too strong for us and hurries us on whether we will or no. For in every step which the passion makes it doth still the more disturb our Spirits and thereby disable all the power of our reason and consideration So that proportionably as it encreases our consideration and together with that our choice and liberty is lessened and impaired But at the first whilst it is young and of small strength it is in the power of our own wills either to indulge it or to stop and repress it And therefore if it get ground upon us it is by our own liking because either we expresly chuse to stay upon it and thereby to feed and foment it or wilfully neglect to use that power which we have over it in curbing and straining it And when once we have of our own choice permitted it to go too far then is it got without our reach and goes on further without asking our leave whether we will or no. And herein lyes the great errour of men viz. in that they freely and deliberately consent to the first beginnings of sin and by their own voluntary yielding too far they make all that follows to be plainly necessary For the lustful man deliberately and wilfully permits his wanton fancy to sport it self with impure thoughts and lascivious imaginations till by degrees his passion gathers strength and his lusts grow so high that all his powers of reason and Religion are scattered and clouded and rendred wholly unable to subdue it The angry man freely and deliberately hearkens to exasperating suggestions and cherisheth discontents so long till at last his passion is got beyond his reach and flies out into all the unconsidered instances of rage and fury And the Case is the same in fear in envy in love and hatred and other passions Men first consent to the first steps and beginnings of a sinful lust and when they have deliberately yielded to it a little way they begin by degrees to be forced and driven by it For all progress in a vicious lust is like a motion down hill men may begin it where they please but if once they are entred they cannot stop where they please All vice stands upon a Precipice and therefore although we may stay our selves at the first setting out yet we cannot in the middle But although when once we have gone too far it be not at our own choice whether or no we shall go further yet was it in the free power of our own wills not to have gone so far as we did The entring so far into the passion was an effect of our own will and free deliberation and if this make that necessary which is done afterwards that is a necessity of our own chusing So that whatsoever our after actions are this cause of them is a matter of our own will and freely chosen And then as for the third cause of indeliberate sins viz. a custome and habit of sinning that is plainly a matter of our own free choosing For it is frequent acts that make a habit and they are all free and at our own disposal Because the necessity arises from the habit and doth not go before it so that all those actions which preceded and were the causes of it were free and undetermined Wherefore as for that indeliberateness in sinning which ariseth from an habit and custome of sin it doth not in any wise lessen or excuse a sinfull action Nay instead of that it aggravates and augments it For this is sin improved up to the height and become not so much a matter of choice as of nature And to sin thus is to sin as the Devils themselves do from a natural Spring and Principle without the help of thinking and disputing Upon which accounts as it is the most advanced state of sin so must it be of suffering likewise this state of reigning and prevailing habits of sin being as S t Paul calls it a body of death Rom. 7.23 24. All which aggravation both of sin and suffering it has because it is an aggregate and collected body of many wilfull and presumptuous sins For before men come so far they have deliberately chosen and willfully neglected to refrain from all those precedent actions which have advanced the strength of sin to that pitch and have made it to be not so much a temptation or a refusable motive as a binding Law and necessitating nature So that although those sinfull actions which flow from us after that we are come to a habit of sin are indeliberate and unchosen Yet as for our evil habit it self which is the cause of them it was produced by a combination of wilfull sins and was in all the antecedent degrees a matter of choice and deliberation And lastly as for the cause of our involuntary omissions viz. our neglect of those means which are necessary to our performance of those things which are commanded this is clearly our own fault and comes to pass only because we choose it and have a mind to it For the reason why we neglect the means is because we will not use them We have time enough wherein to deliberate and consider of them and thereby to choose and practise them but we will not use it to that purpose The means and helps to chastity to meekness to contentedness and other virtues are all before us and we have power to put them in practice if we think fitting For it is just the same for that matter with the endowments of our wills as with those of our minds and bodies We can see and consider of the means of begetting knowledge and learning in our minds and of those receits and rules which are to promote the health of our bodies and upon such consideration we not only can but ordinarily do make choice of them and put them in practice And although it happen much otherwise with those wise directions and helpfull rules that are given for the attainment of virtue which are read ordinarily only to be known but not to be practised yet is it in the choice of our own wills to make use of them if we please as well as of the other The neglect of them is a wilfull neglect for therefore we do not use them because we choose to omit them So that although when once we neglect the means it be not at our choice after that to attain the virtue yet that neglect it self was The omissions in themselves it may be are not chosen because they cannot be refused but that negligence which is the cause of their being so is plainly an effect of our own choice and deliberation Thus then it plainly appears that our sinfull commissions upon drunkenness passionateness and custome of sinning and our sinfull omissions upon our neglect of the means and instruments of virtue all which are indeliberate and unchosen in themselves were yet deliberately chosen in their causes So that all our necessity in them is a necessity of
implicite Of intention in general and of these two in particular Where an actual intention is necessary and where an habitual is sufficient to our Obedience Of the second Notion of sincerity as it notes purity of our service in opposition to mixture and corrupt alloy This Point stated viz. What intention of our good together with Gods service is consistent with an acceptable and sincere Obedience and what destroys it Integrity of our Obedience a sure mark whereby to judge whether it be sincere or no. 211 CHAP. II. Of the second qualification of al acceptable obedience viz. integrity The Contents Of the second qualification of an acceptable Obedience viz. integrity The Notion of integrity or uprightness A three fold integrity Of the integrity of our powers and faculties Or of the Obedience with our minds affections wills and bodily powers How God is to be obeyed with the first faculty our minds or understandings God is to be obeyed with the second faculty our affections This Question stated How God and his Laws which are spiritual things are proportionate Objects for our love and affections which are bodily faculties Of the difference betwixt our love of God and of the World that this is more warm and sensible that more lasting and powerful An account of what measures of Obedience in our minds and affections is necessary to the acceptance of our service That contrivances and consultations for evil things and such mere apprehensions as are particularly forbidden are deadly and damning but that all other bare apprehensions and that all our affections after good or evil things will be rewarded or punished not merely for themselves but only as they are Causes and Principles of good or evil choice and practice God to be obeyed with the third faculty our wills He cannot be served without them Men are guilty of sin if they chuse it and consent to it though they cannot act it All this service of our inward faculties is in order to our outward works and operations 240 CHAP. III. Of Obedience with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The Contents God is to be obeyed with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The great difficulty of Obedience in this instance Four false grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with their works and actions First A hope to be saved for a true belief or orthodox opinions Mens confidence in this represented The folly of it Orthodox Faith and Professions no further available than they produce obedient works and actions Secondly A hope of salvation upon an Obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes An opinion of some Casuists That a desire of Grace is Grace refuted This stated and a distinct explication of what is promised to the desire of Obedience and what to Obedience it self The pretence for this acceptance of idle desires from Gal. 5.17 considered An account when the will and desire is taken for the deed and performance That Text 2 Cor. 8.11 12. plainly vindicated Thirdly A hope of being saved notwithstanding they do sin because they are insnared into it through the strength of temptations The folly of this Our own lusts make temptations strong The Grace of the Gospel is sufficient to overcome them Fourthly A hope of being excused because they transgress with an unwilling mind These mens state represented Vnwillingness in sin a mitigation but no sufficient excuse Some strugling in most actions both of good and bad men The strife of the Flesh and Spirit Two sorts of men feel nothing of it viz. the Saints in Heaven after the Resurrection and some profligate Sinners here now on Earth All good men and the generality of evil are subject to it in this life Mens peremptory will and last choice determines their condition 259 CHAP. IV. A further pursuit of this last ground of shifting off the obedience of our actions in an Exposition of the 7 th Chapter to the Romans The Contents A further pursâ—it of this last ground of false confidence The Plea for it from Rom. 7. represented This refuted A Mâ—tâ—schematism usual with Saint Paul in an odiou Topiâ—k The Apostle shown not to speâ—k of hâ—mself in that Chapter because of several things there spoken which are not truly applicable to him This evidenced in sundry instances Nor to have spoken in the person of any regenerate man which is proved by the same reason and manifested in sundry Particulars But to have personated a strugling but as yet unregenerated Jew who had no further assistance against his lusts but the weak and ineffective Law of Moses This shown from the order and design of that Chapter This whole matter represented in a Paraphrase upon the seventh Chapter with part of the sixth and the eighth Two Reasons of the inability of Moses's Law to make men wholly obedient and the perfection as to them of the Law of Christ viz. First The promise of eternal life Secondly The promise of the Spirit Both these were wanting in the Law and are most clearly supplied in the Gospel The Jews had the assistance of the Spirit not by virtue of any Article in their Law but by the gracious Covenant of the Gospel which has been confirmed with the world ever since Adam The Law mentioned in Scripture as a weak and mean instrument upon the account of these defects This weakness of the Law set off particularly in this seventh to the Romans No hopes to any man who acts sin from this Chapter but plain declarations of the necessity of a wâ—rking obedience shown in several expressions of it to that purpose A proof of the necessity of this fourth part of integrity the obedience of our exâ—cutive powers in our workâ— and actions and the insignificancy of all the rest when it is wanting 283 CHAP. V. Of the sâ—cond sort of integrity an integrity of times and seasons The Contents Of the second sort of integrity viz. that of times and seasons Of the unconstancy of many mens obedience Perseverance necessary unto bliss The desperate case of Apostates both as to the difficulty of their recovery from sin and the greatness of their punishment 325 CHAP. VI. Of the third fort of integrity viz. that of the object or of obedience to all the particular Laws and parts of Duty The Contents Of the partiality of mens Obedience from their love of some particular sins Three pretences whereby they justifie the allowed practice of some sins whilst they are obedient in some other instances The first pretence is the preservation of their Religion and themselves in times of persecution A particular account of mens disobedience under this pretence The vanity of it shown from the following considerations Religion needs not to be rescued from persecution The freedom of outward means of Religion is restrained by it but the substance of Religion it self is not It is extended in some parts and ennobled in all by
occur in common speech If we advise a man to trust his Physician or his Lawyer our meaning is not barely that he should give credit to them but together with that that he shew the effect of such credit in following and observing them If we are earnest with any man to hearken to some advice that is given him we intend not by hearkning to express barely his giving ear to it but besides that his suffering the effects of such attention in practising and obeying it And thus we commonly say that we have got a Cold when we mean a Disease upon cold or a Surfeit when we understand a sickness upon Surfeiting In these and many other instances which might be mentioned we daily find that in the speech and usage of men the cause alone is oft times named when the effect is withal intended and accordingly understood to be expressed and that both are meant when barely one is spoken The effect doth so hang upon its cause and so naturally and evidently follow after it that we look upon it as a needless thing to express its coming after when once we have named its cause which goes before but we ordinarily judge it to be sufficiently mentioned when we have expressed that cause which as is evident to us all produces and infers it And as it is thus in the speech of men so is it in the language of God too He talks to us in our own way and uses such forms of speech and figurative expressions as are in common use among our selves And to seek no further for instances of this than these that lye before us he expresses our works and obedience by our knowledge our repentance our love and such other causes and principles as effect and produce it For we must take notice of this also that our outward works and actions depend upon a train of powers within us which as springs and causes of them order and effect them For our passions excite to them our understandings consider of them and direct them our wills command and choose them and then afterwards in pursuance of all these our bodily powers execute and exert them The actions of a man flow from all the ingredients of the humane nature each principle contributes its share and bears a part towards it For from the constitution of our natural frame our actions are placed wholly in the power of our own wills and our wills are set in a middle station to be moved by our appetites and passions and guided and directed by our minds or intellects We do and perform nothing but what we will neither do we will any thing but what we know and desire what our reason and passion inclines and directs to And because these three inward faculties our minds and wills and passions give being and beginning to our outward works and practice therefore are they by the Masters of moral Philosophy and Divinity ordinarily called the Causes and Principles of Humane Actions But these three principles of humane actions in genecal lye not more open to produce good than evil They are all under the unrestrain'd power of our own free will it is that which determines them either for God or against him but in themselves they are indifferently fitted and serve equally to bring forth acts of Obedience or of disobedience and sin To make these principles therefore of works or actions in general to become principles of good works and obedience there are other nearer tempers and qualifications required which may determine them that in themselves are free to both to effect one and be Authours of such actions only whereby we serve and obey God And this is done by the nearer and more immediate efficiency of Faith Repentance Love and the like For he who knows Gods Laws and believes his Gospel with his understanding who in his heart loves God and hates Sin whose will is utterly resolved for good and against evil he it is whose faculties in themselves indifferent are thus determinately disposed who is ready and prepared to perform his duty His Faith directs him to those Laws which he is to obey and to all the powerful motives to Obedience it shews him how it is bound upon him by all the Joys of Heaven and by all the Pains of Hell and this quickens his passions and confirms all good resolutions and makes him in his will and heart to purpose and desire it And when both his mind his will and passions which were before indifferent are thus gained over and determinately fixed for it in the efficiency of inward principles there is no more to be done but he is in the ready way to work and perform it in outward operation So that as our minds wills and passions are principles of humane actions in general whether good or evil these nearer dispositions our Faith Repentance c. are principles particularly of good works and obedience And since our obedient actions proceed in this manner from the power and efficiency of these principles God according to our own way of expressing things is wont many times only to name them when he intends withal to express our obedience it self which results from them Although he barely mention one yet he understands both and in speaking of the cause he would be taken to imply the effect likewise Thus when he promises Pardon and Salvation to our knowledge and belief of his Gospel to our Repentance from our Sins to our Love and Fear of God which with several others are those preparatory dispositions that fix and determine our minds wills and passions indifferent in themselves to effect Obedient actions he doth not in any wise intend that these shall Save us and procure Pardon for us without Obedience but only by signifying and implying it Wheresoever Mercy and Salvation at the last day are promised and this condition of our working and obeying is not mentioned it is always meant and understood That which such mercy was promised to is either the cause of our Obedience or the effect and sign of it the speech is metonymical and more was meant by it than was expressed Though the word was not named yet the thing was intended for obedience is ever requisite to pardon and nothing has Mercy promised to it in the last Judgment but what some way or other is a sign of it or produces and effects it This I might well take for granted upon the strength of that proof which has been already urged for our Obedience being the sole condition of our being acquitted at that day But because the interest of souls is so much concerned in it I will be yet more particular and proceed to show further that this sence and explication of all such places is the very same that God himself has expressly put upon them For concerning all those things whereto he has promised a favourable sentence at the last Judgment he assures us that they are of no account with him nor will be owned
are better known to us in their fruits and effects than in their own natures foâ—â—he greater ease in judging whether we do intend Godâ—s Service most of all or no I shall before I conclude this Point lay down a plain and certain mark whence any man of common apprehension may easily discern whethâ—◠〈◊〉 doth indeed design God's service most and whâ—â—â—er his heart and obedience be sincere or no. And the Rule which I shall lay down whereby certainly to try and examine that is this If our obedience be intire it cannot but be sincere likewise For he that obeys God in all times and iâ— all instances cannot but serve him with both these ingredients of sincerity viz. Truth and Preheminence He must needs intend God's service really and above all who intends it so as to serve him constantly and universally And the reason is this Because although our temporal interest and present advantage be for the most part united with Gods service yet always it is not but sometimes in all instances of obedience and at most times in some it is separated and divided from it So that as long as we are true to our own Principle of acting which we may safely conclude we always are if we either design not God's service at all through hypocrisie or design it not above all through a corrupt mixture of intention at those times when these instances happen we shall not be acted by the Command but through the love of our own interest which we intend really and design more we shall certainly act against it For our actions go where our wills lead them and our wills always follow that which is the prevailing motive to them and has most power with them And therefore if we still chuse God's service in all its parts and in all times whether it make for our present advantage or against it we may be assured that we intend his service truly and also that we intend it most since we serve him when no bye-interests of our own can be served and disserve all other interests for his sake He must needs be our highest aim because where we may please him though no secular advantages concur we chuse any thing and where he would be offended though all other advantages invite we chuse nothing So that in the matter of obedience our integrity is the great and last measure of our acceptance And if upon examination we find that our obedience is intire we need not doubt but that it is sincere also And this is that very mark from which according to that version of the Psalms which is used in our Liturgy the Psalmist himself concludes concerning the obedience of the Israelites For he collects it to have been a dissembled and unsincere because it was not a whole and intire service They did but flatter him with their mouth saith he and dissembled with him in their tongue for their heart was not whole or intire with him Psal. 78.36 37. To clear up this enquiry then What qualifications of our obedience to all the forementioned Laws of God must render it acceptable to him and available to our salvation at the last day I shall proceed to discourse of the second condition of all acceptable obedience viz. integrity of which in the next Chapter CHAP. II. Of the second qualification of all acceptable obedience viz. integrity The CONTENTS Of the second qualification of an acceptable obedience viz. integrity The Notion of integrity or uprightness A three-fold integrity Of the integrity of our powers and faculties Or of the obedience with our minds affections wills and bodily powers How God is to be obeyed with the first faculty our minds or understandings God is to be obeyed with the second faculty our affections This Question stated How God and his Laws which are spiritual things are proportionate objects for our love and affections which are bodily faculties Of the difference betwixt our love of God and of the World that this is more warm and sensible that more lasting and powerful An account of what measures of obedience in our minds and affections is necessary to the acceptance of our service That contrivances and consultations for evil things and such mere apprehensions as are particularly forbidden are deadly and damning but that all other bare apprehensions and that all our affections after good or evil things will be rewarded or punished not merely for themselves but only as they are Causes and Principles of good or evil choice and practice God to be obeyed with the third faculty our wills He cannot be served without them Men are guilty of sin if they chuse it and consent to it though they cannot act it All this service of our inward faculties is in order to our outward works and operations INtegrity of obedience is such a perfection and compleatness of it as excludes all maimedness and defects Which is well intimated by S t James when he explains intire by wanting nothing Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and intire which you will be by wanting nothing Jam. 1.4 And this in another word is ordinarily expressed in Scripture by uprightness For in the most common Metaphor of the holy Books our course of life is called our way our actions steps and our doing walking And to carry on the Metaphor our course of obedience is called our right or straight path our course of sin and transgressions a crooked path our committing sin stumbling and falling and our doing our duty walking uprightly So that for a man to be upright in God's ways is not to stumble or fall by sin and disobedience i. e. to be perfect and intire or wanting nothing in our obedient performances Now this integrity or uprightness which is necessary to our obedience that it may stand us in stead at the last Day is three-fold 1. An integrity of our powers or faculties which I call an integrity of the Subject 2. An integrity of seasons and opportunities which is an integrity of Time 3. An integrity of the particular Laws of Duty and instances of obedience which is an integrity of the Object And all these are necessary to render our performance of God's Laws an acceptable service For if ever we expect that he should reward our obedience at the last Day we must take care beforehand that it be the obedience of our whole man in all times to the whole Law of God To begin with it 1. That our obedience of the forementioned Laws may avail us to life and pardon at the last Day we must take care to obey with all our powers and faculties which is an integrity of the Subject And for this the very Letter of the Law is express For when the Lawyer asks What shall I do to inherit eternal life Christ sends him to what is written in the Law and repeats that to him for an Answer Thou shalt love and serve as it is Deut. 11.13 the Lord thy God
indirect and interpretative choice even in actions which in the particulars are necessary viz. when that was deliberated of and chosen which made them so All our actions in a necessitous state are indirectly and interpretatively voluntary and chosen when the necessity it self is of our own choosing In the particulars 't is true we are not free to refuse them but the reason why we are not is because we our selves chuse to be so For although our present actions are necessary yet once it was in our power to have kept them free and that which causes us now to act indeliberately and without consideration was it self once freely deliberated of and chosen So that all those actions which are now necessary in the particulars were as the Schools speak voluntary in the cause which is an indirect choice and interpretative volition And as for those actions which are chosen only indirectly and implicitely viz. in the free choice of that cause which made them afterwards to be all necessary they may very fairly be imputed to us and interpreted to be our own For in all reason the natural and immediate effects of a mans own free and deliberate choice may be charged upon him and if he chooses his necessity it is fit that he should answer for it and bear the punishment of those sins which he commits under it What is a matter of any mans choice may be an article of his accusation and a matter of his punishment also But now as for this necessity of sinning it is a necessity of mens own choosing For they wilfully threw themselves into it in choosing the cause of it and so may very justly be made to answer for all that which they commit under it All the effects of their present necessity if they are traced up will terminate upon their own will for they hang upon that file of actions which had beginning from their own choice and being thus chosen by them they may justly be charged upon them As for such effects indeed as are so remote that a mans understanding in the honest and sincere use of it cannot see them although he do choose the cause yet neither God nor men will look upon him to have chosen them For there can be no choice where there is no knowledge because a man must see a thing before he will and choose it But when effects lye near and obvious to any ordinary capacity if it do but use an honest diligence as most mens necessity of sinning doth to those free actions which produce it there it is only mens sloth and negligence if they do not discern it and if they chuse blindfold when if they would open their eyes they might see it is all one in God's account as if they did see it For it is against all reason in the world that the sinful neglects of men should take away 〈◊〉 rights of God He has given them faculties wherewith to see things before they chuse them and he requires that they should And if they will not use them that is their own fault but what he requires of them he will still exact and punish them for what is done as for a chosen action So that as for those sins which men have chosen in their next and discernable Cause although they are not free to chuse or refuse them in the Particulars themselves they are a part of their account at the last Judgment What is chosen indirectly and by interpretation is looked on as their own and if it be evil will be imputed to them for their condemnation But now several of mens sins are of this last sort For as we saw of some particular actions that they are chosen in the Particulars directly and expresly so are there likewise several others which in the Particulars cannot be refused but were chosen in the general in the free choice of that Cause which has made them all afterwards necessary so that they are voluntary only indirectly and chosen by interpretation For there is nothing so common in the World as for men by their free choice of some sins to bring themselves into a necessity of others they freely will and chuse some which necessarily cause and effect more Now those things which may bring men into this necessity are such and so many as make them inconsiderate and hasty For therefore it is that in the Particulars we cannot expresly chuse or refuse several sins because we cannot stay particularly and expresly to consider of them We have brought our selves to such a pass that they slip from us without reasoning and enquiring about them For either our understanding is diverted that it cannot or so well acquainted with them that it need not look upon them to observe and consider them And since we do not particularly consider of them when they come we cannot expresly will and chuse them but forasmuch as we chose the cause of this inconsideration we are said to chuse them indirectly and by interpretation And as for the wilful and chosen Causes of such inconsideration I shall discourse of them under these two sorts viz. as causing such inconsideration in sins either 1. Of commission or doing what is forbidden 2. Of omission or neglecting to do what is commanded 1. For those causes of inconsideration in our sins of commission which make us venture on them without all doubt or disquisition they are these First Drunkenness Secondly Some indulged passion Thirdly Habit or custom of sinning For all these when once we have consented to them take away either wholly or in great measure all further freedom and make us will and chuse what is evil indeliberately and without consideration First As for Drunkenness we find daily in those persons who are subject to it that it so disorders and unsettles all the intellectual powers that they have scarce any use of them at all For their memory fails and their judgment forsakes them They have no thoughts for that present time of good or evil of expedient or inexpedient Their reason is overwhelmed and quite asleep and there is nothing that is awake and active in them but their bodily lusts and sensual passions which then hurry them on to any thing that falls in their way without the least opposition So that they are wholly governed by their appetites and for that time unbridled passions of lust or cruelty or envy or revenge They blab out that which in their right wits they would conceal and do what in a sober mode they would condemn And so little is there of that reason and understanding in all their speeches and behaviour which appears in them when the drunken fit is over that any man may plainly see how for that present it is removed from them So that they act rashly and irrationally more like brute Beasts than men committing rapes or robberies or bloodshed or any other mad frolicks and sinful extravagancies without any deliberation or consideration at all And Secondly As for an
temptations or to lusts and desires of evil This Point summed up 63â— CHAP. V. Of two other causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The Contents A second cause of scruple is their uâ—affectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Of the necessity of fixedness and fervency in Devotion when we can and of Gods readiness to dispense with them when we cannot enjoy them Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our Bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our Obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Mat. 12.36 The scruples upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasurable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Mat. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place 664 CHAP. VI. Of the sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The Contents Some good mens fear upon this account What is meant in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds or understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of the explication of this Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such Sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. 681 CHAP. VII The Conclusion The Contents Some other causless scruples The Point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Pieey Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will 700 THE INTRODUCTION ROM viij 1 There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit The Contents Religious men inquisitive after their future State Three Articles of Christian belief cause such inquisitiveness The Articles of Eternal Life and the Resurrection make men desire satisfaction The Article of the last Judgment encourages the search and points out a way towards it A proposal of the present design and the matters treated of in the ensuing Discourse AMong all those things which employ the minds of Religious and Considerate men there is none that is so much a matter of their thoughtful care and solicitous enquiries as their Eternal happiness or Misery in the next World For in Christs Religion there are three great Articles which being believed and seriously considered by a nature restlessly desirous of its own happiness and such ours is must needs render it very inquisitive after some security of its future good estate and they are these The Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body and the great Day of Doom or last Judgment Whosoever is firmly perswaded of these three as every man is or at least pretends to be who professes himself a Christian he assuredly believes that when this Life is over both his Body and Soul shall live again and be endlessly Delighted or Tormented Comforted or Distressed in the next world according as their condition is when they leave this For by the Doctrine of Eternal Life he is assured that his Soul shall live and be adjudged to an Eternal bliss or misery By the Article of the Resurrection he is perswaded that his Body with all its powers shall spring out of the dust and be again enlivened with its ancient Soul to be a sharer of its state and joyntly to undergo an endless train of most exquisite woes or pleasures And since it is the very frame and fundamental principle of our Natures studiously to pursue Pleasure and to fly as fast from Pain to seek good and to avoid evil These states of future Happiness and Misery are such as no man who sees and believes them can possibly be unaffected with or unconcern'd in But whosoever in his own thoughts views and beholds them must needs find all his faculties awake and through an innate care and natural instinct solicitously inquisitive after that lot which shall fall to their own share Now if this endless happiness and misery both of Soul and Body in the next world were only casual and contingent the gift of blind chance or partial and arbitrary favour then would the belief of it perplex us indeed with fears and misgiving thoughts but never encourage us on to any exact care or diligent enquiry It would be in vain for us to seek what we could never find and downright folly to endeavour after satisfaction and certainty in things which are utterly casual and Arbitrary For what comes by chance is neither foreseen by us nor subject to us And what is given arbitrarily without all rule or reason is as fickle and unconstant as Arbitrary will it self is It cannot be prevented by any endeavours because it doth not
have intended so that as soon as ever an opportunity for obedience is presented we have nothing left to deliberate and consider of but without all doubtings or delay go on to work and practise it And all this as I said is a genuine and direct effect of our Obedience having acquired great degrees of strength and becoming customary and habitual For Custome as it is truly said is a second Nature such things as have been long used by us stick as close to us and flow as easily as quickly as indeliberately and naturally from us as those things that are born with us They do not stay for our particular contrivance and designation of them but run before it A man by long custome shall have his fingers move so fast upon a Lute that thought it self shall not be able to keep time with them and answer every stop with a particular intention and command of it An habitual Swearer when occasion is offered or without any will rap out Oaths when he is not aware and so little many times was there of actual contrivance and express design in it that when he hath done he doth not know it And the case is the same in other habitual sinners whose transgressions proceeding not so much from a particular and express choice as from an habitual temper and even natural inclination are unconsidered and indeliberate And therefore when our Obedience it self is become customary and use has wrought it into our very Nature we have no need upon every return of opportunity to eye Gods command which is the end and to intend his service as a motive to our wills to engage them to choose the Action before us which tends to it We stay not to bethink our selves what it tends to and who is to be served by it and after that to intend expresly to serve him in it No all these were done to our hands before the time of obeying came so that now when we have the opportunity we do not busie our selves in exciting them but in this habitual state of things and perfection of obedience act ordinarily in the force of them which is obeying through an habitual and implicite intention And now from what has been said of this Perfection and customariness of our obedience being the cause of our obeying only through an habitual intention it plainly appears that not the actual but habitual intention of serving God is that which is alwayes and indispensably required to a sincere service of him Indeed when we pause and deliberate and take several things into our consideration a particular intention of his service is necessary to make what we do upon such deliberation an acceptable obedience For if in the deliberation our choice was doubtfull as to the event such particularity of intention was necessary to make us choose the Action of obedience and if it were doubtfull as to the motive when other things sufficient to make us act as we did as the service of our Lusts or Interests concurr'd to it as well as Gods Command then is it necessary to make us choose the acceptable service of obedience But for that intention I say which is not only here in this case or some others but universally and in all indispensably necessary to the sincerity of our obedience it is an habitual intention For the very reason why we do not intend his service particularly and expresly but only habitually and implicitely is because our obedience has arrived to good perfection and long use and custome has made it not so much at every turn our considerate choice and contrivance as our unstudied inclination and very nature Now this exaltation of Obedience into a natural temper is so far from rendring it unsincere and making God look upon it as none at all that in very deed it is the height and perfection of that which his Gospel commands us to aspire and aim at For there our Duty is expressed by our being born again by our becoming New Men and New Creatures and by our being made partakers of the Divine Nature and so like unto God himself who is carried on to all actions of Virtue and Holiness not by the motives of Reason and Argument but by the exact and infinite goodness of his own Nature it self So that in measuring the sincerity of our Obedience by the reality of our intention and design for Gods service we see that we are not alwayes to exact of our selves a particular and express intention because God requires it not but may and often must when our Obedience becomes natural and habitual take up with an intention that is so too But for the fuller understanding of this condition of our Obedience Sincerity we must consider not only the reality and undissembledness of our service and intention which have been discoursed of hitherto but their uncorruptness and unmixedness likewise And this as well as the former is sometimes signified by sincerity which is used to denote not Truth only and reality in opposition to Fiction and Hypocrisie but Purity also in opposition to mixture and alloy And thus we read of the sincere milk of the Word i. e. the pure and unmixed parts of it or the Christian Doctrine as freed from all adulterate mixtures of Gnostick Impurities and Jewish Observances which were those compositions wherewith in the Apostles times so many went about to corrupt the Word of God 1 Pet. 2.2 So that to serve God sincerely in this sence is to perform what he commands us for his sake and with a design to please him without mixing therewith any by-ends of our own or intending our own self interests together with him But this we are to understand with much restriction For it is not all intention of Pleasure Profit or other Interest to our selves in the performance of Gods commands which he has forbidden us We may design to advantage our selves by our Obedience and be sincere still provided that this design be only upon those spiritual and eternal advantages which God himself promises to the obedient or upon temporal ones so far as they minister to Obedience and are subordinate under it But that mixture of intention only is corrupt and unsincere when together with our intention of serving God we joyn another intention of serving sin or when we design some temporal ends as much or more than we do Gods service which makes our self interest instead of being subservient to Obedience to become fit to oppose and undermine it First I say God has not forbidden us all intention of our own advantage in the performance of his Commandments When he requires us to obey him he doth not prohibit all Love of our own selves and regard to our own self interests which will appear from all these Reasons both because some eye at our own good and respect to our own advantage is of that nature that it cannot be forbidden us because Gods Laws themselves have offered
failings which are our unavoidable ones because we have no power to avoid where we have no liberty to will and chuse and since they are such as we cannot help they are such likewise as God pities and such as the Gospel doth not punish but graciously pardon and dispense with CHAP. III. Of the nature and danger of voluntary sins The CONTENTS The nature of a wilfill and a deliberate sin Why it is called a despising of Gods Law a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand Wilfull sins of two sorts viz. some chosen directly and expresly others only indirectly and by interpretation Of direct and interpretative volition Things chosen in the latter way justly imputable Of the voluntary causes of inconsideration in sins of commission which are drunkenness an indulged passion or a habit of sin Of the power of these to make men inconsiderate The cause of inconsideration in sins of omission viz. Neglect of the means of acquiring virtue Of the voluntariness of all these causes Of the voluntariness of drunkenness when it may be looked upon as involuntary Of the voluntariness of an indulged passion mens great errour lies in indulging the beginnings of sin Of the voluntariness and crying guilt of a habit of sin Of the voluntariness of mens neglect of the means of virtue No wilfull sin is consistent with a state of Grace but all are damning A distinct account of the effect of wilfull sins viz. when they only destroy our acceptance for the present and when moreover they greatly wound and endanger that habitual virtue which is the foundation of it and which should again restore us to it for the time to come These last are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God HAving thus clearly shown in the General that all the dispensation and allowance for our consistent slips under the Gospel comes not from the nakedness and want of penalty in any of Christs Laws but only from the imperfection and involuntariness of our own actions I will descend now to consider particularly what those consistent slips and transgressions are In the management whereof I shall shew these two things First That our voluntary and chosen sins and transgressions of any of Christs Laws are not consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation but are deadly and damnable Secondly That our involuntary and unchosen slips are consistent and such as Christs Gospel doth not eternally threaten but graciously bear and dispense with First I say No voluntary sin or chosen transgression of any of Christs Laws is consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation but is deadly and damning To make this out it will be very requisite to show 1. What sinfull actions are voluntary and chosen And 2. That none of them is consistent with a state of Grace but deadly and damning 1. What sins and transgressions are voluntary and chosen Then we commit a wilfull chosen sin when we see and consider of the sinfulness of any action which we are tempted to and after that choose to act and perform it Every chosen sin is a sin against Knowledge for the will is a blind faculty and can choose nothing till our mind proposeth it All choice is an act of Reason and Vnderstanding a preferring one thing before another and we must view and consider both before we can prefer either That which suggests the sinfulness of any action to us and sets the evil of it before us when we are about to choose it is our Conscience For God has placed this Monitor of every mans Duty in every mans breast to tell him upon every occasion what he requires from him And till such time as men have debauched their understandings into a gross mistake of their Duty so as to call Evil Good and Good Evil and God in his just anger has given them up to a reprobate mind or a mind void of judgment their own consciences will keep them in mind of Gods Laws and not suffer them to transgress without reproof So that every wilfull sin is a sin against a mans own mind or conscience Nay further so long as mens hearts are soft and their consciences are tender and before such time as they are wholly enslaved to their appetites and quite hardened in sin their consciences especially in some great and frightfull instances will not only suggest and represent their Duty but argue also and debate against their lusts for the practice and performance of it And then men are not won at the first offer nor consent to fulfill the sin upon the first assault of the temptation but are drawn in after a long deliberation and debate and dispute the matter with themselves before they submit to it For when mens consciences do not nakedly suggest but moreover plead the cause and urge the observance of their Duty there are arguments on both sides to render the choice at first somewhat doubtfull The Law of God promises an infinite reward to the action of obedience and threatens an endless punishment if we disobey both which are future and to be expected in the next world And the temptation inducing us to sin presents us with a fair shew of sensitiv pleasure profit or honour if we practise and threatens us with all the contrary evils if we neglect it both which it sets before us as things present to be felt and enjoy'd by us even now whilst we are here in this world Now these are great motives on both sides each of them bidding fair for our consent Our minds or consciences suggest the first and our fleshly appetites and carnal reason represent the latter and for a good while these two advocates solicite the cause on both sides and distract and divide our wills between them So that when at last the temptation doth overcome and the Law of Lust in the members prevails over the Law of God in the mind yet is that after a strife and a war after a tedious toyle and much contention And these wilfull sins because we underwent a great conflict in our own minds about them and past through a long deliberation in an alternate succession of desires and aversations hopes and fears imperfect choices and refusals e're the consent of our wills was gain'd over to the commission of them are call'd deliberate sins Every wilfull chosen sin then is a sin against knowledge and against conscience when our own heart rebukes and checks us at the time of sinning telling us that God hath forbidden that which we are about to do notwithstanding which we presume to do it And if it happen to be in an instance that is greatly criminal and frightfull unto Conscience which therefore puts us upon demurs and creates dispute and arguing then is it not only a known but a deliberate sin also Nay where we have time and there is a sufficient space to consider in between the opportunity and the action if we know that the action is sinfull and are not in
produce it For 2. Men are subject to be carried on to work what is both without and against their habitual liking and inclination through ignorance And this is the great source and intire cause of all our consistent slips and pardonable infirmities As for the will of man it is a blind faculty it can chuse nothing till the understanding shows it That is we cannot desire or will a thing before we see it nothing can be chosen which is not apprehended So that if at any time we offend through ignorance or inconsideration and do amiss either because we did not understand our Duty or because we did not think of it unless our ignorance and inconsideration be themselves damnable and charged upon us to our condemnation nothing else will For God will impute nothing to us at the last Day either to save or to destroy us but what proceeded from our own will and choice and therefore if any sinful action be innocently involuntary it is likewise uncondemning And this now is the Case of all our slips and transgressions of the Law of God which are consistent with a state of Grace and salvation We act them without understanding or considering of them and so they are involuntary and unchosen For in some of them we do not think or consider of what we do at all and in others although we know the action yet are we ignorant of the sinfulness of it so that even in the choice of that this still remains unchosen For sin and obedience is not all acting of a thing but an acting of it with certain ends and designs If we would be thought to obey Gods Law we must do it because he requires it and if we be judged to have sinned against it it will be for doing something when we saw that he had forbidden it For that service which God requires is not a heartless service but a service of the will and choice So that we must do what he enjoins for his sake and because his Law requires it if we expect that he should take himself to be obeyed in it and we must chuse to do whâ—t we know is against his Law for the sake of sin before we need to fear that he will punish us as men that have sinned against him Obedience then and disobedience besides the action require likewise the eye and intention viz. the chusing of what we do because his Law commands it or the chusing it when we know that his Law has forbidden it But if this knowledge of his Law be wanting although we chuse the evil action yet do we not chuse the sin because we do not see that it is sinful For we would not chuse it if we knew that he had forbid it so that in our hearts there is no contempt of him or disobedience at all When therefore at any time we knowingly and deliberately chuse an action which we do not know to be sinful except that ignorance be our own fault whatever the action be as to it self yet as to its relation to the Law viz. its sinfulness and disobedience it is not will'd and chosen For since we did not see its sinfulness we could not chuse and consent to it So that there is no rebellion in our wills whatsoever there may seem to be in our action but they may notwithstanding it be still intirely subject unto God and ready to obey him in every thing wherein they see he has laid his Commands upon them As some of our consistent slips and transgressions therefore are not thought of or considered at all so others although they are known and considered in themselves are yet unknown under that relation of sinful actions so that the sin is all the while unseen and therefore involuntary and unchosen Now as for these slips and transgressions which are thus unknown and thereby involuntary they are consistent with a state of Grace and such as Christs Gospel doth not eternally threaten but in great mercy bear and graciously dispense with To convince us of the truth whereof besides all that has been above discoursed upon this Argument it is first considerable that all these involuntary failings upon ignorance or want of knowledge are unavoidable and God we know will never damn any man for doing that which could not be avoided For no man can chuse to shun that which he doth not see but his understanding must first discern and apprehend a thing before his will is in any capacity to refuse it And forasmuch as these slips are no matter of our sight and knowledge they can be none of our refusal and avoidance Indeed if a man should pause and deliberate watch and examine at all times albeit he might still be subject to one sort of involuntary actions viz. that which arises from his ignorance of his Duty yet would he not be liable to the other which results from this inconsideration of it For where a man has time and his Powers are awake so that he is fit to look about him his thoughts are his own and he may fix them upon the consideration of what he pleases And where he has the power to consider of any action he has the power likewise to avoid it And this is that which is pleaded in behalf of mens ability to keep all Gods Commands intirely and to live wholly without sin by Atticus in S t Hierome Thus much we say That a man may live without all sin if he will for such time and place as his mind is intent and his care is at stretch and his bodily infirmities will suffer him to continue so But as for this power of avoiding all involuntary sins which arise from inconsideration it is no power at all For herein we must know lyes every mans unavoidable weakness and infirmity that whereas our obedience is required at all times this fitness is only in some certain time and place For no man is always in that good condition to be wise and well-disposed watchful and standing upon his Guard But he forgets when he should remember and his faculties are asleep when they should be awake and he is diverted by other business and hindred by intervening accidents So that sometimes either he has not leisure to consider in or his faculties are not well disposed and his thoughts free and at his own command so as when he has time duly to consider in it And this evil state which thus unfits a man for consideration is not always in his own power and at his own choice whether he shall fall under it or no. For as for the want of time a man in this world is placed in a crowd of business and whilst his thoughts are hot in the pursuit of one another many times waits for him And because opportunities do not stay till we are at leisure we must take them when we find them so that we act oftentimes without considering since if we should stay to think we should
matter of condemnation although before it were uncondemning For then when lust hath conceived by being in some imperfected measure willed and consented to it bringeth forth answerable to its conception which is but an imperfect sort of production an imperfect embryo of sin and this embryo of sin when by a full choice and perfect consent and much more when by action and practice it is finished bringeth forth its proper wages death Jam. 1.14 15. Although these lustings and desires therefore which good men complain of may justly be an imployment of their watchfulness and care yet ought they not to be a cause of their fear or scruple For it shall not bring upon them those evils which they are afraid of nor ever prove their ruine and destruction The evil thing is entertained only in a thought or a wish they lust after it and are tempted by it but that is all for they do not consent to the temptation And since their lusts go no further than thus they shall not harm them when Christ comes to Judgment nor ever bring them into condemnation CHAP. V. Of two other Causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The CONTENTS A second cause of scruple is their unaffectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Matth. 12.36 The scruple upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasureable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Matth. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place ANother thing which disquiets the hearts of good and honest men and makes them needlesly to call in question the saveableness of their present state and their title to salvation is the coldness and unaffectedness the unsettledness and distractions which they find in themselves when they are at prayers Good people are wont to cry out of desertions to think that God has thrown them off and that his Spirit has forsaken them if at any time they find a great distraction and dulness of Spirit in their devotions and a great abatement of that zeal and fervency that fixedness and attention which they have happily enjoyed at other times But this is a great mistake from mens ignorance of Gods Laws and of their own selves For God has no where told them that he will judge them at the last day by the steadiness and fixedness the tide and fervency of their devotions but by the integrity of their hearts and the uprightness of their obedience The last Sentence shall not pass upon men according to the heat of their affections but according to the goodness of their lives So that if they have been careful to practise all God's Commandments according to their power and opportunities and this of prayer among the rest in such sort as their unavoidable infirmities would suffer them they shall be safe in that Judgment notwithstanding any inequality in their bodily tempers or unconstancy and abatement in their bodily affections To state this business so as that we may neither be unnecessarily scrupulous about these qualifications of our prayers when we cannot nor on the other side irreligiously careless of them when we might enjoy them I shall say something of their necessity when they can be had as well as of that allowance which God will make to them when through any bodily indispositions or unforeseen accidents they cannot If we would put up our prayers to God in such manner as it is fit for us to offer them in or for him to hear them we must make them with a due fixedness and attention of mind and fervency of affection We must offer them up with a due fixedness and attention of mind Our thoughts must go along with our lips and our souls must be intent upon the business which we are about when we are making our prayers to God We must not expect that he should mind those vain words and mere talk which we do not or that he should hear us when we do not hear our selves No it is the work of the Soul and not the bare labour of the lips which he attends to so that if only our Tongues pray but our minds are straying this is as good as no prayer at all We must offer them up also with much earnestness of desire and fervency of affection We must shew that we put a price upon a mercy before we are fit to receive it for otherwise there is no assurance that we shall be duely thankful for it We must not seem cold and indifferent after it for that is a sign that we can almost be as well content without it But we must be eager in our desire and express a fervency of affection after it such as we are wont to use in the pursuit of any thing which we greatly value and this is an inducement for God to give us that which he sees we so dearly love it sets a price upon his blessings and shews the measure of our own vertuous inclinations and therefore he will encourage and reward it The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man says S t James availeth much Jam. 5.16 Thus are a due attention of mind and a fervent heat of desire in devotion such qualifications as are necessary to render our prayers becoming either us to offer or God to hear so that we must always strive and according to our power and present circumstances endeavour after them We must take care as much as we can to compose our thoughts when we pray to draw them off from other things for some time before and still to bring them back again when at any time we find them wandring And we must endeavour also by a due sense of the necessity the greatness and undeservedness of Gods mercies to heighten our affections and make them bend vigorously and eagerly after those things which we pray for that so God seeing we are serious and in earnest with him he may be induced to grant those benefits which we desire of him But then on the other hand if after all our care
and unprofitable were noted by the word it self which we translate idle yet is it no unusual thing in the Scriptures by several words to mean and intend more than in their literal sense they do express Thus are the abominable works of darkness mentioned Eph. 5 called unfruitful works where the meaning surely is not only that they bring in no profit or advantage but also that they are most deadly and mischievous v. 11 and the wicked servant spoken of Mat. 25 is called the unprofitable servant v. 30. And after the same use of speech our words which do not only tend to none but to very ill fruit may be called idle or unprofitable words And so they are in this place For the idle words whereof our Saviour speaks v. 36 are such words as are not only idle and unprofitable but positively wicked and evil being indeed false slanderous and reviling words as will appear from the consideration of these particulars For the words which are threatned in that 36. ver are such as are a sign not of a trifling but of an evil heart How can ye says he being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh So that as a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth or speaketh good things an evil man likewise out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things v. 34 35. And being the fruits of an evil heart they are the signs not of an impertinent but of an evil man The tree is corrupt says he if the fruit be corrupt for the tree is known by its fruits v. 33. And since they are such words as are thus sinful in themselves and an argument of so much sin in us they shall in the last Judgment be charged upon us to condemn us For by thy words says he as well as actions thou shalt be justified and by thy words if they be such idle words as I mean thou shalt be condemned v. 37. The words then which are spoken of in this place from the 33. to the 38. ver are such as are a sign of a wicked heart as make a wicked man and render us in the last Judgment liable to condemnation But now words of this black dye and of these mischievous effects are not every idle and impertinent but false slanderous railing or otherwise sinful and forbidden words But false and slanderous words are especially struck at in this place such as were those lying and contumelious ones that occasioned all this discourse when the Jews most reproachfully charged his Miracles upon the Devil telling him that he cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils v. 24. Upon occasion of which black calumny he proceeds in all the following verses to warn them against such blasphemous speeches demonstrating clearly the unreasonableness of them v. 25 to 31 the sinfulness of them ver 33 34 35 and the mischievous effects of them in the two next verses Such reproachful words as these let me tell you says he you shall be called to an account for as well as for your works and actions I say unto you and you may believe me for you will find it true that every idle or slanderous and reproachful word such as now you have spoken against me that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment For when that day comes think you of it as you please now mens words as well as their actions shall be called to an account by thy words thou shalt be justified and if they have been such as yours now are by thy words thou shalt be condemned ver 36 37. And thus by all this it appears that the idle word here threatned by our Lord is not every word that is vain and useless but only such as are railing false or slanderous And in this sense some Manuscripts read the place For in the Book of Steph. it is not every idle but every wicked word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment So that as for this third scruple it is as groundless as was the former no good man need to be disquieted by it since they shall never be condemned for it CHAP. VI. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The CONTENTS Some good mens fear upon this account What is meaâ—â— in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds and understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of this Explication of the Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. ANother causless ground of fear which disquiets the minds and affrights the hearts of good Christian people is the sin against the Holy Ghost They hear very dreadful things spoken of it for our Saviour Christ who knew it best and who at the last Day is to judge of it has told us plainly before-hand that he who blasphemeth the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come Mat. 12.32 or as S t Mark expresses it he shall never have forgiveness but is liable to eternal damnation Mark 3.29 This is a fearful Sentence upon a desperate sin and seeing they are in darkness about it and do not well understand it they know not but that they themselves may be guilty of it nay some of a timorous temper and abused minds go further and think that they really are But to cure their fears and to quiet their minds in this matter there needs nothing more be done than to give them right apprehensions and a clear
but the whole man consisting of Soul as well as Body which Laws are given as a Guide to So that a ravished Matron if only her Body suffered and there was no concurrence of her own consent to it is as chast and unpolluted in God's account and in the censure of the Law as is the purest Virgin And therefore it was a great truth whereby Collatinus and Brutus went about to comfort the poor destowred Lucretia in Livy It is the mind say they which sins and not the Body so that in those actions wherein there is nothing of will and deliberation there is likewise no fault or transgression And this Case is expresly thus determined Deut. 22. For in the Case of the ravished Damsel whose will was no way consenting to it but who did all that she could against it it is expresly ordered that to her there is nothing to be done by way of punishment because in her there is no sin worthy of death for like as when one man is slain by another even so is this case she is not acting but suffering in it ver 26. As for him indeed who chose thus to force us 't is true that the Law will interpret what is done by our Bodies as his action because he freely chose so to compel us Our bodily Members which were forced by him were his instruments and not our own for he it was and not we ourselves who ordered and directed them We were the same in his hands as a Sword is in the hand of a man viz. the Instrument only but not the Agent So that what was done by us is not our own but his who was pleased so to make use of us In him therefore the unlawful action being willed and chosen is really a sin and transgression But in us since it was not our own it is looked upon as none There is nothing charged upon our account for it more than if it had never been done because we did not act but suffer it had nothing of our own will and therefore it can be no Article of our condemnation So much of any action therefore as is forced viz. the outward bodily operation in the estimate of good and evil of vice and vertue is of no account to us whatever it be to others because it is not our own For to make any action ours it must proceed not from our Bodies but from our selves who have Souls as well as Bodies it must come from the will within as well as from the body without and as for our will it self 't is plain that it can never be made to chuse involuntarily by force since it is not subject to any forcible violence and compulsion But although those actions which we exert our selves and wherein we are not merely passive instruments in the hands of others cannot be made involuntary by any force from without upon the will it self yet may they become so from something else within us For our wills are not the only internal Principle of humane actions but several others concur with them whereby their choice it self is influenced Our wills indeed chuse and command our actions but then our passions move and our understandings direct and carry away our very wills themselves So that they are set in a middle Station being subject to be acted upon and hurried away by some as well as they are impowered to command and govern others 1. Mens wills are subject to be violently acted by their passions which hurry them on to consent to those things which are both without and against their habitual liking and inclination When any passion is grown too strong for them although they are afraid to act that sin which it hales them to yet can they not withstand it For the Law of sin in the Members is of more force with them and prevails more over them than the Law of God in the mind So that although they have several exceptions against it they are not for all that able to refuse it but they are overcome by it and yield at last to act it though unwillingly and to fulfil it though with trouble and regret Now here is an unwillingness 't is true and things are done which otherwise would not be done because the power of mens lusts and passions is so strong that their wills cannot restrain them For all the interest which the contrary motives of Reason and Religion can make against them is not able to contend with them They can and do effect something indeed so as that the will when it doth consent to them doth it not fully and freely with perfect ease and pleasure but unwillingly with fear and reluctance But yet that which they do is not enough for the other side prevails and the will is not able to hold out but yields at last to fulfil the lust and to act the sin still But now although this be some sort of involuntariness yet is it not that which will excuse our transgressions and make all those sins which we commit under it to be esteemed consistent slips and pardonable infirmities For this state of unwilling Sinners as we heard above is no state of mercy but a state of death It is the state which S t Paul describes in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans viz. a state of captivity and slavery under sin ver 14 23 and thereupon a state of misery and death ver 24. All the Grace which Christs Gospel allows to it is a Grace of deliverance a Grace that shall help us out of it and rescue us from it In this state of weakness and infirmity Christ found us For whilst we were yet without strength to help our selves saith S t Paul Christ dyed for us Rom. 5.6 But now since he has dyed for us he will not leave us in it but rescue and deliver us out of it For now he having dyed for us we are likewise to reckon our selves to be dead indeed unto sin for him that it should no longer master and prevail over us to reign in our mortal bodies so far as that we should fulfil the lusts thereof Rom. 6.11 12. And as for our bodily members which are the Stage whereon our lusts and passions reign we are to yield them up now not any longer instruments of unrighteousness unto the service of sin but instruments of righteousness unto the service of God ver 13. If therefore we are truly Christians and such as Christ came to make us upon our becoming which he has procured Grace and pardon for us we are not enslaved and led Captives by our passions but have conquered and subdued them This S t Paul affirms expresly For they that are Christ's says he have crucified the flesh with the passions or affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 But then besides our lusts and passions which although they do make some cannot yet effect a pardonable unwillingness there still remains one cause more which may