that the motions of sin which were occasioned and strengthened by the weakness and inability of the Law which could not restrain them did work such service and obedience to them in our members or bodily powers as to bring forth fruit unto death But now upon our becoming subject unto Christ we are delivered from the subjection of the Law whose weakness gave sin so great advantage over us that Law I say being now dead and abolished wherein whilst we so served sin we were held in subjection which deliverance is vouchsafed us as I said for this end that being made not the Laws but Christs Subjects now we should answerably to that serve in newness of Spirit or in such sort as the new Spirit and Grace of his Religion enables us and not as we served formerly under our subjection to the Law in the oldness of the letter or in those weak and ineffective degrees whereto the helpless letter of the old Law could assist us But upon what I say of this change of service from sin to God which we have all felt upon our becoming Christians being an effect of this change of subjection from the Law to Christ some of you 't is like may think that the Law which I affirm we sinned under is aspersed and reproached by me and thus object What say we then Is the Law under which you say we sinned so much and from which being now delivered we have ceased to serve sin the cause of sin to them who live under it Now to this I must answer God forbid that any man should either say or think so No we served sin under the Law but yet the Law was no cause of sin And both these all they who live under it feel in themselves and must acknowledge To avoid offence suppose that I my self were this Subject of the Law now as I was formerly 't is very true as I have said that I do serve sin under it but is the Law the cause of it By no means Nay so far is the Law from causing or encouraging sin in me that on the contrary it points it out to me and forbids it I had not known what things are sin but by the help of the Law which shews it for I had not known lust or concupiscence for instance which is only in the heart and not in the outward action to be a sin except the Law of the tenth Commandment had said expresly thou shalt not covet But for all the Law both shews and prohibits sin and so can contribute nothing to produce but rather to destroy it yet I must truly tell you still that whereas Sin has other causes more than enow that are sufficient to produce it the Law is so weak and imperfect as not to be able to hinder it For in this instance of Concupiscence especially whereto in the Law there is no express punishment threatned the sinfull inclinations of our flesh which are cause enough of all sin grow bold and hearing of no express threatning from it will not be restrained by it And by this means the Sin of Concupiscence taking occasion from the impunity of the Commandment instead of being restrained by it took liberty and presumed upon it and so without all fear wrought and accomplished or brought on to compleat action and practice in me all manner of concupiscence And seeing the Law only forbid but could not restrain it it helped on in the end rather to make and let me see my self to be a sinner than to deliver me from sin for without the promulgated Law Sin was almost dead being both little in it self and less upon the Conscience For the less knowledge there is of the Law the less is there of sin in transgressing it and also the less sense of it And therefore as I say as for this instance of Concupiscence which I had not known to be a Sin unless the Law had told me so without the Law I had neither offended so highly in it nor had so great a sense of my offence And this was found by experience in the men of our Nation For any one of them who was alive at the promulgation of the Law upon Mount Sinai might say I was alive to my thinking and as to great degrees of that guilt which I contracted afterwards without the Law once or before such time as it was there proclaimed to us for till then I knew not lust to be a sin and so by reason of my ignorance neither sinn'd so much in it nor was so sensible of it as now I am but when the Commandment came and was plainly made known to me by Moses then Sin I say which was only shewn and forbid but could not be restrained by it revived and begun to have the fulness of guilt and terrour in it and I thenceforward being warn'd against it and not being able to keep back from it became liable to that death which is the wages of it and died by it And thus the Law or Commandment which was not only holy and innocent in it self but moreover intended by God for my good and ordained to life which it promised could I have obeyed it I notwithstanding found to be unto death to me because that became my due when I sinn'd against it Not as if the Law can be said to be the Author of death to me more than it is of sin in me For it was aim'd to destroy sin which it shews and forbids and to procure life which it offers and promises But the true cause of this effect so contrary to its intention viz. its producing Sin and Death whenas it was ordained to Holiness and Life is its being as I said before weak and unable by all its aids to conquer fully and restrain that Sin which brings Death upon us for it cannot subdue but only shew and forbid it And therefore our habitual Lusts finding themselves too strong for it burst through it and in spite of all its restraint make us commit the one and so become liable to the other For in very deed it is not the Law which is the cause of Death to me but Sin it self which taking occasion or advantage by the literal and fancied impunity of the tenth Commandment deceived me through a false hope into the commission of it and by it made me in reality liable to that Death which is truly the wages of it or in a word slew me Wherefore notwithstanding we sinn'd yea and died also during our subjection under the Law yet for all that neither can our Sin nor our Death be charged upon the Law it self because instead of contributing to them it tends to destroy them by expresly forbidding the one and offering to deliver us from the other And therefore as for this difficulty that was made at the seventh verse against my saying that we served Sin under the Law viz. its following thence that the
God had spoken to them than by his Testimony and upon his Authority therefore are they said in believing and embracing that Divine Law which was delivered to them by Moses to believe not the Lord alone but also his Servant Moses Exod. 14.31 Joh. 5.46 to be Baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10.2 to be Moses's Disciples Joh. 9.28 to trust or place their hope in Moses Joh. 5.45 to obey or hearken unto Moses Luk. 16.31 But the most clear and full Revelation that God ever made of his will to men was by the message and mediation of his own Son Jesus Christ. For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Jews by Moses and to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Heb. 1.1 And the belief of his Gospel or taking for certain Truths upon his Authority all those things which he has declared to us in Gods Name is call'd the Christian as the other was the Mosaick Faith For he being the great Author and deriver of this last and greatest Revelation of God down to us and our belief of it being upon his immediate Authority he being as S t Paul says the Authour and finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 Our belief of it is called not only Faith towards God Heb. 6.1 but also Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 And because the knowledge of our whole Religion got into our minds this way upon our submission to Christs Authority and our Faith or belief of his Testimony therefore is our Religion it self most commonly in the Scriptures called our Faith The Preaching of it is called Preaching the Faith Gal. 1.23 the hearing of it hearing of Faith Gal. 3.2 the profession of it a profession of Faith Heb. 10.23 the contending for it a striving for the Faith Phil. 1.27 the erring in it an erring from the Faith 1 Tim. 6.10 the falling from it a making shipwrack of the Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 obedience to it the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 and the Righteousness required in it and effected by it the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.11.13 So that in like manner as the Mosaick Faith was a belief of the Divinity of the Mosaick Law and Religion upon the Authority of Moses the Christian Faith is a belief of the Divine institution of our Christian Religion upon the Authority of Christ. It is a taking upon his word all those things for truths of God which he has declared to us in Gods Name A belief begot in us by vertue of his Testimony that all his Doctrines are Gods Truths that all his Laws are Gods Precepts that all his promises are Gods Promises and that all his threats are Gods threatnings in sum that that whole Religion and Gospel which Christ has delivered to us in Gods Name is the very Religion and Word of God The belief of all this upon the Authority of Christ makes our Faith Christian and the good effects of it upon our hearts and lives make it justifying and saving For when by vertue of this Faith we truly Repent and sincerely obey which is the great condition as we have seen whereupon at the last day we must all be pardoned and justified Eternally it is a justifying as when by vertue of it we are saved and delivered from the dominion and service of our Sins which as the Angel hath assured us are those principal evils that Christ came to save us from it is a saving Faith This is the nature of our Christian knowledge and our Christian Faith And as for it now it is the very fundamental cause and natural spring of all our Christian service and obedience For it is because we believe Jesus to be the Lord because we know those Laws which he has given us and give credit to him when he tells us of the insupportable punishments which he will one day inflict for sin and of the glorious rewards which he will confer upon obedience It is by means of our knowledge and belief of all these in our minds I say that we serve and obey him in our outward actions It is our knowledge and belief that lets us see the reasonableness of his Precepts the power of his Assistances the glory of his Rewards and the terror of his Punishments and in all respects convinces us of the beauty and profit of Obedience And this sight and conviction in our minds cannot well miss of gaining our hearts and resolutions For the belief of his endless judgments will raise our fears the belief of his infinite rewards will quicken our hopes the belief of his inexpressible kindness will kindle our love and by all these our souls will be led Captive into eager desires and firm resolutions and be fully purposed to keep Gods Laws that so they may avoid that terrible Death which he threatens and attain those matchless joys which he promises to our Obedience And when once by means of this faith and knowledge Gods Laws have gain'd both our wills and passions which are the inward springs and causes of them they cannot fail of being obeyed in our works and actions which are produced by them But we shall quickly go on to perform what we resolve and to do what we desire and so in very deed fulfill and obey them Upon which account of our Christian Faith having so mighty an influence upon our Christian and obedient practice our obedience it self as being the effect of it and produced by it is call'd the obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 The Righteousness which it exacts of us and cooperates to work in us the Righteousness of Faith Gal 5.5 Our Christian warfar or striving against Sin is called the good sight of Faith 1 Tim 6.12 And because in this contest our great succors which protect us and keep us from fainting and at last make us victorious are some points or promises of our Religious belief therefore it is stiled a shield and a breast-plate of Faith 1 Thess. 5.8 and S t John affirms plainly that this is the victory over the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And for this reason it is because our Faith and knowledge are so powerful a cause and principle of our Obedience that God speaks so great things of them and has made such valuable promises to them He never intends to reward the Faith and knowledge of our minds further than they effect the obedience of our actions It is only when they are carryed on to this effect when they become an obedient knowledge and a working Faith that they confer a right to the promised reward and are available to our Salvation For when in the places mentioned or in any other God promises that he who knows Christ or believes in Christ shall live he speaks metonymically and means Faith and knowledge with this effect of a working service and obedience As for knowledge 't is plain that God accepts it no otherwise
Law was the cause of our Sin and Death this we see is quite taken off and doth not follow at all For although we sinn'd yea and died too under the Law yet was not the Law the cause of these but the strength of our own Lusts. But the Law is holy still and so no cause of sin and the Commandment forbidding sin and promising Life to the obedient is not only holy and just but over and above that good too and so no cause of death and suffering But upon this you will say how was it then that that which is so good in it self as you say the Law is should be made the cause of the greatest evil even of Death unto me Could it prove so to me if it were not so in it self And to this I answer with abhorrence God forbid that I should say the Law is Death No this Death as I have told you is not the effect of the Law for it was ordained to procure Life for me But it was Sin I say again that was too strong for the Law which could only forbid but was not able by all its aids to restrain it this Sin it was that it might appear Sin indeed that went on working transgression unto Death in me by advantage taken over that Law which is good although not strong enough to overpower the setled habits of evil And by this conquest of Sin over the good Law which was set up as a bar against it and should have destroy'd it it appears to be most mischievous For this comes of it that Sin by proving too hard for the Commandment might by such prevailing over all that is set against it be extremely heightned and aggravated and become exceeding sinfull And that the Law should thus be worsted by Sin is no wonder For we know that although the Law which commands is spiritual to shew and suggest better things yet I who am to obey in that state of sensuality and sin wherein the Law finds me and out of which it is too weak to rescue me am carnal so as to serve sin notwithstanding it Which I am to such a degree as if I were sold under sin and my actions were as much at its command as the actions of a slave bought with money are at the command of his master So that although the Law shews me that which is good and commands me to perform it yet cannot I obey it in regard I am under anothers power under the beck of sin And in very deed to speak yet more particularly to this business the good Law can and doth produce good effects in the mind and conscience which is the throne wherein it is seated but still the law of sin which is seated in the members or executive powers prevails over it and engrosseth all our actions So that the utmost that it can ordinarily do with us is to make us in our mind to disapprove sin but when it hath done that it cannot hinder us in our lives from practising it And of this the complaints of those who are subject to it are a sufficient proof For who is there among them for the most part that is not ready to confess and cry out thus that which through the prevailing power of my lusts I do in my practice that through the power of the Law I allow not in my mind and conscience for what being excited by the Law I would do that being hindred by sin do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting in my mind I hate and disapprove that from my own lusts forcing and overpowering me in my actions still do I. And this by the way as it is an evident argument of the weakness and inability of the Law to restrain sin is also a clear testimony to the holiness and goodness of the Law it self which shews plainly that it is no favourer or author of Sin as was objected vers 7. Because if even then when I do sin I do not approve of it but in doing so I do what I would not I thereby consent in my own conscience unto the Law and acknowledge by my approving what it commands that it is good Yea I shew moreover that all that which it produces and effects in me is good also For even when I do sin sinning thus against my conscience the sin cannot in any wise be charged upon my conscience where the Law reigns so as that the Law in my mind may be stiled the cause of sin as it is vers 7. but only upon the power of my habitual sin and fleshly lusts that reign in my members which are so strong as that the law of my mind cannot restrain them And now then in this state of sinning thus with regret and against my conscience even when I do sin it is no more I or my mind and conscience that is governed by the Law and which may be called my self that do it seeing it disapproves it but it is sin that dwells in me and reigns in my members It must not be charged upon the Law in my mind I say but upon this inhabiting Sin which rules in my members For I know and confess freely that in that other part of me that is to say in my flesh and members which for all the Law rules in my mind doth yet keep possession of my practice dwells no good thing Nay on the contrary there dwells so much evil as proves too strong for the good Law restraining all its effect to the approbation of my mind but not suffering it to influence my practice Which we as I said who are subject to the Law find by sad experience For almost every one of us feels and must confess this that to will upon the account of the Law is present with me but then how to perform that which is good after I have will'd it that I find not For after the Law has done all that it can upon me this is still true that the good that being instructed by the Law I would do that being hindred by the prevalence of my lusts I do not but as for the evil which because of the prohibition of the Law I would not do that being over-master'd by my lusts I do But now all this while as I said if what my lusts make me practise through the Law in my mind I do not approve but in doing it I do that which I would not then 't is clear that my sinning cannot be charged upon the Law as it is vers 7. because it hinders it as far as it can It cannot I say be attributed to that for it is no longer I or my mind and conscience that do it but to the power of habitual Sin which the good Law cannot conquer to that sin which dwells and rules in me i. e. in my bodily members And therefore to summ up all I find another Law in my members opposite to the Law of God in
before an unerring and uncorrupt Judge who can neither be bribed nor deceived and who cannot mistake them or wrongfully condemn them howsoever they may mistake or wrongfully condemn themselves And since it is so they are really safe in their own goodness when they most of all suspect their own danger and secure from evil even whilst they are afraid of falling under it But although every good man is in this safety let his understanding of himself be what it will yet if in any of those things which he takes to be a matter of life or death he judges wrong of himself and thinks erroneously he can enjoy no peace and comfort He will go to Heaven full of fears and forbodeing thoughts and never think himself in the way to Bliss till he is actually inthroned in it and possessed of it He will meet indeed with happiness in the end but he will have no sight or expectation of it in the way for all his life long he will be tormented with doubts and suspicions fears and jealousies and be still by turns concluding himself lost as to the next World though he be lost no where but in his own fancy And this imagined future misery will bring him under a real one for the present it will make him have sad thoughts and a sorrowful heart it will bereave him of all joy and peace and almost overwhelm him in groundless perplexity and vexation But that pious Souls may not fear where no fear is nor torment themselves with unreasonable expectations having before shewn what that condition really is which renders any mans a safe condition I will go on now to remove their groundless scruples and mistakes concerning it by shewing what and of what force those things are which are wont without any sufficient reason to disquiet the minds and to disturb the peace of good and safe but mistaken Christians about it And as for the causes of good mens fears so far as I have been able to learn them they are chiefly these that follow 1. Good men are wont to call in question the saveableness of their present and the happiness of their future state because after all their care against them they find that some motions of the flesh some stirrings of their lusts some thoughts of evil do still arise up in them They feel themselves subject to delightsom fancies and desires of forbidden things They are liable to a lustful thought a covetous wish an insurrection of anger of envy and of several other damning sins 'T is true indeed that these lusts do not reign in them because they do not consent to their instigations nor do what they would have them They can only inhabit and stir in them but have not strength enough to give Laws to them for they repress them before they get so far and prevail over them before they go on to fulfil what they inclined to Not any of these sinful lusts whereof they are afraid has got so much power over them as to carry them on either to consent to them or to fulfil them for though they may think on some forbidden things in their minds or desire them in their hearts yet do they not will and chuse any of them and least of all do they work and practise them They may perhaps have a thought and fancy a wish and inclination after unchast pleasures but they correct themselves there and go no further for they never in their hearts consent to an unlawful embrace nor ever proceed to an unclean action In a sudden motion of anger it may be they may have several expressions of wrath and instances of revenge occur to their thoughts and obtruding themselves upon their fancy but they stop there and go no higher for they do not consent to utter an injurious word or to commit a spiteful action and the same they experience by themselves in other instances In all which several forbidden things will get into their thoughts and desires and steal from them a wish or inclination but when once they have done that they can do no more being unable either to gain their consent or to command their practice so as that they should not only desire but also chuse and fulfil them But although they do not suffer sin to reign in them so as to consent to it or to fulfil it in the lusts thereof yet they fear lest their very thoughts and inclinations after it should prove damnable For God requires the obedience of our whole man of the mind and affections as well as of our wills and actions and he is disobeyed by any as well as by all our faculties And seeing every sin is forbidden under pain of death who knows but that this admission of sin into our thoughts and desires is a deadly transgression This is one great cause of fear and a rock of offence to truly honest and good men But to take off all doubt and scruple upon this account we must know that our impotent lusts and ineffective desires of evil things if they are able to get no further than a thought or a wish though at present they are a matter of our exercise and humiliation yet at the Day of Judgment they shall be no Article of death or condemnation For Christs Gospel doth not sentence us severely upon these first motions of a lust or beginnings of a sin no if they arrive no higher than fancy and inclination through the merits of Christs Sacrifice there is Grace enough in store for them and in the Gospel account they are not grown up to be a matter of Death nor come within the Confines of destruction That I may speak with the more distinctness to this Point I will here shew these two things 1. That for our feeble lusts and desires after evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled we shall not at the last day be condemned 2. For what lusts and desires of them we shall 1. I say For our feeble lusts and desires of evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled at the day of Judgment no man otherwise good shall ever be condemned God will never sentence us to Hell for every sudden desire an inclination after sinful things but if it rests there and goes no further than bare desire he will pardon and pass it by but not eternally avenge it To speak distinctly to this Point these lustings and desires are considerable either as to their first birth or as to their indulged and allowed continuance the first are never damning and the latter many times are no Article of condemnation As for our bodily lusts and desires of evil in their first birth I say they are never damning nor shall any man who is otherwise vertuous and obedient be ever judged to dye for them And if it were otherwise who could possibly be saved For as long as we live in this World we have all of us these first motions of appetites after evil things more or less and there
matter of condemnation although before it were uncondemning For then when lust hath conceived by being in some imperfected measure willed and consented to it bringeth forth answerable to its conception which is but an imperfect sort of production an imperfect embryo of sin and this embryo of sin when by a full choice and perfect consent and much more when by action and practice it is finished bringeth forth its proper wages death Jam. 1.14 15. Although these lustings and desires therefore which good men complain of may justly be an imployment of their watchfulness and care yet ought they not to be a cause of their fear or scruple For it shall not bring upon them those evils which they are afraid of nor ever prove their ruine and destruction The evil thing is entertained only in a thought or a wish they lust after it and are tempted by it but that is all for they do not consent to the temptation And since their lusts go no further than thus they shall not harm them when Christ comes to Judgment nor ever bring them into condemnation CHAP. V. Of two other Causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The CONTENTS A second cause of scruple is their unaffectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Matth. 12.36 The scruple upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasureable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Matth. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place ANother thing which disquiets the hearts of good and honest men and makes them needlesly to call in question the saveableness of their present state and their title to salvation is the coldness and unaffectedness the unsettledness and distractions which they find in themselves when they are at prayers Good people are wont to cry out of desertions to think that God has thrown them off and that his Spirit has forsaken them if at any time they find a great distraction and dulness of Spirit in their devotions and a great abatement of that zeal and fervency that fixedness and attention which they have happily enjoyed at other times But this is a great mistake from mens ignorance of Gods Laws and of their own selves For God has no where told them that he will judge them at the last day by the steadiness and fixedness the tide and fervency of their devotions but by the integrity of their hearts and the uprightness of their obedience The last Sentence shall not pass upon men according to the heat of their affections but according to the goodness of their lives So that if they have been careful to practise all God's Commandments according to their power and opportunities and this of prayer among the rest in such sort as their unavoidable infirmities would suffer them they shall be safe in that Judgment notwithstanding any inequality in their bodily tempers or unconstancy and abatement in their bodily affections To state this business so as that we may neither be unnecessarily scrupulous about these qualifications of our prayers when we cannot nor on the other side irreligiously careless of them when we might enjoy them I shall say something of their necessity when they can be had as well as of that allowance which God will make to them when through any bodily indispositions or unforeseen accidents they cannot If we would put up our prayers to God in such manner as it is fit for us to offer them in or for him to hear them we must make them with a due fixedness and attention of mind and fervency of affection We must offer them up with a due fixedness and attention of mind Our thoughts must go along with our lips and our souls must be intent upon the business which we are about when we are making our prayers to God We must not expect that he should mind those vain words and mere talk which we do not or that he should hear us when we do not hear our selves No it is the work of the Soul and not the bare labour of the lips which he attends to so that if only our Tongues pray but our minds are straying this is as good as no prayer at all We must offer them up also with much earnestness of desire and fervency of affection We must shew that we put a price upon a mercy before we are fit to receive it for otherwise there is no assurance that we shall be duely thankful for it We must not seem cold and indifferent after it for that is a sign that we can almost be as well content without it But we must be eager in our desire and express a fervency of affection after it such as we are wont to use in the pursuit of any thing which we greatly value and this is an inducement for God to give us that which he sees we so dearly love it sets a price upon his blessings and shews the measure of our own vertuous inclinations and therefore he will encourage and reward it The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man says S t James availeth much Jam. 5.16 Thus are a due attention of mind and a fervent heat of desire in devotion such qualifications as are necessary to render our prayers becoming either us to offer or God to hear so that we must always strive and according to our power and present circumstances endeavour after them We must take care as much as we can to compose our thoughts when we pray to draw them off from other things for some time before and still to bring them back again when at any time we find them wandring And we must endeavour also by a due sense of the necessity the greatness and undeservedness of Gods mercies to heighten our affections and make them bend vigorously and eagerly after those things which we pray for that so God seeing we are serious and in earnest with him he may be induced to grant those benefits which we desire of him But then on the other hand if after all our care
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know