That Phrafe (Slow of Heart) implyes thefe 1. Slothfulneß 2. Backwardneß, or Delay. 3. Dulneß. 1. He is Slothful that useth not the Means with all his ftrength. 2. He is Slow, that ufeth the means, but is long before he falls to work: And when he is at work, is long about a little. 3. He is Dull, whofe understanding doth not eafily receive what is spoken to him. Now all thefe Three are in your Backwardneß to Beleeve. There is A neglet of the Means of Faith: The Means of Faith are; 1. First, the word: This is the word of Faith, which we preach, Rom. 10. 8. 2. The Experience which you have of Gods truth: for as we love the Lord, fo we beleeve on him, because be bears our voice. 3. The Company of Beleevers: We now Beleerve, fay they in Fobn4 39. for the faying of the Woman, &'c. 4 Some must be fent from the Lord, Rom. 10.14 15. before we can beleeve on him. Either thou doft not hear the word of Promife which is furable to thy condition: or thou art with God, as if he had been never kind: thou haft forgotten the confolations, Heb.12.5. Or Or thou dost affociate thy felf with complaining Chriftians that are never fatisfied, although God be never fo good to them. Elfe this is thy cafe. If thou doft meditate upon the word, yet it is flightly; and thou pondereft it not. And thou calleft to mind what God hath done for thee but not as an engagement for God to do for thee again. And thou keepeft company with Chriftians that are chearful, and above the amazing distracting fears of judgement, or of the enemies of their Sal vation; but yet thou doft not draw from them how they come by that confidence: Thou doft not learn of them the way whereby their hearts came fo fettled. This is most certain, beloved: That there is no work of God, but it grows exceeding eafie by the practile of the means of it: Together with the means, God gives power to whatever they are appointed unto. Elfe if thou doft use the means, thy flothfulness is yet perhaps, that thou art neglectful to use thy Faith but as the fluggard lives in the Summer time upon the things which the earth brings forth of her felf: So thou doft live upon the comforts which God gives thee out of common bounty, but thou doft not live by Fairh. This is the life of Faith, to look for all through Jefus Chrift meerly because of his word, although it be without means, and where there are means, yet the means are looked upon as altogether infufficient. I might inftance in thefe, but that I fhould hold you too long. Now as the Wheels that do not ftir, grow rufty, and require much ftrength to ftir them So the heart, that is not used to beleeving, grows unapt to beleeve. 2. But befides this fluggishness and carelesness which doth even over-run the hearts of the people of God; they lay not out themfelves to the utmost, they do not do what is to be done they ipare themselves in Prayer: and fpare themselves in Meditating and ipare themfelves in the life of Faith. There is belides that, 2ly. A flowness of heart which hinders beleeving much too: When a man is deferring or putting off from fome grounds or other for a better feafon: When the heart is in a better frame: When he is more humbled, and more affected with his own guilt: When he deli berates, and puts fo many ifs, and hath fo many fufpitions and jealoufles. That which kept the people of Ruben from going up to the Battel of the Lord, Judg.5.15,16. was the exactness of heart, as might be rendred: for they put this חקקי לב cafe, What if they fhould be worsted? What if the Battel fhould go against them? What if they fhould be Engaged, and their Friends be at a diftance? All that they could poffibly lay in their way, they did, when the Enemy was upon his March and fo they went not our. So men are fo exact about beleeving, that they do not beleeve. They put fo many cafes, that they dull their hearts. God would have a man to be wife, but yet zealous. It's enough for a man to have the Promifes of God, that if he come to him, he fhall have life, and pardon, and holiness. 3. But there is 3ly. befides that, comprehended in this flothfulness of heart, viz. A great deal of dulnefs: fo that men nuft have things fo plainly fpoken and demonftratively; as that be that runs may read whereby, both to take duties and comforts by infinuations and intimations, perfons are very dull and flow. God hath given his law and K word word to be known by deducing confequential conclufions, and one thing from another. He faid (you know) that he would be the God of Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, Matth. 22. 32. but he looked that his people from thence (knowing the Scripture) fhould deduce that their bodies fhould rife again, and not be in the earth for ever. Now I pray, when a man that is a Mafter muft speak in fo niany words to his Servant, elfe nothing fhall be done: when he will not under ftand his mind by any thing faid, unless it be fyllabically delivered: when there is no gathering, nor collecting what will pleafe him by what he hath fpoken, and expreft himself in: the Mafter hath no pleasure in fuch a Servant: he is indeed fit for no Mafter. So it's no wonder if the Lord Jefus be exceeding angry when his people are fo dull, that they must have fuch exprefs, pofitive, demonftrative difcovery of his love, elfe they will not receive it. There is a fharpnefs of Wit and parts in men by nature, by which they profit more in a little time by their Teachers, than thofe that are dull do. There is a quickness of Understanding, that men have it as foon as it's motioned, or mentioned. God would have fuch quickness of Faith in men, that as foon as they hear a Promife, or when God begins to fpeak, by and by they fhould clofe with it, and drink it in. And that is now the Second ground of Unbelief; Slowneß of Heart. 3. There is a Third, and that is Hardneß of heart: and that my text mentions, He did upbraid them because of their Unbelief, and bardneß of heart. An Unbeleeving heart, is a hard heart. There is not ftoninefs of heart in a regenerate man, but brawninefs: that is, he is not fo hard as he was, nor with that kind, but he is ftill by reafon of corruptions! in him, and fin that he runs into ftill hard. And that that discovers its felf in point of beleeving Men are apt to think if they can but weep when they do complain of fin, that their hearts are foft. Hard. nefs of heart lyes properly in not beleeving: which I will make out to you thus: The Scripture takes up expreffions of hardness, to fignifie Two Things in the Souls and Confciences of men. 1. Stubbornness, or Unyielding neß. 2. Senfeleffnest, Things that are hard, have no feeling in them. And if there were in our hearts indeed a fenfe of our need of Jefus Chrift, or a feeling of the excel. lency of the things of Jefus Chrift, it would make us to lay hold on them, and to catch at them. As the Mellenger of the King of Syria did catch at the word that fell from the Kings mourh, although it was by way of complement that he called him Brother, I King.20.32. Is my Brother Benhadad yet alive? and let him live. They therefore did catch at his words, because their life did lye at the stake, and all their welfare. Let me fpeak that which I have found by experience: You fhall fometimes meet with fome that.cry out and complain of the wrath of God, and of their own deferts of eternal punishment, that will cry out of their fins, fpeak of, and lay before them the offers of the Gospel, and they put them away ftill from them: Truly the reafon is because they know not what Hell, and the Wrath of God is; and because they have not indeed a right fight of fin. For if they did indeed know themselves to be in such danger, they would K 2 readily |