judicatories be, if all the
members were children of light! What glory would there be, if all of them
did shine and enlightened one another! But what beauty or comeliness, what
majesty can be in rulers or judicatures, when the image of God is not in
them! This is also the spot of assemblies, synods, presbyteries, that
there are few godly ministers. Alas, that this complaint should be, even
among those whose office it is to beget many children to God! How few of
them are begotten, or have the image of their Father! And thus church
assemblies have no beauty, such as the courts of Jesus Christ should have.
O that we were in love with Christianity and grace; that it were our grand
question, how shall I be put among the children? The Lord seems to wonder
at it, and make a question of it, How can such as we be put among the
children? Jer. iii. 19. But he answers it himself, "Thou shalt call me, My
Father, and shall not turn away from me." There is no more to do, but to
take with(273) your wanderings and wrongs done to God, embrace him in
Jesus Christ, and he becomes your Father; and if ye be children, sure ye
will resolve to abide in your Father's house, and turn no more to a
present world, or your former lusts.

They are a "perverse and crooked generation." What pleasure hath the Lord
in speaking thus, when he upbraids none? Certainly, in a manner it is
drawn out of him. Would he object our faults, if we did not defend them by
obstinacy? Perverseness and crookedness is obstinacy and incorrigibleness
against mercies and judgments,--"that that which is crooked cannot be made
straight," saith Solomon. Then doth the Lord take notice of sins, when men
refuse to return, and so maintain their sins. It is this which heightens
provocations, and makes out the controversy,--perverseness in sin. It is
not ordinary common infirmities that the Lord punisheth, either in a land
or person; but when infirmities are discovered by the light of the word,
when the Lord useth means to reclaim men in his providence, and yet no
means prevail, then are they reckoned perverse. Now, perverseness is not
the spot of his children: the child of God daily bows and folds to him,
receives challenges from him, takes with iniquity and yields unto God. O
that this title might not be written above the head of this generation
deservedly--"This is a perverse and crooked generation!"

Sermon V.

Psal. lxxiii. 28.--"But it is good for me to draw near to