or have all the force of a law in his members vers 23. That he sins against his own conscience For what he doth that he allows not but what in his own mind he hates and disapproves that he doth vers 15.19 That to do good although he might wish or approve it he found not v. 18. That he stands in need to cry out O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death being as yet not rescued from it but labouring under it vers 25. Of the regenerate elsewhere That as for their members they yield them not to be instruments unto sin but unto righteousness because now since their regeneration into true Christians Sin is not to reign in their mortal bodies that they should obey it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. In becoming Christians they are dead and crucified with Christ that the body of sin might not be maintained to live and rule in them but destroyed that thenceforward they should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin vers 6 7. The Gospel of Christ or the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath not enslaved but freed them from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 So that sin now shall not have dominion over them because they are not under the law through the weakness whereof it tyrannized but under Grace Rom. 6.14 That their body is dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 And that they make no provision for the flesh to fulfill and accomplish the lusts or concupiscence thereof Rom. 13.14 Because if they should they would cease to be sons of God and heirs of happiness and be rendred obnoxious to misery and death For the plain declaration of Christs Gospel concerning the heirs of life and death is this If you live after the flesh in accomplishing its lusts you shall die and 't is only if you through the spirit instead of acting and compleating do kill and mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 That against them there is no condemning force of any law Galat. 5.23 For the law of the spirit of life hath not left them still enslaved but made them free from the law of sin and death too Rom. 8.2 And being become the servants of God they have their fruit not to sin and death but to holiness at present and the end thereof at length everlasting life Rom. 6.22 That their bodies or fleshly members are temples of the Holy Ghost and sacred places wherein it inhabits and that they glorifie God in their bodies as well as in their spirits seeing both are Gods 1 Cor. 6.19 20. That they hold faith and a good conscience without which of faith in dangerous times they would soon make shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 And that they are saved by the answer of a good conscience which comforts and applauds but cannot accuse them 1 Pet. 3.21 That he only who doth good is of God 3 Joh. 11. and that there is no condemnation to them who do and walk after the spirit Rom. 8.1 And that without these new fruits it is in vain to lay any claim to a new nature because as our Saviour sayes if men were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham Joh. 8.39 That the body of sin is already destroyed in them that henceforth they should not serve sin which the other complains so much of Rom. 6.6 For they are delivered from the law upon occasion of the weakness whereof sin brought forth in them fruits unto death to serve now in newness of Spirit Rom. 7.5 So that what the weak ineffective law could not do for them that the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord hath done in an effectual deliverance of them v. 25. So that if we will take the word of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles in this matter we must needs believe that regenerate men and heirs of heaven are not in any wise such persons as are described in that seventh Chapter to the Romans there being no agreement or resemblance at all between them Their tempers and behaviour are utterly inconsistent and as far distant as Heaven and Hell For one serves and fulfills the lusts of his flesh the other crucifies and subdues them one yields his members servants unto sin the other unto righteousness one is made a perfect captive and sold under sin the other is made free from it one is forced to act against his conscience the other alwayes acts according to it one complains of being oppressed by the body of death the other rejoyceth in being deliver'd from it one can perform and do no good the other doth all good one brings forth fruit unto death the other to eternal life These with others that might be mention'd are the lines of difference and the contrary characters of the person represented in the seventh Chapter to the Romans and the regenerate man described by S t Paul himself in all his other Epistles and in the following and foregoing Chapters of this By all which it appears that they are descriptions contradictory and incompatible which cannot at the same time be affirmed of the same man And that to give such an account of a regenerate man as is there set down would not in all appearance be the way to describe but rather slanderously to libel and revile him If any therefore enquire now how I know that S t Paul doth not speak of himself in that Chapter nor of any other regenerate person but of an unregenerate man who is yet in the state of death and sin he has his Answer full and undeniable already I know he doth not mean so because he cannot mean so the things which he sayes not bearing to be so understood For that meaning would make his speech to be no Apostolical Truth but an open falsehood it would make S t Paul inconsistent with himself and to unsay at one time what he had said most peremptorily at another It would make him flatly to gainsay all that he has taught elsewhere yea even what he had affirm'd almost in the same breath in the foregoing and the following Chapters So that he cannot be understood of himself or of any other regenerate person but must be allow'd according to his usual custome in such odious topicks as this was to speak all in a borrowed disguise and in the person of a sinfull and a lost man For indeed to be yet more particular all that discourse in that seventh Chapter is not meant either of S t Paul or of any other regenerate Christian but of a struggling and contending although yet unconquering and unregenerate Jew For the Apostle is there describing the state not of a perfect debauch nor of a perfect Saint but of a middle man He is one whose Conscience is awaken'd for he delights in the Law of God after the inner man of his mind and reason vers 22. and when he
things relating to our last doom and shewâ—â—â—oth what in the Judgment shall be indispensably required to our salvation what Defects do not overthrow but consist with it what Remedies when 't is wounded or lost can heal and restore us to it and what and of how great consideration those things really are which being wrong understood do often create causless fears and jealousies in good peoples minds about it Having I say clearly accounted for all these I suppose I may think I have said enough to shew men their Future State and fairly take leave of this Argument BOOK I. Of the indispensable condition of happiness in the general CHAP. I. Of Obedience the general condition of happiness The CONTENTS Obedience the indispensable condition of happiness The Laws of the Gospel are given as a Rule to it The Promises are all upon condition of it and intended to encourage it All the threatnings are now denounced and will be executed upon the disobedient Of those other things whereto Pardon is promised as well as to obedience Of Metonymy's Of the Principles of Humane Actions Of Principles of Obedience All those speeches metonymical where obedience is not express'd and yet pardon is promised THat Condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of Bliss or Misery is in the General our Obedience When we are brought to that Bar and stand to be judged according to those Laws which are proclaim'd to us in the Gospel it is only our having kept them and Repented of all such transgressions of them as we have wilfully been guilty of which can capacitate us to be rewarded by them For 't is just with them as it is with all other Laws they never promise any thing but to obedience but threaten and punish all that disobey Whosoever breaks and despises them is guilty they do not comfort but accuse not acquit but condemn him For there is no Law that is wisely ordered but is sufficiently guarded against affront and back'd with such punishments as will make it every mans interest to fulfil and keep it The evil threatned must always by far exceed the pleasure that is reaped by disobedience so that no man may have any temptation sufficient to bear him out in Sin or ever hope to be a gainer by his transgression This is the tenour of all wise laws whose enactors have both wit and power sufficient to defend them They have dreadful Punishments annexed to them which take place upon disobedience they encourage and reward the obedient but severely punish all that dare presume to disobey And this is most eminently seen in all the Laws of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He gave them for the compleatest Rules to mens Lives and has annexed to them most glorious Promises to encourage our obedience but has made them breath out nothing but woes and intolerable punishments to all that disobey He has given them for Rules of Life and annexed Rewards as encouragements to obedience He never intended his Laws for an entertainment of our eyes but for a Rule for our Actions not for a matter of talk and discourse but of practice not to be complemented by words of honour and lofty expressions but to be own'd in our lives and served by obedience He is our King and issues out his Laws as the instruments of his Government he is our Lord and they are Rulers for his Service They must be guides of our Lives and Actions it is not enough to know and talk of them but as ever we hope to live by them we must do and keep them For in the end they will be available to no mans happiness but his who has conscientiously performed them In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion says S t Paul nothing avails but keeping of the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 Blessed are they saith S t John who do the Commandments for they only have right to the Tree of Life Rev. 22.14 It is not an idle wish or ineffectual endeavour but a thorough practice and performance of Christs Laws which can continue us in his Love and approve us Righteous in his Judgment If ye keep my Commandments says he ye shall abide in my Love Joh. 15.10 Let no man deceive you for it is he only that doth Righteousness who in Gods account is Righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 They only are pronounced Righteous and Sons of God in the Gospels estimation who walk after the spirit Rom. 8.4 who are led by the spirit vers 14. who bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit all words expressing Action and Practice Gal. 5 16-22 No man therefore will be acquitted and rewarded at that Bar barely for knowing and discoursing for wishing or desiring but only for working and obeying Such only the Gospel reckons for true servants now his servants ye are not whom you confess in words but whom in actions you obey Rom. 6.16 And such only he will honour and reward then For it is not every one who fawns upon me in his words whilest he reproaches me in his actions who says unto me Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he only who doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Which will he had just then proclaim'd to them in that Volume of Christian Laws which was published in the Sermon upon the Mount whereof this is in part the conclusion Matt. 7.21 He tells us that when the Son of Man shall come to judgment he will reward every man according to his works Matt. 16.27 and he repeats it again in his declaration to S t John Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22.12 And so it was in that Prophetick sight of the Last Judgment which this same Apostle had vouchsafed him Rev. 20. For there as we are told when the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it and Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and they all both small and great stood before the Throne and him that sate thereon they were judged every man according to his WORKS vers 11 12 13. His Laws then Christ has given us not for talk and discourse but for action and practice and his Promises he has annexed to them not as rewards of idleness but only of active service and obedience Wherein if men fail Gods Rewards belong not to them they can make no claim or colourable pretence to them because they cannot show that which is to be rewarded by him Nay further if men disobey they are not only excluded from all glorious hopes but are moreover put into a desperate state of fears and dreadful expectations For God has back'd his Laws with threatnings as well as promises and as they propose most noble rewards to all that are obedient so likewise do they breath out most intolerable punishments to all that disobey
but the whole man consisting of Soul as well as Body which Laws are given as a Guide to So that a ravished Matron if only her Body suffered and there was no concurrence of her own consent to it is as chast and unpolluted in God's account and in the censure of the Law as is the purest Virgin And therefore it was a great truth whereby Collatinus and Brutus went about to comfort the poor destowred Lucretia in Livy It is the mind say they which sins and not the Body so that in those actions wherein there is nothing of will and deliberation there is likewise no fault or transgression And this Case is expresly thus determined Deut. 22. For in the Case of the ravished Damsel whose will was no way consenting to it but who did all that she could against it it is expresly ordered that to her there is nothing to be done by way of punishment because in her there is no sin worthy of death for like as when one man is slain by another even so is this case she is not acting but suffering in it ver 26. As for him indeed who chose thus to force us 't is true that the Law will interpret what is done by our Bodies as his action because he freely chose so to compel us Our bodily Members which were forced by him were his instruments and not our own for he it was and not we ourselves who ordered and directed them We were the same in his hands as a Sword is in the hand of a man viz. the Instrument only but not the Agent So that what was done by us is not our own but his who was pleased so to make use of us In him therefore the unlawful action being willed and chosen is really a sin and transgression But in us since it was not our own it is looked upon as none There is nothing charged upon our account for it more than if it had never been done because we did not act but suffer it had nothing of our own will and therefore it can be no Article of our condemnation So much of any action therefore as is forced viz. the outward bodily operation in the estimate of good and evil of vice and vertue is of no account to us whatever it be to others because it is not our own For to make any action ours it must proceed not from our Bodies but from our selves who have Souls as well as Bodies it must come from the will within as well as from the body without and as for our will it self 't is plain that it can never be made to chuse involuntarily by force since it is not subject to any forcible violence and compulsion But although those actions which we exert our selves and wherein we are not merely passive instruments in the hands of others cannot be made involuntary by any force from without upon the will it self yet may they become so from something else within us For our wills are not the only internal Principle of humane actions but several others concur with them whereby their choice it self is influenced Our wills indeed chuse and command our actions but then our passions move and our understandings direct and carry away our very wills themselves So that they are set in a middle Station being subject to be acted upon and hurried away by some as well as they are impowered to command and govern others 1. Mens wills are subject to be violently acted by their passions which hurry them on to consent to those things which are both without and against their habitual liking and inclination When any passion is grown too strong for them although they are afraid to act that sin which it hales them to yet can they not withstand it For the Law of sin in the Members is of more force with them and prevails more over them than the Law of God in the mind So that although they have several exceptions against it they are not for all that able to refuse it but they are overcome by it and yield at last to act it though unwillingly and to fulfil it though with trouble and regret Now here is an unwillingness 't is true and things are done which otherwise would not be done because the power of mens lusts and passions is so strong that their wills cannot restrain them For all the interest which the contrary motives of Reason and Religion can make against them is not able to contend with them They can and do effect something indeed so as that the will when it doth consent to them doth it not fully and freely with perfect ease and pleasure but unwillingly with fear and reluctance But yet that which they do is not enough for the other side prevails and the will is not able to hold out but yields at last to fulfil the lust and to act the sin still But now although this be some sort of involuntariness yet is it not that which will excuse our transgressions and make all those sins which we commit under it to be esteemed consistent slips and pardonable infirmities For this state of unwilling Sinners as we heard above is no state of mercy but a state of death It is the state which S t Paul describes in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans viz. a state of captivity and slavery under sin ver 14 23 and thereupon a state of misery and death ver 24. All the Grace which Christs Gospel allows to it is a Grace of deliverance a Grace that shall help us out of it and rescue us from it In this state of weakness and infirmity Christ found us For whilst we were yet without strength to help our selves saith S t Paul Christ dyed for us Rom. 5.6 But now since he has dyed for us he will not leave us in it but rescue and deliver us out of it For now he having dyed for us we are likewise to reckon our selves to be dead indeed unto sin for him that it should no longer master and prevail over us to reign in our mortal bodies so far as that we should fulfil the lusts thereof Rom. 6.11 12. And as for our bodily members which are the Stage whereon our lusts and passions reign we are to yield them up now not any longer instruments of unrighteousness unto the service of sin but instruments of righteousness unto the service of God ver 13. If therefore we are truly Christians and such as Christ came to make us upon our becoming which he has procured Grace and pardon for us we are not enslaved and led Captives by our passions but have conquered and subdued them This S t Paul affirms expresly For they that are Christ's says he have crucified the flesh with the passions or affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 But then besides our lusts and passions which although they do make some cannot yet effect a pardonable unwillingness there still remains one cause more which may
any of these Failings will deprive us of that which Christs Gospel will construe to be a perfect and intire obedience they do not destroy a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it And all these allowances the Gospel makes to our sinful actions besides some others to our thoughts and desires which are sin only in an imperfect birth and not yet arrived to the guilt of a compleat transgression as I shall have a fit occasion to show in answering of those groundless doubts and scruples that perplex good and honest but weak minds which shall hereafter follow But the great Condition of the Gospel being nothing less than an intire Obedience and the generality of men being so maimed and defective in obeying what shall become of them For who is there but at one time or other has willingly transgressed some of those Laws which I have described and therefore if the Curse take place upon every wilful offence then wo be to all Mankind And so indeed it would if Christ had not taken pity on us and come into the World for this very purpose that he might succour and relieve us But the very end of his coming amongst us was to find out a remedy for all these evils He came to rescue us from the Curse of the Law and to procure for us new Terms and put us into a capacity of Pardon So that whatsoever his Laws threaten or whatsoever we have committed yet are we still secure from suffering if we make use of his remedy i. e. if we repent of it as shall appear in the next Book BOOK V. Of those Remedies which restore men to a state of Salvation when they are fallen from it and of some needless Scruples concerning it CHAP. I. Of Repentance which restores us to Gods Favour after Sins of all sorts The CONTENTS The Rigour of the Mosaick Law is taken away by Christ who came to preach Pardon upon Repentance where that denounced an unavoidable punishment Repentance is the great Remedy God heartily desires mens Repentance and promises Forgiveness to it This has been preached in all times The Remedy for our unknown sins They are uncapable of a particular Prayer and Repentance but are forgiven upon a general one The Remedy of wilful sins is a particular Repentance That is available for their pardon for wilful sins after Baptism as well as before it Two places which seem to deny all pardon to wilful sins after Baptism cleared the wilful sin Heb 10.26 is not any wilful transgression of any particular Law of Christ which have all been pardoneâ— but a wilful Apostasie from his whole Religion which is proved from sundry things there spoken of it The falling away mentioned Heb. 6 is likewise Apostasie from Christianity which is shewn from those things which they are said to fall from and those others which are said to be implied in their falling An account of the desperate state of these men The state of some habitual Sinners desperate and irreclaimable by reason their period of Grace is over but this is no discouragement to any mans Repentance HAving hitherto insisted largely upon that Integrity of Obedience which the Gospel indispensably requires of every man to his Salvation and upon those Defects which either destroy or consist with it I proceed now to inquire what Remedies it directs us to for recovering a state of Grace and Favour when at any time we happen to fall from it Among the Jews according to the strictness of the Law of Moses the punishment took place upon the first wilful breach and therefore in those Laws which were established under pain of death when it appeared by sufficient evidence that any man was guilty of the wilful transgression of them the Sentence was unavoidable and the man dyed without mercy He that despised Moses's Law saith the Apostle if it were in an instance whereto the Law threatned death dyed without mercy being convicted under the hands of two or three witnesses Heb. 10.28 A man that had committed Murder or Adultery or any other crime whereof Death was the established Penalty was to dye without all remedy for no Sacrifice would be accepted for him nor would the Law admit of any favour or dispensation And therefore David when he made his Penitential Psalm for murdering Vriah and adulterating his Wife expresses the Legal unpardonableness of his offence in these words thou desirest not sacrifice else would I give it but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings for such sins as I stand guilty of No my crimes are of that nature for which any man less than a King should dye and such wherefore no Sacrifice will be accepted Psal. 51.16 This was the rigour of that Political Law which God imposed upon the Jews by Moses those punishments that were threatned by it which were temporal and of this World were irreversible when once they were incurred But when Christ came into the World his business was to give Laws of a much more gracious nature which would admit of a Salvo for every sin and offer men a remedy which if they did but use although they had transgressed they should not suffer punishment This gracious Covenant whose Promises and Rewards are future and to be enjoy'd in the next World was published more or less ever since Adam For by the Grace of this all the holy Patriarchs hoped for pardon and by it likewise all the Good men among the Jews when they should be brought to Gods Tribunal in the next World hoped to be forgiven But the Promulgation of it under Moses was dark and obscure and lay hid in great measure and almost buried under the crowd of the rigid and inexorable Laws of the Mosaick Covenant But when Christ came into the World his Errand was to abrogate all the rigour of Moses's Law and to preach an universal Pardon upon Repentance And of this he gave them a clear instance in the case of the Woman who was taken in the very act of Adultery Moses say they and that very truly commanded us in his Law that such should be stoned but what sayest thou Joh. 8.5 But his Sentence was Go and sin no more and then will not I condemn thee v. 11 which was a fit sentence for that Religion whereby they should be justified from all those things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. 13.39 Whatsoever it was therefore under the rigour of the meer Law of Moses under the Religion and Law of Christ our case is not become quite desperate and irrecoverable upon the first offence It is not every wilful sin and much less our slips of ignorance and inconsideration which can for ever exclude us from the Favour of God and incapacitate us for his Mercy No the Religion of Christ is not a Religion that seeks advantages of us and shuts us up close Prisoners of Damnation as soon as we are guilty of any thing which may deserve it
is no avoiding of it For the Laws of God which are impositions superinduced upon our Natures by their prohibitions make several of our most natural appetites and desires themselves to be sinful the lusts of the Flesh making up a good part of the prohibitions of the Gospel But although God by his after-prohibition has made them sinful yet from that natural necessity which he had laid upon us before we cannot live intirely free from them For our Flesh will lust and make offers after such things as are naturally fitted to its liking and we cannot help it because our Bodies so long as they are conversant among the things of this World from their natural frame and constitution will still be delighted with some things to crave and desire and pained by others to hate and abhor them This I say is natural whilst there is any life and sense in our Bodies the good and evil things of the world must of necessity thus sensibly affect them and where they are affected with pleasure there 't is natural for them to desire as where they feel pain 't is natural for them to abhor the thing which occasions and produces it These first lustings then and cravings after forbidden things are natural and were made necessary before the prohibition came to make them sinful And if by an after-Law men shall be condemned for being sensibly affected with outward things or for having a sudden lust and inclination after them upon their being so sensibly affected with them then shall they be condemned for what they could not help and dye for not performing impossibilities But God neither can nor doth make any Laws which exact things so rigorous He punishes nothing in us but what proceeded from our own will nor exacts an account of us for our natural lusts and inclinations further than they are subject to our own choice and free disposal If a sudden fear or an unclean desire arise up in the heart of an holy man from the presence of outward objects or inward imaginations and the natural temper of his Blood and Spirits he shall not be put to answer for it because he could not prevent it He could no more hinder it than he can hinder the beating of his heart or the motion of his blood seeing it was no free work of his will but a natural effect of his temper And to be condemned for that is to suffer for having flesh and blood as well as Reason and Spirit and to undergo punishment for being made up of Body as well as Soul for being a man and not an Angel As for several things indeed which follow upon the first suggestion of a prohibited object and upon the first lusting after it they are not the effects of nature but of our own choice For though a fancy of evil and a sudden lusting after it from its fansied agreeableness may obtrude it self upon us whether we will or no either by chance or by occasion of a temptation yet a continued entertainment of it and a stay upon it in our imaginations to cherish lust and inflame desire cannot come upon us but by our own liking and connivence For as soon as ever we can observe them our thoughts are our own to dispose of how and upon what we please The first thought 't is true is not always in our power to hinder because many times it comes upon us e're we can observe it For our souls as I have sometimes said are souls in flesh and make use of our bodily powers in their most spiritual operations being linked so fast to them as that they cannot but communicate and be affected with them But then the stay upon it and the continued attention to it in after-entertainment is a thing that cannot be so suddenly forced upon us but we give way to it only when and how long we our selves please So that whatsoever the first fancy and desire of evil was the after-entertainment is our own seeing it came not from any necessity of nature but from the free determination or connivence of our own will But yet even these after-thoughts and inclinations after forbidden things are not always an Article of our condemnation but then only when we consent to them or practise and fulfil them For if the forbidden thing is only fansied in our minds and craved by our appetites but has got no consent of our hearts nor any endeavours of our lives and actions according to the gracious terms of that Gospel whereby we must stand or fall it is not yet come within the terrours of Judgment nor has made us liable to Death and Hell For the evil and danger of our bodily desires we must know is the evil and danger of a temptation When our appetites desire what the prohibition has made evil and our Spirits on the other side declare what the Commandment has made good then is the time of temptation or tryal whether our wills are resolved to stick to our lusts or to our Duty and whether they will prefer God or sin And herein lyes the great danger of our natural appetites for although in themselves they are not deadly and damning to any man otherwise good yet are they traps and snares to deadly and damning sins In themselves I say to any Christian man who is otherwise good and vertuous our natural appetites are not deadly and damning The lusting and inclination of our Flesh after Meats and Drinks and after ease and pleasures and the lusting of the eye after gain and riches are not absolutely and directly forbidden or in themselves and before they have got any further an Article of our condemnation No all the desires of the Flesh are naturally necessary some to preserve our own persons and some to the preservation and propagation of Mankind This God himself has made and he allows of it It is no mans sin to have a stomach to his meat or to have desires after ease and a fleshly inclination after bodily pleasures because God has so framed our Bodies that they should and therefore he cannot be angry with us if we do desire them Indeed he has not left these desires to their own swing but has put several restraints upon them he has bound them up from some objects and in some degrees For we are forbid to desire and lust after meat and drink ease and pleasure riches and plenty when either we are injurious to other men in procuring that which we lust after or when we are excessive and intemperate in the use of it or for its sake transgress any other Commandment Our desires of meat and drink for instance must not carry us on to excessive measures in gluttony and drunkenness our carnal lusts must not draw us on to act them with undue objects in fornication adultery rapes or other prohibited uncleannesses and our desire of money must not betray us into thefts or robberies fraud and circumvention extortion and oppression niggardliness uncharitableness