Gospel though they own it in Profession never so highly They act contrary to the way of Salvation by Christ for they would heal themselves and save themselves from the Power and Pollution of Sin and prooure God's Favour by performing sincere Obedience before they are come to Christ the only Physician and Saviour They lay their own Obedience lowest in the Foundation of their Salvation and build the Enjoyment of Christ upon it who ought to be the only Foundation They would sanctifie themselves before they have a sure Interest in Christ and going about to establish their own Righteousness they do not submit themselves to the Righteousness of God in Christ Rom. 10.3,4 Sometimes they will call the Righteousness of Christ their Legal Righteousness that they may make room for an Evangelical Righteousness of their own Works to be the immediate procuring cause of their Justification by Christ whereas the Apostle Paul knew no Evangelical Righteousness but that of Christ which he calleth the righteousness of faith without the law Rom. 3.21 22. and not of the law Phil. 3.9 Thus they make void Christ's Salvation while they pretend to own it and Christ profiteth them nothing Christ is become of none effect to them while they would be justified by the Law Gal. 5.2 4. If we would be saved by Christ we must own our selves dead lost Sinners that can have no Righteousness for Justification but his no life or ability to do Good until God bring us to Union and Fellowship with him They do also act contrary to Salvation by Grace according to the true meaning of the Gospel For we are not saved by Grace as the supreme Cause of Salvation by the Intervention of Works given and accepted by Grace as the procuring Cause in which sence we might be saved by Grace though by a Covenant of Works As a Servant that hath Monies given him by his Master to purchase an Annuity of his Master at a low rate may profess that he had an Annuity given him freely and yet that he hath purchased it and may claim it as a due Debt But we are saved by Grace as the immediate and complete cause of our whole Salvation excluding procurement of our Salvation by the condition of Works and claiming it by any Law as a due Debt The Scripture teacheth us that there is a perfect Opposition and utter Irreconcileableness betwixt Salvation by Grace and Works If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more of grace otherwise work is no more work Rom. 11.6 So also there is an Opposition betwixt a Reward reckoned of grace and of debt Rom. 4.4 Betwixt a Promise of Happiness by the law and by grace Rom. 4.13.16 God is so jealous of the Glory of his Free-grace that he will not save us by any Works though of his own working in us lest any man should boast Ephes 2.9 He knoweth that when he healeth Men by Physick or maintaineth them by the Labour of their hands they are prone to attribute the Glory rather to the means they use than to his sole Bounty and Goodness 3dly They do also act contrary to the way of Salvation by Faith For as I have shewed already the Faith which is required for our Salvation in the Gospel is to be understood in a sense contrary to doing good Works as a Condition to procure our Salvation that so the true difference between the Terms of the Law and of the Gospel may be maintain'd Believing is opposed to all working for Salvation and the Law of Works to the Law of Faith Rom. 4.5 3.27 against Antinomian Errours by making it the procuring Condition of their Salvation when after all this ado the Remedy is found to be as bad as the Disease equally unserviceable and destructive to that great end for which they designed it and that it hath an Antimonian Effect and Operation contrary to the Power of Godliness Much more might be said for the Confutation of this novel Doctrine but if this one thing be well proved it may be sufficient to make the zealous Contrivers of it to be ashamed of their Crast and angry with themselves and sorry that they have taken so much Pains and stretched their Wits to maintain such an unprofitable unsanctifying Opinion It will be sufficient for the Proof of it if I shew that the practice of true holiness cannot possibly be attain'd unto by seeking to be saved by the Works of the Law because I have already proved that this Doctrine of Salvation by sincere Obedience is according to the Terms of the Law and not of the Gospel And hereby those also may see their Errour that ascribe Justification only to the Gospel and Sanctification to the Law Yet because those Assertors of the Condition of sincere Obedience will hardly be perswaded by what hath been said that it is the way of the Law of Works I shall for their more full Conviction sufficiently manifest that it is of no other nature and operation than any other Doctrine that is proper to the Law and hath no better Fruit as I proceed to prove by the following Arguments that holiness cannot be attained by seeking it by the Law of Works that so it may appear not worthy to be called Gospel Doctrine First The way of Salvation by the Works of the Law is contrary and destructive to those necessary means of an holy Practice that have been laid down in the foregoing Directions and manifestly proved out of the holy Scripture I have made it appear that a hearty Propensity to an holy Practice cannot be attained without some good Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God by Justification and of our everlasting Happiness and of sufficient strength both to will and to perform our Duty and that these and all other Endowments necessary to the same end are to be had only in Christ by Union and Fellowship with him and that Christ himself with all his Fulness is united to us by Faith which is not a Condition to procure a Right or Title to Christ but an Instrument whereby we receive him actually into our Hearts by trusting on him for all Salvation freely promised to us in the Gospel All these means of an holy Practice are things wherein our spiritual Life and Happiness doth consist so that if we have them everlasting Life is begun in us already and because they are the necessary means of an holy Practice therefore the beginning of everlasting Life in us must not be placed after such a Practice as the fruit and consequent of it but must go before it as the Cause before the Effect Now the Terms of the Law are directly contrary to this Method they place the Practice of Holiness before Life and make it to be the means and procuring cause of Life as Moses describeth them Rom. 10.5 The man that doeth these things shall live by them By these
all are given to us at one and the same time and I think enough hath been said already to shew in what order God brings us to the Practice of the Moral Law he maketh us first to be in Christ by Faith as Branches in the Vine that we may bring forth much fruit Joh. 15.5 He first purgeth our Consciences from dead Works by Justification that we may serve the living God Heb. 9.14 He maketh us first to live in the Spirit and then to walk in the Spirit Gal. 5.25 This is the Order prescribed in the Gospel which is the Power of God unto Salvation though the Law prescribeth a quite contrary Method that we should first perform its Commandements that so we may be justified and live and thereby it proveth a killing Letter to us Now mark well the great Advantages you have for the Attainment of Holiness by seeking it in a right Gospel-Order you will have the Advantage of the Love of God manifested toward you in forgiving your Sins receiving you into Favour and giving you the Spirit of Adoption and the Hope of his Glory freely through Christ to perswade and constrain you by sweet allurements to love God again that hath so dearly loved you and to love others for his sake and to give up your selves to the Obedience of all his Commandments out of hearty love to him you will also enjoy the Help of the Spirit of God to incline you powerfully unto Obedience and to strengthen you for the Performance of it against all your Corruptions and the Temptations of Satan so that you will have both Wind and Tide to forward your Voyage in the Practice of Holiness contrariwise if you rush upon the immediate performance of the Law without taking Christ's Righteousness and his Spirit in the way to it you 'll find both Wind Tide against you Your guilty Conscience and corrupt dead Natures shall certainly defeat and frustrate all your Enterprizes and Attempts to love God and serve him in Love and you will but stir up sinful Lusts instead of stirring up your selves to true Obedience or at best you will but attain to some slavish hypocritical Performances Oh that People would be perswaded to consider the due place of Holiness in the Mystery of Salvation and to seek it only there where they have all the Advantage of Gospel-Grace to find it Many miscarry in their zealous Enterprizes for Godliness and after they have spent much Labour in vain God maketh a Breach upon them even to their everlasting Destruction as he did upon Uzzah to a Temporal destruction because they sought him not after a due order 2 Chron. Secondly We are to look upon Holiness as a very necessary part of that Salvation that is received by Faith in Christ some are so drenched with a Covenant of Works that they accuse us for making good Works needless to Salvation if we will not acknowledge them to be necessary either as Conditions to procure an Interest in Christ or as Preparatives to fit us for the receiving of him by Faith and others when they are taught by the Scriptures that we are saved by Faith through Faith without Works do begin to disregard all Obedience to the Law as not at all necessary to Salvation and do account themselves obliged to it only in point of Gratitude if it be wholly neglected they doubt not but Free-grace will save them harmless yea some are given up to such strong Antinomian Delusions that they account it a part of the Liberty from the Bondage of the Law purchased by the Blood of Christ to make no Conscience of breaking the Law in their Conversation One cause of these Errors that are so contrary one to the other is that many are prone to imagine nothing else to be meant by Salvation but to be delivered from Hell and in heavenly Happiness and Glory hence they conclude that if good Works be a means of Glorification and precedent to it they must also be a precedent Means of our whole Salvation and that if they be not a necessary Means of our whole Salvation they are not at all necessary to Glorification But though Salvation be often taken in Scripture by way of Eminency for its perfection in the State of heavenly Glory yet according to its full and proper Signification we are to understand by it all that freedom from the Evil of our Natural corrupt State and all those holy and happy Enjoyments that we receive from Christ our Saviour either in this World by Faith or in the World to come by Glorification Thus Justification the Gift of the Spirit to dwell in us the Priviledges of Adoption are parts of our Salvation which we partake of in this Life Thus also the Conformity of our Hearts to the Law of God and the Fruit of our Righteousness with which we are filled by Jesus Christ in this Life are a necessary part of our Salvation God saveth us from our finful uncleanness here by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost as well as from Hell hereafter Ezek. 36.29 Tit. 3.5 Christ was called Jesus i.e. A Saviour because he saved his People from their Sins Mat. 1.21 therefore it is part of our Salvation to deliver us from our Sins which is begun in this Life by Justification and Sanctification and perfected by Glorification in the Life to come Can we rationally doubt whither it be any proper part of our Salvation by Christ to be quickned to live to God when we were by nature dead in Trespasses and Sins and to have the Image of God in Holiness and Righteousness restored to us which we lost by the Fall and to be freed from a vile dishonourable Slavery to Satan and our own Lusts and made the Servants of God and to be honoured so highly as to walk by the Spirit and bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit And what is all this but holiness in Heart and Life Conclude we then that Holiness in this Life is absolutely necessary to Salvation not only as a Means to the end but by a nobler kind of Necessity as part of the end it self Though we are not saved by good Works as procuring Causes yet we are saved to good Works as fruits and effects of Saving-grace which God hath prepared that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 It is indeed one part of our Salvation to be delivered from the Bondage of the Covenant of Works but the end of this is not that we may have liberty to sin which is the worst of Slavery but that we may fulfil the royal Law of Liberty and that we may serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 7.6 Yea Holiness in this Life is such a part of our Salvation as is a necessary Means to make us meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in heavenly Light and Glory without Holiness we can never see God Heb. 12.14 and
willing until he hath gone through the whole Work of Obedience acceptably such an one was never yet truly humbled and brought to know the Plague of his own Heart neither doth he truly believe the Doctrine of Original Sin whatever formal Profession he makes of it Secondly Those that think sincere Conformity to the Law in ordinary Cases to be so passing easie shew that they neither know it nor themselves Is it an easie thing to wrestle not against Flesh only but against principalities powers spiritual wickedness in high Places Ephes 6.12 Is it an easie thing not to lust or covet according to the Tenth Commandment The Apostle Paul found it so difficult to obey this Commandment that his Concupiscence prevailed the more by occasion of the Commandment Rom. 7.7 8. Our work is not only to alter vicious Customs but to mortisie corrupt natural Affections which bred those Customs and not only to deny the fulfilling of sinful Lust but to be full of holy Lust and Desires that even the restraining the execution of corrupt Lusts and crossing them by contrary Actings is in many cases like the cutting off of a right hand and plucking out a right eye Mat. 5.29 30. If Obedience be so easie how came it to pass that the Heathens generally did those things for which their own Consciences condemned them as worthy of Death Rom. 1.32 And many among us seek to enter into this strait gate and are not able Luke 13.24 And break so many vows and Purposes of Obedience and fall back to the Practice of their Lusts though in the mean time the Fears of eternal Damnation press hard upon their Consciences As to those that find Persecution for Religion to be so rare a thing in late days they have cause to be suspected that they are of the World and therefore the World loveth his own else they would find that national Profession of Religion will not secure those that are truly godly from several sorts of Persecutions And suppose Men do not persecute us for Religion yet there is great Difficulty in bearing great Injuries from Men on other Accounts and Losses Poverty bodily Pains long Diseases and untimely Deaths from the ordinary Providence of God with such hearty Love to God and to injurious Men for his sake and such a patient acquiescence in his Will as the Law of God requireth I acknowledge that the work of God is easie and pleasant to those whom God rightly furnisheth with Endowments for it but those that assert it to be easie to Men in their common Condition shew their Imprudence in contradicting the general Experience of Heathens and Christians Though many Duties do not require much labour of Body or Mind and might be done with ease if we were willing yet it is easier to remove a Mountain than to move and encline the Heart to will and affect the doing of them I need not concern my self with those that account that all have sufficient Strength for an holy Practice because they can do their endeavour that is what they can do for God requireth actual sulfilling of his Commands What if by our Endeavours we can do nothing in any measure according to the Rule shall the Law be put off with no Performance and shall such Endeavours be accounted sufficient Holiness And what if we cannot so much as endeavour in a right way If Man's Ability were the measure of acceptable Duty the Commands of the Law would signifie very little Thirdly The Wisdom of God hath ever funished People with a good Perswasion of a sufficient Strength that they might be enabled both to will and do their Duty The first Adam was furnished with such a Strenght and we have no cause to think that he was ignorant of it or that he needed to sear that he should be left to his own Corruptions because he had no Corruptions in him until he had produced them in himself by sinning against Strength and when he had lost that Strength he could not recover the Practice of Holiness until he was acquainted with a better Strength whereby the Head of Satan should be bruised Gen. 3.15 Our Lord Christ doubtless knew the insinite Power of his Diety to enable him for all that he was to do and suffer in our Nature He knew the Lord God would help him therefore he should not be confounded Is 50.7 The Scripture sheweth what plentiful Assurance of Strength God gave to Moses Joshua Gideon when he called them to great Imployments and to the Israelites when he called them to subdue the Land of Canaan Christ would have the Sons of Zebedee to consider whether they were able to drink of his cup and to be baptized with the baptism that he was baptized with Matth. 20.22 Paul encourageth Believers to the Life of Holiness by perswading them that sin shall not prevail to get the Dominion over them because they are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.13 14. And he exhorteth them to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might that they might be able to stand against the wiles of the divel Ephes 6.10 11. John exhorteth Believers not to love the world nor the things of the world because they were strong and had overcome the wicked one 1 Jo. 2.14 15. They that were called of God heretofore to work Miracles were first acquainted with the gift of Power to work them and no wise Man will attempt to do them without knowledge of the Gift Even so when Men that are dead in Sin are call'd to do the works of holy Life which are in them great Miracles God maketh a Discovery of the gift of Power unto them that he may encourage them in a rational way to such a wonderful Enterprise DIRECT III. The way to get holy Endowments and Qualifications necessary to frame and enable us for the immediate Practice of the Law is to receive them out of the fulness of Christ by Fellowship with him and that we may have this Fellowship we must be in Christ and have Christ himself in us by a Mystical Vnion with him EXPLICATION HEre as much as any where we have great cause to acknowledge with the Apostle that without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness even so great that it could not have entred into the Heart of Man to conceive it if God had not made it known in the Gospel by supernatural Revelation Yea tho' it be revealed clearly in the holy Scriptures yet the Natural Man hath not Eyes to see it there for it is foolishness to him and if God express it never so plainly and properly he will think that God is speaking Riddles and Parables And I doubt not but it is still a Riddle and Parable even to many truly Godly that have received an holy Nature in this way For the Apostles themselves had the saving benefit of it before the Comforter discovered it clearly to them John 14 20. And they walked in Christ as the
Terms you are first to do the holy Duties commanded before you have any Interest in the Life promised or any Right to lay hold of it as yours by Faith and you must practice Holiness without the forementioned means or else you can never attain to them Thus the true means are turned out of their Office and instead of being Causes they are made to be Effects and Fruits of an holy Practice And it will be in vain ever to expect such Effects and Fruits for Holiness it self with all its Effects must needs be destroyed when its necessary Causes are taken away Therefore the Apostle Paul testifieth that the way of salvation by the works of the law maketh faith void and promises of none effect And frustrateth the grace of God as if Christ died in vain and maketh Christ to be of no profit and of none effect to us as those that are fallen from grace Rom. 4.14 Gal. 2.21 5.2 4. Let us now examine the modern Doctrine of Salvation by the Condition of sincere Obedience to all the Commands of Christ and we shall quickly find it to be a chip of the same block with the former legal way of Salvation in the same manner destructive to the means of Holiness and to Holiness it self It requireth of us the Performance of sincere Obedience before we have the means necessary to produce it by making it antecedent to our Justification and Perswasion of eternal Happiness and our actual Enjoyment of Union and Fellowship with Christ and of that new Nature which is to be had only in him by Faith It destroyeth the nature of that saving Faith whereby we actually receive and enjoy Christ and all his Benefits and knocketh off our Hands from laying hold of Christ and his Salvation by telling us still as Christ told the Legalworker after all his Labour that yet we lack something Mat. 10.21 That it is Presumption to take him as our own until we have performed the Condition for our Right and Title to him which is another kind of saving Faith otherwise called sincere Obedience By this devised conditional Faith Satan keepeth many poor Souls at a bay poreing upon their own Hearts for many years together to find whether they have performed the Condition and whether they have as yet any Right to Christ for their Salvation not daring to venture to take him as their own It is a strong Partition-wall that will certainly hinder the Soul from coming to Christ until it be thrown down by the Knowledge of Salvation by grace without any procuring Condition of Works And though it be accounted but as the Payment of a Pepper-corn for a great Estate yet it is enough to break the ablest Man in the World because it debarreth him from laying hold of the only effectual means of Holiness whereby that Pepper-corn may be obtained 2dly Those that seek Salvation by the Works of the Law do therein act according to their natural State they live and walk according to the Flesh or Old-man not according to the New-state by Christ living in them I doubt not but several of them that live under the light of the Gospel are Partakers of a new State in Christ and do walk holily in it but the best in this World have in them Flesh as well as Spirit and may act according to either State in some measure and in this matter they do act only according to their carnal natural State When the believing Galatians were seduced to a Legal way of Salvation the Apostle Paul chargeth it upon them as their Folly that having begun in the spirit they would now be made perfect in the flesh Gal. 3.3 And he resembleth those that desire to be under the Law to Abraham's Son born of Hagar the Bondwoman to shew that such do walk as those that are born after the flesh not after the spirit Gal. 4.19 23 29. The Law was first given to Adam in his pure natural State to prescribe Terms for his continuance in Happiness which he then enjoyed and ever since that time the Flesh or Natural-man is married to the Law and the Law hath Dominion over a Man as long as he liveth i. e. until he be dead to his fleshly State by the Body of Christ and married to him that is risen from the dead Rom. 7.1 4. We are not at all under the Law as a Covenant of Works according to our new State in Christ as the Apostle testifieth Rom. 6.14 Ye are not under the law but under grace And Gal. 3.18 If ye be led by the spirit ye are not under the law From hence we may firmly conclude that none can possibly attain to true Godliness by acting according to Legal-terms because I have fully proved already that it is impossible to be godly while we are in the flesh or in a natural State and that as far as we act according to it we can do nothing but sin The Law is weak through the Flesh that it cannot bring us to fulfil its own Righteousness Rom. 8.3 4. It is married to a cross piece of flesh that is Enmity to it and can never be subject to it Rom. 8.8 It sueth the Natural-man for an old Debt of Obedience that he is utterly unable to pay since the Fall and the Success is according to the Proverb Sue a beggar and catch a louse Neither do those take a better Course that would bring themselves to Holiness by making sincere Obedience to Christ's Commands the Condition of their Salvation Their way is the same for Substance with that of the Calatians before mentioned who would be made perfect in the Flesh not by perfect Obedience but sincere as hath been shewed before Their Eudeavours to procure an Interest in Christ by their sincere Obedience do testifie against themselves that they do not act as People that are in Christ but rather as People that judge themselves to be without an Interest in Christ and to be yet to seek for it And sincere Obedience is as impossible to be attained unto as perfect Obedience if we act according to our dead natural State 3dly As the Law bereaveth of all strengthning means that are to be had by Faith in Christ and findeth us without strength in our natural State so of it self it affordeth us no Strength to fulfil its own Commandments If there had been a law given that could have given life verily righteousness should have been by the law Gal. 3.21 It doth not so much as promise us life until we have performed the Obedience required by it The man that doth these things shall live by them Rom. 6.5 It is well called a voice of words Heb. 12.19 because its high and big words are not acompanied with any enlivening Power and the Doctrine of Life and Salvation by sincere Obedience is not better natur'd or more bountiful to us For it exacteth of us the Performance of the Condition before it alloweth us any Life or Salvation by Christ
the Spirit whereby we are made good Trees that we may bring forth good Fruit. Though they are given before the sincere Practice of the Law yet they are not given to us in our corrupt sinful Nature but in and with the new holy Nature which immediately produceth a holy Practice though it must necessarily go before as the Cause before the Effect and they are no other than Comforts of those spiritual Benefits by which our new Estate and Nature is produced and of which it is constituted and made up as the Comforts of Redemption Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit and the like Neither do I intend here any Transport or Ravishment of Joy and Delight but only such manner of Comfort as rationally strengthens in some measure against the Oppression of Fear Grief and Despair which we are liable unto by reason of our natural Sinfulness and Misery This Explanation of the Sense of my Assertion is sufficient to answer some common Objections against it and I hope the Truth of it will be fully evidenced by the following Arguments First This Truth is a clear Consectary from those Principles of Holiness that have been already confirmed I have shewed that we must have a good Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God and of our Happiness in Heaven and of our sufficient Strength both to will and to do that which is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ that we may be rationally inclined and bent to the Practice of Holiness and that these Endowments must be had by receiving of Christ himself with his Spirit and all his Fulness by trusting on him for all his Salvation as he is freely promised to us in the Gospel and that by this Faith we do as really receive Christ as our Food by eating and drinking Now let right Reason judge can we be perswaded of the Love of God of our everlasting Happiness and our Strength to serve God and yet be without any Comforts Can the glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace be believed and Christ and his Spirit actually believed into the Heart without any Relief to the Soul from oppressing Fear Grief Despair Can the Salvation of Christ be comfortless or the Bread and Water of Life without any sweet Relish to those that feed on him with hungring and thirsting Appetites God will not give such Benefits as these to those that do not desire and esteem them above the World and certainly the very receiving of them will be comfortable to such except they receive them blindfold which they cannot do when the very giving and bestowing of them openeth the Eyes of a Sinner and turns him from Darkness to Light whereby he doth at least in some measure see and perceive Spiritually the things that concern his present and future Peace and reap some encouraging and strengthning Comfort thereby to the Practice of Holiness Secondly Peace Joy Hope are recommended to us in Scripture as the Spring of other holy Duties and Fear and oppressing Grief forbidden as Hinderances to true Religion The peace of God keepeth our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Phil. 4.7 Be ye not sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength Nehem. 8.10 Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 Fear hath torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love 1 John 4.18 This is the Reason why the Apostle doubleth his Exhortation to rejoyce in the Lord always as a Duty of exceeding weight and necessity Phil. 4.4 What are such Duties but Comfort it self and can we think that these Duties are necessary to our continuance in an holy Practice and yet not to the beginning of it where the Work is most difficult and Encouragement most needful Therefore we must make haste in the first place to get a comfortable Frame of Spirit if we would make hastâ— and not delay to keep Gods holy Commandments Thirdly The usual Method of Gospel-Doctrine as it is delivered to us in the holy Scriptures is first to comfort our Hearts and thereby to establish us in every good Word and Work 2 Thess 2.17 And it appears how clearly this method is adjusted in several Epistles written by the Apostles wherein they first acquaint the Churches with the rich Grace of God toward them in Christ and the spiritual Blessings which they are made Partakers of for their strong Consolation and then they exhort them to an holy Conversation answerable to such Priviledges and it is not only the Method of whole Epistles but of many particular Exhortations to Duty wherein the comfortable Benefits of the Grace of God in Christ are made use of as Arguments and Motives to stir up the Saints to a holy Practice which comfortable Benefits must be first believed and the Comfort of them applyed to our own Souls or else they will not be forcible to engage us to the Practice for which they are intended To give you a few Instances out of a Multitude that might be alledged we are exhorted to practice holy Duties because we are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.11 And because sin shall not have dominion over us for we are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 Because we are not in the flesh but in the spirit and God will quicken our mortal bodies by his spirit dwelling in us Rom. 8.9.11 12. Because our bodies are the members of Christ and the temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.15 19. Because God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.20 21. And hath promised that he will dwell in us and walk in us and be to us a Father and we shall be to him sons and daughters 2 Cor. 7.1 Because God hath forgiven us for Ghrist's sake and accounteth us his dear children and Christ hath loved us and given himself for us and we that were sometimes darkned are now lightened in the Lord Ephes 4.32 5.1 2 8. Because we are risen with Christ and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3.1.4 Because God hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13.5 Because of the many promises made to us 2 Cor. 7.1 Search the Scriptures and you may with delight see that is this the Vein that runneth through Gospel Exhortations and you may find the like Vein of Comfort running through the Prophetical Exhortations in the Old Testament Some may object that the Apostles used this Method in their Writings to Saints that had practised Holiness already that so they might continue and increase therein But to that I may easily reply If it be a Method needful for grown Saints much more then for Beginners that find the Work of Obedience most difficult and have most need of strong Consolation and I hope to shew how we may be able to lay hold
Rom. 8.7 8. Therefore that they may be encouraged and rationally enclined to Holiness they must hope that God will work savingly in them Now I leave it to considerate Men to judge whether such an Hope can be well grounded without a good Perswasion of such a Reconciliation and Saving-love of God to us as dependeth not upon any precedent goodness of our Works but is a cause sufficient to produce them effectually in us Yea we know further if we know our selves sufficiently that our Death in Sin proceeded from the Guilt of the first Sin of Adam and the Sentence denounced against it Gen. 2.17 And that it is still maintain'd in us by the Guilt of Sin and the Curse of the Law and that Spiritual Life will never be given us to free us from that Dominion except this Guilt and Curse be removed from us which is done by actual Justification Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 6.14 And this is sufficient to make us despair of living to God in Holiness while we apprehend our selves to be under the Curse and Wrath of God by reason of our Transgressions and Sins still lying upon us Ezek. 33.10 Thirdly The nature of Duties of the Law is such as requireth an Apprehention of our Reconciliation with God and his hearty Love and Favour towards us for the doing of them The great Duty is Love to God with our whole Heart and not such a contemplative Love as Philosophers may have to the Object of Sciences which they are concern'd in no further than to please their Fancies in the knowledge of them but a practical Love whereby we are willing that God should be absolute Lord and Governour of us and all the World to dispose of us and all others according to his Will as to our temporal and everlasting Condition and that he should be the only Portion and Happiness of all those that are happy a Love whereby we like every thing in him as he is our Lord his Justice as well as any other Attribute without wishing or desiring that he were better than he is and whereby we desire that his Will may be done upon us and all others whether for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and whereby we can heartily praise him for all things and delight in our Obedience to him in doing his Will though we suffer that which is never so grievous to us even present Death Consider these things well and you may easily perceive that our Spirits are not in a fit frame for the doing of them while we apprehend our selves under the Curse and Wrath of God or while we are under prevailing Suspitions that God will prove an Enemy to us at last Slavish Fear may extort some slavish hypocritical Performances from us such as that of Pharaoh in letting the Israelites go sore against his Will but the Duty of Love cannot be extorted and forced by Fear but it must be won and sweetly allured by an Apprehension of God's Love and Goodness towards us as that eminent loving and beloved Disciple testifieth 1 Job 4.18 19. There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love we love him because he first loved us Observe here that we cannot be before hand with God in loving him before we apprehend his Love to us And consult your own Experience if you have any true Love to God whether it were not wrought in you by a sense of God's Love first toward you All the goodness and excellency of God cannot render him an amiable Object to us except we apprehend him an agreeable good to us I question not but the Devils know the excellency of Gods Nature as well as our greatest Metaphysical Speculators and this doth but fill them the more with tormenting horror and trembling that is contrary to Love Ja. 2.19 The greater God's Excellency and Perfection is the greater Evil he is to us if he hate us and curse us and therefore the Principle of Self-preservation deeply rooted in our natures hindreth us from loving that which we apprehend as our own Destruction if a Man be an Enemy to us we can love him for the sake of our loving reconciled God because his Love will make Man's Hatred to work for our good but if God himself be our Enemy for whose sake can we love him Who is there that can free us from the evil of his Enemity and turn it to our Advantage until he be pleased to reconcile himself to us Fourthly Our Conscience must of necessity be first purged from dead works that we may serve the living God and this is done by actual Remission of Sin procured by the Blood of Christ and manifested to our Consciences as appeareth by Christ's dying for this end Heb. 9.14 15. and 10.1 2. 4. 14 17 22. That Conscience whereby we judge our selves to be under the guilt of sin and wrath of God is accounted an evil Conscience in Scripture though it perform its Office truly because it is caused by the evil of sin and will it self be a cause of our committing more sin until it can judge us to be justified from all sin and received into the Favour of God Love which is the end of the Law must proceed from a good Conscience as well as from any other cleanness of Heart 1 Tim. 1.5 David's Mouth could not be opened to shew forth the Praise of God until he was delivered from Blood-guiltiness Psal 51.14 15. This evil guilty Conscience whereby we judge that God is our Enemy and that his Justice is against us to our everlasting Condemnation by reason of our sins doth strongly maintain and increase the Dominion of Sin and Satan in us and worketh most mischievous effects in the Soul against Godliness even to bring the Soul to hate God and to wish there were no God no Heaven no Hell so we might escape the Punishment due to us It so disaffecteth People toward God that they cannot endure to think or speak or hear of him and his Law but strive either to put him out of their minds by fleshly Pleasures and worldly Imployments and thus they are alienated from all true Religion only blinding it and stopping the mouth of it It produceth Zeal in many outside religious Performances and also false Religion Idolatry and the most inhumane Superstitions in the World I have often considered by what manner of working any Sin could effectually destroy the whole Image of God in the first Adam and I conclude it was by working first an evil guilty Conscience in him whereby he judged that the just God was against him and cursed him for that one Sin and this was enough to work a shameful Nakedness by disorderly Lusts a turning his Love wholly from God to the Creature and a desire to be hidden from the Presence of God Gen. 3.8 10. which was a total Destruction of the Image of God's Holiness And we have cause to
judge that from the same cause proceedeth the continual Malice Rancour Rage Blasphemy of the Devil and many notorious wicked Men against God and Godliness Some may think Job uncharitable in suspecting not meerly that his Sons had sinned but that they had been so abominably wicked as to curse God in their Hearts Job 1.5 but Job well understood that if the guilt of any ordinary Sin lie upon the Conscience it will make the Soul to wish secretly that God were not or that he was not so just a Judge which is a secret Cursing of God that cannot be avoided until our Consciences be purged from the guilt of Sin by the offering of Christ for us which was then figured out by the Burnt-offerings of Job for his Sons Fifthly God hath abundantly discovered to us in his Word that his method in bringing Men from Sin to Holiness of Life is first to make them know that he loveth them and that their Sins are blotted out When he gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai he first discovered himself to be their God that had given them a sure Pledge of his Salvation by their Delivery from Egypt in the Preface Exod. 20.2 And during all the time of the Old Testament God was pleased to make the entrance into Religion to be by Circumcision which was not only a Sign but also a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith whereby God justifieth People while they are considered as ungodly Rom. 4.11.5 and this Seal was administred to Children of eight Days old before they could perform any Condition of sincere Obedience for their Justification that their Furniture for an holy Practice might be ready before hand Furthermore in the time of the Old Testament God appointed divers Washings and the Blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean to prepare and sanctifie them for other Parts of his Worship in his Tabernacle and Temple to figure out his purging of their Consciences from dead works by the Blood of Christ that they might serve the living God Heb. 9.9 10 13 14 22. This I say was then figurative Sanctification as the word Sanctification is taken in a large Sense comprehending all things that prepare us for the Service of God chiefly the Remission of Sin Heb. 10.10 14 18. Though if it be taken in a strict sence respecting only our Conformity to the Law it must necessarily be placed after Justification according to the usual Method of Protestant Divines God also minded them of the necessity of purging away their guilt first that their Service might be acceptable by commanding them to offer the Sin-offering before the Burnt-offering Levit. 5.8 and 16.3 11. And least the guilt of their Sins should pollute the Service of God notwithstanding all their particular Expiations God was pleased to appoint a general Atonement for all their Sins one day every Year wherein the Scape goat was to bear upon him all their Iniquities unto a Land not inhabited Levit. 16.22 34. Under the New Testament God useth the same Method in loving us first and washing us from our Sins by the Blood of Christ that he may make us Priests to offer the Sacrifices of Praise and all good Works to God even the Father He entreth us into his Service by washing away our sins in Baptism he seedeth and strengtheneth us for his Service by Remission of Sins given to us in the Blood of Christ at the Lord's Supper He exhorteth us to obey him because he hath already loved us and our Sins are already pardoned Forgive one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ hath loved us Ephes 4.32 and 5.1 2. I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name sake Love not the world neither the things of the world 1 Jo. 2.12 15. I might quote abundance of Texts of the same nature We may clearly see by all this that God hath accounted it a matter of great Importance and hath condescended to take wonderful care in providing plentiful means both under the Old and New Testament that his People might be first cleansed from guilt and reconciled to himself to fit them for the acceptable Practice of Holiness Away then with all the contrary Methods of the new Divinity The Third Endowment necessary to enable us for the Practice of Holiness without which a Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God would be of little efficacy to work in us a rational Propensity to it is that we be perswaded of our future Enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly Happiness This must precede our holy Practice as a cause disposing and alluring us to it This Affertion hath several sorts of Adversaries to oppose it some account that a Perswasion of our own future Happiness before we have persevered in sincere Obedience tendeth to Licentiousness and that the way to do good Works is rather to make them a Condition necessary for the procuring of this Perswasion Others condemn all Works that we are allured or stirred up to by the future Enjoyment of the heavenly Happiness as legal mercenary flowing from self-love and not from any pure Love to God and they figure out sincere Godliness by a Man bearing Fire in one hand to burn up Heaven and Water in the other to quench Hell intimating that the true Service of God must not proceed at all from hope of Reward or sear of Punishment but only from Love To establish the Truth asserted against these Errors that are so contrary to it and to each other I shall propose the ensuing Considerations First The nature of the Duties of the Law is such that they cannot be sincerely and universally practiced without this Endowment That this Endowment must be present in us is sufficiciently proved already by all that I have said concerning the necessity of the Perswasion of our firm Reconciliation with God by our Justification to prepare us for this Practice because that includeth a Perswasion of this future Happiness or else it is of little worth All that I have to add here is that sincere Obedience cannot rationally subsist except it be allured encouraged and supported by this Perswasion Let me therefore suppose a Sadducee believing no Happiness after this Life and put the Question Can such an one love God with his whole Heart Might and Soul Will he not think it reasonable rather to lessen and moderate his Love towards God lest he should be overmuch troubled to part with him by Death We account it most reasonable to sit loose in our Affections from things that we must part with Can such an one be satisfied with the Enjoyment of God as his Happiness Will he not rather account that the Enjoyment of God and all religious Duties are Vanities as well as other things because in a little time we shall have no more Benefit by them than if they had never been
in three particulars 1st The Grace of Faith is as well fitted for the Souls receiving of Christ and Union with him as any Instrument of the Body is for receiving and closing with things needful for it By the very act of hearty trusting or believing on Christ for all Salvation and Happiness the Soul heaveth and putteth away from itself every thing that keepeth it at a distance from Christ as all confidence in our own Strength Endeavours Works Privileges or in any Worldly Pleasures Profits Honours or in any humane Helps and Succours for our Happiness and Salvation Because such Confidences are inconsistent with our Confidence in Christ for all Salvation Paul by his Confidence in Christ was taken off from all Considence in the Flesh he suffer'd the loss of glorying in his Privileges legal Righteousness and counted all other Enjoyments in matters of the World or of Religion to be but Dung that he might win Christ and be found in him Phil. 3.3 6 7 8 9. the voice of Faith is Ashur shall not save us neither will we ride upon Horses neither will we say any more to the work of our hands ye are our God for in thee the Fatherless find mercy Hos 14.3 We have no might against this great company of our spiritual Enemies neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee 2 Chron. 20.12 I might multiply places of Scripture to shew what a self emptying Grace Faith is and how it casteth other Considences out of the Soul by getting above them to Christ as the only Happiness and Salvation The same act of trusting or believing on Christ or on God is the very manner of our Souls coming to Christ Joh. 6.35 drawing near to the Lord Psal 73.28 fleeing unto the Lord to hide us Psal 143.9 making our resuge in the shadow of his wings Psal 57.1 staying our selves and our minds upon the Lord Isa 50.10 26.3 laying hold of eternal life 1 Tim. 6.12 lifting up our selves to the Lord Psal 51.1 2. rolling our way and casting our burden upon the Lord Psal 37.5 55.22 and of our eating and drinking Christ as hath already appeared Let us consider that Christ and his Salvation cannot be seen or handled or attained to by any bodily motion but are revealed and promised to us in the Word Now let any invent if they can any way for the Soul to exercise any motion or activeness in receiving of this unseen promised Salvation besides believing the Word and trusting on Christ for the Benefit promised If Christ were to be earned by Works or any other kind of Conditional Faith than this yet a Faith must be instrumental to receive him Some think Love as sit to be the uniting Grace but I have shewed that Love to Christ's Salvation is an Ingredient into Faith And though Love be an Appetite unto Union yet we have no other likely way to fill this Appetite while we are in this World besides trust on Christ for all his Benefits as he is promised in the Gospel 2dly There is in this Saving-Faith a natural Tendency to furnish the Soul with an holy Frame and Nature and all Endowments necessary thereunto out of the Fulness of Christ An hearty affectionate trussing on Christ for all his Salvation as freely promised to us hath naturally enough to work in our Souls a rational bent and inclination to and ability for the Practise of all Holiness because it comprehendeth in it a trusting that through Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God and that our old man is crucified Rom. 6.2 6 4. and that we live by the spirit Gal. 5.25 and that we have forgiveness of sin and that God is our God Psal 31.14 and that we have in the Lord righteousness and strength whereby we are able to do all things Isa 45.24 Phil. 4.13 and that we shall be glortensly happy in the anjoyment of Christ to all eternity Phil. 3.20 21. When the Saints in Scripture speak so highly of such glorious spiritual Privileges as I have here named they acquaint us with the familiar fence and language of their Faith trusting on God and Christ and they give us but an Explication of the nature and contents of it and they speak of nothing more than what they receive out of the Fulness of Christ And how can we otherwise judge but that those that have an hearty Love to Christ and can upon a good ground think and speak such high things concerning themselves must needs be heartily disposed and mightily strengthened for the practice of Holiness 3dly Because Faith hath such a natural tendency to dispose and strengthen the Soul for the practise of Holiness we have cause to judge it a meet Instrument to accomplish every part of that Practice in an acceptable manner Those that with a due affection believe stedfastly on Christ for the free Gift of all his Salvation may find by experience that they are carried forth by that Faith according to the measure of its Strength or Weakness to love God heartily because God hath loved them first 1 Joh. 4.19 to praise him to pray unto him in the name of Christ Ephes 5.26 John 16.26 27. to be patient with cheerfulness under all afflictions giving thanks to the Father that hath called them to his heavenly inheritance Col. 1.11 12. to love all the children of God out of love to their heavenly Father 1 John 5.1 to walk as Christ walked 1 John 2.6 and to give themselves up to live to Christ in all things as constrained by his love in dying for them 2 Cor. 5.14 We have a Cloud of Witnesses concerning the excellent works that were produced by Faith Heb. 11. And though trusting on Christ be accounted such a slight and contemptible thing yet I know no Work of Obedience which it is not able to produce And note the excellent manner of working by Faith by it we live and act in all good Works as People in Christ as raised above our selves and our natural state by partaking of him and his Salvation and we do all in his name and on his account This is the Practice of that mysterious manner of living to God in Holiness which is peculiar to the Christian Religion wherein we live and yet not we but Christ liveth in us Gal. 2.20 And who can imagine any other way but this for such a Practice while Christ and his Salvation is known to us only by the Gospel The explanation that I have made of the Nature and Office of true Faith and of its Aptitude for its Office is sufficient to evidence that it is a most holy Faith as it is called Jude 20. and that such a trusting on Christ as I have described in its own nature cannot have any tendency to Licentiousness but only to Holiness and that it rooteth and groundeth us in Holiness more than the meer accepting of any terms of Salvation and consenting to have Christ for our Lord can do
then is it to plead that they can do good if they will when their Minds and Will it self is enslaved to Sin A fourth Property is Subjection to the power of the Devil who is the God of this world that hath blinded the minds of all that believe not 2. Cor. 4.4 And will certainly conquer all that he sighteth with upon his own Dunghill that is in a natural State And from all these Properties we may well conclude that it hath the Property never to be good to be stark dead in Sin Ephes 2.1 according to the Sentence denounced against the first Sin of Mankind in Adam in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 For you can no more bring it to Holiness by any the most vehement Motives and Endeavours then you can bring a dead Carcase to Life by chafing and rubbing it You can stir up no strength or fortifying Grace in the natural Man by such Motives and Endeavours because there is no Strength in him to be stirred up Rom. 5.6 Tho' you do all that lieth in you to the utmost while you are in this Flesh you can do nothing but sin for there is no good lying in you as the Apostle Paul sheweth by his own Experience I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing Rom. 7.18 Sixthly We have no good ground to trust on Christ to help us to will or to do that which is acceptable to him while we continue in our natural State or to imagine that Freedom of Will to Holiness is restored to us by the Merit of his Death For as it hath been already shewed Christ aimed at an higher end in his Incarnation Death and Resurrection than the restoring the Decay and Ruins of our natural State He aimed to advance us to a new State more excellent than the State of Nature ever was by Union and Fellowship with himself that we might live to God not by the Power of a natural Free-will but by the Power of his Spirit living and acting in us So we may conclude that our natural State is irrecoverable and desperate because Christ the only Saviour did not aim at the Recovery of it It is neither holy nor happy but subject to Sin and to all Miseries as long as it remaineth Even those that are in a new State in Christ and do serve the Law of God with their Mind do yet with their Flesh serve the Law of Sin Rom. 7.25 As far as it remaineth in them it lusteth against the spirit Gal. 5.17 And it remaineth dead because of sin even when the spirit is life to them because of righteousness Rom. 8.10 And must be wholly abolished by Death before we can be perfected in that Holiness and Happiness that is by Faith in Christ After God had promised Salvation by Christ the Seed of the Woman he placed Cherubims and a flaming Sword to keep Man out of Paradice thereby teaching him that his first State was lost without Hope and that the Happiness intended for him was wholly new Our old natural Man was not revived and reformed by the Death of Christ but crucified together with him and therefore to be abolished and destroyed out of us by virtue of his Death Rom. 6.6 It is like the part of a Garment infected with the Plague of Leprosie which was to be rent off as incurable that the Garment might be clean Levit. 13.56 If Christ be not in us we are reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 i. e. we are in a State which God hath rejected from partaking of his Salvation so that we are not to expect any Assistance from God to make us holy in it but rather to deliver us from it Seventhly This doth not at all discharge those that are in a natural State from Obligation to Holiness of Life nor render them excusable for their Sins at the Tribunal of God's Justice For God hath made man upright but they sought many inventions Eccles 7.29 Observe well the Words of this Text and you will find that all they who have sought out many Inventions rather than upright walking are comprehended in Man that was at first made upright And Man in the Text signifieth all Mankind the first Adam was all Mankind as Jacob and Esau were two nations in the womb of Rebecca Gen. 25.23 God made us all in our first Parents according to his own Image able and inclined to do his Law and in that pure Nature our Obligation to Obedience was first laid upon us and the first wilful Transgression whereby our first Parents bereaved themselves of the Image of God and brought upon themselves the Sentence of Death was our Sin as well as theirs For in one man Adam all have sinned and so death is passed upon all Rom. 5.12 Because all Mankind were in Adam's Loins when the first Sin was committed even as Levi may be said to have paid Tithes in Abraham before he was born because when his Father Abraham paid Tithes to Melchizedeck he was yet in his Loins Heb. 7.9 10. That Promise of God that he will not charge the Iniquities of Parents upon their Children is a Promise belonging to the New Covenant confirmed in the Blood of Christ and it is Yea and Amen to us only in Christ in whom we have another Nature than that which our Parents conveyed to us so that we cannot justly claim the Benefit of it in our old natural State Jer. 31.29 30 31. 2 Cor. 1.20 Those that account their Impotency a sufficient Plea to excuse them or others shew that they were never truly humbled for that great wilful Transgression of all Mankind in the Loins of Adam Inability to pay Debts excuseth not a Debtor that hath lavished away his Estate neither doth Drunkenness excuse the mad Actings of a Drunkard but rather aggravates his Sin And our Impotency consisteth not in a meer want of an executive Power but in the want of a willing Mind to practice true Holiness and Righteousness Naturally we love it not we like it not but lust against it Gal. 5.17 and hate the light John 3.20 If Men in a natural State had an hearty Love and Likeing to true Holiness and a desire and serious endeavour to practice it out of hearty Love and yet failed in the event then they might under some pretence plead for their Excuse as some do for them that they were compelled to sin by an inevitable Fate But none have just cause to plead any such thing for their excuse because none endeavour to practice true Holiness out of hearty Love to it until the good Work be begun in their Souls and when God hath begun he will perfect it Phil. 1.6 And will in the mean time accept their ready Mind though they fall short in Performance 2 Cor. 8.12 How abominable then and filthy is man that drinketh up iniquity us water Job 15.16 That cannot practise Holiness because he will not This is their just Condemnation that
Sinai-covenant would have proved to them an occasion of no Happiness but only of sin Despair and Destruction Of it self it was only a killing Letter the ministration of death and condemnation and therefore it is now abolished 2 Cor. 3.6 8 9 11. We have cause to praise God for delivering his Church by the Blood of Christ from this Yoke of Bondage and we have cause to abhor the Device of those that would lay upon us a more grievous and terrible Yoke by turning our very New covenant into a Covenant of sincere works and leaving us no such better Covenant as the Israelites had under their Yoke to relieve us in our Extremity DIRECTION VII We are not to imagine that our hearts and lives must be changed from Sin to Holiness in any measure before we may safely venture to trust on Christ for the sure Enjoyment of himself and his Salvation .. EXPLICATION WE are naturally so prone to ground our Salvation upon our own works that if we cannot make them procuring Conditions and Causes of our Salvation by Christ yet we shall endeavour at least to make them necessary Preparatives to fit us for receiving Christ and his Salvation by Faith And Men are easily perswaded that this is not at all contrary to Salvation by Free-grace because all that is hereby ascribed to our works or good Qualifications is only that they put usin a sit posture to receive a Free gift If we were to go to a Prince for a Free gist good Manners and due Reverence would teach us to trim our selves first and to change our slovenly Clothes as Joseph did when he came out of the Dungeon into the presence of Pharaoh It seemeth to be an impudent slighting and contemning the Justice and Holiness of God and Christ and an insufferable affront and indignity offer'd to the divine Majesty when any dare presume to approach into his Presence in the nasty pickle of his Sins covered all over with putrifying Sores not at all clo'sd boundeup or cleansed much more when they endeavour to receive the most holy One into such an abominable stinking Kennel as a Sinners heart is before it be at all reformed The Parable concerning the Man that was to be bound hand and foot and cast into outer Darkness for coming to the Royal Wedding without a Wedding garment seemeth to be intended as a Warning against all such Presumption Mat. 22.11 13. Many that behold with terrour the abominable Filth of their own hearts are kept off from coming immediately to Christ by such Imaginations which Satan strongly maintaineth and increaseth in them by his Suggestions so that they can by no means be perswaded out of them until God teacheth them inwardly by the powerful Illumination of his Spirit they delay the saving act of Faith because they account that they are not yet duly prepared and qualified for it On the same Account many weak Believers delay coming to the Lord's Supper for many Years together even as long as they live in this World and would be as likely to delay their Baptism if they had not been baptized in Infancy Against all such Imaginations I shall propose the following Considerations First This Error is pernicious to the Practice of Holiness and to our whole Salvation in the same manner with that treated of in the foregoing Direction and may be confuted by the same Arguments which are there produced whether Holiness be made a procuring Condition of our Salvation through Christ or only a Condition necessary to qualifie us for the Reception of Christ we are equally brought under those Legal terms of doing first the Duties required in the Law that so we may live Therefore we are equally bereaved of the Assistance of those means of Holiness mentioned in the foregoing Directions as Union and Fellowship with Christ and the Enjoyment of all his sanctifying Endowments by Faith which should go before the Practice of Holiness that they may enable us for it and we are equally left to labour in vain for Holiness while we are in our cursed natural State whereby our sinsul Corruption will be rather exasperated than mortified so that we shall never be duly prepared for the reception of Christ as long as we live in the world Thus while we endeavour to prepare our way to Christ by holy Qualifications we do rather fill it with stumbling-blocks and deep pits whereby our Souls are hindered from ever attaining to the Salvation of Christ 2dly Any the least change of our hearts and lives from Sin to Holiness before our receiving of Christ and his Salvation by Faith is not at all necessary according to the Terms of the Gospel nor required by any one Syllable in the Word of God Christ would have the vilest Sinners come to him for Salvation immediately without delaying the time to prepare themselves for him When the wicked Jaylor enquired what he must do to be saved Paul directed him forthwith to believe on Christ with a Promise that in so doing he should be saved and straitway he and all his were baptized Acts 16.30 33. Paul doth not tell him that he must reform his heart and life first though he was in a very nasty pickle at that time having but a little before fastened Paul and Silas in the Stocks and newly attempted an horrid wilful self-murder Those three thousand Jews that were converted by Peter's Preaching and added the same day to the Church by Baptism Acts 2.41 seemed to have as much need of some considerable time to prepare themselves for receiving of Christ as others because they had but lately polluted themselves with the Murder of Christ himself v. 23. Christ commands his Servants to go out quickly into the Streets and Lanes of the City and to bring in to his Feast the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind yea to go out into the high ways and to compel them to come in without allowing them to tarry away until they had cleansed the sores and shifted off their filthy rags and swarms of lice Christ would have us to believe on him that justifieth the ungodly and therefore he doth not require us to be godly before we believe Rom. 4.5 He came as a Physician for the Sick and doth not expect that they should recover their Health in the least degree before they come to him Mat. 9.12 The vilest Sinners are fitly prepared and qualified for this Design which is to shew forth the exceeding riches of Grace pardoning our sins and saving us freely Eph. 2.5 7. For this end the Law of Moses entered that the offence might abound that so where sin abounded grace might much more abound Rom. 5.20 He loved us in our most loathsom sinful Pollution so as to die for us and much more will he love us in it so as to receive us when we come to him for the purchased Salvation He hath given full satisfaction to the Justice of God for sinners that they might have all
When the Gentiles heard the Word of God they were glad and as many as were ordained to eternal Life believed The Apostle Paul was constrained by the Love of Christ to give up himself to live to Christ 2 Cor. 4.14 15. I dare appeal to the Experience of any that obey God out of hearty Love let them examine themselves and consider whither they were brought to give up themselves to serve God in love without comfortable apprehensions of the Love of God towards them I dare say there are no such Prodigies in the new Birth Seventhly What comfortless Religion do those make that allow People no comfort before hand to strengthen them for holy Performances that are very cross displeasing and grievous to their natural Inclinations as the plucking out of a right Eye cutting off of a right Hand but would have them first to do such things with love and delight under all their present Fears Despondencies and corrupt Inclinations and to hope that by doing the Work throughly and sincerely they shall at last attain to a more comfortable State All true spiritual Comfort as well as Salvation is indeed quite banished out of the World if it be suspended upon the Condition of our good Works which hath already appeared to be the Condition of the Law that worketh no Comfort but Wrath Rom. 4.15 This makes the ways of Godliness odious to many they think they shall never enjoy a pleasant hour in this World if they walk in them and they had rather comfort themselves with sinful Pleasures then have no Comfort at all Others labour a while in such a comfortless Religion with inward fretting and repining at the Bondage of it and at last grow wearry and throw of all Religion because they know none better They that bind such heavy burthens upon Men and grievous to be born will plead that they are not to be blamed because they do but preach the Gospel of God and Christ whereas indeed they preach a Gospel of Man 's own forging contrary to the nature of the true Gospel of Christ which is glad tidings of great joy to all People Luk. 2.10 An uncomfortable Gospel cannot proceed from God the Father who is the Father of Mercies and the God of all Comfort 2 Cor. 1.3 Nor from Christ who is the Consolation of Israel Luk. 2.25 nor from the Spirit who is the Comforter Joh. 14.16 17. God meeteth him that rejoyceth and worketh Righteousness Isa 64.5 He will be served with gladness and singing as he shewed by the Type of variety of Musick and great numbers of Musicians in the Temple Christ speaks to us by his Gospel that his joy may abide in us and that our joy may be full Job 15.11 No sorrow is approved of by God except Godly sorrow which can never be in us without some comfort of the Love of God towards us They that are offended at the Uncomfortableness of a Religious Life never yet knew the true way of Religion else they would find that the ways of Wisdom arâ— ways of pleasantness and all her Paths peace Prov 3.17 DIRECT X. That we may be prepared by the Comforts of the Gospel to perform sincerely the Duties of the Law we must get some assurance of our Salvation in that very Faith whereby Christ himself is received into our Hearts Therefore me must endeavoar to believe on Christ confidently perswading and assuring our selves in the Act of believing that God freely giveth to us an Interest in Christ and his Salvation according to his gracious Promise EXPLICATION IT is evident that these Comforts of the Gospel that are necessary to an Holy Practice cannot be truly received without some assurance of our Interest in Christ and his Salvation for some of those Comforts consist in a good Perswasion of our reconciliation with God and of our future Heavenly Happiness and of Strength both to will and to do that which is acceptable to God through Christ as hath been before shewed Hence it will clearly follow that this assurance is very necessary to enable us for the Practice of Holiness as those Comforts that must go before the Duties of the Law in order of nature as the Cause goeth before the Effect tho' not in any distance of time My present work is to shew what this assurance is that is so necessary unto Holiness and which I have here asserted that we must act in that very Faith whereby we receive Christ himself into our Hearts even in justifying saving Faith This Doctrine seemeth strange to many that profess themselves Protestants a late days whereas it was formerly highly owned by the chief Protestants whom God made use of to restore the Purity of the Gospel and to maintain it against the Papists for many Years they commonly taught that Faith was a Perswasion or Considence of our own Salvation by Christ and that we must be sure to apply Christ and his Salvation to our selves in believing And this Doctrine was one of the great Engines whereby they prevailed to overthrow the Popish Superstition whereto doubtfulness of Salvation is one of the principal Pillars But many of the Successors of those Protestants have deserted them and left their Writings to be shamefully insulted over by the Papists and this innovation hath been of longer standing amongst us than several other parts of our new Divinity and maintained by those that profess to abhor that corrupt Doctrine which the Papist have built upon such Principles Modern Divines may think they stand upon the Shoulders of their Predecessors whose Labours they enjoy and that they can see farther than they as the School-men might have like thoughts of the ancient Fathers but for all this they may not be able to see so far if the eyes of their Predecessors were better enlightned by the Spirit of God to understand the Mystery of the Gospel and why may we not judge that it is so in the present Case The Eyes of Men in these late Years have been blinded in this point of Assurance by many false Imaginations They think that because Salvation is not promised to us absolutely but upon condition of believing on Christ for it therefore we must first believe directly on Christ for our Salvation and after that we must reflect our Minds upon our Faith and examine it by several Marks and Signs especially by the Fruit of sincere Obedience and if upon this examination we find out certainly that it is true saving Faith then and not before we may believe assuredly that we in particular shall be saved On this account they say that our Salvation is by the direct and our assurance by the reflect act of Faith and that many have true Faith and shall be saved that never have any assurance of their Salvation as long as they live in this World they find by Scripture and Experience that many precious Saints of God are frequently troubled with doubtings whither they shall be saved and whither their Faith and Obedience
be laid down and cleared out of the Text and confirmed particularly and then I shall make use of them all together Observ I. They who are justified are Sinners such who are come short of the Glory of God i. e. of God's Approbation Joh. 5.44 of Gods Image of Holiness 2 Cor. 3.1 Eph. 4.24 Eternal Happiness 1 Thess 2.12 Rom. 5.2 2 Cor. 4.17 1. The Law condemns all Sinners and strikes them dead as with a Thunderbolt Rom. 3.20 and adjudgeth them to Shame Confusion and Misery instead of Glory and Happiness by the strict terms of it Rom. 2.6 9.11 12. which none fulfils neither can do Rom. 8.7 neither Jews nor Gentiles there is no hope if free Grace restore them not 2. Christ came only to save Sinners and died for this end Rom. 5.6 when we were yet without strength in due time Christ dyed for the Ungodly and 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners of whom I am the chief Mat. 9.13 I am not come to call the Righteous but Sinners to Repentance Mat. 18.11 The Son of man is come to save that which is lost And God must be believed on to Salvation as a God that justifieth the Ungodlsy he must believe as one that worketh not on him that justifieth the Ungodly Rom. 4.5 Observ II. Sinners of all sorts without difference whether Jews or Gentiles that believe are the Subjects of this Justification This is the Scope of the Apostle to shew that whereas Jews and Gentiles were universally condemned by the Light and Law of Nature or the Law written so the Righteousness of God is upon them all that believe ver 21 22. without difference This was a great point to be defended against the Jews in the Apostles times who appropriated Justification to themselves in a legal way and such were Proselites to the Law and Circumcision and therefore the Apostle Paul vehemently urged it Rom. 10.11 12. and it was a point newly revealed to the Apostles that the Gentiles might be accepted without turning Jews and much prized as a very Glorious Revelation Act. 10.28 45. Eph. 3.4 5 18. Col. 1.25 26 27. and it is confirmed 1. Because notwithstanding the Jews priviledg of the Law by reason of breaking the law they had as much need of Free Justification as the Gentiles and no worthyness above the Gentiles by their works but rather greater sinners Rom. 2.23 24. and when there is equal need and worth God might righteously justify one as well as another Rom. 3.9 2. God is the God of the Gentiles as well as the Jews Rom. 3.29 as he promised Rom. 13.9 12. Gal. 3.8 Isa 19.25 Zach. 14.9 3. Abraham was justified before he was circumcised that he might be the Father of those that believe though uncircumcised that they might inherit the same Blessing Rom. 4.10 11 12. 4. This will appear further by shewing that Justification is only by Faith and without dependance upon the Law meerly by the righteousness of another and so Jews and Gentiles are alike capable of it Observ III. That the Justifier or efficient cause of Justification is God It 's an Act of God Rom. 8.33 It is God that justifieth he only can justify Authoritatively and Irreversibly 1. Because he is the Lawgiver and hath power to save and destroy Jam. 4.12 this Case concerns God's Law and can only be tried at his Tribunal he is the Judge of the World Gen. 18.25 It is a small worthless thing to be justified by Man or by our selves meerly 1 Cor. 4.3 4. 2. To Him the Debt of suffering for Sin and acting Righteousness is owed And therefore he only can give a discharge for payment or release of the Debtor Psal 51.4 Mar. 2.7 Observ IV. God Justifieth Souls freely by his Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 freely by his Grace one of these Expressions had been enough but this redoubling of it sheweth the Importance of the truth to quicken our attention the more Here is the Impulsive cause of Justification and his free manner of bestowing it accordingly And this signifies Gods free undeserved Favour in opposition to any works of our Righteousness whereby it might be challenged as a Debt to us Rom. 4.4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt Chap. 11.6 if by Grace then it is no more of works otherwise Grace is no more Grace but if it be of Works then it is no more Grace otherwise Work is no more Work Eph. 2.8 9. By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God Not of works least any man should boast 2 Tim. 1.9 Who hath saved us and called us with an Holy Calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which he hath given us in Christ Jesus before the World began Ver. 10. But is now made manifest by the appearing c. Grace is mercy and love shewed freely out of Gods proper motion shewing mercy because he will shew mercy and loving us because he will love us Rom. 9.15 and this is confirmed 1. Because there was not nor is any thing in us but what might move God to condemn us for we have all sinned Eph. 2.3 Ezek. 16.6 2. Because God would take away boasting and have his Grace Glorified and Exalted in our Salvation He will have all the Praise and Glory though we have the Blessedness Eph. 2.7 9. that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ and so Rom. 3.27 Observ V. God Justifieth Sinners through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth for a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood This is the effecting means or material cause of our Justification viz. Redemption and Propitiation through the Blood of Christ which is the Righteousness of God treasured up in him By Redemption is meant properly such a deliverance as is by paying of a Price and so the Words Redeem and Redemption are frequently used Exod. 13.13 Numb 3.48 49 51. Lev. 5.24 51 52. Jer. 32.7 8 Neh. 5.8 from this proper Signification it is borrowed to signifie a deliverance without Price Luke 21.28 Eph. 1.14 Chap 4.30 or rather by a Metonimy of the Cause put for the highest effect the state of Glory so that state of Glory is called Redemption as being the compleating and crowning effect of Christs Redemption therefore it 's called the purchased Possession By a Propitiation is meant that which appeaseth the wrath of God for Sin and wins his Favour and this Propitiation of Christ was two ways typified First in the propitiatory Sacrifices whose Blood was shed and the Mercy-seat which was called the Propitiation because it covered the Ark wherein was the Law and the Blood of the Sacrifices for Atonement was sprinkled by the High Priest before it and