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
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
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
done the settling of your faith when once you have found out the soundest evidences and are able to answer all Objections For you must grow still in the fuller discerning and digesting the same evidences which you have discerned For you may hold them so loosely that they may be easily wrested from you And you may see them with so clear and full a knowledge as shall stablish your mind against all ordinary causes of mutation It is one kind or degree rather of knowledge of the same things which the Pupil and another which the Doctor hath I am sure the knowledge which I have now of the evidences of the Christian Verity is much different from what I had thirty years ago when perhaps I could say neer as much as now and used the same Arguments 17. Consider well the great contentions of Philosophers and the great uncertainty of most of those Nations to which the Infidels would reduce our faith or which they would make the test by which to try it They judge Christianity uncertain because it agreeth not with their uncertainties or certain errours 18. Enslave not your Reason to the objects of sense While we are in the body our souls are so imprisoned in flesh and have so much to do with worldly things that most men by averseness and disuse can hardly at all employ their minds about any higher things than sensitive nor go any further than sense conduceth them He that will not use his soul to contemplate things invisible will be as unfit for believing as a Lady is to travel a thousand miles on foot who never went out of her doors but in a Sedan or Coach 19. Where your want of learning or exercise or light doth cause any difficulties which you cannot overcome go to the more wise and experienced Believers and Pastors of the Church to be your helpers For it is their office to be both the preservers and expounders of the sacred Doctrine and to be the helpers of the peoples faith The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 20. Lastly Faithfully practise with Love and alacrity what you do believe lest God in justice leave you to disbelieve that which you would not love and practise So much to direct you in the method of your endeavours for the getting and strengthening of faith CHAP. III. The Evidences of Faith THese things in the Order of your enquiry being presupposed proceed to the consideration of the Evidences themselves which fully prove the Christian Verity And here omitting the preparatory considerations recited at large in my Reasons of the Christian Religion I shall only set before you the grand Evidence it self with a brief recital of some of those means which bring it down to our notice in these times The great infallible witness of CHRIST is the SPIRIT of GOD or the Holy Ghost Or that divine operation of the Holy Spirit which infallibly proveth the attestation of God himself as interesting him in it as the principal cause As we know the Coin of a Prince by his image and superscription and know his acts by his publick proper Seal And as we know that God is the Creatour of the world by the Seal of his likeness which is upon it Or as we know the Father of a child when he is so like him as no other could beget So know we Christ and Christianity to be of God by his unimitable image or impression The Power Wisdom and Goodness of God are the essentialities which we call the Nature of God These in their proper form and transcendent perfection are incommunicable But when they produce an effect on the creature which for the resemblance may analogically be called by the same names the names are logically communicable though the thing it self which is the Divine Essence or Perfections be still incommunicable But when they only produce effects more heterogeneal or equivocal then we call those effects only the footsteps or demonstrations of their cause So GOD whose Power Wisdom and Goodness in it self is incommunicable hath produced intellectual natures which are so like him that their likeness is called his Image and analogically yet equivocally the created faculties of their Power Intellect and Will are called by such names as we are fain for want of other words to apply to God the things signified being transcendently and unexpressibly in God but the words first used of and applied to the creature But the same God hath so demonstrated his Power and Wisdom and Goodness in the Creation of the material or corporeal parts of the world that they are the â—estigia and infallible proofs of his causation and perfections being such as no other cause without him can produce but yet not so properly called his Image as to his Wisdom and Goodness but only of his Power But no wise man who seeth this world can doubt whether a God of perfect Power Wisdom and Goodness was the maker of it Even so the person and doctrine of Christ or the Christian Religion objectively considered hath so much of the Image and so much of the demonstrative impressions of the Nature of God as may fully assure us that he himself is the approving cause And as the Sun hath a double Light Lux Lumen its essential Light in it self and it s emitted beams or communicated Light so the Spirit and Image of God by which Christ and Christianity are demonstrated are partly that which is essential constitutive and inherent and partly that which is sent and communicated from him to others In the person of Christ there is the most excellent Image of God 1. Wonderful Power by which he wrought miracles and commanded Sea and Land Men and Devils and raised the dead and raised himself and is now the glorious Lord of all things 2. Wonderful Wisdom by which he formed his Laws and Kingdom and by which he knew the hearts of men and prophecied of things to come 3. Most wonderful Love and Goodness by which he healed all diseases and by which he saved miserable souls and procured our happiness at so dear a rate But as the essential Light of the Sun is too glorious to be well observed by us but the emitted Light is it which doth affect our eyes and is the immediate object of our sight at least that we can best endure and use so the Essential Perfections of Jesus Christ are not so immediately and ordinarily fit for our observation and use as the lesser communicated beams which he sent forth And these are either such as were the immediate effects of the Spirit in Christ himself or his personal operations or else the effects of his Spirit in others And that is either such as went before him or such as were present with him or such as followed after him Even as the emitted Light of the Sun is either that which is next to its
and use the language the motives and the employments of the Country and people where they live so he that is most familiar with such as live by Faith upon things unseen and take Gods promise for full security hath a very great help to learn and live that life himself Heb. 10.24 25. 1 Thes 4.17 18. Phil. 3.20 21. Direct 20. Forget not the nearness of the things unseen and think not of a long continuance in this world but live in continual expectation of your change Distant things be they never so great do hardly move us As in bodily motion the mover must be contiguous And as our senses are not fit to apprehend beyond a certain distance so our minds also are finite and have their bounds and measure And sin hath made them much narrower foolish and 〈◊〉 sighted than they would have been A certainty of dying 〈◊〉 last should do much with us But yet he that looketh to live long on earth will the more hardly live by Faith in Heaven when he that daily waiteth for his change will have easily the more serious and effectual thoughts of the world in which he must live next and of all the preparations necessary thereunto and will the more easily despise the things on earth which are the employment and felicity of the sensual Col. 3.1 2 3. Phil. 1.20 21 22 23. 1 Cor. 15.31 As we see it in constant experience in men when they see that they must presently die indeed how light then set they by the world how little are they moved with the talk of honour with the voice of mirth with the sight of meat or drink or beauty or any thing which before they had not power to deny and how seriously they will then talk of sin and grace of God and Heaven which before they could not be awakened to regard If therefore you would live by faith indeed set your selves as at the entrance of that world which faith foreseeth and live as men that know they may die to morrow and certainly must be gone ere long Dream not of I know not how many years more on earth which God never promised you unlâ—ss you make it your business to vanquish faith by setting its objects at a greater distance than God hath set them Learn Christs warning to one and all To watch and to be alwaies ready Mark 13.33 35 37. 1 Pet. 4 7. Mat. 24.44 Luke 12.40 He that thinketh he hath yet time enough and day-light before him will be the apter to loiter in his work or Journey When every man will make haste when the Sun is setting if he have much to do or far to go Delaies which are the great preventers of Repentance and undoers of the world do take their greatest advantage from this ungrounded expectation of long life When they hear the Physician say He is a dead man and there is no hope then they would fain begin to live and then how religious and reformed would they be whereas if this foolish errour did not hinder them they might be of the same mind all their lives and might have then done their work and waited with desire for the Crown and said with Paul For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4.6 7 8. And so much for the General Directions to be observed by them that will live by Faith I only add that as the well doing of all our particular duties dependeth most on the common health and soundness of the soul in its state of grace so our living by Faith in all the particular cases after instanced doth depend more upon these General Directions than on the particular ones which are next to be adjoyned CHAP. I. An Enumeration of the Particular Cases in which especially Faith must be used 1. How to live by Faith on GOD. THE General Directions before given must be practised in all the Particular Cases following or in order to them But besides them it is needful to have some special Directions for each Case And the particular Cases which I shall instance in are these 1. How to exercise Faith on GOD himself 2. Upon Jesus Christ 3. Upon the Holy Ghost 4. About the Scripture Precepts and Examples 5. About the Scripture Promises 6. About the Threatnings 7. About Pardon of sin and Justification 8. About Sanctification and the exercises of other Graces 9. Against inward vices and temptations to actual sin 10. In case of Prosperity 11. In Adversity and particular Afflictions 12. In Gods Worship publick and private 13. For Spiritual Peace and Joy 14. For the World and the Church of God 15. For our Relations 16. In loving others as our selves 17. About Heaven and following the Saints 18. How to die in Faith 19. About the coming of Christ to Judgement GOD is both the object of our knowledge as he is revealed in Nature and of our Faith as he is revealed in the holy Scriptures He is the first and last object of our Faith It is life eternal to know him the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Ye believe in God believe also in me was Christs order in commanding and causing Faith Joh. 14.1 Seeing therefore this is the principal part of Faith to know God and live upon him and to him I shall give you many though brief Directions in it Direct 1. Behold the glorious and full demonstrations of the Being of the Deity in the whole frame of nature and especially in your selves The great argument from the Effect to the Cause is unanswerable All the caused and derived Beings in the world must needs have a first Being for their cause All Action Intellection and Volition all Power Wisdom and Goodness which is caused by another doth prove that the cause can have no less than the total effect hath To see the world and to know what a man is and yet to deny that there is a God is to be mad He that will not know that which all the world doth more plainly preach than words can possibly express and will not know the sense of his own Being and faculties doth declare himself uncapable of teaching Psal 14.1 49.12 20. Isa 1.2 3. It is the greatest shame that mans understanding is capable of to be ignorant of God 1 Cor. 15.34 and the greatest shame to any Nation Hos 4.1 6.6 As it is the highest advancement of the mind to know him and therefore the summ of all our duty Prov. 2.5 Hos 6 6· 2 Chron. 30.21 22. Isa 11.9 2 Pet. 2.20 Rom. 1.20 28. Joh. 17.3 Direct 2. Therefore take not the Being and Perfections of God for superstructures and
wind will blow and the rain will fall and the earth will bear fruits whether we know it or not so our knowledge of it is not at all necessary to any Divine Efficiency as such The Spirit by which we are regenerate is like the wind that bloweth whose sound we hear but know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth no nor what it is John 3.6 7 8 9. But all those things which are necessary to work objectively and morally on the soul do work in esse cognito and the knowledge of them is as necessary as the operation is It was of absolute necessity to the salvation of all before Christs coming and among the Gentiles as well as the Jews that the Spirit should sanctifie them to God by possessing them with a predominant Love of him in his Goodness and that this Spirit proceed from the Son or Wisdom of God But it was not so necessary to them as it is now to us to have a distinct knowledge of the personality and operations of the Spirit and of the Son And though now it is certain that Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life and no man cometh to the Father but by the Son Joh. 14.6 Yet that knowledge of him which is necessary to them that hear the Gospel is not all necessary to them that never hear it though the same efficiency on his part be necessary And so it is about the knowledge of the Holy Ghost without which Christ cannot be sufficiently now known and rightly believed in Direct 4. The presence or operation of the Spirit of God is casually the spiritual Life of man in his holiness As there is no natural Being but by influence from his Being so no Life but by communication from his Life and no Light but from his Light and no Love or Goodness but from his Spirit of Love It is therefore a vain conceit of them that think man in innocency had not the Spirit of God They that say his natural rectitude was instead of the Spirit do but say and unsay for his natural rectitude was the effect of the influx or communication of Gods Spirit And he could have no moral rectitude without it as there can be no effect without the chief cause The nature of Love and Holiness cannot subsist but in dependance on the Love and Holiness of God And those Papists who talk of mans state first in pure naturals and an after donation of the Spirit must mean by pure naturals man in his meer essentials not really but notionally by abstraction distinguished from the same man at the same instant as a Saint or else they speak unsoundly For God made man in moral dispositive goodness at the first and the same Love or Spirit which did first make him so was necessary after to continue him so It was never his nature to be a prime good or to be good independently without the influence of the prime good Isa 44.3 Ezek. 36.27 Job 26.13 Psal 51.10 12. 143.10 Prov. 20.27 Mal. 2.15 John 3.5 6. 6.63 7.39 Rom. 8.1 5 6 9 13 16. 1 Cor. 6.11 2.11 12. 6.17 12.11 13. 15.45 2 Cor. 3.3 17. Ephes 2.18 22. 3.16 5.9 Col. 1.8 Jude 19. Direct 5. The Spirit of God and the Holiness of the soul may be lost without the destruction of our essence or species of humane nature and may be restored without making us specifically other things That influence of the Spirit which giveth us the faculty of a Rational Appetite or Will inclined to good as good cannot cease but our humanity or Being would cease But that influence of the Spirit which causeth our adherence to God by Love may cease without the cessation of our Beings as our health may be lost while our life continueth Psal 51.10 1 Thes 5.19 Direct 6. The greatest mercy in this world is the gift of the Spirit and the greatest misery is to be deprived of the Spirit and both these are done to man by God as a Governour by way of reward and punishment oft-times Therefore the greatest reward to be observed in this world is the increase of the Spirit upon us and the greatest punishment in this world is the denying or with-holding of the Spirit It is therefore a great part of a Christians wisdom and work to observe the accesses and assistances of the Spirit and its withdrawings and to take more notice to God in his thankfulness of the gift of the Spirit than of all other benefits in this world And to lament more the retiring or withholding of Gods Spirit than all the calamities in the world And to fear this more as a punishment of his sin Lest God should say as Psal 81.11 12. But my people would not hearken to my voice Israel would none of me so I gave them up to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels And we must obey God through the motive of this promise and reward Prov. 1.23 Turn you at my reproof behold I will powre out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words to you Joh. 7.39 He spake this of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive Luke 11.13 God will give his holy Spirit to them that ask it And we have great cause when we have sinned to pray with David Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit in me Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and stablish me with thy free Spirit Psal 51.10 11 12. And as the sin to be feared is the grieving of the holy Spirit Ephes 4.30 so the judgement to be feared is accordingly the withdrawing of it Isaiah 63.10 11. But they rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit therefore he was turned to be their enemy and fought against them Then he remembred the daies of old Moses and his people saying Where is he that brought them up Where is he that put his holy Spirit within them The great thing to be dreaded is lest those that were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost should fall away and be no more renewed by repentance Heb. 6.4 6. Direct 7. Therefore executive pardon or justification cannot possibly be any perfecter than sanctification is Because no sin is further forgiven or the person justified executively than the punishment is taken off and the privation of the Spirit being the great punishment the giving of it is the great executive remission in this life But of this more in the Chapter of Justification following Direct 8. The three great operations in mâ—n which each of the three persons in the Trinity eminently perform are Natura Medicina salus the first by the Creator the second by the Redeemer the third by the Sanctifier Commonly it is called Nature Grace and Glory But either the terms Grace and Glory must
it being his work to make us thus both Believers and Saints and his perfective work of our real Sanctification being as necessary to us as our Redemption or Creation Matth. 28.19 2â— Heb. 6.1 2 4 5 6. Direct 18. Therefore as every Christian must look upon himself as being in special Covenant with the Holy Ghost so be must understand distinctly what are the benefits and what are the conditions and what are the duties of that part of his Covenant The special Benefits are the Life Light and Love before mentioned by the quickening illumination and sanctification of the Spirit not as in the first Act or Seed for so they are presupposed in that Faith and Repentance which is the Condition But as in the following acts and habits and increase of both unto perfection Acts 2.38 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off and to as many as the Lord our God shall call See Acts 26.18 Ephes 1.18 19. Titus 3.5 6 7. The special condition on our parts is our consent to the whole Covenant of Grace viz. To give up our selves to God as our Reconciled God and Father in Christ and to Jesus Christ as our Saviour and to the holy Spirit as to his Agent and our Sanctifier There needeth no other proof of this than actual Baptism as celebrated in the Church from Christs daies till now And the institution of it Mat. 28.19 with 1 John 5.7 8 9. 1 Pet. 3.21 with John 3.5 The special Duties afterward to be performed have their rewards as aforesaid and the neglect of them their penalties and therefore have the nature of a Condition as of those particular rewards or benefits Direct 19. The Duties which our Covenant with the Holy Ghost doth bind us to are 1. Faithfully to endeavour by the power and help which he giveth us to continue our consent to all the foresaid Covenant And 2. To obey his further motions for the work of Obedience and Love 3. And to use Christs appointed means with which his Spirit worketh And 4. To forbear those wilful sins which grieve the Spirit John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you v. 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you v. 9. Continue in my love Col. 1.23 If ye continue in the Faith c. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God Heb. 10.25 26. Not forsaking the assembling of your selves together c. For if we sin wilfully c. of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath done despight to the Spiâ—it of grace v. 29. Heb. 6.4 5 6. Ephes 4 3â— Grieve not the holy Spirit of God 1 Thes 5.19 Quench not the Spirit Direct 20. By this it is plain that the Spirit worketh not on man as a dead thing which hath no principle of activity in it self nor as on a naturally necessitated Agent which hath no self-determining faculty of will but as on a living free self-determining Agent which hath duty of its own to perform for the attaining of the end desired Those therefore that upon the pretence of the Spirits doing all and our doing nothing without him will lye idle and not do their parts with him and say that they wait for the motions of the Spirit and that our endeavours will not further the end do abuse the Spirit and contradict themselves seeing the Spirits work is to stir us up to endeavour which when we refuse to do we disobey and strive against the Spirit Direct 21. Though sometimes the Spirit work so efficaciously as certainly to cause the volition or other effect which it moveth to yet sometimes it so moveth as procureth not the effect when yet it gave man all the power and help which was necessary to the effect because that man failed of that endeavour of his own which should have concurred to the effect and which he was able without more help to have performed That there is such effectual grace Acts 9. and many Scriptures with our great experience tell us That there is such meer necessary uneffectual grace possible and sometime in being which some call sufficient grace is undeniable in the case of Adam who sinned not for want of necessary grace without which he could not do otherwise And to deny this blotteth out all Christianity and Religion at one dash By all which it appeareth that the work of the Spirit is such on mans will as that sometimes the effect is suspended on our concurrence so that though the Spirit be the total cause of its own proper effect and of the act of man in its own place and kind of action yet not simply a total cause of mans act or volition but mans concurrence may be further required to it and may fail Direct 22. Satan transformeth himself oft into an Angel of Light to deceive men by pretending to be the Spirit of God Therefore the spirits must be tryed and not every spirit trusted 2 Cor. 11.14 15. Mat. 24.4 5 11 24. 1 John 3.7 Ephes 4.14 Revel 10.3 8. 2 Thes 3.2 1 John 4.1 3 6. Direct 23. The way of trying the spirits is to try all their uncertain suggestions by the Rule of the certain Truths already revealed in Nature and in the holy Scriptures And to try them by the Scriptures is but to try the spirits by the Spirit the doubtfull spirit by the undoubted Spirit which indited and sealed the Scriptures more fully than can be expected in any after revelation 1 Thes 1.21 Isa 8.16 20. 2 Pet. 1.19 John 5.39 Acts 17.11 The Spirit of God is never contrary to it self Therefore nothing can be from that Spirit which is contrary to the Scriptures which the Spirit indited Direct 24. When you would have an increase of the Spirit go to Christ for it by renewed acts of that same Faith by which at first you obtained the Spirit Gal. 3.3 4. Gal. 4.6 Faith in Christ doth two waies help us to the Spirit 1. As it is that Condition upon which he hath promised it to whom it belongeth to give us the Spirit 2. As it is that act of the soul which is fitted in the nature of it to the work of the Spirit That is as it is the serious contemplation of the infinite Goodness and Love of God most brightly shining to us in the face of the Redeemer and as it is a serious contemplation of that heavenly glory procured by Christ which is the fullest expression of the Love of God and so is fittest to kindle that Love to God in the soul which is the work of the Spirit These are joyned Rom. 5.1 2 5 6. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ By whom also we
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
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
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
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