to rectifie this errour the way is not wholly to reject all use of such evidences but to order them c. We are justified in Christs Justification when he rose Pag. 202. Christ his Resurrection was the original act of Gods justifying us in Christ we were virtually justified then in Christ his being justified as in a common person God remembers not our sins P. 207. As by reason of his Intercession God remembers not old sins so likewise he is not provoked by new The Law as given by Moses no Rule to Christians Mr. Bolton in his Book of the true bounds of Christian freedom P. 74. OThers say we are freed from the Law as given by Moses and are onely tied to the obedience of it as given by Christ and as Christ renews it and as it comes out of the hand and from the authority of Christ and we have it immediatly from the hands of Christ I shall not much dislike this c. Beleevers and God are never at enmity P. 14. As none of our sins shall condemn us so none of our sins shall put us into a state of â—ondemnation more none of our sins shall ever put us under the curse under wrath again God doth not punish Beleevers for sin P. 14. We are freed from all miseries afflictions punishments which yet are the fruits of sin as they may be conceived to be fruits of wrath or have wrath in them Faith before Justification is no Grace Mr. Rogers on the Articles Art 13. P. 57. WOrks done before Justification please not God before men do please nothing that they do can please him hereby the vanity of them is perceived who think before mans justification his deeds do please God Note What is faith then to be accounted before Justification according to this principle God is never an enemy to his though sinning Mr. Herbert Palmer in his Charact. of a Christian in Paradox c. P. 10. HE beleeves the God that hates all sin to be reconciled to himself though sinning continually and never making nor being able to make him satisfaction We are justified though ungodly P. 11. He beleeves the most just God c. To have justified himself though a most ungodly sinner We are not saved by any thing we do P. 58. He knows he shall not be saved by his works and yet doth all the good works he can A beleever sins not P. 68. He cannot sin yet he can do nothing without sin A beleever beleeves against hope P. 74. He beleeves like Abraham in hope against hope God freely pardons P. 12. He beleeves himself freely pardoned Beleevers are pure in Gods sight P. 13. He beleeves himself to be pretious in Gods sight Christ promised to sinners as sinners Master Tho. Goodwin in his Book of Christ set forth P. 30. THere are absolute promises made to no conditions as when Christ is said to come to save sinners c. Now in these it is plain Christ is the naked object of them so that if you apply not him you apply nothing for the onely thing held forth in them is Christ We are justified in Christs justification P. 122. Even so it is in the matter of our justification it was done virtually in Christ and afterwards when we beleeve it is actually passed in and upon our selves So by Christs being justified we are all virtually justified and in Law through a secret yet irrepealable Covenant between God and Christ who onely did then know who were his A Beleevers Law is Christ and his Spirit Mr. Perkins in his Comment on the Gal. P. 128. THey which are true Beleevers are a free and voluntary people obeying God as if there were no law to compel them they have Christ to live in them the Spirit of life that is in Christ is in them and that is their Law It is the property of a childe of God to obey God as it is the nature and quality of the fire to burn c. Thus in the quoting or citing these Divines concerning some pretious truths of Christ I have done as Paul said to the Athenians when he would prove a God As certain also of your own Poets have said So the truths which are abroad mistaken by many are truths as also some of your own Divines have said FINIS
from healing too soon that they may make the cure the more admired do accordingly keep such souls with their wounds open and if they powre in any thing it is rather Wine then Oyl rather something of the Law then the Gospel so as they are not onely long in healing and getting peace through Jesus Christ But they carry a scar with them still and are as it were lame in their consciences a long time after like some poor Patients that have had as much of the sound flesh cut a way as the rotten and so have been healed though but to a bodily infirmity all their life time All this is for want of the knowledge of the Spirit of Adoption being in such a soul and the spirits workings in the clear apprehensions of Christ as it is not enough to enlighten the world that there is a Sun but there must be a clear body of Air for this Sun to shine through and of the application of Gospel-promises of perswading to faith and beleeving in Jesus Christ for the pardon of sin which settle and assure and establish a soul more and the light that comes in through such Gospel-applications and power will exceedingly melt a soul and wound a soul But they are the woundings and meltings of love and the Spirit of Adoption not of fear and bondage but of power love and of a sound minds Mary wept and washed Christs feet Peter wept bitterly not in fear but in love witnesse her Box of Oyntment Peters profession Lord thou knowest I love thee The passions which this Gospel-way works in the soul are such as bring inlargements and flowings and powrings out of Spirit But the passions which the Law works bring in a straightning a contraction or gathering up or narrownesse into the Spirit and therefore it is called bondage and fear V. The opening Jesus Christ in the Gospel is the best and surest way to deal with sinners I observe They that are wounded for sin and are enlightned to discern it and are so wrought on by the spirit as to feel and be sensible of it being taken into Covenant with God in Christ their stony heart taken out and yet dark in the purer conceivings of the Gospel such are ready rather to put away Gospel-promises then receive them and imagine themselvs rather in fitnesse for judgement then mercy or grace And then if Preachers run to the Law in their dealing with such souls for their thorow humiliation as they say or pretend and not to the Gospel Faith in Jesus Christ they bring fire and not water to quench them and so kindle them the more and setting the everlasting burnings of the Law before their souls put them all into a spiritual flaâ—m and vexation Nathan delt otherwise with David though under the Old Testament where there was more priviledge for the Law 2 Sam. 12.13 I have sinned saith David The Lord hath put away thy sin saith Nathan This is as Solomon saith To give strong drink to him that is ready to peâ—ish and wine unto those that be of an heavy hâ—art Prov. 13.6 If any one sin saith John we have an Advocate with the Father Christ Jesus the righteous Here is Gospel applyed to the very sin and the Physitian brought home to the sick and Jesus Christ brought to the very gates of a groaning spirit I know the Divinity of some former ages to these present times made up all their receipts for distempered souls of so much Law and so much Gospel and usually but a grane or dram of Gospel to a pound of Law not being then clear enough in judgement to unmingle things which Antichrist had confounded and put together as the two Testaments and two Covenants and not rightly discerning Christs manner or way of preaching and the Apostles both in their holding forth Law and Gospel Now we know that the Apostle saith Received ye the Spirit by the preaching of the Law or the preaching of Faith Gal. 3.2 And therefore they that would make the Law the Ministery of life and of the spirit are not of such a spiritual discerning as the Lord hath now revealed and such put a soul upon a legal method of conversion or coming to Christ First they must be kept so long under the Law for humiliation and contrition and confession and then brought to the Gospel as many Books and Teachers do when as the Law is not of any power to infuse such gracious passions into the soul as the Gospel cals for Blessed are they that mourn and they that are poor But this is not the mourning spirit under the Law nor the poor spirit under the curse of the Law for sin But the Gospel-mournings and Gospel-poverty even mournings of love like the groanings of the Turtle Cant. 2.12 If they be onely such as the Law brings forth and presses the soul into they are no better then the contritions of Esau and Judas but if they be such as the Law or Spirit of Jesus Christ or the Law of life works in the soul then they are of a more spiritual and pretious nature but this is from the Gospel and the preaching of Faith What Law did Peter preach to Cornelius or Philip to the Eunuch or Ananias to Paul or Paul to the Jaylor and his houshold but only Jesus Christ nor can you finde the Law I mean the Law in its form or Covenant preached but to those that were under the Law and pretended to stand by the Law and to set up a righteousnesse by the Law as the Pharisees and Jews c. Though in all this I esteem no lesse of the Law then any other as it was a Law for the people of God under Moses and hath something of the Image of God in it But now we are under a better Law a more excellent Law and a more spiritual Commandment Even that Law which was but a few single beams of righteousnesse even ten but a decalogue of righteousnesse yet now in the Gospel the righteousnesse of God is brought forth in more glorious and spiritual Commandments and for ten there are scores and with this righteousnesse of God the righteousnesse of Christ is brought forth which makes the condition of Gods people a blessed condition so as they stand righteous now in all their obedience to the righteousnesse of God which is the more pure transcending and excellent Law of the Commandments of the Gospel or the more perfect Rule of the righteousnesse of God in the righteousnesse of Christ so as the New Testament is both the Law and Gospel or the righteousnesse of God and Christ more excellently manifested Do we therefore make voide the Law by the preaching of Faith Yea We establish the Law Christ being the end of the Law for righteousnesse VI A further opening of the doubtings of a soul not clearly discerning the power of the Gospel I observe A soul that is not informed by a pure Gospel-light nor apprehends not clearly the
which exceeds in glory till with open face they behold as in a glasse the glory of the Lord Which glory would exceedingly force away the darknesse and clouds of ignorance fears and doubts from the soul which like smoak arises from the fire and kindling of the Law in weak beleevers We know green wood with any fire in it will set all the room on a smoak so beleevers whose spiritual Principles are but green and have any sparks of the Law and the curse for sin kindling in them will be fuller of smoak then light therefore they are called smoaking flax I will not quench the smoaking flax CHAP. III. Of the Parties falling into the same sins in some measure which they had lived in in their unregenerate estate from whence all their late bondage hath been Quest I Pray relate to me how long you continued in your back-sliding till the Lord let you see it to the terrour of your soul as you thought Answ No long time for I saw it shortly after then I had great terrours almost in a despairing way and then I questioned all my assurances and evidences of Gods love I had and promises I had received Then I went to my friend the Preacher full of terrour who desired to know the cause and I told him Then he asked me how it came to be so with me I told him through violence of temptation and natural corruption He told me the sin was not mine but so far as I consented but that could not satisfie me He asked me If God were not able to forgive it I told him I questioned not Gods ability but his will I desired some particular instances of him of any falling into the same sin again I knew the Saints of God had faln into divers great sins but not into the same He then alleadged to me that of the Prophet of back sliding Israel but because he could not clear to me that it was the same sin I was not comforted by it Many and divers promises both he and all the rest applied unto me I was sometimes refreshed yet but for a while They chid me oftentimes and said I lookt for such a measure of grace which I did not but the truth of grace in me and indeed they never told me of any promises but still there was such qualifications in them as I questioned all Quest It seems then this was your case You could not perswade your self of the truth of your light because of your returning to sin nor finde such conditions in your self upon which you could rightly as you thought apply the promises I pray let me know some particular temptations you have had if you think good Answ I was tempted to make away my self lest the longer I lived the more I should dishonour Religion Satan came again to me to eat something with pins in it to choak my self that it might not appear how I died which I did but in mercy I found no harm the Lord prevented it I know not how Many times I have been tempted by divers means to destroy my self but was still prevented by several providences I have been much tempted to keep alone The temptations I had came in alwayes most violently and furiously I could scarce hold I was not my self The Lord once when I thought to have stabbed my self sent in a wicked fellow who brought a Book and read by which I was mercifully prevented I found still in all my temptations I was prevented by some providence and upheld If in the temptation I could but get to consider once then it ended and in this course I have lived and continued most OBSERVATIONS I. The danger of placing assurance most in mortification of sin I Observe That Satan doth tempt our naturall corruption exceedingly to the same sins which have reigned most in us in the times of our unregenerate condition for by that he may the more easily draw us to unbeleef and perswade us against the love of God in Christ and to question our calling because we are naturally apt to take measure of our graces and Gods love to us first by the mortification of sin in us and dying to former lusts and if we finde that otherwise then we would we presently let go our hold upon the promises and slaken our beleeving and perswade our selves that because it is thus and thus with us and corruption quickening again we were deceived in our selves that sure the Spirit was never in us because we finde some goings back and fallings again in the same way we did at first I confesse in natural causes and things the outward working and effects do give the best assurance concerning the truth of their essence or being but that is not the onely way of spiritual assurances they are more by way of word and promise then work and operation Abraham beleeved in hope against hope Rom. 4. II. The danger of drawing our comforts most from the change in the outward man I observe That the soul naturally examines its spiritual state or condition by calling to minde former wayes and times of uncleannesse and by comparing times and seasons the latter with the former and the assurances and comforts of many are raised upon this very foundation of comparison Therefore if Satan can force them or entice them into any part of the former conversation he knows he can exceedingly puzzle and perplex them keep them long under bondage I know the Apostle sets forth the Churches state of Corinth c. by comparing times Such were some of you but ye are washed c. But this is not by way of putting true beleevers upon a method for assurance but in describing and comparing the outward state of the Church-way with what they were before And hence it is that relapsing fallings again into the same sins do bring such anguish and terrour upon such souls even almost to confusion of face nay he makes many souls by this one snare go desperatly forward to sin upon a new score or tally as if it were in vain for them to perswade themselves of Christ or the love of God but rather to sin it out in this life not considering that the Blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 and that if we sin we have an Advocate with the Father 1 Joh. 2.1 but go upon an empty and half despairing beleef for salvation like some bankrupts that having once broken ran desperately into more and more debt and finding themselves unable to discharge some they take no care for any as they who said It is vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinance Mal. 3. III. The spiritual condition in this life more in being justified from sin then cleansed from sin I observe likewise That a soul which is once brought into these entanglements of back-slidings such as have no clear Gospel-light nor understanding to undeceive unwinde themselvs fall under very sad