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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47301	The measures of Christian obedience, or, A discourse shewing what obedience is indispensably necessary to a regenerate state, and what defects are consistent with it, for the promotion of piety, and the peace of troubled consciences by John Kettlewell ...	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1681 (1681)	Wing K372; ESTC R18916	498,267	755

in reprehending and exposing the faults of others is most usual among our selves Nothing being more common in our ordinary Discourse than when we would be sharp in reproving and inveighing against any thing by a most courteous Fiction to put it in our own Case and to suppose that we our selves should do this or that Whenas in the mean time we are no further concerned in it than to be able under this disguise with more success and less offence to disparage and chastise it And this way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them which is so usual with all the world and with S t Paul in other Cases is particularly used by him in his Character of the ineffective Striver in this seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans He speaks not those things above recited of willing but not performing c. in his own person or in the person of any regenerated man as will plainly appear from this reason Because in that Chapter such things are said of the person there spoken of as can by no means agree to S t Paul or to any regenerate person so that the Apostle must be made to falsifie if he should be understood to speak so of them Such things I say are there spoken as can by no means agree to S t Paul himself For we read Of the person there spoken of That he lived and was alive without the Law of the ten Commandments once ver 7.9 That the Law of his members wars against the Law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the Law of sin which is seated and rules in his members ver 23. That how to do or perform what is good he finds not ver 18. That sin works in him all manner of lust or concupiscence ver 8. That he is captivated and conquered and as a vanquished Slave sold under sin ver 14.23 That he sinned against his Conscience For what I do says he in my practice that I allow not in my mind or Conscience but what I hate and disapprove that I do ver 15.19 That he is in a state of death For sin revived and he died vers 9. and by deceiving him it had slain him v. 11. The good law he had found to be unto him the occasion of death by his falling into that disobedience whereto it had threatned it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were not and could not be restrained by the law wrought in his members to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. Of Saint Paul himself elsewhere That he was both born and bred up under the Law being circumcised the eighth Day of the Stock of Israel an Hebrew of the Hebrews or an Hebrew both by his Fathers and his Mothers side Phil. 3.5 That he keeps under his Body and is not led captive by it but on the contrary brings it into subjection and captivity 1 Cor. 9.27 That he can do all things which are good through Christ that strengthens him Phil. 4.13 That it works none but that instead of lusting and coveting worldly things the world is crucified to him and he unto the world Gal. 6.14 That he has fought a good fight against it 2 Tim. 4.7 And that by the Grace of God through Christ he is delivered from it Rom. 7.25 That he knew or was conscious of nothing by himself 1 Cor. 4.4 but that he trusted he had a good Conscience and that in all things being willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 Acts 23.1 For this had all along been his care he hahaving made it his business and exercised himself to have not now and then but alwayes a conscience void of offence or not wounded and smitten with the sense of any offences either towards God or men Acts 24.16 That the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 That he has finished his course to his advantage so as there is laid up for him not a painfull death as the punishment of his disobedience but a Crown of Glory as a reward of his righteousness which the righteous judge will give him at the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 If therefore we will believe S t Paul and let those accounts which he gives of himself explain his own meaning he cannot be that very person who is there spoken of For they are persons altogether of a different stamp and a contrary character they are as opposite as a servant of God and a slave of sin as a spiritual and a carnal man as one whose conscience approves and another whose conscience condemns him as a child of God and a child of darkness as an heir of Heaven and a subject of Hell So that he cannot speak of himself in that seventh Chapter and in the other places too because then he would appear inconsistent with himself and be found false in his own story And therefore as sure as S t Paul is true he sayes all that is spoken there in an inoffensive disguise not intending to give a character of his own person but to personate another man Nay I add further that the person whom he represents in that Chapter is not only another from himself but also one of a quite opposite and contrary character He is not only no Apostle but even no good Christian or regenerate man For such things are there said of him as if S t Paul and the other Apostles say true are inconsistent with a regenerate state and destructive of salvation As will plainly appear by considering those things which are said Of the person described there That with his flesh or fleshly members he obeys the law of sin vers 25. And this he is forced to do and cannot help it For the law of his members wars against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and death ver 23. He is as absolutely enslaved to it as ever any servant was to his master who was sold in the market For says he I am carnal and sold under sin vers 14. That sin works or accomplishes and brings on to outward act and perfection in him all manner of concupiscence vers 8. For taking occasion by the nakedness of the tenth Commandment whereto no punishment was expresly threatned it deceived him into the customary commission of it by that wile and thereby slew him vers 11. That the law he found to be unto death in discerning himself to be fallen under the curse and condemnation of it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were incouraged and emboldened by means of the fancied impunity of the law wrought in his members which are the seat of their Empire so far as to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. That in his flesh dwells no good thing vers 18. For sin dwells and inhabits in him vers 17. and that so as to rule and govern

so neither are they to be conquered by one action but by many And since the process in Repentance even from one single Sin is so long and tedious ere it has arrived to a saving pitch and so difficult to a healthy man who has nothing to trouble and distract him what must an universal reformation be to a dying person whose time is short and much disturbed who cannot repeat many resolutions nor make a tryal of the force and power of any one and who is most likely to be weak and languid in all those good purposes which he makes by reason that his thoughts are heavy and his attention broken and all his faculties are oppressed with pain and become weary and unactive through a wasting Disease Surely if the first resolutions of healthy Men are generally so ineffective and insufficient these purposes of dying Penitents which in all advantages for a strong and prevailing resolution fall much below them must needs be generally of this ineffective sort too And when they are so they stand us in no stead in Gods account but are utterly unavailable to any mans Salvation A man who only purposeth but doth not practise who barely wills but is not able to perform is in the way to life indeed but he is far from having yet attained to it He is still in a sad case and under a damning Sentence For he is as S t Paul says in that seventh Chapter to the Romans where he describes him slain by Sin vers 11. It works death in him vers 13. he is yet under as the Law of Sin so the body of Death too vers 24. But the change of mind which God requires of us is such as works a change of practice If he sees it sufficient to effect that he accepts it indeed before the effect follows he takes the will for the deed when he sees the will is so strong as that upon any fit occasion it would produce it and upon this account he accepted the dying Thief Luk. 23.42 But if it be only an impotent and ineffective will and he discerns plainly that no obedient works would follow it it is no such will as he rewards and for such Penitents he will by no means absolve but utterly condemn them And since the change of mind and penitential purposes of dying persons even when they are upon genuine and lasting grounds so as in the following parts of a mans life if God should please to spare him they would do something would yet be weak and insufficient and so unable to do enough here is still a further reason of the ordinary insufficiency of such Repentance and why those dying men will not ordinarily be saved by it but perish notwithstanding it To conclude this point then we see that 't is possible for such New-birth to save a Man as has not yet produced a New practice and for dying Penitents to be accepted upon a change of mind without a like change of life and actions This I say is possible it sometimes is and sometimes has been done but this indeed is very rare and very seldom so that no Man in his sober wits who has time before him will dare to trust to it And the sum of all is this That to men who are so unhappy as to be brought into it it has as is expressed in Salvians determination just so much hope as may excite a good endeavour but to men who are yet out of it it is altogether so desperate as utterly to discourage all delay CHAP. IV. Of Pardon promised to Confession of Sins and to Conversion The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to Confession of Sins The nature and qualifications of a Saving Confession It s fitness to make us forsake Sin The ineffectiveness of most mens Confessions The folly and impiety of it Pardon promised to Confession no further than it produces Obedience Of Pardon promised to Conversion The nature of Conversion It includes Obedience and is but another name for it FOurthly That condition of Life and Pardon which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and whereupon at the last day Christ will accept and reward us is sometimes called Confession of our Sins to God When we acknowledge them God will be sure to pardon them he has engaged his word and faithfulness for it and so cannot recede from it If we confess our Sins says S t John God is just and FAITHFVL to forgive us our Sins 1 Joh. 1.9 Now as for this Confession of our Sins whereupon God promises mercifully to forgive them it is not a bare naming of them or giving in an Historical Catalogue of them to Almighty God that he may know them and be informed of them No he sees all our thoughts afar off and our actions long before We cannot inform him when we lay open our transgressions before him for we could never find any place wherein to act them so retired but it was under his eye nor any time and circumstances so secret as to escape his knowledge So that our Confession cannot be to instruct him but only to shame and to humble and to work other effects in our own selves And therefore it must not be a bare recital of such offences as we have committed but an acknowledgment duly qualified and accompanied with such tempers of mind as will lead us on to forsake and amend them It is a Confessing of them with shame with an humble debasement and sense of our unworthiness who could ever be so vile as to be guilty of them And such was Ezra's Confession Ezra 9. O my God saith he I am ASHAMED and blush to lift up my face to thee my God for our iniquities are encreased over our head and our trespasses are grown up unto the Heavens vers 6. It is an acknowledgment of them with hatred and detestation as things that are utterly odious and loathsome to us which therefore we are prone to fly from as from what is most offensive And such is that Confession whereunto God directs the Jews by his Prophet Ezekiel Ye shall remember your ways saith he and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled and ye shall LOATH your selves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed Ezekiel 20.43 It is a recital of them with sorrow of mind and a troubled heart with such pain as we use to feel in those things which most afflict us which therefore we are forward to avoid as what creates the greatest torment And such was that of S t Peter who when he remembred and made mention of his Sin to God wept saith the Text bitterly Matt. 26.75 And of David who tells us in the 38. Psalm that when he declares to God his iniquity he will be SORRY for his Sin vers 18. It is a Confession of them with a resolution upon all this shame and sorrow which we have undergone for them never more to be reconciled to them or to act them over again and

and pains in fixing of our thoughts and raising of our desires through some bodily indisposition or unforeseen accidents which we cannot help our minds run sometimes still astray and our desires are cold and languid this unwill'd dulness and distraction shall not influence our main state it is a thing which we cannot help and no man living is perfectly free from it and therefore God will not be severe upon it but in great mercy he will pity and connive at it For as for the attention of our minds and the fixedness of our thoughts either in prayer or in any other business it is a thing which is not always in our own power but may be hindred and interrupted by many accidents whether we will or no. For any thing that makes our bodily spirits tumultuary and restless renders our attention small and interrupted Any high motion of our blood any former impression upon our spirits either by our precedent studies or our crowd of business will make great variety of thoughts and roving fancies obtrude themselves upon us and this is our natural frame and constitution which we must submit to and cannot remedy We can no more prevent it than we can prevent our dreams but our fancies will be struck and diverting thoughts will be thrown into us whether we will or no. For from the natural union of our souls and bodies our minds in their most spiritual operations of thinking and understanding go along with our bodily spirits and apprehend after their impressions and we can as well refuse to see when our eyes are open or to taste what is put into our mouths as we can refuse to have a thought of those things which are impressed upon our bodily fancy or imagination The connexion betwixt these is necessary and natural and there is no breaking or avoiding it So that let us be either at our prayers or at any other exercise if any temper of our bodies any accidental motion of our blood any former impressions of foregoing studies or other business stir in our fancies our thoughts must needs be diverted and our attention disturbed by them Nay in our prayers we are more apt to find it thus than in any other thing For there men oft-times use violence and screw up the fixedness of their minds and the fervency of their hearts to the highest pitch and then their bodily spirits being overstrained are liable not only to be discomposed by outward accidents but also to give back and fall of themselves and when in this manner they withdraw there is room made till they can be again recollected for other thoughts to arise instead of them All this I say happens from the very nature and frame of our bodies and from that dependance which our minds and thoughts themselves have upon them so that we cannot prevent or overcome it wholly We may and ought indeed to strive against these distractions as much as we can and to compose our thoughts as much as our natural temper or our present circumstances will suffer us when they wander in our prayers as soon as we discern it we may recollect them and when other thoughts intrude as soon as they are observed we may reject them but then this is all that we can do or that God requires we should do for we cannot pray perfectly and continuedly without them And then as for the zeal and fervency of our affections whether in our prayers or in any thing else they are fickle and very changeable and do not depend so much upon the choice of our wills as upon the temper of our bodies Some upon every occasion are more warm and eager in their passions either of love or hatred hopes or fears joy or sorrow than other men either are or can be For there is a difference in tempers as well as in palates and mens passions do no more issue out upon the same things in the same eagerness than their stomachs do after the same food with the same degrees of appetite So that as for a great fervency and a vehement affection every man cannot work himself up to it because all tempers do not admit of it For zeal and affectionateness in Devotion as in other things is more a mans temper than his choice and therefore it is not to be expected that all people should be able to raise themselves up to a transporting pitch in it but only that they should who are born to it Nay even they whose natural temper fits them for a great fervency and a high affection are not able to work themselves up to it at all times For no mans temper is constant and unchangeable seeing our very bodies are subject to a thousand alterations either from things within or from others that are without us If a mans blood is put into an irregular ferment either by a cold air or an inward distemper or any discomposing accident it spoils not only the fixedness of his thoughts but the zeal of his affections likewise Let there be any damp or disorder any dulness or indisposition either upon a mans blood or spirits and the discomposure of his body is presently felt in his soul for his thoughts flag and his passions run low and all his powers are under a cloud and suffer an abatement And this every man finds in himself when he labours under a sickly and crazy temper an aking head or any other bodily indisposition For our passions are bodily powers and are performed altogether by bodily instruments they live and dye with them and are subject to all their coolings and abatements their changes and alterations And therefore as long as our bodily tempers and dispositions alter and by reason of a number of accidents whether from without or from within themselves are still changeable and unconstant the zeal and fervency of our affections must needs be so too Thus is some distraction of mind and chilness of affection either in our prayers or in pursuit of any other thing most necessarily incident to all men We cannot wholly prevent them or live altogether free from them but sometimes they will break in and seize upon us do what we can And since we cannot help them God will not be always angry or eternally torment us for them No he knows that we are flesh and blood and his love and favour to us doth not alter as our unsetled thoughts or bodily tempers do He measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or by the fervency of our affections which are not always in our own power but by our wills and actions which are So that if we are careful to will and chuse what is pleasing to him and from our hearts entirely to obey him we need not doubt but that whatever involuntary distractions there may be sometimes in our thoughts or abatements in our bodily tempers whilst we are at our prayers we shall still be accepted by him We shall be accepted I say and the blessings