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
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
it And this is it which we call Sanctification or Holiness to the Lord. And our cohabitation and relation to men will tell us that Justice and Charity are our duty as to them And when a man is fully satisfied that Holiness Justice and Charity are our duty he hath a great advantage for his progress towards the Christian Faith To which let me add that as to our selves also it is undeniably our duty to take more care for our souls than for our bodies and to rule our senses and passions by our Reason and to subject our lower faculties to the higher and so to use all sensible and present things as conduceth to the publick good and to the advancement of our nobler part and to our greatest benefit though it cross our sensual appetites All this being unquestionably our natural duty we see that man was made to live in Holiness Justice Charity Temperance and rational regularity in the world 5. When you have gone thus far consider next how far men are generally from the performance of this duty And how backward humane nature is to it even while they cannot deny it to be their duty And you will soon perceive that God who made it their duty did never put in them this enmity thereto nor ever made them without some aptitude to perform it And if any would infer that their indisposednâ—ss proveth it to be none of their duty the nature of man will fully confute him and the conscience and confession of all the sober part of the world What wretch so blind if he believe a Deity who will not confess that he should love God with all his heart and that Justice Charity and Sobriety are his duty and that his sense should be ruled by his reason c The evidence before given is not to be denyed And therefore something is marr'd in nature Some enemy hath seduced man And some deplorable change hath befallen him 6. Yea if you had no great backwardness to this duty your self consider what it must cost you faithfully to perform it in such a malignant world as we now live in what envy and wrath what malice and persecution what opposition and discouragements on every side we must expect Universal experience is too full a proof of this Besides what it costeth our restrained flesh 7. Proceed then to think further that certainly God hath never appointed us so much duty without convenient Motives to perform it It cannot be that he should make us more noble than the brutes to be more miserable Or that he should make Holiness our duty that it might be our loss or our calamity If there were no other life but this and men had no hopes of future happiness nor any fears of punishment what a Hell would this world be Heart-wickedness would be but little feared nor heart-duty regarded Secret sin against Princes States and all degrees would be boldly committed and go unpunished for the most part The sins of Princes and of all that have power to defeat the Law would have little or no restraint Every mans interest would oblige him rather to offend God who so seldom punisheth here than to offend a Prince or any man in power who seldom lets offences against himself go unrevenged And so man more than God would be the Ruler of the world that is our God Nay actually the hopes and fears of another life among most Heaâ—hens Infidels and Hereticks is the principle of Divine Government by which God keepeth up most of the order and virtue which is in the world Yea think what you should be and do your self as to enemies and as to secret faults and as to sensual vices if you thought there were no life but this And is it possible that the infinitely powerful wise and good Creatour can be put to govern all mankind by meer deceit and a course of lyes as if he wanted better means By how much the better any man is by so much the more regardful is he of the life to come and the hopes and fears of another life are so much the more prevalent with him And is it possible that God should make men good to make them the most deceived and most miserable Hath he commanded all these cares to be our needless torments which brutes and fools and sottish sinners do all scape Is the greatest obedience to God become a sign of the greatest folly or the way to the greatest loss or disappointment We are all sure that this life is short and vain No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us And if this be so reason commandeth us to prefer the pâ—ssibilities of such a life to come before the certain vanities of this life So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer that the preferring of the world to come is our duty And if it be our duty then the thing in it self is true For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature to seek an Vtopia and pursue a shadow and to spend their daies and chiefest cares for that which is not Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk Conscience will not suffer dying men to believe that they have more cause to repent of their Godliness than of their sin and of their seeking Heaven than of wallowing in their lusts Nay then these hâ—avenly desires would be themselves our sins as being the following of a lye the aspiring after a state which is above us and the abuse and loss of our faculties and time And sensuality would be liker to be our virtue as being natural to us and a seeking of our most real felicity The common conscience of mankind doth justifie the wisdom and virtue of a temperate holy heavenly person and acknowledgeth that our heavenly desires are of God And doth God give men both natural faculties which shall never come to the perfection which is their End and also gracious desires which shall but deceive us and never be satisfied If God had made us for the enjoyments of brutes he would have given us but the knowledge and desires of brutes Every King and mortal Judge can punish faults against Man with death And hath God no greater or further punishment for sins as committed against himself And are his rewards no greater than a mans These and many more such Evidences may assure you that there is another life of Rewards and punishments and that this life is not our final state but only a â—ime of preparation thereunto Settle this deeply and fixedly in your minds 8. And look up to the heavenly Regions and think Is this world so replenished with inhabitants both Sea and Land and Air it self And can I dream that the vast and glorious Orbs and Regions are all uninhabited Oâ— that they have not more numerous and glorious possessors than this small opacous spot of earth And then think that those higher creatures are intellectual spirits This is
and the everlasting miseries of the damned in Hell being the due effects or punishment of sin are the second cause of our necessity of pardon And therefore these also must be thought on seriously by him that will seriously believe in Christ 4. The Law of God which we have broken maketh this punishment our due Rom. 3. 5. 7. And the Justice of God is engaged to secure his own honour in the honour of his Law and Government Direct 2. Vnderstand well what Christ is and doth for the Justification of a sinner and how not one only but all the parts of his office are exercised hereunto In the dignity of his person and perfect original holiness of his natures divine and humane he is fitly qualified for his work of our Justification and Salvation His undertaking which is but the Divine Decree did from eternity lay the foundation of all but did not actually justifie any His Promise Gen. 3.15 and his new Relation to mâ—â— thereupon did that to the Fathers in some degree which his after-incarnation and performance and his Relation thereupon doth now to us His perfect Obedience to the Law yea to that Law of Mediation also peculiar to himself which he performed neither as Priest or Prophet or King but as a subject was the meritorious cause of that Covenant and Grace which justifieth us and so of our Justification And that which is the meritorious cause here is also usually called the material as it is that matter or thing which meriteth our Justification and so is called Our Righteousness it self As he was a sacrifice for sin he answered the ends of the Law which we violated and which condemned us as well as if we had been all punished according to the sense of the Law And therefore did thereby satisfie the Law-giver and thereby also merited our pardon and Justification so that his Obedience as such and his Sacrifice or whole humiliation as satisfactory by answering the ends of the Law are conjunctly the meritorious cause of our Justification His New Covenant which in Baptism is made mutual by our expressed consent is a general gift or act of oblivion or pardon given freely to all mankind on condition they will believe and consent to it or accept it so that it is Gods pardoning and adopting instrument And all are pardoned by it conditionally and every penitent Believer actually and really And this Covenant or Gift is the effect of the foresaid merit of Christ both founded and sealed by his blood As he merited this as a mediating subject and sacrifice so as our High Priest he offered this sacrifice of himself to God And as our King he being the Law-giver to the Church did make this Covenant as his Law of grace describing the terms of life and death And being the Judge of the world doth by his sentence justifie and condemn men as believers or unbelievers according to this Covenant And also executeth his sentence accordingly partly in this life but fully in the life to come As our Teacher and the Prophet or Angel of the Covenant he doth declare it as the Fathers will and promulgate and proclaim this Covenant and conditional Pardon and Justification to the world and send out his Embassadours with it to beseech men in his Name to be reconciled to God and to declare yea and by sacramental investiture to seal and deliver a Pardon and actual Justification to Believers when they consent And as our Mediating High Priest now in the Heavens he presenteth our necessity and his own righteousnesses and sacrifice as his meritâ— for the continual communication of all this grace by himself as the Head of the Church and Administrator of the Covenant So that Christ doth justifie us both as a subject meriting as a sacrifice meriting as a Priest offering that sacrifice as a King actually making the Justifying Law or enacting a general Pardon as a King sententially and executively justifying as a Prophet or Angel of the Covenant promulgating it as King and Prophet and Priest delivering a sealed Pardon by his Messengers And as the Priest Head and Administrator communicating this with the rest of his benefits By which you may see in what respects Christ must be believed in to Justification if Justifying Faith were as it is not only the receiving him as our Justifier It would not be the receiving him as in one part of his office only Direct 3. Vnderstand rightly how far it is that the righteousness of Christ himself is made ours or imputed to us and how far not There are most vehement controversies to this day about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in which I know not well which of the extreams are in the greater errour those that plead for it in the mistaken sense or those that plead against it in the sober and right sense But I make no doubt but they are both of them damnable as plainly subverting the foundation of our faith And yet I do not think that they will prove actually damning to the Authors because I believe that they misunderstand their adversaries and do not well understand themselves and that they digest not and practise not what they plead for but digest and practise that truth which they doctrinally subvert not knowing the contrariety which if they knew they would renounce the errour and not the truth And I think that many a one that thus contradicteth fundamentals may be saved Some there be besides the Antinomians that hold that Christ did perfectly obey and satisfie not in the natural but in the civil or legal person of each sinner that is elect representing and bearing as many distinct persons as are elect so fully as that God doth repute every Elect person or say others every Believer to be one that in Law sense did perfectly obey and satisfie Justice himself and so imputeth Christs Righteousness and satisfaction to us as that which was reputatively or legally of our own performance and so is ours not only in its effects but in it self Others seeing the pernicious consequences of this opinion deny all imputed Righteousness of Christ to us and write many reproachful volumes against it as you may see in Thorndikes last works and Dr. Gell and Parker against the Assembly and abundance more The truth is Christ merited and satisfied for us in the person of a Mediator But this Mediator was the Head and Root of all Believers and the second Adam the fountain of spiritual life and the Surety of the New Covenant Heb. 7.22 1 Cor. 15.22 45. and did all this in the nature of man and for the sake and benefit of man suffering that we might not suffer damnation but not obeying that we might not obey but suffering and obeying that our sinful imperfection of obedience might not be our ruine and our perfect obedience might not be necessary to our own Justification or Salvation but that God might for the sake and merit of this his perfect obedience and
satisfaction forgive all our sins and adopt us for his Sons and give us his holy Spirit and glorifie us for ever so that Christs Righteousness both obediential and satisfactory is ours in the effects of it in themselves and ours relatively for those effects so far as to be purposely given for us to that end but not ours in it self simply or as if we were reputed the legal performers our selves or might be said in Law sense or by divine estimation or imputation to have our selves in and by Christ fulfilled the Law and suffered for our not fulfilling it which is a contradiction As he that both by a price and by some meritorious act doth redeem a captive or purchase pardon for a traitor doth give the money and merit in it self to the Prince and not to the Captive or Traitor himself He never saw it nor ever had propriety in the thing it self But the deliverance is the Prisâ—ners and not the Princes and therefore it is given to the Prisoner as to the effects though not in it self in that it was given for him And because Christ suffered what we should have suffered as to the value to save us from suffering and our sins were the cause of our guilt of punishment and so the remote cause of the sufferings of Christ his own sponsion being the nearer cause therefore it may be said truly that Christ did not only suffer for our benefit but in our stead or place and in a larger and less strict and proper sense that he suffered in the person of a sinner and as one to whom our sins were imputed meaning no more but that he suffered as one that by his own consent undertook to suffer for the persons of sinners and that as such an undertaker only he suffered and that thus our sins were imputed to him not in themselves as if he were in Law sense the committer of them or polluted by them or by God esteemed so to have been but as to the effects that is his suffering in that they were the occasion and the remote or assumed cause of his sufferings as his Righteousness is imputed to us as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Justification But he could not be said no not in so large a sense as this to have obeyed in our stead considering it as obedience or holiness but only as merit because he did it not that we might not obey but that we might not suffer for disobeying More of this will follow in the next Chapter Direct 4. Vnderstand well what guilt it is that Christ doth remit in our Justification not the guilt of the fact nor of the fault in it self but the guilt of punishment and of the fault only so far as it is the cause of wrath and punishment 1. The guilt of fact is in the reality or truth of this charge that such a fact we did or omitted so far it is but Physically considered and would not come into legal consideration were it not for the following relation of it 2. The guilt of fault reatus culpae is the reality of this charge or the foundation of it in us that we are the committers or omitters of such an action contrary to the Law or that our act or omission was really a crime or fault 3. The guilt of punishment reatus poenae vel ad poenam is the foundation of this charge that we are by that Law which must judge us condemnable or obliged to punishment or it is our right for the sins so committed Now Christ doth not by justifying us or pardoning us make us either to be such as really did not do the fact or such as did not a culpable fact no nor such as did not deserve damnation or to whom it was not due by the first Law alone but to be such who are not now at all condemnable for it because the new Law which we must be judged by doth absolve us by forgiving us not making the fault no fault nor causing God to think that Christ committed it and not we or to esteem us to be such as never did commit it but remitting the punishment and that dueness of punishment and obligation to it which did before result from the fault and Law together and so the fault it self is remitted as it is the foundation from whence that obligation to punishment resulteth respectively but not simply nor as a fault in it self at all When I say the punishment and the dueness of it to us is forgiven I mean not only the punishment of sense but of loss also nor only the outward part which is executed by creatures but especially the first and great penalty of Gods own displeasure with the person and the withdrawing of his Spirit and complacential love and that which we may improperly call his obligation in Justice to condemn the sinner There was upon God before Christs satisfaction and our title to him that which we may so call a legal or relative obligation on God to punish us because else he should have done contrary to the due ends of Government and so contrary to the Wisdom and Justice of a Governour which is not consistent with his perfection But now the ends of Government are so answered and provided for that there is no such obligation on God to punish us but he may remit it without any dishonour at all nay with the honour of his Wisdom and Justice We are now non condemnandi not condemnable though we are sinners In Judgement we must confess the latter and deny the former only Direct 5. Vnderstand well what sins Christ justifieth men from or forgiveth to them and what not All sins which consist with true faith and repentance or true conversion to God in love by faith in Christ and all that went before But he forgiveth no man in a state of impenitency and unbelief nor any mans final impenitency and unbelief at all nor any other sins when those are final except it be with the common conditional forgiveness before mentioned or that absolute particular forgiveness of some present penalties which saveth no man from damnation Matth. 12.31 Acts 26.18 Rom. 8.1 30. Acts 5.31 Acts 2.38 39. Mark 16.16 John 3.16 18 36. 1 John 5.11 12. Mark 4 1â— Matth. 18.27 32. Direct 6. Vnderstand well the true nature of that Faith and Repentance which God hath made the condition of our Justification This is sufficiently opened before and the consulation of all the cavils against it would be tedious and unsavoury here Direct 7. Vnderstand well the Covenant and Promise of Justification and measure your belief and expectations by that Promise Expect no other pardon nor on any other conditions or terms than the Promise doth contain For it is Gods pardoning act or instrument and by it we must be justified or condemned And we know not but by it whom God will justifie Direct 8. Keep alwaies the assuring grounds of faith before your eyes when you look
is faithful and just to forgive us our sisn and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness If all need of pardon had been prevented by Christ what use were there of his advocation for our future forgiveness Direct 12. Remember that though unknown infirmities and unavoidable ones have an immediate pardon because the Believer hath an habitual Faith and Repentance yet great and known sins must have actual Repentance before the pardon will be plenary or perfect though the person is not in the mean time an unregenerate nor unjustified person 1. That great and known sins must have a particular repentance appeareth 1. In that it is utterly inconsistent with the sincerity of habitual Repentance not to be actual when sins are known and come into our deliberate remembrance 2. By all those texts which require such repentance confession and forsaking 1 John 2.1 2. 1 John 1.9 Prov. 18.13 Psal 32. 51. 2 Cor. 7.11 Rev 2.5 16. Luke 13.3 5. Jam. 5.14 15. Luke 6.37 11.4 Repentance consisteth chiefly in forsaking sin and if men forsake not such known wilful sins they are wicked men and therefore are not pardoned 2. That unavoidable frailties and meer infirmities and unknown faults are pardoned immediately to them that are truly godly and have a general and implicit Repentance is plain because else no man in the world could be saved because every man hath such infirmities and unknown sins 1 John 1.10 3. Yet David himself is not put by his sin into a meer graceless state and as a person that hath no former Justification for he prayeth God not to take his Spirit from him and he was not deprived of the true love to God which is the character of Gods children But he had incurred heinous guilt and put himself in the way towards utter damnation and caused a necessity of a more particular deep Repentance before he could be fully pardoned than else he needed Before the world had a Saviour we were all so far unpardoned that a satisfying Sacrifice was necessary to our Justification But afterward all men are so far pardoned that only the Acceptance of what is purchased and freely though conditionally given is necessary to it Before men are converted they are yet so far unpardoned that though no more Sacrifice be necessary yet a total conversion and renovation by turning from a life of sin to God by Faith in Christ is necessary to their actual justification and forgiveness When a man is turned from a life of sin to God and liveth in the state of grace all his following sins which consist with the loving of God and holiness above the world and sinful pleasures are so far forgiven immediately upon the committing that they need neither another Sacrifice nor another Regeneration or Justification quoad statum but only an acting of that Faith and Repentance which habitually he hath already But the unknown errours and faults of such godly persons are pardoned even without that actual repentance and infirmities without forsaking of the sin overcomingly in practice And so every one liveth and dyeth in some degree of sinful defectiveness and omission of his love to God and trust and hope and zeal and desire and love to men and care of his duty and watchfulness and fervency in prayer meditation c. And in some degree of sinful disorder in our ill governed thoughts and words and affections or passions and actions we are never sinless till we die Direct 13. Remember that you must neither think that every sin which is a cause of Repentance is a sufficient reason for you to doubt of your present state of Justification nor yet that no sin can be so great as to be a necessary cause of doubting If every sin should make us doubt of our Justification then all men must alwaies doubt And then it must be because no sin is consistent with sincerity and the knowledge of sincerity which is apparently false If no sin should cause our doubting then there is no sin which is not consistent both with sincerity and with the knowledge of it which is as false and much more dangerous to hold 1. There are many sins that are utterly inconsistent with true godliness otherwise the godly were ungodly and as bad as others And if you say that no godly man commiteth these it is true and therefore it is true that he that committeth them is not a godly man or justified And how shall a man know his godliness but by his life as the product of his inward graces It is arguing from an uncertainty against a certainty to say I am justified and godly and therefore my wilful sins of drunkenness fornication oppression lying malâ—ce c. are consistent with Justification and it is arguing from a certain truth against a doubted falshood to say I live in ordinary wilful heinous sin therefore I am not justified or sincere Ephes 5.5 6. For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience 1 Cor. 6 9 10. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified c. Rom. 8.1 13. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit If ye live after the flesh ye shall die c. Gal. 5.20 21 22 23 24. 2. And there are many sins which consist with true grace which will not consist with the assurance of its sincerity And that 1. From the nature of the things because the least degree of grace conjunct with and clouded by the greatest degree of sin which may consist with it is not discernable to to him that hath it He that is so very near a state of death and so very like to an unjustified person can never be sure in that case that he is justified 2. And also God in Wisdom and Justice will have it so that sin may not be encouraged nor presumption cherished nor the comforts which are the reward of an obedient child be cast away on an uncapable child in his stubborn disobedience Psal 51. 32. 77. Therefore for a man that liveth in grost sin to say that he is sure that he is justified and therefore no sin shall make him question it is but to believe the Antinomian Devil transforming himself into an Angel of Light and his Ministers when they call themselves the Ministers of Righteousness and to deny belief to the Spirit of Holiness and Truth And if a
true Believer should come very near such a state of death common reason and the due care of his own soul obligeth him to be suspicious of himself and to fear the worst till he have made sure of better Heb. 6. 3.10 Heb. 4.1 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 10. John 15.2 7 8 c. Direct 14. Let not the perswasion that you are justified make you more secure and bold infinning but more to hate it as contrary to the ends of Justification and to the love which freely justified you It is a great mark of difference between true assurance and blind presumption that the one maketh men hate sin more and more carefully to avoid it and the other causeth men to sin with less reluctancy and remorse because with less feat Direct 15. When the abuse of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone and not by Works doth pervert your minds and lives remember that all confess that we shall be judged according to our works as the Covenant of Grace is the Law by which we shall be judged And to be judged is to be justified or condemned I need not recite all those Scriptures to you that say that we shall be judged and shall receive according to what we have done in the body whether it be good or evil And this is all that we desire you to believe and live accordingly Direct 16. Remember still that Faith in Christ is but a means to raise us to the Love of God and that perfect Holiness is higher and more excellent than the pardon of sin And therefore desire faith and use it for the kindling of love and pardon of sin to endear you to God and that you may do so no more And do not sin that you may have the more to be pardoned The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned Rom. 6.1 2. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid How shall they that are dead to sin live any longer therein See Titus 3.5 6 7. Rom. 5.1 4 5 6. Rom. 8.1 4 9 Gal. 4.6 5.24 26. So much for those practical Directions which are needfull for them that love not Controversie CHAP. VIII The pernicious or dangerous Errours detected which hinder the work of Faith about our Justification and the contrary Truths asserted THere is so much dust and controversie raised here to blind the eyes of the weak and to hinder the life of Faith and so much poison served up under the name of Justification and Free Grace that I should be unfaithful if I should not discover it either through fear of offending the guilty or of wearying them that had rather venture upon deceit than upon controversie And we are now so fortified against the Popish and Secinian extreams and those whom I am now directing to live by Faith are so settled against them that I think it more necessary having not leisure for both and having done it heretofore in my Confession to open at this time the method of false doctrine on the other extream which for the most part is it which constituteth Antinomianism though some of them are maintained by others And I will first name each errour and then with it the contrary truth Errour 1. Christs suffering was caused by the sins of none as the assumed meritorious cause or as they usually say as imputed to him or lying on him save only of the Elect that shall be saved Contr. The sins of fallen mankind in general except those rejections of Grace whose pardon is not offered in the conditional Covenant did lye on Christ as the assumed cause of his sufferings See John 1.29 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. John 3.16 17 18 19. Heb. 2.9 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 4.10 2 Pet. 2.2 See Paraeus in his Irenicon Twisse vind alibi passim saying as much and Amyrald Davenant Dallaeus Testarduâ—Vsher c. proving it Errour 2. Christ did both perfectly obey and also make satisfaction for sin by suffering in the person of all the Elect in the sense of the Law or Gods account so that his Righteousness of obedience and perfect holiness and his satisfaction is so imputed to us as the proprietaries as if we our selves had done it and suffered it not by an after donation in the effects but by this strict imputation in it self Contr. The contrary Truth is at large opened before and in my confession Christs satisfaction and the merit of his whole obedience is as effectual for our pardon justification and salvation as if Believers thâ—mselves had performed it and it is imputed to them in that it was done for their sakes and suffered in their stead and the fruits of it by a free Covenant or donation given them But 1. God is not mistaken to judge that we obeyed or suffered when we did not 2. God is no lyar to say we did it when he knoweth that we did it not 3. If we were not the actors and sufferers it is not possible that we should be made the natural subjects of the Accidents of anothers body by any putation estimation or mis-judging whatsoever no nor by any donation neither It is a contradiction and therefore an impossibility that the same individual Actions and Passions of which Christs humane nature was the agent and subject so many hundred years ago and have themselves now no existence should in themselves I say in themselves be made yours now and you be the subject of the same accidents 4. Therefore they can no otherwise be given to us but 1. By a true estimation of the reasons why Christ underwent them viz. for our sakes as aforesaid 2. And by a donation of the effects or fruits of them viz. pardoning and justifying and saving us by them on the terms chosen by the Donor himself and put into his Testament or Covenant as certainly but not in the same manner as if we had done and suffered them our selves 5. If Christ had suffered in our person reputatively in all respects his sufferings would not have redeemed us Because we are finite worms and our suffering for so short a time would not have been accepted instead of Hell sufferings But the person of the Mediator made them valuable 6. God never made any such Covenant with us that he will justifie us and use us just as he would have done if we had our selves perfectly obeyed and satisfied They that take on them to shew such a Promise must see that no wise man examine it 7. God hath both by his Covenant and his Works ever since confuted that opinion and hath not dealt with us as he would have done if we had been the reputed doers and sufferers of it all our selves For he hath made conveyance of the Benefits by a pardoning and justifying Law or Promise and he giveth us additional pardon of renewed sins as we act them and he addeth threatnings in his Law or
for us Errour 6. That the Elect are justified from eternity say some or from Christs death before they were born say others or before they believed say others Against this I have said enough in many Volumes heretofore Errour 7. That Faith justifieth only in the Court of our own Consciences by making us to know that we were justified before Against this also I have said enough elsewhere Errour 8. That sins to come not yet committed are pardoned in our first Justification Contr. Sins to come are no sins and no sins have no actual pardon but only the certain remedy is provided which will pardon their sins as soon as they are capable Errour 9. Justification is not a making us just but a sentence pronouncing us just Contr. Justification is a word of so many significations that he that doth not first tell what he meaneth by it will not be capable of giving or receiving satisfaction And here once for all I must intreat the Reader that loveth not confusion and errour to distinguish of these several sorts of Justification as the chief which we are to note Justification is either publick by a Governour or private by an equal or meer Discerner Justification is by God or by Man Justification by God is either as he is Law-giver and above Laws or as he is Judge according to his Laws In the first way God maketh us just by his Act of Oblivion or pardoning Law or Covenant of Grace In the second respect God doth two waies justifie and forgive 1. As a determining Judge 2. As the Executioner of his Judgement In the former respect God doth two waies justifie us 1. By esteeming us just 2. By publick sentencing us just As Executioner he useth us as just and as so judged I pass by here purposely all Christs Justification of us by way of apology or plea and all Justification by witnesses and evidences c. and all the constitutive causes of our Righteousness lest I hinder them whom I would help by using more distinctions than they are willing to learn But these few are necessary 1. It is one thing for God to make us Righteous by forgiving all our sins of commission and omission for the sake of Christs satisfaction and obedience 2. It is another thing for God to esteem us to be so Righteous when he hath first made us so 3. It is another for God to sentence us Righteous as the Publick Judge by Jesus Christ 4. And it is another thing for God to take off all penalties and evils and to give us all the good which belong to the Righteous and so to execute his own Laws and Sentence And he that will not distinguish of these senses or sorts of Justification shall not dispute with me And while I am upon this I will give the Reader these two remarks and counsels 1. That he will not in disputing about Justification with any sect begin the dispute of the Thing till he hath first determined and agreed of their sense of the Word And that he will not confound the Controversies de nomine about the word with those de re about the matter And that he will remember in citing texts of Scripture that Beza and many of our best Expositors do grant to the Papists as I heard Bishop Vsher also do that some texts of Scripture do take the word Justifie as they do for Pardon and Sanctification conjunctly As Titus 3.7 1 Cor. 6.11 Rom. 8.30 three famous texts of which see Le Blank at large in his Thes de nom Justific If the controversie be only of the sense of a Text handle it accordingly If of the matter turn it not to words 2. Note this Observation that Sanctification it self or the giving us the Spirit is a great act though I say not the only of executive Justification The with-holding of the Spirit is the greatest punishment inflicted in this life and therefore the giving of the Spirit is the removal or executive remiting of the greatest penalty So that if pardon were only as Dr. Twisse thought a non-punire a not punishing then this were the most proper as well as plenary pardon in this life But the truth is that our Pardon and Justification in Right goeth first which God effecteth by his Covenant-gift And then God esteemeth us just or pardoned when by pardon he hath made us just and if there be any sentence or any thing equivalent before the day of Judgement or death he next sentenceth us Just and lastly he useth us as just that is as pardoned all sins of omission and commission which is by taking off all punishment both of pain or sense and loss of which part the giving of his Spirit is the chief act on this side our Glorification Note therefore that thus far no Protestant can deny to the Papists nor will do that Sanctification and Justification are all one that is that God having pardoned us de jure doth pardon us executively by giving us his forfeited Spirit and Grace and by all the communion which we have after with him and the comfort which we have from him And further let it be well noted that the nature of this executive Pardon or Justification of which read Mr. Hotchkis at large is far better known to us than the nature of Gods sentential Pardon and Justification and therefore there is less controversie about it For what it is to forbear or take off a punishment is easily understood But though most Protestants say that Justification is a sentence of God they are not agreed what that sentence is Some think truly that our first Justification by Faith is but a virtual sentence of the Law of Grace by which we must be judged Others say that by a sentence is meant Gods secret mental estimation Others say that as Angels are his executioners so it is before them where joy is said to be for a sinners conversion Luke 15. that doth declare and sentence us pardoned and just Others think that there is no sentence but Gods notification of pardon to our consciences or giving us the sense or knowledge of it Others think that there is no sentence till death or publick Judgment Others say that God doth sentence us just though we know not where nor how And Mr. Lawson noteth that as all confess that God hath no voice but a created voice and therefore useth not words as we unless what Christ as man may do in that we know not so his sentence is nothing but his declaration that he esteemeth us pardoned and just in title which is principally if not only by his execution and taking off all penalties of sense and loss and using us as pardoned in title and so that the giving of his Spirit is his very sentence of Justification in this life as it is his declaration as aforesaid And doubtless executive pardon is the most perfect and compleat as being the end and perfection of all the rest Therefore God maketh
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
would you be in the same condition again Would you be unsanctified and unjustified and unpardoned and unsaved Every wilful sin is a turning backward toward the state of your former captivity and misery Direct 5. When Satan sets the bait before you let Faith alwaies set Heaven and Hell before you and take all together the end with the beginning And think when you are tempted to lye to steal to deceive to lust to pride to gulosity or drunkenness c. what men are now suffering for these same sins and what all that are in Hell and in Heaven do think of them Suppose a man offered you a cup of wine and a friend telleth you I saw him put poison into it and therefore take heed what you do If the offerer were an enemy you would hardly take it The world and the flâ—sh and the devil are enemies when they offer you the delights of sin hear Faith and it will tell you there is poison in it there is sin and hell and Gods displeasure in it Direct 6. Let Faith keep you under the continual apprehensions of the Divine Authority and Rule that as a child a servant a scholar a subject doth still know that he is not masterless but one that must be ruled by the will or Law of his superiour so may you alwaies live with the yoâ—k of Christ upon your necks and his bridle in your mouths Remembring also that you are still in your Masters eye Direct 7. Remember still that it is the work of Faith to overcome the world and the flesh and to over-rule your sense and appetite and to make nothing of all that would stand up against your heavenly interest and to crucifie it by the Cross of Christ Gal. 6.14 5.24 Rom. 8.1 9 10 13. Set Faith therefore upon its proper work and when you live by Faith and walk after the Spirit you will not live by sight nor walk after the flesh 2 Cor. 5.7 Direct 8. It is also the work of Faith to take off all the masks of sin and open its nakedness and shame and cast by all shifts pretences and excuses When Satan saith It is a little one and the danger is not great and it will serve thy pleasure profit or preferment Faith should say Doth not God forbid it There is no dallying with the fire of God Be not deceived man God will not be mocked Whatsoever a man soweth that shall be also reap If you sow to the flesh of the flâ—sh you shall reap corruption Gal 6. When Satan saith Ye shall not die and when the sinner with Adam hideth himself Faith will call him out to Judgment and say What hast thou done Hast thou eaten of the fruit which God forbade Direct 9. Let Faith still keep you busied in your Masters work Nothing breedeth and feedeth sin so much as idleness of mind and life Sins of omission have this double mischief that they are the first part of Satans game themselves and they also bring in sins of commission When men are not taken up with good they are at leisure for temptations to intice them and they set open their doors to the tempter and tell him he may speak with then when he will Wanton thoughts and covetous thoughts may dwell there when better thoughts are absent But when you are so wholly taken up with your duty spiritual or corporal and so constantly and industriously busie in your proper work sin cannot enter nor Satan find you at leisure for his service Direct 10. Let Faith make Gods service pleasant to you and lose not your delight in Gâ—d and godliness and then you will not rellish sinful pleasures You will find no need of such base delights when you live on the foretast of Angelical pleasures You will not be easily drawn to steal a morsel of dung or poison from the Devils table while you daily feast your souls on Christ or to steal the Onions of Egypt when you dwell in a Land that floweth with milk and hony But while you keep your selves in the wilderness you will be tempted to look back again to Egypt The great cause of mens sinning and yielding to the temptations of forbidden pleasures is because they are negligent to live upon the pleasures of Believers Direct 11. Take heed of the beginnings if ever you would escape the sin No man becometh stark nought at the first step He that beginneth to take one pleasing unprofitable cup or bit intendeth not drunkenness and gluttony in the grossest sense But he hath set fire in the thatch though he did not intend to burn his house and it will be harder to quench it than to have forborn at first He that beginneth but with lascivious dalliance speeches or embraces thinketh not to proceed to filthy fornication But he might better have secured his conscience if he had never medled so far with sin Few ruinating damning sins began any otherwise than with such small approaches as seemed to have little harm or danger Direct 12. If ever you will scape sin keep off from strong temptations and opportunities He that will be still neer the fire or water may be burnt or drowned at last No man is long safe in the midst of danger and at the next step to ruine He that liveth in a Tavern or Ale-house had need to be very averse to tipling And he that sitteth at Dives table had need to be very averse to gulosity And he that is in the least danger of the fire of lust must keep at a sufficient distance not only from the bed and from immodest actions but from secret company and opportunities of sin and from a licentious ungoverned eye and imagination This caused Christ to say How hard it is for the Rich to be saved because they have a stronger fleshly interest to keep them from Christ and godliness which must be denyed and because their sin hath plentiful provision and the fire of concupiscence wanteth no fewel and it is a very easie thing to them still to sin and alwaies a hard thing to avoid it And mans sluggish nature will hardly long either hold on in that which is hardly done or forbear that which is still hard to forbear Good must be made sweet and easie to us or else we shall never be constant in it Direct 13. If you find any difficulty in forsaking any disgraceful sin cherish it not by secrecy but 1. Plainly confess it to your bosom friend And 2. If that will not serve to others also that you may have the greater engagements to forbear I know wisdom must be used in such confessions and they must be avoided when the hurt will prove greater than the good But fleshly wisdom must be no councellor and fleshly interest must not prevail Secrecy is the nest of sin where it is kept warm and hidden from disgrace Turn it out of this nest and it will thd sooner perish Gods eye and knowledge should serve turn but when it
be but to do as the Papists when we have sinned by fallibility to keep off repentance by the conceit of infallibility 9. We are in great danger of sinning in cases where we are ignorant For who can avoid the danger which he seeth not And who can walk safely in the dark Therefore we see that it is the ignor anter sort of Christians and such as Paul calleth Novices that most erre especially when Pride accompanyeth Ignorance for then they fall into the special condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 Study therefore painfully and patiently till you understand the truth 10. But above all we are in danger of those sins which are masked with a pretence of the greatest truths and duties and use to be fathered on God and Scripture and so under the specious titles of Holiness and of Free Grace For here it is the understanding chiefly that resisteth while the very names and pretences secretly steal in and bring them into love and reverence with the Will And the poor honest Christian is afraid of resisting them lest it should prove a resisting God What can be so false that a man will not plead for if he take it to be a necessary truth of God And what can be so bad that a man will not do if he take it once to be of Gods commanding The foresaid instances of the Munster and Germane actions with those of the followers of David George in Holland who took himself to be the Holy Ghost or the immediate Prophet of his Kingdom and Hacket and his Grundletonians and the Familists the Ranters the Seekers the Quakers the Church-dividers and the Kingdom and State-overturners in England have given so great a demonstration of this that it is not lawful to overlook it or forget it The time cometh that they that kill you shall think that they do God service Joh. 16.2 And then who can expect that their consciences should avoid it Why did Paul persecute the Christians and compel them to blaspheme Because he verily thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus Acts 26.9 O it is religious sins which we are in danger of such as come to us as in the Name of God and Christ and the Spirit such as pretend that we cannot be saved without them and such as plead the holy Scriptures such as James 3. is written against when a wisdom from beneath which is earthly sensual and devilish working by envy and strife unto confusion and every evil work pretendeth to be the wisdom from above when Zeal consumeth Love and Vnity under pretence of consuming sin which made Paul and John require us not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits whether they be of God 2 Thes 2.2 1 Thes 5.20 21. 1 Joh. 4.1 2 3. And made Paul say If an Angel from Heaven bring you another Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.7 8. And more plainly 2 Cor. 11.13 14. Such are false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works And Acts 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them And what need any Disciple of Christ greater warning than to remember that their Saviour himself was thus assaulted by the Devil in his temptation with It is written Yet let no Papist hence take occasion to vilifie the Scripture because it is made a plea for sin For so he might as well vilifie humane Reason which is pleaded for all the errours in the world and vilifie the Law because Lawyers plead it for ill Causes yea and vilifie God himself because the same and other sinners plead his will and authority for their sins when contrarily it is a great proof of the Scripture Authority and Honour that Satan himself and his subtilest instruments do place their greatest hope of prevailing by perverting and misapplying it which could be of no use to them if its authority were not acknowledged 11. We are in constant danger of those sins which we think we can conceal from men Therefore suppose still that all that you do will be made known and do all as in the open streets It 's written by two in the life of holy Ephrem Syrus that when a Harlot tempted him to uncleanness he desired but that he might chuse the place which she consenting to he chose the open market-place among all the people and when she told him that there they should be shamed for all would see he told her such a lesson of sinning in the sight of God who is every where as was the means of her conversion Conceit of secrecy emboldeneth to sin 12. We are in constant danger of sins of sudden passion and irruption which allow us not season to deliberate and surprize us before our reason can consider 13. We are in danger of sins that come on by insensible degrees and from small beginnings creep upon us and come not by any sudden wakening assaults Thus pride and covetousness and ambition do infect men And thus our zeal and deligence for God doth usually decay 14. Lastly We are in much danger of all sins which require a constant vigorous diligence to resist them and of omitting those duties or that part or mode of duty which must have a constant vigorous diligence to perform it Because feeble souls are hardly kept as is aforesaid to constant vigorous diligence Quest 2. Wherein differeth the sins of a sanctified person from other mens that are unsanctified Answ 1. In a sanctified man the habitual bent of his will is ever more against sin than for it however he be tempted into that particular act 2. And as to the Act also it is ever contrary to the scope and tenour of his life which is for God and sincere obedience 3. He hath no sin which is inconsistent with the true Love of God in the predominant habit It never turneth his heart to another End or Happiness or Master 4. Therefore it is more a sin of passion than of settled interest and choice He is more liable to a hasty passion or word or unruly thoughts than to any prevalent covetousness or ambition or any sin which is a possessing of the heart instead of God 1 John 2.15 James 3.2 Though some remainders of these are in him they prevail not so far as sudden passions 5. There are some sins which are more easily in the power of the will so that a man that is but truly willing may forbear them as a drunkard may pass by the Tavern or Ale-house or forbear to touch the cup and the fornicator to come neer or commit the sin if they be truly willing But there be other sins which a man can hardly forbear though he be willing because
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
to satisfie the wills or lusts thereof that is meerly or chiefly to please our senses 3. It is sinful Fulness when you needlesly strengthen either lustful or sluggish inclinations by the quantity or the quality of your food I know nature must not be famished nor our health and life destroyed under pretence of conquering sin But when necessity of life and health doth not require it all that must be avoided which cherisheth any vicious disposition And these two are the usual effects of fulness 1. Some especially idle youths abound with lustful thoughts and inclinations which fulness greatly cherisheth and pleasing their appetite is the fuel of their lust when as if they would drink water and eat courser food and little of it and withall be laborious in some serious work their lusts would be more extinguished These persons are guilty of sinful Fulness if they take but neer as â—uch as other men may do because for the pleasing of one lust they seed another 2. Others that are flagmatick and dull can never feed fully but they are heavy and drowsie unfit for prayer and unfit for work usually the health as well as the consciences of these persons doth require a spare kind of dyet and that which is but enough for others is too much for them Because the avoiding of sin and the performance of our duties is the measure of our food 4. It is sinful Fulness when any of Gods creatures are taken without any benefit and in vain It is a sin to take any more than we have cause to think is like to do us good though we thought it were like to do no harm That which is used only to gratifie the appetite or for any other unprofitable cause and neither furthereth health nor duty is sinfully cast away And if vain words be forbidden vain eating and drinking can be no better The evil of the sin is 1. Because man being a rational creature should do nothing in vain 2. Because we are Gods Stewards and must give an account of all our talents 3. Because Gods mercies are not to be contemned nor cast away as nothing worth 4. But especially because there are thousands in want while you abound and if you spend that in vain which others need you wrong God and rob them and shew that you want love to your brethren and prefer your appetites before their necessities If you think any thing that you have is absolutely your own you are but foolish pretenders against God But if you know that God hath lent it you for his service how dare you cast it away in vain Joh. 6.12 When Christ had multiplied food or satisfied mens appetite by miracle he saith Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost Nothing then must be lost on your selves or others 5. To bestow too much cost upon the belly is a sinful Fulness too though the quantity of food be never so small Cost is too much when it is more than is profitable or when the cost exceedeth the profit The reasons of this are the same as of the former because we are Gods Stewards and must give account of all that we have and must improve it all to our Masters use and because thousands want what we might spare and superfluously expend What are the occasions which will justifie some extraordinary costliness is too long now to explicate In general it must be for some end and benefit which is better than any which might be procured otherwise by that expence But pride or appetite are no justifying causes of it It was faring sumptuously which was that carnal Gentlemens sin in Luke 16. It is saâ—d of such Phil. 3.18 that their belly is their God for they daily sacrifice much more to it than they do to God Many hundred pounds a year is little enough for many men to sacrifice to their throats It is such a sacrifice which James calleth the cherishing of their hearts as in a day of slaughter James 5.5 This is the hid treasure which their bellies are filled with Psal 17.14 The rich mans full barns Luke 12 20. were but to fill his belly and please his flesh Thou hast enough laid up for many years For what why for ease and eating and drinking and mirth They think it is their own and that they may spend it on themselves but O the terrible account As David would not offer that to God which cost him nothing 2 Sam. 24.24 so neither will they offer too cheap a sacrifice to their bellies But lust deserveth not much cost He that is your God is the God of others as well as of you and careth for them as well as for you even when he giveth them less than you And he giveth it you that you may have the tryal and the honour of giving it according to his will to them It is every mans duty to chuse the cheapest dyet and other accommodations which will but answer his lawful ends that is 1. His health and welfare 2. And the meet entertainment of others and the avoiding of those evils which are greater than the charge He that loveth his neighbour as himself will not see multitudes cold and hungry while he gratifieth his own sensuality with superfluities Though all men are not to live at the same rates yet all are to observe this common rule of charity and frugality The Rule given by Paul for apparel must be used also for our food that women adorn themselves with modest apparel with shamefastness and sobriety not with broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array 1 Tim. 2.9 So must we feed with moderation and sobriety and not with too rich and costly food 6. And it is a great aggravation of this sin to bestow too much of our time upon it When those precious hours are spent in needless eating and drinking or sitting at it which are given us for far greater work Though no set time can be determined for all men yet all must feed as those that have still necessary business upon their hand which stayeth for them and for which it is that they cherish themselves And therefore let not time pass away in vain but make haste to your work and feed not idleness instead of diligence 7. And the root of all this mischief is when the hearts of men are set upon their bellies and their fancies and wits are slaves unto their appetites when they are not indifferent about things indifferent but make a great matter of it what they shall eat and what they shall drink beyond the necessity or real benefit of it When they are troubled if their appetite be but crost and they are like crying children or swine that are discontented and complaining if they have not what they would have and if their bellies are not full When they are like the Israelites that wept for flesh Numb 11.4 Because they serve not the Lord Jesus but their own bellies Rom. 16.17 18. But the poor
further than you have a present pawn or security in case he should deceive you you blaspheme him instead of taking him for your God Direct 14. Let your greatest mercy be shewed in the greatest things and let the good of mens souls be your end even in your mercy to their bodies And therefore do all in such a manner as tendeth most to promote the highest end Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy CHAP. XIX How to live by Faith in Adversity IF I should give you distinct Directions for the several cases of poverty wrongs persecutions unkindnesses contempt sickness c. it would swell this Treatise yet bigger than I intended I shall therefore take up with this general Advice Direct 1. In all Adversity remember the evil of sin which is the cause and the Holiness and Justice of God which is exercised and then the hatred of sin and the love of Gods Holiness and Justice will make you quietly submit You will then say when Repentance is serious I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him Micah 7.9 And why doth living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Lam. 3.39 Let us search and try our waies and turn again unto the Lord for he hath smitten and he will heal c. v. 40 41. Object But doth not Job 's case tell us that some afflictions are only for tryal and not for sin Answ No it only telleth us that the reason why Job is chosen out at that time to suffer more than other men is not because he was worse than others or us bad but for his tryal and good But 1. Affliction as it is now existent in the world upon mankind is the fruit of Adams sin at first and contained in the peremptory unremitted sentence 2. And this general state of suffering mankind is now in the hand and power of Christ who sometimes indeed doth let out more on the best than upon others and that especially for their tryal and good but usually some sins of their own also have a hand in them and procure the evil though his mercy turn it to their benefit Direct 2. Deal closely and faithfully with your hearts and lives in a suffering time and rest not till your consciences are well assured that no special provocation is the cause or else do testifie that you have truly repented and resolved against it Otherwise you may lengthen your distress if you leave that thorn in your sore which causeth it Or else God may change it into a worse or may give you over to impenitency which is worst of all Or at least you will want that assured peace with God and solid peace of conscience which must be your support and comfort in affliction and so will sink under it as unable to bear it Direct 3. Remember that the sanctifying fruit of Adversity is first and more to be looked after than either the comfort or the deliverance And therefore that all men no nor all Christians must not use the same method in the same affliction when as their spiritual cases differ A cleared conscience and one that hath walked faithfully with God and fruitfully in the world and kept himself from his iniquity may bend most of his thoughts to the comforting promises and happy end But one man hath been bold with wilful sin and his work must be first to renew repentance and see that there be no root of bitterness left behind and to set upon true reformation of life and reparation of the hurt which he hath done Another is grown into love with the world and hath let out his heart to pleasant thoughts and hopes of prosperity and alienated his thoughts more than before from God This man must first perceive his errour and hear Gods voice which calleth him home and see the characters of vanity and vexation written on the face of that which he over-loved and then think of comfort when he hath got a cure Another is grown dull and careless of his soul and hath lost much of his sense of things eternal and is cold in love and cold in prayer and liveth as if he were grown weary of God and weary of well doing His work must be to feel the smart of Gods displeasure so far as to awaken him to repentance and set him again with former seriousness upon his duty And when he mendeth his pace he may desire to be eased of the rod and spur But to give unseasonable cordials to any of these is but to frustrate the affliction and to hurt them and prepare for worse Nay and when they are comforted in season it must be with due caution Go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee It is pâ—rnicious unskilfulness in those comforters of the afflicted who have the same customary words of comfort for all and by their improper cordials unseasonably applyed delude poor souls and hinder that necessary repentance which God by so shâ—rp a means doth call them to Direct 4. Remember that your part in affliction is to do your duty and to get the benefit of it but to remove it is Gods part Therefore be you careful about that part which is your own and then make no question but God will do his part Let it be your first question therefore What is it that I am obliged to in this condition What is the special duty of one in this sickness this poverty imprisonment restraint contempt or slander which I undergo Be careful daily to do that duty and then never fear the issue of your suffering Nothing can go amiss to him that is found in the way of his duty And let it be your next question What spiritual good may be got by this affliction May not my repentance be renewed my self-denyal humility contempt of the world patience and confidence on God be exercised and increased by it and is not this the end of my heavenly Father Is not his rod an act of love and kindness to me Doth he not offer me by it all this good And let your next question be Have I yet got that good which God doth offer me Have I any considerable benefit to shâ—w which I have received by this affliction since it came If not why should you desire it to be taken away Play not the Hypocrite in speaking that good of an afflicting God which you do not seriously believe If you believe that God is wiser than you to know what is fittest for you and that he is better than you and therefore hath better ends than you can have and that really he offereth you far greater good by your sufferings than he taketh from you Let your affections then be agreeable to this belief Are you afraid of your own commodity Do you impatiently long to be delivered from your gain are you so childish as to pull off the plaister if you believe that it is curing the sore and that
it cannot be well and safely done without it Do you call it the fruit of Gods Wisdom and Love and yet be as weary of it as if there were nothing in it but his wrath Trust God with his work who never faileth and be careful of your own who are conscious of untrustiness Direct 5. Look principally to your hearts that they grow not to an over-valuing of the prosperity of the flesh nor to an under-valuing of holiness and the prosperity of the soul For this unhappy carnality doth both cause affliction and make us unprofitable and impatient under it 1. He that is a worldling or a voluptuous flesh pleaser and savoureth nothing but the things of the flesh will think himself undone when his pleasure and plenty and honour with men is taken away Nothing maketh men grieve for the loss of any worldly commodity so much as the over-loving of it It is Love that seeketh it when you are in hope and Love that mourneth when you are in want as well as Love which delighteth in it when you possess it As sick men use to love health better than those that never felt the want of it so it is too common with poor men to love riches better than the rich that never needed And yet poor souls they deceive themselves and cry out against the rich as if they were the only lovers of the world when they love it more themselves though they cannot get it Never think of bearing affliction with a patient and submissive mind as long as you over-love the things which affliction taketh from you For the loss of them will tear those hearts which did stick so inordinately to them 2. And if you grow to an undervaluing of Holiness you can never be reconciled to afflicting providence For it is for our profit that God correcteth us but for what profit that we may be partakers of his holiness Heb. 12.10 14. If therefore you undervalue that which is Gods end and goeth for your gain you will never think that you are gainers or savers by his rod. In correction God doth as it were make a bargain with you he will take away your riches or your friends or your health and he will give you if you refuse it not increase of patience and mortification in the stead of them he will exchange so much heavenly-mindedness for so much of the treasures or pleasures of the world And now if you do not like the bargain if really you had rather have more health than more holiness more of the world than more heavenly-mindedness more fleshly pleasure than more mortification of fleshly desires you will never then like the correcting hand of God nor rightly profit by it You will grudge at his dealing and wish that you were out of his hand and in your own and that your estates and health and friends were not at his disposal but at yours and you will lose the offered benefit because you value it not and accept it not as it is offered you 3. And those that have some esteem of Holiness and yet neglect the duty which should procure the exercise and increase of grace do make correction burdensome by making it unprofitable to them For to hear that they may be gainers by affliction and to find that they are not will not reconcile them to it Whereas if they had really got the benefit it would quiet them and comfort them and make them patient and thankful to their Father What have you to shew that you gained by your sufferings Are you really more mortified more penitent more humble more heavenly more obedient more patient than you were before If you are so you cannot possibly think that it hath been to your loss to be afflicted For no one that hath these graces can so undervalue them as to think that worldly prosperity or ease is better But if you have not such gain to shew what wonder if you are weary of the medicine which healeth not and if when you have made it do you no good you complain of it when it is your selves that you should complain of If you could say that before you were afflicted you went astray but now you have learnt and kept Gods precepts you might then say by experience It is good for me that I was afflicted Psal 119.67 71. And men are taught by natural self-love not to think ill of that which doth that which doth them good if by experience they know it You will then confess that God in very faithfulness afflicteth you Psal 119.75 Direct 6. Remember that nothing can be amiss which is done by God For where there is perfection of Power and Wisdom and Goodness no actions can be bad And there is nothing done by any of your afflicters which is not governed by the will of God Amos 3.6 Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it 2 Chron. 10.15 So the King hearkened not to the people for the cause was of God that the Lord might perform his Word God who would not cause the sin is said to be the cause of the event as a punishment because he wisely permitted it for that end Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain Acts 4.28 The people of Israel were gathered to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done That is he willed by his antecedent will that Christ should be a sacrifice for sin and he willed by his consequent will as a Judge and punisher of mans sin that the rebellious Jews should be left to their malicious wills to execute it And that God which moderateth the wills and actions of the most malicious men and Devils will restrain them from violating any of his promises for his servants good Direct 7. Alwaies keep before your eyes the example of a crucified Christ and of all his holy Apostles and Martyrs which have followed him Look still to Jesus the author and finisher of your Faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and despised the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest you be wearied and faint in your mind Heb. 12.2 3. If you did determine to know nothing but Christ crucified and by his cross had crucified the the world 1 Cor. 2.2 Gal. 6.14 you would be able to say I am crucified with Christ yet I live that is not I but Christ liveth in me Gal. 2.20 And to look on the pleasure and glory of the world as the world did look on a crucified Christ when they shook the head at him as he hanged on the cross You would love the narrow suffering way where you see before you the footsteps of your Lord and of so many holy Martyrs and Believers You would say sure this is the safe and
sanctification but if they live endeavour it by all possible care in a wise and godly education Remember that nature and your dedicating them to God do both oblige you to this care for their salvation And that the education of children is one of the greatest duties in the world for the service of Christ and the prosperity of Church and State And the neglect of it not the smallest cause of the ruine of both and of the worlds calamity Many a poor sottish lazy Professor have I known who cry out against ignorant dumb and unfaithful Ministers as guilty of the blood of souls and are so religious as to separate from the Assemblies that have Ministers that are but partly such when as their own children are almost as ignorant as Heathens and they only use them to a few customary formal duties while they think they are enough against forms and turn over the chief care of their instruction to the Schoolmaster And are themselves so ignorant dumb and idle unfaithful and unnatural to their poor childrens souls as that it is a doubt whether in a well-ordered Church they ought not to be denyed communion themselves They so little practise Deut. 11.18 19. 6.7 Ephes 6.4 c. Direct 5. If your children live to the flesh in an ungodly course of life contrary to the Covenant which by you they made they forfeit all the benefits of the Covenant And you can have no assurance by any thing that you can do for them that ever they shall be converted though it is not past hope And if they be converted at age their pardon and adoption will be the effect of Gods Covenant as then it was newly entered with themselves and not as it was made before for them in infancy Direct 6. Yâ—t because that still while there is life there is hope you ought not by despair or negligence to omit prayer exhortation or any other duty which you can perform in order to their recovery And though now they have wills of their own their salvation is not laid so much upon you as it was in Infancy at their first covenanting with God yet still God will shew his love to his servants in their seed and faithful endeavours are not vain nor hopeless and therefore it is still one of your greatest duties in the world to seek their true recovery to Christ Direct 7. If God make your children a scourge or a heart-breaking to you bear and improve it as becomes Believers That is 1. Repent of your own former sin your own youthfull lusts your disobedience to your Parents your carnal fondness on your children your loving them too much and God too little the evil examples you have given them and your manifold neglect of a prudent seasonable earnest unwearied instructing them in godliness your bearing with their sin and giving them their own wills till they were masterless c Renew your Repentance and you have got some benefit 2. Think how unkindly and unthankfully you have dealt with a gracious Saviour and a heavenly Father 3. Let it take off your affections from all things under the Sun and call them up the more to God For who would love a world where none are to be trusted and where all things are vexatious even the children of your love and bowels Direct 8. If they die impenitently and perish mourn for them but with the moderation of Believers That is 1. Consider that God is more the owner of your children than you are and may do with his own as he list 2. And he is more wise and merciful than you and therefore not to be murmured at as wanting either 3. And it is an unvaluable mercy that your own soul is sanctified and shall be saved 4. And the most godly have had ungodly children before you Adam had a Cain Noah had a Cham Isaac had an Esau David had an Absalom c. 5. And if all the godly that pray for their childrens salvation must be therein gratified all the world would then have been saved For Noah would have prayed for all his children and they for theirs and so to the worlds end Object Oh but my conscience telleth me that it is my own sin which hath had a hand in their undoing Answ Suppose it be so it is certainly a pardonable sin Do you then repent of it or not If you repent as you mourn for your relations so you should rejoyce that God hath forgiven you For repented sin is certainly pardoned to you and pardoned sin to you is as great cause of joy as unpardoned sin in your relations is cause of sorrow Therefore mourn with such moderation and mixed comfort and thanksgiving as becometh one that liveth by faith The affliction indeed is neer and great and heavier than any calamity that could have befallen their bodies and is not to be slighted by an unnatural insensibility But yet you have a God who is better to you than a thousand children and your cross is but as a feather if you set it in the ballance against your blessings even the Love of God and your part in Christ and life eternal CHAP. XXIV How by Faith to order our Affections to publick Societies and the unconverted world Direct 1. TAke heed that you lose not that common Love which you owe to mankind nor that desire of the increase of the Kingdom of Christ which must keep up in you a constant compassion to the unconverted world viz. Idolaters Infidels and ungodly Hypocrites It is pittiful to observe the unchristian senslesness of most zealous Professors of Religion in this point Though God hath purposely put the three publick Petitions first in the Lords Prayer to tell them what they must first and most desire that is the hallowing of his Name and the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is in Heaven yet they seem not to understand it or to regard it But their thoughts and desires are as selfish and private and narrow as if they knew nothing what the World or the Church is or cared for neither Their mind and talk is all of their own matters for body or soul or of their several Parties and particular Churches or if any extend his care as far as this spot of Land in Brittain and Ireland or some of the Reformed Churches they go further than their companions their selves and their side or party is almost all that most regard Perhaps the poor scattered Jews have a few words in the prayers of some but the miserable case of the vast Nations of the Earth who seem to be forsaken of God is neglected by them Five parts in six of the earth are Heathens and Mahometanes and of the sixth part the Protestants are but about a sixth compared with the poor ignorant Abbassines Armenians Syrians the Greek Churches and the Papists to say nothing what the most of the Protestants themselves are Yet are almost all these put by with
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