the Manifestation of his Glory in his Aversion from Sin for As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the Death of a Sinner He hath no Pleasure in the Misery of his Creature It is another Mistake of Guilt and Punishment that it is a Debt whereby the Sinner is obliged to undergo the Punishment It may be called a Debt as it is called a Prison or a Bondage neither is the Satisfaction for Sin properly a Payment For if it were a Debt a Criminal should be obliged in Justice to offer himself to pay that Debt which yet not only he ought not but he may not do Neither doth a Judg proceed to Punishment as receiving a Debt from the Criminal but by his own Authority If Christ's Satisfaction for Sin were a Payment it would follow that no Man should mourn for Sin because Christ having satisfied there remained no more Debt or Guilt of Sin which hath driven many into that pernicious Error whence they are called Antinomians and it would highly derogate from the Goodness of God if he did only take that Payment from the Cautioner that was due by the principal Debtor But if the Satisfaction be by manifesting God's Abhorrence of Sin it gives great Light to Christ's Satisfaction interceding for Sinners and offering that the Father should manifest as much of his Abhorrence of Sin upon him as if all Mankind had been made eternally miserable that as the second Adam he might make them all capable of Salvation and the Elect secured in it The Judicial Justice of God is that which he exerciseth as Judg of all the World which stands not only in Rewards and Punishments but also in giving every rational Creature its Right or its own whether it be by retaining the Rights they have without Molestation or by attaining these which they possess not God would never suffer any rational Creature to want its Right to give it to any other Creature if it were not for Sin Judicial Justice calling the Party that he may be heard if he have any thing can be said and that the Fact must be proved is implied in the Nature of it and morally necessary which the great Judg of the World observes by himself or by his Deputies By himself he called Adam and Eve and asked first Adam Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee thou shouldst not eat and he heard his weak Plea and the Man said The Woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the Tree and I did eat Then he called the Woman and said to her What is this that thou hast done and he heard also her Plea who said The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat In these Accusations there was both the Law adduced and applied to the Fact violating it and the Proof by their own judicial Confession both their Pleas were rejected and just Judgment pronounced against them but immediately a Mediator was intimated and thereby hope of Mercy When Cain killed his Brother Abel before God pronounced Sentence against him he calls him saying What hast thou done The Voice of thy Brother's Blood crieth unto me from the Ground There is the Proof the Blood being yet fresh upon the Ground Cain makes no Defence therefore God pronounceth this Sentence Thou art accursed a Fugitive and a Vagabond shalt thou be on the Earth yet even to Cain there was something of Favour admixed for God spared the Temporal Judgment by Death by his sole Prerogative and therefore he set a Mark upon Cain to prohibit all to execute the just Sentence of Death against him the Justice whereof Cain acknowledged saying that every one that findeth me shall slay me which could not import an unwarrantable Revenge as if all Men would be wicked to multiply Slaughter without Warrant God's Judicial Justice by his Deputies is chiefly by Man's own Conscience which both accuses them proves against them and condemns them for all their Faults until it be seduced or seared and then often God delays his Judgment till the Soul 's appearing before him after Death but sometimes he executes his Judgment by Men without Warrant sometimes by other Accidents and frequently by Judges deriving Authority from him who therefore ought to follow the Rule and Pattern he hath given them condemning no Man till they had called him to answer for himself and giving him time and freedom to offer all his Defences and adducing sufficient Proof of the Fact charged against him MEDITATION XV. Upon the Mercy of God MY Thoughts in my last Meditation upon the Punitive Justice of God and the Miseries thence arising lead me to consider the Mercy of God which presupposes Misery as the Object of it The Mercy of God is a part and kind of his Goodness but is a special kind of Goodness presupposing Misery therefore I could not distinctly consider it till I considered the Misery arising from God's Justice The Goodness of God which presupposes not Misery is more properly called his Bounty or Benignity in Benevolence or Beneficence If Adam had not fallen God's advancing him from an Animal to an Angelical Estate had been an Act of free Beneficence and Bounty but no Act of Mercy for then Adam had never been miserable Yet Mercy doth not always consider Misery as pre-existent or as seen present or past but as foreseen which would come to pass if it were not prevented by Mercy and this is properly called Preventing Mercy in contradiction to that which is called Healing or Curing Mercy As Physicians use preventing Medicines when they foresee the latent Causes of the Disease that would come if these Causes were not removed as well as healing Medicines to remove the Disease incumbent the preventing Medicines are more useful tho less sensible than the other So are God's preventing Mercies God foresaw Adam's Fall and the ensuing Misery to himself and his Posterity and on the Foresight and Consideration thereof decreed to send his Son into the World to assume the Nature of Man and in it to suffer Death and expiate his Justice and to satisfy his Abhorrency of Sin This Decree was preventing Mercy not designed to prevent the Existence of Sin but to prevent the Incurableness of it when it should exist and to prevent the Evil of Punishment which would befal the Sinner and to prevent the height and eternal Continuance of it whereby Infants and Idiots never commit Sin and those who are saved do never commit Sin after the State of Mortality God doth also cure Sin after its Existence not only absolutely in Glory but in part in Mortality removing the Rage and reigning Power of it Mercy is one of the natural innate Principles in Man common to all Men who so far arrive to Discretion as that they can discern the Misery of a Rational Creature which worketh like an Instinct upon the view of the Object without reasoning and with such Propension that tho oftentimes they would they cannot forbear Those who
if they continued sinless during the time of their Trial But tho innocent Adam was capable of Merit by improving the Holiness God gave him yet so great a Reward as God promised him upon his Persistance was not a Reward of meer Debt but of Grace so that only the Covenant of Grace is of meer Grace without any thing of Merit in the Elect. Therefore as Faith in the Covenant of Grace is only the Manner freely chosen of God so Persistance in Obedience was the Manner freely chosen of God in the Covenant of Works So then the clearest way of taking up the Covenant of Grace is that Christ by his Humiliation and Suffering did so fully vindicate the Purity of God and his Justice that thereupon God might have forgiven the Sins of the whole World and of every individual Man and he did exclude none from Mercy but malicious and obstinate Sinners that rejected the Motions of Conversion and the Offers of Grace but did even include some of these and that he advanced the Elect to Celestial Glory upon Christ's entire fulfilling of his Law being also as the Manner freely chosen for the Covenant of Grace as Adam's Performance was for the Covenant of Works and so not only Christ's Passive Obedience is imputed to Believers but his Active Obedience as the Terms of the Covenant and so the exceeding superabundant Grace of the Goodness of God is manifested not only in accepting the Expiation of Sin by a Mediator but in giving to the Elect Glory freely as a Reward by Grace and not of Debt whereby the Difficulties on both Hands in the forementioned Controversy do evanish If Christ's Sufferings had been properly a Payment of the Debt of Sin it could have had no effect in relation to the Reprobate nor could they have been restored to a possibility of Salvation nor could God complain of the Hardness of their Hearts For if Christ had suffered as to pay the Debt of Sin he could not have paid the Debt of those that were to perish or else God had exacted that Debt of them which Christ had paid nor should Christ have suffered more than what were sufficient to pay the Debt of the Elect only whereas all agree that his Sufferings were sufficient for the Sins of the whole World but being conceived as the Vindication of God's Aversion from Sin he not only saved the Elect but stopt the Mouths of the Reprobate and Damned and made them inexcusable so that their own Conscience will condemn them and be their perpetual Tormentor that they have thrown themselves into Hell when they might have escaped if it had not been their own deserving fault This way doth far more illustrate to my Soul the infinitely amiable Representation of God both in his Grace and his Justice than any other way that I can apprehend in which I am exceedingly confirmed by that excellent Parallel of the first and second Adam held so clearly forth to the Romans by the blessed Apostle of the Gentiles saying Death reigned from Adam to Moses even in them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's Transgression who is the Figure or Type of him that was to come that is of Christ. Where the similitude of Adam's Transgression distinguishing it from others is that by it the whole Benefit of the Covenant was lost not only to himself but to all his Posterity For if through the Offence of one Man many be dead much more the Grace of God and the Gift by Grace which is by one Man Jesus Christ bath abounded unto many If then Adam was a Type of Christ certainly it was not in that he sinned and lost his Posterity but in this that as if he had continued obedient to God he had brought himself and his Posterity to Glory and as his bringing them to Glory were not by Merit but by fulfilling the Terms of the Covenant of Works so Christ's bringing the Elect to Glory is by fulfilling the whole Will of God as his part of the Terms of the Covenant of Grace The same Apostle to the Corintbians makes the Type and Parallel yet more clear For since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead And so it is written the first Man Adam was made a living Soul the last Man Adam was made a quickning Spirit But seeing the second Adam not only performed the Terms of Salvation by Obedience but hath expiated Sin by his Suffering therefore it is said For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by the means of Death for the Redemption of the Transgressions that were under the first Covenant they which are called might receive the Promise of Eternal Inheritance Here the Transgressions that were under the first Covenant must be meant of the accumulated Sins in the Fall which were redeemed repaired and restored by Christ the second Adam's fulfilling all Righteousness and purging the Sins of the Elect. And again it is said Not as the Offence so also is the free Gift Not as it was by one that sinned so was the Gift for the Judgment was by one to Condemnation but the free Gift is of many Offences to Justification where the Gift to Adam is said to be to Condemnation not by the Intent but by the Event through his failing whereas the second Adam could not fail in performing his Undertaking By this Explication of the Covenant of Grace I find my Mind cleared and eased of these perplexing Difficulties about God's Decrees and Dispensations in the Salvation and Reprobation of his Rational Creatures and about the Terms and Tenor both of the Covenant of Works and of the Covenant of Grace The most learned and most accurate in all Churches and all Ways have been perplexed in thinking how God would decree to reject damn and eternally torment a great part of his Rational Creatures for that which was never in their Power to perform much more without any cause on the Creatures part but only by his meer Soveraignty or that they were never in a possibility to have escaped eternal Misery Or that Christ the second Adam had not so far exceeded the first Adam that as the first Adam might have preserved all his Posterity in a Capacity to be saved if he had not fallen so the second Adam should not at least have put all Manking in a Capacity to be saved and escape eternal Misery by the Covenant of Grace And yet on the other hand the Scripture is so plain and positive that it is not in Man's Power to believe by a saving Faith to be holy or how it could consist with the Veracity and Sincerity of God to exhort and expostulate with Men to repent believe and be holy tho it were neither in the Power of the Elect or Reprobate to perform the same Whereupon some found no Outgate but by recurring to that Freedom that once was in Adam and that a Creditor might press his Debitor to pay his Debt
God's Pleasure neither to be an Act of his Understanding nor of his Will but a distinct Act resulting from his Knowledg of himself in his Divine Perfections Decrees and Dispensations and in the Effects of them And seeing this Knowledg is unchangeable so must his Pleasure be and so must his Will be of the continuance of that Pleasure as it results from the natural or moral Perfection of his Creatures in which his Pleasure differs from the Pleasure of Creatures who cannot necessarily have the Objects of Pleasure His Pleasure also is infinite and can be no greater nor no less intensively tho it may be extensively for he delights not only in the Idea of his Creatures when they exist not but he does also delight in the Works of his Hands when they do exist yet doth no more fully delight nor is more happy when they do exist than before The infinite Perfections of God and the infinite Pleasure thence resulting admit of no Grief in which also his Pleasure differs from the Pleasure of Creatures and we can no otherwise understand Expressions ascribing Grief to God than as we understand those which ascribe to him a Face a Heart Eyes or Hands that is by Resemblance or Similitude Yet it is truly and properly said that God taketh no Pleasure in the Evil of Sin and yet he hath no Grief arising thence but Displeasure and it is the Divine Prerogative that he doth take Pleasure in good Things when they are but hath no Grief or abatement of his Pleasure when they are not whereof great Souls have some shadow of Resemblance they can take Pleasure in all things so far as is congruous to their Principles inbred or infused and yet have no Grief for wanting of them and therefore have more noble Minds than the Stoicks who do endeavour to eradicate all Pleasures that they might not be grieved by the wanting of them which is only fit for weaker Minds who find in themselves that Effect I have great aversion from the Thoughts that any Will of God should be ineffectual which I cannot see consistent with his Infinite Perfections and therefore I do not apprehend that his Commands Prohibitions Institutions or Laws are Acts of his Will but of his Pleasure or Acceptance which is his Pleasure in those things that are offered to him which he doth not reject Otherwise they could not be without effecting the thing commanded or ordain'd but being Acts of his Plasure they do oblige the Creature to be obsequious and by the annexed Penalties and Rewards according to his Pleasure they become Divine Laws and they are the Ground of his rewarding and punishing Justice whereby his Will may be exercised about them to apply Rewards Punishments or Remission which are ever effectual Tho the Will of Creatures is not productive of Natural Effects yet it is productive of Moral Effects not only by Promises whence there arises a Right or Power of Exaction but in Dominion and Property which by the Law of Nature is transmitted by the Will alone but the Will of God must have the intendéd Effect and therefore it is not God's Will but his Pleasure that is implied in his Commands and Laws so that there is never a Discrepancy between what is expressed and what is meant These Thoughts are very sutable to those two eminent places in Scripture For I have no Pleasure in the Death of him that dieth saith the Lord. And again As I live saith the Lord I have no Pleasure in the Death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil Ways for why will ye die O House of Israel Here is a Command to turn expresly attributed to God's Pleasure not to his operant Will which could not have failed in the Effect to make them to turn but their turning and their living were both pleasing and their not turning and dying were also both displeasing unto God There can be no doubt concerning their turning or not turning but it may be more doubtful how God should have no Pleasure in the Death of the Wicked or that it should not be by his Will seeing it is the Execution of his Justice and I am satisfied that it is his Will as it is an Act of Justice but not simply and in it self There is no Difficulty that a just Judg may at once not only have Pleasure in but may will the Death of a Malefactor but would be very far from taking Pleasure in or willing his Death if it were not by a necessary Act of Justice but on the contrary would have Pleasure in the continuance of his Life tho it be said God will have all Men to be saved the former Texts clear it to be only God's approbative Will or Pleasure I am convinced that it must be a dangerous Error to conceive that God willeth the Death of his Rational Creatures as being in the order of Nature prior to the permission of Sin or that he hath Pleasure in it without consideration of Sin in the order of Nature antecedent which I can conceive no way reconcilable with these Texts For if it should be said that God hath Pleasure in the Misery of a Creature as an Act of his Soveraignty or Freedom if any can please themselves in that there is no Contradiction they cannot reconcile yet that were no way consistent with the Sincerity Bounty or Goodness of God and far from representing him as infinitely amiable I think it far from giving Satisfaction or from making a difficult Objection from that Metaphysical Maxim That which is last in Execution is first in Intention which is very improper to be applied to God whose Intentions are all together and hath its Exceptions even as to Creatures For a Law-giver doth not first intend the Death of his Subjects by a Capital Law neither at all intend their Death simply nor can he so take Pleasure in it if he be not a Tyrant and yet is pleased in the Execution after the Capital Crime deserving it But the blessed and benign God doth never intend the Misery of his Creature abstractly and simply for his last End is his own Glory whereunto the Misery of the Creature is no Mean but his Act of Justice upon the sinning Creature neither is Sin willed or intended by God who exerciseth no other Act in it but Permission which is immanent having no positive extrinsick Effect but Restraint and over-ruling of it and upon the occasion of it doing holy Acts for his Glory so that all the Joints of that Objection are enervated There is another eminent Difference between the Will of God and our Will we do oft-times wish that which is impossible as that that which is past were recalled or that we might enjoy all sinful Pleasures and also the Favour of God and Blessedness There is properly no Wish to be attributed to God for tho sometimes he doth express himself as wishing or wondering that
being fellow-Servants None of these did insist with a Distinguo that they were not worshipping them with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither is there any Precept or one Example in all the Scripture of praying to an absent Creature I know nothing can be pretended but that when the Scripture was published there was no canonizing of Saints and it 's very far from evidence that all who were canonized were truly Saints much less that their supposed Relicks were true if then Men be worshipping some damned Spirits if that be not Idolatry I know what can be but there is no ground of Confidence that no Pope hath err'd in canonizing which being a matter of Fact they do not pretend Infallibility in it I wish these Men would seriously consider how it is possible to shun the attributing of the incommunicable Perfections of God to Creatures the same Hours of publick Devotion being common through that whole Saint-worshipping Church If some Millions be at once praying to the same Saint can meer Human Nature be raised to that height to hear all those at once when there is not the least ground to believe that they can hear any one of them And suppose their groundless Invention that they see all in speculo Trinitatis yet they cease not to be such a Multitude reflected to their Knowledg at once so that they must make them Gods or else they must acknowledg themselves Idolaters And on their own Grounds it is yet more strange that they wholly neglect Abraham Isaac and Jacob Job Samuel and Daniel whom God hath singled out as the strongest Intercessors and Moses and Aaron whom God hath canonized the Scripture calling him the Saint of God If any Creature were to be worshipped in absence there were most to be said for worshipping Angels which yet is expresly forbidden and with the same Breath all Worship which God hath not required As the Heathens divided among their Gods the several Offices by which they might be useful to Men so they do exceed them in attributing to particular Saints their several Offices not only to Men but to Beasts to all the parts of Men and all their Diseases without the least Pretext of Reason they do not pretend even by their unwritten Traditions that God hath declared any such thing or that these Saints have so declared so that they must not only order all the Saints upon Earth but all the Saints in Heaven If the Saints be adorable how comes it that every one adores what Saint he pleases and neglects the rest And by what Warrant do they assign them their Tasks if it were their Duty to worship all as they do some The Burden of the Jewish Ceremonies were a small matter to theirs The Singularity of the Deity is not incroached upon by the blessed Trinity being in Unity in one individual God as the Word of God hath fully expressed it It is indeed a Mystery for the Knowledg of which we have no inbred Principle but it is a proper Object of our Faith In many Points of the Christian Religion the Light of Nature goeth a great length in the way of Science by a rational Deduction from self-evident Principles and the exact Harmony between the Light of Nature and the Scripture gives a mutual Confirmation of the truth of both yet both are rather Science than Faith until God by his free Grace endue Men with a sense of Spiritual Things which the natural Man cannot discern because by Nature he hath not that Sense by which they are perceivable There might have been other Objects of Sense and other Senses of these Objects and therefore we need not think it strange that God giveth a new inward Sense to the Regenerate only by which they believe the Trinity in Unity and the Incarnation of the Son of God the Covenant of Redemption and Grace the Mediator's willing and free Submission of himself to suffering in his Human Nature even to Death for Man that God's Justice might so be satisfied and his Purity and Abhorrence of Sin vindicated that free electing Love might take place in which the Elect could attribute nothing to themselves but all unto the free Grace of God The Light of Nature doth or may perswade all Men that God is merciful to penitent Sinners and yet that he is also essentially just and if it could have consisted with his Justice without Satisfaction thereto to pardon one Sin there could be no reason why to pardon one more than another and therefore God might have been without Punitive Justice Justice also differs from Benignity that it keeps a just Proportion between the Sin and the Punishment and therefore if all Sinners deserved Exclusion from God's Favour none of them could satisfy for himself much less could any one receive Pardon and Reconciliation by the Sufferings of all the rest but here the sharpest Natural Reason is confounded and left in the dark till Revelation and Faith step in discovering the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose Humanity made him capable to suffer and the Dignity of his Person gave his Suffering an infinite Value and the outward Revelation of it might induce a strong Perswasion that supposing God had so done the Consequence were good and that it were likely that he had so done but to have a true Faith and full Perswasion of it upon Tradition written or unwritten requires more than Reasoning can infer Hence it is that Compulsion is adhibited for Religion so far as the clear Light of Nature goeth because there is the strongest Evidence beyond any other natural Duty in which none are spared from Coaction and Punishment but they are rather heightened by pretending the want of Perswasion because the Light of Nature is full and clear and the diverting the Thoughts or shutting the Eyes of the Understanding can no more excuse than if a Man should deny that there were Light at Mid-day because he would not open his Eyes to let it enter But we are not in that Capacity as to supernatural Light and therefore it is both against Religion and Humanity to compel Men to supernatural and institute Religion where they believe not these revealed Principles from which ordinary Capacities cannot refuse clear Inferences which require not long Deductions Those who pretend the Unity against the Trinity of the Deity because they cannot comprehend it must deny the Incomprehensibility of God which his Word so often asserts yea the whole Tenor of the Word And their pitiful Evasions do too strongly evidence that they only own the Scriptures lest they should be odious and that they have no more than Natural Religion but not the Christian Religion because they imagine God can forgive Sin without all Satisfaction to his Justice which is against the Light of Nature which can neither admit of an injurious God nor of a Justiceless God Those who from the Trinity wave all Reasons against a carnal Presence in the Eucharist
having promised he is not indifferent as to Performance The Performance of God's Promise is attributed oft-times to his Faithfulness or to his Bounty but to speak accurately it is only to be referred to his Justice For after the manner of Men it is said That God is faithful who hath promised where both Faithfulness and a Promise are joined So God may promise that which his Justice would require without a Promise as he does also to confirm Men not only promise but sometimes swear to perform Commutative Justice is not competent to God For who hath given to him that he should repay Yet such is his gracious Condescension to Men that he hath frequently entered with them in Covenant the most excellent of which is the Covenant of Grace which yet cannot be called commutative as if God's part and Man's part were the mutual Causes every converted Man enters in the Covenant of Grace by his Consent to God's offer of Grace But the freest Grant requires Acceptance when by way of Offer in which it differs from an absolute Gift which is effectual if it be not rejected but Man's Acceptance or Consent is also by the Gift and Grace of God The Distributive Justice of God consists in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments and hence it is divided into Premiative and Punitive Justice both are exactly proportioned to the occasion to which God's Holiness directs it self which is called the deserving or meritorious Cause no other way than as an occasion comes in among Causes when a merciful Man sees a miserable lie hath Compassion and helps him Could this Miser boast that his Misery is the cause of the Mercy No it was indeed the occasion of it but the Man's Mercifulness was the Cause So it is in God's Justice tho Mankind were like the Beasts of the Field and the Fish of the Sea devouring each other it could not reach God but it is the Congruity of his glorious Nature which is the cause why he rewards the Good and punisheth the Evil. All Christians agree that God's Punitive Justice is adjusted to desert or merit but some have been so impudent as to claim eternal Happiness by their own Merit and that God could not be just if he did not give it not by his Promise nor for Christ's Merit alone as only taking away Punishment but they think the Reward is from their own Merit Others have so much abhorred this that they have run to the other Extream holding that all Rewards are absolutely free without any thing of Justice so that God should only have Punitive and not Premiative Justice as Man's Condition now standeth after the Fall And that if Man had not fallen he had by his Merit been translated into the Heavenly Estate not by God's Promise or by his Bounty but by his Premiative Justice but that now Man having fallen nothing belongs to him by the Premiative Justice of God There are many and great Authorities of Learned Men on all hands in this matter but when I look up to God and make use of the Light of Scripture and Reason he hath given me I cannot assent to either of these Extreams when I consider that God hath with so strong an Asseveration declared Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous to whom he faith also That it is just with God to give Tribulation to them that trouble you and to give to you that are troubled Peace with us and that God is not unrighteous to forget their Labour of Love yet these Righteous were not Innocents I am not moved with that Argument That all sinful Men even when regenerated do deserve eternal Damnation tho for Christ's sake it be forgiven and therefore if any thing they could do could deserve Good from God they forfeit that by their deserving Death for one may as well withhold from an Enemy that which was due as take from him that which was his own But when I consider that Christ hath by his Merit through the Covenant of Grace procured a full Pardon of all the Sins of the Regenerate through Repentance and Faith both the Similitude and the Reason of it fail for he hath taken away the Enmity and hath made Reconciliation whereby the Justified become not only Servants but Sons Heirs and Coheirs with Christ of Glory I am far from fancying that any meer Creature doth or could deserve the Glory of Heaven no not Adam tho he had continued innocent nor the most glorious Seraphim The Angels were created in the state of Celestial Glory which was by God's free Bounty they could pretend no Merit for deserving that Glory that they had at the first instant of their Being nor do I believe that their Consirmation and Assurance is an Act granted by God of rewarding Justice but of free Bounty it being so high an Advancement from a fallible to an infallible State which the best of their Service could not deserve It was congruous to the Freedom of God and the Dependance of his Creatures and his Dominion and Government of them that they should all be capable of Rewards and Punishments and be ruled by the righteous Laws of God and that therefore they should be in a labile Estate and even in that Estate God did reward the Improvement of their Natural Capacities by adding farther degrees to them of their Love to him and Joy in him which crowns their Happiness but his Promise or the Manifestation of his Purpose that if during their Trial they were faithful in that fallible Estate he would never suffer them to fall I do not doubt that they acknowledg it as his free Bounty and even in that confirmed Estate their Perfections can never be so great but they can be increased and therefore there is still place for God's Premiative Justice If then the Angels have the Celestial Glory without Merit by meer Bounty and yet God by his Premiative Justice is still adding to their Perfections which is clearly revealed by the Fall of the evil Angels and that these that stood are declared to be the elect Angels whence all I have said will follow could Man tho innocent pretend by Merit and Justice to arrogate more to himself than the Angels He was created innocent able to have so continued but in all Perfections far inferiour to the Angels In his fallible Estate he was capable of God's rewarding Justice as were the Angels in the like Estate before Confirmation But could he have deserved Confirmation and Exaltation from an Animal to an Angelical from an Earthly to an Heavenly State At Man's Creation God had promised him Immortality not by his Nature for his Body was fragile and might by second Causes have been rendered unserviceable to his Soul but only by God's Providence he behoved to eat drink sleep rost We have no ground to believe that his Children so soon as they were born needed not his Care and Trouble tho they had been as perfect as Christ in the State of his
Infancy Can it be thought that Man by his Merit could deserve Celestial Glory and Confirmation freeing him from the hazard of falling in Sin or losing that blessed State by Mortality or Annihilation and yet there is no ground to doubt that as the Angels were confirmed after their Trial so would Men have been which with the Immortality God had promised he lost and became mortal and miserable by eating the forbidden Fruit. Whence there is enough to satisfy the Consciences of Men of God's Dispensation in suffering Adam to fall whereby neither he nor any of his Posterity could ever by themselves recover that blessed Estate which he had lost to himself and them by his Fall albeit they could not conceive how God could eternally torment all his Posterity for his Sin tho they had none of their own But blessed be God that Christ was separate from Sin unto the end and became the second Adam expiating Sin and procuring for the Elect that Blessedness which through Adam's Fall they had lost How unreasonable then and odious must the Meritmongers of Rome be who not only hold that sinful Men acquire Heaven by their Merits but that they have so great store of Works of Supererrogation to which they were forced to flee when the horrid Grossness of the Pope's setting to Sale Indulgences for Money through most of the Dominions of his Obedience had awakened a great part of the World to see that it was impossible he could be Christ's Vicar on Earth but rather the Antichrist There was no Evasion with any pretence but that there was a Treasure of the Supererrogatory Merits of the Saints whereof the Pope was the sole Dispenser and yet tho that Treasure was not pretended to be infinite and inexhaustable the Popes neither knew what was the measure of it nor how much was exhausted and how much remained or if any thing at all for there was no Record kept of what Indulgences were given out or how much they needed that got them nor could there be seeing the Indulgences were not given by the Popes immediately and upon trial but were gifted and farmed to his Emissaries who were the vilest of Men who rendered that Religion absolutely ridiculous I pity the deceived Multitude of that Synagogue but I abhor their chief Leaders and without the breach of Charity I think I may safely say that many of them must be convinced of gross Errors in that Church but cannot acknowledg them because of the Canons already made unless therewith they quit Infallibilty which is the Pillar and Ground of their Faith God's Punitive Justice has not escaped dangerous Errors not only from those who make all God's Laws to be only obliging by his Will so that he may not only dispense with them without any Punishment but may abrogate them of which I have cleared my self before in meditating upon his Holiness but from those that think his Justice requires no exact Proportion between the Crime and the Punishment but that it is meerly Arbitrary that God might have accepted the Sacrifice of a Lamb for the greatest Sin or the Penance that Men inflict upon themselves and that the Mosaical Sacrifices did expiate Sin of themselves not as Types of the only one satisfying Sacrifice of Christ. I am convinced that the very Nature of the Justice of God imports an exact Proportion of Rewards and Punishments to the Objects of them and that therein God's Justice differs from the Justice of Man who neither can know the exact Proportion nor can adjust a Punishment to expiate any Sin Mens Justice in Punishments are not to satisfy Justice or to expiate Crimes past but to prevent and suppress them for time to come and therefore they become unjust and cruel by applying Arbitrary Punishments more than are needful to suppress the Crimes but God perfectly knows the just Proportion of Rewards and Punishments and he hath not that Indifferency in applying them as he hath in his Acts of Bounty Sin is so opposite and so odious to God that his Aversion to it is infinite and therefore it cannot be expiated but by a Punishment infinite in Value and therefore in the Damned Punishment is only eternal because in no Time the finite Natures of Creatures can bear an infinite Punishment The Sins of the Elect are expiated by the Sufferings of Christ which were short in Time but infinite in Value because of the Dignity of the Person that suffered yet God having denounced the Wages of Sin to be Death both by the Separation of the Soul and Body and by the Separation of both from the Joy arising from God's Countenance Justice required that the Mediator should suffer both tho but for a short time in his Agony in the Garden and on the Cross when innocent Nature made him cry out in the one that if it were possible that Cup might be removed yet with voluntary Submission and in the other when he said My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me They must be strangely deluded that attribute that Cry to the Pains or Sense of Death for therein he should have been exceeded by innumerable Martyrs none of which cried that they were forsaken of God and many have triumphed over their Tormentors and have sung in the midst of the Flames I think they are both bold and ignorant who presume to assert that any Suffering of Christ without Death had been sufficient to expiate the Sins of the Elect None but God can know the just Punishment of Sin Common Reason may assure that God would not afflict his innocent Son in vain but Revelation putteth it beyond doubt by the Apostle's arguing against the Possibility of Salvation by Works of the Law saying If Righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain It is necessarily understood as in all such Arguments but that is impossible that Christ should have died in vain nor would it conclude if by dying in vain were understood dying to no purpose For tho it had been indifferent to God to have brought Salvation by the Law or by the Death of Christ yet neither of the ways had been in vain that is to no purpose which soever of the two God had chosen But then it would not have concluded that Righteousness could not have come by the Law therefore in vain must be understood as ordinarily it is that which is needless or unnecessary and then the Argument is clear and convincing thus If Righteousness had been by the Law then Christ's dying had been needless because the Law alone could have brought Righteousness but it is impossible that Christ should have died when there was no necessity for it therefore the Law nor no other way could do it There is another dangerous Mistake about God's Punitive Justice as if the Consideration of his Punishment were to compense the Displeasure he had from Sin by his Pleasure in the suffering of his Creature as Men commonly do but the true Consideration is
Sins that they might have omitted and did not if the Remainder were inevitably effectual for their Damnation I do not think that the outward Privileges of the Church and the Tastes of the Powers of the World to come and that Illumination that even Reprobates attain who never had true and saving Grace in which they exceed the finest Heathens are otherwise accountable than by the Purchase of Christ Nay I do not believe that the damned Spirits having liberty of going to and fro in the Earth is from Mercy as if their Damnation were allayed or abated till the general Judgment but that they are sent out as the Executioners of God's Justice being still in that Torment of Conscience wherein Hell doth consist tho it be allayed by accidental Consequences being by their acting somewhat diverted from the full poring on their Misery God only knows the exact Proportion of Punishment and Sin according to Merit and as the Damned always continue and encrease in their Hatred against God so their Misery may be increased There is also a Resemblance between the Mercy of the Creator and the Creature that neither is extended to every kind of Evil some Punishments may be so great that will not breed Pity in the most merciful because of the Atrocity of the Crimes so the Mercy of God extends not to the Sin against the Holy Ghost which must imply a high measure of Knowledg of the Divine Perfections and yet by the Exorbitancy of Self-love a Hatred and Despite against God as not bestowing so much as these malicious Wretches think he should And I think that was a main Difference in the Fall of the damned Spirits and Adam's Fall tho he was innocent and had a great measure of Knowledg and Happiness yet far short of theirs they abode not in that Station God placed them in for by their Sin they desired to rise higher and therefore in God's Justice they were brought exceeding much lower How far they have lost of their Natural Perfections I know not but sure they have lost their Moral Perfections and that Joy wherewith once they were blessed they tempted Man by the same Bait by which they deceived themselves inducing them to be discontent with what God had given and that he had forbidden to eat of that Fruit not as a Badg of their Obedience in an indifferent thing as to which they had no inbred Principle to prompt them on either side but because he envied the Happiness they would attain to by eating that Fruit which would make them wise to know both Good and Evil therefore the Devils seem to have sinned against the Holy Ghost which Man being of a less Capacity did not and none but those Men that attained to the Gifts of Illumination and the Taste of the Powers of the World to come and yet do despite against God cannot be restored nor are not to be prayed for in whom no doubt Hell is begun by the tormenting of their Conscience and therefore God's Way is equal both as to Angels and Men yet in Justice he was not obliged to have Mercy upon any Sinner but it was not congruous to his glorious Nature to receive into Favour such horrid Sinners There is another Resemblance of the Mercy of the Creator and the Creature that it is not equally to be applied to those who have the Offer of a Reconciliation upon Repentance and do obstinately reject that Offer and will continue to insist in and approve the Injuries done By Reflection on our own Mind we find it to be so in Men and yet it is evident to be no part of our Essence or Nature and therefore it must be an inbred Principle freely given of God and a part of his Image God hath incited us to forgive those that offend us to seventy and seven times yet still it is upon their Return Mercy may take place by Forgiveness simply given without an Offer of Reconciliation but it exceeds Humanity to forgive so far as not only not to endeavour Punishment but to offer Reconciliation when it is obstinately refused There is yet another Resemblance of the Mercy of God and Man that there is no Right in the Injurer to claim it tho he may implore it but it is an Act of Benignity and Goodness God hath injured no Creature if he had never received into Favour any Sinner But he will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and whom he will he hardeneth that is he giveth the Offer of Mercy and Reconciliation and permitteth the Wicked to reject the Offer whereby they become more hardened in their Sin and Impenitence But infinite is the Distance and the Difference between the Mercy of God and the Mercy of Men. For 1. Man's Mercy may by contrary Custom be eradicated and Cruelty succeed in its place Man's Mercy may be overcome with the frequency of Injuries nothing like these can befal in the Mercy of God which is unchangeable and no multitude of Sins can be so great as should give Despair 2. Man's Mercy if it be obtained and violated in the same kind is hardly renewed but where God hath once given Pardon no new Breach doth exclude it yea he gives Repentance exciting the Sinner thereto that he may forgive sutably to his Nature and oft accepts general Repentance of inadverted Sins and even habitual Repentance where actual cannot be exerted as in those that die before they have time to have an elicite Act of Repentance for Sins committed immediately before Death 3. Man's Mercy doth oft go no further than Compassion and desire to help without Ability God's Omnipotence does ever make his Mercy effectual and compleat 4. Man doth often forgive one Fault and retain others God's Forgiveness of Sin is ever entire and universal where it is for all Sins preceding are ever forgiven where there is Repentance for all Sin but where some Temporal Punishment is only forgiven the Sin is not forgiven simply 5. Man may repent that he did forgive whether by the mutability of his Nature or by the discovery of aggravating Circumstances unknown when he forgave nothing of this can occur to the Omniscient God 6. Injuries may be so atrocious that exceed Man's Mercy without supernatural Grace in which he will never offer Reconciliation No Sin can be so hainous but that the Merit of Christ is sufficient for remitting it not excepting the Sin against the Holy Ghost which is not unpardonable by the Insufficiency of Christ's Merit neither yet because there is less Power in Man to repent for that Sin than others because he is utterly incapable to repent for any Sin till God give him the Grace of Repentance but because it is incongruous to the Divine Nature and to the Glory of God to receive into favour such Sinners But in all others tho they were as Crimson God offereth Pardon and Reconciliation and will effectually give them if the Offer be not obstinately rejected yea the height of God's
Unjust he openeth his bountiful Hand and bestows what is necessary for every living thing while he allows it Life He is merciful and pitieth the very Ravens when they cry for want of Food and much more supplies the Necessities of Men even when they do not trust or expect it All these Perfections respect his Creatures and it is evident that they are without Obligation and in that differ from his Justice and so is also his Providence and Government of the World but his Truth and his Wisdom are Perfections terminated on himself as their peculiar End they are free for none can be obliged to himself yet they are more necessary than the Acts of Bounty which he might forbear but they are comprehended under the Decency proper to God on his own account tho there had never been a Creature he would ever have been true his Thoughts being ever conform to their Objects The Faithfulness of God then is comprehended in his Bounty or Benignity respecting his Creature as warrantably trusting in him As the Term Faithfulness is variously taken so the thing is commonly very indistinctly and sometimes erroniously understood confounding Faithfulness with Justice and Truth and supposing there is no Warrant for Faithfulness but upon Promise and upon the Truth of God in that Promise which is a great Mistake for the Performance of a Promise is an Act of Justice and Truth is not an Object of Trust but when Words or Signs to express it are emitted but Faith may warrantably be where God hath made no Promise nor expressed any Word When God created Angels and Men before he made any Promise to them they did know from his excellent Nature and firmly trust that if they did not offend him he would never make them miserable and they might have trusted for particular Favours not in the way of Reward I know no clear Evidence from Scripture that God promised to Adam that he should never be annihilated only I see that he threatneth Death if he transgressed his Command in eating the forbidden Fruit whence it is collected that God promised him Eternal Life and even Immortality and that he entered into Covenant with him wherein Adam willingly ingaged himself to the Obedience of God and God did promise Life and Immortality to him to his Wife and their Posterity and to raise them from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven without the Dissolution of Soul and Body by Death and as it is commonly believed the good Angels after they had given proof of their Obedience were confirmed that they should never fall There is no less ground to believe that the like Favour would have been granted to Man not only for himself that he should not fall but that a greater measure of Perfection should be given to his Posterity that they might not be under the Necessity of falling and it is evident and certain that by his Transgression in eating the forbidden Fruit he lost these Benefits both to himself and his Posterity but by the infinite Mercy and Benignity of God Christ the second Adam perfected and performed what the first Adam had lost Can any Man pretend that the particular Favours that the Saints have always prayed for from God were all promised by God or did he express his Purpose to give them No certainly and yet they did warrantably trust and prayed in Faith for them and obtained that which they prayed for whereof there are innumerable Examples in Scripture and Experience And therefore it is said that the fervent Prayer of the Godly availeth much If the Import of Mens Prayers should only be that God should be just in the performance of his Promise and be as good his Word I see not how Prayer could be said to avail much for God would be true and just whether any Creature prayed or not But God granteth many things upon the earnest Prayer of his People which were neither promised nor necessary and had no other Conveniency but to satisfy their longing Desire which if it be not incongruous for God to do or them to receive as being hurtful to them if Faith be not wanting the Effect will not fail Was there either Necessity or Promise for the Prophet's stopping the Clouds of Heaven for three Years and six Months and for obtaining Rain when there was no second Cause for it Is it not warrantable to pray to be inclined or directed in the Choice of a Calling a Match or any lawful Undertaking or for the Success of the Choice Is there any Promise for these Particulars Yea tho it be said by Christ to the Apostles That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will do it I take it rather to be a Declaration of God's Faithfulness and of the Effect of faithful Prayer not signifying an Engagement but a Resolution And I think it were a very unbecoming manner of praying to say Lord Thou hast promised that whatsoever I demand in Christ's Name thou wilt grant it this I demand and therefore I claim it as due by thy Justice and Truth which thou canst not refuse With God's Grace that never shall be my strain God hath declared that he will give Salvation and Glory to all that shall have saving Faith trusting to obtain these with Sutableness which cannot be towards those who resolve to cleave to and pursue their Sins Suppose this were not only a Declaration but a proper Promise and that the Performance were an Act of God's Justice and Truth yet where hath he promised that he will give Faith to this or that Man that believeth And should he that believeth claim Salvation as an Act of Truth and Justice and not as a free Act of God's Mercy and Benevolence and specially as an Act of God's Faithfulness that he will not disappoint the becoming Hope or Trust of his Creature Trust among Men is not accounted when they obtain a clear Obligation tho it had been granted freely because the Obliged can be compelled to perform but it is accounted a Trust when there is no Promise but that from the Nature of the Deed it is to be presumed not to be a Donation in favour of the Person trusted but with Intention and Expectation that he would restore to the Truster or those who derive Right from him upon demand God of his Benignity to further the Faith of his Creatures does not only promise where no Promise was necessary but gives Seals and Oaths not so much to secure the Effect as to produce Faith and therefore the Effect should ever be attributed to God's Faithfulness and to the Creature 's Faith resting on that Faithfulness I know that God's Justice Truth and Faithfulness have been oftentimes joined as Man 's also may When a Man obtains a written valid Obligation suppose it were for a valuable Consideration there concurs the Justice of that Person who may be compelled to perform his Truth that as he expressed his Purpose to perform so
by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but
was lost and seeing the Preference of the Benefit by the second Adam is expressed in the Parallel if that Exaltation had been wholly new it would not have been omitted The Parallel also imports that the Promise of Immortality was not only to Adam but to his Posterity It could not consist with the Wisdom and Goodness of God that the first Covenant should have been impracticable and therefore it must have been a part of God's Promise that if Adam continued faithful for such time as God had appointed for his Trial that God would confirm him by more powerful and efficacious Grace as it is commonly believed that he hath confirmed the Elect Angels that they should never fall but be happy I see not how it could be called an happy State that were still under the fear of being lost There is no ground to think that by the first Covenant Adam's Posterity should have been in a better Condition than himself but that they also should have had a time of Trial as he had and such as should persevere should also be confirmed yet there was necessity that they should be endued with more Strength from the Womb thereby to be put in equal Capacity to stand as he was For seeing Adam was created in the Ripeness of Disscretion and in the clear Knowledg of God and yet so soon fell upon so small Temptation it had been impossible for any of his Posterity being to be born Infants without any Principle vigent in them but the Pleasure of Sense till they attained to Discretion and by long Exercise of these sensible Pleasures strong habitual Pleasures supervening that any one of them could have persevered unless God had promised that if Adam had stood out his Trial he would have given farther Perfection to his Posterity This first Covenant between God and Adam is commonly called the Covenant of Works to distinguish it from the Covenant of Grace and therefore there behoved to be something in it of Merit And that God's part of that Covenant was not only of Grace or free Favour but partly by Premiative Justice and Debt in Remuneration of the Holiness of the Creature as the Apostle saith To him that worketh the Reward is not reckoned of Grace but of Debt Yet it cannot be thence inferred that the Reward promised by God to Adam in his Perseverance was wholly and only a Reward of Debt by Justice but that it might be partly a Reward of Debt and partly a Reward of Grace freely given and not deserved Those who arrogate Salvation by the Merit of their Works fortify themselves in their Error by holding that Salvation by the Covenant of Works would have been wholly by Merit and therefore Christ having expiated the Sins of the Elect their good Works must merit Heaven which is clearly confuted seeing God's Dispensations are by Covenant importing Ingagements which did not arise from the Creatures Interest by Creation but only by God's Promise which was free by the Freedom of Indiffrency I am fully perswaded that a great part of God's Promises in the Govenant of Works was by his free Favour and could not have been claimed by Adam or his Posterity as due in Justice to their Perseverance For there was an exceeding great difference between the Value of Adam's part and God's part of that Covenant Adam's part was only Obedience to God There is nothing mentioned in Scripture or consequent from the Nature of that Covenant that God's Promises were for Adam's improving and increasing those Moral perfections God had given him by his Creation but on the contrary that which is expresly mentioned is only forbearance to eat of the forbidden Fruit which could not be the only Obedience but likewise the Obedience to all the Moral Law written in his Heart and also to the positive Law of Marriage instituted in Innocency yet Innocence in all was Man's part and Improvement tho it was no Work of Supererrogation even in him because he was obliged to love God with all his Might yet it did deserve and merit by God's Remunerative Justice but it cannot be pretended that it was a proportionable Remuneration to Adam's Innocency that he should not only become Immortal and be exalted to Celestial and Eternal Glory and that he should be confirmed and made free of the hazard of falling but that also all his Posterity should have additional Perfections created with their Souls enabling them against the Prepossessions of Youth to remain innocent and all as a just Proportion by Premiative Justice no certainly The Nature of a Covenant which is a mutual Contract implieth mutual Prestations to be performed by the Parties Contracters as the mutual Causes and Conditions of each to other and that the ingaging to these Performances be voluntary even tho the Matter engaged were necessary and have an anterior Obligation distinct from that Obligation which ariseth by the Contract For as it is well said by Lawyers the same thing may be due by several Obligations and may be exacted by any of them but the Property of a thing cannot be by more Rights for none can acquire that which is already his own Therefore before the Covenant of Works the Man was obliged to a full Observance of God's Commands without any Engagement of his own because God who gave him his Being might justly qualify his own Gift at his Pleasure so he had given Man his Being by Creation with sufficient Intimation of his Pleasure and Command by the Laws written in his Heart none of which did oblige him to enter into a Covenant with his Creator nor did God command him so to do but offered it to his free Choice inducing him thereto by the great Benefits he offered him by it which he had not Right to nor any ground of Confidence of it but through that Covenant The Covenant of Works had no Sanction by a Penalty added to it For the Dissolution of it upon Man's Failure in his part arose from the Nature of all Contracts whereby it the one Party fail the other may either urge Performance or declare himself free After Adam's Fall Performance became impossible and he was not punishable by that Covenant but by the antecedent Divine Law neither could Man's Consent or Engagement to be liable to the Punishment of Death have any Effect because his Life is not in his own Power Therefore he was only punishable by the antecedent Law of God which was before any Covenant and remained the same during the Covenant and after the Breach of it The Pain of Death expressed for eating the forbidden Fruit was no part of the Covenant and it doth appear to have been anterior to the Covenant intimated to Man immediately after his Creation before Eve was created otherwise Adam might have eaten of that Fruit which doubtless was most pleasant before the Prohibition but Eve's Creation is related after that Prohibition and there is no ground to doubt but the Covenant was made both with Adam and
the Person injured and if there be any thing of Reparation due by the Wrong it may be lawfully prosecuted but the Aversion and Resentment arising from the Injury is that which Men are required to forgive and obliterate There was indeed a Debt of that holy Action that by Sin was transgressed but every Debt is not a Debt of Payment for Payment imports the delivery of some Fungible as Money or Grain but other Debts consist not in Payment but in Prestation or performance of some Deed as the doing any Work putting one in Possession giving Honour or Obedience And so Creatures Obligements to God are not Debts of Payment but of Prestation or Performance much less can the Guiltiness of Sin import a Debt of Payment but it doth not even import a Debt of Performance A Criminal is not obliged to offer himself to the Justice of the Magistrate who therein is the Minister of God no not to confess his Crime when accused by another unless it can be otherwise proved Nor doth the Judg punishing take Payment but useth his Authority in the way of Vindication as an Act of Punitive Justice done by him on the Criminal and not done to him by the Criminal Prestation of Facts being omitted especially to God can never be repayed that which is past cannot be recalled nor is it compensable by any Liquid Payment but only the Damage done by it and if there be no other Damage the Grief arising by the Injury may be compensed with Joy arising from the Application of some of the Injurer's Goods to the Injured and oftentimes Men count it a Satisfaction by taking Pleasure in the suffering of the Injurer but that is it which Men are required to forgive How can it then be imagined that God requireth Payment for the failure in Duty by the Committer of Sin He is not capable of Grief or Damage and he hath not only said but sworn that he taketh no Pleasure in the Torment of his Creature As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the Death of a Sinner If Sin inferred a Debt of Payment it might be forgiven without any Satisfaction for scarce is any Creditor obliged to exact the Debt due to him but he may freely forbear it or forgive it And therefore if Sin did properly infer a Debt God might forgive it without Satisfaction therefore God punisheth not Sin as a Creditor exacting his Debt but as he is the King Ruler and Judg of the World he vindicates the Injury against his Law and manifests his infinite Aversion and Abhorrence of Sin not his Delight in the Misery of his Creature 3. I consider the part of the Son in the Decree and Dispensation of the Covenant of Grace not as a making Payment for the Debt of Sinners but a submitting to these Sufferings which do as much manifest God's Abhorrence of Sin and Delight in his indispensable Law as if the whole Race of Mankind had been eternally in Hell and thereby he made way to God's Mercy to fallen Man so far as it was congruous to the Divine Perfections If Christ's Satisfaction had been the Payment of the Sinner's Debt the Forgiveness of Sin would not be by free Grace A Cautioner or any interposed Person paying a Debt the Creditor cannot be said to give a free Discharge to the principal Debtor for he has gotten all he could demand Law doth not suffer a Creditor to refuse Payment from any that shall please to interpose which therefore would be far from exalting the free Goodness of God in pardoning Sin as the Scripture sets it forth beside that all interposed Persons acquire Right to the Debt and have Recourse against the principal Debtor for whom they pay But Scripture makes no mention of Sinners becoming Debtors to Christ for Punishment If Sin had been undertaken by and transferred on Christ the Sinner being so liberated how could the Sinner beg Pardon of the Sin that was already payed Thence some have imagined that it was a fault to mourn for Sin and that so they were no way under the Law but under Grace And those who are a little more modest say that they do not observe the Law as a Debt by Justice but as a free Gratification mistaking grosly that place that the Regenerate are not under the Law but under Grace that is that the Law is no more the Counterpart of the Covenant between God and them as it was in the Covenant of Works but is still a Law obliging them to Performance without Abrogation Derogation Indulgence or Pardon of Sin before it were committed anterior in its Obligation to any Covenant of and with Man The reason of the severe Punishment of Sin is commonly given because it is committed against the infinite Majesty of God to which I think it may be well added that as the Aversion of God from Sin and as his Purity is infinite so his Justice requires an infinite Punishment which because a Creature cannot bear in a finite Duration it becomes an infinite Punishment Thence also it is evident that Christ's Satisfaction could not be infinite in Weight for Weight can no more be infinite than Bulk but it becomes infinite in Value by the Dignity of the Person that suffered it 4. All that deserve the Name of Christians do agree that God's Justice could not be satisfied nor Sin expiated without the suffering of Christ of infinite Value but they do exceedingly disagree in the Terms of the Covenant betwixt the Father and the Son and betwixt God and Man All do agree that in every Covenant there must be mutual Prestations by either Party but the Question is what these Prestations were in the Terms of the Covenant of Grace what is God's part and what is Man's part in it There be many Errors not only perillous but pernicious especially when they are wilfully maintained That Infallibility the Church of Rome pretends makes all her Errors to become wilful and sinful if once they have been owned in that way they count infallible All others may and oftentimes do retract their Mistakes It were highly uncharitable to imagine that any of these had wilfully or willingly taken up an Error in this matter which is the greatest Interest of Men but at first they behoved to be mistaken I do therefore think it worth my utmost Endeavour for my own clearing to consider how they have fallen into these Mistakes and by what way they might come cut of them 1. The Pelagians held That the natural Powers God had given Men by Creation were sufficient for Regeneration and that which seems to have led them into that Error was that it could not consist with the Goodness and even with the Justice of God to damn Men for that which was never in their Power to avoid Seeing nothing can be a Crime but what is voluntary and where the Will might have actually chosen or followed the contrary and so at least it was in their natural Power to
Works he hath whereof to glory but not before God as if it were any thing whereof he could glory in himself for all Glorying and Boasting is excluded but Abraham's glorying is in God who freely justified him and he rejoiced from that Act of Faith concerning his Son evidencing the Soundness of the saving Faith and the Manifestation of his Justification thereby both to himself and other Men whereby he glorieth before Men and not before God And whereas it is said That Faith worketh by Love it cannot be understood that Acts of Love are Acts of Faith for they are Graces essentially distinct but that Faith is Man's Part of the Covenant whereby Love is given upon God's Part nor doth it follow that because Faith is perfected by Love therefore its Essence is not distinct from Love Man is perfected by Love yet it is no part of his Being That Historical Faith believing the Truth of the Gospel is specifically different from saving Faith and yet it is said That whosoever believeth Christ is come in the Flesh is born of God for no Man can call Jesus Lord but by the Spirit of God which imports no more than a Sign of saving Faith at that time when there was so general an Opposition against Christ when no Man did avow or own Christ hypocritically 7. The Church of Rome hath more exceeded in bringing Works as Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace than any other Society of Christians for they have made Works the whole and only Part of Man in the Covenant of Grace and have given no Preheminence to Faith but to Charity or Love consequently enough to that Principle As it is said of the three eminent Christian Vertues that of these the greatest is Charity so that if Faith did save as a good Work Love would much more save They acknowledg no Justification distinct from Sanctification they do not require good Works as the Condition of Salvation but as the meritorious Cause of Salvation that God in Justice could not deny Celestial Glory to those that live holily and which is yet more extravagant Supererrogation is the common Opinion publickly preached in that Church and when the Council of Trent was call'd on purpose to amend Errors in Doctrine and Manners that had crept into that Church not one Word in any of their Canons disapproving Works of Supererrogation and the Treasure thereof out of which the Pope by Assignment of the superfluous Merits of the Saints may supply the Merits of others and bring them to Heaven either immediately upon Death or shortning their purging by the purgatorial Fire as soon as he thinks fit and yet they dispute vehemently against the Imputation of the Holiness of Christ. They do acknowledg that Christ's Sufferings have satisfied the Justice of God that without encroaching thereupon he may give Pardon of Sin and they do not ascribe the Pardon of Sin to the Merit of their Holiness but only to the Expiation by Christ's Sufferings and inconsistently enough they require purging by the purgatorial Fire which cannot be thought Correction to amend them and therefore could only be to cleanse and expiate in which they derogate even from the Sufferings of Christ. But to give them the most benign Interpretation they think the Forgiveness of Sin could not exalt Men to heavenly Blessedness but that as in the Covenant of Works every one behoved to merit that Exaltation by their Works which could not be after the Fall because of Original Sin whereby the eating of forbidden Fruit did condemn all Mankind descending from Adam by Ordinary Generation until Christ's Suffering had satisfied that Debt and even the actual Transgressions of those in the Covenant of Grace yet tho Men be still sinful their Sins being pardoned as satisfied by Christ's Sufferings Mens good Works lose not their Effect to merit Heaven as well as Adam's which is the only Difference they make between the Covenant of Grace and the Covenant of Works Nothing can be more contrary to the Covenant of Grace and to the Way of Salvation inculcated in the Gospel wherein 1. All Glorying or Boasting of the Creature attributing any Part of its Salvation to it self is excluded Where is boasting then It is excluded by what Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith Therefore we conclude saith the Apostle That a Man is justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law But God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sin hath quickned us together with Christ where it is twice repeated by Grace you are saved through Faith not of Works lest any Man should boast Yea Boasting is so far excluded that Man cannot boast of Faith as it is his Part of the Covenant of Grace for it is said By Grace you are saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God What could be more said to exclude Works from Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace not only that there cannot be an equivalent Cause deserving Glory but not so much as the Terms upon which Glory was to be freely given For it is expressy said that we are God's Workmanship created in Christ to good Works which God hath before ordained or prepared that we should walk in them and God hath not predestinated Men to Salvation for their Works foreseen or performed For whom he did foresee them he did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son which Image is Holiness which is not the Cause but the End and Effect of Predestination Good Works indeed are Via Regni but not Gausa Regnandi and they are the Evidences of true and saving Faith to be diligently followed not only by reason of the indispensible Law and Duty anterior in order to any Covenant but as the Means to evidence true Grace and give solid Peace and therefore it is said Strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way that leadeth unto Life and that the Kingdom of God is taken by Violence and the Violent enter it by Force which doth import no more than the Way to the Kingdom And where it is said Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have Right to the Tree of Life it doth not import Right by Merit the Word being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that Works can no more properly be called Right than the Evidence of Lands or Inheritance are called the Rights thereof as sighifying the same and therefore the explicatory Words are subjoined and may enter in through the Gates to the City All others but the Romanists that bring in Works to the Covenant of Grace bring them in as the Conditions of it but not as a deserving meritorious Cause much less as a superfluous supererrogatory Merit seeing Christ hath declared so clearly that the first and great Command of God is Thau shait love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart with all thy Soul and with all thy Mind
of Children from the Covenant of Grace yet the Covenant of Grace is one for all the Son having covenanted from Eternity for all the Elect to bring them into the Covenant of Grace by Regeneration exerted according to their Capacity by actual believing of those who are capable so to act which also is an Evidence that the Act of Faith is not saving by any thing absolutely necessary in it self but by the free Choice and Institution of God The third Point proposed is what Act of Faith that is by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace and which is their Part of the Covenant Many hold it to be a Perswasion of the covenanting Person that Christ died for him whereby it must be an Act of the Understanding but I see not how that can hold for covenanting must be by an Act of the Will promising or otherwise performing the Covenanter's Part which is oftentimes in the one Party no more than an Acceptance as in a Trust or Commission the one Party gives the Trust or Commission which doth make no Covenant but an Offer but when the other Party accepts then the Contract is compleat and the Accepter is thereby bound to follow the Trust and Commission and make an Account and the Giver is obliged to refund the Expences Albeit Contracts be by mutual Consent and that Consent signifies to have the same Thought yet Agreement in one Mind makes no more a Covenant than when two are of one Opinion in Contemplation but a Covenant is ever somewhat practicable and therefore tho Acts of Understanding precede the Covenant it self is by Acts of the Will The Description of saving Faith by Perswasion is but by a Consequent which ought to be endeavoured by all yet is not attained by all for many are in the Covenant of Grace that come not the Length of Perswasion that Christ died effectually for them and that thereby they are reconciled to God and shall be saved for tho they were perswaded that Christ died for all and every Man that would import nothing to saving Faith for it were much more evident that the Effect of Christ's Death for all Men were not the same seeing so many trample under Foot the Blood of the Covenant and so few are saved Therefore no Man hath just Ground to be perswaded that Christ died effectually for him or with Intention to make him holy and happy or any further than to put him in a Condition to be holy and happy if he himself did not hinder it Therefore tho believing in Christ were not only proposed to all but imposed on all as a Duty yet it is only a Duty in the Order God hath imposed it to wit that all Men should consider their sinful natural Estate and that the just Reward of Sin would be eternal Death without Repentance which none could escape who cleaved to any kind of Sin and hated to be reformed and that therefore they should be willing and endeavour to be reformed and use the Means appointed by God for that End and should throw themselves upon God's Mercy through Christ's Merit if thereby they found that the delighting in Sin in those Kinds especially which did most easily beset them did cease and that the Love to and Delight in God did in some measure take Place But to think to reach the highest Step of the Scale per Saltum were altogether without warrant unless it were extraordinary as in Paul's Conversion Paul to the Romans gives the true Warrants of that Perswasion As many as are led by the Spirit are the Sons of God The Spirit it self beareth Witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and Joint-Heirs with Christ. Hence it is evident how little Moment is in that Arminian Quibble so much magnified by them that Christ must have died for all Men because all Men are bound to believe he died for them We must therefore yet enquire the particular Convenanting Act of Faith which being so necessary is many Ways expressed and set forth in Scripture that it may be reached by several Capacities it is called a Looking to Christ for Salvation Look unto me all ye Ends of the Earth and be saved A turning to God Turn ye turn ye for why will you die O House of Israel A coming to Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy ladened and I will give you rest to your Souls And to the Refractory it is said Ye will not come to me that ye may have Life A drawing near to God Draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you An answering of God's Call Thou saidst Seek ye my Face my Heart answered Thy Face Lord will I seek hide not thy Face from me A receiving of Christ He came to his own but his own received him not but to all that did receive him he gave Power to become the Sons of God So then the saving Act of Faith must imply all these not that he who entereth in the Covenant must have expresly all these Acts but that the Act he must have must imply and import them all and be virtually as much as they all The Spirit of God in this Branch of the Covenant of Grace does not proceed in one way with all the Elect As the Wind moveth whither it listeth and no Man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is the Spirit of God Some are chased in by the Thundrings and Terrors of the Law running as a pursued Man to a Rock a Fortress a Tower or a Strength or as in the hazard of Shipwrack running into an Harbour As those who by Peter's Sermon convincing the Jews that they had denied the Holy One and the Just and had killed the Prince of Life Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their Hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do And God opened their Ears and their Hearts to receive Instruction But God gaineth others by the sweet and still Voice of the Gospel alluring their Hearts to trust in his Mercy and Faithfulness as being so gracious that he delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that they should repent and live that he will not disappoint those who becomingly trust in him He sometimes begins with the Light of Nature to lead in the revealed Light of the Gospel as Paul dealt with the Athenians and saith to Timothy God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind With some the Spirit proceeds by degrees giving a Spirit of Bondage to fear before the Spirit of Adoption as Paul saith We have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but we received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba
only sufficient but inefficacious and that its Efficacy must be by the Creature I do conceive that the entring into the Covenant of Grace may be in the way of Adoration thus My God I do believe that thou delightest not in the Death of Sinners but rather that they should repent and live in thy Favour eternally who feel Sin to be a Burden and do not cleave to any known Sin but betake themselves to thee to be delivered from it and to become thy Servants trusting in thee for all things necessary for Holiness and Happiness I am sensible of the Bondage of my Sin and that I am not able to free my self from that Bondage yet I believe thou hast offered to enable me and do humbly accept thy Offer purchased through Christ the Mediator and do resign my self to be directed by thy holy Spirit in the way of Holiness to Happiness Here are all the Essentials of a Covenant God's Offer manifested to the Conscience believed and accepted wherewith the Believer as by the Offer he was called so the Call is made effectual by Justification Reconciliation Pardon Conversion Regeneration Adoption and by giving the Habits of Holiness never to be eradicated This Act of Faith is by the Apostle Paul to the Romans called the embracing the Atonement and to the Hebrews the embracing the Promises by the Apostle John the coming to Christ to be saved All the Terms of God's Offer and his enabling the Sinner to accept are at once and together and tho there be many Expressions thereof in Scripture they are not all different nor is there necessity of an express Thought of them in entering the Covenant of Grace neither is this exclusive of what other way God may take to glorify those who cannot expresly thus believe for it is not necessary for us to know it seeing the Scripture is all directed to Hearers and Believers and doth not specially reveal God's other ways of Salvation tho what was said of Children in Scripture is all to their Advantage yet nothing is specially express'd of the manner or measure of it I know not any Conception possible which could so much exalt the Justice the Mercy and the Faithfulness of God leaving nothing to the Creature to attribute any part of its Happiness to it self which could be consistent with a Covenant between God and the saved Soul which is confirmed by the whole stream of Scripture In this Act all the former Expressions in Scripture of Conversion and Regeneration are implied Yet this Objection ariseth that this Conception makes the saving Act of Faith to consist without the Habit of Faith and makes the Habit of Faith to be on God's part of the Covenant of Grace This will easily be cleared by considering that God works in and by Creatures by giving and preserving in them Inclinations which are the Principles of their Actings No considerate Man dare say that God cannot give an operative Inclination for one single Act as well as for one Species of Acts without which it were impossible to explicate his Dominion and therefore he may well give the effectual Inclination to imbrace the Offer of Conversion without giving the Habit for exerting all the Acts of Faith which is no less a Christian Vertue or Grace than Love or any other and there is nothing can more clearly difference the saving Act of Faith from being an Act of Holiness or a Work of the Law yea if any require the Accuracy of the Schools they will find there is a Disposition differenced from an Habit. This Objection doth also occur that Acceptance of an Offer is no Act of believing for which there is no ground For the Acceptance must imply the sense of a Motion to repent or return or to admit of Conversion which is an Act of the Understanding and is such an Act of Faith as is the believing the Scripture to be the Word of God but the Acceptance implies also a Trust or relying upon God that he will make good his Offer to the Person trusting This Difficulty did also offer it self to me that this way of Salvation and of the Covenant of Grace makes too much to depend upon the Creature If all that do not reject the Offer of Conversion and Holiness be elected Election is not so free as the Scripture holdeth it forth and one Creature makes it self to differ from another whereas the Scripture saith Who hath made thee to differ There is a necessity either to refuse or to choose and if there can be a middle Condition between refusing and choosing there is no Warrant to make such Difference between refusing and not refusing I thank God that hath fully cleared me in all these for as to God's Freedom in Election it is not incroached upon by his acting like himself he was under no Obligation or Necessity to have elected or recovered any of the Race of fallen Adam but to manifest the exceeding abundance of the Riches of his Grace he did freely elect all that with Congruity to his Nature were eligible rejecting none but those that would refuse his Offer and not all those but prevailing by the superabundance of his Grace against the Resistance of some of those especially upon his Kindness to their Fathers How often doth he shew Mercy to rebellious Israel remembring Abraham Isaac and Jacob his Servants tho by many Generations distant from them How much more the nearer Seed of his eminently faithful Servants and yet freely for these Fathers could not merit Happiness for themselves much less for their Children and the saying Who hath made thee to differ cannot be opposed to a Difference in a greater degree of Evil For certainly he that sinneth against the Holy Ghost makes himself so to differ from another obstinate Sinner so that it can only be meant of doing any good and holy Deed in order to Salvation That there is a middle State between accepting and rejecting any Offer is without question First Negatively by not noticing or considering it which requires no positive Act. 2. By a positive Act resolving to take it into Consideration presently or at a convenient time when there shall be most opportunity without Diversion to ponder it 3. By inventing collecting and comparing the Reasons and Motives on both parts which in the most weighty Cases may require long Time and much Deliberation 4. By Irresolution vacillating and doubting what is to be preferred And lastly by suspending the Resolution or Choice when yet there appears Reasons of Preference and therefore God saith to the Church of Thiatira of Jezebel That he gave her space to repent of her Fornications and she repented not There is nothing more clear and frequently inculcated in Scripture than the attributing of the Misery and perishing of the Wicked to their refusing the Offer of Grace or equivalent Expressions And 1. There can nothing signify more Aversion to a motioned Offer than not so much as to hear it for those who see
Manner which God hath freely chosen whereby to communicate Grace and Glory to the Elect. I like it not to be called properly an Instrument which is an inferiour Cause having some Influence with the principal Agent whereas God and Christ are the only Cause of Grace and Glory Neither yet to be properly a Condition upon which God is to give Grace and Glory seeing a Condition must be uncertain to him who makes it a Condition The being an Eye or Hand are certainly Metaphorical without doubt Causa Conditio Modus are different There is least to be attributed to the saving Act of Faith as it is only the Manner how God is pleased to save which is not a necessary Manner for God might have exerted all his Dispensations with Creatures without giving them the Honour to enter into Covenant with him and therefore he freely chose the way of a Covenant and so the manner of it and to magnify his free Grace and to exclude all glorying of Man in himself he hath chosen the manner of the Covenant of Grace wherein there could not be less of Man in a Covenant If God had proceeded only by Mercy to save Men there could have been no place for a Covenant and Man had not been so much dealt with as a Rational Creature proceeding by Reason Deliberation and Choice as by a Covenant Hence way is made to the last Point proposed What may be thought the Reason why God chose an Act of Faith rather than any other Act of Man to be Man's part in the Covenant of Grace wherein there needs no other Reason but the free Arbitrary Choice of God yet tho the matter had been indifferent his Wisdom appeareth much in this Choice and his Goodness also that he would honour Man to contract with him and to take his Consent to that and yet to give him no Cause and even no Pretext to glory in himself If any Person did obtain great things from another freely which he knew he expected from him and were sutable to the one to give and the other to get Could he without the highest Ingratitude and Impudence attribute the Gift to his own Hope and not wholly to the Goodness and Faithfulness of the Giver The Faithfulness of God is the chief Perfection exerted in the Covenant of Grace The Object of Mercy is Misery the Object of Faithfulness is a rational Hope or Trust which is far larger than Mercy and is extended to innocent Creatures who were never miserable This way of the Explication of the Covenant of Grace gives an easy Outgate to that bitter Contest in the Protestant Church of France and elsewhere whether only the active or also the passive Obedience of Christ were imputed by the Covenant of Grace As the Controversy was stated the Arguments on either side were hardly solvable for it was stated thus Whether Christ in his Sufferings stood in the place of Man or if he did also stand in his place in his Acts of Holiness The former was granted by both the latter affirmed by the one and denied by the other The main Reason for the Affirmative was That suffering could do no more than satisfy the Guilt of Sin and so could only bring Man to be free of Misery and Torment in which case Adam was before the Fall but could not raise Man from that Animal State being so much common with Brutes to an Angelical State in Heaven and yet that is frequently attributed to Christ. Therefore it behoved to be the Merit of Christ not by his Sufferings but by his Holiness as Adam would have merited Heaven for himself and his Posterity by his good Works as of Debt not of Grace For to him that worketh the Reward is not reckoned of Grace but of Debt so that Christ paid the Debt of the Elect and so advanceth them unto Glory And on the other part the chief Reason was that Christ by his Human Nature being a Creature was under an indispensable Obligation to the Creator to love him with all his Soul with all his Heart and with all his Strength beyond which there could be nothing by which he did deserve all that Glory that no other was capable of and therefore they could not conceive a Supererrogation in Christ's active Obedience meriting the Heavenly Glory which Merit was not only sufficient for the Elect but for the whole Race of Mankind altho it was free for the Son to become Man his becoming Man was a part of his Humiliation and Suffering and which is yet more pressing if in that way the active Obedience and Holiness of Christ were imputed to the Elect they were thereby intirely holy and their own Holiness were but Works of Supererrogation at least were not Works due by Justice but Works of Gratitude and the failing in them could never require Repentance which would agree to the Principles of none but of the Antinomians Nor did it magnify the free Grace of God if he gave nothing to the Elect in advancing them to Glory but that which in Recompence at least in Premiative Justice he was obliged to give There being small ground in a Creditor to glory that he had exacted all he could have required tho not from his Debtor but from an interposed Person I have already cleared my Thoughts that tho Christ's Satisfaction may by Resemblance be called the Payment of a Debt yet properly it is not Nor doth God crave Satisfaction as a Creditor or is Sin expiated by God's taking Pleasure in the Misery of his Creature to compense the Displeasure he had in their Sin seeing he declareth the contrary with so solemn an Asseveration As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the Death of a Sinner But the Satisfaction he requireth in Conformity to his Holiness is the Vindication of his Purity and of his infinite Aversion from Sin as by his Justice he proportions the Suffering requisite for the Vindication to the Sins deserving Therefore upon the foresight of Adam's Fall and thereby not only the loss of the Exaltation of himself and Posterity to Celestial Glory but falling into a sinful State which no Creature could expiate the Son did freely interpose to restore Mankind to what they had lost by Adam and to vindicate the Purity of God by Sufferings of as much Value as if all Mankind had been in eternal Misery and by Christ's performing what Adam was obliged to perform by a full Implement of the whole Will and Law of God and for that end assuming the Nature of Man I have also cleared my Mind that tho Adam had stood he could not have merited that Exaltation which he and his Posterity were to have had by the first Covenant for he might have continued innocent and sinless without great Advances in Holiness Can it then with any Reason be thought that his so continuing did in any way of Justice and Merit purchase Glory for himself and the Capacity of the like to all his Posterity
Eve Death was the due Punishment of the Breach of that Prohibition tho it had not been expressed for the Obedience of a Rational Creature to the Creator is indispensible not only by the Immutability of the Divine Decree not to dispense but simply by the nature of the Thing It could not consist with God's infinite Love to himself to make a Rational Creature that owed him no Obedience and if he could renounce Obedience in one thing he might in all But tho the Prohibition had been after the Covenant yet it was no part of it nor did God by it restrain his own Freedom to command what he pleased for which he had given an Ability to perform For it was a chief Law written in Man's Heart to obey all God's Commands The Institution of Marriage was also before the Fall and even before the Covenant of Works and the Breach of it or any of God's Moral Laws would have annull'd that Covenant God did both in Wisdom and Goodness express the Sanction of Death to the eating of that Fruit as that which Man might be most readily deceived in the Matter being in it self indifferent and of small moment abstract from the Command and therefore the Devil tempted to break it rather than any other God made the Covenant of Works with Adam and when Adam had broke that Covenant and made it ineffectual God did publish to him the new Covenant of Grace There is but little of either expresly related by Moses yet doubless both were largely revealed and made known to Adam and now when the Canon of Scripture is full the Analogy of Faith may thence sufficiently be collected both as to the Tenor of the Covenant of Works and of the Covenant of Grace It were a vast Task to gather in order all that might be deduced from Scripture concerning these Covenants But that which I find necessary for my Satisfaction and for clearing to me the beautiful Representation of the Divine Decrees and Dispensations towards Mankind by Grace and Glory to the Elect and just Judgment against the malicious and obstinately wicked I will digest my Thoughts of both these Covenants between God and Adam that the Parallel may the more clearly appear by expressing the Terms of both in the Form of a free Offer made by God and accepted by Adam for himself and all his in the way Covenants used to be entred in as if God had said to the Protoplasts I have made you after my own Image Innocent and Holy and have endued you with Understanding whereby you can judg and reason and have written my Laws in your Hearts in the Principles of Knowledg to which you cannot but give assent and the Knowledg of necessary Consequences which you may thence certainly deduce I have also endued you with Capacities of Pleasure and Grief whereby upon the Preception of these Objects which may most concern your Well-being Pleasure or Grief will result and from Pleasure Appetite and from Grief Aversion and have made the purest and powerfulest Joy to arise from the Perception of my glorious Perfections and next from these things which conduce to the Well-being of your Kind and then the Pleasure that is peculiar to every one All which are good when kept within their Limits and in due Order I have given you that capacity of Freedom that you need not be under the Power of the Pleasure or Grief arising from perception of any Creature but that you may avoid or abate them by the Application of other Objects to your Senses or Mind by the Pleasure or Grief thence resulting especially by perceiving and considering my own Perfections whereby you may govern your selves and your Choices Appetites or Aversions as may be allowed and accepted by me and as may conduce for my Glory shewing my Divine Perfections in creating preserving and ruling such Creatures whereby as I have been the first Author so indispensibly I must be the last End of your Being to which you must subordinate and direct all your considerate Actions even the desire and endeavour of your own Happiness that thereby you may be in the fuller capacity to please and glorify me wherein if you transgress you must be punished by perpetual Exclusion from my Favour which neither you nor any Creature can ever be able to expiate and restore you my Aversion from Sin being infinite as my self If you improve the Capacities I have given you I will also reward you with greater Perfections as you shall deserve Your Obedience and Devotion to me must not be in trivial things but in such things as require Attention and Diligence yet such as by these shall still be in your Power while you remain innocent By careful Inspection of your own Minds you may find my Laws written therein most of them are evident to you without reasoning and I have endued you with this Principle to know all things that are congruous to and becoming my glorious Nature and yours as you bear my Image and as is congruous to and becoming that part of your Nature peculiar to your selves I am now pleased to enter with you into a Covenant by your willing Engagement in the Terms that I offer you wherein your part is no more than persevering in your Innocence during that time of Trial which I appoint you to which you are obliged by your natural Duty to which I propose the Accession of your voluntary Engagement and my part shall be to put you thenceforth out of hazard ever to offend or to lose that Happiness that I give you and to put all your Posterity in the like Condition that now you are in that each of them that shall continue innocent during his Trial shall be likewise confirmed and because they are to be born Infants carried only by sensible Pleasures before Discretion which will become habitual and strong and much more ready to exceed than you who were created in ripeness of Judgment I will enable them to be in like Capacity to stand as you are and I will exalt you and them from an animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven so that you shall be Immortal without any Separation of your Souls and Bodies I will put you in no Necessity to fall by my Decree or any Circumstances in which you shall be placed I will now add nothing to your Obedience by the Laws of your Nature but the For bearance to eat of the Fruit of one Tree in the midst of the Paradise that it may be an Evidence of your Obedience for my Command alone in a Thing in it self indifferent wherein you must take heed that you yield not to the Pleasure which will arise from that Fruit. Are you now content to enter into this Covenant for your selves and your Posterity wherein if you fail on your Part you lose all the Benefit of it To which Adam and Eve with Joy Acclamation and Blessing did engage and assent and God exhorted them to take good