himself hath contracted it into a very brief but full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ten Commandments a brief abstract of the whole Law Three Modules delivered by Christ in his first Sermon or Module in the ten Commandments which are called ten words Deut. 4.13 because they are the briefest Epitome of the Law And thus our Saviour as he laid down the great and larger draught of Gospel-doctrine so also in his Sermons he hath left some shorter forms or types of necessary points and principles of Religion exempli gratiâ in his first Sermon after he entred upon his publick Ministry he hath drawn up three very concise and most excellent Modules 1. Of beatitudes Mans summum bonum The first Module contains the beatitudes A list of particulars wherein mans true and chiefest happinesse doth consist Matth. 5. from the third verse to the twelfth wherein he doth totally crosse the judgment of the blinde world writing blessednesse where the world writes woe and woe where the world writes blessednesse Credenda These we may call the credenda Articles of faith to be believed by all those that would be accounted Christs Disciples The second Module contains a list of duties things to be done by every one that would be saved This our Saviour doth by asserting and expounding the Moral Law from the seventeenth verse to the end of the Chapter confuting and reforming the false glosses which the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon the ten Commandm nts thereby making the Law of God of none effect Facienda And these we may call the facienda things to be done The third Module contains a list of petitions which in the sixth Chapter from the ninth verse to the sixteenth he commends to his Disciples and in them to all succeeding generations of the Church as a form or directory of prayer Not that Christians should alwayes confine themselves to the words Petenda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but conform to the matter in their supplications at the Throne of grace After this manner pray ye And these we may call the petenda things to be prayed for The Apostles method in their Epistles The Epistle to the Romans the Christian Catechisme The holy Apostels tread in our Saviours steps you may observe in all their Epistles that in the former part of them they generally lay down a Module of Gospel-principles and in the latter part a Module of Gospel-duties The Epistle to the Romans is upon this account justly called by some of the Antients The Christians Catechisme As containing an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or list of the chief Articles of the Christian Religion for although the principal designe of the Apostle be to discusse that prime Evangelical doctrine of justification in the negative and affirmative part of it Neg. not in works Affir in a free gratuitous imputation of the righteousnesse of Christ applied by faith together with the grounds evidences and fruits thereof yet occasionally according to the wisdome given unto him he doth with a most profound and admirable art interweave other deep and fundamental points of Religion scilicet A parallel between the a Chap. 5. two Adams The doctrine of Original sinne The corruption and depravation of b Chap. 7. nature The doctrine of grace chap. 7. The merit and efficacy of Christs death and resurrection Chap. 6. The doctrine of AFFLICTION and the use of it to believers Chap. 8. The mysteries of Election and Predestination Chap. 9. The excoecation and rejection of the Jews Chap. 10. The vocation of the Gentiles Chap. 11. with the restituion of the seed of Abraham c. And when he hath finished the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of doctrinal principles he winds up the Epistle with a short but full delineation of Evangelical duties wherein he doth bring down those principles unto practice The former part of the Epistle is the DOCTRINE the latter part is the VSE I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God c. The whole Epistle to the Hebrews is nothing else as it were but a delineation of the THREE OFFICES OF JESUS CHRIST King Priest Prophet The Epistle to the Hebrews Especially his Priestly office with a most profound and yet dilucid Exposition of those Levitical types and figures which did more obscurely Heb. 10.1 shadow forth Christ under the Law so that in that Epistle as in a Table Christians may behold the Law to be nothing else but Evangelium velatum veiled Gospel and the Gospel to be no other thing than Lex revelata unveiled Ceremony or the Law with the Curtain drawn But there be divers short Modules or Compendiums of Christian doctrine occasionally delineated by the Apostles in their several Epistles In the Epistle to the Galatians within the compasse of five verses the Apostle gives two full Catalogues or Lists chap. 5. The one of sinnes ver 19.20 21. The other of graces ver 22.23 In the Epistle to the Ephesians chap. 5. 6. you have an excellent and compleat Module of Relational duties Of Ver. 22. Wives towards their husbands Ver. 25. Husbands towards their Wives Chap. 6.1 Children towards their Parents Ver. 4. Parents towards their Children Ver. 5. Servants towards their Masters Ver. 9. Masters towards their servants The Epistles to Timothy give us a type or table of Ministerial offices and qualifications yet so as most beautifully adorned with other most precious Evangelical principles the sum whereof is CHRIST 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying c. And the principal comprehensive parts FAITH LOVE faith apprehensive and love active These two in my Text many learned men conceive to be intended by Saint Paul as the two great comprehensive fundamentals of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commended by him unto Timothy his care and fidelity Hold fast the form of sound words the two main branches whereof are FAITH and LOVE but of this more hereafter In the Epistle to Titus the Apostle will furnish you with two short but very perfect systems one in chap. 2. ver 11.12 13 14. Where you have Ver. 11. 1. Gods grace made the original and fountain of all the good we expect from God and perform to God Ver. 11. 2. And this grace issuing it self by Christ for the salvation of the creature Ver. 11. 3. And appearing by the Gospel there you have Scripture intimated and Ver. 12. 4. Teaching us as to the Privative part of obedience to deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts terms capacious enough to comprise all sinne As to the positive part to live soberly implying all personal duties for the governing of our selves in our single capacity Righteously implying all duties to our neighbours Ver. 12. godly noting our whole Communion with God in the duties of his worship More cannot be said as to the duty of man Now 5. The encouragements are either from
take off the veile from the Text in a short explication By one man and him we may consider 1. His name Adam and this comprehends his person sex and kind 2. His order he was the first man 1 Cor. 15.45 3. His person in the individual And so Original sin properly is not derived from the proximate Parents but the prime-parent 4. His nature Adam was one non tantum in individuo sed in specie one comprehending the whole root representing the whole stock the seed and generation of man-kind so Adam is taken for the species of man Sinne The Apostle here speaks of sin not sins as if he would precisely determine it of that one root of sin distinct from those many following fruits this sin hath been the Original the incentive the cause of all sinne this sinne stained the world Entered into the world viz. by propagation sin entered like death Now death is actually propagated as he said scio me genuisse mortalem I know I beget a dying child a child subject to death sinne entered not by example but generation The World By the world we must not understand terrenam corpâ—ralem vitam the pleasure and delights of the world for the Saints are crucified to the world in this sense Gal 6.14 and so Original sin should not seize on believers Nor 2. In locum mundi for as Pareus observes the Angels first sinned and sin first entred by them into the place of the world Nor 3. In Paradisum into Paradise for sin was first committed by Eve in Paradise But 4. We must understand the inhabitants of the world Vniversum genus humanum all man-kind Martyr Gorranus as Mart. Gor. And death by sinne The query among Divines is what this death is Some suppose the death of the body as Ambrose some the death of the soul as the Pelagians but as Haymo observes mors animae corporis in omnes pertranstit the death both of soul and body passed on all for as Origen saith Orig. Mors corporalis umbra est spiritualis the death of the body is only the shadow of the death of the soul so that by death in the Text we must necessarily understand the death of soul and body with all the antecedents and consequents of both Willet sicknesse weaknesse corruption guilt horrour despair Death passed upon all men Corporal death on all the most holy most flourishing most probable to live spiritual and eternal death on all men in the sentence not in the execution Rom. 3.19 the sentence is reversed the execution for ever forborn to believers For all have sinned For the opening of this I shall only give you the glance of Musculus In Adam omnes fuimus in lumbis ejus c. we were all in the loynes of offending Adam from that masse we sprung and therefore as Levi paid tythes in the loyns of Abraham Hebrews 7.9 10. so it is no wonder if we being in the loyns of Adam are found sinners in him Doct. Now the mournful truth that the Text presents us with is this viz. That our first Parent by his transgression hath left an unhappy portion of sinne and death to all his posterity thus much the Text expresseth thus much it confirms we have this unwelcome entail from our first Parent Concerning death I shall not dilate because the shade of death doth alwayes accompany the body of sin but I shall only insist on that part of our portion sin We are entituled to Adams sinne 'T is a derivation from the root to the branches as poyson is carried from the fountain to the Cistern as the children of Traytours have their blood tainted with their fathers Treason and the children of Bond-slaves are born in their Fathers condition Omnes in Adamo peccaverunt Aug. quia omnes unus ille fuerunt Aug. All were entangled in Adams sin because all were folded up in Adams person And the same Father in another place Traxit reatum homo quia unus erat cum illo à quo traxit Man drew down guilt upon himself because he was one with him from whom he drew it Greg. And it is an excellent observation of Gregory Genus humanum in parente primo velut in radice putruit Man-kind putrified in the first parent as in a root Adam is as the poysoned root and the clusters are envenomed because the root was poysoned had Adam stood and preserved his perfection his glory as a royalty had descended to his seed to man-kind but by his offence forfeiting his beauty and contracting on himself both guilt and an universal loathsomenesse both losse and loathsomnesse he transmits to his posterity and it is upon his breath that every child that comes into the world sucks in poyson with his first breach and is no sooner a living creature than a deformed sinner This truth we find early confirmed in the world so Adam begat Seth according to his own likeness Gen. 5.3 non ad similitudinem Dei sed ad similitudinem sui Brockman and it is very considerable the Original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his image in his likeness the word is as it were redoubled to set the greater brand upon corrupt nature in his image nay in his likeness And to shew the necessity of our drawing corruptness from Adam holy Job expresses it by a quick and smart interrogation Job 14.4 Nay th s truth David seems to bedue with tears and deplore with sighs Psal 51.5 Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceive me In the times of the Gospel this spot is more clearly discernable and from whence we received the contagion Rom. 5.19 By God we are creatures by Adam we are sinners so that Text By one mans disobedience many were made sinners And so most remarkably 1 Cor. 15.49 And as we have borne the image of the earthly c. Nor is that gloss of Cyprian upon the place to be over-passed Imaginem terreni portavimus Cypr. peccandi propensâ—â—nem mortem imaginem caelestis portemus constantiam in sanctitate instaurationem ex morte corruptione ad vitam immortalitatem i. e. We have borne the image of the earthly Adam a propensity to sin and death let us bear the image of the heavenly a constancy in holiness and instauration from death and corruption to life and immortality I shall only adde one Scripture more Ephes 2.3 We were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Now there are three things which are considerable for the dispatch of the doctrinal part of the Text. 1. To demonstrate more particularly the transmission of Adams sin to us Now Adams sin is transmitted to posterity two wayes 1. By imputation 2. By inhaesion the guilt and the stain of his sin is propagated to all his posterity Particle 1 1. The sin of Adam is derived to us by way of imputation and that upon a double demonstration may be evidenced
and off-spring we expected that the beauty of his mind the harmony of his will the holinesse of his desires the absolutenesse of his Soveragnty should have fallen to us as a Princely inheritance and therefore Adam falling it is but just that the entaile of sin and death should be fixed upon us 3. Now the third thing to be opened in the finishing of which the doctrinal part will be dispatcht is to shew that Adams sin is not propagated to us by imitation but by generation against the heretical Pelagian And this shall be briefly coucht under the evidence of a five-fold Argument Arg. 1 Arg. 1. As our Divines seasonably observe Christs righteousnesse is not only proposed to us to be imitated we should then all fall sho t in writing after the copy but those that lay hold on his righteousnesse by faith they are changed and renewed in their minds there is a physical communication of this righteousness they feele the power of his death in the crucifying of their lusts and the vertue of his resurrection in their newnesse of minde and life Rom. 6.5 Phil. 3.10 as the Apostle most pathetically So Adams sin is not only our Copy but our corruption it doth not only seduce but defile our natures not only entice but condemne our persons Adam was not only a sinful pattern but a sinful Parent the plague of his sin hath infected the humane nature not only me but man-kind Arg. 2 Arg. 2. Baptisme that is administred to little ones to our infants it cannot be thought to blot out sins of imitation for they are guilty of none then Baptisme would in vaine be administred to our infants and this raises the feud of Anabaptists against this great truth of Original sin They deny the sin of Infants that they may deny the Baptisme Now we cannot conceive that tha blessed Ordinance of Infant Baptisme should be administred for no designs and purposes and why doth the Apostle call Baptisme the Laver of Regeneration Tit. 3.5 were there no stain in Infants what need of a Laver or of washing Arg. 3. And as Ambrose observes David ait ante usuram lucis Ambrose se accipere originis injuriam David complains that he lay under the stain of original sin before he was blest with the first light of the Sun he was dog'd with native corruption when the womb bore him it bore a living but a leprous childe he was wrap't in sin before he was wrapt in swadling cloaths Arg. 3 Arg. 4. And how many offend in the world who think nothing of Adam they transgresse and look not on his Copy And what is murder so often acted in the world to the earing of an Apple What proportion is there between those two Sins Adams eating of an Apple and Cains shedding of his brothers blood How many transgressours are there in the world that ne-ever heard of his offence or that ever there was such a man in the world whom did Philosophers imitate in their sin that opinionated the world to be eternal as Aristotle and his followers Arg. 4 Arg. 5. And that Argument of a learned man is most considerable Si peccatum originis sit tantùm ab imitatione Paulus non dixisset ex Adamo fluxisse peccatum sed à Diabolo quia ipse peccandi exemplum dedit i. e. If original sin were only propagated in a way of imitation Paul would never have said that sin entred the world by Adam but by Satan for he set the first pattern of sinning And now the doctrinal part is dispatch't I shall only annex some few things for the clearer evidence of this truth Arg. 5 1. If the guilt of Adams sin be not imputed to us why do our Infants of en labour under the wracking torments of some distempers and why often is the Cradle turn'd into a Coffin why come they crying and moaning into the world why doth palenesse of face plenteousnesse of tears and a multiplicâ—ty of diseases seize upon them as the prisoners of sin Surely God cannot forget the bowels of a Father this could not befall our Infants were not the hand of justice armed with sin and guilt let us not conceive God trying practice upon poor moaning innocents 2. If Adams sin be not inherent in us why have we not free will to good why do we not naturally burn in love to Jesus Christ and flourish with all vivacity in duty why flye we not to the Sanctuary as to our Paradise but on the contrary why do we draw the Chain of a body of death after us Duty is our burden sin our Element Rom. 7.24 the world our beloved the creature our Idol How are we dragg'd to service we flye to sin but are drawn to duty And in a word how come our understandings to be prisons of darknesse our wills stages of rebellion our affections heaps of dung or drosse for naturally we love sin or the creature what was then the inoffensivenesse of infancy thus to envenome our natures how came in the evil heart of unbelief Hebrews 3.12 3. This Truth of original sin was generally held in the Church till Pelagius who liv'd in the fifth Century confirmed by divers Councels in the Primitive times Quis ante Discipulum Pelagii prodigiosum Cael estium reatu praevaricationis Adaegenus humanum negavit esse astrictum Concilio Melevitano Concilio Toletano c. and the sixth Council of Carthage This truth hath been acknowledged by Heathens Plato complained Homines naturâ suâ esse pravos induci non posse ut justitiam colant i. e. That men were naturally very evil and could not be induced to the embracement of what was righteous And Cicero lamentatus est homines à naturâ novercâ in lucem edi Cicero complains that men were brought into the world by nature their step-mother the Heathens themselves universally enjoyned a strict Discipline to curb the ranknesse and untowardnesse of nature Actus ille Adami quo ipse peccavit omnibus imputandus est censendus omnium esse proprius c. A lap Nay this truth hath been confirmed by the most learned of the Papists A lapide in his Comment on the Romans acknowledgeth that that one act of Adams in eating the forbidden fruit wherein he offended is to be imputed to all men and is to be reputed the sin of all men and from hence it comes to passe that every childe of Adam hath contracted a necessity of sinning even with his first breath Nay the very Rabbies have attested this truth and we finde it clearly though sadly witnessed by our constant and much to be bemoaned experiences and here we might suppena and summon two witnesses for the further verification of it our own aversenesse to good and our natural propensity to evil 4. Nor was this truth ever opposed but upon some designe The Pelagians opposed it to maintain the perfection and power of nature which is mans proper Idol The Papists have opposed
passion of God-man Man being every other way finite must have suffered infinitely in regard of duration even to eternity And none but Christ who was infinite in regard of the subject and dignity of his person as he was God could have so speedily and effectually delivered us from this punishment by suffering it himself whereby Gods justice was satisfied his hatred against the sinner removed and his mercy at liberty to act in the pardon of the sinner Sixthly This passion of Jesus Christ God was graciously pleased to accept for us and impute to us as if we had suffered in our persons and so he receives us into mercy And this is the substance of the Doctrine of the Gospel about mans salvation So much for the first thing the Explication of the point 2. I now come to the Assertion or Demonstration of it that you may receive this Doctrine as a Truth not built upon the traditions of men but revealed in the Word of God Now to prove this point viz. That the death of Jesus Christ is the procuring cause of mans Justification and Salvation I may use two sorts of Arguments First Some from the consideration of Christs death Secondly Some from the consideration of mans Justification and Salvation 1. From the consideration of Christs death I shall offer six Arguments 1. It s Possibility 2. Necessity 3. Nature 4. Cause 5. Vicegerency 6. Peculiarity First From the possibility Let me be bold to assert had it not been for this purpose it had not been possible for Christ to dye as it was not possible for Christ to be holden of death Acts 2.24 the price being paid and so the Prisoner of course to be released so it had not been possible because not just Id tantum possumus quod jure possumus to put him into a prison if it had not been to pay a debt And a debt of his own he had none he was a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.19 Holy blameless undefiled separate from sinners Hebr. 7.26 He knew no sin 2 Cor. 5.21 which I the rather mention because Sâ—cinus hath the impudence to lay down this blasphemous Assertion That Christ like the Jewish High Priest did offer for himself as well as for the people You have seen he had no debt no sin of his own he professeth of himself that he did alwayes those things which pleased his Father John 8.29 and therefore he must needs dye for our debts it is plain that Adam had he continued in integrity should not have dyed death is not the effect of nature then the Saints in glory must dye again for they have the same nature but the fruit of sin death entred into the world by sin Rom. 5.12 And the Apostle proves the sin of Infants expressed by that Periphrasis such as have not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression from the death of Infants and in Adam all dyed i. e. by his sin 1 Cor. 15.22 Therefore Jesus Christ being purified from the guilt of Adams sin by his holy birth and no lesse perfect than Adam should have been could never have dyed if not for our sakes Secondly From the necessity of Christs death it was necessary for our Salvation and Justification without which end it had been in vain The Socinians mention two other reasons and ends of Christs death the one to be an example of obedience but such we have many others upon far less charge the other to be a ground of hope for the remission of sin and the fulfilling of Gods promises but properly it is not the death but resurrection of Christ which is the ground of our hope 1 Cor. 15.14 If Christ be not risen your faith is vain so that those ends are improper and insufficient And to strike it dead I urge but one place Gal. 2.21 If righteousnesse come by the Law Christ is dead in vain What can be more plain if righteousnesse be not by Christ that the death of Christ be not the procuring cause of our Justification Christ is dead in vain to no end or as Grotius and others rather understand without any meritorious cause i. e. our sins however all comes to one Thirdly From the nature of Christs death it is a Sacrifice this consists of two Branches 1. Sacrifices did expiate sin 2. Christs death is a Sacrifice and a sin-expiating Sacrifice 1. I say Sacrifices did expiate sin Levit. 1.4 He shall put his hands upon the head of the burnt-offering and it shall be accepted for him and many such places And this they did typically which strengthens the cause we have in hand as representing and fore-signifying Christ without which it was not possible for the blood of Buls and Goats to take away sins Hebr. 10.4 And the sins pardoned under the Old Testament were pardoned thorough Christ and not through any vertue of their Sacrifices Christ being a Mediatour for the Redemption of the Transgressions that were under the first Testament Hebrewes 9.15 2. And this brings in the second Head that Christs death is a Sacrifice and a sin-expiating Sacrifice if either the names or nature of it may be regarded for the names and titles proper to Sacrifices they are attributed to it and God doth not give flattering titles nor false names but such as discover the nature of things it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Oblation or offering up of himself Ephes 5.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 John 2.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 3.25 to omit others and for the nature by vertue hereof sin is atoned he is our High Priest for this end to make reconciliation for the sins of the people Heb. 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being by an Enallage put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pacifie God reconcile God turn away his wrath You meet with all things in Christ which concurre to the making of a Sacrifice The Priest he is our High Priest the Sacrifice himself Christ was once offered the shedding of blood and destroying of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the essential part of a Sacrifice Add to these 1 Cor. 5.7 Christ our Passeover is Sacrificed for us where is a double Argument 1. That Christ is expresly said to be Sacrificed 2. That he is called a Passeover which at the best seems to have been both a Sacrifice and a Sacrament Now then Christs death being a Sacrifice it appeares that it appeased Gods wrath procured his favour Fourthly From the cause of Christs death I might urge a double cause 1. The inflicting cause it was Gods displeasure Nothing more plaine than that he had a very deep sense of and sharp conflict with Gods wrath from those dreadful horrours in the Garden where his soul was exceeding sorrowful unto death not certainly at the approach of an ordinary death which many Martyrs have undergone with undaunted courage but at the apprehension of his Fathers anger and upon the Cross where he roared out that direful complaint My
13 34. so the mercies of it are the best mercies for they are the sure mercies of David 2 Sam. 23.5 Corol. 7. Blesse the Lord that ye are under the best dispensation and clearest discovery of the Covenant of grace better than Adams after the promise was made to him upon his fall better than Noahs after the flood better than Israels in the Wildernesse yea better than the Patriarchs and Prophets who had much legality and obscurity in their administrations in comparison of us who behold with open face the glory of God 2 Cor. 3.18 That it is the lot of us Gentiles to be brought into the knowledge and participation of the Gospel in the last and best time I mean after Christs appearance in the flesh The Apostle compares the Church to a Tree Rom. 11.16 17. which hath the same root Christ but several branches now that the natural branches should be cut off to make way for the ingrafting of us wildings Pet. Mart. is matter of praise to the High God for his rich grace to us Gentiles Ephes 3.8 Corol. 8. Labour for a spirit of self-denial and debasement for as the Old Covenant spirit is a spirit of pride and boasting to advance natural abilities Rom. 3.27 Rom. 10.3 to glory in our own personal endowments and performances so a New Covenant spirit is contrary to that and is a spirit of faith self-denial and debasement Corol. 9. Watch against Satan as soon as ever God and man were in Covenant he set himself to break that Covenant and prevailed for he beguiled their simplicity by his subtilty 2 Cor. 11.3 Gen. 3. Now albeit the New Covenant stands on a surer foundation yet he will very much weaken our comforts and increase our sorrows by drawing us under Gods displeasure by sin forfeiting Covenant mercies by Covenant breaches which mercies though they are not lost finally to Gods Elect yet are they often to be recovered renewed and secured to our souls by a clear evidence Besides Satan will perswade men to slight and renounce their Baptisme as when he makes Witches and turns Christians to be Mahumetans because thereby he knows they renounce their Covenant with God to make one with himself there are that upon fairer pretences neglect or deny the Seals of the Covenant Satan had a fair pretence also to draw away our first Parents and make them break with God which they little thought would have cost so dear but the sad event shewed the sinfulnesse of that sinne wherefore Wa ch and pray that ye enter not into temptation Be not ignorant of Satans Devices in these back-sliding and fedifragous times Remember from whence ye are fallen and walk stedfast in Gods Covenant you that stand 1 Cor. 10.12 learn by others falls to take heed THE FALL OF MAN Rom. 5.12 Wherefore as by one man sinne entered into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned THis doctrine of Original sin is not more difficult to understand than necessary to be known more full of knots than uses if we consider 1. The several batteries that are planted against this truth by Rabbins Pelagians Socinians Flaccians Arminians Anabaptists batteries raised by Pelagius his pride Philosophers ignorance Papists policy and Hereticks idolized reason Or 2. if we consider the dependances of other doctrines upon this truth Augustine writing against Pelagius thought the summe of Religion consisted in the right knowledge of Original sin As we know the pleasantnesse of a garden by the noysomnesse of a dunghill the gratefulnesse of a day from the darknesse of a night so we cannot know the benefits of Christ so well as from the knowledge of our Original guilt and sin By a strict survey of Original sin we may better understand the honour of justification the power of grace and sanctification the sweetnesse of a Christ the necessity of a Gospel the preciousnesse of a Ministry and therefore it was a futilous and malicious assertion of Celestius of old to call the doctrine of Original sin rem questionis non fidei a matter of debate not faith and the Hereticks of late to reproach it with the stile of Austins figment 3. If we consider the influence of this truth upon our practice The knowledge of Original sin it is the curb of pride the foyl to set off grace the glass of man the spurre of industry it is that which makes the best of Saints to weep in the best of duties and the worst of sinners to look pale in their greatest prosperities so that you see the doctrine is most useful let it therefore be most grateful Now this Original sin Divines usually distinguish in peccatum Originali Originans in peccatum Originali Originatum into Original sin Originating and into Original sin Originated into the Cause and into the Subject of this sin the fountains and its streames one man infecting and all men infected the first is my task the second is referred to a more worthy hand In the latter part of this chapter where the Text is the Apostle carries on a double design 1. To shew the excellency of Christ and grace by Christ 2. The necessity of faith in Christ and both these he demonstrates by a full and large comparison between the first and the second Adam the losse by the first the gain by the second the sin of the first the grace of the second the condemnation we are obliged in by the first and the pardon we are enriched with by the second the first is a poysonous spring the second is a cleansing fountain The Text if you look at the design of it it points at the postern where sin and death first entered the world and that was by Adams eating the forbidden fruit the prohibited Apple was the first Apple of contention between God and man-kind If we look at the parts of the Text they are three 1. We have an unhappy Parent viz. Adam not only by his offence undoing himself but making a bankrupt world By him sin entered the world 2. In the Text we have an unhappy posterity not only to be linkt to the loynes but the sins of the first Parent The whole world had sin entered into it and all have sinned saith the Text viz. in him 3. We have an unhappy portion sin and death the inseparable twins of misery so saith the Text sin enters and death by sin sin came by Adam and death came by sin the one fell in pell mell into the world with the other and both are the unhappy inheritance of every child of Adam indeed the Saints are exempted from the second but not the first death sin and death were married in Adam and they shall not be divorced in any of the sons of Adam believers dye temporally though not eternally they feel the stroak though not the sting of death Now for the further clearing of my way it will not be a digression to
Demon. 1 1. Ratione faederis by the reason of the Covenant of Works which God made with Adam we were in him all of us legally when God first made a Covenant with man it was not with Adam ratione individui as an individual person sed ratione â—aturae as he bore our nature with him as the representative of man-kind God makes his Covenant with Christ as Head and Mediatour of his Church with Abraham as the father of the faithful with Adam as the stock of man-kind Isa 53.11 Psal 40.8 we were in him parties in the Covenant and had interest in the mercy which should accompany the keeping of it and were liable to the curse which should follow the breach of it Now Adam violating the Covenant the guilt of that violation descends upon all his posterity Rom. 5.19 Constituti sunt peccatores 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chry. they were constituted sinners It is to be noted that God never makes a Covenant with a single person personally and individually that all others are unconcerned in it but with whomsoever God enters into Covenant that person is a representative of others and is to be looked upon as a publick person otherwise God should make as many Covenants as there are persons which is the greatest absurdity to assert and so in Covenanting with Adam he looked on him as the stock and root of mankind Arg. 2 2. Ratione Collationis The Apostle in two places makes a remarkable comparison between Adam and Christ the first and second Adam comparing the good of the last with the evil of the first the grace of the one with the sin of the other the life conveyed by the one with the death transmitted by the other Rom. 5.12 c. 1 Cor. 15.45 c. Now the righteousnesse of Christ redounds to believers to justification so the sin of Adam redounds to his posterity to condemnation by Adam we are cast by Christ we are cleared by Adam guilty by Christ innocent the comparison would else be wholly insignificant as by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners we are Princes in Christ Prisoners in Adam Crowned in Christ cursed in Adam this is is one great drift of the comparison Particle 2 2. The sin of Adam is derived to us not only by way of imputation but by way of inhaesion we receive from offending Adam Adamus genus nostrum tabificavit Aug. vitiositatem libidinem morbidum affectum a vitiosity lusting and a contagious distemper we receive not only a defect of holiness but deordination pravity evil disposition propension to mischief Ephes 4.22 John 3.6 Jam. 3.15 Col. 3.5 aversion to all good this sometimes the Scripture calls the Old man the flesh divelish wisdome the hell that sets the whole course of nature on fire earthly members And that Adams sin is propagated to us by way of inhaesion is likewise demonstrable by a double evidence Arg. 1 1. From the confession of some of the best of Gods Saints Psal 51.5 The soul of David was no sooner united to his body than sin was united to both he had not only a Crown of gold but grace he was not only a King after mans desire but a Saint after Gods heart 1 Sam. 13.24 yet this sinful leprosie he drew from Adam this Original staine clave to him he was a sinner in the womb though a Prince in the Throne and a Saint in the Sanctuary And so Paul that excellent Apostle how doth he moan this inward spot which he drew from Adam how doth he complain of indwelling sin Rom. 7.17 of an evil within him verse 19. of a law of his members verse 23. These groans of such eminent Saints are too pregnant an argument that the sin of Adam transmitted to us doth not only cast guilt on our persons but filth on our natures lay a charge to us but throw a stain upon us Arg. 2 2. As Christ doth not only vouchsafe believers imputed but infused righteousnesse the merit of his obedience but the graces of his Spirit to justifie but to renew and sanctifie us 1 Cor. 1.30 so the first Adam not only conveighs guilt to condemn but filth to defile us else the work of sanctification would be wholly unnecessary and the comparison between the first and second Adam would be maimed and imperfect Christ makes us heavenly as well as pronounceth us heavenly and Adam makes us earthly as well as leaves us to the punishment of those that are so The full comparison between the first and second Adam speaks this clearly Adam had sin to defile Rev. 1.5 Christus valnera sanarit quae Adamus portavit Cypr. and therefore Christ had blood to wash Here may that observable passage of Austin come in Vidi ego zelantem puerum c. I have seen saith Augustin a child with his eye full of envy venting his malice c. Whence comes this incurvation and waywardness of nature but from Adam happily the parents of this child were true and eminent believers so that there must be a tabes a disaffectednesse transmitted from Adam to his posterity against the opinion of Peter Lumbard and the Schoolmen 2. The second thing to be opened for the dispatching of the doctrinal part of the Text it is this To vindicate the righteousnesse of God in this transmission and conveyance And the justice of God is most glorious in this propagation of Adams sinne and this may be cleared in a double Demonstration Demon. 1 Adams sin is ours as well as his as a Learned man most elegantly Si quis peste laborans alios inficiat hi moriuntur Pet. Martyr dicitur illorum quisque non alienâ sed sua peste mortuus esse Now there is a double Argument to prove Adâ—ms sin ours 1. Else God did punish us for anothers sin that fault which is not our own which is against divine justice God doth not usually strike the son for the fathers crime and make the son feel the bruise of the fathers fall that the father should merit the stroak and the posterity feel it this is against his own protestation Ezek. 18.2 2. The Antithesis between Christ and Adam would not hold if Adams was not to be reputed ours for as the righteousnesse of Christ ita communicatur membris ut quisque fidelis dicere possit illam esse suam c. as Bucan well observes is so communicated to us that every believer may say This righteousnesse is mine so the iniquity of Adam is so communicated to all his posterity that every child of Adam may sadly say This iniquity is mine and I am righteously punished for it And now therefore I say if Adams sin be ours in the guilt and stain of it let us acknowledge Gods justice in the transmission of it Demon. 2 2. Had Adam stood we expected the entaile of perfection and happinesse that the Crown should have descended to us as his issue
watch over them till the morning of conversion appear in them 3. By their importunate prayers Adam destroyed his posterity by a wanton eye let us study to save ours by a weeping eye by prayer mingled with tears Hannah by prayer obtain'd a Samuel let us by prayer endeavour to make our children Samuels the God of grace can give grace to our issue upon the account of prayer Prayer may obtain that from the second Adam for thy children which they lost in the first 8. Let us consider this with our selves that though from Adam we receive sin and death yet that we charge not our sin and death upon him as if we dyed by his fall and not by our folly it is true our original guilt comes from him but from whom comes our actual he left us a stock of sin but who hath improved this stock Perditio nostra ex nobis our destruction is from our selves his sin is ours as we were in him but O those innumerable iniquities we our selves have adventured upon we had the Egge from Adam but the Serpent is from us that stings to death we cocker lust and warme corruption with our desire and delight that it engenders into killing transgressions Adam hath left us death by original but we apply this death by our actual sin And therefore as our perdition was hatched by Adam so it is fledged by us it is seminally from Adam but ripen'd by us we our own selves perfect our own misery we put the seal to our own destruction by our fostering of our own lusts and by our actual rebellions OF Original sinne INHERING Rom. 6.6 Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin THe Apostles drift throughout the whole Chapter is clearly to beat down sin and to promote holinesse It was not known in his happy dayes how to ascend the Throne of glory but by the steps of grace Those Primitive and truly inspired Saints never thought of commencing any degree in happinesse per saltum knowing that without holinesse they should nâ—t see God Now to urge his already believing Romans to further sanctity the Apostle uses the consideration of their Baptisme as a special motive in the 3.4 5. verses and indeed those Ordinances in which we receive most from God are greatest obligations of the soul unto God There are these mercies with him that he may be feared When the direct beam of love from God to them is strongest the reflexion of love and duty from them towards their God is hottest then they are constrained and cannot as it were 2 Cor. 5.14 any longer choose but live to him that dyed for them This is that which the Apostle in this verse takes for granted Knowing this or we all know and grant this the participle by an Hebraisme being put for the verb which hath reference unto the foregoing part of the Chapter A Lapide in locum Of which the words following in my Text are the sum and conclusion viz. That our old man is crucified with him c. Which words contain 1. A duty or priviledge for in Religion the same thing is both it being our happinesse to serve so good a Master and to be employed in so good a service 2. The end of that duty or priviledge That the body of sinne might be destroyed c. But my task being only to speak to some of the terms we here meet withal I would not be curious in the division of the words I am only to unfold a word or two in each part Paraeus Chrys viz. Our old man the body of sinne and sinne all which signifie one and the same thing that is they all are put here to expresse our Original pravity and inbred corruption Concerning which I suppose you have in the former Sermon seen this fountain of death opened I am only to shew you the streames that are from it overflowing in every one of us Original pravity inhering in us spoken to in the general And in the handling of this subject give me leave to propound some things first more generally remembring that this discourse is intended partly in the nature of a common place and then I shall speak to it more particularly from the words now before us Considered first that there is such a pravity That which more generally I am to speak unto is First That there is a pravity naughtinesse and corruption in every one Secondly What this corruption and spiritual pravity is 1. That there is such a pravity will partly appear from the forced consent and common experience of all men Arguments to prove it To prove which I need not quote those passages which Austin hath formerly observed out of Plato and Cicero or adde any other for certainly the wickednesse man naturally tends unto is so grosse Contra Julian Pelag. that the dim sight of nature may easily discover it were this to be read of Pagans I would confirme my assertion as Paul did his Acts 17.28 Certain of your own Poets have said it But I remember I have to do with Christians and therefore to the Law and to the Testimony Alas these poor men like those that admired Nilus's streams but were ignorant of its spring-head they could not see so far as to the true cause of all this sinful misery they could complain that none were content with their condition but qui fit how or whence it came so to passe they could not tell Nay more the wisest Heathen with the plummet of reason could never fathom the depth of this corruption St. Paul Rom. 7.7 till a Convert and savingly instructed in the Law did not know this lust And this I the rather premise because I shall take my self tyed up to Scripture-evidence and proofs in the businesse in hand Scripture makes only a full discovery of this disease and of its cure too Here only invenitur venenum here only nascitur antidotus Hence then I shall chiefly fetch these Arguments instead of many The first Argument of our sinful condition by nature may be taken from Gen. 5.3 where 't is said that Adam who had been created in the likenesse of God ver 1. after his fall by sin Arg. 1. From mans begetting children in his own image begat a son in his own likeness who had now made himself like unto the beast that perish or far worse for an Oxe knows his Owner c. Now what is it for God to create man in his likenesse 't is sanctus sanctum A holy God creared man holy and by consequence for Adam to beget Seth in his likenesse is corruptus corruptum defiled Adam begat defiled polluted Seth and indeed who can bring a clean thing out of that which is unclean John 14.4 if the root be corrupt the fruit is not sound if the fountain be poyson'd the waters are not wholesome if the
Parents be leprous or infected with some other disease not to be named they entail their malady as well as their nature upon their unhappy off-spring Nothing can exceed the vertue of its cause which is the ground of our Saviours assertion John 3.6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh It is very remarkable that the like phrase is not used when Scripture speaks of Adams begetting Cain or Abel though both these were begotten in Adams likenesse too because Abel being to dye without issue and all Cains progeny to be drowned by the flood it is noted the rather of Seth by whom all mankind hath hitherto been continued in the world that he from whom as well as from Adam we all came was begat in Adams own image that into which by sin he had transformed himself and not in that likenesse which was Gods in which God at first made him Nay though the Parents be regenerated yet their children by nature are altogether defiled because they beget children as they are men not as they are holy men though the Parent be circumcised the childe brings into the world an uncircumcised foreskin with it as the purest wheat that is cast into the Field comes up with husks and stalks I might adde that the holiest men upon earth are but holy in part they have a dark side as well as a light side and proles as conclusio sequitur deteriorem partem their children are like to what they were by nature and cannot without the same Almighty mercy be like what they are through grace witnesse Josiah's and Hezekiah's children but there are too many sad Evidences of this amongst us daily Arg. 2. From the Redemption of man by Christ Our second Argument for to prove our corruption by nature the Apostle furnishes us with 2 Cor. 5.14 If Christ dyed for all then were all dead And the stresse we lay upon it it will very well bear for what need all that are saved to be saved by Christ if in themselves they are not ruined Destruction is first asserted to be from our selves and then it follows but from me is your health is not Christ made to all those that shall come to heaven and happinesse wisdome 1 Cor. 1.30 righteousnesse sanctification and redemption Does not his death satisfie for their debts his Spirit sanctifie their hearts Thus none go unto the Father but by him and whosâ—ever would but see the Kingdome of God must be borne again John 3.3 This very reason St. Austin urges concerning children I shall give this Arg. de verbis Domini serm 8. and some larger passages in English that I might not overmuch entangle the thred of my discourse Whosoever sayes that infancy hath nothing from which Jesus should save us he denies Christ to be a Jesus to infants baptized in his Name for what is a Jesus Jesus is by intâ—rpretation a Saviour a Saviour is a Jesus those which he does not save be ause they have nothing that he should save them from or cure in them he is not to them a Jesus Now if your hearts can endure that Christ should not be a Jesus to such I know not whither your faith can be sound c. Thirdly Scripture Ordinances prove this corruption to be in us for else what need their institution to take it from us Third argument is taken from Ordinances Sacraments c. If there be no pollution in the foreskin why was Circumcision appointed to do it away if we have no filth what needs baptismal washing and if we may borrow light from any shadows of the Ceremonial Law why should women be so long unclean and need solemne purification after their child-birth if the fruit of their womb had been so immaculate and pure as some would make us believe 'T is true the Virgin Mary offer'd though she brought forth a holy Childe Isa 53.11 but he was by imputation sinne for we know he bare in Gods account our iniquities Saint Austin upon the bringing of Children unto Christ August serm 36. In Evangel secund Lucam observes this also Children sayes he are brought to be touched to whom are they brought to be touched but to the Physitian if they come to a Saviour they come to be cured and presently after he addes video reatum I see there is guilt in them Another passage of his I shall the willinglier quote because many that oppose this truth pretend much to reverence antiquity De verbis Apostoli serm 8. Wherefore dost thou say this childe or this person is sound and hath no disease why then dost thou runne to the Physitian with him art not afraid lest he should say unto thee Take him away that is sound The Sonne of man came not but to seek and to save that which was lost why didst thou bring him unto me if he were not lost Lib. 1. And in his tract against Julian the Pelagian the same father quotes several that were his predecessors in the maintaining of this very truth as Irenaeus Cyprian Hilary Ambrose c. but I proceed because we have heard a greater than all these God himself so abundantly attesting of it This corruption shews it self by its effects if we be so spiritually foolish Fourth argument The sad effects prove it as not to believe there is such impurity in us from any other Arguments produc'd for the proof of it experience may be our Mistresse to teach it 1. The miserable effects 1. Experiences of multitude of miseries that flow from it This is that Pandora's box which the Heathens so much talk of out of which all manner of mischiefs flow abroad in the world Why do we come into the world crying rather than laughing but as a sad Omen of the world of evils we are ever after here to meet with De Civitate Dei lib. 21. cap. 14. But if there were no sin there would be no suffering in those tender yeares And what have these sheep done When I see a childe lying bound hand and foot in its swadling clouts skreaming and crying out I cann't believe but God and nature would never have dealt so hardly with it so noble a creature especially if guilt had not procur'd these bonds and miseries nay methinks they speak its desert to be bound hand and foot for ever to be speechlesse for ever and to be cast too unlesse infinite mercy prevent where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever And all these things Scripture makes only the products of sin that only is the fruitful Parent of all evils Wherefore does a living man so much as complaine 't is for the punishment of his sinne Lam. 3.39 Death which raigned over all Rom. 5.14 is the wages of sinne Rom. 6.23 Nay of that sin too which is communicated to man-kinde by Adams fall 1 Cor. 15.21 22. By man came death death is not of Gods making but of mans of our sinnes and
better Covenant established upon better promises But I must explain it before I admire it The Gospel Covenant is that whereby God upon the condition propounded of faith in Christ promiseth remission of sins in his blood and a heavenly life and that for this end that he might shew forth the riches of his mercy * Camero Here I shall propose the same considerations as in the former Covenant only still something more and more comfortably considerable in the consideration of the persons contracting namely God and man according to the proposed method 1. Consider Gods gracious condescention And now Beloved that I have named Gods gracious condescention were my heart but duly affected with it it would constrain me to stop and put in a large Parenthesis of admiration before I should speak a word more Will God after the loss of the natural communion wherein he created man will God when man dâ—eads his Majesty and trembles at his revenging justice will God then as a merciful Father enter into a Covenant of peace with poor undone sinners affrighted with the sense of sin and wrath O the incomprehensible â—ondescention of such unsearchable riches of grace that grace should abound according to sins abounding when sin over-flow d all its banks that God should make a way thorough the deep into the heavenly Canaan never can we enough admire such Extasying grace This is the first thing considerable 2. The second thing considerable is the duty which God requires in this Gospel Covenant and that is Faith faith whereby we embrace the remedy offered us We want a pardon and nothing but faith can receive it we want perfect Righteousnesse and nothing but faith can furnish us with it we want that which may make this Covenant effectual to us and make it a blessing to us and nothing can do any of these things but faith faith is the Antecedent Condition for which the Reward is given 3. The third thing considerable in the Gospel Covenant is the promise Now the promise of the Gospel Covenant is comprehended in the word Salvation therefore the Gospel is called the salvation of God Acts 28.28 And this is the great businesse of Christ to be a Saviour Isa 49.6 That thou mayst be my salvation to the end of the earth when the Angels preached the Gospel they thought they could not expresse their news in better language than to tell people of salvation that must needs be great joy to all people In short when Gospel Ministers come clad with garments of salvation as Heraulds do with the garments of their Office then Saints may well shout aloud for joy Psal 132.16 Now this promise of salvation contains all Gospel promises in it but they are reduced to these foure 1. Justification this is a priviledge which other Covenants were unacquainted with and without this what would become of poor sinful man And this may well be the first great Gospel promise I might name not some Verses but whole Chapters to prove it Rom. 4. and 5. Gal. 3. and 4. but in a word if you would know the preciousness of this promise Ask those that have but felt what sin is and they will tell you 2. The second promise contained in Gospel salvation is Sanctification Rom. 8.2 3 4. The Law of the Spâ—rit of life in Christ hath made me free from the Law of sin and death for what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likenesse of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousnesse of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit q.d. The efficacy and power of the sanctifying Spirit which gives life to believers frees us from the tyranny of sin and death and whereas the Law by reason of the corruption of our nature could not make us pure and perfect but rather kindled than extinguished corruption God hath cloathed his Son with our flesh to take away the guilt and power of sin that his perfect righteousnesse might be imputed to us and fulfillâ—d by us that we might not live according to the motion of our sinful nature but according to the motion of his holy Spirit 3. The third promise is the resurrection of the body You know the penalâ—y of sin is the death of soul and body though the soul be immortal yet its being miserable for ever may sadly be called an Eternal death Now let the guilt of sin be abolished and you do therewith abolish the punishment of it for guâ—lt is only an obligation to punishmenâ— let sin be pardoned and the sinner is freed from death and though believers dye yet it is as a corne of wheat falls into the ground they thereby obâ—ain a multiplied life John 6.54 Whoso eateth my flesh and drinkeâ—h my blood hath Eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day 4. The last promise is Eternal life a spiritual blessed and immortal life in heaven John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Everlasting life The Covenant of Grace is excellent fitted to bring us to the chiefest good Now the chiefest good consists in communion with God that was broken by sin and can never be perfectly recovered till sin be abolished therefore when the guilt of sin is taken away by Justification and the filthinesse of sin is taken away by Sanctification and the penalty of sin taken away by Resurrection then what can hinder our communion with God when we have once obtained perfect holinesse nothing can hinder us of perfect happinesse Thus you have the promise of the Gospel-Covenant which was the third considerable in it 4. The fourth thing to be considered in the Gospel-Covenant is the Mediator of this better Covenant and that is Jesus Christ God-man blessed for ever through his dignity he hath purchased salvation Hebr. 9.12 14. By his own blood he entred in once into the holy place having obtained Eternal Redemption for us how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God c. And he is not only the Author of Eternal salvation by his merit and efficacy but the most absolute example and pattern to us how we should walk that we may obtain his purchased salvation Rom. 8.29 God did predestinate us to be conformable to the Image of his Sonne that he might be the first born among many brethren 1 Cor. 15.49 And as we have born the Image of the Earthly we shall also bear the Image of the heavenly And this is the only Covenant whereof Christ is Mediator the first Covenant needed no Mediator the Old Covenant as Legal take it without its sprinkling of Gospel and so chiefly Moses but in all respects meer men were Mediators but of the New Covenant Christ was Mediator but this I shall leave
8.33 Christ hath died who still makes Intercession and both these are so full so sufficient a relief against the guilt of sin that as we have no other so we need no other as the High Priests bore the names of the people before the Lord so does Jesus Christ the names of his Elect Heb. 9.25 Heb. 9.12.24 Heb. 10.12 Heb. 11.25 1 John 2.1 but the High Priests of Old were at certain times only to appeare before the Lord once a yeare to enter into the holy place but Christ our spiritual High Priest is not only entered but sat down at the right hand of God to negotiate constantly on his Churches behalf He ever lives to make Intercession Heb. 11 25. And besides the constancy consider the prevalency of his Intercession that God that regards the cry of Ravens that will not altogether neglect the humiliation of Ahab that God that is so ready to answer and honour the prayers of his own people cannot but much more regard the prayers of his only Son praying by his blood and praying for nothing more than what himself hath deserved and purchased He that is such a great High Priest is excellently fitted in respect of this Office for the work of Mediation 2. The Prophetical Office of Christ is the great Deut. 18.15 Joh. 1.24 25 45. John 6.14 the only relief we have against the blindnesse and ignorance of our mindes He is that great Prophet of his Church whom Moses fore-told the Jews expected and all men needed that Sun of Righteousnesse who by his glorious beams dispels those mists of ignorance and errour which darken the mindes of men and is therefore stiled by way of eminency that light John 1.8 and the true light Joh. 1.9 The execution of this Prophetical Office is partly by revealing so much of the Will of God as was necessary to our salvation partly by making those revelations powerful and effectual 1. In revealing the Will of God for no man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him Joh. 1.18 The manner of revealing the mind of God hath been different in several ages 1. Sometimes making use of instruments who were either ordinary as under the Law the Priests whose lips should preserve knowledge and under the Gospel Pastors and Teachers Mal. 2.7 2 Chron. 15.3 Eph. 4.11 12 13. Or else extraordinary as Prophets under the Law and Apostles and Evangelists in the first plantation of the Gospel 2. For sometime instructing his Church immediately in his own person Heb. 1.1 2. 2. In enlightening effectually the souls of his people in causing the blinde to see and making them who were once darknesse to be light in the Lord Eph. 5.2 Thus he instructs by his Word and by his Spirit 1 Pet. 1.12 and by that Soveraignty he hath over the hearts of men opens their hearts to receive his counsels He that can thus speak not only to the eare but to the heart is also in this Office excellently fitted for the work of Mediation 3. The Kingly Office of Christ is the great the only relief we have against our bondage to sin and Satan He to whom all power is given in heaven Mat. 28.18 Eph. 1.20 21 22. Heb. 2.8 Phil. 2 9 10 11. 1 Cor. 15.27 28. Isa 61.1 and in earth Mat. 28.18 He whom God hath raised from the dead and set at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church It is he that restores liberty to the captives and opens the Prison doors to them that are bound This great Office of a King he executes chiefly in these Royal acts 1. In gathering to himself a people out of all kindreds Gen. 49.10 Isa 55.4 5. 1 Cor. 5.4 5. 1 Pet. 1.3 5. Eph. 4.12 13. 1 Thes 4.16 17. Nations and tongues and in making them a willing people in the day of his power Psal 110.3 2. In governing that people by Laws Officers and Censures of his own ordaining Isaiah 33.22 Ephes 4.11 12. Mat. 18.17 18. 3. In bringing all his elect into a state of saving grace and preserving that grace alive in their soules which himself hath wrought though it be as a spark of fire in an Ocean of water in carrying it on to perfection and crowning it with glory 4. In restraining over-ruling and at last destroying all his and his Churches enemies Psalme 110.1 those who will not submit to the Scepter of his grace he rules with his Iron rod and will at last dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel Psal 2.9 And thus is Christ not only in respect of the dignity of his person but the suitablenesse of his Offices the only fit Mediator between God and man The doctrinal part of this Scripture being thus cleared take one word by way of application Use This may informe us of the unspeakable folly and misery of all such as despise this Mediator there is but one Mediator but one way of Reconciliation unto God but one way of having sin pardoned our natures cleansed the favour of God restored our lost condition recovered and that is through the Mediation of Christ and shall it be said of any of us as Christ himself speaks of those foolishly obstinate Jews they would not come unto him Col. 3.4 that they might have life Joh. 5.40 There is in Christ the life of Justification to free us from that eternal death the Law sentences us unto the life of sanctification to free us from that spiritual death we are under by nature there is in him a sufficient relief against whatever is discouraging and shall we be so little our own friends so false to our own concernments as to reject his profered help notwithstanding we do so highly need it 1. In rejecting this Mediator you sin against the highest and greatest mercy that ever was vouchsafed to creatures 't is mentioned as an astonishing act of love in God that he should so love the world as to give his only begotten Son c. Joh. 3.16 so beyond all comparison Phil. 2.6 7 8. John 15.13 compared with Rom. 5.8 so beyond all expression and oh what an amazing condescention was it in Christ who though he thâ—ught it no robbery to be equal with God was yet pleased to make himself of no reputation and took upon him the forme of a servant became obediâ—nt unto death even the death of the cross and all this as our Mediator there is not any mercy we enjoy but 't is the fruit of this mercy Eph. 2.12 2. You hereby reade your condition the same with Pagans the emphasis of whose misery consists in this that they are without Christ and
the whole man and shutteth out all list or leasure to repent 7. They are in danger dolefully to outdate the day of grace God doth manifest graces beauty and magnifie the necessity of Repentance by limiting its time to day if ye will hear his voice well and good if not he will sweare in his wrath you shall not enter into his rest if the day of grace be once expired Repentance may be sought with tears but not obtained and then the pleasures of sin will be shortning conscience will grow clamorous and torment with an expectation of fiery indignatâ—on to be revealed from heaven lamenting too late Oh that I had known in that my day Luke 19.42 the things which Concerne my Peace which are now hid from mine eyes Such as in time will not when it is too late shall see that repentance is the One Thing Necessary of mans life is even of absolute Necessity I have laid before you the two first general things considerable viz. the Nature and Necessity of Repentance wherein I have been longer than intention but shall be more brief in the two remaining I passe then to the third thing propounded viz. The Notes and Characters of true Repentance And concerning this I might return back to the description of Repentance and make that an examination of the truth of your Repentance but I will leave that to your own private meditations and only examine your Repâ—ntance by the Characters propounded by the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians For behold this self-same thing that you have sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulnesse it hath wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignaâ—ion yea what feare yea what vehement desire yea what zeale yea what revenge 2 Cor. 7.11 in which we have two remarkable Notes and Characters of true Rpentance First The general nature of it godly sorrow Secondly The Concomitants thereof care fear c. 1. Mark of Repentance The first Note or Mark of Repentance is godly sorrow I have before Noted sorrow to be essential to Repentance God never calls to Repentance but he calls to weeping or promiseth Repentance Mr. Calamies Sermon before the house of Commons Octob. 22. 1644. but he promiseth a spirit of mourning excellently well saith an eminent Minister of this CITY God hath tyed sin and sorrow together with Adamantine chains A woman may as soon look to be delivered of a Childe in a dream as a man to repent without sorrow Sorrow is indeed the daughter of sin but God hath made the daughter a means to destroy the mother you must not look to dance with the Divel all day and sup with Christ at night to lie in Dalilah's Lap all your lives and go to Abrahams bosome when you dye To the merry Greeks and Boon Companions of the world Repentance seems madnesse because it calls for mourning for wheresoever there is true Repentance there must there will be sorrow for sinne This sorrow must be godly sorrow after a godly sort it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sorrow according to God Godly in its Author Occasion Object End and Effects it must be godly sorrow in its Author springing from God and God alone the working of natural passions by a supernatural power and principle a spirit of mourning even the Spirit of God melting and making the hard heart to mourn a rock relenting on the stroak of Gods rod the stony heart is taken away and an heart of flesh given by the Lord this sorrow is Gods gift from Golgotha the death of the Son of the Son of God depresseth in us all joy and comfort Nature is no Author though an Actor in this grief It is godly in its Occasion Divine offence rather than Humane losse sinne not smart is the ground reason occasion of it it is most in their hearts who in respect of the world have least cause to mourn it is not for losse of wife children goods or credit but breach of Divine Law its complaint is not I am undone but God is offended the Law violated Christ is dishonoured it is more for deformity than deserved misery for extinguished holinesse than miseries to be endured a mourning for sin as sin as it is offensivum Dei aversivum à Deo an act of disobedience an act of unkindnesse It is dolor to God Against thee thee only have I sinned The souls unlikenesse to God unlocks its passion the utmost of perplexities cannot abate its joys if God appear well-pleased nor the highest of enjoyments silence its sorrow whil'st God stands offended It is godly in its object it is s rrow towards God Acts 20.21 A lamenting after the Lord 1 Sam. 7.2 A looking unto Christ and mourning oveâ— him whom we have pierced Zech. 12.10 As a man runs with bleared eyes to the party offended Oh Sir I have offended wronged you will you forgive me So penitent David runs to God and with remorse crieth Against thee thee only have I sinned And the Prodigal crieth to his father I have sinned against thee In days of affliction and atonement Israel assembled and mourned before the Lord penitent Ephraim crieth Thou hast chastised me and I was chastised This sorrow speaks not in the ears of men but God it is not open and seen to the world but secret serious towards God It is godly in its end and effects it is expressed to God that God may be enjoyed this sorrow speaks unto God the vindication of his justice That thou mayst be justified when thou judgest and righteous when thou speakest It is not a mourning of murmuration but of justification Why should a man complain a man for the punishment of his sin it is a sorrow that sets a lustre on the least mercy it is of the Lords mercy we are not consumed We are lesse than the least of his mercies is its language this sorrow is of submission I have sinned let the Lord do what seems him good it lies prostrate at the feet of God for mercy and resigned into the will of God Wherein I have done amiss shew it me I will do so no more and so devotes it self unto God to suffer or do his will its out-cry is Lord what wouldest thou have me to do it is every way godly sorrow This is the first Mark of Repentance The second Note or Character followeth upon it 2. Mark of Repentance and is the Concomitants some call them adjuncts properties effects but I shall only say inseparable Concomitants of this godly sorrow and these are seven in number First Care by some rendred study in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Concomitant of godly sorrow which as Cicero rendreth is a very earnest application of a man unto something with great delight And as Interpreters render it signifieth serious intention of minde and speedy sedulous execution of hand so that it stands opposite to security and slothfulness and intends to Note the diligence and dexterity of
the soul in a shunning and avoiding sin and setting against all occasions and temptations thereunto and studying the will of God making it his meditation night and day and having in all things respect unto it as the rule of his life and conversation so that the very anxiety of his spirit is to shake off and avoid his sin to subdue and weaken his lusts Qui paenitet sollicitus est ne peccet Ambr. in Text. to stand against temptations unto evil for whoever repenteth saith Ambrose is careful not to sin again He is made whole he would sin no more but with all care caution circumspection and vigilancy strive against corruption and study to know and to do the will of God with the Church at Ephesus To remember from whence we are fallen and do our first works Revel 2.5.3.1 or the Church of Sardis to awake and watch not to be slothful in businesse and secure against sin untill surprised therewithall 2. Concomitant of godly sorrow Secondly Clearing of our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apology or answer by way of defence unto the calumnies of an Accuser which is not done by denial of guilt and excuse of sin but by confession Paenitentia non habet excusationem nisi confessionem Amb. in Text. for saith Saint Ambrose Repentance hath no excuse but confession This is an humble deprecation of Divine judgement and silencing of the Accuser of the Brethren by self-condemnation the true penitent doth judge himself with shame and sorrow that he may not be judged by the Lord he is ready to aggravate all not extenuate any his sins only findes an acquittance from them in the blood of Christ and concludes not against the charge of the Accuser and clamour of his own conscience I was an Extortioneâ— a Drunkard an Adulterer a Blasphemer but I am washed I am sanctified I am justified Repentance rendreth guilt as if it had never been and so becomes the souls Apology 3. Concomitant of godly sorrow Thirdly Indignation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrath unto grief the rising of the very stomack with rage and a being angry unto very sicknesse again it is only used in this one Text of Scripture as it hath sin for its object but in reference to other things it expresseth the very heighth of anger fretting unto fuming thus the rage of the Ruler of the Synagogue on a conceived breach of the Sabbath is expressed Luke 13.14 Religious wrath is the hottest it will make a meek Moses break the very Tables of the Lord Thus the discontent of envy is expressed in Mark 10.41 The Disciples stomack rose against Jamâ—s and John so that it here imports the turning of the unquiet passions of the soul wholly against sin a fretting and fuming at our selves for sin an hating and being ashamed of our selves for sin this wrath breaks out in a penitent David into disgraceful speeches against himself so foolish was I and ignorant when distrust prevailed on him Psal 73.22 And I have done very foolishly when he sinned in numbring the people 2 Sam. 24.10 Nay breaks into disgraceful demeanour towards sin as impenitent Israel to the defiling the graven images of silver and the ornaments of their golden Idols and casting them out with contempt as a menstruous garment and an angry rejection of them with a Get you hence Isa 30.22 So that sin is the object of hatred scorn rage reproach and contumelie and ground of grief and shame to the peni ent the soul cannot think of sin without stomachization heart-rising and redning of face he is indeed angry and sins not the whole of whole anger runs out against sinne Fourthly Fear a rare companion of wrath 4. Concomitant of godly sorrow but alwayes of care the truly penitent are of a trembling and timerous spirit and no marvel for the burnt childe dreads the fire they have paid dear for past guilt and may well beware to fall again the whole work of Repentance is expressed to be a fear of the Lord and his goodnesse Hos 3.5 The fear of the Lord is the only fence against temptations unto sin here note that this fear is a fear of sense affecting us with the evil sin procureth and dreadful judgments of God by it deserved trembling at the Word of threatning a fear of reverence awefully apprehending the holinesse and Majesty of God and that vast disproportion and disparity between God and us sorrowfully crying How shall dust and ashes polluted man come nigh to an holy and glorious Majesty and a fear of diligence and vigilancie watching and warring against sin that it may not surprise us by the difficulty of our state and distempers of our soul and thus the penitent worketh out his own salvation with fear and trembling but it is not a fear of diffidence and despondencie of distrust and despaire which deadning all hope of prevalency dulleth all diligence discourageth vigilancy and industry and at length driveth to self-destruction the fear of Repentance springs from sense of mercy and is spurred with the confidence of successe being assured it is God that worketh in the soul to will and to do Phil. 2.13.1.6 and will perfect what he hath begun 5. Concomitant of godly sorrow Fifthly Vehement desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a desire of fervency that can admit of no delay saith Dr. Slater Of dilâ—gence and activity say the Greek Criticks which puts on with industry and violence the soure sauce of godly sorrow doth ever sharpen the appetite of holy desire the huâ—ted Hart thirsteth for the water the sin-wearied soul for Christ it is a desire to be wholly rid of sin and therefore breaks out into complaints against the remainders of sin in the soul as Paul Oh wretched man thâ—t I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.24 the death of nature and day of judgement is desired and delightful because the destruction and discharge of sin it is also a desire of all sin-subduing and grace-strengthning administrations they that by Repentance have once tasted that the Lord is good do as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word 2 Pet. 2.2 This desire is vehement against all difficulties and discouragements running out with all fervent dilâ—gence for obtainment and bitter complaints for want finding no satiety without its very object 6. Concomitant of godly sorrow Sixthly Zeal an affection compounded of love and anger and is the edge of our desire enforcing all means and encountering all difficulties and opposition to our end this is that whereby the penitent persists in his godly sorrow under all checks and diversions and persevereth in his course of mortification against all opposition of the world or his corrupt self fighting against what hinders and flinging off all incumbrances and following heaven with force and violence that if it were possible it would draw all men with it but however it beareth down all before it
but his choice and option if he be plagued with Eternal death 't is no other than that which he prefer'd before Eternal life The Lord sets life and death before us as by Moses the typical so by Christ the true Messiah if we will choose Christ and accept of him we may have Eternal life if not we must be sure of Eternal death he that refuseth the Eternal weight of glory in one end of the scale chooseth Eternal punishment in the other end as our first Parents did choose the curse by their voluntary refusing of the blessing which bad choice of theirs laid obnoxious unto Eternal pain both themselves and their posterity who cannot complain of God for inflicting the death they are by corrupt nature liable to sith besides their choice in their first parents and in their own persons they who live under the Gospel have as great a mercy tendred by the second Adam as Eternal death is a grievous punishment yea the Atheist who as 't was said of Antiochus Epiphanes takes more pains to go to Hell Buntings Itinerarie than some others to go to Heaven must confesse that he deserves his wages of Eternal death as his Pay sith he hath toyled and drudged all his life long in the Devils Service only to fit himself for misery 3. The Schoolmen have observed from the Philosopher Aquia Supl. Q. 99. Art 1. that the punishment ought to be levied according to the dignity of him against whom the offence is committed He is more severely punish't who gives his Soveraign a box on the ear than he that does so to his equal Now wicked men and that without Repentance sin against the Eternal God by the violation of his Honourable Law which he resolves to magnisie Isa 42.21 And as they ought not in their own case so they are unqualified to be competent Judges of their Own offences sit'h they cannot see the thousandth part of that evil there is in the least sin and therefore unfit to apportion the punishment which ought to be levied by the Judge of all the World who knows what is meet Gen. 18.25 and will do nothing but what is right proportionable to the offence committed against the supreme Majesty Peccatum in Deum crimen laesae Majestatis Adsit Regula peccatis quae paenas irroget aequas Horatius for where there is satisfaction required there must be proportion which would not at all be here in this case without some kind of infiniteness and because that cannot be found in any meer creature in value it must necessarily be in duration for if after millions of years it could ever be said the damned had fully satisfied Gods justice it might be said they shall be set free as the prisoner from the Goal having paid the debt Luk. 12 58 59 a thing impossible but because the sufferings of the damned which are all the satisfaction they can give infinite justice in regard of the subject being finite Ex parte subjecti and consequently not of nifinite value they must be so in duration at least à parte post as to the future for the defect of satisfaction in the temporal finite punishment of any meer creature Excep If it be excepted Excep neither by the Eternal punishment of men is Gods justice satisfied for then this punishment would not be Eternal Contradictio in Adjecto which is a contradiction in the very thing it self if ever it could be said of Gods justice now 't is satisfied Repl. I Reply 1. Let it be very well considered Repl. whether Gods iustice being infinite and consequently an essential Attribute in God doth not require from man upon his delinquency that satisfaction which is of infinite value Infiniti valoris he the party offended being essentially of infinite dignity Now such a satisfaction i. e. of infinite value could only be made by Christ who being the Surety of the Covenant and suffered in our stead is God-man in one person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 20.28 and gave plenary satisfaction unto God John 1.14 1 Tim. 3.16 Rom. 3.25 2. Though Eternal punishment may not be called a satisfaction made or given to the party offended yet 't is that which the party offending must ever be in making or giving Parti laesae by the order of the Supreme Judge who is to hear the cause and apportion the punishment to the fault because he the delinquent wanting that infinitenesse in dignity of person which doth bear a proportion to the dignity of the party offended must make this up by an infinite duration of punishment which may perhaps in some sort be termed satisfaction performed to the Law it being the payment of the whole in the obligation Satisfactio legi praestita Peysolutio totius quod est in obligatione for upon defailance of paying the debt of duty and obedience what more is required of the debt of penalty and suffering to be paid Debitum officii Debitumsupp li cii than death in its full latitude temporal spiritual and Eternal so that in this respect 't is no error to call it satisfaction but if we speak of a compleat satisfaction made to the party offended Parti offensae it must be granted that none but the only Son of God did or could give it thus for the first great impediment pretended in regard of the Subject Or 2. It is because there is a possibility of freedom from the Prison of Hell and then this must be either by Covenant and Compact which whoever affirms proferat tabulas for 't is fan y not faith which believeth any such thing without the written Word Or by commutation and what place for such a fancy Is any so absurd as to think there are any in Hell who belong to God and in Heaven who belong to the Divel that there should be matter for such a Chimaera such a strange fiction Or by force and what were this but to over-power Omnipotency Or by fraud and what were this but to out-wit Divine Wisdome and to put a trick upon him whose understanding is infinite Or by a price paid and what is it that offending man can lay down as a sufficient compensation or satisfaction to an offended God who is infinite for the injury done unto him which God should accept of 1 Sam. 2.25 Godw. Rom. Antiq. l. 1. Sect. 2. â—â— Ephes 5.6 is hard to fancy and woful experience if nothing else will may convince vain man that 't is impossible to procure Or by manumission now this doth belong only to obedient servants not to châ—ldren of disobedience Or 3. The impediment is because there is an impossibility in regard of the subject as is pretended of undergoing torments of an eternal duration by a finite creature Ex parte subjecti and therefore all the Hell Socinians c. grant Socinus Racov. Cat. Crellius Bidle Richardson c.
steps 312 313 314. F Faith commended p. 455 456. Faith distinguished into its kinds 456 457. Faith defined 449. By its genus and subject 460. causes 461 462 463 464 465 466 467. Effects 468 469 470 471 472 473 474. properties 475 476 477 478. and opposites 479. 480 481. Faith if saving receiveth whole Christ on judgement and choice 475. Faith groweth and persevereth and purifieth 477 478 479. Faith and salvation how connexed 473 474. Faith strengthned by the Covenant of Redemption 228. Faith how it justifieth 421. Faith greatly opposed 480. Faith goeth before Repentance in order of nature as its cause 490. Faith in its essential acts without its reflexions is the cause of Repentance 491. Faith of Scriptures authorities to be strengthened 103 104. False Repentance seven kinds viz. Popish 515. Pagan 516. Profane ibid. Legal 517. Slaves ibid. Sullen p. 518. Quakers Repentance ibid. 519. Fall of man was from his own mutable self-determining will 111. Federal transaction did pass between God the Father and Son and that from all eternity 219 226. Fear of God the duty of such who believe God is 58 59. Fear accompanieth true Repentance 542. Filiation to God is by Adoption and Regeneration 447. Filial priviledges Believers comforts 451 452 453. Flesh an enemy to Faith 480. Flesh crucified by union with Christ 391 392. Forme of sound words to be held fast 670. By Magistrates how 674 675 676 677. By Ministers how 678 679. By the People how 680 681. Freedome of God Father and Son in transacting the Covenant for mans Redemption 224. Free-grace the ground of Adoption and Regeneration 477. Fruitfulnesse a note of union with Christ 392 393. G God is p. 30 31. Gods being is evident in nature 31. 48. and Scripture 48 49. Gods being consistent with the adversity of the just and prosperity of the wicked and evidenced by them 45 50 51. God is the only efficient of Faith 461 462. God could not be the original of sin 111. Gods glory the ground of Adoption and Regeneration 447. God as Judge justifieth how and when 122. God the object of beatifical vision 654 655. Gospel a good cause 3. Gospel-means to work Faith 465. and call loudly to Repentance 525. Gospel how it justifieth 421. Gospel-Covenant better than the Legal 245 246 247 248. Gosepl-Manner of propounding Repentance is by way of duty and priviledge 426 Gospel-Arguments perswading Repentance most pregnant and moving 527 528. Gospel-Helps to Repentance most powerful and operative p. 533. Grace of God magnified by mans fall 213 214. First cause impulsive of justification 420. Graces are the fruits of the Spirit 390. Grudge not the prosperity of the wicked 645. H Of Hell 621. the wicked turned into it 623. its name explained ibid. nature described 624. its pain ibid. The Properties of its punishment Extremity 628 629. Eternity 628 629. Hell discerned by the Heathen 635. Hell proved by Equity 636 637 638 639 640 641. Merit 636 637 638 639 640 641. No Bar or hinderance 636 637 638 639 640 641. Heresie an hindrance to Faith 480. Heresies and Errors disbanded when we come to heaven 649. Hearing must be fixt and constant 22. So it will help Repentance p. 545. Heart the subject of Faith 459. and seat of Holinesse 558. Heaven 647. it is a Kidgdome how 649. Hindrances to the understanding Scripture what they are and how removed 100 101. Holding fast what it meaneth 5. Holinesse 554. a state trade habit and disposition 555. Holinesse defined 556. Holinesse the designe of God in all his acts 559 560. Holinesse constitutes a Christian or Saint 561 562. Holinesse spreads over the whole man 558. Holinesse changeth a man 557. Holinesse necessary unto communion with God 563. Holinesse its properties 567. Companions peace righteousnesse unblameablenesse 268. its opposites filthinesse of flesh of spirit over-reaching and hypocrisie 569 570. Holinesse of the Publisher proveth the Scripture to be the Word of God 94. And so doth the holy matter pressed in it 91 92. and its holy Arguments 93. Humility the effect of sensible impotency p. 214. Humiliation of Christ 278. three steps of it 280 281. the manner of it 287. Humanity of Christ a miracle of humiliation 280. Humility must go before honour 333. I Ignorance inconsistent to Faith 479. dangerous 483. Impotency of man since the fall very great 202 203. Impossible to recover of himself 204. Impotent in respect of the Law 205. Of the Gospel 206. 207. Impotency determined in Scripture ibid. Impotency no bar to the demand of duty direction of means or infliction of punishment 210 211 212 213. Impotency is to be seen and known 214. Infants distempers and death an effect and evidence of original sin 143. So is their aptitude to evil and backwardness to good 144. Inheritance of Saints hath no corruption succession or division p. 441. Inheritance why heaven so called 661. Inherited by Adoption 662 663. Donation 662 663. Redemption 662 663. Inspiration what it imports 87. Inventions and many inventions what they signifie 106. Indignation accompanieth Repentance 442. Judgements of God prevented 521 522. and removed by Repentance 523 524. Last Judgement provokes holiness 563. and perswades to Repentance 531 532 533 Judge whom 608. Manner of his coming 610. Last Judgement its day 605. It is particular and general 606. why it must be and when 607. its method and order 609. Justice of God satisfied by the death of Christ 301. Justification its nature opened 402 c. Differeth from Sanctification ib. Justified implies guilt plea and acquittance p. 403. Justified persons are acquitted on their plea. 419. Justification its causes Gods free grace 421 422. Christs satisfaction 421 422. The Gospel 421 422. Faith 421 422. God Law-giver 421 422. God Judge 421 422. Works 421 422. Spirit 421 422. Justification by what plea procured 406. Justification not from Eternity 423. Justification procured by Christs death 341. is evident by the Possibility 342 343 344. Necessity 342 343 344. Nature 342 343 344. Cause 342 343 344. Vicegerency 342 343 344. Peculiarity to this end 342 343 344. Justification doth manifest the wisdome holinesse and mercy of God 428. Justification the priviledge of the Gospel-Covenant 140. Justification the ground of comfort p. 429. to be sought by sinners 430. prized by Saints 432. K Kingly Office of Christ what it is and how executed 255 256. Kingly Office the Saints priviledge by Adoption 441. L Law Regulans 110. Law Regulata 110. Law of God the rule of rectitude ib. Law given Adam in Creation was partly natural partly positive 108. Law requireth duty exacts penalty terrifieth and stupifieth 204 205. Law general and special obeyed by Jesus Christ 223 224. Law fulfilled in Christ his death 301. Law given in Paradise was not executed or abrogated but released and dispensed with p. 413 414 415. Light burning and shining 1. Likenesse of sinful flesh what it means and how Christ was found in it 281 282. Likenesse to God
in dignity offices and dominion the priviledge of Adoption 441. Love of God Father and Son manifest in the Covenant of Redemption 227. Love of Christ in his death 293. and union with Sinners 386. Love to God the evidence of Faith concerning his being 55 56 59. Losse of all good the paine of Hell Natural 625 626. Spiritual 625 626. Eternal 625 626. M Mans composure of body and powers of soul prove that there is a God 41. Man comprehends the whole species of such a creature 106. Man made mutable though holy and why 113. Man is depraved 〈◊〉 sinful 111. Mans misery by sin 173 174 175 p. 176. Man not Angels subjects of Faith 455. Mediator needful 263 264 265. Mediator of the Covenant of Grace who 241 261. Mediator one named man and why named Christ Jesus and why ib. Mediator is Christ and none but Christ 265 266 c. Mediator comfortable in all conditions giving man confidence of accesse to God 254 255. Misery inevitable to such as despise the Mediator ib. Merit of Christ the ground of Adoption and Regeneration 447. Method in Sermons necessary and profitable 22. Means of Repentance 546. Ministry needful unto Faith 483. Ministers must be burning and shining lights 1 2. Ministers must suffer affliction ib. Mixture of grace and sin is in the best men 167. Mutability the meer cause of mans sin 112. Mutability of mans created estate was just and necessary 113. Mutability attended mans Happinesse as well as Holinesse p. 114. Mutability and its sequel must lead us to God for confirmation 119. N Name of Christ part of his Exaltation 315 what it is 316. how it is above every Name 317 318 319 320. how Christs Name was given by God 320 321. Nature by three Arguments proveth that there is a God 30 31. Natural Agents by their operation proveth a God 42. Natural conscience proveth a God 43. Nature stained with Adams sin 151. Nature without Divine revelation discovereth not a Trinity nor yet opposeth it when revealed 77 78 79 80 81. Nature of God well studied a special help to repentance 547. New Covenant better than the old 243. Nobility no cause of boasting 145. Notes of repentance 539 540. O Object External could not necessitate man to sin p. 112. Object of New better than of the Old Covenant 251. Obedience in Subjection to Commands Submission to Providence The duty of such who believe God is 63 64. Offence at preaching Gods anger against sin is groundless 192 193. Offices of Christ fit him to be the only Mediator 271 272. Offices of Christ communicated to the Saints 441. Old Covenant abrogated 252. Opposition of Christ consistent with subjection to Christ how 327 328. Sin Originale originans discussed 135 c. Originale originatum discussed 150 151 c. Original sin is a defection 112. Original how said of mans pravity 155 156. Original sin is hard to be understood 134. Original sin confirmed by counsel 144. Acknowledged by Heathens ib. Original sin is called man and old man in what sense p. 157 158 159 160 161 162. a body and a body of sin 162 163 164. Original sin hath polluted mans nature 151 152 153. Original sin is to be subdued 170. Original sin to be conf ssed and bewailed 165. Original sin imbitters all worldly comforts 171. Ordinances argue original sin in mans nature 153. Ordinances means of union with Christ 383. P Pain in Christ his death 285 286. Pardon of sin freely given how 425 426. Parents beget their children in their own image 151. Parents good yet children by nature evil 152. Parents care for posterity quickned by the miscarriage of the first Parent of us all 147. Parents childrens looking glasses by which they dresse their lives ib. Penitent must be humbled and why 498 499 450. Peace a duty and blessing to be pursued 556. Peace an effect of Faith 47. Pelagius the first opposer of original sin p. 144. Person in the Godhead what it is 69. Persons in the Godhead three 70. Plurality of persons in the Godhead proved 71 72 73. Persons in the Godhead distinguished not divided 75. their order declared 76. Person promises properties and providences of Christ all belong to believers 393 394. Persecution of Saints a crimson sin 386. Perseverance of Saints certain 387. Pleading at Gods bar necessary to justification 404. Plea of not guilty can never procure justification at Gods bar 405. Popish Repentance false 515. Pravity and inbred corruption what it is 155. the parts of it 156. Pravity and a naughty nature is in every man 150. Pravity of the nature of man evidenced by Scripture 151 152 153. Salvation of Christ 151 152 153. Sacraments 151 152 153. Sad effects 151 152 153. Prayer an help to repentance 552. Prayer answered an effect of Faith 469. Prayer its extent and encouragement p. 262. Preparations of heaven how from the foundation of the world 660 661. Preparation to last Judgement characterised 617 618. Priestly office of Christ and its parts 272 273. Price of the soul of Christ his death 298. Price paid for man was not idem but tantundem 425. Principle and cause two distinct things 69. Principles good and bad two distinct blasphemous to assert 112. Promises were made to Christ on the account of his satisfaction for mans sin 209 300. Promises of Justification Sanctification Resurrection Eternal life The Promises of the better Covenant 240 241. Promises of temporal mercy better under the New than under the Old Covenant 248. Protestant doctrine of the imputation of Christs righteousness defended 387. Profane repentance what it is p. 516. Prosperity of profane no plea against Deity 50 51. Q Quakers repentance vile false and wicked 518 519. R Reason and sensation evince the Divine authority of the Scriptures 90. Revelation from God admitted by all and reason it should 88 89. Revelation not to be received untill cleared to be of God ibid. Rectitude is conformity to a Rule 107. Rectitude of Adam by Creation was of the whole man understanding will and sensitive appetite 109. Rectitude natural and not natural to man how 111. Regeneration explained 442. it s Synonimas 443. it is defined ib. Regeneration compared with natural generation 443 444. they agree in cause subject and manner of production ib. 445. disagree in properties 446. Religion making known Christs satisfaction most excellent 350. Relations of men subject to Gods wrath p. 187. Relation to God reason of comfort and duty 436. Repentance not to be repented explained 485. In its Nature 487. Necessity 520. Notes 539. Next way to it 546. Repentance defined 487. Repentance is a recession from sin and return to God 502 503 504 505. Return to God the second part of Conversion 506 507 508. Repentance seven false kinds 515 516 517 518. Repentance contemned when 334 335 336. Repentance neglected when and with what issue 537 538. Resurrection possible and credible 579 582 583 584 585. what it means ib. who to be
one entire Fabrick and Creation God saw every thing that he had made Gen. 1.31 and behold it was VERY GOOD Such a rare piece are Gospel-truths in their variety and uniformity not lesse glorious a d admirable than heaven and earth Sunne Moon Starres Elements in all their order and ornament Secondly 2. Help to knowledge Such types and Exemplars of divine truths are of great help to the understanding As the Collection of many beams and luminaries makes the greater light so it is in tne judgement A constellation of Gospel-principles shining together into the understanding fills it with distinct and excellent knowledge 2 Cor. 4.6 It gives us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. One truth doth irradiate and expound another The truths of the Gospel in their method and series are interpretative one to the other while the understanding by means hereof hath the advantage of dwelling upon them the object and comparing spiritual things with spiritual things as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 2.13 The truth is he knows but little of the truth that knows it only within it self he understands it aright that knows it in its connexion and correspondence with other truths of the Gospel That Christ dyed to save sinners is a most precious truth 1 Tim. 1.15 but he knoweth TOO LITTLE of it that knows it alone as most of ignorant Christians do who perish with their knowledge he knoweth this truth to purpose that knows it in its connexion with a lost estate that knows it in its references to the fall the wounds and bruises and death contracted by it he knows Redemption by Jesus Christ aright that knoweth it in order to the GUILT and POWER of sin and mans total impotency to save himself from either He knows salvation aright that knows it in the extent and vertue of all Christs OFFICES King Priest and Prophet that understands salvation to be a saving of the poor creature from the REIGN of sin by the Kingly Office of Jesus Christ a saving of a man from IGNORANCE ERROR and those false rotten principles which are naturally radicated in the understanding by the Prophetical Office of Jesus Christ as well as a saving him from HELL and WRATH TO COME by the Priestly Office of Jesus Christ He knows aright the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ not that knows it singly and nakedly only in the story and notion of it but that knoweth it in the effectual application of it by the Spirit for mortification and vivification that knoweth it in its connexion with and influence into justification and sanctification c. He that thus knoweth Christ and him crucified knoweth him as the truth is in Jesus His understanding is full of light Alas the ignorance and misery of our times is not that people are totally destitute of the principles of Christian Religion but that they know them singly only and apart and so they know them but by halfes yea not so much for I dare be bold to say the better half of every truth consists in its method and necessary coherence with other truths without which therefore the knowledge men have of them must needs be but dark and lifelesse Thirdly Such Patterns and Platforms whether of larger or of lesser compasse Advantage help to memoâ—y are a great help to memory In all Arts and Sciences order and method is of singular advantage unto memory We do easily retain things in our mind when we have once digested them into order It is not so much multitude of objects as their variousnesse and independency which is burdensome to memory when once the understanding apprehends them in their natural union and fellowship one upon another the memory comprehends them with much more sweetnesse and facility Hence it is that NUMBER and PLACE are of such rare use in the art of memory The reason why people generally remember no more of the Sermons they hear is for want of Catechizing whereby they might come to know the principles of Religion in their order and methodical contexture Usually in Sermons truths are delivered single and apart and the ignorant hearer knows not where the Minister is nor what place the doctrine delivered obtains in the body of divinity nor how they are knit together and so the memory leaks them out as fast as they are dropt in order is the very glue of memory Method in a single Sermon when the hearer is acquainted with it gratifieth the memory as well as the understanding while it doth not only lodge things in their own place but locks the door upon them that they may not be lost When things are knit and linckt in one with another as in a chaine pull up one link and that will pull up another so that the whole chaine is preserved But we may have occasion to speak again of this point And therefore Fourthly such Modules serve to quicken affection 4. Advantage to quicken affection Sympathy and Harmony have a notable influence upon the affections The sounding of a single string makes but little musick let a skilfull hand touch them in their musical consent and symphonie and it affects the hearer to a kinde of ravishment So it is with evangelical truths place them in their proper rooms that a man may behold them in their mutual correspondencies and apt couplings together and truly the Seraphims themselves answering one to another and ecchoing to another make not a sweeter harmony in their celestial Hallelujahs Fifthly It is a marvelous Antidote against errour and seduction Gospel truths in their series and dependance are a chain of gold to tie the truth and the soul close together People would not be so easily trapand into heresie if they were acquainted with the concatenation of Gospel-doctrines within themselves As for instance men would not certainly be so easily complemented to worship that Idol of free-will and the power of nature were they well principled in the doctrine of the fall The design of God in permitting of it held out in Scripture in such large and legible Characters that he which runs may read Psal 51.4 1 Cor. 1.29 30 31 c. If they did with sobriety of Spirit observe what the Scripture prâ—claimes concerning the impotency of the lapst and ruined creature mans helplesse condition in himself Rom. 5.6 Ephes 2.1 Of the absolute necessity of the quickening helping and stablishing influence of the Spirit of Christ c. When a chaine of pearls is broken a single jewel is easily lost divine truths are mutually preservative in their social embraces and coherence Sixthly 6. Advantage growth in grace Growth in grace is one blessed fruit of such systems and tables of divine truths When â—oundations are well laid the superstructures are prosperously carried on want of distinct knowledge in the mysteries of Religion is a great obstruction to the growth of grace The great cause of the believing Hebrews non proficiency was
composed of several Nations between whom there are great antipathies yet march in rank and order and with equal courage fight for the safety of a Kingdom we presently conclude there is a wise General who thus united them And is there not greater reason to believe that a Soveraign Spirit governs the Host of heaven and earth and unites them to maintain the peace of the World To assert that irrational creatures act for a general and unknown good without the motion of a higher cause is equally unreasonable as to say a curious Picture is drawn by a Pensil without the hand of the Painter which guided it in every line according to the Idea of his minde We must then of necessity infer that those particular causes which cannot conduct themselves are directed by an universal cause which cannot erre and thus we see the whole World is an entire and continual Argument of Gods Being and Attributes Secondly The second Argument is drawn from natural conscience which is a subordinate God and acts all things with respect to a higher Tribunal as Saint Paul speaking of those visible Testimonies which God hath exprest to men in the Creation saith Acts 14.17 that he left not himself without a witnesse giving them rain and fruitful seasons by the same proportion we may say God hath not left himself without an internal witnesse having planted in every man a conscience whereby he is dignified above the lower order of beings and made sensible of the supreme Judge to whose Tribunal he is subject now conscience in its double work as it accuses or excuses by turns upon good or bad Actions proves there is a God 1. Natural conscience being clear and innocent is the life-guard which secures from fears vertuous persons who have not offered violence to the light of conscience in times of danger as in a fierce storme at Sea or fearful Thunder at Land when guilty spirits are surprized with horrour they are not liable to those fears being wrapt up in their own innocency Parcus Deorum cultor infrequens insanientis dum sapientiae consultus erro nunc retrorsum vela dare atque iterare cursus cogor relictos Namque Diespiter igni corusco nubila dividens fâ—etumque per purum tonanteis egit equos volucremque currum Horat. ad 34. l. 31. the reason of their security proceeds from a belief that those terrible works of nature are ordered by an intelligent and righteous providence which is God 2. It gives courage and support to an innocent person when opprest and injured by the unrighteous the natural conscience so long as it is true to its self by adhering to honest principles it is victorious against all attempts whatsoever si fractus illabatur orbis if the weight of all the miseries in the world should come rushing upon him at once it would bear up under them all and stand unbroken in the midst of those ruines the spirit of a man is of strength enough to sustain all his infirmities as a Ship lives in the rough Seas and floats above them the waters being without it so a vertuous person rides out all storms and is preserved from sinking because the fury of worldly troubles cannot reach beyond his outward man the conscience which is the mans strength remains firme and unshaken yea as those Roses are usually sweetest which grow near stinking weeds so the peace joy and glory of a good conscience is then most sensible when a man is otherwise in the most afflicted and oppressed state now from whence proceeds this calmnesse and serenity this vigor and constancy of spirit but from the apprehension of a supreme Judge who at the last will vindicate their cause 2. We may clearly evidence there is a God from the accusations of a guilty conscience this is that never dying worme which if a sinner treads on it will turn again this is a temporal hell a spiritual Tophet what torments are there in the Regions of darknesse which an accusing conscience doth not inflict on a sinner in this life so intolerable are the stings of it that many have took Sanctuary in a Grave and run upon the first death to prevent the miseries of the second Now the shame horror despair and that black train of affections which lash an offender for his vicious acts discovers there is a principle within which threatens vengeance from a righteous and angry God This Argument will be more pressing if we consider that conscience attaches a sinner First for secret crimes which are above the cognizance of men conscience is Gods spy in our bosomes which mixes it self with all our thoughts and actions let a man therefore take what course he will to hide his offence let him sin in the closest retirement that humane policy can contrive where there is no possibility of legal conviction yet his Accuser his Judge his Hel is in his own bosome when the sin is most secret conscience brings in the evidence produces the Law urges the penalty passes the sentence begins the punishment so that the sinner is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-condemned for those sins which are not punishable by man yea sometimes a discovery of concealed sins though certainly bringing temporal death hath been extorted by the horror and anguish of an accusing conscience the reason of all is because in secret sins conscience appeals to Gods Omnisciency who is greater than our consciences and knows all things 1 John 3.20 And upon this account it is praejudicium judicii a kinde of antedated day of judgement a domestical dooms-day and brings upon a sinner the beginning of his sorrows 2. It stings with remorse for those sins which are above the power of man to revenge those who command Armies and by their greatnesse are secured from the penalties of the Law yet conscience sets their sins in order before their eyes and these as so many armed men charge them thorow and overwhelme them many instances there are Belshazzar in the midst of his cups and bravery how was he invaded by fear and horrour when he saw the hand-writing on the Wall the whole Army of the Persians could not discourage his spirit but when conscience revived his guilt and the apprehensions of Gods justice he sunk under the burden the hand-writing from without was terrible because conscience opened a hand-writing within Tiberius the Emperour who was doubly dy'd in unnatural lusts and cruelties could neither evade nor dissemble the horrors of his mind Nero after the barbarous murdering of his mother was always pursued by imaginary Divels his distracted fancy representing to him furies and flames ready to torment him How many Tyrants have trembled on the Throne when the condemned innocents have rejoyced in their sufferings from hence we may infallibly conclude the conscience of the most powerful sinner is under the feeling of a Deity for if there were no punishments to be feared but those the Magistrate inflicts in his own Dominions why are Soveraign
natura had the charge of these sublunary things even the holy Prophet himself was liable to this temptation Psal 73.9 10 11 12 13 14. he saw that as the clean Creatures were sacrificed every day the Turtle and the Lamb the Emblems of innocency and charity whilest the Swine and other unclean Creatures were spared Plutarch and Seneca and Cicero have rendred satisfaction concerning this method of the Divine Providence So good men were harrast with troubles when the wicked were exempted and this shook his faith but by entring into the Sanctuary of God where he understood their end he comes off with victory now for the removing this Objection Consider First we are not competent Judges of Gods actions we see but one half of Ezekiels Vision the Wheels but not the eye in the Wheels nothing but the Wheels on which the world seems disorderly to run not the eye of Providence which governs them in their most vertiginous changes The actions of God do not want clearnesse but clearing What we cannot acquit is not to be charged on God as unjust the stick which is streight being in the water seems crooked by the refraction of the beams through a double medium we see through flesh and spirit and cannot distinctly judge the ways of God but when we are not able to comprehend the particular reasons of his dispensations yet we must conclude his judgements to be right as will appear by observing Secondly The sufferings of the righteous do not blemish Gods justice 1. God always strikes an offender every man being guilty in respect of his Law Now though love cannot hate yet it may be angry and upon this account where the judgements of God are a great deep unfathomable by any finite understanding yet his righteousnesse standeth like the high Mountains as it is in Psalme 36. visible to every eye if the most righteous person shall look inward and weigh his own carriage and desert he must necessarily glorifie the justice and holinesse of God in all his proceedings 2. The afflictions of good men are so far from staining Gods justice that they manifest his mercy for the least sin being a greater evil than the greatest affliction God uses temporal crosses to prevent or destroy sin he imbitters their lives to wean their affections from the World and to create in them strong desires after heaven as long as the waters of tribulation are on the earth so long they dwell in the Ark but when the Land is dry even the Dove it self will be wandring and defile its self When they are afflicted in their outward man it is that the inward man may be revived as birds are brought to perfection by the ruines of the shell that is not a real evil which God uses as an instrument to save us Who will esteem that Physitian unjust who prevents the death of his Patient by giving a bitter potion 3. If the Righteous be thus afflicted upon earth we may conclude there is a reward in the next World if they are thus sharply treated in the way their Countrey is above where God is their portion and happinesse Thirdly The temporary prosperity of the wicked reflects no dishonour upon Gods justice or holinesse for God measures all things by the Standard of eternity a thousand years to him are as one day Now we do not charge a Judge with unrighteousnesse if he defer the execution of a Malefactor for the day the longest life of a sinner bears not that proportion to eternity besides their reprieve increases and secures their ruine they are as Grapes which hang in the Sun till they are ripe and fit for the Wine-presse God spares them now but will punish them for ever he condemns them to prosperity in this world and judges them not worth his anger intending to poure forth the vials of his wrath on them in the next Fourthly The more sober Heathens have concluded from hence there is a judgement to come because otherwise the best would be most miserable and the ungodly prosperous from hence they have inferred that because all things are dispenc't in a promiscuous manner to the just and unjust in this world therefore there must be an after-reckoning Fifthly There are many visible examples of the goodnesse and justice of God in this World either in rewarding afflicted innocency or punishing prosperous iniquities He that shall read the story of Joseph and consider that wonderful chain of causes managed by the Divine Providence how God made use of the treachery of his brethren not as a sale but a conveyance how by the Prison he came to the principality must conclude there is a watchful eye which orders all things And how many instances are there of Gods severe and impartial justice there is no State or History but presents some examples wherein an exact proportion in the time measure and kind between the sin and punishment is most conspicuous the unnatural sin of Sodom was punish't with a supernatural showre of fire and brimstone Pharaoh had made the River guilty of the blood of the Hebrew Infants his first plague is the turning of the River into blood Adonibezec is just so served as he did by the seventy Kings Judas who wanted bowels for his Lord wanted bowels for himself in life and death for he hanged himself and his bowels gushed out and thus the punishment as a hand points at the sin and convinces the World of a Deity Use 1 Vse 1. This is just matter of terror to Atheists which are of three sorts 1. Vita 2. Voto 3. Judicio First To those who are practical Atheists vita in life who live down this truth denying God in their lives sad and certain it is that many who pretend they know God yet so live they as if there were no Deity to whom they must give an account Such are the secure that sleep in sin notwithstanding all Gods thunder and if ever sleep were the true image of death this is the sleep The sensual who are so lost in carnal pleasures they scarce remember whether they have a soul if at any time conscience begins to murmure they relieve their melancholy thoughts with their company and cups like Saul sending for the Musick when the evil spirit was upon him The incorrigible who notwithstanding the designes of Gods mercy to reduce them although Providences Ordinances conspire to bring them off from their evil ways yet they persist in their disobedience Let such consider it is not a loose and ineffective assent to the being and perfections of God which will save them God is not glorified by an unactive faith nay this will put the most dreadful accent and the most killing aggravations on their sins that believing there is a God they dare presumptuously offend him and provoke the Almighty to jealousie as if they were able either to evade or to sustain his wrath 't is the greatest prodigy in the World to believe there is a God and yet
thereof thou shalt surely dye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. Dying thou shalt dye THe next head in the body of our Religion which falls this Morning to be spoken to in Course is Gods Covenant made with Adam before the fall which we call a Covenant of Works and we ground our Discourse upon the Text read to you When God would communicate his goodnesse to the creatures he made the world out of nothing for his own glory but especially man after his Image this inferiour world he provided for mans house and habitation but he dresseth and trimmeth one part for him especially and calls it Paradise In the Paradise or pleasant Garden he was not to live idly but must dresse and keep it In the midst of all mans enjoyments which the Lord allows him with a liberal hand yet he lets him know withall he was under subjection though Lord of all and therefore gives him a command obsequii examen obedientiae quoddam rudimentum Calvin a test and tryal of his obedience to which God trains him up As Lords when they let out their Lands to Husbandmen reserve somewhat to themselves which the Tenants are not to meddle with that they may have some check upon them Muscul so God here That which the Lord commands Adam was no hard matter he grants him a vast latitude to eat of all freely Oecol only one sort excepted in which exception as God was not envious to him as the Envious One suggested so was not this Commandment grievous to him Object It may be objected from 1 Tim. 1.9 The Law is not made for a righteous man why then for Adam in his righteousnesse Resol Paul means good men do not so need the Law as bad men do for good Laws rose from evil manners yet in a sense the Law is given for righteous men not to justifie them for it finds them justified already and past the condemnation of the Law it finding them also sanctified Beza it treats them not as enemies but leads them and delights them consenting to it This serves to explode the errour of Antinomians and Libertines so then God to declare his Soveraignty and mans subjection gave Adam though innocent a Law Mark how God bound mans obedience with a double fence first he fenced him with a free indulgence to eat of all but one this was an Argument to his ingenuity secondly by a severe prohibition upon pain of death by the first the Lord wooes him by love by the second he frights him by the terrour of his justice and bids him touch it if he durst Observe among all the Trees of the Garden there are two here mentioned in a more peculiar manner the Tree of life and the Tree of knowledge which are called by Divines two Sacraments in a large sense in which sense also the Ark of Noah the fire which descended and burn't the Sacrifice Polanius the Baptisme of the Red Sea and Cloud the Manna the water out of the Rock the pouring out of the blood of the Sacrifices the Land of Canaan the Tabernacle Temple Ark of the Testimony the propitiatory the golden Candlestick the twelve stones taken out of Jordan with the pool of Bethesda all these I say in a large sense are Sacramental Symbols of the Covenant of Grace or extraordinary Sacraments but the Tree of knowledge and Tree of life are called Sacraments of the Covenant of works By these the Lord did signifie and seal to our first Parents that they should alwayes enjoy that happy state of life in which they were made upon condition of obedience to his Commandments i. e. in eating of the Tree of life and not eating of the Tree of knowledge For it was called the Tree of life not because of any native property and peculiar vertue it had in it self to convey life but Symbolically Morally and Sacramentally it was a sign and obsignation to them of life natural and spiritual to be continued to them as long as they continued in obedience unto God Aug. In like manner the Tree of knowledge of good and evil was spoken from the sad event and experience they had of it as Sampson had of God departed from him when he left his Nazaritish haire by Dalilah Now that a Covenant of Works lay in this Commandment is clear 1. Because that was the condition of mans standing and life as it is expresly declared 2. Because in the breach of that Commandment given him he lost all This obedience as it was Characteristical to Adams Covenant and Contradistinguished to the Covenant of Grace was perfect personal and perpetual In a sense though different from the other those three things are required in our obedience under the Covenant of Grace not in reference to the Covenant nor to justification neither is our personal righteousnesse perfect I mean legally yet is it perfect though not in us but in our surety neither was the Covenant made primarily with us but with him and with us in him and on his account even as God made the Covenant of Works primarily with Adam and with us in him as our head inclusively Now for our better opening this doctrine to you I shall propound and answer some questions 1. What is meant by Covenant 2. What ground we have to call it Adams Covenant or a Covenant of Works 3. Wherein doth the Nature and Tenour of it consist 4. Whether the Covenant of Works was revived and repeated to Israel 5. How long it lasted whither till now unto any Quest 1. What is meant by Covenant name and thing Answ The word in the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Berith which hath a threefold derivation very fit to be taken notice of for clearing of the nature of the Covenant 1. From Barah to choose because the persons are chosen between whom the Covenant or Agreement is made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Indeed Gods Covenant with man is not only with his elect and chosen ones but a fruit and effect of our election yea the Lord doth encline our wills to make choice of him and of his terms I have made a Covenant with my chosen so again Choose you whom ye will serve ye are witnesses against your selves this day Psal 89.3 Josh 24.15 22 that you have chosen the Lord. 2. Or else this word Berith Covenant may be taken from Barah to eat Illyricus because they were wont to eat together of the Sacrifice slain and provided at the making of the Covenant at which time they had a Feast hence the Apostle speaking of the Eucharist the signe and seal of the Covenant and which is a spiritual Food and Feast upon a Covenant account saith This Cup is the New Testament or New Covenant in my blood 1 Cor. 11.25 3. Or from Bathar to cut and divide asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by transposing a letter for so the sacrifice was divided and the Covenanting parties were to passe
so are all sicknesses and miseries the tendencies to death of sin's making for God doth not afflict willingly no not to a bare grieving of the children of men Lam. 3.33 but as it follows in Adam all dye 1 Cor. 5.22 2. The sinful effects 2. As the experiences of misery so of the abounding of iniquity attest this there must be a root of bitternesse where there is so much bitter fruit Our Saviours question Does a man gather figs of thornes it may in this case with the same strength of reason be inverted Does any man gather thornes of a fig-tree or thistles of a vine if our nature be yet so sweet and good whence do the unsavoury fruits of vanity and rebellion in the youngest ones that I do not say of blasphemy and impurity whence do these grow why must young ones be so long under the menaces and rods of their Parents and Masters and as the event testifies all too little too to restrain them from undoing themselves and damning their immortal souls is not vertue as amiable as vice if we did but look upon them indifferently can there be more said for the ways of sin than for the ways of God which are pleasantnesse its self c and why then hath God so few and the world nay sinne and Satan so many servants They that converse with children or are any way concern'd in their education can set to their seal that this is true how often do they see puerum zelà ntem if not worse wilful and obstinate children folly so deeply bound in their hearts that the rod of correction can hardly drive it out Prov. 22.15 I shall omit many other Arguments which might be brought for the further evidencing of this pollution in us but I know it is not their number but their weight that is considerable And I hope by these God will reveal so much of his light that we may see and be convinced of our own darknesse The second thing more generally concerning this subject to be considered is 2. What this corruption and spiritual pravity is what this corruption and inbred pravity is There are many names which Scripture and Antiquity have given unto it those which the Antients call it by you may read more largely in Aug. contra Julianum lib. 1. cap. 2. By him or about his time it began to be call'd original sinne which word we shall henceforth more frequently use for though it be not found in Scripture yet that which we intend by it being so clearly grounded on Scripture the name cannot distaste any who have not a quarrel against the thing no more than the name of Trinity or Sacraments and the like 1. From its name And in these too conveniunt rebus nomina there is good reason why 't is so call'd For 1. 'T is call'd original sinne because 't is in every one from his original it may say to every one as soon as thou wert Rivet in synops Theol. I am Or 2. Because 't is derived from Adam the original of all Man-kinde out of whose blood God hath made us all Acts 17.26 Or 3. Because 't is the original of all other sinne it is the seed and spawn out of which they all grow this is that lust which when it hath conceived bringeth forth sinne James 1.15 As for Scripture names Chemnitius in his Common place upon this subject reckons up above twenty whereby it is called in the Word of God I shall not insist on any besides those which I shall have by and by out of this Text to speak unto Which I should be too much prevented in if I should set down any certain definition of it to be here explained besides what every one may gather from what hath been already said only I cannot but mention those three things which make up as it were this original sinne and into which Anselm divides his definition of it 1. There is in original sinne the absence of original righteousnesse 2. And parts it consists of which is the image of God in which he made man at first for he makes him upright and all his workmanship when looked over is exceeding good 2. There is present in man its contrary image that is unrighteousnesse concupiscence c. A heart evil and only evil vitious habits even before there were vitious acts as afterwards a man hath the habits of grace infused before he acts graciously This souls disease is like unto those of the body where there is not only a privation or absence of the former good constitution but a present indisposition c. And though original sinne be not actual yet 't is active actuosum though not actuale The flesh lâ—steth against the Spirit and sinne worketh all manner of concupiscence Rom. 7.8 To understand these things the better we must know 1. That the soul of man cannot be indifferent to or altogether without either of these images or likenesses it hath either the image of a holy God or of a sinful man upon it to think that it is rasa tabulâ— like white paper without any thing good or bad written in it is but a Philosophical fiction which Scripture no where owns and Christianity every where explodes there are but two Cities made out of mankinde Aug. de Civitate Dei Jerusalem and Babylon there will be but two sorts at the last day Sheep and Goats and unto which should these neuters or indifferent ones belong 2. As none can be without one of these images so none have both of them A mans soul cannot be as some artificial picture representing on the one side a beauty on the other side a Monster light and darknesse God and Mammon Christ and Belial are too much opposite to enter into any fellowship or agreement in his soul No but 't will be ask'd whose image and superscription in the singular number thus too hath it 3. And as by this sin there is both the absence of Gods image and the presence of his enemies that is man by it is not what God is holy c. and is what God is not unholy c. so thirdly in this sin is considerable that debt which man owes unto Divine Justice to satisfie for this hâ—s irregularity God might require that man should make him satisfaction for this injury and 't will be exacted of all men out of Christ It is no small crime to break the seal to throw away the image and picture of any Prince or Soveraign Now as the former ingredients into this sin made us altogether sinful so this consideration makes us by nature altogether miserable And thus I have spoken to this subject i' th general and more by way of common place I shall now confine my self in that which is behind to speak of it only under those notions which this Text affords As 1. 'T is called here our Old man 2. The body of sinne 3. This is that also which
this body of death Paul that could with rejoycing endure scourgings and stonings imprisonments and shipwracks yet cryes out mightily of this O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me Rom. 7.24 2. As a body being material is visible so original sin discovers its self to every one that without prejudice will look to finde it It is discernable in its effects daily Though we cannot see the soul yet from the motions and actions it causeth we know a man hath a soul so we may know every one hath original sin from that vanity and sin that is put forth by it 3. As the body hath divers members so this sinne it is not so much one sin as seminally and vertually all sin Peter Martyr there is a concatenation of vertues and vices Scripture speaks of both under that notion hence a single eye a pure heart c. And on the other side that sin is a body and is thus universally in us the Apostle shews Rom. 3.13 14. and the Prophet saith it hath over-spread us from the soles of the feet even unto the head there is no soundnesse Isa 1.6 As the waters in Noah covered the highest Mountains so these raging waves of iniquity over-flow the highest and choicest faculties of humane nature 4. I wish I could not adde as a body is beloved and provided for so is this sin We make provisioâ— for the flesh to fulfill its lusts Rom. 13. ult Who would willingly part with the least member of his body men do not willingly forgo any sin but if something of this body must be parted with 't is but haire and nayles c. such as are rather excrements than members and will soon grow again which we are content to cut and pare off And thus till that day in which God puts forth his Almighty power to make us willing we are loth to leave any sin unlesse such as for the present are troublesome to us or may ere long grow again and be with more ease or credit enjoyed by us 5. This sin as a body hath strength in it and Tyranny is exercised by it The body leads poor Captives whether it lists and says to this man Gâ— and he goeth c. so does this sin we are held Captive by it Faius till the Son of God sets us free Man is not ingenuus but libertus he is not by nature born free but by grace made free untill he be established by the free Spirit he goes and comes as the winde and Tyde of corruption drives him And this is farre more sad than to be possessed or to have our members acted by the Divel himself for the incestuous person was given over to Satan which some interpret thus for the good of his soul 1 Cor. 5.5 that his soul might be saved but none are left under the power and command of their corruptions but to their certain and inevitable destruction 6. It is call'd here especially a body by the Apostle to answer to the other Metaphor of crucifying in the words before only bodies can be crucified Paraeus and this sin is crucified with Christ Which by the way shews the state of original sin in the people of God and how it should be in all others especially such as are baptiz'd it should by faith be nayl'd to the Crosse of Christ we should by believing fetch vertue from Christs death to crucifie it it must hang on Christs Crosse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Metaphor taken from those that are crucified who hanging on the Crosse upon nailes grow weaker and weaker till they expire and dye so must original sin be in us dead already as to its reigning power and dying daily as to its in-being moving power having every day lesse strength than other The third expression of original corruption in the Text 't is sin We have now but the last expression the Apostle uses for this original corruption he calls it here sin to shew that it is so it is sin 1. Properly and truly 2. Eminently and especially 1. Properly It is truly and properly sin it is not only a defect but a sin it is against the holy will of God and is chargeable upon us by the justice of God every soul disease is not only a punishment but a sin and therefore farre worse than the worst disease that is incident to the body and our sinful state should be more terrible to us than our dying condition To convince us of this know that this original corruption becomes our sin 1. By imputâ—tion 1. In that God imputes the guilt of Adams sin to us which I suppose you have had vindicated in the foregoing Sermon I shall only say this to it that God may as well by imputation make Adams sin become our sin for condemnation as he may by imputation make Christs righteousnesse become our righteousnesse unto salvation and yet Christ is made of God unto us wisdome righteousness c. and we have no other righteousness to appeare in for justification before him at that great day In Thesi de peccato Orig. Hence Rivet well observes that the Church hath ever found and still does that those very men who are enemies to the doctrine of Original sin are enemies also to the doctrine of the grace of God in Christ Thus the Socinians who deny that we have contracted any debt by Adams sin deny also that Christ satisfied and paid our debts to divine Justice and if they take away this let them take all 2. Though Original corruption be truly sin by imputation 2. By inhaesion yet 't is not sin by imputation only It is our sin by inhaesion inhering in us and making of us otherwise than God made us To blot a letter in a fairly writ Copy to draw a black line over a beautiful picture cann't but prove a fault what is it then to mar Gods curious workmanship which this sin does in man Consider that God is many moneths in the framing of the body for we are wonderfully made by him and when this body is fitted he unites it to a soul more worth than a world of bodies This great-little creature man Psal 139.13 14 hath many prerogatives too that advance him especially in that Gods delight is said to be with him Now when all this care and paines are taken this cost and charges expended by God to make man for himself this corruption comes and mars all and will God hold it guiltlesse No this sin is exceeding sinful for 2. 'T is sin eminently 1. Extensive 1. 'T is more extensive than other sins every actual sin hath some particular faculty in soul or body which it does defile and charge with guilt wherein it was conceiv'd or whereby it was acted but original sin stains all alike so farre as by their several natures they are receptive of its defilement it ruines the whole little world of man It does not only overspread
voice to be in vain for their bodies though they know not what it means would not have it to be in vaine for their soules and he that hears the young Ravens when they call Psal 147.9 would not have you deafe in this respect when your Children cry Lastly Let the consideration that Original sin is thus in us weane us from the world 4. Exhortation Be wean'd from the world by reason of it and that immoderate desire of living in it Alas wheresoever we go we carry these chains of darknesse with us if it be grievous to be in pain or want how grievous is it to a gracious heart to sin I know gravia non gravitant in eorum loco sin seemes not heavy to a carnal man to whose heart 't is naturaliz'd but if thou beest spiritual and tender sin is a burden to thee to purpose Now by death peccatum non homo moritur it is sin that dies a Childe of God does not dye but only changes his life this life for a better these pleasures relations c. for better and if it be good to live surely to live eternally is best of all Some have thought that the soule was put into the body for a punishment as into a Prison and who would not willingly be at liberty If we consider what paines care torments and diseases which are but the effects of sin we endure we cannot but be of Theophrastus his mind that the soule payes a deare rent for the body which it dwells in and 't is but a house of clay how finely soever dawb'd over being then we cannot be without these enemies these mischiefs let us be content when God pulls down the house of sinne in which they all are that he may bury them all in the rubbish of our mortality and with the Spirit and the Bride Rev. 22.17 20. let us say Come even so Come Lord Jesus Christ come quickly Amen THE MISERY OF MANS ESTATE BY NATURE EPHES. 2.3 And were by nature the children of wrath even as others YE have heard the Doctrine of Mans fall and of Original sin opened and applied This Text genuinely leads to speak of Mans misery through sin As to the Coherence briefly The Apostles scope is to display the glory of the Lords grace by comparing the sinful and cursed estate of the Ephesians and others by nature with the dignity and priviledges conferred on them in Christ He insists mainly on three heads 1. He describes the natural estate and course of the Ephesians and all other Gentiles in them their estate ver 1. You were dead in trespasses and sins their course ver 2. Ye walked wholly in sin pricked forward by corrupt customes which in several Ages had taken place and were effectual to hold and hearten you in the same Tracts and the Devil that eminently bore sway in others ruled and acted you likewise at his very will this was yours and the Gentiles estate and course 2. He applies the whole equally and indifferently to himself and to the whole body of the Jewish Nation ver 3. among whom also we all had our Conversation c. q. d. such children of disobedience were we all to as deep in sin and open to wrath as you Gentiles were He would by no means have any think that speaking so of the Gentiles he exempted the Jews from the same ground of shame and despair in themselves though he knew full well that this point went exceeding crosse to the grain of that people who greatly a Ezra 9.2 John 8.33 Gal. 2.15 Rom. 10.3 chap. 11.24 boasted themselves to be the holy seed and children of Abraham and despised the Gentiles as an idolatrous unclean bastard brood and especially of the Pharisees of which b Acts 26.5 Phil. 3.5 leaven himself once was who not only disdained the Gentiles but thought and spake contemptibly of Gods heritage viz. the common people of their own Nation as a base and cursed crew John 7.49 chap. 9.34 He pricks this bladder affirming roundly of himself and all the Jews without exception that as to their course whilest unregenerate they did whatsoever their sensual and carnal man willed liked and inclined to And as to estat◠were children of wrath as much as others even as the very despised Gentiles themselves were The great temporary difference flowing from grace Psal 147.19 20. hindered not their being the very same with the Gentiles by nature this and no other was the estate and course of the Jews likewise 3. He sets over against all this in them both the quickning and recovering grace of Christ in the Gentile ver 1. and in the Jew ver 4. The words read contain a brief comprehensive description of the misery that Jews and consequently Gentiles with them are under by nature And in the words observe these two particulars 1. The Case of all men Jews and Gentiles alike described children of wrath Do not understand this actively as children of disobedience ver 2. are disobedient children so that children of wrath should be angry and wrathful people but passively that are obnoxious unto wrath indefinitely which though it principally relates to that chiefest pressing insupportable burden viz. the Lords wrath yet includes consequently the wrath and power of Satan the terrours and rage of conscience the vengeance and assaults of every creature c. The Hebraisme children of wrath implies 1. Desert Deut. 25.2 It shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if the wicked man be a child of beating that the Judge shall cause him to lye down and to be beaten before his face c. which the Sept. solidly renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of stripes And so the Targums in like manner concurrently with our Bibles a sonne guilty and worthy to be beaten so Mat. 23.15 Ye make him twofold more the childe of hell that is more worthy of hell-fire than your selves 2. Tendency bent and addictnesse to involve themselves under wrath John 17.12 But the sonne of perdition which poured out himself in ways of self-destruction He had many and excellent means to the contrary but nothing would hold him back self-damnation is not proper to Judas but a very common sin and men ordinarily Rom. 2.5 treasure up to themselves wrath Prov. 8.36 love death 3. The event and issue which shall befall them if they do abide such viz. that they shall be destroyed and the eternal wrath of God abide upon them so Judas gave up himself to those sins that not only deserved and tended to destruction but would certainly destroy him so 1 Sam. 20.31 he is the son of death viz. deserves to dye and shall surely dye Now gather all these things together our estate and course is such by nature as deserves destruction tends and leads to destruction and will end and the Lord hath peremptorily fixed and ordained without a change shall end in Eternal destruction 2. The rise of this case expressed by nature which implies
is wrath in Domestique relations And wrath as terribly mixeth in Publick Relations Ministers preach not oversee not are not ensamples to the flock have not experience nor ability or care rightly to divide the Word of truth and muzzle the gain-sayer Misled themselves and mislead others c. Magistrates mind not the things of Christ are tight and vigilant over the good indulgent to the evil Beare the sword in vaine c. Such vials there is much wrath poured through 5. Upon the holy things of God and of his people Ours come not with acceptance to God The Lords not with savour closenesse authority c. to us The very book of the Covenant needs sprinkling Heb. 9.19 The Law which is pure and clean Psal 19.8 9. is made a killing letter 2 Cor. 3.7 The Gospel which is the grace of God bringing salvation Tit. 2.11 is made a savour of death unto death 2 Cor. 2.16 the Lords Supper an eating and drinking judgmsnt to our selves 1 Cor. 11.29 and Christ himself is made for falling Luke 2.34 and a stone of stumbling and rock of offence 1 Pet. 2.8 without Christs blood taking away sin the very book of grace had never been opened Rev. 5.4 and though the choicest in it self being opened would never have been useful unto us and sorer wrath cannot be than to curse our very blessings Mal. 2.2 and the very means of grace that they shall be uselesse and for judgment 6. Upon the whole man the person is under the effects of wrath 1. Inslaved to the Divel This is plain 1. From the Scriptures Else converting gracâ— could not a Col. 1.13 deliver from the power of darknesse nor men be said when b 2 Tim. 2.26 God gives repentance to recover themselves out of the snare of the Divel that were taken captive by him at his will 2. From the likenesse of mans work with Satans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of a Trade are ordinarily of a company together but here the rule failes not 1 Joh. 3.8 He that committeth sin is of the Divel that is by doing the same work discovers himself of communion with and in thraldome to him The first finders of a Craft are Fathers and Successors and Imitators in the Craft are called children Gen. 4.20 we naturally and freely do the Divels work John 8.44 The lusts of your Father ye will do and have no minde to the Lords work nor can brook the same to be done circumspectly and exactly by others Acts 13.10 Thou child of the Divel enemy of all righteousness 3. From the community of principles the very mind and will of Satan is engraven upon our spirits and expresse themselves inefficacy and obstinacy of sinning These principles are Satans image instead of Gods 4. From the natural mans subjection to the guidance of Satan regenerate persons are led by the Spirit but Satan filleth the hearts of natural men He had possession of Judas his heart and by a piece of mony rides deeper into him and prevails to engage him to betray Christ This is a lamentable branch of the natural mans misery 2. He is banished and separated from God both from conformity to and communion with him and doth electively banish and cast himself forth of the Lords presence This appears 1. From the former point viz. mans fellowship with Satan there cannot be fellowship with God and with Satan together These communions are inconsistent in the same Spirit at the same time in a reigning intense degree 2. From Gods end and his Apostles and Ministers in the writing explanation and application of the Scripture 1 John 1.3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Were this fellowship already in the state of nature there needed not this means of rebringing into fellowship with God Defiers of the evil one with their mouths are not the lesse in league with him in their hearts 3. From the language of the carnal heart Job 21.14 Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thee This they speak internally and the desire of their souls is to be rid of God notions of God are a saplesse and burdensome piece of knowledge Rom. 1.18 They did not like to retain God in their knowledge To banish our selves is the heighth of mans sin and folly and to be banished the heighth of the Lords wrath and of mans misery Now do we know what a man loseth in the losse of God that is impossible for any created understanding to conceive The world is a Dungeâ—n without the Sun the body a carrion without the soul but neither so necessary as God is to the soul A taste of the goodnesse of God made the world and the lives of the Martyrs nothing to them Psal 30.5 In thy favour is life Psal 63.3 Thy loving kindnesse is better than life The very heaven of heaven lies in the enjoyment of God and the hell of hell in the losse of him The losse of him is the losse of the Fountain from which all kinde of good doth or can come The losse of the cause is the losse of all the effects of all the blessed affections influences and promises of God The losse of all those blessed hopes that fill the soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory No prayer praises faith love fear or any spark of other grace are to be found in truth upon the hearth of that heart Now the person in league with the Devil and banished from and without God in the world must needs be miserable and accursed 3. He is discontented and unprofitable in every condition Rom. 3.12 They are altogether become unprofitable The Holy Ghost makes a natural man of no more use than rotten things which we cast forth to the dunghill for their unprofitablenesse This is a dreadful ruine that a creature so excellent should become unprofitable to others and very far from comfort to himself in any condition The wife having all for use and the husbands heart hath nothing because not the authority dominion and disposition which is proper to the husband Israel have bread and quailes from heaven and water from the Rock that followed them a table everywise furnished for need and for delight and yet grumble because not meat for their lusts Many have all things very good and the wisdome of heaven could not carve fitter and better things and yet all not good enough Let sin creep in and Adam will not be content in Paradise or the Apostate Angels in heaven but leave their own habitation Go from God and take thy leave and farewell of contentment and satisfaction 4. He is grown a Wolf and Devil to his brethren Biting and devouring Gal. 5.15 tearing pulling catching at advantage flying upon the necks of the weaker Men execute much of the wrath of God in these feuds among themselves so that the Caution is
very necessary Matth. 10.17 Beware of men in a sort as of any wild beast or the very Devils themselves This is a glimpse of that wrath which the Lord draweth forth against natural men in this life before the sons of men 2. There are further degrees of this wrath that rush in at the end of this life Rom. 6.23 The wages of sin is death The bodies of the very heirs of glory and which are Temples of the holy Ghost lie trampled upon under rottennesse and suffer losse of their appointed glory till the last day The Lord batters them till the house tumble about their eares He layes on load till the heart-strings crack and to whom Hell is remitted death is not remitted those must dye that shall not be damned for their sins and death shall have dominion over them till the morning of the resurrection There is a progress in Gods wrath which will not stop in the midway but goes on till it shall be accomplished Ezek. 5.13 3. The full vials and very dregs of this wrath Psal 78.38 shall be poured out in the world to come which now God reins in and lets not get loose and break over the banks or if it do calls it back and turneth it away but then all his wrath shall be stirred up and let forth to the full 1. There shall be the general judgement of the great day in which the Lord himself shall descend from heaven in a shout 1 Thes 4.16 with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and shall be revealed 2 Thes 1.7 with his mighty Angels in flaming fire terribly to execute the curses of that Law which was so terrible in the promulgation Then shall the sinner be forced from his grave dragged to the barre arraigned the books opened all the secrets of darknesse and of the heart made manifest and the Goats put on the left hand and have that dismal sentence Go ye cursed c. Mat. 25.41 2. There shall be dreadful and final execution and this stands in two things 1. In losse expulsion from the Lords face and presence and glory As incurable lepers from the Camp and fellowship of the Saints For the good things which they never cared for and from the good things of the world which they grasped and were their portion from all hopes of grace all preachings of peace all strivings of the Spirit never a friend to comfort a sun to shine a drop of water to cool the tongue or any blessing to come near them any more for ever 2. In sense which is sometimes termed suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude ver 7. Wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 where there shall be with the damned Angels subjection to the eternal wrath of God the worm of a guilty conscience that never dies where the Lord will beare up the creature with one hand that it continue in being and beat it with the other that it shall be ever dying in death alwayes and never dead Use 1. Inform. We may clearly gather divers Corollaries hence 1. This may inform us of the vast and woful change that sin hath made Men could not come possibly such out of the hands of God Gen. 1.31 God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good and therefore blessed but sin hath taken him from Mount Gerizim Deut. 27.12 13 and set him upon Ebal and the misery now is such that if the Lord should open the same to the conscience fully the very view would drive men out of their wits and men could not tarry in their beds or rellish a morsel of bread till delivered and blessed with some evidence of deliverance out of that condition This may infome us of the causlessnesse of the offence taken at Ministers for preaching this point Now consider seriously 1. Is there a parallel to the offence taken here in any other case in the whole earth Who is angry with a watchman for giving notice that the house is beset and ready to be broken up or on fire though all be disturbed some half-frighted out of their wits or wholly with the tydings and very great pudder follows till the house be secured and the fire quenched men mighâ— otherwise have been undone and destroyed in their beds Who flies out against a Centinel that gives a true Alarme and rowzeth the Souldiers at the deadest time of the night he prevents their surprizal or throats being cut in their beds and the Town from being sacked Who storms at a passenger that sticks up a bough in a Quagmire that other Travellers going securely on may not be laid fast ere they think of any danger Who takes it ill of a friend that seeing a bearded arrow coming that would strike the stander next him mortally puls him aside with that force possibly as to draw his arme out of joint and the arrow goes not through his heart Who thinks amisse of a Lawyer that opens the badnesse of his Clients cause to him that he may not insist on a wrong point in which necessarily he must be cast 2. Should we to avoide your displâ—asure not give you warning and so draw Gods displeasure Ezek. 3.18 19. Videsis Greenhil in loc and the blood of you perishing upon our heads is this good for you or us 3. Do you well to provoke poor Ministers to bauke that part of their office which flesh and blood makes us too willing to have our edge taken off in Desire we to be messengers of sad tydings or rather to come in the abundance of the comforts of the Gospel A pettish Patient makes the Chyrurgion search the wound lesse than is necessary to a through cure Ye tempt us to stop from speaking needfully of your danger by your lothnesse to hear on that ear and by your rage and regret against the teller Those which have most need of faithful intelligâ—â—ce of the Lords wrath have least upon this very score Job 21.31 Who shall declare his way to his face viz. that is respited and prospers and tramples the doctrine under foot and turns again and tears the Preacher 4. This is no other than what the Scripture speaks and conscience upon retirements will speak and Satan will lay in your dish and the Lord will pay into your bosome Will those flye in the Lords face and of conscience telling this story to them and pronouncing the sentence against them Oh profane partial spirits that cannot endure such Preachers as themselves shall be unto themselves that cannot bear the hearing of those terrours that themselves shall be relators and inflicters of upon themselves Ye had better have the commodity at the first hand conscience will preach in another note and loudnesse than we do and the more because your ears have been stopped against our words 5. There cannot be a greater madnesse than not to be able to live under the noise and news of this wrath and yet stick under the wrath
stupifieth the conscience that they grow senslesse of their misery past feeling Ephes 4.19 and that 's a dangerous Crisis and estate of soul when once a man comes to that and goeth like a fool to the correction of the stocks Thirdly it irritateth their inbred corruption Rom. 7.9 The Commandment came that is in full conviction and power and sin revived and I dyed the more we understand of the necessity of our subjection to God the more opposite is the soul to him as a Damm makes a River or strong streame the more violent or as a Bullock at the first yoking becometh the more unruly Or Fourthly It breedeth a sottish despaire Jer. 18.12 There is no hope therefore we will walk after our own devices and do every one according to the evil imaginations of our own heart 't is to no purpose to speak to us or strive further about us as if they had said there is no hope and therefore we will live as we list without any further care of turning to God this is the worst kinde of despaire when a man is * Psal 81.12 given up to his own hearts lust and runneth headlong in the way of destruction without hope of returning there is more hope of them that are under despairing fears or a terrified conscience than there is of those which are under despairing resolutions or a stupid and sottish obstinacy thus as to the Law man is helplesse 2. Consider man as to terms of grace offered in the Gospel he is still without strength not only in a damnable condition by the Law but without grace unable to accept the Gospel this will appear by two considerations 1. By those emphatical terms of Scripture by which the Case and Cure of man is set forth 2. By those positive assertions whereby all power is denied to man to convert himself to God or to do any thing that is spiritually good 1. Those emphatical expressions which represent His Case His Cure 1. His Case the Scripture sets forth mans condition thus that he is born in sin Psal 51.5 and things natural are not easily altered greedy of sin Job 16.15 He drinketh in iniquity like water it noteth a vehement propension as greedy to sin as a thirsty man to drink thirst is the most implacable appetite hunger is far better born but this you will say is but now and then in a great temptation or vehement passion no Gen. 6.5 Every imagination of the thought of his heart is evil only evil and that continually by how many aggravating and increasing circumstances is mans sin there set forth there is in him a Mint alwayes at work his minde coyning evil thoughts his heart evil desires and carnal motions and his memory is the closet and store house wherein they are kept But may not a man be reclaimed is not this his bondage and trouble no his heart is a heart of stone Ezek. 36.26 that is inflexible insensible when God useth the Word some common motions of his Spirit some rouzing providences yet all in vain for mans heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked Jer. 17.9 inventing shifts and excuses to avoid God and to cheat it self of its own happinesse But is not the New Testament more favourable than the Old or is not man grown better since there was so much grace discovered I answer No there is a perfect harmony between the Testaments there you will finde man represented as a childe of wrath by nature Ephes 2.3 even the Elect as well as others to be a servant of sin Rom. 6.17 Never such an imperious Master never such a willing servant sin never leaveth commanding and we love the work you will finde him again expressed as one averse from God alienated from his life Ephes 4.18 'T is a melancholy thought to a carnal heart to think of the life of God as an enemy to the Law Rom. 8.7 One that neither can nor will please God as blind and knoweth not what to do 2 Pet. 1.9 and this blindnesse spiritual is worse than bodily a man that is blind in body seeketh for a fit guide as Elymas when he was stricken blinde sought about for one to lead him by the hand Acts 13.11 as weak and without strength here in the Text yea stark dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2.5 yea worse than dead a dead man doth no more hurt his evil dieth with him but there is a life of resistance and rebellion against God that goes along with this death in sin Now put all this together and you may spell out mans misery what a wretched impotent creature he is in his natural estate the Scripture does not speak this by glances or short touches neither is it an Hyperbole used once or twice but every where where it professedly speaks of this matter certainly man contributeth little to his own conversion he cannot hunger and thirst after Christ that drinks in iniquity like water there is nothing in nature to carry him to grace who is altogether sinful if the Scripture had only said that man had accustomed himself to sin and was not born in sin that man were somewhat prone to iniquity and not greedy of it and did often think evil and not continually that man were somewhat obstinate and not a stone an adamant if the Scripture had only said that men were indifferent to God and not a professed enemy if a captive of sin and not a servant if only weak and not dead if only a neuter and not a rebel then there might be something in man and the work of conversion not so difficult but the Scripture saith the quite contrary 2. The Cure certainly to remedy so great an evil requires an Almighty power and the al-sufficiency of grace therefore 't is good to see how conversion is described in Scripture sometimes by enlightning the minde Ephes 1.18 and the eyes of your understandings being enlightned c. Man the wisest creature on this side heaven is stark blinde in the things of God though he hath the light of nature and can put on the spectacles of Art and dresse his notions of divine things by the glasse of the Word yet ere the cure is wrought something must be done upon the faculty the eyes of our understandings must be enlightned as well as the object revealed I but this infusion of light is not all the Scripture speaks of opening the heart Acts 16.14 He opened the heart of Lydia God doth not only knock at the heart but open it he knocks many times by the outward means but findes no entrance yea as one that would open a door he tries key after key till he hath tried all the keys in the bunch so does God use means after means but till he * Cant. 5.4 5. putteth his fingers upon the handles of the lock the door is not opened to him well then the mind must be enlightned and the heart opened if these words are not emphatical
We have three notable advantages in our temporal promises beyond what they had in theirs 1. The Old Covenant had special promises of temporal good things in the Land of Canaan for the preserving of their Mosaical policy untill the time of the Messiah to be born of that people promises of long life c. The New Covenant hath promises of all good things necessary without any such clog All good works shall be rewarded and he promiseth to give a present temporal reward in part of payment Eph. 6.8 Whatsoever good thing any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free and which is more 1 Tim. 4.8 Godlinesse is profitable unto all having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 2. The temporal good things promised in the Old Testament were symbolical they prefigured spiritual benefits by Christ we have them without any such adjoyned significations Col. 2.17 They had a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ They had a more sparing taste of heavenly good things in earthly benefits we have a more streight and direct way unto eternal life 3. Promises of temporal good things were in the Old Covenant more frequent in the New Covenant more rare and this I name as their excellency because they are thrown in as meer additions to spiritual promises * Alting Ma. 16.33 Seek ye first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and all these things shall be added unto you this for temporal promises And for spiritual promises which are the best of the Gospel-Covenant not only the conditions of those promises are more easie for whereas it was Do this and live Gal. 3.15 now it is Believe and thou shalt not come into condemnation * Camero Joh. 3.18 but the condition is also promised Jer. 31.34 I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt which my Câ—venant they brake although I was an Husband unto them saith the Lord but this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my law into their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his Neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall know me from the least of thâ—m unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sinnes no more Gods hearty good will is herein manifested Jer. 32.41 I will rejoyce over them to do them good and I will plant them in this land assuredlâ— with my whole heart and with my whole soul If you say these are Old-Testament promises and belonged to them to whom they were spoken and were not only Prophetical so as to concern another people * Calv. Instit I grant it Rom. 3.19 We know that what things soever the Law saith it saith to them who are under the Law But they had not that efficacy of the Spirit to make these promises so effectual as was Prophesied and promised for the times of the Gospel * Synop. pu th Joel 2.28 And it shall come to passe afterwards mark that afterwards I will poure out my Spirit upon all flesh c. The measure of the Spirit which they did receive tended mostly to bondage Gal. 4.24 25. but the Spirit is to us a Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.15 And therefore the Gospel is specially called the Word of Gods grace Acts 20.32 as if all the grace that God had formerly expressed had been nothing in comparison of this Rom. 6.14 Ye are not under the Law but under grace Law and grace are opposed as condemnation and mercy thus the Gospel is the better Covenant in respect of the promises of it 5. The Gospel is the better Covenant in respect of the effects of it the Old Covenant shews us sin doth accuse us and declares us guilty before the judgement of God Rom. 3.19 20. That every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the Law is the knowledge of sinne It subjects us under the curse and condemneth sinners for the transgressing of Gods commands Deut. 27.26 Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this Law to do them and all the people shall say Amen So Gal. 3.10 it is the ministry of death 2 Cor. 3.6 7. but now the Gospel that proclaims pardon of sin and lifts up with quickening consolation Isa 61.1 2. in the Law God is considered as reproving sin and approving righteousnesse in the Gospel as remitting sin and repairing righteousnesse and therefore the Word of the Gospel is called good seed Mat. 13.3 The seed of Regeneration 1 Pet. 1.23 The Word of Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.18 19. The Ministration of the Spirit Gal. 3.2 The Word of faith Rom. 10.8 The Word of life Phil. 2.16 The power of God Rom. 1.16 That whereby the righteousnesse of God is manifest Rom. 3.21 The destruction of unbelievers is not the end of the Gospel but that is through their own fault Polan Syntag. eventus adventitius an accidental event God abundantly declares in the Gospel that he delights not in the death of sinners but in the saving translation of them by faith and repentance from the power of darknesse into the Kingdome of his dear Son The best effect of the Legal Covenant is the bringing man into the Gospel-Covenant and 'pray ' observe how when it is most effectual it turns over the sinner to the Better Covenant 1. It discovers sin to us Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law but wherefore is it that we know sin at all that we might be compelled to seek reparation in the Gospel-Covenant Gal. 3.21 22. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise of faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe 2. The Old Covenant restrains sin there is a natural stupidnesse in mens consciences but then when the dreadful threatnings of the Law still sound in their ears man is somewhat affrighted and hath some reluctancy though afterwards the Law of the minde is led captive by the Law of the members and man forbears sin as having a bridle put upon him Ringente interim intus tumultuante appetitu corrupto though he be restrained from sin yet it is but a kinde of coactior it ends best when it ends in a spontaneous and voluntary inclination of the minde to forsake sin and hate it and that is the work of the Gospâ—l-Covenant 3. The Old Covenant works fear
under the obediential observance and poysonous malediction of that Law upon which there was only the print of his own authoririty for though the humane nature abstractly considered is as a creature bound to the observance of a Law yet being in conjunction with the second person in the Trinity and assumed into the personality of the Son of God it was exempted from obedience and indemnified as to curse and penalty Christ submitted to the Ceremonial Law in his circumcision put his neck under the yoke of the moral Law to fulfill the preceptive part by his Perfect obedience and satisfie the maledictive part by his compleat sufferings all which subjection was not a debt that God could have challenged of him but a pure voluntary subscription The Law is not made in some sense for a righteous man 1. Tim. 1.9 but it is not made in any sense for the glorious God 3. And which is a step beneath both these he appeared as a sinful man or in the likeness of sinful flesh Rom. 8.3 subjection to the Law made him very low but the similitude of sin which is the violation of the Law was a far greater abasement Christs appearing in the likenesse of sinful flesh must not be understood as though his flesh were only a likenesse and appearance Non in similitudine carnis quasi caro non esset caro sed in similitudine carnis peccati quia caro erat sed peccati caro non erat Aug. Heb. 9. ult or he had only an aerial and phantastical body as some of old absurdly fancied and affirmed he had true real flesh though but the similitude and resemblance of sinful flesh the word likenesse relates not to flesh but sin not flesh in likeness but sin in likeness a being under a Law implies nothing of sin it was the case of Adam and the Angels and both without sin or any thing that look't like sin but our blessed Lord condescended not only to subjection but to the print and appearances of transgression He shall appear saith the Apostle the second time without sin unto salvation Intimating that the first time he appeared with sin upon him when he returns in glory he shall have no dints of sin upon him the smell or fingeing of it shall not be upon his garments but his first entrance was with many of those prints and marks that sin where ever it is uses to leave behinde it Sin was neither inherent in him nor committed by him but imputed to him Sin never defiled him but it defaced him he had nothing of its impurity but much of its penalty he was not tainted with that plague but he was pleased to take upon him the tokens In the same Chapter the Prophet tells us He had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth and he was numbred with Transgressors Isa 53.9 12. He trode not one step awry in sin but many of the footsteps of sin appeared upon him to instance in a few 1. Poverty he came in a low and mean condition and that 's the very likenesse of sin the great bankrupt that brought all to beggery Though he was rich yet for our sakes he b came poor 2 Cor. 8.9 When he rode to Jerusalem it was not in state in a gilded Coach with six horses or mounted like a Lord Mayor with embossed trappings but as one might rather say like a Beggar that is sent with a Passe from one Town to another Matth. 21.5 Sitting upon an Asse Matth. 8.20 and a Colt the foole of an Asse The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Aire have nests but the Son of man had not where to lay his head He was at such a very low ebb as to worldly riches Matth. 17. ult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 valet 2 s. 6 d. that once he and one of his Apostles could not both of them make a purse for half a crown to pay their tax without the working of a Miracle Isa 55.3 2 Thess 2.3 2. Another likenesse of sin was sorrow He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs as Antichrist is called a man of sin his very make and constitution is sin so was Christ a man of sorrows and as it were made up of them they were in a manner his complexion We read oft of his weeping but it is not observed that ever there was a smile upon his face Now sin and sorrow are so near of kin that the Hebrew language compriseth both in one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are as like as mother and daughter and both called by the same name 3. A third likenesse of sin was shame and reproach Sin was the inlet of shame when our first Parents had sinned their eyes were opened Gen. 3.7 Chap. 2. ult and they knew that they were naked and sewed fig-leaves toge her Why they were naked before and were not ignorant of it but then it was no shame to them sin gave them a sight of their nakednesse so as they never saw it before This similitude of sin was upon Christ when he was called Glutton Wine-bibber Conjurer Blasphemer Divel and what not that might cause and increase contempt We hid as it were our faces from him saith the Prophet he was despised and we esteemed him not Isa 55.3 how vile and contemptible is that person upon whom we turn the back in scorn to whom we will not vouchsafe so much as a look or the glance of an eye I am a reproach of men saith the Psalmist in the person of Christ and desp sed of the people Psal 22.6 4. Another similitude of sin was the withdrawment of his Father and clouding the liâ—hâ— of his counteâ—ance His fathers forsaking him whereof he makes that heavy heart-breaking complaint Matth 27.46 My God my God why hast thou forâ—aken me The frown of his Father and brow-beating of his displeasure was the very likenesse of sin for from that noysome vapour oâ—ly arises a cloud to over-cast the light of his countena ce Nothing but that builds up a partition wall betwixt him and us Your iniquities have separated betwixt you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you We hid our face from Christ Isa 59 2. and in that there was reproach but alas this was nothing in comparison a Prince need not trouble himself that he hath not the smile of his Groom What if all creatures in heaven and earth had hid their faces from Christ he could well have born up under it but the hiding of his Fathers face even broke his heart as a burden intolerable 5. And lastly Christ submitted to death and that 's anoâ—her likenesse of sin Sin entred into the world and death by sin Rom. 5.12 they came together as it were hand in hand this was â—he penalty inflicted upon sin In the day thou eâ—test thou shalt suâ—ely dye Gen. 2.17 Now in this
respect Christ abased himself to look like a sinner Humbled himself and became obedient to death the death of the Crosse In the further Amplification of this I shall endeavour to shew three things 1. What kinde of death Christ humbled himselfe unto 2. In what manner Christ underwent that death 3. Upon what grounds Christ thus humbled himself to death 1. What kinde of death Christ humbled himself unto and this I cannot omit the Apostle having added such a remarkable Emphasis by way of reduplication Death even the death of the Cross It was not only a violent death and there 's much in that that he dyed not a natural but a violent death Nor indeed could he both because there was no sin in him to be the in-let of a natural death nor would that have been satisfactory for the sin of others It was not only I say a violent death but such a violent death as had in it a more than ordinary violence a death by crucifying which hath these three imbittering Circumstances 1. Pain 2. Shame 3. Curse 1. Pain The easiest death is painful a death-bed though a down-bed is for the most part a little ease Oh my gowty feet saith Asa O my cold benum'd body saith David O my leprous skin saith Uzziah O my pained a king head cryes the son of the Shunamite but in the death of Christ there was the pain of many deaths put together in the very dawning of the Gospel the very first time we finde the death of Christ mentioned it is set out by bruising Gen. 3.15 It shall bruise the head and thou shalt bruise his heel Isa 53.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.39 viz. his humane nature that which could be bruised It pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief bruised him as with a Pestel in a Mortar hence was it he prayed so earnestly that the Cup might passe it was so full of worme-wood and gall and the pain so violent which he was to encounter that he screwed up his request to the highest pin if it be possible wise and resolute men do not use to complain of a little they will not cry oh at a flea-bite or the burning of a finger and some of the Martyrs have born up with such Christian courage and gallantry in death that being on the Rack they would not be loosed they were tortured Heb. 11.35 not accepting deliverance saith the Apostle the incomes and supports of Divine Grace made an abatement of their pains oh but what shall we say of the bitternesse of that death where the Author of all their strength God and man bewrayes passions how much dregs was there in that Cup which Christ was so loth to drink of Three things made Christs death so exceeding painful Optime complexionatus Aquin. 1. The piercing his hands and feet those sinnews and sensitive parts Christs body was all over excellently well tempered and so his sense admirably acute but to be pierced and digg'd through hands and feet parts so full of nerves and sinnews must needs aggravate and augment the smart They have pierced my hands and my feet Psal 22.16 was the Prophetical complaint of the Psalmist fulfilled in Christ 2. Another thing that addeth much to the pain of Christs death was the extension and distortion of his body the Crosse was a rack to him and he was stretch't as upon the Tenters for when any persons were to be crucified the Crosse you must understand lâ—y all along upon the ground till the party was nailed to it and stretch't out at his full length and afterward erected and to this the Psalmist had respect in that sad complaint of his I may tell all my bones Psal 22 17. he was so rack't that his bones were almost ready to start out of the skin 3. The death of Christ was more painful by reason of its slownesse and gradual approach Christ was from the third Compare Mar. 15.25 with 34. to the ninth houre in dying from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon six compleat houres When bloody Tyrants would make any mans death more than ordinarily painful they have devised wayes to cause a lingring death and when news was once brought to one of them that such a one was dead suddenly he cryed out Evasit he hath made an escape When death comes the slower its pace the heavier its tread the longer the Seige the fiercer the storme but this is true of Christ more than others for when they are long in dying they usually faint and their spirits abate they are brought step by step to deaths doore and dead before death but with Christ it was otherwise he stood all that while in perfect strength the vigour and acutenesse of his senses was no whit blunted or made lesse sensible of paine That is a notable Scripture Mark 15.37 39. Jesus cryed with a loud voice and gave up the Ghost and when the Centurion which stood ovâ—r against him saw that he so cryed out and gave up the Ghost he said Truly this man was the Son of God a very strange inference this man dyes and gives up the Ghost and therefore he is the Son of God The Argument one would think were strong to the contrary but here lies the strength of his reason When he saw he so cryed out and died he said he was the Son of God He very well knew that in other men strength abated leisurely their speech grew low and they used to fumble and falter and rattle in the throat but as for this man he gave such a cry at the last gasp as he never heard and thereupon infers Truly he was the Son of God 2. Another bitter ingredient unto the death of Christ was shame and this was much more than the former There is nothing so sharp and cutting so intolerable to an ingenuous and noble spirit as shame The paine of an hundred deaths is more easily undergone by such than the reproach of one Now in this respect the thieves fared much better than he did we read of no irrision no inscription no taunts or sarcasms cast upon them they had only paine to encounter Christ both pain and scorne the souldiers the Jews the very thieves flouted him He endured the Crosse Heb. 12.2 saith the Apostle and despised the shame The Crosse was it self aâ— ignominious death the death of a slave Fecinus est vincire civem Romanum scelus verbera e quid dicam in crucem tollere Cic. Zach 11.13 no Free man or man of fashioâ— was ever put to it and to this day we say of one that is hang'd He dyes like a dog yea but Christ did not only dye such an ignominious and reproachful death as this but he was sold to it and a goodly price that he was prized at the death it self was shameful the death of a slave and this was an aggravating circumstance of ignominy that he
was sold to it as a slave all the while he was dying he stood naked upon the Crosse Now nakednesse is our shame he was scorned and derided on all sides they mockt and shak't the head at him all his Offices were derided his Priestly Office He saved others himself he cannot save his Prophetical Office Mar. 27.42 when they blinded him and bid him prophâ—sie who it was that smote him His Kingly Office when they put a robe upon him and in mockery said Hayâ—e King of the Jews Thieves and notorious Villains were crucified with him and he put in the midst as though he were worse than both of them and all their villâ—inies and mis-demeanours had concentred in him they spit in his face and that 's a notable mark of infamy such an one as God allotted for the reproach of him that refused to build up his Brothers house Deut. 25.9 And all this was acted without the Gate they thought him not worthy to suffer within the Walls of their City lest forsooth he might have polluted it This the Apostle takes special notice of Jesus Heb. 13.12 that he might sanctifie the people with his own Blood suffered without the Gate which in the next verse he explaines and calls his reproach as under the Law the Blasphemer was by Gods appointment to be stoned without the Camp and amongst us at this day Levit. 24.14 the most base and villainous Malefactors are carted away to Tyburne and not executed upon Tower hill that is honourable 3. The sting of Christs death is yet behind it was invenom'd with a curse Deut. 21.23 though pain be bad and shame worse yet the curse is worst of all He that is hanged is accursed of God That was it is true a Ceremonial Curse but it was typical and had special relation to Christ who was under a real moral curse and so it is applyed by the Apostle Christ hath Redeemed us from the curse of the Law Gal. 3.13 being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree And here the Apostle Peter puts a remarkable accent speaking of Christ to the Jewes Whom ye slew Acts 5.30 saith he and hang d on a Tree intimating that bare slaying him would not have been so much as hanging him on a tree the Jews had many other wayes of putting people to death as stoning strangling burning beheading but only crucifying had a curse annexed to it Christ was made sin for us that we might meet with and intercept that wrath and curse that was due to us and breaking out upon us We read in the story of his passion that when Christ was going to wrestle with that dreadful agony in the garden he passed over the brook Cedron John 18.1 And if we consult the History of the Kings we shall finde that when any godly ones amongst them as Hezekiah Asa Josiah reformed and purged the City and Temple of Idolatry they cast the abominable and cursed things into the brook Kidron 2 Chron. 15.16.29.16.30.14 Psal 110. ult Christ was in his sufferings to drink of the brook in the way to passe over and wade through a River full of curses 2. In what manner Christ underwent this death It behooves us to consider the manner of our performing duties to Christ for their acceptation and it will be worth the while for us to ponder the manner of Christs shedding his blood for us both for our consolation and imitation Now as to the manner of his death three circumstances call for our consideration He dyed Willingly Obediently Humbly and Meekly 1. Willingly he was a Volunteer in death and his offering up himself in sacrifice was a free-will offering his Fathers determination made it necessary and thus Christ ought to suffer and the Son of man must be lifted up but his Faâ—hers preordination gave not his death the formality of a Sacrifice In regard of men it was violent They slew him wâ—th wickâ—d hands this makes it not the sacrifice neither they were not the Priests but the butchers of Châ—ist In respect of himself it was voluntary that made the Sacrifice Then said I Lo I come in the volume of the Book it is written of me I delight to do thy Will Psal 40.7 8. oh my God yea thy Law is within my heart As if he had said John 10.17 18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. in loc Ibid. My very heart is ready for the shedding of my heart-blood I lay down my life saith Christ no man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self though the Jews took it away yet not against his Will it was their murtherous will to have it and his gracious Will to give it I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it againe As if he had said were it not my pleasure to part with it with all the power they could make they were never able to wrest it out of my hands Mat. 26.53 When one of Christs followers struck off the High Priests servants eare Christ gave him a check Think st thou saith he that I cannot now pray to my Father and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of Angels As if he had said I need not such weapons I could commission Twelve Legions of Angels to be of my life-guard one were sufficient to do the businesse as what a rout did one Angel once make in Sennacheribs army 2 King 19.35 but I could put twelve legions into battel array for my rescue were not I as ready to be crucified as they are to crucifie me And when the souldiers came to break his legs John 19 33. Suffixus spiritum cum verba dimisit prevento carnificis officio Tertul. Luke 12.50 they forbore because he was already dead Such was his forwardnesse to die that he saved them a labour Nay there was not a bare willingnesse but on his part strong desires to dye I have a baptisme to be baptized with and how am I straitned till it be accomplished his death was full of paine but his heart was so set upon it that he was in a manner pained till he came to dye and not to have dyed had been a death to him Heb 5.7 Mat. 26.39 Object But it will be objected Christ feared death he prayed against it and therefore his Will had a repugnancy against it Answ This doth not oppose but rather testifie and evidence Christs willingnesse to dye for he may be considered as a private person of the same natural affections desires and abhorrencies with other men and so the bitter cup was justly feated and declined or in a publick relation as Mediator a merciful and faithful High Priest and so he most willingly submitted himself to it and this willingnesse of Christ ratione officii was so much the greater because ratiâ—ne naturae he could not but have strong reluctancies
against it 2. Christ humbled himself to death obediently It was his will to dye and yet he dyed not of his own will but in obedience to his Fathers We have them both conjoyned Heb. 10.7 Lo I come to do thy Will O God And Joh. 10.18 I lay down my life of my self this Commandment have I received of my Father he became obedient unto death saith the Text In respect of God Christs death was justice and mercy in respect of man it was murther and cruelty in respect of himself it was obedience and humility To obey is beâ—â—er than sacrifice Christs obedience was the best of his sacrifice when he prayed to his Father that the cup might passe it was with this Clause of exception Not as I wâ—ll but as thou wilt 3. Christ submitted himself to death humbly and meekly he was oppressed and afflicted yâ—t opened he not his mouth not that he spake nothing at all but he was silent as to murmurings and revilings that was the work of his persecutors not a word passed from him that might argue passion or impatience as from one of the Thieves that were crucified with him he was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter he was not enraged or exasperated with all the injustice cruelty and oppression of his enemies not one word in heat of blood to them whose errand was to shed his blood Friend saith he to Judas betrayest thou the Son of man with a kisse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys What meeknesse was here though I confesse there was a tart rebuke in that kinde compellation and Christ calling him friend smartly checkt him for his unfriendly carriage When one of his Disciples cut off Malchus his eare Put up thy sword saith he Wee 'le have none of that club law he touches his eare and heales it When he was reviled he reviled not again 1 Pet. 2.23 Psal 64.3 when he suffered he threatened not his enemies shot their arrows even bitter words but they recoyled not upon them Nay he returned not only no ill words but gave prayers in exchange for their taunts and revilings Father forgive them Luke 23.34 for they know not what they do It had been meeknesse to have gone through his sufferings without murmuring but it was an high and heroical act of meeknesse indeed to poure out prayers for them that were such busie instruments in pouring out his blood he was so far from biting the stone that he kissed it and the hand that threw it 3. Upon what grounds Christ thus humbled himself to death What cogent necessity was upon him for we may not conceive that Christ thus humbled himself to death upon trivial and impertinent considerations as David said once of Abner Died Christ as a fool dieth 2 Sam. 3.33 No sure it was upon these six weighty grounds 1. That Scripture prophesies and Predictions might be accomplished all which represent him as coming in died garments from Bozrah Gen. 3.15 The first Scripture that ever mentions Christ shews him a bleeding and crucified Saviour Now Christ was to make good to a tittle every thing that had been before written of him In Saint Matthews Gospel this is very remarkable who above all the rest hath most punctually observed the fulfilling of Prophesies with whom the burden and under-song of almost every event is ut impleretur that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the mouth of the Prophets Christ himself renders this account of his sufferings in that Discourse of his with his Disciples upon the Road Oh fools Luk. 24.25 26. and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things The Prophets have all spoken this with one mounth and is it possible I should make them all liars 2. That Scripture types might be fulfilled many whereof were to decipher and prefigure the death of Christ as Isaac's being offered the slaying of the Sacrifices the lifting up of the Serpent Now had not Christs blood been shed and he lift up upon the Cross there had been no correspondency in the Antitype as Moses lift up the Serpent in the Wildernesse so must the Son of man be lifted up Joh. 3.14 Had not Christ been made a Sacrifice most of the Legal Ceremonies and precedent prefigurations had either spoken lies or at least nothing to the purpose 3. That his Will and Testament might be firme and effectuaâ— in his life he had given many precious Legacies and they had been all voide and to no more purpose than a Deed without a Seal at it unlesse ratified and confirmed had not Christ given himself to death all his other gifts that he had bequeathed in his Will had been gifâ—lesse this is the Apostles Argument Where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testator for a Testament is of force after men are dead Heb. 9.16 17. otherwise it is of no force at all while the Testator liveth A man that makes a Will doth not intend that any body should be the better by it but upon his death Suppose a man have a Legacy of a thousand pounds given him he is not one whit the richer so long as his friend liveth the Will holds not good in Law nor can he sue for one penny of it This Cup saith Christ is the New Testament in my blood Luke 22.20 that New Testament which is ratified by my blood Christs death gives life not only to his people but to his promises It is expedient for you that I go away John 16.17 saith he for If I go not away the Comforter will not come The sending of the Comforter was one principal clause of his last Testament but till the death of the Testator the Will could not be put in suit it signified nothing and was not pleadable The Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified what had they received nothing of the Spirit yes John 7.39 but not according to that plentiful proportion which he intended and promised in his Will The Legacy was paid but in part because the Testator was yet alive he was no sooner dead and got to heaven but he makes all good to a tittle as you may read Acts 2.2 3 4. 4. That justice may be satisfied the sentence upon sin was passed from the mouth of a righteous Judge now though justice might admit of a change of persons there was no room for a change of penalties death was threatned and death must be inflicted If Christ will save sinners from death justice will not let him save himself from death Heb. 9.22 without shedding of blood there is no remission Christ undertaking to crosse out and cover the black lines of sin must draw over them the red lines of blood What the chief Priests said concerning Christ is true in some sense though false in theirs He saved others Matth. 27.42 himself he cannot
save Justice was to have its penni-worths out of our Surety and nothing could be abated of blood God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins that he might be just Rom. 3.25 26. 5. That he that hath the power of death might be destroyed Hebr. 2.14 through death he destroyed him that hath the power of death that is the Divel Satan hath the power of death not as a Judge but as an Executioner and Christs death hath destroyed him not taken away his being or undivel'd him but shatter'd his Forces broken and subdued him The crucifying of Christ was the Divels plot he put Judas upon betraying him the Jews upon accusing him Pilate upon condemning him the Souldiers upon executing him but our Lord out-shot him in his own Bowe and cut off Goliah's head with Goliah's Sword It fared with Satan as it is storied of a certain Souldier who being cu iously inquisitive after the time of his death went to an Astrologer who of a long time would make him no answer till at the length overcome by his importunity he told him that he should dye within three dayes whereat the Souldier being angry draws his Sword and kills the Astrologer for which murder within three dayes compasse he was executed And thus Satan plotting the death of Christ to put by his own ruine promoted and procured it Our Saviours death gave him such a deaths wound as he will never claw off The Lyon is terrible saith Chrysostom not only awake but sleeping And so Christ not only living but dying came off a Conqueror Judg. 16.30 as Sampson at his death pulled down the pillars of the house and made a greater rout among the Philistines than in all his life and therefore it is very observable when the death of Christ approached and being in view Satan perceived how great disadvantage was like thereby to accrue to him and his Kingdome how he laid about and bestirred himself by all means possible to hinder it he put Petâ—r upon disswading him Master favour thy self and let not this be unto thee and Christ presently smelt him out in that advice as appears by his rebuke Get thee behinde me Satan Matth. 16.23 Matth. 27 19. he buzz'd dreams into the head of Pila es wife and thereby endeavoured to take him off and divert him from pronouncing the sentence upon him 6. To take away the meritorious cause of death viz. sinne And verily had all the Divels in hell been routed and sin that Divel in the bosome remain'd undisturbed it had been an inconsiderable victory God sending his own Son in the similitude of sinful flesh for sin Rom. 8.3 thaâ— is by a sacrifice for sin we have such another Ellipsis Hebr. 10.6 condemned sin in the flesh Christ by his blood wrote aâ— ill of Inditement and Condemnation against sin he sued it to an out-lary and undermiâ—ed it as to its dominion and damnation Rom. 6.10 in that he dyed he dyed unto sin once The Saints dye unto sin namely by Mortification Verse 11. Reckon ye your selves also to be dead indeed unto sin but thus there was never any alive in Christ but he dyed unto sin namely the utter ruine and undoing of sin The Messiah shall be cut off to finish transgression and make an â—nd of sins Dan. 9.24 There is a double finishing of sin by consummation and by consumption the meaning is not as though Christ compleated that which sinners had left imperfect or varnisht over those sins which came out of their hands rude and unpolished no he could neither put an hand nor set a tool to such work as this but to make an end of sin to eat into the heart and tear out the bowels of it such is Christs hatred of sin that rather than it shall live himself will dye APPLICATION Three Uses may be made of this Doctrine for 1. Information 2. Exhortation 3. Comfort Use 1 1. For Information in foure particulars 1. This lets us see the transcendent and inexpressible love of Christ to poor sinners Let such as can entertain hard thoughts of Christ look upon him as nailed to the Crosse and shedding his blood and then tell me if they do not think him in good earnest in the businesse of saving souls Oh how was his heart set upon sinners that would thus shed his heart-blood for sinners The Rabbins have a saying that upon every apex or tittle of the Law there hangs a Mountain of sense and doctrine In every drop of Christs blood there is an Ocean of love Who loved me Gal. 2.20 and gave himseâ—f for m The death of Christ was such a demonstration of love as the world never saw When God made the wordl he intended the evidence of his power he ordained hell digg'd Tophet and fill'd it with fire and brimstone and thereby manifested the severity of his jâ—stice he humbled himself to death and therein his purpose was to demonstrate the transcendency of his love this made the love of Christ of such efficacy and constraining influence upon the Apostle Paul Be ause we thus judge that if one dyed for all than were all dead 2. Cor. 5.14 When Christ once wept at Lazarus his grave by-standers made this inference upon it Behold how he loved him John 11.36 but if weeping at the grave for his death argued such love what love was it then to dye and go down into the grave for Lazarus It were an easie thing to lose our selves in this delightful Maze and Labyrinth of love the righteous Judge of all the world unrighteously accused and condemned the Lord of life was dying the eternal and ver blessed Son of God strugling with his Fathers wrath he that had said I and my Father are one crying out in his bitter agony My God my God why hast thou forsaken me He that hath the keys of hell and death lay sealed up in anothers grave Blessed and dear Saviour whither hath thy love to sinners carried thee Well might the Apostle in an holy rapture and extasie expresse himself in an elegant contradiction when he desired the Ephesians might know the love of Christ which passes knowledge Ephes 3.19 2. Hence learn the horrible and cursed evil of sin there is sure an abominable filthinesse in that which nothing but the blood of God could purge and expiate We may guesse at the depth and breadth of the sore by the plaister that is prepared and applied It s a desperate disease that requires such a desperate cure sin is an infinitely mischievous evil which nothing could remove but infinitely precious blood You that view sin in its right features and proportions take a prospect from Mount Calvary look through the perspective of Christs blood and seriously ponder the bitter and dreadful agonies of the Son of God when he sweat and bled and groaned and dyed under
the burden of it You have not yâ—t resisted unto blood Heb. 12.4 saith the Apostle striving against sin as if he had said you are not yet come to the hottest of the battel it may be you have gone through some light skirmishes a few ill words or outward losses but when Christ was challenged by this Goliah and none durst take up the Gantlet he resisted unto blood and verily the evil of sin is not so much seen in that thousands are damn'd for it as that Christ dyed for it If you should see a black vapour arise out of the earth and ascend by degrees till it covered the face of the heavens and obscure the Sun in brightest Noon-day lustre you would doubtlesse conclude there must needs be a strange and preternatural malignity in that vapour What shall we then think of sin that brought down the Son of God from heaven darkned his glory took away his life laid him in the dust After whom is the King of Israel come out saith David to Saul after whom dost thou pursue after a dead dog after a flea As if he had said 1 Sam. 24.14 methinks the King of Israel should never trouble himself about such a sorry and inconsiderable thing as I am a dead dog cannot bite when alive indeed he is a fierce creature he may flie in a mans face and tear out his throat but death tames him A dead dog needs no chain and a flea cannot bite very much the mark it makes is but a flea-bite you that have slight thoughts of sin do as good as say that the God of Israel entred into the lists and armed himself for the Battel against a dead dog nay that he lost the Field and was worsted by a flea the evil of sin is not so much seen that it is a knife that cuts our fingers as that its a knife redded over with the blood of our dear Redeemer 3. Hence note the exact and impartial justice of God and his most righteous severity against sin that rather than that shall passe unpunished his only begotten and everlastingly beloved Son shall shed his blood and become lyable and obnoxious to a curse In the blood of Christ as a mirrour is represented the most condescending mercy and inflexible severity that ever the world saw Son saith God if thou wilt undertake for sinners and undergo that penalty that is due to sin thy blood must go for it and nothing can be abated he prays the Cup may passe if possible but justice was inexorable he was upon such terms that it was not possible God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3.25 to declare his righteousnesse that he may be just One would have thought he would have said to declare his love and mercy that he may shew himself gracious nay but though there be a truth in that the Apostle pitches upon another Attribute To declare his righteousnesse that he may be just If there were any respect of persons with God or if exact justice could have warp't and been drawn away with any accessory and circumstantial considerations doubtlesse Christ should have gone free and an indemnity from suffering should have been the Sons priviledge 4. This is sad and dreadful news to all impenitent and unbelieving sinners What will be their doom that have no share in this blood of Christ and not only so but trample it under foot as an unholy thing Let them look to it it will one day rise up against them as a witnesse for their certain damnation for such there 's a much sorer punishment Heb. 10.29 woe to those that have not the blood of Christ to plead for them but ten thousand woes to them that have the blood of Christ pleading against them And where it cries not for pardon it cries out for vengeance with a witnesse They are the enemies of the Crosse of Christ saith the Apostle whose end is destruction Phil. 3.18 19. And what better end could it rationally be hoped they should come to that have an enmity against the Crosse of Christ If that which is light in th e be darkness Matth. 6.23 how great is that darknesse If the healing saving blood of Christ be destruction how dreadful is that destruction the death of Christ is to a wicked man one of the saddest stories and most dreadful tragedies that he can read or hear of because having no interest in it he understands what must certainly be acted upon himself and if God would not hearken to the prayers of his Son how is it likely he should be moved with the cry of Rebels and Enemies When God sent the Prophet Jeremiah upon his Errand to the Nations with the Cup of his fury that they should drink and be drunken and spue and fall and rise no more upon case of their refusal to drink tell them saith he that loe I begin to bring evil on the City which is called by my Name Jer. 25.29 and sh uld ye be utterly unpunished ye shall not be unpunished As if God had said Carry a Cup and if they refuse tell them Jerusalem hath been before them and I am resolved it shall go round My own people shall not drink unpledged and they shall not be unpunished God hath prepared a Cup for all Christ-rejecting sinners warmed with fire and spiced with brimstone and if they wince and make a sowre face let them know Christ hath had it Gods only begotten and beloved Son hath drunk deep on 't and how or with what face can they expect to escape What! will God say to such a one Behold he whose judgment was not to drink of the Cup Jer. 49.12 hath assuredly drunken and art thou he that shalt altogether go unpunished thou shalt not go unpunished but thou shalt surely drink of it Use 2 2. For Exhortation and that in six particulars 1. Hath Christ shed his blood for sin let us then shed the blood of sin let sin never live one quiet quarter of an houre in our souls that would not let Christ live in the world Christ dyed unto sin for Satisfaction let us dye unto sin by Mortification He died unto sinne once likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin Rom. 6.10 11. Every Saint should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostles phrase is Rom. 6.5 planted together in the likenesse of his death And he further explaines his meaning Ver. 6. Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin And verily unlesse by the death of sin in you you can have no comfortable evidence that the death of Christ was for you Christ was crucified and they that are Christs Gal. 6.24 Gal. 5.2 have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing saith the Apostle I
Paul say unto you he affixeth his name and sets to his hand q. d. I say it and I will stand to it and so if your heart be uncircumcised by not putting off the body of the sins of the flesh if you live in any one known approved sin Christ and the death of Christ shall profit you nothing Ah! revenge the blood of your dearest Lord upon your dearest lusts and when Satan presents to you a sugred spiced cup tempting you to the commission of any sin say as David of the waters of Bethlehem Farre be it from me oh Lord 2 Sam. 23 1â— that I should do this is not this the blood of my Saviour that not only hazarded but laid down his life for sin 2. Did Christ let out his blood for us let our lives then run out for Christ in a vigorous activity and unwearied exercise of grace It is the Apostles argument and it 's very forcible We judge that he dyed for all that they that live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them 2 Cor. 5.15 Christ did not shed two or three drops of his blood only or breath a veine and shall two or three duties a few shreds and odde parcels of holinesse serve to return back to Christ What can we think too much for him Tit. 2.14 that thought not much of his blood for us the blood of Christ is as well for the purity as the purchase of his people 3. Did Christ thus humble himself to death for us let us then prize him exceedingly and raise him in our esteem above riches honour pleasure father mother husband wife friend yea life it self Quanto pro me vilior tanto mihi charior Ber. or any other thing that we are apt to account precious how ought he to be prized and preferred above all things that prized such in considerable nothings as we are at so high rates as his own blood if you put Christ into one end of the scale be sure he out-ballances every thing that can be laid in the other To you that believe he is precious Other things may be rated according to that particular excellency that he hath put into them 1 Pet. 2.7 but you will be careful to keep the highest Room for the best friend and say Come down this and t' other vanity this friend must take place whatever other things may make twelve Christ shall be thirteen to a carnal heart nothing so low prized and undervalued as Christ but with believers that have an interest in him and know the worth of him he is in highest esteem Cant. 5.9 What is thy beloved more than another beloved say the daughters of Jerusalem they have sleight low thoughts of him and another be it who it will is to them as good as he but what answer makes the Spouse My Beloved is white and ruddy Ver. 10. the chifest among ten thousand If there were a general Muster and all the sons of men stood together Christ would be above and beyond them all and Paul is of the same mind who desired to know nothing but Christ and him crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 as if he had said Let me but be acquainted with Christ and his Crosse such a superlative esteem he had of him that I care not this if I burn all my Books Whatever he had heretofore accounted excellent when his judgement was byassed with wrong apprehensions he now accounts drosse dung dogs meat Phil. 3.8 for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord all not worthy to be named the same day with Christ Nay Christ himself hath told us they are not worthy of him that do not think him most worthy Mat. 10.37 4. Christ humbling himself thus low should teach us highly to prize our souls by the price that was paid for them we may conceive at what a raâ—e God values them If God should have said concerning any soul I so esteem it that rather than it shall perish I 'le dissolve and unpin the whole Fabrick of heaven and earth that you 'le say had evidently demonstrated an high valuation of souls but the course God hath taken shews a much higher esteem of them Now let this deare bought ware be precious ah let none of us adventure a soul for the satisfying of a base lust let not any sin steale that away upon easie termes which put the Lord of glory to such expences Christ that best knows the worth of souls for he paid for them so values them that he tells us the gaine of the world were no sufficient or satisfactory compensaâ—ion for he losse but of one of them Mark 8 36. and a man that should make that bargaine as too many do might put all his gaines in his eye Ingenâ—i hominis nulla si aestimatio and see never the worse after it What the Civilian saith of a Free-man is much more true of an immortal soul Noâ—hing can be valued with it Tradesmen know that buying deare and selling cheap will undo them but it will much more undo you to sell châ—ap that which Christ hath bought so deare Do not pawn your soules to Satan that is do not adventure upon the commission of any sin with this reserve I will repent before I dye and then all is well that is as if thou shouldst say Here Satan I give thee my soule to pawn in lieu of the pleasure or profit of this or that sin and make it in my bargaine that if I repent I will have it again till then I deliver it into thy custody and if I never repent take it it is thine own for ever Nay but ask Satan when he comes thus higgling for thy soul and bids thee pleasure profit preferment or any such toyes and trifles but canst thou subtile Tempter give any thing aequivalent to the blood of God the price that hath been already paid for it our souls were not Redeemed with silveâ— and gold 1 Pet. 1.18 and let us never sell them for that with which Christ could not purchase them 5. Did Christ humble himself to the shedding of his blood let us then be willing if need be to shed our blood for Christ. We needed Christs death and possibly Christ may need ours though not for merit and satisfaction No that was our need for which his death was abundantly sufficient and needs not ours to make any additions or heapt overplus measure but Christ may need our death to seale his truth and credit his Gospel Act. 20.24 the Apostle Paul counted not his life deare that he might finish his course with joy to testifie the Gospel of the grace of God And the Holy Ghost gives an honourable character of some Heroical noble-spirited Christians that they loved not their lives unto the death Rev. 12.11 and the blood of the Lamb animated them to such valour that they overcame and conquered by the
losse of their lives Ye have not yet resisted unto blood saith the Apostle but how soon it may come to that ye know not Heb. 12.4 It 's your duty and will be your wisdome to prepare for such a black bloody day as that there are two things in the death of Christ that may animate and embolden us into a willingnesse to dye for him 1. A motive one good turne requires another 2. A pattern Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps 1 Pet. 2.21 Verbi verba sunt nobis Documenta verbi facta sunt nobis exempla August A place very much abused by the Socinians as though there were no more in the death of Christ then an example but one end of Christs death must not exclude another in the blood of Christ there 's both a price and a pattern he hath set us a Copy and upon his call we should be ready to write after him with our blood 6. By Faith and an hearty acceptance of Christ let us put in for a share and get an interest in the blood of Christ He hath it 's true dyed for sinners but without faith what is all this to you though ye be sinners Without blood Christ could not save you and without faith the blood of Christ cannot save you Rom. 3.25 Heb. 9.14 Acts 15.9 God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood the conscience is purged by his blood and the heart purâ—fied by faith This precious blood of Christ doth no other way purifie than as applyed and sprinkled by faith Every man was under the Law to lay his hand on his burnt-offering of atonement Lev. 1.4 he must own it for his Sacrifice thou must stretch out an hand of faith and put it on the head of thy sin-offering owning Christ as thy Lord and Saviour for it is not Christs blood as barely shed upon the Crosse but as received into the heart that justifies and saves The Son of man is lifted up John 3.15 that whosoever believes on him should not perish Universal causes act not but by a particular application as Adams sin pollutes no child till applyed by the generation of the Parent The Sun though it enlightens the whole world helps no man to see till its light be received into the eye Suppose the blood of Christ were as extensive and universal a cause of salvation as any men pretend to and contend for it could produce no such effect till faith hath wrought a particular application a great gift enriches not the beggar in the rich mans hand but in his own having received it Use 3. Here 's abundant comfort to all them that have by faith applyed and interested themselves in Christ crucified here 's blood that will interpose between you and harmes Christs treading the Wine presse leads you into the Wine Celler though to him it was very painful to you it is very comfortable that which he felt as blood believers may taste as wine Never was there such a Cordial for drooping and disconsolate soules as that which came from Christs heart when his side was broacht and set running upon the Crosse Comfort in five particulars 1. Your enemies are foyled A Believer hath many enemies this blood of Christ hath either reconciled or disarmed them either made them friends or left them impotent enemies To give a short list of a few of them 1. The justice of God that 's satisfied out of Christ it hath a dreadful quarrel and implacable controversie and poor believers are many times afraid under their misapprehensions that exact and inexorable justice will either non-suit or give a verdict against them but they are more afraid than hurt this blood hath made justice their friend Being justified by faith Rom. 5.1 Rev. 4.3 we have peace with God and in Christ he now sits with a rain-bow about his Throne God once drowned the world in wrath but smelling a sweet savour of rest from Noahs sacrifice he purposed and promised never to do so any more and as a badge and token of his favour and the firmnesse of that Covenant of Peace he put his Rain-bow in the clouds If you can upon good grounds say that Christ is yours there 's a Rain-bow about Gods Throne his Bench of Judicature and condemnation is turned into a mercy-seat justice will set hand and Seale to your acquittance and be so farre from pleading against you that it turnes your Advocate Rom. 3.25 26. and Christ having shed his blood because God is just the believer must be justified 2. The Law is fulfilled To be under the Law is a state full of danger and terrour and Saints are many times afraid that it will be put in as a black bill of inditement against them but the blood of Christ hath scracht the curses out of the Rolle He hath Redeemed them from the Curse of the Law Gal. 3.13 Rom. 6.14 being made a Cursâ— for them they are not under the Law but under grace Not undeâ— the Law as to its invenomed curses inexorable severity and intolerable penalties The Law it self to every believer 1 Tim. 1.9 is as it were non-suited by the death of the Law-maker It is not made for a righteous man it was given to Adam when he was righteous and yet strongly obliges such as are righteous but it lies not against a righteous man so the word signifies as to his condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not laid as an Axe to the root of the tree Col. 2.15 3. Satan is subdued Christs bruised heele hath broken his head He spoyled principalities and powers and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in his Crosse The whole Host of Hell with all their traine of Artillery was led Captive by him on the Crosse and tyed to the Chariot-wheels of this triumphant Conquerour When the door-post was sprinkled with blood the destroying Angel passed away the blood of Christ sprinkled on the conscience is a choice Antidote and preservative against this devouring Abaddon not but that he still may be a Tempter and a troubler but he shall never be a conquerour never a tormentor Christopher Haasse a Swedish Senator being at the point of death the Devil appeared by his bed side with pen ink and paper Come quoth he reckon up thy sins in order as thou hast committed them that I may carry them in a Catalogue to Gods Tribunal whether thou art going Well Satan saith he if it must be so let the Catalogue be under this head and Title The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head and away flew the Devil in a great rage ah sirs had we but the right art of pleading the blood of Christ it would make this roaring Lion more to tremble than the Lion doth at the cock-crowing 4. Sin is abolished and that is a far worse enemy than the Devil Many a
God my God why hast thou forsaken me Now then seeing God being naturally gracious and perfectly righteous cannot will not be displeased with any without cause and Christ had in himself no cause There was nothing in him Joh. 14.30 and as you read he alwayes did those things which pleased him It remains therefore that the cause of this displeasure and of Chrsts death was our sins laid upon him and our peace to be procured by him And that brings in the 2. Head which is the procuring or meritorious cause of Christs death the guilt of our sins laid on him brought death upon him as the just punishment of them And this is written with so much clearness that he that runs may read it It is observed of the Ancient Writers of the Church That those of them which lived before the Pelagian heresie was raised spoke more darkly and doubtfully and carelesly in those things not being ob iged to stand much upon their Guard when they had no enemy in view and having to do with enemies of a contrary make while they avoided one extream 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it often happened they ran too near the other But in this point the Apostles who Writ so long before Socinus had a being have Written with as much perspicuity against that heresie as if they had lived to see the accomplishment of that Monster the conception whereof some of them saw in those Primitive Hereticks Two things are written with a Sun-beam 1. That Christ died for our good as the final cause Dan. 9.26 The Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself 2. That he died for our sins as the deserving cause Rom. 4.25 Who was delivered viz. unto death for our offences not only upon the occasion of our sins as the Socinians gloss it but for the merit of our sins To suffer for sin alwayes implies sin to be the meritorious cause of it 1 Kings 14.16 He shall give up Israel because of the sins of Jeroboam Deut. 24.16 The Father shall not be put to death for the children but every man shall be put to death for his own sin And many other places there are to the same purpose And it is sufficient to confirm any judicious man in this Truth to read the miserable evasions which the Socinians use to shift off the force of this Argument which as time will not give me leave to mention so they are neither fit for this nor worthy of any Assembly This is plain that Christ died for our sinnes and to stop all holes the holy Ghost useth various prepositions if one be more emphatical than another all shall concur to assert this truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 4.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 15.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.18 And that all these should signifie the final cause or occasion only and never the meritorious cause when a man hath put out his eyes or God hath taken away the Scripture and other Greek Authours too he may believe it but very hardly before I shall strengthen this Argument with this consideration That Christ is said to bear our sinnes which is so evident that Crellius that Master-builder of the Socinian Fabrick confesseth That for the most part to beare sins is to endure the punishments due to sin And he said no more than he was forced to by the invincible clearness of Scripture-expressions Lev. 5.1 7.18 20.17 Notorious Offenders it is said of them They shall beare their iniquity It is said of Christ not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Socinians say may signifie to take away iniquity albeit a Learned man layeth down this assertion That it never signifies to take away sin as Socinus would have it but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is to beare upon his shoulders as a Porter beares a Burden but never to take away Isaiah 53.4 He hath borne our griefs and carâ—yed our sorrows Object Which is one of the most plausible Arguments they have in this cause But Mat. 8.16 17. where Christ took away diseases which he did not bear it is said the saying of Esaias was fulfilled therein Answ To omit those many Answers given by others of which see Brinsleys one only Mediatour and Calovius his excellent discourse De satisfactione Christi in his Socinismus prostigatus A Scripture is said to be fulfilled either wholly or in part Now then you must know that although it be a truth which we conclude against the Papists That there are no more than one of literal and co-ordinate senses of every place of Scripture yet there may be divers of several kindes one subordinate to another and one typified by another and one accommodated to another And when any one of these senses are accomplished that Scripture is said to be fulfilled though indeed but one piece and parcel of it be fulfilled Thus the fulfilling of the same Scripture is applied to the spiritual preservation of the Apostles John 17.12 and to the temporal preservation of them John 18.9 And as it were false and fallacious reasoning for any man to infer that Christs keeping of his Apostles cannot be understood spiritually of keeping them in his Name and keeping them from Apostacy as it is said John 17.12 because John 18.9 it is said to be fulfilled in a rescue of them from a temporal destruction but rather it must be said it was fulfilled both wayes and the one was subordinate to the other and typified in the other So is it in this case This place in Isaiah that it may appeare to be exactly a parallel case was fulfilled two wayes The one expressed 1 Pet. 2.24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the Tree The other in this Matth. 8.17 In the former is expressed the cause Christs bearing the burden of our sinnes upon his shoulders In the latter the effâ—ct Christs taking off the Burden or part of that Burden of sin from our shoulders or from the shoulders of those diseased persons for it was laid upon his shoulders that it might be taken off from us So that Matthew rightly tells us that Isaiah was fulfilled and that the cause did appeare by the effect as by the dawning of the day we see the approach of the Sun And this may serve for the untying of that hard knot which I had almost said is the only thing of moment the Socinians have in this Controversie But to return Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed If it were lawful for the highest Antisocinian in the world to coyne a Scripture for his purpose he could not devise a place of a more favourable aspect to his cause than this And Ver. 6. The Lord hath plac'd on him the iniquity of us all But indeed the Arguments which might be drawn out of this one Chapter Isa 53. might
afford matter for a whole Sermon Fifthly From the Vicegerency of Christs death Christ dyed 1. For our good 2. For ouâ— sins of both those you have heard 3. In our place of this I now come to Treat Briefly for I have been wonderfully prevented 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust 2 Cor. 5.14 If one died for all then were we 〈◊〉 â—â—d i. e. juridically we were all as dead condemned perâ—â—â—â— because he died in our stead He is said to die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes signifies a commutation saith the then famous but afterwards Apostate Grotius eye for eye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 5.38 that is one instead of the other Matth. 2.22 Archelaus reigned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the room of his Father Herod So 2 Sam. 18.33 Would God I had died for thee O Absalom i. e. in thy stead so that thou hadst lived Thus Christ died for us so John 11.50 Caiaphas said It is expedient foâ— us that one man should die for the people i. e. in their stead to save their lives as a publick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gentiles being used in case of some great and common calamities threatning destruction to all to offer up some one man in the name and stead of all which was a shadow of that great truth of Christs dying for all And Socinus himself being put to it cannot deny this Even in Heathen Authours it is a common phrase To do a thing for another i. e. in his place Ego pro te molam I will grinde for you and you shall be free Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Ransome or Price a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is one Argument that his Blood was the price of our Redemption and a Ransome in our stead 1 Tim. 2.6 Who gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Ransome for all Gal. 3.13 Christ hath Redeemed us from the cuâ—se of the Law himself being made a curse for us i. e. he underwent that Curse due to us that Curse from which we are freed that Curse which others who receive not Jesus Christ shall undergo What a cluster of Arguments might be gathered here It is prodigious boldness in Socinians to turn this Article of Faith into a streame of Rhetorick Paulus amavit in voce execrationis argutus esse But Manum de tabula Sâ—xthly And lastly From the peculiarity of Christs death It is undeniable that Christ died for us so as no man in the world ever did nor can do Therefore not in the Socinian sense not barely for the confirmation of our faith or excitation of our obedience or strengthning of our hope or encouragement of us in our sufferings for in this sense thousands have died for you Paul tells the Co 〈◊〉 he suffered for them i. i. for their good Col. 1.24 and yet â—â—lls the Corinthians he did not suffer for them 1 Cor. 1.13 Was Paul crucified for you i. e. in your stead or for your sinnes And this for the first Head of Arguments where I see I must take up though I thought to have urged divers other Arguments from the Nature of mans justification and salvation But I will not be too tedious What hath been said may be enough to convince any indifferent man and others will not be convinced though they are convinced Thus much for the second particular the assertion of this truth The third should have been the vindication of it from the cavils of Socinians but I am cut off and it is not wholly necessary for if once a truth be evident from plain Scriptures we ought not to be moved with the cavils of wanton wits or the difficulty of comprehending those great mysteries by our reason when the Socinians can solve all the Phaenomena of nature which are the proper Object of mans Reason then and not till then we will hearken to their rational Objections And Aristotle somewhere lays down this Conclusion That when once man is well setled in any truth he ought not to be moved from it by some subtle Objection which he cannot well answer All this I speak not as that there were any insolubilia any insuperable Objections against this truth that I ever met with for though there are many things here which are hard to be understood yet nothing which cannot be answered As when they tell you he did not suffer eternal death which was due to us It is true he did not but a moment of his sufferings was equal in worth to our eternal sufferings the dignity of the person being always considerable in the estimation of the action or the suffering So when they say one man cannot dye for another it is false you heard David wish he had dyed for Absalom and Jehu threatens those who should let any of them escape That his life shall go for his life 2 Kings 10.24 and Histories tell us of one man dying for another So when they say it is unrighteous that God should punish the just for the unjust Answ It is not unjust if any will voluntarily undertake it volenti non sit injuria Besides that God gives Laws to us Deut. 24.16 but not to himself The fourth and last Head was by way of Application Is it so That the death of Jesus Christ is the procuring cause of our Justification and Salvation Vse 1. Hence see the excellency of Christian Religion which shews the true way to life and settles doubting consciences Heathens were miserably plunged they saw their sins their guilt and had terrors of conscience an expectation of wrath this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was written in their hearts that they which do such things are worthy of death They saw the need of atoning God reconciling God they saw the insufficiency of all their Rites and Sacrifices Ah nimium faciles qui tristia Funera caedis Tolli flumineâ posse putatis aquâ Some of them saw the necessity of a mans death and that sine humano cruore without mans blood the work could not be done but then that seemed an act of cruelty and the addition of a sin instead of the expiation of it and here they stuck they could go no further Now blessed be God who hath discovered those things to us which were hid from others who hath removed difficulties and made our way plain before us who hath given us a Sacrifice and accepted it and imputed it to us and thereby reconciled us and given us peace a solid peace as the fruit of that Reconciliation Vse 2. See the dreadfulnesse of Gods justice how fearful it is to fall into the hands of the Living God Christ himself must suffer if he be a sinner though but by imputation Use 3. It shews us the malignity of sin that could be expiated only by such blood Use 4. It shews us the stability and certainty of our Justification and Salvation It is
natural men minde something else than God would have them Phil. 3.19 they minde earthly things Herod mindeth the dancing of a lewd Strumpet more than the preaching of the holy Baptist the young man mindeth his great possessions the Epicure his belly the Farmer his barn Judas his bag the Silversmith his Shrines the Gadarenes their Swine Pila e the favour and applause of the people Let the best men speak ingenuously and they must needs confesse that there were many things if I may call them things rather nothings which they minded more than God or Christ or Heaven more than the highest concernments of their immortal souls the weightiest businesse of Eternal salvation they were all Gallios in respect of these things they cared for none of them till they were rouzed out of their waking dreams by the Effectual Call of the most gracious God This is the condition of every natural man 2. It presupposeth That it is an easie thing with God to bring us home to himself though we be never so far distant from him to awaken us to his service though in a dead sleep of sin to raise our minds to higher objects though they be never so deeply immersed in the things of this present world Is any thing hard to the Almighty with a word he made us with a word he can renew us When darknesse covered the face of the deep he did but ay Let there be light and there was light with the like facility can he shine in our hearts giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus He uttereth his voice saith David and the earth melteth Let but God utter his voice and the Rocks and Mountains of our corruptions will melt away like wax Come we now closer to the Point Toward the opening of which I shall entreat your Attention to the resolution of sundry Questions Question 1. What is this Calling It is the real separation of the soul unto God and a cloathing it with such gracious abilities whereby it may be enabled to repent of its sinnes and to believe in his Son It is our Translation from the state of Nature which is a state of sinne wrath death and damnation to a state of Grace which is a state of Holiness Life Peace and Eternal Salvation This Translation is wrought 1. By strong convictions of the minde First Of the guilt and filth of sin of the danger and defilement of sin of the malignity of sin and the misery that attends it Once saith the soul that is under this dispensation of Gods Grace Once I lookt upon sin as my wisdome now it is madness and folly Once I accounted it my meat and drink to fulfill the wills of the flesh sinne was a sweet morsel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I drank iniquity like water now 't is a cup of trembling to me and I fear it may prove a cup of Condemnation Once I hugged embrac't and delighted in sin as the Wife of my bosome now I clearly see that the fruit and issue of the impure copulation of my soul with her is nothing else but the shame of my face the stain of my reputation the Rack and horrour of my conscience and which is more than all these the provocation of the Almighty and therefore I begin to think within my self of an eternal divorce from her I slept securely in the lap of this Dalilah she robb'd me of my strength she delivered me up to Philistines that dealt unworthily with me that put me upon base and low employments what now should I think of but if it please the Lord to give new strength the death and destruction of them all Secondly Of the vanity and emptiness of the creature which we have Idolized confiding in it as the staff of our hopes breathing and pursuing after it as the perfection of our happiness Thirdly Of the absolute need of Christ that if he do not save vs we must perish Fourthly Of the absolute fulnesse of Christ and that in him we may be compleat if we be guilty he can justifie us if we be filthy he can purge us if we be weak he can strengthen us if we be poor he can enrich us if we be base he can ennoble us if we be deformed and ugly he can make us beautiful and lovely if we be miserable he can bless us and that with all Blessings in Heavenly places Fifthly Of the clemency goodness meekness sweetness graciousness of his disposition that if any man come to him he will in no wise reject him John 6.37 These things the minde is strongly convinc't of yet if there be not a farther work a man may carry these Convictions to Hell with him Therefore 2. In the second place this Translation is wrought by a powerful inclination and conversion of the will to close with Christ upon his own termes to embrace him as Soveraign as well as Saviour to take him as men use to do their Wives for better for worse for richer for poorer to stick to him on Mount Calvary as well as Mount Tabor to welcome him into thy bosome by bidding an everlasting farewell to thy sinnes In a word to make a voluntary tender and resignation of thy self unto him solemnly avouching that from this time forward thou wilt count thy self more his than thou art thine own and the more thy own because thou art his This work is carried on with a most efficacious sweetness so that the liberry of the will is not infringed whilst the obstinacy of the will is mastered and over-ruled If you ask me How can these things be I never studied to satisfie curiosity but if you can tell me how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child I also will tell you how the parts of the new man are formed in the heart but I suppose silence and humble admiration will be best on both sides if there be so great a mystery in our natural generation surely there is a far greater in our spiritual Regeneration if David could say of the former I am fearfully and wonderfully made much more might he say of the latter I am fearfully and wonderfully renewed Question 2. Who are the Called First Among creatures none but men are of the number of the called The Angels that kept not thei◠first estate but left their own habitation are never recalled Jude ver 6. but reserved in everlasting chaines under darknesse to the judgement of the great day Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him Psal 8.4 or the son of man that thou so regardest him Secondly Among men none but the Elect are capable of this grace the call is limited by the purpose Whom he hath predestinated them he also called Rom. 8. Touching these Elect Persons divers things fall under our Observation As 1. In regard of their internal condition before this call they are dead in sins and trespasses
blinde in their mindes stony in their hearts corrupt in their ways even as others 2. In regard of their outward condition both before and after this call they are for the most part poor and vile and contemptible in the eye of the world God puts not the greater value upon any man for a gold ring or goodly aparrel though the world doth He hath chosen the poore of this world rich in faith and Heires of the Kingdome Jam. 2.5 1 Cor. 1.29 Ye see your calling Brethren how that not many wise mâ—n after the flesh not many Mighty not many Noble are called Some it may be but not many God so orders his Call as that it may appeare there is no respect of persons with him 3. Whatever the outward condition of these men be there are but very few that are effectually called few I say in comparison of those that are left under the power and dominion of their lusts One of a City and two of a Tribe I tremble to speak it but a truth it is and must out Satan hath the Harvest God the gleanings of man-kinde which by the way may serve to convince them of their vanity and folly that make the multitude of actors an Argument to prove the rectitude of actions as if they could not do amisse that do as the most Whereas a very Heathen could say Argumentum pessimi turba The beaten Tract is most deceitful Sheep go the broad way to the Shambles Seneca lib. de vita beat when a more uncouth path might lead them to fresh Pastures Question 3 Who is he that Calleth Who but God that calleth things that are not as if they were all heart-work is Gods peculiar the restraining and ordering the heart he with-held Abimelech not suffering him to touch Sarah Abrahams Wife Gen. 20.6 and the heart of Pharaoh while it was least conformable unto the Rule of his Law was absolutely subject unto the Rule of his providence and well it is for us that it belongs to God to restrain and order hearts otherwise sad would be the condition of this Nation of the whole world but now if it be Gods peculiar to restraine and order hearts much more surely to turn change break melt Coluerunt Ethnici Venerem Verticordiam Val. Max. lib. 8. cap. 15. Lilius Girald Synt. 13 Jer. 31.33 and new-mould hearts It is his Soveraign grace which we adore as the only Verticordia as the real turn-heart therefore may we observe that 1. God doth especially challenge this unto himself You know whose expressions those are I will give a new heart and again I will take away the heart of stone are they not Gods who dare make any challenges against the Almighty hath not he a Scepter strong enough to secure his Crown those that will be plucking Jewels out of his Royal Diadem and ascribe that to themselves or any creature which is his Prerogative shall finde him jealous enough of his honour and that jealousie stirring up indignation enough to consume them But 2. As God may justly challenge this work to himself so it is altogether impossible it should be accomplished by any other For 1. This effectual vocation is a spiritual resurrection of the soul while we are in a state of Nature we are dead not sick or languishing not slumbring or sleeping but quite dead in trespasses and sinnes when we are call'd into a state of grace then are our soules raised to walk with God here as our bodies at the last day shall be raised to walk with the Sonne of God unto all eternity Now if it be not in the power of any creature to raise the body from the grave of death upon which account it is used as an Argument of the Divinity of Christ that he raised himself much less is it in the power of any creature to raise the soul from the grave of sinne And therefore do all true Believers experiment the power of God Eph. 1.19 20. even that exceeding greatness of power that Might of his Power as the Greek hath it whereby he raised up Christ from the dead 2. This effectual vocation is a new Creation of the soul whence we are said to be Created in Christ Jesus when we are called unto an experimental knowledge of him and unfeigned Faith in him upon which account it must needs be Gods workmanship for power of creating is not cannot be communicated to any creature Though the Angels excell in strength Psal 103.20 and wonderful things have been performed by them when they have as Ministers executed Gods pleasure in the punishment of the wicked and protection of the righteous yet the mightyest Angel cannot create the meanest worm that is the only product of infinite power And let me tell you if infinite power be manifested in the Creation of the world it is more gloriously manifested in the conversion of a sinner There is a worse Chaos a worse confusion upon the heart of man when God undertaketh his new Creation than there was upon the face of the earth in the Old Creation In the earth when it was without forme and void there was only indisposition Gen. 1.2 but in the heart of man there is both indisposition and opposition Well then I peremptorily conclude that the work is Gods Gods by the way of a principal efficiency and not only by way of motion or perswasion as some would have it wherein I fear a piece of cursed brokeage for their own glory For were it so they would be but very mean acknowledgements that do belong to God for the change of a most miserable and unhappy estate Suppose I should go to some wealthy Citizen and present him an object of charity using the most cogent Considerations which my Art and Wit could invent to inforce a liberal Contribution thereupon he freely parts with his mony for the relief of that indigent person tell me now to which of us is he mainly engaged to return thanks to me the mover or to him the bestower I make no question but your Judicious thoughts have made an award of the chief acknowledgement to the Latter The case would plainly be the same betwixt God and us if his only were the motion ours the act of Conversion his the perswasion ours the performance and if we go to Heaven we should have more cause to thank our selves than to thank God for all the happiness we meet with there Beloved I beseech you take heed of such an opinion as this it hath blasphemy written in the forehead of it if it be rooted in your mindes Scriptas habet in fronte blasphemias Ennodius lib. Epist 2. it will breed in your hearts a confidence of your own power and abilities and that is no better than a fine-spun Idolatry and shall finde little better resentment with God thâ—n if you worshipped stocks and stones Question 4. Vpon what account doth God Call What moves the Divine Majesty thus to
in the very nature of it is a vindication of the equity of the injur'd Law the reparation and amends it makes it self for the wrong done it by damnifying the person injuring her proportionally to the injury Now that a justified person must be charged with guilt i. e. with the breach of Law and by consequence with desert of punishment appears because otherwise if a man be pronounced tighteous whom no body ever accused or questioned he is only praised not justified 2. The person to be justified must plead for himself either in person or by his Advocate who sustains his person for to refuse to plead is to despaire quite of being justified and to abandon ones self over unto punishment silence gives consent it argues the accused person hath nothing to say for himself why he should not be condemned Our Law you know sheweth no mercy to one that will not plead he is to be Prest to death An endited person must plead therefore something in his own behalf why he should be justified if he would be Now either the man is guilty of the charge or not guilty I must speak to both cases and shew what pleas are requisite in each and which of them is the plea upon which a sinner is justified at the Bar of God Case 1. If the endited person be not guilty of the charge justice it self must justifie him upon that plea. Si accusasse sufficiat quis erit innocens an innocent person may be accused he can never be convinc't for that that is not can never be demonstrated the Judge or Jury were themselves guilty if they found innocence guilty Now to be justified thus is to be purely and meerly justified not at all to be pardoned for such a one stands upon his termes bears himself upon his own righteousnesse begs no mercy 'T is no favour to justifie him 't is his due he is not beholding to the Judge a jot the exact rigour of the Law acquits him To bring this to the present businesse I shall demonstrate that we can never be justified at the Bar of God by pleading not guilty For First the plea is false Although in a very restrained sense there is none so wicked but he may plead not guilty and be justified as to this or that particular fact charged upon him Nimrod was not guilty of Abels murther Nay a Saint may be guilty of some sins which the Devil may plead not guilty too as grieving the comforting the sealing Spirit abusing the Redeemers grace c. yet nothing short of universal innocence nothing but a perfect righteousnesse a total exemption from all manner of guilt will entitle us before Gods Tribunal to this plea James 2.10 For whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all 1. Because the punishment due to the breach of the whole Law viz. the curse of God is due to every breach of every part Gal. 3.10 Deut. 27.26 Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them The wages of sinne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of every single sinne is death Romans 6.23 2. Because he that offends in one point affronteth the authority of all as is excellently observed in the next verse For he that said James 2.11 Do not comâ— it adultery said also Do not steale Every sin hath Atheisme in it it denies the God that is above to trample upon the Majesty of God shining in oâ—e Commandment is at once to trample upon that Majesty which enacted all 3. Because thereby he becomes infected with a contagious disposition to be guilty of all the same principle which embolden'd him now will another time if but excited with equal strengths of temptation to commit any other sin or to repeat the same sins again and again though excited with still weaker and weaker temptations for as frequent acts strengthen the habit of sin so the habit facilitates the acts From hence it appeares that the holy Angels that Adam in innocency that the man Christ Jesus might indeed plead not guilty before God and be justified upon that plea but now impossible for us Rom. 3.20.23 Psa 14.1 1 John 1.8 Secondly the plea being false there is no hope upon this issue to be justified unlesse there were some defect in the Judge or in the evidence In the Judge either of prudence in not understanding or of integrity or power in not executing the Law aright But in our case these are alike that is infinitely impossible for we have to do with the All-wise Legislator himself who is also the Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty and shall not this Judge of all the earth do right Gen. 18.25 Nor can there be any defect in the evidence for the books shall be opened at the last day Rev. 20.12 and the dead shall be judged out of those things which are written in the books according to their works Nay even now there are two day-books a filling down goes every houre every moment all we do and think and speak in the book of Gods remembrance fairly written not an iota not a tittle either mist or blurred of this God hath given us a counterpart to keep in our own bosomes the Register of conscience though a very imperfect copy full of blots mistakes omissions yet enough alone to convince us instead of a thousand witnesses for every sinner will be his own accuser and condemner rising up as an Advocate in the behalf of the great Judge against himself at the day of judgement Prima est haec ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur Case 2. And this was the first plea not guilty but the case is not ours and therefore this plea will never justifie us I come therefore to the other which in our case is guilty and here are two wayes of pleading First meer mercy for mercies sake but indeed this is not to plead at all but to beg And as in the last case when an innocent person upon his pleading not guilty is discharg'd that is pure justification but no pardon so here quite contrary when a guilty person is discharg'd out of mercy this is pure pardon but no justification for there shines not one beame of Justice in such a discharge meer mercy is all in all Whence it follows that the Socinians who to avoid the necessity of acknowledging Christs satisfaction to Divine Justice affirm that Justification is nothing but meer Remission of sins do abuse the Woâ—d and contradict themselves for who seeth not that to be pardon'd gratis out of pure mercy without the least reparation made either for the injury and indignity done to the Law or satisfaction to the honour justice and authority of the Law-giver by the sin affronted is not to bâ— justified at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only to be gratified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. discharged upon the sole
Caesar By his passive Righteousnesse I mean all that he suffered in his life-time as the meannesse of his birth and education his persecution by Herod in his infancy after by the Scribes and Pharisees his hunger and temptation in the Wildernesse his poverty and straits he had not where to lay his head in a word he was all his life long in all things tempted as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 but especially what he suffered at his death First in his body he was scourg'd spit upon crown'd with Thornes and latength crucified which was 1. A cruel death the Latine cruciari to be tormented is derived à cruce from being crucified 2. A reproachful one Gal. 3.13 Heb. 13.13 it was the Roman death for slaves and Malefactors But secondly most of all he suffered in his soule witnesse those expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 26.37 Mark 14.33 adde his bemoaning himself to his Disciples in the following words and his passionate prayer thrice repeated Abba Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup passe Adde further yet his sweating drops of blood in that bitter agony which so spent him in the Garden that an Angel was sent to comfort him but above all his desertion upon the Crosse witnesseth that he suffered unutterably in his soule when he cryed My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The Socinians are here puzzled to give any tolerable account how the infinitely good God could find in his heart to exercise his only begotten Son that never sinned with all these horrours in his soule for certainly it stood not with his goodnesse had not Christ as the second Adam been a publick person a Representative on whom the Lord laid the iniquities of us all Isa 53.6 But if we consider which they deny that Christ was then satisfying his Fathers Justice we need not wonder at those horrours and consternations of the manhood for he knew the vastnesse of his undertaking the numberlesse numbers and aggravations of sins the dreadful weight of his Fathers wrath the sharpnesse of that sword Zech. 13.7 which he was going now to feele not that God was angry with Christ upon the Crosse quoad affectum no he never more dearly loved him but quoad effectum adde Christs infinite abhorrence of the sins he bore and that infinite zeal wherewith he was inflam'd to vindicate the honour of Divine justice Now his infinite love to his Church struggling with all these produc't those agonies and overcame them all when he said It is finished Joh. 19.30 we meet him next triumphing in his Resurrection But here to resolve that great question whether Christs passive Righteousnesse alone or active and passive joyntly are the matter of Christs satisfaction which believers plead at Gods Bar for their Justification and which being accepted by God as a plea good in Law is said to be imputed viz. in a Law-sense for Righteousnesse Let these Reasons be weighed by such as do disjoyne them First each of them hath its proper interest in and its respective contribution towards the satisfying the injur'd honour of Gods Law For the honour of Gods Law is the equity of both its parts its command and its threatening Christs active Righteousnesse honours the equity of the first which man had dishonoured by his disobedience but the great God-man hath repaired the honour of Gods Commandments by yielding a most perfect obedience to every one of them and therein proclaimed the Law to be holy just and good Then Christs passive Righteousnesse in like manner honours the equity of the threatening for as by obeying he acknowledged Gods authority to make a Law and his unexceptionable righteousnesse in every single Branch of the Law made so by suffering he proclaimeth that man is bound to keep it or if he do not to beare the penalty He himself dyes to justifie that the sinner is worthy of death and offers himself upon the Crosse as a Sacrifice to the Divine Justice and hereby he hath proclaimed sin to be exceeding sinful and God to be so jealous a God as rather than sin should go unpunish'd and his justice want its glory the righteous eternal Son of God must be made an example what guilty man had deserved Thus God by two equal miracles of everlasting astonishment to be adored hath satisfied both his contending Attributes and rendred each of them Triumphant in making his righteous Son an example of his sin-avenging justice that guilty sinners repenting and believing might be made examples of his sin-pardoning-goodnesse In the second place as each hath its respective interest in satisfying the injur'd Law so neither of them can be anywhere severed from the other and those which God hath so indissolubly joyned let none part asunder for Christs active Righteousnesse was everywhere passive because all of it done in the forme of a servant for in our nature he obeyed the Law but in his very incarnation he was passive for therein he suffered an ecclipse of the glory of his Godhead And his passive Righteousnesse was everywhere active because what he suffered was not by constraint or against his Will no it was his own voluntary act and deed all along let me instance in the greatest of his sufferings his very dying was the product both of the freenesse of his love and the Majesty of his power John 10.17 18. Rev. 1.5 In the third place both Christs active and passive Righteousnesse what he did and what he suffered partake in common of the forme of â—atisfaction therefore they are both integral parts or joynt ingredients thereof for forma dat esse but this brings me to the second enquiry Query 2 What is the forme of Christs satisfaction or that which renders it satisfactory I answer the infinite merit of what he did and suffered which infinite merit stands 1. In the dignity of his person the fulnesse of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily Col. 2.9 John 1.14 Now for the work of a servant to be done by the Lord of all renders his active and for him to suffer as a Malefactor between Malefactors who was God blessed for evermore renders also his passive righteousnesse infinitely meritorious no wonder the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin for it is the blood of God Acts 20.28 1 Joh. 1.7 And this is the Reason why the Righteousnesse of one redounds unto all for the justification of life Rom. 5.18 19. because his active and passive Righteousnesse is infinitely of more value than all that all the creatures in heaven and earth could have done or suffered to eternity the very man Christ Jesus is above all the Angels Heb. 1.6 for he is the man that is Gods fellow Zechary 13.7 And this infinite worthinesse of the Redeemers person you have excellently described as irradiating and infinitely exalting all he did and suffered Phil. 2.6 7 8 9. Heb. 7.24 25 28. 2. The active and passive Righteousnesse of Christ are of infinite merit because not at all due but
both meer supererogations of an infinitely glorious person And first for his active Riâ—hteousnesse iâ— stood in his obedience to the Ceremonial and Moral Laws 1. His obedience to the Ceremonial Law was a meer supererogation for the substance to comply with the shadows the Antitype to do homage to its owâ— types besides he submitted to those very Ordinances whose end and institution supposeth guilt and whâ—se Nature argues them designed only for the use of sinners what foreskin of impurity had he to be cut off in circumcâ—sion what filth to be washt awâ—y in baptism did the holy childe Jesus defile his mothers womb as common mortals do that are conceiv'd in sin and brought forth in iniquity And yet he was circumcised and baptized and his mother offered for her purification Luke 1.21 22. ch 3.21 No imaginable obligation lay on him to these submissions being to him meer ciphers wholly insignificant 2. His obedience to the Moral Law Although it must be granted that as man it was his duty Gal. 4.4 yet was it not his duty to become man True a creatures homage was due from him when a creature a servants work when in the form of a servant but the whole was free and arbitrary because his entring into that state was so for what but his own infinite love could ever move the eternal Word to pitch his Tent in our Nature what obligation lay on the Heir of all things to take the form of a servant who bound the eternal Son of God to become in the fulnesse of time the Son of man And as his active righteousnesse so secondly his passive too was a meer supererogation for his Almighty Fathers Holy All-seeing Eye could never espy the least iniquity in him to punish what had the Divine Justice to do with him for he was a sinlesse person he suffered not for himself Dan. 9.26 No for us 2 Cor. 5.21 And therefore since no obligation lay on him to do what he did or to suffer what he suffered he may impute the merit both of the one and the other to whomsoever and upon what termes soever he and his Father please But before I come to consider the termes upon which Christs satisfaction is applied I must answer some questions and clear the scruples in the way Object 1 1. What is become of the Law of that first Covenant made with Adam in Paradise Gen. 2.17 repeated again to the Jews Deut 27.26 The sum of which you have fully expressed Ezek. 18.4 The soul that sinneth it shall dye I answer It is not executed nor abrogated but released or dispensed with First it is not fully executed for there is no condemnation to them that re in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 8.1 Secondly It â—s not abrogated for it is in part executed upon Believers they are liable to the first or natural death which is the wages of sin although the second death hath no power over them besides all manner of chastisements and afflictions Psal 89.30 31 32. And also that Law is totally executed upon finally impenitent unbelievers over whom not the first only but the second death also hath power 2 Thess 1.8 For he that believeth not is condemned already John 3.18 That is the Gospel finds him and every one in a state of condemnation but those who believe it proclaims deliverance to those who through unbelief reject it judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life see Acts 13.46 it leaves such as it found them viz. under the condemnation of the Old Covenant since they refuse the pardoning mercy of the New Thirdly I answer therefore positively that the first Covenant is released and dispensed with by super-inducing a New Covenant of Grace over it that whosoever closeth with and comes into the terms of the New should be exempted from the rigour and extremity i. e. from the eternal condemnation of the Old Joh. 3.16 It is not said He that believes shall not be sick shall not be afflicted shall not dye No but he shall not perish Thus you see the Covenant of Works as to its execution upon such as are in the Covenant of Grace is in the chief part restrained but yet in some part inflicted They never shall complain under the eternal and destructive yet they do complain under the temporal and corrective punishment of their sinnes Lam. 3.39 Yet more particularly for the clearer understanding of this we must consider that the first Covenant lays a double obligation on sinful man First In reference to what is past and here it requires satisfaction and reparation from us for our sin in breaking it And secondly In reference to the future after such satisfaction and amends made it requires perfect conformity still as at first absolute obedience to all Gods commands being the eternal debt of the reasonable creature to that God that made it in his own Image if therefore we could which hath already been proved to be impossible ever have satisfied Gods injur'd Law for our past breach the Law would still have come upon us for future exact conformity to pay the residue of that eternal debt and its language would be Sin no more lest a worse thing befall thee as a Felon though butn't in the hand is yet bound to live honestly for the future at his peril Now the New Covenant of Grace relieves us as to both these cases and dispences with the rigor of the Law As to the first It comforts us with the good news that the Son of God hath satisfied his Fathers Justice and if we believe but in him God will accept of us as if we had satisfied in our own persons The case the Law leaves us in is well expressed Isa 33.14 Hebr. 10.31 But the relief the Gospel brings us in St. Pauls language Rom. 8.33 34. You have both together excellently Ezek. 33.10 11. As to the second Obligation the New Covenant dispenseth with the rigor of that too for woe to a justified and pardoned person if he must lose all again upon the least defailance therefore the Gospel proclaims pardon of sin upon repentance and acceptance of sincere endeavours to obey him Gods language now is Sinners be but in good earnest do but love me heartily and my ways let me but see a childe-like ingenuity in you and I will put down your upright though imperfect performances in the book of my remembrance Mal. 3.16 and blot out your transgressions when repented of out of the book of my remembrance Mandata Dei tanquam facta reputantur Aug. Retr l. 1. quando quicquid non fit ignoscitur Thus doth the candor of the Gospel dispence with the rigor of the Law God deals not with us as an Aegyptian task-master but as a Father with his children whom he loves Christs yoke is easie his burden light Object 2 If any doubt how it stands with Gods veracity and immutability having once declared that the soul that sinneth shall dye to contradict it by declaring
any other grace as love that then would have been currant and have justified us as faith doth now Fifthly God justifieth in a proper sense two ways first 5. How God As a Legislator secondly as a Judge 1. As a Legislator enacting by his Soveraign Authority that sweet and gracious Law of the New Covenant by vertue of whose tenor every sinner that believes is justified from the guilt of sin from which he could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 13.38 9. This Law of justification by faith is Gods own act and deed the great Instrumentum pacis between God and man he hath proclaimed his Letters Patents the King of heaven and earth hath in the Gospel our Magna Charta given his Warrant under his own broad Seal that he that believeth shall not be condemned 2. As a Judge the God of heaven may in three respects be said to justifie a Believer First Forthwith upon his believing God owneth him secretly within himself as a person justified God esteems and approves of him as in that state unto which he hath by believing a title good in Law an indefeasible right a justified estate emergeth actually as soon as faith the Law-title thereunto emergeth as a necessary resultance by vertue of the tenor of the Gospel-Law which only justified vertually potentially and conditionally before every Believer in general but now actually absolutely and in particular it justifieth him as a Believer when he is so Secondly At the moment of dissolution God justifieth as the Judge of all the earth passing a private sentence and award unto everlasting life upon every believing soul Thirdly But eminently at the last day when the Ancient of days shall take the Throne and in open Court before the whole Creation by publick sentence for ever acquit and discharge Believers at that great and last Assizes 6. How Works Sixthly Shall I need to adde that Works are said to justifie us Jam. 2.4 because they justifie our faith or demonstrate before God and man and to our own consciences that our faith is not a dead and barren but a true and living one by its fruitfulness in well-doing 7. How the Spirit Seventhly But I must not forget lastly that the Spirit of God is said to justifie us 1 Cor. 6.11 and that two ways first directly by working faith in the heart which is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 Now Causa causae est etiam causa causati the Spirit justifieth as it is the Author of the justifying grace Secondly reflexively The Divine Spirit clears up justification to a Believers conscience by discovering the truth of faith by working assurance and by sealing a Believer to the day of Redemption The Spirit it self beareth witnesse with our spirits that we are the children of God and if children then heirs c. Rom. 8.16 17. Thus I have at length done with my first Task the opening of the Point which finds it self summed up in this definition Justification is a judicial act of God as Law-giver and Judge of the world gracioussly discharging a Believer for the sake of Christs satisfaction from the condemnation of the Law of Works by the tenor of the Gospel-Law or New Covenant which requireth of accepte h from imputeth unto sinners faith in Christ Jesus as their righteousnesse see Rom. 3.25 6 7 8. Rom. 4.5 Phil. 3.9 To improve it now which was my other task by way of refutation I infer against the Antimonians first Vse Refut That justification is not from eternity 1. Because a person must be charged with guilt before he is justified or discharged but nothing can be before eternity if discharg'd from eternity when was he charged what from eternity too then he will be at once eternally charged with and discharged from guilt which if any excuse from a contradiction they are much wiser than I am 2. My Text convinceth them actual faith is not from eternity therefore not justification before God for if faith justifie us not before God but only at the bar of conscience then there will be no justification at Gods bar at all once mention'd in Scripture for works do it at mans bar what is it I wonder that justifieth from eternity Not Gods decree to justifie for then his decree to glorifie would make glorification from eternity too but Decreta Dei nihil ponunt actu in subjecto Gods decrees are immanent acts and passe nothing actually upon the creature 3. A justified person was actually under condemnation whil'st he was an unbeliever Rom. 3.18 He that believeth not is condemned already but he could not be at all condemned if justified from eternity 4. Saint Paul expressely affirms that the believing Corinthians were not once but now were justified 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus c. Secondly I infer against them that they are dangerously mistaken in thinking that a Believer is righteous in the sight of God with the self-same active and passive righteousnesse wherewith Christ was righteous as though Believers suffered in Christ and obeyed in Christ and were as righteous in Gods esteem as Christ himself having his personal righteousnesse made personally theirs by imputaâ—ion This is their fundamental mistake and from hence tanquam ex equo Trojano issue out a throng of such false and corrupt deductions and consequences as these That God sees no sin in his children that affliction and death are not proper punishments of sin to Believers that all future sins are already actually forgiven as well as past and present that a Believer must not pray for the pardon of sinne but only for the manifestation of it that God loved Noah when drunk Lot when so and besides incestuous David when acting Adultery and Murther Peter when he was cursing and swearing and denying Christ with as high a love of complacency and delight as when coâ—versant in the most spiritual exercises of grace that all which God requires as a sinners duty in the Gospel is to believe that Christ dyed absolutely for him in particular that this is alone true Gospel faith and the doubting or questioning this the unbelief which the Gospel so much condemneth that to argue our justification from our sanctification and gather assurance of Gods love from our love and fear of him is a Legal principle that obedience to Gods Commandments is not properly a Believers debt but that all the obligation which lies upon him to holinesse is only the voluntary expression of his love and gratitude to God not as what is due but what is comely And lastly for I should be tyred to name all that Christ hath kept the Gospel-Covenant for us as well as satisfied the Law So that not only our Legal righteousnesse is without us in Christ our Surety but our Evangelical righteousnesse it self also Now to pluck up all these desperate consequences by
only argument urged by John the Baptist and our Saviour Mat. 3.2 4 17. to enforce Repentance mercy apprehended animateth the miserable sinner to returne to God Israel mourned but made no returne untill Shecaniah cryed There is yet hope in Israel concerning this thing Ezra 10.2 The Assyrians put halters on their necks knowing that the Kings of Israel are merciful The Law shutting the door of hope may stir up grief and horrour but it staveth off Repentance sin seeming unpardonable sets the soule at a distance from God and sinks it in despaire whil'st the pardon proclaimed provoketh Rebells submission Nemo possit poenitentiam agere nisi qui speraverit indulgen iam no hope no help to repentance saith Saint Ambrose Repentance is argued from Gerhard meditat secund Exercitium poenitentiae ex dominica passione and effected by the death of Christ Mount Calvary is the proper Bochim the sufferings of a Saviour the sad comments upon sin the sighs and groanes of a Redeemer most rending to râ—gardlesse hearts and the sweat and blood of the Lord most soaking and suppling to an Adamantine soul but faith only apprehendeth and applyeth a crucified Christ Repentance the souls Pump is drie and distills no water untill faith poure in the blood of Christ and water of Gospel-promises so that Faith must precede Repentance as the cause to the effect the mother before the daughter for it must qualifie the true Penitent It is a mystery beyond the reach of nature that a Son should coexist in time with the Father but neither reason nor faith can allow a priority of the daughter before the mother I well know many Divines assert the precedency of Repentance unto faith but to my judgment it is more than probable yea positively clear that in order of time Faith and Repentance are infused together into the soul in order of sense and mans feeling Repentance is indeed before faith but in Divine method and the order of nature Faith is before Repentance as the Fountaine is before the Stream But it is objected that the order of Scripture doth set Repentance before faith so in preaching Mark 1.15 Mat. 3.2 Luke 3.3 Acts 2.38 3.19 And Repentance is required as the qualification which must entitle to the promises remission of sinne is onely offered to the penitent so that Repentance is the reason of faith and ground on which we believe sin is pardoned In Answer to this Objection I shall propound unto your Observation three Rules which make a full and ready resolution to it Rule 1 1. Order of Scripture doth not alwayes conclude order of nature in 2 Pet. 1.10 Calling is mentioned before Election yet who will deny Election to be first in nature for whom God predestinated them he also called Rom. 8.30 Again in 1 Tim. 1.5 Acts 15.9 The pure heart and good conscience is mentioned before faith yet none can deny them to be the effects of faith which purifieth the heart for to the unbelieving nothing is pure but their very minde and conscience is defiled Tit. 1.15 Rule 2 2. Humane sense is in many things the Dictator of Scripture order The Holy Ghost speaketh of things as they are obvious to our sense and capacity rather than as they are in themselves and their own order Hence it is that the promises of peace pardon and the like priviledges are propounded unto Repentance as a qualification obvious to our sense and evidencing our faith Faith and Election must be known à posteriori by their effects Repentance and Vocation and therefore are mentioned after them For though we Believe before we Repent we Repent before we know that we do Believe Rule 3 3. Misapprehâ—nsion of the nature of Grace doth easily lead into a mistake of the order of Grace Such as deem common illumination and conviction to be Repentance and Assurance of pardon joy and peace to be the formality of faith may very well place Repentance before Faith but such as understand the acceptance of Christ in order to pardon to be true and saving faith and a ceasing from sin and serious application of our selves to piety to be the formality of Repentance will plainly see that faith uniting us to Christ and deriving to us the efficacy of his death and sufferings that we may be holy doth Precede and must needs be the cause of true Repentance Let me then dismisse this Rule with this Note or Observation Note Faith in its existence and essential acts but without its reflexion fruits and effects is the foundation and fountain of true Repentance Such therefore on the one hand as apprehend and assent unto the History of the Gospel and are sometimes affected with and afflicted for their sin but do not accept of Jesus Christ as tendred to be Lord and Saviour do fix their Engine too low to force the waters of Repentance into the soul yet this Divels faith may produce a Judas Repentance for an Hypocritical Repentance is the result of an Historical faith And on the other hand he that seeks assurance of his sin pardoned as an argument of Repentance maketh the effect both cause and effect and concludeth himself into a condition not needing Repentance whilst he pretendeth to enforce it but the true frame of a Gospel Penitent is by saving faith to see salvation through the satisfaction of Christ our Saviour extended to sinners himself not excluded and so closing with accepting of and appropriating to himself the general tenders of grace and terms of the Covenant to prostrate himself at the feet of mercy and pursue his pardon untill by acts of sincere Repentance he assure himself his aimed at happinesse is attained and shall with certainty be possessed and so he experienceth in himself and evidenceth unto all others that the believing sinner is the subject of Gospel Repentance and now I passe to the third Conclusion considerable in the nature of Repentance Conclusion 3 Sense of and sorrow for sin as committed against God are the procursive acts of true Repentance True Repentance as most Divines determine doth consist in two parts viz. Humiliation and Conversion the casting down the heart for sin 2 Cor. 12.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Revel 9.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the casting off sin A Repenting for uncleannesse and sin with grief shame and anguish and Repenting from iniquity Acts 8.22 and from dead works Hebr. 6.1 This distinction or rather distribution of Repentance is not only dictated by the denominations of Repentance which in the Hebrew is called Nacham 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An irking of the soul and Teshubba A t rning from iniquity so in the Greek Metamelia After-grief and Metanoia After-wit and in the Latine Paenitentia and Resipiscentia the one expressing the sense and sorrow of the soul the other the retrogradations and returns of it from sin but the Scripture also doth clearly suggest nay speak out these distinct parts of Repentance Humiliation and Conversion
alteration of his will and affections that he shall not more disallow than detest the sinfulnesse of sin he no sooner seeth his iniquity but he loatheth himself because of his abominations sin was never so much the object of his affections as now it is the object of his passions what he before loved desired delighted in he now by Repentance hateth feareth envieth with David he hateth every false way and the very workers of iniquity if he be surprised by the difficulty of his estate or distemper of his minde with an act of sin he loatheth himself because of it and with Paul professeth I do the things that I would not do the very existency of sin in him is his intolerable burden Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of corruption is his out-cry death is desired because he would sin no more he would rather be redeemed from his vain conversation than from wrath to come penitent Anâ—elme had rather bein hell without than in heaven with his iniquity and therefore he yet recedes Thirdly Into an abstinence from nay actual resistance of sin he puts away the evil of his doings forsakes his way abstains from the appearances of evil he is now ashamed of what he hath sometimes acted with eagernesse he now preacheth the Gospel he sometime destroyed and blesseth the name he blasphemed he is not only restrained himself but he labours to reclaime others from iniquity nay not only is his hand with-held from sin but his heart is set against it his study is to mortifie his earthly members and his resolution that sin shall not raigne in his morâ—al body that he should obey it in the lust thereof he is careful to avoid all occasions and inducements unto evil he feareth to make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof his hearty prayer is that he may not fall into temptation but be delivered from evil he resisteth all sinful assaults striveth against sin unto very blood his righteous soul is grieved for the sins of others all his complaint under sorrows is against sin his care is to be rid of sin his fear of falling into sin So that the Gospel-penitent maketh a perfect recession from sin all sin sin in its kinde not in its species or degree not only this and that sin but sin which is contrary to Gods Law and Image be it sin small or great natural and near allied unto him it is his care to keep himself from his own iniquity the sin of his complexion calling constitution or condition he will not indulge his right eye or right hand in opposition to Gods holinesse No pleasure profit or honour shall willingly hiâ—e him to the least iniquity the penitent eye judgeth sin by its complexion not its composition by its colour not by its weight he determines of it not by comparison with it self but its non-conformity to Gods Law so that if you say of any thing there is sin in it you have said enough to set the Gospel penitent against it for he is turned from all evil yet take along with you this cautionary Note that you run not into sinful despaire and despondency in observing your penitent Recession from sinne viz. Sins existency and sometimes prevalency Caution is consistent with a penitent recession and turning from it Sin may remain though it doth not raigne in a gracious soul Who is there that lives and sins nâ—t If we say sin is not in us we are lyars and the truth is not in us The righteous themselves often fall Noah the Preacher of Repentance to the old World becomes the sad pattern of impiety to the new World Penitent Paul hath cause to complain when I would do good evil is present with me Sin abides in our souls whil'st our souls abide in our bodies so long as we live we must expect to bear the burden of corruption sin exists in the best of Saints by way of suggestion natural inclination and violent instigation and enforcement of evil and so taking advantage of the difficulty of our estate and distemper of our minds it drives us sometimes into most horrid actions even Davids Adultery or Peters denial of Christ which of the Saints have not had a sad experience hereof nor must it seem to us strange for Repentance doth not cut down sin at a blow no it is a constant militation and course of mortification an habit and principle of perpetual use not action of an houre oâ— little time as we have Noted before it is a recession from siâ— all our days though sin run after us if once we be perfectly freed from sins assaults we shake hands with Repentance for we need it no more so that let it not be the trouble of any that sin is in them but let it be their comfort that it is shunned by them that you fall into sin faile not in your spirits let this be your support that you flie from fall out with and fight against sin the true penitent doth evidence the truth and strength of his Repentance by not admiting sins dictates without resiâ—â—ance not acting sins precepts without reluctance when he deviseth evil his minnde is to serve the Law of God and he approveth of that as good he doth what he would not the Law in his members rebels against the Law of his minde and leadeth him captive and therefore he abides not under sins guilt or power without remorse if he be drawn to deny his Master he goeth out and weepeth bitterly he is in his own eye a wretched man whil'st oppressed with a body of corruption nay he retireth not into sinful society without repining his soul soon thinks he hath dwelt too long in Meshech and in the Tents of Kedar the wicked are to him an abomination whil'st then any soul maintaineth this conflict and so visibly disalloweth what he sometime doth he may safely say it is no more I but sin that dwelleth in me for his servants you are to whom you yield your selves servants Rom. 6.16 and comfortably conclude that as a Gospel-penitent he turneth from all sin and that is the first part of the formality of Repentance the second naturally followeth and that is Second part of conversion Reversion to God a reception of God God and God only becomes the adequate object of Gospel Repentance man by sin hath his back on God by Repentance he faceth about all sin doth agree in this that it is an aversion from God and the cure of it by Repentance must be conversion to God when God calls for true Repentance it is with an if thou wilt return O Israel return unto me Jer. 4.1 and when Repentance is promised it is promised that the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his goodnesse Hosea 3.5 And when they provoke one another to Repentance it is with a come let us return
our selves from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit and perfect holinesse in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 The whole work of the Gospel is to carry on and compleat Repentance this is the profit to be reaped by every Ordinance the Word preached perswades Repentance thâ— Sacraments received stir up and seal Repentance the communion of the Saints carrieth on the work of Repentance Exhorting one another daily lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin Hebr. 3.13 The Gospel is the great Charter of our priviledges purchased by Jesus Christ and they all run into this Repentance this is the benefit by Christs death Resurrection and Ascension this is the fruit of the Spirit of Adoption Zech. 12.10 it is a Spirit of prayer and mourning over him whom we have pierced in brief Repentance is the contract of the Covenant of Grace the Law cannot give it and the light of nature cannot give it only the Gospel can effect it the Covenant of Grace confers on us an accesse to and communion with God as our God not as we are innocent for we are guilty of the breach of the first Covenant but as we are penitent sorrowful for and turned from the evil of our ways so that in this respect we must needs conclude Repentance is a grace of great necessity we reap no benefit enjoy no priviledge of the Gospel but by Repentance the mystery of Redemption Christs Incarnation Death Resurrection Ascension and Exaltation and all the Ministrations of the Gospel are in vain to the impenitent 3. Most pregnant Arguments perswading to Repentance are proposed in and by the Gospel this is light so powerfully convincing that all others which past before it is but darknesse in comparison of it whether it be the light of nature making known sin as it is specifical and particular contrary to certain standing dictates not in its contrariety to the image and holinesse of God and that without any clear and certain way of escape and Repentance or the light of the Law which layeth men under full plain and clear conviction even unto self-condemnation but coucheth the pardon and possiibility of Redemption under such dark figures and expressions that with much difficulty it may direct and provoke Repentance but in the Gospel the Sun of r ghteousnesse shines brightly unto conviction and self-condemnation nay unto speedy and chearful conversion There is no Argument in Nature or in the Law to enforce Repentance but it is urged in the Gospel I and much more doth Nature stir up Repentance by sins inconveniency to mans state or the Law by sins incongruity to the holy just and good command of God the Gospel doth the same nay and further addeth its inconsistency with that estate intâ— which we are resolved by the Redemption of Jesus Christ and so it presenteth us with two most pregnant Powerfully Convinc ng and Perswasive Arguments unto Repentance such which no Professed Religion in the World it self excepted doth propound and they are these 1. The death of Jesus Christ. 2. The day of Judgment The first Argument propounded in the Gospel to perswade Repentance is The death of the Lord Jesus Christ This is an Argument potent in operation to every true believer faith doth no sooner touch the hem of its garment but it cureth like the bones of Elisha quickens the dead man that is but let down into this Grave and pregnant in perswasion to every rational soul that is but candid and ingenuous It is storied of Antonius the Senator of Rome that he intending to provoke the people to râ—venge the death of Caesar slain at the Senate by Brutus and Cassius brought out his bloody Robe and cryed out Here is the bloody Robe of your Quondam Emperour Thus the Gospel presents to our faith a crucified Christ and slain Saviour slain for and by our sins that we may look on him whom we have piâ—rced and mourn over him that we may see him whom our lusts have slain and be revenged on them by Repentance The contemplations of a crucified Christ cannot but constrain Repentance Mount Calvary is a place of heart-melting to every ingenuous soul that makes it his walk for that it presents unto his observation a man nay more than a man a God under the most grievous sufferings not for his own but the sins of others exposed unto that sad estate not by any constraint or necessity but his own choice pity and compassion in whom we reads these three heart-moving Repentance-provoking considerations viz. 1. The great severity of offended justice and fury provoked by his iniquity Here he seeth the vilenesse of his sin and fiercenesse of Gods anger who would not nay in justice could not spare man without satisfaction he had said it and now seeth it executed In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death Here is furious justice which falls fearfully on a Surety a Mediator and fierce fury that favours not a Son an only begott n Son Surely sin is hainous greatly provoking to God that his displeasure thus rageth It is sure a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God who makes the Son of his love thus roare out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh Impiety horrid Impiety that cannot be expiated by any thing but the very heart-blood of God! O fury fearful fury that forsakes a Son only become a Surety for sinners what pensive thoughts must needs arise in the serious observer of this sad spectacle especially when he proceeds to the next consideration which is this 2. Great love and pity of a Saviour who willingly endureth these sad sufferings out of choice not constraint for the sins of others not of himself Oh unconceivable love ineffable pity that we sinned and he thus suffered he left glory to be exposed to shame he undertakes an Atonement and Reconciliation between God and man and endure h infinite fury to effect it no guile was ever found in his mouth whose soul undergoeth this grief the debt was ours and he payeth the utmost Mite for us All we went astray and on him was laid the punishment of us all Isa 53.3 4. he is wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our sins and that whil'st we were sinners that slighted and rejected him Greater love can no man shew than to dye for his friend but behold here is matchlesse love whil'st we were yet enemies Christ gave himself for us These Torments we must have endured to Eternity if they had not been inflicted on him 3. We here see the gracious acceptance we have with God the great liberty of accesse to God which is to us afforded the wrath of God thus poured forth on his Son is pacified towards sinners and the Covenant of Works being thus accomplished is abolished and man that was at distance from God draweth nigh unto him for this crucified Christ was thus lifted up that he might draw all men unto himself
and is exalted to give remissiâ—n of sin and Repentance and to consecrate us unto himself a peculiar people These Lessons and every of them are written in such legible Characters in the death of Jesus Christ that he that runs may read them and each of them are pathetical perswasions to Repentance whil'st they are read by any seriously observant soul they reflect these serious and pensive thoughts How vile is mine iniquity that hath provoked so great severity and exp sed my Surety to so much misery how great peril was my soul in which is râ—deem d by so great a price how dangerous those wounds which are only cured by the death of the Chyrurgion how dissonant to holinesse and daring to justice is that sin which but imputed exposed the only begotten Son of God to be deserted by his Father how fierce that fury which could not be appeased without suffering it must needs be fearful to fall into the hands of an angry God for how will he fume at the servant that thus frets at his Son how will he tear the Principal that thus tormenteth the Surety how shall God punish us for our own sins who is so wrathfully displeased with his Son for other mens sins Oh what shall be the sufferings of the Reprobate if these be the sufferings of his dearly beloved needs must fraile man sink under the burden of Divine fury when the God of Angels needed the support of an Angel If my Repentance will avenge the quarrel of my suffering Saviour shall I not do it if Repentance will rescue me from wrath to come shall I not performe it had I not better weep a few days here then in hell for ever and the rather for that I weep not without cause nor mourn without hope The sin was mine the sorrow my Saviours the transgression mine the satisfaction my Sureties Oh the depth of his pity that endured this for mine iniquity What he endured for a time I must have endured for ever if in him the Father had not been well-pleased Shall that be my delight which cost my Surety so dear Shall I call on the Lords Name or be called by the Name of Christ and not depart from iniquity was Jesus Christ thus broken for me and shall not my heart be broken for and from sin hath he R deemed me from this wrath to come and shall he not Redeem me from my vain conversation shall I expect Remission and not accept repentance through his blood Oh what reason have I to return to God and glorifie him with my soul and body which are his for he bought them at a price and a deare price his own blood he hath consecrated a way of access unto the Father through the vaile of his own flesh but shall I dare to approach not having my heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and my body washed with pure water he is reconciled but shall I againe rebell I am healed shall I againe sin a pardon is to me extended shall I not receive it with a pensive and prostrate soul Thus then we find that there is much of strength in this Argument even above a thousand Arguments to enforce Repentance if but right reason keep the Throne what reply can be made or reason rendred why the call of the Gospel should not be obeyed whilst it pleadeth with so much clearnesse for our repentance from the consideration of the death of Christ But the second Argument urged by the Gospel to induce us to repent is the day of judgement 2. Argument to enforce repentance The former Argument doth assault our affections this our passions that the soul may be surrounded with suggestions unto repentance and if either the one or the other are under the command of right reason the design of the Gospel may not miscarry the dread of the day of judgement drives the Ministers of God to Preach and perswade repentance Knowing the terrours of â—he Lord we perswade men saith the Apostle for that we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive according to the things done in the body according to that he hath done in the body whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 11. This is sure a profitable proper Argument to perswade repentance which provokes unto the Preaching of it and therefore the same Apostle doth in Acts 7.30 31. urge it but now he commandeth all men everywhere to repent for that he ha h appointed a day wherein to judge the world in righteousnesse c. And this Argument is so pregnant and profitable to perswade repentance that it is urged by John the Baptist The Kingdome of God is at hand therefore repent nay the axe is laid to the root of the tree and every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit must be hewen down and thrown into the fire therefore bring forth fruits meet for repentance Matthew 3. and very often by the Lord Jesus himself This is so proper an Argument to enforce repentance that it is noted to be set at a distance to the thoughts of the impenitent they live as having made a Covenant with death and an agreement with hell Isa 28.15 put farre away this evil day it is noted that the Doctrine which increaseth ungodlinesse denieth the resurrection 2 Tim. 2.16 17 18. And such as walk after their own lusts are scoffers at the day of judgement 2 Pet. 3.3 4 5. And it is to be observed that those in Athens who repented not at Pauls Preaching mocked when he made mention of the resurrection and last judgement But certainly there is much in the day of judgement to move the hardest heart and most stubborn sinner to repentance the same Spirit which is to convince the world of sin and of righteousnesse convinceth also of judgement for the day of judgement answereth all the sinners pleas whereby he defendeth and encourageth himself in sin for it assureth of certaine detection and conviction of sin It is a day which alloweth not the least encouragement from secresie for therein every mans deeds must be made manifest whether they be good or evil nay the very secrets of all hearts shall be laid open and sinful thoughts themselves must then be judged the day of judgement determineth a period to all impiety and denieth the duration of its props and Pillars profits and pleasures in the world determining all the advantages of sin to be at the best but pleasures of sin for a season calling on rich men to howle and weep though they live in pleasure on earth in James 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. The day of judgement assureth of the punishment of the wicked however they scape scot-free in this life and by their present power Gods patience and humane strength they evade and escape many evils which befall the godly yet they are but reserved to this day of vengeance and this is the day in which the wicked must appeare Cursed and manifesteth
Gospel from being Preached if possible he would blow out the light and hinder men from hearing but chiefly from understanding if our Gospel be hid it is hid unto them that perish the eyes of whose minde the god of this world hath blinded lest the light of the gl rious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God should shine unto them 2 Cor. 4.4 And when God brings to repentance he breaks these barres of ignorance he pulls off these scales of blindnesse and begins with the understanding true grace begins alwayes at the renewing of the mind the transforming of the mind to know the good and acceptable Will of God is the formality of the Gospel-grace true repentance Rom. 12.2 And the knowledge of God being the princâ—ple of it is put for repentance They shall know God Hos 2.20 and God will be known by the Egyptians Isa 19.21 are the promises of repentance There can be no conviction of a contrariety to God where there is not a right conception of God and affection must follow apprehension ignoti nulla cupido how can we fear God or his goodness if we do not know him what reason of return to God when men know not his holinesse offended justice provoked power irresistible mercy in pardoning iniquity It is a seeming faire Apology for Pharaohs obduracy Who is the Lord that I should let Israel go The work of the Gospel is to open the blinde eyes in turning from Satan unto God the enquiry of Saul is first Lord who art thou Act. 9. then What wouldest thou have me to do Did men know who it is they sin against they never durst be so bold Study therefore the nature of God acquaint your selves with his Attributes his Holinesse Power Justice Mercy and the like Your soules will never be drawn from sin or driven into a course of true repentance untill God become your dread 3. Help to repentance Thirdly Sit close to the work of self-scrutiny be serious in self-examination no man sits so fast in impiety as the stranger at home none so soon run upon their ruine as the regardlesse of their accounts This is a remedy of Gods immediate prescription Commune with your hearts is on your beds Psal 4.4 Search and try your wayes and turn unto the Lord Lam. 3.40 Judge your selves Mat. 7.1 When we approach his Table where we are eminently to act repentance the whole work of preparation is resolved into self-examination 1 Cor. 11.28 Nay this is a receipt transmitted to us with a probatum est thus by David Psal 119.59 I examined my wayes and turned my feet into thy Testimonies And when the Prodigals wits returned to consider his wickednesse he would home to be a servant where he had been and might have been a son Gods rod is but a calling us to reckon with our own souls he never reasons with any by correction that read their own estate in his instructions You have heard before that conviction must go before conversion mans conscience is a Register which will bring to remembrance and Judge that will clearly determine of mans wayes the worst of men by a short conference with their own soul would soon see a necessity of repentance censure others lesse and your selves more enquire not into other mens condition so much as your own Conversation let no day return without accounts be serious in self-examination Fourthly Sit loose to the world 4. Help to repentance the world is the great pull-back to heaven and hinderance of repentance you may observe the reason the Rebellion and impenitency of Ezekiels hearers was their hearts went after their covetousnesse Ezek 33.31 otherwise they took delight to hear That sad sentence A Camel may sooner go through the eye of a Needle than a rich man enter into the Kingdome of heaven was occasioned by a rich mans refusal of Christ his call to repentance Matth. 19.20 Riches choak the work and lift up the heart too high great men in the world think they live above all reproof for Tyrus-like they set their hearts as the heart of God Ezek. 28.6 and think to live without controle he that loves the world finds when called to repentance he is loth to leave pleasures it is hard to renounce riches it cuts deep to despise Wife Children Father Mother Friends and deare Relations he cannot but be dismayed at reproach and sufferings sin is the common property of the world the things of this world is the recompence of impiety they that sin highest ordinarily succeed most yet this is the great stumbling stone of the godly the world makes David almost repent his repentance Psal 73. They that will follow God must be strangers to the world true Penitentiaries must be pilgrims in the earth Fifthly See the shortnesse of life 5. Help to repentance and limitaton of the day of grace Hopes of long life and thoughts of repentance at pleasure help many a soul to hell our life we must consider is but a bubble a blast a shadow gone before it well appeare in which there is no certainty our time is in Gods hand he hath numbred our dayes but to which of us hath he declared the number hath he given any man a legible Lease of his life have the youngest strongest most healthful among us an assurance of to morrow and doth not eternity depend on the well-husbanding of this uncertain time is there any remembrance of God in the grave or repentance among the dead doth not death determine the eternal estate of men Dives eyes cannot distiâ—l one tear in hell though he call to Abraham for mitigation of torments never so much as begs the pardon of sin no that is too late see we not men pensive and sad at the thoughts of death Chrysostome hath told us the cause of the fear of death is because we live not in the austerity befitting Christianity but lead dâ—licate and voluptuous lives Could we make every day our dying day it would quicken us to repentance Hilarion never had a to morrow and when he comes to die he hath the comfort of it Oh my soul get thee out of this house of clay what dost thou fear Septuaginta pr pe annis servivisti Christo mortem tim s Hast thou served Christ almost seventy yeares and dost thou now feare death If we will live for ever we must die dayly if we will not defer repentance we must not determine to our selves any other time than the present Again if we know our time in nature who knoweth the date of the day of grace It is a limited day but the bounds thereof are not pub ished that to day whilst it is called to day we may hearken to his voice Heb. 4.4 7. lest he sweare in his wrath we shall not enter into his rest A season of salvation is allotted to the sons of men the old world had its day Jerusalem had her day every of us have our day
is Almighty and he must do it because he hath promised it This is Pauls Argument to King Agrippa Vers 6. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our Fathers c. And this is Christs Argument by which he proveth the Resurrection against the Sadduces Matht 22.32 I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Objection This Argument of Christ proves onely the Immortality of the Soul but not the Resurrection of the Body Answer It proves also the Resurr ction of the body because God is the God of Abraham Isaa and Jacob not onely the God of one part of Abraham but of whole Abraham not onely the God of his soul but of his body And therefore whole Abraham must live for ever for Gods Covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob is an everlasting Covenant 2. From the justice of God God cannot but raise the dead because he is a just God and must reward every man according to his works Now in this life men are not rewarded the Righteous in this life are oftentimes persecuted and the wicked are in prosperity And therefore there must come a rewarding time and if so then first there must be a Resurrection For dead men cannot be rewarded Objection Is it not enough that our Souls be rewarded Answer No For our bodies are partakers in good and evil actions with the soul and therefore it is just that they should be Partakers also in rewards and punishments Shall God require services of the body and shall he not reward those services Do not the Saints of God beat down their bodies and bring them into subjection Do they not fast often and mortifie their earthly members and suffer Martyrdome with their bodies And therefore God cannot but raise their bodies to the Resurrection of Life and raise the same bodies for it cannot stand with Gods justice that one body should serve him and another be rewarded or that one body should sin and another body be punished A just Judge will not suffer one man to fight and get the victory and another to be crowned The same body that sinneth must dye and the same body that conquers must be crowned What justice can there be for God to cast a body that never sined into Hell and that never was in Adam 3. From the end of Christs coming in the flesh which was to destroy all the Enemies of our Salvation Now the last Enemy which must be destroyed is death 1 Cor. 15.26 and death cannot be uttetly and totally destroyed unless there be a Resurrection of the dead 4. From the Resurrection of Christ This is Saint Pauls great Argument 1 Cor. 15.12 c. If Christ be risen how â—ay some that there shall be no resurrection of the dead For Christ rose as a Publique Person and as the Head of his Church And if the Head be risen all the members must also rise and therefore he is called the First-fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 and the First-born of every creature And if the First-fruits be lifted up out of the grave the whole lump will certianly follow Hence also it is that Christ is called the Second Adam 1 Cor 15.21.22 and Paul argueth stroâ—gly That as by man came death so by man also came the resurrection of the dead and as in Adam all dye so in Christ shall all be made alive But now in the first Adam all dye not onely spiritually but corâ—orally and therefore in the second Adam all must be corporally made to live And live again in the same bodies for Christ rose with the same body that he dyed with And therefore he rose with his scars and wounds and he convinced his Disciples that the body he rose with was a tâ—uâ— body and not a Spirit For a Spirit hath not flesh and bones saith Christ as ye see me have Luke 24.39 Objection Doth not the Apostle say in that very Chapter 1 Cor. 15 44. That the bodies of men shall be spiritual bodies at the Resurrection And therefore they cannot be the same bodies 1 Cor. 15.50 Doth not the same Apostle also say That flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God Hence the Socinians and divers others gather That the bodies of men shall not have flesh and blood and eyes and heads and feet at the Resurrection but shall be airy and spiritual bodies Answer There is a vast difference between mutation and perdition The same bodies shall be raised for substance but marvellously altered in regard of qualifications and endowments as you shall hear in the next particular Non aliud corpus sed aliter We read Exod. 4.6 7. That M ses put his hand into his bosom and when he took it out it was leprous as snow and again he put his hand in his bosom and pluckt it out and it was turned again as his other flesh Here was the same hand when belepred and when whole A Beggar when he puts off his rags and puts on the apparel of a King is the same man though outwardly altered or changed So shall it be at the Resurrection the bodies shall be the same for sâ—bstance though altered wonderfully as to their Qualifications and Endowments And as for that saying of the Apostle That flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God the meaning is not That the substance of flesh anâ— blood shall never enter into Heaven for Christ in his Humane Nature is now in Heaven but that flesh as it is corrupted and sinful cloathed with infirmities and subject to mortality and death flesh and blood as it is in this transitory estate liable to corruption should not enter into Heaven and therefore it followeth in the Text Neither shall corruption inherit incorruption 1 Cor. 15.50 5. I might argue lastly from the Immortality of the S ul For the soul was made by God to dwell in the body and though it can subsist of it self without the body yet it still retains appetitum unionis a desire of re-union with the body and therefore is in an imperfect estate and not compleatly happy till it be re-united to the body And therefore that the souls of the godly may be compleatly happy and of the wicked compleatly miserable there must of necessity be a Resurrection of the body that so soul and body may be re-united and partake togâ—ther either of compleat happiness or compleat unhappiness Adde to this what is said by Durand that great Schoolman That when a man dyeth not onely the soul of that man continueth alive but some substantial part of that mans body and God also the great Creator and first cause of all things And why should any man think it incredible for God to re-collect the parts of the matter of any mans body which are perished and to re-unite the same body to the same soul again
body which hath fasted and prayed and joyned sincerely with the soul in holy services shall one day behold the face of God with comfort Christ will say Are not these the eyes which have been liftâ—d up unto God in my service Are not these the ears which have hearkned to my word Remember this when your bodies are wearied and tired in the worship of God The more thou servest God with thy body the more glory it shall have at that day 4. Labour to get gracious souls here and you shall have glorified bodies hereafter 5. Labour to be united to Christ by a lively faith and he will be your resurrection and your life It is the great promise of Christ that he will raise up the body at the last day John 6.39.40 54 58. that is raise it up to life everlasting 6. Labour to have part in the first resurrection Revel 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection I know this Text is differently interpreted but sure I am according to the judgement of all learned men there is a double resurrection the one spiritual the other corporal the one of the soul the other of the body Those Texts Ephes 2.1 Col. 2.13 John 5.25 do without all doubt speak of the spiritual resurrection By nature we have dead souls dead in sins and trespasses void of spiritual life as perfectly under the power of sin as a dead man is under the power of death and as unable to do any thing that is spiritually good as a dead man is to do any work Now a soul dead in sin shall be damned for sin but if thy soul be quickned and made alive if the Lord hath infused principles of grace into thee and given thee a new heart and a new spirit if regenerated and born again then thy bodily resurrection shall be happy It is very observable That the Resurrection is called Regeneration Mat. 19.28 In the regeneration that is as many interpret it in the resurrection If spiritually regenerated thy resurrection shall be most happy and glorious O pray unto God and labour for regeneration and a new creation and that thou mayest have a share in the first resurrection 7. Heaken to the voyce of Christ and of his Spirit and of his Ministers and of his Rod and then his voye at the resurrection when he shall call thee out of the grave shall be a happy voyce If thou stoppest thine ears and wilt not hearken to the voyce of the Rod nor to the voyce of his Word and the Ministers of it thou shalt hear the voyce of the Archangel calling thee out of the grave whether thou wilt or no and the voyce of Christ saying Go ye cursed ito Hell-fire c. 8. Count all things dung and dross that thou mayest gain Christ and be found in him at that day not having thine own righteousness but the righteousness which is of God by faith in Christ and be willing to do any thing if by any means you may attain to the resurrection of the dead Phil. 3.8 9 11. that is either to a happy resurrection or rather to such a degree of grace which the Saints shall have at the Resurrection 9. Remember and carry daily in your mind that saying of S. Jerom Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you are doing think with y ur selves That you hear the Trumpet sounding and the voyce of the Archangel saying Arise ye dead and come to judgement Vse 5. A Divine Project how to make your bodies beautiful and glorious and beautiful in an ominent degree in a supersuperlative measure beautiful as the Sun in the Firmament as the beautiful Body of Christ which so dazzled Pauls eyes that it put them out To make your bodies Majestical Immortal and Impassible and that is by labouring to glorifie God with them and to get an interest in Christ and to get gracious and beautiful souls O that this word were mingled with faith Methinks if any Motive could prevail with you that are Gentlewomen and rich Ladies this should Behold a way how to make your bodies eternally beautiful What trouble and pains do many women that are crooked endure by wearing iron-bodies to make themselves stait What labour and cost are many women at to beautifie their rotten carcasses Hearken to me thou proud dust and ashes thou guilded mud that labourest to beautifie thy body by vain foolish and sinful deckings and trimmings and thinkest thy self deckt in the want of decking That pamperest thy body in all voluptuousness and makest thy self by thy strange fashions so unlike thy self as that if our civil forefathers were alive again they would wonder what strange monster thou wert Hearken unto me I say and consider thy madness and folly by labouring so much to adorn thy body with the neglect of thy soul thou undoest both body and soul The onely way to make thy body beautiful is as I hove said to gain Christ to have a part in the first resurrection and to get a gracious soul and then thou shalt be sure hereafter to have a glorious body Excellent is that saying of Bernard Christ hath a treble coming Once he came in the flesh for the good of our souls and bodies now he comes in the Spirit by the preaching of his Ministers for the good of our souls At the last day he shall come for the good of our bodies to beautifie and glorifie them Noli O homo praeripere tempora Do not O fond man mistake the time This present life is not the time for thy body it is appointed for the beautifying of thy soul and adorning it with grace and holiness The Resurrection is the time wherein Christ will come from Heaven to make thy body glorious How quite contrary to this do most people live Let it be our wisdom with the children of Issachar to have understanding of the times 1 Chro. 12.31 Let us labour to get our souls beautified by Christs second coming with Justification and Sanctification and Christ at his third coming will make our bodies glorious above expression The Day of Judgement asserted ACTS 17.31 Because he hath appointed a Day in which he will judge the world c. SAint Paul perceiving the Idolatry at Athens his spirit was stirred in him ver 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his spirit was sowred and imbittered in him Paul was a bitter man against sin That anger is without sinne which is against sinne Or the word may signifie he was in a Paroxysme or burning fit of zeal and zeal is such a passion as cannot be either dissembled or pent up with this fire he dischargeth against their Idolatry ver 22.23 Ye men of Athenâ— I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious for as I passed by and beheld your devotions I found an Altar with this Insc iption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the unknown God Nor doth the Apostle only declaime againg the false god but
Jacob he made him his heir so Gods blessing makes us a title to this inheritance 1. Then ye that are blessed of my Father from the foundation of the World in his Electing love and they whom he hath so blessed they shall be blessed the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word signifies well-spoken to now Gods Eternal thoughts are * Verba mentis his words and they that were in his thoughts from Eternity their names were written in the book of l fe God had Eternal purposes of grace to them * John 17.6 thine they were and thou gavest thâ—m me they were blessed in the thoughts of his heart before all generations this is an Elective Kingdome yet we are saved not according to the merit of * 2 Tim. 1.9 our works done oâ— fore-seen but accord ng to his own purpose and grace which was given in Christ Jesus beforâ— the World began And in vain â—id Christ Covenant with his Father or make a Testament for us unlesse the heâ—rs purchased were fore-known * Haeres caput Testamenti heirs being the ground-work of a Testament 2. Well spoken to in the Word of God by the powerful vocation of his Spirit * Rom. 1.7 they are called to be holy and he * Ephes 1.3 blesseth them with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places by Christ Jesus There are none come but they that are * Rev. 19.9 invited to the Supper of the Lamb they that God hath * Gen. 9.27 Cant. 1.4 perswaded to dwell in the Tents of Shem whom * Hosea 11.4 he hath drawn with the cords of his love and made them a * Psal 110.3 people of a free-will offering in the day of his power whom the * Luke 1.78 day-spring from on high hath visited and the womb of the morning of the day of grace hath brought them forth those that God * Hos 2.14 hath allured and brought into the Wildernesse that he might speak to their hearts None shall be followers of the Lamb but those that are * Rev. 17.14 called faithful and chosen 3. Well-spoken of in the Word and Promises of the Gospel those that are * Mat. 5.3 c. meek poor in spâ—rit pure in heart merciful persecuted for righteousness sake and merciful for all these shall obtain mercy as it follows in the Verses after the Text Come ye blessed c. For * Mat. 25.35 I was an hungry and ye gave me to eat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink a stranger and you took me in naked and you cloathed me sick and you visited me in prison and you came to me And he said Verily inasmuch as you have done it to one oâ— these my brethren these littte ones you have done it unto me for * Rom. 2.13 not the hearers but the doers of the Word are blessed the * Hebr. 6.17 17. heirs of these promises are the only heirs of glory 4. Blessed in the final pardon absolution and justification which shall be pronounced at the last day Ye shall inherit whom the righteous Judge of all the world shall acquit and discharge from your sins to whom God shall say * Matth. 9.2 son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee nay Euge well done * Mat. 25.1 good and faithful servant enter into thy Masters joy thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee Ruler over many Oh how good a word will this be to a soul as soon as it is got up out of the Wildernesse of this World yet * Psal 128.4 thus shalt thou be blessed that fearest God He will give thee then to be sure * Rev. 3.12 a new name and a white stone and write upon thee as a Pillar or a Trophy erected after victory his own Name and when God shall thus blesse thee and speak to thee thou wilt need never a word more to make thee happy but the generations that come up after thee shall when they rise up to heaven call thee blessed And so I come to the third particular the formal introduction of these blessed heirs into their inheritance Come ye blessed c. 1. This is the speech of one that gives us an everlasting avocation from the troubles and vanities of this present world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vox avoâ—antis Christ will speak to them in this manner only in more emphatical significancies Come poor souls where have you been all this while poor sheep where have you been wandring upon the barren Mountains of the earth climbing the cliffs of preferment and worldly honours as if you had been of the number of the Goats and had no title to the blessings on my right hand In what a pickle have you been in in a nasty World which * John 5.19 lies altogether in filthinesse in a muddy body of sin pepsed with a number of tentations you have lain a long time * Psal 68.13 among the pots griming your selves and defiling your garments amongst the Aegyptians on my left hand I but now you shall have the wings of a Dove which are all covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold I will never more * Psal 74.19 give the soul of my Turtle Dove into the hands of her enemies you shall never more be cooped up in a Cage with such a company of unclean Birds no * Cant. 5.2 Come my Love and Dove and flie away Vox admittentis 2. 'T is the speech of one that admits us into this inheritance Christ is pleased to condescend so low as to stile himself * John 10.7 the door nay the Keeper of the door he opened a door of hope by his death a door of faith by his preaching the Gospel a door of life by his resurrection and heaven-gates also by this admission and when he hath admitted his heirs of glory and taken them out of this deluge of sin and sorrow into that Ark of salvation he will * Gen. 7.16 shut them in as God did Noah and though they have an * 2 Pet. 1.11 abundant entrance ministred to them into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ yet when entred the door is shut and no egress or back-door of Apostacy can be found in that state Adam was created out of Paradise to shew that his admission even in his innocency was of grace much more is it of grace upon a recovery from his fall Christ while in the Kingdome of his patience doth call his to many a penitent groan to mournful prayers and many tribulations which make a very bed of dust to be a soft couch of repose and he calls them thither * Isa 26.20 Come my people enter thou into thy Chambers shut thy doors about thee hide thy self for a little moment till the indignation be over-past Come child go to bed in the grave oh but
then his * Cant. 2.14 v ice will be sweet when he shall call to them to come up to * Isa 25.6 this Mountain to a feast of fat things a feast of wine on the Lees of fat things full of maâ—row of wines on the Lees well refined Laetissimè excipientis 3. 'T is the speech of one that bids us welcome to the feast too Come my friends I it is Come and welcome now Come poor heart thou hast been coming a long time I went my self to call thee I * 2 Chron. 36.15 sent my Messengers rising up early and sending them continually to invite thee to come in I sent my holy Spirit also like a Dove from heaven and it did light upon thee and gave thee an Olive branch of peace in the Wildernesse of thy fears when it allured thee and call'd thee from all thy wandrings then I sent my black rod for thee by that grim Serjeant death to strip thee of thy soul body of sin not to be touched but by the Angel of death then I sent my Angels to bring thy soul to the Courts of thy God and now by the sounding of the last Trumpet I have call'd for thy sleepy body to arise out of the * Psal 22.15 dust of death And now after all these Messengers thou art come I will not upbraid thee for thy delays but come come blessed soul with as many welcomes as there are Saints and Angels in glory I have * John 14.2 prepared a place for thee * Cant. 5.1 thou at come into my Garden Eat oh friends Drink yea drink abundantly oh beloved And so I have done with the explication of the several branches of the Text now let us see what fruit they bear that may be * Cant. 2.3 sweet to oru taste First 1. Infer Then if there be a Kingdome prepared before the foundation of the World for the blessed Saints and holy ones then what manner of persons are * 2 Pet. 3.11 we in all unholy Conversation and godlessnesse in this generation Men are as dead to Religion as if heaven was but a dream and as hot upon sin as if hell had no fire or was all vanished into smoak as atheistical and wretched as if neither heaven hell nor earth neither did feel a God or any memorandum's of his Providence Therefore a little to fortifie this notion which artificial wickednesse hath endeavoured to expel and expunge out of natural consciences I shall endeavour to confirme your faith by Scripture and reason The Socinians deny the revelation of eternal life and a state to come to have been propounded under the Old Testament and the reward being only earth their Law and obedience to be but carnal and low which is to level the Jews to the order of brutes that so the Gentiles under the Gospel might be advanced to the state of men and so by vertue of rhe new prize of immortal life proposed they should have a new command as their care to run which is all as true as that all the Tribes of Israel were converted into Isacar's * Gen. 49.4 strong asses couching down between two burdens but * Luke 7.35 wisdome is justified of her children and the Chaldee paraphrase renders those words * Gen. 4.7 Remittetur tibi in saeculo futuro if thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted by this glosse Amend thy works in this world and thou shalt be forgiven in the world to come and the â—argum says the very dispute betwixt Cain and Abel was concerning a world to come and those carnal Hereticks that * Jude ver 10.11 19. are sensual not having the spirit in what they know naturally as brute beasts corrupt themselves they are gone into the way of Cain But when God tells Abraham * Gen 15.1 I am thy exceeding great reward and Jacob cries out * Gen. 49.18 I have waited for thy salvation O Lord even when about to dye God stiling himseâ—f their God is not by our Saviours authority * Mat. 22.32 the God of the dead but of the living therefore God held out eternal life in the promises yea and in the very command too * Levit. 18.3 Gen. 3.12 do this and live the reward of that obeeience there enjoyned was no lesse than this everlasting life as appeareth by our Saviours interpretation when the Lawyer came to him * Luke 10.25.28 saying Master What shall I do to inherit eternal life and he said What is written in the Law how readest thou and he answered thou shalt love the Lord c. and Jesus said Thou hast answered right this do and thou shalt live that is thou shalt have that thou desiredst viz. inherit eternal life and the very reproach of the Sadduces and the distinction of their Sect from Pharisees and others argueth sufficiently the world to come was a very common notion among all the Jews and indeed the whole land of Canaan was but a comprehensive type and shadow of heaven and all their Religion but a * Hebr. 10.1 shadow of good things to come in the Kingdome of heaven as well as in the Kingdome of the Messiah * John 8.56 whose day they then saw and were glad and if the Gospel contain the promise of eternal life then they had it in Abrahams days * Gal. 3.8 for the Gospel was preached before to him yea and before to Adam * Gen 3.15 that the seed of the woman should break the S rpents head and the skins of the Sacrifices wherewith he was cloathed might suggest the putting on of that promised seed and his obedience who was * Isa 53.5 to be bruised for the iniquities of his people But now to awaken Atheistical souls that deny not only the revelation of this Kingdome of God under the old Testament but its reality and existence under old and new consider these foure things very briefly as the limits of this Exercise command 1. The whole Creation is a Book which always lyeth open wherein we may read that there is a God who made the goodly Structure and Fabrick of Heaven and Earth Who else could be able to * Job 26.7 hang the vast body of the Earth upon nothing or to * Ver. 10. girdle the Sea and all its mountainous Waves with a Rope of Sand * Psal 104.2 to spread the heavens as a Curtain and hang up those vast Vessels of light in the Skies there must be a being existent from and of himself and so being improduced is infinitely perfect and comprehendeth all those perfections dispersed through the whole Creation and infinitely more yet what he makes is like himself every creature bears his footsteps but * Psal 8 3. Gen. 1.27 the heavens are the works of his fingers and man bears the very image of God We see in the several stories and degrees of the Creation love and
mistakes how they suit one with another Two faults are Christians usually guilty of Either they content themselves with warm affections without knowledge and then are like a blind horse full of mettle To rest in affection without judgement but ever and anon stumbling their wild affections misguide them not being directed and governed by an answerable light Or secondly they content themselves with loose Notions without seeing the truths of God in their frame and so are never stable and roâ—ted in the Faith In loose Notions without method therefore this should Christians first look after * Col. 2.2 the riches of the full assurance of understanding in the Mysteries of godliness Secondly Christians must keep such Models of truth in their memory the memory is like the Ark wherein the holy things of God are to be kept The Spirit of Christ Jesus is given not only to teach us all things but to BRING ALL things to our REMEMBRANCE 2. In their memories Joh. 14.26 and Scripture is written upon this occasion not to lay in new truths but to keep the old in remembrance 2 Pet. 3.1 This second Epistle I write unto you by way of Remembrance His first Epistle was like the Sermon the second as the Repetition the first to inform the judgement the second to help their memories so must Ministers pegge in one Sermon with another never leave repeating the same truths till they are fastened upon their Auditors Phil. 3.1 To write the same things to you to me it is not grievous but to you it is safe Mens understandings are dull to conceive hard to believe and their memories apt to forget therefore we should presse if not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes the same things which Hippius liked not yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much about the same matters as Socrates advised The memory is a leaking vessel therefore as the Apostle exhorts it concerns us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more abundantly to attend to give the more diligent heed lest we let them slip and thereby we lose the * 2 John 8. To live truth Ministers and our own labour Thirdly Hold fast the Models of Divine Truth in your pratice a practical mem ry is the best memory to live the truths which we know is the best way to hold them fast There are Heretical manners as well as Heretical Doctrines Infidelis disputat contra fidem improbus Christianus vivit contra fidem Aug. Prophane Christians live against the Faith whilest Heterodox Christians dispute against the Faith There be not a few that live Antimonianisme and Libertinisme and Atheisme and Popery whil'st others Preach it Apostates are practical Arminians a prophane man a practical Atheist Whil'st others therefore live Error do you live the truth whil'st others deny the Gospel do you live the Gospel As you have received the truth as it is in Jesus so walk in it to all well-pleasing without this a man forsakes the truth while he doth professe it They profess to know God Tit. 1.16 but in theiâ— works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work disobedient Yea to live the Truths we hear is the way not to hold them only but to hold them forth to others as the Apostle speaks To hold forth truth to others holding forth the Word of Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a Metaphor taken either from Fire-lights upon the Sea-coasts burning all night Phil. 12.6 the use whereof is to give notice to Seamen of some neighbouring Rocks and Quicksands that may endanger their Vessel or else from Torch-bearers in the night-time who hold out their lights that passengers may see their way in the dark according to which Metaphor our Saviour calls true reall Christians the Lights of the world a City set on a hill Matth. 5.14 to enlighten the dark world with their beams of holiness It is a blessed thing when the Conversations of Christians are practical Models of Gospel-truths walking Bibles holding forth the graces or excellencies of him who hath called them out of darknesse into his marvellous light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 2.9 Fourthly To contend for the truth Christians are to hold fast Models of truth by contending for the Truth against all the opposition of the reprobate world in contending and publickly owning the truth whatever it cost them God ordereth the love which the people show to the truth not seldom to be a restraint to carnal Magistrates when they would introduce mischiefs into the Church by force and power Matth. 14.5 He feared the multitude Matth. 21.46 They feared the multitude because they took him for a Prophet Acts 4.21 They let them go because of the people Thus doth God make use of the people though contemptible for their quality yet considerabe for their number as a bank of sand to keep back the waves of furious and opposite greatness Yea when the flood of Persecutions is already broken in upon the Church their zealous owning of the Truth keeps it alive and is a means to propagate it to after ages We owe our present truths not only to the disputations of the Doctors but the death of the Martyrs who were willing to resist unto blood striving against sinne Heb. 12.4 By whose flames after ages see the truths of the Gospel more clearly VSE The first Use may serve for Lamentation We live in a frozen and dull age wherein men have learned to hold fast every thing but the Truth Rich men will hold fast their Estates though Christ his Church and Cause have never so much need of them Ignorant People will hold fast their Ignorance ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Superstitious people will hold fast their Superstitious Customes and Idolatries Vain people will hold fast their Fashions and Modes Seduced wrerches will hold fast their Errors Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris yea they are bold and impudent in justifying and propagating their false Doctrines they bend their tongue like their bow for lies but they are not valiant for the Truth upon the Earth Jer. 9.3 while multitudes are outragious against the Truth few very few are couragious for it We may take up that complaint Isa 1.21 22. How is the faithful City become an Harlot how is our gold become drosse and our Wine mixt with water who would have thought England could have so quckly forgotten Jesus Christ and changed the truth of God into a lye have the Nations been guilty of such a thing Jer. 2.9 The World once wondered to see itself turnd Arrian England may wonder and be astonished to see itself turned Arminian Antinomian Socinian Anabaptist Quaker Papist Atheist any thing but a Christian This is a lamentation and shall be for a lamentation Oh that mine head were waters and mine eys rivers of tears c. And now my Brethren to make some brief Application of what what hath
raised 480. to be believed 581. reasons of it 586 587 588 589. Resurrection the effect of the New Covenant and union with Christ 388. Resurrection after what manner and with what difference 591. how effected p. 593. it is to be believed 595. a ground of comfort ib. 596 597 598 599. a ground of terror 560. how made happy to our selves 603 604. Revenge accompanieth repentance 545. S Sacraments in the Old Testament were various and many 122. Tree of life a Sacrament in Paradise ibid. Sacraments prove corruption of nature 153. Saints are good company 3. Salvation by Christ an Argument of original pravity 153. Salvation the end of Faith 473. Salvation difficult 482. Sanctification Covenant priviledge 14. Satisfaction of Christ explained 337 339 340 341. its Matter 408 Form 412. Terms 417. Satisfaction not made by man himself 407. but by Christ 408 409 410. and how done 402. Satisfaction of Christ the only plea to procure justification at Gods bar ib. Scripture the Word explained 86. Scripture proves a God 48. Scripture similitudes shew the union between Christ and Believers 384. Scripture only discovers mans natural pravity 151. Sea its course and confinement proved a God 35 36. Secret sins discovered by natural conscience 44. Sense of Scriptures power on the soul prove them Divine 98. Sense of sin and sorrow for it are precursive parts of true Repentance 492. Sense of a short life helps to Repentance 349. Self sinful to be studied 168. Self examination an help to Repentance 548. Severity of Gods justice 295. Sense its pain in hell 626. Constituted by Real presence of all evil Impression of justice Personal Feeling 627 628. Sentence of last day 614. Sight of things invisible an effect of Faith 471. Sin to be feared and fled from 643 644. Sin a defect nothing positive 112 113. it is most unreasonable p. 114. subjects man to an impotency of saving himself 115. justifieth God in punishing man 116 117. should rather be gotten out than inquired how it came into the world 113. Sins evil seen in Christ his death 294. Sin better discovered by the New than Old Covenant 250. Sin abolished by Christ his death 302 303. Sin is imputed inherent extensive diffusive 165. Sin may exist and prevaile in a true Saint 505. Sin mortified by the Spirit 389. Sinner elect and called the subjects of Faith 460. Shame was in Christs death 206. Sensible sinner subject of true repentance 489. Society in heaven what 658 659. Sons of God partakers of the whole essence of the Father is the same numerical nature 66. 67. Sonship to God is by Creation 435. Generation 435. Marriage 435. Adoption 435. Sonship by Adoption Honourable 437 440. Free 437 440. Permanent 437 440. Sonship to God marks of it p. 453 454. Sorrow and humility usher faith 476. Soul of Christ suffered 410. Souls in heaven subject to Jesus Christ 324 325. Spirit of God in man a signe of union with Christ 389. Spirit of God justifieth how 422. Spirits evil shall be chained when Saints go to heaven 652. Speed facilitates repentance 452. Sting of conscience a note of Deity 45. Sting in Christ his death 286 287. Study of Scriptures a duty 99 100. Suns scituation and motion proveth a God 33 34. Sullen repentance what 518. Systems of Religion profitable for Ministers and people 5. they instruct in the faith antidote error 7 12. Adorn the truth 16. help the understanding 17. the memory 18. affections 19. such are found in Scripture 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15. to be studied by young Divines 21. T Temptation of Satan did not necessitate man to sin p. 112. Things in heaven subject to Christ what 323 324. Things on earth subject to Christ what they are 325. Things under the earth 326. Every Tongue what it means 329. Terms of Covenant between God the Father and his Son 225. Torments of Hell Exquisite Intolerable Easelesse Remediless Universal and various 629 630 631. Tryal of last day shall be 1. Universal 2. Formal 3. Impartial 4. Exact 5. Perspicuous 6. Supreme 610 611 612. its consequence 613. Trinity proved by Old Testament text 72. New Testament 74 75. Turning from all sin to God is the formality of true repentance 50. U Union of two natures in Christ without confusion or transmutation 270. Union of believers and Christ necessary p. 377. what kind it is not 379. what kind it is 381 382. its causes 383. grounds 385. its marks 389 390 391 392. it is to be sought by sinners and improved by Saints 396 397 398 399 400. Unbelievers miserable 48. not Gods sons 447. Vocation its twofold estate 437. Vocation a Resurrection a new Creation 361. W Will of God signified in a rule of rectitude 107. Witness from heaven differs in six particulars from witnesse on earth 67 68. we have both to prove Christ the Son of God 66. Word of God declareth his wrath 181 182 183. World visible its being and parts 31 32. World an enemy to faith 481. to be slighted by â—aints 549. Works their use in point of Covenant 126 127. how they justifie 422. Wrath of God what and how aggravated 177 178 179 180. falleth on man here 184. fully at the day of judgement ibid. sheweth his justice and wisdome p. 193 194 195 196. it is to be avoided 197 198. Y Yoak of the Law borne by Jesus Christ 280 281. Z Zeal Negative p. 2. Affirmative p. 2. Zeal accompanieth true Repentance 544. FINIS