12.12 Esther 8.15 So that it still remaineth clear that loving our neighbours as our selves doth entitle us to the comforts of all mens health estates prosperity honours yea and their holiness and wisdom too and this without any such participation of their sorrows as should be any considerable ecclipse of our delights if we do it all regularly as God requireth us 6. If I love my neighbour as my self I am freed from all the trouble of cross interests in buying and selling in trespassing in Law-suits It will comfort me as much if he get by me as if I get by him If his bargain prove the better as if mine did if he have the better at Law as if it were judged to my self Yea all his successes prosperity and whatever good befalleth any that I know of in the world will all be mine 7. And I shall never be loth by death to leave the world while I have no cause to fear the missing of salvation because whatever I leave behind me will be possessed by such as I love as my self They will have life and time and health and comforts and whatever my nature is loth to leave Therefore whilest I live why should it not be as comforting to me to think that so many shall live and prosper whom I love as my self as if I were my self to live and prosper 8. Yea more than so I have by Love a part in the Joyes of Heaven before I am actually there For the Joyes of all those blessed souls and of those holy Angels are mine by participation so far as to cause me to rejoyce in their felicity as if it were my own as far as I can now apprehend it Yea the Glory of the Lord Jesus and the eternal blessedness of God himself would rejoyce us more than our own felicity if we loved him as much above our selves as we ought to do we should partake of our Masters joy And now judge whether loving God as God and our neighbours sincerely as our selves would not cure almost all the calamities of our minds and give us a kind of Heaven and be a cheap and certain way to have what we can wish in all the world and even to make all the world our own And whether it be not sin it self which is the first part of all mens hell and misery Object But my neighbours meat will not fill my belly nor his health doth not ease my pain nor his fire keep me warm Answ The flesh hath got the dominion indeed when men cannot distinguish between soul and body between the pain and pleasures of the body and of the mind I do not say that Love will change the pain or pleasure of your bodies but of your minds Your appetites will not be satisfied with your neighbours food but your minds may be comforted to see his welfare Your pain is not eased by your neighbours health but your minds may be pleased by it as much as if it were your own if you loved him as much as you do your self And therefore many in a danger have saved the life of a Prince a Captain a Parent a Child a Friend with the voluntary loss of their own Object This is all true but who is there in the world that doth it or findeth it possible to love another as himself And how can that be a duty which is to nature it self an impossibility Therefore let us first know what this duty is of loving our neighbours as our selves Answ Doubtless if it be the summ of the Law all true Christians do it in sincerity though not in perfection And as to the sense of it 1. You must distinguish between that sensitive and passionate affection which is in the soul as sensitive and is common to beasts with men and that rational appetite which doth will and chuse and is pleased according to the conduct of pure reason The first we doubt not will be still more to our selves than others and it is not the use of grace to destroy it but to rule and moderate it 2. You must distinguish between Love and outward actions which are the expressions of it When our Love is due as much to one as to another yet our outward actions may be under a particular Law which obligeth us to do that for one which we are not bound to do for others As to maintain our own children families servants and so our selves rather than others And the reason is because the difference of individuals maketh that fit for one which is not fit for another and so maketh every man the fittest chuser for himself and those that are neerest to him and nature instigateth him to the greatest care in doing it And all good must be done in a regular order or else confusion will destroy it And nature maketh this most orderly As every Parish must keep their own poor and yet must love other poor as well 3. You must know that Love is formally nothing but complacence as aforesaid but Love joyned with a will and purpose to do good to another is called Love of benevolence when yet the Love there is one thing and the doing good or purpose to do it is another and I may in obedience to God purpose and do more good to one whom I am bound to Love not more but less And now you may see what it is to love our neighbours as our selves 1. God must be loved above our neighbours and our selves and both must be loved purely as related and subordinate to him and for his sake There is a double respect which all things have to God 1. As they contain that excellency which he hath put upon them which is some likeness representation or signification of himself and is called his Glory shining in the creature that is it 's derived Goodness 2. As they conduce to his further service and may honour him and please him Thus all creatures must be loved only as a means even a means declaring God being derivatively and significantly good and useful and as a means to serve and please him 2. Therefore this being the formal reason of our Rational Love must also be the measure of it à quatenus ad quantum As it is certain that I must love that best which is best because I must love it only as good so it is certain that that is best which hath most likeness to God and most of his Glory upon it and that which is most pleasing to him and useful to his service Therefore if my neighbour be better than I am I must judge him better and love him better 3. Though natural self-appetite and self-preservation by which all creatures are for themselves only not feeling the hunger cold pain of others be not sinful but the effect of creating individuation yet Reason was perfect and the Will could perfectly follow Reason in its complacency and choice till sin corrupted it Reason could judge that best which was best and the Will
Covenant and he inflicteth penalties yea some that are very grievous even the with-holding of much of his Spirits help and grace all which are inconsistent with that conceit nor would he so have used us if we had been perfectly innocent and had fully satisfied for our sins our selves 8. All men would have had present possession of Glory if God had so reputed us the perfect meriters of it For his Justice would no more have delayed our reward than denyed it 9. All that are saved would have equal degrees of holiness and happiness as well as of righteousness because all would equally be reputed the perfect fulfillers of the Law And as no penalty could ever be justly inflicted on them here so no degree of glory could be denyed them hereafter for their sin or for want of perfect righteousness 10. The opinion of this kind of imputation is a most evident contradiction in it self For he that is imputatively a satisfier for all his own sin is therein supposed to be a sinner And he that is imputatively a perfect innocent fulfiller of the Law is thereby supposed to need no satisfaction to Justice for his sin as being imputatively no sinner 11. By this all Christs sacrifice and satisfaction is made a work of needless supererrogation yea unjust or rather impossible For if we perfectly obeyed in him he could not suffer for our disobedience 12. Hereby pardon of sin is utterly denyed for he that is reputatively no sinner hath no sin to pardon If they say that God did first impute the satisfaction for sin then there was no room after for the imputation of perfect obedience We cannot feign God to receive all the debt or inflict all the penalty and then to say now I will esteem thee one that never didst deserve it If they say that he doth neither impute the obedience or the suffering to us simply and to all effects but in tantum ad hoc or secundum quid only so that we shall be pardoned for his suffering and then judged worthy of Heaven for his obedience this is but to come up towards the truth before you are aware and to confess that neither of them is given us in it self but in the effects as being it self paid to God to procure those effects But withall the matter must be vindicated from their unfound inventions and it must be said that Christ dyed not only for our sins of commission but of omission also and that he that is pardoned both his sins of commission and omission is free from the punishment both of sense and loss yea and is reputed as one that never culpably omitted any duty and consequently fell short of no reward by such omission so that there remaineth no more necessity of Righteousness in order to a reward where the pardon is perfect save only N. B. to procure us that degree of reward which must be superadded to what we forfeited by our sin and which we never by any culpable omission deserved to be denyed And thus much we do not deny that somewhat even Adoption which is more than meer Pardon and Justification must confer on us But withall as we hold not that the Sun must bring light and somewhat else must first banish darkness that one thing must cure death and another cause life that satisfaction must procure the pardon of sins of omission and commission as to the poenae damni sensus and make us esteemed and used as no sinners and then imputed obedience must give us right to that reward which the poenae damni deprived us of so N. B. we maintain that Christs sufferings have merited our eternal salvation and our Justification and Adoption and that his obedience hath merited our forgiveness of sin And that both go together the merit of the one and of the other to procure all that we receive and that the effects are not parcelled out as they have devised Though yet we believe that Christs sufferings were paid to God as for our sins to satisfie Justice and that in the Passive Obedience it is first satisfactory and then and therefore meritorious and in the active it is meerly meritorious 13. And the maintainers of the contrary opinion besides all the forementioned evils could never agree how much of Christs Righteousness must be in their sense imputed some holding only the passive a second sort the active and passive a third sort the habitual active and passive a fourth sort the divine the habitual the active and the passive But of all these things there is so much written against them by Cargius Vrsinus Olevian Piscator Paraeus Scultetus Alstedius Wendeline Camero Bradshaw Gataker and many more that I need not to add any more for confutation Errour 3. That no one shall suffer whose sins lay on Christ and were suffered for by him Contr. Many such shall suffer the sorer punishment for sinning against the Lord that bought them and treading under foot the blood of the Covenant wherewith they were so far sanctified as to be a people by their own Covenant separated to God Heb. 10.25 26. Heb. 6.4 5 6. 2 Pet. 2.2 Heb. 4.1 2.3 12.29 Errour 4. That no godly man say some or Elect person though ungodly say others is ever punished by God because Christ suffered all their punishment himself Contr. Every godly man is chastened of God and all chastisement is a fatherly correcting punishment And many justified persons are punished to their final loss by the denyal of forfeited degrees of grace and consequently of glory Heb. 12.7 8 9 10. 1 Cor. 11.32 1 Thes 5.19 Ephes 4.30 But sad experience is too full a proof See my Confession Errour 5. That God were unjust if he laid any degree of punishment on those that Christ died for or say others on the justified because he should punish one sin twice Contr. It is certain that God punisheth the Justified in some degree much more the Elect before conversion and it is certain that God is not unjust Therefore it is certain that the ground of this accusation is false for it was not our deserved punishment it self or the same which was due in the true sense of the Law which Christ endured but it was the punishment of a voluntary sponsor which was the equivalens and not the idem that was due and did answer the ends of the Law but not fulfill the meaning of the threatning which threatned the sinner himself and not another for him seeing then it was a satisfaction or sacrifice for sin which God received for an attonement and propitiation and not a solution or suffering of the sinner himself in the sense of the Law the charge of injustice on God is groundless And no man can have more right to Christs sufferings or benefits than he himself is willing to give And it is not his own will into whose hands all power and judgement is committed that we should be subject to no punishment because he suffered
done But that which unavoidably must be seen should be foreseen But the unseen world is not thus mutable Eternal life is begun in the Believer The Church is built on Christ the Reck and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Fix here and you shall never be removed 4. Hence followeth another difference The mutable creature doth impart a disgraceful mutability to the soul that chuseth it It disappointeth and deceiveth And therefore the ungodly are of one mind to day and another to morrow In health they are all for pleasure and commodity and honour and at death they cry out on it as deceitful Vanity In health they cannot abide this strictness this meditating and seeking and preparing for the life to come but at death or judgement they will all be of another mind Then O that they had been so wise as to know their time and O that they hâ—d lived as holily as the best They are now the bold opposers and reproachers of an holy life But then they would be glad it had been their own They would eat their words and will be down in the mouth and stand to never a word they say when sight and sense and judgement shall convince them But things unchangeable do fix the soul Pâ—eâ—y is no matter for Repentance Doth the Believer speak against sin and sinners and for an holy sober righteous life He will do so to the last Death and Judgement shall not change his mind in this but much confirm it And therefore he perseveres through sufferings to death Rom. 8.35 36 37. For this cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4.16 17. 6. Lastly let this move you to live by a foreseeing Faith that it is of necessity to your salvation Believing Heaven must prepare you for it before you can enjoy it Believing Hell is necessâ—ry to prevent it Mark 16.16 John 3.18 36. The just shall live by Faith but if any man draw back or be lifted up the Lord will have no pleasure in him Heb. 10.38 Hâ—b 2.4 Take heed that there be not in any of you an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 And be not of them that draw back to perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the soul Heb. 10.39 It is God that saith They shall all be damned that believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. May I now in the conclusion more particularly exhort you 1. That you will live upon things foreseen 2. That you will promote this life of faith in others according to your several capacities Princes and Nobles live not alwaies You are not the Rulers of the unmoveable Kingdom but of a boat that is in an hasty stream or a ship under sail that will speed both Pilot and Passengers to the shore Dixi estis Dii at moriemini ut homines It was not the least or worst of Kings that said I am a stranger vpon earth Psal 119.19 Vermis sum non homo I am a worm and no man Psal 32.6 You are the greater worms and we the little ones but we must all say with Job ch 17.13 14. The grave is our house and we must make our beds in darkness Corruption is our Father and the Worm our Mother and our Sister The inexorable Leveller is ready at your backs to convince you by unresistible argument that dust you are and to dust you shall return Heaven should be as desirable and Hell as terrible to you as to others No man will fear you after death much less will Christ be afraid to judge you Luke 19.27 As the Kingdoms and glory of the world were contemned by him in the hour of his temptation so are they inconsiderable to procure his approbation Trust not therefore to uncertain riches Value them but as they will prove at last As you stand on higher ground than others it is meet that you should see further The greater are your advantages the wiser and better you should be and therefore should better perceive the difference between things temporal and eternal It is alwaies dark where these glow-worms shine and a rotten post doth seem a fire Your difficulties also should excite you You must go as through a Needles eye to Heaven To live as in Heaven in a crowd of business and stream of temptations from the confluence of all worldly things is so hard that few such come to Heaven Withdraw your selves therefore to the frequent serious fore-thoughts of eternity and live by faith Had time allowed it I should have come down to some particular instances As 1. Let the things unseen be still at hand to answer every temptation and shame and repel each motion to sin 2. Let them be still at hand to quicken us to duty when backwardness and coldness doth surprize us What shall we do any thing coldly for eternity 3. Let it resolve you what company to delight in and what society to be of even those with whom you must dwell for ever What side soever is uppermost on earth you may foresee which side shall reign for ever 4. Let the things invisible be your daily solace and the satisfaction of your souls Are you slandered by men Faith tells you it is enough that Christ will justifie you O happy day when he will bring forth our righteousness as the light and set all strait which all the false histories or slanderous tongues or pens in all the world made crooked Are you frowned on or contemned by men Is it not enough that you shall everlastingly be honoured by the Lord Are you wronged oppressed or trodden on by pride or malice Is not Heaven enough to make you reparation and eternity long enough for your joyes O pray for your malicious enemies lest they suffer more than you can wish them 2. Lastly I should have become on the behalf of Christ a petitioner to you for protection and encouragement to the heirs of the invisible world For them that preach and them that live this life of faith not for the honours and riches of the world but for leave and countenance to work in the Vineyard and peaceably travel through the world as strangers and live in the Communion of Saints as they believe But though it be for the beloved of the Lord the apple of his eye the people that are sure to prevail and raign with Christ for ever whose prayers can do more for the greatest Princes than you can do for them whose joy is hastened by that which is intended for their sorrow I shall now lay
and to the other to settle the orders of the Gospel Church Christ sent them to teach all things whatsoever he commanded Mat. 28.20 And he promised to be with them and to send them the Spirit to lead them into all truth and to bring all things to their remembrance Accordingly they did obey this Commission and settled the Gospel Churches according to the will of Christ and this many years before any of the New Testament was written Therefore these acts of theirs have the nature and use of a divine Revelation and a Law For if they were fallible in this Christ must break the foresaid Promise 2. But all the Acts of the Apostles which were either about indifferent things or which were about forecommanded duties and not in the execution of the foresaid Commission for which they had the promise of infallibility have no such force or interpretation For 1. Their holy actions of obedience to former Laws are not properly Laws to us but motives to obey Gods Laws And this is the common use of all other good examples of the Saints in Scripture Their examples are to be tryed by the Law and followed as secondary copies or motives and not as the Law it self 1 Cor. 11.1 Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ Heb. 6.12 Be followers of them who through faith and patience do inherit the promise 1 Cor. 4.16 Phil. 3.17 1 Thes 1.6 2.16 3.7 9. Heb. 13.7 2. And the evil examples even of Apostles are to be avoided as all other evil examples recorded in the Scriptures are such as Peters denial of his Lord and the Disciples all forsaking him and Peters sinful separation and dissimulation and Barnabas's with him Gal. â— And the falling out of Paul and Barnabas c. 3. And the history of indifferent actions or those which were the performance but of a temporary duty are instructing to us but not examples which we must imitate It is no divine Faith which forgeth an object or rule to it self Whatsoever example we will prove to be obligatory to us to imitate we must either prove 1. That it was an execution of Gods own commission which had a promise of infallible guidance Or 2 That it was done according to some former Law of God which is common to them and us As the first must be the revealing of some duty extended to this age as well as that Direct 12. Faith must make great use of Scripture examples both for motive and comfort when we find their case to be the same with ours We cannot conclude that we must imitate them in extraordinary circumstances nor can we conclude that God will give every extraordinary mercy to us which he gave to them as that he will make all Kings as he did David or all Apostles or raise all as he did Lâ—zarus now c. nor that every Believer shall have the same outward things or shall have just the same degrees of grace c. But we may conclude that we shall have all Gods promises fulfilled to us as they had to them and shall have all that is suitable to our condition As David was pardoned upon repentance so may others I confessed and thou forgavest For this shall every one that is godly pray to thee Psal 32.5 6. Hath God pardoned a Manasseh a Peter a Paul c. upon repentance so is he ready to do to us Hath he helped the distressed hath he heard and pittied even the weak in faith so we may hope he will do by us Isa 38.10 11. Psal 116.3 Acts 27.20 Jonah 2.4 We have the same God the same Christ the same Promise if we have the same Faith and pray with the same Spirit Rom. 8.26 Heb. 4 15. Though we may not have just the same case or the same manner of deliverance Therefore it is a mercy that the Scripture is written historically And therefore we should remember such particular examples as suit our own case CHAP. V. Directions how to live by Faith upon Gods Promises THis part of the work of Faith is the more noble because the eminent part of the Gospel is the Promises or Covenant of Grace and it is the more necessary because our lapsed miserable state hath made the Promises so necessary to our use The helps to be used herein are these Direct 1. Consider that every Promise of God is the expression of his immutable will and counsel It is a great dispute among the Schoolmen whether God be properly obliged to us by his Promises When the word obligation it self is but a metaphor which must be cast away or explained before the question can be answered God cannot be bound as man is who transferreth a propriety to another from himself or maketh himself a proper debter in point of communicative Justice or may be sued at Law and made to perform against his will But it is a higher obligation than all this which lyeth upon God His Power Wisdom and Goodness which are himself do constitute his Veracity And his very Nature is immutable and just and therefore his Nature and Being is the infallible cause of the fulfilling of his Promises He freely made them but he necessarily performeth them And therefore the Apostle saith that God that cannot lye hath promised eternal life before the world began which is either promised according to his counsel which he had before the world began or from the beginning of the world Titus 1.2 Or as the word also signifieth many ages ago And Heb. 6.17 18. Wherefore God willing more abundantly to shew to the heirs of Promise the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lye we might have a strong consolation who have flâ—d for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us which hope we have as an Anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast And therefore when the Apostle meaneth that Christ will not be unfaithful to us his phrase is He cannot deny himself 2 Tim. 2.13 As if his very Nature and Being consisted more in his truth and fidelity than any mortal mans can do Direct 2. Vnderstand the Nature and Reasons of Fidelity among men viz. 1. To make them conformable to God And 2. To maintain all Justice Order and Virtue in the world And when you have pondered these two you will see that it is impossible for God to be unfaithful For 1. If it be a vice in the Copy what would it be in the Original Nay would not falshood and perfidiousness become our perfection to make us like God 2. And if all the world would be like a company of enemies Bedlams bruits or worse if it were not for the remnants of fidelity it is impossible that the Nature or Will of God should be the pattern or original of so great evil Direct 3. Consider what a foundation of his Promises God hath laid in Jesus Christ and what a seal
greater than heart duties only because in the outward duty it is to be supposed that both parts concur both soul and body And the operations of both is more than of one alone and also because the nobler ends are attained by both together more than by one only For God is loved and man is benefited by them As when the Sun shineth upon a tree or on the earth it is a more noble effect to have a return of its influences in ripe and pleasant fruits than in a meer sudden reflexion of the heat alone 18. All outward duties must begin at the heart and it must animate them all and they are valued in the sight of God no further than they come from a rectified will even from the Love of God and Goodness However without this they are good works materially in respect to the Receiver He may do good to the Church or Common-wealth or Poor who doth none to himself thereby 19. As the motion is circular from God to man and from man to God again Mercies received and Duties and Love returned so is the motion circular between the heart and the outward man The heart moving the tongue and hand c. and these moving the heart again partly of their own nature and partly by divine reward The Love of God and Goodness produceth holy thoughts and words and actions and these again increase the Love which did produce them Gal. 5.6.13 Heb. 6.10 Heb. 10.24 2 John 6. Jude 21. 20. The Judgment must be well informed before the Will resolve 21. Yet when God hath given us plain instruction it is a sin to cherish causless doubts and scruples 22. And when we see our duty before us it is not every scruple that will excuse us from doing it But when we have more conviction that it is a duty then that it is none or that it is a sin we must do it notwithstanding those mistaking doubts As if in Prayer or Alms-deeds you should scruple the lawfulness of them you ought not to forbear till your scruples be resolved because you so long neglect a duty Else folly might justifie men in ungodliness and disobedience 23. But in things meerly indifferent it is a sin to do them doubtingly because you may be sure it is no sin to forbear them Rom. 14.23 1 Cor. 8.13 14. 24. An erring Judgment intangleth a man in a necessity of sinning till it be reformed whether he act or not according to it Therefore if an erring person ask What am I bound to the true answer is to lay by your errour or reform your Judgment first and then to do accordingly and if he ask an hundred times over But what must I do in case I cannot change my Judgment the same answer must be given him God still bindeth you to change your Judgment and hath given you the necessary means of information and therefore he will not take up with your supposition that you cannot His Law is a fixed Rule which telleth you what you must believe and chuse and do And this Rule will not change though you be blind and say I cannot change my mind Your mind must come to the Rule for the Rule will not come to your perverted mind Say what you will the Law of God will be still the same and will still bind you to believe according to its meaning 25. Yet supposing that a mans errour so entangleth him in a necessity of sinning it is a double sin to prefer a greater sin before a lesser For though no sin is an object of our choice yet the greater sin is the object of our greater hatred and refusal and must be with the greater fear and care avoided 26. An erring Conscience then is never the voice or messenger of God nor are we ever bound to follow it because it is neither our God nor his Law but only our own Judgment which should discern his Law And mis-reading or misunderstanding the Law will not make a bad cause good though it may excuse it from a greater degree of evil 27. The judicious fixing of the Wills Resolutions and especially the increasing of its Love or complacency and delight in good is the chief thing to be done in all our duties as being the heart and life of all Prov. 23.26.12 4.23 7.3 22.17 3.1 2 3. 4.4 21. Deut. 30.6 Psal 37.4 40.8 119.16 35 70 47. 1.2 Isa 58.14 28. The grand motives to duty must ever be before our eyes and set upon our hearts as the poise of all our motions and endeavours As the travelers home and business is deepest in his mind as the cause of every step which he goeth 29. No price imaginable must seem great enough to hire us to commit the least known sin Luke 12.4 14.26 28 33. Mat. 10.39 16.26 30. The second great means next to the right forming of the heart for the avoiding of sin is to get away from the temptations baits and occasions of it And he that hath most grace must take himself to be still in great danger while he is under strong temptations and allurements and when sin is brought to his hands and alluring objects are close to the appetite and senses 31. The keeping clean our Imaginations and commanding our Thoughts is the next great means for the avoiding sin and a polluted fantasie and ungoverned thoughts are the nest where all iniquity is hatched and the instruments that bring it forth into act 32. The governing of the senses is the first means to keep clean the Imagination When Achaâ— seeth the wedge of gold he desireth it and then he taketh it When men wilfully fill their eyes with the objects which entice them to lust to covetousness to wrath the impression is presently made upon the fantasie and then the Devil hath abundance more power to renew such imaginations a thousand times than if such impressions had been never made And it is a very hard thing to cleanse the fantasie which is once polluted 33. And the next notable means of keeping out all evil Imaginations and curing lust and vanity of mind is constant laborious diligence in a lawful calling which shall allow the mind no leisure for vain and sinful thoughts as the great nourisher of all foul and wicked thoughts is Idleness and Vacancy which inviteth the tempter and giveth him time and opportunity 34. Watchfulness over our selves and thankful accepting the watchfulness fault-findings and reproofs of others is a great part of the safety of our souls Mat. 26.41 25 13. Mark 13.37 Luke 21.36 1 Cor. 16.13 1 Thes 5.6.2 Tim. 4.5 Heb. 12.17 1 Pet. 4.7 35. Affirmative Precepts bind not to all times that is no positive duty is a duty at all times As to preach to pray to speak of God to think of holy things c. it is not alwaies a sin to intermit them 36. All that God commandeth us to do is both a Duty and a Means it
of the most 17. Temptations are ever more strong and violent against some duties than against others and to some sins than to others 18. Most men have a memory which more easily retaineth some things than others especially those that are best understood and which most affect them And grace cannot live upon forgotten truths 19. There is no man but in his Calling hath more frequent occasion for some graces and duties and useth them more and hath more occasions to interrupt and divert his mind from others 20. The very temperature of the body inclineth some all to fears and grief and others to love and contentedness of mind and it vehemently inclineth some to passion some to their appetite some to pride and some to idleness and some to lust when others are far less inclined to any of them And many other providential accidents do give men more helps to one duty than to another and putteth many upon the tryals which others are never put upon And all this set together is the reason that few Christians are entire or compleat or escape the sin and misery of deformity or ever use Gods graces and their duties in the order and harmony as they ought IV. I shall be brief also in telling you what Inferences to raise from hence for your instruction 1. You may learn hence how to answer the question whether all Gods Graces live and grow in an equal proportion in all true Believers I need to give you no further proof of the negative than I have laid down before I once thought otherwise and was wont to say as it is commonly said that in the habit they are proportionable but not in the act But this was because I understood not the difference between the particular habits and the first radical power inclination or habit which I name that the Reader may chuse his title that we may not quarrel about meer words The first Principle of Holiness in us is called in Scripture The Spirit of Christ or of God In the unity of this are three essential principles Life Light and Love which are the immediate effects of the heavenly or divine influx upon the three natural faculties of the soul to rectifie them viz. on the Vital Power the Intellect and the Will And are called the Spirit as the Sunshine in the room is called the Sun Now as the Sunshine on the earth and plants is all one in it self as emitted from the Sun Light Heat and Moving force concurring and yet is not equally effective because of the difference of Recipients and yet every vegetative receiveth a real effect of the Heat and Motion at the least and sensitives also of the Light but so that one may by incapacity have less of the heat and another less of the motion and another less of the Lght so I conceive that Wisdom Love and Life or Power are given by the Spirit to every Christian But so that in the very first Principle or effect of the Spirit one may have more Light another more Love and another more Life Bus this it accidental from some obstruction in the Receiver otherwise the Spirit would be equally a Spirit of Power or Life and of Love and of a sound mind or Light But besides this New Moral Power or Inclination or Vniversal Radical Habit there are abundance of particular Habits of Grace and Duty much more properly called Habits and less properly called the Vital or Potential Principles of the New Creature There is a particular Habit of Humility and another of Peaceableness of Gentleness of Patience of Love to one another of Love to the Word of God and many habits of Love to several truths and duties a habit of desire yea many as there are many different objects desired there is a habit of praying of meditating of thanksgiving of mercy of chastity of temperance of diligence c. The acts would not vary as they do if there were not a variety and disposition in these Habits which appear to us only in their acts We must go against Scripture reason and the manifold hourly experience of our selves and all the Christians in the world if we will say that all these graces and duties are equal in the Habit in every Christian How impotent are some in bridling a passion or bridling the tongue or in controlling pride and self-esteem or or in denying the particular desires of their sense who yet are ready at many other duties and eminent in them Great knowledge is too oft with too little charity or zeal and great zeal and diligence often with as little knowledge And so in many other instances So that if the Potentiality of the radical graces of Life Light and Love be or were equal yet certainly proper and particular habits are not But here note further 1. That no grace is strong where the radical graces Faith and Love are weak As no part of the body is strong where the Brain and Heart are weak yea or the naturals the stomach and liver 2. The strength of Faith and Love is the principal means of strengthening all other graces and of right performing all other duties 3. Yet are they not alone a sufficient means but other inferiour graces and duties may be weak and neglected where Faith and Love are strong through particular obstructing causes As some branches of the tree may perish when the root is sound or some members may have an Atrophie though the brain and heart be not diseased 4. That the three Principles Life Light and Love do most rarely keep any disproportion and would never be disproportionable at all if some things did not hinder the actings of one more than the other or turn away the soul from the influences and impressions of the Spirit more as to one than to the rest 2. Hence you may learn That the Image of God is much clearlier and perfectlier imprinted in the holy Scriptures than in any of our hearts And that our Religion objectively considered is much more perfect than subjectively in us In Scripture and in the true doctrinal method our Religion is entire perfect and compleat But in it it is confused lame and lamentably imperfect The Sectaries that here say None of the Spirits works are imperfect are not to be regarded For so they may as well say that there are none infants diseased lame distracted poor or monsters in the world because none of Gods works are imperfect All that is in God is God and therefore perfect and all that is done by God is perfect as to his ends and as it is a part in the frame of his own means to that end which man understandeth not But many things are imperfect in the receiving subject If not why should any man ever seek to be wiser or better than he was in his infancy or at the worst 3. Therefore we here see that the Spirit in the Scripture is the Rule by which we must try the Spirit in our selves or any
us if we seem not to be some what better than we are If we should not hide or extenuate our faults and set out our graces and parts to the full we should be a dishonour to Christ and to his servants and his cause But remember 1. That the way by which God hath appointed you to honour him is by being good and living well and not by seeming to be good when you are not or seeming better than you are The God of Truth who hateth Hypocrisie hath not chosen lying and hypocrisie to be the means by which we must seek his honour It is damnable to seek to glorifie him by a lye Rom. 3.7.8 We must indeed cause our light so to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our heavenly Father Mat. 5.16 But it is the light of Sincerity and good Works and not of a dissembled Profession that must so shine 2. And the Goodness of the pretended end doth greatly aggravate the crime As if the honour of God and our Religion must be upheld by so devilish a means as proud Hypocrisie 3. And though it be true that a man is not imprudently without just cause to open his sins before the world when it is like to tend to the injury of Religion and any way to do more hurt than good yet it is as true that when there is no such impediment true repentance is forward to confess and when the fault is discovered defending and extenuating it is then the greatest dishonour to Religion As if you would father all on Christ and make men believe that he will justifie or extenuate sin as you do And then it is a free self-abasing confession and taking all the shame to your selves with future reformation which is the reparation which you must make of the honour of Religion For what greater dishonour can be cast upon Religion than to make it seem a friend to sin Or what greater honour can be given it than to represent it as it is as an enemy to all evil and to take the blame as is due unto your selves 3. Another cloak for Pride is the Reputation of our offices dignities and places We must live according to our rank and quality All men must not live alike The grandeur of Rulers must be maintained or else the Magistracy will fall into contempt The Pastors Office must not by a mean estate and low deportment be exposed to the peoples scorn And so abundance of the most ambitious practices and hateful enormities of the proud must be vailed by these fair pretences Answ 1. We grant you that the honour of Magistrates must be kept up by a convenient grandeur and that a competent distance is necessary to a due reverence But Goodness is as necessary an ingredient in Government as Greatness is and to be great in Wisdom and Goodness is the principal Greatness And Goodness is Loving and humble and condescending and suiteth all deportments to the common good which is the end of Government See then that you keep up no other height but that which really tendeth to the success of your endeavours in order to the common good 2. And look also to your hearts lest it be your own exaltation which you indeed intend while you thus pretend the honour of your office For this is an ordinary trick of pride To discover this will you ask your selves these Questions following Quest 1. How you came into your offices and honours did they seek you or did you seek them did the place need you or did you need the place If pride brought you in you have cause to fear lest it govern you when you are there Quest 2. What do you in the place of honour that you are in Do you study to do all the good you can and to make men happy by your Government and is this the labour of your lives if it be we may hope that the means is suited to this end But if you do no such thing you have no such end And if you have no such end you do but dissemble in pretending that your grandeur is used but as a means to that end which really you never seek It is then your own exaltation that you aim at and it is your pride that playeth all your game Quest 3. Are you more offended and grieved when you are crost and hindered in doing good or when you are crost and hindered from your personal honour Quest 4. Are you well contented that another should have your honour and preferment if God and the Soveraign Power so dispose of it so be it it be one that is like to do more good than you By these Qâ—estions you may quickly see if you are willing whether your grandeur be desired by your pride for self-advancement or by Christian prudence to do good 3. And I must tell you that there is abundance of difference betwixt the case of the Civil Magistrates and the Pastors of the Church in this Magistracy must have more fear and pomp But Pastors must govern by Light and Love When his Apostles strove for superiority Christ left a decision of the controversie for the use of all following ages It is the contempt of the world and the mortifying of the flesh and self-denyal that Pastors have to teach the people and withall to seek a heavenly treasure And will not their own example further the success of their Doctrine The reverence that a Pastor must expect is not to be feared as one that can do hurt For all coertion or corporal force is proper to the Magistrate but it is to be thought one that is above all the riches and pleasures of the world and hath set his heart on higher things Such a one therefore he must both be and seem A Pastor will be but the sooner despised if he look after that riches and worldly pomp which is seemly for a Magistrate If he have a sword in his hand it 's the way to be hated If he have teeth that are bloody or claws that can tear he will be accounted a wolf though he have the cloathing of a sheep When our Divines give the reason of Christs humiliation they say that if he had preached up heavenly-mindedness self-denyal and mortification and had himself lived in pomp and fulness the people would not have regarded his words And surely the same reason holdeth in some measure as to all his Ministers Again I say that if ever the Church be universally reformed the Pastoral office must be only encouraged with necessary support to keep the Pastors from despondency and distracting cares but it must not be made a bait of ambition covetousness or sloth but must be stript of that which makes it thus desirable to a carnal mind Otherwise we must expect that except when Princes are very holy the Churches be ordinarily guided by carnal and ungodly men who will do it according to their minds and interest All the world cannot answer the
consenteth not to when his sinful pleasure is revived by the next temptation 3. But the true penitent Christian is both willing to be changed and had rather have his lusts to be killed than pleased and also willing to use Gods means both to mortifie the inward lust and to overcome the outward sin And this in sincerity is his habitual state Direct 3. Never forget that 1. The gracious nature of God 2. The sufficiency of Christs Sacrifice and Merit And 3. The truth of the universal â—ffer or promise of pardon to all if they will accept the offer are the foundation of all our faith and comforts and are that universal grace which is before our special grace or faith and is presupposed to it On this foundation all our faith and peace is to be built Direct 4. The particular application of this to our selves is 1. By Believing and then by knowing that we do believe and then by discerning our priviledges upon believing 1. Our believing it self is 1. Our Ascent to the truth of the Gospel 2. Our Acceptance of the good even Christ and life which is offered in it and consent to the Baptismal Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit And 3. Our Affiance in Christ and his Covenant 2. To know that we do believe somehow is easie when we do it But to be sure that this belief is sincere and saving is more difficult because of the deceitfulness of the heart of man and the mixtures of unbelief and other sins and the weakness of grace where it is true and the counterfeits of it and the insufficient degrees which are in Hypocrites so that it is not easie to discern whether the faith which we have be sincere and predominant above our sense and our unbelief as it must be But yet it may be known by such means as these 1. By labouring to strengthen and increase our faith and grace that it may not by the smalness be next to undiscernable 2. By subduing all contrary inward corruptions which obscure it 3. By frequent exercising it seeing habits are discerned only in their acts 4. By resisting and conquering temptations and doing all the good we can in the world and living as wholly devoted to God above all worldly fleshly interest that so 1 Faith may be evidenced by its fruits 2. And God may reward the faithful soul with his assuring seal and light and comfort 5. By escaping all those lapses into heinous and wilful sin which cause wounds and sears and hinder assurance peace and joy 6. By a wise and constant examination of the heart and observation of it in the time of tryal and finding the habits and strength of faith and of unbelief in their several actings and prevalencies in their conflicts 7. And withall escaping those ignorances and errours about the nature means causes and signs of grace and assurance which keep many from it who have justifying faith These seven are the true and necessary means to get assurance of your own sincerity and that indeed you have the true seal and earnest and witness of the Spirit of Christ 3. When you have first truly believed or consented to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace and next got assurance that you do this in sincerity the last part is the easiest which is to gather up the priviledges or comfortable conclusions which follow hereupon Which are your pardon and justification your adoption and right to life eternal and to all the benefits promised by God in that Covenant to which you do consent which are all comprehended in the three great Relations established by the Covenant viz. that God is your Reconciled God and Father Christ in your Head and Saviour and the Holy Spirit is your Life and Sanctifier These three works which make up assurance are contained in the three parts of this syllogism 1. He that truly believeth is justified and adopted and an heir of life But I do truly believe Therefore I am justified adopted and am an heir of life Or thus to the same sense Every one who truly consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant hath right to the blessings of the Covenant God is his Father Christ is his Saviour and the holy Spirit is his Sanctifier But I do truly consent to the Baptismal Covenant Therefore I have right to all the benefits of it God is my Father c. Direct 5. Remember that when you have got assurance and have truly gathered this conclusion the continual and lively exercise of faith is still necessary to your actual joy For it is possible for a man to have no notable doubtings of his own sincerity or salvation and yet to have such dulness of soul and such diversions of his thoughts as that he shall enjoy but little of the comforts of his own assurance Therefore true joy requireth much more than bare self examination and discerning of our evidences and right to life Direct 6. When doubts and troubles are caused by ignorance or errour about the true nature and signs of grace and the way of assurance which is very common nothing then is more necessary than a sound and skilful Teacher to work out those mistakes and to help the ignorant Christian to a clearer understanding of the terms of the Covenant and the sense of the Promise and the true methods of Christ in his gifts and operations Otherwise the erring soul will be distracted and lost in a wilderness of doubts and either sit down at last presumptuously on false grounds or turn to one errour to cure the troubles of another or languish in despair so lamentable a thing is it to be possessed with false principles and to attempt so great a work in the dark Direct 7. And here there are these two extreams to be carefully avoided 1. That of the Infidel and Justiciary who trusteth and teacheth others to trust to his own vertues and works without a Saviour or ascribeth the part of a Saviour to them 2. The Antinomian and Libertine who teach men not to look at any thing in themselves at all no not as an evidence or condition or means much less as any cause of life but to trust to Christs blood to be to you instead of Faith and Repentance and Obedience and all your use of means and do ascribe the part of these duties of man to the blood of Christ as if it did belong only to Christ to do that same thing which belongeth unto them Therefore here you must be sure to be well acquainted what is truly the office and part of Christ and what is truly the office and part of Faith of Repentance of Confession of Prayer c. And to be sure that you wholly trust Christ for his part and joyn not Faith nor any of your own works or duties in the least degree of that trust or honour which belongeth to Christ and his office and work And that you faithfully use yea I will say Trust too though ignorance snarl at
give them over to find abundance of Bedlam joy in the sudden change of their opinion And falshood may comfort that man whom the truth which he was false to would not comfort But if it be a weak sincere Believer if God shew him not so much mercy as to rescue him from the temptation he will do as the foresaid Country patient he will try one mans medicine and another womans medicines and hearken to every one that can speak confidently and promise him a cure till he hath tryed that their case and his were not the same and that they were all but ignorant deceived deceivers and when all fail him he will come back again to the faithful experienced directors of his soul Direct 11. If weakness of grace be the cause of doubting which is of all other the commonest cause in the world the way to comfort is that same which is the way to strengthen grace Such a one if ever he will have joy must be taught how to live the Life of Faith and to walk with God and to mortifie the flesh and get loose from the world and to live as entirely devoted to God and especially how to keep every grace in exercise and then grace will shew it self as the air doth in a windy season or as the fire when it is blown up and flameth There is no surer or readier way to comfort than to get Faith Repentance Love Hope and Obedience in a vigorous activity and great degree and then to keep them much in action Mountebanks and Sectaries have other waies but this is the constant certain way Direct 12. If you perceive that trouble is caused by misunderstanding the Covenant of Grace and looking at Legal Works of merit as the ground of peace and over-looking the sufficiency of the Sacrifice Merits or Intercâ—ssion of Christ the principal thing to be done with such a soul is to convince them of the impossibility of being justified by works on legal terms and to shew them the necessity of a Saviour and the design of God in mans redemption and that there is but one Mediatour between God and man and one Name by which we can be saved and that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by the Son and that he was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that of God he is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption and that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son and that he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life and that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit but he that believeth not is condemned already Thus must Christ crucified the propitiation for the sins of all the world be preached to them who are troubled as for want of a Saviour or an attonement a sacrifice or ransome or propitiation for sin or because they are not instead of a Saviour to themselves But to tell a man only of the sacrifice and merits of Christ who doubteth only of his interest in him and of the truth of his own Faith Repentance and Sanctification is to prate impertinently and to delude the sinner and to deal injuriously with Christ Direct 12. If Melancholy be the cause of the trouble which is very ordinary it will be necessary 1. Well to understand it And 2. To know the cure Of which having spoken more largely elsewhere I shall now give you only this brief information 1. The signs of this Melancholy are overstretched confused ungovernable thoughts continual fear and inclination to despair and to cry out undone undone I am forsaken of God the day of grace is past I have sinned against the Holy Ghost never mans case was like mine And usually their sleep is gone or broken and they are enclined to be alone and to be alwaies musing with their confounded thoughts and at last are tempted to blasphemous thoughts against the Scriptures and the life to come and perhaps urged to utter some blasphemous words against God and if it go to the highest they are tempted to famish or make away themselves 2. The cure of it lyeth 1. In setting those truths before them which tend most to quiet and satisfie their minds 2. In engaging them in the constant labours of a calling in which both mind and body may be employed 3. In keeping them in fit and chearful company which they love and suffering them to be very little alone 4. In keeping them from musing and that meditation or thoughtfulness which to others is most profitable and a duty 5. Keeping them from over-long secret prayer because they are unable for it and it doth but confound them and disable them for other duties and let them be the more in other duties which they can bear 6. And if the state of their bodies require it Physick is necessary and hath done good to many if rightly chosen Direct 13. Take heed of foolish carnal hasty expectations of comfort from the bare words of any man but use mens advice only to direct you in that way where by patience and faithfulness you may meet with it in due season Nothing is more usual with silly souls than to go to this or that excellent Minister whom they deservedly admire and to look that with an hour or twos discourse he should comfort them and set all their bones in joynt And when they find that it is not done they either despair or turn to the next deceivers and say I tryed the best of them And if such a man cannot do it none of them can do it But silly soul do Physicians use to charm men into health Wilt thou go and talk an hour with the ablest Physician and say that because his talk doth not cure thee thou wilt never go to a Physician more but go to ignorant people that will kill thee Thou hast then thy own deserving even take the death which thou hast chosen and drink as thou hast brewed The work of a Minister is not to cure thee alwaies immediately by comfortable words What words can cure an ignorant melancholy or uncapable soul But to direct thee in thy duty and in the use of those means which if thou wilt faithfully and patiently practise thou shalt certainly be cured in due time If thou wilt use the Physick dyet and exercise which thy Physician doth prescribe thee it is that which must restore thy health and comfort and not the saying over a few words to thee If thou lazily look that other mens words or prayers should cure and comfort thee without thy own endeavours thou mayest thank thy self when thou art deceived Direct 14. The principal means of comfort is to live in the exercise of comfortable duties Faith Hope and especially the Love of God
degree as shall be raised by the beatifical vision in the glorified and as present intuition now would raise if we could attain it yet seeing Faith hath as sure an Object and Revelation as sight it self though the manner of apprehension be less affecting it should do much more with us than it doth and bring us nearer to such affections and resolutions as sight would cause Vse 2. If Faith be given us to make things to come as if they were at hand and things unseen as if we saw them you may see from hence 1. The reason of that holy seriousness of Believers which the ungodly want 2. And the reason why the ungodly want it 3. And why they wonder at and distaste and deride this serious diligence of the Saints 1. Would you make it any matter of wonder for men to be more careful of their souls more fervent in their requests to God more fearful of offending him and more laborious in all holy preparation for eternal life than the holiest and precisest person that you know in all the world if so be that Heaven and Hell were seen to them Would you not rather wonder at the dulness and coldness and negligence of the best and that they are not far more holy and diligent than they are if you and they did see these things Why then do you not cease your wondering at their diligence Do you not know that they are men that have seen the Lord whom they daily serve and seen the glory which they daily seek and seen the place of torments which they fly from By Faith in the glass of Divine Revelations they have seen them 2. And the reason why the careless world are not as diligent and holy as Believers is because they have not this eye of Faith and never saw those powerful objects that Believers see Had you their eyes you would have their hearts and lives O that the Lord would but illuminate you and give you such a sight of the things unseen as every true Believer hath What a happy change would it make upon you Then instead of your deriding or opposing it we should have your company in the holy path You would then be such your selves as you now deride If you saw what they see you would do as they do When the heavenly light had appeared unto Saul he ceaseth persecuting and enquires what Christ would have him to do that he might be such a one as he had persecuted And when the scales fell from his eyes he falls to prayer and gets among the Believers whom he had persecuted and laboureth and suffereth more than they 3. But till this light appear to your darkned souls you cannot see the reasons of a holy heavenly life and therefore you will think it hypocrisie or pride or fancy and imagination or the foolishness of cracktâ—brain'd self-conceited men If you see a man do reverence to a Prince and the Prince himself were invisible to you would you not take him for a mad man and say that he cringed to the stools or chairs or bowed to a post or complemented with his shadow If you saw a mans action in eating and drinking and see not the meat and drink it self would you not think him mad If you heard men laugh and hear not so much as the voice of him that gives the jeast would you not imagine them to be brain-sick If you see men dance and hear not the musick if you see a Labourer threshing or reaping or mowing and see no corn or grass before him if you see a Souldier fighting for his life and see no enemy that he spends his stroaks upon will you not take all these for men distracted Why this is the case between you and the true Believers You see them reverently worship God but you see not the Majesty which they worship as they do You see them as busie for the saving of their souls as if an hundred lives lay on it but you see not the Hell from which they fly nor the Heaven they seek and therefore you marvel why they make so much ado about the matters of their salvation and why they cannot do as others and make as light of Christ and Heaven as they that desire to be excused and think they have more needful things to mind But did you see with the eyes of a true Believer and were the amazing things that God hath revealed to us but open to your sight how quickly would you be satisfied and sooner mock at the diligence of a drowning man that is striving for his life or at the labour of the City when they are busily quenching the flames in their habitations than mock at them that are striving for the everlasting life and praying and labouring against the ever-burning flames How soon would you turn your admiration against the stupidity of the careless world and wonder more that ever men that hear the Scriptures and see with their eyes the works of God can make so light of matters of such unspeakable eternal consequence Did you but see Heaven and Hell it would amaze you to think that ever many yea so many and so seeming wise should wilfully run into everlasting fire and sell their souls at so low a rate as if it were as easie to be in Hell as in an Ale-house and Heaven were no better than a beastly lust O then with what astonishment would you think Is this the fire that sinners do so little fear Is this the glory that is so neglected You would then see that the madness of the ungodly is the wonder Vse 3. By this time I should think that some of your own Consciences have prevented me in the Vse of Examination which I am next to call you to I hope while I have been holding you the glass you have not turned away your faces nor shut your eyes But that you have been judging your selves by the light which hath been set up before you Have not some of your consciences said by this time If this be the nature and use of Faith to make things unseen as if we saw them what a desolate case then is my soul in how void of Faith how full of Infidelity how far from the truth and power of Christianity How dangerously have I long deceived my self in calling my self a true Christian and pretending to be a true Believer When I never knew the life of Faith but took a dead opinion bred only by education and the custom of the Countrey instead of it little did I think that I had been an Infidel at the heart while I so confidently laid claim to the name of a Believer Alas how far have I been from living as one that seeth the things that he professeth to Believe If some of your consciences be not thus convinced and perceive not yet your want of faith I fear it is because they are seared or asleep But if yet conscience have not begun to plead this cause against you
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aâ—â—ess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ— condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâ—lieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâ—th on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ— your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you