this Mercy-seat was a sign of God's Favourableness to a sinful People in residing among them and was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.5 Now this Doctrine appears confirmed for these Reasons 1. Because Christ by the will of God gave himself a Ransom for us to redeem us from Sin and Punishment Wrath and Curse Tit. 2.14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity He gave himself to Death for us was delivered for our Offences his Death was the Price of our Redemption that we might be justified in Gods Sight God gave him up to Death he spared him not that he might be made Righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 and Mat. 20.28 He gave his own life a Ransome for many And so 1 Tim. 2.6 He hereby bought us by this Price 1 Cor. 6.6 He Redeemed us not with Silver and Gold but with his precious Blood as of a Lamb without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. 2 Pet 2.1 Rev. 5.9 He suffering the Penalty due to us for Sin 1 Pet. 2.24 He bare our Sins in his Body on the Tree Gal. 3.13 He was made a Curse for us thereby redeemed us from the Curse of the Law and that he might be made a Curse he was made sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 Isa 53.5 6. He subjected himself to the Law both in active as well as passive Obedience Gal. 4 4. And obeyed his Father even to Death doing and suffering at his Commandment John 14.31 Heb. 10.7 And his Obedience was for our Justification Compare Rom. 5.19 with Phil. 2.8 So Christ satisfied both for our Debt of Righteousness and Debt of Punishment for our Faultiness taint of Sin and want of Righteousness as well as for our guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment that we might be free from Wrath and deemed Righteous in God's Sight His Suffering was the consummating Act of Redemption and so all is attributed to it Heb. 2.9 10. Even to his Blood though other doings and sufferings concur 2 Cor. 8.9 We are righteous by him as we were guilty by Adam Rom. 5.12 2 God accepted this Price as a Satisfaction to his Justice which he shewed in raising Christ from the Dead and so acquitting him from all our Sins He was justified by the Spirit 1 Tim. 3. ult for us Rom. 4. ult raised for our Justification see Rom. 8.34 It is God that Justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen from the Dead And Heb. 10.5 14. By one Offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified And Eph. 5.1 2. This Sacrifice was a sweet smelling savour unto God If Christ had sunk under the weight of our sins and not been raised the Payment had not been finished and so the Debt not discharged John 16.10 Of Righteousness because I go to my Father 3. This Righteousness is in Christ as to the benefit of it So that it can't be had except we be in Christ and have Christ So the Text expresseth and sheweth that he is the Propitiation and as so he is our Righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 We have Redemption and Righteousness in him Eph. 1.7 2 Cor. 5.21 And therein our freedom from Condemnation Rom. 5.1 Christ dyed that his Seed might be justified Isa 53.10 11. Those that are in him by Spiritual Regeneration 1 Cor. 4.15 Observ VI. The formal cause of Justification or that wherein it consists is the Remission of Sin i. e. not only the Guilt and Punishment is removed but fault because it 's a Pardon grounded on Justice which cleareth the fault also By him we are justified from all things that the Law chargeth us with Act. 13.39 In Men subject to a Law there is no middle condition between not Imputing of Sin and Imputing of Righteousness and so these terms are used as Equivalent Act. 13.36 39. Through this Man is Preached Forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified c. Rom. 4.6 8. 2 Cor. 15.19 21. Rom 5.17 This is through the Bloodshed of Christ Eph. 1.7 Mat. 26.28 Observ VII God Justifieth a Sinner through Faith in Christs Blood Faith is the Instrumental Cause of receiving this Benefit Faith in the Blood of Christ 1. This Faith is believing on Christ that we may be justified by him Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a Man is not justified by the Works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law we believe in Christ for Justification out of a sence of our inability to obtain Justification by Works 2. This Faith doth not justify us as an Act of Righteousness earning and procuring our Justification by the work of it for this would have been Justification by works as under the Law diametrically opposite to Grace and free Gift which excludes all consideration of any works of ours to be our Righteousness under any denomination or diminutive terms whatever whether you 'l call it Legal or Evangelical though you reckon it no more then the payment of a Pepper-corn Rom. 11.6 Faith in this case is counted a Not working Rom. 4.5 And it 's not Faith that stands in stead of the Righteousness of the Law but the Righteousness of Christ which satisfieth for what we ought to have done or suffered as hath been shewed 3. God Justifieth by Faith as the Instrument whereby we receive Christ and his Righteousness by which we are Justified properly and we are justified by Faith only Metonymically by reason of the Righteousness received by it and to be justified by Faith and Christ is all one Gal. 3.8 Rom. 5.1 By Faith we receive remission of sins Act. 26.18 and Chap. 10 43. It s effect is the reception of Justification not the working of it as a man may be said to be maintained by his hands or nourished by his mouth when those do but receive that which nourisheth his food and drink the Cup is put for the Liquor in the Cup 1 Cor. 11.26 27. See Rom. 1.17 and 13.22 Christ is in us by Faith Eph. 3.17 perceived eat drunk Joh. 1.12 Chap. 9.49 53. 4. This Faith is to be understood Exclusively to all our works for Justification we defend against the Papists Justification by faith only and there is nothing more sully expressed in Scripture Phrase Rom. 3.28 Gal. 2.16 Phil. 3.8 9. Rom. 4.16 5. We must understand faith in a full sence of receiving Remission of the sault as well as of the punishment we believe that God accounts not the fault to us of the least sin and where faith is said to be accounted for Righteousness it is because of the object it receives Rom. 4.6 7 8. 2 Cor. 5.19 21. We believe Christs Righteousness imputed to us as our sins to him or else we receive not remission of Sins by believing which is contrary to charging us with sin and condemnation which charging signifieth imputing sin Rom. 8.33 34 together
Rom. 8.7 8. Therefore that they may be encouraged and rationally enclined to Holiness they must hope that God will work savingly in them Now I leave it to considerate Men to judge whether such an Hope can be well grounded without a good Perswasion of such a Reconciliation and Saving-love of God to us as dependeth not upon any precedent goodness of our Works but is a cause sufficient to produce them effectually in us Yea we know further if we know our selves sufficiently that our Death in Sin proceeded from the Guilt of the first Sin of Adam and the Sentence denounced against it Gen. 2.17 And that it is still maintain'd in us by the Guilt of Sin and the Curse of the Law and that Spiritual Life will never be given us to free us from that Dominion except this Guilt and Curse be removed from us which is done by actual Justification Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 6.14 And this is sufficient to make us despair of living to God in Holiness while we apprehend our selves to be under the Curse and Wrath of God by reason of our Transgressions and Sins still lying upon us Ezek. 33.10 Thirdly The nature of Duties of the Law is such as requireth an Apprehention of our Reconciliation with God and his hearty Love and Favour towards us for the doing of them The great Duty is Love to God with our whole Heart and not such a contemplative Love as Philosophers may have to the Object of Sciences which they are concern'd in no further than to please their Fancies in the knowledge of them but a practical Love whereby we are willing that God should be absolute Lord and Governour of us and all the World to dispose of us and all others according to his Will as to our temporal and everlasting Condition and that he should be the only Portion and Happiness of all those that are happy a Love whereby we like every thing in him as he is our Lord his Justice as well as any other Attribute without wishing or desiring that he were better than he is and whereby we desire that his Will may be done upon us and all others whether for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and whereby we can heartily praise him for all things and delight in our Obedience to him in doing his Will though we suffer that which is never so grievous to us even present Death Consider these things well and you may easily perceive that our Spirits are not in a fit frame for the doing of them while we apprehend our selves under the Curse and Wrath of God or while we are under prevailing Suspitions that God will prove an Enemy to us at last Slavish Fear may extort some slavish hypocritical Performances from us such as that of Pharaoh in letting the Israelites go sore against his Will but the Duty of Love cannot be extorted and forced by Fear but it must be won and sweetly allured by an Apprehension of God's Love and Goodness towards us as that eminent loving and beloved Disciple testifieth 1 Job 4.18 19. There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love we love him because he first loved us Observe here that we cannot be before hand with God in loving him before we apprehend his Love to us And consult your own Experience if you have any true Love to God whether it were not wrought in you by a sense of God's Love first toward you All the goodness and excellency of God cannot render him an amiable Object to us except we apprehend him an agreeable good to us I question not but the Devils know the excellency of Gods Nature as well as our greatest Metaphysical Speculators and this doth but fill them the more with tormenting horror and trembling that is contrary to Love Ja. 2.19 The greater God's Excellency and Perfection is the greater Evil he is to us if he hate us and curse us and therefore the Principle of Self-preservation deeply rooted in our natures hindreth us from loving that which we apprehend as our own Destruction if a Man be an Enemy to us we can love him for the sake of our loving reconciled God because his Love will make Man's Hatred to work for our good but if God himself be our Enemy for whose sake can we love him Who is there that can free us from the evil of his Enemity and turn it to our Advantage until he be pleased to reconcile himself to us Fourthly Our Conscience must of necessity be first purged from dead works that we may serve the living God and this is done by actual Remission of Sin procured by the Blood of Christ and manifested to our Consciences as appeareth by Christ's dying for this end Heb. 9.14 15. and 10.1 2. 4. 14 17 22. That Conscience whereby we judge our selves to be under the guilt of sin and wrath of God is accounted an evil Conscience in Scripture though it perform its Office truly because it is caused by the evil of sin and will it self be a cause of our committing more sin until it can judge us to be justified from all sin and received into the Favour of God Love which is the end of the Law must proceed from a good Conscience as well as from any other cleanness of Heart 1 Tim. 1.5 David's Mouth could not be opened to shew forth the Praise of God until he was delivered from Blood-guiltiness Psal 51.14 15. This evil guilty Conscience whereby we judge that God is our Enemy and that his Justice is against us to our everlasting Condemnation by reason of our sins doth strongly maintain and increase the Dominion of Sin and Satan in us and worketh most mischievous effects in the Soul against Godliness even to bring the Soul to hate God and to wish there were no God no Heaven no Hell so we might escape the Punishment due to us It so disaffecteth People toward God that they cannot endure to think or speak or hear of him and his Law but strive either to put him out of their minds by fleshly Pleasures and worldly Imployments and thus they are alienated from all true Religion only blinding it and stopping the mouth of it It produceth Zeal in many outside religious Performances and also false Religion Idolatry and the most inhumane Superstitions in the World I have often considered by what manner of working any Sin could effectually destroy the whole Image of God in the first Adam and I conclude it was by working first an evil guilty Conscience in him whereby he judged that the just God was against him and cursed him for that one Sin and this was enough to work a shameful Nakedness by disorderly Lusts a turning his Love wholly from God to the Creature and a desire to be hidden from the Presence of God Gen. 3.8 10. which was a total Destruction of the Image of God's Holiness And we have cause to
by meer conviction of the Truth such as wicked Men and Devils may be brought to when they had rather it were false Neither must our believing on Christ be only constrained for fear of Damnation without any hearty Love and Desire towards the enjoyment of him but we must receive the Love of the Truth by relishing the Goodness and Excellency of it and we must account all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord and count them but dung that we may win Christ and be found in him 2 Thess 2.10 Phil. 3.8 9. esteeming Christ to be all our Salvation and Happiness Col. 3.11 in whom all fulness doth dwell Col. 1.19 And this Love must be to every part of Christ's Salvation to Holiness as well as Forgiveness of Sins We must desire earnestly that God would create in us a clean Heart and right Spirit as well as hide his face from our sins Psal 51.9 10. not like many that care for nothing in Christ but only Deliverance from Hell Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Mat. 5.6 The former of these Acts doth not immediately unite us to Christ because it is terminated only on the means of Conveyance the Gospel yet it is a saving Act if it be rightly performed because it enclineth and disposeth the Soul to the latter Act whereby Christ himself is immediately received into the Heart He that believeth the Gospel with hearty love and liking as the most Excellent Truth will certainly with the like heartiness believe on Christ for his Salvation They that know the name of the Lord will certainly put their trust in him Psal 9.10 Therefore in Scripture Saving-Faith is sometimes described by the former of these Acts as if it were a meer believing the Gospel sometimes by the latter as a believing on Christ or in Christ Rom. 10.9 If thou believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved 11 the Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed 1 John 5.1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God For the better understanding of the nature of Faith let it be further observed that the Second and Principal of it believing on Christ includeth believing on God the Father Son and Holy Ghost because they are one and the same infinite God and they all concurr in our Salvation by Christ as the only Mediator betwixt God and us in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen 2 Cor. 1.20 By him as mediator we believe on God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that our faith and hope might be in God 1 Pet. 1.21 And it is the same thing with trusting on God or on the Lord which is so highly commended in the whole Scripture especially in the Old Testament as may easily appear by considering that it hath the same Causes Effects Objects Adjuncts Opposites and all the same Circumstances excepting only that it had a respect to Christ as promised before his Coming and now it respecteth him as already come in the Flesh Believing in the Lord and trusting on his Salvation are equivalent terms that explain one another Psal 78.22 I confess that trusting on things seen or known by the meer Light of Reason as on our own Wisdom Power Riches on Princes or any Arm of Flesh may not so properly be called believing on them but trusting on a Saviour as discovered by a Testimony is properly believing on him It is also the same thing that is expressed by the terms of resting relying leaning staying our selves on the Lord because it is the Ground of that Expectation that is the proper Act of Hope though our Believing and Trusting be for the present as well as future benefit of this Salvation The reason why it is so commonly expressed in the Scriptures of the New Testament by the terms of believing on Christ might be probably because when that part of Scripture was written there was cause in a special manner to urge believing the Testimony that was then newly revealed by the Gospel Having thus explained the nature of Faith I come now to assert its proper Use and Office in our Salvation That it is the Means and Instrument whereby we receive Christ and all his Fulness actually into our Hearts This excellent Use and Office of Faith is encountered by a multitude of Errors men naturally esteem that it is too small and slight a thing to produce so great effects as Naaman thought washing in Jordan too small a matter for the cure of his Leprosie They contemn the true means of entring in at the streight Gate because they seem too easie for such purpose and thereby they make the Entrance not only difficult but impossible to themselves Some will allow that Faith is the sole Condition of our Justification and the Instrument to receive it according to the Doctrine maintained formerly by the Protestants against the Papists but they account that it is not sufficient or effectual to Sanctification but that it rather tendeth to Licentiousness if it be not joyned with some other means that may be powerful and effectual to procure an holy Practice They commend this great Doctrine of Protestants as a comfortable Cordial for Persons upon their Death-beds or in Agonies under Terrors of Conscience but they account that it is not good for ordinary Food and that it is Wisdom in Ministers to preach it seldom and sparingly and not without some Antidote or Corrective to prevent the licentiousness to which it tendeth Their common Antidote or Corrective is That Sanctification is necessary to Salvation as well as Justification and that though we be justified by Faith yet we are sanctified by our own performance of the Law and so they set up Salvation by works and make the Grace of Justification to be of none effect and not at all comfortable If it had indeed such a malignant influence upon Practice it could not be owned as a Doctrine proceeding from the most holy God and all the Comfort that it affords must needs be ungrounded and deceitful This Consequence is well understood by some late Refiners of the Protestant Religion and therefore they have thought fit to new-model this Doctrine and to make Saving-Faith to be only a Condition to procure a Right and Title to our Justification by the Righteousness of Christ which must be performed before we can lay any good claim to the enjoyment of it and before we have any right to the actual receiving of it and this they call an accepting of or receiving Christ And that they may the better secure the practice of Holiness by their Conditional Faith they will not have trusting on God
then is it to plead that they can do good if they will when their Minds and Will it self is enslaved to Sin A fourth Property is Subjection to the power of the Devil who is the God of this world that hath blinded the minds of all that believe not 2. Cor. 4.4 And will certainly conquer all that he sighteth with upon his own Dunghill that is in a natural State And from all these Properties we may well conclude that it hath the Property never to be good to be stark dead in Sin Ephes 2.1 according to the Sentence denounced against the first Sin of Mankind in Adam in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 For you can no more bring it to Holiness by any the most vehement Motives and Endeavours then you can bring a dead Carcase to Life by chafing and rubbing it You can stir up no strength or fortifying Grace in the natural Man by such Motives and Endeavours because there is no Strength in him to be stirred up Rom. 5.6 Tho' you do all that lieth in you to the utmost while you are in this Flesh you can do nothing but sin for there is no good lying in you as the Apostle Paul sheweth by his own Experience I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing Rom. 7.18 Sixthly We have no good ground to trust on Christ to help us to will or to do that which is acceptable to him while we continue in our natural State or to imagine that Freedom of Will to Holiness is restored to us by the Merit of his Death For as it hath been already shewed Christ aimed at an higher end in his Incarnation Death and Resurrection than the restoring the Decay and Ruins of our natural State He aimed to advance us to a new State more excellent than the State of Nature ever was by Union and Fellowship with himself that we might live to God not by the Power of a natural Free-will but by the Power of his Spirit living and acting in us So we may conclude that our natural State is irrecoverable and desperate because Christ the only Saviour did not aim at the Recovery of it It is neither holy nor happy but subject to Sin and to all Miseries as long as it remaineth Even those that are in a new State in Christ and do serve the Law of God with their Mind do yet with their Flesh serve the Law of Sin Rom. 7.25 As far as it remaineth in them it lusteth against the spirit Gal. 5.17 And it remaineth dead because of sin even when the spirit is life to them because of righteousness Rom. 8.10 And must be wholly abolished by Death before we can be perfected in that Holiness and Happiness that is by Faith in Christ After God had promised Salvation by Christ the Seed of the Woman he placed Cherubims and a flaming Sword to keep Man out of Paradice thereby teaching him that his first State was lost without Hope and that the Happiness intended for him was wholly new Our old natural Man was not revived and reformed by the Death of Christ but crucified together with him and therefore to be abolished and destroyed out of us by virtue of his Death Rom. 6.6 It is like the part of a Garment infected with the Plague of Leprosie which was to be rent off as incurable that the Garment might be clean Levit. 13.56 If Christ be not in us we are reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 i. e. we are in a State which God hath rejected from partaking of his Salvation so that we are not to expect any Assistance from God to make us holy in it but rather to deliver us from it Seventhly This doth not at all discharge those that are in a natural State from Obligation to Holiness of Life nor render them excusable for their Sins at the Tribunal of God's Justice For God hath made man upright but they sought many inventions Eccles 7.29 Observe well the Words of this Text and you will find that all they who have sought out many Inventions rather than upright walking are comprehended in Man that was at first made upright And Man in the Text signifieth all Mankind the first Adam was all Mankind as Jacob and Esau were two nations in the womb of Rebecca Gen. 25.23 God made us all in our first Parents according to his own Image able and inclined to do his Law and in that pure Nature our Obligation to Obedience was first laid upon us and the first wilful Transgression whereby our first Parents bereaved themselves of the Image of God and brought upon themselves the Sentence of Death was our Sin as well as theirs For in one man Adam all have sinned and so death is passed upon all Rom. 5.12 Because all Mankind were in Adam's Loins when the first Sin was committed even as Levi may be said to have paid Tithes in Abraham before he was born because when his Father Abraham paid Tithes to Melchizedeck he was yet in his Loins Heb. 7.9 10. That Promise of God that he will not charge the Iniquities of Parents upon their Children is a Promise belonging to the New Covenant confirmed in the Blood of Christ and it is Yea and Amen to us only in Christ in whom we have another Nature than that which our Parents conveyed to us so that we cannot justly claim the Benefit of it in our old natural State Jer. 31.29 30 31. 2 Cor. 1.20 Those that account their Impotency a sufficient Plea to excuse them or others shew that they were never truly humbled for that great wilful Transgression of all Mankind in the Loins of Adam Inability to pay Debts excuseth not a Debtor that hath lavished away his Estate neither doth Drunkenness excuse the mad Actings of a Drunkard but rather aggravates his Sin And our Impotency consisteth not in a meer want of an executive Power but in the want of a willing Mind to practice true Holiness and Righteousness Naturally we love it not we like it not but lust against it Gal. 5.17 and hate the light John 3.20 If Men in a natural State had an hearty Love and Likeing to true Holiness and a desire and serious endeavour to practice it out of hearty Love and yet failed in the event then they might under some pretence plead for their Excuse as some do for them that they were compelled to sin by an inevitable Fate But none have just cause to plead any such thing for their excuse because none endeavour to practice true Holiness out of hearty Love to it until the good Work be begun in their Souls and when God hath begun he will perfect it Phil. 1.6 And will in the mean time accept their ready Mind though they fall short in Performance 2 Cor. 8.12 How abominable then and filthy is man that drinketh up iniquity us water Job 15.16 That cannot practise Holiness because he will not This is their just Condemnation that
thing that 's contrary to an Holy Life and the Graces and holy Desires to be acted for your selves or others Col. 4.12 Rom. 15.30 Stir up your selves to the Duty Col. 2.1 2. Isa 64.7 Though the Flesh be cross and reluctant we must not yield but resist by the Spirit Mat. 26.41 And thus we shall find the Spirit helping our Infirmities Rom. 8.26 27. Though God seem to defer long we must not faint or be discouraged Luk. 18.1 7. The greater our Agonies be the more earnestly we are to pray Psal 22.1 2. Luk. 22.42 This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12.12 Eph. 6.18 Thus you will find Prayer a great Heart-work and not such a thing as may be done while you think on other things and that it requireth all the Strength of Faith and Affection that you can possibly stir up Thus you may get a holy Frame 7. You must make a good use of the whole matter and all the manner of Prayer as ordinary and extraordinary Exigencies may require to stir up Grace in you by wrestling and to bring your Hearts into a holy Frame As in Confession you must condemn your self according to the Flesh but not as you are in Christ You must not deny that Grace that you have as if you were only wicked hitherto and now to begin again which hinders Praise for Grace received in those that are already converted In Supplication you must endeavour to work up your Heart to a godly Sorrow Psal 38.18 and a holy sense of your own Sin and Misery and lay before you the Aggravations thereof Psal 51.3 Psal 102. Complaint and Lamentation are one great part of Prayer as Lamentations of Jeremiah And you must add pleading to your Petitions with such Arguments as may serve to strengthen Faith and to stir up and kindle Affection Job 23.4 which pleadings are taken from Attributes Num. 14.17 18. Promises 2 Sam. 7.27 28 c. Gen. 32.9 12. the equity of our cause Psal 17.2 3. the advantage and benefit of the thing to the glory of God and our comfort Psal 115.1 2. Psal 79.9.10 13. Naked Petitions are not sufficient when the Soul findeth special cause of strugling and wrestling against Corruptions and Dangers and for Mercies Christs large Prayer is made up Joh. 17. of pleading and very few Petitions And we must make use also of Praise and Thanksgiving for to stir up Peace Joy Love c. Gen. 33.10 Psal 18.1 2 3. and 33.1 and 74.14 and 104.34 Especially be much in praising God for Mercies of the new State in Christ Eph. 1.3 and then you will the better give thanks for all benefits on his account Eph. 5.20 1 Thess 5.18 and plead those Benefits to stir up to Faith and Duty That brief Ejaculation Lord have mercy on me is very good to be used but it will not answer the end and use of the whole Duty of Prayer as some lazy carnal People would have it and so harden themselves in the neglect of the Duty Though the large Improvement and use of all the matter of Prayer at all times is not required but only as ordinary or extraordinary Occasions may require 8. You must not confine and limit your Prayers by any prescribed Form seeing it is impossible that any such Forms should be contrived as should answer and fit all the various Conditions and Necessities of the Soul at all times I do not condemn all Forms as that made by Christ the Lords Prayer though it were easie to shew that Christ never intended it for a Form of Prayer so as to bind any to the precise Form of Words and it 's plain the Spirit of God hath expressed it in different Words Mat. 6. Luk. 11. But better to pray by that Form or other Forms than not at all It is uncharitable to take away Crutches or Woodden Leggs from lame People yet none will look upon them but as dead helps I say it is utterly unlawful to bind our selves to any Form because none can answer the Duty fitly and suitably to particular occasions Eph. 6.18 Phil. 4.6 Joh. 15.7 1 Thess 5.18 Eph. 5.20 You must make the whole Scripture your Common-Prayer-Book as the Primitive Church did being the Language of the Spirit reaching all Occasions and Conditions and sittest to speak to God in And if you use a Form you must follow it by the Spirit further than the Form goes according as he shall guide you by the Word or else you quench the Spirit 1 Thess 5.19 If you know the Principles of Prayer and have a lively sense of your Necessities and hearty Desires of Gods Grace and Mercies you will be able to pray without Forms and your Affections will bring forth words out of the fulness of your Heart And you need not be over-solicitous and timorous about words for doubtless the Spirit who is the help to us in speaking to Men will also much more help us to speak to God if we desire it 1 Cor. 1.5 Mar. 13.11 Luk. 12.12 And God regards not eloquent Words nor artificial Composure neither need we regard it in private Prayer Isa 38.14 If you limit your self to Forms you will thereby grow formal and limit the Spirit 7. Another means appointed of God is Singing of Psalms i. e. Songs of any sacred Subject composed to a Tune are Hymns or Songs of Praise and spiritual Songs of any sublime spiritual Matter as Psal 45. and the Song of Solomon God hath commanded it Col. 3.16 Eph. 5.19 in the New Testament Though now in these days many question whether it be an Ordinance or no and there were many Commands for it under the Old Testament Psal 149.2 3. and 96.1 and 100. Moses and the Children of Israel sang before David's time Exod. 15. David composed Psalms by the Spirit to be sung publickly 2 Sam. 23.1 2. yea privately too Psal 40.3 2 Chron. 29.30 Psal 105.2 Other Songs also were made upon several Occasions and used whether they were parts of the Scripture or no as Solomon made 1005. 1 King 4.32 And they made Songs upon occasion which teacheth that it is lawful for us to do so so they be according to the Word Isa 38.9 14. The matter of Scripture may be sung Psal 119.54 Christ and his Disciples sang a Hymn Mat. 26.30 supposed to be one of David's Psalms and they were written for our Instruction as well as other parts of Scripture Rom. 15. and so to be used now in singing They speak of the things of the New Testament either figuratively or clearly and we may understand them better now than the Jews could under the Old Testament 2 Cor. 3.16 Col. 2.7 Christians heretofore practised this Duty as well as Jews Act. 16.25 Hence their Antelucani Hymni were noted by Pliny a Heathen These Songs or Hymns may be used at all times especially for holy Mirth or Rejoycing Jam. 5.13 But is not to be taken exclusively in Singing any more than in Prayer Psal 38.18 2 Chron. 35.25
Applied ROM 3.23 24 25 26. 23 For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God 24 Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ 25 Whom God hath set forth for a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness for the remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God 26 To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus THE Apostle having confuted and overthrown all Justification of either Jew or Gentile by Works in the foregoing Discourse is now proving what he Asserted ver 21 22. viz. that the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the Prophets even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference Shewing that now in the Gospel times there is no difference between Jew and Gentile but that in the justification of both the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested This he proveth by shewing what the Gospel teacheth concerning the way of Justification for the Gospel only reveals the Righteousness of God Rom. 1.16 17. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ver 17. For therein is the Righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith So the Words are a declaration of the Gospel way of Justification by the Righteousness of God and that so clearly and fully and the benefit spoken of so great and glorious being the first benefit that we receive by Union with Christ and the foundation of all other benefits that my Text is accounted to be Evangelium Evangelii a principal part of the written Gospel as briefly and yet fully expressing this excellent point more then any other Text. Note in the words particularly 1. The Subject declared and explained viz. Justification of Persons or their being justified and the meaning of it here is to be cleared and freed from all Ambiguities and Mis-understanding Justification signifieth making just as Sanctification is making holy Glorification making glorious But not making just by infusion of grace and holiness into a Person as the Papists teach consounding Justification and Sanctification together but making just in trial and judgment by a judicial Sentence discharging of guilt freeing from blame and accusation approving judging owning and pronouncing a person to be righteous Use alters the signification from the Notation It is a Juridical word or Law Term and hath reference to Trial and Judgement 1. Cor. 4.3 4. It is with me a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment Yea I judge not mine own self For I know nothing of my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. And it s so opposed to condemnation in Judgment Deut. 25.1 If there be a controversie between men and they come unto judgment that the Judges may judge them then they shall justify the Righteous and condemn the wicked And Mat. 12.37 By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned And it 's opposed both to Accusation and Condemnation Rom. 8 33 34. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect ver 34. Who is he that condemneth And so Job 9.20 If I justify my self mine own mouth shall condemn me Job 13.15 I will maintain mine own ways before him ver 18. I have ordered my cause and I know I shall be justified ver 19. Who is he that will plead with me Here Justification is plainly opposed unto the Accusation or Fault and it 's as plainly opposed to the passing Sentence of Condemnation 1 Kings 8.32 Do and judge thy Servants condemning the wicked to bring his way upon his head and justifying the righteous to give him according to his Righteousness In this sence it is a sin to justify the Wicked Isa 5.23 Prov. 17.15 Job 27.5 Actions must be existent already and brought to trial that they may be justified Job 33.32 Isa 43.9 26. Justice or Righteousness consists not in the Intrinsick nature of an Action but in its agreeableness to a rule of Judgment So that Actions are called just and righteous by an Extrinsecal Denomination with relation to Gods rule of Judging and this Righteousness appears by trying the Action according to the rule and by making an estimate of it which estimate is either approving or disproving justifying or condemning finding it to be sin or no sin or breach of the Law so we may say of the righteousness of Persons with reference to such habits or actings And because Righteousness of righteous Persons appears when they are brought to trial and judgment therefore they are said then to be in a special manner justified as if they were then made righteous Viz. when their Righteousness is declared as Christ was said to be begotten the Son of God at the Resurrection Acts 13 33. because he was then declared to be the Son of God Rom. 1.4 and in the same sense we that are adopted at present are said to wait for our adoption i. e. the manifestation of it Rom. 8.23 And thus even God is said to be justified when we judge of his Actions as we ought to do and deem them to be righteous Job 32.2 Psal 51.4 Luke 7.29 though nothing can be added to the Infinite Righteousness of God And Wisdom is said to be justified by her Children Matth. 11.19 So Justification is not a real change of a Sinner in himself though a real change is annexed to it but only a Relative change with reference to Gods Judgment And thus the word is used in the Text and so also in matters of Judicature throughout the scripture yea some contend against the Papists that it is no where in Scripture otherwise except by a Trope borrowed from this as the proper sense And in the Text it 's beyond all doubt meant of being deemed and accounted just in the sight of God for such a Justification is here only treated of as appears in the Text and before ver 19 20. And I have been the longer Explaining the sense of the word because the mistaking of it by reason of its composition occasioned that popish error whereby the benefit signified by it is obscured yea overthrown so that we had need contend for the sense of the Word 2. In the Text we have First the Persons justified 1. Sinners 2. Such Sinners of all sorts that shall believe whether Jews or Gentiles 2. The Justifier or Efficient Cause God 3. The Impulsive Cause Grace 4. The means effecting or Material Cause The Redemption of Christ 5. The Formal Cause The Remission of Sins 6. The Instrumental Cause Faith 7. The Time of declaring The present Time 8. The End That God may appear just From hence therefore will arise several useful Observations all tending to explain the nature of Justification which shall