way to your bliss and happiness said Samuel to the Israelites only fear the Lord and in vertue of that fear serve him 1 Sam. 12.24 25. This fear has given right to pardon in all times and will eternally secure it For Gods mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation Luke 1.50 From everlasting to everlasting Psal. 103.17 So that well might Solomon say The Fear of the Lord is a Fountain of life Prov. 14.27 and that he surely knew it will go well with them that fear the Lord Eccles. 8.12 And then as for our Hope or Trust in God great things are spoken of it Blessed is he saith the Psalmist who maketh the Lord his Trust Psal. 40.4 He is secure from all effects of his wrath and anger for the Lord taketh pleasure in them that hope in his mercy Psal. 147.11 In particular our relying on Christ and confiding in him for our pardon and eternal salvation is said to be that which will never fail or deceive us For he that hopeth or believeth on him says S t Paul shall never be ashamed by a misplaced confidence or expectation Rom. 10.11 Now our fear of God and our hope or trust in his mercy are of all our passions the most active Causes and powerful Springs of our good works and obedience As for our fears no passion puts us upon so much pains and industry as they do They make us act to the utmost of our power and do all that is to be done to get protection from that evil which excites them For fear has the deepest root in our natural self-love and desire of our own preservation being raised in us by the nearness of such things as either utterly destroy or in some degree impair it And therefore in them the activity of our self-love is shown to the utmost as vehemently as we desire and endeavour to preserve ourselves and our own ease so vehemently must we desire and endeavour likewise to remove the matter of our fears which hangs over us to destroy or to torment us The most natural effect of fear then is a most vigorous endeavour by all means to remove that evil which we are afraid of And according as this may be done several ways so doth our passion of fear exert it self after several manners If we think the evil may be conquered it pushes us on to fight and subdue it If it be above our strength but may yet for all that be avoided it puts us upon all means of concealment or escape and makes us seek either to lye hid or to fly from it But if there is neither any prospect of withstanding the power nor of escaping the eye of him who is ready to inflict it as there never can be when God who is both Almighty and Al-seeing is the Person feared then it hurries us on by all means to regain his favour and good will that thereby we may prevent it And in Times of Ignorance when men had great fears and little knowledg when they were grievously afraid of God but knew not what things he loved and delighted in nor wherewith they might please him this fear of God put them upon all the nonsensical services and foolish propitiations of Superstition But where God has plainly and clearly revealed his will and manifested to all that it is their obedience alone that can continue them in his favour or restore them to it after they have lost it here the only effect of fear must needs be that which is known to be the only means of favour viz. our keeping of his Commandments or obedience So that our fear of God is a most sure principle and effectual means of our serving and obeying him And then as for our hope or trust in Gods mercy it is a most natural cause of our doing our Duty likewise For all hope implies both desire and a likelihood of getting that which is desired which two are all that is at any time needful to make us vigorously endeavour after it For if men will be at no pains for a thing it is either because they have little or no desire of it or no probability of succeeding in it But when once they are push'd on by an eager desire it is only despair that can dull their endeavours in pursuit of it So that if we hope for mercy we shall be at some pains for it and by an active service and obedience seek to procure it Indeed when the good thing that is hoped for needs no labour of ours but our naked trust and reliance is all that on our sides is required to it our hope will effect no endeavour after it because none is necessary to obtain it But as for that eternal life and pardon which Christs Gospel proposeth to our hopes they are offered us only upon certain Terms and Conditions and will never be attained by us without our Service and Obedience And seeing obedience here is the necessary means to the acquisition of that which we desire the same desire and hope which carries us on towards mercy and life must spur us on withal to works of duty and obedience also They must be a Spring of industry and good endeavour because they make us resolve to procure that which is not to be got without them And in regard our fear of God and our hope or trust in his mercy are such powerful Principles of our obedience to his Laws therefore are Pardon and Life which are the rewards of Obedience so frequently promised to them God never intends to reward an idle fear or an unactive and careless trust but such only as are industrious and obedient 'T is true indeed the generality of men have taken up a dangerous errour especially in the latter of these and are bold and presumptuous in their hopes at the same time that they are most wicked and disobedient in their lives and practice They find no service of their own works wherein they may be confident and therefore they fly from them to Gods Goodness They know this full well by themselves that they are wicked but they know withal that God is gracious and their hope is that He will be merciful to them notwithstanding their sins They find themselves condemned indeed by his Gospel but their trust is to be relieved by his Nature they are punishable and wretched by his Laws but they expect to be saved by his pity and kindness The Revelations of his Word 't is true breathe out nothing to them but Death but their hope is that he will be better than his Word and that through the infiniteness of his mercy they shall at last be adjudged to pardon and eternal life But such bold hopes and presumptuous confidences as these are the ready way to provoke and offend God but by no means to attone and appease him For thus to hope in his Mercy against the plain Declarations of his Will is to chashier those measures of life
occur in common speech If we advise a man to trust his Physician or his Lawyer our meaning is not barely that he should give credit to them but together with that that he shew the effect of such credit in following and observing them If we are earnest with any man to hearken to some advice that is given him we intend not by hearkning to express barely his giving ear to it but besides that his suffering the effects of such attention in practising and obeying it And thus we commonly say that we have got a Cold when we mean a Disease upon cold or a Surfeit when we understand a sickness upon Surfeiting In these and many other instances which might be mentioned we daily find that in the speech and usage of men the cause alone is oft times named when the effect is withal intended and accordingly understood to be expressed and that both are meant when barely one is spoken The effect doth so hang upon its cause and so naturally and evidently follow after it that we look upon it as a needless thing to express its coming after when once we have named its cause which goes before but we ordinarily judge it to be sufficiently mentioned when we have expressed that cause which as is evident to us all produces and infers it And as it is thus in the speech of men so is it in the language of God too He talks to us in our own way and uses such forms of speech and figurative expressions as are in common use among our selves And to seek no further for instances of this than these that lye before us he expresses our works and obedience by our knowledge our repentance our love and such other causes and principles as effect and produce it For we must take notice of this also that our outward works and actions depend upon a train of powers within us which as springs and causes of them order and effect them For our passions excite to them our understandings consider of them and direct them our wills command and choose them and then afterwards in pursuance of all these our bodily powers execute and exert them The actions of a man flow from all the ingredients of the humane nature each principle contributes its share and bears a part towards it For from the constitution of our natural frame our actions are placed wholly in the power of our own wills and our wills are set in a middle station to be moved by our appetites and passions and guided and directed by our minds or intellects We do and perform nothing but what we will neither do we will any thing but what we know and desire what our reason and passion inclines and directs to And because these three inward faculties our minds and wills and passions give being and beginning to our outward works and practice therefore are they by the Masters of moral Philosophy and Divinity ordinarily called the Causes and Principles of Humane Actions But these three principles of humane actions in genecal lye not more open to produce good than evil They are all under the unrestrain'd power of our own free will it is that which determines them either for God or against him but in themselves they are indifferently fitted and serve equally to bring forth acts of Obedience or of disobedience and sin To make these principles therefore of works or actions in general to become principles of good works and obedience there are other nearer tempers and qualifications required which may determine them that in themselves are free to both to effect one and be Authours of such actions only whereby we serve and obey God And this is done by the nearer and more immediate efficiency of Faith Repentance Love and the like For he who knows Gods Laws and believes his Gospel with his understanding who in his heart loves God and hates Sin whose will is utterly resolved for good and against evil he it is whose faculties in themselves indifferent are thus determinately disposed who is ready and prepared to perform his duty His Faith directs him to those Laws which he is to obey and to all the powerful motives to Obedience it shews him how it is bound upon him by all the Joys of Heaven and by all the Pains of Hell and this quickens his passions and confirms all good resolutions and makes him in his will and heart to purpose and desire it And when both his mind his will and passions which were before indifferent are thus gained over and determinately fixed for it in the efficiency of inward principles there is no more to be done but he is in the ready way to work and perform it in outward operation So that as our minds wills and passions are principles of humane actions in general whether good or evil these nearer dispositions our Faith Repentance c. are principles particularly of good works and obedience And since our obedient actions proceed in this manner from the power and efficiency of these principles God according to our own way of expressing things is wont many times only to name them when he intends withal to express our obedience it self which results from them Although he barely mention one yet he understands both and in speaking of the cause he would be taken to imply the effect likewise Thus when he promises Pardon and Salvation to our knowledge and belief of his Gospel to our Repentance from our Sins to our Love and Fear of God which with several others are those preparatory dispositions that fix and determine our minds wills and passions indifferent in themselves to effect Obedient actions he doth not in any wise intend that these shall Save us and procure Pardon for us without Obedience but only by signifying and implying it Wheresoever Mercy and Salvation at the last day are promised and this condition of our working and obeying is not mentioned it is always meant and understood That which such mercy was promised to is either the cause of our Obedience or the effect and sign of it the speech is metonymical and more was meant by it than was expressed Though the word was not named yet the thing was intended for obedience is ever requisite to pardon and nothing has Mercy promised to it in the last Judgment but what some way or other is a sign of it or produces and effects it This I might well take for granted upon the strength of that proof which has been already urged for our Obedience being the sole condition of our being acquitted at that day But because the interest of souls is so much concerned in it I will be yet more particular and proceed to show further that this sence and explication of all such places is the very same that God himself has expressly put upon them For concerning all those things whereto he has promised a favourable sentence at the last Judgment he assures us that they are of no account with him nor will be owned
he has most strictly forbidden So that for our whole Duty towards God which is implied in the general Law of piety or godliness it contains in it all these effects of LOVE which are commanded Duties as ungodliness or impiety contains all these expressions of hatred which are so many particular forbidden sins The Laws commanding are the Law of honour of worship of faith of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience And the Laws forbidding are the Law against dishonour against atheism against denying Providence against blasphemy against superstition against idolatry against witchcraft and sorcery against foolishness against headiness against unbelief against hating God against want of zeal against distrust of him against not praying to him against unthankfulness against fearlesness against contumacy or repining against disobedience against common swearing against perjury against prophaneness And then as for the 2. Sort of Love our love to men it implies in it all the Duties contained in the third Branch of S t Paul's Division viz. righteousness as shall be shewn in the next Chapter CHAP. III. Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity The CONTENTS Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity Both are only expressions of Love which is the fulfilling of the Law Of the particular sins against both Of scandal Of the combination of Justice and Charity in a state that results from both viz. Peace Of the several Duties comprehended under it Of the particular sins reducible to unpeaceableness Of the latitude of the word Neighbour to whom all these dutiful expressions are due It s narrowness in the Jewish sense It s universality in the Christian. FOR the third general Duty righteousness or our Duty towards our Neighbour our love of men will lead us into the several Laws which it containeth For the first effect of love our doing no hurt or injury to any man founds all the Laws of Justice and the latter our doing good and showing all kindness founds all the particular Laws of Charity in which two are comprehended all those several Duties which God has enjoyned towards other men The first I say founds all the particular Laws of Justice For in that we do no evil or injury to our Neighbour nor hurt him by prejudicing his just Rights or taking away from him any thing that is his is implied that we do not wrong or endammage him 1. In his Life by taking it away either 1. In private force and violent assassination which is murder 2. Under colour of Justice by a false charge of capital crimes which is false witness 2. In his reputation by sullying or impairing it through a lying and false imputation of disparaging things to him which is slander or calumny 3. In his belief and expectation by reproaching and abusing it either 1. By deceiving him against his Right to his hurt in a false speech of what is past or present which is lying 2. By frustrating his expectations which were raised by our promise of something that is to come which is unfaithfulness or perfidy 4. In his Bed by invading that which the Contract of Marriage has made inviolable which is adultery 5. In his Goods or Estate and all wrong herein proceeds from our unsatisfiedness with our own and our greedy longing and ungovernable desire of that which is his which is covetousness The effects and instances whereof are 1. In taking away from him that which is his either 1. Directly By secret or open force and without his knowledg and consent which is stealing or robbery 2. Indirectly or by forcing his allowance and extorting a necessitated consent from him Which is done by taking advantage 1. Of his impotence and inability to resist and contend with us which is oppression 2. Of his necessity when he cannot be without something which we have and so is forced to take it upon our own terms which is extortion and depressing in bargaining 3. Of his ignorance when we outwit him and trepan and over-reach him in Bargaining and Commerce which is circumvention fraud or deceit The wiliness and subtle Art wherein is called craftiness 2. In denying all kindnesses and good things to him in unmercifulness uncharitableness c. Of which I shall discourse under the next Head All these Particulars of Justice now mentioned are natural effects of love to our Neighbour in as much as it makes us keep off from offering any injury or doing any evil to him Upon which account S t Paul says of it that as for these particular Laws of Justice it fulfils them all Which he shows by an induction of such Particulars as I have named He that loveth another saith he hath fulfilled the Law viz. that part of it which requires Duties of Justice towards others For this Thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet which are the five last Commandments of the Decalogue and if there be any other Commandment it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Now Love worketh no ill neither these nor any other to his Neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.8 â— 10. And as this first effect of Love to our Neighbour viz. it s keeping us back from offering any injury or doing any evil to him contain in it all the Laws of Justice so doth its other effect our doing all good offices and shewing kindness to them comprehend in it all the particular Laws of Charity wherewith we stand obliged towards other men Love is not only innocent and harmless and careful to create no trouble nor occasion any prejudice but moreover it is all kindness benevolence and good nature and diligent in creating all the pleasure and delight it can to it s beloved Now this goodness kind-heartedness or desire to please and delight others will be an universal cause of beneficence or doing good to them and make us cast to please them in so many ways and advantage them in so many relations as we can at any time be placed in In particular it will effect these Vertues in the Cases following 1. As to what we see them to be in themselves and in this respect it produces in us 1. If they are worthy and vertuous a great opinion and venerable esteem for them which is honour 2. If they have honest hearts but yet are weak in judgment and knowledg a compassionate sense of their weakness and an endeavour to relieve them which is pity and succour And if this weakness be instanced in judging those things to be a matter of sin and so unlawful for them to do which no Law of God has forbidden and which therefore we who better understand it see plainly that we lawfully may do and our practice of it before them who distrusting their own skill are swayed more by
Law was the cause of our Sin and Death this we see is quite taken off and doth not follow at all For although we sinn'd yea and died too under the Law yet was not the Law the cause of these but the strength of our own Lusts. But the Law is holy still and so no cause of sin and the Commandment forbidding sin and promising Life to the obedient is not only holy and just but over and above that good too and so no cause of death and suffering But upon this you will say how was it then that that which is so good in it self as you say the Law is should be made the cause of the greatest evil even of Death unto me Could it prove so to me if it were not so in it self And to this I answer with abhorrence God forbid that I should say the Law is Death No this Death as I have told you is not the effect of the Law for it was ordained to procure Life for me But it was Sin I say again that was too strong for the Law which could only forbid but was not able by all its aids to restrain it this Sin it was that it might appear Sin indeed that went on working transgression unto Death in me by advantage taken over that Law which is good although not strong enough to overpower the setled habits of evil And by this conquest of Sin over the good Law which was set up as a bar against it and should have destroy'd it it appears to be most mischievous For this comes of it that Sin by proving too hard for the Commandment might by such prevailing over all that is set against it be extremely heightned and aggravated and become exceeding sinfull And that the Law should thus be worsted by Sin is no wonder For we know that although the Law which commands is spiritual to shew and suggest better things yet I who am to obey in that state of sensuality and sin wherein the Law finds me and out of which it is too weak to rescue me am carnal so as to serve sin notwithstanding it Which I am to such a degree as if I were sold under sin and my actions were as much at its command as the actions of a slave bought with money are at the command of his master So that although the Law shews me that which is good and commands me to perform it yet cannot I obey it in regard I am under anothers power under the beck of sin And in very deed to speak yet more particularly to this business the good Law can and doth produce good effects in the mind and conscience which is the throne wherein it is seated but still the law of sin which is seated in the members or executive powers prevails over it and engrosseth all our actions So that the utmost that it can ordinarily do with us is to make us in our mind to disapprove sin but when it hath done that it cannot hinder us in our lives from practising it And of this the complaints of those who are subject to it are a sufficient proof For who is there among them for the most part that is not ready to confess and cry out thus that which through the prevailing power of my lusts I do in my practice that through the power of the Law I allow not in my mind and conscience for what being excited by the Law I would do that being hindred by sin do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting in my mind I hate and disapprove that from my own lusts forcing and overpowering me in my actions still do I. And this by the way as it is an evident argument of the weakness and inability of the Law to restrain sin is also a clear testimony to the holiness and goodness of the Law it self which shews plainly that it is no favourer or author of Sin as was objected vers 7. Because if even then when I do sin I do not approve of it but in doing so I do what I would not I thereby consent in my own conscience unto the Law and acknowledge by my approving what it commands that it is good Yea I shew moreover that all that which it produces and effects in me is good also For even when I do sin sinning thus against my conscience the sin cannot in any wise be charged upon my conscience where the Law reigns so as that the Law in my mind may be stiled the cause of sin as it is vers 7. but only upon the power of my habitual sin and fleshly lusts that reign in my members which are so strong as that the law of my mind cannot restrain them And now then in this state of sinning thus with regret and against my conscience even when I do sin it is no more I or my mind and conscience that is governed by the Law and which may be called my self that do it seeing it disapproves it but it is sin that dwells in me and reigns in my members It must not be charged upon the Law in my mind I say but upon this inhabiting Sin which rules in my members For I know and confess freely that in that other part of me that is to say in my flesh and members which for all the Law rules in my mind doth yet keep possession of my practice dwells no good thing Nay on the contrary there dwells so much evil as proves too strong for the good Law restraining all its effect to the approbation of my mind but not suffering it to influence my practice Which we as I said who are subject to the Law find by sad experience For almost every one of us feels and must confess this that to will upon the account of the Law is present with me but then how to perform that which is good after I have will'd it that I find not For after the Law has done all that it can upon me this is still true that the good that being instructed by the Law I would do that being hindred by the prevalence of my lusts I do not but as for the evil which because of the prohibition of the Law I would not do that being over-master'd by my lusts I do But now all this while as I said if what my lusts make me practise through the Law in my mind I do not approve but in doing it I do that which I would not then 't is clear that my sinning cannot be charged upon the Law as it is vers 7. because it hinders it as far as it can It cannot I say be attributed to that for it is no longer I or my mind and conscience that do it but to the power of habitual Sin which the good Law cannot conquer to that sin which dwells and rules in me i. e. in my bodily members And therefore to summ up all I find another Law in my members opposite to the Law of God in
For every Man at the last day will be declared a Child of wrath who is a son of disobedience and he shall most certainly be Damned who dyes without amendment and Repentance in works which are wilfully and deliberately sinful Christs Gospel has already judged this long before-hand and at that day he will confirm it When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels i. e. when he shall come with his Royal attendance to judge the world He will take vengeance says S t Paul on all them that OBEY not his Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess. 1.7 8 9. When he comes in state with the ten thousands of his Saints it will be to execute Judgment upon all that are ungodly for all the ungodly DEEDS which they have committed Jude 14 15. And when our Lord himself gives a relation of his proceedings at that day he tells us that whosoever they be or whatsoever they may pretend if their works have been disobedient they shall hear no sentence from him but what consigns them to Eternal Punishment I will profess thus unto them says he I never knew you Depart from me ye that WORK iniquity Matt. 7.23 This will be the method of Christs Judgment and these the measures of his Sentence he will pronounce Mercy and Life upon all that are obedient but Death and Hell to all that disobey And indeed it were hight of folly and madness to expect he should do otherwise and to fancy that when he comes to judge us as S t Paul says according to the Laws of his Gospel he should absolve and reward us when in our works and actions we have transgressed them For this were to thwart his own rule and to go cross to his own measures it were to encourage those whom his laws threaten to acquit such as they condemn and in one word not to judge according to them as he has expresly declared he will but against them If we would know then what condition we shall be adjudged to in the next world we must examine what our obedience has been in this We can have no assurance of a favourable Sentence in that Court but only the doing of our duty Our last doom shall turn not upon our knowing or not knowing our willing or not willing but upon our obeying or disobeying It is in vain to cast about for other marks and to seek after other evidences nothing less than this performance of our duty can avail us unto life and by the merits of Christ and the grace of his Gospel it shall And thus we see in the general what those terms and that condition are which to mete out our last doom of Bliss or Misery the Gospel indispensably exacts of us It is nothing less than a working service and obedience the enquiry to be made at that day being only this whether we have done what was commanded us If we have performed what was required of us we shall be pronounced Righteous and sentenced to Eternal Life but if we have wilfully transgressed and wrought wickedness without amendment and repentance we shall then be declared incorrigible Sinners and adjudged to Everlasting Death This indeed is a very great truth but yet such as very few are willing to see and to consider of For obedience is a very laborious service and a painful task and they are not many in number who will be content to undergo it And if a man may have no just hopes upon any thing less than it the case of most dying men is desperate But as men will live and dye in sin so will they live and dye in hopes too And therefore they catch at softer terms and build upon an easier condition And because the Gospel promises Salvation and a happy sentence to faith love repentance our being in Christ our knowing Christ and other things besides obedience they conclude that they shall be acquitted at that Bar upon the account of any or all of these though they do not obey with them They make Faith Love Repentance and the rest to be something separate from obedience something which will save them when that is wanting So that if they be in Christ if they know and believe with the mind and love and repent in their hearts their hope is to be absolved at the last day be their lives and actions never so disobedient But this is a most dangerous and damning errour For it makes men secure from danger till they are past all possibility of recovering out of it and causes them to trust to a false support so long till it lets them drop into Hell and sink down in damnation And although it be sufficiently evident from what has been already said that our obedience is that only thing which will be admitted as a just plea and as a qualification able to save us in that Court yet because I would fully subvert all these false grounds whereupon men support their pernicious hopes and sinful lives together I will go on to prove it still further And this will be most plainly effected by shewing that all those other terms and conditions whereto the Gospel sometimes promises pardon and happiness concenter all in this and save us no otherwise than by being springs and principles of our obedience They are not opposed to our doing of our duty and keeping the Commandments but imply it For when pardon is promised to Faith to Love to Repentance or any thing else it is never promised to them as separate from obedience but as containing it Obedience is that still for which a man is saved and pardoned it is not excluded from them but expressed by them In order to a clearer apprehension of the truth of this I think fit to observe that there is an ordinary figure and form of speech very usual both with God and men which the Rhetoricians call a Metonymie or Transnomination and that is a transferring of a word which is the particular Name of one thing to express an other The use of it is this that in things which have a near relation and dependance upon each other as particularly the cause and its effect have the particular name of either may many times signifie both so that when the name only of one is expressed yet really both are meant and intended And then by that word which in its proper sence stands only for the effect we are to understand not it alone but together with it the cause also that produced it and by that which properly signifies the cause we are to mean not the bare cause alone but besides it the effect which flows from it likewise As for the latter of these the bare naming of the cause when we intend together with it to express its natural consequent and effect too because it is that which chiefly concerns our present business I will set down some instances of it which daily
God had spoken to them than by his Testimony and upon his Authority therefore are they said in believing and embracing that Divine Law which was delivered to them by Moses to believe not the Lord alone but also his Servant Moses Exod. 14.31 Joh. 5.46 to be Baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10.2 to be Moses's Disciples Joh. 9.28 to trust or place their hope in Moses Joh. 5.45 to obey or hearken unto Moses Luk. 16.31 But the most clear and full Revelation that God ever made of his will to men was by the message and mediation of his own Son Jesus Christ. For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Jews by Moses and to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Heb. 1.1 And the belief of his Gospel or taking for certain Truths upon his Authority all those things which he has declared to us in Gods Name is call'd the Christian as the other was the Mosaick Faith For he being the great Author and deriver of this last and greatest Revelation of God down to us and our belief of it being upon his immediate Authority he being as S t Paul says the Authour and finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 Our belief of it is called not only Faith towards God Heb. 6.1 but also Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 And because the knowledge of our whole Religion got into our minds this way upon our submission to Christs Authority and our Faith or belief of his Testimony therefore is our Religion it self most commonly in the Scriptures called our Faith The Preaching of it is called Preaching the Faith Gal. 1.23 the hearing of it hearing of Faith Gal. 3.2 the profession of it a profession of Faith Heb. 10.23 the contending for it a striving for the Faith Phil. 1.27 the erring in it an erring from the Faith 1 Tim. 6.10 the falling from it a making shipwrack of the Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 obedience to it the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 and the Righteousness required in it and effected by it the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.11.13 So that in like manner as the Mosaick Faith was a belief of the Divinity of the Mosaick Law and Religion upon the Authority of Moses the Christian Faith is a belief of the Divine institution of our Christian Religion upon the Authority of Christ. It is a taking upon his word all those things for truths of God which he has declared to us in Gods Name A belief begot in us by vertue of his Testimony that all his Doctrines are Gods Truths that all his Laws are Gods Precepts that all his promises are Gods Promises and that all his threats are Gods threatnings in sum that that whole Religion and Gospel which Christ has delivered to us in Gods Name is the very Religion and Word of God The belief of all this upon the Authority of Christ makes our Faith Christian and the good effects of it upon our hearts and lives make it justifying and saving For when by vertue of this Faith we truly Repent and sincerely obey which is the great condition as we have seen whereupon at the last day we must all be pardoned and justified Eternally it is a justifying as when by vertue of it we are saved and delivered from the dominion and service of our Sins which as the Angel hath assured us are those principal evils that Christ came to save us from it is a saving Faith This is the nature of our Christian knowledge and our Christian Faith And as for it now it is the very fundamental cause and natural spring of all our Christian service and obedience For it is because we believe Jesus to be the Lord because we know those Laws which he has given us and give credit to him when he tells us of the insupportable punishments which he will one day inflict for sin and of the glorious rewards which he will confer upon obedience It is by means of our knowledge and belief of all these in our minds I say that we serve and obey him in our outward actions It is our knowledge and belief that lets us see the reasonableness of his Precepts the power of his Assistances the glory of his Rewards and the terror of his Punishments and in all respects convinces us of the beauty and profit of Obedience And this sight and conviction in our minds cannot well miss of gaining our hearts and resolutions For the belief of his endless judgments will raise our fears the belief of his infinite rewards will quicken our hopes the belief of his inexpressible kindness will kindle our love and by all these our souls will be led Captive into eager desires and firm resolutions and be fully purposed to keep Gods Laws that so they may avoid that terrible Death which he threatens and attain those matchless joys which he promises to our Obedience And when once by means of this faith and knowledge Gods Laws have gain'd both our wills and passions which are the inward springs and causes of them they cannot fail of being obeyed in our works and actions which are produced by them But we shall quickly go on to perform what we resolve and to do what we desire and so in very deed fulfill and obey them Upon which account of our Christian Faith having so mighty an influence upon our Christian and obedient practice our obedience it self as being the effect of it and produced by it is call'd the obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 The Righteousness which it exacts of us and cooperates to work in us the Righteousness of Faith Gal 5.5 Our Christian warfar or striving against Sin is called the good sight of Faith 1 Tim 6.12 And because in this contest our great succors which protect us and keep us from fainting and at last make us victorious are some points or promises of our Religious belief therefore it is stiled a shield and a breast-plate of Faith 1 Thess. 5.8 and S t John affirms plainly that this is the victory over the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And for this reason it is because our Faith and knowledge are so powerful a cause and principle of our Obedience that God speaks so great things of them and has made such valuable promises to them He never intends to reward the Faith and knowledge of our minds further than they effect the obedience of our actions It is only when they are carryed on to this effect when they become an obedient knowledge and a working Faith that they confer a right to the promised reward and are available to our Salvation For when in the places mentioned or in any other God promises that he who knows Christ or believes in Christ shall live he speaks metonymically and means Faith and knowledge with this effect of a working service and obedience As for knowledge 't is plain that God accepts it no otherwise
and like unto him that they are the Sons of God 1 Joh. 3.2 and born of him 1 Joh. 5.1 4. In like manner as the Disciples of the Prophets among the Jews because they received those qualifications from their institution whereby they were made like unto them are usually in the Old Testament called Sons of the Prophets Now this first part of Repentance or this inward change of mind and purpose which is called a New Creature and a New nature is a most direct cause and natural Author of a like change in our outward works and of an obedient service For it cuts off the very root of all Transgression and plants that of Obedience instead of it It makes us now in obeying to follow our own temper and inclination and our doing of Gods will to become our desire as well as it is our duty So that now when we perform Gods commands we do nothing more than follow the natural tendencies of our own souls our duty is become our choice and delight and it is not without pains and difficulty that we can either omit or transgress it For it is an equal force and violence to a renewed and obedient nature to act sin as it is for a wicked and debauched one to work obedience He whose nature carries him on to love and pity can as hardly be rigorous and cruel as he on the contrary can abstain from cruelty whose nature is harsh and revengeful To act against nature any way is not without difficulty and to follow it is always easie And if it be changed from sin and disobedience to obedience and holiness it is then as truly a self-denial to sin and transgress as it was before to perform and obey Nay if this alteration gets up to a full growth and obedience become perfectly our nature it is then not only uneasie but even almost impossible to sin against it For then we shall be arrived to that pitch which S t Johns words express when he says that he who is born of God or formed into this new nature which makes him like unto and comes from God CANNOT sin 1 Joh. 3.9 So that if Obedience has got this hank of us if by this first part of Repentance or this new nature it be engraffed in our tempers and inclinations and become the employment of our thoughts the desire of our hearts and the matter of our firm purposes and resolutions it cannot miss of our works and actions It has won the principles that command them so that nothing more is needful to be done towards their procurement but they will be sure to follow after them Now because Repentance in its whole nature implies Obedience as its chief ingredient and because the first part of it viz. a change of mind which is called a new nature or a new creature is so natural a principle and so powerful a cause to work and effect it therefore and upon no other reason doth God in the Scriptures so far encourage them He means not in any wise at the last day to acquit and reward men upon such repentance and new birth as is void of obedient works and actions but upon such only as include or effect them 'T is true indeed the wicked and disobedient who will not reform and obey but would notwithstanding have right to Life and Pardon call something else repentance which is void of all amendment and obedience If they confess their sin and are sad upon it if they wring their hands and beat their breasts and then giving it hard names and reproachful titles beg God to forgive them they think they have done an acceptable service and sufficiently repented of it They take no care to keep off from it provided they continue to bewail and confess it For although they bring in before God large Catalogues of sins yet they never strive to lessen them But when they profess to him how they have deserved his wrath and Eternal judgment they want nothing but opportunity still further to provoke it When they acknowledge how vilely they have affronted him in the breach of his Laws they are still ready to repeat it All the hard names which they give their sins are false and forced expressions they mean no hurt to them all the while For although they revile them in their words yet they honour and applaud them in their practice They are still in love with them at their next meeting and for all the ill language which they gave them when they spake of them before God they will embrace them upon the first occasion and repeat them upon every return of temptation But can any considerate man think that such a Repentance as this shall avail him before God and save him from perishing when Christ comes to judgment Surely he must know nothing either of Gods nature or of his word who can be imposed upon so grossly For God by the necessity of his very nature perfectly hates all sin and so can never be reconciled to any man barely for telling him that he is a sinner To inform him only that we have rebell'd against him is to acquaint him that we are his enemies whom to vindicate himself and the Authority of his Government he should destroy and ruine not cherish and protect The Gospel declares that he will take severe and endless vengeance on all that dye unreformed and finally disobedient and then to own our disobedience to his face without a true turn and a firm purpose of reformation is to bid him maintain his Law and execute his Sentence to provoke justice and not to appease it to hasten and assure our misery but by no means to prevent or retard it But that Repentance whereupon God will Pardon us and that Regeneration which he will eternally Reward is such only as either includes or ends in Obedience and reformation When he graciously proclaims that whosoever repenteth him of his former sins and is born again shall be saved he means whosoever doth the one and is the other and obeys with them His speech is metonymical he intends obedience and the thing implies it although his words do not express it For all the while it is only a repentance which is obedient and a new Nature that is operative which in the last judgment he will eternally reward and pronounce for ever Blessed For of repentance he tells us plainly how that which he means when he promises Life and Pardon to it is such only as implies a forsaking in our works and actions those Sins which we repent of It is a Repentance FROM dead works Heb. 6.1 A forbearing to act what we confess is evil They repented not says he of the works of their hands in making and worshipping Idols that they should not ANY LONGER worship them Rev. 9.20 And because it includes a turn and a change of our works and actions from Sin and Transgression to Vertue and Obedience therefore is it expressed by forsaking and
if he had lived to it he shall be rewarded at the last day as if he had For this very day says he shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23.42 Thus available I say a new nature and an inward change is although it want an outward practice when it is sufficient and effectual to produce it and would certainly effect it if there were but time and opportunity allow'd for it But then here is the dangerous state and deplorable case of all such dying Penitents that 't is twenty to one if they defer repentance to their death-bed that all the change which then appears in them is not so sufficient nor would were there a due time allow'd for it prove so effectual And of this we have a clear argument in that among all the holy vows and pious purposes which are begun by men upon a sick-bed when they are in sight of death and expect a dissolution there are so few that continue with them and prove effectual to make their lives and actions answer them when they recover There is not I believe one unconverted Christian in five hundred but will show some signs of sorrow and put up devout Prayers and make holy vows and purposes when he apprehends himself about to dye and yet of all them who are raised up again 't is a very small and inconsiderable number that make good those vows and effect what they had resolved upon And now if these men had dyed when they thus repented in what a miserable state had they been For this change in their will and purpose is no further available to their Salvation than it would be effectual to a like change in their lives and practice God accepts the holiness of the mind only as it is a holy principle and imputes the reward of obedience to it no farther than he foresees that if he allow'd time obedience would ensue upon it The will is never taken for the deed but when it is able to effect it when the deed would be sure to follow so soon as an opportunity were offer'd for it And this God sees before hand although we do not he is able to judge of the sincerity of mens desires and of the sufficiency of their purposes before their following works declare them And according to what he foresees they would afterwards effect he either accepts or rejects them But when mens after-works come as a clear evidence of the unsincerity or insufficiency of their sick-bed resolutions they may see plainly themselves what God saw long before that all the change of mind which was then wrought was utterly insignificant and unavailing When they trusted to it they relyed upon a broken reed their confidence upon it was ill grounded and if they had dyed with it it would most certainly have deceived them Thus utterly uncertain and uncomfortable a thing is a mere unworking change and a late death-bed Repentance It may sometimes prove sufficient to beget an after-change of practice and when God sees it would he will undoubtedly accept it But it very seldom doth and no man who dyes in it can possibly tell whether it would or no. It is very great odds that it would prove too weak so that although there be some yet is there very small hope that any dying man can place in it And that which renders it ordinarily so insufficient and thereupon so uncertain and uncomfortable is either First Because it generally proceeds from an unconstant temporary principle Or Secondly Because when the principle is genuine and lasting it is still too weak and in an incompetent measure and degree 1. That penitential grief and change of mind which is wrought upon a Death-bed is ordinarily ineffective and insufficient to produce a constant change of life and practice because it generally proceeds from an inconstant and temporary principle It is commonly founded upon a reason that doth not hold in all times a reason that is good in sickness but not in health that concludes for a Pious change whilst we are under our sick-bed sorrows but not when being freed from them we come under the pleasure of temptations For the great and general motive which makes all those who never thought of reforming in all their lives before to resolve upon it when they are on their Death-bed is plainly the nearness of the next world and their apprehension of their sudden death and departure Could they hope to live longer they would sin still But they look upon themselves as going to Judgment and they have so much Conscience left in them as to believe that there is a Hell for the impenitent and their own self-love is extreamly startled at that and makes them run to any shelter So that they make many fearful confessions and fervent Prayers and Holy purposes and say and do any thing whereby they may quiet their present fears and catch at any comfortable hopes of avoiding it The ordinary cause then of all this work is not any love of God or hatred of Sin but only a fear of Punishment And that too not a fear of it at a distance and as at some removes from them but only as near at hand and just hanging over them But now as for this apparant nearness of Death and this confounding fear upon it it is plainly a short and transient an unconstant temporary Principle It is a reason to them no longer than they are sick for when they recover and are well again Death is as far off and they are become again as fearless as ever They are got out of its neighbourhood and it gives them no further trouble So that all their former fears abate and their vertuous resolutions fall as beginning now to want that which first gave life to them and should support them And now when opportunities of Sin are offered and the pleasurable baits of Temptations invite they have nothing left that is able to resist them Whilst they were sick they were not capable to be tempted and then Death being near it enabled them to purpose well and to make a pious resolution But now since they are well Temptations are become as strong as ever and the thoughts of Death being far removed they have no resolutions that can withstand them but are quickly changed again into the same men as sensual and sinful as they were before Indeed it sometimes happens that those souls which were at first awakened by such a transient temporary motive go on to others afterwards that are more fixt and lasting and then they are furnished with Armour in all times and have a motive that may bear them out when Death is far off as well as when 't is near at hand in time of health as well as in time of sickness For they who were at first affrighted into a change of mind and holy purposes by the near approach of Death and Judgment go on sometimes to confirm their resolutions upon more lasting principles They think themselves into a
indirect and interpretative choice even in actions which in the particulars are necessary viz. when that was deliberated of and chosen which made them so All our actions in a necessitous state are indirectly and interpretatively voluntary and chosen when the necessity it self is of our own choosing In the particulars 't is true we are not free to refuse them but the reason why we are not is because we our selves chuse to be so For although our present actions are necessary yet once it was in our power to have kept them free and that which causes us now to act indeliberately and without consideration was it self once freely deliberated of and chosen So that all those actions which are now necessary in the particulars were as the Schools speak voluntary in the cause which is an indirect choice and interpretative volition And as for those actions which are chosen only indirectly and implicitely viz. in the free choice of that cause which made them afterwards to be all necessary they may very fairly be imputed to us and interpreted to be our own For in all reason the natural and immediate effects of a mans own free and deliberate choice may be charged upon him and if he chooses his necessity it is fit that he should answer for it and bear the punishment of those sins which he commits under it What is a matter of any mans choice may be an article of his accusation and a matter of his punishment also But now as for this necessity of sinning it is a necessity of mens own choosing For they wilfully threw themselves into it in choosing the cause of it and so may very justly be made to answer for all that which they commit under it All the effects of their present necessity if they are traced up will terminate upon their own will for they hang upon that file of actions which had beginning from their own choice and being thus chosen by them they may justly be charged upon them As for such effects indeed as are so remote that a mans understanding in the honest and sincere use of it cannot see them although he do choose the cause yet neither God nor men will look upon him to have chosen them For there can be no choice where there is no knowledge because a man must see a thing before he will and choose it But when effects lye near and obvious to any ordinary capacity if it do but use an honest diligence as most mens necessity of sinning doth to those free actions which produce it there it is only mens sloth and negligence if they do not discern it and if they chuse blindfold when if they would open their eyes they might see it is all one in God's account as if they did see it For it is against all reason in the world that the sinful neglects of men should take away 〈◊〉 rights of God He has given them faculties wherewith to see things before they chuse them and he requires that they should And if they will not use them that is their own fault but what he requires of them he will still exact and punish them for what is done as for a chosen action So that as for those sins which men have chosen in their next and discernable Cause although they are not free to chuse or refuse them in the Particulars themselves they are a part of their account at the last Judgment What is chosen indirectly and by interpretation is looked on as their own and if it be evil will be imputed to them for their condemnation But now several of mens sins are of this last sort For as we saw of some particular actions that they are chosen in the Particulars directly and expresly so are there likewise several others which in the Particulars cannot be refused but were chosen in the general in the free choice of that Cause which has made them all afterwards necessary so that they are voluntary only indirectly and chosen by interpretation For there is nothing so common in the World as for men by their free choice of some sins to bring themselves into a necessity of others they freely will and chuse some which necessarily cause and effect more Now those things which may bring men into this necessity are such and so many as make them inconsiderate and hasty For therefore it is that in the Particulars we cannot expresly chuse or refuse several sins because we cannot stay particularly and expresly to consider of them We have brought our selves to such a pass that they slip from us without reasoning and enquiring about them For either our understanding is diverted that it cannot or so well acquainted with them that it need not look upon them to observe and consider them And since we do not particularly consider of them when they come we cannot expresly will and chuse them but forasmuch as we chose the cause of this inconsideration we are said to chuse them indirectly and by interpretation And as for the wilful and chosen Causes of such inconsideration I shall discourse of them under these two sorts viz. as causing such inconsideration in sins either 1. Of commission or doing what is forbidden 2. Of omission or neglecting to do what is commanded 1. For those causes of inconsideration in our sins of commission which make us venture on them without all doubt or disquisition they are these First Drunkenness Secondly Some indulged passion Thirdly Habit or custom of sinning For all these when once we have consented to them take away either wholly or in great measure all further freedom and make us will and chuse what is evil indeliberately and without consideration First As for Drunkenness we find daily in those persons who are subject to it that it so disorders and unsettles all the intellectual powers that they have scarce any use of them at all For their memory fails and their judgment forsakes them They have no thoughts for that present time of good or evil of expedient or inexpedient Their reason is overwhelmed and quite asleep and there is nothing that is awake and active in them but their bodily lusts and sensual passions which then hurry them on to any thing that falls in their way without the least opposition So that they are wholly governed by their appetites and for that time unbridled passions of lust or cruelty or envy or revenge They blab out that which in their right wits they would conceal and do what in a sober mode they would condemn And so little is there of that reason and understanding in all their speeches and behaviour which appears in them when the drunken fit is over that any man may plainly see how for that present it is removed from them So that they act rashly and irrationally more like brute Beasts than men committing rapes or robberies or bloodshed or any other mad frolicks and sinful extravagancies without any deliberation or consideration at all And Secondly As for an
And the Case is the same in several other things For meekness and patience and contentedness and forgiveness and every other Vertue has some particular helps and furtherances some things that promote it and dispose us for it and others that obstruct and hinder it Now as there is this order in the things themselves so must there be likewise in our endeavours after them We must take them as they lye and use the means that we may attain the Vertue For meekness humility contentedness and the like are not so perfectly under the power of our wills as that they can be exerted through their bare Decree and peremptory Commandment But if we would attain them besides this imperiousness of Command we must further use all those means and helps which fit and prepare for them In habits of the mind men are sufficiently convinced of this For it is not every one that wills prudence who is a wise or that wills learning who is presently a learned man But he who would be so besides his willing and desiring it must read and study and observe and seek instruction he must use all those means which lye in the way to knowledge and those instruments which prepare for it and are necessary to introduce it before he can attain to it And the Case is the same in all vertuous and moral habits which are seated in the will likewise For we must use those instruments which facilitate and dispose us for the Vertue before the Vertue will become our own and we must put in practice all the means and preservatives against any Vice before we can in reason hope to conquer and avoid it If we would not be proud or peevish we must abstain from all the inlets to pride and peevishness And if we would be meek and humble we must not neglect the helps and instruments promoting meekness and humility For the helps and the vertue must both go together so that if we neglect the one we shall certainly miss of the other also When once we have neglected the means of any Vertue therefore we have parted with our power of obtaining it We have thrown away our liberty in losing of our opportunity so that now our missing of it is not so much a matter of choice as of necessity We omit it and cannot help it because we neglected to use those means whereby we should have attain'd it And in sins of omission this is the great and special Cause which puts them without our power for we neglect the means of doing what we should and after that it is not so truly our free choice as our necessity that we omit it These then are the causes of our want of choice in the particular instances of sins whether of commission or of omission We do not chuse that evil which we commit for want of considerateness and deliberation the freedom whereof is taken away from us by drunkenness passionateness and a habit or custome of committing it And we do not chuse the omission of some Duty which we neglect for want of power whereof we have deprived our selves through the neglect of those means which are necessary to the performance of it So that both in doing what is forbidden and in neglecting what is commanded upon these Causes we do what for that present we cannot help For we do not chuse because we cannot refuse it and therefore it is not so much through choice as through necessity that we are involved in the transgression But although these sins are thus undeliberated in themselves and thus unchosen in their own Particulars yet shall we be punish'd for them as surely as if we had expresly chosen them because they were all chosen in their Causes For we freely and deliberately chose that which made them necessary and that is enough to make us answer for all those things which we acted under that necessity For as for drunkenness which is one of those Causes that deprives us of all liberty by taking away all considerateness and deliberation 't is plain that it either is or may be deliberately considered of and chosen For drunkenness is a sin which requires time in the very acting of it It is not entred on in a moment or dispatched before a man can have time to bethink himself for he may pause and deliberate at every Glass and is free all along to chuse the sin before the Wine inflames him It has nothing in it of suddenness or surprize and therefore nothing of indeliberation Because where a man has time he may deliberate if he will and if he will not that is his own fault and he must answer for it and is punishable in all reason as if he did 'T is true indeed to a man who has never tried and is ignorant of the force of Wine or of any other intoxicating Liquor and of its sudden way of discomposing his Spirits and dethroning his Reason Drunkenness at the first time may be a sin of surprize and an indeliberate action Because he suspects not that a free Draught which he takes down now should a while hence work so great an alteration he is unacquainted yet with the strength of it and knows not that it will have such effects upon him And so long as he doth not see that intoxication is at the end of his present draught he cannot be said to deliberate of or considerately to chuse it It happens to him besides his expectation and is not an effect of choice but of surprize And thus it was with righteous Noah Gen. 9.20 21. And this being unforeseen and indeliberate what a man commits under it is the more excusable as was the incest of Lot Gen. 19.33 But after a man has felt by himself or learned from others what the power of Wine or other intoxicating Drink is it is generally after his own fault and his own choice if he be overcome by it For either he doth or may see the ill effects of it and if for all that he chuse to go on in it it is at his own peril because if he chuses drunkenness he shall be interpreted to chuse all those sinful effects whereto he may see if he will that Drunkenness exposes men So that as for this Cause of indeliberate sins viz. drunkenness it we see is in it self deliberated of and freely chosen And as for the second cause of indeliberate sins viz. some indulged passions which grow to such a height as to drive us on furiously into the fulfilling of them without suffering us to deliberate about them they also are a Cause of our own free choice and deliberation For it is in our power at first either to give way to a beginning passion or to repress it We can check it as we please whilst it is low because then its strength is very weak and our own consideration and command is the greatest But if we slacken the Reins and give it liberty then it knows no bounds but proves
too strong for us and hurries us on whether we will or no. For in every step which the passion makes it doth still the more disturb our Spirits and thereby disable all the power of our reason and consideration So that proportionably as it encreases our consideration and together with that our choice and liberty is lessened and impaired But at the first whilst it is young and of small strength it is in the power of our own wills either to indulge it or to stop and repress it And therefore if it get ground upon us it is by our own liking because either we expresly chuse to stay upon it and thereby to feed and foment it or wilfully neglect to use that power which we have over it in curbing and straining it And when once we have of our own choice permitted it to go too far then is it got without our reach and goes on further without asking our leave whether we will or no. And herein lyes the great errour of men viz. in that they freely and deliberately consent to the first beginnings of sin and by their own voluntary yielding too far they make all that follows to be plainly necessary For the lustful man deliberately and wilfully permits his wanton fancy to sport it self with impure thoughts and lascivious imaginations till by degrees his passion gathers strength and his lusts grow so high that all his powers of reason and Religion are scattered and clouded and rendred wholly unable to subdue it The angry man freely and deliberately hearkens to exasperating suggestions and cherisheth discontents so long till at last his passion is got beyond his reach and flies out into all the unconsidered instances of rage and fury And the Case is the same in fear in envy in love and hatred and other passions Men first consent to the first steps and beginnings of a sinful lust and when they have deliberately yielded to it a little way they begin by degrees to be forced and driven by it For all progress in a vicious lust is like a motion down hill men may begin it where they please but if once they are entred they cannot stop where they please All vice stands upon a Precipice and therefore although we may stay our selves at the first setting out yet we cannot in the middle But although when once we have gone too far it be not at our own choice whether or no we shall go further yet was it in the free power of our own wills not to have gone so far as we did The entring so far into the passion was an effect of our own will and free deliberation and if this make that necessary which is done afterwards that is a necessity of our own chusing So that whatsoever our after actions are this cause of them is a matter of our own will and freely chosen And then as for the third cause of indeliberate sins viz. a custome and habit of sinning that is plainly a matter of our own free choosing For it is frequent acts that make a habit and they are all free and at our own disposal Because the necessity arises from the habit and doth not go before it so that all those actions which preceded and were the causes of it were free and undetermined Wherefore as for that indeliberateness in sinning which ariseth from an habit and custome of sin it doth not in any wise lessen or excuse a sinfull action Nay instead of that it aggravates and augments it For this is sin improved up to the height and become not so much a matter of choice as of nature And to sin thus is to sin as the Devils themselves do from a natural Spring and Principle without the help of thinking and disputing Upon which accounts as it is the most advanced state of sin so must it be of suffering likewise this state of reigning and prevailing habits of sin being as S t Paul calls it a body of death Rom. 7.23 24. All which aggravation both of sin and suffering it has because it is an aggregate and collected body of many wilfull and presumptuous sins For before men come so far they have deliberately chosen and willfully neglected to refrain from all those precedent actions which have advanced the strength of sin to that pitch and have made it to be not so much a temptation or a refusable motive as a binding Law and necessitating nature So that although those sinfull actions which flow from us after that we are come to a habit of sin are indeliberate and unchosen Yet as for our evil habit it self which is the cause of them it was produced by a combination of wilfull sins and was in all the antecedent degrees a matter of choice and deliberation And lastly as for the cause of our involuntary omissions viz. our neglect of those means which are necessary to our performance of those things which are commanded this is clearly our own fault and comes to pass only because we choose it and have a mind to it For the reason why we neglect the means is because we will not use them We have time enough wherein to deliberate and consider of them and thereby to choose and practise them but we will not use it to that purpose The means and helps to chastity to meekness to contentedness and other virtues are all before us and we have power to put them in practice if we think fitting For it is just the same for that matter with the endowments of our wills as with those of our minds and bodies We can see and consider of the means of begetting knowledge and learning in our minds and of those receits and rules which are to promote the health of our bodies and upon such consideration we not only can but ordinarily do make choice of them and put them in practice And although it happen much otherwise with those wise directions and helpfull rules that are given for the attainment of virtue which are read ordinarily only to be known but not to be practised yet is it in the choice of our own wills to make use of them if we please as well as of the other The neglect of them is a wilfull neglect for therefore we do not use them because we choose to omit them So that although when once we neglect the means it be not at our choice after that to attain the virtue yet that neglect it self was The omissions in themselves it may be are not chosen because they cannot be refused but that negligence which is the cause of their being so is plainly an effect of our own choice and deliberation Thus then it plainly appears that our sinfull commissions upon drunkenness passionateness and custome of sinning and our sinfull omissions upon our neglect of the means and instruments of virtue all which are indeliberate and unchosen in themselves were yet deliberately chosen in their causes So that all our necessity in them is a necessity of
stay beyond that time which we are to act in if we do act at all Besides our powers of action especially where there is any strong temptation of pleasure or profit to act for are forward of themselves and ready to spring out upon the first occasion As soon as the temptation is offered to our thoughts our wills indeliberately approve and all our bodily and active powers by an unconsidered emanation start up to pursue and endeavour after it whence thinking and considering is necessary not to raise but to stop and restrain them And then if either our thoughts have been otherwise engaged and so cannot readily withdraw themselves to consider of a new object or if our thinking powers themselves are dull and heavy and thereby unfit to consider of it we presently and indeliberately go on to act the thing without all pausing and due consideration For this other reason of inconsideration also viz. the want of power or indisposition of our thinking faculty it self is not a thing wholly subject to our own will to chuse whether or when we shall fall under it Because in this state of our souls during their being here united to our Bodies they make use of our bodily powers in their use of reason and in the very exercise of thought and consideration and therefore even in them they are liable to be changed and altered just as our Bodies are For in a brisk and healthy Body our thoughts are free and quick and easie but if our Bodies are dull and indisposed our minds are so too A heaviness in our heads will make us heavy in our apprehensions and a discomposure in our Spirits whether through the strength of Wine or of a violent passion will make us discomposed and incoherent in our thoughts also And if there be an utter perverting or blasting of our bodily powers as is often seen in the bodily Diseases of Epilepsies Phrensies Apoplexies and the like there will be the same perversion or utter extinction of our conceptions likewise But now these indispositions of our Bodies which thus unfit our very souls for thought and due consideration are not in our power to order when and where they shall seize upon us For our Bodies are liable to be thus acted upon by any other Bodies of the world whether we will or no. A heavy air or an indisposing accident will work a change in our bodily temper without our leave and when once that is indisposed we cannot hinder our thoughts themselves from being indisposed too And since it is not in our power at all times to chuse whether or no we will pause and consider although we can avoid offending in those Cases wherein we can consider of it yet is it manifest that we cannot avoid offence in all Indeed if we take any particular action and in our own thoughts separate it from any particular time and from the Chain of other particular actions amongst which it lyes we shall be apt to affirm that it is such whereof we can think and consider For take any action by it self and being aware of it we can let other things alone and watch for it particularly and when we do so we are sure to find one time or other when our understandings are disposed for a due deliberation and fit and able to consider of it But then we must take notice that this supposed state of an action as separate from the Crowd of other actions and determined to no time is only imaginary and in speculation For when we come to practise them though in some we have time and power enough yet in others we find that we have not Because either they come in the throng of other business and then our thoughts being hotly employed upon other things cannot so easily be drawn from them upon the sudden to consider of them or if they call upon us when we have time to consider in yet it happens that our faculties are heavy and indisposed and so we exert them still without due consideration When we think of any particular action by it self therefore we take it out of the throng of business wherein it is involved and out of that time wherein we are indisposed and then we are bold to conclude that we can consider of it But when we come to practise it we find that our former speculation supposed false and that it comes mixt with a crowd of other things or in a time when we have troubled and discomposed thoughts So that how subject soever it was to our consideration in that separate state wherein we imagined it yet have we no power to consider of it in that throng of business or indisposition of faculties wherein we find it And this is verily the Case of several of our slips and transgressions For look upon any of the particulars by it self and take it asunder from the rest and then we shall be confident that we may bethink our selves and consider of it But take it as indeed it lyes among the mixt Crowd of other actions or as offered to our indisposed understandings and then we shall find that it slips from us without all consideration And this as I take it is intended by a great man when he tells us of sins of pardonable infirmitie that the liberty which they seem to have when we consider them in special and asunder they indeed have not when we consider them in the general viz. as involved in the crowd of other actions amongst whom they lye and altogether Upon which account of their having in them no choice and consideration he questions whether they contain that which can in strictness and propriety of speech be called sin And indeed if we understand the same by sin which S t John doth when he gives the explication of it 1 John 3.4 viz. a rejecting or contemning of the Law in which sence only a state of Grace is destroyed by it and he who is born of God cannot commit it they have not For men cannot be said to reject and despise a Law when they do not see and consider of it The liberty then which we have about those slips and transgressions which we do not know and consider of is in effect no liberty at all For we neither chuse the disobedient action it self nor the cause of it We do not chuse the sinful action it self because we do not know or consider of it Nor do we chuse the inconsideration because it is not left to our liberty whether in some of our actions we should be inconsiderate or no. And since our slips and failings which are thus involuntary by ignorance cannot be chosen or refused 't is plain that they cannot be avoided And as for all those things which we cannot avoid it is clear from what has been said above that the Gospel doth not eternally threaten us nor will God ever condemn us for them But that these slips and transgressions which being thus unknown
much of the sinfulness of that action which we commit as to scruple its lawfulness and to be enlightned so far as really to doubt of it then is the case quite alter'd and we cannot plead that we did it ignorantly because we knew so much by it at least as should have made us forbear it For if indeed we doubted of it we knew it was as likely to be a Sin as to be an innocent Action because that is properly Doubting when we suspend our Assent and cannot tell which way to determine when we judge one to be as likely as the other and do not positively and determinately believe the truth of either And when this is our case concerning any Action if we venture on it whilst the doubt remains we are guilty of sin and must expect to suffer punishment For by so doing we shew plainly that we will do more for sin than we will for God and that it has a greater interest with us than he because even whilst we apprehend it as likely to be our sin as our liberty yet for the sins sake we chuse to venture on it rather than for Gods sake to abstain from it This Contempt of God there is in it in the Nature of the very thing it self although God had no ways expressed himself concerning it But we must know further that whensoever we are in this estate of doubt and unresolvedness God has given us a peremptory Command that we should not act what we fear is sinful but omit it Abstain saith he from all appearance of evil 1 Thess. 5.22 So that if after all our Disputes and Demurs we venture at last to commit the Action which we doubted of we do not only slight God by running the hazard of Disobedience to one Law whereof we are uncertain but we wilfully disobey him in transgressing of this other Law whereof we all either are or may be certain if we will And if in this estate we presume thus to disobey we shall be sure to suffer for our Disobedience And in this case St. Paul is plain For if there be any thing whose lawfulness our Consciences are unresolved and unperswaded of whilst that unresolvedness remains he tells us plainly that our commission of it is utterly unlawful Whatsoever says he is not of Faith or proceeding from a belief and perswasion of its lawfulness is sin So that if it be about the eating of meats for Instance he that doubts is damn'd both of God and of himself if he eat because he eateth not of Faith Rom. 14.23 If our minds therefore are so far enlightned concerning any sinful Action as that we are come to doubt of it we are no longer innocently and excusably ignorant For we see enough by it to make us chuse to abstain from it and if for all this we presume still to venture on it sin lyes at the door and we must answer for it We are no longer within the excuse of Ignorance but we are guilty of a wilful sin and are got within the bounds of Death and Damnation But if in any Action we know nothing at all of the Law which forbids it or after we have known that if we are still ignorant of its being contain'd under it if we are not come to doubt but are either in Ignorance or Errour concerning it our Ignorance shall excuse our Fault and deliver us from Condemnation We do not chuse the sin which we do thus ignorantly commit and therefore we shall not suffer that Punishment which is threatned to it but our unknown offence is a pardonable slip such as according to the gracious Terms of Christs Gospel shall surely go uncondemned And this is true not only of simple Ignorance but likewise of the two particular Modes of Ignorance viz. First Forgetfulness Secondly Errour 1. Our sins of Ignorance will be born with if we venture upon the sinful Action through Ignorance of its sinfulness which we knew formerly but at the time of acting have forgotten For a slip of Forgetfulness is no more than befel an Apostle who was for all that a blessed Saint and an Heir of Life still St. Paul himself reviles the High-Priest forgetting both his Duty and that that man was he whom he spoke to I wist not Brethren says he that he was the High-Priest for had I bethought my self I should not have spoke so disrespectfully to him it being thus written Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People Act. 23.5 2. Our sins of Ignorance shall be dispensed with if we are led to commit them through a mistake of their innocence when indeed they are sinful which is an acting of them through errour For no less a man than Peter was drawn into a sinful dissimulation through an erroneous conceit that his giving no offence but keeping in with the Jews which was the thing that he aimed at by it would justifie and bear him out in it For which S t Paul tells us when he came to Antioch he withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed Gal. 2.11 12 13. But yet for all this S t Peter was at that time a true good Saint and if it had pleased God then to call for him he had been undoubtedly an Heir of salvation And to mention no more upon this Point as there were constant atonements for the errours of the people under the Law so is there provision made for them under the Gospel For Christ who is our High Priest as S t Paul assures us can have compassion on the ignorant and erroneous or them who are out of the way Heb. 5.2 So long therefore we see as our ignorance of any kind whether of the Law it self or of our present actions being comprehended by it is involuntary and innocent so long shall we be born with for all such slips as we incur under it For God will never be severe upon us for weakness of understanding or for want of parts whilst there is nothing in us of a wicked heart and therefore if our ignorance it self is innocent our offences under it shall go unpunished But here we must observe that all this allowance for our ignorance is so far only as it is involuntary and faultless but if we chuse to be ignorant our ignorance is in it self our sin and will make all our following offences damnable For we must answer for any thing of our own choice and therefore if we chuse the ignorance we shall be interpreted to chuse and so put to answer for all those ill effects which it produces Those sins which are voluntary in their cause are interpreted to us as we have seen and put upon our score so that if we chuse the ignorance which brings them we shall be adjudged to suffer for them Now as for the ignorance and errour of many men which is the cause of their sins and transgressions it is plainly of their own chusing They have a mind to