like “the deaf adder” (Psal. lviii. 4, 5,) which will not be taken by the voice of the charmers, “charming never so wisely.” Let the helm of reason be stirred as well as you can imagine, if there be a contrary wind in the sails of the affections, the ship will not answer to the helm. It is a good argument: He is a wicked man, a covetous man, a proud man, a carnal man, an unhumbled man; therefore he will readily miscarry in his judgment. So divines have argued against the Pope's infallibility! The Pope hath been, and may be a profane man; therefore he may err in his judgment and decrees. And what wonder that they who receive not the love of the truth be given over to “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie?” 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10. It is as good an argument: He is a humbled man, and a man that feareth God; therefore, in so far as he acteth and exerciseth those graces, the Lord shall teach him in the way that he shall choose. I say, in so far as he acteth those graces,—because when he grieves the Spirit, and cherisheth [pg 6-013] the flesh, when the child of God is more swayed by his corruptions than by his graces, then he is in great danger to be given up to the counsel of his own heart, and to be deserted by the Holy Ghost, which should lead him “into all truth,” John xvi. 13.
But we must take notice of a seeming contradiction here in the text. God saith to the Prophet in the former verse, “Show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities;” and, Jer. xxxi. 19, Ephraim is first instructed, then ashamed. And here it is quite turned over in my text; if they be ashamed show them the house.
I shall not here make any digression unto the debates and distinctions of schoolmen, what influence and power the affections have upon the understanding and the will; I will content myself with this plain answer: Those two might very well stand together,—light is a help to humiliation, and humiliation a help to light. As there must be some work of faith, and some apprehension of the love of God, in order before true evangelical repentance, yet this repentance helpeth us to believe more firmly that our sins are forgiven. The soul, in the pains of the new birth, is like Tamar travailing of her twins, Pharez and Zarah (Gen. xxxviii. 28-30): faith, like Zarah, first putting out his hand, but hath no strength to come forth, therefore draweth back the hand again, till repentance, like Pharez, have broken forth,—then can faith come forth more easily. Which appeareth in that woman, Luke vii. 47, 48: she wept much, because she loved much; she loved much, because she believed; and by faith had her heart enlarged with apprehending the rich grace and free love of Christ to poor sinners: this faith moves her bowels, melts her heart, stirs her sorrow, kindles her affection. Then, and not till then, she gets a prop to her faith, and a sure ground to build upon. It is not till she have wept much that Christ intimates mercy, and saith, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Just so is the case in this text: Show them the house, saith the Lord, that they may be ashamed; give them a view of it, that they may think the worse of themselves, that they want it, that they may be ashamed for all their iniquities, whereby they have separate betwixt their God and themselves, so that they cannot “behold the beauty of the Lord,” nor “inquire in his [pg 6-014] temple,” Psal. xxvii. 4; and if, when they begin to see it, they have such thoughts as these, and humble themselves, and acknowledge their iniquities, then go to and show them the whole fabric, and structure, and all the gates thereof, and all the parts thereof, and all things pertaining thereto.
I suppose I have said enough for confirmation and clearing of the doctrine concerning the necessity of our being ashamed and confounded before the Lord. I have now a fourfold application to draw from it.
The first application shall be to the malignant enemies of the cause and people of God at this time, who deserve Jeremiah's black mark to be put upon them: “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they wore not at all ashamed, neither could they blush,” Jer. vi. 15; viii. 12. When he would say the worst of them, this is it: “Thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed,” Jer. iii. 3. There are some sons of Belial risen up against us, who have done some things whereof, I dare say, many heathens would have been ashamed; yet they are as far from being ashamed of their outrages as Caligula was, who said of himself, that he loved nothing better in his own nature than that he could not be ashamed: nay, their glory is their shame, Phil. iii. 19; and if the Lord do not open their eyes to see their shame, their end will be destruction. Is it a light matter to swear and blaspheme, to coin and spread lies, to devise calumnies, to break treaties, to contrive treacherous plots, to exercise so many barbarous cruelties, to shed so much blood, and, as if that were too little, to bury men quick? Is all this no matter of shame? And when they have so often professed to be for the true Protestant religion, shall they not be ashamed to thirst so much after Protestant blood, and in that cause desire to associate themselves with all the Papists at home and abroad whose assistance they can have, and particularly with those matchless monsters (they call them subjects) of Ireland, who, if the computation fail not, have shed the blood of some hundred thousands in that kingdom? For our part, it seems they are resolved to give the worst name to the best thing which we can do, and therefore they have not been ashamed to call a religious and loyal covenant a traitorous and damnable covenant. I have no pleasure to take up these and other dunghills, the text hath [pg 6-015] put this in my mouth which I have said. O that they could recover themselves out of the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity, Acts viii. 23; O that we could hear that they begin to be ashamed of their abominations, “Lord, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people,” Isa. xxvi. 11; the Lord “shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed,” lxvi. 5.
But now, in the second place, let me speak to the kingdom, and to you whom it concerneth this day to be humbled, both for your own sins and for the sins of the kingdom which you represent. Although yourselves, whom God hath placed in this honourable station, and the kingdom which God hath blessed with many choice blessings, be much and worthily honoured among the children of men, yet when you have to do with God, and with that wherein his great name and his glory is concerned, you must not think of honouring, but rather abashing yourselves, and creeping low in the dust. Livy tells us,[1376] that when M. Claudius Marcellus would have dedicate a temple to Honour and Virtue, the priests hindered it, quod utri deo res divina fieret, sciri non posset, because so it could not be known to which of the two gods he should offer sacrifice. Far be it from any of you to suffer the will of God and your own credit to come in competition together, or to put back any point of truth, because it may seem, peradventure, some way to wound your reputation, though, when all is well examined, it shall be found your glory.
You are now about the casting out of many corruptions in the government of the church and worship of God. Remember, therefore, it is not enough to cleanse the house of the Lord, but you must be humbled for your former defilements wherewith it was polluted. It is not enough that England say with Ephraim in one place, “What have I to do any more with idols?” Hos. xiv. 8. England must say also with Ephraim in another place, “Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth,” Jer. xxxi. 19. Let England sit down in the dust, and wallow itself in ashes, and cry out as the lepers did (Lev. xiii. 45), “Unclean, [pg 6-016] unclean,” and then rise up and cast away the least superstitious ceremony “as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence,” Isa. xxx. 22. I know that those who are not convinced of the intrinsical evil and unlawfulness of former corruptions may, upon other considerations, go along and join in this reformation; for according to Augustine's rule,[1377] men are to let go those ecclesiastical customs which neither Scriptures nor councils bind upon us, nor yet are universally received by all churches. And according to Ambrose's rule to Valentinian, epist. 31, Nullus pudor est ad meliora transive,—it is no shame to change that which is not so good for that which is better. So doth Arnobius[1378] answer the pagans, who objected the novelty of the Christian religion: You should not look so much (saith he) quid reliquerimus as quid secuti simus; be rather satisfied with the good which we follow, than to quarrel why we have changed our former practise. He giveth instance, that when men found the art of weaving clothes, they did no longer clothe themselves in skins; and when they learned to build houses, they left off to dwell in rocks and caves. All this carrieth reason with it, for optimum est eligendum. If all this satisfy not, it may be Nazianzen's rule[1379] will move some man: When there was a great stir about his archbishopric of Constantinople, he yielded for peace; because this storm was raised for his sake, he wished to be cast into the sea. He often professeth that he did not affect riches, nor dignities, [pg 6-017] but rather to be freed of his bishopric. We are like to listen long before we hear such expressions either from archbishop or bishop in England, who seem not to care much who sink, so that themselves swim above. Yet I shall name one rule more, which I shall take from the confessions of two English prelates. One[1380] of them hath this contemplation upon Hezekiah's taking away the brazen serpent, when he perceived it to be superstitiously abused: “Superstitious use (saith he) can mar the very institutions of God, how much more the most wise and well-grounded devices of men?” Another[1381] of them acknowledged that whatsoever is taken up at the injunction of men, and is not of God's own prescribing, when it is drawn to superstition, cometh under the case of the brazen serpent. You may easily make the assumption, and then the conclusion, concerning those ceremonies which are not God's institutions but men's devices, and have been grossly and notoriously abused by many to superstition.